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Archive: POLITICS >please note: some links may no longer be active.
The war on terror: an update While many Republican politicians (and their supporters) continue to behave disgracefully, hurling invective at those who are critical of U.S. foreign policy, not only is precious time being wasted, but the crucial debate on how we should deal with the threat of terrorism is, for all practical purposes, stymied. The spineless Democrats, afraid to be seen as soft on terror, are partly to blame. But the mainstream media is also clearly culpable. So it shouldn't come as any surprise that a serious, critical article, entitled HOW TO LOSE THE WAR ON TERROR, has just appeared in the Asia Times. The authors, Mark Perry and Alastair Crooke, make a number of fundamentally important points. Here's a taste: Allawi's failure, Hamas' success, the Aoun-Nasrallah agreement - and the inability of the West to predict, shape or even understand these seminal events - have been variously interpreted: as a signal that the US intelligence community needs increased resources, that the West has not been doing enough to sell its "program" in the region, that the US and its allies have not been harsh enough in their condemnation of "radicalism", that the West has underestimated the amount of support its secular allies need, and (in the case of the Palestinian elections) that Hamas didn't really win at all - "Fatah lost." We have reached a much more fundamental and alarming conclusion: Western governments are frighteningly out of touch with the principal political currents in the Middle East. The US and its allies overestimated Ayad Allawi's strength, were "stunned" by Hamas' win, and were surprised by the Aoun-Nasrallah agreement because they don't have a clue about what's really going on in the region. But why? Read the full article here (via Laura at War and Piece) Incalculable damage Of all of the damage which the Bush Administration has caused, perhaps the most insidious has yet to appear. When it does, it will have resulted from manipulation, and, in some cases, reckless disregard for warnings produced by good environmental science. Global warming is the most obvious case, but what has happened to the EPA is also horrifying. Consider this example of how the issue of the carcinogenic chemical TCE has been handled. From the LA Times: After massive underground plumes of an industrial solvent were discovered in the nation's water supplies, the Environmental Protection Agency mounted a major effort in the 1990s to assess how dangerous the chemical was to human health. Following four years of study, senior EPA scientists came to an alarming conclusion: The solvent, trichloroethylene, or TCE, was as much as 40 times more likely to cause cancer than the EPA had previously believed. The preliminary report in 2001 laid the groundwork for tough new standards to limit public exposure to TCE. Instead of triggering any action, however, the assessment set off a high-stakes battle between the EPA and Defense Department, which had more than 1,000 military properties nationwide polluted with TCE. By 2003, after a prolonged challenge orchestrated by the Pentagon, the EPA lost control of the issue and its TCE assessment was cast aside. As a result, any conclusion about whether millions of Americans were being contaminated by TCE was delayed indefinitely. What happened with TCE is a stark illustration of a power shift that has badly damaged the EPA's ability to carry out one of its essential missions: assessing the health risks of toxic chemicals. Think about the surge of emotion which millions of ordinary, well-meaning citizens, myself included, felt while watching the film Erin Brockovich. Not all of that emotion was a celebration of the actual event upon which the film was based. Some of it was–incorrectly as it turns out–a feeling of empowerment, fueled by the notion that the average Joe may no longer be the victim of corporate greed, malfeasance, and grotesque insensitivity. Shockingly, it appears that the opposite has happened during the past six years. Corporations have gained far greater leverage than they ever previously enjoyed, and we, our children, and perhaps even those not yet born, are all likely to face the potentially devastating consequences of a system which values money more highly than the health and welfare of its citizens. Read the full LA Times article here
Civil war in Iraq For those of you–and I hope that there aren't many–who are still confused by the Administration (and its apologists') propaganda, here's another clear view provided by one (Peter Daou) who has actually lived through a previous civil war. I had the misfortune of spending my youth dodging bombs and bullets in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war. As the Iraq misadventure continues on its bleak trajectory, I thought it might be useful to offer a little perspective on the day-to-day dynamics of sectarian strife. While "civil war" is a unitary term that connotes a single event of fixed duration, the daily reality is that life goes on, albeit in fits and starts. Ceasefires are punctuated by artillery battles punctuated by peace summits punctuated by assassinations punctuated by more ceasefires punctuated by car bombs, and on and on. One day we'd see kids playing in playgrounds, parents shopping for food, sunbathers on the beaches, the next we'd huddle in bomb shelters as rockets rained down on the city. One day we'd drive to a mountain village to visit with friends, the next we'd hear about people being shot at or kidnapped or disappearing on the same roads we