Bury Me Broken

Donate to the Red Cross

posted by niteskolar @ 11:59 PM 1 comments

My Last Hurricane Blogging then off to bed

• From AP,"Experts Expect Katrina to Turn New Orleans Into Atlantis, Leaving Up to 1 Million Homeless"

  When Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans on Monday, it could turn one of America's most charming cities into a vast cesspool tainted with toxic chemicals, human waste and even coffins released by floodwaters from the city's legendary cemeteries.
  
  Experts have warned for years that the levees and pumps that usually keep New Orleans dry have no chance against a direct hit by a Category 5 storm.That's exactly what Katrina was as it churned toward the city. With top winds of 160 mph and the power to lift sea level by as much as 28 feet above normal, the storm threatened an environmental disaster of biblical proportions, one that could leave more than 1 million people homeless.




• From AP, "New Orleans Flees, Braces, Prays as Monstrous Hurricane Katrina Bears Down"

  NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A monstrous Hurricane Katrina barreled toward New Orleans on Sunday with 160-mph wind and a threat of a 28-foot storm surge, forcing a mandatory evacuation of the below-sea-level city and prayers for those who remained to face a doomsday scenario.
  
  "Have God on your side, definitely have God on your side," Nancy Noble said as she sat with her puppy and three friends in six lanes of one-way traffic on gridlocked Interstate 10. "It's very frightening."



• From DHinMI at Daily Kos, "Give Money Only, and Give to the Red Cross"

  We had dozens of good diaries on this subject after the tsunami, and Markos and others did frontpage posts on this subject: the best way to help the folks destined to lose everything is to give to the Red Cross, and to give cash.
  
  Unlike the tsunami, there's no question as to what organization is best suited to deal with this catastrophe in this locale: it's the Red Cross. They've already mobilized people from around the country to head to the Gulf region, and they're the best at dispensing aid, assessing needs and getting reconstruction going. They know what they're doing, and while not infalible, they're quite good. There's no need to reinvent the wheel.
  
  And they don't need clothing, or canned goods or anything else. While your impulse to provide such items is admirable, they are experts at logistics, and working with FEMA and whatever other federal and state agencies are involved, they will get what's needed there in bulk much faster. It's actually very expensive for them to deal with contributions that aren't cash.

posted by niteskolar @ 11:46 PM 0 comments

Sunday Evening Round Up

• Boston Globe editorial says Rove has been a dirty trickster for 35 years so the Valerie Plame scandal as Rove helping Bush Iraq policy is probably "far darker."

  Rove's record has been consistent. Over 35 years, he has been a master of dirty tricks, divisiveness, innuendo, manipulation, character assassination, and
  roiling partisanship.
  
  He started early. In 1970, when he was 19 and active as
  a college Republican -- though he didn't graduate from college -- Rove pretended to volunteer for a Democratic candidate in Illinois, stole some campaign stationery, and used it to disrupt a campaign event. Later, in Texas, he gave testimony in court that was embarrassing to an opponent of one of Rove's clients, even though it was not true, according to the book ''Bush's Brain," by two veteran Texas newsmen, James Moore and Wayne Slater.




• Baltimore Sun article says "Heads of black education group at odds":

  The nation's largest organization of minority teachers and school administrators is mired in financial disarray and at risk of going under, according to a recent letter from the group's president faulting its executive director for the crisis and seeking his resignation.
  
  In the past year, however, the organization has come under scrutiny for its relationships with education vendors that sponsor its events, including several companies under federal investigation for allegedly taking advantage of a multibillion-dollar school technology program, with the help of NABSE. Some of the deals with vendors have involved Andre J. Hornsby, who led the group between 2001 and 2003 and resigned in May as superintendent of the Prince George's County schools amid a separate federal investigation into his dealings with an education software company that employed his girlfriend.
  
  NABSE has been told it is not a target of any investigations.



• Kansas church protests the war at soldiers' funerals in Tennessee:

  Most of those who came didn't know the two fallen soldiers personally. Some came for their own loved ones fighting in Iraq. Others heard about a religious group from Kansas who had announced plans to protest at the funerals.
  The Kansans, including children and teenagers, came to promote their beliefs that U.S. soldiers are killed because they defend a country that supports homosexuality. Holding signs proclaiming that "God blew up the troops," the demonstrators were cordoned off by yellow tape near the funeral sites and were watched closely by local law enforcement.



• Terry Neal, in "Military's Recruiting Troubles Extend to Affluent War Supporters", examines military recruitment efforts aimed toward upper middle class "influencers" or parents who support the war but wouldn't send their children:

  This raises all sorts of complicated socioeconomic questions, such as whether the rich expect others to fight their wars for them. Or, asked another way, are they more likely to support the war in Iraq because their families are less likely to carry part of the burden?



• Hurricane Katrina and economic impact, "Analysts See Katrina as 'perfect Storm' for Already High Energy Prices."

posted by niteskolar @ 7:38 PM 0 comments

Saturday Evening Round Up

• Must start with Dan K at DailyKos with a post [Bush and Bolton on Track to Wreck UN Reforms]on global reaction to recess appointed, UN Amb Bolton suggesting 250 changes to a document that has been created over the past 18 months for countries to ratify at the upcoming summit next week.
• From AP: "One US soldier was killed and seven wounded in attacks in southeast
  Afghanistan and near the capital Kabul, the US military said, as American casualties mount during their bloodiest year so far in the country. "
• From AFP:

  "Camp Casey is just that, a camp. This is a fort. This is a war, and we're going to win it," Bill Johnson, 63, told AFP, while sitting in the shade at Fort Qualls, which sits on his property.

