Pentagon wants 'uplifting accounts' about Iraq

The Pentagon wants to control [bad] news from Iraq, another Mission Impossible
Terrorism & Security | csmonitor.com

Posted by: Douglas at 9/30/2004 03:33:28 PM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: Dozens Killed as Violence Escalates in Iraq

a day of violence in Iraq: "Insurgents escalated the violence in Iraq dramatically Thursday, killing dozens and wounding hundreds in at least five separate bombing incidents.
The most lethal attack appeared to be directed at troops and security forces near a government-sponsored ceremony marking the reopening of a water treatment plant in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Bayaa.
While the U.S. military said ten troops were injured in three blasts at the scene, the attack killed mostly children who milled excitedly around the event. A hospital reported 34 of 37 dead were children, according to the Associated Press.
Many were killed by the second car bomber, who witnesses said steered into a crowd gathered around an ambulance that had arrived to carry away those wounded by the first blast just minutes earlier.
Separately, a car bomb killed one U.S. soldier and two Iraqi police at a checkpoint near Abu Ghraib on Thursday morning. Three American soldiers and 10 police were wounded in the Abu Ghraib attack, which also damaged a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, according to a statement by the U.S. military.
The Reuters news agency quoted a doctor at Abu Ghraib hospital saying that a total of around 60 people were wounded.'
washingtonpost.com: Dozens Killed as Violence Escalates in Iraq

Posted by: Douglas at 9/30/2004 07:04:09 AM | Permalink

John Eisenhower: 'Why I will vote for John Kerry for President'

John Eisenhower, son of the former Republican president Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower also broke with tradition and declared that for the first time we was going to vote for a Democratic candidate, writing: “As son of a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration's decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry.” Ike’s son, a noted historian also wrote that “today's ‘Republican’ Party is one with which I am totally unfamiliar. To me, the word ‘Republican’ has always been synonymous with the word ‘responsibility,’ which has meant limiting our governmental obligations to those we can afford in human and financial terms. Today's whopping budget deficit of some $440 billion does not meet that criterion. Responsibility used to be observed in foreign affairs. That has meant respect for others. America, though recognized as the leader of the community of nations, has always acted as a part of it, not as a maverick separate from that community and at times insulting towards it. Leadership involves setting a direction and building consensus, not viewing other countries as practically devoid of significance. Recent developments indicate that the current Republican Party leadership has confused confident leadership with hubris and arrogance.”
The Smirking Chimp: "John Eisenhower: 'Why I will vote for John Kerry for President'"

Posted by: Douglas at 9/29/2004 03:02:06 PM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: Billionaire Against Bush

Soros vs Bush. Excerpts:
"If I could contribute to repudiating Bush's policies it would be the greatest good deed I could do for the world," says the philanthropist who has spent billions promoting democracy all over the world.
Soros has repeatedly talked about Bush's popularity as if it were one of the many inflated currencies he's bet against: as something illusory, an Internet stock, a bubble he could pop if he threw enough money at it.
Now the anticipated moment for Bush to bust has arrived. But with only 34 days to go, the president has a solid lead in the polls. Was it a wise investment, Soros is asked, and one can only say he hedged, by adopting the romantic pose of the underdog.
In his speeches and his writing, Soros backs the left's standard criticism of the war: that Bush took advantage of 9/11 to "further his own agenda"; that, seized with a mistaken vision of military omnipotence, he launched the country into a "vicious cycle of escalating violence."
But what really gets Soros going is what he calls Bush's "intimidation tactics," his attitude that "you are with us or with the terrorists" -- a way of stifling dissent that Soros recognizes from his youth.
"I find the Bush campaign quite reprehensible," he says. "Instead of discussing issues, they attack people who espouse those issues. It reminds me of my childhood, when you were discussing something with the communists and they say you're a bourgeois capitalist so what you say doesn't count. There has to be some respect for the truth."
He's compared the president's attitude to Nazi slogans and George Orwell's "Animal Farm." He's called the neoconservatives who guide Bush's foreign policy a "bunch of extremists guided by a crude form of social Darwinism."
Yesterday, though, Soros seemed more frustrated than combative. At several points he listed Bush's "lies," distortions that were so perfectly obvious to him, and yet, he complained, why didn't everyone see them?
"There must be something wrong with us if we believe it," he says in exasperation with his placid, adopted nation. "I want to shout from the rooftops: 'Wake up, America. Don't you realize that we are being misled?'"
washingtonpost.com: Billionaire Against Bush

Posted by: Douglas at 9/29/2004 02:16:03 PM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: Interceptor System Set, But Doubts Remain

Rumsfeld's beloved missile defense (aka Star Wars) system still doesn't work; billions have been plundered on this fraud and this alone, independent of Iraq, should disqualify Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush and others who have pursued this fantasy
washingtonpost.com: Interceptor System Set, But Doubts Remain

Posted by: Douglas at 9/29/2004 10:07:26 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > International > Middle East > Insurgency: Iraq Study Sees Rebels' Attacks as Widespread

Almost everyday a survey comes out and there is a major story that things in Iraq are much worse than Bush administration lets on. Excerpt:
"Over the past 30 days, more than 2,300 attacks by insurgents have been directed against civilians and military targets in Iraq, in a pattern that sprawls over nearly every major population center outside the Kurdish north, according to comprehensive data compiled by a private security company with access to military intelligence reports and its own network of Iraqi informants.

The sweeping geographical reach of the attacks, from Nineveh and Salahuddin Provinces in the northwest to Babylon and Diyala in the center and Basra in the south, suggests a more widespread resistance than the isolated pockets described by Iraqi government officials.

The type of attacks ran the gamut: car bombs, time bombs, rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades, small-arms fire, mortar attacks and land mines.

"If you look at incident data and you put incident data on the map, it's not a few provinces, " said Adam Collins, a security expert and the chief intelligence official in Iraq for Special Operations Consulting-Security Management Group Inc., a private security company based in Las Vegas that compiles and analyzes the data as a regular part of its operations in Iraq.

The number of attacks has risen and fallen over the months. Mr. Collins said the highest numbers were in April, when there was major fighting in Falluja, with attacks averaging 120 a day. The average is now about 80 a day, he said."
The New York Times > International > Middle East > Insurgency: Iraq Study Sees Rebels' Attacks as Widespread
Another Wash Post story, based on recent NYT story, indicates that
"People at the CIA "are mad at the policy in Iraq because it's a disaster, and they're digging the hole deeper and deeper and deeper," said one former intelligence officer who maintains contact with CIA officials. "There's no obvious way to fix it. The best we can hope for is a semi-failed state hobbling along with terrorists and a succession of weak governments."

"Things are definitely not improving," said one U.S. government official who reads the intelligence analyses on Iraq.

"It is getting worse," agreed an Army staff officer who served in Iraq and stays in touch with comrades in Baghdad through e-mail. "It just seems there is a lot of pessimism flowing out of theater now. There are things going on that are unbelievable to me. They have infiltrators conducting attacks in the Green Zone. That was not the case a year ago."

This weekend, in a rare departure from the positive talking points used by administration spokesmen, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell acknowledged that the insurgency is strengthening and that anti-Americanism in the Middle East is increasing. "Yes, it's getting worse," he said of the insurgency on ABC's "This Week." At the same time, the U.S. commander for the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, told NBC's "Meet the Press" that "we will fight our way through the elections." Abizaid said he believes Iraq is still winnable once a new political order and the Iraqi security force is in place.

Powell's admission and Abizaid's sobering warning came days after the public disclosure of a National Intelligence Council (NIC) assessment, completed in July, that gave a dramatically different outlook than the administration's and represented a consensus at the CIA and the State and Defense departments.

In the best-case scenario, the NIC said, Iraq could be expected to achieve a "tenuous stability" over the next 18 months. In the worst case, it could dissolve into civil war.

The July assessment was similar to one produced before the war and another in late 2003 that also were more pessimistic in tone than the administration's portrayal of the resistance to the U.S. occupation, according to senior administration officials. "All say they expect things to get worse," one former official said.

One official involved in evaluating the July document said the NIC, which advises the director of central intelligence, decided not to include a more rosy scenario "because it looked so unreal."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58183-2004Sep28.html

Posted by: Douglas at 9/29/2004 09:50:01 AM | Permalink

'Kerry will restore American dignity': Bush's hometown paper endorses Kerry

Bush's local paper The Lone Star Iconoclast Endorses Kerry
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=18044
2004 Iconoclast Presidential Endorsement
Few Americans would have voted for George W. Bush four years ago if he had promised that, as President, he would:
Empty the Social Security trust fund by $507 billion to help offset fiscal irresponsibility and at the same time slash Social Security benefits.
Cut Medicare by 17 percent and reduce veterans' benefits and military pay.
Eliminate overtime pay for millions of Americans and raise oil prices by 50 percent.
Give tax cuts to businesses that sent American jobs overseas, and, in fact, by policy encourage their departure.
Give away billions of tax dollars in government contracts without competitive bids.
Involve this country in a deadly and highly questionable war, and
Take a budget surplus and turn it into the worst deficit in the history of the United States, creating a debt in just four years that will take generations to repay.
These were elements of a hidden agenda that surfaced only after he took office.
The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda.
Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry, based not only on the things that Bush has delivered, but also on the vision of a return to normality that Kerry says our country needs.
Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding terrorism and Iraq.

Posted by: Douglas at 9/29/2004 08:30:56 AM | Permalink

The New York Times >> John Kerry's Journey: A Fast Finisher's Reputation Now Faces the Ultimate Test

hopefully, Kerry can meet his reputation as a fast and successful finisher
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > John Kerry's Journey: A Fast Finisher's Reputation Now Faces the Ultimate Test

Posted by: Douglas at 9/29/2004 08:06:42 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: How to Debate George Bush

Gore tells Kerry how to debate Bush: its the record, stupid: Bush's record is one of "catastrophic failure" and Kerry should make this clear and that he has an alternative. In Gore's words, " clear majority of Americans believe that we are heading in the wrong direction. The reasons are obvious. The situation in Iraq is getting worse. Osama bin Laden is alive and plotting against us. About 2.7 million manufacturing jobs have been lost. Forty-five million Americans are living without health insurance. Medicare premiums are the highest they've ever been. Environmental protections have been eviscerated.
In the coming debates, Senator Kerry has an opportunity to show voters that today American troops and American taxpayers are shouldering a huge burden with no end in sight because Mr. Bush took us to war on false premises and with no plan to win the peace. Mr. Kerry has an opportunity to demonstrate the connection between job losses and Mr. Bush's colossal tax break for the wealthy. And he can remind voters that Mr. Bush has broken his pledge to expand access to health care.
Senator Kerry can also use these debates to speak directly to voters and lay out a hopeful vision for our future. If voters walk away from the debates with a better understanding of where our country is, how we got here and where each candidate will lead us if elected, then America will be the better for it. The debate tomorrow should not seek to discover which candidate would be more fun to have a beer with. As Jon Stewart of the "The Daily Show'' nicely put in 2000, "I want my president to be the designated driver.''
The debates aren't a time for rhetorical tricks. It's a time for an honest contest of ideas. Mr. Bush's unwillingness to admit any mistakes may score him style points. But it makes hiring him for four more years too dangerous a risk. Stubbornness is not strength; and Mr. Kerry must show voters that there is a distinction between the two.
If Mr. Bush is not willing to concede that things are going from bad to worse in Iraq, can he be trusted to make the decisions necessary to change the situation? If he insists on continuing to pretend it is "mission accomplished," can he accomplish the mission? And if the Bush administration has been so thoroughly wrong on absolutely everything it predicted about Iraq, with the horrible consequences that have followed, should it be trusted with another four years?"
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: How to Debate George Bush

Posted by: Douglas at 9/28/2004 10:08:00 PM | Permalink

Something rotten in the state of Florida

Florida's a Big Mess and its not just the hurricanes
Independent News

Posted by: Douglas at 9/28/2004 10:04:38 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > Business > Saudi Arabia to Boost Oil Production as Price Hits $50

Saudi Arabia is desperately trying to boost oil production to drive prices down to help Bush in final weeks of election, but oil prices keep spiralling up and up; I also read that sectors of Saudi elite think Bush's re-election would be a catastrophe; anyway, it will be interesting to watch oil prices, stock market and global finance to see if these sectors will or will not boost Bush
The New York Times > Business > Saudi Arabia to Boost Oil Production as Price Hits $50

Posted by: Douglas at 9/28/2004 08:40:48 AM | Permalink

Blame Global Warming For Florida's Hurricane Conga Line

Global Warming and Florida's Hurricanes. Article=
Hurricane Ivan, the powerful storm that killed at least 120 people in the Caribbean and southern United States, may be a harbinger of the Earth's hotter future, say experts.

"As the world warms, we expect more and more intense tropical hurricanes and cyclones," said James McCarthy, a professor of biological oceanography at Harvard University.

Large parts of the world's oceans are approaching 27 degrees C or warmer during the summer, greatly increasing the odds of major storms, McCarthy told IPS.

When water reaches such temperatures, more of it evaporates, priming hurricane or cyclone formation. Once born, a hurricane needs only warm water to build and maintain its strength and intensity.

Over the last 100 years, the Earth has warmed by about .6 degrees C, according to the 2001 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international scientific body that studies the relationship between human activity and global warming.

The IPCC report was based on research by more than 2,500 scientists from about 100 countries who determined that emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide act as a blanket that prevents much of the sun's energy from dissipating into space.

Much of the extra energy from this "greenhouse effect" is being absorbed by the oceans.

The "proof" that the oceans are warming is the fact that global sea levels have risen 3.1 cm in the past 10 years, said Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

Water expands when heated, and sea levels are expected to continue rising by as much as 50 cm by 2100.

While the warming of the oceans is not uniform -- the North Pacific and North Atlantic are a bit cooler -- the hurricane-producing mid-Atlantic and Caribbean oceans have warmed significantly.

"Global warming is creating conditions that are more favourable for hurricanes to develop and be more severe," said Trenberth.

Will that result in more Category 4 or 5 storms like Ivan?

"That's the logical conclusion, although it may be somewhat controversial," he said.

Before it struck Cuba a glancing blow, Ivan was a Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, which rates hurricanes from 1 to 5 according to wind speeds and destructive potential. Category 5 hurricanes have winds that blow continuously above 250 kilometers an hour. Ivan's gusts topped 320 kilometers an hour at times, making it the sixth most powerful hurricane on record for the Atlantic Basin.

Hurricane Ivan's 12-day rampage killed 70 people in the Caribbean and 50 in the United States. It will be some time before the full extent of the damage is known, but some estimates put it at $10 billion for the United States alone.

As emissions of greenhouse gases continue to trap more and more of the sun's energy, that energy has to be dissipated, resulting in stronger storms, more intense precipitation and higher winds, says McMcarthy.

However, the statistical record of hurricanes hitting the U.S. shows a decrease in the past 50 years.

Most hurricanes do not strike land, McCarthy points out, and up until the past 25 years, with the advent of satellite tracking, there was scant data on the storms.

But there is abundant evidence of an unprecedented number of severe weather events in the past decade, McCarthy says. In 1998, Hurricane Mitch killed nearly 20,000 people in Central America, and more than 4,000 people died during disastrous flooding in China. Bangladesh suffered some of its worst floods ever the following year, as did Venezuela. Europe was hit with record floods in 2002, and then a record heat wave in 2003.

More recently, Brazil was struck by the first-ever recorded hurricane in the South Atlantic last March.

"Weather records are being set all the time now. We're in an era of unprecedented extreme weather events," McCarthy said.

Historical weather patterns are becoming less useful for predicting the future conditions because global warming is changing ocean and atmospheric conditions.

"In 30 to 50 years' time, the Earth's weather generating system will be entirely different," he predicted.

What hasn't changed in the United States is the public's lack of concern about climate change, said Ross Gelbspan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author of two books on global warming, most recently one titled: "Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil And Coal, Journalists and Activists Are Fueling the Climate Crisis -- And What We Can Do to Avert Disaster."

Sharp reductions of emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide on the order of 70 percent are urgently needed to minimise the impacts, Gelbspan said.
But despite the recent destructive series of hurricanes and tornadoes, global warming is off the radar screen of the U.S. presidential election campaign, he said.
Gelbspan is not surprised at this, given the power and influence of the fossil fuel lobby in Washington, which he outlines in great detail in his book.
"America's oil and coal industries receive more than $20 billion a year in subsidies," he said. "Imagine what could be done if that money was invested in green energy."
Albion Monitor (frames)

Posted by: Douglas at 9/28/2004 06:45:23 AM | Permalink

Guardian | Jimmy Carter fears repeat of election fiasco in Florida

Jimmy Carter warns of another election fraud in Florida, JebBushLand is worse than a banana republic
Guardian | Jimmy Carter fears repeat of election fiasco in Florida

Posted by: Douglas at 9/27/2004 07:44:34 PM | Permalink

The New York Times >The Candidates: Strong Charges Set New Tone Before Debate

This is a week of waiting for the debates. In a US presidential election, the debates are often the crucial determinant of an election. Although both parties work to forge messages and consensus during the primaries, present their candidate and program in a convention spectacle, bombard the airwaves with ads, organize daily media events, deluge the press and public with daily messages, and organize support groups who telephone, write, email, and text-message to try to win voters, the debates have focused national attention more than any other element in recent US presidential elections.
Over the weekend, both sides sharpened their claws for the gladiator confrontation of the two candidates coming on Thursday. Excerpt:

"And over the weekend in an advertisement financed by the Progress for America Voter Fund, a Republican advocacy group, which includes images of the ruins of the World Trade Center, as well as Mr. bin Laden, Mr. Hussein and Mr. Atta, the announcer asks, "Would you trust Kerry up against these fanatic killers?"
It was Mr. Bush's aides who originally pressed to have the first debate fought out on what should be the president's strongest ground, terrorism and foreign affairs. Typically, the first debate draws the most viewers and has the most influence on voters.
But Mr. Kerry's advisers, pointing to continued evidence of turmoil in Iraq and the threat of a terrorist attack at home, have increasingly warmed to the subject, saying voters seemed eager for a debate on the issue. Mr. Kerry has over the past two weeks confronted Mr. Bush head-on over Iraq, in a shift of strategy that his aides said Sunday was showing signs of success.
In Wisconsin on Sunday, Mr. Kerry seized on reports of an interview the president gave to Bill O'Reilly on Fox News in which he said he had no regrets about donning a flight suit to give his "Mission Accomplished" speech on Iraq in May 2003 and that he would do it all over again if given the chance, according to a partial transcript of the interview released to the Reuters news service. (Fox News and the White House declined to provide the excerpts to The New York Times).
"It is unbelievable that just this morning we learned that the president has said he would do it all over again and dress up in a flight suit, and land on an aircraft carrier, and say 'mission accomplished' again," Mr. Kerry said. "Well, my friends, when the president landed on that aircraft carrier, 150 of our young sons and daughters had given their lives. Since then, tragically, since he said mission accomplished, tragically over 900 have now died.''
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > The Candidates: Strong Charges Set New Tone Before Debate

Posted by: Douglas at 9/27/2004 07:07:04 AM | Permalink

The Choice on the Environment (washingtonpost.com)

For the Wash Post, Kerry is the winner on the environment:
Bush: "Certainly there is no doubt about President Bush's belief in the need to reduce environmental regulation in order to ease the constraints on industries most affected by it. Although the administration has made few dramatic changes, it has rewritten an extraordinary number of rules, for example, to allow older utilities to upgrade their facilities without adding pollution control equipment; to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon dioxide emissions, the most important source of "greenhouse gases"; to loosen the regulation of mercury emissions; to limit the amount of land that can be formally declared "wilderness"; to make logging easier in old-growth forests. The president himself has flip-flopped, as his campaign would put it, on the question of the urgency of climate change, first expressing interest in the issue, then walking away from it, then delaying discussion by proposing "further studies."

Kerry: "By contrast, the record of Sen. John F. Kerry reflects a long and deep commitment to environmental regulation, although not necessarily a rigid or dogmatic one: In debating environmental votes with his staff and outsiders he does talk about the need to balance environmental and economic concerns. Still, his voting record is one of the most pro-environmentalist in the Senate. He has voted repeatedly for measures that would enforce strict observance of the Clean Air and Clean Water acts as well as wilderness protection. He has more than once helped defeat bills that would allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Mr. Kerry's environmental positions cannot be described as unusually creative: He has generally backed the regulatory consensus, which even supporters agree could usefully be updated. Yet that consensus has, over several decades, produced cleaner air and water, and preserved more wilderness. Simply rolling it back without replacing it would achieve nothing except a reversal of those gains. Far preferable would be a president interested in modernizing environmental rules without abandoning their ultimate goal: a better environment."
The Choice on the Environment (washingtonpost.com)
This is, however, pretty wishy-washy. Bush is much worse than WP indicates. In George Orwell’s dystopic novel 1984 a future state is at permanent war and uses language to describe the opposite. In Orwell’s universe, War is peace, Freedom is slavery, and Ignorance is strength. In a caricature of Orwellian language, the Bush administration called its Iraq occupation a “liberation” and its imposition of a government on Iraq “democracy.” On the domestic front, it calls its cutbacks on pollution control and environmental regulation A “Clear Skies Initiative” and A Healthy Forest Act mandates protecting forests by logging and mining them. As Marilyn Young describes it, the Bush administration systematically uses Orwellian language:
In order to “better harmonize the environmental, social and economic benefits of America’s greatest natural resources, our forests and grasslands,” the administration gave the Forest Service the power to skip environmental reviews before approving lumber company requests to log national forest land. In order to move “toward more effective prevention of black-lung disease,” the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration raised the limit on the amount of coal dust allowed in mines. In order to “save hundreds of lives,” the Department of Transportation increased the number of hours long distance truckers could drive before a mandated rest period. Through budget cuts, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has lost seventy-seven enforcement agents; it created two new jobs for staff who would “help industry comply with agency rules.” Rules on mercury, the efficiency of air conditioners, food labeling, training of health care workers, restoration of wetlands, and media concentration have all been weakened. As “regulatory initiatives,” these achievements on behalf of business require no new legislation and can be halted only through costly legal action. According to the president’s spokesman, the new rules are the expression of the “President’s common-sense policies [which] reflect the values of America, whether it is cracking down on corporate wrong-doing or eliminating burdensome regulations to create jobs.” This is a sentence of genuine Orwellian grandeur.

Posted by: Douglas at 9/27/2004 06:56:48 AM | Permalink

Iraq Elections a Disaster in the Making - by Juan Cole

Iraq election farce... the Bush Gang is taking a big chance on running on elections as so much could go wrong before they even take place, if they take place
Iraq Elections a Disaster in the Making - by Juan Cole

Posted by: Douglas at 9/27/2004 06:14:56 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > Body Count: Killings Surge in Iraq, and Doctors See a Procession of Misery; National Guard Corruption; Time to Pull out?

more mess in Iraq as morgues fill, Bush should be run out of the country
The New York Times > International > Middle East > Body Count: Killings Surge in Iraq, and Doctors See a Procession of Misery
corruption in Iraq national guard and
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/26/international/middleeast/26CND-IRAQ.html?hp
time to just pull out? could it be worse?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/26/weekinreview/26cohe.html?pagewanted=print&position=

Posted by: Douglas at 9/26/2004 12:10:29 PM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: U.S. Soldier Gets 25 Years In Murder of Iraqi Guard

Another bloody and horrible day in Iraq:
"A U.S. soldier was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the murder of an Iraqi National Guardsman in May, the U.S. military said Saturday.
The announcement came as a spate of attacks involving insurgents and U.S.-led forces spread across Iraq. The U.S. military announced that four Marines were killed in three separate incidents in Anbar province Friday and that another soldier was killed by a roadside bomb Saturday in Baghdad, the capital.
In the restive city of Fallujah 35 miles west of Baghdad, U.S. warplanes launched airstrikes early Saturday and again at night. The attacks killed 16 people and wounded 37, doctors in the city told the Associated Press.
In Baghdad, gunmen fired on a vehicle carrying Iraqi National Guard applicants, killing six people, police told the Associated Press. ...In addition to the kidnappings, insurgents have continued to attack police and National Guard recruits from the nascent Iraqi security forces, the linchpin of a U.S. strategy to hold nationwide elections in January. Hours after the attack on the National Guardsmen, four mortar rounds landed in a Baghdad sports club where hundreds of police recruits had been summoned for a meeting.
The fighting in Fallujah began at 11:30 p.m. Friday, when U.S. forces attacked what a U.S. military statement said was a "an offensive obstacle belt" composed primarily of concrete and earthen barriers containing bombs. Construction of the barriers was "considered a hostile act," the statement said, and served to "undermine and discredit the authority of Iraqi civic leaders and restrict the people of Fallujah from living a normal life."
Around 3:30 a.m. Saturday, insurgents operating out of vacant houses in the Askari neighborhood launched rocket-propelled grenades and mortars at a U.S. base on the periphery of the city.
At 4:05 a.m., witnesses said, U.S. warplanes and attack helicopters destroyed five houses that were used by the insurgents and another that was occupied by a family.
Rafid Hiyad Isawi, the director of Fallujah General Hospital, said a couple and their two children were among the dead. The U.S. military said in a statement: "There were no innocent civilians reported in the immediate area at the time of the strike."
After dark, explosions were reported in the city again.
Ahmed Zawbae said his brother Mahmoud and his family were killed in the raid early Saturday morning. He said insurgents had warned the family to leave the area but his sister-in-law had been too ill to be moved.
"This area is turned into a war zone for both sides; this resulted in the killing of my brother and his family," Zawbae said. "They are civilians and innocent. What could they do?"
washingtonpost.com: U.S. Soldier Gets 25 Years In Murder of Iraqi Guard

Posted by: Douglas at 9/26/2004 10:49:38 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Kerry as the Boss: Always More Questions

this article suggests that Kerry questions, probes, discusses, investigates, debates, and forges informed positions. As we all know, Bush just blabbers and says what he's programmed to say without any real knowledge or interest in the topic-- except poll numbers which according to this article is not Kerry's forte or interest
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Kerry as the Boss: Always More Questions

Posted by: Douglas at 9/26/2004 09:37:05 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > A Big Increase of New Voters in Swing States

An eye-opening survey on enrollment of new voters in swing states indicates that the Democrats are doing much better than the Republicans in getting new voters enrolled. The question, of course, is will they get to the polls, vote for their class interests, and have their votes be counted. Excerpt: "A sweeping voter registration campaign in heavily Democratic areas has added tens of thousands of new voters to the rolls in the swing states of Ohio and Florida, a surge that has far exceeded the efforts of Republicans in both states, a review of registration data shows.

