October 11, 2004, What a HERO is
I'm saddened to learn of the death of Christopher Reeve at age 52, from heart failure caused by complications from quadriplegia.
As you all know, Reeve, an actor best known for playing Superman in the movie series of that name, was paralyzed from the neck down after a horseback riding accident nine years ago. Rather than fade away and die, as a lesser man might have, horrifying circumstance intervened and Reeve went from being a make-believe super-hero and drove him to become a real one, as he used his public stature to lobby and publicize the plight of those in similar circumstances, including vocal advocacy of stem cell research and other medical endeavors.
While many (including himself) dreamed of the day he would walk again (and a rather freakish commercial to that effect aired during a recent Super Bowl), simply still being alive (and outspoken) at all was miracle enough. His nearly decade long courageous fight just to breathe has, sadly, come to an end. But-- the hell with the cliche-- he will live on as an inspiration.
Rest in peace, Brother Chris.
October 9, 2004, JEB Bush, Katherine Harris Advise Karzai Campaign
Let's hear it for that "freedom and democracy" in good old neglected Afghanistan, where President Bush insists is miraculous in that "10 million people, nearly half of them women, registered to vote". Well, all 15 of the candidates opposing interim American-backed-semi-puppet and fulltime shakedown artist Hamed Karzai announced that they are boycotting the "election" in protest of a VERY low tech way that Karzai and his crew(presumably-- no-- fuck that-- ALMOST CERTAINLY-- in conjunction with the Bush Administration) chose to rig this "election". Really too bad: violence had broken out with the Taliban hoping to undermine the election, and lots of people waiting in line for hours, etc., etc.
Anyway-- to prevent fraud, a rather brilliant method was concocted (in this poor, wartorn, frequently illiterate nation) to prevent multiple voting (those "10 million registered voters" are believed to represent a significantly lower number of actual breathing human beings): indelible ink would be stamped on the hands of exiting voters, preventing return for a second bite of the ballot apple. In a low tech election, the ballots will be on paper, with (I believe) a thumbprint, or some other ink mark placed on the ballot next to the presidential candidate selected. This ink, intended simply for the ballots, was not "indelible".
What could be easier than (1) denying Black people the right to vote, (2) rigging voting machines or (3) cutting off counting of votes at some arbitrary time when your man is ahead...? Of course! SWITCH THE INK! Why, letting YOUR people vote over and over again, until you get it right, simply by WASHING THEIR HANDS!
Of course, if Karzai does not score more than 50%, he would have to face a run-off. With 15 of 15 opposition candidates boycotting, he may not need to. Which plays perfectly into the hands of the President, who, since he himself came to office on a (cough, cough) controversial election, can now stump (to loyal supporters, anyway) on the virtues of freedom and democracy in largely warlord-controlled, opium dependent Afghanistan. (Kabul, under international military protection, is doing quite well thank you. The President himself personally vetoed the idea of security forces operating outside of Kabul... largely to free up resources for his little "I'll show Daddy whose is bigger" exercise over in Iraq.)
Well, this is excellent news indeed for the upcoming "election" in Iraq. The precedent of our chosen strongman being "legitimated" in an "election" that is neither free nor fair will be a welcome one in ramming Mr. Allawi through in Iraq, even as (presumably) most of Iraq will be too violent to actually set up polls in.
Perhaps the President will laud the Karzai "election" in next Wednesday's "debate". (BTW, I thought Kerry killed Friday night, with several knock downs; Bush did get some gloves on Kerry, albeit in kidney punches and below the belt shots, but at least he showed up.) I suppose if Senator Kerry points out the flaws in the Afghan election, he will be undermining another important ally. (I can almost write the script now).
Well, I would describe the Afghan election going to hell in a handbasket as "disappointing but not surprising". There's too much of that these days. Far too much. And it all emanates from one particular office in an old white building.
October 8, 2004, Another Cautionary Tale of Horror
Two explosions ripped through resorts in the Egyptian (Sinai) town of Taba, killing dozens, injuring hundreds, with dozens more missing. Hotels at the resort were packed with Israeli holiday-goers, and I suspect that when this is sorted out, this will prove to be one of the worst, if not the worst, terrorist attacks ever directed at
Israelis.