Nearby, sweating in the searing Texas summer sun, was Brad Ward, who drove from Austin, Texas, to Crawford early Saturday and waved a sign with a peace symbol on it and the description "Footprint of the American Chicken."


"I'm here to support the president and the troops and honor the fallen hero, Specialist Casey Sheehan, since his mother is disgracing his memory," said Ward, an army veteran who never saw combat because "the Gulf War ended before I could get over there."



• Billmon is in form with his commentary on Pat Robertson with "Bring Me The Head of Hugo Chavez":

  "But then I happened to catch Robertson on the tube giving a speech during the 1988 Republican convention, and I realized he was both a con man and a nut case -- with no clear dividing line between them.'

  [please, please, please check out this post]
  

posted by niteskolar @ 4:15 PM 0 comments

Bush Admin Anti Environment

From the Washington Post via www.truthout.org:

"The United States is pressing to scrap a proposal to have world leaders gathering in New York next month express 'respect for nature.'"

First off, Bolton just got there and we are already off to a flying start. The administration is offended by the expression 'respect for nature.'

I guess this administration's pro-corporation stance is about the only rock solid, successful ageda item they have.

From the New York Times (also via Truthout):

"New York and eight other Northeastern states have reached a tentative agreement on a regional plan to reduce power plant emissions of carbon dioxide, the main global-warming gas."

So basically governors are being responsible for their states and ultimately the country by adopting standards to help the environment. Wow.

posted by niteskolar @ 1:17 AM 0 comments

Teachers Find Federal Testing Most Troublesome

[T]eachers cite compliance with new federal testing requirements as the most serious problem they face - more serious than lack of resources, incompetent administrators, student discipline, and personal safety issues.

The more Americans learn about Washington's new guiding hand in the nation's schools, the less they like it.

More than two-thirds say they don't think that a single test gives a fair picture of whether a school needs improvement, according to a new poll. They also don't believe that students with disabilities should be evaluated by the same standards as other students, the poll found.

posted by niteskolar @ 4:53 PM 1 comments

No Proof Found of Iran Arms Program

Dafna Lizner at the Washington Post reports:

"Traces of bomb-grade uranium found two years ago in Iran came from contaminated Pakistani equipment and are not evidence of a clandestine nuclear weapons program, a group of U.S. government experts and other international scientists has determined.

 "The biggest smoking gun that everyone was waving is now eliminated with these conclusions," said a senior official who discussed the still-confidential findings on the condition of anonymity.

Scientists from the United States, France, Japan, Britain and Russia met in secret during the past nine months to pore over data collected by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to U.S. and foreign officials. Recently, the group, whose existence had not been previously reported, definitively matched samples of the highly enriched uranium -- a key ingredient for a nuclear weapon -- with centrifuge equipment turned over by the government of Pakistan."

President Bush was just talking about military intervention as one of the options on the table to compel Iran to cooperate with international stipulations for their nuclear program. Today we receive the revelation that the "smoking gun" of which we were sure signified a clandestine nuclear program was what Iran had said all alone.

Of course, iraq said it had no nuclear program either. I remember when it produced a document of several thousand pages stipulating its compliance only for pages to be blacked out for national security reasons, I believe. Anyway, they said they had no nuclear program but got a war for their troubles.

Thank goodness our war has stretched thin a volunteer army and that this noble cause doesn't warrant a draft. Otherwise, I might be gearing up to bomb Tehran while watching Darfur like a Friday summer blockbuster, in horror.

posted by niteskolar @ 3:55 AM 0 comments

Bush Admin Mistakes: Unintelligent Design

Spoofing Intelligent Design, Linwood Barclay at www.thestar.com says Bush administratiom mistakes are the result of a "a kind of doofus-like cosmic force."

"More and more, it seems unlikely that mere human beings could make this many mistakes without some sort of misguiding force, a kind of supernatural entity that has trouble remembering where it put its car keys.

That's where unintelligent design comes in."

A funny little article, a quick read. Check it out at:

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1124661009669&call_pageid=970599119419&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes

posted by niteskolar @ 3:41 AM 0 comments

First, even when the intelligence is perfect and the target is, in fact, guilty of terrorism, acts of assassination often result in the morally troubling slaughter of innocent family members or bystanders.

Second, there is no way to undo a mistake -- and mistakes are surprisingly common.

Scharf cites numerous examples of mistakes made in recent history:

Israel, for example, has apologized in the past for assassinating people who
turned out to be victims of mistaken identity, such as five Palestinian policemen killed in 2001. The faulty nature of intelligence in other areas does not inspire the sort of confidence one should have before pulling a trigger. Despite the initial Bush administration assertion that Guantanamo Bay detainees were all members of al Qaeda, dozens were released when the administration determined that it had been mistaken. And let us not forget that the administration's certainty that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction on the eve of the 2003 invasion. Or the Clinton administration's misplaced confidence in 1998 that a Sudanese plant it destroyed with cruise missiles was producing chemical weapons and was owned by bin Laden. Neither was true. The first Bush administration initially believed the Iranian government was responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103, though Libya was the real culprit.

