Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Baker Report Coming Next Week





A press release from the U.S. Institute of Peace announces:


On December 6, the Iraq Study Group will present its report to President Bush, the U.S. Congress and the American people. A press conference will be scheduled -- time and place to follow.


That gives James Baker less than a week to find a way to pull W.'s fat out of the fire. This is the toughest mission of Baker's career--much harder than winning a recount fight. And never in my years in Washington has a report been so eagerly awaited. There's no reason to expect that Baker and his gang will come up with any answers. The big question is this: does Bush realize how much he has screwed up and is he willing to change direction? If not, what Baker manages to produce will make little difference.

Posted by David Corn at November 29, 2006 04:38 PM

15 comments:

O'Reilly said...

"Ain't no use askin' the cow to pour you a glass of milk."

capt said...

I can see this coming:

The report will have some bad and good stuff, some stuff Bunnypants likes to hear and some he refuses to listen to.

Bush will do as he pleases and nothing short of impeachment will even slow him down. (might be too late for impeachment already)

Bush can do just about anything he wants and will simply ignore any legislative or judicial assertion of power - that formula has worked for him so far.

Who is going to stop him?




capt

O'Reilly said...

ODE-US NECONS

How unfortunate for the neocon movement that the 'brilliant' neocon thinkers are saddled with the most incompetent neocon government apparatus ever assembled. Feel the snark.

On the grounds of what success does the neocon movement claim victory and vindication of their 'tortured' policies? Talk about your elite: The neocons are so completely self-assured of their ideological construct they are oblivious to the utter failure of their warmongering policies and the rejection of those policies by a disgusted majority of American voters.

If I had started a disasterous war of aggression under false prestense, I wouldn't be claiming victory and vindication, I'd have the dignity and intellectual honesty to evaluate my failures and rethink my objectives.

Your agenda is morally bankrupt and if you insist on inflicting the rest of the country with your extra-constitutional executive programs, imperialistic wars of aggression, and conspiracy to defraud the citezens of the United States of their future, you will continur to earn the contempt you've made so fashionable to display towards fellow citizens.

O'Reilly said...

Definitionalization Strategerification

By Christy Hardin Smith on Foreign policy

...even Joe Scarborough was quoting John Kerry's "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" quote from Kerry's testimony in 1971. And Pat Buchanon agreed with him. (Yes, I did almost spew my tea as I was listening to the show. It was as though I were watching some sort of Bizarro Scarborough, wherein he agreed, repeatedly, with Lawrence O'Donnell.)

link

capt said...

King Abdullah II: It's Palestine, Stupid
US Troops may Leave al-Anbar




A surprise for Americans: The most urgent and destabilizing crisis in the Middle East is not Iraq. It is, according to King Abdullah II of Jordan (who will meet Bush today), the Israel-Palestine conflict, which is a major engine driving the radicalization of Muslims in the Middle East and in Europe. It seldom makes the front page any more, but the Israelis are keeping the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank in Bantustan penitentiaries and bombing the ones in Gaza relentlessly, often killing signficant numbers of innocent civilians. Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Michael Rubin, David Wurmser and other Likudniks who had managed to get influential perches in the US government once argued that the road to peace in Jerusalem lay through Baghdad. It never did, and they were wrong about that the way they were wrong about everything else.

In fact, September 11 was significantly about the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem, and as long as the Israelis continue their actual creeping colonialization of Palestinian land while they pretend to engage in a (non-existent) "peace process," radicalism in the region will only grow. Polls taken in the last few years have shown that 64 percent of Egyptians expressed satisfaction with the Mubarak government, but only 2 percent had a favorable view of US foreign policy (i.e. knee-jerk pro-Likud policy) in the Middle East. That is, the argument that authoritarian government breeds radicalism is either untrue or only partial. It is the daily perception of a great historical wrong done to a Middle Eastern people, the Palestinians, that radicalizes people in the region (and not just Muslims).

Back to Iraq. The US military is considering withdrawing from Anbar province! I think this is all that they can do. As I said Monday, there is not a military mission that can obviously be achieved by keeping our troops there any longer. The argument could be made that the attempt to subdue al-Anbar province has been a major radicalizing factor for not only the province itself but for Sunni Arab Iraq in general. The destruction of Fallujah, which is nevertheless still not secure, was a negative turning point in the guerrilla war. The Iraqi troops of the Nuri al-Maliki government will have to keep order or learn to compromise with al-Anbar, one or the other. Money quote:

' "If we are not going to do a better job doing what we are doing out [in al-Anbar], what's the point of having them out there?" said a senior military official. '

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is offering to host a United Nations-sponsored conference of Iraqi parties and their neighbors. The idea is modeled on the relatively successful 2001 Bonn conference on Afghanistan. This is the most help the UN has offered in a long time. It is a long shot, but the offer should certainly be accepted.

Sunni Arab guerrillas killed three Fort Hood soldiers.

Two contract service providers to the US military, one a driver and the other a security man, were killed by guerrillas in Iraq.

US troops took fire from guerrillas in Ramadi, then attacked their safe house, which appears to have actually been a family domicile. They may have winged a guerrilla, but they mainly killed 5 girls and women and an unidentified man. It is said that this sort of firefight happens almost daily in Ramadi. I guess we only get a report on casualties where an attempt is being made to head off a public relations disaster.

Police found 50 torture victims of the Iraqi civil war in Baghdad and Baquba.

Reuters reports other civil war violence on Tuesday, including a mortar attack on the Sunni Arab district of Baghdad, Ghazaliyah that wounded two dozen persons.


