April 2004 Archives

Via Digby, I was pointed to the mailbag page for the TV show 60 minutes II. Go read Digby's excellent piece for some of the more surreal ways people are spinning this whole prisoner "event". In any event, one of the letters to 60 minutes II caught my eye because my mother had said almost the exact same thing to me just two or three weeks ago.

Why in God's name would you choose to air such a story at this time? This is something our country didn't need to know now. Everyone in this country is hanging on for dear life to support the troops, and you have taken all our faith in goodness away. How many more reports can we watch like this before support fades?

We are losing our fight with other countries to support us, and now you have just sealed it. ... We've just lost the goal of helping anyone over there because of this show, and God help us. You are no better then those who did these horrible acts. Your reports are bringing down this country.
--Betsy Berra

Life is very surreal.

Balancing privacy concerns with legitimate law enforcement needs is always tricky. But hey, apparently there aren't any privacy concerns here. So any talk of balance is pretty laughable, don't you think? As far as I can tell from reading this article, there are zero expectations that any bit of data is freely available to the FBI, even before 9/11. It's only been the grace of the corporation in question that's been preventing the mass turnover of everyone's private parts in pursuit of the shadowy enemy.

And people think this is a good idea? Heck, let me get my hands on GW's record before he became Pres. Or how about Cheney's or Ashcroft's. I'm sure there's some very interesting skeletons hiding in those closets that could be used in interesting ways.

Everyone should note the VAST amount of information the airline companies handed over. 6,000 CD's from Northwest Airlines alone. Now for those who are counting, that's three terabytes of information from one airline alone.

And note that this article claims that "this is just the tip of the ice berg".

There is no privacy any more. They will soon know everything, if they don't already. The last shred of a fig leaf in this illusion has been blown away in the wind.

Oh, and just for giggles, note that this vast violation of privacy didn't seem to help out at all. And once the FBI has it, they keep it.

F.B.I. Got Records on Air Travelers

There is no indication that the passenger data produced any significant evidence about the plot or the hijackers, the F.B.I. official said.

The sharing of airline passenger data with the government has sparked some of the most contentious conflicts underlying the uneasy balance between privacy and security in the post-Sept. 11 world. Three airlines, Northwest, American and JetBlue, have acknowledged sharing weeks or months' worth of data with government researchers or contractors as part of an effort to help develop new methods to spot terrorists.

But the disclosure that airlines had handed over such an enormous trove of data directly to government criminal investigators, 6,000 CD-ROM's full of digital records from Northwest alone, raised red flags [ed: that's 3.6 terabytes] among privacy advocates, who played a role in uncovering the information transfer.

"It certainly takes the airline privacy issue to a new level, because it's much more material than we've ever seen disclosed," said David Sobel, the general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a high-tech policy and advocacy group in Washington.

The group discovered that airlines had handed over personal information through the results of a Freedom of Information Act request on a related matter.

Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D, Toady.

This is another of the seemingly endless series of sermons by those who purport to be former democrats who have seen the light. One of my favorites in this series was the amazingly stinky log that Orson Scott Card squeezed out the last time this ugly meme was enjoying a periodic flare up.

But I must admit that Keith Burgess-Jackson has grabbed the brass ring from Orson's sweaty hand.

Behold the powerful logic of Explaining Liberal Anger.

It's not about arguing, it's about thinking. Any trained poodle can be taught to argue. But it takes a highly trained toady to spew mind numbing propaganda like this.

Bravo!

Update: fixed the link to point to the original article on Tech Central Station, not my Furl cache. Seems to be whacked. Apologies. . .

The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity by Joseph Wilson.

Patriot Act Suppresses News Of CAzaellenge to Patriot Act

The American Civil Liberties Union disclosed yesterday that it filed a lawsuit three weeks ago cAzaellenging the FBI's methods of obtaining many business records, but the group was barred from revealing even the existence of the case until now.

The lawsuit was filed April 6 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, but the case was kept under seal to avoid violating secrecy rules contained in the USA Patriot Act, the ACLU said. The group was allowed to release a redacted version of the lawsuit after weeks of negotiations with the government.

"It is remarkable that a gag provision in the Patriot Act kept the public in the dark about the mere fact that a constitutional cAzaellenge had been filed in court," Ann Beeson, the ACLU's associate legal director, said in a statement. "President Bush can talk about extending the life of the Patriot Act, but the ACLU is still gagged from discussing details of our cAzaellenge to it."

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the case.

Found this gem via my monitoring of the Furl RSS feed. Enjoy.

Stats about all US cities - maps, race, income, education, crime, weather, area codes, zip codes, similar cities

We've collected and analyzed data from numerous sources to create as complete and interesting profiles of thousands of U.S. cities as we could. We have thousands of pictures, maps, satellite photos, stats about residents (race, income, ancestries, education, employment...), geographical data, crime data, weather, hospitals, schools, libraries, airports, radio and TV stations, zip codes, area codes, user-submitted facts, similar cities list, comparisons to averages... If you ever need to research any city for any reason, from considering a move there to just checking where somebody you know is staying, this is the site for you.

Well, the ones who are paying attention are. Everyone else is just clueless and enthralled with the "good old boy", "aw shucks" explanation - so far.

Poll: Iraqis out of patience

Only a third of the Iraqi people now believe that the American-led occupation of their country is doing more good than harm, and a solid majority support an immediate military pullout even though they fear that could put them in greater danger, according to a new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll.

The nationwide survey, the most comprehensive look at Iraqi attitudes toward the occupation, was conducted in late March and early April. It reached nearly 3,500 Iraqis of every religious and ethnic group.

The poll shows that most continue to say the hardships suffered to depose Saddam Hussein were worth it. Azaelf say they and their families are better off than they were under Saddam. And a strong majority say they are more free to worship and to speak.

But while they acknowledge benefits from dumping Saddam a year ago, Iraqis no longer see the presence of the American-led military as a plus. Asked whether they view the U.S.-led coalition as "liberators" or "occupiers," 71% of all respondents say "occupiers."

That figure reaches 81% if the separatist, pro-U.S. Kurdish minority in northern Iraq is not included. The negative characterization is just as high among the Shiite Muslims who were oppressed for decades by Saddam as it is among the Sunni Muslims who embraced him.

The growing negative attitude toward the Americans is also reflected in two related survey questions: 53% say they would feel less secure without the coalition in Iraq, but 57% say the foreign troops should leave anyway. Those answers were given before the current showdowns in Fallujah and Najaf between U.S. troops and guerrilla fighters.

The findings come as the U.S. administration is struggling to quell the insurgency and turn over limited sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government by the end of June. Interviews this week in Baghdad underscored the findings.

"I'm not ungrateful that they took away Saddam Hussein," says Salam Ahmed, 30, a Shiite businessman. "But the job is done. Thank you very much. See you later. Bye-bye.

Support for War Is Down Sharply, Poll Concludes

Support for the war in Iraq has eroded substantially over the past several months, and Americans are increasingly critical of the way President Bush is handling the conflict, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

After initially expressing robust backing for the war, the public is now evenly divided over whether the United States military should stay for as long as it takes to stabilize Iraq or pull out as soon as possible, the poll showed.

Asked whether the United States had done the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, 47 percent of respondents said it had, down from 58 percent a month earlier and 63 percent in December, just after American forces captured Saddam Hussein. Forty-six percent said the United States should have stayed out of Iraq, up from 37 percent last month and 31 percent in December.

The diminished public support for the war did not translate into any significant advantage for Mr. Bush's Democratic cAzaellenger, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. The poll showed the two men remaining in a statistical dead heat, both in a head-to-head matchup and in a three-way race that included Ralph Nader.

Support for Mr. Bush is stronger in other areas vital to his re-election, including his handling of the threat from terrorism, which won the approval of 60 percent of respondents.

Even so, just short of a year after Mr. Bush stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln last May 1 and proclaimed the end to major combat operations under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished," his approval rating has slid from the high levels it reached during the war.

It now stands at 46 percent, the lowest level of his presidency in The Times/CBS News Poll, down from 71 percent last March and a high of 89 percent just after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

At this point in his winning re-election race in 1996, President Bill Clinton's approval rating in The New York Times/CBS News Poll was 48 percent.

Mr. Bush's approval rating for his handling of Iraq was 41 percent, down from 49 percent last month and 59 percent in December.

Iraqi captives mistreated, suggest photos on CBS

Naked Iraqi prisoners were stacked in a human pyramid, and wires were attached to one to convince him he could be electrocuted, according to photographs CBS News obtained.

Criminal charges have been laid against six military police.

The photos, shown last night on 60 Minutes II, were taken late last year at Abu Ghraib, a prison for hundreds captured in the invasion/occupation.

In March, the U.S. Army announced six members from the 800th Military Police Brigade faced court martial for alleged abuse of about 20 prisoners on criminal charges that include cruelty and maltreatment, assault and indecent acts with another person.

Also urged was disciplinary action against seven officers, who helped run the prison, including Brig.-Gen. Janice Karpinski, who commands the 800th Brigade, an official said.

Blog-Tracking May Gain Ground Among U.S. Intelligence Officials

People in black trench coats might soon be chasing blogs.

Blogs, short for Web logs, are personal online journals. Individuals post them on Web sites to report or comment on news especially, but also on their personal lives or most any subject.

Some blogs are whimsical and deal with "soft" subjects. Others, though, are cutting edge in delivering information and opinion.

As a result, some analysts say U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials might be starting to track blogs for important bits of information. This interest is a sign of how far Web media such as blogs have come in reshaping the data-collection habits of intelligence professionals and others, even with the knowledge that the accuracy of what's reported in some blogs is questionable.

As the presidential campaign turned into a brawl this week over John Kerry's stint in Vietnam and what he did or did not do with his medals, some Democrats were actually pretty pleased. They figured that any opportunity to compare Mr. Kerry's military background with President Bush's — not to mention Vice President Dick Cheney's — was welcome and they took advantage of it.

But perhaps none of them could rival Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey and a World War II veteran, who appeared on the Senate floor on Wednesday with a poster featuring an illustration of a chicken in a medal-bedecked military uniform.

In a take-no-prisoners display, (Video) the lawmaker lashed out at Republicans critical of Mr. Kerry, calling them chickenhawks. He decried Mr. Cheney, who received deferments from service during the Vietnam era, as the leader of the flock for his criticism earlier in the week that Mr. Kerry was not capable of protecting the nation's security.

"Chickenhawks: they shriek like a hawk but they have the backbone of a chicken," Mr. Lautenberg said. "We know who the chickenhawks are. They talk tough on national defense and military issues and cast aspersions on others. When it was their turn to serve, where were they? A-W-O-L, that's where. A-W-O-L."

Mr. Lautenberg's tough criticism draw a plea from Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam, for all sides to move past the fight over Mr. Kerry's record as well as Mr. Bush's time in the National Guard. He said such exchanges could actually be damaging to military morale.

"It is time to declare a truce," Mr. McCain said. "At least could we declare that the Vietnam War is over and have a cease-fire?"

Mr. McCain did acknowledge, however, that the picture of the military chicken was "kind of clever. I've got to give it to, hand it to, whoever the artist is."

I guess I should change that running title to: X days 'till limited Iraqi sovereignty, but somehow it just doesn't seem to roll of the tongue.

Fallujah Truce Ends; U.S. Pounds Insurgent Targets

Explosions and showers of sparks lit up the sky in Fallujah on Tuesday night in a battle that appeared much heavier than the previous night's clashes -- evidence that U.S. forces may be trying to wear down a bastion of gunmen in the tense city.

U.S. aircraft and artillery put on a show of force against Sunni insurgents in Fallujah, the focal point of the anti-coalition insurgency, as a fragile cease fire came to an end after two extensions.

An AC-130 gunship and artillery opened up on the Jolan district in northern Fallujah -- a poor neighborhood where many insurgents have gathered -- as gunfire flashed for nearly two hours. The region is where a Marine was killed in fighting Monday night.

Fires were visible in the district, and mosque loudspeakers elsewhere in the city called on firefighters to mobilize.

Marines are preparing to begin patrols in the city, and on Tuesday started training Iraqi security forces to join them.

The cease-fire was called by U.S. forces to give insurgents a chance to heed requests by Fallujah's civic leaders to turn in heavy weapons. Earlier this week, a spokesman said military leaders were disappointed with the response, receiving mostly small arms that were rusted and old.

Several times this month, the U.S. military backed away from threats of an all-out offensive, extending a cease-fire in the city despite sporadic fighting with insurgents.

Talks to end the standoff in the tense city of Fallujah seemed to be going well earlier Tuesday, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said earlier in the day, before the new fighting began. Kimmitt told AP Radio the United States doesn't plan on setting deadlines or ultimatums, saying they wouldn't be helpful at this point.

But, Kimmitt said, U.S. military officials will follow the recommendations of the Marine commander in the Fallujah area. He said if the commander decides it's time to "stop talking," then U.S. officials will "stand behind him."

Christopher Ruddy is a noisome little prick who gained infamy and fortune as one of Richard Mellon Scaife's errand boys who spread rumors that the Clintons were responsible for the deaths of Vince Foster and Ron Brown.

Just doing my little part to help the Google Bomb.

(via Mithras)

Blogs changing our organizations. Seriously cool stuff, eh?

A Movable Type Intranet

Down at the hospital we are in the process of moving a huge portion of our intranet into Movable Type — about 90%. This includes departmental sites, informational sites, applications and just about a bit of everything else.

It’s a really remarkable and interesting solution that I think will pay huge dividends. If it goes smoothly, which I have no doubt it should, we’re going to be able to provide very low cost (both in effort and monetarily) distributed authorship and increase functionality for both our users and stakeholders.

By providing them with not only a vehicle to update their pages themselves, but also with tools to provide news, announcements, knowledge management and more — we’re really taking a huge step forward in turning our intranet into something that should show some big enterprise-wide ROI. With out the cost and hassle of a “real” content management system.

We went down that road and found it sorely lacking.

All thanks to a simple blogging tool, some great plug-ins and some creative thinking. Oh, and for the standards geeks out there — the whole thing is built with valid (and tableless) XTHML and CSS as well.

Prosecutor Named to Probe Senate Files Case

"Luke, you can destroy the Emperor. He has foreseen this. It is your destiny, join me and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son."

Found this via a Furl recommendation.

NUCEXP — Nuclear Explosions Database

The NUCEXP database is a compilation of all nuclear explosions recorded since 1945. Details include:

* country/region
* location of explosion
* date and time
* size (yield range)
* body- and surface-wave magnitudes
* source of information

Here's the data for Pakistan. They've been busy little bees, eh?

Nuclear explosions conducted by: Pakistan

Time period: 1945 - 2001

2 explosions

Date: 28 MAY 1998

origin time: 10:16:15 (Universal Coordinated Time)
type: underground
site: Southwestern Pakistan
body wave magnitude: 4.8
surface wave magnitude: 3.3
yield: 5 to 20 kT
decimal latitude / longitude: 28.862 / 64.818

Date: 30 MAY 1998

origin time: 6:54:54 (Universal Coordinated Time)
type: underground
site: Southwestern Pakistan
body wave magnitude: 4.7
yield: 0 to 10 kT
decimal latitude / longitude: 28.487 / 63.787
comments: Announced.

My close personal savior, Chun the Unavoidable, may protest and eviscerate the "meme" meme, but I think the self replication exhibited by this particular "idea" fits the description.

Here's my post contribution to the meme.

I've been tracking this through the various blogs that I monitor with RSS feeds and today a rather good one popped up on my radar.

Actually, I cheated. The nearest book was Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming Vol. 2. on semi-numerical algorithms. But I lack the skills to typeset the 5th sentence from page 23 in HTML, actually I lack the skill to typeset any sentence that appears on page 23 (and most other pages) in HTML. But I thought it is OK to cheat on this one as I feel it is not really my fault that HTML can't complex math stuff in a decent way.

One of the reasons why I think this meme propagates is that it appeals to our penchant for fortune telling. There's something strictly magical about randomly selecting structured information based on proximity. The event is random in that the timing of the request is unpredictable and the precise sequence of instructions to be followed. Same thing happens in tarot cards. Produce random, complex symbols with a well defined structure and interpret them in your context. It can tell you a lot about what you want to know.

In any event, that's just the religious leverage the meme is using to propagate itself. The major hook the meme uses is vanity. Everyone loves showing off their awesome book collections.

Update: Been meaning to post a link to this. Check out Vogels' ongoing analysis on RSS Feeds. Very interesting data, if your interested in that kind of stuff.

Hey, I just found out that the Wonkette was responsible (partly) for Suck and Feed. Ah, the mysteries of life.

(BTW, she's pretty darn cute. Love those glasses)

Next time you hear a Right Winger blather on about square area, show 'em this.

Via MyDD.

Karen Hughes Brings Philosoraptor Out of Semi-Retirement
Or:
You Know, I Just Don't Like That Woman

What really ticks me off about Hughes’s central claim is that it is ambiguous in just the way necessary to blur the important issues. She claims that “the fundamental issue between us and the terror network we fight is that we value every life.” Now this might mean that (a) we value the life of every biologically human thing, or it might mean that (b) we value the life of every person. (Theoretically it could mean that we value the life of every living thing, including plants and animals, but it’s obvious that that isn’t what she means, since I’m sure she has no sympathy for such a position.) But (a) and (b) are inequivalent as I’m sure you realize. Not every biologically human thing is a person, and it is fairly certain that not every person is a biologically human thing. It’s not completely clear what it is to be a person, but ordinarily persons are thought of as sentient, self-conscious, rational and autonomous beings. God and intelligent aliens, if they exist, are persons though they are not biologically human things. Persons (I assert, blatantly ignoring well-known alternative positions) have intrinsic value. Although excuses might theoretically be made for both of them, Hitler and bin Laden do not seem to understand this. But no one thinks that every living biologically human thing is intrinsically valuable. My most recently-produced red blood cell, for example, is a living, biologically human thing, but it isn’t intrinsically valuable (though it is instrumentally valuable in virtue of its role in keeping me alive). And were I, Heaven forbid, to slip into an irreversible vegetative state, my life, such as it would be, would no longer be valuable. What is valuable about me is my personhood—my sentience, autonomy, rationality, etc.--not my biological life, nor my human life biologically construed. Not, that is, my respiring and metabolizing.

But Ms. Hughes intentionally blurs this distinction. Many of us—on perfectly defensible grounds—do not believe that very early-term fetuses are persons, and, consequently, we do not believe that their lives are intrinsically valuable. We believe the life of every person is valuable, but we do not believe that, say, eight-cell fetuses are persons. Bin Laden presumably recognizes the personhood of his victims and elects to kill them anyway. Hughes’s claim is true only if by ‘life’ she means the life of a person—that is, if she means that the difference between us and the terrorists is that we (theoretically, at any rate) believe that the life of every person is intrinsically valuable. But her attempt to analogize terrorism to abortion can only succeed if by ‘life’ she means something like brute biological life—metabolizing and respiring even without sentience etc. So her terrorism-abortion analogy only works if she is asserting that the difference between us and the terrorists is that (i) we hold metabolizing and respiring to be valuable even when they are unrelated to sustaining a mind, whereas (ii) the terrorists disagree. Almost none of us think any such thing, however. Which is good since, if we did, the terrorists would already have won. This particular philosophical argument, anyway.

Seems there's a kerfluffle in meme space over the lack of respect that Liberals are paying to Evangelical Christians. Atrios, naturally, is a center of this tempest and his posts have provoked some rather interesting responses from the more religious parts of the blogosphere. Then there's Nicholas Kristof's rather interestingly worded column offering tollerance in exchange for respect (hey, it's his language, not mine).

