A worthy reference

Gorilla's Guides gives us a reference that places the current conflict in the midEast, by far the most dangerous development there in many years, in context:

Questions and Answers on Hostilities Between Israel and Hezbollah

This document, from Human Rights Watch, does answer many of the questions you might have as to the legality of what Israel and Hezbollah are doing. I was a little bit perplexed in that it indicated that a blockade of Lebanon itself, including sea lanes, might be legitimate if it stopped the transfer of war materials to Hezbollah:

Is Israel’s blockade of Lebanon legitimate?
Israel has targeted the country's only international airport, imposed a naval blockade, attacked ports, and bombed road links out of the country. Blockades as a tool of war are legitimate under international humanitarian law; however, their imposition is still subject to the principle of military necessity and proportionality.

First, the blockade must not have as its primary purpose to intimidate, harass or starve the civilian population. Such actions are proscribed by international humanitarian law, which prohibits armed forces from deliberately causing the civilian population to suffer hunger, particularly by depriving it of its sources of food or supplies.

Second, insofar as Israel attempts to justify the blockade on the grounds of restricting the re-supply of the Hezbollah military, that legitimate purpose must be weighed against the costs to the civilian population. Those costs can also shift over time, as shortages of necessities intensify. Even if a blockade were assumed lawful at the outset, it could become unlawful if mounting civilian costs became too high and outweighed the direct military advantage. In those circumstances – for example, if food or medical supplies ran low – Israel would be obliged to permit free passage of material that is essential for civilians and to protect humanitarian personnel delivering those supplies.

I am sure that there is an Israeli lawyer that will argue persuasively that the blockade will not cause the type of harm to civilian population just described. But all one has to do is see the effect of the recent Israeli bombing and blockade of Gaza to realize that Israel views actions against the entire population as justified, even if it is only one or two soldiers who are in jeopardy. (the differentiation of these soldiers as captives vs. hostages is also open to interpretation).

Finally, we have a very short memory. In World War II some of the most horrific reprisals were taken against civilian populations when guerilla action was directed against occupying Nazis:

WWII Nazi murder suspect on trial

Niznansky denies killing 164 people in World War II
A former Nazi commander accused of ordering mass killings in occupied Czechoslovakia during World War II has gone on trial in Munich.
Ladislav Niznansky, 86, is charged with the murder of civilians in the final months of World War II.

He was a member of a Nazi unit that hunted down Slovak resistance fighters and Jews.

Mr Niznansky, a Czechoslovak who took German citizenship, denies having participated in the killings.

He is accused of having headed the Slovak section of a Nazi unit codenamed Edelweiss, after the Germans crushed an uprising against Slovakia's Nazi puppet government in 1944.

Mr Niznansky is accused of ordering the executions of the entire populations of two villages - Ostry Grun and Klak - that had been helping the partisans. Most victims were women and children.

Another Nazi massacre, Marzabotto:

Killing Children

I am going to hammer on this until it is resolved. There is absolutely no justification for killing children. None. We were wrong to do so in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we were wrong to do so in Vietnam and more recently in Iraq, the insurgency is wrong to do so in Iraq, Hizbollah is wrong to do so in Northern Israel, and the Israeli are wrong to do so in Southern Lebanon. But the latter is the worse for the following reasons:

According to witnesses and photographs from the scene of the worst incident, an Israeli missile incinerated a car and a small truck full of families leaving their Lebanese border village of Marwaheen near Tyre after the Israeli army used loudhailers to tell residents they had just hours to go. Pictures showed charred bodies of children strewn across the road.

UN peacekeepers recovered the bodies. Half the passengers were children or teenagers, according to medical sources. It was the deadliest single strike since Israel started an air campaign against Lebanon after two of its soldiers were captured by Hizbollah on Wednesday.

Relatives gathered at a hospital to identify the dead said they came from two families - Abdallah and Ghanem.

Around 100 residents sought shelter at a nearby UN base, but left after officials were unable to confirm the warning by Israel, a UN spokesman said.

Other residents had tried later to leave and were killed in the missile strike, the spokesman said, adding that the Lebanese authorities had asked the UN to help evacuate about 160 people remaining in Marwaheen. They would be relocated in the morning. Relatives blamed the UN for the deaths, pelting peacekeepers with stones when they arrived with the bodies after the strike. (emphasis added)

This is not the action of a civilized government. It should not be tolerated. Where is the apology from Israel? (and don't throw 'where is the apology from Hizbollah at me' because it does not signify.)

