The Osterley Times

Monday, July 07, 2008

We are not "at war".

Fareed Zakaria has a very good article over at The Washington Post which raises many questions about Bush's claims to be a "war time President" and the extraordinary powers which he has claimed that this position entitles him to.

But, as Zakaria points out, with the exception of Jimmy Carter almost every American President has been involved in armed conflict somewhere. As an example, he states: "Bill Clinton initiated hostilities in the Balkans twice, George H.W. Bush invaded Panama and Iraq, and neither president ever described himself as a "war president.""

And this is undeniably true. For any American president, protecting US interests across the globe, armed intervention somewhere is almost the norm.

Britain was in a somewhat similar position in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As a result, British forces were fighting someone, somewhere for most of that period. But Britain did not think of itself as "at war," nor would British prime ministers have described themselves as "wartime" leaders. (In fact, Tony Blair has never described himself as such, even though he presided over British military involvement in the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq.)

America (and before it, Britain) has felt it was "at war" when the conflict threatened the country's basic security—not merely its interests or its allies abroad. This is the common-sense way in which we define a wartime leader, and by that definition the politicians in charge during World Wars I and II—Wilson, Lloyd George, Roosevelt, Churchill—are often described as such. It's not a perfect definition. The United States has been so far removed from most conflicts that even World War I's effects could be described as indirect (incorrectly in my view). But it conjures up the image of a threat to society as a whole, which then requires a national response.

By any of these criteria, we are not at war.

Of course, this is one of the reasons why Bush claims that, "We fight them over there, so we don't have fight them here", incorrectly implying that Iraqis attempting to remove an invading and occupying force will jump into little boats and run shooting down Main Street USA unless Georgie stops them in Baghdad. It's simply a nonsense.

When nations are at war, they are called upon to make great sacrifices. I realise that during WWI and WWII that Americans at home did not have to worry about bombs falling on them as they did in London's East End, but nevertheless ordinary Americans were well aware that they were at war. For instance everyone in the US agreed on the need for high taxes to pay for the war and Roosevelt even attempted to place a 100% taxation rate on all incomes over $25,000. He failed, but it nevertheless contrasts greatly with Bush's tax cuts for the rich at the very moment when he is claiming civilisation is facing it's greatest ever peril.

In Britain and in the US there was food rationing during WWII with everyone doing their bit to see that the Nazis were defeated. As I sit later on today eating breakfast, whilst quietly reading my paper, it will be impossible to pretend that my nation is at war in the way most of us rationalise the use of that phrase.

Life in America today is surprisingly normal for a country with troops in two battle zones. The country may be engaged in wars, but it is not at war. Consider as evidence the behavior of our "war president." Bush recently explained that for the last few years he has given up golf, because "to play the sport in a time of war" would send the wrong signal. Compare Bush's "sacrifice" to those made by Americans during World War II, when most able-bodied men were drafted, food was rationed and industries were commandeered to produce military equipment. For example, there were no civilian cars manufactured in the United States from 1941 to 1945.

Bush, and the Republicans in general, have seized on this claim that the US is "at war" as a way of calling into the question the patriotism of anyone who opposes them, but it is hard to believe that they remain serious about such a claim.

As Zakaria points out, their real enemy - al Qaeda - are actually fighting a war against modernity rather than the US and they are a ragtag bunch of falling numbers. And the notion that a couple of thousand Muslims dotted around Afghanistan and the Middle East offers as great a threat to civilisation as Hitler's marauding armies is fanciful at best and, at worst, simply duplicitous.

Bush has inflated the threat because it suited him politically to do so. McCain is campaigning on continuing this approach.

But how you see the world determines how you will respond, and the administration has greatly inflated the threat, casting it as an existential and imminent danger. As a result, we've massively overreacted. Bush and his circle have conceived of the problem as military and urgent when it's more of a long-term political and cultural problem. The massive expansion of the military budget, the unilateral rush to war in Iraq, the creation of the cumbersome Department of Homeland Security, the new restrictions on visas and travel can all be chalked up to this sense that we are at war. No cost-benefit analysis has been done. John Mueller points out that in response to a total of five deaths from anthrax, the U.S. government has spent $5 billion on new security procedures.

Of course, this is actually what Osama bin Laden hoped for.

As Gandhi once stated, "Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary." Gandhi for many years took long - much publicised - walks to make salt in India, which was against the law, hoping to force the British to overreact. When asked what he would do if the British didn't react, Gandhi replied that he would do something else until they did react, stating "They are not in charge, we are".

Terrorism works under a similar principle. Bin Laden hoped to goad Bush into some rash action and Bush complied by invading Iraq, a country which had nothing to do with 9-11. Bin laden, no doubt, hoped that this would cause such outrage that Muslims everywhere would rise to his cause. Some did.

Today of all days we all remember that four young men from Leeds, three years ago, travelled down to London and caused the worst terrorist attacks in this city's history.

But they had never met bin Laden. They had never had any contact with al Qaeda. Bin Laden had floated an idea and those young guys from Leeds, enraged by Bush and Blair's invasion of Iraq, had responded. It's Kentucky Fried Chicken terrorism. It's a franchise. You sign up of your own accord without any real contact with the person floating the original idea.

There are many ways to win wars of ideas and an actual war is rarely one of them. Indeed, actual wars are the kind of over reaction that bin Laden is hoping for to get Muslims to sign up to his insanely unpopular cause.

The British Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Ken MacDonald, made this point eloquently in January of last year:

"London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, 'soldiers'. They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists. We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a 'war on terror', just as there can be no such thing as a 'war on drugs'.

"The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by their infringement."

Bush's massive overreaction plays into bin Laden's hands. We are engaged in an ideological struggle, not a war. As I eat breakfast this morning in leafy west London, I will remember that.

Click title for full article.

Nadal the king of clay turns grass master in Wimbledon's all-time epic

Both the Guardian and The Independent are referring to it as "the greatest tennis match ever played" and, as someone who sat riveted in front of the TV for the four hours and forty eight minutes it took to complete it, I would have to say that I agree.