But the point the liberalish Evangelical Christians seem to miss is a big one.

Their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power

We can laugh at these people, but we should not dismiss them. That their beliefs are bonkers does not mean they are marginal. American pollsters believe that 15-18% of US voters belong to churches or movements which subscribe to these teachings. A survey in 1999 suggested that this figure included 33% of Republicans. The best-selling contemporary books in the US are the 12 volumes of the Left Behind series, which provide what is usually described as a "fictionalized" account of the Rapture (this, apparently, distinguishes it from the other one), with plenty of dripping details about what will happen to the rest of us. The people who believe all this don't believe it just a little; for them it is a matter of life eternal and death.

And among them are some of the most powerful men in America. John Ashcroft, the attorney general, is a true believer, so are several prominent senators and the House majority leader, Tom DeLay. Mr DeLay (who is also the co-author of the marvelously named DeLay-Doolittle Amendment, postponing campaign finance reforms) traveled to Israel last year to tell the Knesset that "there is no middle ground, no moderate position worth taking".

So here we have a major political constituency - representing much of the current president's core vote - in the most powerful nation on Earth, which is actively seeking to provoke a new world war. Its members see the invasion of Iraq as a warm-up act, as Revelation (9:14-15) maintains that four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates" will be released "to slay the third part of men". They batter down the doors of the White House as soon as its support for Israel wavers: when Bush asked Ariel Sharon to pull his tanks out of Jenin in 2002, he received 100,000 angry emails from Christian fundamentalists, and never mentioned the matter again.

Washington Mall Is Filled With Protesters From Across Nation

A vast multitude of protesters marched here today in support of abortion rights and to highlight what organizers contend is the Bush administration's erosion of reproductive liberties.

The march followed several legislative defeats for abortion rights advocates, who have been battling a Congress and White House that are led by allies of the anti-abortion movement. Organizers say that by filling the Washington Mall with a wide cross-section of demonstrators from across America and the world, they hope to send a powerful message to the administration and return the issue of abortion rights to the forefront of American politics as the presidential campaign heats up.

The event was the first large-scale abortion rights demonstration in Washington since 1992 and was also promoted as a march for wider access to reproductive health services and a right to privacy.

There were no official estimates of crowd size. Organizers obtained a permit for 750,000 people and say they exceeded that goal. The 1992 march drew 500,000, according to the National Park Police, which no longer gives official crowd counts. CNN, citing local police, estimated that at least 250,000 people participated today.

More proof that Herr Rove's status as a Third Stage Guild Navigator is well deserved.

Bush's Oratory Helps Maintain Support for War

With skillful use of language and images, President Bush and his aides have kept the American public from turning against the war in Iraq despite the swelling number of U.S. casualties there.

Even with the loss of more than 700 U.S. troops in Iraq, recent uprisings against the U.S.-led occupation there, a dwindling number of allies and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, a majority of Americans still believe that going to war in Iraq was the right thing to do. By 52 percent to 41 percent, Americans trust Bush more than Democratic cAzaellenger Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) to handle the Iraq situation, according to last week's Washington Post-ABC News poll -- a double-digit improvement for Bush from a month before.

Political strategists and public-opinion experts say a good part of this resilience of public support for Bush and the Iraq war stems from the president's oratory. They say Bush has convinced Americans of three key points that strongly influence overall support for the war: that the United States will prevail in Iraq; that the fighting in Iraq is related to the war against al Qaeda; and that most Iraqis and many foreign countries support U.S. actions in Iraq.

At the same time, the administration has limited damaging images of the cost of war in Iraq. While the president has met privately with the families of many of the war victims, Bush has not attended any funeral for fallen service members, and until last week the administration barred the public release of images of flag-draped caskets.

. . .

All these assertions are debatable and highly disputed. But the public appears to have accepted Bush's views. For example, a poll released last week by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes found that 60 percent of Americans thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction just before the war or thought it had a major weapons program. The poll also found that 57 percent thought Iraq gave "substantial support" to al Qaeda or thought Iraq was directly involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The poll also found that 70 percent of those who believe Iraq was helping al Qaeda were supportive of the war in Iraq, and 87 percent who thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction backed the war.

. . .

Still unknown is how long Bush's positive oratory can hold off negative imagery. Duke's Feaver said the show of determination "is no longer sufficient to prop up support" and warned: "The rhetoric has to match the reality in Iraq, and if the situation on the ground deteriorates, then the administration will face an increasingly Herculean task keeping public support strong."

Hug an Evangelical

Liberals would do well to show more respect for their evangelical Christian masters. In return, they just might tolerate your existence and grant you some rights.

Yep, everything's under control.

Attacks Kill 34 Throughout Iraq

Suicide Boats Attack Iraq's Vital Oil Terminal

Everything is available on E-Bay.

The seller is one co-author of a 1997 paper in Physics Letters A [Volume 228, Issue 3, Pages 202-204 (7 April 1997)] with Dr. Newman -- and thereby has an Erdös number of 4.

The seller will make his time available to the winner -- after payment is received -- on a part-time basis not to exceed 40 total hours doled out at a rate of no more than 10 hours per week, distributed to their mutual convenience over the period beginning May 1 2004 and ending on July 31 2004.

During that period, the seller will provide expert technical advice on research projects in the fields of evolutionary algorithms, machine learning, agent-based modeling of complex biological and social systems, complex systems research in general, social network theory (including business and marketing applications), engineering design automation using machine learning algorithms, artificial life, and any of a number of other specialties (a more comprehensive list available on request; a complete curriculum vitae will be provided to the winner).

If you are uncertain about the feasibility or reasonableness of a particular research collaboration, contact the seller before bidding.

Cleric vows suicide bombings if U.S. strikes

Meanwhile, back on the ranch. . .

'Iraq Expert' Perle Shills for CAzaelabi at Senate Panel

Perle also at one point said he didn't think the events of the first two weeks of April were a "mass uprising" and said he thought Fallujah was quiet now. (Nope).

It is indicative of the Alice in Wonderland world in which these Washington Think Tank operators live that Perle could make such an obviously false observation with a straight face. Even a child who has been watching CNN for the past three weeks would know that there was a mass uprising. (Even ten percent of the American-trained police switched sides and joined the opposition, and 40% of Iraqi security men refused to show up to fight the insurgents.)

I replied, pointing out that the US had lost control of most of Baghdad, its supply and communications lines to the south were cut, and a ragtag band of militiamen in Kut chased the Ukrainian troops off their base and occupied it. It was an uprising. I suppose Perle hopes that if he says it wasn't an uprising, at least some people who aren't paying attention will believe him. It is bizarre.

It reminded me of the scene in Ladykillers where the fraudsters set off an explosion in a lady's basement, and she hears it while outside in a car, and is alarmed, and the Tom Hanks character says in a honeyed southern accent, "Why, Ah don't believe Ah heard anything at all." I could just see Perle in a Panama hat at that point playing the character.

Via Squirrel Nut Zippers

In the afterlife
You could be headed for the serious strife
Now you make the scene all day
But tomorrow there'll be Hell to pay

People listen attentively
I mean about future calamity
I used to think the idea was obsolete
Until I heard the old man stamping his feet.

This is a place where eternally
Fire is applied to the body
Teeth are extruded and bones are ground
Then baked into cakes which are passed around.

Beauty, talent, fame, money, refinement
Top skill and brain
But all the things you try to hide
Will be revealed on the other side.

Now the D and the A and the M
and the N and the A
And the T and the I-O-N
Lose your face, lose your name
Then get fitted for a suit of flame

Woman loses her job over coffins photo

A military contractor has fired Tami Silicio, a Kuwait-based cargo worker whose photograph of flag-draped coffins of fallen U.S. soldiers was published in Sunday's edition of The Seattle Times.

Silicio was let go yesterday for violating U.S. government and company regulations, said William Silva, president of Maytag Aircraft, the contractor that employed Silicio at Kuwait International Airport.

"I feel like I was hit in the chest with a steel bar and got my wind knocked out. I have to admit I liked my job, and I liked what I did," Silicio said.

Her photograph, taken earlier this month, shows more than 20 flag-draped coffins in a cargo plane about to depart from Kuwait. Since 1991, the Pentagon has banned the media from taking pictures of caskets being returned to the United States.

That policy has been a lightning rod for debate, and Silicio's photograph was quickly posted on numerous Internet sites and became the subject of many Web conversations. Times Executive Editor Michael R. Fancher yesterday appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" news show with U.S. Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., who supported the Pentagon policy prohibiting such pictures.

As a result of the broader coverage, The Times received numerous e-mails and phone calls from across the country — most of which supported the newspaper's decision.

Pentagon officials yesterday said the government's policy defers to the sensitivities of bereaved families. "We've made sure that all of the installations who are involved with the transfer of remains were aware that we do not allow any media coverage of any of the stops until (the casket) reaches its final destination," said Cynthia Colin, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

Tami Silicio's photo fueled a debate over a U.S. policy on casket images.

Maytag also fired David Landry, a co-worker who recently wed Silicio.

Don't use Diebold touch-screen voting machines

California should ban the use of 15,000 touch-screen voting machines made by Diebold Election Systems from the Nov. 2 general election, an advisory panel to Secretary of State Kevin Shelley recommended Thursday.

By an 8-0 vote, the state's Voting Systems and Procedures Panel recommended that Shelley cease the use of the machines, saying that Texas-based Diebold has performed poorly in California and its machines malfunctioned in the state's March 2 primary election, turning away many voters in San Diego County.

The recommendation affects 15,000 Diebold touch-screen machines in San Diego, Solano, Kern and San Joaquin counties.

Machines made by Diebold and other manufacturers in 10 other counties are unaffected, although the panel was to consider them later in the day.

Words fail me.

Thousands Dead or Injured in N.Korea Rail Blast

Up to 3,000 people were killed or injured when two trains loaded with fuel collided and exploded at a North Korean station Thursday, hours after leader Kim Jong-il had passed through, South Korea's YTN television said.

YTN quoted witnesses in its report while South Korea's Yonhap news agency, which spoke of widespread destruction, also said there were thousands of casualties. Neither Yonhap nor YTN gave a breakdown of deaths and injuries.

Yonhap quoted sources in the Chinese city of Dandong that borders the North as saying the explosion occurred around 1 p.m. -- nine hours after Kim's special train was reported to have passed on its way back to Pyongyang after a visit to China.

"The station was destroyed as if hit by a bombardment and debris flew high into the sky," Yonhap said, quoting the unidentified Chinese sources.

The sources said cargo trains carrying gasoline and liquefied petroleum gas collided at Ryonchon station 30 miles south of the border.

Yonhap also quoted a senior Defense Ministry official as saying the South's military -- which eavesdrops on North Korea -- had heard about the blast through "intelligence channels directed against the North."

There was no immediate suggestion the blast was anything other than an accident. But the explosion came after Kim met China's new leadership during a rare foreign visit to discuss the North's nuclear weapons plans and tentative economic reforms.

North Korea appears to have cut international telephone lines to the area to prevent information about the explosion getting out, Yonhap added. The North appears to have declared a type of emergency in the area.

My uneducated opinion is that Fallujah, Najaf and all the other uprisings throughout Iraq are just a prelude to what things are going to be like after a month or two of temperatures over 100 degrees F without enough electricity. I remember the back and forth propaganda struggle of the Right to show that tremendous progress has been made in this area. But the facts speak otherwise.

Here's a little tid bit from a page you might want to bookmark. This DOE (departement of energy) document is updated pretty regularly and provides an excellent background into the whole energy arena in Iraq. Here's what the situation is regarding the generation of electrical power and the condition of the power distribution infrastructure - without which electrical generation is absolutely useless.

As of February 2004, indications were that Iraq had no more than 4,000-4,500 MW of power generating capacity, an improvement from several months ago but still below the amount needed (6,000 MW) to satisfy peak Iraqi summer demand. Baghdad alone is estimated to require 2,400 MW of power during the summer's extreme heat for refrigeration and air conditioning, but received perhaps Azaelf that amount during the summer of 2003. The Daura plant, which supplies the capital, was only running at 30% capacity as of late July 2003, while power lines between the Baiji facility, which also serves Baghdad, had been cut or looted. As a result, the CPA introduced a rationing system for the entire country, except for Basra, with three hours on and three hours off. In late February 2004, the CPA announced that it had opened a 184-MW mobile power plant, comprised of eight portable diesel generators, in Baiji. The plant is slated to increase overall Iraqi power generating capacity and specifically to provide power to the nearby Baiji oil refinery, which has experienced numerous power interruptions in recent months.

For 2004, the US Agency for International Development (AID) reportedly plans to spend nearly $500 million to add 1,000 MW of electric generating capacity by the end of the year. This will include rehabilitation of the Bayji power plant, plus new plants in Kirkuk, South Baghdad and Mussayib. Plans also include repair of power transmission lines (132-kilovolt and 400-kilovolt) and towers, many of which are still out of commission due to sabotage and looting. Overall, Iraq's electricity ministry would like to reach 7,000 MW of capacity by the summer, and at least 9,000 MW of capacity by the end of 2004 (and 15,000 MW in the next few years), but this looks optimistic at present. The World Bank estimates that restoring and improving Iraq's electric power sector will require about $12 billion in investment, more than double the $6 billion that the U.S. Congress appropriated in the fall of 2003. Iraqi Electricity Minister, Ayham al-Sammarai, reportedly has drawn up a list of 200 power projects that he hopes to start by 2006, at a cost of $6 billion. In the meantime, Iraq has reached deals with Syria to provide Iraq with 50 MW of power, and Turkey for another 200 MW (plus an additional 500 MW of mobile power generators). In January 2004, al-Samarrai said that Iraq intended to allow independent power projects, on both Build-Own-Transfer (BOT) and Build-Own-Operate (BOO) bases.

Despite repeated assurances over the past year from CPA chief L. Paul Bremer that Iraq's electricity situation has vastly improved, the memo says otherwise, reporting that there is "no consistency" in power flows. "Street lights function irregularly and traffic lights not at all . . . Electricity in Baghdad fluctuating between three hours, on and off, in rotation, and four hours on and off."

"I continue to get very upset about the electricity issue," Gardiner said last week after reviewing the memo. "I said in my briefing that the electrical system was going to be damaged, and damaged for a long time, and that we had to find a way to keep key people at their posts and give them what they need so there wouldn't be unnatural surges that cause systems to burn out. Frankly, if we had just given the Iraqis some baling wire and a little bit of space to keep things running, it would have been better. But instead we've let big US companies go in with plans for major overhauls."

Indeed, as journalists Pratap Chatterjee and Herbert Docena noted in a report from Iraq in Southern Exposure, published by the Durham, North Carolina-based Institute for Southern Studies, the steam turbines at Iraq's Najibiya power plant have been dormant since last fall. As Yaruub Jasim, the plant's manager, explained, "Normally we have power 23 hours a day. We should have done maintenance on these turbines in October, but we had no spare parts and money." And why not? According to Jasim, the necessary replacement parts were supposed to come from Bechtel, but they hadn't arrived yet— in part because Bechtel's priority was a months-long independent examination of power plants with an eye towards total reconstruction. And while parts could have been cheaply and quickly obtained from Russian, German, or French contractors— the contractors who built most of Iraq's power stations— "unfortunately," Jasim told Chatterjee and Docena, "Mr. Bush prevented the French, Russian, and German companies from [getting contracts in] Iraq." (In an interview last year with the San Francisco Chronicle, Bechtel's Iraq operations chief held that "to just walk in and start fixing Iraq" was "an unrealistic expectation.")

Of course, the old game never left town. It was just overshadowed, momentarily, by Dr. Al-Sadar. . . Seems like a synergy has been developed amongst the strategies.

Kinda sucks, eh?

Car Bombs Hit Police Stations in Iraq's Basra

Explosions ripped through three police stations in Iraq's southern city of Basra on Wednesday, causing many casualties, a British military spokesman said.

"There were three separate explosions at police stations at about 7.15 a.m. (0315 GMT)," Squadron Leader John Arnold told Reuters. "They were vehicle-based improvised explosive devices."

He said there were reports of heavy casualties, but no exact figures were available, partly because British troops who control Basra could not reach two of the police stations.

"They are being stoned," Arnold said, adding that no casualties among British forces had been reported.

Arnold said it was too early to say if the attacks were suicide bombings.

Police had earlier said they believed the blasts at two police stations in central Basra had been caused by mortar bombs.

The explosions in the morning rush hour sowed panic across Basra, which had been relatively peaceful during this month's surge of violence in other parts of central and southern Iraq.

Stoned.

Lovely.

Arab ally snubs Bush amid 'unprecedented hatred' for US

King Abdullah's cancellation was in retaliation for Mr Bush's support last week for a plan by the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, in which he offered to pull out of Gaza in return for US recognition of illegal settlements on the West Bank and an end of the right of 3.6 million Palestinians to return to Israel.

Mr Mubarak cited as reasons for the increased hatred Israel and the US occupation of Iraq. In an interview with Le Monde published yesterday, he said : "After what has happened in Iraq, there is an unprecedented hatred. What's more - they [Arabs] see Sharon act as he wants, without the Americans saying anything".

. . .

Mr Sharon secured his deal with Mr Bush partly through brinkmanship, sitting at Ben Gurion airport for three hours last week and threatening to cancel his Washington visit. Mr Bush caved in.

But similar tactics by King Abdullah are unlikely to achieve the same result. The palace statement said the king had written to Mr Bush before his meeting with Mr Sharon saying the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza had to be part of an overall peace plan, not an alternative to it. But Mr Bush ignored his plea.

What I got wrong about Iraq.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Peanut has me rolling on the floor laughing. Go check this out, you'll love it.

However, I suspect that the enablers on the right (Sebastian, you come quickly to mind) will still not understand the whole issue presented in this little morality play.

The following dialogue has been simplified as much as possible in the hope that Republicans can see what they're enabling by continuing to put Bush before party, party before constituents, and their own pathetic hypocritical treasonous asses before all else.

Round here we talk just like lions
But we sacrifice like lambs

How big of a bang, though?

Fables of the Reconstruction

Can't read this at the moment, but if for some reason you haven't seen it. . .

Okay, I'll bite.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

(from Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter.)

And might I say, this is a damn good line from this book. Bravo!

an unbridled passion for the total elimination of this or that evil can be as dangerous as any of the delusions of our time

Indeed.

I'm intrigued.

AAN Promises Important Iraq Story Tomorrow

The 3,000-word story, embargoed until Tuesday but obtained by E&P today, is based on a "closely held" memo purportedly written by a U.S. government official detailed to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). It was provided to writer Jason Vest by "a Western intelligence official." The memo offers a candid assessment of Iraq's bleak future -- as a country trapped in corruption and dysfunction -- and portrays a CPA cut off from the Iraqi people after a "year's worth of serious errors."

The article is titled, "Fables of Reconstruction," with a subhed, "A Coalition memo reveals that even true believers see the seeds of civil war in the occupation of Iraq."

Karpel commented, "We have no question that the memo is authentic."

You know, for a war that's so not about oil it sure has a hell of a lot of oil related planning and justification. I mean, it's almost as if Cheney's energy task force pretty much decided the whole foreign policy. Right?

BTW, I wonder how that lawsuit is going.

Lucky for us that gas prices are going to fall soon, eh? Oh wait a minute. It might be a bit hard to live up to this promise with some rather unsettling violence in the kingdom.