This Man is Crazy

Just to think, ten years ago he was leading a Republican Revolution in Congress and was almost as powerful as Bill Clinton (who had the wisdom to snub him, making him leave by the tourist door on Air Force One).

Gingrich inflicted a severe blow to his public image by suggesting that the Republican hard-line stance over the budget was in part due to his feeling "snubbed" by the President the day before, after being forced to leave Air Force One via the back door during his return from Yitzhak Rabin's funeral in Israel.

Now, this idiot is demanding that Bush declare that we are in World War III:

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich says America is in World War III and President Bush should say so (link from Raw Story).
Gingrich said in an interview Saturday that Bush should call a joint session of Congress the first week of September and talk about global military conflicts in much starker terms than have been heard from the president.

Meantime, children are dying in the MidEast. If you are reading this far, and you continue to read my blog, please prepare yourself for a deluge of shrillness about this tragedy.

And What Newspapers are you Reading, Dr. Rice?

From here:

"For the last 60 years, American administrations of both stripes — Democrat, Republican — traded what they thought was security and stability and turned a blind eye to the absence of democratic forces, to the absence of pluralism in the region. And out of that set of policies we got a situation that produced or helped produce al Qaeda and other extremist elements," she said. "That policy has changed."

Rice said that the United States' Middle Eastern policy now focuses on supporting democratic change in the region.

And she passed a PhD oral exam?

Hamas won the Palestinian Legislative Election of 2006 in, what all agree, was a democratic election. (This did not suit Israel or the Bush administration and they immediately made efforts to subvert the results, such as cutting off aid and support to the people, including women and children.)

And in Lebanon itself:

Both participants and observers of the Cedar Revolution demonstrations have asked if the movement was influenced by recent local and regional events supporting democracy. Recent elections in Afghanistan, Iraq, and by the Palestinian Authority, a recent announcement that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will allow multiparty elections, and recent limited municipal elections in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, may have provided examples of movement toward democratic governance. (emphasis added)

We see what support Dr. Rice is giving to the Cedar Revolution. She won't even think about leaving her paramour in St. Petersberg to try and stop the killing in Lebanon.

PR at its best

The Forgotten War

Least this become the forgotten war:

At Least 31 Seized at Iraq Olympic Meeting
By BASSEM MROUE
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen kidnapped the chairman of Iraq's Olympic committee and at least 30 others Saturday in a brazen daylight raid on a sports conference in the heart of Baghdad. Armed clashes erupted elsewhere across the capital.

Parliament extended the national state of emergency as at least 27 people _ including two American soldiers _ were killed in sectarian or insurgency-related violence.

Let's see, two Israeli soldiers "kidnapped" (actually, they were in a HumVee that was not covered by supporting fire and they were captured by Hezbollah) and it could ignite World War III. At the same time 27 are killed in Iraq and 30 kidnapped, with the chance that they will be brutally murdered in an execution style as has become common.

Somehow, the world has gone crazy. Did not the world go crazy in 1914? About this time too (see Tuchman's "The Guns of August.")

A Question of Justice

Hezbollah rocket barrage kills 8 in Haifa

All decent people will condemn the loss of innocent life and I do so here. Furthermore, there can be no justice in the kind of war that is happening now in the mid East (in Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq).

However:

Israel's prime minister on Sunday threatened "far-reaching consequences" for a Hezbollah rocket attack on the Israeli city of Haifa that left at least eight people dead and more than 20 others wounded. The attack raised the death toll in Israel to more than 20, while more than 100 people have died in Lebanon in Israeli strikes. (emphasis added)

The wholesale destruction of civilian targets in Beirut is an escalation that has been implicitly condoned by President Bush in that he, in a strange twist of logic, "backs Israel's right to defend itself." Since when has "defending yourself" given you the right to wholesale destruction of innocent civilians?

Furthermore:

"The international community must address the root causes" of the violence taking place in the Mideast, Bush said.

"This started because Hezbollah decided to capture two Israeli soldiers and fire hundreds of rockets into Israel from southern Lebanon," Bush said. "That's the cause of the crisis." (emphasis added)

The root causes of the violence? How damn stupid can you get? This shows his C-minus mentality. He shows absolutely no grasp of the situation and its history. Why, why did the American people elect this man?



