US Nat'l Security Strategy Quote of the Day

This is old news but considering its relevance and the Washington Press Corpse's refusal to report it, it bears repeating. According to US Central Command:

U.S. Policy

The broad national security interests and objectives expressed in the President's National Security Strategy (NSS) and the Chairman's National Military Strategy (NMS) form the foundation of the United States Central Command's theater strategy. The NSS directs implementation of a strategy of dual containment of the rogue states of Iraq and Iran as long as those states pose a threat to U.S. interests, to other states in the region, and to their own citizens. Dual containment is designed to maintain the balance of power in the region without depending on either Iraq or Iran. USCENTCOM's theater strategy is interest-based and threat-focused. The purpose of U.S. engagement, as espoused in the NSS, is to protect the United States' vital interest in the region - uninterrupted, secure U.S./Allied access to Gulf oil.

Interests

The national interests outlined in the National Security Strategy and the objectives articulated in our National Military Strategy form the bases for the Central Command's objectives and supporting strategy. Primary among U.S. interests in the USCENTCOM AOR is uninterrupted secure access to Arabian Gulf oil. That in turn ensures freedom of navigation and access to commercial markets, security of friends and allies, and regional peace and stability through containment of Iran and Iraq and prevention of hostilities between India and Pakistan. Other interests include a comprehensive breakthrough in the Middle East Peace Process, and security of U.S. citizens and property throughout the region.

(Emphasis mine.)

As a friend of mine recently wrote about a related document, "Mein Kampf, but without the subtlely"(that's hyperbole).

NOTE: Even now, oil companies are pushing the new Iraqi gov't to sign Production Sharing Agreements, which almost always work out well for the oil company and ill for the country. Think "blood-sharing agreement" with a cloud of mosquitos.

BONUS: The CENTCOM website promises two new features are "coming soon": "Ask CENTCOM" and podcasting—though what, exactly, would be podcast it doesn't say. Current features include "Heroes in Action!" and "What Extremists Are Saying" (see above). Disclaimer: I'm not against military heroism, just the feature and exclamation point. It's a shame the site doesn't also include "Recent Collateral Damage!"

UPDATE/MUSINGS: When, exactly, did we move from the 1995 "dual containment" strategy to the current "overthrow" strategy? Was it with the 1998 "Iraq Liberation Act" or was that merely Congressional cover for a strategy already on the books? I have no idea how these sorts of strategies develop; I'm just curious. Joshua Kurlantzick's GQ article "The Next War Is Closer Than You Think" shows an Iran regime-change policy moving from think tanks to the government, but while tantalizing and informative, it's only a piece of the puzzle.

Why the Towers Fell - Video Edition

Here's a video of physicist Dr. Steven Jones' presentation on why the World Trade Center towers collapsed into their own footprints at near freefall speed. (PowerPoint presentation and White Paper links included.)

UPDATE: Two excellent related articles are here and here.

Looking for a straight, tuff, local Naggin [sic] supporter for fist fight - m4m - 34

Only on Craig's List:

I would like to fight a Naggin supporter to vent my anger. If you are one, have a fiery streak, please contact me so we can meet and physically fight. I would like to beat the shit out of you.

Name the place and time... NOLA Courthouse Steps, Saturday at noon would be perfect for me!

Note: If you don't know who our "Chocolate City" mayor is...well, never mind.

Woohoo! (About Effing Time Edition)

We were way overdue some good news:

Lawmakers voted Friday to merge the levee boards of southeast Louisiana, hoping to ease concerns in Congress that the state lacks competent oversight of its flood-control system.
...
Under Blanco's plan, flood-control experts with the state's Coastal Restoration and Protection Authority will negotiate directly for federal funding with Congress and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Under the current system, the local levee board members—some with little expertise in engineering or hydrology—lobby Congress for funding for their projects.

I keep reviewing the details of Vice President Cheney's version of how he shot Harry Whittington in the face and I think I've constructed how the events unfolded:

Whittington's car flushed from the west, at a 40-degree angle. Standing on the grassy knoll, behind the low brick wall, the Vice President wheeled left, the sun in his eyes, following the quail, and fired. The first shot hit Governor Connally in the chest, the second hit Whittington in the face, throwing his head back and to the left. Katherine Armstrong, sitting 100 yards away in the Vice Presidential motorcade, definitely heard two shots, at least one from the grassy knoll. She claims that she may have heard another shot from the book depository. Her testimony that the Secret Service seemed to "take their time" reaching Whittington is questionable, however, given her close relationship with the vice president and the GOP. The salient question here is, why did the Secret Service allow anyone to stand behind the low brick wall on the grassy knoll? Why were the windows of the cars in the motorcade left open when procedures for presidential protection clearly stipulate that all windows should be closed? Clearly, everything here is not as it appears to be.

The Abu Ghraib File

Australian SBS and the Sydney Morning Herald published never before seen Abu Ghraib photos two days ago. Now, Salon may have the mother load. Highlight:

The DVD containing the material includes a June 6, 2004, CID investigation report written by Special Agent James E. Seigmund. That report includes the following summary of the material included: "A review of all the computer media submitted to this office revealed a total of 1,325 images of suspected detainee abuse, 93 video files of suspected detainee abuse, 660 images of adult pornography, 546 images of suspected dead Iraqi detainees, 29 images of soldiers in simulated sexual acts, 20 images of a soldier with a Swastika drawn between his eyes, 37 images of Military Working dogs being used in abuse of detainees and 125 images of questionable acts."

The collection may well be the information long-sought by the ACLU and others.

Bush's Misleading Katrina Math

The Times-Picayune reports that Bush's claim that the Gulf Coast is getting $85B in relief is misleading, or worse. (Via Schroeder, who links to New Orleans bloggers who noted this a while ago.)

Hunting Story Full of Holes

More holes than Harry Whittington has in him, thanks to Bush's Dick. Here's a list.

Australian TV to Show Previously Unseen Abu Ghraib Photos

The Sydney Morning Herald has an article with pictures here. Warning: Some of them are even worse than the ones released in 2004. (Via Raw Story. Again...)

UPDATE: Sully links to video with (mostly) different pictures here.

And let's remember: The president attached a "signing statement" to the McCain anti-torture bill he was forced to sign. While it's not clear what, exactly, the statement means, it appears to be an open door for the Administration to approve torture whenever they feel like it deem it necessary.

Possible Massive Domestic Surveillance Program

Raw Story's linked to a UPI story that, if true, is staggering in its implications. The first few paragraphs:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- A former NSA employee said Tuesday there is another ongoing top-secret surveillance program that might have violated millions of Americans' Constitutional rights.

Russell D. Tice told the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations he has concerns about a "special access" electronic surveillance program that he characterized as far more wide-ranging than the warrentless wiretapping recently exposed by the New York Times but he is forbidden from discussing the program with Congress.

Tice said he believes it violates the Constitution's protection against unlawful search and seizures but has no way of sharing the information without breaking classification laws. He is not even allowed to tell the congressional intelligence committees - members or their staff - because they lack high enough clearance.

Neither could he brief the inspector general of the NSA because that office is not cleared to hear the information, he said.

Toward the end of the article, we read this:

Tice was testifying because he was a National Security Agency intelligence officer who was stripped of his security clearance after he reported his suspicions that a former colleague at the Defense Intelligence Agency was a spy. The matter was dismissed by the DIA, but Tice pressed it later and was subsequently ordered to take a psychological examination, during which he was declared paranoid. He is now unemployed.

Tice was one of the New York Times sources for its wiretapping story, but he told the committee the information he provided was not secret and could have been provided by an private sector electronic communications professional.

Is he deluded or dead right and discredited by the DIA? His role in the NSA leak lends credence to his claims.

Just speculating here, but this may be part of what author Robert O'Harrow addresses in No Place to Hide--the use of private contractors to collect massive amounts of data and pass it on to the federal government. Hoover's wet dream.

The rest here.

UPDATE: Air raid sirens should be going off all over the country, this is so serious. The WaPo reports that "the National Counterterrorism Center maintains a central repository of 325,000 names of international terrorism suspects or people who allegedly aid them, a number that has more than quadrupled since the fall of 2003, according to counterterrorism officials." That's a lot of people. Who are "people who allegedly aid [terrorists]"? This at the same time we learn that the NSA has hired news agencies to provide information, the nature and purpose of which the NSA refuses to disclose. (Via POAC.)