The analysis by The New York Times of county-by-county data shows that in Democratic areas of Ohio - primarily low-income and minority neighborhoods - new registrations since January have risen 250 percent over the same period in 2000. In comparison, new registrations have increased just 25 percent in Republican areas. A similar pattern is apparent in Florida: in the strongest Democratic areas, the pace of new registration is 60 percent higher than in 2000, while it has risen just 12 percent in the heaviest Republican areas.
While comparable data could not be obtained for other swing states, similar registration drives have been mounted in them as well, and party officials on both sides say record numbers of new voters are being registered nationwide. This largely hidden but deadly earnest battle is widely believed by campaign professionals and political scientists to be potentially decisive in the presidential election.
"We know it's going on, and it's a very encouraging sign," said Steve Elmendorf, deputy campaign manager for Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee. The new voters, Mr. Elmendorf said, "could very much be the difference."
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > A Big Increase of New Voters in Swing States

Posted by: Douglas at 9/26/2004 09:31:02 AM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: Violence in Iraq Belies Claims of Calm, Data Show

As the pundits debated the merits of Bush and Kerry’s positions on Iraq and the war on terror over the weekend of September 25-26, and the candidates prepared for the all-important debates the following week, a striking article appeared by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Violence in Iraq Belies Claims of Calm, Data Show,” in the September 26 Washington Post that documented the decline in the situation in Iraq, sharply undermining the “optimistic” portrayal of Iraq by Bush and his stooge Allwai:
"Less than four months before planned national elections in Iraq, attacks against U.S. troops, Iraqi security forces and private contractors number in the dozens each day and have spread to parts of the country that had been relatively peaceful, according to statistics compiled by a private security firm working for the U.S. government.
Attacks over the past two weeks have killed more than 250 Iraqis and 29 U.S. military personnel, according to figures released by Iraq's Health Ministry and the Pentagon. A sampling of daily reports produced during that period by Kroll Security International for the U.S. Agency for International Development shows that such attacks typically number about 70 each day. In contrast, 40 to 50 hostile incidents occurred daily during the weeks preceding the handover of political authority to an interim Iraqi government on June 28, according to military officials.
Reports covering seven days in a recent 10-day period depict a nation racked by all manner of insurgent violence, from complex ambushes involving 30 guerrillas north of Baghdad on Monday to children tossing molotov cocktails at a U.S. Army patrol in the capital's Sadr City slum on Wednesday. On maps included in the reports, red circles denoting attacks surround nearly every major city in central, western and northern Iraq, except for Kurdish-controlled areas in the far north. Cities in the Shiite Muslim-dominated south, including several that had undergone a period of relative calm in recent months, also have been hit with near-daily attacks.In number and scope, the attacks compiled in the Kroll reports suggest a broad and intensifying campaign of insurgent violence that contrasts sharply with assessments by Bush administration officials and Iraq's interim prime minister that the instability is contained to small pockets of the country."
Indeed, Bush is such a LIAR on Iraq, just read the daily reports from the field
washingtonpost.com: Violence in Iraq Belies Claims of Calm, Data Show

Posted by: Douglas at 9/25/2004 10:05:35 PM | Permalink

The New York Times 7 Iraqi Guard Applicants, 4 U.S. Marines and a Soldier Are Killed

Another chaotic day in Iraq:
"Seven Iraqi men applying for jobs with the Iraqi National Guard were ambushed and killed in western Baghdad on Saturday morning, while the United States military said four marines and a soldier had been killed over 24 hours.
The military also said it had conducted an airstrike early Saturday morning in the volatile city of Falluja to kill militants holding a meeting. The military said the targets were members of the network led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant.
The Americans did not give any casualty estimates, but doctors in the emergency room of the main Falluja hospital said 9 people were killed and 16 were wounded, all of them civilians. They said the strike took place in a residential area of eastern Falluja and one woman and a child were among the dead.
In its statement, the American military said, "There were no innocent civilians reported in the immediate area at the time of the strike." Though the military always labels these attacks "precision strikes," doctors and residents in Falluja routinely say the assaults kill civilians. Because of the danger of entering Falluja, a city controlled by insurgents who have installed a Taliban-like rule, foreign reporters are unable to verify the claims of either side."
The New York Times > International > Middle East > 7 Iraqi Guard Applicants, 4 U.S. Marines and a Soldier Are Killed
Its interesting that everyday the US bombs Falluja they claim they are using "precision strikes," but everyday doctors and residents there claim that it is civilians who are bombed, with many pictures of innocent victims shown on global, but usually not US, TV networks. Here's an article that documents that there are more Iraqi civilian casualties than insurgents.
"Operations by U.S. and multinational forces and Iraqi police are killing twice as many Iraqis - most of them civilians - as attacks by insurgents, according to statistics compiled by the Iraqi Health Ministry and obtained exclusively by Knight Ridder.

According to the ministry, the interim Iraqi government recorded 3,487 Iraqi deaths in 15 of the country's 18 provinces from April 5 - when the ministry began compiling the data - until Sept. 19. Of those, 328 were women and children. Another 13,720 Iraqis were injured, the ministry said.

While most of the dead are believed to be civilians, the data include an unknown number of police and Iraqi national guardsmen. Many Iraqi deaths, especially of insurgents, are never reported, so the actual number of Iraqis killed in fighting could be significantly higher.

During the same period, 432 American soldiers were killed.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=17982

Posted by: Douglas at 9/25/2004 10:59:06 AM | Permalink

Guardian | How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

an All-Too-Rare major media look at Bush-Nazi connections. This story has been long known, was retold in the Kevin Philips and Kitty Kelley books on the Bush Dynasty but has been generally ignored by US media
Guardian | How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

Posted by: Douglas at 9/24/2004 10:03:48 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > State Dept. Says Iraq Elections Must Be Held in All Regions

Yesterday, Bush and Allawi both insisted that the Iraq elections were going on as scheduled for January. In the afternoon, Rumsfeld theorized before another Capitol Hill hearing on Thursday that elections might be held in only "three-quarters or four-fifths of the country" because some regions are not yet secure enough. Today, however, The second-ranking official at the State Department said today, in an apparent contradiction of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, that the elections scheduled for Iraq in January must be "open to all citizens."
"We're going to have an election that is free and open," Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said at a House committee hearing, "and that has to be open to all citizens."
In fact, Iraq is such a mess no one knows what will be going on there next week let alone by January. It is interesting, though, that the Bush administration has devolved into utter incoherence.
The New York Times > Washington > State Dept. Says Iraq Elections Must Be Held in All Regions

Posted by: Douglas at 9/24/2004 12:53:15 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Bush Upbeat as Iraq Burns

Both Bob Herbert and Paul Krugman today in the NYT hit a similar theme that Bush is blind to realities in Iraqi and is living in a fantasy world. Herbert: "Mr. Bush cannot explain our mission in Iraq and has nothing resembling an exit strategy, and his troops - hobbled by shortages of personnel and by potentially fatal American and Iraqi political considerations - are certainly not fighting to win.

As the situation in Iraq moves from bad to worse, the president, based on his public comments, seems to be edging further and further from reality. This is disturbing, to say the least. The news from Iraq is filled with reports of kidnappings and beheadings, of people pleading desperately for their lives, of American soldiers being ambushed and killed, of clusters of Iraqis being blown to pieces by suicide bombers, and of the prospects for a credible election in January tumbling toward nil.

The war effort has deteriorated so drastically that the administration is planning to take more than $3 billion earmarked for crucial reconstruction projects and shift them to security programs designed to ward off the increasingly deadly insurgency. A classified National Intelligence Estimate prepared for the president contained no really good prospects for Iraq. The best-case scenario was a country with only tenuous stability. The worst potential outcome was civil war.

The intelligence estimate was prepared in July, and the situation has only worsened since then.

Even Republicans are starting to voice their concerns about the unfolding disaster. When asked on CBS's "Face the Nation" whether the U.S. was winning the war in Iraq, Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, said, "No, I don't think we're winning." He said the U.S. was "in deep trouble in Iraq" and that some "recalibration of policy" would be necessary to turn things around.

Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, said on "Fox News Sunday": "The situation has obviously been somewhat deteriorating, to say the least." He said "serious mistakes" have been made and that most of them "can be traced back to not having sufficient numbers of troops there."

These are not doves talking. These are supporters of President Bush who support the war in Iraq and believe it can be won. But they're also in touch with reality.

President Bush does not share their sense of alarm. He acknowledged that "horrible scenes" are being shown on television and the Internet, but he was unmoved by the gloomy intelligence estimates. According to Mr. Bush: "The C.I.A. laid out several scenarios. It said that life could be lousy, life could be O.K., life could be better."

Que sera, sera.

The president said he is personally optimistic and he delivered an upbeat assessment of conditions in Iraq to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. Iraq, he said, is well on its way to being "secure, democratic, federal and free."

If you spend more than a little time immersed in the world according to Karl Rove, you'll find that words lose even the remotest connection to reality. They become nothing more than tools designed to achieve political ends. So it's not easy to decipher what the president believes about Iraq.

This is scary. With Americans, Iraqis and others dying horribly in the long dark night of this American-led war, the world needs more from the president of the United States than the fool's gold of his empty utterances.

Perhaps someone can dislodge the president from Karl's clutches, shake him and tell him that his war is a tremendous tragedy with implications far beyond the election in November.
At the moment there is no evidence the president understands anything about the war. He led the nation into it with false pretenses. He never mobilized sufficient numbers of troops. He seemed to believe the war was over in May 2003. And he seems not to know how to proceed now.
The tragic lesson of Vietnam is staring the president in the face. But he'll have to become better acquainted with the real world before he can even begin to learn from it.
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Bush Upbeat as Iraq Burns
Krugman says its time to get real: "ever mind the inevitable claims that John Kerry is soft on terrorism. What he must address is the question of how his policy in Iraq would differ from President Bush's. And his answer should be that unlike Mr. Bush, whose decisions have been dictated at every stage by grandiose visions and wishful thinking, he will get real - focusing on what is really possible in Iraq, and what needs to be done to protect American security.

Mr. Bush claims that Mr. Kerry's plan to secure and rebuild Iraq is "exactly what we're currently doing." No, it isn't. It's only what Mr. Bush is currently saying. And we have 18 months of his administration's deeds to contrast with his words.

The actual record is one of officials who have refused to admit that their fantasies about how the war would go were wrong, and who have continued to push us ever deeper into the quagmire because of their insistence that everything is going according to plan.

There has been a lot of press coverage of the administration's failure to do anything serious about rebuilding Iraq. Less attention has been given to its parallel failure to take the security problem seriously until much of Iraq had already been lost.

Long after it was obvious to everyone else that we were engaged in an escalating guerrilla war, Bush appointees clung to the belief that they were fighting a handful of dead-enders and foreign terrorists.

As a result, they casually swelled the ranks of our foes - remember, Moktada al-Sadr was never going to be our friend, but he didn't have to be our enemy. They even treated Iraqi security forces with contempt, not bothering to provide them with adequate training or equipment.

In an analysis titled "Inexcusable Failure," Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies details how the U.S. "failed to treat the Iraqis as partners in the counterinsurgency effort." U.S. officials, he declares, are "guilty of a gross military, administrative and moral failure."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/24/opinion/24krugman.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

Posted by: Douglas at 9/24/2004 11:08:12 AM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: Kerry Faults Bush's Strategy Against Terror

Kerry continues to pound Bush on terrorism and Iraq
washingtonpost.com: Kerry Faults Bush's Strategy Against Terror

Posted by: Douglas at 9/24/2004 10:59:00 AM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: Six Egyptians Kidnapped in Baghdad

kidnappings and violence in Baghdad. Excerpt: "Gunmen abducted six Egyptians working for Iraq's mobile phone company, seizing two in a bold raid on the firm's Baghdad office and the others outside the capital, officials said Friday, the latest in a string of kidnappings that have underscored the country's fragile security.

Also Friday, mortars exploded near the Italian Embassy in Baghdad, slightly wounding three Iraqis, the Foreign Ministry in Rome said. The mortars were fired shortly after 6 a.m. when the embassy offices were closed, the Foreign Ministry said. No other details were released.

Hours later, a rocket hit the busy Baghdad thoroughfare Palestine Street. Blood stains could be seen on the street afterward, footage from Associated Press Television news showed. Police Capt. Thaer Mtashar confirmed there were casualties, but he could not say how many.

U.S. Marines fired artillery rounds at militants in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, the military said. The rounds were fired after the Marines observed a number of insurgents getting out of a vehicle with a mounted machine gun, said 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert, a Marine spokesman. There was no word on casualties.'
washingtonpost.com: Six Egyptians Kidnapped in Baghdad

Posted by: Douglas at 9/24/2004 08:01:11 AM | Permalink

The New York Times Iraqi Oil Company Official Killed on 3rd Attempt and HELL in Iraq

Daily Mayhem in Iraq Report
The New York Times > International > Middle East > Iraqi Oil Company Official Killed on 3rd Attempt
Here's a Salon report titled HELL on Iraq
Hell
Salon's war correspondent on the Iraq inferno.

Editor's note: Salon correspondent Phillip Robertson has spent five months covering the war in Iraq. As the presidential campaign finally focuses on the war, Robertson offers this assessment of the grim situation there.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Phillip Robertson



Sept. 23, 2004 | BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Three years after the attacks on the World Trade Center, attacks in which they played no part, the people of Iraq have been liberated from one tyranny only to be remanded to another: continuous urban warfare, religious extremism and a contagion of fear. The celebrated hand of the free market in Iraq has brought not only cellphones and satellite TV, it has also brought down prices for automatic weapons, making them affordable to the average Iraqi. The last time I checked, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher cost about $250.

In his address to the United Nations on Tuesday, President Bush told a subdued General Assembly, "Today, the Iraqi and Afghan people are on the path to democracy and freedom. The governments that are rising will pose no threat to others. Instead of harboring terrorists, they're fighting terrorist groups. And this progress is good for the long-term security of us all." The words of the president ring hollow.

It is words to this effect that Iraq interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi will likely echo during his visit to the White House Thursday.

Reconstruction, the most important step on the path to a sovereign and stable Iraq, has all but stalled because of targeted acts of violence that reach all the way south to Basra and north to Mosul. Successful countermoves by the Sunni insurgents have prevented the United States and new Iraqi government from gaining any real political support. In fact, billions of dollars originally allocated for reconstruction are now headed for security companies, which are quickly becoming private militias. Unfortunately for optimistic planners in the Bush administration, the coalition is up against not one single group but a constellation of allied militias. It's as if the United States had gone to war against the tribal system itself. There are so many new fighter cells that they are at a loss to distinguish themselves, and so use kidnapping and videotapes as branding strategies. In this market, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Tawhid wa al Jihad, with its monstrous beheading trademark, is the undisputed brand king. Some of the groups are crazier than others. It is a free market of demons.

In the past year, al-Qaida operatives have found in Iraq a fertile recruiting ground, the best possible training camp for jihad against the West, a destination any angry young man can reach if he has the will and pocket money. Iraq's borders, which stretch across hundreds of miles of empty desert, are perfect for smugglers and men seeking martyrdom. No one really knows how many people are coming into Iraq to fight the U.S. But the fighters who do make it across are changing the character of the resistance, internationalizing it, injecting religious extremism into the politics of a once-secular Iraq. Young men coming in from other countries don't fight for Iraq, they fight for Islam.

One of the unutterable truths for the administration is that the U.S. occupation is breeding and fueling insurgent groups. Iraqi government officials rightly fear for their lives, but Iraqi forces, which are supposed to be fighting alongside U.S. troops in the cause of a free and democratic Iraq, are often undisciplined, dangerous and in some places infiltrated by insurgent groups. The Mahdi Army in Sadr City has a number of police officers in its ranks, and in a little remarked upon event that took place during one of the large demonstrations in Baghdad at the time of the siege, the Iraqi police helped Sadr officials address a crowd of Muqtada al-Sadr supporters outside the neutral Green Zone.

On Aug. 13, with U.S. troops looking on, a Mahdi Army sheik urged the followers of Muqtada al-Sadr to go to Najaf to support the men occupying the shrine. He used a public address system in the back of a police pickup to get his message across. The fighters were yelling and grabbing at journalists, proud that the police were on their side, and they wanted us to take note. Above us, in their watchtowers, Iraqi police hung pictures of Muqtada al-Sadr and waved to the crowd. The organizers of the rally were overjoyed.

Fringe groups, extreme groups, associations with the most vocal opposition to the U.S. occupation, steadily acquire more legitimacy in Iraq because they tend to express the true feelings of many Iraqis. Not everyone takes part in the fighting, but many people understand why the groups choose to fight. Jobs in the Iraqi National Guard and the Iraqi police tend to attract poor men who desperately need the money, while the insurgents attract believers, men who feel wronged and humiliated by the U.S. occupation, and who will work for nothing. They are volunteers. Which emotion is stronger?

Iraq is a place where there is no civil debate and interest groups mediate their conflicts with weapons. The U.S. has the most powerful armed presence, its own military, but as an interest group, it represents the smallest number of Iraqis, possibly only those it directly supports. Political legitimacy, we have long known, comes directly from the people; it is not something that can be dictated by a foreign power, no matter how noble its stated intentions. The Allawi government, the result of American occupation, is what many Iraqis scornfully call a U.S. puppet government. In the months following the "transfer of sovereignty," I never heard a single Iraqi offer up praise for it. Not one.

The Sunni insurgents, a creepy hodgepodge of extremist imams, tribal sheiks, former Iraqi government officials and al-Qaida types, have not only scuttled the plans to rebuild the country, they have also cornered the political debate. Relying on abundant examples of victimization and prejudice against Iraqis and Muslims, the fighters present themselves as defenders of the faith. Kidnapping, execution and death threats have become acceptable practices in the eyes of some ordinary Iraqis who may have been horrified by it only a few months before.

When a well-educated Sunni shop owner named Abu Mustapha heard about the kidnapping of French journalists Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot, he wanted to express his sympathy. It sounded like this: "Phillip, it is very bad that they were kidnapped. You should be careful." I pointed out that the people who were abducting noncombatants and threatening to kill them were behaving like animals. The hostage-takers were demanding that the French government repeal a law prohibiting religious symbols from being worn in schools. Abu Mustapha agreed with the insurgents. "You know, the French should change their law," he said. "It is a bad law. Muslim girls should be able to wear the hejab in school."

Contrary to the administration's hopeful statements, we are not seeing the establishment of a stable Iraq, the mopping up of unreformed Baath Party apparatchiks and dead-enders. We are seeing the beginning of a larger conflict that is busily giving birth to monsters.

Since April, the coalition has lost ground in central and western Iraq and will be forced in the coming months to gain it back at great cost. Fallujah and Ramadi, two sizable Iraqi cities, are no longer under Iraqi government control. Sadr City, with several million people, remains a stronghold for the Mahdi Army and the site of a continuing series of battles. Najaf and Karbala, cities the military has taken back from the Mahdi Army, were never strongholds of the Shia resistance. In Najaf, citizens paid a high price for emancipation. They experienced the destruction of their city and must now set about rebuilding it, a process that will take years. It is hard to imagine that the U.S. is loved in Najaf. While the siege may have been a military victory, it was a political defeat. I left Najaf just as men were beginning to dig out bodies.

But Najaf did not serve as the headstone for the Mahdi Army; at best, the military defeat set them back a few months, driving them deeper underground. The first cavalry division and the Marines successfully routed the Muqtada fighters, pushing them to other cities, scattering them but not destroying them. In my second to last day in Najaf, at the end of the siege, journalists in the old city watched militiamen load wooden carts full of weapons and take them to new hiding places. When we asked where they were going, one fighter said to a comrade in an alley just off Rasul Street, "Don't talk to these people, some of them are spies." That was a perfectly normal response and we didn't take it personally. But it was clear that they weren't taking their anti-aircraft weapons and rockets to U.S. collection points for cash payouts. The skittish Mahdi Army fighters were busy smuggling their weapons out of town to other cities and a number of them were almost certainly headed for Baghdad. We watched them trundle the carts over the streets, trying to keep the weapons from spilling out onto the cobblestones.

Here is something everyone in Iraq knows: The U.S. is now fighting a holding action against a growing uprising, and the more it fights the worse it gets. At the other end of the spectrum, if the U.S. military were to suddenly withdraw, the largest armed factions in Iraq would immediately begin to compete for the capital in a bloody civil war. Recently, a National Intelligence Estimate, a document prepared for President Bush by senior intelligence officials, warned of exactly that outcome. It is the kind of analysis that Secretary of State Colin Powell might write off as defeatist if it had come from the press.

How much control does the U.S. military have over the country? Not as much as it would like. Large sections of the capital are in the hands of insurgents, and organized attacks on convoys, U.S. interests and Iraqi targets are on the rise. The administration can say things are getting better, that a newly democratic Iraq is facing its enemies, but last week Baghdadis woke up at 5 in the morning to the sound of a large volley of rockets slamming into the Green Zone. The explosions sounded like they were coming from more than one direction, the sign of a carefully coordinated attack.

This summer, it wasn't unusual to wake up to the sound of roadside bombs going off near Humvees on their early morning U.S. patrols. Month by month, attacks became more severe, bombs more powerful. In the sky above the Duleimi hotel, medevac helicopters would shudder through the air on their way to combat support hospitals. When something truly ugly was going on, we could hear the rush of the medevac Black Hawks in a steady progression.

What the war's champions prefer to ignore is that in large parts of Iraq, broad support exists for anyone willing to pick up a gun and fight the United States. Fighters become local stars and when they die, their friends hold their photographs as treasured objects, pass them around at parties, and later try to emulate their fallen buddies. Paradise awaits, full of virgins who have bodies made of light. Many young Iraqi men believe this. A young fighter guarding the bottom of Rasul Street in Najaf said, just before the collapse of the truce on Aug. 4, "Paradise is a place without corruption. It's not like this place, it smells sweet." Thousands of Iraqis, not all of them poor and unemployed, have checked into the resistance, not only because it's honorable but because it's fun. Spreading through family and neighborhoods, the insurgency can be anywhere, anytime.

A young Apache helicopter gunner who has fought in many of Iraq's major battles wrote me a few days ago and said: "I have a feeling that with every one member of the resistance that we kill, we give birth to ten more." At a distance of hundreds of feet in the air, a perceptive man can say this. Here is what the situation looks like from the ground.

Iraq seems modern only at first glance. The highways, factories and cities are familiar enough but they hide a deep tribal sensibility. Insults to family honor in Iraq are usually repaid in blood or money depending on the severity, and this system of revenge and honor fuels the war instead of slowing it down. The United States military, unable to relate to a tribal society, finds itself the player in a nationwide blood feud. To understand the intensity of these feelings of honor and kinship, read "Othello" or watch "The Godfather." This is how many tribal Iraqis perceive the world. It is not necessarily a lack of sophistication but a mark of being outside the West. Tribal culture in Iraq goes back thousands of years. When an Iraqi man loses a family member to an American missile, he must take another American life to even the score. He may not subscribe to the notion that some Americans are noncombatants, viewing them instead as the members of a supertribe that has come to invade his land.

The war, illegal and founded on a vast lie, has produced two tragedies of equal magnitude: an embryonic civil war in the world's oldest country, and a triumph for those in the Bush administration who, without a trace of shame, act as if the truth does not matter. Lying until the lie became true, the administration pursued a course of action that guaranteed large sections of Iraq would become havens for jihadis and radical Islamists. That is the logic promoted by people who take for themselves divine infallibility -- a righteousness that blinds and destroys. Like credulous Weimar Germans who were so delighted by rigged wrestling matches, millions of Americans have accepted Bush's assertions that the war in Iraq has made the United States and the rest of the world a safer place to live. Of course, this is false.

But it is a useful fiction because it is a happy one. All we need to know, according to the administration, is that America is a good country, full of good people and therefore cannot make bloody mistakes when it comes to its own security. The bitter consequence of succumbing to such happy talk is that the government of the most powerful nation in the world now operates unchecked and unmoored from reality; leaving us teetering on the brink of another presidential term where abuse of authority has been recast as virtue.

The logic the administration uses to promote its actions -- preemptive war, indefinite detention, torture of prisoners, the abandonment of the Geneva Convention abroad and the Bill of Rights at home -- is simple, faith-based and therefore empty of reason. The worsening war is the creation of the Bush administration, which is simultaneously holding Americans and Iraqis hostage to a bloody conflict that cannot be won, only stalemated.

Over the last three years, practicing a philosophy of deliberate deception, fear-mongering and abuse of authority, the Bush administration has done more to undermine the republic of Lincoln and Jefferson than the cells of al-Qaida. It has willfully ignored our fundamental laws and squandered the nation's wealth in bloody, open-ended pursuits. Corporations like Halliburton, with close ties to government officials, are profiting greatly from the war while thousands of American soldiers undertake the dangerous work of patrolling the streets of Iraqi cities. We have arrived at a moment of national crisis.

At home, the United States, under the Bush administration, is rapidly drifting toward a security state whose principal currency is fear. Abroad, it has used fear to justify the invasion of Iraq -- fear of weapons of mass destruction, of terrorist attacks, of Iraq itself. The administration, under false premises, invaded a country that it barely understood. We entered a country in shambles, a population divided against itself. The U.S. invasion was a catalyst of violence and religious hatred, and the continuing presence of American troops has only made matters worse. Iraq today bears no resemblance to the president's vision of a fledgling democracy. On its way to national elections in January, Iraq has already slipped into chaos.
About the writer
Phillip Robertson is reporting from Iraq for Salon. The rest of his war coverage can be found here

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/23/iraq_hell/print.html

Posted by: Douglas at 9/23/2004 12:51:52 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > International > Middle East > Politics: Top Shiite Cleric Is Said to Fear Voting in Iraq May Be Delayed

While Allawi is assuring all and sundry that Iraq January elections are on track, the real power broker in Iraq, al-Sistani, is worried that the US puppets are going to postpone the election to keep power or rig the vote and he is prepared, according to this story, to shut it down or get the puppets to agree to his conditions
The New York Times > International > Middle East > Politics: Top Shiite Cleric Is Said to Fear Voting in Iraq May Be Delayed

Posted by: Douglas at 9/23/2004 11:02:15 AM | Permalink

Allawi Says Elections Will Happen as Scheduled (washingtonpost.com)

Today Ayad Allawi, Iraq's interim prime minister, addressed a joint session of Congress, vowing that elections in his country would go ahead as scheduled in January, proving wrong all the "skeptics" and "doubters" who have predicted delay because of mounting violence and instability. Allawi thanked America on behalf of the Iraqi people for the sacrifices of its armed forces in Iraq and the appropriation of billions of dollars in U.S. assistance. Allawi opened his speech before members of the House and Senate with an optimistic declaration that his government is making progress in building democracy and fighting insurgents. "First, we are succeeding in Iraq," he said to enthusiastic applause. "It is a tough struggle with setbacks, but we are succeeding." He said Iraqis join the United States in mourning the "barbaric" murders of two American contractors who were beheaded this week by the group of Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi. "Yet as we mourn these losses we must not forget either the progress we are making or what is our stake in Iraq," Allawi said. "We are fighting for freedom and democracy -- ours and yours."

