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Michael Parker's Journal
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Wednesday, June 30, 2004 |
After Spain's terrorist attacks on March 11th, which resulted in the ruling party (friendly to the Bush agenda) being voted out of power just days later. The results of their election sent shockwaves through the Republican party here in America. Sean Hannity, I do recall, along with Condi Rice, suggested that America should consider cancelling elections in case of a terrorist attack.
This topic came up again today by the new federal Voting Commission. I get concerned when I hear talk like this because it makes me wonder if they know something and are trying to get it approved so that when an attack does happen then it will be seen as legal to cancel elections, if you catch my drift. (Isn't this the pattern we have seen with torture methods for detainees?)
Nonetheless, here is the information of the AP article by Erica Werner:
WASHINGTON - The government needs to establish guidelines for canceling or rescheduling elections if terrorists strike the United States again, says the chairman of a new federal voting commission.
Such guidelines do not currently exist, said DeForest B. Soaries, head of the voting panel.
Soaries was appointed to the federal Election Assistance Commission last year by President Bush (news - web sites). Soaries said he wrote to National Security (news - web sites) Adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in April to raise the concerns....
Events in Spain, where a terrorist attack shortly before the March election possibly influenced its outcome, show the need for a process to deal with terrorists threatening or interrupting the Nov. 2 presidential election in America, he said.
"Look at the possibilities. If the federal government were to cancel an election or suspend an election, it has tremendous political implications. If the federal government chose not to suspend an election it has political implications," said Soaries, a Republican and former secretary of state of New Jersey.
"Who makes the call, under what circumstances is the call made, what are the constitutional implications?" he said. "I think we have to err on the side of transparency to protect the voting rights of the country."
One question: how are you protecting the voting rights of the country by cancelling or postponing an election?
Something to consider: If they do pass a bill that allows such a preposterous cancellation or postponement of the election, what criteria will be expected in order to allow elections? As I wrote in a post a couple of days ago, I received a letter from Orrin Hatch. In his letter, he concluded that "These are difficult times for every American....we must not lose sight of the big picture: we are fighting a shadowy enemy that seeks to destroy our very way of life. The war against terror will last years, possibly decades...."
In these words is the answer. Because of the threat of terrorism that so easily looms over us (thanks to the media), elections could be postponed indefinitely. All hail King George!
10:13:46 PM  | |
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Oh, this is just too good not to post to my journal. I read this at Eschaton, who got it from AmericaBlog:
I just got a live phone-in from the Yankees vs. Boston game in NYC taking place right now. Dick Cheney just got booed by the crowd!
Even as my friend Michael called me from his seats at the game, God Bless America was still playing in the background. During the 7th inning stretch at Yankees Stadium, they play God Bless America and show on the big screen pictures of anyone famous who's in the audience that night. Dick Cheney is apparently in the audience, and as soon as his face went up, the entire crowd started booing! As my friend Michael tells it, this is the blue-collar Bronx we're talking about, and Cheney is still getting booed - not a good sign for the Bush-Cheney ticket. As soon as the camera guys realized Cheney was getting booed, they quickly switched the picture on the screen to someone else.
Michael's read of the situation, as a die-hard Yankees fan: The election is over.
ESPN confirmed the story
Cheney, who visited both clubhouses after batting practice, watched part of the game from the box of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and part from a first-row seat next to the Yankees dugout, where he sat between New York Gov. George Pataki and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Cheney was booed when he was shown on the right-field videoboard during the seventh-inning.
Well, I don't watch baseball so my impression on this is just based off of what gets reported in the news. And I do not recall a Vice President or President getting booed at a baseball game. And just think, the Republican Convention is coming to town. If they are booing now, what do you think it will be like then?
This news really made my day.
9:40:48 PM | |
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From today's MoveOn newsletter:
For years, Fox News has been distorting the facts, covering for President Bush, and bashing groups like MoveOn. Now Uncovered director Robert Greenwald -- working with a group of Fox-monitoring MoveOn members -- has put together a documentary film that exposes Fox for what it is: partisan spin, not news.
We're using this movie to launch an organizing campaign with Common Cause and other great groups to "out" Fox News -- making sure everyone in the country knows the network is stumping for the Republican agenda.
Be among the first to see this new movie, help others see it, and take on Fox by hosting an Outfoxed house party on Sunday evening, July 18th. Sign up at:
http://action.moveon.org/outfoxed/newmeeting.html
Fox News star Bill O'Reilly will stop at nothing in acting as a partisan flak for Bush. When the 9/11 Commission reported finding no evidence of a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda, O'Reilly lashed out at the nation's major newspapers for reporting it. In June alone, O'Reilly compared Bush critics Michael Moore and Al Franken to Nazi propagandists and journalist Bill Moyers to Mao Zedong.
Unfortunately, parroting the Republican Party message is common in Fox's regular news reporting as well. Outfoxed features interviews with seven ex-Fox News employees who describe how, every day, highly partisan talking points are drawn up to influence newscasts.
When Michael Moore was asked what surprised him most during the making of Fahrenheit 9/11, he described his discovery of archived news footage the networks had edited or not aired at all in order to protect President Bush's image. His comments highlight the media's recent failure to independently evaluate Bush's claims before the war -- and no network failed more completely than Fox.
In addition to Common Cause, our partners on this campaign include the Center for American Progress, Free Press, Media Matters for America, and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).
On Sunday, July 18th, we'll get together to see the compelling evidence of Fox's partisanship presented in the Outfoxed film. Then we'll all join an interactive coast-to-coast conference call with Al Franken and director Robert Greenwald, to plan out how we'll take on Fox and take back our media.
7:56:46 PM | |
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Tuesday, June 29, 2004 |
 As the time limit set by his captors draws nigh, investigations into how Hassoun was kidnapped have surfaced. News reports have suggested that Hassoun went missing on June 19th and that he may have walked off the base in an attempt to go to Lebanon, where some of his family live. The San Diego Channel 10's website explained that the US military has "yet to confirm the kidnapping."
An Australian paper suggested that Hassoun deserted his unit.
The family of Hassoun, however, know that the image they saw in the video was Wassef. Here are their comments, as appeared in Channel 10's report:
Hassoun's family -- both in Lebanon and in Utah --- are convinced the videotape they've seen is Hassoun, 10News reported.
"It is him, 100 percent. I wish it was not him. But I've seen him. I know he's my brother," Sami Hassoun said.
Hassoun said his family is shocked to see the images of Islamic militants holding hostage a fellow Muslim and U.S. Marine.
"You don't know what to do and you don't know if you're going to believe it or not. It's like a dream you're seeing. It's very hard. It's just very hard," Hassoun said....
Speaking from Lebanon, Hassoun's brother begged kidnappers to release Wassef -- a member of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Pendleton.
Hassoun lived with his brother and relatives in the Salt Lake City suburb of West Jordan. A family spokesperson said they are still trying to make sense of what has happened.
"We appreciate and thank everyone from the local and national communities for their outpour of support," Hassoun family spokesman Terek Nosseir said.
And more pleas are coming from Hassoun's father, who spoke directly to the men allegedly holding his son.
"I ask them for the sake of God, Prophet Mohammed and their children to release my son and they will have a great reward from God," Mohammed Hassoun said.
Hopefully their pleas to goverments around the world will help get Wassef released. With news today that the three Turkish workers were released from their captors, maybe there is hope.
11:16:39 PM | |
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Scott Matheson is the Democratic candidate for Governor of Utah. His father, Scott Matheson Sr., was a popular two-term governor in the 70's. Scott Matheson is Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law.
The Matheson for Utah Governor campaign is having a slogan contest. I thought I'd come up with some of my own and run them by you first. Of course, not all of these are legitimate options; but it sure was fun coming up with them.
If they are looking for slogans that tie Scott with the governorship of his father, they could consider these:
Scott Matheson: Return of a King
Scott Matheson: Thank Heaven I'm Not Orrin Hatch's Son
Scott Matheson: The Legacy Lives On
If they are looking for slogans comparing him with his opponent Huntsman, they should consider these:
Scott Matheson: Not a Member of the Rich Boys Club
Scott Matheson: If you want a Ken Doll for Governor, Vote the Other Guy
Scott Matheson: The Candidate with No Corporate Ties
Scott Matheson: You won't find Chemicals in his Closet
Scott Matheson: The Law is on My Side
Scott Matheson: At Least I Have a Running-Mate Utahns Like
Scott Matheson: No Strings Attached
If they are looking for some of those warm, fuzzy type slogans, they might consider these:
Scott Matheson: It's Our Time
Scott Matheson: Good for What Ails Utah
Scott Matheson: The Candidate With Latter-day Vision
Scott Matheson: Moving Utah Into a New Century
If they are looking for something in your face, they should consider these:
Scott Matheson: It's about Better Education, Stupid!
Scott Matheson: Democrat. So what?
Scott Matheson: Yo Republicans! Super-size this!
10:43:29 PM | |
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Monday, June 28, 2004 |
I discovered today that Cpl. Wassef Hassoun, the US marine who was abducted by the Iraqi Response militant group, is from Utah and is Muslim. Because of this, I wonder if the militants are treating him as a traitor of the faith--fighting against the Jihad.
Yesterday, the family spoke (via their friend and spokesperson, Tarek Nosseir) to reporters and offered some beautiful sentiments despite the harsh fate that befalls their son this week.
From the Salt Lake City Tribune today:
"In the name of Allah the merciful, the compassionate, we accept destiny with its good and its bad," [Nossier] told reporters. "We pray and we plead for his safe release and we ask all people of the world to join us in our prayers. May God bless us all."
West Jordan police Capt. Gary Cox said the Hassoun family, whom he said were Lebanese, had been contacted by military officials.
Cox said the mood inside the home "was quite somber. They are obviously concerned for the man."
Judy Hassoun, Wassef's former sister-in-law who now lives in Bacliff, Texas, told the Associated Press that Hassoun joined the Marines after moving to the Salt Lake City area. He is serving his second stint in Iraq, she said.
Wassef is one of six children and is originally from Tripoli, Lebanon, she said, adding that he speaks fluent French and is "very peaceful, but very brave, very loving."
Several of the Hassoun family's West Jordan neighbors expressed shocked.
"You see this on the news but you don't expect to see it in your neighborhood," neighbor Karen Oborn said.
Our hearts go out to Cpl. Wassef Hassoun and his family. They'll be in our thoughts and prayers, as will the three Turkish and Pakistani men who are facing a similar fate of decapitation this week, and as have all the victims.
10:29:51 PM | |
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The Guardian newspaper in Britain pointed out the fact that Fahrenheit broke the boxoffice record for a Palme d'Or winner in its opening weekend. The record was previously held by Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction from 1994. It's opening weekend take was $9.3 million.
In regards to the successful weekend at the boxoffice, a reader by the name of Luke left a noteworthy comment on the post "The Barometer" over at Discourse.Net.
This is big. I just saw Fahrenheit 911.... It was intense. The crowd was all sorts of different people, really tough to stereotype. Waiting to get in, people were snaked all around the place in lines that are typically found only at Disney World or the premiere of a Star Wars movie. The crowd turned out to be very interactive, with clapping, gasping, applauding, and so on. There was a standing ovation at the end. This is a POWERFUL movie. I already knew most of what is in there, but its heartening to know that now everyone else in that theatre does too... If this country re-elects Bush, we cannot claim lack of knowledge as a defense.
We know all about him. We know what he said.. We know what he ordered. We know who said what about torture. We know who signed a presidential order claiming the power to unilaterally set aside/ suspend U.S. law and ratified treaties.
I have a feeling there may be a rush to register to vote from those who see this movie. It really leaves you wanting to do something to stop these people.
I changed my registration from Republican to Democrat back in December, and for the first time this year found myself contributing to political campaigns... first fifty bucks to Dean, then fifty to Kerry after Dean dropped out, even though I am unemployed. I have a feeling I am not the only one who has paid attention a little more than the media thinks, and who realizes what is going on in OUR name. One thing is for certain, this movie will lead to a few others like me drawing the same conclusions. Hopefully.
Peace.
Atrios from Eschaton, in his post "Heads Explode in Freeperville" posted the transcript of the Fox Sports commentary by Chris Myers on Sunday's race at Pomona pre-race program:
"You think you know Dale Earnhardt Jr.? He advised his crew to go see the Michael Moore movie Farenheit 911. He said hey, it'll be a good bonding experience no matter what your political belief. It's a good thing as an American to go see... and it just shows you that Dale Earnhardt Jr. can reach far beyond the steering wheel."
And finally, also from The Guardian, Gary Younge (in his article "Politics Gets Personal") reported from the opening of the film in Akron, Ohio, and documented his experiences and impressions for the people back in England.
Suzanne Aylward came out of the 7.30 screening vowing "to get everybody I know" to see the film. Aylward was greeted by canvassers inviting her to a meeting to discuss the film and handing out John Kerry stickers and badges, which she declined.
Aylward, who voted Nader last time, is going to back Kerry in November with reservations. "People don't love Kerry because they're not sure what he stands for. But I'm going to vote for him because he's not Bush." One of the Kerry campaigners overheard and shouted: "That's not true. Look at his position papers. Listen to what he says."