The other two reasons against assassination as foreign policy:

Third, the more frequent use of assassination may present cascading threats to world order. For example, in response to the assassination of Yassin and the Bush administration's refusal to rebuke Israel for it, Hamas declared open season on America.

Finally, targeting specific individuals may elevate them to martyrdom, strengthening enemy morale and resolve. Rather than dealing a mortal blow to the terrorist organization, it is more likely that the targeted individuals will be replaced by others.

Opposing Viewpoint

Rich Lowry at the National Review argued in a March 2002 article to "take the shot" at Saddam Hussein. He found that the 1975 Church commission conclusions on assassinations "simplistic" and that "there is a right under international law to target an enemy's command and control during wartime, including anyone in the chain of command right up to the head of state." He continues that our problem with killing specific individuals is the remnants of polite 18th-19th century rules of warfare which changed "with the advent of total war, and of leaders, such as Hitler..."

Today, he further argues, a misunderstanding of international law is the culprit; the Hague Convention forbids treacherous killing or wounding of individuals of a hostile nation and that it is not treacherous to bomb, missile strike or sniper attack an enemy army and thus not an individual. He finally argues, convincing enough for me, that target killing Saddam would have been morally superior to all out war against enemy soldiers "who may want nothing more fervently than to surrender to the nearest American."

What he failed to see then and many Iraq war supporters fail to see now is that war with Saddam Hussein was not necessary and thus I wouldn't have to debate the superiority of killing him versus killing many enemy soldiers or innocent civilians if they would concede the facts that the rationale for war continually shifted, was based on information we knew at the time to be suspect, etc. (we've heard it all before).

Lowry, and others arguing for the revocation of Executive Order 12333 section 2.11, the prohibition of assassination, that it doesn't apply in wartime and is not a violation of international law or arguing the ambiguity of conflicting international law fail to take into account The Law of Land Warfare (1956):

U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10, THE LAW OF LAND WARFARE (1956), which has incorporated this prohibition, authoritatively links Hague Article 23(b) to assassination at Paragraph 31: "This article is construed as prohibiting assassination, proscription or outlawry of an enemy, or putting a price upon an enemy's head, as well as offering a reward for an enemy `dead or alive.'"

That being said, my opposition to the assassination of heads of state is pretty simple:

• Assassinating the head of state will undoubtedly cause turmoil within the country. Yes, war causes turmoil as well but the actions that lead to war inform a country as to where they are headed whereas an assassination means immediate disarray. Lawlessness, price gouging, loss of essential services, breakdown in government and administration, power struggle and policelessness resulting in lack of needed protection especially those in ethnically divided nations.
• Assassinating the head of state is unacceptable in the world community and thus will cause more international strife. Our diplomacy the world over is at an all-time low. Bolton was recessed into the U.N. and U.N. members are being `diplomatic' about this detractor of the U.N. as a body. We are absent from international treaties, assemblies and other activities in which the rest of the industrialized world is on board.
• To reiterate Professor Scharf, faulty intelligence discovered after you've killed a head of state cannot be remedied. The Bush administration claimed that traces of bomb-grade uranium found in Iran two years ago was proof of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Today in the Washington Post:

Traces of bomb-grade uranium found two years ago in Iran came from contaminated Pakistani equipment and are not evidence of a clandestine nuclear weapons program, a group of U.S. government experts and other international scientists has determined.

"The biggest smoking gun that everyone was waving is now eliminated with these conclusions," said a senior official who discussed the still-confidential findings on the condition of anonymity.

All of this discussion stemmed from statements by Pat Robertson calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez whom he says is a "terrific danger" and needs to be stopped before his country becomes "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism." And he bases this on what? Of course, we would never accuse him of giving aid and comfort to the enemy, emboldening those that would do us harm.

posted by niteskolar @ 7:36 PM 0 comments

Pat Robertson Calls for Assassination of Hugo Chavez

posted by niteskolar @ 8:58 AM 0 comments

Which Is the Military Party?

An excellent post from kos at DailyKos makes clear where the Democrats stand with the military and the Republicans and partisanship:

"For the last two presidential elections it has been the Democratic Party whose nominee was a Vietnam War veteran, while the Republicans have sputtered out spurious defenses of their candidate's deceitful draft-dodging.  
On Thursday, Dick Cheney, who said he had "other priorities" in the Vietnam era, and so helped himself to five draft deferments, will address the 73rd Convention of the Military Order of the Purple Heart.  I do not think he will express remorse for the callousness with which he explained his cowardice.  Nor do I expect him to apologize for the shocking, mocking Republicans who, at their New York Convention a year ago, sported Band-Aids with tiny purple hearts to mock the blood shed by John Kerry and so many other heroes in that misbegotten war."

It has been very simple. A Republican executive and legislative branches have attempted to cut military pay, reservists pay, benefits for reservists and sent our soldiers to war unequipped. All of the base closing suggestions. Show me where the Republican party is supporting the military because I can't see it.

Check the entire post; its motivational.

[Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/18/125144/070]

posted by niteskolar @ 7:27 PM 0 comments

Texas Man Mows Over Crosses for Slain Soldiers

From the NY Times:

"Crawford, Tex. - Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq who has set up a vigil near President Bush's ranch, said Tuesday that she was "very disturbed" that a local resident had mowed down hundreds of small crosses bearing the names of other dead American soldiers, and that her now 10-day protest was "only the beginning" of what she described as a growing national movement to bring all American men and women home from the war."