Responding to Allawi's speech on the situation in Iraq, Kerry denounced Bush's war leadership and said, "We need to change the course to protect our troops and to win." Kerry acknowledged, "The prime minister and the president are here obviously to put the best face on the policy." But reports from Iraq indicate that "we are losing the peace" and that Iraqi government authorities "have retreated from whole areas of the country," he said. "You can't hold an election in a no-go zone," Kerry added.
Allawi Says Elections Will Happen as Scheduled (washingtonpost.com)
For the Bush Gang, everything rides on whether Allawi will suceed and whether he can provide an attractive and assuring face for the Iraqi regime to US voters.
Here's a good account of centrality of Allawi to Bush strategy:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=8578

Posted by: Douglas at 9/23/2004 10:27:23 AM | Permalink

Despite Bush Flip-Flops, Kerry Gets Label (washingtonpost.com)

Bush campaigns through managing public perception and affixing negative labels about Kerry in the public mind. What he says about Kerry doesn’t have to be true if it fits into the dominant frame, in many cases, that Kerry is a flip-flopper. In an article by John F. Harris, “Despite Bush Flip-Flops, Kerry Gets Label” (Washington Post, September 23, 2004: A01), there are convincing examples that Bush has flip-flopped on more major issues than Kerry although the flip-flop label has stuck to the later. According to Harris: “The flip-flopper, Democrats say, is President Bush. Over the past four years, he abandoned positions on issues such as how to regulate air pollution or whether states should be allowed to sanction same-sex marriage. He changed his mind about the merits of creating the Homeland Security Department, and made a major exception to his stance on free trade by agreeing to tariffs on steel. After resisting, the president yielded to pressure in supporting an independent commission to study policy failures preceding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Bush did the same with questions about whether he would allow his national security adviser to testify, or whether he would answer commissioners' questions for only an hour, or for as long they needed.”
But Harris points out: “Once such a popular perception becomes fixed, public opinion experts and strategists say, virtually every episode in the campaign is viewed through that prism, while facts that do not fit with existing assumptions -- such as Bush's history of policy shifts -- do not have much impact in the political debate.” Indeed, Bush’s strategy is to lie about Kerry’s position on Iraq and every other issue and when Kerry presents an intelligent position to accuse him of flip-flopping. Evidently, the Kerry people have given up on trying to affix the “flip flop” label to Bush and are content simply to label him a “flop.”
Despite Bush Flip-Flops, Kerry Gets Label (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by: Douglas at 9/23/2004 10:23:56 AM | Permalink

Guardian | The hollow world of George Bush

Bush is an Empty Zero and why isn't this obvious to all?
Guardian | The hollow world of George Bush

Posted by: Douglas at 9/22/2004 07:25:44 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > International > International Special > Web War: Online and Even Near Home, New Front in the Terror Fight

the Internet and Terror War
The New York Times > International > International Special > Web War: Online and Even Near Home, New Front in the Terror Fight

Posted by: Douglas at 9/22/2004 07:23:17 PM | Permalink

The New York Times >Iraqis and U.S. at Odds Over Release of Female Prisoner

Confusion rules in Iraq, Who's on First?
The New York Times > International > Middle East > Iraqis and U.S. at Odds Over Release of Female Prisoner

Posted by: Douglas at 9/22/2004 11:51:33 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > Opinion > President Bush's Lead Balloon

In a stinging editorial, the NYT slams Bush for failing to engage UN diplomatically and offering stump speech bragging about his "accomplishments":
Excerpt: "We did not expect President Bush to come before the United Nations in the middle of his re-election campaign and acknowledge the serious mistakes his administration has made on Iraq. But that still left plenty of room for him to take advantage of this one last chance to appeal to an increasingly antagonistic world to help the Iraqis secure and rebuild their shattered nation and prepare for elections in just four months. Instead, Mr. Bush delivered an inexplicably defiant campaign speech in which he glossed over the current dire situation in Iraq for an audience acutely aware of the true state of affairs, and scolded them for refusing to endorse the American invasion in the first place.
Even when he talked about issues of common agreement, like the global fight against AIDS and easing the crushing third-world debt, Mr. Bush seemed more interested in praising his own policies than in assuming the leadership of an international effort. The speech would have drawn cheers at an adoring Republican National Convention, but it seemed to fall flat in a room full of stony-faced world leaders.
….Mr. Bush might have done better at wooing broader international support if he had spent less time on self-justification and scolding and more on praising the importance of international cooperation and a strengthened United Nations. Instead, his tone-deaf speechwriters achieved a perverse kind of alchemy, transforming a golden opportunity into a lead balloon."

Bush had miserably failed in diplomacy in gathering support for his Iraq venture and had still did not have convincing arguments concerning why any country or group should support his failed Iraq policy. Commentators saw the UN speech as part of his campaign rather than a serious attempt to mobilize support for democracy in Iraq. In fact, Bush is utterly incapable of diplomacy, of engaging an audience in dialogue, offering arguments, and providing leadership. Instead, he speaks in code words directed toward his Republican base and does not engage in international dialogue or diplomacy. While Bush insisted at the UN that Iraq had “rejoined the community of nations” and is on the way to being “secure, democratic, federal and free” if the US and its allies do not loose their nerve and fail to complete the “mission,” most observers believe that conditions were worsening in Iraq which was descending into chaos.
Over the weekend, members of Bush’s own political party had expressed their anxieties about Iraq and criticized the failures of Bush administration policy. Senator John McCain on Fox News Sunday accused Bush of making "serious mistakes after the initial successes by not having enough troops there on the ground, by allowing the looting, by not securing the borders. There was a number of things that we did. Most of it can be traced back to not having sufficient numbers of troops there." McCain e noted that the Bush administration has allowed insurgents to establish sanctuaries – such as in Fallujah – where anti-American rebels or terrorists can be trained and harbored. Challenged Bush's assertion that progress is under way in Iraq, McCain dissented, noting "the situation has obviously been somewhat deteriorating, to say the least." Moreover, he admitted that Bush has not been "as straight as maybe we'd like to see."
The New York Times > Opinion > President Bush's Lead Balloon

Posted by: Douglas at 9/22/2004 10:06:29 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > International > Middle East > Iraqi Officials Say Female Inmate Is to Be Released

Mayhem of the day in Iraq. Note the details of the escalating violence:
"Today in western Baghdad, a suicide car bomb exploded on a street corner where recruits for the Iraqi National Guard had gathered, killing at least 11 people and wounding scores more, hospital and police officials said. The bomb went off at about 10:30 a.m. local time, after officials at the recruiting center told the young job-seekers to move away from the center for fear someone would try to bomb the area. The men then gathered around an ice cream shop and photocopy store.
"My friends and I were eating breakfast there, and I said let's go have tea," said Enkido Asar, a 24-year-old recruit. "They said, `No, we'll stay here.' I walked to the other side of the street and saw the car drive over the sidewalk and explode."
More than 10 cars in the area were incinerated, and metal scraps and human flesh lay scattered across the roadway. Men and boys raced around gathering the flesh and putting it inside a small, makeshift dirt hole they had dug in the median. It served as an ad-hoc grave, until the remains of the victims could be brought to a final resting place.
Another car bomb shook the Mansour district of Baghdad in the afternoon and thick black smoke could be seen rising from the area, the police and witnesses said told The A.P. Four American soldiers and two Iraqis were wounded in the blast.
For the last week-and-a-half, insurgents have been pressing a bloody campaign against the American occupation and interim government, sending out wave after wave of suicide car bombs and killing hundreds of Iraqis, many of them young men trying to sign up for the nascent Iraqi security forces.
Insurgents had tried driving a car bomb up to the same recruiting center on Tuesday morning, but American soldiers managed to defuse it, setting off a loud explosion beside a mosque.
On Tuesday night, American soldiers entered the Shiite slum of Sadr City in northeastern Baghdad and battled militiamen loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, a virulently anti-American Shiite cleric. Witnesses described the fighting as intense, and an Iraqi reporter for The New York Times said he saw an American helicopter firing into the neighborhood on Wednesday morning. By noon, the soldiers had left the area, and The Associated Press quoted hospital officials as saying at least 10 Iraqis had been killed.
The spike in violence has also brought a surge in kidnappings and beheadings, ramping up the fear in the expatriate community.
One God and Jihad posted an Internet message on Tuesday night saying it had beheaded a second American hostage. The group said it would release a video of the second killing soon. But no video had appeared by this afternoon....
An official at the Central Intelligence Agency said on Tuesday that the agency had assessed with high certainty that the voice of the man who beheads Mr. Armstrong on the video is that of Mr. Zarqawi.
More than 130 foreigners have been kidnapped since a mass uprising in April. Though most have been released, at least two dozen have been killed. An entire industry of hostage-taking has sprung up in recent weeks, with criminal gangs carrying out the initial abductions and selling the victims to other groups.
The kidnappings and beheadings have severely hobbled reconstruction efforts here by driving expatriates into the relative sanctuaries of fortified homes and hotels, hampering foreign investment, forcing companies to shut down operations and frightening at least one country into withdrawing its troops.
The message announcing the killing of a second American was posted on the same Web site that carried the video of Mr. Armstrong's killing. There have been a few instances in recent months of fake messages being posted on the Internet in the name of militant groups. But no false ones have been put up in recent memory using the name of One God and Holy War.
"The Islamic nations' sons have beheaded the second American hostage after the deadline passed," the posting said, referring to the new 24-hour deadline set on Monday. "We will give you the video soon."
That message appeared at about 10:30 p.m. Later, the manager of the Web site put up a note boasting that "there are now 387 computers logged onto our Web site. They are waiting for the video. There are visitors from international news agencies." The posting listed CNN, the BBC, Fox News, USA Today and others."
The New York Times > International > Middle East > Iraqi Officials Say Female Inmate Is to Be Released

Posted by: Douglas at 9/22/2004 09:55:16 AM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: 3 DeLay Workers Indicted In Texas

Republican criminals go down, its obviously that DeLay is major crook
washingtonpost.com: 3 DeLay Workers Indicted In Texas

Posted by: Douglas at 9/21/2004 09:53:07 PM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: U.S. Now Taking Supporting Role in Iraq, Officials Say

the WP makes it clear: Bush totally messed up Iraq;
washingtonpost.com: U.S. Now Taking Supporting Role in Iraq, Officials Say

Posted by: Douglas at 9/21/2004 09:50:29 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Kerry Says Bush 'Does Not Have the Credibility' to Lead on Iraq

Kerry continues to hammer Bush hard. Shortly after the release of Bush’s speech, Kerry told reporters that Bush had failed to present a true picture of Iraq to the United Nations and “does not have the credibility to lead the world.'' In his first press conference since over a month, Kerry insisted that Bush “really has no credibility at this point… He has no credibility with foreign leaders who hear him come before them and talk as if everything is going well, and they see that we can't even protect the people on the ground [in Iraq] for the election.'' Keeping up his theme that Bush lived in a fantasy world of ideology, Kerry insisted that the “president needs to live in the world of reality.'' Hammering Bush for failing to persuade world leaders to help out in Iraq, Kerry concluded: “After lecturing them, instead of leading them to understand how we are all together with a stake in the outcome of Iraq, I believe the president missed an opportunity of enormous importance for our nation and for the world… He does not have the credibility to lead the world. And he did not and will not offer the leadership in order to do what we need to do to protect our troops, to be successful, and win the war on terror in an effective way.''
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Kerry Says Bush 'Does Not Have the Credibility' to Lead on Iraq

Posted by: Douglas at 9/21/2004 03:06:11 PM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: The War's Toll on Iraqi Civilians

While US media focus has been on the growing number of US casualties, global media have been focusing on the alarming growth in Iraqi casualties. In a report by Jefferson Morley, “The War’s Toil on Iraqi Civilians” (Washington Post, September 21, 2004), Morley notes that:
"Many news organizations have run stories about civilian deaths in Iraq. But overseas reporters and commentators emphasize the issue more than their American counterparts and play up civilian casualties in ways the U.S. media rarely pursue. After recent U.S. bombing raids on Fallujah, al-Jazeera.net published graphic photos of wounded children that are unlikely to appear in a U.S. news outlet.
While American journalists can say, correctly, that definitive statistics on civilian casualties are hard to come by, the true number is certainly a multiple of U.S. casualties, according to Human Rights Watch. In a 2003 study, the New York-based watchdog group said "thousands" of Iraqi civilians had been killed or wounded in the three weeks between the invasion and the fall of Baghdad.
Human Rights Watch cited two other attempts to quantify the dead. The Los Angeles Times did a survey of 27 hospitals in the Baghdad area after the U.S. invasion and found that at least 1,700 civilians died. In June 2003, the Associated Press canvassed 60 of Iraq's 124 hospitals and calculated that at least 3,420 civilians died in the first months of the war. AP described the count as "fragmentary" and said, "the complete toll -- if it is ever tallied -- is sure to be significantly higher."
Since then, other figures have been floated. Commentators for the Jordan Times and the Daily Star in Beirut, Lebanon, have cited an estimate of 30,000 deaths. That is the figure disseminated by the Iraqi Human Rights Organization, an independent group in Baghdad.
A more conservative figure comes from Iraqbodycount.net, a British Web site that compiles media reports on Iraqi civilian deaths. Based on such reporting, the site says there have been a minimum of 12,778 civilian deaths in Iraq and a maximum of 14,820."
washingtonpost.com: The War's Toll on Iraqi Civilians

Posted by: Douglas at 9/21/2004 11:46:18 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > International > Middle East > Reconstruction: Iraqis Warn U.S. Plan to Divert Billions to Security Could Cut Off Crucial Services

Iraqis oppose new Bush plan to cut back on reconstruction to boost security
Excerpt: "Iraqi officials in charge of rebuilding their country's shattered and decrepit infrastructure are warning that the Bush administration's plan to divert $3.46 billion from water, sewage, electricity and other reconstruction projects to security could leave many people without the crucial services that generally form the backbone of a stable and functioning democracy.

Under the plan, which was proposed last week and would require approval by Congress, the money would pay for training and equipping tens of thousands of additional police officers, border patrol agents and Iraqi national guardsmen in an attempt to restore order to a land where lawlessness and violence have replaced Saddam Hussein's repression since the American-led invasion last year.

But the move comes as a grievous disappointment to Iraqi officials who had already seen the billions once promised them tied up for months by American regulations and planning committees, consumed by administrative overhead and set aside for the enormous costs of ensuring safety for the workers and engineers who will actually build the new sewers, water plants and electrical generators. Of the $18.4 billion that Congress approved last fall for Iraq's reconstruction, only about $1 billion has been spent so far.

"Nobody believes this will benefit Iraq," said Kamil N. Chadirji, deputy minister for administration and financial affairs in the Iraqi Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works, which has responsibility for water and sewage projects outside Baghdad.

"For a year we have been talking, with beautiful PowerPoint documents, but without a drop of water," Mr. Chadirji said, waving a colorful printout that he received from American officials.

The decision to shift the money, which had been earmarked for rebuilding everything from roads and bridges to telecommunications and the outdated equipment pumping oil, appears to signal an abandonment of the administration's original plan for putting Iraq back on its feet as a functioning nation.

In the original view, restoring Iraq's physical infrastructure assumed an importance equaled only by the American-led military action in creating a stable democratic country and winning the sympathies of ordinary citizens. Propounded again and again by L. Paul Bremer III, the top American civilian administrator here until an Iraqi government took over on June 28, that approach assumed that once the conduits for electricity, water, sewage, oil and information were in place, an efflorescence of industrial and national institutions would follow.

But with little actually being built and the deteriorating security situation making it doubtful that anything dramatic would happen if it were, a much more conventional set of nation-building priorities were put in place with the arrival last June of John D. Negroponte, the United States ambassador to Iraq. Those priorities are security, economic development and democracy building.
Somewhere implicit in the economic peg of this three-legged stool is the concept, much demoted, of physical reconstruction. And even then, said officials at the United States Embassy in Baghdad, the rebuilding is best done not by Americans but by Iraqis, who can not only hone their construction skills but also do the work more cheaply"
The New York Times > International > Middle East > Reconstruction: Iraqis Warn U.S. Plan to Divert Billions to Security Could Cut Off Crucial Services
Daily carnage report. a US hostage was beheaded and "At least 130 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq this year. The abductions have sharply surged in recent weeks, and an entire industry seems to have sprung up around them. American officials and security advisers here say criminal gangs usually carry out the initial abduction, then try to sell the hostages to other groups. Most of the hostages have been freed, though the number of killings has surpassed two dozen since July.
In one incident on Monday, a powerful group of anti-American Sunni clerics said two of its senior members had been killed in Baghdad in the past 24 hours, raising the possibility that hostilities between Shiite and Sunni Arabs were on the rise.

The American military said a soldier from the First Infantry Division was killed in an ambush near the northern town of Ash Sharqat while on patrol on Monday afternoon, bringing to 1,033 the number of American soldiers who have died since the start of the war.
The kidnappings and beheadings have had a widespread, chilling effect, prompting at least one country to withdraw troops from Iraq and some companies to shut down their operations here.
They also come at a time when insurgents have been pushing forward with a relentless campaign to topple the interim Iraqi government, setting off suicide car bombs and staging ambushes that have killed more than 300 Iraqis in the past 10 days. The growing bloodshed is raising serious doubts about whether legitimate elections can be held in January, though the Bush administration and Prime Minister Ayad Allawi insist that they will remain on schedule."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/21/international/middleeast/21iraq.html?pagewanted=print&position=

Posted by: Douglas at 9/21/2004 10:20:00 AM | Permalink

Salon.com | "Colossal failures of judgment"

Kerry hits a home run on Iraq. In a talk at New York University on Iraq, John Kerry delivered a scathing critique of President Bush's leadership in the war on terrorism and the Iraq war, charging that Bush's "colossal failures of judgment" and "reckless mistakes" have weakened U.S. national security and mired the country in a costly conflict with no end in sight. Kerry said that Bush’s mistakes in invading Iraq could lead to unending war and that no responsible commander in chief would have begun the war knowing Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction and was not an imminent threat to the US. Kerry argued that the Bush administration's "stubborn incompetence" has created a mess in the country and that "a fresh start" is needed under new leadership. He said Bush has failed to tell Americans the truth about a deteriorating security situation in Iraq.
here are some highlights:
"We are fighting a growing insurgency in an ever-widening war zone. In March, insurgents attacked our forces 700 times. In August, they attacked 2,700 times -- a 400 percent increase.
Fallujah, Ramadi, Samarra, even parts of Baghdad, are now "no go zones," breeding grounds for terrorists who are free to plot and launch attacks against our soldiers. The radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who's accused of complicity in the murder of Americans, holds more sway in the suburbs of Baghdad.
Violence against Iraqis, from bombings to kidnappings to intimidation, is on the rise.
Basic living conditions are also deteriorating.
Residents of Baghdad are suffering electricity blackouts lasting up to 14 hours a day.
Raw sewage fills the streets, rising above the hubcaps of our Humvees. Children wade through garbage on their way to school.
Unemployment is over 50 percent. Insurgents are able to find plenty of people willing to take $150 for tossing grenades at passing U.S. convoys.
Yes, there has been some progress, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our soldiers and civilians in Iraq. Schools, shops and hospitals have been opened. In parts of Iraq, normalcy actually prevails.
But most Iraqis have lost faith in our ability to deliver meaningful improvements to their lives. So they're sitting on the fence, instead of siding with us against the insurgents.
That is the truth. The truth that the commander in chief owes to our troops and the American people.
Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell. But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure.
The president has said that he "miscalculated" in Iraq and that it was a "catastrophic success." In fact, the president has made a series of catastrophic decisions, from the beginning, in Iraq. At every fork in the road, he has taken the wrong turn and led us in the wrong direction.
The first and most fundamental mistake was the president's failure to tell the truth to the American people.
He failed to tell the truth about the rationale for going to war. And he failed to tell the truth about the burden this war would impose on our soldiers and our citizens.
By one count, the president offered 23 different rationales for this war. If his purpose was to confuse and mislead the American people, he succeeded.
His two main rationales -- weapons of mass destruction and the al-Qaida/Sept. 11 connection -- have been proved false, by the president's own weapons inspectors and by the 9/11 commission. Just last week, Secretary of State Powell acknowledged the facts. Only Vice President Cheney still insists that the earth is flat.
The president also failed to level with the American people about what it would take to prevail in Iraq.
He didn't tell us that well over 100,000 troops would be needed, for years, not months. He didn't tell us that he wouldn't take the time to assemble a broad and strong coalition of allies. He didn't tell us that the cost would exceed $200 billion. He didn't tell us that even after paying such a heavy price, success was far from assured.
And America will pay an even heavier price for the president's lack of candor.
At home, the American people are less likely to trust this administration if it needs to summon their support to meet real and pressing threats to our security.
Abroad, other countries will be reluctant to follow America when we seek to rally them against a common menace -- as they are today. Our credibility in the world has plummeted.
The president now admits to "miscalculations" in Iraq.
That is one of the greatest understatements in recent American history. His were not the equivalent of accounting errors. They were colossal failures of judgment -- and judgment is what we look for in a president.
This is all the more stunning because we're not talking about 20/20 hindsight. Before the war, before he chose to go to war, bipartisan congressional hearings -- major outside studies, and even some in the administration itself -- predicted virtually every problem we now face in Iraq.
This president was in denial. He hitched his wagon to the ideologues who surround him, filtering out those who disagreed, including leaders of his own party and the uniformed military. The result is a long litany of misjudgments with terrible consequences.
The administration told us we'd be greeted as liberators. They were wrong.
They told us not to worry about looting or the sorry state of Iraq's infrastructure. They were wrong.
They told us we had enough troops to provide security and stability, defeat the insurgents, guard the borders and secure the arms depots. They were wrong.
They told us we could rely on exiles like Ahmad Chalabi to build political legitimacy. They were wrong.
They told us we would quickly restore an Iraqi civil service to run the country and a police force and army to secure it. They were wrong.
In Iraq, this administration has consistently overpromised and underperformed. This policy has been plagued by a lack of planning, an absence of candor, arrogance and outright incompetence. And the president has held no one accountable, including himself.
In fact, the only officials who lost their jobs over Iraq were the ones who told the truth.
Gen. Shinseki said it would take several hundred thousand troops to secure Iraq. He was retired. Economic advisor Larry Lindsey said that Iraq would cost as much as $200 billion. He was fired. After the successful entry into Baghdad, George Bush was offered help from the U.N. -- and he rejected it. He even prohibited any nation from participating in reconstruction efforts that wasn't part of the original coalition -- pushing reluctant countries even farther away. As we continue to fight this war almost alone, it is hard to estimate how costly that arrogant decision was. Can anyone seriously say this president has handled Iraq in a way that makes us stronger in the war on terrorism?
By any measure, the answer is no. Nuclear dangers have mounted across the globe. The international terrorist club has expanded. Radicalism in the Middle East is on the rise. We have divided our friends and united our enemies. And our standing in the world is at an all-time low.
Think about it for a minute. Consider where we were, and where we are. After the events of Sept. 11, we had an opportunity to bring our country and the world together in the struggle against the terrorists. On Sept. 12, headlines in newspapers abroad declared, "We are all Americans now." But through his policy in Iraq, the president squandered that moment and rather than isolating the terrorists, left America isolated from the world.
We now know that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and posed no imminent threat to our security. It had not, as the vice president claimed, "reconstituted nuclear weapons."
Five months ago, in Fulton, Mo., I said that the president was close to his last chance to get it right. Every day, this president makes it more difficult to deal with Iraq -- harder than it was five months ago, harder than it was a year ago. It is time to recognize what is -- and what is not -- happening in Iraq today. And we must act with urgency.
Just this weekend, a leading Republican, Chuck Hagel, said we're "in deep trouble in Iraq ... it doesn't add up ... to a pretty picture [and] ... we're going to have to look at a recalibration of our policy." Republican leaders like Dick Lugar and John McCain have offered similar assessments.
We need to turn the page and make a fresh start in Iraq.
First, the president has to get the promised international support so our men and women in uniform don't have to go it alone. It is late; the president must respond by moving this week to gain and regain international support.
Last spring, after too many months of resistance and delay, the president finally went back to the U.N. which passed Resolution 1546. It was the right thing to do -- but it was late.
That resolution calls on U.N. members to help in Iraq by providing troops -- trainers for Iraq's security forces -- a special brigade to protect the U.N. mission, more financial assistance, and real debt relief.
Three months later, not a single country has answered that call. And the president acts as if it doesn't matter.
And of the $13 billion previously pledged to Iraq by other countries, only $1.2 billion has been delivered.
The president should convene a summit meeting of the world's major powers and Iraq's neighbors, this week, in New York, where many leaders will attend the U.N. General Assembly. He should insist that they make good on that U.N. resolution. He should offer potential troop contributors specific, but critical roles, in training Iraqi security personnel and securing Iraq's borders. He should give other countries a stake in Iraq's future by encouraging them to help develop Iraq's oil resources and by letting them bid on contracts instead of locking them out of the reconstruction process.
This will be difficult. I and others have repeatedly recommended this from the very beginning. Delay has only made it harder. After insulting allies and shredding alliances, this president may not have the trust and confidence to bring others to our side in Iraq. But we cannot hope to succeed unless we rebuild and lead strong alliances so that other nations share the burden with us. That is the only way to succeed.
Second, the president must get serious about training Iraqi security forces.
Last February, Secretary Rumsfeld claimed that more than 210,000 Iraqis were in uniform. Two weeks ago, he admitted that claim was exaggerated by more than 50 percent. Iraq, he said, now has 95,000 trained security forces.
But guess what? Neither number bears any relationship to the truth. For example, just 5,000 Iraqi soldiers have been fully trained, by the administration's own minimal standards. And of the 35,000 police now in uniform, not one has completed a 24-week field-training program. Is it any wonder that Iraqi security forces can't stop the insurgency or provide basic law and order?
The president should urgently expand the security forces training program inside and outside Iraq. He should strengthen the vetting of recruits, double classroom training time, and require follow-on field training. He should recruit thousands of qualified trainers from our allies, especially those who have no troops in Iraq. He should press our NATO allies to open training centers in their countries. And he should stop misleading the American people with phony, inflated numbers.
Third, the president must carry out a reconstruction plan that finally brings tangible benefits to the Iraqi people.
Last week, the administration admitted that its plan was a failure when it asked Congress for permission to radically revise spending priorities in Iraq. It took 17 months for them to understand that security is a priority, 17 months to figure out that boosting oil production is critical, 17 months to conclude that an Iraqi with a job is less likely to shoot at our soldiers.
One year ago, the administration asked for and received $18 billion to help the Iraqis and relieve the conditions that contribute to the insurgency. Today, less than $1 billion of those funds have actually been spent. I said at the time that we had to rethink our policies and set standards of accountability. Now we're paying the price.
Now, the president should look at the whole reconstruction package, draw up a list of high visibility, quick impact projects, and cut through the red tape. He should use more Iraqi contractors and workers, instead of big corporations like Halliburton. He should stop paying companies under investigation for fraud or corruption. And he should fire the civilians in the Pentagon responsible for mismanaging the reconstruction effort.
Fourth, the president must take immediate, urgent, essential steps to guarantee the promised elections can be held next year.
Credible elections are key to producing an Iraqi government that enjoys the support of the Iraqi people and an assembly to write a Constitution that yields a viable power sharing arrangement.
Because Iraqis have no experience holding free and fair elections, the president agreed six months ago that the U.N. must play a central role. Yet today, just four months before Iraqis are supposed to go to the polls, the U.N. secretary general and administration officials themselves say the elections are in grave doubt. Because the security situation is so bad, and because not a single country has offered troops to protect the U.N. elections mission, the U.N. has less than 25 percent of the staff it needs in Iraq to get the job done.
The president should recruit troops from our friends and allies for a U.N. protection force. This won't be easy. But even countries that refused to put boots on the ground in Iraq should still help protect the U.N. We should also intensify the training of Iraqis to manage and guard the polling places that need to be opened. Otherwise, U.S forces would end up bearing those burdens alone.
If the president would move in this direction, if he would bring in more help from other countries to provide resources and forces, train the Iraqis to provide their own security, develop a reconstruction plan that brings real benefits to the Iraqi people, and take the steps necessary to hold credible elections next year, we could begin to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer and realistically aim to bring all our troops home within the next four years.
This is what has to be done. This is what I would do as president today. But we cannot afford to wait until January. President Bush owes it to the American people to tell the truth and put Iraq on the right track. Even more, he owes it to our troops and their families, whose sacrifice is a testament to the best of America.
The principles that should guide American policy in Iraq now and in the future are clear: We must make Iraq the world's responsibility, because the world has a stake in the outcome and others should share the burden. We must effectively train Iraqis, because they should be responsible for their own security. We must move forward with reconstruction, because that's essential to stop the spread of terror. And we must help Iraqis achieve a viable government, because it's up to them to run their own country. That's the right way to get the job done and bring our troops home.
On May 1 of last year, President Bush stood in front of a now infamous banner that read "Mission Accomplished." He declared to the American people: "In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." In fact, the worst part of the war was just beginning, with the greatest number of American casualties still to come. The president misled, miscalculated, and mismanaged every aspect of this undertaking and he has made the achievement of our objective -- a stable Iraq, secure within its borders, with a representative government, harder to achieve.
In Iraq, this administration's record is filled with bad predictions, inaccurate cost estimates, deceptive statements and errors of judgment of historic proportions.
At every critical juncture in Iraq, and in the war on terrorism, the president has made the wrong choice. I have a plan to make America stronger.
The president often says that in a post-9/11 world, we can't hesitate to act. I agree. But we should not act just for the sake of acting. I believe we have to act wisely and responsibly.
George Bush has no strategy for Iraq. I do.
George Bush has not told the truth to the American people about why we went to war and how the war is going. I have and I will continue to do so.
I believe the invasion of Iraq has made us less secure and weaker in the war against terrorism. I have a plan to fight a smarter, more effective war on terror -- and make us safer.
Today, because of George Bush's policy in Iraq, the world is a more dangerous place for America and Americans.
If you share my conviction that we cannot go on as we are, that we can make America stronger and safer than it is, then Nov. 2 is your chance to speak and to be heard. It is not a question of staying the course, but of changing the course.
I'm convinced that with the right leadership, we can create a fresh start and move more effectively to accomplish our goals. Our troops have served with extraordinary courage and commitment. For their sake, and America's sake, we must get this right. We must do everything in our power to complete the mission and make America stronger at home and respected again in the world."
Salon.com | "Colossal failures of judgment"
Paul Krugman comments: "The Bush administration fostered the Iraq insurgency by botching the essential tasks of enlisting allies, rebuilding infrastructure, training and equipping local security forces, and preparing for elections. It's understandable, then, that John Kerry - whose speech yesterday was deadly accurate in its description of Mr. Bush's mistakes - proposes going back and doing the job right."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/21/opinion/21krugman.html?hp

