Turkey an Integral Political Player in Middle East

Turkey an Integral Political Player in Middle East

Turkey and Iran are apparently cooperating in cross-border attacks on Kurdish rebels in Northern Iraq. Turkey is claiming that the U.S. has not done their part in stepping up to the plate and flush out guerrillas linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), who have hideouts in Iraq.

Frustrated by the reluctance of the US and the government in Baghdad to crack down on the PKK bases inside Iraq, Turkish generals have hinted they are considering a large-scale military operation across the border. They are said to be sharing intelligence about Kurdish rebel movements with their Iranian counterparts. "We would not hesitate to take every kind of measures when our security is at stake," Abdullah Gul, the Turkish foreign minister, said last week.

The worry for the U.S. would be the destabilization of the Kurds' self-ruled region, one of the only alleged post-invasion "success stories."

The U.S. is responding to Turkey's complaint that U.S. officials haven't spoken clearly or acted aggressively enough on the PKK "terrorist" threat:

Criticized by Ankara for not taking concrete steps against the terror network, the PKK (Kurdish Workers’ Party), the U.S. administration called upon the PKK “to cease its terrorist actions and lay down its arms.”

Turkey is still considering if and how they will contribute to a UN force in Southern Lebanon, expressing solidarity with the Lebanese government and keeping a close eye on Hezbollah - not wishing to be part of any force that could be seen as being against the Lebanese people. Turkish officials say that the stance of Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah towards the UN force will be an important factor in their final decision.

Since the US occupation forces in Iraq as well as the Jordanian government are preventing flights from Iran to use the Iraqi and the Jordanian airspace, the only loophole left for supplying Hezbollah with weapons would be Syria - via Turkey. Turkey is being urged by Israel to take all possible steps to prevent the transfer of arms from Iran to Syria to resupply Hezbollah. The Arab Monitor reports that the Israeli policy of trying to involve Turkey in an embargo against Iran puts Turkish interests under strain as Turkey has good commercial relationships with Iran and depends on Iran for gas and oil supplies.

Turkish pundit Cengiz Candar believes that Turkey's military contribution to any international force would symbolize a robust political comeback to the region. He gives three key reasons why there will be no real danger of a Turkish confrontation with Hezbollah, should Turkey decide to contribute to a UN force.

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Related:

Turkey And Iraq Are Inseparable Parts Of The Region, Gul - Turkish Press

'Turkey Could Play Critical Role in Peace Force' - Zaman Daily News

Fundamentalism in U.S. Foreign Policy

Fundamentalism in U.S. Foreign Policy

One thing that is particularly wrong with the direction the Bush administration has taken on foreign policy is that, if our government's leaders do not like what another nation is doing, they refuse to talk to any representative of that nation. There is little to be gained by such an approach.

In his book "Our Endangered Values - America's Moral Crisis," President Jimmy Carter mentions that his next book will cover developments in the Middle East, particularly Israel and Palestine. He talks about a trip he’d arranged to observe the Palestinian elections in 2005, and on that same trip he would have planned to visit Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. He had especially wanted to encourage the peace process between Israel and Palestine. When he notified the State Department and the White House of his plans, the president’s national security advisor called him and said that, because Syria had not been cooperative with certain issues involving the Iraq war, the U.S. policy was to restrict all visits to Damascus. There was what President Carter called a “heated discussion” between the two of them, and the final request was that, on behalf of President Bush, the trip was to be cancelled. A policy of not communicating with potential adversaries is an indication of a fundamentalist policy.

President Carter believes that the political right-wing has been influenced by a religious fundamentalist way of thinking: 'We don't deal with those who don't agree with us'; 'We don't talk with inferiors.' It is clear that a war in Iraq was planned long before George W. Bush was ever elected and that it was a coalition of right wing ideologues who have implemented the strategy that has the underlying premise: "A fundamentalist is never wrong." Religious fundamentalism is characterized by rigidity, domination, and exclusion. They are convinced that they are right and anyone who contradicts them is evil. The fundamentalist feels that they have a unique relationship with God - and that they actually speak for God. When there are serious differences between the U.S. and other nations, we cannot brand those who differ as pariahs or inferiors worthy of despise - yet fundamentalism in foreign policy tends to do just that. It leaves no room for discussing of ideas or for compromise.

The American people must redirect our government’s legal, religious, and political commitments to our long-held and unchanging principles.

As The One Year Anniversaryof Katrina Approaches

As The One Year Anniversary
of Katrina Approaches
Marc H. Morial, President and CEO of the National Urban League doesn't have to use intellectual phrasings or fancy rhetoric to impress upon you what he's learned from Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath:

I could rattle off tomes of statistics about disparity. I could talk about the wealth gap, the job gap, the wage gap and the health gap. I could speak in erudite and intellectual terms about income, health and equality in America. But I don't have to: Katrina did that for me through images of people suffering. It was through reality's lens that Americans witnessed the tragedy not through a full-length movie or cheap sound byte. But the images seen on most Americans' television sets nearly a year ago were not just pictures of my hometown. They represented people in poverty in urban areas all over the nation.

