Why weren't they captured alive II....

The media may be developing some backbone. Or, maybe they're simply responding to a growing uneasiness on the part of Americans over the rising death toll to guerilla warfare in Iraq (four more soldiers killed today). Whichever, a reporter for the Boston Globe reported the following exchange at a news conference this week on the deaths of Hussein's two sons:

The ground force commander, General Ricardo Sanchez, was asked by two reporters similar questions Wednesday if the operation was indeed professional. The first reporter asked whether the mission was something of a failure given the value of the sons and the fact that they were armed with light weapons. Pentagon officials say they stormed the house of the sons only after the sons resisted.

Sanchez said, ''I would never consider this a failure.''

The second reporter said, ''The Americans are specialists in surrounding places, keeping people in them, holding up for a week if necessary, to make them surrender. These guys only had, it appears, AK-47s, and you had immense amount of firepower. Surely the possibility of the immense amount of information they could have given coalition forces, not to mention the trials that they could have been put on for war crimes, held out a much greater possibility of victory for you if you could have surrounded that house and just sat there until they came out, even if they were prepared to keep shooting.''

Sanchez said, ''Sir, that is speculation.''

The reporter said, ''No sir, it's an operational question. Surely you must have considered this more seriously than you suggested.''

Sanchez said, ''Yes, it was considered, and we chose the course of action that we took.''

The reporter asked, ''Why, sir?''

Sanchez said, ''Next slide - or next question please?''

Complete story here via Common Dreams.

Suicide, lawsuits and rancor....

This NY Times Magazine article about the nine miners, rescued from a flooded Pennsylvania mine one year ago, paints a bleak picture of stress created by traumatic events and sudden celebrity on ordinary people.

...For the nine men who were the beneficiaries of those prayers, however, it has been a tough year. When they were lifted out of the mine in that yellow rescue capsule, they were reborn into a different world. For a few days, they were the most famous men in the country, expected to speak in sound bites and show up on time for photo shoots with Annie Leibovitz. (None of the miners had any idea who she was.) To President Bush, they were symbols of ''the American spirit''; to blue-collar America, they were forgotten men who labored in the darkness for our daily light and heat; to the church faithful, they were living testimony to God's grace. ''After the rescue, people would literally come up to me on the street and ask if they could touch me,'' Mark Popernack recalls.

Tragically (and predictably), for several miners and rescuers, the story goes downhill from there.

Long, but interesting, because I can't help but wonder how I'd handle a second chance at life after staring death in the face, and fame and sudden fortune to boot. Complete story here.

History will decide....

Three Dominican nuns who, last October, trespassed at a Minuteman III missile silo in northeastern Colorado, cutting the chain link fence, banging on a railing with a small hammer, symbolically spilling their own blood - collected in baby bottles - and praying, singing and chanting for peace until they were arrested, were sentenced yesterday in Denver.

Ardeth Platte, 66, sentenced to 41 months, will probably serve about 29 months with time off for good behavior and credit for time already served.

Carol Gilbert, 55, sentenced to 33 months, will probably serve about 22 months.

Jackie Marie Hudson, 68, sentenced to 30 months; will probably serve about 20 months.

The sentences are less than the 92 months for Platte, 78 months for Gilbert and 70 months for Hudson sought by federal prosecutors. On the other hand, the nuns and their numerous supporters worldwide had hoped the judge would sentence them to time served and let them go free.

The women have been arrested many times for anti-war activism: Platte, at least 10 times, Hudson five times and Gilbert, at least 13 times. Platte and Gilbert live in the Baltimore activist community founded by the late peace activist Philip Berrigan, while Hudson lives in a similar community in Poulsbo, Wash.

Complete stories here and here.

9/11 intelligence report....

As you must all know by now, the joint inquiry conducted by the Senate and House intelligence committees on the Sept. 11 attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon finally released its report this week, after battling the Bush administration for 7 months over issues of secrecy and national security.

Bush supporters are proclaiming there's no "smoking gun" to incriminate their leader and his staff for failing to prevent the attacks. Considering how much of the report remains classified, their declarations are at the very least premature.

