Sgt. Milton Ortiz, Jr. of the Penn. National Guard plead guilty to obstructing justice by planting an AK-47 near an unarmed Iraqi, Gani Ahmed Zaben, killed by his buddy in Ramadi in February because he was believed to be walking in a “tactical” manner and carrying a gun, which he wasn’t. Charges were dropped against the shooter last month. Ortiz also faced a separate charge of beating up another Iraqi. He was reduced in rank. Not even discharged from the military.
The US is pressing forward on getting a UN Security Council vote, because if there’s one thing that’s influential in the Middle East, it’s a UN Security Council resolution. But while the US and Israel keep talking about the need for the Lebanese government to displace Hezbollah from what they like to call a power vacuum (how can it be a vacuum when Hezbollah is there? In the vacuum of space, no one can hear you scream “Death to Israel”), they’re treating the rejection of their resolution by the Lebanese government as irrelevant. Condi said today that they may not like it now, but “I suspect that after this resolution is passed that you will see an understanding on the part of both parties that the time to have an abatement in this violence is now.” She’s a great one for telling people that it’s “time for” this or that.
And what a busy Condi she was today, appearing on ABC and NBC, and holding a press conference. I’ll take them together.
When did “that’s a hypothetical question” become an acceptable reason not to answer it? Lieberman refused to answer a question about running as an independent on that ground, and Condi refused to talk about the possibility of civil war in Iraq: “I’m not going to deal with a hypothetical.” Yes, heaven forbid we plan for stuff before it happens; worked so well for us in Iraq up until now. She did, however, say that “The Iraqi people and the Iraqi government have not made a choice for civil war.” Did Bosnia hold a referendum first, “Civil war: yea or nay”? Or any other country? Imagine what the campaign ads would be like. I mean I’ve heard of attack ads... Condi admitted that sectarian violence is at its height, but she offered a helpful solution: “The Iraqis need to get a handle on that.” Yeah, they should really get to work on that.
After all the talk about how a ceasefire only made sense if it were lasting, enduring, permanent, stable, eternal, etc., she does rather seem to be trying to lower expectations, saying “these things take a while to wind down” and “there could be skirmishes of some kind for some time to come.” However, “The violence that we are all seeing every day on our screens has simply got to stop” – oh, won’t someone think of the real victims in this: Americans watching CNN – “so that the Lebanese people have an opportunity to begin to return to a normal life.” Under Israeli military occupation, living as refugees amidst piles of rubble, without food, shelter or electricity. Normal for Lebanon, I suppose.
And while at times she treated the UN resolution as a magical incantation, at others she downplayed it. She called it a “first step” 3 times on NBC, 5 times on ABC, and 7 times in the press conference, including, “a good first step,” “a very good first step,” “the best first step,” “the right first step.” Beyond moving in international forces, she was a little unclear about what the second step would be, but that’s probably one of those – how you say? – hypothetical questions.
Her other favorite phrase, all this week, has been “status quo ante,” (5 times on ABC, 6 times on NBC, 4 times in the press conference) the thing to which we cannot return.
Replying to a question from Russert about the rise in support for Hezbollah in Lebanon in reaction to the invasion, she said, “Well, first of all, it is quite understandable that there is a lot of emotion in Lebanon about what is going on there.” Oh, thank you for being so very understanding.
Today’s WaPo Style Invitational contest is pretty good. Compare or contrast two words that differ by one letter:
Osama and Osaka: Given five years, the CIA might find Osaka.
Whores and chores: My wife has never given me a list of whores to do on my day off.
The difference between global warming and global arming is W; actually, that's also what they have in common.
Bush and bust: The difference between a president and his presidency.
Bush and blush: One of them demonstrates self-consciousness and the capacity for embarrassment.
Fast supper and Last Supper: One involves a happy meal.
A late entry was provided today by tiny anchor George Stephanopoulos, who asked Joe Lieberman about the perception that he was “too willing to buck your own party.”
Holy Joe insisted that Lamont is actually a center-right Democrat disguising himself as a liberal, adding “You don’t really know this other guy,” the cry of every incumbent who the voters know all too well.
Actually, though, Joementum seems worried that voters might think he’s someone else, asserting, without offering any evidence, “I ain’t George Bush.” Speaking ungrammatically ain’t going to bolster that case. If he ain’t George Bush, who does he claim he is? Not Joe Lieberman, of course, because no one wants to vote for that guy. No, like every other losing candidate for the last 50 years, he’s Harry Truman. Who he says won in 1948 because the “regular people” turned out to vote. I suppose it’s too late for the Lamont people to put out “Another irregular person for Ned Lamont” bumper stickers.
Asked whether Bush planned to call any Middle Eastern leaders about the draft UN resolution, Tony Insert-Snow-Related-Pun-Here said, “I don’t know if he needs to. I haven’t heard Olmert complaining.” Oy. Besides, Bush was busy with more pressing matters.
Hearings have begun for the soldiers accused of conspiring with Pfc. Steven Green to cover up his rape of a 14-year old Iraqi girl in Mahmudiya and subsequent massacre of her and her family. The London Sunday Times, which seems to have seen papers that no one else has, reports that the girl was not raped only by Green.
The Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie says that Iraq has civil strife but not a civil war. So that’s okay then.
Pointless invention of the week: a $1.5 million bed that floats. Magnets are involved.
The US and France have agreed on wording for a cease-fire resolution. Hezbollah would stop attacking Israel and Israel would cease “all offensive military actions.” Except... doesn’t Israel claim that everything it’s done has been defensive?
Oh, and Israel would be allowed to keep its troops occupying Lebanon.
