MISSILE-DEFENSE VS. HOME PROTECTION: For decades, right-wing Presidents have sunk tens of billions into a strange project: developing missiles to shoot down missiles. So far, none of these gadgets have really worked. More importantly, they wouldn't do much good if they did work. They're designed only to counter clumsy possible ground-based missile-attacks from 'countries like North Korea' (actually, North Korea is the only country that even plausibly might pose such a threat--if N.K. didn't exist, they'd have to invent it--which is what they've been doing, trying to get Americans hysterical over this danger from an impoverished country that has never attacked anybody in the 50 years of its existence.)

If we don't attack first, of course, N.K. would never be crazy enough to launch its few pathetic missiles at us, bringing down nuclear annihilation on themselves. Now, if we launch a first-strike at N.K., survivors might well come out of their caves with lots of plutonium and even a few missiles to use in revenge against us. But they won't be using land-based missiles; they'll donate their small nukes to terrorists from other countries (say, Indonesia) who will load them onto a few of the THOUSANDS of huge ship-containers that enter our ports UNINSPECTED, EACH DAY. Or the terrorists could mount nuke-armed cruise-missiles on freight ships to be fired at us from some place in mid-ocean.

So the whole 'missile-defense' project is goofy, filling no purpose except to fill the pockets of various weapons-corporations who contribute to the Republicans. How much are they going to spend NEXT YEAR on this ONE project? about NINE BILLION./NYT31Jan./ For all aspects of REAL homeland protection, Bush will give the Dept.of Homeland Security only $45 billion.

 
GEORGE VS. GEORGE: George Soros, the philosophically-trained billionaire, warns that the sole motivation of Bush's economic policies is to goose the economy temporarily so it looks good in November..after that, big trouble lies ahead.

However, it's not working; experts say that there won't be anywhere near enough JOBS created before November a) to sustain economic growth or (b)--more importantly, to make job-threatened voters friendly to Bush. INDEPENDENT
========
RockyMtnNews ran 2 bits of good news on 31Jan:
1) "Jobless claims stick close to 3-year low"--perhaps because over 300,000 workers have QUIT LOOKING for jobs ('Jobless claims' are those people looking for work this month who can't find it, so they start collecting jobless pay. Of course those who have used up their unemployment allowance aren't counted.)

2) "A slowdown in wages/benefits held labor costs in 4th quarter to smallest increase in a year." Of course to the typical American these 'costs' held down are actually wages/benefits paid out.

 
HILARIOUS BAN: Our puppet Council in Iraq has just banned the blunt AL JAZEERA paper AGAIN from their offices and press conferences . /GUARDIAN

The prestige of this paper comes partly from the fact that Osama binLaden has chosen it to publish his from-hiding utterances.

The excuse sometimes given for restricting these Arab papers has been that they may INCITE Iraqis to even more violence. Does the Council worry that their typists and clerks are going to be incited to riot?

I'll risk my readers being incited to riot by offering a link to the English-language version of ALJAZEERA .

 
ANTI-SEMITISM? A FINANCIALTIMES(31jAN) headline: "Why Americans think Europeans are anti-semitic."

Let's get this straight, once & for all: Despising Sharon is NOT anti-semitic; being saddened by Israel's immoral and suicidal policies--this is not anti-semitic.

Many U.S. Jews share these concerns; they are not anti-semitic.

 
WHOM DID WE KILL? A typical bombing fiasco in Afghanistan. We said that our bombs killed 5 militants. Locals said they killed eleven innocent civilians, including 4 children.
Now the U.S. puppet President Kharzai confirms that the raid killed ten civilians.
/CNN

 
GALL, NOT GUTS: (Letter to ROCKYMOUNTAINNEWS)
Diana West (31Jan) reminds us that many other world figures believed (wrongly) that Saddam had WMDs, but only Bush 'had the guts to act'. Perhaps Clinton and others hesitated to start a war based on their mere beliefs, unsupported by reliable intelligence. Or perhaps they held back from a sensible concern over what would happen when we had to occupy and rebuild Iraq after we destroyed the Saddamite regime.

Bush did not hesitate; he rushed ahead, acting on false information, with little thought of post-invasion problems. He got us into this terrible situation, where a dozen GIs are killed each week, with dozens wounded, with no end in sight.

When someone displays 'guts' without good-sense, we should say instead that he had the GALL to lunge into a dreadful, unforgiveable blunder.
----------
Three GIs killed today near Kirkuk. Oil-pipeline sabotaged again. Dozens of Iraqis killed or maimed. /HOUSTON CHRONICLE
===========
A GRIM JOKE?

Russia just staged a full-scale simulation of a nuke attack on America. They said this was part of their 'war on terror' ! /RMN31Jan/

This labelling may be a display of Putin's grim sense of humor. He may be poking fun at our invading Iraq, irrelevantly, under the slogan that we were in a 'war on terror.'

 
2 MILLION LOSING UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS: Theirs will run out before July.
Before, in this jobless emergency, these ben. were extended; but in December, Republicans decided another extension wasn't necessary, because job-situation was improving. (It didn't). One Rep. said, "We're in a deficit situation; we must be very careful about govt. expenditures." /WashPost

NOW they worry about skyrocketing deficit (over $500 billion in 04.)

This is bad news not just for these two million workers. For the still-employed, there will be two million more desperate people 'looking over their shoulder' hoping to replace them.
---------
And even if these desperate people find new jobs, they'll get far lower pay than on the jobs they lost--21% less, is the natl.average. DETROITFREEPRESS
--------
To distract the people from this economic news, (& from the oncoming chaos in Iraq & Afghanistan) the Bushies better catch Osama in October..or pull some other stunt...

Wouldn't it be a joke if Osama committed suicide secretly, after making one last defiant tape--and his body were hidden, to deprive Bushies of this triumph???
For world's Muslims, he'd be far more immortal than Elvis!
============
DESPERATE TWO-INCOME FAMILIES: Bankruptcies are up 400% in 25 years; house foreclosures are up 350%.
90% of bankruptcies are 'middle-class' families.
By 2010 (if present trends continue) 1 in 7 families with children will declare bankruptcy.
Familes with 2 incomes now have LESS DISCRETIONARY INCOME than one-income families had a generation ago.
There is one in sixteen chance that one worker in a 2-income family will lose job.
WashPost

Small wonder that Bush's polls are sinking fast.

 
OPINION ON THE GROUND: A December poll in BUSINESS WEEK shows only 36% of soldiers & their families and veterans approve of Bush.
An Oct poll in STARS & STRIPES cite 1 in 3 military personnel saying this war has little or no value.
50% of NationalGuard, & Reservists report low morale. /cited in WAR-TIMES
-------------
Robert Fisk is a very respected reporter for LONDON INDEPENDENT. He has just published a piece in a PAKISTANI paper (!) alleging that NINETEEN BILLION DINARS (1000 to the dollar) were smuggled out to British companies, but were blocked by Lebanese agents worried about terrorist-financing.

The allegation is that Americans in Iraq--right up to Bremer !--are siphoning off money.
cited in HI PAKISTAN!

 
JANUARY SPIKE IN AMERICANS KILLED (Angry Kurds on Horizon !):
33 GIs and one U.S. civilian were killed in Iraq in January.[update: 47 Yanks were killed altogether in January.]
Half were killed in Anwar province, where 3 weeks ago, a U.S. general said, "We've turned that corner..we're on the glide-path toward success."
Fewer attacks have happened since Saddam was captured (which U.S. spokesman announced triumphantly)--but, it turns out, with more U.S. fatalities--which is what counts at home politically.
(Some soldiers say there are so many attacks they don't bother to log them unless there are casualties. /18 people dead & 50 wounded on 31 Jan. /INDEPENDENT
50-100 people killed and 200 wounded on 1 Feb, by suicide bomber at Kurdish HQ./AssocPress
[UPDATE: 100 died from Kurdish bombings.]

Bremer's spokesman said that casualties would continue until June, when we'll hand over civilian control to SOME KIND of Iraqi interim govt./FinTimes
-----------------
Do they expect that when this handover happens, the guerillas will be pacified, and will quit attacking? Or that the ordinary Iraqis who are hiding & supporting the guerillas will then turn them in? Someone has said that whatever the new arrangements, there will be losers among Iraq's ethnic rivals, and the losers may well form new guerilla coalitions.
=============================
Iraq Kurds have been best allies of U.S. MORE FOOL THEY!

BUSH JUST PROMISED TURKEY that Kurds will NOT get autonomy; 'admin.sources' say the Kurds won't even get the degree of autonomy they've had recently. Also, they won't get the Kirkuk oil. But TURKEY still isn't satisfied; they want the Iraqi Kurds hobbled even more. NYT Does this mean that our GIs will, after June, be also facing KURDISH GUERILLAS ? (They have 70,000 trained troops--and just recently they quit fighting each other. (The horrific attacks simultaneously on the 2 main factions [nyt]probably means they will be all the more ready to unite .

BREMER ANNOUNCES MOVE VS. PKK: This is the 'cover-party' in Kurdish Iraq for the--perhaps 5000--Turkish-Kurdish rebels hiding out there from the bloody repression in Turkey. It's said their area is surrounded by land-mines. It's also said that 5000 Turkish soldiers are roaming around Kurdish Iraq hunting down these rebels--over intense local resentment.

