While Reverend Wright's timing is opportunistic and his motives are egotistical and narcissistic, his remarks on the United States are not terribly off mark. The United States support of dictators in the Middle East for the last 60 years, along with its sanctions against 5 Muslim countries did have alot to do with the September 11 attacks. Our abandonment of Afghanistan after the defeat of the Soviets was cowardly and has come back to haunt us. The toppling of an Iranian democracy, the support of the Shah and countless other monarchs and dictators surely has raised the ire of the current Islamist groups. Finally, our blind support of Israel's policies in the West Bank and Gaza and our blind eye to Palestinian refugees and their suffering have exposed us to the most violent currents of Pan-Arabism, Islamism, Arab Nationalism, Palestinian Nationalism and Secular Militarism.
Our treatment of African Americans in the past, including Slavery and Jim Crow Laws, coupled with regretful events such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, the high number of African American inmates, the high penalty for crack cocaine as opposed to powder cocaine, the endless stream of fatal police brutality and the small number of African American college graduates have all contributed to an atmosphere of suspicion and cynicism in the African-American community, of which Reverend Wright is merely a symptom.
We have to confront these subjects head on and address them fairly. Obama's presidency and Reverend Wright's sometimes shameful rants have exposed a tremendous fault line as well as a golden opportunity to begin to understand, and see from, the other's perspective. As much as Obama's candidacy has made us feel proud and optimistic about our nation's transcendence of race, Reverend Wright's sermons will make us recoil from our ugly reflection in the mirror. But both images are true.
We must begin to answer the questions that are implicit in these infamous sermons. Was September 11 a response to our own actions abroad or did they attack us because we are a beacon of liberty as president Bush would have us believe? Do we owe the African-American community an apology as a nation; do we owe them a museum? Where is the National Museum of the African-American Slave? It doesn't exist but the National Holocaust Museum (a memorial of a crime not perpetrated in US soil) is in Washington, DC.
This is too funny... Its a movie trailer, made by some dumb shit zio-facist-christo-fanatics.
"Farewell Israel: Bush, Iran and The Revolt of Islam reaches the unavoidable conclusion that Western and Israeli misunderstanding of Islam is leading to a coming war - which will have devastating consequences for the West, and worst of all for Israel - Farewell Israel!"
LOL!!!!
You have to see it to believe it... note the music...
...my two friends have walked out of Qasr El-Nil police station. One of them said that she and all the other women were treated well and not harmed physically and that her father was allowed to bring her food. But all the men arrested were beaten up badly.
In other news, both of them really need to take a bath.
This is NOT the end of the story for us. There are still many more people in jail for definite and indefinite periods until their "interrogation" is completed. Please, everyone who is reading, inform your friends in the states, tell them about all the USAID money that goes into the pockets of the Egyptian rulers instead of the Egyptian people, and that is used to buy arms for and fund this brutal repression. This is the best thing that we as Americans can do to try and bring more justice in the Middle East. The corrupt regimes of countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, et al, would be on much shakier ground were it not for our government's material (and moral) support.
A Cairo scholar (yes, the same source as the April Fools camel joke of last week) named Ian had a very cogent and concise point to make, for which I thank him:
"The true nature of the system we call the "capitalist state" -- or otherwise the universal productionist order -- is revealed in moments like this. Such things used to happen in the West, until states there embedded discipline, individualism and consumption more deeply into the social body, at the same time upgrading the police and distancing the population from power by a complex institutional labyrinth that leaders there call democracy. We must remember that the killing of workers, like torture, is a sign of state weakness, and that Egypt's economic position is a function of corrupted elites backed by martial law and an international division of labour established by Western imperialism. It is our moral duty to be in support of the people in their struggle for justice and the means of life."
A columnist in the Toronto Star considered the question of whether George W. Bush is the worst president in history. He attributed Bush's ineptitude to "a neural disconnect in his brain that at crucial moments causes him to be divorced from the constraints of rational thought."
The result is that Bush "seems to be observing events from another dimension."
Bush may compare in terms of domestic disarray to Grant's post-Civil War reign or NIxon's corrupt bumblings and warmongering, but none have had such a destructive global impact.
He wrote that although America's historians will debate this question, the rest of the world knows the answer. Amen to that.
A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.
The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."
The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.
The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.
What amazes me is that the vast majority of those journalists and journalism nonprofits knew before the war that Bush & co. were lying, they either did not have enough balls to oppose and criticize them, or they held off the anti-war stories simply because they had a pro-war agenda. Their motivations may have ranged from political loyalties to the neo-cons and Israel to their desire for busy news season. The price of a few hundred thousand Iraqi lives seemed reasonable to them.
