Your Money

I have a guilty secret. Over the course of blogging for nearly a year, I've become something of an econo-geek. I have learned so much from the free graduate education handed out by the professors and professionals who share their expertise from us. I'm learning constitutional law, economics (micro and macro), history and a host of other disciplines, free but for the cost of my dial up. I find it pretty amazing to get to sit at the feet of these generous people, but the biggest surprise to me is that I've really been taken by economics, the "dismal science" course I snoozed through in high school. I guess I had to get older to see how this material matters in peoples' lives (and to have been through the desert in my personal economy.) This discipline now feels to me more like one of the social sciences, with the same kind of resonances those have for me: economics, in the end, is about people, not statistics.

Urk, Liddy Dole is on the tube. I've gotten past the biblical references to the girl herself. "Its roots deep in the soil of timeless truth" is the Repubs? Liddy, I can see your roots. If my hair stylist turned out a highlight job like that, she'd fire herself. She looks and sounds like the cheap knock-offs that greet me at the top of the subway every morning. Hope that that Viagra is working for ya, Liddy. God, you sound awful.

Cheap Repub whore? We report, you decide, but don't look at the pictures. You'll feel dirty. Anybody know where Sen. Dole goes to church?

Not all of you are so entranced with the discipline, so I'm not going to excerpt the article I'm linking here. This is another one of those "sit at the feet of the master" articles, but it is pretty technical and not all of you are going to be interested. Let me give you a few lines, and a little explanation of why I think this is both groundbreaking work and horribly scary.

The announcement on Friday the 13th of August that the US trade deficit had grown by more than $8 billion is deeply significant.[1] Its meaning is that the US has entered a phase, long predicted by us, in which it is impossible to stabilize the American external position within a democratic and free market context. The long ascendance of finance capital from its nadir during the depression of the 1930s and the parallel erosion of real capital accumulation is reaching, in our view, a climax.[2] What appears to be the permanent loss of over three million manufacturing jobs[3] in the last three years testifies to the tacit acceptance of this state of affairs by the managers of the US political economy. This acceptance is emphasized by the Kerry candidacy for the presidency, which underlines the cross-party stranglehold that finance capital holds over the political system. There is nothing new about this; what matters here is that the numbers are evidence that we have reached a point of departure for radical systemic change.

A detailed look at the breakdown of the trade numbers makes the point quite clearly.[4] With no significant part of the world is the US improving its trade balance. But apart from geographic universality what really stands out is the deterioration across commodity classes. In category after category, the US runs deficits, including its vaunted high tech sector. The last statistically significant area of surplus, services,[5] has been in trend decline since the middle 90s. A projection of that trend suggests that it too will fall into deficit in 2005.

You don't have to be able to interpret a lot of statistics to read the piece, but it is fairly complex and if economics give you the hives, you might want to skip it. If you are interested in politics and history, you might want to sigh and dig in.

Chris Sanders lays out the trend lines on why we are headed for an Argentine economy sooner rather than later, with the concommitant strong man fascism. It is chilling to see it laid out so cogently. Paul Krugman has been making this case for months, but here is a statistician who has "the internals," as it were. If you've been reading Brad DeLong and Steve Roach for the last year, none of this will come as a surprise, other than the fact that the numbers are so firm. I've been of the opinion that we are at a cross-roads right now, and good choices could make a difference. Sanders is much more pessimistic and argues that the die was cast decades ago.

I hope you'll forgive me for not doing the RNC outrage of the day. The horse race part of political contests is of very little interest for me as a writer. The macro conditions behind such contests are much more interesting, the movements of cultures, populations, and, yes, money, because spending, saving and valuing are matters for sociologists and anthropologists (and even theologians). Allocation of resources is always a decision on what one holds most dear, and that is theological. In that regard, economics has a transcendent dimension which goes beyond reason, and boy are the ad guys good at manipulating that!

It's cheap and quick to do what Kos and Atrios do. I hope you come here for more added value beyond snark. If you are prepared to read an article with footnotes (I do believe that most of you have a graduate education, no wonder my stats have dropped over 50% since I went back to work) this one is worth your time. I'm going to need to think on this for a couple of days before I offer some solutions, because there is no point in posting a problem, particularly one as big as this one, without charting another course.

For the short term, vote Kerry, and put the inevitable confrontation off while we work on the solution. For the near term, get your money out of dollar-denominated equities and securities. Move to your safe harbor investment strategy immediately. And then bust your financial planner's and investment advisors' asses with this data and make them come up with something. I'd listen to them before I'd listen to me. Disclaimer: I own no equities or securities. I barely own the clothes on my ass, so you can take my advice for what it is worth.

If I had money that I was saving for later, like retirement, I'd be one third in gold (it's a parking lot), one third in cash (ready to turn on a dime), and one third in blue chips. I'd be getting ready to move into Euro denominated equities and bonds. Unless you are a perfect market timer, expect to pick up some losses along the way to greater security. All risks have costs, and the equity and money markets are about to go through the roof with risks. If Sanders is right, savings accounts and CDs are going to start looking bad. Don't stuff your mattress just yet. But use your little exacto knife to install a zipper. You might want it later.

Tax shift: my sales tax goes up tomorrow, under Bush. That tax cut? Less than $250. I'm going to be paying this one for ever. My property tax doubled in the last two years. Gee, Jeb, thanks. Finding money for a down payment ain't my problem, making the payments IS the problem. Thanks for doubling my escrow, while my wages have grown not at all.

Compassion? Where is it?

Tax cuts? Where are mine?

No Change

Sovereign Iraq Just as Deadly to U.S. Forces
With attacks more frequent, the hand-over of power has not mollified insurgents.

By Patrick J. McDonnell, Times Staff Writer

BAGHDAD — Two months after the U.S. handed sovereignty back to Iraq amid hopes of reduced violence, more than 110 U.S. troops have been killed and much of the country remains hostile territory. The toll of U.S. dead since the war began last year is fast approaching 1,000.

Although attention in recent weeks has focused on Najaf, where U.S. forces battled Shiite Muslim militiamen, most of the deadly confrontations for American troops in newly independent Iraq have occurred in the Baghdad area and the so-called Sunni Triangle to the north and west.

The concentration of attacks in those areas is a reminder that the fiercest and most organized opposition to U.S. forces and the U.S.-backed interim government continues to be in Sunni-dominated cities, such as Fallouja. Nationwide, U.S. forces are being attacked 60 times per day on average, up 20% from the three-month period before the hand-over.

The occupation of Iraq has technically ended, but a U.S.-commanded multinational force of more than 150,000 is still there, tasked with providing security to the fledgling government. Ubiquitous graffiti denouncing the continued occupation indicate that insurgents see little change in their enemy — U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies.

With Iraqi security forces still largely in training, U.S. forces continue to run raids and conduct patrols in many areas, maintaining a very visible presence, especially on the roads. Pulling back to the garrisons now, commanders agree, would open the door to even more chaos and violence.

Although U.S. authorities did not expect casualties to plummet immediately after the transfer of power June 28, American, Iraqi and international officials expressed optimism that restoring sovereignty and officially ending the U.S. occupation would curb the violence.

"We hope that this is going to be a true beginning, and those who are opposing occupation will now consider that opposing occupation is not necessary anymore," Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. envoy who helped select Iraq's interim government, said on the day of the transfer.

But many of the underlying grievances that have stoked the insurgency, such as the presence of U.S. troops and the slow pace of reconstruction, remain. The number of fighters — including loyalists of former President Saddam Hussein, religious militants and others dissatisfied enough to take up a gun or plant a bomb — shows no sign of decreasing.

"There was a government in South Vietnam all those years ago, and we lost a lot of people back there," noted U.S. Army Col. Dana Pittard of the 1st Infantry Division in Baqubah, a zone of conflict northeast of the capital.

In August so far, 63 U.S. troops have died, and 54 died in July, the first complete month after the hand-over of power. In June, 42 American troops died, according to Associated Press and the Pentagon.

Neither July nor August come close to the death tolls of April and May — 135 and 80 troops, respectively. Still, July and August rank among the deadliest months for U.S. forces in Iraq this year.

Overall, 974 U.S. troops had died in Iraq as of Monday, the vast majority — 836 — since President Bush declared an end to major combat May 1 of last year, the Pentagon said. About 6,500 have been wounded. Since January, the majority of attacks on U.S. forces have come in the form of "indirect fire" — such as mortar and rocket strikes — along with homemade roadside bombs.

There is no reliable accounting of Iraqi civilian deaths, but some rough calculations top 10,000. The number of Iraqi military dead is in the 5,000 to 6,000 range, according to think-tank estimates cited by Reuters.

What the writer fails to notice is that the "handover of power" to an appointed government was little more than a token and the Iraqis are not fooled by this.

This is a long and rather aimless piece, but McDonnell covers a lot of territory, including a couple of quotes from the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Tony Cordesman, whose most optimistic prediction is a 50-50 chance of a quiet Iraq by the end of 2005. I suppose that if the media continue not to cover the violence and death in Iraq the public will put up with this.

What Went Wrong

A No-Win Situation
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: August 31, 2004

For a long time, anyone suggesting analogies with Vietnam was ridiculed. But Iraq optimists have, by my count, already declared victory three times. First there was "Mission Accomplished" - followed by an escalating insurgency. Then there was the capture of Saddam - followed by April's bloody uprising. Finally there was the furtive transfer of formal sovereignty to Ayad Allawi, with implausible claims that this showed progress - a fantasy exploded by the guns of August.

Now, serious security analysts have begun to admit that the goal of a democratic, pro-American Iraq has receded out of reach. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies - no peacenik - writes that "there is little prospect for peace and stability in Iraq before late 2005, if then."

Mr. Cordesman still thinks (or thought a few weeks ago) that the odds of success in Iraq are "at least even," but by success he means the creation of a government that "is almost certain to be more inclusive of Ba'ath, hard-line religious, and divisive ethnic/sectarian movements than the West would like." And just in case, he urges the U.S. to prepare "a contingency plan for failure."

Fred Kaplan of Slate is even more pessimistic. "This is a terribly grim thing to say," he wrote recently, "but there might be no solution to the problem of Iraq" - no way to produce "a stable, secure, let alone democratic regime. And there's no way we can just pull out without plunging the country, the region, and possibly beyond into still deeper disaster." Deeper disaster? Yes: people who worried about Ramadi are now worrying about Pakistan.

So what's the answer? Here's one thought: much of U.S. policy in Iraq - delaying elections, trying to come up with a formula that blocks simple majority rule, trying to install first Mr. Chalabi, then Mr. Allawi, as strongman - can be seen as a persistent effort to avoid giving Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani his natural dominant role. But recent events in Najaf have demonstrated both the cleric's awesome influence and the limits of American power. Isn't it time to realize that we could do a lot worse than Mr. Sistani, and give him pretty much whatever he wants?

Here's another thought. President Bush says that the troubles in Iraq are the result of unanticipated "catastrophic success." But that catastrophe was predicted by many experts. Mr. Cordesman says their warnings were ignored because we have "the weakest and most ineffective National Security Council in post-war American history," giving control to "a small group of neoconservative ideologues" who "shaped a war without any realistic understanding or plans for shaping a peace."

Yesterday Mr. Bush, who took a "winning the war on terror" bus tour just a few months ago, conceded that "I don't think you can win" the war on terror. But he hasn't changed the national security adviser, nor has he dismissed even one of the ideologues who got us into this no-win situation. Rather than concede that he made mistakes, he's sticking with people who will, if they get the chance, lead us into two, three, many quagmires.

The whole Iraq/WMD/Director of National Intelligence controversy all point to catastrophic failure on the part of the NSC and Condi Rice. If this body were functioning correctly, none of this would be at issue. We don't need more legislation and a new bureaucracy. We need a competent NSA.

Identity and Politics

What you fear is not who I am

By TARIQ RAMADAN
Globe and Mail Update
Monday, Aug 30, 2004

In my 20 years of studying and teaching philosophy, I have learned to appreciate the inherent difficulty in defining and recognizing "the truth." Descartes put it simply: "A clear and obvious idea is true"; Kant aptly added "consistency" as a needed element. My life experience over the past 15 years enabled me to appreciate yet another definition.

In today's world of communication and mass media, truth is not firstly based on coherence and clarity, but rather on frequency. Here, a repeated hypothesis or suspicion becomes a truth; a three-time-repeated assumption imperceptibly becomes a fact. There is no need to check because "it is obvious"; after all, "we have heard it many times" and "it is being said everywhere."

Lately, I have been going through an interesting experience. I am constantly being told "the truth" about who I am: "You are a controversial figure"; "you engage in double-talk, delivering a gentle message in French and English, and a radical - even extremist - one in Arabic, or to a Muslim audience in private"; "you have links with extremists, you are an anti-Semite"; "you despise women" etc.

When I ask about the source of this information, invariably the response is: This is well-known, it is everywhere, check the Internet and you will find thousands of pages referring to this.

A closer examination reveals that what we have is journalists or intellectuals quoting each other, conclusively reporting and infinitely repeating what others said yesterday, with caveats. Rather than using this as an occasion for reflection, the response to this finding is usually: "Well, there has to be some truth in all that."

Strange truth, indeed! I have written more than 20 books and about 800 articles; 170 tapes of lectures are circulating, and I keep asking my detractors: Have you read or listened to any of my material? Can you prove your allegations? To repeat them is not to prove. Where is the evidence of my double-talk? Have you read any of the numerous articles where I call on Muslims to unequivocally condemn radical views and acts of extremism?

How about my statements of Sept. 13, 2001, calling on Muslims to speak out, to condemn the terrorist attacks and acknowledge that some fellow Muslims are betraying the Islamic message?

What about the articles in which I condemn anti-Semitism, criticizing those Muslims who do not differentiate between the political Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the unacceptable temptation to reject the Jews simply because they are Jews?

Are you familiar with my chapters and taped lectures promoting women's rights and a revival leading to an Islamic feminism, and rejecting every kind of mistreatment (domestic violence, forced marriage, female circumcision etc.) and all sorts of discrimination?

Finally, are you acquainted with my extensive study of the Islamic scriptural sources and efforts to promote a new understanding, a new way for Muslims to remain faithful to their principles and, at the same time, able to face the challenges of the contemporary world?

To seek "the truth," one must read, listen carefully, check and recheck for clarity and consistency, and be willing, if for a moment, to be decentred. Very often, even within the academic field, I encounter individuals who are not familiar with my writings. When this becomes obvious in the course of discussion, their final argument is: "Well, aren't you the grandson of Hassan Al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood?" As if this was sufficient proof of all the allegations.

My response is: So what? And what do you really know about him and his life history anyway? Furthermore, are one's thoughts genetically transmitted or do one's morals and ethics descend from the vices or virtues of one's pedigree? This obsession with my genealogy is frankly disconcerting, for it is dismissive. Those so focused on my genealogy should examine my intellectual pedigree, which along with my grandfather and father includes Descartes, Kant and Nietzsche.

They should know my academic contributions and the years I spent travelling and working in partnership and on the ground with Dom Helder Camara, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Abbot Pierre and the countless ordinary people from Canada, South America, Asia, Africa, Europe and America; Christians and Jews; agnostics and atheists. For 20 years, each has educated me, touched my heart, nourished my soul, shaped my mind and strengthened my faith and conviction. That, and not my genetic heritage, is my life's legacy. Along the way, I have learnt that something was missing in Descartes's way of speaking about truth. Clarity and consistency are not enough: The quest for truth requires deep humility and uncompromising effort. My experience of living with people of different religions, origins and cultures taught me that one will never be at peace with the other if one is at war with oneself.

Tariq Ramadan is one of the leading liberal Islamists in the world. We claim to want such liberal intellectuals to speak out against the voices of Islamic fundamentalism, and then the Immigration Department goes and pulls a boneheaded move like this. It reminds me of the visa revocation of Finnish theologian Veli-Matti Karkkainen of Fuller Theological Seminary in California earlier this summer. Our immigration system made no sense before 9-11 and hasn't gotten any better.

Too bad we had to read a Canadian paper to find this out.

A letter from Scott Appleby, Director of the Joan B. Kroc Institute of Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame:

To recap: Tariq, a Swiss scholar, accepted an appointment to be our Luce Professor of Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding. It is a joint, tenured appointment with the Department of Classics. Earlier this year he applied for, and received, a work visa from the U.S. State Department. He was to start work this semester, with Aug. 24 his first day of teaching a course in Islamic Ethics.

Tariq Ramadan is a strong but moderate voice in a world plagued by extremism. He addresses issues that evoke strong feelings because they touch the heart of personal and communal identity. We have known from the start that he is controversial. But controversy cannot and should not be avoided in a place that examines the challenges to international peace. The University of Notre Dame is such a place. We look forward to having him here.

News

Hi, all,

Sorry the posting has been so light. It is complex to be an employed blogger, particularly one who has just taken on a new career and for whom the learning and output rate at work is particularly steep right now. The next couple of weeks will be thin, there is no getting around it. I'm swamped on the job right now and even posting from lunch is problematical. Lunch is sandwich bites while juggling projects. And I'm wasted by the time I get home, and still needing to do the ordinary household upkeep.

Here is what I think the next couple of weeks is going to look like: I'll get a couple to three posts up in the morning before work, another one or two during lunch or dead spots during the day, and maybe another one or two or a longer essay in the evening if I've got a bee in my bonnet (or a wild hair...) that I need to work out. This is a far cry from the 8-12 you got from me during poverty. I'll try to make up with quality what I lack in quantity. I hope you'll do likewise.

I'm probably going to be sent out of town for training for my new responsibilities in the next month, and whether or not I can blog that will depend on my ability to procure a laptop with ethernet and WiFi capability. For a week. If I can get a couple of paychecks under my belt, I'll go shopping for a laptop. Your suggestions are welcome. I need something basic with a current chip which is indestructable.

Your suggestions are also welcome on some professional questions. I have lots of experience as a data base end user. I've never been a data base administrator before. My readership runs heavily to political techies, lawyers and journos, but I don't know if there are any dbas out there. If there are, I sure would appreciate links to the resources you find helpful. I'm investigating programs for training for cert in SQL (there is even a magazine! Who knew?) and anything you can add would be helpful, as one who has been there.

I've got a very desired family reunion in September, and have recruited a guest blogger to cover that time--I'll be out in far western Maryland at the end of a 14.4 line and I don't think the family will sit still while I try to research and post that slow. I think the new voice will add something to the site.

Thanks for all your thoughts on clothing. As the situation mutated last week, I decided not to go shopping, but to spend this week observing. I'm a much dressier person than this office, which is on the verge of tolerating shorts. I may not need to buy anything at all. My boss wears informal (but not jeans) black slacks and informal tops. I'm going to watch for another week before I commit funds. I wore capri khakis today, with silly sneaks (polka dotted all over) and a camp shirt and was probably the most formal person in the joint below the senior mgmt. This'll take another week to sort out by a person used to wearing evening gowns. This place will never see a tie, much less a jacket.

The office looks like graduate students on moderately good behavior. Moderately. Oh, well, one of the reasons Sharon hired me was that so there could be a grown up in the house. Maybe I should look like one.

Time to change the catbox. The humidity means the place stinks. The remnants of Tropical Storm Gaston will be here in hours and the air is so wet it leaks.

Expect more as I figure out how to do more under new circumstances. Can I tell you how much I hate IE? On my desktop at work I don't have the clearances to download Mozilla. This will get fixed in the next couple of weeks, but in the interim I feel like my fingers have been cut off. No tabbed browsing? What's a blogger to do?

If you are still using IE, it is time to change. MS left big holes in this puppy subject to hacker attack, and you don't want to let them into your system. Upgrade to mozilla.org" and click on the new version. It'll keep you bug free and cruisin'. Moz is an open source product and no one is making a dime on it. Open source technology is an attempt by many of us to put the best product out their and let you run with it.

peace and grace,
Melanie

Selling "Product"

Of Campaigns and Breakfast Cereals
By BOB HERBERT

Published: August 30, 2004

You want complicated issues? Start with Iraq - a war with no clearly defined goal, not even the remotest timetable for victory, and no exit strategy whatsoever. The ad men (and women) will reduce this monumental tragedy to crisp, poll-tested campaign sound bites.

Or consider the economy. We're in a new world of work in which good jobs at good pay with good benefits are ever more hard to find. Despite the administration's insistence that the economy is strong and getting stronger, there is no light at the end of this dismal tunnel. Job growth is anemic. The middle class is being relentlessly squeezed. And the Census Bureau tells us that in 2003, for the third year in a row, the number of Americans who are poor increased.

As David Leonhardt wrote in The Times on Friday, "The economy's troubles, which first affected high-income families even more than the middle class and poor, have recently hurt families at the bottom and in the middle significantly more than those at the top."

These are issues that should be ruthlessly explored, but the politicians, their handlers and much of the media have taken their cues from Harry Treleaven. You don't want to bore the readers or viewers or voters with anything too complicated. A well-rehearsed comment or two will suffice, followed by the jokes on Leno and Letterman, and then it's on to the "real world" of Paris and Kobe and whatever.

This week's Republican convention in New York is a rigidly scripted theatrical event that will garner a grand total of three hours of live coverage on network television - a reprise of the Democrats' rigidly scripted extravaganza in Boston last month. Anyone who drifts off message will be viewed as a nut.

So we won't get anything but pap about Iraq. We'll be told about the miraculous economic healing powers of the Bush tax cuts. We'll be told that the era of George Bush II has been a rousing success for America.

Serious voters who would like to hear a discussion (from the leaders of both parties) about why we are in Iraq and when and how we might get out of there will be disappointed. So will voters interested in exploring ideas about the leadership role of the United States in the post-9/11 world, which is at least as important as the role thrust upon the U.S. in the aftermath of World War II.

More scary stories are emerging about global warming, and our dependence on foreign oil is undermining our security like never before. But these topics, too, are complex, and therefore, according to the advertising folks and media gurus, too difficult and boring for general consumption.

In other words, we're a nation of nitwits, and a presidential campaign at a critical moment in world history will be spoon-fed to us like an ad for Wheaties.

Raymond Price, a speechwriter for Nixon in the 1968 campaign, was as contemptuous of substance in politics as Treleaven. "It's not what's there that counts," he wrote, "it's what's projected." In Price's view, "Voters are basically lazy, basically uninterested in making an effort to understand what we're talking about."

Voters could revolt against this kind of humiliating treatment. But that would happen only if the Treleavens and Prices of the world were wrong.

Are they?

Patriot Games

Upstaging Before the Show
By TODD S. PURDUM

Published: August 30, 2004

"I've been going to Republican conventions since 1972, and I've never seen a convention with as many protesters in the streets," said David Gergen, who has worked for several Republican presidents, and Bill Clinton. "The irony is that was a convention held here because of echoes of 9/11, but it opens with echoes of Chicago and the Vietnam war.

"The protests are anti-Bush, with heavy antiwar overtones, but this is Chicago without the fisticuffs, without the fight, without the bloodshed - so far," Mr. Gergen added. "To interpret this politically is hard, but my gut is that large, peaceful protests are not what the Republicans want. The protesters are stealing the story for the first day and drowning out the Republican message. If there's violence, that could all change."

To be sure, a seething anger pulsed throughout the protesting crowds. T-shirts and signs branded Mr. Bush a warmonger, a liar or a criminal, and there were fly-swatters with an image of his face. Two protesters, Jim Higgins and Kathy Roberts, dressed in suits made of duct tape to spoof Mr. Bush's handling of national security.

"We're occupying Iraq, but we're using duct tape here at home," Mr. Higgins said.

Moira Weidenborner, an English teacher and native New Yorker, sat on the corner of 14th Street and Seventh Avenue before the march began, straw hat in hand, in a shirt that said: "Justice, No War." She said the people she had met on the streets were "a very broad spectrum."

"There's all this attention on the radicals, which makes me upset," Ms. Weidenborner said. "Look around you today: It is middle class, it is working class, it is just people who want to speak their mind."

But Jason Glodt, executive director of the South Dakota Republican Party, said he thought the protesters did "reflect the base of the Democratic Party," and added: "I hope that all Americans are taking a close look at those protesters and what they represent. I don't think they represent American values.

"It's not their freedom of speech that we disagree with," Mr. Glodt said, "it's the content of what they're saying. It really only motivates us even more to go home and work harder at the grass-roots level and make sure people are going out and voting."

I don't know how this resonates with you, but the suggestion that Democratic values and ideals are somehow unAmerican just pisses me off. Of all the crap the Repubs have pulled in the last ten years, this is the most offensive. There are a whole host of things that reasonable people can disagree about without becoming disagreeable. With this tactic, the Rs have become not just disagreeable, but offensive. When you label your opponant as unworthy of argument, you've marginalized yourself. This is another piece of the Gingrich legacy.

Takin' it to the Streets

AP takes a similar tack.

Protesters Pour Into Manhattan Streets
On Eve of GOP Convention, Thousands Demonstrate Against Bush and Iraq War

By Sara Kugler
The Associated Press
Sunday, August 29, 2004; 5:24 PM

NEW YORK -- Bearing flag-draped boxes resembling coffins and fly-swatters with President Bush's image, more than 100,000 protesters peacefully swarmed Manhattan's streets on the eve of the Republican National Convention to demand that President Bush be turned out of office.

Flanked by police in riot gear, the protesters moved through the fortified city, loudly and exuberantly chanting slogans such as "No more years." They accused the Bush White House of prosecuting an unjust war in Iraq, making the country poorer and undermining abortion rights.

There were no reports of major violence and about 100 scattered arrests.

Police gave no official crowd estimate, though one law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, put the crowd at 120,000; organizers claimed it was roughly 400,000.

The march snaked in a circular route around midtown Manhattan, shutting down dozens of blocks and bringing out hordes of police in a city already girded against terrorist attacks.

"They chose New York, where they're universally hated," said writer Laurie Russo, 41, of the New York borough of Queens. "They should have gone somewhere they're more welcome. They exploited 9/11 by having it in New York at this time."

In the largest set of arrests, some 50 protesters on bicycles who stopped near the parade route were carted away in an off-duty city bus. Also, 10 people were arrested after someone set a paper dragon float afire near Madison Square Garden, site of the convention, and nine demonstrators tried to prevent the arrest, authorities said. The nine were charged with assault.

"There's been a few minor arrests," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "It has been peaceful."

Residents leaned from windows along the demonstration route to shout their support. Scattered opposition was visible only around Madison Square Garden, where the GOP convention opens Monday. Some early convention arrivals looked across police lines, shouting at demonstrators: "Go home!"

"I hope this shows the world that they're not alone in their hatred of George Bush," said Alan Zelenki of Eugene, Ore., who planned for three months to attend this week's protests.

I watched it on C-Span, which is, I think, looking for ways to expand its role in this election season. I'm a big fan of Brian Lamb's networks. I thought they did a nice job with minimal commentary. The spectacle of the flag-draped coffins was extraordinarily moving. For a decentralized protest, this one really looked effective. I'd have been there if I weren't starting a new job in the morning.

John Kerry has energized a whole lot more than his base. He's not a perfect candidate, but the alternative is so perfectly awful that JFK is pulling in an interesting coalition. By the way, I'm pretty sure that the Repubs are on the verge of a major split, win or lose this fall. The Dems have internal tensions in their broad coalition but they don't have internal contradictions, which the Repubs do right now. Their moral theology is going to tear them apart.

Scary Thoughts

Off the Bench
By DAHLIA LITHWICK

Published: August 29, 2004

The Supreme Court is by far the most mysterious branch of government - its members glimpsed only rarely, like Bigfoot, crashing through the forest at twilight. The court is the one branch that operates in near secrecy - no cameras, no tape recorders, no explanations, no press conferences, rare interviews, no review by other branches. The most powerful branch is also the most enigmatic. They love it that way.

So how do the justices spend their summers? Some travel to exotic locales, where they get paid lots of money to teach at fabulous seaside summer law school programs. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg taught at Hofstra University law school's program in Nice, France, this summer, while Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist taught at Tulane's program at Cambridge.

What else do they do with their summers? Since all four justices over age 70 are hostages to their mutually-assured-destruction refusal to retire (each unwilling to give an opposing president the chance to fill a seat), they probably do lots of resting. Even one extra day on that court may mean casting the deciding vote in Bush v. Kerry - a case poised to detonate over the legal landscape this winter, the moment the recount starts in Ohio.

Shunning travel and speeches, Justice David Souter - the man who says cameras will be rolled into the Supreme Court only over his dead body - hightails it home to New Hampshire each summer, where, like Punxsutawney Phil's New England cousin, he'll hide out until the first Monday in October. Justice Souter will under no circumstances be found in a Louisiana duck blind, where Justice Antonin Scalia is rumored to spend his summers hunting with his pal Dick Cheney.

Moreover, that rumor is totally unfair to Justice Scalia.

Duck season in Louisiana doesn't start until November.

Perhaps the most emblematic justice is Clarence Thomas, who spends much of his summer touring the country in a used bus that's been converted into a luxury motor home. That bus is the perfect symbol for a man who won't read newspapers, or engage audiences that don't share his ideology. It allows him to roam the country, hermetically sealed and unreachable inside a moving fortress.

Ultimately, that's what members of the Supreme Court do each summer - they roam the world, safe with their secrets, secure in their lifetime appointments, unaccountable and unavailable to voters or presidents.

And just as the presidential candidates beg you to know them - to look deep in their eyes and see their souls - the Supreme Court justices beg to be forgotten. They still believe that their sole authority rests in the myth that they are oracles. That's why it's not in their interest to remind you that you'll be picking the next Supreme Court with your vote come November. We forget that appointing judges may be the single most important thing a president does - it's easy to forget it when they've fixed it so you can't even pick Anthony Kennedy out of a lineup.

(He's the guy who looks like Ken Starr.)

Trust me, beneath their sunblock, and their duck hats, sit the nine most powerful, secretive public officials in this land. And whether you can name them or not is immaterial. Because after November, that president whose soul you've come to know so well is going to start naming a whole lot of their successors.

This is the non-reducible bottom for this fall's election and the reason why discussions about whether or not it would be tactically better for the Dems to win the Senate than the White House are absurd. A Bush win would mean a theocracy constructed with the aid of the SCOTUS.

Crime Family

I noted the publication of Kevin Phillip's American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush back in January. A "traditional" conservative, his antipathy for the Bush family hasn't abated and he puts in an appearance in the WaPo today.

Conservatives for Kerry? Here's Your Man.
An Old Nixon Hand Smacks the Bushes

By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 29, 2004; Page D01

LITCHFIELD, Conn. -- Utter three words -- George Walker Bush -- and watch eminent author Kevin Phillips, a longtime Republican, a former Nixon aide and past party theoretician, pucker like he has inhaled a pickle.

"I've never understood why we take Bush and his family seriously," he says. "They come from the investment-inherited-money wing of the Republican Party. They display no real empathy for anyone who is not of their class."

He pauses a few seconds as his fingers execute a tap dance on his picnic table.

"They aren't supply-siders; they're crony-siders. As far as I'm concerned, I would put Bush on a slow boat to China with all full warning to the Chinese submarine fleet."

Silence again. Phillips sits on his back porch and looks at you from under hooded eyes, with only the vaguest hint of a chipmunk smile. He's a curious cat, this 63-year-old Nixon-era Republican populist. His best-selling, muckraking book on the family that has held the presidency for eight of the past 16 years, "American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush," is a sustained rummage through the Bush family closet. He pulls out all manner of files on the early Bushes and the Walker branch of the family, and their dealings with post-World War I German industrialists and post-World War II Saudi princelings. And he draws a bright connecting line between those wheeler-dealer financiers and their Texas-lite descendants.
....
What bothers him is that generation after generation of Bushes are so unwilling to transcend their class interests.

"An old buccaneer and bootlegger like Joe Kennedy became an SEC head for Roosevelt and cracked down on his own class," Phillips says, adding: "The Bush family would just appoint a Gucci-shoe-licking sycophant. The family has simply developed a culture of being enormously supportive of their class."

Even the president's Texas twang grates on Phillips, whose own accent is clipped and clear and, we must note, a tad patrician. "Listen to them! Assemble the very best panel of linguists you could find and have them listen to brothers Jeb and G.W. -- they wouldn't even guess they're in the same family," Phillips says. "G.W. talks like a cowboy and he's no more a backwoods Texan than I am."

So what's an Nixon-Eisenhower Republican to do when he steps inside a voting booth in November 2004? Phillips shrugs. As it stands, Kerry has his vote, although the text of Phillips's endorsement probably won't appear in any Democratic ads. "I'm hoping that Kerry's a seven on a scale of 10, but I'm afraid maybe he's just a five," Phillips says. "But Kerry's running against a zero. So my choice is clear."

This pretty much sums it up: a fake, a fraud, an incompetent. A lie on two legs. A class warrior with nothing but contempt for the working people of this country. We get the next four days to see how the corporate Repubs are going to put lipstick on this pig.

Contrary to the bobbleheads, the CW on the lefty web is that it is already over: no one who voted for Gore is going to vote for Bush, all the defections are going to go in the other direction. I'm not so sure it's over. If any one of the fifty-eleven investigations into various Bush administration crimes breaks open into the news, everythig could chage very quickly, but I don't see much interest on the part of our drowsy media.

Performance Review

Ten Reasons

(1) He has divided the country; we are all part of a vicious little hissing match. We were united and humbled on Sept. 12, 2001. We are divided and humiliated now, telling lies about each other.

(2) He has divided the world. "We are all Americans now," headlined Le Monde on that Sept. 12. Now there are days when it seems as if they are all anti-Americans.

(3) He is leaving no child or grandchild without debt. He has taken the government from surplus into deficit in the name of national security and increased private investment. We can pay the debt in two ways: with more government revenues (taxation) or by borrowing -- against the sweat and income of new generations. The president has chosen to borrow.

(4) He campaigns as a champion of smaller government, but is greatly increasing the size and role of government. Ideological conservatism, it turns out, costs just as much or more than ideological liberalism. Conservative and liberal politicians are both for increasing the reach and power of government. The difference between them is which parts and functions of the state are to be empowered and financed. The choice is between military measures and order, or more redistribution of income. Money is power.

(5) He is diminishing the military of which he is so proud now as commander in chief. The invasion and occupation of Iraq (news - web sites) have obviously not worked out the way he imagined -- naked torture was not the goal. But the far greater problem for the future is that our proud commander has revealed the hollowness behind the unilateral superpower. From the top down, we have not been able to win Iraq, much less the world. And going into Iraq has compromised or crippled the war on terror he declared himself.

(6) He is diminishing scientific progress, the great engine of the 20th century. Only the truly ignorant can believe that the proper role of government is to hinder medical research and environmental study in the name of God.

(7) He is diminishing the Constitution of the United States. Cheesy tricks like amending the great text of freedom to attack homosexuality can be dismissed as wedge politics. But it is worse to preach against an activist judiciary while appointing more activist judges who happen to hold different beliefs, particularly the idea that civil liberties are the enemies of patriotism, security and freedom itself.

(8) He has surrounded himself with other incompetents. The secretary of state is presiding over the rape of diplomacy and its alliances. The secretary of defense has sent our young men and women into situations they were never meant or trained to handle, and now they are being ordered into battle by an appointed minister in a faraway land. The national security adviser does not seem to know that her job description includes coordinating defense and diplomacy. And then there was our $340,000-a-month local hire, Ahmed Chalabi, sitting in the gallery of our House.

(9) He has been unable or unwilling to deal with declining employment and the rising medical costs of becoming an older nation.

(10) He is, as if by design, destroying the credibility of the United States as a force for peace in the world -- an honest broker -- particularly in the Middle East.

The list is longer, miscalculation after miscalculation. President Bush has not been able to function effectively at this pay grade. He may mean well, but this has been a difficult time, and he is in over his head. We and our kids will pay the price for his blundering, blunderbuss adventure in Washington. He has been tested in a difficult time -- and, unhappily for all of us and the world, he has not been up to the job.

Isn't this the bottom line? He's not up to the job. It is that simple.

Compassion

Dear Team,

I've been deeply moved and very gratified by all the encouragement and congratulations you've sent my way as I begin this transition from 13 unemployed months to a new career in a new field, one that I didn't know even existed a week ago. One that I'm still not sure I have the chops for today. I'm going to be on a steep learning curve. The glory part is that the field is still new enough that EVERYBODY is on a steep learning curve, and I've got a boss who hired me for my work ethic and willingness to try, my commitment to helping others on the staff learn and my desire to "show up excellent," an ego which rejects the "average" work product.

I spent last evening on the phone with Susie Madrak, the Suburban Guerrilla, who called to offer her congrats and commisseration, and we talked a lot about work ethos, the spirituality of work and related topics. Work and spirituality are not separate things, they are all the ways we live and who we are. Suze and I are at one on this. She's still unemployed, by the way, and if you are in a position to hire a gifted writer in Philly, I urge you to click on the link and take a look. She has a gimlet editor's eye for a story. I've never met someone who can pick up the critical detail in the news the way she does. Atrios is good, Susie is better.

I've been rotating the blog in my mind today, and letting it reach out and touch my heart and my gut, the critical elements in its evolution. And I decided I want to tell you something.

Since 1998 I've been living in a world which is so poor that I haven't been able to want anything. For the last two years, I haven't even been able to need anything. Healthcare for me and veterinary care for the cats have been out the window, I've been buying groceries on the fund you've provided. Your generosity has fed the cats and me for the last six months. Think about that for a moment. You actually changed someone's life. And you could do it again, 25 dollars at a time. You are a force to be reckoned with.

Would you consider changing another lefty blogger's life for the better? Jim Capazzola and Susie Madrak are barely hanging on. It took me 13 months to find a job in Bush's economy. Both of my friends are used to working hard, neither are slackers, but they aren't investment bankers in New York, which seems to be the employment strategy for team Bush. If you can hit their tip jars with some help, you'd be doing a kindness to a fellow human who wants to work, isn't some sort of loser who made bad choices, and I'd appreciate it. Remember, the Reagan/Bush doctrine is that if you are unemployed, it means you aren't trying hard enough and it is your fault. Pure Calvinism. The millions who are unemployed are going to be so voting against the Bush Doctrine on economics that I think this election is no longer going to be close.

Next up: the culture wars. Give me a couple of days. I'm moving into longer form blogging while I'm negotiating a change in job/lifestyle. The next week will be an experiment in form and I invite your input.

Shove this Job to the Third World

Office of Tomorrow Has an Address in India
U.S. companies that discreetly embrace outsourcing find workers -- accountants typists, editors -- who are eager and talented.

By David Streitfeld, Times Staff Writer

MADRAS, India — Task by task, function by function, the American office is being hollowed out and reconstituted in places like this, a makeshift facility on the sixth floor of a shopping arcade.

OfficeTiger Ltd., one of the most prominent and aggressive of a new breed of outsourcing companies, has hired 2,000 Indians, most of them young and all of them relentlessly gung-ho.

They work as typists, researchers, librarians, claims processors, proofreaders, accountants and graphic designers. Their clients are U.S. brokerage firms, investment banks, law firms and even copy shops.

The Indians take on jobs both big — 100-page investment reports requiring weeks of work — and small. Iayaraja Marimuthu, for instance, is designing a program for next month's wedding of Ann and John, a Texas couple proclaiming their joy in being "together for life." It will take him less than an hour.

Outsourcing, which started with U.S. firms laying off software programmers and call center workers and hiring cheaper employees overseas, is now stretching to encompass almost any kind of work that is done on a computer and is orderly and repetitive in structure. That's a vast category that stretches from copy editing to financial analysis to tax preparation.

Just as voice mail reduced the need for receptionists and word processors transformed the traditional role of secretaries, outsourcing is beginning to reshape the American office, eliminating some jobs and redefining others. Its proponents say it will lift the burden of tedious chores from millions of office workers, giving them more time to spend on challenging and creative enterprises.

"We're allowing employees to delve deeper, to learn more, to push the boundaries of what had been standard work," says OfficeTiger's American co-founder, Joe Sigelman.

That's one side of the argument.

But for other employees, outsourcing means the permanent threat of dismissal in favor of someone who can do the same job for one-tenth the salary.

It also means revamping the methods of entering certain professions, including law and finance. There's a time-honored tradition in those fields of making new associates do the drudgery. It teaches them the subject and winnows the number of aspirants to the truly dedicated. That won't happen if the drudgery is shipped elsewhere.

Those happy Indian workers don't understand that they are being Wal-marted. The jobs that they are taking from North Carolina and West Virginia will show up in Maylasia next.

Until the planet gets serious about understanding the capital is portable, we are going to be a Wal-Mart world. I don't find that attractive.

David and Goliath

If Ben Barnes didn't help W jump to the front of a line for the TANG that was several thousand long, who did? CNN is treating Barnes' statement as just another piece of opinion, rather than a matter of historical fact. One would think the guy knows what he did. In other news, the most expensive war in American history is going like this:

After 3 Weeks of Fighting in Najaf, 1 Riddle: Who Won?
By DEXTER FILKINS

Published: August 29, 2004

NAJAF, Iraq — In a single moment last week, all the mystery and contradiction surrounding Moktada al-Sadr, Iraq's rebel cleric, came into focus.

It was near midnight Thursday, and the 50-odd reporters following the fighting here were hustled from their hotel by the local police and gathered for a press conference in the courtyard of a home where the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country most powerful Shiite leader, was staying.

Just as one of Ayatollah Sistani's aides stood to announce that a peace deal had been struck, Mr. Sadr, the man most responsible for the bloodshed, scurried out the front door, across the lawn and into the street.

And then he was gone.

The moment seemed to encapsulate the conflicting currents that have made Mr. Sadr, and his relationship to the Iraqi and American governments, so hard to fathom.

It was Mr. Sadr, after all, whose Mahdi Army began the current round of bloodletting by attacking a police station earlier this month after the Iraqi police arrested one of his aides. It was Mr. Sadr who had turned the Imam Ali Shrine, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam, into a fortress from which he dared the government and the Americans to expel him. And it was Mr. Sadr, facing an indictment for the murder of a rival cleric, who had mocked the Iraqi government's efforts to arrest him.

Yet for all of that, the burden of announcing the tentative peace accord had fallen to Ayatollah Sistani, the country's most revered religious figure. Mr. Sadr was allowed to dash out the front door.

The kid-glove treatment of Mr. Sadr here, after days of fighting that left hundreds of Iraqis dead, points up the dilemma faced by American commanders and Iraq's new leaders. As much as both groups would like to capture or kill Mr. Sadr - and there is no doubt that they would - neither the American military nor Iraq's American-appointed government feels politically strong enough to get away with it.

It is for that reason, too, that Mr. Sadr and his Mahdi Army will almost certainly be back.

"No one can defeat the Mahdi Army," said Arkan Rahim, a 30-year-old Iraqi who fought the entire three week-long battle. "The Mahdi Army is all Iraqis, the whole Iraqi nation."

An Accord for Now, But Risks Ahead

By Robin Wright and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, August 28, 2004; Page A01

The Najaf deal may bring short-term peace to the ravaged holy city after three weeks of urban warfare, but the cease-fire terms could pose a long-term danger to U.S. troops and interests in Iraq, U.S. officials and Middle East experts said yesterday. The issues underlying the bloody showdown have not been resolved, they warned.

Rebel cleric Moqtada Sadr is free and capable of rallying his dispersed forces in other Shiite strongholds, many of which are already political cauldrons. The goal of dismantling all Iraq's illegal militias -- with Sadr's Mahdi Army as the test case -- remains elusive for a vulnerable new government struggling to assert centralized control. And the United States has been stuck with the bill for damage to Najaf as part of the deal, the officials and experts said.

U.S. military strategy has also suffered a blow, particularly since Najaf is the third confrontation in five months in which Iraqi insurgents fought American troops until they began to take losses, then agreed to a cease-fire so their fighters could rest and regroup. The fear is that Iraqis now believe they can pick the time and place of their attacks and then beat a safe retreat.

"What we will see here is that the Mahdi Army will just rearm, recruit a new group of fighters and move to another city," said retired Marine Lt. Col. Rick Raftery, an intelligence officer who served in Iraq. "We'll be playing 'whack-a-mole' somewhere else shortly."

Ask yourself the question, why is the most powerful nation on earth reduced to fighting a rag-tag "army" to a draw? Because 1.) we shouldn't be in Iraq in the first place and 2.) Rummy is the new MacNamara. This is the height of self-deception.

Ch-chch-changes

More changes, gang. This week turned out 'way different than anything I expected.

When I started on Wednesday, it was with the expectation of 10 weeks of conference planning/marketing/recruitment for an annual event. My boss was going to rent me quarter time to the COO after the initial crunch in order to look into some "issues" with their brand new data base which has just received all the data reported by the old system. The new system does a lot more things and is highly functional for workgroups outside the fund development shop. And it really is an interlocking workgroup product. The COO's thinking evolved a lot this week and he'd decided by the time I came aboard that they we're probably going to have to hire a d-base administrator to be available to the staff full time, as the entire staff, program to development to education, was going to be using it. I was offered the job this afternoon and accepted it.

When I took this temp position, I thought it was so I could get a foot in the door for openings in the development side. It never occured to me that my geeky side was the employable part. I know a fair amount about d-bases and have used probably dozens of programs, as well as designing the query architecture for a few more. My first real job after undergraduate school was training HR departments,payroll departments and bookkeepers how to use computer data bases and spreadsheets, back in the day when mainframes just became a regular feature of working life, before PCs. Most of you are probably too young to remember when most offices, even pretty big ones, kept their records typed on paper, or in reports generated by punch cards. I was present at the creation of the tech revolution and one of its early enthusiasts. I built my first PC out of a kit from a catalog, soldering iron and all, and went on to own iterations of each generation of the changes. I've designed data bases, word processors and spread sheets from CP/M, Basic and DOS command lines, but when the GUI revolution hit the PC standard, I retired from the design world, in favor of putting those apps into real world use as a writer, organization builder, fundraiser and artist. Now, it seems that this piece of my past is asking for updating. Back at the beginning, I was explaining interactive software to end users and this is what I'll be doing again, in a new environment. It's still all about teaching, which has been the one constant in my life. Teaching and relationships, which is what fund development is, too.

I view this past week with astonishment. Me? A geek? As I shook hands with my new boss I commented that I think I'm going to get awfully geeky. He said, "No, just geekier." I didn't see this one coming but my friend, Sharon, who put me on this path, did. We'll be peers now, in different pipestems of the organization, both of us aware that there are both dangers and delights in two old friends working for the same organization. We both report to the same boss, you can see the issues. I can't be seen as favoring her part of the staff, and I'm a sole operator who reports to the head cheese in admin. Sharon and I are both aware of the pitfalls. We'll make some mistakes and we'll learn. We are both good at viewing and understanding human systems, both of us natural anthropologists and sociologists. She knows where the alliances and informal power structures are, as well as the top-down, so I'm not swimming without a clue.

For this blog, and for you: hey, thanks for reading while I just put more personal content on the Web than I ever have. The blog has been a part of my personal process since the day we went live, but you are seeing a window I want to continue to keep open--not because I want to turn this into Bridget Jones' Diary, I don't, but because this blog is in the early stages of an interactive change and I want you to know about it and participate in it.

For the next couple of weeks, my work life is going to be consuming. It probably won't fit very neatly within a forty hour week. You'll get a couple of posts per day out of me, but my writing is also changing, pulling me into longer form pieces. I've got some magazine comissions and I'm pulled to longer form writing. The Blog will emerge from all of this as something new after Labor Day, when you all have the time to pay attention again. Between now and then, I have some serious thinking to do about the direction.

When my current responsibilities are over, I'm going to be a tech geek, attached to the pipeline, and able to post nearly at will. What do I want to post, what do you want to read? That is the state of the question. I won't be able to provide a daily journal as I have in the past, but I'm not interested in that either. I don't want to be Atrios, Kos, Steve Gilliard or Paul Woodward. I think I have something else to offer but I work best by collaboration and I want to know what you think. Become the new Bump. What you say matters.

Now I'm going to go celebrate, and spend the weekend buying some clothes. I haven't bought any since 1998. Poverty is a hard school.

Melanie

Omnium Gatherum

I slept in this morning, so the morning report will be short. The good news is that the office is still on "summertime," a halfday on Fridays, and I'll be home early to pick up the papers.

Iraqis Stream Into Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, August 27, 2004; 4:12 AM

BAGHDAD, Aug. 27 – Scores of militiamen loyal to rebellious cleric Moqtada Sadr put down their weapons in Najaf Friday as thousands of Iraqis streamed into the once-besieged shrine of Imam Ali following an agreement brokered overnight by the top Shiite Muslim religious figure in Iraq.

Under the agreement, rebellious cleric Moqtada Sadr pledged to withdraw his militia from the contested shrine and other parts of the city of Najaf after three weeks of fighting against U.S. and Iraqi forces.

The country’s interim government, in turn, made significant concessions. In exchange for Sadr's compliance, the government pledged to pull U.S. military forces out of Najaf and to allow Sadr, who had been wanted by the former U.S. occupation authority on murder charges, to participate in politics.

"He is as free as any Iraqi citizen to do whatever he would like in Iraq," said Qasim Dawood, a minister of state, after announcing the government's acceptance of the peace plan arranged by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

At 6:30 a.m. Friday, authorities in Najaf permitted the pilgrims to enter the city and walk toward the shrine. The crowd, estimated at more than 10,000 people, was searched for weapons by Iraqi police officers at the edge of Najaf's Old City district, where the shrine is located.

Two hours later, a message conveyed from Sadr was broadcast from the shrine's loudspeakers instructing militiamen to depart with the crowd. "Drop your weapons and leave Najaf and Kufa," the announcement said. "You have done a great job."

Scores of Sadr's militiamen were seen dropping off their weapons at Sadr’s office near the shrine. Those who had been dressed in black shirts and black trousers—the uniform of the Mahdi Army--changed into normal clothes and joined the throng of people.

It was unclear how thoroughly the Mahdi Army was complying with the orders to hand in weapons, however.

Ahmed Shaibani, a Sadr spokesman, pledged that the city would soon be free of militants. He said that members of Sadr’s Mahdi Army would return to their homes and that leaders of the movement would go back to the religious schools that they had been attending.

If that happens—Sadr does not have a good track record when it comes to peace agreements--it would end a conflict that has claimed hundreds of lives and roiled Iraq's Shiite majority, who have been concerned that using force to resolve the standoff could damage the gold-domed edifice.

"Iraq has achieved a victory today," Dawood said at a Thursday night news conference. "No more fights. Najaf and Kufa will be peaceful cities, free from arms, free from militias."

Since I'm not Juan Cole and don't have any scholarly objectivity to protect in this situation (but if you aren't reading him everyday, you are missing 90% of what is happening in Arab lands) allow me to make the following observations:

Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is the most powerful man in Iraq. By treating with him successfully, Moqtada has become the power broker of the poor of the slums in the Shiite south. Ayyad Allawi maybe a strong man and a thug, but he has just been made extraneous, for all the world to see, even John Negroponte.

The emergence of the Shiite cleric as the real power in Iraq (this was predictable, and predicted by everyone from me to Juan to Steve Gilliard) is going to make the Sunni, Turkmen and Kurds less than happy. They are restive now, whether or when they will be provoked to uprising is a guess.

Allawi and the fake council which was just selected will have everything they do ratified or vetoed by Sistani. They were a joke before, they are extraneous now. Note to Ambassador Negroponte: the same is true for you.

Over at DKos, Tom Schaller notes that American deaths in Iraq so far this year have now exceeded those for all of 2003. My best guess is that we can say the same for Iraqi civilian deaths, but I think the order of magnitude is probably much different. (Note: I've received an invitation to produce an article for Dr. Schaller's publication, The Gadflyer, and I'll have more to say as we get closer to the publication date. Tom and I have just opened the discussion of a topic for the piece. He has such a strong stable of writers that I don't want to duplicate anything they are quite capable of producing in-house.)

Dr. Cole made his usual reasoned and thoughtful presentation on The Newshour last night. Click on the link above and read his site to hear him without the constraints of a chiron which offers his academic credential. And thank him for offering the public service of a daily update in addition to all of his academic duties and his unlooked for role as news commentator on the TV and in the papers. This has cut deeply into his production as a scholar, but I think he finds it satisfying. Scholars write for other scholars, Dr. Cole is now hard at work for those of us in the lay community who are trying to learn and understand life in a conflict a half-world away which now has something to say about our fate. We owe him a debt of gratitude which we can never adequately repay. He has been one of the most reliable, thoughtful and reasoned Arabists working in public since our current madness began.

Fog of War

At Least 25 Killed in Mosque Attack in Kufa
Sistani Heads to Najaf in Attempt to End Uprising

By Michael Georgy
Reuters
Thursday, August 26, 2004; 5:41 AM

NAJAF, Iraq, Aug 26 (Reuters) - A mortar attack on a packed mosque in the town of Kufa on Thursday killed at least 25 people as Iraq's most influential Shi'ite cleric headed to the nearby holy city of Najaf to try to end a bloody three-week uprising.

The Interior Ministry said 60 people had been wounded in Kufa, where hundreds of supporters of rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr -- the firebrand leader behind the Najaf rebellion -- were in the town's main mosque when the mortar bomb hit.

Television pictures showed dozens of wounded men on the ground amid pools of blood or being ferried to Kufa's hospital.

Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani was heading for Najaf to try to persuade Sadr's Mehdi Army militia to leave a sacred shrine where they are holed up and end fighting with U.S. marines that has killed hundreds of people.

Both Sistani and Sadr called on their supporters to converge on Najaf.

Supporters of Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric were fired upon in the town of Kufa and 20 people were killed, a Reuters witness said. It was unclear who opened fire.

Sadr supporters marching to Najaf from Kufa were also attacked and several were wounded, witnesses scene.

A senior aide travelling with Sistani on the lengthy journey from the southern city of Basra said the 73-year-old Iranian-born cleric would not delay his trip despite the Kufa bloodshed, which could ignite passions among Sadr's supporters.

At the moment we don't know who was responsible for the attack on the Kufa mosque, but let's say the "coalition" forces are under reasonable suspicion. Combine this with American conduct in Fallujah, Najaf and Abu Ghraib, rumors of mass executions in Afghanistan and you have to wonder if there is anything left of the American image around the world.

I heard Brooking's Michael O'Hanlon on NPR make the point, a good one, that America looks very much like Billy in the "Family Circus" comic: things get broken and "I don't know" is responsible. A few low-level functionaries take the fall. Plausible deniability remains supreme at the highest level. Honor, personal or national, is sacrificed for the trappings of power.

If there is anything left of the American Republic in five years, I wonder how we will look back on these dark years? The judgement of history has been rendered on our Viet Nam misadventure, and yet we are still fighting that war among ourselves.

The Responsibility Administration

No Smoking Gun
By DAHLIA LITHWICK

Published: August 26, 2004

It has been four months since the photos from Abu Ghraib came to light, and America still can't decide what to make of them. Yes, they're appalling. But who's to blame? With the release of two new reports this week, we still can't quite connect the torture and abuse to the commander in chief or his defense secretary; we still can't quite find that smoking gun.

Because there's never going to be a smoking gun.

If you're waiting around for evidence of the phone call from Donald Rumsfeld to Pfc. Lynndie England - the one where he orders the "code red," instructing her to pile up a bunch of naked, hooded men and strike a queen-of-the-mountain pose - you'll wait forever. That's not how armies function. Armies depend on the realities of the chain of command and the cha-cha of plausible deniability.

This week's report by the James Schlesinger panel offers the closest thing we'll get to a smoking gun. Connect the dots and it's all there: the sadism at Abu Ghraib stemmed from "confusion." Confusion sounds accidental - like maybe it just blew in off the Atlantic - but the report is clear that this confusion resulted from systemic failures at the highest levels. The report faults ambiguous interrogation mandates, an inadequate postwar plan, poor training and a lack of oversight. It notes that much of this confusion stemmed from the Bush administration's posture that the Geneva Conventions applied only where the president saw fit, and that the definition of "interrogation" was up for grabs at Guantánamo Bay, thus possibly at Abu Ghraib.

Or you can put your ear right up to the horse's mouth, where - even before the Schlesinger report - Mr. Rumsfeld owned the blame. "These events occurred on my watch. As secretary of defense, I am accountable for them and I take full responsibility," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee last May. But we live in an era when such words are intended to signify simultaneous culpability and absolution.

Mr. Schlesinger's insistence that Mr. Rumsfeld not leave office - because his departure would "be a boon to all of America's enemies" - is a pragmatic argument. It doesn't even pretend to be a just one.

You can choose to connect these dots, or cast your vote in November based on whether Colonel Mustard was in a Swift boat with a lead pipe. But Abu Ghraib can't be blamed solely on bad apples anymore. It was the direct consequence of an administration ready to bargain away the rule of law. That started with the suspension of basic prisoner protections, because this was a "new kind of war." It led to the creation of a legal sinkhole on Guantánamo Bay. And it reached its zenith when high officials opined that torture isn't torture unless there's some attendant organ failure.

The very concepts of responsibility and accountability have become completely debased there are no consequences. Donald Rumsfeld oversees a military establishment which is, apparently, completely out of control. James Schlesinger couldn't be more wrong: it is Rumsfeld who gives aid and comfort to America's enemies through incompetence and shocking disregard for the sensibilities of the rest of the world, which creates more enemies. If this is the kind of "wise advisor" Bush surrounds himself with, it is long past time to get a clue. The rest of the planet surely has.

The Provinces

A degree in bullying and self-interest? No thanks

The decline of American studies reveals our increasing dislike of the US
Polly Toynbee
Wednesday August 25, 2004

The Guardian

Turn to the Guardian's university clearing pages and there are many vacancies for a subject that was once hugely popular. Until recently, American studies departments sprang up everywhere. But no longer.

Now 28 universities still have American studies places unfilled, and they include many at well-regarded institutions - Essex, Keele, Kent and Swansea among them. Due to lack of demand, five universities have closed American studies departments while others have cut staff. Keele, traditionally the top-ranking American studies department, with a maximum, grade five ranking for research for the past few years, has had to fire half its staff. Professor Ian Bell at Keele says: "Students don't want to be branded by doing American studies. They still want to do American modules as part of English or history but, after Bush, they shy away from being labelled as pro-American - not after the obscenity of Iraq."

