Norman Solomon asks

"And henceforth, the only honorable course will be to stake everything on a formidable gamble: that words are more powerful than munitions."

--Albert Camus

Excerpt from a new, insightful article by Mr. Solomon:

Key questions of the past are also crucial for the future.

** For instance, can the United States credibly wage a "war on terrorism" by engaging in warfare that terrorizes civilians? (Close to 10,000 Iraqi civilians have died because of the war during the past year.)


** Does the mix of mendacity and deadly violence from the Oval Office really strike against terrorism, or does it fuel terrorist cycles?


** And, in the realm of news media, how many journalists are willing and able to go beyond reliance on official sources enough to bring us truth about lies that result in death?

Wishing for a less cloudy forecast-
John Kerry Needs to Clear Up

This dischord in the pact of things,
This endless war 'twixt truth and truth,
That singly held, yet give the lie
To him who seeks to hold them both...

- Boethius

Re: AP: Dean nod mixed bag for Kerry
By Nedra Pickler

The same brutal honesty that Howard Dean brought to the political forefront is recommended, by some political advisors, to be publically shunned by John Kerry. I'm all for honesty. Until we can all be brutally honest about matters, liars and media-manipulators will continue to prevail in these horse races. A Dean-shunning by Kerry would be a vote for Bush, in my estimation. Kerry needs more political clarity. He's being pegged as a waffler on key issues...and let's face it, to the non-trained political ear, he comes off sounding like one. I may not love his message, but GOP Campaign Chairman Ed Gillsepie's not lying when he drags out his political ammo. All the GOP has to do is show the clip of Kerry saying he voted for the $87 billion for the troops before he voted against it....or display Kerry's statement upon voting "YES" to the Iraq resolution in October 2002. I have a trained political ear. Even I failed to glean a clear message or direction from that statement.

President Bush may be an overly simplistic simpleton in some eyes, but we must remember that most Americans want their messages as simple and clear as they can get them. I trust John Kerry supports our troops and I know he voted "No" on the $87 billion because he was demanding accountability from the Bush administration. However, all many Americans will see is that silly statement he made about "for-before-against". There are often two or more rationally acceptable sides to our stories...even relativity is a two-faced Janus...but humans tend to need to be reassured with straightforward consistency when the message is pitched over their home-plate.

--Howard Dean is clear and straight. He's been excoriated for it in the media..even by the likes of Democrats like Bruce Reed of the DLC. What a shame upon the DLC. The AFSCME boss called Dean "nuts".

--Bush is clear and misleading...and he's been rewarded and honeymooned by the same media that destroyed Dean's candidacy...and will destroy Kerry's if he's not smart. Stop shunning the honesty of Dean. Dean has stuck by the Democrats and has greatly furthered their case against Bush. In my opinion, they'd be lost in the woods without him.

This isn't "Dean-lost" sour grapes. I'd really love to see straight and clarifiying messages from Kerry.
He needs to change or face a loss in November.
This is not a Kerry-bash. This is tough love.

By the way, I think Howard Dean would be a tremendous representational asset to the spirit of the American people by serving as John Kerry's Vice President. He's the eidetic 21st-Century Paine or Jefferson, never losing sight of the fact that America is only as good as each individual in whom our Creator gifted those certain unalienable Rights.

They're coming at you firecely, Senator. Kerry. There has never been a more important time to embrace and incorporate the honesty of those who are your political friends.

See:
Weekly Standard: Kerry's Uncommon Touch
Besides the flip-flops, John Kerry has another big problem: how his life in the Senate has prepared him for connecting with ordinary Americans

ALTERNATIVE HEADLINES

Poland Says It Was 'Misled' On WMD

Twilight of the Neocons- Richard Perle has begun to panic

Independent: Arab journalists walk out on Powell over US shootings

Reason interview: Meet Hizbollah-
The Party of God's MP talks about Islam, Iraq, and the war on terror

Ecnomist.com- The next American empire- George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld have pledged to change the way America's armed forces are distributed around the globe. What do they have in mind?