It calls for an end to weapons being supplied to Hezbollah by other countries, so that the only military power in Lebanon would be Israel (well, I hear that there’s a Lebanese army too, but since its entire response to the bombing, invasion and occupation of its country has been, um, nothing, I don’t think we need to count it).
Israel says it will continue operations while it studies the draft... very... slowly.
Bush is going on vacation, Blair is going on vacation (update: no! he postponed it), so why not the mayor of Hit, Iraq, who finds conditions in his town such that he asked the US to send him to Abu Ghraib “just for the summer. ... You have air conditioning, three meals a day, soccer balls. Abu Ghraib is a nice place.” You know, I honestly can’t tell if that was the Iraqi version of sarcasm or what.
Four days before his primary defeat, Joe Lieberman calls for Bush to fire Rumsfeld. As many bloggers have pointed out, in 2004, Joementum wrote in the Wall Street Journal that such a move would make the “foreign and domestic opponents of America’s presence in Iraq” squeal with delight. Today, he said “a new face at the head of the Pentagon might help to open some minds and rebuild some public support [for the war] here in America.” So he’s still not actually willing to criticize Secretary of War Rumsfeld’s performance: it’s all about public relations and selling the war. And speaking of public relations, note his dismissive, arrogant attitude towards the public: people who oppose the war have closed minds and are blinded by their dislike of Rocket Rummy.
One thing I didn’t know: 45% of Connecticut’s registered voters have no party affiliation. 1/3 are Democrats, 22% are Republican.
When I first read the address (transcript, video) which Condi read (badly) to the Cuban people over Radio/TV Marti, it seemed pretty bland and I missed the point. See if you can spot the two key words in this sentence: “We encourage the Cuban people to work at home for positive change, and we stand ready to provide you with humanitarian assistance, as you begin to chart a new course for your country.” The key words are “at home,” and the message is: don’t get in your damned boats and try to come to Miami.
Finally got the IKEA table put together, sort of. Some of that unevenness is just perspective, some of it not so much.
Bush thinks that with Fidel Castro nearly 80 years old and in the hospital, he just might be able to take him in a fight. Today he issued a message, nay, a decree, to the Cuban people, “urging” them to work for democratic change. Not actual democracy, mind you, but a “transitional government in Cuba committed to democracy”. I think the word he’s looking for is “junta.” That choice of wording, which I’ve seen before, is obviously deliberate. He adds ominously, “we will take note of those, in the current Cuban regime, who obstruct your desire for a free Cuba.” Uh oh, he’s taking notes.
Israel hacked into the satellite feed for a Hezbollah tv station in Lebanon, showing a drawing of Sheik Nasrallah with a gun site superimposed on it, bang bang noises, and the printed words “Your day is coming, coming, coming.” Just what the invasion of Lebanon was missing: a logo and a motto.
Via the J-Walk Blog, a site of atheist quotes. The currently top-rated one is from Stephen Roberts, presumably not the one who’s Cokie’s husband: “I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” Although as ever Mark Twain is more succinct: “The easy confidence with which I know another man’s religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” And Bertrand Russell: “So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.”
Caption contest, if you like (the guys on horses are Border Patrol).
Couldn’t post earlier. There was an earthquake and I thought it prudent to unplug the computer. 4.4, big deal. So this is a long one.
The House of Representatives cafeterias have changed “freedom fries” back to “French fries.”
Olmert declared today that Hezbollah “has been disarmed by the military operations of Israel to a large degree.” I’m not sure whether that was before or after Hez disarmed itself of 190 rockets by launching them at Israel (wounding 21 and killing one). Olmert counted as part of that victory that “All the population which is the power base of the Hezbollah in Lebanon was displaced.” Just in case you thought that ordering Lebanese to abandon their homes was done out of any concern for their personal safety.
And Olmert, in an interview with the London Times, asks, “And by the way, how do you really know that 400 innocent civilians were killed? How do you know who is innocent and who is not? Why? This is not an army. They don’t wear uniforms that distinguish them from other civilians.”
Israeli ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman, who seems to be competing with our own ambassador John Bolten in assholery, 1) claimed on “Meet the Press” that Hezbelloh was responsible for the Qana massacre by forcibly preventing residents from leaving, 2) said that he didn’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud (okay his actual words were “If we waited a year or two, they [Hezbollah] would have had chemical and biological weapons, and if we waited another five or six years, Hezbollah would have nuclear weapons.”), 3) accused Lebanon of being big ol’ cry-babies: “Isn’t it time that Lebanon took its fate into its own hands rather than keep crying out to the Security Council and to the international community?”
I don’t want to get too ahead of the process in discussing the procedures the Bushies are talking about for the military tribunals for suspected terrorists. Until they actually officially propose a bill, I’ll refrain from hitting the roof over the notion of letting the secretary of defense decide what crimes should be tried by military tribunals. I’m assuming – dear god, let it be so – that they’re throwing out every half-baked idea they can think of now so that their final proposal will look only mostly evil rather than batshit insane. Still, I would rather have a flat-out extra-legal system of detention without trial, which would at least be honest, than something that pretended to be a legal system but, for example, allowed the introduction evidence that the defense was not allowed to see. That isn’t just not a fair trial, it’s not a trial at all, and I’d rather see no court than a mockery of one. And they want to be able to admit information obtained by torture, and they want that written into law and passed by Congress – they’re trying to make every branch of government complicit. In a way, I’m with them on this one: I want congresscritters forced as often as possible to declare whether they are for or against torture.
