Dan Lyons
~ Saturday, July 31, 2004
 
ALLIES JUMP SHIP: Three nations with real contingents of troops are pulling out of our Iraq fiasco: Phillipines, Spain, and now Ukraine.
Three others, who were really contributing just their names to support the illusion of coalition, are withdrawing even their names. NYT
---------
NO MORE TURKISH TRUCKS FOR IRAQ: Turkish Truckers Assn. says it will not haul cargo for U.S. & its Iraqi puppets until truckers are safer from beheading, etc. REUTERS [2Aug]
 
GHADAFI TERRIFIED OF U.S.MIGHT? The Bushies have claimed that recent moderate moves by Libya show they're frightened of U.S. might as demonstrated in Iraq.

But now: U.S. desperately wants some Muslim troops from nations not bordering Iraq to contribute troops to help put down the guerillas.
Ghadafi just issued a statement saying the no Muslim troops should be sent until U.S. troops are pulled out. (Israel) HAARETZ
-------
A more likely explanation of G's turn toward reasonablenesss is the ECONOMIC SANCTIONS imposed on Libya, preventing them from selling oil at these present high prices. These sanctions have been removed; U.S. NEEDS LIBYAN OIL!
 
SMALL KERRY BOUNCE: 2 new polls show Kerry ahead by 5 points.
GUARDIAN

Republicans were saying his 'bounce' would be 15 points--they said this so they could then say this 5 point lead was 'disappointing'.

Someone said that neither side would get a big bounce because of the small number of 'undecideds'. "The trampoline is made of cement."
 
IRAQI PRESIDENT says the heightened recent attacks shows that the guerillas are desperate. CBS
----------
Our governor of the province containing Fallujah just had his 3 sons kidnapped; he has offered to resign, to save them. ChinaView
----------
The head of a Teachers' Institute was warned by guerillas to quit 'collaborating with invaders'. He refused, and was just gunned down.
ABC NEWS
---------------------------------
Again, one is reminded (by the upbeat remark by our puppet President) of MarkTwain's description of one of his fights:
"I thrust my nose firmly between his teeth, and threw him to the ground on top of me."
=====================
Congress appropriated $18,000 millions to 'reconstruct' Iraq. But only half a billion has been spent. ABC
Much of this money was supposed to provide jobs, to young men who might otherwise join the guerillas. But none of this happened. Now a man is risking h is life to stand in line for a job for our puppets.
-------------------
Was this reluctance-to-spend from super-caution in auditing? Hell, no. Bremer's gang spent billions from another fund; of this, hundreds of MILLIONS cannot be accounted for. NYT
 
ARCH-VILLAIN NAMED AS ARCH-PRIEST: The infamous Cardinal Law, who tolerated priest-pederasts so flagrantly that his Boston flock insisted on his resignation, has been named by the Pope as Arch-priest of a major Roman cathedral. REUTERS
---------------------------
VATICAN CRITICIZES FEMINISTS: The ever-articulate Cardinal Ratzinger has issued another 'fatwa' against feminism--a movement which 'emphasizes subordination in order to [foster] antagonism.'

'Faced with abuse of power, [feminism] seeks power for women.' [Every group subject to power-abuse has countered by seeking power! How else to counter power-abuse?! Indeed, since (unbalanced) power corrupts, then the women are working to save their men from corruption! ]

"Feminism leads to polymorphous sexuality."

"Women should not be blocked from the workplace and from positions of authority"...except in the ranks of the priesthood!

About women priests: women should accept role as "witnesses and 'brides' ", imitating the Virgin Mary. After all, Christ named only men as Apostles.
REUTERS

Cardinals sometimes note that even the Virgin Mother of God, Queen of the Angels, was not present at the Last Supper...No, [as Mrs.Lyons says]--she was in the kitchen preparing the matzoh-ball soup!
---------
Those who think the present-day Catholic hierarchy are a net influence for the bad --such critics will rejoice that this influence is weakened further by such fatuous fatwas from Rome--as well as such shameless appointments as that of Cardinal Law (above).
===========
A famous dialogue between an Episcopal bishop and an ancient Anglican abbess: "Your Grace, I understand you oppose women priests."
"Yes, Mother Abbess, I do!"
"The only thing your priests have that my nuns don't have is testicles.
I've been going to Mass for 80 years now and I have never seen testicles featured in the liturgy."
 
IRAQIS KILLED IN FALLUJAH--GUERILLAS OR CIVILIANS?
U.S. military says 13 guerillas were killed in Fallujah battle.
Local hospital says many killed/wounded were civilians, including one child.
USATODAY
~ Friday, July 30, 2004
 
A Lyons letter was printed today in the local paper.
It complained about Bush's neglecting preparation for germ-war attack on U.S.
COLORADOAN

One important point was omitted. Bush budgeted a mere $6 billion for his 'Bioshield' (compared to $1 billion each DAY to Pentagon). But this $6 billion is to be spent over the next TEN YEARS!
 
UPSETTING STUDY: If students think first about death, and then are asked which candidate they favor, they tend to favor 'charismatic' [actually, jingoist] candidates who talk about country's greatness...they favor Bush over Kerry--but otherwise, they oppose Bush! cnn

This is a bombshell, suggesting that any talk by Democrats about Bush's failures in War vs. Terror or Iraq may backfire, triggering more support for Bush!
----------
What is psych. mechanism here? Animals are hard-wired, when facing a new, unfamiliar threat, to strike out at an animal near them. (e.g., it's said that a caged rat receiving an electric shock promptly bites a [lower ranking] rat near him.)

"When threatened, strike at SOMEONE who's available!--never mind if this rat is source of threat; never mind if this striking actually makes you safer.
"The best defense is a good OFFENSE."

Similarly, Americans wrongly feel more SECURE when they think of Pentagon's ability to strike at other Nations. That's why they tolerate $1100 MILLIONS each DAY shovelled to Pentagon. [See analysis of POWER below.]

Our inherited animal emotions have not prepared us to face our present threats--NOT from other nations, but from individual terrorists.
================
This study suggests that Dems should talk about Economy & jobs, instead.
They should warn people not to be sucked in by alleged optimistic TRENDS.
A study shows that stock market almost always RISES in THIRD & FOURTH year of a President's term. Incumbents can manage that, but that doesn't promise well for year AFTER election. [PBS,2AUG]
 
PENTAGON DEFICIT: New estimates for upcoming annual federal deficit: a record $445,000 MILLIONS. CNN

Upcoming Pentagon Budget $417,000 MILLIONS PLUS ABOUT $20 BILLION IN 'THE BLACK BUDGET' ($ shuffled under the table to Pentagon.)

In other words, our deficit (which worries experts all over the world) could be fairly ascribed to our hysterical faith in Pentagon spending. (Even Kerry, in his acceptance speech, indicated MORE money for the Pentagon!)

The Pentagon is fairly useless when it comes to warding off attacks on our Homeland by individual terrorists. Talk about a crazy society.
 
"IRAQIS WILL BE PACIFIED IF (foreign) MUSLIMS PATROL THE CITIES !"
That was the fond hope in D.C.--and they got SaudiArabia's promise to bankroll the operation.But which Muslim nation would volunteer to send troops into this volcano?--esp. when some of our starting coalition are pulling out! There was talk of troops from Malaysia, but Malaysia at once said NO!

Not only that, many Iraqi leaders said NO!..even if no troops from the next-door neighbors were involved.

One problem: the troops would probably be Sunni, and that might tip the Iraqi Shiites into resistance. Also, there's no reason to think the guerillas wouldn't attack the foreign Muslims!
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1272923,00.htmlGUARDIAN]
Several Iraqi religious leaders (Shiite & Sunni) oppose the U.S. /Saudi/Allawi proposal. AlJazeera
===========
NOTE: The linking mechanism works on this post, but not on previous ones below.
~ Thursday, July 29, 2004
 
A COMPETENT STUDY of the jobs problem:
in NEW YORKER MAGAZINE,AUGUST 2, 2004, John Cassidy wrote
WINNERS AND LOSERS: a study of the complex problem of hundreds of thousands of American workers who are losing their jobs-- perhaps forever, or having to take jobs with much lower pay. If you get a chance, read this article.
 
GOOD NEWS? a Polit.Sci. says that the 'undecided' voters (now somewhere around 5%) usually, at the last minute, go 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 for the challenger-- Kerry)! [GUARDIAN]
 
FAILED STATES? A British Parliamentary Committee warns that both Iraq and Afghanistan [ under supposed U.S. control] are in danger of turning into 'failed states' (states where anarchy prevents central govt. from blocking terrorists.) GUARDIAN

Remember when Bushies said they had to invade Iraq because Saddam's regime might destabilize the region and thus facilitate terrorism?
==================
NATO BALKS: Any decision by NATO has to have unanimous support from its members. U.S. demands that NATO train Iraqi security forces WITHIN Iraq. France says flatly, NO. [INDEPENDENT]

It's still true that 'we broke it, we bought it.'
=========
Our Mobile (Iraqi)Police patrols: their rifles jam after 2 shots;their flak jackets don't protect them; their promised pay-raise never arrived; their bosses want to remove air-conditioners from their cars (at 120 degrees temperature)--and the hospitals can't cope with their wounded. [INDEPENDENT]

When young men line up to enlist, one car bomb can kill 100 at a time.
---------------
An important NATO compromise: 40 troops will be sent into Iraq 'with more to follow'.Details on how to finance this project, and whether they will be under U.S. command--these details will be setttled later. NYT
 
JOB-DATA: Wage-growth is the slowest in 22 years. But growth of costs to employers for benefits rises sharply, motivating more automation & outsourcing. / Three million workers are on unemployment benefits for over one week./ New claims are down a little, which suggests that new layoffs might be lower./ Help-Wanted ads are down a little, suggesting that jobs offered may be down a little. [REUTERS]

In other 1st-world countries, government pays much of health-costs, with all taxpayers sharing in costs. In U.S., employers are expected to pay health-costs, which makes our products more expensive, less competive in world market. That, plus several tax provisions, gives strong incentives to replace American workers with machines or foreign workers. Government (i.e., Bush regime) is boosting our jobless numbers.)

Dems' project is to make workers understand that, although relatively few workers (a few millions) are unemployed, this hurts those who still have jobs.
Bosses treat workers decently only when they have to, and right now they don't have to. Workers don't dare complain about low wages,etc..they know many, many jobless folks would love to take their jobs.
~ Wednesday, July 28, 2004
 
WHAT GOOD ARE WE DOING THERE? Bush is leaving GIs in Iraq, presumably, to protect the Iraqis (and themselves) from terrorists.

