Where Was the Planning and Coordination?

Where Was the Planning and Coordination?

Why did it take six days before any sign of a coordinated rescue/relief/clean-up/repair effort was apparent in the wake of Katrina?

If you'd like to read non-partisan straight-talk about the massive failure of planning and coordination at all levels of government in the response to Hurricane Katrina, I recommend Jack Grant's "Accountability" post at Random Fate. A commenter named BOU posts:

"Being a Logistics Engineer for 17 years, this entire thing has made me sick. There have been failings from the bottom to the top… from personal responsibility in planning for their hurricane preparations, to the ciy of NOLA, to the State, to the Federal. I’ve never seen such a screw up on such a grandiose scale. I never imagined it."

At Daily Kos, an AP report is discussed. It says that "several states ready and willing to send National Guard troops to the rescue in New Orleans didn't get the go-ahead until days after the storm struck -- a delay nearly certain to be investigated by Congress."

Josh Marshall is skeptical about the Bush administration's storyline, as you will see in his introduction to an excerpt from a current Washington Post story about the delays.

Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu has made a serious charge, casting the President's sincerity in a dubious light. She is accusing his staff of staging a photo op at the scene of a levee break in New Orleans. She said:

".... perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast – black and white, rich and poor, young and old – deserve far better from their national government."

The thoughts of many of the victims of this hurricane are going to pose a problem for government in the way in which government is viewed by the public. It will take a hell of a long time to erase inmages of poor black Americans pleading and crying for help from the collective memory of America.

"I don't treat my dog like that," we heard 47-year-old Daniel Edwards say near the convention center in New Orleans, as he pointed at an elderly woman dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, with another body lying beside her wrapped in a sheet. "You can do everything for other countries, but you can't do nothing for your own people," he added. "You can go overseas with the military, but you can't get them down here."

"We got dead bodies sitting next to us for days. I feel like I am going to die. People are going to kill you for water," Thomas Jessie, a 31-year-old roofer, told the AFP news agency after spending the night in the convention center. [BBC News]



"One guy jumped off a balcony. I saw him do it. He was talking to a lady about it. He said it reminded him of the war and he couldn't leave," one man in New Orleans said....a woman lay dead in a wheelchair on the front steps. A man was covered in a black drape with a dry line of blood running to the gutter, where it had pooled. Another had lain on a chaise lounge for four days, his stocking feet peeking out from under a quilt.. [New Orleans Left to the Dead and Dying ]

We saw one New Orleans citizen named Dwayne Jones approaching a reporter for MSNBC, saying that all he needed was a bullhorn and that his fellow citizens of New Orleans would listen to him and trust his leadership. He said he would be the voice for 25,000 people and all they needed and desired was a plan. He said that his desperate fellow citizens would not harm anyone - they just needed help. It was good of Dwayne Jones to take on such a leadership role - and pathetic and embarrassing to know all forms of government had failed him.

It's pretty tough to forget something like this.

A Baptist outreach minister in Virginia is calling for the President's resignation over this great failure in leadership.

As of this moment the general appearance to most of the country is that you protect the gas and oil companies but are punishing the black and the poor.

FEMA Directing Donations to Pat Robertson?

FEMA Directing Donations to
Pat Robertson?

Why is FEMA directing donations to Pat Robertson?

For Too Many Years

For Too Many Years

For too many years now, I've heard a lot of false and lofty rhetoric spoken in so-called "townhall meetings" where only a select Republican crowd was allowed inside. I could see these speeches on cable news, but I knew that I could never take part in them.

For too many years now, I have felt that I have been left behind. I understand that millions upon millions of Americans feel the same way that I feel.

For too many years now, we've been told that 9/11 united us in a common purpose and made us a better nation in the face of such tragedy. Far too many times, we've been told that the government of Iraq possessed WMD and was linked to the 9/11 hijackers. Too many times, we've heard that this link was our reason for making pre-emptive war upon Iraq, and now that the government has long been deposed and the "mission accomplished", we remain in a swirling quagmire.

For too many years, we've been told that with the new office of Homeland Security (with FEMA buried inside the office) we'd be well-prepared for a national emergency.

New Orleans has been practically wiped off the face of America, and it almost seems that in certain men's hearts, it was a righteous thing. In certain men's minds it was meant to be nature's last word, making New Orleans only a memory. In the President's agenda, when he knew a Category 5 storm was heading straight toward a city with known flooding issues, it was apparently a siuation not worth abandoning his 5-week-long vacation - at least not until he knew for sure the city had been decimated. After the flood, the President boldly told the lie that no one could have foreseen this flooding tragedy.

The American people are not only shocked by the government's slowness to action, they are disgusted.

In the past two days, ten people, who are not political by any stretch of the imagination, have sent me this e-mail - Vacation is Over... an open letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush. It's cris-crossing Americans' e-mail path like wildfire.

For those Americans who are political animals and who have paid close attention to the dismal hyperbolic misleadings and the divisive rhetoric of the Bush administration, we see that the ineffective reaction, after Katrina, from government has killed off a lot of previous blind support and benefit of the doubt from many Americans.

Steve Gilliard says it in a very strong and clear way. There is no possibility of a mixed message in his words.

You say this isn't about politics? Fu*k you, this IS politics, real time, real life politics, where the insanity of all your ideas are exposed to the world for the fraud that they are. Tax cuts kill. Ask the relatives of the dead of the Gulf Coast.

He's angry with all those political creatures on the Right who have pumped this president up larger than life. He's angry with them for dividing Americans from one another, whether or not it was their intention.

I can't blame him.

This administration doesn't give a rat's ass about the poor in this country. A close look at every one of their policies will prove it. A close look at Grover Norquist and Karl Rove will prove it.

"Let's drown government in the bathtub" says Grover Norquist. It seems that nature helped Grover Norquist and his radical Republicans drown much more than government this past week. It literally drowned real Americans as a result of Norquist's brand of government inaction. America's confidence in their government has also been drowned.

For too many years, the Bush administration has been diverting our taxes to a place where the profit is higher for wealthy friends and political contributors. They've made blood and gunpowder stew out of Iraq while Nature has made a human gumbo out of New Orleans with no possible appropriate response here at home because of reduced availability of manpower.

