Uncivil Strife in Iraq

This from Time: <a title=”TIME.com: Vengeance Has its Day — Dec. 01, 2003″ href=”http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101031201-548790,00.html?cnn=yes”>TIME.com: Vengeance Has its Day — Dec. 01, 2003</a>

Until recently, U.S. authorities pointed to the absence of widespread civil conflict in Iraqâ??in particular, the general reluctance of Iraqi Shi’ites to retaliate against security officials who tormented them under Saddam’s mostly Sunni governmentâ??as a harbinger of long-term stability. But seven months after the fall of Baghdad, a wave of revenge killings is sweeping Iraq.

<i><b>Despite </b></i>the administration’s spin on OIF, it does not go as well as they would have us believe. Combine this with the Kurdish problems in the North and it begins, once again, to look like the models of civil war, with our soldiers caught in the middle. That would be the models that the State Department did prior to invasion – the ones that Perle, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld all ignored.

Iran-Contra (The Second Scandal)

Today is the anniversary of the Iran-Contra affair breaking out in the news. I call it the second scandal because the first should have been the negotiations that the Reagan team conducted behind the Carter administration’s back to swing the election. <img alt=”1125_big.gif” src=”http://www.jeffzed.org/weblog/archives/zed/pics/1125_big.gif” width=”468″ height=”751″ border=”0″ />

Reagan would claim that he didn’t know members of his administration were conducting these operations, and that might be true. It would be a true indicator of the neocons that they think they know better than the public or even their president. That would be in keeping with their Straussian philosophy of ‘elites’ holding secrets from the common citizens (us). It really disgusted me that Reagan used the ‘I didn’t know’ defense so well after forcing the Captain of the Navy ship that shot down that airliner to resign.

It is also ironic that so many of the people who were involved with this lied to Congress and eventually were convicted, but almost all were pardoned. They were then re-hired by the current administration in positions equal to or greater than they had held before.

GWB – Ambitious Warrior

Some numbers on George Bush as of October 2003

AMBITIOUS WARRIOR

2 Number of nations George W Bush has attacked and taken over since coming into office.

- 130 Approximate number of countries (out of a total of 191 recognized by the United Nations) with a U.S. military presence. a 10 million Estimated number of people worldwide who took to the streets in opposition to the invasion of Iraq, setting an all time record for simultaneous protest.

- $100 billion Estimated cost of the war in Iraq to U.S. citizens by the end of the year.

- $13 billion Amount other countries have committed toward rebuilding Iraq (much of it in loans) as of October 24.

- 104 Number of American combat deaths in Iraq between May 2003 (when Bush landed on an aircraft carrier and declared an end to the open conflict) and the middle of October. O Number of American combat deaths in Germany following the Nazi surrender in May 1945. D Number of coffins of dead soldiers returning home that the Bush administration has allowed to be photographed presumably to keep the spotlight off fatalities in Iraq.

- 53 Percentage of Americans who doubt that the Iraq war was worth the cost.

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE WARRIOR

$28 billion Amount of proposed cuts to veterans’ benefits in the congressional Republicans’ budget resolution for fiscal year 2004. (In the end they cut only $6 billion.)

$6,000 Amount of proposed increase opposed by Bush in benefits to families of soldiers who die in combat. (Thanks to White House pressure, the increase did not pass Congress.)

- 2 Years that veterans in some parts of the country have to wait for a doctor’s appointment; this with a proposed new $250 enrollment fee in their health plan, and increased prescription drug costs.

- 7 Number of hospitals Bush’s Veterans Administration announced it was closing one day before the president addressed a group of veterans in St. Louis.

MONEY MANAGER

- $127 billion Amount of U.S. budget surplus in fiscal year 2001, the year Bush became president.

- $374 billion Amount of U.S. budget deficit in fiscal year 2003.

# I This year’s deficit will be the biggest in U.S. history.

- $290 billion Amount of the second largest U.S. budget deficit (1992, the last full year of the first Bush administration).

$6.84 quadrillion (yes, quadrillion) Current national debt. $9.3 quadrillion Estimated national debt by 2008. 0 $1.58 billion Amount on average the national debt increases each day.

- S23,396 Amount of each U.S. citizen’s share of the national debt as of October 21, 2003.

- # I Record for most bankruptcies filed in a single year (1.57 million) set in 2002.

- 440,257 Number of bankruptcies filed during the second quarter of 2003, more than in any other quarter in history.

- 3 Number of consecutive quarters with an increase in personal bankruptcy filings.

# I Set record for biggest two year point drop in the history of the stock market during the first half of a presidential term.

$200 billion Approximate aggregate amount of state budget gaps in the past three years, the highest figure since WW 11.

- # I Set record, in 2003, for most residential real estate foreclosures in a one quarter period. e 1.6 Percentage increase in economic growth since Bush took office, the slowest rate of increase over an equivalent period for any administration in 50 years.

SHY, RETIRING TYPE, NOT ONE TO TOOT HIS OWN HORN

9 Number of solo press conferences Bush has held since the beginning of his term. (His father had managed 61 at this point in his administration, and Bill Clinton 33.)

