FRUSTRATED HAWKS FROTH: Richard Perle has come out with a new hawk manifesto: calling for 'regime change' in Syria and Iran, for a blockade of , & plans for preemptive strike at, NorthKorea. Also we should see SaudiArabia and France as possible enemies, and make European nations 'choose between France & U.S.'
This enraged frothing is provoked because we're moving to less aggressive attitudes. Powell calls for 'dialogue' with Iran / Bush lets up pressure vs. people sending money to Iran / Bremerites getting ready to bug out of Iraq next summer, dumping plans to suddenly turn Iraq capitalist. /LondonDailyTelegraph31DEC.
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There have been rumors that Rumsfeld is on the way out; with him, we trust. will go his 'hawk,neocon' henchmen. Can we hope also that Bush will quit listening to Cheney? There was a story that Condoleeza Rice was now de facto chief of Afgh/Iraq fiascos. That could
only be an improvement.

 
WE'RE ALL IN THURMOND-LAND NOW !
What has happened to American politics? Here's a hypothesis: Republican operators, after Reps. took over 'Dixieland', learned how to manipulate ignorant, fundamentalist, pig-headed voters, so that even poor people will vote for the Party of the Wealthy.
These foolish people are found up North also, but earlier operatives weren't very good at manipulating them. Now the Reps. use the 'Dixie' techniques all over the country...and they work (to bring GOP vote up to 55% of the voters, and that's enough.)
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For instance, Georgia's Newt Gingrich gave a valuable tip; don't worry about sentences, just about emotion-triggering words like 'liberal'. It doesn't matter if you say that Gore IS boring, or ISN'T boring--just so you tie together the words 'Gore' and 'boring'.
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Dems. either haven't learned these techniques, or are ashamed to use them. (Perhaps die-hard Dems., in primaries, ill-advisedly select pols who are ashamed to sink so low.)
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So now we're a one-party country, just like Japan.
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My comment: The smartest Americans are the wealthy Republicans; the dumbest are the OTHER Republicans.

 
ECONOMIC CHEER-LEADERS: HEADLINES USUALLY TRUMPET THE GOOD NEWS..BUT WHEN YOU READ THE STORY...

--NOVEMBER BOOST IN HELP-WANTED ADVERTISING GAUGE HINTS AT REBOUND...
BUT THEN, THESTORY: Index rose from 37 to 39. (In Nov.'02 it read 40)....
then, much later in story: from '92 thru 2000, index read 81 (!) In 3 years since, while economy SHED 65,000 jobs per month, index read 47.1 /Denverpost30DEC

This is what you'd call a MILD hint at jobs-rebound....
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In REUTERS31DEC: HEADLINE: JOBLESS CLAIMS FALL TO 3-YEAR LOW:
the story: 'at least labor market is strengthening' [not said: when jobless claims fall without corresponding increase in jobs, that just shows that more people have GIVEN UP SEEKING JOBS!)
(Unnamed) Analysts say (unofficially) that 125,000 new jobs were added in Dec. [Unsaid: far more than that number-added are needed just to keep up with population-growth.]
at the very end of story: However, # still claiming unemployment ROSE last month by 81,000 to 3.32. million./
Also: OVER 3 MILLION LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED; they have used up their 'jobless pay', and Congress neglected to renew it for them; Republicans said that 'expected job-upturn' meant that a renewal was not needed !
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The wildest headline over all this ambiguous news was from Ft.Collins COLORADOAN: LABOR MARKET STRONG AS NEW YEAR BEGINS !!
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Why care about such 'puff' journalism? Surveys show that too many Americans now (with little reason) expect job-improvement..and when they even expect such improvement, Bush's approval-ratings rise (only 5%--but that might be enough!)

The situation now doesn't matter; but if the tame U.S. media can persuade ordinary voters in NOV. '04 to 'expect' job-improvent, even with little actual improvement, Bush is a shoo-in.

 
RMNews spins: (Important editorial, 31DEC)
[letter to ROCKYMTNNEWS--RMNs claims in boldface]
--"In '03,U.S. foreign policy [displayed] determination not only to track terrorists but to undermine political conditions that encourage them." That is, U.S. invaded a country that did not threaten America in any way.
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RMN editorial admits that this move against terrorists by invading Iraq may fail..yes, considering that after 9 months of occupation, the feds now proclaim a heightened ORANGE level of danger to our homeland.
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However, asks RMN, what credible alternative is there? [As noted below, that's like saying,
" If you can cite no other way to prevent volcano eruption, then don't criticize our throwing in virgins to appease the volcano god !" ]
There is no way to completely block terrorist attacks on our Homeland; it's still true that the Iraq invasion was a nutty, counter-productive way to block these attacks.
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"Our newly aggressive stance may not stop jihadists..but it does ensure that waging war on the West carries a tremendous price."
Who paid that price? Not the terrorists--but tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and over 11,000 GIs who have so far been killed, maimed, sickened or wounded.

Notice that it's not said WHO is 'waging war'. It sounds as if we're in danger of attack by some NATIONS, who can be deterred by seeing what price previous attacking nations paid. (On this assumption, the $1,100,000,000 each DAY shovelled to the Pentagon might seem justified.) But actually, we're in danger from thousands of enraged, loosely coordinated INDIVIDUALS who are so fanatic, like the 19 men striking on 9/11/01, that they're eager to die killing Americans--they're willing to pay ANY PRICE for that privilege; they can't be deterred--
and against them, the Pentagon's pricey bombs and missiles are useless.)
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The terrorists were delighted at the invasion; by rousing more rage against us among one billion Muslims worldwide, we recruited more terrorists and supporters; we've alienated European allies, and thus weakened international cooperation in nabbing terrorists; and we've spent tens of billions of dollars that might have gone for adequate Home Defense measures. We also diverted to Iraq thousands of Natl.Guardsmen who might otherwise be available for first-response to a terrorist attack.
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"Saddam destabilized the MiddleEast"(so we had to invade). Our blundering intervention may well result in Iraq civil war, luring in Iran and Turkey to invade. Arab Leaders warned before the war that this invasion would radically destabilize Middle East!
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"Dislike for President congealed into a glittering hatred in wake of Iraq occupation." In the latest fashion of hawk-talk, this hints that criticism of the President comes from antecedent emotional hatred for him.
Actually, the revelation that our invasion was based on blatant untruths uttered by Bush in his solemn State of Union address--this and other of his falsehoods confirmed CONTEMPT for Bush, not hatred. He just reads speeches; he's too dumb to deserve hatred; this should be reserved for Rumsfeld, Cheney and the other people pulling Bush's puppet-strings.
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If you went back several decades, you'd find this shabby newspaper defending the Viet fiasco with similar silly rhetoric.
RMN has never seen a war it didn't like.

 
A DAY IN BAGHDAD: Iraqis blown up by terrorist bombs meant for GIs; some criticize terrorists, but an old man says, "If Yanks weren't here, none of this would happen!" Crowd agrees./ Long lines for petrol / explosions that aren't reported / flickering electricity /kids kidnapped, raped, or blown up. /Houses of innocent people kicked in by GIs. /
60% unemployment.
/ from Dahr Jamail, an independent U.S. reporter in Iraq
(cited in INFORMATIONCLEARINGHOUSE.INFO,30DEC)
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ANOTHER REPORT: After the bomb killed 2 Iraqis, one young man blamed the Americans: "Under Saddam we had security; now we're afraid to go to work. Under Saddam, the innocent didn't suffer." He knew this was a lie.
An older,educated man: "We were better off under Saddam. We weren't free, but you have brought us anarchy." [ A wise Arab proverb says, "A year under tyranny is better than a week under anarchy."]
Even an old Shiite woman cursed the Americans.
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It's the old story about any foreign occupying power: damned if you do and damned if you don't. /RobtFiskINDEPENDENT30dec.
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On Wed., another bomb kills/wounds many Iraqis in Baghdad;.oh well, no Americans killed (5 wounded though)--picture of crippled humvee. Wounds 'not life-threatening'--that leaves open the possibility of crippled, blinded, or brain-injured soldiers.) /CNN31DEC
In Basra, a Korean killed. /SanFranciscoChronicle32DEC
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Let us never forget: it was the lies of the foolish, reckless, ruthless Bush-team that got us into this impossible situation. And it is the desperate face-saving of these people that keeps us there.

 
WHY DO WE IGNORE THE WOUNDED?
The Pentagon tells us that over 400 GIs have died during our Iraq war/occupation, and that about 2500 have been 'wounded'. (Army spokesmen announcing wounded always say the wounds are 'stable' or 'non-life-threatening'. That allows for GIs being blinded, crippled, etc.)
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However, on being asked directly by United Press, the Pentagon admitted that 11,000 troops have been air-evacuated from Iraq to America, suffering from bone injuries, surgery, brain problems, heart-illness, mental problems and the like.
(UPI19DEC)
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The injuries among these 11,000 evacuated would likely be serious; slight injuries would be treated in Iraq, not evacuated.
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Of the injuries examined at Walter Reed Hospital, 62% involve some brain injury, (perhaps a fate worse than death).
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One reason the death-rate is so low, compared to injuries: the soldiers (in unarmored humvees running over roadside bombs) wear body-armor, which protects the torso but not the head and limbs. Advanced helmets would help protect brains, but they're issued only to the Rangers. /ABCNEWS14DEC
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When people tell pollsters the war has been 'worth it', they're not thinking of the full costs of war, including soldiers losing arms, legs, eyes, faces--or spending years in veterans hospitals withbrain injuries.
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PENTAGON CENSORING NEWS ABOUT DEAD, WOUNDED: Pentagon has forbiden TV from showing coffins coming back from Iraq--understanding well that SEEING corpses return would make the real costs of this war VIVID to Americans.

Even more so, Pentagon is keeping word about MAIMED/WOUNDED from the people. For instance: how do they get away with saying only 2500 were wounded, when UPI [19DEC] was told that over ELEVEN THOUSAND have been medic-evacuated ?!
(They won't tell what proportion are SERIOUSLY wounded, but presumption is that slight wounds would be treated in Iraq, not evacuated.)