traversed a day before. One minute we'd be sitting down to a quiet meal, the next we'd be racing for the basement as salvos of missiles slammed into buildings and streets and shops and homes. The violence ebbs and flows, but for ordinary citizens - the lucky ones who survive - what remains is the misery and uncertainty, the demoralization and despair. With regional forces acting as puppet-masters, the victims are the people, the residents of the bombed out and burning cities and towns and villages. And the hatred cuts deep. Village pitted against village, cousin pitted against cousin, friend pitted against friend, neighbor pitted against neighbor, the wounds, physical and emotional, will last long after the violence ends. So to the cheerleaders of this tragedy, I wish you could have lived it before you so glibly inflicted it on others. You can read Peter's work regularly at Salon.com (via Huffingtonpost)
Senators apparently lied to the Supreme Court Should we really be surprised that two Republican Senators (Lindsey Graham and John Kyl) would do such a thing in order to further their cause? It appears to have happened recently, and, thanks to sharp eyed bloggers, the issue is beginning to simmer. Glenn Greenwald picks up the story: Today the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. The Court will be called upon to determine--among other things--whether a provision in last year's Detainee Treatment Act ("DTA") effectively strips the Court of jurisdiction to hear Hamdan's case. The Government contends that it does and in support of this position, Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John Kyl have filed an amicus brief with the Court. This amicus brief argues that the legislative history of the DTA supports the Government's position. Specifically, the brief cites a lengthy colloquy between Senators Kyl and Graham themselves which purportly took place during a Senate floor debate just prior to passage of the bill. In the exchange, both Kyl and Graham suggest that the bill will strip the courts of jurisdiction over pending detainee cases such as Hamdan. But here's where the story gets interesting. Apparently this entire 8 page colloquy--which is scripted to read as if it were delivered live on the floor of the Senate, complete with random interruptions from other Senators--never took place. It was inserted into the Congressional Record in written form just prior to passage of the bill. Read Glenn's full post here
You want the truth about Iraq? Then don't pay attention to the mainstream media, and (need I say it?), don't believe a word of what the government spokespeople are saying. Listen, instead, to what an educated, articulate Iraqi blogger has to say: Today it was all out war in Baghdad. Please don’t ask me whether I believe Iraq is on the verge of civil war yet or not. I have never experienced a civil war before, only regular ones. All I see is that both sides are engaged in tit-for-tat lynchings and summary executions. I see governmental forces openly taking sides or stepping aside. I see an occupation force that is clueless about what is going on in the country. I see politicians that distrust each other and continue to flame the situation for their own personal interests. I see Islamic clerics delivering fiery sermons against each other, then smile and hug each other at the end of the day in staged PR stunts. I see the country breaking into pieces. The frontlines between different districts of Baghdad are already clearly demarked and ready for the battle. I was stopped in my own neighbourhood yesterday by a watch team and questioned where I live and what I was doing in that area. I see other people curiously staring in each other’s faces on the street. I see hundreds of people disappearing in the middle of the night and their corpses surfacing next day with electric drill holes in them. I see people blown up to smithereens because a brainwashed virgin seeker targeted a crowded market or café. I see all that and more. His name is Zeyad, and you can access his full post here
Qaddafi lectures the world on democracy? I wish that it was as absurd as it sounds. Steve Clemons has the details, and touches, along the way, on this vitally important issue: Several years ago, I heard one of the most memorable speeches I have ever heard from Sonia Picado. Picado, former Costa Rica Ambassador to the United States, is now Chair of the Board of Directors of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights and former President of the Costa Rica National Liberation Party. She also served as the first and only woman judge on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. When I heard her speak it was at the annual retreat of the Pacific Council on International Policy organized by Abraham Lowenthal in San Francisco. Her message was simple. She said that for decades, democrats and democratizers fought militaristic thugs throughout Latin America. These thugs and their supporters were very well practiced in the art of secret military tribunals -- and that the triumph of rule of law, transparency, basic human rights, and due process required an end to such secret dispensations of arbitrary justice. She said that with a flick of John Ascroft's pen, the military tribunals were given their birth and launch. They were not approved by Congress. They deprive those accused of fair hearings before their peers. She said that this act sent "a cold chill" through democracies around the world because America had adopted one of the key institutions that they as genuine democrats had been trying to wipe out of existence. Read Steve's full post
