American Nukes

A subject that should concern us all..how many, and of what type of nuclear weapons does the U.S. have in it's arsenal?

Of course that bunch of brainiacs over at The Bulletin have all the figures.

My best estimate is that we have too many.

I'm not for nuclear non-proliferation. I'm for total global nuclear disarmament. I'm unlikely to live to see this, but I aim high :)

Kerry Distorts, We Report

This time a Kerry ad falls under the watchful eyes of Annenberg's Fact Check.

The Kerry ad in question makes the audacious claim that a vote he cast in the Senate created 20 million new jobs. That's just malarkey.

On a more positive(well, negative really) note, Kerry makes an oblique jab at Bush.

"I thought it was important if you had a lot of privileges as I had had, to go to a great university like Yale, to give something back to your country."

Now that's truely a political barb. Naughty, naughty. But it's fun as well.

NEXT!

Our man in Fallujah, General Jasim Mohamed Saleh, is challenging U.S. statements that the 'insurgents' in Fallujah are 'foreign Islamist gunmen, some with possible links to al-Qaeda."

According to this Reuters report, Saleh states: "There are no foreign fighters in Fallujah."

I don't have a clue if there are foreign fighters in Fallujah or not. The U.S. Has made an unqualified statement that there are foreign fighters in Fallujah. If this is so, that must have evidence that they would be willing to share.

With all of the atrocious acts surfacing last week, the U.S. is under much closer scrutiny. Anything that the military officials in Iraq can do in an attempt to salvage any semblance of integrity should be done.

He said, she said.

In the same article we find this nugget:

A U.S. official said rank would not necessarily exclude anyone from a role in the new Iraqi forces, although another official in the Iraq administration said the policy of excluding senior figures of Saddam's regime remained "rock solid".

I think it's safe to say that some former Ba'ath party officials will be in positions of authority at some point.

Or, we can simply change the meanings of: 'exclusion' 'policy' 'senior' 'officials' 'rock solid'...you're getting the idea. A semantic game.

If there's one thing we've certainly learned from Bush's Excellent Iraq Adventure, it's that what is unconscionable today, becomes the fashionable thing to do tomorrow.

This isn't seen as win for all Iraqis. Kurds and Shi'ites are none to pleased to see that the U.S. has cut a deal with the largely Sunni city of Fallujah, while their battles rage on.

As for General Saleh's future, if this contrarian statement about foreign fighters in Fallujah is seen as a part of a wider break with U.S. policy, he'll be replaced. Most likely by U.S. marines at first, who are waiting to resume the siege of Fallujah should things not turn out as negotiated.

Saleh is on the griddle, but so are the U.S. occupation policies.

Not News!

In The Politics of Truth, Joseph Wilson's new book concerning the outing of his wife Valerie Plame, Wilson writes:

"I am told ... that the Office of the Vice-President - either the Vice-President himself or more likely his chief of staff, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby - chaired a meeting at which a decision was made to do a work-up on me. As I understand it, this meant they were going to take a close look at who I was and what my agenda might be."

The FBI is still investigating the leak, and has met with senior White House officials.

So, this is not typical pure bs stuff. Until there are charges pressed and indictments served, this is all just kinda fun.

Oddly, the usually very factual Independent is really playing this up. The usually very good Andrew Buncombe has written an atypically sensational article about the affair. It's mostly just stuff from Wilson's book.

Since Wilson has reportedly spoken to The independent about the outing of his wife, perhaps they feel it is their story. I'm a little disappointed. This should be in the entertainment section at this juncture. No, I do not think that this is at all entertaining. It is deeply disturbing to suspect that your governance would jeopardize national security and people's lives in order to retaliate for someone that spoke the truth. That's frightening.

I've dedicated way to much drive space to this. :)

Soldier for the Truth

"Our troops are still waiting for more body armor. They are still waiting for better equipment. They are still waiting for a policy that brings in the rest of the world and relieves their burden. Our troops are still waiting for help."

"I don't expect our leaders to be free of mistakes, I expect our leaders to own up to them."

In a refreshing break with tradition, the Weekly Democratic Radio Address was given by a veteran of The Iraq war redux. I guess that makes two breaks with tradition. It's the first time I've linked to Fox News *shiver*

Paul Rieckhoff, who gave the address, tells a different story from that of the president. Rieckhoff lays it out in easy to follow terms. That's what I like about veterans. Unless they're way up in the food chain, they aren't likely to bs you. Bs gets them killed.

A worthy read. I know it's Faux News, but it's an important message.

It's Worse Than We Know

Seymour Hersh, Richard Perle's favorite journalist, has obtained a fifty-three-page report written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release.

In the report, a much more comprehensive picture of the extent and nature of prisoner's vile treatment in the now even more infamous Abu Ghraib prison is revealed.

One paragraph details some of the atrocities:

Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.

Pretty sick stuff. But it's rather tame compared to what Hersh writes in the linked to article.

