Capital Crimes

How our current campaign finance system breeds political corruption!

Conor Kenny writes, "The only way to eliminate the incentive for less than scrupulous individuals to corrupt the political system is the full public financing of elections ... 74 percent of the public supports full, voluntary public financing for federal elections ... a similar majority (76 percent) supports the full disclosure of all money raised for candidates by lobbyists."

Ever wonder why supporting public financing of elections isn't a no-brainer for any honest politician? Think about it....

Technorati tags: Campaign Finance Reform, Political Corruption, news, commentary, op ed

Talking About Terror

It would be interesting to know the identity of the "policymaker" Wavey-Davey features in his current NY Times op ed. Whoever he is, I sure hope he isn't representative of the best we have to offer. If he is ..."regime change" in America can't come soon enough.


Talking About Terror
By David Brooks
The New York Times

Washington is full of conversations, but occasionally you have one with a policy maker that sheds light on where we’ve been and where we’re going. I had one of those conversations late last week, and I thought it might be useful to share a truncated version of it here.

Policy Maker: Israel began this war with an almost unprecedented level of legitimacy. Unfortunately, that was forfeited during the first days with the bombing campaign, which seemed to punish all of Lebanon instead of just Hezbollah. If Sharon were still functioning, perhaps he would have insisted on a better plan, but this may be another case of a just war poorly executed.

Me: But wasn’t this war a test case of whether it is even possible to defeat a terrorist force with military might? After all, no army is going to know this kind of enemy better than Israel’s. Maybe the Islamists have simply come up with a conceptual breakthrough that makes them difficult to defeat. They’ve grasped that the more they endanger their own people and get them killed, the better it is for them politically. Israel or the U.S. gets blamed. That’s like a superweapon in the media war.

Has Israel at least degraded Hezbollah militarily?

P: Not enough to give them the sense they’re being defeated. In any case, we’ve worked out an arrangement with France that should stop the fighting early next week. This may sound odd, but U.S. relations with France have hardly been better. We’re working remarkably closely across a whole range of Middle East issues because we have the same understanding and goals.

In Lebanon there will be a truce that will leave the current armies in place (which the Israelis won’t like). Then we can insert an international force. We won’t be able to disarm Hezbollah but we may be able to help the Lebanese Army secure the border.

The thing to understand is that the international force may never materialize. The key is Hezbollah. If they decide to harvest their gains by becoming a peaceful player in the Lebanese government, then the international force can come in. But if they decide to destabilize the government and turn Lebanon into a host for their war with Israel then there’ll be no force. Israel would have to find a way to withdraw at a time of its own choosing. But if Hezbollah keeps fighting it will have accepted responsibility for breaking the international deal, and Israel will have greater freedom to act.

M: Is it possible to flip Syria?

P: The U.S. and others have channels open to Syria, but its interest diverges from ours. Its interest is the increased weakness of the Lebanese government.

The wider situation is that most governments around Israel no longer want war. But the governments are weak, so terror armies can form within those states. If Israel tries to attack those armies, it ends up weakening the central governments it is trying to bolster. That’s the dilemma.

The U.S. and Europe would like to strengthen those central governments. We don’t have a policy of externally imposed regime change. We’re trying to create conditions to allow those governments to make better decisions and make slow progress toward freedom. But Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah want to hollow out those moderate governments from within.

The first group of Islamists like Al Qaeda have utopian agendas. But Iran and Hezbollah have more realistic agendas, more indigenous support and are thus more dangerous. Think of the way early 20th-century anarchists in Europe led eventually to the Nazis and Leninists.

M: So what is the U.S. doing?

P: The U.S. is trying to be at the center of a group of like-minded countries that want to preserve the viability of governments that prefer peaceful evolution to violent revolution.

We’re part of a united front on Iranian nukes. The odds are there will be sanctions against Iran by the end of the year, though how strong I don’t know. We’re trying to build a successful government in Iraq. We have to get out from under the blow to our authority caused by the torture and detainee issues. And we have to get aggressive on the Palestinian problem. That’s essential to strengthen moderate regimes.

We’re not going to be spending as much blood or treasure as over the past few years. We have to make up for it with diplomacy backed by a hint of steel.

Photo credit: David Brooks. (The New York Times)

Technorati tags: David Brooks, The New York Times, Middle East, Politics, Government, Foreign Policy, International Relations, news, commentary, op ed

Stop the Killing

Let's Start Talking
By Nicholas D. Kristof
The New York Times

As I see it, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is shooting Israel and America in the feet (and Lebanon in the stomach) each day that he continues his onslaught, with President Bush enthusiastically providing the ammunition.

But since discussions of the Middle East usually involve people shouting past each other, let me stop harrumphing and try to address head-on the arguments of the many readers who disagree.

It’s a tragedy that Lebanese children are dying, but it would be crazy to accept a cease-fire now. That would hand Hezbollah a huge victory and return the Middle East to the impossible situation of the last few years, with rockets still raining down on northern Israel. So the U.S. has to give Israel space to get this job done.

Look at the results so far with the job half done: some 600 dead Lebanese, and scores of dead Israelis; Hezbollah’s rise to heroic status; the strengthening of Syria’s hard-line regime; the weakening of moderates like King Abdullah of Jordan; a boost for Shiite militants in Iraq and around the region; the marginalization of Lebanon’s democracy movement; and the further trashing of America’s reputation around the world.

Lebanese, instead of turning on Hezbollah, are rallying around it. A poll by the Beirut Center for Research and Information found that 87 percent of those surveyed supported Hezbollah’s battles with Israel. That included 80 percent of Lebanese Christians surveyed.

So with those results after more than three weeks, why will it be any different in another couple of weeks?

It is, of course, possible that bunker-buster bombs could decapitate Hezbollah’s leadership. But Israel didn’t achieve a victory in the 18 years before it withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, so it’s time to move toward a cease-fire — not only to save Lebanese lives but also to get on with the business of a diplomatic solution.

There may be a diplomatic solution, but first we have to clear out Hezbollah from southern Lebanon. Then an international force can go in as a buffer, and Israel will be delighted to pull out.

It’s fine to talk about an international force, but no country will send troops if Hezbollah objects. Otherwise, those troops will be targets, as they were in 1983. And Hezbollah and Syria won’t approve unless there is some larger agreement between Israel and Lebanon — and some benefit to Syria as well.

How can one negotiate with those who would destroy you? Israel tried restraint and Hezbollah used the time to build up its arsenal.

President Bush is right about one thing: We need to do more than restore the prewar situation on the Israeli-Lebanese border. There is also an opportunity here — to achieve a landmark Lebanon-Israel peace deal.

Edward Walker, former ambassador to Israel and former assistant secretary of state for the region, told me he thought a long-term settlement was plausible (although he acknowledged that he was also the optimistic boy who expected a pony every Christmas). France is showing leadership in pressing for such a lasting deal, and Mr. Bush should push that diplomatic effort with every administration sinew.