Iraq: worse yet Juan Cole reports on a variety of very bad recent developments in Iraq. And, while unconfirmed, it appears the the U.S. military may have contributed to the deaths of innocent civilians by failing to identify a religious site. Then the US and Iraqi forces say they raided a terror cell in Adhamiyah. Adhamiyah is a Sunni district of Baghdad and is still Baath territory. But somehow the joint US-Iraqi force ended up north, at the Shiite Shaab district. They say that they took fire from Mahdi Army militiamen. But there aren't any such Mahdi Army men in Adhamiyah. I have a sinking feeling that instead of raiding a Sunni Arab building in Adhamiyah, they got disoriented and attacked a Shiite religious center in nearby Shaab instead. Iraqi television angrily showed twenty unarmed corpses on the floor of the religious center, denouncing the US for killing innocent worshippers. The US military is now saying it did not enter any mosques and that anyone killed was killed by Iraqi special ops. The Mustafa Husayniyah, however, is not a mosque and may not have been distinguishable as a religious edifice to non-Shiites. Shiites mourn their martyred Imams, the descendants of the Prophet, in centers called Husayniyahs after the Imam Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. As for the killing being done by Iraqi troops, if it was a joint mission, then the US forces are going to take some of the blame. Read Cole's full report here
A serious appraisal of Iraq
In sad, blinding contrast to the hopeful fantasies weaved by President Bush during a recent press conference, French author (and expert on the region) Pierre-Jean Luizard produced sober, incisive thoughts on the current state of Iraq in a recent interview in Le Monde. The excellent blogger Nur-al-Cubicle has an english translation on his site, from which this excerpt was taken: Have the Americans taken over the oilfields and been granted contracts giving them the right to develop the wells? Contrary to what has often been said, oil was not the cause of the 2003 invasion. With Saddam Hussein defeated and placed under embargo, the Americans benefited in the 1990s from an ideal situation from an oil standpoint: without being on the front lines and spared from having to bear the political and military burdens of occupation, they were able to indirectly control the second largest oil reserves in the world by exploiting UN resolutions and its Oil for Food Program. The situation since the fall of Saddam has not permitted the Iraqi oil industry to recover. Reigning insecurity makes the cost of oil production prohibitive and US oil companies for the most part are not interested in the Iraqi minefield, where the safety of workers cannot be guaranteed. At the same time, oil is exacerbating inter-community divisions. In the context of escalating sectarianism, the Shi’ites and the Kurds are insisting that profits from the development of any new oilfields be reserved for their use, as is their right under the new Iraqi Constitution. Furthermore, oil deposits in the North are spread over regions of mixed ethnicities –Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Sunnis and Shi’ites– which makes the drawing of an ethnic border between Arab Iraq and autonomous Kurdistan impossible. The obsessional preoccuptation over the oil city of Kirkuk, simultaneously contested by the Kurds, the Shi’ites, Sunni Arabs and Turkmen, symbolizes the impasse which a plan for the partition of Iraq along community, ethnic and confessional lines would create. Read the full interview here
Logical extension, courtesy of Stephanie McMillan
Visit Stephanie's site Minimum Security
Abortion and the "liberal" media Garance Franke-Ruta has written a thought provoking article in The American Prospect on how the New York Times has handled the abortion issue during the past two years. A liberal, poet Robert Frost once quipped, is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel. Nowhere is this truer than at The New York Times today on the subject of abortion. The past two years have seen one of the most contentious and closely watched presidential contests in 40 years, the retirement of the first female Supreme Court justice, the appointment of two new justices, and an attempted Senate filibuster against one of them specifically because of liberal concerns about how he would vote on choice issues. And during that period, not one op-ed discussing abortion on the op-ed page of the most powerful liberal paper in the nation was written by a reproductive-rights advocate, a pro-choice service-provider, or a representative of a women’s group. Instead, the officially pro-choice New York Times has hosted a conversation about abortion on its op-ed page that consisted almost entirely of the views of pro-life or abortion-ambivalent men, male scholars of the right, and men with strong, usually Catholic, religious affiliations. In fact, a stunning 83 percent of the pieces appearing on the page that discussed abortion were written by men. Editors explaining the dearth of women on op-ed pages, a subject that has in the last year received a great deal of attention, will frequently point to the broader society for explanation: Congress is 86 percent male; very few women hold executive positions in the business world; the academy remains overwhelmingly male at the level of tenured professorships; military leaders, diplomats, world leaders -- all are overwhelmingly male. Thus, they say, it’s not entirely the fault of newspapers that their op-ed pages rarely reflect women’s voices. One topic on which it would seemingly be easy to find female authors, however, is abortion. The vast bulk of the pro-choice side consists of groups founded, staffed, and led by women, and every significant pro-choice advocacy organization is also in some measure a women’s group. That the issue even exists as public policy question worthy of discussion is a result of female agitation, legal strategy, and demands for autonomy. Abortion rights advocates, legal strategists, and political theorists together make up one of the rare political niches in which women predominate. Because of this, you might think that those writing about this topic on the op-ed page of a liberal, officially pro-choice publication like the Times might similarly be largely female. You would also, however, be wrong. Read Franke-Ruta's full article here