The Bushies will also include a provision to immunize what the WaPo calls “service personnel and civilians,” the latter I assume meaning CIA employees, who commit war crimes while following administration policies. Alberto Gonzales called for such “protections for those who’ve relied in good faith upon decisions made by their superiors”. Ah yes, the “I vas chust following orders” defense.
A Miami Herald story begins: “Lacking hard facts about what is happening in Cuba after Fidel Castro ceded power, the Bush administration has accelerated its planning for a Cuban transition and is exploring new ways to broadcast information to the island.” So if they lack hard facts, what “information” would they be broadcasting?
Speaking of broadcasting, here’s a recruitment video for Appalachian State University (which is evidently hot hot hot) that’s been making the rounds. Stunningly bad.
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The LAT reports on how the investigation of the murder of 3 Iraqi detainees by American troops, possibly kinda encouraged by an alleged order by Col. Michael Steele to “kill all military-aged males,” is revealing that Steele created an atmosphere of trigger-happy racism, getting soldiers to compete over who could kill the most Iraqis, tracking their competition on a board at hq with the words “Let the bodies hit the floor” on it, and giving out knives as rewards for killing Iraqis. All very “Glengarry Glen Ross.”
Rumsfeld responded to Iraqi President Talibani’s claim that Iraqis could take charge of security in the whole country by the end of the year: “That’s fine. He’s the president of Iraq, and he can make his statements.”
Caption contest: Bush made a surprise visit to the press briefing room, which is like one of those surprise visits to Iraq, but with Helen Thomas instead of insurgents.
Iraqi President Talibani says that Iraqi forces will take complete responsibility for the security of the country by the end of the year. He also says that the current wave of violence is “the last arrows in their pockets” and that “We are highly optimistic that we will terminate terrorism in this year.” He added, “Dude, I am so high right now.”
Headline of the day: “Thai Bride Admits Feeding Ex-Husband to the Tigers.”
In that Fox interview, Bush supported the House Republican move to link the first increase in the minimum wage in a decade to permanent repeal of the estate tax. You know, when a country’s ruling party is that cynical, when it holds the interests of the poorest workers hostage to the interests of the wealthiest non-workers, voting against them just isn’t good enough. This is the sort of callousness that sparks revolutions. We need heads on pikes, people. We need to build barricades, and I will personally donate raw material for the first one.
Why yes, it is from IKEA, how did you guess?
More London Review of Books personal ads:
Leave me alone with your father for an evening and by the end of the night we’ll have gotten drunk together and have nicknames for each other and be scheduling in a football game. Give me the weekend and we’ll be lovers. Man in denial, 35, determined to bring everyone you know out of the closet before crawling into it himself and nailing the door shut from the inside. Box no. 11/02
The Schrödinger’s cat of personal ads. Box no. 11/08
My way or the highway – the two are very often the same with asphalting loon, 53, mixing his own bitumen and coarse aggregate surfacing solutions at box no. 14/03
I celebrated my fortieth birthday last week by cataloguing my collection of bird feeders. Next year I’m hoping for sexual intercourse. And a cake. Join my invite mailing list at box no. 14/04. Man.
‘Scarface’, ‘Mad Dog’, ‘Pretty Boy’, ‘Baby Face’ – if I had an underworld crime nickname it would be ‘Screwed by Ex-Wife’s Solicitor and Currently Sleeping in a Caravan’. Man, 42. Screwed by ex-wife’s solicitor and currently sleeping in a caravan. Box no. 14/06
Week 3 – Day 2. Breakfast: small piece of fruit (for example an apple), two crispbreads with one tablespoon low-fat soft cheese and one sliced tomato. Lunch: one wholemeal pita bread with a quarter small pot reduced-fat hummus and crudités, one small banana. Dinner: 47 chocolate cakes, anguish, despair, bile, hatred, a small pot of low-fat fruit yoghurt. Post-divorce comfort eater and sex therapist (F, 38). Box no. 15/03
The Red Devils flew over this ad while I was writing it. Family fun day guy (divorced, 51); monster trucks, motorbike displays, St John’s Ambulance and a beer tent. That’s me, breaking my leg on the Marine Corps death slide of self-hatred and over-compensation at box no. 15/05. I’ll meet you by the face-painting stand.
My advert comes in the form of interpretive dance. Man, 62. Box no. 15/09
When the Antmen unite, all will be their slaves. Man, 46, WLTM woman to 50 for whom this opening line works as a prelude to sex. Box no. 15/10
Bush talked to Fox’s Neil Cavuto Monday about a ceasefire in Lebanon: “Stopping for the sake of stopping is — is — is — can be OK, except it won’t address the root cause of the problem.” Which, as we all know, is terrorists. Nothing but terrorists. No one else in the Middle East ever does anything bad.
Cavuto brought up Israel’s breaking of its 48-hour bombing pause. Asked a similar question, Condi said, “the Israelis tell us that it’s close air support for their forces that were being engaged.” So that’s okay then. Bush attempted the “Look! Over there! Something shiny!” maneuver Cheney so often and so successfully uses on him:
CAVUTO: Reaction to the Middle East — we had a temporary suspension of hostilities. They were renewed this morning. What do you think?
BUSH: I think — first of all, I — I think your viewers ought to focus on the fact that the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution about Iran. And the world is coming together and making it clear that — to the Iranians, that their ambitions — their nuclear weapons ambitions — are just not acceptable.
He went on to say this about Iran: “I think that they — you know, I think that they sponsor Hezbollah. And, therefore, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re very much involved in the activities of Hezbollah.” Wow, he “wouldn’t be surprised.” Of course we’ve invaded entire countries on the basis of intel no more solid than that, so Iran should be worried.
