Nukes: Thumbs down

PIPA/Knowledge Networks conducted a poll in March concerning American's feelings about nuclear weapons testing and their fears about WMD. For the abstract and other good stuff, see the links from this page. Note: .pdf files - Acrobat reader required.

People surveyed showed strong majorities to be in favor of multi-lateral inspections regimes, including the U.S. to ensure compliance with the various international conventions. A very positive thing.

Because people tend to read what's on the page, rather than follow links to information, I'll post some of the findings here.

A near unanimous 92% favored giving international inspectors the power to examine biological research laboratories in all countries, including the US, to determine if they are abiding by the treaty against biological weapons, and 74% incorrectly assumed that the US favors inspections, too. When a separate sample was told the US argument that "If international inspectors can look into US biological research laboratories they may get information that they can use for their country's advantage in commercial biotechnology and biodefense," support was lower, but still strong at 76%.

Eighty-seven percent favored US participation in the treaty banning all nuclear weapons testing (CTBT) and 56% incorrectly assume that the US is already a member. When presented several arguments for and against participation, including the concern that it would limit development of US nuclear weapons, support was almost unchanged at 84%.

A majority (59%) is not aware that the US made a commitment to seek the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons as part of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. However 84% think doing so was a good idea and 86% think the US should make greater efforts toward that goal. Even without this information 61% favor pursuing the goal of elimination of nuclear weapons, though two-thirds recognize that this is not the goal of the Bush administration.

In general, Americans show a readiness to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in US security policy. Fifty-seven percent favor the US reaffirming its commitment to not use nuclear weapons against countries that do not have nuclear weapons, as a way of encouraging them not to acquire or build nuclear weapons. Despite heightened concerns about a chemical or biological attack, 84% oppose seeking to deter such an attack by threatening nuclear retaliation. Eighty-one percent oppose the US ever using nuclear weapons first. Eighty-two percent favor the idea of the US and other nuclear powers agreeing to reduce the number of nuclear weapons on high alert.

When asked whether it is necessary to develop new types of nuclear weapons, 65% said that it is not. However when a separate sample was presented a series of arguments for and against developing new nuclear weapons, some arguments in favor were found convincing and afterwards the percentage saying that it was not necessary was lower--59%. The most convincing argument, though, was a con argument that said, "The immense destructiveness of nuclear weapons makes it critical that the US discourage other countries from developing them. The US would be setting a bad example if it were to abandon its restraint and start developing new types of nuclear weapons," which 63% found convincing.

Americans show a readiness to make deep cuts in the number of US nuclear weapons. Asked how many nuclear weapons the US has ready to be used on short notice the median estimate was 200-far below the actual number of approximately 6,000 active strategic warheads, more than 2,000 of which are on high alert. Nonetheless, asked "How many nuclear weapons do you think the US needs to make sure other countries are deterred from attacking it," the median response was a mere 100. Also, while the Bush administration has proposed only dismantling nuclear weapons that come under US-Russian arms reduction agreements, 72% reject this reversible approach in favor of completely destroying them.

On the biological weapons front, 68% opposed the idea of inventing new infectious diseases as part of biodefense research--rejecting the pro argument that "it is always possible that terrorists will also develop them and we need to be ready with new vaccines and antidotes against them," in favor of the argument that if the US does, "then other countries are more likely to do so and there is too great a danger that the new infectious diseases will be released into the environment by accident or malicious intent."

Consistent with the support for deemphasizing the role of military threats in dealing with the threat of proliferation, support for increased defense spending has slipped to its lowest point in a decade. Just 16% said the US spends too little on defense, while the percentage saying that it spends too much-41%-was the same as the percentage saying the present level is about right. The last time the percentage saying the US spends too little has been so low was in January 1992 (NBC/Wall Street Journal).

More broadly, Americans show strong support for a multilateral approach to US security interests. Asked to choose between two statements, only 16% chose the one that said, "The US should use its power to make the world be the way that best serves US interests and values." Rather, 83% chose the one that said, "The US should coordinate its power together with other countries according to shared ideas of what is best for the world as a whole." Similarly, 79% rejected the argument that "Since the US is the most powerful nation in the world, we should go our own way in international matters, not worrying too much about whether other countries agree with us or not"-historically a very high percentage for this trendline question that has been asked for decades.

Interesting stuff to a numbers geek like me. Obviously people are concerned if not a little bit ignorant about where the U.S. stands on various issues.

I'll bet with a series of qualifying questions leading up to the big question as to the proper amount of military spending, you could shift most of that 'other' 41 percent to answer that the U.S. spends too much on its military.

When you look at the numbers of people that are for non-proliferation of weapons, it doesn't make a great deal of sense that the U.S. spends roughly as much as the rest of the world combined - or at least the next 50 countries combined - that 57 percent of respondents think that the U.S. either spends the right amount, or not enough on offense(let's call a spade a spade here. Spending on the military is primarily for offensive operations). An odd position, but not unexpected in a country where irrational fear is engendered by the politico/media establishment.

You can read the results as well as I can. It shows that people aren't likely to vote for 'mini-nukes' even in the current climate of fear - the 'background level' for the threat of terrorism is 'elevated' (you know 'yellow' or Ernie, I believe).

All in all, a very positive poll. People realize that the U.S. isn't alone in the world, and that we have some blood on our hands.

Bush v. Treasury

Is Bush just really confused? His own Treasury Department contradicts his campaign's message.

Since it's a tax issue, I can't hold Bush too accountable. He's an MBA, and they are infamous for their inability to 'do the math.' ;)

At this point, it's Bush's only campaigning tool. Pretty much everything else he was going to run on is now a liability. From being 'tough on terror' to ummm being 'tough on terror,' his campaign is unraveling.

Click on over to Fact Check and give a Republican a math quiz. It'll be fun, I promise.

Lying in Your Email

This time Annenberg's Fact Check is dishing out the truth regarding an email being circulated that's infested with presumably GOP lies.

Annenberg's Brooks Jackson sets the record straight.

Some of this stuff will surely end up on Snopes along with that stupid Robin Williams foreign affairs hoax. I have received that one at least a dozen times. Some of the senders have grad. degrees.

Critical thinking should really be taught in schools. Americans are so easily taken in by utter bs. It's sad commentary on the state of our education here in the US of A. *sigh*

Woodward too?

Well, well. It seems that Bob Woodward is really free of morality. Of course in November of 2002 when it was financially advantageous - as well as politically safe - to paint Bush as a warrior, Woodward fawned praise on our Commander-in-Chief.

Woodward's OLD Bush book, Bush at War was a flattering bit of tripe. Woodward's NEW Bush book, Plan of Attack, reportedly casts the Bush Administration in a far different light.

I'm no fan of W, as I feel that he is wholly unqualified to lead this nation.

Bob Woodward, who has had unsurpassed access to the Bushies, looks - and I'm being kind here - like a faux patriot.

Woodward's latest work is more or less likely to be a corroboration of things that numerous former Bush Administration officials have been saying since Greg Theilmann first spoke to PBS' Frontline a couple of years ago, and then the O'Neill/Suskind book came out and Clarke's, ad infinitum. Now that Bush bashing is in vogue, Woodward unwraps another book exposing the Bush's plans to invade Iraq and take out Saddam.

His 'coming out' will be in this week's installment of 60 Minutes. I know, I was shocked as well.

Fish wrap.

Poor Bob, he had a career once. He was involved in exposing a thing called "Watergate." Now the only thing he's exposing is his yellow streak.

"A courageous man prefers death to the surrender of self-respect." - Mohandes K. Gandhi

I wonder what Woodward prefers?

I am all for getting to the truth about Bush's Iraq plans. Now that it is 'safe' to talk about such matters, Woodward enters the fray. I'm sorry, but Woodward is damaged goods. Too bad. I'm sure his book will fill-in lots of gaps.

Out of the loop

I am so out of the loop right now. It's very sad ;) Because I've received some negative feedback as of late, I'm working on two new style sheets for the blog.

The first one, which I'm nearly finished, is for those that have observed that my blog is too dark. I think you'll like the results. I'm liking it very much....and I'm my own harshest critic.

The other stylesheet will give the blog a much more newspaper look. Not as fun, but industrial.

