Dan Lyons

ARE THEY GRATEFUL FOR LIBERATION?
All 4 civilian mercenaries killed in Fallujah Wednesday were Americans (adding to the 5 GIs killed by one bomb, 2 GIs killed by another bomb, and several U.S. civilians--e.g. missionaries--shot in the past few days).

But what was really awful was that dozens of Fallujah civilians desecrated the bodies horribly and repeatedlyright on camera. Neither the Americans nor Iraqi police showed up for hours to prevent this. REUTERS

In fact, one man in our police uniform, on camera, was part of the crowd rejoicing in the desecrations! Our experts on JIM LEHRER'S NEW HOUR 31 Mar went on about how we haven't trained or equipped the force we want eventually to take over security; but they didn't mention the problem of guerilla-sympathizers INFILTRATING our forces. One reporter did say that most of our police in Falluja were former Saddamite police! The point is, how can we screen out these infiltrators when WE DON'T EVEN SPEAK THE LANGUAGE ? !

Before, GIs stayed out of Fallujah; a new contingent of Marines barged into the city, to 'take control'. It doesn't seem that they have intimidated the hostile people there.

A U.S.general at Fallujah recently said they were on the 'glide path toward success."
The path has proved rocky.

At least fifty Americans have been killed in Iraq during March (who knows how many wounded or maimed?) Plus 16 foreigners helping U.S. And of course dozens of Iraqis 'collaborating' with U.S. have been assassinated.

71% of Fallujians approve of terrorist attacks, vs. 17% in Iraq generally. ABCNEWS31Mar./ A less queasy Occupier would bomb FAllujah off the map--but we are hampered by the world press noting every child we kill. Still, it would not be surprising if some awful collective punishment were inflicted.

Although only 17% of Iraqis say they approve of terrorist attacks, that small minority is all guerillas need to hide and support them.

U.S.honchos insist the guerillas act in hope of restoring Saddamite regime.
But moderates in Faluja say about the rioters: "They don't want Saddam back;
they want Americans out!" GUARDIAN

There is no indication that the GI casualty rate will drop (to help Bush get re-elected), especially if we hand over the country on 1 July to some people whom few accept as legitimate rulers!

"MOBS OF JOBS WILL TURN UP":
Assoc.Press31Mar/ All the usual suspects (corporations boosting their profits by outsourcing, and pols who take orders from them) are pooh-poohing our worries that outsourcing deprives even ELITEcollege-grad U.S. workers of jobs.

'Does outsourcing make our economy strong?" Treasury Secy. Snow was asked. "It's one aspect of trade and trade makes America strong." he replied. That's like saying that germ-war is one weapon of war, and weapons keep our country safe.

Snow ignores the possibility that this NEW aspect of trade might harm American workers. He says that pushing world free trade is the Bush solution..even though our trade deficit (excess imports, not enough exports) has surged under Bush policies--along with outsourcing, disappearing jobs, and the federal deficit.

"If we keep our economy growing [i.e., profits surging] then we'll create lots of jobs. We always have." We 'WILL' eventually create jobs; he doesn't say when or how this will happen. "We always have." But this situation is brand new: the economy has been growing vigorously for months, with few new jobs being added to make up for the 3 million that have
disappeared. Only 364,000 jobs have been created since August[ REUTERS]--far fewer than the number-per-month needed just to keep up with the increase in worker-numbers, let alone to put jobless people back to work.
(That was true until the March surge in jobs was announced.)
Economists are puzzled by this new phenomenon.
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Again, the association of info tech corporations released a 'study' showing that outsourcing WILL produce 317,000 new U.S. jobs by 2008. Actually, 516,00 new software/hardware jobs will be created, even though most of these will go overseas.(277k vs 244k here). They admit that 104k computer jobs have been lost here to outsourcing from 2000-'03.

Were the results of this new study startling to its sponsors? "We have long held that outsourcing creates new jobs and higher wages for Americans." Yeah. They say outsourcing saves money
for companies (hence the surge in profits) and causes 'market expansion' which in turn WILL [somehow] create new jobs.

These predictions are a little more definite than religion's promise to the destitute of 'pie in the sky when you die'--but they're even less believable.
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The FederalReserve is keeping interest rates absurdly low (you can make a profit borrowing, then lending this money out ! ), hoping to stimulate U.S. demand (& maybe, eventually, U.S. jobs).

But under globalization, this demand is often filled by foreign corporations dumping their surpluses here--so the Fed has to stimulate growth and demand in MANY COUNTRIES, to goose job-growth here. /FinTimes31Mar.

Agreements among many countries might help; but the Bushies have alienated almost every other country (by the invasion; and lately by devaluing the dollar, to give our exports an unfair advantage). So a trade war (each country fighting for a large share of exports) is more likely than international cooperation.
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Suppose a corporation is deciding whether to produce with 2 workers & 1 machine, or with 2 machines & 1 worker? If govt. keeps its hands off, corporation will choose the alternative that benefits it most.

But the Bushies enacted enormous tax-cuts for 'BONUS DEPRECIATION': the more equipment a company buys, the less tax it must pay for any given amount of income. So naturally companies LOADED UP ON MACHINES TO REPLACE WORKERS!

Secondly, if a company ships out its jobs overseas, it can arrange things (under Bushie tax law) so it pays ZERO U.S. taxes!

Thinking of laws like this, our mysterious 'jobless recovery' seems less mysterious.
So says Econ.Prof.Seto of Loyola U.in LosAngeles.
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Some economists [ FinTimes ] have come up with familiar arguments defending outsourcing:

I.) --"The outsourced workers need to be managed by U.S. managers."
-----BUT the workers outsourced would likely FAR OUTNUMBER the number of new U.S. managers needed.

Also, the 'skill-level' possible for outsourcing keeps rising. Managing jobs are also outsourced. Any job involving symbols that can be expressed as '1' and '0' can be flashed back and forth across the oceans instantly.

Also, the remaining U.S. managers needed may MOVE TO INDIA to manage Indian workers up-close (in India they can live like maharajahs!) ;the company then need pay NO U.S.taxes on their work; also these rich managers will not be spending in U.S.!

also, this need for managers may help only the SUPER-ELITE Americans, but not the 'ordinary elite', say U.S. college grads !
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II.) And then of course this tired old mantra: "Cheaper production through outsourcing means cheaper goods for American consumers, which leave them more money to spend, meaning higher demand AND THEREFORE MORE U.S. JOBS."

HOWEVER: this new demand will be only from the well-to-do--(the ordinary person, right up to include college grads, will be near-destitute) .Well-to-do AMericans buy a higher proportion of IMPORTED GOODS (e.g., fancy cars and foreign travel). That doesn't make U.S. jobs. (Whereas money going to TYPICAL Americans will more likely be spent on food, Health, housing, ertc. which DO make U.S. jobs.)

Much of the new goods demanded in U.S. and 'produced here' will be produced either (a) by automated machines, or (b) by U.S. corporations that OUTSOURCE. None of these new goods demanded will help U.S. workers!

NEW ARMS INSPECTOR WORRIES STILL ABOUT HIDDEN WMD'S:
He says there are 'credible' reports of arms caches hidden in Iraq CNN

Let's suppose there ARE supplies of gas and germs still available to the guerillas.
Our GIs are no longer in their protective space-suits; and as the merciless summer comes on, they simply won't be ABLE to function in those space-suits.

Apparently Bushies are hoping somehow to lower GI casualties by Nov.election;
(50 were killed in MARCH! ) CNN ) Presumably they'll do this by pulling back into fortresses, as they have done in Afghanistan--with GIs safer, though useless. But in these fortresses, they will be vulnerable to rockets or mortar-rounds loaded with nerve-gas (not needing to be breathed in) and anthrax spores.

By leaving GIs there after Bremerites bug out, Bushies RISK having a disaster turn into a NIGHTMARE!

THE THREAT THAT DARES NOT TELL ITS NAME: A long-time Bush security-official has said publicly that one great motive to attack Iraq was NOT to defend America (puny Saddam could not threaten us !) but to defend Israel.

Why is this connection kept silent? Because most Americans would say, "Let heavily-armed Israel defend itself! Let Israel invade Iraq !"

I have always noticed that Bush & Sharon seem to be in bed together--with Sharon on top.

REAL HARM FROM INVASION TO WORLD-WIDE FIGHT VS. TERRORISM:
The respected analyst THOMAS OLIPHANT makes these points:
--We will nab Osama & his top aide eventually; but that won't help much, because the terrorism movement is not hierarchical, to be countered by cutting off its head. It is a 'many-headed monster.'

It's upsetting that Moroccans could plan, finance, and execute the horrific bombings in Madrid. (There was a terrorist attack in Malaysia; also in Uzbekistan; plots were uncovered in London and Manila.)

Did our attack on Afghanistan block or intimidate terrorists? More attacks have taken place in the 30 months since then than in the 30 months before that.

We had a special force of Arabic speakers and specialists investigating terrorist cells in Afghanistan--but after Iraq invasion we had to move these to Iraq.

The Pew polls show overwhelming, enduring support for terrorism in Arab countries--even in our 'allies', Tunisia & Morocco.