But yesterday, 17 GIs were injured and 1 killed. Truck companies are refusing to drive on vulnerable Iraq highways, to deliver urgently-needed cargo to Baghdad and to U.S. army posts. (USATODAY)

Today SIXTY-EIGHT TO ONE HUNDREDIraqis were killed, with dozens more wounded, by one suicide bomber. The bomb was aimed at 'collaborators with U.S.' who were trying for jobs. [ REUTERS ]
Two U.S. airplanes were forced down, and several GIs killed and more wounded.
----------------
Meanwhile, 'DoctorsWithoutBorders' (working in Afghanistan for 24 years) is pulling out because security in that country has deteriorated so badly. [Natl.PublicRadio] In 35 years of its existence this great organization [which was awarded a Nobel Prize] has never before been forced out of any country. [They did leave N.Korea a few years ago.]
--------------------
What's the point of keeping U.S. Army in these countries? (It's pretty helpless vs. guerillas--even with 'intelligence' furnished by our new puppet-regime in Iraq!) Only this--Bush wouldn't dare bug out before our election!
~ Tuesday, July 27, 2004
 
KERRY RETORT:  Someone asked Bush how Cheney vs. Edwards compared as VP-candidates.  Bush snapped back, "Cheney was ready to be President!"

K's response: "Yes, Cheney was ready from the first day to take over as President--and he did!"
 
FAHRENHEIT DIDN'T LIE.
D.Wheat column [COLORADOAN, 27July] sneers at his interpretation of the FAHRENHEIT movie: that "the war in Iraq [resulted from] the Bush/Saudi oil-money connection."

That was never claimed in the movie. The amazingly close connection between the Bushies and the Saudis raises a different question: Why did we not react to the Saudi connections with 9/11 by pressuring the Saudis who were financing terrorists, instead of by invading Iraq? There the Bush/Saudi alliance is relevant.

The answer clearly is that our invasion had little to do with 9/11 or fear of WMDs (except as excuses).  It's hard now to guess why the Bushies decided to invade Iraq--months before 9/11. This motive is hard to discern,  because their bungled Occupation has in fact resulted in  no clear economic or political advantage for the U.S. We have certainly got no Cheap Gas!

But we know, from FAHRENHEIT and much more serious sources, that the reasons Bush gave for invading were completely bogus.
 
ALBANIANS RUN AMOK in Kosovo, burning Serb homes, while NATO 'peacekeepers' stand by, says a HumanRights organization. [INDEPENDENT]

SIGNIFICANCE FOR IRAQ:  One reason advanced for keeping our GIs in Iraq is to prevent ethnic civil war (between Kurds, Sunni Arabs, and Shiites).
But experience in Bosnia & Kosovo (where foreign 'peace-keepers' have been in charge for many years) is that ethnic hatreds held down by foreigners will break out eventually, whenever there's a chance.

Eventually we WILL bug out of Iraq. When we do, ethnic war will very likely flare up.  (Shiites talk peace, getting ready to rule as the 3-to-1 majority. But will the haughty Sunnis, after 1000 years of ruling, settle for 'minority rights'? Not likely!)

The only result from our long stay will be an increase in our National Deficit and more  deaths, maimings, and woundings of our GIs. 
 
PSEUDO-ELECTION BOLSTERED: For a while, the Afghan 'election' sponsored by our puppet Kharzai was rendered silly by the fact that Kharzai was the only real candidate for President!

But now, we hear from our propaganda station VOICE OF FREE EUROPE, a second candidate has popped up--and one, no less, from the Northern Alliance (of warlords)--though it's not clear if he even has the required signatures to get on the ballot!

So now the election will be a mere travesty, instead of being just ridiculous.
------------
UN SAYS 90% OF AFGHANS WILL VOTE: This after observers said that 'registration lists' were mainly just lists of names.

If the warlord/druglords have backed the election, that means they feel sure that Kharzai, re-elected, will continue to be as ineffective as he is now.
 
WE CAN'T AFFORD IDEOLOGY WAR:[letter to NYTIMES]
David Brooks (26July)wisely says that countering terrorism is not a military problem; rather, we need to convert the world's Muslims away from fanaticism.  He recommends that we fund public-school systems in countries like Pakistan, to compete with fanatic 'Madras' schools.

But our whole system is based on the assumption  that the terror problem IS a conventional military threat.We shovel over $1100 MILLIONS of dollars each DAY to the irrelevant Pentagon; so we simply can't afford to finance these new schools [for one billion Muslims], any more than we can finance the expensive precautions needed to protect our Homeland from terrorist attacks.
~ Monday, July 26, 2004
 
BARACK OBAMA is worth hearing (Dem.convention, Tues.nite)--or so I hear from my Chicago-area daughter. He has a very good chance to win the Ill.Senate seat--since his opponent quit after expose of very kinky sex-life..and even Coach Mike Ditka has not dared to take on Obama.

 
SO NOW--IRAN? [letter to R.Mtn.News] C.Krauthammer thinks we should attack Iran preemptively before they get THE BOMB. Presumably we'd attack by bombing, since, with our troops stretched by our Iraq fiasco, we can hardly invade Iran!

It's just now being noticed that Bushies destroyed two of Iran's fiercest enemies: Saddam and the Taliban! Earlier, even after they kidnapped our embassy staff, Reagan Republicans sold weapons to this 'Axis of Evil' nation.

And the fanatic mullahs in charge of Iran might not mind if sinful cities like Teheran get bombed. Also, such bombing would leave Iran with nothing to lose by stirring up a Shiite uprising in Iraq--which would be the last straw to collapse our Occupation.

So any moves against Iran will come after Bush gets re-elected--FAIR WARNING!

(Of course Iran may get THE BOMB--perhaps from Pakistan or N.Korea--before November.)


 
NEW JOBS GO TO NEW IMMIGRANTS:  Bushies have bragged about the number of 'new jobs' the last few months. But it turns out that most of these new jobs have gone to NEW IMMIGRANTS--while the number of jobs going to U.S. citizens and earlier immigrants has actually SHRUNK by over one million!     [NortheasternUniversity: CenterForLaborMarketStudies,
cited in R.MtnNews26Jy]


 
CAR-BOMB IN MOSUL WOUNDS 5 MORE GIs.

Our new puppet regime in Baghdad is convening a large conference of 'Iraqi leaders' to determine future policies (including election-rules for next January).

UN says it's too soon for this conference; but our puppets dream that it will give them legitimacy, and cut support for guerillas. One doubts....
----------
In Baghdad, the first 'election' was derided by people participating as a complete travesty. [ FinancialTimes ]
----------
The conference of 'leaders' has had to be postponed for at least 2 weeks, because of lack of support among real Iraqi leaders. (The interim regime had said it would NEVER be postponed.)

~ Sunday, July 25, 2004
 
THE UNDECIDEDS AND THE UNREGISTERED: 
In July '00, 30% of potential voters were 'undecided'. This July only 20% are 'undecided'. So each side is cultivating its 'solid-core-consitutents', making sure they come out to vote.

HOWEVER, 20% is far more than enough to tip the scales in an American election, nowadays.  So liberal Dems should not resent Kerry--or Salazar, in Colorado--when they appeal to 'centrist' Americans--most likely to be 'undecided'.

It's been said that SINGLE WOMEN are a large proportion of the 'swing voters'.  These women are usually poor and less-educated; they are anti-Bush, and could swing the election, if only they could be persuaded to register and vote.! Where to contact them? Grocery stores, check-cashing places,etc.
--------------------
These potential voters should be reminded :

(a) that with the huge Bush job-losses, the resulting large number of jobless BRING DOWN THE SALARIES AND BENEFITS OF THOSE STILL EMPLOYED. (Bosses treat workers decently only when they have to--and right now THEY DON'T HAVE TO! Workers don't dare complain, knowing how many jobless people would love to take their jobs!)

(b) of the ugly horror of Bush's continuing Iraq conflict, killing about 3 GIs each day now, and maiming or wounding or mind-damaging thousands more (5 ON 26JULY !)
--a war which two U.S. generals have said WE CAN'T WIN.
 
THE WAR-DEFENDERS ARE TRUMPETING THE RECENT BRIT 'BUTLER REPORT' saying that Blair/Bush assertions about Saddam seeking uranium in Africa were 'credible'.

But now nuke experts remind us that a) Saddam's Iraq had loads of processed uranium available at home, and (b) that Niger's uranium industry was controlled by France!  INDEPENDENT
[NOTE: THE AUTOMATIC-LINK MECHANISM IS STILL NOT FUNCTIONING ON BLOGSPOT.]
The general point holds very firm: there was no solid, reliable evidence that Saddam's regime posed a threat to other nations.  And of course, such evidence is necessary to justify starting a war!

The invasion was, as the Vatican said at the time, UNJUST, ILLEGAL, AND DISASTROUS.

 
REMINDING:
Molly Ivins points out an interesting fact: as we get into the LAST HUNDRED DAYS before the election, the Bush-team is not so much defending the Iraq war as trying to get us to forget it, to pretend that our involvement has basically disappeared since we ‘handed over sovereignty’  to our latest band of puppets in Baghdad.

After all, most Americans have forgotten our ongoing fiasco in Afghanistan. That’s because there are only a few U.S. casualties there, and U.S. casualties are all many Americans care about—otherwise, they’re not really interested in the outside world.

But the Iraq fiasco is not so forgettable. In fact there have been more U.S. casualties each day in July than in June.  The guerilla leaders understand the TV culture of America; they understand that, even though the owners of TV networks want Bush to win, their own profits depend on how many are watching their stations—and spectacular pictures of burning cars (or naked, abused prisoners) keep watchers watching.  Even more fascinating are pictures of various kidnapped foreigners waiting to be beheaded.

Well, if Bush strategy is getting America to forget Iraq, the ‘AnyoneButBush’ strategy is to keep reminding our people of the ongoing disaster.  There are various ways of doing this: brief radio ads (if the local stations will accept them): e.g. Osama to Bush: “Thanks, George,  for the invasion. Thanks for recruiting many new terrorists! I pray to Allah that  you’ll get re-elected!  ” Also, newspaper ads.

One costless method is this:  at the local colleges, imitate the people trying to make sure people remember the Holocaust. In some public place, have volunteers read off the names of the 900 Gis who have died so far in the war. (These names can be obtained from CNN.com.)

We should have volunteers standing on busy corners, where HUNDREDS of cars go by every hour..especially at Noon.  These volunteers wave
BRIEF reminder signs: e.g.

BUSHIES LIE; SO 900 Gis DIE!
WE CAN’T WIN BUSH’S WAR!
BUSH INVASION PUT OUR HOMELAND MORE IN DANGER!
BUSH’S WAR HAS RECRUITED MORE TERRORISTS!
BUSH’S WAR DRAGS ON !
BUSH'S UGLY, POINTLESS WAR!
HUNDREDS OF GIS MIND-DAMAGED!
THOUSANDS OF GIS MAIMED OR WOUNDED!
IRAQ: 3 GIS DEAD EACH DAY NOW. [average over last 4 months.]
ONE THOUSAND MILLIONS EACH DAY TO PENTAGON!
------------------------
YELLING:
I’ve been doing the corner-bit for months. Every week I get more friendly signals and fewer obscenities from drivers, even in a Republican town like Ft.Collins. We should do this also in Greeley, and in Denver.