Terms of a genuine settlement might involve an exchange of prisoners, Israel giving up the Shebaa Farms area (if not to Lebanon, then to an international force), and an Israeli promise not to breach Lebanese territory or airspace unless attacked. Hezbollah would commit to becoming a purely political force and to dismantling its militia, with its weaponry going to the Lebanese armed forces. Israel would resume talks with Syria on the Golan Heights, the U.S. would resume contact with Syria, and Syria would agree to stop supplying weaponry to Hezbollah (or allowing it in from Iran). Syria and Hezbollah would then pledge cooperation with a robust international buffer force along the border. Some of this may have to come in stages: for example, with Hezbollah first leaving the border area and then giving up its weaponry.

Granted, it’s odd for Israel to hand over Shebaa Farms to Lebanon, since old maps show pretty clearly that it was Syrian. But Syria, seeking to make mischief, has said that it is Lebanese, and it certainly is not Israeli.

Israel would worry that such a settlement would be seen as rewarding Hezbollah and would encourage other militant groups. That’s a legitimate concern. But such moves would also remove the raison d’être for Hezbollah’s militia, and they are probably the price for achieving calm in northern Israel. So let’s stop the killing and start the talking.

Photo credit: Nicholas Kristof. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Technorati tags: Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, Israel, Lebanon, Bush, Middle East, Ehud Olmert, Hezbollah, news, commentary, op ed

Iraqi Damage Assessments: DEVASTATING

(Click image for larger view.)

RJ Eskow, Huffington Post:

Communication Breakdown: Army Major Describes Yet Another Example of GOP Military Mismanagement

"The damage assessments out of Iraq and Afghanistan are devastating. So is a military officer's recent analysis of the way the Administration's handled one of the most critical strategic elements of the so-called 'War on Terror': the battle to persuade the Iraqi and Afghan people that their future lies in building an enlightened, non-fundamentalist society.

Not only is the new Iraqi government anti-Israeli and pro-Iranian, but the US-backed Afghan government has reinstated the infamous 'Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and the Promotion of Virtue,' the agency that intimidated women under the Taliban. Fundamentalism is back in black...."

Read more.

(Thanks again, EL, for the heads-up!)

Technorati tags: Huffington Post, RJ Eskow, Iraq, Major Joseph Cox, US Army, Afghanistan, Iraqi Damage Assessment, Military, GOP, War on Terror, Republican Party, news, commentary

IRAQI PERSPECTIVE

Once again, thanks to my astute buddy, EL, for steering me to this excellent article on BushCo's foreign policy goals as viewed from an Iraqi perspective:

Sunni, Shia and US ME politics
By Laith Saud
Aljazeera.Net

"There is a widespread belief amongst political theorists that democracies do not go to war with one another. Indeed, this political paradigm acted as a prime justification for the Bush administration's call to "democratise" the Middle East.

Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, this theme of 'democratisation' has become a major topic in American political discourse and in fact accompanies nearly all discussions of the Arab-Muslim world and America's so-called role in it.

The Bush administration’s response to the current conflict in southern Lebanon, reveals the hypocrisy and true ideology of this administration in aiming at provoking sectarian tension in the region.

Western analysts continue to discuss an alleged "historic" hostility between Sunni and Shia in the region. Dexter Filkins, an Iraq based New York Times journalist claimed in a recent radio interview that the Sunni in Iraq have now “realised that the Shia are their true enemy, not the Americans.”

But the fact is that this statement contradicts history, Iraq Sunni and Shia have been living together for centuries. Modern history books are free from any reference to war between them, but not until the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Martin Peretz claims that the most virulent social conflict in Middle Eastern history "is the Sunni hatred of the Shia, and vice versa," another groundless claim seems to suggest that Muslims somehow cause more harm to one another than the illegal occupations of their land. Western analysts and journalists newfound enthusiasm for sectarian history in the Muslim world needs to be contextualised.

The danger in baseless claims made by western journalists, become even greater when policy makers and American voters begin to rely on them to assess appropriate action in the Muslim and Arab regions.

It is remarkable that unpopular and unelected rulers, kings and occupiers are the only ones obsessed by alleged sectarian tensions in the region. King Abdullah II of Jordan, a close US ally had warned the west of the supposedly dangerous "Shia crescent" stretching from Iran, moving through Iraq, Syria and ending in Southern Lebanon.

Many in the west, including influential pro-Zionist journalists like Thomas Friedman, are praising Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia—states that Nicholas Blanford described as "western friendly Sunni-led Arab states."

George Bush has always been keen to invite the Saudis to the White House for a smile laden photo session with a president who is a frequent user of the term "free world".

This insistence on sectarianism revolves around a dangerous twist. Western journalists have continued to suggest that the US presence in Iraq is needed in order to prevent civil war, an idea that many Americans believe in.

Needless to say, the American presence has done nothing other than perpetuate civil tensions in the country. Arab kings are freighting their peoples with a false sectarian threat, further consolidating their forceful hold on power.

While regimes like the Saudis are now ordering huge quantities of weapons from the west in order to protect themselves from an assumed sectarian threat posed by Iran.

Western journalists and analysts repeating and confirming the existence of sectarian tension in the Middle East are actually justifying an American occupation of great parts of the region, instigate a local arms race where the west is the prime benefactor and protect tyrants' grip on power and monarchies who rule by fear.

The fact that the west is arming the un-elected regime in Saudi Arabia against the elected regime in Iran serves as an emphatic indicator of American wishes in the region.

It seems that the mounting tensions of Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon, have placed too much stress on the American façade of freedom and democracy and have revealed the true nature of American policy behind it.

American policy in the Middle East has two major components: First, the Bush administration has an absolute disdain for true democracy in the Middle East and, secondly, this administration is in great need for civil war throughout the entire region.

These observations may appear bold to western reader—it is a common perception amongst Arab and Muslim readers —when we examine US behaviour, however, it becomes difficult to conclude otherwise.

Firstly, the major targets of US criticism and Israeli aggression in the current crises—Hamas and Hezbollah are widely popular resistance groups who have democratically elected representative.

President Ahmednijad of Iran, who came to office elected by Iranian people himself, is a target of international criticism because of his hard stance against Israel.

Yet Mr. Bush who often says he is a leader of a state belongs to the "free world" supports unelected rulers in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt. The Bush administration’s cosy relationship with those rulers should serve as fair warning to green eared reformers in the Arab and Muslim world who seek out this administration’s alliance in the hope for political change.

Furthermore, analyzing US policy in this regard should shed some light on the recent political history of Iraq and help explain why events have taken that turn in that country.

These Arab leaders have justified their unpopular alliance with the United States by invoking sectarianism, while the US has justified its alliance with kings and dictators in the name of "protecting" the mainly Sunni Muslim world against alleged sectarian threat posed by Iran and Hezbollah who are Shia Muslims.

Let us be clear—this threat cannot be detected amongst the Arab public, it exists largely as an abstract idea that conveniently serves those in power.

When one takes a step back and looks at the broad picture of the current conflict it becomes apparently and ironically clear that the elected officials and regimes of the Muslim world are the targets of American and Israeli hostility.

On one hand we have Iranians, Hamas, and Hezbollah, all of whom were brought to power through an electoral process to greater or lesser degrees. In the case of Hamas and the regime of Ahmadinejad in Iran, we have majority elected governments, in the case of Hezbollah we have a popular organisation elected as a part of a government.

On the other hand we have Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, a couple of un-elected kings and an unelected ruler standing side by side with the United States, the supposed champion of democracy in the region, acquiescing in Israeli aggression.