Last September, after seeing the face of poverty that Hurricane Katrina had revealed, I'd said,

A moral wake-up call to America is indicated by these recent events. If we saw the faces of our frightened and needy American brothers and sisters living in the kind of poverty that had trapped them in their city of ruins this week, and if it touched something deep inside of us, I believe that we need to make a commitment to not only call for their imminent basic needs to be met, but to call upon government to take every step possible to help them – and other Americans - to move out of their poverty.

In an article titled Bush's Poverty Talk Is Now All but Silent, the Washington Post's Michael Fletcher pointed out that aiding the poor seems to have been only a brief priority for President Bush after Katrina, and it soon dropped off the Republican radar. It took the GOP only nine months to wait out the disturbing images of New Orleans, and once they felt that the shocking poverty that Bush had paid lip service to after Katrina had faded enough from the national consciousness, they brought back their push for the estate tax repeal and used it as a double-cross against Democrats who wanted to raise the federal minimum wage for the common good.

A year after Katrina, the GAO reports that the Department of Homeland Security and National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) cannot say how they will meet the needs of nursing home residents during evacuations or how the federal government will assist state and local governments with transporting residents and patients from nursing homes and hospitals to NDMS mobilization centers.

Louisiana's state and local governments, already hit hard these past five years by shortfalls in federal funding, have taken the economic brunt of the troubled times on the Gulf Coast. Their problems with the federal government began with the woefully inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina by FEMA, which had been downgraded from a cabinet-level position and folded into the Department of Homeland Security under President Bush. Kevin Drum of Washington Monthly called the four years preceding Hurricane Katrina "four years of deliberate Republican policy and budget choices that favor ideology and partisan loyalty at the expense of operational competence." Last fall, in the face of all of the federal government's post-Katrina failures, U.S. House representative Tom Tancredo (R-Co) had the nerve to say that he didn't trust federal funds for rebuilding New Orleans in the hands of local governments. In light of the Jack Abramoff scandal that subsequently haunted so many Republicans and blew the lid off the hidden corruption in Washington, D.C., Congressman Tancredo's statement now looks even more hypocritical.

Joseph Arthur to Perform on A&E this Sunday

Joseph Arthur to Perform on A&E this Sunday

Joseph Arthur will be appearing on A&E Breakfast with the Arts with KCRW's Nic Harcourt this Sunday (Aug 13th). He'll be performing two songs from his forthcoming album. On the YouTube video below, he's performing Electrical Storm (live), a song off the new Nuclear Daydream CD.

Stirling Newberry's Thoughts On a New Direction

Stirling Newberry's Thoughts On a New Direction

Stirling Newberry has written a thoughtful piece about political vision and direction. Competing visions of how America should progress have split the Democratic party, but if there is one thing we can see, it is that the curtain is falling on the Reagan Democrats of decades past. A single idea of a fundamental social mandate has still not been isolated, and that's why we're seeing Democrats approaching their individual campaigns from so many different angles. Is there a unifying theme through which the Democrats could gather around? Mr. Newberry says that the Iraq war's fiasco has only offered an opening for this wide discussion. We're on our way to a new meaning - a "city of tomorrow."

An Excerpt:

The progress of this pattern - of a different mandate producing a different meaning, and reaching voters through a different medium - is going to dominate the Democratic Party for some time to come, until the decisive political moment arrives, and a singular politician is able to sweep into power a majority of representatives willing to move a very different agenda in government.

It is not clear that 2008 is that year, but it might be. 2004 was not, and could not have been that year, but was, instead, the last gasp of trying to hold on to the Clinton Compromise with Reaganism. Hillary Rodham Clinton might win the nomination, but it will only be by coöpting a movement which, so far, she has attempted to oppose. However, she and her advisors can read the tea leaves and the polls extremely well, and the picture they show is no longer a donkey with an elephant's trunk.

Aish Video of Doctored Photography

Aish Video of Doctored Photography

I wish for Israel to stop its attack of Lebanon, I wish for Hezbollah to stop firing rockets at innocent people in Israel, and I wish for a UN resolution that is fair to both Lebanon and Israel.

I want to see an end to senseless killing of innocent people.

That said, I do think you may want to take a look at this video from Aish.com, exposing the ways professional photos are looking more like an art form than depicting absolute and untainted reality. It doesn't mean death, destruction, and sorrow are not being brought to the door of the Lebanese or innocent Israelis by savage warfare, but professional journalism shouldn't be Photoshop 101 nor should it be deliberate propaganda. Journalists are humans with the capability to sympathize and empathize - just like you and me. Professional journalists should understand, however, that you check that symapthy at the door during your working hours. Cheating only hurts the cause they may sympathize with when they doctor up photos or stories.