I remember the grand ole days when it was the liberals that were the crazies spouting conspiracy theories and what not. But seriouisly, this is a demonstration of just how severe the schism is in America that a mother whose son was slain in Iraq camped out near a vacationing President Bush would have her memorial of white crosses for fallen U.S. Soldiers mowed down by a man in a pickup truck.

[Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/17/national/17sheehan.html?hp&ex=1124251200&en=606416153be4ac56&ei=5094&partner=homepage]

posted by niteskolar @ 1:45 AM 0 comments

The Daily Howler says 'Tell the Truth'

I too shouted on Democratic Party chair Howard Dean as he energetically, concisely and swiftly answered question after question with the principles of fairness and honesty.

A massive tipping point is occurring here. These are demonstrated by the following posts and articles:

1. Today's Daily Howler, 8/12/05 as we shed light on the whole scam of the idea of the 'liberal media.' Also, Dean on Meet the Press was doing the same thing. That 'thing' is telling the truth. The assasination of Gore by the media - lies. The allowing of conservative pundits and operatives to lie again and again - that occurs with the complicity of the media - unresearched and insure that you gotb soundbite, crossfire confrontation regardless of fact.

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh081505.shtml

2. The liberal blogosphere, via DailyKos and others are examining the Republican machine's rise to power. This is the most critical point. Until we know how the conservative think tanks with billionaire elite funding flout science, avoid peer-reviewed journals and flood the market with books, pseudo-research and talking points, we'll continue to get handed our hats.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/15/192717/535

3. Frank Rich in the New York Times coupled with Cindy Sheehan in Crawford and dropping poll numbers are bringing the Iraq War disaster to a head.

Thank you Dean, Kos and Crew, Kossacks, DU, Sommerby, Sheehan, Lawrence Korb at CAP, Rich, the liberal blogosphere that are too many to name but that I try to read them all, the couple of writers at the Washington Post and the New York Times and throw in Sy Hersh who has 'kept it real from the get go.' I feel alive again.

posted by niteskolar @ 12:42 AM 0 comments

Lawrence Korb, senior fellow at Center for American Progress, explains why it is impossible for us to maintain present troop levels in Iraq.

From Newsday:

"The primary reason for the statements and Rumsfeld's silence is that even if we wanted to keep about 140,000 ground troops in Iraq through 2006, we cannot do so without breaking the all-volunteer Army.
[snip]

If Iraq were a war of necessity, the U.S. would simply send sufficient ground forces there for the duration. But, since it is a war of choice, fought by volunteers, the active-duty soldiers spend a year in Iraq and at least a year at home before going back.

And the Army does not want to order a soldier to be sent back a third time. By the end of this year, nearly every active-duty soldier will have spent at least two tours in Iraq.

Moreover, since the active-duty Army was too small to implement effectively Bush's preventive war in Iraq, the administration has had to rely unduly on the National Guard and Reserves. Part-time soldiers make up about 40% of the troops in Iraq. In order to keep so many reservists there, the Pentagon has had to violate its norm of not mobilizing reservists for more than one year out of five."

With this in mind, the situation with Iran is very simple. The president saying all options are on the table including military options is impossible because we don't have the troop levels for any type of offensive in Iran and after having gone it alone (Azerbajan does not a coalition make) in Iraq, the world is hardly ready to jump in line for another offensive against another Middle Eastern nation with no credible threat.

posted by niteskolar @ 11:18 PM 0 comments

Gas Prices Rise

posted by niteskolar @ 9:04 PM 0 comments

Justice Sunday II: An Affront Against God

Thousands of people filled a church Sunday night for "Justice Sunday II," an event organizers said wasn't necessarily about pushing for the confirmation of John Roberts for the U.S. Supreme, but more about supporting justices who
don't have radical agendas.

"We've seen a conservative president get re-elected, the conservative Congressional base expand. The (Supreme) Court is part of a cultural problem," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, the organization responsible for "Justice Sunday II: God Save the United States and this Honorable Court!"

posted by niteskolar @ 8:52 PM 0 comments

Frank Rich article

I reprinted the entire Frank Rich article from the New York Times from today. No comment necessary, it speaks for itself.

posted by niteskolar @ 5:18 PM 0 comments

Someone Tell the President the War Is Over

[Reprinted in its entirety.]

By Frank Rich
The New York Times

Sunday 14 August 2005

Like the Japanese soldier marooned on an island for years after V-J Day, President Bush may be the last person in the country to learn that for Americans, if not Iraqis, the war in Iraq is over. "We will stay the course," he insistently tells us from his Texas ranch. What do you mean we, white man?

A president can't stay the course when his own citizens (let alone his own allies) won't stay with him. The approval rate for Mr. Bush's handling of Iraq plunged to 34 percent in last weekend's Newsweek poll - a match for the 32 percent that approved L.B.J.'s handling of Vietnam in early March 1968. (The two presidents' overall approval ratings have also converged: 41 percent for Johnson then, 42 percent for Bush now.) On March 31, 1968, as L.B.J.'s ratings plummeted further, he announced he wouldn't seek re-election, commencing our long extrication from that quagmire.

But our current Texas president has even outdone his predecessor; Mr. Bush has lost not only the country but also his army. Neither bonuses nor fudged standards nor the faking of high school diplomas has solved the recruitment shortfall. Now Jake Tapper of ABC News reports that the armed forces are so eager for bodies they will flout "don't ask, don't tell" and hang on to gay soldiers who tell, even if they tell the press.