The State Department Thursday ordered the departure of nonessential U.S. government employees and family members from Saudi Arabia because of terrorism concerns.

It also said private citizens currently in the country should leave.

The statement was issued hours after Secretary of State Colin Powell said the situation in the kingdom was worrisome. “We are concerned. The threat level has gone up,” he said.

Here, in a nutshell, is the problem with this administration - and the RWAP in general. If you don't feel a chill down your spine when you read this, you might be a Zombie.

I'm quoting from an Air America Radio interview with Suskind:

Suskind: He says, you know, "You, Suskind, you're in what we call the 'reality-based community'" -- that's actually the term he used.

I said, "The WHAT?"

He says, "The 'reality-based community'.". He said, "you all believe" -- now let me see if I can get this right -- "You all believe that answers to solutions will emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality."

I said, "Yeah... YEAH, OF COURSE..."

He says, "Well, let me tell you how we really see it. You see, we're an empire now. And when we act, we kinda create a reality. Events flow from our actions. And because of that, what we do is... essentially... we act, and every time we act we create a whole new set of laws of physics, which you then judiciously study for your solutions, and while you're doing that we'll act again, promulgate a whole other set."

Janine Garofolo: "So you throw a rock in the pond, and the ripples go out..."

Suskind: And this guy said, "and that's where we'll stand ultimately; you'll study us, and we'll act. We'll be the actors, and you will study what we do. And if you're really good -- on good behavior -- maybe thirty years from now one of us will visit that graduate seminar you'll be teaching at Dartmouth in your tweed blazer." That's the thinking.

This is more of the "only Nixon could go to China" line of thinking. It's a thought that I've had trundling around in the vast cavern of my cranium for some time: "Only Democrats can wage war".

If it's war you want, then go Democrats

Kerry is more hawkish than Bush about the threat from Islam in general and about Saudi Arabia in particular. Both of these are favourite neo-conservative themes. While Bush has often emphasised that the US has no quarrel with Islam, Kerry happily speaks about the specific danger to the US from the Islamic world, using language that is not substantially different from that in the latest neo-con manifesto, An End to Evil by Richard Perle and David Frum.

Kerry explicitly lists certain populations as representing a special danger to the US - Saudi Arabians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Palestinians, Indonesians and Pakistanis - and he reproaches Bush's grandiose plan to democratise the entire Middle East not for its overweening ambition but for its timidity.

Kerry has attacked the Bush administration for adopting a kid gloves approach to the Saudi kingdom, which he has repeatedly accused of complicity in the funding of Islamic extremism and terror, and he has said the Saudi interior minister is guilty of "hate speech" and of promoting "wild anti-Semitic conspiracy theories". This recalls Frum and Perle's surprising classification of Saudi Arabia as "an unfriendly power". Serious neo-cons, indeed, might be calculating that the bungling Bush is more of a liability than an asset for their desire to remodel the Middle East and to consolidate the US's uncAzaellenged military power.

Kerry might be just what they need to draw the sting of that left-wing anti-Americanism around the world and in the US that inspires so much anti-war feeling. The Kosovo war showed that a war for human rights and against oppression, fought by a slick Democrat, plays far better with world public opinion than all that red-neck bull about dangers to national security. It will be far easier for president Kerry to fight new wars than for the mistrusted and discredited Bush. So to those who think that the election of a Democratic president will put an end to US militarism, I say: You ain't seen nothin' yet.

Well, I think we can safely say that all hell is about to break loose.

Bremer Is Increasing Pressure for a Quick End to Iraqi Uprisings

Aides say Mr. Bremer has worked intensively behind the scenes to allay impatience within the American military command over the standoffs and to give Iraqi negotiators as much time as possible to find a peaceful solution. But the aides say Mr. Bremer, too, believes that meeting the June 30 transfer date may require a decisive show of force, at least in Falluja, and that Iraqis who do not want their country to slide into chaos should speak up more forcefully against the insurgents.

American commanders clearly favor a solution in Najaf that disarms Mr. Sadr's militiamen without requiring American troops to enter the city, which is sacred to Iraq's religious Shiites. Powerful Shiite clerics, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, considered the country's most influential religious figure, have intervened with Mr. Sadr in a bid to have him back down and spare the city an invasion.

But in a sign that diplomacy was failing, Iran said Sunday that the United States' "iron fist policy" in Iraq and a lack of security had foiled Iran's mediation efforts to end the stand-off in Najaf. The statement, at an Iranian foreign ministry news conference in Tehran, came after a senior Iranian diplomat was fatally shot in Baghdad on Thursday.

In Falluja, American calculations appear to favor military action if the Sunni Muslim insurgents there continue resisting American demands that they quit the city.

Marine commanders besieging the city have warned a delegation from Falluja shuttling to an American base outside the city that they will not tolerate for long the casualties being taken by the marines through breaches of the weeklong cease-fire.

I forgot about hearing this on Friday.

Rumsfeld Says Troop Losses Unexpected

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld acknowledged Thursday that he had not anticipated that American forces in Iraq still would be suffering so many casualties one year after the invasion and said he regretted having to extend the deployment of 20,000 troops.

Asked what mistakes he had made in the conduct of the war in Iraq, Rumsfeld said, "I certainly would not have estimated that we would have had the number of individuals lost … that we have had lost in the last week."

It's this unholy combination of blinders and tunnel vision coupled with this almost preternatural ability to completely forget about something once it's been delegated - a trait common in the worst of CEO's (and there's a lot of them) - that results in such complete breakdown of process. Throw in the well documented lack of curiosity of this President and you have the recipe for a continuing and escalating series of disasters.

All emanating from the same root cause.

Thanks to Laura for the memory jog. She has some rather choice words for the incompetency exhibited by this administration.

There are hardly words to express how appalling it is to understand the fact that it has taken more than a year for the facts on the ground in Iraq to even begin to penetrate the iron-clad ideological blinders these guys are wearing. It is Vietnam like, that utter refusal to see the facts on the ground. Check out Peter Pace here:

. . .

No missteps in planning? If the insurgents are capable of running you around like that, isn't there something wrong with your planning? In effect, is Pace ceding the initiative to the insurgents? Any way one reads this, it is appalling.

I believe this is why they're condemning the deaths, Ara. The person who throws gas on a fire is not helping out. Now Israel and the US have something far, far more serious on their hands.

Death set to ignite tinderbox in Iraq

Iraq was last night poised on the edge of a full-scale religious uprising as the assassination of Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi fed oxygen to the tinderbox siege of the holy cities of Najaf and Falujah.

Hundreds of foreign fighters, including Palestinians, have already poured into Iraq, the new front line in the battle against the “infidels”, making the peaceful resolution of the siege of the Shiite holy city of Najaf a near impossibility.

Just as crowds of Hamas supporters gathered outside Gaza City’s Shifa hospital vowing revenge after the killing, so too would the foreign fighters within the walls of Najaf stiffen their resolve against what will be seen as the latest attack on the Arab world.

Last night supporters of the wanted Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said talks with the US troops encircling the holy city of Najaf had collapsed and that an attack was imminent.

On the US side Colonel Dana Pittard, head of the 3rd Brigade Task Force that has assembled outside the besieged city, was told yesterday that al-Sadr’s militiamen were not in full control of what is an explosive situation.

Phil Kosnett, head of the beleagured Coalition Provisional Authority, based in the city, said a peaceful resolution looked unlikely.

“There are gunmen and thugs and many of them have come to town to take advantage of the situation. Al-Sadr does not have total control over all the gunmen who are running around the streets of Najaf,” said Kosnett. “If al-Sadr could be trusted to a peaceful resolution of the crisis that would be one thing. Now it is very difficult to say what is going to happen.”

As journalists within the city reported gunfire from the northwest, where coalition troops are encamped, it became clear that in the besieged city and at the bloody stand-off in Sunni-dominated Falujah the US faced the nightmare scenario of an uprising by the two main muslim denominations in Iraq.

As well as facing the volatile religious situation the US has risked further instability in Iraq over the death of Rantissi. Israel’s full frontal assault on the Hamas leadership has already been exploited by Osama bin Laden to lever further violence against the US and its allies. In his latest audio cassette, offering a truce to European countries that pulled of Iraq, bin Laden also promised vengeance for the Israeli attacks on Hamas.

Put aside, if you will, just for a moment, both the substance and process elements of the West Bank settlements question, and focus on the timing.

With the political future of Iraq hanging in the balance, was there ever a less opportune moment for the US to enrage (or secretly delight) its foes and dismay its friends throughout the Arab world? Wasn't Bush's backing of Sharon's plan a gift to Moqtada al Sadr and the insurgents of Fallujah?

If Sharon wants us to win in Iraq, why couldn't he wait a couple of months, or even a couple of weeks, before putting the squeeze on Bush?

U.S. troops killed in fierce Iraq fighting

Heavy fighting in Iraq over the weekend has killed 10 U.S. troops, including five Marines in a day of bloody clashes near the Syrian border, the U.S. military says.

The deaths brought to 503 the number of American soldiers killed in action in Iraq since the start of the U.S.-led war in March last year to oust Saddam Hussein.

This month's toll of 104 is higher than the number killed in action in the three-week war that toppled Saddam.

The Marines said women and children had surrounded guerrilla mortar positions during the fighting, apparently as human shields. "It is unknown whether or not they were in those positions on their own free will," the statement said.

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a thumb.

Hamas Appoints New Leader After Killing

Hamas secretly appointed a new Gaza Strip chief early Sunday, but refused to reveal his identity following Israel's assassination of two previous Hamas leaders in less than a month.

Israel assassinated Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi in a missile strike on his car on Saturday, part of its declared campaign to wipe out the Islamic militant group's leadership ahead of a planned Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Two of Rantisi's bodyguards were also killed in the attack.

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Hundreds of thousands of mourners thronged the streets of Gaza City, chanting ``revenge, revenge'' and throwing flowers at the men's bodies as they were carried through the streets in a funeral procession.

Hamas posted a statement on its Web site pledging ``100 retaliations'' that will shake Israel. It said it had declared a state of emergency in the West Bank and Gaza Strip until revenge was complete.

``Yesterday they said that they killed Rantisi to weaken Hamas. They are dreaming. Every time a martyr falls, Hamas is strengthened,'' Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader, told more than 70,000 mourners gathered at the city's largest mosque for the funeral. ``Hamas might have a crisis at hand after losing its leaders, but it will not be defeated.''

Palestinian officials also worried Israel would next target Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, whom Israel accuses of fomenting terror. The Israeli Cabinet voted last year to ``remove'' Arafat.

``President Arafat is going to be the next victim,'' Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said.

Palestinians demonstrated Sunday throughout the Gaza Strip and West Bank in anger over Rantisi's killing.

Thought this was a special song for all those shedding tears over the asinine decision regarding the Iraq now that the situation is completely FUBAR.

Everybody Knows

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
everybody knows the war is over
and everybody knows the good guys lost
everybody knows the fight was fixed
the poor stay poor and the rich get rich
that's how it goes
and everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
everybody knows the captain lied
everybody got this broken feeling
that their father or their dog just died
everybody talkin' to their pockets
everybody wants a box of chocolates
and a long stem rose
and everybody knows

( chorus )
Everybody knows, everybody knows
that's how it goes, and everybody

Everybody knows that you love me baby
everybody knows that you really do
everybody knows that you've been faithful
give or take a night or two
everbody knows that you've been discret
there were so many people you just had to meet
without your clothes
and everybody knows

Everybody knows that it's now or never
everybody knows that it's me or you
everybody knows that you live forever
when you've done a line or two
and everybody knows that the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
for your ribbons and bows
and everybody knows

( chorus x2 )

Everbody knows that the plaque is comin'
everybody knows that it's movin' fast
everybody knows that the naked man and woman
are just a shining artifact of the past
everybody knows that the scene is dead,
but there's gonna be a meter on your bed
that will disclose,
what everybody knows

Everybody knows that you're in trouble
everybody knows what you've been through
from the bloody cross on top of Calvary
to the beach at Malibu
and everybody knows it's coming apart
take one last look at this sacred heart
before it blows,
and everybody knows

( chorus )

Copter Attack Kills Rantisi and Two Others in Gaza

An Israeli helicopter strike on Saturday night killed the Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantisi, hospital officials in Gaza City said. Dr. Rantisi assumed the post just last month after a similar attack killed the group's founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin.

The Israeli attack on Dr. Rantisi's car, which was traveling on a main street in Gaza City, came less than five hours after a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up, killing one Israeli security worker and wounding three others in an industrial park near the crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel, the Israeli military said.

After several weeks of relative calm, Saturday's violence unleashed fresh tensions. A large crowd of angry Palestinians swiftly gathered outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where Dr. Rantisi died of his wounds, and began chanting his name and calling for attacks against Israel. Two other people in Dr. Rantisi's car were killed, one of them a bodyguard.

``All of us will be martyrs,'' Ismail Haniya, another Hamas leader in Gaza, said at the hospital. ``This is our fate as Hamas and the Palestinian people. This will not end our willingness to continue with the resistance.''

Dr. Rantisi, who was in his mid-50's, did not have the stature of Sheik Yassin. But Dr. Rantisi was the most prominent Hamas spokesman in recent years, known for frequent interviews in which he invariably called for more attacks against Israel.

I truly hope Kerrey wins by a huge margin. We need to cut the head off of this ugly political beast, bury the head on one side of a wide river and the body on the other side, then nuke the whole area from high orbit. The Republicans need to regain their party from this pack of jackals. And if the Republicans won't do it on their own, I guess the American people are going to have to do it for them.

This President is going down as the only President never to have been elected by the people.

Why Kerry Could Win In A Landslide

There is still plenty of time for Kerry to implode (although there's no indication he will). There's also still time Bush to get his footing (although again, there's no indication he will). The election may seem close today, but it's a general rule that people who decide late in a campaign tend to vote against the incumbent. For Bush to win this November, he's going to have to defy the historical precedents, buck the historical and demographic trends, repeat his near-flawless campaign performance from 2000, and get really lucky about the atmospherics, like the economy, Iraq and national security, which will decide this election. Everything could go Bush's way [again], but it's unlikely. This conclusion shouldn't lead anyone to complacency or hubris, but there are many good reasons for confidence that our hard work and a strong campaign will put John Kerry in the White House next January.

You know. The law enforcement way. Not the NeandertAzael way.

When he's good, he's good. Still, he wimps out at the end. I guess if I were a NY Times columnist, I'd be a bit more subdued as well. But the message is clear. Our country is run by an incurious man with little intelligence. And this complete lack of curiosity and intelligence have cost us dearly.

Why Didn't We Stop 9/11?

Such an imagined conversation is a bit unfair because it has the clarity of hindsight. But we need to learn from our mistakes, and three conclusions flow from the missed opportunities of the Bush and Clinton administrations.

First, it's time to replace George Tenet. I've resisted that until now because he's been great for morale at the C.I.A. But after two major intelligence failures, 9/11 and the missing Iraqi W.M.D., it's time for a new director of central intelligence.

Second, we need to restructure the intelligence community so one person really is in charge of all the pieces and budgets, as the Scowcroft commission recommended.

Third, an apology or a hint of remorse would show leadership and salve our hurt. Mr. Bush should recognize that acceptance of accountability is not a sign of weakness.

Burn baby. Burn.

9/11 Files Show Warnings Were Urgent and Persistent

But now, after two weeks of extraordinary public hearings and a dozen detailed reports, the lengthy documentary record makes clear that predictions of an attack by al Qaeda had been communicated directly to the highest levels of the government.

The threat reports were more clear, urgent and persistent than was previously known. Some focused on al Qaeda's plans to use commercial aircraft as weapons. Others stated that Osama bin Laden was intent on striking on United States soil. Many were passed to the Federal Aviation Administration.

While some of the intelligence went back years, other warnings — including one that Al Qaeda seemed interested in hijacking a plane inside this country — had been delivered to the president on Aug. 6, 2001, just a month earlier.

Despite what Herr Sebastian says, there are plenty of ways that the "law enforcement" option could have stopped 9/11.

9/11 Panel Points to Missed Chances

Publicizing Threat Might Have Azaelted 'Jumpy' Hijackers

The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has concluded that the hijackers would probably have postponed their strike if the U.S. government had announced the arrest of suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui in August 2001 or had publicized fears that he intended to hijack jetliners.

A report on the case released this week noted that "publicity about the threat" posed by Moussaoui "might have disrupted the plot." Commission Chairman Thomas H. Kean (R) said the conclusion is based in part on extensive psychological profiles of the Sept. 11 hijackers, who were "very careful and very jumpy."

"Everything had to go right for them," Kean said. "Had they felt that one of them had been discovered, there is evidence it would have been delayed."

Such a delay could have given the FBI, the CIA, and British and French intelligence services more time to discover Moussaoui's ties to al Qaeda and the terrorist cell in Germany that planned the attack. The FBI also might have had more time to track down two hijackers who had entered the country but were not located before the attacks.

These and other findings disclosed by the commission this week make it clear that the scope of missed opportunities in the Moussaoui case was broader than previously believed. A wide array of U.S. counterterrorism officials and foreign intelligence services -- including the director of the CIA -- knew about Moussaoui's arrest but repeatedly missed the clues he offered to the catastrophe that was about to unfold, the reports and testimony show.

The findings have led some commission members and investigators to believe that it is plausible, perhaps even likely, that the terrorists' plan could have been detected if Moussaoui's case had been pursued more vigorously.

"A maximum U.S. effort to investigate Moussaoui could conceivably have unearthed his connections to the Hamburg cell, though this might have required an extensive effort, with help from foreign governments," investigators wrote in a staff report released this week. "The publicity about the threat also might have disrupted the plot. But this would have been a race against time."

I really find it quite satisfying that every time Sebastian comes out with one his unhinged rants about 9/11, terrorism and the final solution, it always gets blown out of the water by people who really know what they're talking about.

I know that's quite petty of me.

But after reading David Brooks' idiotic apology, I just can't help it.

A More Humble Hawk

We were all horribly wrong. Wrong before the war. Wrong after the war. But 20 years from now everyone will realize we were right.

Who is you?

Libertarians and other reflexively antigovernment sorts tend to worry foremost about an expanding government usurping the rightful roles and responsibilities of these other institutions. (Libertarians, actually, have a fairly thin notion of such institutions -- they tend to focus only on atomistic individuals and the federal state.)

While I agree that such usurpation would be a Bad Thing, I think this tends to misread the situation. I think they have it backwards. More often the situation is one in which these other institutions have abdicated their particular responsibilities, abandoning them to the actor of last resort -- the state.

. . .

Finally, if no such charitable institution can be found willing or able to take responsibility for these children, they are left in the hands of the state (the city, county, state and, finally, federal government).

It is absurd, in such a case, to suggest that the state is "usurping" the rightful role of all the failed actors that have come before. As the last resort, the state finds itself faced with a task for which it is ill-suited and at which it is inefficient. The state is much better at writing checks than it is at raising children -- which is why it is both more just and more efficient for the government to provide financial assistance to those other actors in order to make them better able and (sadly) more willing to step in and prevent things from getting to this point.

Yet when things do get to this point -- the last resort -- the state, unlike all the actors and institutions that have gone before, does not have the freedom to reject its responsibilities.

Woodward may yet redeem his soul. Maybe.

Bush sought secret Iraq war plan, book says

According to AP, Mr. Woodward's book says Mr. Bush told Mr. Rumsfeld to stay mum about their war scheme and adds that when the Defence Secretary asked to bring Central Intelligence Agency director George Tenet into it, the President said not to do so yet.