There are foreign terrorists now in Iraq who were not there before we invaded.
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Oliphant doesn't mention that the $1 billion per week we waste in Iraq (added to the more-than-$1 billion per day we shovel to the Pentagon for regular expenses--these staggering expenses mean we can't fund HOMELAND DEFENSE adequately--and terrorists know about the many ways we're vulnerable.
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It's sad that polls show more Americans would trust Bush than Kerry in the event of a second big attack on America. ZOGBY POLL NO WONDER BUSHIES AREN'T CONCERNED ABOUT SUCH AN ATTACK; IT WILL MOVE AMERICANS FURTHER TO THE RIGHT, JUST AS 9/11 DID!

BRIGHT BEACON IN INCHON: My flyer this week told of the awful ugliness of war-time, refugee-filled Inchon. But one bright beacon there was SISTER PHILOMENA !

After reading about her, you can return here by clicking on Back, above. However, due to a fluke, you may then get bounced back to NETSCAPE. If so, just enter DANLYONS.BLOGSPOT.COM again.
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I've been yellilng that 12,000 US CASUALTIES HAVE HAPPENED SO FAR; MORE EVERY DAY! But the Pentagon says that fewer than 4000 GIs have been wounded.

To see where I get my figures, click on SELF-CENSORSHIP .

BUSHIE SURRENDER: After demands from Dems & Republicans, Condoleeza will waive her immunity and testify IN PUBLIC & UNDER OATH before the 9/11 commission. CNN

It was absurd that Clarke was brave enough to testify under oath, but Rice could call him a liar in public again and again, but never under oath!

NEW SUPER-SPEED WEAPON: NASA revealed a new FIVE THOUSAND MILES PER HOUR plane, chattering about super-fast civilian flying..but the truth is, it's an awesome new weapon, able to dump 12,000 pounds of explosive without warning anywhere on earth.
FinTimes

What we're good at (dumping explosives from a safe distance). we keep getting better at. But what's the point of improving our already-awesome bomb-delivery systems?
(The main advantage is that this monster can carry a far heavier load of explosives than our present intercontinental missiles..but these present missiles can carry nuclear warheads that don't add much weight.) We're already at the threshhold where carrying a heavier bomb-load ADDS little to our military capabilities..but it will add plenty to the profits of war-corporations!

We can destroy any country. Their only remedy is '2d-strike deterrence', the ability to make us REGRET their destruction, by their ability to retaliate--with nukes (e.g., China, Russia, and France) or more likely with germ-war attacks on our completely vulnerable U.S. homeland. This new plane doesn't solve that problem for our imperialists.

And since we can destroy any place on earth by surprise, what's the point of claiming we NEED to set up forward bases in the MiddleEast (e.g., Uzbekistan & Iraq).? We now should realize we can't OCCUPY Muslim countries !

(Along with U.S. troops and U.S. money coming into Uzbekistan, the usual martyr-murderers have showed up. Other countries may not be as eager as was wretched, monstrous-tyrant-run Uzbekistan, to house our bases!)

BREMERITES DESPERATE: Every proposal to set up an alternative to our puppet Council by 1 July has been scuppered; and the Council itself has very little support in Iraq.
So it looks like the council will be installed, (with U.S. army backing it up) and any pretence of sovereignty returning to Iraqis will also be scuppered.
WashPost

GRIM CLARKE PREDICTIONS: About Clarke's status before his resignation: after 9/11 attack, Condoleeza Rice put Clarke temporarily in charge of all our responses.
A picture on 9/12 shows Clarke sitting 4 seats away from the President.

Clarke now predicts, because of our silly invasions of Afghanistan & Iraq, that Pakistan and Afghanistan will end up run by Taliban-types (with nukes!) and oil-wealthy Saudi Arabia (with the House of Saud deposed) will end up as a Muslim fundamentalist theocracy.NYTIMES (That's just what Osama wants for SaudiArabia ! )

Clarke predicts these disasters will happen by the year 2007! (NYT1APR)
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Unfortunately, Clarke's 'best-seller' book will probably be read only by that small minority of Americans who read non-fiction books--most of whom were probably against Bush already.
The Yahoos-for-Bush seem not to have budged.(see item below.)

AWFUL POLL NEWS: $25 Million in Bushie TVads have worked, at least for now. Kerry went from 8 points ahead of Bush down to 4points lower. Most ignorant Americans think their own taxes would be raised by Kerry (who actually said he'd raise taxes only on the very wealthy.)
They've found old Kerry votes favoring discussion of a (sensible, but politically lethal) 50-cent tax rise on gasolene!
CNN

HIGH GAS PRICES: As the driver of a little Nissan which uses gas only by the teaspoon, I have little sympathy for the owners of the huge SUVs that threaten our lives regularly--let the gas prices rise!

And they will rise...Saudi Arabia just called for cut in oil pumped by OPEC--and Saudi Arabi can enforce its will. Pretty arrogant of them to harm Bush's campaign that way;
SUV owners will undoubtedly blame Bush for the high gas prices (as he blamed Clinton earlier). Another reason to root for high gas prices.

One would like to think that these high prices would encourage car-pooling,at least,
and perhaps more daring conservation measures. But such hopes are faint.
You'd think AMericans would get angry enough at our government--which, by sabotaging energy-conservation, has put us at the mercy of Arab Oil Sultans--angry enough to demand sensible conservation measures--like wind-power electric generation, coupled with electric or hydrogen-powered cars.

But once again, hopes for an epidemic of sanity among U.S. car-owners are faint indeed.
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Other OPEC 'heavyweights' have backed SaudiArabia's call for production-cuts in oil that will reinforce high gasolene prices in America ! FinTimes

They may fear Bush's 'secret weapon': our government's huge oil-reserve, which could be sold suddenly, plunging oil prices and perhaps gasolene prices, just before the election. (Though our oil companies,which have deliberately 'run short' of refining capacity, can delay any cut in gasolene prices. But these oil companies wouldn't want Bush to lose!)
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One reason OPEC wants to raise price is that oil is now (perhaps not forever!) priced in dollars, and the recent plunge-devaluation of the $ means less income for oil-sellers.
Respected columnist Bill Keegan notes that one main reason for Iraq invasion was that Bushies wanted an alternative oil-source to 'unstable' SaudiArabia. Of course our invasion has now made IRAQ unstable!
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Back in July, a perceptive GUARDIAN columnist showed why Bushies wanted to invade Iraq--they dreamed of establishing a U.S.-dominated regime which would (by its huge reserves) be able to intimidate OPEC the way SaudiArabia has managed..(Bushies no longer trust SaudiArabia to obey our commands.)

But now Bush's Bremerites are being chased out of Iraq. Will the new regime (or regimes) finally taking over Iraq obey US commands? Perhaps yes, if our troops stay on. But the guerillas--augmented perhaps by enraged Shiites--who welcome martyrdom, Shiites who compose 60% of population, Shiites who have hitherto been controlled by Sistani NOT to join guerillas--these reinforced guerillas might chase our troops out also.

Saudis' defiance of Bush seems to indicate they are not afraid of his attempts to break power of OPEC cartel. They may think that threat of sabotage of Iraqi oil pipelines will continue (requiring expensive continuous guarding), so floods of cheap Iraqi oil are not likely. Or they may think that the final regime/s taking over in Iraq will join OPEC, and not obey America.

And they could punish America by beginning to price their oil in EUROS, not in dollars.

SHIITES BACK SISTANI in objecting to the 'constitution' passed by our puppet Council.
10,000 signatures on a petition protest this 'temporary' document, which Sistani fears will turn out to be permanent.
Bremerites now seem to be thinking of a (secular) Shiite prime minister and a Sunni President.

The Shiites object to the provision that the Kurds (a small minority) can veto any permanent constitution. The Shiites are by far the majority (60% or more) and they want majority rule.

If the UN endorses this document as binding future elected governments, then Sistani will boycott the UN attempt to mediate--and, aides & other Shiite leaders say, all kinds of trouble (including more guerilla activity) will occur. FinTimes

The Bremerites made matters worse by closing down an inflammatory Shia newspaper, triggering semi-rioutous protests.

IRAQ DEBTS: There was a lot of talk about other countries 'forgiving' Iraq's debts--but when the day is done, Iraq still owes $300 billion to other countries--which will cause 'meltdown' even with expected oil income.

The Internatl Monetary Fund might intervene, but is demanding in return that Iraq 'privatize' its oil, i.e., let in the international scavengers. OBSERVER
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Thousands of civilians have been hired to serve in Iraq as mercenaries, soldiers for hire;
they include South African whites, and Chileans trained by dictator Pinochet.
It seems obvious the intent is to lower the U.S. casualty rate among GIs before Nov. election. But one really can't complain at having mercenaries die instead of GIs. (Of course we'll see what happens if Bush is re-elected.) INDEPENDENT

Trouble is, these slob mercenaries are enraging Iraqi civilians more than ever, perhaps augmenting guerillas out to kill Americans. Second problem is the fantastic COSTS to Britain & U.S. taxpayers.
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In Iraq, as in many Muslim societies, when a woman is abducted and raped, her family is disgraced until she is killed. It's estimated that 350 women have faced this fate since we took over.
The women who survive abduction must be protected from their male relatives!
A woman's shelter is being opened in Baghdad WITH NO FINANCIAL HELP FROM U.S. OCCUPIERS. INDEPENDENT

What the hell are we doing, meddling in this strange society we will never understand?

