Abu Goober
Internet muse.
Daring, bold, never sold.
My daily weblog of politics, humor, philosophy...and a constant and nagging reminder of the existence of universal love....
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Iraq Pipeline Hit Will Cause Electricity Interruptions
You're looking at the latest hit by saboteurs on a key northern oil pipeline Wednesday, forcing a 10 percent cut on the Iraqi national power grid as demand for electricity rises with the advent of Iraq's broiling summer heat.
Chant along with me: "...hearts and minds.....hearts and minds.."
[LINK]
Hannity and Colmes-A worthless show
Hannity and Colmes-
A worthless show
Look at this conversation with guest Ted Rall. Lots of false morality, ugly hubris, desperate and defensive argument...nothing but meaningless tripe from all sides. It's nothing but pablum for the politically retarded. This is what's killing civility in America. I think Alan Colmes is the biggest puke of all, perhaps, for his line of questioning and sickeningly fake moral-posturing from the get-go. It set the tone for censoring Mr. Rall before he was allowed to utter one word.
These two a**wipes will remain on the air as long as their hateful, politically-slow audience chooses to swim and drown in their dribbling infantile-emotion-level pool of drool.
Poor, poor America.
A worthless show
Look at this conversation with guest Ted Rall. Lots of false morality, ugly hubris, desperate and defensive argument...nothing but meaningless tripe from all sides. It's nothing but pablum for the politically retarded. This is what's killing civility in America. I think Alan Colmes is the biggest puke of all, perhaps, for his line of questioning and sickeningly fake moral-posturing from the get-go. It set the tone for censoring Mr. Rall before he was allowed to utter one word.
These two a**wipes will remain on the air as long as their hateful, politically-slow audience chooses to swim and drown in their dribbling infantile-emotion-level pool of drool.
Poor, poor America.
Joel Mowbray: State Dept- Hating Weasel
Joel Mowbray:
State Department-Hating Weasel
When a writer is on a one-trick-pony crusade against the State Department.. and when he goes as wacko-far as accusing a major mainstream news publication of being "controlled" by the State Department.....and when his paranoid complaint is featured in a right-wing-leaning Washington newspaper...and when he'd defend a Neocon and a deceitful embezzling crook over good men and women within his own government....and when the writer has been a guest on Pat Robertson's ("nuke Foggy Bottom") show more than at the credible political media outlets...
...he might be nothing more than a State-Department-hating weasel.
*..and his credibility is going down the toilet along with the chickenhawks he defends...and he knows it. Smearing General Zinni hasn't helped Mowbray to look pro-American..*
[LINK]
State Department-Hating Weasel
When a writer is on a one-trick-pony crusade against the State Department.. and when he goes as wacko-far as accusing a major mainstream news publication of being "controlled" by the State Department.....and when his paranoid complaint is featured in a right-wing-leaning Washington newspaper...and when he'd defend a Neocon and a deceitful embezzling crook over good men and women within his own government....and when the writer has been a guest on Pat Robertson's ("nuke Foggy Bottom") show more than at the credible political media outlets...
...he might be nothing more than a State-Department-hating weasel.
*..and his credibility is going down the toilet along with the chickenhawks he defends...and he knows it. Smearing General Zinni hasn't helped Mowbray to look pro-American..*
[LINK]
Iyad Illawi helped CIA; Conducted bombing campaigns which killed kids
Iyad Illawi helped CIA; Conducted bombing campaigns which killed kids
Iraq's newly appointed Prime Minister Iyad Allawi apparently has blood on his hands..schoolchildren included. Please explain to me...how is bombing a crowded movie theater NOT acting as a terrorist? Would YOU want a leader who'd killed schoolchildren? What if you knew he wasn't even ashamed of his terrorist actions? It's pretty disgusting to think he's acting Prme Minister in Iraq right now. Our CIA was in on these bombings and sabotage beside Allawi in the early 90s. When Allawi was picked as interim prime minister, he said his first priority would be 'to improve the security situation by stopping bombings and other insurgent attacks in Iraq'...an idea several former officials familiar with his past said they found "ironic."
Why can't we ever choose someone "clean"? Conscientious? Decent? Moral? I think it's because we don't WANT a 'nice guy' to lead Iraqis to "freedom". Apparently ,we prefer the fellows with barbaric tendencies. Wasn't Saddam a barbarian, too? We're settling for a nicer barbarian, already?
*WE didn't choose him, you say?
B.S. we didn't!*
[LINK]
Update June 11, 2004:
Sunni preacher Shaikh Ahmad al-Samarra'i accused Prime Minister Iyad Allawi of being an American agent in his sermon on Friday. He addressed Allawi from the pulpit, saying, "Have all noble persons disappeared, that you have come and sought assistance from foreigners?"
[LINK]
Iraq's newly appointed Prime Minister Iyad Allawi apparently has blood on his hands..schoolchildren included. Please explain to me...how is bombing a crowded movie theater NOT acting as a terrorist? Would YOU want a leader who'd killed schoolchildren? What if you knew he wasn't even ashamed of his terrorist actions? It's pretty disgusting to think he's acting Prme Minister in Iraq right now. Our CIA was in on these bombings and sabotage beside Allawi in the early 90s. When Allawi was picked as interim prime minister, he said his first priority would be 'to improve the security situation by stopping bombings and other insurgent attacks in Iraq'...an idea several former officials familiar with his past said they found "ironic."
Why can't we ever choose someone "clean"? Conscientious? Decent? Moral? I think it's because we don't WANT a 'nice guy' to lead Iraqis to "freedom". Apparently ,we prefer the fellows with barbaric tendencies. Wasn't Saddam a barbarian, too? We're settling for a nicer barbarian, already?
*WE didn't choose him, you say?
B.S. we didn't!*
[LINK]
Update June 11, 2004:
Sunni preacher Shaikh Ahmad al-Samarra'i accused Prime Minister Iyad Allawi of being an American agent in his sermon on Friday. He addressed Allawi from the pulpit, saying, "Have all noble persons disappeared, that you have come and sought assistance from foreigners?"
