Saturday, December 16, 2006

George W. Bush Slept Here




In an interview with People, George W. Bush gave Americans more reason to wonder about the man. Look at this exchange:

Q: A lot of readers asked how you shut off the day's events. Do you ever take sleep aids?

THE PRESIDENT: Generally not. But occasionally when I travel, I'm expected to get on an airplane and fly eight hours and pop out and be fresh and diplomatic and on message. If I'm having trouble sleeping, I'll take a sleep aid. But I must tell you, I'm sleeping a lot better than people would assume.


If you had launched a war on false premises and thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were dead as a result, how well would you sleep? Most people would be haunted by such circumstances. Not this fellow--if he can be taken at his word.

And Bush dodged a tough question:

This year, we invited readers on our Web site to ask you questions. Here's one: Nina Frazier of New Braunfels, Texas, asks: If you believe in the war, why didn't you encourage your own daughters to fight for your country? Or did you?

THE PRESIDENT: I believe Americans can contribute to the security and well-being of our country in a variety of ways. That's why we have a volunteer army. What we say to young people is that if you want to serve your country you can do so in the military, or you can do so by teaching children in inner-city Washington, D.C., like one of our daughters did. Or you can help form education programs in New York City, like our (other) daughter. There are all kinds of ways to serve.


Wait a sec. Bush claims the war in Iraq is essential to the survival of the United States--and the entire Western world. Yet he doesn't ask his daughters to make a sacrifice for the fight. And he asks no one else--except those who have already volunteered for military duty--to kick in. No one has to pay higher taxes to support this war. No one has to use less energy. No one has to shop less. It's a fight for our existence--but Uncle Sam doesn't need you.

Posted by David Corn at December 16, 2006 10:26 AM

118 comments:

Saladin said...

What can possibly be said about this? The guy is completely heartless, I ALMOST feel sorry for him. There must be a VERY chill wind roaring between those ears.
I posted an article about the mccain bill on the last thread, very sobering, I thought about reposting but the thread is short so anyone interested can go back and check it out. I'm afraid the days of free speech are coming to a close.

Saladin said...

About Face: Soldiers Call for Iraq Withdrawal
Marc Cooper

The Nation

For the first time since Vietnam, an organized, robust movement of active-duty US military personnel has publicly surfaced to oppose a war in which they are serving. Those involved plan to petition Congress to withdraw American troops from Iraq. (Note: A complete version of this report will appear next week in the print and online editions of The Nation.)

After appearing only seven weeks ago on the Internet, the Appeal for Redress, brainchild of 29-year-old Navy seaman Jonathan Hutto, has already been signed by nearly 1,000 US soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen, including dozens of officers--most of whom are on active duty. Not since 1969, when some 1,300 active-duty military personnel signed an open letter in the New York Times opposing the war in Vietnam, has there been such a dramatic barometer of rising military dissent.

Interviews with two dozen signers of the Appeal reveal a mix of motives for opposing the war: ideological, practical, strategic and moral. But all those interviewed agree that it is time to start withdrawing the troops. Coming from an all-volunteer military, the Appeal was called "unprecedented" by Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice.
==========
They should send their petition to pelosi and all her war mongering cronies who have the sick belief that funding this war to the hilt is the best way to support the troops. Apparently many of our troops think differently. Maybe the pro-war politicians would be willing to trade places with them, that way we CAN keep funding the war so as to support those who actually believe in it!

Saladin said...

North American Union leader says merger just crisis away
Prison Planet

At American University in Washington, D.C., Pastor directs the Center for North American Studies where he teaches a course entitled "North America: A Union, A Community, or Just Three Nations?" As WND previously has reported, Pastor is on the board of the North American Forum on Integration, the NAFI, a non-profit organization that annually holds a mock trilateral parliament for 100 selected students drawn from 10 universities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Pastor had published an interview in Spanish in the Oct. 24 issue of Poder y Negocios. He told the magazine crises can force decisions that otherwise would not be made.

"The 9/11 crisis made Canada and the United States redefine the protection of their borders," Pastor explained. "The debt crisis in Mexico forced the government to adapt a new economic model. The crises oblige the governments to make difficult decisions."

This was the first time WND had found a major intellectual leader behind the push to integrate North America suggesting that a crisis of 9-11 proportions might be just what was needed to advance the process toward establishing a North American Union and the amero. WND reached Pastor in his office at American University and conducted a telephone interview to make sure the Spanish publication accurately reflected his views.

He affirmed the Spanish interview represents his thinking.

"What I'm saying is that a crisis is an event which can force democratic governments to make difficult decisions like those that will be required to create a North American Community," he said. "It's not that I want another 9/11 crisis, but having a crisis would force decisions that otherwise might not get made."
==========
WOW!! Let's see that again, "a crisis is an event which can force democratic governments to make difficult decisions like those that will be required to create a North American Community," he said. "It's not that I want another 9/11 crisis, but having a crisis would force decisions that otherwise might not get made."

UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE! Where have we heard THAT before? They're just coming right out and saying it now. The only way to get what they want, just like the "New Pearl Harbor" gave the PNAC what they wanted, is to have a "crisis." They don't even care what we think, or how many people are sacrificed.

capt said...

I am not sleeping well while my friends and countrymen (country persons) are serving and dying.

I am sure the military in Iraq wish for one good nights sleep - at home in their beds - many will be haunted by their service - some will never sleep well again.

The "Mayberry Machiavellian" machinations convince me that as usual Bush is lying, at least I hope he is. Although I bet old Augusto Pinochet slept well too as self-delusional megalomania is common is petty tyrants and despots.

I wonder if Bush falls asleep counting the limbs and lives he wagered without a thought except for what he and the oligarchs wanted? If he had any but a blackhole for a soul he would surely have died from a lack of rest by now.

Of course NOT having to concern himself with being impeached and de-throned makes for some pleasing quiet moments with Barney.

Ambien - $1 a dose

Hobby war - $1 trillion

Allowing warmongers to continue illegal wars without being impeached - PRICELESS!



capt

capt said...

Impeachment: 'It's Not Up to Pelosi,' Say Grassroots Leaders



When Democratic lawmakers return to Washington next month to take over Congressional leadership positions, many will be under heavy pressure from their supporters to start impeachment hearings against President George W. Bush.

From civil libertarians to antiwar groups, hundreds of grassroots organizations are currently engaged in a nationwide campaign for impeachment, even though some leading Democratic politicians have publicly said it's not an option.

Last Sunday, "Impeachment for Change," an umbrella group representing a wide array of grassroots organizations, arranged as many as 75 countrywide events to mobilize support for congressional hearings into the conduct of the Iraq war and the wiretapping of U.S. citizens.

"It's time for Democrats to do the right investigations," said David Swanson, director of Democrats.com, a Web-based campaign group that has been pushing for impeachment since May 2005 when the leakage of a British secret report suggested that Bush manipulated intelligence to justify the military occupation of Iraq.

In an interview with OneWorld, Swanson acknowledged that most Democrats were not supportive of the movement for impeachment but said he was hopeful that consistent pressure from Democratic voters and thorough investigations into the conduct of war could lead to impeachment hearings.

"It's not up to Pelosi. It's up to us," said Swanson of the possibility of impeaching Bush, adding that his group is trying to set up a pro-impeachment group in every Congressional district in the country.

More HERE

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

No member or leader in congress has the right or authority to "take off the table" the law that protects and defends our country and the constitution they swore to uphold and protect from petty wannabe dictators and despots.



capt

Gerald said...

Our Second Vietnam War

Gerald said...

Hitler Bush has one option to help Nazi America to forget about the Iraq War: nuke Iran!!!

This option must be considered because we will nuke Iran sooner rather than later.

The mentality of Hitler Bush is to embrace endless wars.

Gerald said...

Bushie, you are doing a heck of a job

Gerald said...

We Are Accountable Too

Gerald said...

For Whom the Bells Toll

Gerald said...

Yes, we went into Iraq to spread American democracy

Gerald said...

Love One Another As I have Loved You

Gerald said...

Anti-Life Ethics in Iraq

capt said...

OPEC Shuts Off the Spigot



Many analysts think the new cuts may be overzealous restrictions of supply that overshoot OPEC's target oil prices


At its meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, OPEC on Dec. 13 announced another output cut of 500,000 barrels per day beginning Feb. 1, 2007. U.S. oil prices rose sharply by $1.20 per barrel to $62.57 on the news. It was the second announced cut in a matter of months. In October OPEC called for cuts of 1.2 million barrels per day to halt a 25% price drop.

OPEC is promising to make more production cutbacks because it detects a "continuing supply overhang" despite the earlier cuts. But a substantial body of analysts disagree and think that OPEC is playing a dangerous game that could damage a slowing world economy and, ultimately, hurt the organization's own interests. "OPEC appears on the verge of potentially killing the golden goose that lays the golden egg," said Lehman Brothers (LEH) Energy Economist Edward Morse in a recent note.

Such analysts think that OPEC could be repeating the notorious mistake it made in 2004 at an Algiers meeting when it cut output just as demand from China and elsewhere soared. That move sent prices higher than even OPEC wanted, to a peak of $78.40 per barrel last July. "The danger is that OPEC is being more proactive than it needs to be," says Kevin Norrish, director of commodities research at Barclays Capital (BCS) in London.

More HERE

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

OPEC needs more for their product? $100 per barrel is in their sights. Busheney are not making enough chaos fast enough to please OPEC? If there is such a thing as financial warfare I think we are having our collective asses handed to us by our own government and the energy oligarchs.



capt

Gerald said...

Remember that John Paul II said that the Iraq war was wrong and immoral. George Weigel, a Roman Catholic, defied John Paul II.

G. K. Chesterton, the Apostle of Common Sense, said that the greatest stumbling blocs for Catholicism are Catholics. He also has said that Jesus speaks sanity to a world of lunatics.

George Weigel may be one of those lunatics.

Gerald said...

Hitler Bush Has Been Here

capt said...

"Politics, as a practise, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds." -- Henry Brooks Adams (1838-1918) Pulitzer prize-winning historian (1919), great-grandson of John Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams, and son of US Secretary of State, Charles Adams - Source: The Education of Henry Adams, ch. 1 (1907)

=
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear: Cicero Marcus Tullius - Born on January 3, 106 BC and was murdered on December 7, 43 BC.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/c/cicero.htm

=
"There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Tavistock Group, California Medical School, 1961

===

Read this newsletter online http://tinyurl.com/dy6yy

===
Number Of Iraqi Civilians Slaughtered In America's War? More Than 655,000
http://tinyurl.com/usq4x

Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In Bush's War 2940 HERE


The War in Iraq Costs
$350,406,101,255

See the cost in your community HERE


Thanks ICH Newsletter!

kathleen said...