Aylward shrugs dismissively and her friend, Bobbie Watson, takes over. "I'm going to politely ask the people I know and who I trust and who trust me, who usually vote Republican or who haven't made up their minds, to at least consider voting for Kerry this time," she says. "I think they'll at least listen to me because they know I'm an open-minded person."
Welcome to the tone and tenor of the personal interactions that are going to assert the strongest influence on the forthcoming presidential election. In debates with friends, family and neighbours, at times hectoring, at others beseeching, filled with venom and vigour on both sides, such a close race is going to be won one vote at a time.
8:47:52 PM | |
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Sunday, June 27, 2004 |
On Saturday, video of three Turkish hostages was broadcast. If the militants demands are not met, they will be beheaded by Tuesday evening.
Today, footage of an American marine and a Pakistani driver for an American contract company was broadcast on Arab telvision. The Associated Press report by Chris Tomlinson explained that the militants belong to a group who call themselves Islamic Response. They are demanding that all of the prisoners be released from "occupation jails" in Iraq or the hostages will be beheaded.
The US marine, Wassef Ali Hassoun, had been missing from his unit for nearly one week. The militants explained that they lured him out of the base and then kidnapped him. The Pakistani, known as Amjad, was a driver for the Halliburton subsidiary company Kellog, Brown & Root.
Again, what a hell of a week this is gonna be!
10:19:27 PM | |
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Even though Michael Moore's film, Fahrenheit 911, only appeared in 868 theaters across the country, it was champion at the boxoffice in its debut weekend, bringing in $21.8 million dollars. This feat beats two boxoffice records. 1. It is the first documentary to be a top grossing film for a weekend. 2. It became the top grossing documentary of all time, beating out Moore's Bowling for Columbine ($21.6 million). The fact that it accomplished this in three days is literally amazing. Michael Moore thanked (and I paraphrase) the conservative groups and media for making a big deal about the film because it spurred more interest and curiousity in it.
10:02:44 PM | |
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Bush's campaign website contains a campaign ad that uses images of Hitler interlaced with footage of John Kerry, Al Gore, and Howard Dean. This ad was sent electronically to over 6 million supporters.
Of course, this attack follows on the heels of the MoveOn ad contest "Bush in 30 Seconds" last fall in which two entries out of 1,500 entries comparing Bush to Hitler. Neither one of these ads, however, even made it into the final 15 in January.
I must admit that having read Victor Klemporerer's biography I WIll Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, Martin Gilbert's The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War, and Three Against Hitler (the author's name has alluded me), I believe that Bush's rhetoric is a close shadow to Hitler's nationalistic rhetoric, policies and agenda. There's a smell of fascism to it all.
If you want to see the ad, visit the Bush campaign website at: http://www.georgewbush.com
If you want to read Kerry's remarks on this ad, visit his campaign website at: http://www.johnkerry.com
As a footnote, there are many who sense the comparison between Bush and Hitler, from the moment he took office via the decision of the Supreme Court. Robert's Virtual Soapbox has posted pictures created by a variety of such people that depict this fact. These graphics would surely send Republicans into cardiac orbit.
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Note: I updated this post to reflect the fact that MoveOn did not make the controversial ad that compared Bush's rhetoric to Hitler's. There were two submissions that focused on this theme, for MoveOn's contest Bush in 30 Seconds. Thank you Rayne for correcting me on this point. I apologize for being so remiss.
12:16:48 PM | |
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On Saturday, an Iraqi militant group with ties to Abu al-Zarqawi, sent a video to Al Jazeera that demanded that Turkey stop doing buisness with US operations and pull out of Iraq and that they (Turkish people) protest the country's meetings with Bush in Ankara. If these demands were not met, the group warned, they would behead three Turkish workers who they had kidnapped just two days earlier.
Turkey responded today that they would not negotiate with terrorists. So I guess we'll be seeing three more decapitations by Tuesday's deadline.
Here is the text of the Associated Press release today:
The Arab television station Al-Jazeera aired a video issued by al-Zarqawi's "Tawhid and Jihad" organization, showing the three Turks kneeling on the ground in front of two black-clothed gunmen and a black banner emblazoned with the name of al-Zarqawi's organization. The men held up Turkish passports.
In a written statement, the group demanded Turkish companies stop doing business with American forces in Iraq and called for "large demonstrations" in Turkey against the visit of "Bush the criminal."
It said that if Turkey refused their demands the hostages "will receive the just punishment of being beheaded."
Al-Jazeera received the tape Saturday, an employee at the station told The Associated Press. The statement did not say when or where the three were abducted. It appeared the deadline was Tuesday, but the message did not specify what time it runs out.
The three men disappeared two days ago, said a Turkish consular official in Baghdad who asked to be identified only by his surname, Gungor. He said he had no further information.
And on Thursday, fighters loyal to al-Zarqawi launched a wave of coordinated attacks in five cities in Iraq, battling with U.S. troops who eventually regained control but only after some 100 people, including three Americans were killed....
Bush met with Turkish leaders in Ankara on Sunday ahead of a NATO summit starting the next day. Some 40,000 people protested in street demonstrations in Istanbul against Bush, whose policies in Iraq have been extremely unpopular among Turks.....
With the June 30th turnover a mere three days away, I wonder if the violence and death we are seeing will rise to yet a higher crescendo. The Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has stated that the US will do all they can to track down the whereabouts of these Turkish workers before Tuesday. But with the rise of attacks throughout many Iraqi cities, is there even the bandwidth to accomplish this task, especially within 72 hours? The words seem as hollow as Saudi Arabia's comments regarding finding Paul Johnson.
This is going to be one hell of a week.
12:02:03 PM | |
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Thursday, June 24, 2004 |
Blasts in Iraq today killed over 100 people, injuring 230 +. I have not read the article tied to this headline but the headlines all week have pointed to an Iraq in near chaos. A poll today (I do believe posted on CNN) reported that 53 or 55% of those polled feel it was a mistake to send troops to Iraq. With this in mind, I came across a post titled The System by Matt Yglesias. In it, Yglesias explains why Iraq was not a good candidate for democracy, countering with names of states who would have been a better choice. (Of course, he wasn't suggesting invading these countries, but working with the system for change in the Middle East.)
Benjamin Hoffman is one of several people I've seen around lately reviving the notion that the real sense in which the second Gulf War is part of the war on terrorism is that it was a necessary first step to reconstructing the failed Middle Eastern political system that was a breeding ground for terrorism. One hasn't heard much about this lately, because right now Iraq seems exceedingly unlikely to develop a liberal political order, which makes the whole argument a bit moot....
The disagreement is about why and where Iraq fits into this whole picture. I think folks who supported the war on these grounds (Tom Friedman, etc.) are suffering from a serious case of false consciousness. In other words, it's not the case that they have a big idea -- The Need for Reconstruction -- and then the small idea -- Invade Iraq -- follows logically from TNFR. Rather, they had a big idea -- TNFR -- and no real idea of what followed from it. At the same time, there were all these people out there saying "invade Iraq!" "invade Iraq!" "invade Iraq!" so they manaed to convince themselves that invading Iraq would be a good way to implement their big idea. But it isn't, and it wasn't.
Iraq has to be considered one of the worst possible candidates for a democratic transitions. It combined a total absence of civil society with a huge case of resource curse, poor relations with its neighbors, and two awkwardly large minority populations. As an Arab model it suffers from the further flaw that an Iraqi democracy would be a Shi'ite democracy, which is not the best example for all the Sunni Arab countries out there. The right way to try and effect transformation would have been to support the states -- Morocco, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain -- that are already transforming, and to try and use leverage to push Egypt to change. Egypt has a dominant Sunni Arab population, is the center of Arab media and culture, has civil society groups, has some pseudo-democratic institutions in place, is subject to American pressure, and has no resource curse. This was not, I readily admit, obvious to me in December 2001 or whenever, but I don't think anyone who seriously and objectively thought about the question could possibly come to the conclusion that invading Iraq was a high-percentage transformative move.
5:46:22 PM | |
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Wednesday, June 23, 2004 |
Yesterday, I made the comment that I thought it was odd that the South Korean government confirmed the body of Kim Sun-il's as his based off of a digital picture sent over email.
Today, an AP report out of Baghdad reports some more oddities. Let me just entertain you with these. I'm not really saying anything, just thinking aloud to myself.
1. Kim Sun-il was kidnapped around May 31 and not June 17, as initially reported by his employer, Kim Chun-ho of Cana General Trading Co., as reported by a South Korean Foreign Ministry official.
2. "...[B]efore it was widely known that Kim was missing - a videotape was delivered to Associated Press Television News in which Kim says in English that he liked the Iraqi people and criticized the United States for the war in Iraq."
The tape delivered to the APTN office in Baghdad in early June by an unidentified courier shows Kim, an employee of a supplier to the U.S. military, seated before a bare beige wall. He is alone, clean-shaven and his hair is cut short.
In the tape broadcast Sunday, Kim had a scraggly beard and his hair was much longer, indicating several weeks had passed. He was wearing a dark shirt with the words "Body Glove" written on them.
A voice off camera asks him questions, and he replies in halting English. He gives his name, says he was born Sept. 13, 1970, and gives his place of birth as Busan. When asked his occupation, he says he taught mathematics.
He says he came to Iraq about six months ago and that he wanted to study Arabic.
After this, a portion of the tape is erased. When the image returns, Kim - still in the same place, and in the same clothes - says he was at an American camp three days ago, to "deliver merchandise," including pillows and sunglasses.
He mentions his brothers and sisters, and says he is the only one in his family who is single.
Kim also describes President Bush as a "terrorist" and says the United States is "killing the Iraqi people."
"I saw George Bush attack here because of Iraqi oil," he said. "So I don't like George Bush or America."
Kim says he went to Fallujah and that the Americans searched him. He stands up, turns around and puts his hands on the wall as if he were being searched.
"I like Iraqi people. The Iraqi people are very kind," Kim said. "I think they are poor because of war."
I'm trying not to suggest too much because it crosses the conspiracy theory line. However, I find it odd that Kim speaks so freely and openly on this video. My take is that he feels safe because of where he is and who he is with. I think he is answering questions in broken English because the questions are being asked in English. I think the report would have mentioned if the questions were being asked in broken English, which would suggest that he was being interrogated by non-Americans.
3. "APTN did not broadcast the videotape because it was unclear if Kim was being held against his will. But in the first week of June AP asked the Foreign Ministry in Seoul about Kim and was told that the government had no reports of a South Korean in captivity."
4. "Kim's predicament was clear in two videotapes that were released in the past week by his captors: one shows Kim begging for his life and screaming, 'I don't want to die,' and the other shows him seated in front of masked gunmen shortly before his death."
If Kim Sun-il's comments were meant for the South Korean government, why are all of his comments (cries for freedom) in English?
5. "Kim was believed to have been killed about 14 hours earlier, South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Shin Bong-kil said, citing an evaluation by a U.S. military doctor."
Again, I find it odd that the South Korean embassy did not run their own tests on Kim's body; confirm it was his body and determine the time of death, exact cause of death, etc. In the above fact, Kim's time of death was determined by an evaluation by a US military doctor.
Reverse the roles (that a South Korean military found an American soldier's body), and the method of confirming the body and post-mortem examinations would not have occurred by South Korea. Right?
6:06:26 PM | |
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Tuesday, June 22, 2004 |
Kim Sun-il has been beheaded today by an Iraqi militant group, despite negotiations from South Korea. There were no photos or video of Kim Sun-il's beheading released to the public.
Hundreds of South Koreans went to the streets on Monday, according to news reports, to attempt to get their government to save Sun-il's life by rescinding their commitment to send 3,000 troops to Iraq. Their voices were not heard; nor were the Koreans negotions with the Iraqi militant group known as Monotheism and Jihad successful. Sun-il was beheaded anyway.
Just like Nick Berg's photos and video, Sun-il was dressed in orange prison fatigues, he was blindfolded, and he probably knew his fate. One aspect of this beheading is different though, there have been no photos or video of the beheading.
The AP report out of The Guardian explained that Al-Jazeera had received the videotape that showed that Kim Sun-il had been beheaded, but failed to show or release the contents. If they ever will be released to the general public, as they should be, only time can tell.
Kim's body was found hours after his beheading between Baghdad and Fallujah. He was found by American troops.
The South Korean consul in Iraq and Kim Chun-ho, president of Gana General Trading the company that employed the victim, were travelling to the site 35km west of Baghdad to collect the remains, Mr Shin said. Gana is a supplier to the US military.
Listen to this odd detail of how the South Korean embassy in Baghdad confirmed the body was Kim's. And I quote the Guardian --
The US military first identified the remains as an Asian man and notified the South Korean military in Iraq of the finding. Later, the South Korean embassy in Baghdad confirmed that the body was that of Mr Kim by checking a picture of the remains that it received by email, Mr Shin said.
Don't you find it odd that they confirm the identity of a person via "a picture" sent by email? I mean, it didn't say that Kim Chun-ho, president of Gana General Trading, confirmed the body was Kim Sun-il's and then the embassy confirmed that. You'd think the S. Korean embassy would want the body in its hands before it made such an important comment such as this.