AFGHAN ELECTIONS: While Bushies insisted that Iraq was too chaotic for quick elections, they have been insisting on early elections for FAR MORE CHAOTIC Afghanistan !
(UN has warned that without massive (& unlikely) foreign aid, the country will become completely dependent on the drug trade.) says INDO-NEWS
"Near Anarchy reigns." /Last week, 100 were killed in Herat (previously the 'safest place')!

U.S. forces are trying mainly to nab Osama, NOT to provide lawn'order. (Nabbing Osama would be great for Bush's reelection, but would do little to stem terrorism.)

NATO countries have pledged help, but are not fulfilling their pledges. (Why should they sink resources into a hopeless country?)

Russia says NATO is ignoring crimes by warlords, because they need warlords' help to establish even minimum lawn'order.

U.S. soldiers are 'helping' with reconstruction; but that tends to identify reconstruction-civilians as pawns of U.S., further endangering their lives.

The Kharzai regime (whose writ runs not much outside Kabul) warns of
'descent into lawlessness', with local militias and drug-lords running the country.
GUARDIAN
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This is the situation as Bushies get ready to DECLARE VICTORY and bug out. (Eventually, one supposes, they will eliminate Osama..this may cover their disgraceful performance in Afgh. from U.S. voters.)
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Since very few Afghans have been registered yet, these elections will be postponed till September.FinTimes

Not to worry: Sept. elections will take place in plenty of time for Bushies to declare success and bug out of Afghanistan before our Nov. elections--leaving the Taliban to duke it out with the drug-lords, over the bodies of ordinary Afghans.
But suppose the country is OBVIOUSLY not ready for elections in SEPTEMBER....

BELATED AWAKENING: Americans are slipping in their foolish faith in Bush as guarantor of our 'security'--his rating was 70%..now, after Richard Clarke's damaging testimony about Bushie negligence before 9/11, his rating is down to 57%. REUTERS

Clarke's book AGAINST ALL ENEMIES is selling like hotcakes, thanks to semi-hysterical Bushie attacks on him.

Now all sensible communicators should press in, telling of disgraceful Bush underfunding of Homeland Security.
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Kerry is now 3 points ahead of Bush; recently he was 4 points behind.
Bush's approval-rating is now down to its lowest point, 46%. OBSERVER

Wilson (the man who blew the whistle on 'Nigerian uranium', the man whose wife was then illegally exposed as CIA agent)--his book is coming out now!

Rep.Sen.Frist called for the relevant memos to be declassified, hinting they would show such discrepancies with Clarke's present testimony as to lay him open to perjury. Obviously Bushies intended to declassify just the 'dirty bits'--but Clarke has called their bluff, asking for all the memos to be declassified and published.

FIGHTING THE LAST WAR OVER AGAIN: This is what dumb generals prepare for. Our government (and stock-buyers FinTimes
seem convinced that alQuaeda will hijack airliners again to crash into buildings.

But this goes against common-sense. The trick worked the first time because passengers had never before faced hijackers who intended to kill them all. Even on 9/11, there is a plausible story that people in the 4th airliner heard on cell-phones about the other crashes and, knowing they were doomed anyway, mobbed the hijackers and aborted the 4th attack. Why would clever alQaeda try that doomed trick again?

There are dozens of other, new ways alQuaeda can attack us. It's a sign of the dumbness of our leaders that so much of our scarce Homeland Defense resources have been devoted to preventing the last attack from happening again.

OSAMA VOTES FOR BUSH? [DenverPost wants to print this letter.]
ThomasFriedman [ NYTIMES ]again manages to sound sensible while pushing for hawk solutions.
He deplores the possibility that the bombings in Madrid might result in Spain's pullout of troops from Iraq. He says that means that AlQaeda has 'hijacked' a European election (a vague phrase).

For comparison, he claims that Palestinian terrorists attack Israel if they think a
peace-candidate might win--they want a primitive dragon like Sharon in power, to further
enrage Palestinians and to help them recruit more terrorists.

Friedman confuses two quite different results: attacking to scare a government out of attacking terrorists, and attacking to provoke a government to attack terrorists more ferociously (and counter-productively !)

Suppose alQuaeda attacks America before November. That will be because they know
that--even though Bush's underfunding has left our homeland undefended--foolish voters will lurch to the right and re-elect Bush.

In other words, the attack will mean that Osama wants Bush to stay in power. Why wouldn't he want this, given the way Bush has proved so helpful in recruiting terrorists world-wide, by invading Afghanistan and Iraq?
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The DenvPost ran a silly cartoon28Mar, showing an alligator swallowing up Spain, and quoting Churchill: 'An appeaser is one who feeds an alligator,hoping it will eat him last."

But in fact it was U.S. WAR-MONGERS who first 'fed' the alQuaeda alligators in Afghanistan to drive out The Soviets, and then later 'fed the alligator' Saddam to help him battle our hated enemy Iran. Now, by our stupid tactics in Iraq, we're training those guerillas to aim properly the shoulder-missiles that will soon be aimed at our airliners.

NORTH KOREA DEFIES US:
From: Bill Ashline
To: POLITICS

March 28, 2004

North Korea Rejects U.S. Demand to Scrap Its Nuclear Programs
By JOSEPH KAHN

BEIJING, March 27 ‹ North Korean radio on Saturday explicitly rejected the
formula the United States has put forward as its bottom-line position in
talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear programs, raising doubts about
whether the fitful negotiations are making even limited progress.

The statement carried by Radio Pyongyang and monitored by news agencies in
South Korea came just after a visit to North Korea by China's foreign
minister, Li Zhaoxing, and shortly before a visit to the region by Vice
President Dick Cheney that is planned for April. It used typically
unrestrained language in accusing the United States of secretly planning a
war.

"The present situation on the Korean peninsula remains dangerous owing to
the reckless moves of the U.S. war hawks and their followers to unleash a
war of aggression against the D.P.R.K. so that a nuclear war may break there anytime," it said, using the initials of North Korea's official name, the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Mr. Li said this week that North Korea was ready to "push forward" with a
third round of talks involving the United States, South Korea, China, Japan
and Russia. North Korea has said it is willing to end its nuclear programs.
But in the latest statement, it appears to be setting the stage for another
inconclusive effort.

The statement rejected the American demand for a "complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantling" of the country's nuclear programs.
Bush administration officials have repeatedly stated that they will not sign any
agreement with North Korea that does not use that wording. The
administration has also said it will not provide aid or other benefits to
North Korea before it scraps all its nuclear programs and allows rigorous
inspections.

While North Korea often harshly criticizes the United States for what it
considers an inflexible stance, the Saturday announcement seemed to go
further. It put North Korea on record as saying that it could not accept the main goals President Bush and his negotiators have insisted on in the first two rounds of talks.

The statement rejected the American formula point by point.

"Complete nuclear dismantling is a plot to overthrow the North's socialist system after stripping it of its nuclear deterrent," it said.

(N.K. will not have enough nukes to threaten its neighbors--especially while China has hundreds of nukes! But they are building enough nukes to constitute a 'SECOND-STRIKE DETERRENT' vs. the Pentagon: "You can level all our cities with your bombs, as you did 50 years ago. But then we came out of our caves and rebuilt. This time, with OUR nukes, WE CAN MAKE YOU REGRET BOMBING US.")

"'Verifiable' nuclear dismantling reflects a U.S. intention to spy on our military capabilities before starting a war," N.K. stated.
[It is generally recognized that the 'inspections' in Iraq were used to spy on military readiness there, before the invasion.]

" `Irreversible nuclear dismantling' is nothing other than a noose to stifle us after eradicating our peaceful nuclear-energy industry," said N.K.
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We have moved an armada of B-52s to Guam, ready to bomb N.K. again into oblivion.
Wouldn't they be fools to give up their only protection, their 2d-strike nuclear deterrent?

So what can the Pentagon do to punish this defiance? One hopes the Bushies wouldn't dare start a THIRD war before the election. If they get re-elected, who knows?

SISTANI GOING TO RAISE HELL? A supposed Sistani aide, preaching in Kuwait, said this:
if the U.S.-engineered 'temporary constiution' is not changed to satisfy him, Sistani might condemn everyone who cooperates with the 'interim regime' to be installed in July. and may call for mass protests. NYTIMES

Sistani has already showed that he can call out 130,000 protesters into the street in two days--and can SEND THEM BACK HOME just as easily!

Again, imagine the Bushie RAGE over their cunning plans being blocked by an old alien preacher who hasn't left his home from years.

REENLISTMENT CRISIS? A poll of families of GIs in Iraq showed that 3 out of 4 expected the Pentagon to face a future personnel problem, as servicemen declined to reenlist.
Especially the worry is that experienced, trained master sergeants would drop out (as they did toward the end of the Viet war). TRUTHOUT

WHAT DID BUSH KNOW? WRONG QUESTION ! Top honchos always preserve 'deniability'; they claim they didn't know certain uncomfortable facts. [For instance, the Univ of Colo. athletic dept. now says they didn't know about the sexual recruiting tactics for their football team.] With Bush, this claim is credible; he may not know much of what goes on around him.

