Why would Matt Drudge do this?!

I noticed this in the Drudge Report last week... and I just have to point out how idiotic and pointless I thought it was.



DEM HEADQUARTERS USES BUSH FACE AS DOORMAT



FLASHBACK: SADDAM'S VERSION OF BUSH-MAT...

Christopher Hitchens review: Occidentalism

Those who are eager to die are expressing a hatred for the everyday, banal achievements of human society... The ideas of liberal pluralism are newer in "the West" than we suppose, and could in fact use some ruthless warriors of their own.

--Christopher Hitchens

??????????

In Buruma's view, the Islamist militant war against the West has less to do with imperialism or global injustice/ inequality than it does with hatred for pluralism and global modernization. We are to assume Islamic radicals are following in the footsteps of 20th-century European fascists and Japanese militants who simply hated Americanism and universalism. I think we have to keep an open mind as to where this somewhat overly-idealistic version of Anglo-American society is coming from. We should never forget the consequence of actual history. A careful and realistic study of both English and American history might cast an entirely different light on this view. Let me preface this next line by saying I am not a Marxist (because I can just hear the trolls singing now). The U.S. and England have backed any efforts in the Islamic world to smash their Marxist parties. There is no doubt a strong hatred of imperialist exploitation in Arabic and Islamic lands today.

The New York Review of Books January 17, 2002 Occidentalism
By Avishai Margalit, Ian Buruma

Chronicle Review-The Origins of Occidentalism

The book at Amazon.com

OK, so he didn't have them. But did he want them?


What's next? Maybe: OK, so he didn't want them, but did the thought ever cross his mind......at all....even once?

David Brooks is doing damage-control for someone....


David Brooks (who I'm sure is being paid very well by his employer) is posing as a non-partisan who is wounded by the damage the Richard Clarke-circus has done to precious American politics. (I'll cry tomorrow.) Brooks clearly begrudges Clarke for the attention (and money) he's amassed by telling his own truths about his 9-11 experience. David Brooks accuses Clarke of being like a "Power Ranger"...in Brooks own words:

See Dick Clarke courageously take control of the government in the middle of the terror attacks! See him heroically lead a teleconference! Behold his White House conversations! Everything he says is farsighted and brave! Everything the Bushies say is incorrect. And he remembers it all perfectly!

Why do you suppose David Brooks is riled to the point of reducing Clarke to a Power Ranger? These tasks Clarke performed on 9-11 may sound mundane in stark contrast with the heroic terms Brooks uses to describe them. Yet, I ask you to think about it for a moment. Do you remember when you first heard about those planes hitting the towers? Are there experiences from that day that are forever etched in YOUR memory? IF you wrote about them in a journal, would that make you a Power Ranger? A partisan? A liar? Of course not. Now, imagine you were working for the White House on 9-11. How soon would you forget all you'd done and how you felt?

Brooks can't seem to accept the fact that Clarke is assigning responsibility and accountability to this White House. He calls him a "shrill partisan". He says Clarke wrote "shrill passages" about Bush's stupidity. Brooks imagines American politics are damaged by these types of activity. He may be right. But what exactly do POLITICS have to do with TRUTH, anyhow? Who gives a damn how "politics" are damaged? The object, after what this nation experienced on 9-11, is the TRUTH. Clarke, as far as I can see, is telling HIS side of the truth. It's politically incorrect and David Brooks can't seem to handle that. I submit that he's every bit as partisan as Clarke might be. Politics has little to do with what is TRUE..I cannot stress that enough! Let politics take the biggest beating of its life over this. It's time we got to the core of what truly matters. Too many innocent Americans died on 9-11 to worry about the fragile state of politicians' overbloated egoes. David Brooks is doing damage control for someone....I wonder who?

Don't miss Bohemian Mama's Haiku


To Richard Clarke:

Profound good shines through
When great men defend the truth;
Thank goodness for you

Costa Rica tosses Ortega

No more political asylum for the Venezuelan "troublemaker"...Venezuelan union leader Carlos Ortega. Mr Ortega was facing charges of treason and rebellion when he walked into the Costa Rican embassy to request asylum on March 14. Apparently, he's turned out to be too controversial for the good of Costa Rican foreign diplomacy. Ortega says he'll go back to Venezuela to clandestinely plot to overthrow Hugo Chavez. Clandestinely? Not anymore, I guess. He spilled his own beans. It's no secret,anyhow. The sad part is that neither Kerry nor Bush will support real democratic order in Venezuela. Chavez was democratically elected. The mobs are trying to rule with loud protests. There were mobs protesting the Iraq war in February, 2003 and Bush dismissed them as a "focus group". What makes these Venezuelan mobs any more than a "focus group"?

President Chavez wants the U.S. to "get its hands off" his country. What if a powerful nation was trying to determine and force the issue of who OUR chosen leaders would be? You'd tell them the same...to get the hell out of our affairs. Would you not?

"In the name of truth, I have to ask the Washington government to get its hands off Venezuela. Bush's government is financing this mad opposition."
--Hugo Chavez

*The US government has persistently denied such accusations*

Even if these Venezuelan mob-elites were to succeed in their desire for referendum, it would not insure an end to Chavez rule by a long shot. The BBC reports:

.....let's suppose for the moment that the CNE - under pressure from the US, the Organisation of American States and the European Union - decides there are enough signatures for a referendum. What then?

First of all, if it takes place after mid-August, there will be no new presidential elections.

Instead, and in accordance with Venezuela's Constitution, the country's vice-president would take control (remote control by President Chavez, the opposition fears) till the end of Mr Chavez's term.

If the referendum takes place before August, there there's no guarantee the opposition would win either this, or any subsequent presidential elections.

The only force uniting the opposition here is hatred of Hugo Chavez. And once he's out of office, his opponents could fall foul to their own internal divisions.

About these mobs, one Venezuelan Chavez-supporter has stated:

"They have economic power. We have power of conviction."

Do conviction-based ideals mean anything to our leaders anymore? They certainly meant everything to our own Founding Fathers.

In fairness, read these tips on getting to know Venezuelan politics from one of those mob-elites. Gustavo Coronel is a 28- year oil industry veteran. He says he is against the current government. He says his opposition is "not about the details, but about the essentials". He thinks the Chavez government is not a real government but a "dictatorship of the inept".

The question is...how do Bush and/or Kerry support democracy and support the convictions of the majority of Venezuelan citizens at the same time without blatantly compromising all that democracy truly means?

Senator Kerry's recent statement included these thoughts:

Too often in the past, this [Bush] Administration has sent mixed signals by supporting undemocratic processes in our own hemisphere -- including in Venezuela, where they acquiesced to a failed coup attempt against President Chavez. Having just allowed the democratically elected leader to be cast aside in Haiti, they should make a strong statement now by leading the effort to preserve the fragile democracy in Venezuela.

Supporting the referendum is well and good, but all it may well result in is "remote-control" by Chavez, anyway. Or it may result in having to wait until the next election..an election Chavez may win, anyway. What will Kerry do if Venezuelan mobs turn to more vandalism and violence? He cannot amend Venezuela's Constitution from a seat in the Oval Office. Would a President Kerry resort to backing an attempted coup when the elite do not get their way? (As the Bush administration has been accused of doing?)

We all know this is about our American interests. We understand this. Yet, it goes against the grain of all the rational logic we are asked to accept about our own democracy and what it means to us.

We got what we wanted!
I'm glad to know Condi will publically testify


Placing myself in a state of empathy with the 9-11 families, I'm sure they're happy to hear Condi Rice will testify before the 9-11 Commission. It's about time. Let's get this done and make positive changes for the future safety of our people. With all the Bush administration's complaints about the abuse of our legal system by trial lawyers, a piss-poor example of abusing the law has been set by an administration that hides behind every Executive loophole it can find to remain non-transparent.