Let me be very clear about this. I am not condemning Israel because it is a Jewish State. I am condemning Israel because it has received the power to kill vast numbers of people, mostly from the United States (my tax dollars, by the way), and they have not shown wisdom or justice in deploying this power. There can be few good consequences following on the path they are pursuing.

What's the difference?

New York, 2001



Beirut, 2006

Meanwhile, back in Baghdad

From here:

A local journalist told me bitterly this week that Iraqis find it ironic that Saddam Hussein is on trial for killing 148 people 24 years ago, while militias loyal to political parties now in government kill that many people every few days. But it is not an irony that anyone here has time to laugh about. They are too busy packing their bags and wondering how they can get out alive.

Through the looking glass

12 Israeli civilians killed in convoy attack

Tel Aviv, Israel - At least 12 Israeli villagers, including women and children, were killed Saturday in what appeared to be an Lebanon airstrike on a convoy of vehicles fleeing a village near the border with Lebanon in northern Israel, a witness said.

The convoy was leaving the border village of Safad, when it was attacked. An Associated Press photgrapher said he counted 12 bodies in two cars that were destroyed by the attack shortly after midday.

Several hours earlier, Lebanese forces across the border told villagers by loudspeaker to leave the area or else the village would be destroyed. They did not give a reason for the ultimatum.

The convoy of several vehicles was hit near the border fence less than half a mile from the village.

The residents said they had first gone to a U.N. peacekeepers position manned by Ghanian forces to take refuge but they were turned down. There was no immediate confirmation from U.N. peacekeepers, who have a force in northern Israel.

You see, they had to destroy the village to save it. And in an associated story:

Bush blames Israel for Mideast violence

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - President Bush on Saturday blamed the Israeli administration of Prime Minister Olmert and the Israeli army (the IDF) for the escalating violence in the Middle East, taking a sharper stance than Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Bush held Lebanon blameless while Putin was critical of Lebanon's military response.

In the meantime, the Lebanese Army celebrated their victory at Safad with hero medals for all.

Bonus Crab

Friday Crabs (In memory of all the children killed in Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, and Israel)

This is a War Crime under International Law

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israel tightened its seal on Lebanon, blasting its air and road links to the outside world and bringing its offensive to the capital for the first time Friday in order to punish Hezbollah — and with it, the country — for the capture of two Israeli soldiers. (emphasis added)

Least We Forget

Good job, guys..

Unprovoked? Since when?

I deplore violence by anyone, including Hezbollah. However, it grates on me that my Government should be sucked into this dispute making statements like the following:

We condemn in the strongest terms Hezbollah's unprovoked attack on Israel and the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers," National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones said as President Bush flew here for a visit. He said Hezbollah had also launched unprovoked rocket attacks on civilian targets in Israel as part of its offensive. (emphasis added)

First of all it is a flat out untruth to claim that these strikes are unprovoked. Israel has been provoking its neighbor's ever since it came into existence. Israel repeatedly has attacked civilians in the surrounding territories with sophisticated weapons. It has repeatedly killed civilians in its pursuit of those it labels terrorists (one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter). It has committed so many outrages (like bombing a the only power plant in Gaza, a clear war crime) that it is impossible to catalogue them. And it has sucked us into its malevolent whirlpool.

Israel also was the cause of this family outing to turn into carnage:




There will never be any winners in the midEast. Unfortunately, Palestinian children will always be the losers:

A Successful Distraction

I have been fascinated by what has been happening in the blogsphere over the past several weeks. In addition to the escalating YouTube wars (seeing who can find the most awful clip) we have had a blogger (right) on blogger (left) war over uncivil comments. While it is certainly true, as the inestimable Glenn Greenwald states:

But while right-wing bloggers have to dig under rocks to find obscure commenters (e.g. left wing, Dr. C.) making reprehensible comments, many of the most prominent bloggers and opinion leaders on the Right routinely and blithely call for people's deaths, and some even post their home addresses on the Internet for anyone who wants help making those recommendations turn into a reality. The most popular right-wing authors sell millions of books by attacking their political opponents as treasonous and mentally ill.

an even more serious result of these verbal barrages is to distract us from some very disturbing developments. I can think of three that are getting scant attention this morning:

1. Novak has an op-ed piece in the WashPo where he states that Fitzgerald has closed his investigation into the Plame affair. This means that the Bush Administration will now have to comment on the fact that Karl Rove was one of the sources exposing Plame and, if one is to believe the President, he will be fired.