Anti-war activists and a handful of academics spoke out against the fabrications Bush & co. pushed through the news pipeline. However, they were vilified, accused of treason and supporting terrorism, silenced and intimidated by the Bush administration with the help of the media, similar attacks were carried out on charities and institutions that criticized Bush’s McCarthyism and march to war.
The facts did not change; what we knew to be a lie prior to 2003 is what’s being documented and chronicled in those new studies. Yet the media outlets and individuals complicit in fabricating the war pretense relied on a dumb and ignorant public that is incapable of drawing parallels when those tactics are being used to invade a nation, shut down a charity, or sensor and academic, a public that seems to suffer collective amnesia when the same fabrications and tactics are employed only a few years later, and goes in a state of severe denial when the government of its “greatest country in the world” turns out to be no better than the most corrupt dictatorships whom they grown accustomed to uncritically condemning.
At this rate, it appears that it will be a few years before some media watchdogs or the academia come out to critique the immorality and lack of ethics inherent to the war pretense, even had the claimed made by Bush et al been vindicated.
Details are now being revealed about the preparations for President Bush's visit to Ramallah. In addition to closing down parts of the city, President Bush's costly visit (which included repairing parts of the Muqata so that Bush would not have to see Israel's devastation of the building) the team made a reportedly number of demands on Abbas's staff:
* President Bush would NOT stand at attention for the Palestinian national anthem (even though he stood at attention for the Israeli anthem; * President Bush would NOT go to Bethlehem with President Abbas, thereby reinforcing the claim that Abbas is the President of Ramallah * President Bush would NOT place a wreath of President Arafat's grave; * President Bush did NOT want to see any pictures of Arafat. It is reported that President Bush's team asked Abbas's team to remove President Arafat's photograph from the wall of the meeting room where Presidents Bush and Abbas would be meeting. Although Chaim is still trying to determine whether the photo was actually removed or simply covered up by drapes (it certainly didn't appear in any of the photo ops), it appears as though someone from the Whitehouse staff was not as detail-oriented as needed: one photo of the late President actually escaped the watchful eyes of the protocol team. Take a look at this.
A normally busy street in Ramallah during President Bush's visit.
One would expect a visit from a leader whose foreign policy rhetoric included spreading freedom to bring people out, not shut them in. Palestinians are already captives in their own bantustans thanks to Israeli policies. When Bush comes to town, it's house arrest for everyone (as Mohammad reported).
After visiting Bethlehem and witnessing the apartheid wall, he said: "by my belief that there is an Almighty, and a gift of that Almighty to each man, woman and child on the face of the Earth is freedom."
Some are making something out of Bush's trip through a checkpoint and reference to the Israeli "occupation" (which newspapers all have in quotation marks) and its need to end it. While this is a significant advance in using the right words to describe the situation, they do not mean much to the sayer -- a President whose primary achievement in office -- besides being re-elected -- was occupying two countries, and constructed countless checkpoints. For Bush, "occupation" is not a negative term.
Should we impressed he called on Israel to end the occupation? While some found his statements "uncharacteristically blunt," it all depends on what actions follow the words.
Palestinians and most observers are rightfully cynical about American administrations bringing peace. A few superficial gestures like what Bush did is hardly going to convince any Palestinians that liberation is around the corner. No one know the American presidential gap between words and deeds better than do the Palestinians. They experienced an "honest broker" who treated Israeli peace proposals as their own; a highly partisan interlocutor whose relations with Israel are defined by a sense of mutual agendas.
Even Israeli two-state solution proponents are doubtful, according to a piece in the Toronto Globe and Mail.
Israeli politicians, including veterans of the various failed peace processes of the 1990s, ... saw nothing new in Mr. Bush's remarks, since nearly the entire Israeli public is already convinced of the need to give up some of the occupied territories. The question, said Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, is only "what form the separation from the Palestinians will take."
Some linked the speech to Mr. Bush's coming tour of Arab countries. The President will visit five Arab countries in six days, hoping to rally support for the peace process and firm up an alliance against the threat Mr. Bush says is posed by Iran.
"What's come out of this trip is just warm rhetoric. Anyone who expected more than that is going to be disappointed," said Yossi Alpher, who advised former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak at Camp David. "What is [Mr. Bush] prepared to do about it? Nothing, other than rhetoric, and he leaves tomorrow."
Bush has been a downright failure in foreign affairs. Even if he wanted to pull off this legacy-saving measure -- one that is sure to damn the Palestinians since separation won't mean sovereignty -- I doubt he could. He should have made a real effort when his political capital could afford it. This will clearly be too-little-too-late.