It's only a straw in the wind: student choices are notoriously fickle. But it fits the picture of a groundswell of anti-American feeling. Where in the world could you walk down the street and not collect overwhelmingly negative vox pops on Bush's America and its global impact? Last year's BBC/ICM poll, taken in a string of countries across the continents, found only Israel in support of Bush - with Canada, Australia and Korea least unfavourable, but still with a majority against.

That is not necessarily the same as anti-Americanism. The Bushites in their daily, foul-mouthed email assaults on Guardian writers try to portray current anti-American sentiment as racist, akin to anti-semitic. They try to pretend "old" Europe is just effetely snobbish about the Ugly Americans. They dismiss anti-Bush disgust in developing countries as envy and as ignorant support for terror.

But opinion polls make it clear that people are well able to separate their feelings about Americans from the politicians and policies now occupying the White House: 81% of the British say, "I like the Americans as people", according to Mori, but only 19% admire American society. They overwhelmingly reject the proposition "We would be better off if we were more like the Americans in many respects" - the view of the right and of younger Tories infatuated with US neo-conservatism.

How much wider the Atlantic has grown under Bush. A Mori poll for the German Marshall Fund examined European attitudes towards America. It found massive condemnation of US Middle East policy (among the British just as strongly) and equally strong opprobrium for US policies on global warming and nuclear proliferation. Most Europeans - the British too - want the European Union to become a superpower to match the US, with a strong leadership in world affairs. (Americans said they wanted to be the only superpower.) Yet there was also surprisingly strong support among two-thirds of Europeans for strengthening Nato - even in France.

However, President Bush's election pledge this week to withdraw 70,000 troops from Germany and Korea may bring an abrupt end to Europe's old doublethink on Nato. If the troops go, it may force Europe to confront the hypocrisy of detesting America while relying on it to provide the defence European nations refuse to pay for. The Bushite emailers are justified in sneering, "We pulled your sorry asses out of two world wars" (the printable version), and it's just as well Fox News hasn't covered celebrations in Paris this week that pretend France liberated itself, with never a mention of Europe's American saviours.

If a Bush victory brings a major withdrawal from Europe, it should prod the EU into coordinating its defence capability, without having to beg the US for a transport plane to mount every tiny border peacekeeping operation in Macedonia. If the EU starts to put its still considerable defence spending to better collective use, Bush won't like it: his ministers protested when Blair and Chirac began the task.

If Bush wins it may galvanise Europe into a stronger sense of what it must do in response. Forget Blair's phantom "bridge" across the Atlantic, and start building across the Channel. (Sadly there has been no growth in university applications to read European studies or languages.)

The world waits on the US elections with particular trepidation this time. The fall of the Berlin wall was a great opportunity missed for America the victor to become the global force for good it thinks it is. The fall of the twin towers was a chance to reclaim that lost global respect, but in every action Bush has swelled the ranks of those who cheered in the streets when it happened.

ICM's poll reveals a world that thinks America arrogant, less cultured, a worse place to live than their own countries and a threat to world peace. Is that hatred now irreversibly hardwired?

Even for Polly Toynbee, this piece has drifted a shade over the left edge, but she has a point. It is a measure of how far the US has fallen when The Guardian starts printing anti-American screeds. Most of the former Western Alliance are looking at our election this fall not as a referendum on Bush but as a referendum on American sanity. That probably isn't an argument you can use with your Aunt Tess or your neighbor, but keep it in abeyance, as I hope to have more later.

The rest of the world really does see the Bush presidency as some sort of collective nervous breakdown on our part, and they are hoping we recover soon. I'm still reeling from the fact that W could do so many things imbecile wrong and half the country still wants to re-elect him, including most of my relatives. He speaks to the fears and class hatreds of this country in a way I've heard few demagogues do, and he does it successfully. He provokes the "us and them" think which has always been part of the American wallpaper. The now-vanquished protection of two oceans has always kept us a provincial people, and Bush is a man of the province, of the small mind, of the threatened hearth. He makes Pat Buchanan look like an internationalist. Bush wants us to concentrate our fears, not just of the rest of the world, but of each other. And that is the most stinging indictment of his presidency and of his "christianity" that I can think of.

The new gig

Well, let's just say it was a very packed day. I'm going to be planning and executing this organization's annual conference and career fair and they are about two months behind where they should be right now. I need to recruit about 200 employers willing to interview at the event in the next week. They've never had a professional event planner who knows how to use events to gather data, so my hands are going to be very full for the next couple of months, and that means a new relationship with the blog and with you.

When I get through the crush of the next week, I'll probably be able to post from work. For the next ten days, it's hopeless. I'll try to pick up some of the slack on the weekend, but I notice that my readership craters on weekends. You people appear to have lives. But I imagine that, by the weekend, I'll have built up some unfulfilled desire to blog and will have something to say, perhaps you will, too. Some kind reader sent me an Amazon gift certificate today, so I can even do my Target shopping from my computer. Yes, the boss knows I blog. She's my oldest friend and this job is part desperation to pick up a paycheck (and a foot in the door, more on that in a minute) and part helping her out, overwhelmed by trying to do her very demanding job and pick up the edges of two others, which are vacant at the moment. This is a highly stressed organization right now.

On weekdays, I'll probably put up a few things in the morning. I'm a very early riser, so I have plenty of time to check the papers in the morning before I leave for work, provided that I get some discipline about putting the coffee pot on the timer the night before. Depending on how I feel in the evenings, I'll try a post or two after work. Tonight I'm fried, but still curious because I haven't had the time to read 15 papers, a bazillion websites and a couple of progressive magazines. I'm used to being a couple of weeks ahead of the American papers, but I won't be able to be that swift for a while, until I learn how to negotiate my new schedule. I read blogs and a couple of papers while I grabbed a sandwich at my desk at lunchtime today, and felt very odd to be a reader rather than a writer. But, man, does it suck to be browsing with IE. The sysadmin at work has downloads of Mozilla in the forbidden category. Yes, I tried. It keeps bugs and worms off the sys, but Moz has a lot fewer holes for letting bad things in than does IE. It's an all MS Office, I haven't worked in one of those in a long time, and I'd forgotten how ponderous it is. It's clunky, slow and not at all intuitive (unless you've entered the Mind of MicroSoft, which I did a while back and will have to try to recapture. Yeecch.) Excel mailmerges give me hives, but here we are. The place provides excellent coffee, however, using one of those one cup at a shot steam brewers. They even have Green Tea!

You'll probably get a post from me on office and food shortly: I'm attending a full day training on the New Data Base tomorrow, as I'll be needing to use it, and Lunch Is Provided. Those of you who have attended full day trainings on the New Data Base know how deadly these things are. A one day training won't teach you much more than how not to fsck it up. It will teach you nothing about how to think about the data base. Each dB comes with a different set of assumptions about how data is organized and how various pieces of data relate to each other, and you can't learn much more than how to sign on, enter and retrieve some elementary material and feel like you know something from a one day training. I know something about these puppies, I used to design the algorithms for them. If they'd give me a couple of days to study them, I could give the staff a week's training so they could optimize the system and all use the same assumptions. This is a big system, a competitor with Raiser's Edge, and nearly as subtle and complex. And, because of shoddy training, they could have gone with a little Excel hack and accomplished about the same thing. Pity.

I want to thank all of you for the kind and warm words, thoughts and prayers as I've negotiated this particularly rough passage. Thank you for the gifts and very real and important material help you've given me. The lefty blogosphere is a generous place, and you've been very kind in words and deeds. You've kept me sane during the time when the blog was my job, the only one I could find, and you said "Make it so." Now, it will become something new and I don't know what it will be. This is a transition time and I hope that you've found enough here to stick with me while we learn what it is. Tell your friends, I'm relying on feedback from you during this transition. Tell me more about what works for you to make a website a must-read. I won't be able to stay on top of the news and break things like I did before, but I'm a writer with some range and a lot of interests. Tell me more. I carved out my unique niche since Nov. 15, 2003, but now it has to change. Tell me more.

I'm listening to CBS's "60-II" and Dan Rather is demolishing Bush's "Texas Miracle" in education. The deluge begins. W has lost Rather, that's the beginning of the end.

Sharon and I? I told you that she's worrying. It's going to be fine. We had a very good first day. The Exec Director has already noticed and that's a very good thing. When the ED stops at the end of the day to talk to the new temp, there is something more going on. But I'm so tired right now that I can't believe I'm going to be on the subway in less than twelve hours to do it again. And I don't see this job staying within a 40 hour week for the next month. I can get away with saying this kind of stuff until the weekend, when Sharon gets her broadband connection at home, so I wanted to be upfront with you now. If I get to bed at a reasonable hour tonight, you'll get the usual dose in the morning, some more tomorrow night. And so on, while I figure this out with your help.

Thanks for all the clothing suggestions, with your help I'll be ready to report for duty by next week. Now I have to figure out what to wear tomorrow, this is a VERY casual place, my boss dresses up, the plebs are in jeans, the exec has his shirts cleaned and hung, not a folding crease anywhere, but definitely machine ironed. I DO pay attention to such things. That crease in the pocket was a machine crease.

I've operated those machines.

Later.

New Dawn

Okay, team, I'm off to work, a new job in a field where I know next to nothing, so this is going to be a long day, and I've already got meetings scheduled. I can't predict that I'll have time to post during the day or what kind of shape I'll be in when I get home, but I'll try to bring you the content you've come to expect on this site as I can. I suspect that blogging, which I'm currently burned out on, will become a delightful relief from the job once I've made the transition back to being a normal human being who does things like working, lunching with colleagues and going out with friends after work. I look forward to being reminded what that is like.

The office dress is business casual and this is going to be an issue. I have jeans and shorts and t-shirts and I have the formal wear of a classical musician and the Brooks Brothers of matinee wear, for negotiating contracts with bigwigs, not much in between. If any of you can help me out with suggestions, I'd be grateful. Where's a good place to shop for "business casual" on the cheap? Kohl's? Target? I haven't shopped in so long that I'm clueless. Some of my ideas are over on the right under the link called "Amazon Wish List" if you have a little extra cash and some compassion for a blogger who is trying to fit back into the work force on minimal cash. I promise to have an Amazon link by the weekend, for those of you who prefer that portal. Gotta buy shoes, these ancient Dr. Scholl's sandals ain't gonna cut the walk downtown and black patten pumps don't cut it with khakis. God, what kind of socks are people wearing these days? I'm SO behind....

But I'm going to be downtown, a block off of K street and sniffing the political wind. I love the smell of politics in the morning. Don't forget to vote in the WaPo "Best Blogger" contest, the link to the nomination form is over there on the right.

Fabulous

A Trail of 'Major Failures' Leads to Defense Secretary's Office
By DOUGLAS JEHL

WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 - For Donald H. Rumsfeld to resign over the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib would be a mistake, the four-member panel headed by James M. Schlesinger asserted Tuesday. But in tracing responsibility for what went wrong at Abu Ghraib, it drew a line that extended to the defense secretary's office.

The panel cited what it called major failures on the part of Mr. Rumsfeld and his aides in not anticipating and responding swiftly to the post-invasion insurgency in Iraq. On the eve of the Republican convention, that verdict could not have been welcome at the White House, where postwar problems in Iraq represent perhaps President Bush's greatest political liability.

The report rarely mentions Mr. Rumsfeld by name, referring most often instead to the "office of the secretary of defense.'' But as a sharp criticism of postwar planning for Iraq, it represents the most explicit official indictment to date of an operation that was very much the province of Mr. Rumsfeld and his top deputies.

"Any defense establishment should adapt quickly to new conditions as they arise, and in this case, we were slow, at least in the judgment of the members of this panel, to adapt accordingly after the insurgency started in the summer of 2003,'' Mr. Schlesinger, a former defense secretary himself, said in presenting the panel's findings at the Pentagon on Tuesday.

Beginning in late 2002, the panel said, Mr. Rumsfeld and his staff set the stage for an environment in which abuses later became widespread. They did this first by sowing confusion about what kinds of interrogation techniques would be permitted, then by failing to plan for the intensity of the post-invasion insurgency, and finally by delaying for months in dispatching reinforcements to help the American guards at Abu Ghraib contend with the swelling number of prisoners.

The panel sidestepped the broader, even more contentious, question of whether Mr. Rumsfeld had sent enough troops to Iraq. It focused instead on what it described as short staffing among the military police, who were outnumbered by prisoners by a ratio of 75 to 1 at Abu Ghraib, and at the headquarters of Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, whose 495-member staff numbered only about one-third of the authorized total.

Rumsfeld's War Plan Shares the Blame

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 25, 2004; Page A01

Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's leadership of the Pentagon has been weighed by a jury of his peers and found somewhat wanting.

A report by a blue-ribbon panel he appointed to review the military establishment's role in creating and handling detainee abuse problems at Abu Ghraib prison said that the Iraq war plan he played a key role in shaping helped create the conditions that led to the scandal.

In addition, the four-member panel, which was led by one former defense secretary, James R. Schlesinger, and included another, Harold Brown, found that Rumsfeld's slow response when the Iraqi insurgency flared last summer worsened the situation.

But the report does not appear to threaten Rumsfeld's position as defense secretary, especially because all four panel members emphatically rejected the idea of calling for his resignation yesterday at a Pentagon news conference to release their conclusions.

The panel's findings do, however, provide new support for two central criticisms of the Rumsfeld team's approach in Iraq last year: that the invasion plan called for too few troops, half as many as were used in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and that the Pentagon failed to plan smartly for occupying the country after the United States defeated the Iraqi military.

Before the war, the Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, said publicly that he thought the invasion plan lacked sufficient manpower, and he was slapped down by the Pentagon's civilian leadership for saying so. After Baghdad fell, Rumsfeld dismissed reports of widespread looting and chaos as "untidy" signs of newfound freedom that were exaggerated by the media. And some State Department officials complained that their attempts to plan for postwar Iraq were largely disregarded by the Pentagon.

We're trapped in the sands of Iraq with bad planning, insufficient troops and it is all just fine and no heads will roll. We can squander, and that's what it is, lives and dollars forever and there is no accountability. Man, where do I sign up to get a job like this?

Oafs in Uniform

Three-Star Bigotry

It is unfathomable why Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin has been allowed to keep his job. When Boykin's remarks became known last October, President Bush limited himself to a tepid announcement that the comments about Muslims and Islam did not reflect his point of view or that of his administration. And Boykin soldiers on.

The general remains the deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, the job he held while appearing in uniform to tell an Oregon religious group in June 2003 that radical Islamists hated the U.S. "because we're a Christian nation … and the enemy is a guy named Satan." He told a Florida audience months earlier that a Muslim Somali warlord was captured because "I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."

Boykin's comments have been widely reported in the Muslim world. They resonate with supporters of Osama bin Laden and other radical Islamic fundamentalists preaching a war between Islam and Christian "crusaders" and Jews. Any time the flames of bigotry wane, a fundamentalist need only broadcast a tape of Boykin again and contend he is mouthing official U.S. policy, made clear by the fact that he holds the same job and wears the same uniform. U.S. Muslims have protested, for good reason.

The internal Defense Department report concluded that Boykin had failed to clear the speeches with the Pentagon, had not given a required statement that he was not speaking for the military and had failed to report that a religious group paid for his travel. His punishment is unlikely to go beyond a written reprimand.

The comments would be bad enough from a buck private. From a three-star general whose job includes gathering information for the campaign against Islamic radicals, they are unforgivable. Let Boykin retire and speak out as much as he wants. But do not give others the chance to assume that the general speaks for the Pentagon, the administration and the nation.

It seems incredible to me that we are still talking about this guy, and that he's still got a job. I think about all of the competent generals Rummy cashiered before the war and the SecDef can't figure out that this guy is an embarrassment? The military culture around the Pentagon is fairly friendly to evangelical types, but talking about religion while in uniform is a lot like talking politics: it isn't done.

Incompetence

Most Army Reservists Have Payroll Problems, GAO Finds

Army Reserve payroll procedures for activated soldiers are so convoluted that mistakes occurred in 95 percent of the cases examined by congressional auditors, the Government Accountability Office said yesterday.

Soldiers sent to Iraq and Afghanistan have had to spend a year or more straightening out problems affecting their pay, allowances and tax benefits, the GAO said.

Most errors involved overpayments, but those proved to be problematic for soldiers who did not acknowledge the extra pay or did not set aside enough money to pay it back. In one example, the GAO recommended a criminal investigation for a soldier who did not report $36,000 in overpayments.

The GAO found the payment system was so "error-prone, cumbersome and complex that neither [the Defense Department] nor, more importantly, Army Reserve soldiers themselves could be reasonably assured of timely and accurate payments."

In its response, the Pentagon agreed with 15 GAO recommendations for improving payroll procedures and said it is working to correct the problems.

The National Guard and reserves make up about 40 percent of the U.S. force in Iraq. The GAO previously found similar problems affecting the Army National Guard. In November, it said payroll problems affected 450 of 481 mobilized soldiers whose records it examined.

Bob Dole, Partisan Hack

It's His Party
Bob Dole turned the GOP into a repugnant animal. Not surprisingly, he's leading its latest attack.

By Matthew Yglesias

Thus Dole found himself present at the creation, almost simultaneously, of all the most repugnant aspects of the modern Republican Party: the pursuit of partisan gain at the expense of the public interest and any recognizably coherent ideology, the dogmatic insistence that no tax ever be raised under any circumstances, and the pretense that the Democratic Party is less an opposition party than some sort of illegitimate force to be crushed by any means necessary. In combination, the resulting legacy is one of fundamental unseriousness about public life -- the sort of mentality that spends tens of millions of dollars investigating various Clinton-era "scandals" but can't provoke a simple hearing into why the Bush administration lied to congressional Republicans about the cost of its Medicare bill.

As the man who did so much to build the Republican Party into what it is today, Bob Dole is now being called upon to dig a new low for it. How fitting.

Big Media Matt starts his overview of Dole by saying:

I've sort of grown to like Bob Dole over the years, mostly because he's shown himself to be a genuinely funny guy, able to move beyond the sort of faux-earnest self-righteousness of the practicing politician ever since he lost the presidential race.

which just goes to show that Matt was really too young to have been paying attention back then.

Outing Update

Journalist gives a statement, won't pay in CIA investigation

WASHINGTON (AP) — Contempt of court orders against Time magazine and one of its reporters were dismissed after the journalist agreed to give a statement to prosecutors probing the Bush administration leak of a covert CIA officer's identity.

In a statement Tuesday, Time said reporter Matthew Cooper agreed to give a deposition after Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, personally released Cooper from a promise of confidentiality about a conversation the two had last year.

Time and Cooper had been held in contempt earlier this month by U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan for refusing to testify in the leak probe. Hogan rejected their claims, as well as those of Meet The Press host Tim Russert, that the First Amendment protected them from having to testify.

Cooper had faced up to 18 months in jail and the magazine could have been forced to pay $1,000 a day under the contempt order, which has now been vacated. Russert avoided the contempt citation by agreeing to an interview with prosecutors earlier this month, again after Libby released him from a confidentiality promise.

Cooper gave his deposition Monday to the special prosecutor appointed in the case, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago, in the Washington office of his lawyer, Floyd Abrams, the magazine statement said. The deposition focused on a single July 2003 conversation about the leak between Cooper and Libby, the statement said.

Investigators are trying to find out who in the Bush administration leaked the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame, whose name was published by syndicated columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003. Novak cited two "senior administration officials" as his sources. It can be a felony to leak the name of an undercover officer.

I'm hearing that we are, at most, weeks away from having indictments issued.

Up the Chain of Command

Abu Ghraib Report Faults Top Officials

By ROBERT BURNS
AP Military Writer
Published August 24, 2004, 10:02 AM CDT

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon's most senior civilian and military officials share a portion of blame for creating conditions that led to the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq, according to a new report.

The report, by a commission appointed by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, was briefing Rumsfeld on its findings and recommendations Tuesday in advance of a Pentagon news conference to release the details. The commission was headed by James Schlesinger, a former secretary of defense.

A person familiar with the report said it implicitly faulted Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by finding that those responsible for the military prison system in Iraq were operating under confusing policies on allowable interrogation techniques. The person discussed some aspects of the report on condition of anonymity.

Also faulted is Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was the top field commander in Iraq at the time of the reported abuses last fall.

Sanchez also takes a portion of the blame in a separate Army investigation which looked specifically at the role of military intelligence soldiers. That probe has been completed and is expected to be publicly released as early as Wednesday.

Judge Denies Request for Rumsfeld Testimony

By Robert H. Reid
The Associated Press
Tuesday, August 24, 2004; 11:56 AM

MANNHEIM, Germany -- The U.S. military judge hearing the Abu Ghraib abuse said Tuesday that prosecutors have until Sept. 17 to convince him that top military intelligence commanders should not be forced to testify under a grant of immunity.

Prosecutors argued against a defense request for such testimony on the grounds that the commanders might be charged themselves and a grant of immunity would complicate any case against them.

The judge, Col. James Pohl, also rejected a request from the attorney for Spc. Javal Davis to make Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld submit to an interview about treatment of prisoners. But he said the request could be raised again if the defense made a stronger argument tying purported Rumsfeld comments on detainees to what happened at Abu Ghraib.

"There's got to be some links in that chain," Pohl said.

Econ Round Up

Bush Team Lacks Clear Economic Plan, Critics Say

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 24, 2004; Page E01

High oil prices, a stagnant labor market -- and the lack of a more forceful response from the Bush campaign -- have sparked worry among White House allies that the administration's economic team has been too content cheerleading in defense of past policies instead of setting more detailed plans for a second term.

While the economic recovery hummed along, there were few complaints about the low-key styles of Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans, National Economic Council director Stephen Friedman and Council of Economic Advisers Chairman N. Gregory Mankiw -- especially after the internal bickering that marred the tenure of Bush's first economic team. But recent news, from slowing economic growth to wilting job creation, has changed the landscape. With the Republican convention a week away, allies and opponents are clamoring for more specifics.

"You either define yourself on these big issues or the Democrats will define you," said Richard K. Armey, the former House Republican leader who co-chairs the new conservative advocacy group FreedomWorks. "John Kerry will do just fine with what he thinks your secret plan is if you don't tell us what it is."

"This is a team that's much more subtle, much more behind the scenes, working together rather than three lone rangers" like the first Bush team, said Diane Swonk, the chief economist at Bank One Corp. "Up until even just a month ago, it was okay to be behind the scenes, but we have a different economic atmosphere now."

Responding to such pleas, the Bush campaign recently began advertising the "ownership agenda," with the president intoning, "One of the most important parts of a reform agenda is to encourage people to own something: own their own home, own their own business, own their own health care plan or own a piece of their retirement."

But the advertisement did little to quell the concern. Voters, in fact, received few details. Those were left to a fact sheet e-mailed to reporters: tax-free medical savings accounts, assistance with down payments for low-income home buyers, the extension of previous tax cuts and the diversion of some Social Security taxes to personal accounts that could be invested in stocks or bonds.

Armey said Bush spoke more clearly and forcefully on some of these issues -- especially Social Security privatization -- in the 2000 campaign than he is doing now. Besides, said Richard Berner, chief U.S. economist at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, "he has been talking about the ownership agenda for a while. I can't see this at all as new."

"I guess the most accurate thing I could say is there's sort of a deafening silence," said Donald Luskin, a conservative investment adviser in California. Referring to the current economic team, Luskin said, "The period these people have been in power is a period when very little economic initiative has been coming out of the White House."

Oil Falls Below $46 as Iraq Flow Rises
By REUTERS

Published: August 24, 2004

Filed at 10:58 a.m. ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices extended losses below $46 on Tuesday in a third day of falls as a more optimistic Iraq export picture helped unwind some of the supply worries that have lifted the market to historic levels.

U.S. light crude fell 40 cents to $45.65 a barrel, slipping further from last week's $49.40 peak, which was the highest level in 21 years of New York oil futures trading. London Brent crude lost 34 cents to $42.69 a barrel.

The correction follows a failure to hit the psychological $50 mark in New York, together with the resumption of full tilt Iraqi exports from the south and restored flows in the north.

``Oil continues on the defensive after (NYMEX) failed to test $50 and exports from Iraq appear to be on the rise at least for the moment,'' wrote brokerage Refco.

July job figures decline in six swing states

Mon Aug 23, 8:21 AM ET

By Peronet Despeignes, USA TODAY

Twenty-two states reported a drop in payroll jobs last month, double the number for June, according to new Labor Department (news - web sites) statistics. Among them were six of the states that could decide this fall's presidential election.

The declines in most cases were slight, but they drove home the frailty of the jobs recovery and highlighted risks to President Bush (news - web sites)'s re-election strategy. The White House has been counting on consistent, robust growth by now to restore confidence in the economy and counter grim news from Iraq (news - web sites).

The battleground states showing job losses in July were Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Pennsylvania and New Mexico, according to Labor Department figures released Aug. 20. Battleground, or swing, states are those expected to be close in this fall's election, and they are drawing the bulk of both campaigns' attention.

Prof. De Long says:

Trimming the Macro Forecast

Three new macro forecast revisions arrived in my inbox over the past week. They're all down--oil prices and the effective end of fiscal stimulus. In fact, they are all suggesting growth at or below the growth rate of potential output. This means that the labor market is unlikely to get any better over the next eighteen months or so.

This is really depressing...

The Endless Cycle

Iraqis risk death to bury the dead
Fighting between the US and Sadr's militia continued Monday, but families still arrive in Najaf for burials.

By Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

NAJAF, IRAQ – It is midmorning when the family of Adel Shamshur arrives in the gravediggers market, with Mr. Shamshur's coffin strapped to the top of their car. The gravediggers surround the car, negotiate a price, and decide where to bury the 30-year-old merchant, who has died of a heart attack.

There is only one place the gravediggers won't go, and that is the Old Cemetery, scene of some of the heaviest fighting in the 13-day standoff between Shiite militants and American forces that continued throughout Monday with fierce battles and explosions in the heart of this holy city.

Within minutes, the bereaved family chooses the lowest bid (25,000 dinar, or $17), and tear down the road to the second-best cemetery in town, still only half a mile or so from the American front lines.

"This cemetery is just as good as the Old Cemetery," says Ghali Mehna, the family patriarch, who has just driven about 110 miles to bury his cousin in Najaf. Like many Shiites, his family hopes that burying Shamshur close to the Shrine of Imam Ali will ease his passage to Paradise.

"We were very worried that we might die on the way here ourselves, there were so many checkpoints, so many US Army convoys, and helicopters, too," says Mr. Mehna. "But still we insisted to come to Najaf. It is our faith."

Even in the fiercest fighting of the past two weeks, Iraqi Shiites continue to bring their dead to Najaf in the hopes of placing their departed relatives as close to the Shrine of Imam Ali as possible.

The cemeteries of Najaf are the largest in the world - the Old Cemetery alone is estimated to be 35 square kilometers, and growing. It's a massive industry for the city, and a stable source of income for hundreds of gravediggers, who once worked the hallowed ground of the Old Cemetery, which has recently become a deadly battleground where US soldiers and militiamen loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have engaged in hand-to-hand combat.

"Najaf is just for pilgrims and for dead people," says Ali Hamza Jaffar, a gravedigger. "If the Americans set up roadblocks and stop the pilgrims and dead people from coming, there will be no business here at all."

It's hard to tell now, but residents say that Najaf once was a lovely city of tourist hotels, bustling markets, and aquamarine-tile mosques. The holiest site in the Shiite faith is here, the Shrine of Imam Ali, cousin of the prophet Muhammad, which until recently drew millions of tourists each year.

Now that the shrine is at the center of a deadly battle between Mr. Sadr's militia and US Marines and Army forces, the tourist trade has dropped almost to nil, but the dead bodies keep coming. Grieving families from all over Iraq, as well as from Iran, Pakistan, India, and much of the Middle East, still drive the roads to Najaf to bury their relatives here. After all, you only die once.

I find this incredibly poignant. Life goes on, as does death, war makes the quotidian more difficult. And I find myself growing angrier and angrier.

The Cost

Breslin tells you what W doesn't want you to hear:

The names of the dead in Iraq over the weekend have not been released yet, except for Army Pfc. Kevin A. Cuming, 22, of White Plains. And so you sat yesterday with all these Department of Defense death notices for the last weeks covering the desk and you glanced at them, with the ages of the dead reaching up from the paper to grab your throat. Now and then you called one of their homes to get a small idea of what they were like when they lived, and what we have lost in a war that now pleases only the mentally unbalanced.

Printing as many names and as often as possible is a gloomy task. These are the deaths that the president and his people try to sneak past the country. The dead were brave men. The president is craven. He buries the war, and the news reporters, indolent and in fear of authority, follow like cattle going into pens. For so long, the public believed the news it was given. Saddam Hussein was going to blow us up with an atom bomb! The Muslims of Iraq love us!

Herewith are some of the names we went through yesterday. It is taken here as an obligation that we print the rest in following columns.

Spc. Anthony J. Dixon, 20. 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, 1st Infantry Division, Schweinfurt, Germany. Killed on Aug. 1 at Samarra when improvised explosive device detonated near his guard post. Home, Lindenwold, N.J. Killed with him was Spc. Armando Hernandez, 22. Home, Hesparia, Calif.

"He lived every day like it was his last day," Spc. Anthony J. Dixon's sister, Mary, said yesterday. "If something came up, he did it right then. We have a 100-foot cell-phone tower in the back yard. Somebody dared them to climb it. Anthony didn't say a word. He and Jay, the two of them climbed right to the top. They came down and my brother said, 'There. I did that.'

"His best friend, Adam Froehlich, was killed in Iraq. In March. He was 21. He and my brother enlisted together. Anthony already was in Iraq. Someone in his troop told him everything about Adam.

"On Sunday afternoon, somewhere between 1:30 and 2 o'clock, on August 1st, there was somebody at the door and my mother opened it. There were two officers, a sergeant and a chaplain. My mother knew what they were here for. She started crying. The two officers couldn't say anything. My mother threw them out."

Sgt. Juan Calderon Jr., 26, of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif. Killed on Aug. 4 due to enemy action in Al Ambar Province, Iraq. Home, Weslaco, Texas.

Spc. Brandon T. Titus, 20, of 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, Watertown, N.Y. Killed on Aug. 17 in Baghdad when an improvised device exploded near his checkpoint. Home, Boise, Idaho.

Pfc. Fernando B. Hannon, 19, of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif. Died Aug. 15 due to enemy action in Al Anbar Province. Home, Wildomar, Calif.

And Pfc. Geoffrey, Perez, 24, of same unit and died on same day, Aug. 15, of wounds in Anbar Province. Home, Los Angles, Calif.

Spc. Jacob D. Martir, 21, of 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. Killed on Aug. 18 in Sadr City when his patrol came under enemy small arms fire. Home, Norwich, Conn.

First Lt. Neil Anthony Santoriello, 24, of 1st Battalion, 34th Armor, 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan. Died on Aug. 13 in Khalidiyah when improvised explosive device detonated near his mounted reconnaissance patrol vehicle. Home, Verrona, Pa.

"He lived for oatmeal cookies," his sister, Amy, said yesterday. "He was an Eagle Scout. He took children hiking, swimming. He went to Penn Hills High School and Dickinson College. What did he do after college? He went right into the Army. He had no time in between. He's only 24."

Capt. Michael Yury Tarlavsky, 30, of 1st Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group, Fort Campbell, Ky. Died Aug. 12 in Najaf when his unit came under small arms fire and a grenade attack. Home, Passaic, N.J.

Gunnery Sgt. Elia P. Fontecchio, 30, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Air Ground Control Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif. Killed by enemy action in Al Anbar Province. Home, Milford, Mass.

His uncle, Dana Fontecchio, says that when Elia told them he was being sent back to Iraq for a second tour, "None of us moaned about it. He's a Marine. The gunnery sergeant. They need him."

The surgeon at the forward hospital where they operated on Fontecchio said a helicopter was waiting to fly him to Baghdad when he died.

Pfc. Raymond J. Faulstich Jr., 89th Transportation Company, 6th Transportation Battalion, 7th Transportation Group, Fort Eustis, Va. Died Aug. 5 in Najaf when enemy using small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades attacked his convoy. Home, Leonardtown, Md.

"He had a problem with drugs and alcohol and went one place to the other," his mother, Linda, was saying last night. "Then he met a girl he loved. Her family said she couldn't see him unless he straightened out. He did. For her love. He joined the Army, and they married.

"When the two Army men came to the house to tell us, I was inside cleaning. I started to scream. 'Oh, my God! My son is dead!' He had his rosary beads in his pocket when he was killed. His wife, Crystal, had been out, and when she came over and saw the crowd in the yard she thought he was home on his two-week leave that he was supposed to be on. She's 19. She was going to go to college but she just can't do it now.

"My son was a beautiful young man. Everybody speaks about his smile. He had such a beautiful smile. My husband's smile. I say to my husband, 'Could you please smile so I can see my son's face?'"

Who wants to be the last man to die for a mistake?

Posted by Melanie at 09:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

McPaper Grows Up

Questions about Bush's Guard service unanswered

By Dave Moniz and Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — At a time when Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has come under fire from a group of retired naval officers who say he lied about his combat record in Vietnam, questions about President Bush's 1968-73 stint in the Texas Air National Guard remain unresolved:

• Why did Bush, described by some of his fellow officers as a talented and enthusiastic pilot, stop flying fighter jets in the spring of 1972 and fail to take an annual physical exam required of all pilots?

• What explains the apparent gap in the president's Guard service in 1972-73, a period when commanders in Texas and Alabama say they never saw him report for duty and records show no pay to Bush when he was supposed to be on duty in Alabama?

• Did Bush receive preferential treatment in getting into the Guard and securing a coveted pilot slot despite poor qualifying scores and arrests, but no convictions, for stealing a Christmas wreath and rowdiness at a football game during his college years?

The White House has released hundreds of pages of records, but the files released so far haven't answered those questions. Since the documents were released in February, at least a half-dozen news organizations, including USA TODAY, have filed new requests for Bush's military records under the Freedom of Information Act.

In an e-mail to USA TODAY last week, presidential spokesman Dan Bartlett said: "The president has authorized the release of his records and we are complying with all requests. Some are taking longer than others, but all will be addressed."

Horseshft. W has been in public life for a decade. That this hasn't been fully addresed yet means he is hiding something.

Passing the Buck

Iraqi Teens Abused at Abu Ghraib, Report Finds
Officials Say Inquiry Also Confirms Prisoners Were Hidden From Aid Groups

By Josh White and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 24, 2004; Page A01

An Army investigation into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal has found that military police dogs were used to frighten detained Iraqi teenagers as part of a sadistic game, one of many details in the forthcoming report that were provoking expressions of concern and disgust among Army officers briefed on the findings.

Earlier reports and photographs from the prison have indicated that unmuzzled military police dogs were used to intimidate detainees at Abu Ghraib, something the dog handlers have told investigators was sanctioned by top military intelligence officers there. But the new report, according to Pentagon sources, will show that MPs were using their animals to make juveniles -- as young as 15 years old -- urinate on themselves as part of a competition.

"There were two MP dog handlers who did use dogs to threaten kids detained at Abu Ghraib," said an Army officer familiar with the report, one of two investigations on detainee abuse scheduled for release this week. "It has nothing to do with interrogation. It was just them on their own being weird."

Speaking on the condition of anonymity because the report has not been released, other officials at the Pentagon said the investigation also acknowledges that military intelligence soldiers kept multiple detainees off the record books and hid them from international humanitarian organizations. The report also mentions substantiated claims that at least one male detainee was sodomized by one of his captors at Abu Ghraib, sources said.

"The report will show that these actions were bad, illegal, unauthorized, and some of it was sadistic," said one Defense Department official. "But it will show that they were the actions of a few, actions that went unnoticed because of leadership failures."

The investigative report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay focuses on the role of military intelligence soldiers in the prison abuse. It will expand the circle of soldiers considered responsible for abuse beyond the seven military police soldiers already facing charges, officials said, to include more than a dozen others -- low-ranking soldiers, civilian contractors and medics. Sources have said that the report also criticizes military leadership, from the prison and up through the highest levels of the U.S. chain of command in Iraq at the time.

One Pentagon official said yesterday that Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, then the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is named in the report for leadership deficiencies and failing to deal with rising problems at the prison as he tried to manage 150,000 troops countering an unexpected insurgency. Sanchez, however, will not be recommended for any punitive action or even a letter of reprimand, the source said. About 300 pages of the 9,000-page report will be released publicly, according to Army officials.

Another report regarding the prison abuse, commissioned by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, is expected to be released this afternoon. That independent commission, chaired by James R. Schlesinger, a former defense secretary, will be critical of the guidance and policies set by top Pentagon and military officials as they worked to get more useful intelligence from detainees in Iraq, said a source familiar with the commission's work.

The Schlesinger report is not expected to implicate high-level officials by name, but it would be the first report to link the abuse at Abu Ghraib to policies set by top officials in Washington. The Fay report, by contrast, does not point a finger at the Pentagon and instead assigns most of the blame to military intelligence and military police who worked on the chaotic grounds of the overcrowded and austere Abu Ghraib.

Defense Leaders Faulted by Panel in Prison Abuse
By ERIC SCHMITT

Published: August 24, 2004

WASHINGTON, Aug. 23 - A high-level outside panel reviewing American military detention operations has concluded that leadership failures at the highest levels of the Pentagon, Joint Chiefs of Staff and military command in Iraq contributed to an environment in which detainees were abused at Abu Ghraib prison and other facilities, Defense officials said Monday.

The report, set to be released Tuesday, does not explicitly blame Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for the misconduct or for ordering policies that condoned or encouraged it. But the panel implicitly faults Mr. Rumsfeld, as well as his top civilian and military aides, for not exercising sufficient oversight over a confusing array of policies and interrogation practices at detention centers in Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq, officials said.

The military's Joint Staff, which is responsible for allocating military resources among the various combatant commanders, is criticized for not recognizing that military police officers at Abu Ghraib were overwhelmed by an influx of detainees, while the ratio of prisoners to guards was much lower at the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The report also criticizes the top commander in Iraq at the time, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, for not paying close enough attention to worsening conditions at Abu Ghraib, delegating oversight of prison operations to subordinates.

The highest-ranking Army reservist charged in the Abu Ghraib case, Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II, said Monday that he would plead guilty to at least some charges. [Page A6.]

In contrast to the half dozen military inquiries into aspects of the Abu Ghraib scandal, including the roles of the military police and military intelligence officials, the four-member panel led by James R. Schlesinger, a former defense secretary, was appointed by Mr. Rumsfeld to identify gaps in the reviews and offer a critique of senior officials' roles that uniformed military officers might be reluctant to level against superiors.

The Schlesinger panel's report and a high-level Army investigation into the role of military intelligence officials in the misconduct, which is also set to be released this week, are expected to offer important new details and context that may help explain the causes of a scandal that came to the military's attention last January, but only became public in April with the disclosure of photographs of prisoner abuse. The panel said in a statement that it would brief Mr. Rumsfeld, who is traveling this week, by video-teleconference on Tuesday, and then present its findings at a news conference at the Pentagon. The Army is expected to release the findings of its own review this week, probably on Wednesday.

The broad outlines of the Schlesinger panel's work were described by two Defense officials who had portions of it summarized for them by associates. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the full report has not been made public.

Posted by Melanie at 07:19 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

New Rules

I knew (or, rather hoped) this day would come. I've finally found some work (it's temp, but it means income for a few months) and that means I can't put in 12 hours a day posting to The Bump in the Beltway. I start the new gig on Wednesday, and I think that the Bump day is going to look like this: a post or two early in the morning before I leave for work, one or two during the day when I have time for lunch and probably something longer and "thinkier" in the evening, after I've had the day to digest the news. I'll be taking public transit, the Metro here in Washington, which is a bit of a hike from my house, and walking and public transit time are "pondering" time. When the weather is good I plan to walk, as I need to work off the blogger's butt I've developed from all this time in front of a monitor in the last year. There is a bus to Metro, but it is an additional 30 minutes to walk, and I need the exercise.

I'm going to be working for my oldest friend, and we're both a little nervous about that, but I'll be doing the scut work to help her prepare for her organization's annual conference, which means lots of deadlines. This is a public interest law, social justice organization, and I support the work they do so I feel pretty good about this gig. I don't want to say much more about it than that because I don't want the organization to be uncomfortable with having a blogger in their midst, even temporarily. My focus will continue to be on current events and public policy, even as I'll be working for an organization who has a corner of the public square on public policy and is actively working for change. My friend Sharon has always been on fire for social justice and has staked her professional life on it. It is grounded in her understanding of her Jewish faith and the progressive politics she learned at her mother's knee. I know because I know her mother.

Sharon's cable connection should be up and running by next weekend, so I'll be over there to see her new house (in the most fabulous part of the DC area, Takoma Park, beloved of aging hippies) and to optimize her Internet connection (I'm not as geeky as Reid or pogge, the technical advisors to this site, but I can help most users find better ways to use their computers and their Internet experience, as well as optimizing their Internet time. I've lived on-line for over a year and I know a lot of tricks. And just enough HTML to get the novice into serious trouble.

At any rate, things are going to be changing a little and I wanted to give you a heads-up and let you know why. I also hope to add Blogads and Googleads in the next couple of weeks but have been warned by the site's designer that there are design issues I need to make decisions about, and I haven't figured that out yet. This will also facilitate an escape to broadband cable for yer bloghostess in the next couple of weeks, which is a consummation devoutly to be wished: given the limited time I'll have for blogging, the slowness of dial-up is no longer tolerable. Ads will help me bridge the difference in cost between my very cheap dial-up and the hideously expensive local cable monoply. I cannot tell you how little I am looking forward to changing email addresses. I've had this one since '97. A computer crash a couple of months ago wiped out my email address book and reconstructing it notify people is going to be a huge time sink.

It's time to restructure a lot of things. I'd be interested in reviews from any of you who have made the jump to broadband telephony, like Vonnage. How well does it work with phones (on the receiving end) that are twisted pair? I'm looking for a new cell phone plan, happy with my Nokia phone, but it is time to go off my cheap "emergency" and very expensive minutes plan for something more broadly based. No, I won't ditch my landline, but I'll probably use it less. I also go places that have very little cell phone coverage and my landline answering machine may be the easiest way for most folks to find me. (Add to shopping list: batteries. The little light is blinking.) Seriously, don't give up your landline. There are emergencies which take out cell phone towers (like hurricanes and tornados) and leave underground phone lines just fine. It is better to have both. I was glad I did when Isabel hit here last fall, and we are now living in the days of possible random blackouts anywhere on the grid. Have a corded phone, not a wireless, for backup.

Sorry for the light posting today. I had to spend the day preparing to defend myself from a nuisance lawsuit which was going to court tomorrow. It took a while to get my ducks in a row, but I worked something out with opposing counsel late this afternoon.

UPDATE: Most egregious spelling errors fixed. Jeebus, I'm fried. Today was a horror.

Glory Days Long Gone

How the mighty Post has fallen

ANTONIA ZERBISIAS

Ten days ago, when the Post ran a 3,000 word front-page post-mortem of its coverage of the run-up to the war in Iraq, Nixon popped into my head. Talk about bad timing. The guy couldn't get a break. Had his team pulled the same Watergate stunt today, the Post probably would have buried the story in the back of the A-section and given front-page play to his latest pronouncements on the "peace" negotiations with North Vietnam.

That's pretty much how the Post dealt with the current president George W. Bush's lies and obfuscations on Iraq. It served largely as the White House's megaphone on smoking guns and mushroom clouds while muting, or stifling, dissent and contradictory evidence.

As the Post's Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks says in the Aug. 12 post-mortem, "There was an attitude among editors: Look, we're going to war, why do we even worry about all this contrary stuff."

Make no mistake. The Post piece was no mea culpa. It was penned by media critic Howard Kurtz, as a feature he initiated. While the paper did give it prominent play, nowhere did it officially and explicitly admit to failing its readers, the public interest or the service of truth.

"People who were opposed to the war from the beginning and have been critical of the media's coverage in the period before the war have this belief that somehow the media should have crusaded against the war," executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. tells Kurtz. "They have the mistaken impression that somehow if the media's coverage had been different, there wouldn't have been a war."

Obviously not, raising the question: If the war was inevitable, and if the Bushies were hell-bent on waging it, then wasn't that a story? Isn't it still? Then why isn't it being told throughout the mainstream media?

Probably the most troubling admission comes from Karen DeYoung, a former assistant managing editor who reported on the prewar palavering: "We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power," she says. "If the president stands up and says something, we report what the president said."

But since when is a presidential pronouncement The Word Of God? What happened to inquiry, investigation and, what's it called again, journalism?

Consider a Post report in July 2003 by the two dogged Danas, Milbank and Priest, who must have been very frustrated by their editors' kid glove handling of the Bush cow patties.

They were reporting on an outrageous claim Bush made — four months after the invasion began — at a news conference: "The larger point is and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power ..."

As the Danas would write, four paragraphs into a story about Bush defending his "darn good" Iraq intelligence, "The president's assertion that the war began because Iraq did not admit inspectors appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring: Hussein had, in fact, admitted the inspectors and Bush had opposed extending their work because he did not believe them effective."

"Appeared?" Like, maybe we were dreaming? Like the president wasn't, er, um, lying? But did you hear anybody in the mainstream media call him out on that — even when he repeated it this year, in his state of the union address?

The irony, of course, is that this editorial is in The Toronto Star. And it's true.

Nya-Nya

North Korea Insults Bush, in Seeming Talks Ploy
By JAMES BROOKE

Published: August 23, 2004

SEOUL, South Korea, Aug. 23 — North Korea called President Bush an "imbecile" and "a tyrant that puts Hitler into the shade" in a vituperative stream of insults today that seemed to rule out any serious progress on nuclear disarmament talks before the American election is decided in November.

"The meeting of the working group for the six-party talks cannot be opened because the U.S. has become more undisguised in pursuing its hostile policy toward" North Korea, a spokesman for North Korea's Foreign Ministry told the nation's state-controlled news agency. New talks were to be held in Beijing in September or October, as North Korea's neighbors and the United States seek to persuade the Stalinist nation to stop making nuclear weapons.

Today's tirade was apparently set off by a campaign stop remark last week by Mr. Bush, who referred to Kim Jong Il, North Korea's hereditary leader, as a "tyrant."

Today, South Korean analysts, often optimists on Pyongyang's behavior, tended to say that North Korea was following a standard negotiating tactic of ratcheting up the rhetoric before settling down for real talks.
....
North Korean nervousness is expected to reach a higher pitch in late October, when warships of the United States Navy, the Japanese Coast Guard and other allied nations are to conduct joint exercises in the Sea of Japan. The maneuvers will be held under the banner of the Proliferation Security Initiative, a program designed to interdict seaborne illicit cargoes from an unnamed country. Previous training has taken place in locales distant from North Korea, such as the Coral Sea, off the coast of Australia.

"They really believe that Bush and Koizumi are in a plot for a pre-emptive attack on North Korea," Mr. Quinones recalled of his early August conversations in Pyongyang. "The hardliners will use P.S.I. The military will say, `I told you so.' "

To calm spirits on the peninsula, South Korea's top nuclear negotiator is to visit China and Japan this week. Hoping to break the deadlock on setting up a round of working-level, preparatory talks on North Korea's nuclear program, Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo Hyuck will fly to Beijing on Tuesday for talks with his Chinese counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei. On Friday, Mr. Lee will visit Tokyo for talks with his Japanese counterpart, Mitoji Yabunaka.

Japan does not have relations with North Korea, and, therefore, has minimal leverage with Pyongyang. China, a major source of food and fuel for North Korea, may not want to lean on Pyongyang until the American election is decided.

Ah, the fruits of telling the world that you "loathe" Kim Jong-Il, W. We have considerable leverage with the North Koreans, but any negotiator knows that you don't rub the other side's nose in it.

Do The Right Thing

Politics Color Troop Plan

Last week, President Bush proposed bringing more soldiers back to U.S. bases. Redeployment is something Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has been studying since he took office in 2001. But what should be a study in strategy and tactics, a discussion on how best to provide national security, has been overwhelmed by politics. Hence the president's announcement on troop withdrawals less than three months before an election, at an appearance before the Veterans of Foreign Wars that was paid for by Bush's reelection campaign.

If the Pentagon's plans are good — and Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry denounced them in his equally political appearance before the VFW two days after Bush spoke — they'll be just as good after Inauguration Day.

Not that any of the redeployments (perhaps eventually totaling as many as 70,000) will happen anytime soon. Pentagon officials said they would not begin for more than a year and could take as long as a decade. Nor would changing the troop strength and locations be cheap.

Bush predicted savings, but they may come at the price of a steep initial investment, according to a Congressional Budget Office report in May on the Army, the service with the most permanent installations and troops outside the U.S. The moving costs will be great, base infrastructure in the U.S. must be expanded to cope with more troops and their families, and contributions from host nations such as Germany will undoubtedly be trimmed.
....
The primary reason for stationing U.S. troops in nations with strong militaries such as Japan and South Korea is to protect American interests, and only secondarily to give pause to enemies of the host countries. Political support in host countries also plays a role; the United States shut its bases in the Philippines after years of protest.

The Cold War dictated domestic and overseas deployments; the war on terror is necessitating new bases in nations such as Uzbekistan. Advanced technology in the hands of a well-equipped, highly trained military may make it easier to keep troops and their families at home rather than abroad, but the decision must be based on reasons of national security, not politics.

Given that the unnecessary Iraq war has called into question everything from force structure and size to deployment sites, why not throw this into the mix? Really, this whole discussion is premature while we're bogged down in the sands of Mesopotamia.

Boondogle

Everyone Wants a Piece of the $18-Billion Man in Iraq
The rebuilding czar so far has little to show for his efforts. 'Better times are coming,' he says.
By T. Christian Miller, Times Staff Writer

HILLAH, Iraq — The man with $18 billion to spend is taking a beating.

Where's the money to rebuild Iraq? The jobs for broke Iraqis? The promised health clinics and schools, bridges and dams, electricity and clean water?

Retired Rear Adm. David Nash gives the same answer to the skeptics who quiz him on America's long-delayed effort to rebuild Iraq: Better times are coming.

"This country is going to take off," said Nash, 61, the head of the U.S. effort to rebuild a country devastated by a dozen years of sanctions, three wars and a simmering insurgency.

After long delays and broken deadlines, there are signs that the largest reconstruction effort since World War II's Marshall Plan is poised to explode.

New and refurbished power stations are starting up weekly. Private contractors are finishing plans for building thousands of schools, clinics and infrastructure projects. Iraqi jobs in the program have soared from 5,300 daily employees to more than 88,000.

But at least for now, there is little to show. Less than $900 million has been spent of $18.4 billion that Congress approved in November. Of 2,800 projects designed to make life better for Iraqis — and in the process, safer for American soldiers — only 214 are under construction.

I'm not going to try to summarize the rest of this article, just read it. And ask yourself and your colleagues, family and friends why it is we are occupying Iraq. Saddam was a really bad guy? Right.

An Honest Day's Pay

Controversial Overtime Rules Take Effect
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Published: August 23, 2004

The Bush administration's new overtime rules go into effect today, but the Kerry campaign has already begun attacking the overhauled regulations, saying they will hurt millions of American workers.

Urging President Bush to scrap the rules, the Kerry campaign and organized labor say the regulations will exempt up to six million additional workers from receiving overtime pay by redefining which workers qualify for time-and-a-half pay when they work more than 40 hours. But the administration asserts that no more than 107,000 workers will lose their eligibility, while 1.3 million workers will gain the right to overtime.

In essence, the hundreds of pages of new rules redefine the criteria for which administrative, professional and managerial workers qualify for overtime, among them nurses, chefs, pharmacists, funeral directors, claims adjusters and restaurant managers.

Senator John Edwards, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, devoted his political party's weekly radio address on Saturday to assailing the new rules, making clear that the Democrats view them as an issue to exploit when many Americans are worried about the economy and stagnating wages.

"Why would anyone want to take overtime pay away from as many as six million Americans at a time when they need that money the most?" Mr. Edwards said. "And why would anyone support this new rule which could mean a pay cut for millions of Americans who have already seen their real wages drop again this year?"

That follows attacks by Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, who said last month, "The new overtime regulations represent a shameful assault on the paychecks of hard-working Americans at a time when they are already putting in more hours, paying more for everyday costs and saving less than ever before."

To turn up the volume on the issue, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. says it will hold a news conference today and will distribute several million fliers saying Mr. Bush has given its corporate friends a gift that will cut the paychecks of millions of Americans.

The administration asserts that the new regulations are needed to replace vague, outmoded rules that have spurred many lawsuits as employers and employees tussle over which workers are exempt and which are not. The administration argues that the overtime rules are clearer, will be easier to enforce and will reduce expensive litigation that hurts business and the economy.

"We view this as a step in the right direction for bringing clarity and certainty to this area of the law so there can be greater compliance," said Alfred Robinson, director of the Labor Department's wage and hour division. "And that's good for employers and employees. I'd rather focus on that than the spin and the politics."

Critics of the new rules say they are another example of the Bush administration's taking regulatory steps that please businesses, which have lobbied for years to revamp the overtime regulations.

The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group, has issued a report, which many Democrats have relied on, concluding that the rules will exempt about six million workers from overtime coverage. Among those, the institute said, are 1.4 million low-level salaried supervisors, 130,000 chefs and sous-chefs and 900,000 workers with graduate or college degrees who will now be considered professional employees.

Here is the Economic Policy Institute's briefing paper on the subject. I've been digging into this topic for months and it looks to me like Bushco is handing employers a big gift, rather than covering a lot of new people. God help if you don't have a union. This is going to hurt a lot of people.

Moving the Deck Chairs

A G.O.P. Senator Proposes a Plan to Split Up C.I.A.
By PHILIP SHENON

Published: August 23, 2004

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 - The Republican chairman of the Senate intelligence committee said Sunday that he would propose legislation to break up the Central Intelligence Agency and divide its responsibilities among three new spy agencies.

The plan would eliminate the Pentagon's direct control over the National Security Agency and create a post of national intelligence director with virtually complete control over the government's $40 billion annual intelligence budget.

The sweeping proposal, by Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, which would also provide the national intelligence director with budget authority over counterterrorism and counterintelligence programs of the F.B.I., goes far beyond the recommendations of the independent Sept. 11 commission.

Aides to Senator Roberts said he had obtained support in principle from eight of nine Republicans on the intelligence committee and would present it Monday to the White House and to members of the Sept. 11 commission, whose final report has prompted President Bush and lawmakers to rush to overhaul the way the nation gathers and shares intelligence.

The plan is certain to be fiercely opposed by the C.I.A., which would cease to exist, its responsibilities shifted elsewhere and its name probably eliminated; by the Pentagon, which would have to cede control over the N.S.A. and other defense intelligence agencies that it long described as essential to the military; and by several influential members of Congress who have warned against any drastic restructuring of the nation's intelligence community.

"Our bill is real reform, and it's the right thing to do," Mr. Roberts said in a statement announcing the bill, which he titled the "9/11 National Security Protection Act." "We cannot allow turf battles to define this debate. No one agency, no matter how distinguished its history, is more important than U.S. national security."

A White House spokesman, Brian Besanceney, did not comment on the specifics of Senator Roberts's proposal but said, "We welcome ideas from members of Congress and will continue to work with Congress to accomplish the shared goal of intelligence reform and will look forward to reviewing the details of Senator Roberts's plan."

A C.I.A. spokesman said the agency would not comment until it saw details of Mr. Roberts's plan.

But a senior intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "The proposal is unworkable and would hamper rather than enhance the nation's intelligence efforts at a critical time. It doesn't make any sense.''

The official added, "Rather than bringing intelligence disciplines together it smashes them apart."

Mr. Roberts's proposal brought a mixed reaction from Democrats. Rand Beers, a national security adviser to Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, said in a statement that Mr. Kerry welcomed the plan and that it was similar to proposals from Mr. Kerry, who has embraced all of the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, including creation of a powerful job of national intelligence director.

But Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who is a member of the intelligence committee and the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, offered immediate resistance, saying it was a mistake for Senator Roberts to move on overhauling the intelligence community without obtaining the support of Democrats.

Hmm, I looked over the bulleted summary and this looks like something sketched out on the back of an envelope. You can click on the NYT link if you want more, but you won't learn much. Roberts is grandstanding and I'm starting to think maybe it isn't such a good idea to have Congress in town in August.

Old Virginny

It hasn't gone Democratic since LBJ

By William Wood | August 22, 2004

IN THE 40 years since Lyndon Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater, no Democratic candidate for the presidency has carried the Old Dominion. During that time, every other Southern state has voted at least once for a Democrat, but not Virginia. This year, there's lots of talk that Virginia is "in play" -- that John Kerry could carry the state's 13 electoral votes. It's possible -- not probable, but possible.

A Democratic victory would start with the party holding its base: the Northern Virginia suburbs closest to the District of Columbia and the heavily African-American cities near Richmond and Norfolk. But that base is never enough, as 40 years of failure has shown. In 2000, George Bush beat Al Gore in Virginia by more than 220,000 votes.

However, Virginia Democrats see opportunity among the state's concentration of veterans -- the largest in the nation -- many of whom are dissatisfied with Bush's performance in Iraq and his lukewarm support of veteran's issues. Pair these voters with Virginians from economically disadvantaged rural areas and the numbers could add up.

Normally, the last place Democrats would look for a vote transfusion would be Virginia's Fifth Congressional District, known as Southside. This triangle of a district has the often-liberal university town of Charlottesville at its apex, but its base edges the North Carolina border, where the once "Solid South" has long voted Republican. Memories of the Confederacy linger in Southside, home to the tiny hamlet of Appomattox, where Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Ulysses S. Grant. So does bitterness over the civil rights movement; Prince Edward County preferred to shut down its public schools in 1957 rather than obey a federal court order to desegregate.

That doesn't sound like ripe pickings for a Northern liberal like Kerry. And, yet, the economy of that region is undergoing wholesale change, and economic change can predict political change.