A contest that should go down as the greatest Wimbledon final in history ended in near darkness at 9.15pm with Nadal winning 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-7, 9-7 to end Federer's five-year reign as champion.

At four hours and 48 minutes it was the longest Wimbledon final ever, beating by 32 minutes Jimmy Connors' 1982 victory over John McEnroe. Two rain breaks meant that the match finished nearly seven hours after it had begun.

And whether you were on centre court, or watching as I was from home, for those seven hours you were going nowhere.

From the noises being made by the crowd on centre court it appeared that they, like most Brits watching, wanted Federer to take his sixth Wimbledon victory and - with Bjorg watching - surpass his unbelievable record.

But in the end victory went to Nadal and, even though I had wanted the opposite result, it was impossible not to applaud what we had all just witnessed.

Federer defended his title with all the courage we have come to expect of a player who is still tantalisingly two Grand Slam titles short of Pete Sampras's record of 14. Having saved two match points in the fourth set tie-break, the Swiss went within two points of becoming the first man for 60 years to win a Wimbledon final from two sets down.

But Nadal always appeared to force Federer to make yet another return. No matter how often he thought he had him beaten, Nadal would somehow get the ball back over the net and force Federer to play one more shot.

It was simply riveting stuff. And, as Nadal climbed over the Wimbledon roof to shake the hand of the Spanish prince who had come to watch him play, I suddenly thought what a good year it was to be Spanish.

They won the European Championship for the first time in 42 years a few weeks ago and now here was Nadal becoming the first Spaniard to win Wimbledon since Santana in 1966.

It was simply unforgettable.

Click title for full article.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Condi Rice is "proud" that the US attacked Iraq.

This kind of insane talk is why the Republicans must be removed from office.

Condi now feigns concern for Iraqis and how Saddam treated them, despite the fact that the US were supporting Iraq when Saddam was gassing the Kurds. And supplying him with weapons and satellite images during the Iran-Iraq war which she now claims to detest.

The truth was that this war was sold, not on Iraq's liberation, but on the lie that Saddam had WMD which he might pass on to al Qaeda.

But Condi wants us all to know that she's "proud" of that intervention, an intervention which has turned out out to be one of the the worst foreign policy decisions in the history of her country.

And she remains "proud" even as she openly admits that the sanctions, which killed half a million Iraqi babies, had little effect at all on the regime. There were many of us arguing that at the time, but people like Condi simply were not listening. I find it slightly shameful that she can now so glibly admit what was so vociferously denied at the time.

McCain Flips At Legit Question

John Soltz is a leader of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans community and Co-Founder and Chair of VoteVets.org. He has endorsed many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans running for Congress and states that, when discussing their suitability for the post, he is always asked the exact same first question:

What is it about their honorable service in Iraq and/or Afghanistan that qualifies them to go to Congress?

This, of course, should be a very easy question for them to answer. They should state that, at a time of war, their direct experience of warfare will give Congress a view which has never been needed more than it is now.

As Soltz points out, that's exactly what McCain is being asked about his experience in Vietnam, and McCain is behaving as if the question is somehow way out of line.

McCain became visibly angry when I asked him to explain how his Vietnam experience prepared him for the Presidency.

"Please," he said, recoiling back in his seat in distaste at the very question.

This is a very basic problem with McCain's campaign. The entire campaign is built around the fact that he was once a POW, he hints at it and refers to it and to his sacrifice in almost every stump speech he makes. He has even produced TV ads highlighting the fact that he was once a POW.

And yet, when asked in what way that prepares or qualifies him to be president, he becomes truculent and bad tempered. He does this because his experience as a POW does not prepare him to be president any more than the experiences of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay are somehow preparing them to one day run Afghanistan.

McCain wants to play the Vietnam card without ever having to state what that card signifies. He wants voters to have an emotional response to his record rather than a reasoned response, which is why when he is asked directly to name the link between the two, he simply can't; because there is no link.

As Soltz points out:

The fact of the matter is that General Clark was absolutely right. McCain's service, while heroic and honorable, is not very relevant when it comes to preparing him to be the military's ultimate commander. His experience didn't involve executive decision making in the military, or global strategy. Very few candidates for the presidency have had the experience in life that prepares them for that role. In fact, McCain said it himself in 2003, that some of our best Commanders in Chief had no military experience at all.

That's why the McCain campaign went into all-out outrage mode over General Clark's comments. It wasn't about being offended. It wasn't even about General Clark. It was about lashing out so strongly that the media would cower in fear, and not even think about putting a question like this to McCain -- a question to which he has no answer, and is afraid of being exposed on that point. And, for most of the week, that strategy was successful, as the press wimped out, and repeated the McCain talking points.

The reporter from ABC News didn't fall for it, and did his job. But he didn't get an answer. Maybe now, reporters will stuff their guts back in their bodies and keep asking McCain this legit question -- a question I get a version of all the time from the same reporters.

It's a legit question, and it's a question for which the American people deserve an answer.

And that is the point, McCain has no answer as to why the very thing he is using as the centrepiece of his entire campaign is even remotely relevant.

That's why he gets angry when questioned on it. The Republicans are now going to attempt to make any questioning of the relevance of McCain's Vietnam experience as somehow below the belt and unpatriotic, even as a form of attack on the notion of service itself.

However, the memory of the Republican swift boating of John Kerry is too fresh for that tactic to really succeed. McCain needs to come up with an answer. Or he needs to stop playing the POW card. Which is highly unlikely as, without that, he simply has no campaign.

What's John to do?

Click title for full article.

What John McCain didn't learn in Vietnam

As John McCain continues to insist that the war in Iraq is winnable, even if the US has to occupy the country for a hundred years, Joe Conason over at Salon has written a very interesting article about what McCain's Vietnam experience tells us about, not how he sees the past, but more importantly about how that vision of the past might provide a key to what a future McCain presidency might portend.