Smoking gun or not, the content of the report is damning enough. As David Corn in The Nation says:

The final report is an indictment of the intelligence agencies--and, in part--of the administrations (Clinton and Bush II) that oversaw them. It notes, "The intelligence community failed to capitalize on both the individual and collective significance of available information.... As a result, the community missed opportunities to disrupt the September 11 plot by denying entry to or detaining would-be hijackers; to at least try to unravel the plot through surveillance and other investigative work within the United States; and, finally, to generate a heightened state of alert and thus harden the homeland against attack.

One colossal missed opportunity occurred right here in San Diego, where an FBI informant had numerous contacts in 2000 with two of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar. (I've read previously they were housemates for a time.) He may also have had more limited contact with a third hijacker, Hani Hanjour. Again, from The Nation:

In 2000, the CIA had information that al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar--who had already been linked to terrorism--were or might be in the United States. Yet it had not placed them on a watch list for suspected terrorists or shared this information with the FBI. The FBI agent who handled the San Diego informant told the committees that had he had access to the intelligence information on al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi, "it would have made a huge difference." He would have "immediately opened" an investigation and subjected them to a variety of surveillance. It can never be known whether such an effort would have uncovered their 9/11 plans. "What is clear, however," the report says, "is that the informant's contacts with the hijackers, had they been capitalized on, would have given the San Diego FBI field office perhaps the intelligence community's best chance to unravel the September 11 plot.

Later, in August 2001, the FBI wanted to locate al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar (not sure why), but –incredibly--they failed to inform the San Diego field office of the search. The FBI agent who was handling the informant in San Diego told the committees, "I'm sure we could have located them and we could have done it within a few days."

The White House adamantly refuses to reveal what Bush knew and when, nor to release to the committees, much less to citizens, the contents of an August 6, 2001, President's Daily Brief (PDB) that contained information on bin Laden. Claims by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice that the PDB contained only historical perspectives on bin Laden's methods and activities have been contradicted by an intelligence community source who told the committees the intelligence was much more specific.

Not only that, the Bush administration--who prior to 9/11, planned to de-fund counterterrorism, including the CIA unit whose business was bin Laden--refuses to declassify 25-1/2 of the report’s 27 pages on foreign support for the 9/11 hijackers.

The prevailing assumption among the journalists covering the committees--and it is well-founded--is that most of the missing material concerns Saudi Arabia and the possibility that the hijackers received financial support from there. Is the Bush Administration treading too softly on a sensitive--and explosive--subject? "Neither CIA nor FBI officials," the report says, "were able to address definitively the extent of [foreign] support for the hijackers globally or within the United States or the extent to which such support, if it exists, is knowing or inadvertent in nature…

Complete column here.

One of the greats passes....

From Associated Press

John Schlesinger, whose Oscar-winning "Midnight Cowboy" and thrillers like "The Falcon and the Snowman" explored lonely underdogs in modern society, has died. He was 77.

The British-born filmmaker had a debilitating stroke in December 2000, and his condition deteriorated significantly in recent weeks. He was taken off life support at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs on Thursday and died early today, hospital spokeswoman Eva Saltonstall said.

"He did pass this morning," she said, declining any further information.

Schlesinger broke ground in 1969 with his first American film, "Midnight Cowboy," which starred Jon Voight as a naive Texan who turns to prostitution to survive in New York and Dustin Hoffman as the scuzzy, ailing vagrant Ratzo Rizzo.

I just watched Midnight Cowboy the other night for the first time in 30 years and was blown away. Schlesinger's dark vision of America was astonishingly prescient. Years before homelessness became ubiquitous in America, Schlesinger saw where the widening gap between the decadent haves and miserable have-nots was leading.

"You know what they do to ya when, when they know you can't, when they find out that you can't walk-walk," says crippled Ratso Rizzo, brilliantly portrayed by Dustin Hoffman (fresh from success in The Graduate). Those poignant words foreshadowed Governor Ronald Reagan's actions, in the years after the film, when he forced the residents of California's mental hospitals out onto the streets, where they formed the core of today's homeless population.

