The Osterley Times

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Bush Attempts to Pardon Himself for War Crimes.

Cafferty says it all when he wonders, "What are we becoming?" At least Nixon waited for Ford to pardon him, Bush is setting out to pardon himself...

Did Canada cave under US Israeli pressure?

The Bush regime have always set out to make reality what they say it is rather than contend with tiresome actuality. However, they are now having some considerable success with this nonsense if this story is any indication of how things work. Now the truth can, apparently, be changed with a single phone call...

Hat tip to The Largest Minority.

Countdown: Bushed!

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

No End In Sight

The scale of the incompetency of the neo-con Iraqi war plans are laid bare in this movie. For the effect they have had on the lives of tens of thousands of people - both Iraqis and American servicemen and women - these ideological lunatics should be jailed.

They have created chaos and called it democracy. Every single person who has argued to defend what they did should hang their heads in shame...

Things Turn Nasty

I, like any liberal, am a huge fan of Bill Clinton. However, I agree with Barack Obama that Clinton has recently been less than honest when discussing comments that Obama has made regarding Ronald Reagan and his criticism of the Iraq war which Bill has referred to as the "biggest fairy tale I've ever seen".

Obama has responded by saying:

"President Clinton went in front of a large group, said that I had claimed that only Republicans had had any good ideas since 1980," Mr Obama said. "And then he added, 'I'm not making this up'. He was making it up and completely mischaracterising my statement."

"He continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts, whether it's about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq or our approach to organising in Las Vegas," Mr Obama complained . "This has become a habit, and one of the things that we're going to have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he's making statements that are not factually accurate."

Here the gloves come off and things get nasty. Hillary defends herself by claiming that she didn't say the things that Obama is upset about when it is obvious to one and all that Bill is operating as her attack dog, saying things so that she doesn't have to.

The poor and the sick suffer as Israel cuts power to Gaza

Following on yesterday's post concerning the collective punishment being imposed on the people of Gaza by the cutting of their power supplies, today's Independent carries an article on the subject that can be read by clicking the title.

In it is a quote by Ehud Olmert:

"As far as I'm concerned, all the residents of Gaza can walk and have no fuel ... because they have a murderous terrorist regime that doesn't allow people in the south of Israel to live in peace."

He's not even hiding the fact that collective punishment is the very point of what he is doing.

Click title for full article.

Crash! Biggest fall in shares since September 11

George Bush has been euphemistically referring to it as a "slowdown" in the American economy, but yesterday - as the American markets slept due to a holiday - the rest of the world reacted and it's verdict was damning. The markets clearly feel that a US recession is now inevitable.

In a single session, a massive £84bn was wiped off the value of Britain's biggest companies, as the FTSE 100 index plummeted by 5.5 per cent, closing 323.5 points lower at 5578.2. Last week the index dipped beneath the 6,000 mark for the first time since the credit crunch began in August. It was the eighth consecutive day of losses. Since Christmas Eve, the FTSE has dropped by almost 1,000 points and last night analysts were predicting further falls.

While President George Bush has authorised an economic rescue package to address the US sub-prime crisis, market experts believe the plan has come too late. And no one believes the world's other major economies will remain unscathed as America plunges into an economic downturn. For the world's biggest companies, recession in an export market as vital as the US can only spell trouble.

One senior UK-based trader said: "The fear is palpable as investors are getting more worried about the prospect of a recession in the US. In the current climate any vaguely scary news is pummelling the market." Martin Slaney, head of derivatives at GFT Global Markets, said: "The punches just keep coming. Ambivalence over Bush's rescue plan for the US economy was the trigger of this rout, causing fears of an economic slowdown."

It was literally felt worldwide. Japan's Nikkei index was down almost 4%, while Germany's Dax and France's CAC index both fell by 7%.

In Britain:

Since the start of the year share prices have dropped by 14%, with the near 900-point fall in the FTSE 100 wiping out all the gains of the last 18 months and putting renewed pressure on pension funds. Yesterday's 5.48% fall was the biggest in percentage terms since the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks but less than half as big as the record 12.2% drop in October 1987.

What's interesting here is that, for so long, Bush has been allowed to create his own reality. Success is just around the corner in Iraq, a fantastic job was being done clearing up Katrina etc., etc,. And a mostly compliant US press have simply printed this rubbish as if it was the truth.