The president's cable cadre is in disarray as well. At Fox News Bill O'Reilly is trashing Donald Rumsfeld for his incompetence, and Ann Coulter is chiding Mr. O'Reilly for being a defeatist. In an emblematic gesture akin to waving a white flag, Robert Novak walked off a CNN set and possibly out of a job rather than answer questions about his role in smearing the man who helped expose the administration's prewar inflation of Saddam W.M.D.'s. (On this sinking ship, it's hard to know which rat to root for.)

As if the right-wing pundit crackup isn't unsettling enough, Mr. Bush's top war strategists, starting with Mr. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, have of late tried to rebrand the war in Iraq as what the defense secretary calls "a global struggle against violent extremism." A struggle is what you have with your landlord. When the war's number-managers start using euphemisms for a conflict this lethal, it's a clear sign that the battle to keep the Iraq war afloat with the American public is lost.

That battle crashed past the tipping point this month in Ohio. There's historical symmetry in that. It was in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, that Mr. Bush gave the fateful address that sped Congressional ratification of the war just days later. The speech was a miasma of self-delusion, half-truths and hype. The president said that "we know that Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade," an exaggeration based on evidence that the Senate Intelligence Committee would later find far from conclusive. He said that Saddam "could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year" were he able to secure "an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball." Our own National Intelligence Estimate of Oct. 1 quoted State Department findings that claims of Iraqi pursuit of uranium in Africa were "highly dubious."

It was on these false premises - that Iraq was both a collaborator on 9/11 and about to inflict mushroom clouds on America - that honorable and brave young Americans were sent off to fight. Among them were the 19 marine reservists from a single suburban Cleveland battalion slaughtered in just three days at the start of this month. As they perished, another Ohio marine reservist who had served in Iraq came close to winning a Congressional election in southern Ohio. Paul Hackett, a Democrat who called the president a "chicken hawk," received 48 percent of the vote in exactly the kind of bedrock conservative Ohio district that decided the 2004 election for Mr. Bush.

These are the tea leaves that all Republicans, not just Chuck Hagel, are reading now. Newt Gingrich called the Hackett near-victory "a wake-up call." The resolutely pro-war New York Post editorial page begged Mr. Bush (to no avail) to "show some leadership" by showing up in Ohio to salute the fallen and their families. A Bush loyalist, Senator George Allen of Virginia, instructed the president to meet with Cindy Sheehan, the mother camping out in Crawford, as "a matter of courtesy and decency." Or, to translate his Washingtonese, as a matter of politics. Only someone as adrift from reality as Mr. Bush would need to be told that a vacationing president can't win a standoff with a grief-stricken parent commandeering TV cameras and the blogosphere 24/7.

Such political imperatives are rapidly bringing about the war's end. That's inevitable for a war of choice, not necessity, that was conceived in politics from the start. Iraq was a Bush administration idée fixe before there was a 9/11. Within hours of that horrible trauma, according to Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies," Mr. Rumsfeld was proposing Iraq as a battlefield, not because the enemy that attacked America was there, but because it offered "better targets" than the shadowy terrorist redoubts of Afghanistan. It was easier to take out Saddam - and burnish Mr. Bush's credentials as a slam-dunk "war president," suitable for a "Top Gun" victory jig - than to shut down Al Qaeda and smoke out its leader "dead or alive."

But just as politics are a bad motive for choosing a war, so they can be a doomed engine for running a war. In an interview with Tim Russert early last year, Mr. Bush said, "The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me, as I look back, was it was a political war," adding that the "essential" lesson he learned from Vietnam was to not have "politicians making military decisions." But by then Mr. Bush had disastrously ignored that very lesson; he had let Mr. Rumsfeld publicly rebuke the Army's chief of staff, Eric Shinseki, after the general dared tell the truth: that several hundred thousand troops would be required to secure Iraq. To this day it's our failure to provide that security that has turned the country into the terrorist haven it hadn't been before 9/11 - "the central front in the war on terror," as Mr. Bush keeps reminding us, as if that might make us forget he's the one who recklessly created it.

The endgame for American involvement in Iraq will be of a piece with the rest of this sorry history. "It makes no sense for the commander in chief to put out a timetable" for withdrawal, Mr. Bush declared on the same day that 14 of those Ohio troops were killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha. But even as he spoke, the war's actual commander, Gen. George Casey, had already publicly set a timetable for "some fairly substantial reductions" to start next spring. Officially this calendar is tied to the next round of Iraqi elections, but it's quite another election this administration has in mind. The priority now is less to save Jessica Lynch (or Iraqi democracy) than to save Rick Santorum and every other endangered Republican facing voters in November 2006.

Nothing that happens on the ground in Iraq can turn around the fate of this war in America: not a shotgun constitution rushed to meet an arbitrary deadline, not another Iraqi election, not higher terrorist body counts, not another battle for Falluja (where insurgents may again regroup, The Los Angeles Times reported last week). A citizenry that was asked to accept tax cuts, not sacrifice, at the war's inception is hardly in the mood to start sacrificing now. There will be neither the volunteers nor the money required to field the wholesale additional American troops that might bolster the security situation in Iraq.

