Update: Bush invaded Iran last night

By Evan Derkacz
Posted on January 11, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/46589/

"Last night, Bush sent US forces to attack the inviolate territory of a foreign diplomatic mission, the Iranian mission in northern Iraq - legally, the land of a foreign nation - and took the Iranians hostage. It's hard to see under international law how this is legal, let alone how this isn't an act of war. And it's beyond ironic that we appear to have condoned the very action that we condemned Iran for - attacking diplomatic missions in violation of international law," writes John Aravosis.

"But what's most troubling about this is the transparency of what Bush is up to. He's trying to provoke a war with Iran, either by forcing Iran to strike back, or by discovering secret Iranian diplomatic documents that would prove their complicity in helping the insurgents in Iraq. We just invaded Iran last night, folks. Foreign embassies and diplomatic outposts are legally the foreign soil of the country represented. We invaded Iran. This is an act of war."

"U.S. forces in Iraq raided Iran's consulate in the northern city of Arbil and detained five staff members," according to state-run Iranian news, via Bloomberg.

We don't know whether it was Iranians or Iranian diplomats who were captured or why the raid even took place. But the timing is curious, given Bush's speech last night.

The escalation being opposed by generals in the field, woefully inadequate, and deemed unnecessary by the Iraqi Government itself has led some to speculate on whether the escalation doesn't involve Iran and Syria in some way. I mean, who would be so stupid as to throw more troops in now? They point to these lines in Bush's speech:

I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will expand intelligence sharing - and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies.

In addition to the more direct threats, according to Bloomberg:

Bush accused Iran and Syria of aiding the movement of "terrorists and insurgents" in and out of Iraq and said the U.S. will "seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies."

*****

Update:

According to Steve Clemons, Bush may have bypassed Congress to start a secret war on both Iran and Syria:

Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran.

The President may have started a new secret, informal war against Syria and Iran without the consent of Congress or any broad discussion with the country.

The NY Times pointed out that: "One senior administration official said this evening that the omission of the usual wording about seeking a diplomatic solution [to the Iranian nuclear stand-off] 'was not accidental.'"

The only possible glimmer of good news in this whole shitstorm comes from, of all places, the National Review's John Podhoretz, via Sandy Levinson:

Want a little tough truth with your morning coffee? McCain can do this, and Rudy can do that, and Romney can do the other thing. But if tonight's speech doesn't herald the beginning of a serious turnaround in Iraq that is plain to see by spring of next year, the Risen Christ could be the Republican nominee in 2008 and He wouldn't be able to win against Al Sharpton.

Heavens! A black man?

Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/46589/

Fake Pundits

By David Sirota
Posted on January 10, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/sirota/46515/

You make the call:

"The activist left is out of sync with the American public." - DLC leader Will Marshall on progressive efforts to prevent a military escalation in Iraq, 1/10/07

VERSUS

"The American public in general opposes the concept of an increase in troops in Iraq. A number of polls have shown that when given a choice between a set of alternative ways of handling the troop situation in Iraq, only about 10% of Americans opt for the alternative of increasing troops. The rest opt for withdrawal of troops." - Gallup Polling Company, 1/9/07

Someone please tell me why the media continues to quote people like Will Marshall as a credible voice with a credible perspective. I mean, honestly - what point, what level of sheer, unadulterated dishonesty disqualifies you from being quoted in major newspapers? And perhaps evenmore importantly, if a major agenda-setting newspaper like the LA Times insists on quoting someone with no credibility, how can they do so without even as much as a mention of the actual public opinion data refuting his insanity?

UPDATE: Last I checked, Tom Vilsack is the DLC's chairman. And last I checked, AP reported today that "Tom Vilsack called Tuesday for Congress to block funding for additional troops in Iraq." So what gives? Is the DLC's staff now not even listening to its own political leadership? And hey, here's an idea: maybe Tom Vilsack might want to make a call over to his friends at the DLC and tell them to stop attacking progressives and the vast majority of Americans? Just a thought...

David Sirota is a veteran political strategist and author of Hostile Takeover, a New York Times bestseller about the corruption of both political parties.

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/sirota/46515/

Who benefits from escalating chaos in Iraq?

By Rep. Ron Paul (Ron Paul is a Republican Congressman from Texas)

01/05/07 "Information Clearing House"

Saddam Hussein is dead. So are three thousand Americans.

The regime in Iraq has been changed. Yet victory will not be declared: not only does the war go on, it's about to escalate. Obviously the turmoil in Iraq is worse than ever, and most Americans no longer are willing to tolerate the costs, both human and economic, associated with this war.

We have been in Iraq for 45 months. Many more Americans have been killed in Iraq than were killed in the first 45 months of our war in Vietnam. I was in the U.S. Air Force in 1965, and I remember well when President Johnson announced a troop surge in Vietnam to hasten victory. That war went on for another decade, and by the time we finally got out 60,000 Americans had died. God knows we should have gotten out ten years earlier. "Troop surge" meant serious escalation.

The election is over and Americans have spoken. Enough is enough! They want the war ended and our troops brought home. But the opposite likely will occur, with bipartisan support. Up to 50,000 more troops will be sent. The goal no longer is to win, but simply to secure Baghdad! So much has been spent with so little to show for it.

Who possibly benefits from escalating chaos in Iraq? Neoconservatives unabashedly have written about how chaos presents opportunities for promoting their goals. Certainly Osama bin Laden has benefited from the turmoil in Iraq, as have the Iranian Shi'ites who now are better positioned to take control of southern Iraq.

Yes, Saddam Hussein is dead, and only the Sunnis mourn. The Shi'ites and Kurds celebrate his death, as do the Iranians and especially bin Laden – all enemies of Saddam Hussein. We have performed a tremendous service for both bin Laden and Ahmadinejad, and it will cost us plenty. The violent reaction to our complicity in the execution of Saddam Hussein is yet to come.

Three thousand American military personnel are dead, more than 22,000 are wounded, and tens of thousands will be psychologically traumatized by their tours of duty in Iraq. Little concern is given to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed in this war. We've spent $400 billion so far, with no end in sight.

This is money we don't have. It is all borrowed from countries like China, that increasingly succeed in the global economy while we drain wealth from our citizens through heavy taxation and insidious inflation. Our manufacturing base is now nearly extinct.

Where the additional U.S. troops in Iraq will come from is anybody's guess. But surely they won't be redeployed from Japan, Korea, or Europe. We at least must pretend that our bankrupt empire is intact. But then again, the Soviet empire appeared intact in 1988.

Some Members of Congress, intent on equitably distributing the suffering among all Americans, want to bring back the draft. Administration officials vehemently deny making any concrete plans for a draft. But why should we believe this? Look what happened when so many believed the reasons given for our preemptive invasion of Iraq.

Selective Service officials admit running a check of their lists of available young men. If the draft is reinstated, we probably will include young women as well to serve the god of "equality." Conscription is slavery, plain and simple. And it was made illegal under the 13th amendment, which prohibits involuntary servitude. One may well be killed as a military draftee, which makes conscription a very dangerous kind of enslavement.

Instead of testing the efficacy of the Selective Service System and sending more troops off to a war we're losing, we ought to revive our love of liberty. We should repeal the Selective Service Act. A free society should never depend on compulsory conscription to defend itself.

We get into trouble by not following the precepts of liberty or obeying the rule of law. Preemptive, undeclared wars fought under false pretenses are a road to disaster. If a full declaration of war by Congress had been demanded as the Constitution requires, this war never would have been fought. If we did not create credit out of thin air as the Constitution prohibits, we never would have convinced taxpayers to support this war directly from their pockets. How long this financial charade can go on is difficult to judge, but when the end comes it will not go unnoticed by any American.

America's Finest

The commentary provided by an obviously psychopathic, most probably U.S. or British-trained killer makes me cringe every time.--Pete

Pentagoners

Apocalyptic Pentagon report on global warming could spur action on Capitol Hill

By Amanda Griscom

25 Feb 2004

We're having a heat wave ...

Image: NOAA.

A hair-raising Pentagon report [PDF] on the potentially imminent and colossal national security threat posed by climate change has been making its way around the Internet since its release in late January, and this week it picked up considerable speed.