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, has described the current conflict as the "birth pangs" of a new Middle East, but it seems this is a Middle East that does not represent the wishes of the people.

As I have mentioned, if anyone is curious about Rice’s vision of a new Middle East, you need look no further than Iraq, where the US encouraged a sectarian election and Iraqi citizens have become obsessed by Sunni and Shia affairs to the extent they have forgotten that their land remains illegally occupied.

While western analysts are describing Hezbollah as merely an extension of Iran, and therefore "Shia interests," the people of Cairo and Amman, predominantly "Sunni cities" took to the streets carrying pictures of Hasan Nasrallah the Shia Arab leader, defying the "Sunni-Shia rift," described by Peretz.

Most western observers have conveniently ignored widespread Sunni support for Hezbollah throughout the Arab and Muslim world. In Iraq the US employed a formula of sectarianism in order to entrench itself all the more deeply into Iraqi politics; we now find this formula being extrapolated across the greater Muslim world.

Sunni in the Arab world are to forget the constant aggression of Israel against the Arab peoples and rely on the United States to "protect" them from the Shia, while the Shia in Iraq are being convinced they need the US to protect them from the Sunni.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya has perhaps put it all in perspective by commenting on the issue of a "new" Middle East. He observes that what the Americans mean by "change" in the Middle East is an end to legitimate resistance against illegal and immoral occupation and Muslim subordination to American and Israeli domination.

His observations seem well justified since the NYT has recently reported that the US is rushing arms to Israel. We must remember, these missiles are meant to bomb Lebanon, a nation with a democratically elected government (of which members of Hezbollah are represented). So much for the theory that democracies do not go to war with one another.

Laith Saud is an Iraqi academic researcher and lecturer in the United States.

The opinions expressed here are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position or have the endorsement of Aljazeera."

Technorati tags: Aljazeera, Iraq, Shia, Sunni, American Politics, Bush, Propaganda, Condoleezza Rice, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, Palestinians, Ismail Haniya, news, commentary, op ed

Thousands of troops say they won�t fight

The Air Force Times reports:

Since 2000, about 40,000 troops from all branches of the military have deserted. Those who help war resisters say desertion is more prevalent than the military has admitted. "They lied in Vietnam with the amount of opposition to the war and they’re lying now," said Eric Seitz, an attorney who represents Army Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to the war in Iraq.

Read more.

I don't know about the rest of you, but this gives me a shot of hope. It shows that our young men and women are not all willing to blindly follow our Demander in Chief into his illegal wars -- when they know in their hearts that it is morally wrong.

Technorati tags: U.S. Military, War, War Resistance, War Deserters, news, commentary

New Republican Strategy: Legalizing Marijuana

"The Republican Party has a new voter registration project in Fresno. It involves luring people to sign a LEGALIZE MARIJUANA petition and then re-registering them as Republicans."

Thanks once again to Rimone at D A T E L I N E : B R I S T O L for this little tidbit.

Photo credit: 600republicanfraud.jpg/Mike Rhodes/Indybay.org

Technorati tags: Legalize Marijuana, Republican Party, Voter Registration, Fresno, California, Victor Salazar, Politics, news, commentary

"My Goodness"

MoDo nails Hillary & Rummy with one swift strike of her oh-so-deft sarcasm.


Henny Penny Harridan
By Maureen Dowd
The New York Times

The enunciation of a clear sentence about the war in Iraq by Hillary Clinton means that there must be an election coming up.

Until now, she has been unsubtly subtle about the most urgent issue facing the country, sending signals rightward, sending signals leftward, tacking here, tacking there. Some days she seemed to be signaling whether she intended to signal.

But now, suddenly, she’s a woman of passion, a model of concerned clarity. After an eon of calculated silence on most of the big moral questions of the day, there is a calculated breaking of the silence. The enigma won’t play anymore. It’s time for the drama.

But the drama played like “The Taming of the Shrew,” with the only question being, who was the shrew?

Hillary was trying to bring Rummy to heel, and Rummy was trying to exert manly control over Hillary.

The junior senator from New York staged a drama in three acts, first sending a letter summoning the reluctant Rummy to appear before the Armed Services Committee; then hectoring him with a litany of his “numerous errors in judgment”; and finally at the end of the day, like the Queen of Hearts, delivering her climactic demand for his head.

“I just don’t understand why we can’t get new leadership that would give us a fighting chance to turn the situation around,” Senator Clinton said after the hearing, summing up a truth acknowledged by everyone except W. and Dick Cheney, and particularly felt at the Pentagon, where the deeply unpopular defense chief has gone from self-styled matinee idol to self-destructing idle martinet.

During the hearing, Hillary unmanned Rummy, as Shakespeare would say, accusing him of incompetence, impotence and improbity.

“You did not go into Iraq with enough troops to establish law and order,’’ she said. “You disbanded the entire Iraqi Army. Now we’re trying to recreate it. You did not do enough planning for what is called phase four and rejected all the planning that had been done previously to maintain stability after the regime was overthrown. You underestimated the nature and strength of the insurgency, the sectarian violence and the spread of Iranian influence.”

She pointed out that the administration succeeds only in achieving the opposite of its aims — with the number of American troops in Iraq scheduled to increase, not decrease, and the violence and instability spreading.

She cited the administration’s reality disconnect on the Taliban in Afghanistan, where every new claim of success has been followed by new evidence of failure. The Taliban have been written out of the war by administration flackery, but they keep coming back like Mel Gibson’s hangovers and apologies.

She tartly summed up: “Because of the administration’s strategic blunders and, frankly, the record of incompetence in executing, you are presiding over a failed policy. Given your track record, Secretary Rumsfeld, why should we believe your assurances now?”

There was a pause while Rummy summoned all the condescension he usually reserves for doltish reporters.

“My goodness,’’ he exhaled finally, firing off a defense that could have been translated as: “Where do I start educating you on your utterly superficial understanding of the enemy, you harridan hippy-dippy Henny Penny?”

The Pentagon rank and file have tuned out Rummy, whose only transformation so far has been to transform himself into a dangerous, deluded codger. But when the respected General Abizaid admitted that “it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war,” it was clear Iraq was already in one. It opened up a river of talk across the river about what people there had long been afraid to say: that Rummy’s jutting jaw is not going to cut it. There needs to be an alternative strategy to keep our kids from having to fight their way out of a sectarian conflagration.

When Hillary and Rummy square off, it is a gladiatorial contest of two masters at hauteur, self-righteousness, scriptedness, infighting and belief in their own manifest destiny.

Hillary wants to avoid Joe Lieberman’s fate by arguing that how the administration went about this war has caused all the problems, not that it went to a needless war she supported. Her stratagem avoids the lie that set off all the other lies, and leaves Hillary risking a John Kerry problem, being both for the war and against it.

It’s going to be a tough triangulation. Even Bill never had to squirm his way out of something as hard as this.

Photo credit: Maureen Dowd. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Technorati tags: Maureen Dowd, New York Times, Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, The Pentagon, Senate, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, Politics, Government, news, commentary, op ed

More US Violations of International Law?

The Secretive Fight Against Bioterror

The government is building a highly classified facility to research biological weapons, but its closed-door approach has raised concerns.