Also, this outrageous bit: The DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS assn. is chartered by Congress to help wounded vets in our home hospitals.
They interview vets and make sure they understand the benefits available to them. For 83 years they've had unlimited access to these wounded GIs. But now (for instance at Walter Reed Hospital) they have to get permission to talk to the wounded, and they are limited in the info they can gather (e.g., on the NATURE OF THE WOUNDS) !/ USNEWSWIRE7JAN. /They're counting on Americans' comfortable assumption that 'wounded' means 'scratched', not 'crippled, blinded or brain-injured'.

 
SOME ALLY! Thomas Friedman says Poland is our best ally in Europe. They have 2400 troops in Iraq--BUT 75% OF POLES OPPOSE THIS COMMITMENT! /NYT30DEC
The Poles are more sensible than the Americans; they ask themselves "What do WE have to gain or to lose by what happens in Iraq?"
If public opinion in 'our best ally' is like this, imagine what the other Europeans think of our adventure !
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Some Bulgarian soldiers were killed by Iraq guerillas. Now 500 more were to be sent in to replace those there now. but THIRTY REFUSED TO GO! /AgenceFrancePresse3Jan

The Bushies pretend that other nations support our Iraq caper. True, we can bribe/threaten a few governments to 'join in'. But the PEOPLE in those countries disagree: e.g.,huge super-majorities in 'allies' like Spain, Italy, Japan, Britain. Bush has turned most people in almost every nation against us.

 
BRITISH SUCCESS IN BASRA: The Brit troops are controlling Southern (Shiite) area near Basra, and little guerilla violence has happened there. One Brit general explained their [so-far, relative] success: "We talk to the locals. My men have learned a few words of Arabic." /Guardian29DEC
In the American sector (admittedly home to the enraged Sunnis) and even in the Polish/Bulgarian (Shiite)sector (around Kerbala) things are not going so well. Could the difference be the simple effort of the Brits to learn some of the language and make some effort to talk to the natives?

 
KURDS MAKE HARD DEMANDS: The Kurdish minority in No.Iraq have been running their own affairs for years (while U.S. stopped Saddam from interfering with them.)
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Now the puppet Council is sketching proposals for the new interim constitution for Iraq. The Kurds on the Council are demanding a veto on any Baghdad military operations in their area--(in other words, semi-autonomy), and concessions about territory and oil-revenues.
The other members of the Council say, "Nothing doing!" The Kurds say that if they DON'T get good concessions, they'll hold a refrendum for seceding from Iraq. /FinTimes28DEC
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Kurds and Arabs have already battled (several dead) in streets of Kirkuk. /PBS31DEC (Saddam 'Arabized' Kirkuk, the oil city; now the Kurds want it back. Another street-battle on 2 Jan.
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It was obvious all along to most observers--but NOT to the Bush team!--that only a harsh dictator like Saddam could hold together the 3 disparate cultures in Iraq: the Kurds, the Sunni Arabs, and the Shiites. (The situation is similar to that in the old Yugoslavia; once the tyrant Tito died, the country broke into bloody warring factions.)

One suspects that the end-result will be 3 separate nations rising out of Iraq, with bloody conflicts over the oil. This solution might come with or without a civil war...but the American Bremerites will be helpless to manage the situation..everyone knows they're going to bug out next summer (strangely leaving our GIS still there to serve as sitting ducks!)

 
HOW'S IT COMING IN AFGHANISTAN? Opium prod. is almost as high as it was before Taliban banned it.
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Rumsfeld wanted to save U.S. troops for Iraq adventure, so only 10,000 U.S. troops in Afgh., plus 5000 foreigners. (Afgh pop. (20 million) almost as large as Iraq's(25 million). 40 of our 'coalition' forces killed (higher percentage than in Iraq). U.S. has 'subcontracted' battle vs. Taliban to warlord/druglords. (When Kharzai wanted to fire 4 or 5 'governors' who were actually running their areas independently of Kharzai, U.S. stopped him.)
U.S. claims of '400 Taliban killed' are dubious: 'killed' by airstrike or by our lying warlord allies.
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UN official says, "There's palpable risk that Afgh. will be a failed state, run by druglords & narcoterrorists."
Taliban controls 2.5 provinces at night.
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Predictions: No real election (internationally accepted) in 2004./
U.S. bugs out in 3 years. Taliban back in power in 5 years. /columnist in SALT LAKE CITY TRIBUNE29dec.
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Pashtun Afghanis accepted prudish tyranny of Taliban as a better alternative than warlord-anarchy. They'll likely accept it again.
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U.S. HALTS ITS OFFENSIVE: 2000 GIs, plus airplanes, were 'attacking' Taliban in Afgh. Reuters reporter said they 'hadn't managed to pin down the foe'. They did however, inadvertently kill 15 children.
Earlier, U.S. said it was going to cut offensive actions, and use troops to protect reconstruction projects. Then, apparently, Army reverted to its favorite strategy , "THUMP 'EM!" Generals questionablyascribed to this offensive the facts that the constitional convention in Kabul was not much impeded, (a few explosions in Kabul, harming no one, and 5 Afghan intelligence agents blown up ) and that the Kabul/Kandahar highway was completed. /Reuters30Dec
We'll see if Taliban attacks diminish after this latest rage-outburst by our generals.
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UPDATE: CONSTITUTION ADOPTED: After nearly breaking up, the convention approved a constitution by a huge majority standing.
We hear there was some compromise on Kharzai/U.S. insistence on a strong President, and some other issues. We'll see when we get the details.
U.N. official says the charter is worthless as long as Afghanis don't feel safe. /REUTERS4JAN.

 
BIOTERROR? HO-HUM! Authorities say we are far from prepared to face a bioterror attack, about which AlQaeda has shown great interest.. Congress appropriated $6 billion over ten years for countering bioterror..that's just over half-a-billion each year, equal to 14 hours of $ shovelled to Pentagon.
However, Republican Congress hasn't yet 'authorized the implementation' of this program. /nyt28dec

Oh well, no hurry!

 
BREMERITE NEOCONS IN FULL FLIGHT: Bremer was picked as a super-advocate of PRIVATIZATION (selling off Iraq's state firms quickly to private owners). Now all talk of privatization is silenced; Bremerite regime WILL end next summer; "Noone wants it extended."
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Privatization would mean increasing number of irate jobless--one Iraqi official who suggested this was promptly shot.
Also, closed Baghdad Airport (with shoulder-missiles bringing down two large planes) means that no private investors are likely to show up!
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Bremer had also insisted that the new constitution be written while he is still in power, with HIS HAVING A VETO! Now the power will be switched to 'transitional govt' BEFORE the constitution is written..this might very well mean that Shiites (60/70% of Iraq population) will control constitution-writing.
Bremerites intended to disband Kurdish, Shiite militias. Not any more.
/WashPost28DEc
'Sunni Triangle' will get screwed--so they will likely fight on as guerillas.
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A puzzle: all U.S. authorities agree that U.S. troops will remain even after 'transitional govt.' is set up. That means that U.S. casualties will continue to be reported each week; Gen.Sanchez: "U.S. casualties will continue as long as we're there." But that's the main political drawback (in election-year) of our remaining. What's going on?
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Perhaps desperate Bush-team dream that 'transitional govt' (with our troops still there) will pacify the Iraqis so guerilla attacks on GIs will cease !
Instead, Iraq could face a full civil war (Kurds --& perhaps Shiites-- against central govt, or Sunnis against Shiite Govt.) That hardly seems calculated to make GIs safer ! (A Kurdish journalist says he hopes the new constitution will allow for SECESSION !)

 
A RIDICULOUS 'CONVERSATION' WITH A DEAD PHILOSOPHER
(letter to NYTIMES)
David Brooks admits (27Dec) that the famous conservative philosopher Oakeshott would not have approved of our trying to remake Iraq; but he says the condition of Iraq was so disastrous that we just had to intervene. (He admits we don't really know what we're doing in Iraq; we're improvising.)
COMMENTS:
First--in other disastrous societies (say, in Africa where hundreds of thousands have perished in civil wars, where some rulers have eaten some subjects) we have not felt compelled to intervene.
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Secondly--Brooks admits that our Iraq effort will take years. And Gen.Sanchez has said we will face GI casualties as long as we stay there. Why would Americans accept this bleeding for years when the average American has nothing to gain or lose from what happens in Iraq? Why should they accept it?
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Whatever the real motivation for the invasion/occupation, all the pretended reasons have evaporated. We didn't save the world from Iraqi super-weapons; we didn't wipe out a long-time ally of bin Laden; and now we're probably not successfully installing a stable, peaceful, democratic (i.e., pro-American) government in Iraq--or even gaining U.S. control over the 'sea of oil' under Iraq. (We have revenged the Sharonists against an open enemy of their regime--whatever that's worth to Americans--though our invasion hasn't made Israel a safer place to live.)
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Sensible Oakeshott would laugh at Brooks' presumptuous attempt to justify a completely nutty project.

 
SOUTHERN BAPTISTS LUSTING TO DIE CONVERTING IRAQ!
Incredibly, Southern Baptists intend to send missionaries to Iraq. /internatlMissionBoard5Dec'03.
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Consider the background: Osama bin Laden is telling world Muslims that the invasion of Iraq is part of a 'new Crusade' by Christians against World Islam. (They're still sulking over the Crusades, hundreds of years ago! Most Americans would have to go look them up.)
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Conversion away from Islam is a capital crime in Muslim countries (and with 60/70% of Iraqis being Shiite, Iraq will soon be a Muslim country.)
The final frill: Iraqis are or will be aware that Geo.W.Bush is a Texas born-again evangelical. closely allied with Southern Baptists.(one of their favorite people--he dared spend only 2.5 hours in Iraq, speaking to no Iraqis)
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Iraqi Muslims have got along for centuries with Chaldean Catholics--but Southern Baptists? C'mon! (You can bet they've been made aware of the U.S. fundamentalists who have described Islam as a DEVILISH cult. )
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A Martian would find black humor in this; a human will foresee wholesale martyrdom for the missionaries and a tragic escalation of the 'battle of civilizations' (that 'civilization' title is too flattering; as someone has said, it's actually a battle of rival Fundamentalisms: bin Laden (jihad/martyr-murderer) version of Islam, 'Holy Land Legacy' fanatic Zionists, and Protestant American born-agains.)