[LINK]
Ken Burns Addresses Yale
Ken Burns Addresses Yale
"...there is nothing more incredible than being a witness to history."
Because filmmaker Ken Burns has been a chief inspiration to me in creating this blog, I wish to share some of his advice to graduating Yale students in his May 23rd commencement speech:
So what do we make of all this? Let me speak directly to the graduating class.
(Watch out, here comes the advice.)
As you pursue your goals in life, that is to say your future, pursue your past. Let it be your guide. Insist on having a past and then you will have a future.
Do not descend too deeply into specialism in your work. Educate all your parts. You will be healthier. Replace cynicism with its old-fashioned antidote, skepticism.
Don't confuse success with excellence. The poet Robert Penn Warren, who taught here at Yale for many years, once told me that "careerism is death."
Travel. Do not get stuck in one place. Visit Yellowstone or Yosemite or Appomattox, where our country really came together. Whatever you do, walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. Listen to jazz music, the only art form Americans have ever invented, and a painless way, Wynton Marsalis reminds us, “of understanding ourselves.”
Give up addictions. Try brushing your teeth tonight with the other hand. Try even remembering what I just asked you.
Insist on heroes. And be one.
Read. The book is still the greatest manmade machine of all -- not the car, not the TV, not the computer, I promise.
Write: write letters. Keep journals. Besides your children, there is no surer way of achieving immortality. Remember, too, there is nothing more incredible than being a witness to history.
Serve your country. Insist that we fight the right wars. Convince your government that the real threat comes from within, as Lincoln said. Governments always forget that. Do not let your government outsource honesty, transparency, or candor. Do not let your government outsource democracy. Steel yourselves. Steel yourselves. Your generation will have to repair this damage. And it will not be easy.
Insist that we support science and the arts, especially the arts. They have nothing to do with the actual defense of our country -- they just make our country worth defending.
Do only, as Emerson suggests, whatever “inly rejoices.” Do not lose your enthusiasm. In its Greek etymology, the word enthusiasm means, “God in us.” Remember, most of all, that only love multiplies.
Mr. Burns also offered inspirational, educated, and critical (yet necessary) comments about the civil state of America today. It would behoove all of us..beginning with our leaders..to heed Ken Burns' sage advice:
The great jurist Learned Hand (and could there be a better name for a judge than Learned Hand?) once said that, “Liberty is never being too sure you're right.” Somehow, recently though, we have replaced our usual and healthy doubt with an arrogance and belligerence that resembles more the ancient and now fallen empires of our history books than a modern compassionate democracy; begun to start wars instead of finishing them; begun to depend on censorship and intimidation and to infringe on the most basic liberties that have heroically defined and described our trajectory as a nation of free people; begun to reduce the complexity of modern life into facile judgments of good and evil, and now find ourselves brought up short when we see that we have, too, sometimes, in moments, become what we despise.
It is easy, I am sure, during these times of international upheaval and titanic change everywhere, to, like an ostrich, retreat inward, to retire to our spiritually as well as physically gated communities, to smugly convince ourselves that we in this country have somehow triumphantly made it through, that our destiny as a people, a society, a nation is now assured. That, like some perpetual motion machine, we will go on forever.
Nothing could be more dangerous than this arrogant belief, brought on and amplified as it is by a complete lack of historical awareness among us, and further reinforced by a modern media, cloaked in democratic slogans, but dedicated to the most stultifying kind of consumer existence, convincing us to worship gods of commerce and money and selfish advancement above all else.
“There are grave doubts at the hugeness of the land,” Henry Adams wrote, “and whether one government can comprehend the whole.” It is a perfect quote, accurately conveying the anxiety of Americans in the middle of the 19th Century who feared that this collection of former colonies could ever expand to continental status, could ever deal as one nation with the sectional discord that threatened civil war, could, as Adams put it so well, “comprehend the whole.”
Civil war did come, yet the phrase “the United States are,” as we referred to ourselves plurally before the war, paradoxically morphed after the war into a singular “the United States is” that we still, ungrammatically, refer to today.
But, alas, today we find ourselves in the midst of a new, subtler, perhaps more dangerous, civil war. The first one proved, above all, that a minority view could not secede politically or geographically from this union.
Now we are poised to fight that war again, and perhaps again and again, this time culturally, where the threat is fundamentalism wherever it raises its intolerant head. The casualties this time will be our sense of common heritage, our sense of humor, our sense of balance and cohesion. The ultimate stakes, though, are just as great as those Abraham Lincoln faced--the Union and very survival of our country.
What we are seeing is a secession of ideas and identification from the mainstream. In the name of the truth, we have created an infinite number of different truths, all pulling in different directions, all oblivious to the old or even a new conception of the whole. The historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. said that we suffer today from "too much pluribus and not enough unum."
Our first Civil War started, as the writer Shelby Foote says, because we failed to do what we Americans do best: compromise. "We like to think of ourselves as uncompromising people," he said, "but our genius is for compromise and when that broke down, we started killing each other." The lesson for us, today, is tolerance and the mitigating wisdom that sees beyond the dialectical preoccupation that has set each individual, each group, each region of the country, against the whole.
So, I ask those of you graduating tomorrow, male or female, black or white or brown or yellow, young or old, straight or gay, to become soldiers in a new Union Army, an army dedicated to the preservation of this country's great ideals, a vanguard against this new separatism and disunion, a vanguard against those who, in the name of our great democracy, have managed to diminish it.
This is a family problem. Our problem. Not a red state or a blue state problem.
Our problem.
I'm not sure if my readers have seen the AP article that followed Mr. Burns' speech:
Filmmaker Ken Burns Criticizes Bush at Yale as President Arrives for Daughter's Party
By Diane Scarponi--Associated Press, 05/23/04
NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- With presidential security helicopters circling over the Yale University campus, filmmaker Ken Burns denounced the war in Iraq on Sunday and told graduating seniors to remember history as they work to repair divides in American culture.