Senator Chuck Schumer(NY) said, "The administration's reversal shows that it was using executive privilege as an excuse to keep Dr. Rice from testifying. ... The dedication and bull's eye integrity of the commission has succeeded and now hopefully we will be a lot closer to the truth.''

Politically, the Bush administration has caved in to the intense pressure. In the NYT, Siegesmund Von Ilsemann says:

Richard Clark has now thoroughly reshaped this image of the level-headed leader. Should his accusations, printed in a bestseller and publicly repeated under oath, convince the general public, the son will likely follow in his father's footsteps in losing his bid for a second term.

Even if the long-awaited and hoped-for agreement for Rice to tesify was forced by political pressures, it's two-headed. It is a forced onus to strongly reply to Richard Clarke's Commission accusations (for history's sake) as well as a political need for Rice to try to restore the faith of many Americans who previously supported Bush, but have had recent doubts.

For whatever reason Rice is testifying, we must remember they work for us. This isn't a gift from the Bush administration. It's something the majority of Americans feel are rightfully due the public under the unusually weighty circumstances of 9-11 attacks. It's high time we got some good faith from the Bush administration. Condi's a great start. Now, if we can just get to the crux of who outed Valerie Plame and who Cheney met with in secrecy to formulate OUR energy policy....

Speaking of transparency, Senate minority leader Tom Daschle said today: "The commission should declassify Mr. Clarke's earlier testimony -- all of it, not just the parts the White House wants ---"

For the sake of truth, it had best be all...or nothing.

Faith interpretation can mean the difference between terror and peace


The symbolic meanings of the (Islamic) Seal of the Children and the (Christian) Rapture, which will signal an end to the emergence of man are much like the prophesied Imam Mahdi.

About Mahdi:

The Muslim holy prophet Muhammad has prophesied about several events that will occur just before the advent of the day of judgment. Among these, Rasulullah has foretold the advent of one of his descendants, Al Mahdi (the guided one), which will materialize when the believers are severely oppressed in every corner of the world. Muslims believe He will fight the oppressors, unite the Muslims, bring peace and justice to the world, rule over the Arabs, and lead a prayer in Mecca at which Isa(Jesus) will be present.

Muslims are called upon to remember that the prophecy about Mahdi is one that will come to pass. This prophecy, however, does not absolve the Muslim community from its duty to strive in the cause of Allah, oppose injustice, and seek peace and betterment of human condition. Centuries have passed from the time of the holy Prophet and there is a good possibility that many more will expire before the advent of Al Mahdi. Muslims who are negligent in their duty hoping for a savior are committing a grave mistake and are not following the divine decrees ordained in Quran or taught by Rasulullah.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We do not know whether man's potential is fixed, with some kind of defined limit or some kind of expected end. We do not know if man's reign is open-ended. It's a matter of faith. The tendency of liberal faith interpretations, in general, is toward an open-ended existence of mankind along with expansion into evolving forms of expression. Thos who interpret their faith liberally, whether in the case of Islam or Christianity, believe Man is made in the image of God, that God is Infinite, the single.....ultimately unknowable.

At the other end of the faith-interpretation spectrum, you can see more conservative/fundamentalist interpretations of these end-signs. For instance, the Left Behind series of books cannot be doing wonders for promoting understanding, intra-faith cooperation, and peace right here on terra firma.

Ref: Glorious Appearing in bookstores

~~~~~~~~~~

"That is not to say that we are "martyrdom-seekers" but it is to say that we are prepared for that.."

~~~~~~~~~~

In World Net Daily, there is an article stating that "Jihadists are in a global frenzy over coming of prophesied 'Mahdi'.

At World Net Daily, I find the kind of journalists who show tendency to be every bit as fundamentalist as their "frenzied Jihadist" counterparts. For your consideration, I submit this information in hopes you will see how a liberal interpretation of faith and finding commonality between people of all/any faith is far more important to a peaceful and democratic society than promoting fear about our different beliefs.

Then again, perhaps the decided Christian-right journalists at World Net Daily are doing a bit of a good service in their fear and mistrust of other faiths by showing us how their Islamic counterparts are abusing their own sacred text to suit their own political desires.

A real joy is experienced in seeing just one person reaching out in the dark over the expansive fault-line that exists within their own faith family...

My hope is that we could all teach our children as well as that one person....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Did you know....

Some individuals, faith groups, public opinion pollsters, government census offices, etc. define a Christian as anyone who believes that they are following the teachings of Jesus Christ. This definition would include about 76% of adults in the U.S. and a similar number in Canada. It would embrace members of Fundamentalist and other Evangelical Protestant churches, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox churches, Anglican churches, mainline and liberal Protestant denominations, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and many persons who are not members of a specific faith group.

But within Fundamentalist and other Evangelical Protestant faith groups, the term "Christian" is generally restricted to those persons who are born-again or "saved." i.e. an individual who has repented their sins and trusted Jesus as Lord and Savior. They might total about 30% of adults in the U.S., and 10% in Canada.

March 31st: The O'Franken Factor


Website: http://airamericaradio.com/
Time: 12-3pm.
Current stations: WLIB (NYC, AM 1190am), WNTD (Chicago, AM 950), KBLA (LA, AM 1580). Will also be streamed online at http://airamericaradio.com/.

The O’ Franken Factor: 12:00-3:00pm

After debunking right-wing propaganda in his bestselling books Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them and Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot, Al Franken is taking the fight to America's airwaves--and he's doing it drug-free. With his co-host, veteran radio personality Katherine Lanpher, Franken will deliver three hours a day of fearlessly irreverent commentary, comedy, and interviews. Franken and Lanpher have a mean streak a smile wide. The O'Franken Factor will energize fans, infuriate liars, and deliver the truth--in what Al Franken likes to call the Zero Spin Zone.

Host: Al Franken

Co-host: Katherine Lanpher

Producer: Billy Kimball

Which sounds more sane and in line with American ideals?


--"Let us not forget that democracy is the only way to maturity, and that secularism is an inseparable part of democracy. We have to put our trust in democracy and in people and patiently wait for the positive outcome, while not forgetting to pray."


--"Both church and state are also presented as being divine institutions and ultimately answerable to God. Secularism is so patently false that it is amazing that this is the view of church and state."

Look at comments section to see where these statements came from.

Globe and Mail / Canada
Trust Clarke: He's Right about Bush
by Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay

Two international relations experts claim that, two years after the worst terrorist attack in history, the President still does not understand the threat we confront. This is very stinging for the Bush administration and you're now seeing them lash back with vicious attacks upon the credibility and character of Mr. Clarke.

Regardless of the emphasis Clarke puts on his disappointment with the Bush administration's own failings and regardless of these attacks upon Mr. Clarke by the Bushites and all the pundits who love them, there are key facts that will steadily stand:

-- Clarke repeatedly warned the Bush Administration about attacks from al Qaeda, starting in the first days of Bush's term.

-- In face-to-face meetings, CIA Director George Tenet warned President Bush repeatedly in the months before 9/11 that an attack was coming.

-- On September 12, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld pushed to bomb Iraq even though they knew that al Qaeda was in Afghanistan.

-- Also on September 12, 2001, President Bush personally pushed Clarke to find evidence that Iraq was behind the attacks.

-- The Bush Administration knew from the beginning that there was no connection between Iraq and 9/11, but created the misperception in order to push their policy goals.

-- The war on Iraq has increased the danger of terrorism.