I have a newly worked out style-switcher in Javascript..it works in all JS capable browsers.

So, if you pop by say..On the 17th or 18th, you'll be able to view the blog in any of three styles.

I'll post some 'ouvelles de la politique' either later on this evening, or tomorrow.

If you can bear with my idiosyncrasies for another 48 hours, I think you'll like the new viewing options.

In the interim, if there is anything you are interested in and the usual suspects aren't bearing fruit..try News Now, the amazing UK news aggregation service.

One thing..I was just reading this CS Monitor piece, and while hand-wringing over just what label to apply to the utter chaos in Iraq, the writer, Jeffrey Shaffer fails to mention the most likely scenario.

It is becoming clearer with every passing hour that the Iraqi people are simply not going to sit idly by while the U.S - who is seen by many Iraqis as another repressive ruler - serves as a surrogate for Saddam. Iraqis want law and order. Being people with a sense of pride mixed with a healthy dose of outrage, they seem bent on pursuing whatever course allows them to be a free people.

You can forget about WMD. Everyone with any semblance of critical thinking skills and not ignorant of the situation knows that we lied our way into Iraq. The Iraqis are all too aware if this. Now we are killing them ofttimes without provocation. If what is happening over there was to happen here, I'd be an armed 'insurgent.' I think the term Mr. Shaffer is searching for is patriot.

The Iraqis are doing everything in their power to drive the invaders out. Sure it's tough to hear and watch, but turn the tables. What would you do? Anything and everything you could to drive out the occupiers. They drove out the British in the 1920s. Do not be surprised if history repeats itself.

Why do they hate us? I have no idea.

[Update: Since I posted the above, I have recieved some less than pleasant emails. To those of you that read that entire enrey and felt compelled to drop me a line, I do thank you. However, I must tell you that I am in no way condoning the atrocities being exacted upon by persons and/or groups within Iraq against any foreign persons. I am applying this to both indigenous persons as well as 'the coalition.' I was - and in hindsight can see how my entry may have engendered anger - simply trying to place myself inside Iraq as a common Iraqi. The U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq was and remains a breach of International law(see Richard Perle for details). The Iraqis no doubt see this as a war fought under a bogus pretext, and now view everything that the coalition does, and the IGC with skepticism if not outright cynicism. I still maintain that if the tables were turned, we would do likewise. Thank you.]

Distortions

In Slate piece, TNR regular Jonathan Chait, points out the obvious. Namely that GWB distorts his opponents' positions on terror. Not really anything new there.

He fails to correct Right-Wing hack, and former W speechwriter David Frum who wrongly wrote in the nearly unmentionable National Review™ - A Rupert® Murdoch® Publication® when he penned(typed?) that "It was George W. Bush, first, who recognized that this war[against international terrorism] was indeed a war."

Frum knew better. Or at least he should have. It was another faux cowboy in the White House, Ronald Reagan, who in 1981 averred, "let terrorists be aware, that when the rules of international behavior are violated, our policy will be one of swift and effective retribution." Over the remainder of his terms in office, Reagan and his Cabinet would employ the tools of war, espionage, secret negotiation, and finally international law enforcement, in the effort to combat terrorism.

It should be pointed out that whilst Reagan was fighting terrorism in Libya and Lebanon, Reagan was also arming and training anti-communist groups like the Contras and the mujahideen.

Consider Frum's statement an example of the 'doctrine of change of course.' Simply put, every few years we move in a new direction - often a repeat of an old pattern - and conveniently forget the less glorious consequences of our past which we were denying even as it was taking place.

Iran - Contra is a notable example of 'the doctrine' in effect.

Oddly enough, W's dad never mentioned being at war, or fighting back against terrorists.

However, Clinton did.

Read Chait's piece at Slate. It's quite good. I promise. :)

Dear John

If you're going to reuse a phrase that implies a known data set, just do it. Don't fudge it.

Once again, Annenberg's Fact Check does the heavy lifting.

This time Kerry falls under the watchful eye of the Annenberg Public Policy Center.

I'll leave it up to the reader to determine what items should be covered when gauging the nation's 'misery'. I'd say that unilateral unpopular illegal war should be included. But then, that's me.

If you're going to compare 'apples to apples,' make sure that they're the same varieties of apples. This isn't reasoned dicourse. It's unsound obfuscation. I have no tolerance for bs(blog name notwithstanding :) )

Unfiltered Iraq News

Here's the Free Speech Radio News segment about Iraq from 12 04 2004.

I also cropped today's report(13 04 2004). You can d/l the file and listen right here.

They're on a pretty fast server, and the file sizes are far more manageable.

Amazing reports coming directly from Iraq.

Peace.

Stuff - Unsorted

I haven't had a chance to read Ashcroft's statement and testimony before the 9-11 commission of earlier today.

I won't - and this is a true shame - be able to listen/watch Bush's scripted 'press conference'/address this evening. A tragedy.

If you want o get a much better sense as to what is really happening on the ground in Fallujah download and listen to today's and yesterday's broadcasts of Free Speech Radio News. Correspondent Aaron Glantz is in Baghdad, and has spoken to seemingly everyone from al-Jazeerah to (something of import beginning with "Z")     :)

Relatively small download sizes for newscasts, and well worth listening to. One caveat. If you have broadband, it won't seem like it d/l ing from the site. The server is pretty slow. I may host the reports if given permission. The request has been made.

Until Friday, it's going to be very weird at the pure bs command center. I've taken on a bit too much work. Pity that. I'd much rather be informed, and blogging :)

Bush A Casualty?

If you extrapolate Lunaville's Official 'Casualty' Count you'll quickly discover that this month is likely to be the deadliest yet for American troops in Iraq.

It is also likely to be one of the bloodiest for Iraqis.

Just off the wire is news that Hazem al-Aaraji a reported al-Sadr aide, and prominent Shi'ite cleric has been detained.

Update: Reuters is reporting that al-Aaraji has been released after questioning.

The situation is intense, and apparently very fluid in Baghdad, Najaf, Fallujah and Kerbala, with al-Sadr's al-Mahdi militia reportedly still in control of Najaf and Kerbala.

The U.S. plan to kill or capture al-Sadr and "destroy his militia" - that has been providing needed services - isn't likely to win the 'hearts and minds' of the Iraqi people.

It's as simple as dirt. The Iraqis are acting precisely as I hope we would act if an army invaded the U.S. and occupied the country.

The Iraqis do not trust the IGC, and Bremer doesn't appear to have any support at all. I fear that things are going to get far worse before they get better in Iraq.

I have a couple of accounts from Fallujah that I'll put up as .mp3s from the last couple of days. I'm working a crazy schedule, so it may be a couple of days before I get them sorted and uploaded.

I have a friend that is a foreign desk editor for the AP working in the region, and she tells me that all the reports that are coming in are almost surreal. U.S. troops "acting way outside of international conventions" is really distressing to her. It bothers me greatly as well.

WTF was Bush thinking? A$$hole.

Regime change begins at home.

Bush's re-election bid should be a casualty of the Iraq war redux.

(I know that this entry is a lot more pointed and shrill than nearly all of my other entries, but I do have emotions....honest! :)

We're Not Buyin'

Editor & Publisher has a rundown of how a sampling of the press reacted to the late Saturday night release of the now famous 6 August, 2001 PDB.

The majority of the press outlets looked at don't appear to be buying the White House pre-spin as elucidated by Dr. Rice during her appearance before the 9-11 Commission.

E&P's article does contain some 'historical information' concerning what W was doing on 7 August 2001. (Hint: His hair was not on fire)

As Tony Turns

In this entry I linked to this CNN article concerning Scalia's lack of concern for our Constitution when he had two reporters erase their audio tapes of a speech he gave in Mississippi.

Well, it looks like that heroic defender of the Constitution has had a change of heart. (no doubt he'll be needing Jarvik's latest model soon..It's humor, folks)

Tony has graciously apologized to the two reporters and revised his stance on audio recordings of his speeches so that now we may be blessed with Scalia's words in print form only. Why the big deal? He's no one I'm rushing to listen to.