Raw Story: Plame was Working on Iran

Larisa Alexandrovna reports:

The unmasking of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson by White House officials in 2003 caused significant damage to U.S. national security and its ability to counter nuclear proliferation abroad, RAW STORY has learned.

According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.

The rest here.

Bush™ Spends Hundreds of Millions on PR per Year

Raw Story reports that a new Government Accountability Office reveals that the Bush Administration has spent more than $1.6 billion in public relations and media contracts in a two and a half year span. Now pick up your jaw, reattach it to your skull and read that again.

Far from the Madding Crowd

The White House is calling for a hair-splitting retraction from the NYT because they reported that Bush was "on vacation" while New Orleans was flooding on August 30 when, in fact, he was giving a Yoo Ess Ay speech with the USS Ronald Reagan and accompanying naval personnel in the background. As TAPPED's Greg Sargent points out, this was many hours after the White House had learned that New Orleans was flooding and, in some cases, on fire. It's worse: This was days after the WH had received urgent warnings and even a PowerPoint presentation on how the levees might breach and tens of thousands of people die. So where was the president?

San Diego. Plugging a breach in support for the war.

Heckuva job.

UPDATE: As the WaPo noted, according to the recently released 600-page report on the post-Katrina fiasco, "'earlier presidential involvement could have speeded the response' because [the president] alone could have cut through all bureaucratic resistance." Too bad Bush was busy. (Article via PGR.) A CNN article is here.

The First Post-Katrina Mardi Gras Parade

Krewe du Vieux (translation: Crew of the Vieux Carre, a.k.a. the French Quarter) rolled last night. Pics here.

Quote of the Day

“One man's piss-soaked sadomasochistic orgy is another man's poetic ecstasy.”

Dan Savage

Context here.

Happy Mardi Gras.

Bush-Abramoff Photo

Time's got one. (Via Raw Story.)

Thought for the Day

It is widely known that there are no monsters under the bed. What is not widely known is that the bed frame itself is a monster in disguise.

Bush Wants to Sell National Forest Land

Good god.

Anderson Cooper at the 17th Street Canal Breach

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon shooting pictures of the neighborhood right next to the infamous 17th Street Canal breach--the one that inspired FEMA to tell DHS to tell the White House that Ferris passed out at 31 Flavors New Orleans was flooding the night of the storm. I was taking pictures of the breach area when I noticed a camera crew trotting up. Lo and behold, it was Anderson Cooper. I guess he didn't notice the sign (I disregarded it too). I wish I'd had a video camera with sound because he kept starting the story and then stopping and making minor changes to his performance, reading FEMA documents or something from what looked like a Treo. His "handler," a local guy, told me he's been driving them around since six days after the storm. Anderson Cooper's doing his show live tonight from Gentilly. The piece he was taping at the breach will probably be on tonight.

They Knew (Part Umpteen)

There's no excuse for this shit:

Congressional investigators have now learned that an eyewitness account of the flooding from a federal emergency official reached the Homeland Security Department's headquarters starting at 9:27 p.m. the day before, and the White House itself at midnight.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency official, Marty Bahamonde, first heard of a major levee breach Monday morning. By late Monday afternoon, Mr. Bahamonde had hitched a ride on a Coast Guard helicopter over the breach at the 17th Street Canal to confirm the extensive flooding. He then telephoned his report to FEMA headquarters in Washington, which notified the Homeland Security Department.

"FYI from FEMA," said an e-mail message from the agency's public affairs staff describing the helicopter flight, sent Monday night at 9:27 to the chief of staff of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and recently unearthed by investigators. Conditions, the message said, "are far more serious than media reports are currently reflecting. Finding extensive flooding and more stranded people than they had thought — also a number of fires."

Michael D. Brown, who was the director of FEMA until he resigned under pressure on Sept. 12, said in a telephone interview Thursday that he personally notified the White House of this news that night, though he declined to identify the official he spoke to.

You know, this series of revelations about the White House knowing things much earlier than they claimed to reminds me of a certain day to which Il Duce so often refers. Gee, how could we have known Muslims would use airplanes as bombs? How could we have known water was washing away New Orleans? I'm surprised Bush™ isn't using Katrina as an excuse to grab more power. Oh, wait....

UPDATE: I see Schroeder's also pushing for prison.

UPDATE: Pulling back a bit, Peter Daou sums up the present situation: bleak. Daou also reminds me of why I want to punch Alberto Gonzales.

COMING SOON: Recent pictures of the neighborhood right next to the 17th Street Canal breach, the one seen from the helicopter the evening of the storm--the one the White House was notified about.

Cheney ‘Authorized’ Libby to Leak Classified Information

As Homer Simpson would say, "Mmmmmmm...."

From the National Journal (Murray Waas):

Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.

Atrios points to this Bush quote:

But I want to tell you something -- leaks of classified information are a bad thing. And we've had them -- there's too much leaking in Washington. That's just the way it is. And we've had leaks out of the administrative branch, had leaks out of the legislative branch, and out of the executive branch and the legislative branch, and I've spoken out consistently against them and I want to know who the leakers are.

We wait with bated breath for President Nixon Bush to ask for Agnew's Cheney's resignation.

BONUS: Was Bush briefed on Wilson's Niger trip?

Strangers on a Plane

Many years ago, I attended Presidential Classroom, a week-long educational event where lots of high-school seniors from all over the country learn about government, debate issues and meet their senators and representatives. It was a memorable week, but one of the most memorable parts was the trip to DC itself.

That's because I spent the entire plane ride arguing about abortion with the lady sitting next to me. Back then I was a Pat Robertson Christian (I even worked for his campaign) and was sure that abortion was murder. The woman in the aisle seat vehemently disagreed. She was older, maybe in her fifties, with striking features. And while she was pointed in her argument, she was remarkably patient with me, and our heated discussion made an impression on my stubborn young mind.

Years later, I saw a picture of her and my jaw dropped. There, on the cover of a book about aging*, was the woman I'd argued with on the plane.

It was Betty Friedan.

Ever since then, I've wondered about her. Now that she's dead, I'm sorry to see her go. But if anyone lived a full life and contributed to this society, it was she.

And if I sat next to her on a plane today, we wouldn't disagree.

*The current cover doesn't show her.

New Lower Ninth Ward Pics

Here's a set of pictures of New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward that I took on January 5. I'd guesstimate that 12-16 blocks are just gone. Many more are 70% rubble, 30% collapsed houses. As you'd expect, the further away you get from the breaches and the higher the ground, the better off the houses. You see a similar, if more glaring effect on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. There, if you drive north from the beach, everything for three blocks is gone; then, on the next block, suddenly everything is standing but damaged by wind and trees. But New Orleans lost approximately eight times as many homes as the Gulf Coast.

The earlier set of Ninth Ward pics is here. Gulf Coast pics are here. Correction to WaPo: Un ungodly number of restaurants are open, though many are short-staffed. And bands are playing. Have you checked Gambit?

Coming soon: Gentilly pics and N.O. at night.

NOT QUITE UPDATE: The WaPo covers the limbo people are in here.

Endless War = Endless Power

Since Abu Gonzales is on the hot seat today regarding the NSA domestic surveillance dillio and seems to think President Bush has dictatorial powers, it seemed a good time to share a (mystery) reporter's take on the whole affair and the Bush Administration's PR campaign about it.

In response to a TAPPED post about the new Ionesco work entitled, "White House Press Briefing," the reporter wrote the following in an email to me. If you substituted Gonzales for McClellan and senators for reporters, the reporter's remarks would apply to today's dog-and-pony show:

...I think generally the press fails at these things [press briefings] by making their questions too long, thereby giving McClellan et al a chance to answer an extraneous part of the question while ignoring the substance.... I'm sure McClellan would try to argue that Congress did in fact give the president the authority for warrantless wiretaps with the 2001 authorization of force resolution. But that's a canard that is completely unsupportable by the evidence.

The only argument they have is that in a time of "war"—whatever that is—a president has broad authority to do whatever it takes to fight the enemy, Congress bedamned. I'm more amenable to this argument in a situation where we have actually declared war, though only in emergencies and with the understanding that Congress will be consulted very soon.