Some drivers use a stop-light interval to argue with me. I sold newspapers on the corner as a kid—so even at age 74, I have a terrific yelling voice. 

Two recent encounters:
--One burly fellow yelled, “I put my Ass on the line in Iraq!” I responded, “Your mistake!”/ He yelled, “I’m proud of my service!”/ I yelled, “BEING PROUD OF A MISTAKE IS A SECOND MISTAKE!”

--A young driver gave me a very common reaction: “GO BUSH!”  I yelled back,
“YES,BUSH—GO QUICKLY!”/ That puzzled him: he tried “STAY, BUSH!”
I yelled “YES, BUSH, STAY IN TEXAS!”

 But corner-debates are not the point. It doesn’t matter what you or your sign says, just that motorists see ‘BUSH’ and ‘WAR’ somehow connected. Remember, the goal is to stop the citizens from doing what they’d like to do: forget the ugly fiasco in Iraq.
----------
Every Saturday at noon, the 'warniks' gather at College & Mulberry, getting people to 'honk for the troops'.  They have a bagpipe, and make a lot of noise.
They don't realize they're HARMING their hero Bush--by reminding people that his ugly war does drag on.


 
The awkwardness of the slogan "STAY,BUSH!" [above] reminded me of some slogan-experience in Scotland, years ago.

ANTI-CATHOLICISM: the only part of traditional Presbyterianism that still flourishes in secular Scotland, full of huge, empty churches. 
(We lived in Scotland for 2 years).

A few years ago, Pope JPII visited an upper-middle-class suburb of Glasgow.
Afterwards, in a dreadful Glasgow slum, a big banner appeared: 'NO POPE IN EASTERHOUSE!" / Underneath, in letters just as big, someone had inscribed:  "LUCKY POPE!"

All over Scotland, including the University of Glasgow, a common graffito is 'FUCK THE POPE!"  But in a faculty Men's Room in U of Glasgow, I found an attempted retort, aimed at the top Presbyterian honcho:

"Fuck the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland !"


Somehow, that last graffito didn't have the ringing resonance of the others.
 
FALSE COURAGE:  Under-populated Australia is next-door to one million furious Muslims in Indonesia, enraged at America. So the right-wing Aussie govt. JOINS in the American 'crusade' in Iraq! (Muslims still refer back to Christian Crusades vs. Islam many centuries ago. Talk about poor losers!)

Now anonymous Islamists on Internet have warned that Australia will be struck by terrorists, in punishment. So the nincompoop Aussie govt. blames the Spanish & Phillipines for sensibly pulling out of Iraq, after similar threats. This, they say, encouraged terrorists to threaten Australia...as if the terrorists NEEDED encouragement!

So far: Spain,DominicanRepublic, Nicaragua, Honduras have pulled out of the phony 'coalition' in Iraq.

This 'standing firm' is not a display of Aussie courage; these right-wing Aussies are  TOO DUMB TO BE SCARED.
---------
27July: Powell 'admonishes Hungarians to stay the course' ! Unless his words are backed up by some powerful bribe or threat, Colin is whistling into the wind.

 
"BEST THING ABOUT AMERICA? NOTHING AT ALL!"
New polls in 6 Arab nations show increasing hostility towards America.
FinTimes

Negative views of America ranged from 70% to 98% (in Egypt!)

A Change: most identify themselves as 'MOSLEM', not as Arabs or as citizens of their nation.

On the other hand, American VALUES (e.g., democracy, science) were valued by Arabs. It's our POLICIES they hate--they now resent our seeming attack on Moslems almost as much as our slavish following of Sharon.
[Al Jazeera in English]
~ Saturday, July 24, 2004
 
GUARDIAN (24July) says that WallSt.Journal poll just released says that only EIGHT PERCENT of Americans approve of Republicans' handling of Iraq!
This is down from 27% in January.

The 9/11 Commission is NOT DISBANDING. Teams of 1 Dem,1 Rep will tour U.S., crusading for the intelligence reforms it recommended. Kerry immediately endorsed the reforms; Bushies are balking.
=========
The mechanism for linking to Guardian source still doesn't work;
sorry. But you can call up GUARDIAN.CO.UK yourself, and read the interesting story on TROUBLE AHEAD FOR BUSH FROM 9/11 COMMISSION.
===========
On 23July, guerillas kidnapped a high govt. construction official, attacked another high official (knowing about his travel schedule), and bombed the Northern pipelines again.

So far, U.S. army PLUS forces of fire-breathing Allawi seem pretty impotent in restoring security. 





 
2 VERSIONS OF 'POPULISM': Liberals care about the INTERESTS of the ordinary person, but do not pander to some of his ignorant OPINIONS. For instance, the ordinary person seems to prefer Sales Tax (which falls extra-heavy on the poor) to Estate Tax (which falls only on about 1% of the very, very wealthy). The ordinary person also resents gays, whereas 'limousine liberals' see that sexual preference is a politically trivial issue. And informed liberals see through the fraud of wealthy, arrogant Bush posing as an 'ordinary guy you'd like to drink a beer with'.

Ordinary men feel safer with a gun in the house; educated liberals see that such guns are usually useless--but when they are fired, they kill or wound friends and family-members FAR MORE OFTEN than intruders.

Educated liberals--unlike most Americans--understand what a billion dollars means--so they are horrified by Congress shovelling well over $1000 MILLIONS each DAY to the Pentagon, while grossly underfunding the obvious needs of Homeland Defense.
The ordinary man foolishly trusts Bush on 'security' issues, in spite of all the evidence against that position.

Right-Wing Radicals, on the other hand, pander to the ordinary man's worst instincts and most ignorant opinions--but then shamelessly trample his INTERESTS.  'Moral Conservatism' is simply a trick to stop ordinary people from 'voting their pocketbooks'. (If they did that, Republicans would never harvest more than 30% of the vote!)
----------------
But ordinary people,when really cornered economically, sometimes wake up to smell the coffee. It happened during the Great Depression. That may be happening in this election, where most people say they care most about economic issues, and most people say they trust Kerry more on such issues. 

So far this abstract position hasn't helped Kerry to pull ahead decisively--there seems to be something negative about his TV personality. So the battle seems to be between the ordinary man's often-foolish opinions and his urgent real NEEDS (e.g., for adequate health-care). 

That is the tragedy of politics; hardly anyone understands-AND-cares-about the needs of the ordinary man--he himself cares only about his immediate whims, not his true long-run interests.

~ Friday, July 23, 2004
 
FOR NEW READERS: Most of the 1500 pieces here are 'downers', describing the many ways the Bushies are degrading and harming America.

But one piece might be seen as an 'upper'. When I was in Inchon, Korea,
52 years ago, I met this NUN whom I still count as
the Most Impressive Person I Have Ever Known:

To read about her: under ARCHIVE at left, scroll down  to click on week
9/21/2003 ->9/27/2003, then scroll to 9/23.
[Sorry--the linking mechanism is out-of-order for now.]

 
WILD TRIBAL TALE: 
In a hotel in Jordan, the top  leader of the Dulabi [Sunni] tribe [2 million members out of 25 million Iraqis]  says:
--they have ruled Western Iraq for one thousand years, and they will continue to do so. (They despised Saddam's Baathists--but they will not stand for the despised Shiites to take over all of Iraq.)

--"I didn't bring on the insurgency--but I could stop it. Try me--give me responsibility, say for Baghdad City, and watch me pacify the rebels!"

Or else: "In a year, I will lead the guerillas. Vietnam will seem a picnic."

--His idea of a compromise: The important part of the new regime (controlling the military and security) would be run by his type of tribal leaders.  The other (trivial) part could be run by a 'democracy'.
--------------
But: will the Kurds & Shiites accept this kind of compromise? or is he just annoucing the inevitable civil war? 

(Australian SydneyMorningHerald /  SMH.COM.AU
cited in INFORMATION CLEARINGHOUSE).

 
BIPARTISAN CONDEMNATION: The 9/11 commission said that both the Clinton team and the Bush team disgracefully bungled precautions against Homeland attack.

SO: I won't vote back in the Clinton team--AND I WON'T VOTE BACK IN THE BUSH TEAM!
 
INCREDIBLE! After the invasion, Bushies announced that no firms from nations outside our phony 'coalition' would be allowed to bid for 'Iraq Reconstruction' contracts. (Since the other members, besides Britain, were economic pygmies, that meant basically that only U.S. & Brit firms could bid.)

Who would dream that this insane policy was kept in place until just this week?
The reason given for dropping it now was that 'now other nations are helping' (they're not, really!) The real reason, very likely, was that with employees of outside companies being beheaded, there is a severe SHORTAGE OF BIDS for these supposedly luscious contracts.

The thinking behind the original restriction was this: "GIs and their families--unlike foreigners--are making tremendous sacrifices for Iraq; so in fairness,we'll dump money on Haliburton and other crooked U.S. corporations."
 
U.S.FIRMS LOADED WITH CASH (thanks to Bush's luscious tax-cuts)--but so far they're NOT investing it.
This strange situation has not been seen for at least the last 30 years.

Why? Some say CEOs are worried about possible terrorist attack on U.S.
[REUTERS]

But it may be that CEOs  see that WORLD AGGREGATE EFFECTIVE DEMAND (demand backed by money) is not that strong, so far.  (High price of oil is like a tax on the whole world--there's less money to spend on other goods/services.)

Why invest in new productive capacity if already over 20% of that capacity goes unused?


 
TWO GIs AND ONE OF OUR IRAQI GENERALS killed on Friday.
[Reuters ]  (Linking still doesn't work.)

Saddam's capture did not magically cut guerillas' bloody actions;
neither, it seems, did the phony pretence of 'sovereignty'.

Two officials of our new puppet regime have resigned, facing death-threats.
---------------------------------------------------
We're in a stalemate which will continue the trickle of GI blood.



 
NOT FOR NOTHING?              
“900 GIs dead, thousands maimed or wounded, hundreds mind-damaged—and all for NOTHING!” This is a familiar theme from me.

An intelligent friend responded tentatively, “Well, some say the invasion has done SOME good ; we do better to fight them in Iraq than here!

Who’s ‘THEM’?! This seems to assume that there’s one small group of terrorists in the world—"If they’re busy blowing up Iraq, then they’re not available to blow up America. "
But in fact:
--there are one billion Muslims scattered throughout the world, in dozens of countries .Suppose (optimistically) that only one in a thousand, enraged by our invasion and our atrocities against Muslims that followed, have moved to support terrorists—or even volunteer as terrorists—that would make ONE MILLION TERRORISTS or supporters available throughout the world.

