This is the obligatory Mel Gibson article. It seems to be required of all Liberal and Progressive bloggers after Mr Gibson's minor oopsie this weekend.

Ok, so the guy drinks now and then. It happens. And, sadly, if he's not drinking at home, he's got to get home. Have you ever tried getting a cab to Malibu at 2 in the morning? Im-possible.

Now, some say (thanks for the phrase, Karl) he's a tad unhappy with the International Jewish Conspiracy that runs Hollywood, America, and the International Banking System. There is a solution for poor Mr Gibson, though.

He just needs to make sure he buys his hooch from people who aren't Jewish.

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2410/214/1600/klan.3.jpg

Karl Rove lays out the Bu$h malAdministration’s position on securing political power:

Some decry the professional role of politics. They would like to see it disappear. Some argue political professionals are ruining American politics--trapping candidates in daily competition for the news cycle instead of long-term strategic thinking in the best interest of the country.

It's odd to me that most of these critics are journalists and columnists. Perhaps they don't like sharing the field of play. Perhaps they want to draw attention away from the corrosive role their coverage has played focusing attention on process and not substance.

I just love it when the Fascists use the “some say” argument. It’s a signal that they’ve found the space between the third and fourth rib and the dagger is on its way. In this case, of course, they’re somewhat limited because they’ve been shown to be incompetent, careless, and even evil managers of the people’s Treasury and trust. But they can’t stop yet, because there is still some money left to steal.

The Army is a broken arrow, more than two-thirds of its combat brigades are not combat ready, and there is an estimated $56 Billion equipment refurbishment bill due.

So, what can they campaign on?

Josh Marshall discusses the next three months:

It's not necessary to parse the substance of Rove's fatuous comments. We all know how preposterous any of this is coming from Rove. And it's certainly not the first time the GOP has attacked the media as a way of working the refs, which is exactly the purpose of those particular remarks.

But I am struck by Rove's remarks as another example, among many in recent months, that most of the reliable campaign themes the Republicans have employed in the last two decades are no longer viable. National security policy is in a shambles, the federal budget is a wreck, and the GOP's reputation for bringing mature and competent managers to government may take a generation to rebuild. Thematically, only social issues still resonate. That leaves the GOP with two main tactical weapons: demonizing opponents personally and shooting the messenger.

Over the next four months, we will see blistering negative attacks on Democrats of a ferocity and corrosiveness that will make Swift Boats look like the Love Boat. And we will see a continuation of what started in the spring, an unprecedented attack on journalists and journalism, using not only the rhetorical flourishes favored by Rove, but the powers of the state via investigations, subpoenas, and the invocation of state secrets.

The poison pen is Rove’s specialty of course. But more and more, he’s a one-trick-pony because divisiveness and bigotry is all they have to campaign with.

You can disagree about what reality should be. That is the essence of democracy. But when the instruments of state power, including the President's bully pulpit, are used to attack the effort--within government, but especially without--to identify, describe, and analyze what reality is, then we have run right up against the limits of what democracy can withstand. It is the abandonment of the Enlightenment in favor of a dark and uncertain future.

It’s Sunday, the day of rest. The day to kick back, put our feet up on the table, pop a sixpack and consider how complicated life can be in Mr Bu$h’s 21st century America. Consider the following, presented in no particular order:

In order to make the PR point of troop reductions in Iraq just before the 2006 mid-term elections, the Pentagon has raised the current troop levels by stop-lossing the 172nd Stryker Brigade and moving them into Baghdad in the latest strategy of pacifying a country engaged in both civil war and resistance against illegal occupation. Those guys were due home in a couple of weeks, and we regret the detour, fellas, almost as much as you do. Stay safe. I guess regularly planned deployments will continue.

The NY Times thinks Joementum is a dead end for Connecticut and the US.

Israel has had its ticket punched in Lebanon, has withdrawn in some areas, and is waiting for Ms Rice to do something other than play the piano. They’re also massing more troops near the border, and will probably plan an intensified strike, after the IAF’s “shock and awe” campaign just turned the whole thing into a Chinese firedrill. The Chief of IDF Staff, Gen Halutz, has been taken to the hospital with tummy pains. Interesting; you can destroy cities with air power, but you can’t beat motivated fighters that way. It seems when irregular fighters have years to prepare for combat, and train intensively, they’re gonna win against a strong mainline armed force. Weren’t the Israelis some of the people mocking us in Viet Nam and the USSR in Afghanistan?

Bush submits new terror detainee bill

WASHINGTON - U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration, say legal experts reviewing an early version of the bill.
A 32-page draft measure is intended to authorize the

Pentagon's tribunal system, established shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks to detain and prosecute detainees captured in the war on terror. The tribunal system was thrown out last month by the Supreme Court.
Administration officials, who declined to comment on the draft, said the proposal was still under discussion and no final decisions had been made.

Well, no. Not exactly……

BERKELEY, Calif.--A Halliburton subsidiary has just received a $385 million contract from the Department of Homeland Security to provide "temporary detention and processing capabilities."

The contract -- announced Jan. 24 by the engineering and construction firm KBR -- calls for preparing for "an emergency influx of immigrants, or to support the rapid development of new programs" in the event of other emergencies, such as "a natural disaster." The release offered no details about where Halliburton was to build these facilities, or when.

To date, some newspapers have worried that open-ended provisions in the contract could lead to cost overruns, such as have occurred with KBR in Iraq. A Homeland Security spokesperson has responded that this is a "contingency contract" and that conceivably no centers might be built. But almost no paper so far has discussed the possibility that detention centers could be used to detain American citizens if the Bush administration were to declare martial law.

For those who follow covert government operations abroad and at home, the contract evoked ominous memories of Oliver North's controversial Rex-84 "readiness exercise" in 1984. This called for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to round up and detain 400,000 imaginary "refugees," in the context of "uncontrolled population movements" over the Mexican border into the United States. North's activities raised civil liberties concerns in both Congress and the Justice Department. The concerns persist.

Having watched the Bu$h malAdministration for six years is there anyone who thinks these concentration camps aren’t already being prepared?

And then, there’s this if you like salsa with your tinfoil:

A few years ago, I first learned of the camps. 600+ FEMA internment camps within these United States. They are what some are calling our future concentration camps. They are there and there by executive order. It's a fact that cannot be denied. While researching the location of the camps, I was made aware that some, like the ones in Alaska, are only accessible by air and rail transportation. It was this fact that brought me to a new reality. A new found fear of trains. Many researchers have cited the existence of over 107, white, UN railroad cars that have been built by independent contracters in the United States.

These cars can hold dozens of prisoners and have, on numerous occasions, been shown to have 135 human shackles in each car. These would be the cars that FEMA would transfer such terrorists/dissidents to their forced labor, internment, or concentration camps.
…

Speaking on anonymity, an employee of a manufacturer of railcars stated that Gunderson Rail Car Co. received a contract to build over 400 boxcars. These boxcars were ordered and paid for by the UN. They were white and they had shackles built into them. Shackles possibly for a brother, a sister, a mother, or you. Another company was making the boxcars as well. A company called Thrall Railcar. Thrall Rail Car merged with Trinity Industries, Inc. in October of 2001 to form the Trinity Rail Group.[One location of 'Trinity' is Springfield, Missouri, close to The Burlington Northern Railway.

I’m not saying these three stories have any connection whatsoever other than the fact that they all have existence on our wonderful internets. For myself, I like my tinfoil wrapping a nice ear of corn on the barbeque, so I’m not saying anything, I’m just saying.

Have a happy Sunday. I’ll be getting trained on MACS, and later working on my tanline in the pool. Stay cool.

TAMPA, Fla(AP) -- U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris demanded an apology Thursday from Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean, who during a speech this week likened the senatorial candidate to former Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin.

Dean, in a speech to Democratic business leaders in West Palm Beach, made the remark in reference to the Harris' handling of the 2000 presidential election recount when she was Florida secretary of state and an honorary chairwoman of George W. Bush's Florida campaign.
....

Dean said in Wednesday's speech that Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson is "going to beat the pants off Katherine Harris, who didn't understand that it is ethically improper to be the chairman of a campaign and count the votes at the same time. This is not Russia and she is not Stalin."

Tell that creature “NO.” Governor. Tell her, “Not only NO, but in fact, Hell No!”

Harris’s Law: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Stalin or Dictators approaches one."

The House approved an increase in the federal minimum wage on Saturday, but its future was clouded because Republicans tied the pay change to an estate tax cut that had been blocked in the Senate.

The maneuver to couple the minimum wage increase long sought by Democrats and moderate Republicans and the estate tax change backed by conservatives left some Republicans uneasy and Democrats fuming. Opponents of the bill said the estate tax change and other tax breaks included in the $310 billion bill could kill it. They accused Republicans of a cynical ploy to make it look as though they were pushing an increase in the minimum wage when their real intent was to block it.

How evil does a political party have to be to allow a wage increase for the poorest working Americans after 9 years only if Paris Hilton gets a big tax break?

“If the Republicans were serious about raising the minimum wage for the first time in nearly 10 years and extending tax relief for working Americans,” Mr. Reid said, “they would not hold them hostage in their effort to give the wealthiest Americans hundreds of billions more in additional tax giveaways.”

Tell ‘em, Harry.

An ethics panel found probable cause Friday that state Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher violated ethics laws on four occasions when he traded stocks of four companies that were either regulated by or had contracts with his office.

The Florida Commission on Ethics also found that at least a dozen other accusations were without merit, including that Gallagher used confidential government information to buy and sell stocks in other companies.

Gallagher's gubernatorial campaign applauded the favorable rulings, saying they vindicated him of accusations of misusing his office, and downplayed the probable-cause findings as minor and even questionable technical violations, although the campaign said it would not challenge them.