For Virginians, this election is about two things: Iraq and the economy. There is a huge contingent of military and retired military in the State, between the Army bases in Northern Virginia, the Navy at Hampton Road and the Marines and quasi-military FBI academy at Quantico. Military votes will break in unusual patterns this year, ordinarily they go 80-20 in favor of the Rs. Hi-tech Northern Virginia runs left-libertarian and even the Republicans who get elected from this part of the world tend to be center-right moderates. Southside Virgina has suffered terribly from evacuation of factory jobs overseas. Parts of the state are still plagued with double digit unemployment numbers.

So, I'll agree with Wood: a Dem win is possible, not probable. The fact that the current governor is a well-like centrist Dem won't hurt, either.

If Virginia does go blue, look for a Kerry landslide elsewhere.

My Woebegone

David Talbot has a wonderful interview with Garrison Keillor in today's Salon.

You write that Richard Nixon was "the last Republican leader to feel a Christian obligation toward the poor." What in God's name happened to the Grand Old Party?

The thrill of Naderism is in telling your Democratic pals that you're thinking about ralphing and seeing them get all flushed and earnest and wring their hands and roll their eyes and moan. Actually going into the voting booth and ralphing is no great pleasure, compared to the remorse you'll feel if Mr. Bush is elected and fresh horrors begin to unfold and the nadir is reached and the Bushies keep going down, down, down. I say, Stand tall for Ralph, wear his button, wave his flag, put on his cologne in the morning, be as ralphic as you like, but in that private sacred moment, make your X for the Man.

Overtime Disaster

Rules for Overtime Pay to Take Effect
Employers, Workers Confused by Regulations on Eligibility, Classification

By Amy Joyce
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 22, 2004; Page A08

After months of heated debate, a major revision, protests and an unsuccessful legislative assault, the most sweeping changes to the nation's overtime rules in more than 50 years take effect tomorrow.

Workers who earn less than $23,660 annually will become automatically eligible for overtime pay, a boost from the current threshold of $8,060, set in the 1970s. That change is "the most objective bright line standard" in the dense, complex regulations, said Tom Farmer, a senior consultant with Hewitt Associates, a human resources consulting firm. He predicts thousands of workers will begin earning overtime immediately because of the higher threshold

But beyond that, interpreting the complicated, 154-page document still boggles many employers who must first understand the regulations and then translate the changes into new job classifications for employees.

"There is just going to be continued confusion," said Anita Raman, vice president of operations for PrO Unlimited Inc., which helps companies sort out employment regulations. "Employers really thought with the new law, 'I'll definitely be able to figure out who's exempt and who isn't.' They are still wandering around trying to figure out how to classify [employees] correctly."

Other than the higher threshold for automatic eligibility, every change in the new regulations means less overtime protection for workers, said a report released last month by John Fraser, Monica Gallagher and Gail Coleman -- three of the highest-ranking Labor officials under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. "More classes of workers, and a greater proportion of the workforce overall, will be exempt than we believe the Congress could have originally intended," they wrote.

Could you lose your overtime? Click on the link to take the quiz and find out.

Land of the Free

Bush Promises to Offer Detailed Plans at Convention
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

Published: August 22, 2004

WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 - President Bush will present what aides say will be a detailed second-term agenda when he is nominated in New York in 10 days, part of an ambitious convention program built on invocations of Sept. 11 and efforts to paint Senator John Kerry as untrustworthy and out of the mainstream.

Mr. Bush's advisers said they were girding for the most extensive street demonstrations at any political convention since the Democrats nominated Hubert H. Humphrey in Chicago in 1968. But in contrast to that convention, which was severely undermined by televised displays of street rioting, Republicans said they would seek to turn any disruptions to their advantage, by portraying protests by even independent activists as Democratic-sanctioned displays of disrespect for a sitting president.

The Politics Of Bullying
Paul Rogat Loeb
August 20, 2004

Examples abound of how bullying politics have shaped our country in the past four years. From the mob in Miami-Dade county to the jammed phone lines of a Democratic voting call center, manipulative tactics have become astoundingly commonplace. The challenge now, says Paul Rogat Loeb, is to make the issue of bullying the central theme of the election. Demanding that our leaders play fair isn't old-fashioned—it's democracy.

It’s hard to talk about such intimidation without sounding partisan or shrill, but we need to make it a central issue, because if it succeeds, it becomes impossible to discuss any other issues. Remember after the 9/11 attacks, when Attorney General John Ashcroft publicly declared that anyone who disagreed with administration policy was an ally of terrorism. We were still stunned and reeling at that point. Yet Democrats and honorable Republicans should have had the courage to say that this definition was unacceptable. Instead they capitulated to the tactics of Republican strategists like Grover Norquist, who proudly quotes Lenin’s motto, “Probe with bayonets, looking for weakness.” And a message of intimidation has dominated since, amplified through the endless echo chamber of O’Reilly, Rush, Hannity and Drudge.

Of all the tactics Bushco uses, I think this is the one that makes me the angriest. "Disrespect for a sitting president?" I have two words for that: Ken Starr. Let's review the First Amendment, shall we?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Economics 101

Not a Hooverville in Sight
By N. GREGORY MANKIW

Published: August 22, 2004

Washington — How is the economy doing? Some economists, pundits and politicians want you to think it's in terrible shape. This is "the worst economic recovery period in terms of job creation that the nation has experienced since the Great Depression," said Laura D'Andrea Tyson, who was chairman of President Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers. So many other pessimists have echoed her in drawing analogies to the 1930's, you might think that millions of Americans are living in Hoovervilles.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Let's look at the facts. In 1933, in the middle of the Great Depression, the unemployment rate peaked at 25 percent. Now it is 5.5 percent, having fallen from 6.3 percent in June 2003. Today's unemployment rate is exactly the same as it was eight years ago, when Ms. Tyson's boss was running for re-election. It is also lower than the average rate in each of the past three decades.

Pathetic. The best Bushco can do is trot out the President of the Council of Economic Advisors to say, "Hey, it's not the depression?" What do other economists think? Let's go look:

GRETCHEN MORGENSON:
The Peril That Trails an Oil Shock

Published: August 22, 2004

TO many people, the drifting stock market and the sky-high United States Treasury market both seem to be signaling an economic slowdown. Stocks can't seem to rally even though corporate earnings have been stellar, and bonds can't seem to fall even though some economic data show strength.

Last week, however, a third market flashed red on the economy: oil. And according to Stephen S. Roach, economist at Morgan Stanley, oil shocks, like the one that may be developing, have an awfully perfect - and perfectly awful - track record. They are always followed by recession.

Last Friday, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil hit $48.95 a barrel, then settled back to $47.86 at the close of trading. That is up from around $33 a barrel at the beginning of the year.

A throng of strategists on Wall Street argue that rising crude prices do not hurt as much as they have in the past because the economy is not as energy dependent as it once was. The amount of energy needed to generate $1 in gross domestic product has fallen by roughly 50 percent in the past three decades, according to Morgan Stanley.
....
No one knows, of course, where oil prices could go. But Mr. Roach said that recent levels are approaching oil-shock territory. And that makes the United States economy especially vulnerable to a recession.

Mr. Roach said the price of oil must stay at current levels for between three and six months to produce a true energy shock. It may not. But if it does? In the past, Mr. Roach found that oil shocks have always been followed by recessions.

The shock that followed the first oil embargo led to the severe downturn of 1973 to 1975. The oil run-up after the 1979 embargo helped produce the recession of 1981-82. And the shock generated by the Persian Gulf war contributed to the relatively mild decline of 1990-91.

What all three events had in common, Mr. Roach said, was that the economy was stalling when the oil shock hit. In both 1973 and 1990, the economy was growing 2.2 percent annually. In the second half of 1979, growth was even weaker, averaging 0.6 percent, annualized. An oil shock, he said, "rarely comes at a time of economic strength and resilience when we can shrug it off and keep growing."

Steve Roach has been getting a lot of play on this site for a while. Readers have poiinted out that Roach has been bearish for a while, but I'm convinced that he's right, in no small part because a consensus is forming behind him.

More Dirty Tricks

Blair snubs Bush
22/08/2004 13:35 - (SA)

London - British Prime Minister Tony Blair is refusing to fly to the United States to receive a medal bestowed on him by the nation for his support over last year's Iraq war, a London newspaper reported on Sunday.

US President George W Bush has put huge pressure on his closest ally to pick up the Congressional Medal of Honor in person, the Sunday Mirror said, quoting a senior British government source.

Blair is immensely popular with large sections of the American public for his staunch support of the Iraq war and the White House believes a visit by the prime minister now would provide a much-needed boost to Bush's re-election campaign, the weekly said.

"There has been a lot of telephone traffic between the White House and Downing Street over the medal in recent week," the Sunday Mirror quoted a senior government source as saying.

"George Bush wants the prime minister to come to Washington and pick up the medal, which is the highest honour America can bestow on a foreigner.

"But he has refused for more than a year now and for good reason. He cannot possibly accept an award for the Iraq war when British and American troops continue to risk their lives there."

The Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest award the US can bestow is being turned into a campaign tactic. This outrage alone should be enough to demonstrate that Bush is morally unqualified to be president.

UPDATE: Len notes in Comments that both News24 and I got caught out on this one. It's the Congressional Gold Medal, not the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Pillage

Bush Ad Causes Concern at the Olympics
USOC to Review Campaign Spot's Use of Brand; Iraqis Express Anger

By Sally Jenkins
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 22, 2004; Page A12

ATHENS, Aug. 21 -- The U.S. Olympic Committee, concerned that President Bush's reelection campaign is using the Athens Games for political purposes, will review a copy of a televised campaign ad that credits Bush with liberating athletes from Afghanistan and Iraq so they can compete here.

"In 1972, there were 40 democracies in the world. Today, 120," a narrator intones, over images of an Olympic stadium with flags flying and swimmers racing in a pool. "Freedom is spreading like a sunrise. At this Olympics, there will be two more free nations. And two fewer terrorist regimes."

The word "Olympic," as well as the brand and concept of Olympianism, belongs exclusively to the International Olympic Committee worldwide and to the USOC in the United States. The bylaws of both organizations prohibit the use of the Olympics for political ends, as does an act of Congress, which states that the USOC "shall be non-political and may not promote the candidacy of any individual seeking public office."

The Bush campaign, however, defended its usage of the ad and said it would continue to run through August. "We are on firm legal ground to mention the Olympics and make a factual point in a political advertisement," Bush spokesman Scott Stanzel told the Associated Press. The Bush reelection committee contends that the USOC technically only has exclusive rights to the Olympic brand to sell products or promote competition.

A USOC spokesman said the ad would be reviewed by the organization's director of government affairs, Steve Bull. "We're aware of it, but we haven't had an opportunity to review it," USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said. "We have contacted the reelection committee and asked for a copy, and once we've received [it], that will give us a chance to determine the extent to which marks and terms may be used."

Isn't this so typically Bush? The arrogance of we'll take what we want and use it as we see fit? Jenkins highlights some of the irony of this particular grab and nab: the Afghans haven't sent any swimmers and the Iraqi soccer team is protesting this use and noting that "freedom" doesn't mean much if you are shot at on the way to the stadium. The Iraqi soccer team has been training outside the country because of the lack of security.

Fake "Objectivity"

Cut-and-Paste Propaganda Infiltrates Opinion Pages

By Paul Farhi

Sunday, August 22, 2004; Page A06

Reader, beware! Some of America's newspapers have become unwitting conduits for campaign propaganda.

Thanks to some nifty Internet technology, the campaigns of President Bush and John F. Kerry are making it easy for their supporters to pass off the campaigns' talking points as just another concerned citizen's opinion. Pro-Bush or pro-Kerry letters bearing identical language are flooding letters-to-the-editor columns.

The Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y., for example, ran a letter last month from a local reader that stated, "New-job figures and other recent economic data show that America's economy is strong and getting stronger, and that the president's jobs and growth plan is working."

The exact same phrasing also appeared in letters printed in about 20 other daily newspapers, including the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Idaho Statesman and the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle.

It wasn't a remarkable coincidence. The letters -- known as "AstroTurf" for their ersatz quality -- were generated by a special cut-and-paste form on Bush's campaign Web site. In addition to providing helpful, ready-to-plagiarize phrases about the president's economic policies, the site also offers faux-letter fodder about such topics as homeland security, the environment, health care and "compassion" ("The President's compassion agenda is touching lives across the globe. . . .").

Kerry's campaign has a similar feature that entreats his supporters to "write" letters as part of his campaign's "MediaCorps." Both campaigns offer tips, such as the Bush campaign's advice to "keep your letters brief and to the point."

Newspaper editors tend to red-pencil outright campaign dogma in news stories. But a letter, ostensibly from a reader, can fly beneath the radar.

Problem is, editors -- like English teachers -- prefer that letter writers think for themselves. "Our policy is that everything published on our letters page has to be an original piece by the author who signs the piece," said Thomas Tobin, deputy editorial page editor of the Rochester paper. Tobin wasn't aware that his paper had printed the Bush-generated letter. In fact, the Democrat and Chronicle printed virtually the same letter twice, under different names, a week apart.

Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of The Washington Post, said, "We want letters that are actually written by the people who sign their names to them. I can't be sure we screen out every precooked missive, but we do our best."

Dishonest piece, Paul Farhi. The Bush campaign's astro-turf efforts have been well documented all over the blogosphere. The one piece you can cite by a Kerry supporter is an original letter mocking the Bush effort. That's hardly an example of both sides doing the same thing. This crummy piece might get a letter to the editor from me. There is "balance" and then there are the facts. What are the facts, Paul? Tell me that and I can figure what they mean.

Mirrors and Blue Smoke

Bush Health Care Plan Seems to Fall Short
Gap Grows Between Hard Data, Projections for Covering 10 Million Uninsured

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 22, 2004; Page A04

If the Republican-controlled Congress enacted President Bush's entire health care agenda, as many as 10 million people who lack health insurance would be covered at a cost of $102 billion over the next decade, according to his campaign aides.

But when the Bush-Cheney team was asked to provide documentation, the hard data fell far short of the claims, a gap supported by several independent analyses.

Projections by the Congressional Budget Office, the Treasury Department, academics and the campaign's Web site suggest that under the best circumstances, Bush's plans for health care would extend coverage to no more than 6 million people over the next decade and possibly as few as 2 million.

"There's little reason to expect that there would be any reduction in the overall numbers of Americans without health insurance," Brookings Institution health policy expert Henry J. Aaron said. "We're swimming against a rather swift current in our efforts to reduce the number of uninsured, and the power of President Bush's proposals to move against that current is, it seems to me, very, very limited."

In his bid for a second term, Bush is reprising much of the health care agenda he ran on in 2000, including tax credits for individuals who purchase insurance, and the formation of new, largely unregulated purchasing pools for small businesses called association health plans.
....
Since Bush took office, the number of Americans without health insurance has climbed by 4 million, to nearly 44 million. On its Web site and at news briefings, the Bush campaign says that through its actions overseeing Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, the administration has "expanded eligibility to more than 2.6 million people."

The statement gives the impression "they have extended coverage to 2.6 million more, and that is not really true," said Diane Rowland, executive director of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. "In reality, only 200,000 of them got coverage" because of Bush administration efforts.

Megan Hauck, deputy policy director for health care of the Bush campaign, did not have figures but said she thought the Kaiser data were "awfully low."

Total enrollment in the two government health programs did rise during Bush's tenure -- by about 7.5 million. But for the vast majority, coverage was required by law, not the result of any policy change.

"Part of the reason more people were covered is the economy got so bad that people lost income," Rowland said. "There were more low-income people under Bush than previously, so they became eligible for public programs."

Although Hauck generally touts the campaign's projection that the Bush proposals would expand coverage to 10 million Americans, she said it could be as few as 6 million. Of the 10 million, half will use the proposed $1,000 tax credit ($3,000 for families) to buy insurance. The estimate comes from congressional testimony by a Treasury Department official who speculated that the 10-year, $70 billion proposal could result in coverage for 4 million to 5 million people.

One year earlier, the Bush budget set aside $89 billion for the same credit, claiming it would cover 4 million. Analysts say it is impossible to see how spending $20 billion less, at a time when premiums are much higher, could achieve the same level of coverage.

Ceci Connolly partakes of a bit too much of the "he said, she said" in this piece, but the bottom line, that the Bushist proposal is yet more mirrors and blue smoke, is still discernable. Note once again the amazing consistency of Team Bush: when given the choice between substance and smoke, they always go with the latter.

Going Dark

Going Negative: When It Works
By JIM RUTENBERG and KATE ZERNIKE

Published: August 22, 2004

Every campaign cycle, in fact, seems to begin with the promise of an uplifting, mutually respectful debate of the issues, only to devolve into character attacks and distortions, and for good reason: negative ads work. Voters may say they want candidates to stay positive, but in truth, they respond more readily, more viscerally, to attack ads.

"People like a fight," said Roger Stone, a Republican strategist. "Put up an ad about the intricacies of the federal budget and people will turn the channel. Put up an ad like the Swift boat one, that creates an indelible image in the voter's mind."
....
Studies and focus groups have shown that people like ads that are based on policy, factually accurate and that forecast how a candidate would govern, giving them a reason to vote for a candidate - as well as a reason to vote against the opponent.

"Unless people think it's untruthful, you're not going to get a backlash out of it," Ms. Jamieson said. "If people think the source is credible, that the source is speaking out of a deep conviction, you don't get a sense of attack."

The infamous Willie Horton ad, for example, which portrayed Michael Dukakis as weak on crime in 1988, was based in fact and policy - namely, that, while Mr. Dukakis was governor of Massachusetts, felons were let out of prison on weekend furloughs.

And ads from a group calling itself Republicans for Clean Air that slammed Senator John McCain's environmental record and lauded that of Gov. George W. Bush before the crucial New York, California and Ohio Republican primaries in 2000 became the scourge of political watchdog groups. But that does not bother Rob Allyn, whose firm produced them - wholly independently of Mr. Bush's campaign, he adds.

"All I can say is that the day the independent advocacy effort was launched the media was reporting Governor Bush was 8 points behind in New York," he said. "And he won."

If this article is correct, Kerry's new ad (which I haven't seen yet) should be a blockbuster.

Pork, No Beans

Don't Mind If I Do
Congress Says It's Going All Out for the Troops. Here's $8.9 Billion in Pork That Says It's Not.

By Winslow T. Wheeler
Sunday, August 22, 2004; Page B01

We're in the middle of simultaneous wars against terrorism and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the outcomes are anything but certain. To help fight these wars, Congress passed a gigantic $416 billion appropriations bill for the Department of Defense in July, which President Bush signed into law on Aug. 5. The measure, the president declared, ensures that "our armed forces have every tool they need to meet and defeat the threats of our time."

Well, not exactly. If you look at the hidden details of the legislation, it's clear that Congress has failed dismally -- and deliberately -- to fulfill its constitutional mandates to "raise and support armies" and to "provide and maintain a navy."
The Post's opinion and commentary section runs every Sunday.

Legislators have amply demonstrated that what they're really interested in is raising and providing some home-state pork to impress voters in an election year. To that end, they have busied themselves with squeezing funds for war essentials such as training, weapons maintenance and spare parts -- things troops in combat need more, not less, of -- to send extra dollars their constituents' way. And it's equal-opportunity raiding: Both Republicans and Democrats have been fully engaged in this behavior. Even Capitol Hill's self-proclaimed "pork buster," Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who has made a regular practice of calling his colleagues on their gluttony, has essentially given the gorging a wink and a nod.

A pork-hungry Congress has long been with us, of course, but this year, with our armed forces engaged on two major fronts, Congress has pushed the pork in the defense budget to an all-time high, totaling $8.9 billion. And even as they did so -- and voted to fund wartime operations at only a fraction of what nearly all analysts agree is needed for the duration of 2005 -- conservatives, liberals and moderates alike have presented themselves as doing everything they can think of to support the troops in the field. Don't believe it.

A brief examination of how the Senate, where I worked for three decades for senators from both parties, handled the defense appropriations bill this summer illustrates the chasm between appearances and reality. On June 24, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Alaska Republican Ted Stevens, rammed the $416 billion bill through the Senate in just a few hours. Forty-two amendments, the majority of them involving small spending projects promoted by senators with an eye on bringing home the bacon, were adopted by unrecorded "voice" votes -- usually after cursory deliberation that failed even to explain the subject matter.
....
As usual, McCain performed the very useful task of highlighting many of the amendments, tallying up the cost and offering appropriately caustic remarks about his colleagues' penchant for "porking up our appropriations bills." Based on such revelations, a few journalists wrote articles about some of the foolishness, such as how Stevens and his fellow Alaska Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, had junked up the bill with help for their state's fisheries.

But both McCain and the press were just going through the motions. With Stevens in a big rush to push the defense bill through in just one day, McCain helped speed things along by not taking the time to actually deliver his speech. Instead, he simply had Stevens insert the text into the Congressional Record. Stevens was probably happy to extend McCain this courtesy. Not only did the unspoken speech not draw undue attention to the Senate's goings-on that day, but McCain was also helping out by taking no parliamentary action against the pork-laden bill. He didn't even throw up a speed bump by seeking recorded roll call votes, let alone any real debate, on the pork amendments. Roll call votes take at least 15 minutes each, and spending that much time on a few dozen amendments was apparently more inconvenience than McCain was willing to impose.
....
In parts of the bill that no one talked about, the Armed Services Committee raided the accounts that support combat readiness. Specifically, the committee cut Army depot weapons maintenance by $100 million (just when the repair backlog from the wars has grown to unmanageable proportions), and it removed $1.5 billion from the services' "working capital funds" for transportation and consumables (e.g. helicopter rotor blades, tank tracks, spare parts, fuel, food and much more). In one unseemly move, the committee also cut from one account $532 million for civilian repair technicians activated to support the deployed forces, claiming the money should have been credited elsewhere in the bill. But then it failed to add the money where it said it belonged.

In another feat of legislative trickery, the committee cut another $1.67 billion throughout the bill in anticipation of lower inflation in 2005 -- a pretense at a savings that OMB said in written comments to the committee "do[es] not exist." OMB concluded that "the practical effect of these reductions would be cuts to critical readiness accounts." In response, the Armed Services Committee did nothing and urged the Senate to endorse its bill, which it did by a vote of 97-0 on June 23.
....
And the media? Not for the first time, they were sound asleep. Using members' ready-for-publication news releases (or anonymous tips from their staffs) and fact sheets from the Appropriations Committee can help a harried journalist meet an impending deadline on long and complex legislation. But only part of the story will be told. Four hundred pages of legalese and small print tables in a bill and committee report can actually make some pretty interesting reading, but apparently no journalist seems to think so. I have looked for but failed to find even a single news article about the raids by the Armed Services and Appropriations committees on funding intended to help the armed forces fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's all there in the fiendish details, but they were ignored.

The consequences are serious. Extraordinarily expensive defense bills pass Congress, and the congressional authors are credited with being pro-defense heavies. Pork-busting reformers augment their already inflated reputations. The troops in the field think Washington is doing its best to help them, and the public believes no stone is left unturned to ensure that the nation's sons and daughters are being sent to war with all the training and other forms of support we would want for them.

In each case, the reality is quite different. Nonetheless, Congress is content; there's $8.9 billion in pork to impress the voters back home before the elections, and no one is the wiser about what is really being done to "raise and support armies" and "provide and maintain a navy" -- or not.

I was unaware of all of this. Were you?

Lou's Crusade

Outsourcing and Patriotism

By Bill Moyers, NOW. Posted August 21, 2004.

Lou Dobbs talks about how American businesses are putting their interests ahead of the national interest with the outsourcing of jobs.

Following is Bill Moyers inteview with CNN's Lou Dobbs on the PBS program NOW. Moyers starts the interview by discussing Dobbs' new book, "Exporting America : Why Corporate Greed Is Shipping American Jobs Overseas."

Bill Moyers: This book is more than an economic argument, it's a political manifesto. Let me read you the opening paragraph. Quote, "The power of big business over our national life has never been greater. Never have there been fewer business leaders willing to commit to the national interest over the selfish interest for the good of the company over that of the company's they head." Are you saying that these companies are unpatriotic for outsourcing jobs?

Dobbs: The economist who is the father of the comparative and absolute advantage. He did not in any way suggest that you should have the middle class of any country competing with 30 million unemployed Chinese. He never dreamed about the portability of the factors of production, capital and labor, our knowledge base, our technological advantages, which are being exported and sent to these countries for no other reason than the fact that their labor is cheaper than ours. And the idea that we would put our labor force in competition with the labor force in the case of India that's basically double our size, most of whom speak English, and work for about a tenth of our wages, is a political judgment. It is not an economic judgment.

Reality Check

Two Power Brokers Collide in Iraq
By JOHN F. BURNS

If there has been one message written in all that the insurgents have done, whether Sunnis or Shiites, these Iraqis say, it is a rejection of the very idea that Iraq's future can be chosen under an American military umbrella - more broadly, of the idea that America and its notions should have any place in reshaping Iraq at all.

When they were done with their spinning, senior Western officials who briefed reporters on the developments in Najaf seemed to agree. Najaf, one said bluntly, represented as crucial a juncture as America has faced in Iraq: one from which Iraq could proceed, with the emasculation of Mr. Sadr's rebellion, to a new period in which Iraqi politicians, not gunmen, could begin to set the country's agenda; or, conversely, if the government became resigned to leaving Mr. Sadr's militia still rooted in the city, to a further slide into chaos.

"If the government takes a hit in Najaf, it would encourage the various armed groups to stand up and say, 'O.K., Najaf belongs to us,' 'Falluja belongs to us,' 'Ramadi belongs to us,' 'Samarra belongs to us,' " the official said. In that case, he said, what would be left would not be a country with an accepted constitution and elections, but a "Lebanon-ization," a fracturing into separate, warlord-ruled fiefs, with the gun supplanting the rule of law.

Retreating into the orotund language favored by diplomats, he suggested that this was hardly what America intended when it came here promising Iraqis something far better than Saddam Hussein. "With different militias controlling different cities, that obviously doesn't promise the political stability Iraq needs," he said.

John Burns has been one of the better reporters on the scene in country, but the first part of this article is simple stenography for CENTCOM. This leak from the conclusion of the article is correct, however, we are headed for the Lebanon-ization of Iraq and we are watching it happen in Fallujah and Najaf.

Tom Engelhardt in today's Asia Times has a brilliant deconstruction of the terrible press coverage of the Iraq war.

Last week, through a front-page reconsideration of its Iraq reporting written by media columnist Howard Kurtz ("The Post on WMDs: An inside story"), the Washington Post finally hung out a piece or two of its dirty laundry. This comes three months after the New York Times buried its Iraq mea culpa on page 10 (and then its ombudsman Daniel Okrent did a far more forthcoming consideration of the same).

You'll also find the following howler from executive editor Leonard Downie Jr: "We were so focused on trying to figure out what the administration [of President George W Bush] was doing that we were not giving the same play to people who said it wouldn't be a good idea to go to war and were questioning the administration's rationale," not to speak of Bob Woodward's claim that "We had no alternative sources of information" - at a moment when he knew from the horse's mouth, so to speak, that the Bush administration was intent on war with Iraq. (Of course, you didn't need insider sources to grasp this, just a pair of eyes and ears.) Imagine, though, that Washington's imperial paper of record was focused only on discovering what then couldn't have been more obvious to tens of millions of people around the world: that the Bush administration was hell-bent on and determined only to go to war, WMD (weapons of mass destruction) or no. So imagine, in turn, Kurtz is the best we can hope for a year and a quarter after Baghdad was taken, after a series of tsunami-like events that have sent the Bush administration reeling, long after every aspect of its WMD claims has gone down those "aluminum tubes" (doubts about which the Post admits to having back-paged) and into oblivion. And they say the president has a tough time acknowledging error!

Dirty Tricks

via The Agonist:

Kerry files FEC complaint against swift boat group
Accuses 527 of illegally working with Bush campaign

Friday, August 20, 2004 Posted: 9:14 PM EDT (0114 GMT)

(CNN) -- The Kerry presidential campaign filed a complaint Friday with the Federal Election Commission, alleging that ads from an anti-Kerry veterans' group are inaccurate and "illegally coordinated" with Republicans and the Bush-Cheney campaign.

The Kerry campaign has denied any collusion with those groups.

But if you want to find out what the substance of the complaint is, you have to go to the blogosphere and the redoubtable Digby:

I wonder if its appropriate for Ken Cordier, a member of the steering committee for Veterans For Bush-Cheney '04 to appear in the new nonaffiliated independent 527 Swift Boat Liars For Bush ad?

But some might think it doesn't look quite kosher. In fact, some might think it looks downright illegal.

Thumbs Down

Growing Perception World Public Disapproves of War

College Park, MD: A new PIPA/Knoswledge Networks poll finds that a large majority perceives the Bush administration making assertions about pre-war Iraq in sharp contrast to the conclusions of the 9/11 Commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee. Eighty percent perceive the administration as "currently saying that Iraq, just before the war, had actual weapons of mass destruction" (60%) or that it had a major WMD program (20%). Similarly, 70% perceive the administration as currently saying Iraq "gave substantial support to al-Qaeda" (43%) or was directly involved in the September 11 attacks (27%).

(more here

What a relief! Here I was worrying that most of my fellow citizens were utter idiots.

For Thee and Me

3,000 Jobs; 500,000 Seekers
A tsunami of applicants at the ports here doesn't bode well for Bush.

Bush administration spin doctors won't be able to paint a happy face on the fact that an effort to fill 3,000 new jobs at the increasingly busy ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach led to a spectacular flood of applications, with half a million underemployed people seeking to fill the slots. This California gold rush — applications were mailed from across the country — is hard evidence of an unusually tough job market that continues to disappoint nearly three years into an economic recovery.

The port jobs, being filled after a lottery in which applicants' postcards were chosen from a giant bin, are part time and offer no benefits. Some could evaporate after crews process the wave of imported goods heading for store shelves in time for the holiday shopping season. Yet, as a labor union official put it, Thursday's job lottery clicked with Americans because "people are hungry for a decent job."

On that score, these jobs deliver. Pay ranges from $20.66 to $28 an hour, well above the average of $8.38 per hour that entry-level workers earn in Los Angeles County. And those whose names were drawn also fall in line for possible full-time employment and membership in the powerful International Longshore and Warehouse Union, with a pension and healthcare coverage. Contrast that promise with the frustrating reality facing many Americans who are struggling to make ends meet. California employers cut 17,300 jobs in July; nationwide, just 32,000 jobs were created, well below the 250,000 most economists had predicted. And many of the jobs being created look a lot worse than the jobs that have been eliminated.

Temporary workers remain in hot demand because employers question the economy's strength. Rising healthcare costs make hiring new workers prohibitively expensive for many businesses, while a growing outsourcing trend means some American companies are doing their hiring overseas. Even though corporate earnings have remained relatively strong throughout the recovery, the fruits of the economic rebound have been slow to trickle down to employees in the form of fatter paychecks. Employers don't need to dangle additional money to keep employees because so many Americans are looking for jobs.

Give President Bush credit for staying on message. The White House takes every opportunity to remind voters that this economic rebound comes courtesy of the administration's ill-advised and poorly timed tax cuts. No matter that the Congressional Budget Office recently confirmed that the tax cuts were skewed to benefit the richest Americans rather than middle-class taxpayers. The president is still calling on Congress to extend the cuts. So it's little surprise that a recent survey conducted by a financial services firm found upscale Americans more optimistic than at any time in the last two years.

The president undoubtedly will use the upcoming Republican convention to remind voters that the economy has "turned the corner." But photographs of port officials wading through half a million job applications are a stark reminder that, for many Americans, it's the wrong corner.

I believe I coined the phrase "bi-polar economy" earlier this year. That is what we have: one economy for the wealthy, another for the serf class, you and me. A decent job is something you get by lottery now, not by training, education and preparation.

BAH-AH-AH-AH

via the indispensible yankee doodle:

An antiseptic war
As American deaths near the 1000 mark, the horror is covered up with obfuscation, intimidation, and lies

We don’t see the flag-draped coffins of American soldiers arriving at Dover Air Force Base, thanks to the Pentagon’s rigid enforcement of a policy banning news photographers. And the media, either out of squeamishness or a desire not to be accused of being unpatriotic, have all but ignored those who have been seriously injured. In Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 there is a segment on soldiers who have lost limbs and who are undergoing slow, painful rehabilitation. What’s almost shocking is the realization of how little of this we’ve seen in the mainstream media. Young men and women are giving their lives and their limbs in a war that was launched under false pretenses, to ferret out weapons and terrorists that didn’t exist. And now those who actually paid the price for Bush’s war are being forgotten. The media must be held accountable for not showing the war’s true face, regardless of the obstacles. Their failure stands as yet another example of caving in to Bush and company.

The cover-up deepens. The American-installed puppet regime, led by the thuggish prime minister, Ayad Allawi, has recently taken to threatening journalists with death. Eager to crush the uprising led by the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr by any means necessary, the government has announced that it will shoot any foreign reporter who attempts to cover the fighting in the holy city of Najaf. Reuters quoted a police lieutenant as telling journalists, "We will kill you if you leave the hotel. I will put four snipers on the roof to shoot anyone who leaves."

New York Times reporter John Burns, interviewed earlier this week on PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, said, "It’s come to the point where it’s really too dangerous for journalists to even enter Najaf." Noting that the Iraqi government also shut down Al-Jazeera recently, Burns added, "It begins to look as though Dr. Allawi’s government, for all its profession that it wants to protect journalists, is not very keen on giving us too close a coverage to what’s going on down there."

On that, you can be sure that the Allawi regime and the White House see eye to eye.

JUST AS the Bush administration’s surrogates are crushing dissent in Iraq, so is it attempting to intimidate those who would speak out against its policies at home. This week comes the remarkable news that the FBI has been questioning dissidents across the United States in hopes of keeping them away from the Republican National Convention in New York later this month.

According to a report in the New York Times, the FBI claims its efforts are aimed at preventing crime, not stopping protest marches. Yet its heavy-handed tactics could very well persuade many activists to stay home. Sarah Bardwell, a 21-year-old intern for a Denver anti-war organization affiliated with the pacifist American Friends Service Committee, said she had been visited by six investigators.

In an even more chilling example of the FBI’s anti–First Amendment tactics, three young men from Missouri reportedly decided against traveling to both the Democratic and Republican conventions after they received subpoenas and were told they were targets of an ill-defined terrorism investigation — apparently because they had engaged in minor civil disobedience at protests. In fact, they couldn’t have come to Boston even if they had wanted to, since they were ordered to testify before a grand jury during the Democratic convention. Their ACLU lawyer, Denise Lieberman, was quoted as saying that the three "got the message loud and clear that if you make plans to go to a protest, you could be subject to arrest or a visit from the FBI."

Flag-draped coffins arrive in the United States under cover of a government-imposed media blackout. An American-installed regime threatens to kill journalists. The FBI terrorizes dissidents into not exercising their free-speech rights. If such things had taken place while Richard Nixon was president, they would have been added to the bill of impeachment against him. How have we come to this?

The media having become the shepherds, we are a nation of sheep.

What Buttonwood Said

Oil Prices Hit Record on Fears of Iraqi Insurgency
By JAD MOUAWAD

Published: August 20, 2004

ARIS, Aug. 20 — Oil prices reached a new high today, before retreating to close below Thursday's record level, after the Iraqi insurgency increased its pressure on the country's oil infrastructure and traders feared growing unrest might interrupt crude exports.

Crude futures for September delivery traded in New York rose at one point to $49.40 a barrel, up 70 cents, the highest level since the New York Mercantile Exchange opened in 1983. But by the end of trading this afternoon, the price had dropped to $47.60 a barrel, down $1.10 from Thursday's record close of $48.70.

Oil has gained 57 percent so far this year, reaching records every day but one since July 30.

In Basra on Thursday night, insurgents set fire to the headquarters of Southern Oil, the company that operates Iraq's oilfields in the south. Oil exports have been cut in half, to one million barrels a day, since Aug. 8, after insurgents forced the closure of one of two pipelines in the area.

The other main outlet for Iraq's oil production, a pipeline linking the country's northern oilfields to Turkey, has been repeatedly hit in the past year, forcing its partial shutdown.

Before the war, Iraq's oil production hovered around 2.2 million barrels a day.

The attacks on Iraq's oil infrastructure come against the backdrop of fighting between the American military and Shiite militants in the city of Najaf and in the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City. There are conflicting reports today from news agencies about whether the Iraqi police had taken control in Najaf.

"The situation in Iraq has deteriorated. It's now like Murphy's Law: Everything that can go wrong, will," said Deborah White, an economist with SG Commodities in Paris. "Iraq is a war zone again."

Oil markets have been on edge in recent weeks, their concerns heightened by potential trouble in many of the world's largest oil regions. In Russia, it was pressure from the government against Yukos, the country's largest oil company. In Venezuela, it was a contested referendum on whether to oust President Hugo Chávez, though he did stay in office. In the Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Charley forced the closure of oil installations. And in Iraq, the situation with Moktada al-Sadr, the cleric opposed to the interim Iraqi government and its American backers, is still unclear.

Since most countries are producing at their maximum levels, an interruption in exports from Iraq or elsewhere would not be easily matched. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which accounts for about a third of the world's oil production, has little spare capacity itself to make up for production shortfalls.

OPEC's 11 members are pumping 30 million barrels a day, the highest level since 1979. They can lift production to 30.5 million barrels next month, according to OPEC, which is based in Vienna.

Only Saudi Arabia, OPEC's most powerful member, can still increase its output. The world's biggest oil producer has already raised production by one million barrels a day in recent months and is currently pumping 9.3 million barrels a day. Saudi Arabia still has another 1.3 million barrels a day it could bring to the market if needed.

"Because the oil markets are fundamentally tighter, the threat of a disruption is a real one," said Irene Himona, an analyst with Morgan Stanley in London. "This is where the fears concerning Russia, Venezuela and Iraq are playing in" and are driving up prices.

At the same time, Chinese consumption has fueled global demand growth over the past year. Both the International Energy Agency, based in Paris, and OPEC have been caught short by the strength of global oil demand. Both raised their forecasts in recent days.

The I.E.A., an adviser to 26 industrialized nations, projects global oil demand at 82.2 million barrels a day this year and 84 million barrels a day in 2005, about 730,000 barrels more than previously forecast.

For its part, OPEC now expects global oil consumption this year to reach 81.18 million barrels a day, up 280,000 barrels from an earlier estimate.

Tol' ya. Hello, Buttonwood. See post below.

Oil and Economics

Buttonwood
Pouring oil on the flames
Aug 20th 2004
From The Economist Global Agenda

How would financial markets react if the oil price stays stubbornly high?

Alas for oil consumers, the Middle East does not have a monopoly on instability: from Russia to Venezuela, fate has decided to hide oil under some pretty unsavoury countries. The oil price has climbed further of late as the troubles of these two countries in particular have bubbled to the surface.

If consumers do not pick up the full tab, companies will have to pick up some of it through lower margins. There is plenty of room for them to do so because profits are at record highs. Falling profits are unlikely to be anything but baleful for a stockmarket that is generously valued and under pressure from rising interest rates. Any industry heavily exposed to a high oil price and falling consumption would not seem the most toothsome of investments. Possibly, then, car companies and (especially) airlines might best be taken off the menu. Shares in both have already lost around 20% of their value this year, compared with a fall of some 4% in the S&P; 500.

For Your Retirement

Bush Opening Social Security Debate Without Saying Much

By Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Even as President Bush has started telling voters that overhauling Social Security would be a key part of his second-term agenda, he is likely to avoid offering specifics before election day, according to Bush aides, lawmakers and privatization advocates.

Instead of getting into details, which would almost certainly embroil him in controversy, Bush is campaigning on broad principles for revamping the 70-year-old retirement system in a way that fits his vision for an "ownership society," the sources said.

Bush revised his campaign speech in recent weeks to include a push for changing the program to permit personal investment accounts, a proposal many conservative activists have been hoping for months he would spotlight.

"I'm worried about our Social Security system," he said Wednesday at a stop in Wisconsin. "I'm not worried about it for baby boomers like me. The system is solvent. But if you're a younger worker, I think it's important that you be allowed to have your own personal savings account that you can carry with you throughout your life…. "

Bush is promising to protect existing benefits for current retirees and others who will soon retire, while holding the line on the paycheck deductions that finance Social Security. But he is reiterating his desire to let younger workers begin using for private investment some of the money they pay to the government for the program.

Purposefully left unanswered are the most divisive questions — such as what fraction of a worker's payroll taxes could go into a private investment account instead of the Social Security trust fund, how the government would pay the estimated $1 trillion in transition costs, and how the government would protect retirees whose investments did not turn out well.

Many experts, including some conservatives, also think any meaningful privatization plan would eventually involve some combination of reduced benefits and higher worker contributions. Bush is expected to continue to skirt that issue as well.

Confronting such matters, Republican strategists fear, could make Bush and other GOP candidates vulnerable to attacks in key states such as Florida, where senior voters have a history of punishing candidates who talk of changing Social Security.
....
"Social Security faces a long-term deficit, but calling it a crisis is an exaggeration," said Peter Orszag, an economist at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank. "The scale of the problem is manageable. If your car has a flat tire, you don't get rid of the car."

Polls show a majority of voters back the creation of personal accounts, particularly when the question is posed without mention of potentially higher taxes or shrinking benefits.

A Gallup Poll last fall showed that more than six in 10 voters backed a shift to private accounts. But it also showed a stark generational divide — 82% of voters younger than 30 backed the privatization proposal, but support steadily declined among other age groups, to less than 30% among those at least 65.

"People who are into the system now have no interest in changing anything because they're worried about losing benefits," said Frank Newport, the poll's editor in chief.

As Comrade Max has taught us so many times, the "Social Security Scare" is just that, another GOP terror tactic. Social Security is fine with nothing more than a little tweaking. Further down the article, the LAT writers try to make the case that the solvency of SS is a partisan issue, which is silly, it's an accounting issue. Balancing numbers isn't a partisan process.

CYA in Boldface Italic

Every time I think Bushco has defined the outer limits of outrage, they push it a little further.

CIA Study on Iraq Weapons Is Off Course, Officials Say
The agency is trying to project what Hussein may have developed had the U.S. not invaded.

By Greg Miller, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Having failed to find banned weapons in Iraq, the CIA is preparing a final report on its search that will speculate on what the deposed regime's capabilities might have looked like years from now if left unchecked, according to congressional and intelligence officials.

The CIA plans for the report, due next month, to project as far as 2008 what Iraq might have achieved in its illegal weapons programs if the United States had not invaded the country last year, the officials said.

The new direction of the inquiry is seen by some officials as an attempt to obscure the fact that no banned weapons — or even evidence of active programs — have been found, and instead emphasize theories that Iraq may have been planning to revive its programs.

The change in focus has angered some intelligence officials and at least one key Democrat in Congress and has brought charges of political motivation.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) protested the decision in a sharply worded letter to acting CIA Director John E. McLaughlin last week. Trying to forecast Iraq's weapons capabilities four years into the future would be, "by definition, highly speculative" and "inconsistent with the original mission of the Iraq Survey Group," Harman wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Times.

Such an effort would be a significant departure for a survey group whose primary mission when it was established last year was to locate and destroy stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons that the CIA and other agencies believed were hidden across Iraq.

David Kay, who led the group before resigning in January, said that speculating on Iraq's future capabilities was never part of the team's mission.

"Absolutely not," Kay said in a telephone interview Thursday. "We were to search for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. No one ever suggested to me in any of the discussions before I took the job, afterward, or even when I left, that [assessing Iraq's future capabilities] was a thing that should have been done."

Kay and others also questioned how such an assessment would be possible given the disarray that characterized President Saddam Hussein's government in recent years and external events that had altered the flow of illicit weapons technologies around the world.

Kay reported in January that Iraq's programs were dormant before the war. The country was still subject to United Nations sanctions and was facing a new round of inspections. Since then, authorities have cracked down on global weapons markets, most notably by unraveling the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Kay was replaced in January by former U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, who is overseeing the production of the survey group's final report. A CIA spokesman declined to say whether the report would attempt to forecast what Iraq's weapons programs might have looked like if there had not been a U.S. invasion.

"Charles Duelfer's mission is to search for the truth, and he made clear when he took the job that he was absolutely committed to following the evidence wherever it takes us," CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said. "That is what he's doing, and that is what will be reflected in his report."

The failure to find stockpiles of banned weapons has been a source of embarrassment to the CIA, as well as to the Bush administration, which made ridding Hussein of illicit arms the main rationale for a preemptive war against Iraq.

For that reason, some officials familiar with the CIA's plans for the final report said they thought it was politically motivated and designed to focus the public's attention on hypothetical future threats.

"The case made by the Bush White House was that [Iraq] was an imminent threat that must be dealt with today," said a senior congressional official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Coming out later and saying [Hussein] would have had the weapons in 2006 or 2008 … is basically a way to justify preemption."

In other words, he might have had weapons of mass destruction related programs at some point in the future. Boys, I think this ship has already sailed.

Oil Threat

Oil Rises Above $49 a Barrel as Iraq Fighting Threatens Exports

Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil futures rose to a record, surpassing $49 a barrel in New York, on concern that fighting between U.S. forces and followers of Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr will cut shipments.

Crude oil for September delivery was up 58 cents, or 1.2 percent, at $49.28 a barrel at 10:01 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices reached $49.33 a barrel, the highest since oil began trading in New York in 1983. Futures were 59 percent higher than a year earlier.

As Oil Prices Boil . . .

By David Ignatius
Friday, August 20, 2004; Page A19

You wouldn't know it from the running-on-empty rhetoric of the U.S. presidential campaign, but crude oil prices hit an all-time high this week of more than $48 a barrel. Some economists are warning about a full-blown energy crisis, with prices rising to $65 or more until they bring on a global recession that finally slows demand.

The oil market right now is a sort of inverse bubble, propelled by its own momentum of anxiety and bad news. Wherever analysts look for reliable sources of oil, they see trouble -- in Iraq, in Saudi Arabia, in Russia, in Venezuela. And on the demand side, they see the inexorable rise of the Chinese economy and its new hunger for oil imports. So traders bid up the price of crude.

It's a one-way market at the moment, with prices crashing through the previous barriers. "The $50 level is acting like a magnet," energy consultant Peter Beutel told the Associated Press on Wednesday, after prices for U.S. light crude topped $47 per barrel.

No market goes up forever. But Philip Verleger, a respected energy economist, warns that over the next several years, the price pressure will probably get worse. "Prices may rise to $50 per barrel, or $60 per barrel, or even $70 per barrel," he writes in a recent report to clients. "They will likely remain there until growth in petroleum demand slows down enough to match available refining, logistical and productive capacity."

Verleger says the situation reminds him of 1973, when James Akins, who later became U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, wrote an article in Foreign Affairs titled "The Oil Crisis: This Time the Wolf Is Here." Soon after the article appeared, oil prices spiked -- to double even what Akins had predicted. "I have that ghastly feeling that we are about to repeat that cycle," Verleger worries.
....
So with a severe energy crisis just over the horizon, what do the U.S. presidential candidates have to say? Not much that's helpful. The Kerry and Bush campaigns both have energy policies, of course. In fact, they're actually quite similar -- calling for more investment in coal and other alternatives to oil. But there's no sense, in either camp, that the country is facing a severe threat to its economy.

Both candidates attack each other for once favoring new taxes on energy. The Bush Web site even has a gizmo that allows you to calculate, with spurious precision, how much the gasoline tax increase that Kerry advocated years ago would cost you -- depending on the make and model of your car, where you live, and how many miles you drive each week. The Kerry Web site, not to be outdone in the cheap-shot department, denounces a proposal Vice President Cheney made in 1986 to tax oil imports -- claiming that if enacted, it would by now have cost consumers $1.2 trillion.

What makes these taxophobic attacks especially outrageous is that many economists believe new taxes on oil are one of the few ways that the United States might regain control of its energy destiny -- and move from the crazy oil-anxiety bubble of today toward something more stable and secure.

The non-debate over energy illustrates what's depressing about this campaign. The country is in serious trouble -- with record-high oil prices and the threat of a new energy crisis just one example of our global problems. But rather than the serious debate the country needs, we're hearing platitudes. George Bush and John Kerry evidently would rather play it safe and avoid politically controversial proposals, which in today's world is downright dangerous.

The Dark Side

Doctors implicated in abuse of Iraqi prisoners

00:01 20 August 04

NewScientist.com news service

The medical community is calling for an investigation into the role of US medical staff in the prisoner abuse that took place in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, according to two new journal articles and appeals from physicians' groups.

Miles, along with the journal's editors, is calling for a full investigation of the role of medical staff after he scoured news reports and available government documents on the abuse.

Abu Ghraib Probe Points to Top Brass

By Josh White and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 20, 2004; Page A01

An Army investigation into the role of military intelligence personnel in the abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison reports that the scandal was not just caused by a small circle of rogue military police soldiers but resulted from failures of leadership rising to the highest levels of the U.S. command in Iraq, senior defense officials said.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the report has not yet been completed, said the 9,000-page document says that a combination of leadership failings, confounding policies, lack of discipline and absolute confusion at the prison led to the abuse. It widens the scope of culpability from seven MPs who have been charged with abuse to include nearly 20 low-ranking soldiers who could face criminal prosecution in military courts. No Army officers, however, are expected to face criminal charges.

Officials also said that the report implicates five civilian contractors in the abuse, and that Army officials plan to recommend that their cases be sent to the Justice Department for possible prosecution in civilian courts.

The investigation, shepherded by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay, is one of several into the abuse, which became widely known after hundreds of photographs surfaced depicting detainees in mock sexual positions, in a naked human pyramid and being intimidated by unmuzzled dogs. While the Pentagon and the White House have consistently blamed the abuse on what they have called a rogue band of MPs acting on their own, officials said this new report spreads the blame and points to widespread problems at the prison.

The findings, elements of which were reported by other news organizations, appear to support contentions by defense attorneys for the charged MPs that the problems at the prison were pervasive and were exacerbated by a lack of leadership. The lawyers have asserted that their clients were acting on orders when they stripped detainees and kept them awake using stress positions and humiliating poses. Officials said the Fay report will stop short of saying that soldiers were ordered to abuse detainees.

One senior defense official said the investigation specifically decries the fact that many soldiers saw or knew of the abuse and never reported it to authorities. Concerns are also raised about the vague instructions from high-ranking officials about what was allowed during interrogations at the prison, which led military intelligence and military police soldiers to misapply them, the official said.

"The interrogation policy was misunderstood, and it was one of a few policies that failed," the official said. "There was total confusion about the military intelligence tactics, techniques and procedures."

Another defense official said the Army study would be "a comprehensive report, a thorough look at another aspect of Abu Ghraib, to include up to the CJTF-command level," a reference to Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who until recently was the top U.S. commander in Iraq. Others said the report criticizes the leadership but softens its assessment by noting that top officers were focused on the insurgency that erupted last summer.

Officials said the probe criticizes commanders for essentially failing to pick up the strong signs of abuse as they rose through the chain of command and for all but ignoring reports from the International Committee of the Red Cross detailing the abuse.

The top command "shares responsibility for not ensuring proper leadership, proper discipline and proper resources," one defense official said. "Command should have paid more attention to the issue. Signals, symptoms of abuse weren't fully vetted to the top."

Military officials said Fay's report is expected to be presented to the public early next week. An independent investigative panel appointed by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld plans to issue its report on Tuesday. The Senate Armed Services Committee announced yesterday separate hearings set for Sept. 9 to deal with both reports.

In the medical journal the Lancet, an American physician and bioethicist called for an investigation of the role medical personnel may have played in enabling and overlooking the abuse at Abu Ghraib.

"The U.S. military medical system failed to protect detainees' human rights, sometimes collaborated with interrogators or abusive guards, and failed to properly report injuries or deaths caused by beatings," Steven H. Miles of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota wrote in the issue published today.

The Lancet requires fairly intrusive registration for limited access for non-subscribers. Here is an excerpt from Miles article:

Confirmed or reliably reported abuses of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan include beatings, burns, shocks, bodily suspensions, asphyxia, threats against detainees and their relatives, sexual humiliation, isolation, prolonged hooding and shackling, and exposure to heat, cold, and loud noise.1,14,19,24,33,34 These include deprivation of sleep, food, clothing, and material for personal hygiene, and denigration of Islam and forced violation of its rites.19 Detainees were forced to work in areas that were not de-mined and seriously injured.34 Abuses of women detainees are less well documented but include credible allegations of sexual humiliation and rape.13,14,35

US Army investigators concluded that Abu Ghraib's medical system for detainees was inadequately staffed and equipped.8,11,13,16,17 The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) found that the medical system failed to maintain internment cards with medical information necessary to protect the detainees' health as required by the Geneva Convention; this reportedly was due to a policy of not officially processing (ie, recording their presence in the prison) new detainees.16,34 Few units in Iraq and Afghanistan complied with the Geneva obligation to provide monthly health inspections.17 The medical system also failed to assure that prisoners could request proper medical care as required by the Geneva Convention. For example, an Abu Ghraib detainee's sworn document says that a purulent hand injury caused by torture went untreated. The individual was also told by an Iraqi physician working for the US that bleeding of his ear (from a separate beating) could not be treated in a clinic; he was treated instead in a prison hallway.20

The medical system failed to establish procedures, as called for by Article 30 of the Geneva Convention, to ensure proper treatment of prisoners with disabilities. An Abu Ghraib prisoner's deposition reports the crutch that he used because of a broken leg was taken from him and his leg was beaten as he was ordered to renounce Islam. The same detainee told a guard that the prison doctor had told him to immobilise a badly injured shoulder; the guard's response was to suspend him from the shoulder.21....

Legal arguments as to whether detainees were prisoners of war, soldiers, enemy combatants, terrorists, citizens of a failed state, insurgents, or criminals miss an essential point. The US has signed or enacted numerous instruments including the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights,45 the UN Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment,46 UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners,36 the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,47 and US military internment and inter-rogation policies,8-10 collectively containing mandatory and voluntary standards barring US armed forces from practicing torture or degrading treatments of all persons.

For example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."45 The Geneva Convention states: "Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction . . . The following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons: Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; . . . Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment . . . No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind."48 Furthermore, the US War Crimes Act says that US forces will comply with the Annex to the Hague Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War both of which bar torture or inhumane treatment.48-50

Pentagon leaders testified that military officials did not investigate or act on reports by Amnesty International and the ICRC of abuses at Abu Ghraib and other coalition detention facilities throughout 2002 and 2003.1,24,33,34 The command at Abu Ghraib and in Iraq was inattentive to human rights organisations' and soldiers' oral and written reports of abuses.51 After the ICRC criticised the treatment of Abu Ghraib detainees, its access to detainees was curtailed.1

The role of military medicine in these abuses merits special attention because of the moral obligations of medical professionals with regard to torture and because of horror at health professionals who are silently or actively complicit with torture. Active medical complicity with torture has occurred throughout the world. Physicians collaborated with torture during Saddam Hussein's regime.52 Physicians' and nurses' professional organisations have created codes against participation in torture.25-26,31,53,54 Physicians in Chile, Egypt, Turkey and other nations have taken great personal risks to expose state-sponsored torture.25,26,55 Health professionals have created organisations including Physicians for Human Rights and Amnesty International's Health Professionals Network. Numerous non-medical groups have asserted that healers must be advocates for persons at risk of torture.25,26,31,32,56

This is what was done in our name. If we are not outraged, we are the moral equivalent of the monsters which inflicted this abuse.

Same Old

Voting While Black
By BOB HERBERT

Published: August 20, 2004

The smell of voter suppression coming out of Florida is getting stronger. It turns out that a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation, in which state troopers have gone into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando in a bizarre hunt for evidence of election fraud, is being conducted despite a finding by the department last May "that there was no basis to support the allegations of election fraud."

State officials have said that the investigation, which has already frightened many voters and intimidated elderly volunteers, is in response to allegations of voter fraud involving absentee ballots that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in March. But the department considered that matter closed last spring, according to a letter from the office of Guy Tunnell, the department's commissioner, to Lawson Lamar, the state attorney in Orlando, who would be responsible for any criminal prosecutions.

The letter, dated May 13, said:

"We received your package related to the allegations of voter fraud during the 2004 mayoral election. This dealt with the manner in which absentee ballots were either handled or collected by campaign staffers for Mayor Buddy Dyer. Since this matter involved an elected official, the allegations were forwarded to F.D.L.E.'s Executive Investigations in Tallahassee, Florida.

"The documents were reviewed by F.D.L.E., as well as the Florida Division of Elections. It was determined that there was no basis to support the allegations of election fraud concerning these absentee ballots. Since there is no evidence of criminal misconduct involving Mayor Dyer, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement considers this matter closed."

Well, it's not closed. And department officials said yesterday that the letter sent out in May was never meant to indicate that the "entire" investigation was closed. Since the letter went out, state troopers have gone into the homes of 40 or 50 black voters, most of them elderly, in what the department describes as a criminal investigation. Many longtime Florida observers have said the use of state troopers for this type of investigation is extremely unusual, and it has caused a storm of controversy.

The officers were armed and in plain clothes. For elderly African-American voters, who remember the terrible torment inflicted on blacks who tried to vote in the South in the 1950's and 60's, the sight of armed police officers coming into their homes to interrogate them about voting is chilling indeed.

One woman, who is in her mid-70's and was visited by two officers in June, said in an affidavit: "After entering my house, they asked me if they could take their jackets off, to which I answered yes. When they removed their jackets, I noticed they were wearing side arms. ... And I noticed an ankle holster on one of them when they sat down."

Though apprehensive, she answered all of their questions. But for a lot of voters, the emotional response to the investigation has gone beyond apprehension to outright fear.