Fortune magazine was the first major news outlet to cover the report; the "Climate Collapse" feature in its Jan. 26 issue raised many an eyebrow in business and Beltway circles. Then, this past Sunday, a somewhat more histrionic article on the report ran in the British Observer and has been swirling through blogs and listservs.

While The Observer sensationalized the story with its erroneous claim that the report was "secret" and "suppressed by U.S. defense chiefs" when in fact it had already been publicly discussed, the document is worthy of even the British press' flair for melodrama. After all, intimations of fast-approaching environmental catastrophe sound a lot different coming from the Pentagon than from the Ph.D.s who have been uttering these warnings for decades.

The report wasn't penned by members of the "Chicken Little sky-is-falling crowd" (as Republican leaders like to call global- warming activists), but by Peter Schwartz, former head of planning for Shell Oil and sometime CIA consultant, and Doug Randall of the Global Business Network, a California think tank.

Commissioned by esteemed Department of Defense planner Andrew Marshall, the report paints a scenario under which global warming could pose a threat to the world "greater than terrorism" -- complete with mega-droughts, widespread famine, and rampant rioting. But while it has sounded alarms on Capitol Hill, it hasn't provoked so much as a peep from the White House.

When Muckraker contacted White House Council on Environmental Quality spokesperson Dana Perino for a statement on the report, she responded, "I haven't seen it, I haven't read it, and I don't want to make any comments on the matter. As I understand it, this is a 'what-if' scenario -- not a diagnosis, not a prophecy, and not a foundation for new policy."

Do or do not. There is no try.

Perino directed Muckraker to Navy Lieutenant Dan Hetlage, a Pentagon spokesperson who said, "We did not expect any White House response to the Pentagon on this report. Andrew Marshall is our Yoda, our big thinker who peers into the future. But it's all speculation. It was very ethereal, very broad in scope. It wasn't like, 'Oh, wow, that totally debunks the president's stand on global warming,' because it was merely a thought exercise. We don't have a crystal ball. We don't really know."

When pressed to explain the point of a "thought exercise" that can have no policy implications, Hetlage said, "People should feel comforted that we are thinking about contingencies." Cold comfort, one might think, in the absence of any plan to avoid such contingencies.

But even as the report fell on deaf ears at the White House, it's been breathing new life into congressional discourse on climate change. "This adds a powerful new voice to the global-warming debate in Congress," said Tim Profeta, senior policy advisor to Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.). Profeta hopes the report will spur renewed interest in and support for the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act, which he called "the most viable and promising global-warming legislation that has ever been introduced." The bill was defeated in the Senate last fall by a narrower-than-expected margin, and Profeta said it may be brought up for consideration again this spring. Meanwhile, the Senate Commerce Committee, through which the bill was initially introduced, is likely to hold a hearing on global warming in the next month, which will focus in part on the DOD report.

Debbie Reed, director of climate change research at National Environmental Trust, said she has also been discussing the report with the staff of Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which plans to hold its own hearing in the next month on global warming and the national security threat it may pose.

Sign of the times?

Photo: EPA.

Though Reed was heartened by the attention the Pentagon report has been getting, she was less enthusiastic about another report released last week by the National Academies' National Research Council. The report applauded the administration's revised plan for climate change research, but questioned its commitment to fund and implement many of the new research proposals. "It's all well and good to advance the science on global warming. We all want that," said Reed. "But all the emphasis on research can't come at the expense of developing hard-and-fast policy initiatives to curb the underlying problem, not just the symptoms."

Indeed, two of five sections of the administration's research plan focus on creating infrastructure to respond to the symptoms of global warming -- for instance, instructing water company directors to pump more resources into drought-stricken areas and electricity planners to direct more juice to areas that need additional air conditioning in higher temperatures.

The White House was gleeful over the report's positive tone, however. Said CEQ's Perino, "They gave us really high marks. We got an A!" Cold comfort, indeed.

http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2004/02/25/pentagoners/index.html

This Week In God-Daily Show Takes On "Left Behind, The Video Game"

At Home With Nate The Neo-con

Click pic for larger image, y'all.

Out For A Drive In A Newly Democratized Iraq

Does Education Help Breed Segregation?

Most of us think that education broadens an individual’s perspective and helps diminish racist attitudes. Prior studies have validated that conventional wisdom, but new research indicates just the opposite may be true.

A study, co-authored by Rice sociologist Michael Emerson, shows that increased education of whites, in particular, may not only have little effect on eliminating prejudice, but it also may be one reason behind the rise of racial segregation in U.S. schools. Furthermore, higher-educated whites, regardless of their income, are more likely than less-educated whites to judge a school’s quality and base their school choice on its racial composition.

Black–white racial segregation has been on the rise in primary and secondary schools over the past decade. While whites, especially those who are highly educated, may express an interest in having their children attend integrated schools, in reality, they seek out schools that are racially segregated. In the study, researchers found, on average, that the greater the education of white parents, the more likely they will remove their children from public schools as the percentage of black students increases.

“We believed from prior studies that education has a significantly positive impact on racial attitudes,” says Emerson, the Allyn and Gladys Cline Professor of Sociology. “We found when studying behaviors, however, that acquiring more education is not a means of combating segregation. Education may broaden an individual’s world, but it also leads to greater negative sensitivity toward blacks’ presence in public schools.”

Emerson and research colleague David Sikkink, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame, know that income and other factors come into play in terms of school choice, but their study shows that, even after controlling for these variables, education has an unintended effect. Whites with more education place a greater emphasis on race when choosing a school for their children, while higher-educated African Americans do not consider race.

“I do believe that white people are being sincere when they claim that racial inequality is not a good thing and that they’d like to see it eliminated,” says Emerson. “However, they are caught in a social system in which their liberal attitudes about race aren’t reflected in their behavior.”

According to the researchers, part of this behavior is explained by the place and meaning of schooling for children of more-educated white parents. Degrees, for example, become status markers, regardless of income. Parents seek quality education for their children to ensure they are not hindered from achieving the “good life.” As earlier studies indicate, education is a key to social mobility and one of the most important forms of cultural capital.

Emerson and Sikkink cite earlier work on school choice in Philadelphia, where race was found to be a factor in whites’ evaluations of the quality of a school. Unlike blacks, who judged schools on the basis of such outcomes as their graduation rates and students’ test scores, whites initially eliminated any schools with a majority of black students before considering factors such as schools’ graduation rates. When they analyzed a national data set of whites and non-Hispanic blacks to see if the level of their education would have an impact on their school choice, Emerson and Sikkink found a similar pattern. “Whites with higher levels of education still made school choices based on race,” explains Emerson, “while blacks did not.”

The researchers found that regardless of income, more-educated whites in their data set also lived in “whiter” neighborhoods than less-educated whites. Higher-income African Americans also lived in whiter, but more racially mixed, neighborhoods than lower-income blacks. “The more income African Americans made,” Emerson says, “the more likely their children attended more racially mixed schools than did African American children of less-educated, lower-income parents.” This, he explains, is because more highly educated or higher-income African Americans often live in areas with racially mixed local public schools, close to high concentrations of whites that have undergone desegregation plans, while African American children of less-educated, lower-income parents attend largely black schools. When separating income from their analysis, however, the researchers concluded that unlike whites, African American parents’ higher-education levels don’t affect their school choice.

In addition to the findings regarding the impact of parents’ education level and income on school choice, the study found that parents who are older and attend church more frequently look upon school choice more favorably. Those living in the West more than any other region of the country are less likely to take advantage of school choice programs, while urban residents are more likely to use such programs. Not surprisingly, residents living in areas with higher levels of home ownership, which probably reflects school quality, were found to be less likely to remove their children from the local public school.

“Our study arrived at a very sad and profound conclusion,” says Emerson. “More formal education is not the answer to racial segregation in this country. Without a structure of laws requiring desegregation, it appears that segregation will continue to breed segregation.”
Titled “School Choice and Racial Residential Segregation in U.S. Schools: The Role of Parents’ Education,” the study will be published in an upcoming issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.