2. While Fitzgerald has not charged anyone with the leak, it is clear that there are three sources of the leak and one (Rove) or two (the primary source) are in the White House. What now George? A crime was committed. Crimes should have consequences.

3. The behavior of Bush's lawyers before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday was despicable. One of the White House lawyers actually said: "The president is always right." I guess that sort of indicates that we are no longer a country that is ruled by Laws.

These are very, very serious developments. Coupled with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon (and Gaza), the terrorist bombing in India, and the continuing civil war in Iraq, we should demand that the prominent bloggers address serious matters and forget about the digital diatribes. Don't they realize that a personal attack on the Web is now one of the most ephemeral things that you can do?

Our Dear Gove - 44

(CLICK ON CARTOON TO ENLARGE)

Midweek Crabs

Ethics

In the last analysis, each and every one of us must come to their own conclusions about the current world. We can read newspapers and periodicals (my favorite is the New York Review of Books), peruse blogs and, I guess, watch Fox News for our information. We have all read history and tend to ramble on ad infinitum about things that happened in the past that reflect on current events, but in the end it is the here and now that is of the only importance.

How far back one goes in one's definition of history is also a individual's decision. Some of us are linked to vast and monolithic constructions of the past (e.g. the Catholic Church) that tend to inform our moral consciousness. Others have been drawn into more recent constructs (e.g. fundamental Christianity, the right wing of the Republican Party) for their backing. It is interesting to note that the framers of our Constitution (which has taken on a sacerdotal sheen recently as the result of attacks on its purview) were, for the most part, Deists. The history that they used in their thinking was as recent as their current century, i.e. the Enlightenment. Contrast that with the use of pre Christian Biblical exegesis by the fundamentalists, including our President. Instead of the Christian and Buddhist concepts of respect for others, we have the Old Testament "eye for an eye..."

I would say that most Americans, following in the footsteps of our founders, had until recently the ethic that accompanied the Enlightenment and Deism. A central precept of this ethic was the equality of all peoples. I fully recognize that Colonial society was unequal in that women and slaves were not franchised. But it was a start on equality and miles ahead of Western European monarchies (basically feudal) and particularly the East. And, it is no fluke that the most serious division in the first hundred years of our history was over slavery. I am no Jeffersonian scholar, but in spite of his commerce with slaves, there is ample indication that he recognized the inequality of the institution and that it would come to haunt us. Growing up in the South, I now know that we have still not exorcised that demon from our national soul.

So, I would argue that the very basis of our national ethic is the conception of fairness and equal treatment. I would further argue that this basic concept is under attack today on a massive scale. Examples of the breakdown abound:

1. Iraq. How can anyone argue that we are treating the people of Iraq as equals? If one of us in the United States dies, if a child dies, it can be national news. Every day there are scores of horrible deaths in Iraq, all the result of our actions (and inactions). Yet, at the very highest levels of our government, the President, Vice President and Secretary of Defense, there is an almost psychotic break with reality (please read Arthur Silber on this) in the lack of recognition of this horror. The course that our government has taken in that military action, from conception prior to 9/11 to the current moment, has been marked by a belief in American exceptionalism and Iraqi inferiority.

2. American Society. Under this heading is a wide variety of disorders of the body politic. The most glaring disorder is income inequality. Yesterday, the Washington Post published the compensation of top executives in the Washington area. It, to say the least, was obscene. This is the same time that many in the lower middle class, as I can attest from personal observation, are trying to make ends meet. Many families have become rich or poor because of the failure of our Society to distribute wealth. The mere suggestion of such a distribution brings cries of "communism" or "socialism" from those who have prospered. Let me emphasize that I think this is an ethical problem.

The crisis in health care is even worse. While many lower income people still receive decent health care, there are many who do not have insurance (over 40 million) and will soon be denied even basic services. There is no initiative in our government to solve this problem. Not even a recognition that it exists. Physicians are exhausted and facilities are stretched. Of course it is not as bad a Baghdad, but it should be much better. It is an issue of fairness. Defense is not the only activity that a government should provide.