On Venezuela purchasing weapons: “But, you know, the biggest threat he faces is under - the biggest face we threat - the biggest threat we face in the neighborhood is undermining democratic values and institutions. And it’s just - we will continue to speak out on behalf of - of democracy.” Speaking out, as only Bush can.
Says he wishes Chavez “would invest his petrodollars with the people of Venezuela, and give them a chance to, you know, get out of poverty, and give them a chance to realize hopes and dreams.” As opposed to the massive record profits just announced by Exxon, Chevron et al? (By the way, put aside some time for the Chicago Tribune series “A Tank of Gas, a World of Trouble.”)
On immigration: “But, you know, the words ‘amnesty’ are loaded words.” Yes they is. In the same response he said that illegal immigrants should learn English before applying for citizenship. Also, they should prove they “have been a good citizen.” Presumably he means a good non-citizen.
Asked if Americans are forgetting about the threat of terrorism: “My job is to do - is to do two things, one, remind people about the war on terror, and remind them that we’re doing everything we can to protect them, so that they’re able to go about their lives. ... It’s a - you know, it’s - you want the environment for - for people taking risks to be such that people say, ‘I understand that there’s a War on Terror, but I’m still willing to take risk.’” Well, to quote Lt. Frank Drebin, you take a risk when you get up in the morning, cross the street, or stick your face in a fan. “And [I’m quoting Bush now, not Drebin] I want the American people to know that, even if they don’t think that we’re still at war, I do”.
Summing up, Neil Cavuto got to the philosophical nub of the interview: “It was about 100 degrees, 100 percent humidity. He didn’t sweat. I did. And the guy is a lot older than I am. Go figure.”
Indeed today Bush had his annual physical (is that how you dress when you go to the doctor?) and was pronounced fit for duty, which is a case of medical malpractice if I ever heard of one.
So what is the Israeli government up to? Yesterday when the Israeli 48-hour aerial ceasefire was announced by Condi, it looked like she was being given credit she didn’t deserve. But less than an hour after she got on her plane and left, the prime minister and defense minister said, “Ceasefire? What ceasefire?”, resumed their bombing raids, and within a few hours the cabinet voted to expand the war. It looks very much like Condi was played. Did they really lie to her face about their intentions? Did they do so just to make her go away, thinking she’d accomplished something? And how can she return to the region now?
I don’t know what will happen next, and where we’ll be a month from now or a year from now. Haven’t got a clue. I suspect even the Israelis are surprised that they’ve gotten away with wreaking so much havoc on Lebanon for so long without being reined in. But they also haven’t accomplished nearly as much as they expected: Hezbollah can still fire rockets into Israel more at less at will and still holds the two Israeli soldiers Israel seems to have forgotten about. And Olmert et al have ratcheted up their rhetoric, and the Israeli public’s expectations, so far that anything less than the complete destruction of Hezbollah and the complete elimination of danger to all Israelis will seem like a failure, for which the Israeli public, who have shown no signs of sympathy for the Qana dead, no embarrassment over the deaths of children, will punish Olmert and the fledgling Kadima Party severely.
I was going to call the London Times’s “Shot Man Faces Porn Questions” my headline of the day (er, yesterday; I misplaced this paragraph), until I read the story. Last month the police raided a house under the impression that two brothers were Muslim terrorists, accidentally shooting one of them in the shoulder. They were quickly released and apologized to, but now the police are claiming to have found kiddie porn on the computer of the man they shot. Sure they did.
TPM has a scan of the Joe Lieberman flier distributed at black churches (front side, back side). What interests me, more than his mentioning having been at the March on Washington and gone to Mississippi while being rather sketchy about what he’s done for blacks in the last 40 years, more than his grossly mischaracterizing Lamont as saying he didn’t think much about race before getting into the race when he actually said he hadn’t thought much about the lack of diversity in his country club (which he attributes to its high dues and not – in a bit the flier leaves out – to discriminatory policy), is the claim that he is “The only candidate endorsed by the Democratic Party and President Clinton.” I like the underlining of only, to make it clear that they were endorsing just the one candidate for senator, but the real question is, what is this “Democratic Party” that endorsed him? The registered Democratic voters of the state of Connecticut might be forgiven for thinking that they are the party and that their endorsement won’t be decided upon until August 8th. The only party whose endorsement has been settled is this one. Any suggestion to the contrary is un-d/Democratic.
Glenn Greenwald explains why Arlen Specter’s anything-goes surveillance bill is a dangerous tilt towards unencumbered executive power.
Here’s something I feel confident no other blog will be interested in: pictures of George Bush stumbling on the Air Force One stairs.
I’m not sure I understand the sudden concern at the Qana massacre of 60+ Lebanese, including 37 children. Is there some minimum number that have to be killed all at the same time before it sinks in that murdering civilians, like the other 500 or so killed by Israeli bombs over the last couple of weeks, is a bad thing?
Condi Rice was furious. Look how furious she was, as she met Sunday with Prime Minister Olmert,
Foreign Minister Livni,
and Defense Minister Peretz.
She issued this edict: “We want a ceasefire as soon as possible.” Yes, just as soon as possible. You know how you implement a ceasefire? You cease firing. There’s no “as soon as possible” involved. You... just... cease... firing.