—Pam Sheridan

http://www.rice.edu/sallyport/2006/fall/sallyport/segregation.html

In a related article from Metroactive.com:

Schoolhouse Rock

Affluent parents in the East Side District are making a lot of noise—and gaining influence—in their controversial push for a new high school

By Vrinda Normand

http://metroactive.com/metro/01.03.07/evergreen-valley-overcrowding-0701.html

3,000 U.S. troops dead in Iraq

Coffins of U.S. military personnel are offloaded at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware in this undated Air Force file photo

Not in our name
will you invade countries
bomb civilians, kill more children
letting history take its course
over the graves of the nameless

Not in Our Name
January 1, 2007

With the news that 3,000 U.S. soldiers have now died in Iraq we will see many news stories and commentaries about this grim milestone. Protests and vigils will be held, candles will be lit, flags raised and lowered, and the names of soldiers will be read by both supporters of the war and those of us who oppose it.

Very few of these events and reports will include more than a passing mention of the 655,000 Iraqis who have died as a result of the illegal war and occupation. Even fewer will include the names, faces and stories of the Iraqi people. Names like Abeer Hamza, who was raped, killed and set on fire by American soldiers after they brutally murdered her family. Faces of children killed by cluster bombs and their grieving mothers. Stories of hundreds of thousands of nameless Iraqis who have been detained, humiliated and killed over the past few years.

While the Iraqi and American people both see that this war and occupation must end, politicians from both sides of the aisle are now calling for more soldiers to be sent to Iraq. It has been called the “surge” option, and will surely result in a surge in the numbers of wounded and dead.

Our humanity demands that we remember the Iraqis along with the fallen soldiers. We must also support and honor the courageous soldiers who have refused to take part in the bloodshed.

The best way to remember and honor the dead and wounded is to make sure there are no more “milestones”. No surge, no timetables, no phased withdrawals, U.S out of Iraq now.

We pledge resistance.
We pledge to make common cause with the people of the world
to bring about justice, freedom and peace.
Another world is possible and we pledge to make it real.

We will not be silent

WASHINGTON DC - As the new Congress convenes, Not in Our Name activists joined many others activists from around the country to present to demand that our representatives put an immediate end to the illegal occupation of Iraq and bring justice to those responsible for a U.S. policy of torture and illegal detentions.This is our first step to let the members of Congress know that we are watching, and will come back again and again until the war, occupation, torture and detentions stop.

Photo: Activists unfurl huge "We will not be silent" banner inside the Senate-Hart Building. Another banner read, "War. Torture. Lies"

Labor Rights Not Optional

Susan Ariel Aaronson

January 05, 2007

Susan Ariel Aaronson teaches at George Washington University and is the author (with Jamie Zimmerman) of Righting Trade: Public Policies at the Intersection of Trade and Human Rights (Cambridge: 2007).

Some 230 years ago, King George III taught the American colonists an important lesson: Because taxation without representation is tyranny, the public must have a voice in the making of trade policy. The new Congress should keep that lesson in mind as it attempts to devise trade strategies to promote labor rights (and other human rights) overseas. In the 21st century, policymakers should not limit the concerned public to those individuals living within U.S. borders.

The U.S. has long tried to link labor rights and trade. Under the most recent legislation authorizing the president to negotiate new trade agreements (the Trade Promotion Act of 2002) Congress required the executive branch to negotiate trade agreements that promote respect for workers rights. In hearings on the legislation, proponents argued that by linking trade to labor standards, workers overseas could organize, demand higher wages and better working conditions and ultimately, compete with American workers on expertise, quality and productivity.

But so far, this objective has not been matched by reality. Bush administration officials were not keen to press America’s trade partners too hard on labor rights; they interpreted these provisions to require our trade partners to enforce their own labor laws. These policymakers did not demand that countries such as Oman or Peru revise their labor laws to meet internationally accepted labor standards before negotiating with the U.S. on a free trade agreement. Instead, they relied on the threat of a potential trade dispute to motivate these countries to make labor rights enforcement a priority. Initially, the Bush administration promised to provide considerable funds to help America’s free trade partners enforce their labor laws and improve workplace conditions. Faced with other priorities, though, the administration has drastically reduced these funds.

Not surprisingly, many Democrats and labor rights proponents are strongly critical of how Bush administration policymakers have linked labor rights and trade. Although wages and working conditions have improved in some U.S. free trade partners, workers have not always benefited from these labor rights provisions. They argue that a one-size-fits-all approach won’t actually improve workplace conditions in all countries. Thus, these members want future trade agreements to ensure that America’s trade agreement partners bring their labor laws to internationally accepted standards, and subject the enforcement of such laws to binding dispute settlement.

But the Democratic alternative and the current Bush administration approach do little to bolster the demand in developing countries for strong labor protections. Neither approach facilitates the ability of citizens in our trade partners to participate in and monitor labor rights enforcement. In countries such as Oman, a U.S. free trade partner, workers cannot easily influence their government or obtain due process in administrative procedures. In addition, some of America’s free trade agreement partners do not provide their citizens with full information about their labor rights under the law. As a result, it is difficult for activists to monitor their government and hold it accountable.

Labor rights advocates should take a page from the environmental chapters of several recent free trade agreements. In 2004, Democratic Senator Max Baucus pressed U.S. trade policymakers to strengthen public participation provisions and embed them in every future trade agreement.

The Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) is the first trade agreement built on Baucus’ suggestions. It includes both a mechanism and secretariat that allows citizens from any one of the seven signatory nations to challenge enforcement of environmental laws. Moreover, the trade agreement requires policymakers to respond to these complaints. To ensure the viability of this model, the United States agreed to fund the first year of the secretariat’s work. In addition to setting up a complaint mechanism, trade and/or environmental ministries in each of the CAFTA countries reached out to their constituents on the environmental chapters. They held hearings, called for public comments, and published their new regulations on the web and in print. Each environment ministry developed a website on environmental activities and outreach. USTR has agreed to replicate this model in other free trade agreements with Colombia and Peru.

But these citizen submission strategies should not be limited to the environmental chapters of free trade agreements. The U.S. government should adopt a similar approach in the labor chapters as well. As the Democrats have promised, the U.S. first should ask its trade partners to ensure that their labor laws meet internationally accepted labor standards before negotiating a trade agreement. In addition, policymakers should also include provisions that ensure public comment on labor law development and or enforcement; allow citizens to petition their government regarding labor law violations; and set up a complaint and hearing process related to labor rights. By so doing, the U.S. would be strengthening local labor movements as well as expanding grassroots pressure for democratic accountability.

America’s founding fathers recognized that democracy and good governance could not flourish if the public did not participate in decision making. In the long run, good governance, like democracy, can’t be exported. But the U.S. can use trade policy to help workers abroad influence and monitor labor rights in their home countries.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/01/05/labor_rights_not_optional.php

Your new leaders of congress:

January 5, 2007
President George W. Bush
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

The start of the new Congress brings us opportunities to work together on the critical issues confronting our country. No issue is more important than finding an end to the war in Iraq. December was the deadliest month of the war in over two years, pushing U.S. fatality figures over the 3,000 mark.

The American people demonstrated in the November elections that they do not believe your current Iraq policy will lead to success and that we need a change in direction for the sake of our troops and the Iraqi people. We understand that you are completing your post-election consultations on Iraq and are preparing to make a major address on your Iraq strategy to the American people next week....

Clearly this address presents you with another opportunity to make a long overdue course correction. Despite the fact that our troops have been pushed to the breaking point and, in many cases, have already served multiple tours in Iraq, news reports suggest that you believe the solution to the civil war in Iraq is to require additional sacrifices from our troops and are therefore prepared to proceed with a substantial U.S. troop increase.

Surging forces is a strategy that you have already tried and that has already failed. Like many current and former military leaders, we believe that trying again would be a serious mistake. They, like us, believe there is no purely military solution in Iraq. There is only a political solution. Adding more combat troops will only endanger more Americans and stretch our military to the breaking point for no strategic gain. And it would undermine our efforts to get the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future. We are well past the point of more troops for Iraq.

In a recent appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General John Abizaid, our top commander for Iraq and the region, said the following when asked about whether he thought more troops would contribute to our chances for success in Iraq:

"I met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the Corps commander, General Dempsey. We all talked together. And I said, in your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq? And they all said no. And the reason is, because we want the Iraqis to do more. It's easy for the Iraqis to rely upon to us do this work. I believe that more American forces prevent the Iraqis from doing more, from taking more responsibility for their own future."