10:09:10 PM | |
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Monday, June 21, 2004 |
Directed by : Alfonso Cuarón
Screenplay: Steve Kloves
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), Gary Oldman (Sirius Black), Emma Thompson (Professor Sybil Trelawney), Michael Gambon (Albus Dumbledore), Alan Rickman (Professor Severus Snape), David Thewlis (Professor Lupin), Maggie Smith (Professor Minerva McGonagall), Robbie Coltrane (Rubeus Hagrid), Richard Griffiths (Uncle Vernon), Pam Ferris (Aunt Marge), Fiona Shaw (Aunt Petunia), Harry Melling (Dudley Dursley), Oliver Phelps (George Weasley), James Phelps (Fred Weasley), Chris Rankin (Percy Weasley), Julie Walters (Mrs. Molly Weasley), Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley), Mark Williams (Mr. Arthur Weasley), Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom),
Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy), Julie Christie (Madame Rosmerta), Timothy Spall (Peter Pettigrew)
Based on the novel by J.K. Rowling
As the students are gathering in the grand hall in the opening ceremony of another year at Hogwarts, a student choir sings "Something wicked this way comes." Well, I don't know about you, but the only thing I find wicked about this third film in the world-renowned classic Harry Potter series is that it is so wickedly good! For the first time in this series, this Harry Potter adaptation graduates from being a predominately kids franchise to something that adults can sink their teeth into.
Alfonso Cuaron brought a level of sophistication to the series. Gone were the long shots of smarmy looks, slightly melodramatic scenarios, and unrealistic set design and visual effects. (I'm particularly referring to the last film, specifically the entrance of the chamber of secrets which seemed more fitting for a Star Wars film. And speaking of the chamber of secrets, whoever decided to make the basilisk the size and length of Disney's Monorail made a grave mistake. I mean, really, it was implausable that a creature that size could get around Hogwarts in the pipes unless those pipes were the size of the Chunnel. And come on, who would believe that a snake that size would slither unnoticed around the halls of Hogwarts?)
Kloves script was tight, seemingly focused on two main themes--the Harry Potter/Sirius Black relationship and Harry Potter's longing for his parents. There were no extended matches of Quiditch and no end of the year counting up of points to see which house won the prestigious house cup. All of this is good for the franchise in my point of view because, really, after all of the dangerous adventures and near-death experiences that Harry, Hermione, and Ron have lived through, these events are seemingly trivial.
And this is one thing that concerned me going into this film. Will the script and Cuaron's direction create and present a Harry that shows the scars of his experience? After having battled Voldermort twice and come out alive, Harry should exhibit a bit more courage and wisdom, if not a bit of fearlessness and pride.
I was not disappointed. In the beginning, Harry does exhibit more angst and rebelliousness towards the Dursley's; consider the fact that he didn't cower under the condescending remarks of Aunt Madge. And did you notice in this exchange that the Dursley's didn't command Harry around as much. They too showed the marks of experience from the previous year, in which Uncle Vernon fell two stories out of Harry's window in an attempt to stop Harry from fleeing to school.
Cuaron added more depth to Harry's character through metaphor. It seemed Cuaron used symbolism that highlighted the emptiness that Harry feels not having parents. For example, when Harry runs away from the Dursley's, reeling mad after hearing Aunt Madge insult the character of Harry's dad and mom, he runs out into the damp and dark night.
We hear the sound of his rolling suitcase echo off the houses, concrete, and asphalt. We see him walking off into a distance that is crowded with homes with lighted windows, but we know, as does Harry, that none of those homes are his. There is a moment when this dawns on him and he stops and sits down on a dimly lit curb. The park behind him is as empty as it is dark. The scene added a visually symbolic exclamation point that Harry was not just alone, he was lost and empty. Knowing his circumstance, we knew this emptiness was the void left from not knowing his parents, not having them.
The Dementors added a touch of horror to this film. They were as eerie and frightening as Peter Jackson's representation of the Ringwraiths. Yet, the Dementors were even more so eerie because of how they could kill you, by sucking out your goodness, or your soul (if you received the "kiss"). The visual effects depicting the Dementors sucking the goodness out of you were masterfully realized, cleverly accomplished, bone-chilling, and horrific. I wondered if that alone could be the core of any child's nightmares for nights to come. To me, the visual depiction reminded me of a smeared photograph--while the photograph was being taken, the camera slightly moved, distorting the image of the person so slightly that there also appears to be the ghost of the person stepping outside of the body.
One aspect of Cuaron's directing that I love is how he can get the audience more involved in the film, as if we are participants. Let me try to explain what I mean with this example from his last film Y Tu Mama Tambien. One of the main characters, Ana Morelos, is sitting in the doctors office. We can't see her at first but we can hear her. The camera slowly moves down the hall in the direction of their conversation. We follow along with the camera as it views pictures hanging on the walls. It finally pauses at the entry to the room where the doctor and Ana talk. The camera then walks in and we sense we have just joined them. Somehow, this technique makes the conversation more poignant to us.
There were glimpses of this technique in the opening scenes with the Dursley's. It was used going in and out of the great hall. It was used coming in and out of scenes in the rooms and classrooms of Hogwarts, especially Professor Trelawney's. It was used when Harry snuck into Madame Rosmerta's cavern to listen to the conversation between Professor McGonagall and the Director of the Ministry of Magic.
The script also allowed Cuaron to use this technique when Harry and Hermione transported back in time to clean up events that had occurred on that fateful evening.
The photography is something to be noted highly too. To me, the landscapes of Hogwarts have never been so well-defined and dynamic.
On another note, The Prisoner of Azkaban has one of the greatest time transitions I can recall. There is a scene in which Harry's owl is flying from the forest to Hogwarts. The camera is positioned in a manner so that we see the owl flying toward us. As the owl approaches, snowflakes begin to fall. As the owl passes, snow is falling and it begins to accumulate on the ground. As Hogwarts comes into view, and as the camera begins following the owl (as if it were a flying thing too) snow falls heavily and it is completely winter. Simply breathtaking.
Steve Kloves' script is meaningful and touching. I appreciated Dumbledore's remarks in the beginning of the film that state that even in dark times, one can find the light if they but turn on the light. I appreciated Professor Lupin's remarks to Harry about his mother and father; and the dialogue that transpired between Lupin and Harry when Lupin trained Harry to dispell attacking Dementers.
I've heard many who complain that the book is better than the movie because the movie left out too many important facts. If there is one thing I've learned about films, it is that they can never be replicas of the books they are adapted from. They really are intended to be their own creatures. The Prisoner of Azkaban works well as its own work, separate of the intentions and expectations of the book. Cuaron could have incorporated everything but would have sacrificed a tightly woven work focussed on the themes revolving around Harry / Sirius Black / Lupin / Pettigrew's relationship and Harry's longing to know his parents, (which, by the way, was incredibly stronger in this film and done in a highly moving manner).
Thanks to a masterful cast and crew, particularly Alfonso Cuaron, stunning photography, and meaningful script, Harry Potter: The Prisoner of Azkabon is not only one of my favorite films of the year but possibly one of the best films of the year, too.
11:26:28 PM | |
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From the week June 14 to June 20, Shrek 2 surpassed The Passion of the Christ ($369.34 million) and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($376.96 million) to become the 6th biggest boxoffice hit of all time. It now has an impressive and very unexpected tally of $378.3 million.
The fifth biggest grossing film of all time is Spiderman, which brought in $405.85 million.
Does Shrek have the staying power at the boxoffice to knock Spiderman from the top 5? Possibly. But with the coming release of Spiderman 2 in less than two weeks, possibly not.
And speaking of the Spiderman 2 release, I'm very curious to see if it will break the boxoffice record set by its predecessor--$115 million in its opening weekend.
7:06:25 PM | |
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Sunday, June 20, 2004 |
Chris Hedges' critically acclaimed work War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning was published in June of 2003, just over a month after Bush declared the war over on the bow of the USS Abraham. With the recent beheading of Paul Johnson and the ongoing investigation into US tortures over detainees on our collective conscience, my thoughts turned to some fitting quotes from Hedges.
[page 20] We are quick to accept the facile and mendacious ideological veneer that is wrapped like a mantle around the shoulders of those who prosecute the war.
It helps to have a conservative core of media stations that will paint the ideological veneer that the White House wants them to. And in response to the media in times of war, Hedges' writes this fascinating description:
[page 22] ...the lie of war is almost always the lie of omission. The blunders and senseless slaughter by our generals, the execution of prisoners and innocents, and the horror of wounds are rarely disclosed, at least during a mythic war, to the public. Only when the myth is punctuated, as it eventually was in Vietnam, does the press begin to report in a sensory rather than a mythic manner. But even then it is it reacting to a public that has changed its perception of war. The press usually does not lead.
Prior to Reagan's death, I do believe that we saw this very thing occurring, the 9/11 investigations, the investigations into torture, and the pressing on the White House in regards to the Torture Memo. Reagan's death, in many aspects, has taken many back into that mythic mindset, including the media.
What is Hedges' definition of mythic and sensory reality? Consider these paragraphs:
[page 21] Lawrence LeShan in The Psychology of War differentiates between "mythic reality" and "sensory reality" in wartime. In sensory reality we see events for what they are. Most of those who are thrust into combat soon find it impossible to maintain the mythic perception of war. They would not survive if they did. Wars that lose their mythic stature for the public, such as Korea or Vietnam, are doomed to failure, for war is exposed for what it is--organized murder.
But in mythic war we imbue events with meanings they do not have. We see defeats as signposts on the road to ultimate victory. We demonize the enemy so that our opponent is no longer human. We view ourseleves, our people, as the embodiment of absolute goodness.
In the bolded text in the first paragraph, I sense that this is why there is such a push by the Admininstration to stress the ties between Al Qaida and Saddam's Iraq; this is why this Administration is trying to instill in our heads that Abu Ghraib was simply the acts of "a few bad apples;" this is why there is always an image painted that the war is going as planned. The mythic reality of our war with Iraq is on the verge of sloughing away, as it should do.
The second paragraph, the second line is simply masterful because we see this being fed to us frequently. Whenever there has been a major setback or tragedy, such as Fallujah, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, or Ashcroft has come out in a speech or press conference and said that this uprising or battle indicates that we are wiining the war on terrorism.
Finally, I'd to leave off with a section about abuse and torture. Hedges' prefaces this paragraph with the portion of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, in which Achilles meets Hector on the battlefield. Achilles finds Hector unarmed and rather than be honorable enough to allow Hector to arm himself and battle for his life, Achilles opts to literally slaughter him with the help of his soldiers. Hedges comments on this passage with these poignant thoughts:
[page 30] Moments after Hector's death dozens of heavily armed men thrust spears into Hector's corpse. Achilles commands his Myrmidons to cry out to the Greeks that he "hath the mighty Hector slain." Here is the lie of the heroic ideal, an ideal we nurture, despite centuries of war. Here is the instant creation of heroic myth, out of murder. Here also we see the mutilation of the dead that has been part of military behavior since there were men in arms. If you kill your enemy his body becomes your trophy, your possession, and this has been a fundamental part of warfare since before the Philistines beheaded Saul.
These facts haunt the pictures, video, and stories coming out of Abu Ghraib. Our drive to possess trophies made out of human suffering, torture, and murder may yet destroy our perception of our war; it may yet bring down this presidency.
10:24:24 PM | |
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Saturday, June 19, 2004 |
Robert Crook of Robert's Virtual Soapbox has the pictures I was referring to in my last post, of Paul Johnson after he had been beheaded yesterday somewhere in Riyahd, Saudi Arabia.
Robert's commentary on the matter attempts to answer why Americans will argue about seeing and posting Johnson's graphic photos. He also explains that Johnson would not have died, Nick Berg would not have died, over 840 soldiers would not have died if it was not for the aggressive policies of Bush. Consider these remarks:
We don't want to see them because we don't want to know the unpleasant consequences of the actions that our government is taking in our name.
We want to believe that if we don't see it, then somehow we're not responsible for it.
But we are responsible for it. For starters, we didn't make a collective peep when George W. Bush and his Republican henchpeople stole the presidential election of 2000. Still basking in our Clinton-era prosperity, our immediate little universes weren't shaken -- we could still drive our SUVs, could still get our super-sized meals at the drive-throughs and could still watch our dozens of channels of television -- so we didn't do shit while our democracy was seriously subverted right before our very eyes. A stolen presidential election was, in our estimation, not such a big deal. That's politics for you! And it doesn't matter who's in office -- all politicians are alike anyway! That seemed to be the collective "wisdom" of late 2000 and early 2001.
Now, the chickens are coming home to roost -- with their heads cut off.
Let me make it clear for the Limbaugh-lovers that I oppose beheading. I oppose murder. I oppose the killing of another human being except in clear cases of self-defense and in clear cases of the defense of others, that is, in those rare cases in which others most likely will be killed imminently without intervention. (The death penalty does not meet these criteria, which is why I oppose it.)
I watched the video of 26-year-old American businessman Nicholas Berg's beheading in Iraq last month. It was, to put it mildly, disturbing.
But unless we step outside of the black-and-white, with-us-or-against-us, we're-good-and-they're-evil thinking in which the members of the neo-Nazi Bush regime consistently encourage us to engage, we are going to see more and more images like those above.
