Bin Laden "found"?

A British newspaper (The Sunday Express) is well-known for its "colorful" scoops (like World Net Daily or The National Enquirer). They are claiming Osama bin Laden "has been found and is surrounded by US special forces in an area of land bordering north-west Pakistan and Afghanistan." The Paper is said to have gotten information on bin Laden from a "well-placed Washington source". I've seen similar stories lately.
Interesting timing, wouldn't you say?
Perhaps a bin Laden capture would stop the swirling fervored chatter from the public about censuring President Bush because of the Iraq war intelligence fiasco.
Perhaps it will give President Bush a snowball's chance in Hades of winning the election in November.

The One You've Been Waiting For
By William Rivers Pitt

I consider William to be one of the greatest patriots this country could possibly know today.
For those who have been working hard to support the candidates of your choosing, regardless of their respective successes in the Democratic primaries, please take a moment and read this article. I guarantee you'll be glad you did.

The Government who lied-The greatest sin committed against Americans

Chalabi Got What He Wanted--The WMD Lies? As President Bush Said: 'So What's the Difference?'

"Our objective has been achieved. That tyrant Saddam is gone, and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important."


So sayeth Ahmad Chalabi--puller of Bush administration strings

"We are
heroes in error!"


*"....And I am the hero of skimming off the financial benefits of our error!""

Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and our Commander-in-Chief....these are only a few the "dreamteam dupes of Chalabi" who led America down the path to unnecessary war. I'm not certain if this sin against the American people can ever be forgiven.

"Now maybe, just maybe, Saddam's capture will start a virtuous circle in Iraq. Maybe the insurgency will evaporate; maybe the cost to America, in blood, dollars and national security, will start to decline.
But even if all that happens, we should be deeply disturbed by the history of this war. For its message seems to be that as long as you wave the flag convincingly enough, it doesn't matter whether you tell the truth."

--Paul Krugman NY Times, 12-19-03

We're heroes in untrustworthy recklessness!

About Thomas Friedman....

"I hear rumors that, for his next project, he is working with Pat Buchanan co-writing a screenplay for Mel Gibson. It is called:
The Jews Killed Kennedy, Mr. Rodgers and Captain Kangaroo."



Aww, c'mon, don't get in an uproar..it's a joke, already.
This is a memorable line from a new Jeff Dunetz article whose humor, albeit au courant, is not denotative of a Mel Gibson"Passion" puff-piece. This is about N.Y. Times columnist Thomas Friedman who, as of late, has been observed confusing us readers with inconsistent aplogist doublespeak about many a topic. Mr. Dunetz calls it like he sees it...with refreshing humor. But you won't get him wrong...he makes it clear that he means what he says.

"...look at some of the things [Thomas Friedman's] said. Like the time he said that the only reason President Bush supported Israel was that he didn't want to alienate the Jewish vote. "Mr. Bush blinked because he didn't want to alienate the Jewish Voter." (NY Times June 30th 2002 ) Does that really sound like someone whose last name is FRIEDMAN?" No, that sounded like it came from the Prime Minister of Malaysia. It's like he is ignoring Palestinian terrorism totally. He can't really believe that, he must be acting like an Anti-Semite to make a point...."

.......“Look at his statement this past January 18th that Israel is standing in the way of the Arab/Muslim world modernizing? Could any sane man really believe that? Totally ignoring that repressive regimes such as Iran and Syria refuse to modernize because it will lead do democratization…and the end of their power. Come on! He even uses terms like 'vicious cycle of violence,' putting the blowing up of a bus and the killing of terrorists on the same moral plane. I bet that Tom Friedman hates saying that. Surely every time he describes a West Bank settler a "fanatical Jew" a tear comes to his eye! But he is taking one for the team, fighting Anti-Semitism by taking it to the extreme. What a nice guy that Tommy is!”

I can't help but think of the old Wayne Walker song: 'Are You Sincere?"