"These guys are using these intimidating methods to try and get these folks to stay away from the polls in the future,'' said Eugene Poole, president of the Florida Voters League, which tries to increase black voter participation throughout the state. "And you know what? It's working. One woman said, 'My God, they're going to put us in jail for nothing.' I said, 'That's not true.' "

State officials deny that their intent was to intimidate black voters. Mr. Tunnell, who was handpicked by Gov. Jeb Bush to head the Department of Law Enforcement, said in a statement yesterday: "Instead of having them come to the F.D.L.E. office, which may seem quite imposing, our agents felt it would be a more relaxed atmosphere if they visited the witnesses at their homes.''

When I asked a spokesman for Mr. Tunnell, Tom Berlinger, about the letter in May indicating that the allegations were without merit, he replied that the intent of the letter had not been made clear by Joyce Dawley, a regional director who drafted and signed the letter for Mr. Tunnell.

"The letter was poorly worded,'' said Mr. Berlinger. He said he spoke to Ms. Dawley about the letter a few weeks ago and she told him, "God, I wish I would have made that more clear." What Ms. Dawley meant to say, said Mr. Berlinger, was that it did not appear that Mayor Dyer himself was criminally involved.

Coming into people's homes wearing sidearms is somehow less intimidating than what? And under what law would you haul them into the local FBI office? This is blatant intimidation and why are learning about it on the Op-Ed page? Where are the news reporters?

Broke the Mold

Mastering the Art of Julia Child
By ALEX PRUD'HOMME

A few days before Julia Child died, we sat together in her compact, fragrant garden in Montecito, Calif., talking about her life. She was about to turn 92. Although she was thin and pale, she seemed stronger and more acute that day than she had been in weeks. She had always loved to work, and, as usual, she corrected my French accent and added little soupçons of information to the book we were writing together, a series of reminiscences from the years 1948 to 1954, when she and her husband Paul, my great-uncle, lived in France. Julia sometimes had difficulty remembering a conversation from the day before, but she could recall events from 50 years ago with surprising clarity.

She had arrived in France in November 1948 not speaking the language or knowing how to cook. "I had never even heard of a shallot," she said. "I was there as Paul's extra baggage." Ten years older than Julia, he ran the visual presentation department at the United States Information Service. By the time they left for other postings six years later, Julia was fluent in French, ran a cooking school and was co-authoring a comprehensive cookbook that would later make her famous.

She learned many things in Paris, she said, one of the most important of which was how to shop like a Parisian. "It was life-changing," she said, "because shopping in France taught me about human relations." Through daily excursions to the outdoor market on the Rue de Bourgogne, or into the organized chaos of Les Halles, she learned that the French are highly attuned to social nuance. If a tourist enters a food stall thinking she will be cheated, the salesman will happily oblige, Julia explained. But if he senses that his customer took a genuine interest in his produce, then he will just "open up like a flower."

With a smile, she added: "I quickly learned how to communicate. If I wasn't willing to spend time to get to know the sellers and what they were selling, then I wouldn't go home with the freshest head of lettuce or best bit of steak in my basket. They really made me work for my supper. But what a supper - yum! And it was such fun."

It was this spirit, her vigorous curiosity and joie de vivre, that made Julia so appealing to so many people. And it is one of the things that sets her apart from many of today's celebrity chefs and lifestyle entrepreneurs. While the sale of her books - starting in 1961, with "Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I'' - provided her with a very good living, she was never in it for the money. She refused to endorse products or restaurants, and turned down many lucrative commercial television projects in favor of public television. She was motivated by a deep enjoyment of food and its preparation, and would happily spend hours tinkering in the kitchen by herself or, preferably, with others.

In her garden that day the flinty side of Julia was also on display. This is an aspect of her personality that people tend to overlook or ignore, but it was just as much a part of her as the fun-loving "ham" and "hayseed" that was her television persona. She was not simply a funny tall lady who dropped food on the floor and appeared to swig wine intemperately. (In fact, she was privately irritated by such caricatures.) She was a driven and rigorous technician, a well-trained and hard-working cook who loved French cuisine in part because it had what she called "rules."

Steve Gilliard wrote a loving and accurate appreciation of how Julia changed American food and touched off the boom in American restaurants and the food we eat in our own kitchens, and the ingrediants we find in our grocery stores. He was correct in all of this and I remember the change well. She taught us to cook with fresh food in an era when everything was canned or frozen.

I grew up in those canned and frozen 1950's and it took an effort to learn to use the produce department of the grocery store, but I did. And from there learned to grow it. I no longer have the space for an extensive garden, but I have room for growing herbs, another thing I learned from Julia Child. Fresh herbs spike a dish like nothing else, and I grow them three steps from the back door. I shop at the local Farmer's Market and have learned the value of a heritage tomato and artisan breads. All of these things seem ordinary now, but we owe Julia Child a great debt in having learned to appreciate them from her. When I head out to the market tomorrow morning, in search of some perfect sweet corn, heritage tomatos and buffalo mozzarella, she'll be on my mind. Bon appetit, Julia, and I hope they have sweet Deleware melons in heaven.

Fighting Resumes

Iraqi Prime Minister Issues 'Final Call' to Sadr
Violence Continues in Najaf Between U.S. Forces and Mahdi Army

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 19, 2004; 3:13 PM

BAGHDAD, Aug. 19 -- Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi Thursday issued a "final call" for an end to the rebellion led by Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, saying he wanted to hear from Sadr personally that the cleric will dissolve and disarm his militia.

While Allawi said "the door is still open" for Sadr's compliance with the government's conditions, the prime minister's comments were followed by declarations from his ministers that they were ready for an armed confrontation with Sadr's forces.

Sadr spokesmen have over the past two days provided sometimes conflicting responses -- at times positive, at times bellicose -- about the cleric's willingness to cooperate in defusing the crisis in the holy city of Najaf.

Allawi's statement was the latest chapter in an increasingly complicated arms-length exchange aimed at preventing a violent showdown at the sacred shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf, where Sadr's militia is holed up. The shrine is considered holy to Muslims across the globe.

While U.S. forces have cordoned off the shrine and are responding to attacks from Sadr's militia, Allawi has told U.S. commanders he wants Iraqi forces, not foreign troops, to attack the shrine if necessary.

And while various officials of the interim government, as well as U.S. military officers, have repeatedly said they were on the brink of a major offensive in Najaf, none has occurred.

Meanwhile, the violence continued in Najaf Thursday with fighting between U.S. forces and Sadr's Mahdi Army in the vicinity of the shrine. The Reuters news agency reported that late in the evening U.S. aircraft pounded militia positions in the vast cemetery adjoining the shrine.

CNN's Matthew Chance is reporting heavy fighting in the city at 5 PM EDT.

As of today: 49 coalition troops killed in August, 111 since the handover of "sovereignty, 800 since the end of "major combat operations," 1083 since the beginning of the war.

Economy Potpourri

Leading Indicators and Jobless Claims Dip
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: August 19, 2004
Filed at 3:00 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- Offering more evidence that the nation's economic recovery is losing steam, a closely watched gauge of future business activity fell in July for the second consecutive month.

The Conference Board said Thursday that its Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators dropped by 0.3 percent in July to 116.0, following a revised decline of 0.1 percent in June. Last month was the first time in more than a year that the index had lost ground, and the July decline was larger than the 0.1 percent dip forecast by analysts.

The index is closely followed because it is designed to forecast the economy's health over the coming three to six months. Economists said the new reading, taken together with a mixed batch of other recent data, points to slower growth in the months ahead.
....
Ken Goldstein, an economist with the Conference Board, said the continued decline in the index reflects the effect that a host of factors -- from energy prices to worries about terrorism -- are having on the economy.

``The latest decline in the Leading Index reflects a loss of forward momentum,'' Goldstein said. ``There are growing concerns about the high cost of gasoline and milk, as well as worries about where economic growth will come from now that tax refunds have been spent and short-term interest rates are rising.''

The New York-based Conference Board said six of the 10 indicators that make up the index declined in July. They included vendor performance, the interest rate spread, stock prices, average weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance, real money supply and manufacturers' new orders for nondefense capital goods.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment insurance dipped by 3,000 to 331,000 last week. That marked the third consecutive week of decline in claims. The four-week moving average of claims, which smooths out fluctuations in the often-volatile figures, fell to 337,000 from 339,500 in the previous week.

Components of the Leading Indicators index that rose were building permits, the index of consumer expectations, average weekly manufacturing hours and manufacturers' new orders for consumer goods and materials.

The decline in the index means there is less wind in the economy's sails. But some of the factors driving down the index are temporary, leaving open the question of whether it points to anything more than a moderation of growth, said Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pa.

WaPo is running a competing AP story which is considerably sunnier--odd that two opposing stories would run on the same wire service.

N.Y. Crude Oil Rises Above $48 as Iraqi Fighting Cuts Exports

Aug. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil futures jumped above $48 a barrel in New York on concern that Iraqi exports may drop further because of clashes in southern Iraq between U.S. troops and fighters loyal to Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Crude oil for September delivery was up $1.43, or 3 percent, at $48.70 a barrel at the 2:30 p.m. close of floor trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices reached $48.75 a barrel, the highest since oil began trading in New York in 1983. Oil has set an intraday record all but one day since July 30.

Pension Shock

United Likely to Terminate Pension Plans
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: August 19, 2004

Filed at 2:27 p.m. ET

CHICAGO (AP) -- Cash-strapped United Airlines said in a bankruptcy court filing Thursday that it ``likely'' will be necessary to terminate and replace its employee pension plans.

The carrier cited the size of further cost cuts and the need to find bankruptcy-exit financing as reasons for such a drastic move.

The filing came a day before a federal bankruptcy court hearing on United's pension plans, which the company announced last month it would no longer contribute to while in Chapter 11. That action has been assailed by United's unions and challenged by the government's pension-protection agency as violating federal pension law.

In its court filing, United cited the government's recent decision to reject its bid for a $1.6 billion loan guarantee along with sky-high jet fuel prices. The Elk Grove Village, Ill.-based airline said it ``must have the cash flow and liquidity that the financial markets are willing to finance.''

``We have taken every effort to restructure our business without affecting accrued pension benefits, and will continue to explore every other option,'' the company said in the 26-page filing. ``However, given the magnitude of further cost reductions needed to create a viable business plan and attract exit financing, termination and replacement of all our defined benefit pension plans likely will be required.''

If United ends its four employee pension funds, it would represent the largest pension default ever by an airline. The action would dump billions of dollars in future pension obligations onto the already-strapped Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

The agency said last week that United's pension plans are underfunded by $8.3 billion.

Yikes, this is hugely bad news, both for the employees and for the economy. If they do decide to default, the government will sue and the whole thing will be wrapped up in court for years with the employees paying the price. Additionally, as I think has been more than adequately demonstrated here, the economy ain't in all that grand of shape and this isn't going to help. United (and a couple of the other airlines) are looking at substantial layoffs, up goes the unemployment rate, down goes consumer spending.

Sorrows of Empire, Pt.XII

The new Caesars
The Bush administration's empire building is trampling on who we are and were always meant to be -- a republic.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Gary Hart

Why should we care one way or the other? The answer is simple. The United States cannot be simultaneously republic and empire. For evidence, see Rome (circa 65 B.C.). We salute the flag of the United States of America "and the Republic for which it stands." Since the time of the Greek city-states, republics have shared certain immutable qualities: civic virtue or citizen participation, popular sovereignty, resistance to corruption (by special interests) and a sense of the common good. Empires consolidate power in the hands of the few; seek expanded influence, by force if necessary; export centralized administrations to foreign lands; dictate terms to lesser powers, and manage foreign occupied peoples for their own political and commercial advantage.

The imperial project is in direct contradiction to America's constitutional principles. We are a republic, not an empire, and we are a republic much in need of restoration, as the erosion of the quality of resistance to corruption and the erosion of the exercise of civic virtue testify. America's 21st century project should be restoring our republic, not projecting imperial power into venues we are, by our very nature, unequipped to dominate.

This will be the task of the next couple of administrations. It is going to take time to undo the anti-republican legislation and regulation promulgated by the Bushies and their congressional accomplices. Empire has really gone to the heads of the neocons and it has caused them a rush which obscures reality. This kind of power is addictive and we need to clear the addicts out.

The Next Wave

Report on Iraq Abuse Will Widen the Blame
Intelligence soldiers and civilian contractors at Abu Ghraib are implicated, but military brass outside the prison are not, officials say.

By John Hendren, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — A long-awaited report on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal will implicate about two dozen military intelligence soldiers and civilian contractors in the intimidation and sexual humiliation of Iraq war prisoners, but will not suggest wrongdoing by military brass outside the prison, senior Defense officials said Wednesday.

The report will recommend disciplinary action against two senior prison officers: the colonel in charge of the military intelligence brigade that oversaw interrogations at the compound near Baghdad and a general in charge of a reserve military police brigade in charge of the prison.

It also will recommend that the intelligence soldiers face criminal abuse charges similar to those lodged earlier against seven reserve military police soldiers, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

But in the end, Defense officials said, the report implicates no one outside the prison.

"The report is going to say responsibility for Abu Ghraib stops at the brigade level," a senior official said.
....
Some on Capitol Hill said they were dismayed that the investigation failed to implicate more senior military officers or Bush administration officials. The administration has portrayed the abuses as isolated incidents committed in disregard of established procedures. But critics have questioned whether administration policies favoring more aggressive interrogations contributed to a climate in which abuses occurred and whether Fay's findings might be part of a lax Pentagon response.

"I'm a little shocked, I guess, that it doesn't go higher than that," a senior congressional aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said when told of the initial news reports, adding that the findings weren't dramatic. "It's not big stuff."

However, others said the prison scandal was fueled in part by the political season.

"It's an election year. This is going to go on and on until November," said Dana Dillon, a military analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.

"Unless there is demonstrable evidence that somebody ordered these things carried out — and that seems pretty incredible — I don't think it will go beyond" the military police brigade general, Dillon said.

Another military investigation into prison problems drew criticism when it was released last month.

The investigation, a review of the detention system by the Army's inspector general, concluded that instances of misconduct were "aberrations," a finding that was widely denounced as a whitewash.

This is silly. We already know from earlier investigations (at least here, here, here, and here) that there is considerable evidence that this was policy rather than aberration.

Delicious

Bush Campaign Adviser Quits as Sexual Misconduct Case Is Recalled
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Published: August 19, 2004

Deal W. Hudson, the publisher of the conservative Roman Catholic journal Crisis and the architect of a Republican effort to court Catholic voters, says he is resigning as an adviser to the Bush campaign because of a Catholic newspaper's investigation into accusations of sexual misconduct involving a female student at a college where he once taught.

"No one regrets my past mistakes more than I do," Mr. Hudson wrote in a column posted yesterday on the online edition of National Review announcing his resignation.

"At the time, I dealt with this in an upright manner, and the matter was satisfactorily resolved long ago," he wrote, without specifying the accusations. Mr. Hudson, 54, said he had been happily married to his current wife for 17 years. Called for comment, he declined.

Mr. Hudson did not name the publication. Others who said they had been contacted by a newspaper doing an investigation said it was The National Catholic Reporter.

Thomas Roberts, editor of The National Catholic Reporter, declined to comment.

At Fordham University, a Jesuit school in New York where Mr. Hudson taught from 1989 to 1995, a university spokeswoman confirmed that the episode had led to Mr. Hudson's resignation. The spokeswoman, Elizabeth Schmalz, said: "Fordham followed its policy rigorously in this matter and initiated an investigation upon receipt of the student complaint. The professor later surrendered his tenure at Fordham." A person involved with the university's investigation said that a freshman in one of Mr. Hudson's classes reported to the university that, after she had become drunk at a bar, Mr. Hudson made sexual advances toward her. After a period of weeks, she charged him with sexual harassment. The accusations were made near the end of a school year, and Mr. Hudson left academia.

Mr. Hudson, a former Southern Baptist who converted to Catholicism at the age of 34, has been an influential adviser to President Bush and a close friend of the White House political strategist Karl Rove since the late 1990's. Mr. Hudson first caught Mr. Rove's attention by publishing a study in Crisis in 1998 arguing that Republican candidates could make inroads among traditionally Democratic-leaning Catholic voters by focusing on regular churchgoers, a strategy that dovetailed with Mr. Bush's emphasis on "compassionate conservatism."

Mr. Hudson signed on as an adviser to Mr. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign. For the last four years, he has been a prominent participant in a weekly conference call held by the Republican National Committee each Thursday with influential Catholic supporters.

Another moralizer caught. The National Catholic Reporter is the voice of the left side of the Church and is published bi-weekly. The next edition goes up on the web on August 27.

Talking Out of Turn

U.S. General Violated Rules with 'Satan' Speeches
Wed Aug 18, 2004 11:06 PM ET

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Army general violated Pentagon rules by failing to properly clear speeches in which he described the war on terror as a Christian battle against Satan and should be punished, according to an inspector general's report obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.

The Department of Defense's watchdog agency said Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a top-ranking intelligence officer, used official data in some of the 23 religious-oriented speeches he gave after January 2002 which should have been cleared.

Boykin touched off a firestorm last October after giving speeches while in uniform in which he referred to the war on terror as a battle with Satan and said America had been targeted "because we're a Christian nation." He said later he was not anti-Islam or any other religion.

Boykin was obliged to clear the speeches, given "the sensitive nature of his remarks concerning U.S. policy and the likelihood that he would be perceived by his audiences as a DOD spokesman based on his official position and his appearance in uniform," the report said.

Boykin, an evangelical Christian, violated other rules by failing to issue a required disclaimer at the speeches that he was not representing official Pentagon policy, it said.

He also failed to report his receipt of one travel payment exceeding $260 from a non-government source, said the report, which was submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The report said Boykin did make "good faith efforts" to consult legal advisers about his speaking activities and that should be considered when the Army Secretary assessed the seriousness of the violations.

"We recommend that the Acting Secretary of the Army take appropriate corrective action with respect to Lt. Gen. Boykin," the report said.

The investigation did not focus on whether the substance of Boykin's remarks was appropriate for a senior Pentagon official or whether it compromised his fitness for performing his duties.

A Pentagon spokeswoman had no comment on the report, or what type of punishment the general would face. "That report has not been released. At this point it would be inappropriate for me to comment," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jane Campbell.

It tells you something about how far we've fallen into theofascism that this guy is still wearing the uniform.

Energy Moves

Deal to Ship Russian Gas to U.S. Is Said to Be Close
By JAMES BROOKE

TOKYO, Aug. 18 - Russian liquefied natural gas would be shipped across the Pacific to help power California under a contract that is in "very, very advanced" negotiations, according to a corporate executive on Sakhalin Island, Russia's new energy production center in the Pacific.

The gas would go to a terminal in Northern Mexico from a plant on Sakhalin that is to open in 2007, becoming Russia's first plant to chill natural gas for shipping, according to Andy Calitz, commercial director of the Sakhalin Energy Investment Company, a production consortium led by Royal Dutch/Shell.

Although occasional tankers of oil have crossed the Pacific this summer, sailing from Sakhalin to Hawaii and Alaska, the new deal would give a big lift to faltering efforts by Russia and the United States to cooperate on energy.

"We are prepared to ship gas and oil directly to the United States," Alexander Losyukov, Russia's ambassador to Japan, said Tuesday, alluding to the gas contract, which received official Russian approval last month. "We want to be a reliable supplier, probably more reliable than the Middle East."

The buyer, a Shell- Sempra Energy joint venture, is expected to give final approval to the contract in September. By December, this group expects to break ground on a $600 million regasification plant in Mexico. The plant in Ensenada, about 80 miles south of San Diego, would turn superchilled liquid into gas to be moved by pipeline to Northern Mexico and Southern California. The plant is to be ready in 2007, the year that the Sakhalin plant would be ready on the Asian side of the Pacific.
....
"Rivalry for energy, especially oil, between China and Japan on a global scale is unavoidable," Zhang Kexi, a commentator, wrote last month in The China Daily, a state-controlled publication. "It is likely that China will forever encounter Japan's global energy rivalry, just as the ongoing pipeline route dispute between China and Japan shows."

Indeed, it looks as if China has lost one round on a major oil pipeline. Russia appears to want to build a pipeline to the Pacific to export Eastern Siberian oil. Fearful that a pipeline to China would make Russia captive to a single buyer, Moscow wants to take oil to its Pacific port of Nakhodka, where it could then go to a wide range of markets, including the United States. The Bush administration favors the Pacific port approach as Eastern Siberia could become a new source of oil for the West Coast of the United States.

"The whole project is in the final stages of preparation," the Russian ambassador said, referring to what could be a 2,500-mile, $12 billion pipeline to the Sea of Japan, largely financed with Japanese money. "The final decision will be announced in early fall, probably September or October."

Oil shipments are to start from Perevoznaya, a port near Nakhodka, in 2006, four years earlier than originally planned, according to an announcement made last month by Transneft, Russia's state oil transport company. Next year, work is to start near Lake Baikal on the first 600 miles of this pipeline.

To help fill the pipe, Japan advanced $75 million to Russia this summer to help measure oil reservoirs along the rail route.

This is the future: competition for energy between the West and the East. There will be competition for water, as well, but those tensions break out more North/South..

The Worker Worthy of Hire

Rising Cost of Health Benefits Cited as Factor in Slump of Jobs

By EDUARDO PORTER

Published: August 19, 2004

A relentless rise in the cost of employee health insurance has become a significant factor in the employment slump, as the labor market adds only a trickle of new jobs each month despite nearly three years of uninterrupted economic growth.

Government data, industry surveys and interviews with employers big and small indicate that many businesses remain reluctant to hire full-time employees because health insurance, which now costs the nation's employers an average of about $3,000 a year for each worker, has become one of the fastest-growing costs for companies. Health premiums are sapping corporate balance sheets even more than the rising cost of energy.

In the second quarter, the cost of health benefits rose at a 12-month rate of 8.1 percent - more than three times the inflation rate and the rate of increases in wages and salaries.

"Health care is a major reason why employment growth has been so sluggish," said Sung Won Sohn, the chief economist at Wells Fargo.

Although the economy emerged from recession long ago, posting 11 straight quarters of growth, there are still about a million fewer jobs in the United States than there were at the beginning of 2001, just before the country sank into recession.

A spurt in job growth between March and May raised hopes that employment would emerge from the doldrums. But job growth slowed sharply again in June and came to a virtual standstill last month. In July, businesses added a mere 32,000 jobs, and for the first time this year more businesses let workers go than hired new ones.

Because of the cost of health insurance, "we are making decisions not to hire people," said Steve Hayes, the owner of Custom Electronics in Falmouth, Me., which installs electronic systems like home theaters and communications networks in homes and offices. "Before, we hired based on workload," he added. "Now it's a question of affordability."

Mr. Hayes said his health insurance premiums had risen by 22 percent a year in the last four years. He now pays $4,150 a month in health insurance premiums for his 33 employees, and the workers contribute an equal amount from their own pockets. The company's revenue - less than $5 million annually - has been growing briskly, he said, but outlays for health benefits are growing even faster, eating into the company's profits.

The increase in health insurance premiums reflects the rising cost of health care, which is being driven by expensive new drugs, many of them heavily advertised to consumers; medical advances including diagnostic tests that require costly new machines; and a reaction to past restrictions in managed care health plans that sought to rein in costs.

My student insurance went up 27% last year. This year, I simply can't afford it. I haven't calculated the increased costs in deductibles and copays. I just stopped going to the doctor.

Businesses, meanwhile, are trying all kinds of coping strategies. Some companies have responded by shifting part of the health insurance burden onto their workers or by ratcheting up premiums and deductibles. Some have eliminated coverage for dependents, while others have canceled their medical plans altogether. Many have frozen or reduced wages to compensate for ever bigger health insurance bills.

"Our health care costs are rising at three to four times the rate of increase of our revenues," said Michael Stoll, vice president for corporate benefits at the Kroger Company, a supermarket giant that owns several retail chains, including Ralph's, Food 4 Less and King Soopers, and employs 290,000 people around the nation.

Kroger, one of the targets of the five-month supermarket workers' strike in California that ended in March, reached an agreement with unions in that state to retain existing health benefits for current workers but to allow the company to offer new employees significantly curtailed health plans.

Trotter Machine, a small maker of parts for hydraulic valves in Rockford, Ill., has taken a different approach. In the last year, the company has doubled the employee's deductible on the company health plan, to $1,000 a year, and it has slowed wage increases - all in response to the company's escalating health care premium, which has risen to $18,000 a month from less than $10,000 five years ago.

Trotter's business has picked up after two flat years, and the company has responded by adding 12 full-time jobs since last November, bringing the total to 65 full-time workers and 5 temporary positions. But health care inflation has instilled a new level of caution in the hiring process: 9 of the 12 new workers started off as temps, achieving full-time status only after three or four months on the job.

"In the past we would hire people right out of the gate, and they could get on the health plan in 60 days," said Skip Trotter, the company's vice president for operations. "Now we use temp services. I can keep a temp for 90 to 120 days, and the agency pays for the health benefits."

I temped for years. I've yet to meet a temp service where you qualify for benefits before six months on the job, and can rarely afford the premiums after. Mr. Trotter's temp workers are uncovered. Beyond the hourly premium he pays to the temp firm to use them, he will pay extra in illness absences by workers who can not afford to go to the doctor. Of course, they are just temps and if they get strep and can't afford a doctor, the agency can send someone else, someone you'll have to train again. New employees are expensive and there is an agressive curve of cost to bring them up to speed and you are going to pay it one way or the other.

UPDATE: Economist Kash, writing at Angry Bear, posted some charts this morning which show 1.) the employers' cost of providing health and disability insurance from 1986-2003, and 2.) wages as a fraction of total compensation. The numbers are pretty scary. In commentary, Kash adds:

The health care problem in the US is big, and getting bigger. While one aspect of that is that more and more people must go without health care, an equally important aspect is the fact that "after-health care" disposible income will continue to fall, as health care costs eat up more and more of individuals' compensation. I don't see any good solution to this incessant march in health care costs without a major, MAJOR overhaul of how this nation provides health care to its citizens. When the situation gets bad enough in the US, there will probably be political pressure to enact such changes, maybe in another 5 to 10 years. But until then, we'll have to deal with what we have.

I think we don't have 5 years. This is going to have to be fixed during the next presidential term. The employers will start demanding it.

The Changing Data

War and Security May Trump Economy in Election

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 18, 2004; 1:00 PM

Iraq is likely to be the "trump card" that most sways swing voters in the presidential election, which will be generally determined more by foreign policy and national security issues than at any time since the 1970s, according to a new poll by the Pew Research Center[ed.- internals here] for the People and the Press and the Council on Foreign Relations.

"Barring a sizable shift in public opinion over the next few months, the 2004 election will be the first since the Vietnam era in which foreign affairs and national security issues are a higher priority than the economy," according to the Pew Research Center's analysis of the survey data.

Like much of the electorate, swing voters in battleground states -- such as Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Missouri, Wisconsin and Iowa -- are split over which candidate is stronger on foreign policy and the war on terrorism. Swing voters come closer to Democrats on foreign policy, but closer to the Republican position on combating terrorism, on which Bush gets "strong marks," the poll found. So the pivotal issue is Iraq, and swing voters are closer to the Democrats on Iraq, the survey concluded.

On eight of 11 foreign policy issues in the poll, "opinions of swing voters are closer to those of Kerry supporter than to those of Bush voters," said the Pew center's analysis. The Council on Foreign Relations, in a separate commentary on the poll, said swing voters are "more likely to see blue than red."

The poll was conducted among 2,009 adults from July 8-18, with an update on Iraq conducted Aug. 5-10 among 1,512 adults. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.5 percent for the entire survey and 3.5 percent for questions based on answers from just one of the two survey periods.

More than a month after the transfer of political power from the U.S.-led occupation to an interim Iraqi government, the poll found that just over half of American voters surveyed (52 percent) disapprove of the president's management of Iraq policy. And almost six out of 10 adults (58 percent) said the Bush administration does not have a "clear plan" for bringing Iraq to a "successful conclusion."

"Dissatisfaction with Iraq is shaping opinions about foreign policy as much, if not more than, Americans' continuing concerns over terrorism," said the survey analysis. "Continuing discontent with the way things are going in Iraq underlies public criticism of the Bush administration's overall approach to national security."

The survey also found a "sharp increase" in the number of Americans who have doubts about whether the Iraq campaign has helped curtail the war on terrorism. Only 45 percent say it has helped, down from 62 percent in February.

Six in ten Americans (59 percent) believe Bush has been "too quick" in wielding military force, while only a third now say Bush made sufficient attempts to achieve diplomatic solutions before the Iraq war. That is almost half the number who thought Bush's diplomatic efforts had been sufficient early in the war, in the spring of 2003, the poll found.

Yet Sen. John F. Kerry, Bush's Democratic challenger, has not yet convinced swing voters that he provides a viable alternative vision, the poll found.

"Iraq could be the tipping point. But even though things are bad in Iraq and the public evaluates President Bush poorly on Iraq, Kerry hasn't made the sale on Iraq either," Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, said in an interview. "People are not more likely to say they have confidence in him than they have confidence in Bush, whom they disapprove of."

The survey included some striking opinions. Despite the bloody tribulations of U.S. policy on Iraq, more than half of Americans polled (54 percent) favor staying in Iraq until the situation has stabilized. And six in 10 Americans support Bush's controversial policy of preemptive strikes against perceived threats, even if the United States has not been targeted.

Despite the wide backlash after the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Iraq, 64 percent of Americans believe there are at least some circumstances when torture is justified against suspected terrorists, the poll found.

Alarm over weapons of mass destruction, which peaked as a top priority after the Sept. 11 attacks, has now settled down to the same level of concern Americans felt in the mid-1990s, the survey showed.

And despite recent oil price hikes, American concern about U.S. dependence on imported oil is actually "somewhat lower" than earlier polls.

Public priorities have also shifted "significantly" in the three years since Sept. 11, settling down into concern about issues beyond national security to focus on social issues such as the AIDS pandemic, narcotics trafficking and global hunger, the survey found.

Most striking is the influence of foreign crises on this election, however. In 1996, only 5 percent of voters sampled by similar polls made their decisions based on foreign policy or national security, which rose to 12 percent in 2000, Kohut said. In contrast, four in ten voters (41 percent) now say international and defense concerns are the most crucial issues, while only a quarter (26 percent) cite economic issues as the top priority, the poll found.

Add this to the AP-Ipsos poll reported this morning. I'm looking for the internals on both, as well as the Quinnipiac Pennsylvania poll [ed. internals]. I'll post them when I've found the links. I'm not usually so iinterested in horse-race data, but watching the way the public tracks this issue is going to be the best predictor of the outcome in November. As the polls change, the pols will, too, and look for more congresscritters to have a "conversion" over their support for Bush's war as we get closer to the election.

Retiring Congressman Says War Unjustified
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: August 18, 2004

Filed at 11:39 a.m. ET

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- A top Republican congressman has broken from his party in the final days of his House career, saying he believes the U.S. military assault on Iraq was unjustified and the situation there has deteriorated into ``a dangerous, costly mess.''

``I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action,'' Rep. Doug Bereuter wrote in a letter to his constituents.

``Left unresolved for now is whether intelligence was intentionally misconstrued to justify military action,'' he said.

Bereuter is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He is stepping down after 13 terms to become the president of the Asia Foundation effective Sept. 1.

Emerging

via The Revealer:

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The Christian Evangelical movement, overwhelmingly but not completely conservative, politically and theologically, underpins the "megachurch" phenomenon. It was only a matter of time before it sprouted a reaction.

These Christians Radically Rethink What a Church Is
In the emerging movement, small is beautiful and creativity in worship is key.

By K. Connie Kang, Times Staff Writer

The 1-year-old church in Orange County has no name, no building and no set time to meet.

For its members, church can be spending an afternoon at a Costa Mesa park, where they share lunch and conversation with the down and out.

Sometimes, church for them entails an excursion to Los Angeles, where the mostly white group worships at an African American church. And, sometimes, they visit a Buddhist gathering in Fountain Valley and talk and write about the experience afterward.

Shepherded by Spencer Burke, a former pastor at the 10,000-member Mariners Church in Irvine, a small band of men and women belong to this highly movable congregation.

They're part of a new phenomenon — "emerging churches" — growing out of evangelical Christianity.

The movement was started over the last six years or so by Christian leaders disillusioned with churches that they complained were run like big corporations, stressing celebrity preachers, glitzy services and huge budgets. The movement aims to bring churches closer to people, with small communities of prayer and learning — mostly fewer than 50 people.

Although varying widely in membership and practices, emerging churches shun hierarchy, emphasize outreach to the poor and worship creatively.

"Our goal is to be there for each other and try to find activities [through which] we can service our community," said Matt Palmer, a Newport Beach graphic designer who belongs to the no-name church.

"Our tithe is to buy a bucket of chicken for people at the park instead of [contributing to] some pot of money where I don't know where it's going," he said.

On a recent Sunday, the group spread out chicken, salad and fruit on picnic tables at Lions Park in Costa Mesa and invited everyone there to join them. More than 30 did. They also gave out small cardboard cameras, with self-addressed envelopes, and invited people to take "pictures in celebration of life," then mail them to Burke's 700-square-foot Huntington Beach "shack," his garage that serves as the church's office.

At its next meeting in the park, church will be an "art gallery" with easels and exhibited photos, said Burke, author of 2003's "Making Sense of Church: Eavesdropping on Emerging Conversations About God, Community and Culture."

Six years after leaving his well-paid job at a mega-church, disillusioned at "contemporary Christianity as an institution," Burke said he now finds church "an adventure every week."

Like many leaders of emerging churches, he receives no pay. The son of the late state Assemblyman Robert Burke (R-Huntington Beach), he said he and his wife manage on her salary in public relations and money from his writing and speaking. The couple have two young children.

"Church for us isn't just for us. It's for everybody," he said. There is something "very beautiful" about eating with strangers in a park and getting to know them. "Their stories are as rich as any Bible story. You wouldn't believe the amazing rags-to-riches and riches-to-rags stories."

The Rev. Eddie Gibbs, professor of church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, says Burke is an "influential thinker" in the emerging-church movement.

Burke's influence stems in part from his website, TheOoze, which discusses issues facing the church today, said Gibbs, who, with another Fuller theologian, Ryan Bolger, is writing a book on emerging churches.
....
The group is one of more than 100 emerging churches in the country, experts say.

Emerging-church leaders such as Burke believe the institutional church is no longer relevant to the younger generation.

"We can't go to church; we are the church," said the Rev. Dan Kimball, pastor of Santa Cruz's emerging Vintage Faith Church, which he started in February. "Churches get stuck in the tradition and lose sight of why they are there," said Kimball, author of "The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations."

Kimball's group has grown to 400. Members are organized into small groups called "home communities" to maintain a sense of family, he said.
....
A recent study found that weekly church attendance remained steady over the last decade, at about 40% of Americans. But another survey showed that Bible reading outside church within the previous week climbed to 44% of adults from 37% in 1994. Among Protestants the rise was greater, from 47% in 1994 to 59% this year. And the increase was most striking on the West Coast, where Bible reading outside church among residents rose from 29% in 1994 to 44%. Both studies were by Barna Research Group of Ventura.

President George Barna said the findings reflect people "piecing together the different activities that are important to them in ways that fit their unique needs, as opposed to fitting into the schedules of religious institutions."

He predicts that "within the next 20 to 25 years, there is going to be a significant decrease in the number and influence of the congregational churches and a substantial rise of and influence of the new model churches."

I know a few leaders in the "emerging church." Their upbringing may have been conservative Christian, but they are all liberals now.

Left Behind

Effort by Bush on Education Faces Obstacles in the States
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO

Four years ago, No Child Left Behind served as candidate George W. Bush's banner domestic issue, showcasing his claim to "compassionate conservatism." At campaign stops, Mr. Bush attacked the "soft bigotry of low expectations" in public schools, and once in office, No Child Left Behind became his legislative initiative. It aimed for nothing less than ending the achievement gap between whites and minorities, by threatening public schools with dire punishments unless they improved the academic performance of all students. The law is intended to ratchet up the quality of teachers at high-poverty schools, steadily raise student achievement in reading, math and science, and use student test scores to dictate whether a school should survive. It also promises students in underperforming schools a way out, through transfer to better schools or private tutoring.

Faced with the challenge of raising all students to academic proficiency by 2014, however, some states simply lowered their standards, while many others came up with statistical devices to exclude whole groups of children from the law's umbrella.

Critics and supporters alike agree that since Mr. Bush signed No Child Left Behind in January 2002, the law has imposed deep, undeniable changes on public education.
....
Critics contend the law gives schools dozens of ways to fail, but does little to help them tackle the causes of low achievement among poor, minority and disabled children. Others complain that the law's reliance on standardized tests is unsound, that its strict rules conflict with existing state efforts and that its remedies for struggling schools are largely punitive. As a result, in the two and half years since Mr. Bush signed No Child Left Behind into law, a political backlash has curtailed its reach.

Though the law passed with strong bipartisan support, Democrats, civic groups and teachers' unions complain that federal spending consistently falls short of the amounts authorized when they signed on - an accusation that Republicans reject, saying that spending on the nation's poorest schools has risen by more than 50 percent on Mr. Bush's watch.

Earlier this year, opposition to the new law spread to the right, as Republican lawmakers in a dozen or so states passed anti-No Child Left Behind resolutions. The discontent first boiled over in Utah, where the House attacked the law as an infringement of states' rights. A team of federal officials turned up in Salt Lake, reminding Republicans that the state stood to lose $100 million in federal education aid if they followed through, lawmakers recalled.

Here is how that is working out around Chicago:

Top suburb schools hit by `No Child' sanctions

By Jodi S. Cohen and Stephanie Banchero, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune staff reporters Darnell Little and Grace Aduroja contributed to this report
Published August 18, 2004

Students at a number of well-regarded suburban schools will have the right to transfer out, as the number of Illinois public schools facing federal sanctions ballooned again this year.

Just days before the beginning of school, the Illinois State Board of Education on Tuesday released a preliminary list of 694 schools around the state that will have to offer students the choice to move to better performing schools, and in some cases, receive tutoring and other services.

Although the numbers could change in coming weeks as school districts review state data, the list currently includes 360 Chicago public schools that have failed state achievement tests for at least two years in a row, the period that triggers sanctions under the federal No Child Left Behind law.
....
Many suburban schools found themselves labeled as failures for the first time last year, when they were judged not only on schoolwide scores but on the performance of different racial, economic and special education subgroups.

Those that had one or more subgroups fail to meet state standards again this year now are subject to penalties.

Although many of the suburban schools on the list are associated with affluent bedroom communities, educators say the test results underscore the growing economic and racial diversity of their student bodies.

And though some of the schools continue to perform well overall, bringing every subgroup up to the same level--the stated goal of No Child Left Behind--remains a daunting task.

"The more subgroups you have, the more likely you are to not make [testing goals]," said Phil Prale, assistant superintendent of Oak Park and River Forest High School District 200, with a student body that is 66 percent white, 27 percent African-American and 4 percent Latino. Prale said that while the school's overall test scores improved last year, low-income students did not reach state goals in math.

"These are top-notch schools," he said. "When they land on these lists, I suppose we could reexamine what are the criteria and goal of the legislation."

I believe that last line says more than that entire, lengthy NYT piece.

A Dangerous Intersection of Faith and Politics

Pastors Issue Directive in Response to Reelection Tactic

By Alan Cooperman
Wednesday, August 18, 2004; Page A04

Ten teachers of Christian ethics at leading seminaries and universities have written a letter to President Bush criticizing his campaign's outreach to churches, particularly its effort to gather church membership directories.

The Aug. 12 letter asked Bush to "repudiate the actions of your re-election campaign, which violated a fundamental principle of our democracy." It also urged both presidential candidates to "respect the integrity of all houses of worship."

The letter's signers included evangelical Christians who teach at generally conservative institutions, such as the Rev. George G. Hunter III of Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky and Richard V. Pierard of Gordon College in Massachusetts. Other signers included the Revs. Paul Raushenbush of Princeton University, Walter B. Shurden of Mercer University in Georgia, James M. Dunn of Wake Forest Divinity School in North Carolina and Ronald B. Flowers of Texas Christian University.

"When certain church leaders acceded to the request of the Bush/Cheney campaign to hand over the names and addresses of their congregants, they crossed a line," the letter said. "It is proper for church leaders to address social issues, but it is improper, and even illegal, for them to get their churches to endorse candidates or align their churches with a specific political party."

The Bush-Cheney campaign has defended its outreach as a "peer-to-peer" effort rather than an attempt to enlist churches in partisan electioneering, which would violate Internal Revenue Service rules. Bush supporters also charge that some African American churches routinely support Democratic candidates.

The campaign has come under growing criticism since The Washington Post reported July 1 on an instruction sheet for Bush's religious "coalition coordinators." It listed 22 duties, beginning with: "Send your Church Directory to your State Bush-Cheney '04 Headquarters" and "Identify another conservative church in your community who we can organize for Bush."

The ethicists' letter said that "Christians, individually, should prayerfully seek God's direction when voting, but when any church leaders contend that they speak for God and have the right to tell congregants how to vote, such leaders have assumed prerogatives to which they have no right."

BC04 ran right up to the edge of election law, and the clerics who cooperated are in violation of the tax code and should lose their tax exempt status. There is an egregious error in the headline of this story: not every Christian ethicist (also known s moral theologian) is ordained and they are rarely "pastors." That word is properly used to designate the senior minister or priest of a parish or congregation. Seminary professors who are ordained (I have not Googled the list above to check to see if they are listed on the respective websites as Rev. Dr., which is how they should have been named if the Post knew what it was doing, since tenured seminary professors are always PhDs) rarely have the time or inclination for that sort of work, although the ordained ones frequently "help out" at local congregations.

This is sloppy work by the Post headline department.

UPDATE: I wrote a letter to the editor. If it gets printed I'll put up a link.

Fantasies

I'm listening to Blitzer's noon program. He's giving as much time to the troop redeployment non-story as to the Peterson trial! Here's the deal: it isn't going to happen. It will cost billions that we clearly don't have. It is purely a political tactic, and Kerry is right to answer because it is a political tactic. As a practical matter, it isn't ever going to happen, this is all theoretical.

Rumsfeld is talking about putting a light mechanical "Stryker" brigade into Germany as a rapid reaction force. That isn't going to happen, either.

GAO Calls Stryker Too Heavy for Transport
Weight of Armored Vehicle Cuts Flying Range of C-130 Aircraft, Congress Is Told

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 14, 2004; Page A04

The Army's new medium-weight armored vehicle, the Stryker, weighs so much that it curtails the range of C-130 military cargo aircraft that carry it and under certain conditions make it impossible for the planes to take off, a new report for Congress found.

"The Stryker's average weight of 38,000 pounds -- along with other factors such as added equipment and less-than-ideal flight conditions -- significantly limits the C-130's flight range and reduces the size force that could be deployed," said the Government Accountability Office, the watchdog arm of Congress.

Indeed, the report said, a C-130 with an average-weight Stryker wouldn't even be able to take off from higher elevations in Afghanistan, such as Bagram or Kabul, during daylight hours in summer.

The findings support the claims of critics that the eight-wheeled Stryker -- now in use in Iraq -- won't be able to meet the original goal of being able to roll into a C-130, be flown 1,000 miles and leave the plane immediately able to engage in combat. When 2,000 pounds of associated equipment such as ammunition is loaded into the aircraft with the typical Stryker vehicle, the report said, the C-130's range is about 500 miles -- and if heavier equipment is loaded it's much less. The report noted that the Army subsequently has dropped that 1,000-mile range requirement for the system.

So, all this talk of "modernising" the force structure and fast, light forces is just political kabuki. None of these things actually exist.

Dead Cats

Ignoring History In Iraq

By George F. Will
Wednesday, August 18, 2004; Page A19

These excavations from America's rhetorical record are from John Judis's new book, "The Folly of Empire," a sobering read during Iraq's current wallow. Iraq's condition is not quite anarchy, but it does point to a double peril of producing democracy.

Democracy, loosely -- very loosely -- defined as government responsive to gusts of public passions, might fail. Or it might succeed ruinously. A government that is all sail and no anchor might produce popular choices that lead through anarchy to civil war, or national fragmentation, or fragmentation forestalled by Bonapartism, Francoism or some other variant of authoritarianism.

The Bush campaign is pelting John Kerry with dead cats because of his promise to wage a more "sensitive" war on terrorism -- Democrats tend to think in the vocabulary of the therapeutic society and its "caring professions." But the Bush administration is simultaneously struggling to balance the competing imperatives of economizing American lives and waging a war sensitive to the religious sensibilities at stake in the struggle for control of Najaf.

In all this, the concept of sovereignty is being pounded shapeless. Preemptive war was waged, in part, to notify enemies of the United States that U.S. sovereignty could not be paralyzed by world opinion or the noncooperation of international institutions. And one measure of progress in Iraq was the June 28 transfer of sovereignty.

But in a New York Times story from Najaf, readers learn, regarding the problem of Moqtada Sadr and his militia, that a Marine spokesman says, "We'll continue operations as the prime minister [Ayad Allawi] sees fit." And readers learn that U.S. commanders "curbed a broader national amnesty proposal announced by Dr. Allawi earlier this week, limiting its terms to exclude any rebels who have taken part in actions killing or wounding American troops."

So does sovereignty reside with the prime minister whose will evidently commands U.S. commanders? Or with those commanders who curb the prime minister's will?

A house so divided cannot stand. If it is the prime minister's will, or that of Iraq's embryonic democratic institutions, to conduct with insurgent factions negotiations that strip the Iraqi state of an essential attribute of statehood -- a monopoly on the legitimate exercise of violence -- the U.S. presence will become untenable.

Untenable even before what may be coming before November: an Iraqi version of the North Vietnamese Tet offensive of 1968. To say that the coming offensive will be by "Baathists" is, according to one administration official, akin to saying "Nazis" when you mean "the SS" -- the most fearsome of the Nazis. Such an offensive could make Sadr's insurgency seem a minor irritant. And it could unmake a presidency, as Tet did.

Some Voters Grow Skeptical of Iraq War

Aug 18, 10:18 AM (ET)

By WILL LESTER

WASHINGTON (AP) - Public opinion favored President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq about 2-to-1 soon after Saddam Hussein's capture, but months of chaos and casualties have taken a heavy toll on public support for the war. Now the public is evenly divided on whether the war was the right thing to do or whether it was a mistake.

Among those increasingly skeptical about the war are older people, minorities, people with lower incomes, residents of the Northeast and Catholics, according to Associated Press polling.

The shifts in overall public sentiment reflect the difficulties in Iraq - including a death toll nearing 950 U.S. soldiers, the violent insurgency against the new Iraqi government and U.S. forces and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, which was among the central justifications for Bush's decision to go to war.
....
Even among those who maintain their support for going to war, urban battles and roadside bombs have caused a shift in perspective.

For Jim Adams, a 42-year-old Republican from Plymouth, N.H., the decision to use force in Iraq was right and he still supports Bush, but he says the follow-through in Iraq was lacking.

"I don't think it was a mistake to go there," Adams said. "But we've gone down a slippery slope.

"We had good reason to go based on the evidence at the time, but we've gone in a direction we never intended to go," he said. "We've alienated the population. We wanted the population to embrace our values, and we've done exactly the opposite."

Almost nine in 10 Republicans still say it was the right thing to do. But Democrats and independents lost enthusiasm for the war during the period since Saddam was captured in December.

Overall, about half in an August AP-Ipsos poll said they think the war in Iraq was the right thing to do.

About six in 10 feel Bush does not have a clear plan for bringing the Iraq situation to a successful solution, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll.

With Saddam in custody, U.S. military commanders expected, or at least hoped, that Iraqi insurgents would be less inclined to fight. Instead, a flare-up of violence in southern towns in April led to increased combat operations. A cease-fire with one militant group recently fell apart, leading to more clashes in Najaf.

Despite the handover of political power to an Iraqi interim government on June 30, the U.S. forces continue to lead the military fight in Iraq. In addition, U.S. weapons inspectors continue to search but have found no weapons of mass destruction.

In the August poll, those most likely to say the Iraq war was the right thing to do were Republicans, Southerners, those who earn more than $50,000 a year and young adults.
....
Yet among many different groups of Americans, a majority of people now say the war was a mistake. Those groups include minorities (65 percent), Northeasterners (60 percent), Democrats (80 percent), people who make less than $25,000 a year (57 percent) and Catholics (51 percent).

In December, support for the war was widespread among most groups, although minorities even then were about evenly split on the question.

Last December, for example, 56 percent of seniors said the war in Iraq was the right thing to do and 40 percent disagreed. Now, six in 10 say the Iraq war was wrong.

Looked at in terms of the presidential campaign, almost nine in 10 Bush supporters say going to war in Iraq was the right thing to do, while almost nine in 10 supporters of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry say it was a mistake, according to polls conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.

While the number dubious about the Iraq war has grown over the past eight months, support for U.S. troops remaining in Iraq until the job is done remains fairly constant. Since spring, just over half in various polls have said they support staying in Iraq until it is stabilized.

The most recent AP-Ipsos poll of 1,001 adults was conducted Aug. 3-5 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, larger for subgroups like older Americans.

A Record of Failure

Rumsfeld: Troops Are "Fungible"

by Clarence Page

Every so often, a high-profile Washington figure gets himself or herself into trouble by inadvertently revealing what he or she really thinks. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld knows. In a town where candor can be a crime, he's a repeat offender.

His latest score came in a Pentagon news conference Thursday when he revealed a new Rummy-ism: "People are fungible." My dictionary says "fungible," which is pronounced with a soft "G" as in "sponge," refers to something that can be satisfactorily replaced, either in part or in whole, with some other part or quantity of similar value.

"Oil is fungible," experts say, in arguing why no country or cartel can quite corner the market on it. If the price is too high in one place, you can buy it someplace else and the price in the first place will come down in order to compete.
Now, Rumsfeld wants you to know, our troops are fungible, too. His bold pronouncement came during an exchange with a reporter in a news conference during which Rumsfeld announced that about 20,000 American troops are about to have their tours in Iraq extended for at least three months.

The reporter wanted some clarification about the rosy scenarios of Iraqi success that Rumsfeld painted in his opening statement: "You said that the challenge in Fallujah is being contained and that the situation in the South is largely stabilized," the reporter said.

"And I wonder, if that is the case, why ... is it necessary to keep extra troops in Iraq for 90 days?"

"Well, it is - the reason it is contained is because we have the extra troops there. That is self-evident," Rumsfeld said, showing a little irritation. "Come on, people are fungible. You can have them here or there. We have announced the judgment. It is clear. You understand it. Everyone in the room understands that we needed additional - the commander decided he'd like to retain in-country an additional plus or minus 20,000 people and that is what we are doing."

People are fungible? Like so many replaceable parts? Perhaps in Rumsfeld's former-corporate-CEO mindset they are. But, in the world where most of us live, this ranks as his least fortunate comment since, oh, early last year.

That was when he said during another news conference that the 11 million Americans (including me) who were drafted during the Vietnam years "added no value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period of time, because (of) the churning that took place. It took (an) enormous amount of effort in terms of training - and then they were gone."

Yup, we were "gone," all right. Some of us left in better shape than others. Of the more than 58,000-plus Americans who died in Vietnam action, more than 20,000 were draftees. Rumsfeld, who served three years on active duty as a Navy aviator in the 1950s, later apologized for the slight. Poor Rummy. People keep tripping him up by actually paying attention to what he says.

His vocabulary seems to reveal the mindset of a corporate efficiency expert, focused in an era of "downsizing" on reducing the "head counts" of "full-time equivalents" and their pesky benefit packages.

Now he is under more pressure. He admits that the fighting and casualties in Iraq are much higher in recent weeks than he expected a year ago. President George W. Bush says the administration will send enough troops to "get the job done," but our troops are getting stretched mighty thin as it is. To their everlasting credit, our troops are putting a brave public face on their private heartache, although a popular graffiti in Iraq these days proclaims an uncensored version of "'One weekend a month,' my (rear end)!" a pointed reference to the well-known promise made by National Guard recruitment ads.

Ambush in Ramadi

On April 6, a company of Marines on patrol in Ramadi, Iraq, was ambushed. Ten died that night and two more in the days that followed. These are their stories, as told by their families, friends, girlfriends, teachers and ministers.

This deeply affecting multi-media package (needs Flash and Real, downloads available at the link) is reported by Knight Ridder's Joe Galloway with photos by the Philly Inky's David Swanson. It is an eloquent repudiation of Rumsfeld's off-hand and honest remark--honest, in that it reveals the way he really feels about the soldiers, sailors, mariners and marines whose lives he commands. The lack of planning for the post- "Major combat operations" -period should have Rummy impeached for its casual indifference to the loss of life, American, coalition and Iraqi.

For another perspective, here is an after-action paper Intel Dump:

Effectiveness of Stability Operations During the Initial Implementation of the Transition Phase for Operation Iraqi Freedom, which discusses in great detail the Army's failure in the period right after the fall of the Saddam statue. In a less bizarre world, Rummy would be impeached, hauled off to the War Crimes Tribunal and spend a non-trivial amount of time in prison.

And here is the transcript of Jim Lehrer's softball interview with Rumsfeld on PBS's Newshour last night. An excerpt:

JIM LEHRER: But, speaking of today as I just reported in the News Summary, we have got a real problem in Najaf with Muqtada al-Sadr, a guy that early on was being dismissed by American officials as a thug, nobody followed him. And now here he is holed up in this holy city, and is there a peaceful solution?

And the question is: If you can't get it, what do you do? Can you have this fellah running around killing innocent Iraqis and firing off mortars and artillery pieces and rocket-propelled grenades and taking over a city indefinitely? I think probably the Iraqi government will decide not.

You can make up your own mind about what's true and who is responsible.

In his Sunday WaPo Op-Ed, Juan Cole demonstrates how out of touch with Iraqi reality Rummy's remarks are:

The Marines' campaign in Najaf against the Mahdi Army will succeed militarily, since the latter more resemble American ghetto gangs like the Crips and the Bloods than they do a genuine military force. But in the course of destroying Sadr and his followers, the Americans will inevitably create a host of martyrs, and the blood of martyrs has been the seed of more than one church. The American desecration of sacred Najaf and its cemetery makes the blood boil among Shiites throughout the world. There is likely to be a violent reaction from them at some point down the road.

All the Mahdi Army clansmen have cousins who will step forward to avenge them. The Sadr movement itself survived Saddam, despite his assassination of Sadr's father. The movement will throw up new leaders, as long as the vast Shiite slums of the south offer no more attractive political or cultural opportunities.

In the meantime, the Allawi government is discrediting itself with the religious Shiites by calling on the Marines to do a job that should have been undertaken by Iraqis. Even the cautious and long-suffering Sistani will eventually lose his patience if the holy sites are too brutally trampled and if the Americans overstay their welcome. Several potential successors to the ailing Sistani will likely be less patient with the Americans than he has been.

As for Sadr, he desperately wants the Iraqi people to toss the United States out of their country, as the Iranians did in 1978-79. He seems to think that if his life cannot convince them to do so, his death might. Long-time expatriate secularist politicians in Iraq -- and U.S. Defense Department officials who know almost nothing about Iraqi culture and society -- are gambling that he is wrong.

Juan also makes the catch this morning from the NYT that the whole confrontation in Najaf was an operational decision made on the ground by the local Marines without direction from the Pentagon. Unbelievable. These clueless young men are risking a world-wide Shiite uprising over the Shrine of Imam Ali without having the barest idea of the forces they risk putting in motion.

In recent interviews, the Marine officers said they turned a firefight with al-Sadr's forces on Aug. 5 into a eight-day pitched battle -- without the approval of the Pentagon or senior Iraqi officials. It was fought out in bloody skirmishes in an ancient cemetery that brought them within rifle shot of the Imam Ali Mosque, Shiite Islam's holiest shrine. Eventually, fresh Army units arrived from Baghdad and took over Marine positions near the mosque, but by then the politics of war had taken over and the U.S. force had lost the opportunity to storm al-Sadr's troops around the mosque.

Now, what the Marines had hoped would be a quick, decisive action has bogged down into a stalemate that appears to have strengthened the hand of al-Sadr, whose stature rises each time he survives a confrontation with the U.S. military. Just as seriously, it might have weakened the credibility of the interim Iraqi government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, showing him, many Iraqis say, to be alternately rash and indecisive, as well as ultimately beholden to U.S. overrule on crucial military and political matters.

As a reconstruction of the battle in Najaf shows, the sequence of events was strikingly reminiscent of the battle of Fallujah in April. In both cases, newly arrived Marine units immediately confronted guerrillas in firefights that quickly escalated. And in both cases, the U.S. military failed to achieve its strategic goals, pulling back after the political costs of the confrontation rose.

Fallujah is now essentially off-limits to U.S. ground troops and has become a haven for Sunni Muslim insurgents and terrorists menacing Baghdad, U.S. commanders say.

The Najaf battle also has raised fresh questions about an age-old rivalry within the U.S. military -- between the no-holds-barred, press-ahead culture of the Marines and the slower, more reserved and often more politically cautious approach of the Army. In Iraq, Army-Marine tensions have surfaced previously, notably when Marine units opened a major offensive in Fallujah this spring, vowing to crush rebels entrenched there before they, too, were ordered to pull back.

As they replay the first days of the Najaf battle, some commanders are wondering if a more carefully planned mission would have had a better chance to succeed.

But the hospitals and schools are open....

Job Lottery

With Deluge, Longshore Jobs Become Long Shots

By Ronald D. White, Times Staff Writer

Hundreds of thousands of applications have poured in for 3,000 temporary jobs at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles — about 10 times as many submissions as expected — underscoring just how hungry people are for high-paying work in a weak labor market.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union was so concerned about the crush of applicants that it asked a mediator Tuesday whether the hiring process could be delayed to ensure that everything runs smoothly. The mediator, however, ordered the union and West Coast shipping lines to proceed with their lottery and begin picking the 3,000 new dockworkers Thursday, as planned.

As word spread Tuesday about the flood of applications, some would-be dock hands were discouraged.

"This is almost like going to the horse track and betting on the long shot," said Raymond Sheets, a 47-year-old tree trimmer from San Diego who hopes to improve his lot by landing a job at the harbor.