It's unfortunate that it would take the poorest people among us having to suffer and die for the mainstream media's cameras to wake America up to the sickening fact that the public has been duped for too many years now.

Nagin Glad to Have Lt. Gen. Honore

Nagin Glad to Have Lt. Gen. Honore

I was listening to CNN just now, and Mayor Nagin of New Orleans seemed relieved to have the assistance of Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who is overseeing the deployment of military troops in the region. Nagin's desperate SOS was the most heart-wrenching and pathetic cry I imagine I could ever hear from a mayor of an American city. [LISTEN]

I was pleased by the President's talk to the nation this morning. It's high time that President Bush used his great power, speaking out and criticizing his own team's delay - and finally getting this relief effort off the ground. People have been suffering and dying for five days now. They are struggling to survive while I hear too many people judging the suffering souls in New Orleans rather than rallying for their immediate assistance. This is a time for all of us to step up to the plate and do everything within our personal power to help.

News stories about looting and rape have triggered the usual prejudices and fears in the greater public and have not done a great public service to the people of New Orleans who have been left behind. New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are not filled with violent dark-skinned criminals and rapists as portrayed by all too many newscasts and blog reports. These are Americans in dire need.

I wish Lt Gen Honore and all those helping the desparate people left behind in New Orleans the best of luck, and every American should give everything they can spare to organizations like the Red Cross. MoveOn.org just launched a website, Hurricane Housing, to connect your empty beds with hurricane victims who desperately need a place to wait out the storm. You can post your offer of housing (a spare room, extra bed, even a decent couch) on Hurricane Housing or search there for housing if you need it.

Help is on the way. The Army Corps of Engineers said yesterday that it had taken the first steps toward plugging three breaches in the levee system that allowed water from Lake Pontchartrain to pour into New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. The American Red Cross has mobilized thousands of volunteers. The Red Cross plans to send close to 2,000 volunteers in the area to begin the initial response in the next few days.

I regret that many in the blogosphere are concentrating more on being at one another's throats, in a political sense, than rallying fellow Americans to help those people in New Orleans and all along the Gulf Coast.

If you want to read a blog from an American who I believe has his heart in the right place, read David Beckwith's post here and his diary at Daily Kos.

All my prayers go out to the people who have suffered and died as a result of this terrible tragedy.

Thoughts About Katrina and a Lack of Leadership

Thoughts About Katrina and a Lack of Leadership

Quote of the day:

"..just this morning, the President claimed that no one could have anticipated the levee breaches we've seen in New Orleans after Katrina hit. That's not leadership, that's an excuse."-

Gen Wesley Clark

9/1/05 - Waiting for a Leader - NY Times editorial

Looking at the obvious unpreparedness of the government in this emergency situation, Atrios asks what the Bush administration's been doing these past four years. He refers to a letter sent to Josh Marshall from a reader.

9/1/05 - NY Times advances Bush administration's dubious suggestion that FEMA is "better prepared" to handle hurricane crisis than before 9-11 [Media Matters]

2004 - FEMA was buried alive in DHS, and nothing has been the same since.

9/1/05 - FEMA has had to suspend rescue operations in some areas after gunfire broke out. There was also a report of a shot being fired at a military helicopter near the Superdome, where fights and trash fires have broken out. [News14Carolina]

When I think of Hurricane Katrina and the chaos in New Orleans, I can't help recalling Donald Rumsfeld's words about the looting, chaos and rising tempers in Iraq after we shocked and awed them: "Freedom’s untidy. Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things...And while no one condones looting, on the other hand one can understand the pent-up feelings that may result from..(you fill in the blank to make your point sound politically feasible).."

Freedom is obviously untidy in New Orleans tonight. I never thought I'd live to see the day that wed have such a catastrophe on our hands. Having our President tell us that the levee breaches in New Orleans could not have been foreseen reminds me of Condi Rice telling us that before 9/11, no one could have imagined planes being used as suicide weapons. Poppycock. Americans know better.

Arianna Huffington asks:

"Is the aftermath of Katrina part of the price we are paying for Iraq? To the growing list of collateral damage caused by the Iraq war and Bush's stunningly inept leadership, we can now add the city of New Orleans. It's no surprise that RNC chairman Ken Mehlman doesn't want "politics" injected into the national discussion about Katrina...Or that Scottie McClellan would echo that "this is not a time for politics." Why would he when President Bush's politics and policies have made this disastrous situation so much worse than it otherwise would have been?"

I'm thinking that this is the answer to Grover Norquist's spoken wish to drown government in the bathtub. The manifestation of Grover's bathtub dream is New Orleans.

I can hardly believe the childish-sounding tripe Jonah Goldberg wrote last Sunday about New Orleans (before the hurricane had hit the city). Tom Tomorrow points it out, in all its wretched mockery, at This Modern World.

Denny Hastert says why bother to rebuild it? Bulldoze it and forget it.

"Americans' hearts go out to the people in Katrina's path... But if the people of New Orleans and other low-lying areas insist on living in harm's way, they ought to accept responsibility for what happens to them and their property."
- from a Waterbury, Conn. Republican-American newspaper editorial Wednesday. [source:Huffington Post]

Lis Riba has a good list of links to bloggers commenting on Katrina.

It Takes More Than Hope to Tackle Poverty

It Takes More Than Hope to Tackle Poverty

There is a determination on the part of the Bush administration to disguise the fact that as America, in its national name, grows richer, American citizens are a poorer lot. Since George W. Bush’s election (I'm using the term loosely) in 2000, the poor in America has grown by 6 million people, nearly 20 percent over the 2000 statistics. 37 million Americans are living in poverty. The U.S. poverty rate rose to 12.7 per cent of the population last year alone, and it was the fourth consecutive annual increase, the Census Bureau said on Tuesday.

The state of Wisconsin was hit hardest, growing in poverty from 9.2 percent of households in poverty over a two-year average in 2002 and 2003, to 11% over a two-year average from 2003 to 2004. The Bronx had the fourth-highest poverty rate in the nation, trailing three counties on the Texas-Mexico border.