On the grounds of a military base an hour's drive from the capital, the Bush administration is building a massive biodefense laboratory unlike any seen since biological weapons were banned 34 years ago.

Read more.

Photo credit: A computer-animated image of the planned building for the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center building to be constructed at Ft. Detrick, Md. (Courtesy of NBACC & Washington Post)

Technorati tags: The Washington Post, Joby Warrick, Biological Weapons, Biodefense, International Law and Treaties, news, commentary

Ricks and Wilkerson on the Misadventure of Iraq

Stirling Newberry writes:

"'Fiasco' has shot to #1 on Amazon.com. It provides the hard objective facts, woven within an air-tight narrative, of America's involvement in Iraq, which in places seems to mirror Vietnam, and in others a wholly new geo-political malaise of faith-based militarism. No one in America today can afford to be without this book; no one making public policy can ignore the facts he documents, or the picture he paints of a nation that has failed to understand the consequences of its decisions."

Read more.

Technorati tags: Stirling Newberry, Thomas E. Ricks, "Fiasco", Iraq, news, commentary

Bush to Open New Maximum-Security Jail at Guantanamo

"The controversy over the US-run detention centre at Guantanamo Bay is to erupt anew with confirmation by the Pentagon that a new, permanent prison will open in the Cuban enclave in the next few weeks. Campaigners pointed to Mr. Bush's claim earlier this summer that he would "like to close" Guantanamo. The revelation that Camp 6 is poised to open is proof that he intends to keep using the prison."

Read more.

Technorati tags: Bush, Guantanamo, Prisoners of War, Detention Center, news, commentary, The Independent UK, Andrew Buncombe

How to Restore American Credibility

Unfortunately, since Tommy-Boy Friedman jumped off the Iraq Bush-mobile, his opinion is of little import to the powers that be. But that doesn't stop Tom from bravely offering up Plan B in an effort to salvage the seemingly unsalvageable mess in Iraq. It's a noble effort.

I have a better idea. Since everything about Bush's Iraq plan has been an abominable failure, and since the repercussions of that failed policy have isolated us from and destroyed our credibility with the international community, considerably weakening our influence in the world and our ability to broker deals -- there is only one thing to do: get rid of the problem.

Here's how. Impeach BushCo for the myriad of high crimes and misdemeanors, so beautifully and often outlined by others, remove the whole gang from office, and, with the installation (or election, if it takes that long) of a new president, make it his first priority to completely disavow "New World Order," neo-con idiologies and lay out a new direction for America: one committed to promoting and nurturing mutual health, prosperity, and peace throughout the world -- by actually making peace, not war.

American credibility in the international sphere would be immediately restored and would be further strengthened by allowing us to actually do what our leaders profess to do, but don't -- that is, become an example to the world by treating other nations with respect and dignity, rather than as an inferior species to be dominated, manipulated, and colonized.

How's that for a plan, America?

Imagine a world where the priority is not profiting from war and the suffering of others, but profiting from peace and the well being of others. As radical as that may sound in today's perverted, politically propagandized world -- it's actually not radical or even partisan. It's just good, moral, common sense.


Time for Plan B
By Thomas L. Friedman
The New York Times

It is now obvious that we are not midwifing democracy in Iraq. We are baby-sitting a civil war.

When our top commander in Iraq, Gen. John Abizaid, tells a Senate Committee, as he did yesterday, that “the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I’ve seen it,” it means that three years of efforts to democratize Iraq are not working. That means “staying the course” is pointless, and it’s time to start thinking about Plan B — how we might disengage with the least damage possible.

It seemed to me over the last three years that, even with all the Bush team’s missteps, we had to give our Iraqi partners a chance to produce a transitional government, then write a constitution, then hold an election and then, finally, put together their first elected cabinet. But now they have done all of that — and the situation has only worsened.

The Sunni jihadists and Baathists are as dedicated as ever to making this U.S.-Iraqi democracy initiative fail. That, and the runaway sectarian violence resulting from having too few U.S. troops and allowing a militia culture to become embedded, have made Iraq a lawless mess.

Yes, I believe it was and remains hugely important to try to partner with Iraqis to create one good example in the heart of the Arab world of a decent, progressive state, where the politics of fear and tribalism do not reign — the politics that has produced all the pathologies of unemployment, religious intolerance and repression that make the Middle East so dangerous to itself and others.

But the administration now has to admit what anyone — including myself — who believed in the importance of getting Iraq right has to admit: Whether for Bush reasons or Arab reasons, it is not happening, and we can’t throw more good lives after good lives.

Since the Bush team never gave us a Plan A for Iraq, it at least owes us a Plan B. It’s not easy. Here are my first thoughts about a Plan B and some of the implications.

I think we need to try a last-ditch Bosnia-like peace conference that would bring together all of Iraq’s factions and neighbors. Just as Bosnia could be solved only by an international peace force and the Dayton conference — involving Russia, Europe and the U.S., the powers most affected by Bosnia’s implosion — the civil war in Iraq can be quelled only by a coalition of those most affected by Iraq’s implosion: the U.S., Russia, Europe, Japan, India, China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, Syria and Jordan. As in Bosnia, any solution will have to be some form of federalism, a division of oil wealth and policing by an international force, where needed.

For such a conference to come about, though, the U.S. would probably need to declare its intention to leave. Iraqis, other Arabs, Europeans and Chinese will get serious about helping to salvage Iraq only if they believe we are leaving and it will damage their interests.

What would be the consequences of leaving without such a last-ditch peace effort, or if it just fails? Iraq could erupt into a much wider civil war, drawing in its neighbors. Or, Iraqis might stare into this abyss and actually come to terms with each other on their own. Our presence may be part of the problem. It’s hard to know.

If Iraq opts for all-out civil war, its two million barrels a day will be off the market and oil could go above $100 a barrel. (That would, however, spur more investment in alternative fuels that could one day make us independent of this volatile region.)

Some fear that Iran will be the winner. But will it? Once we are out of Iraq, Iran will have to manage the boiling pot next door. That will be a huge problem for Iran. The historical enmity toward Iran by Iraqi Arabs — enmity temporarily focused on us — will re-emerge. And Iran will also have to compete with its ally Syria for influence in Iraq.

Yes, the best way to contain Iran would have been to produce a real Shiite-led democracy in Iraq, exposing the phony one in Tehran. But second best is leaving Iraq. Because the worst option — the one Iran loves — is for us to stay in Iraq, bleeding, and in easy range to be hit by Iran if we strike its nukes.

Finally, the war in Iraq has so divided us at home and abroad that leaving, while bringing other problems, might also make it easier to build coalitions to deal with post-U.S. Iraq, Iran, Hezbollah and Syria. All these problems are connected. We need to deal with Iran and Syria, but from a position of strength — and that requires a broad coalition.

The longer we maintain a unilateral failing strategy in Iraq, the harder it will be to build such a coalition, and the stronger the enemies of freedom will become.

Photo credit: Thomas Friedman. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Also See:

• Bush fiddles while Middle East burns


• Cease Fire Now - William Rivers Pitt


• Days of darkness - Haaretz - Israel News

  "In war as in war: Israel is sinking into a strident, nationalistic atmosphere and darkness is beginning to cover everything. The brakes we still had are eroding, the insensitivity and blindness that characterized Israeli society in recent years is intensifying," writes Gideon Levy.