Posted by: Douglas at 9/21/2004 09:01:40 AM | Permalink

A strident minority: anti-Bush US troops in Iraq | csmonitor.com

antiBush troops in Iraq dig Fahrenheit 9/11
A strident minority: anti-Bush US troops in Iraq | csmonitor.com

Posted by: Douglas at 9/20/2004 10:35:47 PM | Permalink

Guardian | Al-Qaida would back Bush, says UK envoy

George W. Bush as #1 Al Qaeda recruiter
Guardian | Al-Qaida would back Bush, says UK envoy

Posted by: Douglas at 9/20/2004 09:47:19 PM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: Iraqi Militants Behead American

more of Bush's Iraq Horror Show
washingtonpost.com: Iraqi Militants Behead American

Posted by: Douglas at 9/20/2004 02:21:23 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > CBS Admits It Was Misled by Ex-Officer on Bush Documents

Dan Rather and CBS seem to have been conned on the Killian memos; who is behind this? will we ever know? what effect on the election? this has obviously been a big Red Herring when its obvious Bush was AWOL for more than a year and never completed his Guard duty the story got twisted into a fake memo story
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > CBS Admits It Was Misled by Ex-Officer on Bush Documents

Posted by: Douglas at 9/20/2004 11:34:58 AM | Permalink

Kerry Offers Searing Critique of Iraq War (washingtonpost.com)

Kerry hammers Bush on Iraq in his hardest hitting and best speech yet on the topic
Kerry Offers Searing Critique of Iraq War (washingtonpost.com)
This week, its all Iraq, all the time
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/politics/administration/whbriefing/

Posted by: Douglas at 9/20/2004 11:30:59 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Military Service: Portrait of George Bush in '72: Unanchored in Turbulent Time

the NYT portrait of Bush's missing year raises a lot of questions butg also sugarcoats his grosser behavior of the time; one interesting point is that he learned dirty tricks and sliming one's opponent in the Alabama election:
:Although both candidates were hawks in a fiercely pro-military state, Mr. Blount tried to align his opponent with George McGovern, the Democratic Party's antiwar presidential candidate. Then, a few days before the election, the Blount campaign broadcast a radio commercial in which Mr. Sparkman, a staunch segregationist, was heard saying "busing is all right."
According to an account in The Birmingham News, the Blount campaign had produced the commercial by deleting part of Mr. Sparkman's lengthy answer to a question about busing during a radio interview, and switching a question and answer on the subject. The Blount campaign maintained at the time that the interview had simply been compressed for time's sake, but the Sparkman campaign said the tape was doctored to inject racial innuendo. Blount campaign workers say these tough tactics had the mark of Mr. Allison.
Mr. Bush's own retelling of the Blount campaign leaves out any negative aspects. He described Mr. Allison, who died in 1978, as "a wonderful friend" and "a mentor in a way." He wrote that "I witnessed firsthand the effects of populist campaigning." Gov. George Wallace, who was shot that spring, taped a radio commercial for Mr. Sparkman casting Mr. Blount as an elitist multimillionaire who lived in a mansion with 26 bathrooms.
Winton Blount lost in a landslide. "A good man went down to defeat," Mr. Bush wrote.
A Return to Houston
[here's a Big Question: Upon returning to Houston, why did Bush uncharacteristically work in a inner-city youth program? many reports claim that he was arrested for alcohol or drug use and his father cut a deal with a judge to work in an inner city youth program. Back to NYT:
"After the election, Mr. Bush returned to Houston, moving out of his small rented bungalow in Montgomery. He left the place a mess, with a broken light fixture and piles of debris, according to Mary Smith, whose husband was the bungalow's caretaker. Ms. Smith said her husband, who has since died, sent Mr. Bush a bill for professional cleaning but never heard back.
By January 1973, Mr. Bush had a new job, with an inner-city youth program organized by John L. White, a former professional football player who knew his father. And he continued his erratic relationship with the National Guard, where he had 18 months left of his six-year commitment.
A review of records raises questions about whether he was properly credited for his service. Documents released by the White House show that he was paid for drills in January, April and several days in early May 1973. These drills were in Alabama, the White House said, and his old friend Emily Marks, now Emily Marks Curtis, said she remembered Mr. Bush returning to Montgomery for Guard duty.

But Mr. Bush had been authorized to drill in Alabama only from September through November 1972.

By the summer of 1973, Mr. Bush had decided to go to Harvard Business School. According to documents released by the White House, he wanted an early discharge from the Guard but did not have enough service points for 1972 and 1973, since he had missed months of training. Guardsmen were required to earn 48 points each fiscal year, or four points for each weekend drill every month.

Although missed drills can be made up, regulations at the time said it had to be done within 30 days and in the same fiscal year. As the time for his early discharge neared, Mr. Bush was lacking enough points; according to records for July 1973, he attended drills on 18 days that month.

When questions arose about Mr. Bush's Guard service, the White House asked a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, Albert C. Lloyd Jr., to review his record. In a memorandum released by the White House in February, Mr. Lloyd wrote that from May 1973 through May 1974, Mr. Bush accumulated 35 training points and 15 points for being a Guard member "for a total of 56 points.'' It is not clear how Mr. Lloyd came up with 56, instead of 50. Another military document released by the White House indicates that Mr. Bush had earned only 38 points from May 1973 until his discharge that October.

A retired Army colonel, Gerald A. Lechliter, who has prepared an extensive analysis of Mr. Bush's National Guard record, described Mr. Lloyd's memorandum as "seemingly an attempt to whitewash Bush's record." Mr. Lloyd declined comment last week.

Mr. Lechliter, who describes himself as a political independent, also said that Mr. Bush was not entitled to 20 credits he received from Nov. 13, 1972, until July 19, 1973, because the service was being made up improperly.

Mr. Lechliter also said that Mr. Bush should not have been paid for these sessions. "That would appear to be a fraud," he said in an interview last week.

However the points added up, on Oct. 1, 1973, Mr. Bush was awarded an honorable discharge. By that time he was already at Harvard."
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Military Service: Portrait of George Bush in '72: Unanchored in Turbulent Time

Posted by: Douglas at 9/20/2004 11:20:58 AM | Permalink

Top News Article | Reuters.com

Leading Republicans are increasing critical of Bush's polyanna "Freedom is on the March" Iraq policy
Top News Article | Reuters.com
Excerpt: " Leading members of President Bush's Republican Party on Sunday criticized mistakes and 'incompetence' in his Iraq policy and called for an urgent ground offensive to retake insurgent sanctuaries.
In appearances on news talk shows, Republican senators also urged Bush to be more open with the American public after the disclosure of a classified CIA report that gave a gloomy outlook for Iraq and raised the possibility of civil war.
'The fact is, we're in deep trouble in Iraq ... and I think we're going to have to look at some recalibration of policy,' Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said on CBS's 'Face the Nation.'
'We made serious mistakes,' said Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who has campaigned at Bush's side this year after patching up a bitter rivalry.
McCain, speaking on 'Fox News Sunday,' cited as mistakes the toleration of looting after the successful U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and failures to secure Iraq's borders or prevent insurgents from establishing strongholds within the country. "

Posted by: Douglas at 9/20/2004 09:06:40 AM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: 2 Soldiers Among 21 Killed in Iraq Blasts

here's a good summary of the weekend mayhem in Iraq:
Insurgents killed 19 Iraqis and two U.S. soldiers Saturday in bombings across Baghdad and in northern Iraq, and kidnappers threatened to kill two Americans and a Briton within 48 hours if their demand was not met.

The deadliest attack occurred in the northern city of Kirkuk, where witnesses said a young man driving a gray Opel sedan sped down a dirt road leading to the back of an Iraqi National Guard building then blew up the vehicle near a crowd of recruits, killing 19 people and wounding 63.

Two U.S. soldiers were killed and 11 wounded in two car bombings on the road leading to the Baghdad International Airport.

In the first attack Saturday afternoon, a suicide bomber drove up beside a convoy near a checkpoint outside the airport and detonated the vehicle, wounding three soldiers, according to Master Sgt. David Larsen of the 1st Cavalry Division.

Another convoy on its way to assist the first was also hit by a car bomb, Larsen said. That attack killed two soldiers and destroyed two Humvees and a Bradley Fighting Vehicle in which some of the troops were riding.

A security alert had been issued before the attacks for travel on the airport road and U.S. Embassy personnel were temporarily prohibited from using it."
washingtonpost.com: 2 Soldiers Among 21 Killed in Iraq Blasts

Posted by: Douglas at 9/19/2004 12:21:03 PM | Permalink

Why not to vote for Bush

Bush has been pitching to “security moms” on his stump speech, attending his first “Focus on Women’s Issues” Forum in a campaign rally in the Charlotte Merchandise Mart, filled with hundreds of “W Stands for Women” signs. Enthusing that “our society has changed dramatically,” Bush riffed that “in the old days, women used to stay at home. Now, they’re staying at home and working—they’re inside the house and outside the house. That’s a fundamental shift in our labor market. Not having any specific programs to benefit women, Bush blathered about more “family friendly labor” law that would give employees more choices on how to use flex time and compensatory time, which critics said would allow employers to keep workers after work and not pay overtime.
The Bush administration had been one of the most anti-women administrations in history so it was highly hypocritical to claim that W stood for women. The Bush administration began by closing down women’s rape crisis centers that critics claimed were recruiting grounds for feminism. The Bush administration mandated that family planning agencies neither give out birth control information advice on abortion and sided with the most rabid antiabortion forces in the party. The Bush administration did not adequately fund the No Child Left Behind Act, cut back on after school programs and daycare, and closed the White House Office on Women’s Issues, thus having disastrously bad policies on issues that meant the most to women.
Instead, the Bush spinner concocted a concept of “security moms,” of women that would vote for Bush because of their concern over national security and conviction that he could best protect them, one of the most ludicrous ideas imaginable but one that seemed to be selling as recent polls show Bush’s figures going up with women and he campaigned in selected areas with women allowed to ask questions and with Laura Bush at his side, talking about how much better life is for women in Afghanistan and Iraq, thanks to Bush (Laura should look at rising rape statistic there, murder rates, and the miserable situation for men and women before mouthing platitudes for her mendacious husband).
Occasionally, the voice of truth and outrage breaks into stage-managed Republican events that require tickets and scrutinize those attending. On September 16, Sue Niederer, the mother of Army Lt. Seth Dvorin who was killed February in Iraq stood up and asked the First Stepford Wife Laura Bush why her daughters and children of other politicians weren’t serving in Iraq. Wearing a shirt with a photo of her son and read “President Bush, You Killed My Son, Ms. Niederer was soon attacked by security guards, who handcuffed and dragged her away, charging her with trespassing as the Nazi-like crowd pushed and shoved and chanted “Four More Years.” The country was deeply divided and those who tried to get through to Republican crowds were finding it increasingly dangerous.
Bush’s record on issues concerning families such as jobs, health, and income was a poor one. In a summary by former Republican Arianna Huffington put together by Kevin Shay there are a strong list of reasons why Bush should not be re-elected:

-- 1.2 million more Americans have lost their jobs without finding new ones, making him the only modern-day president to preside over net job losses.

-- The number of Americans living below the poverty line has increased by 4.3 million to 35.9 million, with 12.9 million of them children.

-- The number of Americans with no health insurance has increased by 5.8 million to about 45 million.

-- Median household income has fallen more than $1,500 in inflation-adjusted dollars in the last three years, and the wages of most workers are now falling behind inflation.

-- The average tuition for college has risen by 34 percent.

-- One-third of Bush's $1.7 trillion in tax cuts benefits only the top 1 percent of wealthiest Americans. Almost half will go to the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.

-- Bush also failed to fulfill his pledge to get bin Laden "dead or alive," traded the moral high ground for pre-emptive war and the horrors of Abu Ghraib, pulled out of the Kyoto agreement on global warming, gutted the Clean Air Act, initiated the rollback of more than 200 environmental regulations, backed a constitutional amendment to outlaw gay marriages, which would be the first time in history a federal amendment would be used to deny an American's rights and did not follow through on his promise to extend the assault weapons ban.

Add to that piling up record budget deficits."
The Smirking Chimp

Posted by: Douglas at 9/19/2004 12:06:13 PM | Permalink

GOP Activist Made Allegations on CBS Memos

The CBS memo story continues to receive a lot of play and a Los Angeles Times story, “In the Rush for a Scoop, CBS Found Trouble Fast” (September 17, 2004), details how a 60 Minutes team spent months on the story, interviewed former Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes about how Bush got in the Guard, and then discovered memos that indicated he had not performed his duties. The memos indicated that pressure was on Guard officials to “sugarcoat” Bush’s record, and that one of his officers, Jerry Killian, had very negative evaluations of Bush. The story and an accompanying one, “GOP Activist Made Allegations on CBS Memos,” indicated how the morning of the September 8 broadcast, CBS had sent the memos to the White House, a reporter John Roberts interviewed a Bush campaign spokeman Dan Bartlett, and then when the Bush White House did not attack to authenticity of the memos they decided to run with them.
But only hour after the broadcast, an extremely sophisticated and well-written critique circulated on a rightwing blog by a blogger called Buckwheat who made the now famous accusations concerning the authenticity of the documents. Within hours the rightwing blogosphere circulated them, they were linked by Matt Drudge, and already the next day the discussion broke out in the mainstream media. The Los Angeles Times article tracked down the now infamous blogger Buckwheat who had bragged “Freepers [i.e. contributors to the rightwing extremist Free Republic website) collectively possess more analytical horsepower than the entire news division at CBS.” It appears that the Bush campaign may have provided some of the analytical power as well as their copies of the documents as it turned out that “Buckwheat” is Harry W. MacDougald, an Atlanta attorney and conservative Republican activist, who among other causes, had helped draft the petition urging the Arkansas Supreme Court to disbar President Clinton during the Monica scandal.
GOP Activist Made Allegations on CBS Memos

Posted by: Douglas at 9/19/2004 11:35:19 AM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: Halliburton Is a Handy Target for Democrats

Kerry has retaliated to Cheney's fierce attacks on him by taking on Cheney and Halliburton on September 17, charging that the Bush administration ignored overcharging in defense contracts awarded to Halliburton, the company once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, calling it evidence of the president's mismanagement of the war in Iraq. Kerry stated: “Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton, has profited from the mess in Iraq at the expense of American troops and taxpayers. While Halliburton has been engaging in massive overcharging and wasteful practices under this no-bid contract, Dick Cheney has continued to receive compensation from his former company.”
The Cheney-Halliburton connections were indeed tight and controversial. Cheney had been CEO of the energy supply and construction company in the mid-1990s and after a duck-hunting trip merged with military supplier and construction megacorporation Kellog, Brown and Root (KBR), a Texas-based company with long-time connections to the Bush family. Unfortunately for Cheney and Halliburton, KBR was facing mega-asbestos suits that threatened to bankrupt the company. Cheney desperately sought government contracts and engaged in creative accounting that would make Ken Lay proud, setting up dummy subsidiaries, faking profits on selling one asset in the company to another, using Arthur Anderson company to cook the books, setting up offshore bank accounts, bribing foreign countries to get contracts, selling illegally to Iraq and Iran when they were on an embargo list, and on and on, worse than Enron.
It was astonishing that Cheney got away with his mismanagement, but when George W. Bush asked him to vet a list of potential Vice Presidents Cheney got his opportunity. Halliburton stock was plunging, there was a stockholders suit, and Cheney faced potential jail time. Knowing that he would be less likely to be perp-walked and put in the slammer from the Vice President’s office (although it had happened to Spiro Agnew), Cheney told Bush Junior that he be the Man and Bush made Big Dick his Veep and in the view of many his co-President. As co-President Cheney fought day and night, tooth and nail, to get the US to invade and occupy Iraq and to get no bid contracts for Halliburton that would improve the floundering colossus. And lo and behold! Halliburton got a no-bid contract for a cool $7 billion, its stock price stabilized and Cheney had avoided disaster.
There was always the danger, however, that the Democrats would make an issue of it and that the media would delve into this and it appears that this is now the story-line of the weekend. Most major newspapers had a front page story on September 18 on Kerry’s attack on the Cheney-Halliburton connection and Washington Post readers were treated to a story by Robert O’Harrow Jr, “Halliburton is a handy target for Democrats. Ties to Secret Deals, Cheney Keep Issue Alive.”
Here's an excerpt:
"Political analysts said that many voters may have no idea what services Halliburton provides to the government but that they know Cheney once ran the company.
John J. Pitney Jr., a government professor at Claremont McKenna College who once served as a fellow in Cheney's congressional office, said Halliburton inflames administration critics.
"For people who disapprove of the administration, Halliburton provides a handle," he said. "It summons up images of corporate connections and Big Oil."
Kerry campaign officials said swing voters in the Southwest indicated in recent focus groups that questions about Halliburton and Cheney had become a "top of the mind" and "flashpoint" issue.
Yesterday, the Kerry campaign introduced a television ad suggesting a connection between deferred pay Cheney received from Halliburton and the contracts awarded in Iraq.
"As president, I will stop companies like Halliburton from profiting at the expense of our troops and taxpayers," Kerry said in a speech in Albuquerque. "I will stop companies from receiving no-bid contracts from the government when the president or vice president is still receiving compensation from that company."
There's no question that Halliburton has done well as a wartime contractor, providing food, fuel, housing and other troop support. Its logistical contract for work in Iraq, Kuwait and elsewhere, won in a competitive bid, is the largest of its kind, worth more than $5.6 billion through May, according to the Government Accountability Office. That contract was a major step in making Halliburton the largest contractor in Iraq.
The company also was paid more than $2.5 billion under the sole source contract it secured to reconstruct Iraqi oil fields -- before the government decided to hold a competitive bid. Halliburton's KBR won part of the second oil fields contract through a competitive bidding process, a share worth up to $1.2 billion more.
As a measure of Halliburton's growing relationship with the Pentagon, income from government projects rose last year from $320 million in the second quarter to more than $2 billion in the fourth quarter. In all, the company reported $4.2 billion in revenue from the U.S. government last year, or more than a quarter of the company's total. In 2002, Halliburton relied on the government for less than 10 percent of its sales.
As a result, Halliburton moved from No. 19 on the Army's list of its top 50 contractors in fiscal 2002 to No. 1 in 2003.
During its ascent as a contractor, the company became entangled in a variety of investigations. Government investigators and Defense Department auditors have accused KBR and its subcontractors of overcharging for fuel, food and other services in Iraq under its large contract for logistics support, called LogCAP. In response to audits that said Halliburton had not properly justified many bills, Army officials are weighing whether to withhold some payments on future claims.
The Justice Department, meanwhile, is investigating allegations of profiteering in the Balkans, from the time when Cheney was chief executive, as well as the company's business activities in Nigeria and Iran. And a Securities and Exchange Commission probe of a change in Halliburton's accounting practices under Cheney, which the SEC said enabled the company to inflate profit reports, ended in early August. The company paid a $7.5 million settlement, while one former executive paid a fine and another was sued."

In a television ad, which will air next week in Oregon and other battleground states, there are charges that Halliburton wasted taxpayer money, in contracts awarded without competitive bidding, that could have been better used at home. Several investigations have found evidence of overcharging or raised questions about the company's performance. “Dick Cheney got $2 million. What did we get?'' the ad's narrator says.” The new line of attack dovetails with Kerry's escalating criticism of Bush's management of security and reconstruction in Iraq, charging that it “is clear that almost every aspect of this war, from how we went to how it was conducted, has been mismanaged and mishandled,'' Kerry said.
washingtonpost.com: Halliburton Is a Handy Target for Democrats

Posted by: Douglas at 9/18/2004 09:44:03 AM | Permalink

Government Insider Says Bush Authorized 911 Attacks

three possibilities concerning Bush and 9/11: 1) he and his administration are utter incompetents and failed to see all the evidence that a major terrorist attacks was coming; 2) they knew it was coming and let it happen to manipulate the outcome; and 3) they were involved in actually carrying it out; Bob Dole's former chief of staff is evidently claiming the latter; this is the first I've heard of this guy and his lawsuit so it will need to be checked out
Government Insider Says Bush Authorized 911 Attacks

Posted by: Douglas at 9/17/2004 03:12:16 PM | Permalink

t r u t h o u t - Judge Orders Pentagon to Find Bush Service Records

FINALLY, a judge orders Pentagon to release all Bush documents, they've been dribbling out for months now
t r u t h o u t - Judge Orders Pentagon to Find Bush Service Records

Posted by: Douglas at 9/17/2004 03:02:34 PM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: At Least 5 Killed by Suicide Bomber in Baghdad

here's an account of daily carnage in Iraq with my commentary:
All week as Iraq was deteriorating, Bush was presenting incredibly Pollyanna upbeat assessments, glowing about how “wonderful” it is that “elections are going to be held in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Leaning over at his audience Bush roared: “Freedom is on the march!” Unfortunately for Bush, the freedom on the march is the Iraqi insurgence’s march for freedom from US occupation and domination. This freedom involves around 80 daily attacks on US troops, killing Iraqi police and those who support the US-puppet regime, kidnapping and assassinating foreigners, disrupting oil supplies, and freeing Iraq from all constraints so it can descend into pure anarchy and chaos. “Freedom is untidy,” Donald Rumsfeld has famously said as looting broke out after the Saddam Hussein regime collapsed. Freedom in Iraq is indeed very untidy and very ugly, although for George W. Bush the word serves as a catch-all cover for all his failed policies. Freedom is on the march, indeed.
Freedom marched along on September 16 as Iraqi insurgents kidnapped two American and one British construction workers in broad daylight in the upscale al –Mansour neighbhood, bringing to over 100 the number of kidnapped foreigners. Freedom marched forward the next day as a suicide car bombing blew up in central Baghdad in front of a row of parked police cars wounding and killing scores Hours later explosions were heard throughout Baghdad and US troops were caught in gunbattles with militants on a main thoroughfare, Haifa Street, where US bombing had killed 16 earlier in the week. Since video showed kids prancing around a shot-up US fighting vehicle, depicted a Palestinian reporter filming the incident, and then portrayed the US bombs hitting the crowd and the journalist, with blood splattering on his camera in a sequence of video played and replayed throughout the world, US authorities had taken pains to deny that they had shot indiscriminately into a crowd. Their first story was that they were firing to disperse the crowd to retake their fighting vehicle, then that they had destroyed it to prevent looters taking its equipment, and then, after outrage over that killed at least 47 people and wounded 114.in the incident, that they were fired on from the vehicle and were defending themselves. But the video footage contained no gunshots and observers insisted that the US had fired on the crowd full of civilians because they were rejoicing at the US vehicle’s destruction.
In one of the deadliest weeks in Iraq in recent months, more than 250 Iraqis had been killed. A project in Chicago was documenting the names of dead Iraqi civilians and in a ceremony read the 3000 names they were able to document out of more than 15,000 killed. For the seventh day in a row, US warplanes hammered Fallujah, killing at least 60 insurgents, according to the US military. A spokesman for the Health Ministry, Saad Amili, said 44 people were killed and 27 wounded, including 17 children, two women and two elderly men. The AP reported: “Early Friday, police found the corpse of a man they believed to be a Westerner about 40 miles north of Baghdad. The body was pulled from the Tigris River near the central Iraqi village of Yethrib, said Capt. Hakim al-Azawi, the head of security at Tikrit's Teaching Hospital.”
The US military announced that on Thursday, three US Marines were killed by hostile fire in separate incidents in the western Anbar province while conducting security operations. There was another bombing of an oil facility north of Baghdad and as chaos intensified in Iraq oil prices started to go up. The entire Middle East was watching daily televised events of the carnage in Iraq and there were growing fears that this footage would recruit Jihadists to become terrorists and seek revenge for the carnage in Iraq. Bush’s Pandora’s Box had opened
washingtonpost.com: At Least 5 Killed by Suicide Bomber in Baghdad

Posted by: Douglas at 9/17/2004 11:29:21 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > In Address to Guard, Kerry Says Bush Isn't Telling Truth on Iraq

Yesterday Kerry addressed the National Guard Association in Las Vegas, where Bush spoke two days ago and went on the attack accusing Bush of "living in a fantasy world of spin" about Iraq and hiding the truth from the American people and the country's men and women in uniform. "We owe you the truth," Mr. Kerry said. "True leadership is about looking people in the eye and telling the truth — even when it's hard to hear." Keeping up his assault on Bush’s mendacity on Iraq Kerry insisted: "President Bush came before you and you received him well, as you should," Mr. Kerry said. "But I believe he failed the fundamental test of leadership. He failed to tell you the truth. You deserve better. The commander in chief must level with the troops and the nation. And as president, I will always be straight with you — on the good days, and the bad days."
While Bush received enthusiastic applause for his upbeat assessment of Iraq, Kerry received a mixed reception with the convention of more than 4,000 Guard officers responding far more coolly than it had to Bush. In Elizabeth Bumiller’s New York Times report “In Address to Guard, Kerry Says Bush Isn’t Telling the Truth (September 17, 2004):

"At the point that Mr. Kerry said Mr. Bush had not told the convention the truth, a man shouted out "No!" As Mr. Kerry finished speaking, a few officers sat in their chairs, arms crossed. Col. Joanne F. Sheridan, of the Louisiana National Guard, got up and walked out before he was done.
"Mine was a silent protest to what he was saying," Colonel Sheridan said later. "What he was saying about George Bush not telling the truth on Iraq - I just don't believe that. George Bush did tell us the truth, so I guess I couldn't believe what Kerry was saying. Here, he came before a military audience, but he said what he said for the media, for the television cameras - not for us, that's for sure."