On Whose Watch Did 9/11 Happen?

On Whose Watch Did 9/11 Happen?
If they're going to keep telling us to remember 9/11, let's remember it clearly.

The Bush team and their rubber stamp Republican mocking birds need Osama bin Laden tapes and the memory of al-Zarqawi so they can make up cheap talking points to stupidly insult the intelligence of Democrats and to try to scare as many Americans as they can into voting for the Cheney and Bush roadshow of flaming failure.

In the Republican party, they love to keep the horror alive and the hopes dead.

In reality, we are doomed if we keep any of these warring mooks in power because they've looked for trouble (and have gotten it) in Iraq while nobodies in the middle of the UK have blown up the Tube and filled shampoo bottles with flammables. At least the UK and Canada are catching their terrorists with good old-fashioned detective work. We've got reduced civil liberties, burning mosques in an unnecessary Iraqi civil war, worn-out troops, authorized torture of prisoners of war, and a few bad and burned-out soldiers raping a 14-year old girl and killing her family in cold blood.



Before 9/11, nobodies took flying lessons in the American southwest and didn't bother inquiring about the part of the lessons where they'd learn how to land. Bush and his team did a really great job of stopping them on 9/11, didn't they? At least Bush didn't cut and run. He stayed until the job was done. He made sure he went nowhere until My Pet Goat had been read from cover to cover.



Bush turned nobodies into al Qaeda legends and, after sufficiently lying to Americans, went after a country that had nothing whatsover to do with the 9/11 attacks they'd failed to stop. This created future generations of terrorists in Iraq that would likely never have come to pass had it not been for Bush's failed foreign policy.

Are you sick of failure yet?

The only thing more disgusting than the failure is hearing the total losers insulting the political leaders who, like us citizens, see the failures so clearly.

Kevin Smith Talks About the Rolling Roadshow & Clerks II

Kevin Smith Talks About the Rolling Roadshow and Clerks II



Oh, man, this looks like it would've been a blast. Folks in Red Bank, N.J. got a real treat Tuesday night. A great movie on a giant screen backed by the river and a full moon. Aaaah. I love Red Bank - I've has a lot of fun times there and in Asbury Park - sure wish I could've been there for an outdoor showing of Clerks II. Clerks filmmaker Kevin Smith says:

I can't impart this emphatically enough: if you get a chance to attend ANY of the Rolling Roadshow screenings over the next few weeks, GET YER ASS THERE! It's a pretty incredible experience.

Weird highlight: The day before, some fans said they camped outside as early as 3 a.m. to meet and greet Kevin Smith at Jay & Silent Bob's Secret Stash in Red Bank. One fan asked Kevin to sign her butt-cheek.

• VIDEO: Fans talk with Smith (dialup)
• VIDEO: Fans talk with Smith (broadband)

Josh Ritter on Conan O'Brien Friday

Josh Ritter on Conan O'Brien Friday

If you're a Josh Ritter fan like I am, you'll want to know that he's going to be on Conan O'Brien tomorrow night!

Androminos' Questions about the Middle East

Androminos' Questions about the Middle East

How long does the international community think ANY nation has to suffer the kidnapping and murder of its people?

To all who are feeling unsure about what position to take on this, let's just be sure not to sit back and tell ourselves that this age-old problem is something new and that the destruction of innocent lives and displacement of human beings is the right or the moral solution to the back-and-forth violence between state and non-state that has been going on for so long in the territory. One look with an untainted eye will tell you that it's absolutely untrue. How long has there been tribal struggle in the Palestinian region between diverse groups of people? What about Rwanda? Darfur?

Where is a Western leader with moral authority today? The world longs for him. A just God cries out for him (or her). The U.S. will never be a good ally to Israel until the U.S. makes good-faith efforts to stand behind her with an active diplomatic effort for a two-state solution that never sleeps. The past five years have been a disastrous slumber with a wrong-headed approach to protecting Israel on the part of the United States.

What we need is order - a fight for the protection of human rights and a proper prosecution of the rule of law among nations. This isn't some pie-in-the-sky notion. The work of peace and the keeping of order in this world is a tremendously difficult task, yet I am dismayed when I see that President Bush and his administration are only serving to stir up the pot of hatred and distrust amongst the people of the Middle East. You can see proof by the numbers of hard-line extremists being elected in these nations. A moral Western leader who respects and believes in the rule of law would try to guide the world with wisdom, respect for all peoples, and the promise of opportunity and participation for all in the global economy, provided that they are willing to compromise along with the West. Empire is a goal that comes with violence and unjust treatment of the weakest. The goal of Empire must be laid aside if America truly wants to help its ally Israel.

What then is a solution. And I don't just mean to end the current round of fighting. I mean what is the solution to the very real and legitimate problem faced by Israel who is surrounded by combatants and terrorists committed to her destruction?