 
THE OTHER DEFICIT: We are of course worried about our Federal Govt.Deficit. But we should also be aware of our huge Trade Deficit, now approaching 5% of our GDP. This is our largest % Deficit in 'history' (since back in 19th century). It is the largest % deficit in any major country since Italy's in 1924--and Mussolini took over immediately after that.
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So what? Our assets are increasingly owned by foreigners. Central Bankers in Asia could sell $s suddenly, causing a plunge in $ value (Bush people want the $ to sink, but gradually.) Prices of imported goods would soar; interest rates would soar (also mortgage rates); our dollar would be less powerful to finance Iraq 'reconstruction' (and few other nations intend to contribute much to that cause!) /Eamon Fingleton18DEC (author of several books on Commerce, praised--he says--by various experts.

 
HAPLESS IRAQI WOMEN: (letter to RMNEWS)
Your 2-page story (26Dec) on the plight of women in our 'new Iraq' was scary. The Shiites (60% or 70% of the population) do not hold women's rights in high regard. Under secular Saddam, women were not much more unfree than men: they could be educated, have careers, pray with the men, even swim with the men. Under our endorsed Muslim rule, they will likely be returned to medieval serfdom. (The same problem holds in our other colony, Afghanistan--except that Afghani women have always been held down.)
And under the anarchy our regime has allowed in Iraq so far, women are especially unsafe. One correspondent said, "Before, women were raped by Saddam's sons; now they're raped by everyone."
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For one Iraqi woman's 'on the spot' report on women's status in Iraq now, read
RIVERBENDBLOG.BLOGSPOT. COM
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Two things to remember: a) our government should have foreseen this problem before they invaded; (b) women are 50% of the Iraq & Afghani populations; their welfare is a key test of whether we succed in installing 'democratic, pluralist' regimes in our colonies.

 
GUERILLAS' CAPABILITIES:
Eleven Thousand of our Iraqi police were guarding Baghdad on NewYear'sEve, along with U.S. troops on 'High Alert'.Still, a car-bomber managed to wreck an obvious target, a cafe frequented by Iraqi rich and by foreigners--the attack killing 8 and wounding many others. (2 other attacks). /FinTimes31DEC (8 Americans wounded /Guardian31DEC)
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Guerillas set off 8 explosions in Baghdad on Xmas A.M., penetrating U.S. HQ compound,damaging the famed Sheraton and several embassies but killing no Americans.
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More than fourteen GIs killed since Saddam was caught (thru 28Dec); many maimed or wounded. This after our generals were bragging that the guerillas now go after Iraqis because our GIs are guarded so well.
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Many Iraqis were killed, maimed, or wounded. (U.S. doesn't bother to keep a count of these!)
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Altogether, in Shiite Karbala on Saturday, 22 people were killed, 180 people were injured, including 24 'coalition troops'--including some GIs, /SanFranciscoChronicle27Dec
/CNN30DEC.
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RobertFisk suggests that the guerillas hope that this atrocity in Karbala will enrage Polish & Bulgarian troops to react nastily against Karbala citizens, and thus recruit Shiites to the guerilla cause. (These troops are worse off than the Americans; some Iraqis speak English---noone can communicate with Poles or Bulgarians! The Polish troops' morale can't be much helped by news that 75% of their countryment OPPOSE THIS COMMITMENT /T.Friedman, NYT30DEC. )
(If Shiites join the guerillas in large numbers,the occupation is doomed.) /INDEPENDENT28DEC.
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This at a time when U.S. was laying on extra security, and after Saddam's capture.
U.S. General said, "Small, loosely coordinated cells of insurgents seem to be involved. It doesn't take many people to do damage like this."
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[Ironically, while the guerillas were bombing one part of Baghdad, we were bombing another part--in Operation Iron Grip.]
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Generals say that the guerilla attacks on civilians are rising because we're protecting GIs better--but the attacks on our convoys continue, and GIs continue to be wounded (39 killed in December/ 8 wounded on NewYearsEve.)

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In Afghanistan, guerillas set off 3 explosions in Kabul (the only place we're really guarding) in the last week. Two were harmless, but the latest one damaged a U.N. building. (UN people are forbidden to walk on streets of Kabul; UN threatens to pull out of Afgh. altogether.) /
On 28Dec, a suicide bomber in Kabul blew himself up along with 5 Afghan police. /CNN28Dec
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The wars drag on, and we're not winning.
Bush-team should have foreseen this unwinnable type of guerilla war BEFORE they decided to invade and occupy these countries. ]

 
HILARY & ELEANOR: For some strange reason, many otherwise-normal men tend to froth at the mention of Hilary Clinton--(who, after all, spent more time in Iraq than 'W' did.)
Old guys like myself remember that Eleanor Roosevelt mysteriously roused similar hatred.(Both of these First Ladies had independent minds and personalities, unlike sweet Laura Bush).
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Mrs.Roosevelt told this story on herself: "I was flattered when someone named a rose after me; but then in the catalogue I saw its description: "No good in a bed, but fine up against a wall."
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Eleanor's years-long publication of a syndicated newspaper column angered her detractors even more; and Hilary's spectacular world-wide publishing success with her memoirs will likely have a similar effect.
Also enraging is Hilary's scoring year after year as 'the most admired woman in America."

 
PENTAGON GENEROSITY: The good news: Donations to airlines are helping Iraq GIs on leave get to their homes. Bad news: Pentagon is NOT paying fares home for these combat veterans. (Earlier we heard that wounded GIs had to pay for their hospital food**, that wounded were living under bad conditions in army hospitals hereUPI17OCT] , and that
GI families were sending their sons equipment to supplement defective equipment provided by Pentagon. e.g. 'flak-jackets' were not reinforced vs. bullet-holes/
GIs had to use captured Kalashnikovs instead of their own inadequate rifles.
Staggering news: We shovel $401,000,000,000 to Pentagon each year, besides $1 bn per week for Iraq caper.
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Here's a repeat of a similar story I ran on 5 Dec:
SHAMELESS! Here are pieces of a spectacular story:
--In Gulf War I, some GIs were captured by Saddam and TORTURED in awful ways.
--There is a small fund of Iraqi money in U.S. frozen by our government.
--A U.S.law says that Americans can sue 'terrorist' governments for injuries they've suffered.
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--These vets sued under this law, and a judge said this money should go to the tortured veterans.
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BACKGROUND: The money involved in this case equals TWO HOURS of Pentagon money.
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--The Bush-team APPEALED the judge's award to the vets, saying "the plight of the vets can't be allowed to hinder foreign policy" [2 hours of Pentagon $ ! ]; the money must go for 'Iraq reconstruction' (i.e., to the Pentagon, for spending that is not really accounted for). The Bushies will win the appeal, on the technicality that the Saddam government no longer exists to be sued. /DenverPost4Dec
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After 9 months of GIs being blown up in convoys, only 1 in 12 'humvees' are armored. /NYT25DEC
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One father of Iraq GI (himself a veteran) said: "The Pentagon cares for its troops as Tyson cares for its chickens."
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**Now there's word that Congress later reversed this rule about wounded paying for their hospital food. But the Pentagon TRIED to get away with it.

 
BUREAUCRAT SAYS THEIR SACRIFICE IS WORTH IT: Sec.Brownlee, in Iraq, told this to GIs...their reaction is not recorded. Once again he repeated the tired old, absurd formula. "You're fighting terrorists here INSTEAD OF in America." /BostonGlobe24Dec.
This sounded especially hollow just at the time when Bushies tell us that [in spite of the fighting in Iraq!]an attack on our Homeland 'equal to 9/11' is now a very real possibility.
This can't be said too often: whatever happens in Iraq will have NO EFFECT on the danger to our Homeland from terrorists. From that point of view, the sufferings of our Iraq GIs are completely pointless.

 
EARLY PEACENIKS: The first peacenik in recorded history was probably Thersites, the low-class slob in ILIAD who said sensibly, "What the hell are we doing, risking our lives and living in tents, just to grab back MENELAUS' wife ? ! " Odysseus silenced Thersites by whacking him with the side of his sword; he couldn't understand that the war was for GLORY, not for Helen.
The second peacenik, oddly, was Achilles. At first, he was all for military GLORY: he said that a short, noble life was better than a long ignoble one. But then when Agemmemnon stole Achilles' prize-girl, the arch-hero reflected that the allocation of glory and prizes depended on political power, not on actual merit**--so he and his minions intended to sit out the war.
But then Hector killed Patroclus, Achilles' bosom friend--this sent Achilles back into battle in a mad rage, which wasn't even sated by Hector's death (he tried hard to defile the corpse). However, when he cooled down, Achilles said to old Priam, "Here I am, tormenting this old man when I'm not home to protect my own father!" And after his death, his shade appeared to Odysseus in ODYSSEY saying, "I'd rather be the lowest peasant on earth (the long ignoble life) than be King of the awful Underworld (the short 'noble' life)."
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Socrates (himself a war hero) later said [in GORGIAS] the unthinkable: that even killing in a just cause was not glorious, even though it might be necessary (like removing garbage). And of course Jesus rebuked Peter's violence by saying "He who lives by the sword will die by the sword." (Indeed, one Roman objection against Christians--before the sellout to Constantine--was their declining to serve as soldiers.)
And how could we forget the dauntless anti-war women in Aristophanes' LYSISTRATA !
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Later peaceniks were some English humanists in Tudor England. Henry V had 'conquered' France (just as we conquered Iraq), but then the English couldn't successfully OCCUPY France (again, just as..). Henry VIII, as goofy out of bed as he was in bed, spent his father's fortune on a futile attempt to retake at least a corner of France. Humanist scholars like Thomas More, Erasmus, Colet and Vives saw that war is folly [see THE BETTER PART OF VALOR, by Robt.P.Adams]. They noted that training young men to hunt big game was really training them to love war-killing. (Today we train our youths to love killing by addicting them to bloody computer-games.)
A French socialist peacenik (name?) almost persuaded French workers not to fight workers in other countries; but the war-mongers simply had him assassinated, so the folly of WWI could go on.
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Needless to say, none of these thoughtful worthies had much effect on stopping wars. But at least it is to the credit of the human race that some humans had the good sense to see through the false glamour of 'noble, heroic' bloodshed.
=============
** In Plato's SYMPOSIUM, Alcibiades tells how humiliated he was when he, as a noble, was given the heroism award actually earned by Socrates, the commoner.
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And Falstaff in his famous CATECHISM OF HONOR points out that military glory depends on a fickle, often misinformed audience; so he'll have none of the 'grinning Honor' of the dead noble he sees before him.
--------------------
In Shakespeare's TROILUS & CRESSIDA, heroic Hector tells the Trojan leaders that they're foolish to fight and risk their city just to keep that slut Helen. Hot-blooded, dumb young Troilus answers that the point is GLORY.
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(In a French version of the Trojan war story, Hector is told by the priests that their reading of goose-entrails means the war must go on.
Hector muses, "I'd like to read the entrails of some priests." This is a VERY French version.)