"We are extraordinarily happy that the commission has agreed that Tom did not misuse his office and that he did not exercise preferential treatment on behalf of any companies," Gallagher's campaign manager, Brett Doster, told reporters Friday.

Only in Florida would a finding like this be termed “favorable.”

Supporters of Attorney General Charlie Crist, who has a significant lead over Gallagher in the GOP primary race, said it was yet another blow to Gallagher's campaign, one in which he also has admitted cheating on his former wife and smoking marijuana more than 20 years ago.

Well, that certainly settles it for me. The man’s a “serial adulterer” and a “drug addict” eh? This comes from the State Attorney General, who saw no problem with his taking financial donations from members of the Florida Elections Commission and using the private airplane of a corporate supporter during the 2002 election.

Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.

Susie Madrak points us to this:

You're not allowed to kill civilians

It's been awhile so it seems again it's time for a helpful reminder that noncombatant immunity isn't just a good idea, it's the law.

In other words: You're not allowed to kill civilians.
Killing civilians is against the law. Killing civilians makes you a criminal.

Yes, but ...

No buts about it. You're not allowed to kill civilians.

And, also: You're not allowed to kill civilians.

This is neither new nor controversial, yet putting the matter in such stark terms always seems to upset people.

On the one hand, this isn't surprising since the killing of civilians has become a scarcely remarkable, dog-bites-man commonplace. Yet it's still surprising that anyone could find this elementary notion upsetting: You're not allowed to kill civilians. If you're one of those people who finds this upsetting, bear in mind what it is that you're upset about. Apparently someone you feel ought to be immune from criticism has been killing civilians and you feel I'm criticizing them by pointing out -- in the most abstract terms, without any mention of particulars -- that this is something that no one is allowed to do.

"What you really mean ..." people say -- because they're certain that when I say "You're not allowed to kill civilians" I must really mean something other than "You're not allowed to kill civilians" -- "What you really mean is that you're nott allowed to target civilians."

No.

What I really mean -- and again it's not just me, or my opinion, or my preference, it's the law -- is that You're not allowed to kill civilians.

"But what if ...?" And here come the hypotheticals (which aren't really necessary since the world is full of actuals) positing all the many scenarios in which it is not only acceptable, but obligatory, to take some action that will, in fact, result in civilians getting killed.

The common thread in all of these scenarios -- hypothetical or actual -- is the idea of double effect. A doctor, for example, is bound by oath to "do no harm." Slicing someone with a razor-sharp knife would certainly seem to constitute doing harm. But if the doctor is slicing someone with a scalpel because this cutting is an inescapable part of surgery needed and intended to heal, then the doctor may -- perhaps even must -- perform such slicing without violating her oath. The harm done by the slicing is an unavoidable second effect and is not the doctor's main intent. The slicing could be called -- to borrow the military phrase -- "collateral damage."

Military officers really can, do and must think in such terms. That's what separates an army from a barbarian horde. That's what separates a soldier from a thug with a gun.

The key elements here are the intent, the justice/goodness and necessity of the primary effect, and the inescapable/unavoidable nature of the secondary, unintended effect. All of which sets the bar considerably higher than the oversimplified cartoon version of "the ends justifies the means."

If there is any possible way to achieve the intended effect without producing the unintended effect, then double-effect does not apply -- the doctor may not slice, the general may not attack. If there is any possible way to achieve the necessary intended effect without producing the unintended effect and you act, instead, in a way that produces this secondary effect, then you have not produced "collateral damage," you have simply slaughtered civilians.

And, by the way, You're not allowed to kill civilians.

Mr Kristol is wrong. It is not a good to kill Iranian civilians. Mr Dershowitz is wrong. People forced by circumstances to live near Hezbollah are not partially guilty, and he knows it. Both of them are evil moral lepers.

Right, said Fred.

MSNBC has a daily poll question that has some general interest:

Do you believe President Bush should be impeached?

1. Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial.
87%

2. No, like any president, he has made a few missteps, but nothing approaching "high crimes and misdemeanors."
4.4%

3. No, the man has done absolutely nothing wrong. Impeachment would just be a political lynching.
7.2%

4. I don't know.
1.8%

Note: This is not a scientific survey.

Well, of course it isn’t. No survey conducted by Big Media that is highly critical of Mr Bush is ever “scientific.”

There’s a man named Lee Siegel who writes for The New Republic, a once great magazine with a long and energetic Progressive tradition. Sadly, a change in ownership and hence a change in style and direction has rendered it more effete and ineffectual than many would have liked.

Back in June Mr Siegel wrote a column in which he coined the now famous term “blogofascism.” We hear a lot about fascism these days – blogofascism, Islamofascism, homosexualfascicm – the list is endless. Let’s review what fascism is, shall we? Go read up for a couple of minutes and then come back, please.

So, fascism is a political movement motivated by economic imperatives. Thus, Islamofascism is out. Can’t be. No national government. The same for homsexualfascism. (These are in fact perfect examples of WPS – Winger Projection Syndrome – as is obvious to anyone with twice the living brain cells that Mr Bush has.)

Mr Siegel described “blogofascism” as "hard fascism with a Microsoft face." Josh Marshall had some thoughts about this:

When I heard about that I figured it was a throwaway line, albeit a bit overdone and self-serious. But no, Siegel's really serious about this. He is in earnest! And on Friday[ed-today] he followed up with a deeper analysis with the weighty title "The Origins of Blogofascism". There's even the beginnings of a sociological analysis and a historical one too. But let's jump right into the mix.

"Moron"; "Wanker" (a favorite blogofascist insult, maybe because of the similarity between the most strident blogging and masturbating); and "Asshole" have been the three most common polemical gambits.

Polemical gambits? Lee, dude, how many times did your butt get kicked in third grade, buddy?

Josh is too kind by half. Mr Siegel is taken with the proto-typical TNR mindset: We are the cultural/political exquisites and we set the tone. As the magazine became more centrist, and more “exclusive” it circulation suffered drastically. In fact, paid circulation fell off by 29% from 2002 to 2003. And it has not enjoyed a resurgence of popularity. This is not to say they don’t produce good writing, because they do now and then. But if one wants to accept the “marketplace” argument of relevancy, well…

Mr Siegel has responded today to the predictable reaction to his diatribe of last month first addressing the “fascism” meme. Predictably, Mike Godwin gets called into the fray:

I violated Godwin's Law a few weeks ago….

I mean Mike Godwin, the American computer law attorney. He drew up his law in 1990. It states that the longer an online discussion, the more likely it is that someone will compare someone else to a Nazi or to Hitler. At that point, tradition commands that the thread shall be shut down. I ran afoul of the law in a very big way. On my own New Republic blog, I called the entire political blogosphere fascistic and coined the term "blogofascism." Everybody went nuts. I was a "douchebag." I was "mentally unbalanced." My writing was "spittle." According to one cognitively inclined blogger, "Lee Siegel has comprehension problems." One reply was especially hurtful: "I don't know what Lee Siegel looks like, but in my mind I picture a confused, angry Burt Reynolds."

Now, that’s cold. Burt Reynolds? Mr Siegel, consult an attorney. And he’s right. Just because he’s wrong there’s no reason to call him a douchebag. Wanker, maybe, because that word doesn’t so much connote physical masturbation these days as it does a sort of mental looseness, a spewing forth of wrong-headed commentary. When one drivels, ‘wanker’ is more polite than ‘diarrhea.’

Words have meaning and we should try to use language properly. To learn how to gut a kill, I prefer Mr Wolcott. Blogofascism is a false construct because there’s no government, no economic imperatives involved.

Mr Siegel is back today, having worked out that it’s better to have an ‘Il Duce” to try to support an inadequate premise.

I don't blame people for getting upset. The word "fascist" summons up historical nightmares, yet it also puts you in mind of the infantile left's hotheaded invective. Both associations were, in fact, my hotheaded point. Godwin's Law didn't come out of nowhere. The left-liberal blogs have become a playground of reckless, bullying invective. (I expect it on the right.) The Iraq war fomented a polarized politics more antagonistic than at any time since the Vietnam war, and that condition crystallized the left-liberal blogosphere's obstreperousness. Like its right-wing counterpart, polarization and rage are its meat and drink. George W. Bush's criminal incompetence is the engine that drives it.

Mr Siegel, you expect it from the right, but when we on the left protest it’s “infantile” and “hotheaded invective”? Don’t be surprised that we’ve had enough of crime and bigotry and theft and bullying and being victimized by adherents of a political philosophy that surely is actionable under the RICO statute. We want our country back. You’re supposed to be at a Progressive magazine. Write like it, please.

Jason, the Armchair Generalist, has some thoughts about the most recent Bu$hCo public relations “plan” to resolve the Israel/Lebanon warfare:

Just as a quick aside, I heard a political commentator discuss Condi Rice's Rome Plan on NPR this morning. Seems that the "big plan" is to get moderate Middle Eastern nations - Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan - to be the multinational force in Lebanon. The Bush administration logic is that they've convinced these nations that it's in their best interests to contain spreading Iranian influence in the region, and this is a step in that direction. I'm wondering though, 1) why would Israel trust other Arabs to keep the peace in Lebanon; 2) why would the Arab nations trust Israel to not attack their forces in any future incidents; and 3) why would the U.S. government expect Arab nations step up to sign onto this adventure when not one of them signed up for Operation Iraqi Freedom?

I don't see this idea having a snowball's chance in hell, especially if the Bush administration remains the sole exception to those nations calling for a cease-fire. The Bush administration's weak support for getting Israel out of Gaza and the West Bank doesn't exactly give it cred either. In the military, we had a name for plans like this - "GOGIs" - a General Officer Good Idea, which meant an idea that was doomed to failure from the beginning but you knew that the boss wanted you to try to implement it anyway.

Saudi Arabia and Jordan? Our extraordinary rendition outsourcing partners? Is this the best the Bu$h malAdministration can come up with?