See, in March 2003 the United States invaded, and now occupies, the sovereign nation of Iraq, although Iraq did not do anything to the United States or to any of the United States' allies or even to any of its (Iraq's) neighbors to warrant the United States' invasion. And the Bush regime's lies to the world that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that posed an imminent threat turned out to be -- well, lies.
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand, then, that millions of Muslims would be pretty fucking pissed off, then, that thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed since March 2003 and that the United States occupies Iraq based upon the lies that the Bush regime told the world before the invasion. And it would be understandable for Muslims living outside of Iraq to wonder if their nation were next to be "liberated" by the United States.
And you don't have to be a neurosurgeon to see that if any of these pissed-off Muslims want to retaliate against the United States' wholly unprovoked attack on and unjustified occupation of a Muslim nation, they don't have nearly the range of options that the United States military has when it wishes to retaliate (thanks to the U.S. taxpayers, whose billions of tax dollars aren't going to the things that they and their children need, but are going to "defense," which actually is not defense at all, but which is offense, and which, coinky-dinkily, just so happens to make BushCheneyCorp's war-profiteering subsidiaries, like Dick Cheney's Halliburton, billions of dollars richer).
Muslims can't make retaliatory air strikes on the U.S. military when they're pissed off. They have to resort to smaller, more personal-appearing, often (if not usually) uglier tactics -- unlike the larger, more impersonal-appearing, more sanitary-appearing killings that the U.S. military can pull off with its weapons of mass destruction. (Similarly, somehow if a poor black man holds someone up for $25 at gunpoint, this seems much worse to the average American than does an impeccably dressed rich white white-collar criminal who steals millions of dollars without a gun.)
So we don't like the Muslims' retaliatory tactics, such as hostage-taking, suicide bombings and decapitations.
But what other tactics are available to them?
I agree with Robert. There comes a time when you have to see that Bush's cowboy-like mindset and arrogant, aggressive policies toward the rest of the world, but particularly his unilateral and pre-emptive invasion of Iraq has caused ill will in the world toward Americans.
I received a response letter from Orrin Hatch regarding his approval of the job Rumsfield is doing as Secretary of Defense. His closing paragraph about our enemy reveals much:
These are difficult times for every American. However, we must not lose sight of the big picture: we are fighting a shadowy enemy that seeks to destroy our very way of life. The war against terror will last years, possibly decades.
Yes, Mr. Hatch, thanks to this investigation-ridden and corporatistic-minded Bush Adminstration, this war has created more terrorists who will most assuredly cause terror that will last years and possibly decades. More Americans will be losing their heads and more of our soldiers will be coming home in caskets because of their policies.
8:04:04 AM | |
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Friday, June 18, 2004 |
In answer to what we promised ... to kill the hostage Paul Marshall (Johnson) after the period is over ... the infidel got his fair treatment ...Let him taste something of what Muslims have long tasted from Apache helicopter fire and missiles...
Those were the last words spoken before Paul Johnson was executed by beheading by Al Qaida militants somewhere in Riyahd, Saudi Arabia. Johnson, who worked as an Apache helicopter systems engineer for Lockheed Martin, was kidnapped last weekend. His captors threatened to kill him on Friday if Saudi Arabia did not release its Al Qaida prisoners. The news report I read by Salah Nasrawi stated plainly: "The Saudi government rejected the demands."
But really, I am a bit confused on why Al Qaida thought the Saudi government would even care about an American hostage. Don't get me wrong. I'm sure the Saudi governent was concerned about the life of the hostage. But to release militant, anti-kingdom prisoners in exchange for the life of just one American, it seems more than absurd. I'm sure they laughed themselves silly at the request. One would think that in order to be taken seriously by the Saudi government, Al Qaida would have been smart enough to kidnap a government official or member of the royal family.
Nasrawi's report also explained that photos of the beheading are being displayed on a website. But since the website is not named; and since the website was taken down for maintenance purposes soon after the statement of Johnson's beheading occurred, I was unable to get a validate what said occurred occurred, or have a resolution. Nasrawi explained the photos in this manner:
One of the three photographs posted on the Web site showed a man's head, face toward the camera, being held by a hand. The other two showed a beheaded body lying prone on a bed, with the severed head placed in the small of his back, the clothes underneath bloodied. The face looked like Johnson's.
On another note, Nasrawi makes it a point to state that Al Qaida hates the royal family and the Saudi government--
...Saudi and U.S. officials say aims to drive foreign workers from the kingdom and undermine the ruling royal family, hated by al-Qaida.
On the eve of the release of Farenheit 9/11, which takes a serious look at the relationship of the Bush family and Saudi's royal family, Nasrawi's verbiage seems to paint the picture that Saudi Arabia is a victim of terrorism. With the knowledge that 14 of the 19 pilots on 9/11 were Saudi Arabians, that Saudi nationals were flown out of the country the days immediately following 9/11 under the guidance of our government, that the president removed 28 pages of the 9/11 investigation report that discussed relations with Saudi Arabia, and that members of the royal family financed terrorist groups, I'm sorry but I just don't believe it. Saudi Arabia has more ties to terrorism that Iraq ever did.
I'd like to believe otherwise. I really would.......but right now, I can't.
11:19:13 PM | |
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Thursday, June 17, 2004 |
The Nevada Test Site is infamous for the nuclear tests that occurred there during the 1950's and early 1960's. The site is approximately 1,300 square miles, roughly the size of Rhode Island. It's been written that the site today is still littered with the remnants of makeshift towns that were built in order to test the effects of the initial impact of the explosion, twisted and/or molten metal and broken concrete foundations amongst desert landscapes and a dry lake bed.
Back in the 1950's, the small sleepy town of St. George had front row seats to the 14 or so nuclear tests, seeing the western sky light up, seeing the mushroom cloud. Naturalist and author, Terry Tempest Williams, (who lost her mother, grandmothers, and aunts to cancer attributed to the fallout of these tests), described seeing one of the tests in her masterful essay "The Clan of the One Breasted Women."
As background to her comments, Williams was having dinner with her father. It had been one year since her mother, Diane Williams, had died as a result of cancer. As they were talking of their times together as a family, Williams confided with him about a dream she continues to have since a young child, a dream in which the whole family is present.
I told my father that for years, as long as I could remember, I saw this flash of light in the night in the desert--that this image had so permeated my being that I could not venture south without seeing it again, on the horizon, illuminating buttes and mesas.
"You did see it," he said.
"Saw what?"
"The bomb. The cloud. We were driving home from Riverside, California. You were sitting on [your mother's] lap. She was pregnant. In fact, I remember the day, September 7, 1957. We had just gotten out of the Service. We were driving north, past Las Vegas. It was an hour or so before dawn, when this explosion went off. We not only heard it, but felt it. I thought the oil tanker in front of us had blown up. We pulled over and suddenly, rising from the desert floor, we saw it, clearly, this golden-stemmed cloud, the mushroom. The sky seeemed to vibrate with an eerie pink glow. Within a few minutes, a light ash was raining down on the car."
I stared at my father.
"I thought you knew that," he said. "It was common occurrence in the fifties."
Today, St. George and the nieghboring towns that surround it are growing at an amazing rate. In the last three decades, according to the demographics posted at the St. George Chamber of Commerce, the entire county as seen a growth of 86%, the fastest in the state. Population today is approximately 106,000.
St. George is known for its great recreation. It's home of 10 championship golf courses, the Utah Summer Olympics, the Utah Senior Games, and a marathon that is not only the 15th largest in the nation but recognized by Runner's World as one of the 10 Most Scenic and Fastest marathons and Top 20 marathons in the US.
St. George also sits nearby Zion National Park and Bryces National Park, some of the most awe-inspiring landscapes and structures of the world.
Known as the Gateway to the West, St. George may soon again become the causeway of fallout from nuclear testing that have resumed at the Nevada Test Site. On September 19, 2003, the subcritical experiment named Piano was conducted. On May 25, 2004, the subcritical experiment named Armando was conducted. Subcritical tests are underground nuclear explosions that consist of "detonating high explosives around plutonium in a steel spere while X-rays, radar and lasers chart the behavior of the radioactive element..." (Associated Press report from Las Vegas, "Nuclear Experiment Planned in Nevada," May 24, 2004.)
And today, as reported by The New York Times, the Republicans of the Senate brought the reality of further testing to a head by defeating a Democratic proposal (55 to 42) to "eliminate $27.6 million for a study of a nuclear weapon capable of penetrating underground bunkers and $9 million to explore other nuclear concepts, including smaller bombs known as mini-nukes...."
Democrats feel this as another grave loss, thinking that 1) "research [will] spur other nations to turn to such weapons;" and 2) "even bombs exploding underground [will] pose risks of fallout far beyond their targets."
That the administration has budgeted $485 million over five years for the so-called bunker buster is evidence that the Pentagon already intends to move beyond research, said the opponents, led by Senators Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Dianne Feinstein of California.
Backers of the administration denied that a decision to produce the weapons had already been made, saying money was included in projections of future budgets only in case Congress gave approval.
But from an article in the Deseret Morning News on May 25, 2004, Frank von Hippel was informed by a DoD official that the administration does have plans for resuming testing.
Frank von Hippel, who teaches public and international affairs and works on nuclear weapons issues at Princeton, was a White House adviser on national security, concerned with science and technology policy, and was one of those responsible for arranging the present moratorium on nuclear testing.
He told the Deseret Morning News on Monday that a Defense Department official told him earlier this year that "based on the way he saw things going inside the administration, that if the Bush administration is re-elected that we would resume testing in 2007 or 2008."
Utah Congressman Jim Matheson, along with his brother Scott Matheson (who is running for Governor of Utah this year) are key figures in this battle to stop nuclear tests from resuming. Why? For two main reasons: 1) Because they too are victims of the tests that time has already forgot. Many of their family members have been diagnosed with cancers caused by the exposure to radioactive fallout; many of them have died because of their illness, including their father, Scott Matheson, who served as Utah Governor for two terms in the 1970's. He died at the age of 61.
2) Their father fought for the release of government research in the 1980s that revealed health and safety concerns regarding atomic testing. In 1990, the fruits of this battle were realized when the government acknowledged its responsibility to the victims by passing the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA).
"Like thousands of Utah families," Congressman Jim Matheson explains, "I am painfully aware of the federal government's failure to protect its citizens from the dangers of radioactive fallout created during atomic testing in Nevada in the 1950s and 60s."
I remember my father telling me about how people in southern Utah would watch the sky light up from the nuclear tests and how Utahns supported the program because they were strong patriots who believed in their country and trusted their government. Many untimely deaths later, we've learned to be skeptical of the government's safety claims regarding this issue.
The federal government said we were safe. The federal government knew we were at risk. I will not stand by and let the government take Utah families down that path again.
But Republicans are urgent that the time is ripe for us to act now, that because of the nature of threats to the United States it would be irresponsible to not proceed researching new nuclear weapons, such as mini-nukes.
In the NY TImes, Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO) said "Irrational rogue nations and nonstate actors have emerged as a greater threat to us."
Terry Tempest Williams remembers the sense of urgency in those days, too:
The United States of the 1950's was red, white, and blue. The Korean War was raging. McCarthyism was rampant. Ike was it, and the cold war was hot. If you were against nuclear testing, you were for a communist regime.
Much has been written about this "American nuclear tragedy." Public health was secondary to national security. The Atomic Energy Commissioner, Thomas Murray, said, "Gentlemen, we must not let anything interfere with this series of tests, nothing."
Again and again, the American public was told by its government, in spite of burns, blisters, and nausea, "It has been found that the tests may be conducted with adequate assurance of safety under conditions prevailing at the bombing reservations."
Assuaging public fears was simply a matter of public relations. "Your best action," an Atomic Energy Commission booklet read, "is not to be worried about fallout." A news release typical of the times stated, "We find no basis for concluding that harm to any individual has resulted from radioactive fallout."
It's been 50 years since the first explosions lit up the western skies of St. George. It's been just over 36 years that the side-effects started manifesting themselves in fathers, husbands, wives, mothers, and in their children, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles.
This time around, the skyline won't light up like an exploding sun. The air won't vibrate nor turn a pale shade of pink. But who can promise these Americans that the invisible effects of these new nuclear tests won't seep into the air through natural vents in the ground or break out and spoil the natural water reserves? Who can promise that these invisible effects won't slowly start to steal the life away from the inhabitants downwind? Whose promises could or would we believe?
Questions such as this make the outcome of this year's elections that much more important. We shouldn't have to walk down this road again!
Sources:
"Matheson Puts Utah First , Crafts Bill To Protect Utahns from Nuclear Weapons Testing"
The New York Times article: ttp://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/politics/16nukes.html
Williams, Terry Tempest. "The Clan of the One Breasted Women;" pages 281 - 290 of her novel Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place; Pantheon Books, New York, 1991.
"Nuclear Experiment Planned in Nevada," Associated Press report from Las Vegas, May 24, 2004.)