So, for you press types, you can make audio recordings of Tony's speeches, but may only reproduce them in print form. They are not for airing on television or radio(I suspect that the web is verboten as well).

A tragic loss to us all. ;)

Semantic Antics

Dana Milbank, reporting for WaPo.

Bush, on a trip from his ranch here to nearby Fort Hood, said he is praying daily for fewer casualties in Iraq, where nearly 50 Americans have been killed in an uprising over the past week. But Bush said he sees no need for more troops and characterized the violence in Iraq as the work of "a few people" and "violent gangs."

"It was a tough week last week, and my prayers and thoughts are with those who paid the ultimate price for our security," Bush told reporters after praying with families of soldiers in Iraq. Asked whether the violence would ebb soon, he replied: "It's hard to tell. I just know this: that we're plenty tough and we'll remain tough."

Bush has been quoted as saying that he gets his news from his advisers, but can he really be this far out of the loop of current events?

I think we may need to redefine the following words in the following manner:

Few = Thousands (a "few people" do not typically take over three or four major cities)

Gang = Well Armed Private Militia See: Popular Uprising (gangs aren't known for providing services to people when an occupying force cannot)

We = Surrogates Sent by a President to do his Bidding

Maybe it's just me, but this sequence illustrates a Commander-in-Chief unconscionably out of touch with the reality on the ground.

Vacationing while you're private war rages uncontrollably? This man is not thinking.

Someone should let George know that prayer is no substitute for additional troops.

I wonder if Bush has heard the word "Mahdi?"

It Takes a Crook

BuzzFlash interviews convicted Watergate felon, and Nixon's chief counsel John W. Dean. The interview's focus is the why of the provocative title of Dean's new book Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush.

Worth a few minutes of your time.

QUOTES!

Well, two anyway. This is Larry C. Johnson, former CIA analyst and deputy director of the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism.

"I call the color-coded system the 'terrorism mood ring.' Security isn't green, yellow and purple. This is a public relations ploy, run by people who are making decisions on security who don't really know what they're doing. They make statements that aren't backed up by any real data or empirical evidence. It's faith-based security.

"They continue to insist that this is the greatest threat we've ever faced, and that's just ludicrous. I don't want to minimize the terrible losses of 9/11, and we have to take the terror threat seriously. But let's be real: We've heard the likes of Gen. [Richard] Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, say that terrorism is the greatest threat we've faced perhaps since the Civil War. Are you kidding me? There were more than a half million deaths in that war. There were nuclear missiles pointed at us by the Soviet Union during the Cold War that could've incinerated millions instantly. Terrorists on their best day can't kill millions."

Indeed.

These quotes came from this Salon article, which is an illustration as to how and why the Bush Administration continues to press the fear button.

If it's Christmas, go to threat level Ernie.

More Iraq

The Telegraph adds some color to my assertion below that the Sunnis and Shi'ites are forming an alliance.

The Mahdi Militia - the private army of Muktada al-Sadr - is reportedly handing out leaflets calling for both unity amongst the two sects to fight against the occupation.

In other Iraqi news, Patrick Cockburn, reporting for The Independent is stating that the cease fire is holding, even in lieu of the earlier downing of a Blackhawk helicopter and the killing of its crew of four.

There is just way too much going on in Iraq to get to all of it. News Now gives you to the minute coverage from over 16,000 news sources...Indispensable.

Ceasefire Reached

I have a bunch of items from a bunch of sources.

IOL is reporting that faced with stiff Iraqi resistance and mounting popular resentment, the U.S. occupation troops and Iraqi fighters in the restive town of Fallujah have reached a 12-hour ceasefire starting Sunday, April 11, 06:00 a.m. GMT (10:00 Baghdad time).

Aljazeerah satellite channel said that the U.S. occupation troops will pull out of the town six hours after the start of the truce.

Bush is reported to have called the past seven days of violence in Iraq: "A tough week."

Mid-East medical sources are reporting that there are 600 Iraqis dead in Fallujah alone.

Tony Blair is quoted in The Observer as saying: "We are locked in a historic struggle in Iraq. On its outcome hangs more than the fate of the Iraqi people. Were we to fail, which we will not, it is more than 'the power of America' that would be defeated. The hope of freedom and religious tolerance in Iraq would be snuffed out. Dictators would rejoice; fanatics and terrorists would be triumphant. Every nascent strand of moderate Arab opinion, knowing full well that the future should not belong to fundamentalist religion, would be set back in bitter disappointment."

The British played this movie before. Think back to circa 1920..yeah, when Churchill was keen on using chemical weapons against THAT popular Iraqi uprising.

It is great news to hear of a cease fire..however brief.

It should be clear to anyone getting their news from other than U.S. propanganda arms, that the uprising in Iraq is rapidly turning into a popular uprising.

The Sunni's and Shi'ite's are united against the coalition forces. This unification hasn't happened since Great Britain occupied Iraq in the early 20th century.

Iraq is, by accounts coming in from the region, a more dangerous place than at any time since the beginning of hostilities.

Bush can drop the "enemies of freedom" bs. These people are fighting for their freedom. Not freedom on U.S. terms. On Iraqi terms.

We're going to have to figure this one out by ourselves. The U.N. and the balance of the world community aren't likely to lend a hand in what is almost universally seen as an illegal occupation. I hope that we possess the wisdom to see this though, and to allow Iraqis the freedom for which so many of them have already died.

Sorry about the 'staccato' nature of my sentences. It's quite late for me. I promise more fluid prose tomorrow. :)

Democracy Now!

If you can spare the time, Friday's edition of Democracy Now! is definitely worth a listen.

Included in Friday's show are two ex-CIA analysts, and reknowned whistle-blower Coleen Rowley. Sibel Edmonds makes a return visit, and none of the four have very flattering things to say about the Bush Administration. I have seen Ray McGovern, one of the ex-CIA agents, on PBS, and he seems a very 'straight shooter.'

Monica Gabrielle, member of the Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Commission, Co-Chairperson of the Skyscraper Safety Campaign and a member of Member of Coalition of 9/11 Families and 9/11 Families for a Secure America chimes in with her own critique of the 9-11 Commission.

On a humorous note, a Washington state-based company that manufactures and sells bags around the world has a bit of fun with our Commander-in-chief. The company, Tom Bihn, is now selling bags with an inside label that carries instructions on washing and caring for the bags. Because the bags are sold in Canada, the instructions are also printed in French. The French version, however, contains an additional phrase that translated into English means, "We are sorry that our President is an idiot. We didn't vote for him."

I don't think that Bush is an idiot. He is, in my not so humble opinion, wholly unqualified to lead the nation, but that doesn't make him an idiot. I too, am wholly unqualified to lead this nation. But then, I KNOW I am not qualified to be pres-uh-dent. :)

The PDB

I should let this pass without comment as I'm a few days off the pace. However, I'll just post a few links.

David Usborne, reporting for The Independent counters Condi's claim, and I think rightly so, that the 6 August 2001 contained only "historical information."

Full text of the PDB:

Declassified and Approved for Release, 10 April 2004

Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."

After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a ...(redacted portion) ... service.

An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an ... (redacted portion) ... service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative's access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.

The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Ladin's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US. Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Ladin lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own US attack.

Ressam says Bin Ladin was aware of the Los Angeles operation.

Although Bin Ladin has not succeeded, his attacks against the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Ladin associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.

Al-Qa'ida members -- including some who are US citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two al-Qa'ida members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our Embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Ladin cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ... (redacted portion) ... service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar 'Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.

More links:

Bush claims PDB did not foretell of attacks

Ashcroft Never Saw PDB

DoJ and the FBI to Exchange Blows

FBI has Some Explaining to do

The American Muslim Vote

This data is about a year old, but I think one can still draw conclusions from the data. This is especially true given the recent, ongoing violence in Iraq.

This study was limited to Detroit area Muslims. Potentially, this is political dynamite, as Michigan is one the hotly contested "battleground states" in the upcoming elections.

The study, conducted by Ihsan Bagby, a professor at the University of Kentucky, has only just released the findings.

Essentially, Professor Bagby's findings are that whilst traditional Muslims have shunned politics in the past, they are now motivated by what they see as civil rights issues to become more politically active.

