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Sixteen Months, And What Did They Get?
Sixteen months have passed since Katrina came ashore in New Orleans, since the insufficiently constructed levees failed to hold back the storm surge (as predicted), and since the lives of over a million New Orleanians changed overnight.
Sixteen months have passed since we watched in horror and saw that our government had failed and was failing at all levels to protect one of our most beautiful American cities from a disaster that had been predicted and could have been prevented.
Sixteen months -– and many, many square miles of that city still bear the open wounds of that day. Collapsed houses still sit where they landed. Flooded-out neighborhoods still sit –- mostly empty –- with houses full of mold and rot.
Spray painted signals still mark almost all the homes -– even the few that have had some small amount of work done to them. These markings are a stark reminder to all who pass, and indeed to the owners who must rebuild, of the horrible events of those awful days when their city was left to fend for itself.
Those residents who are resourceful enough, or informed or connected enough, have found some relief in the way of volunteers who have been lined up to come in and remove their piles and piles of destroyed personal belongings.
Some have had volunteers come in and tear down moldy drywall,
pull up moldy and rotted floor tile,
and remove refrigerators and freezers -– many which still contain the toxic stew of 16-month-old food contents and perhaps flood waters. These appliances must be duct-taped shut, and the instruction is that if anything leaks out while you are moving them, you should evacuate the building.
Some of the homeowners live far afield -– hoping for the day when they can return. Some have been lucky enough to get a FEMA trailer. Others still wait. Sixteen months have passed. There are parking lots full of hundreds of unused trailers an hour in many directions away.
And yet more residents still don’t have them than do.
Those folks who have been lucky enough to get a trailer and have returned, and are living in a trailer in front of their gutted house, often can’t find anyone trustworthy to do the work. An entire industry of scam artists has grown out of the rubble. And so, little by little, they do the work themselves –- even though they don’t know how. And those are the lucky ones. Many houses have been gutted and are sitting empty -– they’ve been waiting for re-building for six months or even a year.
Sixteen months later, many New Orleanians are living across the country, wanting to return to their homes, but with no trailer to move into, they have no place to stay. Many have decent jobs in other cities, but are longing to return, and are waiting for the day their trailer comes through. It’s hard to knock down and rebuild from another city. Hard to find a contractor you can trust from 1500 miles away.
Sixteen months later, our country is still in a war that was started for a lie, with hundreds of billions of dollars wasted and hundreds of thousands of lives lost. Our National Guard is trapped in Iraq, along with our money. The beautiful city of New Orleans waits, a city in disrepair here in our midst, in need of billions of dollars and thousands of knowledgeable and trustworthy builders like they have in the National Guard. The small number of troops who are in New Orleans are used mainly for street patrol.
So far, residents are relying on the generosity of volunteers. The generosity of people like me and the rest of you who have gone down and helped in whatever small but useful way we can. But it is not enough. The organization that housed my group –- the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) said they’d hosted something like 30,000 volunteers since the storm. It sounds like a lot, but if, as in our case, work groups are 10 people large, that’s 3000 work groups. And, if it takes three days for a work group to gut a house, that’s 1000 houses gutted. Out of hundreds of thousands. Faith-based initiatives such as this are good Republican ideas, and they are certainly helping, but there is no way they can do it alone.
The people who have returned, and many of those who never had to leave, are kind, generous, hopeful and the most resilient folks I’ve met in my life. New Orleans is their city –- the place they call home, and they wouldn’t live anywhere else. Their strength in the midst of the mess they live in each day was inspiring and humbling to me. Their ability to be positive and recreate their lives is amazing.
16 months ago the president went down to Jackson Square a few weeks after the storm and gave a pretty speech about how much help he was going to give the city, how much help he was going to give the Americans who endured the horrors of the failed levees, and he made this pledge: “we will do what it takes. We will stay as long as it takes to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives.”
16 months later, they’re still waiting.
It is stunning, absolutely stunning to think that this country and especially this failed, immoral administration could blithely spend 500 billion dollars blowing up a country halfway around the world but not even one billion dollars rebuilding a city that is the heart and soul of the northern american continent. May they rot and burn for such egregious heinousness.
And thank you so much, Carol, for all you did down in NoLA and for sharing this report with us here. All this country needs is another 299 million citizens like you.
BTW, this would also be an appropriate time to point people to Lindsay Beyerstein's Hurricane Katrina photoblog over at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/majikthise/sets/72057594051872912/
(And yes, as the URL indicates, Ms. Beyerstein is aka Majikthise, chief culprit of one of the most finestkind blogs ever to stalk the internets: http://majikthise.typepad.com/ )
time to keep your promise and do what it takes for new orleans your bushiness,
Otter
Carol thankyou for your volunteer work and this threader. Where would we be without volunteers? Seriously.
The lack of governmental interest in rebuilding New Orleans is a disgrace and I certainly hope it will be called to account for it. This should be played up big and loud for the next 2 years.
Your photos are amazing and tell some very sad tales. These would be multiplied by how many different sad tales, I wonder.
It points out clearly that bombing homes and lives all over the world is far more valuable to your government than repairing and rebuilding lives at home. To do the positive - repairing lives, would be far less costly than killing people and ripping far off places to bits.
Shame! Shame! Shame!
Posted by: Otter at January 13, 2007 09:12 AM
Thanks, Otter (and woz)!
I looked at that great majikthise flickr slide show. It's hard to imagine that all those streets of city houses, one right next to the other, street after street after street for miles, still sit there much as they did that day, except without the water.
But that is exactly how they stand.
Some have been gutted down to the studs, but many still contain all the personal belongings - moldy, rotting, ruined.
I had no idea the vastness of the destruction until I went there. The fact that so little has been done is appalling.
Meanwhile, even while we look at pictures of just how badly the Bush Regime fell down on the job in New Orleans, the executive branch still continues to prove how out of touch with reality it really is.
As White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told CNN on Friday, after members of Senate and House committees held multiple hearings trying to determine just where the administration stands on the thorny question of Iraq:
"Surely the United States is not the one being threatening," she said. "We are not the ones being meddlesome and troublesome in Iraq."
Say *what*?
When it comes to the current administration, it surely appears that the less things change, the more they stay insane.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/11/iraq.iran/index.html
bushiana delenda est,
Otter
Thanks, Carol...for all you're doing.
OT...Here's a link to Free Press's National Conference for Media Reform that is going on right now in Memphis. It's a very worthwhile conference, with Bill Moyers delivering the opening plenary along with many other powerful people such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, Jesse Jackson, Amy Goodman, David Brock, FCC Commissioners Michael Copps & Johnathan Adelstein, Congressman Maurice Hinchey, Helen Thomas,etc.
They're also providing videos/audio of the sessions as soon as they're available here ===>
http://www.freepress.net/conference/=full_schedule07
wow, Carol! Amazing pictures and such tremendous work going on there by volunteers. This is another big shameful mark on this administration and the previous do-nothing-Congress.
This borders on criminally neglegent in my opinion. Furthermore, it brings to mind the fact that Bush rescinded the Davis-Bacon Act to help rebuild the city quickly. Looks like another failed policy! Instead, it's created a cauldrum of cheaters and liars with no accountability.
This is shameful! A blight on the American soul. Thank goodness for people like you who are still showing the compassion and humanity that still exsists out here.
To all who still support a neoconservative or Republican agenda of shrinking the government--shame, shame on you!
Bush does such a good job of creating one fiasco or crisis after another that when you look at the whole picture, it pretty much explains why New Orleans is still a mess.
How can anyone focus on that, when every day he gives us something new and awful to focus on?
The real question is why haven't the people demanded something better?
How can we let the soul of our country, in the form of NOLA, languish in ruin, while we go on with our daily lives as if everything were OK????