George Bush is coming to town! People really are making a much bigger deal of this than they should, but I guess we have to feel something big is happening when the man who is responsible for so much suffering in this part of the world arrives. Security in Ramallah has been extra tight this week, with US security personnel pretty much out in the open. There will be a day-time curfew imposed on Irsal Street, Jerusalem Street and Nablus Street, the three largest arteries in Ramallah and Elbireh. Apparently, since I live near Abbashole’s Center of Collaboration (The Muqata, what?) I am liable to get popped in the skull by a Secret Service sniper if I dare stick my head out of the window. This shit all seems a bit much-Bush ain’t the first head of state to visit Ramallah, and we’ve always been nice to the others. Even Condi can have the Palestinian security services arrest and/or beat the Holy Living Shit out of anybody who dares protest against her. But this is Bush, and he can’t go anywhere without pissing the locals off in an unprecedented fashion. Unless they’re Israelis. They like him.
I caught his press conference with Olmert, and it’s sad that they don’t even try to hide their ulterior motives anymore. Praising Olmert continuously for his ‘efforts’ towards peace, Bush ignored the huge settlement projects announced by Israel since Annapolis, insisting that the biggest obstacle to peace is not occupation, oppression, land-theft, the denial of human rights, collective punishment, deportations, political prisoners, border closures, military operations and settlements, but that always convenient pain in the ass: terror. Olmert used the opportunity to announce to Abbashole that he would not tolerate Palestinian attacks on Israel, even from territories that his BFF doesn’t control. Then, without being prompted, they laid into Iran, Bush meekly assuring the Israelis that even though his own intelligence agencies tell him Iran’s threat to world security is considerably exaggerated, he trusts the Mossad more.
Oh, and he told the Arab countries to recognize Israel’s contributions to peace. I’m sure the Lebanese and Palestinians will vouch for it.
There really is a strong undercurrent of anger brewing here, at Bush and the Israelis naturally, but also at the Palestinian Authority, which is going out of its way to restrict freedom of speech. If people were allowed to, there would be thousands and thousands protesting in Ramallah tomorrow-but Salam Fayyad’s thugs don’t like people protesting.
This may be kind of old -- from this past summer -- but it's new for me since I'm about 8 years behind in the music scene. Pink challenges Bush to looks into her eye and beckons for Bush's whiskey and cocaine days, back when he was a human.
Nearly five years after the U.S. led invasion of Iraq, the U.N. estimates more than 4 million Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes. The Bush administration has repeatedly acknowledged a 'moral obligation' to those displaced, but so far its reaction has been pathetic at best.
The U.S. had pledged to admit 7 ,000 Iraqi refugees by September, but fell far short of that goal, granting only 1,608 visas ahead of deadline.
The State Department has since upped the goal for next year, pledging to admit 12,000 Iraqi refugees by the end of September 2008.
But the latest figures released last week show they're off to a slow start, accepting 450 refugees in October and only 362 last month.
Do the math, folks - the U.S. needs to admit an average of 1,000 people every month to meet its target. What's more, all this talk of 'bureaucratic roadblocks' is starting to get really old.
Four million displaced .. 2,240 admitted.
That's in stark contrast to the 675,000 refugees from Vietnam who were admitted after the fall of Saigon in 1975.
It's a massive country, the United States. Frankly, it ought to be ashamed.
But on a serious note - I hope that KABOBfest's readers take time today (and every day really) to reflect upon the underline reasons why so much political, social, and economic violence exists in this world - and, most importantly, how you as an individual, and we as a community, can help change that.
Just as Osama Bin Laden had no right to take so many innocent lives in NYC six years ago, neither does any other man or women - regardless of whether that person is George Bush, Ehud Olmert, Mahmoud Abbas, or Kermit the Frog. While it's true that the atrocities of 9-11 were a crime against humanity, so was our nation's devastating response in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Rest assure that for every innocent life lost - in America, Afghanistan, and Iraq - there's a child, family member, or friend who's sworn revenge… quite possibly another 9-11. Clearly, war is not the answer.
Still, to ask of a nation to "forgive and forget" without due justice is unfair. The prosecution of those directly involved, coupled with a strategic engagement of the broader Middle East and South Asia, however, would have served this purpose well. Instead, our government chose to respond to Bin Laden's violent rejection of America's political and economic assertions with the strengthening of those very contentions he and his followers propagate for increased legitimacy in the Muslim world and beyond - ensuring that future violence will ensue.
Indeed, today is a sad day - but not just for Americans, for us all…
More than four years after the United States and its little helpers re-invaded Iraq, Iraqi chemical substances that could be used in illegal weapons surfaced -- at a United Nations office in New York City.