But what kind of war are we in? An endless one to my mind. That's an extremely dangerous precedent: to give a president open-ended authority in an undeclared, unending war that's not really a war at all. There, I said it. There is no war on terror, no more than there is a war on cancer or a war on obesity. We've devalued the term war by applying it to non-wars for too long. [Pappy Bush's "War on Some Drugs" comes to mind. -Ed.] What we have really is an international legal, law enforcement struggle that occasionally employs warfare. Afghanistan was the best example of what I'm talking about. There an entire government had been distorted by an Islamist terrorist organization "with global reach," as Bush would say. The Taliban government itself became a legitimate target, though I think Taliban soldiers should have been given the benefit of the Geneva conventions. In almost every other case, though, Al Qaida is separate from the governments in question. In those cases, then the "war on terror" slips back into the traditional international law enforcement effort. The more we act like an imperial power and use war as our default response to problems (read: Iraq) then we lose the goodwill and cooperation of governments around the world who rightfully worry that they could be next.

Unfortunately, the phrase "war on terror" is more emotionally satisfying for a country that after all had its own war department headquarters attacked. I remember right after 9/11, in the first issue of The New Yorker after the attacks, Rick Herzberg made the very argument I'm making at the time. In the heat of 9/11, I thought Rick's formulation was kind of wishy-washy, but now I see the danger of elevating something to a "war" when it's really not. The only thing I think he missed was that if a government itself has become a terrorist organization it becomes a legitimate target. While it's one thing to threaten a country that is "harboring" terrorists, the harboring has to be pretty high up for us to justify a war. Look at Pakistan. In the Bush doctrine we could invade Pakistan because of the Al Qaida members in the tribal areas of the country. See they're harboring terrorists. But as we've come to see, Musharref has little control of this region of his country.

To me, the current Islamic terrorism movement is similar to the rise of the Anarchists 100 years ago. What makes it different is that we have mass communications and the Internet. Also, the Islamists can argue that today's fight is a clash of religions, in the mold of the Crusades.

If a politician could successfully undermine the "war on terror" terminology as false and destructive, then maybe we could get somewhere. It's too bad Clinton isn't still in office (or Gore for that matter) because I know he would not have elevated things into such a simple good vs. evil way. We would have attacked Afghanistan. Gore might have even been better because I think he would have used ground troops more readily (Clinton was very averse to use of ground troops). But Clinton and Gore would have better seen the limits of American power. Where there's broad international support, we can use power more effectively in a more sustained way. There would have been Americans clamoring for raw meat and Republicans would have postured that we weren't bellicose enough, but a successful overthrow of the Taliban by a Democratic president would have gone a long way in blunting such attacks.

(Ellipses mine.)

Note: As has been widely underreported, both the Clinton and Bush administrations supported, even bankrolled, the Taliban, a creation of Pakistani intelligence, which was in bed with the CIA.

Is the Danish Cartoon Controversy a Diversion?

A sensible explanation for the Danish cartoon controversy. (Via Raw Story.)

UPDATE: Juan Cole doesn't think so.

Just Testing

Blogger's gone nutty. One post up and vanished....

The Iraq War Was a War of Choice (Reprise)

Both the Guardian and Independent are reporting that Blair was "solidly behind" invading Iraq on January 31, 2003, weeks before the war began. From the Guardian:

Tony Blair told President George Bush that he was "solidly" behind US plans to invade Iraq before he sought advice about the invasion's legality and despite the absence of a second UN resolution, according to a new account of the build-up to the war published today.

A memo of a two-hour meeting between the two leaders at the White House on January 31 2003 - nearly two months before the invasion - reveals that Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme.

"The diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning", the president told Mr Blair. The prime minister is said to have raised no objection. He is quoted as saying he was "solidly with the president and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam".

The disclosures come in a new edition of Lawless World, by Phillipe Sands, a QC and professor of international law at University College, London. Professor Sands last year exposed the doubts shared by Foreign Office lawyers about the legality of the invasion in disclosures which eventually forced the prime minister to publish the full legal advice given to him by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith.

The memo seen by Prof Sands reveals:

• Mr Bush told Mr Blair that the US was so worried about the failure to find hard evidence against Saddam that it thought of "flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours". Mr Bush added: "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach [of UN resolutions]".


• Mr Bush even expressed the hope that a defector would be extracted from Iraq and give a "public presentation about Saddam's WMD". He is also said to have referred Mr Blair to a "small possibility" that Saddam would be "assassinated".


• Mr Blair told the US president that a second UN resolution would be an "insurance policy", providing "international cover, including with the Arabs" if anything went wrong with the military campaign, or if Saddam increased the stakes by burning oil wells, killing children, or fomenting internal divisions within Iraq.


• Mr Bush told the prime minister that he "thought it unlikely that there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups". Mr Blair did not demur, according to the book.

The revelation that Mr Blair had supported the US president's plans to go to war with Iraq even in the absence of a second UN resolution contrasts with the assurances the prime minister gave parliament shortly after. On February 25 2003 - three weeks after his trip to Washington - Mr Blair told the Commons that the government was giving "Saddam one further, final chance to disarm voluntarily".
...
The meeting between Mr Bush and Mr Blair, attended by six close aides, came at a time of growing concern about the failure of any hard intelligence to back up claims that Saddam was producing weapons of mass destruction in breach of UN disarmament obligations. It took place a few days before the then US secretary Colin Powell made claims - since discredited - in a dramatic presentation at the UN about Iraq's weapons programme.

The rest here. The Independent's story is here. Will the US Washington Press Corpse report the story? Start the counter, people.

UPDATE: Raw Story has the Channel 4 video.

UPDATE (sort of): Crooks and Liars points to a Guardian article from 2003 about the Ba'athist regime's desperate offers for peace, which we rejected. The lede:

In the few weeks before its fall, Iraq's Ba'athist regime made a series of increasingly desperate peace offers to Washington, promising to hold elections and even to allow US troops to search for banned weapons. But the advances were all rejected by the Bush administration, according to intermediaries involved in the talks.

C&L also has the piece Olbermann did on the memo cited above.

You Go, Girl

Governor Blanco pushes for oil royalties. If we get them, maybe we can secede. (Okay, I'm just fantasizing.)

The State of the Union

Is dire*. And in New Orleans, it's worse. Unless, like George Bush, you live in a bubble of pure fantasy:

A hopeful society comes to the aid of fellow citizens in times of suffering and emergency -- and stays at it until they're back on their feet.

Where is that? the Netherlands? Let's go!

So far the federal government has committed $85 billion to the people of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans.

Whoa. What? When did that happen? Last I heard, we were getting half of $13B. Because, you know, we lost 200,000 homes and Mississippi lost, oh, 35,000. Yeah, that makes sense.

We're removing debris and repairing highways and rebuilding stronger levees....

"Rebuilding stronger levees"? Really? There's no evidence that levees as bad as we had before (thanks, Corpse of Engineers!) will be ready by next summer, and Bush has refused to order the construction of Category 4 or 5 flood protection.

*The short list:

• A not-exactly-free Iraq that's in a low-grade civil war and seems headed for some theocracy
• Decimated cities, one of which is being left twisting in the wind
• Warrantless wiretaps of American citizens
• Possibly a federal police force with nebulous powers of arrest
• One or more stolen elections
• A thoroughly corrupt Republican government
• The sale of critical regulatory functions of government to representatives of the industries they are supposed to regulate
  
• A massive federal debt owed mainly to potential rivals, with only token reductions in spending taken out of aid for the poor
• Mediocre job growth
• An insane foreign policy used for the benefit of monied elites and the securing of access to oil and gas
• A neglect of the environment
• Federal indifference to the coming global difficulties posed by global warming
• No push for reduction in burning fossil fuels, despite Peak Oil and overwhelming evidence of the human contribution to global warming
• The suppression and alteration of government reports supporting positions contrary to those of the Administration (see global warming, cost of Medicare, etc.)
  