Technorati tags: Tom Friedman, New York Times, Iraq, Middle East, Foreign Policy, International Relations, US Military, news, commentary, op ed

People vs. Parties

Yet another astute op ed by the Krug Man who makes the case that the current political climate precludes centrist politics -- and "those who refuse to recognize this reality end up being useful idiots for those, like President Bush, who have been consistently ruthless in their partisanship."


Centrism Is for Suckers
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

If you want to understand the state of America today, a good place to start is with the contrast between the political strategies of conservative business advocacy groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and those of more or less liberal advocacy groups like the Sierra Club.

The chamber recently got into trouble because of ads it ran praising Republican members of Congress who, it said, voted for the Medicare prescription drug program. It turned out that one of the congressmen praised in the ads actually voted against the program, while two others weren’t even in Congress when the vote took place.

Oops. But the bigger question is, aren’t business groups supposed to favor fiscal responsibility and reducing the size of government? So why is the chamber praising a program that substantially increases the size of government and has no visible means of financial support?

The answer is obvious: the Bush administration hopes to win some votes in the midterm elections from older Americans now receiving drug benefits, and the chamber, like many conservative organizations these days, believes that its interests are best served by helping Republicans win elections. If the administration and its allies in Congress want the chamber’s support on an issue, they get it, never mind the details.

If you want an even starker example, consider the fact that the National Federation of Independent Business, the small-business lobby, is supporting the bizarre, hybrid wage-and-tax legislation now before the Senate. This legislation would raise the minimum wage while sharply cutting taxes on very large estates.

From a small-business owner’s point of view, this deal makes no sense. Many owners of small businesses believe, rightly or wrongly, that they would be hurt by a rise in the minimum wage. Meanwhile, very few are rich enough to pay estate taxes: the Congressional Budget Office reports that if current law had applied in 2000, only 135 small business estates would have paid any tax at all, which means that small-business owners subject to the estate tax are substantially harder to find than people who have been struck by lightning.

It’s possible that the federation’s leadership has been misled by Heritage Foundation propaganda. But it’s more likely that, like the chamber, the federation believes that its interests are best served by acting as a loyal servant of the Republican electoral effort. And both organizations are probably right.

Now compare this with the behavior of advocacy groups like the Sierra Club, the environmental organization, and Naral, the abortion-rights group, both of which have endorsed Senator Lincoln Chafee, Republican of Rhode Island, for re-election. The Sierra Club’s executive director defended the Chafee endorsement by saying, “We choose people, not parties.” And it’s true that Mr. Chafee has usually voted with environmental groups.

But while this principle might once have made sense, it’s just naïve today. Given both the radicalism of the majority party’s leadership and the ruthlessness with which it exercises its control of the Senate, Mr. Chafee’s personal environmentalism is nearly irrelevant when it comes to actual policy outcomes; the only thing that really matters for the issues the Sierra Club cares about is the “R” after his name.

Put it this way: If the Democrats gain only five rather than six Senate seats this November, Senator James Inhofe, who says that global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” will remain in his current position as chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. And if that happens, the Sierra Club may well bear some of the responsibility.

The point is that those who cling to the belief that politics can be conducted in terms of people rather than parties — a group that also includes would-be centrist Democrats like Joe Lieberman and many members of the punditocracy — are kidding themselves.

The fact is that in 1994, the year when radical Republicans took control both of Congress and of their own party, things fell apart, and the center did not hold. Now we’re living in an age of one-letter politics, in which a politician’s partisan affiliation is almost always far more important than his or her personal beliefs. And those who refuse to recognize this reality end up being useful idiots for those, like President Bush, who have been consistently ruthless in their partisanship.

Photo credit: Paul Krugman. (The New York Times)

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• A Rallying Cry for Democratic Populism

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Technorati tags: Paul Krugman, Republican Party, Democratic Party, Sierra Club, NARAL, Senator Lincoln Chafee, National Federation of Independent Business, US Chamber of Commerce, Partisanship, news, commentary, op ed

Oops! Rummy Must Have Missed This:

Aljazeera.Net - Iraq's Shia in 'million man march'

Shias from southern and central Iraq have begun travelling to Baghdad in answer to Muqtada al-Sadr's call for a "million man march" in support of Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Waving Iraqi flags and chanting "Death to America! Death to Israel", the demonstrators mounted convoys of buses and headed for the capital on Thursday, some of them wearing white shrouds symbolising their readiness to accept martyrdom.

The demonstration is to be held following Friday prayers in the teeming Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, home to some two million people, and comes at a tense time for the capital.

Sahib al-Ameri, general director of the Foundation for God's Martyrs, part of Sadr's movement said: "Thousands of Najaf people have set off for Baghdad as a response to Moqtada al-Sadr's invitation to take part."

Anger over Israeli attacks on Lebanon - which target Hezbollah but have caused widespread civilian casualties - has raised passions in Iraq, where Shia militias have an uneasy relationship with the US-backed government.

US forces have visibly tightened security around Sadr City, a working class Shia district where Sadr's supporters are openly armed.

"Fifteen-hundred of Sadr's followers from Basra have arrived to take part in the demonstration that had been called in Baghdad," said Sadr spokesman Akil al-Bahadli.

Read more.

Also see:

Shiite leaders distance themselves from Iraqi government

Technorati tags: Aljazeera, Iraq, Shia, Al-Sadr, Million Man March, news, commentary

The Money Masters - Part 1

How International Bankers gained control of America:

To understand who is really in control our government and pulling politicians' strings, this is a MUST-SEE DOCUMENTARY.

Technorati tags: Federal Reserve, Money, Banks and Banking, U.S. Government, Documentary, news, commentary, video

The Money Masters - Part 2

Part 2 - How International Bankers gained control of America

Technorati tags: Federal Reserve, Money, Banks and Banking, U.S. Government, Documentary, news, commentary, video

Masters of the Universe: The Secret Birth of the Federal Reserve

Was there a takeover of the US by international bankers?

In this film, you will visit the scene of a crime so perfect that, for thirty years, no one knew it had even taken place. Watch this 45 minute documentary, featuring Daniel Hopsicker, on the banking elite, the Federal Reserve, the Bilderbergers, the Trilateral Comission and the New World Order in general, as it investigates the birth of a criminal conspiracy to rob each and every bank vault in America.

Technorati tags: Federal Reserve, Money, Banks and Banking, U.S. Government, Conspiracy, Daniel Hopsicker, Banking Elite, The Bilderbergers, The Trilateral Commission, The New World Order, Documentary, news, commentary, video

Hot Enough Yet?

By Bob Herbert
The New York Times

The heat wave burned its way east from California, where it killed more than 100 people. It moved relentlessly across the nation’s midsection, sparking record-high temperatures in state after state, mimicking a heat wave that killed more than 700 people in the Midwest in 1995.

For the past couple of days it has tormented the East Coast, draining power systems and creating a hellish environment for the frail and infirm, and especially for the elderly poor struggling to survive without the blessings of air-conditioning.

