Author: jameswagner

–is even worse than the smell of secrecy.
The New York Daily News ain’t Big Daddy.
Their own newswriters, their wire services and their columnists apparently weren’t swift enough to pick up on the lie, but whoever is responsible for the letters to the editor department recognizes a news item when it slips through the paper’s mail slot, and he or she also knows something about the placement of a story.
Barry’s words pointing out one of the White House’s latest, and more cynical, manipulations of the news for its agenda appears today as the lead letter (with a double-sized headline and typeface) on its “Voice of the People” page.

SECRECY SMELLS
Manhattan: The Bush administration kept news of North Korea’s nuclear program to itself for 12 days before letting the public, or even Congress, know. Shouldn’t we be asking why they didn’t tell Congress until after they voted on the Iraq resolution?
Barry Hoggard

The information had appeared on his weblog a couple of days ago. Three cheers for Bloggy!

Gary Trudeau looks at the Bushie pack in Doonesbury today.

At least it stayed cold.
Is it possible that some day in the distant future (if a future is possible) we will look back on the period of the Cold War as one of peace and prosperity, when compared to the period in which American power had no equal?
For half a century, the real or imagined Russian threat restrained the American and kept this nation relatively circumpect in its ventures around the world. It seems also to have worked to keep the governments of smaller nations out of the worst trouble, by serving them both the benefits and the burdens of the East-West rivalry.
Today U.S. power and greed is unchecked, except by terrorism, against which conventional weapons are virtually useless. Moreover, in the name of a cynical war against terrorism, the U.S. threatens, now or potentially, the security of every nation on the planet, including, in a peculiar reversal, that of the U.S. itself.
We should not be surprised that many nations have decided to pursue an aggressive course in the development of weapons of mass destruction as the only possible protection from what they view as the monstrous power of a rogue U.S.
[Two points may illustrate the argument. First, the U.S. is the only state ever to have employed nuclear weapons in anger, and those employments were against civiians and in a war already won. Second, there is now speculation that the reason the U.S. government has been particularly soft on North Korea is its belief that that nation already has these weapons in place. It looks like some people still think deterrence works, but unfortunately I don’t think we can any longer trust our own government to understand either the stakes or the rules.]
It’s not going to be a pleasant ride.

The junta itself can’t make it’s arguments consistent, let alone believable for anyone with a mind, but the media eats it up!

The White House insists it isn’t “wagging the dog” to divert attention from domestic issues, an accusation that Fleischer and Vice President Dick Cheney have both pooh-poohed as “reprehensible.” But still, much of the mainstream media is chasing the war ball. After all, it’s a lot sexier than discussing how 41 million Americans have no health insurance.
The media dog has not only been wagged, it’s rolled over at Bush’s feet.

Of course Woody Harrelson doesn’t have the credentials of a George W or most of the patsies in government and in the commercial media, but he does seem to understand the issues. It ain’t that hard, afer all.
It also seems like he may even understand he’ll be blackballed for speaking out.
Harrelson is writing in the British Guardian.

This is a racist and imperialist war. The warmongers who stole the White House (you call them “hawks”, but I would never disparage such a fine bird) have hijacked a nation’s grief and turned it into a perpetual war on any non-white country they choose to describe as terrorist.
To the men in Washington, the world is just a giant Monopoly board. Oddly enough, Americans generally know how the government works. The politicians do everything they can for the people – the people who put them in power. The giant industries that are polluting our planet as well as violating human rights worldwide are the ones nearest and dearest to the hearts of American politicians.
But in wartime people lose their senses. There are flags and yellow ribbons and posters and every media outlet is beating the war drum and even sensible people can hear nothing else. In the US, God forbid you should suggest the war is unjust or that dropping cluster bombs from 30,000ft on a city is a cowardly act. When TV satirist Bill Maher made some dissenting remarks about the bombing of Afghanistan, Disney pulled the plug on him. In a country that lauds its freedom of speech, a word of dissent can cost you your job.

He answers a friend’s question about what he himself would do in Bush’s shoes.