Professor Bagby writes:

"A couple of decades ago, Muslims were, for the most part, internally focused and had very few involvements at any level [with civic life].

"Starting in the 1980s, the Muslim community, as it matured and became a lot stronger, started to become more involved."

The 1300 surveyed Muslims, when asked about their religious beliefs were fairly evenly divided between those who took a more traditional approach to Islam, and those who believed a more liberal interpretation should be interpreted in a modern-day context. Only 8 percent said they followed ultra-conservative(fundamentalist) teachings. Curiously, the 8 percent closely follows those Christians in the U.S who regard themselves as fundamentalist Christians.

But I digress.

Nearly two-thirds of those who called themselves "most conservative" Muslims, strongly agreed that they should participate in U.S. politics.

Moving on to the bigger picture, 78 percent of all respondents said they "strongly support" political involvement. Additionally, 73 percent said Muslims should "work more closely with non-Muslims" on community service projects.

Concerning politics, not surprisingly, respondents ranked civil rights as the most important for American Muslims followed by education and U.S. foreign policy. Pre-9/11, American policy in the Mid-East had been the defining issue for the American Muslim community.

Since the survey was conducted just after the invasion of Iraq, we get to the potential bombshell. A full 85 percent of respondents disapproved of the wat Presindent Bush "was running the country." About 66 percent were registered to vote.

Note: I got some of this data from an AP wire article. The balance of the data was mined from information at Zogby International.

What does this mean? I would say that there is a strong possibility that the great majority of American Muslims -- whose real numbers are hard to come by -- will be voting for someone other than Bush in November.

If there are, as is widely reported 7 million Muslims in the U.S., this could have a profound effect on the outcome the presidential election. If, as is otherwise reported, there are as few as 1.5 million, the effect will naturally be less pronounced. See this article to see the wide variance in American Muslim population.

I'm going to leave it at this: The American Muslims are a voting force, but just how much of a force depends on numbers that there is no real consensus on. How's that for taking a stand ? :)

Kerry in the Lead

The latest NEWSWEEK poll shows Kerry leading Bush by 50% to 43%.

If you dissect the data, the biq question: "[Do you approve of] the way things are going in this country" garners just a 36% percent positive answer.

That is usually the most telling question about how voters feel about the big picture. For the Bush camp this has to a source of concern.

Then again, these early polls are for pundits and news junkies.

While you're at NEWSWEEK, take the Condi Convincing Poll

As usual the web respondents seem to be another species. Everybody's a critic :)

Semi-Random Thought

If Bush is running as a "war president," what has he done to assuage Americans' concerns about the recent and ongoing sharp escalation of violence in Iraq?

He speaks volumes by remaining mute.

Scalia: Supreme Hypocrite

Tony hails U.S. Constitution as "extraordinary and amazing," in a speech in Mississippi, while trampling freedom of the press.

Neanderthal.

Condi Files

Now that Dr. Rice has testified, I'm going to offer two Commissioner's questions and her answers per day. In the interest of brevity, I'll stick to what I see as the most controversial of matters.

Without further ado, Day 1.

KEAN: Some Americans have wondered whether you or the president worried too much about Iraq in the days after the 9/11 attack and perhaps not enough about the fight ahead against al Qaeda.

We know that at the Camp David meeting on the weekend of September 15th and 16th, the president rejected the idea of immediate action against Iraq. Others have told that the president decided Afghanistan had to come first.

We also know that, even after those Camp David meetings, the administration was still readying plans for possible action against Iraq.

So can you help us understand where, in those early days after 9/11, the administration placed Iraq in the strategy for responding to the attack?

RICE: Certainly. Let me start with the period in which you're trying to figure out who did this to you.

And I think, given our exceedingly hostile relationship with Iraq at the time -- this is, after all, a place that tried to assassinate an American president, was still shooting at our planes in the no-fly zone -- it was a reasonable question to ask whether, indeed, Iraq might have been behind this.

I remember, later on, in a conversation with Prime Minister Blair, President Bush also said that he wondered could it have been Iran, because the attack was so sophisticated, was this really just a network that had done this.

When we got to Camp David -- and let me just be very clear: In the days between September 11th and getting to Camp David, I was with the president a lot. I know what was on his mind. What was on his mind was follow-on attacks, trying to reassure the American people.

He virtually badgered poor Larry Lindsey about when could we get Wall Street back up and running, because he didn't want them to have succeeded against our financial system. We were concerned about air security, and he worked very hard on trying to get particularly Reagan reopened. So there was a lot on our minds.

But by the time that we got to Camp David and began to plan for what we would do in response, what was rolled out on the table was Afghanistan -- a map of Afghanistan.

And I will tell you, that was a daunting enough task to figure out how to avoid some of the pitfalls that great powers had in Afghanistan, mostly recently the Soviet Union and, of course, the British before that.

There was a discussion of Iraq. I think it was raised by Don Rumsfeld. It was pressed a bit by Paul Wolfowitz. Given that this was a global war on terror, should we look not just at Afghanistan but should we look at doing something against Iraq? There was a discussion of that.

The president listened to all of his advisers. I can tell you that when he went around the table and asked his advisers what he should do, not a single one of his principal advisers advised doing anything against Iraq. It was all to Afghanistan.

When I got back to the White House with the president, he laid out for me what he wanted to do. And one of the points, after a long list of things about Afghanistan, a long list of things about protecting the homeland, the president said that he wanted contingency plans against Iraq should Iraq act against our interests.

There was a kind of concern that they might try and take advantage of us in that period. They were still -- we were still flying no-fly zones. And there was also, he said, in case we find that they were behind 9/11, we should have contingency plans.

But this was not along the lines of what later was discussed about Iraq, which was how to deal with Iraq on a grand scale. This was really about -- we went to planning Afghanistan, you can look at what we did. From that time on, this was about Afghanistan.

KEAN: So when Mr. Clarke writes that the president pushed him to find a link between Iraq and the attack, is that right? Was the president trying to twist the facts for an Iraqi war, or was he just puzzled about what was behind this attack?

RICE: I don't remember the discussion that Dick Clarke relates. Initially, he said that the president was wandering the situation room -- this is in the book, I gather -- looking for something to do, and they had a conversation. Later on, he said that he was pulled aside. So I don't know the context of the discussion. I don't personally remember it.

But it's not surprising that the president would say, "What about Iraq," given our hostile relationship with Iraq. And I'm quite certain that the president never pushed anybody to twist the facts.

Two questions, two answers. Answers that have qualifiers such as "I don't recall" and "I'm quite certain," should instill doubt in persons in pursuit of what really occurred. If you look at Richard Clarke's public testimony, you see very little of this behavior.

On the question of Iraq, I think that there is too much corroboration of Clarke's account -- including Paul O'Neill's and Sir Christopher Meyer's recollections -- to let Rice's "I don't remember the discussion" statement pass without comment. This is most likely an attempt to shelter the president.

That Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz wanted to invade Iraq as an exemplary action to test PNAC's worldview is certainly no surprise.

Rice's entire answer to Kean's follow-up question is very odd. "This is in the book, I gather," can only be viewed as that she certainly has knowledge of Clarke's book, and I find it very odd indeed that by 15 Sept. 2001, it was from all accounts obvious that 9-11 was al-Qaeda's "spectacular" attack, that Iraq would even be discussed.

Clarke wrote and testified that Bush did want to connect Iraq to 9-11 and by other accounts this is reasonably confirmed.

Leave comments if you wish. I'm off for the night. Tomorrow I'll be back to 4+ items per day.

Condoleezza Live!

Listen or Watch Live!

Will the 9-11 Commission fry Rice?

Stay tuned!

Live updates:

9:18 A.M. Dr. Rice looks and sounds frightened

9:28 A.M. Pressured speech apparent

9:58 A.M. The August 6th PBD - Richard Ben-Veniste finally throws a good pitch.

