The nightmare continues.

General Abizaid said, "It's unclear, but it's troubling, that Al Qaeda either look-alikes or Al Qaeda people are making an opportunity to move against us." The Ansar al-Islam terrorist group, whose camps in northeastern Iraq were attacked during the war, is also trying to reconstitute within Iraq, and foreign money is underwriting some of these terrorist efforts, General Abizaid said.

Of the anti-American forces operating in the central and north-central parts of Iraq, where American forces have come under heaviest attack, General Abizaid, "They're better coordinated now."

The insurgents, he said, are showing "some level of regional command-and-control" that indicates planning beyond individual small groups striking only at targets of opportunity.

General Abizaid refused to be drawn into discussing whether his assessment of the insurgent threat in Iraq contradicted that of Mr. Rumsfeld or other officials; he said that the description of "guerrilla tactics" was proper "in strictly military terms."

But General Abizaid said that, at present, the force of about 147,000 American troops and 13,000 allied forces on the ground in Iraq was sufficient.

"I think our current force levels are about right," he said. "If the situation gets worse, I won't hesitate to ask for more."

General Abizaid also said that anti-American forces had fired two surface-to-air missiles at American aircraft within the last two weeks; one of them was today. Those attacks on C-130 cargo planes also indicate an escalation in the weapons used against allied forces, beyond automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

"Matter of fact, I was on the deck of a C-130 the other day, and we had a missile warning," General Abizaid said. "And the guy made a hard right bank. And we fired off all of our flares and, you know, we looked out there. And these were guys from the Oklahoma National Guard, and they actually thought it was fun. I was terrified."

This next part will make you cry.

Pentagon officials also disclosed today that there have been about five deaths among troops assigned to the Iraq mission that commanders say might have been suicides. As inquiries continue, one official said the suspected suicides were not clustered in any single time period that might indicate a related cause.

Goddamn you Bush.

Did the Mike Savage debacle teach people nothing?

IT IS A TOUCHDOWN at the old-boy network when ESPN hires Rush Limbaugh for pregame blabber about pro football. It is an extra point when the media think nothing of this event. They both should be penalized for roughing the past.

And just so we're all clear about that past...

Limbaugh has feasted off berating feminists, gay men and women, and people of color. African-Americans have come in for supercharged blasts of his hot air. In the 1970s, Limbaugh told an African-American caller, ''Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.''

Limbaugh has always had crime and black people on the brain. He once said, ''Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?'' He said, ''The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.'' When Spike Lee said that African-American children should be allowed to skip school to see his movie on Malcolm X, Limbaugh said: ''Spike, if you're going to do that, let's complete the education experience. You should tell them that they should loot the theater, and then blow it up on their way out.''

What connections Limbaugh has made between people of color and sports are dubious at best. When a Mexican won the New York marathon, Limbaugh said, ''An immigration agent chased him the last 10 miles."

I'm less outraged and disgusted by this than I am bewildered. What are the folks over at ESPN thinking? My instincts tell me that this won't work for the same reason the Savage show didn't work. Still I have a hunch that Rush is a little better at behaving himself in public.

The Continuing Battle Over Affirmative Action

You just can't take your eyes off these people for a moment.

Ward Connerly isn't going to let a little thing like a Supreme Court decision stop him. He's spoiling for a fight and he knows what he's doing.

In order to force a referendum on affirmative action, Connerly would need to collect 317,757 signatures, or 10 percent of the ballots cast in the 2002 governor's race. "The Washington Post" reports that the ACRC is also setting its sights on ballot initiatives in Colorado, Missouri; the Florida cities of Orlando, Tampa and Fort Lauderdale; and Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.

The initiative strategy has worked before; in 1996, amidst widespread national media attention, Connerly successfully promoted Proposition 209, a California initiative banning race-based preferential treatment in state and local governments. In 1998, Washington state passed a similar measure.  


It gets worse. Because the Supreme Court found that the points system used by the University of Michigan was unconsitutional, anti-affirmative action groups have launched a witchhunt at universities demanding that they disclose their methods of selecting minority students. The crytically named Center for Equal Opportunity is at the center of this initiative. Ward Connerly and CEO president, Linda Chavez, are partners in crime.

