A Week's Worth

Since I have let my blog slide the past week, I am going to attempt to atone for my delinquency. I'm going to use this entry to list a bunch of things that I have noted in past week that fit the blog's anti-bs bias. I'll update this entry for the next 12 hours or so.

No excuses. Just life got in the way. Let's begin.

Condi v. NORAD. NORAD has issued a statement that contradicts Dr. Rice's testimony to the 9-11 Commission.

In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.

One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center. In another exercise, jets performed a mock shootdown over the Atlantic Ocean of a jet supposedly laden with chemical poisons headed toward a target in the United States. In a third scenario, the target was the Pentagon — but that drill was not run after defense officials said it was unrealistic, NORAD and defense officials say.

NORAD, in a written statement, confirmed that such hijacking exercises occurred.

"Numerous types of civilian and military aircraft were used as mock hijacked aircraft," the statement said.

A White House spokesman said Sunday that the Bush administration was not aware of the NORAD exercises. But the exercises using real aircraft show that at least one part of the government thought the possibility of such attacks, though unlikely, merited scrutiny.

Again, the Bush Administration claims dumb about matters of national security. I have no knowledge that any Bush Administration had any knowledge of these exercises. But since Bush is running as a single issue candidate, it is another illustration that the Bush Administration may have been 'asleep at the wheel' regarding terrorist threats prior to 9-11.

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King Abdullah of Jordan cancels Washington visit. Widely seen as a moderate in the region, and a U.S. ally, King Abdullah is justifiably concerned about Bush's 'rubber-stamping' of a new 'plan' endorsing an Israeli proposal to withdraw unilaterally from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank but keep Jewish settlements on other West Bank land claimed by the Palestinians.

Kerry also apparently approves of the 'plan.' As he told Tim Russert last Sunday on Meet The Press.

This is sure to win the hearts and minds of the Arab world.

Will we never learn? I mean if you look at how successful Israel has been at stemming terrorism within it's borders, any plan the Israeli's conjure up is by design aimed at inflaming Palestinian's and the rest of the Arab world.

Kerry needs to grow a set, and put up a real alternative to Sharon's plan. This 'Bush-Lite' approach is damned sad.

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Speaking of Israel.

Ha'aretz is reporting that members of the Israeli cabinet are now saying they will begin trying to assassinate leaders of Hamas who live outside Israel and the occupied territories. Hamas's main leader in exile, Khaled Meshaal, who lives in the Syrian capital, Damascus, is a top target.

Additionally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair became the latest international leader to condemn Israel's assassination of Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi. Blair told Parliament Monday, "We condemn the targeted assassination of Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi just as we condemn all terrorism, including that perpetrated by Hamas." (No link)

Of course the U.S. cannot condemn the assassination as we are killing in Afghanistan and Iraq with impunity. No, that's not part of the Ha'aretz article, but it's axiomatic.

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