Indeed, what is most striking about McCain's attitude toward Vietnam is his insistence that we could have won -- that we should have won -- with more bombs and more casualties. In 1998, he spoke on the 30th anniversary of the Tet Offensive. "Like a lot of Vietnam veterans, I believed and still believe that the war was winnable," he said. "I do not believe that it was winnable at an acceptable cost in the short or probably even the long term using the strategy of attrition which we employed there to such tragic results. I do believe that had we taken the war to the North and made full, consistent use of air power in the North, we ultimately would have prevailed." Five years later, he said much the same thing to the Council on Foreign Relations. "We lost in Vietnam because we lost the will to fight, because we did not understand the nature of the war we were fighting, and because we limited the tools at our disposal."
Very few military historians agree with McCain's bitter analysis, which suggests that a ground invasion and an even more destructive bombing campaign, with an unimaginable cost in human life, would have achieved an American victory. But perhaps because he is obsessed by the humiliation of defeat -- which fell directly on his father, Adm. John S. McCain Jr., who served as the commander in chief of Pacific forces during the Vietnam conflict -- the former prisoner of war seemingly can formulate neither a rational assessment of that war's enormous costs nor of its flawed premises and purposes.

I have come across this insane argument before, that if America had been willing to fight harder and longer, then the Vietcong could have been defeated. In this mindset the deaths of 58,000 Americans and a million and a half Vietnamese - after sixteen long and bloody years - simply wasn't enough. The war should have gone on longer and more should have died.

It's an argument for victory that, whilst immoral in it's dismissal of the sheer cost in human life of continuing the Vietnam war, it also presupposes that the Vietnam war was a noble war that was worth fighting in the first place. In much the same way as McCain makes that erroneous assumption about the Iraq war.

In the case of Vietnam we were told that the collapse of south Vietnam would lead to "a domino effect" across the region with country's falling to Communist rule. In the end, the south fell... and nothing happened. No domino effect took place.

McCain has famously said that the US should only go to war where her vital interests are at stake, and cites this as one of the lessons learned from Vietnam.

But, just as the Gulf of Tolkin incident was manufactured, the Iraqi WMD - which were supposedly the reason why Saddam had to be invaded - have also turned out to be entirely bogus, and yet neither seems to effect McCain's view of either conflict.

He appears to think that war is noble for the simple reason that America is involved in it and that American victory matters more than any price in human life that such a victory might cost.

That's what he argued about Vietnam and that is what he continues to argue about Iraq.

But underneath it all, there is something that he hasn't learned. Some wars are simply bad wars.

WWI and WWII were noble wars fought for a good cause. Vietnam was not and neither was Iraq. McCain is simply unable to make that distinction. Which is why, at this moment in American history, he simply lacks the vision which America needs to correct a historic mistake.

His lesson from Vietnam is that the US should have stayed longer and lost more American and Vietnamese lives. He now wants to apply that crackpot theory to Iraq.

He was wrong then and he is wrong now. Hopefully, most Americans will realise this and prevent him from getting anywhere near the White House.

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Saturday, July 05, 2008

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Presidency

This is very, very funny.

Alan Colmes Whips Up on Karl Rove Over War Powers

Here we see Rove argue against persons having the right to habeas corpus, which he regards as "ridiculous". Rove thinks it's "a terrible decision" to ask the administration to have to bring evidence to a court proving a persons guilt.

Why do these retards find it so shocking that they be required to bring proof against the people that they are holding in custody? I note that Rove also repeats the lie that persons released from Guantanamo Bay have come back to the US and committed acts of terrorism.

Colmes actually does a very good job of taking apart Rove's argument.

Colmes: This is a great decision that dates back to the Magna Carter and habeas corpus and refers back to....The constitution applies to persons not just citizens. That is in keeping with what the constitution says.

Rove: This is a ridiculous decision. This is not the criminal justice system, this is a WAR!

Colmes: When was war declared? Did Congress declare war?...It was not a declaration of war... If you want to go by the US constitution, don't they get to declare war?

Rove: If you feel that strongly, go get yourself an ACLU attorney. File a declaration in the court...

Colmes: If you're going by the Constitution...If you're a strict constructionist, habeas corpus is key.. you have to go through the Constitution...

The thing that appears to be annoying Rove the most is that the Bush administration should be required to provide evidence proving the guilt of some people that they have held in custody for over five years.

In what system would one person have the power to declare someone an enemy and hold them without a trial? Oh that's right, it's this one.

And the fact that Rove was making this argument on the fourth of July, of all bloody days, is an irony that should be lost on no-one.

London mayor: Johnson forced to remove his deputy mayor after magistrate claim proves false

I said at the time of Boris Johnson's election as Mayor of London that I thought it might be something which David Cameron would come to regret. After all, Boris's team were now the only example of a Tory administration in power and a foretaste of what Cameron's new conservatism might look like.

I avoided commenting 12 days ago when James McGrath was forced to resign over some crass comments concerning African-Caribbean migrants and whether or not they should "go back to the Caribbean".

However, we have now had a second resignation in under a fortnight, and this time it's the deputy Mayor himself who is walking the plank.

This is beginning to look like Cameron's worst nightmare, especially when one considers that this Tory administration is merely two months old.

Last night Ken Livingstone was unforgiving about Johnson's difficulties. "In my entire eight years in office I suffered only one enforced resignation of any of my most senior officials, Lee Jasper - and that only after seven years - and this extreme contrast shows vividly the incompetence of Boris Johnson and his administration," he said.

"It is an equal crisis for David Cameron who, it should be remembered, chose to make his first photo opportunity as Tory leader with Ray Lewis."

The allegations against Lewis were originally of a financial nature, with claims that he borrowed money from his parishioners when he was a Church of England priest in the mid 90's, totalling around £45,000. However, the money is said to have been borrowed from, amongst others, an elderly woman and a man with learning difficulties.

However, the thing that appears to have brought him down is the fact that he is not actually a magistrate, despite his claim - backed by Johnson - that he was.

Johnson is now claiming that he was misled.

But Mr Johnson said his "confidence was shaken" when he was wrongly led to believe that Mr Lewis was a magistrate.