[Never mind the guerillas' atrocities; world Muslims probably don't weigh these heavily--just as we dismiss our atrocities as 'collateral damage'. We're talking here about how one billion Muslims DO react to our Iraq campaign, NOT about how they SHOULD react !]
----------------------------------
--Are a significant portion of these terrrorists, worldwide,  tied up with the Iraq insurgency--so they can't attack us? Most of the Iraq insurgents are Iraqis enraged because their friends or relatives have been slaughtered, and because they blame America one way or the other for the slaughter. Of the insurgents we have captured, only about NINETY are non-Iraqis!

--Experts around the world have said that our Iraq fiasco has recruited extra terrorists around the world. And our Iraq war, like the Chechnya fiasco, is providing combat TRAINING for terrorists!

  Thos.Keane, Republican co-chair of 9/11 commission, just said that EVERY SINGLE EXPERT told them that another attack on our Homeland is possible, EVEN PROBABLE.  So it will likely turn out that we will face terrorists in Iraq AND ALSO HERE!

Since our Iraq fiasco has made our homeland LESS safe (which most Americans now admit has happened), a thoughtful person would say that
our GIs have  suffered for LESS THAN NOTHING!


 
BETTER-OFF UNDER BUSH?
Right-wing writers sometimes claim that the SPENDING HABITS of the poor show they're not so badly off. (Or at least they're still able to borrow!) 

But recently:
The MIDDLE TWENTY-PERCENT of incomes, in 1992, totalled 15.8% of total income. Now it's only 14.8%. Wages/Salaries, adjusted for inflation, have dropped a little.

Confidence among poor has dropped 1% in the last 3 months!

Bankruptcy filings rose in a year from 8.1 per thousand to 14.6 per thousand.

Walmart sales are dropping. But places where the RICH buy are flourishing!

On the other hand, rising number of drug-tests suggests that new hirings have increased.
------------------------------
[j. Waggoner in USATODAY(printVersion)23July


~ Thursday, July 22, 2004
 
LATEST POLL (today) from CNN/USATODAY/GALLUP:
83% have already made up their minds.

Bush & Kerry tied for choice. (K's lead within 'margin of error'..However, most recent polls show him a few % ahead..that seems to show that his lead is NOT an errror!)

Interesting differences:
"Bush is stronger, more decisive" (yeah--INSANE decisions--but never mind.)

"Kerry cares more about the needs of  people like me."

"K.can handle the following situations better:Health care, the Economy,Education." [and Polls show the voters care most about Economy.]
"K. shares my values better, is more optimistic (this in spite of all the Bush-ads !).

'B. can handle better: Iraq & Terrorism." A sad fallacy.
Also sad: B. is person more voters admire.

Most preposterous: "B. is more knowledgeable about issues." !!

Americans are quite confused. At best,  Kerry has a GOOD CHANCE to get elected. All people who see through Bushie crap should throw themselves into this campaign.
------------------
Biggest gap: Kerry would be respected by world leaders (63%) vs. 'Bush is now respected by world leaders.' only 43%. Implications: at least most Americans are AWARE of world opinion..BUT they obviously don't care much about world opinion! ...final result is nearly a tie...  ???!!!???
 
PENTAGON INTELLIGENCE? A square circle.  Everyone's blaming the CIA for intelligence failures.  But it turns out that, of the $50 billion 'intelligence' budget, EIGHTY PERCENT goes to the Pentagon. [USA TODAY] Shocking but not surprising.

The central recommendation of the 9/11 Commission is that we need to coordinate all our intelligence operations under one 'Czar'.
But that would mean that the Pentagon would not have $40 billion it now has to play with each year.  This reform is bloody unlikely!
 
WILDLY MISLEADING HEADLINE!
in USATODAY, on front page, in screaming, colored print:
"IT'S CLEARLY A CAMPAIGN FOR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF." Then, on 1st page, it's said that Bush and Kerry are both thought competent for the role; on p.2, Bush is favored in that role by 51% over 43% for Kerry. (And Americans' historic reluctance to oust an incumbent president during a war is cited.)

But then on p. 2, people are asked "What is most important role in President's  job?":  41% say 'handling the economy' vs. ONLY 23% citing the role of C-in-C !

Then on p. 8a, a Pew poll is cited saying that Dems are favored as handling
'DOMESTIC ISSSUES'.

Another poll shows that African-Americans favor Kerry by EIGHT-TO-0NE!
while Hispanics favor him 3 to 1. [Other sources say 'two to one'.] This latter point is especially important in Colorado--luckily we have a Hispanic running for Senate--and it may show that the Roman bishops' campaign against Democrats is not working.

Dems' crucial job is to get the blacks & Hispanics and young women to register and vote!
----------
It's morbidly fascinating that Bush (unqualified, and with disgraceful performance)  is preferred as 'C-in-C'.  But Americans don't really distinguish military performance (Kerry's real combat  record) with military appearance..(Bush in flight suit, with genitals enhanced). After all, they worshipped John Wayne as a great hero, tho he never went anywhere near to combat. (Fat, almost blind, athsmatic Lyons got closer to combat that Wayne did!)

Also, they trust Bush on 'Security' even though a majority now sees that the Iraq fiasco has made us 'LESS SAFE'! I suspect that 'security'--for those Americans who are  yahoos--does NOT mean  'the safety of our Homeland', but instead means having lots of bombers & missiles to fire at our 'enemies'. (After all, security for their homes means having guns..even though statistics show that there's a far greater chance of these guns killing friends and family-members than intruders.)

But Americans are waking up..the trend is very good.




~ Wednesday, July 21, 2004
 
IS PRIME MINISTER OF IRAQ JUST THE MAYOR OF BAGHDAD?
Robt.Fisk, who speaks Arabic and has been in Iraq before,during and after the invasion, says that journalists are advised not to drive outside Baghdad.

He did so, and was horrified at the complete anarchy outside the capital.
Najaf is under control--but NOT of the Baghdad government--instead under the control of SADR's militia!

(And of course huge bombings happen every day WITHIN Baghdad!)
[INDEPENDENT, 20July]

 
COLO.DEMS:  Why are Republicans embarrassing themselves by their pointless advocacy of "anti-Gay-Marriage Amendment"? They have no hope of it going into law; but their advocacy [they'll bring it up in the House, in Sept.]
--they hope--will bring out their yahoos to vote!
 
Colo.Dems can use a similar strategy. Don't give directly to Kerry !  He already has millions. Instead, contribute to SALAZAR'S campaign. The Hispanics who come out especially to vote for him WILL ALSO VOTE FOR KERRY.

I'm also contributing to MATSUNAKA (vs. awful Musgrave in Fourth District). Even if  M. doesn't win, the young people (esp. young women) who come out especially to vote against Musgrave--they will also vote for Kerry.
 
MOVEON.ORG is turning out some really good TV ads.

The latest offering shows CEOs speaking for Bush, and working people speaking for Kerry. They claim that in a test city, this ad was followed by a 6% POLL-SHIFT toward Kerry.

I've sent them some money..I hope others will too.
 
BUSH SIGNS LAW SHOVELLING $6 BILLION TO PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES to develop vaccines & medicines to counter possible biowar attacks. [REUTERS]

FINALLY, almost 3 years after 9/11 ! And the $6 billion is to be spread over the next TEN YEARS! Also, note that the money is going to big corporations. These grossly profitable pharmaceuticals would never do such research on their own, unless they get the $ from government.
No corporations are really AMERICAN; money has no national loyalty.

What good will the new medicines do (when they FINALLY  show up!) ?
The terrorists will sensibly start epidemics among our poor people, who have little or no public health coverage. The new diseases won't even be diagnosed, until they have spread to our well-to-do citizens.

What we really need are huge subsidies to beef up NURSE-TRAINING programs, which can't handle the applicants now.  Even without a germ-war attack, we are desperately short of nurses; hospitals are paying $20,000 to lure a nurse from another hospital. A bioterror attack will be an unbelievable catastrophe; and part of the blame will go to the Bushies, who don't really give a damn about protecting our Homeland from terrorists!

(They may figure that a big attack will panic Americans so they'll vote to keep the present rulers, the Bushies, in power!)

 
FOR NEW READERS :
On this web-site, there are nearly 1500 short essays--dating from Oct.'02--explaining objections to Bushie reign and Bushie war--and answering arguments that try to defend these follies. (I DO READ the 'other side'!) Essays before this week can be read by clicking on a given week under ARCHIVES.

If you don't have time to read all 1500 essays, you can settle for the few written this week, displayed below.
 
BLAME VS. CORRECTION: When someone cites the new (understated) '9/11 Commission" report (coming out this week) to expose the negligent folly of the Bush-team in not foreseeing the 9/11 catastrophe--then it's said that we shouldn't waste time on fixing blame; we should just try to fix the 'System'.

But the point is that the Bush-team is STILL FOOLISHLY NEGLIGENT in countering terrorist attacks on our Homeland!  We can't block all the dozens of ways terrorists could attack our incredibly vulnerable homeland. But we could block many predictable kinds of attack, and mitigate the disasters caused, after attacks that get through.

However, these precautions (e.g., protecting our 104 nuclear waste-ponds from small planes loaded with explosive) would be VERY EXPENSIVE.

The Bushies have spent us almost into bankruptcy by their WARS. We shovel routinely  to the Pentagon well over $1000 MILLIONS each DAY; PLUS over one hundred thousand MILLIONS we are spending on the Iraq fiasco. So naturally they can't afford an adequate Homeland Defense.

The most obvious way to 'fix the System' is to oust these bloodthirsty nincompoops this November.

 
"WON'T LET N.KOREAN ISSUE SLIDE TILL ELECTION.." says usually fire-breather John Bolton. NO--after all our tough talk that we would not 'yield to blackmail' and try to BUY N.K. nuke dismantling--now we're willing to buy that dismantling. CHOSUN IBO [So.Korea] (Links still don't work, due to software glitch.)

Sensibly, because we can't invade N.K. (army of one million; and, thanks to Iraq folly, we have no troops to spare.) And if we bomb them, they can wipe out SouthKorea, parts of Japan,and kill thousands of GIs. Plus they can donate to terrorists lots of plutonium to make dirty bombs to smuggle into U.S.

N.K. has discovered the counter to U.S. bullying--a second-strike deterrent:
"You can bomb us flat--as you did 50 years ago--but this time, survivors will come out of our caves and make you regret doing that!"

More and more nations will respond to Bushie bullying with that '2d-strike' strategy.

~ Tuesday, July 20, 2004
 
FIVE GIs killed IN LAST 3 DAYS. U.S. WAR DEAD TOPS 900.
[INDEPENDENT & CNN both said that FOUR GIs were killed on Tuesday!] 

There's been chatter about a lull in attacking GIs since the 'handover';
Bush is hoping, with fewer GI casualties,  we'll forget about the war.
(Bush 's flunky McCain actually said that lower casualties will help Bush in November.) 

But the guerillas don't seem willing to play that game. 
Every day there are DOZENS of attacks on GIs.