Rather than deploy additional forces to Iraq, we believe the way forward is to begin the phased redeployment of our forces in the next four to six months, while shifting the principal mission of our forces there from combat to training, logistics, force protection and counter-terror. A renewed diplomatic strategy, both within the region and beyond, is also required to help the Iraqis agree to a sustainable political settlement. In short, it is time to begin to move our forces out of Iraq and make the Iraqi political leadership aware that our commitment is not open ended, that we cannot resolve their sectarian problems, and that only they can find the political resolution required to stabilize Iraq.

Our troops and the American people have already sacrificed a great deal for the future of Iraq. After nearly four years of combat, tens of thousands of U.S. casualties, and over $300 billion dollars, it is time to bring the war to a close. We, therefore, strongly encourage you to reject any plans that call for our getting our troops any deeper into Iraq. We want to do everything we can to help Iraq succeed in the future but, like many of our senior military leaders, we do not believe that adding more U.S. combat troops contributes to success.

We appreciate you taking these views into consideration.

Sincerely,

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

FEINGOLD BEGINS 110TH CONGRESS WITH PUSH TO REDEPLOY OUR TROOPS FROM IRAQ

January 3, 2007

Washington, D.C. – Tomorrow U.S. Senator Russ Feingold will again introduce legislation to establish a timetable to redeploy U.S. troops from Iraq. The legislation builds on Feingold’s effort in the last Congress to end the military mission in Iraq in order to focus attention and resources on our top national security priority: defeating global terrorist networks. Feingold’s legislation would require the administration to submit a timetable for the redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq within six months. The bill would allow a minimal number of U.S. forces to remain in Iraq for targeted counter-terrorism activities, training of Iraqi security forces, and the protection of U.S. infrastructure and personnel.

“The American people sent a strong message in November to fix the administration’s failed Iraq policy, the same message I have heard from Wisconsinites at my listening sessions,” Feingold said. “So far, the administration has ignored that message and is considering sending more troops to Iraq – something that would run counter to our national security and the wishes of the American people. Congress can’t afford to make the same mistake. We must redeploy our troops from Iraq so that we can focus on serious threats to our security – in Somalia, Afghanistan and elsewhere – that have only grown while this Administration has been distracted in Iraq.”

In August 2005, Feingold became the first U.S. Senator to propose a target date for the redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq. In June 2006, Feingold cosponsored an amendment to the FY2007 Department of Defense authorization bill that would have required the redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq by July 1, 2007. In the 109th Congress, Feingold also introduced several bills addressing counter-terrorism and national security priorities, including provisions for strengthening our efforts in Afghanistan and Somalia.

"The way to win a war against global terrorist networks is not by keeping over 140,000 brave American troops in Iraq indefinitely," Feingold said. "The President's failed, Iraq-centric policies are preventing us from effectively countering serious threats around the world. We must change course, and the 110th Congress can start now by passing this bill to redeploy our troops from Iraq."

GWB's Best of 2006!

Ambush At Democrat Pass

Alec Dubro
January 03, 2007

Chaos. That’s what one reporter called it after the House Democratic leadership fled the media stakeout outside the Caucus Room. TV crews with no one to focus on. Angry reporters. Jubilant protesters. Briefing postponed until … sometime.

It was meant to be a sober display of the new responsible Democratic power, a reading of the "100 Hours Agenda," a political moment in the limelight before the inevitable conflicts began in the actual legislative process.

It certainly seemed like the presentation would unfold as planned. Fashionably late, Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer appeared confidently before the microphones massed under Cannon House Office rotunda. They faced a dozen live TV cameras and a hundred domestic and foreign reporters.

Emanuel, looking as smooth and rich as a polished cordovan loafer, took the stage and a hush fell. He said all the right things: “move in a new direction,” “changing the relationship between lobbyist and legislator,” “take away gas subsidies,” “The People’s House.” But he got no further than that.

A chorus of voices began chanting “de-escalate, investigate, bring the troops home” over and over. The actual chant time, carried out by no more than 15 or 20 people, lasted less than two minutes. By time it was over, though, the Democratic leadership was gone. Back into the safety of the Caucus Room.

To the Dems and the reporters it seemed like more of a bushwhack than a media stakeout. But when Cindy Sheehan shows up accompanied by Code Pink women and men without ties or briefcases, it’s likely that something is afoot.

Prior to the Emanuel-Stoyer show, Sheehan had drifted through the crowd. She told TomPaine that she was there to show support for her new Peace Surge, a hoped-for and probably phantasmagorical withdrawal of troops, rather than the troop surge Bush is planning.

Her cohorts were not entirely pleased with their earlier reception. According to anti-war activist David Swanson, they had been stopped at the building entrance by the Capitol Police, who had been distressed to find them laden with leaflets.

“There were 50 or 60 of us,” Swanson said, “and we came to talk to House members. The police told us that since 9-11, the bringing of leaflets is forbidden.” The only way to distribute them, police said, was to use a Pitney-Bowes delivery service. “They’ve outsourced access to Congress,” he fumed.

What really got the police was the content of the flyers. “One cop told another,” said Swanson, “‘This is against the war. They can’t bring this in.’ We wouldn’t budge and worked our way up to a captain. In the end, they reversed the policy, and we handed out the leaflets.”

Accompanying Swanson was Candy Anderson of Sacramento, a member of Gold Star Families for Peace . It was her first trip to the Capitol, and she meant to “meet as many members of Congress as [she] can.” She was asking for more than just a cessation of the war; she wanted reparations for the bereaved American families and money to rebuild Iraq.

Candy Anderson had none of the powerful glow of a Rahm Emanuel or a Nancy Pelosi. She said she had been “humble” in congressional offices. She wasn’t sure how things worked.

But in the end, it was Anderson’s message that got heard, not the prefabricated points which conspicuously avoid any mention of ending the war. The 100 Hours agenda is a good one, a needed one. But America’s most burning issue has not died out. Today it flamed up in the People’s House. The Democrats may have to face Iraq sooner than they hoped.

Re-Setting The Lobbyists' Table

Can't we just un-invite them by making their presence irrelevant? I believe in 100% public financing of all political campaigns! Who's with me?--Pete

Ellen Miller
January 04, 2007

Ellen Miller is the executive director of the Sunlight Foundation.

“Ethics reform” always sounded to me like something having to do with etiquette: the polite and proper way to hold a fork or knife, set a table or respond to an invitation. Something, in short, given the vast array of things we have to worry about, that just isn’t all that important. But ethics reform is at the top of the 100 Hour proposals the Democrats will offer in the House this week. And that’s a good thing.

Changing how Congress does business, and who it does it for, particularly in wake of an election that demonstrated the public’s disgust with the corruption, is the single most critical thing Congress can do to establish faith in our democracy and the institutions that govern it. It may be too late to do that, but at least the new leadership wants to try.

The Democrats are promising more transparency so the public can see and understand what happens on Capitol Hill, greater separation of lobbyists and state and tighter enforcement of the new rules. This is good, indeed, very good.

With our politics still reeling from the crooked culture of Abramoff, DeLay, Cunningham, et al., we are looking at an initial proposal that will ban travel and gifts from lobbyists, and end secret earmarks by requiring lawmakers to disclose who secured them. The devil is always in the details, but at least the broad outlines of these initial proposals sound very solid.

In the age of the Internet, though, transparency means something more than what the leadership has yet to propose. It means using the new technology to broadcast what and how Congress is doing the nation’s business; who lawmakers meet with and why; and making information available in a way that consumers of that information want it—24 hours a day, seven days a week. It also means putting out information in ways so that ordinary people can connect the dots. And besides all that, Congress would be foolish not to use the Internet to engage citizens in the new conversation that is taking place.

Congress now files a myriad of reports, but much of it is effectively hidden from plain view—information filed in three-ring binders in basement offices of the Senate or House Clerk or in some obscure government office, or put online as unsearchable documents. Like mold, influence peddling and corruption grow best in the darkness, and for a long time Congress has liked it just that way.

But the times, the technology and what people are beginning to expect in the Age of the Internet, have changed. Congress must go further than what it is now contemplating.