Think of Taba as an Israeli version of Tijuana: it's a border town, conveniently located in a Third World country. The Egyptians maintained security in the area that ranged from lax to non-existent. Sadly, Israelis fleeing fortress Israel failed to account for this.
All of this takes place simultaneously with PM Sharon's ongoing efforts at hunting down and killing Hamas and other militant leaders in Gaza (lest his proposed pullout be perceived as a victory for them), and in the process, murdering Palestinian civilians (of course). I do remain perplexed that no one gets this: whether its the Russians in Chechnya, the Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza, or the United States in Iraq (and to a lesser extent, Afghanistan), we are dealing in large part with cultures that are very big on revenge, not to mention personal and familial honor. We can (and at times must) respond with the harshest of force, but forget that there are consequences to this that boomerang right back.
While the President and Vice-Presisdent mock Senator Kerry for suggesting that we conduct our military operations more sensitively, our "insensitivity" to civilian casualties and suffering, be it willy nilly torture and humiliation, or bombing weddings, or our now indiscriminate murder of civilians at Fallujah, has severe consequences that our borne directly by our military personnel, and I would submit as the example of the atrocities at Taba, ultimately put our civilians at risk, whether at home or abroad.
As always, I'm pissing in the wind, but I'll say it again: military might is important, but it is not, and will never be, a sufficient way of resolving the intractable political problems associated with successfully concluding (I won't say "winning") the "war on terror". Diplomatic, economic, intelligence-gathering and moral levers all must be pushed and effectively managed. (The Israelis could use a lot more of those diplomatic and moral levers than they now use; I don't pretend that at least as long as Arafat breathes, the I-P situation can be "resolved", but there are certainly "more bad" and "less bad" intermediate positions; right now, I would say Taba shows that there is now a "more bad" situation.)
I have noted (though perhaps not necessarily here) that Arab terrorists planning attacks on New York would be most unlikely to be found in my own neighborhood in Brooklyn, which features many Arabs and Arab-Americans (from Lebanon, Yemen, Palestine and other Arab countries). Why? Because their own lansmen would out them in a heartbeat: they have no desire to see atrocities done here. Hence, Mohammed Atta and his 9-11 highjacker associates cloistered themselves in on-descript suburbs of New Jersey, Florida and California, where they could isolate themselves from scrutiny-- something unlikely in an ethnic Arab neighborhood (IMHO).
We need to export this attitude to the Arab world itself: if people in the Middle East found terror plotters in their midst to be simply unacceptable criminals, and isolated these bastards, it would be far easier for intelligence services to intercept plots and for police (and as necessary, military) personnel to apprehend and/or neutralize the perpetrators.
We continue to destroy the village to save it at our extreme peril.
October 7, 2004, Ethics DeLay is Ethics denied...
The good old House Ethics Committee issued a "stern rebuke" to the House Majority Leader and enemy of the Constitution Tom DeLay, over charges involving, among other things, using the FAA to attempt to track a private plane carrying Texas state senators out of the state to avoid a legislative quorum for Tom DeLay's Congressional gerrymandering scheme, and for soliciting money for that scheme under some kind of improper pretense. Other "more serious" charges involving, oh, bribery and solicitation of bribes were... "tabled". This was deLay's second "rebuke" in a week, and his third overall. I understand he places these things on his fireplace mantle, next to his award as Sugar Land (TX) "Exterminator of the Year".
Many (mostly pussy Democrats, of course) are calling upon the de facto head of Congressional Republicans to resign his leadership post. DeLay's brash and no-prisoners style is credited with having helped elevate the GOP into control of the House in 1994, control which they have abused ever since. Does anyone seriously doubt that if the GOP retains the House, and John Kerry ascends to the Presidency, that deLay will see to it that Kerry is harassed for the next four years, and more than likely, impeached? Democrats are fools (as usual): all the buzz and oxygen is going into Kerry and Edwards-- while the party is just twelve seats away in the House, it seems most unlikely the Dems will close that gap, leaving the cancer that is Tom DeLay free to fester and metastasize in the Majority, and plague any Democratic President.