From A Conversation between Bill Maher and Ralph Nader


LINK TO TRANSCRIPT HERE

BILL MAHER (to guest Ralph Nader): After three years of Bush.. I've got to say it, just now voting your conscience seems like a bratty indulgence to me. It really does.

RALPH NADER'S REPLY: let's not talk about 'spoiler.' We're supposed to have the right to run for political office. What about the 250,000 Democrats who voted for Bush in Florida? Democrats aren't worried about them?

-------------------------------

RALPH NADER (on the topic of MSNBC's Chris Matthews): Chris Matthews has turned into media staccato. He's turned from entertainment to caricature. I could hardly stop from laughing when I was on the show. I just couldn't believe it. What is this? No wonder he's parodied on 'Saturday Night Live.'

____________________


Common Dreams:
Senator Kerry: You Want My Vote?
Support My Positions!

...As recently as Thursday night at a Democratic funding raising dinner President Jimmy Carter said, in a statement directed at Ralph Nader, "Don't risk costing the Democrats the White House this year as you did four years ago." This type of scapegoat does not make me feel all warm and fuzzy about voting for John Kerry and the Democrats. Carter also said "I hope everyone here tonight will do your best to make sure Ralph Nader gets zero votes this year." There is a very simple way to insure that Ralph Nader gets zero votes this year: support his positions.

....I would doubt the majority of Americans know who Hugo Chavez is or care about America's relationship with him. If this speech is not earning Kerry points with the voters, why is he making it? It's a wink and a nod at the wealthy and the corporations who have business interests in Venezuela.

....Do you want my vote or do you want to continue courting corporations and the wealthy? Either way the Democratic Party ought to stop blaming Nader for their own failures.

See: Miami Herald article about Kerry's views on Chavez

Today in history..


"If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people."
- Virginia Woolf, who died March 28,1941

1834- U.S. Senate Takes Jackson to Task over the Second Bank
1899- Brewing magnate August Anheuser Busch, Jr., was born
1939- Spanish Civil War ends
1969- Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower dies
1979- Nuclear Accident at Three Mile Island


1999-Concert in Belgrade at Air Raid Alert

1999- NATO broadened attacks on Yugoslavia targeting Serb forces in Kosovo in the fifth straight night of airstrikes, protest concert in Belgrade.
2003- American-led forces in Iraq dropped 1,000-pound bombs on Republican Guard units guarding the gates to Baghdad and battled for control of the strategic city of Nasiriya

Reflections on Bruce Lawrence's "Rethinking Islam in the West"-

Who are the Muslim Pluralists?

In his recent article No More Crusades at the Harvard International Review, Bruce Lawrence says:

We do need religious voices to speak to the current fault line between East and West, Islam and America, and it is Muslim pluralists who are the philosophers and religious thinkers with whom non-Muslim others can and should make common cause.

I decided to go on a search for those who might be considered Muslim pluralists. I wanted to find at least one and bring that one voice to the forefront this morning. If the pluralist voices could be raised over the din of the terror-talking media, people here in this country might begin to understand that the work to end terror will be as hard as any work we've ever had to do..and will not be solved by force. Real solutions will not come through war, force, occupation, and violence. It will need to come through our hearts.

A writing to which I refer you is a Jerusalem Post item titled Learning to love Islam from Yossi Klein Halevi, a religious Israeli Jew, correspondent for the New Republic and a senior writer for the Jerusalem Report. He is the author of the book "At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for God with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land" The writing credits Muslim dissident Irshad Manji, for her wisdom. Irshad is a Toronto journalist whose Indian-born parents fled Uganda after Idi Amin's takeover. She calls herself a "Muslim Refusenik". She has recently published a book called The Trouble with Islam, which takes the form of an extended open letter to her fellow Muslims. Irshad has made observations such as:

I hear from a Saudi friend that his country's religious police arrest women for wearing red on Valentines Day, and I think, Since when does a merciful God outlaw joy--or fun? I read about victims of rape being stoned for "adultery" and I wonder how a critical mass of us can stay stone silent.

Concerning the found commonality at the heart of the Muslim and the Jew, Halevi proclaims:

Our critique of Islam requires a nuanced tone. We should offer Islam not just our criticism but our respect and, if possible, our love.

Love is always a swim upstream. The water is almost always tinted with the blood of those who refused to understand this: While we were stuck on this planet together, our children could have lived in peace.

We need now, more than ever, to create conversations where none existed before.

------------------------

*additional reference: LIBERAL ISLAM: PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES by Charles Kurzman

...liberal approaches to multi-religious co-existence have been stimulated by three historic shifts of the past quarter century: the rise of secular higher education in the Islamic world, which has broken the monopoly of the seminaries over religious discourse; the growth of international communications, which has made educated Muslims more aware than ever of the norms and institutions of the West; and the failure of Islamic regimes to deliver an attractive alternative. These liberal approaches face serious challenges, including accusations of treason and inauthenticity, and a Western ignorance about the existence and importance of this internal Islamic debate.

Frank Rich on faux journalism,
the White House's new ally


Excerpts:

American television is increasingly awash in fake anchors delivering fake news, some of them far more trenchant than real anchors delivering real news......The more real journalism declines, the easier it is for such government "infoganda" (as The Daily Show's Rob Corddry calls it) to fill the vacuum. President George W. Bush tries to facilitate this process by shutting out the real news media as much as possible....

When the president made an exception last month and took questions from an actual frontline journalist, NBC television's Tim Russert, his performance was so maladroit that the experiment is unlikely to be repeated soon....
.....There is no point in bothering with actual news people anyway, when you can make up your own story and make it stick. No fake news story has become more embedded in our culture than the administration's account of its actions on Sept. 11. As The Wall Street Journal reported on its front page this week - just as the former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke was going public with his parallel account - many of this story's most familiar details are utter fiction. Bush's repeated claim that one of his "first acts" of that morning was to put the military on alert is false. So are the president's claims that he watched the first airplane hit the World Trade Center on television that morning. (No such video yet existed.) Nor was Air Force One under threat as Bush flew around the country, delaying his return to Washington. Yet the fake narrative of Sept. 11 has been scrupulously maintained by the White House for more than two years.......

After Sept. 11, similar fake-news techniques helped speed us into "Operation Iraqi Freedom."...... What few journalistic efforts were made to penetrate the trumped-up rationales for war were easily defeated by the administration's false news reports of impending biological attacks and mushroom clouds. To see how the faux journalism sausage was made, go to www.reform.house.gov/min, where a searchable database posted by Representative Henry Waxman identifies "237 specific misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq" made by Bush and members of his administration...

I like today's Thomas Friedman column

I've been hard on Mr. Friedman lately. I forget that he. too only desires to see out nation make some positive progress. In Awaking to a Dream, Mr. Friedman begins by saying: "Imagination is on my mind a lot these days, because it seems to me that the only people with imagination in the world right now are the bad guy...."

Also in today's NY Times, Bob Dole tells us "..President Bush has the facts on his side. His job now is simply to remind voters that America is safer and more prosperous than it was on the day he was sworn into office." As Bush did in the lead-up to the Iraq war, he's going to have to get out there and do some more misleading to make us believe we've come anywhere near tackling the terrorism problem and that we're safer for having made the pre-emptive attack which has become a quagmire. He'll have to do a misleading song and dance about those millions of lost and/or outsourced jobs, too.

Harvard International Review
No More Crusades
Rethinking Islam in the West
by Bruce B. Lawrence

"Since September 11, the "Clash of Civilizations" theory has dominated and incorporated all others. It seems to explain Muslim-Western hostility as both ancient and irreversible. It is neither. This enmity is made by humans and thus can be unmade by humans."