First, all currently required public filings by lawmakers should be filed online, in a searchable and downloadable format within 24 hours of the time they are filed in paper form. There are many valuable disclosure forms already required which would add to transparency—if only we could find them! Making all filings available online, and increasing their frequency, is a logical and easy step forward.

Second, end offline, secret legislation. Bills and amendments should be posted online at least 72 hours before a vote, so that members of Congress and the public have time to read the bills before they are voted on. There should be no reason to continue the practice of adding last-second earmarks and riders that benefit the moneyed and even lawmakers’ personal interests. The proposed rule requires disclosure of the sponsor of an earmark, and that information should also become available, immediately, online.

Finally, recognizing that members of Congress are not the only culprits who allow corruption and secrecy to fester on the Hill, there must finally be some meaningful lobbyist disclosure. Paid lobbyists should have to report who they meet with, and what they discuss, and report any connections they have with members of Congress. All lobbyists’ reports should be filed on the Internet, within 24 hours of any meeting.

There is nothing radical about these proposals. In the era of new technology, these are all feasible and common sense steps towards making our Congress more open, accountable and modern. This kind of accountability of lawmakers to constituents could begin to repair the broken relationship between elected officials and their constituents. They might change how the House and Senate operate, too. And that’s precisely the point.

100 Hours Mark the Change

Robert L. Borosage
January 04, 2007

Robert L. Borosage is co-director of the Campaign For America's Future.

In the three fleet weeks before the president’s State of the Union address, the new Congress will put down a clear marker that the times, they are changing. The conservative era is over. Common sense is no longer exiled from the nation’s capital.

If the first female Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is successful, the House will start by passing tough new ethics rules to apply to themselves. The new majority will then pass the first increase in the minimum wage in a decade. They will vote to cut interest rates on student loans in half. They’ll empower Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. They’ll roll back a portion of the obscene subsidies that go to big oil and use the money to fund renewable energy. They’ll vote to unleash stem cell research from the zealots. They’ll make common sense investments in homeland security.

And, if they are smart, Speaker Pelosi and Senate leader Harry Reid will join with Democratic governors to invite the president to join them in launching a 10-year, concerted drive for energy independence—an Apollo Plan for Energy, that invests in new energy and new efficiency, mobilizes science and technology, generates new jobs in America, redresses global warming, while reducing our dependence on Persian Gulf oil.

All this will take place in 100 hours, before the befuddled president gives his State of the Union address. The slim new Democratic majority in the House will demonstrate that they heard what voters were saying. They will take immediate steps to clean up Washington, and turn the agenda from the dictates of corporate lobbies to the concerns—wages, the cost of college and health care, soaring energy prices—that Americans worry about over their kitchen tables at night.

And if the president brazenly advocates an escalation in Iraq—against the advice of the Joint Chiefs, the generals on the ground, the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton Commission, the opinions of a growing majority of Americans and the posture of any sensate observer—the new Democratic majority will oppose that course in virtual unity (with the exception, of course, of Joe Lieberman intent on triangulating himself into absurdity).

None of these measures are earth-shaking. They are the low-hanging fruit. But they represent a dramatic turn from the Congress of Tom DeLay, where none of this legislation would have been allowed to come to a vote. They represent the downpayment, a promise kept—before the Congress turns to the staggering challenges the country faces—the unsustainable global deficits, broken health care system, utter budget mess, the debacle in Iraq and much more.

Among liberals and activists, there is a lot of carping about this agenda: It isn’t bold enough. It doesn’t do what is really needed. It is too easy. It will pass too fast. It will be stalled in the Senate. The president will veto parts of it. It won’t end the war or solve the health care crisis or end the corporate wilding.

But for one moment, or at least 100 hours, let us shelve our well-founded cynicism and unshackle our hopes. Let’s celebrate the change. The most corrupt Congress in memory has been swept from power. The new majority got the message and is marking out a new direction.

Progressives should support that effort, not scorn it. We should mobilize to get our own legislators on board. And once it is passed in the House, we should be putting real pressure to get it through the Senate, where the corporate lobbies are already concentrating their forces, certain that delay, diversion and dollars can frustrate common sense reform. This is a fight worth having. Encourage the champions. Take down the names of anyone—of either party—who stands in the way. After years of folly, this 100 hour agenda will mark a stark change from conservative misrule.

Keith Ellison and the Jefferson Koran

This is truly justice well served. Virginia congressman Virgil Goode, showing himself to be a religious bigot, has made it clear that he doesn't approve of incoming Minnesota congressman Keith Ellison's holding of the Qu'ran during his swearing-in ceremony. Since Keith Ellison is Muslim, holding a religious tome of another faith would be meaningless. The beauty part is that Mr. Ellison is going to be furnished with a Qu'ran that once belonged to Thomas Jefferson, who's birthplace in 1743, Albemarle County, is Congressman Goode's district. Also bear in mind that Keith Ellison's family can trace their ancestry in America back to 1742. You can't write this shit, folks!--Pete

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=153689

Despite a cynical campaign by those who would establish a religious test for holding office in these United States, newly elected Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison will swear his oath of office tomorrow on the Koran.

The objections to allowing Ellison, the first Muslim to be elected to Congress, to take the oath as he chooses were so absurd in character and contention that they could easily be dismissed as a sideshow. But it would be dangerous to do so. The fact is that there has for a number of years now been a concerted effort by sincere if misguided religious zealots and conservative political strategists who delight in exploiting fears of diversity to redefine the American experiment as a Christian religious endeavor.

History does not provide even a soft grounding for this fantasy. The Founders of the country were men and women of the Enlightenment who, while surely imperfect in their thoughts and deeds, wisely sought to burst the chains of what Thomas Jefferson referred to as "monkish ignorance and superstition." They revolted against the divine right of kings, rejected the construct of state-sponsored religion and wrote a Constitution that not only guaranteed freedom of religion but required that: "The Senators and Representatives...and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

The controversy over Ellison's desire to swear his oath on a Koran, which had been stoked by conservative commentators initially, reached something of a fever pitch when Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode, an otherwise obscure Republican, declared in a letter to a constituent that "When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Qur'an in any way. The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Qur'an."

Goode made several television appearances during which he pushed this line, even after it was pointed out to him that Ellison was born in the United States and traced his family's roots in this country back at least to 1742.

Goode left no doubt about his disdain for Islam and for its practioners, declaring that "I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped. The Ten Commandments and 'In God We Trust' are on the wall in my office. A Muslim student came by the office and asked why I did not have anything on my wall about the Qur'an. My response was clear, 'As long as I have the honor of representing the citizens of the 5th District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, The Qur'an is not going to be on the wall of my office.'"

Predictably, Goode found a forum on Fox News, where he stood by his statements and said, without a hint of irony, that "I wish more people would take a stand and stand up for the principles on which this country was founded."

What made Goode's ignorance of those founding principles remarkable was the fact that he represents Virginia's Albemarle County, where Thomas Jefferson was born in 1743.

On Thursday, it will not be Virgil Goode who pays tribute to Jefferson.

It will be Keith Ellison.

The new Congressman from Minnesota will declare his loyalty to the Constitution while clutching a copy of the Koran that was once owned by Jefferson. One of many Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist texts that the author of the Declaration of Independence donated to the Library of Congress at its founding, the Jefferson Koran has been loaned to Ellison by the rare book and special collections division of the library.

This is not mere symbolism. Ellison understands the Jeffersonian impulse that underpins the American experiment.

"When I'm officially sworn in, I will do it the same exact way as every other Congressperson-elect who was sworn in," explains the Representative from Minneapolis. "We will all stand up and in unison lift our hand and swear to uphold that Constitution, and then later, in a private ceremony, of course I'll put my hand on a book that is the basis of my faith, which is Islam, and I think that this is a beauty--this is a wonderful thing for our country because Jewish members will put their hands on the Torah. Mormon members will put their hand on the Book of Mormon. Catholic members will put their hand on the book of their choice--and members that don't want to put their hand on any book are also fully free to do that. That's the American way.... I think the diversity of our country is a great strength. It's a good thing that we have people from all faiths and all cultures to come here."