Perhaps Schlesinger’s gayness gave him both an outsider’s perspective and the necessary courage to turn an unflinching lens on the hypocrisy of America: its "rag-to-riches" fairytales, puritanical sexual mores, cruelty to and neglect of children and perverted ideals of masculinity and femininity. The film foretold the demise of small-town (bigoted) America in face of creeping commoditization, consumerism and globalization, and did it with unflinching honesty (Midnight Cowboy was originally rated X) and heart.

In 1970, Schlesinger said, "I'm only interested in one thing -- that is tolerance. I'm terribly concerned about people and the limitation of freedom. It's important to get people to care a little for someone else. That's why I'm more interested in the failures of this world than the successes."

We could sure use more like him in Hollywood today.

Complete story here.

Bush & AIDS update....

Since late April, I've been following this story about the Bush administration "tripling" global AIDS spending to $15 billion over the next 5 years (here, here and here).

I've been skeptical from the start and so far, my skepticism has been warranted. Bush and right-wing Republicans have grandstanded plenty, while attaching Moral-Majority strings to funding and refusing to cough up the promised increases.

Here's the latest installment.

WASHINGTON, July 23 — Two weeks after President Bush toured Africa with promises of vast increases in spending on global AIDS, the House of Representatives was poised today to approve a measure that would bring total spending on the epidemic next year to roughly $2 billion — $1 billion short of the amount set out in a bill Mr. Bush signed in May.

Democrats sought to introduce an emergency spending measure that would have added the $1 billion, but were prevented from doing so under House procedures. Instead, they offered amendments that would increase AIDS spending by $375 million, taking $75 million from foreign aid to Colombia's military and $300 million from a new foreign aid initiative, the Millennium Challenge account, which is also a high priority of the president.

But the White House has threatened to veto the entire $17.1 billion spending package for foreign assistance if the amount in the Millennium Challenge account is reduced, prompting an angry outcry from Representative Nita M. Lowey, Democrat of New York, who is pressing for more money.

"This veto threat proves one thing — that the president had no intention of fully funding our AIDS commitment," she said. "The rhetoric surrounding the signing of the H.I.V./AIDS bill and his trip to Africa was hollow..."

The fancy-sounding "Millennium Challenge Account" is a proposed US program to make aid to poor countries conditional on their dropping trade barriers and opening their markets. Critics claim it will substantially increase misery in Latin America and Africa.

It seems the hypocrisy and greed of this administration knows no bounds.

Complete story here.

Recall date set....

On October 7, Californians will go to the polls to decide both if Governor Gray Davis should be recalled, and who should replace him. His fate could be decided by as few as one-third of the state's 15 million registered voters--that would be 5 million people, out of 35 million residents.

The article, in today's NY Times, blames the recall partially on the crazy political situation created by ballot initiatives in California during the last 25 years.

Proposition 13, which passed in 1978, not only cut property taxes in half statewide, but also required a two-thirds vote to raise new local taxes to replace them. Proposition 98, passed a decade later, required that 40 percent of state revenues go directly to public schools. When mandatory health care spending is factored in, there is little discretionary spending left for the governor and Legislature to adjust to produce a balanced budget.

Term limits, meanwhile, which were also imposed through public initiative, and gerrymandered legislative districts have produced a State Legislature that is inexperienced, highly polarized and seemingly immune to compromise. The result, many experts say, is a state that is virtually ungovernable.

The article doesn't let Davis off the hook.

Analysts from both parties say that many of Mr. Davis's problems are his own making. They cite his passive response to the energy crisis three years ago, his participation in a state spending spree during the boom years early in his governorship and his relentless fund-raising.

Trying to steer a political course down the center of the state's ideological divide, in part to attract donations from corporations, he managed to offend countless Democrats from the party's traditional base among blue-collar workers and minorities.

Robert Gnaizda, the policy director of the Greenlining Institute, a group in San Francisco that promotes the interests of low-income and minority communities, said Mr. Davis ignored the group for his entire first term and met with its leaders for the first time in April, as the recall campaign was gaining steam.

"Not meeting with the Greenlining coalition wasn't the problem itself, but it was symptomatic of how minority groups were viewed," said Mr. Gnaizda, who said he thought Mr. Davis had seen the error of his ways. "Many people believe it would have been best if he had won his second election by one vote so he would have understood the importance of courting the voters from the base."