A new commitment to non-Empire. Allowing Middle Eastern nations to govern themselves rather than hanging an anvil around their necks with the threat of violence and destruction whenever unrest (they call it "terror") occurs in their own respective nations. There will be no healthy Western-friendly democracies born in the Middle East until the people of the Middle East desire it. Let's use of heads. Put a moral thinking cap on. Destroying innocent people is no way for them to desire the rule of monsters that inflict such misery. As the Reagan years approached in the U.S., over thirty years ago, neoconservatism was born and with it came the hope (and determination) that new democracies would spring up in the Middle East. In the meantime, and most hypocritically, evil regimes were embraced by the U.S. government for political gain. The people of this world aren't stupid. They know when a motive is sincere and when it is merely a position taken to gain oppressive power. We embrace Saddam Hussein one day and he's the monster-du-jour the next.

The problem is, neoconservatism went from a left-leaning idea about freedom to a today's dogmatic hard-line right revolution that most of the American people do not desire.

When Ned Lamont beat Joe Lieberman in Connecticut this week, this is what the American people were screaming about!

There must be a change in U.S. foreign policy about which the world will sit up and take notice.

How does one stop the terrorists from attacking? Expecting Israel to go back to the status quo of accepting terrorism against it's people from those along it's borders is hardly a viable solution.

"Accepting" terrorism is one thing. Creating conditions that will ensure a whole new generation of terrorism is totally another. For what is terrorism? It is a tactic used by those who choose to opt out of the international community - those who chose to return to the law of the jungle rather than the international rule of law.

For all intents and purposes, President Bush opted out of the internatiuonal rule of law when he made a pre-emptive strike on Iraq.

Israel has used the excuse that a few kidnapped soldiers is legal reason to destroy the infrastructure of southern Lebanon and displace 25% of the Lebanese population.

The leaders of the U.S. and Israel are going about this in a way that is front-loading the best likelihood of a new World War whose sides will not be lined up as they were in the last two world wars. They call the rebellious and violent tactic used by non-states "the enemy." A tactic is an "enemy" - not a specified state or group of states. Tell me - how do you conquer or vanquish a tactic? How do you "conquer" hatred? Who do you kill? How do you quantify such a win? What will be acheived when that "win" is quantifiable and qualifiable (if it ever could be)?

Let's remember that there were a group of upstarts who caused violence in a civilized place called Concord, Massachusetts well over 200 years ago. They reared up against a great power and used non-traditional and brutal tactics to resist their enemy. After the ragtag rebels caused Great Britain to lose their political ability and will to win, they formed an independent new government and we sit here today calling ourselves the recipients of and the fighters for the symbol of freedom. A nation had been living in the hearts of men and women in Lexington and Concord, but that nation was not yet a part of the world until they made it so. Those colonist rebels in America didn't prey on the innocent, but they were ruthless in battle. Who are we to say that there are not new nations living somewhere in the hearts of some people in the Middle East? Who are we to determine their destiny for them? Who are we to languish in Iraq when the destiny of that nation, in light of freedom, belongs to them? We can't be the world's policeman. No one nation has a right to do that.

There are international forums for political crises. The U.N. is the first one that comes to mind. If they have become an impotent joke to some, it's because the people who have had the most poewer to make it succeed have sabotaged it for the past five years. Without a strong and effective forum with which to iron out international problems, we may as well forget that we are a civilized world and leave the world to savages.

Lieberman Wants to Play Nice With Rubber Stampers While He Allows Our Democracy to Shrivel Up and Die

Lieberman Wants to Play Nice With Rubber Stampers While He Allows Our Democracy to Shrivel Up and Die

Joe Lieberman's still looking for old-school civility and old-time protocol in a world where unprincipled Republicans have taken advantage of every good-faith and civil effort on the part of Congressional Democrats and any other sap who has stood in their way in the name of truth. It would behoove poor old Joe to understand that there's an expiration date on how long you can fool people. Joe's problem is that he's fooling himself. We've watched him hold on to the liferaft of "bipartisanship" long after the mothership had sunk and a sea of rubber-stamping sharks chomped on his legs with talking points and dirty tricks. He was too complacent to realize that, as a representative of the People, it wasn't only his legs being bitten off. It was our legs, too. He's been so numb that he didn't feel the pain while we could only watch and scream in agony at the joke that liferaft of "bipartisanship" had become.

I think David Beckwith is really on to something when, in a post titled McCain & Lieberman to launch "Arrogant Has-Been Party," he writes:

According to New York Times columnist David Brooks,

..the "three major parties in America" are "the Democratic Party, the Republican Party and the McCain-Lieberman Party," and "all were on display Tuesday night."

"The Democratic Party was represented by its rising force -- Ned Lamont on a victory platform with the net roots exulting before him and Al Sharpton smiling just behind," Brooks opines in Thursday's edition of The Times. "The Republican Party was represented by its collapsing old guard -- scandal-tainted Tom DeLay trying to get his name removed from the November ballot."