But the saddest development, at least as I perceive it, is a breakdown of a level of civility that existed until recently. For instance, Washington, D.C. is our Capitol and should be the most glorious and the safest of cities. It is the opposite. Side by side with the opulence of the CEO's mentioned above is abject poverty and, even worse, a culture of violence. (If you doubt this, read John Aravosis from yesterday.) There are also things like road rage, out of control teenagers, and, sadly to say, a lack of compassion on the part of we medical providers. All a sign of mental exhaustion and anomie.

3. International Affairs (other than Iraq). Why can't we seem to get anything done on an international front today? Possibly, because of Iraq, no one trusts us any more. The single biggest threat to the world is nuclear weapons. We have done almost nothing to control their spread (Iraq, of course, had no such weapons.) Our President recently insisted that the Pentagon prepare for him a contingency to use nuclear weapons against Iran, a non nuclear state, without overt provocation. If this is not unethical under any set of beliefs, than nothing is unethical.

Under this same heading will be the dismissal of our government on multiple levels (The Presidency, Congress, the EPA, etc.) of the threats to our environment. As I have mentioned before, the recent review in the New York Review of Books on books and Al Gore's movie was very adamant that if we did not do something in the next ten years, it might be too late to stop disastrous effects of global warming. This is an ethical issue. It is how we, of this generation, interact with the generations to come. We will not be here to answer them so we have to do it now.

Many have said that America has faced life threatening crises before, and came through with flying colors. That we even came through stronger than before. However, it is my feeling that this time it is different. This is a different crisis. This is a crisis in the very foundation of our government. Above all else it is an ethical crisis.

In critical care medicine there is predictive power in the number of organ systems that are dysfunctional. If it is just the lungs that are failing, or just the kidneys, the prognosis is often good. If it is both the lungs and the kidneys, it becomes worse. Each system that is added increases the risk of death by 25%. If you add the liver and the brain, you might as well call your loved ones to come kiss you good-by.

Sometimes I fear that America is in the situation of multi organ dysfunction. I dread the day when it will be multi organ failure.

North Korea and The Bomb

It is pretty clear now that North Korea has viable nuclear weapons. (What they don't have is Big Oil.) While their recent efforts to launch a missile capable of reaching America, and potentially delivering such weapons, was not successful, it will not be very long before they do perfect such a delivery system. (There has even been speculation that they deliberately caused the missile to go awry in order to lull us into a false sense of security.)

So, on the one hand, Iraq (who does have Big Oil) was deemed a sufficient threat that we had to invade the country, overthrow its legally constituted government (as despicable as Saddam Hussein was, he pales in comparison to Kim Jong-iL), and botch an occupation that has lead to untold suffering and hardship for the very people that we said we were trying to "liberate." And on the other hand, we are going to "continue diplomacy with North Korea."

Please remember that the main argument supporting the invasion of Iraq that Condi "Mushroom Cloud" Rice and Colin "Unmanned Delivery Vehicles" Powell presented to the World was that Saddam Hussein had the ability to deliver nuclear weapons to the mainland USA. So, please examine the following map:



Do you feel secure knowing that George W. Bush, who never reads a serious book or paper and brags about being a "C" student, is in charge of dealing with Kim Jong-iL who has nuclear weapons and an almost delivery system?

What a silly question.

A Not so Evil Empire?

Russian Bear Bomber (carrying atomic bombs)


Russian atomic bombs in a museum.


I am so sorry, but I have a very hard time getting my brain around the following:

U.S. and Russia to Enter Civilian Nuclear Pact
Bush Reverses Long-Standing Policy, Allows Agreement That May Provide Leverage on Iran

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 8, 2006; Page A01

President Bush has decided to permit extensive U.S. civilian nuclear cooperation with Russia for the first time, administration officials said yesterday..... (emphasis added)

I don't need to do any research on this one. I clearly remember getting under my desk in third grade when the sirens went off in the air raid drills, my dog tag clattering around my neck. (I never figured out who was going to identify me. Eisenhower in his bunker? He would have had a lot of kiddies to identify. Maybe not. We would be nuclear debris. As it is, I still have some Strontium 90 in my bones.) I clearly remember seeing a B-36 circling our airport but unable to land..it was too big. I recall the traveling road show by the U.S. Government that depicted an atomic attack with a city being destroyed (and looking like Baghdad today). And I have had an old time nightmare friend visit me on a regular basis obliterating my family in a bright and final flash.

