A Parting Shot

This is how Knight-Ridder News Service reports the upcoming handover event:

Ordinary Iraqis can watch the ceremonies live on television, provided electricity is working in their power-starved neighborhoods. But there are still no details on where or when the events will take place. Iraqis inside the new leadership, meanwhile, are bracing for attacks and more criticism that they are simply a proxy government for their former occupiers.


"It'll be nice," one incoming Iraqi official said sarcastically when asked to describe the ceremonies. "Our new ministers will take an oath that'll go, `I swear by almighty God to be faithful to the United States and its Republican administration."


While the civilian occupation will dissolve, the U.S. military remains firmly in place. The patrols, checkpoints and tanks that have become part of Iraq's postwar landscape aren't going anywhere.

Off to Sonora

I'm taking a few days off from blogging, visiting my family in Tucson. A bit of bad news (among all the other bad news): Someone stole my protest sign. It's a big deal, kinda, because it was an ornate, two-sided sign, made of white panel-board that allowed me to overwrite slogans, changing them as events demanded. My last slogans were, "Hey,Hey, USA, How many soldiers died today?" and "Take Back America. Re-defeat Bush/Cheney."

I hope whoever stole it is a progressive who'll make good use of it. Hey, I may even spot it at a peace rally one of these days.

Sovereignty lite

Apparently, Iraq will have to make do without a military force, without armor or artillery. That much sovereignty, the US says, is too much.

Nice Mouth, Mr. Vice President!

F**k yourself,' said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency.

Says the Washington Post, "...Even if the Senate were in session, the vice president, though constitutionally the president of the Senate, is an executive branch official and therefore free to use whatever language he likes."

Well, I'm a private citizen and also free to use any language I like. Dick Cheney is a contemptable, unmannered, self-serving dipwad who attained his position through a stolen election, the nefarious act of a politically partial Court. He should still be running Haliburton, which is where his loyalties obviously lie.

We've got to dis-appoint this cabal in November!

The handover

The June 30 date, which I'm sure the Bushies anticipated would be a fabulous photo op, with flags and trumpets and would boost Bush's ratings, will now have no such trappings, no such effect. Indeed, the pundits are saying that it could be Iraq, not the economy, that defeats him in November.

Could history be so ironic? After all of Bush's twisting and wriggling to avoid going to war in VietNam, could he become a casualty of this new war?

Clinton

I watched Clinton being interviewed by Charlie Rose and, for the first time, felt that Rose was out of his element. Too slow, too behind-the-curve, to deal with the incredibly intelligent, quick- and well-spoken Clinton. So it meant Clinton was on his own to expound his views, slightly guided by Rose, but not penetrated.

Here's what I came away with. Clinton is a business-as-usual Democrat, the very reason I voted Green in 2000. I feel sorry for Gore because Clinton's loss of principle and leadership cost Gore the election. Now I'm a Gore fan, but Clinton? Glad to see him cast into the dustbin of history. I didn't like him in office, I like him less as a has-been.

Sometimes I despair

for our world, led by powers, including the US, who are headed toward nuclear oblivion. A few voices with influence are, however, calling us to account. Good for them, and to those who listen, like Senator Ted Kennedy.

You've come a long way, Reverend

Twenty-five years ago, I defended the Moonies against charges that they brainwashed their young recruits. The Reverend Moon was thought of as a demon, later convicted after a federal trial on tax evasion charges.

Now, however, owner of the conservative newspaper The Washington Times, he's being celebrated, in fact he's being crowned, in the halls of Congress.

An historic critique

by twenty-seven former diplomats (many Republicans), calling for Bush's defeat, not only gets precious little coverage in the mainstream media, but causes Bush's approval rating to rise four points.

This is certain: Bush has hardcore support among forty-four percent of likely voters (and they will vote). Kerry has somewhat softer support among the same percent (who may vote in greater numbers this year due to Bush antipathy). To beat Bush, therefore, the undecideds must be convinced to support Kerry in a high percentage, and the pro-Kerry vote must turn out in great force.

We activists must realize we can't cause the hardcore Bush supporters to change their minds. They have no minds.

For the full text and signatories of the critique of Bush, go here.

the perfect metaphor...

Don't sniff now, but our boys are really stuck in the shit in old Baghdad.

Call me crazy

but I wonder why, if Michael Moore wants Fahrenheit 911 to "wake up the choir" to cause them to alert the blacks, the browns, the youth, and the disaffected voters to the evils of Bush and his ilk, why doesn't Moore, with financing from Soros and Turner, crank out millions of free DVDs of the movie and flood the market with them--for free? Once the distributor has made back his investment plus a decent return, the free distribution would both ensure wide dissemination and would be such a departure from traditional movie-making that it would break ground on many fronts, including the political. If Moore does this, he'll surely benefit hugely later in his life.

Iraq's new dictator

Bush/Bremer have installed a new strongman, but, to their credit, they chose one who's their dictator.