So, that's where Saddam hid the WMD's, right under our noses! That shiesty little devil!
Out-of-Work UN inspectors have found more Iraqi unconventional weapons than has the entire US military since the invasion.
A clerical error 11 years ago led to the shipment of Phosgene samples from an Iraqi laboratory to the UN weapons inspectors' offices, instead of a chemical lab. A byzantine labeling system -- probably similar to the one I use on ziplocs in my freezer -- made identifying the mysterious containers nearly impossible.
Though the containers only held grams of the substance, it was enough to give White House spokesman and former FOX News character Tony Snow some good anti-UN ammunition.
"I’m sure that there are going to be a lot of red-faced people over at the U.N. trying to figure out how they got there.”
I wonder if anyone in the White House was red-faced when they read the same observation I made about the underlying irony, albeit in more polite form, in the first sentances of the New York Times article on this:
No unconventional weapons were found in Iraq after the United States-led invasion in 2003. But a potentially deadly chemical agent produced by Saddam Hussein’s regime has turned up, improbably, in an office at the United Nations in New York, and it had the F.B.I. and the city police scrambling yesterday.
So the smoking gun is not in the shape of a mushroom cloud, but is rather two small steel containers sitting on a shelf in an United Nations office.
After reading a recent Washington Post article, my once genuine contempt for our great leader has turned into profound admiration. He is not the idiot I imagined, it turns out. Rather, he is the underdog champion of a great cause -- world democracy. And he has been facing down some great powers within his own administration.
In June, he attended a democracy conference in Prague. President Bush seemed frustrated by a lack of support within his own administration for his idealistic aims. Just as the CIA bungled up the pre-war intelligence on Iraq, he had his own government to blame for the failures characterizing his stated goal of "ending tyranny in our world."
Can you imagine such a ridiculous cop-out? Would the stockbrokers keep a CEO who blamed middle management or assembly-line workers for the company's poor performance? As a piece in the CSM suggests, "Why not treat ineffective presidents like CEOs: Fire them."
The parade of Bushian absurdity did not stop there. He even spoke his own struggle -- which he does not seem to understand is part and parcel of holding office in a government based on checks and balances. He compared himself to famous dissidents, such as the Egyptian human rights giant, Saad Eddin Ibrahim. Though Ibrahim served prison terms for his activism, Bush can relate. Do you have any idea how many boring ass banquets and meetings he has had to attend? Right, the arrogance of such analogy is appalling:
As he sat down with opposition leaders from authoritarian societies around the world, he gave voice to his exasperation. "You're not the only dissident," Bush told Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a leader in the resistance to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. "I too am a dissident in Washington. Bureaucracy in the United States does not help change. It seems that Mubarak succeeded in brainwashing them."
So, US support of the Egyptian leader is the result of a massive brainwashing operation conducted by President Mubarak. Maybe he channeled Nile TV, sent copies of Al-Ahram and free cans of foul mdemas to every government employee.
Just because I'm a freakin' genius, and do see through the B.S. of politicians, and truly think that American politics is a predictable, repetitive game of fraud, dishonesty, and manipulation. So here is my post from four months ago reading between the lines in George Bush's speech in defense of Alberto Gonzales, who resigned today, that his countdown began:
Of course, the lame duck factor can always come into play, and Mr. Bush may choose to continue playing the loyalty card, and the I-know-better-than-all-of-you card rather than admitting a mistake. This of course could prove costly to republicans eying wins in the 2008 elections, those will likely push of Gonzales ouster sooner than later, in hope of putting the issue behind them before election time.
Mr. Gonzales used the phrase “I do not recall” or a variation thereof 71 times during his hearing in front of congress last week; he said it 45 time before lunch, but had a sluggish second half, he apparently over did it on the BabaGanouj.
Is any body keeping count on the Bush administration scandals? I lost track.
Just to be clear, I do not think fraud, dishonesty, or manipulation are unique to American politics, far from it. But the American public is unique in the level of trust they have in their government and lack of skepticism about their politicians.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the Bush administration is seeking to designate State actors as "terrorists" now, stripping exclusive labeling and marketing rights away from the regular freelance, non-State terrorists.
Through use of special powers found in Executive Order 13224, George W. Bush is set to label Iran's elite military branch, the Revolutionary Guard, a "specially designated global terrorist."
"If confirmed," the BBC reports, "it would be the first time official armed units of a sovereign state have been included in the US list of banned terrorist groups." This stands in direct opposition to the US list of permitted terrorist groups not officially referred to as terrorist groups, but more colloquially: "Israel", "Britain", the "U.S." and "that handful of islands in the South Pacific that disappear during high tide."