11:26:05 PM | |
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Wednesday, June 16, 2004 |
Atrios of Eschaton linked to a masterfully written opinion article from William Pfaff, writer for the International Herald Tribune, called "When Laws Get In the Way." Pfaff begins his article stating a quote from Karl Marx about Napolean, saying that tragedy always proceeds a farce. He compares this to American politics. The farce, Pfaff believes, was the obsession over the definition of sexual congress in light of Clinton's escapades with Lewinsky. The tragey, Pfaff believes, is Bush's war in Iraq and the continuing revelation that he and his administration have been parsing laws and rules to rid themselves of accountability for the torture of detainees and prisoners of war. Furthermore, he feels the mindset shown by this administration reminds him of Adolf Eichmann. Consider these paragraphs:
The Bush administration's civilians had been complaining about how law, international treaties and conventions, and military norms and inhibitions, were interfering with their determination to seize and hold anyone they pleased in secret prisons, declare them without legal rights even when they were American citizens, torture them whenever they wanted and keep them forever, if they liked (a totalitarian ambition, obviously). They wanted these obstructions removed.
Their complaints sounded like the complaints of Adolf Eichmann, when he described during his trial in Israel the irksome bureaucratic and legal obstacles he ran into in wartime Germany in carrying out his genocidal responsibilities.
High U.S. administration figures reportedly lingered - with delectation? - over what exactly was to be done to the unfortunate prisoners - for how long, in what position, with what pain inflicted.
(There was also - whoops! - the problem of what to do when things went wrong, and the torturers had a dead man, or woman, on their hands.)
And when all this began to come out, what did the administration have to say? The president said on May 24 that "a few American troops ... disregarded our values." Civilians in the Pentagon, speaking informally to the press, blamed the Abu Ghraib scandals on "a few hillbillies."
The American operation in Iraq, and apparently in Afghanistan before, has been haphazard, planned and run by people mostly without serious knowledge of these countries and their societies. The administration has gone in for wholesale arrests and interrogations, sweeping people up virtually at random, because it doesn't know what else to do.
This has been futile and irrational, as well as evil.
Pfaff's closing comments suggest that America has seen its worst scandal unfold before its eyes. And more sadly, nothing may come of it before the election. And regarding the election, Pfaff adds an eye-opening reminder that if Americans vote Bush back into office, we will have made "these terrible practices" our own.
All of this is a ghastly scandal, one of the worst in American history. It is evident cause for impeachment of this president, if Congress has the courage to do it, and for prosecution of cabinet figures and certain commanders. However in view of the partisan alignment in Congress, quite possibly nothing will happen before the November election.
What then? It also is quite possible that George W. Bush will be elected to a second term. In that case, the American electorate will have made these practices its own.
7:49:44 PM | |
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I've believed from the beginning that this election isn't over until the polls are closed and the ballots and hanging chads are counted in Florida. But I have to admit that I have been very pleased to see Kerry doing so well in the polls. Does Kerry have a chance to win in November? I say most assuredly. But I don't think its going to be something that will just magically happen. I think Democrats have to get out and work to make this happen.
Having said this, let me tell you what keeps me up at night. It is comments such as this from Reason Magazine’s editor Tim Kavanaugh, who supposedly is not a conservative, that give me nightmares and that sense that I've been kicked in the crotch.
"It doesn't matter how much gas costs, how poorly things are going in Iraq, what new torture memos surface, or whether there are new terror attacks inside our borders. John Kerry hasn't got a whore's chance in a convent, Bush is going to kick his ass all over the United States, and when we see the results in November, the idea that anybody ever thought Kerry had a prayer will seem as quaint and absurd as the brief flurry of 'excitement' for Dukakis (or was it Kakdukis?) back in Old '88."
I have to give Kavanaugh credit though for the great phrase "whore's chance in a convent."
Here's to hope that Kavanaugh will be eating these words come November!
7:21:35 PM | |
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From the Center for American Progress--
On the House floor yesterday while debating the president's energy bill, senior Republicans openly admitted that the war in Iraq is about oil. Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-LA), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the nation needed to pass massive tax cuts for oil companies "instead of constantly fighting over battlefields to defend other people's energy supplies that we depend upon." Similarly, Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) said, "When we look at this [energy] bill, we need to call upon ourselves and ask ourselves what probably is the major duty of a Member of Congress. It is probably to prevent a war. And how do you prevent wars? You prevent wars by removing the cause of wars... Lack of energy causes wars." He said, "George Bush's father sent 450,000 kids to a desert; that was a battle for energy [to] keep them from getting a bad man's, Saddam Hussein, foot, on half the known energy resources in the world."
I'd like to know what possessed them to reveal this now. What do you think?
6:35:03 PM | |
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Tuesday, June 15, 2004 |
I submit to you the introduction and excerpts of the first report filed by the US on October 15, 1999 to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. (The US first ratified the original report and participation in the convention in 1994.) The Convention requires that states (countries) that become a party to it to file reports on how they are implementing it. These excerpts once again paint a totally different viewpoint toward torture than the photos, memos, and revelations that have been leaked and published.
Thanks to the comments section at Discourse.net for the content.
U.S. Department of State
Initial Report of the United States of America to the UN Committee Against Torture
Submitted by the United States of America to the Committee Against Torture, October 15, 1999
INTRODUCTION
The Government of the United States of America welcomes the opportunity to report to the Committee Against Torture on measures giving effect to its undertakings under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment…This Report has been prepared by the U.S. Department of State with extensive assistance from the Department of Justice and other relevant departments and agencies of the federal government. Substantial contributions were also solicited and received from interested non-governmental organizations, academics and private citizens. The Report covers the situation in the United States and the measures taken to give effect to the Convention through September 1999.
The United States ratified the Convention Against Torture in October 1994, and the Convention entered into force for the United States on November 20, 1994. In its instrument of ratification (deposited with the Secretary General of the United Nations on October 21, 1994), the United States made a declaration pursuant to Article 21, paragraph 1, recognizing the competence of the Committee Against Torture, on a reciprocal basis, to receive and consider a State Party's claims that another State Party is not fulfilling its obligations under the Convention. The United States also conditioned its ratification on two reservations and a number of interpretive understandings; these are included at Annex I and discussed at the relevant portions of this Report.
In 1992, the United States became a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, some provisions of which may be considered to have wider application than those of the Convention Against Torture. The initial U.S. Report under the Covenant, which provides general information related to U.S. compliance with and implementation of obligations under the Covenant, was submitted to the Human Rights Committee in July 1994 …The United States also ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination at the same time as it ratified the Torture Convention. In February 1995, the United States signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The United States has long been a vigorous supporter of the international fight against torture. U.S. representatives participated actively in the formulation of the UN Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, adopted in 1975, and in the negotiation of the Convention Against Torture. The United States continues to be the largest donor to the U.N. Voluntary Fund For Victims of Torture, having contributed over $12.6 million as of August 1999. The U.S. Government pursues allegations of torture by other governments as an integral part of its overall human rights policy, highlighting such issues in its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Conditions.
Torture is prohibited by law throughout the United States. It is categorically denounced as a matter of policy and as a tool of state authority. Every act constituting torture under the Convention constitutes a criminal offense under the law of the United States. No official of the government, federal, state or local, civilian or military, is authorized to commit or to instruct anyone else to commit torture. Nor may any official condone or tolerate torture in any form. No exceptional circumstances may be invoked as a justification of torture. U.S. law contains no provision permitting otherwise prohibited acts of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment to be employed on grounds of exigent circumstances (for example, during a "state of public emergency") or on orders from a superior officer or public authority, and the protective mechanisms of an independent judiciary are not subject to suspension. The United States is committed to the full and effective implementation of its obligations under the Convention throughout its territory.
No government, however, can claim a perfect record in each of the areas and obligations covered by the Convention. Abuses occur despite the best precautions and the strictest prohibitions. Within the United States, as indicated in this Report, there continue to be areas of concern, contention and criticism. These include instances of police abuse, excessive use of force and even brutality, and death of prisoners in custody. Overcrowding in the prison system, physical and sexual abuse of inmates, and lack of adequate training and oversight for police and prison guards are also cause for concern. The national conscience was sharply challenged in 1991 by the widely publicized beating of Rodney King by four officers of the Los Angeles Police Department and by their subsequent prosecution by state and federal authorities. More recently, a Haitian immigrant, Abner Louima, was brutalized by New York City policemen after being taken into custody. Concerns about the excessive use of force by federal agents arose from widely publicized incidents in 1992 at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and in 1993 in Waco, Texas; similar charges were leveled against the Philadelphia Police Department in connection with the May 1985 bombing of the headquarters of the radical African-American organization MOVE.
As a result of these and other instances, American society has renewed its efforts to ensure that appropriate guidelines on the use of force are respected and that the prohibitions against torture and other forms of physical, mental and psychological abuse by law enforcement and correctional officials are observed in practice. Indeed, in 1994 the U.S. Congress enacted important legislation which authorizes the Attorney General to institute civil lawsuits to obtain remedies for patterns or practices of misconduct by law enforcement agencies and agencies responsible for the incarceration of juveniles. The Department of Justice is actively enforcing this statute, as well as older laws that permit criminal prosecution of law enforcement and correctional officers who willfully deprive individuals of their constitutional rights, and statutes that enable the Department of Justice to obtain civil relief for abusive conditions in state prisons and local jails.
In addition, in the United States, some have voiced concerns related to other areas covered by or related to the Convention, such as non-consensual scientific and medical experimentation, treatment of the mentally ill and illegal immigrants in custody, and imposition of capital punishment. These and other issues are discussed in connection with Article 16.
Every unit of government at every level within the United States is committed, by law as well as by policy, to the protection of the individual's life, liberty and physical integrity. Each must also ensure the prompt and thorough investigation of incidents when allegations of mistreatment and abuse are made, and the punishment of those who are found to have committed violations. Accomplishment of necessary reforms and improvements is a continued goal of government at all levels. The United States intends to use its commitments and obligations under the Convention to motivate and facilitate a continual review of the relevant policies, practices, and institutions in order to assure compliance with the treaty.
9:59:47 PM | |
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In light of the Torture Memo, as an example, Bush's statement on the White House website in regards to the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture is incongruous with what he has approved and what has been happening at Guantanimo, Abu Ghraib, and in Afghanistan.
Consider these excerpts:
Today, on the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, the United States declares its strong solidarity with torture victims across the world. Torture anywhere is an affront to human dignity everywhere. We are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law.
....Notorious human rights abusers, including, among others, Burma, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and Zimbabwe, have long sought to shield their abuses from the eyes of the world by staging elaborate deceptions and denying access to international human rights monitors. Until recently, Saddam Hussein used similar means to hide the crimes of his regime.
....The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment.
"...we are leading this fight by example." [Vomit noises.] Can we get him for perjury on this?
6:24:53 PM | |
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Monday, June 14, 2004 |
The jolly clever ole story of an ogre who journeys to meet his in laws and fight off the beauty-obsessed antics of Fairy Godmother and her son Prince Charming, better known as Shrek 2 has just dethroned Disney's Finding Nemo ($339.71)as the biggest animated boxoffice hit ever. Shrek 2 took in another $25 million over the weekend to jump past its competitor in less than a month since release, for a grand total of $356 million.
Disney has to be spitting nails about this today. The first Shrek film ($267.65), which mocked Disney and made by rival DreamWorks, not only beat out Disney's film Monsters, Inc ($255.83) at the boxoffice but went on to win over Monsters for the Best Animated film Oscar. It's so hard being Disney.
Shrek 2 also surpassed Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers ($341.75) in this weekend's haul. Shrek 2 will surpass the #8 biggest grossing film Jurassic Park ($357.07) most likely by the end of business hours Monday and should easily dethrone this year's top-grossing smash hit The Passion of the Christ ($369.34) over Father's Day weekend. (Let's see how long it takes for the Christian Right to cry foul and bemoan how evil Hollywood and America is for allowing a story of a green ogre to be more popular than Jesus being beaten senseless, tortured, and crucified. My bet is as soon as I post this.)
It is highly possible that Shrek 2 could surpass Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($376.96). I find this most surprising, to say the least. I'm sure the Hobbitses wouldn't be too thrilled about that, either!
The remaining top grossing films of all time include the following:
1 Titanic, released on 12/19/1997 $600.79 m
2 Star Wars, released on 05/25/1977 $461.00 m
3 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, released on 06/11/1982 $434.97 m
4 The Phantom Menace, released on 05/19/1999 $431.09 m
5 Spider-Man, released on 05/03/2002 $405.85 m
6 LOTR: The Return of the King, released on 12/17/2003 $376.96 m
8:15:08 PM | |
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It's about freakin' time someone is taking the bull by the horns and drilling down to investigate how Cheney's Halliburton picked up such cushy contracts! Our Army was sent to war with far too few of numbers than requested by the Army; soldiers were under-protected; their vehicles were under-protected; and many battalians have seen their deployment extended and over-extended. If there was anything "planned" about this war, I'm sure it had too much to do with the corporate gains aspect of it than it did mobililizing and sustaining an efficient army.
Here is the beginning of the article reported by Move.On that originated from The Los Angeles Times:
Pentagon officials have acknowledged that Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff and other Bush administration political appointees were involved in a controversial decision to pay Halliburton Inc. to plan for the postwar recovery of Iraq's oil sector, a Democratic lawmaker said yesterday.
The decision, overruling the recommendations of an Army lawyer, eventually resulted in the award of a $7 billion no-bid contract to Halliburton, which Cheney ran for five years before he was nominated for vice president.
Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., who was briefed by Pentagon officials last week, issued a letter to the vice president yesterday demanding full disclosure of the top-secret process that led to awarding the contract to the Houston-based oil services company.