The 3,000 slots, which are being offered to help handle a record amount of cargo coming through the ports, will pay $20.66 to $28 an hour — substantially higher than the average $8.38-an-hour entry-level wage in Los Angeles County. On Friday, the state reported that California's employers cut a net 17,300 jobs in July, illustrating how cautious many businesses remain when it comes to hiring.

"It's very rare in this economy, particularly for non-college-educated positions," to be so lucrative, said Michael Mische, a principal at WCL Consulting Co. of Long Beach and an adjunct professor of management at the USC Marshall School of Business. "These are highly desirable jobs, with the opportunity of becoming skilled in a vocation" that could lead to better things down the road.

Indeed, it's not clear how long any of the 3,000 jobs might last. But in at least some cases, if workers accumulate enough hours, they may be able to join the union full-time.

To apply, people were supposed to fill out a postcard bearing name, address and telephone number, and get it in the mail by last Friday. The only requirements: Be at least 18 years old, have a driver's license and be legally eligible to work in the U.S.

A Long Beach post office spokesman said Tuesday that a conservative estimate put the number of mailed-in applications at between 220,000 and 250,000. A shipping lines' representative suggested that the tally could climb substantially higher before Thursday's lottery.

This is basically a lottery. It says a lot about the jobs drought that so many are willing to participate. I'll be doing some more checking into this situation through the day as more details become available.

The Next Step

NY Times' Gets 2 More Subpoenas in Plame Case

By Joe Strupp

Published: August 17, 2004 10:24 AM EST

NEW YORK The New York Times has received two more subpoenas from prosecutors investigating who leaked the identity of former CIA officer Valerie Plame to the press, E&P; has learned.

In the Plame case, Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus received a subpoena last week, which Post editors plan to seek to quash, while Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper was held in contempt on Aug. 9 by a federal judge for refusing to name government officials who leaked Plame's identity.

Fascinating. I don't recall Judith Miller reporting on this story at all. It is also interesting that Fitzgerals wants a document fishing expedition. That means he believes that there is something dispositive to go looking for. I wonder where he learned that?

Widening Chasm

Income Gap Up Over Two Decades, Data Show
Monday August 16, 3:43 pm ET
By Leigh Strope, AP Labor Writer
Income Gap Between Richest and Middle-Income Americans Up Steadily Over Two Decades, Data Show

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Over two decades, the income gap has steadily increased between the richest Americans, who own homes and stocks and got big tax breaks, and those at the middle and bottom of the pay scale, whose paychecks buy less.

The growing disparity is even more pronounced in this recovering economy. Wages are stagnant and the middle class is shouldering a larger tax burden. Prices for health care, housing, tuition, gas and food have soared.

The wealthiest 20 percent of households in 1973 accounted for 44 percent of total U.S. income, according to the Census Bureau. Their share jumped to 50 percent in 2002, while everyone else's fell. For the bottom fifth, the share dropped from 4.2 percent to 3.5 percent.

Jobs and the economy top the list of voter concerns this election year. President Bush touts a strong economy that is growing, but polls find that Americans have doubts and think jobs are scarce. John Kerry is trusted more on the economy, with Democrats talking regularly of "two Americas," divided between the rich and everyone else.

That argument has merit, some private economists say.

"For those working in the bottom half of the pay scale, they're under an enormous amount of pressure," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com.

New government data also shows that President Bush's tax cuts have shifted the overall tax burden to the middle class from the wealthiest Americans.
....
More than a million jobs have been added back to the 2.6 million lost since Bush took office, but they pay less and offer fewer benefits, such as health insurance. The new jobs are concentrated in health care, food services, and temporary employment firms, all lower-paying industries. Temp agencies alone account for about a fifth of all new jobs.

Three in five pay below the national median hourly wage -- $13.53, said Sung Won Sohn, chief economist for Wells Fargo.

On a weekly basis, the average wage of $525.84 is at the lowest level since October 2001.

As you meditate on that bad news (not really news) you can contemplate the compensation of DC's 100 richest corporation execs. Maybe I will buy a lottery ticket....

Election Year PR

PNAC has a strategy for this and I showed it to you over the weekend.

Misconceived Military Shuffle

Published: August 17, 2004

The troop redeployment plan announced yesterday by President Bush makes little long-term strategic sense. It is certain to strain crucial alliances, increase overall costs and dangerously weaken deterrence on the Korean peninsula at the worst possible moment. Meanwhile, it will do nothing to address the military's most pressing current need: relieving the chronic strain on ground forces that has resulted from failing to anticipate the long, and largely unilateral, American occupation of Iraq.

Mr. Bush provided few new details yesterday, confirming only that over the next 10 years, about 60,000 to 70,000 uniformed troops, along with some 100,000 family members and civilian employees, would be transferred from bases and other military installations in Europe and Asia to the United States.

It has been known for some time that the Pentagon wants to pull back perhaps half of the roughly 70,000 soldiers now in Germany and a third of the nearly 40,000 troops in South Korea. Further cuts in Europe and Asia will be needed to reach Mr. Bush's totals, especially since some of those withdrawn from South Korea may be headed toward other parts of Asia.

The Bush administration justifies these movements by pointing to fundamental changes in the geography of threats since the end of the cold war. In Asia, however, that geography has not changed all that much.

The most dangerous threat still comes from North Korea, which is now thought to be building nuclear weapons. At a time when negotiating a halt to that buildup is imperative, Washington has inexplicably granted Pyongyang something it has long coveted - a reduction in American troop levels - instead of building those reductions into a bargaining proposal requiring constructive North Korean moves in return. The Korean pullback also sends a dangerous signal to the North that America is devaluing its alliance with South Korea.

In Europe, the withdrawals are less immediately dangerous, but they will be expensive because Germany pays a hefty share of the costs for the American military bases located there.

While sending military personnel back to Kansas or Colorado may avert some base closings and make local politicians happy, it will cost the taxpayers money. Furthermore, the military will also lose the advantage that comes with giving large numbers of its men and women the experience of living in other cultures.

Since none of this will even begin for two years, why announce it now? Think politics might have something to do with it? I guess it must have focus grouped well.

Here are the facts of the situation: this is as about a wrong-headed idea as the Bushies have come up with. It's an FU to the Germans with whom we should be mending relations. And the bottom line is that we can't afford it. It will be hugely expensive to build the new base facilities which will be needed here and we'll lose the billions of dollars of subsidies that the Germans, Japanese and Koreans pay to de facto provide their defence. In short, this is a bogus move.

What we actually need is a larger active Army, perhaps by as much as two divisions, to staff those new bases in Eastern Europe, the Stans and Turkey.

Najaf Again

NPR reports "optimism."

Sadr Asks Vatican to Help Settle Najaf Standoff, AFP Reports

Aug. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr invited Pope John Paul II to try to mediate an end to the standoff in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf, Agence France-Presse reported, citing an aide to the cleric.

Iraq's national conference, which is meeting in Baghdad, is sending a delegation to Najaf to call on al-Sadr to withdraw his fighters from their positions around the Imam Ali shrine, the holiest Shiite Muslim site, AFP reported.

Iraqi Delegation Flies to Najaf in Peace Bid

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A delegation of Iraqi political and religious leaders flew out of Baghdad on U.S. military helicopters Tuesday, heading for Najaf in a bid to end a bloody Shi'ite uprising, delegates said.

The Baghdad conference is expected to pick an assembly on Tuesday to oversee the interim government until January elections, but Najaf has dominated the three-day gathering of 1,300 delegates.

Fighting hits Najaf again as bombs explode in Baghdad

Updated 08:36pm (Mla time) Aug 17, 2004
Agence France-Presse

NAJAF, Iraq -- Heavy fighting shook the historic heart of Najaf on Tuesday as delegates from a key national conference prepared to coax Shiite militia leader Moqtada Sadr into abandoning his mosque stronghold.

As the conference carried on into its last day, mortar attacks in the capital killed seven people and wounded 49 -- two of them hurt when a projectile landed inside the fortified Green Zone close to where the meeting was underway.

In Najaf, an Iraqi photographer working for the London-based news agency Reuters was wounded as clashes between Sadr's Mehdi Army and US forces rumbled on ahead of a threatened major assault.

"I was hit in the legs as I tried to escape," after taking pictures of US tanks, a bandaged Ali Abu al-Shish, 25, told Agence France-Presse at his hotel.

Despite the violence, delegates prepared to leave Baghdad on a peace mission to urge the fiery cleric to lay down his arms, leave the Imam Ali shrine -- one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam -- and join the political process.

"This is a peace initiative... We're not going to negotiate or lay conditions on Sayed (honorific) Moqtada," stressed Baghdad cleric Sheikh Hussein al-Sadr, a relative of Moqtada.

Speaking in Turkey, Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawar weighed in to urge Sadr to "stop this nonsense" and join the political mainstream.

Ghalib al-Jazairi, Najaf's police chief, has threatened to storm the shrine "and kill each one of them" unless they disarm and leave of their own accord.

Stupid Utility Vehicles

Safety Gap Grows Wider Between S.U.V.'s and Cars
By DANNY HAKIM

Published: August 17, 2004

DETROIT, Aug. 16 - The gap in safety between sport utility vehicles and passenger cars last year was the widest yet recorded, according to new federal traffic data.

People driving or riding in a sport utility vehicle in 2003 were nearly 11 percent more likely to die in an accident than people in cars, the figures show. The government began keeping detailed statistics on the safety of vehicle categories in 1994.

S.U.V.'s continue to gain in popularity, despite safety concerns and the vehicles' lagging fuel economy at a time when gasoline prices are high. For the first seven months of 2004, S.U.V.'s accounted for 27.2 percent of all light-duty vehicle sales, up from 26 percent in the period a year earlier, according to Ward's AutoInfoBank. However, sales growth for the largest sport utility vehicles has stalled lately, while small and medium-size S.U.V.'s, engineered more like cars than pickup trucks, continue to make rapid gains.

New figures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shed light on how wide the differences in safety can be from one vehicle to another in the S.U.V. category, which now encompasses scores of models. For example, a few newer S.U.V. models appear to have a sharply lower risk of rolling over in an accident than other models.

Over all, crash fatalities declined across the board in 2003 to the lowest levels in six years, the government figures show, with 42,643 people killed in traffic accidents in the United States. Much of the decline appeared to come from fewer people driving drunk and more people buckling up. But the United States has not made as much progress as some other developed nations, because rates of seat belt use remain lower here and because of the growing numbers of S.U.V.'s and pickup trucks, which tend to pose greater hazards than cars both to their occupants and to others on the road.

If we were living in Melanieworld, the gd things wouldn't exist. You can't see around them, I have to pull out into traffic on the streets or in the parking lots between these behemoths which screw up everybody else's visibility, in addition to being a safety hazard for the occupants and everybody else on the road. Hate 'em.

Knocking Down Mountains

Here is the third article on the WaPo's series on executive branch changes in regulations (rather than legislative changes in law, which have to have at least some public debate and comment) and what they do to us, our health and our safety. It is long, poorly written and important: Bush has taken the gloves off the mining industry and allowed it to ruin three states in search of cheap coal. "Despoil" is the word that comes to mind when I read this, but it is so badly written, it is hard to pull quotes, "he said," "she said" journalism at its worst.

Appalachia Is Paying Price for White House Rule ChangeBy Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 17, 2004; Page A01

Last of three articles

BECKLEY, W.Va. -- The coal industry chafes at the name -- "mountaintop removal" -- but it aptly describes the novel mining method that became popular in this part of Appalachia in the late 1980s. Miners target a green peak, scrape it bare of trees and topsoil, and then blast away layer after layer of rock until the mountaintop is gone.

In just over a decade, coal miners used the technique to flatten hundreds of peaks across a region spanning West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. Thousands of tons of rocky debris were dumped into valleys, permanently burying more than 700 miles of mountain streams. By 1999, concerns over the damage to waterways triggered a backlash of lawsuits and court rulings that slowed the industry's growth to a trickle.

Today, mountaintop removal is booming again, and the practice of dumping mining debris into streambeds is explicitly protected, thanks to a small wording change to federal environmental regulations. U.S. officials simply reclassified the debris from objectionable "waste" to legally acceptable "fill."

The "fill rule," as the May 2002 rule change is now known, is a case study of how the Bush administration has attempted to reshape environmental policy in the face of fierce opposition from environmentalists, citizens groups and political opponents. Rather than proposing broad changes or drafting new legislation, administration officials often have taken existing regulations and made subtle tweaks that carry large consequences.

Sometimes the change hinges on a single critical phrase or definition. For example, when the Environmental Protection Agency announced proposals last year to control mercury emissions, it also moved to downgrade the "hazardous" classification of mercury pollution from power plants -- a seemingly minor change that effectively gave utilities 15 more years to implement the most costly controls. Earlier this year, the Energy Department helped insert wording into a Senate bill to reclassify millions of gallons of "high-level" radioactive waste as "incidental," a change that would spare the government the expense of removing and treating the waste.

The fill rule is one of several key changes to coal-mining regulations that have been enacted or proposed by the Bush administration, which took office promising to ease bureaucratic burdens for the coal industry and expand the nation's energy production. To administration officials and mining companies, the changes are simply clarifications that eliminated ambiguities in the law. To environmental groups, they are the administration's payback to an industry that has raised $9 million for Republicans since 1998. The coal industry is a political force in West Virginia, a vital swing state whose five electoral votes for George W. Bush helped put him over the top in 2000.
....
While the capital costs are enormous, so is the payoff to the industry. Traditional mines extract about 70 percent of the coal from an underground seam; the recovery rate for mountaintop mines approaches 100 percent. The new mines also require far fewer workers -- sometimes only a few dozen per mine. Still, those jobs are high-paying and highly coveted, and the mines themselves continue to generate billions of dollars for local economies. For those reasons, many state politicians and even labor unions embrace the technique.

A growing number in central Appalachia despise it. A poll commissioned by a West Virginia environmental group this year found that opponents of the practice outnumber supporters by 2 to 1. "Opposition is broad and deep, traversing all demographic groups and every region of the state," said Daniel Gotoff of Lake Snell Perry & Associates, a Democratic polling firm based in the District.

As more mountaintops disappear and sometimes entire villages along with them, resistance has spread. Coal companies have offered to buy and demolish houses near the mines, effectively depopulating settlements. Residents who remain recite a familiar litany of complaints: dust, truck traffic, constant blasting that rattles nerves and sometimes damages houses. Even more jarring for many is the sight of the destruction of the ancient hills, familiar landmarks and touchstones for generations of families.

"I've been coming up through these mountains since I was 5 years old. Now the place looks like an asteroid hit," Bo Webb, a retired businessman and Vietnam veteran, said of the 1,800-acre mountaintop mine above his house in central West Virginia's Raleigh County. "A lot of us up here have fought for our country. To see what is happening now to our homes makes me so mad."

The state's top elected officials, including Democratic Gov. Robert E. Wise Jr. and his Republican predecessor Cecil H. Underwood, have supported mountaintop mining as critical to the coal industry's existence in West Virginia. Appalachian coal competes not only against other energy sources -- such as cleaner-burning natural gas -- but also against coal imports and other coal-producing regions of the country.

"Intense competition leads to bigger mines," said Mark Muchow, West Virginia's chief administrator for revenue operations. "You need bigger mining operations just to stay competitive."

Coal industry officials also contend the miners are careful stewards of the land, strictly adhering to laws requiring them to rehabilitate sheared-off mountains by planting grass and trees. Some claim a positive aspect to the toppling of West Virginia's famous green peaks: In a region where flat land is at a premium, the industry has created what officials describe as "unique" spaces for commercial development or wildlife habitat. "People have used these sites to build high schools and golf courses -- they see it as an opportunity to stimulate the economy and create jobs," said Gerard, the National Mining Association president. "Some of the sites are so beautifully reclaimed, many people can't tell the difference."

But the environmental damage is hard to miss. In mining areas, the waste rock piles up in huge "valley fills" that are sometimes more than a mile long and hundreds of feet deep. They have buried more than 700 miles of headwater streams across central Appalachia, government studies show.

Other impacts are felt downstream. Federal water-quality studies have found substantially higher levels of selenium, a mineral that is toxic to fish in high doses -- in rivers near the mines. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that as many as 244 species, including several that are endangered, were being affected by the loss of forest and aquatic habitats. "The individual and cumulative impacts to both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems are unprecedented," the agency's West Virginia field office concluded in a September 2001 report.

Only in the late 1990s did the problems begin to command the sustained attention of federal environmental officials. W. Michael McCabe, a deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in the late 1990s, recalled feeling astonished during a 1998 plane flight in which he passed over several of the largest mines in the middle of the lush West Virginia highlands. The denuded, flattened hills were a jarring sight, "like landing decks for alien spacecraft," he said.

McCabe said his agency had not anticipated the exponential growth of mountaintop mines. A key factor, he said, was a decision by mining companies in the 1980s to apply the techniques and supersize machines of western strip mines to Appalachia, where coal mines historically had been smaller and less efficient.

"The acreage affected by these mines went through the roof -- from the hundreds to the thousands of acres," said McCabe, now a private consultant. "It was the difference between a hand saw and a chain saw."

West Virginia is a swing state this year. If West Virginians want to countenance this policy, they'll vote to return this despoiler to the White House. If lots of them got big, fat, good jobs from these acts of environmental rape, perhaps they will.

Until you've seen it, I don't know if you can understand how perverse this mining practice is. You can drive literally for hours in West Virginia until you find an intact mountain top. Blasting debris fills hundreds of miles of valley stream beds. This is the work of people who don't have to live with the results.

Mastermind

Bin Laden Trail Still Cold, Pakistan Says
Joint sweep with the U.S. has caught more than a dozen other Al Qaeda suspects, official notes.

By Paul Watson, Times Staff Writer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Despite a surge in arrests of Al Qaeda suspects, a senior Pakistani anti-terrorism official said investigators still had not found the trail of their main target, Osama bin Laden.

"You can only be sure you're closing in on someone when you at least have a hint of his whereabouts," Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema said in an interview last week. "With regard to Osama bin Laden himself, I would say that we are not getting any substantial leads as yet."

Cheema, head of the National Crisis Management Cell at the Interior Ministry, said Pakistan was "working hand in glove with the U.S. government" in a sweep that had netted more than a dozen suspects in the last two weeks. Among those detained was Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who had been indicted in the United States for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in East Africa.

Pakistani intelligence sources say FBI agents are playing a crucial role in tracking suspects by intercepting cellphone calls and other actions.

One source familiar with the investigation said Washington had stepped up pressure on Pakistani authorities to turn their latest leads into the capture of more high-level targets before the U.S. presidential election in November.

Bush administration officials have warned that intelligence indicates Al Qaeda may be planning an attack before the election.

"The next month and a half is absolutely crucial," said the Pakistani source, who spoke on condition that he not be identified because his superiors had not approved the interview. "The way the Americans are pressuring Pakistan, they want Osama bin Laden."

Bush administration officials have denied U.S. media reports that the United States was pressuring Pakistan to capture or kill Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda fugitives before the election. National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack told the New Republic, which published one such account, that U.S. policy on pursuing those fugitives was unchanged by the election schedule.

Everything this White House does is politics, this is no different. And I predict they won't find bin Laden.

Sounding the Alarm

Twin Deficits at the Flashpoint?

Stephen Roach (New York)

June’s enormous US trade deficit should be a wake-up call to America and the rest of the world. It is a direct manifestation of a lopsided global economy that remains biased toward unprecedented external imbalances. As long as the US continues to live well beyond its means and as long as the rest of the world fails to live up to its means, this seemingly chronic condition will only get worse. The imperatives of global rebalancing are reaching a flashpoint.

America’s record $55.8 billion trade deficit in June was a shocker. Annualized, it is equivalent to a $670 billion shortfall, or 5.75% of nominal GDP. Nor can this deterioration be explained away by surging oil prices. Excluding petroleum products, the trade deficit for goods still widened by $2.7 billion in June -- an enormous swing by any standards. The plain fact of the matter is that America has never come close to running such an outsize external deficit before. By way of comparison, the last time the US had a “foreign trade problem” was in the latter half of the 1980s; back then, the trade deficit (as measured on a national income accounts basis) peaked out at 3.2% of GDP in the second quarter of 1987. Needless to say, that was not the most tranquil of times in financial markets. As America’s external imbalance widened in mid-1987, the dollar came under sharp downward pressure and US interest rates were pushed higher. Those were the classic manifestations of a current account adjustment that many (myself included) believe were at the heart of the stock market crash of October 1987. Today’s external imbalances dwarf those of 17 years ago.
....
This lack of saving, in my view, is America’s most vexing problem. Adding in government deficits, the net national saving rate -- the combined saving of households, businesses, and the government sector adjusted for deprecation -- has averaged only about 3% since 2000. By way of comparison, the net national saving rate averaged nearly 10% in the 1960s and 1970s before falling to 5.9% in the 1980s and 4.8% in the 1990s. Lacking in domestic saving, the United States has no other choice than to import foreign saving from abroad -- and run massive current-account and trade deficits to attract that capital. To the extent that the extraordinary deterioration in the federal budget has been the main culprit in pushing down America’s domestic saving rate in recent years, the two deficits are joined at the hip. Without a cushion of private saving, a long-term structural budget deficit problem -- precisely the outcome the US now faces, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office -- spells unrelenting pressures from America’s twin deficits for as far as the eye can see.
....
Never before has the world’s dominant economic power lived this far beyond its means. Most believe that America is special -- that it deserves special dispensation from current account, debt, and saving adjustments. Just as history is littered with the remnants of other such new paradigms, I continue to believe that the United States will have to pay a steep price for its imbalances. As America’s twin deficits move inexorably toward the flashpoint, there is a growing risk that its external financing terms could take a sudden turn for the worse. The dollar, US equities, and credit markets strike me as most vulnerable to such a development.

By "flashpoint" Steve means disaster: recession or worse on a global scale. He keeps harking back to 1987 and the market crash in October of that year. If the market or the dollar collapse, the economic pain will be enormous, but Roach's point is that the imbalances in the global economy caused by our twin deficits are not sustainable over time. Equilibrium will be enforced.

Executive Direction

The WaPo has the second installment of a three article series which began yesterday, on executive changes to federal regulations which remove worker/taxpayer protections in favor of business.

Workplace safety activist Jordan Barab expands on the Post (and yesterday's NYT) at Confined Spaces. Jordan has worked both the labor and government sides on these issues and is the expert on the Web for workplace safety. He lays out some of the history of OSHA:

One of the "benefits" and frustrations of being a workplace safety activist living in Washington D.C. is that I am constantly able to witness the subtle and not-so-subtle attacks that this administration has made on workplace safety, the environment and consumer well-being. Everyone (one hopes) remembers that the first significant piece of legislation that George W. Bush signed was the repeal of the ergonomics standard. But it's the more subtle attacks -- generally through regulatory changes unseen by most Americans or the major media -- that led me to launch this blog almost 18 months ago. One service that I thought I could provide was making workers and safety activist across the country aware of the havoc that this administration is wreaking on the promise of a safe workplace for all American workers.

So it is with some satisfaction that I returned to Washington today after the first phase of my summer vacation to find three articles (the first of a major series) in the Washington Post and one in the New York Times that address the major, yet almost unseen changes that the Bush administration has made through the regulatory process, with the effect of making more business friendly OSHA, MSHA and the agencies in charge of policing the health of our environment. On one hand, I'm glad to see these articles. On the other hand I'm thinking, "What the hell took you so long?" If you had been doing this kind of reporting all along, I could have gotten a lot more sleep.

Jordan's round up of links is worthwhile all by itself.

UPDATE: Writing in the new American Prospect, David Sirota has more.

The Big Squeeze
Republicans have always defended big business. But they’ve never done it quite like this.

For most Americans, the last four years have represented a low point in our economic history. But for the big-business interests financing the Bush campaign, these have been high times. In previous eras, and even under previous Republican administrations, corporate America was one of a number of players in the public-policy arena. But under the Bush administration, big business is both the player and the referee, having finally won its decades-long campaign to eliminate the boundary between executive suite and public office. No longer does the private-profit motive compete in the legislative process with public good; profit now owns the process, and the middle class is left to the vultures.

This administration, by contrast, resists any government intervention or deviation from the big-business agenda, no matter how dire the situation. It is all the culmination of the industry’s master plan: Take over the government and remove it as an obstacle to fleecing the average American. If any legitimate proposals arise to reregulate the market, they are bludgeoned with any red herring available: Health reforms are tarred as “socialized medicine,” tax reforms are attacked as “job killers.” While the fat cats make off like bandits, the rest of us are left, in five crucial areas of economic life, facing the big squeeze.

The five areas are: health insurance, perscription drugs, energy, wages and taxes. That about covers it, doesn't it.

Stage Management

White House Briefing

Revolt of the Press Corps
Monday, Aug 16, 2004; 11:09 AM

The press corps appears to have had about enough of those hokey "Ask President Bush" events.

AFP writes: "President George W. Bush famously dislikes press conferences but has embraced 'Ask President Bush' sessions packed with supporters at least as eager to pay tribute to him as get an answer."

If this is a press revolt, it's a pretty mild one. It is a sign of how far they have fallen that Dan Froomkin can look at this mild criticism as a "revolt."

Najaf: The Linchpin

Battle for Iraq's future
Donald Macintyre in Najaf

16 August 2004

Democracy was a long way from Najaf yesterday. As fighting resumed in the Shia holy city, Iyad Allawi's government moved to impose an authoritarian media clampdown before any full-scale assault on the holy sites which insurgents have made their base.

Amid continued exchanges of fire, US tanks rolled deeper into the old city in an attempt to tighten the cordon around the militants loyal to Muqtada Sadr based in and around the shrine of Imam Ali. Sporadic explosions continued throughout the day when US forces used Apache helicopters, warplanes and tank shells in response to mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and machine-gun fire by the insurgents.

Sadr's militants were shown in a television film parading two pieces of decorated brickwork thought to have been part of a door in the shrine compound that was hit by shrapnel from a tank shell. The blood-covered body of a man, apparently shot in the head, was carried from the scene as insurgents took up positions in the deserted and boarded-up streets within the loose cordon of US tanks.

Peace talks aimed at ending a 10-day uprising in the city in which hundreds have died collapsed at the weekend, and after an uneasy truce during which US forces had loosened their noose around the mosque fighting was expected to resume.

And yesterday was to have been the day a battered nation embarked on the road to democracy. Would-be fathers of the new Iraq travelled to Baghdad for a conference intended to guide the country toward free elections next year. Even there though, in the heart of the capital, the harsh reality is that this is a country in chaos. Mortars fell close to the conference centre. An American soldier died after a roadside bomb exploded. A Ukrainian soldier was killed by a mine south of the city.

Why are American troops in Najaf?
Richard Reeves United Press Syndicate
Monday, August 16, 2004

So what are we Americans doing in Najaf? Is killing the followers of a nasty Shiite preacher, killing them at the gates of the most holy shrine of Shiite Muslims all over the world, vital to the national interests of the United States and its allies?

And why is it that we are killing Shiites, the wretched of the earth in the secular Sunni Muslim country of Saddam Hussein? That is the same Saddam who murdered the father of the preacher five years ago. Was that our clear intent and realistic objective in invading Iraq? Would the American people and Congress - and our allies - have supported a $200 billion war to get a preacher, Moktada al-Sadr?

And was invasion our last resort? Even the war-maker himself, President George W. Bush, never claimed that. In the beginning, he said, it was the last resort because the United Nations had pushed hard enough to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. When there were no such weapons, he said Saddam was a very bad guy. That was true - and it was true 20 years ago when we were supplying him with weapons to use against Iran. But was he a great enough threat to go to war ourselves? Was killing Iraqis after the war our last resort?

"I know what I'm doing when it comes to winning this war," said Bush last Wednesday. That's good to hear. What exactly are you doing in Najaf? Killing bad guys, I guess. If that is the criteria for putting the Marines around the shrine of the Imam Ali, then we will be at war forever, everywhere.

Reagan, no "girly-man" he, began thinking hard and differently about sending young men and women into harm's way after 241 U.S. Marines on a peace-keeping mission to Lebanon were killed by a truck-bomber who crashed into their barracks near the Beirut airport in October of 1983. Seven years later in his autobiography he wrote:

"Perhaps we didn't appreciate fully enough the depth of the hatred and complexity of the problems that made the Middle East such a jungle. Perhaps the idea of a suicide car bomber committing mass murder to gain instant entry to Paradise was so foreign to our own values and consciousness that it did not create in us the concern for the Marines' safety that it should have."

Reagan pulled the Marines out five months later, saying: "In the weeks immediately after the bombing, I believed the last thing we should do was turn tail and leave. ... Yet, the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics forced us to re-think our policy there."

It was then that Reagan wrote his list of policies regarding use of the military and concluded with this: "I would recommend it to future presidents."

No Comment

Suppress the Vote?
By BOB HERBERT

Published: August 16, 2004

The big story out of Florida over the weekend was the tragic devastation caused by Hurricane Charley. But there's another story from Florida that deserves our attention.

State police officers have gone into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando and interrogated them as part of an odd "investigation" that has frightened many voters, intimidated elderly volunteers and thrown a chill over efforts to get out the black vote in November.

The officers, from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which reports to Gov. Jeb Bush, say they are investigating allegations of voter fraud that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in March.

Officials refused to discuss details of the investigation, other than to say that absentee ballots are involved. They said they had no idea when the investigation might end, and acknowledged that it may continue right through the presidential election.

"We did a preliminary inquiry into those allegations and then we concluded that there was enough evidence to follow through with a full criminal investigation," said Geo Morales, a spokesman for the Department of Law Enforcement.

The state police officers, armed and in plain clothes, have questioned dozens of voters in their homes. Some of those questioned have been volunteers in get-out-the-vote campaigns.

I asked Mr. Morales in a telephone conversation to tell me what criminal activity had taken place.

"I can't talk about that," he said.

I asked if all the people interrogated were black.

"Well, mainly it was a black neighborhood we were looking at - yes,'' he said.

He also said, "Most of them were elderly."

When I asked why, he said, "That's just the people we selected out of a random sample to interview."

Back in the bad old days, some decades ago, when Southern whites used every imaginable form of chicanery to prevent blacks from voting, blacks often fought back by creating voters leagues, which were organizations that helped to register, educate and encourage black voters. It became a tradition that continues in many places, including Florida, today.

Not surprisingly, many of the elderly black voters who found themselves face to face with state police officers in Orlando are members of the Orlando League of Voters, which has been very successful in mobilizing the city's black vote.

The president of the Orlando League of Voters is Ezzie Thomas, who is 73 years old. With his demonstrated ability to deliver the black vote in Orlando, Mr. Thomas is a tempting target for supporters of George W. Bush in a state in which the black vote may well spell the difference between victory and defeat.

The vile smell of voter suppression is all over this so-called investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Joseph Egan, an Orlando lawyer who represents Mr. Thomas, said: "The Voters League has workers who go into the community to do voter registration, drive people to the polls and help with absentee ballots. They are elderly women mostly. They get paid like $100 for four or five months' work, just to offset things like the cost of their gas. They see this political activity as an important contribution to their community. Some of the people in the community had never cast a ballot until the league came to their door and encouraged them to vote."

Now, said Mr. Egan, the fear generated by state police officers going into people's homes as part of an ongoing criminal investigation related to voting is threatening to undo much of the good work of the league. He said, "One woman asked me, 'Am I going to go to jail now because I voted by absentee ballot?' "

According to Mr. Egan, "People who have voted by absentee ballot for years are refusing to allow campaign workers to come to their homes. And volunteers who have participated for years in assisting people, particularly the elderly or handicapped, are scared and don't want to risk a criminal investigation."

Florida is a state that's very much in play in the presidential election, with some polls showing John Kerry in the lead. A heavy-handed state police investigation that throws a blanket of fear over thousands of black voters can only help President Bush.

The long and ugly tradition of suppressing the black vote is alive and thriving in the Sunshine State.

Famiglia Bush really is a criminal enterprise.

Prior Restraint

F.B.I. Goes Knocking for Political Troublemakers
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: August 16, 2004

WASHINGTON, Aug. 15 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been questioning political demonstrators across the country, and in rare cases even subpoenaing them, in an aggressive effort to forestall what officials say could be violent and disruptive protests at the Republican National Convention in New York.

F.B.I. officials are urging agents to canvass their communities for information about planned disruptions aimed at the convention and other coming political events, and they say they have developed a list of people who they think may have information about possible violence. They say the inquiries, which began last month before the Democratic convention in Boston, are focused solely on possible crimes, not on dissent, at major political events.

But some people contacted by the F.B.I. say they are mystified by the bureau's interest and felt harassed by questions about their political plans.

"The message I took from it," said Sarah Bardwell, 21, an intern at a Denver antiwar group who was visited by six investigators a few weeks ago, "was that they were trying to intimidate us into not going to any protests and to let us know that, 'hey, we're watching you.' ''

The unusual initiative comes after the Justice Department, in a previously undisclosed legal opinion, gave its blessing to controversial tactics used last year by the F.B.I in urging local police departments to report suspicious activity at political and antiwar demonstrations to counterterrorism squads. The F.B.I. bulletins that relayed the request for help detailed tactics used by demonstrators - everything from violent resistance to Internet fund-raising and recruitment.

I've been cracking wise that the FBI is probably keeping track of you and me. That doesn't seem so funny anymore. I'd like to hear from our legal community on this.

On With The Show

Start your day with Juan Cole, click over there on the right under the heading "Brilliant Aggregators." Before I even get to the NYT and WaPo, Dr. Cole tells us:

There is a night and day difference between how John Burns of the New York Times reports the national congress held Sunday and the version given us of that event by Rajiv Candrasekaran of the Washington Post.

I think Burns's story more accurately reflects the Iraqi reality. I don't think the conference is any significant check on the executive, as Candrasekaran argues it is. Allawi will do as he pleases and ignore this weak Duma. The conference had to be held almost furtively for fear it would be blown up, and it almost was anyway. Many of Iraq's major cities are being bombed semi-regularly by the US Air Force-- Fallujah, Samarra, Kut, Najaf, etc.

The NYT's Burns reports:

AGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 15 - A conference of more than 1,100 Iraqis chosen to take the country a crucial step further toward constitutional democracy convened in Baghdad on Sunday under siege-like conditions, only to be thrown into disorder by delegates staging angry protests against the American-led military operation in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.

After an opening speech by Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, delegates leapt out of their seats demanding the conference be suspended. One Shiite delegate stormed the stage before being forced back, shouting, "We demand that military operations in Najaf stop immediately!"

Shortly afterward, two mortar shells fired at the area where the meeting was being held landed in a bus and truck terminal nearby, killing 2 people and wounding at least 17.

The three-day conference, called to elect a 100-member commission that is to organize elections in January and hold veto powers over decrees passed by the Allawi government, was not halted. But reporters who had been told to wear flak jackets and helmets when entering the convention center complex past American tanks were frantically waved back from the center's plate glass windows as the mortar shells exploded, shaking the complex and rattling the windows.

In many ways, the scene seemed like a metaphor for America's problems in Iraq, with the rebel attacks that have spread to virtually every Sunni and Shiite town across this country of 25 million threatening to overwhelm plans for three rounds of national elections next year, ending with a fully elected government in January 2006.

Just as American troops in Najaf have failed so far to quell an uprising by a rebel Shiite cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, so on Sunday's showing here, American political plans for Iraq remain hostage to the violence that has made much of the country enemy territory for the Americans.

The fighting in Najaf, which resumed Sunday after the Allawi government walked out of truce talks, is part of a wider insurrection across southern Iraq by militiamen loyal to Mr. Sadr, who has cast himself as a tribune of the Shiite underclass and as the leader of a national resistance movement against American troops.

The signs in Najaf were of preparations for yet another attempt to force Mr. Sadr and a force of perhaps 1,000 men from his Mahdi Army militia to relinquish control of the Imam Ali Mosque, Shiism's holiest shrine, and by defeating them there, to begin rolling back the challenge he poses to plans to stabilize the country.

After a day of sporadic gunfire and explosions that shook Najaf's Old City, with the mosque at its center, reporters said they had seen American tanks blocking almost every street leading to the shrine, some as little as 1,000 yards away.

American commanders spoke of tightening the cordon they threw around the Old City last week, but of leaving any attempt to move into the immediate vicinity of the shrine to the Iraqi forces that Prime Minister Allawi said Saturday would now carry the brunt of the Najaf fighting.

By using Iraqi troops, Dr. Allawi and the American officials who are his partners in Baghdad hope to avoid the eruption of fury among Iraq's majority Shiites - and across the wider Shiite world, particularly in Iran - if American troops were seen to have damaged or desecrated the mosque, which is revered as the burial place of Imam Ali, Shiism's founding saint.

In a further sign that a new push against Mr. Sadr might be imminent, the Allawi government ordered the expulsion of all reporters working in Najaf, Iraqis as well as Westerners, and even warned Najaf residents working as freelancers for Western news outlets to cease work.

"I received orders from the interior minister, who demands that all local, Arab and foreign journalists leave the hotel and the city within two hours," Gen. Ghaleb al-Jazairi, Najaf's police chief, told newsmen at the hotel on the edge of the Old City that has become a news media headquarters. He gave as his reason the government's inability to protect the journalists if major new battles erupted.

This put-up-job assembly isn't going to fool anybody, it will still be seen as an American puppet show and will do nothing to quell the violence. Bushco thinks people can live on PR. Still all hat, no cattle.

Suffering Planet

Who cares?

The number of humanitarian crises in the world is greater than ever before but most go unreported in Western media. Sophie Arie in Rome and Jason Burke reveal the extent of the suffering - and the nightmare facing aid agencies

Sunday August 15, 2004
The Observer

In the dusty valleys of Sumdoh, where the villages barely cling to the steep slopes of the high peaks of the Indian Himalayas, where winter temperatures drop to -30C, and where the frost splinters roads into rubble in months, they are waiting. High above, behind the crags that rim their desolate valley homes, is a lake. Old shepherds remember it as an oversized pond, but now it is a huge reservoir, swollen with the glacial melt caused by global warming, waiting to smash its way down the valley and out to the plains beyond.

Last week, with the lake higher than ever, the Indian government began the laborious process of evacuating 12,000 villagers. The operation was carefully co-ordinated from the hill town of Simla. Chief Minister Vir Bhadr Singh reviewed the situation and said the government must prepare for the worst. But many thousands remain in the danger zone.

Few outside India have heard about the crisis. This is not unusual. Across the world tens of millions of people are at risk from famine, disease and natural disasters, without anyone taking much notice. In Gujarat, in western India, 300,000 farmers have had their fields flooded; droughts have hit Sri Lanka, there are floods and landslides in Brazil and Haiti.

Nor are the villagers of Sumdoh exaggerating the problems. When a lake flooded in the Caucasus in 2002 it destroyed a village 15 miles down stream, killing 100 people. Researchers at the United Nations Environment Programme have identified at least 44 potentially dangerous glacial lakes in the tiny Himalayan kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan alone.

Many aid workers say the current situation is the worst they have ever faced. The number of humanitarian emergencies is already higher than ever before. According to the Red Cross, there were around 400 reported disasters each year between 1993 and 1997. Between 2000 and 2002 there were more than 700. And a 'witches brew' of factors threatens to unleash many, many more that could bring misery to tens of millions and completely overwhelm the structures that exist to bring help to those who most need it.
....
Senior WFP officials believe four major factors are causing the crisis. The first is that global warming is causing problems of a severity that has never been seen before. The rise in global temperatures - reckoned to be more than half a degree centigrade over the past year - has melted glaciers throughout the world, causing landslips, mudslides, flash floods and the swollen lakes that threaten Sumdoh. Warmer temperatures mean more evaporation which means more precipitation which means more flooding. WFP officials point to the recent floods in Bangladesh - the worst for six years - as an example of the sort of climate-related crisis they increasingly face.

Another factor that senior figures at the programme say makes their job more difficult is the focus on the war on terror. With news agendas dominated by violence in Iraq or security scares in Europe, only the highest profile stories ever make it on to our television screens and newspaper front pages.

'We are facing a major problem of priorities,' said John Powell, the WFP's deputy executive director. 'The international community has great concern that we keep capacity in Iraq for the next couple of months. But at the same time, there are tens of millions of people who don't know where their next meal is coming from. We don't seem to be able to engender the same degree of concern for many other places in the world.'

Powell said press coverage is critical. 'The media is an indispensable ingredient in the recipe for success,' he said. 'But it's a fact that there are disasters which are less prominent. Altogether there are 800 million people in the world who do not have enough to eat each and every day. And nobody talks about it or writes about it.'

One example raised by WFP officials is the current devastation wrought by massive locust swarms in sub-Saharan Africa. A plague of locusts, generated by unusually strong and regular rain, has cut a swathe from the western Maghreb across Mauritania, Niger and Chad and is heading for southern Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the violence of government-sponsored militia are already at grave risk.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), another major UN body, launched an appeal for aid to mount operations to counteract the locust swarm in the autumn of last year. This appeal was renewed twice during the spring, but a bare minimum of funds was forthcoming and, though the richer countries such as Algeria and Libya were able to mount effective campaigns, the poorer sub-Saharan countries just had to take their chances.

'We have had big damage in the oases already, especially to market vegetable gardens,' said Mohamed El Haceu Ould Jaavar, chief of intervention at Mauritania's National Locust Centre. 'The situation is critical. We don't have the means to cope with the situation. We need vehicles, planes and pesticides to treat the locust.'

This is a long article, but necessary read. I was unaware of nearly all of the humanitarian disasters listed in the article, and I leave out here in the sea of meme. I was also unaware of how thinly stretched the humanitarian agencies are--one of the agency heads said they are having to decide to feed the pregnant women or the elderly, can't do both. Just as the disparity between the classes in the country is widening, so is the disparity between the rich and poor countries growing ever greater.

On the Radar

President Bush Tours Hurricane-Ravaged Florida

By Ceci Connolly and William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 15, 2004; 2:05 PM

PUNTA GORDA, Fla., Aug. 15 -- Cleanup crews and rescue workers descended on the wreckage left by Hurricane Charley Sunday as President Bush toured the area by air and by motorcade to personally assess the damage.

Two days after the storm slammed into the southwest Florida coast with winds of 145-mph, state officials issued a rough estimate of the damage to residential property, saying it could range between $5 billion and $11 billion. Thousands of people, many of them elderly retirees, have been left homeless, and many more are without water and power.

So far, at least 16 people have been confirmed killed in Florida by the hurricane, but authorities indicated that the death toll could rise. Hundreds of people remained unaccounted for Sunday, as rescue workers combed devastated trailer parks for victims trapped in debris.

After flying low over the affected areas in his Marine One helicopter, Bush toured a heavily damaged area of this town by motorcade. Accompanied by his brother Jeb Bush, the Republican governor of Florida, the president got out of his vehicle and visited people in a residential neighborhood.

And it is still early in the hurricane season, one that promises to be among the busiest of recent years. And that means expensive, in a year of exploding deficits.

Disney's Heresy

The gospel according to Disney

Mark Pinsky
Saturday August 14, 2004
The Guardian

So, given the impact of this on children, what are the tenets of the Church of Walt? Are there a set of values to comprise a "Disney gospel"?

Definitely. Good is invariably rewarded and evil punished. Faith in yourself and, more, faith in some higher power is essential. That is, faith in faith. Optimism and the Calvinist paradigm that hard work is rewarded with upward mobility complete the Disney canon. All of this is presented in a context vaguely implying western Christianity. But curiously, this is a largely secular gospel almost without God or Jesus. Salvation is attained through faith and works, not by grace. There is little explicit Judeo-Christian symbolism or substance in 70 years of Disney's animation. This despite the almost pervasive use of a theological vocabulary: words such as miracle, sacrifice, and divine. It seems a contradiction, portraying Judeo-Christian values without sectarian, or even a godly context - the fruits without the roots.

You could argue that since 1937, viewers of the studio's features have been receiving a message with recognisable, if watered down, values. I call this Disney gospel "secular 'toonism". This reluctance to make organised religion a significant part of the fabric of film mirrored Disney's early commercial concerns: fear of offending and fear of excluding audiences in the US and abroad. It also reflected Walt's experience of growing up with a rigidly fundamentalist father who soured him for life on organised religion.

Thus the Disney empire, by its founder's designation, is a kingdom of magic, almost totally without reference to any kingdom of heaven. Take the theme parks, sites of quasi-religious pilgrimages for many families, and advertised as the happiest places on earth - not the holiest. There are no churches on Main Street at Disneyland or Walt Disney World, or chapels on Disney cruise ships. Walt's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, told one minister that there are no churches because her father did not want to favour any particular denomination. It is an explanation still repeated - as if the company's genius for the generic did not extend to creating a one-size-fits-all church.

There is a darker side to Disney's films. The earlier ones put forward an unrealistic view of what life holds in store for children, and some include troubling racial, ethnic and gender stereotypes. And yes, mothers are frequently dead, crazy or just plain missing.

Yet the strength of the more recent animation is the growing assertiveness of the girls and young women, perhaps reflecting the growing number of women at the studio, and the respect they now accord different ethnic groups, religions, and nationalities. This has a great deal to do with reflecting changes in the culture at large. And it probably has much to do with Disney's identification of its target market for such movies.

Disney's animated features are not a substitute for worship or Sunday school or ethical education. But they are tools in building moral sensibility, and in reinforcing parental and religious values.

I don't know Pinsky's work, but this is an example of really sloppy religion reporting. Disney's values structure is simply that of the secular culture and is a popular heresy rather than an aping of Judeo-Christianity. The idea that the individual can provide for themselves all that is needed through discipline and hard work is Pelagian, and denies the reality that we are interdependent on each other. Anybody who has ever had the pins knocked out from under them, regardless of "worth," knows that grace alone saves.

American Footprint

Last night I pointed out a WaPo story from yesterday which read

President Bush will announce Monday that he plans to pull 70,000 to 100,000 troops out of Europe and Asia in the first major reconfiguration of overseas military deployments by the United States since the Cold War ended, White House officials said yesterday.

and I went on to indicate what I thought the DoD should be doing.

A Christian Science Monitor story from earlier this week lays out the point of the Pentagon's strategy for this re-deployment:

As part of a cold-war posture, the US has traditionally maintained about 100,000 troops including two heavy tank divisions in Western Europe and another 100,000 in Asia, including 37,000 in Korea. As part of the coming troop drawdown, forces in Korea will be consolidated and many repatriated, including a 3,600-strong Army brigade already destined for a tour in Iraq before heading home. Meanwhile, the US will substantially boost the number of ships and warplanes in Asia, defense officials say.

Troop numbers in Germany are also likely to drop, while more Spartan bases are under consideration in Poland and new NATO member states such as Bulgaria and Romania. These would range from semipermanent installations such as those in Bosnia to bare-bones sites with little more than a runway, some rudimentary shelters, and possibly electricity, says Gen. James Jones, commander of US European Command.

Apart from creating a network of smaller bases closer to projected hotspots, the shift into regions like southern Europe and Central Asia could also ease environmental restrictions on US forces and facilitate training with new allies. Risks also include working with repressive and less-stable regions in countries such as Uzbekistan, although the size and transitory nature of the bases mitigate these risks.

In The Sorrows of Empire, Chalmers Johnson lays out the neocons' strategy for empire and its dangers for the republic. This is from an interview he gave to the LA Weekly earlier this year:

Indeed, your thesis is that since September 11, the U.S. ceased to be a republic and has become an empire.

It’s an extremely open question if we have crossed our Rubicon and there is no going back. Easily the most important right in our Constitution, according to James Madison, who wrote much of the document, is the one giving the right to go to war exclusively to the elected representatives of the people, to the Congress. Never, Madison continued, should that right be given to a single man. But in October 2002, our Congress gave that power to a single man, to exercise whenever he wanted, and with nuclear weapons if he so chose. And the following March, without any international consultation or legitimacy, he exercised that power by staging a unilateral attack on Iraq.

The Bill of Rights — articles 4 and 6 — are now open to question. Do people really have the right to habeas corpus? Are they still secure in their homes from illegal seizures? The answer for the moment is no. We have to wait and see what the Supreme Court will rule as to the powers of this government that it appointed.

You know from your study of history that when we traditionally speak of empire, we have in mind the model of European colonialism — the Brits in India, the French in Algeria and Indochina. Surely that’s not what you mean when you refer to an American empire.

By an American empire I mean 725 military bases in 138 foreign countries circling the globe from Greenland to Asia, from Japan to Latin America. This is a sort of base world — a secret, enclosed, separate world where our half-million troops, contractors and spies live quite comfortably around the world. I think that’s an empire. Granted, the unit of European imperialism was the colony. The unit of American imperialism is the military base.

These American bases are an outgrowth of U.S. containment policy from the Cold War. What’s their role now? Are they just pork? Or are they there to defend U.S. investment?

What they don’t do is defend U.S. security. They just grew, whether or not they had or have strategic value. We have 101 bases today in Korea even though the war has been over for 50 years. Once created, the military is endlessly creative in finding new functions for them, long after their real value has evaporated. This base world becomes part of the vested interest we associate not with security but with militarism, the danger of the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned against.

You’re saying the real impetus here is more a self-perpetuating military bureaucracy rather than some grand rational strategy?

Right. I think Eisenhower was right when he spoke of how we didn’t recognize the unwarranted power of the arms industry. You know, a piece of the B-2 bomber is built in every one of the continental states.

What are the costs of this empire to democracy and the republic?

There’s the literal cost. We are flirting with bankruptcy. We are not paying for what is now a $750 billion tab. The defense appropriation itself is about $420 billion. That doesn’t include another $125 billion, which is the cost of Afghanistan and Iraq. Then another $20 billion for nuclear weapons in the Department of Energy. Add in another $200 billion or so for military pensions and for health benefits for our veterans. Together, that’s three-quarters of a trillion dollars.

We are putting it on the tab, running up some of the most extraordinary budget and trade deficits in history. If the bankers of Asia and Japan should tire of financing this, if they notice the euro is now stronger than the dollar, then all this ends — whether or not they like the Boy Emperor from Crawford. We would face a terrible crisis.

The greater cost is what the public will lose, if they haven’t already lost it: the republic, the structural defense of our liberties, the separation of powers to block the growth of a dictatorial presidency.

This is what is at stake in November.

Power Corrupts

You read about it last week here at the Bump.

Volcanic Absurdity

Sunday, August 15, 2004; Page B06

WITH ALL THE heightened concerns about terrorism, you might think the Department of Homeland Security has something better to do with its time and energy than throw victims of natural disasters out of the United States. But that's because, like most Americans, you probably missed a recent notice in the Federal Register informing victims of a massive volcanic eruption on the Carribean island of Montserrat that they had to leave this country by February.

After the eruptions started in 1995, 292 Montserrat residents were granted what is called Temporary Protected Status here in the United States. The status allows refugees of political or other turmoil abroad to live and work here until the crisis at home abates. Crisis abatement, unfortunately, has not happened in Montserrat. Dangerous eruptions of this previously dormant volcano called Soufriere Hills have continued and are not expected to stop any time soon. The notice helpfully explains that "many nationals of Montserrat remain unable to return to their homes in the southern part of the island. In addition to the prospect of volcanic destruction, returning residents possibly would be subject to contracting the lung disease silicosis and other health risks caused by ash that periodically covers much of the island." Indeed, in an ironic twist, DHS is kicking out the refugees precisely because the situation at home has not improved. Since the eruptions "are unlikely to cease in the foreseeable future, they can no longer be considered 'temporary,' " so residents of the island no longer qualify for "temporary" protection.

Why exactly DHS has taken this absurd and cruel step is a bit of mystery. The Montserrat refugees are hardly a drain on American society. And the crisis that led them to flee their homes was not one of their own making. While DHS officials argue that the permanent solution is for them to go to Great Britain, which rules the island, why it is reasonable or humane to uproot them at all?

"A bit of a mystery?" No. This is gratuitous caprice, and it is an outrage.

Too Sad for Words

John Donne: "Every man's death diminishes me." The death of a good poet, particularly so. The world is a tad poorer today.

Czeslaw Milosz, Poet and Nobelist Who Wrote of Modern Cruelties, Dies at 93
By RAYMOND H. ANDERSON

Published: August 15, 2004

Czeslaw Milosz, the Polish émigré writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1980, in part for a powerful pre-mortem dissection of Communism, in part for tragic, ironic poetry that set a standard for the world, died Saturday at his home in Krakow, his assistant, Agnieszka Kosinska, told The Associated Press. He was 93

An artist of extraordinary intellectual energy, Mr. Milosz was also an essayist, literary translator and scholar of the first rank.

Many of his fellow poets were in awe of his skills. When another Nobel poet and exile from totalitarianism, the Russian Joseph Brodsky, presented Mr. Milosz with the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1978, he said, "I have no hesitation whatsoever in stating that Czeslaw Milosz in one of the greatest poets of our time, perhaps the greatest."

Mr. Milosz was often described as a poet of memory and a poet of witness.

Terrence Des Pres, writing in The Nation, said of him: "In exile from a world which no longer exists, a witness to the Nazi devastation of Poland and the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe, Milosz deals in his poetry with the central issues of our time: the impact of history upon moral being, the search for ways to survive spiritual ruin in a ruined world."

VENI CREATOR

Come, Holy Spirit,
bending or not bending the grasses,
appearing or not above our heads in a tongue of flame,
at hay harvest or when they plough in the orchards or when snow
covers crippled firs in the Sierra Nevada.
I am only a man: I need visible signs.
I tire easily, building the stairway of abstraction.
Many a time I asked, you know it well, that the statue in church
lift its hand, only once, just once, for me.
But I understand that signs must be human,
therefore call one man, anywhere on earth,
not me--after all I have some decency--
and allow me, when I look at him, to marvel at you.

--Czeslaw Milosz

Business Writes the Rules

I gave you a fore-taste of this WaPo series yesterday, with a frontpager from the Times. As you read this, remember that Goldstein and Cohen are playing the roles of the familiar Washington bobbleheads who think that "he said, she said" constitute good reporting, rather than actually digging into inconveniant facts.

Bush Forces a Shift In Regulatory Thrust
OSHA Made More Business-Friendly

By Amy Goldstein and Sarah Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 15, 2004; Page A01

First of three articles

Tuberculosis had sneaked up again, reappearing with alarming frequency across the United States. The government began writing rules to protect 5 million people whose jobs put them in special danger. Hospitals and homeless shelters, prisons and drug treatment centers -- all would be required to test their employees for TB, hand out breathing masks and quarantine those with the disease. These steps, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration predicted, could prevent 25,000 infections a year and 135 deaths.

By the time President Bush moved into the White House, the tuberculosis rules, first envisioned in 1993, were nearly complete. But the new administration did nothing on the issue for the next three years.

Then, on the last day of 2003, in an action so obscure it was not mentioned in any major newspaper in the country, the administration canceled the rules. Voluntary measures, federal officials said, were effective enough to make regulation unnecessary.

The demise of the decade-old plan of defense against tuberculosis reflects the way OSHA has altered its regulatory mission to embrace a more business-friendly posture. In the past 3 1/2 years, OSHA, the branch of the Labor Department in charge of workers' well-being, has eliminated nearly five times as many pending standards as it has completed. It has not started any major new health or safety rules, setting Bush apart from the previous three presidents, including Ronald Reagan .

The changes within OSHA since George W. Bush took office illustrate the way that this administration has used the regulatory process to redirect the course of government.

To examine this process, The Washington Post explored the Bush administration's approach to regulation from three perspectives. This article about OSHA traces the impact on one regulatory agency. Tomorrow's story will look at a lobbyist's 32-line, last-minute addition to a bill that created a tool for attacking the science used to support new regulations. Tuesday's article will document a one-word change in a regulation that allowed coal companies to accelerate efforts to strip away the tops of thousands of Appalachian mountains.

The Post also analyzed a database from the Office of Management and Budget containing the 38,000 regulatory actions considered by agencies over the past two decades.

The analysis, combined with the more detailed look at specific regulatory decisions, shows how an administration can employ this subtle aspect of presidential power to implement far-reaching policy changes. Most of the decisions are made without the public attention that accompanies congressional debate. Under Bush, these decisions have spanned logging in national forests, patients' rights in government health insurance programs, tests for tainted packaged meats, Indian land transactions and grants to religious charities.

All presidents have written or eliminated regulations to further their agendas. What is distinctive about Bush is that he quickly imposed a culture intended to put his anti-regulatory stamp on government.

Unlike his two predecessors, Bush has canceled more of the unfinished regulatory work he inherited than he has completed, according to The Post's analysis. He has also begun fewer new rules than either President Bill Clinton or President George H.W. Bush during the same period of their presidencies. Since the younger Bush took office, federal agencies have begun roughly one-quarter fewer rules than Clinton and 13 percent fewer than Bush's father during comparable periods.

President Bush's closest advisers and sharpest critics agree that the shift in regulatory climate since he took office in January 2001 has been profound. But they disagree over whether that shift represents a harmful turn away from federal protections to benefit business or a useful streamlining of costly government rules.

Sally Katzen, who oversaw all federal regulation for five years under Clinton as deputy budget director for information and regulatory affairs, said new regulations were, in those days, embraced as a means to improve the quality of water, of air -- in short, of people's lives. "Bush, or at least the people around him, are skeptical, if not hostile to that notion," she said.

John D. Graham, who holds the same job in the Bush White House, said regulations are "a form of unfunded mandate that the federal government imposes on the private sector or on state or local governments." A president, he said, should not be judged solely by the number of regulations he starts or cancels.

This White House, Graham said, has initiated regulations when the benefits clearly outweigh the costs -- for example, a decision last year that eventually will require labeling of trans fatty acids in food. "We've just been much more selective about expensive new regulatory requirements than previous administrations have been," he said.

So, trans-fatty acids are the new TB? What's the message?

A Shot

Over at Kos, DemfromCT started a thread on Iraq which says, in essence, nobody has a way out, that's why don't hear either Bush or Kerry talking exit strategy.

I don't have one either, but I can think of a way of spending the next year that would get us a whole lot closer than what we are doing now. It is politically unworkable, however, even though it is only thing that stands a chance. With the "insurgency" active and growing all over the country, it might be too late for this.