• The appointment of a fascist to the Supreme Court
  
• The suppression of dissent through influence of the news media, disinformation, misinformation, outright lying and faux news
• A corporate-owned, increasingly consolidated national news media that distorts most stories, worships power and has for the most part abdicated its function to critically examine anything that non-Democrats do; so the press is "free," just not the press most people get their news from (apologies to James Risen and other courageous reporters)
  
• They can get away with all this without abrogating freedom of speech, because character assassination is a professional Republican Washington sport and non-Bushian bloggers are inconsequential
• An Executive Branch that refuses to stop torturing suspected terrorists
• American citizens can be detained indefinitely without representation or judicial review
• The inability for the minority party to hold Congressional investigations of anything and the Majority able to stonewall and/or rig investigations inconvenient to the Administration (see 9/11 Commission and every other investigation in the last 5 years)
• The manipulation of the population through fear-mongering (see election-season threat levels)
• Reporting in Washington is so atrocious that conservatives will read this and think I'm "fevered" instead of just reciting facts
  
• It gets much, much worse, but I'm not saying anything about that

Hanging Us Out to Dry

“It's a heck of a place to bring your family. It's a great place to find some of the greatest food in the world and some wonderful fun.”
George W. Bush

“Many New Orleans neighborhoods are still abandoned wastelands, with uninhabitable homes, no working street lights and sidewalks piled with moldy garbage. The levee system is as vulnerable as ever. Barely a quarter of the 400,000 people who fled have come back, demographers estimate.”
CNN

I was going to write about how Bush has left us hanging in south Lousiana, but Schroeder already did it. (Thank god because I can't get into it without suffering a stroke.) The WaPo's take on it is here (courtesy Schroeder). A NYT editorial on our plight is here.

The photo, by the way, is from the Lower Ninth Ward. I took it in early January.

The Enemy Is Dissent

The Pentagon's keeping a watchful eye on peace activists who hand out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to Halliburton employees. Truly, Alberto "Organ Failure" Gonzalez's "just trust us" defense of illegal NSA wiretaps is warranted. Okay, maybe "warranted" isn't right word....

DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying the NSA spied on the activists; it was Rummy's Counter Intelligence Field Activity.

Happy Really Bad News Day (with a Giggle!)

Dear so-called conservatives, at what point do you begin to get worried, let alone angry?

Case One: According to the New Orleans Times Picayune, the Dept. of Homeland InSecurity accurately predicted the horror that befell New Orleans:

President Bush's top disaster agency warned of the likelihood of levee breaches that could leave New Orleans submerged "for weeks or months," a communications blackout that would hamper rescue efforts and "at least 100,000 poverty-stricken people" stranded in the city.

Those remarkably accurate predictions were in a 40-page "Fast Analysis Report" compiled by the Department of Homeland Security on Aug. 28. Documents show that the report was sent by e-mail to the White House Situation Room at 1:47 a.m. on Aug. 29, hours before the deadly storm made landfall.
...
Bush's front-line disaster agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was predicting the worst. In a Power Point slide show dated Aug. 27 and obtained by The Times-Picayune, the agency spelled out the death and destruction anticipated by Hurricane Pam and warned that Katrina was likely to be worse.

"Exercise projection is exceeded by Hurricane Katrina real-life impacts," the slide show said.

Wow. So they knew. And did nothing. Thanks, guys. Now can we throw the lot of you in jail for negligent homicide?

Case Two: The shiny new inaptly named Patriot Act contains a provision for (guess) a "uniformed division" of the Secret Service, authorized to arrest people without warrant "for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony." I know, I know, conservatives, a federal police force with nebulous powers of arrest isn't fascistic or totalitarian or even worrisome. It's just our Leader exercising the war powers of the unitary executive. Dear conservatives, please, get a dictionary, take a class, but do something.

(Via Suspect Device.)

THE GIGGLE: And while we're linking to everything Greg Peters, why not link to his latest cartoon?

Why the Towers Fell

While Bush is out pushing 9/11 as an excuse for doing whatever he wants, why not celebrate by reading a physicist's paper on why the World Trade Center towers fell? (The author, Steven E. Jones, gave a presentation in late September; this paper, I think, is pretty recent. Very highly recommended.)

East Coast Vs. West Coast

The battle has begun....

Jesus Christ, AFA, Get a Life

I mean, thank god the American Family Association is dedicated to protecting humans from art and desire. Hint: If you don't like NBC's Book of Daniel, don't watch it.

Friday Dog Blogging

 
 

Katrina Documentary

Do Your Part, a non-profit I'm working with, is screening a documentary at Sundance this week. It's about the devastation in St. Bernard Parish, just east of New Orleans. You can watch it here.

To find out just how bad things are going with the reconstruction effort, read today's Times Picayune.

Peter Dauo Wastes More of His Time by Getting It Right

An invaluable post for the Democratic "leadership," who invariably won't read or heed it. For progressive bloggers (full disclosure: I am one), a depressing analysis of what should happen what some fascistic ass clown like ScAlito schlepps before The Incompetent Ones to not be grilled about anything. As John "I donated my brain to Terri Schiavo" Hinderocket of Power Line told me last week, "Man, you're one angry guy." With leadership like this, anger's a given. I feel as abandoned as a New Orleanian waiting for Chimpy McWarboy* to deliver some goddamned category-5 flood protection. Oh, wait....

*The entire staff of realitique would like to express their admiration and support of our closest primate cousins and regret the use of their species as an epithet. However, realitique® has stalled delayed for quite some time using standard progressive epithets for His Highness, George IV, partly out of respect for certain readers. As they seem to've disappeared, realitique sees no reason not to jump the proverbial shark. In the spirit of blog-wagoning, then: fuck Bush**.

**As this phrase and variations on chimps and war are overcooked, we doubt we'll use it much. But it's nice to have options, especially when, unlike the grinning, relaxed Power Line boyz, you're "angry."

Mr. Bush, Please, Stop “Protecting” Me

What she said.

Contextual note: This is the SusanG who started the snowballing investigation into Jeff "Administration Plant" Gannon.

Do not Look at the Curtain

Nigel: Don't touch it.
Marty: Well uh I wasn't, I wasn't gonna touch it. I was just pointing at it...I....
Nigel: Well don't point, even.
Marty: Don't even point?
Nigel: No. It can't be played...never...
Marty: Can I look at it?
Nigel: No....no.

–This Is Spinal Tap

It is vitally important not to look at the evidence. That's essentially what Our Beloved Leader told a seven-year-old in a staged meeting "conversation" in which he "participated":

Q How can people help on the war on terror?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, that's the hardest question I've had all day. (Laughter.)

First of all, I expect there to be an honest debate about Iraq, and welcome it. People can help, however, by making sure the tone of this debate is respectful and is mindful about what messages out of the country can do to the morale of our troops. (Applause.)

I fully expect in a democracy -- I expect and, frankly, welcome the voices of people saying, you know, Mr. President, you shouldn't have made that decision, or, you know, you should have done it a better way. I understand that. What I don't like is when somebody said, he lied. Or, they're in there for oil. Or they're doing it because of Israel. That's the kind of debate that basically says the mission and the sacrifice were based on false premise. It's one thing to have a philosophical difference -- and I can understand people being abhorrent about war [sic]. War is terrible. But one way people can help as we're coming down the pike in the 2006 elections, is remember the effect that rhetoric can have on our troops in harm's way, and the effect that rhetoric can have in emboldening or weakening an enemy.

(Emphasis mine. Via Dohiyi Mir.)

This is a revealing quote. It says, in effect, that not only should we not look behind the curtain, we shouldn't even look at the curtain.

There are many reasons we're in Iraq. Two of them are oil and Israel. Would the president mind if we said that the US also wants to fill out its empire of military bases in Asia? that having bases in Iraq and Afghanistan puts Iran, the bigger country with bigger oil reserves, in a tight spot? Would we be saying that the war was based on a false premise? Because it was. And, in real terms, those who are sacrificing themselves are not doing so for America or its freedom, but for a panoply of other causes, some of which may be good. But what Iraq is certainly not about is the illusory "War on Terror"—unless you mean that we've created a terrorist factory in Iraq.