Nor is Lewis showing any regret over this mistake:

In a press conference at City Hall to announce his resignation, Mr Lewis said: "There was some talk in the press of me being or not being a magistrate.
"If you are fully paid-up members of the 'hair splitters' convention it will have made a difference to you whether or not I was appointed or recommended for appointment.
"I've passed all the interviews for it. I've had a letter confirming that I have been recommended for appointment to the board."

As Johnson has stated that his loss of confidence in Lewis was brought about purely on the grounds that Lewis is not actually a magistrate as he claimed, then one can only presume that the Deputy Mayor has just called the Mayor of London a "fully paid-up member of the 'hair splitters' convention".

For Cameron - and for Johnson - this couldn't look any worse than it presently does. At a time when the Tories are supposed to be relishing in the unpopularity of Gordon Brown, we have newspapers filled with story after story about Johnson's collapsing Tory administration.

The Mayor of London's office comes under incredible press scrutiny. Ken Livingstone was continually placed under the spotlight and made it look easy to swat away press accusations. Boris is showing that Ken's skill is not one that he possesses.

Two resignations in the first two months.

As I said at the time, I think David Cameron is one day going to regard Boris' victory as a Pyrrhic one. And nothing that has unfolded so far has made me feel likely to change my mind.

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Exclusive: secret film reveals how Mugabe stole an election

Only a moron could be genuinely surprised to find that the vote in Zimbabwe was rigged, but this film, made with the help of The Guardian, shows just how blatantly the rigging was carried out. People were literally made to vote right in front of someone who was known to be one of Mugabe's men. In this case we witness prison officers being told that they can only vote by post, a postal vote that they must complete in the presence of their employer. An employer who has already stated that only Mugabe and Zanu-PF can be allowed to win the election.

Shepherd Yuda, 36, the man who made the film, states that Zimbabwe has been let down by Thabo Mbeki, the South African leader who, rather than intervene, continued to talk about "pan-Africanism".

I've made my views on that clear too many times to repeat the argument now.

"I had never seen that kind of violence before," said Yuda, of the run-up to the election. "How can a government that claimed to be democratically elected kill its people, murder its people, torture its people?"

The film, made for Guardian Films, shows how Yuda and his colleagues at Harare central jail had to fill in their ballots in front of Zanu-PF activists.

Yuda also obtained footage of Zanu-PF rallies where voters were told they should pretend to be illiterate so that an official could fill in their ballot for them on behalf of Mugabe.

He was able to film the MDC's general secretary, Tendai Biti, in leg irons in jail. Biti, now on bail, faces treason charges which carry the death penalty.

Having completed filming, Yuda left Zimbabwe with his family for a new life and is now at a secret destination.

"I don't regret doing this, although it is a painful decision I have taken," he said. "We can live without the memories of seeing dead bodies in the prison, dead bodies in the street, dead bodies in my family.

"I've lost my uncle. My father was also beaten by Zanu-PF. I am praying to God: please God deal with Zanu-PF ruthlessly."

The video speaks for itself, though I don't expect it to have any effect whatsoever. Mbeki and others know that the vote was rigged and yet do nothing. It's astonishing to witness a President of South Africa, of all bloody places, watch a black neighbouring population being denied their democratic rights, and - not only remain silent - but actually to give support to the person who is beating them out of those rights.

International pressure is mounting against Mugabe. It emerged yesterday that a US draft resolution to the UN will call for sanctions against Mugabe and demand that his government immediately begin talks with the MDC.

If adopted by the Security Council, the resolution would freeze the financial assets of Mugabe and 11 other Zimbabwean officials and ban them from travelling.

One would hope that international pressure will see the resolution carried, but I still fear that South Africa will ask China and Russia to veto anything which puts too much pressure on Mugabe.

I remember in the eighties when the ANC used to beg the world to place sanctions on the Apartheid regime that was oppressing them in South Africa. It is actually quite horrible to think that South Africa might now be the very nation working behind the scenes to prevent sanctions being placed on Mugabe.

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Friday, July 04, 2008

Daily Mail: Scots are foreign.

Unbelievable. From that right wing Tory rag, The Daily Mail, discussing Andy Murray's exit from Wimbledon:

Could there, though, be another explanation for our reluctance to accept Murray into our hearts?

The thought has been troubling me these past few days that part of the reason some of us have found it difficult to like him is that he is so obviously Scottish.

Where once Tim Henman, that perfect specimen of English respectability and decency, was the focus of our hopes, we have found it something of a challenge to identify with his successor, a surly Scot.

He seems - how can I say this? - slightly foreign.

And people have the nerve to wonder why so many Scots want independence?

Click title to read the entire diatribe.

Muslims feel like 'Jews of Europe'

Britain's first ever Muslim minister has said that Muslims today feel targeted like "the Jews of Europe".

Mr Malik made clear that he was not equating the situation with the Holocaust but warned that many British Muslims now felt like "aliens in their own country". He said he himself had been the target of a string of racist incidents, including the firebombing of his family car and an attempt to run him down at a petrol station.

"I think most people would agree that if you ask Muslims today what do they feel like, they feel like the Jews of Europe," he said. "I don't mean to equate that with the Holocaust but in the way that it was legitimate almost – and still is in some parts – to target Jews, many Muslims would say that we feel the exact same way.

"Somehow there's a message out there that it's OK to target people as long as it's Muslims. And you don't have to worry about the facts, and people will turn a blind eye."

This is the unspoken truth of the war on terror, that our politicians have singled out one religious group and told the rest of us that, because of radical Islam, we must fear one part of our populace more than any other.

I have no memory of the religion of the IRA having any part of public discourse during the days of IRA bombings here on the British mainland. We certainly never spoke of radical Catholicism in the way that radical Islam is now discussed as a catch all term.

This is all part of the "war of civilisations" approach to this matter that many politicians have willingly embraced, and there is proof that their attitudes are bleeding out into the populace at large.