 
OPERATION 'LOSING OUR GRIP': Our current 'Operation IRON GRIP' involves bombarding BAGHDAD ( ! ) with planes & artillery, trying to wipe out guerilla hideouts before they can launch their increased attacks on us during the Christmas season. Of course that assumes (a) that we can identify such hideouts, (b) that we couldn't strike at them with infantry, and (c) that these bombardments can avoid killing civilians during such raids, and thus recruiting enraged relatives into supporting the guerillas. Dubious assumptions. (Even tame Tony Blair is beginning to object to our crude destruction.)
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Is OPERATION IRON GRIP working to prevent attacks? 3 GIS were killed in one attack Wednesday; 4 Iraquis killed in another attack on a building used by our allies. 5 GIs killed in 24 hours, Dec.25-6. Many maimed or wounded in each attack. /WashPost24DEC.
Correspondents interviewing Baghdad citizens are told that the Iron Grip will not kill or scare off the guerillas. /Reuters26DEC
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Our sole strategy is THUMP 'EM (if THUMP 'EM can be called a strategy).

 
HUGE COP-OVERTIME BILL: It's expected that the new ORANGE ALERT will cost $1 billion a week and run perhaps through January. Much of the cost will be for overtime costs for law-enforcement personnel.
The feds have NOT subsidized regular extra policemen--the subsidy just ran out, and some strapped cities have started laying off policemen!
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The strategy seems to be this: don't pay for regular heightened preparedness--but then go all-out when our intelligence agencies say there is now a BIG threat (announcement based on overheard chatter from 'terrorist supporters'.)
We've have several ORANGE ALERTS that were false alarms. The terrorists know we're listening in. Why couldn't they fake such chatter, just to trigger such false alarms? (Especially now that they know that such alarms cost us $1 bn. a week!)
Eventually, no one will pay much heed to the 'feds who cried wolf'; that's when the attack may come--or it might come when there is a low level of alert.
Given the blundering of our intelligence agencies before 9/11, we should probably pay for a high regular level of preparedness, NOT leaning too heavily on our special alerts. But as noted below, we can't afford this regular preparedness. Nutty government.

 
NOTHING WILL WORK VERY WELL! BUT...(letter to DenverPost)
----------------------
Bob Strong's letter (23DEC) uses a familiar hawk line: You don't like the Iraq war as countering terrorism. Well, what remedy would you suggest? If you can't come up with a workable alternative counter to terrorism, your criticism should be ignored.
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Imagine an island threatened by a smoking volcano. The priests say we should throw in a few virgins to appease the volcano god. Old people say that this method has not worked in previous crises. The priests say, "Well, what method would YOU use? If you can't name an alternative way to prevent an eruption, shut up!"
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In sad fact, there IS NO SATISFACTORY ALTERNATIVE WAY to completely dodge terrorist attacks! That doesn't change the fact that our Iraq fiasco is a goofy, counter-productive way to protect our Homeland from terrorism.
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We will face thousands of enraged, often clever fanatics, from all over the world, for years, who think God will reward them if they die killing Americans. They are INDIVIDUALS, organized into decentralized cells, so it won't help to bomb NATIONS.(It's hard for self-confident Americans to face these grim facts.)
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The best we can do is to 'harden'
as many as possible of our obviously vulnerable 'soft targets'--for instance, our 104 nuclear waste-ponds, or the thousands of huge ship-containers coming into our ports, uninspected, each day.
And then we must repair or heal after those attacks that get through. For possible bioterror attacks, we need to recruit and train thousands of new medical technicians and nurses immediately.
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All this would cost tens or hundreds of billions of dollars. But we are immensely wealthy and resourceful; IF we keep our heads, we can survive.
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The main reason we're not taking these obvious precautions is because we 'can't afford' them: not with the Bush tax-cuts for the wealthy, not with $1 billion every week for our Iraq adventure--not with more than $1,100,000,000 being shovelled to the Pentagon each DAY. But only these costly precautions would even mitigate the dangers we inevitably face.

 
SPIES AMONG US! Pentagon admits that we haven't been able to screen well the recruits into our 'Iraqi Army & Police-Forces'. So some Saddamites may have infiltrated. That means we may have spies in our alllied ranks.
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Robt.Fisk, the renowned Brit correspondent in Iraq, says the well-orchestrated attacks in Kerbala must have relied on spies in our police-force tipping off the guerillas about when a Bulgarian colonel would be arriving. /INDEPENDENT29DEC
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Common-sense says: Of course you didn't screen recruits well;
HOW COULD YOU, when you don't even speak the language! (If you rely on Iraqi 'allies' to do the screening, there could be Saddamite spies pretending to screen out Saddamite spies!)
===============
The White House now admits that the number of troops may NOT be lowered next year. /BostonGlober23Dec. /
(The question is, where are they going to get the replacements for present haggard GIs? One doubts that enlistments/reenlistments will be high.They might have to pull out GIs stationed in Okinawa, Korea, Germany, etc.) One French paper said it was told by a D.C. source that 1700 GIs have already deserted!

 
EXCITING HOLIDAYS: Feds raised terror-alert to ORANGE; new security measures might cost $1 billion per week, (as much as our Iraq adventure)--perhaps till February. The heightened precautions were because of 'specific, reliable, credible' danger-information; and Washington & New York City were cited as likely targets.
However, Gov. Pataki admonished: "Get out and enjoy the season. Go to restaurants, see the shows..there's no more exciting or better place!" /CNN23DEC / Well, certainly EXCITING!
After all, if people stay home and don't spend, that means the terrorists will have won!
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Two thoughts:
Our Iraq invasion was supposed to make U.S. safer from terrorists. Bush even said it again!( in interview with Diane Sawyer): "Saddam's removal means that U.S. is more secure!" MORE SECURE THAN WHAT? /
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It's too bad, with such huge extra Home-Security expenses, that we couldn't cut something from the more than $1,100,000,000 per DAY that we shovel to the Pentagon. Oh, never mind; we'll just add it all to the Deficit!

 
PERSPECTIVE ON THE INVASION/OCCUPATION: David Hirst (analyst for GUARDIAN, in 23Dec issue) says that by Oct., CIA said there were 50,000** insurgents fighting against us!
Bushies had pretended that Saddam was working with AlQaeda, so toppling him would weaken terrorists worldwide. Instead, the invasion inspired terrorists to strike at SaudiArabia, Morocco, Indonesia and Turkey, not just Iraq.--also 2 close-calls for our puppet in Pakistan. (And now feds say U.S. Homeland is in worst danger from terrorists since 9/11 !)
Hirst notes Bush backdown allowing quick return to Iraq 'sovereignty' (with U.S. Army still remaining in control--who'll be fooled by that?)
-------------------
**Could this number be a misprint? Other sources have guessed at 5000 guerillas. That is obviously enough; they have made enormous trouble.

 
SMALL CONTRIBUTION: The collective European Union contributed only $10 million to reconstruct Iraq (under U.S. control). /GUARDIAN23dec /It's said that $55 BILLION is needed! Their attitude seems still to be, "YOU BROKE IT, YOU BOUGHT IT!"

 
GULF STATES WON'T DEAL WITH OCCUPIER: Russia, France, and Germany have in some sense agreed to forgive some of the debts that Iraq owes them. But the Gulf States (owed $81 billion!) have sensibly refused to negotiate with the U.S. occupier or its puppet Council. They say they'll wait to deal with a sovereign Iraq government, when that appears. /FinTimes23Dec

 
KOREA: THE MOST DANGEROUS PLACE ON EARTH:
USATODAY(23dec) ran a full page on the danger of war in Korea. Only in a few lines did the article acknowledge that N.Korea is asking for a real guarantee that WE won't attack THEM ! (And the Bush-team is refusing to give such a guarantee.)
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Throughout the rest of the article, it sounded as if South Korea were terrified of being attacked by N.K.'s awesome troops and armament. In fact, S.K. is trying to build railway lines up to the North, to prepare for peaceable reunion. S.K. is really terrified by Rumsfeld and Cheney, who are panting to nuke N.K. (Cheney just vetoed negotiations.)
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Bush and his handlers have been hurling insults at Premier Kim of N.K. for several years now, trying to provoke him into striking first (devastating Seoul and slaughtering the 40,000 Yanks stationed in S.K.), to justify their nuking. (It's really unusual for one Head of State to continually hurl personal insults at another Head of State!)
So far, Kim has seen through their little tricks; it looks as if they'll have to bomb and invade N.K. 'preemptively', if at all. (Even then, they won't be able to destroy N.K's nuclear plants, which are hidden away deep under mountains; N.Koreans are the world's champion tunnelers.)
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The puzzle is WHY the Bush-team would want to destroy N.Korea ! The place has no oil to covet. The best guess is this: Bushies' goofy imperial plans rest on our intimidatingother countries by our ability to wipe out any nation in a day with our nukes.
But many countries (the 8 nuclear powers) already have a '2d-strike deterrent': they can tell us: "If you nuke us, our survivors can destroy or at least maim the vulnerable U.S. homeland FROM OUR GRAVE."
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North Korea is moving quickly--or is already there--to become such a nuclear power. Our imperialists are apparently worried that IF N.K. 'gets away with it', then Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea will also want to join China,Russia, India and Pakistan in the Asian Nuclear Club.
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Till now, we've kept these nations helpless, 'sheltered under our nuclear umbrella'. Now they've lost trust in our good-will (after all, we're willing to have our supposed client, S.Korea, devastated !) We'll have to face it: practically every country will develop a way to MAIM our Homeland (most cheaply, by war-germs) in order to deter this Rogue Elephant America from intimidating them with its imperial threats.
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Our imperial intent was revealed in Bushie document of Sept.'02 that said we'll feel free to launch a preemptive attack on ANY NATION THAT EVEN TRIES TO CATCH UP WITH US IN WEAPONS! We say to other nations: "We have you now at our mercy; we intend to keep you there !"This has been American doctrine for decades; but as hawk Brent Scowcroft noted, it wasn't very bright of the Bushies to proclaim it openly!
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During the Viet war, some hawks actually said that we should stay in Vietnam PRECISELY BECAUSE THE ENTERPRISE WAS CRAZY. That's called 'playing the CRAZY CARD', scaring your foes by pretending (or showing) that you're a little crazy. Perhaps the Cheney/Rumsfeld crowd want to nuke North Korea just to show other nations that we're crazy, as well as awesomely armed. That might increase our power to intimidate.
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America is now the rampaging danger to the world; other nations will undoubtedly unite to resist us. Even Tony Blair, they say, is turning against Bushie craziness.