In the last 4 months (Apr.->Jy) an average of THREE GIs A DAY were killed;
[Global Strategy.com]--and of course there's no way of knowing just how many other GIs were MAIMED or wounded.
 
SOME 'KERRY/BIN LADEN' BUMPER STICKERS ARE SHOWING UP.
Bush is REALLY vulnerable to this type of attack. A (currently serving!) senior CIA official says in his book IMPERIAL HUBRIS that binLaden might attack our Homeland before November, because HE WANTS BUSH TO WIN.
 
The trick is to get this info into a super-brief message: e.g.,
OSAMA SAYS: INVASION RECRUITS TERRORISTS! THANKS, 'W' !
 
 

 
BLAIR ADMITS 'MAYBES' OMITTED FROM DOSSIER justifying Iraq invasion. [GUARDIAN20jULY]
 
How important were the omitted MAYBES? You can't justify an unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation unless you have PRACTICALLY CERTAIN evidence that this victim nation poses a real and imminent threat to other nations.  That's a MINIMUM reqirement for a just war.
(After all, we require evidence BEYOND ANY REASONABLE DOUBT to justify sending one person to prison. Should we accept any weaker standard for evidence inflicting catastrophic death and suffering on the invaded country and the invading troops alike?)
 
Also clear evidence for predicting the outcome is necessary for a war-decision  to count as PRUDENT. Every war is risky--and the Iraq invasion was totally nuts, ignoring the real chance of the bloody guerilla war--which 2 of our generals have now said publicly that WE CANNOT WIN.
 
So the 'maybes' would have discredited all the case for war!
==============
This same perspective shows that the Bushies for sure never had a just case for war.  After 9/11, it was known that our whole Intelligence service was incompetent.  A 'practical certainty' that Iraq posed a threat to other nations
COULD NOT HAVE BEEN ASSURED with such lousy intelligence!

And we had no way to feel sure that the OUTCOME of the invasion would be beneficial enough to justify the slaughter involved.
 
I HOPE TO GOD YOU'RE LYING! (letter to John Kerry):
I read that your public position on foreign affairs is not that different from that of the Bush crazies.

You say you want to add 40,000 young men to the army. We already have 700,000 troops stationed expensively overseas, adding both to our government deficit, and to our trade deficit (their upkeep is paid out overseas, counting as an import to further outweigh our pathetic exports). We could easily move 40,000 of these troops to Iraq--but that would just add 40,000 more useless clay pigeons to be shot at. [Our present troops can't even protect the top puppets of our new regime..or maybe they're not even trying.]

In order to recruit 40,000 extra soldiers, when we have treated our present soldiers so shabbily, we'd have to offer HUGE enlistment bonuses, adding to this useless expense. And we'd divert macho military-type men who might otherwise serve as our desperately needed national guard troops at home, policemen and firemen--as we await the next terrorist attack on our Homeland. (Governors have complained officially about this drain already.)

--The Dem. platform you control says we CAN'T pull troops out now from Iraq, "because we must avoid Iraq turning into a 'failed state', harboring terrrorists." For the near future, we must expect AT BEST that the Sunni/Shiite part of Iraq will turn into a Muslim state, which will likely be sympathetic to anti-American terrorists. Sooner or later we WILL bug out of Iraq--then the friendliness to terrorists--aggravated by the Bushie cruel blunders--will be manifested.

Bosnia and Kosovo will be 'failed states' when we finally pull out. We seem to be committed to 'holding up dominoes' all over the world.

After all, Iran is NOT a 'failed state', and Iran apparently has been quite hospitable to terrorists. Morocco, Yemen and other places are similar. Indonesia is the most worrisome place, with almost a million Muslims who now hate America. The Phillipines also have Muslim-controlled jungles--and the Phillipine government is now rather chilly towards America.
--------
Instead of worrying about states harboring terrorists--after all , Europe and OUR country undoubtedly harbor terrorists! --(Russia, by its insane war against Chechnya, is TRAINING terrorists, as we are in Iraq!)--instead of such impractical concerns, we must try to defend our obvious points of vulnerability: for instance, the thousands of huge ship-containers entering our ports each day; or our 104 nuclear waste-ponds.
=========
As I say, your public positions on terrorism aren't that much better than Bush's. But don't worry; I figure you're just appeasing those American who are yahoos, who just can't grasp the shape of our unique emergency--they still think 'the best defense is an attack'.
 
These ignorant people don't realize that we can't attack faceless individual terrorists until they reveal themselves. (Our present FBI and CIA are pretty useless at uncovering terrorists.) And bombing 'nations that harbor terrorists' just further enrages 1 billion Muslims worldwide, and recruits more terrorists!
===============
John: sensible people like myself are quite used to choosing 'the lesser evil'. We will still back you fervently over that mad nincompoop Bush, who thinks that God speaks through him. We won't stay home, or go for Nader, thus giving Bush half-a-vote. But we do hope you're lying through your teeth.

~ Monday, July 19, 2004
 
"Pres.Bush has one question for you: 'The rich man you work for--is HE better off than he was 4 years ago?' " [Jay Leno]


 
GOOD ANALYSIS OF PRES.CAMPAIGN: in Brit paper INDEPENDENT,19July. FEAR & LOATHING by R.Cornwall.
 
His main point: the 2 parties are not 'bidding for the undecideds' this time, BECAUSE THERE ARE ALREADY FEW UNDECIDEDS!
 
So both parties are trying to be sure their CORE CONSTITUENTS come out to vote.  For instance, 4 million 'Christian Conservatives' did NOT come out to vote in 2000...if they came out, they'd presumably go for Bush.  Let us pray...
 
And of course the poor and the minorities and young women (Dem. in sympathy) often don't register and don't vote.
 
Polls show a near-tie with Kerry a little ahead. A lot hinges on Dem.Convention at the end of August. If Kerry can come across as strong, as moderate, as trustworthy on Security, then the election is his.
 
 
 
 
 
GAS PRICES UP AGAIN:  to $1.93 /gal average in U.S. [REUTERS]
I'm not overwhelmed with grief. (My little Nissan Sentra drinks gas by the spoonful.)
 
--All sensible people rejoice when the price of Crack Cocaine goes up, or the price of cigarettes (fewer adolescents can afford to start smoking.) We should see gasoline as another addiction, and be glad when there is pressure to drive smaller cars, and to drive less--even, god forbid, to use carpools!
 
--Such price-rises increases the FELT misery index of Americans; they will blame Bush (as they should).
 
A TV newsshow recently showed an interview with T.Boone Pickens,one of the oil billionaires who is also expert on such issues. He predicted that gas would rise to $3/gal THIS YEAR! Time to sell that SUV before prices begin to drop.

 
NEW INTERIM GOVERNOR OF BASRA PROVINCE KILLED (20jULY)
[Bloomberg News]
---------------------
SEVEN BLOODY IRAQ EXPLOSIONS LAST WEEK:  destroying various govt. or police buildings and personnel.

We've put a huge bounty on Zarqawi's head; but the guerillas have put a large bounty on ALLAWI's head.
---------- 
[No matter how many officials are killed, others will step up.
But will they be competent and incorrupt? How many candidates will be saintly (ready-for-martyrdom) and competent ? (Corrupt people might volunteer, chancing the risk for the sake of loot.)  ]
-------
ALLAWI'S ALLEGED SHOOTING (with no trial!) of half-a-dozen prisoners--just before he was installed as our puppet PrimeMinister--is now triggering international calls for an investigation.
 
They'll  have trouble restoring a 'Saddam-lite' regime; Saddam I never allowed international observers to uncover his crimes.
---------------- 
Allawi seems to be leaning toward the Shiites--he restored SADR'S newspaper, suppressed by Bremer.  And if the Sunni rebels seem unappeasable, Allawi will no doubt line up with Shiites. That would confirm Saddamite officers to heighten the insurgency.
-------------
Bush's hopes are that lowering GI casualties (by pulling them back into useless garrisons) will make people change minds to approve of war--or at least forget about the war. (The Bushies may try to pull distracting surprises.)
 
But NO real poll-changes since 'power-transfer':
 
50% say 'War not worth it' (vs. 47%)
 
54% say war was a mistake. (vs. 45%)
 
60% say war is going badly (vs. 40%)
 
(Needless to say, hard-core Republicans still think war is 'going well'.
It's their religion.) The good news is that thirty percent of Republicans see the obvious, that Bush's war is going badly.  They're not likely to turn out enthusiastically to vote for Bush!
 
The trick for Dems is to remind people constantly that Bush's war is still dragging on
[source:www.gallup.com]


 
WAR IS ROAD TO OPPRESSIVE GOVT. [letter to RMtnNews]

A Republican flack, one R.Witwer, [SPEAKOUT19JULY] pretends to speak for young voters in worrying about heavy government inhibiting a blessed Market Society--but, of course, a society whose harshness is mitigated by private charity: 'Compassionate Conservatism', by God !
[ RmtnNews ] [linking facility is now blocked by software glitch..you'd have to read print version of that rt-wing rag RMN.]
 
But Witwer ignores one important fact: the high road to excessive government is WAR! We shovel to the Pentagon well over 1000 MILLIONS of dollars each DAY; they employ about one million civilian bureaucrats

Bush's Iraq War justifies granting huge NO-BID, UNaccountable contracts to proved embezzlers like Haliburton.That's NOT the market at work!

War-fever  justifies the PATRIOT act, which entitles Ashcroft's flunkies to snoop into your reading-lists, and forbids bookstore & library personnel to tell you you've been spied on. (That doesn't offend Bush's core constituency, because these yahoos don't read books.)

If young people are concerned about money-draining, intrusive government, they should vote to oust the war-mongering Bush-team.

~ Sunday, July 18, 2004
 
AWAKENING FROM WAR FEVER:  A new CBS/NYT poll shows:
51%: "We should have stayed out of Iraq!"
 
62%:" The war is not worth the cost in American lives."
 
WAS WAR 'WORTH IT'? One reason advanced by war-defenders was the '400,000' graves (of Saddam's victims) allegedly found after the invasion.
But now Brit govt. has admitted that only 5000 graves have been found.
[Guardian18July]
 
Price of removing this monster: over 1000 coalition troops dead; thousands maimed or wounded or mind-damaged; tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed, maimed or wounded so far.
 
Not really worth it.
 
ISRAEL,U.S. SIDING WITH KURDS?  Both U.S. & Israel seem willing to sacrifice their friendship with Turkey, in order to back up 'Iraqi Kurdistan'.
Journalists say this is because Israel expects U.S. defeat, expects breakup of Iraq into 2 or 3 parts.
 
But Israelis & Americans might not be all that reluctant to see this breakup.
Kurds sit on a separate sea of oil. (Sunni guerillas have prevented export of this oil by sabotage.) Israel has reason to prefer 3 weak Iraqis as enemies to one united enemy Iraq--and Israel has actually cultivated alliance with world Kurds.  And all oil-consumers have reason to prefer bargaining with two weak oil-exporters (Kurds & Shiites in South) to bargaining with one strong Iraq.
 