Points covered in the article:

..What is needed to advance beyond pseudo-dialectics and interminable warfare is a double critique-internal and external-that must begin with the symbolic event that haunts the memory of Christians and Muslims alike: the Crusades.

..Who are today's Crusaders? (Read and you may be surprised).

....Crusader logic is matched by Islamist, or Islamic extremist, rhetoric. Those [9-11] planes were meant not only to destroy buildings and to kill people, but also to send a message to the largest possible audience through modern media. The message was as stark as it was simple: the United States is the enemy of Islam, and the core of the United States is business that is privileged by the capitalist world system.

..We do need religious voices to speak to the current fault line between East and West, Islam and America, and it is Muslim pluralists who are the philosophers and religious thinkers with whom non-Muslim others can and should make common cause.

..To make a plural world safe both for democratic citizens and religious rivals demands nothing less than a hardy inter-faith coalition of good-willed Abrahamic advocates. The only victory that counts in the war on terror will come off the battlefield, in the minds and hearts of moral combatants who recognize their internal enemies as well as their external foes.

..Without attention to the fault lines of human caprice, including those within the churches, there can be neither peace nor its necessary concomitant, sustained Muslim-Christian cooperation, which also includes Jews and Buddhists along with others dedicated to pursuit of the collective good. It is a jihad, in the truest sense, a struggle against our own demons as well as others. It prohibits a Crusade. Indeed, it will only succeed when Crusades, Crusaders and Crusading have been understood for what they are: a bygone chapter of world history not to be repeated, except as a cautionary tale, for our own and for all future generations.

Questions about Iraq

There is excellent commentary about Iraq and the war on terror at Rodger A. Payne's blog this week.
On March 24th, Professor Payne said the real debate over Iraq remains, asking:

Can a nation like Iraq be democratized by toppling a despotic regime and "building" a new nation from the rubble?

Was military force the best way to do this?

-- Did the attack set a dangerous precedent and potentially legitimize similar uses of violence by other states that will make the world a much less safe place?

-- Will the use of military force without wide international support create so much backlash throughout the Islamic world that the forces of terror are substantially strengthened by this move?

How long will it take to democratize Iraq?

Can a democratic Iraq trigger a democratic domino effect throughout the region?

Why begin with Iraq? What if the US had put strong (non-violent) public pressure on other states -- like Saudi Arabia? Or Egypt?

Professor Payne also shares my fascination with the Republicans suddenly embracing transparency.

Harvard International Review
Religion and International Affairs

In the most current issue of the Harvard International Review, religion's role in international affairs is in focus.

From the Review:

Beginning with questions of religious radicalism, Karen Armstrong examines the forces behind the global surge in religious fundamentalism, while Mark Juergensmeyer describes religious violence against the secular state. Next, Symeon Giannakos provides a case study tracing the development of religious and statist identities in Southeast Europe. Keeping the pitfalls of civilizationalisms firmly in mind, Jonathan Fox draws on statistical evidence to show that religious factors are not the primary cause of ethnic conflict. Turning at last to ways in which religiosity can benefit the international order, David Smock evaluates the role of faith-based non-governmental organizations in peacemaking, and Robert Barro investigates the correlation between religion and economic growth.

Also, see No More Crusades- Rethinking Islam in the West by Bruce B. Lawrence.

Rep Nick Smith/House Ethics Probe Underway


On February 26th on Iddybud, I wrote:

I hear the investigation's really heating up on this Rep. Nick Smith-Medicare-House of Representatives bribery case. The House Ethics Committee may not be the only investigators...I hear there may also be an ongoing criminal investigation.

I see it's hitting the mainstream. It was the focus of ABC's Nightline last night. Yesterday, the House ethics committee named four lawmakers who will investigate whether Rep. Smith was offered the bribe to vote for the Medicare bill. A talk-radio host who helped expose the Medicare bribe has curiously lost his job. According to Roll Call, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the matter, too

Medicare Bribe Archive:
Feb. 26, 2004: "FBI Examines Medicare Bribe"
Feb. 4, 2004: "Brad's Little Problem"
Jan. 22, 2004: "Burying the Bribe"
Jan. 8, 2004: "Bob Novak Ate My Brain!"
Dec. 23, 2003: "Now It's a Scandal"
Dec. 8, 2003: "A Drug-Company Bribe?"
Dec. 6, 2003: "Why Smith Can't Recant"
Dec. 5, 2003: "Nick Smith Recants"
Dec. 1, 2003: "Who Tried To Bribe Rep. Smith?"

Eat your boogers
Forget an apple a day.
Go ye the green way.


Fake Boogers

Show your four-year-old how corn starch and water is sticky (especially as it dries out) and he will be looking at synthetic boogers!

The State of the Media 2003

Journalism.org:
2004 - the year of blogging?

The Web log culture is fascinating and still evolving.


From The State of the Media 2003 Report:

Web logs, or blogs, such as instapundit.com and kausfiles.com, are an exciting new prospect for the Web. And some of these bloggers are influential. For now, though, bloggers appear to command only a fraction of the online audience. During the first week of the Iraq war, for instance, the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that only 4 percent of Internet users had visited a blog......

In some cases yesterday's influential print columnists are today's bloggers. Journalists like Mickey Kaus (formerly of The New Republic), Howard Kurtz (of The Washington Post), Virginia Postrel (former editor of Reason) and Rich Lowry (editor of National Review), are people whose blogs are often cited by the old media and thus whose influence reaches much farther than their direct audience. The Web log culture is fascinating and still evolving.

.....Whether it will become a serious online presence and influence on journalism remains unclear. Several panelists at the Online News Association's 2003 conference predicted that 2004 would be the year of blogging.18 At this point, though, the hard data suggest that its influence, like journals of opinion in print such as The Nation or The Weekly Standard, will be more intellectual than commercial. In 2003, many political analysts credited conservative blogs for playing a role in the resignation of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott when the mainstream press did not do much with the story of his comments in favor of past segregation. Whether blogs come to define the Internet or represent only a small but appealing aspect of it, is still a question.

WHAT AN AWFUL JOKE!

'Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere!'


Credit: AP photo

--President George W. Bush


"I'm appalled. I think it's in extremely poor taste. I think he owes an apology to those families who have lost loved ones there and those of us that are going through the dread every day having a son or daughter in Iraq. He pokes fun at the reason that he told us (soldiers) went over there. I think it's extremely callous."

--Larry Syverson of Richmond, Virginia, who has a son serving with the Army in Iraq and another who recently returned after serving in the Tikrit area.


"This is disgraceful. He doesn't think of all the families that are suffering. It's unbelievable, how this guy tries to run the country."

--George Medina, 43, of Orange County, who lost his 22-year-old son, Spec. Irving Medina, Nov. 14 in Baghdad.


"To be poking fun; it's just a travesty to the soldiers who lost their lives. I think it's disrespectful."

--Charles Celestin, 28, of Coral Springs, Fla., whose brother-in-law, Spec. Irving Medina, died Nov. 14 in Baghdad.


"That's supposed to be funny? Unfortunately for the president, this is not a joke. George Bush insulted me as a veteran and as a friend to many still serving in Iraq. President George Bush showed a stunningly cavalier attitude toward the failed search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the administration's rush to war. If George Bush thinks his deceptive rationale for going to war is a laughing matter, then he's even more out of touch than we thought. Five-hundred eighty-five American soldiers have been killed in Iraq in the last year; 3,354 have been wounded, and there's no end in sight. George Bush sold us on going to war with Iraq based on the threat of weapons of mass destruction. But we still haven't found them, and now he thinks that's funny? George Bush didn't tell us the truth about the economy, about job loss, about the true cost of his deceptive prescription drug plan, or about the existence of weapons of mass destruction. There's nothing funny about that."