Enough disingenuous parsing, already This Administration has proven over, and over again that it cares less about reality than it does about perception. The most recent example of this insidious behavior is the all-out effort by the usual suspects (i.e. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.) to claim that there is currently no civil war in Iraq. This is a typically calculated, transparent, political effort to spin the distastrous U.S. occupation. Furthermore, it is demonstrably wrong. There have been many serious observers (e.g. Juan Cole) who have revealed the truth of the current state of Iraq, but perhaps the most compelling, and succinct recent synopsis comes courtesy of Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the founder of the important weblog Daily Kos. Markos recently answered an e-mail of Steve Clemons, and the full exchange speaks for itself. Clemons: I had written in an email that I thought that we had reached a point of real civil war in Iraq and added that "the only question is the temperature of the conflict...60-70 deaths a day can easily rise to 600-700." Markos: The Civil War I partly lived through, in El Salvador, cost 100,000 lives over 12 years. That's an average of 23 per day. The civil war in Algeria has cost 200,000 lives since 1988, or roughly 37 killed per day. And so on. What we're seeing in Iraq is far more horrific than your garden-variety modern-day civil war. It truly, honestly, isn't a matter of debate anymore. As for temperature, it's already twice to three times as hot of some of the most recent, deadliest civil wars. Thanks to Steve Clemons
And he continues to lie
Those of us who have been paying attention have lost count of the number of lies and distortions spewed by those high up in the current Administration. But let's set all of that damning evidence aside for a moment, and focus on the brazen, intentional, and despicable lie which George W. Bush uttered again today, for the umpteenth time: "...and therefore, we worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did, and the world is safer for it." As most of you surely know, the inspectors were in Iraq, doing their jobs (effectively, as it turns out) when Bush, Cheney, et. al., decided to attack. They were not, in any known sense of the word, "denied" by Saddam. That fabricated assertion, which Bush has made time and time again, continues to be heard for one simple reason: the mainstream media refuses to do their job, and hold the liars responsible. Think about this: the very same media was obsessed with Clinton lying about a blow job, and wasted millions of column inches on a trivial, personal matter. Yet when the current President of the United States lies repeatedly about his reasons for bringing the country into a disastrous war, the mainstream media is essentially silent. If you don't find this to be both disturbing and dangerous, then I suggest that you wake up. And by the way, the only reason that you don't hear these sort of lies even more often, is that the Administration manipulates the media so well, that they rarely have to respond to confrontational questions. So it should come as no surprise that Bush's most recent lie was in response to a question from Helen Thomas, one of the very, very few journalists who will emerge from this six year nightmare with an intact reputation.
"Systempunkt" in Indonesia John Robb is on the cutting edge of analyzing, understanding, and explaining 21st century guerrilla warfare. And while most readers will understandably wonder what relevance such a topic might have to their lives, I'd suggest that answer is: more than you think. For the very same reason that small pockets of resistance in Iraq can cause huge problems for a military of vastly superior size and strength, small guerrilla groups around the world are quickly learning to leverage their modest resources, and to create capabilities allowing them to inflict substantial damage. Indonesia (Elang, Sumbawa). A recent guerrilla attack on a Newmont Mining Corp exploration team forced the company to evacuate 130 people and suspend operations in the area. This attack follows numerous violent protests against the resource extraction industry in the country -- which generates 12 percent of Indonesia's GDP. It's a great example of the trial and error approach (release innovations early and often) that open source guerrillas use to rapidly find systempunkts (network vulnerabilities that yield huge leverage). Read Robb's full post here
Taxes, visualized Visualization design is a burgeoning, and, in many cases, useful artform. This isn't surprising, given that our society increasingly emphasizes the visual as a result, mainly, of the ubiquity of television and computers. I'll provide examples from time to time, and let's start with a revealing, albeit unpleasant one: a representation of where your tax dollars go (e.g. $8 to the military for every $1 for education).