Carol -
Thank you, and thank the people who went with you to try to help!
It looks... overwhelming.
The odd thing is, I think 100+++ years ago people were more fortunate in their building skills. They grew up helping their parents or other adults and by the time they were teenagers they were experienced and talented in building trades, even if that was not their primary occupation. Many people were adept at many different skills, and it's reflected in historical diaries of people who took the time to note their activities. By the time they were adults they knew how to do things right the first time.
Simply put, our ancestors were more talented than we are, and they didn't have the bureaucratic boondoggles of having to get permits for everything or having to have everything inspected by people who know less than they do.
I can't help but feel that if Katrina and Rita had happened 100+++ years ago that the whole mess would have been cleaned up already with the able assistance of people like you and the rest of the volunteers who have tried to help - and without bureaucratic government bungling, or even without government assistance....
Carol
An amazing piece - confirms what we've suspected but even worse than I imagined. Thanks for the photos and text and your time and energy in going there. Can't believe how much NOLA has not been in the news, except for increase in crime and murders recently - one story did mention blocks and blocks of empty and abandoned houses. It's something the America-in-charge wants to hide & sweep under the rug, just as they ignored the inhabitants before it happened & the hurricane swept away the facade so the world could see. Alot of people around the world remember, and more of them need to see what the government hasn't done anything about. It's thanks to volunteers like you, Carol, that anything is being done at all. I did read about the march a few days ago in New Orleans - something was posted from Indy. Anyway, thanks for the article, photos and especially for actually going there to help.
Another obstacle the residents face in rebuilding is the difficulty they are having either getting claim money from their insurance company, or getting insurance at all.
I did see some positive news here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/business/12insure.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Where a couple in Mississippi won a suit against State Farm. Maybe that will encourage insurance companies to settle more of these claims.
Carol:
Holy Joe Lieberman, Senate Chair of the COmmittee on Homeland Security, just gave the Bush Administration a pass on Katrina assistance, stating no more oversight is needed on what happened to NOLA during and after Katrina.
We're looking at New Orleans as our potential future, in the event of a big emergency or national disaster.
I think letters need to go to Harry Reid about that Committee appointnment. The state of the nation is at stake by someone who literally revels in being a Bush crony.
Bush’s Best Democratic Buddy
Joe Lieberman gives the president a pass on Katrina.
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 2:17 p.m. PT Jan 12, 2007
Jan. 11, 2007 - Sen. Joe Lieberman, the only Democrat to endorse President Bush’s new plan for Iraq, has quietly backed away from his pre-election demands that the White House turn over potentially embarrassing documents relating to its handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans.
Lieberman’s reversal underscores the new role that he is seeking to play in the Senate as the leading apostle of bipartisanship, especially on national-security issues. On Wednesday night, Bush conspicuously cited Lieberman’s advice as being the inspiration for creating a new “bipartisan working group” on Capitol Hill that he said will “help us come together across party lines to win the war on terror.”
But the decision by Lieberman, the new chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, to back away from the committee's Katrina probe is already dismaying public-interest groups and others who hoped the Democratic victory in November would lead to more aggressive investigations of one of the White House’s most spectacular foul-ups.
Last year, when he was running for re-election in Connecticut, Lieberman was a vocal critic of the administration’s handling of Katrina. He was especially dismayed by its failure to turn over key records that could have shed light on internal White House deliberations about the hurricane, including those involving President Bush.
Asserting that there were “too many important questions that cannot be answered,” Lieberman and other committee Democrats complained in a statement last year that the panel “did not receive information or documents showing what actually was going on in the White House.”
Bush does such a good job of creating one fiasco or crisis after another that when you look at the whole picture, it pretty much explains why New Orleans is still a mess.
How can anyone focus on that, when every day he gives us something new and awful to focus on?
The real question is why haven't the people demanded something better?
Posted by: Carol at January 13, 2007 11:55 AM
But that is the point... DimWit and his cohorts are out for world domination, they present these new crises at least weekly, if not daily, and it takes the focus off of the disasters right under our noses - and DimWit and his cohorts don't give a damn about NOLA or any other place in the country where disasters happen (except when they want photo-ops). When the anniversary of the hurricane comes up again, Lamestream Media may focus on NOLA and the region for a couple of days, but that will be about it.
In the last six years I've noticed that for every major or minor crisis that's happened, nothing whatsoever has gotten done unless ordinary "everyday heroes" - like yourself and your friends and others - have stepped in and filled the void. From private individuals like yourself and others on up to the guard troops who have most recently helped people during the recent blizzards to firefighters in other regions last summer, only the "everyday heroes" are actually doing anything. Most often politicians from those states have been doing a delicate appeasement dance around the demented "leaders" of this country who are demanding and inciting war - and, worse, now it seems our "leaders" want to expand their war - and even the politicians are not focusing on their home states. (Now do you see why I get maudlin to the point of tears about "everyday heroes?" They get things done.)
DimWit and cohorts are focused on world domination through controlling oil reserves - and not admitting that they want to make a financial killing for themselves and their heirs while they can because one day we will run out of oil, but I notice none are demanding research into alternative energy, either - that's only happening on the initiative of a few individuals and a very few companies.
If no one's demanding anything be done, it's because we are collectively depressed over what our "leaders" are doing to us and wondering if the effort will be worth it. If DimWit and cohorts are not stopped, they could start a nuclear war, the war could come home to roost in our own nation, thanks to the "leaders" who do nothing but more warmongering, and all the work may be in vain.
The fact that Lamestream Media has actually shown a few seconds of war protesters recently is a GIANT step in the right direction (and the protesters are, IMHO, everyday heroes as well), and it gives me the thinnest ray of hope possible that more will join in (wish I could, but I'm hampered by physical limitations). Each to their own abilities, and we each do what we can.
If we survive the mushroom cloud of the Bushista dictatorship and get back on track to being a nation where politicians do what's right by the people who elected them, then we can then focus on helping our own without the threat of incessant and escalating war hanging over our heads.
Normal people (who never drank the kool-aid in the first place) have been depressed and stewing in our own angry juices over our situation for six long years. Nov. 7 was the first step in turning a corner and we patiently waited for the politicians to be sworn in on Jan. 3. Jan. 4 was another step when we realized our Congress Critters were not putting ending the illegal war first on their agenda (while also realizing domestic agendas are important, there is still not much in the way of real money for domestic programs while money is being diverted to an illegal war based on lies). Anti-war protests started right away, and even Lamestream Media noted it (surprise!), and with DimWit's speech this week, when they realized he's escalating his already-unpopular war, people crossed the line from being depressed and angry to just being majorly pissed off that the war is escalating under a dictatorship. Even military families and troops are finally speaking out, and that's a giant step. We've collectively dropped most of our depression, and anger is motivating people to finally speak out about the illegal war.
Some may not be able to analyze that and state it in words, but the vast majority of us all know there's no good reason to send more people to their deaths for the sake of more lies for oil. We may have been ticked off for years about all of this (I've certainly had my rants), but people who have been holding back and giving DimWit and cohorts the benefit of the doubt are now, finally, speaking out against this stupid illegal war that's killing so many people (our own and others), torturing and imprisoning people illegally, and putting us into so much debt... and they are also, finally, saying ENOUGH!
We seem to have actually reached a genuine turning point - finally - and once politicians realize the extent to which their constituents are displeased with the status quo of the last six years (and that means they may face not being re-elected in '08), they may - finally - DO SOMETHING about the "leaders" who have demanded dictatoial powers (and gotten, via neoCon Congress Critters who were the majority) and have so damaged our country and our standing in the world.