--Sen. John Kerry


"George Bush insulted me as a veteran and as a friend to many still serving in Iraq. This act lowers the dialogue about weapons of mass destruction. War is the single most serious event that a President or government can carry its people into. No weapons of mass destruction have been found and that is no joke - this is for real. This cheapens the sacrifice that American soldiers and their families are dealing with every single day."

--Brad Owens, Iraq war veteran


"It was one of the most despicable acts of a sitting president. That's not a joke to us, Mr. Bush. Five hundred soldiers lost their lives, looking for weapons that weren't there. Billions of taxpayer dollars were spent looking for weapons that weren't there. But guess what? You gonna look out that window in January and see a moving van to send you back to Texas."

--Rev. Al Sharpton


"They're not there [WMDs]. That is the issue. We should not take it to a new step to make fun of the situation. This is a very serious issue. We've lost hundreds of troops, as you know, over there. Let's not be laughing about not being able to find weapons of mass destruction."

--DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe



A little casual?! Why the hell did Nancy Pelosi laugh?

"I had thought that that was a little casual about a serious subject, but now the president has made it open season."

--Nancy Pelosi


"I wish I could report to you that the conflict is almost over. This I cannot do. We face more cost, more loss, and more agony. For the end is not yet."

--President Lyndon Johnson, 1967, who saw nothing humorous in the Vietnamese war - the conflict that George W. Bush managed to creatively avoid.



"The Democrats will go after anything.”

--Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie


"That WMD crack? And posing in advance for a stupid picture to go with your stupid, insensitive-to-soldiers'-families joke? Well. I'd say that should be worth at least another half-hour in front of the 9/11 Commission. But I don't get to make the rules."

--Value Judgement blog

Around the CNY Blogs

Although the warm Spring weather has arrived, it's still a rather somber day today in Syracuse. As NYCO points out, there is no joy in Mudville today. The Syracuse University men's basketball team is out of the NCAA Championships. NYCO also has provided astute commentary on the "unity" Democrat's dinner on Thursday:

About the unity dinner itself, I had surprisingly mixed feelings. I was channel-flipping between sports and politics, so I didn't see all of the Big Dog's speech (the C-SPAN video archives being like TiVo for Politics). But I did catch the bit where he was excoriating the GOP for its campaign tactics against McCain and Cleland, and when he got to the part about the Cleland-Osama ad, I just felt a real twinge, thinking about the Dean-Osama ad and how of course he wouldn't be mentioning that. And feeling that old anger about the Democratic establishment for a moment. I'm not sure I want to let go of that.
Lastly, dumb comment of the night goes to Jimmy Carter: "Ralph, go back to … examining the rear ends of automobiles and don't risk costing Democrats the White House this year, as you did four years ago." Yeah, that'll make people leaning Nader want to vote Democrat. Thanks.

Central New York readers will also be interested to read Nyco's comments on the strange passing-up of the Joanne Shenandoah documentary "Dancing on Mother Earth" by Public Television station WCNY in Syracuse.

If we can't see controversial programs about people and issues that actually concern CNY, what is the point of having public television in the first place?

"I got such a kick out of seeing the president huff and puff and get all indignant over the testimony of Richard Clarke this week. The real issue is this: Who would you rather have in charge of the defense of the United States of America, a group of people who never served a day overseas in their life or a guy who served this country honorably and has three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star on the battlefields of Vietnam?"

--Howard Dean today at George Washington University, formally endorsing Senator John Kerry for President

Tough times for Bushites call for tough measures
AMAZING DEVELOPMENT!
Totally out of character for the rigidly secretive Bush administration, a strict White House rule is allowed to be broken and propaganda-tool is pulled out for use.
That propaganda tool is FOX News.

Shortly before the hearing, the White House violated its long-standing rules by authorizing Fox News to air remarks favorable to Bush that Clarke had made anonymously at an administration briefing in 2002. The White House press secretary read passages from the 2002 remarks at his televised briefing, and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who has declined to give public testimony to the commission, called reporters into her office to highlight the discrepancy. "There are two very different stories here," she said. "These stories can't be reconciled."
Back at the hearing, former Illinois governor James R. Thompson, a Republican member of the commission, took up the cause, waving the Fox News transcript with one hand and Clarke's critical book in the other. "Which is true?" Thompson demanded, folding his arms and glowering down at the witness.

The Bush administration must be feeling incredibly threatened. As they should.
I should include the next few lines for amusing closure:

Clarke, appearing unfazed by the apparent contradiction between his current criticism and previous praise, spoke to Thompson as if addressing a slow student. *[chortle]

"I was asked to highlight the positive aspects of what the administration had done, and to minimize the negative aspects of what the administration had done," he explained. "I've done it for several presidents."

Two views on Iraq

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

--Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)


Here are two views on the war.

In the first, Denise Robertson lays out the guilt-carpet and asks how a woman (like me) could possibly protest a war that saves my "sisters". She says:

Of course, Iraq is still a dangerous place. I wouldn't like to live there with children but I like it a damn sight better now than it was two years ago, when Uday Hussein would routinely remove virgins from the country's schools in order to rape them.

It mystifies me that so many women have protested a war that freed their sisters from that kind of outrage.

I would ask Denise to consider the bitter truth about Iraq. Uday or no Uday. In the most recent edition of The New Yorker, journalist Jon Lee Anderson is seeing Baghdad firsthand while Denise frolics somewhere this day in the fairly secure UK.

Baghdad is a much more dangerous place than it was a year ago. A few days before the Mount Lebanon explosion, someone set off a bomb in front of a perfume shop in the same neighborhood—Al-Karrada, a predominantly Shiite section of the city. The target of the attack, who died, was the brotherin-law of Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council. Jaafari’s brother-in-law was not involved in politics, but he was presumably easier to get to than Jaafari, and killing him may have been worth it just to get a message across.

It is not only the wealthy who are targeted for robbery and extortion. As in countries like Colombia and Mexico, wives and children of schoolteachers and mechanics are kidnapped along with politicians and rich businessmen. A couple of months ago, the twelve-year-old son of an Iraqi friend of mine, a driver who lives in a working-class neighborhood, was kidnapped one morning while walking to school. My friend had recently bought a nice secondhand car, which he was very proud of and loved to show off. That was probably his big mistake. The kidnappers demanded fifty thousand dollars in ransom. He bargained them down to six thousand dollars, sold his new car, and paid up. Several hours later, the boy was released a few blocks from his home. Since then, my friend has not let his son out of the house, even to go to school.

I would remind Denise and other Iraq-cheerleaders that this is about far more than rape-rooms. The systemic crime dilemma in Iraq must be dealt with swiftly and it should never have been unilaterally up to the United States and the willing/bribed coalition members to take on by themselves. For all that is decent for my sisters, brothers, and the children of Iraq, we need to re-engage the world. We never should have disengaged to begin with. Thus far this lady doth protest, methinks........meknows.

March 25 News and Views



www.citypages.com

CityPages.com: Karl Rove's Moment-
How "Bush's Brain" hijacked Washington, D.C. and politics-as-usual.

The amazing thing about 2004 is not that a radical, reckless president has the chance to be reelected; the amazing thing is that, in the face of a political establishment and a news media that rarely said boo to George W. Bush, millions and millions of people have his number anyway. Where the people are concerned, therefore, Karl and W are forced to make a dicier bet--against public memory, decency, and self-interest. It isn't clear yet whether terror fears and "wedge" issues like gay marriage, guns, and religion will once again divert sufficient numbers of people from more pressing matters, such as their own livelihoods. Maybe not.

On the other hand, Karl Rove has yet to lose a race by underestimating the integrity and rationality of American electoral politics.