The ICM survey found that 51 per cent of Britons blame Islam to some degree for the 2005 attacks while more than a quarter of Muslims now believe Islamic values are not compatible with British values. While 90 per cent of Muslims said they felt attached to Britain, eight out of 10 said they felt there was more religious prejudice against their faith since the July bombings.

Osama bin Laden sought to drive a wedge between Islam and the rest of us and he has been wildly successful, but his success has been based on the fact that our politicians and our media appear willing to do his work for him.

The MP said the negative portrayal of Muslims in the media, including a story run by several national newspapers in December last year wrongly stating that staff in the Dewsbury and District Hospital had been ordered to turn the beds of Muslim patients towards Mecca five times a day, was a key example of how his co-religionists were being alienated from the mainstream.

He said: "It's almost as if you don't have to check your facts when it comes to certain people, and you can just run with those stories. It makes Muslims feel like aliens in their own country. At a time when we want to engage with Muslims, actually the opposite happens."

It really is the silly season, where you can print or say anything you like about Islam, without fear of reprisal.

Europe, of all places, should have learned the dangers of that mindset a long time ago.

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US election: Obama denies flip-flop over policy on Iraq withdrawal

It really does take irony to new levels. With a candidate who flip flops more than anyone else I have ever heard of, the Republicans have the sheer gall to attempt to put that label on to Barack Obama.

Barack Obama was scrambling to clarify his stance on withdrawing US troops from Iraq yesterday after telling reporters that he would further shape his views following a visit to the country and meetings with military commanders there. The Republican party quickly accused the Democratic party's presidential nominee of a policy flip-flop.

Obama has campaigned on removing combat forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office. But yesterday in Fargo, North Dakota, he told reporters: "I am going to do a thorough assessment when I'm there. I'm sure I'll have more information and continue to refine my policy."

Later he insisted the broad thrust of his policy remained unchanged. "Let me be as clear as I can be: I intend to end this war," he said. "I have seen no information that contradicts the notion that we can bring out troops out safely at a pace of one to two brigades per month," with all out within 16 months. "This is the same position that I had four months ago.

"I continue to believe that it is a strategic error for us to maintain a long-term occupation in Iraq at a time when conditions in Afghanistan are worsening, al-Qaida is continuing to establish bases in areas of north-west Pakistan, resources there are severely strained and we are spending $10bn (£5bn) to $12bn a month in Iraq that we desperately need here at home, not to mention the strains on our military," Obama said.

But Republicans seized on the earlier remarks, having goaded Obama for several days about an anticipated shift in his policy on Iraq.

This really is a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't. Had he said nothing would change his mind after his trip to Iraq, he would have been accused of rigidness and going to Iraq for no good reason. The minute he says that he will use his time in Iraq to assess the situation, he is accused of flip flopping.

Even considering a situation is now supposedly a position of weakness.

This would appear to be a theme which the Republicans are going to attempt to mine; "Obama is just like every other politician":

"There appears to be no issue that Barack Obama is not willing to reverse himself on for the sake of political expedience," said Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Republican national committee. "Obama's Iraq problem undermines the central premise of his candidacy and shows him to be a typical politician."

That this charge is coming from the party whose candidate has reversed his position on abortion, Christian fundamentalist preachers, tax cuts for the rich, his own campaign finance legislation and torture. It really is hypocrisy on a staggering scale for this man, of all people, to accuse others of flip flopping.

This all comes within a day of McCain appointing a new campaign manager and apparently the promises of no negative campaigning have gone out of the window already.

The Republican national committee is to roll out a $3m television campaign at the weekend targeting Obama. Republicans have become increasingly vocal in their concerns that McCain has been outshone by the younger and more charismatic Obama and that the Republican campaign has had trouble projecting a consistent message. McCain has reportedly frustrated his staff with a number of slip-ups on the campaign trail. None have led to a major controversy, but they have confused his campaign message.

The McCain camp are now accusing Obama of committing McCain's own sins. Obama has, to my knowledge, flip flopped in one major area and that was FISA and Telecom immunity. As I have made clear, I wish he had not done so. However, it really is galling beyond belief to have a serial flip flopper like McCain now attempt to put that label on to Obama's shoulders.

Nor has McCain flip flopped for anything other than the worst type of political expediency. Having sold himself for years as "a maverick", McCain now seeks the approval of the very people that he has always detested. And, in order to do so, he is prepared to reverse every belief which he has ever sincerely held.

The campaign season has begun in earnest. And the clean campaign which McCain promised is apparently no longer on the menu.

UPDATE:

Obama has been saying that he will withdraw "carefully" from day one. You can simply Google it for God's sake.

And I love Scarborough's argument that Obama is only "responsible" when he apparently embraces Bush policies. And Scarborough then asks for "a show of hands" as to who thinks Rachel Maddow won the point. A point fought amongst a handpicked panel of Conservatives.

Click title for full article.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Andrea Mitchell attacks Wesley Clark

I find it amusing to see the tizzy that the media have got themselves into and the aggressive way that they are attacking Wesley Clark for the crime of questioning McCain's suitability to be president based on the fact that he was once a POW.

I seem to remember four years ago almost the entire Republican Convention wearing "purple heart" bandages to mock John Kerry's war record.

Why are the media horrified when McCain's record is merely questioned as a basis for him to be president, and yet they happily went along with Kerry's record being openly mocked and made fun of?

Why do we have this ridiculous double standard in which Republicans can mock war heroes, but it becomes scandalous if Democrats even question a candidate's suitability based on his own record in the armed forces?

Hitchens on Waterboarding: Believe Me, It’s Torture

Christopher Hitchens agreed to be waterboarded in order to decide for himself whether or not he considered this to be torture.

As you can see from the video, he lasts a very short period of time before he concludes that he cannot go on with the procedure.

From Vanity Fair:

You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning—or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure.

The “board” is the instrument, not the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered.