Just sayin'...
Anyway, as to the Ethics Committee... Fools... (BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!) Tom DeLay is above the law! Political opponents check in, but they don't check out!
October 6, 2004, Chief Inspector Clousseau... er, Duelfer... files for asylum in France
Picking up from David Kay, Chief American Weapons Inspector Charles Duelfer released his long awaited report on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction today, with the report concluding what yours truly told you for the better part of a year before the war of aggression against the Iraqi people in 2003: Saddam had bubkes.
In short, no stockpiles of nucular weapons, no bio-hazards, no chemical weapons: no nothing. A few balsa wood air-drones that the President's minions tried to equate with ICBMs, some programs that stopped dead in the 1990's, and otherwise: nothing. Oh wait-- once sanctions were lifted, and international attention removed (as if either were going to happen while Saddam breathed), then Saddam had THE INTENTION to revivify his weapons programs.
Nice.
I'm disappointed in the guys from "my team", Kid Kerry and Pretty Boy Edwards, for not owning up to the fact that their Iraq war vote was "a mistake". Grown-ups admit mistakes: when we learn that our earlier decision was based on insufficient facts, and the facts we learn show that what we did before was what we call "wrong", then we "admit our mistake", and behave, you know, like GROWNUPS. We expect the President to never admit he was ever wrong about anything: the Boy King is a grown-up neither by temperament nor achievement. It does disturb me, however, that John Kerry isn't man enough just to admit that: I really don't think "swing voters" would be put off by it. (Obviously, while I assume this has been focus grouped to death, I really think its more about Kerry being an egomaniac and an asshole than it is about fear of the voters.)
Anyway-- that said-- this should finally put this question to bed: Saddam had nothing. Maybe Saddam did a masterful job of convincing us he had weapons that he didn't in a bluff that backfired. Or maybe, the Bushmen just wanted this war, and wouldn't take no for an answer, the cost in blood and treasure and the evidence be damned.
Doesn't matter: Iraq had bubkes, while OBL is still out there, and things continue to blow up every day somewhere in Greater Baghdad, and all too frequently in other venues like Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Morocco, Spain, Saudi Arabia... you get the idea.
Frankly, given that Dick Cheney has now for years been saying that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, even contradicting the President himself at times to do it, one wonders if this report even matters.
A key reason Edwards won the debate-- and while we can argue about the score he won it by, I won't accept that Cheney won (and some rightie ideologues now compare his performance not to Edwards' but to Bush's)-- is because he systematically and (thank God) viciously took apart the link between Saddam Hussein and September 11th-- a link Bush and Cheney have rested their entire government on for over three years now. While Dirty Dick simply lied about having ever said he made the link, Edwards would not let him get away with it, and kept hammering, until the (green) blood starting oozing out of Dick's mouth and smoke came out of his ears.
Again: Bush has done his damndest to put this sort of thing off as long as possible; I can't figure out why having kept this report at bay this long, it surfaces now 27 days before the election. I continue to wonder if the disciplined GOP spin machine is just finally breaking down at the worst possible time.
October 6, 2004, Ifil Sour, Cheney Glowers, Edwards Towers
Last night's bout in Cleveland between Pretty Boy Edwards and Dirty Dick Cheney was scored close enough by most people to be viewed as a draw, or at least, an indecisive win for one or the other. (The one thing everyone can agree on is that PBS personality Gwen Ifil was horrendous in her role as moderator, and hopefully, will never be permitted so important a job ever again.)
This is interesting, in that while I scored Kid Kerry a 2-1 and 7-5 in rounds winner over the President, I scored Pretty Boy Edwards as a solid 3-0 winner, and 4-0 in rounds (in 8 rounds, neither fighter really connected; indeed, despite Dick Cheney being asleep most of the second part of the debate, Edwards stopped landing punches on him). I personally did not observe a single blow by Dick Cheney landing on Edwards during the entire bout (although Edwards more or less sent Cheney to the mat for at least one standing 8 count during the Iraq discussion). And yet, because Bush was so awful a belt holder, Kid Kerry was ruled the winner almost universally-- by a spin-proof margin. It may be back to Fight Ref school for me, I guess. Some feel that Cheney's cheap shots about Edwards' absentee record scored points; I just don't feel that a man flailing his arms as he's falling to the mat counts as connected punches. Call me a stickler.