The first thing you should do is sign the petition. Yes I know you've sent a dozen of these already, but one more can't hurt. As for the second thing--well all I can say is be as vigilant as it is possible to be with so many issues to keep track of. The Supreme Court did not strike down affirmative action because they--and the rest of the country--recognize that inequalities make it necessary. This is good news because it makes Ward Connerly's job that much harder. We need to step up that support and stand by the schools with progressive diversity programs.

If you want to read more on who Connerly is, this is a good place to start. Note how the usual suspects keep turning up.

Who's Who in the ACRI

While the Institute is usually presented as if it were founded and run by Connerly alone, he had some important help - all of it from rich, white, well-funded, conservative political activists. The other founders of the Institute are: 12

Thomas L. Rhodes - Co-Chairman, ACRI; Board Member, Bradley Foundation

Clint Bolick - Director of Litigation, Institute for Justice

Grover Norquist - President, Americans for Tax Reform

Quenton Kopp - State Senator, San Francisco.

Click on the links in the article for more info.

Well today is Ari’s last day and what a run he’s had! In a way I’ll miss him, not for the horrifying hilarity of his press briefings, or for his snarky hall-monitor persona, but for what he taught me about the nature of truth; namely that you can lie every single day and not be struck dead by lightening or have your head explode.

One of the disadvantages of religious education is that it can lead you to have unrealistic expectations. I don’t want to get into a whole discussion of how realistic or unrealistic heaven, hell, miracles, etc. are. I’m simply talking about the fact that when you lie lightening doesn’t strike you dead. Most of us know that lightening does not strike people who lie either through personal experimentation or hearsay. But when we encounter people who lie easily and often we flinch inwardly and maybe step back a few feet.

Even if you aren’t religious, the truth still means something. The general view is that the human mind can only take so much inconsistency before it short circuits, leading to mental breakdowns and sometimes Barbara Walters’ specials. So when we see people who lie often and easily we wonder how they stay so happy and healthy with their heads intact.

This made watching Ari so infuriating. There he was--lying through is teeth--and NOTHING WAS HAPPENING TO HIM. Where was the wrath of God? Where was that moment of self-revelation? It just wasn’t fair. And that taught me that indignation at lying only wears you out. We’ve got take that indignation to the next step; calling them out on the criminal implications of those lies. I mean look at the rhetoric they are throwing at us over Yellowcake. “Well, we weren’t completely truthful, but we were technically accurate, and at the end of the day it doesn’t matter, because Saddam Hussein was an evil, evil dictator,” Lies, half-truths, and omissions don’t mean anything to these people. I think it’s time to stop accusing and start prosecuting.

Well perhaps Ari’s early exit could be a sign of something along the lines of a minor breakdown. But unless there is a mea culpa memoir in the future, we’ll never know. So for the very last time: Ladies and Gentleman, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.

P.S. Today is also Bastille Day in France. I’m not sure if that means anything or if it’s worth drawing parallels. I merely think it’s interesting.

Must Reads


Thank God this Niger Uranium story doesn't seem to be going away despite the attempts to brush it aside.

This piece in TIME Magazine does a good job of laying out the chronology of the debate over the intelligence. It also states quiet clearly that there was a good deal of White House influence involved in the push to use the intelligence.

When it got to Washington, the Iraq-Niger uranium report caught the eye of someone important: Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, told TIME that during one of his regular CIA briefings, "the Vice President asked a question about the implication of the report." Cheney's interest hardly came as a surprise: he has long been known to harbor some of the most hard-line views of Saddam's nuclear ambitions. It was not long before the agency quietly dispatched a veteran U.S. envoy named Joseph Wilson to investigate. Wilson seemed like a wise choice for the mission. He had been a U.S. ambassador to Gabon and had actually been the last American to speak with Saddam before the first Gulf War. Wilson spent eight days sleuthing in Niger, meeting with current and former government officials and businessmen; he came away convinced that the allegations were untrue. Wilson never had access to the Italian documents and never filed a written report, he told TIME. When he returned to Washington in early March, Wilson gave an oral report about his trip to both CIA and State Department officials. On March 9 of last year, the CIA circulated a memo on the yellowcake story that was sent to the White House, summarizing Wilson's assessment. Wilson was not the only official looking into the matter. Nine days earlier, the State Department's intelligence arm had sent a memo directly to Secretary of State Colin Powell that also disputed the Italian intelligence. Greg Thielmann, then a high-ranking official at State's research unit, told TIME that it was not in Niger's self-interest to sell the Iraqis the destabilizing ore. "A whole lot of things told us that the report was bogus," Thielmann said later. "This wasn't highly contested. There weren't strong advocates on the other side. It was done, shot down."