Are you sincere when you say "I love you?"
Are you sincere when you say "I'll be true?"
Do you mean every word that my ears have heard?
I'd like to know which way to go, will our love grow?
Are you sincere?

I want readers to know I do not take this matter lightly.
Our most prominent journalists must be as rational and fair as possible in this treacherous day and age. The future of a decent and peaceful civilization depends upon it. Reuven Koret, the publisher of the Israeli daily magazine "Israel Insider", had this to say about Mr. Friedman in April, 2002:

"...He [Friedman] is privy to the plans of the New World Order. He can "pass" where other Jews cannot: within the borders of Saudi, to be used by their potentates, too. He dutifully leaks what they want us to hear, which is this: Unless it obeys the Order, Israel will be blamed for no less than the Clash of Civilizations. Israel will be blamed for future acts of Islamic terrorism against U.S. and Western interests. Israel will even be blamed for acts of terrorism against Israel itself. It is already happening..."

No matter how you may feel about the issue, I ask you to take a few moments and think about this.

Related: A website by Mark Rupert, a political scientist at Syracuse University, discussing his failure to appreciate Friedman's decidedly neoliberal views about globalization. Quote from the page:

Friedman has been among the most outspoken critics of the new social movements which have arisen to challenge neoliberal globalization, which had their coming out party in Seattle in November-December, 1999. In a column entitled Senseless in Seattle (NYT 12/1/1999), Friedman called the protesters "ridiculous," "crazy," "a Noah's ark of flat-earth advocates, protectionist trade unions and yuppies looking for their 1960's fix", who if they only "stopped yapping" long enough to think "would realize that they have been duped by knaves like Pat Buchanan".

Ralph Nader may run for President

The San Francisco Chronicle says: "Ralph Nader will announce Sunday [on NBC's Meet the Press] whether he will make another run for the White House, but all signs indicate the consumer advocate plans to jump into the race as an independent."

Labor leader disgraces himself by brutally attacking the dignity of failed Democratic nominee


This angry and troubled man owes Howard Dean an apology

Gerald W. McEntee, AFSCME president, did not wish to throw what he considered to be good political money after bad. He decided to abandon the Howard Dean campaign just before the Wisconsin primary. McEntee says Dean didn't understand how substantial his decline was after the "Dean'scream" in Iowa. McEntee admits to losing confidence in Dean after the Dean-scream. When Dean decided to move on with the race in Wisconsin, McEntee told him he "couldn't win". Dean decided to move ahead, regardless of McEntee's opinions about his chances.
Because of all this, McEntee calls Howard Dean "nuts".
I'm sorry...I don't see his point.
My opinion is that McEntee was sorry he didn't back Kerry after he realized Dean was being killed off by the
media-bashing he took after the "scream". (Which really wasn't a maniacal scream at all...anyone in that very loud room that night would tell you so). McEntee didn't get his way with Dean. He obviously couldn't take it like a gentleman. I think it's McEntee who needs a vacation...chill out..get some "R-and-R". Dean had many supporters to answer to...and none of us wanted to see him drop out before Wisconsin. He isn't "nuts" and I think McEntee's an ungentlemanly cad for insinuating so. Adam Nagourney's motivational decision to write about it is curious...and the NY Times' decision to print the story even MORE SO. It borders upon slander and libel. As far as decent journalism goes, this was bottom-of-the-barrel.

"Who would have ever thought that the New York primary might make or break a candidate?"
--Senator Charles E. Schumer, D-NY

10 states are going to the polls on March 2. (California, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont).
New York has a total of 236 delegates. Most of our State's Democratic primary voters come from New York City. In the last Presidential primary in 2000, there was a ratio of 70-to-30 downstate-upstate.
In today's New York Times article about the political landscape in New York state, one leading New York Democratic strategist, speaking on the condition of anonymity, is quoted to have said bluntly:

"[Sen. John] Edwards's populist message of job loss works well upstate because it's a fading industrial area that's a lot like other parts of the country where he has done well....But in New York Democratic primaries, upstate is not where the votes are."