It wasn't the Soviet Union that was the threat, it was the RUSSIANS. (My grandmother called them, correctly, "the Bolsheviks.")

Question (maybe rhetorical): Does not this same Russia still have nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them targeted to American cities? And this is the same State that we are going to cooperate with on nuclear matters? Am I missing something here? Why do we even need nuclear weapons any longer? The whole purpose of nuclear weapons was Mutually Assured Destruction with the "mutual" in MAD being Russia.

Oops. Maybe its the North Koreans. And, I guess, the Chinese. And the Indians, and the Pakistanis and the Israelis. Our Boy King probably thinks its the French!

Mr. Wizard, Mr. Wizard, please help me. I swear I am going nuts.

Oh, there is a little footnote to the above article:

A nuclear cooperation agreement would clear the way for Russia to import and store thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel from U.S.-supplied reactors around the world, a lucrative business so far blocked by Washington.

So, it is just a garbage deal. Sort of a "not in my backyard, buddy" situation. And it involves money. Lots of money. Oh, I understand now.

Footnote #2: And if you don't think that the Russians had it in for us, just take a gander at this bomb, the "Tsar Bomba":



This little baby weighed in at 50 Megatons! That's 2500 times the power of the bomb that obliterated Hiroshima. One was exploded with a "Parachute retarded airburst". And:

The fabrication of the massive parachute disrupted the Soviet nylon hosiery industry. It weighed 27 metric tons. Some were actually stockpiled.

Gosh, isn't history interesting.

Oh, by the way, Russia was still producing nuclear weapons and delivery systems as of 1997:

RT-2PM Topal

This single warhead missile is currently (late 1997) the only strategic nuclear delivery system in production in Russia.

Lay Kenny Lay, Lay in the big long box awhile...

From an absolutely fascinating obituary in the Aspen Daily News (thanks to Digby):

Ken led a long and distinguished career in the public and private sector. Ken worked with Humble Oil (now Exxon Corp.) from 1965-1968 as an economist in the corporate planning department.

Humble? Ken Lay humble? Who said irony was dead?

(Least you think I have no respect for the dead, indeed, for this man I have no respect. He was a convicted criminal whose mind boggling greed resulted in hardship for thousands, maybe millions, of people. I save my respect and mourning for the thousands of children who have died because of our involvement in Iraq.)

But, of course, Boy King chimes in:

Bush, speaking in an interview with CNN's "Larry King Live," said he knew Lay "pretty well" and called him a "good guy" he had gotten to know while governor of Texas.

Yep, the world is divided into good and bad guys. Its good to know where we stand.

Cleaning out the Crab Pot

If geese come in a gaggle and whales in pod, what do crabs come in?

(and don't say a pot, that's lobsters)

Gaza and its destruction...

Continuing a post from below, I highly recommend Juan Cole's article in Salon, Israel's failed-state strategy. Why is the World not shocked by the following information (don't answer that, I know):

He (Olmert, Israel's head of state, dr.c.) even ordered Israeli jets to create terrifying sonic booms throughout the night, as if 1.4 million persons, many of them children, were being subjected to the sleep deprivation techniques applied by U.S. interrogators at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. As Patrick O'Connor has pointed out, Olmert told his cabinet last Sunday that he wanted "no one to be able to sleep tonight in Gaza."

This is clearly warfare directed at civilians. Does anyone think that the Palestinians, who have been suffering under the yoke of Israel's oppression for over 50 years, are going to cry "surrender" because of a sonic boom? On the other hand, it is going to produce seriously disturbed Palestinian children in the future if it keeps up. They, Israel, just don't care. They are in the same mold as their patron, Bush, the idiot GodFather.

Crabs, we have crabs...

Junior Division Winner

Some are more equal than others

Juan Cole tells us:

50 killed, as a Raft of Bodies are Found in Baghdad

And the news is all agog with:

Nation remembers 7 July victims (the 52 killed in the suicide bombings last year in London -dr.c.) Prime Minister Tony Blair said the anniversary was an opportunity for "the whole nation to come together".

He said it was a chance "to offer comfort and support to those who lost loved ones or were injured on that terrible day".

Who mourns all those innocent (and they are/were innocent) victims in Baghdad? And, its happening every day. Thousands upon thousands of innocents. Up to half of them children.