There’s lots of killing being done in Lebanon, and lots of killing still to do before all the dust settles. Many of us in the reality-based world can’t quite understand how destroying homes and killing people in Lebanon can possibly be part of a purely military plan to attrit Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Likewise, some of us can’t quite understand how bombing entire cities and villages in Iraq will cause the occupation resistance to lay down its arms. The Israelis have an excellent answer.

“We’re destroying Beirut because we’re punishing the Lebanese for not throwing Hezbollah out of the country. They have an 80,000 man army. They should have chased off Hezbollah years ago. Check with our attorney, Alan Dershowitz. He’ll explain the whole thing.”

Mr Dershowitz, a lawyer/teacher at Harvard, has a great reputation on television as a guy who has an opinion on everything. To explain Israel’s war crimes, he’s pioneered new ground in the legal concept of “contributory negligence.”

here is a vast difference — both moral and legal — between a 2-year-old who is killed by an enemy rocket and a 30-year-old civilian who has allowed his house to be used to store Katyusha rockets. Both are technically civilians, but the former is far more innocent than the latter. There is also a difference between a civilian who merely favors or even votes for a terrorist group and one who provides financial or other material support for terrorism.

Got that? If an Israeli bomb levels your house and kills your two year old baby that’s an “ooops” moment. But if some hard guys with AKs came around and showed you their guns and politely asked if they could possibly store some B-40 rockets and anti-tank weapons in your back bedroom – the one Auntie Naftala used to live in before she was gathered to her eternal reward – and you say it’s all right, then it’s all on you, buddy. Your bad decision is responsible for the death of your two-year-old.

I guess we will some day judge war crimes the same way we are advised to judge contributory negligence. If you greased some children with your F-16, or shot the hell out of a marked ambulance, you’re a bad boy and need to go directly to jail. But if you’re – oh… say, a frickin publicity-mad lawyer in some other country who makes up whacked-out shit to justify anything the homeland of your religion does in the name of its version of the deity to people who use a different name for their deity then there’s (maybe) slightly less negligence and guilt. Although there might be an argument for bad lawyering in there somewhere.

But, anyway, Mr Bu$h seems to have finally gotten it through his (reportedly) drug- and alcohol-shattered synapses that we getting some bad press here. Our proxies, the “Spartans of the Middle East” haven’t been ferocious enough, nor aggressive enough. Mr Bu$h does love him lots of death and destruction, and the Israeli’s just haven’t done well enough. He wants Israel to continue to grind down Hezbollah, and strategically, from the US point of view, that’s a prudent decision.

Hezbollah are bad guys. The fact that they have created a mini-state-within-a-state in Southern Lebanon, and have aided the poor and powerless in that part of the country is good, but maintaining hospitals and infirmaries, running soup kitchens and schools to feed and educate the poor only goes so far when you’re dedicated either to destroying Israel, or militant Zionism, or forcing Israel to withdraw to its 1967 borders, whichever theory of motivation you prefer. I suppose it would be one thing if Hezbollah did all that with protest marches, prayer fests, and hunger strikes. But Hezbollah doesn’t do it that way. They’ve chosen the gun, and whether that was caused by hatred or desperation is immaterial, because the result is international condemnation.

Israel seems to presently be determined to create a repeat of their 18 year old buffer zone that existed prior to their withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. That would be a good idea, except for the questions “where do the surviving Hezbollah go?” and “would it be a better idea for a multi-national force to occupy this buffer zone?”

Israel’s answer to the first question seems to be “to their maker.” The second answer might be decided somewhere other than in Tel Aviv. A strong, logical argument for the multi-national force demands NATO participation. The problem is, of course, that the strongest NATO members are presently busy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Germany demurs, politely, to be put in a position where the world might see some Landsers shooting at Israelis, in reactive combat. France has no great desire to revisit the Levant as a policeman, having spent some momentous years there as an imperial power, and I think the Lebanese agree.

As for the rest of NATO, well… I mean, they've done so well in Iraq, haven't they?

Meanwhile, Israel continues to punish the helpless bystander, Beirut and northern Lebanon.

Special note to the three nimrods from Oklahoma, Kansas and Alabama. I am not an anti-Semite. In fact, I am a Mosaic Jew, since my mother was a Cohain. Stop it now or I’ll start posting offensive articles about rattlesnake kissing and charismatic clogging at Sunday morning services. The religion you three pretend to represent does not have an admirable reputation in the Levant.

The BBC:

The UN's Jan Egeland has condemned the devastation caused by Israeli air strikes in Beirut, saying it is a violation of humanitarian law.

Mr Egeland, the UN's emergency relief chief, described the destruction as "horrific" as he toured the city.

He arrived hours after another Israeli strike on Beirut. Israel also hit Sidon, a port city in the south crammed with refugees, for the first time.

Mr Egeland arrived in southern Beirut on Sunday just hours after Israeli strikes on the Hezbollah stronghold.

A visibly moved Mr Egeland expressed shock that "block after block" of buildings had been levelled.

He said the "disproportionate response" by Israel was a "violation of international humanitarian law".

He appealed for both sides to halt attacks and said UN supplies of humanitarian aid would begin to arrive in the next few days.

"But we need safe access," he said. "So far Israel is not giving us access."

Billmon:

So it's already come to this -- the brutal arithmetic of reprisal:

A high-ranking IAF officer caused a storm on Monday in an off-record briefing during which he told reporters that IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz had ordered the military to destroy 10 buildings in Beirut in retaliation to every Katyusha rocket strike on Haifa.

For every one of ours; ten of yours.

Morality aside (since terror now seems to be the order of the day on both sides) this is a very bad sign for the Israelis. It has the smell of panic about it. It's like the 1972 Christmas bombings of Hanoi -- an exercise that served no rational purpose other than to vent Richard Nixon's rage at his own inability to bend the North Vietnamese government to his will.

But in Beirut, now, an order like this is almost the equivalent of asking for terms. It's as if the Israelis were deliberately trying to do something so horrible it would force our idiot president to demand an immediate cease fire in place: Please stop us, because we can't stop ourselves.

More likely, Halutz has simply lost his head. His faith in air power is being revealed as a false religion. The rockets are still falling on Haifa and all across the north. The promissary notes he wrote to the Israeli cabinet are being called in, and he can't pay them. Israeli is being forced closer and closer to a place it desperately does not want to go -- a full-scale ground invasion against tough, well-prepared and well-fortified defenses, with a guerrilla army ready to fight delaying actions every step of the way to the Litani River, or beyond..

Billmon makes the very apt point that the current Israeli atrocities – that’s what they are, under the Rules of Warfare – came about for various reasons, among them a foolish over emphasis on the “shock and awe” caused by massive aerial bombardment. True Believers of the Cult of the Aerial Bomber are rigid in their faith that the 1000 kilo aerial bomb can be placed with pin-point accuracy, and kill only the ‘guilty’ – those uniformed combatants, and leave the helpless bystander civilians alive and in one piece. They are acolytes and bishops, these cultists. While zooming around romantically at 400 knots you don’t see the strained pale fearful faces of the women and children huddling desperately; you just “service” the target and zoom back to your base.

That’s not war. That’s a pack of Mongols racing through an undefended campsite at dawn, beheading everyone they encounter.

Another cause would be the complete lack of military experience of Prime Minister Olmert and Defense Minister Peretz. Like General Kristol, Field Marshall Gingrich, Generalissimo Cheney, Colonel General Cohen, and Lieutenant General Dershowitz, all they know about warfare is that John Wayne and the good guys always win in the inevitable triumph of good over evil. And when it comes to triumphing over evil those lame pricks want to do the victory jig over the bones, no matter how high the pile is. Actually, I think they're all so twisted that they prefer the piles to be as high as possible.

Report of British War Crimes Section of Allied Force Headquarters on German Reprisals for Partisan Activities in Italy

The British War Crimes Section of the Allied Force Headquarters has investigated fulIy a number of cases of German reprisals for partisan activity in Italy, committed between April and November, 1944.

…
A study of all these cases reveals that there is a striking similarity in the facts. The incident invariably opens the killing or wounding of a German soldier or soldiers by partisans; reprisal activity is then initiated either by the troops immediately on the spot or in more serious cases, by the arrival of definite units and formations specially detailed for the purpose. There is no taking of hostages in the normal sense of the word, but a number of people are selected haphazardly from the local population and are killed by shooting or hanging, whilst whole villages or certain farms or houses are destroyed by fire.
…

A typical example is the Civitella atrocity, one of those cases. which has been completely investigated. Partisan Bands had been operating in the area, attacking lone German lorries and motor cycles. On June 18th, 1944, two German soldiers were killed and a third wounded in a fight with Partisans in the village of Civitella.

On June 29th, 1944, when the local inhabitants were returning and were feeling secure once more, the Germans carried outs well organized reprisal, combing the neighbourhood. Innocent inhabitants were often shot on sight. During that day 212 men, women and children in the immediate district were killed. Some of the dead women were found completely naked. In the course of investigation, a nominal roll of the dead has been compiled, and 'is complete with the exception of a few names where bodies could not be identified. Ages of the dead ranged from 1 year to 84 years. Approximately 100 houses were destroyed by fire; some of the victims were burned alive in their homes.

Jeff Jacoby, who writes over at townhall.com, better known as “welfare for the inconspicuous” has an issue he wants to get off his manly, hirsute chest:

``It's touching that you're so concerned about the military in Iraq," a reader in Wyoming e-mails in response to one of my columns on the war. ``But I have a suspicion you're a phony. So tell me, what's your combat record? Ever serve?"

Firstly, I’m a bit surprised that a writer in Wyoming reads Clownhall. I mean, really. I honestly would have thought that any regular reader of the webpage would have gathered from the style of writing, as well as the tone and subject matter that not only are the writers there Republicans, but that they’re from the short-bus school of American education.