Well in fact the Israelis, after claiming the attack on a large residential building was justified by rockets they claim had been launched from it, suggesting that the house was actually blown up by Hezbollah munitions stored in it, blaming the residents for not having left their homes when Israel ordered them to, and suggesting that they were being used by Hezbollah “as shields or being used cynically to further Hizbullah’s propaganda purposes,” did declare a temporary cease-fire, which it said the Lebanese should use to leave their homes in southern Lebanon before Israel resumes bombing them. This is also a tacit acknowledgment that one reason Lebanese have ignored earlier orders to flee was that Israeli planes tended to drop bombs on them when they did; presumably the cease-fire is a promise not to do that this time. Also, Olmert reserves the right to end the cease-fire if Hezbollah does anything in response to the Qana massacre.
So I took a day off. Sue me. I went to Ikea. And so, I assume, did you, because EVERY FUCKING PERSON IN THE UNIVERSE WENT THERE AT THE SAME FUCKING TIME I DID. Families in Lebanon took a day off from being bombed to go to fucking Ikea in fucking Emeryville (I assume Beirut Airport must have reopened). And then I had shit to assemble. So no blogging. Still, it wasn’t a long enough break to regain perspective. I know this because I misread a headline in Daily Variety that Nicole Kidman had signed on to play Mrs Coulter in the film of the first book of Phillip Putnam’s His Dark Materials trilogy, which I’ve vaguely heard of, as saying that Nicole Kidman was going to play Ann Coulter in a movie.
Actually as I was reading How Would a Patriot Act?, Mel Gibson, the star of The Patriot, was arrested for drunk driving. He resisted arrest, shouted that he owned Malibu and that the Jews were responsible for all the wars. So, evidently, that’show a patriot would act. Now you don’t have to buy Glenn Greenwald’s book.
Which at $12 clocks in at nearly 10¢ a page for a paperback with what looks to me like a rather weak spine, although you may buy it for $9.24 through my Amazon link or better yet $8.40 through my Powell’s link.
Thing is, it’s more or less a dumbed-down version of Greenwald’s blog, Unclaimed Territory. If you’re a fan of that blog, as I am, you’re likely to be disappointed, and not to learn anything from its scant 129 pages that you didn’t already know. He castigates and dissects Bush’s “ideology of lawlessness,” focusing on warrantless eavesdropping and detention without trial, and the arguments used to justify those practices. He argues for the restoration of a balance of powers and legislative oversight of the executive branch, with some instructive quotations from the Federalist Papers. He argues that Bush’s politics of fear is corrosive and that “The administration has managed to get away with the Orwellian idea that fear is the hallmark of courage, and a rational and calm approach is a mark of cowardice.”
The most interesting part of the book tells how Bush signed orders for the NSA to violate the FISA Act while simultaneously asking Congress to pass the Patriot Act, saying it would give him all the tools he needed to track the communications of terrorists. This suggests, although Greenwald does not go in for such speculation, that the Patriot Act was an elaborate deception designed to lure the terrorists and the American people into a false sense of security. But when the NYT revealed in December 2005 the extent of warrantless surveillance, “The president plainly broke the law, which is why the only defense available to him and his supporters is to claim that he has a right to do so.” I rather like the notion that the Bushies’ claim of unlimited “inherent” presidential powers was a cynical act, a desperate maneuver when they were caught with their hands in the cookie jar, but I’m unconvinced. I fear they really do have that little understanding of the American system of government, that little of the healthy fear of the unencumbered exercise of governmental power that led the Founding Fathers to devise a system of checks and balances and separation of powers.
So it’s not a bad book, it just didn’t do what I’d have expected Greenwald to do at book length, it doesn’t present deeper, more sophisticated analysis than his average blog entry. Rather the reverse. Possibly it’s intended for blog readers to buy not for themselves but to give to their apolitical relatives who’ve never really understood what so scares us about the Bush administration.
UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland looks at Lebanon and says: “There is something fundamentally wrong when there are more dead children than armed men.”
George Bush looks at Lebanon and sees “a moment of opportunity for broader change in the region.”
Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon, who horrified European foreign ministers by claiming the Rome conference had given Israel permission to do whatever it wants in Lebanon, was put under partial suspension today because the police are investigating him for sexual harassment. The man is clearly color-blind, seeing green lights where none exist. No means no, Mr. Ramon, no means no.
The White House website reminds us that Sunday is the 50th anniversary of our national motto, “Do What We Say or We Will Fuck You up” “In God We Trust.” A presidential proclamation says we should “observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.” So be sure to do that.
Well, I’ve selected my favorite quotes from the Bush-Blair press conference (none of the quotes are from Blair, who often attempts to add a little nuance but today just repeated what Bush said, but in something more closely approximating the English language). Re-reading them all together, I noticed a cumulative awfulness that would be diluted by being interspersed with my usual sarcastic comments (also, I have a headache and want to take a nap). So here goes:
Isn’t it interesting that when Prime Minister Olmert starts to reach out to President Abbas to develop a Palestinian state, militant Hamas creates the conditions so that, you know, there’s a crisis, and then Hezbollah follows up? Isn’t it interesting, as a democracy takes hold in Iraq, that Al Qaida steps up its efforts to murder and bomb in order to stop the democracy?
And, yes, we want to help people rebuild their lives; absolutely. But we also want to address the root causes of the problem. And the root cause of the problem is you’ve got Hezbollah that is armed and willing to fire rockets into Israel.
And, you know, listen, the temptation is to say, “It’s too tough. Let’s just try to solve it quickly with something that won’t last. Let’s just get it off the TV screens.”
On the other hand, in my judgment, it would be a big mistake not to solve the underlying problems. Otherwise, everything will seem fine, and then you’ll be back at a press conference saying: How come you didn’t solve the underlying problems?
Now, what kind of state is it that has got a political party that has got a militia? It’s a state that needs to be helped, is what that is.