The controversial move will elevate Iran from mere "sponsor of terrorism" status to actual "terrorist" status, subjecting it to all the sex, drugs and rock and roll that come with the territory.
The Freelance Terrorist Association could not be reached for a comment, but we hear they're really pissed.
Many of us know that Bush's Brain hit the exits a long time ago, perhaps after several nights of rum and cocaine binges, or perhaps somewhere in the combined genetic goo of Barb and George Sr. But, now, "Bush's Brain," Karl Rove, is retiring from the worst president's administration to plot more diabolical electoral schemes with wifey and the little ones.
This is pretty big news since it marks the middle of the beginning of the end of the reign of Bush, an artificial disaster on par with the tsunami's and hurricanes that occurred during it. Can you see the light at the end of the tunnel? Thank god for term limits (yes, Arab world, try them out, please).
Some of the most biting commentary I read about his departure came from the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (which I found quoted in Der Spiegel):
Karl Rove is often described as the most important presidential adviser of all time, as a sinister Machiavelli, as a brutal political strategist, as the brain of George W. Bush.... Now, at the end of Bush's presidency, the chief architect of the last seven years will have to answer many unpleasant questions. Little has remained of Rove's grand predictions of decades-long Republican dominance, of the decline of the Democrats, of an eternal alliance between the rich, the right wing and the religious.
Rove did what politicians have done since the days of Cicero -- he constructed majorities by polarizing, by emotionalizing, awakening national pathos and creating dependency. But Rove was no Cicero, he wasn't even a Clinton because he shunned the public and only felt comfortable among like-minded people. That's cowardly but common among people who only see things in black and white and divide people into friend or foe.
That's why Rove is leaving behind only a weak legacy: There's no trace of a coherent ideology, of an enduring dogma worth preserving. The Republicans face a heap of rubble. No domestic policy agenda, an unpopular war in Iraq, a president lacking approval, a defeat in mid-term elections and not very promising presidential candidates for the 2008 election year.
In short, Rove should be credited with the only accomplishment of the George W. Bush presidency -- getting re-elected.
By the way, if the allusions to "Bush's Brain" elude you, check out the book-based documentary.
"Cheney urging strikes on Iran" By Warren P. Strobel, John Walcott and Nancy A. Youssef August 9, 2007
...Cheney, who's long been skeptical of diplomacy with Iran, argued for military action if hard new evidence emerges of Iran's complicity in supporting anti-American forces in Iraq; for example, catching a truckload of fighters or weapons crossing into Iraq from Iran, one official said.
The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to talk publicly about internal government deliberations.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice opposes this idea, the officials said. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has stated publicly that "we think we can handle this inside the borders of Iraq."
Lea Anne McBride, a Cheney spokeswoman, said only that "the vice president is right where the president is" on Iran policy.
Bush left no doubt at his news conference that he intended to get tough with Iran.
While the 2008 presidential elections loom nearer and a defeat for the Republican party becomes more certain, U.S. President George W. Bush is being hit with pressure from the Republican party to do something about his embarassingly low approval ratings.
"Don't worry," has been his reponse. "I can assure you I will not leave office until WMDs are found and the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent people is justified."
After consulting failed intelligence report after failed intelligence report, mostly advising him to look under table after table, a desperate Bush has decided the only people left to turn to for advice are the anti-war activists he has shunned for so long.
Thus, Bush will undergo a colonoscopy on Saturday to look for WMDs in the place the peace movement has been telling him to look this entire time.
Apparently, there is at least one guy who still makes sense. Unfortunately, he comes from the same network that still carries primetime slots for Jo Scarborough, Tucker Carlson, and until recently, Don Imus.
As you all know, while hosting Russian President, Vladimir Putin, in a fence mending affair at the family summer residence in Maine, Bush attempted to inch closer to Putin’s position. What a better way to relate to the man accused of cracking down on democracy than by showing Bush’s own sheer contempt of the rule of law, and reaffirm the far-reaching corruption in his own administration that had been veiled by throwing around charges of other regimes’ corruption and autocracy?
That, of course, was translated into the commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison sentence, stating that his sentence was too harsh. In other news, Bush decided to commute the sentences and issue pardons to inner city kids thrown in jail for 5 years after being picked on the sidewalk with 2 grams of weed.
This commentary by Keith Olbermann is perhaps the best commentary to make mainstream TV on what should be a scandal filling the waves, but Bush and Cheney have done a marvelous job thickening America's skin, so the next one will not make much of a splash, no matter how big it is.