So it seems more and more likely that Iraq will be split up.  The Sunni Arabs will be isolated by enforcible borders, without much oil or power.
Foreseeing this, they will likely fight to the death--with GIs, left hanging as the civilian Bushies bugged out,  as a prime target !
 
'HOW WAR IS' [letter to DenverPost]
One J. Esbenshade (letter18July) says 'that's how war is'--but he shows that he has no idea what war is like. He thinks the 'prisoner-abuse'scandal is about 'stepping on prisoners' toes' ! Instead it is about truly disgusting attacks on prisoners; and they are committed, not by fighting GIs, but by comfortable American swine serving as prisonguards, with their atrocities approved by the Pentagon.

The comic part of the letter was the attempt to justify torture as securing good intelligence.In spite of all our torture, we've had LOUSY intelligence about guerillas' leadership, motivation, and plans.

I saw war up close in Korea. A front-line GI put it well: "Don't say war is Hell; that's too glamorous; war is shit." If war-movie fans like Esbenshade knew what real war was like, we wouldn't have let the Bushies lie us so easily into war.
=========
On the other hand, the guerillas' intelligence is very good!  They knew about the Northern governor's travel plans, and managed to kill him. They knew about the Minister's travel plans, and almost managed to kill him (they did kill 4 of his bodyguards). The guerillas have obviously infiltrated the forces of our new puppet regime.
  Six members of Baghdad City Council have been shot since the 'power handover'.
------------------
By the way, journalists are saying that GIs are seen less often on Baghdad streets, so Iraqis might believe their country is now sovereign. But U.S. just bombed Fallujah again 'authorized by new Iraqi regime'. Who's going to be fooled?
 
Iraqi 'sovereignty' is a very small fig-leaf covering a very large U.S. reality.
 


 
WHY DIDN'T WE INVADE IRAN? The Senate committee says there's no real evidence of alQaeda-Saddam cooperation; but there IS evidence that IRAN has been allied with the terrrorists.
 
So why didn't we invade Iran instead of Iraq?  For the very simple reason that Iran would be a much tougher nut to crack.  They have a formidable army.
We could bomb the hell out of them--but the half-mad ayatollahs who run the country might like to see sinful cities like Teheran wiped out; they might prefer to rule, as Taliban did, over a primitive society.
 
This is also the reason we let North Korea develop nukes, while the Bushies were frothing about 'mushroom clouds' that might be caused by Iraq. The N.Koreans could strike back.
 
ThomasFriedman, an early defender of the war, admitted that Bushies lied us into war..but he dreamed that we could set up Iraq as a 'model democracy', as an example to the other Muslim countries. (Now, of course, our new puppet is showing himself as 'Saddam-lite'.)
 
Friedman put it very simply: "This was a war of choice, not necessity. We attacked Iraq (instead of, say, Saudi Arabia) BECAUSE WE COULD."

In other words, we knew very well that Iraq was helpless--(NOT a threat to other nations)--THAT'S why we invaded them.
 
(It turned out that Iraq wasn't so helpless; the army dissolved, didn't surrender; then Pentagon stupidly left them without salaries--which gave them added motivation to organize the guerilla movement.)
---------
Now an official says IF BUSH IS REELECTED, we would try to change the regime in Iran..not by overt military means, but by stirring up rebels.
Australian Sun-Herald
 
Of course, when that word gets out, then rebels will be tarred with the brush of 'U.S. puppets'; that should finish them off with Iranian people.
 
Another rumor is that Israel or U.S. planes will bomb the alleged nuclear plants of Iran. Of course, then Iran would have nothing to lose by infiltrating into Shiiite Iraq and stirring up civil war there.
 
Key phrase: 'IF BUSH IS RE-ELECTED..' / FAIR WARNING!
========
A 'top Bush official' told Financial Times [story 20July] that Iran was NOT doing much to interfere with new Iraq regime.  That probably shows that Bushies are really afraid of Iran intervening, so they're backing off from any aggressive bluster. [That doesn't mean that Israel won't be encouraged to bomb Iran's nuke-facilities. And that might trigger overt Iranian intervention in Iraq.]
 



 
RATS LOSE APPETITE FOR SEA-TRAVEL:  Polish people generally, like people all over the world, reject our pointless, ugly war in Iraq.  But the Polish government has sold out to U.S., to put Polish troops into Iraq.
 
But now that government has announced that it will begin to withdraw from Iraq in 2005.  The Bulgarians, Phillipinos have set about withdrawing. The Saudi company that hired the Egyptian who is now a hostage is withdrawing.
The "coalition" is getting ever more UNwilling. 
 
The Brits are staying in, for now--because Blair is as stubborn as he is dumb and vicious.  But their glorious leader Blair (called B-LIAR  by protesters) is dragging the Labor Party down with him as he sinks in popularity.
===========
LINK-GLITCH: I can't now link to my stories' sources, because of a glitch in BLOGSPOT software. But this will soon be corrected.
~ Saturday, July 17, 2004
 
MORE DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL: In spite of sky-high oil-prices, in spite of Bushies' lowering environmental blocks, production within U.S. has declined to unusual degree. Meanwhile, SUVs mean that our 'need' for oil is also jumping up. So we'll be more and more dependent on foreign oil
REUTERS
It doesn't really matter that in fact U.S. is NOT greatly dependent on MIDEAST oil. If world demand goes on exceeding world supply, the price of oil will continue to rise (above $40 a barrel already).
 
This dependence will increase our 'imports', when we can't seem much to increase our exports, even by cheapening our dollar. So our 'balance of payments' gap will continue to increase, endangering the prosperity of the whole First World.
 
CLINTON REMINDS US OF NORTH KOREA:  A year or so ago,Rummy's Pentagon was breathing fire at North Korea..Woolsey, one neocon, demanded that we invade them last summer.
 
We have not attacked them; and now we're in no position to do so. Bushies are making conciliatory moves, to hide the problem. But Bill Clinton is inconveniently reminding Americans that N.K. is a bigger problem (for providing weapons to terrorists) than Iraq ever was.
 
But Clinton points out, there's now really nothing aggressive we can do. N.K. has an army of one million--and rockets that could destroy SouthKorea and parts of Japan, as well as the thousands of GIs in S.K. and Okinawa.
[Cl..doesn't mention the probability that N.K. already has a few NUKES!]
 
Says C: our invasion and incompetent occupation of Iraq shows that now we cannot launch preemptive war that would accomplish anything. REUTERS
[We have no troops left over to occupy any other country; the most we could do is bomb the hell out of them.]
---------
This is the dubious future of our 'American Empire': we can destroy any 2 countries in a day with our nukes. But now we have alarmed the whole world by Bushies' 'rogue State' conduct and blustering.  Other nations will respond, as N.K. has,  by developing '2d-strike capacity', telling us "You can destroy us, but our survivors can make sure you regret doing it!"
 
Such '2d-strike weapons' could be nuclear (as with N.K. or with France)--or, more likely they'd be radioactive materials for a 'dirty bomb' (which, needing no chain reaction, could render our city-centers uninhabitable)--or even more likely, germ-war threats.
 
For a 2d-strike deterrent to work, other nations would have to inform our rulers secretly (beforehand) that they are ready to provide terrorist 'mules' with destructive weapons IF we seem likely to nuke them.
 
Americans just can't digest the UNIQUE emergency we face:
--Perhaps thousands of individual terrorists all over the world are ready to die while killing Americans. (It's astonishing how many suicide-bomber volunteers have shown up in Iraq!)
 
--Our Homeland is amazingly vulnerable to dozens of forms of attack (especially since the Bushies have so neglected Home Protection).
 
--Many other nations, If we threaten them, are willing and able to provide these 'terrorist mules' with germs or radioactive material which the mules  can easily convey into our country.
 
--so, IF OUR RULERS STAY SANE, our aggressive control over the world is neutralized by the development in other nations of '2d-strike capacity'.  Our thousands of nukes are pretty useless.
 
(However, if our 'empire-dreaming' rulers go mad with frustration, then many nations,including ourselves, are doomed. That's why we must oust the Bushies; Kerry seems much less likely to go mad.)
  
  
 


~ Friday, July 16, 2004
 
DEMS SCORE:  The Senate  is neglecting many important issues before people clear out for electioneering. Thanks to Rep. leaders, 4 days were wasted debating the silly 'Gay-Marriage' amendment.  Several Republican Senators balked and wouldn't vote to close debate,so the issue died.
 
In Ohio, Dems took out an ad that said: "Ohio jobs lost: 250,000. Ohio gay marriages: 0 ." INDEPENDENT
 
HUGE 'EXERCISE' THREATENS CHINA:  U.S. is assembling SEVEN 'Carrier Groups' (each including many, many ships and planes) right next to China.  The Chinese won't be provoked now--so Bushies can look tough safely before election!--but say they will immediately start arming heavily.  And of course progress toward democracy will be reversed.
LosAngelesTimes, cited in INFORMATION CLEARINGHOUSE
[By the way 'INFORMATION CLEARINGHOUSE' is a great way to tap into world media..Tom Feeley, who runs it alone, always welcomes contributions.]
 
The Bushies are letting the Chinese undersell us dramatically; they sell far more goods/svces to us than they buy from us. And the Bushies tell us that this toleration is to encourage China to move toward democracy.
 
Then they pull a pointless stunt like this!
-----------
China itself just launched an impressive 'mock invasion of Taiwan'.
[FinancialTimes20July].  It's nice to see both sides progressing evenly toward Apocalypse.

 
ALLAWI, our new puppet Prime Minister in Iraq: Just before he was elevated, one day he shot in cold blood a half-dozen prisoners (without any trial of course).
There were many witnesses, including some Americans. (The core of his personal core of bodyguards is American.)
 
The prisoners didn't mind; they had been tortured so long they wanted to die.
 
Allawi is telling the police they will not suffer if they behave likewise.
[ Sydney(Australia) Morning Herald ]
 
(It will be a long time--if ever--before such brutal tactics discourage the guerillas!--Longer than the 4 months before our elections. Till then, the world Media will just tell of the brutality. That won't help Bush!)

 
TOP SUNNI CLERIC CALLS FOR HOLY WAR VS. YANKS:
Ramadi is a town that has caused much pain and bloodshed to GIs.
They have responded forcefully.
Now the top SUNNI cleric there is calling on all other clerics (including Shiites) to join his demand that GIs pull out of Iraq or face a full Holy War (all stops out?) We'll see if this makes Ramadi situation even worse than it is.
AGENCE FRANCE PRESS (cited by Truthout)
 
ANGRY RELATIVES OF IRAQIS KILLED BY U.S. are now the main guerillas, says a shopkeeper.  Also, there are the Sunni Islamists who want the GIs out.  But they'd hate a Shiite Iraq even worse.  They want 'Saddam-lite',
a less frothing dictator or (Sunni) king. GUARDIAN
 
If Shiites don't get control, they'll rise up (with the help of Iran)...they outnumber Sunni Arabs 3 to 1.!
 