Looking at ethnic groups, black Americans have the lowest median income. Asians have the highest median income, and they were the only ethnic group to have experienced a decline in their poverty rate in 2004.

Larger American cities are finding they have more low-income neighborhood than they can afford. An editorial from today's Long Beach, CA says it beautifully:

"The latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau puts Long Beach near the top of one of its lists, as the nation's sixth-worst city in terms of households below the poverty level. Even allowing for a margin of error, that's the wrong end of the scale. The numbers are imprecise, but their message is clear. There is a point in the balance between poverty and affluence beyond which a city shouldn't venture; with too much poverty and too little affluence, financial viability disintegrates.....they are, in census reports and crime stats, reminding us that the community as a whole, not just a few of its more visible parts, must be in reasonably good health. And, reminding us to watch out for that tipping point."

Right blogs are falling in with the attempt to deny that so many Americans are in economic trouble. Powerline's John Hinderaker ignores the warning signs and says: "Somehow, things don't look so grim. By historic standards, the current poverty rate is low." Hinderaker claims that the NY Times is "wringing its hands." He complains about the media's reporting of the facts, saying that there is "little or no optismism to leaven the commentary." He claims that "it's hard to see any basis for pessimism." He accuses the NY Times of pandering to a more "sophisticated audience".

Hinderaker says:

"....in real terms, median household income is higher today than it has ever been, but for a couple of years in the late 1990s when we experienced a "boom" that we now know was fueled largely by a stock bubble and widespread corporate fraud. The truth is that our economy, aided by sound administration policies, has weathered the storms of the last several years extraordinarily well."

Hinderaker completely ignores the fact that gains from the economic recovery haven't filtered down to American workers. We are supposed to be living with a "robust economy." If the economy is expanding and the average American household income remains flat, who has reaped the benefit? Owners of capital have flourished uner the Bush economy. Bush's idea of an ownership society where everyone has private retirement and investment accounts is fine, if Americans have money to invest for their future. If this Census Bureau report has anything to tell us, it's that it is clear that millions of Americans are one bank account short of participating in the Bush version of the American dream. Robert Reich was correct in summing up Bush's plan for an "ownership society" in one word: "HOKUM."

This report should be a wake-up call for us all. The effects of poverty are devastating for American children. Americans are going deeper into debt with the current oil/gas prices and the rising prices for food, home-heating fuels, and health insurance. Millions of American consumers are having to spend more than they earn - simply on the basic necessities. We should be calling upon government to intervene in order to stop poverty's growth and mitigate its effects. In spite of many of America's strengths, we are not doing enough to turn around the growth in poverty. Instead of hiding the facts behind a waterfall of excuses, Right bloggers should recognize this and encourage the Bush administration to "fix" their economic policy around the Poverty Report "intelligence".

For a close-up look at poverty, look to the many residents of the 9th ward of New Orleans, who were among the 100,000 in the city who lacked a car or other means of leaving the city. According to the 2000 US census, the Lower Ninth Ward had a poverty level of 36.4 percent. A quarter of households in that district have an annual income of less than $10,000, while half live on less than $20,000. Over half of the population in the 9th ward of New Orleans is categorized as “not in the labor force,” mainly because they have ceased looking for work. Historically, the Lower Ninth Ward was one of the last regions of the city to be occupied because of its poor drainage system and its position on what was originally a cypress swamp. Those who settled there were mainly poor African-Americans and immigrant laborers with no other place to go. This is only one overview of Americans in economic trouble, and we're being warned that that number is on the rise. [source]Hurricane Katrina has just put a major city-load of Americans out of work for at least six months, maybe more. It's difficult to go to your job at the office when there is no office. We are being told it will cost tens of billions of dollars to clean up the damage, but the personal costs of recovery will be much more devastating to the individual families involved.

There is going to come a time when the Bush administration and the Right bloggers who love them are going to have to step into the mud pit and roll up their sleeves with the rest of us Americans who see the realistic effect of Bush's economic policies on the American family.

Former Senator John Edwards has commented: "America should be showing true leadership on the great moral issues of our time - like poverty - instead of allowing these situations to get worse." [Winston Salem Journal]

The Bush administration was quoted to have said that the "job market had continued to improve since the end of 2004 and they hope incomes were now rising and poverty was falling".

Hope, on its own, does not work. It takes action hard work, and sacrifice to eliminate poverty and increase stagnant incomes.


cross-posted at American Street

Beslan Tragedy - One Year Ago

Beslan Tragedy - One Year Ago

The tragedy in Beslan took place one year ago. Mourners are marking the sad anniversary today.

My comments from a year ago - 323 Dead - America's Future is Tied to Russia's

You may say that Russia doesn't require or desire our assistance. To that, I'd tell you that we will need to be able to do some convincing. We will need to seek their cooperation as the U.S. moves further and further into the Caucasus region with our international business interests. Progress marches on. We are citizens of the globe no matter how the Bush administration cares to step around the subject. We must act as citizens. It won't be long before the Chechen problem becomes our problem, too.

From today's news:

The United States is ready to cooperate with Russia at all levels in the fight against terrorism, State Secretary Condoleezza Rice said in a letter to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, RIA Novosti reported.

U.S. Poverty Rate Rises as Economy Grows

U.S. Poverty Rate Rises as Economy Grows


photo: BBC News

The U.S. poverty rate rose in 2004, even as the economy grew.

"The growth in the economy is not going to families," said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. "It's in stark contrast to what happened during the Clinton administration."....
...."It looks like the gains from the recovery haven't really filtered down," said Phillip L. Swagel, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research group in Washington. "The gains have gone to owners of capital and not to workers."