You can’t blame any single weather event on global warming. But with polar bears drowning because they can’t swim far enough to make it from one ice floe to another; with the once-glorious snows of Kilimanjaro about to bring down the final curtain on their long, long run; with the virtual disappearance of Lake Chad in Africa, which was once the size of Lake Erie, it may be time to get serious about trying to slow this catastrophic trend.

(It’s also time to aggressively counter the dangerous nonsense of people like Senator James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who has been openly contemptuous of the idea that human activity has contributed to global warming, and Senator Conrad Burns, a Montana Republican whose head has always had the habit of migrating to extremely peculiar places, in this instance into the very hot sand.

(Senator Inhofe has said that “man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” Senator Burns, according to a publication called “Environment and Energy Daily,” shrugged the matter off completely, saying: “You remember the ice age? It’s been warming ever since, and there ain’t nothing we can do to stop it.”)

As I’m writing this, the lights have been dimmed in much of The New York Times Building, in accordance with the request of Mayor Michael Bloomberg that New Yorkers conserve as much energy as possible. The temperature in the city is right around 100 degrees.

It’s certainly true that heat waves in July and August are not unusual. But we need to keep in mind that the first six months of this year were the warmest ever recorded in the United States. And that this summer, according to the National Climatic Data Center, more than 50 cities in the continental U.S. have set records for high temperature.

We should keep in mind, as Al Gore has pointed out, that of the 21 hottest years ever measured, 20 have occurred within the last 25 years. And the hottest year of this recent hottest wave was last year.

Those who are familiar with the cold and fog of the Bay Area in northern California should consider the following summation of the latest heat wave from Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle: “In northern California, it was hotter for longer than ever on record, hitting 110 degrees four consecutive days in the nine-county Bay Area.”

There’s more. Seth Borenstein, the science writer for The Associated Press, reported yesterday that in recent years, the U.S. has had more than three times its normal share of extremely hot summer nights. “That is a particularly dangerous trend,” Mr. Borenstein wrote. “During heat waves, like the one that now has a grip on much of the East, one of the major causes of heat deaths is the lack of night cooling that would normally allow a stressed body to recover.”

Referring to the spike in nighttime temperatures, Richard Heim, a research meteorologist at the climate center, said in the article: “This is unbelievable. Something strange has happened in the last 10 to 15 years.”

Unlike Senator Burns, there are people who understand that there are things we can do to mitigate the worst effects of global warming. We’d better do something fast. We’re no longer waiting for the tragedies predicted to result from extremely high temperatures, extreme weather events, storm surges and so forth. We’re already enduring them.

Remember New Orleans? And the thousands who died from the heat in Chicago and elsewhere in the Midwest in 1995? And, as incredible as it still seems, the 35,000 killed by a monster heat wave in Europe in 2003?

I think the single most effective thing most ordinary Americans could do to become more informed about global warming — and the steps we need to take to fight it — is to go see Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” and read his book of the same title.

It would be a shame if it turns out that Americans have been so deprived of leadership for so long that they fail to recognize it when it’s offered to them.

Photo credit: Bob Herbert. (The New York Times)

Technorati tags: Bob Herbert, New York Times, Global Warming, National Climatic Data Center, Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, James Inhofe, news, commentary, op ed

Davey's Wal-Mart Leisure Class

Does anyone out there actually relate to the stuff Brooks writes? A Wal-Mart leisure class? Huh??? Not in my world, Bubba.

Me-thinks Davey needs to write less and get out more ....


Bye-Bye, Bootstraps
By David Brooks
The New York Times

In all healthy societies, the middle-class people have wholesome middle-class values while the upper-crust bluebloods lead lives of cosseted leisure interrupted by infidelity, overdoses and hunting accidents. But in America today we’ve got this all bollixed up.

Through some screw-up in the moral superstructure, we now have a plutocratic upper class infused with the staid industriousness of Ben Franklin, while we are apparently seeing the emergence of a Wal-Mart leisure class — devil-may-care middle-age slackers who live off home-equity loans and disability payments so they can surf the History Channel and enjoy fantasy football leagues.

For the first time in human history, the rich work longer hours than the proletariat.

Today’s super-wealthy no longer go off on four-month grand tours of Europe, play gin-soaked Gatsbyesque croquet tournaments or spend hours doing needlepoint while thinking in full paragraphs like the heroines of Jane Austen novels. Instead, their lives are marked by sleep deprivation and conference calls, and their idea of leisure is jetting off to Aspen to hear Zbigniew Brzezinski lead panels titled “Beyond Unipolarity.”

Meanwhile, down the income ladder, the percentage of middle-age men who have dropped out of the labor force has doubled over the past 40 years, to over 12 percent. Many of the men have disabilities. Others struggle to find work. But in a recent dinner-party-dominating article, The Times’s Louis Uchitelle and David Leonhardt describe two men who are not exactly Horatio Alger wonderboys.

Christopher Priga, 54, earned a six-figure income as an electrical engineer at Xerox but is now shown relaxing at a coffee shop with a book and a smoke while waiting for a job commensurate with his self-esteem. “To be honest, I’m kind of looking for the home run,” he said. “There’s no point in hitting for base hits.”

Alan Beggerow, once a steelworker, now sleeps nine hours day, reads two or three books a week, writes Amazon reviews, practices the piano and writes Louis L’Amour-style westerns. “I have come to realize that my free time is worth a lot to me,” he said.

His wife takes in work as a seamstress and bakes to help support the family, as they eat away at their savings. “The future is always a concern,” Beggerow said, “but I no longer allow myself to dwell on it.”

Many readers no doubt observed that if today’s prostate-aged moochers wanted to loaf around all day reading books and tossing off their vacuous opinions into the ether, they should have had the foresight to become newspaper columnists.

Others will note sardonically that the only really vibrant counterculture in the United States today is laziness.

But I try not to judge these gentlemen harshly. What I see is a migration of values. Once upon a time, middle-class men would have defined their dignity by their ability to work hard, provide for their family and live as self-reliant members of society. But these fellows, to judge by their quotations, define their dignity the same way the subjects of Thorstein Veblen’s “The Theory of the Leisure Class” defined theirs.

They define their dignity by the loftiness of their thinking. They define their dignity not by their achievement, but by their personal enlightenment, their autonomy, by their distance from anything dishonorably menial or compulsory.

In other words, the values that used to prevail among the manorial estates have migrated to parts of mass society while the grinding work ethic of the immigrant prevails in the stratosphere.

This is terrible. It’s a blow first of all to literature. If P. G. Wodehouse were writing today, Bertie Wooster would be at Goldman Sachs and Jeeves would be judging a meth-mouth contest at Sturgis. Anna Karenina would be Miranda Priestly from “The Devil Wears Prada.” “The House of Mirth” would become “The House of Broadband.”

More important, this reversal is a blow to the natural order of the universe. The only comfort I’ve had from these disturbing trends is another recent story in The Times. Joyce Wadler reported that women in places like the Hamptons are still bedding down with the hired help. R. Couri Hay, the society editor of Hamptons magazine, celebrated rich women’s tendency to sleep with their home renovators.

“Nobody knows,” he said. “The contractor isn’t going to tell because the husband is writing the check, the wife isn’t going to tell, and you get a better job because she’s providing a fringe benefit. Everybody wins.”