And so a National Guardsperson doesn’t believe that Bush could lie after he has systematically lied about Iraq and WMD, about who would benefit from his tax cuts, over the costs of his Medicare program, concerning the effects of his environmental program, and his own life that is covered with deception and lies, some of which were being painfully brought to life. Bush’s basic campaign strategy was to lie about Kerry’s record and the effects of his own policies since he had no positive achievements to run on. Continuing his Campaign of Lies about Kerry, Bush continued to talk about health care on September 17, claiming “My opponent wants government to dictate. I want you to decide when it comes to health care.” This is, a lie, as all week Kerry had been making clear that he was not supporting a government run health program but wanted to help business provide better health care for workers by giving them tax credits, allowing competitive bidding on health contracts, importing cheaper drugs from Canada and other measures that had nothing to do with having government “dictate” health choice. Since Bush had no attractive programs of his own, all he could do is lie about Kerry.
All week as Iraq was deteriorating, Bush was presenting incredibly Pollyanna upbeat assessments, glowing about how “wonderful” it is that “elections are going to be held in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Leaning over at his audience Bush roared: “Freedom is on the march!” Unfortunately for Bush, the freedom on the march is the Iraqi insurgence’s march for freedom from US occupation and domination. This freedom involves around 80 daily attacks on US troops, killing Iraqi police and those who support the US-puppet regime, kidnapping and assassinating foreigners, disrupting oil supplies, and freeing Iraq from all constraints so it can descend into pure anarchy and chaos. “Freedom is untidy,” Donald Rumsfeld has famously said as looting broke out after the Saddam Hussein regime collapsed. Freedom in Iraq is indeed very untidy and very ugly, although for George W. Bush the word serves as a catch-all cover for all his failed policies. Freedom is on the march, indeed.
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > In Address to Guard, Kerry Says Bush Isn't Telling Truth on Iraq

Posted by: Douglas at 9/17/2004 09:08:16 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > AP > National > Kerry Criticizes Bush and Cheney on Halliburton's Iraq Contracts

finally Kerry and the Dems are going after Cheney-Halliburton, let it all hang out!
The New York Times > AP > National > Kerry Criticizes Bush and Cheney on Halliburton's Iraq Contracts

Posted by: Douglas at 9/17/2004 08:53:36 AM | Permalink

Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Far graver than Vietnam

Sidney BLumenthal argues that the situation in Iraq is far graver than Vietnam. Excerpt: Almost every day, in campaign speeches, Bush speaks with bravado about how he is "winning" in Iraq. "Our strategy is succeeding," he boasted to the National Guard convention on Tuesday.
But, according to the US military's leading strategists and prominent retired generals, Bush's war is already lost. Retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, told me: "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse, he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost." He adds: "Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends."
Retired general Joseph Hoare, the former marine commandant and head of US Central Command, told me: "The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong."
Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College, said: "I see no ray of light on the horizon at all. The worst case has become true. There's no analogy whatsoever between the situation in Iraq and the advantages we had after the second world war in Germany and Japan."
Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Far graver than Vietnam

Posted by: Douglas at 9/16/2004 12:40:42 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Kerry Accuses Bush of Hiding the Truth About Iraq

Kerry slams Bush on Iraq
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Kerry Accuses Bush of Hiding the Truth About Iraq

Posted by: Douglas at 9/16/2004 12:00:15 PM | Permalink

Two Americans, One Briton Abducted in Iraq (washingtonpost.com)

kidnapping foreigners is on the rise in Iraq
Two Americans, One Briton Abducted in Iraq (washingtonpost.com)
Afghan president eludes assassination
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26084-2004Sep16?language=printer

Posted by: Douglas at 9/16/2004 11:58:47 AM | Permalink

Guardian | Iraq war was illegal and breached UN charter, says Annan

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan stated in a BBC interview that the Iraq war was illegal, a story that got big play yesterday in Britain but not the US. Excerpt: Mr Annan said that the invasion was not sanctioned by the UN security council or in accordance with the UN's founding charter. In an interview with the BBC World Service broadcast last night, he was asked outright if the war was illegal. He replied: "Yes, if you wish."

He then added unequivocally: "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view and from the charter point of view it was illegal."

Mr Annan has until now kept a tactful silence and his intervention at this point undermines the argument pushed by Tony Blair that the war was legitimised by security council resolutions.

Mr Annan also questioned whether it will be feasible on security grounds to go ahead with the first planned election in Iraq scheduled for January. "You cannot have credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now," he said.
His remarks come amid a marked deterioration of the situation on the ground, an upsurge of violence that has claimed 200 lives in four days and raised questions over the ability of the interim Iraqi government and the US-led coalition to maintain control over the country."
Guardian | Iraq war was illegal and breached UN charter, says Annan

Posted by: Douglas at 9/16/2004 11:56:01 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > International > Middle East > Insurgency: 3 Decapitated Bodies Found; 2 Men Are Killed in Bombing

another nasty day in Iraq; its worth noting that there are about 80 attacks per day on US forces or the Iraq puppet government and only a few of these episodes are even mentioned in media reports
The New York Times > International > Middle East > Insurgency: 3 Decapitated Bodies Found; 2 Men Are Killed in Bombing

Posted by: Douglas at 9/15/2004 10:03:59 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > The Reconstruction: U.S. Intelligence Shows Pessimism on Iraq's Future

US intelligence reveals that Iraq is a total disaster; the interesting thing here is that antiBush factions are leaking these reports, as they have been now for months; there is big battle going on in the establishment over Bush and significant factions that want to dump him
The New York Times > Washington > The Reconstruction: U.S. Intelligence Shows Pessimism on Iraq's Future

Posted by: Douglas at 9/15/2004 10:02:41 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > The Bush Record: New Priorities in Environment

Felcity Barringer in “New Priorities in environment” documents the radical shifts in federal environmental policy of the Bush administration. Barringer indicates that the Bush administration had “accelerated resource development on public lands” and pushed to eliminate regulatory hurdles for military and industrial projects.” The article cites an e-mail for Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont who had shifted from Republican to independent during the first months of the Bush administration when it took a hardright turn. Jeffords wrote that: “I expect the Bush administration to continue their assault on regulations designed to protect public health and the environment. I expect the Bush administration to continue underfunding compliance and enforcement activities.” Mr. Jeffords concluded, "I expect the Bush administration will go down in history as the greatest disaster for public health and the environment in the history of the United States."
Barringer recounts how during the first months of the Bush administration, federal regulations governing carbon dioxide, arsenaic, and other poisons were cut back; how the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on the environment was abandoned; how the Bush administration pushing to allow oil drilling the the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, while scrapping the phase-out of snowmobiles in Yellowstone; how the EPA abandoned environmental regulatory projects; and how the “Clear Skies Act” provided a phony retreat from the Clean Air Act (see above). The Bush administration had indeed been a disaster for the environment and it was surprising that the Kerry campaign had not pushed the issue harder.
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > The Bush Record: New Priorities in Environment

Posted by: Douglas at 9/15/2004 03:28:39 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Memos on Bush Are Fake but Accurate, Typist Says

an explosive article in the New York Times today “Memos on Bush Are Fake but Accurate, Typist Says,” interviewed the 86 year-old Texan woman, Marian Carr Knox, who was the typist for the purported memos author, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. Knox said that the memos accurately reflect the thoughts of Killian, but that “I doubt it's not anything that I wrote because there are terms in there that are not used by Guards, the format wasn't the way we did it. It looks like someone may have read the originals and put that together." Knox said that Killian often discussed Bush's conduct and that “it was a problem Killian was concerned about." "I think he was writing the memos so there would be some record that he was aware of what was going on and what he had done." But, she said, words like "billets," which appear in the memorandums, were not standard Guard terms.
For the rightwing, the alleged faked memos are evidence that Dan Rather and the liberal media were attempting to destroy the president and attacks on CBS have intensified ferociously over the last couple of days with Disney companies ABC and the Wash Post entering the fray against their competitor. Lost in the minituae of the analysis of whether the documents were typewriter or computer generated (though this is an interesting story) is the issue of whether their content is accurate and in fact a ton of material has come out in the last weeks which indicate Bush has been AWOL and failed to complete his Guard service; the big question is how he got the "honorable discharge"
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Memos on Bush Are Fake but Accurate, Typist Says

Posted by: Douglas at 9/15/2004 03:02:22 PM | Permalink

The New York Review of Books: Abu Ghraib: The Hidden Story

Mark Danner on Abu Ghraib
The New York Review of Books: Abu Ghraib: The Hidden Story
Seymour Hersh's book "Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib" (HarperCollins) provides excellent overview of how Bush policy led to the Iraq torture scandals. In an interview with The Guardian, Hersh indicated that a secret document signed by President Bush in February 2002 stated: “I determine that none of the provisions of Geneva apply to our conflict with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan or elsewhere throughout the world.”[i] The “or elsewhere” clause, in effect, freed US authorities from recognizing Geneva conventions anywhere in the world at any time and appears to have justified the prison abuse conditions in both Afghanistan and Iraq, thus pinning responsibility for the scandalous treatment of prisoners to the president of the United States. Hersh’s thesis was that the prison abuse scandals ultimately went up to the top of the “chain of command,” and that Bush was especially culpable for signing on to abrogation of Geneva Conventions in interrogating prisoners and that Rumsfeld had pursued this policy in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Cuba, and Iraq.
[i] Oliver Burkeman, “Bush team 'knew of abuse' at Guantánamo,” The Guardian, September 13, 2004.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/12/international/middleeast/12abuse.html

Posted by: Douglas at 9/15/2004 02:58:19 PM | Permalink

The New York Review of Books: How Bush Got It Wrong

Another article in NYRB section on "Bush's Mess" by Thomas Powers about how Bush has bungled national security and how timid the media and Congress has been in condemning him
The New York Review of Books: How Bush Got It Wrong

Posted by: Douglas at 9/15/2004 02:52:31 PM | Permalink

The New York Review of Books: Iraq: The Bungled Transition

Peter Galbraith has published another article in the New York Review of Books arguing that Bush administration Iraq policy was an utter fiasco and that from the beginning US reconstruction efforts were hampered by incompetence, nepotism, and corruption. Galbraith suggests that the Iraq’s Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) was effectively undermined, that the country was splitting into different factions at an alarming rate, and, repeating another NYRB article “that the breakup of Iraq seemed more likely than a successful transition to centralized democracy… Iraq can be held together only as a loose federation consisting of Kurdistan, a Sunni entity in the center, and a Shiite entity in the south, with Baghdad as a jointly administered federal capital.”
The New York Review of Books: Iraq: The Bungled Transition

Posted by: Douglas at 9/15/2004 02:51:02 PM | Permalink

Teresa Heinz Kerry Criticizes Bush's Record with Latinos

Kerry's Wife Slams Bush Treatment Of Latinos

Posted by: Dolores Calderon at 9/15/2004 01:31:56 PM | Permalink

Guardian | Iraq: a descent into civil war?

will Bush's Big Mess lead to civil war in Iraq?
Guardian | Iraq: a descent into civil war?

Posted by: Douglas at 9/14/2004 07:13:57 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > International > Car Bomb Kills at Least 47 at a Police Headquarters in Baghdad

Edward Wong reported in New York Times that after the Baghdad bombing of a police station killing would be recruitees: “Perhaps as disturbing as the attack itself, though, was the reaction of the crowd at the scene. Gripped by an anti-American fervor all too common these days, dozens of men rushed at a Western cameraman and chanted, "Bush is a dog, Bush is a dog!" Another “woman in black robes knelt down by a pool of blood and began wailing, almost collapsing to the ground.’Where are our sons?’ she said. ‘What have the Americans done to us? What have our sons done to the Americans?’ At Karama Hospital, another woman threw a shoe at a car carrying an American reporter and photographer as it left the area. "Kill the Americans," she said. ‘Slaughter them one by one.’"
Agence France-Presse reported in Baghdad on Tuesday, that the United States military announced that two American soldiers had been killed and three wounded by insurgents attacking with a homemade bomb and small-arms fire on Monday afternoon. Further, saboteurs blew up a function where multiple oil pipeless cross the Tigris River in northern Iraq, bringing oil production in the region to a standstill and “setting off a chain reaction in power generation systems that left the entire country without power, officials said. Firefighters struggled to put out the blaze after the attack near Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad. Crude oil cascaded down the hillside into the river. Fire burned atop the water, fueled by the gushing oil."
Meanwhile, insurgents continued to torment foreign citizens and two Australians and two East Asians working as security contractors in Iraq were kidnapped on the road between Baghdad and Mosul in the north, according to Agence France-Presse. The kidnappers threatened to kill their hostages if Australia did not immediately pull out of Iraq. Reuters reported that a videotape posted on an Islamic Web site showed a Turkish truck driver with his throat cut, and Italians were in a state of frenzy with worry over two women humanitarian workers who had been kidnapped and threatened with death if Italy didn’t pull out.
Bush’s Pandora’s box had opened a Chamber of Horrors that would challenged Bosch or Goya and his policies were obviously radicalizing Iraqis and creating enemies throughout the world for the United States.
The New York Times > International > Car Bomb Kills at Least 47 at a Police Headquarters in Baghdad

Posted by: Douglas at 9/14/2004 11:32:36 AM | Permalink

Staring Down the Barrel of The NRA (washingtonpost.com)

The campaign battle of the day issue yesterday was guns and the allowing of the weapons ban treaty to expire by Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress. Bush had evidently flip-flipped on the assault weapons ban, previously supporting it and then backing away from support, inspiring Kerry to attack Bush for caving in to the NRA and gun interests, chiding Bush that letting the ban expire makes “the job of terrorists easier.” Surrounded by law enforcement officers and gun-control advocate Sarah Brady who introduced Kerry and blamed Bush for the demise of the 10-year old law, Brady concluded: “George W. Bush, shame on you for making this decision.” Receiving an endorsement from the National Association of Police Organizations, Kerry outlined a $5 million plan to fight crime and restore the assault weapons ban. In an entertaining montage on CBS, Kerry was shown engaging in the campaign trial in expert marksmanship, while Bush evidently had not fired a gun for over ten years. Montage was found of him hunting in 1994 when he was running for Governor of Texas and showed an incompetent Bush missing his target, saying, “musta winged it,” and then walking away with his gun half-cocked and looking silly. “All hat and no cattle,” as they used to say in Texas.
Here's E.J.Dionne indicating how gun lobby controls Congress
Staring Down the Barrel of The NRA (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by: Douglas at 9/14/2004 08:56:37 AM | Permalink

$3 Trillion Price Tag Left Out As Bush Details His Agenda (washingtonpost.com)

Health care emerged on September 13 for both candidates as an issue they were pushing. Shortly after the Republican convention, it was announced that Medicare expenses were going up 17% the next year, Bush continued to claim that importing cheaper drugs from Canada was unsafe, and Kerry had been relentlessly criticizing Bush’s failures on health and the alarming increase of the number of people not covered. Campaigning across Michigan, Bush described Kerry’s health care program as a “government takeover” that would result in nationalized health care and higher taxes, while he defended his plans to privatize health care and social security. The Kerry campaign shot back that Bush’s claim that government would take control of health care away from doctors and patients was “ridiculous,” and it does indeed appear that whenever it is impossible to defend your own program the most tried and true strategy is to attack your opponent as “socialistic” and to play the tax card.
While Bush was attacking Kerry as a “big spender Democratic,” the Washington Post published an article by Mike Allen that Bush’s hodge-podge of new programs proposed at the Republican convention and detailed to some extent on his campaign website would cost “well in excess of $3 trillion over a decade.” Bush had been claiming on his stump speech that Kerry’s proposed programs would cost over $2 trillion in the same period, a claim the Kerry camp denied, so it was rather shocking to read that Bush is the big tax and spend guy. According to the Post’s analysis, Bush’s pledge to make tax cuts for the rich permanent would reduce government revenue by about $1 trillion over ten years and his proposed changes in Social Security that would allow younger workers to invest “could cost the government $2 trillion over the coming decade, according to the calculations of independent domestic policy experts.”
Bush was obviously making empty promises to the electorate and claiming to dramatically cut taxes, fund new government programs, and increase military spending, out-voodooing any politician in recent political history. Of course, Bush did not like to talk of the tremendous deficit he was creating or that he had moved from a $5 trillion surplus to a $5 trillion deficit, producing the most irresponsible fiscal policy ever. Some fiscal conservatives worried about the astonishingly irresponsible economic policy and some were even planning to vote for Kerry as a more fiscally responsible manager, but Bush and his handlers maintained a “What me worry?” spin promising everything and not bothering to indicate how they would pay for it.
$3 Trillion Price Tag Left Out As Bush Details His Agenda (washingtonpost.com)
for a former Republican voting for Kerry, see
Pete McCloskey: 'If you're a true Republican, you'll vote for Kerry'
San Jose Mercury News
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=17827

Posted by: Douglas at 9/14/2004 08:53:12 AM | Permalink

Professor says Bush revealed National Guard favoritism

More people are speaking out documenting Bush's National Guard favoritism. Today he is meeting with a group of families of current Guards who are in Iraq and Afghanistan and they are angry. It will remain to be seen if this will produce some good montage or Bush will keep the session private
The Smirking Chimp

Posted by: Douglas at 9/14/2004 07:08:12 AM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: Favorite Subject: Unwilling

Kitty Kelly is making the media rounds are her book. Although the White House (who Karen Hughes?) called NBC president to try to kill her scheduled appearence it took place, she thanked NBC for resisting pressure and then went on to discuss her Bush book, her political affiliations (she said her family is "red, white and blue Republican, her father worked for Bush, she votes independent). Matt Lauer directed questions at her allegations of W's coke use at Camp David, a story already circulating and which Sharon Bush denied she had told her; then Sharon Bush cam on to deny the story; not much there so far; today, Kelly will be speaking of Bush's Guard duty on Today
washingtonpost.com: Favorite Subject: Unwilling

Posted by: Douglas at 9/14/2004 05:20:30 AM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: Dozens Killed in Baghdad Car Bombing

Iraq is Bush's Killing Field; invading Iraq was a Pandora's Box that should in and of itself lose Bush the election; last night CBS featured an especially bloody and graphic Iraq sequence; its time for the people to wake up and see the horrific mess that Bush has the country in and I mean the mess in Iraq for the Iraqis and the mess for the US
washingtonpost.com: Dozens Killed in Baghdad Car Bombing
oil pipelines and electricity were also hit hard. Excerpt:" Saboteurs blew up a junction where multiple oil pipelines cross the Tigris River in northern Iraq on Tuesday, setting off a chain reaction in power generation systems that left the entire country without power, officials said.
Firefighters struggled to put out the blaze after the attack near Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad. Crude oil cascaded down the hillside into the river. Fire burned atop the water, fueled by the gushing oil."
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Oil.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Bush and the neocons should be sent to Iraq immediately to see what horror they have created

Posted by: Douglas at 9/14/2004 05:01:25 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Taking On the Myth

Krugman is right, its astonishing the people actually believe Bush is good for national security when he has made the most astonishing security blunders in US history
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Taking On the Myth

Posted by: Douglas at 9/13/2004 11:04:35 PM | Permalink

Guardian | Internet is a victim of its own success

WWW to collapse?
Guardian | Internet is a victim of its own success

Posted by: Douglas at 9/13/2004 07:37:15 PM | Permalink

Guardian | US troops face new torture claims/slaughter in Baghdad

more info on US torture of Iraqis
Guardian | US troops face new torture claims
graphic description of slaughter of civilians in Baghdad on Sunday; CBS news had unbelievable pictures today of the bombing and slaughter of innocents and of civilians killed in other recent bombings, images that have been taboo in US media
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1303827,00.html

Posted by: Douglas at 9/13/2004 07:34:41 PM | Permalink

A review of President Bush's Guard years raises issues about the time he served

a US News and World Report study indicated that documents already released by the White House of Bush’s Guard service suggest that he was indeed AWOL for a year and clearly did not meet his required obligations. Excerpt:
"Last February, White House spokesman Scott McClellan held aloft sections of President Bush's military record, declaring to the waiting press that the files "clearly document the president fulfilling his duties in the National Guard." Case closed, he said.

But last week the controversy reared up once again, as several news outlets, including U.S. News, disclosed new information casting doubt on White House claims.

A review of the regulations governing Bush's Guard service during the Vietnam War shows that the White House used an inappropriate--and less stringent--Air Force standard in determining that he had fulfilled his duty. Because Bush signed a six-year "military service obligation," he was required to attend at least 44 inactive-duty training drills each fiscal year beginning July 1. But Bush's own records show that he fell short of that requirement, attending only 36 drills in the 1972-73 period, and only 12 in the 1973-74 period. The White House has said that Bush's service should be calculated using 12-month periods beginning on his induction date in May 1968. Using this time frame, however, Bush still fails the Air Force obligation standard.
Moreover, White House officials say, Bush should be judged on whether he attended enough drills to count toward retirement. They say he accumulated sufficient points under this grading system. Yet, even using their method, which some military experts say is incorrect, U.S. News 's analysis shows that Bush once again fell short. His military records reveal that he failed to attend enough active-duty training and weekend drills to gain the 50 points necessary to count his final year toward retirement.

The U.S. News analysis also showed that during the final two years of his obligation, Bush did not comply with Air Force regulations that impose a time limit on making up missed drills. What's more, he apparently never made up five months of drills he missed in 1972, contrary to assertions by the administration. White House officials did not respond to the analysis last week but emphasized that Bush had "served honorably."
Some experts say they remain mystified as to how Bush obtained an honorable discharge. Lawrence Korb, a former top Defense Department official in the Reagan administration, says the military records clearly show that Bush "had not fulfilled his obligation" and "should have been called to active duty."
The Smirking Chimp

Posted by: Douglas at 9/13/2004 10:10:00 AM | Permalink

Gore Unleashes Fury on Democrats' Behalf

Gore has been campaigning hard for Kerry and fiercely attacking Bush
Gore Unleashes Fury on Democrats' Behalf

Posted by: Douglas at 9/13/2004 09:36:25 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > International > Middle East > 25 Reported Killed in U.S. Strike on Rebel Base in Falluja

a pattern is emerging in Iraq the last couple of days as attacks yesterday in Baghdad and later in Falluja indicate that growing numbers of civilians are killed; excerpt: "News agency reports from Falluja that the air strikes killed at least 16 civilians, including women and children, and that an ambulance was hit by a shell, killing the driver and six other occupants, were denied by a coalition press officer by telephone from Baghdad."
The New York Times > International > Middle East > 25 Reported Killed in U.S. Strike on Rebel Base in Falluja

Posted by: Douglas at 9/13/2004 08:40:55 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Diplomacy: Kerry Says Bush Has Ignored North Korean Threat

Kerry fiercely attacks Bush on North Korea as rumors of a bomb test or nuclear accident there circulate; he claims from the beginning Bush policies have been a disaster on the Korea issue and Bush has utterly failed to show any leadership on the issue
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Diplomacy: Kerry Says Bush Has Ignored North Korean Threat

Posted by: Douglas at 9/13/2004 08:38:57 AM | Permalink

MSNBC - Poisoning Patriotism

Arthur Schlesinger sees that Bush is a world historical disaster
MSNBC - Poisoning Patriotism

Posted by: Douglas at 9/12/2004 09:32:41 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > International > Middle East > Insurgency: Scores Are Dead After Violence Spreads in Iraq

more on violent day in Iraq, where insurgency boldly strikes hard
The New York Times > International > Middle East > Insurgency: Scores Are Dead After Violence Spreads in Iraq

Posted by: Douglas at 9/12/2004 09:14:13 PM | Permalink

Bush and Manifest Destiny

Bush's speech at the Republican Convention announced the current version of the long tradition of Manifest Destiny in the United States. The following commentary, although speaking directly to the treatment of indigenous peoples in the United States, serves as good historical synopsis of the religious, philosophical traditions of this policy which serves empire.