So what? The President SHOULD HAVE KNOWN all the relevant facts about the imminent threat of an alQuaeda attack (involving airplanes!), facts which were known before 9/11 by some of his underlings. [ SALON.COM]

If they didn't pass on this info to the President, then he is at fault for picking the wrong team..we elect a TEAM, not an individual, for the White House.

This team is incompetent and untrustworthy. That's the point of testimony by former Commerce Secy. O'Neil, by former Bushie terrorist experts like Richard Clarke.

How sad it is that most Americans have decided to TRUST the Bush-team on the issue of protecting U.S. from terrorist attacks! Luckily they DON'T trust him on the 'jobs' issue, which is far more important to them than the terror-issue. Let's hope this criminally-negligent gang gets ousted in November.

INSIGHT, FINALLY ! Sen.Jay Rockefeller says his vote to authorize the invasion was wrong. More importantly, he explains WHY his vote--and the invasion--were nutty.
"We felt we'd be welcomed as liberators. Americans don't know history, geography, ethnicity. Bush-team had no idea what they were getting into. We are not internationalist; we are isolationist. We know nothing about MiddleEast!"
Rockefeller, after visiting Iraq, also said that 95% of the insurgents are NOT foreign infiltrators, but Iraqis. GUARDIAN (Presumably these Iraqis are inflamed by the crude , bloody tactics of baffled, enraged U.S. troops.)

Rockefeller is making the same point I've been making for two years: Given that even our elite are ignorant about the outside world (someone said when Bremer was appointed our 'king' in Iraq: "What he knows about Iraq would fit in a thimble!")--given the ignorance of our elite [Rockefeller is as elite as you can get, and he has been for years on the Senate 'Intelligence' Committee--yet he admits that 'WE' know nothing about Middle East ! ]--we MUST NOT MEDDLE in foreign affairs.

Sen McCain provided real entertainment: before the invasion he predicted that we would be welcomed with such enthusiasm by the Iraqis that the whole Muslim world would feel good about us once again.

This nutty invasion is only the last example of a long pattern: our government goes for reckless INTERVENTIONIST lunges based on ignorant ISOLATIONIST thinking.

ONE MORE SWITCH: The Bush/Bremer gang have made another switch in their plans for the puppet-regime to be installed in July. They did have elaborate plans for an assembly with 3 presidents..but that's not going to work.

Now they're telling their present puppet-council to appoint a prime minister who will rule the country until real elections at the end of '04. (The 3 'presidents' will have little power.) Also they'll appoint a 'Defense Minister' who will call for U.S. troops to stay on. (They're worried that even a puppet assembly might not allow counter-productive GIs to stay on--that's why they're saying that an old UN resolution authorizes a continuing troop-presence--even without Iraqi consent!)

Bush/Bremerites seem to be dumping in effect the 'interim constitution' they just imposed. Now they're openly calling for a pro-American STRONG MAN to control Iraq. (It's hard to believe that other nations & UN will count such a dictatorship set up by Americans as sovereign, in order to validate the exploitative contracts they dreamed of.)
In other words, the Bushies seem desperate to get out of Iraq on any terms months before the Nov.election here. (Theyll leave the GIs there to face the wildcats.)

They want a Shiite ruler, of course--they wouldn't dare impose a Kurd or a Sunni Arab--but a secular 'technocrat'. GUARDIAN

It sounds as if they dream of installing Rumsfeld's darling Chalabi. Never mind that he's despised by Iraqis, that he has been convicted in absentia of fraud by Jordan.

Will Sunni Arabs & Kurds stand for a Shiite master?
Will Sistani stand for a pseudo-Shiite taking over?

WHERE'S THE TRUST? The families of soldiers getting ready to ship to Iraq have been spending thousands of dollars to buy body-armor themselves, hearing stories of soldiers in Iraq (especially reservists) not getting the best kind of armor. Naturally the Pentagon deplores this practice, emphasizing their near-criminal failure to equip troops adequately. CNN

The remedy of course is to shovel more money to the Pentagon; it turns out that well over $1,000,000,000 PER DAY for ordinary expenses, plus $1,000,000,000 extra per week for the Iraq project--it turns out that's not enough.

IRAQ OIL EXPORTS will soon resume--that's the good news--the sabotage problem has apparently been solved (though the extra costs of close guarding must be added to the low costs of extraction)--but the bad news is that the oil will be exported THROUGH IRAN, that outstanding member of the AXIS OF EVIL! REUTERS

DEFENDING FERTILIZED EGGS: The new bill sounds harmless: saying that a person who attacks a pregnant woman is guilty of TWO crimes, one against the foetus.

But in the same bill, as I understand it (from ABC NEWS) , the 'victim' is counted as protected FROM THE MOMENT OF CONCEPTION, 'at any stage of development'. God help the person who attacks any woman,even mildly, who might have a fertilized egg in her! If he slaps her, and upsets her so she aborts, he might, presumably, be guilty of murder.

These right-wing nincompoops are determined to count every fertilized egg as having equal rights with 9-month-foetuses or even babies!

The only mention of abortion in the Bible is this reference in Exodus(ch 21, v.22-26):
If two brawling men harm a woman, then they must pay the severe 'eye-for-an-eye' penalty..but suppose their brawling doesn't harm her, but causes her to abort a foetus (and this must be a foetus advanced enough to be recognized)--then they need only compensate the father with money, as if they had destroyed a piece of his property!

In other words, the Bible says that KILLING even an advanced foetus is a much lesser crime than INJURING a woman!

Even though abortion was very common in their day, neither Jesus nor Paul mention this deed as especially wicked.
Jesus said "Whoever hates his brother is a murderer !"...but he makes no reference to abortionists as murderers.
(The supposedly early--non-Scripture--DIDACHE does condemn abortion..but this document was not discovered till the 19th-century.)

Jesus does utter an awful curse: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared before the beginning of the world for the devil and his angels"--for what awful crime? not for abortion, nor same-sex intercourse, nor even for murder or idolatry or treason--instead: "because I was hungry and you wouldn't feed Me" (i.e. when you refused to feed the least of My brothers, you refused food to Me.)" [Matthew ch.25, v.41-46].

Preachers often dwell on the positive side of this utterance: you'll go to heaven if you do help the poor; but they often don't mention the negative side pointed out above.
The result is that Christians come to think that helping the poor is praiseworthy, beyond the call of duty--but Jesus said that caring for the poor is one of the strictest duties, whose violation risks damnation.

On the Day of Judgment, won't there be a lot of suprised right-wing Christians who have devoted themselves mainly to protecting fertilized eggs !
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Such laws attempt an end-run around the Courts' position that a foetus is not a separate human with rights. They will likely be struck down--but right-wing pols don't care about that--as long as the struggle brings in extra money & votes from their yahoo constituencies.
==========
The DenverPost (28Mar) claims that RomanCatholic "PASSION' producer Mel Gibson regrets that his saintly Episcopalian wife can't be saved: "Outside the Church, no salvation." Actually, that WAS taught by St.Augustine, who thought that unbaptized babies must plunge into hell, from their original-sin guilt unremoved by baptism. [Check these claims for yourself; I am not a professional Church-historian.]

How refreshing to hear of a Fifth-Century Catholic like Gibson having access to 21st-century movie-technology. (It's said that Gibson filled out the Scriptural story using details from the dream-visions of a nineteenth-century nun.) Gibson says he has to believe the bad news about his wife as 'coming from The Chair' (of Peter? I doubt that any Papal utterance of recent centuries has reinforced this stringent view--and I doubt that the new Catechism repeats it either.)

An imam has recommended that Muslims see PASSION, because it shows Jews killing Christ. A trigger of Christian/Muslim reconciliation?

People have mercifully forgotten that Catholics used to be about as primitive and savage as binLaden is today--after all, burning public heretics was a small price to pay to keep the lethal contagion from spreading--the glories of this world are not worthy to be compared to the joys of the next world, says Paul--and that presumably holds also for agonies of this world, compared to the agonies of hell.

The difference is this: just as Jahweh got more and more gentle and civilized in the later Old Testament, so the Catholic God gentled up considerably after the Reformation. Perhaps because the Muslims have not yet had a successful Reformation, many are stuck in 5th-century theology.

RICE'S SHYNESS: Dr.Condoleeza Rice, the close Bush advisor, has been appearing all over TV, giving the Bushies' side of every controversy. (One symptom of her bias is that an oil tanker is named THE CONDOLEEZA!)

She is perfectly willing to talk privately, free to lie some more, to the 9/11 commission.

The one thing she refuses to do is to TESTIFY UNDER OATH (as her opponent Clarke has freely done). That would limit her creativity.
----------
A former translater for the FBI says that Rice is flatly lying when she says they had no reason before 9/11 to think there'd be an attack using airplanes. SALON

BUSH'S 'SECURITY' PRETENCES (letter to R.MtnNews):
Your wordy editorial 26Mar attacks Clarke's 'blame-game' vs. the Bush-team in regard to our government not reacting vigorously to the threat from AlQuaeda.
You say sensibly that what we need is suggestions for the future.