"And the McCain-Lieberman Party was represented by Joe Lieberman himself, giving a concession speech that explained why polarized primary voters shouldn't be allowed to define the choices in American politics."

Mr. Beckwith goes on to comment:

Moderate Republicans need to realize that the immoderate Republicans are corrupt, jaded, mediocre, hateful, incompetent, bloodthirsty, Mammoniacal, greedy, self-rightous, ego-centric, micranimous, war-profiteering, war-mongering, murderous, liars and thieves. And many of them can't wait for WWIII.

Lieberman once said: "If you want to live like a Republican, you need to vote like a Democrat." I take it he wants to live like a Republican. I guess he is impressed by the corrupt, jaded, mediocre, bloodthirsty, Mammoniacal, greedy, selfish, ego-centric, micranimous, war-profiteering, war-mongering liars and thieves. Who knows. Maybe he was talking about moderate Republicans, but there is a reek of obsolescence among this diminishing sect.

I am also impressed by Mr. Beckwith's latest observations, where he employs his satirical genius about Bush (and his rubber stampers') tactical misleadings. He's got these fear-mongering bastards all figured out.

Why is George hiding in Texas? (Think 9/11) : The week the world ended

Why is George hiding? II

How to Cause the World Not to End

Don't miss Beckwith's special Lieberman close-up photo underneath the headline:
Loserman Paying for Kissing Bush Ass

Lebanon Catch 22 = Death for Innocents and Environment

Lebanon Catch 22 = Death for Innocents and Environment

Lebanon Oil Spill May Rival Exxon Valdez of 1989 - Dania Saadi, Bloomberg News

"In the worst case scenario, and if all the oil contained in the bombed power plant at Jiyyeh leaked into the Mediterranean Sea, the Lebanese oil spill could well rival the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989," the UN said in an e-mailed statement todayIsraeli jets, which attacked the power plant twice, deterred firemen from putting out the fire at the storage units, which continued for 10 days, Sarraf said in an interview on Aug. 3. [..] The spill, which has polluted around two-thirds of the Lebanese coast and spread into neighboring Syria, may threaten East Mediterranean countries such as Cyprus and Turkey, Lebanon's Environment Minister Yacoub Sarraf has said. [..]

[..] The Israel navy prohibited Lebanese and foreign officials from surveying the damage of the spill from Lebanon's territorial waters, the minister said. The spill has grown into a 3,000-square kilometer area because it absorbed water, Sarraf said.

The Lebanese government is relying on the international community to provide as much as $200 million to clean up Lebanon's territorial waters, the minister said.

_____________

A 'Pretext' War in Lebanon by Robert Parry - Consortium News

Israeli sources indicate that Bush gave Olmert a green light for the [current] conflict at the May 23 summit. The sources said Bush has even encouraged Israel to expand the war by attacking Syria, although Israeli leaders balked at that recommendation because they lacked an immediate justification. [..]

[..] Only days after the Lebanon-Israel conflict began, Washington Post foreign policy analyst Robin Wright wrote that U.S. officials told her that “for the United States, the broader goal is to strangle the axis of Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran, which the Bush administration believes is pooling resources to change the strategic playing field in the Middle East. …

“Whatever the outrage on the Arab streets, Washington believes it has strong behind-the-scenes support among key Arab leaders also nervous about the populist militants – with a tacit agreement that the timing is right to strike.” [Washington Post, July 16, 2006]

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Has the War on Terrorism Been Good for Iran? an analysis by Michael Scott Moore - Spiegel Online

"Thanks to the aggressive policies of the US and Israel, Iran has become a great regional power."

- Editors of German newspaper Die Tageszeitung, a left-leaning daily

[...] The right-leaning Die Welt seems to agree -- not on Iran, but on the policy of violence. Its lead editorial wonders if all-out war in Lebanon hasn't hurt Israel. Soldiers and generals, the paper writes, don't worry about "collateral damage," even if they lead to humanitarian and political catastrophes. Now the destruction in Lebanon -- "TV networks, mobile phone networks, water, electricity, the Beirut airport: this has all been declared 'Hezbollah's infrastructure'" -- threatens to create enemies in Lebanon of both Israel and the United States. The paper notes that the war has unified religious factions in Lebanon under the national label "Lebanese." "This, of course, was the hope of the West before the Cedar Revolution," which drove out Syrian troops last year. "However, the new (Lebanese) identity orients itself against Israel and the US ... Whether this 'collateral damage' can be fixed will depend on how long the war lasts."

____________

THE CATCH 22 EFFECT
Israel refuses to leave until the force is in place, and nations won't go in until a cease-fire is in effect.

Arab nations: Israel must pull out by Cameron Simpson - Herald UK

Arab nations demanded Israel pull its troops out of Lebanon as part of any UN resolution to end a war in which 45 people were killed yesterday by Israeli strikes. [..]