Thanks to deviant art, where you can view an enlarged version.
What about Iran? Given the past performances of the Bush Administration, there is good reason to be worried about how it might deal with the Iranian problem. Perhaps the salient question is whether the Administration will, as opposed to its approach in Iraq, take lessons from recent and relevant historical experiences. Michael Axworthy, a fine writer for the excellent British online magazine Prospect, spells it out clearly in a recent article. The Iranians are resuming uranium enrichment, the IAEA has agreed to refer Iran to the UN security council and talks aimed at resolving the problem keep breaking down. Another Iran crisis. The west usually gets Iran crises wrong. We got it wrong in 1953 when we—the US and Britain—removed a democratically elected prime minister, Muhammad Mosaddeq, rubbing out any chance of genuinely democratic politics in Iran for a generation. And we got it wrong a number of times when, after 1979, fear of revolutionary Iran expanding its influence in the region led us to indirectly help in the creation of two of our biggest foreign policy headaches of the last half century—Saddam Hussein in Iraq and al Qaeda during the civil war in Afghanistan. If the topic interests you, by all means read Axworthy's full article
Real life in Iraq Nir Rosen is probably the most important journalist operating in Iraq. He speaks arabic, is independent and not embedded, and his reports typically feature valuable and rare insights into sectarian tensions and violence. Here's an excerpt from a recently published, comprehensive report, found in The Boston Review: The Americans had come maybe 20 times before to search for weapons in the house were Sabah lived with his brothers Walid and Hussein, their wives, and their six children. They knew where to look for the single Kalashnikov rifle the family was permitted to own. They had always been polite. “This day they didn’t act normal,” Hussein told me. “They were running from all sides of the house. They kicked open the doors. They didn’t wait for us.” With Iraqi National Guardsmen standing outside, the Americans hit the brothers with their rifle butts. Five soldiers were on each man. Sabah’s nose was broken; Walid lay on the floor with a rifle barrel in his mouth. The Shia translator told them to kill Walid, but they ripped the gun out of his mouth instead, tearing his cheek. The rest of the family was ordered out. The translator asked the brothers where “the others” were and cursed them, threatening to rape their sisters. As the terrified family waited outside on the road, they heard three shots and what sounded to them like a scuffle inside. The Iraqi National Guardsmen tried to enter the house, but the translator cursed them, too, and shouted, “Who told you to come in?” Thirty minutes later Walid was dragged into the street. The translator emerged with a picture of Sabah and asked for Sabah’s wife. “Your husband was killed by the Americans, and he deserved to die,” he told her. He tore the picture before her face. Several soldiers came out of the house laughing. Inside, the family found Sabah dead. Blood marked his shirt where three bullets had entered his chest; two came out his back and lodged in the wall behind him. American-made bullet casings were on the floor. The house had been ransacked. Sofas and beds were overturned and torn apart; tables, closets, vases with plastic flowers were broken. Sabah’s pictures had been torn up and his identification card confiscated. Elsewhere in the house one picture remained untouched—Sabah with his three brothers and their father, smiling in happier times. When Sabah was buried the next day his body was not washed—martyrs are buried as they died. Rosen's report can be found here
Al-Jazeera: more open than its American counterparts?
Al-Jazeera is, as most of you know, the world's dominant Arab television network. It is based in Qatar, but reaches many millions of viewers throughout the world via satellite and cable. Predictably, the network has been harshly criticized by the Bush Administration for, among other things, giving air-time to terrorists including Osama bin-Laden. If you listen to those criticis, you are likely to come away with the clear impression that Al-Jazeera is pro-Arab, pro-Muslim, anti-American, and anti-secular, etc. The truth of the matter, though, is that Al-Jazeera, a network which George Bush seriously suggested should have its headquarters bombed, is arguably more open than its U.S. counterparts. I say that because of the material on this video clip from an Al-Jazeera program. The program, which was essentially a debate, featured a conservative Muslim cleric, and the outspoken Arab-American psychologist Wafa Sultan. Sultan is a brave woman, whose views on the conflict between Muslims and the West are, in the context of the Arab world, extremely radical. So what I am suggesting is that Al-Jazeera's willingess to allow Sultan to express her views, at length and unfettered, is extraordinary, and that there is no equivalent found these days on major American television networks. Think about it: When was the last time you saw Norman Solomon, Robert Scheer, Eric Alterman, Sydney Blumenthal, or any other highly credentialed, strong critics of our government, invited to express their opinions on CBS, NBS, or ABC programs? I can answer the question for you: you can't remember the last time. Never mind that they have been right all along about the Iraq war, about corruption in government, about true media bias. The networks instead choose safe, to-the-right-of-the-middle-of-the-road "journalists", so as not to offend the corporate interests. Oh, and then there's FOX.