Even Mr. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, apparently was not fully briefed. Mr. Woodward said Mr. Bush told her that morning he had directed Mr. Rumsfeld to work on Iraq, but did not share details.

In an interview two years later, Mr. Bush told Mr. Woodward that if the news had leaked, it would have caused "enormous international angst and domestic speculation."

White House officials began to talk up the threat posed by Iraq in mid-2002. Intensive war planning at the Pentagon continued throughout that year and Mr. Bush met regularly with U.S. Army General Tommy Franks and his war cabinet to plan the attack, according to another account of the book posted yesterday on The Washington Post website.

Last spring, after failing to persuade the United Nations Security Council to back an invasion, the United States led a small coalition into Iraq.

In the book, Mr. Woodward describes Vice-President Dick Cheney as a "powerful, steamrolling force" within the Bush administration, pushing for war behind the scenes and sparring frequently with Secretary of State Colin Powell, the Post said.

Among the conclusions that pushed Mr. Bush to ultimately endorse an invasion was Mr. Tenet's assurances that it was a "slam-dunk" that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

One of the roles I can play reasonably well is the "man of action". And one of the things you can learn from role playing a "man of action" is that action alone is rarely sufficient. There's a Tarot card that describes the situation I'm thinking of pretty well: the Seven of Wands - Valour. Using my trusty 777, I can cross reference the card as a representation of Netzach (7) in the realm Fire (wands). The position is doubly unbalanced; off the middle pillar, and very low down on the Tree. It is taking a very great risk to descend so far into illusion, and above all, to do it by frantic struggle.

(anyone notice the parallel to Iraq?)

In any event, the key phrase describing the 7 of wands is "The army has been thrown into disorder; if victory is to be won, it will be by dint of individual valour - a "soldier's battle". Basically, if you have gotten to the point where victory is dependent on the valour of the individual soldier, then your strategy is completely screwed. The only thing that's going to save your butt is that if - by some miracle - Captain America and Iron Man just happen to be part of your Army Of One^tm.

Sometimes this Bold Roll Of The Dice^tm turns out to work - astounding risks, huge payoffs. A good example of this blessing of astounding luck is the heroic actions of Leonidas and his band of kick ass Spartans (well known homosexuals - or so I hear) at Thermopylae (480 BC). King Leonidas, commander of the Greek forces holding the pass, had withstood the attack of the Persian hordes for two days. On the second day of this battle, a slimy traightor, Ephialtes, revealed the existence of a mountain path which would enable the Persians to take the Greeks in the rear (so to speak). That night Leonidas found out about Ephialtes' treachery and knew he was doomed. His was just an advance force to delay the Persians until the main force arrived (they were delayed with religious ceremonies).

Leonidas sent away the men under his command that were from other cities, keeping with him the Thebans, whom he mistrusted, and the valiant Thespians, who refused to go. The end was inevitable. The Thebans went over to the Persians, but the Thespians and the Spartans fought till they died.

Point being that you can't always count on having King Leonidas and his merry band of Terminators there to save your butt. Heroes are often immortalized because they're saving someone else's strategic blunder. This doesn't make the actions any less heroic - sometimes more so, depending on the boneheaded-ness of the strategy or tactical blunder (or level of treachery).

But it's an extremely bad sign when your strategy actually depends on a highly unlikely miracle to occur. It does happen, but it's quite urealistic to believe that you'll actually be that lucky.

Look. I'm quite positive that the Iranians aren't the paragon of virtue and have rather interesting and quite dangerous motives. But the whole line regarding the "Iranians and Syrians as the instigators of the uprising" is simply the latest expression of the inability for the Right Wing of American Politics to understand that this isn't a state based issue - it's a problem with the Iraqi population.

Icon based warfare is the wrong mental framing of the problem. Looking around for a singular target that we can lob cruise missiles at is missing the point entirely.

Iranians in Iraq to Aid in Talks; Tehran Diplomat Is Killed

A senior Iranian diplomat was shot and killed as he was driving to Tehran's diplomatic mission in Baghdad today, an Iraqi policeman who guards the mission said.

The victim was killed on a side road near the embassy by unknown assailants traveling in another car, said the guard, First Lt. Meqdam al-Azawi. The Iranian foreign ministry said the diplomat, KAzaelil Naimi, was the mission's first secretary.

The killing could complicate the mission of an Iranian government delegation that is in Iraq trying to mediate the standoff between American troops and a rebel Shiite cleric. The delegation, which arrived in Baghdad on Wednesday, traveled today to the southern town of Najaf where the cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, has been holed up.

Mr. Naimi was apparently not a member of the Iranian negotiating team, and it was unclear whether the killing was related to the delegation's visit.

I must say that it still really freaks me out that people actually find his nib's complete lack of curiosity a big selling point. Think what you want about Clinton. But one thing that you can't say about the man is that he wasn't curious.

The Price of Incuriosity

Americans knew George W. Bush was an incurious man when they elected him, but the hearings of the 9/11 investigating commission, which turned yesterday from the F.B.I.'s fecklessness to the C.I.A.'s blurred vision, have brought that fact home in a startling way. The president is trying hard to present himself as a hands-on manager who talked terrorism incessantly with the director of central intelligence, George Tenet. ("I wanted Tenet in the Oval Office all the time.") But Mr. Tenet had to concede yesterday that he was not in Crawford, Tex., for the Aug. 6, 2001, briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." Mr. Tenet told the panel he didn't meet with Bush all that month, but the C.I.A. later said there had been two meetings. No one has been able to say whether Mr. Bush followed up in any way after he asked his intelligence agencies whether there was a domestic threat from Al Qaeda, and got a loud "yes" in response.

For Bush and Sharon, 'Confidence' and 'Realities' Are Crucial

One of the major defense strategies from the Right Wing of American Politics is that the PDB (Presidential Daily Briefing) was simply an isolated event. The whole "well, what did you expect him to do based on this single document" theory.

That line of defense is now officially dead.

Panel Says Bush Saw Repeated Warnings

By the time a CIA briefer gave President Bush the Aug. 6, 2001, President's Daily Brief headlined "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US," the president had seen a stream of alarming reports on al Qaeda's intentions. So had Vice President Cheney and Bush's top national security team, according to newly declassified information released yesterday by the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

In April and May 2001, for example, the intelligence community headlined some of those reports "Bin Laden planning multiple operations," "Bin Laden network's plans advancing" and "Bin Laden threats are real."

The intelligence included reports of a hostage plot against Americans. It noted that operatives might choose to hijack an aircraft or storm a U.S. embassy. Without knowing when, where or how the terrorists would strike, the CIA "consistently described the upcoming attacks as occurring on a catastrophic level, indicating that they would cause the world to be in turmoil," according to one of two staff reports released by the panel yesterday.

"Reports similar to these were made available to President Bush in the morning meetings with [Director of Central Intelligence George J.] Tenet," the commission staff said.

President Bush was told that:

1) Bin Laden planning multiple operations
2) Bin Laden network's plans advancing
3) Bin Laden threats are real.
4) An Al Qaeda hostage plot against Americans or storm a U.S. embassy
5) Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US

Via Laura.

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup
They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind
Possessing and caressing me
    -John Lennon

Well, I guess it's pretty clear to everyone that there is no alternative to war with Iraq.  I keep hearing from this administration over and over that "no one wants war" and that "war is the last resort".  The image they keep trying to portray is that they are being dragged kicking and screaming into this war they do not want.  And I guess they expect us to believe this.  After all, Colin Powell says so.  And lord knows, we believe anything that Colin Powell says - he's trusted by the American people more than the President of these United States by a 68% to 28% margin.  So if Colin says war is a last resort, you can bet this administration is burning the midnight oil looking for any way they can to avoid it.

I had a head slapping moment last week.  Colin Powell had just transformed from a voice of diplomacy into a war hawk.  I was watching the reaction from the press, the world, and everyone who was paying attention around me.  The latter was sadly in short supply.  Strange thing about the United States.  We're going to war and no one seems to be paying that much attention.  War is inevitable.  Why think about it much?

Anyways, back in the good old days, I had a lot of respect for Colin Powell.  I thought he was an honorable man and knew where he stood on the issues.  A man of peace, but not afraid of battle.  So when the entire Iraq thing was simmering on the back burner, having Colin Powell in the administration seemed like a blessing to us who were scared shitless of all the war talk.  At the time (early 2002), the administration was floating various trial balloons about their war plans.   Powell was on the side of trying to deal with Iraq diplomatically, through the aegis of the UN.

This seemed to cost Powell a lot of political capital.  The right wing press slashed him with razors.  They left burning bags of shit on his doorstep.  They TP'd his house.  Egged his car.  Well, symbolically at least.

But then I started to wonder about the man.  It seemed that if he really had the principles he claimed he did, he would have resigned over the issue.  Well, I think he should have resigned - but what's my advice worth anyway?  In any event, I rationalized it as Powell realizing he was the only sane head in the bunch had to stay on.  Resigning would mean a terrible war was inevitable.  Staying on he might see that Iraq was disarmed with the help of our allies and that inspections would work.  War was the last resort, and something we as a world (through the UN) should do together.  If nothing else, because it's really expensive.  The moral justification is nice, too.

Then, Powell turned into a hawk almost overnight.   The reason, the common narrative goes, was the comment by the French and Germans that they would be opposed to any action in the security council.  Meaning that France was threatening to veto any new measure which would give the US a green flag to finally get its war on.  Apparently, this so infuriated Powell that he switched overnight from a diplomatic route to a full blown war hawk.

Well, I reached the 60K mark after about 9 months (since I installed tracking). I'm averaging a hair under 300 unique visitors a day. I guess that's something like 1/2 the daily average of a single day for Atrios (the entire 9 months worth, that is). 80% of my visitors seem to come from Google searching for various things - mostly targeting this page with a certain titillating image. Strange what honey pots attract the rubes. It certainly can't be my scintilating writing (especially that page).

But to the 12 or 15 people a day who actually drop by and read the incoherent and poorly constructed rants that I dash off, let me say thanks. I don't know what mental state you must be in to find me entertaining - or at least mildly amusing - but I must say that I'm grateful for your patronage.

Many thanks for dropping by.

I know. Juvenile. Adolescent. Puerile.

But still, a heck of a lot of fun.

(thanks to Dr. J for the tip)

I love the whole time line thing regarding the hand over to self rule. Given the multiple bunglings of the occupation and the rearranging of the deck chairs to form the most pleasing position when the Titanic sinks, I can't help but admire Sistani. At this point, he's got to make lemons from lemonade. And he's got to do this while there's a raging lunatic in the world's most powerful army running about in a blood feud.

Perhaps the most tragic thing of all is that his nibs, George Bush, could still pull off an amazing political coup here. Well, could have. Multiple times. Maybe it is still possible. But given that these jokers have consistently done everything wrong up until this point, the only hope lies with Sistani pulling off a miracle. This administration is systemically incapable of following the light out of this madness.

Let's hope Sistani can create a silk purse out of this sow's ear.

Sistani Threatens Shiite Resistance if US Invades Najaf

The Iranian newspaper Baztab is reporting that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has sent a strongly-worded message to the Coalition forces, in which he warned them against attacking the Shiite shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala after the end of Arba'in.

According to this report, in this letter Sistani warned the US that were the Occupation forces to wage a campaign against Karbala and Najaf, the religious leadership of the Shiites would fight to its last breath for the rights of the Shiites.

Since the fall of the Saddam regime, Sistani has called upon Shiites to be cautious about opposing the US troops, despite his clear distaste for their presence. He has instead attempted to hasten elections for a popularly elected, legitimate Iraqi government.

Humbling.

All those jerks puffing out their chests and calling these people "rag heads" are really freaking me out. Breaking an army that doesn't care for the dictator they serve is one thing (ed: especially if you bribe them ) Fighting a guerrilla war with a bunch of Iran/Iraq war veterans who are now united against the evil occupier is likely going to be something quite different.

I guess we can take this either way. On the one hand, it's great to see the Sunnis and Shi'ites (or is that Shia? I forget) work together. On the other hand the common enemy uniting them, giving them a common purpose, is us. Oh, and they have RPGs.

No doubt Herr Holsclaw can tease out the thin line tracing the trajectory where we look like geniuses for pulling this off and it was the real neo con's clever plan all along. No doubt the phase "only Bush could unite Iraq" will soon be as well known as "only Nixon could go to China".

Fallujah Gains Mythic Air

Siege Redefines Conflict for Iraqis in Capital

The U.S. Marine siege of Fallujah, designed to isolate and pursue a handful of extremists in a restive town, has produced a powerful backlash in the capital. Urged on by leaflets, sermons and freshly sprayed graffiti calling for jihad, young men are leaving Baghdad to join a fight that residents say has less to do with battlefield success than with a cause infused with righteousness and sacrifice.

"The fighting now is different than a year ago. Before, the Iraqis fought for nothing. Now, fighters from all over Iraq are going to sacrifice themselves," said a Fallujah native who gave his name as Abu Idris and claimed to be in contact with guerrillas who slip in and out of the besieged city three and four times daily.

He spoke in a mosque parking lot emptied moments earlier of more than a ton of donated foodstuffs destined for Fallujah -- heavy bags of rice, tea and flour loaded into long, yellow semitrailers by a cluster of men who, their work done, joined a spirited discussion about the need to take the fight to the enemy. They included a dentist, a prayer leader, a law student, a lieutenant colonel in the Iraqi police and a man who until 10 days earlier had traveled with U.S. troops as a member of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps.

"Our brothers who went to Fallujah and came back say: 'Oh, God, it is heaven. Anyone who wants paradise should go to Fallujah,' " Abu Idris said.

Morons.

Thought that with all the "nuke 'em 'till they glow" sloshing about the memespace in combination with the "internationalize it now", this cover by GnR served up a nice heaping helping of tasty cheese.

Live and Let Die

When you were young
and your heart was an open book
You used to say live and let live
You know you did
You know you did
You know you did
But if this ever changin' world
in which we live in
Makes you give in and cry
Say live and let die
Live and let die

What does it matter to ya
When ya got a job to do ya got to do it well
You got to give the other fella hell

You used to say live and let live
You know you did
You know you did
You know you did
But if this ever changin' world
in which we live in
Makes you give in and cry
Say live and let die
Live and let die

Still no word from MarsAzaell Rube.

Scalia Apologizes for Seizure of Recordings

Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court has apologized to two Mississippi reporters who were required to erase recordings of a speech he gave at a high school there on Wednesday.

The reporters, for The Associated Press and a local newspaper, had been told by a deputy federal marsAzael to destroy the recordings at the end of a Azaelf-hour speech by the justice at the Presbyterian Christian High School in Hattiesburg.

The marsAzael cited the justice's standing policy prohibiting the recording of his remarks. The policy had not been announced at the high school.

On Friday, Justice Scalia wrote the reporters to apologize, but his letters had not yet arrived on Monday, the two news organizations said, and the Supreme Court declined to release them.

Justice Scalia referred to the apologies in a separate letter mailed on Friday to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which had protested the marsAzael's actions. The committee released the letter on Monday.

Calling the organization's concern "well justified," the justice wrote: "You are correct that the action was not taken at my direction. I was as upset as you were."

One of the reporters, Antoinette Konz of The Hattiesburg American, expressed appreciation for the apology. She said she was disturbed that her tape was confiscated. It was returned to her only after she promised to erase the justice's speech from it.

"I think it's very honorable of him," she said. "I accept his apology. I am still upset about the entire incident."

DCI: DECLASSIFICATION OF THE PDB IS NO PRECEDENT

The declassification and release of an excerpt from the August 6, 2001 President's Daily Brief (PDB) on al Qaeda, wrote the Director of Central Intelligence in an April 10 declassification order, "sAzaell not be deemed to constitute any precedent concerning any future declassification or release of any other PDB."

But this appears to be wishful thinking, and pressure for more such releases is already growing.

The extraordinarily rapid transition of the newly released document from being among "the most highly sensitive documents in the government" to a merely "historical" memo that can be openly published with minor deletions has glaringly exposed the arbitrary character of the national security classification system. And it inevitably invites further cAzaellenges, despite the DCI's strictures.

"If the American people really want to get a full analysis of what happened, these PDBs are an important part of this landscape," said 9-11 Commission member Bob Kerrey in the Washington Post today. "We need complete access to all of them."

The pretense of inviolable secrecy surrounding the PDB is unfounded, in any case. The National Security Archive has published ten PDBs that are in the public domain (newly updated with supplemental material at www.nsarchive.org).

Furthermore, contrary to recent denials by CIA spokesmen, the CIA itself has declassified portions of past PDBs when it suited the Agency's interests to do so.

Thus, former DCI Robert M. Gates received CIA permission to characterize and to quote verbatim from two PDBs in his 1996 memoir "From the Shadows," including the September 2, 1983 PDB on the Soviet shoot-down of KAL-007 (at page 267) and a passage from the August 17, 1991 PDB on the impending break up of the USSR (at page 521) (thanks to Jim Dempsey).

A copy of the newly disclosed excerpt from the August 6, 2001 President's Daily Brief, entitled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US," is available here.

A White House Fact Sheet that purports to explain how the PDB should be understood is available here.

The transcript of a White House background briefing on the release of the PDB is available here.

The release of the PDB is "the latest example of how political imperatives sometimes force officials to set aside the government's normal procedures for classifying and declassifying national security information," wrote Robert Pear in the New York Times.

See "Politics Can Get in the Way of Keeping Papers Secret," April 10.

Of course, the question is whether he will actually answer questions or merely sneer and spout nonsense.

9/11 Warnings at Issue as Bush Plans News Conference

President Bush announced today that he would hold a news conference in the White House on Tuesday evening, at which he is sure to be questioned further about his administration's handling of intelligence on terrorism before and after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"By the way, tomorrow night I'm interested in answering more questions for you all," Mr. Bush said today, near the end of a question-answer session with reporters at this ranch in Crawford, Tex. "See you at the East Room."

Mr. Bush's light tone belied the seriousness of this week for his presidency. The bipartisan commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks holds a day-long hearing on Tuesday. Mr. Bush will meet Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel on Wednesday (he met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak today), and he will meet Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain on Friday. Mr. Blair has been Mr. Bush's most steadfast supporter on his Iraq policy.

The White House has played down the importance of a briefing the president received on Aug. 6, 2001, titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." The President said on Sunday and reiterated today that it contained no specific information on when or where or how attacks might be carried out, and said he was satisfied with the adequacy of his response to various warnings about potential terrorist activities.

The time was not immediately announced, although the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, told some reporters in Texas the session would begin at 8:30 p.m. Eastern time.

Tuesday night's session with reporters will be Mr. Bush's third news conference in prime time, and his first since March 6, 2003, according to The Associated Press. It will be his 12th formal news conference over all.

Okay, maybe that title is a bit off. How about "pummeling the victim". Or "trashing the victim". In any event, Tim does a brilliant job bringing all the threads together regarding the sordid take down of the 9/11 widows who have the gall to ask their government to explain themselves. As always, Tim has a preternatural ability to strike right at the heart of the matter.

Jersey Girls

The anger directed toward some of the so-called "9/11 widows" by some of those on the right is a strange and pathetic spectacle. Why do they feel so threatened, so affronted by these people? We've seen Rush Limbaugh try and paint them as partisan plants on beAzaelf of the Democratic Party, and even neo-con-to-the-stars, Bill Kristol, said a few weeks ago that they were committing "moral blackmail".