Further, unlilke Kid Kerry, Edwards did not leave himself open to knock-out blows. Frankly, given that Dirty Dick was willing to lie about things like having never met Edwards before and having never said (thousands of times) that Saddam and OBL were best buddies and Saddam had a nuclear arsenal ready to fire at us, Dirty Dick let Edwards go on his absurd mis-construction of the Full Faith and Credit Clause of our Constitution, Edwards alarmingly insisting that "in 200 years no state has to recognize another state's marriages." WRONG. EVERY STATE has to recognize EVERY OTHER STATE'S MARRIAGES. While New York holds that 14 year olds marrying violates our public policy, if two 14 year old newlyweds from Mississippi (where such marriages are, ar at least were, legal, albeit with parental consent) move here, must New York recognize that marriage, even though New YOrk wouldn't allow the marriage to be initiated here? Answer: YES. Must Mississippi "recognize" two men married in Massachusetts as married? YES. Whether its for spousal support, or child custody, assuming such a couple met residency requirements, the answer is YES, YES, YES.
And now we will get to why even partisan moi did not score it a knock-out for my fellow attorney and TD-fave-from-Day-1 John Edwards. There was no need for the cheap Halliburton references. I enjoyed them, of course, but they mitigated from THE THEME. The theme: competence. Basic, God damned competence. Which strarts by recognizing reality: Cheney has a long record of contradicting what Rumsfeld, Powell, and now Bremer have been saying for a long, long time. And when Edwards took this on, he scored, scored, and scored some more. When he went elsewhere (including attempted cheap shots), we went nowhere.
When we got into nonsensical policy issues, like "frivolous law suits" (a question that only a worthless slug like Ms. Ifil would have even brought up, given how spirited the exchange was otherwise), both pugilists got rather boring. But Edwards missed a key point (Begala raised it over at CNN): "You GOT INTO OFFICE ON A LAWSUIT-- and yet, you want to take away everyone else's right to go to Court." Also, while Edwards uttered the key stat: med mal cases are less than 1/200 of our health care costs-- hardly worth the rhetorical spin-- he failed to hammer home the points of WHY health care costs are rising (bureaucracy, FEDERAL paperwork requirements, insurance bureaucracy, insurance company profits, drug company profits on wonder drugs, and improved technologies). Anyway, I did score the domestic part of the debate as a draw.
Big picture: does this change anything? Short answer: no. Edwards held his own; Cheney failed to lower expectations of his own semi-catatonic performance (I like him in black, though he is even more imposing when he wears that helmet too). Whatever campaign momentum there was going in is still there.
Anyway, nice entertaining 4 or 5 rounds from the light heavyweights, until they got into clenching for the last few rounds. Too bad they got a moderator from the W.W.F. Friday night's re-match between Kid Kerry and No-Gentleman George should be a must see.
October 5, 2004, Bremer Renounces U.S. Citizenship, Seeks Asylum in France. Rumsfeld considers joining him
Speaking to a group of insurers at a meeting in West Virginia, former American Pro-consul to Iraq L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer announced that American troop presence in Iraq was wildly insufficient, and as a result, Americans (and Iraqis) paid a heavy price from the resultant lawlessness.
In this rather bizarre indictment of the President's flawless execution of the war (coming within the "red zone" of exactly four weeks until the election) Bremer quickly added that toppling the Saddam Hussein statute was certainly worth the cost of $200 billion and over 1,000 American lives, and counting. Speaking from the Air France terminal, in between bites of a croissant, Bremer added that he fully supported the President's policies toward Iraq on an ongoing basis, and urged Americans to vote against his new countryman, John Kerry. Bremer stated that he was most optimistic about Iraq, noting that just as current U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte had "turned things around in Honduras and Guatemala", he "expected Iraq to reach the heights of those two great nations".