10:01 A.M. Ben-Veniste asks directly that the Aug. 6th PDB be declassified (applause)

10:04 A.M. Ben-Veniste finally starts the tough questioning

10:09 A.M. Rice: "No direct threat information about a U.S. attack" in Aug. 6th PDB

10:09 A.M. Rice: Clarke was "shaking the trees" about al-Qaeda attack

It's clear that the August 6th PDB needs to be declassified in it's entirety...the PDB is titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the United States"

10:20 A.M. Commissioner Fred Fielding offers that several attacks thwarted

10:22 A.M. Fielding questions Rice about 'principals' not being involved in Bush Administration during high threat period

10:25 A.M. Rice questions whether "shaking the trees" thwarted millennium attacks. Rice credits "alert customs agent."

10:28 A.M. Gorelick is picking up where Ben-Veniste left off. She's very good.

10:39 A.M. Gorelick asks Rice about differences Bush Administration and "Operation Infinite Resolve" - The Clinton Administration's plan.

10:59 A.M. Kerrey slams Rice over the "swatting of flies" statement. Claims - "Bush never swatted any flies..so what the Hell was he talking about?"

11:04 A.M. Kerrey accuses Rice of filibustering..rightfully so. It's his time!

11:07 A.M. Kerrey claims that if intel was put on on "Intel Link" they would have "rolled this up."

11:09 A.M. Kerrey drops a bomb. Reads portion of memo: Planes to be hijacked - July 5th 2001

I'm listening This is intriguing.

A couple of notes:

Rice makes no apology.

It appears that Rice was "out of the loop," rather than Clarke.

I'll cherry-pick the transcript later :)

It's obvious that we need to get a bunch of documents declassified. Demand it!

Bah. Rice basically gets a free pass.

Bush Ad Distorts Again!

I really adore Annenberg's unbiased Fact Check. Today's winner(loser?) is a Bush attack ad that uses previously debunked material as well as new distortions. Who says you can't have it all?

Quick analysis:

Bush released yet another attack on Kerry April 1, an ad appropriately named "troubling." The Bush ad recycles a couple of bogus claims we've de-bunked before -- a misleading claim that Kerry voted for "higher taxes" 350 times and a claim that "Kerry's plan will raise taxes by at least $900 billion." We pointed out previously that the 350-vote figure is so off base that it actually counts some Kerry votes for tax cuts as votes for "higher taxes." And as we said earlier , the only tax "plan" Kerry has proposed is to repeal Bush's tax cuts for those making $200,000 a year or more, while giving some additional tax breaks to those further down the income scale.

The Bush ad also regurgitates the old refuted themes of the "50 cent per gallon" gasoline tax, and social security tax increases.

Obfuscations all. But, if you repeat a lie loudly and often enough, it becomes the truth. That was before this internet thing.

If you're interested in what Kerry really has to say about his economic initiatives, he delivered a major address yesterday at Georgetown(no relation to "W") University.

Iraq: Deadlier Than Ever

Ferocious fighting continues in many areas of Iraq with at least another 12 U.S. marines killed along with at least 66 Iraqis as the Shi'ites vow to resist the coalition occupation.

The Times of India is reporting that Najaf has been taken over by Muktada al-Sadr's militia.

For the latest news concerning Iraq see Google's aggregator and better yet The UK's fabulous News Now.

Variously, you'll find pieces questioning whether Iraqi violence could "derail" Bush's election bid to Rumsfeld recanting his statement of less than 24 hours old. He now states that he will offer more U.S. troops if requested.

That's all, gotta run.

Kerry: Fiscal Conservative?

The Independent is reporting that John Kerry is due to deliver a "major speech" tomorrow detailing a plan calling for a return to the fiscal responsibility of the 1990s under the Clinton Administration.

Republican Senator John McCain has accused the Bush Administration of spending "like a drunken sailor."

The Kerry camp is betting that through a combination of selective mix of targeted taxation - as well as tax cuts to spur job growth - and warning of the dire consequences of uncontrolled deficit spending, that their message will resonate well with the electorate.

I think that this is a very reasonable position. How it will play with the average voter remains to be seen.

Read the article. Rupert Cornwell goes into depth like few American 'papers' do.

Jobs Jobs Jobs

James Galbraith at Salon does some of the heavy lifting over March's job report.

I first heard about the Clinton job creation data of creating in excess of 300,000 jobs per month for 24 months while listening to Al Franken on Air America Radio last week. The Bush Administration can claim but 1 month of job growth in excess of 300,000.

Galbraith does add some color that I wasn't entirely aware of.

I still had two burning questions.

What do the 308,000 jobs consist of? Are wages growing enough to offset higher energy prices and taxation at the state and local levels?

This Bureau of Labor Statistics table shows pretty stagnant wage growth.

Bush's tax cut wasn't really a tax cut at all - except for the very well-to-do. It was a shifting of taxation from the federal level to the state and local level.

Essentially, while one month's numbers look good at a cursory glance, a little further scrutiny shows that real wage growth - purchasing power if you like - has contracted. This is a very troubling phenomenon, and one that doesn't lend itself to easy solutions.

Democracy: Nice Concept

Thomas Kean, Chairman of the 9-11 Commission told Tim Russert on Meet The Press yesterday that their report will contain "surprises," and that the White House will be going over their report "line by line" vetting it for national security purposes.

One can't help but be suspicious over the vetting process. After all of the stonewalling and obfuscations by this White House over nearly every substantive issue.

Kean reported that White House Chief of Staff, Andrew Card will be overseeing the vetting.

This is the same Andrew Card that said in 'selling' the Iraq war to the American people: "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce a new product in August."

I can only hope that truth, and historical accuracy trumps party this time. I am not however, holding my breath.

Iraq: More Bad News

Wapo is reporting that Shi'ite cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr is facing murder charges stemming not from this weekend's violence, but for the killing of another cleric last April.

On 10 April, 2003 a moderate Shi'ite cleric, Abdul-Majid Khoei was killed one day after the fall of Baghdad. This is the murder for which he is wanted in connection with. It is not known by this commentator if additional charges are forthcoming against al-Sadr over his call to "terrorize your enemy," which apparently incited much of the violence over the weekend.

The situation on the ground is extremely fluid with news accounts contradicting each other and more fighting between coalition forces and Iraqi militiamen being reported.

There have been reports that Fallujah - the scene of the grisly American execution style killings of last week is surrounded by U.S. and Iraqi soldiers. This in an attempt to find the perpetrators of the killings.

Additionally, Islam Online is reporting that the weekend uprising of Iraq's Shi'ites is supported by the Sunnis as well.

For up to the minute coverage of the changing situation in Iraq, point your browser to News Now's Iraq feed

My blogging will be a bit less over the next few days. I am doing marathon sessions at work :-/ :)

Three Quick Links

Leaders of 9/11 Panel Say Attacks Were Probably Preventable

New to the Job, Rice Focused on More Traditional Fears

Kerry Tries to Portray Bush as Borrow-and-Spend Leader

Iraq: GOP Style

From that madcap group of neocons that brought you, "Iraq War: The Redux" comes Jihad Spun - GOP style.

Hard to know what to say. Several expletives immediately come to mind.

More Iraq

Islam Online is reporting on what may have incited the violent clashes earlier.

"There is no use for demonstrations, as your enemy loves to terrify and suppress opinions, and despises peoples. Terrorize your enemy, as we cannot remain silent over its violations." -- Muqtada al-Sadr

Much more

I should add that Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is the anti-American cleric whose newspaper was shut-down by the U.S. backed Iraqi Governing Council. It was reported that Paul Bremer directly ordered its shut-down, as the paper according to Bremer, "not only mislead readers but constitute[d] a real threat of violence against coalition forces and Iraqi citizens who cooperate[d] with the coalition in the reconstruction of Iraq."

In addition to the newspaper shut-down, a chief aide of al-Sadr, Mustafa al-Yacoubi is reported to have been detained inciting further rage against what Iraqis see as anti-democratic practices by the IGC.

An update of the situation just came over the AP wire. 10 U.S. troops are now being reported killed as well

Bush Blew It

In thinking about how awful the whole spectrum of Iraq is, I recalled a specific instance wherein Bush could have proven himself to be a man of honor. But alas, it was not to be.

War President? Hardly.

He couldn't even make it to a common gunfight.

Sad.

Vanity Fair and Iraq

The Independent is reporting that Sir Christopher Meyer gives a detailed account - 25,000 words - to Vanity Fair magazine detailing, amongst other things, Bush's aim to invade Iraq. This dinner took place a mere nine days after 11 Sept. 2001.