McSloy: ‘Because the Bible tells me so’Manifest Destiny and American Indians

Posted by: Dolores Calderon at 9/12/2004 04:23:02 PM | Permalink

The Right to Vote in Indian Country

From Florida to South Dakota voters are being disenfranchised in a variety of ways, but voter watch groups are preparing for upcoming elections, making sure these voters can exercise their right to vote.

Indian voters ousted from city in South Dakota

American Indian Group to Put Poll Watchers at Voting Precincts

Posted by: Dolores Calderon at 9/12/2004 04:03:55 PM | Permalink

Guardian | George Jr sent out of Texas by father as a 'drunken liability'

the account of how Bush Jr was sent by his family to Alabama to work on a political campaign because he was such a "drunken liability" at home, a story that originated in Salon, got some UK play but little play in the US media
Guardian | George Jr sent out of Texas by father as a 'drunken liability'

Posted by: Douglas at 9/12/2004 03:41:17 PM | Permalink

AlterNet: Election 2004: Asleep at the Wheel

Oddly, there were few exposes of how Bush had exploited 9/11 in Third Anniversary media overviews of the tragedy, and only one major analysis that I encountered which pins the responsibility for the attacks on Bush administration reliance concerning the dangers of terrorism before September 11, 2001. On his September 10 Now program on PBS, Mill Moyers presented a full overview of the history of the terror attacks and noted that the 9/11 Commission Report failed to attribute any specific blame. Going against the media grain that tends to give Bush’s National Security advisor Moyers narrative pinpoints Rice’s responsibility. In a summary of points in his show, Moyers notes how the 9/11 Commission documented:
· "That Condoleezza Rice in the White House press room told reporters May 16, 2002: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, taken another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."
· That George Tenet, in testimony before Congress, countered Rice's claim: "The documents we've provided show some 12 reports spread over seven years which pertain to possible use of aircraft as terrorist weapons. We disseminated those reports to the appropriate agencies, such as the FAA, the Department of Transportation, and the FBI as they came in."
The system failed" is the catchphrase now in vogue in Washington. Critics and fans alike of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush still rely on this hollow analysis. But "the system" is no mindless mechanism operating independently of the men and women individuals with names, power, and obligations – who are charged with making it work. Before "the system" can fail, they must fail.
The Commissioners avoided blaming any government officials, past or present, for the failure to prevent the attacks. They maintain that their job was not to assign individual blame, but provide the most complete and frank account of the decisive events surrounding the attack. To that end, they succeeded.
But to stop there is to stop short. Read the final report of the Commission carefully – connect the dots – and a fuller pattern emerges: Key government officials failed the system, and they failed the American people.
Judges and social workers talk of the "circle of accountability." The 9/11 Commission was indeed an historic undertaking. Yet in spreading the blame as broadly as it possibly could, the Commissioners, rather than enlarging that circle, have all but closed it. Americans deserve better than to allow accountability to be passed off as a mere abstraction; they should know where the buck stops. The nearly 3,000 men and women who died on 9/11 deserve better, too. It will not bring them back to hold accountable the particular officials in high office who could have acted and did not. But it will assure that they did not die in vain."

Moyers’ implication is clear: it was key members of the Bush administration, including Condoleeza Rice, who failed, but were not held accountable.
AlterNet: Election 2004: Asleep at the Wheel

Posted by: Douglas at 9/12/2004 01:12:58 PM | Permalink

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Colin Powell in four-letter neo-con 'crazies' row

Colin Powell evidently referred to neocons, including Rumsfeld and Cheney, as "fucking crazies" in discussions with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Colin Powell in four-letter neo-con 'crazies' row

Posted by: Douglas at 9/12/2004 01:08:15 PM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: Scattered Violence Erupts in Iraq

It appears that US troops engaged in unprecedented slaughter of Iraqis today, including civilians: Excerpt: Scattered car bombings, mortar attacks and clashes between insurgents and U.S. and Iraqi security forces on Sunday in Iraq killed at least 120 civilians and wounded 219 around the country, one of the highest single-day totals in recent months, according to the Health Ministry.

The hardest hit cities Sunday were Tal Afar and Ramadi, where 82 people died.

In Baghdad, 13 persons died when a U.S. military helicopter fired into a crowd of civilians who had surrounded a burning Army tank on a central street. A Palestinian journalist reporting from the scene for the Arab satellite network al-Arabiya was among the dead."
washingtonpost.com: Scattered Violence Erupts in Iraq
It now appears that Bush's strategy to end the "mission" in Iraq is to kill as many Iraqis as possible so that only oil and a few clients are left

Posted by: Douglas at 9/12/2004 11:11:26 AM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: U.S. Forces Prepare to Retake City in N. Iraq

here are two utterly different account of fighting in Tall Afar, a city in northern Iraq near the Syria border. The Wash Post account by Steve Fainaru wrotes from the point of view of the US military and sees the US attacks as liberating the town from insurgents, including, perhaps, the article suggests Saudis
washingtonpost.com: U.S. Forces Prepare to Retake City in N. Iraq
Many of the people in the town, however, and in Turkey, see the fight as a Kurd-promoted assault on the Turkmen who live there. See Patrick Cockburn who writes: "Turkey reacts with fury to massive US assault on northern Iraqi city":
The US military assault on Tal Afar, an ethnically Turkmen city in northern Iraq, has provoked a furious reaction from the Turkish government which is demanding the US call off the attack.

American and Iraqi government forces last week sealed off Tal Afar, a city west of Mosul belonging to Iraq's embattled Turkmen minority. The US said it killed 67 insurgents while a Turkmen leader claims 60 civilians were killed and 100 wounded. The massive and indiscriminate use of US firepower in built-up areas, leading to heavy civilian casualties in cities like Tal Afar, Fallujah and Najaf, is coming under increasing criticism in Iraq. The US "came into Iraq like an elephant astride its war machine," said Ibrahim Jaafari, the influential Iraqi Vice President.

The Americans claim that Tal Afar is a hub for militants smuggling fighters and arms into Iraq from nearby Syria. Turkish officials make clear in private they believe that the Kurds, the main ally of the US in northern Iraq, have managed to get US troops involved on their side in the simmering ethnic conflict between Kurds and Turkmen.

"The Iraqi government forces with the Americans are mainly Kurdish," complained one Turkmen source. A Turkish official simply referred to the Iraqi military units involved in the attack on Tal Afar as "peshmerga", the name traditionally given to Kurdish fighters.

The US army account of its aims in besieging Tal Afar is largely at odds with that given by Turkmen and may indicate that its officers are at sea in the complex ethnic mosaic of Iraq. The US says that in recent weeks the city was taken over by anti-American militants who repeatedly attacked US and Iraqi government forces.

"Tal Afar is a tribal city and its people were not patient with the presence of American forces," said Farouq Abdullah Abdul Rahman, the president of the Iraqi Turkmen Front, in Baghdad yesterday. He agreed that there was friction with US forces but denied that anything justified the siege, with many Turkmen close to the front line fleeing into the countryside. "More than 60 people have been killed, including women and children, and 100 wounded."

There has been tension, sometimes boiling over into gun battles, between the Kurds and the Turkmens since last year. As Saddam Hussein's regime fell apart Kurdish troops, aided by the US air force, advanced to take Kirkuk and Mosul. The Kurds felt they at last had a chance to reverse 40 years of ethnic cleansing which had seen their people massacred or driven from their homes.

Both Arabs and Turkmen fear ethnic cleansing in reverse. In Tal Afar, a poor city with high unemployment, there was friction from the beginning. Days after the fall of Saddam the Kurdistan Democratic Party appointed its own mayor called Abdul Haleq in the city. He ran up a yellow Kurdish flag outside his office. He was told by local people to take it down or die. He refused and was killed the following day. His office, along with the yellow flag, was burned by an angry crowd.

Mr Rahman said that an agreement was hammered out by tribal leaders and the Americans last week in Mosul whereby Iraqi police would take charge in Tal Afar but American troops would not enter the city or try to disarm people. This failed to stick when there was more shooting. A Turkmen eyewitness in Tal Afar at the time claimed that seven Kurdish gunmen had fired at the Americans to lure them into attacking the Turkmen"
This could be a classic account of how the US just doesn't know who it's fighting and what it's doing in Iraq
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=560815

Posted by: Douglas at 9/12/2004 09:40:19 AM | Permalink

Guardian Unlimited | US elections 2004 | Bush faces assault on war record

some bloody good Bush-bashing should be on the way next weekGuardian Unlimited | US elections 2004 | Bush faces assault on war record
here's a good summary of some of the True Sleaze uncovered recently on Bush's far from honorable and noble past By Neil Mackay, Glasgow Sunday Herald
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=17799

Posted by: Douglas at 9/12/2004 09:21:00 AM | Permalink

Guardian Unlimited | US elections 2004 | Bush faces assault on war record

some bloody good Bush-bashing should be on the way next weekGuardian Unlimited | US elections 2004 | Bush faces assault on war record
here's a good summary of some of the True Sleaze uncovered recently on Bush's far from honorable and noble past By Neil Mackay, Glasgow Sunday Herald
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=17799

Posted by: Douglas at 9/12/2004 09:20:10 AM | Permalink

Further scrutiny lessens doubts on Bush memos / Some skeptics now say IBM typewriter could have been used

some "experts" who claimed the Bush Guard memos were a fraud are now eating some crow, although who knows who's going to eat what before this is over
Further scrutiny lessens doubts on Bush memos / Some skeptics now say IBM typewriter could have been used

Posted by: Douglas at 9/11/2004 01:18:48 PM | Permalink

Ineffective Iraqi Force in Fallouja Disbanded

Bushhas been linking Iraq and the war on terror in campaigning, arguing that the removal of Saddam Hussein was a key component of the war on terror. Bush also pledged to “fulfill the mission” which seemed to imply that the Bush administration was prepared to continue to wage war in Iraq for an indefinite period of time. A successful fulfillment of “the mission,” however, would require that the US bring under control the vast regions of the country where insurgent forces ruled including Fallujah. In recent days, the Pentagon has been very aggressively attacking insurgent forces in Samarra, Tal Afar, close to the border with Syria, Sadr City in Baghdad, and Fallujah, hoping to weaken insurgent forces so that the Iraqi government could take control.
According to a Los Angeles Times story “Ineffective Iraqi Force in Fallouja Disbanded” by Alissa J. Rubin (September 11, 2004), US hopes for “pacifying” Fallouja were dealt a blow by the disbanding of a Fallujah brigade that had been organized by the US Marines as a security force. The brigade, which consisted of former members of the Iraqi army and Saddam Hussein’s security forces, as well as some insurgents, was unreliable, either not fighting or siding with the insurgents with whom many members of the brigade were sympathetic. Its disbandment represents another failure of US policy in Iraq that pits the US forces alone against a violent and well-organized insurgency in Fallujah, setting the stage, perhaps, for another major series of skirmishes.
Ineffective Iraqi Force in Fallouja Disbanded

Posted by: Douglas at 9/11/2004 11:57:45 AM | Permalink

Rumsfeld Mixes Up Hussein, Bin Laden in Speech

More evidence of. Rumsfeld’s deteriorating mental condition appeared in a speech on Friday when twice he confused Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden with deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. In Afghanistan, he told the National Press Club, "the leader of the opposition Northern Alliance, Masoud, lay dead, his murder ordered by Saddam Hussein, by Osama bin Laden, Taliban's co-conspirator." Later, Rumsfeld said, "Saddam Hussein, if he's alive, is spending a whale of a lot of time trying to not get caught. And we've not seen him on a video since 2001."
When the moderator asked Rumsfeld if he had meant Bin Laden, an unusually mild Defense secretary replied: "I did. I meant we haven't seen Osama bin Laden."
Obviously, this Freudian slip is interesting because it reveals Bush administration tendency to collapse the two leaders into each other and brings up the issue of whether the Bush administration should have focused on closing down bin Laden and Al Qaeda rather than going after Bush family nemesis Saddam Hussein.
Rumsfeld Mixes Up Hussein, Bin Laden in Speech

Posted by: Douglas at 9/11/2004 11:39:03 AM | Permalink

Guardian Unlimited | US elections 2004 | Craig Unger: 'War president' Bush has always been soft on terror

September 11, 2004 is the third anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that Bush had so systematically manipulated to push through his rightwing and militarist agenda, and was manipulating again for his re-election campaign since he had nothing else positive to run on. The press, however, was full of reflections on 9/11 that savaged Bush as “soft on terror,” failing in the war against terrorism, and unconscionably exploiting the September 11 tragedy for political ends. In an article by Doug Grieve, “Rove reign of terror,” the author notes that in his Republican convention speech, Bush used a variation of the word "terror" sixteen times while at a campaign appearances in Missouri a few days later, Bush referred to terror forty-three times and Cheney used the T-word 23 times campaigning in Iowa and twenty-six times a day later in New Hampshire. Grieve notes that the Bush administration raised the possibility of an imminent terror attack just as John Edwards was receiving the Democratic Vice-Presidential nod from Kerry, just after the Democratic convention, and claimed that there were claims of coming terrorist attacks during the November election, leading Grieve to wonder if the dark mind of Karl Rove were behind these threats and if the Republicans would use a terror attack to call off the election if they were behind.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=17778
Craig Unger, author of Bush and the House of Saud, claimed in a Guardian September 11, 2004 commentary that “'War president' Bush has always been soft on terror.” Recalling how Bush went fishing while on vacation in Crawford, Texas after receiving a memo entitled “Bin Laden determined to strike in US” and never called a meeting to address the issue, Unger claims Bush has always been “soft of terror” and that: “When it comes to going after the men who were behind 9/11 and who continue to wage a jihad against the US, Bush has repeatedly turned a blind eye to the forces behind terrorism, shielded the people who funded al-Qaida, obstructed investigations and diverted resources from the battle against it.” Unger notes how the 9/11 commission found that the Bush administration failed "to develop a strategy to counter Saudi terrorist financing" and that the Saudis were half-hearted in cooperating on terrorist financing leading the commission to conclude: "the US government still has not determined with any precision how much al-Qaida raises or from whom, or how it spends its money."
Unger concludes by calling attention to Intelligence Matters: The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia and the Failure of America's War on Terror, a new book by Senator Bob Graham, which indicates that the Saudis may have played an even bigger role in 9/11 than previously reported. As a member of the Senate intelligence committee, Graham said he learned that "evidence of official Saudi support" for at least two of the 19 hijackers was "incontrovertible". The case against Bush and his excessively close Saudi connections was also made on September 11 by Greg Palast on his site www.GregPalast.com who recalls how BBC television received a call in London on November 9, 2001 from a top-level US intelligence again who said that shortly after George W. Bush took office, he ordered US intelligence “to back off the Saudis.” Palast also recalls that BBC possessed a copy of a document titled SECRET across the top and numbered “199-I” meaning that it was a national security document that told of the need to hunt down tow members of the bin Laden family operating a “suspected terrorist organization” in the US, dated September 13, but that these two individuals had flown the coop in a specially-arranged flight out of the US sponsored by the Bush administration.
Guardian Unlimited | US elections 2004 | Craig Unger: 'War president' Bush has always been soft on terror

Posted by: Douglas at 9/11/2004 11:20:56 AM | Permalink

Amid Skepticism, CBS Sticks to Bush Guard Story

here's a good summary of the Memo Wars in LAT, led off by my overview of the issues:
While Kerry on September 10 was campaigning hard and criticizing Bush’s failure to pass a bill outlawing assault weapons, and thus aiding terrorism, and Bush was taunting Kerry about Iraq, claiming that if Kerry were president Saddam Hussein would still be president of Iraq, a serious media war raged all day over the authenticity of the memos in 60 Minutes story about Bush’s Guard duty that had appeared Wednesday. The rightwing chattering classes and blogosphere were having a field day, claiming that the documents CBS claimed showed that Bush had pulled strings to get out of active duty in the Guard, that he was pronounced unfit to serve, that he'd failed to follow orders, and had generally failed to carry out his responsibility, were forgeries. It was claimed that the memos contained superscripts after the numbers not available to typewriters of the era, that the font was a recent computer font also not available on typewriters at the time, that the spacing was proportional in a way characteristic of computers and not typewriters, and that the signature was forged. On Thursday night network television reports, both ABC and NBC raised the question of whether the documents were forgeries and Fred Barnes on Fox called them fake.
All day Friday, there was buzz over the Killian documents with rightwingers like Sean Hannity on Fox radio and TV claiming that they were fake and that the hoax was evidence of how far CBS and the liberal media would go to destroy the president. There was thus tremendous anticipation concerning how Dan Rather and CBS would respond to the fierce criticism. On the CBS News after a story about the latest hurricane in the Caribbean, Rather took on the critics and defended his show. In a hoarse voice, steely and suppressing anger Rather opened:
There were attacks today on the CBS news "60 minutes" report this week raising new questions about president Bush's Vietnam-era time in the Texas Air National Guard. The questions raised by our report include:

--did a wealthy Texas oilman-friend of the Bush family use his influence with the speaker of the Texas house of representatives .. to get George W. Bush a coveted slot in the national guard .. keeping him out of the draft and any probable service in Vietnam?

--did lieutenant Bush refuse a direct order from his commanding officer?

--was lieutenant Bush suspended for failure to perform up to standards?

--did lieutenant Bush ever take a physical he was required and ordered to take? if not, why not?

--and did lieutenant Bush, in fact, complete his commitment to the guard?

These questions grew out of new witnesses and new evidence -- including documents written by lieutenant Bush's squadron commander.

Today, on the internet and elsewhere, some people -- including many who are partisan political operatives -- concentrated not on the key questions the overall story raised but on the documents that were part of the support of the story.

They alleged the documents are fake.

Rather: many of those raising questions about the CBS documents have focused on something called superscript... a key that automatically types a raised "th". Critics claim typewriters didn't have that ability in the 70s. But some models did....in fact, other Bush military records already officially released by the White House itself show the same superscript.

Here's one..... from 1968.

Some analysts outside CBS say they believe the typeface on these memos is New Times Roman.... which they claim was not available in the 1970s.

But the owner of the company that distributes this typing style.... says it has been available since 1931. document and handwriting examiner Marcel Matley analyzed the documents for CBS news.

He says he believes they are real...but is concerned about exactly what is being examined by some of the people questioning the documents....because detonation occurs each time a document is reproduced.....and the documents being analyzed outside of CBS have been photocopied, faxed, scanned and downloaded.... and are far removed from the documents CBS started with which were also photocopies.

Document and handwriting examiner Marcel Matley did this interview with us prior to the 60 minutes broadcast.

He looked at the documents and the signatures of colonel Jerry Killian.... comparing known documents with the colonel's signature on the newly discovered ones.

Matley: "we look basically at what's called significant or insignificant features to determine whether it's the same person or not. I have no problem identifying them.

I would say based on our available handwriting evidence, yes. This is the same person."
In conclusion, Rather stated that CBS News stands by its story, arguing in a statement released on its website: "This report was not based solely on recovered documents, but rather on a preponderance of evidence, including documents that were provided by unimpeachable sources, interviews with former Texas National Guard officials and individuals who worked closely back in the early 1970s with Colonel Jerry Killian and were well acquainted with his procedures, his character and his thinking," the statement read. In addition, the documents are backed up not only by independent handwriting and forensic document experts but by sources familiar with their content," the statement continued. "Contrary to some rumors, no internal investigation is underway at CBS News nor is one planned."
While the fierce debate about the authenticity of he memos raged, Democrats came out raising fundamental questions about whether Bush was fit to serve. Senator Tom Harkins (Dem.-Iowa) claimed that Bush has been constantly lying to the American people” and in a news conference with Richard Klass, a retired US Air Force colonel, they repeatedly questioned Bush’s “character” and honesty. Democratic National Chairman Terry McAulffe admitted that he was not certain the CBS documents were authentic, noting that perhaps Karl Rove was responsible (see the Los Angeles Times article below). This would appear totally off the wall except that Rove was notorious for dirty and bizarre tricks during campaigns. Those who read the book Bush’s Brain by Wayne Slater and Jim Moore, or saw the film, might recall that in a tight 1986 Texas governor’s race when Rove was managing Republican Bill Clement against the Demcratic Mark White Rove claimed that an electronic bugging device was found in his office, indignantly claiming he was bugged. The Democratic candidate was furious, claiming he’d take a lie detector, but was distracted during a crucial televised debate that received little media attention in any case because all attention was on the bugging issue.
Later, it was revealed that the so-called bug was too-low tech to do much eavesdropping, that its battery would only run 4 hours and had run barely over an hour, and most informed politically-minded people in Texas, including myself, concluded that Rove had planted the bug himself. Less amusing was the ways that Rove systematically used the FBI and other political agencies against his opponents and there was a persistent story that around the time of the 2000 election when writer J.N. Hatfield was fed false stories by Rove that he then used to put pressure on publishers not the release the book Fortunate Son and the media not to publicized it, since it allegedly had false claims, which Hatfield claimed were in some cases fed to him by Rove.
On the other hand, in a fierce race, a Democratic operative could have forged the documents as well, or they could very well be authentic. The debate over the authenticity of the memos, however, deflected attention from their content which is highly damning to Bush, revealing that he not only used his political connections to get coveted Guard positions, but that he used connections to get out of service, refused direct orders, and was negatively judged and received an honorable discharge only after political pressure was exerted. The missing documents in Bush’s guard records were suspicious, what had been released raised serious questions, many questions were unanswered and much evidence was circulating to indicate that Bush had indeed gone AWOL and then covered up his missing service with record-purging and lies.
Amid Skepticism, CBS Sticks to Bush Guard Story

Posted by: Douglas at 9/11/2004 09:56:03 AM | Permalink

CBSNews.com: Print This Story

yesterday the rightwing chattering classes were having a field day, claiming that the documents CBS claimed showed that Bush had pulled strings to get out of active duty in the Guard, that he was produced unfit to serve, that he'd failed to follow orders, and had generally failed to carry out his responsibility were forgeries. It was claimed that the memos contained superscripts after the numbers, that the font was a recent computer font not available on typewriters and that the signature was forged. CBS refuted all of these claims and stands by the documents. Excerpt; "a statement, CBS News said it stands by its story.
"This report was not based solely on recovered documents, but rather on a preponderance of evidence, including documents that were provided by unimpeachable sources, interviews with former Texas National Guard officials and individuals who worked closely back in the early 1970s with Colonel Jerry Killian and were well acquainted with his procedures, his character and his thinking," the statement read.
"In addition, the documents are backed up not only by independent handwriting and forensic document experts but by sources familiar with their content," the statement continued. "Contrary to some rumors, no internal investigation is underway at CBS News nor is one planned."
CBS News Anchor Dan Rather says many of those raising questions about the documents have focused on something called superscript, a key that automatically types a raised "th."
Critics claim typewriters didn't have that ability in the 1970s. But some models did. In fact, other Bush military records already released by the White House itself show the same superscript – including one from 1968.

Some analysts outside CBS say they believe the typeface on these memos is New Times Roman, which they claim was not available in the 1970s.
But the owner of the company that distributes this typing style says it has been available since 1931.
Document and handwriting examiner Marcel Matley analyzed the documents for CBS News. He says he believes they are real. But he is concerned about exactly what is being examined by some of the people questioning the documents, because deterioration occurs each time a document is reproduced. And the documents being analyzed outside of CBS have been photocopied, faxed, scanned and downloaded, and are far removed from the documents CBS started with. "
CBSNews.com: Print This Story
The forgery claims, by the way, deflect attention from the content of the memos which is highly damning to Bush

Posted by: Douglas at 9/11/2004 07:06:31 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > Prison Scandal: Army Says C.I.A. Hid More Iraqis Than It Claimed

While the carnage continued in Iraq, in a US Senate hearing, the Army admitted that it had allowed the CIA to hide “perhaps up to 100” so-called “ghost detainees” who had no official prison status, many more than previous estimates. The practice converted Geneva Conventions and Senator Carl Levin said that its “totally unacceptable” that the CIA was not forthcoming with documents or explanations of the practice, while John McCain said that the ghost detainee issue needs to be cleared up really badly.”
Donald Rumsfeld admitted that he had sanctioned ghost detainee status for one prisoner, Triple-X, at the request of former CIA Director George Tenet. Harold Brown, former Secretary of Defense, insisted that high Pentagon officials bore responsibility for the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal, as did the Bush administration “for failing to plan for what actually happened after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.”
The New York Times > Washington > Prison Scandal: Army Says C.I.A. Hid More Iraqis Than It Claimed
Rumsfeld says violence will increase in Iraq as election nears
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/10/politics/10CND-CAPI.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

Posted by: Douglas at 9/10/2004 02:44:40 PM | Permalink

Salon.com | Why conservatives must not vote for Bush

Even some conservatives were getting fed up with Bush’s lies and recognize his disastrous policies. In a September 10, Salon article “Why conservatives Must Not Vote for Bush,” Doug Bandow of the CATO Institute writes: “Quite simply, the president, despite his well-choreographed posturing, does not represent traditional conservatism -- a commitment to individual liberty, limited government, constitutional restraint and fiscal responsibility. Rather, Bush routinely puts power before principle. As Chris Vance, chairman of Washington state's Republican Party, told the Economist: "George Bush's record is not that conservative ... There's something there for everyone." Running through Bush’s economic policies, his tax cuts and their record deficits, his failures in the war on terrorism through an intervention in Iraq that exhibits “a strange combination and arrogance and incompetence”, and his personal inability to take responsibly and demand accountability, Bandow concludes that a real conservative will vote for John Kerry.
href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/09/10/conservatives/index.html">Salon.com | Why conservatives must not vote for Bush

Posted by: Douglas at 9/10/2004 11:49:30 AM | Permalink

Salon.com News | In the same league as Fox

As the debate heats up about Bush's Guard service, there have been claims by document experts who questioned the authenticity of the explosive memos shown by CBS which detail Bush’s failure to serve his Guard duty, admonishment from higher-ups, and cover-up of the whole sordid episode. There was so much at stake, so many documents and participants in the discussion, that it was unclear what effect this story would have on the electorate or how far it would go.
Salon’s Eric Boehlert complained that ABC News and CNN, as well as Fox, was using a completely discredited Republican die-hard Lt. Col. John “Bill” Calhoun to testify that he’d seen Bush “five or six times” with the 187 Tactical Reconnaisance Group in Montgomery, Alabama, where he claimed the two men occasionally ate lunch together. But Calhoun’s initial dates given for his Bush-sighting were ones that preceded Bush’s arrival in Alabama and supposed request for a change of Guard venue so he could work in a campaign of a family friend. In Boehlert’s summary:
"When Calhoun first emerged in February, he announced he'd seen Bush "eight or 10 times" on the base performing drills between May and October of 1972. But within 24 hours of his statement, the White House released Bush's military pay records -- which aides touted as definitive proof of Bush's service -- definitively proving that Bush was not credited for any training in Alabama for the months of May, June, July, August and September 1972, and that Bush showed up only in late October. So how could Calhoun have seen Bush several times in one summer if Bush's own records indicate he was never there?
"Calhoun's story is even less believable in light of the fact that Bush in 1972 originally tried to transfer from his Texas Air National Guard unit in Houston to a National Guard unit at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. That request was eventually denied, so Bush ended up at the Montgomery unit where Calhoun served. But again, according to Bush's records, he didn't even apply for the transfer to Montgomery until September and didn't show up until late October. How did Calhoun see Bush performing drills throughout the summer of 1972 when Bush didn't even request an assignment there until the fall?"