Hiding the true essence of war
From the beginning of the Iraq war, the Administration has done everything in its power to prevent visual documentation of the return of the bodies of dead American soldiers. While this is not, relatively speaking, as profound as the worst of their actions, the hiding of such emotion-packed events, events which reflect the true essence of war, has a deeply insidious effects. It makes it much, much easier for most of us, meaning the vast majority of Americans, to think about the war solely in cool, clinical, and detached terms: money spent, battles won, political developments, casualty statistics, and so on. The raw dishonesty of such a manipulative policy became apparent to me when I viewed this photo set by Todd Heisler, a staff photographer at the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado. The photo above is part of that set. Thanks to Joerg at conscientious (an excellent photo blog)
The awful, revealing reaction to Feingold's proposal Glenn Greenwald sums it up: We have Democrats running and hiding, afraid to stand up to the President even when he gets caught breaking the law. We have the media mindlessly reporting GOP talking points even when they are factually false and when the falsehood could be easily verified with about 60 seconds of research. And we have Republicans accusing those few Democrats who are willing to criticize the Leader of being on the side of Terrorists, while the media passes along those false accusations without comment and Democrats run away and hide some more, never showing any offense or anger at all from watching Republicans accuse them of treason. That's our system of government, in a nutshell. These events over the last 24 hour news cycle, by themselves, would be sufficient to teach a Civics class how our national political institutions work right now. That is the system which Sen. Feingold decided to disrupt, and few things need disruption more than this morass of dishonesty and principle-free corruption that permeates every single component of our national political life. Read Glenn's full, important post here
You tell 'em, Molly I can’t see a damn soul in D.C. except Russ Feingold who is even worth considering for President. The rest of them seem to me so poisonously in hock to this system of legalized bribery they can’t even see straight. Look at their reaction to this Abramoff scandal. They’re talking about “a lobby reform package.” We don’t need a lobby reform package, you dimwits, we need full public financing of campaigns, and every single one of you who spends half your time whoring after special interest contributions knows it. The Abramoff scandal is a once in a lifetime gift—a perfect lesson on what’s wrong with the system being laid out for people to see. Run with it, don’t mess around with little patches, and fix the system. As usual, the Democrats have forty good issues on their side and want to run on thirty-nine of them. Here are three they should stick to: 1) Iraq is making terrorism worse; it’s a breeding ground. We need to extricate ourselves as soon as possible. We are not helping the Iraqis by staying. 2) Full public financing of campaigns so as to drive the moneylenders from the halls of Washington. 3) Single-payer health insurance. Every Democrat I talk to is appalled at the sheer gutlessness and spinelessness of the Democratic performance. The party is still cringing at the thought of being called, ooh-ooh, “unpatriotic” by a bunch of rightwingers. Take “unpatriotic” and shove it. How dare they do this to our country? “Unpatriotic”? These people have ruined the American military! Not to mention the economy, the middle class, and our reputation in the world. Everything they touch turns to dirt, including Medicare prescription drugs and hurricane relief. This is not a time for a candidate who will offend no one; it is time for a candidate who takes clear stands and kicks ass. Read Milly Ivins' full post at progressive.org
Expected of Republicans, but...