"To help clarify these important matters, I urge you to disclose all contacts between your office and the Defense Department relating to the Halliburton contracts," Waxman wrote in his letter.
Waxman's account of the Pentagon briefing - along with recently released internal Pentagon memos obtained by the nonprofit group Judicial Watch and a draft General Accounting Office report obtained by the Los Angeles Times - offers the most complete picture to date of the unusual procedures behind the decision to award the contract without the competitive bidding process usually required to protect taxpayer dollars.
7:32:23 PM | |
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Saturday, June 12, 2004 |
There has been chatter over Seymour Hersh's disturbing revelations of children being abused and tortured in front of their parents as part of the parents' interrogations. These revelations were made in his graduation address at the University of Chicago on June 8th. Blogger Brad Delong broke the news based on Rick Pearlstein who attended the graduation and took notes. Here is a paragraph that has caused some attention:
He [Hersh] said that after he broke Abu Ghraib people are coming out of the woodwork to tell him this stuff. He said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, "You haven't begun to see evil..." then trailed off. He said, "horrible things done to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run."
He looked frightened.
Mike Dorning of the Chicago Times validates one of Hersh's comments in his article yesterday. The article is about Army Spec. Jeremy Sivits account of what he experienced at Abu Ghraib, including this horrific account. Consider Dorning's review of the account and details of the facts that have been discovered:
[A} military intelligence analyst who recently completed duty at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq said Wednesday that the 16-year-old son of a detainee there was abused by U.S. soldiers to break his father's resistance to interrogators.
The analyst said the teenager was stripped naked, thrown in the back of an open truck, driven around in the cold night air, splattered with mud and then presented to his father at Abu Ghraib, the prison at the center of the scandal over abuse of Iraqi detainees.
Upon seeing his frail and frightened son, the prisoner broke down and cried and told interrogators he would tell them whatever they wanted, the analyst said.
The new account of mistreatment came as Army Spec. Jeremy Sivits was sentenced in Iraq to a year in prison Wednesday and a bad-conduct discharge after pleading guilty in the first court-martial stemming from the abuses at Abu Ghraib.
.....Sgt. Samuel Provance, who maintained the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion's top-secret computer system at Abu Ghraib prison, gave the account of abuse of the teenager in a telephone interview from Germany, where he is now stationed. He said he also has described the incident to Army investigators.
Provance's account of mistreatment of a prisoner's son is consistent with concerns raised by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which had received reports that interrogators were threatening reprisals against detainees' family members.
....Provance said he escorted the boy from the interrogation cellblock to the prison's general population immediately after the encounter between the teenager and his father.
"This kid was so frail. He was shaking like a leaf," he said.
Provance said he urged the interrogators not to put the teenager in the prison's unruly, poorly supervised general population, but was rebuffed.
"I even went inside and said, `This kid is scared for his life. He's probably going to be raped. He can't be put in general population,'" Provance said.
He said he did not know the identity of either the father or son but said the father was described to him as a "high-level individual" who had not provided useful intelligence in previous questioning.
Army spokesman Col. Joseph Curtin said he could not comment on the incidents described by Provance because they are part of an investigation. But Curtin said, "We are working very hard to get to the truth."
....Although Pentagon officials have portrayed the abuses at the prison as the isolated conduct of a few out-of-control guards, Provance's account offers fresh evidence of broader participation. He said members of Abu Ghraib's military intelligence unit were well aware that prisoners were subjected to sexual humiliation and other abuse.
....One female interrogator told him of forcing detainees to wear nothing but women's underwear and questioning a male prisoner who was kept naked during interrogation, Provance said. He said he overheard colleagues in the military intelligence battalion laughing as a soldier in the unit described watching MPs use two detainees as "practice dummies," first knocking one prisoner unconscious with a blow and then doing the same to the other.
....Provance said he became concerned about a possible cover-up of the role of military intelligence officials after receiving written instructions shortly after the interview telling him not to discuss Abu Ghraib.
In addition, Provance said, Fay warned that he likely would recommend administrative action against Provance for not reporting abuses before his first sworn statement, made in January. The administrative action would effectively bar promotions for Provance.
"I felt like I was being punished for being honest," Provance said.
An Army official said it was routine procedure for military investigators to instruct witnesses not to discuss events that are under examination.
Provance said he questioned treatment of prisoners several times last fall without effect.
"I would voice my opinion . . . and they would say, `What do you know? You're a system administrator,'" he said. Among the interrogators "there's a certain cockiness," he added.
Provance said his duties recently were switched from a computer systems administrator to a military intelligence analyst but he remains on duty with his unit, which returned from Iraq in February. He is now stationed in Heidelberg, Germany, he said.
11:12:13 AM | |
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We know Bush has been trying to wrap himself up in the aura of Reagan's remembrances to boost his re-election chances. It must be hard when the conservative media goes out of their way to make up comparisons between Bush and Reagan that shouldn't even be made.
MSN's website ran a story last night in their weekly election race column that had this very title "Reagan remembrances boost Bush." Go in and read the article you find that they are not talking about actual poll results but just a bunch of wishful thinking-- how it should be.
Steve at Absit Invidia posted remarks from Reagon's son that seemed directed at Bush:
Dad was also a deeply, unabashedly religious man. But he never made the fatal mistake of so many politicians wearing his faith on his sleeve to gain political advantage. True, after he was shot and nearly killed early in his presidency, he came to believe that God had spared him in order that he might do good. But he accepted that as a responsibility, not a mandate. And there is a profound difference.
- Ron P. Reagan eulogizing his late father, Ronald Wilson Reagan
Ron better watch out what he says. Those them are fightin' words. Bush just might unilaterally invade and destroy his dad's Memorial Library in Semi Valley!
10:41:06 AM | |
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Friday, June 11, 2004 |
My new must read blogger is Professor of Law Michael Froomkin of Discourse.Net. Today Froomkin critiqued Prof. Yoo's article that attempts to convince us that the Geneva Conventions don't apply to the war on terror and that our interrogation methods are lawful. At one point, Yoo suggests that one shouldn't expect us to treat terrorists as if they were hotel guests. Froomkin's commentary is excellent and a must read for anyone following the legal aspects of this most important issue! Consider these remarks about Yoo's "hotel guests" statement:
Neither six hours sleep nor “several hours” of interrogation are illegal acts. But that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about scaring people with dogs, about contests to see how many detainees could be so terrified they peed on themselves. We’re talking about 16 hours of continuous interrogation, and suicide attempts. We’re talking about telling people they were about to be killed. We’re talking about simulating telephone conversations in which detainees were told their families were being held on the other end of the line and would be harmed if the detainee didn’t talk. We’re talking about not jjust threatening but abusing kids to make parents talk. We’re talking about raping women and children of both sexes. We’re talking about atrocities.
Read the whole post called Yoo, Unrepentant.
10:20:24 PM | |
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Thursday, June 10, 2004 |
The machine of government can be considered, in many aspects, a science that efficiently functions based on how well it adheres to rules and laws. In order to retain compatibility, functionality, resiliency, and most importantly relevancy, the powers of government are divided amongst itself and held in check by a checks and balances system that is open to scrutiny by all its parts but most assuredly by the general public. Indeed, the relevancy of our form of government depends on how well it is maintained -- how its power is distributed; how open it is to the system of checks and balances; etc.
While reading code today for our product at work, I came across functionality that gave the system the intelligence to keep track of the direction the user is going so that when the user returns from a cell that has a popup list, the user can continue in the direction they were going. Likewise, government should be the catalyst for this type of functionality for its citizenry. It should act and govern in a manner that ensures we are progressing forward.
Bush and his Administration, however, have been like a virus to the 200-plus-year-old democratic system. They've usurped too much power for their warped crusade for a better America and a better world. It's weakend the functioning capability of government and the economic and financial state of the United States.
The latest evidence of this is the revelation of the Torture Memo, prepared by the Walker Working Group (WWG). WIthin its pages reside evidence of the misproportionment of power to the president and his legal justification for the use of torture on detainees.
Michael Froomkin, Professor of Law and author of the blog Discourse.Net, explained in his masterful analysis of the WWG torture memo "Apologia Pro Tormento" that the presidential powers argued for are lawless and wholly without merit:
The discussion of Presidential powers begins (page 20) with the observation that in the exercise of the commander-in-chief function, and in particular in the conduct of operations against hostile forces, the President enjoys "complete discretion". That the President’s powers are at their greatest in these circumstances cannot be disputed. But while the discretion is indeed very great, I do not see how it could possibly be read to include the authority to commit war crimes, even pre-Nuremburg. And today it clearly cannot include that authority, at least without explicit Congressional authorization. Thus, the entire discussion of Presidential power is based on a premise so false that any student who has taken introductory International Law should be able to recognize its error. And as any logician will tell you, when you begin with an erroneous premise, you are in trouble.
Nonetheless, it appears that this memo became the backbone for the interogation methods used against detainees at Guantanamo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, including Abu Ghraib.
Today, Matthew Yglesias agrees that Bush overstepped his power and the rule of law:
[T]orture aside, this business of writing secret memos proclaiming that the president has an inherent power to selectively abrogate the laws is an absurd repudiation of constitutional government. The president holds an office and has to administer the state according to the laws as they stand. He can ask that the laws be changed, but he can't just ignore them. Lately, we've had Reagan on the brain over here. As we know, Ronald Reagan was not a fan of Aid to Families With Dependent Children ("welfare"). Nevertheless, the checks kept on rolling until congress changed the law. Just because Reagan was the president, and thus in charge of the HHS Secretary and other underlings charged with administering the program, didn't mean they could stop it just because they wanted to.
Similarly, Bush didn't cut taxes by sending the IRS a memo one day telling them not to bother doing any collecting, any more than Clinton raised them by just sending people around to gas stations to pick up some extra cash. There's a process here, and the president needs to follow up. He's not the Czar, the laws don't bend to his whims.
The Houston Chronicle also commented on the gross misuse of law from the highest levels to justify torture:
The United States' moral authority to call for the rule of law and respect for human rights has been undermined by legal machinations the Bush administration undertook to justify torturing prisoners taken in the war on terror....
The memos were obviously concocted to defend acts that are clearly beyond the bounds of a civilized nation.
The memos support the view that the prisoner abuses uncovered at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were not merely the grave mistakes of a few soldiers, but resulted from policies formed at the highest levels of government.
Jonathon Tepperman's article "An American In the Hague?" today in The New York Times echoes the opinion, suggesting that the relevation of the memo will have its consequences:
Even if no smoking gun is ever found to directly link American officials to the crimes,...they could still find themselves in serious jeopardy under international law. Under the doctrine of command responsibility, officials can be held accountable for war crimes committed by their subordinates even if they did not order them - so long as they had control over the perpetrators, had reason to know about the crimes, and did not stop them or punish the criminals.
This doctrine is the product of an American initiative. Devised by Allied judges and prosecutors at the Nuremberg tribunals, it was a means to impute responsibility for wartime atrocities to Nazi leaders, who often communicated indirectly and avoided leaving a paper trail.
More recently, the principle has been fine-tuned by two other American creations: the international tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, which were established in the last decade by the United Nations Security Council at the United States' behest. These tribunals have held that political and military leaders can be found liable for war crimes committed by those under their "effective control" if they do nothing to prevent them....
...[I]f American officials are not held legally accountable, the damage abroad could be even more severe. Part of the terrible legacy of Abu Ghraib may be that the United States will find it difficult to prosecute foreign war criminals if it refuses to accept for itself the legal standards it accuses them of breaking.
The travesty of our acts of torture and the continuing obfuscation, denial, and secrecy of Bush and his administration in regards to this definitely sets us on a dangerous direction with catostrophic effects both domestically as well as internationally. It has everything to do with our legitimacy and relevancy.
In a closing remark today, Josh Micah Marshall exclaimed that we Americans are "like contestants on Wheel of Fortune with a long phrase spelled out in front of us with maybe one or two letters missing. We know what the letters spell. It's obvious. We just don't have the heart to say it out loud."
Maybe this recognition is the turning point. Eventually, someone will say what needs to be said; and the truth will be like a stone that became a great mountain that filled the whole earth.
10:43:57 PM | |
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Wednesday, June 09, 2004 |
Terrance Chea of the AP reported the disturbing allegations from Sgt. Greg Ford:
A California National Guardsman says three fellow soldiers brazenly abused detainees during interrogation sessions in an Iraqi police station, threatening them with guns, sticking lit cigarettes in their ears and choking them until they collapsed.
Sgt. Greg Ford said he repeatedly had to revive prisoners who had passed out, and once saw a soldier stand on the back of a handcuffed detainee's neck and pull his arms until they popped out of their sockets.
"I had to intervene because they couldn't keep their hands off of them," said Ford, part of a four-member team from the 223rd Military Intelligence Battalion that questioned detainees last year in Samarra, north of Baghdad.
Ford's commanding officers deny any abuse occurred, and say investigations within their battalion and by the Army's Criminal Investigation Division determined they had done nothing wrong. ...
Ford told The Associated Press that when he reported the problems last June to his commanding officers, they pressured him to drop his claims.
"Immediately, within the same conversation, the command said, `Nope, you're delusional, you're crazy, it never happened.' They gave me 30 seconds to withdraw my request for an investigation," Ford said. "I stood my ground."