The president claims that Americans can help in the "War on Some Terror" by watching what they say and how they say it. He then mentions that "as we're coming down the pike in the 2006 elections," we should remember how important "rhetoric" is to both our troops and the enemy they fight. Never mind that "enemy" should be plural, what Bush is saying is that we should make sure to vote for representatives and senators who don't suggest that oil, Israel or lying was involved in our invasion of Iraq. Do not vote for most Democrats. Do not vote for anyone willing to even look at the curtain. Or acknowledge that there is a curtain. Because the power of this entire Administration is rooted in fear, in ignoring the curtain or denying it exists.

What we need to do is rip the curtain down and burn it. If we did that, Bush and his cronies would be in jail. Or worse.

Il Duce to Drop by New Orleans

You may've heard that Our Beloved Leader is stopping by New Orleans today for the first time in three months. "Ah!" you say, "Tis certain he'll assuage locals' fears of future flooding! He hath hastened to the site of disaster to reassure concerned New Orleanians that the federal government will help rebuild the city that they through negligence let flood!"

But you would be wrong. Even if you used contemporary English.

No, His Beneficent Presence (may his cattle yield unblemished milk) is stopping by to meet with small business leaders about the Gulf Opportunity Zone and then hastening to Bay St. Louis to give a speech. I'm sure that has nothing to do with the simmering anger here or with, say, the party affiliation of Mississippi's governor. Our governor, meanwhile, is doing something useful: she's in the Netherlands, learning about flood control from the masters.

Whither Nightline?

Nightline may've turned a corner—into the gutter. If this kind of coverage keeps up, chalk one more up for slavish obeisance to advertising demographics, or "standard industry practice." (Remember, kidz, the left-leaning liberal elite news media is biased!)

Mississippi Gulf Coast Photos

A couple of weeks ago, A. and I ventured to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to see the damage from Katrina. (We'd tried in November but weren't allowed in without local ID.) If you're not familiar with the MS Gulf Coast, the area is a string of several cities along about 40 miles of beach. Homes a few blocks from the beach were high enough to be spared; many of those closer to the water weren't so fortunate. And for mile after mile along the beachfront Highway 90 in Long Beach and Gulfport, there is nothing but denuded foliage, the land wiped clean.

Most of the photos I took were of Pass Christian, where my family moved decades ago from New Orleans. The devastation is hard to fathom, but as many homes as are gone there, more are left than in neighboring Long Beach and Gulfport. The only area I've seen with comparable damage is the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, near the levee breaches (photos coming soon).

My family in Pass Christian did well, considering. My grandmother, uncle and aunt all lived just far enough from the beach to have minor damage and no flooding. That said, another cousin lost his house and yet another had just sold hers only to lose her family's possessions when the storage facility was washed away. (Where was the debate about rebuilding the storm-surge-vulnerable Gulf Coast? Seems New Orleans is the only city some people debate rebuilding.)

You can view the Gulf Coast photos here. Please note: I continually try to coax the beauty out of the devastation around here. These photos are part of that attempt.

Previously posted 9th Ward photos are here.

Today in Malfeasance

WWNO, the local NPR affiliate, reports that Greece offered two cruise ships for free to house Katrina refugees, but the US government turned them down, instead paying Carnival hundreds of millions of dollars for the ship parked over by the bridge right now. I don't know the source(s) of the story.

The Battle of New Orleans

Today in 1815, the United States of America&—with the aid of Jean Lafitte's pirates, Choctaw and liberated Haitian slaves—defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans, the final battle of the War of 1812. I may be wrong, but I think the War of 1812 was the only US war to've started and ended unnecessarily (in formal terms). It started, in part, over a dispute whose settlement didn't reach the US in time to stop us from declaring war, and ended with a battle fought two weeks after the peace treaty, the Treaty of Ghent, was signed. (But according to Wikipedia, ratifications had yet to be exchanged, so maybe the war wasn't quite "over" when the Battle of New Orleans was fought.)

BONUS: And on another, unrelated note, it's Elvis' birthday.

He Puts the Big in Zbigniew

Foreign policy heavyweight Zbigniew Brzezinski weighs in on the false choice Our Leader® repeatedly lays before his subjects the American people vis à vis Iraq. (Via Atrios.)

Really Long Contextual Note: This is the former Carter Administration hawk who claims to've come up with the idea of suckering the Soviets to invade Afghanistan to save their puppet government there, only to get embroiled in their own Vietnam--a brilliantly effective move which led us to (more or less) create Al Qaeda. He's also the guy who thought up the sequel to The Great Game, or how the US could preserve its superpower status by dominating Eurasia. He suggested we do this by establishing access to the remaining oil and gas reserves in Central Asia. The gateway to Central Asia is Afghanistan (which is why we supported the Taliban), a land ripe for a pipeline to the energy riches of the Caspian region. But to dominate Eurasia via Central Asia, we'd need a more powerful, expansive military, and to get that, we'd need an external threat and a "new Pearl Harbor." This was such a handsome strategy that people like Rumsfeld, Cheney, Perlowitz et al. just couldn't resist, and they adapted it for their Project for a New American Century. Not long after, they managed to attain the most powerful positions in US goverment.

My Lai Hero Dies at 62

Hugh Thompson saved many Vietnamese from being massacred. Still waiting to hear it reported in the US.

And the other story US propaganda national news organs aren't touting today.

Let the House Cleaning Begin

With Jack Abramoff cooperating with prosecutors, a lot of representatives are soiling themselves today. They can get some stain-removal tips here. On Doityourself.com, poster twelvepeople notes that

Urine odor will be noticeable on warmer, more humid days. It may also be more noticeable after showering when humidity is high in bathroom. If urine has been absorbed into latex paint, it will require sealing odor into walls by applying a a couple coats of primer/sealer like Zinnser before repainting with oil-based paint which is more durable and easier to maintain.

A pity the humidity in DC is 92% today.

New Year's in Iraq

From my cousin in Anbar Province, Iraq:

Hello everyone and Happy New Year!

Well, at least I'm in the right calendar year now, and am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's hard to believe I've been here for six months now. Its felt more like six years.

I got promoted to Master Sergeant during a formation on New Year's Day. I've attached a photo from the formation for your viewing pleasure (lol). MSG Pentacost and I then fixed as traditional a NYD meal as possible, given our conditions. We had boiled cabbage and potatoes, fried potatoes and onions, soup beans, and fried cabbage. I tried to fix corned beef, but it was the stuff that comes in a can, and looked alot like Alpo when cooked (probably also tasted like it, too), so we threw it out.

I woke up this morning without power (again). I saw mechanics working on the generator as I left the barracks. I can't understand why they don't just replace the thing. It only worked for three days this time before breaking down again. We've got a small back-up generator on hand from the last time the main generator broke down for and extended period (right before Christmas we had no power for six days). If they don't fix the main by this afternoon, I will get the back-up running. It can't power the entire building, but will provide enough power to at least have lights and hot water.

Thanks again to everyone for your support, and the e-mails you've sent over the holidays. It is nice to hear from each of you. I look forward to seeing you when I get home.

Fuck Off and Die, 2005

As years go, 2005, you were the worst in decades. You were worse than a cash-laden frat boy high on meth at a strip club with a gun in his fist. You were worse than my burly boyfriend in prison, the one with a sadomasochistic streak and a penchant for hogtying with razor wire.

Once, when Alberto Gonzales was waterboarding me and John Ashcroft was pouring the contents of a chemical light on my scrotum while Dick Cheney questioned me, I thought, "This is so much better than 2005." Even after Condi Rice poured gravy over my head and loosed the famished german shepherd on me, I thought that.

2005 beat its children, stripped them naked and left them outside to starve in winter. 2005 kidnapped people it didn't like and boiled their hands in Uzbekistan. 2005 suspected everyone of something, and inflicted punishment just short of organ failure until they confessed. (The confessions proved false.) 2005 drowned hundreds of thousands of people. It buried thousands more in mountains of rubble, saving the cost of digging mass graves.

2005: Goodbye and good riddance.

Photos of the Lower 9th Ward, New Orleans

Within a few days of the ninth ward opening up for residents to check their property and leave, A. and I went to look at the ward*. Here's a collection of pictures I shot between the ninth ward and St. Bernard Parish (about 15 blocks east of the ninth ward). The pictures were shot on Dec. 1. And, yes, the peach-colored object in the foreground of the first photo is a dildo.