This was very rapidly brought home to me when, on top of the hood, which still admitted a few flashes of random and worrying strobe light to my vision, three layers of enveloping towel were added. In this pregnant darkness, head downward, I waited for a while until I abruptly felt a slow cascade of water going up my nose. Determined to resist if only for the honor of my navy ancestors who had so often been in peril on the sea, I held my breath for a while and then had to exhale and—as you might expect—inhale in turn. The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face. Unable to determine whether I was breathing in or out, and flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal and felt the unbelievable relief of being pulled upright and having the soaking and stifling layers pulled off me. I find I don’t want to tell you how little time I lasted.

McCain Puts New Strategist Atop Campaign

John McCain is never happier than when he is portraying himself as the underdog and, as he appoints a new campaign manager, he is once again stressing this point:

In a telephone interview, Schmidt said that McCain faces a difficult challenge, given the overall mood of the country, but that he is encouraged by the race remaining relatively tight.

"There are 125 days left until the American people will decide the next president," he said. "Senator McCain is the underdog in the race. We suspect he is behind nationally five to eight points but well within striking distance. I will help run an organization that exists for the purpose of delivering John McCain's message to the American people."

These are themes which McCain has played with his entire political life: McCain - the little man succeeding against all the odds. And it's a theme which the US press have been happy to play along with, despite the fact that there aren't many "underdogs" married to an heiress with a $100 million fortune, but the press don't bother themselves with such triflings.

Instead they concentrate on telling us how modest McCain is and how reticent he is to discuss the fact that he was tortured by the Vietnamese. Considering his shyness on the subject, it really is a wonder that we know as much about it as we all do; perhaps it somehow escapes, on it's own, into the ether.

The truth is, of course, that McCain mentions the fact that he was a POW every single day and in almost every speech he makes.

There is a terrible irony here though. As much as McCain pushes his Vietnam record, a record which he strangely refuses to have released, the truth is that - under the current US administration's definitions of torture - McCain probably wasn't tortured at all.

Now a woolly minded Liberal like myself would, of course, conclude that withholding medical attention and slapping someone around was torture, but I have spent the last four years being told by Republicans that I am wrong and that this is simply an enhanced interrogation technique.

So it really is the height of irony to have a Republican - and a man who voted to allow the CIA to waterboard prisoners - now campaign stressing the fact that he was once "tortured" whilst defending the US.

Apparently, it's torture when the Vietnamese do it but not when the Bush administration do far worse.

McCain doesn't need a new campaign manager, he needs a new campaign. At the moment all he's got is that he once a prisoner of war. And that merits a certain amount of sympathy, until one realises that he's a POW who has voted to allow the CIA to do far worse things to other POW's than were ever done to him.

Click title for full article.

Bush Officials Condoned Regional Iraqi Oil Deal

The Bush administration told Hunt Oil officials, a Texas based oil company with close ties to President Bush, that they did not object to it's efforts to secure an oil deal with the Kurds, despite the fact that they were doing so without any oil deal existing between US companies and the central Iraqi government.

Last fall, after the deal was announced, the State Department said that it had tried to dissuade Hunt Oil from signing the contract with Kurdish regional authorities but that the company had proceeded "regardless of our advice." Although Hunt Oil's chief executive has been a major fundraiser for President Bush, the president said he knew nothing about the deal.

Yesterday, however, Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released documents and e-mails showing that for nearly four months, State and Commerce department officials knew about Hunt Oil's negotiations and had told company officials that there were no objections. In one note, a Commerce Department official even wished them "a fruitful visit to Kurdistan" and invited them to contact him "in case you need any support."

That guidance contradicted the administration's public posture.

The company's chief executive, Ray L. Hunt, was not only a major backer of Bush but also a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, which makes White House claims that they knew nothing of this, extremely doubtful.

These deals, especially deals made with the Kurds, undermine the entire Iraqi government which does not recognise Kurdish autonomy and have led to about a dozen other companies making deals directly with the Kurds, further undermining the central governments authority.

All of this is taking place without any Iraqi oil law, a law which the Bush administration have been pushing for for the past year and which the Iraqi government have been resisting.

The release of the documents comes as the administration is defending help that United States officials provided in drawing up a separate set of no-bid contracts, still pending, between Iraq’s Oil Ministry in Baghdad and five major Western oil companies to provide services at other Iraqi oil fields.

In the no-bid contracts, the administration said it had provided what it called purely technical help writing the contracts. The United States played no role in choosing the companies, the administration has said.

Disclosure of those contracts has provided substantial fuel to critics of the Iraq war, both in the United States and abroad, who contend that the enormous Iraqi oil reserves were a motivation for the American-led invasion — an assertion the administration has repeatedly denied.

As Noam Chomsky famously said, it is very hard to imagine that the US would have invaded Iraq if it's main export had been lettuces, and as we watch US oil companies fall over themselves to make oil deals with anyone who will make them, even if they are making them outside of the Iraqi government, then this only heightens the feeling that we are watching the victors fighting over the spoils.

And that feeling is further underlined when one realises that, despite what they are saying in public, that the US government is actually encouraging such behaviour. It appears that they will undermine the central government's authority in a second if it means US oil companies might get their sticky hands on Iraq's black gold.

Click title for full article.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Israel Threatens To Attack Iran If U.S. Doesn't

These guys get it. Israel wants the US to do it's dirty work and Barack Obama's too clever to fall for it, so they hope Bush might do it before he leaves office. And Cheney and others are salivating to have the chance to start one more unwinnable war before they leave office.

McCain reacts badly to claims that he's campaigning on his POW status.

Oh, this is hysterical. McCain's getting himself all in a tizzy over remarks by Jim Webb that he should stop playing up his military service and that he should keep the military out of politics.

McCain has responded by claiming that the whole thing is a co-ordinated Obama attack.

Now the McCain campaign is responding to Webb, arguing that Webb's comments prove that Obama "can't control his surrogate operation." McCain spokesperson Brian Rogers sends us this:

If you didn't think this was a coordinated attack on John McCain's credentials before, it's clear now that it is. Barack Obama's surrogates are telling the McCain campaign to "calm down" about attacks on his military record? Seriously? Now somehow Wes Clark's attacks are John McCain's fault? It's absurd. If Barack Obama can't control his own surrogate operation, how can he be trusted to run the country?