Except that it wasn't. By late summer, at the very moment that the Administration was gearing up to make its case for military mobilization, the yellowcake story took on new life. In September, Tony Blair's government issued a 50-page dossier detailing the case against Saddam, and while much of the evidence in the paper was old, it made the first public claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. At the White House, Ari Fleischer endorsed the British dossier, saying "We agree with their findings."

Officially we had the same information that the British did, only our intelligence called it into question and their's did not. So spin like this isn't going to fly.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, echoing Rice in an appearance on ABC's "This Week," said the statement was "technically correct" because Bush noted the source of the claim was Britain.

BTW: If you missed Bill Moyers interview with Jon Stewart, you can read the transcript here
Jon never fails to impress and entertain. I really wish Moyers had tried to pin him down about trying to stay a centrist when the rhetoric of the right was so militant it pretty much called moderates leftists.

I think I've found the most hysterical quote yet.

Well, there's something rather, to be a bit impolite, Clintonian about saying it was factually correct that the British were reporting it, when the CIA knew very well that the report was very dubious.

Well, when in doubt blame Clinton.

Nation-Building Dubya Style

Armed police backed by bulldozers tore down illegally built homes and shops in the Nigerian capital Abuja today ahead of a visit by US President George W Bush.
The operation began yesterday after an order from President Olusegun Obasanjo to clean up the city ahead of his American counterpart's arrival, officials said.
In one residential quarter of the city reporter saw around 60 buildings - ranging from brick-built structures to makeshift wooden shanties - ploughed down as hundreds of residents looked on in despair.

Perhaps it's wrong to lay this at the feet of Bush Administration since the order came from the Nigerian President, but it's hard to get around the trend of destruction and repression that seems to follow Bush wherever he goes.

The Achilles Heel of the RNC

Earlier this week a friend of mine received a solicitation from the Republican National Committee. The solicitation proceeded to thank her for her continued support, glorify the supposed successes of the Bush administration, and respectfully request a donation for next year's big fight. My friend is a widowed retiree from Tennessee who tells great stories about her family's farm during the Great Depression. She also hasn't voted for a Republican in fifty years.

This isn't a new thing. Several times over the last year, friends and family members have received these mailings despite being registered Independents or Democrats. The method of the RNC seems to be one of simple demographics; age, race, and income level. What's really interesting is that instead of sending a mailing that makes a case for the Republican party, they word it assumming you already vote Republican. There's almost a Jedi mind trick ethos behind it. "You don't want to vote Democrat or Independent. In fact you never have. We're the party you want, the party you've always wanted."

The problem is that, particularly in the case of my friend, the mailings make people angry. She wrote a long letter back to the RNC detailing exactly why she didn't support the Republican Party and why she would never support Bush. She also made a copy of the solicitation and her reply to her alderman who is a well-liked progressive in her area. For her it proved everything she didn't like about Republicans. Because she is an elderly White woman from the South, they assumed she was prospective constituent, when in fact she's a longtime FDR Democrat.

This lack of understanding comes back to haunt the Republicans time and time again. The Democrats simply haven't used it against them. The DLC and all too often the DNC tend to cave in the face of the conservative spin machine. This is why there was no formidable Congressional opposition to the war on Iraq or tax cuts or the Patriot Act. They simply believe that the Republicans message is more effective than it is.

My friend's method gave me an idea. I'm not sure how effective it will be, but it may go a little way in restoring the DNC's confidence in a progressive platform. The next time you write a letter to the editor, a state representative, or in response to an RNC solicitation, mail a copy to the DNC. I'm not sure how new this idea is but I don't think enough people do it. There's been a little success as of late to get the DNC to listen to grassroots organizations, and this might be one other thing we can do to encourage them to keep listening to us.

Right now there is a petition for Congress to investigate WMD deceptions. After you send your letter, copy it to the DNC to let them know that this is important to you.

There's a lot I want to cover today and I don't have a lot of time. So please excuse my rushed tone and muddled reasoning.

I almost definitely will return to the crisis in Africa as it progresses and to cap off this week's series, I urge you to read the excellent Liberia analysis over at Kos. It certainly filled in a lot my history gaps. Whatever we end up committing to in Liberia, it won't be nearly enough. As to whether we should be in Liberia--well under any other circumstaces--not to mention any other administration--I would probably say yes with some reservations. But to say yes is to ignore existing complications and to say no is to be coldly pragmatic in the face of devastation, and I have no stomach for that. So anybody looking for a definitive stance here is going to be disappointed.

