That Shoe Thrower Guy

I've been thinking about that shoe thrower guy a lot today. Well, obviously he's hard to avoid if you even turn on the TV or read the news...

But I'm pondering whether the act of throwing his shoes at Bush was a violent act or a symbolic act. If it was intended as a violent act, he kind of failed. Nobody was hurt. Bush smirked -- even looked proud of himself for dodging the projectiles. There was even a bit of laughter in the room.

My impression is that the thrower, Muntazer al-Zaidi, knew his protest would be symbolic. He had his lines prepared and had an exact purpose. On the first shoe throw, he shouted "This is a gift from the Iraqis. This is the farewell kiss, you dog." And he consecrated the second shoe with "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

With this act, he evoked memories of how Saddam's statue was toppled and then beaten with shoes in the early days of the Iraq war. Even if westerners don't grasp the supreme insult of shoe throwing, we understand Bush is being equated with that dictator.

I'm sure al-Zaidi knew what he was doing. He could have been truly violent if he wanted to, but he wasn't. And the consequences for his actions? He's an Iraqi so he knew what horror he might be facing. The reports indicate that he now has a broken arm and ribs. I suspect this new Iraqi regime has no more respect for human rights than the previous one. So much for the progress we were bringing them.

But the most extraordinary thing is that al-Zaidi has, with this one brave protest, brought about more praise, admiration, and inspiration than all previous bombers and gunmen combined.

Now if Bush could only put on those shoes and walk a mile in them... nah, it's Bush we're talking about.

Walk of Shame

President Bush has 46 days left in the White House, and he's desperately trying to recast his legacy. I've watched parts of his recent exit interview, and although nearly everything he says boils my blood, I haven't commented because at this point, writing long essays on his failures is like kicking a corpse. Luckily, Jon Stewart is up to the task (if video doesn't show, click here):

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

End Times Countdown - Bush Exit Interviews

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

However, now that Jon Stewart has fired me up, I think I am going to kick the corpse just a little bit... Bush made this one particularly wistful remark that I can't let pass: "I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess." What?

Let me just address the president personally (because I'm certain he reads this blog)...

Sorry Mr. President, but I've been paying attention, and I remember that major Senate committee report last June which concluded that you and your aides built the public case for war against Iraq by exaggerating available intelligence and by ignoring disagreements among spy agencies about Iraq’s weapons programs and Saddam Hussein’s links to Al Qaeda. In other words, you lied to us about the intelligence, and if the information had been different, you still would have lied because you were determined to go to war. Maybe you should read the report. Maybe you'll put a copy in your library. Whatever you do, you can't successfully rewrite history because too many people are watching you.

However, now it's time to keep an eye on little brother Jeb Bush because he's prattling on about setting up a "shadow government" which sounds vaguely treasonous. Between the Bushies and McCain, they've certainly done some damage to the Republican party.

The good news though? That McCain-Palin t-shirt you wanted to buy your grandpa for Christmas is now 75% off! Image via erin m on flickr:

Bush Seven Years Ago Today

On September 20, 2001, Bush addressed members of Congress and the American people for the first time since the attacks on September 11. The speech introduced the principles of the Bush Doctrine, and today reads like a collection of Bush's greatest hits:

the war on terror
either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists
they hate our freedoms
I ask your continued participation and confidence in the American economy

Also, he did a little name dropping with Iraq. He was not yet implying an Iraqi link with the attacks, but he would get to that in time. In fact, it only took a few months of innuendo to deceive the American people. The Christian Science Monitor reported on the shift in public opinion:

Polling data show that right after Sept. 11, 2001, when Americans were asked open-ended questions about who was behind the attacks, only 3 percent mentioned Iraq or Hussein. But by January of this year, attitudes had been transformed. In a Knight Ridder poll, 44 percent of Americans reported that either "most" or "some" of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqi citizens. The answer is zero.

By August 2003, the misconception was widespread. A Washington Post poll indicated that about 70% of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks. Sadly, in 2008, an important VP candidate is still spreading these lies for political gain.

