My friend Robin sent me the text of an op-ed piece in the today’s New York Times. r
Written by Paul Krugman it discusses the apparant myth of the Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. r
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Although the piece might be longer than most readers of this website are used to reading, it’s well worth the read…r
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Standard Operating Procedurer
By Paul Krugmanr
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The mystery of Iraq’s missing weapons of mass destruction has become a lot less mysterious. Recent reports in major British newspapers and three major American news magazines, based on leaks from angry intelligence officials, back up the sources who told my colleague Nicholas Kristof that the Bush administration “grossly manipulated intelligence” about W.M.D.’s. r
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And anyone who talks about an “intelligence failure” is missing the point. The problem lay not with intelligence professionals, but with the Bush and Blair administrations. They wanted a war, so they demanded reports supporting their case, while dismissing contrary evidence. r
Bill Bennett – Gambler
Smithsonian Exhibit Gets Cold Shoulder
This does’t surprise me either…r
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A photo exhibit showing untouched wilderness in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge opened Friday at the Smithsonian Institution–but not exactly as earlier planned. r
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Instead of the prime exhibit space slated off the spacious, main-floor rotunda of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, the 48-photo exhibit is being displayed in a basement hallway, behind an escalator.
Segregation is still alive
When I talk to my kids about issues like racism, I try to explain that it’s still very much alive despite how to world appears to look from the perspective of a child living it the liberal college town of Ann Arbor, MI.r
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Articles like this one regarding a white-only prom in Georgia only serve to remind me why I keep educating my kids as to the continuing injustices in this country.r
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I wonder what all the people with the “United We Stand” bumper stickers would have to say about this. Let’s see how united they thing we stand after reading an article like the above.
Missing Clinton
I have to preface this entry by mentioning that I was not a fan of Bill Clinton, in fact, politically I could not stand him. That said, I was looking through some old video cassettes looking for tape I could tape over. On the tape was some old news programs from when Clinton was president. Looking at the former president speak, I got extremelly sad about where our country is.
Watching footage of the articulate and charismatic former president made the the ignorance and imperialism of our current president even that much harder to handle. I just have to say it…
I hate George Bush… I hate Donald Rumsfeld…I hate Dick Cheney.
These three redneck power hungry white boys represent everything bad about America. They make me ashamed to be an American at this moment in time…
Anger over US Giveaway to Halliburton
Golly, who would have guessed that the frirends of the Bush regime would stand to make tons of money from this war…r
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The US army came under fire today for granting an Iraqi oilwell firefighting contract to a subsidiary of Halliburton Co, once run by Dick Cheney, without a bidding process. r
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Henry Waxman, the senior Democrat in the House of Representatives’ government reform committee, demanded an explanation in a letter to Army Corps of Engineers Lieutenant General Robert Flowers. r
“I am writing to inquire why the administration entered into a contract potentially worth tens of millions of dollars to a subsidiary of Halliburton without any competition or even notice to Congress,” he said. r
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“The contract – to extinguish oilwell fires in Iraq – has no set time limit and no dollar limit and is apparently structured in such a way as to encourage the contractor to increase its costs and, consequently, the costs to the taxpayer.” r
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The Army Corps of Engineers said yesterday the contract had been given to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) without being put out to tender. r
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Iraq’s Shiites Describe Reign of Fear
Listening to the coverage of the war from the BBC World Service continues to remind me of the ongoing timidity of the U.S. media in giving us a larger and historical perspective on U.S. involvement in the Persian Gulf. Just a little while ago, the BBC was discussing the role of the Shi’ite opposition to Saddam Hussein, and in that discussion they mentioned how the U.S. abandonment of the Shi’ites in 1991 leaves them nervous about looking to the U.S. for support again.r
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A google search on the topic brings up this mention from a Washington Post piece from January: r
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“Shiites rose up against the government in 1991. They were encouraged by Iraq’s swift defeat in Kuwait and the call of President George Bush to rebel. But the United States, with jets, helicopters and troops within striking distance, declined to support the revolt. Hussein’s loyal military units assaulted Shiite towns and villages, hunted rebels down and crushed the revolt.”r
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Read the piece in the Washington Post, Iraq’s Shiites Describe Reign of Fear.r
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Today, Iraq. Tomorrow … Democracy?
In These Times features a very thoughtful piece on the larger ramifications of the U.S. war on Iraq. r
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“…(The U.S. has) moved from “containing” the enemy to a more aggressive stance. Like the defunct Soviet Union decades ago, the United States is now the country subversively fomenting world revolution. Bush recently declared: The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity. Indeed, and the United States just happens to be the chosen instrument for distributing this gift.”r
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Read “Today, Iraq. Tomorrow … Democracy?”
Fallon and Fey
Last weekend’s Weekend Update from Saturday Night Live featured a brilliant and pointed piece from Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon. It’s great to finally see some rage at the coming war being expressed on the TV:
Fey: In protest to France’s opposition to a U.S. war in Iraq, the U.S. Congress’ cafeteria has changed French fries and French toast to freedom fries and freedom toast. Afterwards, the congressmen were so pleased with themselves, they all started Freedom kissing each other. In a related story, in France, American cheese is now referred to as Idiot cheese.