Make no mistake, were Jefferson, Madison, George Mason or any of the other Virginians who put their hands to the task of forging an experiment in religious tolerance and liberty asked to choose between Virgil Goode and Keith Ellison, those advocates for a "wall of separation" between church and state would not hesitate to say that it is Ellison who should be sworn in. And Jefferson, who spoke and wrote so extensively about his interest in and respect for Islam, would surely be honored to know that Ellison's hand will rest on the Koran that an enlightened Founder bequeathed not just to the Library of Congress but to America.

Cops gun down unarmed student in Wilmington, N.C.

By Dante Strobino
Raleigh, N.C.

Published Jan 2, 2007

Peyton Strickland, 18, a student at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, was shot and killed Dec. 1 by a special-unit police team at a house Strickland shared with three roommates.

Armed to the teeth while smashing the door in with a battering ram, the police raided Strickland’s home with a warrant allegedly searching for two PlayStation 3 systems they claimed he had stolen.

The cops apparently were armed and trigger-happy because they had seen on-line photographs of Strickland in which he carried weapons. When they assaulted his home and killed him, Strickland was unarmed. Not even waiting for him to open the door, the police fired several rounds through the door, killing Strickland and his dog, Blaze. The cops immediately arrested Ryan David Mills, 20, Strickland’s roommate and fellow student.

This occurred amidst a brazen rash of racist police brutality and murders all across the country, including, but not limited to the murder of two African-American victims, 23-year-old Sean Bell in New York City and 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston in Atlanta.

Investigations still linger these cases where the victims were African American, and to date no cop has been fired or convicted of murder. In fact, officers are not working, yet still being paid.

In the North Carolina case, where the victim was white, Cpl. Christopher Long was fired and on Dec. 11 charged with second-degree murder. Nevertheless, as is typical in response to state sanctioned violence, the officers were first served a mere slap on the wrist. The three New Hanover County deputy sheriffs have been on paid leave since the shooting Dec. 1, according to county Sheriff Sid Causey. It is routine to put officers on leave if they fire their weapons.

Then, on Dec. 12, officials rescinded the murder charge, after a grand jury foreman said he had checked the wrong box on the indictment form.

The events reinforce the outlook of working-class organizers in North Carolina that no justice will be served until working-class community forces can unite and force it onto the system.

---

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Voice Of God Revealed To Be Cheney On Intercom

December 7, 2005 | Issue 41•49

WASHINGTON, DC—Telephone logs recorded by the National Security Agency and obtained by Congress as part of an ongoing investigation suggest that the vice president may have used the Oval Office intercom system to address President Bush at crucial moments, giving categorical directives in a voice the president believed to be that of God.

President Bush sits at his desk in the Oval Office, where he received messages from an intercom voice identifying itself as "God" and thought to have been Vice President Cheney (below).

While journalists and presidential historians had long noted Bush's deep faith and Cheney's powerful influence in the White House, few had drawn a direct correlation between the two until Tuesday, when transcripts of meetings that took place in March and April of 2002 became available.

In a transcript of an intercom exchange recorded in March 2002, a voice positively identified as the vice president's identifies himself as "the Lord thy God" and promotes the invasion of Iraq, as well as the use of torture in prisoner interrogations.

A close examination of Bush's public statements and Secret Service time logs tracking the vice president reveals a consistent pattern, one which links Bush's belief that he had received word from God with Cheney's use of the White House's telephone-based intercom system.

Officials privately acknowledged that there is reason to believe that the vice president, as God, urged Bush to sign legislation benefiting oil companies in 2005.

"There's a lot of religious zeal in the West Wing," said a former White House staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "It's possible that the vice president has taken advantage of that to fast-track certain administration objectives."

An ex-Treasury Department official and longtime friend of Cheney was asked to comment on the vice president's possible subterfuge. "I don't know. I certainly don't think it's something [Cheney] planned," he said. "I do know that Mr. Bush was unfamiliar with a phone-based intercom, and I suppose it is possible that Dick took advantage of that."

A highly placed NSA official who has reviewed the information released Tuesday said Cheney masked his clipped monotone, employing a deeper, booming voice.

Vice President Cheney.

Said the NSA source: "It sounded as though the speaker, who identified himself as God, stood away from the intercom to create an echo effect."

On Capitol Hill, sources are expressing surprise that Cheney, a vice president with more influence than any other in U.S. history, would have resorted to such deception.

"The vice president has a lot of sway in this administration," said a former White House aide. "But perhaps when President Bush was particularly resolute and resistant to mortal persuasion, the vice president chose to quickly resolve disputes in his favor with a half-decent God impression."

For many, the revelation explains Bush's confusion in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

"I was very surprised by the president's slow response in New Orleans," political commentator Bill Kristol said. "The president told me that he was praying every day in his office, but had received no reply. I had no idea what he meant, but of course, it all makes sense now."

At the time of Katrina, Cheney was on a fly-fishing trip, from which he returned on Sept. 1.

According to highly placed White House sources, Bush's senior advisers are trying to shield the president from the news. Aides are concerned that too harsh an awakening might shake Bush's faith, which has been a central part of his life for nearly 20 years.

"It's hard to tell the leader of the free world that he has been the butt of an elaborate and long-term ruse," a former staffer said. "Maybe it would be easier to take if it came from Cheney's God voice."

© Copyright 2006, Onion, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Onion is not intended for readers under 18 years of age.

Cal Thomas' knee-jerk hostility

By Joshua Holland
Posted on December 29, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/joshua/46058/

The hacktacular Cal Thomas has penned an awfully lazy column attacking atheists for their "faith" (judging by the length and intellectual depth of the thing, he may have scribbled it while the turkey was resting):

The Atheist Wager

I wonder about the question. Why is it "in vogue" to disbelieve in a Creator of the universe, who loves us and wants to have a relationship with us and not "in vogue" to believe?

Um, because you're completely full of shit? I don't know how Cal Thomas defines "in vogue," but according to this Harris Poll, 90 percent of Americans believe in God (51 percent believe in ghosts), including 85 percent of those ivory-tower losers with post-graduate degrees. And, of course, atheists are the most distrusted and despised minority in the country -- "in vogue," indeed.

The first rule for the Culture Warrior is: Never let the facts get in the way of claiming you belong to a victimized minority (see Christmas, the War On).

Anyway, of course I have conversations with atheists everyday, though I do not always know of their unbelief unless they tell me. We can talk about everything, or nothing. I know some atheists who are pro-life (though they have an inadequate base for being so). That's because if God is not the Author of life, then we are evolutionary accidents who may treat each other as we please.

As a supporter of the Iraq war, it's safe to say that Cal Thomas is objectively anti-life, or at least believes we "may treat each other as we please" after the fetal stage. I guess he doesn't believe God's the author of brown people's lives.

I'd add that the fact that atheists converse with Cal Thomas "every day" just illustrates the depth of their tolerance.

In conversing with an atheist, it is important to understand that such a person will never be brought to faith by information alone, because the same information is available to everyone. If information were sufficient to make a believer out of an atheist, then all would believe.

If information were sufficient to make a believer out of a skeptic, then all would believe in Santa. How else to explain that the cookies were gone on Christmas morning?

Seriously, does anyone have a clue about what information he's talking about here?

It takes more faith not to believe in God than to believe in Him.

There's something almost pathetically desperate about these attempts to portray atheism as a belief system, rather than a worldview based on an absence of belief. They're saying: If my belief in God is an irrational act of faith, then your lack of belief must be as well.

It is also intellectually lazy. You have to believe the vastness of the universe "happened" without a Designer and that unique things like fingerprints and snowflakes occurred by pure chance.

Ah, that's the "information" of which he writes. Of course, a mathematician can explain the formation of snowflakes perfectly clearly, as this review in the Journal of the American Mathematical Society illustrates (PDF). And the fingerprint argument is just another fraudulent argument advanced by "intelligent design" folks and quickly squashed by people with a modicum of scientific knowledge. Funny that Thomas would throw that out after calling atheists "intellectually lazy."

Having said that, Cal may have stumbled across an answer to the age-old question of why an all-powerful God would tolerate such an abundance of misery and pestilence in the world: She's too busy designing each and every snowflake to pay attention.

An atheist wagers his or her present and eternal future that he or she is right. If the atheist is right and there is no God, there are no consequences. But if the atheist is wrong and there is a God and a Heaven for those who come to Him on His terms, and a Hell for those who reject Him, then that has the most important consequences.