- I Number of executive orders signed by Bush permitting him to single handedly suppress the release of his presidential papers and those of his three predecessors.

HAS LOTS OF FRIENDS

- $11.5 million ? amount of hard money Bush raised through the ?Pioneer? program, the controversial fund raising process created for the 2000 campaign. (Participants pledged to raise at least $100,000 by bundling together checks of up to $1,000 from friends and family. Pioneers were assigned numbers which were included on all checks to enable the campaign to keep track of who raised how much.)

$113 million Amount of total hard money the Bush Cheney 2000 campaign received, a record.

- $18.5 million Amount raised through the Pioneer program so far this year.

$20 million Amount raised through the new “Ranger” program so far this year. (Participants pledge to raise at least $200,000.)

212 Total number of Pioneers identified by the Bush 2000 campaign.

- 524 Total number of Pioneers later revealed through court documents.

- 61 Number of Pioneers subsequently named to government posts.

- 19 Number of Pioneers subsequently appointed as US. ambassadors.

- 2 Number of Pioneers subsequently appointed to the Cabinet. – $175 million Approximate amount of the Bush Cheney 2004 campaign’s pre convention budget.

o $5.3 million Amount Bush raised this past September 30 toward his re election campaign, breaking the one day record he himself set.

THIS LAND IS MY LAND

- 58 million Number of acres of public lands Bush has opened to road building, logging, and drilling.

- 200 Number of public health and environmental laws Bush has worked to downgrade or weaken since taking office.

- # I Rank of U.S. worldwide in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

MORE LIKE THE FRENCH THAN HE WOULD CARE TO ADMIT

28 Number of vacation days Bush took in August this year, the second longest vacation of any president in U.S. history. (Record holder: Richard M. Nixon.)

- 13 Number of vacation days the average American receives each year.

LOVES TO TRAVEL (BUT NOT WITHOUT A PURPOSE)

- 65 Approximate number of fund raisers attended in 2002.

- O Number of trips taken to Afghanistan before waging war against that country.

- O Number of trips to Iraq before waging war against that country.

O Number of funerals or memorials Bush has attended for soldiers killed in Iraq.

TOUGH ON CRIME

- # I First president to execute a federal prisoner in the last 40 years. – 8 Number of days after that first execution that a second federal prisoner was executed.

- # I As governor of Texas, executed more prisoners (152) than any governor in modem U.S. history.

EMPLOYMENT RECORD

- 2.4 million Number of Americans who lost their jobs during first two and a half years of the Bush administration.

- 9 million Number of workers unemployed as of September 2003.

- # 1 The administration is well on its way to being the first since Herbert Hoover’s to preside over an overall loss of jobs during its complete term in office. For Bush to avoid this fate, the economy would have to create jobs over the next 13 months at a rate unprecedented outside of World War 11.

CHAMPION OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS

O Number of Bush Court of Appeals nominees who have endorsed the legal foundation of Roe v. Wade.

HELPING THE ADVANTAGED

- # I Has assembled the wealthiest Cabinet in U.S. history.

- $10.9 million Average wealth of the members of Bush’s original 16 person Cabinet.

75 Percentage of Americans unaffected by Bush’s 2003 cuts in the capital gains and dividends taxes.

- $42,000 Average savings members of Bush’s Cabinet are expected to receive this year as a result of cuts in capital gains and dividends taxes.

$42,228 Median household income in the U.S. in 2001.

- $116,000 Amount Vice President Dick Cheney is expected to save each year in taxes.

9 Number of members of Bush’s Defense Policy Board who also sit on the corporate board of, or advise, at least one defense contractor.

ON THE OTHER HAND, YOU CAN’T HELP EVERYONE

43.6 million Number of Americans without health insurance as of 2002.

$300 million Amount cut in December 2002 from the federal program that provides subsidies to poor families so they can heat their homes during the winter.

RELATIONSHIPS (HE’S NO PUSHOVER)

35 Number of countries to which U.S. has suspended military assistance after they failed to sign agreements giving Americans immunity from prosecution before the International Criminal Court.

- # I First American president to ignore the Geneva Convention on warfare (by refusing to allow inspectors access to U.S. held prisoners of war).

ENDORSEMENTS

90 Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on September 26, 2001.

67 Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on September 26, 2002.

- 54 Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on September 30, 2003.

- 50 Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on October 15, 2003.

Nice Try – No Takers

This from an article on Alternet:

<a title=”AlterNet: Neocons Leak Bad Intelligence” href=”http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17230″>AlterNet: Neocons Leak Bad Intelligence</a>

Melvin Goodman, a former top CIA analyst, sees the leak as a sign of desperation. “To me, they had to leak something like this, because the neo-conservatives (in the administration) have nothing to stand on. They’re trying to get the idea out there that, ‘Hey, there was a case for war’, and they have ‘useful idiots’ like Safire who say they’re right.”