It seems that these Turks aren't succeeding in putting down these rebels. And Turks fear too much visible brutality might block their entry into 'civilized' European Union. So Turkey wants U.S. to squash them, and fast! Now Bremer seems to say GIs will do that !

Bremer may intend to bomb the hell out of areas containing the Turk-Kurds. But then the 5000 Turkish/Kurdish rebels will likely disperse, and will join the 70,000 Iraq/Kurdish troops in killing GIs !)

The Iraq Kurds demand that their autonomy be guaranteed in first draft of new constitution (which Bremer will put out before 28 Feb!)
If not, they say, there will be a referendum in Iraq's Kurdland perhaps this year (!)
--which would presumably be a referendum voting for secession from the new Iraq. (Sunni Arabs, Shiites, and Turks, as well as Iran & Syria would intensely, perhaps violently oppose such autonomy for Iraq Kurds--especially they'd oppose restoring oil-rich Kirkuk to the Kurds.) FinTimes
=============
SKETCHY BACKGROUND: The Kurds are the world's largest ethnic group denied 'self-government'. When the Brits/French took over the MiddleEast parts of the Otttoman Empire (just before 1920) they promised the Kurds a separate homeland; then of course they betrayed the Kurds, and divided their lands between Iran, Syria, Turkey and the new Iraq. The Kurds have never given up the ideal of self-government.

The closest they came to success was during the 1990s: after GulfWarI, U.S. encouraged Iraqi Kurds to revolt against Saddam, then betrayed them (of course!) to let them get slaughtered (and gassed).

then U.S. decided to protect them from Saddam's planes! So they had years to build up safely an 'autonomous' Kurdland within Iraq. The Turks, Iranians, and Syrians glowered, afraid that the success of an autonomous Kurdland would encourage trampled Kurds in THEIR countries.
(Especially worrying was the chance that the Kurds would regain oil-soaked Kirkuk !)

Aware and sensitive people all over the world have sympathized with the trampled Kurds. IF U.S. now helps Turkey squash the Iraqi Kurds-
then the world's present view will be confirmed that U.S. is top rogue-state: ruthless and reckless in betraying anyone for any short-run advantage (the Turks are offering U.S. help in rotating U.S. troops this Spring; however, The outraged Iraqi Kurds might harrass the outgoing/incoming GIs horribly. )
================
No wonder Bremer is determined to bug out by June! But what about the GIs he's leaving behind?

All this ethnic chaos should have been foreseen earlier, should have dissuaded Bushies from removing Saddam the dictator--when only a ruthless dictator could hold the 3 rival ethnic groups together as one nation.

But nothing could dissuade these ignorant meddlers.

 
SARS AS BIOWEAPON? A story in RMN30Jan said that the SARS virus was now so contagious that 70% of the people would get infected who are in contact with a patient. So far there is no effective vaccine; in fact, it is very difficult in the first stages to distinguish SARS from regular flu.

Plug in several other facts: 1) many Americans are NOT getting flu shots, partly because corporations didn't produce enough vaccine; (2) so it's possible that at first SARS victims would be confused with flu victims; (3) we have already an incredible shortage of nurses (hospitals are paying big bucks to lure nurses from other hospitals) and there is as yet no aggressive program for recruiting and training (and retaining) nurses or other medical aides; (4) poor, uninsured Americans don't get early diagnoses for illnesses; certainly a doctor wouldn't see a low-income 'flu victim' quickly; (5) The Sars virus can survive on dry surfaces and in low temperatures. [I read this somewhere long ago; the CDC info does not say this; it says the virus can survive 'for several days' and that it can be contracted by touching a surface, then your mouth; it does NOT say explicitly that it can survive only in liquid.] CDC

All this means that, while SARS didn't originate as a biowar 'designer'germ--it could certainly be used effectively as one. If terrorists brought the germ into U.S.; if a terrorist deliberately planted it in moist food at a poor-man's bus-cafe (where customers then travel all over)--and thus deliberately spread it among our poor--a pandemic might happen even among well-to-do Americans before it was recognized. ('Martyr-murderer' terrorists might not object to catching the disease themselves while they're spreading it. Symptoms don't appear for several days; a symptomless 'martyr-murderer' could enter U.S. to wreak havoc.

Some flights from England&France this weekend were cancelled because of 'spotty intelligence' indicating a plan to use the flights to import germs/gas/and/or radioactive material. cnn

A crazy group in Seattle(?) managed to deliberately spread e-coli through a salad bar.
--------------------------
Even if this doesn't happen, the SARS possibility shows how easy it would be, in the present ramshackle condition of our Homeland Protection, for a biowar attack to devastate us. The Homeland Security Dept. now gets money for a year about equal to what goes to the irrelevant Pentagon each month. (The Pentagon's nifty bombers and missiles aren't worth a shit against individual terrorists.)
--------------
Colorado may be short 4235 Registered Nurses by 2005--even WITHOUT any biowar ! The well-to-do suburbs will lure the really competent nurses away from hospitals for the poor./ DenvPost1FEb
-----------------
WHAT TO DO? Right now, only compulsory QUARANTINES would be even a partial solution. But this presupposes accurate diagnosis. What's more, we can't have the poor see medics as just police ready to haul off sick people to a 'concentration camp' quarantine, not to treat these poor people.
(Else the poor will hide their sick.)

There's no alternative but to extend (expensive) full medical care to the poor, unsavory as that is to our middle-class.

I believe that it was only when the middle-class in Britain realized that plagues starting among the poor do spread to the well-to-do--it was only then that England set out to provide adequate SEWAGE SYSTEMS for the poor as well as the rich.

==================
And yet most Americans foolishly trust Bush on the 'security' issue. See 'RAGE DISGUISED AS FEAR' for a guess as to how this incredible mistake could be made.

 
SUPPOSE SOME WMD'S ARE HIDDEN IN IRAQ:
A Kurdish Minister in new Iraq govt. says there are (gas/germs) hidden in Iraq, even though 1000 U.S. 'experts' couldn't find any. REUTERS
There might be; Saddam would have been a fool not to stock gas/germs to punish invaders (surely there aren't any large stocks necessary to attack other nations.)
After all, mountains of explosives seem to be available to the guerillas, to be brought out of hiding when needed.

Suppose there are some gas/germs hidden away. These could be used at any time against our troops. (A rocket just plowed into Bremer's parking lot!--it could have been loaded with gas or anthrax, not just explosives.) Our troops are not now wearing 'space-suits' for protection.

If such a disaster happened, it should be the last straw in convincing Americans of the total incompetence of the Bushies. It would add to the tragedy a note of black humor.

Even the real possibility of such a nightmare should be enough to motivate our government to get all Americans the hell out of Iraq, now.

 
FEEBLY FLAPPING HAWK (letter to ROCKYMTNNEWS)
Your editorial on 29Jan asks war-critics to remember reasons
justifying Bush's invasion at the time of decision.
"The U.S. was spending $2 billion a year to enforce the no-fly
zones." Well, now we spend over $1 billion a WEEK carrying through Bush's foolish decision.
"The endless air-patrols were taking a toll of aircraft, crews and
morale." Not a single U.S. plane was shot down during the 'no-fly'
project. However, since the war 'ended', we have lost a dozen planes and
helicopters.
Correspondents say that morale among our troops is at an all-time low.
Army psychiatrists are preparing to deal with thousands of
cases of PostTraumaticStressSyndrome, perhaps years from now.
Enlistments in the army reserve are less than half of what they were.Reenlistments of troops in Iraq have not been much increased by a promised $10,000 bonus.

And ELEVEN THOUSAND troops have been medically evacuated to the U.S. as sick,
wounded or maimed. UNITED PRESS INTERNATL. Presumably their
ailments were too serious to be treated in Iraq. Never mind over 500 dead.

"Saddam clearly intended to crank up production of banned weapons once the sanctions were lifted." You profess to read Saddam's mind, in
spite of the fact that he made no real attempts to produce these banned
weapons over a period of years. And on the basis of that mind-reading,you'd justify a first-strike attack on a sovereign country-- an attack which an emissary of worldly-wise Vatican aptly described as 'unjust, illegal, and disastrous.'

This editorial surpasses even RMN's high standard of goofiness.

A GENERAL REFLECTION: Most 'hearty, war-loving Americans' are too dumb to read any editorial page. One wonders whom the RMN page is aimed at; the minority of editorial readers--these people must be too bright to take RMN's fulminations seriously. (I read the page for entertainment.)

 
FOR A GOOD LIST OF BUSHIE ATROCITIES & AMERICAN FOLLIES, CLICK HERE

 
SUNNI GUERILLAS HELPING BREMER? Bremer doesn't want early elections, for fear they'd put Shiites in power. Sunnis of course don't want that either, for the same reason.

UN is going to send observers to see if Iraq is 'safe' enough for early elections.
The guerillas, mainly in Sunni territory, have stepped up their killings horrifically in the last week. It will be a 'no-brainer' for UN to disapprove of early elections on grounds of 'inadequate security'.

However, what Ayatollah Sistani wants is not elections, necessarily. He recently said, "I find no reference to elections in Koran!" What he wants is that the interim govt. (which will determine rules for elections in '05) be controlled by real Shiites, [as should happen, with almost 2 in 3 Iraqis being Shiite)--not the fake ones Bremer probably had in mind. (UN SHOULD see to it that U.S. can't distort the 'caucuses' to prevent real Shiite domination.)