This corroborates both O'Neill's and Clarke's assertions that Iraq, and ousting Saddam Hussein was a top priority of the Bush Administration.

Sir Christopher, former British ambassador to Washington, allegedly attended a private dinner where Bush asked for Blair's support in invading Iraq.

How many people have to come forward before Bush's facade of truthfulness comes crashing down?

Note: In a recent CBS Poll Bush lead Kerry by 47% to 29% in key 'battleground states' when asked, "does each candidate say what he believes?" This seems a demonstrably falsely held belief by the electorate. Either that, or Bush is delusional. A conclusion I am no longer willing to reject out of hand.

Clarke On NPR

Richard Clarke on NPR from 24 March, 2004. Relinked by reader request. It is an especially good episode.

Iraq

First of all, I would just like to acknowledge that I am fully aware of the horrific atrocities of last week. I am referring to the execution style killings and subsequent display of four Americans.

I am still attempting to get a sense of just how bad things are in Iraq. The security situation for anyone suspected or known to be assisting the 'coalition' seems especially imperiled. I am not discounting the fact that the average Iraqi also faces death on a daily basis.

This morning, MSNBC via the AP is reporting that at least 18 have been killed in another round of clashes in Najaf. Four Salvadorans and fourteen Iraqis are reported to have been killed. More than 130 are reported wounded.

The clashes followed demonstrations by Iraqis over the reported detention of Mustafa al-Yacoubi, an aide to Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The situation is by all accounts dismal in Iraq. It's easy to point fingers at the Bush Administration and state that they didn't follow through with the numbers of troops as assessed by other departments of our government. This does nothing to help the situation we now find ourselves in, as well as the Iraqis.

I don't know - nor does anyone with intellectual integrity - what is going to happen during the transferal of 'power' to the Iraqis on 30 June, but our record of Iraq security doesn't bode well for the future.

Dick and George

Eleanor Clift at NEWSWEEK elucidates upon the very strange arrangement involving Bush, Cheney, Rice, and the 9-11 Commission.

Essentially, in exchange for Condoleezza Rice's testimony in public, under oath, Bush and Cheney will appear before the Commission in tandem. Is there any precedent for this? I do not know. It is odd to say the least.

It's embarrassing to be an American. :) This is what passes for leadership? I hope that American's of all political stripes take a good, hard look at Bush.

Clift points out the obvious in her piece, and manages to have more than a bit of fun at our chief executive's(executives'?) expense.

For Bush supporters this must be an awkward moment at best. For Bush detractors, it certainly lends credence to the nagging suspicions that Bush has never really held the reins of power in the White House.

Accuracy in campaigning

In order to bring you the most accurate in campaign analysis, we again look to Annenberg's Fact Check. This time, a Kerry ad falls under the watchful eye of Fact Check.

What you need to know:

A Kerry ad has Bush saying that sending jobs overseas "makes sense." But Bush didn't say that.

The quote is actually from Bush's Council of Economic Advisers. The Kerry campaign claims Bush signed the report containing those words, but that's wrong, too.

Some Bush administration officials do indeed defend the practice of contracting for white-collar services overseas as one aspect of free trade, which they say creates jobs in the US. Textbook economics supports that notion. But the Kerry ad goes too far when it makes the President seem to be rooting for the loss of US jobs using words he never used...[snip]

Kerry's ad would have been closer to the mark had it said "The Bush administration says sending jobs overseas 'makes sense' for America." That would merely be taking words out of context and oversimplifying a complex economic argument. But falsely putting words in Bush's mouth is deception...[snip]

I expect this campaign to be filled with falsehoods and obfuscations. I'll do my best to point inconsistencies out in this blog.

Sibel Edmonds

Soon to be a Household Name

Andrew Buncombe, reporting for The Independent adds a bit more color than Democracy Now! offered when Ms. Edmonds called Condoleezza Rice's statement that 'we' could not have anticipated that Islamic terrorists might use aircraft as weapons "an outrageous lie."

From The Independent:

Sibel Edmonds, 33, said: "I gave [the commission] details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily."

Yesterday Mrs Edmonds said she hoped the panel would present Ms Rice with the apparent contradiction suggested by the joint congressional inquiry's report. "I think they will ask her. Will they get an answer? I can see her twisting it. I can see her trying to wriggle out of it by saying we thought they were going to hijack aircraft but not use them as missiles," she said.

"If you put this information [I saw] with other stuff they had from the Phoenix memo [about suspects taking flying lessons] and stuff coming in from field offices about flight schools, there is no way they can say they did not know. An idiot could work it out."

Mrs Edmonds, from northern Virginia, was fired from the FBI in March 2002 after she went public with allegations of incompetence within the translation department. At the time senior US senators testified to her credibility. The Republican senator Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said he spoke to FBI officials who confirmed many of her allegations. "She's credible and the reason I feel she's very credible is because people within the FBI have corroborated a lot of her story," he said at the time.

He said this week: "They admitted most of the facts but denied the conclusions. The FBI has failed to overhaul [the translation] unit, despite its obvious and critical importance in the war on terrorism."

You can add Ms. Edmonds name to the list of courageous truth-tellers that the Bush Administration will attempt to discredit through personal attacks - until their story morphs into the conventional wisdom.

Follow the link for more.

A Little Chaos

I was discussing the relatively small differences between Kerry and most of the GOP this morning with my brother.....Bush excepted. My brother is a mathematician.

In a moment he cut to the heart of the issue between the parties in a very precise manner. He simply said, "Small differences in the initial input states can have large implications in final outcomes."

From that, it should be plain that he has studied chaos theory in at least some cursory way. In fact, it is much of what he teaches. I got the looks, he got the brains :)

For anyone that has qualms about the minor differences between parties, this should allay some of their reservations about a Kerry Presidency.

We discussed other political topics that he framed mathematically. I will distill and condense this over the next week, and have something of an exegesis prepared next Saturday. Time permitting of course.

Powell Admits Errors

Powell Admits he was 'Probably Wrong' about Iraqi weapons trailers

Powell still claims that the trailer information was 'multi-sourced.' This doesn't jive with recent revelations that much of the alleged weapons information came from an Iraqi defector named Curveball.

If his 'multi-sourced' information is that "Curveball" told the same story twice, I suppose that this dismisses Powell on some academic level of lying.

I'll refrain from calling Secretary Powell a serial liar. I'll let you, my dear readers decide how to label Colin 'My Lai' Powell.

Medicare Scandal?

What ever do you mean?

Yesterday, the LA Times reported that the House GOP members shut down an inquiry into whether or not the Bush White House enaged in illegal or inappropriate obfuscation of the costs of the Medicare prescription drug bill(now law).

In case you have, like me, been living under a rock for the past few weeks, at issue is the following: Then Medicare Administrator Thomas A. Scully threatened to fire -- or more accurately, face severe recriminations -- his top actuary, Richard Foster, if he gave lawmakers his analyses showing the costs would be much higher than administration officials were saying publicly.

This issue is far from over. There is a move underway by the Health and Human Services Department to investigate the matter, and Democratic lawmakers have requested civil and criminal inquiries into the matter.

It may yet turn out that the White House and GOP members of Congress may re-open the issue, as the pattern of White House bullying, and obfuscation yields to popular pressure.

Meanwhile in Iraq

....CNN is reporting March turned out to be the second deadliest month since the 'end of major combat operations.'

Safer with Saddam gone?

Certainly not for Iraqis.

Certainly not for U.S. troops.

Then for whom?

Another Republican Talks

Flynt Leverett -- Former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs on President Bush's National Security Council. He is a former CIA analyst and Middle East specialist. He is now a visiting fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East studies at the Brookings Institution.

He spoke to DN's Amy Goodman this morning. Here's a bit:

FLYNT LEVERETT: Good morning.

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Can you respond to what the administration is saying about Clarke’s critique?