Thank God somebody is standing up for traditional morality.

Photo credit: David Brooks. (The New York Times)

Technorati tags: David Brooks, The New York Times, Social Class, Rich, Poor, Middle Class, Wal-Mart, news, commentary, op ed

Marty Kaplan: How to Hack a Diebold Voting Machine

"Hilariously Serious!"

MUST SEE:

CLICK HERE to WATCH VIDEO.

Also see:

• WORST EVER SECURITY FLAW FOUND IN DIEBOLD TS VOTING MACHINE - OPEN VOTING FOUNDATION

Technorati tags: Diebold, Black Box Voting, Voting Machine, Vote Fraud, humor, news, video

NORAD TAPES: 9/11 Cover-Up Suspected

Eventually the truth will out. Read on:

9/11 Panel Suspected Deception by Pentagon
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 2, 2006

Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate.

Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources. Staff members and some commissioners thought that e-mails and other evidence provided enough probable cause to believe that military and aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and to the commission, hoping to hide the bungled response to the hijackings, these sources said....

Michael Bronner reports in a VANITY FAIR Exclusive:

How did the U.S. Air Force respond on 9/11? Could it have shot down United 93, as conspiracy theorists claim? Obtaining 30 hours of never-before-released tapes from the control room of NORAD's Northeast headquarters, the author reconstructs the chaotic military history of that day—and the Pentagon's apparent attempt to cover it up. VF.com exclusive: Hear excerpts from the September 11 NORAD tapes. Click PLAY after each transcript to listen....

Also see:

Nur Gedanken :: A MASTERPIECE OF DECEPTION :: August :: 2006

Technorati tags: NORAD, 9-11, 9-11 Coverup, Justice Department, Sept. 11 panel, Pentagon, news, commentary, audio tapes

Republican Revolts!

John Burns Reports in a RAW STORY Exclusive:

Reagan conservative lashes out at 'hijackers of the conservative movement'

He didn’t support invading Iraq. He says national security decisions are too often made for political gain. And he maintains that Tom DeLay used “legal plunder” for the “immoral purpose of holding onto power.”

A Democrat? No – His name is Richard Viguerie, a conservative icon and key architect of Ronald Reagan’s 1980 victory. Known to many as the godfather of direct-mail campaign fundraising, his four-decade career has succored scores of conservative candidates and grassroots causes.

A balding grandfather with a wry Texan’s smile, Viguerie is a seasoned conservative who confidently brushes aside accusations that his criticism of Republicans is intended for personal gain. On Monday, he sat down with RAW STORY to talk about his new book, Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause....

Read more.

Technorati tags: Raw Story, Richard Viguerie, Reagan, Republicans, Tom DeLay, Conservatives, news, commentary

Dowd: Honorary Jew for a Day

After reading today's NY Times op ed regarding Mel Gibson's drunken anti-semitic escapade, I would almost bet my grandma's gefilte fish recipe that MoDo is Jewish.

For a "schiksa," she sure does Judiasm proud:


Mel's Tequila Sunrise
By Maureen Dowd
The New York Times

My mom always warned me to stay away from tequila.

She would have given the same advice to Mel. She loved Mel, and always thought he would have been perfect for the role of Michael Collins, the romantic fighter for Irish independence who came to a bloody end in a roadside ambush in 1922.

Michael Collins came a cropper in County Cork, not County Quirk, as Mel Gibson did, careering along the same Pacific Coast winding yellow brick road where Robert Downey Jr. and Nick Nolte were snagged by the Malibu police in other momentous events in American history.

Mr. Gibson appears to believe that the Jews control everything. It is an ancient anti-Semitic insult. But now that he has gotten into trouble for his bigoted views, he has thrown himself at the mercy of the object of his bigotry.

He said he wants to “meet with leaders in the Jewish community, with whom I can have a one-on-one discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing.”

He added: “I am in the process of understanding where those vicious words came from during that drunken display, and I am asking the Jewish community, whom I have personally offended, to help me on my journey through recovery.”

It’s not the first time he’s gotten in trouble for intolerance. When “Braveheart” came out in 1995, Mr. Gibson ranted and raved when Frank Bruni, then the movie critic for The Detroit Free Press, asked him about some reportedly homophobic remarks he had made three years earlier to a Spanish-language magazine. The magazine quoted him as saying that he became an actor “despite” the fear that it might lead people to assume he was gay. Ecce homo! He told Frank that the arbiters of political of correctness were “tantamount to Nazis.”

Now that the volatile Mr. Gibson has pleaded for guidance from leaders of the American Jewish community, I decided to consult the only one I know. I asked Leon Wieseltier, the author of “Kaddish ” and the literary editor of The New Republic, how he would help Mel heal.

“He has been a very bad goy,’’ Leon said.

“It is really rich to behold Gibson asking Jews to behave like Christians. Has he forgotten how bellicose and wrathful and unforgiving we are? Why would a people who start all the wars make a peace? Perhaps he’s feeling a little like Jesus, hoping that the Jews don’t do their worst and preparing himself for more evidence of their disappointing behavior.

“I have always wondered why people who believe that we control the world do not have more respect for us. Take that cop who arrested Gibson. Do you think it was a coincidence that he was a Jew? We have been following Gibson’s every move since he released that movie. The other night, when our uniformed brother spotted him bobbing and weaving in his star car, we saw an opportunity and we took it. Don’t blame us. It’s what Yahweh would do.

“When Officer Mee busted him, we all busted him.

“Moreover, it is the elders’ considered view that whereas alcoholism may require a process of recovery, anti-Semitism is a more intractable and less chic failing. This was not a moment of insanity, even if Gibson is insane. His hatred of Jews was plain in his movie and in his twisted defense of it, which was made when he was sober under the influence of his primitive world view. Perhaps he thinks that all he needs to do is spend a few months in AA — Anti-Semites Anonymous — and find some celebrity sponsor and run for absolution to Larry Zeiger, I mean Larry King, where he can say with perfect sincerity that the Holocaust was a terrible thing and gut yontif.

“But the elders have instructed Larry to be strict with the uncircumcised offender. He is to appear only opposite ‘American Idol’ and in the company of David Gest.

“We understand that Gibson cannot do it alone. But why do we have to do it with him? We would find it hard to be in a room with him unless, of course, he wants to count some money with us. Why doesn’t he turn to the vast number of his Christian brothers and sisters who show no trace of anything resembling his disgusting prejudice?

“Mad Max is making Max mad, and Murray, and Irving, and Mort, and Marty, and Abe. But we’re not completely heartless. If he wants to do Shylock at dinner theater, fine. If he agrees to fill his swimming pool with Kabbalah water, fine.”

Then Leon was just too aggravated to speak. He mumbled something in Aramaic and hung up.