That's right, every day.

What happens to people (us) when this goes on for years? Do we become so totally immune to feeling for the children of Iraq that we just don't care any more? What about Bush? Does he not care?

Ha!

Friday Crab Blogging - Novice Class

Cowards!

An Israeli army bulldozer tears down Palestinian owned greenhouses during a large-scale military operation in the northern Gaza Strip. Seventeen Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed as Israel thrust deep into Gaza in its largest and deadliest operation in months, reoccupying areas evacuated 10 months ago.(AFP/POOL/Yehuda Lahiani)

Yes, yes. Let's destroy greenhouses. They can, of course, be used to breed rockets. This is, by the way, against the UN Charter. But, ho hum, who's going to risk the label of anti-semitism to do the right thing and protest?

The Usual Suspects

(if its golden, it has to be Royal)

Buried in all the news today was an item about oil prices rising to $75 a barrel. I have blogged about this before (see laughing all the way from the pump)where I pointed out the screw job that Big Oil was doing on the American consumer. (Not that I don't think we should let gas prices go through the ceiling to cut consumption and maybe, just maybe, save the planet. But, let that be through taxes, not profits. And, that is another rant.)

The point is, that when the price of oil goes up per barrel, the price of a gallon of gas at the pump goes up out of proportion, that excess being the windfall profits that Exxon/Mobil and their cronies are putting in their pockets. Here is an updated graph:

(note that taxes haven't gone up, just profits)

There may be 20,000,000 gallons of gasoline sold in the US every day. That works out to a windfall of at least $14,000,000/day for Big Oil. That's about $5 billion a year.

Just think how much health care for kids that would buy. Of course, as you can see on my side bar, we are approaching $300 billion for the War in Iraq.

Damn we waste money.

1 + 1 = 2, Unless....

Murray Waas gets the scoop:

1 =

Bush also told federal prosecutors during his June 24, 2004, interview in the Oval Office that he had directed Cheney, as part of that broader effort, to disclose highly classified intelligence information that would not only defend his administration but also discredit Wilson, the sources said.

1 =

"On or about June 12, 2003, Libby was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson's wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Division. Libby understood that the Vice President learned this information from the CIA."

2 =

The disclosure of classified information as part of an effort to discredit Wilson, and the unmasking of Plame as a CIA "operative" by columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003, occurred after Wilson began asserting that the Bush administration had relied on faulty intelligence to bolster its case to go to war with Iraq.

Unless it equals three, or 10, or whatever....

Don't forget that:

On September 30, 2003, Mr. Bush said " And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of." Followed by, "I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action."

War on Terror?

After the tragedy of 9/11 George W. Bush and his cronies, including President Cheney, convinced the American people, and a lot of the World, that the single biggest threat to our security was Al-Qaeda, whose leader, Osama bin Laden, was Evil Incarnate. We were going to get him "dead or alive!" said cowboy George.

Well, imagine the surprise when we read that:

Bush shut down CIA's "Osama bin Laden" unit a year ago
by John in DC - 7/03/2006 11:14:00 PM

And from the New York Times (subscription only):

Michael Scheuer, a former senior C.I.A. official who was the first head of the unit, said the move reflected a view within the agency that Mr. bin Laden was no longer the threat he once was.

Mr. Scheuer said that view was mistaken.

"This will clearly denigrate our operations against Al Qaeda," he said. (emphasis added)

Excuse me? Didn't we just go through weeks of posturing by the cowboy himself bragging about "taking out" Al-Zarqwai, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (Which, according Al-Zarqwai's wife, was a result of being set up by Don Osama. Do you think Al-Zarqwai found a horse head in his bed? Maybe a goat. Marlon Brando is jealous. He thinks he should have some smart bombs. Just think of the muscle that would bring.)

I am very, very confused, Mr. Wizard.

India and Pakistan

India an Pakistan have been at War since 1948 (actually, for much longer than that when you consider that the conflict is between Islam and the other cultures that inhabit India, mainly Hindu. This probably started even in the same century as Mohammad, i.e. the seventh. A notable exception is the reign of Akbar during the Mughal empire. But that is another story.)
It would seen the height of stupidity to exacerbate this festering conflict. But, that is exactly what our Boy King has done:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush Administration said on Monday that it planned to sell Pakistan up to 36 advanced F-16 fighter jets built by Lockheed Martin Corp. in a weapons package that could be worth more than $5 billion.