Guardian Unlimited - The battle of the airwaves in America:

Sarcastic, bilious and very rightwing, talk radio host Rush Limbaugh has become one of the most powerful voices in American politics. Can a group of liberals really beat him at his own game?

Paul Krugman - Lifting the Shroud

Dan Frosch, AlterNet: The Burden of Conscience

TAP: President Bush says we're winning the war on terrorism. As with so many things, however, his math doesn't add up.

On March 18, President Bush declared that U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have made "America more secure." There have been more al-Qaeda-linked attacks internationally since September 11 than in the eight years before it.

9-11 Commission

Yahoo: Families of 9/11 Victims Laud Clarke for Apology

Center for American Progress - 9/11: Internal Government Documents

NYT:Assessing the Blame for 9/11

The real impression gleaned from the hearings is not that the Bush administration was indifferent to the threat of terror, but that its officials had trouble fully understanding it.Their mind-set did not allow for the possibility of an extranational threat not orchestrated by any one particular government.

AlterNet - White House Tailspin

I saw 'Yellowcake' Hadley on 60 minutes last Sunday trying to lie his way out of admitting there was the alleged find-blame-on-Iraq meeting in the situation room with the President and Richard Clarke just after 9-11. I saw Leslie Stahl shoot ol' Yellowcake down with proof of there being at least two witnesses to the meeting. In this article, it says:

Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley – the same man who ignored CIA orders to remove false uranium claims from the President's pre-war State of the Union – defended the Administration by saying, "All the chatter [before 9/11] was of an attack, a potential Al Qaeda attack overseas." But according to page 204 of the bipartisan 9/11 congressional report, "In May 2001, the intelligence community obtained a report that Bin Laden supporters were planning to infiltrate the United States" to "carry out a terrorist operation using high explosives."

Yellowcake Hadley is caught once again. Say, why hasn't anyone ever gotten around to firing this lying fellow? Some would tell me I should leave him alone. I guess he's only "representing"..his superior liars, that is.

Buzzflash.com editorial: Documentation of Plans to Crash Airplanes Into Buildings that Bush and Condi Claim They Knew Nothing About*

*I've read most of this evidence in the past. The sane person would ask herself, "Why do you feel you must keep repeating these truths?" My answer would be: "Yeah, it looks a little crazy, doesn't it? You'd think the public would get it by now. You'd think the media would get it by now. You'd think........" Anyhow, here we go again! White House con-men have big megaphones which never stop bleating, repeating the misleading. So call me competition, already.


Misleader: Bush Administration Resorts to Lies About 9/11

Washington Post: Transcript of Wednesday's 9/11 Commission Hearings

The Memory Hole: 5-Minute Video of George W. Bush on the Morning of 9/11



Kerry vs. Bush

NY Times - As Gasoline Hits Record Price, Bush, Kerry and Democrats Spar Over Policy and Next Move

National Review - SecDef McCain: Is John McCain auditioning for a non-veep Kerry admin spot? by Rich Lowry

The Miami Herald - Kerry says Bush is soft on Chávez
*Note: see Kerry's statement on Venezuela


Iraq

The Village Voice - Day by Day, Death by Death: A Chronology of U.S. Military Fatalities Since 'Mission Accomplished,' Part I

Yahoo! News - Bush Briefed on Al Qaeda Threat Before Taking Office

Newsday.com - Bush's 9/11 myths endanger U.S.

MSNBC- 11 Iraqi police killed in ambushes

TIME Magazine - How We Got Homeland Security Wrong

Guerrilla News Network - Secrecy: The Real Mother of Terror by Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.)

Consortiumnews.com - Bush's Terror Hysteria


Political Comedy:

Fake Ad/Howard Stern.com: Bad American Presidents, We Salute You

Today's News and Views

Dotty Lynch: What Would Lee Atwater Do?

Self-Loathing Dept: Zell Miller loathes policies of majority of our nation's modern Democrats-hopes they lose

Niagara Falls Reporter: When ignorance becomes mendacity: George W. Bush's "war on terror"

GovExec.com: Groups call for the resignation of Sept. 11 commission director Philip Zelikow

Independent UK: September 11: the shocking evidence of secret deals, missed chances and fatal misjudgements

Robert Scheer: President Bush failed country in its hour of greatest need

Ellen Beck/UPI: Medicare solvency ticking away

Intervention Magazine: 9/11 Commission- why is Condoleezza Rice refusing? What is she hiding?

SF Gate: Hamas leader: Militants not targeting America

Guardian UK: Rising oil prices and a weak dollar could shatter the global economy

Fred Kaplan: Dick Clarke Is Telling the Truth- Why he's right about Bush's negligence on terrorism.

Entertainment news at Yahoo: Fred Rogers Being Honored for Music Work

David Kay at Harvard University:

"The cost of our mistakes with regard to the explanation of why we went to war in Iraq are far greater than Iraq itself. We are in grave danger of having destroyed our credibility internationally and domestically with regard to warning about future events. The answer is to admit you were wrong, and what I find most disturbing around Washington is the belief you can never admit you're wrong."

--David Kay 3-22-04 speech at Harvard University's
John F. Kennedy School of Government

M. A. Muqtedar Khan: France's radical secular fundamentalism will not enhance civil peace

The radical secular fundamentalism of France will, in my opinion, enhance rather than diminish the prospects of a clash of civilizations. Secular, Westernized Muslims have little influence in the Muslim world. Islam has become the dominant idiom of the Muslim world and the West must find a way to cooperate and coexist with moderate/liberal Islamists who believe in democracy, tolerance and pluralism, but within the Islamic rubric. French-style secularism is neither welcome in the Muslim world, nor in the US, nor by a majority of French Muslims who now constitute about one-fifth of the French population.

Kahn is a visiting fellow at Brookings Institution and director of international studies at Adrian College in Michigan.

I have written previously about the issue of the French banning Muslim head scarves and how it did not "sit right" with me when I think of government facilitating the truest of freedoms on behalf of its citizenry.

From the Iddybud archive February 11, 2004:

Opinion: "French Assembly Votes to Ban Religious Symbols in Schools"
What do you think about this assembly vote? I am not at all comfortable with it. When a government attempts to wipe away all outward signs of the spirit, it would seem to be only for the promotion of a non-spiritual, 'religion-void' society. Is this not what the most infamous authoritarians of the past have attempted to do?

Spain 10 days after the elections-
11 days after the bombings

Gustavo de Arístegui: "The terrorists had more than one reason to strike against Spain..it's folly to think they struck us simply for Iraq."

Jose Maria Aznar: "My government has told the truth. I can put up with political criticism, but I will never accept being accused of lying or manipulation. These are accusations that are intolerable, and which soil the memory of the victims. Some forget that it is this memory, and nothing else, that should be guiding our actions today.."

Ivo H. Daalder: The Warning in Spain's Election-Governments that ignore the wishes of their own people—and that over time fail to convert them to their cause—will likely suffer the consequences at the polls. The same goes for governments that manipulate information or mislead their voters. It is a lesson all democratic governments, interested in reelection, would do well to heed.

See The Gotham City 13..just don't drink the koolaid!


click on photo for the rest of the flavors.

What's wrong with
Joe Lieberman?

Read this NYT article.
Senator Joe Lieberman says he saw "no basis" for the accusation that the Bush administration was too focused on Iraq in the wake of 9-11 and that he thinks "we've got to be careful to speak facts and not rhetoric and not to go about what happened in the past so totally that we divide ourselves."

The only thing, in my opinion, that will unite Americans is awakening them to the cold, honest truth.
Politics be damned.

Senator Lieberman, unfortunately, seems to be imprisoned in a Senatorial civility-cage while serious abuses of American democracy are allowed to take place in the false name of the "uniting".