President Bush came to the campus for a private reception with his daughter, Barbara, who graduates from Yale on Monday. Bush did not hold any public events, and Barbara skipped Sunday's baccalaureate services and the day-before-graduation senior Class Day festivities where Burns spoke.
While Bush was not in public view, his presidency was a hot topic of rhetoric at Class Day.
Without mentioning Bush by name, Burns drew parallels between today's political leaders and the Iraq war, versus Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, which he chronicled in an award-winning film series.
Both wars threatened to tear the country apart, Burns said.
"Steel yourselves. Your generation must repair this damage, and it will not be easy," Burns told the seniors.
Burns quoted famed jurist Learned Hand as saying, "Liberty is never being too sure you're right."
"Somehow recently, though, we have replaced our usual and healthy doubt with an arrogance and belligerence that resembles more the ancient and now fallen empires of our history books than a modern compassionate democracy," Burns said, to applause from the 1,300 graduates and their families and friends.
He criticized what he called a culture of censorship and intimidation that was intolerant of others, as well as a compliant media and a consumer culture that values the pursuit of money above everything.
"We have begun to reduce the complexities of modern life into the facile judgments of good and evil, and now find ourselves brought up short when we see that we have, too, some times and moments, become what we despise," Burns said.
Burns noted that it is tempting in such times to turn inward and ignore outside troubles, but he urged the seniors to reject that impulse and study history as a way to cope with these troubles and to figure out what to do about them.
"If you don't know where you've been, how can you possibly know who you are and where you're going?" Burns asked.
(see link for more)
---------------------------------------------------------
[LINK]
Congratulations to Mr. Burns daughter, Sarah, who was one of the graduating students at Yale.
"...there is nothing more incredible than being a witness to history."
Because filmmaker Ken Burns has been a chief inspiration to me in creating this blog, I wish to share some of his advice to graduating Yale students in his May 23rd commencement speech:
So what do we make of all this? Let me speak directly to the graduating class.
(Watch out, here comes the advice.)
As you pursue your goals in life, that is to say your future, pursue your past. Let it be your guide. Insist on having a past and then you will have a future.
Do not descend too deeply into specialism in your work. Educate all your parts. You will be healthier. Replace cynicism with its old-fashioned antidote, skepticism.
Don't confuse success with excellence. The poet Robert Penn Warren, who taught here at Yale for many years, once told me that "careerism is death."
Travel. Do not get stuck in one place. Visit Yellowstone or Yosemite or Appomattox, where our country really came together. Whatever you do, walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. Listen to jazz music, the only art form Americans have ever invented, and a painless way, Wynton Marsalis reminds us, “of understanding ourselves.”
Give up addictions. Try brushing your teeth tonight with the other hand. Try even remembering what I just asked you.
Insist on heroes. And be one.
Read. The book is still the greatest manmade machine of all -- not the car, not the TV, not the computer, I promise.
Write: write letters. Keep journals. Besides your children, there is no surer way of achieving immortality. Remember, too, there is nothing more incredible than being a witness to history.
Serve your country. Insist that we fight the right wars. Convince your government that the real threat comes from within, as Lincoln said. Governments always forget that. Do not let your government outsource honesty, transparency, or candor. Do not let your government outsource democracy. Steel yourselves. Steel yourselves. Your generation will have to repair this damage. And it will not be easy.
Insist that we support science and the arts, especially the arts. They have nothing to do with the actual defense of our country -- they just make our country worth defending.
Do only, as Emerson suggests, whatever “inly rejoices.” Do not lose your enthusiasm. In its Greek etymology, the word enthusiasm means, “God in us.” Remember, most of all, that only love multiplies.
Mr. Burns also offered inspirational, educated, and critical (yet necessary) comments about the civil state of America today. It would behoove all of us..beginning with our leaders..to heed Ken Burns' sage advice:
The great jurist Learned Hand (and could there be a better name for a judge than Learned Hand?) once said that, “Liberty is never being too sure you're right.” Somehow, recently though, we have replaced our usual and healthy doubt with an arrogance and belligerence that resembles more the ancient and now fallen empires of our history books than a modern compassionate democracy; begun to start wars instead of finishing them; begun to depend on censorship and intimidation and to infringe on the most basic liberties that have heroically defined and described our trajectory as a nation of free people; begun to reduce the complexity of modern life into facile judgments of good and evil, and now find ourselves brought up short when we see that we have, too, sometimes, in moments, become what we despise.
It is easy, I am sure, during these times of international upheaval and titanic change everywhere, to, like an ostrich, retreat inward, to retire to our spiritually as well as physically gated communities, to smugly convince ourselves that we in this country have somehow triumphantly made it through, that our destiny as a people, a society, a nation is now assured. That, like some perpetual motion machine, we will go on forever.
Nothing could be more dangerous than this arrogant belief, brought on and amplified as it is by a complete lack of historical awareness among us, and further reinforced by a modern media, cloaked in democratic slogans, but dedicated to the most stultifying kind of consumer existence, convincing us to worship gods of commerce and money and selfish advancement above all else.
“There are grave doubts at the hugeness of the land,” Henry Adams wrote, “and whether one government can comprehend the whole.” It is a perfect quote, accurately conveying the anxiety of Americans in the middle of the 19th Century who feared that this collection of former colonies could ever expand to continental status, could ever deal as one nation with the sectional discord that threatened civil war, could, as Adams put it so well, “comprehend the whole.”
Civil war did come, yet the phrase “the United States are,” as we referred to ourselves plurally before the war, paradoxically morphed after the war into a singular “the United States is” that we still, ungrammatically, refer to today.
But, alas, today we find ourselves in the midst of a new, subtler, perhaps more dangerous, civil war. The first one proved, above all, that a minority view could not secede politically or geographically from this union.
Now we are poised to fight that war again, and perhaps again and again, this time culturally, where the threat is fundamentalism wherever it raises its intolerant head. The casualties this time will be our sense of common heritage, our sense of humor, our sense of balance and cohesion. The ultimate stakes, though, are just as great as those Abraham Lincoln faced--the Union and very survival of our country.