Of course, what annoys Rush and Bill and and co. is that 1) it was solely because of the moral authority these woman brought to the issue that we have a 9/11 Commission at all - the Bush administration was blocking the formation of such an investigation and 2) they have refused to fall in behind the Bush Administration and have instead demanded that their government be held accountable, made to tell what it knew, what it did. The last thing these guys want is the sort of public scrutiny these women have insisted on it. By their actions and comments the so-called "Jersey Girls" have expressed the ultimate rightwing heresy: that the interests of the nation are not the same thing as the interests of the Republican Party.

And so they have to be taken down.

Seems like a lot on the Right Wing of American Politics should be listening. . .

British commanders condemn US military tactics

Senior British commanders have condemned American military tactics in Iraq as heavy-handed and disproportionate.

One senior officer said that America's aggressive methods were causing friction among allied commanders and that there was a growing sense of "unease and frustration" among the British high command.

The officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said part of the problem was that American troops viewed Iraqis as untermenschen - the Nazi expression for "sub-humans".

Speaking from his base in southern Iraq, the officer said: "My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans' use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They don't see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are."

The phrase untermenschen - literally "under-people" - was brought to prominence by Adolf Hitler in his book Mein Kampf, published in 1925. He used the term to describe those he regarded as racially inferior: Jews, Slavs and gypsies.

Although no formal complaints have as yet been made to their American counterparts, the officer said the British Government was aware of its commanders' "concerns and fears".

The officer explained that, under British military rules of war, British troops would never be given clearance to carry out attacks similar to those being conducted by the US military, in which helicopter gunships have been used on targets in urban areas.

The grimmest lesson of Fallujah? Will any democratic government we could conceivably leave behind in Iraq be strong enough to stop Sunni towns like Fallujah--filled with well-armed, well-trained America-hating young men--from becoming ongoing hotbeds of terrorist plotting? The lesson of recent events in Iraq would seem to be a pessimistic one in this regard. (You'd need a strong, non-American military force able to thoroughly police Fallujah and Tikrit. But the Iraqi national forces haven't exactly proven to be a mighty hammer. And the Sunnis, in a loose federal system, seem unlikely to want to crack down on their own.) ... That's true even if the Marines are able to completely clean out the current Fallujah "vipers' nest"--something that also looks increasingly unlikely, given the political pressure for a cease-fire. ... It means that the Iraq War--even if we basically succeed in nation-building--could result in the creation of a new series of towns that --like the towns on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border--are a terrorist Petri dish. If that's the outcome, then in one respect at least we will have succeeded in replacing one terror threat (Saddam) with another, no?

While everyone's arguing over what Bush didn't know and when he didn't know it, there's another problem that doesn't have specific instructions as to how to solve it that needs attention.

North Korea says nuclear stand-off "at brink of war"

North Korea says the stand-off with the United States over its nuclear ambitions is at the brink of nuclear war.

The comment comes as the US vice president, Dick Cheney, heads to the region for talks with key Asian allies.

North Korea's official news agency has accused Washington of "driving the military situation on the Korean peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war".

It has described six-party talks on the nuclear crisis, held in Beijing last month, as "fruitless", due to the US demand that Pyongyang dismantle its nuclear program as a first step to end the crisis.

The US is demanding the complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantling of North Korea's nuclear prorgams before it will offer any concessions.

Brian Leiter provides a more consise argument that Sullivan is a toady than my arguments regarding the same.

Sullivan is obviously more literate than the run-of-the-mill right-wing garbage mouths in the U.S. like Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh; in that respect, his blog has the pretense to be cosmopolitan and high-brow. Yet, at the same time, he has a rich supply of all the typical pathologies of the American right: limited horizons of possibility, moral tunnel-vision, parochial prejudices, national chauvinism, historical ignorance, and so on.

But it's the presence of these latter traits that goes some distance towards explaining why he's such a morally repulsive creature: for there is one issue on which he exhibits the sensibilities of a citizen of the larger world, an empathetic human being, someone whose intellectual and moral horizons aren't defined by John Kerry and George Bush. And that issue is: the rights of homosexuals. On the one issue that affects him, as a gay man, most directly, he is not a noxious right-wing creep. Consider his recent, passionate postings objecting to Bush's endorsement of a constitutional amendment stigmatizing homosexuals as unfit for marriage: strong, powerful statements.

And there's the rub: what does it say about someone that the only time he can really come to the defense of human dignity, the only time he can appear to rise above parochialism and chauvinism, is when his interests are at stake? Well, I suppose we know what it says.

Bob Kerrey tells it like it is.

Fighting the Wrong War

Two things about that failure are clear to me at this point in our investigation. The first is that 9/11 could have been prevented, and the second is that our current strategy against terrorism is deeply flawed. In particular, our military and political tactics in Iraq are creating the conditions for civil war there and giving Al Qaeda a powerful rationale to recruit young people to declare jihad on the United States.

. . .

My second conclusion about the president's terrorism strategy has three parts. First, I believe President Bush's overall vision for the war on terrorism is wrong. — military and civilian alike.

Second, the importance of this distinction is that it forces us to face the Muslim world squarely and to make an effort to understand it. It also allows us to insist that we be judged on our merits — and not on the hate-filled myths of the street. Absent an effort to establish a dialogue that permits respectful criticism and disagreement, the war on terrorism will surely fail. The violence against us will continue.

Such a dialogue does not require us to cease our forceful and at times deadly pursuit of those who have declared war on us. Quite the contrary. It would enable us to gather Muslim allies in a cause that will bring as much benefit to them as it does to us. That's why President Bush was right to go to a Washington mosque shortly after Sept. 11. His visit — and his words of assurance that ours was not a war against Islam but against a much smaller group that has perverted the teachings of the Koran — earned the sympathy of much of the Muslim world.

That the sympathy wasn't universal, that some in the Arab world thought the murder of 3,000 innocents was justified, caused many Americans to question whether the effort to be fair was well placed. It was — and we would be advised to make the effort more often.

Third, we should swallow our pride and appeal to the United Nations for help in Iraq. We should begin by ceding joint authority to the United Nations to help us make the decisions about how to transfer power to a legitimate government in Iraq. Until recently I have not supported such a move. But I do now. Rather than sending in more American forces or extending the stay of those already there, we need an international occupation that includes Muslim and Arab forces.

Time is not on our side in Iraq. We do not need a little more of the same thing. We need a lot more of something completely different.

It's great to see Christians come together on such a joyous day.

Performers Whip Easter Bunny At Church Play

Apparently, it was all just misunderstanding.

A church in western Pennsylvania trying to teach about the crucifixion of Jesus performed an Easter show with actors whipping the Easter bunny and breaking eggs, upsetting several parents and young children.

"The program was for all ages, not just the kids. We wanted to convey that Easter is not just about the Easter bunny, it is about Jesus Christ," Bickerton said.

Performers broke eggs meant for an Easter egg hunt and also portrayed a drunken man and a self-mutilating woman.

"It was very disturbing," Norelli-Burke said. "I could not believe what I saw. It wasn't anything I was expecting."

. . . is just 80 billion dollars swishing through a crumbling pension system.

Think how cool it will be to have our corporate pension system collapse! Just from my perspective, I think that the weakening of the system we did during the 90's was a brilliant strategic move on our government's part - top marks on all that legislation, guys! And the constant raiding of these funds by the very corporations that set them up was truly a stroke of genius. Magnificent.

Imagine what kind of crap we'd be in if we hadn't thought so far ahead? I mean, who ever thought there would be a rainy day?

Bush OKs Pension Aid to U.S. Companies

Businesses lobbied hard for the bill, which would provide about $80 billion in pension accounting relief through the end of 2005 for some 31,000 companies with traditional "defined benefit" pension plans. Those cover about 35 million workers and promise a specific payout based on salary and service.

Many traditional pension plans are underfunded because of the weak stock market the last few years and current low interest rates, and companies are struggling to keep up with the payments as profits have shrunk in part because of the struggling economy.

The relief comes from replacing a formula for calculating pension contributions. None of the aid comes from government payments.

U.S. says bin Laden may not be caught this year

U.S. troops are committed to catching Osama bin Laden, but on Saturday ditched earlier predictions that it will be this year, even as the military prepared to engage its largest force to date along the Pakistani border where the al-Qaida chief could be hiding.

Bringing in top fugitives is still a top priority of the U.S. troops which are increasing counterinsurgency missions in Afghanistan, a military spokesman said.

"We remain committed to catching these guys. It's pretty much forefronting just about everything that we do here," Lt.-Col. Matthew Beevers said, but declined to make any new predictions of captures.

Buoyed by the capture of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the top American commander in Afghanistan, Lt.-Gen. David Barno, said in January he was confident bin Laden and Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar would suffer the same fate this year.

At the time, a spokesman even said the military was "sure" it would catch the two men as well as Afghan rebel commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Those remarks, and talk of a spring offensive in Afghanistan by Washington defence officials, sparked wide speculation that bin Laden had been located.

But now the military has followed U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in appearing to calm expectations that a top fugitive would be unveiled in what is an election year in both America and Afghanistan.

"Close doesn't count," Rumsfeld said alongside Afghan President Hamid Karzai during a visit to Kabul in late February. "I suspect that we'll find that it is accomplished at some point in the future, but I wouldn't have any idea when."

There have been no firm indications of bin Laden's whereabouts since he eluded American and Afghan troops at the battle for the Tora Bora cave complex in eastern Afghanistan in December 2001.

Via Fox news via CA Yankee (thanks!)

The following is a redacted text of the presidential daily briefing from August 6, 2001:

Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997' has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."

After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a [deleted text] service. An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an [deleted text] service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative's access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.

The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Ladin's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US. Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Ladin lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own US attack.

Ressam says Bin Ladin was aware of the Los Angeles operation.

Although Bin Ladin has not succeeded, his attacks against the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Ladin associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.

Al-Qa'ida members — including some who are US citizens — have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two al-Qa'ida members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our Embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Ladin cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a [deleted text] service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar' Abd aI-Rahman and other US-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks
with explosives.

Al-Sadr wants Saddam tried, a date occupation ends, followers freed

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militia has been fighting with U.S. troops throughout Iraq, issued demands to the coalition through his deputy on Saturday.

Al-Sadr accuses the coalition of starting the violence, and said the coalition's shutdown of a pro-Sadr newspaper was the catalyst.

Clerical deputy Sheikh Raed al-Kadhim, interviewed by CNN, said the al-Sadr people "have a peaceful position" and al-Sadr is a peaceful man.

Among other points, al-Kadhim said the cleric wants "to get back the voice of Iraq" and to have Saddam Hussein tried in a Supreme Court.

Al-Sadr is also asking for release of all of his followers who have been arrested and for a guaranteed date for withdrawal of occupation forces from Iraq.

Al-Sadr had called on his followers Friday to go on a three-day hunger strike if they choose as a protest to their treatment by the coalition, al-Kadhim said.

"The attacks began by the occupying forces. It all started with the false accusations and the shutdown of the Al Hawza newspaper," al-Kadhim said, referring to Coalition Provisional Authority administrator Paul Bremer's two-month shutdown of the Baghdad newspaper, published by al-Sadr supporters, for inciting violence.

Al-Kadhim said coalition forces "have killed innocent people, women, and children ... and still our position remains one that is trying to be peaceful, but they don't let us."

"The occupying forces have attacked al-Kufa, Najaf, here in Baghdad, and in many other cities, and they are the ones who initiated every one of those attacks by the orders of (President) Bush and everyone till the last official representative they have here."

U.S. Preparing Long Iraq Drive to Quell Unrest

American commanders are preparing for a prolonged campaign to quell the twin uprisings in Iraq, issuing orders to attack any members of a rebellious Shiite militia in southern cities relentlessly while moving methodically to squeeze Sunni fighters west of Baghdad until they lay down their arms.

Officials in Baghdad and at the Pentagon said the military was prepared, if no peaceful solution materializes, to use two distinct sets of tactics to counter what they viewed as two different insurgencies — both of them dangerous and complex situations on difficult urban battlefields.

One campaign would entail retaking cities around Baghdad, if necessary block by block against an entrenched Sunni foe. The other would involve a series of short, sharp, local strikes at small, elusive bands of Shiite militia in southern cities, continuing until the militia was wiped out. Even as commanders offered a cease-fire to Sunnis in Falluja, allowing Iraqis to try to find a peaceful solution, and postponed any assault on Shiites in Najaf and elsewhere during religious holidays, they prepared for campaigns against foes who showed unexpected discipline and ferocity this week.

"We are on a war footing," said a senior military officer in Baghdad.

President Bush, in his weekly radio address, made clear on Saturday that the battle could last for weeks, after a week in which fighting in Iraq took the lives of 46 American soldiers, several allied soldiers and hundreds of Iraqis. "This week in Iraq, our coalition forces have faced cAzaellenges, and taken the fight to the enemy," the president said, without mentioning the exceptionally high rate of casualties. "And our offensive will continue in the weeks ahead."

Senior Pentagon officials and military officers reaffirmed their decision to "confront head-on and defeat" the militiamen loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric leading an insurrection across southern Iraq.

A senior Pentagon official conceded that the conflict with Mr. Sadr's militia had been thrust upon the Americans at an inopportune time, just as they were trying to knit together a broad-based government to establish Iraqi sovereignty on June 30. "Attacking the Sadr militia was not an option anybody wanted," one senior Pentagon official said. "Now we have to go out and do it."

I sometimes feel like the guy in the movie Dark City. You know, the crazy guy who was one of those who are just a bit too early on the evolutionary curve, figuring out the horror of his world without any way to affect a solution. Powerless before the rolling insanity of a reality that changed on a whim from the rulers of Dark City.

Refugees stream out of Fallujah, leaving behind their men and their dead, buried in a soccer field

The people of Fallujah carried their dead to the city's soccer stadium and buried them under the field on Friday, unable to get to cemeteries because of a U.S. siege of the city.

As the struggle for Fallujah entered a fifth day, hundreds of women, children and the elderly streamed out of the city. Marines ordered Iraqi men of ''military age'' to stay behind, sometimes turning back entire families if they refused to be separated.

''A lot of the women were crying,'' said Lance Cpl. Robert Harriot, 22, of Eldred, N.Y. ''There was one car with two women and a man. I told them that he couldn't leave. They tried to plead with me. But I told them no, so they turned around.''

The fighting has killed more than 280 Iraqis and four Marines, and has seen heavy battles that have damaged mosques and destroyed buildings angering even pro-U.S. politicians and turning the city of 200,000 into a symbol of resistance for some Iraqis.

American forces Azaelted their offensive at noon to allow a delegation from the city to meet with U.S. commanders, let food and medicine into the city and give residents a chance to tend to their dead.

But after 90 minutes, the Marines complained they were being attacked, and commanders gave their troops permission to open fire again, Marine Maj. Pete Farnun said.

''We said to them (the commanders): 'We are going to lose people if we don't go back on offensive ops.' So we got the word,'' he told The Associated Press.

Marines raked the insurgents Friday night. Troops could be heard firing into the city from their positions on the southern outskirts.

An AC-130 gunship fired rockets at a cave near Fallujah where insurgents took refuge after attacking Marines. A 500-pound laser-guided bomb also struck the cave, said spokesman 1st Lt. Eric Knapp.

One Marine was killed in Fallujah and another wounded.

Many residents emerged from their homes Friday for the first time in days.

People carried the bodies of loved ones and others slain to the al-Somoud soccer stadium for burial. Access to cemeteries, which are on the city's outskirts, was blocked.

For that matter, why isn't Bush? Why aren't they all?

If this report is true, then Condi Rice clearly lied in her 9/11 testimony. Under oath. But screw this Rice lying crap. If the PDB really did contain specifics, why the hell didn't the President jump right into his flight suit and move heaven and earth to try to prevent it? I mean, we all know that even moving heaven and earth may not have prevented 9/11. But what is the excuse for not even trying? I mean, what? GW couldn't be bothered while he was on vacation? Even then, he couldn't be bothered to delegate moving heaven and earth to his cabinet secretaries who are charged with such things?

Surreal.

In any event, the "Historical Document" line is going to go down in history (so to speak). A classic.

Briefing on Al Qaeda Included Specifics

The classified briefing delivered to President Bush five weeks before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks featured information about ongoing al Qaeda activities within the United States, including signs of a terror support network, indications of hijacking preparations and plans for domestic attacks using explosives, according to sources who have seen the document and a review of official accounts and media reports over the past two years.

The information on current threats in the briefing, titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," stands in contrast to repeated assertions by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and other Bush administration officials as recently as this week that the document is primarily historical and includes no warning or threat information.

The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, which has demanded that the 11/2-page document be declassified, referred to it in a March 24 report as "an article for the president's daily intelligence brief on whether or how terrorists might attack the United States."

You can download Condi Rice's 9/11 testimony - for free! - over at Audible. The whole collection of 9/11 testimony is available for downloading into your favorite MP3 player - or you can stream it over the web, if you like.

Chun points out an interesting tid bit in the article describing Supreme Court Justice Antonin "Conflict of Interest" Scalia's interesting take on the 1st amendment.

MarsAzael Orders Tapes Of Scalia Talk Erased

A federal marsAzael guarding Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia ordered two reporters to erase audio recordings they were making of Scalia's speech to a group of high school students in Mississippi on Wednesday, prompting protests from local journalists who said they were victims of official interference with the press.

As Scalia was addressing an afternoon assembly at the Presbyterian Christian High School in Hattiesburg, Deputy U.S. MarsAzael Melanie Rube confronted the journalists and told them they must erase their recordings because they violated the justice's policy against audio- or videotaping of his public appearances.

rube Pronunciation Key (rb)
n. Slang

An unsophisticated country person.

"In what can be only described as an ultimate Constitutional irony, Scalia was praising the Constitution and its First Amendment while a federal marsAzael harassed reporters and curtailed their right to gather news at a public appearance," said Joel Campell, SPJ's Freedom of Information Committee co-chair.

According to the SPJ, Scalia told students at Presbyterian Christian High School: "You may wonder what makes our Constitution so special. I am here to persuade you that our Constitution is something extraordinary, something to revere."

SPJ President Gordon "Mac" McKerral said the students attending Scalia's speech should realize that actions speak louder than words. "It's unfortunate that Justice Scalia provided a lesson in disrespect for the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution he claims to so dearly love," McKerral said, in a statement. "This incident makes his remarks ring hollow and places him above the law, the epitome of arrogance for a judge, much less a U.S. Supreme Court Justice."

How To Stand Up To Thugs

Kathryn Cramer, the woman who started received harassing e-mails and death threats beginning the other day, has decided that she's not going to back down. Instead, she's pursuing legal action against the freepers and LGFers, bringing an ethics complaint against one who is a practicing attorney and is considering the nuclear option of going after Charles Johnson's ISP.

This is not a joke. It is against the law in many jurisdictions to stalk and harass someone over the internet. In Pennsylvania, for example, it is a crime to threaten someone via e-mail or even repeatedly e-mail someone intending to frighten them. Do it more than once, and you can buy yourself a felony charge. Maybe if we put a few thugs in jail the rest will wise up.

Gaming Out Iraq

The United States is experiencing its greatest military crisis in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003. On the one hand, the Sunni guerrillas that the United States appeared to have defeated after the Ramadan offensive of October and November 2003 have not been destroyed. Although their role in triggering the March 31 attack against U.S. civilian contractors in Al Fallujah is an open question, they have benefited politically from the U.S. cordon around the city and have taken shots at distracted U.S. forces in the area, such as the U.S. Marines in Ar Ramadi. On the other hand, a Shiite militia led by young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has launched an offensive in Baghdad and in a number of cities in Iraq's south. U.S. intelligence expected none of this; L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, had scheduled a trip to Washington that he had to cancel hurriedly.