And if DimWit gets the money to send guard and reserve troops to Iraq, who would he then call out to quell any anti-war riots, if it comes to that in the next few months, especially when the weather gets better....?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070112/ap_on_go_co/senate_ethics
Convicted lawmakers may lose pensions
WASHINGTON - Former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, behind bars for bribery, can at least be consoled by the federal pension he'll continue to collect. Current or future lawmakers convicted of crimes may not be so lucky.
The Senate on Friday voted 87-0 to strip away the pensions of members of Congress convicted of white-collar crimes such as bribery, perjury and fraud. That could result in benefit losses of more than $100,000 a year.
"With this vote, we are preventing members of Congress who steal or cheat from receiving a lifelong pension that is paid for by the taxpayers," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., sponsor of the measure with Sen. Ken Salazar (news, bio, voting record), D-Colo.
{More on link. Politicians losing pensions when convicted of crimes should have been written into the original legislation! Duh.}
Eleanor Clift: The Washington War Game
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011307Z.shtml
Newsweek's Eleanor Clift writes: "Early rumblings of an anti-war movement sounded in Washington this week as several progressive groups joined forces to press the Democratic Congress to use its power of the purse to stop the latest escalation of the conflict in Iraq. Unlike their predecessors in the Vietnam era, who were often scruffy and unshaven, these activists are well within the mainstream in their appearance as well as their politics."
Excerpt (Recommend reading entire article - what's sad is her mention that Dems are apparently not backing any plans to stop the train wreck that is W, and I have to wonder what it will take to get them to stop the madman):
If you count Bush's initial crowing on the deck of an aircraft carrier that major combat operations were over, this is Bush's fifth rollout of a plan for victory. And it's much bleaker than the others, says Matt Bennett of Third Way, a Democratic centrist group. To have any hope of success, the plan hinges on Prime Minister Nouri al- Maliki breaking with his protector, Moqtada al-Sadr, whose militia is more effective than the Iraqi army. "Pressuring Maliki to go after the Mahdi militia is like depending on the Bush administration to break the NRA," says Bennett. The likelihood of Maliki stepping up to the task is so remote that some lawmakers see the Bush surge as a kind of secret exit plan. In their view, Bush knows he's got a bad deal, and Maliki will never purge the Mahdi army; when the Iraqi prime minister fails to deliver, Bush can blame the Iraqis for being weak and feckless and corrupt, and begin to withdraw U.S. troops. Former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski dubs this scenario "blame and run."
But Bush could have blamed the Iraqis without sending in more troops. Which leads to the other scenario bruited about in Washington, principally among Democrats: that Bush is using American troops as political pawns. There is a widespread view that the war is lost, and Bush is postponing the inevitable until after he leaves office - or worse, preparing to widen the war to Iran and Syria rather than accept defeat.
What we have is a crisis of confidence in two governments, Baghdad and Washington. A Democratic congressional aide coming away from a meeting at the White House said it was "almost sad" to watch the president "making this pitch and practicing his phraseology," when the only thing that will change people's minds are results on the ground. After four years, there's little hope anything will be different.
Lieberman seems to be at the furthest right wing of the Republican party right now!
Posted by: Fe at January 13, 2007 01:21 PM
Lieberman is the most powerful man in the party right now, because all he has to do is threaten to cross over and become a republican, and we lose the majority.
How the people of Connecticut didn't grasp that before the election is beyond me. He was a traitor then, and he's a traitor now.
We can only hope that McCain dumps him when he picks his VP candidate.
I'll bet it will be McCain/Lieberman 2008 for the RNC.
Bush approved the raids on Iranians in Iraq.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6668105
We need Republicans to consistently cross over and vote.
Wish there would defections but there are few Jim Jeffords types, I'm afraid. The more moderate Republicans really ought to be thinking about whether they represent their constituents, especially if they're from purple states. They ought to think about who is making the sacrifice and on what basis and about where most of the overtaxed National Guards come from.
Tbogg adds a little pictorial commentary to his post about Lieberman's decision not to exercise oversight over DHS's Katrina performance.
http://tbogg.blogspot.com/2007/01/quisling-from-stamford-holy-joe-sen.html
I think letters need to go to Harry Reid about that Committee appointment. The state of the nation is at stake by someone who literally revels in being a Bush crony.
Posted by: Fe at January 13, 2007 01:11 PM
That's right. We ought to be making the calls and sending faxes. I said all along that they should take away his committee chairmanship. now I'm proven right.
He had his chance. Ax him. He's not a Democrat and he holds too many grudges against the Democratic party now.
He thinks he's the middle. He's not. He's a neoconservative independent and he's tossed away his democratic positions and has become unrecognisable.
He's chosen his path. Ditch him and get a moderate Republican to switch party. Also, how self-righteous Sen. Lieberman is when his spouse works for the medical (pharmaceutical) lobby.
Posted by: DiAnne at January 13, 2007 02:11 PM
Dianne,
The media already fills our plates with their lies: McCain 'straight talk express...' 'maverick...' Or Lieberman, "Democratic moderate...independent...", "honest", "Said something against Clinton..."
Unfortunately, it was a broken city to begin with, in so many ways. Katrina just ripped off the veneer. How much would it cost to rebuild every broken city in America? We would need another New Deal.
Young people are joining the military because, as they openly admit, they feel safer on the front lines in Iraq than they do in their own hometowns.
Much is broken.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-brooks12jan12,0,62141.column
How Republicans win if we lose in Iraq
Bush and the GOP are shifting tactics just like Nixon did with Vietnam -- to win the next election, not the war.
Excerpt:
The surge makes Bush look, as Goldberg suggests, like he really wants to win, even as he refuses to take the necessary and honest steps to mitigate the terrible damage we've already done. The surge buys time — and meanwhile, the Democratic Party is placed in the same untenable position it was in during the last stages of the Vietnam War.
If it backs Bush's feckless plan, it loses credibility with the voters, who hate the war. But if it opposes the escalation, it will be attacked for undermining the military. Ann Coulter offered a preview last week: "Democrats want to cut and run as fast as possible from Iraq, betraying the Iraqis who supported us and rewarding our enemies — exactly as they did to the South Vietnamese."
The Democrats need to break out of the script the White House has written for them and remind Americans that the war in Iraq is a dangerous distraction from other pressing threats to U.S. security, such as nuclear proliferation and the rise of militant Islam worldwide. They need to emphasize that withdrawal from Iraq isn't about "defeat" — it's about shifting our troops, our money and our energy to the real challenges that the Bush administration is ignoring or exacerbating.
At this point, the Republicans win by losing in Iraq — as long as they can blame the loss on the Democrats. And unless they find a way to refuse to play the game, the Democrats will just lose.
{More on link.}
Pentagon Sees Move in Somalia as Blueprint
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011307Y.shtml
Military operations in Somalia by American commandos to root out operatives for al Qaeda in the country are a blueprint that Pentagon strategists say they hope to use more frequently in counterterrorism missions around the globe. Some critics of the Pentagon's aggressive use of Special Operations troops have argued that using American forces outside of declared combat zones gives the Pentagon too much authority in sovereign nations and blurs the lines between soldiers and spies.
{{{So, Special Ops got "special authority" after 9/11... and now they make their own decisions? Just who's running this country? The Pentagon or the dictators? Terrorists are common criminals and they need to be hunted down by law enforcement agencies, NOT armies who blow innocent civilians to bits in the process of going after a few criminals...!}}}
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070113/ts_nm/somalia_conflict_dc
Somali parliament declares state of emergency
Republicans on Panel Back President's Plan, Masking Divisions
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011307C.shtml
Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee came to the defense of President Bush on Friday, lending support to his decision to send more troops to Iraq and hoping to head off a Senate resolution criticizing the plan.
{{{Pardon my cynicism... but wasn't puppet Maliki "elected" by Iraqis? Now the neoCons in DC are talking about "replacing" him??? Hmmmm....}}}
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-commander13jan13,0,2026180.story
Iraqi leader goes own way to fill top post
He picks an unknown to lead forces in Baghdad, which raises questions about his motives.
BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has filled the top military job in Baghdad with a virtually unknown officer chosen over the objections of U.S. and Iraqi military commanders, officials from both governments said.
Iraqi political figures said Friday that Maliki also had failed to consult the leaders of other political factions before announcing the appointment of Lt. Gen. Abud Qanbar.
The appointment is highly significant because it is Maliki's first public move after President Bush's announcement that he was sending more troops to Iraq. The prime mission of those troops is to reduce violence in Baghdad, much of which is blamed on sectarian fighters.
As the Iraqi commander for the capital, Qanbar would play a central role in that campaign, and any ties he might have to sectarian groups could undermine the new U.S. effort.
{More on link.}
Maureen Dowd | A Risky Game of Risk
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011307D.shtml
"I feel good about the new war with Iran," writes Maureen Dowd. "How can you not have confidence in the crackerjack team that brought you Operation Iraqi Freedom, which foundered and led to Operation Together Forward, which stumbled and led to Operation Together Forward II, which collapsed and was replaced by The New Way Forward, the Surge now being launched even though nobody's together and everything's going backward?"
Pentagon Intensifies Pressure on Iran
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011307A.shtml
Even as President Bush seeks larger numbers of troops to stabilize Iraq, the Pentagon is intensifying operations there on another front: challenging Iran over its alleged role in destabilizing its Arab neighbor. Yesterday, multinational forces including US troops detained six Iranian officials in Iraqi Kurdistan who were suspected of aiding Shiite Muslim militants in Iraq. It was the second detainment by US-led forces of Iranian officials in Iraq in less than a month.
William Fisher | Mohamed al-Hatfield vs. Ahmed al-McCoy
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011307B.shtml
"It's been a few days since President Bush spoke to the American people about his new 'strategy' for 'victory' in Iraq. Reading the newspapers, listening to radio and watching television, one would think all the words that could possibly be written or spoken on this speech have finally been exhausted. But when the punditocracy gets hold of this kind of issue, the last word is never written or spoken. And I am under no delusions that my words will be anything near the last. But I will write them anyway," says William Fisher.
{Good informal description of culture differences that will never be resolved follows the above quoted intro.}
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ap_on_re_us/cia_leak_trial
Libby heads to trial in CIA leak case
WASHINGTON - Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby goes on trial Tuesday over the administration's response to one critic who questioned assertions President Bush made four years ago to justify waging war against Iraq.
{{{To put a fine a point on the politics of distraction, if people are talking about DimWit's illegal war, escalation of that war, then they won't be focusing on Libby's trial and any damaging evidence that could taint the reputations of certain "leaders" regarding the lies they told to get into the illegal war in Iraq in the first place.... Jury selection begins on Tuesday, the trial will follow that, so after the jury selection is when I expect to see huge amounts of distraction to keep Lamestream Media from focusing on the actual trial.}}}
Two very fine commentaries today that are related to the same topic --
Glenn Greenwald at Unclaimed Territory
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/rod-dreher-hadnt-hippies-tried-to-tell.html
and Barbara O'Brien at The Mahablog
http://www.mahablog.com/2007/01/13/betrayal/
They add some thoughtful perspective that may be useful in understanding how to reach out to conservatives who feel betrayed by the Bush administration.
The Pentagon is now spying on US citizens … not the CIA – (well, they’re doing it too, in addition to the FBI – the traditional agency tasked with monitoring US citizens) – the Pentagon is spying. Tell me something isn’t seriously wrong somewhere.
from the New York Times:
January 14, 2007
Military Expands Intelligence Role in U.S.
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 — The Pentagon has been using a little-known power to obtain banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage inside the United States, part of an aggressive expansion by the military into domestic intelligence gathering.
read the rest here...
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/washington/14spy.html?ei=5094&en=203bd3d1f0cd9644&hp=&ex=1168750800&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1168729557-AwMiPAKJCqLQogTeEkfdLA&pagewanted=print
I can think of a few cost-cutting opportunities for the Bush Regime in order to invest in restoring the "broken" cities at home. As well as the obvious - bring the troops home.
One possibility for cost-cutting that is close to my heart is the closing down of Guantanamo. The Bush Regime has failed to torture evidence from hundreds of inmates who have been there up to 5 years. Now, after so long, the Regime failure should be acknowledged and the place closed. Send the Gitmo residents to their own homes. And close the gates. Wow! What a saving that would be huh? No more huge dog food bills, for the 4 legged ones as well as the two legged ones inflicting the physical and psychological torture.
There is growing awareness of this shame across the world. Now, we need to show the world where money for Guantanamo and other torture camps in the former Eastern bloc countries has been stolen from.
The Australian legal fraternity has become extremely militant over David Hicks. This does my heart good because I've assumed the impossibility of finding a lawyer with a soul. And they've been here all along!
Explain: Hulls to US law chief
Kate Hagan
January 14, 2007
THE State Government is demanding the US Attorney-General front the next meeting of Australia's chief law officers to answer questions about Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks.
Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls said he had no confidence in the ability of his federal counterpart, Philip Ruddock, to stand up for Hicks' right to a fair trial. Mr Hulls wrote to Mr Ruddock on Friday requesting he arrange for US Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales to appear by video-conference at the next standing committee of attorneys-general meeting in April.
"I've got to say that I am sick and tired of Mr Ruddock's prevarication and political spin," Mr Hulls said.
"It's been virtually impossible to get a straight answer from him about specifics concerning David Hicks."
Hicks' father, Terry, said he supported the move and hoped it would shed some light on his son's case.
Mr Hicks said indications from the Federal Government last week that it would push to have David Hicks' five years in Guantanamo Bay subtracted from any prison sentence were too little, too late.
Cont.....
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/explain-hulls-to-us-law-chief/2007/01/13/1168105227927.html
He's being done over to protect politicians
Major Michael Mori
January 14, 2007
WHEN I was assigned to represent David Hicks, I knew the US Administration and those within the military commissions system, such as Colonel Morris Davis, chief prosecutor for the US Office of Military Commissions, would resist providing an Australian the same rights and protections as an American. I never imagined Australian ministers would actively support the United States' hypocritical treatment of an Australian.
Cont.....
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/hes-being-done-over-to-protect-politicians/2007/01/13/1168105227930.html
Pressure too great for Hicks to remain
Penelope Debelle
January 14, 2007
DAVID Hicks has spent so long on his own he seems on the brink of withdrawing from human contact.
He refused a Christmas phone link-up with his family in Adelaide because he was unable to deal with the remnants of conversation and visions of home that would rattle around in his head for the next few months. It was easier, his family was told, for him not to speak to them at all, to remain in the dark and not let in the light. During an attempted consular visit in November, Hicks sat in a chair with his back turned on the embassy official who had journeyed to the southern tip of Cuba from Washington via a military flight from Fort Lauderdale just to see him.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/pressure-too-great-for-hicks-to-remain/2007/01/13/1168105227933.html
{{{This was the aim - when it became obvious that he was innocent, he had to be silenced. It's working. And note the assumption of guilt of these so-called lawyers - we want the 5 years subtracted from his sentence - huh? You have to be found guilty to get a sentence. Oh yeh. Everywhere but in the American military that is. And of course, the Australian Government.}}}
BUSH'S LEGACY ENSHRINED FOR $500 MILLION?
By Bill Berkowitz, Media Transparency
With an expected half-billion dollar from a handful of megadonors, George W. Bush's 'truest believers' plan the mother of all presidential libraries and conservative think tanks.
http://www.alternet.org/stories/46526/
{Interesting Comments!}
BUSH'S IRAQ PLAN: GOADING IRAN INTO WAR
By Trita Parsi, IPS News
President George W. Bush's address on Iraq Wednesday night was less about Iraq than about its eastern neighbour, Iran.