 
ANTIAIRCRAFT PRECAUTIONS: We're told that antiaircraft sites are being installed in D.C. to shoot down any planes that threaten our government.
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Our skies are full of unregulated small planes, which are easy to steal.We have 104 nuclear power plants; their waste ponds could easily be attacked by small planes filled with explosives--releasing enormous amounts of radioactivity. In fact people within 10 miles of these plants are advised to keep potassium iodide [countering radioactive damage] in their medicine cabinets just in case.
You'd think that each of these waste-pond sites would also be protected by anti-aircraft forces. But no, that would be too expensive.
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This is just one example of the many obvious ways our Homeland is vulnerable to terrorist attacks--vulnerabilities we can't afford to counter--
not when we're shovelling well over $1,100,000,000 PER DAY to the Pentagon (for attacking other nations).

 
YEAH, BUT WHAT ABOUT JOBS? Reuters(23DEC) ran an article celebrating the spectacular rise in optimistic consumer sentiment, in gross income, in stock prices, in profits, and the fall in inventory (which predicts a need to increase output)...also about a rise in Bush's popularity--but not a word about any increase in JOBS !
Sensible people will ignore all that optimistic chatter, heeding only stories (if/when they finally appear) about more American jobs being offered.
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ONE NICE THING: Since large increases in aggregate demand don't seem to pay off with more jobs, we don't have to feel the OBLIGATION TO SPEND that is constantly preached to us.

 
IMPRESSIVE ARRESTS: We're constantly told about all the 'high-level insurgents' we're capturing. (e.g., Reuters23DEC) That's the equivalent of our constantly hearing, during the Viet war, about all the VC bodies that had been observed.
Back then, it turned out that there were plenty more live VCs around, enough to drive us out; ; and now readers would be sensible to ignore such arrest stories (we don't even know if the people arrested were really insurgent leaders!), heeding only stories [if/when they appear] that tell of a sharp drop in guerilla attacks against our troops or our Iraqi allies.

 
AUTOMATIC HAWK REACTION: (letter to RMNEWS )
J.Lewis' letter, denouncing the sensible Iraqi emigrant for criticizing our war there, was typical of prowar thinking:
Kazarooni said the war did not make America safer. That seems obvious, since we're just now told we're in imminent danger of an attack perhaps worse than 9/11.
Lewis completely changed the subject to praise our removal of Saddam. He's perfectly happy that we've got almost 500 GIs dead and 11,000 sick,maimed,or wounded just to get rid of Saddam.
Then, of course, he asks why Kazarooni doesn't go back to his homeland to help. The critique of our occupation on another page (by Iraqi leaders visiting in Denver) should illuminate that. Iraq as run by Americans is a disaster. Even now, ten Iraqis are being killed for every one American--often by unexploded cluster bomblets we dropped knowingly and ruthlessly--these are cute little gadgets that kill curious children. We haven't bothered to clear them out.
During the Viet war, hawks had bumper stickers telling doves to 'put your heart into America (i.e., agree with the hawks) or get your ass out." The hawks would like to get rid of everyone who disagrees with them. This won't happen, and after this folly is over, it will be clear that the dissenting doves were, once again, right.

 
MORBIDLY FASCINATING: 2 BLOGGERS IN BAGHDAD NOW:
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DEARRAED.BLOGSPOT.COM
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RIVERBENDBLOG.BLOGSPOT.COM

 
IRAQ OUTCOMES: The Natl. Intellgence Council (part of CIA) reports different possible outcomes:
--a democratic-like rule as in Lebanon now;
--Iraq becomes 'Switzerland-on-Tigris'' (different ethnic groups getting along comfortably)
or:
--an Islamic theocracy like Iran;
--a secular dictator (like Saddam but not so brutal); this would stabilize things, at least in short term;
--civil war, perhaps drawing in Turkey and Iran;
--3 nations..perhaps also drawing in Turkey and Iran to fight.

Any of the last 4 would count as U.S. failure. /WashTimes19Dec (a right-wing paper).
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Lyons has favored the 3-nations outcome, with our airforce warning Turkey and Iran and SaudiArabia that any visible intervention would be punished.

 
BLAIR/BUSH DUSTUP: It's said that Blair is furious at Bush a) because Bush won't let him visit Iraq during Christmas season (everyone else is!), and (b) because of the childish Wolfowicz memo saying that those who disapproved of the war can't bid on Iraq contracts now. (The Iraqis have signalled that once they have self-government, this nonsense will end.)
Also Blair has criticized the crude U.S. attacks on Iraq villages, which slaughter civilians and thus recruit supporters of the guerillas.
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Poor Blair is discovering how nasty the string-pullers can be to the puppet.
==========
INSPIRED ! An Iraqi woman has said that Saddam should be put in a huge kettle and then drowned in spit.

 
WHO'S LYING? Acc.to LONDON EXPRESS, the Kurdish Intelligence learned where Saddam was hiding, but the Americans talked them into having the arrest count as American. Either side might be lying (and the EXPRESS as well)--but it seems more intrinsically plausible that Kurdish intelligence would make the discovery than that Americans would.
Who cares? If Americans at home begin to think our intelligence in Iraq is better than it really is, they will be bitterly disappointed when the guerilla attacks continue.

 
NEW TERRORIST ATTACK? Even if a new attack is worse than 9/11, by itself it won't seriously injure U.S. But there are germs which don't harm the organism much--but they trigger an excessive immune reaction which destroys the organism. Similarly, another attack might trigger a rage/fear reaction from Americans that would shove them even further to the right..Gen.Tommy Franks says another attack would finish off our constitution, (i.e., trigger a dictator's taking over).
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The irony is that an effective attack might show the criminal neglect of the Bushies in defending our homeland from terrorists. The 9/11 commission says the Bushies were at fault in letting 9/11 happen; even so, it has moved Americans to the right and strengthened the Bushies' hold on America. No wonder they don't much care to prevent a second attack!

 
RUSSIA, FRANCE, GERMANY say they'll forgive large parts of their debt from Iraq..that is, IF Russia is in line to get its oil-contracts renewed. /Reuters22DEC
(Wolfowicz' banning of their competing for profits from $18 bn. U.S. aid is peanuts by comparison. That banning was intended to insult these countries, not to harm them.)
If the price of this debt-forgiveness is cutting these countries in on the oil-money, then it turns out that our invasion will NOT give us control over the oil, after all. And no one is going to want to help rebuild the oil industry till the Americans can stop guerillas from blowing up pipelines and oil-depots.

 
GUADAFFI HELPS BUSH? Libya's climbdown on MWDs has cheered up Bush-team hawks, helped Bush's reputation, and weakened Dean's candidacy. /INDEPENDENT20DEC
This effect might be weakened by the probability that 3 in 4 Americans have never heard of Libya.
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We won't know soon how much Guadaffi's climbdown was caused by his fear of Bushies' preemptive attack, and how much was caused by the effectiveness of our economic sanctions now to be lifted--now G. can call on 1st-world oil experts to help exploit Libya's huge oil wealth.
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POST HOC, BUT PERHAPS NOT PROPTER HOC: Libya's climbdown happened AFTER our Iraq invasion--but did it happen BECAUSE OF that invasion? Many experts doubt that. Libya was working to shed its 'rogue-state' identity for several years before the Bushies started huffing and puffing.
In fact, the terrific difficulty Bushies are having to digest their conquest in Iraq makes it very unlikely they have any resources left to strike at other countries. North Korea, for instance, has stiffened its spine since the huff/puff began. And the Bush-team offered incentives, not just threats, to Libya to get it to comply. /AssocPress22Dec

 
MORE OIL-ATTACKS: Rockets hit an oil-depot in Baghdad, burning 2.6 million gallons of oil. /Also, an AssocPress stringer saw 4 pipeline fires in Northern Iraq. /GUARDIAN20DEC/ Saddam's capture, so far, has not incapacitated the guerillas.
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VIOLENCE VS. IRAQ CIVILIANS has jumped in last week, from 1 or 2 attacks every other day to 21 last week. This could mean that Shiites are settling scores with known Baathists--but some Shiites have also been killed. Someone suggested that the guerillas want to turn Shiiites and Sunnis against each other, to block cooperation in forming a new government.
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25 of our policemen have been killed since Sunday./Assoc.Press22Dec/
Two GIs killed, many wounded. Perhaps it's more damaging that guerillas also killed one of our scarce TRANSLATORS! /Reuters22dec

 
MY SOURCES: Each day I skim NEWYORKTIMES and USATODAY (the frankest U.S. paper about our Iraq follies), also the 2 shoddy Denver papers. Then I go on-line to skim NEWS.GOOGLE, plus Brit papers FINANCIAL TIMES and DAILY TELEGRAPH (NOT liberal papers!) REUTERS, GUARDIAN, INDEPENDENT and OBSERVER.
I get good leads from TRUTHOUT.ORG and especially from
WWW.INFORMATIONCLEARINGHOUSE.COM (both of these agencies need financial help.)
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I don't pretend my pieces are balanced. Media like FOX sufficiently defend the Bush-team policies; I try to show the ruthless recklessness of these policies.