COMING SOON: Photos of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

BONUS: Why did the floodwalls fail? (Hint: sea level isn't the issue.) Take a gander at the the most recent report.

UPDATE: My most recent set of Lower Ninth Ward photos is here.

*An earlier version of this post said that we overshot the 9th ward. After (finally!) finding the excellent graphic by the Times Picayune, I found that we hadn't. We were near the river, where the damage was nowhere near as bad as it was further north.

Christmas in Iraq

My cousin's Christmas email from somewhere near Mosul:

Hello, everyone!

I'm sorry I haven't sent out an e-mail in such a long time. We've been without power for long periods (over six days once), so I haven't been able to send anything.

Christmas was good. I had Staff duty on Christmas Eve. When assigned to Staff duty, you have to stay up all night. I was able to spend the night webcamming with [my wife] and her family. I was able to talk to them, then watched as they opened their presents. It was the next best thing to being there.

I slept all morning on Christmas day. I then spent the afternoon installing a generator at our barracks. We got it put in and running just after dark, so we got power just in time. My Christmas dinner was a bratwurst and red beans and rice. We did have a "traditional" dinner trucked up to us from Tal Afar, but I was too busy getting the generator running. I'm not complaining, though. I would rather have power and heat than a piece of ham or turkey.

The rainy season has finally arrived. Now the whole place is one big mud hole. It is impossible to go through the day without getting mud everywhere - clothes, boots, in the rooms, etc. Along with the rain came the mosquitoes. We're getting eaten alive, especially at night. I've been trying to get a mosquito net, but the PX in Mosul sells out almost as soon as they get them in. The temperatures are falling, we even had a spit of snow.

I've attached a photo taken while on a convoy to Bayji, located just north of Baghdad. It took us four hours each way to get there, and we had to make the trip twice in three days. This photo was taken while we were recovering a vehicle that broke down. I was providing security while the vehicle was being prepared to tow.

I'd include the picture, but it's meaningless for anyone who doesn't know him. It's of a soldier in uniform in a desert similar to the one east of L.A.

By the way, I keep posting these because they're snippets of personal life that you don't get much of in the news (for once, I'm not criticizing the news, I'm just making an observation).

I should also add that while I think this war is based on a series of lies, I do hope Iraq gets some sort of decent government in the end and citizens wind up better off. I'm just afraid that it won't happen for many years, and in the interim there will be much more internecine violence.

Top Ten Myths about Iraq

Juan Cole dispels them.

Please Retire, Trent

Oh, for a wild wish to come true....

[Trent] Lott is having a sort of revenge, forcing the Republican establishment to beg him to stay. According to Novak, "Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman pleaded with Lott last week to run again. The senator was as blunt with this emissary from President Bush as he was with me. 'Where is our vision and our agenda?' he asked. The malaise afflicting the Bush administration not only threatens a Senate seat in Mississippi but impacts Lott's decision whether to retire."

Although I prefer cream cheese with my bagel and lotts, I'll take malaise any day.

I Love My New Big Brother

A few days ago, Kevin Drum speculated that Bush™ skirted the FISA court to cover for new technology: data-mining or some such, the sort of thing John Poindexter's into. It's looking more and more like he was right. On Thursday, US News reported that the Feds monitored Muslim sites and private property, searching for nuclear material. Now, the New York Times reports a massive federal data-mining operation reminiscent of convicted felon John Poindexter's proposed Total Information Awareness program, once again demonstrating Bush™'s propensity to do whatever he wants, regardless of what, say, other branches of government think. A few highlights:

The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries, they said.

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.
...
What has not been publicly acknowledged is that N.S.A. technicians, besides actually eavesdropping on specific conversations, have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might point to terrorism suspects. Some officials describe the program as a large data-mining operation.
...
This so-called "pattern analysis" on calls within the United States would, in many circumstances, require a court warrant if the government wanted to trace who calls whom.
...
Several officials said that after President Bush's order authorizing the N.S.A. program, senior government officials arranged with officials of some of the nation's largest telecommunications companies to gain access to switches that act as gateways at the borders between the United States' communications networks and international networks. The identities of the corporations involved could not be determined.

The switches are some of the main arteries for moving voice and some Internet traffic into and out of the United States, and, with the globalization of the telecommunications industry in recent years, many international-to-international calls are also routed through such American switches.

One outside expert on communications privacy who previously worked at the N.S.A. said that to exploit its technological capabilities, the American government had in the last few years been quietly encouraging the telecommunications industry to increase the amount of international traffic that is routed through American-based switches.

The growth of that transit traffic had become a major issue for the intelligence community, officials say, because it had not been fully addressed by 1970's-era laws and regulations governing the N.S.A. Now that foreign calls were being routed through switches on American soil, some judges and law enforcement officials regarded eavesdropping on those calls as a possible violation of those decades-old restrictions, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court-approved warrants for domestic surveillance.

Historically, the American intelligence community has had close relationships with many communications and computer firms and related technical industries. But the N.S.A.'s backdoor access to major telecommunications switches on American soil with the cooperation of major corporations represents a significant expansion of the agency's operational capability, according to current and former government officials.

Phil Karn, a computer engineer and technology expert at a major West Coast telecommunications company, said access to such switches would be significant. "If the government is gaining access to the switches like this, what you're really talking about is the capability of an enormous vacuum operation to sweep up data," he said.

Or, in simpler terms, Big Brother.

Thank you, New York Times, for doing your job.

Let's Invade Iraq! and the Library!

Some people still believe that Bush™ didn't make up his mind to invade Iraq until, say, 2003. Today, we learn from former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle that the day after September 11, 2001 the Bush Administration sought broad authority to make war on whomever it liked:

On the evening of Sept. 12, 2001, the White House proposed that Congress authorize the use of military force to "deter and pre-empt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States." Believing the scope of this language was too broad and ill defined, Congress chose instead, on Sept. 14, to authorize "all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons [the president] determines planned, authorized, committed or aided" the attacks of Sept. 11. With this language, Congress denied the president the more expansive authority he sought and insisted that his authority be used specifically against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Having been denied authority to take over the world, Bush™ then sought to make war in this country, Lincoln-style®:

Just before the Senate acted on this compromise resolution, the White House sought one last change. Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words "in the United States and" after "appropriate force" in the agreed-upon text. This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused.

Now given that all levels of government already have authority to, you know, arrest and shoot people under certain circumstances, seeking war powers within the United States seems an odd request. One wonders what, exactly, our Fearlesss Leader intended to do with it. I guess see who's checking out Mao's Little Red Book.*

*Not that I really think that's the reason why you'd skirt the FISA court, but in any case, turns out the Little Red Book story was a hoax. This one, however, is not.

He's Baaack

Le Savant returns....

The Real Meaning of Saturnalia Christmas

While Fox News is busy promoting the non-existent War on Christmas, we at realitique headquarters thought it fitting to point out that, like Easter, the Christmas story is fundamentally about the journey of the sun across the sky. Today, for example, is the winter solstice, the day the sun "stands still" or is "born." And if the Emperor Aurelian hadn't in 274 CE fixed the date as the 25th, today would be Christmas.

Lots of mangods (some of them explicitly sun gods) were born or reborn on this day. Beli Mawr, Mithra, Tammuz, Adonis, Baal ("lord"), Horus, Heracles and Dionysus are a few. Many mangods were born in caves, to virgins, and could look forward to a period of teaching mankind followed by a trial, death and resurrection. This usually led to a father-figure god forgiving humanity's sins.

In some cultures, this astronomical event was mythologized as a battle between light and darkness (which eventually interpenetrated the constructs of "good" and "evil"). The Hopi celebration of Soyal and the Mesopotamian ("Iraqi") celebration of Zagmuk both stress such a battle, and during the Iranian celebration of Yalda, bonfires are used to help the sun grow stronger. Shades of this conflict also appear in the Christian theological argument that Jesus' birth signalled the defeat of Satan.

Celebrating the solstice over 12 days was also popular, as the solar year was (and is) commonly divided into 12 periods. In ancient Babylon, slaves and masters exchanged places and a mock king ruled in the palace. In Italy—where Saturn had once ruled but now lay sleeping near Britain, one day to return and usher in another golden age—gifts were exchanged and a mock king, the Lord of Misrule, reigned. In Greece, the monsters of chaos were said to roam free, playing pranks.