FLYNT LEVERETT: Well, I think that they are beginning, finally, to offer something resembling a substantive response to Mr. Clarke's charges rather than simply impugning his character or his motives. But I think that Clarke has laid out a very serious and substantive critique of the way the administration has conducted the war on terror since the September 11 attacks. It's hard to get around the fact that critical resources were taken away from the Afghan theater, to my mind, prematurely, before we had finished the job against bin Laden. They were taken away because if they were going to be ready to do their part in an Iraq campaign on the timetable that the White House wanted to do it, you had to pull these people out in the early spring of 2002. I think it's because of that that we have not captured bin Laden, we have not captured Zawahiri. Al Qaeda has been able to reconstitute leadership cells in the Afghan-Pakistan border region and, it would seem, in Iran. If we had the right people on the ground in the spring and summer of 2002, I think we might have caught these people. If we catch them now, that's obviously a good thing, but -- if it's two years too late because Al Qaeda has morphed into a different sort of organization.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about who specifically was pulled from Afghanistan in March, 2002, to go to Iraq?

FLYNT LEVERETT: Well, I think I have said -- others and I have talked about these people being very highly trained, highly specialized -- special forces and intelligence officers. There's not an infinite supply of those sorts of people to go around. As I said, my view is that those people were pulled prematurely from Afghanistan because the administration was determined to go to war in Iraq on a specific timetable.

Listen here

Furthermore, Leverett told WaPo in this article that: "Clarke's critique of administration decision-making and how it did not balance the imperative of finishing the job against al Qaeda versus what they wanted to do in Iraq is absolutely on the money."


Oops.

Don't Call the White House...

..if it's a "911"

The Bush administration is blocking the 9/11 commission from examining over about 8,000 classified documents from the Clinton administration turned over for the commission to review.

The files contain classified documents about the Clinton administration's efforts against Al Qaeda.

An attorney for Clinton's presidential foundation accused the Bush White House of blocking the release of material that would be valuable to the 9/11 commission.

The 9/11 commission has announced National Security Advisor Condolleeza[sic] Rice will testify publicly under oath before the panel next Thursday, April 8.

Courtesy of Democracy Now!

See. The White House is giving the 9-11 Commission 'unprecedented access.'

The Fadin Facade

Bush Has A Credibility Issue

The results of the linked to poll are striking.

The trend is likely to stick as Clarke is seen as more credible, and the Administration was busily adjusting policies -- and money -- to missile defense pre-9/11 :)

Air America Now Airing

I forgot. Air America - Progressive Radio has launched!

Listen in. It's fun.

GTWO!

New Get Your War On! Get Some!

More Rice

Condi to testify on April 8th

Meanwhile, it has now been widely reported that Alberto Gonzales, President Bush's top lawyer, called commissioner Fred Fielding and may also have called commissioner James Thompson, before Richard Clarke was due to appear on March 24.

I'm sure it was to 'do lunch.'

Ugly.

Does anybody believe a word these people say?

Clarke 2, Rice 0

From WaPo comes this:

On Sept. 11, 2001, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to outline a Bush administration policy that would address "the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday" -- but the focus was largely on missile defense, not terrorism from Islamic radicals.

The speech provides telling insight into the administration's thinking on the very day that the United States suffered the most devastating attack since the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor. The address was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and contained no mention of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or Islamic extremist groups, according to former U.S. officials who have seen the text.

Much more at link

The speech was obviously not given by Rice with this emphasis. The amended speech Rice delivered prominently featured Islamic terrorists, and gave only cursory mention to missile defense.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Clarke is a lot more right than wrong. I have yet to see anything substantive that Clarke has alleged to be effectively refuted.

Sorry about the lack of timely updates. I'm in feast mode at the moment. That is, I've enough work to occupy three people at present.

A couple of things.

Do you have a vexing question for NSA Anacondoleezza Rice? Send mail !

Can't hurt. Might just be fun.

FYI, you can use the same contact info. to propose questions for Bush and Cheney as well. Sure, it's a lark. But fun is always a good thing...No running with scissors!

****************************************

Gold is around $427 USD/oz. There are two sharply divided camps as to the overall health of equities markets, and economies. Moves into metals are generally seen as 'safe haven' buying. There is of course much to be concerned about.

From discord in the Middle-East to the November election to the high price of energy, there are certainly enough unknowns for people to be shifting asset classes.

****************************************

600 U.S. deaths in Iraq. Sad. Very sad.

****************************************

Read or listen to this account of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. You will not be disappointed. Amazing stuff.

Hired after 9/11 to translate intelligence information, Ms. Edmonds says the FBI had information that an attack using airplanes was being planned before Sept. 11 and calls Condoleezza Rice's claim the White House had no specific information on a domestic threat or one involving planes "an outrageous lie.

OUCH!

You will not be disappointed. Amazing stuff.

****************************************

Also from Democracy Now! comes a conversation with long time Middle-East correspondent, Robert Fisk.

Veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk reports live from Baghdad. Fisk describes the "grotesque, gruesome, terrible" attacks in Fallujah, the contracted mercenaries that have infiltrated Iraq: "They swagger in and out with heavy weapons, with automatic weapons and pistols as if they're cowboys" and the deteriorating situation throughout the country: "The violence and the insecurity, the sense of anarchy is greater."

Link

****************************************

From The Bulletin comes specific information about the U.S' potential issues with strategic long-term planning in the interest of short-term political goals.

The piece deals with the U.S. duplicitous policy regarding Pakistan: A known nuclear proliferator.

****************************************

More stuff tomorrow.

With any luck, I'll have template v0.3 ready in the AM.

Kerry's 50 Cent Per Gallon Gas Tax Unspun

Again, the ever informative Annenberg Fact Check does the heavy lifting.

Quick summary:

A Bush ad released March 30 attacked Kerry for once supporting the "wacky" idea of raising the gasoline tax by 50 cents per gallon. That was a decade ago. More recently, the man who later became Bush's own chief economist said higher gasoline taxes would lead to "less traffic congestion, safer roads, and reduced risk of global warming" and that raising gasoline taxes 50 cents to pay for a cut in income-tax rates "may be the closest thing to a free lunch that economics has to offer." How "wacky" is that?

Point.

Set.

Match.

Lots more at link.

Kerry, cheaper gas is my aim.

...Facing GOP attacks for advocating higher gas taxes as a senator, Kerry will call on President Bush to temporarily suspend filling U.S. oil reserves and to apply greater pressure on oil-producing nations to increase production, said Stephanie Cutter, a Kerry spokeswoman...[snip]

As this back-and-forth shows, both parties think the issue packs a political punch. Of the nine states with the highest regular gas-price increases, four -- Washington, Oregon, Arizona and Nevada -- are considered swing states in the upcoming elections.

Democrats think the price of gas could become a major flash point in the presidential debate over oil, the economy and even Iraq and broader Middle East foreign policies. As one measure of the political sensitivity of the issue, a group of House Republicans has formally asked the White House to do what Kerry is calling for -- to ease pressure on prices by suspending shipments to the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the government's emergency stockpile of oil...[snip]

More at link

Now, if I was running for president, I would use higher fuel costs as an environmental issue first, a national security issue sceond, and an economic issue last.

I needn't go through the litany of Bush anti-environmental policies. Kyoto, mercury emissions and gutting the Endangered Species Act are but three.

Oil has always been a 'strategic' problem for the U.S. This doesn't require expounding, as it is a truism.

The economic issue is important as well. Higher energy prices result in both higher costs of goods, and less money in the hands of consumers to pay for said goods.

Condi, with a twist

WASHINGTON (AP)--In a reversal, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice will testify in public under oath before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as long as the panel seeks no further public testimony from White House officials, the administration said Tuesday.

In addition, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have agreed to a single joint private session with all 10 commissioners, with one commission staff member present to take notes of the session, said Gonzales's letter.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan, on Air Force One with President Bush, said the commission had unanimously agreed to the administration's conditions for the testimony.

The decision was conditioned on the Bush administration receiving assurances in writing from the commission that such a step does not set a precedent and that the commission does not request "additional public testimony from any White House official, including Dr. Rice,'' White House counsel Alberto Gonzales said in a letter to the panel.

Subject to the conditions, the president will agree "to the commission's request for Dr. Rice to testify publicly regarding matters within the commission's statutory mandate,'' Gonzales's letter stated.

A bit more at link

I would say that this is a winf democracy, but Rice giving conditional testimony -- that no other WH staffers be called to testify -- flatly bothers me. The Commission should have full unfettered access to whoever it wants.