Bush's Line of Reasoning Isn't Helping to Ensure a UN Agreement
...Calling upon nations for assistance - nations to whom he forbids Condi Rice to speak - is insane if he thinks those nations will comply after being labeled 'Axis of Evil'. It will surely undermine the UN effort and prolong the violence - and Bush should know this. What is he attempting here? Why does he seem to want this UN effort to fail?

[..]President George W Bush insisted that he wanted the UN resolution as quickly as possible and called on Syria and Iran to rein in Hizbollah. Hizbollah says that it will fight on until Israel stops bombing Lebanon and pulls out around 10,000 troops from the south.

Hezbollah isn't even a party to the UN discussions or decisions, so it's moot whether they agree or not!

Lebanon is the nation that is under attack. This is a lopsided UN referendum on Lebanon's government, of which Hezbollah is only a part. It's destined for failure. Bush's neocon administration are calculating. They have made no silent affair of talking about wanting to attack Syria and perhaps Iran. What better way than to get President Bush to front-load sure failure at the UN?

Meanwhile,
Israel Plans Deeper Push Into Lebanon and Americans press Bush: Talk to Syria. Bush assumes: "Syria knows what we think." Not a good answer - so says the New York Times: "Start talking."

The people of this country and the world have something universal in common, regardless of our respective country of origin. We see the immorality in the senseless killing of innocents on both sides. The irrational expectations of President Bush (a lopsided mess) are beginning to flourish into yet another unsuccessful UN resolution, more senseless death of innocents, more danger to the environment, and more alienation of the Arab and Muslim people.

As a concerned American, I want to see good-faith effort on the part of this President to talk to those he perceives as our "enemies" - not a feel-good chat, but real diplomacy....and to encourage our ally Israel to back off and allow that diplomcy to work. There are age-old hatreds at play in the Middle East - one kidnapped soldier wasn't the lone catalyst - President Bush needs to stop insulting our intelligence. The hatred is irrational, and we certainly don't need an irrational foreign policy to match it! Bush talks a pretty game about freedom. If we're going to survive together, we'd best do every last thing we can possibly do to secure real freedom which can ony come when enough people are left alive to find peace with one another.

Thomas Mann said that war is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace. If that's true, we have a world dominated by cowards, and I'm disappointed to know that my own President is at the top of the heap of them all. Why? Because he always had the power to show others the way to peace, and he failed, promoting the kind of protracted war that Alexis de Tocqueville assured us would "never fail to endanger the freedom" of our own country.

Who Said This?

Who Said This?

"....you cannot negotiate when someone can't hear you or refuses to hear you or can't even understand your language, and that's clearly what's happening in a lot of places in the world right now, the West Bank, Gaza and Israel, not the least of which there's very little listening and understanding going on. Our language is entirely different than theirs, and I don't just mean the words. Who thinks that Hezbollah is a bad word? Show of hands. Usually connotes fear, terror, some kind of suicide bombing. If you live in the Arab world, Hezbollah means Shriner. Hezbollah means charity, Hezbollah means hospitals, Hezbollah means welfare and jobs.

These are not the same organizations we're dealing with. How can you negotiate when you' re talking about two entirely different meanings? And until we understand - we don't have to like Hizbullah, we don't have to like their militancy, we don't have to like what they do on the side, but we have to understand that they like it, that they like the good things about Hizbullah, and that you can't just paint it with a blanket statement that it's a terrorist organization, because even when it comes to the militancy these people believe that militancy is simply freedom fighting and resistance. You can't argue with that. You can try to negotiate, but you can't say it's wrong flat out...."

To learn the answer, you can google the sentence
"If you live in the Arab world, Hezbollah means Shriner."

Reuters Photographer Cheats While More Die

Reuters Photographer Cheats
While More Die

Jeff Jarvis is crowing about another "Dan Rather moment" for the blogosphere. If Charles Johnson figured out that the smoke in the photo was placed by photoshop, then he (and others in the blogosphere) deserve credit. No professional mainstream photographer should get away with propagandizing. Is the photographer guilty of the charge? As in the case of Dan Rather, we may never get all the specifics after the storm has passed. There is an investigation going on and photographer Adnan Hajj's 900+ photos have been pulled from Reuters.

I hope we all realize that innocent life is still being lost in Southern Lebanon and northern Israel. One in four Lebanese have been displaced. Smoke or no smoke.

In the end, the cessation of senseless deaths on both sides is what really matters. Catching dirty journalism is a good thing - but if Adnan Hajj is used as a future example of unfair suspicion of the typical mainstream photographer in the region, then the lessons learned would have become no more than a tool for bloggers' propaganda to blindly defend Israel's actions.

As moral and ethical people, we need to understand that we only support President Bush when we stop expecting him to side with Israel on everything they do. He's going to have to make some pretty difficult decisions and compromises with the international community in days to come if he wants to bring any sense of peace and an end to violence in the region.


Update 5 pm - National Journal's Blogometer covers excerpts from a few prominent blogs.