The article discusses which issues are most important to people living in the different regions of the State. Political strategists are not yet certain how Senator Edwards's brand of populism will be received in New York City. Because white-collar jobs are beginning to be sent overseas, they think Sen. Edwards' economic message may resonate in NYC and its suburbs as well as Upstate.

Will politics or common sense rule this summer's days in Iraq?
The following are excerpts from recent articles about the state of elections in Iraq and the upcoming date of expected turnover of power to the new Iraqi government.

"...even some in the [Bush] administration have begun to worry that the [June, 2004] date reflects more concern for American politics than Iraqi democracy. Their fear is that an untested government taking power on June 30 may not be strong enough to withstand the pressures bearing down on it.."
[New York Times Feb 19]

"..The US plan to hold council-based elections has collapsed--the Iraqis don't want it, Sistani doesn't want it, no one wants it. But Mr. Bremer insisted at a news conference on Thursday that 1) the transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi government will occur without fail by July 1 and 2) Islamic canon law will not be the law of the land, and the rights of minorities will be guaranteed in the Fundamental Law now being drafted by the Interim Governing Council. The major issue now is how exactly a government will be erected that will take control of the country from the US this summer, and that will then guide Iraq to open elections by the end of the year or so.."
[Juan Cole Feb 20

"...Amid preparations for pivotal elections Friday in Iran - and later this year in Iraq - analysts see two Shiite visions of democracy vying for dominance. Some say the traditionally "quietist" clergy represented by Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is growing more influential at the expense of Iran's all-embracing system of clerical rule embodied by Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei..."
[Christian Science Monitor February 20]

Tough words from George McGovern, who disagrees with Thomas Friedman

"Replacing Saddam Hussein with Ahmad Chalabi would be comparable to replacing Jack the Ripper with Al Capone. Such a development is not worth risking the death of one additional American."
--George McGovern, Democratic candidate for president in 1972

Read his letter to the NY Times here.
Mr. McGovern, like Thomas Friedman, speaks to Senator John Kerry as if he's already secured the Presidential nomination. (I'm so glad they can both so accurately predict the future.) McGovern's words to Kerry, to whom he feels compelled to aim his words, bring to mind the many complaints I've expressed here about Kerry's lack of a "leader's intuition" on the Iraq resolution. Especially the ending of the letter: "Thousands of young Americans bled and died in Vietnam to keep a series of political frauds in power in Saigon. Let's not go down that road again, claiming all the while, "We will not run." How about a compromise? Let's walk out of Iraq."

Bill Moyers Leaving PBS

Feeling compelled to get his book about President Johnson written, Bill Moyers will stay on through the Presidential race, but will then end his time as host of the program NOW, where he's been an executive editor and frequent reporter since its premiere in 2002. I'll miss him greatly, and I'll bet many others will.

Democrat-centrists will shut out Washington insiders who supported Dean.
I see where we're headed. I don't like it.

I'm not at all surprised to read the Democratic party-centrists are punishing those Washington insiders who threw their weight and influence behind Howard Dean. I am, however, disappointed. Did the Democratic party learn nothing from all of this? Will we simply forget Howard Dean's message existed and retreat to business-as-usual? Will we accept Senator Ted Kennedy's dismissal of Dean's criticism of Democrats for not standing up to Bush on the "No Child Left Behind" act (calling Dean "naive")? Does he think we're all "naive"? Because we are not "naive" enough to miss weakness when we see it. Compromise is necessary in politics, but knowingly selling your constituents' souls is unaceptable. Personally, I fully understand why Al Gore and so many others inside and outside the Washington beltway chose to support Howard Dean. I want true representation..not a diminishment of my child's right to a solid education in exchange for other needed political favors. To hell with that! I want to be truly represented. Isn't that what a healthy democracy is all about?