And don't forget, while all this is happening, the legislature--confronting a $38.2 billion shortfall--still hasn't approved a state budget.

Insane.

Complete story here.

Huffington on corporate tax cheats....

...According to a new study released last week by the Multistate Tax Commission, a nonpartisan coalition of state taxing authorities, corporate tax shelters robbed states of $12.4 billion in desperately needed revenues in 2001 -- a figure that represents more than a third of the money corporations rightfully owed.

Companies sheltering their assets overseas are draining another $70 billion a year from the federal Treasury -- funds that often make their way back to states through programs such as Head Start and AmeriCorps.[Emphasis mine.]

Huffington goes on to personalize those numbers, citing kindergarten classes delayed for a year, nursing homes shut down, the California Arts Council killed, school districts shutting weeks early for summer, teacher layoffs, and so on.

It's becoming a discouragingly familiar litany. What I want to know is, why don't taxpayers--stuck shouldering ever more of the burden for ever diminishing returns--get mad?

Complete column here.

No worries, folks...!

According to today's LA Times, Gray Davis, the first California governor to face a recall, is going to "fight like a Bengal tiger" to remain in office.

I saw that sub-head and cringed. Bengal tiger? Mentioning "Davis" and "tiger" in the same sentence only serves to highlight what a hopeless milquetoast he is.

As governor of the most populous state in the union, doesn't he employ speech-writers? If so, why did he go on to say this?

"One of my greatest strengths is that people have underestimated me since I was born," Davis said shortly before [Secretary of State Kevin] Shelley's announcement. "Every time they say I'm road kill, I continue to win, because I have great faith that the California voters are fair."

That's right, remind voters that they don't respect you. Leave them with the winning image of "road kill."

As you can surmise, the recall has qualified for the ballot and things are happening very fast. Barring a California Supreme Court challenge, which seems unlikely, voters will be choosing a governor in late September or early October--less than one year after Davis was reelected.

As furious as I am at conservative Republicans for blatantly hijacking the democratic process, I am equally dismayed at Davis' hitherto lame response. Why have mainstream Democrats become so pathetically incompetent?

Under Terry McAuliffe's corrosive leadership, the Democratic Party is a gutless and conservative machine, concerned more about cozying up to wealthy donors than taking principled positions and fighting for constituents. What baffles me, though, is how utterly inept they are. Look at the way Al Gore, following a two-term Democratic president and given a healthy economy and burgeoning federal surplus, still managed to blow the 2000 election. If it wasn't so tragic, it would be comical.

And now Davis. If he wants any hope of clinging to office, he better get himself a new speech writer and stick to a script.

Complete sad story here.

Why weren't they captured alive...?

This Iraqi, quoted in today's LA Times, voices my feelings.

"I'm not convinced the pictures shown are of Uday and Qusai, and even if they were I'm not happy. I would have been happy if they were captured alive and brought to justice before the Iraqi people," said Shant Agob, 37, an accountant who saw them broadcast on CNN in a Baghdad hotel.

Wouldn't you think U.S. military intelligence would like to interrogate Qusai, Hussein's second-in-command and heir-apparent, at the very least regarding the whereabouts of his father, if not the elusive WMD?

Complete story here.

Guess who said this...?

"I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq," he said. "Those who want to come and help are welcome. Those who come to interfere and destroy are not."

U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, that's who! No one could ever accuse the Bush team of practicing what they preach.

Wolfowitz was also quoted thusly in today's NY Times:

"You don't build a democracy like you build a house," Mr. Wolfowitz said over tea, honey pastries and water buffalo cheese. "Democracy grows like a garden. If you keep the weeds out and water the plants and you're patient, eventually you get something magnificent."

He forgot to mention the importance of fertilizer.

Complete story here.

Horror in Liberia....

Three weeks after President Bush pledged American assistance in restoring security in Liberia, there is still no word on how, when, where or even if the U.S. will intervene.

While I oppose unilateral U.S. intervention, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has been practically begging Bush to send in U.S. troops as an incentive for other nations to get involved. While Bush crows about supporting freedom and opposing terrorism worldwide, civilians continue to be murdered, starved and brutalized in this country that the U.S. helped to found 150 years ago.