You hear a fair amount of that from the antiwar crowd if, like me, you support a war but have never seen combat yourself. That makes you a ``chicken hawk" -- one of those, as Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, defending John Kerry from his critics, put it during the 2004 presidential campaign, who ``shriek like a hawk, but have the backbone of a chicken." Kerry himself often played that card. ``I'd like to know what it is Republicans who didn't serve in Vietnam have against those of us who did," he would sniff, casting himself as the victim of unmanly hypocrites who never wore the uniform, yet had the gall to criticize him, a decorated veteran, for his stance on the war.

Well, no, Jeff. Not exactly. I’ve read enough of your “work” (heh!) that I understand we have to move slowly, with small words, so here goes. There are actually two meanings for the word “chickenhawk.” Strictly speaking you owe us big time gratitude that we’re using the word in the more polite format. Senator Kerry was exactly right. Let’s face it. Name THREE combat veterans who are Republicans. No fair using Jim Webb because he’s repudiated all this manly man stuff you lot like to bounce around.

``Chicken hawk" isn't an argument. It is a slur -- a dishonest and incoherent slur. It is dishonest because those who invoke it don't really mean what they imply -- that only those with combat experience have the moral authority or the necessary understanding to advocate military force. After all, US foreign policy would be more hawkish, not less, if decisions about war and peace were left up to members of the armed forces. Soldiers tend to be politically conservative, hard-nosed about national security, and confident that American arms make the world safer and freer. On the question of Iraq -- stay-the-course or bring-the-troops-home? -- I would be willing to trust their judgment. Would Cindy Sheehan and Howard Dean?

Dishonest, Jeff? Are you saying we should be using the other meaning of the word? Well, OK, then. The Republican Party is the true “big tent” party as you guys never stop reminding us. And your party is ably represented nationally by the notorious closeted heterosexual Ken Mehlman. And there are all those unexplained overnight visits at the WH by your special reporter, Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert/Master Sergeant Hardcase.

You’re wrong (of course – I mean, what are the odds, eh?) that our foreign policy would be more hawkish if only veterans could serve in elected and appointed offices. Trust us on this one, Jeff, it’s not pretty; there are no golden bugles, no fluttering banners, no glorious victory poses on a hilltop, nobly facing the sun. Soldiers tend to be socially conservative, not politically so. You see, Jeff, soldiers know what a traumatic amputation is, and how a sucking chest wound just sucks. Soldiers know how lonely you feel when you’re putting out fire 360 degrees, and calling redlegs to drop the suppressive fire another 100 meters and pour it on. Soldiers don't like war. It tends to kill them and their friends. What professional soldiers seek is the sense of dedication and service to the nation. They desire orderliness, and cleanliness. I’m not just talking about all rocks painted white and dressed to the right. They prefer a clean gig line, and clean mess trays, as well as neatness in general appearance. (Speaking of which, you’ve had that scraggly beard for several years. Think it’ll ever grow into anything or doesn’t Mr Scaife pay you enough to afford a razor?

And if we’re going to ask the soldiers about stay-the-course or bring-the troops-home, it’s been done did. Over 70% of our troops in Iraq are ready to vote with their feet just as soon as the Freedom Bird lands.

If only those who served in uniform during wartime have the moral standing and experience to back a war, then only they have the moral standing and experience to oppose a war. Those who mock the views of ``chicken hawks" ought to be just as dismissive of ``chicken doves."

This is all true. Let those who bleed, lead. Those who stay at home, stay off the phone. When you’re ready to back up your tough words with some experience, let me know. I’m tight with a couple of recruiters, and I know they will let me proudly stand alongside you as you take the Oath of Enlistment.

That’s it. Dismissed.

Tip of the M&C beanie to the singly-adjectived Tbogg who is braver than I am. He reads Clownhall all the time.

UPDATE: I just noticed a webpage that perfectly illustrates the war-glory that Jeff Jacoby admires. WARNING Major league graphic images. Not safe for office, not for viewing by young children. Jeff will undoubtedly sprout a woodie.

(Quick note: we classify posts here by general topic. We don't have an "absolute evil" calssification, so this goes under Pundits, spokespeople and other enablers.)

Crooks and Liars has a two part video clip from some Faux News propaganda show. I don’t watch the channel and I’m not really clear which lying Sunday hour it is, but I did see Britt Hume pretending to be a moderator in a discussion between William Kristol and Juan Williams.

While this post is about William Kristol, let me say that for once Juan Williams actually acted and spoke like a sentient, feeling human being, rather than a paid “liberal” Fox sock puppet. He fought back nobly, and pointed out the insanity and wrongness of Mr Kristol’s talking points. Good for him.

William Kristol has wonderful teeth. They’re pearly white, even, neat – the very sort of teeth movies stars pay $8,000 or $10,000 to have. Mr Kristol is very proud of his teeth. He lies through them every time he draws a breath and exhales. Be sure to watch the film clips and see Mr Kristol smile like the only mortician in a town beset by catastrophic death. Watch him smile with delight as he proudly proclaims that dropping 2,000 lb bunker buster bombs on Lebanese apartment buildings is actually a very sensible thing to do. Mr Kristol assures us that all the innocent Lebanese civilians are safe because the Israeli Air Force very carefully drops leaflets before the bombs to warn the innocent civilians to run away, run away!

Beirut, July 24, 2006 – Israel has used artillery-fired cluster munitions in populated areas of Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said today. Researchers on the ground in Lebanon confirmed that a cluster munitions attack on the village of Blida on July 19 killed one and wounded at least 12 civilians, including seven children. Human Rights Watch researchers also photographed cluster munitions in the arsenal of Israeli artillery teams on the Israel-Lebanon border.

Artillery delivered cluster bomblets are NOT precision guided weapons. Mr Kristol is lying through his beautiful, expensive teeth.

PARIS, July 24 (Reuters) - Lebanon's president accused Israel on Monday of using phosphorous bombs in its 13-day offensive and urged the United Nations to demand an immediate ceasefire. "According to the Geneva Convention, when they use phosphorous bombs and laser bombs, is that allowed against civilians and children?" President Emile Lahoud asked on France's RFI radio.

Air delivered WP bombs are NOT precision weapons. Mr Kristol is lying through his beautiful, expensive teeth.

Civilians are carefully warned before bombs are dropped.

Mr Kristol is lying through his beautiful, expensive teeth.

SIDDIQINE: With an expression of utmost calm on her blood-masked face, the woman allowed herself to be gently lowered from the roof of the mini-bus into the waiting arms of two Lebanese Red Cross volunteers. The rescue workers had extracted her through a jagged hole in the roof of the crumpled mini-bus, the result of a missile fired minutes earlier by an Israeli helicopter which had blasted the vehicle off the road. Left behind in the vehicle, slumped over each other and soaked in blood, were the bodies of three people.

The narrow roads that meander through the valleys and undulating chalky hills east of Tyre were a place of terror and death Sunday, with Israeli helicopters attacking civilian vehicles fleeing Israel's onslaught against South Lebanon.

"Today is the day of the cars," says Dr. Ahmad Mrowe, director of the Jabal Amal hospital in Tyre. "It's been very bad."

By early evening, the Jabal Amel Hospital alone had received 41 wounded, most of them serious, according to hospital sources, all of the casualties thought to be civilians seeking refuge north of the Litani River after heeding Israeli warnings to leave the area before the onslaught intensifies.

In case there is any doubt whatsoever in your mind about evil incarnate, go back and view the video clips again. Watch how Mr Kristol’s eyes gleam as he talks about killing innocent women and children while pretending the IAF is after Hezbollah.

I’m not saying Hezbollah is innocent. They’re bad guys and they need to be dealt with. In South Lebanon the Beirut government is some vague intangible entity. It’s Hezbollah that mans the infirmaries and hospitals, providing primary medical care for people too poor to even have a car to travel to Beirut. Hezbollah picks up the garbage, mans some of the schools, teaches literacy. Yes, I’m sure they’re also teaching revolution and “death to Israel.” After this latest escapade of Israeli overkill, they’ll be able to teach a lot less about “death to Israel.”

Maybe a politcal solution will kill fewer woman and children?

Mr Kristol smiles because he knows there will be a next time. And a next. Until all the Arabs surrounding Israel are dead, their homes and villages smashed empty space occupied by carrion dogs and ghosts.

Such beautiful, expensive teeth.

Tom from TeamBIO has a little piece up today about the DOD “Engage” doctrine”:

Last week it was the revelation that the Department of Defense was going to be indexing blogs. Then it was the revelation that Marine recruiters were using My Space to lure people into the military. Now it seems our tax dollars are being used for military personnel to cruise blogs sites and spam the comment section. At least that is what it seems like after we received this comment today:

Greetings; my name is Spc. Patrick Ziegler with U.S. CENTCOM. While it is not my place to get involved in any political debates, I just wanted toinvite your readers to visit our website, www.centcom.mil . The CENTCOM website is a good place to get up-to-date news, press releases, video and audio from Iraq, Afghanistan and all other places within the Central Command Area of Responsibility.

We also received the same message from Spc. Patrick Ziegler in our administrative E-mail account here at Bring It On!. Certainly the E-mail was a more polite way to ask if we were interested than the drive-by spamming, but are either method an appropriate use of government time and money? I think fellow Bring It On! author Chris from Idaho summed it up best when he said:

Let’s see, now my tax dollars are paying for some E-4 to surf the web and read political blogs. He even says he isn’t here to engage in a political debate, then WTF are you doing reading (and posting) a political blog?

This is just one more example of the politicizing of our Armed Forces, which mind you Gen. Tommy Franks took to a whole new level ala Fox News. The military is supposed to stay out of the debate, they are just supposed to execute. It’s up to those on the outside to do the politicking for the military, not the military itself.