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/46654/
THE NIGHTMARE WEAPONRY OF OUR FUTURE
By Frida Berrigan, Tomdispatch.com
The Armed Forces can't adequately equip those already in uniform, but the Pentagon is committing itself to massive corporate contracts for new high-tech weapons systems slated to come on-line decades from now.
http://www.alternet.org/stories/46545/
Excerpt:
But as those billions are sucked away, what happens to our dreams of clear skies, cures for pandemics, solutions to global warming and energy depletion? To make more human dreams our future reality, we have to stop feeding the military's nightmare monsters.
STAND UP AGAINST THE "SURGE"
By Molly Ivins, AlterNet
We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders and we need to raise hell.
http://www.alternet.org/stories/46657/
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070113/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush
Bush to skeptics: What's your Iraq plan?
Excerpt: "The Iraqi government knows that it must meet them, or lose the support of the Iraqi and the American people," Bush said.
{{{Well, I did wonder when that question would come up.... (1) The Dems didn't start the illegal war. (2) Any proposals to stop the war have been vigorously derided as cowardly in the past years and DimWit would say the same of any new (or old) plans they might propose. (3) Even if the Dems did have a new plan, Georgie wouldn't listen to it anyway - he hasn't listened to any Dem (or even Repub) plans in the past; his goal is still that of the neoCon's and PNAC's: World domination through controlling most of the oil in the world. Question to Bush: So, what's you point in asking such a ridiculous question? And: Don'tcha just love it when DimWit speaks for you and me? I noticed that in the Wed. night speech when he said the American people would not be happy... (or whatever the quote was - it was a short sentence)... and that he would not be happy if Iraq failed. How the hell would he know? He's never asked anyone out here in Smallville what we think, what we'd like, or opinions about his war.... There are those of us who knew he was lying from the get-go, as far back as the 2K debates for sure when we knew he was lying when he said he wouldn't do any nation building, that he would invade Iraq to finish his daddy's war, and we didn't want a war under any circumstances to begin with. Bush's question is juvenile and defensive at best, and totally ridiculous.}}}
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/01/13/analyzing-oreilly/
Analyzing O'Reilly
{{{For Karen, in particular... Analysis of O'Lielly's body language and his obsession with NBC being a "liberal" network.}}}
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/01/13/colbert-debates-gitmo-on-5-year-anniversary/
Colbert Debates Gitmo on 5 Year Anniversary
Thanks Nonny; I'll check it out!
I just finished two days of teaching eight hours each day and I am sitting here and reading the daily outrages. Carol, beautiful job on telling the story you found in NOLA and I agree with everyone here--we have not even begun to help. I am hoping to go down there this summer, with the family.
Richard is in Vancouver, but I wanted the DCP family to see what he has been doing; you can check out his Kos diary here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/13/193246/405
And now, some recuperation--movies with Larry. Tomorrow I teach another workshop on moving activism. Will report on that afterwards--I expect to learn lots!
Karen
Very good diary by Dick & I'll pass it on. I just watched the documentary Congressman McDermott brought back from his meeting in the middle east with a delegation of moderates who told him in no uncertain terms (over various dinners) what the US did wrong in the middle east & what they think has to be done now, or the situation is more or less hopeless. I'll be working on organizing the information. He also confirmed some of what we've been talking about re the neocons and Iran. You're right that people on the Hill are talking about that.
The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent.
~ Gore Vidal ~
The “Surge” Is A Red Herring
By Paul Craig Roberts
Bush states perfectly clearly that victory in Iraq requires US forces to attack Iran and Syria. Moreover, Bush says, “We are also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16143.htm
Baghdad Crackdown
By Mike Whitney
The crackdown in Baghdad and the anticipated bombing of Iran will have no significant affect on the war’s outcome. America has lost its ability to influence events positively or to arbitrarily assert its will. We’re now facing “death by a thousand cuts” and the steady erosion of US power.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16144.htm
George W. Bush: A Symptom of Disease
By Charles Sullivan
Sometimes you look around and wonder how things could have gone so wrong so quickly. America has become the antithesis of everything she purports to be. We are the greatest purveyors of violence the world has ever known; the largest weapons dealers on earth; and death and misery are our principal exports. Everything is for sale here, even men’s tormented souls—at least, those who still possess them.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16155.htm
U.S. Somalia air raids hit nomads, 70 dead - Oxfam
By Reuters
U.S. air attacks have mistakenly targeted nomadic herdsmen gathering round fires, killing 70, British-based aid agency Oxfam said on Friday.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16147.htm
Turk PM asserts right to intervene in Iraq, raps US:
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Friday reaffirmed Turkey's right to send troops into Iraq to crush Kurdish rebels there and chided U.S. officials for questioning it.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16146.htm
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5131
The corporate and economic reasons for war
{{{This is an Australian article from 10 Nov 2006 and what it has to say is important... but the map... oh, the map...!}}}
Bush today called 70% of the American people "irresponsible"
by John in DC - 1/13/2007 08:59:00 PM
Seriously. This is important what happened today. In an effort to sell his Iraq escalation plan, Bush went on the offense and accused the overwhelming majority of Americans who have concerns about his plan of being "irresponsible." That speaks volumes to both Bush's arrogance and his disdain for the American people. Apparently, now the debacle in Iraq is your fault, our fault. It's everybody's fault but Bush and the Republican party who brought us this war in the first place. Our country simply cannot afford two more years of this man in power.
Methinks the king is insane.
Our country simply cannot afford two more years of this man in power.
Posted by: Fe at January 13, 2007 10:33 PM
Fe, I could not agree more! His plans are scaring the wits out of me, that's for sure. And your next statement is accurate.
The king IS insane.
He has it wrong. It was irresponsible to go to Iraq and fire the military, let Iranians run in at the borders, facilitate the takeover of Shiites. It was wrong for him to listen to the neocons, Paul Bremer and Ahmed Chalabi. He says he made mistakes and takes responsibility for them, er uh, that mistakes were made. It is a pathological case of paranoid projection to call anyone else irresponsible. He made sure Saddam was taken down, unleashed Iran, and now blames Iran. That's really wierd.
While I was under the drug-induced stupor of prescription pain meds in 2000 after back surgery I knew DimWit was insane, and that was even before the debates when I was totally lucid.
I never did figure out why people in Lamestream Media couldn't see the same thing I did (even while I was mostly out of it from pain meds). I've wondered if Media personnel were all part of a secret mass hypnotic experiment since they all have the same platitudes and say the same flattering things about the illiterate, nearly incoherent stumble-bum who was appointed by SCOTUS. Then, there was the religious reich-wingnuttia groups who elevated him to sainthood (why, I never did figure out; nothing I ever read or heard from them made any sense).
Worse yet, Congress Critters have given him everything he's demanded, and I've wondered about their sanity, how much money they've been taking in bribes to vote in his favor (both neoCons and Dems who approved so much nonsense which has resulted in him now having dictatorial power), and how he was blackmailing them into appeasing his childish temper tantrums.
This country has been under a state of delusional mass hysteria for six years. I think it's high time for Reality to bitch-slap the collective masses who haven't been able to see what's been under their noses all along: namely, the king is naked, insane, and if he's not stopped, he's gonna get us all nuked....
After the Surge .. What Next?
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1989912,00.html
food for thought .. discussion .. nightmares
Experts Doubt Iraqis Can Make Bush Plan Work
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/13/MNGRQNI8VG1.DTL
Rice's Visit - the Right Photo Op
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/812924.html
Ahmadinejad hugs Chavez
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-01/13/content_5602636.htm
In a wierd way, Bush made this possible by enabling Iran via attacking Iraq.