Of course Bush would '"sleep well" Psychopaths.. do not feel any responsibility for their crimes against humanity...completely disconnected.

London, Dec 4 (ANI): A new study by researchers in the UK has found that psychopaths have biological brain differences that make them stand apart from other ‘normal’ people.

In a study led by Professor Declan Murphy at The Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, a team of researchers found that not only do psychopaths show less activity in brain areas involved in assessing the emotion of facial expressions, but they are, in particular, far less responsive to faces that emote fear.

Criminal psychopaths are people with aggressive and anti-social personalities who lack emotional empathy, and can commit crimes such as rape or murder without showing signs of remorse or guilt.

It has been suggested that psychopaths lack empathy because their brains are defective when it comes to processing facial and vocal expressions of distress, such as fear and sadness, in others.

kathleen said...

Psychopaths are manipulative, charming, glib, deceptive, parasitic, irresponsible, selfish, callous, promiscuous, impulsive, antisocial, and aggressive individuals who have no concern for the welfare of others, experience little remorse or guilt as a result of their injurious and antisocial behavior, do not tolerate delay of gratification, and persevere despite punishment; psychopaths are mostly male and are less than 1% in the general population; approximately 11% of the forensic ...
www.amazinginfoonhomosexuals.com/psych_glossary.htm

Gerald said...

IT IS MY PERCEPTUAL OPINION THAT GEORGE WEIGEL CONDONES AND JUSTIFIES THE SLAUGHTER OF GOD'S CHILDREN.

Gerald said...

GEORGE WEIGEL IS A CAFETERIA CATHOLIC; HE PICKS AND CHOOSES MORAL ISSUES AND NON-MORAL ISSUES. APPARENTLY, THE SLAUGHTER OF GOD'S CHILDREN IS A NON-MORAL ISSUE.

Gerald said...

MAYBE GEORGE WEIGEL IS TOO EGO-CENTERED?

kathleen said...

UN demands an immediate halt to Israeli settlements


dpa German Press Agency
Published: Saturday December 16, 2006

New York- The United Nations has demanded that Israel immediately halt its controversial settlement policy, it was reported Saturday. "Settlements in the occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights (are) illegal and an obstacle to peace as well as economic and social development," a resolution passed by the UN General Assembly with 162 votes in favour late Friday in New York said.

Eight countries, including Israel and the United States, voted against the resolution, while 10 abstained.

The UN also called on Israel to guarantee the security of aid organizations working in the Palestinian Territories.

The 15-member Security Council renewed the mandate of the UN observer force in the Golan Heights for another cycle. The UN force that has observed the truce between Israel and Syria since 1974 is now due to remain in the area until the middle of 2007 at least.

There are 1,000 soldiers in the Golan Heights force from countries like Austria, Canada and India.

© 2006 dpa German Press Agency

capt said...

First day ends in UAE elections



Polling has ended on the first day of landmark national elections in the United Arab Emirates, in which under 1% of citizens are allowed to vote.


Voters hand-picked by the government are choosing half of the Federal National Council, an advisory body.

[…]

The voters, who number fewer than 7,000 men and women, have been selected by the rulers of the seven emirates which make up the UAE.

More HERE

Gerald said...

Unconditional Forgiveness

capt said...

Colbert Agrees With DeLay



The other day on Hannity and Colmes, Tom DeLay blamed the American left for the failure in Iraq citing our lack of "will" that's prohibiting the military from doing it's job. Colbert picked up on this last night and took it a few steps further.

Video WMP

Video MOV

"Well said, Congressman. American people: you are losing this war! Now, I don't like to say that. I wish there was someone else to blame…The President, the Vice President, Congress, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Bremer, George Tenet, Colin Powell, Tommy Franks, Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol… if only they had made one mistake! Some way we could pin this thing on them."

More HERE

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

If only, eh?


capt

Gerald said...

As I was reading "Unconditional Forgiveness", I have come to the realization that Nazi America, Nazi England, and Nazi Israel are not just weak nations but that they are also defeated nations. THEY ARE THE LOSERS BECAUSE THEY ARE LOSERS.

Saladin said...

Capt, sounds like the UAE could use some of that Amerikan style demockracy that's all the rage in that middle eastern sandbox!

Gerald said...

It appears to me that Nazi England and Nazi Israel want to join Nazi America in an elite club of being the most evil, vile, and wicked nations that the history of the universe has ever produced.

capt said...

It is a neocon dream, the leaders[sic] get to hand pick the voters. No reason to bother with very many - just family and cronies.

I guess we are not that different here in the USA - how many corporations are there buying influence and how many lobbyists actually vote by proxy in dollars?

UGH!


capt

Saladin said...

CHINA TO DUMP ONE TRILLION IN U.S. RESERVES!!!!

According to this Senior source, China told the U.S. delegation they no longer have faith in U.S. Currency for several reasons:
1) The Federal Reserve Bank ceased publishing "M3" data in March, making it nearly impossible for anyone to know how much cash is being printed. China said this act made it impossible to tell how much a Dollar is worth.

2) The U.S. Dollar has lost upwards of thirty percent (30%) of its value against other foreign currencies in the recent past, meaning China has lost almost $300 Billion simply by holding U.S. Dollars in its reserves.

3) The U.S. has no plans whatsoever to reduce deficit spending or ability pay down any of its existing debt without printing money to pay it off.
=========
Well folks, this is the beginning of the end. Now's the time to start gathering whatever precious metal you can for the rainy days ahead, we may be in for a veritable Noah's flood. Can goods and dried foods are probably a good idea as well, while the dollar still passes as legal tender, trade it for something tangible.

capt said...

Baghdad Residents Hit By Robo Calls



Who says we're not spreading democracy in Iraq?

Not long after Republicans harrassed tens of thousands of Americans with automated phone messages in November's election, news comes that the robo call, that staple of American democracy, is being deployed in Iraq. And it's literally terrorizing city residents.

Nir Rosen of the new blog Iraqslogger reports, calling it a "mysterious psychological operations campaign," that Baghdad residents have reported "receiving phone calls that the caller ID shows to be originating from outside Iraq." What follows is a "recorded message from an anonymous man speaking formal Arabic" who goes on to condemn the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia headed by the powerful cleric Muqtada al Sadr that's been a continual thorn in the U.S.'s side.

The Mahdi Army has also infiltrated police ranks, and run assassination squads. Fearing that the militia's inside men have access to wiretapping technology, ordinary Iraqis live in fear that their robocall will be picked up and intepreted as proof they are anti-Mahdi -- and face execution at the militia's hands. The call reportedly left one Iraqi woman in tears.

Like the non-lethal American variety of robo call, the source of the Iraqi calls has been cloaked, and no one has figured out where they're coming from. Or how to stop them.

More HERE

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

I can't wait to see what kind of psy-ops are in store for us between now and the next (s)election.


capt

Saladin said...

Carter Decries Zionist
Control Over Discourse
Speaking Frankly About Israel And Palestine
By Jimmy Carter
Los Angeles Times (Excerpt)
12-15-6


I signed a contract with Simon & Schuster two years ago to write a book about the Middle East, based on my personal observations as the Carter Center monitored three elections in Palestine...

The many controversial issues concerning Palestine and the path to peace for Israel are intensely debated among Israelis and throughout other nations - but not in the United States.

For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices.

It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians. Very few would ever deign to visit the Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Gaza City or even Bethlehem and talk to the beleaguered residents.

What is even more difficult to comprehend is why the editorial pages of the major newspapers and magazines in the United States exercise similar self-restraint, quite contrary to private assessments expressed quite forcefully by their correspondents in the Holy Land.

...Although I have spent only a week or so on a book tour so far, it is already possible to judge public and media reaction. Sales are brisk, and I have had interesting interviews on TV, including "Larry King Live," "Hardball," "Meet the Press," "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," the "Charlie Rose" show, C-SPAN and others.

But I have seen few news stories in major newspapers about what I have written.

Book reviews in the mainstream media have been written mostly by representatives of Jewish organizations who would be unlikely to visit the occupied territories, and their primary criticism is that the book is anti-Israel.

Two members of Congress have been publicly critical. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for instance, issued a statement (before the book was published) saying that "he does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel." ...Alan Dershowitz called the book's title "indecent."

Out in the real world, however, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I've signed books in five stores, with more than 1,000 buyers at each site. I've had one negative remark - that I should be tried for treason - and one caller on C-SPAN said that I was an anti-Semite.

My most troubling experience has been the rejection of my offers to speak, for free, about the book on university campuses with high Jewish enrollment and to answer questions from students and professors.

...The book describes the abominable oppression and persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories, with a rigid system of required passes and strict segregation between Palestine's citizens and Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

An enormous imprisonment wall is now under construction, snaking through what is left of Palestine to encompass more and more land for Israeli settlers. In many ways, this is more oppressive than what blacks lived under in South Africa during apartheid.

...the motivation is ...the desire of a minority of Israelis to confiscate and colonize choice sites in Palestine, and then to forcefully suppress any objections from the displaced citizens.

...in (Arab) East Jerusalem...under severe Israeli restraints, only about 2% of registered voters managed to cast ballots (in the last election)...
=========
YOU GO JIMMY!

Saladin said...

Omissions In The Iraq
Study Group Report


...what's most striking about the ISG report isn't what it says but what it leaves out. Beginning in 1991, the US conducted an unending war of aggression in two phases, with a dozen years of punishing and unjustifiable sanctions sandwiched between them, against a country posing no threat to us or its neighbors following its long and costly war in the 1980s with Iran (that the US urged Saddam to wage and supported him throughout) from which it needed financial help to recover but hadn't gotten enough to make a significant difference. It began after Saddam misread US intentions regarding his troubled relations with Kuwait, allowing himself to be deceived by the first Bush administration into believing we had no interest in how he chose to settle his justifiable dispute which Washington had a hand in creating.

It doesn't matter what was proposed on December 6 or that there's no chance it can work any better than current policy. That's for the next administration in 2009 to worry about. What does matter is to convince the public it's a new course, even though it's only smoke and mirrors, and one sensible enough to work that will end the US occupation and involvement in the country but at an unspecified time left unstated because there is none or any intention to leave the country or give up control of its oil treasure. Just like in the run-up to the March, 2003 attack and invasion, the public again has been had, and it remains to be seen how long it will take for it to catch on and continue opposing an illegal war of aggression that never should have been waged in the first place.

How could a nation born as a great democratic experiment rebelling against the divine right of monarchs become instead now one worshipping the divine right of capital and capable of being even more repressive. Ben Franklin warned about this early on saying "(The US Constitution) is likely to be administered for a course of years and then end in despotism....when the people shall become so corrupted as to need (or not be vigilant enough to prevent) despotic government, being incapable of any other."