Now the worlds markets are reacting to Bush's plans to prevent the US economy from plunging into recession and it is quite obvious that they believe his plan to be too little, too late.

UPDATE:

Fed slashes rates in shock move

The Federal Reserve has cut interest rates to 3.5%, a shock three-quarters of a percentage point reduction.

Fighting to stave off recession in the world's biggest economy, the decision comes after sharp stock market declines on Wall Street and around the globe.

The Fed said incoming information indicated a deepening of the US housing market slump and increased unemployment levels.

One analyst said the Fed was "obviously panicked" by the threat of recession.

"Unfortunately they have no power to reverse what in my opinion is the worst post-war recession," said Michael Metz, chief investment strategist at Oppenheimer in New York.

The last two such surprise cuts were on 17 September 2001, shortly after the attacks of 11 September, and on 3 January 2001, in the wake of the dotcom bust.

The last time the Fed cut rates as much as three-quarters of a percentage point was in August 1982, almost 26 years ago.

"This is huge," said the BBC's business editor Robert Peston.

Related Articles:

America's economic perfect storm.

FUTURE HISTORIANS are likely to look back on the final year of the Bush administration as a moment not unlike 1930, when government dithered while a financial crisis deepened. At every stage of this unfolding crisis, the official response has been too little and too late.
I'm not predicting another Great Depression. Happily, the people who kept insisting that private business could regulate itself did not repeal the entire New Deal. We still have deposit insurance, Social Security, (reduced) bank regulation, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a Federal Reserve given much stronger powers than in the 1930s.
And we still have a government capable of serious anti-recession spending - if it so chooses. But as the credit crisis deepens, this particular government is still infatuated with free-market fables now thoroughly discredited by events. So we must wait another 13 months before a new government can begin digging out of a needlessly deep hole.
America now faces an economic perfect storm: a weakened financial system, diminished consumer purchasing power, a swooning dollar, and rising inflation. [...]
. . . The eventual recovery will require a repudiation of free-market economics, as bold as the New Deal. But like so much else about the Bush legacy, recovery will be far more agonizing than it had to be.

Click title for full article.

Monday, January 21, 2008

The McLaughlin Group: The Economy Tanking

What effect has the Iraq war had on the American economy?

The panel of Mort Zuckerman, Eleanor Clift, Monica Crowley and Pat Buchanan on this Friday's The McLaughlin Group sat down for a discussion on whether our economy is tanking and whether or not it's in part due to Iraq. Mort Zuckerman paints as gloomy a picture of the economy as we heard the other day from Jim Cramer but he refuses to admit that the occupation in Iraq might have anything to do with the economy tanking now. Zuckerman is also completely dismissive of Ron Paul's arguments about the economy during the ABC GOP debate. Of course Buchanan and Crowley think it's only a minor drag on the economy and Crowley goes so far as to start spouting off about how great the economic growth is there. How's that occupation and genocide going for you Monica? Oh the economy is booming....it's wonderful. Clift and McLaughlin disagree. We do have a real mess on our hands as Zuckerman describes with the sub-prime lending industry and the economic forecast is looking very dreary to put it mildly for the reasons he describes, but I don't understand how anyone can completely separate our irresponsible borrowing and spending on the bottomless pit called Iraq from the state of the economy in general we're facing now. The conservatives answer to our problems of course, lower taxes and cut government spending, code for gut Medicaid and Social Security, but that war spending, no problem.

Hat tip to Crooks and Liars.

Gaza plunged into darkness as Israeli fuel blockade takes effect

Collective punishment is a crime. And yet, how else can one describe Israel's decision to cut off fuel supplies to Gaza's only power plant plunging parts of Gaza into darkness?

Nor are the Israelis even hiding the reasons for what they are doing:

Israeli officials said the policy was directly linked to the rocket attacks. "If they stop the rockets today, everything would go back to normal," said Arye Mekel, a foreign ministry spokesman.

The vast majority of the people of Gaza have nothing to do with rocket attacks on Israel and to punish them for an act that they have not committed is illegal. And yet, as usual, the west and the US will remain silent whilst the people of Gaza's existence is made even more unbearable, if that were even possible.

Human rights groups have issued protests, but they will be routinely ignored as they always are whilst blackouts in Gaza continue for up to twelve hours a day.