So, if Bremerites tinker with their present plan, they could come up with an interim Shiite assembly that would satisfy Sistani WITHOUT ELECTIONS. That would outmaneuvre the Sunni guerillas. And it would enable Bremerites to abdicate and bug out by June.

Besides security, another problem is compiling accurate voter-lists soon. Iraqi officials (and Sistani's aides) say the food-ration cards could be supplemented to provide such lists soon. FinTimes
---------------
Only a few problems would remain: dealing with Kurd demands for Kirkuk, and pacifying Sunni Arabs....that is, avoiding secession & civil war! also, cutting down on GI casualties. (GIs are being left behind, perhaps through 2006 (!) as sitting ducks while the civilian Bremerites bug out.)

BUSH JUST PROMISED TURKEY that Kurds wouldn't get increased autonomy.
Does this mean our GIs will also be killed by KURDISH guerillas?
-----------
UN would help its credibility if it denounced U.S. plans for a fake election in AFGHANISTAN this summer; Afgh is now controlled mainly by narco-warlords and Taliban.

 
To see "RAGE DISGUISED AS FEAR", click HERE

==========

To read about our puppet Council's 'SHARIA' putdown of uppity Iraqi women, click here
==============

The Philosophical Billionaire, GEORGE SOROS SPEAKS:
in GUARDIAN, warning against Bushies' dangerous combination of religious fundamentalism and market fundamentalism.

 
THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMY--TWO PERSPECTIVES:
Two articles in USATODAY26JAN illustrate two different perspectives on new wave of overseas outsourcing, not just lowly textile jobs. but elite jobs in Info-tech, medicine and business-mgmt.

--The corporation perspective: (article by A.Webber. p. 13A): Pols are ignoring danger to U.S. economy from foreign competition. "Indian & Chinese companies can now produce technologically sophisticated...offerings that are DIMINISHING AMERICAN ECONOMIC STANDING." / We're not going to get back the 3 million manufacturing jobs we've lost; instead, we're going to lose more./ Pols are foolish to 'blame' free-trade treaties,or corporations for jobs moving to where they can be performed at highest quality for lowest cost.

Lyons Comment: Of course the 'free trade' ideology IS to blame. Needless to say, Webber dismisses protectionism as not worth discussing. Transnational corporations would hate protectionism.
---------------------------------
Webber again: 'Want jobs? get skills!' He points out that millions of Indian/Chinese hi-skilled workers will be competing head-on with our poor youths, many of whom haven't really learned to read and write English, let alone computer-code.

He's right about that, and in spite of all the chatter about educational reform, things are getting worse--(on p.7D): the latest UCLA study of 276,449 'elite' U.S.youth, (college frosh at 413 FOUR-YEAR colleges) shows these things: they're more right-wing than before, more interested in getting rich. They're coming into college with higher grades--in 1966, 7% earned mainly A's but in 2003,23%.
However, they studied less than before in high-school: in 1986, 47% said they studied 6 or more hrs.a wk. during senior year--while in 2003 only 23% studied that much. The high grades were fake.
(They just haven't got the message that Greed on top of Laziness is doomed to frustration.

WEBBER'S PERSPECTIVE: Naturally, these educational facts upset the bosses. They want as large a pool as possible of educated, trainable workers, to compete against each other and lessen their bargaining power. (With drop in birth-rate, and immigration being mainly from the 'bottom', it looks at first sight as if the minority of U.S. youth who get really educated over 17years would have a really good bargaining position. Not so.)
-----------------------------
WORKERS' PERSPECTIVE: Webber never mentions that U.S. youth getting well-educated and trained must compete with foreign well-trained youth who are willing to work for ONE-SIXTH the customary wages of elite U.S. youth! It's not clear that it pays our youth to work hard and stay in school for 17 years or more, when, even if they do, they must work for $10 an hour.

These youth often had to borrow huge amounts to stay in school; working for low wages, they won't be able to repay these loans..which often cannot be shrugged off thru bankruptcy like other kinds of loans.

The younger siblings and cousins of these over-educated wretches will likely decline to get themselves into such a dilemma. If they drop out after high-school, they can still get $10-an-hour jobs, and EARN FOR FIVE MORE YEARS, getting more work-experience.
----------
"Ah, but with the baccalaureates competing now for the more menial jobs, perhaps the mere high-school graduate will be squeezed out even from the $10-an-hour jobs, perhaps rendered unemployable altogether."

Well, that's true IF the fast-food employers, etc., are dumb enough to compulsively hire college grads (who have often been trained in laziness not just for 12 years, but for 17 years!) But these employers might sensibly look instead for the few youths who got really educated in grade-school and high-school, and then dropped out--youths who have demonstrated, for five extra years, their competence and willingness to work.

Then the whole top-heavy educational enterprise (forcing every youth to try for a baccalaureate) might collapse. The aristocratic college grads will have to compete for low-pay jobs on a level playing-field with 'drop-outs' who have equal intelligence and better work-habits.
--------
In sum: the new technical possibility to 'outsource' elite jobs could change the educational landscape.
Sensible governments will invest more in 'honor-students' k-12, and less in feckless, lax-standards 13th-17th-grade institutions.
--------
Added comment: ColoStateU just threatened to raise its standards and cut its growth, perhaps to punish the State govt. for cutting its budget. CSU is commanded by the State to have higher entrance-standards than, say, AIMS junior-college--but each year in the past it has admitted 20% of its freshmen without having to apply ANY specific entrance-standards.

Now it threatens to cut-down on admissions from this 20% 'window' (a window designed, presumably, to admit ignorant athletes and ignorant children of the powerful--and to bring in more tuition-money and state-aid money to the university.)

To my knowledge (after nearly 40 years teaching at CSU) :
a) the school-administration has NEVER raised its admission standards voluntarily--only when forced to do so by the State; and (b) administrators have NEVER complained to the faculty about lax grading standards, even though everyone knew about them.

I was once on the faculty committee dealing with 'flunkouts'. It turned out that any student who flunked out, IF he had enough money, could worm his way back in by taking easy 'Continuing Ed' courses. One prof on the committee said wryly, "The only way to get rid of an unqualified kid at CSU is to shoot him!"

There is little evidence that CSU administrators would not admit a tall dog if enough money accompanied his application--and some CSU departments might pass him.
---------------
"Well, what harm does this do?" CSU profs grade (explicitly or implicitly) 'on the curve'. When a class includes unqualified students, this 'relaxes' the curve, so qualified students can get a 'B' without studying much.

"So what? Self-motivated students will work anyway--especially when they realize that later they will have to compete with awesomely-hard-working Chinese and Indian youths."

Add one more element to this devils-brew: many feckless U.S. youth are NOT 'self-motivated'; they consider themselves 'suckers' if they study more than necessary to get a 'B'.

So when unqualified students are admitted, many qualified CSU students actually study less, and learn less.

 
[I printed this story here long ago. Anyone who chooses can skip down to the next piece about the presidential polls.
-----------------------------
THE MOST IMPRESSIVE HUMAN I'VE EVER MET:
(Most sensible people--like myself--are not very dedicated; most heroically dedicated people--like bin Laden--are not sensible. Rarely do you meet a person both heroic & sensible.)

In 1952-3 I was stationed at an army office in Inchon, Korea. On a hill was the 'French Church'. The 8-foot statue of the Virgin-with-child in front was shot up by bullets, with the Virgin's face missing and the Baby's head blown off; the roof on the church was blown in.

Next to the church was an orphanage for little girls, run by a French order, the Sisters of St.Paul of Chartres. This institution was actually run by a stout Irish nun of that order from Belfast, Sister Philomena, in her 50s, with a half-dozen Korean nuns assisting.

Before the Korean war, there were French nuns in charge of the orphanage, with Sister Philomena merely the music director at the church. These nuns had been in Inchon since before the 1930's (Sister Philomena since 1934); they were placed under house-arrest by the Japanese occupiers during WWII; they nearly starved; then, when liberated, their metabolism was so improved that they swelled up obesely when the Americans swamped them with food; they had to be hospitalized to adjust finally.

THE KOREAN WAR: When the Communists took Inchon in 1950, they killed all the French nuns. It just happened that Sister Philomena was on an errand in Seoul that day; she was flown out by the Americans, and later returned, assigned to run the orphanage--after Inchon was retaken by the Americans.
"I really should find the burial places for those nuns; they count as martyrs", Sister Philomena told me, " but I figure live orphans are more important than the bones of martyrs." I got to know her right away, fascinated by her brisk attitudes toward life. Here are my disjointed memories of this woman.
-----------------
There were about 50 orphans there, from new infants to 6-year-olds. The infants were in cardboard boxes in the halls, sucking on beer-bottles- with-nipples. There was a 'lazy-Susan' front door. The whores would throw out the half-American babies into the streets; Good Women would retrieve them and carry them up to the orphanage, where they would place the baby in the 'lazy Susan', ring the doorbell and run. I was there when the doorbell would ring and half-dead babies showed up.