IRAQ

For better or for worse we are committed to rebuilding Iraq, but situations like this are exactly what we were afraid of. (link via Atrios)

The military also reported that a soldier died Wednesday in what it described as a non-hostile gunshot incident. The military gave no more details. The names of the dead and wounded were withheld pending notification of next of kin.

An American soldier attached to the 101st Airborne Division died Monday in another non-hostile gunshot incident near Balad, 55 miles north of the capital. Soldiers at an air base near Balad said on condition of anonymity that the soldier had taken his own life.

If we are serious about peacekeeping we need to admit our failures.

 There is one group of nations with large numbers of well-trained troops, experienced in peacekeeping and in working with the United States Army. It’s called NATO. The problem for the Bush administration is that calling on NATO means bringing France and Germany back into the fold. My suggestion: get over it.

And in case you are completely out of the loop, they lied. Josh is on the case.

I give up.

N'diaye and other residents of Goree, site of a famous slave trading station, said they had been taken to a football ground on the other side of the quaint island at 6 a.m. and told to wait there until Bush had departed, around midday.

(Thanks to Jeanne and Atrios for the link)

The Poor Man on Hitch

He argues that the WMD finds in Iraq are a vindication, that it is a minor miracle we found them so quickly, and that there's more where that came from. And he reminds us of the mass graves which have been found around the country, which is something well worth remembering. But mainly he natters on about how Saddam Hussein was and probably still is a very bad guy. As bad as Hilter, or maybe Stalin, or maybe Jeffery Dahmer. As bad as Hilter plus Stalin times Satan squared. At this point in time, after hearing about Saddam Hussein with some regularity for more than a decade, I am prepared, nay, pleased, to conceed that Saddam Hussein is without a doubt a terrible person, as terrible and nasty and evil as you can imagine. And I'd like to request that there be, from this moment forward, a sharp decrease in the number of editorials making no point besides that Saddam is very bad, perhaps with a hard limit of one per month per paper, and complete end to the appearance of new and enlightening historical antecedents to his evil. I'm not saying this to silence anyone's opinion or anything, but I don't go around telling everyone every time the Sun rises in the east or gravity pulls something down. It's all true, but I think we can maybe start the process of moving on now, because life, unlike TV, can't survive as a rerun.

Amen.

Message to war-torn, famine-stricken, AIDS-ravaged Africa: "Hey guys, sorry about that whole slavery thing."

As nice as it is to see that Bush's history studies have included a unit on the North American slave trade, it's hard not to want to smack him for this speech.

"At this place, liberty and life were stolen and sold," the president said. "One of the largest migrations of history was also one of the greatest crimes of the century."

Mr. Bush condemned slavery in unflinching and strikingly religious terms that seemed to be aimed as much at an audience at home as to the small crowd on the island that listened to him under the blazing sun.

"For 250 years the captives endured an assault on their culture and their dignity," Mr. Bush said. "The spirit of Africans in America did not break. Yet the spirit of their captors was corrupted.

Is it worthwhile to nitpick that there's a slight difference between a century and 250 years, or that mass kidnapping can't really be called migration? But those are just distractions from the real problem here. Could this speech be more condescending? "Hey don't worry that we're not committing any real help now. Just remember that we are really, really sorry about kidnapping your ancestors for slaves."

And could someone please tell him that invoking names of famous Americans and African Americans doesn't make a whole lot of sense in Africa?

Mr. Bush credited African-Americans with "exposing laws and habits contradicting" the ideals of God and political freedom. And he cited the contributions of both black and white people, from Frederick Douglas and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to John Quincy Adams and Abraham Lincoln, to ending slavery and addressing its legacy.

I think he missed the chaper where slavery continues long after the trans-Atlantic slave trade is over and American abolition didn't have a huge affect in Africa.

It's fascinating how in trying to prove how much he cares he ends up showing how little he understands. By now this is no longer surprising, but's still disgusting. It's not that the discussion of the slave trade has no place in how to solve the current problems, but it's never contextualized. The standard set by the slave trade made way for colonization, which in turn made way for Cold War maneuvering, which has a lot to with what's happening now.

It seems as though Bush's words rang pretty hollow live as well.