MORE MONEY FROM POOR TO WEALTHY:  A nonpartisan think-tank says that a) the astronomic govt.deficit (caused mainly by previous tax-cuts for rich) is acknowledged as dangerous by all experts; it'll have to be repaid.
The Bushies are planning to cut all spending programs, which are mainly for the poor..(also for veterans!)--and they'll try to renew the tax-cuts for the rich, so the deficit will be even more alarming. 
 
The theory was that as the rich get richer, they'll pay in enough taxes to lower the deficit. But in fact, 2 out of 3 corporations here sometimes pay NO taxes at all!
GUARDIAN
No corporation is really American; money has no national loyalty.

 
U.S. AWAKENING: In April, 51% (vs. 37%) thought Bush's war made us MORE safe ; 3 months later, 55% see that it has made us LESS safe from terrorist attack; only 37% say 'more safe'.  USATODAY (link to editorial page doesn't work; only the print version has these poll results.)
 
~ Thursday, July 15, 2004
 
PRE-HUMAN LIFE VS. PEOPLE (letter to DenverPost)
David Harsanyi says (15July) that Kerry & Salazar’s statements on abortion ‘smack of legal expediency’. Kerry says he believes life begins at conception; but he does not believe that abortion should count as a crime. Whereupon a Catholic theologian says, “you’d think the government would have an interest in protecting the lives of such people.” By ‘people’ he presumably means the fertilized eggs.

But if fertilized eggs are 'people', then their killing is murder! We should prosecute for reckless homicide anyone who administers the ‘morning-after’ pill, and send them to prison for decades. Not even the redoubtable bishop from Colorado Springs has suggested that.

'Life' actually begins BEFORE conception! Fertilized eggs are ‘life’—as are unfertilized eggs, and sperm. Not only that, they are ‘human life’..they’re not incipient chickens or horses. But none of that implies that they are FULL HUMANS (‘people’) with a legally enforcible right to life. These eggs are
‘PRE-human’--and whether and how they should be protected is an open
question.

One bad aspect of this pretence about fertilized eggs is that nine-month foetuses --or even post-birth BABIES--are considered by these ideologues as NO MORE A HUMAN than the egg. Most people intuitively see a huge difference between flushing out an egg and killing a baby!

 
MORE PIPELINE SABOTAGE: A Northern Iraq pipeline (exporting oil through Turkey) was just blown up, interrupting once again exports through that route. In the South (where 90% of export-oil flows), two holes were drilled in a pipeline (perhaps by smugglers, to steal oil)--but exports were not cut. TorontoStar

Oil revenue is a main source of revenue--
and likely of graft--for the new regime.
 
WISE LEADERSHIP NOT POSSIBLE: A columnist for FinTimes says "America cannot shrug off its role as world leader; but it must exercise this role more wisely."

The problem is this: The average American cares little and knows less about the outside world. Even elite Americans know too little. And Americans elect leaders who are ignorant.

As long as these defects remain, U.S. CANNOT exercise wise leadership in the world. (The British once dreamed of wisely guiding American power--but now Blair turns out as willfully ignorant and cynical as the Bushies--even the Bushies never said--as the Blairites did--that Saddam could unleash his awful weapons in FORTY-FIVE MINUTES!)

Former CIA leader said we can't develop an adequate intelligence service in less than 5 years..and that's optimistic. (First we have to develop a cadre of elite collegians who are interested in and knowledgeable about foreign languages and cultures. These would later form a competent 'foreign-policy' elite.)

Also, Bushies have ruined chances for international cooperation in fighting terrorists. What foreign power would share intelligence with these ignorant madmen?

So for now we must give up our dream of world leadership, and devote our thought and money--NOT to develop Pentagon bombers and missiles, which are useless vs. individual terrorists--but to guard our Homeland from the more obvious dangers--for instance, small planes filled with explosives crashing into 104 NuclearPowerPlant waste-ponds or into chemical factories.

(By the way, you can assume that the next terrorist attack on U.S. will come at a time when the silly 'HomelandSecurityDept' is issuing no special warnings. It looks like the terrorists periodically increase their 'dangerous chatter' overheard by our agents--just to trigger false alarms often enough so that soon nobody will heed these alarms.)
~ Wednesday, July 14, 2004
 
ANTI-GAY-MARRIAGE MOVE BEATEN: they got only FORTY-EIGHT votes, when they needed 60. NYTIMES

GOP knew they'd never get the 60 votes--the point was NOT the hope of a new Const.Amendment actually leaping all the hurdles--the point was to rouse up the stupid yahoos in Nebraska to give money to the GOP and vote AGAINST THEIR OWN POCKETBOOKS for the Party of Billionaires.

But only 48 votes--not even a simple majority, in a Senate that's dominated by GOP--that's embarrassing--especially for Bush, who endorsed the silly proposal.

One only hopes that the gay advocates will now shut up until election day, instead of helping the GOP to stir up the Pharisees (the 'social conservatives'). Now that partial-birth abortion has been forbidden--until the Courts speak--it will be harder to rouse the yahoos to come out and vote (many stayed home in '02).
--------
It's amusing how no proposal can be phrased negatively in America:
anti-[laws forbidding abortion] must be described as 'pro-choice'.
anti-abortion laws must be described as 'pro-life'.

And proposals to ban same-sex marriage must be described as
'defending marriage'. A cartoon satirized this well: the top panel shows 2 women getting married in Massachusetts. The next panel shows a trembling guy in Kansas yelling to his bemused wife: "I just felt our marriage crumbling!"
 
WHY MY OBSESSION WITH WAR? Some friends have suggested that it's unreasonable of me to obsess about the war, when far more people in the world are killed by floods, earthquakes,etc. (and by awful governments outside Iraq!)

I'd answer that:
a) Deaths are less evil than murders. We would not abolish homicide departments in police forces just because the same money, spent to give vitamin A to world's children,would prevent far more deaths.

b) Murders by foreigners are not my concern; murders by MY GOVERNMENT do concern me. This is a democracy; we're supposed to hold OUR government accountable for its actions.

Launching an unprovoked attack on a helpless country (without any real evidence that this nation posed any real threat to our country, or even to the world outside that country) is a REALLY WICKED act.
[This NEEDLESS Iraq war turned out also to be a very STUPID act, costing us almost 1000 GIs dead, THOUSANDS MAIMED OR WOUNDED, and costing us over one hundred thousand  MILLIONS of dollars, when our country is sinking into debt at an unheard-of rate. And all for nothing.]

What's more: when our rulers announce that such 'preemptive wars' are a continuing NATIONAL POLICY (as Bush just repeated!) we had better protest indignantly.

In fact the Bushies [in their infamous document 20 Sept '02 (NYTIMES)] announced as their OFFICIAL POLICY that they would feel free to launch a first-strike attack at any nation that even TRIED TO CATCH UP WITH US IN WEAPONRY.

Our government has fallen into the hands of MADMEN. We should now put no priority ahead of ousting them.
 
CHEAP DOLLAR BOOSTS [cheaper] EXPORTS; NOTHING DISCOURAGES VORACIOUS IMPORTS!
We're letting the value of our dollar sink ever lower, trying to cut our trade deficit (we buy far more goods/svces overseas than we can sell).

Cheap dollar also makes our imports more expensive; especially oil!
But 'stalwart U.S. consumers' [more accurately, GOOFILY VORACIOUS, INSATIABLE upper-class U.S. consumers!] increased our imports.
REUTERS

Increase in 'oil imports' may not mean more volume is bought--it just means that the same volume now COSTS US MORE!

Ordinary Americans are buying less at Walmart, Target,etc...so (like true addicts) they can afford $1.93 gasoline for their trucks & SUVs. (You can bet they'd spend less on food for their children, rather than cut down on gas-purchases!)
---------
At some point, other countries will resent the 'trade-balance' advantage from our cheap dollar--they're complaining already. These other nations may begin to cheapen THEIR currency. Already, Chinese currency is pegged to ours, so every time our dollar is cheapened, their currency is also weakened--so we get NO trade advantage over China, which now sells to U.S. far more than it buys!
--------
Ordinary Americans now FEEL the increase in their 'economic misery' index, as prices rise but salaries/wages don't. AND THEY BLAME BUSH! That's one main reason why U.S. adults now put Kerry ahead of Bush by EIGHT PERCENTAGE POINTS.

And just wait till this Fall, when the Middle Class people feel the huge increases in college tuition for their kids!
(see 'GREAT POLLS..' story below.)
-----------
RETAIL SALES DROP markedly (1.1% just in month of June; that's annual drop-rate of 13%!) Drop is ascribed to rising health & gasoline prices, and stagnant wages. FinTimes
 
BULGARIANS WANT OUT! After the beheading of a Bulgarian truck-driver, the pro-U.S. govt. immediately said they would not pull out their 700 troops from Iraq.

But 70% of Bulgarians oppose Bulgarian cooperation with U.S. in Iraq--and 76% think it will increase chances of a terrorist attack vs. Bulgaria. REUTERS

The populations of our 'ALLIED' countries (e.g., Turkey, Italy, Britain, Japan) oppose the Iraq fiasco as much as the other peoples in the world--but their governments have been 'bought' by U.S. to reinforce myth of 'coalition of the willing.'

Who's fooled by this myth any more? Except for foolish Britain, the actual contribution of the other troops is purely symbolic.
 
GREAT POLL NEWS! In USATODAY/gallup poll 8 July:
Among LIKELY voters (a subset of registered voters):
Without Nader:
Kerry/Edwards 50% (up from 43% in Jan)
Bush/Cheney 46% (down from 55% in Jan)
(margin of error is usually 4 points. That means K/Ch could lead by 8 points--or at worst, it's a tie.)
With Nader: K/E:50%, B/Ch: 45% [Nader HELPS Kerry ?!]
-------------
Among REGISTERED Voters:
without Nader:
K/E: 51% (up from 40% in Jan)
B/Ch 44% (down from 57% in Jan)
with Nader:
K/E 50%, B/CH: 42% [again, N. HELPS Kerry!]
----------
Among National Adults:
K/E 49% vs. B/Ch: 41% in July
-----------
[ USATODAY ]

The TREND [Jan->July] is even more encouraging than the present results!

Moral: Dems should work hard to get all UNregistered DEMS to register, and all REGISTERED Dems to VOTE.
----------------------
"Who cares about the 'national adult' figures? They're the unregistered Yahoos!"
The 8% Kerry advantage there shows our ordinary neighbors are waking up from GOP hypnotism!
That's at least good for our morale.