A hospital ship in Inchon harbor treated wounded allied soldiers helicoptered in from the Front Line, about 30 miles away. The hospital personnel were forbidden to come ashore, because the air in Inchon was infected with various diseases. (Korean farmers then used human excrement as fertilizer; it was picked up by 'honey-buckets', for instance from GI toilets, then hauled out to the country in 'honey-carts'. The smell was an awful 4th dimension of experience that I never got used to.)

However, one doctor did get to know Sister Philomena, who arranged that her agents in boats would pick up the rich garbage from the hospital ship and sell it (to be fed to pigs or people) with the money going to the orphanage./ This doctor got the idea of feeding the new babies on milk mixed with outdated transfusion-blood from the hospital ship; this mixture had almost-magic properties for reviving the discarded babies; she said he was writing a research paper on the subject./
The Korean parish-priest at the 'French church' was jealous of the money that went to the orphanage from GIs. When he heard of this baby-saving strategem, he protested to Philomena that St.Paul had forbidden the drinking of blood. She looked down at him and replied, "Yes, St. Paul said a lot of dumb things about women, too!"That ended that.

They also tangled when she managed to get a few American officers to adopt the more beautiful infants; he said that Canon Law forbade her to hand Catholic infants over to Protestant parents. She said, "Right--but Canon Law does not insist that I have these children baptized at all. If you interfere with these adoptions, I'll wait to baptize the children until they're older; then the young infants can be adopted by anyone." The priest was reduced to fuming silence.

One of her adoptions made a story that ended up as a movie. She temporarily housed a small boy rescued from the front line; he was 'adopted' by a whole Navy ship. In the end, a Navy doctor had to leave the service to adopt the boy--who grew up to be an American doctor. (I recently heard from him: a 'Dr.Neenan'.)

SENTIMENTAL? The captain in my office sneered at my admiration for this nun. "Sheer sentiment!" he snapped, "Instead of caring for orphans, she should be handing out condoms to the whores!" I said that she was about as sentimental as a supply sergeant.
In fact, when I reported his remark to her, she said,"Sentimental! If I gave in to sentiment, I'd drown these half-breeds, as indeed some of the Korean nuns have suggested; only Catholic principles restrain me. No Korean man will ever marry them; we are nuns raising whores. The French take in their bastards; the Americans deny the whole problem."
I finally got the captain to visit the orphanage; he had never seen his new baby at home; he got one look at the babies in cardboard boxes, burst into tears, and fled. "Emotional!", commented the nun later, "Those emotional types never come back."

One day she told me, "When I see these Yanks marching to their ships to go home, my eyes tear up. But when I think of the babies they've left me, my eyes go dry."
She had read of the 'Bellevue' case, where orphans who got no cuddling actually died of the deprivation. So she and her overworked assistants tried to find time to cuddle each child a little each day. The older girls (up to age six or so) seemed normal; when any man showed up, they ran to touch your hand or tug at your pants-leg. The nuns taught them how to dance gracefully, so they could perform for visiting Yanks who might contribute. (It occurred to me that such skills might help also in their later careers.)
I never heard where the older girls went, or where boy-babies were sent (I heard these were sent quickly to another orphanage somewhere.)

SHREWD PROVISION: Sister Philomena worked assiduously every possibility of outside help. She got some army official to secure for her an army 'APO' post-office address. That way, she was sure of mail reaching her--"When mail is addressed to you in the Korean system, that just gives you a 'first-bid' privilege"--and also people in America could send her supplies with cheap postage.

I gave her my mother's address, and soon Mom received a nice letter citing certain pages in the Sears-Roebuck catalogue that specified exactly what supplies she and her friends at home might send. (Some supplies were sent to me to forward; when a box of heavy linoleum tiles arrived on top of other soldiers' cookies, there was trouble.) Skimming through the Sears catalogue, Philomena said, "I don't understand how middle-aged American women can spend so much time standing around in their corsets."

MY BAD DECISION: I decided to help the fund-raising by doing some off-key PR work. Knowing the fascination U.S. Protestants then felt for sinful nuns, I spread the word that she was really known as 'Hot Phil', and ran guns which she cadged from American soldiers--she smoked cigarettes, and showed a little leg.

This ploy worked: soon, many GIs and officers were trudging up the hill to the orphanage out of curiosity; there they didn't meet 'Hot Phil', but they met this interesting woman who served tea and cookies (to the officers who were likely to make real contributions)--she herself drank only the tea: "We don't eat between meals."
This PR work (and her own personality) brought in a lot of money; soon she was able to build a big new orphanage which was finished just before I left; I heard later that the orphanage in later years handled at least 400 orphans, with 33 nuns.
Indeed, the movie featured a tough 'Sister Philomena' who played poker with the sailors; I figured that this legend was my doing.
However, I should have expected that such a bizarre story would eventually have some unpredictable results.

As the money came in, the awful Korean government got interested, and a functionary showed up to announce the orphanage would be taxed. Philomena looked down at him, and said, "You tax this place and I hop a plane to Belfast the next morning, leaving you with all these orphans." He backed away.
She didn't win every battle. Other 'orphanages' nearby complained that she was getting all the lucrative garbage from the hospital ship; whereupon, of course, the ship commander heard about this deal to his horror and ordered all the garbage to be thrown into the sea. "Ordinarily, I would never wish spiritual misfortune on anyone," she confided bitterly, "but I really resent those phony orphanages who interfered, and that officer who took the easy road."

She and the Koreans didn't get along very well. "I've been here for 20 years, and they still won't admit I can speak the language!" she would say, and then shout "EEDEWAH!" (COME HERE!) to some hapless child, in a heavy Irish brogue./

TOUGH STANDARDS: She held the American army in genial contempt. "No discipline", she remarked drily..she admired the Japanese army which ran things efficiently until 1945. For instance, the Japanese just rounded up any wild children in the streets and sent them to a 'pound'; the parents could reclaim them; otherwise they were raised with iron discipline.
The GIs on the other hand, would hand out food and candy to the kids in the street--so the wild boys would not stay in any orphanage; they ran away and then perished in the streets from malnutrition and the cold. "These soldiers love the admiration they get from the children," she said, "just like they'd get from dogs."

She thought the American Navy was foolish not to have a 'grog ration', since the sailors showed up in Inchon obsessed with alcohol. "Over the years, I saw the French sailors head right for the whorehouses; but the Americans get so drunk so fast they often never get to the whorehouse; they're piled like cordwood and loaded back on the ships."

"I hear that every Christmas all your sentries are drunk," she said. "These GIs have apparently never heard about George Washington and the Hessians!
They're lucky I hate the Communists; I could tell them how to take Inchon back. When I think that this army is all that stands between me and the Communists-- I have my running shoes ready beneath my bed." (After all, she had narrowly escaped once before.)/
-----------------------------------
AFTER THE WAR: After 16 months I was able to leave Inchon and return home. My family and I continued to send her supplies for a while. We didn't hear from her, so we eventually lost interest. I heard from another ex-soldier that, after the war, she had come through Boston, on a sort of triumphal tour of all her fans there, and also to place five half-breed orphans. Then the story was that she returned to Inchon./

But around 1957 I was in Chartres to see the cathedral, and my eye fell on a building labeled, in French and English, "Sisters of St.Paul de Chartres: Motherhouse". I went right up and asked for a nun who spoke English; I asked her whatever happened to Sister Philomena who ran the Star of the Sea orphanage in Inchon, Korea.

"It was terrible," the nun replied with a grave face, "Some awful person spread the rumour that she was a criminal, a gun-runner--after all her good work there, she was expelled from the country!"

Receiving this fist in the belly, I staggered off, wallowing in shame and guilt. I hadn't foreseen the intensity of American bigotry and Korean resentment, which used my preposterous myth to eliminate her.

Indeed it was years before I could tell anyone this story. I didn't even think to ask what happened to her later; I did find out much later that she worked for years in America before she died.
Later I consoled myself that this way, Sister Philomena didn't die on the job, but spent her last years in comfort. But she didn't return in triumph. Not that the nuns believed the slander, nor her family, but still...

I plan now to send this shaming story to her Order, to clear her name altogether. (Only the nuns of that Order never replied to my inquiry.)
I can only hope that, facing this final humiliation from my bungling, Sister Philomena grew from a hero into a saint.

 
GOOD POLL-NEWS FOR 'ANYONE-BUT-BUSHES':
52% of voters think B. DOESN'T deserve to be reelected, vs. 45% who say he does.
Kerry (49%) pulls ahead of 'W' (46%) / NEWSEEK

 
SADDAMITES IN BED WITH ALQAEDA? NOW, YES!
U.S. general says the type and frequency of guerilla attacks seem to indicate a new and growing AlQuaeda role in the Iraq insurgency. REUTERS

This is a new development. Earlier, Saddam's aggressively-secular regime couldn't get along with binLaden's fanatic religious movement. It wasn't that this alliance provoked and justified our invasion; it's that our invasion brought on this new and dangerous alliance.
----------------------
2 pilots from copter down in Mosul are missing, perhaps captured by insurgents.U.S. hasn't said yet whether copter was downed by guerillas, or came down by accident. /CNN25jan

 
REACTIONARIES UNIMPEDED / letter to ROCKYMOUNTAINNEWS
In his column 25Jan, Clifford May correctly notes the dangers of reactionary Islamism taking over in Iraq. Already, our puppet Council has revoked the secular family laws protecting women and subjected them to the harsh mercies of 'Shariah'. (see 'putdown..' below.)