Democratic Presidential Race: New York Is In Play

Syracuse.com is reporting that Senator John Edwards is scheduled to stop in five New York cities in the coming days, not including Syracuse. His wife, Elizabeth Edwards, is scheduled to campaign in Syracuse on Wednesday.( 2/25 )
Senator John Kerry will be in Rochester Saturday while his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, tours Western and Central New York, including Syracuse.

Assemblywoman Joan Christensen, D-Syracuse, who is undecided about which Democrat she'll be supporting, said (about the Wisconsin primary results) that she is "skeptical of a Democratic primary that allows in other-party members." (''I don't know what to make of it,'' she said. ) I have often contemplated the consequences of such a primary election myself. We cannot know what motivates individuals to vote one way or another...especially in a nation that is deeply polarized in a political sense. Divisive/partisan intent could always be a factor when those of an opposing party are allowed to participate in the other party's electoral process. John Edwards had a great showing in Wisconsin, however..and I can't believe it can be attributed to any particular anti-Kerry faction. I have watched the Edwards' campaign buoyed by the endorsements of many persuasive major newspapers in States where primaries have already taken place. When people see Edwards close-up, they seem to be won over. I'm curious to see how New York will like Senator Edwards. I believe Edwards' strength is in his gifted ability to generate passion for his candidacy by speaking directly to the individual, even when he's speaking to a room of hundreds or a television audience of millions. Frankly, I have not seen Senator Kerry generate this level of passion.

Today, there are people from Syracuse (including some former Dean supporters) who are talking about Senator Edwards at his campaign's website.
Here's some of what they are saying:

--"Will JRE be campaigning in Syracuse? They really need him up there, they've just lost Carrier, just like the folks in Tennessee. Anybody know if JRE will be in Central New York?"


--"Elizabeth will be there? YAY!! They will LOVE her! Does it say where she'll be and at what time? I'd like to get some family members and friends lined up to go watch her."

--"Hey it looks like there are a few Edwards supporters near Syracuse. Any word about a campaign office there or opportunities to volunteer?"

--"Yes, I was raised up there, for the most part, and my family still lives there. I used to live in Oswego as well, had to travel to Syracuse every day to work for a very low paying job. Eventually I had to move downstate. My brother is working his butt off up in Syracuse, way too many hours for way too little pay. He doesn't want to leave his home, and I know most people in Syracuse area face the same challenge. It's very heavy Republican base up there, and everyone hurting really badly under Bush administration. JR[Edwards] would win them over because he is EXACTLY what they need right now. I sure hope he can speak to them there..."

"Project Censored"- Top 25 Censored Media Stories of 2002-2003

On their website, the stated mission of "Project Censored" (out of Sonoma State University) is to 'educate people about the role of independent journalism in a democratic society and to tell The News That Didn't Make the News and why.'
Current "Project Censored News" can be found here.

George Will's column defending outsourcing sounds good in theory; looks bad in political reality

George Will's column appeared in the Syracuse Post Standard today. [See:"When jobs go away, sometimes it's for good reason" at Tallahasee.com site] Mr. Will begins by dismantling a statement by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert:

"An economy suffers when jobs disappear."

It seems like a simple statement, but Mr. Will wants us to know that it really isn't an accurate statement at all. He says the economy does not truly suffer and he gives a fairly good technical economic explanation as to why he believes it to be so.

I read it...I understand it. It left me cold..unconvinced.

In the end, it may not be an economy that suffers due to jobs being bled away to foreign lands where workers will do the work for less (and thus lift their own foreign economies). No..it's not the economy that suffers...it's the PEOPLE who suffer. These are the same people who not only vote, but who, in the Declaration of Independence , were said to be endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights and to secure these rights, a Government was to be instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Which men? All men. (And women, naturally..although perhaps it wasn't completely apparent at the time...;)
My point: ours is a government of the people....not corporations. They are people with families who depend upon them. What the current administration will have to live with is the simple fact that when the people suffer because of their nation's economic policy..good or bad for the nation and/or world economy, those people (also voters) are not going to remember the greatness or social nobility of the policy. They will only recall their personal sufferings and how their government cared (or failed to care) about those sufferings.