Easy: I’d honor Kyoto. Join the world court. I’d stop subsidizing earth rapers like Monsanto, Dupont and Exxon. I’d shut down the nuclear power plants. So I already have $200bn saved from corporate welfare. I’d save another $100bn by stopping the war on non-corporate drugs. And I’d cut the defense budget in half so they’d have to get by on a measly $200bn a year. I’ve already saved half a trillion bucks by saying no to polluters and warmongers.
Then I’d give $300bn back to the taxpayers. I’d take the rest and pay the people teaching our children what they deserve. I’d put $100bn into alternative fuels and renewable energy. I’d revive the Chemurgy movement, which made the farmer the root of the economy, and make paper and fuel from wheat straw, rice straw and hemp. Not only would I attend, I’d sponsor the next Earth Summit. And, of course, I’d give myself a fat raise.

At least someone in Washington is willing to say it.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – CIA Director George Tenet said on Thursday al Qaeda has reorganized and become as serious a threat to the United States as it was in the months before last year’s Sept. 11 attacks.
Tenet, in a joint hearing before the congressional intelligence committees, also said the CIA and the FBI could not be flawless all the time in fighting the terror threat.
“The threat environment we find ourselves in today is as bad as it was last summer, the summer before 9/11,” Tenet told the committees. “It is serious, they’ve reconstituted, they are coming after us, they want to execute attacks.”
“You see it in Bali, you see it in Kuwait,” he said, referring to attacks this month on American troops in Kuwait and the bombing in Bali that killed more than 180 people. [JAW–although we have not been shown evidence of Al Qaeda involvement in these crimes], “They plan in multiple theaters of operation, they intend to strike … again.”
The United States launched a war on terrorism last year with a military campaign in Afghanistan to destroy Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network, which it blamed for the hijacked plane strikes that killed 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001.
Despite routing al Qaeda forces and making some key arrests around the world, the United States does not know the whereabouts of bin Laden and other network leaders.

Oh, but we really have done a lot. Aside from killing unknown thousands of Afghans, and abrogating most of the U.S. Constitution, our de facto government has managed to alienate that part of the world which didn’t already regard us as evil.

The next nut who speaks of the great job the Unelected One is doing with the “war on terror” should be committed.

The blast that killed nearly 200 people on the Indonesian resort island of Bali this weekend is a different type of terrorism from what the Bush administration has campaigned against, and will open a new geographic front in that campaign, Western officials said yesterday.
The target was not an American embassy, military outpost or financial institution that would represent American power, of the sort that terrorists have attacked in the past. Rather, it was a nightclub whose revelers were mostly Europeans and Australians; indeed, Indonesians were often turned away at the door.

Oh yes, another “front!” The NYTimes can describe the significance of the event, but neither it nor any other commercial media source or political hack will tell it like it really is.
Are you better off than you were two years ago? Is the world better off? Of course not, but ain’t it wonderful how the little Bush is handling his “war on terror!”
Wait, just what has he accomplished even in that one area of his responsibilities as putative Chief Executive? I don’t get it. Did he manage to snatch, and smash the plans, of the nineteen men who hijacked four planes September 11? Did he capture Osama Bin Laden? Did he put Sheik Oman on trial? Is Al Qaeda destroyed? Are Americans safe where they travel and live around the world? Do we all feel safer here at home? In fact, can we, or anyone in the world, ever feel safe again after what this government has done in the last two years, or not done?
Are you better off than you were two years ago?
Calling it a “war on terror” was an excellent move. It’s not officially a war with Afghanistan, a war with Osama, a war with Al Qaeda or a war with any people or thing, so there isn’t any real objective for which the White House can be held accountable. The truth is, it’s not really a war, but a blind for political opportunism and incompetence. The possibly perpetual junta will always be able to claim that it is winning, but that it’s not over yet, and won’t be for generations, so stay in line, people!
But what does this “war on terror” mean? What does a war on an invisible, stateless foe, war on an idea, war on an anger and a resentment, have to do with closing our borders, our courts and our minds and our hearts?