But May is whistling in the wind. The Iraqis demand that our bungling Bremer regime abdicate, and the Bush-reelection-team is frantic to be sure that our bugout be as soon as possible--in June or even sooner--so its scandals can be forgotten by election-day. "Every aspect of turnover is on the table EXCEPT FOR THE DEADLINE ON JUNE 30" ! /WashPost25Jan/ All this means there will soon be no U.S. civilian presence to counter the Islamization of Iraq.

It's morbidly fascinating that, after Bremer's gang has bugged out, the GIs will still be left in Iraq to face guerilla attacks as sitting ducks--five dead and many wounded just on 24 Jan. Do the Bushies think that. come November, Americans will ignore GIs being killed and maimed, perhaps losing arms, legs, eyes, or faces, or enduring horrifying brain-damage? United Press (18Dec) says that so far, at least ELEVEN THOUSAND GIs (almost one in ten) have been medically evacuated from Iraq.

 
MCNAMARA DENOUNCES IRAQ INVASION:
Should we now heed Robt.McNamara, who helped plunge us into Viet fiasco? He's 87, and repentant, and now he's trying to help America avoid the mistakes he made--but so far he sees uncanny repetition.
In an interview with Canadian paper GLOBE AND MAIL, M. says our present war is wrong: morally, politically, and economically, destroying relationships with allies we need. "I've been totally disgusted by our position re: other nations."

Again and again, he now reflects sadly, "We're not omniscient." Two parts here: then & now, a)our leaders think they are; b) in fact, they are among the most ignorant leaders in the world. (M.was BUSINESS PROF before he ventured to remake Asia. Lyndon Johnson studied at Texas Christian University. As for Bush: just imagine if he had to debate all comers daily, as Blair must do in parliament !)

"We have failed to appreciate complexities of Iraqi culture, failed to anticipate guerilla resistance (just as in Viet!)"
[Lovable Sen.McCain last Spring pronounced: "The Iraqis will be so obviously grateful for our liberating them that the rest of the Muslim world will become reconciled with us!" ]

In both cases, our civilian leaders failed to heed the worries of military officers in the field.

Bush compared his performance with that of Kennedy in Cuba Missile Crisis. Says M: "Bush would not have measured up to that crisis. Kennedy wouldn't have handled Iraq in this way."

M. lists mistakes we made then AND ARE MAKING AGAIN:

--We misjudged foes' intentions, exaggerating danger to U.S. from their actions.

--We totally misjudged political forces in each country.

--We underestimated the power of NATIONALISM as motivating natives to fight & die.

--We were/are profoundly IGNORANT of history, culture and politics of the locals, and of the personalities/habits of their leaders.

--We didn't see the LIMITATIONS of hi-tech to effect desired geopolitical goals.
(Lyons: We are still hypnotized by the glamor of whistling jets and missiles!)

-- We failed to win the hearts & minds of the locals.
(Lyons: in Viet, the real slogan was: "Grab 'em by the balls!Their hearts and minds will follow." We did that, but they didn't follow; instead, they threw us out on our ass--and will do so again.)

--We had no full, honest debate in Congress or with American people before lunging in.
(Lyons: Instead, both administrations lied blatantly; Congress was too craven to resist, and most Americans --for some reason--chose to believe blatant lies, seen as such by the rest of the world.)

--We lunge ahead unilaterally, ignoring the opinions of old allies. (& of disinterested, worldly-wise Vatican!)
-------------------------------------
--We refuse to admit the possibility of unsolvable problems.
(Lyons: "If you can't tell an alternative way to FIGHT TERROR, then shut up."
That's like, "If you can't tell a better way to prevent volcano eruption than our proposal to throw in some virgins, then shut up."

Conceited Americans simply won't believe that we have somehow blundered into a crisis for which there IS NO COMPLETE SOLUTION. Our Homeland WILL be threatened, again and again for years, by individual fanatic terrorists, perhaps eager to die(like the 9/11 19) while killing Americans.

All our bombs & missiles won't help at all against these INDIVIDUALS.

We could (at huge expense) ward off many, but not all such attacks; and we could (at great expense) repair/heal after attacks that get through. But our subsidies to the wealthy, and our well-over
$1, 100, 000, 000 per DAY to the useless Pentagon--these extravagances mean we can't afford to take the imperfect precautions which would be possible.

 
A lot of people have come up with lists of Bush atrocities & American follies--but here's a list from the respected Brit paper THE INDEPENDENT.

It'll curl your hair.

 
UPCOMING: A SHIITE IRAQ. Chalabi, the Pentagon whore on the Governing Council, just said that early elections ARE possible, and that Bremer's sneaky 'caucus' plan would make Iraqi unstable because the transitional assembly would not be seen as legitimate. /NYT /also FinancialTimes A nominal Shiite, Chalabi has switched flexibly to be Sistani's whore.
The departing Brit commander in Basri also announced that early elections are possible.

It now seems very unlikely that the arriving UN team, even if they think early elections are undesirable, will be able to PROVE to AyatollahSistani that early elections are impossible.(He says sensibly that this impossibility will have to be proved to his technical advisors, not just asserted.)

By now the Bushies want desperately to bug out of Iraq right away, on any terms (leaving the GIs behind as sitting ducks to incur more casualties--five more killed on 24th). (On the other hand, Sistani also insists that the new Shiite govt. will decide whether GIs will be invited to stay on.)

So we had better anticipate,very soon, an Iraq run by the Shiites (65% of the population). The arrogant Sunni Arabs could get short shrift (unless Sistani is prudent enough to see that the more backward Shiites need Sunni technical expertise to run the oil industry--and also that, without significant concessions, the Sunni guerillas could harrass their new Shiite rulers.)

Then the Shiites will have to decide what to do about the Kurds, who demand considerable autonomy from any central government, and also control over the gigantic deposits of Kirkuk oil. (And they have 70,000 trained troops.)

One good omen: whereas Sunnis are like Protestants (each imam can interpret the Koran for his mosque in any erratic way he pleases) Shiites are used to obeying Ayatollahs as Catholics heed the Pope. And the Ayatollahs are intelligent men, learned at least in Koranic studies (and perhaps not ignorant in other fields.)

Let's hope the Shiites are prudent enough to overlook past Sunni oppression and make acceptable deals with Sunni Arabs and Kurds, rather than face civil war--and that the other 2 groups are sensible enough to accept reasonable deals./
(One valuable role of UN would be to mediate such bargaining.)

We might look to Iran to see what a society is like run (perhaps from behind the scenes) by Shiite Ayatollahs--although in Iran there are no competing groups to worry about. One can imagine this new state will NOT be friendly to Israel--and perhaps not friendly to America. (Israel might want to foment civil war in Iraq, to weaken another future foe.)

We can only hope that sensible American Republicans . will learn from this imperialist fiasco that international policy should be run from the State Dept, not from the Pentagon.

It would perhaps be too much to hope that, until we can generate a large foreign-policy elite skilled in foreign languages and knowledgeable about alien cultures, we should 'go isolationist' and forget about 'the New American Century'--we should now be concerned mainly to defend Fortress America (some 'fortress' right now, vulnerable in dozens of ways to terrorist attacks!)

 
NO WMDs in Iraq, & NO PROGRAMS TO MAKE THEM!
David Kay (heading a U.S. search team of over 1000 people) just quit looking for WMDs in Iraq, and now says (contradicting Bush's speech!) that he now thinks Saddam had no real PROGRAM to acquire WMDs in the 1990s./BBCNEWS23jan.

Someone has suggested that Bush should revise his worries to 'weapons of mass-destruction or programs to develop them OR THOUGHTS."

But satire limps, while plain facts race ahead:
Powell actually said that Saddam had WMDs IN INTENTION.

 
COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF A DESERTER?
Peter Jennings(ABC) recently asked Gen.Clark in a scolding way, why Clark accepted backing of naughty Michael Moore, who in his book DUDE, WHERE IS MY COUNTRY? contrasts Clark, a 'real general' with Bush 'the deserter'! Perhaps the scolding tone was fake; perhaps Jennings wanted to revive question of what Bush actually did while he was supposed to be in Texas Natl. Guard evading the draft.