Much earlier, Roman historian Tacitus explained what then happens: "They (pillage) the world. When the land has nothing left for men who ravage everything, they scour the sea. They....are greedy....they crave glory....They covet wealth....They plunder, they butcher, they ravish, and call it....'empire.' They make a desert and call it peace." Today they pillage, destroy and enslave in serfdom and call it democracy. They believe it's their right, divine or otherwise, and their cause is just. They lead this nation, and the rest of the world trembles and suffers dearly as long as they rule. The Iraq conflict is just their latest excursion to satisfy their insatiable lust for more wealth, power and glory...
=========
Excellent essay with a lot of background on baker. The usual suspects up to the usual bullshit.

capt said...

Byrd-Obey Approps Move Puzzles OMB, Lobbyists



The announcement this week that the new Democratic Congress will eliminate all 2007 spending earmarks and instead pass a stopgap measure to keep the government funded for the entirety of this fiscal year has caused widespread confusion and anxiety, both within the Bush administration and on K Street, as lobbyists scramble to figure out how their clients will be affected.

More HERE

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

"how their clients will be affected"

I hope it doesn't mean the lobbyists just change who they have to bribe.


capt

capt said...

Nearly 700,000 customers in Washington and Oregon still had no power Saturday, and utilities said some might have to wait into next week for their lights to go back on.


I hope everybody up there has candles and firewood.


capt

capt said...

Winning hearts and minds



As you may recall, one of the primary "justifications" for invading Iraq was that we were going to reduce anti-American resentment in the Middle East -- which fuels terrorist recruitment -- and therefore make the world safer for our country. They were going to so appreciate everything we did for Iraq and Afghanistan that they would realize how great we were, like us much more, and therefore not want to attack us anymore. How is that going?

Attitudes toward the U.S. from those in the Arab world have suffered greatly as a result of American foreign policy in the region, according to an Arab American Institute/Zogby International poll released today . . .

In 2002, the favorability rating of the U.S. among Moroccans was 38%. Now it's 7%.

In 2002, the favorability rating of the U.S. among Jordanians was 34%. Now it's 5%.

In 2002, the favorability rating for the U.S. among Saudis and Egyptians was already so low -- 12% and 15% -- that it basically could not go any lower. And it has not, but it certainly has not improved either after four years of our grand wars of "liberation."

In particular, support for our "Iraq policy" commands 2% of the Saudi population (96% disapprove), 6% of Moroccans (93% disapprove), and 7% of Jordanians (86% disapprove). Those approval numbers are slightly higher -- slightly -- in Lebanon (16-73%) and Egypt (25-50%).

It is worth recalling here that the idea of winning Muslim "hearts and minds" in the Middle East was not the solution invented at an International Solidarity Conference sponsored by Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, Kofi Annan, and Fidel Castro. This was the paramount goal which warmonger neoconservative insisted justified our invasion of Iraq and which President Bush himself has repeatedly identified as the central objective in our Epic Worldwide War of Civilizations.

More HERE

capt said...

God grant, that not only the love of liberty, but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man, may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface, and say, This is my country." : Benjamin Franklin to David Hartley, 4 December 1789

=
We need a type of patriotism that recognizes the virtues of those who are opposed to us. We must get away from the idea that America is to be the leader of the world in everything. She can lead in some things. The old "manifest destiny" idea ought to be modified so that each nation has the manifest destiny to do the best it can - and that without cant, without the assumption of self- righteousness and with a desire to learn to the uttermost from other nations: Francis John McConnell

=
"The most commom way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any": Alice Walker


===

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Thanks ICH Newsletter!

Saladin said...

Jimmy Carter: Jew-Hater, Genocide-Enabler, Liar
By David Horowitz
Front Page Magazine

There really isn't any need to copy/paste more, the title pretty much says it all. This guy's grasp of history is tenuous at best, and outright poppycock to say the least.

Ivory Bill Woodpecker said...

The establishment Democrats are not convinced that a majority of the public has truly rejected the war, and so when our inevitable defeat arrives in inarguable fashion, the Mad Right will crank up its Mighty Wurlitzer--as indeed it's already doing--to blame the liberals and/or Democrats [who are not identical groups] for the defeat. The Democrats don't want to give them any room to make that case. They remember all too well how the "stab-in-the-back" myth was used effectively against them. Hence, they fear to cut the funding to force Commander Codpiece to bring the troops home-so our troops, their allies, and all those luckless Iraqis caught in the middle continue to suffer.

I wish Monica, or some public-spirited citizen(s) would give Dubya and Cheney BJs, since apparently that's the only thing for which we can impeach Executive Branch bigwigs now.

I must go off to bed nowzzzzzzz....

Somnambulistically yours, IBW

David B. Benson said...

capt --- "Baby, its cold outside..." Actually escaped the worst of it here. I was only without power for about 3/4 hour.

Saladin said...

"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer."
---Henry Kissinger, New York Times, October 28, 1973
========
Actually, it didn't really take that long.

Saladin said...

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. When you give up that force, you are ruined."

Patrick Henry
=======
As I recall from Patrick's writings, he did not have much faith in the perserverance of our constitution, guess he was right.

David B. Benson said...

Benjamin Franklin was asked, after some constituional deliberation, "What kind of government are you giving us, Mr. Franklin?"

He replyed, "A republic, if you can keep it!"

Saladin said...

Here is a cool article on the Winter Solstice, really my reason for celebration.

Winter Solstice: A Triumph For Light On The Darkest Day Of The Year
Source: Newtown Bee
URL Source: http://www.newtownbee.com/Features. ... ures-2006-12-14-12-44-28p1.htm
Published: Dec 15, 2006
Author: Curtiss Clark

Two years ago, at dawn on a cold December morning, Kate and I piled rocks and stones into two cairns under an old maple tree in the yard. The tree stands at the crest of the hill that our property straddles. We were marking two points on a line to the southeast - a line that when extrapolated to the horizon hit the deep red bull's-eye of the rising sun. It was the beginning of the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice. The sunrise was at the southern terminus of its annual journey up and down the eastern horizon.

Long before there was a month of December, more than 5,000 years ago, a remarkable tomb was constructed in a kidney-shaped mound atop a hill in what is today Newgrange, Ireland, about 30 miles northwest of Dublin. The cruciform chamber at the heart of the mound lies at the end of a narrow 62-foot passage. On the winter solstice, at four and a half minutes after sunrise, the rays of the sun slip through a slit above the door and pierce the passageway, illuminating carved designs in the chamber.

Modern day astronomers have calculated an adjustment for the slight change in the earth's tilt over the past 5,000 years and found the same effect would have occurred for the tomb's Stone Age builders four and a half minutes earlier, precisely at sunrise.

When and where the sun rises and sets isn't so critical to us these days. Our homes and workplaces are well lit, and notwithstanding all the articles on seasonal affective disorder that crop up at this time of year, most of us make it through the dark days of winter without any lasting ill effects. Frankly, it seems like the toughest days of winter don't come right at the beginning of the season, when there are the fewest hours of sunlight, but later on in February and early March when the days are longer but winter's icy grip seems to have us by the throat.

Now, in December, we use the darkness as an adornment, wrapping holiday lights in its deep mystery and taking refuge in the heat and comfort of flickering firelight. Our days are swaddled in twilight at this time of year, and there is a magic to it.

Once you draw a bead on the winter solstice, as we have done with our cairns, you will notice how long it takes the sun to slow and turn around. The sun rises in roughly the same place on the horizon for nearly a week before it shifts its momentum northward toward the vernal equinox. The word solstice comes to us from the Latin sol stetit, which means "the sun stands still."

Using our backyard line-of-sight method, we would never know that the winter solstice occurs this year at precisely 7:22 pm Eastern Time on December 21. That day will be 9 hours and 11 minutes long, and the sun will climb just 25 degrees above the horizon and will shine with a power of 455 watts per square meter at noon. Compare that with the summer solstice on June 21 when the day will be 15 hours and 10 minutes long, and the sun will be 72 degrees above the horizon at noon generating 1,167 watts per square meter at noon.

These calculations are made using modern mathematics and physics and are beyond my reckoning. (I got them by plugging our longitude and latitude into an online photoperiod calculator.) But there is a light-measuring device entombed deep in the brains of mammals that notes the changing tilt of the world in relation to the sun. It triggers a variety of behaviors from breeding and feeding to migrations and hibernations.

The interplay of light and dark travels down the narrow passageway of the optic nerve from the retina through the hypothalamus to the tiny chamber of the pineal gland. Instead of revealing carved designs, however, light regulates the production of the hormone melatonin by the pineal. Melatonin production is suppressed during the day and released at night. Researchers have found that this hormone plays a key role in regulating both circadian (daily) rhythms, including sleep and wakefulness, and circannual cycles that induce specific seasonal behaviors at the same time each year.

The length of the days, when combined with changing temperatures, exert a profound influence on all living things. But what about us? We humans are encased in our illuminated living spaces during cold dark periods. Are we still affected by the ancient rhythms and cycles of the world as our ancestors were 5,000 years ago? The researchers say yes ... and no.

As everyone knows, we are susceptible to seasonal behaviors, like cutting down fir trees and dragging them inside in December. But human biology doesn't appear to pay much attention to the calendar. We don't migrate to breeding grounds, or hibernate, or feel compelled to fast or feed on a seasonal schedule.

Melatonin does suffuse our blood each night, but for about half of us, our melatonin levels are not affected in the least by the length of days. That would be the half of us who are men. Women are another story.

Dr Thomas A. Wehr, a leading researcher on human biological clocks working at the National Institute of Mental Health ten years ago, studied "photoperiodicity" in humans and found that melatonin levels in men was the same at the winter solstice as it was at the summer solstice. Women, on the other hand, showed marked differences in the production of melatonin corresponding with the tilting of the world from dark to light in its annual circuit of the sun.

Dr Wehr's study suggests that men may be more sensitive to artificial lighting than women. His findings also tie in with statistics that show that women are far more likely to suffer from seasonal affective disorder. Yet there is something in the blood of men and women alike that draws us to reflect on the universal at this time of year.

The triumph of the sun over darkness is celebrated year after year on the winter solstice. It is easy to understand how the pagan rites observed at Newgrange in Ireland, at Stonehenge in England, and at countless other locations on the globe, less durable and long forgotten, led directly to the choice of December 25 as the appropriate date to celebrate the historically undetermined date of the birth of Christ. The light of the world returns again and again in midwinter. Weather permitting, Kate and I will be standing in line with two cairns on the morning of December 21 awaiting its arrival.

David B. Benson said...

saladin --- Oh, you pagan!