That's a reference to Pascal's wager, the argument that believing in God is a better-safe-than-sorry proposition, given that an eternity burning in Hell is at stake. One of the commenters at the Washington Post gave a perfect response:

The real atheist's wager is this:

"It is better to live your life as if there are no gods, and try to make the world a better place for your being in it. If there is no god, you have lost nothing and will be remembered fondly by those you left behind. If there is a benevolent god, he will judge you on your merits and not just on whether or not you believed in him."

There's some morality we can all embrace.

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/joshua/46058/

Republican bigot attacks Islam

By Evan Derkacz
Posted on January 2, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/46173/

Good ol' boy Virgil Goode (R-VA) put his name on the map last month by catering to anti-Muslim bigotry in his district and denouncing [VIDEO] Keith Ellison (D-MN) for swearing on the Koran in an unofficial ceremony.

Rather than back away from his bigotry, Goode poured gasoline. From today's USA Today: "Let us remember that we were not attacked by a nation on 9/11; we were attacked by extremists who acted in the name of the Islamic religion."

Okay, well, if the GOP's GOB wants to tar entire religions with the brush of extremists who act in its name, he can start with the Army of God and other Christian terrorists and root out Christians in congress (Jews too!). The religion must be bad if some claim to kill for it, right?

Or is it just theirs?

Idiot.

Hat tip: Think Progress.

Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/46173/

Strange Dreams

ZNet Commentary
December 31, 2006
By Paul  Street
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-12/26street.cfm


I keep having the same two crazy dreams.  I'm just not sure what they mean. In the first dream, George W. Bush becomes obsessed with disproving the charge that he's a "chicken hawk" - a military hawk who has never seen or experienced military action and its terrible consequences.  He has a vision from God.  It comes to him in prayer.  He orders his staff to call up the Pentagon and arrange for him to be flown to Iraq to participate in a night patrol.  "Make it a dangerous one," he says.  He reaches into his bottom desk drawer for a bottle of whiskey.

"This will show the world I'm not a wimp like they said my Dad was," Bush thinks to himself.  "Hell, I'm going to lead this SURGE myself."  

The Army sets him up with a unit three miles outside the U.S. base in the Iraqi town of Ramadi. He climbs into a moderately well-armored Humvee. Ten minutes into his adventure, with sweat pouring down from under his helmet and the smell of bourbon on his breath, the Decider hears a loud explosion.  

Everything goes quiet and numb.  His head is swimming.  There's a bright shining light.  Soldiers and medical staff are yelling, but he can't hear a word they're saying.  Everyone around him is staring at him in horror.  Some are looking down to where his legs used to be.  Bush looks down himself and sees two bloody stumps.  "It's so unreal," he thinks, "why don't I feel anything?" 

He starts to lose consciousness but is jolted back awake by a sharper pain than he ever knew existed.  He looks over to see a badly injured soldier.  The soldier couldn't be more than 18 years old.  He's lost half of his face.

The soldier turns to the dying president and says, "so what did you think was going to happen, asshole?" A band is playing "Onward Christian Soldiers" somewhere off in the distance.  It's dressed up in suits of armor like the ones worn by the Medieval Knights portrayed in those recruiting advertisements the Armed Forces used to put on American television.  Bush's last sensation on earth is the feeling of his shrunken soul being sucked down into the molten center of the earth.  He hears the laughter of Osama bin Laden. I hear a Jimmy Hendrix riff from "All Along the Watchtower."  

The dream ends. 

The other dream is less historically specific.  It's set in Texas and involves Laura Bush. Texas still has a lot of oil, which makes me think it's set in the past.  And the First Lady is a teenage girl, which would put things back in the early Sixties.  But the surroundings look contemporary and even futuristic, strictly 21st century.

Anyway, in my dream young Laura Welch is driving her father's Lexus (it's definitely not the Sixties) up to an intersection in Midland, Texas.  She sees Michael Dutton Douglas - the high school classmate she killed with her car (by running a stop sign) on November 6, 1963  and and tries to warn him. She's about to scream, "Watch out, Mike, I'm coming to kill you," when she's stopped in her tracks by the angry voice of an Asian soldier. He's yelling at her in Chinese.  He's saying, "STOP" and "HALT" and "THIS IS A CHECK POINT" but she doesn't understand a word. She turns her car to the left and sees more Chinese soldiers yelling and now pointing their guns at her.  She becomes frightened and confused.  She tries to hit the brakes but she hits the accelerator instead.

A single shot from a Chinese AK-47 pierces her skull.  She dies instantly as her car crashes into a gas station pump and explodes.  It's all caught on tape.

The soldier who killed her is relieved.  He's been in Texas for two weeks and still hasn't had an "insurgent K.I.A." ("killed in action").  His comrades had been starting to give him a hard time.  "Nice shot, Yao," one of his fellow soldiers says.  "It's about time. Way to waste a Starch Face."

The scene shifts to Beijing, where the wife of the Chinese head of state is being interviewed by a reporter.  The First Lady of China denies that her nation's occupation of the Southwestern United States - conducted with a coalition of forces that includes tens of thousands of Mexican soldiers determined to avenge the seizure of Mexican lands by the U.S. during the late 1840s (after the Mexican-American War) - is motivated by an imperial Chinese desire to control North American oil.  She says the occupation is going much better than the Chinese people know.  "The media," she says, is making things look worse than they really are.

Then I see Michael Dutton Douglas.  He's making an improvised explosive device of some sort.  The slaughter of Laura Welch (who he had recently dated) has turned him into a national independence fighter.  The bumper sticker on his car reads "Don't Mess with Texas."  A missile from a Chinese drone blows him up. An entire apartment building goes up in flames, killing 24 innocent civilians.  That makes for 1.5 million American dead since the occupation began…on November 6, 2023.

The Americans' deaths and identities are unmentioned in China's leading newspaper of record's daily "Names of the Dead" feature.  The only victims recorded in that section are the sturdy peasant sons and daughters who have given their lives in China's inherently noble struggle to defeat the "terrorist" enemies of "civilization" in (just coincidentally) oil-rich Texas.

Then I'm sitting in an out of the way Beijing coffee shop listening to Jimmy Hendrix and talking to somebody who calls herself an anarchist.  We both agree that nobody seems to care about all those faceless, nameless American victims of Chinese foreign policy.       

I know these dreams are whacked out.  George W. Bush would never be caught, well, dead doing anything actually dangerous in Iraq.  He and the rest of the imperial "elite" believe that they are too privileged and precious to actually put their bodies on the line for the criminal policies they advance.  It's the job of poorer and darker Americans to die for their high-state lies.  And I don't think he's going to start drinking or coking-up again.

The notion of China having the capacity to invade and occupy part of the U.S. is just as preposterous. And of course Texas tapped out most of its oil along time ago.  I don't know if Michael Dutton Douglas had small munitions potential.  I don't think they allow Hendrix to played in China. And I don't believe in Hell (or Heaven).

But dreams aren't about rational thought.  And these ones must come from somewhere. I wonder where.

Paul Street is the author of many books, articles, speeches, blogs, reviews, and book chapters.  He can be reached at paulstreet99@yahoo.com  

POTOMAC PLAYGROUND

Sam Smith
http://prorev.com/2006/12/potomac-playground.htm

Phil Hart said the Senate was a place that did things 20 years after it should have. The same could be said of much of the rest of Washington. In fact the yet-to-be accomplished U.S.-Iranian negotiations are now at 27 years and still counting.

The common presumption is that such tardiness is a function of politics. In fact, it is more a product of culture, a culture founded on infantile presumptions about the proper image one should present. Thus you find grown men walking around the Pentagon with rows of ribbons on their uniformed chests to remind everyone of their purported accomplishments. You have ex-preppies plotting invasions against small countries to prove their machismo. You have graduates of Yale and Princeton, whose daddies - as LBJ said - wouldn't let them into the stock brokerage firm - figuring out the best way to torture people for the CIA. You have drones from business and law schools trained to think that certainty is an adequate substitute for competence. You have journalists getting big bucks for the privilege of sitting through endless, newsless White House briefings and flying off with the president to his ranch. And you have experts at think tanks trading arcane knowledge apparently unaware that their resulting decisions might affect real people.