From Damascus, Khaled Mashaal, the exiled leader of Hamas, appealed to Arab leaders and his rival, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, to forget their differences and help the Gazans: "All Arab leaders, exercise real pressure to stop this Zionist crime ... Take up your role and responsibility. We are not asking you to wage a military war against Israel ... but just stand with us in pride and honour."
Mashaal said he had been in contact with some Arab countries, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to see if they would pressure Israel. He had asked Egypt to provide fuel for the Gaza plant.

Ha'aretz are reporting that even Israeli officials are saying that the effects of the power cuts are worse than they expected with Hamas claiming that five patients have died because of power cuts in hospitals.

Israel continue to lay the blame for what is happening at the door of the people who fire the rockets into Israel, and whilst one can see the logic of this argument, it was to counter just such logic that collective punishment was deemed a crime.

I'm sure the IRA might possibly have set off a few less bombs, and certainly enjoyed less popularity at home, had the British government employed similar tactics in Northern Ireland; but the effect of the policy and whether or not it is effective is hardly the point here.

It is wrong for governments to collectively punish people for crimes that they did not commit and Israel, like the British government with internment and some of their other disastrous policies in Northern Ireland, do themselves no favours when they resort to such tactics.

Indeed, it could be argued that such policies, far from harming the terrorist's cause, actually radicalises the civilian population.

However, as I say, whether it does or does not is hardly the point; the point is that Israel's behaviour is illegal. And it should be condemned.

Click title for full article.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Tom Ridge: Waterboarding Is Torture

Tom Ridge, the first ever secretary of the Homeland Security Department, has said what is obvious to the rest of the world - even if some Republicans find it hard to get their head around it - waterboarding is torture.

It's hard to think of anything that has done more to damage the US's standing in the world in recent years - even including horrors like Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib - than the sight of some Republicans indulging in immoral semantic discussions about whether drowning someone might or might not be considered torture.

So it's very welcome to hear a former member of this corrupt administration speak in such clear terms against a practice that few us, before the Bush government, could ever have imagined Americans not only practicing, but in some cases publicly defending.

"There's just no doubt in my mind - under any set of rules - waterboarding is torture," Tom Ridge said Friday in an interview with the Associated Press.

"And I believe, unlike others in the administration, that waterboarding was, is - and will always be - torture. That's a simple statement."

What's astonishes me here isn't that he actually said it, but that so few Republicans have found it in themselves to condemn such a foul practice.

In fairness McCain and a few others have also spoken out against this barbaric practice, especially when confronting Giuliani over his ludicrous claims that it would depend on how waterboarding was done and by whom before he could state whether or not this constituted torture:

“All I can say is that it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it is being used against Buddhist monks today,” Mr. McCain, who spent more than five years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, said in a telephone interview.

Of presidential candidates like Mr. Giuliani, who say that they are unsure whether waterboarding is torture, Mr. McCain said: “They should know what it is. It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture.”

However, the few willing to publicly decry this practice remain the exception that proves the rule.

Most Republicans seem to have fallen behind the party line that the US must be willing to engage in any action in order to fight terrorists, apparently believing that when one's civilisation is under threat that one must immediately abandon the beliefs that previously defined that civilisation.

Indeed, Republican supporters like Bill O'Reilly have gone much further than expressing confusion over whether or not waterboarding is torture and have started arguing that it should be used because it works.

O'Reilly then characterized waterboarding as " putting a little water on their face". He challenged Bogart with, " You'd rather have people die than give the President the latitude.."

So you see, for some Republicans like O'Reilly, those who oppose waterboarding are actually aiding in the deaths of innocents.

When they are swept from power at the next election they will be puzzled as to why they are viewed with such revulsion. They really don't get it.

So Ridge's condemnation is to welcomed, especially as it seems to highlight the silence from so many others who ought to know better.

“Qui tacet consentire vidétur.” Silence equals consent.

Click title for full article.

FOX Attacks! "Non-Existent" Veterans

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL: Clinton, Obama, King and Johnson

Clinton Back in Pole Position

And the pendulum swings back towards Hillary.

Hillary Clinton today reclaimed her position as the Democratic frontrunner in the race for the White House, defeating Barack Obama in the Nevada caucuses in a campaign marked by divisiveness and bullish tactics.

The victory for Clinton - her second in the early primary states after New Hampshire - also established her popularity over Obama among Latino voters. The win gives her a crucial advantage going into Super Tuesday on February 5, when California and other western states with large Latino communities hold their primaries.