King of the Iranian Bloggers
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/812597.html
This is fascinating!!
An interesting development in McCain's candidacy for the Repub nomination race...
Why St. McCain Ain’t Winnin’ the 2008 Nomination
http://sadlyno.com/archives/4818.html
Important reading regarding what's happening in Iraq. In particular, check out the last 6-7 paragraphs of the article...
On Iraq, U.S. Turns to Onetime Dissenters
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 14, 2007; A01
First of an occasional series
Timothy M. Carney went to Baghdad in April 2003 to run Iraq's Ministry of Industry and Minerals. Unlike many of his compatriots in the Green Zone, the rangy, retired American ambassador wasn't fazed by chaos. He'd been in Saigon during the Tet Offensive, Phnom Penh as it was falling to the Khmer Rouge and Mogadishu in the throes of Somalia's civil war. Once he received his Halliburton-issued Chevrolet Suburban, he disregarded security edicts and drove around Baghdad without a military escort. His mission, as he put it, "was to listen to the Iraqis and work with them."
He left after two months, disgusted and disillusioned. The U.S. occupation administration in Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), placed ideology over pragmatism, he believed. His boss, viceroy L. Paul Bremer, refused to pay for repairs needed to reopen many looted state-owned factories, even though they had employed tens of thousands of Iraqis. Carney spent his days screening workers for ties to the Baath Party.
"Planning was bad," he wrote in his diary on May 8, "but implementation is worse."
When he returned to Washington, he made little secret of his views. They were so scathing that his wife lost a government contract. He figured his days of working on Iraq were over.
Until a phone call on Tuesday.
David Satterfield, the State Department's Iraq coordinator, was on the line with a question: Would Carney be willing to go back to Baghdad as the overall coordinator of the American reconstruction effort?
read the rest here...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/13/AR2007011301372_pf.html
Lots of articles about Republican divisions and the moderates "now voting their conscience instead of obeying the iron fist".
With this in mind, are there any Republican Senators who would become independent or switch parties so that we can ditch Lieberman?
Either way...Lieberman is not independent nor an independent Dem. He's right of moderate Republicans. We should have a movement to take away Lieberman's committee.
Gee...maybe we can find some Republicans to call and ask them to switch party allegiance completely!
Dwahzon
Good article about the guy under Bremer - sure complements what I heard from Congressman McDermott's information yesterday - about Bremer the ideologue.
If they want to undo any of the damage they did with deBa'athization, why are they using Chalabi? That's the guy they shouldn't have listened to in the first place. Oh - it looks like now they can't get rid of him - he's made inroads. Is it any wonder our government was against anything that had been state-owned, & wanted factories etc. privatized? & then it's easier to have foreign ownership as well. Just amazing.
Sparrow
Wouldn't we need about a dozen Republicans to switch allegiance in the Senate & then we could impeach Bush without failing to focus on domestic things that need to be done & winning in 2008? With their help, we could do it all. It would be like a miracle if they & their constituents woke up to that degree.
Too bad people were swayed by the ideologues & neocons in the beginning. I guess we need to fundamentally change our way of life, such as extreme dependence on fossil fuels & consumerism. That would be a big step. Every time people see the light about something - fast foods & transfat, smoking, etc. - it's a step - but is it too little too late? Why does everything always have to reach a critical point before things change? It's kind of like the person who ignores his/her health & then had a crisis such as a heart attack & then tries to live better. That's the way so many people have lived, including politically.
More craziness - why are there Iranians in Iraq? Because Bremer fired the Army and they rushed in through Saddam's former border checkpoints. Then Iranians who had been in exile came in and even joined the government. Now it's the fault of the Iranians, according to neocons such as Steve Hadley, who favor "controlled chaos" from which to build their "new middle east."
Bush says Iran and Syria have not blocked their people from coming in at the borders. Like I said, Bremer fired the Iraqi army, first thing when arriving in Iraq.
US threatens Iran over Iraq
The White House said today that Iranians are aiding the insurgency in Iraq and that the US has the authority to pursue them because they “put our people at risk.”
“We are going to need to deal with what Iran is doing inside Iraq,” national security adviser Stephen Hadley said.
And said Vice President Dick Cheney: “Iran is fishing in troubled waters inside Iraq.”
(Snip)
“We do not want them doing what they can to destabilise the situation inside Iraq,” Cheney said.
President Bush’s revised war strategy seeks to isolate Iran and Syria, which the US has accused of fuelling attacks in Iraq. The president also says that Iran and Syria have not done enough to block terrorists from entering Iraq over their borders.
“We know there are jihadists moving from Syria into Iraq. ... We know also that Iran is supplying elements in Iraq that are attacking Iraqis and attacking our forces,” Hadley said.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/breaking/story.asp?j=4401045&p=44xyx6x&n=4401137&x=
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/01/13/worlds-worst-wingnuts-and-klingons-in-the-white-house/
World’s Worst Wingnuts and Klingons in the White House
Glenn Beck, Saint McCain, Gretchen Carlson, FOX News.com, and General Kristol take home this week's medals for worst persons in the world and Klingons and handrail-lickers are thrown into the mix for a little comedic effect.
Opposition to Iraq Plan Leaves Bush Isolated
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011407Z.shtml
The bipartisan opposition to President Bush's troop-increase plan has proved more intense than his advisers hoped and has left them scrambling to find support, but the White House is banking on the assumption that it can execute its "new way forward" in Iraq before Congress can derail it.
Excerpt:
Bush invited GOP leaders to Camp David this weekend and will argue his case to the nation on CBS's "60 Minutes" tonight. Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley will also hit the airwaves today.
"We recognize that many members of Congress are skeptical," Bush said in his radio address yesterday, adding: "Members of Congress have a right to express their views, and express them forcefully. But those who refuse to give this plan a chance to work have an obligation to offer an alternative that has a better chance for success. To oppose everything while proposing nothing is irresponsible."
Many Democrats, in fact, have proposed alternatives centered around pulling out troops, an idea Bush flatly rejects. So hopes for a bipartisan consensus after Democrats captured Congress in the November midterm elections have evaporated, and Bush appears more isolated than ever.
~~~~~
The more serious threat to the White House would be a Democratic attempt to restrict funds for more troops. Bush aides said that current funds are enough to get started, and they are counting on the notion that it will take two months until the supplemental appropriation bill providing more war funds comes to a vote. By then, they said, extra troops will be on the ground and it will be too late for Congress to stop them. And they hope for signs of progress that would let them argue that the plan is working.
{{{Interestingly, WaPo actually admits Dems have proposed alternatives (plural!) and their ideas were rejected...! They aren't poo-pooing Dem ideas, but they still imply it's the Dems fault that there isn't a bipartisan consensus - they need to figure out there could be a bipartisan consensus if DimWit actually listened to any ideas that have a shred of common sense and don't kow-tow to his childish, frat-boy, megalomaniacal ego whose definition of bipartisan means his way or no way.}}}
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6260301.stm
Iran demands nationals' release
Iran has demanded that the US military immediately release five of its nationals detained in a raid in northern Iraq on Thursday.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6260171.stm
Baby son joy for test-tube mother
The world's first "test-tube baby", Louise Brown, has spoken of her joy at giving birth to her first child.
{Wow! Can you believe the first IVF "baby" was born 28 years ago and is now a mother herself?}
The surge is a military model that doesn't solve political issues.
Here is the ending of Fareed Zakaria's article in Newsweek:
Over the past three and a half years, the dominant flaw in the Bush administration's handling of Iraq is that it has, both intentionally and inadvertently, driven the country's several communities apart. Every seemingly neutral action—holding elections, firing Baathists from the bureaucracy, building up an Iraqi military and police force—has had seismic sectarian consequences. The greatest danger of Bush's new strategy, then, isn't that it won't work but that it will—and thereby push the country one step further along the road to all-out civil war. Only a sustained strategy of pressure on the Maliki government—unlike anything Bush has been willing to do yet—has any chance of averting this outcome.
