Coretta Scott King Passed at 78
From
MSNBC:
Coretta Scott King, who turned a life shattered by her husband's assassination into one devoted to enshrining his legacy of human rights and equality, has died, former mayor Andrew Young told NBC Tuesday morning. She was 78.
Coretta King was a supportive lieutenant to her husband during the most tumultuous days of the American civil rights movement.
The Kings were married in 1953 and had four children, Martin Luther III, Yolanda, Dexter and Bernice. After her husband’s assassination in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968, King kept his dream alive by starting the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, based in Atlanta.
No Rebuild - No Democracy in Iraq
On the eve of Bush's SOTU, newspapers are pushing edgier headlines and leads that have Bush down but far from out of it, reminiscent of LL Cool J: "don't call it a comeback, I been here for years."
I got a question though and will somebody explain it to me like I'm a four year old. How are we suppose to be "helping" to bring about a democracy when:
Iraq's water supply, electrical capacity and oil production -- three primary targets of reconstruction -- are functioning below prewar standards...
WaPo:
The U.S. official who oversees reconstruction spending in Iraq has called for money beyond $18.4 billion originally earmarked, saying postwar funds will be exhausted by the end of 2006 with many projects likely to be unfinished.
Now the war on terror makes the renewal of the provisions of the Patriot Act set to expire vital as well as the eavesdropping program necessary. The central front in the war on terror is Iraq.
So, how are we s'possed to win this war on terror and establish this model democracy in the Middle East when we are unwilling to publicly pledge funds for the continuing of the rebuilding of Iraq?
Then I remembered what I had read over at Body and Soul:
A new audit of American financial practices in Iraq has uncovered irregularities including millions of reconstruction dollars stuffed casually into footlockers and filing cabinets, an American soldier in the Philippines who gambled away cash belonging to Iraq, and three Iraqis who plunged to their deaths in a rebuilt hospital elevator that had been improperly certified as safe.
And searching for "Iraq rebuild" news, I came across a number of articles from the beginning of the month about how we were pulling out.
From the Pakistan Daily Times Monitor:
In language mirroring the planned reduction of troops, US officials in Baghdad have begun talking of "drawdown", "transition" and the "wind-down" of American reconstruction projects, the British newspaper reports. Instead they plan to focus on building up the Iraqi government's capacity to manage its own affairs.
From theTelegraph:
US officials say that when the money runs out it will be up to foreign donors and the new Iraqi government to carry out the work that still needs to be done.
You know, those foreign donors that were with us since the start of the war, that international coalition of the willing spurred on by our recovering the weapons of mass destruction and saving the world from
That paper also quotes Bush from his August 2003 speech after the capture of Saddam Hussein:
He said: "In a lot of places the infrastructure is as good as it was at pre-war levels, which is satisfactory, but it is not the ultimate aim. The ultimate aim is for the infrastructure to be the best in the region."
If we can't rebuild Iraq, we don't have a leg to stand on. For anyone who hasn't had their Wheaties since yesterday, get a mixing bowl's worth and use whole milk. Zarqawi is putting out tapes like a NY dj on the underground circuit and the threat level ain't gone nowhere because why?
This administration has not a leg to stand on but that means nothing sitting in my air conditioned townhouse, about to take a hot shower before work and fill up my rental car.
Officer to serve no jail time for Iraqi general's death
From
USA Today:
A military jury recommended a simple reprimand Monday for an Army officer who killed an Iraqi general by stuffing him headfirst into a sleeping bag and sitting on his chest during an interrogation.
Welshofer, 43, was charged with murder, but was convicted over the weekend of negligent homicide and negligent dereliction of duty that carried a penalty of up to three years and three months in prison, a dishonorable discharge, loss of pension and other penalties.
The murder charge carried a potential sentence of life in prison. Instead, Welshofer faces no jail time, the forfeiture of $6,000 in salary and what amounts largely to a restriction to his barracks for 60 days.
Every
unfortunate incident after
unfortunate incident after
unfortunate incident that has occurred during the Bush administration is like a quilt whose pieces are interconnected and whose consequences are far reaching, slowly suffocating Lady Liberty just as that sleeping bag suffocated and snuffed out the life of the Iraqi being interrogated.
The disdain for the Clinton administration led to the Bush administration beginning the first term
without regard to the warnings of the gravity of the Osama bin Laden security threat. Secy of Defense Rumsfeld a mere
five hours after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon was calling for plans to strike Iraq.
Without regard to conclusive intelligence, Bush spoke those 16 words his state of the union which made U.S. citizens and the world believe that Saddam Hussein was attempting to purchase materials to make nuclear weapons.