Bush is already planning (well, Rummy is) to redeploy 60-90K soldiers from Europe and the Far East back to the United States. What he should be doing (and this has political pay off for him) is immediately redeploying 150K troops into Iraq. Given the difficulties the support contractors have in feeding and equipping the troops we already have there, this is a logistical nightmare, but if more Iraqis are hired to work with the contractors you end up with more employed Iraqis, a net positive. It will easily take 300K troops (more would be better, in the range of 400-500K, but we don't have the horses) to remedy the security situation (remember, we have another war going badly in Afghanistan, largely because we understaffed it.) We need to pull in every civil affairs specialist we have, active or reserve/Guard. Once the country is pacified (this will be brutal) the civilian contractors have a shot at getting the electricity fixed and the oil running (both the Northern and Southern pipelines were shut down today.) Let the Iraqis come to understand that there are enough good things going on that they have a shot at prosperity--rather than "freedom," give them a shot at being middle class. The is the most literate, best educated population in the Arab world.

Go back to the pacification and reconstruction plan that the State Department drew up, fer cryin' out loud, the work has already been done, and implement it religiously. Then let the political discussions begin. The Iraqis get to decide what kind of system they want to have, but they can't have that debate until they can be relatively certain that having it won't result in getting shot at for speaking up. And let's get rid of the illusion that there is an "interim" governorate. This is going to be a military disctrict for a while, it's time to get rid of the fictions. The Iraqis certainly aren't fooled.

If Bushco sent in 150K soldiers and marines today, he would have a shot at an Iraq that was quiet, if not "pacified," by November 2, and that would be a very good thing for him. But all he would have is a shot, and this is not without substantial risks, most of them political rather than military.

And I would hope there would be some sort of retrospective punishment for Tommy Franks for allowing his troops to be put in harms way on the "strength" of a war and aftermath plan that anyone with a passing knowledge of our past interventions would know was foolish and dangerous.

Since none of these suggestions are going to be taken up for the remainder of this administration, I offer this plan to the Kerry administration. The senators aren't really going to have any other choice, unless immediate withdrawal is contemplated. The middling strategy we are pursuing now will accomplish nothing other than getting a bunch of people killed everyday, coalition and Iraqi, and get us no closer to peace or getting out, both legitimate goals, than we are now. Which is to say, nowhere near.

Of course the path of wisdom was never to have taken on this war in the first place. I wonder why the rest of the world has this figured out and nearly half of the American public doesn't?

Changing the Rules

Out of Spotlight, Bush Overhauls U.S. Regulations
By JOEL BRINKLEY

Allies and critics of the Bush administration agree that the Sept. 11 attacks, the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq have preoccupied the public, overshadowing an important element of the president's agenda: new regulatory initiatives. Health rules, environmental regulations, energy initiatives, worker-safety standards and product-safety disclosure policies have been modified in ways that often please business and industry leaders while dismaying interest groups representing consumers, workers, drivers, medical patients, the elderly and many others.

And most of it was done through regulation, not law - lowering the profile of the actions. The administration can write or revise regulations largely on its own, while Congress must pass laws. For that reason, most modern-day presidents have pursued much of their agendas through regulation. But administration officials acknowledge that Mr. Bush has been particularly aggressive in using this strategy.

"There's been more federal regulations, more regulatory notices, than previous administrations," said Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, though he attributed much of that to the new rules dealing with domestic security.

Scott McClellan, the chief White House spokesman, said of the changes, "The president's common-sense policies reflect the values of America, whether it is cracking down on corporate wrongdoing or eliminating burdensome regulations to create jobs."

Some leaders of advocacy groups argue that the public preoccupation with war and terrorism has allowed the administration to push through changes that otherwise would have provoked an outcry. Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club, says he does not think the administration could have succeeded in rewriting so many environmental rules, for example, if the public's attention had not been focused on national security issues.

"The effect of the administration's concentration on war and terror has been to prevent the public from focusing on these issues," Mr. Pope said. "Now, when I hold focus groups with the general public and tell them what has been done, they exclaim, 'How could this have happened without me knowing about it?' "

The administration has often been stymied in its efforts to pass major domestic initiatives in Congress. Even when both houses have been under Republican control, Senate Democrats, using parliamentary rules, have been able to block legislation eagerly sought by the White House and business groups, including bills on energy, bankruptcy and medical malpractice. So officials have turned to regulatory change.
....
The overall regulatory record shows that the Bush administration has heeded the interests of business and industry. Like the Reagan administration, which made regulatory reform a priority, officials under Mr. Bush have introduced new rules to ease or dismantle existing regulations they see as cumbersome. Some analysts argue that the Bush administration has introduced rules favoring industry with a dedication unmatched in modern times.

"My thoughts go back to Herbert Hoover," said Robert Dallek, the presidential historian. "No president could have been more friendly to business than Hoover" until the Bush administration.

While John D. Graham, administrator of information and regulatory affairs at the Office of Management and Budget, does not dispute the administration's pro-business tilt, he said there had been notable exceptions, which his office approved when government officials "provided adequate scientific and economic justification."

Examples, Mr. Graham added, include "stricter fuel-saving rules for S.U.V.'s" and "a 90-percent reduction in diesel-engine exhaust," as well as "mandatory criteria for the lifesaving performance of side-impact air bags" in cars.

But examples of countervailing, business-friendly changes abound, some that broke through the flak thrown up from the wars, and others that remain little known.

The administration, at the request of lumber and paper companies, gave Forest Service managers the right to approve logging in federal forests without the usual environmental reviews. A Forest Service official explained that the new rule was intended "to better harmonize the environmental, social and economic benefits of America's greatest natural resource, our forests and grasslands."

In March of 2003, the Mine Safety and Health Administration published a proposed new regulation that would dilute the rules intended to protect coal miners from black-lung disease. The mine workers union called the new rules "extremely dangerous," while a mine safety administration official contended, "We are moving on toward more effective prevention of black-lung disease."

In May 2003, the Bush administration dropped a proposed rule that would have required hospitals to install facilities to protect workers against tuberculosis. Hospitals and other industry groups had lobbied against the change, saying that it would be costly and that existing regulations would accomplish many of the same aims.

But workers unions and public health officials argued that the number of tuberculosis cases had risen in 20 states and that the same precautions that were to have been put into place for tuberculosis would also have been effective against SARS.

The next month, the Department of Labor, responding to complaints from industry, dropped a rule that required employers to keep a record of employees' ergonomic injuries. Labor unions complained that without the reporting, it would be difficult to identify dangerous workplaces. But the department, in a statement, argued that the records "would not provide additional information useful to identifying possible causes or methods to prevent injury."

Outside of the ongoing loss of life in two wars, this is the most important story in the paper today. Remember that, to the Bushies, you aren't a voter, you're an interest group. The comparison with the Hoover administration, once again, is interesting.

Blood, Oil

Oil Above $46 and Far Above OPEC's Ceiling
By JAD MOUAWAD

Published: August 14, 2004

PARIS, Aug. 13 - After oil prices fell to about $9 a barrel in 1998, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries showed remarkable discipline, restraining production and managing supplies to get oil back above a $22-a-barrel floor and keep it there.

But OPEC's policy is in disarray today, as the cartel's 11 members seem unable to stick to the other half of their self-imposed bargain by keeping their benchmark price under a $28-a-barrel ceiling.

Low-sulfur crude for delivery next month, the most widely watched oil price, settled at $46.58 a barrel in New York on Friday, the third time this week that it has set a record; last Friday's final price was $43.95 a barrel.

The benchmark basket price that OPEC uses is typically several dollars lower, because it also includes less- sought-after grades with more sulfur content; on Thursday, it reached $40.76 a barrel, 41 percent higher than a year earlier.

There is not much that even OPEC's largest producer, Saudi Arabia, can do. The Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, tried on Wednesday to reassure the markets that there was plenty of oil available, announcing that the kingdom had increased production by 1 million barrels a day over the last three months, to 9.3 million barrels a day, and that it could quickly pump another 1.3 million barrels daily if needed. Traders shrugged off the announcement and bid prices up further.

"To me, that was a very bullish sign from the market," said Thomas Bentz, senior oil analyst with BNP Paribas in New York. "Everyone knows OPEC's reached full capacity."

After the downfall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, OPEC ministers were concerned that a rapid return of Iraqi oil to the market would bring prices down. That was before sabotage and the continuing insurrection against the United States-led occupation of the country caused the shutting off of Iraq's oil export pipeline through Turkey and hampered the rehabilitation of its oil industry.

The last thing the cartel wanted to do after the invasion of Iraq was put too much oil on the market. OPEC ministers remembered the last time that happened, in November 1997, when they decided at a meeting in Jakarta to raise their production ceiling by 10 percent.

The timing of that move was especially unfortunate, as Asia was entering an economic crisis and a new United Nations program was allowing Iraq to resume exports. By the end of 1998, OPEC's benchmark price was down to $9.13, its lowest since 1986.

Determined not to repeat that experience, OPEC lowered its overall production ceiling three times in the months after the collapse of the Hussein regime last year, by a total of 3.9 million barrels a day.

Not until June of this year did OPEC finally decide to reverse course, agreeing at its Beirut meeting to raise its production ceiling to 26 million barrels a day. OPEC has met twice since then and canceled a third gathering without taking any new measures; it is next scheduled to meet on Sept. 15 in Vienna.

"OPEC's been worried about a repeat of Jakarta," said Jay Saunders, an analyst with Deutsche Bank in New York. "It wants to be more conservative and cautious, rather than put too much oil on the market." Now it seems clear, he said, that "they messed up."

This is not going to be fun.

Econ Outlook

Morgan Stanley's Steve Roach:

An unbalanced global economy is back on the razor’s edge. High oil prices are taking a toll on the US growth dynamic at precisely the point when a Fed tightening cycle has begun -- a risky combination by any standards. At the same time, a shift to policy austerity in China has led to a modest slowing of that overheated economy, with a good deal more to come. That puts a two-engine world -- driven by the American consumer on the demand side and the Chinese producer on the supply side -- in a zone of heightened vulnerability. As I see it, the risks on the downside outweigh those on the upside by a factor of three to one. I would now assign a 40% probability to a recessionary relapse in the global economy in 2005.

That was then. Suddenly, the US economy looks exceedingly vulnerable. An income- and saving-short American consumer, burdened by record debt levels, has been prompt to respond to sharply rising oil prices. Personal consumption expenditures rose at just a 1% annual rate (in real terms) in 2Q03 -- equaling the weakest increase since early 1995. The quick-trigger nature of this response is ample testament, in my view, to the underlying precariousness of consumer fundamentals. While the just-released July retail sales report points to a rebound in the third quarter, further increases in oil prices in the face of anemic job growth should temper any optimism. Moreover, I am starting to get worried about rapid inventory building in the face of this oil shock; in the three months ending June 2004, total stocks of manufacturing and trade establishments have risen at about a 9% average annual rate -- triple the growth rate of business sales over this same period. This borrows a page right out of the script of the summer of 1974, when the first OPEC shock led to an unwanted inventory overhang that blindsided the Fed and set the stage for severe recession in 1974-75. In short, the window has closed quickly on opportunistic normalization -- the growth cushion has all but vanished into thin air.

In short, the economy remains ragged and that is unlikely to change before the election.

Hope for Renewal

Bush-Kerry contest inspires a new flap at ailing 'West Wing'
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington

13 August 2004

As America's presidential election campaign revs up, the White House administration headed by President Josiah Bartlett is looking for a soaring bounce in the polls. Yes, you have read correctly.

In that shifting world where reality and fiction intermingle, the producers of the award-winning television series The West Wing , are hoping the bitter and unprecedentedly vigorous election campaign between George Bush and John Kerry will boost their now-ailing show.

The series, which stars Martin Sheen as a liberal Democratic president - far more liberal than John Kerry would be - has won four consecutive Emmy Awards and has been nominated for 12 Emmys this year. But all is not well.

Indeed, in the past two series, ratings have fallen almost as sharply as Mr Bush's personal approval figures since he announced the "official" end of the war in Iraq. And just like Mr Bush, The West Wing faces being dropped if the producers and writers cannot do something to reinvigorate the product.

Viewing figures have fallen from 17.1 million in 2001-02 to 11.7 million last year, so writers of the sixth season of the drama say they will be tapping into real events to try to capture more audience. Three of the 22 episodes have been finished and the scripts for a further nine written.

Kevin Reilly, president of NBC entertainment, told The New York Times : "The Bartlett administration is coming to the end of its term and that is going to foster interesting developments. I can't give anything specific but there will be a tumult in the administration this year."

Critics say that in its last season, the series became increasingly less believable. One story-line had the daughter of the President being taken hostage. Others involved terrorism and relations with foreign governments and rogue states.

This shift may have been the result of the departure from the show of its creator, Aaron Sorkin, in May last year amid falling ratings and budget issues. Managers have now arranged the return of Lawrence O'Donnell, a writer from the early days who also left. He said the show would focus on who would succeed President Bartlett after his two terms and the timing of the Bush-Kerry contest was a fortunate coincidence.

"In the evolution of the stories, politics and campaigning was the area least explored," he said. "We're trying to rectify that. We haven't had the political sharks circling the White House. That dynamic will be added."

Thank God. This used to be my favorite show but it got silly over the last couple of seasons. The cast is good enough to be able to play more "nuance" than they have been given.

Miserable Failure,Pt.LX

Rumsfeld and Bush Failed Us on Sept. 11

By Gail Sheehy

Donald Rumsfeld, one of the chief opponents of investing real power over purse and personnel in a new national intelligence chief, told the 9/11 commission that an intelligence czar would do the nation "a great disservice." It is fair to ask what kind of service Rumsfeld provided on the day the nation was under catastrophic attack.

"Two planes hitting the twin towers did not rise to the level of Rumsfeld's leaving his office and going to the War Room? How can that be?" asked Mindy Kleinberg, one of the widows known as the Jersey Girls, whose efforts helped create and guide the 9/11 commission. The fact that the final report failed to offer an explanation is one of the infuriating holes in an otherwise praiseworthy accounting.
....
Rumsfeld's testimony before the commission last March was bizarre. Asked point-blank by Commissioner Jamie Gorelick what he had done to protect the nation — or even the Pentagon — during the "summer of threat" preceding the attacks, Rumsfeld replied simply that "it was a law enforcement issue." That obfuscation — was the FBI expected to be out on the Beltway with shoulder-launched missiles? — has been accepted at face value by the commission and media.

Rumsfeld is in charge of NORAD, which has the specific mission of protecting the United States and Canada by responding to any form of air attack. The official chain of command in the event of a hijacking calls for the president to empower the secretary of Defense to send up a military escort and, if necessary, give shoot-down orders.

Yet President Bush told the panel he spoke to Rumsfeld for the first time that morning shortly after 10 a.m. — 23 minutes after the Pentagon was hit and moments before the last plane went down. It was, says the report, "a brief call in which the subject of shoot-down authority was not discussed."

As a result, NORAD's commanders were left in the dark about what their mission was. When fighters were told to scramble from Langley, Va., they were sent not to cover Washington but on a fool's mission to tail and identify American Airlines Flight 11, which was already boiling the first Trade Center tower to the ground.

Why wasn't Rumsfeld able to see on TV what millions of civilians already knew? After the Pentagon was attacked, why did he run outside to play medic instead of moving to the command center and taking charge? The 9/11 report records the fatal confusion in which command center personnel were left: Three minutes after the FAA command center told FAA headquarters in an update that Flight 93 was 29 minutes out of Washington, D.C., the command center said, "Uh, do we want to, uh, think about scrambling aircraft?"

FAA headquarters: "Oh, God, I don't know."

Command center: "Uh, that's a decision somebody's going to have to make probably in the next 10 minutes."

But nobody did. Three minutes later, Flight 93 was wrestled to the ground by heroic civilians.

How is it that civilians in a hijacked plane were able to communicate with their loved ones, grasp a totally new kind of enemy and weaponry and act to defend the nation's Capitol, yet the president had "communication problems" on Air Force One and the nation's defense chief didn't know what was going on until the horror was all over?

The failures of 9/11 were not inherent in the system; they were human failures. Yet, so far, no one has been fired, which leaves the 9/11 families — and all of us — in a conundrum.

The inaction of both the president and the Defense chief under the ultimate test offer little reassurance to a nervous nation under the shadow of new terror warnings. Before we attempt to revamp the entire security system, shouldn't our government look first at why the people in charge failed to communicate or coordinate a response to the catastrophe?

And no one has yet been held accountable, that's what frosts me.

Free Speech Isn't Free

Julius has a new chart, tracking W's approval rating against the terror alerts. This is what it cost him:

On the other hand, since Friday my email account has been inundated with pernicious emails containing all sorts of computer viruses and worms. Yesterday my home computer was attacked and the hard drive was rendered inoperable. On Sunday my firewall caught several attempts to intrusion, so at this point I'm not sure if it was a virus or an intruder. I’m still working with my ISP to further track these logs. Tonight I’ll see if I can recover anything in that hard drive. Since this morning the virus-emails are being sent en masse to my email account, and I am tracking every single one of them and their original ISP.

He has a Paypal account. If you can, help him replace that hard drive.

Shop Rags

4 Lawmakers Ask For EPA Inquiry
Hazardous Waste in Question

By James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 13, 2004; Page A23

Four Democratic members of Congress have requested an investigation into the Environmental Protection Agency's writing of a hazardous-waste rule that would benefit industrial laundries, including a company controlled by the family of one of President Bush's top fundraisers.

The lawmakers said in a recent letter to agency officials that the "EPA conducted public participation in an inappropriate and one-sided manner." The letter was signed by Sens. Barbara Boxer (Calif.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Reps. Rosa L. DeLauro (Conn.) and Henry A. Waxman (Calif.).

EPA officials yesterday strongly denied that undue favoritism was given to the industrial laundry industry.

The EPA rule, which is pending final approval, is a weaker version of one that had been under consideration in the Clinton administration, which would have imposed special handling restrictions on factory shop towels contaminated with solvents. Under the current proposal, shop towels would not require special containers when being taken from factories to laundries. They also would not need to be wrung out before laundering.

The Bush administration's approach is backed by lobbyists who represent the industrial-laundry industry and Cintas Corp., which is controlled by the family of Richard T. Farmer, one of America's richest men and a Bush Pioneer by virtue of having raised at least $100,000 for the 2000 campaign. Over the past 15 years, Farmer and his wife have given $3.1 million to Bush campaigns, the Republican Party and Republican candidates.

What the Post doesn't tell you: the solvents in those shop rags include a bushelbasket of various carcinogens.

The Next War

Shias call for split from Baghdad

Michael Howard
Friday August 13, 2004

The Guardian

Shia leaders in southern Iraq yesterday called for a breakaway movement from the central government in Baghdad to protest against the heavy-handed approach to the insurgency.

As the health ministry said that at least 172 Iraqis had died and more than 600 had been injured since Wednesday in fighting across southern Iraq, at least two prominent Shia figures called for the separation of some southern governorates from Baghdad.

Basra's deputy governor, Salam Uda al-Maliki, said he backed a breakaway as the interim government was "responsible for the Najaf clashes."

In Nassiriya, meanwhile, Aws al-Khafaji, the representative of Moqtada al-Sadr, echoed the call. "We have had enough of Baghdad's brutality," he said. "The authorities in Nassiriya will no longer cooperate with Baghdad." He said it was a response to "the crimes committed against Iraqis by an illegal and unelected government, and occupation forces."

Such a move, if decided upon by three governorates, could be legal according to the interim constitution, which Shia leaders rejected when it was drawn up last March.

Most of the big cities in southern Iraq have been caught up in the insurgency. Worst affected yesterday was Kut, where at least 72 people died, while fighting also raged in Amara and Diwaniya.

Violence also broke out in the Shia districts of Sadr City and Shula in the Iraqi capital, as well as in downtown Baghdad's notorious Haifa street.

Thousands of demonstrators in Baghdad, Basra and Nassiriya protested against the Najaf offensive.

Civil war, anyone?

Old School

Fool me once

The Bush tax cuts have, of course, heavily favored the very, very well off. But they have also, more specifically, favored unearned income over earned income - or, if you prefer, investment returns over wages. Last year Daniel Altman pointed out in The New York Times that Mr. Bush's proposals, if fully adopted, "could eliminate almost all taxes on investment income and wealth for almost all Americans." Mr. Bush hasn't yet gotten all he wants, but he has taken a large step toward a system in which only labor income is taxed.

The political problem with a policy favoring investment returns over wages is that a vast majority of Americans derive their income primarily from wages, and that the bulk of investment income goes to a small elite. How, then, can such a policy be sold? By promising that everyone can join the elite.

Right now, the ownership of stocks and bonds is highly concentrated. Conservatives like to point out that a majority of American families now own stock, but that's a misleading statistic because most of those "investors" have only a small stake in the market. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that more than half of corporate profits ultimately accrue to the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers, while only about 8 percent go to the bottom 60 percent. If the "ownership society" means anything, it means spreading investment income more widely - a laudable goal, if achievable.

But does Mr. Bush have a way to get us there?

There's a section on his campaign blog about the ownership society, but it's short on specifics. Much of the space is devoted to new types of tax-sheltered savings accounts. People who have looked into plans for such accounts know, however, that they would provide more tax shelters for the wealthy, but would be irrelevant to most families, who already have access to 401(k)'s. Their ability to invest more is limited not by taxes but by the fact that they aren't earning enough to save more.

The one seemingly substantive proposal is a blast from the past: a renewed call for the partial privatization of Social Security, which would divert payroll taxes into personal accounts. Mr. Bush campaigned on that issue in 2000, but he never acted on it. And there was a reason the idea went nowhere: it didn't make sense.

Social Security is, basically, a system in which each generation pays for the previous generation's retirement. If the payroll taxes of younger workers are diverted into private accounts, there will be a gaping financial hole: who will pay benefits to older Americans, who have spent their working lives paying into the current system? Unless you have a way to fill that multitrillion-dollar hole, privatization is an empty slogan, not a real proposal.

In 2001, Mr. Bush's handpicked commission on Social Security was unable to agree on a plan to create private accounts because there was no way to make the arithmetic work. Undaunted, this year the Bush campaign once again insists that privatization will lead to a "permanently strengthened Social Security system, without changing benefits for those now in or near retirement, and without raising payroll taxes on workers." In other words, 2 - 1 = 4.

Four years ago, Mr. Bush got a free pass from the press on his Social Security "plan," either because reporters didn't understand the arithmetic, or because they assumed that after the election he would come up with a plan that actually added up. Will the same thing happen again? Let's hope not.

As Mr. Bush has said: "Fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - can't get fooled again."

Of course, the folk wisdom that W can't remember is "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." But "shame" isn't in his dictionary.

Reminder:

Brooksie tried this idea out in December. Thanks for the memories, it sucked then and it sucks now.

Over

The point of the lanceEndgame in Najaf?

Juan Cole and I think we've finally f*cked it up. For all to see. But this is the only way way out and it was true a year ago.

Juan: From Arabic and English radio and television broadcasts, including al-Jazeerah:

On Thursday, the Board of Muslim Clergy, a Sunni fundamentalist organization with substantial support from Sunni Muslims, issued a fatwa or ruling that no Iraqi Muslim may participate in an attack on other Iraqi Muslims in support of the occupying power. That is, even the hard line Sunnis, who mostly don't like Shiites, are siding with Muqtada against Allawi and Rumsfeld on this one.

This is huge. The gig is up.

A Smiley

From my email:

A Republican senator dies and approaches the pearly gates. Sitting in front of them is St. Peter, of course. He expects this. What he does not expect is that the entire wall on either side of the gates is covered with clocks, all showing different times. After he has checked in, he asks St. Peter about the clocks. St. Pete explains that they are lie meters. There is one for every person who ever lived. The senator inquires about one o'clock that is sitting on exactly midnight. "Oh, that is Sister Theresa's clock. She never told a lie, so her clock never registered even one second." St. Peter points out other clocks with very little time after midnight showing. These belonged to people such as Abraham Lincoln and the like. The senator can’t restrain himself from asking, "and where is George Bush’s clock?" "Oh," St. Peter says, "it's in Jesus’ office. He's using it for a ceiling fan."

Just sayin'.

Your Tax Dollars

A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money. Rummy's DoD is just a place where they cut checks for W's corporate sponsors.

Army Turns to Private Guards
The military is criticized for risking security at bases and for a process that awarded $1 billion in contracts without competitive bidding.

By T. Christian Miller, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Stretched thin by troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan and security needs at home, the Army has resorted to hiring private security guards to help protect dozens of American military bases.

To date, more than 4,300 private security officers have been put to work at 50 Army installations in the United States, according to Army documents obtained by The Times.

The work was awarded to four firms — two of which got the contracts without having to bid competitively. The contracts are worth as much as $1.24 billion.

The Army says the maneuver lets it free up more soldiers for military duty while quickly putting private guards in place to meet the need for additional security since the Sept. 11 attacks.

But the Army's action has drawn criticism on two grounds: that it compromises domestic military security, and that it amounts to abuse of a law intended to aid impoverished Alaska Natives.

Two five-year contracts worth as much as $1 billion went to two small Alaska Native firms with little previous security experience. The firms, which operate under special contracting laws enabling them to avoid competitive bidding, subcontracted part of the work to two of the country's largest security firms: Wackenhut Services Inc. and Vance Federal Security Services.

Thirty-six bases are covered by the Alaska Native contracts — including three in California: Ft. Irwin, the Sierra Army Depot and the Presidio of Monterey.

"I'm concerned about the protection of our military facilities," said Rep. Lane Evans, an Illinois Democrat who serves on the House Armed Services Committee and has called for hearings on the contracts.

"Some of these installations house chemical weapons and intelligence materials and should not be compromised with questionable contracting processes and poor security."

Democrats, watchdog groups and independent contracting experts said that the Army's contracting arrangement with the Alaska Native firms amounted to a back-door deal to send taxpayer dollars to Wackenhut and Vance, which lost out the only time they faced open competition against other companies for the security contracts.

Anybody but me have a problem with mercs guarding our military facilities?

Halliburton Contracts Face New Scrutiny
The Houston company is unable to document more than $1.8 billion worth of work in Iraq and Kuwait, Pentagon auditors say.

By T. Christian Miller, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Pentagon auditors have found that Halliburton Co. cannot properly document more than $1.8 billion worth of work done under its contracts in Iraq and Kuwait, Army officials said Wednesday.

The latest setback for the Houston oil services company came in an audit by the Defense Contract Auditing Agency, which also found that the firm's system for generating cost estimates used in negotiations with the government was "inadequate."

The agency recommended that government contracting officials demand fixes within 45 days and seek more detailed information during negotiations with Halliburton, which has contracts worth as much as $18.2 billion in Iraq to feed and house troops and restore the country's oil infrastructure.

Army contracting officials said they were studying the auditors' recommendations but had not decided how to proceed, leaving open the question of how the audit would affect the bottom line of Halliburton, which was run by Vice President Dick Cheney from 1995 to 2000.

Isle of Youth

Youth Is Fleeting for Bush

By Richard Morin, Claudia Deane and Christopher Muste
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 12, 2004; 8:00 AM

Surveys suggest that Bush's popularity has plummeted among 18- to 29-year-olds in the past four months, posing a new obstacle to the president's bid to win reelection and an immediate challenge to Republicans seeking to win over impressionable and lightly committed young people during their upcoming convention.

Four years ago, network exit polls found that Bush and Democrat Al Gore split the vote of 18- to 29-year-olds, with Gore claiming 48 percent and Bush getting 46 percent -- the best showing by a Republican presidential candidate in more than a decade.

But that was then. In the latest Post-ABC News poll taken immediately after the Democratic convention, Kerry led Bush 2-1 among registered voters younger than 30. Among older voters, the race was virtually tied.

Bush's problems with younger voters began months before the Democratic convention, Post-ABC polls suggest. The last time Bush and Kerry were tied among the under-30 crowd was back in April. In the five surveys conducted since then, Bush has trailed Kerry by an average of 18 percentage points.

Virtually every other major poll conducted in the past month confirms Kerry's newfound and perhaps transient popularity with voters under the age of 30. The size of this advantage varies, due in part to the relatively small number of younger voters and correspondingly large margin of sampling error in each survey.

A Newsweek Poll conducted on July 29-30 found Kerry with a 51-32 lead among 18- to 29-year-olds. The CBS News/New York Times post-convention survey of registered voters showed Kerry with a 50-31 advantage among this group.

Kerry also led among young adults in most surveys conducted during the weeks leading up to the convention. The combined data from surveys of 2,891 registered voters conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press in May and June showed a 15-point Kerry lead, but its mid-July survey found the race tied. A Newsweek poll exclusively of younger voters interviewed in mid-July found Kerry with a 48-41 lead while a Post-ABC News survey put the Democrat ahead by 9 points on the eve of his party's convention.

Taken together, the post-convention surveys suggest that if the election were held today, Bush would do about as badly among younger voters as Republican Robert Dole did in 1996 when he lost to incumbent Bill Clinton by 53 percent to 34 percent in this age group. Dubya's dad was more popular with younger voters in both 1988 and 1992: The elder Bush split the young vote in 1988 and lost to Clinton by 9 percentage points in 1992. Of course the Reagan era marked the recent high-water mark for Republicans with younger voters, who gave the Gipper his biggest victory margin of any age group in 1984.

Tyler McLaughlin, 27, of Georgetown, Tex., didn't vote four years ago. He supported Bush during the first years of his presidency. "But after two years of war, I became anti-Bush," said McLaughlin, a project scheduler for a computer firm. "This seemed like a guy . . . who made a decision and won't go back on it."

The latest Post-ABC News survey found that Kerry consistently topped Bush by double-digit margins as the candidate young adults trusted to deal with every major issue, including the economy, Iraq, education and health care. The Democrat also was viewed by substantial margins as best able to handle the campaign against terrorism and taxes, issues in which Bush still had an advantage among all voters.

The issues motivating younger voters are not much different than those on the minds of all Americans. The war in Iraq and the economy lead their list of top voting concerns in recent Post-ABC News surveys -- not surprising because it's young people who are fighting in Iraq and hustling to keep or find jobs in this uncertain economy. Education ranks somewhat higher as a voting issue for young voters, not unexpected either, since many of them are still in college or just out of school.

The Rock the Vote website says that only 10% of this year's college grads have found full-time work, and that 35% of last year's grads are still unemployed (unsourced.) Think that might have something to do with it?

The Politics of War

Dilemmas of the New Iraq

The interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi faces challenges both from Sunni Muslims who supported Saddam Hussein and from Shiite Muslims whom Hussein persecuted. The current unrest is spearheaded by Muqtada Sadr, the 30-ish son of an especially respected Shiite cleric who was slain by Hussein in 1999. Sadr heads the Al Mahdi militia, made up of hundreds, if not thousands, of young, poor slum dwellers happy to have a cause like attacking U.S. troops and any Iraqi they can label a U.S. puppet — such as Allawi. Disputes over how tough to be with the rebels are causing a split in the Allawi government, which took political control of the country June 28 but still relies on U.S. troops to keep it in power.

Sadr's militia controls much of the Sadr City slum in Baghdad and is battling British forces in Basra in the south, besides fighting U.S. and Iraqi forces in Najaf. The cleric's ultimate goal is unclear. He has said he will not discuss Iraq's political future until U.S. troops leave the country; he has urged his followers to fight on "even if you see me as a prisoner or a martyr." But many of his followers have been killed in the recent fighting, which ended a cease-fire reached between U.S. troops and Sadr's fighters in the spring.

It is especially troubling that Sadr has gained support from some Iraqi officials. The deputy governor of Basra province doubles as the cleric's representative and claims that governors of three southern provinces want autonomy from the central government. Shiites account for more than half of Iraq's population, with a large concentration in the south. But more autonomy for the south would encourage Kurds in the north to seek greater freedom from central rule, possibly leading to an all-out civil war with U.S. troops stuck in the middle.

The Iraqi national guard's refusal to stand and fight during the spring siege of Fallouja and complaints about its performance since are evidence that it is not ready to take on the Mahdi militia even if a unified Allawi government were to order it to do so.

Destruction of the shrine could unleash violent public rage. But if U.S. forces can lead the national guard and Iraqi police in pacifying Najaf outside the area around the Imam Ali shrine (and its currently misnamed Valley of Peace cemetery), they may be able to isolate Sadr's followers, cut off their supplies and force their eventual surrender. Failing that, Allawi will have to, from a position of weakness, somehow persuade his fellow (but far more radical) Shiites to lay down arms and seek a peaceful role in politics. The only carrot may be immunity from prosecution.

U.S. Marines Take Center of Najaf, Protests Erupt
Thu Aug 12, 2004 08:05 AM ET

By Khaled Farhan

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. marines backed by tanks and aircraft seized the heart of the holy Iraqi city of Najaf on Thursday in a major assault on Shi'ite rebels, but they kept out of a site sacred to millions of Shi'ites around the world.

Warplanes and Apache helicopters pounded militia positions in a cemetery near the Imam Ali Mosque, igniting protests in at least two other cities as an uprising that has killed hundreds across southern and central Iraq entered its second week.

The assault against the Mehdi Army of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and growing anger among the majority Shi'ite community could spark a firestorm for interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi should holy sites be damaged or the death toll escalate.

Thick black smoke poured into the sky as helicopters skimmed mud-brick rooftops in the heart of Najaf. Soon after midday, marines controlled the city center and had blocked entry to the mosque, one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest sites, a witness said.

In the southeastern city of Kut, at least 72 people were killed in U.S. air raids and fighting between Iraqi police and the Mehdi Army on Thursday, the Health Ministry said.

It said 25 people were killed in clashes in Baghdad and 21 in other cities in the past 24 hours. There were no immediate casualty figures from the Najaf offensive.

Protests broke out in Baghdad and the southern city of Basra after the offensive began, aimed at crushing the heart of a radical Shi'ite Muslim rebellion that has hit seven cities.

Paul Woodward of The War in Context has been providing some of the canniest commentary on war and politics since his site went up. He analyses today's situation as follows:

As news reports now focus on details of the unfolding assault, it's worth keeping in mind that though this battle might lead to a much broader Shiite uprising, the trigger was apparently not pulled by Moqtada al-Sadr. Michael Young, writing for Lebanon's Daily Star, points out that the current campaign to stamp out the Mehdi Army is part of a broader strategy through which Iyad Allawi is attempting to consolidate his power as the uncontested Shiite political leader. It can hardly be coincidental that arrest warrants for Ahmad and Salem Chalabi were issued, Ayatollah Ali Sistani left Najaf and a final assault against al-Sadr has been launched, all within the space of a few days. Allawi's efforts, if successful, would moreover further marginalize the influence of Iran.

The image of a tough Iraqi leader capable of crushing an insurgency is no doubt very appealing to Washington as it would reinforce the perception (at least in America) that Iraq is now being governed by Iraqis and thus seemingly improve the prospects of American troops returning home. Nevertheless, the calculations of power politics almost always fail through the mismeasure of popular sentiment and the unpredictable consequences of the unforeseen. Allawi, Chalabi, Bush, and Rumsfeld see themselves as the key players, yet as events unfold no one can antipate what may be spawned by one captain's fear, the haphazard target of a single mortar shell, or televised images of American troops and tanks close to the Imam Ali Mosque.

Unemployment Politics

Group Runs Anti-Kerry Ads on Black Radio Stations

By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 12, 2004; Page A01

A group financed by a major Republican contributor has begun running radio ads in about a dozen cities, many in battleground states, attacking Sen. John F. Kerry as "rich, white and wishy-washy" and mocking his wife for boasting of her African roots.

The D.C.-based group, People of Color United, has substantial financial backing from J. Patrick Rooney, the former chairman of Golden Rule Insurance Co. and the founder of a new firm, Medical Savings Insurance Co. Both firms specialize in medical savings accounts, created by Republican-backed 1996 legislation, and health savings accounts, which were created by President Bush's 2003 Medicare prescription drug legislation.

One of the radio ads addresses Kerry's failure to vote on a bill to extend unemployment benefits for 13 weeks: "It needed 60 votes to pass. Ninety-nine out of 100 senators voted -- Kerry did not! It lost by one vote! Maybe Kerry thought the more of us who are unemployed and hurting, the more likely we would vote Democrat."

Another ad attacks Teresa Heinz Kerry, who, at the Democratic convention last month cited her birth and upbringing in Mozambique and who has described herself as African American. In the radio commercial, the announcer says: "His wife says she's an African American. While technically true, I don't believe a white woman, raised in Africa, surrounded by servants, qualifies."

The Kerry campaign denounced the ads, all of which are being aired on black radio stations. "It's disgusting that the president's political allies are now using race as a political weapon," said Bill Lynch, deputy manager of the Kerry campaign. "First a group of right-wing Swift boat veterans began smearing John Kerry's military service, and now another group has resorted to playing racial politics."

Kerry missed the May 11 vote on unemployment benefits while he was campaigning. Democrats charged that the Republican leadership engineered the vote to make sure the legislation would fail by one vote to embarrass Kerry, and that at least one of the 12 Republican senators who voted yes would have switched had Kerry arrived.

What Edsall fails to tell you is that Bush opposed the UI extension. Had he supported it, it would have passed. Period.

There is some interesting politics here. Bush had to begin building the story that the economy was turning around and that there are scads of new jobs back at the beginning of the year. If Congress was still taking up UI legislation in December, there was the possibility that they may have to revisit it nearer to the election. Bush basically sacrificed the unemployed on the altar of the upcoming election. Yes, we noticed

Giving it a Pass

Democrats Don't Plan to Block Confirmation of C.I.A. Nominee
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Published: August 12, 2004

WASHINGTON, Aug. 11 - A dozen Senate Democrats suggested Wednesday that they would not oppose President Bush's nomination of Representative Porter J. Goss as director of central intelligence, but they vowed to use his confirmation hearings to amplify their concerns over fatal intelligence failures under this administration.

Senator Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who is chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said he expected to open the confirmation hearings the first week of September. He also predicted that Mr. Goss, a Florida Republican, would be confirmed.

In interviews, none of the Senate Democrats disputed that prediction. In fact, no Democratic senator declared an intention to oppose the nomination outright. Many said they were unhappy with what they perceived as Mr. Goss's excessive partisanship, but they said they would withhold judgment until the hearings.

At the same time, Senator John Kerry, the party's presidential nominee and standard-bearer, signaled that he would not make this nomination a major campaign issue. On Tuesday, Mr. Kerry released a low-key, noncommittal statement calling for "fair, bipartisan and expeditious confirmation hearings," and on Wednesday he said nothing on the campaign trail about the nomination.

Privately, some Democrats said the nomination put them in a difficult political position. The C.I.A. has already gone two months without a replacement for George J. Tenet as director. The Democrats said that if they opposed the Goss nomination, they expected that the White House would cast them as obstructionists who were delaying prosecution of the war on terror.

They said they had learned that lesson the hard way. In 2002, the Democrats opposed a proposal to eliminate some protections for employees of the Department of Homeland Security. Republicans took that as an opening to portray certain Democrats as weak on defense and opposed to protecting the nation.

One of those Democrats was Senator Max Cleland of Georgia. Republicans ran a television commercial showing pictures of Mr. Cleland, Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, and said that Mr. Cleland "voted against the president's vital homeland security efforts 11 times." Mr. Cleland lost his seat. "They've got the trump card," a top Senate Democratic aide said of the Republicans. "And the reality is, that despite all the intelligence problems with this White House, we do need a C.I.A. director."

Goss is a terrible candidate for this job, as noted here, but I can understand the Dems wanting to give this fight a pass in a season when we have one, big, cental war to win. As much as it rankles me not to use this confirmation to highlight Bush's weaknesses, it isn't a fight that anyone like policy wonks like me would notice and would simply distract from the main battle. Besides which, Goss shall simply be tendering his resignation in January.

Trail of Tears

This scares me howly. I'll be following this for the next little while. As I've been telling you over recent months, it won't take much to knock our fragile economy on its kiester. This could be the thing. I feel like I want to "shelter in place." Or go curl up under the comforter and suck my thumb.

Global Oil Demand Expected to Exceed Forecasts, Report Says
By JAD MOUAWAD

PARIS, Aug. 11 — Global oil demand is expected to be higher in 2004 and 2005 than initially forecast, increasing pressure on oil producers to boost their output at a time when rising oil prices may hurt a recovering world economy, according to a report by the Paris-based International Energy Agency.

Supply disruptions in Iraq, uncertainty over the fate of Russia's top producer Yukos, and rising demand in China have pushed oil prices to record highs recently. Still, the report published by the agency today tries to dampen concerns that oil is in short supply by pointing to rising production in Saudi Arabia and Russia.

"The market is tight, production and infrastructure capacity is less than desired and uncertainties continue to weight on the market," the report said. "But does this justify $45 oil? Current oil prices are a concern and are causing economic damage."

In an effort to calm jumpy markets, Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, said today that it held 1.3 million barrels of idle capacity that could be used to meet demand. Saudi Arabia currently produces 9.5 million barrels a day, according to the energy agency.

Ali al-Naimi, the Saudi oil minister, said the kingdom was trying to ensure stability in the oil market "and prevent oil prices from escalating in a way that may negatively affect the world economy or oil demand."

"For achieving this goal, the kingdom has increased its production during the last three months to meet the growing demand for Saudi oil," he said, in a statement distributed by the Saudi Press Agency. "This increase amounted to more than one million barrels per day, bringing to more than 9.3 million barrels daily the average production of the kingdom during the past three months.

"The Saudis are trying to calm the market now and said they're ready to provide the barrels needed," said Lawrence J. Goldstein, president of the New York-based Petroleum Industry Research Foundation. "That's a welcome comment."

In New York, crude oil for September delivery closed at $44.80 a barrel today. The contract is up 37 percent this year and hit a record of $44.98 on Tuesday, its highest price since futures began trading in New York in 1983.

The Saudi announcement coincided with a report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration that showed American oil stocks had dropped unexpectedly last week as imports shrank. Gasoline stocks also fell.

Yikes. The Yukos situation could be solved any day Pooty-Poot decided he wanted to solve it, and I'm getting these wierd vibes that he doesn't want W back, however much "eyebonding" they've done. Putin doesn't bond with anybody but his own ambition, and neither does Bush. Think about that.

Get ready for the desperation moves. The guy is, what, 56? And has no place to go but down? You think you've seen ugly?

The Saudis are going to bust their hump to try to fix the gap between supply and demand but they don't have the capacity, and do you really think Hugo Chavez, sitting on an oil pot as big as Iraq, is really going to be motivated to help W while we've got CIA in country trying to take him out?

I learned it as a young reporter following Watergate: follow the money. That simple piece of wisdom got me two grad degrees. Tell the children. And then introduce them to Izzy Stone.

Out of F911

Through Comments at Atrio's place, I found this atMatt Gunn's blog:

"I couldn't get a job with CIA today. I am not qualified."

INTERVIEWER: [Y]ou come from intelligence. This is what you did, this is what you know.

REP. GOSS: Uh, that was, uh, 35 years ago.

INTERVIEWER: Okay.

REP. GOSS: It is true I was in CIA from approximately the late 50’s to approximately the early 70’s. And it's true I was a case officer, clandestine services officer and yes, I do understand the core mission of the business. I couldn't get a job with CIA today. I am not qualified. I don't have the language skills. I, you know, my language skills were romance languages and stuff. We're looking for Arabists today. I don't have the cultural background probably. And I certainly don't have the technical skills, uh, as my children remind me every day, 'Dad you got to get better on your computer.’ Uh, so, the things that you need to have, I don't have.

Let's review: Goss asserts he lacks the language skills, the cultural background, the technical skills – "the things that you need to have" – to even get a job with the CIA, much less lead it.

At The Economist, Buttonwood reads my mind. I have been thinking about writing about this for a couple of days, but Buttonwood does it so elegantly that I'll give him the floor.

Buttonwood

Slowing to a trot
Aug 10th 2004
From The Economist Global Agenda

How sharply will the American economy slow down? And what will it mean for financial markets?

Economists can broadly be divided into those (most of them) who laud Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, as a latter-day Solomon, and think that America is experiencing a normal recovery with a few problems; and those (like your columnist) who think that those problems are symptomatic of the fact that this recovery is different from all previous recoveries since the second world war. The front-line in this battle has been the jobs market. When the “jobless recovery” started to produce jobs in the late spring, bears went into hibernation. Now they are back, frisky and growling, egged on by weak numbers and jittery stockmarkets. After recent falls, the S&P; 500 is now below where it started the year.

Intriguingly, despite all the inflationary scares, bond yields are not far above where they started the year—or, indeed, last year. Whether that is good news for buyers of financial assets that are not Treasuries is a moot point. It could well mean that the economy is about to slow down sharply, which is unlikely to be favourable to risky assets. The question is: how sharply? To a walk? A halt? In dressage, going backwards is called reining back; in economics, it is called a recession.

If I had any exposure in equities, I'd be moving into a very conservative strategy right about now: cash, CDs, gold and utilities. What you should do depends on how your portfolio is structured, your long term goals and your time horizon. But this would be a good time to schedule an appointment with your financial advisor to review your portfolio, particularly if you find Buttonwoods arguments persuasive. None of us can read the future, but I'd put even money on his scenario.

More in Sorrow than in Anger

Classiest takedown yet of the Swift Boat Veterans (although this meme seems to have run its course already):

What follows is an op-ed submitted to Salon by four veterans and authors:

Christian Bauman, US Army (Somalia, Haiti), author of The Ice Beneath You.
Andrew Exum, US Army (Afghanistan, Iraq), author of This Man's Army.
Joel Turnipseed, US Marine Corps (Persian Gulf War), author of Baghdad Express.
Buzz Williams, US Marine Corps (Persian Gulf War), author of Spare Parts.

Seniors Choose

Democrats Give Republicans a Fight for the Elderly
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER

Published: August 11, 2004

hen President Bush signed a Medicare bill into law in December, Republicans thought it would allow them to make sharp inroads into elderly voters.

But Democrats say the elderly are proving an unexpectedly fertile voting bloc for their party this year because of dissatisfaction with the new Medicare prescription drug benefit, disproportionate opposition to the war in Iraq, worries about mounting deficits and wariness over talk ofaltering Social Security.

As one indication of Democratic prospects, the Alliance for Retired Americans, a three-year-old political organization that claims three million members, will endorse Senator John Kerry for president today in Las Vegas. The group plans to conduct full-scale get-out-the-vote operations in Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania - all states with large elderly populations, said its executive director, Edward Coyle.

As another indication, Mr. Kerry's campaign will announce today a multiprong "Seniors for Kerry-Edwards" outreach program, with action groups in each state, events at senior centers and retirement homes, intergenerational get-out-the-vote efforts linking grandparents and their grandchildren, and even a Web-based initiative.

Aides said that within several weeks, Mr. Kerry would roll out plans to help the elderly with Election Day transportation, as well as with signing up for absentee ballots, at which Republicans have long excelled.

"Suffice it to say that we will have a major, concerted effort to ensure that seniors across the country cast their votes, whether by absentee ballot or on Election Day," said Stephanie Cutter, Mr. Kerry's spokeswoman.

In 2000, voters older than 60 supported Al Gore over George Bush 51 percent to 47 percent, but among whites, the largest component of that group, the breakdown was 52 percent for Mr. Bush and 46 percent for Mr. Gore. Kerry aides say they are confident they can do better this year.

Survey Finds Beneficiaries Largely Fault Medicare Law
By ROBERT PEAR

Published: August 11, 2004

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 - A new survey suggests that the number of Medicare beneficiaries with negative views of the new prescription drug law far exceeds the number with positive views.

But, it says, beneficiaries want Congress to fix what they see as problems in the law, not repeal it as many Democrats have advocated.

The survey, released on Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health, found that 47 percent of beneficiaries had unfavorable views of the law, while 26 percent had favorable views. The rest said they did not have enough information to offer an opinion.

A majority of beneficiaries said they believed that the law would be helpful to most people on Medicare, including low-income people and those with very high drug costs or no other drug coverage. But only 29 percent of beneficiaries believe that the new law will be helpful to them personally, the poll found.

"Views are decidedly more negative than positive," said Drew E. Altman, president and chief executive of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has been conducting surveys on health policy issues for years. "The law has not been the political plus that the president and Republicans had hoped for."

The White House has cited the Medicare law as one of Mr. Bush's major achievements in domestic policy, showing his ability to fulfill a promise he made in the 2000 campaign. When Democrats controlled Congress, they often promised drug benefits to the elderly, but never delivered, Mr. Bush has said.

The telephone survey was conducted from June 16 to July 21 with 1,223 Medicare beneficiaries: 973 people 65 and older, and 250 people under 65 with disabilities. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus four percentage points.

The survey found overwhelming support for two legislative proposals that have been debated in Congress in recent months: 8 in 10 Medicare beneficiaries said the law should be changed to allow Americans to import lower-cost drugs from Canada and to allow the federal government to negotiate with drug companies to obtain lower prices.

The Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry, supports both changes. The Bush administration opposes them, saying that imports would pose a danger to public health and that government negotiations could lead to price controls and in any case would not save any more than would competition among private plans.

Potential for Disaster

U.S. Planning Assault in Najaf
Iranian Leader Calls U.S. Najaf Operations 'Crimes of Humanity'

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, August 11, 2004; 9:32 AM

NAJAF, Aug. 10 – Solemn-faced U.S. Marines and soldiers prepared for what appeared to be a decisive battle for Najaf, the holiest city in Iraq, while the supreme leader of neighboring Iran warned that American combat operations in Najaf constitute "one of the darkest crimes of humanity."

"The United States is slaughtering the people of one of the holiest Islamic cities and the Muslim world and the Iraqi nation will not stand by," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in an address broadcast on Iranian state television, according to the official government news agency.

Najaf is home to the shrine of Imam Ali, the most revered saint to Shiite Muslims. Shiites constitute a majority in both Iraq and Iran, a theocracy where Khamanei holds ultimate power. The last time U.S. forces were in combat in Najaf, in April and May, a group in Iran began collecting names of volunteers for suicide bombings aimed at the Americans.

"These crimes are a dark blemish which will never be wiped from the face of America. They commit these crimes and shamelessly talk of democracy," said Khamanei. "Shame has no place in their vocabulary."

The Iranian spoke as U.S. Marines and soldiers busied themselves cleaning weapons, refitting equipment and loading ammunition, food and -- most important in the extreme desert heat -- water and ice into the armored vehicles that could soon carry them to a decisive final battle with the militia loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr that is holding Iraq's holiest city.

"Iraqi and U.S. forces are making final preparations as we get ready to finish this fight that the Moqtada Militia started," Col. Anthony M. Haslam, commanding officer of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, said in a statement

"The desired end state is one of stability and security, where the citizens of Najaf do not live in fear of violence or kidnappings, and where the city of Najaf can once again return to peace and prosperity," the statement said.

It came one day after U.S. forces circulated with loudspeakers urging residents to evacuate the holy city of 600,000 and advising members of Sadr's Mahdi Army to lay down their arms.

The Marines are backed by three battalions from the 1st Cavalry Division, called in after the militia resumed an uprising here six days ago. Two days of pitched fighting in a vast cemetery here have been followed by several days of less intense combat as senior officers and Iraqi officials huddled to prepare plans to re-take the city.

Juan Cole makes this Informed Comment:

The US military actions in the holy city of Najaf are deeply offensive to Muslims throughout the world. Although many might also criticize Sadr and his militia for using the holy sites as cover, the strongest condemnation inevitably is reserved for the foreign troops, seen as imperialists.

Ironic quote of the Day: "We will not allow them to continue to desecrate this sacred site . . . " said Colonel Anthony Haslam, commanding officer of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit. (This is after the US dropped bombs on the cemetery, which contains the dead relatives of Shiite Muslims from all over the world, but especially Iraq).

If this causes a mass uprising (we're almost there) of the Shi'a, we're in a world of hurt.

UPDATE: 2 pm. The assault has been stood down, at least temporarily. Neither the WaPo or the NYT, both of which moved this to the top of their websites, has been able to discover what is happening.

Restless Summer

Protesters Push for Central Park Rally

By Michelle Garcia
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, August 11, 2004; Page A06

NEW YORK, Aug. 10 -- With little more than two weeks left before the Republican National Convention, organizers of a massive antiwar march have backed away from an agreement to hold the rally on Manhattan's far West Side, setting the stage for a showdown with the Bloomberg administration.

The march and rally are widely expected to draw more than 250,000 people on the convention's eve. But United for Peace and Justice, the group organizing the march, announced Tuesday that it has decided to fight again for a rally spot in Central Park.

"Exiling a rally to a remote sun-baked highway makes a mockery of the constitutionally protected right to assemble," said Leslie Cagan, the group's national coordinator.

Meanwhile, city officials faced headaches on another front, as city firefighters and police officers refused to rule out a strike or sickouts during the convention. The uniformed services argue that they deserve bigger raises than other city workers because they risk their lives daily. City officials say they have offered more money, for money-saving labor concessions.

Parks Department officials have refused to budge on the site of the demonstration. In a written statement, the Parks Department denied the protest group's latest request "for the same reasons stated in the denial of your earlier application." Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe has said that large numbers of protesters trampling the grass would cause irreparable harm to Central Park's Great Lawn. Activists sought to answer this criticism by offering to use three sites within the park, rather than concentrate in one meadow.
....
The city's refusal of a Central Park rally permit has rankled antiwar activists and civil libertarians, who say the park has great symbolic import and functions as the city's unofficial "town square." The activists decided to revisit the question after news reports in the past two weeks revealed that the park's refurbished grass was designed to withstand hard use. Parks officials have granted permission for smaller groups, including some Republicans, to use the park during the convention.

A recent public opinion poll conducted by Quinnipac University found that most New Yorkers support a rally in the park.

I don't know who Michelle Garcia is, but that is a particularly badly written article, at least as to the labor situation. What she mean to say is that the city has offered an improvement in wages in exchange for concessions on work rules which will save the city money. The NYT fleshes out the labor situation:

Tensions With Unions and Protesters Build as Convention Approaches
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

Published: August 11, 2004

Labor unrest during the convention - particularly involving groups lauded for their roles responding to the Sept. 11 attack - would be an embarrassment to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg; he reached a deal with the Central Labor Council, an umbrella group of city labor organizations, in which unions agreed not to disrupt the convention, which runs from Aug. 30 through Sept. 2.

Edward Skyler, the mayor's press secretary, said the administration was not concerned about work stoppages during the convention and added, "I can't imagine they would pass up such a great opportunity to get overtime."

The police and firefighters have been working without a contract for two years. The Bloomberg administration has offered the unions essentially the same contract accepted by the largest municipal union, District Council 37, with a 5 percent raise over three years in exchange for some concessions. Mr. Skyler said yesterday that the raises could go as high as 8 percent, but only with changes in the police officers' and firefighters' work schedules.

Fire and police union officials have scoffed at the idea that they should be treated the same way as clerical and other city workers covered under the District Council 37 contract. "Mike Bloomberg says we're no different than people who push paper," Mr. Cassidy said. "That's a joke. It's a disgrace. It's an insult to the firefighters and police officers who risk their lives every day."

In adopting a more militant stance, the unions may be emboldened by what happened in Boston, where the police threatened to picket parties and events during the Democratic National Convention, but won a 14.5 percent raise over four years through a state arbitrator just before that convention began.

On Monday night, as the mayor met with a group of community leaders on West 10th Street, about 200 firefighters and police officers stood outside, screaming loudly throughout the event. When the mayor left, the uniformed workers, aided by some scaffolding that created excellent acoustics, screamed loudly at him, "Shame on you!"

Mr. Bloomberg, looking chagrined at having to be handled like Jessica Simpson emerging from Madison Square Garden, was all but pushed into his sport utility vehicle by his security detail, which had driven it onto the curb to avoid the protesters in the street. The group also heckled Mr. Skyler, saying, "Eddie, we know where you live," said some of the police officers assigned to patrol outside the meeting.

Bloomberg has known this convention was coming for a long time, and he's a fool for letting this negotiation drag on into the convention. He's handed the unions unbelievable leverage and I can hardly blame them for wanting to use it.

Rough Justice

U.S. to Give Border Patrol Agents the Power to Deport Illegal Aliens
By RACHEL L. SWARNS

Published: August 11, 2004

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 - Citing concerns about terrorists crossing the nation's borders, the Department of Homeland Security said on Tuesday that it planned to give border patrol agents sweeping new powers to deport illegal aliens from the frontiers with Mexico and Canada without providing them the opportunity to make their case before an immigration judge.

The move, which will take effect this month, represents a broad expansion of the authority of the thousands of law enforcement agents who patrol the nation's borders. Until now, border patrol agents typically delivered undocumented immigrants to the custody of the immigration courts, where judges determined whether they should be deported or remain in the United States.

Domestic security officials described the deportation process in immigration courts - which hear asylum claims and other appeals to remain in the country - as sluggish and cumbersome, saying illegal immigrants often wait for more than a year before being deported while straining the capacity of detention centers and draining critical resources. Under the new system, immigrants will typically be deported within eight days of their apprehension, officials said.

The Illegal Immigration and Reform Responsibility Act of 1996 authorized the agency to deport certain groups of illegal immigrants without judicial oversight, but until now it had permitted only officials at airports and seaports to do so.

The new rule will apply to illegal immigrants caught within 100 miles of the Mexican and Canadian borders who have spent up to 14 days within the United States. Officials said the border agents would not focus on deporting Mexicans and Canadians, who will still, for the most part, have their cases heard in immigration court. The agents will concentrate instead on immigrants from other countries. In fiscal year 2003, about 37,000 immigrants from countries other than Mexico and Canada - primarily from Central America - were arrested along the Southwest border.

Officials said that the new plan would help deter illegal immigration, speed deportations and address issues of border security.
....
Advocates for immigrants said they feared mistakes would be made when hastily trained border agents decide who should be deported and who should not. Complaints about improper deportations have already been reported at some airports and seaports.

"We're very concerned that we may see the mistaken deportations of refugees, citizens and other legitimate visitors," said Eleanor Acer, director of the asylum program of Human Rights First, an advocacy group. "For refugees, it could be a life or death sentence."