Otherwise, American interests and ideals will both be in jeopardy. Al Qaeda in Iraq—the one true national-security threat we face from that country—will gain Sunni support. In addition, as American officers like Duke and Brady have noted, our ideals will be tarnished. The U.S. Army will be actively aiding and assisting in the largest program of ethnic cleansing since Bosnia. Is that the model Bush wanted for the Middle East?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16610769/site/newsweek/page/2/
Anyone following Condi's trip? It seems like another one of those "coalition of the unwilling" things.
NonnyO
Dems aren't bipartisan enough, acc/the administration? Why didn't Bush listen to the Baker commission about diplomacy. That was certainly bipartisan.
I say isolate the President politically and clarify the Constitution so the President can never declare war without explicit Congressional approval.
New battle lines form over Bush troop decision
Congressional opposition to President Bush's decision to send more troops to Iraq has opened a new front in an increasingly complex war, setting the stage for political battles whose effects may be felt long after U.S. forces have come home.
As if Sunni nationalists, Islamic extremists, foreign fighters and Shiite militias were not enough, Bush must now battle the Democratic leadership in Congress, as well as influential figures in his own Republican Party, who oppose his plan to send 21,500 more troops into the war.
The battlelines are reminiscent of the political struggles that occurred during two other unpopular wars - Korea and Vietnam.
Those struggles produced sweeping changes in the U.S. political landscape that persisted long after the guns fell silent.
Democratic leaders of Congress, fresh from victory at the polls in November, hope to force a vote on the Bush plan in the House and Senate, thereby isolating the president politically. Although those votes will be nonbinding, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico said on MSNBC he expects them to be followed by measures "that restrict troop funding and all kinds of financial support for the war."
(snip)
Bush's plan is reminiscent of the furor unleashed by President Nixon's 1970 decision to invade Cambodia during the final stage of the Vietnam War. The Cambodian incursion, as it was known at the time, occurred at a time when the U.S. public was clamoring for an end to the conflict in Southeast Asia. In seeking to justify his decision, Nixon said the goal was to destroy North Vietnamese sanctuaries in Cambodia and force Hanoi back to negotiations.
Last week, Bush said the reinforcements were necessary to bring stability to Baghdad so that the Iraqis could reach a political agreement. Military analysts are divided over whether Bush's plan can succeed, and the administration has refrained from a detailed explanation of what it would do if it fails.
But the 1970 invasion simply drove the North Vietnamese deeper into Cambodia. Five years later, both South Vietnam and Cambodia fell under communist rule. Nevertheless, the showdown over Cambodia cast a long shadow over American politics for a generation. The invasion enraged Congress, triggering legislative battles that culminated in the War Powers Act of 1973 that sets limits on a president's power to wage war without congressional approval.
Although the act's constitutionality has never been fully tested in court, Congress has invoked it on several occasions, setting conditions and limitations on the use of U.S. forces in the Middle East, Africa, Haiti and the Balkans. Vice President Dick Cheney and others have cited the 1973 law as a major element in Vietnam-era legislation that has severely undermined presidential authority to this day.
However, wartime showdowns between presidents and Congress occurred long before the Vietnam conflict. Those political struggles reflect an ambiguity in the Constitution, which grants Congress the power to declare war but includes no language defining such a declaration. As a result, many of America's conflicts, including the Civil War, have been fought without a declaration approved by Congress.
(snip)
http://www.cleveland.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news/1168777990202170.xml&coll=2&thispage=2
Here are some more photos from our New Orleans trip. The rest of mine aren't posted there yet, but will be. These are from others on the trip.
Two vans full were gutting, one was re-building (mostly hanging dry-wall). The other gutting group had a house that was still filled with all the owner's belongings. Startling photos and experience.
Strangely the elderly woman had lots of Christmas stuff in the house - even though it was August!!
http://www.cs.amherst.edu/lam/photos/Katrina/Dec2006/
From the NYTimes -- OT from the header but worth some time:
They Say We Have Too Many Lawsuits? Tell It to Jack Cline
By ADAM COHEN
Published: January 14, 2007
Birmingham, Ala.
Jack Cline is in a hospital here fighting for his life, stricken by leukemia that he says he got from exposure to benzene at his factory job. In most states, he would be able to sue the companies that made the benzene. But Alabama’s all-Republican, wildly pro-business Supreme Court threw out his case.
In a ruling that would have done Kafka proud, the court held that there was never a valid time for Mr. Cline to sue. If he had sued when he was exposed to the benzene, it would have been too early. Alabama law requires people exposed to dangerous chemicals to wait until a “manifest” injury develops. But when his leukemia developed years later, it was too late. Alabama’s statute of limitations requires that suits be brought within two years of exposure.
read the rest here...
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/opinion/14sun2.html?_r=1&n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fEditorials&oref=slogin
Carol
Enjoyed the photos very much.
Wonderful story, activism, and most especially, caring.
Quisling Lieberman quashed investigation and campaign promise into Bush responsibility for Katrina. Some say it's because of the insurance industry in CT. Makes sense for self-serving Joe.
I often think of ol' Tennessee Ernie's song, and what ya' get is another day older and deeper in debt. I listened to terrifying testimony about Katrina as part of Bush's Crimes Against Humanity hearings.
Rice not doing so well in Israel/Palestine or Jordan, & Hadley & Cheney sounding scary & nuts on the Sunday talk shows -
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/01/14/iran.us/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Asked repeatedly whether the United States has the authority to enter Iran if it believes doing so would help prevent attacks, Hadley did not answer. Then came this exchange:
Host George Stephanopoulos: "So, you don't believe you have the authority to go into Iran?"
Hadley: "I didn't say that. This is another issue. Any time you have questions about crossing international borders, there are legal issues."
Several senators have voiced opposition to the idea of the United States entering Iran. Last week, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Delaware, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a hearing on Iraq, "I believe the present authorization granted the president to use force in Iraq does not cover that, and he does need congressional authority to do that."
Rice did not rule out entering Iran or give a position on whether the Bush administration would need congressional approval. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, told Rice, "No one in our government can sit here today and tell Americans that we won't engage the Iranians and the Syrians cross-border."
Comparisons to Vietnam war
"When our government lied to the American people and said, 'We didn't cross the border going into Cambodia,' in fact, we did," Hagel said, referring to the Vietnam war. "So, Madam Secretary, when you set in motion the kind of policy that the president is talking about here, it's very, very dangerous."
During the Vietnam war, the Nixon administration denied U.S. troops were conducting raids into neighboring Cambodia to stop the flow of weapons to South Vietnam's communist insurgency.
The Bush administration says dramatic action must be taken in Iraq to halt alleged Iranian meddling. Vice President Dick Cheney took that message to "Fox News Sunday," saying, "It's been pretty well-known that Iran is fishing in troubled waters, if you will, inside Iraq. And the president has responded to that. ... I think it's exactly the right thing to do."
This is such a good editorial. I love Financial Times & The Economist.
Surge towards debacle in Iraq and MidEast
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/ef4edfbe-a19f-11db-8bc1-0000779e2340.html
George W. Bush’s new direction in Iraq is certainly not a strategy for victory, whatever that word, which is used ever more desperately by the US president, now means. It may be one last heave. It may be a cover for US withdrawal. But two things are quite clear.
Right now, Mr Bush has the support of no more than one in four Americans for this so-called surge of an extra 20,000 or so troops. Very soon, as the already indecipherable ethnic and sectarian patchwork of Iraq is pulled further and even more bloodily to pieces, he will have none.