Duh

This Rasmussen poll reveals the obvious: Fox News viewers prefer Bush by a wide margin; CNN viewers prefer Kerry by a comparable margin. In other words, the biased reporting by Fox to the faithful, ie, the stupid, cancels out the somewhat less biased reporting by CNN to the somewhat less stupid. The yet less stupid, those who view PBS, prefer Kerry almost to a person; while the cretins who listen to Rush Limbaugh are Bushies, bigtime.

No figures, of course, on the alternative media, such as Pacifica or other liberal outlets.

Somewhere in the basement

of the Washington Post is a lunatic headline-writer (certainly a Republican) who writes, to capture Clinton's recent statements about the Iraq war, that "Clinton Backs Bush on Iraq War but Questions Invasion's Timing."

Certainly, as the story points out, Clinton's position isn't as clear as could be, but one thing is certain: He didn't support invading Iraq but instead wanted the UN weapon-inspection process to continue. It wasn't a question of "timing" but of going to war at all--a difference of billions of dollars and thousands of human lives.

So much for full disclosure

Remember during the hearings on the Abu Ghraib torture when the witnesses in the Bush administration said that "the difference between us other governments is that we disclose our faults and will chase all leads to find out who's at fault?" Remember that?
Well, here's what it's come down to. Standard stonewalling and politics.

I smell a rat

These two paragraphs appear at the end of an article in Middle East Online.

"Amid the unrest US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, one of the key architects of the US-led invasion, and Kevin Tebbit, the permanent secretary at Britain's ministry of defence met Iraq's new prime minister and others in Baghdad to discuss their countries' future ties.

"The visits come as both the United States and Britain work to negotiate a status of forces agreement with the government, which is due to take limited power once the coalition hands back sovereignty at the end of the month."

A "Status of Forces Agreement" is the formal name for the contract with various nations under which the US operates it bases worldwide, including Japan, Germany, Kuwait and so forth. They are binding documents that by their terms last for decades and survive changes in government.

So--Wolfie and Rummie and Bush are trying to bamboozle Iraq (and the US and the world) into signing off on such a significant, long-term agreement as negotiated with the interim government (the one that's "completely sovereign," according to them, but not sovereign enough to take custody of Saddam, for example) before an elected government takes over, knowing that the interim government is a US stooge.

I'll check around to see if anybody else has noted this development and report back.

Update: This WaPo article says that because the interim government has agreed not to subject US troops to its local laws, a status of forces agreement isn't needed. So what's Wolfie doing in Baghdad?

Oops

Bremer funds a poll of Iraqis last month to learn what the "man in the street" thinks of us, specifically, whether they want us to leave or stay, and how they regard our troops, and so forth. It's so negative that Bremer has tried to hide the results, to no avail, however.

Never mind

If I were a member of the US military--the Marines in Fallujah, the Army in Najaf--I'd be mightily pissed off. Scores of soldiers were killed (not to mention Iraqis) from the invasions of those town, in Fallujah to capture those who killed and mutilated the four "civilian contractors," in Najaf to "capture or kill" al-Sadr for his alleged participation in the killing of a cleric. In both cases, however, the armed forces didn't complete their mission, handing responsibility over to the Iraqi "security forces" who, we're learning, aren't doing their job.

I'd hate to be the parent or kid or loved one of a soldier who lost his life or limb in those exercises, in view of the obvious fact that the incursions were called off because of the political exigencies of Bush's campaign director.

Sick, sick, sick

Language buried in the final resolution of the recent G-8 summit meeting, as it relates forgiveness of Iraq's indebtedness, contains the insidiously obtuse language quoted below. This is what it really means: We well-heeled nations will reduce portions of the debt (the debt having been incurred by Saddam, and long touted by Bush as an unfair, crippling burden on Iraq's citizens) if Iraq follows the previously-imposed "privatization" of its commerce, as called for by the International Monetary Fund; that it keeps up its payments (sustainability); and that these measures are effected by Iraq before the elected government is in place, i.e., "in 2004."

"Debt reduction is critical if the Iraqi people are to have the opportunity to build a free and prosperous nation. The reduction should be provided in connection with an IMF program, and sufficient to ensure sustainability taking into account the recent IMF analysis. We will work with each other, within the Paris Club, and with non-Paris Club creditors, to achieve that objective in 2004."

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Tipping point

The Carl Rove machine has adopted a prophylactic defense of the president in the face of the wave of lies, errors and outrages his administration has perpetrated on the US public and the world. Their method is simple: With the arising of each new revelation an immediate staunching counterattack is launched, as with the attacks on Treasury Secretary O'Neill, intelligence chief Clark, Ambassador Wilson and so forth. Rove knows that unless immediately righted by counterattack, his ship of state will sink.

To counter Rove's plan, the attacks on Bush's lies and misdeeds must become so pervasive, so overwhelming, that finally there are too many of them to allow righting, so that the ship becomes inalterably swamped. With the new revelations of miscalculation of terrorism attacks, the condemnation of Bush by past diplomats, the ongoing prisoner-abuse scandal, the continuing deaths in Iraq and the deterioration of the status in Afghanistan--at some time, these have to weigh too heavily on Bush to allow him, even with the compliant, correcting media, to bail himself out of his self-created political debacle.