__________

"America should be showing true leadership on the great moral issues of our time - like poverty - instead of allowing these situations to get worse," said John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator and Democratic vice presidential candidate. He has started a poverty center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Overall, the nation's poverty rate rose to 12.7 percent of the population last year. Of the 37 million living below the poverty level, nearly a third were children. [Winston Salem Journal]

____________

The poverty rate climbed in 2004 to 12.7 percent, from 12.5 percent in 2003 -- the fourth year in a row that poverty has risen. The increase was borne completely by non-Hispanic whites, the only ethnic group that saw its poverty rate rise. The percentage of whites in poverty rose from 8.2 percent in 2003 to 8.6 percent. African Americans saw no change in their poverty rate, which remained at 24.7 percent. The poverty rate for Hispanics remained at 21.9 percent, while Asian Americans' poverty levels dropped by two percentage points, to 9.8 percent.

The Midwest was the only region that saw both the poverty rate rise and median household income fall, a "double whammy," said Ron Haskins, a welfare economist at the Brookings Institution. [WaPo]

___________

Sheldon Danziger, co-director of the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan, said poverty rates were still much better than in the early nineties. "The good news is that poverty is a lot lower than it was in 1993, but we went through a hell of an economic boom," Mr Danziger said. [BBC News]

____________

...for some, the lack of long-term improvement is particularly troubling. "There is still a generation of no progress against poverty," says Sheldon Danziger, codirector of the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan. "Somehow, we have to confront the fact that ... a rising economy no longer lifts all boats." [Christian Science Monitor]

__________

The latest statistics on poverty in the United States are disappointing, particularly since the economy is expanding. On Tuesday, the Census Bureau reported the poverty rate rose to 12.7 percent in 2004 from 12.5 percent a year earlier. The economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, grew last year at a healthy 4.2 percent after inflation. Unfortunately, the economy is not carrying everyone along with it. The gap between the poorest and the richest among us continues to widen, and the only federal strategy to reduce the disparity apparently is to wish for the best. [AJC editorial Poverty rate reflects poorly on U.S.]_____

There is a discussion about the issue of Poverty and the New Census Numbers at the One America website.

What Do You Suppose Iraqis Think?

What Do You Suppose Iraqis Think?

Yesterday at North Island, President Bush said:

If Zarqawi and bin Laden gain control of Iraq, they would create a new training ground for future terrorist attacks; they'd seize oil fields to fund their ambitions; they could recruit more terrorists by claiming an historic victory over the United States and our coalition.

They've already recruited more bin Ladenists, and it pains me to have to say that I think that we made it easy for them, in a psychological sense. The recent London attacks are one example. Now, young men are more easily swayed to turn to murder for a political cause. Now, more and more men are crossing Iraq's unprotected borders from nations all over the world to join what our own President is boldly announcing as the "central front on the war on terror". We decided to turn Iraq's land into "ground zero" for the battle to end all battles - fully knowing that innocent civilians in Iraq would have to sacrifice their peace; their prosperity; their safety; their lives.

There is an element of irresponsibility within that truth that is astounding, when you think about it. When people's lives are destroyed, they look for someone or something to blame.

Hurricane Katrina killed many innocents souls and destroyed their peace, prosperity, safety, and took some lives this week. How many people in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama have cursed the sky, do you imagine?

Who is the target of the cursing in Iraq today? Do you imagine it's only the bin Ladenists who are being cursed? What do you think about the 648 innocent pilgrims who were trampled under the feet of other pilgrims in Baghdad today when the spectre of a suicide bomber was raised and panic ensued?

I'm asking you to think realistically.

If you were an Iraqi:

- you might understand that the goal of the U.S. is to make them "free";
- or you might believe that the U.S. has concurrent ulterior motives (see the above quote from the President who's telling you that the oil is a big concern);
- or you might be an average citizen who does not understand the intricacies of geopolitics and you curse anyone who has brought this undeserved misery into the "land where their fathers died."
- you might curse bin Ladenists for what they've done
- you might curse the U.S. for what they've done

President Bush is telling us he will stand with these people. The problem is that these people don't want him "standing" the way he's chosen to stand.

Bush said:

That choice – this is the choice we face: Do we return to the pre-September the 11th mind-set of isolation and retreat, or do we continue to take the fight to the enemy and support our allies in the broader Middle East? I've made my decision: We will stay on the offensive.

This is a false choice. I'm sick and tired of hearing President Bush's false choices. There are hundreds of possible choices we could make, and his personal decision to use 9/11 and try to link it to the government of Iraq has been a complete sham. If we can see that he used (and continues to use) 9/11 to deliberately bring terror, insecurity, death, and destruction to the people of Iraq (with the grande promise to clean it up later and rebuild), how can we expect Iraqis to believe him?

He revealed, in yesterday's speech, that a macho dare from bin Laden was good reason for us to rush to war in Iraq without a plan for success:

"...free societies lack the courage and character to defend themselves against a determined enemy. Hear the words of Osama bin Laden that explain why he believed he could get away with the attacks of September the 11th, 2001..."

The propaganda that Mr. Bush is hard-selling should be pointed toward the Iraqis, because they are the ones sacrificing so much for their own "freedom". Yet, he's still desperately trying to convince his own doubtful citizenry because we have sacrificed something precious - our own flesh and blood. In recent days, Bush has told us we need to keep fighting because we need to make valiant the deaths of our own troops. That should tell you something has been terribly wrong with our strategy in Iraq all along.

Noah Feldman on Iraq's Draft Constitution

Noah Feldman on Iraq's Draft Constitution
Noah Feldman, a law professor at NYU and a senior adviser for constitutional law to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, has an important column on Iraq's constitution in today's NY Times.


Noah Feldman
photo from New America Foundation

Writing about Iraq's draft constitution, Mr Feldman educates the public about the realities of the political drawbacks of the process leading to what he calls the "agreement to disagree", and the potential for sectarian violence as a result of this particular process. He also tells us that the situation is not beyond all hope, but it certainly doesn't sound like success is a given or that the going will be easy in the least. As I have commented about previously, the U.S. pressure and insistence on the August 15th deadline has probably hurt more than helped to convince the Sunni Arabs in Central Iraq that the political process will give them the fair treatment, economic protections, and national unity that they seek:

..just as the train of Sunni rejectionism was gathering momentum, American insistence on meeting an arbitrary deadline was hurtling in the other direction.