In an almost equally bizarre outburst, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld confirmed that the intelligence showing that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was wrong, and that there were no credible ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. When questioned at length afterwards, Rumsfeld stated he was misquoted, and what he actually said was that Roger Clemens was pitching so well, that even with Andy Pettite injured, he believed this might be the year the 'Stros finally make it to the Big Dance.
Let's just say that I find it most unlikely that Senators Edwards and Kerry aren't listening to this, and calmly figuring out ways to incorporate all of this into their principal campaign meme, i.e., that George W. Bush and company are too dangerously incompetent to be trusted with four more years of leadership. This would appear to be a catastrophic breakdown of the usually flawless Republican spin machine. In particular, at tonight's vice-presidential debate in Cleveland, it might be, you know, FUN, to watch Senator Edwards confront Vice-President Cheney with some of Secretary Rumsfeld's statements (particularly given just how big a 'Stros fan the vice-president evidently is, and how big a supporter of the Atlanta Braves Senator Edwards is).
The younger challenger, Pretty Boy Edwards comes in with better reach and a whole array of punches. The battle-tested vice-president and belt-holder, Dirty Dick Cheney, has really not been tested in this weight class before (his bout against Joe "Wandering Jew" Lieberman was a walkaway). Tonight's "Swing State Swingin' Match" in Cleveland should be a gem folks.
October 4, 2004, Cost Effective Defense Policies
Because distributing the vaccine (in pill form, actually) would have "cost too much money", our good old military decided to abandon a vaccination program in 1996, which allowed a virus to spread that has killed at least six military recruits, four this year.
Let's just say that there's plenty of blame to go around on this one (while the decision was made during the CLinton Adminsitration, its not lke the Bush Administration reversed it, now is it?). As usual, it reflects the belief that the most expendible component of our military was, is, and sadly will likely always be, the men and woman called upon, or who have taken it upon their own shoulders, to defend this nation.
This short-sighted bullshit is not merely reflected in the military, of course, but in all aspects of our governance. Basic housing programs are scrapped "to save money", with the resultant costs of dealing with problems of homelessness ranging from crime to epidemics orders of magnitude higher; ditto education or child-care and school lunch programs.
The mindset that holds that "taxation is immoral" (especially taxation of people who can best afford taxes and who reap the biggest rewards from our system) leads to results that I could only describe as... immoral.
This is one of them. Those responsible should be ashamed of themselves for this. Like they care.
October 4, 2004, "You forgot Poland"
In response to Senator John Kerry's snub at last Thursday's debate, contending that the "grand coalition" the President put together to commit war crimes and atrocities in Iraq was "only the United States, with Britain and Australia", the President quickly added "You forgot Poland". Proving that Senator Kerry's words (and mean thawts) are, indeed, hurting our allies, a miffed Poland announced it will be withdrawing its 2,500 troops in Iraq by the end of next year.
Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski made the announcement (apparently while holding back tears) and expressed his displeasure that Senator Kerry could overlook so important an ally-- the very heart of Donny Rumsfeld's "New Europe" no less. Kwasniewski, who prefers to be known as "the Kwaz", said that just the possibility of John Kerry winning was enough to shake his resolve in the holy Iraq mission, and hence, Poland was, as he put it, "Out of here."
Apparently, the Kwaz was not alone in his displeasure at being dissed. Evidently, at a hastily convened conference, Iraqi Puppet-Premier Iyad Allawi (looking out through the strings attached to his limbs) announced his resentment at Senator Kerry for calling him a puppet, and Kim Jong Il expressed his displeasure at Senator Kerry insisting that the United States attempt to bribe and appease North Korea on its own, rather than in the context of extracting goodies from five different countries.
Let me just say this: while Senator Kerry insists that he will be restoring our international relationships and bringing the UN, NATO and our allies in to clean up international messes, his record as dissing our allies and causing international discord just belies this in a major league way.
Big time.
October 3, 2004, Back to school worries
From our visit to People's Daily this week, we give you this account of 5 million children returning to school in Iraq. Parents are justifiably worried about the security situation, which delayed the opening of schools for a time, as did waiting for new text books that purged reference to the Saddam/Baathist regime to arrive from their printers in Jordan and the UAE.