It's clear that Webb's comments have thrown McCain's campaign into confusion as his military record is the only thing that John McCain is campaigning on.

The press and he pretend that he's modest about this and that he rarely brings the subject up, but the truth is that he mentions the fact he was a prisoner of war as often as Giuliani mentioned 9-11.

John McCain, and certain members of the right wing press, believe that the fact that McCain was a war hero means he should walk into the White House, which is why they get so incensed when retired general Wesley Clark points out that being a prisoner of war does not prepare one for the White House.

I mean, the McCain argument is simply nonsense on it's face. Let's reverse it. What qualities are the captives in Guantanamo Bay learning that would prepare them to become President of Afghanistan?

Other than a deep and abiding hatred of the people that captured them I can't think of a single quality that their time there would have fostered which would prepare them for the task of running a government, can you?

And yet McCain's entire campaign is built around the fact that he was once a prisoner of war as if it follows that this makes him, somehow, presidential material.

That's why the McCain camp are going apeshit over Clarke and Webb's comments. Because they are underlining the basic fault in McCain's entire strategy. His arguments concerning his POW status appeal to one's emotions, but when intellect is applied, his entire campaign falls apart.

It takes no special skill to be captured, and enduring capture as a POW does not prepare one to become Commander in Chief.

And it is in no way undermining McCain's military record to point this out. Guantanamo Bay is not a place where future Afghan presidents are made, and neither was the Hanoi Hilton.

This argument annoys the McCain camp so vehemently because, beneath all the false modesty of "I don't like to discuss my time as a POW", McCain actually does very little else.

His POW status IS his campaign.

UPDATE:

Typical of the right wing nonsense spewed about all this is Kathryn Jean Lopez's horror over at the National Review that Clarke could dare to say this:

I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president,” former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark told Face the Nation on Sunday.

But that's really not that different from this remark:

"It doesn't take a lot of talent to get shot down."

The only difference is that the latter comment was made by John McCain.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Obama on patriotism.

He makes so many great speeches that we now take it as routine that he will do so. Here he promises that, at no point during this campaign, will he question anyone's patriotism. Nor will he stand idly by if anyone questions his.

He also asks that surely we can all agree that "no political party or philosophy has a monopoly on patriotism."

Now, this is the very thing that certain Republicans will never agree with him on, as they do believe that their political philosophy makes them uniquely patriotic and that anyone who disagrees with them is instantly a traitor.

Obama does well to call them on this early in the election, but they won't listen, as playing the patriotism card is the only way that Republicans ever manage to get America's working class to vote against their own economic interests.

UPDATE:

I've managed to find the full version of this speech which includes this great Mark Twain quote, "Patriotism is defending your country all of the time and your government when it deserves it".

Bush praises McCain for the passing of a Bill which McCain actually opposed.

This is an indication of the lies that routinely come out of Republicans lips. Here we see Bush thank John McCain for his support for the GI Bill. The truth is that John McCain was opposed to the GI Bill saying that "it would hurt the military and our country very badly."

Saying he takes "a back seat to no one in my affection, respect and devotion to veterans," McCain said Webb's bill would be a disincentive for service members to become noncommissioned officers, which he called "the backbone of all the services."

"In my life, I have learned more from noncommissioned officers I have known and served with than anyone else outside my family," McCain said at a Memorial Day event in Albuquerque.

"They are very hard to replace. Encouraging people to choose to not become noncommissioned officers would hurt the military and our country very badly."

To now pretend that McCain supported a bill which we all know he opposed is the height of hypocrisy. Will the "straight talker" slam Bush for this?

Oh no, wait, he's already claimed credit himself for the passing of this bill which he opposed:

I'm happy to tell you that we probably agreed to an increase in educational benefits for our veterans that not only gives them increase in their educational benefits, but if they stay in for a certain period of time than they can transfer those educational benefits to their spouses and or children.

Who is this "we" he's talking about? He opposed this bill every step of the way. Will the press highlight yet another McCain flip-flop? I won't be holding my breath...

UPDATE:

Here Jim Gibb talks to Olbermann about Bush and McCain saying that they supported his bill.

Hat tip to Crooks and Liars.

Special Comment on FISA and Obama

Part 1.

Part 2.

According to John Dean the FISA amendments apparently only offer immunity in civil cases rather than criminal cases.

Olbermann here offers Obama a way out of the dead end street he appears to have boxed himself into.

Revealed: the infighting that has hobbled hunt for Bin Laden

I've already posted Sy Hersh stating that US forces are already operating inside Iran attempting to destabilise that nation, and note today that Dana Perino is refusing to issue any White House denial of Hersh's claims:

The White House Monday refused comment on whether U.S. President George Bush has requested funds for covert operations in Iran.
The New Yorker published a story by Seymour Hersh alleging the administration has initiated covert operations on the ground to destabilize the Iranian regime -- something denied Sunday by U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker in a CNN interview.

Asked whether Bush sought $400 million for such operations to "prepare the battlefield" in Iran, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told the daily press briefing she couldn't comment.

This comes at a time when the Bush administration are coming under criticism for concentrating on Iran at the expense of chasing al Qaeda.

Mr Bush will now leave office with al-Qa'ida having successfully relocated its base of operations from Afghanistan to Pakistan's tribal areas. According to the report in The New York Times, there may be more than 2000 foreign recruits to al-Qa'ida.

The US failure to tackle the al-Qa'ida leadership comes at a time when Mr Bush is increasingly focused on projecting the US military into Iran.

Operations in Iran have been expanded with the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command joining forces, according to current US officials. The New Yorker reported that undercover US operations inside Iran are undergoing a major expansion aimed at destabilising the religious leadership.

It has never seemed to me as if Bush was serious about getting bin Laden. From his failure to use US ground troops at Tora Bora to his misguided decision to invade Iraq rather than continue to hunt down bin Laden, Bush always appears to have had his eye on other goals, and his bizarre decision to announce recently that he wanted bin Laden caught before he left office only reinforced the impression that he has somehow placed bin Laden on the back burner.