What lies ahead now in Iraq instead is not victory, which Mr. Bush has never clearly defined anyway, but an exit (or triage) strategy that may echo Johnson's March 1968 plan for retreat from Vietnam: some kind of negotiations (in this case, with Sunni elements of the insurgency), followed by more inflated claims about the readiness of the local troops-in-training, whom we'll then throw to the wolves. Such an outcome may lead to even greater disaster, but this administration long ago squandered the credibility needed to make the difficult case that more human and financial resources might prevent Iraq from continuing its descent into civil war and its devolution into jihad central.

Thus the president's claim on Thursday that "no decision has been made yet" about withdrawing troops from Iraq can be taken exactly as seriously as the vice president's preceding fantasy that the insurgency is in its "last throes." The country has already made the decision for Mr. Bush. We're outta there. Now comes the hard task of identifying the leaders who can pick up the pieces of the fiasco that has made us more vulnerable, not less, to the terrorists who struck us four years ago next month.

posted by niteskolar @ 5:10 PM 0 comments

Never the White House's Fault

From Raw Story:

"As more questions surface on the Administration's lies about WMD and forged Niger documents, Roberts becomes a staunch Bush defender, deflecting pre-war "failures" away from the White House and pinning all blame on the CIA.

On July 11, 2003 - five days after former ambassador Joseph Wilson writes an article for the New York Times challenging the White House claim of Niger uranium sales to Iraq, Roberts issues a statement:"

A must read article, Alexandrova details Senator Roberts partisan deflecting of any culpability in the failures of the war in Iraq. Par for the course, this White House has taken absolutely no responsibility for any failures.

[Source: http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Through_leaks_and_smears_Senate_chairman_protects_White_House_to_blame_CI_0811.html]
Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

posted by niteskolar @ 11:03 PM 1 comments

The Sickness of Attacking a Mother Whose Son Died in Iraq

This the saddest I've been since my brother died. The people who support President Bush and the Republican Party at all costs have no problem TRASHING a woman whose son died in Iraq because she dares question the president. I am sad. That's all I can say. I AM SAD.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/12/113737/093

posted by niteskolar @ 12:44 PM 0 comments

Afghan Civilians Ask Why They're Dying

From BBC News:

"Local woman Sadia Bibi, 50, told the Associated Press that her brother, his wife and their 16-year-old son had been killed in the bombing. "The children were crying and they were very afraid. These planes killed my relatives. We are poor and innocent people. Why are they killing us?" she asked."

I haven't heard the phrase "winning the hearts and minds" in a while.

"Violence has left 800 people dead so far this year."

Actually, that number, in comparison to Iraq is pretty good and we're talking 800 dead civilians.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4141164.stm

posted by niteskolar @ 10:27 AM 0 comments

Planned Anti-Cindy Sheehan Rally Cancelled

Apparently some right wingers at TX radio stations organized an anti-Cindy Sheehan barbecue but it has now been cancelled.

From DailyKos:

"I've just heard that "Jack Hammer" is talking about the massive response to the Anti-Cindy rally; he states that it was not meant to be Anti-Cindy and that they may have to move it, as a Pro-Bush rally. A Freeper stated it was to counter protest "the leftist hunger strikers in Crawford" protesting with Cindy. A listener tells me the "Pro-Bush" rally will happen, but not in Crawford, and not on Saturday..More as it develops."

So basically what this says is that no matter what the situation is, no matter what has happened, if it does not get in line with the message of the GOP, you will be a target.

Has anything we've seen lately not been mean spirited? Is there anything 'family values' about an anti-rally against a woman whose son gave his life in Iraq? Where are the values?

Please read the post at Dailykos including how you can help:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/10/104739/859

posted by niteskolar @ 9:15 AM 0 comments

An AP story "Grieving Mother's War Protest Draws Notice" gives us the following opposition paragraph:

"But Kristinn Taylor, co-leader of the Washington, D.C., chapter of FreeRepublic.com, which has held pro-troop rallies, said Sheehan's actions are misguided and hurt troop morale."

So why is AP getting an oppositional paragraph from a conservative website? How is the "co-leader," whatever that is, of a conservative website an authority to determine whether a citizen of the U.S. protesting is "misguided and hurt troop morale?" Why do we never hear from troops returning that their more was hurt? Why not ask Kos or Armando if Sheehan's protest are good for the morale of the troops, that the opposition to the war is an attempt to bring them back home safely, to return to as normal a possible life back home?

posted by niteskolar @ 8:20 AM 0 comments

Voting fraud occurred all over the U.S. The GOP talking points were that fraud was occurring against them or that it was all rumor or whining.

From AP:

"Despite a zero-tolerance policy on tampering with voters, the Republican Party has quietly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide private defense lawyers for a former Bush campaign official charged with conspiring to keep Democrats from voting in New Hampshire.

James Tobin, the president's 2004 campaign chairman for New England, is charged in New Hampshire federal court with four felonies accusing him of conspiring with a state GOP official and a GOP consultant in Virginia to jam Democratic and labor union get-out-the-vote phone banks in November 2002."

A zero-tolerance policy means absolutely nothing for the GOP or the Administration. On top of no accountability, it is cover up and quiet maintenance all the while espousing all the family valuesspeak that can be jammed into a sound bite.

"A telephone firm was paid to make repeated hang-up phone calls to overwhelm the phone banks in New Hampshire and prevent them from getting Democratic voters to the polls on Election Day 2002, prosecutors allege. Republican John Sununu won a close race that day to be New Hampshire's newest senator."