What we are seeing is a secession of ideas and identification from the mainstream. In the name of the truth, we have created an infinite number of different truths, all pulling in different directions, all oblivious to the old or even a new conception of the whole. The historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. said that we suffer today from "too much pluribus and not enough unum."
Our first Civil War started, as the writer Shelby Foote says, because we failed to do what we Americans do best: compromise. "We like to think of ourselves as uncompromising people," he said, "but our genius is for compromise and when that broke down, we started killing each other." The lesson for us, today, is tolerance and the mitigating wisdom that sees beyond the dialectical preoccupation that has set each individual, each group, each region of the country, against the whole.
So, I ask those of you graduating tomorrow, male or female, black or white or brown or yellow, young or old, straight or gay, to become soldiers in a new Union Army, an army dedicated to the preservation of this country's great ideals, a vanguard against this new separatism and disunion, a vanguard against those who, in the name of our great democracy, have managed to diminish it.
This is a family problem. Our problem. Not a red state or a blue state problem.
Our problem.
I'm not sure if my readers have seen the AP article that followed Mr. Burns' speech:
Filmmaker Ken Burns Criticizes Bush at Yale as President Arrives for Daughter's Party
By Diane Scarponi--Associated Press, 05/23/04
NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- With presidential security helicopters circling over the Yale University campus, filmmaker Ken Burns denounced the war in Iraq on Sunday and told graduating seniors to remember history as they work to repair divides in American culture.
President Bush came to the campus for a private reception with his daughter, Barbara, who graduates from Yale on Monday. Bush did not hold any public events, and Barbara skipped Sunday's baccalaureate services and the day-before-graduation senior Class Day festivities where Burns spoke.
While Bush was not in public view, his presidency was a hot topic of rhetoric at Class Day.
Without mentioning Bush by name, Burns drew parallels between today's political leaders and the Iraq war, versus Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, which he chronicled in an award-winning film series.
Both wars threatened to tear the country apart, Burns said.
"Steel yourselves. Your generation must repair this damage, and it will not be easy," Burns told the seniors.
Burns quoted famed jurist Learned Hand as saying, "Liberty is never being too sure you're right."
"Somehow recently, though, we have replaced our usual and healthy doubt with an arrogance and belligerence that resembles more the ancient and now fallen empires of our history books than a modern compassionate democracy," Burns said, to applause from the 1,300 graduates and their families and friends.
He criticized what he called a culture of censorship and intimidation that was intolerant of others, as well as a compliant media and a consumer culture that values the pursuit of money above everything.
"We have begun to reduce the complexities of modern life into the facile judgments of good and evil, and now find ourselves brought up short when we see that we have, too, some times and moments, become what we despise," Burns said.
Burns noted that it is tempting in such times to turn inward and ignore outside troubles, but he urged the seniors to reject that impulse and study history as a way to cope with these troubles and to figure out what to do about them.
"If you don't know where you've been, how can you possibly know who you are and where you're going?" Burns asked.
(see link for more)
---------------------------------------------------------
[LINK]
Congratulations to Mr. Burns daughter, Sarah, who was one of the graduating students at Yale.
Unlike Nancy Reagan, Laura Bush Chooses to Remain in Dark Ages
Unlike Nancy Reagan, Laura Bush Chooses to Remain in Dark Ages
The dismal fact is: She's locking all of us in with her.
I consider this to be the saddest affront to the memory of President Ronald W. Reagan...
perpetrated by the current President who wishes to leech onto Reagan's legacy.
In essence, Laura Bush is saying: "I lost my father to this debilitating illness with no cure, now you and all Americans must suffer the same fate.. Oh, but I will admire you for slaving over your loved one as you watch them suffer and wither hopelessly before your eyes."
[LINK]
The dismal fact is: She's locking all of us in with her.
I consider this to be the saddest affront to the memory of President Ronald W. Reagan...
perpetrated by the current President who wishes to leech onto Reagan's legacy.
In essence, Laura Bush is saying: "I lost my father to this debilitating illness with no cure, now you and all Americans must suffer the same fate.. Oh, but I will admire you for slaving over your loved one as you watch them suffer and wither hopelessly before your eyes."
[LINK]
Bush Administration Has Waffled Terribly on Peacekeeping
Bush Administration Has Waffled Terribly on Peacekeeping
"I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building...I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have a kind of nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not."
--GW Bush, Presidential debate, Oct. 11, 2000, in Winston-Salem, N.C.
What we've witnessed with the Bush administration is "peace on the cheap"...because peace was not properly valued.
Before the Iraq war, the Peacekeeping Institute at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., was "just one more vestige of the Clinton years that Donald Rumsfeld intended to consign to the dustbin of history"*.
This administration has learned important lessons far too late. While trying to be ahead of times, they endangered our chances for success in Iraq. They endangered the lives of our troops. We need to toss them out on their incompetent rears in November.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Published April 15, 2003
Army institute to be shut down
Critics hit loss of training center for peacekeeping
Rumsfeld supports closing
By Douglas Holt
Tribune staff reporter
[LINK]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Published July 8, 2003
Peacekeeping Institute to Stay Open
[LINK]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Published September, 2003
Peacekeeping revisited, again
The ‘p’ word gets another look
By Michael Moran
Senior correspondent MSNBC
[LINK]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Published November, 2003
Iraq provides Peacekeeping Institute with needed boost
...to save money and get more active duty officers serving with troops in the field, the Army announced in January that the Peacekeeping Institute would shut down -- despite ongoing U.S. peacekeeping operations in Kosovo and Afghanistan and, at the time, a looming war in Iraq.