I very much dislike the idea of turning judicial functions over to enforcement agencies. The very idea of separating the two functions is to provide a system of checks and balances and to prevent rough justice in which one individual becomes police, judge and executioner.

Off the Reservation

Inside the Loop

By Al Kamen

Frankly Speaking

Speaking of carpetbaggers, retired Gen. Tommy R. Franks, head of the Iraq war effort when he ran the U.S. Central Command, was asked Monday at the National Press Club whether, if asked, he would run for the U.S. Senate seat in Illinois.

"Actually," Franks said, "I was thinking maybe of New York." The crowd roared. "Hey, they have a precedent for that, you know."

The retired general appears to be having a good time these days, working the circuit, flogging his memoir, "American Soldier."

Maybe he's having too good a time, in fact, because he has been veering dangerously off-message. On ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, he was asked, "Do you think Senator Kerry is qualified to be commander in chief?"

"Absolutely!" he said. Absolutely?

Is Franks going to endorse President Bush? "I don't know yet. I'm leaning in that direction." Leaning?

Then he said he hasn't decided whether he'll speak at the Republican National Convention. "I'm a fiercely independent kind of guy and rather proud of it," he said.

Oh, really? Got news for you, soldier. You're going to be in the Big Apple on Sept. 2, according to our GOP draft convention schedule. Let's see, you'll be on the stage at precisely 8:55 p.m., where you'll give 15 minutes of "remarks" praising Bush.

Or maybe you don't want that fine box of Arturo Fuente Opus X cigars they have waiting for you?

Franks is a loose cannon that could blow up on Bush at any time. It's hard to believe he ever ran CENTCOM. He's the kind of guy who lets whatever runs through his mind run out of his mouth.

It's kind of a slow news day so far. I'll be looking for off the beaten path stories today.

Best of the Web

A Bounce for JohnKerry.com

By Brian Faler
Wednesday, August 11, 2004; Page A07

The Democratic National Convention may have done little to improve John F. Kerry's standing in the polls. But JohnKerry.com? That's another story.

Nielsen/NetRatings, an independent research firm, reported that traffic to the nominee's official Web site increased by 191 percent during the week of the convention, making it the fastest-growing major Web site in the country (for that week, anyway). In all, about 771,000 people visited the site from their homes. The firm distinguishes between Internet use at home and at work, and it did not release data on how the Massachusetts senator's site, or any other one, fared among those on the job. It estimated that visitors spend an average of eight minutes on the site.

Overall, the Kerry campaign's site was the 213th most popular in the country, just ahead of the online home of the business supply company Staples and right behind InPhonic.com, a site for a communications firm. JohnKerry.com was more popular than, for example, United Airlines' site, but it had fewer guests than either the Boston Globe's site or one called "Kara's Adult Playground."

His audience was paltry compared with some of the Web's most popular destinations. Yahoo.com had 45.8 million visitors for the week ended Aug. 1. MSN.com, the second most popular site, had 45.6 million. It is also likely that the nominee attracted only a tiny percentage of those online.

But Kerry's readership far eclipsed that of his Republican rivals. Nielsen/NetRatings estimated that the Republican National Committee's site had about 275,000 readers during the convention week, a 32 percent increase over the previous seven-day period. President Bush's campaign site, meanwhile, did not have enough visitors to register with the firm.

What's it mean? My guess: lefties are probably quicker to embrace new technology.

Shame

U.S. Pledges to Share Evidence as 9/11 Retrial Begins in Germany
By MARK LANDLER

Published: August 10, 2004

HAMBURG, Germany, Aug. 10 — A German court today began a retrial of Mounir el-Motassadeq, the only person convicted of involvement in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, with the disclosure that the United States will for the first time share evidence about the plot.

Mr. Motassadeq's conviction was thrown out in March by an appeals court, which said that critical evidence had been withheld by American authorities. After having been sentenced to 15 years in prison, Mr. Motassadeq was freed in April.
....
It is not clear exactly what information the United States plans to hand over. In a three-page diplomatic note faxed to the German government by the State Department on the eve of the trial, Washington said it would provide "unclassified summaries of relevant intelligence information."

A copy of the note was given to The New York Times by one of the lawyers involved in the case.

Among those summaries, lawyers here said, could be excerpts from interrogations of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a suspected Al Qaeda member in American custody who is believed to have played a central role in the Sept. 11 plot, which killed more than 3,000 people. Prosecutors here say Mr. bin al-Shibh could confirm that Mr. Motassadeq knew about the plot and was involved in its planning.

In keeping with prior practice, the Justice Department refused to allow Mr. bin al-Shibh or other suspected Qaeda members to testify. The United States did not respond to a request by the court for testimony from the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet.

Lawyers for Mr. Motassadeq sought to head off the prospect of damaging new disclosures by arguing that any statements made by suspected terrorists in American custody would be tainted, and thus inadmissible, because they might have been obtained through torture.

Invoking harsh conditions at the military detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, the lawyers promised to make this trial as much about American conduct since September 2001, as about the events leading up to the attacks.
....
Mr. Motassadeq's chief lawyer, Josef Grässle-Münscher, played down the threat of new information from the United States, saying it would be "fourth-rate." The first three categories of evidence, he said, are first-hand testimony from witnesses like Mr. bin al-Shibh, testimony from the people who questioned them, and verbatim transcripts of the interrogations.

"The court would have to trust that this information has not been manipulated," Mr. Grässle-Münscher said. "`The torture issue is relevant because of two of the potential witnesses are in Al Qaeda camps."

Mr. Grässle-Münscher laid out a detailed case for why such prisoners are likely to have been subjected to harsh treatment, if not full-fledged torture. He quoted from a Justice Department memorandum arguing that Qaeda prisoners are not protected by the Geneva Conventions. He cited another government memo that lists permissible forms of coercive interrogation.

And he quoted testimony from prisoners who had been subjected to physical abuse by American soldiers in Afghanistan. The sometimes graphic descriptions were laboriously translated into German.

Mr. Grässle-Münscher denied that he was trying to deflect attention from Mr. Motassadeq. But he added: "In some areas, the U.S. has lost its standards. They have to regain their standards."

Let's just say that our standing in the eyes of the world have taken a real hit because of the torture scandal. President Clueless either doesn't get it or doesn't care.

Middle Class Squeeze

Middle-Class Tightrope
It's More Dire Than The Numbers Show

By Jacob S. Hacker
Tuesday, August 10, 2004; Page A19

This may come as a shock, but it shouldn't. Middle-class earnings are up, but this is mostly because women have moved into the workforce. Without the huge one-shot boost of a second breadwinner, according to Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute, most families would barely have moved upward since 1980.

And that might have been fine -- if the cost of a middle-class lifestyle had remained stable. It has not, as Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren and her daughter, Amelia Tyagi, argue in their book "The Two-Income Trap." Two-earner families need to spend more, not less, than the "Leave It to Beaver" set. They need child care, help when kids are sick, a second car.

Plus, they pay more in taxes. (It's rarely noted that two-earner families are the ones hit by the "marriage penalty"; traditional one-earner families usually get a "marriage bonus.") Above all, the things that Americans value most -- health care, housing, college -- have simply gotten much more expensive. These higher costs often bring major benefits. But they mean that being middle class is a lot more costly than it used to be.

Unfortunately, as powerful an issue as this is, it's a devil to actually address. Kerry said in his convention speech that Democrats "value an America where the middle class is not being squeezed, but doing better." Yet the cost of closing the gap between middle-class incomes and expenses, when earnings are stagnant and key living costs are rising at double-digit rates, will be immense. Kerry and Edwards have proposed new programs and tax breaks. But there's a limit to what they can fund by rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest. Worse, subsidizing middle-class expenses could end up driving costs even higher, adding fuel to the inflationary fire in markets that are often only weakly competitive. And there's the ever-present risk that the forgotten middle class, once found, will turn against its rescuers when the distance between rhetoric and reality becomes apparent.

It may well be that the language of "squeeze" is leading Democrats astray. Economic anxiety isn't just about the strain of paying the bills; it's about the threat of economic ruin -- what Edwards, in his convention speech, called the "cliff" that "you go right off" when "you have a child that gets sick, a financial problem, a layoff in the family."

And while most of the attention has been on the road to that cliff, there's powerful evidence that middle-class families are at massively increased risk of going over the precipice.

My own recent analyses of income statistics, for instance, suggest that family incomes have become two to three times more unstable in the past three decades, even for well-educated workers and two-earner families. The causes are multiple: Jobs are less secure, wages are more volatile, government programs and employment-based benefits have been cut, and families with two earners in the workforce are more exposed to job instability than one-earner families. But what seems clear is that many of the arrangements that once protected the middle class from economic risk -- not just public programs but also private workplace benefits and help from within communities and families -- aren't doing the job today.

If America is to remain a nation in which economic security isn't just the province of the affluent, these arrangements must be rebuilt. The most daunting task will be to encourage strong, broadly distributed growth, and this goal will require private leadership as well as public policy. But government can and should deal with the pervasive risks that mark our postindustrial economy -- and, indeed, only government can deal with many of them. America's ever more creaky structures of risk protection must be adapted to the new realities of work and family. Expanding health coverage and helping families with major expenses is an important start. But the task we face today is greater, and more necessary, than even Kerry and Edwards may realize.

This chartfrom EPI shows that in real (constant 2001) dollars, hourly wages for the least skilled have actually fallen, while those of the top three quintiles have remained basically flat, with a tiny increase over the period 1973-2001 for those with advanced degrees. It's one thing to read a narrative about it, but kind of shocking when you see the numbers laid out like that.

Bill of Particulars

We've 'turned corner,' been mugged

August 10, 2004

BY JESSE JACKSON

Bush offers himself for re-election with the following record:

Worst jobs record since the Great Depression. Worst trade deficits ever. Worst budget deficits ever. Most dramatic decline in our nation's financial straits: from more than $5 trillion projected surplus to $5 trillion in new debt.

It is hard to remember the unity we enjoyed at home after Sept. 11, and the international support that rallied to our side. In a few short months, the president and his men turned national unity to a bitter partisan divide, ''rolling out'' the Iraq War as a club against his opponents. And, of course, the president's debacle in Iraq has left us more isolated, less admired, and far less safe, turning much of the Muslim world into seething anger at us. Acting unilaterally, without U.N. sanction, he launched a war without a plan for the peace, leaving U.S. troops exposed in a bloody occupation and U.S. taxpayers with the staggering cost: more than $150 billion and rising.

That is why foreign high-level military and State Department leaders from the Reagan and Bush I administrations have publicly charged the president with making us less safe, and are urging Americans to turn the president out of office this fall.

This is not the story you hear on the stump, nor at the Republican convention, or even from much of the mainstream media. But it is undeniably true. You can make excuses for the president's record, but you can't simply deny the scope of the failure. Most independent voters are reluctant to vote out a president, particularly in the middle of a war. But outside of the luxury suites, it's hard to believe that many people think we ought to continue on the same course we're on.

And someplace north of 45% of the voting population is going to vote for him. Go figure.

Human Resources

New Generation of Leaders Is Emerging for Al Qaeda
By DAVID JOHNSTON and DAVID E. SANGER

Published: August 10, 2004

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 - A new portrait of Al Qaeda's inner workings is emerging from the cache of information seized last month in Pakistan, as investigators begin to identify a new generation of operatives who appear to be filling the vacuum created when leaders were killed or captured, senior intelligence officials said Monday.

Using computer records, e-mail addresses and documents seized after the arrest of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan last month in Pakistan, intelligence analysts say they are finding that Al Qaeda's upper ranks are being filled by lower-ranking members and more recent recruits.

"They're a little bit of both,'' one official said, describing Al Qaeda's new midlevel structure. "Some who have been around and some who have stepped up. They're reaching for their bench.''

While the findings may result in a significant intelligence coup for the Bush administration and its allies in Britain, they also create a far more complex picture of Al Qaeda's status than Mr. Bush presents on the campaign trail. For the past several months, the president has claimed that much of Al Qaeda's leadership has been killed or captured; the new evidence suggests that the organization is regenerating and bringing in new blood.

The new picture emerged from interviews with two officials who have been briefed on some of the details of the intelligence and analytical conclusions drawn from the information on computers seized after Mr. Khan's arrest. But they did not identify the more senior Qaeda leaders, and they said it was not yet clear to what extent Osama bin Laden still exercised control over the organization, either directly or through his chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Officials say they still do not have a clear picture of the midlevel structure that exists between Mr. Khan, who appeared to be responsible for communications but not operations, and the upper echelons of Al Qaeda.

The new evidence suggests that Al Qaeda has retained some elements of its previous centralized command and communications structure, using computer experts like Mr. Khan to relay encrypted messages and directions from leaders to subordinates in countries like Britain, Turkey and Nigeria.

In the past, officials had a different view of Al Qaeda. After the American-led war in Afghanistan, most American counterterrorism analysts believed that the group had been dispersed and had been trying to re-form in a loosely affiliated collection of extremist groups.

It appears that Al Qaeda is more resilient than was previously understood and has sought to find replacements for operational commanders like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Walid Muhammad Salih bin Attash, known as Khallad, all of whom have been captured.

This is much more sophisticated than we expected. It means that AQ has a thorough in-house development program to bring people up through the system. We have a very complex, coherent enemy. I just heard Peter Berger tell Blister that the likelihood of finding Bin Laden isn't very good, which I've been hearing from military analysts for months. All those of you who are worrying about an "October Surprise" can quit worrying about Bin Laden turning up in custody. There are other things about Bin Laden to worry about in October.

Next At Bat

Iran: The Next Crisis

By Fareed Zakaria
Tuesday, August 10, 2004; Page A19

Who could have imagined that alliance management would be a hot election issue? But it is. John Kerry's repeated pledge to restore relations with U.S. allies has struck a chord. The trouble is, if he is elected president, Kerry is going to find that promise hard to keep -- at least with America's allies in Europe. Most of them would be delighted to see Kerry win, but that doesn't mean they will be more cooperative on policy issues. Terrorism is understandably on everyone's mind, but there is yet another growing danger over the horizon. Early into a Kerry administration, we could see a familiar sight -- a transatlantic crisis -- except this time it wouldn't be over Iraq but Iran.

The threat to the United States from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, if they ever existed, is in the past. Iran, on the other hand, is the problem of the future. Over the past two years, thanks to tips from Iranian opposition groups and investigations by the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has become clear that Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons. In the words of the agency, Iran has "a practically complete front-end of a nuclear fuel cycle," which leads most experts to believe it is two to three years away from having a nuclear bomb.

European countries were as worried by this development as Washington, and because the United States has no relations with Iran, Europe stepped in last fall and negotiated a deal with Tehran. It was an excellent agreement, under which Iran pledged to stop developing fissile material (the core ingredient of a nuclear bomb) and to keep its nuclear program transparent. The only problem is, Iran has recently announced that it isn't going to abide by the deal. As the IAEA's investigation became more serious, Tehran became more secretive. One month ago the agency condemned Iran for its failure to cooperate. Tehran responded by announcing that it would resume work in prohibited areas.
....
Last month the Brookings Institution conducted a scenario with mostly former American and European officials. In it, Iran actually acquires fissile material. Even facing the imminent production of a nuclear bomb, Europeans were unwilling to take any robust measures, such as the use of force or tough sanctions. James Steinberg, a senior Clinton administration official who organized this workshop, said that he was "deeply frustrated by European attitudes." Madeleine Albright, who regularly convenes a discussion group of former foreign ministers, said that on this topic, "Europeans say they understand the threat but then act as if the real problem is not Iran but the United States."

U.S. policy toward Iran is hardly blameless. Washington refuses even to consider the possibility of direct talks with Iran, let alone actual relations. Europeans could present Washington with a plan. They would go along with a bigger stick if Washington would throw in a bigger carrot: direct engagement with Tehran. This is something Tehran has long sought, and it could be offered in return for renouncing its nuclear ambitions.

But for any of this to happen, Europe must be willing to play an active, assertive role. It must stop viewing itself merely as a critic of U.S. policy and instead see itself as a partner, jointly acting to reduce the dangers of nuclear proliferation. And it should do this not as a favor to John Kerry but as a responsibility to its own citizens and those of the world.

Fareed, baby, don't you get it? The Europeans aren't interested in even gaming this scenario with the Bush in the White House. Judging from what I've seen, we are going to let the Israeli's do the dirty work.

In Order to Give Back, First You Have To Receive

Monterey Bay Campus Is a Role Model
Debate on requiring community service for students turns to a university where giving back is a core value.

By Eric Slater, Times Staff Writer

SEASIDE, Calif. — To graduate from college, Tracy Burke spent time in a halfway house for female felons. Alicia Gregory filled grocery bags at a food bank. Tiana Trutna taught elementary students how to grow vegetables for their school cafeteria.

Here at Cal State Monterey Bay, it's required work. To the university, it's an essential part of an education. But some educators elsewhere say required community service squanders precious education dollars — and time.

The only public university or college in the state to require such service, Monterey Bay is finding itself at the center of a fast-growing debate as California begins to consider whether to mandate community service for all 3.4 million students in the public system.

The notion that such service should be required for a college degree was among the many proposals to emerge last week from the California Performance Review, a report commissioned by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that addresses hundreds of aspects of state government.

At issue, first, is whether it is appropriate to require community service as part of what goes into a university degree. Beyond that, even among those who support mandatory service, there is disagreement over how best to make such service meaningful.

Mandatory service might be of little value, some say, without accompanying academic study — "service learning," as it's known.

"Requiring community service is a good first step," said Stephen M. Reed, associate vice president for external relations at Monterey Bay. "But it's only a first step."

Students here not only must work in the community; they also must take courses related to that work.

"The important thing is not contributing hours," said Seth Pollack, director of the university's Service Learning Institute. "The important thing is learning your own responsibility to your community. That comes not from parking cars or licking envelopes, but from understanding the root causes of our social problems."

This is one of the dumbest ideas I have ever seen. CSMB is part of the second tier of the Caifornia state college system. This means its market is the "non-traditional" student (older, with family and a job) and those who can't afford the pricier UC system, students who will most certainly need to work while they are attending. Burden them some more with the need for unpaid service work and they will go elsewhere.

Politics as Usual

Source: Bush to pick Goss to head CIA

Tuesday, August 10, 2004 Posted: 7:58 AM EDT (1158 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush has chosen U.S. Rep. Porter Goss, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and a one-time Army intelligence operative, to be the new director of the CIA, it was learned Tuesday.

Goss, 65, a Republican from Florida, has been mentioned prominently in speculation about a successor to departed CIA Director George Tenet, who left amid a torrent of criticism of the agency's handling of prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Cheney's Cat's Paw
Porter Goss as CIA Director?

By RAY McGOVERN
Former CIA Analyst

There is, thankfully, a remnant of CIA professionals who still put objective analysis above political correctness and career advancement. Just when they thought there were no indignities left for them to suffer, they are shuddering again at press reports that Rep. Porter Goss (R-FL) may soon be their new boss.

If the failure-prone experience of the past few years has told us anything, it is that being a "team member" in good standing is the kiss of death for the CIA director's primary role of "telling it like it is" to the president and his senior advisers. It was a painful moment of truth when former Speaker Newt Gingricha*"like Cheney, a frequent visitor to CIA headquartersa*"told the press that Tenet was "so grateful to the president that he would do anything for him."

So, Cheney gets his hand-picked pet CIA chief. If you are still wondering who is running this government, wonder no longer.

Great Games

via The War in Context:

Will America watch while its athletes are booed?

August 8, 2004

By BILL MANN
FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A caller to KRON-TV anchor Gary Radnich's KNBR Radio show in San Francisco one morning recently raised a disturbing prospect -- one that's more than a bit worrisome to NBC-TV.

Television coverage of the Athens Olympics start at 8 p.m. Friday on NBC; the well-informed, seasoned traveler who called Radnich wanted to discuss something that hasn't been talked about much in the U.S. media. So far.

"I wonder how many Americans," said the caller, "have any idea how our athletes are going to be booed in Athens at the Olympics." Probably not many, given this country's dismaying lack of interest in anything outside U.S. borders.

In a recent letter to the editor in The Press Democrat, a Santa Rosa teacher who'd just returned from a year in Norway as a Fulbright Scholar wrote of the widespread anti-American sentiment she encountered because of the unpopular war in Iraq.

Last spring, on a visit to British Columbia, I found the Canadian press filled with a level of anti-American sentiment I'd never seen, even having lived up there.

It's not a pretty picture facing U.S. Olympic athletes.

The specter of widespread boos in Athens every time "The Star-Spangled Banner" is played is not far-fetched -- and is much on the minds of the people at NBC. The possibility of the American team's being lustily booed as it enters the Olympic Stadium on Friday night also makes NBC cringe.

I asked a publicist at NBC Sports about possible anti-U.S. protests in Athens. "Of course, we've discussed it," he said nervously, "but I'm really not at liberty to say anything more." Click.

So far, the media has concentrated on possible terrorist acts in Athens, avoiding what seems a much likelier scenario -- innocent American athletes being booed, taunted or spat upon by protesters.

Radnich told his KNBR caller, "You know, when a lot of NBA players said they weren't going to Athens, I thought they just wanted to sit on their butts and watch the Games on TV. Now I think they may have good reason to stay home."

If such protests, as seems likely, do arise, NBC will be in a tight spot: Show too much of them and they'll be called Bush-bashers on Fox News and elsewhere. Play down or try to hide them, and they'll be criticized for trying to sweep them under the rug.

If you are reading the lefty blogs, none of this will be a surprise to you. If you aren't you are in for a wake-up call on Friday. Be gentle with your friends and relations while you give them the news: Bush has made us hated.

Plame Flame

Reporter Held In Contempt in CIA Leak Case

By Susan Schmidt and Carol Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 10, 2004; Page A01

A federal judge has held a Time magazine reporter in contempt of court for refusing to testify in an investigation of the leak of a CIA officer's identity, rejecting requests from two media organizations to quash federal grand jury subpoenas seeking information from the media.

U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan ruled that the First Amendment does not insulate reporters from Time and NBC News from a requirement to testify before a criminal grand jury that is conducting the investigation into the possible illegal disclosure of classified information. He unsealed an order that demands the "confinement" of Time reporter Matthew Cooper, who has refused to testify in the probe, but stayed it pending an appeal.

The judge's opinion, reached July 20 but not released until yesterday, will be immediately appealed, Time executives said. Hogan also issued an Aug. 6 order confining Cooper "at a suitable place until such time as he is willing to comply with the grand jury subpoena," and ordered Time to be fined $1,000 a day. The fine was also stayed while the magazine's expedited appeal is considered.

While NBC fought a subpoena issued May 21 and was included in the opinion, it avoided a contempt citation after Tim Russert, moderator of NBC's "Meet the Press," agreed to an interview over the weekend in which he answered a limited number of questions posed by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, NBC said in a statement.

Lawyers involved in the case said it appears that Fitzgerald is now armed with a strong and unambiguous court ruling to demand the testimony of two journalists -- syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak, who first disclosed the CIA officer's name, and Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus, who has written that a Post reporter received information about her from a Bush administration official.

Pincus was served with a subpoena yesterday after Hogan's order was unsealed.

In their statement, NBC officials said Russert agreed to the interview after first resisting on First Amendment grounds. NBC lawyers reached an accommodation with the prosecutor in which Russert "was not required to appear before the grand jury and was not asked questions that would have required him to disclose information provided to him in confidence."

Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler agreed to a similar interview with Fitzgerald's office earlier this summer. In both Kessler's case and Russert's, prosecutors' questions concerned conversations the reporters had in early July 2003 with Lewis I. "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Cheney. Both reporters have said they told Fitzgerald's staff that Libby did not disclose the identity of the CIA employee, Valerie Plame, to them.

Fitzgerald has shown a continuing interest in Libby, witnesses have said, but it now appears that his reasons may be more complex than was first apparent. Libby has signed a waiver allowing reporters to tell the prosecutor whether he disclosed Plame's name to them. Prosecutors have e-mails and phone records showing his contacts with reporters, and witnesses have said they are interested in a story Cooper wrote last summer in which Libby was interviewed.

Some surprises here. I've followed this case about as closely as anybody for the last year and there is no way I'd have thought Kessler and Pincus were grand jury fodder. I really doubt Cooper is going to win on appeal.

For those of you who thought the Plame matter was going to go away, think again. When Fitzgerald was assigned to the case, I knew this was going to be a boil on the butt of the Bushies, one ready for lancing right about now.

Scooter Libby doesn't have the security clearance to know Ms. Plame's status. Need I say more?

Weakcovery

Spin the Payrolls
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: August 10, 2004

When Friday's dismal job report was released, traders in the Chicago pit began chanting, "Kerry, Kerry." But apologists for President Bush's economic policies are frantically spinning the bad news. Here's a guide to their techniques.

First, they talk about recent increases in the number of jobs, not the fact that payroll employment is still far below its previous peak, and even further below anything one could call full employment. Because job growth has finally turned positive, some economists (who probably know better) claim that prosperity has returned - and some partisans have even claimed that we have the best economy in 20 years.

But job growth, by itself, says nothing about prosperity: growth can be higher in a bad year than a good year, if the bad year follows a terrible year while the good year follows another good year. I've drawn a chart of job growth for the 1930's; there was rapid nonfarm job growth (8.1 percent) in 1934, a year of mass unemployment and widespread misery - but that year was slightly less terrible than 1933.

So have we returned to prosperity? No: jobs are harder to find, by any measure, than they were at any point during Bill Clinton's second term. The job situation might have improved somewhat in the past year, but it's still not good.

Second, the apologists give numbers without context. President Bush boasts about 1.5 million new jobs over the past 11 months. Yet this was barely enough to keep up with population growth, and it's worse than any 11-month stretch during the Clinton years.

Third, they cherry-pick any good numbers they can find.

The shocking news that the economy added only 32,000 jobs in July comes from payroll data. Experts say what Alan Greenspan said in February: "Everything we've looked at suggests that it's the payroll data which are the series which you have to follow." Another measure of employment, from the household survey, fluctuates erratically; for example, it fell by 265,000 in February, a result nobody believes. Yet because July's household number was good, suddenly administration officials were telling reporters to look at that number, not the more reliable payroll data.

By the way, over the longer term all the available data tell the same story: the job situation deteriorated drastically between early 2001 and the summer of 2003, and has, at best, improved modestly since then.

Fourth, apologists try to shift the blame. Officials often claim, falsely, that the 2001 recession began under Bill Clinton, or at least that it was somehow his fault. But even if you attribute the eight-month recession that began in March 2001 to Mr. Clinton - a very dubious proposition - job loss during the recession wasn't exceptionally severe. The reason the employment picture looks so bad now is the unprecedented weakness of job growth in the subsequent recovery.

Nor is it plausible to continue attributing poor economic performance to terrorism, three years after 9/11. Bear in mind that in the 2002 Economic Report of the President, the administration's own economists predicted full recovery by 2004, with payroll employment rising to 138 million, 7 million more than the actual number.

Finally, many apologists have returned to that old standby: the claim that presidents don't control the economy. But that's not what the administration said when selling its tax policies. Last year's tax cut was officially named the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 - and administration economists provided a glowing projection of the job growth that would follow the bill's passage. That projection has, needless to say, proved to be wildly overoptimistic.

What we've just seen is as clear a test of trickledown economics as we're ever likely to get. Twice, in 2001 and in 2003, the administration insisted that a tax cut heavily tilted toward the affluent was just what the economy needed. Officials brushed aside pleas to give relief instead to lower- and middle-income families, who would be more likely to spend the money, and to cash-strapped state and local governments. Given the actual results - huge deficits, but minimal job growth - don't you wish the administration had listened to that advice?

Oh, and on a nonpolitical note: even before Friday's grim report on jobs, I was puzzled by Mr. Greenspan's eagerness to start raising interest rates. Now I don't understand his policy at all.

I have a couple of master's degrees and 30 years of experience. You can see my resume here. Jim Capazzola and Susan Madrak have resumes at least as deep as mine, and they can't find a job, either. If you can't figure it out that the economy is in deep yoghurt, you must be a CEO someplace. Bush is content to let us drown while corporate profits spin ever higher.

Bush said yesterday that Kerry's tax plan would land on "small business owners." I have a few of those in my family and since the economy is still a basket case, they aren't making anything like the $200,000 a year that would make the Kerry tax increase kick in. They are barely staying alive. They'd be happy to be making $200K, but this economy can't handle that. Thanks, W. Not a good president for small business, either.

The economy is a wreck. If Bush wants to run on that, let him live with the consequences.

Burning an Asset

Spencer Ackerman's Iraq'd:

WHAT WAS LOST: Excuse me while I venture into matters unrelated to Iraq for a moment, but the disclosure by administration officials of an Al Qaeda double-agent is a potentially serious setback for the war on terrorism. Last week, to justify the move to Orange Alert, administration officials revealed that their Pakistani counterparts had arrested Muhammed Naeem Noor Khan on July 13, whose name was promptly published. The Pakistanis--along with our British counterterrorism partners--were incensed. After they nabbed Khan, they managed to get the 25-year-old-computer expert to communicate with his Al Qaeda comrades, who evidently didn't know that Khan had been captured. That information had led to other captures, like the July 19 arrest of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, announced on the day of John Kerry's nomination speech. As the New York Daily News reports, Pakistani Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat publicly blasted the leak. And as Massoud Ansari, John Judis and I have reported, Hayyat and his colleagues have been under significant U.S. pressure to turn up high-value terrorist targets in time for the November election. Hayyat has played along, announcing the Ghailani capture at midnight local time on July 25--just a few hours before Kerry's convention address. For Hayyat to be denouncing the U.S. disclosure of Khan's name indicates how serious this is:

So in addition to the prospect of Khan bringing in OBL himself, he had dealings with Al Qaeda contacts who at some point were here in the United States. From my reporting, it has become clear to me that Pakistani officials resent the introduction of U.S. politics into the hunt for Al Qaeda; for the U.S. to turn around and disclose a key source that the Pakistanis acquired--surely at the behest, however abstract, of Washington--is sure to introduce a further strain into the relationship. Senator Chuck Schumer is requesting that the White House explain the motivations behind the leak, after Condoleezza Rice basically contradicted herself to Wolf Blitzer, saying first, "We did not, of course, publicly disclose his name," but then admitting that Bush officials did in fact do so "on background." Whatever the motivation--and gross incompetence can't be ruled out--these are not mistakes we can afford with Al Qaeda plotting to murder Americans.

Paul Woodward, editor of The War in Context, comments:

When the Bush administration's credibility has fallen so low that it is willing to risk undermining its own intelligence operations in order justify dramatic security measures, those Americans who have little concern about "world opinion" should pause to consider what this means. The importance of foreign perceptions goes further than whether America and Americans are liked overseas. If foreign intelligence services fear that information they share with their American counterparts is going to be used for the wrong purposes they will become more cautious about what they divulge. The cooperation of these services isn't just helpful; it's indispensable. Though America has demonstrated its ability to go it alone in its military adventures, the idea that it can "go it alone" in intelligence operations is sheer fantasy.

Foreign Relations

A little gossipy, but nonetheless delicious:

Read It and Weep

Who could blame some Republicans for hoping that maybe they'd catch a break every now and again from the Council on Foreign Relations' esteemed magazine, Foreign Affairs, a must-read for heavy-breathing international establishment types.

After all, the new council president is Richard N. Haass, a Republican, a former top foreign policy aide in Bush I and head of the State Department's policy planning in Bush II. Although many doubted Haass's bona fides as a true believer, he would have to be better than former New York Timesman Leslie Gelb, a Foggy Bottom appointee in the Carter administration.

So here are the first five titles, in order, from the magazine's September-October issue: "Former CPA Official Blasts Bungling of Iraq Occupation"; "U.S. Ignores Home-Front Security, Remains Vulnerable to Attack"; "Little Progress by U.S. in Stopping Terrorists' Access to WMD"; then a little something for Haass's old employer, "State Dept. Must Learn to Track Terrorism Carefully"; and, if that's not bad enough, "U.S. Economy Teetering on the Brink."

They're going to yearn for the good old days under Gelb.

Women in Islam

Freedom for Afghan, Iraq women?

By Cathy Young | August 9, 2004

FROM THE start of the war on terrorism, America's mission in fighting radical Islamic fundamentalism has been described not only in terms of protecting the homeland but also of bringing freedom to the oppressed -- particularly to women. But have women in the Islamic world truly benefited from the US intervention? Can we -- and should we -- export women's liberation? Today, these questions remain a focus of intense debate.

Liberating Afghan women from the Taliban's brutally misogynistic rule was often cited as one of the altruistic reasons for going to war in Afghanistan -- and as a major success story. Watching the news, we rejoiced in images of girls going to school for the first time in years, and of women casting off their burkas, going to work, or even going to beauty parlors. "The mothers and daughters of Afghanistan were captives in their own homes, forbidden from working or going to school. Today women are free," President Bush declared in his 2002 State of the Union address.

The victimization of women by Saddam Hussein's dictatorship was also invoked by supporters of the war in Iraq -- though in this case, their oppression was far less gender-specific. Hussein's rule was secular, and while women who ran afoul of the regime could be tortured, raped, or murdered, the men hardly fared better.

Now, more than two years after the fall of the Taliban and more than a year after the fall of Saddam, critics say that the situation of women has not improved much and, in some cases, may have worsened. "For many Iraqi women, the tyranny of Saddam's regime has been replaced by chronic violence and growing religious conservatism that have stifled their hopes for wider freedoms -- and, for many, put their lives in even greater peril," says a recent cover story in Time magazine. The article focuses on "honor killing" -- the murder of women by male relatives after they have "dishonored" the family by committing some sexual infraction (or by being raped). These killings may be on the rise because of the breakdown in law and order and the greater availability of weapons.

Reports from Afghanistan are bleak as well. While few would dispute that things are better for women than they were under the Taliban, particularly in large cities such as Kabul, the country remains in chaos, torn apart by warlords and thugs. Kate Allen, a director of the British chapter of Amnesty International, wrote in The Guardian last March that an aid worker told her, "If a woman went to market and showed an inch of flesh she would have been flogged -- now she's raped."

Some of the criticism may be driven by ideological opposition to the Bush administration's foreign policy. But some of it comes from strong supporters of US intervention. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff, who still believes that "Americans should be proud that we ousted the Taliban," has chronicled troubling and little-noticed developments in the new Afghanistan. Among other things, the Supreme Court has barred married women from attending high school -- in a country where girls as young as 9 are routinely forced to marry.

In part, the situation of women in today's Afghanistan and Iraq is a shameful American failure. Clearly, the Bush administration was unwilling to invest enough resources (financial or human) into helping rebuild these countries after toppling the old regimes.

Saudi regulations for first municipal polls leave women vote unclear

RIYADH, Aug 9 (AFP) - Saudi Arabia announced Monday regulations for its first municipal elections later this year, but did not make clear whether women would be allowed to vote.

Regulations issued by the ministry of municipal affairs stated that all citizens under the age of 21 and military personnel will be barred from voting in the landmark polls scheduled for November onwards.

"Every citizen has the right to vote if (they are) ... over 21 years old, not a military man and have been residing in the constituency for a year before the day of the ballot," said the regulations, carried by the official SPA news agency.

A constitutional law expert told AFP that the wording of the regulations effectively leaves open the possibility that women could vote.

"The basic law in Saudi Arabia uses the masculine form when referring to citizens in general," Abdul Aziz al-Owaisheq said.

SPA said late Wednesday that the first nationwide polls in the kingdom to elect half the members of 178 municipal councils would be held in three stages from November into early 2005.

The other members of the new municipal councils will be named by the government.

The anticipated ballot is part of a drive to introduce limited reforms in the conservative Muslim kingdom, which Riyadh insists must be tailored to Saudi specifications and not necessarily follow a Western pattern.

Economic Round-up

Morgan Stanley publishes a highly readable financial newsletter on their website each Monday. The lead article each week is by economist Stephen Roach. I find him to be a font of good sense.

This business cycle is different. The modern-day US economy has never had to struggle this hard to eke out an economic recovery. Plagued by an outsize shortfall of internal income generation, it has taken an unprecedented dose of fiscal and monetary stimulus to spark any semblance of cyclical revival. But the question all along has been, recovery at what cost? It’s a cost, in my view, that has been manifested in the form of an extraordinary array of imbalances -- record twin deficits (budget and current account), a massive household sector debt overhang, an unprecedented shortfall of domestic saving, and an asset-dependent support to aggregate demand. Lacking in the organic staying power of job creation and wage earnings, the US economy has become addicted to the steroids of extraordinary monetary and fiscal support. But with policy levers pushed to the max, the lifeline of support is now dangerously thin. For such an unbalanced and vulnerable economy, it doesn’t take much of a shock to put a low-quality recovery in trouble. As bad luck would have it, that’s precisely the risk as oil has once again entered the macro equation.

I have held this dour view for about five years -- since 2000, to be precise. My basic concern was that America’s post-bubble carnage would take a lasting toll on the recovery dynamic. An accelerated pace of globalization and the related pressures of what I have called the global labor arbitrage only intensified my concerns. This view served me well for the first four years of America’s post-bubble workout but didn’t work all that well over the four-quarter period from 2Q03 through 2Q04, when real GDP growth averaged 5.1%. But now with momentum on the wane again, it pays to ponder the downside. In my view, recent data unmask five key myths to the case for sustainable economic recovery in the US and in the broader global economy:

Click to the website if you want to read his full argument. I'm more interested in his conclusions:

Don’t kid yourself. The world, in my view, remains very much a two-engine economy -- the US consumer on the demand side and the Chinese producer on the supply side. The American consumer, as just noted, is already on thin ice. And the Chinese producer is now being hit with a sharp blast of policy austerity in an effort to tame the excesses of a severely overheated economy. One lesson I have learned over the past decade is that it pays to heed the wishes of the Chinese leadership. We’ll get another slug of data from China this week, but in my view the case for a significant slowdown remains very much intact. Absent the twin dynamic from the US and China, the outlook elsewhere in this externally-dependent world should slow appreciably. The persistence of massive external imbalances in the global economy speaks of a non-US world that has failed to develop autonomous sources of domestic private consumption growth. Lacking in new growth engines, weakness in the US and China should put to rest the myth of a new synchronous recovery in the global economy.

In other words, the lousy jobs data is a symptom of underlying economic weakness. For all of Bush's crowing about recovery, it ain't happening.

At this hour, the Dow is up slightly, oil is trading at just below $45/bl.

All Politics

A number of people have asked about my reaction to the arrest warrants issued for Ahmed Chalabi and his nephew yesterday. I didn't post anything on it when CNN reported it yesterday because the blogo-echosphere was pretty much blanketed with it. First of all, the counterfeiting charge simply isn't creditable. Chalabi may be a shady character, but he isn't a fool. With regard to the murder charge leveled at his nephew, Salem, I just don't know enough to have an opinion. What does seem clear to me that there are a whole lot of politics being played here: that these charges were issued while both men were out of the country makes it look to me like Iyad Allawi is just shoring up his power base and getting rid of potential rivals. I suspect that Chalabi knows a whole lot of things that neither Allawi nor the CIA would want revealed in open court.

To make the situation even more incoherent, on Saturday Allawi issued a broad amnesty as an incentive to get the "insurgents" to lay down their arms. Amnesty for thugs, indictments for politicians.

Unwarranted Optimism

The Iraq Reconstruction Fiasco

Published: August 9, 2004

Of the $18.4 billion Congress approved last fall, only about $600 million has actually been paid out. Billions more have been designated for giant projects still in the planning stage. Part of the blame rests with the Pentagon's planning failures and the occupation authority's reluctance to consult qualified Iraqis. Instead, the administration brought in American defense contractors who had little clue about what was most urgently needed or how to handle the unfamiliar and highly insecure climate.

Occupation officials also felt free to tap into Iraqi revenues, which are subject to far less oversight and looser controls than Congressionally appropriated funds. Late last year, for example, the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root was awarded a no-bid contract out of Iraqi revenues. At the time, Congress might have balked at further dealings with a company facing questions about the inflated prices it charged for importing gasoline into Iraq and about a no-bid contract awarded by the Army Corps of Engineers just before the invasion. Last week, The Washington Post reported that almost $2 billion in Iraqi revenues had been awarded to American companies.

State Department experts now suggest a switch to smaller-scale projects that can produce visible results more quickly. They are also talking about deeper Iraqi involvement in the planning and carrying out of American-financed reconstruction projects. Greater Iraqi involvement would spread public awareness of these projects, provide new jobs for Iraqis and drastically reduce costs. Iraqi construction labor costs about one-tenth of what is typically paid to foreign contractors. Closer consultation with the Baghdad ministries and local councils would also add some plausibility to Washington's claims that Iraqis now exercise sovereignty in their own country. Despite all it has gone through, Iraq remains one of the Arab world's most advanced societies, with considerable professional expertise that should be put to better use.

All of this should have been done a year ago. It still needs to be done now. Iraq's reconstruction needs have only become more urgent and most of that huge appropriation is still unspent.

I don't know what planet the Post ed board has decamped to. It's a little hard to get even small scale projects underway when you are being shot at.

What They Won't Tell You

Ronald Brownstein:
Washington Outlook
America Needs an Antidote to the Election's Partisan Venom
The 2004 presidential election is generating a level of intensity both inspiring and frightening.

Inspiring because it holds the promise of improving the anemic participation in elections. Almost all polls show that the share of voters closely following news about this campaign is up from 2000. Americans are sending the same message with their wallets: President Bush, Sen. John F. Kerry and Democratic interest groups all have raised unprecedented sums, much of it from small donors. All of which says millions of people care deeply about which man wins this election.

The frightening part is that many people care almost too much. In conversation, it's striking how many voters see apocalyptic stakes in the choice. Many in red state America see Kerry as a duplicitous appeaser who will sell out U.S. security to curry favor with European countries where, they presume, he likes to shop. In blue state America, it's common to hear fears that a reelected Bush will lead the nation toward a 1984-like state of repression at home justified by permanent war abroad.

Future historians will find no shortage of artifacts commemorating this feverish moment in American politics. One of the most prominent would be Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Moore's film is powerful and moving when it focuses on the human cost of the war in Iraq. But the movie is loopy and crude in many of its political judgments, such as suggesting that the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to win approval for building a natural gas pipeline. Those without Moore's keen insight for conspiracies might have wondered if the fact that Al Qaeda used Afghanistan as a base from which to plot an attack that killed thousands on Sept. 11, 2001, also contributed to Bush's decision. Naifs.

In his venom, though, Moore has been trumped by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group of Vietnam veterans with strong Republican ties. Last week, the group aired an ad in three battleground states that was to traditional political discussion what a snuff film was to a conventional horror movie.

In the ad, several veterans, none of whom served with Kerry on the two Navy boats he commanded in Vietnam, accuse him of lying about his combat record. The ad is stunning less for its accusations — it charges that Kerry lied to win his medals in Vietnam — than for the venom with which Kerry's accusers deliver their claims. It creates the unmistakable impression that if these men had the authority to order a firing squad for Kerry, they would.

Such ferocity is always dangerous in politics. It is especially threatening in the first election since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Americans are experiencing this campaign against a backdrop of fear unrivaled in recent election history. New barriers and checkpoints, like some especially noxious weed, seem to rise in the streets of Washington and New York every day. A sight that might have shocked Americans not long ago — soldiers with automatic weapons patrolling the afternoon subway back to suburbia — now merit merely a shrug.

Protesters at the Democratic National Convention were encased in a barbwire pen so forbidding that it appeared authorities had skipped the intermediate step and simply assembled them in a detention center.

At this level of anxiety, democracy itself is difficult. From the right, there's a tendency to equate dissent with disloyalty. From the left, there's an instinct to see Bush's decisions as goose steps in a march toward authoritarianism.

In this supercharged environment, how people express themselves is almost as important as what they say. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is one of the few leaders in either party who has understood this.

McCain has embraced Bush more graciously than anyone in the White House expected after the two men's bruising battle for the GOP nomination in 2000. But McCain also has refused to attack Kerry (who worked closely with him on normalizing relations with Vietnam). Last week, McCain condemned the vicious ad from the veterans group opposing Kerry.

On both sides, this campaign has no shortage of strong partisans. What it needs are more Americans, like McCain, willing to set boundaries on the partisan fervor.

I like Ron Brownstein. I really do. He is one of the least spinnable journos in the Washington press corps. But in this article, he is mistaking the problem. The real issue in this campaign is Bush's lies about his own record, since that is what the incumbent has to run on. Why isn't the press corps reporting on that?

The First Step

Admit We Have a Problem
By BOB HERBERT

Published: August 9, 2004

July's poor job-creation performance was widely described as unexpected. But it's important to keep in mind that it didn't occur in a vacuum and that there is no quick fix coming. American workers are hurting.

"The weak job market continues to put downward pressure on wage growth," said Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. He noted that nominal wage growth on a year-over-year basis has been decelerating even as inflation is increasing, which is bad news for an economy so dependent upon consumer spending.

In a report released by the institute on Friday, Mr. Bernstein wrote, "These job and wage dynamics erode workers' buying power, and this has negative implications for the strength of the recovery."

Retail sales in July were disappointing, hampered by high gasoline prices as well as anemic wage growth. And the stock market is in a prolonged swoon.

Despite the rosy rhetoric that comes nonstop from the administration, millions upon millions of American families, including many that consider themselves solidly in the middle class, are in deep economic trouble. Friday's Wall Street Journal featured a page-one article with the ominous headline: "New Group Swells Bankruptcy Court: The Middle-Aged."

Personal bankruptcy filings in the U.S. are at an all-time high. The Journal story focused on "an emerging class of middle-age, white-collar Americans who make the grim odyssey from comfortable circumstances to going broke." Among the villains of this disturbing piece are the unstable job market and staggering amounts of personal debt.

It's getting harder and harder to close our eyes to the growing economic devastation. Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor and co-author of "The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke," wrote in 2003:

"This year, more people will end up bankrupt than will suffer a heart attack. More adults will file for bankruptcy than will be diagnosed with cancer. More people will file for bankruptcy than will graduate from college. And, in an era when traditionalists decry the demise of the institution of marriage, Americans will file more petitions for bankruptcy than for divorce."

The Century Foundation, in a recent study, addressed the problem of outstanding debt. For many families borrowing has morphed from a tool that, used judiciously, can enhance their standard of living into a nightmare that threatens to destroy their economic viability.

"Debt burdens," the study said, "are at record levels because families have been stretched to the limit in recent years. With more income going to housing and other rising expenses related to medical care, education, vehicles, child care, and so forth, families are relying on credit as a way to meet everyday needs. Remarkably, a family with two earners today actually has less discretionary income, after fixed costs like medical insurance and mortgage payments are accounted for, than did a family with only one breadwinner in the 1970's."

There is no plan from the administration that I've heard of to brighten this bleak picture of the American economic landscape. John Kerry and John Edwards have an opportunity in the presidential campaign to offer their prescriptions. The first essential step for anyone serious about a search for solutions would be to recognize and acknowledge the sheer enormity of the problem.

Bush tax and financial policies favor wealth over work, increasing the pressure on working households, privileging the employer above the worker. Since 2/3 of the economic "growth" in this cycle has been consumer spending, as the consumer runs out of cash, the "growth" runs out of gas.

Immigration Disaster

U.S. Is Ending Haven for Those Fleeing a Volcano
By NINA BERNSTEIN

Published: August 9, 2004

The volcano on the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat had been slumbering for centuries when it awoke in 1995. Amid the banana groves and breadfruit trees of their tourist paradise, the islanders hoped that its eruptions would soon subside. Instead, within two years, 7,000 people - roughly two-thirds of the population - had to flee escalating explosions of rock, ash and toxic gas.

Most went to other Caribbean islands or to Britain, which colonized Montserrat in the 17th century and still governs it. Fewer than 300 ended up in the United States, mostly living with relatives in New York and Boston. Since it was unsafe to send them back after their visitors' visas expired, the United States granted the Montserratians "temporary protected status," renewed year by year so they could legally stay and work until the worst was over.

Now, in a startling twist that reflects a major change in immigration politics, the Department of Homeland Security is ordering the 292 Montserratians to leave by the end of February - not because it is safe to go home again, but because it is not going to be safe anytime soon.

"The volcanic activity causing the environmental disaster in Montserrat is not likely to cease in the foreseeable future," Homeland Security officials explained in a June 25 notice ending Montserratians' temporary protected status effective Feb. 27, 2005. "Therefore it no longer constitutes a temporary disruption of living conditions that temporarily prevents Montserrat from adequately handling the return of its nationals."

The decision has stunned islanders who rebuilt their lives in America from scratch. "It's devastating," said Sarah Ryner, 59, a public health nurse supervisor who lost her home and career in the volcanic aftermath and now works night shifts at a New Jersey hospital. "I'm just frozen, and my children are the same. We are saying: What can we do? Where can we go?"

Homeland Security officials have an answer: Move to England.

Montserrat is one of Britain's last overseas territories, many of its people descendants of the African slaves and Irish penal deportees sent to toil there 400 years ago. Citing scientific estimates that dangerous volcanic activity is likely for at least 20 years, and for perhaps as long as a couple of centuries, the Homeland Security notice advises those who choose not to return to the devastated island to consider exercising their claim to British citizenship and relocating to the motherland.

The notice also took the British government by surprise. At the British Consulate in New York and the United Kingdom government office on Montserrat last week, press officers said they were not prepared to answer questions about the prospects of British residency for Montserratians like Mrs. Ryner; her son Craig Ryner, 35, now a New York subway station agent raising three Brooklyn-born children; or her divorced daughter, Pearl Ryner, 39, a teacher turned medical technologist. British officials are asking the United States government for more information, press officers said.

Our immigration and visa policies have been incoherent for a long time and have only gotten worse since 9-11. Over the weekend, I brought you the case of a Finnish theologian deported from his tenured professorship at Fuller Theological Seminary a couple of weeks ago. It makes no sense to turn away these kinds of people.

One of the arguments Bushco makes for the "war on terra" is that our way of life is what the terra-ists hate. If our way of life is so compelling, why is turning away the people of Montserrat or Finnish theologians going to make us safer?

For a Real Election

Huge props to Bev Harris for her tireless efforts on behalf of a real vote this November. She really has been relentless and, as a result, we may have a safer election this fall. Sometimes bloggers don't just report news. Sometimes they make it.

Rolling Down the Highway, Looking Out for Flawed Elections
By ADAM COHEN

Published: August 8, 2004

KINGMAN, Ariz. — The elections director of Mohave County, Ariz., was so proud of his new electronic voting system that Bev Harris barely had the heart to point out its vulnerabilities. But she did, and before long she was ticking off the ways that she said an outsider could hijack his central tabulator - the computer that stores all of the county's votes - and steal an election.

By the time she had shown him a "backdoor" way to gain access to his software without a password, the elections director was visibly concerned. Before she left, he asked her to send him a list of things he could do to safeguard this year's election.

Ms. Harris's visit to Mohave County was part of a monthlong trip in which she and her deputy, Andy Stephenson, traveled to 10 states, investigating flaws in electronic voting and giving on-the-fly computer security tutorials.

The trip started out in Ohio, where they knocked on the doors of employees of Diebold, one of the largest and most criticized voting machine companies. It ended in late July in Las Vegas at Defcon, a hackers' convention, where the consensus was that cracking a voting machine might not be so hard.

Ms. Harris, the director of Black Box Voting (the Web address is www.blackboxvoting.org), has made herself public enemy No. 1 for voting machine manufacturers, and some elections officials, with her hard-edged attacks on electronic voting and her investigative style. (She acknowledges that at one point in Ohio, she and Mr. Stephenson hid in the bushes with a microphone, eavesdropping on Diebold workers.)

But there is no denying that Ms. Harris, a onetime literary publicist from the Seattle area, is responsible for digging up some of the most disturbing information yet to surface about the accuracy and integrity of electronic voting.

The Pre-Election Plot

You aren't going to hear it out of me very often, but Newsweek is a must-read this week. Al Qaeda's Pre-Election Plot
Exclusive: With an eye on striking America, bin Laden's network is hard at work. On the trail of its targets and tactics

This is a long and complex article to which I cannot do justice in a mere blogpost. It took eight reporters on two continents to tell the story. This is the backstory for the badly fumbled "terror alert" change to orange last weekend. It is fascinating reading, well told. You can decide for yourself if the administration handled it properly (I think they didn't, but reasonable people can differ on this. I think they made a bad political decision which actually did burn the most important piece of humint we've developed so far with Al Qaeda, which makes us less safe, in order to perform a CYA that I don't think was necessary.)

Here's a sample, to whet your appetite:

Aug. 16 issue - It's called the president's Daily Threat Report (PDTR), or, in bureaucratic shorthand, the Putter. The document is so secret that only about a half-dozen people in the U.S. government are allowed to see it. When the Putter contains especially sensitive information, a red stripe runs down the side. At 6:40 a.m. on Friday, July 30, Fran Townsend, the president's homeland-security adviser and counterterror chief for the national-security staff, opened up her red-striped Putter and received a jolt.

It was the break the Feds had been praying for, but, unfortunately, also a chance to further bewilder the American public, who have been made fearful, cynical or just plain dizzy by trips up and down the threat ladder. In an effort to sort out what to believe, NEWSWEEK spoke with most of the senior intelligence officials involved in assessing what they call the "pre-election" plot. Constrained by secrecy and a desire to put a positive spin on the story, these officials were not entirely forthcoming, but they did reveal enough to gauge the seriousness of the Qaeda plot. The more difficult question is whether the public revelations not only unduly frightened the American people but, in the long run, made them less safe. U.S. officials firmly deny it, but a knowledgeable British source argues that, by going public, Bush administration officials compromised an ongoing surveillance operation that ultimately could have uncovered more about Al Qaeda operations around the world. Top U.S. intelligence officials do concede that they are often faced with difficult trade-offs—move now, and disrupt the plot? Or keep watching and waiting in hopes of learning more?

Soft on Terrorism

AP: Superiors Hindered Terror Prosecutors
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: August 8, 2004

Filed at 2:00 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Prosecutors in the first major terror trial after Sept. 11 were hindered by superiors from presenting some of their most powerful evidence, including testimony from an al-Qaida leader and video footage showing Osama bin Laden's European operatives casing American landmarks, Justice Department memos show.

The department's terrorism unit ``provided no help of any kind in this prosecution,'' the U.S. Attorney's office in Detroit wrote in one of the memos, which detail bitter divisions between front-line prosecutors and their superiors in Washington.

The Detroit case ended last summer with the convictions, hailed by the Bush administration, of three men who were accused of operating a sleeper terror cell that possessed plans for attacks around the world.

A fourth defendant was acquitted, however, and only two of the four men originally arrested were convicted of terrorism charges. Now the convictions are in jeopardy because of an internal investigation into allegations that defense lawyers were denied evidence that could have helped them.

Whatever the outcome, internal documents obtained by The Associated Press and more than three dozen interviews with current and former officials detail how the differences between Washington and the field office kept important evidence from being shown to jurors.

``We were butting heads vigorously with narrow-shouldered bureaucrats in Washington,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino told AP in an interview. He is the lead Detroit prosecutor who is now under investigation in Washington.

``There was a series of evidence, pieces of evidence, that we wanted to get into our trial that we were unable to do. Things that would have strengthened the case immeasurably, and made the case much stronger, exponentially,'' Convertino said.

For instance, the FBI had learned before the trial that Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, al-Qaida's training camp chief, told interrogators after his capture that bin Laden had authorized an attack on the Incirlik air base in Turkey where U.S. military jets flew missions over Iraq for the past decade, Convertino said.

The interrogation was deemed important because the FBI found in the Detroit terror cell's apartment sketches of the same Turkish base, including flight patterns of U.S. jets. Al-Libi's testimony would have connected the Detroit defendants to a planned al-Qaida attack, Convertino said.

But al-Libi was ``spirited off from Afghanistan to Egypt and we were not able to interview him or use him as a witness,'' Convertino said.

Turkish authorities recently told the AP that their own evidence shows bin Laden personally authorized an attack on the base but later abandoned the plan because security was heightened. U.S. officials raised security at Incirlik within days of the Detroit discovery, Air Force officials say.
....
Other memos show the chief of the elite organized crime strike force in Detroit, Assistant U.S. Attorney Keith Corbett, challenged the judgment of Justice's terrorism chief, Barry Sabin.

``I see no reason to listen to petty bureaucratic complaints by people who will not and could not try the case,'' Corbett wrote. ``Sorry if this response seems impolite, but I have had it with Barry Sabin.''

When Washington evaluated the Detroit office as uncooperative after the trial, Detroit responded with a strong retort.

The lone Justice lawyer sent from Washington to help told his Detroit colleagues ``he had no intention of participating in the trial'' and refused to assist when an urgent issue arose involving a witness and the State Department, the Detroit office wrote.

The Washington lawyer ``spent the same 10 (trial) weeks in a hotel at taxpayers' expense when he was not playing basketball in the evenings,'' the memo stated.

This article highlights both the procedural obstructiveness of the DoJ as well as the personal issues. This little bit at the end is instructive: the conduct of individuals is usually a reflection of the organizational culture. Clearly, the Ashcroft Justice Department isn't much interested in prosecutions, more interested in making the Patriot Act even more instrusive.

I hear from friends in the civil service that this attitude of indifference to the actual mechanics of governance is pretty much the tone across all of the executive branch agencies. The CS professionals tell me that this is the most frustration they have ever faced on the job.

Getting Out

The name George F. Will doesn't grace these pages very often, but I note that the radicalism of the Bushies seem to have shocked some sense in to him. Today, he has a conversation with Joe Biden, covering the same material that Biden offered in a major foreign policy speech at the Council on Foreign Relations earlier this year (go to the C-Span schedule, they are still showing it, it's good.