Actually, that is a nice piece on the Winter Soltice (which is not the first day of winter...)

capt said...

Melatonin:

Has been used to help addicts break a drug habit with some success - it is suppose to help with quitting cigarettes too.

On the light - SAD:

S = Seasonal
A = Affective
D = Disorder

From - Wikipedia

"Seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, also known as winter depression is an affective, or mood disorder. Most SAD sufferers experience normal mental health throughout most of the year, but experience depressive symptoms in the winter or summer."

*****

On the subject of light and length of days

capt

capt said...

DB,

Glad to hear you did not get the worst of it.

I have a paranoia about the electricity going off. Turn off the juice for a few days and it really reminds us how much we rely on the grid.

One more thing to respect about the Amish.


capt

Hajji said...

Saladin,

I can't believe that McCain's handlers would let him get out in front on this. While it may be a good way to pander to the ultra-right, it can't be good for his support from boy-bending evangelicals, CAN IT? I mean that's like 50% of the 30%, isn't it?

-T

-T

capt said...

Hajji,

Ain't pandering a bitch?

Old Johnny McCain did a few ads for Heather Wilson - his good friend. UGH!


capt

Hajji said...

If you think McCain's effort to stop the menace of free expression is bad...

THIS GUY wants to prosecute people who pray before getting on an Airplane!!!

-T

O'Reilly said...

If you had launched a war on false premises and thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were dead as a result wouldn't you expect to be impeached?

Saladin said...

Dr. Benson, how do we determine the exact first day of winter? Today was the first snowfall here at my elevation of 5000 feet, does that mean it is winter time? I don't know but I really like the pagan idea! I am definitely a pagan where the seasons are concerned, they were far more in tune than the so-called "modern" people are in relation to the earth and it's seasons. May the Solstice and Equinox reign! After all, it really does define all that we do, whether we like it or not.
Hajji, mccain, go figure, he is a freak and he really scares me. Just imagine the choice between him and hillary, UGH BIG TIME!

Hajji said...

Saladin,

I dunno 'bout Hillar(ious), but The money on Barak HUSSEIN Obama went from 15% likely to 22% likely to win the Demo nomination in about a week.

"Stand by yer Man-Hillary" dropped from somewhere in the 50's to somewhere lower...

2006 was the election of "Anything different is a winner".

I don't know how Hillary, Barak or ANY Dem would do in MY state (where people are STILL voting for Strom Thurmond, out of habit), but I CAN tell you that the faces on folks I tell Bush, McCain et al are all about INCREASING TROOPS in Iraq are anything but supportive.

With Bayah out, the Dems in MY state, will be forced to choose between a WOE-MAN or a man whose father was black (making him a "nigger" no matter what).

Edwards will win the SC primary (again) like he'll win most red-state dem primaries.

The Obama machine has a long, long, long way to run, but surviveability in the primaries is only one measure of "electability".

I haven't read Obama's books yet, but he's definitely turning some heads, even those of southern conservatives.

I see his books in the hands of the same people I see with Bill O'liely and Ann Cuntler books.

It will be interesting. Now it is simply too early to tell.

-T

Hajji said...

Here's my response to an 'electability" post.



If the time is not NOW for Obama then when?

Another + /- 1% election with questionable results?

Another Clinton or Bush or some octogenarian Senator?

The time is NOW for a passionate Dem who knows how to move and motivate We The People to make amends for our goverments’ foibles over the past half-century!

The time is NOW for a popular uprising against DC K-Street and NY Wall-Street business-as-usual to the detriment of the nation!

The time is NOW for a strong wind, fanned by the Declarations of our nation’s founders to shake the diseased limbs of the establishment tree to make room for a NEW growth from the roots of the Constitution!

If not NOW, then WHEN?

If not Barak Obama, then WHO?

_______________

Maybe if Dennis Kucinich looked more like Christopher Reeve and less like Some Martin Shot Character...well...maybe...

Saladin said...

Hajji, so I can stay true to my "devil's advocate" role, here is my parting shot for today, god I hate the ruling elite, but what can ya do?

Come 2008, Will Kucinich and the “New Democrats” Fool Us Again?
Kurt Nimmo, Another Day In the Empire


It’s the old same old in Washington.

Democrats, worried about not appearing "hawkish" enough—that is willing to invade small countries and slaughter large numbers of innocents—are attempting to out-neocon the perfidious neocons.

"If you think a new wind is blowing in Washington in terms of security issues because the Democrats are going to take over Congress, you probably have another think coming," Christopher Hellman of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation told OneWorld, according to Aaron Glantz.

Of course, "security issues" translates into more war and more money squandered on antiquated defense systems, not needed since the fall of the Soviet Union, or rather not needed by the American people but certainly needed by the likes of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Science Applications International Corp., General Dynamics, and last but not least, Halliburton.

Out of this murk steps, once again—call it a yawn-inspiring re-run—Ohio Democrat Congress critter Dennis Kucinich, who tells us he will seek the presidential nomination come 2008.

"In announcing his candidacy, Kucinich voiced concern that the Democratic leadership’s continued support for the occupation of Iraq was discrediting the party and placing it on a collision course with tens of millions of voters who repudiated the war in the elections," writes Jerry White.

Of course, the Democrat leadership, aforementioned as neocon lite, care not they are on "a collision course with tens of millions of voters who repudiated the war in the elections."

Since when do Democrats and Republicans care about what the American people want?

Kucinich represents a feeble attempt to reform the Democrats and turn them back to their supposed "people’s party" roots. He is joined by a predictable cadre of so-called progressives, including "left-liberal forces such as the Nation magazine and the 'World Can’t Wait’ and 'United For Peace & Justice’ coalitions, which promote the conception that protests and pressure will move the Democrats to the left," a flight of fancy if there ever was one.

You’d think these folks would have learned their lesson back in 2004...
===========
Jeez, I want to have some hope, but are these people serious? I find it harder every day to feel it when someone like Obama advocates nuking Iran. Read this essay, you will see what I mean. Goodnight all.

O'Reilly said...

"Former White House official Mary Matalin makes a holiday plea to provide 'urgent financial support to a good conservative, a true patriot and a loyal friend who is coming under attack' -- I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby."

Coming under attack, eh? That's why Matalin gets the big bucks as politcal consultant. Here in reality world, we call it 'under indictment' and 'probable cause', and we call Scooter Libby an alleged criminal.

If you've heard of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) you know it was their job to 'sell' the Iraq war like a new product... you remember, aluminum tubes for uranium centrifuges, mass quantities of uranium from Niger and the kicker 'we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.' That was the work of the WHIG and Mary Matalin was a member.

Anyway, I encourage loyal republicans to donate freely to the Scoter Libby defense fund because he deserves the best defense money can buy. And conversely, the american public deserves the best prosecution in the name of justice, in our country of L A W S. Make no mistake, if Bush does not interfere, the people will be ably represented by one of finest criminal prosecutors of our day,
Fitzy!

Fitzy loves his job, bringing criminals to justice, whether they're mob bosses, extremist islamic terrorists, or garden variety criminally corrupt politiicans. Fitzy got his law degree at Harvard and prosecuted cases in Manhattan for many years before his appointment as US Attorney in Chicago. Scooter Libby on the other hand earned his law degree at Columbia. I've still been unable to locate the precedent that permits lying to FBI investigators and grand juries under oath in situtations where you 'misremember' due to an extrordinary workload of national security issues... but hopefully (but Libby hopes) Libby's attorney has.

The mmust be hoping the case gets kicked, Bush pardons, or they get a stupid jury or one that chooses jury nullification becuase I don;t anybody that would buy into that mularkey. It even sounds stupid. I misremembered. I mean seriously. I forgot so I made it up. I didn't think I forgot but I did. HUH?

If there is one small measure of justice in this fiasco called BushCo, perhaps Liby's conviction will be it.

O'Reilly said...

There was a least one light moment in the O'Donnell interview, however.

O'Donnell: "I had heard you say you do a lot of Christmas shopping online. So do you use a pseudonym, and do you send the stuff to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave?"

Bush: "No, I use a pseudonym and I send it to another address."

O'Donnell: "Oh, do you?"

Bush: "An undisclosed location."

O'Donnell: "And then Cheney brings them over, right?"

O'Reilly said...

Speaking strictly as a paranoid Jew, I want my celebrity anti-Semites to be loaded mega-stars screaming into the night by the side of a road. How much more disturbing would it be to hear, say, Wilfred Brimley making the same racist claims over a bowl of groats, sober as a judge?

more

capt said...

UK defends decision to stop inquiry: Saudi arms deal



How the big business in affluent countries procures multi-billion dollar defence deals from the oil rich Middle East countries using big buck bribes and how their governments ignore the alleged frauds in the ‘national interest’ was on display here for the whole world to see as the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) was stopped on Thursday from investigating into the alleged wrong doings by a British company in a deal to sell weapon systems to Saudi Arabia.

The alleged bribes from Britain’s prime defence contractor were part of the £40 billion al-Yamamah contract for BAE to supply the Royal Saudi Airforce with 200 Tornado fighter jets. The Saudi royal family was understood to be furious that the SFO has been allowed to rake through the al-Yamamah deal and embarrass senior members who were involved in the procurement.

The Saudis threatened to cancel a £10 billion agreement signed with the British Government and BAE only three months ago. This deal will lead to BAE supplying the Saudis with 72 Typhoon Eurofighters and the total value of the contract could be worth as much as £20 billion over the 20-year life of the programme.

The SFO refused to comment on the development but issued a statement: "It has been necessary to balance the need to maintain the rule of law against the wider public interest."

More HERE

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

Would that be trading justice for security? We are talking about the Saudis and multi-billion dollar defense deals. That is for the Saudis to defend themselves from whom?



capt

Gerald said...

Does not include wars

A good way to piss away money!!!

capt said...

"It's shaking up our view of the solar system condensation process," said Hope Ishii, one of the Livermore Stardust researchers. "It's been pretty intense. It opens up a whole bunch of new questions."

Gerald said...

The idiot still has a chance

Gerald said...

Bush and Spending make me puke

capt said...

McCain starts to feel fallout from Iraq



The popularity of John McCain, the decorated Vietnam veteran and strong contender for the Republican 2008 presidential nomination, is being undermined by his support for the Iraq war.

As he took his undeclared White House campaign to Baghdad, among a congressional delegation to Iraq, the Arizona senator called for the deployment of up to 35,000 more US troops and made clear that he opposed a timetable for withdrawal.

Yet even as Mr McCain, 70, was talking to US commanders and Iraqi leaders in the Green Zone, troubling poll data for his White House hopes were emerging at home. Among independent voters, his strongest backers in his previous tilt at the nomination, support has slipped 15 per cent since March.

