In a speech at the Coronado, California Naval Air Station, President Bush today likened the “War on Terror” toWorld War II and advanced a new justification for the war in Iraq: Keeping Iraq’s oil out of the hands of Osama bin Laden and local terrorist kingpin Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. . . . → Read More: Bush: We must protect Iraq’s oil fields from terrorists
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Despite administration rhetoric, things in Iraq do not look good. For a summary read these posts by Juan Cole and MaxSpeak. The new constitution is not supported by many sunnis and the country’s constitution has effectively eviscerated any real civil rights protections. The ambitions to create a democratic, pro-American Iraq are ending in utter failure – a failure a lot of us predicted. Matt Yglesias points to a lot of good reasons why the Germany/Japan examples were poor ones. I’d just like to add another in passing – namely that those countries already had a history of representative, constitutional government. We just had to get them in working order again. To make big problem even messier, there is no real prospect for a change in strategy. The Administration seems unable to recognize a change in objective realities and unwilling to cut their losses, as witnessed by Bush’s pathetic attempt to revive his social security privatization plan. More than 3,000 members of the Louisiana National Guard’s 256th Brigade serving in Iraq can only watch from Baghdad as Hurricane Katrina bears down on their families and homes in the south Louisiana communites from which they hail. The deployed soldiers and their equipment, which includes high water vehicles, Humvees and generators, will be sorely missed as Louisiana attempts to prepare for and recover from the historic Category Five storm. . . . → Read More: Louisiana National Guard troops watch Katrina from Iraq Three-star and four-star generals are considered to be official spokespersons for the defense department, as are their civilian counterparts. So it was more than a little surprising to hear president Bush refer to Congressional testimony and other public remarks from some of his most senior generals as “rumors” and “speculation.” . . . → Read More: What would you do if I sang out of tune? The US has been heavily involved in the negotiations. Don Rumsfeld and Condi Rice both traveled to Iraq to put public pressure on the government before the deadline. US ambassador Zalmay Khalizad met and continues to meet with individuals and small groups involved in drafting the constitution — at one point offering his own immaculate version — and yesterday the president called one of the leading Shiite politicians, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who threw a spanner in the works by announcing his support for a federal state on the eve of the deadline, to lobby him on behalf of the Sunnis. The US has been heavily involved in the negotiations. Don Rumsfeld and Condi Rice both traveled to Iraq to put public pressure on the government before the deadline. US ambassador Zalmay Khalizad met and continues to meet with individuals and small groups involved in drafting the constitution — at one point offering his own immaculate version — and yesterday the president called one of the leading Shiite politicians, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who threw a spanner in the works by announcing his support for a federal state on the eve of the deadline, to lobby him on behalf of the Sunnis. The US has been heavily involved in the negotiations. Don Rumsfeld and Condi Rice both traveled to Iraq to put public pressure on the government before the deadline. US ambassador Zalmay Khalizad met and continues to meet with individuals and small groups involved in drafting the constitution — at one point offering his own immaculate version — and yesterday the president called one of the leading Shiite politicians, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who threw a spanner in the works by announcing his support for a federal state on the eve of the deadline, to lobby him on behalf of the Sunnis, who are desperately opposed to federalism. . . . → Read More: A new White House measure of success in Iraq Hugo Chavez has responded indirectly to demented mainstream Evangelical leader Pat Robertson’s call for the Venezuelan leader’s assassination by offering to sell inexpensive gasoline and heating oil directly to poor American communities. Reuters reports that Chavez made the comment at the end of his visit to Cuba. . . . → Read More: Venezuela’s Chavez offers cheap gas to poor Americans Reactions to Pat Robertson’s call for the assassination of Venzuela’s president Hugo Chavez have been mostly negative and almost unanimously entertaining. Pentagon and State Department officials, for instance, made haste to “distance” themselves from Robertson’s foreign policy initiative — raising in the process the question of how in hell they got close enough to him to require distancing — and other institutions and individuals weren’t far behind. . . . → Read More: Does Pat Robertson’s hit on Chavez have a basis in scripture? Robertson has proved himself judicious when it comes to smoking heads of state, or even troubling them with criticism. When George W. Bush when Bush called on Liberian president and part-time war criminal Charles Taylor to step down, Robertson flipped.< . . . → Read More: Who else is on Pat Robertson’s hit list? We, as a nation, have spent much of the past several years living the simple life, river like content with surface ripples and the path of least resistance. It’s about as effective as having Paris Hilton run the farm, without the comedy. (New administration motto: That’s hot!—‘Bring ‘em on’ was proving alarmingly effective)… Don’t probe, don’t examine too closely, because when you do superficial glaze fails us. When we focus on the question instead of the simplest answer, then we have to notice the difference between death tolls and ‘last throes’, between bringing democracy and freedom and loss of civil liberties under the ‘patriot act’, between the claims of success and the reality of enemies wanted ‘dead or alive’ at large four years later. We like our realities simple. . . . → Read More: The Simple Life… |
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They’re in the area around Havana, and east, west south and north
Among the statements for which US secretary of defense Don Rumsfeld is justly famed, the two that most stand out are his reaction to the looting of Baghdad — “Stuff happens” — and his pinpointing of Saddam’s banned weapon stockpiles — “They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.” He’s at it again, and this time he has company: John Bolton. . . . → Read More: They’re in the area around Havana, and east, west south and north