It just shows the lengths to which these people will go in their quest to keep America scared to ask about the circumstances for war. It gives the all too gullible and credulous right-wing media something to endlessly report as fact, when it was mostly lies to begin with. These sources are of the type that Chalabi plied the Pentagon with as he was busy ripping them (and us) off for four million dollars.

Remember – this is the same group of men that drug the nation through the gutter to find out if Clinton got a blowjob or not – yet, they can’t find a felon in their own house leaking classifed intelligence and divulging the names of CIA operatives. Its hard to believe that the CIA is the underdog in this war of staff – but it seems like the reforms of the 90s weren’t to the neocons liking.

Fear

<a title=”Bush’s Politics of Fear :: Intervention Magazine :: War, Politics, Culture” href=”http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=536″>Bush’s Politics of Fear :: Intervention Magazine :: War, Politics, Culture</a>

â?¢ â??[Capitol Hill Blue] reported that FBI and CIA sources said a recent White House memo listing the war on terrorism as a definitive political advantage and fund-raising tool is just one of many documents discussing how to best utilize the terrorist threat.â?– Paul Joseph Watson

This is a great set of quotes about the fear spread by the Bush administration for its own purposes and just how ridiculous it is

Iraq-Al Queda Connection

This is about the most circumspect of the many articles commenting on Feith’s recently ‘leaked’ memo that details data points supposedly causing the administration to believe there was an Iraq – Al Queda connection. The story has been amplified and repeated as gospel by many right-wingers but doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.:

<a title=”Case Decidedly Not Closed” href=”http://www.msnbc.com/news/995706.asp?0cv=KB10″>Case Decidedly Not Closed</a>

Case Decidedly Not Closed

The Defense Dept. memo allegedly proving a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam does nothing of the sort

NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE

Nov. 19 â?? A leaked Defense Department memo claiming new evidence of an â??operational relationshipâ? between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Husseinâ??s former regime is mostly based on unverified claims that were first advanced by some top Bush administration officials more than a year agoâ??and were largely discounted at the time by the U.S. intelligence community, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials.

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EXTENDED BODY:

It is also a sad shame that no one is mentioning the felony that has occurred with this ‘leak’ that is so advantageous to Bush’s positions. The document in question is a listing of raw data points, selected just to indicate this connection. Almost all of the sources are discredited and unverifiable. The primary one has been disporved dozens of times. Most of them just don’t make sense.

Killin’ Alligators

This from MSNBC.com:

<a title=”Iraqi police official says Saddam in disguise and moving around near hometown” href=”http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/ap11-13-025826.asp?reg=MIDEAST”>Iraqi police official says Saddam in disguise and moving around near hometown</a>

Lt. Col. Steven Russell, a U.S. military official in Tikrit, also said it was unlikely Saddam would be active inside the city, where he could be recognized.

Russell believes the arrests of Saddam loyalists have eroded the former leader’s core of supporters and could lead to his capture.

”We continue to drain the swamp,” Russell said. ”As the swamp drains, the eyes and the nose and the tail begin to appear, eventually, the whole alligator will be there,” he said.

Asked how long that could take, Russell replied: ”That’s the 25 million dollar question, isn’t it?”

That’s an old miitary saying – its hard to remember that you started out to drain the swamp when you are up to your ass in alligators.

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EXTENDED BODY:

There was a time when the Army published retouched photos of what they thought Saddam might look like in disguise. SSG McMahon and I joked that he looked like a sheep herder that was routinely in our EPW pen. It would figure that no one could find Saddam because the Cav had him locked up.

Sacrifices

George Bush has talked about Americans making sacrifices to pursue this war in Iraq. Here is how he treated a few that made it before:<a title=”U.S. Opposes Money for Troops Jailed in Iraq” href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/10/international/middleeast/10POWS.html?th”>U.S. Opposes Money for Troops Jailed in Iraq</a>

U.S. Opposes Money for Troops Jailed in Iraq

By PHILIP SHENON

Published: November 10, 2003

ASHINGTON, Nov. 9 â?? The Bush administration is seeking to block a group of American troops who were tortured in Iraqi prisons during the Persian Gulf war in 1991 from collecting any of the hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen Iraqi assets they won last summer in a federal court ruling against the government of Saddam Hussein.

Note, down in the story, how it tells that all the funds stolen from Iraq are now property of the US government.

Bubba Hotep

S and I went to Austin yesterday and watched a new movie called ‘Bubba Ho-Tep’ at the Austin Drafthouse. I have never been there before, but it was an extrememly cool place, a movie theater with tables in front of the seats where you can order a beer or a pizza or a cup of mocha. I really liked the movie but it was a great date and it looks like a great place to go for some fun that doesn’t cost a lot of money.

The Austin Draft house offers a lot of other weird shit to do – FoleyVision, where people act out the sound to movies in real time and spaghetti western night, all kinds of stuff.

We saw J and shopped at Barnes and Noble after, buying Michael Moore’s book – ‘Dude, Where’s My Country’ which already had S upset by the time we got home. He seems to take a more serious tone to the same junk in Franken’s book and what I talk about all the time.