"The war college was told it had to cut 64 slots, and our 10 were among them," said Col. Michael Dooley
Critics figured that the decision had more to do with the distaste for U.S. "nation-building" frequently expressed by President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
The institute also has a new name, to reflect its broadened mission. It now is known as the Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute
[LINK]
Published: Jun 9, 2004
United States Pushes G-8 Plan to Train 50,000 Peacekeepers for Africa, Elsewhere
By John Leicester Associated Press Writer
[LINK]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Published June 9, 2004
Rumsfeld expresses interest in a new regional peacekeeping training institute styled as Bangladesh Institute of Peacekeeping Support Operations Training
Staff Writer
Daily Star
[LINK]
"I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building...I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have a kind of nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not."
--GW Bush, Presidential debate, Oct. 11, 2000, in Winston-Salem, N.C.
What we've witnessed with the Bush administration is "peace on the cheap"...because peace was not properly valued.
Before the Iraq war, the Peacekeeping Institute at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., was "just one more vestige of the Clinton years that Donald Rumsfeld intended to consign to the dustbin of history"*.
This administration has learned important lessons far too late. While trying to be ahead of times, they endangered our chances for success in Iraq. They endangered the lives of our troops. We need to toss them out on their incompetent rears in November.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Published April 15, 2003
Army institute to be shut down
Critics hit loss of training center for peacekeeping
Rumsfeld supports closing
By Douglas Holt
Tribune staff reporter
[LINK]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Published July 8, 2003
Peacekeeping Institute to Stay Open
[LINK]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Published September, 2003
Peacekeeping revisited, again
The ‘p’ word gets another look
By Michael Moran
Senior correspondent MSNBC
[LINK]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Published November, 2003
Iraq provides Peacekeeping Institute with needed boost
...to save money and get more active duty officers serving with troops in the field, the Army announced in January that the Peacekeeping Institute would shut down -- despite ongoing U.S. peacekeeping operations in Kosovo and Afghanistan and, at the time, a looming war in Iraq.
"The war college was told it had to cut 64 slots, and our 10 were among them," said Col. Michael Dooley
Critics figured that the decision had more to do with the distaste for U.S. "nation-building" frequently expressed by President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
The institute also has a new name, to reflect its broadened mission. It now is known as the Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute
[LINK]
Published: Jun 9, 2004
United States Pushes G-8 Plan to Train 50,000 Peacekeepers for Africa, Elsewhere
By John Leicester Associated Press Writer
[LINK]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Published June 9, 2004
Rumsfeld expresses interest in a new regional peacekeeping training institute styled as Bangladesh Institute of Peacekeeping Support Operations Training
Staff Writer
Daily Star
[LINK]
Political Compass
Take This Test!
Political Compass
The social dimension of politics is important. That's the dimension that the mere left-right scale doesn't adequately address. So Political Compass has added one, ranging in positions from extreme authoritarian to extreme libertarian.
My result was here:
Close to this fellow:
NOTE: Don't spoil the results by reading the Analysis section before you take the test.
Political Compass
The social dimension of politics is important. That's the dimension that the mere left-right scale doesn't adequately address. So Political Compass has added one, ranging in positions from extreme authoritarian to extreme libertarian.
My result was here:
Close to this fellow:
NOTE: Don't spoil the results by reading the Analysis section before you take the test.
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
Lawyers Decided Bans on Torture Didn't Bind Bush
Lawyers Decided Bans on Torture Didn't Bind Bush
This is a powerful piece. It shows that administration lawyers made a conscious decision to allow Bush and his administration to get away with open-ended definitions of torture and escape international legal scrutiny. A March memo view is in direct conflict with the position the administration has taken in U.S. Supreme Court regarding Constitutional protections for prisoners.
When too much power is afforded to people who can easily abuse it, we shouldn't be surprised if and when we find ourselves well outside the realm of the rule of law.
Today, Attorney General John Ashcroft, without offering sound reason, said he would not discuss the contents of the Justice and Pentagon memos, and would not turn over the Justice memo to the committee.
UPDATE-June 9:
Washington Post Editorial- LEGALIZING TORTURE
Washington Post-Memo on Torture Draws Focus to Bush ; Aide Says President Set Guidelines for Interrogations, Not Specific Techniques
Josh Marshall Commentary (Josh is an intuitive pundit; consistently ahead of the curve.)
This is a powerful piece. It shows that administration lawyers made a conscious decision to allow Bush and his administration to get away with open-ended definitions of torture and escape international legal scrutiny. A March memo view is in direct conflict with the position the administration has taken in U.S. Supreme Court regarding Constitutional protections for prisoners.
When too much power is afforded to people who can easily abuse it, we shouldn't be surprised if and when we find ourselves well outside the realm of the rule of law.
A team of administration lawyers concluded in a March 2003 legal memorandum that President Bush was not bound by either an international treaty prohibiting torture or by a federal antitorture law because he had the authority as commander in chief to approve any technique needed to protect the nation's security.
The memo, prepared for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, also said that any executive branch officials, including those in the military, could be immune from domestic and international prohibitions against torture for a variety of reasons...
The March memorandum...is the latest internal legal study to be disclosed that shows that after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks the administration's lawyers were set to work to find legal arguments to avoid restrictions imposed by international and American law.
...lawyers who drafted the torture memo in March could face professional sanctions.
[LINK-NYT}
The memo, prepared for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, also said that any executive branch officials, including those in the military, could be immune from domestic and international prohibitions against torture for a variety of reasons...
The March memorandum...is the latest internal legal study to be disclosed that shows that after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks the administration's lawyers were set to work to find legal arguments to avoid restrictions imposed by international and American law.
...lawyers who drafted the torture memo in March could face professional sanctions.
[LINK-NYT}
Today, Attorney General John Ashcroft, without offering sound reason, said he would not discuss the contents of the Justice and Pentagon memos, and would not turn over the Justice memo to the committee.
I believe it is essential to the operation of the executive branch that the president have the opportunity to get information from the attorney general that is confidential," he said.
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) warned Ashcroft that his refusal might place him in contempt of Congress.
[LINK-NYT]
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) warned Ashcroft that his refusal might place him in contempt of Congress.