The figures reveal the stark dilemma facing would-be Republican candidates to succeed President George W Bush in the 2008 election, for which the party's big-hitters are already limbering up.

None can afford to be seen as soft on security or foreign affairs, yet the kind of voters who are likely to swing the result are increasingly tired of America's intervention.


More HERE

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

Maybe this is a good thing. Watch McCain crash and burn just by talking about a troop increase. It won't stop Bunnypants from wasting more lives and money but it might wake a few more people to the insanity.




capt

Robert S said...

Being that I've not commented here in a couple of days, let me first mention that I find Mr. Corn's inability to understand how impeachment might be a healing excersize, let me posit the following. If America is to be respected in the rest of the World Community, we must hold accountable those of us who flagrantly flout International norms, conventions and laws, all of which the Bush Maladministration has done.

As Robert Jackson noted:

# "The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials, and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections." - Opinion for the Court in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)

# "Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard." - from the Barnette opinion

# "We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war, for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy."

# "If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us." - Nuremberg Tribunal

"We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well." - Nuremberg Tribunal

All quotes by Robert Houghwout Jackson (February 13, 1892–October 9, 1954) was United States Attorney General (1940–1941) and an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court (1941–1954). He was also the chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials.

*************************

It is within this context, within this history, that those who dare advocate against impeachment argue. It is the deliberate closing of ones eyes for political expedience. It is deplorable and is to be condemned at all levels in the strongest of terms.

To heal, one must first identify the the disease, isolate the pathogen and remove it. Let's do so.

Robert S said...

Protesters Denounce Police Killing

The police had set up metal barricades to confine the marchers to a single traffic lane, but the throng quickly swelled beyond expectations and the barricades were shifted to widen the line of march to four of the five lanes on Fifth Avenue and five of the six on 34th Street. Traffic on side streets leading to the march was halted as the protesters swept on.

Here and there, marchers shouted “No shopping, no justice,” or “Shot” and numbers from 1 to 50. Others carried signs proclaiming: “Stop NYPD Racist Terror,” and “Justice for Sean Bell.” But most stared straight ahead, ignoring those on the other side of the barricades.

The size of the protest, strung out for 10 blocks, was anybody’s guess. The organizers said thousands marched. The police, as is customary, gave no estimate. In any case, there were no confrontations, arrests or untoward incidents during the march, the police said.

“We’re not coming to buy toys, we’re not coming to buy trinkets — we’re coming to shop for justice,” Mr. Sharpton, a man never at a loss for words, said at a morning rally in Harlem, explaining what could not be said in a nonverbal march. “Our presence is a bigger statement than anything we could ever say with our mouths.”

In Midtown, shoppers gawked. Tourists snapped pictures and wondered what it was all about. Salvation Army carolers sang on, and the protesters, who had been admonished repeatedly by organizers to remain silent, kept discipline only in the front ranks, where members of Congress, the Legislature, the City Council and other V.I.P.s marched alongside a stone-faced Mr. Sharpton.

“It’s New York, you always see crazy things,” Margaret Rajnik, a nurse from Atlantic City, said at Rockefeller Center, where mobs of shoppers jammed the plaza in front of the skating rink, the giant Christmas tree and the golden Prometheus.

A sampling of shoppers found many against the protest. “We just came here to go shopping at the American Girl store and go see the Rockettes,” said Cherrie Ostigui, 38, of Odenton, Md. “Now we can’t even cross the street to get our lunch.”

Steve Diomopoulos, 22, a student from Livonia, Mich., called it “a weird time to be doing this,” and added: “It’s an inconvenience to people like myself who came from out of town and want to get some Christmas shopping done. It’s almost like a hostile atmosphere. I don’t think that’s what people came here to see.”

More>

****************************

It's almost like a hostile atmosphere...Just as many communities of color feel about the police presence in their neighborhoods.

But, never expect that the 5th Avenue tourist or shopper would understand, the police are there to protect and serve that class. When their children or they themselves are caught with contraband they can lawyer their way out, the police are there to put others away, not their own.

The Drug Laws exist to perpetuate the system, feed the black market and money laundering, finance covert action, everything but to protect the communities most at risk. End the War on Some Drugs. Stop Police Brutality.

kathleen said...

Saladin I read the article about Carter that you posted, "Carter Decries Zionist Control over Discourse. Speaking frankly about Israel and Palestine".

Went over to "Campus Watch" the group that has been intimidating and threatening people on campuses request/demand that their

Micheal Rubin is now attacking Juan Cole!

Old MESA President [on Juan Cole]
by Michael Rubin
NRO's Corner Blog
December 11, 2006
=

The Middle East Studies Association (MESA) is soliciting funding "to protect academic freedom." The MESA committee on academic freedom may want to question its former president Juan Cole who wrote and never retracted that "The FBI should investigate how [Walid] Phares…became the 'terrorism analyst' at MSNBC." By imposing a political litmus test on academic freedom—and by remaining silent when its officer for reasons of political disagreement or professional jealousy calls for criminalization of speech—MESA makes a mockery of the academic freedom it claims to support.

Note: Articles listed under "Middle East Studies in the News" provide information on current developments concerning Middle East studies on North American campuses. These reports do not necessarily reflect the views of Campus Watch and do not necessarily correspond to Campus Watch's critique.

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kathleen said...

Folks should approach any university's in their towns and ask them to bring Carter to their university.

Closely monitor the response from any organizations, Professors or faculty that attempt to block Carter from coming to the campus.

Watch Campus Watch!

BRING CARTER TO YOUR CAMPUS OR TOWN!

kathleen said...

The reactions to Carter's book, prove one of Carters's core points. If you challenge the Israeli lobby or Israel they will ruthlessly attack, or quit!

President Jimmy Carter, Emory University President Jim Wagner, and Dr. John Hardman, Executive Director of the Carter Center resigning my position, effectively immediately, as Middle East Fellow of the Carter Center of Emory University. This ends my 23 year association with an institution that in some small way I helped shape and develop.

My joint academic position in Emory College in the History and Political Science Departments, and, as Director of the Emory Institute for the Study of Modern Israel remains unchanged.

Many still believe that I have an active association with the Center and, act as an adviser to President Carter, neither is the case. President Carter has intermittently continued to come to the Arab-Israeli Conflict class I teach in Emory College. He gives undergraduate students a fine first hand recollection of the Begin-Sadat negotiations of the late 1970s. Since I left the Center physically thirteen years ago, the Middle East program of the Center has waned as has my status as a Carter Center Fellow. For the record, I had nothing to do with the research, preparation, writing, or review of President Carter's recent publication. Any material which he used from the book we did together in 1984, The Blood of Abraham, he used unilaterally. President Carter's book on the Middle East, a title too inflammatory to even print, is not based on unvarnished analyses; it is replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments. Aside from the one-sided nature of the book, meant to provoke, there are recollections cited from meetings where I was the third person in the room, and my notes of those meetings show little similarity to points claimed in the book. Being a former President does not give one a unique privilege to invent information or to unpack it with cuts, deftly slanted to provide a particular outlook. Having little access to Arabic and Hebrew sources, I believe, clearly handicapped his understanding and analyses of how history has unfolded over the last decade. Falsehoods, if repeated often enough become meta-truths, and they then can become the erroneous baseline for shaping and reinforcing attitudes and for policy-making. The history and interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict is already drowning in half-truths, suppositions, and self-serving myths; more are not necessary. In due course, I shall detail these points and reflect on their origins.

The decade I spent at the Carter Center (1983-1993) as the first permanent Executive Director and as the first Fellow were intellectually enriching for Emory as an institution, the general public, the interns who learned with us, and for me professionally. Setting standards for rigorous interchange and careful analyses spilled out to the other programs that shaped the Center's early years. There was mutual respect for all views; we carefully avoided polemics or special pleading. This book does not hold to those standards. My continued association with the Center leaves the impression that I am sanctioning a series of egregious errors and polemical conclusions which appeared in President Carter's book. I can not allow that impression to stand.

Through Emory College, I have continued my professional commitment to inform students and the general public about the history and politics of Israel, the Middle East, and American policies toward the region. I have tried to remain true to a life-time devotion to scholarly excellence based upon unvarnished analyses and intellectual integrity. I hold fast to the notion that academic settings and those in positions of influence must teach and not preach. Through Emory College, in public lectures, and in OPED writings, I have adhered to the strong belief that history must be presented in context, and understood the way it was, not the way we wish it to be.

In closing, let me thank you for your friendship, past and continuing support for ISMI, and to Emory College. Let me also wish you and your loved ones a happy holiday season, and a healthy and productive new year.

As ever,

Ken

Dr. Kenneth W. Stein

Professor of Contemporary Middle Eastern History, Political Science, and Israeli Studies

Director, Middle East Research Program and Emory Institute for the Study of Modern Israel

1256 Briarcliff Road, Suite A-427N

Atlanta, Georgia 30306

capt said...

RS,

Everybody here has been rocking with the good and timely posts yet I was hoping for your input on the impeachment issue. Your posts are always so reasonable and compelling.

Even if Mr. Corn is not swayed others that read here may very well be and that is a very good thing.





Thanks

capt

kathleen said...

John Berger rallies artists for cultural boycott of Israel


Charlotte Higgins, arts correspondent
Friday December 15, 2006
The Guardian


The celebrated novelist, critic and artist John Berger today calls on British writers and artists to undertake a "cultural boycott" of Israel. In a letter to the Guardian, co-signed by, among others, the artist Cornelia Parker, the musician Brian Eno, and writers Arundhati Roy and Ahdaf Soueif, Berger calls for support for "our Palestinian and Israeli colleagues". He suggests boycott tactics; in his case it meant declining to be published by a large mainstream Israeli publisher, he says.

Yesterday he said of the boycott: "It could be a factor in Israeli policy changing. Of course its effects will not be gigantic but it is a way of not staying silent. It is a very personal call ... a way of encouraging the very courageous Israelis who oppose their government and an encouragement to Palestinians to somehow go on surviving." He made a clear distinction between individuals and state-sponsored events or institutions. "It is not a question of boycotting Israeli artists," he said.
The film-maker Ken Loach, who backs the boycott, said he would not take part in state-sponsored Israeli film festivals.

However, Nicholas Hytner, director of the National Theatre, said: "There are countless Israelis who vehemently oppose their government ... many are artists and academics, and none of them are prevented from expressing their opposition ... It seems profoundly counter-productive to cease contact with precisely that section of Israeli society most likely to provoke a change in direction within Israel."

Richard Eyre, the theatre director, said: "I would have said during apartheid in South Africa sanctions ... were effective, but so many people since then have said they were counterproductive. It's not cut and dried. Anything that boycotts Israel means we are in danger of cutting off access to [those] we should be speaking to."