Our inaction is shameful.

Stories here and here.

Hussein's two sons have been killed....

This just in from the NY Times:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 22 — The two sons of Saddam Hussein targeted by allied forces, Uday and Qusay, were killed today in an extended firefight with American troops in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the United States military said.

The Bush administration has been so prone to exaggeration and lies, I can't help but wonder if this story will hold up.

Complete story here.

North Korea, on the other hand....

When a country really does have a nuclear weapons program, President Bush is a lot more circumspect.

CRAWFORD, Tex., July 21 -- President Bush appeared today to shrug off evidence that North Korea may have begun producing plutonium at a second, hidden nuclear facility, and avoided any hint of confrontation with the country as it races to expand its nuclear arsenal.

The message seems clear: if you're going to confront the U.S., you better be well on the way to having the nuclear arsenal.

Complete story here.

New Yorkers, check this out...!

A 5-week series of skill shares in arts and activism, organized by Voices in the Wilderness: Resistance Camp.

Deja view all over again....

President George Bush issued a strident new warning to Iran and Syria yesterday, accusing them of harboring terrorists and hinting at the consequences. "This behavior is completely unacceptable," he said during a joint press conference at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, with the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. "And states that continue to harbor terrorists will be held completely accountable."

He must be getting worried about his plummeting poll numbers.

While Iran continues to deny charges that it is developing nuclear weapons, saying such a program would imperil its own safety, Bush and his cabal are using the same language (including, ominously, "regime change") that led to the Iraq debacle.

Unbelievable.

Complete Guardian UK story here via Common Dreams.

More on the recall....

If the stakes weren't so high, this crazy recall would be amusing.

As it is, things are unfolding fast.

...Barring court intervention, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley could certify as soon as Thursday that sponsors of the petition for a recall election have gathered enough signatures to get the measure on the ballot.

Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante would have to set a date for the election to occur within 60 to 80 days of Shelley's certification — so, if the recall is certified this week, the election would have to occur no later than mid-October. As a practical matter, that means that candidates could have as little as one day to decide whether to run; they must file the required paperwork at least 59 days before the recall election. [Emphasis mine.]

Arnold Schwarzenegger, one of the Republicans weighing whether to run, plans to return today from a trip to France, Germany and Spain, where he has been promoting his latest "Terminator" sequel. His top political strategist, George Gorton, said that Schwarzenegger had not made a final decision, but that all signs point toward a run by the actor and former champion bodybuilder.

"I'm pretty darn sure he's running," Gorton said.

Complete story here.

Demo's winning ways....

Oh, this should advance Davis' and the Democrats' hopes in resolving the state budget crisis and retaining office in the upcoming recall election!

SACRAMENTO — In a meeting they thought was private but was actually broadcast around the Capitol on Monday, 11 Assembly Democrats debated prolonging California's budget crisis to further their political goals.

Members of the Democratic Study Group, a caucus that defines itself as progressive, were unaware that a microphone in Committee Room 127 was on as they discussed slowing progress in an attempt to increase pressure on Republicans to accept tax increases as part of a deal to resolve the state's $38-billion budget gap.

The conversation was transmitted to roughly 500 "squawk boxes" around Sacramento that political staff, lobbyists and reporters use to listen in on legislative proceedings.

For my many readers residing outside the State of California, a little background. Since July 1, the state of California has been lumbering along with no budget because legislators and Governor Gray Davis cannot resolve a $38-billion (!) budget gap. The conservative Republican leadership opposes any and all tax increases, including a recently tripled state vehicle license tax. (Considering the impact of the car culture on California, a justifiable increase if ever there was one.) And ultra-conservative Republican Congressman Darrell Issa, from just north of where I live, has financed what looks like a successful bid to recall Davis, with one of the likeliest replacements being Arnold "The Terminator" Schwarzenegger.

I kid you not.

In the meantime, while road repair work is cancelled, libraries cut back hours even further, school districts lay off thousands, state workers face job cuts and reduced wages, our Democratic "allies" in the state legislature are conspiring to prolong the crisis for their political gain.

With friends like this, who needs enemies?

Complete story here.