If you read but one article today, this should be it. It's verbally very graphic.

Planet Bush

The first paragraph of Bush's weekly radio address is illuminating.

Without further ado:

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. A year ago, I declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq, after coalition forces conducted one of the swiftest, most successful and humane campaigns in military history. I thanked our troops for their courage and for their professionalism. They had confronted a gathering danger to our nation and the world. They had vanquished a brutal dictator who had twice invaded neighboring countries, who had used weapons of mass destruction against his own people, and who had supported and financed terrorism. On that day, I also cautioned Americans that, while a tyrant had fallen, the war against terror would go on.

Miltary campaigns are now "humane?" You gotta be kidding me.

Saddam was "a gathering danger to our nation and the world." No. He was not. Bush, and anyone with adequate knowledge of the pertinient sets of data knows this. Sheesh.

"They had vanquished a brutal dictator" O - M - G Saddam is at large. Odd use of tense there.

Just what type of terrorism did Hussein 'support?' What did this 'support' consist of? Financial support? Pure bs.

Iraq was and is not only a major diversion on the "WoT," it has been a real gift to anti-U.S. groups - whatever their background.

Let's drop any pretense that Saddam was anything but 'our guy' in the region until he invaded Kuwait. He was a CIA asset from 1958-1990.

He waged war against the Iranians with chemical weapons with our covert blessing. During Reagan's terms while Saddam was gassing Iranians, an anonymous inside source told the New York Times that the Pentagon "wasn't so horrified by Iraq's use of gas. It was just another way of killing people — whether with a bullet or phosgene, it didn't make any difference."

What Bush is selling, I'm not buying. I already picked some up to fertilze my lawn - I'm set for a year.

Just when will the lies and distortions stop?

Terrorism: Bah!

It's time to change the dialogue into the something constructive.

Terrorism, Iraq and the like aren't the menace that unchecked global pollution is. Not by any stretch.

Here's a bit of the George Monbiot interview on Democracy Now! from Friday, 30 April 2004.

AMY GOODMAN: I'm Amy Goodman here with Juan Gonzalez in our New York studio. We're used to speaking to him on the phone. It's great to have him in the studio. He traveled across the Atlantic, bringing us this book, Manifesto for a New World Order. Extreme global climate change and how does it fit into the global political picture, George?

GEORGE MONBIOT: This is the big, big problem that we're up against. Even the Pentagon now is listing it as possibly the foremost threat facing humankind, even the Pentagon. And we're looking at the possibility of making the living conditions, which permit human life to take place on earth, making those conditions impossible. It's a very interesting little snapshot of what could potentially happen. 250 million years ago, the Permian Period came to an end in a catastrophic way. About 90, 95% of all life forms were wiped out, including anything bigger than a small pig, i.e., anything bigger than ourselves or indeed, smaller than ourselves. The reason for this, huge emissions of carbon dioxide produced by volcanoes raise the world's temperature by six degrees. The current projections by the intergovernmental panel on climate change are talking about anything up to six degrees within this century. We could make the conditions which make human life possible -- we could destroy those conditions within this century, if we don't move very, very fast. What we have got to see is part of any just world order, and part of any world order which is actually going to permit people a decent standard of life, any people a decent standard of life, we have got to see a huge cutback in the consumption of fossil fuel.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Yet when it comes to change in this area, the Bush administration here in the United States is perhaps doing everything it can to set back all of the environmental efforts and reform that this country has been involved in now for the past 30 years.

GEORGE MONBIOT: That's right. It's a measure of effectiveness of the corporate propaganda relayed through the corporate media that people aren’t taking to the streets about this right now. I mean, this guy, George Bush, is endangering the conditions which make human life on earth possible. What could be worse than that? What could be a more appalling disastrous project than the one that he is following? If people are going to rebel about anything, that's the thing to rebel about.

Rebel. I'm ready for a real revolution.

See link above for full transcript of interview. AND, if you can, toss a few coppers their way.

UPDATE:The Independent is reporting that Antarctica will be the only habitable continent in 100 years unless our use of fossil fuels starts abating NOW! Much more at link. Get active. Cool off!

Souter Attacked

I saw on CNN this morning(no, I wasn't home - I was eating breakfast - my no-TV pledge is till on) that Supreme Court Justice, New Hampshire resident and genuine nice guy, David Souter was assaulted while jogging last evening. CNN reports that Souter 'was assaulted by two men.'

Two men, eh? Where were Toni Scalia and Clarence Thomas last night? I'm not implying anything here, but I do have my suspicions. :)

All kidding aside, I am glad that Justice Souter is reportedly doing just fine and has only 'minor injuries.'

How can I say that Souter is a nice guy? I used to volunteer at a local agricultural co-op where Justice Souter often shops when not in Washington. He's very reserved, and extremely polite.

Update: Concerning my interview of a U.S. psych. nurse just back from Kuwait, she's still talking about things. I'll post the whole story on another site I work on(work? Heh).