It was hard to get much sense of the reaction here to Mr. Bush's visit. His motorcade into Dakar from the airport this morning passed hundreds of Senegalese people, most of whom showed little emotion. The president's speech this morning on Goree Island was to an invited audience that did not fill the available seats and that applauded politely.


UPDATE: Apparently I misspoke. Bush wasn't giving a half-assed apology but rather a half-assed NON-apology.That first line should instead read, "Hey guys, slavery sucked so we'll kind of apologize but not really."

In my high school World Geography class, part of our unit on Africa involved debating the economic viability of each region. West Africa, rich in minerals and undeveloped land, won the debate. It was an interesting lesson, forcing us to look very closely at climate patterns, infant mortality, population etc. and make a decision divorced from history, bias, and emotion. It was a very interesting lesson. It was also exactly the wrong way to look at Africa.

The crisis in the Congo is allowed to go on because of exactly this approach of cold-eyed pragmatism, among other things. The wealth of the country has become its death. It creates complacency which creates reluctancy to disrupt the flow of riches.

The history of the Congo -- richer in mineral resources than any other country in Africa -- is one of bloody exploitation. Gold, diamonds, rubber and ivory have flowed to Europe and the Americas for a century from the area known first as the Belgian Congo, then as Zaire, under the West-backed regime of Mobutu Sese Seko from 1965 to 1997. The present conflict started in 1998, after Laurent Kabila took power, renaming the country again as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Iraq gives us a handy excuse not to interfere. It also highlights the great lie of this administration's newfound committment to humantarian aid and nation building. Where are those compassionate voices now, so recently crying out against crimes against humanity in Iraq?

Today Bush goes to Africa, having grudgingly sent peace keeping troups to Liberia. He goes to show off is grand $15 billion AIDs package. I envy people like him, who so easily shut out reality in favor of their own sunnier worlds. I wonder how easy that will be when he sees the sick, the poor, the dead. I wonder if he will even see them.

I've been trying to come up with the perfect Fourth of July post, one that touches that perfect chord of reflection, anger, and hope. I don't need to talk about the bittersweetness of this holiday, or the mixed feelings it inspires. For now I will just say that a year from now, when we have managed to rally the Party and select the candidate and raise the money, I hope to find again a sense of patriotism, one not tainted by jingoism or shame. So, here's to next year when we will be on our way to taking our country back.

In the meantime knowledge is power.

(via Atrios)

Fun With Google

If you haven't tried this yet, you should. Type in "weapons of mass destruction" and then click the "I feel lucky" button. I'm probably the last person on the web to try this, but for all you latecomers it should be fun.

Is he on crack?

Michael Kinsley has come up with the best solution to the gay marriage debate.

That solution is to end the institution of marriage. Or rather (he hastens to clarify, Dear) the solution is to end the institution of government-sanctioned marriage. Or, framed to appeal to conservatives: End the government monopoly on marriage. Wait, I've got it: Privatize marriage. These slogans all mean the same thing. Let churches and other religious institutions continue to offer marriage ceremonies. Let department stores and casinos get into the act if they want. Let each organization decide for itself what kinds of couples it wants to offer marriage to. Let couples celebrate their union in any way they choose and consider themselves married whenever they want. Let others be free to consider them not married, under rules these others may prefer. And, yes, if three people want to get married, or one person wants to marry herself, and someone else wants to conduct a ceremony and declare them married, let 'em. If you and your government aren't implicated, what do you care?

I'm not a legal scholar, and of course Kinsley is only half serious, but he does make a good point. Wasn't this part of the problem with the whole argument around interracial marriage--privacy?

I try not to mention Ann Coulter on this blog. I try to pretend that she doesn't exist. But this was too funny to pass up.

I am happy to report that Ann Coulter has lost her mind. The evidence for this is her most recent book, "Treason," a nearly unreadable slog through every silly thing anyone on the left has ever said. Coulter conflates dissent with treason, opposition with treason, being wrong with treason, being right with treason and just about anything she doesn't like with treason. If the book were a Rorschach test, she would be institutionalized.

I think this is exactly the attitude to take towards Coulter, and why for the most part I prefer to ignore her. She's a paranoid schizophrenic with too much face time and an platinum card.

Atrios makes an excellent point on what Dean's fundraising success means.

Good article on the coffee crisis and the free trade versus fair trade debate

After you read it go here and buy some quality coffee. I personally recommend the Ethiopia Yirgacheffe.