Also, our media self-censors bad news for Bush in fear of its patrons, not just from fear of the government. As the people turn against Bush, the media will get braver in telling the awful truth about Bushie crimes and blunders.
--------
BUSH'S ANTI-TERROR LEAD SHRINKS: B's only chance to win rests on a large majority of voters saying:
"Whatever his faults, B. is more fit than K. to lead the 'war on terror' ".

[Of course the people were gravely deceived in this belief. Bush's invasion has INCREASED danger of a terrorist attack on our Homeland. Also he has refused to fund necessary PRECAUTIONS (e.g. recruiting & training nurses--already in desperate shortage--before the first germ-war attack). ]

But various blunders of the Bushies, plus the steady trickle of GI blood in Iraq (2 killed every day, a dozen wounded) has severely cut B's once-huge advantage in this line. FinTimes
=======================================

FOR NEW READERS (others may skip down to 'BRAIN DAMAGE'): You'll find here about 1400 very short essays, dating from Oct.'02 (see Archive)--essays criticizing Bush & his 2 pointless, bungled wars (in Afganistan & Iraq) and answering arguments sometimes presented to defend these demented policies.

Perhaps you won't care to read all 1400, by clicking on each week in ARCHIVES. If so, you can read just the few published this week.

Most of the essays are on lugubrious subjects (the huge number of ways the Bushies are dragging down the country); but you might want to start by reading a sort of 'upper': the story of this amazingly heroic and sensible NUN I met in Inchon during the Korean war.
She has been for me ever since a symbol of the noble levels that some humans CAN rise to. Click on PHILOMENA
~ Tuesday, July 13, 2004
 
BRAIN-DAMAGE: 1 in 5 of the vets returning from Iraq suffer from PostTraumaticStressSyndrome (formerly called 'shell-shock').

Besides that, 20% of the wounded returnees are suffering from physical brain damage. The roadside bombs don't kill so many GIs, because their torsos are protected by flak-vests...but not their heads.
AssocPress
 
IRAQ SLAUGHTER OF ACADEMICS: Nobody seems to know who's doing it or why, but dozens of seemingly apolitical, harmless academics have been individually assassinated in Iraq. INDEPENDENT

It was said that SADR (admired by 67% of Iraqis) was stabbed (non-fatally) by a person in his own office.
Exciting disagreements!

Many Iraqis seem to be acting crazy [see piece below on Fallujah!]

We can't understand them in the near future. We should not be subjecting our GIs to their strange ways, in 120 degree heat. (One in five of our GIs are returning with Post/Traumatic/Stress/Syndrome.)

Bush (or Kerry) will bug the GIs out after the election. They should not be sacrificed to politics. BRING 'EM HOME NOW!
 
WHAT'S FALLUJAH LIKE?
The News From Planet Falluja
[I got this from William Ashline e-mail.]
by CHRISTIAN PARENTI

[posted online on July 5, 2004]

Tariq is an upper-middle-class Canadian medical student of Palestinian origin. He is a Muslim, fluent in Arabic and English, very smart, very young, brave and a bit naïve. He is an obsessive computer geek with a tendency toward pedantry on matters technological. Over the past two years
he has spent several months in Palestine doing solidarity work.

In late June--against the advice of even a pro-resistance ex-army
officer--Tariq went to Falluja, a city under siege and controlled by the mujahedeen. In early May the US Marines had essentially given control of the city to the insurgents. But on June 24 fighting flared up again when US planes bombed several houses and the Marines tried to enter the city. That was the day that Tariq headed to Falluja; his goal was to work in a civilian hospital.

Once in Falluja, he called in periodically over the next few days to myself and two other journalists with whom I share an otherwise empty hotel. After forty-eight hours with no word from him and just as we were about to hit the panic button, Tariq showed up at our hotel looking gaunt, smelling bad, wearing somebody else's clothes and totally freaked out. His description of Falluja, tinged with Stockholm syndrome rationalizations, painted a picture of what can only be described as collective insanity. This is his story:

Tariq took a bus to Falluja, and before he could find the hospital he was intercepted by two mujahedeen fighters and taken to the US-trained Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, made up of Iraqi army veterans, many of them former Baathists. The ICDC--renamed the Iraqi National Guard after the June 30 transition--asked him some questions, then deposited him with two "plainclothes" guys who turned out to be leaders of a mujahedeen cell. In Falluja, everyone is mujahedeen: the ICDC, the US-trained Iraqi police and most of the people. More than anywhere else in Iraq, Falluja is tribal, religious and insular--it is a unique piece of the bigger picture.

The two men took charge of Tariq, telling him they had to "check him out" before he could do any medical work. For the rest of his days in Falluja he was in the custody of a resistance cell made up of about ten local Falluja boys who had military experience but very little education. They had started their organizing and training a year before the US invasion.

Tariq repeatedly requested placement in a hospital or clinic but was instead held by this cell and given a tour of life among the fighters. Every few hours he was moved from house to house in cars packed with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and what seemed to be modified Sidewinder missiles (originally developed in the United States as air-to-air missiles, they had been taken from Iraqi warplanes by the mujahedeen, who now used them as shoulder-fired rockets).

"They were really nice guys," says Tariq. At first the nice guys were
convinced that Tariq was a spy. The group tried to check his encrypted, Linux-loaded laptop but couldn't get it working. To save face, the local muj computer expert pretended it was all clear, but then snagged it for safekeeping.

On the first day that Tariq was held--but "not as a hostage," as the muj cell kept telling him--they ran into a wounded fighter who had been grazed by a bullet. Tariq was able to patch him up with no problem. The cell began to trust the med student, plus they were very impressed that he had a stethoscope.

"They really are simple people. Really," says Tariq, unwinding his tale in our hotel. "It's all about trust and family. They have no idea about security, technology. It is just God, kin and the nation. It's Alabama in Arabic. It really is."

Even though Tariq gained the trust of the cell, they lied to him and
manipulated him every day, taking his passport and his computer, never delivering him to the hospital as promised and often taking him to the frontlines against his will.

In Falluja the front is the north edge of town, along the Askari
("officers") neighborhood, which ends at the edge of Iraq's main east-west highway. In the desert on the other side of the highway were the US Marines in their armored vehicles. Most of the time the front was quiet, but at night it got busy. Tariq says that between five and seven muj fighters were being killed each day, usually by aerial bombing. During the first two days he was there the Marines attempted ground assaults, but thereafter mostly hung back (though ground combat does continue; on July 2 two more Marines
died from fighting in Falluja). The muj would counterattack, but did not venture too far into the open desert. Tariq says that the whole time he was there, Falluja was buzzed by F-16 fighter jets and Predator drones. "The sound makes you crazy," he says.

At night the cell would often head to the front to shoot at the Marines while dodging incoming US rounds. On most of these occasions they left Tariq behind, because he insisted he only wanted to do civilian work. After each night of fighting the cell would turn on a little mechanical stuffed monkey that played a jingle. This was one of the few things Tariq was allowed to videotape on his small digital camera.

The culture of the local fighters, as described by Tariq, is a closed, self-referential world. "They don't even watch the news," he tells us. "They just watch DVDs of sermons and speeches and muj music videos. Even the top guys had no idea what was going on in the rest of Iraq."

Of course, Tariq wasn't really sure who the top guys were. But there were hints. At one point in the fighting during Tariq's visit the ICDC actually told the muj irregulars to move to the wings and give their heavy weapons to the ICDC. These US-trained professionals then did the bulk of the fighting against the would-be masters, the Marines. Tariq also says that the recent airstrikes on alleged safehouses in Falluja, such as the one on June 22 that
killed about twenty people or the one on July 1 that killed four and wounded ten, were in fact precision strikes, in which spies had first dropped infrared beacons just before the attacks. Tariq says the victims were mostly fighters, though not connected to the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as the US military has claimed.

"People joked about Zarqawi," says Tariq. "There were foreign fighters in Falluja, and some were killed in those strikes. But I don't think Zarqawiwas around. Falluja is very Iraqi."

Quite disturbingly, Tariq says that Sharia law--or perhaps more accurately, a kind of Sharia lawlessness--was in full effect in Falluja, with hands cut off for theft, women kept away from men, etc. Even worse was the routine killing of spies and suspected spies. The leader of the cell that watched over Tariq confessed one such crime to him.

Tariq, at the edge of a couch in our hotel, reads his verbatim notes quoting the man: "We are all sinners, Tariq, all of us, I swear. The things we've done make us sinners. There was a Turkoman who ran a hotel; he had a wife and family. We thought he was a spy, so we beat him. We broke every bone in his body, but he wouldn't confess. Then we cut a checkerboard in his back with a knife and poured salt on his wounds. He begged us to kill him but he would not confess. We knew by then that he was innocent. To kill him was an act of mercy. We are sinners all, Tariq."

Despite the Islamic motifs of life in Falluja, the muj there are not Taliban purists. The commanders all drive nice cars, BMWs and Mercedes. "No one has clean clothes, but the top guys are immaculate. They're just gangsters," says Tariq, switching momentarily from a tone of respect to one of disgust.

What comes through most clearly in his tale is the desperation of being under siege. "At one point they brought in this young guy who was dead. That night his mother, who just went nuts with grief, came out and woke her three other sons and told them to go the the front, saying, 'Your brother is not dead. Finish his work.' "

When Tariq tried to talk politics with the muj he found them surprisingly uninformed and self-contradictory. At times they would say Falluja will be the capital of a new Islamic state and that America will be destroyed. Atother times they would admit that the only real solution to Iraq'soccupation was political and that their military effort had limited effect.

Eventually a lower-ranking muj stole $400 from Tariq. There was an inquest, with lots of swearing on the Koran. It was clear who the culprit was, butonce the Koran had been sworn on it was between the thief and God. Nonetheless, the man of the house in which the cell was then staying had his honor at stake (hospitality is hugely important in Iraq). The man, also a fighter, sold off some weapons and demanded that Tariq take the money. Tariq refused, which infuriated and demeaned his host. Finally Tariq agreed to
accept part of the sum, which he then quietly left in the host's living room.

At this point Tariq negotiated the return of his passport and was finally allowed to work in a clinic (it was too dangerous to get to the main hospital). But by then the stress was getting to him. He told the cell commander that he needed to head back to Baghdad--to the hotel where I am staying, in fact--to think things over. The muj let him go but asked him to come back. Then they said they would bring his computer to the hotel (none of us were very happy about that idea).

"Tariq was kidnapped, but he is too proud to admit it," said the ex-military man who advised him against going to Falluja. "And he put your lives in danger, without asking or warning."

As I write this, Tariq is recuperating, oscillating between flippant jokes and humble epiphanies about Iraq, war, himself and the meaning of "solidarity" in a conflict where madness has become the norm.
----------
The Fallujah people are Sunnis. The Shiites [outnumbering Sunni Arabs 3 to 1!) include even more crazy people, revering martyrdom. If we bungle again, and it looks like we're backing Sunnis against Shiites, our troops would be in much worse trouble.



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