What happened could and should have been foreseen:

..when the Shiites and Kurds chose to send the constitution to the public without reaching an agreement with their Sunni partners, the latter had little choice but to publicly condemn the process and the draft.

I'm already skeptical about anyone telling us that women will receive equal treatment under the new law in Iraq, because the line that has been drawn between civil and divine law is so thin, and there's no solid guarantee of civil law trumping Islamic law. It's been left open to anyone's interpretation. If this is only the "jumping off" point for future negotiation and legal interpretation, I suspect women will be among the first of the losers, dumped over the cliff, in this new Iraqi deal. Men have all too long ruled the government roost in Iraq, even when it had a secular constitution.

In a recent Foreign Policy magazine interview about the draft constitution, Juan Cole says:

"It is deeply self-contradictory and makes no provision for adjudicating the legal conflicts it sets up. For instance, it says parliament cannot pass civil legislation that contravenes Islamic law. But it also provides for freedom of speech, religion, and the press. So will blasphemy be punishable? There is no indication in the text of how conflicts like that would be adjudicated. It also creates bureaucratic and judicial nightmares. The draft I saw allows each Iraqi to choose to be under either civil or religious law for purposes of personal status—marriage, divorce, alimony, etc. Say a Shiite man wants to be under Shiite law and his more secular Shiite wife wants to live under civil law. They want a divorce. Do the divorce proceedings go forth under Shiite or civil law? Shiite law makes no provision for alimony. Can she initiate a divorce in the first place? Shiite law would not allow her to do so."

Noah Feldman tells us that's the least of our worries, and this news doesn't bring me a whole lot of comfort. Mr. Feldman said:

The major problem is one of who is agreeing, not what they have agreed on. The flawed negotiations of recent weeks, driven at breakneck pace by American pressure to meet an unnecessary deadline, failed to produce an agreement satisfactory to the Sunni politicians in the talks.

I'm not sure about you, but I do not see the potential for successful progress with this draft constitution. I can see that the United States' great hurry to claim some sort of lofty "victory" has set the peoples of Iraq on a collision course with one another.

I deeply appreciate Mr. Feldman's realistic overview. I have hope for something to go right, even as I think back on all the untruths our President and his administration allowed to flow from their lips to America's ear. They got us into a war we never needed to fight - and failed to plan for a marked success.

Now we have this draft constitution - a new false mark of achievement for Mr. Bush to boast about as if it was a step toward the enemy's surrender.

I ask you: What kind of "victory" is it when you are told that you can expect a great escalation of violence between the very groups of people we are "liberating"?

Katrina Has Been Here

Jonathan Harvey wades through flood waters after rescuing his dog 'Cuddles' from his flooded home after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast Monday in Gulfport, Miss.

"We're looking at a rebuild situation. I don't want to minimize the devastation we've experienced in the metro area. . . . Maybe this isn't he worst, but it's damn close."

- Dan Silverman, Entergy spokesman, New Orleans

Katrina Has Been Here

A usually-busy corner in New Orleans is under water

Katrina's full wrath still being felt as body count rises


A family sits on their porch in the Treme area of New Orleans, which lies under several feet of water

Breaking news can be found at NOLA.com



Photo credit: AP
Photos can be seen at Yahoo news

Headlines - August 29

Headlines - August 29

Leak Shows Blair Told of Iraq War Terror Link - "The Foreign Office's top official warned Downing Street that the Iraq war was fuelling Muslim extremism in Britain a year before the 7 July bombings."

US Forces Kill Reuters Journalist - "..an official statement indicated that the Americans were responding to an attack on an Iraqi police convoy when the journalists were shot. The death brings to 66 the number of journalists and their aides killed in Iraq since the start of the invasion in 2003."

Halliburton Whistle-Blower "Removed" by Army

I'd made a strong statement last February after I believed President Bush had exploited two women during his State of the Union speech. One of the women was the purple-fingered women's rights activist Safia Taleb al-Souhail who had been seated next to Laura Bush at the SOTU. The activist has now recanted her view about the "success" she celebrated with a two-fingered victory sign. I hope that anyone who complained about the strength of my conviction back in February will take a look at the current news article.


Bush Suffers Ratings Tumble as Sunnis Reject Iraq Charter

Crawford, Texas: A Divided Nation Bares Its Pain and Fury

Venezuela May Seek Robertson's Extradition

Strategizing a Christian Coup d'Etat

Iraq Worse than Vietnam in Number of Journalists Killed

Iraqi Constitution Sent to Parliament Despite Sunni Objections

How Photos Became Icon of Civil Rights Movement

Shiites Cut Off Talks on Charter

Specialist Young has questions for President Bush [BRAD BLOG]

Bolton Brings US into Conflict with UK

Opinion:

Tom Engelhardt: Catapulting the Propaganda

Dahr Jamail: Two "Green Zones"

Frank Rich: The Vietnamization of Bush's Vacation

Sean Penn: Day One in Iran: Culture in Deep Conflict

The Boston Globe: Rove's Role

John W. Dean: Did Pat RobertsonCommit a Crime?

The New York Times: The Lobbying-Industrial Complex

Maureen Dowd: Bike-Deep in the Big Muddy

Rosa Brooks: Not Your Daddy's Creationists

Larry C. Johnson: Why We Must Leave Iraq

The New York Times: States to the Rescue

Paul Krugman: Summer of Our Discontent

Leonard Pitts Jr.: Sheehan's Question Deserves Answer

Juan Cole: The Iraqi Constitution: DOA?

Phillip Robertson: The Death of al Mutanabbi Street

Robert Scheer - Judith Miller: Embedded over Her Head

Norman Solomon: Will News Media Help Bush Exploit the 9/11 Anniversary Again?

Bob Herbert: Truth-Telling on Race? Not in Bush's Fantasyland

Without the Sunni Arabs

Without the Sunni Arabs

"This constitution was cooked up in an American kitchen not an Iraqi one. We stand by our position."

- An unnamed Sunni negotiator

In Iraq today, while a celebration goes on in President Jalal Talabani's office "on the occasion of finishing drafting the constitution", it's obvious that the text hasn't met with approval from Sunni Arabs (whose community is the hotbed of the insurgency.)