More HERE

*****end of clip*****

As always Juan Cole has some Informed Comment.



capt

Saladin said...

OK, after that last bit of news I am posting something funny. This animation was sent to me by Carey.

Mark Fiore; The Decider

O'Reilly said...

In The American Dream vs. The Gospel of Wealth, former Amherst College economist Norton Garfinkle, now chairman of the Future of American Democracy Foundation, succinctly describes the way American history has alternated between two visions of the nation's economy. Abraham Lincoln articulated the American Dream that, as Garfinkle summarizes it, "all Americans will have the opportunity through hard work to build a comfortable middle-class life" so long as government acts, as Lincoln said, "to clear the path" for their progress. In contrast to this dream, steel baron Andrew Carnegie espoused the Gospel of Wealth: in the interests of a growing economy, government should get out of the way, let the rich prosper and leave everyone else to the fate of the marketplace--a vision revived under Reagan and refined by George W. Bush.

link

Saladin said...

"In fact, September 11 was significantly about the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem"

Capt, you and I and most people know that is BS! But whatever draws attention to the Palestinians plight is fine with me. If anything good can come of that treachery, please let it be the release of those poor people from that horrid bondage!!

capt said...

"I BELIEVE that God wants me to be president." George W. Bush

=
"I would like to thank Providence and the Almighty for choosing me of all people to be allowed to wage this battle for Germany," Hitler - Berlin March, 1936

=
God is not on the side of any nation, yet we know He is on the side of justice. Our finest moments [as a nation] have come when we faithfully served the cause of justice for our own citizens, and for the people of other lands.: George W. Bush

=
If we pursue this way, if we are decent, industrious, and honest, if we so loyally and truly fulfill our duty, then it is my conviction that in the future as in the past the Lord God will always help us: Adolf Hitler, at the Harvest Thanksgiving Festival on the Buckeburg held on 3 Oct. 1937

=
"freedom and fear, justice and cruelty have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them." George W. Bush

=
"Never in these long years have we offered any other prayer but this: Lord, grant to our people peace at home, and grant and preserve to them peace from the foreign foe!" : Hitler - Nuremberg Sept. 13, 1936.

===
Read this newsletter online http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/


Thanks ICH Newsletter!

capt said...

Pakistan Test Fires Nuclear-Capable Missile



Pakistan test launched a nuclear-capable medium range missile on Wednesday, two days after South Asian rival India conducted its first trial of a new ballistic intercept system. The Pakistani Hatf 4 or Shaheen-1 missile -- Shaheen means "eagle" in Urdu -- has a range of 700 kilometers (437 miles) meaning it can hit targets deep inside neighbouring India.

"Pakistani troops today conducted a successful launch of the medium range Hatf 4 or Shaheen-1 missile," the military said in a statement.

The test came as part of a continuing exercise by Pakistan's Army Strategic Force Command. On November 16 Pakistan test fired a Ghauri missile with a longer range of 1,300 kilometers (812 miles) away.


More HERE

O'Reilly said...

The Hadley smackdown of Maliki-as-incompetent gets leaked. Anonymous Bush Administration types try to tap dance around it by spinning the memo as actually being supportive. (Riiiiight. Ummm…hmmmm.) The Mailki/Abdullah/Bush meeting today gets scrubbed. Bush is only meeting with King Abdullah today. Maliki is put off until tomorrow — as spun by the Bush Administration — but what if Bush is the one that is put off until tomorrow by a rebuffing Maliki, while Abdullah gets to tutor Mr. Rose-Colored Glasses about the concept of honor and standing up for allies instead of your own damn poll numbers.

Is it me, or is the shuttle diplomacy actually coming from King Abdullah between Maliki and Bush? Again, and this is important, so listen up: YeeHaw is not a foreign policy.

Froomkin has some thoughts on the meaning of delusion. And, is it me, or is President Bush at it again with the "I have to be first through the door" thing that he does?


link

O'Reilly said...

The good ship Bushovick springs anopther LEAK

kathleen said...

Carter has been on Fresh Air, Diane Rehm , Cnn (go watch Wolf Blitzer try his best to undermine Carter and Carter politely hammers him), MSNBC's David Schuster tried his best to trip Carter up but was completely unsuccessful. Both Blitzer and Schuster tried to blame Arafat for the failing of Clinton's efforts to deal with the I/P conflict. Carter blows through that myth by letting the world know that Barak never signed onto Clinton's proposals. This was a myth the Israeli lobby was able to successfully permeate the MSM which repeated over and over again that it was Arafat who blew the negotiations! I heard Blitzer, Daniel Schorr (many, many times), Scott Simon, and others repeat this myth many times in the 90's!

I think the best interview of President Carter so far was done by Larry King...( what a pleasant surprise).

Carter has not been on Talk of the Nation...yet! Contact Talk of the Nation!

Carter will be on C-Span at 12 noon this Sunday for three hours, trying to help us face the fact.

"It's the Israeli/Palestinian conflict stupid!"


Please contact your local bookstores asking them to order Carter's new book. This is the time to contact your reps and let them know that you want them to deal with the I/P conflict in a more balanced and honest way! Stand behind Carter, he is telling the truth!

Odd that Hadley's (Plameleak participant) statement about Iraq was leaked. I believe the Israeli/Palestinian conflict was going to be discussed? HMMM

Saladin said...

Kathleen, glad you're here. Check out this letter, it is SO good!

Letter to my anti-war senator

capt said...

New thread!