[LINK-NYT]
UPDATE-June 9:
Washington Post Editorial- LEGALIZING TORTURE
Perhaps the president's lawyers have no interest in the global impact of their policies -- but they should be concerned about the treatment of American servicemen and civilians in foreign countries.
Washington Post-Memo on Torture Draws Focus to Bush ; Aide Says President Set Guidelines for Interrogations, Not Specific Techniques
Josh Marshall Commentary (Josh is an intuitive pundit; consistently ahead of the curve.)
Now, we know that presidents sometimes break laws and they frequently bend them, if only in cases where the laws don't seem to anticipate a situation the president finds himself confronting. There is even an argument that the president can refuse to enforce laws he deems unconstitutional.
But there is no power inherent in the president simply to set aside the law.
But there is no power inherent in the president simply to set aside the law.
General Batiste Visits Baquba
General Batiste Visits Baquba
Baquba and Col. Dana Pittard, for me, have become the symbol of the best model of possible success in Iraq. May the men and women of the Third Brigade see continued positivity from the hopeful people of that city. God knows- it isn't going to be a cakewalk. A suicide bomb near Baquba killed at least one U.S. soldier today. I credit no small part of any acheived success in Baquba (which is about 30 miles north of Baghdad)to Col. Pittard, a true gentleman in a war of twisted motives where gentleman hardly count.
Mostly, I hope these troops will soon be able to leave Iraq..a place they never should have and never needed to have been sent to begin with.
Baquba and Col. Dana Pittard, for me, have become the symbol of the best model of possible success in Iraq. May the men and women of the Third Brigade see continued positivity from the hopeful people of that city. God knows- it isn't going to be a cakewalk. A suicide bomb near Baquba killed at least one U.S. soldier today. I credit no small part of any acheived success in Baquba (which is about 30 miles north of Baghdad)to Col. Pittard, a true gentleman in a war of twisted motives where gentleman hardly count.
Mostly, I hope these troops will soon be able to leave Iraq..a place they never should have and never needed to have been sent to begin with.
The general said that of all the cities under his watch, Baquba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, was the most willing to work with the Americans. Col. Dana J. H. Pittard, the brigade commander, said he expanded the provincial council last week to 40 members from 29 to make it more inclusive.
But Baquba still has a strong Sunni guerrilla movement, and insurgents have killed some local leaders, including a communist member of the provincial council and a district police chief. Insurgents have tried twice to kill the governor, Colonel Pittard said.
[LINK-NYT]
But Baquba still has a strong Sunni guerrilla movement, and insurgents have killed some local leaders, including a communist member of the provincial council and a district police chief. Insurgents have tried twice to kill the governor, Colonel Pittard said.
[LINK-NYT]
AlJazeera Spreads Propaganda About U.S.
AlJazeera Spreads Propaganda About U.S.
Oh, man..just look at this propaganda....
{LINK-A Letter From Baghdad - US Soldier "Media dont tell the whole story"]
Oh, man..just look at this propaganda....
{LINK-A Letter From Baghdad - US Soldier "Media dont tell the whole story"]
Iraq -U.N. and CPA Updates
Iraq -U.N. and CPA Updates
It's good to see the United Nations getting involved again. John Negroponte says Iraq's sovereignty will be "undiluted" (whatever the hell that means when it comes to the big picture).
There has been no commitment (or discussions) for troops from other U.N. countries right now, but I think they'd have to be insane to want to commit troops at this juncture. Security has been so badly bungled by Rumsfeld and Co...if anyone expects instantaneous stability, they need their heads examined. The coalition needs at least 500,000 troops to bring peace to Iraq, according to military analysts including Christopher Langton of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, a London-based defense consultant.
There's still a problem of legitimacy with the Iraqi people themselves. While Bush can claim a victory with the U.N. resolution, the resolution will have little effect on the ground, as Simon Kitchen, Middle East analyst for the Eurasia Group has said. This new interim government can sign contracts and discuss debt, but still have a lot of problems because most Iraqis don't see it as legitimate. [LINK-Bloomberg News]
It doesn't help that Paul Bremer has signed an order banning Muqtada al-Sadr and his lieutenants from running for elective office for 3 years because of their membership in an illegal militia. al-Sadr and his supporters have rejected this decree, saying that the CPA and the interim government have no right to make such decisions. [LINK-Guardian]
Juan Cole says:
Bremer's action in excluding the Sadrists from parliament is one final piece of stupidity to cap all the other moronic things he has done in Iraq. The whole beauty of parliamentary governance is that it can hope to draw off the energies of groups like the Sadrists. Look at how parliamentary bargaining moderated the Shiite AMAL party in Lebanon, which had a phase as a terrorist group in the 1980s but gradually outgrew it...
The only hope for dealing with the Sadrists nonviolently was to entice them into civil politics.. Now that they have been excluded from the political process and made outlaws in the near to medium term, we may expect them to act like outlaws and to be spoilers in the new Iraq.
[LINK-Informed Comment]
It's good to see the United Nations getting involved again. John Negroponte says Iraq's sovereignty will be "undiluted" (whatever the hell that means when it comes to the big picture).
There has been no commitment (or discussions) for troops from other U.N. countries right now, but I think they'd have to be insane to want to commit troops at this juncture. Security has been so badly bungled by Rumsfeld and Co...if anyone expects instantaneous stability, they need their heads examined. The coalition needs at least 500,000 troops to bring peace to Iraq, according to military analysts including Christopher Langton of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, a London-based defense consultant.
There's still a problem of legitimacy with the Iraqi people themselves. While Bush can claim a victory with the U.N. resolution, the resolution will have little effect on the ground, as Simon Kitchen, Middle East analyst for the Eurasia Group has said. This new interim government can sign contracts and discuss debt, but still have a lot of problems because most Iraqis don't see it as legitimate. [LINK-Bloomberg News]
It doesn't help that Paul Bremer has signed an order banning Muqtada al-Sadr and his lieutenants from running for elective office for 3 years because of their membership in an illegal militia. al-Sadr and his supporters have rejected this decree, saying that the CPA and the interim government have no right to make such decisions. [LINK-Guardian]
Juan Cole says:
Bremer's action in excluding the Sadrists from parliament is one final piece of stupidity to cap all the other moronic things he has done in Iraq. The whole beauty of parliamentary governance is that it can hope to draw off the energies of groups like the Sadrists. Look at how parliamentary bargaining moderated the Shiite AMAL party in Lebanon, which had a phase as a terrorist group in the 1980s but gradually outgrew it...