While Mr. Will spells out his ideas in what seems to be an intelligently sound manner, outsourcing is not simply a
Hobson-like choice between free trade and no trade at all. With mutual interest must come fairness to concerned parties. The economy may be dynamic, yet the dynamics seem to have gone off-track for American workers. It seems that all the Bush administration has done is to put in temporary political fixes such as temporary steel tarriffs and farm subsidies. We seem to have forgotten that the economist John Maynard Keynes stated that capital is best employed at home. We must ask ourselves: "Who is setting the standards for investment and concentration of capital at home and abroad?"

Americans are not blind, nor are they numb to the effects of unemployment. They do not see dynamics at work here. They have seen the loss of millions of jobs here in the U.S. over the past four years and have been teased by fleeting (give-then-take-away) promises of jobs to come. NAFTA and WTO are not working as they should for some reason, and as pretty a picture George Will paints about the splendour of new American jobs from foreign auto companies, the bald truth is that free trade agreements and open borders are putting our own middle class workers into direct competition with the masses of very poor workers in third world countries. Without principled and moral governmental oversight, our middle class is left to hang. In the upcoming Presidential election, middle class workers (who make up the better percentage of voters in this country) will be heard more loudly than George Will's "plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face" talk about economic rationality. We desperately need principled leadership on this matter, or the backbone of this nation is going to lose ever-important ground. Cutting taxes while increasing the deficit is not going to cover the Bush administration's crucial mistakes much longer. A healthy economy with a middle class who suffers presents little more than a cold, meaningless, and unAmerican prospect.

The "Prince of Darkness" calls the kettle 'black'

In an amazing statement of hypocrisy, Richard Perle (loudest cheerleader for Iraq invasion at any cost) has pointed his twisted little finger at George Tenet and blamed him for "conclusions of the intelligence agencies".
Just last week, George Tenet averred that at no time did he advise of an imminent WMD threat from Iraq or Saddam Hussein.
People, this is absolutely an unbelievably bold accusation from Perle, who called New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh a "terrorist" for reporting about Perle's potential financial interest in seeing a war in Iraq. Hersh said of Perle, in an October, 2003 New Yorker article:

In a speech on November 14, 2001, as the Taliban were being routed in Afghanistan, Richard Perle, a Pentagon consultant with long-standing ties to Wolfowitz, Feith, and Chalabi, articulated what would become the Bush Administration’s most compelling argument for going to war with Iraq: the possibility that, with enough time, Saddam Hussein would be capable of attacking the United States with a nuclear weapon.

Possibility....enough time?? This doesn't sound "imminent" to me at all...how about you?

Then there's the article from August of 2003 in the Asia Times with this revelation about Perle:

There was some hint of a parallel policy apparatus dating back just after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It was known early on, for example, that the Pentagon leadership, without notice to the State Department, the NSC, or the CIA, convened its advisory Defense Policy Board (DPB), headed by Richard Perle, to discuss attacking Iraq within days of the attacks.
The three agencies were also kept in the dark about a mission undertaken immediately afterward by former CIA director and DPB member James Woolsey to London to gather intelligence about possible links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda, as if the CIA or the Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) could not be trusted.

Perle also had a chance to head off this war before it was started, but he and his secret little friend at the CIA (the agency he's dissing now) decided to blow it off. They just weren't "interested".

Perle, a member of the Defense Policy Board, said in a telephone interview that he was approached last winter by Imad al Hage, a Lebanese businessman, with what was described as a offer by Saddam Hussein to hold elections and perhaps to permit the entry into Iraq of a small number of U.S. troops. Perle said he conveyed the offer to a friend at the CIA.

A friend? I wonder what Tenet knew, if anything, about this "friend" at the CIA. Black Perle's always pointing at the kettles. Yet he's a-bubbling darkly away himself.

Update: More on the Neocon philosophy of intelligence from Feb 19 Asia Times

Howard Dean to end campaign?