If a soldier goes AbsentWithoutLeave for a long time, continuously, he is counted as a deserter. And there is a whole year in which there is no military record of Bush either in Texas or in Alabama, where he in fact went to help a friend in a political campaign.
Of all the references about the scandal, one of the most respected sources is BOSTON GLOBE

 
COUNTING THE WOUNDED--Pentagon usually says that fewer than 3000 soldiers have been 'wounded' in Iraq. But when the respected agency UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL asked directly how many soldiers had been airlifted from Iraq in medical evacuation (for bone injuries, etc.), the figure reluctantly given was ELEVEN THOUSAND! (Slight injuries,presumably, would be treated in Iraq, not airlifted out.)
[Pentagon told UPI that 8000 of the 11000 were 'not from hostile attack'. But they still count as part of the human cost of this war!]
---------------
The DISABLED AMER.VETS orgn. is not allowed to visit wounded,sick soldiers in Walter Reed Hospital, to offer info they don't get from VA about help available (they were forbidden access 'for privacy reasons').
The Administration was going to CHARGE VETS MORE for their drugs, but then has backed off for now. LAS VEGAS
---------
In Walter Reed Hospital, 62% of the Iraq wounded had brain injuries. (Often such injuries are a fate worse than death.)
(I can't track my source on this.)
----------
In EDITOR & PUBLISHER, 23 OCT. '03, Pentagon said that one in five 'wounded' in Iraq had serious brain injuries; 7 in 10 had 'injuries with potential for resulting in brain or spine damage'.
---------------
TWENTY-NINE THOUSAND GIs (one in five of GIs in Iraq!) have been killed, wounded, MAIMED, or made sick enough to need airlift evacuation--so says London INDEPENDENT
----------
For every GI killed, about ten are wounded (that would make 5000 wounded), says Jeffrey Secord (prof at Pentagon military college). (We have to guess about # wounded and the types of injuries, because no one can trust Pentagon numbers!)
---------
Why so many more serious injuries than deaths? The often-bombed hummers could be armored, BUT so far THEY'RE NOT. GIs have body-armor, so they survive. But this armor doesn't prevent them losing arms, legs, eyes, faces, or incurring brain injuries. (Actually there are advanced helmets that could help here--but they're issued only for Rangers.)

 
'AUTONOMY' IS THE FIRST SLOGAN OF MANIPULATING SCOUNDRELS:
The Colorado legislature is going to forbid lawsuits against fast-food places for promoting harmful, expensive obesity among the young. A Republican says, "Are we to say that we are puppets to be maneuvered, or people who make decisions ourselves?" (Of course he doesn't mean 'we'--he means the suckers who are going to be brain-washed.)

Well, of course, most Americans are OBVIOUSLY puppets who rejoice to be manipulated. And the people who don't want anyone to say that,of course, are the very people who specialize in maneuvering them. They don't want to be restricted in their brain-washing.

So the Republicans want to replace Social Security with the chance for every self-confident nincompoop to gamble on stocks and be cheated royally--as even fairly knowledgeable stock-buyers have been cheated.

Tobacco companies, skilled in persuading the young to start smoking early when their addiction can be maximized, trumpet the autonomy that is threatened by any regulation.
(Colorado, desperate for new taxes but not from the rich, has a very low cigarette-tax rate, acc. to Amer.Lung Assn--even though there's evidence a) that high cigarette prices (or high taxes) do slow down young people from starting to smoke, and (b) that the earlier youths start to smoke, the worse their addiction is.
One can't help wonder if the cigarette industry is bribing our legislators and/or governor.)


Makers of vicious, subhuman computer-games for children, and TV producers of degrading programs, announce "Parents can just say NO!"--comfortably aware that even those few parents bright enough to see the dangers are often too weak-willed to stand against their kids' brutal preferences. And so on.

The only exception to this worshipping of 'autonomy' is in regard to the sale of DRUGS (e.g., marijuana). There we send to prison people who try to sell these harmful substances even to adults. That exception is there because government bureaucrats have carved out turfs to get billions of dollars for inept anti-drug campaigns.
------------------
If you read or hear someone complaining that the 'nanny' state wants to treat us all like children, be assured that the speaker plans to manipulate us as the kidults most of us are.

 
"BACKBONE BROKEN...BUT..." Gen.Odierno says the Saddamite resistance has been crippled by the capture of Saddam with all those documents. However, he notes that new guerillas might be nationalistic Iraqis who want the occupiers to leave.
BostonGlobe

Or perhaps a good number of guerillas all along have been nationalists, not Saddamite pawns. All that matters is that Americans are reminded every day of the stalemate by hearing about more GIs killed.

In 24 hours beginning Wed. the guerillas killed 2 GIs (seriously wounding another),killed 3 police and 4 civilians. /Another helicopter crashed (cause unknown).

The guerillas are not noticeably weaker.

 
WHY IGNORE AFGHANISTAN? Americans seem not to care what happens to Afgh. In fact,they seem to have forgotten that wretched place altogether. We bombed and invaded the place more than 2 years ago, and took responsibility for rebuilding it. What rebuilding?

One highway (poorly built) , one tunnel, some of Kabul. The international AID workers there say the place is getting in worse shape all the time. They say that bad security (increased threat from Taliban guerillas) puts more of the country off-limits to aid-workers EVERY WEEK!

The Bushies plan to stage a sham election soon (so they can 'declare victory' and bug out, leaving Taliban and the drug-lords to duke it out, leaving room for AlQaeda to come in again.) But registration, campaigning and voting can't be carried out without security, say UN and AID workers. /Only 6000 soldiers (of a planned 70,000!) of the 'new Afghan govt.' could be recruited; (many deserted because of the low pay--even by Afghan standards!) /

When the U.S. strikes at terrorists, it often kills innocent children instead, helping terrorists recruit supporters./

Why are the Bushies so much more interested in Iraq? ($18 billion vs. $1 billion for reconstruction.) a) Iraq has oil; Afghanistan has none. (b) The guerillas kill more than one GI a day in Iraq, so Americans are constantly reminded of the conflict; whereas only 100 GIs have been killed in two years in Afghanistan. Why so few?--because only 11,000 are stationed there, and they're usually holed up (along with troops from other countries) in Kabul.

The whole affair is a shambles. Luckily for narcissist Americans, it's an almost INVISIBLE shambles. USATODAY

By the way, USATODAY has more real news about Afghanistan, Iraq, and Korea of than almost any other U.S. media.

 
CHEERLESS CIA VS. CHEERY BUSH: Starkly contradicting the upbeat picture of the Iraq situation which Bush presented in 'State of Union' speech, anonymous officials said CIA is about to tell Bushies that Iraq may be on the verge of
civil war.

Both Shiites and Kurds, long held down by Sunni Arabs, know 'This is their time. If not now, they'll never get what they want.' Both feel betrayed by U.S.
(One problem: Shiites want control over all of Iraq; Kurds are determined to get defacto autonomy for their region.)

The concern over civil war is 'broadly felt throughout D.C.'

They now see that Ayatollah Sistani is not likely to back down from his demand for early elections.. "he is not going to be 'rolled'. " A senior Shiite cleric: 'I don't trust Americans for one blink.' 'If caucuses are used to install 'interim govt'., it will be promptly kicked out."

Britain's Straw hints that WE'LL give in on early elections.

Why not delay power-transfer to late '04 (from present June deadline), to allow time to organize respectable elections? Bush political henchmen scream NO! They want the Bremer team out (and many troops out!) well before Nov. election. "It's all about politics now."

The Bushies might go ahead with present plan, WHATEVER THE FALLOUT. They might even give power to their puppet Gov.Council in MARCH OR APRIL!
SeattleTimes

The Bushies' desire to bring out many TROOPS by Nov. is really crazy. CIA says without our troops, civil war is sure thing. (With our troops caught in the middle, our casualties could spurt up just before election.)

All along, sensible people have feared that this artificial nation, its 3 mutually-hostile ethnic groups held together since 1950 by ruthless dictators, will sink into anarchic chaos without a dictator (just like Yugoslavia). We sanctimoniously threw out dictator Saddam, only to find now that someone like him is needed to prevent a really horrible bloodbath.
-------------
The Russian foreign minister has launched his most critical attack on U.S. in Iraq, worrying (a) about the likelihood of civil war, as described above--and also (b) about the chaos helping the terrorists. THE HINDU

 
N.KOREA: A NEW NUKE POWER, OR A BLUFF?
The prestigious IISS says that N.K. COULD (on 'optimistic' assumptions) shortly be making over 8 nukes a year. /GUARDIAN

(N.K. wouldn't need many as a 2d-strike deterrent vs. U.S.: "You can destroy our cities in a few hours [as you did 50 years ago, without needing nukes!]--but our survivors could come out of their caves (with nukes that could be planted in your ship-containers) and make you wish you hadn't !")

But N.K. could sell/donate nuclear material to other nations, who might also want a 2d-strike deterrent vs. rampaging America.

Plutonium could be used without needing chain-reaction for 'dirty bombs'..which could render central parts of American cities uninhabitable for long periods of time. (So: expert says they definitely can refine plutonium, but there's no evidence they can make deliverable nuke-bombs. However, as a 2d-strike deterrent, they could threaten--if we attack them--to then donate plutonium to terrorists to use vs. America in 'dirty bombs'.)

We are in a really strange position. In terms of FIRST-STRIKES we are UNMATCHED (except perhaps for Russia). But in terms of SECOND STRIKES: our Homeland is incredibly vulnerable to dozens of feasible forms of terrorist attacks--partly thanks to the near-criminal negligence of the Bush-team.

 
'WMDs IN SYRIA!' sure ! A leading Republican legislator said that Saddam's WMDs may have been moved to Syria. NEAT! An explanation of why we can't find any in Iraq--AND another reason to attack Syria!

Israel and/or America can attack Syria if they please--no one can stop them. But WHO'D BELIEVE our incompetent, unprincipled 'intelligence' agencies making a claim about WMDs in Syria !

If Syria does have gas/germs (wherever they came from)--then if they are attacked, they might well go at Israel with gas/germs. Israeli citizens are reassured because they're given gas-masks--which would NOT protect from new gases, nor from germs!