Without regard for the international community as well as domestic protest, we launched the war in Iraq while Hans Blix and Mohammed El Baradei were conducting inspections of hundreds of sites for weapons of mass destruction and finding nothing.
Without regard for international law and Geneva Conventions, we hold prisoners of 'war' as 'enemy combatants.'
Our rationale for not participating in the International Criminal Court according to Ari Fleischer:
"[President Bush] thinks the ICC is fundamentally flawed because it puts American servicemen and women at fundamental risk of being tried by an entity that is beyond America's reach, beyond America's laws, and can subject American civilian and military to arbitrary standards of justice."
Without regard to the citizens of other nations, guilty or innocent, we will not afford them the same standard as we demand for Americans.
Without regard for international law, we (Atty General Gonzalez) created justifications for torturing prisoners.
Without regard for the correct positions of those that opposed the war and with
zero humility, we demand the international community get involved by committing troops to be slaughtered because it is in 'everyone's best interest.'
Without regard to international perspective or goodwill, some of our radio station djs and TV pundits dismiss the horrendous pictures of Abu Ghraib torture, likened it to college pranks and politicized it saying too much was being made of it.
Without regard to the life of Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, a U.S. soldier was sentenced to forfeiture of pay and restriction to barracks for 60 days.
Without regard to the already sunken international diplomacy, goodwill and trust of the United States by many nations, both their citizens and their governments, for the causing of the death of a prisoner, a U.S. soldier was sentenced to forfeiture of pay and restriction to barracks for 60 days.
I want to rant about the hypocrisy of the 'sanctity of life' in this country but it won't bring back that man's life. I want to rant about the hypocrisy of the sentence amidst a nation that has 'mandatory minimum' sentencing but it won't bring back that man's life.
Six degrees of arrogance. Six degrees of necon, ivory-tower, failed policy. Six degrees of injustice. Six degrees of Bush, suffocating Lady Liberty.
Auto Layoffs Will Hurt African-American Middle Class
From the
Center for Economic Policy and Research via
CommonDreams:
WASHINGTON - January 23 - The sharp decline in the auto manufacturing sector in the last 20 years has hit African Americans particularly hard, according to a new report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Ford Motor Company's decision to implement another round of layoffs is bad news for Ford workers, but especially for African Americans. Since the end of World War II, manufacturing jobs, particularly unionized jobs in the auto industry, have been an important source of well-paid employment for African Americans.
The study, "The Decline in African-American Representation in Unions and Auto Manufacturing, 1979-2004," details the sharp decline in African-American employment in auto manufacturing and the even sharper decline in African-American union membership rates for the population as a whole. The report, by CEPR researchers Dr. John Schmitt and Ben Zipperer, analyzed data from the Current Population Survey from 1979 through 2004.
McCain Says 'No Boundaries' in War on Terror
From AP:
"This war on terror has no boundaries," McCain, a former Navy combat pilot who challenged George W. Bush for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, told CBS. "We have to go where these people are, and we have to take them out."
Let me finish that thought for the senator.
"The war on terror has no boundaries but the rules of war do as a former POW, I am especially cognizant and conscious of the extraordinary care we must take for the sake of international goodwill and the sanctity of life. Our terrorists adversaries are not bound by the absolutely unacceptable idea of killing innocent people but Americans are."
[Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060115/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_al_qaida_attack]
Doesn't Sound Like Death
Faulty intelligence. Flawed intelligence. Sounds harmless? Costs lives.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060115/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_al_qaida_attack
"Ayman al-Zawahri sent aides instead, the officials said, and investigators are trying to establish if any of them were among the at least 17 people killed in the attack, which sparked a second day of anti-U.S. protests across the country Sunday.
Some 10,000 people rallied in Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, chanting "Death to America" and "Stop bombing against innocent people." Hundreds also protested in Islamabad, Lahore, Multan and Peshawar, burning U.S. flags and demanding U.S. troops leave neighboring Afghanistan."
Every individual in this country that says the phrase 'sanctity of life' should be enraged and deeply saddened that we continue to kill Iraqi citizens. Every American citizen should remember the children in the nursery being carried out after the Oklahoma federal building bombing when we hear more Iraqis lay dead. Every Christian should be prostate on our faces, praying with every fiber of our being, for the tens (maybe hundred) of thousands of Iraqis that lay dead.
Happy New Year
Happy New Year to Everyone,
Happy New Year to you all and I hope that 2006 finds you spiritually prosperous, mentally razor sharp, physically healthy and universally balanced.
We will give everything to retake a branch of Congress in 2006 and regime change in 2008.