The only hope for dealing with the Sadrists nonviolently was to entice them into civil politics.. Now that they have been excluded from the political process and made outlaws in the near to medium term, we may expect them to act like outlaws and to be spoilers in the new Iraq.
[LINK-Informed Comment]
Dems, GOP give each other the 'Dutch' rub
Dems, GOP Give Each Other the 'Dutch' rub
Republican aides dredged up comments by [John] Kerry which were unflattering to Mr Reagan in the '80s...
Democrats retaliated with statements by [George] Bush Sr. in 1980, when he ran against Mr Reagan for the Republican nomination.
[LINK-Guardian]
Democrats retaliated with statements by [George] Bush Sr. in 1980, when he ran against Mr Reagan for the Republican nomination.
[LINK-Guardian]
In House bill: Churches to be freed to preach Word of Bush?
In House bill: Churches to be freed to preach Word of Bush?
Not only is the House trying to free the churches to put politics in their pulpits, they're doing it in a downright sneaky manner.
Representative Bill Thomas(the same cordial gent who called the fuzz on his fellow House reps last summer) has snuck the measure into a larger bill introduced to Committee last Friday.
Rev. Barry Lynn (of Americans United for Separation of Church and State) says 'no way'.
Paul Weyrich (of the Free Congress Foundation) imagines it's the best way..perhaps the only way.. to ensure a Bush re-election.
The House, in true partisan form, is going with Weyrich's idea.
Push the Federal Marriage Amendment--fire up the Christian fundamentalists. Get the fire and damnation mouths a-rumblin' and a-roarin'. Get all those millions of missing evangelicals to show up at the polls…along with untold millions of "traditional" Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, Missouri and Wisconsin synod Lutherans... and, oh.. those Episcopalians!
Vote for Bush or go to Hell and all other venues of vaguely related tarnation.
Not only is the House trying to free the churches to put politics in their pulpits, they're doing it in a downright sneaky manner.
Representative Bill Thomas(the same cordial gent who called the fuzz on his fellow House reps last summer) has snuck the measure into a larger bill introduced to Committee last Friday.
Rev. Barry Lynn (of Americans United for Separation of Church and State) says 'no way'.
Paul Weyrich (of the Free Congress Foundation) imagines it's the best way..perhaps the only way.. to ensure a Bush re-election.
The House, in true partisan form, is going with Weyrich's idea.
Push the Federal Marriage Amendment--fire up the Christian fundamentalists. Get the fire and damnation mouths a-rumblin' and a-roarin'. Get all those millions of missing evangelicals to show up at the polls…along with untold millions of "traditional" Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, Missouri and Wisconsin synod Lutherans... and, oh.. those Episcopalians!
Vote for Bush or go to Hell and all other venues of vaguely related tarnation.
Monday, June 07, 2004
See the Venus Transit tomorrow!
See the Venus Transit tomorrow!
"There will be no other till the twenty-first century of our era has dawned upon the Earth and the June flowers are blooming in 2004. What will be the state of science - God only knows."
1882 -- William Harkness, U.S. Naval Observatory
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A rare celestial event, one not seen by any person now alive. On June 8, the planet Venus will appear to cross in front of the Sun as seen from Earth. The last "Venus transit" occurred more than a century ago, in 1882, and was used to compute the distance from the Earth to the Sun.
DON'T MISS IT! [LINK1]
[LINK2]
Predictions/times to witness the transit in your city
"There will be no other till the twenty-first century of our era has dawned upon the Earth and the June flowers are blooming in 2004. What will be the state of science - God only knows."
1882 -- William Harkness, U.S. Naval Observatory
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A rare celestial event, one not seen by any person now alive. On June 8, the planet Venus will appear to cross in front of the Sun as seen from Earth. The last "Venus transit" occurred more than a century ago, in 1882, and was used to compute the distance from the Earth to the Sun.
DON'T MISS IT! [LINK1]
[LINK2]
Predictions/times to witness the transit in your city
Time To Leave Iraq - from The Nation
Time to Leave
from TheNation.com
Listen to what the Iraqis are telling us---give them back their country... and leave.
[LINK}
from TheNation.com
Listen to what the Iraqis are telling us---give them back their country... and leave.
[LINK}
Reagan, Terror, and Bush
Reagan, terror, and Bush
With Ronald Reagan as President, America felt optimistically safe to see the world in black and white. These days, as a New York Times editorial stated, "gray is beginning to look a lot more attractive".
Reminiscing with my own mother, she recalled one of the darker moments of the Reagan presidency...his decision to send our Marines to Lebanon. I recall my mother weeping that morning in October, 1983 when she learned over 240 Marines were killed by Middle-eastern terrorists.
the Reagan era brought its share of terror victims.
I also recall having Syracuse University basketball game tickets in my hand for a game to be played in late December, 1988. Just before the game came the news that terrorists connected with Libya had blown up a jet over Lockerbie, Scotland..killing 35 Syracuse University students who were coming home for the holidays. I attended that basketball game and will never forget the solemn silence which subdued the crowd that night. The terrorist bombing of Flight 103 was unquestionably an attack on the United States.*15 active-duty U.S. military members and at least 10 veterans of the United States Armed Forces and members of their families were among those who lost their lives in this tragedy.*
I implore you, dear readers, to research how President Reagan (and Bush 41 directly after him) responded to these acts of terror. I assure you that you'll find little prescience in the wisdom of whatever retaliatory moves were made by our then-President. Why did it take almost 20 years to do anything? Why was terror allowed to build up rather than to be broken down?