While its not surprising that Bush handlers would haul out the only person to come forth to claim they saw Bush do Alabama Guard Service, it is incredible, Boehlert argues, that ABC and CNN would bring out a completely discredited witness (it would be surprising if Fox didn’t bring him out). No doubt, the Bush strategy is to reduce the argument about Bush’s Guard service to a he said/she said debate where the Bush Gang can discuss critiques of his character and service as “partisan” and part of a dirty political campaign.
Salon.com News | In the same league as Fox: "Montgomery, where he said the two men occasionally ate lunch together."

Posted by: Douglas at 9/10/2004 11:11:19 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: How Many Deaths Will It Take?

Bob Herbert's right that Iraq is THE scandal of the Bush administration
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: How Many Deaths Will It Take?

Posted by: Douglas at 9/09/2004 10:06:11 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: The Dishonesty Thing

Krugman's right that recent Bush pattern of dishonesty is key election issue but I would insist that the guy's whole life is a lie, that he's constantly lied about stage after stage of his life
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: The Dishonesty Thing

Posted by: Douglas at 9/09/2004 10:05:10 PM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: Democrats Step Up Attack on Bush Guard Record

Will Bush's Guard record get the attention that the attacks on Kerry got? not much on US TV tonight
washingtonpost.com: Democrats Step Up Attack on Bush Guard Record

Posted by: Douglas at 9/09/2004 10:01:01 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Political Memo: When an Explosive Charge Is Not Handled With Care

Dick Cheney’s unprecedented attack on the Democrats claiming that there would be more danger from a severe terrorist attack if the country voted Democrat in November continued to evoke controversy. In a New York Times article by Adam Nagourney, “When an Explosive Charge is not Handled With Care,” the reporter wrote: “Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that the nation was more likely to "get hit again" by terrorists if John Kerry was elected was one of the toughest attacks launched in a presidential election in 40 years. But Mr. Cheney's latest assault on Mr. Kerry, which startled Democrats and Republicans alike, raised a central question even in this notably ferocious presidential campaign: Is it possible for a candidate to go too far, and alienate the very voters he is trying to court?”
Cheney had clearly gone over the top, but the attempt to create fear in the voters and use terrorism as a hammer to scare voters into voting Republican had been a major component of the Bush-Cheney-Rove campaign from the beginning. For years, George W. Bush had been considered a loose cannon on the campaign trail and his handlers had kept him tightly scripted to try to avoid over the cuff remarks where his foot landed in his mouth. It is also now clear that Dick Cheney is a loose cannon and it will be interesting to see if the Republicans try to script and contain Cheney, or take the now toxic Vice president off the campaign trail altogether and return him to his cave where he is unlikely to lose more Republican votes.
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Political Memo: When an Explosive Charge Is Not Handled With Care

Posted by: Douglas at 9/09/2004 11:02:18 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > International > Asia Pacific > At Least 8 Killed in Blast at Australian Embassy in Jakarta

al Qaeda on the move
The New York Times > International > Asia Pacific > At Least 8 Killed in Blast at Australian Embassy in Jakarta

Posted by: Douglas at 9/09/2004 07:23:03 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > Opinion > A Disgraceful Campaign Speech and Viper Stings Cheney

Now the attacks mount on Cheney for his "disgraceful" speech
The New York Times > Opinion > A Disgraceful Campaign Speech
and Maureen Dowd does a sharp and angry critique of Cheney. Excerpts: "George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have always used the president's father as a reverse lodestar. In 1992, the senior Mr. Bush wooed the voters with "Message: I care.'' So this week, Mr. Cheney wooed the voters with, Message: You die.
The terrible beauty of its simplicity grows on you. It is a sign of the dark, macho, paranoid vice president's restraint that he didn't really take it to its emotionally satisfying conclusion: Message: Vote for us or we'll kill you.
Without Zell Miller around to out-crazy him, and unplugged after a convention that tried to "humanize'' him with grandchildren, horses and wifely anecdotes about his inability to dance the twist, Mr. Cheney is back as Terrifier in Chief.
For a time, it seemed that Americans were realizing they'd been flimflammed by the Bushies. But at the convention, the swaggering Bush juggernaut brazenly went back to boasting about its pre-emption doctrine, tracing imaginary connections between 9/11 and Saddam, and calling all our foes terrorists.
Why should the same group that managed to paint a flextime guardsman as a heroic commander - and a war hero as a war criminal - bother rebutting or engaging with critics?
As the deaths of American men and women fighting in Iraq topped 1,000, and with insurgents controlling parts of central Iraq, the White House trotted out the same old discredited line, assuming it can wear - and scare - everyone down by November."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/09/opinion/09dowd.html?hp

Posted by: Douglas at 9/09/2004 07:20:48 AM | Permalink

Salon.com News | Stung!

It's coming fast and hard. Salon story: Stung!
A swarm of new media stories on young George W. Bush's dereliction of duty pops his heroic-leadership bubble.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Eric Boehlert



Sept. 9, 2004 | On Feb. 13, as controversy swirled around President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, the White House released more than 400 pages of documents on the press corps, proving, it claimed, that Bush had served honorably and fulfilled his commitment. The sudden rush of records, often redundant, jumbled and out of chronological order, generally left reporters baffled. From Bush's point of view, the document dump was a political success, as the controversy cooled and the paper trail ran dry.

In retrospect, it's doubtful that even White House aides understood all the information embedded in the records, specifically the payroll documents. It's also unlikely they realized how damaging the information could be when read in the proper context. Seven months later, the document dump is coming back to haunt the White House, thanks to researcher Paul Lukasiak, who has spent that time closely examining the paperwork, and more important, analyzing U.S. Statutory Law, Department of Defense regulations, and Air Force policies and procedures of the 1960s and 1970s. As a result, Lukasiak arrived at the overwhelming conclusion that not only did Bush walk away from his final two years of military obligation, coming dangerously close to desertion, but that he attempted to cover up his absenteeism through swindle and fraud.

Lukasiak's findings, detailed on his Web site the AWOL Project, have since been bolstered and augmented by independent research by the Boston Globe and the Associated Press. On Wednesday, CBS News reported what may be among the most damaging details yet: that Bush's squadron commander, the late Col. Jerry Killian, complained he was being pressured by higher-ups to give Bush a favorable evaluation after he suspended him from flying for failure to take his annual physical exam. Titled "CYA," Killian's memo concluded, "I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job."

But for the last several months, Lukasiak has practically had the AWOL story to himself, as the mainstream media mostly seemed silenced by the big February document release, the daunting task of decoding military personnel records, and the repeated refrain from the Bush White House that the president was honorably discharged. Among the three most compelling conclusions reached by Lukasiak in his new, meticulous research, are:


Bush's request to transfer to an Alabama Guard unit in 1972, in order to work on the Senate campaign of a family friend, Lukasiak found, was not designed to be temporary, but rather was Bush's attempt to sever ties completely with the Texas Air National Guard and find a new, permanent unit in Alabama for which he was ineligible, where he wouldn't have to do any training during his final two years. His superiors in Texas essentially covered for Bush's getaway. However, the Air Reserve Personnel Center (ARPC) in Denver, Colo., which had final say, uncovered the attempted scam, put an end to it, and admonished Bush's superiors for endorsing Bush's bogus request. (The CBS News report shows that the locals were chafing at interference from "higher-ups" presumably connected to the powerful Bush family). In the interim, Bush simply ignored his weekend duties for nearly six straight months, not bothering to show up at military units in either Alabama or Texas.


The White House has conceded that Bush missed some required weekend training drills, but insists Bush promptly made up those drills and earned enough annual credits for an honorable discharge. In fact, according to Lukasiak's research, based on the procedures in place at the time requiring that makeup dates be completed within 15 days before or 30 days after the date of the drill date missed, between half and two-thirds of the points credited to Bush for substitute training were fraudulent. Some of the points credited to Bush were "earned" nine weeks beyond the date of the missed drill. According to Air Force policy, Bush could not have received permission for substitute training that far outside the accepted parameters. The evidence is also overwhelming that Bush failed to get authorization for substitute training in advance, suggesting the points were awarded by the Texas Air National Guard retroactively and without any supporting paperwork. The fraudulent points are key, because without them Bush would have fallen far short of meeting his annual obligation, which meant he should have been transferred to active duty for 24 months and made eligible for service in Vietnam.


On Oct. 1, 1973, Bush received an honorable discharge from the Texas Air National Guard in order to move to Boston and attend the Harvard Business School, where he was still obligated to find a unit in Massachusetts to fulfill his remaining nine months of duty, or face being placed on active duty. Once again, Bush made no such effort. But the Air Force in Denver, acting retroactively, in effect overturned Bush's honorable discharge and placed him on "Inactive Status" effective Sept. 15, 1973. When Bush left Texas, his personnel file was sent to Denver for review. The ARPC quickly realized Bush had failed to take a required physical exam, his Texas superior could not account for his whereabouts covering nearly a 12-month period, and due to absenteeism Bush had failed to "satisfactorily participate" as a member of the Texas Air National Guard. Bush's "Inactive Status" meant his relationship with the Air Force (and the Guard) was severed and he was therefore eligible for the draft.

Soon afterward, large gaps began appearing in Bush's paper trail. Lukasiak concludes that only last-minute intervention, likely from Bush's local Houston draft board, saved him from active duty, as well as finally securing his honorable discharge, removing his "Inactive Status." Ironically, that means strings were pulled to get Bush out of the Guard in 1973, just as they were pulled to get him enrolled in 1968.

The AWOL Project's conclusions are bound to give Dan Bartlett concern. He's the White House director of communications and has served as Bush's point person over the last five years regarding inquiries about National Guard service. Dating back to the 2000 campaign and right up to this day, Bartlett has routinely changed his stories regarding Bush's service depending on what information was available to the public. As more and more documents trickle out and it becomes increasingly obvious Bush received wildly favorable treatment during his Guard days while doing his best to skirt his duties, Bartlett is left trying to stake out explanations that haven't already been discredited. And those options are shrinking.

Bartlett's latest flip-flop surrounds Bush's failure to locate a new Guard unit and fulfill his duty while attending Harvard Business School. In 1999, Bartlett said Bush had reported for duty at a Massachusetts Guard unit as required. This week Bartlett conceded to the Boston Globe he must have "misspoke," because it's clear Bush made no effort whatsoever to serve out his term while living in Boston. That answer is reminiscent of Bartlett's response during the 2000 campaign when asked about Bush's failure to take a required military physical in 1972: "As he was not flying, there was no reason for him to take a flight physical exam." But that response is directly contradicted by the Air Force Specialty Code, which required a physical regardless of flight status.

On Wednesday, Bartlett told CBS News, in response to Jerry Killian's memos, "It's impossible to read the mind of a dead man." He then reverted to his usual refrain: "The official files tell the facts," says Bartlett. "And the facts are President Bush served. He served honorably. And that's why he was honorably discharged."

The shifting explanations and obfuscations coming from the White House are one reason why the Guard story remains dangerous for Bush. The controversy, after all, is not merely about how he received a million dollars' worth of free pilot training and then stiffed the government when it came time to pay it back in service. It's also about how, for the last decade, Bush and his advisors have done everything possible to distort, if not erase, the truth about Bush's service record in order to advance his political career.

The detailed research from Lukasiak, a Philadelphia caterer, deals strictly with the contents of Bush's military service documents, particularly those after April 1972, when Bush decided -- on his own -- to stop flying. But what's fascinating is that when recent news reports from Salon, the Associated Press, CBS and the Boston Globe are layered on top of the AWOL Project research, they fit together almost seamlessly, revealing a vivid portrait of Bush as a young man whose military service was evaded.


Last week Salon reported that in late 1972 George H.W. Bush phoned a longtime Bush family confidant in Alabama, Jimmy Allison, to ask if there was room on the local campaign he was managing for Bush's troublesome son George, or "Georgie" as he was called. "The impression I had was that Georgie was raising a lot of hell in Houston, getting in trouble and embarrassing the family, and they just really wanted to get him out of Houston and under Jimmy's wing," Linda Allison, his widow, told Salon. "After about a month I asked Jimmy what was Georgie's job, because I couldn't figure it out. I never saw him do anything," said Allison. Asked if she'd ever seen Bush in a uniform, Allison said: "Good lord, no. I had no idea that the National Guard was involved in his life in any way."


This week a new advocacy group calling itself Texans for Truth announced that it will air a television commercial featuring a former Alabama National Guard pilot who insists he never saw Bush in 1972 at the small Guard unit at Dannelly Air National Guard base in Montgomery, where the president claims he served. The pilot, Bob Mintz, has told a consistent tale. In February, he told the Memphis Flyer newspaper: "There's no way we wouldn't have noticed a strange rooster in the henhouse, especially since we were looking for him." Mintz was referring to the news on the base that somebody from Texas with political influence was coming to train with the unit. "I was looking for him," said Mintz.


On Wednesday night, on CBS's "60 Minutes," in an interview with Dan Rather, former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes went public for the first time about how he pulled strings to get young Bush a coveted slot, at the height of the Vietnam War, in the Texas Air National Guard. "I've thought about it an awful lot and you walk through the Vietnam memorial, particularly at night like I did a few months ago and, I tell you, ... reflecting back, I'm very sorry about it, but you know, it happened and it was because of my ambition, my youth and my lack of understanding. But it happened and it's not ... something I'm necessarily proud of."

CBS also reported on four documents from the personal files of Col. Jerry Killian, Bush's squadron commander. One memo ordered Bush to take "an annual physical examination" -- an order he refused. CBS reports: "On August 1, 1972, Col. Killian grounded Lt. Bush for failure to perform to U.S. Air Force/Texas Air National Guard standards and for failure to take his annual physical as ordered. A year after Lt. Bush's suspension from flying, Killian was asked to write another assessment. Killian's memo, titled 'CYA,' reads he is being pressured by higher-ups to give the young pilot a favorable yearly evaluation; to, in effect, sugarcoat his review. He refuses, saying, 'I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job.'"


This week, the AP reported that a thorough analysis of Bush's military documents indicate obvious gaps in his service along with equally gratuitous gaps in his paperwork. Specifically missing are: "A report from the Texas Air National Guard to Bush's local draft board certifying that Bush remained in good standing." "Records of a required investigation into why Bush lost flight status." "A written acknowledgment from Bush that he had received the orders grounding him." "Reports of formal counseling sessions Bush was required to have after missing more than three training sessions." "A signed statement from Bush acknowledging he could be called to active duty if he did not promptly transfer to another guard unit after leaving Texas."


In February of this year, Salon interviewed Bill Burkett, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Texas National Guard, who claims he observed aides to Bush going through his military file in 1997 to remove any embarrassing information, tossing documents in the trash, allegedly the types of documents that might help answer many of the unanswered questions surrounding Bush's Guard service. "Activities occurred in order to, in my opinion, inappropriately build a false image of the governor's military service," Burkett told Salon. Burkett first went public with his accusations in 1998 and has told the same story consistently for six years.


Also last February, Salon reported that Bush's mysterious decision in the spring of 1972 to stop flying and subsequently refuse to take a physical exam came at the same time the Air Force announced its Medical Service Drug Abuse Testing Program, which meant random drug testing for pilots, including Guardsmen.

Meanwhile, the White House has not been able to produce anything or anybody with any credibility to contradict the growing body of evidence that suggests Bush deliberately walked away from his duties and that Bush and his handlers continue to lie about his military service. Retired Lt. Col. John Calhoun was the one witness who was brought forward this year to back up Bush's story that he actually showed up in Alabama. He recalled seeing Bush at training sessions between "eight to ten times from May to October 1972." Yet not even Bush's own payroll records suggest he did drills in Alabama at the time Calhoun allegedly spotted him. (Amazingly, ABC News on Wednesday used Calhoun as a credible witness to bolster Bush's account, despite the fact that the dates Calhoun cites don't even match up with Bush's.)

There's also no paper trail to support Bush's claim that he completed any service following 1972. As Lukasiak notes, each substitute training Bush completed, and there were many, should have generated authorized AF Form 40a's: "All told, Bush performed 'substitute training' on at least 20 days. Thus there should be, at the very least, 20 AF Form 40a's with the name of the officer who authorized the training in advance, the name and signature the officer who supervised the training, and Bush's own signature." But not one such form exists.

A similar absence of information surrounds Bush's dubious explanation of his attempted transfer to Alabama. The move should have generated a small mountain of paperwork. Under normal circumstances, 10 steps are required to transfer:

1) The Guardsman announces that he will need to relocate.

2) His personnel officer explains the relocation policies and procedures to him.

3) The Guardsman signs an acknowledgment that he has received the relocation counseling.

4) The personnel officer gives the Guardsman a certification of satisfactory participation, which he will need to get approval for a transfer.

5) The Guardsman locates an appropriate Ready Reserve position with a new unit, and submits a "Transfer Request Form" (Form 1288) and a new "Ready Reserve Service Agreement (Form 1644), along with the certification of satisfactory participation, to the "receiving unit."

6) The receiving unit "indorses" the request on the back of the Form 1288, and provides the Guardsman with certification that an appropriate position is available in that unit.

7) The Guardsman gives Form 1288, Form 1644, the certification of an appropriate position, and a letter of resignation to his current unit commander.

8) The unit commander indorses the request, and forwards it to the state adjutant general.

9) The adjutant general approves the request, and discharges the Guardsman from the Air National Guard to the Air Force Reserves.

10) The Air Force Reserves assigns the former Guardsman to his new unit.

In Bush's case, according to Lukasiak's research, "There is no statement of counseling, no certification of satisfactory performance, no certification of a suitable vacancy, no letter of resignation, no discharge papers, no discharge orders, and no reassignment orders."

There are also indications that Bush -- unwilling to fly, take a physical or report for duty -- was trying to mislead Guard officials with his transfer application. When asked for his permanent address, Bush listed the P.O. box for the Alabama campaign headquarters he worked for temporarily. When asked to note his Air Force Specialty Code, Bush wrote down 1125B, the designation for F-89 or F-94 pilots. At the time of his transfer request, both of these planes had been retired from service in all components of the Air Force, including the Guard and Reserves. Bush's accurate code was 1125D, designing an F-102 pilot. At the time, F-102 planes were still very much in use. It was an error Bush made more than once on the application. Lukasiak writes: "The odds of Bush being able to scam his way into a non-training unit [in Alabama] would be enhanced if his specific skill set was one which was no longer useful to the Air Force."

In May 1972, Bush was informed that the unit in Alabama he requested was clearly unsuitable for a pilot of his stature, yet he pressed on, and his Texas superiors endorsed the transfer request and submitted it. But the Denver headquarters caught the scam and rejected it. The Texas chief of military personnel sent a curt warning to Bush's unit about the clearly bogus request: "Attention is invited to basic communication."

Lukasiak's work has created a storm in the blogosphere. (He's also a Salon Table Talk member, and an active thread is devoted to his research.) He makes no secret of his conviction that Bush used his family connections to evade the draft. The AWOL Project concludes: "Bush simply blew off his last two years of required service, and was able to get away with it because he came from a politically influential family. There is no other explanation for Bush's records. None."

Of course none of that stopped Bush from hyping his military service as he launched his political career. In 1978, during an unsuccessful run for Congress in West Texas, Bush produced campaign literature that claimed he had served "in the US Air Force and the Texas Air National Guard." In 1999, when asked by an A.P. reporter why Bush had claimed to have served specifically with the U.S. Air Force when he'd only been in the National Guard, Bush's spokesperson Karen Hughes insisted the claim was accurate because when Bush attended flight school for the Air National Guard he was considered to be on active duty for the Air Force. That was plainly false, as the A.P. noted, citing Air Force policy, which stated Guardsmen are never considered to be members of the Air Force active duty.

Just four years after escaping his military obligations, Bush was already trying to rewrite his military record for political gain. Bush said he strongly supported the Vietnam War, obscuring how he spent several years, after securing a safe spot in the National Guard, evading his military obligation. Now President Bush orders Guardsmen and Reservists to shoulder an unprecedented load -- physically, financially and emotionally -- in the war in Iraq. As new information at last begins to emerge about what he really did, Bush and his aides are still at work covering up the record. His ultimate war is with the truth about his past.
About the writer
Eric Boehlert is a senior writer at Salon.
Salon.com News | Stung!

Posted by: Douglas at 9/08/2004 10:19:02 PM | Permalink

Guardian | Now it's Bush's turn to squirm

Sidney Blumenthal enjoys, as do we all, Bush getting hit down and dirty
Guardian | Now it's Bush's turn to squirm

Posted by: Douglas at 9/08/2004 10:15:19 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Book Unflattering to Bush Draws His Campaign's Fire

Repugs are starting to gear-up their smear and destroy machine to go after Kitty Kelley
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Book Unflattering to Bush Draws His Campaign's Fire

Posted by: Douglas at 9/08/2004 10:12:55 PM | Permalink

CBS: New Questions On Bush Guard Duty

here's 60 MINUTES version of Bush's gaming Texas Air Guard
CBSNews.com: Print This Story

Posted by: Douglas at 9/08/2004 08:41:38 PM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: Records Say Bush Balked at Order

here's WP account of Bush's disgraceful Texas Air Guard record
washingtonpost.com: Records Say Bush Balked at Order
Kerry on the attack. FINALLY, it appears Kerry has hit his stride and has a strong message:
"John F. Kerry journeyed Wednesday to the spot where President Bush made his case for the Iraq war two years ago to accuse Bush of making "catastrophic choices" that have cost the nation $200 billion and shortchanged education, health care and job creation.
As part of a new, two-front strategy to refocus the debate over Iraq, Kerry offered his sharpest criticism yet of the mounting economic costs of invading, occupying and stabilizing the country with little assistance from other nations. "George W. Bush's wrong choices have led America in the wrong direction in Iraq and left America without the resources we need here at home," Kerry said."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4645-2004Sep8.html?nav=hcmodule
The Cowardly and intellectually challenged Bush obviously doesn't relish mano a mano with John Kerry
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3586-2004Sep7.html?nav=hcmodule

Posted by: Douglas at 9/08/2004 08:35:09 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > Documents Suggest Special Treatment for Bush in Guard

The 60 MINUTES interview with Ben Barnes didn't reveal anything new about his feeling guilty about pulling strings to get Bush into the Texas National Air Guard, but they found explosive new documents, among those that Bush hencemen reportedly shredded in 1997, that indicate Bush's squadron commander refused to write a positive report about the AWOL Bush and in fact grounded him. NYT version=One document, a "memo to file" dated May 1972 , refers to a conversation between Colonel Killian and Lieutenant Bush when they "discussed options of how Bush can get out of coming to drill from now through November," because the lieutenant "may not have time."
The memo said the commander had worked to come up with options, "but I think he's also talking to someone upstairs."
Colonel Killian wrote in another report, dated Aug. 1, 1972, that he ordered Lieutenant Bush "suspended from flight status" because he failed to perform to standards of the Air Force and Texas Air National Guard and "failure to meet annual physical examination (flight) as ordered."
Colonel Killian also wrote in a memo that his superiors were forcing him to give Lieutenant Bush a favorable review, but that he refused.
"I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job," he wrote.
CBS, which reported on the memos on "The CBS Evening News" and "60 Minutes," declined to say how it obtained the documents." The New York Times > Washington > Documents Suggest Special Treatment for Bush in Guard

Posted by: Douglas at 9/08/2004 08:27:27 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Kerry, Sharpening Criticism of Bush, Lists Costs of Iraq War

Kerry keeps after Bush on Iraq
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Kerry, Sharpening Criticism of Bush, Lists Costs of Iraq War

Posted by: Douglas at 9/08/2004 01:26:21 PM | Permalink

The New York Times and Boston Globe on Bush AWOL: Missing in Action

THis is George W. Bush's missing year spin cycle: NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF goes after him this morning in the NYT and BEN BARNES is scheduled tonight on 60 MINUTES to tell how he got Bush into the Texas Guards; next week Kitty Kelley's book will reportedly have detailed account of Bush's lost months, about 18 of them
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Missing in Action
here's another detailed investigation that uncovers yet another National Guard obligation Bush failed to meet when he went to Harvard Business School; this guy really has some fascinating missing years and a treasure-trove of skeletons in his closet
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0908-02.htm

Posted by: Douglas at 9/08/2004 07:31:27 AM | Permalink

Bush faces pressure over drugs and draft

hopefully, this month will be as strong Bush-bashing as last month was Kerry bashing (but this time it will be true)
Independent News
Bush is bracing for the Kitty treatment and let it be sweet
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5010498-111675,00.html

Posted by: Douglas at 9/07/2004 08:30:13 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > Confronting Insurgents: U.S. Conceding Rebels Control Regions of Iraq

Bush's Iraq policy is a disastrous failure, wrong war at the war time with wrong strategies, everything about it is WRONG
The New York Times > Washington > Confronting Insurgents: U.S. Conceding Rebels Control Regions of Iraq

Posted by: Douglas at 9/07/2004 08:24:21 PM | Permalink

Graham book: Bush administration blocked inquiry into Saudi gov't ties to 9/11

another antiBush book is coming out by Senator Bob Graham. "Two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had a support network in the United States that included agents of the Saudi government, and the Bush administration and FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship, Sen. Bob Graham wrote in a book to be released Tuesday.

The discovery of the financial backing of the two hijackers "would draw a direct line between the terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia, and trigger an attempted coverup by the Bush administration," the Florida Democrat wrote.

And in Graham's book, Intelligence Matters, obtained by The Herald Saturday, he makes clear that some details of that financial support from Saudi Arabia were in the 27 pages of the congressional inquiry's final report that were blocked from release by the administration, despite the pleas of leaders of both parties on the House and Senate intelligence committees.

Graham also revealed that Gen. Tommy Franks told him on Feb. 19, 2002, just four months after the invasion of Afghanistan, that many important resources -- including the Predator drone aircraft crucial to the search for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda leaders -- were being shifted to prepare for a war against Iraq.
...He reserves his harshest criticism for Bush.