This is truly strange, and something that I bet will wind up getting national news coverage, if not just for the blatant misuse of military resources but of how it reeks of propaganda.

Those of us who have served and are accustomed to a firm dividing line between policy (politicians) and execution (military) have been troubled for some time by the exuberant glee with which Bu$hCo has mixed the two tasks within the two separate command structures. If you’re over 40 you probably believe the military forces of the US are supposed to be subordinate to their elected and appointed leaders. Allowing the military to set, or to influence, political policy is just … wrong Sometimes it could be really wrong

I’m not quite so upset about my tax dollars being wasted on a covert DOD effort to stir up pro-malAdministration efforts to support the war. What troubles me is the blatant fraud of the invitation to cruise CENTCOM’s webpage to find out how wonderful things are. I have this hunch that taking photographs of the same three schools from all sorts of different angles will NOT convince me that we’ve rebuilt 2,163 schools. Seeing the new massive generators in one power plant will not explain to me why Baghdad only gets 3 hours of electricity out of 24. Other than in the Green Zone, of course, where SP Ziegler is. I’m sure he gets power 24/7, as well as A/C to keep his PC cool and operating at top efficiency. But we’re paying $85,000 per year for a CheneyBurton civilian contractor to deliver broken down trucks. If any of those guys can read, why not use a contractor for this crap and put an M-4 in young SP Ziegler’s hands and GET HIS ASS OUT INTO THE GRASS????

I’m sure SP Ziegler is damned glad to be assigned to an agitprop unit behind the blast walls, and I’m glad he’s safe. I don’t know the guy. I’ll bet his parents and wife/girl friend are grateful too. I never hated the personnel clerks at Camp Eagle just because they got a dick assignment and had access to swimming pools and pizza joints. Some guys step in stuff, others have to lay down in it. That’s just the way things are. But those clerks at Camp Eagle weren’t tasked with the job of lying to other grunts, or to their folks back home, and that’s what chaffs my butt.

INFORMATION WARFARE

The Defense Department runs two Web sites overseas, one aimed at people in the Balkan region in Europe, the other for the Maghreb area of North Africa.

It is preparing another site, even as the Pentagon inspector general investigates whether the sites are appropriate.

The Web sites carry stories on subjects such as politics, sports and entertainment.

The sites are run by U.S. military troops trained in "information warfare," a specialty that can include battlefield deception.
Pentagon officials say the goal is to counter "misinformation" about the United States in overseas media.

At first glance, the Web pages appear to be independent news sites. To find out who is actually behind the content, a visitor would have to click on a small link -- at the bottom of the page -- to a disclaimer, which says, in part, that the site is "sponsored by" the U.S. Department of Defense.

"There is an element of deception," said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. "The problem," he said, is that it looks like a news site unless a visitor looks at the disclaimer, which is "sort of oblique."

Let’s stop for a second here. This blockquote is from a 16 month old CNN story. There are other DOD “news” sites up now. They’re not hard to find. There’s probably at least 8. At least two are NOT identified as wholly-owned DOD webpages. Information warfare at its blackest. These sites aren’t always aimed at countering “misinformation” unless one counts truthful and accurate reporting of the Iraq debacle as “misinformation.”

Philosophically, I’m clear about misdirection and misinformation campaigns designed to fool enemy forces. It’s a time-honored tactic in warfare. Maybe one of the earliest examples of this type would be a group of foot soldiers dragging branches on the ground to create a large dust cloud, to simulate an approaching group of horsemen. The list of misdirection tactics in written history is exhaustive.

PERSONAL MEMO TO SECRETARY RUMSFELD. I am an American citizen. A veteran. I AM NOT AN ENEMY OF THE UNITED STATES. Please stop wasting my tax dollars trying to bullshit me. Thank you.

This is a very opportune war for Mr Bush. It gives him so many possible variants: support Israel logistically and let them attrite Hezbollah for a couple of weeks, and give them all the weaponry they need to do it. Use the slaughter of Southern Lebanese “collateral damage” as a moral standpoint to broker a cease-fire (favorable to Israel of course.) Therefore, he’s sending Ms Rice (heh!) our Russian expert to tell everyone to just stop and act like adults.

As we saw during Mr Bush’s buttered roll faux pas at the G8 meeting, while speaking with Prime Minster Blair, he thought that Syria unleashed Hezbollah to stir up some trouble.

BUSH to Blair: "I think Condi is going to go (to the Middle East) pretty soon."

BLAIR: "Right, that's all that matters, it will take some time to get that together . . . See, if she goes out she's got to succeed as it were, where as I can just go out and talk."

BUSH: "See, the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hizbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over."

BLAIR: "Who, Syria?"

BUSH: "Right . . . What about Kofi? That seems odd. I don't like the sequence of it. His attitude is basically ceasefire and everything else happens."

BLAIR: "I think the thing that is really difficult is you can't stop this unless you get this international presence agreed." . . .

BUSH: "I felt like telling Kofi to get on the phone with Assad and make something happen. We're not blaming Israel. We're not blaming the Lebanese government."

We’ve seen this played out before. Israel will stop this warfare when it achieves its goal, an no sooner. It’s been revealed this morning that this plan of attack has been on paper for more than a year. Israel was just waiting for the excuse. It was careless of Hezbollah to seize the opportunity of a quick cross-border raid to kill a few soldiers, although the unexpected capture of two of them was a bonus, in their eyes, as they thought the military prisoners would be pawns in a general prisoner exchange they wanted to bring about. Israel has traded like this in the past.

The always instructive Professor Juan Cole explains why Mr Bush shouldn’t talk (or think) with his mouth full, (or open.)

That this war was pre-planned was obvious to me from the moment it began. The Israeli military proceeded methodically and systematically to destroy Lebanon's infrastructure, and clearly had been casing targets for some time. The vast majority of these targets were unrelated to Hizbullah. But since the northern Sunni port of Tripoli could theoretically be used by Syria or Iran to offload replacement rockets that could be transported by truck down south to Hizbullah, the Israelis hit it. And then they hit some trucks to let truck drivers know to stay home for a while.

That is why I was so shaken by George W. Bush's overheard conversation with Tony Blair about the war. He clearly thought that it broke out because Syria used Hizbullah to create a provocation. The President of the United States did not know that this war was a long-planned Israeli war of choice.

Why is that scary? Because the Israeli planning had to have been done in conjunction with Donald Rumsfeld at the US Department of Defense. The US Department of Defense is committed to rapidly re-arming Israel and providing it precision laser-guided weaponry, and to giving it time to substantially degrade Hizbullah's missile capabilities. The two are partners in the war effort.

The War President dreams his dreams, and his minions make their own plans.

Everyone’s talking about Lebanon and Israel, which is to say, everyone’s talking about Iran (the next enemy) and the US. We’ve seen how the Likud operatives, both paid and ideological volunteers, within the US foreign think-tank apparatus of the Fascist American ultra-right wing have been advocating all out war with Iran. For them and their employers, it’s quite logical: let the Americans destroy Israel’s enemies. It worked with Iraq, so obviously it will work with Iran, and later, Syria, Jordan and (probably) Egypt, and eventually the Great Prize: Saudi Arabia, cultural and ideological home of the Wahabist cult.

In the last 3 weeks, William Kristol has been all over the airwaves and in the print media explaining how this is a golden opportunity for the US to further the advance of democracy throughout the Middle East at the point of the gun:

It's Our War

WHY IS THIS ARAB-ISRAELI WAR different from all other Arab-Israeli wars? Because it's not an Arab-Israeli war. Most of Israel's traditional Arab enemies have checked out of the current conflict. The governments of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia are, to say the least, indifferent to the fate of Hamas and Hezbollah. The Palestine Liberation Organization (Fatah) isn't a player. The prime mover behind the terrorist groups who have started this war is a non-Arab state, Iran, which wasn't involved in any of Israel's previous wars.

It most certainly is an Arab-Israeli war. Kristol, who never speaks the truth even when telling you how many fingers he has on each hand, is casually ignoring the fact that governments all over the world regularly mask their true intentions with pious sounding public pronouncements.

The Arabic and Islamist governments cited by Mr Kristol are not quite indifferent to the fate of Hezbollah. They have a vested interest in supporting Hezbollah (and Hamas) because as long as Israel is occupied dealing with the near threat of violence on its borders it can’t be attacking its enemies further afield.

What's happening in the Middle East, then, isn't just another chapter in the Arab-Israeli conflict. What's happening is an Islamist-Israeli war. You might even say this is part of the Islamist war on the West--but is India part of the West? Better to say that what's under attack is liberal democratic civilization, whose leading representative right now happens to be the United States.

Ah! The real enemy in Mr Kristol’s heart. It’s Islamic revanchism! Shades of Salah al D’in!! He’s the one!! If it hadn’t been for him the Jews might have remained in Jerusalem for the last 950 years, and would still be a Great People, a powerful nation and decision maker in the cockpit of the Mediterranean. But the Jews were unable to stay at home. Western European Christianity and the militarized societies of the Middle Ages were unable to put aside their own local squabbles and conflicts of interest long enough to defeat the more fully integrated Muslim society of the day, and the Crusades failed.

It’s the Clash of Civilizations, Part I that Mr Kristol is mourning, but now he’s found a front group stupid enough and greedy enough to carry out his plan for a Greater Israel. And let’s face it: the perceived need to maintain a death grip on domestic political power is a far stronger impulse than helping the Jews live free and untrammeled lives. Hence the eager ear that the Bu$hCo malAdministration and the neocons have lent to Mr Kristol's sociopathic maunderings and desire for a regional war.

Bernard has published part of an interview of Rami Khouri, editor-at-large of Lebanon’s Daily Star:

CHARLIE ROSE: I have two big questions. Number one, do you think the Israelis, if they continue these attacks will be successful in doing great damage if not destroying the capabilities of Hezbollah?