I mean, now there’s an unprovoked attack on a democracy. Why? I happen to believe because progress is being made toward democracies.
And we’ll ultimately prevail, because their -- they have -- their ideology is so dark and so dismal that when people really think about it, it’ll be rejected.
They just got a different tool to use than we do: They kill innocent lives to achieve objectives. That’s what they do. And they’re good. They get on the TV screens and they get people to ask questions about, well, you know, this, that or the other. I mean, they’re able to kind of say to people: Don’t come and bother us, because we will kill you.
We share the same urgency of trying to stop the violence. That’s why Condi Rice went out there very quickly. ... I mean, I could’ve called her back here and could’ve sat around, visited and talked.
Israel’s Justice Minister Haim Ramon, the guy who claimed that the Rome conference’s failure, under American pressure, to denounce Israeli military operations in Lebanon was in fact “permission from the world” to finish the job, has announced that all of southern Lebanon is a legitimate target for indiscriminate bombing. Villages there may be completely destroyed, he says, because “These places are not villages. They are military bases”. Ditto the people: “Everyone in southern Lebanon is a terrorist and is connected to Hizbollah.” Ramon is a moderate by Israeli political standards (you can look him up), but this sort of language, and the collective punishment and wholesale killing that language is intended to justify, could not be more racist if he came right out and called the Lebanese sand niggers.
During a press conference with the Prime Minister [sic] of Romania, Bush said of Lebanon, “I view this as a clash of forms of government.” By which he means the clash between Islamofascism and a plucky democracy. He seems to have forgotten that Israel is also involved. Indeed, he claims to “care deeply about the loss of life” and to be “troubled by the destruction that has taken place in Lebanon,” without actually suggesting that Israel might be in any way connected to that loss of life and that destruction. I guess it’s analogous to his view of Iraq as a clash of forms of government with America a mere innocent bystander.
He came out strongly against a “fake peace”: “not a fake, you know, kind of circumstances that make us all feel better, and then, sure enough, the problem arises again. And that’s the goal of the United States. And we’re working toward that end. And we’re working hard diplomatically. Look, as soon as we can get this resolved the better, obviously, but it must be real. And it can’t be fake.” Would that he were as concerned about real Lebanese as he is about fake peace. He probably once bought a fake Rolex or a fake oil well or fake magic beans, or all three, and as he likes to say:
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STOP HITTING YOURSELF: Chinese police insist that activist Fu Xiancai, who exposed the human cost of the Three Gorges Dam, beat himself up, breaking his own neck and leaving him paralyzed:
Officials told Mr Fu’s son, Fu Bing, that investigators had failed to find anyone else’s footprints at the scene of the attack, and had concluded that he must have hit himself.
Just like Bush failed to see Israeli footprints... you get the idea.
At the Rome conference Condi opposed a call for an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon because it would make “a room full of foreign ministers look foolish.” And, as she later explained to reporters, she’s a big-picture kind of gal, thinking in historical, no, in geological terms: “I am a student of history, so perhaps I have a little bit more patience with the enormous change in the international system and the complete shifting of tectonic plates, and I don’t expect it to happen in a few days or even a year.”
So the conference knuckled under, calling not for an immediate but rather a “lasting, permanent and sustainable” cease-fire. The besieged people of Lebanon responded: “Put down the fucking thesaurus and do something to stop the Israelis slaughtering us!”
Sen. Tom Coburn: “How many people really think it’s in the best interest of young people to be sexually active outside of marriage? Does anything positive ever come from that?” That’s a trick question, right?
Condi, at a meeting of foreign ministers in Rome, scuttled a resolution calling for a cease-fire in the Middle East, because cease-fires in the Middle East are often broken, “And every time there is a broken cease-fire, people die, there is destruction and there is misery.” Whereas if there’s no cease-fire at all, Condi...? Lebanese PM Saniora asked if the Lebanese people are “children of a lesser God.” That’s a trick question, right?
Bush hung out some more with new BFF Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki today. They went to Fort Belvoir. Bush eschewed “interesting” in favor of a new favorite adjective, “amazing”: “We were talking here at the table, and I was commenting that it’s amazing, isn’t it, where some people decide to kill innocent lives to stop freedom” and “The amazing thing about our military is that people have had to say, I want to serve.” So the American military and the Iraqi insurgents are both amazing.
Bush practiced some more of his ophthalmological telepathy: “The Prime Minister came, and he didn’t say this directly to me but I could tell by looking in my eyes he wanted to make sure that this was a President who kept his word.”
I don’t quite know what to do with this sentence: “One thing the Prime Minister told me getting out of the limousine, after having flown on the helicopter -- (laughter) -- was that he longs for the day when the Iraqi children can live in a hopeful society.”
Maliki was allowed to address Congress today, despite his failure to issue a statement in support of Israel’s attack on Lebanon (Howard Dean should be ashamed of himself). I’ve been meaning to point out that some time in the period since the assassination of Zarqawi, the myth that non-Iraqis have more than the slightest role in sustaining the Iraqi insurgency has finally died a quiet death. Even Bush, even Rumsfeld wouldn’t trot that one out now. But as the civil war-ness of the violence in Iraq becomes ever clearer even to the most obtuse, the less wider significance it seems to have. The US is no longer fighting global terror or beginning a democratic revitalization of the entire region; rather, it is backing one side in a grubby, vicious, decidedly local conflict in which it is hard to locate any “good guys.” Maliki’s job today was to try to obscure all that, although his version of optimism is decidedly dark: “Trust that Iraq will be the graveyard for terrorism and terrorists for the good of all humanity.” What’s going on in Iraq is not a sectarian conflict, he asserted: “Terrorism has no religion.” He insisted that the 9/11 hijackers are “the same terrorists” now fighting in Iraq.