Well, this will be a huge test for the new interim government, and its American allies. I fear that we will see schools routinely targeted by Saudi nihilists... I mean, "Insurgents", and many (more) children will become casualties.
Still, anything reflective of "life going on" in Iraq should be construed as a good thing. Let's just hope it does.
October 2, 2004, We are marching to Praetoria
This week's visit to our friends at Pravda gives us this from Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey on why a vote for George W. Bush is a vote for armageddon. The thesis is simple, and you can read it in this column several times a week. Out chicken-hawk led Faux Macho Schmuck government, by bringing death, destruction and horror the Middle East, does not make the world safer. No, they have revivified a moribund Al Qaeda and Islamist terrorist movement that was running out of steam, until its horrific plans came together unusually well on September 11th. Now, since the American reaction, it is clear, really IS to declare war on Islam (note that we are even less of an honest broker in Israel/Palestine, we chose to invade the most secular of Arab countries, and we plan to STAY THERE), terrorist recruiting is doing a land office business.
Bush's absurd proposition that "we have captured or killed 2/3 or 3/4 of A.Q. leadership" is like a doctor saying "we killed 2/3 of the cancer cells". The problem is, the other 1/3 are still out there... and they can multiply. This is NOT a zero sum game. There are more terrorists out there as a result, and we have helped coalesce them into a unified force. Who hates us.
For our purposes, we are moving rapidly toward a "Praetorian State"-- i.e., the military industrial complex (Halliburton and Bechtel have taken over from what was once dominated by General Dynamics, Rockwell and the like) benefits from a perma-war; they help buy office for sympathetic candidates (Dick Cheney or Tom de Lay, for example) who then use government to prop up their coffers via tax dollars... to fund the perma-war.
Is a state where we are permanently pissing in the cornflakes of people with the money and will to kill us something that makes us "safer"? Sadly, millions of Americans may think so.
October 1, 2004, Kid Kerry Hangs Tough; No Gentleman George Holds Belt
Your talking dog scored the bout for Kerry, maybe 7 rounds to 5, with a 2-1 aggregate judging score. Last night's debate was surprisingly entertaining... the President was surprisingly well-prepared and articulate (for him), and his knowledge of world affairs (Sudanese leaders, the existence of Liberia) should hurt him among his base ("I wouldn't want to have a beer with this wonk"). Kid Kerry was loose, rested, tannned... what was with that hair, though... and as expected, the far superior debater.
While the polls of actual voters are all that will matter, we can assume that by Sunday morning, somehow this will be spun as a major, decisive victory for "No Gentleman George" Bush. The irony is, it could well have been just that: Bush fanned on some key punches that could have put Kerry to the mat. As ably pointed out by Jim Henley, on the matter of North Korea, a one-liner would have drilled Kerry into the floor: "Oh, I see. Multilateralism is great for Iraq and everything else-- but in NORTH KOREA, we have to go it alone... perhaps we'll make ANOTHER great deal like Carter and CLinton did the LAST time we went unilateral there..." The other time Kerry left his mid-section open to a potentially lethal pummeling was on the basic Iraq posture: "Senator, just weeks ago, you said that even knowing there were no WMDs and Al Qaeda ties in Iraq, you would have still voted to authorize the war. Now you insist that the war was a mistake. On January 20th, whichever of us is sworn in as President will be in command of 145,000 American troops in Iraq. There is no question that you have no enthusiasm for this mission, and I believe the American people need to know that having the resolve to carry out and win this mission are essential to it."
For his part, Kid Kerry failed miserably in some key counter-punching opportunities. Bush's oft repeated statements about "100,000 trained Iraqi soldiers" is... a lie. Nearly 40,000 of that number are not troops, but police. Further, tens of thousands of these "trained Iraqis" have been dismissed for links to the insurgents. The other was "missile defense". Against whom? Oh yes: North Korea. The country that acquired NUCLEAR WEAPONS during the Bush II Administration, so that now... we may actually NEED THE MISSILE DEFENSE NOW! And the last point Kerry missed a clean shot at Bush's jaw, specifically, Secretaries Rumsfeld and Powell have both basically said the situation in Iraq is untenable in the last week, while Bush insists it is rosy, rosy, rosy.