The decision by the Shias and Kurds to go ahead without Sunni approval has revealed the Bush administration's strategy of using the Constitution to win the hearts and minds of disaffected Sunnis away from the insurgency as a failure.

It sounds like it may be the last party before the onset of a sectarian civil war. The new constitution was supposed to bring Iraqis together is tearing away at their differences as the US presses for a resolution on their time-table. Given these circumstances, it's sure to get ugly between now and October. The Bush administration has to try to get us to swallow this whole deal as a success, even though the people of Central Iraq have been economically and socially isolated by the greater oil-interests of the North and South (with the blessings, the way the Sunnis see it, of the U.S.).

From a Reuters article, the Iraqi government and U.S. strategy for stabilizing Iraq seeks to lure Sunnis into peaceful politics and undermine the insurgency, and the
Sunnis say they will not budge on federalism, fearing it would deprive them of oil resources in regions near the Kurdish north and Shi'ite south which hold the world's third-largest oil reserves.

The draft did not meet the minimum of Sunni demands which are aimed at preserving Iraq's unity. A Sunni negotiator named Fakhr al-Qaisi has said that “the draft was rejected” because of wording about “Iraq’s unity, Iraq’s Arab identity” and the designation of Islam as “a main source” of legislation and not the main one. [IOL]

From Iraq: The Model:

While the draft is still being read, Salih Al-Mutlaq [the Sunni negotiator] confirmed again that none of the 15 Sunni members of the CDC have signed the draft.

Al-Mutlaq also highlighted the American role in bridging the gap between the different parties involved in the process but he put the blame on the other parties (the Sheat and the Kurds) for focusing on "their narrow partisan and sectarian" interests.

Our only difference we had with the Americans was about setting a rigid timetable for completing the process.
[..]
We'll be calling all the powers that didn't participate in the last elections for a conference where we will be declaring our objections on the draft...

Salih Al-Mutlaq also explained that their objections are limited to a few points and that they agree with large parts of constitution and he stressed that they (the Sunni parties) will fully participate in the future phases of the political process.
He also called on the people who are not satidfied with the darft to avoid violence and keep practicing their normal daily activities and express thier opinion in peace.

It's worth mentioning that Hachim Al-Hasani (chairman of the Assembly) is not present at the current session.

Despite attempts to put an optimistic gloss on the talks, the failure of Iraqi politicians from the three main groups to reach any kind of consensus has been greeted with dismay in Washington and London, where it had been hoped that President George Bush's intervention last week to persuade the Shias to accommodate the Sunnis' concerns would break the deadlock. [Guardian Unlimited]

In a blogpost by Billmon called "The Philadelphia Experiment", he explains how "the Iraqi constitutional "process" (now careening towards a bitter and divisive referendum) has already inspired one of the silliest historical analogies" he thinks he's ever heard. He says:

The men who met in Philadelpha in the summer of 1787 were the winners of a protracted revolutionary struggle for national independence -- not the leaders of a collection of squabbling ethnic and religious factions, many of whom spent years in exile and then rode back into their native land on the backs of foreign tanks. The framers of the U.S. constitution expelled an occupying army. The founders of the New Iraq are guarded by one.

Meanwhile, beyond rooms where lofty aspirations fall into their papered fate, there remains a cold and hard world -

"... the Sunni guerrillas' ability to keep Iraq from moving forward-- their ability to act as spoilers-- is a key political asset. The US and British publics are brave and determined, but they deeply dislike situations where they are spending blood and treasure for situations where there is no visible progress on the ground. And by "progress" they do not mean putting down some words on paper." [Juan Cole]

At Corrente Lambert has made a good point, and points out Digby's very good point as well. This quote of Digby's is the best ending this blog entry could have, and I hope all Democratic and Republican representatives will listen:

"..I think this is where we separate the men from the boys and the women from the girls. If, after all you've seen these last five years you still believe that the Bush administration can be given the benefit of the doubt, that they will do the right thing, change course, follow sage advice, reevaluate their strategy, bow to the facts on the ground --- then you have the same disease the Bush administration has. As Ben Franklin said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.."

In a Cold Room, Memories of a Life of Flowers

In a Cold Room, Memories of a Life of Flowers

Alissa J. Rubin [LA Times] interviews Abu Imad, an Iraqi who once tended the garden at Yamouk hospital. Shortly before the start of the war in Iraq he was assigned to tend the dead at the morgue.

"....I received two children this morning — 3 years old. They had been sent [to the hospital] by their mother to have an injection … they had coughs and colds. And they [the nurses] used half the dose that they use for adults, but the children died immediately. They will wait for the report from the forensic [to find out whether an overdose or a bad reaction was to blame]. Only the father came for the bodies, and he beat his head against the wall, crying for them. I wept indeed when I saw those two children today. I felt they were my own children. They were wearing pajamas and T-shirts and their hair was very long. They were like flowers..."

LINK

Around the Blogs

Around the Blogs

At Voice of a Veteran, there is a fish tale I think you will like.

Corrente (Lambert) has a great "you provide the caption" challenge. I learned about it from Dan Froomkin, who has some very interesting things to report here.


Mark Adams asks a plain and simple question:

Why am I supposed to expose my bleeding heart for the Iraqis? Their dead and wounded remain uncounted and uncountable (to borrow Reichmarshall Rumsfeld's phraseology). WE are not better off with a new Mecca for terrorists recruitment and training in their newly founded Islamic Republic.

Cindy Sheehan's supporters and a group of counter-parent-protesters are both planning major rallies for today. I think it looks like a WWF wrestling match where parents of fallen soldiers get down in the mud. You know it's bad for a President's administration when it comes down to something like this. Bush fails to rally the nation and we get a wrestling match of grief and other assorted emotions.

Kathleen Parker can tell you how she thinks Maureen Dowd is wrong, but she can't tell us what Kathleen Parker thinks is right.

..people lost in their emotions get a pass from the usual standards of debate and fair play, as Sheehan has. That's about to change. As others arrive in Crawford who share Sheehan's grief and her moral authority — but not her politics — her free pass expires.