When he insisted on an official investigation, they ordered him to see combat stress counselors, who sent him out of Iraq, he said....
So Ford asked to be relieved from his position, prompting a visit by his commander, Capt. Vic Artiga, and Lt. Col. Ryan, who "were too busy threatening me to do any proper investigation," Ford said.
9:58:45 PM | |
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Last summer, I compared the Bush's obfuscations and secrecy to the hidden body of Polonius. In my reference, I explained that Hamlet had just killed and hidden Polonius. The King and his guards were frantically attempting to find him. When confronted about Polonius' death and the location of the body, Hamlet explained that if they could not immediately find him, they'd be able to smell him at the end of a couple of weeks.
Summer is fast upon us and the heat of current affairs in Iraq and at home are finally allowing the American public to smell the deeds of this foul president. Right now, even as America bids farewell to Ronald Reagan, the likes of which we have not seen in thirty or more years, the attention is off of the most serious of investigations of this presidency-- the investigations brought about by the evidence of torture at Abu Ghraib. What was exclaimed to be the doings of a "few bad apples" is turning out to be a systematic method of interogation in Guantanamo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. More damning though is the recent revelation that attorneys (Walker Working Group) working under the guidance of Bush made a legal justification for torture as a method of interogation. And Ashcroft is refusing to release the all of the torture memo.
What are the implications of this memo's release?
The New York Times, in their feature editorial "The Roots of Abu Ghraib" explained that Congress may have to form an investigation panel with subpoena powers to find the answers.
The Washington Post, in their feature editorial Legalizing Torture, explains that Bush's policies threaten US and international law and open the door for dictators to torture and kill detainees. Consider these incredible paragraphs:
This week, thanks again to an independent press, we have begun to learn the deeply disturbing truth about the legal opinions that the Pentagon and the Justice Department seek to keep secret. According to copies leaked to several newspapers, they lay out a shocking and immoral set of justifications for torture. In a paper prepared last year under the direction of the Defense Department's chief counsel, and first disclosed by the Wall Street Journal, the president of the United States was declared empowered to disregard U.S. and international law and order the torture of foreign prisoners. Moreover, interrogators following the president's orders were declared immune from punishment. Torture itself was narrowly redefined, so that techniques that inflict pain and mental suffering could be deemed legal. All this was done as a prelude to the designation of 24 interrogation methods for foreign prisoners -- the same techniques, now in use, that President Bush says are humane but refuses to disclose.
There is no justification, legal or moral, for the judgments made by Mr. Bush's political appointees at the Justice and Defense departments. Theirs is the logic of criminal regimes, of dictatorships around the world that sanction torture on grounds of "national security." For decades the U.S. government has waged diplomatic campaigns against such outlaw governments -- from the military juntas in Argentina and Chile to the current autocracies in Islamic countries such as Algeria and Uzbekistan -- that claim torture is justified when used to combat terrorism. The news that serving U.S. officials have officially endorsed principles once advanced by Augusto Pinochet brings shame on American democracy -- even if it is true, as the administration maintains, that its theories have not been put into practice. Even on paper, the administration's reasoning will provide a ready excuse for dictators, especially those allied with the Bush administration, to go on torturing and killing detainees.
Perhaps the president's lawyers have no interest in the global impact of their policies -- but they should be concerned about the treatment of American servicemen and civilians in foreign countries. Before the Bush administration took office, the Army's interrogation procedures -- which were unclassified -- established this simple and sensible test: No technique should be used that, if used by an enemy on an American, would be regarded as a violation of U.S. or international law. Now, imagine that a hostile government were to force an American to take drugs or endure severe mental stress that fell just short of producing irreversible damage; or pain a little milder than that of "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." What if the foreign interrogator of an American "knows that severe pain will result from his actions" but proceeds because causing such pain is not his main objective? What if a foreign leader were to decide that the torture of an American was needed to protect his country's security? Would Americans regard that as legal, or morally acceptable? According to the Bush administration, they should.
And in Michael Froomkin's (Discourse Net) commentary on the Torture Memo, prepared by the Walker Working Group, he unequivocally states:
If anyone in the higher levels of government acted in reliance on this advice, those persons should be impeached. If they authorized torture, it may be that they have committed, and should be tried for, war crimes. And, as we learned at Nuremberg, "I was just following orders" is NOT (and should not be) a defense.
9:52:28 PM | |
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My friend, Shawn, shared with me a letter he wrote to the arrogant and contemptuous Ashcroft today. I say ditto!
Dear Mr. Ashcroft:
Though I've lowered my expectations of your office manifold over the course
of your tenure, I still find it behooves me to write and chastise you for
your hypocrisy and lack of ethics in stonewalling congress. On which count,
you ask? Good point. After all, you've done so on numerous occasions and
subjects. The one to which I refer is your refusal to release the memo
containing legal counsel/rationale for torturing prisoners deemed of high
value in the war on terror.
What more can be said than, "Shame on you!" Will the pathetic partisanship
and cover ups of blatant administration fallibility--evident to every
perceptive citizen with even an average IQ--ever stop? Never mind. I have
little hope you will see the depravity of your hypocritical views and your
unethical loyalty to an administration complicit in incredible damage to
America and its interests.
Yet I have no fear. Though the Bush/Cheney reelection campaign has proven
quite adept about misinforming the public and covering up gross failures and
lapses of judgement, even they cannot stem the tide gathering to sweep you
and the rest of your viral cabal out of office this November.
8:09:23 PM | |
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From the Center of American Progress daily report, news out of the Los Angeles Times explains that the annual report on global terrorism was inaccurate. :
"The State Department is scrambling to revise its annual report on global terrorism to acknowledge that it understated the number of deadly attacks in 2003." The document was criticized as "inaccurate and...politically manipulated by the Bush administration." When the report was released it April, "senior Bush administration officials immediately hailed it as objective proof that they were winning the waron terrorism." Now State Department officials acknowledge "they underreported the number of terrorist attacks in the tally for 2003." The revised figures are expected to reveal that in 2003 terrorist attacks rose to the "highest level in 20 years."
You know, there comes a time when you wonder why anyone in their right mind believes anything this administration says. They have not been right about their tax cuts; they were not right on the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; they were not accurate in the Niger uranium claim; they were not right about the war in Iraq decreasing terrorist activity; they were not right about their relationship with Ahmad Chalabi; and they were not right about the Iraqi people welcoming us with open arms. On top of this, it is coming to light that they were lying about Bush's foreknowledge of torture being used against detainees.
I read today in the Salt Lake Tribune that there is going to be a new reality tv show in which contestants will be running against eachother to be the next People's Choice Candidate for President. No matter how you look at this idea, it is a sad commentary on America and the perception of what it takes to be president. Whoever conjured up this TV idea must have realized that if Bush can do it, than any reality tv show candidate is competent enough to do the job.
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Tuesday, June 08, 2004 |
Tomorrow night the women of the local congregation are having a progressive dinner. We volunteered to have the main course in our backyard. Because of this, I spent all evening trimming the edges of the grass, weeding the flower beds, raking up all of the debris, and sweeping off the brick patio. My back and neck are sore. I'm not looking forward to tomorrow. Note to self: pack extra Tylenol and Ibruprofen for work!
While I was weeding, my four-year-old daughter came out and worked alongside me for a good fifteen minutes or so. I started paying attention to her when she started singing this two line phrase over and over again, like a nursery rhyme. It went something like "Picking the peas, fall on my knees." Where she came up with this is beyond me. What fascinated me was how she worked in accordance with its rhythmic tones and how it kept her going. She sang it over and again like a broken record until she was tired of pulling weeds or tired of the song. In all, there is something about children and their love for rythmn and rhyme; their love of hearing the sounds letters come off their tongue, vibrate on the roof of their mouth, or listen to the long vowels as they hang in the air in front of their mouth.
In regards to news, it has been another noisy day. I've been working a review for the new Harry Potter film, which I loved. I wanted to talk about the infamous torture memo that was written up by lawyers for Bush to use as a legal justification. Eschaton has a picture of one of the lawyers, Mary Walker, and a link to a post by Billmon about her evangical ties and how she uses that in her job for the US government.
I wanted to talk about another noteworthy article printed by Salon, titled Operation Enduring Fog by Dennis Jett. The premise of this article is that the government is trying diversionary tactics to win re-election and the war in Iraq. The cover-up strategy, Jett believes, consists of 1) controlling the message; 2) denial; 3) refusing to provide information; and 4) scare tactics. It's an important read.
Lastly, there were two eye-opening stories today on the grave situation in Sudan. The Washington Post today had a feature editorial on the genocide that has been occurring in and around Darfur. In the past year, over 30,000 have been slaughtered. The administrator of the US Agency for International Development says this figure can grow to 300,000. In a companion story, read this article printed by The Guardian: "They Came at Dawn and Killed the Men."
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Monday, June 07, 2004 |
Salon printed a remarkable article today by Alessandro Camon titled American Torture, American Porn, the premise of which is that our acts of torture are the products off of unhealthy sprituality and sexuality. Camon believes evidence for this fact lies in the acts of torture at Abu Ghraib and the boxoffice success of The Passion of the Christ.
Consider this choice paragraph that gives one of the best descriptions of torture I've read yet:
The torture/pornography connection is deep and inescapable. Mark Bowden, of "Black Hawk Down" fame, wrote a well-informed, compellingly readable article in October's Atlantic Monthly about "the dark art of interrogation" (which was promptly optioned for movie development.) He makes a strong case for the effectiveness of torture as a means for acquiring intelligence -- which of course is not an unchallenged notion, and not necessarily a justification. But torture is not the mere application of pain to the task of extracting information. Much of what we identify as torture is actually gratuitous, like the ear-severing in the film "Reservoir Dogs." "I believe you," says Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen), "but I'm gonna torture you anyway." This is, arguably, the real "point" of torture -- the assertion of power over the law, over pity, over logic. I'll torture because I can. I don't need a reason, I don't need a goal -- the arbitrary nature of the act is in fact its very essence. You cannot understand it except by internalizing the absolute fact that I have all the power and you have none, and our very identity as human beings is defined by this fact. You can conclude that I am not human because I lack pity. But that's an abstraction. The concrete reality of the situation is that you are not human because you lack all freedom and all dignity.
Camon goes into further detail on how pornography coincides with torture, explaining:
...[S]exual torture is central to the experience. The emasculation of men, the degradation of women, turns them into something they no longer recognize as themselves. Torture is largely the business of creating shame, indelible memories of one's own impotence which serve as warnings to a whole society. An instinctive understanding of this task can be evinced by the acts of the American torturers. They were aiming to hurt the Arab man where it counts the most -- in his masculine pride. There was hardly a more explicit way to do it than to strip him naked and capture him in effigy as the perverse negation of his own self -- as a pathetic loser, writhing on the floor or engaging in simulated sexual acts on command, while American men and women pose next to him with a grin and a thumbs-up. This instinctive understanding was further refined by the superior education in pornography that is typical of the contemporary American man (and to some lesser extent, woman.)
Pornography shares with torture an inherent ability to dehumanize. It reduces the individual to a sexual function, flattens identity to a physical act performed for somebody else's ultimate pleasure.
Camon concludes his article correlating The Passion of the Christ with a seeming obsession toward torture. He ponders whether we accept its legitimacy because the torture was placed on the Christ of Christianity, whose death is considered to be an absolution of all our sins and acts, including torture.
"The Passion of the Christ" is, not unlike an exploitation movie from the '70s, saturated with ultra-violence to the point of ridiculousness. Yet the representation of this violence is unobjectionable to the audience because the violence is inflicted upon the Christ. There seems to be no limit to the amount of violence you could show in this context (provided you could root it in the Scriptures). The torturers themselves are not the ultimate culprits: those are the Jews, as architects of the deicide. By assigning blame to "them," we can watch an hour of torture entirely guilt-free. In fact, the more severe the torture, the more godlike and awesome Christ's endurance. Which means we have a moral incentive to welcome the sight of torture, to wish for more and more punishment to be administered and exhibited on screen. The amount of butchery is directly proportional evidence of our own worth: look what Jesus, the extreme athlete of pain, chose to endure in order to save us! This is the fundamental perversion of the movie -- that it encourages us to fetishize and get high on the horror of the martyrdom.
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Friday, June 04, 2004 |
Animation is very much like fantasy; it can create a reality unfamiliar to us, make us believe in its vision, and enrapture us by its magical charm. In these realities, sharks not only talk but they can be vegetarians (Finding Nemo), humans can turn into giant swine by overeating enchanted food (Spirited Away), an ogre and his pet donkey can turn into a handsome man and a white stallion (Shrek 2), the US can go to war against Canada because a group of boys start using foul language and imitating the crude antics of a Candadian film (South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut), a peasant girl can soften the angry heart of a beast and fall in love with it (Beauty & the Beast), and a little girl can go to battle against the monsters destroying the forests of her world and win (Princess Monanoke).
These other-worldly and sometimes fantastical realities work best when we sense the similarities of the human condition in their characters -- what drives them; what hurts them; how they react; how they hate; how they love; and how their actions bring about consequences. If we sense truth and reality in these films, revealed through a dynamic plot with accompanying dynamic characters, no matter how bizarre the characters are portrayed, we accept them and cherish them.