She also holds the childish belief that terrorists hate us for our freedom, when in reality, they hate us for our airstrikes (if video doesn't show, click here):

Nature or Nurture

I found this image at Something Awful. The photos were taken from a 1980's Farsi Alphabet book for children. The owner of the book received it at age 2 or 3 while visiting Iran toward the end of the Iran-Iraq War. You may remember that was when the US was on Saddam's side.

Anyway, though I've never seen a children's book quite like this, I'm not going to pretend to be shocked. I've seen the Palestinian kid's show with the impostor Mickey Mouse promoting jihad. I've seen the sing-along DVDs glorifying suicide bombing. I'm also aware that the CIA was behind the violent images in Afghani textbooks when the US wanted to indoctrinate Afghan children with their duty to fight the Soviets:

In 1986, under President Ronald Reagan, the U.S. put a rush order on its proxy war in Afghanistan. The CIA gave Mujahideen an overwhelming arsenal of guns and missiles. But a lesser-known fact is that the U.S. also gave the Mujahideen hundreds of millions of dollars in non-lethal aid; $43 million just for the school textbooks. The U.S. Agency for International Development, AID, coordinated its work with the CIA, which ran the weapons program.
...
"The U.S. government told the AID to let the Afghan war chiefs decide the school curriculum and the content of the textbooks," says CBC'S Carol Off. "What discussions did you have with the Mujahideen leaders? Was it any effort to say maybe this isn't the best for an eight-year-old's mind?"

"No, because we were told that that was not for negotiations and that the content was to be that which they decided," says Goutier.

So children learn to count with bullets, to color in pictures of guns, and to sing about suicide missions. Adults brainwash them to fight their dirty wars. We do it to American children too (for profit even!) with toys like GI Joe.

What better way to keep the continuum of violence except to nurture it?

Anthrax Answers?

Government officials asserted yesterday that Bruce Ivins acted alone to perpetrate the anthrax attack that killed five people, but others believe the evidence is inconclusive. (If video doesn't show, click here.)



Gerald Posner raises the question about how Ivins could have weaponized the anthrax. This mystery alone is one critical reason for the public to scrutinize the government's conclusions.

However, as I wrote about earlier this week, there is another reason for scrutiny over the entire anthrax case. The media's reporting on the attack was used to advance Bush's plan for a war in Iraq. Some people, notably Glenn Greenwald, Jay Rosen and Dan Gillmor, want ABC News to answer vital questions about the sources behind the initial reports connecting Saddam Hussein to the anthrax attacks. Bloggasm has an exclusive interview with Greenwald asking him about ABC's responsibility in the matter:

“I think first of all that this is a basic principal of journalism, that if you get a story wrong, you explain what happened that led to the bad reporting,” Greenwald told me. “That’s what the New York Times did to explain how they got those Judy Miller stories wrong. When people get stories wrong, the credibility of the journalistic outlet depends upon them explaining what happened. If Brian Ross wants to say, ‘our sources acted in good faith, they just got it wrong,’ then he needs to explain the basis of that.”

Yesterday, Brian Ross, ABC's lead reporter on the anthrax stories in late 2001, explained what happened and what it means now: "Our sources were current and former government scientists who were all involved in analyzing the substance in the letter." He says that Ivins was not one of those scientists. He also denies that his reports contributed to the case for war. "The people who say the White House lied to us to build a case on Iraq or something doesn't hold." He says that the White House denied it was bentonite from day one.

I find it strange enough that Ross doesn't believe the Bush administration lied to us to start a war... but his other claims also lead me to wonder why is he a reporter if he believes his own reports are so ineffectual that they don't influence the public? I remember the hype, and I remember the fear. Every claim that went unchallenged and uncorrected added to the public's anxiety. You can't convince me that those reports didn't matter.

Worse Than Watergate?

If the video doesn't show, click here. Also, watch the follow-up exclusive with Ron Suskind.