Were bin Laden a priority Bush would never have had to make his most recent statement. That would simply have been taken as a given.

Nor has Bush's concentrating on Iraq and Iran at the expense of bin Laden and al Qaeda even been competently managed according a new US Army report:

Most damaging of all for President Bush's legacy may be a 700-page official history by the US Army. It points the finger of blame at US-based commanders who believed "in the euphoria of early 2003" that the goals in Iraq had been accomplished and failed to send enough troops to handle the occupation. The study specifically blames President Bush's declaration on board an aircraft carrier off San Diego on 1 May 2003, that major combat operations were over for reinforcing that view.
The audacious conclusions of the official army history, On Point II, were defended in a foreword by General William Wallace, commanding general of US Army Training and Doctrine Command, who wrote: "One of the great and least understood qualities of the United States Army is its culture of introspection and self-examination."

The report blames civilian and military planning for the failures of post-Saddam Iraq. After Saddam was toppled, US commanders sat back and expected a peaceful transition much as they had experienced in Bosnia and Kosovo.

The report also said the administration of George Bush assumed incorrectly that the Saddam regime would collapse after the 1991 Gulf War. The army history points out that the coalition commander, General Tommy Franks, told his subordinates to prepare to move most of their forces out of Iraq by September 2003.

"In line with the ... general euphoria at the rapid crumbling of the Saddam regime, Franks continued to plan for a very limited role for US ground forces in Iraq," the report said.

It would take until July 16 2003 for his successor, General John Abizaid, to acknowledge that US forces were facing a classic guerrilla insurgency.

Some of the most scathing criticisms of the US military have come from within its own ranks.

Lt- Col Paul Yingling touched off the debate last year, complaining in public: "After going into Iraq with too few troops and no coherent plan for postwar stabilisation, America's general officer corps did not accurately portray the intensity of the insurgency to the American public."

This has been an administration of simply stunning incompetence, who took the events of 9-11 as an excuse to carry out a right wing agenda, which saw the overthrowing of Saddam Hussein as an urgent US priority, whilst singularly failing to take seriously the mission of tracking down the man they claim was responsible for the worst terrorist attack ever on their own soil.

And, even today, we read of Bush's continual obsession with undermining the Iranians, whilst bin Laden continues to evade capture. It's hard, reading this, to ever believe that bin Laden was treated as anything other than the excuse they needed to complete the agenda set out by Kristol and others through The Project For A New American Century's website.

As of May 20th this year, the Project For A New American Century's website became inoperable. I hope that's a metaphor for the collapse of the entire failed neo-con agenda.

Click title for full article.

African leaders stay silent on Mugabe

I really don't know why I pretend to myself that certain people are going to do the right thing. It's like I'm tormenting myself, pretending that people have some innate sense of right and wrong which will, in the end, prevail; when it appears that they simply don't.

Africa's leaders have failed publicly to condemn Robert Mugabe for stealing Zimbabwe's presidential election by proceeding with a run-off vote in which he was sole candidate at the height of an officially orchestrated intimidation campaign.

At a summit of the 53 member states of the African Union – in which stable democracies remain a minority – Mr Mugabe was praised as a "hero" by the veteran President of Gabon, Omar Bongo.

Although he was not addressed as "Mr President" by fellow summiteers gathered in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, the embattled Zimbabwean leader was comforted by speeches in which few spoke out about the political violence in his country. His most vocal opponent, President Levy Patrick Mwanawasa of Zambia, suffered a stroke and was rushed to hospital on the eve of the summit.

That the AU could sit with this man in it's midst and not mention the brutality which he has unleashed upon innocent people in Zimbabwe simply leaves me speechless.

This was the moment for the AU to step up to the plate and they have failed to do so. Despite the lead of Mandela, Tutu and the ANC they have publicly said nothing.

They should be ashamed of themselves.

Meanwhile the torture and brutality continues inside Zimbabwe whilst the AU entertain Mugabe as if he was a visiting dignitary.

This is the story told by a seventy year old woman who watched her own son shot for supporting the MDC.

The old woman was not spared. "They hit me on my back and ribs. As they beat me, they said to me: 'Did you think you could get away with betraying your country? You, old woman did you think you'd get away with this?' I saw them shoot my son again before I fainted."

When she came to, she found that the brutally beaten family had been dragged to a clearing in the village.

In a ritual humiliation that has been repeated throughout Zimbabwe, Gibb was forced to renounce his party and insult the MDC leader. Then they called for volunteers from the village to execute him. She did not recognise the man that pulled the trigger.

Murder complete, they were put back on the pick-up – one of the hundreds of new Mahandra vehicles with no number plates that have been purchased by the bankrupt state and issued to the death squads.

Another stop was made to shoot dead Hama Madamombe, a well known local MDC supporter, and abduct his brother.

The surviving family was transported to the Tetra farm about 30 miles away, one of the thousands of commercial farms seized by the Mugabe regime. It now belongs to the notoriously violent Chigwada brothers, Effluence and Shami, who have set up one of the Zanu torture camps there.

By the time they arrived at the camp, it was dark. The beatings that had begun mid-morning started again. No one remembers how long they went on.

But when their torturers grew tired they brought out the bottles of Paraquat – a Chinese-manufactured herbicide, used to kill weeds.

It has become a weapon of choice in Zimbabwe's political terror campaign and the militia have been instructed to dip their sticks in it before beating victims.

The four terrified survivors were then forced to drink it. Mrs Chigoro remembers her son, Hamilton, telling her not to swallow the burning liquid.

This is going on all over Zimbabwe whilst Mugabe sits there, feted as if he is a world leader. Zimbabwe's shame is now truly Africa's shame. This was their moment. This was their time to step up to the plate, inspired by the ANC, Mandela and Tutu.

They have manifestly failed to do so. And, all the while they were sitting there, Mugabe's death squads continued to round people up in Zimbabwe, putting blood on all of their hands.

Click title for full article.