 
SADDAM WAS CRAZY, BUT...Before the invasion, hawks assured us that Saddam couldn't be CONTAINED (deterred from attacking other nations by the threat of devastating bombing by U.S.) because he was crazy. Never mind that he HAD been deterred for 10 years from striking back, even while our planes were attacking Iraq regularly, and imposing nasty sanctions that interfered with his selling of oil.
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Well, we found out that indeed he was not completely sane--but his craziness was NOT in the direction of ferocity. Instead, he let outsiders think he did have WeaponsofMassDestruction when in fact he didn't. (Even we doves back then assumed that he sensibly had enough WMDs to punish invaders--it was clear he didn't have enough to threaten the world.) It turned out he didn't even have the WMD capacity to punish invaders!
Bizarre; but no more bizarre than the Bush/Blair lies that he could attack U.S., that he could launch an attack in 45 minutes!

 
RUMSFELD AND SADDAM: We're hearing again from Bushies outraged stories about nasty Saddam gassing Kurds and Iranians all through 1980s.
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Publicly at the time, the Reagan Administration condemned the gassing; but then in '84, Secy.of State Schulz sent Donny Rumsfeld, with confidential instructions (JUST NOW REVEALED), to tell Saddam that the condemnation was a 'general' point, but would not interfere with a hoped-for alliance between U.S. and Saddam. The U.S. wanted to "improve bilateral relations with Iraq ..at a pace of Iraq's [Saddam's] choosing."
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Earlier this year Rummy said that he 'cautioned Saddam against use of gas'; there is absolutely no reason to think this true. Now his spokesman says only that he 'raised the gas issue' !
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The U.S. was selling poison chemicals and deadly germs to Saddam at the time. /WashPost19Dec./ Also INDEPENDENT24DEC.

 
MILLIONS, NOT BILLIONS TO COLORADO: cH.7 tv said that up to now,(over 2 years since 9/11/01) Colorado has received $330 million for 'homeland security'. Colorado population (5 million) is 1/60 of U.S. population (nearly 300 million). So one would guess that collectively, the states have received perhaps $20 billion in two years, $10 billion per year.
Sounds like a lot of money--but $10 billion per year--to all 50 states collectively, for defense vs. terrorists--is equal to less than TEN DAYS of money for the Pentagon, devoted mainly to weapons for attacking other countries.
Such priorities are just plain crazy.
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Today the feds have upped the security warnings again to 'ORANGE:SEVERE'.
Actually, with the states and cities underfunded as they are, there's little they can do to ward off the most likely forms of attack--what good does it do to 'cry wolf' again?
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Here's a possibility: that Alquaeda periodically makes feints toward an imminent attack, working toward the moment when federal warnings are ignored...that's when the atttack will take place..OR at a time when there are no special warnings at all.

 
ISRAELI TACTICS for countering guerillas are being adopted by U.S. in Iraq--but with one big difference. Israeli intelligence officers SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE as the Palestinians they are hunting down.
AMERICANS DO NOT SPEAK THE LANGUAGE OF THE PEOPLE THEY'RE INVESTIGATING!

 
ELEVEN THOUSAND GIs evacuated from Iraq (combat & non-combat) for bone injuries, surgery, brain problems, heart illness, mental problems, and the like. (This data revealed by Pentagon only when directly asked.)
/UnitedPressInternatl19DEC
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MICHAEL MOORE (whose writings are now in demand all over Europe as well as here) receives many letters from GIs home from Iraq or still in Iraq, expressing their disillusion over the war. Some let their name be used, in spite of threat of retaliation. / www.michaelmoore.com

 
THEY NEARLY GOT BREMER! A car-bomb nearly blew up our 'king'Bremer.
But U.S. spokesmen denied that showed that guerillas had good intelligence on our leaders' movements. The worry is that guerillas have infiltrated among Iraqis working for us--it's generally admitted now that they knew Wolfowicz was in that hotel when it was bombed.
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How could we 'vet' our hundreds of employees, accurately eliminating guerilla sympathizers, when our people don't even speak the language?
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Documents found with Saddam named many U.S. employees who were really in league with guerillas. For that matter, how do we know those documents named the real infiltrators?
In fact, as U.S. generals harp on the valuable info they're getting from these documents, I begin to doubt that such documents exist. Why would Saddam keep such documents on hand?
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One idea: half of our Iraqi soldier recruits quit over bad pay. Presumably they weren't infiltrators. We should look them up and recruit them again, at whatever pay is necessary!

 
NEEDED TRANSLATORS: The RMNEWS ran a story 19Dec about a vitally needed translator in Iraq (the only one available for a whole US Brigade!) He was raised in U.S., speaks Iraqi & English well. He notes that the guerillas are out to kill translators more than GIs, because without translators the soldiers are helpless. (In a recent ambush, a translator was wounded.)
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An earlier story told of an Iraqi scholar studying in U.S., who was recruited for the occupation. As a PhD in Polit.Sci., he thought he'd be a high-level advisor; but he ended up as a translator.
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All this reminds us of the incredible folly the Bush-team displayed in setting out to conquer and occupy a country when hardly any Americans speak the local language! (In 2000, long after we should have known the danger from alQuaeda, only 6 Americans majored in Arabic. And they didn't study Muslim culture. On 9/11/01, only 6 people in FBI understood Arabic.
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Now, finally, there are 10,000 Americans taking some Arabic course, probably on an elementary level--the language is difficult to learn ('worse than learning to fly an F-16')..how many will end up competent as translators? And how soon will they attain competence? It's said that often cab-drivers from America are recruited whose knowledge of English AND Arabic is vestigial.
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We have one general who speaks Arabic; but as I understand it, he's not stationed in Iraq!
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I imagine the situation is even worse in Afghanistan, where fewer natives speak English, and even fewer Americans speak the language [I'm a typical American; I don't even know what the language of Afghanis is called!]
Wait--the language of the largest Pashtun tribe is PASHTO. That and another language, DARI, will be the 2 official languages..smaller tribes with different languages, are resentful. /Reuters22Dec.
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America is not suited to be an imperial power!

 
FEROCIOUS, FELONIOUS NUNS: Update: 3 old nuns ennobled an obsolete ICBM by pouring their blood on it. A nutty Colorado jury convicted them of 'endangering the nation's Defence', a felony, and a nutty Colorado judge sentenced them to prison, where they may well die.
The nun who got the longest sentence (till Dec.05) also drew the nuttiest warders; they won't let her peacenik friends visit her ! because they 'don't want criminals in our prison visiting-room' !
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Sensible people might want to cheer them up by writing to them, so they see there are sane Americans also:
ARDETH PLATT #10857-039
Danbury FPC, Route 37 /Danbury, CT 06811
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CAROL GILBERT #10856-039
FPC Alderson-R1, Box A
Alderson, VW (or WV?) 24910

JACKIE HUDSON #08808-039
FPC Victorville, Box 5100
Adelante, CA 92301

 
VOTE/GENDER GAP: USATODAY(18dec) ran an enlightening article on male/vs./female voting patterns, correlating with different levels of education.
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--Among people with only high-school, both men and women tend (more than those with higher education) to vote Democrat. Poor, and unemployable or with jobs vividly at risk, these people sensibly vote their pocketbooks.

--Among people with some college or a Bachelor's degree, the women still sensibly vote Democrat--but the men [fondly dreaming they are financially secure] feel, by a large margin, they can afford to vote their glands, not their brains. The most likely explanation of their Republican preference is their resentment of pushy feminists, whom they see as having too much influence with Democrats.
Also they love SUVs, guns, and whooshing missiles that go BOOM! The bigger the vehicle, the more likely the driver is to give the finger to peace-demonstrators.

(Having taught at a 'semi-elite research university' for forty years, I can testify about men and women with a bachelor's degree or less--typical members of this group have low levels of reading comprehension, and probably don't read even a whole newspaper.)
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--The real change is with postgrad Americans. Here we presume they do and can read about national affairs. And even the postgrad men move somewhat away from the Republican column (58% down to 50%). The really-educated women realize the shameless conduct of Republican leaders and move sharply toward the Democrats (58% up from 48%).
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Two conclusions:
--Testosterone poisoning outweighs even partial education. In earlier years, some said that women shouldn't vote because of the excessive influence of their glands. Now it turns out that perhaps that could be said instead of men.

--The Democrats should give up on converting most men, and should concentrate on getting the half-educated women to see, as their really-educated sisters see already, the awful policies of today's Republican leaders.

 
INCREDIBLE ACCUSATION: Thos.Keane, Republican former Gov, appointed by Bush to head independent commission investigating 9/11 tragedy, says that the tragedy 'didn't have to happen', that it should have been prevented, and that he judges that some Bushies should be fired because they failed to prevent 9/11. /CBSNEWS17DEC
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Keane seemed to back down later, saying he was not saying there was proof that anyone high in the Clinton or Bush administrations were to blame..but what he said first was this: "There are people that, if I were doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time, because they failed."


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Some say that Bushies knew about the attack in advance. I doubt that, for this reason: on 9/12 the Bushies smuggled out many of binLaden family who were in U.S., not letting them be questioned. If Bushies had advance knowledge, they'd have got the binLadens out earlier.
That leaves stupid incompetence as the explanation.
(The best part of the story is of the Minnesota flying instructor, himself an ex-military pilot, who warned the FBI that a Middle-Eastern person wanted flight instructions, but was not interested in learning how to land!The FBI ignored his warning.)

 
IRAQIS KILLED: WHO GETS BLAME? Obviously some Iraqis blame the guerillas for killing so many of their countrymen. "I'd like to drink their blood," said a man whose daughter died in his arms. But how many? (During Ramadan month, there were 156 attacks on Iraqis.)
Bremerites say that more natives are turning in guerillas; but one official said, "It has not been a huge groundswell." There are clear limits on cooperation with U.S.: from fear about 'collaborating', or from anger at occupation crudities, or from sympathy with insurgents.
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24 attacks in 24 hours! /USATODAY19DEC/ Only 1 GI killed since S's capture. How many Iraqis killed? U.S. DOESN'T COUNT THEM.
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Some U.S. officials say the guerilla attacks killing Iraqis, paradoxically, are corroding confidence in U.S. mission. "Peace is duty of Americans," said one Iraqi; "America should make us safe."
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A man with several relatives wounded said that he would not turn in the bombers, if he knew them. "I don't want to cooperate with U.S.; they are occupiers."