In fact, he said a lot of crap that sounded like Bush rhetoric – freedom is a gift from God, “ink-stained fingers waving in pride,” “Iraq is free, and the terrorists cannot stand this,” “not allow Iraq to become a launch pad for Al Qaida,” etc – I’m not sure if someone told him that sounding like Bush would make him popular in the US or if the speech was actually written for him by the White House.
Ink-stained fingers waving in pride?
I’m not sure if this imagery is any better: “They have poured acid into Iraq’s dictatorial wounds and created many of their own.” Ouch.
Maliki gave one rather interesting (if Bush isn’t going to use the word, I can) reproof to the US, although from the applause I’m not sure the congresscritters got it: “In 1991, when Iraqis tried to capitalize on the regime’s momentary weakness and rose up, we were alone again.”
When I mentioned yesterday that Bloggerbugs were preventing my posting some Condi pictures, the reaction was overwhelming: everyone adores Condi and wants to see many more pictures of her, preferably touching her face. You had only to ask: this post is all Condi pics, nothin’ but Condi pics.
First, the leftovers from yesterday. Here she is with her Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni – Condi and Tzipi, Tzipi and Condi, Condi and Tzipi and Tzipi and Condi – gosh, that’s fun to say – trying to decide where to go for lunch.
These are from today, with Lebanese PM Siniora in Rome, where he is called Signor Siniora, which is cute but kind of a let-down after the whole Tzipi-Condi thing.
Israel is talking about holding on to a large swathe of Lebanon until the vanishingly unlikely event of a handoff to a large international force (10 or 20 thousand, and Israel has specified that only those with combat experience need apply). The buffer zone will in theory keep Hezbollah rockets beyond their firing range of 3-4 miles from Israel proper. Hmmm, so they won’t be able to hit civilian areas, just this zone filled with Israeli troops and troops, ethnically cleansed of Lebanese. Sounds like a target-rich environment to me.
Bush met with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki today. He seems to have been having flashbacks to his days in b-school. “The Prime Minister has laid out a comprehensive plan. That’s what leaders do. They see problems, they address problems, and they lay out a plan to solve the problems. The Prime Minister understands he’s got challenges and he’s identified priorities.” But wait, what if the enemy has discovered the secret of doing things to accomplish goals too? Oh no! they have: “These are people that just kill innocent people to achieve an objective, which is to destabilize his government.” I blame the New York Times, cause we so had the idea of killing innocent people to achieve an objective first, and it was secret, and the media just leaked it like the traitors they are.
So the best idea Bush has left is to “lay out a plan,” possibly using different colored pencils. Oh, and form committees, lots and lots of committees, those are always good: “The Prime Minister and I agreed to establish a joint committee to achieve Iraqi self-reliance.” Let me say that again: a joint committee of Iraqis and Americans to end Iraqi reliance on Americans.
Hey, does anyone know what happened to that female Sunni MP who was kidnapped? I can’t believe I completely forgot about her.
Oh, he’s really firing on all cylinders today; he has another bold idea: an Iraqi Leaders Initiative, to bring 200 Iraqi high school and college students to the US next summer to study and “build personal friendships with the people of our country.” Hurrah! Iraq is saved! Really, did Maliki come thousands of miles from a war zone to discuss a summer program for 200 students with the so-called leader of the so-called free so-called world?
Bush and Maliki touted their new security crackdown in Baghdad. A reporter asked why this one would succeed unlike all the previous ones. Maliki said because there is a national unity government (NUG), “So what the Baghdad security plan gains in terms of support is support from all over the segments of the Iraqi population.” Bush chimed in that “there needs to be more forces inside Baghdad who are willing to hold people to account. In other words, if you find somebody who’s kidnapping and murdering, the murderer ought to be held to account. It ought to be clear in society that that kind of behavior is not tolerated. ... And I think the Iraqi people appreciate that type of attitude.”
Bush was asked how he can provide humanitarian aid to Lebanon and, at the same time, the military hardware to Israel that makes humanitarian aid necessary. He replied, “No, I don’t see a contradiction in us honoring commitments we made prior to Hezbollah attacks into Israeli territory.” Sarcasm fails me.
British journalists have been unable to leave the overheard Bush-Blair “Yo Blair” dialogue alone, analyzing it over and over, and even translating it into more fitting tones:
Antonio: And the Lady Cherie, with dressers three, made expedition to Harrods Palace, and there requested a long sleeve, ribb’ed crew neck, striped horizontal all about, with fully fashioned cuffs and waistband. Doth suit you, sirrah?
Giorgio: Like unto a second skin. Nay better, for the first hath no embroidered G. For Giorgio. But good Antonio, take we counsel now concerning the Levant. My lord Annan, charged by the nations in their assembly to calm the noise of war, Seeks only to separate the arms, thinking thereby to fulfil the task. But the enmerded Moor, taking this peace for respite and repose, By my vision, readies his galleys for renewed assault on the enrag’d Jew.
Speaking of the enrag’d Jew, Condi Rice met with Ehud Olmert – and again I ask, what’s with all the smiling? –
and released a flood of empty rhetoric, if something empty can be said to flood. “A durable solution will be one that strengthens the forces of peace and democracy in the region.” Does peace have forces, and who or what might they be? “It is time for a new Middle East. It is time to say to those who do not want a new Middle East that we will prevail, they will not.” I didn’t know you could just scrap the “old” Middle East and start over. And “we” will prevail? Who’s we?