NYT: For Children of Gays, Marriage Brings Joy

Prague Post: Deconstructing a president- Citizens regard Czech President Vaclav Klaus' image as more vital than his political views

Paul Krugman: "...Most Americans, I suspect, still don't realize how badly this apparent exploitation of the world's good will — and the subsequent failure to find weapons of mass destruction — damaged our credibility..."

Today in history...

1860- William Jennnings Bryan born in Salem, Illinois.
Related site: The Scopes Trial
Related current Events: County that was site of Scopes Trial Wants to Charge Homosexuals


Battle of Bentonville

1865- Civil War, Battle of Bentonville, North Carolina.

Have you seen The Gadflyer ?


The Gadflyer is a new progressive Internet magazine. At their website, they promise it will be provocative, critical, and iconoclastic. It will cover politics and public affairs from a fresh perspective, offering journalism, analysis, and commentary from a new generation of writers.

I recommend Amy Sullivan's article on getting tough with progressive constituencies, Paul Waldman's article on getting tough with the Right, and Sean Aday's article on getting tough with the press.

The age of the wimpy liberal is over! Who knew?

Know this: Vote for Bush and we'll be going after Iran soon
*It's just a knowing thing*

Listen to Michael Ledeen and Richard Perle. They aren't just suggesting a possibility of future war with Iran. They are telling you it shall be unavoidable from their points of view. Unfortunately, the thesis they've wrapped their foreign policy ideas around has been warped by a pesky thing called REALITY.

But who cares about reality, right? I mean, it didn't make a hill o'beans of difference to our President.

I hope the Balkans don't explode again. Milosevic is gone, but hate lives on

This time the Serbs are the victims of Albanian agression. Turn, turn, turn....
If KFOR can't get a grip on the situation, we may want to see a comeback of General Wesley Clark in some capacity. Vice President or Secretary of Defense, perhaps? Clark knows the Balkans. He'd be invaluable to the effort it's apparently going to take to get this situation lined up in America's best interests. I wish it weren't so, but there is no one in the Bush administration I trust anymore to handle such a volatile situation.

Slice o'life






I'd vote for Mickey Mouse if he was running against George Bush - anyone but Bush."

--May Duke





*Be careful what you wish for, May!*

Howard Dean will officially announce his new advocacy group Democracy for America tomorrow.

A great Central New York resource for information on Howard Dean is at NYCO's blog.

Seen Shakespeare's Will? Want to?

HERE

Are there any descendants of Shakespeare alive today?

Shakespeare had three children: Susanna (1583), twins Hamnet and Judith (1585). Hamnet died in 1596, aged eleven. Susanna married John Hall in 1607, and had one child, Elizabeth, born in 1608. Elizabeth was married twice, to Thomas Nash in 1626, and to John Bernard in 1649. However, she had no children by either husband. In 1616 Judith married Thomas Quiney, by whom she had three sons, Shakespeare Quiney, who died in infancy, and Richard and Thomas, who both died unmarried, early in 1639 within a month of each other. Legitimate descent from Shakespeare is therefore impossible. It is possible, however, to claim a relationship through his sister, Joan. She married William Hart some time before 1600 and there are many descendants of this marriage alive today, in both male and female lines.

Donald Rumsfeld-
Caught on tape

A year ago today, the Bush Administration was making its final push toward war in Iraq. We know now that much of what we were told about the threat that Iraq posed was untrue. And rather than own up to their distortion of the facts, Bush administration officials are denying they ever said such things. But this Sunday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld got caught blatantly contradicting his past statements, and MoveOn.org has the video clip. Click the link on the title above in order to see it.

ONE Year Ago--
TWO Views Ago on IDDYBUD..

Read these two points of view. Consider all that has occurred over the past year. Draw your own conclusions.


"We will not defeat or even contain fanatical terror unless we can carry the war to the territories from which it is launched. This will sometimes require that we use force against states that harbour terrorists, as we did in destroying the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

The most dangerous of these states are those that also possess weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is one, but there are others. Whatever hope there is that they can be persuaded to withdraw support or sanctuary from terrorists rests on the certainty and effectiveness with which they are confronted. The chronic failure of the security council to enforce its own resolutions is unmistakable: it is simply not up to the task. We are left with coalitions of the willing. Far from disparaging them as a threat to a new world order, we should recognise that they are, by default, the best hope for that order, and the true alternative to the anarchy of the abject failure of the UN."