These variations on the theme of moral license and tricksterism may have originated in older rites of human sacrifice, which along with divine births and resurrections also occurred regularly around solstices and equinoxes. In many of these traditions, the victim was allowed for a short time to do whatever he wanted to (sinning, or breaking taboos) before dying. The free-for-all Carnival, or Mardi Gras, may a variation of this, perhaps in preparation for the spring equinox.

In ancient mystery religions, such as Mithraism, adepts were taught a narrative of the religion's founder or god. Newcomers were taught the exoteric, or uninterpreted, version. But once these newcomers were initiated into the mysteries, they were often shown a dramatized version of the narrative (or "passion") and were told the symbolic meaning of it—the esoteric version. Fittingly, Jesus does this, telling the crowds parables but revealing to his followers the parables' secret meaning. Gnostics, most likely the earliest Christians (such as Paul), interpreted the gospel narrative symbolically, as being about the growth of the self*. Because they didn't misinterpret the story as being literally true, they were often initiates of other mystery religions, without conflict.

Early anti-Gnostic Christian apologists had a hard time rebutting criticism that their nascent religion was just another mangod-centered mystery religion. They argued that Satan had copied God's plan and reproduced it around the world in anticipation of Christ's birth, death and resurrection. The big difference, they said, between Christianity and pagan mystery religions surrounding man-gods, was that Christianity was based on a "real" incarnate god. To prove their point, they produced gospels written long after the birth of their religion. Then demagogic bishops sent the faithful to burn pagan and gnostic texts that promoted the spiritual, ahistorical nature of the mangods. The rest is propaganda history.

*This gnostic tradition continued in the West, undercover, as a branch of Alchemy, in which lead and gold were symbols for states of the self, not literal metals. Another form of it is still practiced in Masonry.

BONUS: The God Who Wasn't There, a movie about Christian origins (i.e. paganism, the inclusive type of religion that Christianity robbed blind for every one of its exclusive claims).

SUPER HAPPY WINTER HOLIDAY BONUS: Hitchens drips derision all over Christmas.

DISCLAIMER: I actually like Christmas—as the annual solar holiday it is.

Impeach Bush (Reprise)

There are already more reasons for impeaching Bush than I'm willing to list, but the latest is an excellent one: breaking the law. As I recall, a few years ago power-hungry Republicans were in a lather over a certain man lying under oath. That, they said, required impeachment. If it did, then so does authorizing wiretaps by executive fiat*. By the way, I'm not astonished that we haven't yet heard in the news this obvious question and answer:

Q: The FISA law allows you to start spying on somebody as long as you seek a warrent within 72 hours—and fifteen days in emergencies. If so, why did Bush need to claim the right to wiretap citizens without going through the FISA court?

A: Because he didn't want anyone to know who we were spying on or why.

This is called "abuse of office," but unlike the other abuses of office Bush has committed, this one is clear cut.

P.S. Thanks, Mistuh Preznit, for the levee dough. It's probably the only thing you've done that's good policy.

*In the initial version of this post, I accidentally used the word "caveat." Thanks, G, for the correction.

UPDATE: Larry Johnson, who knows a bit about spying, weighs in:

It appears the most likely explanation is that the Bush Administration did not want to have to tell a Federal judge that they were using information obtained from interrogations that violated the spirit and the letter of the Geneva Conventions. Instead of protecting the nation the President may be covering his derrier.

Woohoo!

Fuck you, Don Wildmon. (If you don't know who he is, click here.)

Death of an American City

The NYT editorial is here. Saving the city would cost so much less than this misguided war. We've already lost half as many Americans to Katrina as have been killed in Iraq, and one third as many as we lost on 9/11. That we lost those Americans to a preventable, mostly man-made disaster for which the Corps of Engineers was in part responsible is all the more reason to renovate the levee system. If Congress isn't willing to do that, will they help fund the rebuilding of the Mississippi Gulf Coast within half a mile of the beach?

Election Patrol

My cousin's latest email:

I've just been told I will have to go out on patrol for the elections. I will leave tomorrow (12/12) and will stay gone until after the elections are over. Subsequently, I will not be able to contact you for the next several days.

If you get a moment, say a small prayer that this will go smoothly. I will e-mail you when I return. Hopefully I will have enough time to send some photos I've been wanting to e-mail, as well.

Take care, and I'll talk to you in a few days.

Gary Webb and the CIA-Contra-Cocaine Connection

Since I've made such a fuss in the past about the Washington Press Corpse, here's an excellent overview of the big story of journalist Gary Webb's career—and how the national media punished him for breaking it. (Via some big-time blogger or something.)

Creepy

And, like, really, really cool.

Où Est Le Savant?

Here's his last (and hopefully not final) post.

Why We Should Leave Vietnam

Well worth considering. (Via The Washington Note.)

BONUS: General William Odom's case for withdrawal. The McLaughlin Group presented his argument on Nov. 25.

The Most Expensive (and Fatal?) Engineering Mistake in US History

Thank the Corps of Engineers.

But hey, New Orleans is just a America's whore, right? Fuck her, tell her she's pretty, then short change her and kick her out of the car.

The Sebastian Mallaby Contest

In a “column” defending All Things Wal Mart yesterday, enlightened turd-shiner Sebastian Mallaby called decorated war veteran John Kerry “John ‘Benedict Arnold’ Kerry.” I not so promptly informed said turd shiner of his offense and added that

...I propose we sane folk (i.e., not you) start referring to you in a few truthful and creative ways:

Sebastian "Bush Toady" Mallaby
Sebastian "Benedict Arnold" Mallaby
Sebastian "Bought-And-Paid-For" Mallaby
Sebastian "Smug And Stupid" Mallaby
Sebastian "Wal Mart Ass Puppet" Mallaby
Sebastian "Waste of Water" Mallaby

On second thought, maybe we should use your name in some creative and obscene way, just as Dan Savage used Senator Rick Santorum's surname to signify a side-effect of anal sex.

A few inspiring possibilities:

1. I was straining on the toilet when I felt a mallaby pop out. Fortunately, my insurance plan (non-Wal-Mart!) covers rectal surgery.

2. The fetid Wal-Mart pork that Rishi ate soon turned a mallaby and he vomited all over his new satin sheets.

3. After the hooker finished, he wiped a drop of mallaby off the tip of his member.

4. Sorry, babe, I really can't. If I go upstairs with you, you might catch a mallaby and need a shot of penicillin.

5. Frank would've been fine, if the virus hadn't resulted in a mallaby. The lobotomy, he reports, was a success.

6. The neurosurgeon had no choice but to perform a mallaby on Rick. Now Rick stares out the window at the pretty birds and scratches at the floor for nonexistent seed.

I don't know what Sebastian "Shoe Shit" Mallaby thinks of this, if he thinks at all, but if you're game, I propose a contest. Give me your best shot at what "mallaby" should henceforth mean and (cross my stony, godless heart) I'll give you a prize (feel free to suggest low-cost prizes). The only rules I can think of right now: "Mallaby" has to be useable as a verb, meaning something gross, if not disgusting. On second thought, other meanings, such as those indicating lying, manipulation and corruption would work (use your imagination). The word can also be used as other parts of speech but those must be defined.

Official contest slogan: "Mallaby": Just two letters short of disease.

(Felt-hat tip to Atrios for the original offending article.)

Iraqi Civilians, or Contractor Targets

Unbelievable. (Hunting-cap tip to Crooks & Liars and Atrios.)

Dear Washington Post

Next time you write a slightly snide editorial about my city (not yours), please bother getting your facts straight. But then your paper and "facts" have a rocky relationship.

Contrary to your assertion, New Orleans doesn't have 1.5 million residents. Perhaps you were thinking of the Greater New Orleans Metropolitan Area, which according to the 2000 census has (had) 1,337,726 residents (closer to 1.3 or 1.4 million). New Orleans proper has (had) only 484,674 residents. It was New Orleans proper that got flooded; most of the surrounding area did not.