Her favorite word this trip has been “enduring,” as in, we want an “urgent and enduring” peace in Lebanon. The inappropriate smiles, alas, proved not to be enduring.
Okay, now you’re creeping me out.
Speaking of an old, old, oh so very old, Middle East, we learn from the Jerusalem Post via Billmon that Chief of Staff of the IDF Dan Halutz has (according to an unnamed “high-ranking IAF officer”) ordered the destruction of 10 buildings in Beirut for every Katyusha rocket that hits Haifa.
Olmert is insisting that there will be no cease-fire without implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559. Funny to hear Israelis citing Security Council resolutions; rather like Joe Lieberman’s approach to the Connecticut Democratic primary.
Wow, a “surprise visit” by a Bush administration official, what’re the odds? Condi went to Lebanon to show the Lebanese people, according to one of her underlings, “we are here, we are concerned.” If I were in Beirut, I’d be concerned too.
Since the Beirut International Airport is... undergoing renovations... her delegation flew from Cyprus using helicopters that were supposed to be evacuating Americans from the war zone.
So she met with Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. “Thank you for your courage and steadfastness,” she told him. Thank you? He’d need less courage if she got Israel to stop bombing his country.
What are these people smiling about?
I’ve got another Condi quote about the “urgent” need for a cease-fire: “We all agreed that it is urgent, but the framework is clearly to do this in a way that will help the Lebanese government exercise sovereignty over all of its territory.” So the reason we’re not calling for an immediate cease-fire is in order to help the Lebanese. I’ve heard of tough love, but this is downright genocidal love.
Now some people are wondering how Condi went from calling a cease-fire a “false promise” to calling it “urgent” in just two days. Hey, this is the Bush administration: nothing is more urgent to them than false promises.
Condi, finally winging her way to the Middle East, says that a cease-fire is “urgent,” but only under the right conditions. So there’s urgent urgent, and then there’s not-so-urgent urgent.
She talked about the need for Lebanon “regaining sovereignty over all its territory”. As in Iraq, sovereignty for an Arab country seems to consist of killing those of its citizens we don’t approve of.
If I may digress, it would be nice if news agencies only put quotation marks around things that are actually, you know, quotations. In the next paragraph I will use the AP version of the second and third sentences of the Rice quote; Reuters (from which I’ve taken the first sentence, which doesn’t appear in the AP story), altered her use of three contractions into more formal English.
Rice wanted to “correct” the notion that the US has no contact with Syria. AP mistakenly summarizes her correction thus: “Rice also said Sunday there are existing channels for talking with Syrian leaders.” In fact, what she said was, “We have talked to the Syrians over and over again. The problem isn’t that people haven’t talked to the Syrians. It’s that the Syrians haven’t acted.” They got the contractions right, but the preposition wrong: we talk to the Syrians, not with them. Never with them.
A must-read post by Juan Cole suggests that no one told Bush that Israeli military actions in Lebanon are a war of choice carefully planned out in advance in conjunction with the Pentagon. Meshes with what I said about Gaza. They figure they have a certain period of time before the US tells them to stop (the Israeli press right now is full of speculation about how much longer they have; I think Bush has turned out to be more permissive than they’d expected), and detailed advance preparation is the key to inflicting maximum damage.
The NYT reports that leaflets dropped by Israeli planes ordering Lebanese to abandon their homes say, “Due to the terrorist acts against the state of Israel that came from your villages and your homes, the Israeli Army has been forced to respond immediately against these acts even within your villages, for your own security.” Well, once you explain it to us...
And according to Robert Fisk, the Israeli consul general in New York Ayre Mekel told the BBC (I can’t find the interview online) that Israel is “doing the Lebanese a favor” and that “most Lebanese appreciate what we are doing”. Of course they do.
The WaPo’s indispensable Al Kamen says that the State Department decided that “evacuation” of American citizens from Lebanon was too negative a term, preferring to call it “departure assistance” or “safe passage.”
In his Saturday radio address, Bush admits that “This is a difficult and trying time for the people of Lebanon.” Yes, moving is always so stressful, isn’t it, and half a million Lebanese suddenly having to move all at once has put a real strain on the country’s supply of bubble wrap. Bush said, “we have called on Israel to continue to exercise the greatest possible care to protect innocent lives.” Not just exercise care, you understand, but the greatest possible care. But they can still bomb the shit out of them, right? With missiles we’re supplying them?
Neither he nor anyone else in his administration has yet found a single act committed by Israel (attacking ambulances? creating half a million refugees?) worthy of the mildest of reproaches. Bush does complain, however, about “Hezbollah’s practice of hiding rockets in civilian neighborhoods”. Israel’s methods of putting rockets into civilian neighborhoods are rather more... ostentatious.
Bush adds that the rocket-hiding thing plus “its efforts to undermine the democratically elected government have shown it to be no friend of Lebanon.” He does realize that Hezbollah members are Lebanese, doesn’t he?
Bush says peace in the region “will come only by defeating the terrorist ideology of hatred and fear,” adding, “And you know what’s good for reducing hatred and fear? Massive aerial bombardment.”
A WaPo article about US soldiers in Ramadi describes an “atmospherics check,” in which “intelligence soldiers” talk with locals. Of course they need to go in protected by “tanks and armored vehicles, a team of Navy SEAL snipers, a 101st Airborne infantry platoon, a large contingent of Iraqi army soldiers, and a psychological operations team to broadcast safety messages to residents.” Somehow I think safety is not the message they’ll be getting.
Name of the day: a Haitian woman sentenced to probation and a fine for bringing a human skull (other than her own) into the United States: Myrlene Severe.