--Richard Perle
NeoConservative, former Pentagon warhawk (was chairman of defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board). Mr. Perle was the who said last November to an audience in London:
"I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."
Mr Perle is the co-author of "An End to Evil-How to Win the War on Terror"
[ American Conservative Review HERE ]

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


"Many of you believe this must happen because you have been told, time and again, that Saddam Hussein possesses an awesome arsenal of mass destruction weapons that he will gladly give to terrorists for use against us. Your belief that this is so stems from your loyalty – the President has told you it is true, and so it must be true. It is fearful indeed to consider weapons like this in the hands of terrorists.
You must know, however, that no proof of either prohibited weapons possession or connections to terrorism on the part of Saddam Hussein has been offered by the administration. They have made many accusations, and offered chunks of evidence, but over the last weeks and months each and every bit of evidence put forth has been debunked. Sometimes, the press has proven them wrong, sometimes the weapons inspectors in Iraq proved them wrong, and sometimes our own intelligence services proved them wrong. No proof offered by the Bush administration has stood up.
None."

--William Rivers Pitt, columnist, addressing Americans who may have been "on the fence" about the right and wrong of the just-begun pre-emptive war on Iraq.


TODAY'S HEADLINE: Bush warms to new UN resolution on Iraq
*would Mr. Perle see this as 'giving in'
to the terrorists?*

In the news

-> Bomb Destroys Baghdad Hotel, Kills Dozens



-> On St. Patrick's Day:
'Religion and Politics - Separate or Inseparable' - John Bruton

Politics, therefore, involves compromise in a way that religious teaching never does. But at what point must the necessity of compromise be made subject to principle, principle based on religious belief? My own view is that matters involving the taking of life are ones where politicians should always vote on principle, principles that for many politicians will derive from their religious beliefs. Other less serious, less irreversible, matters of social and economic policy are ones where the necessity for compromise can be given equal or even greater weight...

-> Bush aide disclaims 2 GOP lawmakers' remarks on Cuba

-> "NBC News has obtained, exclusively, extraordinary secret video, shot by the U.S. government...."


Video here

**OK---How did they they obtain this "exclusively, extraordinary secret
video"?? I wonder if it's as authentic as this one was?

-> Reuters: Democrats Tally 'Misleading' Iraq Statements

-> ThousandReasons.org Opinion re: Presidential Campaign: George Bush: Liar

-> NYT: Powell Reassures India they'll keep getting American jobs.

-> Bank of America Plans Job Cuts of Up to 13,000

-> Washington Post: Spain Campaigned to Pin Blame on ETA
Despite Evidence to Contrary, Basque Group Was Focus in Blasts
*You cannot get caught in a lie of this magnitude on an issue of this importance, and expect to get reelected.*

-> "SPAIN"- Dave Ross Commentary/Seattle, WA

Al Qaeda wants to scare Europe into keeping its distance from the United States.

But that's crazy! You can't give into terrorists! Spain should know that -- heck, Spain DOES know that - they've been fighting Basque terrorists for years.

So how is it that the United States, a victim of terrorism itself, is suddenly like Kryptonite?

We won the war in Iraq! We continue to rebuild the place! We killed Uday and Qusay! We captured Saddam! A new poll in Iraq says 70% of Iraqis expect things to be better off a year from now! By any definition that is a victory!

The only possible explanation is... that the people of Spain decided winning in Iraq ... has nothing to do with stopping terrorism.

And saw last week's attack as the final proof.

-> Judge Denies Al-Arian Free-Speech Claims

A Florida Federal district judge says fund-raising does not have constitutional First Amendment protection and rejects defense motions to strike the words "terrorism" and "terrorist" from Professor Sami Al-Arian's indictment. In a case where an American citizen gives to a charity, do the very words "terrorist" not ring loudly of wildly prejudicial treatment? I can see this one going to the Supreme Court. I have observed shades of similar questionable judicial treatment given to a highly-respected and beloved oncologist here in upstate New York, Dr.Rafil Dahfir, who chose to give to Iraqi charity...certainly no terrorist.