AP Breaking news:

Howard Dean will end his campaign for the presidential nomination and oversee a new effort to keep his issues alive and his supporters organized on behalf of Democratic causes, two party officials said Wednesday.

If he drops out of the race, I'll predict he'll endorse Senator John Edwards. Personally, I hope he stays in the race. If he drops out today and endorses Edwards, I believe it could only mean that he firmly believes in John Edwards as the candidate (of the remaining two pragmatically "electable") to carry Dean's message forward. I've been a Dean supporter all along, and while I would be disappointed to see him end the campaign, I would put my support behind a candidate he would endorse.
We'll see what happens in Burlington, Vt. today.

Al Franken's coming soon--hopefully to a radio near you!
REAL MEN HELP ;) : Read about "a benefit for the Palace Theatre, which was actually arranged between Al Franken and Palace director Peter Ramsey following a controversial moment there a few weeks ago, during a Howard Dean rally. Franken made headlines for helping remove a heckler from the audience. Ramsey took the stage last night alongside Franken, and explained how, in the midst of the disruption, while ABC newsmen George Stephanopoulos and Peter Jennings did nothing, Franken took action....."




I'm glad to see the New York Times reiterating what I (and so many others) have been saying for quite a while now. We need a complete investigation...not a cover-up.

PBS New Hour, February 11, 2004:

JIM LEHRER : Speaking of Terry McAuliffe, he's the one who started this issue about President Bush's National Guard Service during the Vietnam War, the White House yesterday issued some papers related to the president's service, does that put it to rest?

DAVID BROOKS: I think it's an idiotic issue. When somebody is running for president, you want to know what their service was in the military, how they behaved. But when somebody has already been president, you know how he behaves, we know how George Bush behaves under pressure because he's spent three years in the White House. Something that happened 30 years ago I don't think is relevant, I don't think it's important. He's a different man than who he was before Sept. 11, and I just think it's an inane issue.

David Brooks has been trying to say that what happened 30+ years ago..what the candidates might have said or done at that time... should be of little impact and/or political consequence when it comes to the 2004 Presidential election. I believe he's seeing that it will have an impact...and there will be political consequences. I find it interesting that he now turns the table a bit and begins to point the conservative finger at Democrats for Viet Nam, saying Truman and JFK's post-WWII "confidence took them into Vietnam and into the quagmire." Mr. Brooks claims "Scoop Jackson Democrats saw Vietnam as a bungled battle in what was nonetheless a noble anti-Communist war. Most of these people ended up as Republicans." He categorizes the rest of the Democrats as liberals who "saw the bungling and the lies as symptoms of a deep sickness in the military-industrial complex".
Brooks goes on to suggest that Reaganites "saw themselves as the heirs to Truman and Kennedy", resulting in a great American perception that "Reagan was right about the world, and that the Democrats were naïve."
You have to accept this premise in order to concur with the rest of Brooks' questions about current events. I found it very interesting that Brooks never once invoked the name of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard M. Nixon (and his "secret plan" to end the war), Gerald Ford, or Dem Lyndon Baines Johnson...as if they never existed.
Let's not forget that Reagan opposed the Helsinki accords signed by Gerald Ford and being used as a model for Middle East policy by today's Bush administration. Come on, David Brooks....would I leave Bill Clinton totally out of an article about the history of the War on Terror? Let's be more complete in our regurgitating of history lest we be seen as dishonest intellectuals!