Photo credit: Maureen Dowd. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Related:

• Gibson Enters Rehab


• The Anti-Semitic Passion of Mel Gibson


• The Blog | Bill Maher: The World IS Mel Gibson | The Huffington Post


• The Blog | Larisa Alexandrovna: Mirror Mirror - The Passion of Hypocrites | The Huffington Post

Technorati tags: Maureen Dowd, New York Times, Mel Gibson, Anti-Semitism, Jews, Homosexuality, Judiasm, Alcoholics, news, commentary, op ed

ROGUES R US

(Click Picture for Larger View)

Given the current moral values here in the good ol' U. S. of A., everything Tom Tom espouses in today's op ed makes good, common sense. I, as you know, reject the morality of BushCo. To illustrate my point, let us imagine the following scenario:

Imagine that the United States, under the leadership of GW Bush, has systematically, in the eyes of the international community, committed war crimes and defied international law while waging their nebulous "war against terrorism." They have engaged in torture, rendition, chemical warfare, and killed millions of innocent civilians (In their defense, the U.S. claims that the terrorists use civilians as human shields).

Further imagine that the U.S. has invaded a sovereign country (Iraq), posing no threat to other nations, and has proceeded to install a puppet "democratic" regime. In the meantime they are occupying the entire country and spending millions of dollars building permanent U.S. military bases at strategic points around the country--all the while professing to the world that they have no intention of occupying Iraq and will leave "as soon as Iraqi Security Forces can stand up" to the insurgents.

The result of this misadventure has been increasing chaos in Iraq, ever mounting violence and Iraqi civilian deaths, with no end in sight.

Now imagine, that despite their failures in Iraq, the U.S. has continued to threaten other sovereign nations around the globe, labeling them evil terrorist regimes, and demanding that they give up their nuclear ambitions and do as the US demands or face dire consequences. They even talk of overthrowing or assassinating foreign leaders.

In the meantime, the Bush regime has systematically undermined the U.S. Constitution and operated above U.S. law, to the detriment of the people of the United States and the world community. From the international communities viewpoint, they seem to be moving toward a fascist state intent on world domination.

Given these actions, Iran and Syria, labeling the U.S. a rogue nation and the greatest threat to world peace, demand that the US give up its nuclear weapons and condemns Bush's fascist regime.

Given this scenario, would they be unjustified?

One can see, that from an international perspective, the U.S. is hardly a nation worth emulating or following, but rather, a rogue state bent on world domination and committed to the destruction of any nation who stands in her way.

Tom Tom is not alone when he fails to view our nation's actions as an outsider. It is no wonder we are hated by more nations than ever before, that we have so few friends in the world, and those we have are most likely allied to us largely because they have no better alternative.

This is reality, folks: The sun does not rotate around the United States. The rest of the world has the right to live in peace without interference and threats from us, just as we should have the right to live in peace without interference and threats from other nations.

Our country, like it or not, is operating immorally. We don't blink at the destruction of innocent lives in Iraq or Lebanon -- as long as our leaders tell us it is in the name of freedom or "spreading democracy" or getting rid of "terrorists" or an "evil dictator."

There's just one problem: it's a crock.

So forgive me if I have no patience for Tom Tom's newest strategy to keep Iraq and North Korea in check. It's not that these two countries may pose a threat to us. It's that we brought that threat on ourselves by choosing to bully nations with reckless threats instead of seeking ways to promote cooperation peacefully through respect.

Our government is operating with a barbaric moral compass. It is time to get rid of the "evildoers" in the White House -- before they succeed in spreading more death and destruction across the globe.

DEMAND IMPEACHMENT. NOW.


A Choice for the Rogues
By Thomas L. Friedman
The New York Times

I seriously doubt the Bush team will succeed in curtailing the Iranian or North Korean nuclear programs until it resolves a contradiction that has been at the heart of this administration from the beginning: Is it for a change of regime or a change of behavior in Iran and North Korea? Because the Bush team has refused to make up its mind, it’s gotten neither. All it’s gotten are two better-armed rogues.

How so? Go back to the impressive deal that the Bush team did pull off in 2003 to get Libya’s leader, Muammar el-Qaddafi, to give up his crude nuclear weapons program. How did that happen?

The official Bush narrative is that Mr. Qaddafi looked at the U.S. invasion of Iraq, got frightened out of his mind, and called Roto-Rooter, a k a, the Bush administration, and said, “Oh my god, there are nukes in my basement, get these out of here!”

Wrong, argues Robert Litwak, the director of international security studies at the Woodrow Wilson Center and an expert on rogue states.

“What actually brought Qaddafi around was a tacit but clear U.S. security assurance that if he did give up his nuclear program the U.S. would not seek to oust him from power,” said Mr. Litwak. “That is what made the difference. ... If Libya gave up its unconventional weapons, the U.S. would give up its efforts at regime change.”

What has been missing from the Bush approach to Iran and North Korea is that kind of clear choice. For instance, even after the administration agreed to participate in the European-led diplomatic effort to get Iran to abandon its nuclear program, it has continued to seek funding to destabilize the Iranian regime, and it has made clear, as Condoleezza Rice said on May 21: “Iran is a troublemaker in the international system. ... Security assurances are not on the table.”

Both Iran and North Korea have a very high incentive to maintain ambiguity about their nuclear capabilities when we are so ambiguous about our intentions toward them.

Have no doubt, I think both are awful, abusive regimes that are driving their respective countries into a ditch. The Bush team is right to want them to disappear and to try to find ways to bring pressure to bear. But the Soviet Union was just as awful and abusive. Yet we engaged in “détente” with Moscow, because the thrust of U.S. policy in the Cold War was to reduce the Soviets’ ability to threaten us — through deterrence and arms control agreements — and then let the information revolution and popular disgruntlement destroy the Soviet Union from within.

What was good for the Soviet Union is good for North Korea and Iran. Let’s focus on the diplomacy needed to halt the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs. That is what threatens us. We don’t have the power to change their regimes. Only their people do. We do have the power to limit their capabilities.

If the North Koreans want direct talks with the U.S. and bilateral relations, who cares? Give it to them — provided it is in return for a verifiable limit on their nuclear program. If Iran’s ayatollahs want a tacit security assurance from the U.S. — in return for a verifiable curb on their ability to produce nukes — give it to them.

The fact that the U.S. had an embassy in Moscow and practiced détente didn’t save the Soviet Union. It collapsed at the hands of its own people. But the arms control accords we had with the Kremlin saved the world from a lot of nukes. Iran and North Korea will also collapse from within — but it takes time. And in that time they could build lots of nukes. So we need to end their programs now, even if it means giving them tacit U.S. security guarantees, à la Libya.

“This is not an endorsement of either regime,” added Mr. Litwak, author of the forthcoming “Regime Change: U.S. Strategy Through the Prism of 9/11.” “Rather, it is a pragmatic approach to deal with the fact that the nuclear weapons development timeline is not in sync with the time it takes for regime change to unfold.”

Five decades of America’s isolating Cuba has produced five decades of Fidel Castro. As long as we maintain our ambiguity vis-à-vis Iran and North Korea — regime change or change in behavior — they will maintain their ambiguity about their nuclear programs. I have no idea if they would give up their weapons now, even if the Bush team gave them security guarantees. It may be that things are too far gone. But we need to test.

If we do not test that proposition, we will never know if there is a peaceful solution to the Iranian and North Korean nuclear challenges — and we will never have allies for a tougher policy if there isn’t.

Photo credit: Thomas Friedman. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Technorati tags: Thomas Friedman, The New York Times, North Korea, Iran, United States Military, US Foreign Policy, Muammar El-Qaddafi, news, commentary, op ed