-> Electronic (ES &S) Voting Machines are sure to bring about a democratic disaster this fall
*Even if Bush (or Kerry) lose by narrow margins in any given district in the nation, think about how the GOP (or the Dems) may use information like this to contest voting results. Look at what happened in just two parishes in Louisiana in the most recent (November 5, 2003) elections..

In Louisiana, the two parishes (counties) that paid more than $3 million for 700 ES&S Votronic touch-screen voting machines suffered “countless problems” with the new machines, ac cording to The Advocate of Baton Rouge. The ES&S machines “plagued voters and the clerks of court staffs in Ascension and Tangipahoa, the only parishes that use the new machines other than for absentee balloting.”

Ascension Parish Clerk of Court Hart Bourque said Wednesday that more than 200 machine malfunctions were reported.

“A mechanic would fix a machine, and before he could get back to the office, it would shut down again,” Bourque said. “Unless we find a solution, next fall there’s no way we can vote.”

Tangipahoa Parish Clerk of Court John Dahmer said: “I can’t say every precinct had a problem, but the vast majority did.” Dahmer said at least 20 percent of the machines malfunctioned.

-> David Corn/The Nation: The Best--or Worst--of Bush's Iraq Whoppers

-> AP: 9/11 Panel Calls Bush, Clinton Officials
Hell, no..Condi won't go.

-> AJC: Trust in U.S. erodes abroad
Survey of foreign nations shows many doubt intent of anti-terror campaign

What's going on in Iraq?

I just read the strangest story: U.S. Unloading WMD in Iraq reports an Iranian News Agency

A reliable source from the Iraqi Governing Council, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Mehr News Agency that U.S. forces, with the help of British forces stationed in southern Iraq, had made extensive efforts to conceal their actions.

I would hope we would not plant phony evidence.

Liberty and Justice for all

THIS IS LIBERTY??
--Easier Internet Wiretaps Sought
Justice Dept., FBI Want Consumers To Pay the Cost

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

THIS IS JUSTICE??--
--Prosecutor sues Justice, Ashcroft
--A Real Case Of Snakebite
How a trophy terrorism prosecution morphed into a big mud fight

What you see may shock you


This is a very moving story that should be told and allow you to judge for yourself. Our President is claiming 9-11 as some sort of political leadership-victory for his campaign. You may or may not see it that way after viewing some of these facts.

Syracuse Post Standard columnist Hart Seeley's Existential Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld set to music>

A Confession
Once in a while,
I'm standing here, doing something.
And I think,
"What in the world am I doing here?"
It's a big surprise.

—D.H. Rumsfeld, May 16, 2001, interview with the New York Times

On NPR.org, you can see an article (and hear audio interview) about Syracuse columnist Hart Seeley's Existential Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld, which has now been set to music by San Francisco-based pianist Bryant Kong. (Songs sung by soprano Elender Wall).

RELATED ARTICLES:

-Slate/Volume One 1- The Poetry of D.H. Rumsfeld

-Slate/Volume 2- That's LIfe! The poetry of D.H. Rumsfeld

Breakup of Onondaga County, N.Y. SWAT:
The Cheney Connection
WSTM.com

The real story behind the break up of the County SWAT team is raising such a storm of controversy, some feel it could actually reach the White House.

The bus which carries the 47 member Sheriff's Department SWAT team to dangerous crime scenes may be sitting idle for quite some time. This elite unit of Deputies who volunteer for the SWAT team is disbanded. The Sheriff's Office blamed an equipment problem, but we've learned the real story involves the demotion of a Sergeant for an incident when Vice President Cheney came to town last November.

While Cheney spoke to a crowd inside the Holiday Inn, outside a noisy group of protesters staged a demonstration. Sources say at one point Sergeant Kevin Murphy who was in charge of a 10 person SWAT team was ordered to conduct crowd control, but he allegedly balked at the order. When Sheriff Kevin Walsh brought disciplinary charges against Sergeant Murphy, the entire SWAT team resigned.

"We were cooperative with the Sheriff's Department, the Sheriff's Department was great to us." Mark Spadafore and the Labor Federation organized the anti-Cheny demonstration. He supports Sergeant Murphy's decision not to move on their protest. "He saw that we were no problem. We were just there to exercise our first amendment rights."