But you don't mention that Bush's main campaign slogan is his taking credit for our 'Security'.(We haven't faced a 2d attack yet, though everyone expects one.) Clarke's testimony on Bushie negligence certainly refutes that claim.

More important is noting that the Bushies even now refuse to fund our present Home-Defense efforts adequately, devoting money-per-year to that effort roughly equal to the money-per-monthshoveled to the Pentagon--whose bombers & missiles are completely useless for protecting us
from small cells of individual terrorists like the 19 attackers of the World Trade Center. (Bush wants to devote $10 billion this year to his absurd 'missile-defence' system, really defending certain corporations from loss of revenue.)

The wretched Homeland Security Dept. is now imposing a hiring freeze on some of its agencies, because it may be facing a budget shortfall of $1 billion ! CNN

When we face a germ-war attack, for instance, how many will remember that the Bushies did nothing to counter our urgent shortage of nurses?

When small explosive-laden planes, completely uncontrolled, radiate whole regions by crashing into the waste-ponds of some of our 104 nuclear power-plants, who will ask what measures the Bushies took to prevent such a predictable catastrophe?
--------
By the way, the hysterical right-wing attacks on Richard Clarke are backfiring: his new book AGAINST ALL ENEMIES is already at the top of the 'best-seller' list, in its 5th printing, with 500,000 copies already sold! YAHOONEWS

OFFENSIVE OR FIASCO? The Americans, with the Pakistani government, announced a big crusade to wipe out the Taliban & alQaeda guerillas hiding out in the primitive tribal areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Well, The Big Cheese the Paki rulers announced they had cornered has escaped, perhaps through a series of tunnels. (Osama's #2 aide just made a tape calling for a revolution against Mussharef, who has narrowly escaped two assassination attempts already.) Many Pak.soldiers were killed in the offensive, and the army killed many innocent civilians, strengthening local tribes in their resistance to the Central govt.

By forcing M. to act as our puppet, we may be setting up Pakistan as an Islamist government (with nukes!) or as a chaotic anarchy suitable for alQaeda.
And we can't just attack Pak. as we did Afghanistan--they have 140 million people, a regular army--AND NUCLEAR BOMBS. /KansasCityStar

See also NYTIMES
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The Bushies brag that our offensive is preventing any Taliban offensive this summer.
All they care about is making things look good before the November election.
After that, they don't care about the approaching Pakistan disaster.
--------------
Declaring 'success', Pak. troops are withdrawing their main forces from the tribal area near Afghanistan, where they announced they were going after top alQaeda leaders. First they said they had cornered Osama' #2 man; then, after he issued a tape calling for revolution against Musharref, they admitted he had escaped. Then they said they had killed a top AQ intelligence chief; later they admitted the body was a local man.
They lost 46 troops, while killing only 63 tribesmen or terrorists. They arrested many more. BBC

Hawkish Clifford May (25 Mar) trots out the customary attempted refutation of Richard Clarke's accusations that the Bush-team didn't adequately prepare for an alQuaeda attack.

May says that even assuming Clarke's accusations are right, no other American leaders seem to have appreciated the urgency of that emergency.

That's easy to explain: our 'human intelligence' about overseas affairs has always been dismally incompetent. Knowing that, Bush was reckless to base an invasion on such dubious findings.

And then May notes that Clarke offers no proposal to fix these 'Homeland-Defense' problems--so his critique can be ignored. That's like the priests on an island saying to a critic: "You can't tell us how to prevent the volcano from erupting. So quit criticizing our policy of throwing in virgins to appease the volcano god !"

Sometimes there is no quick solution for a problem--but some proposed solutions are clearly nutty. Invading Iraq to protect our Homeland was clearly nutty and counter-productive.

We thereby recruited many more terrorists eager to attack us; we are wasting $1 billion a week which could go to our grossly-underfunded Homeland Defense efforts. We have enraged our former allies, thus crippling international cooperation in nabbing terrorists..and so on.

Hawks will need better arguments to counter informed criticisms by terror-experts appointed by Bush!

RETRAINING FOR WHAT? GUARDIAN quotes Bush as advocating worker-retraining as remedy for the 2.3 million jobs which have disappeared during his administration.

Defenders of outsourcing and automation often say that U.S. will be stimulated to create entirely new lines of commerce. So how can we retrain workers now for careers that have not yet been imagined? (Of course we should make sure that workers can read with comprehension, do basic math, etc [skills that even our college grads are weak in]...but these remedies won't have effect for years. The problem remains for detailed retraining.)

Oh, well, as Kerry points out, the Bushies have never been committed to retraining displaced workers anyhow. Their unconcern for workers' welfare is shown by the Republican refusal to extend unemployment benefits for the tens of thousands of workers who have used up their benefits without finding new jobs. (Long-term unemployment has skyrocketed.)

POLLYANNA GREENSPAN: REUTERS quoted Alan Greenspan again praising free international trade, because it spread the benefits of agricultural productivity (more food) all over the world.

Apologists for globalization ALWAYS cite the agricultural revolution in America that resulted in only 2% of Americans producing way more food that we can consume (even at the price of lethal obesity) or sell abroad. (They don't mention
the local farmers overseas who are wiped out when our surpluses are dumped on their countries.)

It's true that these displaced U.S. farm-workers were absorbed into other jobs. But that tells us nothing about what will happen to displaced workers today. Imagine that U.S. workers are surplus and redundant in almost every line of employment (which may happen)--then where will the then-displaced workers go for new jobs?

This kind of thinking--"We worried foolishly about the farm-workers being replaced"--reminds one of the guy who said, "'When I was sixty, I worried about dying soon; at seventy I was more worried--and even more at 80.

"Now I'm 97, and I realize that all these previous worries were foolish; now I don't fear dying soon at all!"

SELF-CENSORSHIP: U.S. honchos have been saying that only 3350 GIs have been wounded in Iraq. CNN

But on 19 Dec '03, UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL ran a story that, when asked directly, the Pentagon admitted that ELEVEN THOUSAND had been medically evacuated to U.S. (Slight injuries are of course treated in Iraq, not airlifted out.)
EDITOR AND PUBLISHER told a similar story.
(Presumably, hundreds of GIs have been evacuated in the 3 months since 19 Dec!)

[To call up this UPI story, go to 'FEEBLY FLAPPING HAWKS" and then click on UNITED PRESS link.)
For more on this issue, click on COUNTING WOUNDED.

Today, when I searched for "medical evacuation"+Iraq on NEWS.GOOGLE, I called up 187 stories; NOT ONE of them told of the total number evacuated from Iraq! (There was no reference to either of the stories mentioned above.)

We don't need government censorship in America. The government can count on 2 things: a) ignorant Americans heeding only the number killed, not the number sick, wounded, or MAIMED; and (b) the supine willingness of U.S. media to ignore one of the most startling stories of the war.
--------------
A Brit paper, THE OBSERVER, ran a similar story earlier in Sept. '03, claiming the number evacuated was then over 7000.

The WashingtonPost ran a piece on 27Mar telling of the 'thousands of our youth who must live out their lives with broken bodies.' NEWS.GOOGLE

GUARDIAN quotes army honcho as saying that 300-400 GIs have been medically evacuated for mental problems. [The suicide rate of GIs in Iraq is significantly high. The Army now admits that at one time 70% of Iraq GIs reported that the morale in their unit was 'low' or 'very low'. (ABC NEWS25MAR)]

That means that all the thousands of others evacuated had other serious ailments.

IRAQ SOVEREIGNTY TRANSFERRED? U.S. media constantly refer to SOVEREIGNTY being transferred to the new assembly on 1 July. And the Bremerites say they will ask the UN to 'ratify the transfer of sovereignty' which is scheduled for this June. FinTimes

But this new assembly will be APPOINTED, directly or indirectly, BY AMERICANS. How can it count as sovereign?

This may seem an unimportant quarrel over words. But IF this new puppet assembly is recognized (by UN and other nations) as sovereign, then they can validate the exploitative contracts already signed by our present puppet Council (but invalid as signed under Occupation Authority). Then future, elected Iraq governments would be bound by these contracts. As usual, it's all about Oil and Money.

Bushies are obviously hoping to duplicate British cunning in the 1920's. Seeing they would shortly be pushed out, the Brits found an unemployed king descended from Mohammed! and installed him as their puppet in Baghdad. Sure enough, the League of Nations recognized him as sovereign, so the long-term contracts he signed with Brit oil companies counted as valid. (I doubt that after the Baathist coup these contracts were still respected--but they should have been, under international law.)

The only voice speaking out on this issue is that of Ayatollah Sistani. He will boycott any UN intervention in Iraq unless it's made clear that this puppet regime's decrees will not bind future, elected Iraq governments. Will other Shiites follow him in this resistance? We'll see.

UNINTELLIGENT 'INTELLIGENCE': The 9/11 commission, unsurprisingly, has found that both the Clinton and the Bush Administrations were defective in 'going after' AlQuaeda before 9/11. But the trouble is much deeper than that.

Clinton tried to kill binLaden with missiles in Afghanistan--but Osama wasn't 'at home'---Bush later satirized that attempt as 'firing billion-dollar missiles up some camel's ass'; but later, Bush tried to bomb Saddam in his palaces--once again, 'not at home'.)