Let's not "play nice". If we fail to unite with honesty, we'll only send out the message that lies from leaders are acceptable.

~~~~~~~~~~~

UPDATE: See Rubber Hose's comments about the Lieberman "no basis" statement.

~~~~~~~~~~~

UPDATE: Carpetbagger Report weighs in on Lioeberman's statements.

~~~~~~~~~~

UPDATE:See DHinMI's Letter to Lieberman at Daily Kos

Article on Richard Clarke brought to you by the same woman who all-too hastily brought you Chalabi's lies about WMDs

The New York Times has sunk to a new low. Miller should be writing classified ads instead of giving us serious news. The Times buried the story, no less. As mentioned on The Howler blog yesterday:

If you still don’t know what the New York Times has become, this morning’s edition puts your questions to rest. Richard Clarke is found at the bottom of page A18, where his startling new book and 60 Minutes interview are treated by White House stenographer Judith Miller. Before offering an abbreviated listing of Clarke’s striking claims, Miller gives unnamed Bush officials plenty of space to speculate about his troubling motives..

The assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin

"When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there. . . . Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
— Luke 23:33–34

"Let the terrorist die unshriven.
Let him go to hell.
Sooner a fly to God than he..."
--Jewish writer Cynthia Ozick


Poof! There go the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Here comes cooperation between the many militant Palestinian factions to wage attacks. Hamas will respond in Israel, we can have no doubt. Violence will surely escalate.

My first reaction is a bitterly sarcastic "Nice going, Mr. Sharon." Then, the conflict of conscience settles in. At the Anonymoses blog, Dave says:

As Dag Hammerskjold once said: "Forgiveness breaks the chain of causality." Something like that. It is no longer acceptable that the rich and powerful can want to fight, but the poor and powerless are the one who, in every way, pay.

Can Palestinians keep their rage under control, and actually forgive?
Can Israelis?

Some problems are solved. Some are resolved. But some are simply dissolved.

Here's to a renaissance of conscience...that subtle organ that has been bred out of us. It may be necessary, but will certainly be a welcome addition to our jaded personalities.

Dave's thoughts on conscience bring to mind something Emmanuel Swedenborg said:

"We have a conscience about what is good, and a conscience about what is fair. Our conscience about what is good is our inner self's conscience, and our conscience about what is fair is our outer self's conscience. Conscience about what is fair is doing things according to civil and ethical law from an outer love.

I'm certain the Israeli people are conflicted about what is good and what is fair when they see their children blown up while just trying to make their way home on the city bus. The Jewish faith is a likely guide to the conscience of the state, albeit a democracy (much as American governance is guided by those whose Christian faith runs through their ethical decision-making minds, whether some of us would like to admit it or not). That state-conscience must rule by what they believe is fair in "outer-love" for the society. So--do we imagine the assassination as "fair" in the conscience of the Israeli government? It is up to the individual to decide. There is no right or wrong answer, I'm afraid.

I think Sharon acted hastily. Yet--I am conflicted..and if I understand Swedenborg correctly, I know am not alone.

Because of this assassination, I know there will be dreadful retaliation. More violence. Reinforced and enhanced terrorist cooperation. I wonder if imprisoning Yassin would have made any difference. He was a 68-year-old man, though. A quadriplegic, no less.

Israel claims the policy of assassination will continue. No one is immune.

Alas, here I sit thinking aloud. Moral clarity....moral clarity..why do you elude us, tease us, betray us?
Is forgiveness more powerful than moral clarity?
Is turning the other cheek a political possibility? Or would that be too crazy-Christian a proposal?
Could forgiveness be more powerful than terror?

Is there any real virtue to hate?

Preliminary Rulings From 9/11 Commission

The most important point to remember, in my opinion, is that we had a pre 9-11 world and a post-9-11 world. Those worlds are nearly strangers to one another.

Point from the AP article:

Both civilian and military officials of the Defense Department said that neither Congress nor the American public would have supported large-scale military operations in Afghanistan before Sept. 11, 2001.

The GOP Clinton-witch-hunters would have gone all 'WAG-THE-DOG' on Clinton if he'd asked for a ground war on terror. They would have called him a distractor.

Here's one small example from a 1999 article about Clinton and his terrorism warnings:

"...Bill Clinton is riding high since his "not guilty" verdict and, unfortunately, the Republican Congress is letting him get away with his foreign and domestic grabs for power. Kosovo is much more important to Americans than just pictures on the evening television news about a faraway conflict.

First, it's a "wag the dog" public relations ploy to involve us in a war in order to divert attention from his personal scandals (only a few of which were addressed in the Senate trial). He is again following the scenario of the "life is truer than fiction" movie Wag the Dog. The very day after his acquittal, Clinton moved quickly to "move on" from the subject of impeachment by announcing threats to bomb and to send U.S. ground troops into the civil war in Kosovo between Serbian authorities and ethnic Albanians fighting for independence.........

Second, by putting U.S. troops in Kosovo, Clinton is provoking terrorist attacks by Islamic radicals connected to Saudi renegade Osama bin Laden, who has declared a worldwide war on Americans. Fanatics bent on jihad against the "Great Satan" United States could hardly ask for a more tempting target than Americans deployed close to terrorist bases in northern Albania.

(note: It appeared Schlafly would rather have had us appease than fight so Bin Laden wouldn't bother us. In reality, Schlafly was wrong, anyhow. Bin Laden was supportive of Albanian Muslims/KLA, and curiously, so was the U.S.).

..Even more dangerous, entering the Kosovo war may provoke terrorist retaliation within the United States. It's not only our U.S. troops who will be put in mortal danger. Bin Laden has stated unequivocally that all Americans, including "those who pay taxes," are targets.

(note: So we should have appeased Bin Laden??)

Clinton predicted on January 22 that it is "highly likely" that a terrorist group will attack on American soil within the next few years. He is using this risk as the excuse to create a Domestic Terrorism Team headed by a military "commander in chief," with a $2.8 billion budget. We should not underestimate the deceit and deviousness of Clinton's plans to use aggressive presidential actions to wipe out public memory of his impeachment trial......

(note: An excuse. Hear that? Using terrorism as an excuse.....what a fool.)

Clinton has already issued a Presidential Decision Directive to authorize military intervention against terrorism on our own soil. Secretary of Defense William Cohen said in an Army Times interview that "Terrorism is escalating to the point that Americans soon may have to choose between civil liberties and more intrusive means of protection."

Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre has been floating the idea of designating a unit of U.S. troops as a Homelands Defense Command to take charge in case of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Hamre argues that the military's role should be formalized under a four-star general, and he has even speculated about creating a bi-national command with Canada called the "Atlantic Command."

The far-reaching nature of the plans being discussed within the Clinton Administration is indicated in the Autumn 1997 Parameters, the scholarly publication of the Army War College. The article predicts that "the growing prospect of terrorism in our own country . . . will almost inevitably trigger an intervention by the military." The article casually adds, "legal niceties or strict construction of prohibited conduct will be a minor concern."

(note: General Tommy Franks recently said the same thing about those "legal niceties".)

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 is supposed to protect us against a President using the Army to enforce the law against civilians. The spectacle of the military patrolling the streets of U.S. cities is something that should happen only in totalitarian countries and in movies like The Siege....."

--Phillis Schlafly [Schlafly Report March, 1999]

This is how divisive politics helped bring about 9-11. Shame on all who participated then..and now.

Tough love: Walter Cronkite to John Kerry

Mr. Cronkite repeats the message I was sending last Friday in my article titled "Wishing for a less cloudy forecast- John Kerry Needs to Clear Up".

Mr Cronkite addresses Senator Kerry:

Certainly your sensitivity to nuance, your ability to see shades of gray where George Bush sees only black and white, explains some of your difficulty. Shades of gray don't do well in political campaigns, where primary colors are the rule. And your long and distinguished service in the Senate has no doubt led to genuine changes in some positions. But the denial that you are a liberal is almost impossible to reconcile.