The playwright Mark Ravenhill said it was good to keep a dialogue open with those challenging the government. "A cultural boycott runs the risk of stopping that dialogue and support." Michael Berkeley, the composer, said: "Sometimes it is only through the arts that a link remains open."

Signatories

kathleen said...

If you have not gone to c-span and watched Rep Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) congressional briefing on the Lancet Report ( 650,ooo Iraqi dead) it is so worthwhile!

Go Watch it let others know. Demand that the media repeat the correct numbers of Iraqi casualties!

O'Reilly said...

George Bush sleeps well at night.

He is not disturbed having starting a long bloody war of aggression justified by non-existent WMDs in Iraq.

He is not disturbed that his war is creating more extremist enemies of the USA in Iraq and coalescing international opinion against the US throughout the muslim and western world.

He is not disturbed that his ill-concieved adventure in IRAQ has been widely and convincingly judged a failure and that no promising solutions exist to make ita success.

He is completely wrapped up in his self-image as a pivotal leader in the fight for freedom in the 21st century, a Churchill figure as it were. He is so completely self-absorbed as a historical figure of consequence that the only options he'll consider must fit within he delusion.

George Bush sleeps well at night. Why wouldn't he? He has no family in Iraq. Ask the famililies with soldiers in Iraq how they're sleeping.

"Double Down" is the new strategy. Add troops to a losing battle to buy time. The strategy is advocated by Kagan, another war-mongering neocon who hasn't been able to absorb the failure of their war-mongering policies. Double Down.

O'Reilly said...

Double Down sounds like an an inconsequential game of 21. Let's call it what it is Military Escalation.

David B. Benson said...

Saladin --- I doubt that it makes much sense to pick a fixed day to begin any season. Indeed, some places on the face of the Earth really only have two seasons, wet and dry.

So whatever day you happen to think winter started for you is just fine. Typically around here winter begins about Thanksgiving day. This year it was the following weekend, to be precise about it.

Robert S said...

Capt.,

My take on impeachment has been expressed many times over, but thanks for the encouragement, just the same, and thanks for the forum.

Thanks also to Jimmy Carter for having the courage to speak for the voiceless in this country.

Here's a little Deja Vu, all over again, for ya folks:

Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation
Words and Music by Tom Paxton

I got a letter from L. B. J.
It said this is your lucky day.
It's time to put your khaki trousers on.
Though it may seem very queer
We've got no jobs to give you here
So we are sending you to Viet Nam

[Cho:]
Lyndon Johnson told the nation,
"Have no fear of escalation.
I am trying everyone to please.
Though it isn't really war,
We're sending fifty thousand more,
To help save Viet nam from Viet Namese."

I jumped off the old troop ship,
And sank in mud up to my hips.
I cussed until the captain called me down.
Never mind how hard it's raining,
Think of all the ground we're gaining,
Just don't take one step outside of town.

[Cho:]

Every night the local gentry,
Sneak out past the sleeping sentry.
They go to join the old VC.
In their nightly little dramas,
They put on their black pajamas,
And come lobbing mortar shells at me.

[Cho:]

We go round in helicopters,
Like a bunch of big grasshoppers,
Searching for the Viet Cong in vain.
They left a note that they had gone.
They had to get down to Saigon,
Their government positions to maintain.

[Cho:]

Well here I sit in this rice paddy,
Wondering about Big Daddy,
And I know that Lyndon loves me so.
Yet how sadly I remember,
Way back yonder in November,
When he said I'd never have to go.

[Cho:]

Robert S said...

Dr. B.

Or Day and Night for that matter!

Robert S said...

US accused of using aid to sway votes in UN security council
Heather Stewart, economics correspondent
Sunday December 17, 2006
The Observer


The US uses its aid budget to bribe those countries which have a vote in the United Nations security council, giving them 59 per cent more cash in years when they have a seat, according to research by economists.

Kofi Annan, the outgoing UN Secretary-General, expressed his frustration at the power the US wields over the UN in his parting speech last week. In a detailed analysis of 50 years of data, Harvard University's Ilyana Kuziemko and Eric Werker provide the clearest evidence yet that money is used by the council's richest member to grease the wheels of diplomacy.

Anti-poverty campaigners reacted angrily to the findings. 'Aid should go to the people who need it, not as a political sweetener,' said Duncan Green of Oxfam. 'In recent years most rich countries have been making progress on this, but showering bribes on developing countries just because they sit on the UN security council is clearly a step backwards.'

Charities often complain that the US uses its aid as a political tool, and this new evidence of what the authors call 'vote-buying' will raise fears about whether the surge of aid money that was promised at last year's Gleneagles G8 summit will be fairly spent.

More.

*****************************

Well, Golly! 50 years of bribery!

David B. Benson said...

Catching up on back reading --- In the 2006 Oct 30 issue of "The Nation", the same issue with David Corn's 'Who's Running Afghan Policy", is a compelling, informative article by Christian Parenti, "Taliban Rising".

What a f**king mess!

Robert S said...

Ronald Reagan's Bloody 'Apocalypto'
By Robert Parry
December 17, 2006


Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto," a violent capture-and-escape movie set 500 years ago in the territory of a fictional Mayan city-state, ends ironically when European explorers arrive and interrupt the final bloody chase.

The surprise appearance of the Europeans was good news for Gibson's hero – distracting his last pursuers – but, as history tells us, the arrival of the Europeans actually escalated the New World's violence, bringing a more mechanized form of slaughter that devastated the Mayas and other native populations.

An even greater irony, however, may be that the U.S. media has done a better job separating fact from fiction about Gibson's movie than in explaining to Americans how some of their most admired modern politicians, including Ronald Reagan, were implicated in a more recent genocide against Mayan tribes in Central America.

America's hand in the later-day slaughter of these Mayas traces back to Dwight Eisenhower's presidency in 1954 when a CIA-engineered coup overthrew the reform-minded Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz.

The coup set in motion waves of murder, torture and assassination against almost anyone or any group deemed leftist, including Mayan tribes in Guatemala's highlands. The violent repression often benefited from U.S. advice and equipment, according to U.S. government documents that were released during the Clinton administration.

More.

******************************

The Cuban Five and US Terrorism
By Michael Parenti and Alicia Jrapko
t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributors
Friday 15 December 2006


December 2006 marks five years since the Cuban Five were sentenced to prison.

In 2001, Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino and René González were unjustly convicted of engaging in "espionage conspiracy" and other charges, and sentenced to terms ranging from 15 years to double life. In fact, they committed no act of espionage against the United States. What they were doing was monitoring Cuban-exile terrorist groups in the USA in an attempt to track and prevent terrorist attacks against Cuba.

It has been eight years since the five men were arrested. And through all that time, "anti-Castro" right-wing terrorist groups have continued to operate with impunity in this country. And the corporate media continue to hail them as "anti-Castro militants" and "freedom fighters," while leaving their nefarious deeds unreported.

Since 1959 Cuba has been subjected to threats, sanctions, invasion, sabotage, and terrorist attacks upon its soil resulting in 3,478 deaths - all organized from within the United States by terrorist groups that are financed, organized, and sheltered by the US national security state.

The US government arrested the Cuban Five for sending information to Havana about terrorist plots and actions being planned against Cuba. Needless to say, the United States government wanted these groups to remain anonymous and free to continue their campaigns of destruction.

The judge who convicted the Five actually admitted the existence of these terror groups. On December 14, 2001, when Judge Lenard sentenced René González to 15 years in prison, she stated: "As a further special condition of supervised release, the defendant is prohibited from associating with or visiting specific places where individuals or groups such as terrorists, members of organizations advocating violence, and organized-crime figures are known to be or frequent." Acknowledging that the terrorist groups were part of the established political landscape in Florida, Judge Lenard did not seem to see a problem. The problem was Gonzalez's gathering information on them.

More.

*************************

Senator Foghorn Leghorn: Uncle Sam, are you now, or have you ever been a terrorist?

Uncle Sam: I take the 5th...

capt said...

The injury we do and the one we suffer are not weighed in the same scales: Aesop, Fables

=
He does not believe who does not live according to his belief: Thomas Fuller

=
In the last analysis we must be judged by what we do and not by what we believe. We are as we behave - Geoffrey L. Rudd, The British Vegetarian, September/October 1962

=
Live truth instead of professing it: Elbert Hubbard

===

Read this newsletter online http://tinyurl.com/dy6yy


Thanks ICH Newsletter!

Saladin said...

"To heal, one must first identify the the disease, isolate the pathogen and remove it. Let's do so."
Robert S, that is just SO perfect! Cheers to you!
D.Benson, I will choose the first day of snow on my roof as the first day of winter, officially yesterday :-)
It is freakin cold here now. Driving up to Portland to visit the family this weekend, everyone please put in a good word for me to the snow gods to hold off a little longer! I really HATE driving in the snow and the Siskiyou pass can be treacherous.

capt said...

"Here's a little Deja Vu, all over again"

If Deja Vu killed . . .


1968 - Nixon elected on the promise of getting our troops out of the quagmire.

Once elected he increased troops and increased bombing because we only needed to get serious and the NVA would come to the table.

1972 Nixon is re-elected on the promise that he would get our troops out of the mess. He increased bombing and I think he even increased the number of troops.

UGH!

It is like the movie groundhogs day all over again.

Make it stop.


capt

PS - We had the slightest dusting of snow last week. Close enough to winter for being in the desert!

David B. Benson said...

Iran has elections this coming Friday. Interesting article with sensible pov in today's Asis Times Online.

Saladin --- Drive s-lo-w-l-y and so safely!

capt said...

Colin Powell takes on St. McCain’s "troop surge"–"The army is broken."



Colin Powell has a lot of problems with the McCain/Lieberman plan. Powell explains that the "last surge" we had was a complete failure, so he's not persuaded a "surge" is going to work without some kind of mission. I beg to differ. No matter what their mission is—it won't make a bit of difference. Where are we going to get the troops that McCain/Lieberman want anyway?

Video-WMP

Video-QT

POWELL: Let’s be clear about something else, Bob, that gets a little confusing. There are really no additional troops. All we would be doing is keeping some of the troops who were there there longer and escalating or accelerating the arrival of other troops.

SCHIEFFER: Let me just ask you about that because… do we have the troops? You seem to be suggesting that we don’t.

POWELL: I’m suggesting that what general Shoemaker said the other day before a committee looking at the reserve and national guard, That the active army is about broken. General Shoemaker is absolutely right. All of my contacts within the army suggest that the army has a serious problem in the active force. (h/t Think Progress for the transcript)

The problem is that after this surge, they'll be another Biden shot and another Friedman and another surge and so on and so on…

More HERE

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

Too bad Powell was a little "Ben Dover" for Bunnypants, a little of the credibility he once had would come in handy right about now.



capt

capt said...