Parker's tone suggests that Mrs. Sheehan is going to get her comeuppance - all free passes are off the table, the big face-off between grieving mothers is coming, etc. We can all see that this is a circus brought on by a war that no American clearly understands - but I don't think you'll see Kathleen Parker mentioning that fact anytime soon.

Arthur Chrenkoff is also on a mission to prove MoDo wrong, and in doing so, he only serves to prove her right by displaying thoughts from other parents of fallen soldiers who have the same level of moral authority. Mr. Chrenkoff shows his political stripes, in a "can't beat 'em, join 'em" sense, by saying that "Kos and the rest of the left think that exploiting Cindy Sheehan's exploitation of her loss is the best new secret weapon in the war against George Bush." So now it's Chrenkoff's turn to exploit the other parents. We can all see that this is a circus brought on by a war that no American clearly understands - but I don't think you'll see Arthur Chrenkoff mentioning that fact anytime soon.

Michael J. W. Stickings has been a guest blogger at the Carpetbagger Report this week, and he has something to say about George Will's recent campaign to "shrill-ize" the Democrats he thinks are not "moderate" enough. When I think "shrill", I think of a Vice Prez who says "F**k you" to a fellow Senate member. That's pretty shrill. See my comments from August 21st.


Steve Soto talks about the LA Times article where a summary of what is known about Plamegate is provided. It is made clear that TIME magazine deliberately laid back on the story last year because it was close to the time of an election. Soto says:

I’m sure watching what the White House and Mighty Wurlitzer did to CBS over the TANG memos convinced Time that they made the right decision to keep the public in the dark on this until well after the election.

I believe this whole thing is an American tragedy, and I'll wager it will be looked upon in posterity as such.

Medical Error Bill - Patient Safety Canard

Medical Error Bill:
"Patient Safety" Canard

About the recently passed "Medical Error" bill:

The legislation encourages health professionals to confidentially report errors. Patient safety organizations would be established to analyze them, look for weaknesses in the system and recommend ways to reduce mistakes and save lives -- without setting off an avalanche of malpractice lawsuits.

[CNN]

If the above is true, we can only assume that health care professionals can turn in others for their negligence, under the cloak of secrecy, and the American public will be banned from legally knowing what errors, however negligent, their particular health care pro may have committed.

See Privilege section of Bill S.544 [loc.gov] - - exmple: Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State, or local law, and subject to subsection (c), patient safety work product shall be privileged and shall not be admitted as evidence in any Federal, State, or local governmental civil proceeding, criminal proceeding, administrative rulemaking proceeding, or administrative adjudicatory proceeding, including any such proceeding against a provider.

Legalizing the keeping of secrets about another's potential negligence, in the name of patient safety, runs against everything I have ever been taught about justice.

The reporting of an error by a hospital will not result in the hospital being granted immunity from a lawsuit, but the conduit for revealing negligence is protected from subpoena. A lawyer would not be able to discover whatever negligence a hospital or doctor admitted to. With this new law, this would have to be kept confidential.

Section 923 states that "the information resulting from such analyses shall be made available to the public and included in the annual quality reports prepared under section 913(b)(2)." Meaning, once a year the public will get a general reporting. The trade-off is a big one: our right to know about negligence our individual healthcare providers may have had. I am not comfortable with this.

Americans should question the grounds for this type of secretive and closely-held review of negligent mistakes which may be costing our loved ones their lives. I believe it is a move against freedom when you legally privatize a potentially disastrous truth and hide it away from the people of America for fear that they may learn they have perfectly legal grounds for a civil suit.

I regret to say I would have expected this from today's GOP and President Bush.

Lawsuits have been instrumental, in and of themselves, in improving public health and safety. Legal action as a last resort against physicians, pharmaceutical firms and other corporations have stopped the use of dangerous medical practices, drugs and devices, such as kidney-damaging statin drugs, off-label use of Neurotinin, the IUD, “FenPhen,” and thalidomide, just to name a few.

This medical error bill does not directly address malpractice law, but we know what the Republicans are trying to do by passing this bill. It's restricting our right to KNOW, thus limiting the legal suits we are capable of bringing successfully for lack of evidence.

This national mandatory error reporting database has only been created with a protection to hide the legal negligence of healthcare pros from the American individual who should always have the right to make his own judgement, along with his own attorney, on whether or not he wants to bring lawsuit.

I'm all for safety - but at what price to freedom and justice?

I'd wonder if the Democrats who agreed to this bill were thinking straight when they voted for it?

I'd love to have a freeedom-respecting lawyer-blogger take a look at this Bill and tell me what she/he thinks of it.

Plowing Thru the "They Win When We're Weak" BS

Plowing Through the
"They Win When We're Weak" BS

I had the following exchange with a fellow American on Blogcritics [President Bush, Call the Dogs Off Cindy Sheehan]:

HE SAID:

I live near Ft. Hood and the soldiers were calling in with their opinions of - to use their words - 'Cindy Jehad'. They are really, really not pleased with her activities. One who had just returned from Iraq commented that right before he left terrorist sympathizers in Iraq were handing out leaflets with pictures of Cindy Sheehan to show their supporters that they're winning because we're weakening - with her as evidence. One of the repeated themes was that Cindy Sheehan, by her actions is going to be responsible for additional dead soldiers in Iraq. They really despise her.

MY REPLY:

Terrorist sympathizers in Iraq are not Americans. Those people you call "terrorist sypathizers" over in Iraq would be the last ones I'd assign any moral authority to. Dead last.

We don't need a permission slip from terrorists to ask questions which we free Americans think are appropriate and necessary to ask.

In the case of that one soldier you mentioned - I would tend to listen to him before I'd listen to you. As a matter of fact, knowing how you feel about this topic from your many posts, I would tend to want to hear this soldier speak myself, rather than hearing him through your filter.

When you say "the soldiers who called in.." - we do not know if they've been in Iraq. I would have liked to have heard them speak without your filter. Hearing something with one's own ears is the best way to place authority and make personal judgements.