How fitting with the Voting Right Act about to expire.

posted by niteskolar @ 7:56 AM 0 comments

Six More U.S. Soldiers Killed

From AFP:

"US forces announced the loss of six soldiers as top Iraqi leaders met separately to thrash out differences on the country's constitution as an August 15 deadline loomed.

The latest deaths took US military toll since March 2003 invasion to 1,834 as of Wednesday, according to an AFP tally based on the Pentagon figures."

The president definitely doesn't want to meet with Cindy Sheehan because there is absolutely nothing that can be said to make a difference.

posted by niteskolar @ 9:52 PM 0 comments

Support Cindy Sheehan

MoveOn is taking out an ad in President Bush's local newspaper in support of Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq who is camped outside Bush's ranch in Texas asking for a meeting with the president. They'll publish the number of signers and the best comments in a full two-page spread in the newspaper nearest to Crawford (The Waco Tribune Herald) while Cindy holds her vigil. Can you sign and spread the word before the 3:00 PM Friday print deadline?

http://political.moveon.org/meetwithcindy

posted by niteskolar @ 5:13 PM 0 comments

Peter Jennings, Dead at 67

From the Washington Post:

"Peter Jennings, 67, the urbane anchorman of ABC's evening newscast for the past 22 years, died yesterday at his home in New York, his network announced.

Jennings had not been on the air since April 5, when he revealed he had lung cancer. He had been conspicuously absent from the coverage of Pope John Paul II's funeral in Rome."

We mourn a staple, a fixture, an icon of the American news landscape. Prayerful.

[Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/07/AR2005080701146.html?g=1]

posted by niteskolar @ 11:58 AM 0 comments

Iraq War Dissent

Kos at DailyKos:

"A Marine regiment that took heavy casualties last week in western Iraq - including 19 killed from a Reserve unit headquartered in Ohio - had repeatedly asked for about 1,000 more troops. Those requests were not granted."

Solution. Solution. Solution. What is the solution? What will we do differently today that we didn't do last week and last month?

Many times when we are discussing the present situation, my conservative counterparts think we are beating a dead horse for purposes of political advantage, because we are out of power in Washington, because we are happy that the 'Republican' war is not going well. Once for and all, that is not the case.

As a former soldier with a baby brother just getting back and his older brother held past his twenty years on a carrier by two years and just getting back, this war in Iraq is personal but that doesn't define it for me. As a citizen responsible for reading, digesting and having an informed opinion and having determined before the war that the action is unnecessary, this is the defining principle for me. In a very close second is that I grew up poor and my people are poor people with little opportunity that go to the military when unemployment for African Americans is double whites in major cities. Infantry are my people.

Finally, the whole unpatriotic spiel is a dangerous and corrosive far right tactic that has only divided and poisoned America. Forget the fact that dissent is an integral thread in the fabric that is America. Take a good look. Half of us are riding around with W stickers and half of us are riding with W stickers with a red slash through them.

Personally, I would rather be out of power in Washington on the strength of conservative ideas being stronger than liberal ones than the present employ of the false, divisive tactics that have folks deciding whether to let me in traffic based on my bumper sticker.

[Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/8/93816/81841]

posted by niteskolar @ 11:18 AM 0 comments

Anniversary of the Atom Bomb

From AFP:

"Hiroshima, Japan - With prayers, wreaths and emotional calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons, the Japanese city of Hiroshima on Saturday marked the 60th anniversary of the world's first atomic attack.

    Hiroshima fell silent as a relative of one of the more than 140,000 dead joined a child in ringing a bell at 8.15am (23h15 GMT on Friday), the exact moment 60 years ago when a single US bomb flattened the southern city."

Maybe if we would all review the footage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we might all be more active in nuclear nonproliferation.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/080605Y.shtml

posted by niteskolar @ 9:04 PM 0 comments

What's Wrong with the Press

Armando at DailyKos has an excellent post on the problem with the press:

"It appears to me that what Bob Somerby is discussing, and what Kevin's strawman (with Shafer) avoids is the uptick in media incompetence through the 1990s. "What a coincidence?" you might say. The Media started to suck when Clinton was President. Well, yes and no. Let me state an apostasy sure to ban me from liberal paradise: There was, in the partisan conventional political sense -- a liberal bias in the Media against Republicans and conservatives in the 1970s through the late 1980s. (My explanation of why I think so is Note 1 in extended) Not in the progressive radical sense of course.

But when Clinton started his rise to prominence in 1992, this all changed, and in the strangest way at first. Most of it was personal, not policy. Indeed, on policy, Clinton was one of the least COVERED Presidents in history. There are alot of reasons for that but I think David Brock has his finger on it better than anyone else.

Because from Clinton's time, the Right Wing Smearers, the Swifties of their time, went from just bitching at the Media, to actually creating stories for the Media. Much of the Mighty Wurlitzer we see today was transformed into the story churners we now know - then it was The Spectator, The Moonie Times, Limbaugh and finally, the piece de resistance - Roger Ailes' Fox News Channel"

Jeff Gannon is an example of how far we have fallen. A fake news outlet has a fake reporter sitting with the likes of Helen Hunt asking the press secretary 'feel good' questions. That Bob Novak continued on CNN threatening anyone that asked about his treasonous revelation is beyond absurd. If not for a few good soldiers, I would not read or watch any outlet that claims to report the news. We have fallen mightily.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/6/225910/4951

posted by niteskolar @ 12:17 PM 0 comments

President Bush Vacationed Over 20% of Time in Office

From the Seattle tImes via fInk at DailyKos:

"The president departed yesterday for his longest stretch yet away from the White House, arriving at his Crawford ranch in the evening for a round of clearing brush, visiting with family and friends, and tending to some outside-the-Beltway politics. It is the longest presidential retreat in at least 36 years.