RAMI KHOURI: I am pretty certain that they will fail in doing that, and the reason I say that is because they`ve tried this three or four times with various groups in Lebanon and failed.
[...]

And the reason it has failed is that you cannot provide a military solution to a political problem. And you cannot win with overwhelming military force against a determined guerrilla group fighting for its national sovereignty and its human dignity. [...]

It’s been tried before. It didn’t work then. Why should it work now? Mr Khouri understands, as do all Lebanese, I’ll bet. Something about seeing your home blown up again and again, and one generation after the other shattered and killed in border battles make you sadder but wiser. If the Israeli’s weren’t so well-armed by the US, they’d possibly see the wisdom too.

CHARLIE ROSE: Why do you think the Israelis have not learned the lesson you think they should have?

RAMI KHOURI: I think Israel fundamentally as a nation has never been able to come to grips with two central notions in its modern history. One is the idea of a viable legitimate Palestinian state, and the other one is with the nature and the identity of Arab national identity, which also includes national identity in Lebanon for the country of Lebanon itself. The Israelis have been so obsessed with the idea of their own security and certainly, you know, rightly so, given their modern and ancient history of being persecuted and subjected to pogroms and holocausts. But they have allowed their over-focus on their security to blind them to the fact that they can never have security if their neighbors don`t have it.

It’s surprising that the simple fact of national, religious and cultural identity so easily escapes Israel because it’s been a central point in their history as a nation. Any Jew from anywhere in the world is (technically) eligible for Israeli citizenship. Just go there and ask for it. Yet they seem to be blind to the reality of Arabic and Islamic identity.

There has been a lot of comment – print, videotape and electronic here on the internet regarding Senator Lieberman’s primary challenge by Ned Lamont. Pro-Lieberman supporters appear to be highly offended that Mr Lamont would actually dare to challenge Senator Lieberman, and, even more alarmingly, it looks like a solid core of more than 50% of Connecticut Democratic voters find Mr Lamont far more appealing as an elected representative.

There are surely many factors behind this, most of them revolve upon Mr Lieberman himself; his unflinching support of Mr Bush and the Republican agenda to destroy the middle class and further oppress the poor and downtrodden, tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy (in a shocking lapse of full disclosure Senator Lieberman has refused to admit that the tax cuts Mr Bush wanted in order to reduce his own tax burden also affect Senator Lieberman.) Senator Lieberman unquestioningly supports Mr Bush’s illegal and unwarranted war of aggression and occupation in Iraq. In fact, Senator Lieberman is on record as castigating his own political party by claiming that those who do not support Mr Bush are endangering national security. This is a curious position to take when one considers the affects of this war and occupation of a helpless country that was no danger to the US.

He whole-heartedly endorses Mr Bush’s extremist, radical judicial candidates, even the ones who are patently unqualified when viewed with the light of American Constitutional history. Justices and courts that willingly excise one Bill of Rights Amendment after the other from the Constitution are not in the American tradition, even when the matter of terrorism is introduced.

The list goes on and on.

But it appears to me that the bedrock complaint of “unfair politics” seems to be the fact that someone – one of those allegedly represented by Senator Lieberman – dared to actually suggest a referendum on Senator Lieberman’s job performance.

While we in this country regrettably now have a political class – men and women who spend their lives in the industry, making a career of being elected to political office, it wasn’t always like that. Once upon a time politicians courted voters, expressed their views and thoughts on important topics and the voters decided who should represent them. Trying to change the system seems to be a “liberal inquisition” in the words of the New York Times’ David Brooks. More on Mr Brooks another day. He’s been wrong on every topic he’s discussed for years.

Besides Mr Brooks, other right wing pundits, operatives, apologists and propagandists have taken Senator Lieberman’s “fight for survival” to heart. The newspapers, magazines, TV channels, radio stations, and internet websites have vociferously taken up Senator Lieberman’s case, arguing stridently that, somehow, Senator Lieberman has the “right” to his Senate seat based upon longevity.

Even if I were not deeply offended by Senator Lieberman’s stance on so many core issues of vital importance to a free, prosperous and democratic America, I would turn away from him solely based upon this solid phalanx of coordinated effort from the Fascist Party to return him to office once again.

He’s had 33 years of feeding at the public trough. He’s turned his back on the Liberal and Progressive causes that were once his guiding lights. It’s time for him to go. Connecticut deserves an honest Democrat.

Ian Welsh writes a daily diary at The Agonist. Today he discusses will power, and what it is, what it means, and how did we get in this handbasket and where are we headed?

I was doing my morning news crawl when I tripped over an article entitled "Taliban resurgence tests British will". Nothing in the article talks about willpower at all. The British won not because of "will" but because they had better weaponry, are better soldiers, and have air power.

But it seems to me that the entire last 6 years has been replete with people talking about being tough, staying the distance - about the American will, or the British will, or the Israeli will.

It reminds me of when I was in grade 5. A teacher told me that I could accomplish anything I wanted, if my will was strong enough. So there was a race, and my mum was there, and I wanted to win it badly.

I raced as hard as I've ever raced. I concentraded my will mightily.
I came in third. I just barely edged out the kid who came in forth. And I realized that will had bought me one place, and one place only.

For the last six years –truthfully since 1994 - America has been in the grip of a machine designed with one purpose in mind: the marketing of fantasy, imagery and unreality in order to lull a populace into somnolence. A lot of different metaphors spring to mind: Mesmer the hypnotist, Caliban in the The Tempest, and even L Frank Baum’s Wizard. America has been constantly been distracted by bright shiny things to keep our attention off the man behind the curtain, who is slowly changing our social, cultural and political landscape into something frighteningly similar to something we thought we had destroyed 60 years ago.

This is a long term task, a marathon, not a sprint, and has been ongoing since Franklin D Roosevelt, whom the Oligarchy that thinks it owns America referred to distastefully as “that man” revived an economy devastated by the results of a world wide collapse in the wake of WWI. The Oligarchs are much happier when they hold all the money. They can imagine a world in which the serfs and peasants actually have the freedom to demand fair wages for work, a reasonable work week, such as 40 hours, health insurance benefits, and paid vacations. Paid vacations? How dare they! Why can’t they be satisfied with a handshake and a few coppers passed to them at Thanksgiving?

But I digress. I dislike the idea of slavery. It is an affront to the human spirit, an abomination in the eye of G_d, no matter what Exodus and Deuteronomy say.

“How can we be considered slaves? We live in the ‘land of the free and the home of the brave?’ (tm) We work where we want to work, buy stuff to brighten up our lives when we’re not working. We own homes, cars, TVs, computers, pop up toasters.”

Can you afford health insurance? Does your employer tell you that it’s your responsibility to care for and pay for your own health and future, including retirement? Is your job safe or has it been sold off to some foreign company, sacrificed on the alter of greater corporate profits? And say, do you own any shares of stock in that company so that you can get some benefit from losing your own job? Do your children go to a decent public school or has the school system already been partially castrated so that educational funds can be handed out to “voucher schools” which are actually private religious schools where children are taught something that is not quite honest history and social philosophy?

In America today “will power” is one of the primary tools of the ideologue, the fantasist, the bigot.

The language of will is the equivalent of wishful thinking. It tells us that if only we want to win badly enough, we can. And if we didn't win, it must be because our will wasn't strong enough. So if we want to win, all we have to do is apply more will next time.

Reality dies and idolatry reigns supreme as the poor and middle class are perverted to automatons. Effective propaganda, endlessly repeated, can turn anyone’s brain to mush. Just ask George Orwell. Or Leni Riefenstahl. “Triumph des Willens” is still the classic textbook on propaganda.

Ian turns all this talk of will power on its ear:

In Iraq, was the US willing and able to deploy the 400,000 troops that Shinseki said (correctly) would be required?

No. Therefore the US was not willing or able to do the job. Trying to apply willpower to a losing strategy just leads to frustration. And in wartime applying will to a losing strategy causes a lot of death and suffering.

In Afghanistan was the West willing to supply the necessary aid to stabilize the country after their "victory"? Was the US willing to use ground troops to capture bin Laden?

No. Therefore the US was serious neither about capturing bin Laden nor about stabilizing Afghanistan.

Will thinking as most people use it is largely magical thinking. It's not that will doesn't matter, but will applied to a losing strategy is just stubborn[n]ess and stupidity.

While the Likudniks and PNACers have the goal of making Israel safe from all its enemies, Bu$hCo has limited interest in such ventures. Its real plan is to change the domestic landscape, and to reverse 60 years of social history, to get even with “that man.”

Feeling better this morning, I rubbed anti-flash cream over exposed skin, struggled into my Class 3 Hazmat suit and waded through the quicksand over at WorldNutDaily.

Pat Buchanan hangs out over there, carefully locked away in a vault with 7 foot thick reinforced concrete walls and a 9 inch thick high carbon steel door with a time lock. Every now and then one can hear a loud blaring klaxon, and red lights set in the ceiling begin to flash a warning as the door unlocks and slowly swings open. Mr Buchanan is about to issue another pronunciamento, telling the world where it went wrong, way back in the 10th century.

In the interests of full disclosure: I don’t like Mr Buchanan. As a human being I am appalled by him. As a lapsed Catholic I am ashamed of him. As a Mosaic Jew I fear him. And as an American I am in despair every time he opens his mouth.

But he finally got something right, and honesty requires me to tell you so.

My country has been "torn to shreds," said Fouad Siniora, the prime minister of Lebanon, as the death toll among his people passed 300 civilian dead, 1,000 wounded, with half a million homeless. Israel must pay for the "barbaric destruction," said Siniora. To the contrary, says columnist Lawrence Kudlow, "Israel is doing the Lord's work." On American TV, former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu says the ruination of Lebanon is Hezbollah's doing. But is it Hezbollah that is using U.S.-built F-16s, with precision-guided bombs and 155-mm artillery pieces to wreak death and devastation on Lebanon? No, Israel is doing this, with the blessing and without a peep of protest from President Bush. And we wonder why they hate us.