These acts of terror during the Reagan era were just a beginning. When I think back, I truly do not think our nation's response to these acts of terror were sufficient. Perhaps, if we'd acted with full responsibility in the 80's, there would have been no strong Osama Bin Laden to lead in 2001.
While I highly respected and liked President Reagan and trusted he was sincere in his motives, I think we should be careful in making a saint of this wonderful human being. In our big fears about Communism, I believe we fully missed the boat on the murderous treachery that would follow on the heels of its demise.
Perhaps President Reagan made us all a bit too optimistic. We went into a dreamful and exuberant "Me-decade" sleep.
Realism is criticized by some of today's NeoConservatives, but I've got to say, my dear readers, there is no more important time in American history than right here..right now for a realist to take the reins. Visionary speeches do no good when the facts on the ground are constantly working against you.
Gazing upon Utopia and shining cities on hills are lovely when the murderer isn't breathing down your neck.
I think Bush is a super-dumbed-down version of a Reagan-wannabe (without Reagan's natural gift of humor). Bush tries to imitate and emulate Reagan's historical successes. We need a clear-eyed realist who is his own man. (A man---or woman---who doesn't have to read from cue-cards and sound like a second-grader when he does). I'm sick of being faked out by cheap (and often seemingly-learning-disabled) imitations.
I believe that a good portion of the reason so many Americans have a visceral dislike for Bush is primarily due to the fact that they suspect they are far more intelligent than he is. It's frustrating when you don't share a man's ideology and you observe that he can barely squeeze three or four properly-pronounced words into one flowing sentence. Another reason for the Bush-disconnect is that so many Americans do not trust that Bush's motives are genuine. He's been caught lying to Americans too many times.
You didn't see the same distaste for Reagan, even though his ideology was oppositional to many.
We trusted Ronnie. He had a genuine-looking smile. He told us to be proud and we found something in his words to believe. He was witty..charming. He had many friends in this world..outside the borders of America. People in Europe tore down a wall with the help of his optimism. What a wonderful time for America...what a decent man.
He wasn't perfect, though. As many Christians joke, there was only one perfect man...and look what they did to him.
There were boats Reagan missed.
Ask the familes of any of these Americans and they'll tell you.
*Matthew Gross has some interesting commentary on Bush/Reagan and what Reagan's death might mean to the upcoming Presidential election.*
*There's a roundup of Reagan commentaries and farewells at Mahablog.
With Ronald Reagan as President, America felt optimistically safe to see the world in black and white. These days, as a New York Times editorial stated, "gray is beginning to look a lot more attractive".
Reminiscing with my own mother, she recalled one of the darker moments of the Reagan presidency...his decision to send our Marines to Lebanon. I recall my mother weeping that morning in October, 1983 when she learned over 240 Marines were killed by Middle-eastern terrorists.
the Reagan era brought its share of terror victims.
I also recall having Syracuse University basketball game tickets in my hand for a game to be played in late December, 1988. Just before the game came the news that terrorists connected with Libya had blown up a jet over Lockerbie, Scotland..killing 35 Syracuse University students who were coming home for the holidays. I attended that basketball game and will never forget the solemn silence which subdued the crowd that night. The terrorist bombing of Flight 103 was unquestionably an attack on the United States.*15 active-duty U.S. military members and at least 10 veterans of the United States Armed Forces and members of their families were among those who lost their lives in this tragedy.*
I implore you, dear readers, to research how President Reagan (and Bush 41 directly after him) responded to these acts of terror. I assure you that you'll find little prescience in the wisdom of whatever retaliatory moves were made by our then-President. Why did it take almost 20 years to do anything? Why was terror allowed to build up rather than to be broken down?
These acts of terror during the Reagan era were just a beginning. When I think back, I truly do not think our nation's response to these acts of terror were sufficient. Perhaps, if we'd acted with full responsibility in the 80's, there would have been no strong Osama Bin Laden to lead in 2001.
While I highly respected and liked President Reagan and trusted he was sincere in his motives, I think we should be careful in making a saint of this wonderful human being. In our big fears about Communism, I believe we fully missed the boat on the murderous treachery that would follow on the heels of its demise.
Perhaps President Reagan made us all a bit too optimistic. We went into a dreamful and exuberant "Me-decade" sleep.
Realism is criticized by some of today's NeoConservatives, but I've got to say, my dear readers, there is no more important time in American history than right here..right now for a realist to take the reins. Visionary speeches do no good when the facts on the ground are constantly working against you.
Gazing upon Utopia and shining cities on hills are lovely when the murderer isn't breathing down your neck.
I think Bush is a super-dumbed-down version of a Reagan-wannabe (without Reagan's natural gift of humor). Bush tries to imitate and emulate Reagan's historical successes. We need a clear-eyed realist who is his own man. (A man---or woman---who doesn't have to read from cue-cards and sound like a second-grader when he does). I'm sick of being faked out by cheap (and often seemingly-learning-disabled) imitations.
I believe that a good portion of the reason so many Americans have a visceral dislike for Bush is primarily due to the fact that they suspect they are far more intelligent than he is. It's frustrating when you don't share a man's ideology and you observe that he can barely squeeze three or four properly-pronounced words into one flowing sentence. Another reason for the Bush-disconnect is that so many Americans do not trust that Bush's motives are genuine. He's been caught lying to Americans too many times.
You didn't see the same distaste for Reagan, even though his ideology was oppositional to many.
We trusted Ronnie. He had a genuine-looking smile. He told us to be proud and we found something in his words to believe. He was witty..charming. He had many friends in this world..outside the borders of America. People in Europe tore down a wall with the help of his optimism. What a wonderful time for America...what a decent man.
He wasn't perfect, though. As many Christians joke, there was only one perfect man...and look what they did to him.
There were boats Reagan missed.
Ask the familes of any of these Americans and they'll tell you.
*Matthew Gross has some interesting commentary on Bush/Reagan and what Reagan's death might mean to the upcoming Presidential election.*
*There's a roundup of Reagan commentaries and farewells at Mahablog.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)