With this in mind, I'd like to introduce the uniquely endearing animated film The Triplets of Belleville.
Here is animation unlike modern Disney, Pixar, or Dreamworks fare. In fact, it has that old 1940's - 1950's avantgarde travel-ad feel to it, with exagerated details in the human form, landscapes, and building structures; pretty much everything.
In one scene, for example, we watch a ship leaving a harbor. Its hull towers over the city; its propeller, however, is miniscule. In another scene, we see a two-story home that has been overtaken by progress and development. A bridge that carries commuter trains encroaches onto its property. The house, because of this, literally leans to one side, as if it grew away from the tracks like a tree would grow away from what was impeding its growth.
In regards to exagerated details in the human form, the French mafia all have square shoulders and wear black. They look like giant and menacing black boxes with heads and stubby arms. And bike racers are all elongated and emaciated figures with overly-pronounced calves and thighs.
At first, the animation startled me, unnerved me. But I grew accustomed to its uniqueness; I grew to cherish the idiosyncracies of each character, most especially Madame Souza and her dog Bruno.
The story of the film also reminded me of comedies of the old-fashioned silent film era. A young boy by the name of Champion is orphaned. His grandmother, Madame Souza, takes him in. He's a most unhappy boy and we see her watching him intently trying to ascertain what she can do for him to make him happy. One day, she discovers his diary, hidden under his bed. Inside it, she finds cut out pictures of bicycles and the Tour de France. She surprises him the next day with a tricycle.
Jumping ahead fifteen or twenty years, he's training for the Tour de France and she is cycling after him (on his old tricycle) blowing a whistle to keep his pace. To say that she has built her life around trying to make Champion's life meaningful and worth something is an understatement.
After years of relentless training, Champion makes it to the Tour de France. But the French Mafia sabotages Madame Souza's aid van and then, with Madame Souza unaware, they kidnap Champion and two other competitors. But supported by her faithful sidekick, her oversized and cuddly dog Bruno, Madame Souza sets off to rescue her beloved Champion. The trail, sniffed out by Bruno, leads them across the Atlantic to the vast seaport of Belleville. They lose the scent of Champion and become lost, homeless, and confused in the threatening city streets.
When hope seems lost, in walk the famous Belleville Triplettes, who, in their youth, were a glamorous close-harmony act. Now, these three batty old women are a bizarre jazz combo. They take Madame Souza and Bruno in and before she knows it, she is part of the band. This relationship eventually leads these women and Bruno to Champion, kept alive and being used for gambling purposes for the French mafia. Their rescue and escape is great fun.
At the very end of the film, as the triplets, Champion, Madame Souza, and Bruno ride away into the moonlit night, I realized just how fond I was of their story, in all its' overly-exagerated-detailed way.
I don't want to sound like I'm just throwing out cheap movie catch phrases, but I do believe that The Triplets of Belleville is a classic animated film.
And oh ya, I was definitely hypnotized by the jazzy soundtrack, by the Triplets of Belleville.
10:59:03 PM | |
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Thursday, June 03, 2004 |
Today has been one of the noisiest I can recall.
1) The Director of the CIA, George Tenet, resigned. Reading between the lines, one wonders if he was fired. The fact that Bush chose to announce this as he was flying over on his rah-rah tour of Europe also makes one wonder if Tenet's removal helps make Bush's goodwill and "HELP!" message more viable -- that he (Bush) is cleaning house and getting rid of those who conjured up the bad intelligence against IRaq.
2 ) Bush has sought legal advice from Jim Sharp in regards to the leaking of the CIA agent, Valerie Plame. Bush's comment on this was as follows: "This is a criminal matter. It's a serious matter. I met with an attorney to determine whether or not I need his advice, and if I deem I need his advice I'll probably hire him."
Eschaton explained in a nutshell what this meeting implies. In a post today called Misprision, Atrios writes:
With Bush consulting with a lawyer it's a good time to consider what possible legal difficulties he could be confronted with. Now, obviously if as Capitol Hill Blue claims (they aren't a trustworthy source, BTW), one of the grand jury witnesses has claimed Bush had prior knowledge of the leak then he would be in seriously deep doodoo.
But, let's assume for now that isn't the case (or, at least that there isn't actually such a witness). If after the fact he knew who did it, then he would be likely be guilty of being an accessory after the fact for actively covering it up, depending on how his public statements, etc... diverge from the facts.
And, even if not guilty of being an accessory, he could still face charges of "misprision of a felony" - of knowing about it and not coming forward.
So, the point is -- if at any time, before or after, the president knew the identity of the leakers then, to quote Michael Kinsley, "Ha. Ha. Ha."
LiberalOasis seems to have a more pessimistic take on this-- writing that this tactical/legal move allows Bush to hide behind the client/attorney privilege blanket. On a note of digression, LO believes that this latest development should be used to attack Bush's integrity. Consider these paragraphs from today's post:
...[H]ow should this latest Plame development fit in?
LO is not hopeful it will fit in much at all, even though this scandal has the potential to be the fatal blow to Bush.
The Dems have laid relatively low so far, probably thinking (short-sightedly) that if the investigation touches Bush or any other White House official, it will do its own damage with or without Dem help.
There's no reason to think that will change now, not with so many other things to talk about, and not until more concrete info surfaces.
But George "Tort Reform" Bush's decision to duck behind a lawyer instead of simply coming clean with whatever he knows could be used to tie up all of the percolating scandals.
And in doing so, attack Bush at his foundation, his perceived integrity.
In essence, Dubya's legal move is the capper of the Administration's continual avoidance of responsibility and accountability.
That is the thread that runs through all of the current flaps.
No acceptance of responsibility for propping up Chalabi, for shoddy war planning, for favoring Halliburton, for egregious detainee policy.
I too find the timing of this revelation quite interesting--just as Bush goes to Europe. Could it be that he feels he will be able to stay away from the American press until this story dies down or is replaced by another tragedy?
No matter the timing, PlameGate lives. It will be very interesting to see what transpires in the next few days. The cynic in me wonders if anything will come of this before November. I fear that the more time that passes, the less relevance the findings have on the issues that face us today and in November.
3) The FBI is investigating intellgence links to Iran via the neocons favorite Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi. Consider the text of this AP report written by Katherine Pfleger Shrader:
Chalabi, a longtime favorite of some in the Pentagon, is at the center of a controversy over whether he then shared with Iranian officials the closely guarded information about methods used by the United States to spy on the Iranian regime.
Government officials said there is evidence that Chalabi or his followers told Iran the United States had cracked some of its codes for transmitting sensitive information.
The officials said the FBI is investigating whether anyone in the U.S. government may have provided Chalabi the information, a potential criminal offense that may have hurt American efforts to monitor Tehran's activities.
The New York Times offered this tidbit of irony. Chalabi was reported to have said that Tenet mislead Bush into going to war:
Chalabi also accused Tenet of providing ``erroneous information about weapons of mass destruction to President Bush, which caused the government much embarrassment at the United Nations and his own country.''
To wrap up the happenings of this day, you could say it all comes down to intelligence-- Bush fired the director of intelligence, is running away from an ever tightening investigation on the matter of who leaked the name of an intelligence agent, and is trying to distance himself from the Iraqi exile who not only fed us bad intelligence about Saddam's Iraq but also fed Iran our intelligence.
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Wednesday, June 02, 2004 |
Wait a minute! This is wrong? They have been doing this in Utah for years!
President Bush's re-election campaign is trying to recruit supporters from 1,600 religious congregations in Pennsylvania -- a political push that critics said Wednesday could cost churches their tax breaks.
An e-mail from the campaign's Pennsylvania office, obtained by The Associated Press, urges churchgoers to help organize "Friendly Congregations" where supporters can meet regularly to sign up voters and spread the Bush word.
"I'd like to ask if you would like to serve as a coordinator in your place of worship," says the e-mail, adorned with the Bush-Cheney logo, from Luke Bernstein, who runs the state campaign's coalitions operation and is a former staffer to Sen. Rick Santorum, the president's Pennsylvania chairman.
"We plan to undertake activities such as distributing general information/updates or voter registration materials in a place accessible to the congregation," the e-mail says.
Soon to be coming to your neighborhood, I'm sure.
(Thanks to Atrios at Eschaton for posting this earlier today.)
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Michael Moore's Farenheit 911 has a distributor and will be released in theaters nationwide on June 25. Lions Gate, IFC Films, and the Fellowship Adventure Group, which was formed by Harvey and Bob Weinstein, will release and distribute the film.
According to Gary Gentile of the AP, a settlement was reached last week by which the Weinstein brothers "repaid their parent company for all costs of the film to date, estimated at around $6 million. Any profits from the film's distribution that go to Miramax or Disney will be donated to charity."
In regards to the twenty-minute footage taken of Nick Berg for the film, Michael Moore gave a copy to each of the family members as a gift of remembrance. David Berg was most impressed by this gesture. He told Jason Straziuso of the AP in an interview:
Moore handled the situation with "dignity, respect and discipline."
"Michael Moore has really been a total class act with this whole thing," David Berg said. "He could have sold this to the media or stuck it in his movie."
(Excerpt taken from that AP report, "Filmmaker Moore Spoke with Berg Months Before Death" by Jason Straziuso.)
Go to www.michaelmoore.com for more information about Farenheit 911.
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Tuesday, June 01, 2004 |
If you were looking at this picture and thinking S&M Fantasy Island, I'm sorry. You're wrong.
This is Halle Berry after she has met some strange fate (from the previews I'm guessing some vat of chemicals) that causes her id persona to be more dominant when the sun goes down (a.k.a Catwoman).
Yes, I'm intrigued. Yes, I'm titilated. After Berry's turn in an Oscar award-winning performance in Monster’s Ball and her babe-ilicious ex-Bond girl role in Die Another Day, who would have thought Berry would choose a comicbook role.
I understand that this film, like the Batman films, were all for fun and entertainment. Nevertheless, I like smart fun and entertainment, not weak "who cares" films such as Underworld or Paycheck.
Will the story of Catwoman be intriguing enough that it merits being made? Will Halle’s performance be dynamic enough to do well at the boxoffice?
Do you remember Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman in Batman Returns? I do. Can Berry match Pfeiffer’s vulnerable, psychologically layered (tormented), and sexy portrayal?
Here is the synopsis of the film according to the official website:
[Halle Berry] plays a shy and sensitive artist named Patience Philips. Phillips is a woman who can't seem to stop apologizing for her own existence. She works as a graphic designer for Hedare Beauty, a mammoth cosmetics company on the verge of releasing a revolutionary anti-aging product. When Patience inadvertently happens upon a dark secret her employer is hiding, she finds herself in the middle of a corporate conspiracy. What happens next changes Patience forever. In a mystical twist of fate, she is transformed into a woman with the strength, speed, agility and ultra-keen senses of a cat. With her newfound prowess and feline intuition, Patience becomes Catwoman, a sleek and stealthy creature balancing on the thin line between good and bad. Like any wildcat, she's dangerous, elusive and untamed. Her adventures are complicated by a burgeoning relationship with Tom Lone (Benjamin Bratt), a cop who has fallen for Patience but cannot shake his fascination with the mysterious Catwoman, who appears to be responsible for a string of crime sprees plaguing the city.
Catwoman is directed by a guy with one name, Pitof. I am only familiar with his name in two films, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc and Alien: Resurrection. Pitof was the visual effects director for the film Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc and the visual effects supervisor for Alien: Resurrection. If anything, we can be confident that the visual aspects of Catwoman will be decent, if not top notch.
Catwoman stars, to name a few: Halle Berry (Patience Philips), Sharon Stone (Laurel Hedare), Benjamin Bratt (Detective Tom Lone), Lambert Wilson (Georges Hedare), Frances McDormand, Alex Borstein, and Frances Conroy (Ophelia Powers).
Catwoman is in theaters on July 23. I don't know about you, but my curiousity (and appreciation of black leather) will get me in to this film.
10:56:34 PM | |
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What is Dooh Nibor economics? It is Robin Hood in reverse! And Krugman's article today in the NYT is a must read on the latest shocking revelation coming out of Washington. Please consider the opening paragraphs:
Last week The Washington Post got hold of an Office of Management and Budget memo that directed federal agencies to prepare for post-election cuts in programs that George Bush has been touting on the campaign trail. These include nutrition for women, infants and children; Head Start; and homeland security. The numbers match those on a computer printout leaked earlier this year - one that administration officials claimed did not reflect policy.
Beyond the routine mendacity, the case of the leaked memo points us to a larger truth: whatever they may say in public, administration officials know that sustaining Mr. Bush's tax cuts will require large cuts in popular government programs. And for the vast majority of Americans, the losses from these cuts will outweigh any gains from lower taxes.
It has long been clear that the Bush administration's claim that it can simultaneously pursue war, large tax cuts and a "compassionate" agenda doesn't add up. Now we have direct confirmation that the White House is engaged in bait and switch, that it intends to pursue a not at all compassionate agenda after this year's election.
[Emphasis mine.]
7:29:25 PM | |
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To see the greatest results, simply follow this No CARB diet--
No Cheney
No Ashcroft
No Rumsfield
No Bush
And in addition to these, avoid partaking Rice!
(This came via email today. Author unknown.)
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