In the end, the similarities between the two on foreign policy issues proved to be far greater than the differences. At one point, we came close-- not too close-- but close-- to a love fest, as the two complemented each other's daughters. Again-- a surprisingly high minded approach... Bush scored his point with "I am steady-- he changes his mind". Kerry scored back with "consistent but wrong is not a virtue."
What matters now is whether polls shift. I do suspect the Kerry bleeding just stopped, and we got ourselves a horse race.
September 30, 2004, I'm sure their parents are glad we removed Saddam from power
An explosion aimed at an American led convoy in the Baghdad area killed at least 30 Iraqi children. This is (supposedly) the largest number of children killed in one incident since the giant war crime against the people of Iraq perpetrated in our name was initiated seventeen months ago (jebus, it seems longer than that, no?)
If no one else will say it, I will. No one has to agree with me, if they don't want to. I'm no longer running for anything (my running mate Bruce and I, having failed to secure the Democratic presidential nomination). So I'll just say it: compared to the chaos and horror we have unleashed on the Iraqi people and the instability we have brought to the region, I'd rather have Saddam Hussein in power. He was a mother-fucker and a brutal dictator, but he was a mother fucker we could do business with, at least at one time. And for better or worse, he preserved order there.
My guess is that I will not only be joined by most of the families of Iraqi people we have murdered (and btw, estimates are that we and our trained Iraqi lapdogs kill at least two civilians for every one that "insurgents" kill, even as I write this), but by a fair number of the families of the over 1,000 dead United States service personnel and nearly 10,000 maimed, in saying that this Iraq adventure-- which has not brought us one millimeter closer to thwarting Al Qaeda-- was the kind of "mistake" for which those responsible should be facing war crimes tribunals (instead of probable reelection).
Boys and girls, Iyad Allawi is every bit as brutal a thug as Saddam-- its just that Junior never blamed him for Poppy's electoral defeat at the hands of Ross Perot... I mean, Bill Clinton. But hey-- old Iyad (formerly of Saddam's Mukhbarat secret police... and now ably tutored by good old U.S. Ambassador John "Friend of Central American Death Squads" Negroponte) Allawi cannot be blamed by Junior for Poppy's defeat, nosirree.
John Kerry is in no sense bound by my sentiments, and frankly, I suspect he is quite sincere in telling you he disagrees with them. So I'll ask someone else.
To quote the great Dick Cheney (via digby the daring and Duncan the Magnificent):
"Everybody is fond of looking back at Desert Storm and saying that it was, in fact, a low cost conflict because we didn't suffer very many casualties. But for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it was not a cheap or a low cost conflict. The question, to my mind, in terms of this notion that we should have gone on and occupied Iraq is how many additional American casualties would we have had to suffer? How many additional American lives is Saddam Hussein worth? And the answer I would give is not very damn many."
I couldn't agree more, Mr. Vice President. I couldn't agree more.
September 29, 2004, Glass-Jaw Al Sends Advice to Kid Kerry
While I regard the Sainted Al Gore as an American treasure, there really are limits to the things he should be doing. Having elected to sit out the 2004 election cycle, I don't think he should be doing things like giving John Kerry debate advice for tomorrow night's pivotal first presidential debate in Miami.
Kid Kerry was famously President of the Debating Society back at Dear Old Yale (where, as you will recall, our esteemed President was a C-student legacy, and served as a cheerleader-- more the kind that makes inane yells, rather than one who does gymnastics, of course.) The format will allow for little free-wheeling, but someone (or everyone) will figure out ways to evade the format, to fire their staged one-line zingers and timed applause lines.
Dubya, actually a reasonably intelligent and articulate (though mediocre and a n'er do well) New England Brahman scion, prep schooler and Ivy League graduate, has mastered the art of appearing to be a mentally retarded Texan. He has a bought and paid for media that will declare him the winner, even if he uses the ninety minutes to read a story about a goat, vomit up blood and otherwise just stare into the camera.
However, actual voters, by the millions, will be watching this-- and if something is decisive enough to burst through during the proceedings, the spin will not undo their visceral perceptions. THIS is what the debates are about, folks!