(We did capture Saddam finally--but Kurdish sources say the Kurds actually nabbed the man, then drugged him so the Americans could take the credit. It seems far more likely that he was nabbed by knowledgeable Iraqis than by clumsy, ignorant Americans.) [see my piece on 22Dec, in Archives: "WHO'S LYING?"]

We have dozens of gadgets for spying on our enemies (even tapping the phones of UN members!) but our 'HUMAN intelligence' is a catastrophic failure. The basic problem is that even elite Americans have not been very interested in the rest of the world. The biggest symptom of this disinterest is the fewness of Americans who study foreign languages: in the year 2000, after years of alQuaeda attacks, only SIX AMERICANS WERE M AJORING IN ARABIC--and they were likely studying to work for the oil companies, so they didn't study Muslim culture. (Now, finally, 10,000 are taking a course in Arabic; but that language is very difficult; it will be years before we have a cadre of competent Arabic speakers. Even then, big trouble might show up in Indonesia--I would imagine almost no Americans are studying the many languages of Indonesia!

We're told that CIA is now sending 'spies' into Iraq. They are sent right out of training school; they volunteer only for a few months; they don't leave our central fortress in Baghdad except with military escorts...AND THEY DON'T SPEAK THE LANGUAGE!
Some spies!

The truth is that for many years we will not have a competent CIA--so we'd better not count on 'intelligence' reports to warrant lunges into the outside world. (This is not a new situation; Jack Kennedy allegedly said, "If I had relied on information from the NewYorkTimes instead of 'top-secret' CIA 'info', I would never have made the 'BayOfPigs' blunder!")

Interventionists say: "But we MUST intervene overseas, now that attacks on our Homeland are demonstrably likely!" / That doesn't follow; we face dangers from overseas; but given our ignorance, overseas intervention will likely prove counter-productive in terms of protecting our Homeland. (Mr. Clarke, the defecting Bushie counter-terrorist expert, says our invasion of Iraq was the best recruitment device for generating new terrorists you could imagine.)

We are in a uniquely awful situation.

What can we do to protect our Homeland? There is no perfect answer; some attacks will get through. But there are dozens of ways we can minimize those successful attacks, and many ways we can prepare to repair and heal our country after the attacks that do get through. Trouble is, all these protective measures are VERY EXPENSIVE; and the Bush-team has consistently refused to fund Homeland Defense adequately.

Meanwhile the Bushies shovel well over $1,000,000,000 EVERY DAY to the Pentagon, whose bombs and missiles are completely USELESS against thousands of individual terrorists or small, independent cells of terrorists all over the world (united only by their mad desire to kill Americans).

To add to the madness, most Americans TRUST the Bushies to avert terrorist attacks on AMerica, just because 9/11 has not yet been followed up. (Only 37% realize that the Iraq invasion put us MORE at risk than before.)

And when the next attack comes, most Americans will foolishly lunge to the Right, giving the unworthy Bushies even more support. (Knowing this, the Bushies aren't too concerned to prevent the next attack.)
-----------------
Luckily, foolish Americans are far more concerned about joblessness than about National Security. And they see clearly that Bush is unable to solve that problem--so he might be voted out in November anyway.

In that happy event, let's hope that the Kerry team will shift from the silly slogan of 'the war on terror', to a determined campaign to protect our homeland!
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Most of the startling claims above come from sources cited in my earlier blogs (now in the ARCHIVES; e.g., click on the dash between 01/18/04 and 01/24/04.
Here I'm presenting a brief overview of the emergency.

MISSTATED QUESTION: The intelligent comic-strip "POTSHOTS", by Ashleigh Brilliant, (R.Mtn.News23March) asks a thoughtful question: "Why must making life easier for humans always make it harder for other living things?" The question is thoughtful, but mistated.

Making life 'easier' in some respects for some humans--such activity regularly, nowadays, makes life more difficult for humans as well as for other organisms. The use of certain underarm deodorants and air-conditioning thins the ozone layer, which increases human melanoma. The world-wide 'highway culture', adopted for speed, convenience, and ego-bolstering, may well be causing global warming, which will fairly soon result in climate-catastrophes all over the world.

Why do such drawbacks happen so often? Because mega-tech extends our 'reach' far beyond our foresight--we don't foresee many of the harmful side-effects or 'externalities' resulting from our myopic lunges. (Sometimes these side-effects are actually foreseeable; we don't foresee them because often we don't care that much about the distant future--even for ourselves--only about the present--especially we don't care much about the future of strangers!)
--------------------
But why couldn't the unforeseen consequences be for the good as often as for the bad? It's a 'downhill world'; shit just happens when people are dramatically, thoughtlessly active--but improvements don't happen usually without planning and effort.

Aristotle noted why people are not really virtuous by luck. The man endowed 'by luck' with high testosterone might be physically fearless, might have the 'natural virtue' of courage--but without the wisdom to know when each level of risk ought to be taken, he won't display the REAL virtue of COURAGE, which disposes one to react reasonably in each risky situation: not displaying too much fear and caution, nor too little caution for this individual situation (this latter 'short-on-caution' person should be called reckless and foolhardy, not courageous.)

Aristotle compared this situation with trying to guess-locate the exact center of a circle; 'there are far more ways to go wrong than to go right'..most guesses count as wrong; any given guess will probably be wrong.

Analogously, the person trying to GUESS which reaction is just right in each risky situation will probably guess wrong; his reckless lunges will do more harm than good--perhaps to himself, perhaps to others.
(Blind change in any system has far more ways to 'go wrong', to do harm, than to cause improvements.)And the stronger the 'hero' is, the more fearless, the more damage his myopic lunges will do.

(If his fearlessness comes from conscientious principle, without far-seeing wisdom, he is still likely to do net damage. Who could be more conscientiously fearless than Osama binLaden, the millionaire living for two years in a cave somewhere, with a $50 million bounty on his head [OBSERVER]? He survived our awesome B-52 bombing at ToraBora by simply lieing in a ditch till it was over. But his fearless, principled ingenuity is proving a curse for all mankind, especially--in the long run--for Muslims.)

Mankind collectively have, very recently, multiplied our strength incredibly by technology--but far less our wisdom, our foresight. So our actions are more and more likely to have significant unforeseen side-effects, most of which will be harmful.

Humans generally (leaders as well as ordinary people) have been pretty foolish and short-sighted all through history; evolution has tailored our emotions for a simpler world that existed thousands of years ago. And most humans usually disguise their brute emotional reactions as rational thought. (e.g., "We were attacked on 9/11; so we must bomb SOMEBODY; so we'll attack Afghanistan and Iraq.")

Megatech has extended our 'reach' incredibly beyond our foresight; megatech has removed Humanity's main 'virtue':our weakness.

The ability to change things dramatically (and thoughtlessly) harms self and others. Know-how, without know-whether, is incompetence.

For more on this 'luddite' perspective, see chapters one and two of my book DEMOCRACY, RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS--available at CSU library and CSU philosophy library, and by interlibrary loan.]
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Fans of Pres. Bush praise him for having the 'balls' to lunge into Afghanistan and Iraq.Bush obviously did not foresee the actual outcome of these invasions.

Any bull has testicles larger than Bush's--but balls without brains do not promote useful action--I don't want a Holstein acting as President.

ENTERTAINING bits of bushie NONSENSE:
---Bush keeps saying, "We're all better off with Saddam toppled." Actually we're NOT much better off, because Saddam posed no real threat to us.
Anyway: I might be better off if I owned a Porsche...but at what price? Was this toppling worth these costs?:

--the 'toppling' invasion has put our Homeland MORE AT RISK THAN BEFORE: by recruiting more terrorists all over the world; by wasting $1 billion a week in Iraq, money which should be spent on Homeland defense; by enraging our former allies, setting back international cooperation in nabbing terrorists--and so on.

---Tens of thousands of Iraqis killed by our forces or by guerillas--or by gangsters. (We disbanded Saddam's police-force which had held anarchy down..as occupiers we are responsible for the loss of law'n order.)

--Twelve thousand GI casualties: nearly 600 dead, and 11,000 airlifted to hospitals in U.S. (see UnitedPRess 19Dec)..and we can be sure many have been wounded or MAIMED in the 3 months since 19 Dec.

--Over half of Iraqi population (the women)--who were guaranteed some rights under Saddam's secular family law..now face repression under Muslim law.

--there is a real threat of civil war between the Kurds, the Sunni Arabs, and the Shiites. This threat would never loom under Saddam's ruthless regime.
------------------
Bush's former secy.of treasury O'Neil says that at the first meeting of Bush's cabinet, (long before 9/11) plans started to be made to invade Iraq. The Bushies pooh-poohed O'Neil's revelations as 'sour grapes' because he was fired.
But now another former Bushie [R.Clarke, counterterrroism expert] says that immediately after 9/11, Rumsfeld pushed for an attack against Iraq, even though no one really thought Saddam was connected with this attack. Clarke protested, "We should perhaps attack binLaden in Afghanistan--but why Iraq? "

Rummy patiently explained to him: "There are no TARGETS in Afghanistan; there are all kinds of targets in Iraq." Clarke said, "There are good targets in many countries--so what?" He was promptly demoted / AP 22Mar.