Iraqi Red Crescent accuses US forces



The Iraqi Red Crescent yesterday accused US forces of carrying out a spate of attacks on its offices over the last three years during operations to flush out suspected militants in the country.

Jamal Al Karbouli, vice-president of the Iraqi Red Crescent, charged that in the latest incident, US forces had occupied and nearly destroyed its Falluja office, held staff for hours, and burned two cars clearly marked with its neutral symbol.

More HERE

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

This was yesterday.



capt

capt said...

Then today:

Masked gunmen kidnap 28 Iraqi workers



BAGHDAD -- Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms kidnapped more than two dozen workers from the Baghdad offices of the Red Crescent humanitarian group Sunday and the U.S. military announced the deaths of three more American soldiers.

The gunmen pulled up to the Red Crescent building near downtown Baghdad's Andalus Square about 11:30 a.m. in two police cars and 20 other cars, a spokesman for the medical group said Sunday. Staff members thought the men were police and allowed them to enter the building, he said.

More HERE

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

That will show them to accuse, eh?



capt

capt said...

Harry Reid: Brief troop surge OK in Iraq



While US President Bush is considering several options for a new strategy in Iraq incoming Senate majority leader says he will support temporary troop increase only if it were part of broader strategy to bring combat forces home by early 2008. Retired Gen. Jack Keane says it will take at least one and a half years to secure Iraq


Incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Sunday he would support a temporary troop increase in Iraq only if it were part of a broader strategy to bring combat forces home by early 2008.

"If the commanders on the ground said this is just for a short period of time, we'll go along with that," said Reid, D-Nev., citing a time frame such as two months to three months. But a period longer than that, such as 18 months to 24 months, would be unacceptable, he said.


More HERE

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

Hmm, 2008 is good by Harry too? I am sure impeachment is off the table for him as well.

It seems like the new majorities are going to really pressure Bunnypants to clean up his act by 2008 or they will really think about doing something mad-crazy and go medieval on his crusading bad-self.

What exactly did the Dem's sweep into power on? Do the inside the beltway types think all we wanted was for Rummy to resign?



capt

Saladin said...

Well gosh Capt, the dems swept into power on, um, the major majority of the voting persons who voted to have someone new do the decidering, right? Or somethin like that.

Gerald said...

Nazi America is the most evil nation in the world

Gerald said...

What we leave behind

Gerald said...

Six brutal truths

NO WAR BY ANY NATION IN ANY AGE HAS EVER BEEN DECLARED BY THE PEOPLE. Eugene Debs

POLITICS IS THE WOMB IN WHICH WAR DEVELOPS. Carl P. G. von Clausewitz

Since we love to screw nations, we impregnate the womb with our behaviors to carry out endless wars. Gerald

Gerald said...

Who's our economy for, anyway?

Gerald said...

Waking up in America

Gerald said...

Those right wing supporters of Bush are rubbing their eyes and not only stirring in their sleep, they are jumping out of bed, wide awake, realizing they have been sleeping with an ugly, disgusting truly horrible creature, which they thought was truly beautiful.

Comedian David Brenner describes a man who goes to bed drunk, with a woman. He wakes up and sees she is so ugly, he gnaws his arm off, rather than waking her.

Many conservative Americans are waking up, all of a sudden, realizing that they too, have been in bed with a very ugly beast.

Gerald said...

We are seeing a great awakening here in the US. It's no great win for the Democrats. They're still on probation, and Harry Reid's latest weak response to the Iraq "surge" idea is not a good sign. Meanwhile, Bush's remaining loyalists are dwindling. They are waking up, seeing Bush/Cheney and their enablers, finally, without the mask of delusion they've perceived them with in the past. They are shocked, disgusted, reviled and they are dumping Bush.

Many of the new "wake ups" have no great love for the Democrats. That's a piece of good news for the Republicans. It is likely that a new breed of Republican will emerge, or possibly even a right-leaning new party. It is likely that more and more people will go the way of Libertarianism.

The jury is still out on the Democratic party. They benefitted from the public's dissatisfaction with the Iraq war. It is anything but clear whether they will take the steps necessary to show the voters that they heard. It won't be enough to just deal with the minimum wage or social security.

The Dems, to win the commitment of the people who dumped the Republicans, and those people are mostly independents and moderates, must deal solidly and strongly with Iraq. THey must take a tough stand on the constitution. That means going after Bush on his spying on citizens, his torture of prisoners and his termination of Habeus corpus.

The reason the Dems will have to deal with this is that DEMOCRATS are waking up too. They are not going to settle for the right wing centrist bullshit that DLC sellouts have been pushing. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid had better wake up too. Maybe they have. Maybe they are just biding their time, acting very strategically. We're in a time, for the next few weeks, when it will be hard to tell.

Gerald said...

Gerald is named Time Man of the Year

Since Nora has a better command of the English language, I have asked her to offer you my thoughts about this great honor.

Gerald said...

A Surge of Insanity

Gerald said...

Have you ever heard the expression, "The mor things change, the more they remain the same?" It looks like the Dems are cloned into the likeness of the repugnants?

kathleen said...

Iraq Burns, America Shops and the Israeli firsters keep pushing hard for a pre-emptive strike on Iran! Believe them and Stop them!



“Believe Him and Stop Him”
Ahmadinejad vs. Israel.

By Ilan Berman

Give Mahmoud Ahmadinejad credit for consistency. Since taking office in August of 2005, and despite the long odds, Iran’s firebrand president has made the obliteration of the State of Israel a major governmental priority.


Last August, at a conference in Tehran on the topic of a “World without Zionism,” Ahmadinejad caused an international furor when he declared that Israel should be “wiped off the map.” Such a goal, the Iranian president told his audience, was not far-fetched. Rather, Ahmadinejad reassured listeners, it “can be achieved and can definitely be realized.”

Fast forward nearly a year-and-a-half, and this radical objective has not receded from view. On December 11, amid an international outcry, the Iranian government kicked off a major two-day Holocaust-denial conference in Tehran. The event, dubbed “The Holocaust, Global Vision,” was a virtual who’s-who of racists and anti-Semites, from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke to various discredited “scholars” of Nazi atrocities during World War II.

Given the subject matter and the guest list, it would be tempting to dismiss this gathering as a mostly harmless attention-getting stunt. But the event, like Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial itself, is significant. It has a clear strategic goal: to change the terms of the political debate over Israel in the Middle East.

Tehran’s logic is compelling. While Arab states still may gripe about it, today Israel’s place in the region is not in serious doubt. The outcome of three regional wars in the three decades after Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948 — and major Israeli investments in a “qualitative” military edge, and in strategic partnership with the United States since then — have made sure of that. Of course, regional radicals such as Hamas and al Qaeda continue to refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist. As a practical matter, however, countries in the region are drifting — albeit very slowly — toward political detente with the Jewish state.

But Ahmadinejad clearly hopes that debunking the Holocaust can change all that. By discrediting the formative historical event that laid the groundwork for Israel’s establishment, Iran’s president is attempting to remove the rationale for its presence in the region — and by doing so, nudge Israel’s hostile neighbors into action. Indeed, as Ahmadinejad told conference attendees on December 12, “[t]he Zionist regime will disappear soon, the same way the Soviet Union disappeared” and “humanity will achieve freedom.”

Politicians in Israel are taking notice. “It’s 1938, and Iran is Germany, racing to arm itself with atomic bombs,” former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one of Israel’s most influential politicians, warned an audience in Los Angeles last month. “Believe him and stop him,” Netanyahu said. “This is what we must do. Everything pales before it.”

More and more, Netanyahu’s dire assessment is being echoed within the official Israeli establishment. “I am aware of all of the possible repercussions of a pre-emptive Israeli military action against Iran and consider it a last resort,” Deputy Israeli Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh recently told reporters. “But the last resort is sometimes the only resort.”

All of which is to say that, when coupled with his regime’s very evident nuclear ambitions, Ahmadinejad’s notions of a “world without Zionism” have the very real potential of precipitating a regional conflagration — which, after all, appears to be precisely what the Iranian president has in mind.

— Ilan Berman is vice president for policy at the American Foreign Policy Council and the author of Tehran Rising: Iran’s Challenge to the United States.

Saladin said...

Kathleen, Zionism has been a horrible burden on the world, maybe Israel and the Jewish people in general could finally feel at peace if that extremist political regime, AKA neocons, would just fade away. The same goes for those ruining our country as well.

Saladin said...

Do-It-Yourself Impeachment...

Impeach for Peace, a Minnesota-based impeachment group, has researched a method for impeaching the president using a little known and rarely used part of the Rules of the House of Representatives ("Jefferson’s Manual"). This document actually empowers individual citizens to initiate the impeachment process themselves.

"Jefferson's Manual" is an interpretive guide to parliamentary procedure, and is included (along with the Constitution) in the bound volumes of the Rules of the House of Representatives. It is ratified by each congress (including the current one), and has been updated continuously through the history of our democracy. The section covering impeachment lists the acceptable vehicles for bringing impeachment motions to the floor of the House.
HOLIDAY IMPEACHMENT CARD!

Click here to send your friends/family the gift that keeps on giving. Help deck the halls of congress with accountability!

Before the House Judiciary Committee can put together the Articles of Impeachment, someone must initiate the impeachment procedure. Most often, this occurs when members of the House pass a resolution. Another method outlined in the manual, however, is for individual citizens to submit a memorial for impeachment.

After learning this information, Minnesotan and Impeach for Peace member (Jodin Morey) found precedent in an 1826 memorial by Luke Edward Lawless which had been successful in initiating the impeachment of Federal Judge James H. Peck. Impeach for Peace then used this as a template for their "Do-It-Yourself Impeachment." Now any citizen can download the DIY Impeachment Memorial and submit it, making it possible for Americans to do what our representatives have been unwilling to do. The idea is for so many people to submit the Memorial that it cannot be ignored.

Feel free to download it, print out TWO copies, fill in your relevant information in the blanks (name, State, notary is optional), and send in a letter today. There's also extra credit for sending a DIY Impeachment to your own representative.

Hold on to the other copy of the letter until Jan. 15th (after the new congress) when we're having everyone send them in.

That's right — to make a big impact, we're having everyone send it in on the same date (Over 350,000 downloads so far representing over 1.2 million mailings). We hope to flood the congress with sacks of mail and cause a newsworthy event to further pressure them to act on the memorials. Although, it's important to keep in mind that in the 1830 precedent, impeachment resulted as a result of a single memorial. Yours might be the one.
=============
Go to this site to download the PDF. We don't need Mr. Corn or anyone else telling us this is off the table. We the people are the boss, and it is way past time to give these psychos a pink slip and then start handing out indictments. This might actually work!