The double standards applied by Republicans to Clinton and Bush are, sadly, to be expected. But it's hard to express just how galling this is, given that Diane Feinstein is widely considered to be a good, liberal Democrat. (thanks to Glenn Greenwald)
Iran: what you won't read in the mainstream media Juan Cole, a highly respected University of Michigan professor, is unquestionably one of America's leading Middle East experts. He has, throughout the Iraq war, been a source of insights and information of a far more nuanced and accurate sort than that which has been available in the mainstream media. A recent article of Cole's on Iran is an excellent example of what a poor (and often lazy) job the mainstream media does when reporting on issues from that vitally important part of the world. Consider this excerpt: President Ahmadinejad, it should be freely admitted, has, through his lack of diplomatic skills and his maladroitness, given his enemies important propaganda tools. Unlike his predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust denier. He went to an anti-Zionist conference and quoted Ayatollah Khomeini, saying that the “Occupation regime” must “vanish.” This statement about Israel does not necessarily imply violence. After all, Ariel Sharon made the occupation regime in the Gaza Strip vanish. The quote was translated in the international press, however, as a wish that “Israel be wiped off the map,” and this inaccurate translation has now become a tag line for all newspaper articles written about Iran in Western newspapers. In another speech, Ahmadinejad argued that Germans rather than Palestinians should have suffered a loss of territory for the establishment of a Jewish state, if the Germans perpetrated the Holocaust. This argument is an old one in the Middle East, but it was immediately alleged that Ahmadinejad was advocating the shipping of Israelis to Europe. That was not what he said. It is often alleged that since Iran harbors the desire to “destroy” Israel, it must not be allowed to have the bomb. Ahmadinejad has gone blue in the face denouncing the immorality of any mass extermination of innocent civilians, but has been unable to get a hearing in the English-language press. Moreover, the presidency is a very weak post in Iran, and the president is not commander of the armed forces and has no control over nuclear policy. Ahmadinejad’s election is not relevant to the nuclear issue, and neither is the question of whether he is, as Liz Cheney is reported to have said, “a madman.” Iran has not behaved in a militarily aggressive way since its 1979 revolution, having invaded no other countries, unlike Iraq, Israel or the U.S. Washington has nevertheless succeeded in depicting Iran as a rogue state. Read the full piece at truthdig.org
Russ Feingold: bright light in a dark tunnel
While it's quite easy to point to those in power as being responsible for the outrages and disastrous mistakes made during the past six years, the Democratic opposition deserves a tremendous amount of blame as well. To say that they have, as a group, been ineffectual, would be a gross understatement. They have, for all practical purposes, acted completely impotent (some might even argue complicit), as the Administration has barreled recklessly ahead on multiple fronts. In recent months, though, a leader has begun to emerge. That leader is Russ Feingold. With the occasional exception of Harry Reid, Senator Feingold has been the only prominent democrat to stand up strongly in opposition to the Administration's abuses. The most recent of Feingold's efforts may well turn out to be his most important. Sunday, on ABC's This Week, Feingold announced that he is going to introduce a resolution to censure George W. Bush for his unlawful authorization of wiretaps of Americans. This is not only a very smart move (as opposed to overreaching for articles of impeachment), but it comes at a time when the disgustingly partisan Republicans are attempting to sweep the matter under the rug, while the meek Democrats wring their hands.This is a very big deal, and irrespective of how it turns out, Feingold's guts, and his willingness to call a spade a fucking shovel, should be a wake-up call to sleepwalking Democrats everywhere. Glenn Greenwald has much more: Of all the dishonest and corrupt steps taken by this Administration, the worst, in my view, is that they have flamboyantly masqueraded as defenders of America while they have simultaneously sought to dismantle every political attribute and core principle that has defined who we are as a country for the last 225 years. Bush followers will undoubtedly seek to depict Feingold's effort as quixotic, radical, and even treasonous. And it faces obvious uphill battles, beginning with the frightened posture of Feingold's Democratic colleagues. But sometimes, the act of a single person of this nature can change things dramatically. Just as Bush followers thought that they had swept this scandal under the rug and covered it up by ensuring that there would be no investigation, Sen. Feingold goes on national television and urges that the President be censured for breaking the law. And he's on the Judiciary Committee as well, and this should make it that much more difficult for Specter to simply shut down the hearings without following through on his promise to find out if there are other warrantless eavesdropping programs besides the one we know about. Taking a strong and principled stand in defense of the rule of law andourcountry's principles is what we have been urging Democrats to do from the very beginning of this scandal, and it's what Sen. Feingold just did. I think the blogosphere as a whole ought to find the most effective ways for harnessing whatever influence and power we can muster in order to pressure as many Democrats as possible to support this resolution and to make it as clear as possible to the country why it is so warranted and urgently needed. Glenn's full post can be found here
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