Graham found the president had "an unforgivable level of intellectual -- and even common sense -- indifference" toward analyzing the comparative threats posed by Iraq and al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

When the weapons were not found, one year after the invasion of Iraq, Bush attended a black-tie dinner in Washington, Graham recalled. Bush gave a humorous speech with slides, showing him looking under White House furniture and joking, "Nope, no WMDs there."

Graham wrote: "It was one of the most offensive things I have witnessed. Having recently attended the funeral of an American soldier killed in Iraq, who left behind a young wife and two preschool-age children, I found nothing funny about a deceitful justification for war."


The Smirking Chimp

Posted by: Douglas at 9/07/2004 09:42:40 AM | Permalink

RogerSimon.Com: A Kitty Surprise?

Buzz is beginning to circulate about the forthcoming Kitty Kelly book on the Bush Family. Roger Simon was told that there are “at least five bombshells” contained in it and another source says there is allegedly new material on President Bush’s service in the Air National Guard." Simon says that Republicans were worrying about the book and the effect on the election at their recent convention.
RogerSimon.Com: A Kitty Surprise?
So far the only leak from the book comes from a London tabloid that claims Kelly details Bush's extensive cocaine use: "Author Kitty Kelley says in her biography The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, that the US President first used coke at university in the mid-1960s.
She quotes his former sister-in-law Sharon Bush who claims: "Bush did coke at Camp David when his father was President, and not just once either."
Other acquaintances allege that as a 26-year-old National Guard, Bush "liked to sneak out back for a joint or into the bathroom for a line of cocaine".
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14609301&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=bush--took-cocaine-at-camp-david--name_page.html

Posted by: Douglas at 9/07/2004 09:07:07 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > Business > Media & Advertising > Perle Asserts Hollinger's Conrad Black Misled Him

boo hoo! one of the world's great rogues and scoundrals Richard Perle complains that he was misled by one of the world's other great rogues and scoundrals, Conrad Black, a media baron accused of mproperly siphoning millions of dollars to other companies he controlled; Perle had earlier defended him and now that Black is clearly guilty of major robbery he is saying "he was duped by his friend and business colleague." How much can the crooked Bush neocons get away with before the chickens come home to roost?
The New York Times > Business > Media & Advertising > Perle Asserts Hollinger's Conrad Black Misled Him

Posted by: Douglas at 9/06/2004 02:57:34 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > AP > National > Clinton Is Said to Be Resting After Successful Heart Surgery

Clinton's apparently survived the heart surgery and it will be interesting to see what role he plays in the campaign; it appears that Kerry, unlike Gore, is prepared to use him
The New York Times > AP > National > Clinton Is Said to Be Resting After Successful Heart Surgery

Posted by: Douglas at 9/06/2004 11:10:29 AM | Permalink

Bush's National Guard File missing records that would explain gaps in service

serious questions are raised about Bush's missing years in National Guard service in Alabama and Texas suggesting that he was indeed AWOL; with Ben Barnes going on 60 Minutes this week to tell how he helped get Bush into the Guard the story could have some wings
The Smirking Chimp

Posted by: Douglas at 9/06/2004 08:14:30 AM | Permalink

Lies, Damned Lies, and Convention Speeches

Zell Miller's convention speech put on display the true face of the Bush-Cheney Republican party: vicious, ugly, warped and utterly mendacious. The lies Miller recited about Kerry's record had been already much refuted leading me to believe that Karl Rove set Miller up, using him to smear and lie about Kerry and then McCain, Bush and others in the party could just say they disagree with him; it was an ugly performance but was indeed the true keynote of Bush's party

Posted by: Douglas at 9/06/2004 07:27:04 AM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: Dangerous Errors

there are also establishment attacks on the blundering Ashcroft who is not only a national embarassment but an incompetent
washingtonpost.com: Dangerous Errors

Posted by: Douglas at 9/05/2004 11:03:56 PM | Permalink

Progressive News - Misplaced Feith by Eric Alterman and Pat McLeary

neocons under assault by establishment, will any of these scandals rub off on Bush?
Progressive News - Misplaced Feith by Eric Alterman and Pat McLeary

Posted by: Douglas at 9/05/2004 11:03:00 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > Week in Review > One by One, Iraqi Cities Become No-Go Zones

a growing space of Iraq, like most of Aghanistan, a No-Go Zone: Bush's policies have increased breeding grounds for terrorism and instability
The New York Times > Week in Review > One by One, Iraqi Cities Become No-Go Zones

Posted by: Douglas at 9/05/2004 08:38:14 PM | Permalink

ZNet | 2004 Election | Rove's Brain and Media Manipulation

KARL ROVE needs to be a campaign issue, he is a total thug and media should sharply focus in on him, as should protests; here's a film based on a book to tell you why
ZNet | 2004 Election | Rove's Brain and Media Manipulation

Posted by: Douglas at 9/05/2004 05:28:13 PM | Permalink

TomPaine.com - THE DREYFUSS REPORT Archives

here's the best analysis I've seen of the Israel/US neocon spy scandal: "
Let's assume that Chalabi and Franklin, two lower-level operatives for the same machine, are still working together. And that the machine, the great Neoconservative Empire Machine and its Israeli right-wing allies, is what needs to be investigated.
Today’s Washington Post reports exactly that. It’s a stunning break in the Franklin case, which isn’t really the Franklin case at all, but a broader counterintelligence inquiry aimed at the Pentagon’s nest of spies run by Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith and Bill Luti. The circle, it ought to be obvious, is blissfully leaking secrets to the likes of Chalabi and AIPAC, and apparently blundered not once, but twice now—most recently when they sent Franklin stumbling into a meeting with AIPAC and the Embassy of Israel. Says the Post:

FBI counterintelligence agents are investigating whether several Pentagon officials leaked classified information to Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, according to a law enforcement official and other people familiar with the case.

Several sources familiar with the case say the probe now extends to other Pentagon personnel who have a particular interest in assisting both Israel and Chalabi, the former Iraqi dissident who was long a Pentagon favorite but who has fallen out of favor with the U.S. government.
Hmm. Who could that be? Which “personnel” might want to assist both Israel and Chalabi? Now the point is, assisting Israel and Chalabi makes sense because they are the same thing. And of course Chalabi isn’t spying for Iran, unless you think trying to build up the already existing Iran-Israel axis (remember Iran-contra) means spying for Iran. Chalabi is on Israel’s team, and vice versa, and so are the neocons. For a decade, they’ve been scheming to topple Saddam Hussein, wreak havoc in the Arab world, and boost the security of Israel. Before that, from 1979 to 1988, Israel supported Iran in its war with Iraq, helped arm the mullahs, and built strong connections to Iran’s military-industrial complex. Chalabi has multiple ties to the Israelis, and both have multiple ties to Iran and to various components of Iraq’s restive Shiite gangs.

The Post quotes a follower of Feith and Co. charging that the whole spy inquiry is just some petty CIA vendetta against “neoconservatives”:

Another official, an ideological ally of Feith's, said, however, that the investigation is part of an effort by some in the intelligence community to discredit Pentagon hawks. "This is part of a civil war within the administration, a basic dislike between the old CIA and neoconservatives," the official said.
But since when are “the CIA” and “neoconservatives” equal players? The CIA and the FBI are charged with protecting national security, a job that they do with, let’s say, uneven success. But the neoconservatives have a decades-long history of spying for Israel. This has long been known to U.S. counterintelligence officials. For the first time in memory it seems that the CIA and the FBI are actually doing something about it."
a href="http://www.tompaine.com/archives/the_dreyfuss_report.php">TomPaine.com - THE DREYFUSS REPORT Archives

Posted by: Douglas at 9/05/2004 05:23:50 PM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: U.S. Troops in Iraq See Highest Injury Toll Yet

injuries on the rise for US troops in Iraq; the death toll hides the tremendous number of crippling injuries
washingtonpost.com: U.S. Troops in Iraq See Highest Injury Toll Yet
two US soldiers killed in mortar attacks

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63870-2004Sep5?language=printer

Posted by: Douglas at 9/05/2004 03:31:35 PM | Permalink

Bush, Nixon, and Joe McCarthy

During the Republican convention, Bush’s Bold Lies about Iraq, Kerry’s policies, and his own agenda, coupled with the incessant attacks on Kerry throughout the convention, points to a Nixonian dimension in the Bush administration as well as a virulent McCarthyism evident in Bush and his Texas supporters like Karl Rove. John Dean has pointed out in Worse Than Watergate, the Nixonian dimension of the Bush administration, including vicious attacks on your political opponents, misusing arms of the federal government to promote your own agenda (as the Bush Gang missed intelligence agencies to cut “intelligence” on Iraq to support their intervention), and the general sleazy and corrupt atmosphere of the administration.
But one needs to invoke Joe McCarthy and McCarthyism to capture the depth of Bush administration depravity and poisoning of US politics. The smears on John Kerry by not only the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush, but Robert Dole, George H. W. Bush, Karl Rove, Laura Bush, and many of the speakers in the Republican convention involve the best blatant mudslinging, innuendo, and lies seen since the days of Joe McCarthy’s red-baiting.
Of course, Karl Rove’s campaigns for Bush always involve whispering and smear campaigns over opponents but never before had an entire convention reeked so of McCarthyism, with speaker after speaker impugning Kerry’s patriotism and brazenly lying about his record, while convention delegates displayed their little band-aids with purple hearts to belittle Kerry’s war injuries. Never before had such a sleazy, cruel, and corrupt group dominated a political party and ran such an ugly and vicious political campaign.
It was Karl Rove’s intention to try to keep Bush above the fray, using surrogates to defame Kerry but Bush just couldn’t help mocking Kerry and lying about his record. Mendacity and viciousness runs too deep in Bush’s DNA for him to remain outside of the fray and he is, in fact, a very effective and eager Bold Liar. Never has a politician been so consistently and breezily untruthful, lying day after day in the face of overwhelming fact, while never seeming to be disturbed about his being caught lying so often. It's as if Bush’s deeply rooted anti-intellectualism makes it impossible to engage in reflection and self-criticism, while he has been able to convince himself that he represents good incarnate and is on a noble crusade doing the work of a higher power. Its quite a show and could go on and on if the media, Democrats, and interested citizens do not tear off the Emperor's Clothes and reveal what's underneath.

Posted by: Douglas at 9/05/2004 01:37:30 PM | Permalink

Reality on the Ballot

Bob Parry is right: this election is about whether the country will face real issues or whether the Republicans can continue lying about everything. Can a campaign of pure and bold lies win power? will the people and the media pierce through Bush-Cheney's Web of Lies? truth is at stake as well as democracy
Consortiumnews.com

Posted by: Douglas at 9/05/2004 08:24:07 AM | Permalink

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Amnesia in the Garden

the Viper Bites Bush
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Amnesia in the Garden

Posted by: Douglas at 9/04/2004 07:26:21 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Democratic Strategies: Democrats Urge Kerry to Turn Up Intensity of Campaign

Message to Kerry: HIT BUSH HARD!!!
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Democratic Strategies: Democrats Urge Kerry to Turn Up Intensity of Campaign

Posted by: Douglas at 9/04/2004 07:25:49 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > International > Middle East > VIOLENCE: Suicide Blast Kills 17 in Worst Of Several Attacks in Iraq

a surge of violence in Iraq
The New York Times > International > Middle East > VIOLENCE: Suicide Blast Kills 17 in Worst Of Several Attacks in Iraq

Posted by: Douglas at 9/04/2004 12:17:47 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > International > Middle East > In Largely Quiet Iraq, Pipeline Is Attacked

another pipeline attack to screw up Iraq's oil production
The New York Times > International > Middle East > In Largely Quiet Iraq, Pipeline Is Attacked

Posted by: Douglas at 9/03/2004 10:54:29 PM | Permalink

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Demonstrations: Protesters Try to Get in Last Word Before Curtain Falls

last protest of the convention season, let's hope that there are vigorous and effective protests wherever Bush goes
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Demonstrations: Protesters Try to Get in Last Word Before Curtain Falls

Posted by: Douglas at 9/03/2004 06:05:17 PM | Permalink

BOLD LIES

So far, the Republican strategy has been to engage in Bold Lies about the actual achievements and policies of the Bush administration contrasted to the policies, character, and history of John Kerry. Adolph Hitler’s Big Lies involved repeating a falsehood over and over until people thought it was true. During his 2000 campaign and throughout his four years in office, Bush had regularly deployed the Big Lie concerning who his tax cuts would benefit, how much his Medicare package would cost and add to the federal deficit, why he went into Iraq, and how he represented forces of freedom, democracy, and small government. But the Big Lies had played out and Bold Lies were needed where lies about John Kerry could be told and repeated even after they had been refuted and answered.
Bold lies thus involve knowing that you are lying and doing it anyway, boldly proclaiming whoopers that informed people know are lies, and in the face of facts, counterevidence, and arguments, continuing to boldly and resolutely repeat the lie. Karl Rove and Karen Highes have long been producers and purveyors of Big Lies and with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney as performers the Big Lies could be transformed into Bold Ones. Once Tucker Carlson of CNN recounted a surreal experience with Karen Hughes where she lied boldly to him, knowing that he knew she was lying. This is BOLD LIES and it was the dominant discourse of the Bush campaign. Republicans would therefore not need to be bothered with mere facts, with evidence, or counterarguments because all they had to do was to repeat the Bold Lie and project hostility and the possibility of retaliation against anyone foolish enough to stand up to the Bold Lies of the moment (which can be easily replaced when they are deemed “inoperative”).
When the hapless Mean Old Man Zell Miller was programmed by the Republican Spin Machine to utter one Bold Lie after another about John Kerry, he was confronted on CNN and MSNBC afterwards with commentators pointing out that his claims about Kerry’s voting record and positions on defense were counterfactual. Not being clued into the Republican strategy of Bold Lies, Miller lost it when confronted with embarrassing facts and eventually challenged Chris Matthews to a duel when Matthews persisted to question him concerning his false allegations on stage.
Most Republican speakers would be better equipped to tell the Bold Lies on the podium and then spin or deflect any criticisms afterwards. Unfortunately, Bold Lies do not really provide convincing reasons to support a candidate or convince the unpersuaded that they should vote for the Republican. Bold Lies are usually put in question in one media source or another and discerning audiences may encounter such refutations and come to distrust the Republican spinners. Watch for further BOLD LIES to come and blogleft will carry out a BOLD LIE WATCH.

Posted by: Douglas at 9/03/2004 01:57:02 PM | Permalink

Where's the Agenda?Froomkin, pundits and Kellner on Bush's Bad Speech and Bold Lies

most commentators deem Bush's convention speech a bustwashingtonpost.com: Where's the Agenda?
here's my analysis:
Leading up to Bush’s speech the Republican convention had produced little of value besides entertaining the party faithful and giving them chances to cheer and make fools of themselves. It was obvious that the Bush-Cheney gang were exploiting the 9/11 tragedy to advance their campaign just as they used it to push through a rightwing agenda. But the Bush failure to address Al Qaeda and terrorism before 9/11, its botched unilateral military action in Afghanistan which renounced offers of help from US allies and even refused to put US troops on the ground, paying off tribal leaders instead, enable bin Laden and much of the Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership to escape; Bush’s invasion of Iraq did more to destabilize the Middle East, win recruits for terrorism, and make the world more dangerous and less safe than any policy in recent history.
And yet the Republicans attempted to present themselves as the party of national security and George W. Bush the leader to fight the war against terrorism. Obviously, such a strategy requires completely neglecting facts and history and substituting words for reality. It remained to be seen if Republican rhetoric could trump reality and if Bush’s vision of the world could be sold to voters.
Leading up to Bush’s speech there was almost no defense of his domestic record and what little there was was perfunctory at best. Secretary of education Ron Paige praised Bush’s No Child Left Behind Program, as did Dick Cheney. But critics have long argued that the Bush administration did not adequately fund he program and educators all over the country have deemed it a resounding failure and yet the Republicans have the nerve to present it as a success. There were likewise a few feeble attempts to present Bush’s tax cuts as helping the economy get out of the “Clinton recession” (another astonishingly Bold Lie)
The vicious attacks on Kerry made it clear that Bush was a divider and not a uniter and, astonishingly, Bush reprised the discredited and laughable phrase in his speech, praised his “coalition of the willing” (one of recent diplomacy’s great jokes), and presented himself as leader of something like a united front against terror, whereas in truth, largely because of his divisive and failed Iraq policy, Bush has deeply alienated the US from our own allies, as well as creating new enemies throughout the world with his arrogance, aggression, and brutality.
The brutal Bush was not on display, however, although for much of the speech he was cocky and confident. Walking out to an especially constructed platform that put Bush in the center and on top of what looked like a pitcher’s mound, Bush triumphantly marched up to the teleprompter to read his speech and the crowd went wild. His performance had been preceded by a sentimental evocation of 9/11 and Bush’s leadership during that fateful day and, sure enough, after genuflecting to the Republican audience, his wife, daughters, and parents, Bush took up the 9/11 theme immediately, as this was obviously what he considered his greatest moment and strongest re-election card.
In the most frightening refrain in his speech, Bush intoned that he will “build a safer world and a more hopeful America AND NOTHING WILL HOLD US BACK!” He claimed (contentiously) that he had “passed the most important federal education reform in history… AND NOTHING WILL HOLD US BACK!” He has strengthened Medicare AND NOTHING WILL HOLD US BACK!” He has strengthened the economy AND NOTHING WILL HOLD US BACK!”
This veiled threat “AND NOTHING WILL HOLD US BACK!” indeed accurately characterizes Bush’s attempts to cut taxes to give maximum pay-back to the rich and corporations, to unleash the military when Bush and his coterie sees fit, to cut back on civil liberties and environmental legislation, to disregard all international treaties, organizations, and law, and in general to promote a rightwing agenda AND NOTHING WILL HOLD US BACK!”
Bush’s proposals on the economy were not new and since he had done little to promote a compassionate conservative agenda and present positive public policy programs he could only engage in empty rhetoric punctuated with a laundry list of proposals. It was remarked that the phrase “I will…” was the most common of the night, offering empty promises rather than big ideas or concrete proposals. He advanced his “ownership society” concept whereby more people would own homes, their own retirement funds, their own medical coverage, and other programs now managed by the federal government; although few remarked on this concept, it was basically a proposal to undo New Deal programs and privatize federal programs, a boondoogle for private insurance companies and the rich, but hardly a sound program for the majority.
Bush’s speech picked up when he began mocking John Kerry, something he genuinely loves and that works with his audience, although since Bush’s slicing and mocking attacks on Kerry invariably distort his opponent’s record, Bush sets himself up as a liar and lowball campaigner, in effect, making clear what he fundamentally is. Stating that “These changing times can be exciting times of expanded opportunity,” Bush intoned, “And here, you face a choice. My opponent's policies are dramatically different from ours.” Bush’s mocking of Kerry received the first strong response to his speech all night:
BUSH: Senator Kerry opposed Medicare reform and health savings accounts. After supporting my education reforms, he now wants to dilute them. He opposes legal and medical liability reform. He opposed reducing the marriage penalty, opposed doubling the child credit, opposed lowering income taxes for all who pay them.
AUDIENCE: Boooo.
BUSH: Wait a minute, wait a minute.
To be fair, there are some things my opponent is for.
(LAUGHTER)
He's proposed more than $2 trillion in new federal spending so far, and that's a lot, even for a senator from Massachusetts.
(APPLAUSE)
And to pay for that spending, he is running on a platform of increasing taxes. And that's the kind of promise a politician usually keeps.
BUSH: His policies of tax and spend, of expanding government rather than expanding opportunity, are the politics of the past. We are on the path to the future, and we're not turning back.
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: Four more years. Four more years. Four more years.
Bush then threw some redmeat to his rightist conservative supporters, promising further welfare reform, protecting the “unborn child,” strengthening religious charities, protecting “marriage against activist judges”, appointing federal judges “who know the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law,” and defending conservative values. After more mocking of Kerry not so conservative values, Bush turned serious and claimed that his strategy in the Middle East is succeeding:
Four years ago, Afghanistan was the home base of Al Qaida.
BUSH: Pakistan was a transit point for terrorist groups. Saudi Arabia was fertile ground for terrorist fund-raising. Libya was secretly pursuing nuclear weapons, Iraq was a gathering threat. And Al Qaida was largely unchallenged as it planned attacks.
(APPLAUSE)
Today, the government of a free Afghanistan is fighting terror. Pakistan is capturing terrorist leaders. Saudi Arabia is making raids and arrests. Libya is dismantling its weapons programs. The army of a free Iraq is fighting for freedom. And more than three-quarters of Al Qaida's key members and associates have been detained or killed.
(APPLAUSE)
BUSH: We have led, many have joined, and America and the world are safer.
In fact, the Middle East is much more chaotic and dangerous since Bush assumed office with the Palestine-Israel conflict getting nastier everyday, with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia hotbeds of Islamic fundamentalism and Al Qaeda is on the rise everywhere and the US is less safer than ever. As Bush tried to defend his poor record in the “war on terrorism” Bush was twice interrupted and lost his focus and momentum. Indeed, on the whole Bush's speech was extremely uneven, lacking in cogent arguments to vote for him, poorly defending his mediocre record, and failing to outline an appealing agenda for the future. When Bush was twice interrupted by protestors from the floor he lost his cockiness and focus, continuing to read the speech, but losing attention of the audience. One priceless shot caught Dick and Lynne Cheney looking extremely angry as a protest interrupted Bush’s momentum. Indeed, for the first time that I can recall in US history a presidential convention speech was interrupted by protesters and Bush was obviously rattled. In the words of Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales: "It's doubtful that four more years in office would turn George W. Bush into a great speechmaker, but that he's improving was evident last night when he stood on a circular stage meant to suggest a pitcher's mound and made his case for a second term to near-deafening cheers at the Republican National Convention in New York. Bush still has problems maintaining poise. Twice, when cheers from the crowd were interrupted by jeers from protesters -- who were quickly hustled out of the hall by security guards and police -- Bush looked flustered, even frightened, though he did keep reading from the prompting devices encircling him. Ronald Reagan in the same situation would have responded with a quip and dismissed the protesters with a tolerant smile. Bush clung carefully to his text, his eyes darting anxiously around the hall."
Bush’s darting eyes revealed a nervousness and that he was not sure if people would believe what he was saying. After his specious arguments that “the world is more just and will be more peaceful,” Bush emitted a whopper of Bold Lies:
Again, my opponent and I have different approaches. I proposed, and the Congress overwhelmingly passed, $87 billion in funding needed by our troops doing battle in Afghanistan and Iraq. My opponent and his running mate voted against this money for bullets and fuel and vehicles and body armor.
AUDIENCE: Boo.
BUSH: When asked to explain his vote, the senator said, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it."
AUDIENCE: Flip-flop. Flip-flop. Flip-flop.
BUSH: Then he said he was "proud" of his vote. Then, when pressed, he said it was a "complicated" matter.
There's nothing complicated about supporting our troops in combat.
(APPLAUSE)
Kerry had endlessly explained that he totally supported US troops in combat and had voted against the $87 billion allocation because he wanted to finance it through a cut of Bush’s tax breaks for the richest and not to just add to the deficit and Bush wanted it; moreover, Bush’s “nothing complicated” glosses over that Bush himself was ready to veto the $87 billion Iraq package if it was presented as a loan as many in Congress, including many in his own party, wanted it, rather than as an outright grant, as Bush and Cheney wanted it (knowing that the grant would go into Halliburton and other corporate coffers who supported the Bush-Cheney Gang.
Bush droned on, but it was clear that he had offered no new ideas or convincing defenses of his sorry record and mostly engaged in empty rhetoric and Bold Lies about Kerry’s record. It was a poor speech, by an unqualified president, who was idolized by many in his party but more divisive and disliked than any president in modern times.
The reception to Bush’s speech was predictable with Republicans and their media support groups gushing about it, Democrats attacking it, and “neutral” pundits balancing pros and cons. It was noteworthy that Kerry went on the fierce attack forty minutes after Bush concluded his speech “denouncing the GOP convention for its ‘anger and distortions’ and belittling Vice President Cheney for avoiding the military draft during the Vietnam War era.” Kerry claimed that Bush was "unfit" to lead, saying he misled the country on the Iraq war and citing his failed record on jobs, health care and energy costs. Ratcheting up the attack rhetoric, Kerry thundered: "I'm not going to have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have and by those who have misled the nation into Iraq."
After Cheney had mocked and savaged his record, Kerry went after Cheney: "I'm going to leave it up to the voters whether five deferments makes someone more qualified than two tours of duty." Going after Bush and Cheney, Kerry stated: "Let me tell you what I think makes someone unfit for duty. Misleading our nation into war in Iraq makes you unfit to lead this nation. Doing nothing while this nation loses millions of jobs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting 45 million Americans go without health care makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting the Saudi royal family control our energy costs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Handing out billions [in] government contracts without a bid to Halliburton while you're still on their payroll makes you unfit."
Promising a tougher campaign, the Kerry camp announced an $8 million advertising blitz that will accuse the president of a string of broken promises that would air in swing states after Kerry visited them in a postconvention tour. His communication director Stephanie Cutter promised: "We're going to be very aggressive throughout the fall in painting the real picture of George Bush…We are going to remind voters of what George Bush said in 2000 and what he did. It is a much more aggressive stance."
Douglas Kellner

Posted by: Douglas at 9/03/2004 12:05:54 PM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: Judge Orders Demonstrators Freed

the protesters this week were valiant, courageous, creative and utterly righteous and despite tut tuts from aging Leftists that the protests would hurt Kerry and help Bush it appears to me at least that quite the opposite is the case
washingtonpost.com: Judge Orders Demonstrators Freed

Posted by: Douglas at 9/03/2004 12:29:05 AM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: Kerry Takes Off Gloves

Kerry continues to hit hard back at the Republican attacks: he should since the Republicans are savaging him with lies, mockery and assaults more viciously than any candidate has received in modern times
washingtonpost.com: Kerry Takes Off Gloves

Posted by: Douglas at 9/03/2004 12:27:10 AM | Permalink

washingtonpost.com: George Bush, No Fastball From the Mound

Bush's speech was a resounding flop, for the first time that I can recall in US history a presidential convention speech was interrupted by protestors and Bush lost it; here's a good account, I'll provide a critique of his speech tomorrow: "It's doubtful that four more years in office would turn George W. Bush into a great speechmaker, but that he's improving was evident last night when he stood on a circular stage meant to suggest a pitcher's mound and made his case for a second term to near-deafening cheers at the Republican National Convention in New York.

Bush still has problems maintaining poise. Twice, when cheers from the crowd were interrupted by jeers from protesters -- who were quickly hustled out of the hall by security guards and police -- Bush looked flustered, even frightened, though he did keep reading from the prompting devices encircling him. Ronald Reagan in the same situation would have responded with a quip and dismissed the protesters with a toler