 
WHO GOT KILLED? After recent U.S. bombing in AFGHANISTAN, we claimed that five militants were killed; but officials of our puppet Afghan government still insist that the raid killed 11 innocent civilians, including 4 children. ABCNEWS

Twenty-four other Afghan children were killed in December.

We're making the Taliban look like good guys.

 
ZAKARIA'S DREAM: ( letter to ROCKYMOUNTAINNEWS)
F.Zakariah (interview printed in RMN22Jan) is a very prestigious expert on foreign affairs. He says he favored our Iraq invasion, and still does. Yet he notes the awful flaws in the way our Iraq project has been carried out,and objects to the Bush-team's eagerness now to bug out by June.

Helping Iraq, he says, is "..a long-term project that will succeed ONLY IF the U.S. stays actively engaged in helping Iraqis build a democratic order." But the Iraqis want us out quickly, and the Bremer team now insists on abdicating this summer. So how can he be optimistic? I could be optimistic
about losing weight if it didn't involve things I won't do, like eating less.

The puzzle is this: before the invasion, many people noted that Americans in general, and our 'foreign affairs elite' in particular, were ignorant of, and uninterested in, other cultures in the world. On 9/11,(years after we had reason to fear alQaeda), only 6 people in the FBI understood Arabic; in the year 2000, only six people in U.S. majored in Arabic, and they didn't study Muslim culture.

Why didn't Zakariah see that our reckless, ignorant government was doomed to screw up the occupation of Iraq? Why didn't he see that this was one more interventionist lunge based on
isolationist thinking?

Seeing all this , he should have opposed the invasion. His expertise on this issue is dubious indeed!

 
To read a light piece, click on SONG OF REVOLUTION: COWS WITH GUNS--then scroll down to 1/06..
After reading this, click on Back above at left, to come back to current week.
-----------------------------
Public Opinion Polls in Iraq suggest that an election would put in power Shiite organizations. It is precisely for this reason, say senior members of Bremer team, that
U.S. opposes such early elections. FINANCIAL TIMES
--------------------
UPDATE: 23JAN: Ayatollah Sistani had posted on Shiite mosques around Iraq a statement that said UN statistical experts would have BURDEN OF PROOF to show that an early election is IMPOSSIBLE; otherwise he would insist on early elections. In other words, negotiations would be between Sistani's team and UN, with U.S. excluded.
FinTimes

At first sight, says FinTimes, it seems an early election would be POSSIBLE, using ration-cards as quick-&-dirty electoral roll.
-----------
'ELECTIONS POSSIBLE BY JUNE' says Brit spokesman in Basra. FinTimes
How embarrassing ! Our allies can't get the story straight?
----------------------------------
Sistani may have put out a direct statement to scotch rumors that he's ready to give in on the 'early election vs. caucus' issue.
---------------------------------
THOUSANDS OF SHIITES MARCHED IN 4 CITIES on Tuesday,[after Monday's marches of perhaps 100,000] demanding real elections soon. An aide to Sistani said the UN should send in a technical team to assess feasibility of a real election in June, NOT to consider the U.S.'s alternative 'caucus' plans.

One cleric said, "We demand elections, or we will bury every American here." /
Reuters20Jan Another said that Shiite areas could produce 'a hundred Fallujahs'! (F. is the focus of much Sunni violence vs. Americans.) /ABC NEWS20JAN

(Shiite leaders have reminded everyone of traditional Shiite reverence for martyrs and enthusiastic welcoming of martydom.)


GOOD NEWS: a spokesman for Sistani said that a UN report on the feasibility of early elections would be 'respected'. If they're not feasible, then other measures would be considered, respecting the principle that the People (i.e. Shiite supermajority) must be in control.FINANCIALTIMES
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BUT: observers say UN people have already decided that a June election is technically unfeasible and politically undesirable ('It would help extremists win, over moderates'.)
FinTimes

Will Sistani & aides accept that pre-decision?

The UN would increase its reputation for objectivity if it publicly warned that the early elections planned by U.S. in AFGHANISTAN are likely to be a farce.
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A MUCH DIFFERENT SLANT! The INDEPENDENT cited a GUARDIAN report that said that England and U.S. were going to GIVE IN to Sistani and hold direct elections this summer ! Even without electoral rolls: they could dye people's hands to make sure they didn't vote twice.

GUARDIAN says that Brits have gone for the June elections, and that Bremer goes for it. The only holdouts are some people on Bush-team (Cheney, I imagine). And Shiite majority is now estimated at SIXTY-FIVE PERCENT.
--------------------------------
ANOTHER, WILDLY DIFFERENT POSSIBILITY: A member of the Governing Council (held in general contempt) who is in contact with Sistani says that, if UN finds an early election technically impossible, then the Ayatollah might accept handing over power this summer to GOVERNING COUNCIL (!), if elections followed shortly. /usatoday21Jan

(It would be awful if Sistani accepted Gov.Council because they passed Iraqi women back to the harsh mercies of SHARIA!)
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Then they could face their other problems: appeasing the Kurds, and pacifying the Sunni guerillas.

 
REENLISTMENTS? Worried about an exodus of army reserve people (if enlistments/reenlistments sag) the Chief of the Army Reserve said changes are needed to make them feel "wanted, respected, and admired." /Reuters20Jan /After the coming rotation, MORE than 30,000 reservists will likely be serving in Iraq.

One might also want to make them NOT feel exploited. Men join the reserve & National Guard, typically, NOT because they're eager to go to war, but just to 'meet the guys' now and then, and get a little extra cash. "We're going to tell them upfront that they probably will be mobilized." THAT should certainly increase enlistments!
------------------
UPDATE: People signing up as active army soldiers: 88,600 in 1990:74,100 in 2003.
People signing up in Army Reserve: 57,400 in 1990; 27,400 in 2003
[fewer than HALF as many!]
Sometimes prospective recruits show interest, then back out. Telling line from recruiter: "When they make an appointment, you have to interview them within 48 hours. Any longer and the belief is, 'it's too much time for them to think.' " /usatoday21JAN

Perhaps they could move to Iraq some of the thousands of troops now in Germany (!), Japan, Okinawa, Korea. But things look bad for the American Empire; they envisioned stationing troops all over the world.

But then they might complete the process of AUTOMATING war, plugging in INFANTRY ROBOTS...(with such robots they could also install a complete dictatorship in America. American soldiers would never shoot at Americans--but American robots wouldn't hesitate.)

 
STRANGE INSISTENCE ON DATE: About the selection of the interim Iraqi assembly: the Bremerites have all along said they'd compromise on many issues, but never on the DATE OF COMPLETION (the end of June). Now the head of our puppet Council reaffirms this: "We in Iraq [what's this 'we-shit'?] are united on one issue, and that is we shall maintain the deadline of June 30 for the transfer of sovereignty and power to the Iraqi provisional government." [LATIMES20Jan]

Of course suspicious people will smell something fishy, that this date is the ONLY 'NO COMPROMISE!" issue. It's getting more and more obvious that the main reason for this one line of stubbornness, the refusal to delay the transfer, even for a few months, is JUST SO they can say "There isn't enough time to organize a real election"--so the dubious 'caucus' method we're proposing must be used. But it seems unlikely that Ayatollah Sistani's multitude of Shiites (or the UN observers) will be fooled by this gimmick.

It looks as if the Bremerites will lunge ahead with these caucuses and hope against hope that enough Shiites will accept the new assembly as legitimate. But it also looks as if Sistani will issue a fatwa declaring it illegitimate. Then the fat will be in the fire: one cleric said, "All Sistani has to do is say one word: JIHAD!" (The Shiites raised a bloody revolt against the Brits, during an earlier occupation. )

No one can predict the outcome--but anyone can predict that chaotic trouble will ensue. (The present guerilla activities would not cease, but would be augmented by new attacks.)
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UPDATE (22Jan) : A Shiite on our puppet Gov.Council now says that Sistani might accept elections in a few months (not waiting till 2005!, as we've planned)..and might even accept handing over power this summer to the Gov.Council, as long as real elections are guaranteed to be held soon. CNN

It would be a good guess that Sistani would accept any plan that would guarantee that the Shiite supermajority (65% of population) would take over Iraq, as majoritarian democracy provides. On the other hand, that takeover (involving tremendous influence by the Ayatollahs) is one of the things we most want to avoid (Rumsfeld earlier said we'd never let it happen!)

It's a sign of Bushies' desperate need to bug out quickly from Iraq that they're willing now to let the Shiites take over.

(Never mind that this takeover might result in Kurdish & Sunni/Arab secessions and/or civil war.) Bushies are GOING TO BUG OUT!

 
BUSH FINALLY NOTICES HOME SECURITY: As the election nears, Bush sees he's vulnerable to Dem charges that he has underfunded '1st response' teams for HomeDefense by $100 billion, over the next 5 years. (The cities have so far received zilch from the $1.5 billion which was appropriated for '1st response'.)

Bush proposes for the '04 budget a rise from a total $34 bn to $45 billion for Dept. of HomeSecurity.

For perspective on this increase: the total fed. budget for '04 will be
$2.3 TRILLION, / 2300 BILLIONS OF DOLLARS (45/2300). The total Pentagon budget for '04 will be over 400 billion (45/400). (And this is not counting the $1 billion per week extra for our Iraq caper.)