Spadafore says they were told to move to different areas four times. He suspects the Vice President's team was behind the order which fell on Sergeant Murphy's shoulders. "It had to come from higher up."

For now the equipment for the Sheriff's Department SWAT team is in storage and the County has received assurances from the Police Departments of Syracuse, Manlius, Camillus and the State Police that should the need arise, their SWAT teams are ready to step in.

County Legislator Bob Warner heads the Public Safety Committee. He's concerned that the Cheney incident could have escalated to the point of a mass resignation by the SWAT team, but for now he'll monitor the situation. "It will be our job later on if something arises that we have to step in."

The Sheriff's Union intends to go to court to block Sergeant Murphy's demotion. They may have an unlikely ally in Mark Spadafore. "This situation needs to be resolved for the sake of public safety I give a lot of credit to those people of the SWAT team. They showed incredible solidarity to a fellow officer."

Sheriff Kevin Walsh has been on vacation and out of town. Legislator Warner says he spoke to the Sheriff after we broke this story and has been assured the SWAT team situation will be resolved.

--Jim Kenyon Action News WSTM

Related WSTM article HERE

News 10 Now article HERE

SYRACUSE.COM: Peaceful Protestors greet Vice President

General Tommy Franks confident: If Bush loses, President Kerry would help our soldiers to prevail in Iraq

Disclaimer: The title I used was based on the Drudge-report-style of creating large, misleading headlines

Retired General Tommy Franks says he's confident the U.S. will work "tirelessly" on a long-term solution in Iraq, regardless of which party wins the White House in November. He said: "To back away would be to invite the kind of problems we see now in Israel" [with suicide bombers on American soil]. Earlier this year in another interview, Franks said he thought if the U.S. was hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicted large casualties, the Constitution would likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government. Deaths of innocent civilians notwthstanding, a solid reason for any American to want to keep terrorism at bay is to protect freedoms from our own government's stifling grip.

There was never a proven connection between Iraq (Saddam Hussein's failure to comply with U.N.) and 9-11 (the war on terror). I always like to state that up-front so we can be clearer in our many rationalizations about the war on terror. One of the best descriptions of the U.S. attack on Iraq is William Rivers Pitt's categorization of it as a "toothless red herring" in the war on terror.

The Bush administration got us into the mess in Iraq. I'll never understand why they couldn't have taken a mere three or fours months more to let the UN inspectors do their work in Iraq. [See/listen to today's Hans Blix interview on NPR].They were making headway. Another few months would likely have revealed the great faults in the intelligence offered by Colin Powell to the U.N. in February, 2003.

Nearly 600 American lives and thousands of Iraqi lives later, it's water under the bridge now. The Bush administration wanted this war to take place and by God George, it took place.

I suppose General Franks is right, just as Ivo Daalder is right. How could we pick up and say "So long" to the people whose land we've ravaged? In all fairness, terrorists have entered the country and done a fair amount of ravaging poor Iraq, too... as our President begged those terrorists to "bring it on" into Iraq. Rather than to see terror in the streets of sleepy American towns, I guess it was more acceptable to kill two birds with one stone...to change Iraq's regime and keep America safe by exposing the innocent Iraqis instead...all the while lying to Americans about exactly why we were going to go to war there. Does anyone other than me see this as morally hypocritical? Getting back to my point, we can't just pick up and leave now.

We do need another plan to help the Iraqi people find a real and meaningful peace. It will never happen with George W. Bush in office. He has nearly destroyed the world's faith in him.

Many people will read this and say I hate Bush. To them, I'd say please don't shoot the messenger. I don't hate our President. I've longed to see him do the right thing and he's disappointed me nearly every time. So it's fair to say I'm disappointed in our President.

How the capture of Osama Bin Laden may turn out to be a meaningless symbol

I hate to say this, yet I must. In a world where the rule of law has been scorned and squandered, the capture of Osama Bin Laden will be a meaningless symbol.