Another new scandal, and if the charges are true, this is impeachable.

And in response to this news, I have a question for Nancy Pelosi. How do you do it? How do you stand up there in front of the U.S. House of Representatives? I mean, I heard that it's impossible to walk or even stand if you're spineless!

ABC, Anthrax and Deception

Was Bruce Ivins the lone crackpot responsible for the anthrax mail attacks in 2001? Perhaps. But I think we, as a nation, have bigger fish to fry...

The first anthrax-laced letters were mailed September 18, 2001 -- one week after the 9/11 attacks -- to several news media offices and two Democratic U.S. Senators. The country was already traumatized, but the fear of biological weapons, deadly and imperceptible, was escalating our panic.

It made sense to blame the same people who attacked us on 9/11. When we were told by ABC News that, according to "four well-placed and separate sources," Saddam Hussein was behind the anthrax attacks, we didn't question.

And remember, it was mostly journalists who received the anthrax letters. And journalists asked their doctors to prescribe Cipro, an antibiotic effective against anthrax. And journalists opened their mail in secure rooms wearing latex gloves and face masks. And journalists, conceivably because of this panic, supported the Bush administration and linked Saddam to the anthrax and September 11.

At least one columnist, Richard Cohen, has written about the role that anthrax played in his support to take out Saddam Hussein: "I was not going to stand by and simply wait for another attack -- more attacks. I was going to go to the source, Hussein, and get him before he could get us. As time went on, I became more and more questioning, but I had a hard time backing down from my initial whoop and holler for war."

However, Saddam Hussein was not behind the attacks. The anthrax spores came from a U.S. Army research lab.

Salon's Glenn Greenwald has written several scathing reports about anthrax, ABC News and the concocted lies that took us to war:

• Vital unresolved anthrax questions and ABC News
• Additional key facts re: the anthrax investigation
• Journalists, their lying sources, and the anthrax investigation

Greenwald asserts that the role ABC played cannot be overstated:

Much more important than the general attempt to link the anthrax to Islamic terrorists, there was a specific intent -- indispensably aided by ABC News -- to link the anthrax attacks to Iraq and Saddam Hussein. In my view, and I've written about this several times and in great detail to no avail, the role played by ABC News in this episode is the single greatest, unresolved media scandal of this decade. News of Ivins' suicide, which means (presumably) that the anthrax attacks originated from Ft. Detrick, adds critical new facts and heightens how scandalous ABC News' conduct continues to be in this matter.

ABC News has to respond. Jay Rosen and Dan Gillmor have posted three vital questions that ABC should answer:

1. Sources who are granted confidentiality give up their rights when they lie or mislead the reporter. Were you lied to or misled by your sources when you reported several times in 2001 that anthrax found in domestic attacks came from Iraq or showed signs of Iraqi involvement?

2. It now appears that the attacks were of domestic origin and the anthrax came from within U.S. government facilities. This leads us to ask you: who were the "four well-placed and separate sources" who falsely told ABC News that tests conducted at Fort Detrick showed bentonite in the anthrax sent to Sen. Tom Daschle, causing ABC News to connect the attacks to Iraq in multiple reports over a five day period in October, 2001?

3. A substantially false story that helps make the case for war by raising fears about enemies abroad attacking the United States is released into public debate because of faulty reporting by ABC News. How that happened and who was responsible is itself a major story of public interest. What is ABC News doing to re-report these events, to figure out what went wrong and to correct the record for the American people who were misled?

I, like everybody who follows these stories, have my suspicions about the "four well-placed and separate sources." You don't have to be a genius to come up with four liars in the Bush administration. And knowing now about message-force multipliers and revised CIA documents, I find it easy to imagine government insiders hand-feeding lies to ABC.

Another person who needs to be questioned is John McCain.



I'd really like to know what he knew, when he knew it, and how he learned it.

If we keep pushing and demanding answers, the story of the anthrax attacks will slowly come to light.