Calling the woman "Cindy Jihad" is, in truth, disrespectful and just plain inaccurate. Cindy Sheehan and the Gold Star families are not promoting holy war or any other senseless kind of war. They fear that the one we're fighting is senseless and that our leadership has been deceitful.

What "terrorist sympathizers" want is not what concerned Americans want.

HE SAID:

Cindy Sheehan, by her actions is going to be responsible for additional dead soldiers in Iraq

MY REPLY:

There's a political psywar going on in America. Propagandists would lead some to believe that citizens asking the toughest questions will lead to non-success.

In truth, the buck stops with the President of the United States. If the war wasn't an obvious non-success to begin with, no one would be asking the tough questions.

The responibility for anyone dying in Iraq today would lay squarely on the shoulders of the leaders who plan and direct it.

That's where the power is - the man with the greatest military power in the world has failed to rally a nation - and the world.

The man with the greatest power, by his position, takes on the trust of those who give him moral authority.

Bush has lost his moral authority because of his lack of leadership and character.

That one small mother's voice - the voice of Cindy Sheehan - didn't do that.

He did that on his own.

There are some rational debates and questions in this country about the way the Iraq war has been conducted that have absolutely nothing to do with people believing we should show weakness in the face of terrorism.

I've heard that bullcrap argument far too many times to swallow it.

We really do need to break these myths and fear-mongerings apart whenever we see them.

Nothing vs Everything

Nothing vs Everything

What did Saddam Hussein have to do with 9/11?

Nothing.

What does today's fight in Iraq have to do with Saddam Hussein?

Nothing. Saddam left the building (aka spider hole) long, long ago.

What does today's fight in Iraq have to do with the Bush administration's near-total imcompetence in managing the anarchy which they should have known would accompany the vacuum which Saddam Hussein's ouster would create? (After lying the nation into a war of their heavy-handed choosing)?

Everything.

Jon Stewart was HOT Last Night

Jon Stewart was HOT Last Night

David R Mark [BlogCritics.org] credits the Daily Show's Jon Stewart with a brilliant episode (from August 25th).

BUSH MONTAGE: The war arrived on our shores on September the 11th, 2001 ... September the 11th ... September the 11th I made a commitment to the American people ... from September the 11th ... the lesson of September the 11th, 2001 ...

STEWART: You know, if I had a nickel for every time Bush has mentioned 9/11, I could raise enough reward money to go after Bin Laden!

On the same episode, Jon Stewart handed his guest Christopher Hitchens his stubborn, stuffy and equivocating defense of the Iraq war right back to him (fried crispy) on a silver platter. It was tasty. I savored every "bite".

Thanks to Wonkette for capturing some of it:

Stewart: The people who say we shouldn't fight in Iraq aren't saying it's our fault. . . That is the conflation that is the most disturbing. . .

Hitch: Don't you hear people saying. . .

Stewart: You hear people saying a lot of stupid [bleep]. . . But there are reasonable disagreements in this country about the way this war has been conducted, that has nothing to do with people believing we should cut and run from the terrorists, or we should show weakness in the face of terrorism, or that we believe that we have in some way brought this upon ourselves. . .

Hitch: [Sputter]

Stewart: They believe that this war is being conducted without transparency, without credibility, and without competence...

Hitch: I'm sorry, sunshine... I just watched you ridicule the president for saying he wouldn't give. . .

Stewart: No, you misunderstood why. . . . That's not why I ridiculed the president. He refuses to answer questions from adults as though we were adults and falls back upon platitudes and phrases and talking points that does a disservice to the goals that he himself shares with the very people needs to convince.

[Audience erupts in applause]

Hitch: You want me to believe you're really secretly on the side of the Bush administration. . .

Stewart: I secretly need to believe he's on my side. He's too important and powerful a man not to be.

Hitch: [Sputter, return to talking about his latest book.]

-from Wonkette-

At Think Progress, a commenter named "C" says:

"...it says a lot about how weak our media is when it takes a comedian to point out the obvious."

I think he's right. In addition, I think it says a lot for Jon Stewart, who is a confident and intelligent person with great debating skills and a dynamite built-in nonsense-detector. It also says a lot for the Comedy Network - obviously unintimidated by market forces because they understand that Mr. Stewart is their cash cow.


Crooks and Liars has the video of Stewart interviewing Hitchens.

Iraq: The Sticking Points

Iraq: The Sticking Points
The following are "sticking points" in Iraq's Constitution debate:

* ARTICLE 1: "The Republic of Iraq is an independent, sovereign nation, and the system of rule in it is a democratic, federal, representative (parliamentary) republic."

The Sunnis suspect that federalism is code for the Shias and Kurds slicing up Iraq's oil-fiels in the northern and southern regions and keeping them for themselves.

* ARTICLE 2: "Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation... No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam."

Divine (sharia) law will kill off a healthy future for the advancement of women's rights.

* ARTICLE 3: Iraq "is part of the Islamic world and its Arab people are part of the Arab nation".

What's the mumbo-jumbo about "Islamic world"? The Sunnis (among others) believe Iraq should be constitutionally considered, first and foremost, an "Arab nation" (secular).

* ARTICLE 4: "Arabic and Kurdish are the two official languages for Iraq. Iraqis are guaranteed the right to educate their children in their mother tongues, such as Turkomen or Assyrian."

The Kurds are worried about being dominated by the Arab majority. (They'll possibly secede before long anyhow, agreement or no agreement - it's in the wind - no secret).

* ARTICLE 16: "Equal opportunity is a right guaranteed to all Iraqis, and the state shall take the the necessary steps to achieve this."

Equality for all Iraqis? That's far too lofty for those who want divine Islamic law to trump civil law. We have come this far to prop up a new theocracy.

* ARTICLE 20: "Citizens, male and female, have the right to participate in public matters and enjoy political rights, including the right to run as candidates."

Women's rights seem to be unpopular with most power-hungry Iraqi men.
Evil code word: "female"

* ARTICLE 151: "A proportion of no less than 25 per cent of seats in the council of representatives is specified for participation of women."

Affirmative action seems to be unpopular with power-hungry Iraqi men.
Evil code word: "women"


Source: Independent Online