Second, this policy will not succeed in fixing an Iraq traumatised by tyranny and war and then broken by invasion and occupation. But it may end with the US “surging” into Iran – and taking the Middle East to a new level of mayhem that will spill into nearby regions and western capitals.
Mr Bush’s body language in the speech bespoke a chastened man. Yet, caught in a wilfully spun web of delusion and denial, he seems still unable to comprehend the depths of the debacle he has caused in Iraq.
Iraq has reached advanced societal breakdown, with ethnic cleansing on a regional, neighbourhood and even street-by-street basis. There has been a mass exodus of its professionals and managers, civil servants and entrepreneurs, a haemorrhage of its future. The time for the occupying authorities to have surged was 2003, after the fall of Baghdad; like everything they have tried since, this is far too little, much too late. The US deployed a similar number of troops last summer to “lock down” Baghdad, since when the number of killed in the capital alone has rocketed to more than 100 a day, while on average an attack occurs against Anglo-American forces every 10 minutes, and this in a fight now mainly between the minority Sunni deposed from power and the hitherto dispossessed Shia majority drunk with it.
(read the rest - it sums up so much)
Just like the the couple of Israeli soldiers were provocation for an disproportionate and deadly response to Lebanon, now Bremer leaving borders open to justify a military answer to Iran. With all their Oil.
Makes me think the neo-cons never wanted a solution in Iraq, but a drip-drip until we could escalate.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070114/pl_afp/ustrialpoliticsiraq_070114183612
Ex-White House aide's trial full of political intrigue
{More on link. I still wonder how much will be discovered in the Libby trial that The Cretin and the Vice Cretin do not want discussed about the lying origins of their war will not be talked about in Lamestream Media for the simple reason that the escalation news has sucked up all the attention....}
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070114/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq
Critics won't halt Iraq surge, Bush says
WASHINGTON - President Bush, facing opposition from both parties over his plan to send more troops to Iraq, said he has the authority to act no matter what Congress wants.
I fully understand they could try to stop me from doing it. But I've made my decision. And we're going forward," Bush told CBS' "60 Minutes" in an interview to air Sunday night.
Vice President Dick Cheney asserted that lawmakers' criticism will not influence Bush's plans and he dismissed any effort to "run a war by committee."
"The president is the commander in chief. He's the one who has to make these tough decisions," Cheney said.
The defiant White House stance comes as both the House and Senate, now controlled by Democrats, prepare to vote on resolutions that oppose additional U.S. troops in Iraq. Cheney said those nonbinding votes would not affect Bush's ability to carry out his policies.
"He's the guy who's got to decide how to use the force and where to deploy the force," Cheney said. "And Congress obviously has to support the effort through the power of the purse. So they've got a role to play, and we certainly recognize that. But you also cannot run a war by committee."
Any attempts to block Bush's efforts would undermine the troops, Cheney said. He took particular aim at Democratic lawmakers who have blasted the president for increasing troops despite opposition from Congress, military advisers and a disgruntled electorate that in November ousted the GOP as the majority party on Capitol Hill.
"They have absolutely nothing to offer in its place," Cheney said of Democratic leaders. "I have yet to hear a coherent policy from the Democratic side."
Yet many Republican lawmakers, too, have begun to criticize Bush's war management. Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record) of Nebraska, for example, said last week he feared Bush's plan would be the worst foreign policy blunder since the Vietnam War.
Responding to that, Cheney said the most dangerous blunder would be to give up on the global fight against terrorism because the United States has decided the war in Iraq is too difficult. That is just what America's terrorist enemies are counting on, he said.
"They're convinced that the United States will pack it in and go home if they just kill enough of us," Cheney said. "They can't beat us in a standup fight, but they think they can break our will."
{{{More on link from the other Crowing Cockerels in the administration....}}}
Marjorie G
I agree - the Neocons with their "controlled chaos" - & plans for the New Middle East. They redistrict there just as they do here - to cheat and plunder.
No surprise Cheney is talking like that - it is a complete conflict of interest to have former CEO of an oil & reconstruction company as Vice President of a powerful country which needs more oil. If it hadn't been for his company, the first Gulf War wouldn't have happened. Unbelievable.
here's a well-written post at Firedoglake:
Thank You, President Bush
By: Oilfieldguy
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/01/13/thank-you-president-bush/
I particularly liked this thank you but there are others you may like as well.
"Thank you President Bush for doing the impossible; you damn near organized the Democratic party."
Posted by: Marjorie G at January 14, 2007 03:16 PM
Yes, Marjorie - I fear you are right.
Frank Rich | He's in the Bunker Now
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011407D.shtml
Frank Rich writes: "President Bush always had one asset he could fall back on: the self-confidence of a born salesman. Like Harold Hill in 'The Music Man,' he knew how to roll out a new product, however deceptive or useless, with conviction and stagecraft. What the world saw on Wednesday night was a defeated Willy Loman who looked as broken as his war. His flop sweat was palpable even if you turned down the sound to deflect despair-inducing phrases like 'Prime Minister Maliki has pledged ...' and 'Secretary Rice will leave for the region. ...' Mr. Bush seemed to know his product was snake oil, and his White House handlers did too."
Excerpts:
The most muscle the former Mr. Bring-'Em-On could muster in Wednesday's speech was this: "If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people." Since that support vanished long ago, it's hard to imagine an emptier threat or a more naked confession of American impotence, all the more pathetic in a speech rattling sabers against Syria and Iran.
~~~~~
I have long felt that it will be up to Mr. Bush's own party to ring down the curtain on his failed policy, and after the 2006 midterms, that is more true than ever. The lame-duck president, having lost both houses of Congress and at least one war (Afghanistan awaits), has nothing left to lose. That is far from true of his party.
Even conservatives like Sam Brownback of Kansas and Norm Coleman of Minnesota started backing away from Iraq last week. Mr. Brownback is running for president in 2008, and Mr. Coleman faces a tough re-election fight. But Republicans not in direct electoral jeopardy (George Voinovich of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska) are also starting to waver. It's another Vietnam-Watergate era flashback. It wasn't Democrats or the press that forced Richard Nixon's abdication in 1974; it was dwindling Republican support. Though he had vowed to fight his way through a Senate trial, Nixon folded once he lost the patriarchal leader of his party's right wing.
That leader was Barry Goldwater, who had been one of Nixon's most loyal and aggressive defenders until he finally realized he'd been lied to once too often. If John McCain won't play the role his Arizona predecessor once did, we must hope that John Warner or some patriot like him will, for the good of the country, answer the call of conscience. A dangerous president must be saved from himself, so that the American kids he's about to hurl into the hell of Baghdad can be saved along with him.
{{{Hmmm.... Do you suppose there's a neoCon out there with enough balls to oppose Bu$hCo...?}}}
Bush Breaks 150-Year History of Higher US Taxes in Wartime
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011407Y.shtml
It was once considered Americans' patriotic duty: enduring
extraordinary tax increases in wartime to help finance the fight. Not today. Iraq is the only major US conflict, except for the 1846-48 Mexican-American War, in which citizens haven't been asked to make a special financial sacrifice. President George W. Bush opposes tax increases, even as the costs escalate far beyond predictions and he calls for more troops.
Excerpt:
"Deficit-Financed"
"The increase in military outlays was not financed through higher tax revenues or lower non-military outlays," the CRS said of the Iraq war. "Therefore the war can be thought to be entirely deficit- financed."
While some lawmakers express their discontent with the way the Iraq conflict has been financed, few have called for a surcharge to pay for it, or used it as a justification to propose other tax increases.
"Some way has got to be found to pay for this war," said Senator Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat who heads the budget committee. "The president's plan is to continue to put it on the charge card. That's no longer a viable strategy."
you suppose there's a neoCon out there with enough balls to oppose Bu$hCo. NonnyO
I think it's