Gore feels that Kerry should try to hammer on Bush's record, and hold him to account. Naturally, if Kerry was thinking about doing this, Al Gore suggesting that he do so should convince him that it is a bad idea, and he should do something else.
My suggestion is conveying to the country that while the President has served the nation to the best of his abilities, those abilities are just no longer up to the job at hand. Whether the President's advisors are keeping him from accurate information, or the President is just not processing it, his rosy assessment of the Iraq situation squarely at odds with those of his own cabinet secretaries Rumsfeld and Powell is more than cause for concern: it is cause for national panic. Without faulting the (poor and overburdened) President (its probably his advisors and handlers), the nation thanks him for his service, but we need someone capable of figuring out reality before making life and death decisions. In short, I would try to portray Bush as more of a tragic figure (perhaps in the manner of an Aeschylus or a Euripides, rather than a more complex Shakespearean one such as Lear), for whom the strain of office has just been too much.
But it's Kid Kerry's fight, now. He's a seasoned pugilist whose been training hard. The chimp-een hasn't lost a bout since the 70's, and since he perfected his rope-a-dope (key word dope) in the 90's, No-Gentleman-George has just worn out opponent after opponent with his skills at evasion and sucker punching. Kid Kerry comes in pretty much undefeated, using his style of relentless, almost machine-like swinging, punishing his opponents until the late rounds and boring holes into their resistance (key word boring) until they just fail from sheer exhaustion imparted by the barrage they received.
The referee will have to keep the fighters to the modified Marquis of Queensbury rules to which their corners agreed, but this should be a doozy, folks.
September 28, 2004, More reality disconnect... by the numbers
What do the numbers over 50, 1,052 and 52 have to do with each other? For those who hate clicking through, we're talking, of course, about the spot price of crude oil, the number of American troops killed in Iraq, and of course, the President's current approval rating.
There are a variety of factors accounting for the high oil prices, including perceived instability in Nigeria (a big source of oil for... us), refining and distribution problems caused by recent hurricanes, and... you know... that whole Middle East thing. Prince Bandar has directed the Hermes Kingdom's public relations office to tell us that Saudi Arabia will increase production from over 9 to over 11 million bbl./day, to profit from the high prices... I mean, to stabilize prices. Are Bush's policies wholly responsible for the price spike? Of course not. Are they largely responsible? Well, you might say... well, yeah, they are. Our national energy policy remains aircraft carriers, SUV use and other waste remains encouraged, and we destabilized the whole Middle East with our Iraq adventure.
The second number is the grim reminder of a narrow slice of the human cost of that adventure: the number of Americans who died on the field of battle. Granny
asked me if soldiers who died of their wounds weeks or months later were counted in the dead, and I told her I believed not (if anyone knows for sure, please post in comments). And God knows, there are no official counts of Iraqi civilian casualties, let alone Iraqi combatant casualties.
And the third number reflects an amazing disconnect with reality. I mean, I could throw in other numbers, like the projected deficit of $5.2 trillion over the next ten years, or the figure that Kerry should have been using only as an appetizer before lacing into Iraq and especially Afghanistan, i.e., 1.2 million private sector jobs lost (by some estimates), making Bush the first president since Hoover to preside over a net job loss during his presidency. And yet, a majority favor his record, and he is certainly the man to beat right now. The nation was perfectly willing to follow the Bush campaign theme, it being three words and all ("Look over there!")
Again, though... as important as all these numbers are to Kid Kerry, they are appropriate only as jabs. They are little rabbit punches to get the judges to start to pay attention as the bigger blows are thrown and landed. The appropriate uppercut remains Iraq... preferably a right uppercut (pointing out that just like in 'Nam, the troops were winning the battles only to have the politicians give away the war, and in this case, lose the peace); the crossing punches remain Al Qaeda and the frequently undiscussed Afghanistan.
If Fightin' John follows this strategy, he can impress the judges enough to score the unanimous decision he will need (anything approaching a split decision goes to the Black Robed Partisans , and the titleholder will retain the belt-- the fans be damned.)
So you go, Fightin' John. You kick that pussy-shit frat-boy's ass!