When the National Journal said your Senate record makes you one of the most liberal members of the Senate, you called that "a laughable characterization" and "the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in my life." Wow! Liberals, who make up a substantial portion of the Democratic Party and a significant portion of the independent vote, are entitled to ask, "What gives?"

Let's hope Senator Kerry listens.

From Logos Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture
Four Challenges for Moral Theology in the New Century
by Michael S. Sherwin, O.P.



Secularists please indulge me in my theological diversion here. I found this article to be politically attractive from a Catholic/Christian standpoint. It begins by the author invoking four challenges for us to befriend as metaphysical poet Richard Crashaw spoke of in his poem entitled “Wishes to His (Supposed) Mistress". In place of the mistress, theology is carefully set. In light of our persistent confronting of the challenges of history, of nature, of graced moral development, and of the spiritual life, we may see the truth of Crashaw's poetic insight within ourselves.

From American Prospect:
Don't feel sorry for
Colin Powell
He has no one to blame but himself

...On the most critical issue confronting the United States, the rise of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism, Powell helped Bush implement a course of action conceived by the neocons. What he didn't do -- because he couldn't -- was propose a different course of action that might have led to the same goal of political reform in the Arab world but that wouldn't have involved waging an unpopular war on a trumped-up pretext, a war that has extracted an enormous cost in American lives and American prestige. Bush, by most accounts, is an impressionable sort -- "malleable," as one Bush family friend uncharitably puts it -- but selling him on an alternative vision would have required actually having one, which Powell plainly did not. That alternative vision -- hardheaded about the dangers facing the U.S. but aware that the war on terrorism can't be won without international cooperation -- will have to wait for a Kerry administration.

Scalia quacks mockingly at justice and democracy

The arrogance! They must either think the American public is incredibly naive or that we just don't care.
I haven't talked to one person yet who thinks Scalia's refusal to recuse himself from this case looks good for him, the Supreme Court, or Cheney.
Who the hell do these people think they're kidding?

Le Monde:
The America that will vote for Bush

I found this article to be quite interesting because the writer raises realistic points that Democratic stategists are seemingly failing to grasp or take seriously. Those voters who embrace the falsity of the right wing populists aren't some extremist group. They are everyday "Joe-Americans".

Excerpts from the article:

Republicans are still the party of corporate management, but they have also spent years honing their own populist approach, a melange of anti- intellectualism, promiscuous God-talk and sentimental evocations of middle America in all its humble averageness....Bush is merely the latest and one of the most accomplished in a long line of pro-business politicians expressing themselves in the language of the downtrodden.......This right-wing populism works; it is today triumphant across the scene; politicians speak its language, as do newspaper columnists, television pundits and a cast of thousands of corporate spokesmen, Wall Street brokerages, advertising pitchmen, business journalists, and even the Hollywood stars that the right loves to hate.......The all-Americans despise the affected elites, with their highfalutin ways and that’s why they vote for plainspoken men like George Bush..........liberals refuse to take backlash populism seriously. They simply don’t bother to answer the stereotype of themselves as a tasteful elite, seeing it as a treacherous and obvious deceit mounted by the puppetmasters of the right...........they believe that conservative populism is merely camouflage for racism, which they believe to be epidemic in the US. The problem, they think, is neo-Nazis or right-wing militia types like Timothy McVeigh. That’s the real expression of middle America, the thing we ought to be investigating.

Political obsession with behavior:
"...without the so-called "libertine" or "secular humanist" enemy, as the Christian Right would call them, where would the Republicans be?"

Step right up-
get your Dubya action figure

Blogger Con II
Coming April 17th

Anonymoses on the nobility of Richard Clarke

Excerpt:

A Renaissance of Conscience?

But I think there will be a renaissance of conscience, if you will. And that those who know things will come forward, and realize that their loyalty too has been abused. And that lives are being lost needlessly, and because of incompetence, greed perhaps, and pressures which simply should not have been allowed to enter into the decision-making process, while those that should have been...were ignored.

NYT Magazine
Al Franken, Seriously

..He wants to have Paul Krugman, Kevin Phillips and the Clintons as guests. Also Gary Bauer, G. Gordon Liddy, Chris Rock and Michael Moore. He wants to feature national-security experts. He wants it to be in part a homage to old-time radio. He plans to have Bob Elliot, one of his radio heroes, come on to revive an old character.........Though he says he is interested in sticking around, Franken has reportedly signed only a one-year contract. ''I'm doing this because I want to use my energies to get Bush unelected,'' he told me. ''I'd be happy if the election of a Democrat ended the show.''.......... Franken, who is 52, was born in New York City, but he was raised in the heartland of liberalism: Minnesota. He counts the Minnesotans Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy and Paul Wellstone among his political heroes......

What we knew about Pakistan-one year ago and what we're doing today

To the Bush administration:
Don't ever try to tell the American public that you didn't know what Dr. Khan and the Pakistani government were doing.
The big story broke on February 2 of this year. Talk about late-breaking news.

A year ago on Iddybud:

The UN has documented that in October 1990, i.e. just two months before the US-led Operation Desert Storm to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait, Dr. Khan allegedly offered Iraq through an unnamed intermediary the technology to "manufacture a nuclear weapon". Baghdad said it rejected the offer fearing an American trap, and Pakistan denied the offer as a fraud. But the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) listed it as a key unresolved issue in a 1999 report to the UN on Iraqi arms programs. In light of the potential for further radicalization in Pakistan - and especially after the experience of after Sept. 11, 2001 – it is only to be expected that the US will want to become physically involved in the safekeeping of Pakistani nuclear weapons; reports suggest it may already have some kind of guardianship role. If acknowledged, of course, any such development could have a devastating effect on Musharraf's rapidly deteriorating domestic credibility.

Sunday Herald UK: "Ask No Questions"

The US press may finally be realising it was hoodwinked over the war … but the coverage of Madrid proves it hasn’t learned

I consider this opinion to be close to all I've been believing and stating about the American media since I premiered this blog over a year ago. When you read the summary of editorial positions of the principal Scottish and UK newspapers in the run-up to war in Iraq, you may see a startling variance in opinion from what we saw in the American press.

Excerpt:

Headlines have told their story. “Iraq’s arsenal was only on paper” admitted the Washington Post recently. “So, what went wrong?” Time magazine wanted to know. Even the right-wing Wall Street Journal was obliged to report that: “Pressure rises for probe of pre-war intelligence”. The cat was out of the bag: they’d been had. Yet why had publications with vast editorial resources been such easy marks? And why had sceptics and dissidents been silenced?

The answer to the second question is simple: the great American newspapers censored themselves. They became, if you like, patriotically deaf. In the post-9/11 atmosphere they had no editorial strategy for coping with George Bush’s moral authority, and no editorial will to devise one..

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This is my own statement from March 25, 2003:

I think we need to carefully consider the daily-changing reasons, fabrications and innuendo our own government has thrown out into the ether in order to justify this war.
The visions of cheering, dancing sugar-plums and Iraqis waiting with open arms and open hearts for their liberation.
People were led to believe this would be the case. The media reinforced that vision every day.

It just isn't so.

A lot of things the government has been telling us haven't turned out to be "so".

When we fail to question, we fail as a democracy.

We just can't assume a sense of blind loyalty and think our best interests are at the heart of all this.