The offensives appear to cAzaellenge two fundamental strategic assumptions that were made by U.S. planners. The first was that, due to penetrations by U.S. intelligence, the Sunni insurgency was deteriorating and would not restart. The second, much more important assumption was that the United States had a strategic understanding with the Shiite leadership that it would contain anti-American military action south of Baghdad, and that -- and this is critical -- they would under no circumstances collaborate with the Sunnis.

It now appears that these basic premises are being rendered false.

Civil war fear as Afghan city falls to warlord

Fighters loyal to one of Afghanistan's most powerful warlords have seized a major northern city from pro-government forces, raising fears that the country is sliding into civil war.

The forces of General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a special adviser to President Hamid Karzai, who is known for crushing his prisoners under tanks, invaded the northern province of Faryab on Wednesday, according to officials.

The provincial capital, Maimana, fell yesterday after Gen Dostum's forces attacked it, officials said.

According to Mr Karzai's spokesman, Jawed Ludin, the city was yesterday in the hands of "irresponsible armed individuals from neighbouring provinces and areas around Maimana". "General Dostum is an adviser to the president. However, that does not give him the right to deploy forces or get involved in any military operational issues," Mr Ludin said.

Maimana's governor and its pro-government commander, General Hashim Habibi, were reported to be 20 miles east of Maimana.

As skirmishes flared across Faryab yesterday, observers said Gen Dostum, who maintains a private army of fellow Uzbeks based in northern Mazar-e-Sharif, was intent on removing Gen Habibi because he had stopped obeying his orders.

More significantly, analysts said, it was the second occasion in less than a month that a powerful warlord had provoked an armed confrontation with the government.

Administration looks at declassification of key memo

The Bush administration indicated Thursday it would seek to declassify an intelligence memo that was the subject of heated questioning at a hearing of the 9/11 commission.

Earlier Thursday, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States -- as the panel is formally known -- asked the White House to declassify the August 6, 2001 daily intelligence briefing (PDB) for the president.

At Thursday's hearing, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said the title of that memo was "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States."

The memo was seen by members of the 9/11 commission, and the panel called on the administration to release it publicly.

A National Security Council spokesman later said the administration was looking into doing just that.

"We are actively looking at the declassification process right now to determine the possibilities of making the August 6 PDB available," said spokesman Sean McCormack.

"We have every hope that it will be declassified, every intention to declassify at this time," said McCormack, who added the White House is working with the commission to determine how to make it available to them and to the public.

In order to declassify such a document, intelligence and other agencies are consulted to ensure sources and methods would not be compromised.

But this document, about a page and a Azaelf long, said McCormack, is not a typical threat assessment.

"It is an analytical piece, it's a historical piece, a compilation of information from different parts of the government," he said.

White House officials suggest the content of the August 6 memo may be distorted because only parts are being quoted and perhaps taken out of context.

"There are questions, there has been a lot of discussion about it, a lot of people describing it, a lot of people paraphrasing it, and we want to be responsive to the commission and the American people," said McCormack.

Wow. I guess everything is now running on web time. I never thought we'd recapitulate the entire Vietnam experience in the space of a single term of an administration. Are we really going to see a Saigon style evacuation seen played out right before the November election?

Surreal.

Shiites Rally to Sunni 'Brothers'

Solemn announcements boomed from mosques across Baghdad on Thursday beseeching Iraqis for donations of blood, money and medical supplies for "your sons and brothers in struggling Fallujah." And across the capital, Shiite Muslims joined Sunnis rolling up their sleeves and reaching into their pockets.

The U.S. Marines' incursion into Fallujah, the eager contributors said, has recast the city long known as the epicenter of the volatile Sunni Triangle as a freshly minted emblem of shared religious identity.

Still, when asked if there was a risk that the insurgency in the Sunni heartland and the uprising led by Mr. Sadr would merge into a war of national resistance, with the religious and political rivalries between the Sunni and the Shiites submerged in a surge of Iraqi nationalism, the general gave a measured reply.

"There's always a possibility that a national resistance will arise," he [General Abizaid] said. "But I firmly believe there are more people in this country trying to hold it together than are trying to take it apart. Our problem is to confront those who would take it apart, and they are in a small minority."

He declined to say how long it might take to achieve stability, saying that would depend on "an awful lot of skill" in managing the political and economic cAzaellenges, as well as the military ones. But in the immediate future, he said, American prospects would depend on getting tough with Mr. Sadr and others cAzaellenging American control.

"This has been a nation of intimidators," he said. "We only have to stop the culture of intimidation, and it will only be done with a fair and firm response by us."

"And it will often be deadly," he said, "but that's what we've got to do."

Okay. A follow up on the plan to deprive his nibs, George Bush, of two conservative Christian votes.

Remember that I had cleverly devised a staged plan of attack. Purely because I'm a lazy SOB, I had first sent my parents Richard Clarke's book via the beauty of internet ordering - heck, I can take five minutes out of my busy schedule to do "one click" buying on Amazon. My dad had already started reading the book when my DVD of the 60 minute Clarke interview and his interview on Meet The Press. The DVD arrived later because I actually had to make it and that requires fiddling with things without computer interfaces - well, computer accessible that is. . . Thus the built in delay my diabolical plan cleverly used to its advantage.

So my dad was pretty primed to see Clarke through the medium of TV. He had been reading the book for a couple of days and thought it was pretty good. My mom was primed because my dad was primed - the beauty of a solid relationship. So when they sat down to watch the two Clarke interviews, the final nails were driven into the coffin formerly known as GW's election. A one-two punch of Clarke being Clarke. Time compressed. Every one of my mom's criticisms of Clarke (upon viewing the 60 minute interview) were then demolished by the Meet the Press interview. What happened between the week intervening between these two events was recapitulated in my mother's mind upon seeing the first interview. The beauty of procrastination in action.

Anyways, I talked to my parents about what they're going to do in November and I'm happy to report that they are either voting for Ralph Nader or not voting at all.

I know, I know. I shouldn't be happy about them not voting. But I can understand a protest vote, having voted for Nader in 2000 (yes, I freely admit this)*.

One small victory in the war on incompetence.

________

* My belief is that it is Kerry's job to convince them to vote for him. But considering how they feel about Democrats, I don't think Christ - himself - would get their vote. Which is kind of odd when you think about what a flaming socialist Jesus really was. But that's the beauty of modern day American evangelical Christianity. It doesn't have to make sense or be logically consistent.

U.S. Increases Efforts to Put Down Sunni and Shiite Fighters

An official in the occupation authority said Wednesday that allied and Iraqi security forces had lost control of the key southern cities of Najaf and Kufa to the Shiite militia, conceding that months of effort to win over the population with civil projects and promises of jobs have failed with segments of the population.

"Six months of work is completely gone," the official said. "There is nothing to show for it."

. . .

He cited reports that government buildings, police stations, civil defense garrisons and other installations built up by the Americans had been overrun and then stripped bare, of files, furnishings and even toilet fixtures.

. . .

The most likely explanation for the coincident eruptions of violence, many Iraqis believe, is that Sunnis and Shiites are each watching the other's assaults, first in Falluja last week and then in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad, Kufa, Najaf and at least three other southern cities over the weekend, sensing that the American forces were overstretched.

. . .

What is going on now is a huge popular uprising," Qais al-Khazali, a spokesman for Mr. Sadr, said in Najaf on Tuesday.

Man. Those were the days, eh?

"This is a reaction from the Iraqi people, not just from the Shiites," he said. "It is for the Sunni people, too. This intifada unites us." Intifada, Arabic for shaking off, is the word used by Palestinians for their struggle against Israel.

. . .

American officials say they are either in firm positions or in control of Falluja and nearby Ramadi, where a dozen marines were killed Tuesday.

. . .

American officials have to balance their security aims without appearing to interfere with a Shiite pilgrimage holiday called Arbaeen, which starts Friday, when millions of Shiites pray at shrines in Najaf and Karbala.

. . .

Along a 60-mile stretch on one of Iraq's most strategic highways between the capital and Hilla, the day was punctuated by roadside bombs, ambushes with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and small-arms fire aimed at passing convoys of occupation authority vehicles and at allied military bases.

The highway linking Baghdad with the southern city of Basra and further south to Kuwait was closed for hours as Americans in Humvees and tanks, with helicopter cover, sought to regain control. But the units appeared to arrive after the attackers had melted away in the winding alleys of dusty towns or into palm groves back from the highway.

. . .

The American occupation authorities say the percentage of Iraqis who oppose allied efforts to reconstruct and democratize the country is minuscule. The following of Mr. Sadr is limited mostly to poor Baghdad neighborhoods and southern cities, where his image is projected as a liberator against foreign occupiers.

A large majority of Shiites are believed to ascribe to more moderate clerical views.

. . .

Iraqi hospital officials said Wednesday that 46 Iraqi civilians had been killed during fierce firefights since Sunday in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, where fighting has raged mostly at night between American forces and Mr. Sadr's Mahdi Army after it tried to take control of police stations.

. . .

General Kimmitt urged Mr. Sadr to surrender "to calm the situation."

But judging by the inflamed passions at the office of his representative in Sadr City, his followers were deaf to that vocabulary.

"We are ready to fight to defend this place," a spokesman, Salam Saleh, said as he stood in the courtyard of the rundown office surrounded by black-clad militiamen with grenades strapped to their bodies or carrying automatic weapons.

INSIGHT INTO FOREIGN "THOUGHTWORLDS" NEEDED

Policy makers require greater insight into the "thoughtworlds" of adversaries -- their culture, motivations, and characteristic modes of perception and behavior -- in order to advance national interests by means other than the blunt instruments of force, according to a new study from the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), a defense contractor.

The problem is that "A strategy of using [military or economic force] to compel desired outcomes... is poorly suited to many present cAzaellenges, notably in the strategic war against terror, a number of taxing regional crises, and in countering a global wave of anti-U.S. sentiment."

"There are alternative strategies that, instead of seeking to compel or force, actively engage foreign partners or adversaries in a way that recognizes their interests, perspectives, will, and energies and that seek to effectively communicate, influence, channel extant dynamics, or sometimes effect more fundamental changes in thought or action."

"Such strategies, not without their own limitations, should now receive relatively more consideration and emphasis in U.S. national security affairs."

In an astute and literate analysis, the author is careful to place bounds on his argument, observing, for example, that improved communication and understanding can sometimes exacerbate conflict rather than relieve it.

And he notes the obstacles to his own proposals, including a cultural predisposition that is unfavorable to the kind of insight he says is needed.

"A nuanced understanding of how people in other societies think -- their thoughtworlds -- ... has not been commonly reflected in U.S. national security affairs, and is not prominent in U.S. society generally." (The very word "thoughtworld" is not normally used in American English and is apparently borrowed from the German "Gedankenwelt.")

See "Insight Into Foreign Thoughtworlds for National Security Decision Makers" by J.W. Barnett, Institute for Defense Analyses, January 2004

OVERCOMING ANIMOSITY IN MULTINATIONAL COALITIONS

Good stuff.

Shiites taxing thin US forces

Until now, the US-led coalition plan for securing transitional Iraq had hinged on training new Iraqi forces. The coalition says it has 70,000 Iraqi police officers and 20,000 members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps equipped and on duty.

In February, Gen. Martin Dempsey, who is in charge of coalition troops in Baghdad, decided that Iraqis were ready to take over some security operations in the city. He began moving US troops from forward positions in Baghdad to bases on the outskirts of the city.

But reports are coming in from around the country that Iraqi security forces are refusing to confront the new cAzaellenges head on. Analysts now say the best military solution to the rising tide of Sunni and Shiite attacks - and unexpected alliances - is a major increase in US forces.

"We have to live here, so we're not going to go up against the Mahdi army [the militia loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr],'' says a detective at the Habibiya police station in Sadr City, who would only identify himself as Abu Kassem. "We're in an incredibly dangerous and difficult position."

The Habibya station was one of at least seven in Sadr City that surrendered to the Mahdi army last Sunday, and its stockpile of 80 AK-47 assault rifles was confiscated by Mr. Sadr's men. Now the Iraqi cops are unarmed, out of uniform, and determined to stay out of harm's way. "The Americans came here so they'll have to deal with it,'' says Abu Kassem.

Neither Iraqis nor the US appear prepared to take on Sadr's militia.

Fighting Shiites "was probably the last thing the coalition wanted to deal with,'' says M.J. Gohel, president of the Asia Pacific Foundation in London, a security think tank. "The [coalition] forces are only a fraction of the figure needed if one wants to turn the situation there around."

The two-front war has coalition forces engaging Sunni militants in the center of the country and armed supporters of Sadr further south, frequently in cities where the US had been hoping to draw down its military presence.

ON Wednesday, the Mahdi army moved freely about the streets of Sadr City. Abdel Ahmed Hussein, who runs a fruit stand up the street from Sadr's office there, says the Mahdi have been too "extreme" but that he has some sympathy for their position. "This was bound to happen,'' he says. "The American troops shot randomly and killed a lot of innocent people. Of course people will turn on them."

But without Iraqi forces, the US is likely to continue being tested by the insurgents.

Iraq: Historical Enemies To Unite Against Occupation?

Broad Shiite-Sunni cooperation remains a distant goal, but it is fast becoming a reality in Baghdad.

The capital is also one of the most ethnically diverse cities in Iraq. Sunni and Shia are in constant contact, and communication between the Mehdi Army and the Sunni resistance is relatively smooth. Cooperation in Baghdad is not unusual: As recently as March 19, at least 3,000 Shia and Sunnis staged a joint protest march, and Sunni and Shia reportedly were fighting side by side April 6 in Baghdad's Sunni-dominated al-Azamiya district. Luckily for the coalition, this state of affairs has yet to extend into the rest of Iraq.

In addition to the lack of communications infrastructure, any Sunni-Shiite alliance also must overcome divisive ideological differences. Militants have targeted Iraq's Shiite community for months. These attacks have been cAzaelked up to Sunni reprisals for perceived Shiite collaboration with the United States or to last-ditch efforts to restore some semblance of Sunni control.

Non-Iraqi jihadists also have called for attacks against the Shia, claiming they are enemies of Iraq and Islam. Added to the decades of Sunni oppression, these conflicts have only aggravated the long-standing Sunni-Shiite enmity. One weekend of collaboration against the occupation will not erase the memory of the Shiite community. Still, the Sunnis will not ignore a Shiite uprising -- and if it continues, it could pave the way for a joining of forces.

Iraq seems to be falling apart. Sistani has just condemned the US handling of the Sadr uprising. Debka has a map regarding how widespread this uprising is.

I tell you. This is insane. I can't imagine what it must be like for the parents and loved ones of the soldiers in the firing line, trying to deal with the fallout from this madness.

All I can say is that you have my deepest sympathies and my prayers to all I hold holy that they will come out of this alive.

I don't know what's on the other side of this madness. . .

Two-Front Insurgency

And we should coolly confront the quaking quagmirists here at home.

Does Ted Kennedy speak for his Massachusetts junior senator, John Kerry, when he calls our effort to turn terror-supporting despotism into nascent liberty in Iraq "Bush's Vietnam"?

Do the apostles of retreat realize how their defeatism, magnified by Arab media, bolsters the morale of the insurgents and increases the nervousness of the waverers?

Does our coulda-woulda-shoulda crowd consider how it dismays the majority of Iraqis wondering if they can count on our continued presence as they feel their way toward freedom?

Where's that macho, "can do" attitude when you need it? Why is it that the only risks we're willing to take are the wimpy, guaranteed win kind of risks? I'm sure there's a lot that I'm missing about the dynamics and politics, but really. If we're willing to bitch slap France, Germany, Russia and China to invade Iraq, why the hell aren't we willing to get seriously tough with Pakistan?

Ironic.

U.S. Won't Send Troops Into Pakistani Region to Hunt Al-Qaeda

The U.S. won't send troops into Pakistan's border region with Afghanistan to hunt for al-Qaeda fugitives and backs efforts by Pakistan's army to find suspected terrorists, the U.S. State Department said.

U.S. military operations in Pakistan's tribal region are an eventuality ``that fortunately we don't have to deal with at the moment,'' State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said yesterday, according to a department transcript. Pakistan's military has taken ``concerted and courageous actions'' against the fugitives in recent months, he said.

Zalmay KAzaelilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, said this week in Washington the U.S. will deal with terrorists hiding in the region if Pakistan fails to act, Agence France-Presse reported. Pakistan ``knows better what is going on,'' Information Minister Sheikh Rashid told AFP.

Pakistan's army carried out a 12-day operation last month in the South Waziristan region on the border with Afghanistan and killed more than 60 suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Many al-Qaeda and Taliban supporters fled into Pakistan to escape the U.S.-led war against terrorism in Afghanistan in 2001.

The Pakistani army said last month's conflict involved a group of about 500 fighters in bases near Wana. Military officials said the group's leaders may have escaped through tunnels found at the bases.

Al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives are able to ``base, train and operate'' in the tribal region bordering Afghanistan, KAzaelilzad said in Washington, according to AFP.

``We have told the Pakistani leadership that either they must solve this problem or we will have to do it for ourselves,'' AFP cited KAzaelilzad as saying. ``We cannot allow this problem to fester indefinitely.''

The U.S. is engaged in a ``good dialogue'' with Pakistan on Pakistani efforts to combat terrorists in the country, Ereli said in Washington.

``This is going to be an ongoing effort,'' Ereli said. ``It's not a question of now or never. We're both in this for the long haul. There are deep-rooted and committed terrorists in that part of the world, who need to be acted against. Pakistan is doing that.''

'The threat of civil war is very real'
    - As Sadr's Shia insurrection continues, some believe Sistani holds the key to peace

Isn't this like the second, third or fourth terrorist incident that hasn't been solved with the world's most powerful military in recent weeks? Doesn't it seem like doing more of this kind of stuff and less of the whole "huge troop movement, dying, and decades long commitment" kind of thing?

Sources: UK chemical attack foiled

Counterterrorism police have foiled an apparent plot to launch a chemical attack in Britain, according to U.S. and British security sources.

The sources said the suspects had plans to lace a bomb with a chemical called osmium tetroxide.

The plot was to combine that chemical with explosives that could create a toxic cloud on detonation, the sources said.

Police suspect such a device could have been used to target a shopping center, an airport terminal, a nightclub, or a crowded city center.

There is no suggestion by police sources that any osmium tetroxide was found in possession of the suspects, or that they had managed to obtain any.

Tuesday afternoon, a spokesman at Scotland Yard said investigators were not prepared to discuss the alleged plot.

Chemical experts said osmium tetroxide is toxic, openly available, and used primarily in research laboratories. It can give off a vapor that would cause skin and eye irritation. In confined spaces it can be letAzael.

This is the first time osmium tetroxide has been associated with an alleged terrorist plot.

Scotland Yard would not say whether the alleged chemical plot is connected to arrests made last week by British counterterrorism forces.

British police have been given more time to question nine men being held under the Terrorism Act of 2000. They were arrested last week, and police recovered Azaelf a ton of the fertilizer, which can be used as an explosive.

Tuesday, one of the nine, a 17-year-old, was charged with conspiracy to cause explosions with intent to injure or damage property. (Full story)

A lawyer for three of the detainees declined to comment.