Mr. Brooks seems to be indicting former President Carter for talking about "root causes like hunger and poverty". Is there something wrong with or naive about a President, past or present, addressing hunger and poverty anywhere in this world? Thankfully, Carter was never faced with a 9-11. We'd best understand that this is a far more sophisticated matter than the case David Brooks is making here. I concur that that after 9-11, the U.S. couldn't afford to sit back and wait to decipher or cure Middle Eastern terrorism's "root causes"...because the immediate causes are of a not so much economic in nature as they are depraved, homicidal, and obviously unpersuaded by any plea the Western world could make. I think, however, we rushed headlong into Iraq without a defined 9-11-connection, without a decent plan for after-battle activity...without the international-community, and with dubious reasoning. I don't believe it should ever have happened that way. I also credit most Americans with seeing things exactly as they are. Now that we are there in Iraq, we will have to consider "root causes" for the continued attacks upon our troops.
We will also have to consider an economic plan for the people of Iraq who have been systematically starved between years of international sanctions and robbery of its citizens by Saddam Hussein. If we want to "win hearts and minds", I think we'd better be a bit more "Carter" (who, by the way, was one of the most truly moral and diplomatic men who ever graced the Oval Office)..and a little less 'Hawk'...or at the very least, be a Hawk with sound, honest reasoning and a well-rounded plan.

GREGORY CLARK SPEAKS OUT ABOUT THE NAIVETE OF BUSH/BLAIR IN IRAQ

Gregory Clark is a former Australian diplomat and honorary president of Tama University who, in the past, has written that 'right-wing foreign policy mistakes leave the way open to the left-wing indulgences." Clark said, in a Nation article in 1972, ".....it is remarkable that a country can go to war for six years without anyone bothering to challenge the obviously false premises on which that war was launched. Even the U.S. Congress has had enough sense of democratic responsibility to repeal the Tonkin Gulf resolution."--[NATION, JULY 8, 1972]

The Iraq war has been the near-perfect formula for Clark's theory to be tested in recent months. While some may cheer on the Bush administration for initiating this 'preventive' war, we can look upon it, to date, with much skeptcism as to its policy-wisdom. We can...and we do. Just as some academic careers were virtually destroyed for those who had dared to oppose the right wing hardline on Vietnam and China in the mid-sixties, we see our universities under fire today for taking a stand against right wing policies on Iraq. Some like to blame academia and left-wing commentators, but the left's indulgences are borne of every mistake made by Bush and Blair in their rush to war.

In today's Japan Times, Mr. Clark writes that as things stand today, the U.S. military-intelligence complex is now virtually out of control, arguing that the 'naivete of the Bush/Blair arguments over Iraq cries out for explanation'. (Clark compares Indonesia's occupation of East Timor and resulting atrocities to this type of naivete where hawks are allowed to run the larger portion of the 'show'). He comments that religious fundamentalism seems to have been allowed to seep into U.S. government leadership and that an eerie "veil of silence" has befallen those who spoke of Iraq becoming a hub of secular democracy while we watch it unfold into something far different..Iraq's "democratic elections" being a "nonsecular activity similar to that in that other "Axis of Evil" candidate, Iran."

CNN reports that Archbishop Desmond Tutu challenged Tony Blair and George Bush to apologize for their pursuit of what he considers to be a counter-productive and "immoral" war in Iraq. "How wonderful if politicians could bring themselves to admit they are only fallible human creatures, and not God, and thus by definition can make mistakes....Weak and insecure people hardly ever say, 'Sorry.' It is large-hearted and courageous people who are not diminished by saying, 'I made a mistake.'....Who makes the decision about which regimes should be changed? And what authority do they (Bush and Blair) have to do whatever they may think is right .....is it a matter of 'might is right' and to hell with the rule of international law?" were some of Tutu's statements in an evening lecture delivered at Church House, Westminster, in central London.

In the Denver Post, Walter Cronkite states that he believes the United States has suffered a major self-inflicted wound in his article about U.S. intelligence and our reasons for going to war in Iraq.

Jimmy Breslin says he believes we have a commander in chief who only "plays" soldier with other people's lives while his apparent goal in the early 70s was to dodge war altogether. Not only "dodge".. "he is a guy who ducked the war, dodged the war, reneged on any chance to go to war, and yet without even a hint of personal shame sends young people to die in a war that his record shows that he would duck." According to Mr. Breslin, "Bush went to Alabama and that pretty much ended his fighting career although he did battle cavities in a dentist's chair at Maxwell Field, Ala."