Although there are far more women engaged in this charade than was formerly the case, the culture is primarily based on childish male notions of strength and prowess. The women who get to the top in such a culture often do so because they emulate its values rather than offering an alternative, witness the cruel capitalism of Margaret Thatcher, the indifference of Madeleine Albright to the deaths caused by Iraqi sanctions, or the heartless aggression of Condoleezza Rice.

We don't read about this or hear about it because the mass media is a fulltime participant in this never consummated ritual of manhood that our politics have become. In tribal times, the ritual would have been followed by manhood. In Washington, the ritual never ends.

The costs can be enormous. The Vietnam War, for example, was driven in part by Harvard faculty members trying to prove their virility. Over the last fifty years, a narcissistic establishment absorbed in its self-image and indifferent to its consequences, has destroyed constitutional government, made the United States hated around the world and done so much damage to the environment that two major scientists recently suggested that we better plan to find ourselves another planet.

The immediate problem is Iraq, now so much a mess that they had to call in a commission, which is to say some adults. As Representative Frank Wolfe put it, "there's almost a biblical thing about wise elderly people. . . I mean, Sandra Day O'Connor is not looking for another job. So they can speak truth."

In other words, to do in Washington what you're supposed to do, you have to be retired.

What's missing here is rational adulthood. What's lacking is a town that attracts those still full of energy but mature enough to put away childish things and moral enough to serve their land ahead of themselves. Instead we have a city overflowing with those whose egos and ambitions are trapped in almost teenage garb.

And so we have to wait 27 years for anyone to dare to suggest that it might be wise to talk with Iran. That's not a thoughtful issue for discussion on NPR or the News Hour. That's a matter for a therapist.

If George Bush has done one service he has brought the capital's destructive childishness out of the closet. What has still to be recognized, however, is that he is not an exception but merely a sadly extreme example how the place really works.

BUSH REGIME SELLING BOOK CLAIMING NOAH'S FLOOD CREATED GRAND CANYON

PEER - Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. . .

In August 2003, Park Superintendent Joe Alston attempted to block the sale at park bookstores of Grand Canyon: A Different View by Tom Vail, a book claiming the Canyon developed on a biblical rather than an evolutionary time scale. NPS Headquarters, however, intervened and overruled Alston. To quiet the resulting furor, NPS Chief of
Communications David Barna told reporters and members of Congress that there would be a high-level policy review of the issue. According to a recent NPS response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by PEER, no such review was ever requested, let alone conducted or completed.

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=801

A Lynching...

It's official. Maliki and his people are psychopaths. This really is a new low. It's outrageous- an execution during Eid. Muslims all over the world (with the exception of Iran) are outraged. Eid is a time of peace, of putting aside quarrels and anger- at least for the duration of Eid.

This does not bode well for the coming year. No one imagined the madmen would actually do it during a religious holiday. It is religiously unacceptable and before, it was constitutionally illegal. We thought we'd at least get a few days of peace and some time to enjoy the Eid holiday, which coincides with the New Year this year. We've spent the first two days of a holy holiday watching bits and pieces of a sordid lynching.

America the savior… After nearly four years and Bush's biggest achievement in Iraq has been a lynching. Bravo Americans.

Maliki has made the mistake of his life. His signature and unhidden glee at the whole execution, especially on the first day of Eid Al Adha (the Eid where millions of Muslims make a pilgrimage to Mecca), will only do more to damage his already tattered reputation. He's like a vulture in a suit (or a balding weasel). It's almost embarrassing. I kept expecting Muwafaq Al Rubaii to run over and wipe the drool from the corner of his mouth as he signed for the execution. Are these the people who represent the New Iraq? We're in so much more trouble than I ever thought.

And no- not the celebrations BBC are claiming. With the exception of a few areas, the streets are empty.

Now we come to CNN. Shame on you CNN journalists- you're getting lazy. The least you can do is get the last words correct when you write a story about an execution. Your articles are read the world over and will go down in history as references. You people are the biggest news network in the world- the least you can do is spend some money on a decent translator. Saddam's last words were NOT "Muqtada Al Sadr" as Munir Haddad claimed, according to the article below. If anyone had seen at least part of the video they showed on TV, you'd know that.

"A witness, Iraqi Judge Munir Haddad, said that one of the executioners told Hussein that the former dictator had destroyed Iraq, which sparked an argument that was joined by several government officials in the room.

As a noose was tightened around Hussein's neck, one of the executioners yelled "long live Muqtada al-Sadr," Haddad said, referring to the powerful anti-American Shiite religious leader.

Hussein, a Sunni, uttered one last phrase before he died, saying "Muqtada al-Sadr" in a mocking tone, according to Haddad's account."

From the video that was leaked, it was not an executioner who yelled "long live Muqtada al-Sadr". See, this is another low the Maliki government sunk to- they had some hecklers conveniently standing by during the execution. Maliki claimed they were "some witnesses from the trial", but they were, very obviously, hecklers. The moment the noose was around Saddam's neck, they began chanting, in unison, "God's prayers be on Mohamed and on Mohamed's family…" Something else I didn't quite catch (but it was very coordinated), and then "Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada!" One of them called out to Saddam, "Go to hell…" (in Arabic). Saddam looked down disdainfully and answered "Heya hay il marjala…?" which is basically saying, "Is this your manhood…?".

Someone half-heartedly called out to the hecklers, "I beg you, I beg you- the man is being executed!" They were slightly quieter and then Saddam stood and said, "Ashadu an la ilaha ila Allah, wa ashhadu ana Mohammedun rasool Allah…" Which means, "I witness there is no god but Allah and that Mohammed is His messenger." These are the words a Muslim (Sunnis and Shia alike) should say on their deathbed. He repeated this one more time, very clearly, but before he could finish it, he was lynched.

So, no, CNN, his last words were not "Muqtada Al Sadr" in a mocking tone- just thought someone should clear that up. (Really people, six of you contributed to that article!)

Then again, one could argue that it was a judge who gave them that false information. A judge on the Iraqi appeals court- one of the judges who ratified the execution order. Everyone knows Iraqi judges under American tutelage never lie- that explains CNN's confusion.

Muwafaq Al Rubai was said he was "weak and frightened". Apparently, Rubai saw a different lynching because according to the video they leaked, he didn't look frightened at all. His voice didn't shake and he refused to put on the black hood. He looked resigned to his fate, and during the heckling he looked as defiant as ever. (It's quite a contrast to Muhsin Abdul Hameed's public hysterics last year when the Americans raided his home.)

It's one thing to have militias participating in killings. This is allegedly the democracy the Americans flaunt. Is this how bloodthirsty and frightening we've become? Is this what Iraq stands for now? Executions? I'm sure the rest of the Arab countries will be impressed.

One of the most advanced countries in the world did not help to reconstruct Iraq, they didn't even help produce a decent constitution. They did, however, contribute nicely to a kangaroo court and a lynching. A lynching shall go down in history as America's biggest accomplishment in Iraq. So who's next? Who hangs for the hundreds of thousands who've died as a direct result of this war and occupation? Bush? Blair? Maliki? Jaffari? Allawi? Chalabi?

2006 has definitely been representative of Maliki and his government- killings like never before and a lynching to end it properly. Death and destruction everywhere. I'm so tired of all of this…

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

How to tell your country's in trouble

RIVERBEND, BAGHDAD - You know your country is in trouble when:

1. The UN has to open a special branch just to keep track of the chaos and bloodshed, UNAMI.

2. Abovementioned branch cannot be run from your country.

3. The politicians who worked to put your country in this sorry state can no longer be found inside of, or anywhere near, its borders.

4. The only thing the US and Iran can agree about is the deteriorating state of your nation.

5. An 8-year war and 13-year blockade are looking like the country's 'Golden Years'.

6. Your country is purportedly 'selling' 2 million barrels of oil a day, but you are standing in line for 4 hours for black market gasoline for
the generator.

7. For every 5 hours of no electricity, you get one hour of public electricity and then the government announces it's going to cut back on providing that hour.

8. Politicians who supported the war spend TV time debating whether it is 'sectarian bloodshed' or 'civil war'.

9. People consider themselves lucky if they can actually identify the corpse of the relative that's been missing for two weeks.

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/