An Iraqi policeman was blinded in such an attack. The Americans turned him away from treatment on his second visit. His brother said he would fight Americans; "They are liars; they do not keep their word." The blind man said, "They are liberators; but they break promises. We were good friends. I never thought they would let me down." /NYT17DEC
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A bomb destroyed the Baghdad HQ of the largest Shiite political party, which has been cooperating with the Americans. /Reuters19Dec/
Everyone suspected Saddamites: they want not just to threaten'collaborators'; they would also like to prevent peaceful cooperation among Sunnies and Shiites, which would make it more possible for Shiites (60% majority) to take some form of control of the country.
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Shiites may now compose SEVENTY PERCENT of Iraqi population. /NYT20DEC/ Let's hope they can dominate intelligently. One good thing, their ayatollahs are intelligent and literate. On the other hand, so are the Iranian ayatollahs--and they can't help tyrannizing./
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Iraqi police (whose stations get blown up by guerillas) blame U.S., for not protecting the stations, for forcing them to go on raids, for the contempt they meet as U.S. 'lackeys'. Says one: "The best the U.S.could do for Iraq is to pull out."/
U.S. general: attacks vs. GIs have gone down from 40 daily to 20.
/(Australia) Sydney Morning Herald20DEC

 
HYSTERICAL HYPE: Senator Bill Nelson said [reported in FLORIDA TODAY,17Dec] that just before the Senate vote approving an invasion last Fall, a Bushie told Senators (in a closed session) that NOT ONLY did Saddam have all kinds of germ-war weapons, HE ALSO COULD DELIVER THEM TO EASTERN U.S. (by unmanned drone planes)! Of course these drones could only fly a few hundred miles, but they could be launched from a tramp steamer.
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It was said that Rumsfeld has been worried about a missile being launched at us from a ship. So why are we spending $8 bn a year on anti-missile missiles (useful, if at all, only vs. launches from land)?
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The question remains: why would U.S. Senators BELIEVE such silly Bushie lies, when intelligent people from Europeans to the Pope saw through them?
Eugene McCarthy was an intelligent Congressman; he said that before he went to Congress, he assumed that our legislators said the silly things they did because they were cunning liars. Later he discovered, to his horror, that they actually BELIEVED the silly claims; they were mainly good people, he said, but INCREDIBLY DUMB !

 
BACKDOWN ON WMD'S: Brits' Blair backed down on saying the WMDs were still there, to be found; now he says,WELL, Saddam had them in 1992! /FinTimes17Dec.
Bush cavalierly said, "Well, he WANTED such weapons; what's the difference?"
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The point is, there was no reason to think in March that Saddam posed a real threat to the world. So the invasion was unjustified; as the Pope said at the time, it was 'unjust, illegal, and disastrous."

 
GIVE UP ON PIPELINE: The Northern Oil Pipeline to Turkey has been sabotaged often, last time this Sunday. The head of the oil agency has just said they're not even planning to move oil along that line any more, for the time being; he must be hoping that the guerillas won't waste time with more sabotage. /Reuters17DEC

 
NEW MCGOVERN, NEW NIXON: /Letter to DenverPost/
A cartoon on 15DEC showed a guy sneering that Howard Dean is like George McGovern: a loser. This cartoon might give good advice for 'anyone-but-Bush' Democrats; they should choose
the candidate most likely to win.
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However, the cartoon is really an indictment of American voters. George McGovern was a combat veteran who opposed, correctly, the Vietnam fiasco. The electorate instead chose to reelect Richard Nixon, a liar and a criminal, who had to resign (or be impeached) during his second term. His successor had to bug-out of Vietnam in the most disgraceful way.
If Dean is a second McGovern, Bush is a second Nixon, or worse. If the voters go for Bush again, that shows they have learned nothing in thirty years.
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In a kingdom of blind men, the one-eyed man is king; however, in a kingdom of one-eyed men, the two-eyed man--with a sense of perspective--is suspect.

 
POPE repeats swipe at U.S. over Invasion: In his Peace message, he said defensive war was just only within the context of international law (i.e., with UN approval). He deplored nations' resorting to 'the law of force instead of the force of law."/Reuters16DEC
STRANGE!--Many U.S. Catholics follow Popes blindly in equating fertilized eggs with 8-month foetuses-- but these same U.S. Catholics simply ignore Pope's denunciations of this war as 'unjust, illegal, and disastrous'.
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This in spite of the fact that the Vatican, with its intelligence agents (clergy) in every nation, is probably the most worldly-wise agency in the world, and is disinterested and honest on such issues, to boot.
So Vatican opinion about the war should be taken seriously even by those who don't believe Pope speaks for God.

 
TREATED LIKE A BEAST: A top Vatican cardinal denounced U.S. photos degrading and humiliating Saddam, treating him like a cow. /REUTERS16DEC
This humiliation could backfire, enraging world Muslims even more over the crude triumphalism of U.S. /Sidney Weintraub in USATODAY16DEC.
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It's true that Saddam deserves WORSE treatment than a cow. But our Constitution wisely forbids that we should torture even torturers; we may not inflict 'cruel and unusual punishments'. Torturers have forfeited any right they had not to be tortured--but in torturing them (and in humiliating Saddam) we lower ourselves to the level of these human beasts.

 
BETTER OFF? One J.Steinbeck (USATODAY16DEC) asks the old question again: "Isn't the world better off today without Saddam in power?" This is misleading, like asking "Would you be better off if all the roaches in your house were killed?" Yes, IF that cost nothing! But not if killing the roaches by some pesticide harmed my family.

Toppling Saddam required an invasion which killed thousands of innocent Iraqis, maiming or injuring many thousands more; more are dying each day from unexploded cluster-bombs we scattered and have not picked up. Almost 500 GIs have died; thousands have been evacuated as sick or maimed or wounded; one in five of the seriously wounded has brain-damage, a fate perhaps worse than death.
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Since Saddam's capture, many Iraqi casualties (& a few GI casualties) have been caused by guerillas, and (something new) four GIs were injured by a gunman in allied Kuwait! /Reuters14DEC/
Also a bomb in Pakistan came within 30 seconds of killing our puppet-ally Musharraf and plunging nuke-armed Pakistan into the chaos that nurtures terrorism. /USATODAY16DEC
Kabul, the 'only safe place' in Afghanistan, was hit on Tuesday by 2 more rockets. /IntHeraldTribune16DEC
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Most important: our invasion enraged many thousands of Muslims worldwide so they have either volunteered as terrorists or volunteered to support and hide terrorists. The invasion alienated our allies, and thus weakened international cooperation in blocking terrorism. The extra $1 billion each week we're spending in Iraq makes it even more difficult for us to spend
the tens or hundreds of billions we need to 'harden up' the 'soft targets' in our homeland--e.g., our vulnerability to bioterror attacks.
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So the answer to that trite hawk question is clear--our invasion and our bungling occupation of Iraq have left the world worse off. Saddam's arrest in no way vindicated Bush's foolish decision to invade.

 
NORTH KOREA says that delays in negotiation by America mean it will escalate its program to develop nukes as 2d-strike deterrents (against possible U.S. first-strike).["We can maim U.S. from our graves."]
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What is Pentagon up to? Fin.Times says it would be practically impossible now for us to launch first strike at N.K./15Dec/ Let's hope our hawks realize this.
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Best interpretation: we've given up first-strike dream, and now face the fact that N.K. will be a new nuclear power. Now Bushies are concerned only to seem not to back down.
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(N.K. is facing a new, awful famine.)

 
JOBS? NOT YET! Small businesses create half of America's jobs. So their hiring plans determine our job-situation. Is the trend good? These firms added fewer jobs in November than in October. Moreover, only 12% said in Nov. that they will add jobs in 2004; this number is down from 14% in August).
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The first sign of job-growth is when firms hire new part-time workers; this number also went down from Oct.to Nov. Firms are getting higher profits without adding workers. /USATDAY15DEC.
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235,000 Hitech jobs were lost in '03, following on 534,000 lost in '02.
More will likely be lost next year: IBM has already announced that it will 'outsource overseas' 4700 jobs. /CNN15dec
(One can't help seeing the irony in libertarian techies losing THEIR jobs, when they showed so little sympathy for blue-collar job-losses. On the other hand, techies are articulate and able to organize politically--so their rage may have more effect--but will they show solidarity with blue-collar workers?
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All this shows we should ignore optimistic forecasts of 'more jobs in the future'. We should keep our eye on the number of jobs open now.
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U.S. core consumer-inflation rate sank for the 1st time in 11 years. /FinTimes16DEC/ The annual rate sank to a near-38-year low! /Reuters16DEC
(Low inflation is near to deflation, a sagging in aggregate demand and a resulting inability to charge high prices. Such deflation would be caused by two interlocking factors (a) incredible increase in the ability of robots to produce goods with little help from humans, and (b) the resulting loss of income on the part of ordinary Americans: unlike the wealthy, these ordinary people WOULD use money to buy things IF THEY COULD.
There has been NO increase in buying power FROM WAGES in the last 3 years; buying sprees have been financed by tax cuts or by borrowing against houses--the only form of wealth most people have.)

Wallmart said that Christmas shoppers are buying only the cheapest stuff.

Industrial production went up almost 1% in November /FinTimes16DEC/ but without more hiring?
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Pvt. investors have been pulling out from U.S. bond investments; our deficit is being financed by central banks. Those looking for U.S. recovery are investing, not in America, but in countries SELLING TO AMERICA..I.E., ASIA! (In other words, increased demand here might NOT lead to higher sales here, let alone more jobs!)
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Some experts worry about increased inflation; but others about DEFLATION. "Globalization has created strong DISinflationary pressures, as production moves to ever-cheaper locations. The trend for the past decade is one of declining inflation." /FinTimes19Dec.
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Bush's reelection hinges on workers' optimism about jobs in Nov.04. By then, childlike voters will have practically forgotten the triumph of capturing Saddam--unless we nab binLaden just before the election! That would make Bush a shoo-in.