Of course this follows close on the heels of the Bush Administration's accomodation with India concerning nuclear items, tacit approval in my mind of their nuclear weapon program.

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- The United States will send nuclear fuel and expertise to India under the terms of a pact reached on the last day of President Bush's visit to New Delhi.

These guys are always good for a laugh:

Bush said the agreement would help to "make the world safer" and praised India for setting an example "for other nations to participate in civilian nuclear power in such a way as to address nonproliferation concerns.

If you believe any country that wants to defend itself in today's world where we attack Iraq and not North Korea isn't interested in doing anything to obtain nuclear technology, no matter what "guarentees" are given that it is peaceful, well, do not pass go and do not collect $200.

Of course, Boy King's buddies in the defense industry do make quite a bundle on these deals. And they do contribute to Republican candidates. And, in our dear Land of the Free, elections are bought not won.

Why we worry.

On the one hand, North Korea with presumed nuclear weapons and a rocket delivery system to the West Coast (which includes that Blue bastion Seattle) is "ratchet(ing) up the rhetoric..." This is a serious threat, no matter if we want to pretend that it is comic opera. When clown dictators had funny armies, it was not a serious threat. A nuclear weapon is a serious threat.

At the same time, that absentee landlord Senator Santorum (he of man on dog fame) is crowing about the "found" WMD in Iraq.

I am not asking that the World be perfect, just that it be understandable.

Have you heard this one?

A man walks into a bar....
January 23, 1973

Throughout the years of negotiations, we have insisted on peace with honor.

But, alas....

April 30, 1975



If the Fall of Saigon was, in Leatherneck Magazine's parlance, "America's Adopted Alamo", what will be the fall of Baghdad be? America's adopted Waterloo?

------------------------------------
An interesting document from here:

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Better sharpen your quill, Condi!

Courtesy of the Government of the United States

Israeli fighter jets bombed 20 targets in Gaza, including the Interior Ministry, which it said had been used by militants to stage meetings, while artillery hit the northern strip with 500 shells in the 24 hours until yesterday morning.

Now if you have a problem with my assertion that this is a direct responsibility of the US Government please read on.

From here:

Although Israel is an "advanced, industrialized, technologically sophisticated country," it "receives more U.S. aid per capita annually than the total annual [Gross Domestic Product] per capita of several Arab states." Approximately a third of the entire U.S. foreign aid budget goes to Israel, "even though Israel comprises just…one-thousandth of the world's total population, and already has one of the world's higher per capita incomes."(emphasis added)

(there are a lot of other interesting facts in this article, worth a perusal)

Now quite of bit of the foreign aid that goes to Israel is for military purposes, like buying jets:
From here:


If you don't think that 31 billion dollars over 16 years can't buy a lot of destructive power, well....

(oh, and that extra 1.2 billion dollars in year 2000? That was to implement the Wye River Accords. Remember that? No? Well, we paid Israel to withdraw and they weren't very successful, but Israel got the money anyway. Oh, I don't think the Palestinians got much at all.)

Oh, and the Palestinians? Those people? Well, they are having a tough time of it:



But we should not give foreign aid to Palestinians (and certainly not military aid) because they are TERRORISTS!!!

The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday approved the Bush administration's foreign aid bill, which includes provisions to limit financial aid to the Palestinian Authority if it continues to engage in, and encourage, terrorism.

But you got to admire them:



I sure as hell do.

Whose Ox?

What a difference a day makes:

During a mid-day press conference with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, President Bush observed that, “certain senators have already been out, expressing their desire to address what the Supreme Court found, and we will work with the Congress.” (emphasis added)

While singing "Jailhouse Rock" at Graceland (if only).

In the meantime, a review of global warming by James Hansen in the New York Review of Books (highly recommended) concludes that we have, at the maximum, ten years to get our bejonees together before the proverbial hitting of the fan.

It also speculates that in the "loss" of the election by Al Gore to the future Boy King in 2000:

....the country came close to having the leadership it needed to deal with a grave threat to the planet, but did not realize it.

I guess that puts the grave threat to our Country as we know it in perspective. Either way George W. Bush has been a catastrophe (and the relatives of the 66 dead in Baghdad today would not argue).