By now we’ve all seen the photos. Indeed, we didn’t have to see these if we can remember back to 2000, the last time Israel decided to “get some” in Lebanon. It’s always the same; sad clusters of destroyed buildings – mostly homes, photos of old grieving women crying, wrinkled, prematurely-aged hands clasping their heads in shock and terror. Pictures of the innocent children shattered, bloody, bandaged, missing limbs, eyes, noses, eyes staring unblinkingly at the camera, trying to understand why adult hatred has turned their lives upside-down.

I’m not too fond of Crazy Larry Kudlow, either. I kind of think he’s from one of the Tribes, and he should know better than to declare that killing children is “the Lord’s work.” That sort of thinking went out of fashion shortly after Herod killed the children of Israel.

Maybe Crazy Larry Kudlow would benefit from reading the Book of Job:

Men groan from out of the city,, and the soul of the wounded crieth out; yet G_d layeth not folly to them.
They are of those that rebel against the light; they know not the ways thereof, nor abide in the paths thereof.
The murderer rising with the light killeth the poor and needy, and in the night is as a thief.

"Today, we are all Israelis!" brayed Ken Mehlman of the Republican National Committee to a gathering of Christians United for Israel.
One wonders if these Christians care about what is happening to our Christian brethren in Lebanon and Gaza, who have had all power cut off by Israeli airstrikes, an outlawed form of collective punishment, that has left them with no sanitation, rotting food, impure water and days without light or electricity in the horrible heat of July.
When summer power outrages occur in America, it means a rising rate of death among our sick and elderly, and women and infants. One can only imagine what a hell it must be today in Gaza City and Beirut.

Responding to Ken Mehlman, the notorious closeted heterosexual Bu$hCo apparatchik requires only a derives snort. The man is a soulless, unfeeling automaton. Today he argues to kill all the Ay-rabs, tomorrow it will be death to the Lebanese Orthodox Christians and Maronites. Next week it will be back to death to all Iranians.

But all this carnage and destruction has only piqued the blood lust of the hairy-chested warriors at the Weekly Standard. In a signed editorial, "It's Our War," William Kristol calls for America to play her rightful role in this war by "countering this act of aggression by Iran with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait?" "Why wait?" Well, one reason is that the United States has not been attacked. A second is a small thing called the Constitution. Where does George W. Bush get the authority to launch a war on Iran? When did Congress declare war or authorize a war on Iran? Answer: It never did. But these neoconservatives care no more about the Constitution than they cared about the truth when they lied into war in Iraq.

William Kristol, one of the charter members of the PNAC, reigning ideologue of the neocons, Likudnik mole deep in the heart of the American foreign policy organs, and (like all neocons) at heart a true Trotskyite, wants war. He wants death and destruction. He wants mushroom clouds sprouting up all over the Middle East, until Israel is surrounded by a glassy landscape that glows in the dark. Then Israel will finally be safe from all their enemies.

And he wants America to do it, because the sacred motto of PNAC is that Israel must be defended to the last American.

Sorry, Mr Kristol, it can’t be done. There are 130,000 American hostages in Iraq, a place they never should have been. A place you schemed and lied and cheated to get them into in order to take the first step of multi-nation-target aggressive war in the middle east. These hostages are armed, and dangerous, but also very vulnerable. They are sharks, yes, in a sea of porpoises.

The naturalist Lucius Beebe wrote an essay about how porpoises defend themselves from great white sharks. They surround the predator, working him as a coordinated pack. As he rushes towards one porpoise, those on the side drive in, slamming their beaks and heads against the shark’s gills. And when the shark turns to strike back at these attackers, he is hit from the side by others. The hunt continues until the shark is so damaged, gills structures shattered by the repeated blows, that it wanders off, bleeding, slowly dying of asphyxiation, unless another great white shark appears, attracted by the smell of blood, and finishes the job for the porpoises, who swim away, having successfully defended the pod.

Even someone like Mr Kristol, whose brain is so clouded by dreams of imperial glory that he is incapable or rational debate, should take a lesson from porpoises, mammals who are much smarter than we are.

There’s a lot more thought in Mr Buchanan’s essay and I recommend reading the rest. As much as I disagree with him on so many topics, he’s dead on this time. Just take your antibiotics before venturing over to the WorldNutDaily.

A swamped personal life, some family difficulties, and a recurring medical situation have occupied my time these last few days, and I apologize. While I regroup, some thoughts from Riggsveda at The American Street, who put into words many of my thoughts about the Fraud-in-Chief who occupies our White House:

The Decider has Decided that your mother, suffering from Alzheimer’s, and your brother, the quadraplegic, and your son, suffocating from cystic fibrosis, and you, you godless secularist, with your macular degeneration, should just go fuck yourselves. He doesn’t even see you:

“President Bush vetoed a bill for the first time today, using his constitutional power to reject legislation passed by Congress that would expand federal research on embryonic stem cells, a step he said would be crossing a “moral line.”

Yes, we can’t have any moral line-crossing, certainly not on the watch of a man who so embodies the moral rectitude of Jesus Christ that, as reported in Ron Suskind’s The One Per Cent Doctrine, he asked eagerly about a briefer’s torture report, “Do some of these harsh methods really work?”

And of the possibility of retrieving a terrorist’s skull: “So if it turns out to be Zawahiri’s head, I hope you’ll bring it here.”
And upon learning there were Mideastern men cutting transactions in the heartland: “Middle-Easterners in Kansas! We’ve got to get on this immediately.”

Brain damage and spinal injuries? Bring ‘em on! It’s not his problem.

And what is he telling you you must give up your hope of a cure for?

Each of these human embryos is a unique human life with inherent dignity and matchless value…These boys and girls are not spare arts.”

If you want to see the “boys and girls” that Mr Bush thinks are worth saving, go here.

And if you scroll down past these blastocystic Americans that are now sacred “life” – even though they’re doomed to be tossed in the garbage – you’ll see the “boys and giels” that Mr Bush has already tossed in the garbage.

This fraud, this serial liar, this mass murderer of children signed this heinous bill in secret, with no cameras, no photographers, no fat rich old white men in ill-fitting dark suits smiling as they wait for his scabrous trembling hand to form one more letter and then hand out a pen as a reward. Or at least none of these men were seen to get a souvenir. “Here you go, Billy Bob, Ah made mah Dubya with this pen. Heheheh. It stands for that ole lady with the first stage Alzheimer’s in Topeka. Hell with her. She ain’t a millionaire.”

“Bawb, here’s your pen. Ah drew mah ‘B’ with it. That little kid in Phoenix with the spinal cord injury. His folks are Democrats. Screw ‘em.”

If you do nothing else today, go to the page on The American Street. Study the photos carefully. Memorize the sights. You and I, my friends, are every bit as disposable as these dead Iraqi children in Mr Bush’s bleary, drunken eyes.

Newt Gingrich was on one of the Sunday morning bobble head shows, Meet The Press, which is also known as “Timmy’s Retirement Scheme.” It’s a show where Tim (Punkinhaid) Russert pretends he’s a big league ball player and pitches nice slow whiffle balls right down the middle to Republicans, and concrete balls to Dems, invariably with a corkscrew delivery that requires about 12 ounces of spit.

Today he had Newt Gingrich on, so that Newtie could polish up his foreign policy credentials in preparation for his bid to be King of America in the 2008 elections. Much of what transpired is reported elsewhere and it’s worth the trip if you missed the show, or deliberately avoided it out of a sense of self-preservation.

Gingrich was at his most ridiculous today, claiming that the US must kill every Arab in the Middle East, and points west, east, north and south. No, I’m exaggerating, but not by much. He thinks the US must loosen Israel’s leash and let them redraw the map for our benefit. Newt is not one of the charter members of the PNAC, but he’s ideologically wedded to them, especially since he believes he can’t get the Republican nomination without being one of the “in crowd.”

Also appearing with Newt was Joe Biden, the US Senator representing MBNA. Now normally Joe is always very willing to be a foil for whichever Fascist Tim has lined up to be the Sunday opinion maker, but today was different, because Joe cleaned the floor with Newt. Joe much have had his teeth repolished, or something, because today he xame to play baseball.

The transcript is here, and it’s a nice read, for a change. Democrat makes good in game rigged against him.

One of Gingrich’s more remarkable bloopers was:

We need to fundamentally reorganize our nonmilitary bureaucracies to be effective. I mean, part of the reason you don’t have an effective Iraqi bureaucracy is the American inability at the State Department, the Agency for International Development, the Treasury Department, the Justice Department to provide any level of systematic competence is, is almost zero.

Josh Marshall has a terrific guest comment to Newtie’s claim:

Did he leave anyone out? Hmmm, let's see . . . oh, yeah. The Pentagon!

It was the Pentagon that elbowed State aside and assumed full responsibility for post-invasion Iraq, despite having failed to undertake the sort of pre-invasion planning necessary to confront the enormous task.

It was the Pentagon that made no plans to rebuild the Iraqi bureaucracy because Rumsfeld thought if you lopped off the head of the regime and replaced it with a pro-Western government, the Iraqi burea[u]cracy would just keep on keeping on.

It was the Pentagon that disbanded the Iraqi Army, one of Iraq's stronger bureaucratic structures, despite the warnings from U.S. commanders on the ground.

And let's not forget that Gingrich was on Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board during the period in question and was one of the leading proponents of the Pentagon's approach.

Going around behind Gingrich to set the record straight could be a full-time job, but this particular blame-shifting canard needs to be confronted and knocked down hard.