O'Reilly said...

Scott McConnell, has a superb article in the current issue [of American Conservative Magazine] which warns that neoconservatives -- though scorned and discredited -- are far from defeated and will have plenty of further opportunities to continue to wreak havoc in our country.

McConnell documents how "resilient and tactically flexible" neoconservatives have been -- they cater themselves and their advocacy opportunistically to fit the prevailing political circumstances -- and have little loyalty to the political figures to which they attach themselves. In the wake of neoconservatism's signature Iraq disaster, it is "likely to present a different public face."

The most current, pressing question is the extent to which they will influence the last two years of the Bush presidency, and in particular whether they will be able to cause escalation in Iraq and additional wars with Iran and/or Syria. McConnell provides an excellent guide of what is likely to come from this most pernicious movement.

more

Gerald said...

Iraq gets its own KKK

The Middle East foreign policy for the axis of evil (America, England, and Israel) is total death and destruction in the Middle East and the genocide of Lebanon and Palestine.

Gerald said...

Nazi America Prevails

Gerald said...

A New Prayer to Learn

Gerald said...

Addendum to Clausewitz

Gerald said...

The truth is that the government doesn't care about its soldiers, and never has. If you think I am being unduly harsh, read the Washington Post. You will find story after story saying that the Democrats don't want to do anything drastic about the war. They fear seeming "soft on national security." In other words, they care more about their electoral prospects in 2008 than they do about the lives of GIs. It's no secret. For them it is a matter of tuning the spin, of covering tracks, of calculating the vector sum of the ardent-patriot vote which may be cooling, deciding which way the liberal wind blows, and staying poised to seem to have supported whoever wins. Screw the troops. Their fathers probably work in factories anyway.

Soldiers do not realize, until too late, the contempt in which they are held by their betters. Here is the psychological foundation of the hobbyist wars of bus-station presidents. If you are, say, a Lance Corporal in some miserable region of Iraq, I have a question for you: Would your commanding general let you date his daughter? I spent my high-school years on a naval base, Dahlgren Naval Proving Ground as it was then called. Dahlgren was heavy with officers, scientists, and engineers. Their daughters, my classmates, were not allowed to associate with sailors. Oh yes, we honor our fighting men. We hold them in endless respect. Yes we do.

For that matter, Lance Corporal, ask how many members of Congress have even served, much less been in combat. Ask how many have children in the armed services. Look around you. Do you see many (any) guys from Harvard? Yale? MIT? Cornell? Exactly. The smart, the well-off, the powerful are not about to risk their irreplaceable sit-parts in combat. Nor are they going to mix with mere high-school graduates, with kids from small towns in Tennessee, with blue-collar riffraff who bowl and drink Bud at places with names like Lenny's Rib Room. One simply doesn't. One has standards.

You are being suckered, gang, just as we were.

Robert S said...


Pot is called biggest cash crop
The $35-billion market value of U.S.-grown cannabis tops that of such heartland staples as corn and hay, a marijuana activist says.
By Eric Bailey, Times Staff Writer
December 18, 2006


SACRAMENTO — For years, activists in the marijuana legalization movement have claimed that cannabis is America's biggest cash crop. Now they're citing government statistics to prove it.

A report released today by a marijuana public policy analyst contends that the market value of pot produced in the U.S. exceeds $35 billion — far more than the crop value of such heartland staples as corn, soybeans and hay, which are the top three legal cash crops.

California is responsible for more than a third of the cannabis harvest, with an estimated production of $13.8 billion that exceeds the value of the state's grapes, vegetables and hay combined — and marijuana is the top cash crop in a dozen states, the report states.

The report estimates that marijuana production has increased tenfold in the past quarter century despite an exhaustive anti-drug effort by law enforcement.

More, (Free LATIMES registration required)

Robert S said...


Former U.S. Detainee in Iraq Recalls Torment
By MICHAEL MOSS
Published: December 18, 2006


One night in mid-April, the steel door clanked shut on detainee No. 200343 at Camp Cropper, the United States military’s maximum-security detention site in Baghdad.

American guards arrived at the man’s cell periodically over the next several days, shackled his hands and feet, blindfolded him and took him to a padded room for interrogation, the detainee said. After an hour or two, he was returned to his cell, fatigued but unable to sleep.

The fluorescent lights in his cell were never turned off, he said. At most hours, heavy metal or country music blared in the corridor. He said he was rousted at random times without explanation and made to stand in his cell. Even lying down, he said, he was kept from covering his face to block out the light, noise and cold. And when he was released after 97 days he was exhausted, depressed and scared.

Detainee 200343 was among thousands of people who have been held and released by the American military in Iraq, and his account of his ordeal has provided one of the few detailed views of the Pentagon’s detention operations since the abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib. Yet in many respects his case is unusual.

The detainee was Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago who went to Iraq as a security contractor. He wound up as a whistle-blower, passing information to the F.B.I. about suspicious activities at the Iraqi security firm where he worked, including what he said was possible illegal weapons trading.

But when American soldiers raided the company at his urging, Mr. Vance and another American who worked there were detained as suspects by the military, which was unaware that Mr. Vance was an informer, according to officials and military documents.

At Camp Cropper, he took notes on his imprisonment and smuggled them out in a Bible.

“Sick, very. Vomited,” he wrote July 3. The next day: “Told no more phone calls til leave.”

Nathan Ertel, the American held with Mr. Vance, brought away military records that shed further light on the detention camp and its secretive tribunals. Those records include a legal memorandum explicitly denying detainees the right to a lawyer at detention hearings to determine whether they should be released or held indefinitely, perhaps for prosecution.

The story told through those records and interviews illuminates the haphazard system of detention and prosecution that has evolved in Iraq, where detainees are often held for long periods without charges or legal representation, and where the authorities struggle to sort through the endless stream of detainees to identify those who pose real threats.

“Even Saddam Hussein had more legal counsel than I ever had,” said Mr. Vance, who said he planned to sue the former defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, on grounds that his constitutional rights had been violated. “While we were detained, we wrote a letter to the camp commandant stating that the same democratic ideals we are trying to instill in the fledgling democratic country of Iraq, from simple due process to the Magna Carta, we are absolutely, positively refusing to follow ourselves.”

More

*************************

So the question to pose here, "What does NOT impeaching this Stipulated War-Criminal say about us as a nation?"

Maybe it is better to say, "If you argue against impeachment, how can you sleep at night?"

"What if your knew her, saw her dead on the ground? How can you run when you KNOW?" - Neil Young

Robert S said...


FBI: Violent Crime Still on Rise in 2006
By LARA JAKES JORDAN
Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Murders and robberies continued to rise across the country during the first six months of 2006, on pace for an increase in violent crime for a second straight year, preliminary FBI data released Monday show.

The overall 3.7 percent uptick in violent crime between January and June comes amid a still-incomplete Justice Department study of 18 cities for clues on why criminal activity is increasing.

Property crimes like auto theft and other larcenies were down by 2.6 percent over the same six-month period, the data show. But the number of arsons shot up by nearly 7 percent, the FBI reported.

***********************


NORML Releases Most Comprehensive Analysis Of US Marijuana Arrest Data To Date
March 11, 2005 - Washington, DC, USA


Washington, DC: US marijuana policies, which rely primarily on criminal penalties and law enforcement, are wholly ineffective at controlling the use and sale of marijuana, concludes a comprehensive report issued today by the NORML Foundation. The report, entitled "Crimes of Indiscretion: Marijuana Arrests in the United States," includes a detailed examination of the fiscal costs associated with the enforcement of marijuana laws at the state and county level, as well as a complete demographic analysis of which Americans are most likely to be arrested for violating marijuana laws.

Among the reports' findings:

* The enforcement of state and local marijuana laws annually costs US taxpayers an estimated $7.6 billion, approximately $10,400 per arrest. Of this total, annual police costs are $3.7 billion, judicial/legal costs are $853 million, and correctional costs are $3.1 billion. In both California and New York, state fiscal costs dedicated to marijuana law enforcement annually total over $1 billion.

More.

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Your tax dollars at work. Or Not.

capt said...

Feel free to post the whole article if you like, especially if reg or sub is required.

The bandwidth here is free so . . .

If the thread gets slow for dial-ups I will make a new one in short order.


capt

Robert S said...


Senators Clinton, Ensign ask Bush to consider Iraq Oil Trust


In a commentary published in Monday's Wall Street Journal, Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and John Ensign (R-NV) ask the Bush Administration to set up an Iraq Oil Trust, so that revenues can be distributed to the country's "ordinary" citizens and to further demonstrate that the United States is not in Iraq just for the sake of oil.

"For the sake of our soldiers and for the future of Iraq, it is time we place greater rights and responsibilities of citizenship in the hands of the Iraqi people," the two Senators write. "This includes a stake in oil revenues, which are central to political reconciliation and an end to the sectarian violence."

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You know, that gives me an idea... Why don't we use some of the natural resource wealth of America to benefit the majority of Americans and not just rich multi-national corporations? Never mind - musta been thinkin' about smokin' somethin' or other.

O'Reilly said...

"It's relatively easy these days to point out all the ways in which George W. Bush has been ill-informed, misguided and wrong about Iraq. And in case you run out of examples, the president provides fresh ones continually. But on one central issue, Bush has been right. He has argued from the start that a modern, liberal democratic Iraq would be an example, an inspiration and a spur for progress in the Middle East. The trouble is, the Iraq of today is having precisely the opposite effect. If Bush wants to save his freedom agenda, he needs to decouple it from Iraq. . . .

"Iraq after Saddam presented a unique opportunity to steer history on a new course. But instead the Bush administration drove it into a ditch. As a result, the effort to create an Iraqi model for the Middle East has failed. No matter what happens over the next year or two, the country has developed into more of a warning about the dangers of democracy than a symbol of its promise. When people around the world--and, most important, in the region--look at Iraq, they see chaos, religious extremism and violence."

- Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek

O'Reilly said...


axis of denial


"It's hard to imagine now, but there was a time when George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were regarded as a national-security dream team, three men perfectly suited to perilous times: the President, instinctive and decisive; the Vice President, a sage and tested Washington veteran; and the Defense Secretary, whose brio and charm were rare and reassuring. Or so it was thought.

"But in 2006, the dream team died, and its members instead became objects of scorn and emblems of failure. Their signature venture -- the Iraq war -- spiraled relentlessly downward into civil war. As it did, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld sealed their fate by diving deeper into denial about the realities on the battlefield."

- James Carney, Time

capt said...

Fresh thread!

O'Reilly said...

D'OH!