Clarke says there was no better way to recruit more terrorists than to launch an unprovoked invasion of an oil-rich Muslim country.

Immediately the alarmed Bushies have fanned out to discredit Clarke, intimating that he is a closet Democrat--but he served under 3 Republican Presidents !

Bushies also pointed out that he is buddies with Rand Beers, who is now Kerry's foreign affairs advisor. But they don't mention that Beers also was a top-level terrorism expert in the Bush administration, who quit in disgust over their political misuse of the 'war on terrror'. INDEPENDENT
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Rummie's ruthlessness in private is understandable, as is the Bush appeal to his ignorant Yahoo constituency. But here is a real puzzle: in WallStreetJournal, 22 Mar,
a prowar editorial dismisses critics of the war this way: "They say the war has caused more danger from terrorism--as if there were no terrorism before the invasion!" But of course critics can admit the existence of pre-invasion terrorism without this IN ANY WAY discrediting their claim that the invasion INCREASED terrorist threats (as practically everyone outside U.S., and many Americans now see.)/

The WSJ is supposedly addressed to literate, elite Americans. Yet again and again they insult their readers with nonsensical pro-war arguments. They must figure that their right-wing readers think only with their glands, not with their brains.

REVERSING FIELDS: Traditionally, right-wingers praise PRODUCTIVITY in the economy (for raising profits), and left-wingers deplore it (for destroying jobs and lowering wages).But in the upcoming election, voters have signalled that 'the economy' is far more important to them than any other issue--and by 'the economy', the typical voter means JOBS and WAGES, not stock-prices.

Bush's polls have been plummeting, and this is probably because so many are jobless, and because even those with jobs feel overqualified, overworked, and underpaid, with dwindling pensions and benefits. (The two points are related: employed workers don't dare complain about conditions, knowing there are dozens of jobless people 'looking over their shoulder', eager to take their job.

Also, for the first time, not just blue-collar workers--who often don't vote-- are going jobless; college grads are having trouble--and typically, they vote! The Bushies will of course make their usual attempts to distract people from 'voting their pocketbooks' with various diversions like gay marriage (they've lost the 'partial-birth abortion' issue by the ban they passed!)
But when people are really threatened by joblessness, such diversions seem less important.

Bush's economic advisors made an absurdly optimistic prediction that this year, millions of new jobs would be created. Interestingly, they based this on the absurd prediction that productivity [amt of value added by each hour of worker-input] would drop. Thus they admitted the connection between productivity and job-loss.

Most economists do NOT expect such drops in productivity or such gains in jobs. In fact, the job-creation rate was dismal in December, January, and February--and there's no real reason to think this situation will change by November. This causes stomach-upset among the Bushies, with their whole imperial scheme threatened by the possible diselection of their figurehead President. And there must be quiet, grim satisfaction among the Kerry backers; they must be praying that job-creation will leap up--AFTER OCTOBER.

Neither side can do anything about the job-situation before November. But the gloomy outlook should encourage 'Anyone-but-Bush' people to gamble and offer time and money to back Kerry, thinking he has a good chance to partially undo the disastrous last 4 years--or at least to halt our downward spiral in foreign affairs, homeland security, and the economy.

Great efforts for Kerry are a gamble; they might be wasted if Bush pulls Osama out of his pocket in October--or if terrorists launch a terrifying second attack on our Homeland--which will make people forget the Bush-neglect of Homeland Security, and move sharply to the right.
But the stakes are so high that the gamble is worth making!
---------------
I'll be off-line until 22 March. Then you'll hear from me again.

SAD DELUSION: a new HarrisPoll shows that 70% of Americans polled say the Bushies are doing 'pretty well' or 'excellently' at preventing terrorist attacks.

That's mainly because 9/11 has not yet been repeated. But no expert thinks such an attack WON'T be repeated,or thinks we have adequate defenses to ward off such attacks, or resources at hand to repair/heal after whatever attacks 'get through'.

FOLLOW THE MONEY! All the money for Homeland Security does not total over $50 billion per year--whereas the Pentagon (useless against individual terrorists) gets about ten times as much each year. (Anybody familiar with the problem could outline ways that far more billions should be spent on Homeland Defence..e.g. inspecting the thousands of huge ship-containers that arrive at our ports each DAY--it has been shown that a real nuclear bomb could be shipped from overseas to a U.S. port and go through customs without being detected!

The crucial '1st-responders' after such an attack would be our police & firemen. But Bush's new budget sets out to CUT THEIR MONEY BY ONE-THIRD !

Luckily, Americans think our economic troubles (read JOBS!) are far more important than security issues..so they're turning against Bush anyway. But still one is saddened by their seemingly incurable ignorance on the vital issue of Homeland Security.

PLIGHT OF IRAQI WOMEN: Acc.to Bremer, so many men have been killed that women are now the clear majority. NEVERTHELESS:

They were oppressed under Saddam, but they are even WORSE OFF under the anarchy we have not blocked. (As occupiers, we are responsible for law'norder, and for the collapse of law'norder).

400 women were raped in 5 months just in Baghdad. One observer said, "Before, a few women were raped by Saddam's sons. Now women are raped by EVERYONE !"

And of course the family is disgraced if a woman is seduced OR EVEN RAPED. One common solution is an 'honor killing' of the disgracing woman. 8000 women were 'honor-killed' by their Kurdish kin in the last decade.

No woman can leave her house without an armed male guard.

Young virgins are sold to foreigners for $200--non-virgins for $100.

Men can 'marry' prostitutes for a few hours, then divorce--to legitimize their sex.

The future: our puppet Council quickly tried to annul Saddam's relatively-enlightened family laws, and to restore SHARIA, whose local interpretation often allows women to be crushed.
After women's demonstrations, Bremer refused to sign this change..But after 1 July, he'll have no veto. Women will pay the price for our bugging out. GUARDIAN8Mar

The dream that we can remake Iraq & Afganistan as Western-civilized is mocked by such cultural customs. (Even in 'enlightened, secular' Turkey, honor-killings still take place...but at least they are sometimes prosecuted--just recently; Turkey is on its best behavior, trying to get into EU.)

Americans, ignorant of other cultures, should never have meddled in this VERY ALIEN culture !

ONE MORE ARG.FOR INVASION DISCREDITED: Pro-war people have been chortling that our ruthless treatment of Iraq scared Libya into renouncing WMD plans.
HOWEVER:
a) only Nuke plans were renounced; any gas/germ capabilities are still there, undetectable.

b) Libya was trying to accomodate itself to internatl.opinion BEFORE invasion, says Gary Hart --according to Brookings Institution, the accomodation was NOT a response to the invasion--says FinTimes

IRAN/IRAQ: If elections are at all fair, Shiites will dominate Iraq next year, since they are over 60% of the population. Now Iran (one of our 'axis of evil' nations) is also Shiite;
Ayatollah Sistani is actually Iranian-born.

U.S. has tried for years to keep Iran & Iraq alienated from each other. And Saddam was sworn enemy to Iran (one million killed in Iran/Iraq war).

But now the two nations will become quite friendly. Either the theocratic Iranian model will spread to Iraq, or the 'liberal Islam' model of Sistani might spread to Iran, or some other modifications might happen. But what really counts is that (a) both countries will have huge oil-reserves for sale--already there's talk of a pipeline between the nations-- and (b) the huge population of Iran will make great markets for Iraqi goods. TampaTribune

If a civil war happens in Iraq, resulting in 3 nations (Kurd, Sunni Arab, and Shiite), then the Iraqi Shiites (controlling much of the oil) will almost certainly line up closely with Iran politically and economically, if not theocratically.

One wonders if the Bush-team really foresaw these implications when they set out to topple Saddam.

'STUPID': In a spirited and enjoyable debate with some campus Republicans (8Mar),
I really offended them by saying that typical enlisted soldiers were 'stupid'.
This was a offensive term to use, and I apologize.

But I want to explain how I use the word 'stupid'. It does NOT mean mentally handicapped. As I'll explain later, many professors are stupid.

'Stupid' is not the same as 'ignorant'. Even experts may be ignorant on issues outside their expertise.

But a person who is ignorant on a certain issue, and yet is SELF-CONFIDENT about his knowledge in that area..this person is STUPID in that area. [Professors may be ignorant about areas outside their expertise; yet many of them feel confident to pronounce on many other issues; they count as stupid. (I think I could show that this condemnation does NOT apply to a philosopher like myself talking about the Iraq invasion. ) ]

One common form of stupidity: "There are many things I don't know--but just luckily, these things aren't very important. I understand all the IMPORTANT things!"

Surveys of actual knowledge show that the average American is quite ignorant of national affairs, let alone of world affairs. Yet in opinion polls, very few answer 'don't know'.

The stupid person (ignorant but self-confident) can't learn on that issue, because he thinks HE DOESN'T NEED TO LEARN. That's the meaning of this remark: "The wicked can repent, but STUPID IS FOREVER!"
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My experience of enlistees in the army 50 years ago was that they were ignorant but self-confident. Today's youth (for a given level of education) are clearly MORE IGNORANT than their grandfathers were in 1950. And yet they seem quite SELF-CONFIDENT.