Interestingly, I distinctly remember who was right about the fraudulent causes for war invented by the Bu$h malAdministration. Hans Blix got it right, as did Scott Ritter. The CIA kind of waffled of course, because Mr Cheney was over there at Langley (and the other place with no name everyday, breathing over the analysts shoulders, and snarling every time they got their addition right. (Saddam + WMD = 0 )

State’s INR had it right, too. One of the reasons Powell was marginalized so quickly after 9/11 was the complete intransigence of the INR boys and their refusal to lie down and spread ‘em for Bu$hCo. They didn’t understand that Mr Bu$h was a spoiled child and always got his way. More about the INR some other day.

Josh Marshall has an article up in his TPM Café discussing the recent events in Lebanon, and America’s role in this mess. Briefly, Josh takes the position that, neocon ideological, financial and political loyalty notwithstanding, we’ve got an empty quiver in the Gaza/Levant dogfight. He very briefly refers to the horrendous mess, Israel once again bringing death and destruction on a helpless population of civilians as punishment for the actions of Hezbollah.

Where is America? Whoever you believe is right or wrong in this mess, I doubt very much that the powers directly involved have the will and ability to de-escalate the situation. Some want to. Others don't. But take the region as a whole and the differences between will, desire and ability fade into insignificance.

There’s a degree of impotent rage working here. We have a new Prime Minister, Olmert, in office for only three months, and with the little I know about Israeli internal politics, I’m sure that sessions of the Knesset resemble the US House of Representatives, circa 1994-2000, the period in which Republican reps slavered daily in their lust to injure, and later destroy, Bill Clinton. Such political acrimony takes on a life of its own after a while; the original purpose is forgotten, the bloodlust becoming the goal itself.

Since Olmert is the first Israeli PM to have grown up in a “safe” country, with no practical military experience (as far as I know he never served on active duty in the military,) he might well have felt the need to prove his chops, and was just waiting for an excuse to over-react to a provocation by someone. Waiting for a provocation around there is like waiting for a rainstorm in the tropics – just be patient because it’ll happen any minute now.

Some might say that the Bush administration's silence is acquiescence or approval of the Israeli raids into Lebanon and Gaza. But I think it's more than that. This is silence born of over-extension and policy exhaustion. Thinking back through the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s -- with key crises in each decade -- I don't think there's any example where an American administr[a]tion has so thoroughly marginalized itself or shown such impotence and irrelevance.

I think Josh is partly right. Bu$hCo does appear to be marginalized and politically impotent on the world stage. It’s ironic that Mr Bush, who bragged so volubly about his “political capital” after the 2004 election was so obviously stolen with a “mandate” of less than one percent, has no street cred anywhere outside the US Republican Party and the bought-and-paid-for mainstream media. Speaking with Mr Putin before reporters he got his face slapped publicly when Mr Putin opined that Russia wants no part of the “democracy” that Bu$hCo has brought to Iraq. Sometimes I wonder whether Mr Bush is clueless and really believes the fertilizer his writers produce for him or such an accomplished and brazen liar that he has no shame at all.

More than five years of vainglorious strutting and posturing, dangerously mendacious lying about what is obviously a war of aggression, incredibly juvenile interaction with news people especially in front of other world leaders and the obvious calamity that his and Mr Cheney’s personal greed has created in the US financial future have all managed to make the US into a pariah the adults in the world community handle just they way one deals with a hornet’s nest.

As I’ve stated here, here, and here the US foreign policy apparatus has been highjacked by a small group of ideologues, paid operatives, and fellow-travelers who have only one goal: the military and political destruction of ALL Arab countries surrounding Israel. Now the cause is noble: protection of the citizenry. But the means they are taking to accomplish this end are inherently evil, morally, ethically and legally. Knocking off your neighbors is not the best way to establish peace on the block.

In the Levant tensions are rising daily. Israel’s punishing Lebanese for the actions of Hezbollah is a very risky maneuver. The Lebanese Army and Air Force are no danger. Neither for that matter is the Syrian Air Force, although their army is another matter. Air power is a force multiplier and the IAF is one of the best in the world. The problem arises when one considers that Hezbollah is a special concern. It’s an army without a state. Or a state within a state. In south Lebanon Hezbollah administers all the infrastructure of the state: it operates the schools, power plants, polices the streets, and even collects the garbage. The national government of Lebanon is not strong enough to evict Hezbollah, or co-opt it, even if it wished to.

As Billmon so ably pointed out:

… with the long frustrating years spent waging an endless, thankless fourth generation war in the West Bank and Gaza, and it appears the IDF is just aching to fight a normal, conventional battle in which it can use all those shiny toys the Israeli and U.S. taxpayers have bought for it.

This inability to conceive of guerrilla ambushes or suicide bombings or hit-and-run rocket attacks or the assassination of collaborators as "real war" seems to be one of the chief symptoms of military hubris -- almost as incapacitating as the feverish craving for ever greater doses of air power.

Part of it, perhaps, stems from a sense of offended morality: How can people who send suicide bombers to blow up buses and night clubs possibly be considered "worthy" opponents? The Palestinians and the Lebanese might ask the same question about people who fire missiles at old men in wheel chairs or wreak death and destruction on an entire country because a single Army patrol was ambushed. But that's not the point. Effectiveness in war isn't a moral attribute, and leaders who forget that fact do so at their peril -- or rather, at the peril of their troops.

We’re not going to exert any moderating influence on Israel. I doubt the “Israel lobby” would permit it. Senators and Congressmen break out in a sweat and start wishing they wore Depends when that lobby starts asking them why they did something “treasonous” against Israel. I doubt the Bu$h malAdministration would even think about tugging on Israel’s reins because this thing we’ve got right now that we refer to as a “government” is ideologically dedicated to destroying Syria and Iran for commercial reasons. (It’s the oil, stupid.) If we tried to, we’d quickly learn just how much street cred we’ve got east of the Mediterranean.

CorrenteWire’s Lambert points at a story in today NY Times by Adam Nagourney, Bus$hCo’s appointed representative at the Times:

An increasingly desperate Bush may actually agree to speak to black people who might offer him less than complete fealty. Yes, after five years of pointedly ignoring the NAACP, Dear Leader may deign to speak to them this year.

Why would anyone fall for this?

Well, Lambert, Nagourney’s contract with Bu$hCo does not permit him to write something truthfully, so he sort of dresses it up in his laudatory praise for Dear Leader:

After not appearing before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for five years, President Bush has tentatively agreed to speak to the group on Wednesday in what aides said was the latest White House effort to improve relations with African-American leaders.

The decision to accept the invitation was made after lobbying by N.A.A.C.P. officials and in a week when conservative House Republicans forced a delay in the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act.

Even though the House ultimately passed the reauthorization, the delay was criticized by civil rights leaders and stirred concern among some Republicans over reactions.

Mr. Bush was the first president in 80 years to go a full term without appearing before a convention of the N.A.A.C.P. He has had quarrelsome relations with the organization and its leaders from the moment he took office, and he was unhappy with what aides considered its unfair criticism of his record.

This seems like a bit of a disconnect for me, because I really believe that after five years of being ignored by the most vicious and racially divisive Republican administration since Reconstruction, the NAACP is still begging for attention. I was schooled in a simpler school: never ask twice, because, just like in judo, you lose your balance when you lean forward. And why would they have any interest at all in kissing the ring of the head of the party that has tried to derail the Voting Rights Act with cracker amendments designed to slow the VRA to a crawl, or push it back to pre-1965 status in the South:

From the DNC website:

It's pretty unbelievable that legislation as critical to our democracy is being attacked, even dismantled.

Today the House considers the Voting Rights Act reauthorization. Despite the promises of the Republican leadership to bring this bipartisan, bicameral bill up under suspension of the rules – with no amendments - the House will consider four extremely dangerous amendments.

For 41 years this law has protected our freedom to vote, and it has been reauthorized, on a bipartisian basis, time and again. Yet this Republican Congress is trying to change that with their amendments intended to strip the Voting Rights Act of many critical provisions.

They want to eliminate oversight:
Republican Congressman Norwood of Georgia wants to revise the provisions of Section 5 of the VRA which mandates that the Justice Department approve any changes to electoral process in places with a history of discrimination. This Section is still critical - in fact it's been the only thing stopping over a thousand different changes which the Justice Department has objected to as discriminatory since the last voting rights reauthorization in 1982.

They want to eliminate 15 years of protection:
Republican Congressman Gohmert of Texas wants to cut the reauthorization period down to 10 years - instead of the recommended 25 year reauthorization period that was suggested by a bipartisian judiciary committee.

They want to eliminate assistance for American citizens:
Republicans Steve King (R-IA), Ernest Istook (R-OK), Candice Miller (R-MI), Ginny Browne-Waite (R-FL), and Spencer Bachus (R-AL) hope to see the language provisions that provide for bi-lingual ballots to be removed from the Act. Democracy thrives when citizens are knowledgeable and informed, when there is an obstacle-free path to participating in government.

They want to eliminate effectiveness: Republican Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia wants to see the Attorney General expedite the Section 5 "bailout" process. Westmoreland would have the Attorney General annually determine whether each state and political subdivision subject to Section 5 preclearance requirements - all 900+ of them - has met the requirements for "bailout". This amendment would place the burden of seeking exemption on the Justice Department, instead of on the jurisdiction - crippling the Justice Department who would be overwhelmed investigating where discrimination doesn't exist instead of addressing voting discrimination and constitutional violations.

As it turns out, the VRA was passed without these poison pill amendments, with 33 Fascist Congressmen voting “no.” I guess they miss the good old days when “certain people” knew their place, and kept to it.

The thing that troubles me is that in a week when these radical southern members of Congress tried to undo a piece of legislation that has enabled Americans of color to climb the ladder of political participation, the NAACP shuffles on around to the back door of the White House and, hat in hand, timidly asks “Mars’ Bush, would y’all please come an’ speak to us?”