Two other men were arrested in Canada and Saudi Arabia.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have issued a statement acknowledging that the arrest of a 24-year-old computer software designer in Ottawa is linked to the British arrests.

And note the arrest in Saudi Arabia. I'm just saying.

Sources: Al-Sadr supporters take over Najaf

Supporters of maverick Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr controlled government, religious and security buildings in the holy city of Najaf early Tuesday evening, according to a coalition source in southern Iraq.

The source said al-Sadr's followers controlled the governor's office, police stations and the Imam Ali mosque, one of Shia Muslim's holiest shrines.

Iraqi police were negotiating to regain their stations, the source said.

The source also said al-Sadr was busing followers into Najaf from Sadr City in Baghdad and that many members of his outlawed militia, Mehdi's Army, were from surrounding provinces.

Business people are closing their shops and either leaving the city or hoarding their wares in their homes, the source said.

Despite the rising death toll, Paul Bremer, the top U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, said "there is no question we have control over the country."

"I know if you just report on those few places, it does look chaotic," Bremer said on CNN's "American Morning." "But if you travel around the country, what you find is a bustling economy, people opening businesses right and left, unemployment has dropped.

"The story of the house that doesn't burn down is not much of a story in the news," he said. "The story of the house that does burn down is news."

Bremer: U.S. Ready to End Iraq Occupation June 30

Iraq's U.S. administrator said Tuesday he was confident America's occupation would end as planned on June 30 despite an upsurge in violence, and insisted Iraq had nothing in common with Vietnam.

Paul Bremer, the civilian in charge of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, tried to soothe U.S. fears over continuing attacks in Iraq against U.S. troops and civilian contractors and said he was on track to hand over to the Iraqis on June 30.

"We have problems, there's no hiding that, but basically Iraq is on track to realize the kind of Iraq that Iraqis and Americans want, which is a democratic Iraq," he told ABC's "Good Morning America" program.

"We have got some groups who don't agree with that vision -- they are terrorists and former regime guys. ... Instead they think power in Iraq should come out of the barrel of a gun and that is intolerable and we will deal with it."

Monday, Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts said Iraq had become "George Bush's Vietnam," referring to the war that divided the United States and helped drive Lyndon Johnson from the presidency.

Bremer strongly disagreed with Kennedy. "Aw gee, I don't even know where to start with that comparison. I think it's completely inappropriate. There is really nothing in common with Vietnam," he told NBC's "Today" show.

He dismissed the view of some U.S. lawmakers who said the transfer of power would be a disaster at this stage and should be postponed because of the violence.

"I have a lot of respect for all of those senators but I think the president, who is the guy calling the shots, was pretty clear yesterday that June 30 is the date we are going to stick to," Bremer told ABC.

A brutal attack on four U.S. civilian contractors in the town of Falluja last week, in which their burned and mutilated bodies were dragged through the streets and then hung from a bridge, horrified U.S. television audiences.

Bremer said there was "universal revulsion" against the Falluja attacks, both in Iraq and the United States, and reiterated that those responsible would be tracked down.

"I said at the time that we would not tolerate such attacks. The military will now show that we mean business," he told NBC as U.S. troops pressed on with their mission to root out guerrillas in the city west of Baghdad.

Attacks against U.S. and other occupying forces continued Tuesday. Three U.S. soldiers were killed in separate attacks in a Shi'ite area of Baghdad Monday and Tuesday, the U.S. army said. Shi'ite militiamen also battled Italian soldiers in southern Iraq.

U.S. generals in Iraq are looking into whether more U.S. troops are needed to stabilize the country. Bremer declined to comment on this and said he would leave any decisions on troop strength up to military professionals and the president.

That was then

And in my opinion, we're playing Russian roulette with five bullets in the six round chamber. We've got exactly one chance to do everything - and I mean everything - right. I don't know about you, but I can't do everything right in my world, and I can't believe that the military and this gang of Mayberry Machiavellis can do everything right either - so far they've done absolutely everything wrong. And if even one or two things go wrong - and there's a million things that are likely to go wrong - we're in such deep shit that we're going to be wishing we had Saddam still in power where we could ignore the evil bastard.

So, I hope you guys are right and everything goes just as planned. I hope with all my soul that you're right.

But I think you're incredibly foolish to believe that people who have done everything about this wrong so far stand any chance in hell of doing anything right.

This is now.

Gloom...has been building over Iraq. Increasingly, the Wise Heads are forecasting disaster. Wise Heads say they see no realistic plan, hear no serious concept to get ahead of the situation. Money, training, jobs...all lagging, all reinforce downward spiral highlighted by sickening violence. There seems to be no real "if", just when, and how badly it will hurt U.S. interests. Define "disaster"? Consensus prediction: if Bush insists on June 30/July 1 turnover, a rapid descent into civil war. May happen anyway, if the young al-Sadr faction really breaks off from its parents. CSIS Anthony Cordesman's latest blast at Administration ineptitude says in public what Senior Observers say in private...the situation may still be salvaged, but then you have to factor in Sharon's increasing desperation, and the regional impact.

Note: "quagmire"...when you are in a bad situation you created yourself, and would quit in a minute if you could, but which if you did, it would make everything else worse. So you can't...and it gets worse anyway. (Apologies to Bierce...)

Can't say that I agree with all Senator Bob Graham's recommendations, but it's a hell of a lot closer to my world view than the psycho state based strategy pushed by this administration and their laptop lapdogs.

Does that make me part of the Cruise Missile left? Or just a part of the roadie crew for the show?

In any event, it's nice to read Graham now that he's no longer a presidential candidate.

Senator Bob Graham Remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations

And, finally, we must be prepared to trust the American people with the truth about what we know, especially about what we have done wrong in the past, who has been held accountable, and what we are doing to avoid making those same mistakes again. I am afraid that truth-telling is a character trait in very short supply in the current administration. In fact, I would say that there has not been in modern American history--and maybe in American history-- an administration that was as secretive as the one which occupies the White House today. And when someone does come forward from this shroud of secrecy to tell the truth--whether it's a former Cabinet member, such as Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill; whether it's a National Security Council official, such as Richard Clarke; or whether it is Medicare's chief actuary, Richard Foster--this administration's response is to engage in character assassination.

I know firsthand how specious this administration's penchant for secrecy can be. In our 800-page final report of the Joint Inquiry, we had a chapter which I considered to be the most significant chapter in the book, which talked about the issue of the role of foreign governments in assisting the terrorists while they were in the United States plotting and practicing and preparing to execute their attack.

Let me just--I started this interest from this question. Suppose you were to go through this room and pick out 19 people, and then we were to say, "Here is your task: you are to come together. Many of you have had no prior association, some of you have, and you are to take a plan which is in a very conceptualized form and make it operational. Then you are to practice that plan and then you are to execute it, and your goal is to kill 3,000 people. And, incidentally, you are to do all of that without letting anyone understand, know, or have suspicion of what you're doing. And, incidentally, to the 19 who have been selected, the country where we are going to do this is Yemen." Would that be a pretty tough task for any 19 people in this room? That is essentially what the 19 terrorists did leading up to September 11. My suspicion is that they were not operating alone, that they had support and assistance, including the support and assistance of foreign governments. We detailed what we had found out on that subject in our report. This is page one of the chapter that talks about the role of foreign governments in assisting the terrorists, pages two and three, pages four and five, and on for 27 pages, censoring information that the American people have a right to receive relative to just who are our allies in the war on terror.

Former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan [D-N.Y.], a true statesman, a brilliant policy analyst, and--[inaudible]--I was privileged to be one of his students--throughout his life was a champion of open government. His last book, "The Torment of Secrecy: The Background and Consequences of American Security Policies," is, in my opinion, one of his crowning academic and political achievements. Senator Moynihan concluded that book with these words: "A case can be made that secrecy is for losers, for people who don't know how important information really is. The Soviet Union realized this too late. Openness is now a singular, and singularly American, advantage. We put it in peril by poking along in the mode of an age now past. It is time to dismantle government secrecy, the most pervasive of Cold War regulations. It is time to begin building the supports for the era of openness that is already upon us."

Friends, it is time for the United States to recommit to a real war on terrorism, avoiding distractions. It is time to instill the discipline to move forward in a focused and laser-like manner. And it is time to begin to tell the truth to the American people about what we are doing and why we are doing it. If we fail to do so, the United States places itself in the same jeopardy as the Soviet Union just two decades ago.

The schism in U.S. politics begins at home

American democracy is based on the continuous exchange of differing points of view. Today, most Americans live in communities that are becoming more politically homogenous and, in effect, diminish dissenting views. And that grouping of like-minded people is feeding the nation's increasingly rancorous and partisan politics.

By the end of the dead-even 2000 presidential election, American communities were more lopsidedly Republican or Democratic than at any time in the past Azaelf-century. The fastest-growing kind of segregation in the United States isn't racial. It is the segregation between Republicans and Democrats.

The political division found by the Statesman and its statistical consultant, Robert Cushing, is a change from the recent past. From the end of World War II until the mid-1970s, U.S. counties became more and more politically mixed, based on presidential voting. Through the 1950s and '60s, Americans were more likely to live in a community with an even mixture of Republicans and Democrats.

In 1976, when Democrat Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford by only two percentage points, 26.8 percent of American voters lived in counties with landslide presidential election results, where one party had 60 percent or more of the vote.

Twenty-four years and six presidential elections later, when George Bush and Al Gore were virtually tied nationally, 45.3 percent of voters lived in a landslide county. And now the nation enters a new election year divided both ideologically and geographically in ways few can remember.

Political and racial segregation are moving in opposite directions. John Logan at the Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research calculated the change in segregation between blacks and whites from 1980 to 2000 in the nation's more than 3,100 counties. Even though the country remains deeply divided by race, U.S. counties on average became more integrated racially over those 20 years.

Politically, however, the nation rapidly divided. Using the same demographic calculation that measures geographic racial disparity, and substituting Republican and Democrat for black and white, political segregation in U.S. counties grew by 47 percent from 1976 to 2000.

The result is that voters on average are less likely today to live in a community that has an even mix of Republican and Democratic voters than at any time since World War II. They are less likely to live near someone with a different political point of view and are more likely to live in a political atmosphere either overwhelmingly Republican or Democratic.

"I don't think we are at a really dangerous stage," said Cass Sunstein, a professor of law at the University of Chicago and an author of books exploring issues facing democracy, "but if it's a case that people really are pretty rigidly Republican or Democratic and that's widespread, that's not healthy. Our democracy is supposed to be one where people learn from one another and listen."

Sunstein's concern is rooted in more than 300 social science experiments over the past 40 years that have found a striking phenomenon that occurs when like-minded people cluster: They tend to become more extreme in their thinking. They polarize.

This research would predict that the increasing physical segregation of voters in the United States would result in a more polarized and partisan political culture. And that is exactly what is happening.

The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press late last year examined public opinion polls back to 1987 and found that the United States "remains a country that is almost evenly divided politically — yet further apart than ever in its political values."

In mid-March, the Gallup poll found that while 91 percent of Republicans approve of the incumbent, President Bush, only 17 percent of Democrats feel likewise. The gap between Republican and Democratic support for an incumbent — 74 percentage points — is the largest Gallup has ever observed at this point in a presidential election year.

Highly partisan presidential politics isn't the only sign of political segregation. As counties become more politically pure, they push their representatives in state legislatures and Congress to more extreme positions. Legislative compromise becomes almost impossible. Meanwhile, election campaigns become less interested in convincing a dwindling number of undecided voters and more concerned with whipping up the enthusiasm of their most partisan backers.

Democrats and Republicans joke these days that they can't understand each other, that they feel as though the parties exist on different planets.

It's no joke. They do.

Seeing Iraq through the globalization lens

But most Iraqis aren't even interested in high politics; they're worried about the same things as Americans - jobs, healthcare, and education. And the story is grim.

Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and USAID officials refuse to publish vital health statistics and rarely visit hospitals, but hospital officials continue to collect data that reveal woeful rates of mortality and sickness, as well as acute shortages of drugs and equipment.

The CPA budgets only $10,000 to "rehabilitate" schools that then receive little more than a paint job by CPA-hired contractors; Iraqi principals complain that they could do the job for $1,000, and wonder where the other $9,000 is going.

While security in daily life is improving around Baghdad, political violence and suicide bombings are escalating.

The social rights granted to women by an otherwise oppressive Baathist system, are being eroded in the new Iraq. And the plight of women is being compounded by a growing religious conservatism, massive unemployment, and lack of education and healthcare.

Iraq is sliding toward chaos; a state that many Iraqis increasingly believe is exactly where the US wants them to be. A prominent Iraqi psychiatrist who has worked with the CPA and the US military explained to me that "there is no way the United States can be this incompetent. The chaos here has to be at least partly deliberate." The main question on most people's minds is not if his assertion is true, but why?

For example, many here see last week's carnage of Americans in Fallujah as suspicious. To send foreign contractors into Fallujah in late-model SUVs with armed escorts - down a traffic-clogged street on which they'd be literal sitting ducks - can be interpreted as a deliberate US instigation of violence to be used as a pretext for "punishment" by the US military.

The United Nations seems tragically poised to reenter Iraq under US auspices - cooperation with the occupiers that could cause a repeat of the violence that drove the UN out of Iraq last year.

The Kurdish drive for a federal-style political system is uniting Shiite and Sunni Arabs against a seemingly common foe. A senior Sunni cleric argued to me that federalism is the first step toward dividing Iraq, and he and his dozens of machine-gun toting aides left little doubt about their willingness to use force to resist it.

Pakistan: A Hammer of Glass and Anvil of Clay

At present, U.S. armed forces are stretched far too thin to accommodate Kasuri's request, and Islamabad knows this. Washington has no intention of meeting the cAzaellenge even if it could, and Kasuri's comments were meant primarily for domestic consumption. Still, Islamabad will point to this as an excuse for the inevitable failure of Pakistani counterterrorism operations Afghan-Pakistani border region.

Pakistan likely will argue that no matter how effective Pakistani operations are, militants will evade capture because of the sparse military presence on the Afghan side. If this were true, it would represent an inherent flaw in the U.S. "hammer-and-anvil" strategy, in which militant forces in the border region are stuck between the U.S. hammer and the Pakistani anvil -- or vice versa. Thus far the strategy has not been very successful.

There are roughly 19,000 U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan; augmenting that number would be all but impossible. The majority of available U.S. forces have already been recently deployed or are committed elsewhere, and NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has failed to convince NATO member states to send additional forces. NATO is slated to reduce its Afghan presence by more than 40 percent over the next six months. Scheffer had hoped to nearly double the force -- taking it from approximately 6,500 to about 12,000 -- but so far has been able to secure commitment of only about 800 additional soldiers.

Even if the United States and NATO verbally committed to larger deployments in Afghanistan, it is unlikely they would follow through. Kasuri claims the United States and Europe do not have the "stomach" to send more troops, but the real reason lies in Pakistan.

The week's news in flash cards.

Special Tempest in a Teapot^tm edition.

The big news, of course, was this weeks desecration of the dead in Fallujah. Apparently not content with merely killing some mercenaries, the people of Fallujah decided to burn them, rip them apart, drag them through the streets and then finally hang them from the top of a bridge. Originally, most of Americans seemed to have the impression that these were "civilians". As the good people at Blackwater Security (in North Carolina) will tell you, they are hardly "civilians".

But the whole event does beg the question: "Why were these guys driving around Fallujah in Black SUVs?". I mean, how much more X-Files fantasy role playing can you get?

But Fallujah was just the back drop for the real scandal. In response to Fallujah, Kos posted a comment that was not politically correct. The Politically Correct Police of the right swarmed over Kos like flies on shit. In a courageous letter writing campaign, they stole a page out of the liberal play book and quickly organized a boycott of Kos' web site. A whole lot of lefty blogs got into the whole act and everyone had a good rousing time, filled with character assassination and censorship.

The whole little event is, of course, just a taste of what's to come. With Iraq spiraling out of control, there's going to be a lot more fuel to add to this fire.

Overshadowed by the whole Kos scandal was the rather odd news that Kerry out raised George Bush this quarter. Kerry hauled in a cool 50 Million dollars. Eight million of this came from California. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office cannot be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, the entire Right Wing of American Politics did the snoopy dance over the 308,000 NEW jobs that were created last month. Believing that an explosion of job creation is now in the offing, they now feel super-confident that their man George is going to take the gold and finally get himself elected president in November.

Next week: Uncle Murphy pays a visit to the Iraq occupation.

7 U.S. Soldiers Killed as Violence Erupts Across Iraq

Seven U.S. soldiers were killed Sunday in fighting with Shiite militiamen in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, the U.S. military said. At least 24 other American troops were wounded, the military said in a written statement.

Elsewhere Sunday, supporters of an anti-U.S. Shiite Muslim cleric waged violent demonstrations in four Iraqi cities, punctuated by a gun battle at the Spanish garrison near this Shiite holy city that killed at least 20 people, including two coalition soldiers -- an American and a Salvadoran.

The U.S. military also reported two Marines were killed in a separate ``enemy action'' in Anbar province.

The military said the fighting in Baghdad erupted after members of a militia loyal to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took control of police stations and government buildings in Sadr City, a poor neighborhood of mainly Shiites on the eastern outskirts of the capital.

``Coalition forces and Iraqi security forces prevented this effort and reestablished security in Baghdad at the cost of seven U.S. soldiers killed and more than two dozen wounded,'' the military statement said. It said militiamen attacked the soldiers with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades.

Sadr City is a stronghold of al-Sadr supporters. The fighting Sunday came hours after his followers attacked a coalition garrison in the southern holy city of Najaf. Two coalition soldiers and at least 20 Iraqis were killed in that fighting.

Protesters also clashed with Italian and British forces in other cities in a broad, violent cAzaellenge to the U.S.-led coalition, raising questions about its ability to stabilize Iraq ahead of a scheduled June 30 handover of power to Iraqis.

With less than three months left before then, the U.S. occupation administrator appointed an Iraqi defense minister and chief of national intelligence.

``These organizations will give Iraqis the means to defend their country against terrorists and insurgents,'' L. Paul Bremer said at a press conference.

About three miles outside Najaf, supporters of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr opened fire on the Spanish garrison during a street protest that drew about 5,000 people. The protesters were angry over the arrest of the cleric's aide, said the Spanish Defense Ministry in Madrid.

The attackers opened fire at about noon, said Cmdr. Carlos Herradon, a spokesman for the Spanish headquarters in nearby Diwaniyah.

The Spanish and Salvadoran soldiers inside the garrison fired back, and assailants later regrouped in three clusters outside the base as the shooting continued for several hours.

Two soldiers -- a Salvadoran and an American -- died and nine other soldiers were wounded, the Spanish defense ministry said. No other details were available.

More than 200 people were wounded, said Falah Mohammed, director of the Najaf health department. El Salvador's defense minister said several Salvadoran soldiers were wounded.

The death toll of at least 20 included two Iraqi soldiers who were inside the Spanish base, witnesses said.

James posted a link to the wonderfully perfumed piece of excrement that Hitchen's squeezed out on the virtual pages of the WSJ Opinion Journal. James quotes a piece where his nibs throws out a series of strawmen, misdirections and smoke cover in the form of questions he "never gets answered" by oponents of the war.

a) Do you believe that a confrontation with Saddam Hussein’s regime was inevitable or not?

b) Do you believe that a confrontation with an Uday/Qusay regime would have been better?

The real question, Hitchens, is why you think Iraq was a special case that didn't require UN concensus on what was to be done about this regime that sucks.

c) Do you know that Saddam’s envoys were trying to buy a weapons production line off the shelf from North Korea (vide the Kay report) as late as last March?