Taylor Marsh raises some interesting points at the Huffington Post

Tar Heel Tavern #76

Tar Heel Tavern #76

Billy the Blogging Poet has done a great job with this week's edition of the Tar Heel Tavern.




Screwy Hoolie's Uncle Aubrey has his own ideas about "creating affordable housing, employing folks, and instilling hope in a region [post-Katrina New Orleans] that needs all three."

Fukuyama on Chavez

Fukuyama on Chavez

Jonah Goldberg might be pissed off [in a pseudo-intellectual way] at this man for exposing the extremists among neoconservatives [that Golberg fell for and who who unfortunately grabbed a hold of the heart of the Bush administration], but Frances Fukuyama deserves a reading with his latest Washington Post column about Hugo Chavez of Venezuela: History's Against Him

I hope the next Democratic president (hopefully elected in 2008) will understand that a third way in foreign policy - moderation and healthy compromise for the sake of peace, commerce and healthy democracies - is not a bad word when sane and intelligent policy backs it up and convinces others of its benefit. Bush has done nothing save widen the lanes of extremism on either side. The world's exploding because of it.

Neoconservatism never had to become a filthy word, but the Douglas Feiths (the most f**king stuid guy on the planet according to General Tommy Franks) of the PNAC crowd have forever ruined the moniker. The most stupid f**king pundits on the planet FELL for it. History is no more on the Bush-neocons' side than it is on Chavez' side.

Balz Only Half Right About Lieberman Effect

Balz Only Half Right About Lieberman Effect

Dan Balz is only half-right when he says

An upset by Lamont would affect the political calculations of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who like Lieberman supported giving Bush authority to wage the Iraq war, and could excite interest in a comeback by former vice president Al Gore, who warned in 2002 that the war could be a grave strategic error.

Whether or not Senator Lieberman wins his primary, the interest of Democrats in a candidate other than the ones who remain steadfastly defensive of their own 'pro-Iraq War resolution' vote and of the war itself is already quite obvious. The damage to the Lieberman mindset has already been done - set in concrete - whether or not he is given a slim margin by Connecticut Democrats to run in November. Of course, a primary loss would give this rolling grassroots stone a lot more speed. This was a man who was a popular VP candidate with Democrats in 2000 - and a "loserman" to Republicans. The fact that there's been a near 180-degree turnaround should be lost on no political analyst.

Mr. Balz seems to think that Mr. Gore is the "not-Hillary" candidate to watch.

(Let's make this clear: Calling any candidate "anti-Hillary" is far too extreme and disingenuous, in my opinion. Mrs. Clinton's views are not like night and day to the positions of other Democrats, so let's not get carried away).

Mr. Balz writes:

None, however, may be as attractive to the grass-roots activists as Gore.

Respectfully, as a grassroots activist, I have to disagree - even though I respect Mr. Gore tremendously. The wood-factor still applies to Mr. Gore. He is not a political animal, and admits this readily. His reticence to run in 2004 (when he would have been in the strongest position to win) is a weak point for a 2008 strength-of-position. I can just hear the GOP hounding him - a pre-9/11 leader refusing to run against Bush again in 2004 (even when he'd won the popular vote in 2000). What was his fear back then? I think these are questions that would need solid and convincing answers if Gore is to be running against a guy like Giuliani or McCain.

Mr. Balz shows how some Democratic leaders may be cowed by the GOP mouth machine to back away from the citizens who are looking for reasons to support them. [Getting scared by GOP talking points is to the Democrats' detriment because they're already seen as a party who shies away from their convictions].

Republicans are already seeking to exploit a possible victory by Lamont as a sign that Democrats are moving too far to the left on national security issues. "They want retreat -- under the guise of 'reducing the U.S. footprint in Iraq,' " William Kristol writes in the latest issue of the Weekly Standard.

In reality, Ned Lamont is staunchly pro-Israel and he's looking for a better way to handle Iraq, if we are to believe his public statements. [And I see no reason why we shouldn't]. There's a new breed of Democrat appearing on the scene, and I would hate for political analysts in the mainstream to miss the boat and spread disinformation unbeknownst to them. The new breed are not the cookie-cutter anti-war left of old.

Bush Policy = Middle East Disaster

Bush Policy = Middle East Disaster

President Jimmy Carter: Bush has pursued 'erroneous' Mideast policy
August 6, 2006
USA Today

Carter said the United States should work for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah and the world community should concentrate on a long-term solution, but he is uncertain whether Bush can accomplish a cease-fire. [..] "It depends on whether world opinion is strong enough to get the administration to change its erroneous policy, which has been to encourage the continuation of attacks on both sides," he said..