I heard G. Gordon Liddy on a CSPAN interview this morning. He said something I've lately thought (and written about) myself: Terrorism is a disease that will continue to occur throughout the 21st century. It is a disease in which children who attend fundamentalist-Islamic (Saudi-financed) madrassas have been educated to theologically abhor the decadence of western societies.

Capturing Bin Laden (which we surely will accomplish unless he dies of natural causes first) will be like snaring the one who had set the fire while the forest continues to burn fiercely for thousands of square miles ahead.

When the World Trade Center towers fell, the disease metastasized like a near-unstoppable cancer. It was the day the word "civil" was taken out of the idea of war in a new way only before imagined in our nightmares. Like cancer cells, thousands of self-named warriors learned that a new tactic could be employed successfully to beat away at the governments of the western world they had learned to so disdain.

Overall, war has been all-too glorified a word as we look back at history. We tend to forget that war is not always fought on gentleman's terms. Mass-killing savagery in war is nothing new. Bombs are perfect examples of mass-killing mechanisms. What is different..what is new about terrorism is that the would-be killers are making civilians of Western societies the targets of their aggression. This isn't going to end with Bin Laden's capture. Make no mistake, we will celebrate the capture if and when it happens, but it will only be because we will somehow feel avenged for 9-11.

It won't be because the world is saved from terrorism.

What is the answer, then, you may ask of me?
Like you, I have no easy answers. The good and civil people of Spain are sending us a message with the ouster of Prime Minister Aznar. What is the message? Simply, I think it's that people have had enough. They see that we are on the wrong path if we believe we're succeeding at minimizing the ugly force of terrorism. It is horrendously ironic that our warring tactics have inspired those who would employ tactics of delivering the angel of death to the innocents.

What is the answer, then, you continue to ask me?
The only thing that is clear to me is that we need a change in the policy on both Iraq and the war on terror. (Which really have always been two separate issues). If the Bush administration cannot see the error in these policies, perhaps it's time to give another leader a chance to get it right. John Kerry has recently intimated that certain foreign leaders have vocally expressed the hope he will be elected in November. Yesterday on the FOX Sunday show, Colin Powell stated: "He [Kerry] ought to list some names. If he can't list names, then perhaps he should find something else to talk about." Shortly after that statement, the Bush White House ordered both Powell and Donald Rumsfeld to stay out of the U.S. presidential campaign. We need not wonder why. It's obvious..they are two of the most vulnerable "players" exposed to the public's questions about the failed policies of the Bush administration to date.

The old adage "Two wrongs don't make a right" come to mind. War, in and of itself, has the evil component of factionally delivering one man's death at the hands of fellow men. War is ungodly, no matter how necessary or glorious they like to tell us it is. War is never to be taken lightly and should always be the very last of the last resorts. I feel, in my heart, that the dullard-king G.W. Bush has been dabbling at, tinkering with war.....playing God with the people of his nation. The civil world is repelled by his method of curing terror. I think it's high time we turn it all around for the sake of what is best for all of humanity. When our President plays American War-God with those who've been theologically trained to defend their own beliefs against the western world, it is easy to see a war for which there will be no winner...no cure. Where, I ask, is the force of the brightest angels of our human nature? Where have we allowed our leaders to stray?

President Bush and his administration had shown a clear disdain for cooperation with the world community throughout the pre-Iraq war days. Look at everything that has happened since the international rule of law (the "permission slip", as Bush called it) was thrown aside for what appeared nothing less than unnecessary macho-unilateral aspirations on the part of the U.S. in its march to war. Respect for the U.S. was lost, thus whether we want to admit it or not, we've lost a hell of a lot of "credibility-clout" in the world-at-large.

The capture of Bin Laden will surely happen, but the songs of joy will ring hollow as we see the disease which he caused to spread..the fires he lit...spread thousands and thousands of miles out ahead of him... coming closer to us by the moment.

If we love our own children and the children of this world, it's time to find a real and meaningful way to cooperate with the nations of the world and give the utmost respect to the rule of law.It is the only thing that separates us from the terrorists, you see. For God's sake, let's put an end to this madness....together. Like Dorothy's ruby slippers, Bush has held the awesome power of the rule of law all the time..and I don't think he ever realized it. I pray this nation finds its way.