It's way too easy to manipulate evidence held in secret.

d) Why do you think Saddam offered “succor” (Mr. Clarke’s word) to the man most wanted in the 1993 bombings in New York?

Hey, I've got some news for you. Pakistan has actually exported nuclear technology. Saudi Arabia is literally rife with people who give more than "succor" to Al Qaeda. I just don't think it's something that justifies our stepping into the occupation from hell, 600 soldiers dying and god only knows how much money.

e) Would you have been in favor of lifting the “no fly zones” over northern and southern Iraq; a 10-year prolongation of the original “Gulf War”?

f) Were you content to have Kurdish and Shiite resistance fighters do all the fighting for us?

Again, hardly an argument for going to war and overthrowing a regime. Even to my nation building Liberal eyes.

g) Do you think that the timing of a confrontation should have been left, as it was in the past, for Baghdad to choose?

Again, this is a blatant begging of the question. The sanctions regime was working. The no fly zones were working. He was in his box. He wasn't getting out. And I don't think he had any chance of getting nuclear weapons. The new inspections regime - if actually carried out beyond when it was - would have completely removed any illegal weapons or weapons programs. He would have been completely gutted.

Simply put: We were confronting him. We had him firmly in a box, impotent. And we were in the process of actually confirming just that when you jokers on the right decided you couldn't wait to find out.

For a glimpse of what might be in those sealed energy task force documents, let's revisit Jane Mayer's New Yorker piece on Cheney from last month. This explosive excerpt didn't get too much press elsewhere, but it could, in the end, be what this task force legal drama is all about. "For months there has been a debate in Washington about when the Bush Administration decided to go to war against Saddam. In Ron Suskind's recent book 'The Price of Loyalty,' former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill charges that Cheney agitated for U.S. intervention well before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Additional evidence that Cheney played an early planning role is contained in a previously undisclosed National Security Council document, dated February 3, 2001. The top-secret document, written by a high-level N.S.C. official, concerned Cheney's newly formed Energy Task Force. It directed the N.S.C. staff to coöperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered the 'melding' of two seemingly unrelated areas of policy: 'the review of operational policies towards rogue states,' such as Iraq, and 'actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.'"

"A source who worked at the N.S.C. at the time doubted that there were links between Cheney's Energy Task Force and the overthrow of Saddam. But Mark Medish, who served as senior director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian affairs at the N.S.C. during the Clinton Administration, told me that he regards the document as potentially 'huge.' He said, 'People think Cheney's Energy Task Force has been secretive about domestic issues,' referring to the fact that the Vice-President has been unwilling to reveal information about private task-force meetings that took place in 2001, when information was being gathered to help develop President Bush's energy policy. 'But if this little group was discussing geostrategic plans for oil, it puts the issue of war in the context of the captains of the oil industry sitting down with Cheney and laying grand, global plans.'"

In a January 2004 piece in Foreign Policy in Focus, Hampshire College professor Michael Klare wrote that the very goal of Cheney's energy plan was to find external sources of oil for the United States. And the Persian Gulf was an obvious oil-rich target, one the United States has long used military force to protect. By pursuing foreign oil there and elsewhere, the United States will inevitably find its energy and military policies colliding, Klare notes, although Cheney's energy report did not acknowledge this. Klare added: "However, the architects of the Bush-Cheney policy know that ensuring access to some oil sources may prove impossible without the use of military force … Whether or not the administration consciously linked energy with his security policy, Bush undeniably prioritized the enhancement of U.S. power projection as he endorsed increased dependence on oil from unstable areas."

If Cheney's task force records are ultimately unsealed -- despite the vote of Cheney's hunting buddy Justice Antonin Scalia -- we may get crucial insight into this question: Whether energy policy and military policy toward Iraq were inextricably connected from the early days of the Bush administration, long before 9/11 and long before we were told the Iraq war was about WMDs.

An interesting and useful googlebomb. Look here for the definition of a Jew.

Here's one small post to try to change the google rankings for the search "Jew" and knock the hate sites off the first page.

Ultra-structure.

For example, I strongly believe that if our body of Laws - such as criminal, business, family, etc., etc. - were encoded in such a form, most of the process would be automated - the ultimate libertarian fantasy. And it would be trivially enforceable and malleable (via a democratic process).

One of the beauties, to my warped thinking, is that it completely cuts out the MBA's from the business process. Well, the need to tolerate the bad ones in any event. The good ones we need to manipulate the models like the Mozarts of Capitalism some of them actually are.

'Tis a pity that Lawyers don't understand such things pointed to in these articles.

Or maybe they do (via some genetic mutation) and are cackling like the evil daemons of our worst nightmares because they are the true rulers of this realm.

In any event, I think this is a better plan for categorizing and modeling our process knowledge (and consequently, implementing these processes - and enforcing them).

Regardless of whether it's ruled by Lawyers or Philosophers (sharks without teeth), I think it's a good idea which gets far less credit than it deserves. . .

I don't care if he got the title from a video game, it's still a good essay.

Freedom Isn't Free

As one who's firmly in the anti-this-war-now camp, just let me point out that I'm not one who's against nation building. I find it quite bizarre that the assumption - nay, assertion - is made that because one was against the war in the first place, one must be for cutting and running.

I'm sure that the pro-this-war-now camp is more complex than I often portray them, but one thing they consistently get wildly wrong is this issue.

Look, liberals are famous nation builders. Heck, this guy George Bush ran on a campaign where one of the themes was an attack against Clinton's nation building during his two term regime. It's not like it's any secret that liberals are suckers for solving problems with the government. And the millitary is part of our government.

Heck, I'd be the first to say that the millitary is an incredibly useful and powerful tool - especially in the realm of foreign policy.

Point is, the carnage in Fallujah only made me despise Bush's foreign policy that much more. It didn't make me want to cut and run. But it made my blood boil to see a situation this fucked up.

Regardless of whether we should have had the war or not, it's completely and utterly inexcusable to not have a realistic plan of what to do afterward.

And the plan they had was to install CAzaelabi and everything would magically fall into place. This kind of hand off (delegation) is a great idea if the person you're handing a country off to isn't a flat out fraud.

So we saw a successive series of plans which represented the Administration thinking on its feet. Poorly.

We've given the various factions in Iraq a huge lever in a politically driven date for the hand over. We've still got major - Major - hot spots that will flare out of control if we can't put a damper on this.

The blunders committed by this administration - simply in the aftermath - are simply inexcusable. It's not like they had a good plan that they were adapting to the "real" world.

Their only plan was relying on someone who was a known fraud. And after that, they stumbled through a successive series of plans that could have formed the plot for a Three Stooges film.

So, don't worry. Fallujah doesn't test my resolve regarding the rebuilding of Iraq. But it does highlight the fact that Iraq isn't a CAzaelabi guided flower of liberal democracy. And we have less than 90 days to the glorious day in which we hand over control to a three person committee where CAzaelabi is one of the members.

Thinking about that pisses me off even more.

But it doesn't make me want to cut and run.

BTW, it's crap like this which is why I was against this war - now.

If you have an Administration that won't reveal its post war plans before the war - in secret, to our congress - then:

a) they didn't have one
b) the one they had was laughable

As we can see in retrospect, the answer is b).

A most excellent rant by her nibs.

Pointless complaint

I've just seen it happen too often over the last year or two. Time and again a story hits the new cycle in screaming headlines and then a few days or weeks later, we learn the rest of the story - and discover that it's not what we were originally told. (And it's hard to find those clarifications. I know I rely on the people reading twenty news sources over the course of weeks or months, to find those tiny, follow-up stories that prove the original treatment was, to be charitable, incorrect.)

I'm tired of the media today.

I'm tired of being treated like someone who slows down at accident sites to look for bodies, watches "Real Police Chase Videos" in the hopes of seeing gunfire, and turns on very variation on the "Survivor" show in anticipation of seeing people humiliated. I don't do any of those things and if any of my friends do them, they're ashamed enough of it not to mention it to me.

I do understand that millions of people are like that, or those shows wouldn't continue to draw huge ratings and those media outlets wouldn't continue to draw millions of viewers/readers.

I'm tired of all of those people, too.

Which just goes to prove, once again, that if you spend too much time wallowing in negativity, it's going to color your world. I'm considering going on a one-week campaign to link to and discuss nothing but good news. Or at least to stories about people honestly trying to do well.

In the meantime, I'm taking a very dim view of the future of humanity and whoever it is who emptied the building's junk food machine of all the chocolate is going at the top of my list.

Let the wailing and gnashing of teeth begin.

Whistleblower the White House wants to silence speaks to The Independent

A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.

She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie".

Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege".

She told The Independent yesterday: "I gave [the commission] details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily."

She added: "There was general information about the time-frame, about methods to be used ­ but not specifically about how they would be used ­ and about people being in place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks. There were other cities that were mentioned. Major cities ­ with skyscrapers."

The accusations from Mrs Edmonds, 33, a Turkish-American who speaks Azerbaijani, Farsi, Turkish and English, will reignite the controversy over whether the administration ignored warnings about al-Qa'ida. That controversy was sparked most recently by Richard Clarke, a former counter-terrorism official, who has accused the administration of ignoring his warnings.

The issue ­ what the administration knew and when ­ is central to the investigation by the 9/11 Commission, which has been hearing testimony in public and private from government officials, intelligence officials and secret sources. Earlier this week, the White House made a U-turn when it said that Ms Rice would appear in public before the commission to answer questions. Mr Bush and his deputy, Dick Cheney, will also be questioned in a closed-door session.

Mrs Edmonds, 33, says she gave her evidence to the commission in a specially constructed "secure" room at its offices in Washington on 11 February. She was hired as a translator for the FBI's Washington field office on 13 September 2001, just two days after the al-Qa'ida attacks. Her job was to translate documents and recordings from FBI wire-taps.

She said said it was clear there was sufficient information during the spring and summer of 2001 to indicate terrorists were planning an attack. "Most of what I told the commission ­ 90 per cent of it ­ related to the investigations that I was involved in or just from working in the department. Two hundred translators side by side, you get to see and hear a lot of other things as well."

"President Bush said they had no specific information about 11 September and that is accurate but only because he said 11 September," she said. There was, however, general information about the use of airplanes and that an attack was just months away.

To try to refute Mr Clarke's accusations, Ms Rice said the administration did take steps to counter al-Qa'ida. But in an opinion piece in The Washington Post on 22 March, Ms Rice wrote: "Despite what some have suggested, we received no intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles, though some analysts speculated that terrorists might hijack planes to try and free US-held terrorists."

Mrs Edmonds said that by using the word "we", Ms Rice told an "outrageous lie". She said: "Rice says 'we' not 'I'. That would include all people from the FBI, the CIA and DIA [Defence Intelligence Agency]. I am saying that is impossible."

It is impossible at this stage to verify Mrs Edmonds' claims. However, some senior US senators testified to her credibility in 2002 when she went public with separate allegations relating to alleged incompetence and corruption within the FBI's translation department.

Let's hope this isn't just a flash in the pan. . .

U.S. job growth soars

U.S. payrolls grew at the fastest pace in nearly four years in March, the government said Friday, in a report that soared past Wall Street forecasts and could play a pivotal role in Fed policy and the presidential election.

Though economists cautioned that one month does not a trend make, it was possibly the best economic news since the onset of the last recession in 2001, and a sign of spring for the nation's labor market, which has been mired in its longest slump since 1939.

Payrolls outside the farm sector grew by 308,000 jobs in March, the Labor Department reported, compared with a revised gain of 46,000 in February. The unemployment rate, which is generated by a separate survey, rose to 5.7 from 5.6 percent.

Economists, on average, had expected 123,000 new jobs and unemployment at 5.6 percent, according to Briefing.com.

It was the strongest gain in payrolls since a matching gain of 308,000 in April 2000.

Terrorism, Elections and Rumbles on the Horizon

The second quarter of 2004 will be dominated by four themes. The first will be the strike and counterstrike activity between al Qaeda and the United States. The second will be the intensifying political struggle in the United States as the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush fights for its life. The third will be the re-intensification of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the fourth will be growing global awareness of the increasing weakness of China's economy -- coupled with readjustments in Beijing's political plans.

The basic U.S. strategic plan for the war against militant Islam is in place, and we will be seeing increasing -- although still low-key -- American military activity in Pakistan while the United States tries to liquidate the remnants of al Qaeda. As the recent failures in Waziristan show, Pakistan's ability to deliver intelligence and military effectiveness is limited. Current U.S. forces available in Afghanistan are not sufficient to force a definitive battle without intelligence and combat assistance from Pakistan. This will delay the confrontation -- unless the United States gets very lucky -- until the fall. It also will generate a substantial political crisis in Pakistan this fall.

Meanwhile, we anticipate an intensifying political crisis in the United States. The Bush administration's inability to provide a coherent explanation for its decision to invade Iraq is now haunting the White House. A year after the end of major combat operations, the Bush team still seems incapable of clearly explaining its rationale for invading Iraq. As a result, the Democrats have put the administration on the defensive. This quarter will determine whether Bush can recover and take the offensive as well. We have said that the election is Bush's to lose -- and at this moment, he is doing what he can to lose it. This moment may pass, but the second quarter will give us the first indication of whether the president can regroup. We suspect he can, but we no longer are certain.

Elsewhere, the strategic purpose of the assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin by Israel in mid-March remains unclear. The Israelis have said they intend to liquidate the leadership of the Palestinian radicals. If this is so, they are doing it in a very odd and very slow way. The Palestinians have made bold threats, some of which appear to be beyond their operational capability. Nevertheless, we would expect major attacks from both sides. If the Palestinians don't respond to the Israelis, their credibility and morale will collapse. Therefore, they will strike the Israelis, to the extent that they can. We expect this quarter to be bloody in the Middle East.

Finally -- and in some ways most importantly -- the Chinese economic miracle will become tarnished this quarter. Indeed, beneath the surface, it has been tarnishing for quite a while, but public attention to this deterioration will grow in the second quarter. We would be surprised to see an overt meltdown take place over the next three months -- or even this year -- but the fact is that the objective health of the Chinese economy is dubious, and the defining dimension behind timing is the rate at which the problems become public and well-known. That can happen with surprising speed. Our forecast for this quarter is increased sobriety about China, but not yet calamity.

LAWSUIT OVER PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS DISMISSED

A lawsuit that sought to cAzaellenge Bush Administration restrictions on public access to Presidential records from past Administrations was dismissed by a federal court this week.

In November 2001, President Bush issued an executive order that significantly increased the authority of current and former presidents to block public requests for unclassified records from prior administrations.

In one of its more extravagant formulations, the Bush order asserted a hereditary right of executive privilege by which the heirs of a deceased or disabled former president could assert the privilege on his beAzaelf.

The executive order (EO 13233) was cAzaellenged by a broad coalition of historians and public interest researchers led by Scott Nelson of the Public Citizen Litigation Group.

But their complaint was not "justiciable," a court ruled, concluding that the plaintiffs did not have standing and could not demonstrate imminent injury.

Fundamentally, the ruling suggests that the courts cannot serve as an effective venue in which to cAzaellenge official secrecy policies, no matter how egregious they may be.

See the March 28 ruling by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly

One philosopher was struggling to decide whether to stay at Columbia University or to accept a job offer from a rival university. The other advised him: "Just maximize your expected utility - you always write about doing this." Exasperated, the first philosopher responded: "come on, this is serious".

Just started reading a rather interesting book, Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart. It's about "Fast and Frugal" heuristics - simple rules for making decisions when time is pressing and deep thought an unaffordable luxury. Deals with bounded rationality (rather than the other forms loved by so many out there).

Anyways, it's looking like an extremely good book although I have no idea whether these guys are jokers in the community or heretics that should be burned on stakes at sunrise.

. . . everything looks like a thumb.

US Promises Overwhelming Response to Iraq Killings

U.S. troops on Thursday vowed to use overwhelming force to enter the volatile Iraqi town of Falluja and hunt down those who killed and mutilated four American contractors.

Marines took up positions on the outskirts of the restive town west of Baghdad where insurgents ambushed the contractors on Wednesday, but the U.S. army's deputy director of operations Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said they would return.

"Coalition forces will respond," Kimmitt told a news conference. "They are coming back and they are going to hunt down the people responsible for this bestial act.

"It will be at a time and a place of our choosing. It will be methodical, it will be precise and it will be overwhelming."

Television footage of jubilant Iraqis mutilating the bodies recalled events in Mogadishu in 1993, when a crowd dragged the bodies of American soldiers through the streets, hastening the departure of U.S. forces from Somalia.

Falluja was relatively quiet on Thursday, but residents said more bloody killings should be expected.

"The Americans may think it is unusual but this is what they should expect. They show up in places and shoot civilians so why can't they be killed?" Falluja shop worker Amir said.

U.S. troops fired on demonstrators in Falluja last April, killing at least 15 people. Many residents then vowed revenge.

Revenge of the Killer Drones

Northrop and Boeing are building the test models for the combat drone, called the X-47 and X-45 respectively. Boeing is a little further along in the process. Its two X-45A prototypes have flown about 25 times, while the X-47A has only been aloft once. It's the X-45 that will drop a 250-pound, satellite-guided small-diameter bomb over China Lake. Roughly a month later, according to X-45 program manager Darryl Davis, the two Boeing drones will start flying together at the same time.

More-refined designs of the aircraft -- both of them will have wingspans around 49 feet and will carry 4,500 pounds of bombs and sensors -- should be ready to fly by 2006 or 2007. The Pentagon will then put the drones through a series of tests that should last until about 2009. That's when it will make a decision about whether to mass-produce either model.

Even if neither drone is developed further, the Pentagon will have a few UCAVs in its arsenal by the end of the decade.

"If we wanted to take them to war, we could do that," said Dyke Weatherington, deputy director of the defense secretary's task force for unmanned planes.

Because we could

Despite continued attempts to justify the Iraq war as something to do with stemming the flow of weapons of mass destruction to potential terrorists, the United States had few choices in the initial phases of the war against terrorism. Afghanistan was the clear first target, but the next tier of nations on the list -- where al Qaeda or its associates seemed to move and recruit in relative freedom -- was well out of the range of U.S. military and political will.

Countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and even Indonesia, were much too big an undertaking for the military and political establishment. By taking Iraq -- labeled as a "bad" country anyway -- the administration and the military could have a stepping stone from which to apply pressure or act in neighboring states, like Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran. This broader strategic goal, of which Iraq was just one piece, is still being pursued, in spite of the ongoing guerrilla and terrorist attacks in Iraq.

Were the United States to withdraw, it would send a clear message that Washington is vulnerable to pain -- even at low levels. This would undermine the ultimate goal of demonstrating undeniably that the Islamist militants --al Qaeda or not -- have no chance of defeating the United States, and therefore no chance of achieving their broader goal of a renewed Islamic caliphate stretching across the Muslim world.

We are now at a point where an object -- immovable by strategic design -- is being faced by a thus-far unyielding force. Washington cannot pull back, or it will suffer defeat on a much broader scale than just Iraq. The jihadists cannot end their offensive, or they will demonstrate their impotence and lose any chance of stirring the Muslim street (whatever that might be) into action. With U.S. elections nearing, the jihadists will intensify both the scale and the scope of attacks. In Iraq, with the handover of power nearing, the secular militants will increase their attacks. With the ongoing rotation of troops, U.S. forces will make a show of their power to deter future attacks or resistance. The combination will be volatile.