Fallon: Trust me, they’re laughing at us, okay? French fries aren’t even French, they’re Belgian. Some American guy named them wrong to begin with. Also, they’re pouring bottles of French wine down the toilet? Stop it! You already paid for the wine, you dopes! Pee in a wine bottle and sell it to some French people — then you’re doing something.
Fey: And don’t think that by eating Freedom fries that you’re being patriotic and helping the war effort. Use less gasoline, read a newspaper. You know what? How about we cool it with the Freedom fries anyway, you fat asses! We are the fattest country in the world. Have you ever walked around an American mall? It’s nothing but Chick-fil-As and Lane Bryant track suits busting at the seams!
Fallon and Fey: Do something!
Industry Of Fear
Commentator Jesse Jackson identifies what he calls the latest budding American market – the industry of fear:
“Like last decade’s prison-industrial complex, we’re now watching another new industry spring up: the industry of fear.” And, it’s the constant talk of war and varying code alerts that keep it growing, leading to gas prices going up, airlines folding and state deficits getting larger. Jackson says it’s the U.S. public that will have to bear the cost of this industry. “When nations move toward empire,” states Jackson, “democracy pays the price.”
His Answer to Terrorism
From Robin comes this link to this special feature article in the Christian Science Monitor about Paul Wilkinson, a widely respected British terrorism expert…
We must try to find ways of dealing with terrorism in the dangerous world we live in,” says Paul Wilkinson, “which do not actually spark off a war that could lead to a set of chain reactions of a truly disastrous nature.”
Commentary: War
My friend Robin sebt me a link to this piece from this morming’s “Morning Edition” on NPR…
“In the latest in a series of commentaries on the subject of a possible war, commentator and retired Col. Mike Turner says he fears a worst-case scenario in a U.S. strike on Iraq — hand-to-hand street battles in Baghdad, terrorist attacks at home and further nuclear development from North Korea. Turner was Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf’s personal briefing officer during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.”
Click here to listen
Jon Stewart
Given where the country is going, it’s hard not to think of Jon Stewart’s prophetic prediction after Bush got into office…
‘I’m pretty sure that in a few years we’re all going to be showing up naked on Clinton’s doorstep with a box of cigars saying STICK THEM ANYWHERE, JUST PLEASE BE OUR PRESIDENT”.
New Songs, Old Message: ‘No War’
In today’s New York Times, music writer Jon Pareles has written a wonderful piece, New Songs, Old Message: ‘No War’.
The article discussed the mainstream musical community’s anti-war stance, and why none of the music is being played on the radio…
“The new antiwar songs are virtually absent from commercial radio stations, where most programmers wouldn’t dream of dividing or alienating their listenership. Instead, songs are arriving from various fringes ? on the collegiate indie-rock circuit, in hip-hop’s activist wing and among the heirs to folky 1960’s protesters…”
Stop the War
“The U.N. Security Council should back tough inspections, not war.” |
President Bush is pushing hard for a second Security Council resolution that would authorize war against Iraq. But millions of us believe that a war on Iraq would be wrong — especially when tough inspections can disarm Saddam Hussein without the loss of a single life.
If you want to do something small to try to stop this insane march towards a needless war, MoveOn.org has organized an Emergency Appeal Petition to the U.N.
Ashcroft’s bong hit
Clearly John Ashcroft must not be worried about real issues because now he’s going after online bong dealers.
“At a time when the rest of the country is worried about terrorism, this attorney general is going after people who sell pipes,” said Keith Stroup, the founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana laws. “Surely he has something better to do with his time.”
Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, suggested the busts were aimed at scoring political points against a perceived counterculture.
Republicans
Wonder why the Republican Party is seen as the party of the rich and powerful?
Today it hit the local news that Michigan’s House Speaker, Rick Johnson, has sent letters offering to meet with interest groups about what they want from the new Legislature, in return for a $20,000 donation to the House Republican Campaign Committee. This is not illegal; it’s maximum donation allowed to Michigan political action committees.
Write the Prez
Oppose the Bush Administration’s Plans to Reduce Wildlife Protections in our National Forests.
The Bush administration has proposed eliminating the most fundamental rule that protects wildlife in our national forests. Rolling back this rule would open up more than 190 million acres of our public lands, including old growth forests, roadless areas, and sensitive wildlife habitats, to big corporations.
Bush the fascist
The Bush administration is about to propose a system for monitoring the Internet.
Is anyone surprised by Bush and his gang of fascists?
R.I.P. Philip Berrigan
A true American hero and one of the great figures of the 60’s, peace activist Philip Berrigan died yesterday at the age of 79. Along with his brother Daniel, Berrigan led the “Catonsville 9,” a group that staged one of the most dramatic protests of the 1960s when they doused homemade napalm on a small bonfire of draft records in a Catonsville parking lot on May 17, 1968.
Via a statement given to his wofe over the Thanksgiving weekend, Berrgian said:
“I die with the conviction, held since 1968 and Catonsville, that nuclear weapons are the scourge of the earth; to mine for them, manufacture them, deploy them, use them, is a curse against God, the human family, and the earth itself.”
Fans of Dar Williams might know of the lovely song she wrote about the Berrigan brothers, “I Had no Right”.
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