This is an important distinction. Most of the hundreds of thousands of residents outside New Orleans proper have returned. If you don't believe me, try one of the traffic cams on nola.com. The heavy traffic in Metairie and Kenner isn't from contractors, and it's not contractors I stand behind in line at Bed, Bath & Beyond, nor is it contractors I overhear discussing damage to their houses.

Now it's true that most of New Orleans' former 484,674 residents (note: not 1.5 or even 1.4 million) haven't returned, because most of the city is without power and most of the houses are uninhabitable. But in the habitable parts of town, there's plenty of traffic, and not from contractors. Unless all the cars lining my residential street are those of contractors who've taken up residence in my former neighbors' houses. And most of the people at restaurants and in grocery stores (long lines of people) appear to be residents--perhaps by subterfuge. There are even lots of tourists in the French Quarter, and this weekend, when the zoo reopened, you couldn't find a parking place for acres (lots of contractors, I guess, pushing all those strollers). Would you like me to take some pictures for you? The fact is, the livable parts of New Orleans are full, and more lights come on every day. People are coming back and cleaning up. But then you wouldn't know that, because you didn't bother to look. You didn't even bother to read the census.

There's a reason why getting your facts straight is important, even when it doesn't involve misleading your country into war. When you don't get your facts straight, you mislead your readers, some of which are in positions of power. When they read that most residents of "New Orleans" haven't returned, they might think that New Orleans is a dead city, when it is not. And they might hesitate to rebuild it. And if they don't rebuild it, they can find some other port to ship all their precious cargo through and some other swamp to run their oil pipelines through, because this strategic port will be gone, and many of the refineries and pipelines that feed the greedy American beast will be gone with it.

And, in part, that will be your fault.

He'll Send More Troops

Bush, Fort Bragg, 6/28/2005:

Some Americans ask me, if completing the mission is so important, why don't you send more troops? If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them. But our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job. Sending more Americans would undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight. And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever, when we are, in fact, working for the day when Iraq can defend itself and we can leave. As we determine the right force level, our troops can know that I will continue to be guided by the advice that matters: the sober judgment of our military leaders.

(Emphasis mine.)

TIME, 11/21/2005

If the Repulblican Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee wants to get a second opinion on how the war in Iraq is going, where does he turn? To the Pentagon, but not to the top brass this time. In an unusual closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill last week, Virginia's John Warner, joined by Democratic Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and Mark Dayton of Minnesota, sat across the table from 10 military officers chosen for their experience on the battlefield rather than in the political arena. Warner rounded up the battalion commanders to get at what the military calls "ground truth"--the unvarnished story of what's going on in Iraq.

"We wanted the view from men who had been on the tip of the spear, and we got it," said John Ullyot, a Warner spokesman who declined to comment on what was said at the meeting but confirmed that some Capitol Hill staff members were also present. According to two sources with knowledge of the meeting, the Army and Marine officers were blunt. In contrast to the Pentagon's stock answer that there are enough troops on the ground in Iraq, the commanders said that they not only needed more manpower but also had repeatedly asked for it. Indeed, military sources told TIME that as recently as August 2005, a senior military official requested more troops but got turned down flat.

There are about 160,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq, a number U.S. commanders in the region plan to maintain at least through the Iraqi national assembly elections on Dec. 15. But the battalion commanders, according to sources close to last week's meeting, said that because there are not enough troops, they have to "leapfrog" around Iraq to keep insurgents from returning to towns that have been cleared out. The officers also stressed that the lack of manpower--rather than of protective armor or signal jammers--posed one of the biggest obstacles in dealing with roadside bombs, which have caused the majority of U.S. casualties in Iraq. The commanders, according to the meeting sources, said there are simply "never enough" explosives experts on the ground.

(Article via Andrew Sullivan.)

Al Jazeera's Future?

An interesting side note about Al Jazeera, from Steve Clemons:

To add one other interesting dimension to this debate about Al-Jazeera, one of my friends asked novelist Tom Clancy what he thought about the mid-term future of the arab network at the major September terrorism conference where Clancy spoke. Tom Clancy replied that he thought that in five years, Al-Jazeera would be just another mouthpiece of American interests.

Fascinating, counter-intuitive statement -- in TWN's view -- that I hope is wrong, but which many inside the Al-Jazeera network feel strikes close to home and the realm of likelihood.

Our Man in Mosul

A cousin of mine who's in the National Guard has been in Iraq for the past few months. He got to guard polling stations during the last vote and (I'm guessing) will do so again on Dec. 15. Here are highlights from his latest mass email:

We don't have any special plans here. I believe the mess hall manager is preparing us a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, though we may have to go to Mosul to pick up some of the things they don't have here (which is alot, since its an Iraqi mess hall). They will close it off to the Iraqis, so we will be able to socialize and fellowship for a little while. Other than that, its business as usual.

I'm sorry I haven't been keeping in touch with everyone (sending the mass e-mails). There's not a whole lot to update you on. I work what I call the daily grind with the Iraqi G-2 (intelligence), and run up and down the road to Mosul. Mosul is getting pretty crazy, it makes for a nerve-wracking trip. I've also had to go over to Tal Afar a couple of times, but that was uneventful.

As I'm sure everyone can understand, we're gearing up for the December elections. I can't wait for it to happen. Hopefully some of the crazy stuff that's going on around here will ease off. We're doing a lot of planning/preparations, so I hope it will go smoothly, at least in our Area of Operations.

I guess winter is starting to set in here. It gets down into the 40's and 50's at night, but is still comfortable during the day. We've had two straight days of rain. Nothing heavy, but its turned this whole place into a mud hole. Several of our guys have gone out 4-wheeling in it, driving Russian-made jeeps. I will get out there eventually, and have a little fun, also. I've been told that we will get more rain for about a month, then "true" winter will set in. It will snow in late December, January and February. Who would have thought about snow in the desert? We've got some large mountain ranges visible from the FOB [Forward Operating Base -Ed.]. Once the snow starts, I'll get some pictures of it e-mailed.

Scott Pelley Is Sinking

Gee, Scott, maybe next time you could give the other 9 sides of the story, like a real journalist would, instead of the controversial one you adore.

Thank You, Mr. Bush

For creating more terrorists in Iraq to export terror to neighboring countries. We're succeeding in Iraq!

Karl Rove's Leather Slave

Heh. Indeedy. (Via C&L.)

Impeach the Bastard

Sure, you say, nearly every president deserves impeachment. But who deserves it as much as this guy?

CAVEAT EMPTOR: Then again, you might have to drill down to Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson to find a decent replacement, and I don't know if he's trustworthy either.

Putting the Ann in Annti-American

"Frankly, I'm not a big fan of the First Amendment."

- Ann Coulter at the University of Florida
(Via Brad Blog.)

Can Bush Beat Nixon?

He's a contender.

Michael Brown's Image-Makers

Why work hard when you can look like you've been working hard? The Baton Rouge Advocate reports on an email that former FEMA-director Michael Brown received several days after Katrina struck:

Several days later, Brown received yet another e-mail about his attire. This time, Worthy instructed Brown: "Please roll up the sleeves of your shirt...all shirts. Even the President rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow. In this cris[is] and on TV you just need to look more hard-working...ROLL UP THE SLEEVES."

Dear Max Boot

I read with interest your list of half-truths and lies in the LA Times today. Then on NPR I heard you mislead the American public.

In the LA Times, you called Joseph Wilson "Plamegate's real liar." But anyone who read the Joseph Wilson's NYT op-ed or interviews with him knows he didn't lie. Anyone who read the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report knows it was skewed and that the Bush toady Pat Roberts and Orrin Hatch lied in their comments.

On NPR's All Things Considered, you claimed that Democrats voted for the Iraq war. But anyone who paid attention knows that the Democrats didn't "vote for war" but authorized the use of force as a last resort. And anyone not suffering from Down's Syndrome knows that the invasion of Iraq was far from the last resort. Or did you miss the weapons inspectors report before the invasion?

I don't think you're stupid enough to sincerely believe any of what you've said or written on Joseph Wilson or those pesky Democrats. Instead, I think you're the worst sort of liar, the kind who, conscienceless, uses whatever means necessary to achieve underhanded policy ends. Do you get paid to lie or do you do it on principle? You belong in a dark cell, with a guard who turns a blind eye and several large, libidinous cellmates who can't wait to get into your jumpsuit.