 
PHILLIPINES FINALLY GAVE US THE BOOT: Max Boot, a resident hawk at USATODAY, comments soberly on Saddam's capture [15DEC]. He warns that this doesn't mean the end of the guerilla-fight in Iraq.
Boot first offers a flat-lie insult to Europe: "France and Germany "did so much to keep the Baathist big-shot from being toppled.."
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Then he recalls our Phillipine war around 1900: (one of the most brutal and unjust in our history: We beat the Spaniards in Cuba, then set out to take the Phillipines; local groups objected; we crushed them, with tens of thousands of natives dying). Boot notes that the capture of the biggest known terrorist-leader, in 1901, did not end the rebellion, even though that captured leader tamely called for the guerillas to surrender: in fact, the war lasted another year..and then scattered resistance went on for more years; we were still fighting rebels there in 1913!
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Should we take heart from our Phillipine triumph over primitive natives? Would we like to think our GIs will still be fighting in Iraq (or serving as sitting ducks) by 2016 ? !!
Also, we should remember that, even though we saved the Phillipines from Japanese occupation in WWII, they then ordered us out.
They even wrote into their new constitution a prohibition of any foreign troops 'helping out' in their country. It's amazing how ungrateful are the peoples our military has helped !

 
DODGING ELECTION: A constitutional convention is to be called in Iraq to write the new constitution. Then we'll hand over nominal power (controlled by our troops) to a 'transitional govt.'
How will the members of this convention be chosen? We say (and got our puppet Council to agree) by local 'caucuses' (delightfully easy to corrupt).
The 60% majority Shiites say no, the members must be actually elected.
No, we said, an electoral roll couldn't be constructed in time.
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Now it turns out that the Ministry of Planning came up in October with a quick-census plan that would have an electoral roll ready by next December.
Bremer rejected the plan, while going on about such a roll not being available. More interesting, the Council WAS NEVER TOLD that such a plan was available! So, in their ignorance, they voted to accept the shoddy 'caucus' plan, with the Shia Ayatollah objecting. /NYT4DEC
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In fact, it was clear all along that a rough-and-ready electoral roll could be constructed using the food-ration-cards that all Iraqis must use.
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An elected const. convention would have a strong majority of Shiites, which the Bremerites have never been willing to accept. It turns out that the Bushies' version of 'democracy' does not involve majority rule!

 
IMPLICATIONS OF SADDAM CAPTURE:
The whole world (Palestinians excepted) rejoices at his capture. (If he'd been killed, world Muslims might deny it was he.) Possible results?
--Those who dreamed of restoring him as leader might drop out of guerillas. But those might be few. If the guerilla attacks continue, U.S. can't go on saying that it's fear of Saddam that makes population hide guerillas.
--Terrorist morale might sag, bolstered till now by escape of Saddam & binLaden from mighty America's grip.
--On the other hand, for Muslims (who have hitherto probably gloried at U.S. inability to capture Saddam,binLaden, or Mullah Omar) humiliation sometimes leads to higher willingness to fight. /S WeintraubUSATODAY16DEC
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U.S. spokesman said that since the capture, tips on guerillas had risen from one every few days to 3 a day--but, predictably, some Iraqis said that the informants were fingering personal enemies, not guerillas. /MiamiHerald18dEC.
There's no way we could know who's right here except by watching the pattern of attacks from now on.
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One way Saddam's capture might ENCOURAGE guerillas: some Iraqis before wanted to resist Americans, but hesitated because they didn't want to be seen as supporting Saddam. Now that obstacle is removed.
/acc.to some Iraqi polit.scientists, cited in YAHOO NEWS15DEC.
Shiites hate Saddam more than they hate Americans; but now that he's disposed of, they might feel more free to oppose U.S. occupation.
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--U.S. could now set up Baath again as new rulers of Iraq,without worrying about Saddam returning. Or we could bug out and let the resulting civil war set up a dictator. (Only a dictator, probably, could hold 3 parts of Iraq together.)
"The vision [of optimists that Iraq can be turned into a real democracy] is not shared by all Americans here...some senior officers have lowered their benchmarks for an American withdrawal.
"Now, they say, a stable pro-American government [able to defend itself vs. irredentists] would count as a success.
To hear some U.S. officers and many ordinary Iraqis talk, the country needs a pro-Western strongman, [like those who rule] in other Arab countries." /NYT14dec /
In other words, a non-crazy puppet dictator as ruthless and effective as Saddam.
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Of course then we'd have to give up our pretence of installing democracy. (With other rationales for the invasion collapsing--WMDs and early ties with AlQaeda--the collapse of 'democracy' pretense would be near-fatal for any remaining respect warranted for Bush-team--but the cheering at Saddam's capture might substitute for respect--at least for a while.)
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--OR we could let the Shiite majority 'democratically' take control; Baathists would fight to the death (since central Iraq has little of the oil) but Kurds and Shiites should be able to handle them--our airpower could prevent any conventional invasion North or South.
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Then we could pull all our troops into a super-defended central fort (in Iraq or preferably in Kuwait)...embarrassing U.S. casualty figures would disappear;the provocation from crude GIs would disappear.
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Americans then would forget about Iraq, the way they've forgotten about ongoing disaster in Afghanistan.

 
RESULTS MIXED: A week into a sweep (2000 GIs) into Afghan badlands has failed to find any Talibans. Instead, U.S. air-strikes have angered locals by inadvertently killing 15 children.
Spokesman: "It doesn't help with Afghanis..but I believe they understand that we're here to help them."
Another observer:" Worryingly, this type of incident makes it easier for those trying to spoil the peace process to rally support for their Taliban cause."
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Spokesman: "The fact that we did not hit the jackpot is NOT indicative that the air-assault was not successful.,,In the caves we found only small arms & ammo. We could have found these in any Afghan village; we gave them back to the local owners."
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The Taliban (whom GIs could not find) have not gone away. They launched rockets at a U.S. base, injuring a GI and an Afghani. /Reuters13DEC/One rocket was fired at Kabul on 13th and several more on 14th, coming nowhere near the constitutional convention meeting then in Kabul./Guardian15DEC / 2 more rockets went off in Kabul on Tuesday. /AP16DEC
Were these rockets just to show they could hit Kabul (in spite of patrols around Kabul, and gunships hovering overhead--supposed to prevent that)? Or were they just badly aimed?..if the latter, then the aim could improve.
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GOOD NEWS: The new road from Kabul to Kandahar has successfully been opened, in spite of all Taliban's attempts to sabotage its building. /AP16DEC.
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U.S. has spent $50 bn in Afgh. 25 GIS & Kharzai soldiers killed plus 15 aid workers. Three provinces are said to be back under Taliban control. Their ample equipment is financed by opium sales. The prestigious U.S. think-tank COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: "Are we losing the peace in Afghanistan? Unless drastic changes...YES." /INDEPENDENT14DEC
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UN may have to cut out of Afghanistan because of bad security. /GUARDIAN12dec

 
TWO BILLION HASN'T HELPED: Despite a $2bn federal investment, the U.S. Public Health System is not much more ready for a bioterror attack than it was two years ago.
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Problems: state budget deficits, a shortage of medical personnel, and fights for money between state & local govts.Govt. has a supply of medicines, vaccines,etc..but only 2 states are ready to distribute them. "We are not ready."
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Public Health Systems have been starved of money for two decades( of mainly Republican control of govts.) 2 of 3 states have recently cut their money for public health. Some states have diverted fed.$ for public health into their general budget.
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About the shortage of health-workers: Many states had planned to use Natl. Guard in bioterror emergency as first responders--but the guardsmen have been sent to Iraq ! Only 1 in 4 states have a plan for dealing with a flu pandemic--/USATODAY11dec/--OR, OF COURSE WITH PANDEMIC CAUSED BY BIOTERROR ATTACKS.
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The neglect of bioterror preparations by state governments is echoed by Bush-team. The $two billion for a year of bioterror preparations equals TWO DAYS of Pentagon budget.
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We're eager to bomb other nations, but insanely insouciant about defending our Homeland.

 
FRIEDMAN'S DREAMS AGAIN: Tom Friedman explains sagely (NYT11dec) that IF we produce a decent outcome in Iraq..the whole Arab system will have to respond..
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The Bush-team is like a drunk who can barely walk on level ground...now IF this drunk could walk on water, he wouldn't need a boat.
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UPDATE: Finally, Friedman sees that the incredible bungling of the Bremer gang makes any improvement of Iraq unlikely. /nyt14Dec.

 
'ECONOMISTS' AGAIN TOO OPTIMISTIC: Consumer confidence index was predicted to rise from 93 to 96; instead it fell to 89. /FORBES12DEC (Recently 'economists' predicted a very strong increase in new jobs created; the reality was less than half of the number predicted.)
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One is struck by how RARELY 'economists' ' mistakes are on the side of pessimism. One gets the feeling that the economists heeded by the media are cheerleaders, not objective analysts.
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Inflation rate from '02 to '03 was the lowest rise in 38 years. Every media economist saw this as good news (that Fed won't NEED to raise interest rates). Only one in FinTimes (17DEC) even mentioned the dread word DEFLATION (lowering of prices from sagging aggregate demand)--and that was to say that deflation was not a real worry, since inflation would probably rise next month..however he felt sure that Fed wouldn't have to raise interest rates, so inflation won't rise TOO MUCH. More pollyanna.
One economist did say that the danger of DEFLATION was still real. /GUARDIAN17DEC.
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A worry has been that the Pentagon's ruthless treatment of reservists and national guardsmen would mean that potential enlistees would catch on and drop out. Indeed, the army reserve has enlisted 7% less than its goal this year /USATODAY12DEC
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ERROR IN COUNTING ONLY THE DEAD:
Even a decade after Gulf War I, Brit veterans of that war display more sickness-symptoms than other veterans of that time, even over those stationed in hotspot Bosnia. Their cancer-rate is no higher, but cancer takes a long time to show up. /Reuters12dec
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UN MAY BUG OUT OF AFGHANISTAN unless security improves. NATO countries say they'll quit working just in Kabul--but so far NATO countries have not offered the needed extra troops. /GUARDIAN12dec