Carter: Bush Israel's 'worst ally' in D.C.
(same article as above, different title and link)



Beginning of the End for Israel?
Nathan Gardels' interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski
August 1, 2006
Huffington Post

In the final analysis, Iran is a serious country; it's not Iraq. It's going to be there. It's going to be a player. And in the longer historical term, it has all of the preconditions for a constructive internal evolution if you measure it by rates of literacy, access to higher education and the role of women in society. The mullahs are part of the past in Iran, not its future. But change in Iran will come through engagement, not through confrontation. If we pursue these policies, we can perhaps avert the worst. But if we do not, I fear that the region will explode. In the long run, Israel would be in great jeopardy.



Israel’s Actions Harm Iranian Democracy Movement
By Amitabh Pal
August 2 2006
Progressive


Bombs won't turn Lebanese hearts
By Ted Galen Carpenter
August 1, 2006
Philadelphia Inquirer



Crisis Could Undercut Bush's Long-Term Goals
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 31, 2006


The Values That Will Shape Our Future
by Tony Blair, PM, UK
Outlook magazine Online (free registration required)

'What is happening today is..a struggle between what I will call Reactionary Islam and Moderate, Mainstream Islam ... We are fighting a war, but not just against terrorism but about how the world should govern itself in the early 21st century, about global values.


'A Moment of Opportunity'
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, July 31, 2006; 1:42 PM

President Bush's "moment of opportunity" in the Middle East is increasingly looking like an opportunity for disaster.

In case we all forgot, Americans are still dying in Iraq
by Jimmy Breslin
August 6 2006
Newsday
The strategy for the Middle East is to keep Israel and Hezbollah/Lebanon fighting. Keep all attention on them. If they ever stop, then everybody would look at Americans dying.


Rice Wallows in an Imaginary World
by Jeremy Seabrook, author, UK
Statesman, India
August 6, 2006
..the transcendent quality of their struggle becomes barely distinguishable from that of their foe. The re-making of West Asia is only part of a wider re-fashioning of this world in the invented imagery of the next, in which we must all learn to recognise, like the inhabitants of Beirut, the ruins of the only home we have.

Shirin Ebadi's Human Rights Group Banned in Iran

Shirin Ebadi's Human Rights Group Banned in Iran

Shirin Ebadi's Rights Group Banned
Written by The Media Line Staff
MediaLine.org

Iran's Interior Ministry banned on Saturday a human rights group headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, the London-based daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat reports.

The Center for Protecting Human Rights was banned because it had not obtained a permit, the Interior Ministry stated.

"Violators of this decision will be prosecuted," the ministry warned in its statement.

Ebadi, quoting from the Iranian constitution, said that "non-governmental organizations which respect the law and do not disrupt the public order, do not require a permit."

Nevertheless, Ebadi stated that the rights group tried several times to obtain a permit, but the Interior Ministry rejected its request without giving an explanation.

The Center for Protecting Human Rights demanded last Tuesday an independent investigation into the "suspicious" death of Akbar Muhammadi, a student activist who died in prison last Sunday following a hunger strike.


Related:
Nathan Gardels' Interview with Nobel-prize winning Shirin Ebadi
New Perspectives Quarterly
May, 2006

John Edwards: Send 40K Troops Home From Iraq Now

John Edwards: Send 40K Troops Home From Iraq Now

The AP is reporting this as "news", but Senator Edwards has been saying it for a long while - at least since last fall when he admitted that he believed he's been mistaken on having had voted "yes" to the Iraq War reesolution of 2002. Senator Edwards believes that America should make it clear (to the Iraqis) that we are leaving Iraq, and the best way is to start leaving. He says that we should take 40,000 combat troops out now. Bob Herbert made this clear in his New York Times column about Senator Edwards last June.

"There is no chance other countries in the world will help Iraq as long as we are an occupying force," he said.

He also said this on Wednesday night at Missouri State University's Public Affairs Conference:

"You can't lead if you don't tell the truth," he said referring to the Bush administration. Edwards said keeping large numbers of troops in the country sends a signal that the U.S. "is there forever and is there for oil."

A tone of agreement has been set by former President Jimmy Carter [USA Today]:

"In my opinion, we should make every effort now to withdraw American troops from Iraq," Carter said. "I would say certainly begin a major withdrawal no later than the end of this year."

- President Jimmy Carter

Senator Edwards has spoken out on the situation with Isreael's air raids and limited ground invasion of Lebanon with the aim to do damage to Hezbollah. In the New York Times, he is quoted:

On the Israeli-Hezbollah fighting in the Middle East, Edwards noted he was on the Israel-Lebanon border only three weeks ago, and said Israel "has absolutely the right to defend itself, though he said there "needs to be an international security force in southern Lebanon."

On the One America Committee blog today, he replied to a blogger:

Israel (none / 0)

thanks for your comment. i was in israel about a month ago. went to the lebanese border - could see the hezbollah outpost in southern lebanon. i actually believe that hezbollah and hamas were acting, at least to some extent, in concert in an effort to stir up hatred of israel and strengthen radical islam. we clearly need an international security force in southern lebanon.

John Edwards

by John Edwards