These comparisons help to show how much importance Bush attaches to Homeland Defense, compared to other projects. ABCNEWS
=================
'Informed sources say Bush will ask for forty billion dollars more for military operations in Iraq & Afghanistan for 2004 (asking after the election,of course). This will be on top of the four hundred billion dollars going to the Pentagon for 'miscellaneous' expenses.
REUTERS

Once again, compare that to the forty-five billion total that will go in '04 for Homeland Defense.

 
MISPLACED IRAQI RAGE AT U.S. IS A STUBBORN FACT: Many observers hoped that, when the guerillas started killing Iraqis, the people would turn against them and turn them in. Instead, at each big blowup, many bystanders and victims blame the U.S. for 'provoking' the guerillas by their presence!

After Sunday's atrocity, one wounded man speculated that the bombers were foreigners (as indeed, they might be--it was a suicide bombing). But then he turned: "It's all the Americans' fault; they should take care of this country; they should help us as they promised they would."

Bystanders expressed impotent rage at the bombers and disbelief that Iraqis would be killing their countrymen. But some voiced bitterness at the massive U.S.presence..which had brought on the calamity and failed to protect them. (The attack was aimed at Iraqis who worked for the Americans.)

Some of the wounded were bitter that Iraqis were hurt while the American honchos inside the compound were not. /WashingtonPost19Jan.

We'd better face it that many Iraqis have a perhaps irrational resentment of our occupation; we fondly dream that this will disappear after the Bremer regime bugs out in June--but our troops will remain, and the guerilla attacks might continue against them and against any native 'collaborators'.

 
'HATRED IS AS UNSELFISH AS LOVE." (Bishop Butler)
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RAGE DISGUISED AS FEAR: Fear is a forward-looking, sensible emotion, often selfish, motivating us to avoid future harms. It is often also an unpleasant, humiliating emotion, recognizing that we are vulnerable.

Rage on the other hand is an invigorating, not unpleasant, emotion. which temporarily bolsters our self-esteem. Rage wants to strike out at someone--not much caring who gets struck! My rage cares not for my own future welfare; rage makes us quite stupid.

When a caged rat gets an electric shock, he promptly and foolishly attacks the rat next to him--he must strike back at SOMETHING! Rage makes the rat stupid.

Primitive people openly acknowledge their rage; but people in modern cultures, when possessed by rage, are often embarrassed by its stupidity--they tell themselves they are motivated by rational fear, by concern for their own 'security'.
For instance, despite the lack of evidence that capital punishment deters murderers, many Americans [especially in Texas! ] choose to believe it does

Enraged by capital crime, they want to kill SOMEONE--(they aren't too bothered if it turns out they executed the wrong person, so the real killer goes free to kill again.) But these people tell themselves they're out to make society SAFER.

[Rage need not be frothing. Indeed, sometimes we'd say the outwardly calm person is ANGRY, not enraged. But if the emotion makes us forget about protecting ourselves, then it is 'stupid-inducing' like obvious rage.]
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The Bush-team has shamelessly neglected obvious precautions against terrorist attacks on our Homeland.They have not even tried seriously to make us safer than we were on 9/11. And yet the latest NYT poll shows that Americans TRUST Bush on the 'security' issue! How could our people be so dumb?

Americans told themselves after 9/11 that they were FEARFUL of future attacks. But for many, their stronger reaction was humiliated RAGE--that 19 men from INFERIOR societies, armed only with box-cutters, could inflict such dramatic damage on the WORLD'S SOLE SUPERPOWER ! So they backed the irrelevant and counter-productive attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq...they were enraged, and stupidly determined to STRIKE OUT AT SOMEONE.

Though we're told that--despite our superhuman bombing assaults on these 2 puny countries--we're now in equal or greater danger from terrorist attacks, these Americans still take comfort in knowing about our superhuman ability to bomb and missile any nation. They don't mind shovelling well over $1, 100, 000, 000 each DAY to the Pentagon..they tell themselves this bombing ability increased our 'security'. Their slogan is this: "The best Defense is a good Offense!"

This slogan sometimes make sense, but not in our UNIQUE PRESENT situation. Actually, our real danger comes from thousands of fanatic INDIVIDUALS (like the nineteen men involved in 9/11) eager to die while killing Americans..against these INDIVIDUALS our bombs are useless. We can't launch an PREEMPTIVE OFFENSE against these individuals, because until they attack, we don't know who they are! (Our 'intelligence' agencies are notoriously incompetent.)

They don't need a State to harbor them, so bombing Countries isn't going to stop them.

If we were really motivated by rational fear, we'd divert much of this Pentagon money instead to various expensive but necessary HomeDefense precautions: for instance:

--recruiting and training nurses and other medical personnel; (as things are now, we already face an urgent shortage of nurses, even before the first bioterror attack).

--inspecting more than 5% (as we do now) of the thousands of huge ship-containers which enter our ports each DAY--any one of these containers could contain terrorist-supplies, including NUCLEAR BOMBS!

--installing anti-aircraft batteries near each of the waste-ponds of our 104 nuclear-power-plants, to enforce a NO-FLY edict against the thousands of small planes which could be loaded with explosives and crashed into these waste-ponds--scattering radioactive material over a large region.
(Instead, our govt. warns people close to an n-plant to keep potassium iodide in their medicine cabinets--as partial protection from radioactive poisoning.)

But all these fear-precautions are quite expensive. To implement them, the Bush-team might have to give up their beloved tax-breaks and subsidies for the wealthy. The right-wing Cato Institute says they're shovelling 3 times as much to their friends as the total they spend on Homeland Defense ! ]

All that's to be expected from this gang; the sad mystery is why so many of our people say that Bush is protecting our SECURITY!
But by 'security' these angry, baffled Americans mean, NOT protecting our homeland, but the power to STRIKE OUT AT SOMEONE. And there's no doubt that the Bushies are ready to do that.

 
WILL JOBS INCREASE BEFORE NOVEMBER?
A recent survey of manufacturers, asking about their employment plans, says the job-situation will deteriorate further ! Two million U.S.jobs have disappeared since 'W' started steering the ship;
250,000 new jobs per month would be needed to bring down the jobless rate. But only 250,000 new jobs are expected during the next TWELVE MONTHS. (Such puny increases won't even match the increase in our population, the increase in people needing jobs.)

Industrial production will be up sharply; but increased productivity at home and outsourcing overseas are expected to prevent that increase from increasing available jobs here.. /NYT16Jan

Polls show that Americans dumbly trust Bush on matters of 'security'--(his neglect of Homeland Security is actually close to criminal ! )-- but our people understandably think the issue of JOBS is more important. So Bush can win only by distracting them from the jobs issue. One shudders to think what tricks his team might come up with to get Americans obsessed again with 'security' !

Another survey of Bus.Economists have 18% predicting more jobs, 17% predicting fewer!
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MORE POLLYANNA: A Reuters headline predicts job growth, just because NEW jobless claims fell a little in Jan. to only THREE HUNDRED AND FORTY THOUSAND new claims!

(In Dec., only 1000 new jobs were generated; THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND people quit looking for jobs! Econ. cheerleaders (who had predicted 150,000 new jobs in Dec.!) now say Dec. disaster was just a fluke--but they don't tell how many new jobs were created in Jan.)

Once again, our workers are expected to take heart from RUMORS of NEW JOBS TO COME, not from evidence that new jobs are HERE ! (Also, the new jobs involve 21% less pay than the old jobs lost. /USATODAY22JAN)

 
A LITTLE MODESTY, PLEASE! A columnist in GUARDIAN
recalls all the bungling that has gone on in Europe and America while trying to set up 'the new world order' and to reform or eliminate rogue regimes.
Some recent results of our interventions: Milosovec just elected to Serbian Parliament in absentia (he's on trial for atrocities at the Hague); recalcitrant nationalists elected in Croatia--and of course the full-bloomed fiascos in Afghanistan and Iraq. The bungles (or sellouts) of European & American Intelligence agencies are especially noteworthy.
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Lyons adds: American 'human intelligence' is especially ridiculous, since we admit operatives into our agencies who can't even speak the foreign languages involved! It's now clear that super-efficient eavesdropping devices are useless if no one can translate the overheard exchanges!

The plain facts are these: Americans are just not interested even in national affairs [many don't know which party controls Congress!]--let alone in world affairs.
That would be only an unfortunate result of democracy IF we had a competent foreign-affairs elite. But we don't. The shortage of foreign-language speakers is just a mild symptom of a broader disinterest and ignorance of foreign cultures even among our 'elite'.

The plain conclusion: we should abandon any pretense to 'lead the Free World'. What the terrorist threat SHOULD mean is this: we should pull back our troops from all over the world; we should 'retreat' to FORTRESS AMERICA, and spend all the TENS OF BILLIONS needed for Homeland Defence, instead of shovelling well over $1 billion each DAY to the Pentagon, plus $1 billion per week extra for our Iraq/Afghanistan adventures.
(Even Democrat candidates don't dare to call for 'isolationism'; but our real problem is bold, bungling interventionist lunges based on isolationist thinking.

If we kept our heads, the terrorists could now and then wound us, but they couldn't destroy us. As things are, awful attacks will occur for which we are not at all prepared; then our people, terrified and enraged, may endorse truly fascist 'security' measures...WE will destroy the Real America ourselves.