The August getaway is Bush's 49th trip to his cherished ranch since taking office and the 319th day that Bush has spent, entirely or partially, in Crawford — nearly 20 percent of his presidency to date, according to Mark Knoller, a CBS Radio reporter known for keeping better records of the president's travel than the White House itself. Weekends and holidays at Camp David or at his parents' compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, bump up the proportion of Bush's time away from Washington even further. "

Speaks for itself.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002417607_crawford03.html

posted by niteskolar @ 5:54 AM 0 comments

Novak Storms Off CNN, Avoids CIA Leak Question

Apparently James Carville got under Novak's collar as they exchanged Crossfire style concerning Katherine Harris and the Florida Senate race.

From E&P:

"Carville, addressing the camera, said: "He's got to show these right wingers that he's got a backbone, you know. It's why the Wall Street Journal editorial page is watching you.

Show 'em that you're tough."
"Well, I think that's bull---- and I hate that," Novak replied. "Just let it go.""

But the tidbit that is interesting is that moderator Ed Henry was going to ask Novak about his revealing CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.

"After Novak walked off on Thursday, Henry said that Novak had been told before the segment that he was going to be asked on air about the CIA case."

There has been many an exchange between Carville and Novak and they smile after the exchange, television spectacle politics-as-usual. I think Novak simply found an out to dodge the question. You can run Novak, but you can't hide.

posted by niteskolar @ 4:26 AM 0 comments

Iraq, Bush Numbers Fall Further

From AP:

Approval of Bush's handling of Iraq, which had been hovering in the low- to mid-40s most of the year, dipped to 38 percent.
...
Bush's overall job approval was at 42 percent, with 55 percent disapproving. That's about where Bush's approval has been all summer but slightly lower than at the beginning of the year.

So what exactly is so different than during the election period that has these red staters disapproving? Our brothers and sisters were getting killed in Iraq and Afghanistan during the election. The economy was still poor, job growth was still stagnant to nonexistent. Valerie Plame's identity had already been revealed. We knew China and Russia were holding joint military games (training). The elderly had been sold down the river on the prescription sham. Tom DeLay and company had been bilking the Indians, accepting gifts and illegally fundraising.

So why the long faces? Did you think it was going to upturn magically? I believe in miracles but I was raised on "you reap what you sow."

http://wap.oa.yahoo.com/raw?Nb=0OOWoaO&k=Mb/xUU7UEU7/Mb_DW_oq_b0/PkOg_Mb_2bODO_bDqq&be=j&0W=bDq2e2IO&sd=Zhg2

posted by niteskolar @ 2:57 AM 0 comments

Deaths of U.S. Soldiers in Iraq

From AP:

Columbus, Ohio - Rosemary Palmer and her husband were making plans to attend memorial services for six Marine reservists killed earlier this week - five of them from the same battalion as her son, Lance Cpl. Edward Schroeder - when two uniformed servicemen came down her street.

It was her family's turn.

"We knew. They didn't even get a chance to knock," Palmer said.

Palmer said she and her husband, Paul Schroeder, last spoke with their son about a week ago. He said he was tired of flushing insurgents out of the same places, just to have them reappear with better weapons.

The deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq should be on the lips of every American at work, having a drink at the local pub after work, having dinner with the family or chatting in cyberspace in the wee hours of the morning.

It is certainly very important that we address the affairs of the nation: Supreme Court nominee Roberts, the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame, the passed energy bill that addressed nothing the president touted in speech after speech, the 2006 elections, voting reform, the Social Security scare, national security and a host of others. I will, however, continue to discuss Iraq, particularly the unnecessary deaths of my brothers and sisters.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/080405F.shtml

posted by niteskolar @ 10:07 PM 0 comments

Detainee Abuse is Top Down

An excellent article in the Cleveland Plains Dealer by Robert Weiner, senior public affairs spokesman under Clinton and his think tank associate Emma Dick details detainee abuse from the top down.

A must read summation.

http://www.cleveland.com/search/index.ssf?/base/opinion/112280238170610.xml?ocoth&coll=2

posted by niteskolar @ 12:14 AM 0 comments

Former Military Prosecutors Claim Courts Rigged

   " Leaked emails from two former prosecutors claim the military commissions set up to try detainees at Guantánamo Bay are rigged, fraudulent, and thin on evidence against the accused.
[snip]
    Capt Carr says that the prosecutors have been told by the chief prosecutor that the panel sitting in judgment on the cases would be handpicked to ensure convictions."

This process has been flawed from the beginning. From BushCo choosing which intelligence on Iraq to propagate and which ambivalent ad iinconclusive intel to ignore to the insufficient number of troops in Iraq to enforce stability, this latest revelation is just another mask ripped off the face they put on the war on terror, I mean extremism.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200508/s1426797.htm

posted by niteskolar @ 7:14 PM 0 comments