American democracy, an interesting concept.

This NEWSWEEK poll concerning 'Bush and the 9/11 Charges' once again shows the disparity of web poll responses versus the 'magazine' poll responses.

No, I'm not going to expound upon the results. Go take the poll, and you'll see what I mean.

The Trend is Your Friend, in the equities markets as in politics.

Unless you happen to be GWB.

Last week was, well, a disaster for Bush.

Politics is mostly a battle for the marketplace of ideas. Bush's kiosk was closed with an "Out of Stock" sign prominently displayed.

Rumor has it that he watched Anacondoleezza on 60 Minutes last evening, and then spent the remainder of evening grousing about the waste of three hours of his time.

The Independent brings more gloomy news about the environment.

I should post the whole thing here as it is that important. The toxifying of the world's oceans is amongst the most disturbing of environmental maladies.

I've said it before, and I'm going to say it again; the environment is the only issue that is transcendent over election cycles. It transcends human lifespans and I think that it is pretty clear that habitable planets are rather scarce. At least within our solar system.

The environment is the only issue that matters in the longest time spans. We are playing with a hand grenade that has the pin pulled. It is only a question of when it detonates, not if.

Will no one make this a campaign issue?

Corpocracy

This comes courtesy of Knight Ridder:

WASHINGTON - The Air Force gave the Boeing Co. five months to rewrite the official specifications for 100 aerial refueling tankers so that the company's 767 aircraft would win a $23.5 billion deal, according to e-mails and documents obtained by Knight Ridder.

In the process, Boeing eliminated 19 of the 26 capabilities the Air Force originally wanted, and the Air Force acquiesced in order to keep the price down.

The Air Force then gave Boeing competitor Airbus 12 days to bid on the project and awarded the contract to Boeing even though Airbus met more than 20 of the original 26 specifications and offered a price that was $10 billion less than Boeing's.

The Boeing tanker deal has been under investigation since it became public two and a half years ago and has been suspended pending the outcome of the probes.

But the e-mails and other documents show just how intent the Air Force was on steering the deal to Boeing, even though Airbus' tankers were more capable and cost less.

In one document, Bob Gower, Boeing's vice president for tankers, noted that one objective in rewriting the specifications was to "prevent an AoA from being conducted." "AoA" stands for "analysis of alternatives" or, in essence, a look at serious competitors...[snip]

...Politics has played a heavy role in the Boeing deal. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., whose state is home to Boeing headquarters, and Democratic Rep. Norman D. Dicks, who represents the state of Washington, where a key Boeing production plant is located, lobbied the White House on the deal.

Boeing and the Air Force also lobbied for the deal, and President Bush designated his chief of staff, Andrew Card, as the point man on the issue....[snip]

Much more at link

You really should take the couple of minutes to read the piece. It's a very revealing article about the closeness corporate America is with policy makers.....as if that needed any further evidence.

Dewey once said: "Government is the shadow cast by corporations over society." This is probably the most terse explanation of our dysfunctional democracy.

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Hypocrisy

It appears the Kerry has raised the ire of the bush camp by quoting scripture. I didn't know that only the GOP could use religion as political tool. But then, I'm grossly uninformed about religious things. Here are the words:

What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but doesn't have works? -- James 2:14.

And:

He allegedly told listeners of a stump speech to become: "doers of the word, not hearers only."

I have no beef with that. He is obviously giving Bush's 'compassionate conservatism' bs a left hook.

I remember MA. Governor Bill Weld telling the Bush camp that Kerry is a fierce campaigner. It appears that Weld was correct. Disarming your enemy is an effective way to win a war.

He said, she said.

Clarke on Meet the Press averred that he wants what Frist wants.

MR. RUSSERT: But to be clear, Mr. Clarke, you would urge Congress, the intelligence committees, to declassify your sworn testimony before the congressional inquiry two years ago as well as your testimony before the September 11th Commission?

MR. CLARKE: Yes, and those documents I just referred to and Dr. Rice's testimony before the 9-11 Commission because the victims' families have no idea what Dr. Rice has said. There weren't in those closed hearings where she testified before the 9-11 Commission. They want to know. So let's take her testimony before the 9-11 Commission and make it part of the package of what gets declassified along with the national security decision directive of September 4 and along with my memo of January 25.

In fact, Tim, let's go further. The White House is selectively now finding my e-mails, which I would have assumed were covered by some privacy regulations, and selectively leaking them to the press. Let's take all of my e-mails and all of the memos that I've sent to the national security adviser and her deputy from January 20 to September 11 and let's declassify all of it.

MR. RUSSERT: As well as her responses?

MR. CLARKE: As well as her responses.

The reference to Dr. Bill 'Mengele' Frist(R-Serial Feline Murderer) is that he has been calling for the declassification of some of Clarke's testimony before Congress in July of 2002. In Bushspeak Clarke appears to be saying: Bring it on.

Meanwhile, at CBS on 60 Minutes, Condoleezza Rice mainly sticks to the GOP/White House talking points.

I should note that she reiterated the White House's position that she will not testify under oath in public before the 9-11 Commission.

Rice dissembles while Clarke says get it all out in the open. Not only for the Commission, but for the people to hear.

Today's scorecard:

Clarke - 1

Rice - 0

Couple of quick items before breakfast.

1. Bush's Brain* has the full text of both days of testimony and comments before the 9-11 Commission



2. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reports that the Turks are 'missing' a Clintonian style U.S. President

The Bulletin is a great source of underreported news material. The piece is listed as an 'opinion' piece, and this undersores the high standards that The Bulletin adheres to....the article is, in my opinion, a great read.

* A caveat. The page is over 270K in size. So, it may take several seconds for it to load.

Chalabi under investigation by the GAO

From NEWSWEEK:

He apparently has no regrets that his WMD warnings have turned out to be inaccurate. What matters, Chalabi suggested recently, is that he finally got the regime change he had long sought. "As far as we're concerned we've been entirely successful," he told a British newspaper. "That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important."

Some in Congress disagree. NEWSWEEK has learned that the General Accounting Office, Congress's investigative arm, is opening a probe into the INC's use of U.S. government money the group received in 2001 and 2002. The issue under scrutiny is not whether Chalabi prodded America into a war on false pretenses; it is whether he used U.S. taxpayer dollars and broke U.S. laws or regulations to do so. Did Chalabi and the INC violate the terms of their funding by using U.S. money to sell the public on its anti-Saddam campaign and to lobby Congress?

NEWSWEEK also points out the fact that Chalabi was convicted of embezzlement in Jordan in 1992, as well as the fact that both the State Department and the CIA divorced Chalabi after finding him to be a source of spurious material.

"Our guy" in Baghdad. Will we never learn?

There's a lot more there. Go have a read.

Kerry Points Out the Obvious

(I am not stating that as a bad thing at all)

In this NYT article, Kerry is reported to have used the now familiar phrase "character assassination" as the method of choice the White House has been using to discredit its detractors.

I agree. The Bushies' admonishing of critics seems -- by any reasonable account -- to begin and end with attacks upon the persons' rectitude rather than addressing the substance of their concerns.

Here's Kerry:

"Every time somebody comes up and says something that this White House doesn't like, they don't answer the questions about it or show you the truth about it, they go into character-assassination mode."

A bit more:

"I don't think people want questions about character. I think they want questions about our security to be answered."

He's not just talking about Richard A. Clarke. He also mentions former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, and Medicare actuary Richard Foster.

I would lengthen the list to include other persons, but Kerry's point is taken.

In the interest of fairness, I should point out that this is not a peculiar affliction of the Bush administration, but they do seem to engage in personal attacks to a much higher degree than other recent White House administrations.

Character assassination is the weapon of choice when you have nothing else to use as fodder for your refutations.

Bush has only his character to run an election campaign on, as his policies are not in the best interests of the citizenry. It would be more accurate to state that Bush is running his campaign on keeping the populace fearful, and that he is most capable of keeping the people safe.

In this context that reasons for the vicious character attacks are clear. If assaults on Bush's character are successful, he is left with very little in the way of arguing that he is worthy of another four years as head of state.