Young people who know almost nothing about world affairs, and even less about the strange culture of Iraq, and yet felt confident enough of the just and sensible nature of our war there that they volunteered to kill and undergo suffering and risk of death for such a dubious war--these men seem to count as ignorant but self-confident.

The same was true of enlistees during the Viet war. (The same would be true of any enlistees in the last 50 years, who place themselves helplessly at the disposition of the Pentagon--when the last half-dozen of our wars have been dubious--not fending off threats to America, but defending strange interests overseas.)

In 1951, I knew nothing about Korea; and I didn't have to be drafted (I had a good chance of a graduate fellowship--if you could evade military service until you were 26, you escaped it.) But as an Iowa Catholic, I mistakenly felt confident that Our Lady of Fatima had intimated that Stalin was the anti-Christ--after 13 years in Catholic schools-- and I wanted to help defeat the anti-Christ. When I got to Korea, I realized we were engaged in protecting one dictator from another. I was really STUPID! ..but seeing the backside of war, I woke up.

NEW POLLS: Some polls last week showed Bush pulling equal to Kerry. But USATODAY8MAR showed Kerry ahead by 8 points among 'likely voters'.(K 52%, B 44%)/ Among registered voters, it was closer: (K 50%, B 45%) Each man has 6-7% of his support that 'might change'.

Do you approve of Bush's presidential performance? Yes 49%, No 48% . (Approval lowest ever except for Jan.04)

Which issue is most important? Economy 65% /Terrorism only 26% (They may be wrong on this ranking--but what counts is that Bush strutting around using the Twin Towers in his ads may not work for him--still he has to keep to that strategy (as well as gay marriage) to distract people, if he can, from the economy.

Would you favor a candidate who is 'good on economy'? yes 51%
...'good on terrorism'? yes 42%

Does ____________ have the personality & leadership qualities needed in a President?
Bush: yes 57% / no 40%Kerry: yes 57% /no 32%

It now looks quite possible that Kerry would win over Bush (barring some unexpected trick, like B. producing binLaden in Oct.)

However, it'll be hard to motivate Colorado ABB people to make great efforts and contributions, knowing that this State is stubbornly Republican. But we're having a severe job-recession which will likely not improve before November. And jobs threatened or destroyed are middle-class jobs, not just blue-collar jobs.
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WORRYING: After all the evidence, 55% still think 'the war was worth it' ! (Having backed the war earlier, they may feel that saying otherwise would condemn themselves as well as Bush for being foolish.)
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Good news: Men are now evenly divided between K & B ! (Maybe we shouldn't write off too quickly the testosterone-poisoned.)

And sensible women, as usual, back Kerry 53% over 43% for Bush. USATODAY

AFGHAN HORROR: At least 40 Afghani women from one city, in the last six months, have tried to SET THEMSELVES ON FIRE, preferring to die rather than submit to physical and mental abuse by their in-laws. NYTIMES

This in spite of the 'guarantees of women's rights' written into their new paper constitution. (We should remember this sobering fact before we celebrate the paper-protection of women's rights in the new Iraq 'constitution'.)

When we toppled the Taliban regime, U.S. media showed us children playing with kites for the first time, and told of the great liberation of women that would follow. What we should have realized is that the oppression of women did NOT come ESPECIALLY from the Taliban; it is built right into Afghani culture.

So we've done the women no great favor by 'liberating' Afghanistan from the Taliban.

THE NEW INTERIM CONSTITUTION OF IRAQ: (holding until election of interim assembly by Jan.05) and the passing of a new permanent constitution written by this assembly.);
tHE TEXT MAY BE READ ON THE WEBSITE OF U.S. BREMERITE REGIME

A quick skimming of this document shows no reference to a crucial issue: will contracts signed by this interim govt (taking power on 30June04) bind future Iraq governments?This UNELECTED interim govt. is basically a creature of U.S., so it should not be recognized as sovereign (able to bind future Iraq governments by contracts made in its term of office).

Sistani on Monday once again, as he has before, reminded people of this issue, underscoring its importance: as I understand it, exploitative contracts have already been OKd by our puppet Council that would have far-reaching effects on the Iraqi economy; they are clearly invalid, as passed under OCCUPATION--but suppose this new unelected regime OKd similar contracts, what then?

I'd guess this next unelected regime, another pawn of U.S., WILL TRY to OK such contracts, hoping they will bind future regimes. I'd think that unless this unelected regime is RECOGNIZED AS SOVEREIGN by other nations, this ploy won't work.

The other problem is that this unelected regime will write the rules for the real election (Dec04 or Jan05). They'll have to be watched--and they will be, especially by the Shiites and Kurds!
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On a quick reading, I found no clause either affirming or denying the interim regime's power to sign contracts binding future Iraq governments. But some Shiites said the constitution does allow this. One Shiite stayed away from the signing, because of this and other objections. IslamOnline
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Interestingly, a long article on this document in InternatlHeraldTribune
did not mention the 'valid contracts' issue at all !

Neither did a story on Shiite reservations on REUTERS.

ZBIGNEW BRZEZINSKI: he's an old cold-war thinker, almost on a par with Henry Kissinger.
In NYTIMES he analyzes the Bush-team's new 'GREATER MIDEASTERN INITIATIVE'.

This intiative is absurd even at first sight; they dream they're going to impose democracy (and especially FREE ENTERPRISE) on an alien region. They have shown by their bungles in Iraq that they don't understand Mideastern Muslim cultures at all--their operatives don't even SPEAK THE LANGUAGE!

Brzezinski patiently shows in detail, at careful second sight, how this initiative has angered the region's rulers by its presumption: the honcho in Egypt called it 'delusional'. It has also annoyed European countries.

Brzezinski says the Bush idea of promoting democracy in the MiddleEast is good, but the execution is bad. People who talk this way should know from the start that ANY INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVE RUN BY THE BUSHIES will be disastrous. Their custom is to base reckless INTERVENTIONIST lunges on ignorant ISOLATIONIST thinking.

'ABSTINENCE-ONLY' AND SEX DISEASES: In 2000 in America, there were 19 million NEWLY DIAGNOSED cases of sex-disease, and 9 million of these were of young people (only 1/4 of the sexually-active population). 1 in 2 high-school students had sex. GUTTMACHER INSTITUTE

(And this was pre-Bush!)
The Bushies, appeasing their fundamentalist-yahoo consituency,
are pushing 'abstinence-only' (NO sex-ed) as the solution. The CDC, since Bush came in, has played down the need for condoms, even though it's admitted that condoms prevent sex-disease.

These yahoos often say, "Abstinence is the only sure-fire method to avoid disease."
That's not true--mutual masturbation may work also.

More importantly, all people can decide for is ATTEMPTED abstinence; you can't decide to SUCCEED at any difficult endeavor. And young people who TRY to abstain have no guarantee they will successfully hold out, and thus no guarantee they will avoid disease.

It could be that ATTEMPTED ABSTINENCE is MORE risky than 'safe-sex', because the people who TRY to abstain may not be in the habit of carrying condoms. AND THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO USE CONDOMS!

The good-news is that births to teen-age girls are fewer than ever, and getting fewer (though this rate is considerably higher in America than anywhere else in 'advanced' countries.)

Americans now don't get married till they're 25 or 30. I know of no culture that expects masses of ordinary youths to abstain for THAT LONG! (except perhaps Ireland in the old days.)

SEVEN BRITS INJURED: They were attacked by small-arms and grenade-rockets.
INDEPENDENT

On the one hand, who here cares about any casualties that aren't American?

On the other hand,this attack took place in BASRA, a Shiite town that hasn't seen many guerilla attacks on Brit troops, who are apparently less crude than U.S. GIs. It would be a bad sign for Americans if Shiites started shooting Occupation troops!

IRAQ, A YR.AFTER INVASION: Peter Beaumont had been in Iraq earlier. Now he returned and printed 11 interviews he thinks are representative.

Several people said they were grateful for new freedom to express themselves (they might be untypical..most people think electricity and security from crime are more important.)

Practically all of them said GIs are behaving like hostile slobs, insulting women and children. One wondered how Americans could be so dumb as not being able to restore services like electricity in a whole year.

A woman says she rarely dares to leave her house.

A bottom-level rag-picker says his group are now better off; they have clean water to drink now, instead of drinking from the filthy river.

But some say the GIs must stay on, to prevent a bloodbath. GUARDIAN
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It may be thought unfair that U.S. is blamed for Iraqi-vs.-Iraqi crimes. But I believe that International Law says that an OCCUPYING ARMY is responsible for LAW'NORDER.

It was of course immoral for Bush to invade Iraq without knowing that we could restore LAW'NORDER there afterwards.

It was stupid AND immoral for dim Bremer (probably on orders from the Pentagon) to suddenly fire the whole Saddamite police-force and army, when he should have known that our troops (not trained as police, and NOT SPEAKING THE LANGUAGE!) couldn't police Iraq.

It wouldn't help to REHIRE these Saddamite soldiers and policemen; by now, unemployed and rejected, many probably sympathize with and help the guerillas--and our top Gen.Abizaid has admitted that our new 'security force' has sometimes been infiltrated by guerilla supporters. [How could our people screen them out, when our people DON'T SPEAK THE LANGUAGE! ?]