Non Impeachment Hearings

Yesterday The House Judiciary Committee held hearings on the limits of executive power... or hosted a three ring circus... whichever you want to call it. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) was up to the old Republican obstructionist tricks. Cindy Sheehan was booted. And John Conyers (D-MI) still reminds me of Droopy Dog.

However, Vincent Bugliosi, author of The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, was a formidable witness. H/T to Crooks and Liars for the following videos:



In this first video we learn that nobody is allowed to accuse anybody of a crime at these hearings. So all witnesses will be forced into linguistic gymnastics... but who are we kidding? The title of Bugliosi's book says it all.

I believe many of the documents Bugliosi presented were part of last month's Senate report which I duly wrote about.



In this second video, Bugliosi precisely explains the WMD issue: the concern is not over Bush lying about weapons of mass destruction. The real crime is that he lied about Saddam Hussein being an imminent threat.

Conyers, the panel chairman, had to repeatedly note that the sessions were not formal impeachment hearings. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) seemed to think they were. The official purpose was to examine limitations on presidential powers and arguments about what constitute impeachable offenses.

But I, like so many others, demand accountability. This is not about getting revenge on a president we don't like. This is about saying nobody is above the law. This is about telling all future Presidents and Congressmen that they cannot commit these grave injustices while the people sit by silently.

But this Non-Impeachment Hearing is all we get. This is what passes for "working for the people."

Obliteration

I'm worried about how both John McCain and Hillary Clinton have become increasingly cavalier towards the possibility of war with Iran. Last year we saw McCain singing "bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran," and two weeks ago, Clinton made a threat to totally obliterate Iran.

Former military intelligence analyst William M. Arkin comments why the Iran consensus grows more dangerous:

As I've noted, the three candidates share a consensus, backed by the national security community, that Iran is the new strategic threat. It is radical, anti-American, anti-Israel, terrorist-supporting, nuclear-armed and provocative.

But just because this is the consensus view does not mean it is right. The danger, regardless of who is the next president, is that officials have already begun military preparations, and shaping public opinion, to build momentum for the inevitable.

Arkin goes on to explain how in 1990, Bush the elder never made any explicit threats of nuclear retaliation toward Saddam Hussein. The policy was one of "calculated ambiguity":

So some kind of grave threat had to be transmitted to the Iraqis clearly -- but without provoking Saddam, while also soothing an alarmed public and international community. The administration found diplomatic communications channels (including the Japanese government) to quietly pass on to Saddam the gravity of their concern in an attempt to make the Iraqi dictator think that every U.S. military option remained open. At the same time, prominent articles appeared in the news media attempting to carefully explain U.S. government thinking on the impracticality or inadvisability of using nuclear weapons.

Iraq never did use chemical weapons, and it did believe that America could strike with nuclear weapons if it did. But as Baker says in his memoir, "The Politics of Diplomacy," the president privately decided in December that U.S. forces would not retaliate with nuclear weapons even if the Iraqis used chemical munitions. "There was obviously no reason to inform the Iraqis of this," Baker says.

I think McCain and Clinton have abandoned the politics of diplomacy in favor of get tough posturing. When they threaten Iran, they are threatening the entire planet with World War III. Who are they going to bomb? Just Iran's military? No, they will obliterate innocent civilians because nuclear weapons do not discriminate.

Know your enemy, so here is a link with an accurate description of modern Iran. It is not quite the backward, fanatical, tyrannical outpost the politicians would like us to believe. Iran has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. Iran held spontaneous candlelight vigils in sympathy with Americans after Sept. 11. In Iran, over half of university students are now women. And, oddly enough, lots of Iranians like Americans. If anything, I hope those links obliterate some prejudices.

Saddam's Diaries

The Arab newspaper Al-Hayat has published what it says are excerpts of Saddam Hussein's diaries written while in captivity. BBC News reports that the five large hand-written volumes portray "a man who never seems to have stopped believing in himself as a historic leader."

I'll add these to my reading list as soon as they get translated to English.