Click title for full article.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Mike Huckabee compares homosexuality to bestiality.

Israeli reaction to Bush's Middle East visit

Kristol seeks to rally the troops.

Here in Europe, press coverage of the Republican party's fight to choose a presidential candidate has never really got anyone excited. Perhaps it's the feeling that whoever wins the Democratic nomination is almost guaranteed - after eight failed years of neo-conservatism - to walk into the White House.

There's certainly no-one in the race who gets my blood boiling, with even Giuliani - the only candidate with the chance of doing so - simply promising more of the same failed policies and stances which have led the US into her current dead end street, which leads me to suppose that - even if he wins the nomination - the stances he will have to adopt in order to do so almost guarantee that he will lose in any national poll.

It is with this in mind, and with Conservative commentators criticism of the candidates ringing in his ears, that William Kristol has decided to issue his rallying call to the Conservative troops in an article entitled, "Waiting for Reagan".

The Conservative love affair with Ronald Reagan has always puzzled me, but lets leave that aside.

The dearth of candidates to genuinely excite the Conservative base is something that Kristol seeks to gloss over, reminding his readers that many great Presidents did not always appear to have greatness within them before they entered high office:

So the conservative commentariat should take a deep breath, be a bit less judgmental about these individuals--and realize that there is not likely to be a second Reagan. They could also learn from liberalism's history. Liberalism was the most successful American political movement of the first two-thirds of the 20th century. Its three iconic presidents were Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and John Kennedy. All advanced the liberal cause while in office. None was a standard-bearer for liberalism before becoming president--though each was inclined in a more or less progressive direction.

What it means to be a serious, successful, and mature political movement is to take men like these--one might say to take advantage of men like these--in order to advance one's principles and cause.

So conservatives might think of John McCain as our potential TR, Mike Huckabee as our potential FDR, and Mitt Romney as our potential JFK. Support the one you prefer. But don't work yourself into a frenzy against the others.

It really says something about the quality of the candidates on offer that Kristol is reduced to making such ludicrous comparisons, however, he saves the very best till last with his offer of what to do should the Republicans be unable to choose which of these turkeys it would like to enjoy at Christmas.

Let the best man emerge from a challenging primary process. And if there is no clear-cut winner, then the delegates at the GOP convention can turn on the fifth ballot to an obvious fallback compromise candidate, one who would be just fine with conservatives--Dick Cheney!

Dear God, they really are scraping the barrel when their fallback compromise candidate - and the one that Kristol assures us would be "just fine with conservatives" - is a man with a popularity rating of 18%.

They are in even more trouble than I thought they were.

Click title for Kristol's article.

Friday, January 18, 2008

What change means to each candidate - Olbermann

Where is John Edwards in the media coverage?

Good for John Edwards...

Canada puts United States on torture list with Syria & Iran

Keith's guest sums it up perfectly when he says that this semantic argument about what constitutes torture is actually over in Europe. We call it what it is. It is torture. And now Canada, one of the US's oldest allies, has put the US on it's list of country's where it's citizens - if detained - might experience torture.

Sicko

I watched Sicko last night and, once again, found myself simply staggered at the American health system. The whole notion of running a health system based on the profits of insurance companies rather than the well being of patients strikes me as unbelievably dumb.

With the costs of operations being so high it seems obvious that, in any system run for profit, the temptation will always be to cut corners, and that - in the same way as insurance companies attempt to refuse claims when your house is burgled - that this same logic will eventually be applied to your health care. Turning down a claim is a way of maximizing profits and will eventually become too tempting to resist.

And, whenever I read Republicans attempting to defend this insane system, it always seems to come down to why should they pay for poor people's treatment. As if turning one's back on the poor and infirm is actually some kind of higher moral purpose.

Not that this health care comes cheaply. Americans currently spend more on health care than any other country on Earth.

And yet:

The World Health Organization's ratings of health care system performance among 191 member nations, published in 2000, ranked Canada 30th and the U.S. 37th, and the overall health of Canadians 35th and Americans 72nd.

Right wingers have somehow managed to stigmatize national health systems as "socialised medicine", as if attaching the word socialism to anything immediately renders it useless.

But the facts speak for themselves. Leaving aside the obvious horror stories that Moore managed to uncover, the simple fact is that - despite spending more than any other nation - the overall health of Americans is ranked 72nd in the world.

In a country that can put men on the moon that fact alone should render the current system unacceptable.