Grounding Kerry's Foreign Policy

By George F. Will
Sunday, August 8, 2004; Page B07

Improvisation is the sour fruit of bad planning. Biden says he was told by a senior U.S. military officer in Iraq that his tank drivers are now doing infantry work, his infantry is doing engineering work and his engineers are doing civil affairs work. Biden was bewildered by the administration's resistance to the idea that after a swift military victory, which he expected, the problem in Iraq would be "not the day after but the decade after." He says that because John Kerry does not know the Iraq situation he will inherit, Kerry cannot tell the nation how long its Iraq commitment will last, "unless he inherits Lebanon" -- chaos -- "and decides to get the hell out of there."

Surely John Edwards overestimates the difference that the mere fact of a "fresh president" -- Edwards's phrase -- will make in healing the rift with the likes of Germany and France. Edwards recently said breezily that "with a new president, we have the credibility to go to friends around the world, potential friends, to NATO, for example, and get them involved in helping provide security." Biden's more sober view is that it will be "a helluva hard sell. I don't think Bush can put it together at this point -- although, maybe -- but maybe Kerry could embarrass NATO into a greater involvement. Not massive -- hundreds of trainers instead of a couple."

However, Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute writes that "of the 2.5 million personnel nominally under arms in Europe, at most 3 percent are deployable." In Britain, the last European nation with a living martial tradition, the government has announced a 10 percent cut in the armed forces. London's Daily Telegraph editorializes that "[a]fter fighting three wars in five years in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq," and peacekeeping in Northern Ireland and Sierra Leone, the military services' "reward is to suffer even more drastic retrenchment than they did after the end of the Cold War."

Kerry entertained the Democratic convention with his chant (about various blessings from government) that "help is on the way." But his running mate is an innocent abroad if he thinks that significant security help for Iraq will be on the way from NATO nations -- their welfare states buckling under the weight of aging populations -- once there is a "fresh president." Biden has no such delusions about the primacy of personality in international relations. Does Kerry?

Biden, 61, has served in the Senate during the tenures of seven presidents and is mentioned in speculation about possible secretaries of state in a Kerry administration. But he loves the Senate, where next year only five members will have more seniority -- he was 29 when elected in 1972, 13 days before becoming old enough to serve. If Democrats recapture control of the Senate, and they might, he would be especially reluctant to pass up being chairman of Foreign Relations.

But a Kerry administration would need what Biden has, a disinclination to allow his wishes to be the father of his thoughts -- a failing of the Bush administration when planning for postwar Iraq, and a failing of the Kerry-Edwards tandem in planning for a post-Bush foreign policy. So lightning could strike.

This has always been my view of the situation. NATO has, at most, about 7,500 troops available, and that's hardly enough to alter the situation or free up any Americans. When Biden says "Lebanon," that's what we've got right now and what Kerry is probably going to have in January.

Gitmo Abuse

Coded letters from Briton in Guantanamo reveal 'regime of violence'
Martin Mubanga, from Neasden, is using a mixture of slang and patois in his letters home to describe the conditions in Camp Delta.

By Severin Carrell

08 August 2004

Serious new allegations about the ill-treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been revealed in a series of letters from a British detainee, who has accused US guards of threatening him with sexual assault and physical violence, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

The letters from Martin Mubanga, one of the last remaining British detainees in Guantanamo Bay, were carefully written to escape the military censors, using a unique mixture of London street slang, Cockney, Jamaican patois and rap lyrics.

Mr Mubanga, 31, a former motorcycle courier and a late convert to Islam, has been imprisoned at the controversial US army base on the south-eastern tip of Cuba for the past two and a half years after being arrested in peculiar circumstances by Zambian intelligence.

In his letters home to his younger brother Anthony - all stamped "cleared by US Forces" - he talks about "radix", slang for the authorities or police, and about the "bull boy" guards "giving it large", a reference, his family says, to threats and the use of violence. Other passages accuse the guards of threatening him with sexual abuse: "expecting man n' man to bend over so as them there can give to man n' man real good."

And in Cockney slang, he recounts being offered inducements by his captors, referring to promises to make his life in the detention camp "pucker", a misspelling of pukka, by getting "Islamic tucker", halal food, and "butters to bang night and day" - a reference to being given prostitutes, says his family.

This is from the Independent of London, of course. Nothing in the WaPo, NYT or LAT.

Bush Ratings v. Terror Alerts

Since all the Sunday gasbags are talking about the terrorism/politics nexus, let's take a look at the history. JuliusBlog has assembled a time line of Bush political stumbles and the raising of terrorism alerts. We report, you decide.

Wounded Vets

Back Home, Disabled Vets Fight Injuries, Red Tape
Army and VA can't keep up with numbers of badly wounded soldiers and their families awaiting benefits.
Back Home, Disabled Vets Fight Injuries, Red Tape

By Esther Schrader, Times Staff Writer

Since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began, 6,239 troops had been wounded in action, according to a recent Pentagon count. Of those, 57% were so severely injured that they were unable to return to duty. Medically retired from active duty military service, they need immediate assistance from the Department of Veterans Affairs healthcare system.

The surge of newly disabled veterans represents a challenge of a magnitude unseen since Vietnam.

Aware of potential pitfalls, the Army and the VA have started programs to reach out to the most severely wounded soldiers. Among the steps being tried are putting social workers in hospitals where the severely wounded are being treated, adding benefits experts willing to meet bedside with soldiers and creating call centers that offer advice and help after the injured are sent home.

The pilot programs are small and nascent, and both the Army and the VA acknowledge they are not nearly enough.

Congress has yet to allocate funds for the programs, which are being covered out of general soldier and veterans healthcare budgets. But already, case workers say, they have helped some former soldiers get pay owed them and helped others get needed medical equipment and services.
....
In looking to the government for their healthcare needs, new veterans follow a long line of their predecessors who, since the Civil War, have been assured that the country they fought for would make its best efforts to take care of them.

But there have always been difficulties in following through. And the VA is a difficult bureaucracy to navigate in even the best of circumstances, much less when dealing with devastating injuries.

For decades, the VA, with 7.5 million veterans enrolled, has struggled to keep up. At any one time, more than 3,000 vets are waiting for their first visit to the doctor. Those whose injuries from battle qualify them for disability compensation often wait six months to two years to receive it. The VA has taken steps to cut the wait for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, said Terry Jemison, a VA spokesman. In recent months, it has begun to station benefits experts at the military bases of returning units. Newly discharged soldiers who have been helped by these experts have waited 54 days on average to get their first veteran disability compensation checks.

But with the VA's costs increasing by 10% to 15% a year, with aging facilities in need of modernization and with the newly disabled veterans draining resources, "the system is under a strain, a serious strain," said David Uchic, spokesman for Paralyzed Veterans of America, which was founded in 1946 to represent soldiers with spinal cord injury or disease.

"Having new patients coming into the system puts a strain on a system that is already under pressure," Uchic said. "It doesn't just end with them going to Walter Reed [Army Medical Center in Washington] and being treated. This is a lifelong situation for them for the next 60 to 80 years. So is the system going to be ready to serve them for all those years? That is the question."

At Walter Reed, most often the first stop in the United States for soldiers in need of extensive medical treatment, VA social workers have been meeting with injured soldiers and their families about healthcare benefits since last summer.

"This is really a new idea. Before, we would wait for new veterans to knock on our door. Now we are going out to find them," said Xiomara Telfer, one of the social workers who is spending time with patients at Walter Reed.

But the VA program is still small — a handful of social workers at Walter Reed and a few Army medical centers. Telfer and others say that, judging by their experiences, problems with delayed paychecks, confusion about benefits and entitlements are rife.

"There are holes we are trying to plug," said Dr. Michael J. Kussman, acting deputy under secretary for health for the veterans health administration of the VA. "The flow of information from the Department of Defense to the VA is something that both agencies are working hard on improving. We're trying to raise the bar."

The VA has not allocated any money for the effort; the social workers it has assigned were already on staff. The Army's program — called the Disabled Soldier Support System — is run by fewer than 10 people on a budget of $1 million this fiscal year.

It was born when Gen. George W. Casey Jr., then the Army's vice chief of staff, visited recovering soldiers at Walter Reed and was struck by their anxiety and confusion about what lay ahead. Since it was started last fall, the program's small staff has been able to reach out to nearly 200 severely wounded soldiers.

Crammed into a crowded office suite in Rosslyn, Va., staff members spend much of their time struggling to locate wounded soldiers who have been discharged.

The Army doesn't keep track of their addresses, and the Veterans Administration doesn't keep track of their disability status in a way that would help pinpoint those most in need. To fill in the gaps, employees have gotten creative — combing through newspaper articles and databases to locate the most seriously wounded former soldiers and get them help.

Working under banners that say "Army Families Are Special," and "We Love Our Troops," two women, both wives of soldiers, take 60 calls a day from wounded soldiers seeking help. One spent four months unraveling a problem that had prevented a soldier who lost a limb in the war from getting paid for six months.

Another got a former soldier who lost both legs and his sight into Braille classes. The young man had been sitting at home since getting out of the hospital, depressed and confused. Now he is working with the VA to build a home that meets his physical needs.

"We really pushed ourselves into this guy's life. We knew he needed help," said Col. Jacqueline E. Cumbo, director of the program. "We'll continue to follow this service member until he says, 'I no longer need your services.' This is not a one-time shot."

Flowers said he was proud of the program's initial successes but acknowledged it was only a beginning. "It is not enough," he said. "This just has to grow."
....
The future is far more limited for Jay Briseno.

In his parents' home, he lies in his bed, a stuffed animal from his childhood tucked into his motionless arms.

A photo of him in uniform rests on the mantle nearby. Although conscious, he is unable to move and his ability to communicate is severely impaired.

His teenage sisters have dropped many of their after-school activities to help out. The deacon of their church comes by three times a week.

His mom and dad don't stay in their bedroom anymore — they sleep on a futon next to their son's bed to care for him through the night.

They have to: The money they get from the VA is only enough to pay for 19 hours a day of nursing care and he needs help all 24.

Did you notice that this tiny program has been "able to reach out" to 200, out of the more than 6,000 severely enough wounded to be removed from service? Disgraceful.

A Woman's Heart

Women and the men who live with them NEED TO READ THIS. I've known about this for some time. A friend of mine who is a healthcare pro says that if you are a woman and experiencing any kind of chest discomfort, get thee to the ER and demand a cardio workup.

Heart Disease Differs in Women
Usual Tests, Drugs May Not Work Well

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 8, 2004; Page A01

At first, Kathy Kastan's symptoms just seemed weird. An avid athlete, she would get oddly tired, struggle to catch her breath, and wince at the pain in her shoulder and back when she exercised. She tried shaking it off, but the problems kept nagging her, so the 41-year-old consulted a cardiologist.

"He said, 'You're healthy as a horse. I never want to see you again,' " said Kastan, who lives in Cordova, Tenn.

But she got worse -- so bad that crushing chest pain knocked her down every time she tried to work out. Finally, she went to specialists who discovered that Kastan did have serious heart disease -- just not the familiar, clogged-up-artery kind. Instead, her arteries would mysteriously spasm, strangling the blood flow to her heart muscle.

"It's amazing how many women have been through this. They have these symptoms, and nobody can figure out what's wrong," she said. "I was one of the lucky ones. I escaped an actual heart attack."

Doctors are starting to realize that many women probably have Kastan's kind of heart disease, as well as other forms that differ in essential ways from the well-known pattern that strikes most men. This new understanding -- that heart disease may be a fundamentally different disease in many women -- has far-reaching implications for medicine's ability to defend women against the nation's No. 1 killer. Contrary to persistent misconceptions, heart disease claims the lives of more women than men.

The Pragmatists

Australians Condemn Government on Iraq
Former Defense Chiefs and Diplomats in Australia Condemn Government Over Iraq War

The Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia Aug. 8, 2004 — Former defense chiefs and diplomats condemned Australia's involvement in the Iraq war Sunday in a major blow to Prime Minister John Howard's re-election prospects.

The 43 eminent Australians including two former chiefs of defense and three ambassadors issued a scathing public statement accusing the government of deceit and of rubber-stamping foreign policies decided by Washington.

With some commentators predicting that Howard this week will announce a Sept. 18 election, the statement underscores the war as a major issue. Howard hopes for a fourth three-year term as prime minister.

Australia and Britain were the only allies to send troops to support the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

"We are concerned that Australia was committed to join the invasion of Iraq on the basis of false assumptions and the deception of the Australian people," the statement said. "Above all, it is wrong and dangerous for our elected representatives to mislead the Australian people."

Howard, who was in Samoa for a Pacific leaders' forum, said: "The argument that we took the country to war based on a lie is itself a misrepresentation and I continue to reject it."

Two inquiries have found the government had not misrepresented intelligence about Iraq's weapons programs and had not pressured spy agencies into bolstering a case for war.

The parliament is expected this week to endorse a free trade agreement between Australia and the United States which Howard has described as a priority before going to an election.

Howard's decision to commit 2,000 troops to the Iraq invasion sparked the biggest peace protests in Australia since the Vietnam War.

Something similar happened here back in June and pretty much vanished without a trace:

Retired Officials Say Bush Must Go
The 26 ex-diplomats and military leaders say his foreign policy has harmed national security. Several served under Republicans.

While not explicitly endorsing Sen. John F. Kerry for president, 26 former diplomats and military officials, including many who served in Republican administrations, have a signed a statement calling for the defeat of President Bush in November.

Deep Earthquake

Senator Frist's Political Rise Slows in Pace

By Charles Babington and Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 8, 2004; Page A01

Democrats, who control 48 of the Senate's 100 seats, have been nettlesome, for sure. But insiders say that does not explain how a GOP majority -- bolstered by a Republican-controlled House and White House -- suffered a lopsided defeat on same-sex marriage, dropped a class-action lawsuit bill that once seemed certain, failed to reach a budget accord with the House, and failed to pass an energy bill, gun legislation and welfare reauthorization.

In hindsight, these observers say, Frist's backers may have glossed over aspects of his personality and background that tend to undercut his obvious talents.

He has never steeped himself in the Senate's intricate rules and traditions, robbing him of advantages enjoyed by most of his predecessors, including Republicans Trent Lott (Miss.) and Robert J. Dole (Kan.). As a surgeon, Frist is accustomed to having subordinates follow his instructions quickly, and adhering to a workplace hierarchy that is alien to the ego-driven Senate. And while he calls himself patient, Frist tends to shift to a different bill when he hits legislative roadblocks, rather than grind through tough negotiations that probably would involve concessions to political opponents.

Brookings Institution scholar Thomas E. Mann said Republicans should not be too surprised that Frist, 52, is struggling, especially given the Senate's narrow partisan divide.

"Remember, he moved to the leadership suddenly, unexpectedly," Mann said. "He was never the kind of senator who was attracted to the institution itself. He never learned those ways," and sometimes he operates "as though he hasn't quite made his peace with the Senate."

A Mixed Record

Despite an obviously steep learning curve as he settled into his job, Frist helped rack up substantial GOP victories in 2003, including Bush's third major tax cut, the Medicare drug benefit bill, a ban on what critics call partial-birth abortions, and other initiatives that appealed especially to conservatives.

This year has proven more difficult, however, and Frist's defenders increasingly find themselves blaming Democrats' delaying tactics -- which require 60 votes to overcome. Democrats have "taken obstruction to a new low" by filibustering judicial nominees, pressing for votes on amendments that could torpedo legislation and trying to "dictate the terms" of House-Senate conferences, said Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

In a recent interview at his Capitol office, Frist expressed similar views in a more reserved manner. "The biggest challenge is addressing big issues . . . in an environment we knew would become increasingly partisan as we got close to the elections . . . with a backdrop of a closely divided Senate," he said.

Academics and some Republicans say Frist's and McConnell's blame-the-Democrats strategy is simplistic and misleading. When one party controls Congress and the White House, they say, it should be able to enact most of its agenda through brute force, patience, compromise or some combination thereof.

Frist is hampered by a divided and "dysfunctional" GOP caucus that will not give him the authority to do what is necessary to pass bills, said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.). "Republicans need ultimately to give Bill Frist the authority to make decisions and move forward."

Frist's relations with Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) -- always civil but not as close as Daschle's dealings with Lott -- were strained by Frist's May 22 visit to South Dakota to campaign for Daschle's GOP challenger, John Thune. Rarely if ever has a Senate leader personally campaigned against his partisan counterpart, and some Democrats were livid.

"It is just bad form working on being bad taste," said Sen. Jon S. Corzine, (N.J.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "It doesn't feel right historically; it doesn't feel right for the times."

This is a snapshot of the splits in the Republican caucus which are likely to deepen, regardless of who wins the next election. This is a story that no one is covering yet, and even the ultimate insider rag, The Hill, is only hinting at it. The Repubs have at least three factions which are becoming less and less able to form working coalitions. If the Dems are able to rebirth themselves with a pragmatic progressive agenda this fall, they will be able to roll the R's. That's one hell of a big if.

Iraqi Sunday

The photo in this Times story is not to be missed:

Marines Pushing Deeper Into City Held by Shiites
By ALEX BERENSON and JOHN F. BURNS

Published: August 8, 2004

NAJAF, Iraq, Aug. 7 - Marine commanders battling Moktada al-Sadr's rebel militiamen in this Shiite holy city said Saturday that the fighting had cleared the rebels from the ancient cemetery in the heart of the old city, but that more fighting lay ahead in the streets and alleyways nearby as an American-led offensive moved to the end of its third day.

American commanders, who said they were acting under orders from the new Iraqi government, gave little sign that they intended to heed appeals for a cease-fire from clerics and others claiming to represent Mr. Sadr. But their forces pulled back from the cemetery's edges overnight to take up more secure positions, and the city streets were mostly quiet.

The marines described engaging in hand-to-hand fighting in the vast cemetery, which lies adjacent to the ancient Imam Ali mosque, a golden-domed shrine that is one of the holiest in Shiite Islam. The 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which returned to Iraq recently after taking part in the American-led invasion last year, had endured the fiercest battle of all its engagements in Iraq, the commanders said.

"The engagements in the cemetery were done on foot, encountering numerous fighters at a range when you can smell a man, and it's hand-to-hand combat," said Col. John Mayer, who leads the battalion that took part in the fighting. He spoke at a forward Marine base on the outskirts of Najaf, about three miles from the fighting, as fresh Marine units prepared at dusk for nighttime deployment into the city.

American accounts of the fighting on Saturday said that there had been only sporadic exchanges of rifle, rocket and mortar fire after the intense battles of the previous 48 hours, in which the marines and an allied force of Iraqi police officers and national guardsmen claimed to have killed more than 300 fighters wearing the black outfits of the Mahdi Army, the militia force loyal to Mr. Sadr. Spokesmen for the militia have countered the claims, saying only 40 of their fighters had been killed.

The United States command said American losses in the fighting up to noon on Saturday amounted to two marines and one soldier killed, and about 20 American servicemen seriously wounded.

Reports from Najaf told of a city now largely deserted, especially in the area of the old city where the fighting has been concentrated. Shops and other businesses remained closed. The few people who ventured out on foot could be seen clearing rubble, seemingly oblivious to the rattle of nearby machine-gun fire. All power, water and telephone lines were cut.

Iraqi Leader VIsits Battle-Scarred Najaf
Clashes Continue for Fourth Day

By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 9, 2004;

BAGHDAD, Aug. 8 -- Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi made a surprise visit to the battle-scarred holy city of Najaf on Sunday and called on militants to leave the sacred Shiite Muslim sites that were the scene of fierce fighting for the past three days.

Sporadic gunfire continued during a fourth day of clashes between U.S.-led forces and followers loyal to Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr.

Mortar rounds hit the municipal building where Allawi and his interior and defense ministers were meeting with the governor of Najaf. Witnesses said that an unknown number of civilians were injured in the attack but that Allawi escaped unharmed. As he entered the building before the meeting, Allawi, dressed in a sport coat and light blue button-down shirt left open at the collar, shook hands with employees who had gathered at the entrance to greet him.

Allawi's trip to Najaf was aimed at resolving the first major challenge to the interim government since it took office on June 28. Sadr's Mahdi Army has battled with U.S. and coalition forces in the southern cities of Najaf, Amarah, Nasiriyah and Basra, and in Sadr City, the large Shiite slum in Baghdad.

In the last 24 hours, 40 people have been killed in the clashes, the Iraqi Health Ministry reported on Sunday. The heaviest fight came on Thursday and Friday, when the U.S. military reported that more than 300 militant fighters were killed in battles with U.S. Marines and Iraqi security forces.

Allawi said he planned to meet with tribal sheiks in Najaf, as well as the local governor, in an attempt to restore order to the city.

Why we need to be treated to descriptions of what Allawi was wearing is a question I cannot answer. Perhaps Spinner is bucking for a job in the Style section. Lest you think that all the Iraq news is in Najaf, from Today in Iraq:

Bring ‘em on: Danish patrol ambushed near Qurnah. Two Iraqis killed, seven wounded.

British soldier killed in unspecified accident.

Violent August

Fiercest Fighting in Months Continues in Najaf
Interim PM Announces Amnesty Program for 'Minor Criminals'

By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 7, 2004; 3:35 PM

BAGHDAD, Aug. 7 -- Clashes between U.S.-led forces and fighters loyal to rebel Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr continued for a third day in the holy city of Najaf Saturday despite an order from the local government for the militants to leave. Gun battles also raged in the large Shiite slum of the capital called Sadr City, where militants set up illegal checkpoints and ran openly through the streets with weapons.

The fighting, which stopped in Najaf at nightfall, is the fiercest in months and comes as the interim Iraqi government is already grappling with how to control the violent, bloody insurgency that threatens the stability of the country.

The coffin of a militiaman who died fighting in Najaf for radical Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army is carried past the shrine of Imam Ali. (AFP Photo)

As part of a plan to defuse the situation, Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi on Saturday announced an amnesty program for insurgents who agree to turn in their weapons and offer information to local police. The amnesty, which had been anticipated, will last 30 days and will not apply to major crimes such as murder, rape and destruction of property. It also does not apply to people already in custody.

In another development, the interim government said it would close the Baghdad offices of Arab satellite television channel Al Jazeera for a month, on grounds of allegedly inciting violence.

An uneasy calm fell on Najaf after dark. The militia members left the famed Wadi al-Salam cemetery, where they had taken up position to shoot rockets and grenades the past three days. The U.S. Marines, which had been fighting the militants along with the Iraqi Police and National Guard, said large caches of weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades and explosive-making devices, were found in the cemetery.

The numbers CNN isn't giving you: 80 coalition dead since "sovereignty" hand over, 18 since the beginning of August.

New Resources

I just received an email from George Hunsinger, the Hazel Thompson McCord Chair of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary and a scholar in Karl Barth studies. In conjunction with theologians from around the nation, he is the coordinator of Church Folks for a Better America, a project of the Coalition for Peace Action, Princeton, NJ. They have a new website, where they are raising funds for an anti-war ad.

Go take a look, check out the links (some of the sermons will give you lots of ammunition for talking with family and friends) and give them some coin if you can.

This is one of the ways religious liberals can make our voices heard and fight past the filter of the traditional media who seem to think that you can't use the word "Christian" without the word "Right."

UPDATE:

A time comes when silence is betrayal. MLK, Jr.

Break your silence. I have.

Celebrating the Social Gospel

The DNA of Social Gospel
By PETER STEINFELS

Published: August 7, 2004

A century ago, Walter Rauschenbusch was the leading thinker of what was first known as "social Christianity" and then simply as the social gospel. The textbooks say that by 1918, the social gospel, like Rauschenbusch himself, was on its deathbed; but in fact its genes lived on in religious responses to the Depression and helped shape the civil rights movement of the 1960's.

Indeed, traces of social gospel DNA can be found almost anywhere that religion mixes with American politics-in President Bush's religion-based initiative and his talk of "compassionate conservatism," for instance, as well as in Senator John Kerry's effort to close the "God gap" between more religious and less religious voters by preaching how values must be manifest in actions and not just slogans.

For Rauschenbusch, the central theological idea of the social gospel was the kingdom of God. Standing in a line of Jewish prophets, Jesus had proclaimed, in the words of the Lord's Prayer, "thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Christianity had lost the centrality of this call to regenerate society in accord with God's will, Rauschenbusch argued, as the church came to focus on otherworldliness, on the salvation of individual souls, and on its own power.

The high point of Rauschenbusch's influence stretched from 1907, when he published "Christianity and the Social Crisis," still a classic religious text, to 1914, when the outbreak of World War I cast a shadow on his idealism.

But the roots of his theology went back to the decade, from 1886 to 1897, that he spent as a young pastor of the Second German Baptist Church in the notorious Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York. The poverty, disease and desperation he encountered among tenement-bound laborers and immigrants convinced him, as it had a growing number of religious leaders, that Christianity had to address the stark social divisions and economic dislocations then racking American cities.

"The Kingdom Is Always But Coming" (Eerdmans), a new biography of Rauschenbusch by Christopher H. Evans, relates how the young pastor "felt an agony over the number of funerals he had to conduct, especially for children who died as a result of poverty-induced disease.''

" 'Oh, the children's funerals! They gripped my heart - that was one of the things I went away thinking about - why did the children have to die?' " it quotes Rauschenbusch as saying.

The biography points up the many seemingly contradictory elements in Rauschenbusch's outlook. He was justifiably seen as a religious radical, and yet he remained in many respects a conventional white male Victorian-era middle-class Protestant, a kind of revolutionary on behalf of conservative values. Not only were strong families the basis of a good society in his view, but women at home as wives and mothers were the basis of strong families.

Like many other social gospelers, he gave little attention to racism, which he considered a problem of the American South. He viewed the new waves of Roman Catholic immigrants with apprehension, and anti-Catholicism runs like a dark thread through his theological thought. Taking for granted the cultural primacy of Protestantism, he could couch his calls for fundamental social reform in terms of "Christianizing America" without any self-consciousness.

Some of these juxtapositions can be jarring, but others remind us of a time when later ideological and religious categories were still in flux. Protestantism was moving in two directions at once. Nascent premillennial fundamentalism emphasized biblical inerrancy and the approaching end times. Burgeoning postmillennial Protestant liberalism welcomed academic biblical criticism and adapting doctrine to modern conditions. But these two forces had not yet split Protestantism into two warring camps.

From his German Lutheran pietist and Baptist background, Rauschenbusch inherited an evangelical emphasis on personal conversion and religious experience, and he could combine that emphasis with a theology based on recent biblical scholarship and the liberal emphasis on Jesus' earthly ministry rather than atonement by death on the cross. Socialism, like Protestantism, in those decades before Lenin and Bolshevik totalitarianism, was in flux. Rauschenbusch could call himself a socialist, although he never denigrated the market. He advocated standard Progressive-era reforms and, while deploring gross inequalities of wealth, remained friends with John D. Rockefeller.
....
Theologically, the social gospel has never quite escaped Reinhold Niebuhr's critique of liberal Protestant reform efforts as naïvely optimistic and sentimental about the force of love, unwilling to acknowledge the realities of self-interest, conflict, sin and tragedy.

Mr. Evans's biography confirms some of these criticisms, but it refutes others, at least in the case of Rauschenbusch, who never rejected individual conversion and salvation for social transformation but melded them together, who did not believe in inevitable progress, who rejected utopianism, acknowledged social conflict, had a real sense of the tragic and emphasized the place of the cross and suffering in his theology.
....
Yet his message stayed bright. Four decades later, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, "It has been my conviction ever since reading Rauschenbusch that any religion which professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the social and economic conditions that scar the soul, is a spiritually moribund religion only waiting for the day to be buried."

For all my gripes about the NYT being a "Repub Lite" rag, the one place where they truly excel is in their religion coverage, in no small part because Peter Steinfels writes for them. Only the Chicago Sun-Times, with Fr. Andrew Greeley as their religion writer, takes the subject as seriously as the Times. I think the BoGlo has acquired considerable sophistication about religion in reporting the priest abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, but their reporters are still journos first, describing the faith of others rather than experiencing it themselves.

What I like about this essay is that, in addition to celebrating the prophetic ministry of Rauschenbusch, Steinfels easily and simply points out the fault lines of conflict which afflict all of religion today, at least in this country, a false dichotomy which is wracking our churches, synagogues and mosques: assimilation to liberal modernism or confrontation of it. In my mind, religion needs to do both: both use modern insights and understandings at their best and confront lazy assumptions, narcissistic individualism and selfishness, consumerism and anti-intellectualism.

Fear of Theology

U.S. Ousts Theologian

A renowned Finnish theologian and tenured professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., has been forced to leave the United States because he did not qualify under new visa regulations for religious professionals.

In what may be one of the stranger cases involving stricter visa regulations in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Veli-Matti Karkkainen was unable to appeal government decisions that denied him an extension of a visa and a work permit, prompting a July 31 deadline for him, his wife and two daughters to leave the country.

"If a theology professor from Finland can't stay here, there is something wrong with the administrative process," Karkkainen, a professor at Fuller since 2000, said in a telephone interview just before his departure.

The case of Karkkainen, first reported in the July 27 issue of the Christian Century magazine, is ironic in part because the order to leave the United States affects a man who, like Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, is a Pentecostal.

Howard Louwen, a Fuller dean, said new rules for visas for religious professionals appear to be the cause of the problem. Also a factor, he said, were new rules under which a seminary is strictly defined as an institution with ties to a single denominational body.

Fuller is one of the nation's most prominent evangelical, interdenominational seminaries, with about 4,300 students from 67 countries and 108 denominations attending on seven campuses.

"I suspect that Fuller looks to [the government] more like a multidenominational university rather than a training ground for ministers," Louwen told the Century.

I posted a fairly extensive story by Timothy Garten Ash in the Guardian last month on the Draconian difficulties the Ashcroft DoJ has introduced into the visa process for foreign nationals attempting to work in this country. The arcane rules for theologians are costing us intellectual diversity. Karkkainen is one of the best known Evangelical theologians in the world. This is ridiculous.

Sleeves Rolled Up

The place I turn for cranky good sense is Bad Attitudes. Yesterday, Lead Balloons posted the following, in response to Krugman's Friday column:

Krugman misses the most important follow-on conclusion, which is that tough-minded members of congress, such as John Larson of Connecticut and Bob Graham of Florida, who have been long calling for a phased, firmly scheduled withdrawal from Iraq, are exactly right in terms of PR and politics: the press and the public will not play a withdrawal as a defeat; they’ll be pleased to retail the line that we paid a high price in American blood and treasure to give Iraq a fair chance to set up a decent country, and now it’s up to them. And, in terms of covering the chaos and civil war that will continue in Iraq, the media and the public just won’t much care.

What we need now is not to extend the period of occupation before our inevitable withdrawal from Iraq; what we need to do now is declare victory and get out, and get started on the increasingly tough but still doable task of containment and western-Islamic reconciliation that George Bush’s squandering of the world's 9/11 goodwill has forced on us. This is a task that needs to be done eventually, so let’s roll up our sleeves and get started sooner rather than later.

Amen.

Jackboots

D.C. May Sue Government If 15th Street Is Closed

By Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 7, 2004; Page A02

D.C. officials said yesterday that they would explore all legal options, including suing the federal government, if the Secret Service or another federal agency moves to restrict traffic on 15th Street NW east of the White House and the Treasury building in response to a heightened security alert.

"We should be in court the next minute," said D.C. Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), whose downtown district includes the area around the White House. "We can't always be in a reactionary mode."

A Secret Service spokeswoman, Lorie Lewis, said federal agencies are working with local officials -- and will continue to do so -- to decide what precautions are needed in the wake of the recent terror alert at the Treasury building and other major financial institutions.

The Secret Service announced earlier this week that it would close the west sidewalk on a two-block stretch of 15th Street to pedestrians within a few days, once it obtains the metal barricades to do so. Federal officials are discussing with local officials the possibility of barring trucks from that portion of the road -- a move that would be similar to one taken jointly two years ago by federal and D.C. officials on an eight-block stretch of 17th Street, west of the White House.

Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) praised the collaboration this week, saying he much prefers that approach to the unilateral decision by U.S. Capitol Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer to shut down First Street east of the Capitol starting Tuesday morning.

But a spokesman for Williams also agreed with Evans that the city should be prepared to seek a restraining order or other court intervention if the Secret Service moves to close 15th Street to some or all motor vehicle traffic without city agreement.

"We should be ready, and we are getting ready," said Tony Bullock, the mayor's director of communications. "The mayor has said he would fight these closures with 'every fiber of his being.' I think a lawsuit would come under the general category of every fiber of your being."

D.C. Attorney General Robert J. Spagnoletti yesterday completed a report for Williams summarizing who has legal control of which streets and what the city's options are for challenging closures. City officials would not discuss those options in detail.

Federal Roadblocks and Checkpoints Creating Capital Maze

By JAMES DAO

Published: August 7, 2004

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 - Each day seems to bring a new reminder that this is a city under siege by an invisible enemy.

On Monday, following a terrorism alert naming financial institutions as targets, parking spaces were eliminated around the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. By Tuesday, the Capitol Police had closed a street and established 14 traffic checkpoints around Capitol Hill.

By Thursday, the police were inspecting vehicles near the Federal Reserve. And by Friday, the Secret Service was planning to close a sidewalk outside the Treasury Department. More is to come, security officials said.

On its own, each measure might have seemed inconsequential. But together, they have brought an explosion of denunciations from local officials fed up with the growing maze of concrete barriers and guard posts around their city. To them, the latest round of fortifications have seemed excessive, intrusive and even harmful.

"It's an overreaction," said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the city's nonvoting delegate in Congress, who contends street closings have created havoc for emergency vehicles and choked off the city's evacuation routes.

Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey complained, "The city has to be able to function," predicting cancerous traffic jams when vacation season ends and Congress returns in September.

And Tony Bullock, the spokesman for Mayor Anthony Williams, called the moves "a decidedly knee-jerk reaction" by federal agencies seeking to use the latest alert to impose security measures they had wanted long before Sept. 11, 2001.

"It's not entirely clear what we're reacting to," Mr. Bullock said. "The warning from the Department of Homeland Security was specific to certain buildings. We're seeing federal government agencies using that information to implement security measures that have no connection to that warning. What is happening in the capital is unsustainable."

Their anger, on one level, reflects the longstanding frustration of Washingtonians who have felt powerless to rebuff federal demands. The federal government is not only the city's largest landowner and employer, it also controls its budget and exerts virtual veto power over its laws. The Secret Service and Capitol Police even have authority over city streets around the White House and Capitol Hill.

"We are treated as a colonial possession," said Mark Plotkin, a political commentator on a local radio station, WTOP. "We're not part of America, we're just props."

But on another level, many here are increasingly worried that the city is changing in fundamental ways. Institutions that were once beacons of open government, particularly the Capitol, have imposed stricter security than at any time in history, including when Washington was under imminent threat of invasion during the War of 1812 and the Civil War, historians said. Even monuments and museums are being encircled by protective walls.

"No question that security now is far greater than ever before," said Richard A. Baker, the Senate historian.

"It has always been a strong article of faith that the building needs to be open to the public," he said of the Capitol. "Fences come and go, but in the past, they usually have gone. Because there was always a sense that if this building is not open to the public, then the nation is in real trouble."

Federal security officials say that the advent of powerful truck bombs and suicidal assailants has made tougher measures unavoidable. They assert they have tried to work with city officials to ensure that expanding security perimeters are as unobtrusive as possible.

"Secret Service really prides itself on working with its local partners," said Lorie Lewis, a spokeswoman for the agency. "We do take into consideration the concerns of all affected."

The last line in the Times story is particularly ironic: citizens of the DC metro area awoke Monday morning to discover blocked streets and traffic checkpoints had been set up in the Federal City and Capitol Hill areas of the District without notice or consultation with DC government. I was listening to the traffic reporters on the radio Monday morning and they all let out a collective "Wha'?"

This is vintage Bush administration. It is also tantamount to martial law. In case you didn't know it, the District of Columbia, your nation's capitol city (if you are an American) has only limited self government and no voting representation in Congress. Its budget is subject to Congressional oversight and it is routinely treated as a plantation by the Federal government.

Traffic here is already some of the worst in the nation. The Feds have taken a bad situation and turned it into a clusterfsck.

The Morning Cup

I don't know how humanity made any progress before it discovered coffee. I ran out yesterday and had to start the day on English Breakfast Tea. It's good stuff, but no substitute for coffee.

For a great cup of cafe americano:

Buy a coffee measure (or, if you have the funds, subscribe to Gevalia, they send you one with their overpriced but very good coffee)

Start with whole beans and an inexpensive Braun grinder (you can find them at the supermarket around here.) There is no substitute for freshly ground beans. If you can find a local roaster, great. If you can't, I've found that the beans produced by Eagle Brand are about as good as the mass market gets.

Once you have a coffee bean grinder, make sure that you have a good coffee pot. You don't have to spend a lot of money, Mr. Coffee will fill the bill, but it has to be a drip pot. Keep it scrupulously clean.

Finally, get a water filter. Brita makes a nice one that will hold 2.5 gallons in your fridge. Most city water systems give you safe but not good-tasting water. A simple filter like this will give you a better cup of coffee.

The ingredients for a really good cup of joe: one measure of beans for every two cups of coffee (plus one extra, "for the pot," as my mother likes to say,) filtered water, a decent pot and freshly ground beans. When grinding the beans, stop the machine as soon as the pitch of the grinder sound begins to rise, otherwise you will overgrind and overheat the coffee, and reap a bitter cup.

If you take your coffee light and sweet, consider buying canned evaporated skim milk, which gives you the mouthfeel of cream without the fat and calories. While the coffee is brewing, put the cup, set up with cream and sugar, into the microwave for 30 seconds, so it is hot and ready for the coffee.

That's all it takes: good water, a clean pot and freshly ground beans. There are no substitutes for any of these components, but none are hard to find.

Bears on the Run

Dow Closes Down 147 to New 2004 Low

By ADAM GELLER
The Associated Press
Friday, August 6, 2004; 4:09 PM

NEW YORK - The Dow Jones industrial average fell to a new 2004 low Friday as investors bailed out of stocks in the wake of a disappointing jobs report and continuing high oil prices. The Nasdaq composite index and Standard & Poor's 500 also created new year-to-date lows for the second straight session.

Payroll figures released early Friday showed employers added just 32,000 jobs last month, data low enough to warrant worries that a slowing in the economy in June may have been more just a brief pause.

Combined with oil prices still hovering near $44 a barrel, investors sold off heavily for a second straight day, worried that inflation and slow job growth would interrupt the economic recovery for a sustained length of time.

According to preliminary calculations, the Dow fell down 147.41, or 1.5 percent, at 9,815.62.

Broader stock indicators also fell sharply. The Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped 16.76, or 1.6 percent, to 1,063.94, and the Nasdaq was down 44.74, or 2.5 percent, at 1,776.89.

This was predictable as early as yesterday. Clearly, the late sell-off yesterday meant that the markets had gotten advanced word that the jobs number was going to be terrible and those in the know wanted to make sure they weren't holding a position at market open this morning. The only question I had was how far would the Dow fall today.

With oil continuing to climb and the situation worsening in Iraq, it's going to take the markets some time to get its nerve back. War news is going to be driving it for a while, and that is probably not a good thing.

Letter to the Editor

Bush undeserving of another term

August 6, 2004

AS AN independent voter, I can appreciate Cathy Young's seemingly objective perspective ("No leadership in sight," op ed, July 24). I can also accept her observations that George W. Bush is not evil incarnate, and John Kerry is not a man who inspires passionate devotion.

But her view that the jury is still out on the decision to go to war in Iraq is baffling, especially from a contributing editor to a magazine called Reason. Is not the intelligence failure alone enough to persuade her it was an egregious mistake?

As for neither Bush nor Kerry offering the kind of strong, intelligent, trustworthy leadership Young and the rest of us long for, the view of this independent voter is that Bush has already proven he's grossly lacking in these departments, while the jury is still out on Kerry.

But when one guy's a proven disaster and the other's yet to prove himself in that capacity, I say give the other guy a shot. How much worse could he be?

ELIZABETH M. JONASSEN
Holliston

Philocrites has a caption contest.

CNN Trifecta

Below the belt

John Kerry allegedly faked his war wounds, George Bush allegedly paid for a mistress's abortion. Simon Jeffery on dirty tricks in US politics

Friday August 6, 2004

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is a 527, and Regnery Press is a commercial (although politically committed) publishing company. However, a look at the people who connect the enterprises reveals them to be part of a rich partisan tapestry.

Mr O'Neill is the link between them. As well as being the book's co-author, he is a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth steering committee. The group was set up with the help of Merrie Spaeth, the widow of Tex Lezar, who was Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Texas in the same year that Mr Bush ran for governor. He was a partner of Mr O'Neill's at their Houston law firm.

Regnery, meanwhile, proclaims itself to be the leading conservative publisher in the US. Acquired by Republican donor Thomas Philips in 1993, it is a subsidiary of Eagle Publishing, which is using its flagship Human Events magazine to promote Unfit for Command and build up its subscription base and mailing lists.

Regnery publishes on any number of topics (from threats to marriage to a defence of assault rifles), but scored a number of hits in the Clinton years with titles such as the conservative columnist Ann Coulter's High Crimes and Misdemeanors: the case against Bill Clinton.

The most notorious - Gary Aldrich's Unlimited Access: an FBI agent inside the Clinton White House - depicted the executive mansion as a den of debauchery, drug-taking and gay sex. One section claimed the president was smuggled out under a rug for trysts with a female celebrity in a nearby hotel. Mr Aldrich admitted in the book that many of his allegations were, at best, second-hand.

On top of this, the O'Neill/Regnery axis has links going back to Richard Nixon. Also a swift boat commander in Vietnam, Mr O'Neill was hired by presidential aide Charles Colson in 1971 to discredit the recently returned Mr Kerry's campaign against the war. Mr Kerry reputedly beat him in a nationally televised debate on the Dick Cavett Show.

Sidney Blumenthal, a Guardian columnist and former adviser to Mr Clinton, said he saw nothing new in Mr O'Neill's book and the campaign mounted by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. "It reeks of partisan dirty tricks, and the facts simply don't hold up at all. The intent is simply to dirty Kerry," he said. "They have been trying to do this for a long time. Regardless of whether it is false, they will put it out to see if it will hurt."

The truth of the allegations is disputed by the Kerry campaign, and contradicts the most authoritative account of his time in Vietnam, Douglas Brinkley's Tour of Duty. The author is director of the Eisenhower Centre for American Studies at New Orleans university, which specialises in military history.

But the truth does not matter - to confuse the issue of Mr Kerry's military service, which he has made such a strong part of his campaign, is enough to occupy the candidate, distract him and muddy his record.

It is not the first time dirty tricks have surfaced in the 2004 campaign. The Drudge Report (which has served as a conduit for the allegations over Mr Kerry's Vietnam service, including allegations that he slaughtered livestock and burned down a village with a Zippo lighter) ran reports in February that the Massachusetts senator had an affair with an intern. There was no truth in it.

Gotta read the foreign press to find the truth. CNN is doing a "he said, he said" piece on this, as if O'Neill had any credibility whatever. Howie is silent on the history but mentions that George Elliot has defected from the group.

What I'm noticing, however, is that the Sadr explosion in Iraq, the economic troubles and the Abu Ghraib trial of Lynddie England have blown the Swift Boaters and everything else oft the screen today. I don't imagine they are watching CNN today at the White House: this is all the stuff that is going to defeat Bush.

No Sunshine

In the Loop
By Al Kamen

Friday, August 6, 2004; Page A17

Keeping up with . . . The Pentagon inspector general's office must be working day and night, 24/7, to wrap up what must be an incredibly complex investigation of Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin, deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

Loop Fans may recall the investigation began more than nine months ago after Boykin, in uniform no less, was caught on videotape talking about the war on terrorism as a "spiritual battle" and made disparaging comments about Islam. Muslims naturally were furious.

In April, we were told the report would be ready in a couple of weeks. Then in June, it was going to appear pretty soon. So now it's August and still no sign of any conclusion.

Could it be his comments were a secret psy-ops effort gone awry? A truly innovative approach to winning the hearts and minds of the Muslim world?

GPO Lets Inspector General Go
Auditor Says Public Printer Didn't Like 'Aggressive' Probes

By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 6, 2004; Page A17

The inspector general at the Government Printing Office thinks the latest managerial decision at the agency was a bad one -- but he won't be around to critique it.

Marc A. Nichols, 34, the IG since March 2003, was asked to resign this week by Public Printer Bruce R. James in a move that Nichols said was prompted by his "aggressive" investigations of possible waste, fraud and abuse.

"This has nothing to do with an investigation or an audit," Public Printer Bruce R. James says of the departure of the inspector general he hired last year.

Nichols, who was paid $144,000 a year, said James asked for -- and received -- his resignation Monday after informing him he wanted to "go in a different direction." James made it clear that the IG at the legislative branch agency serves at the pleasure of the agency head, unlike IGs at many executive branch departments who are nominated by and can be dismissed by the president, Nichols said.

Think this administration is a little investigation-averse? It wouldn't be an issue if there wasn't so much to investigate.

If This is the Corner We've Turned....

Economic risks of high oil prices
Energy is credited as a factor behind slower than expected second-quarter GDP. Most experts see prices staying high.
By Sara B. Miller and Kris Axtman | Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor

BOSTON AND HOUSTON – Record-high oil prices signal new danger to the economy, as rising costs ripple into everything from floral deliveries to the production of plastic toys and orange juice.

Crude-oil costs of $50 per barrel suddenly don't seem far-fetched, not in a week that has seen costs top $44 for the first time in 21 years of government reporting.

Experts differ on how much the recent spike is affecting economic growth - and whether the current US expansion is now at risk. But at the very least, consumers and businesses face a new headwind.

Already, rising energy costs have been tagged as a factor behind a slackening of consumer spending. Growth in the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) expanded at a slower-than-expected 3 percent annual pace from April to June, down from a 4.5 percent rate for the year's first quarter.

Russian Reversal Pushes Yukos Closer to Shutdown

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, August 6, 2004; Page A16

MOSCOW, Aug. 5 -- The Russian government on Thursday abruptly rescinded permission for Yukos Oil Co. to use its bank accounts to continue operating, reversing a decision made just 24 hours earlier and fueling concern that the country's largest oil producer will be forced to begin shutting down wells next week.

The decision, announced by the Justice Ministry, seemed to leave Yukos little maneuvering room as it seeks to keep producing. With its assets and many bank accounts frozen in a dispute over back taxes, the company has said it soon will no longer have enough cash to pay oil-shipping costs. Yukos pumps 1.7 million barrels a day, roughly the same as Libya and about 2 percent of the world's oil supply.

Yukos stock fell and world crude oil prices rose after the latest development, which exacerbated uncertainty about Russia's exports and sowed further confusion over the government's handling of the politically charged situation. While the government's actions appear to be driving Yukos toward shutting down its wells, many analysts say that would not be in Russia's interest, even if the government wants to seize control of the company's assets.

Only 32,000 Jobs Are Added in July
08.06.2004, 08:53 AM

The nation's payroll growth slowed dramatically in July with a paltry 32,000 jobs being added_ a potentially troubling sign that the rough patch the economy hit in June was no aberration.
....
Economists, however, look more closely at the payroll figure as a better barometer of the health of the jobs market. The 32,000 net jobs added in July represented the smallest gain in hiring since December and followed a revised gain of just 78,000 in June, even less than previously reported. May's payrolls also were revised down to show a gain of 208,000.

The unemployment rate is calculated based on a survey of households - a sort of poll - in which people are asked to state whether they have jobs or are looking for work. The seasonally adjusted civilian unemployment rate thus is the percentage of the labor force represented by those who are either listed as officially unemployed or searching for work. With a contraction in the size of the labor force, that dropped the unemployment rate by a minuscule 0.1 percentage point from June to July.

Analysts were expecting the economy to add anywhere from 215,000 to 247,000 jobs in July. They were predicting the jobless rate to hold steady at 5.6 percent.

If businesses are spending more money on gas--and they are--they can't spend it on new hires. This isn't rocket science. But there is more going on here:

Layoffs at U.S. firms rise in July as hiring falls
Report: Job cuts up 8 percent from June; jobs recovery struggles
Updated: 11:29 a.m. ET Aug. 3, 2004

NEW YORK - Layoffs in the United States rose 8 percent in July from the previous month, a report said on Monday, as the job market recovery struggled to gain momentum.

The upcoming U.S. elections and an apparent sputter in economic growth late in the second quarter seem to be making companies less inclined to hire now, said Rick Cobb, executive vice president at Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

The difference between the expected 240K new jobs and the 32K actual is pretty huge. I bopped around some of the financial sites this morning, Motley Fool noted that while Boeing and the Big Three auto makers are all laying off, Wal-Mart is hiring! What the hell are those guys thinking? As if trading off a decent industrial job for one that means you will be both working and on welfare is some sort of good deal. Sheesh.

UPDATE: Jobwatch is up.

Job growth has stalled in the last two months. Payroll jobs increased by only 78,000 in June and a meager 32,000 in July, after rising 295,000 a month the previous three months. The Bush Administration called the tax cut package, which was passed in May 2003 and took effect in July 2003, its "Jobs and Growth Plan." The president's economics staff, the Council of Economic Advisers (see background documents), projected that the plan would result in the creation of 5.5 million jobs by the end of 2004—306,000 new jobs each month starting in July 2003. The CEA projected that the economy would generate 228,000 jobs a month without a tax cut and 306,000 jobs a month with the tax cut. Thus, it projected that 3,978,000 jobs would be created over the last 13 months. In reality, since the tax cuts took effect, there are 2,565,000 fewer jobs than the administration projected would be created by enactment of its tax cuts. As can be seen in the chart below, job creation failed to meet the administration's projections in 11 of the past 13 months.

Carpetbagging

NPR is reporting this morning that Alan Keyes has elected to accept the Illinois GOP's offer of nomination for the Senate race. The Nipper says both of the Chicago papers are calling it, so I went to take a look.

I don't have the time or money to move to Chicago to watch the campaign, so I hope C-Span will open a Chicago bureau for the duration. This promises to be some of the best political theater of my lifetime. As even Tucker Carlson (who I am rapidly coming to loathe) said yesterday on CNN's "Crossfire," "Alan Keyes, whatever you think of him -- he's a little -- he's a little very far out. I agree with almost everything he says, by the way." Alan Keyes is a loon, and the debates with Barack Obama will probably push the boundries of Da Da.

The GOP's rent-a-senator

Mr. Keyes may have noticed a large body of water as he flew into O'Hare. That is called Lake Michigan. It's large. It's wide. It's deep. And we'll spoil the surprise: You can't even see across it.

Welcome to Illinois.

The Constitution requires only that a candidate for the U.S. Senate be a resident of the state in which he's running on Election Day. The Illinois Republican State Central Committee has taken that provision to heart. The committee members had a number of genuine Illinois citizens who wished to run, but they picked a visitor instead.

In a move that seems a tad, um, rude, Keyes said he'd get back to them. He's off to Maryland. He'll let them know by Sunday if he accepts their nomination.

Whatever he does, the state GOP has created a terrible situation for itself.

If Keyes accepts, he will run and will lose. And then he will hop on the next flight back to Maryland, and the state's GOP will be left with nothing but the smell of jet fumes.

If Keyes decides not to run, how stupid Republicans will look. They'll be back to finding a candidate from Illinois, because the candidate from Maryland spurned them.

Beyond this race, it's time to ask what this strange move says about the future of the Republican Party in Illinois.

Republicans were successful in state politics for the last quarter century because they put up pragmatic, moderate conservatives such as Jim Thompson, Jim Edgar and Judy Baar Topinka. State GOP leaders could have chosen a pragmatic conservative--as Topinka, the party chairwoman, would have preferred--but instead they went for someone who is from the right wing of the right wing of the Republican Party.

Now, Keyes is smart, informed and analytical. If he runs, the debates with Democrat Barack Obama, a fellow African-American alum of Harvard, promise to be world-class theater. But if the GOP wants to argue that Obama--who, did we mention, lives in Illinois--is out of the political mainstream, Keyes is the wrong guy to sell it.

There is also the suspicion that Keyes views running for office as an occupation in itself. In his 1992 campaign for the Senate, he paid himself a salary out of his campaign funds. In 1996, he came in fourth in the Republican presidential primary in Illinois, with 4 percent of the vote. In 2000, he came in third with 9 percent. As the GOP nominee for the Senate twice in his own state, he got just 29 percent and 38 percent of the vote.

If he's going to try to do better than that in Illinois, he will have a few things to learn.

Don't complain to management when your hot dog comes topped with what looks to be an entire salad bar. That's known in Chicago as "the works."

Camden Yards may be the future of ballparks, but don't go asking around Wrigley Field for sushi.

When you fly into Cairo on a campaign stop, that's not the Red Sea you'll admire; it's the Ohio River.

And Cairo is pronounced "Kay-row."

Welcome to Illinois.

Are We Safer Yet?

Seoul bans Iraqi deployment reports

Wednesday 04 August 2004, 14:10 Makka Time, 11:10 GMT

Police suffered the brunt of protesters' fury at the dispatch

The South Korean government has imposed a ban on local media reporting on the deployment of 3000 troops to Iraq, citing concerns about the soldiers' safety.

Under plans announced in June, the deployment of mainly non-combatants on a relief and rehabilitation mission was to take place in stages over several weeks beginning in early August.

The government warned it would consider legal action - using a law to protect military secrets - against any media outlet that violated the ban.

"This is a secret military operation. We don't want to give terrorists any information on our troop movements," a Defence Ministry official said, adding that reports ignoring the blackout would be viewed as a serious breach of security.

Defence Minister Yoon Kwang-Ung said "appropriate measures" would be taken against offending media outlets.

Third largest group

The South Korean contingent, the third largest in the US-led occupation force in Iraq, is scheduled to take up positions in Arbil, a Kurdish-controlled town in the north.

Protesters also rallied near the
US embassy in Seoul last month

Several hundred activists staged protests against the troop dispatch on Tuesday at a training camp south of Seoul.

Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon, in a joint press conference with Defence Minister Yoon on Wednesday, said security of South Korean troops and civilians was paramount.

"In relation to the dispatch of troops, the government is doing its best to secure the safety of its citizens as well as soldiers," he said.

More than 30 nations have sent troops to Iraq to join the US-led force, but Seoul stands alone in imposing a tight media blackout.

U.S. troops leave Seoul for Iraq

Thursday, August 5, 2004 Posted: 9:15 PM EDT (0115 GMT)
U.S. troops have been deployed in South Korea for half a century.

SEOUL, South Korea -- The first of some 3,600 U.S. troops to be sent from South Korea to Iraq are on their way.

Six hundred soldiers left for Kuwait from an airbase near Seoul on Thursday.

The redeployment is part of U.S. plans to withdraw more than one third of its 37,000 troops on the Korean peninsula.

The withdrawal would be the first major troop cut on the Korean Peninsula since the early 1990s when the two allies agreed to remove 7,000 U.S. troops.

Washington has said it wants to withdraw some 12,500 U.S. troops by December 2005.

Troop levels are a controversial issue in South Korea, where many still have painful memories of the communist North Korean invasion that triggered the 1950-53 Korean War.

The two Koreas are still technically at war, because their conflict ended in an armed truce that has never been converted into a peace treaty.

There are over 37,000 U.S. troops in South Korea helping defend the heavily-fortified border between North and South Korea.

Some South Koreans fear any cut in U.S. military presence might weaken its defense readiness against the million-man army of North Korea, the world's fifth largest military.

But others, particularly young South Koreans, are opposed to U.S. presence on Korean soil, and voted in the more liberal President Roh Moo-hyun.

More N. Korean Bombs Likely, U.S. Official Says

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 16, 2004; Page A18

North Korea is likely to be producing nuclear bombs even as it conducts negotiations with the United States and four other countries on ending its weapons programs, the senior U.S. official responsible for those talks told Congress yesterday.

"Time is certainly a valid factor in this," said James A. Kelly, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs, during testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "We don't know the details, but it's quite possible that North Korea is proceeding along, developing additional fissionable material and possibly additional nuclear weapons."

Although North Korea has asserted that it has produced weapons-grade plutonium since the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear programs began 20 months ago -- and though U.S. intelligence analysts broadly believe that the number of nuclear weapons held by North Korea has increased from two to at least eight during this period -- it is highly unusual for a senior administration official to concede publicly that North Korea's stockpile may be growing.
....
"The bottom line is that we now confront a much more dangerous adversary than we did in 2001," said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), the ranking Democrat on the panel. He accused the administration of adopting a policy of "benign neglect" even after learning that Pyongyang had a clandestine nuclear effort, and then taking "more than two years to resolve its internal divisions and settle on an approach for dealing with North Korea."

U.S.: North Korea Works on New Missiles

By BARRY SCHWEID
The Associated Press
Thursday, August 5, 2004; 7:58 PM

WASHINGTON - The United States has determined that North Korea is working on new ballistic missile systems designed to deliver nuclear warheads and that it is testing the technology by proxy in Iran, a Bush administration official said Thursday.

Having agreed to a self-imposed test ban, North Korea is sharing technology information with Iran, which carries out missile tests on North Korea's behalf, the administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The missile program is based on Russian technology and has been conducted with help from Russian scientists - help the United States thinks may be continuing, the official said.

A leading military publication, Jane's Defense Weekly, reported recently that North Korea was developing two new ballistic missile systems that "appreciably expand the ballistic-missile threat."

A version of the missile capable of being launched from a submarine or a ship is potentially the most threatening, the weekly said.

Not all of the details of the North Korean program are known to the United States, the administration official told The Associated Press.

One important question, he said, is whether the missiles are exactly patterned on a Russian model. Another, he said, is whether the missiles could reach the United States.

U.S. officials think North Korea may have the technology for a submarine-launched ballistic missile, but it is not clear whether North Korea has a missile platform, the official said.

The Bush administration is working with South Korea, Japan, China and Russia to negotiate an agreement with North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program.

The Great Unraveling

2-month truce seems to be crumbling

BAGHDAD The radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr called Thursday for a national uprising against American and coalition forces as a two-month truce between Sadr and the United States military appeared to collapse.

As night fell, heavy fighting appeared to be confined mainly around Najaf, a Shiite holy city 160 kilometers, or 100 miles, south of Baghdad that is a stronghold for Sadr.

In Baghdad, the capital, and Basra, the largest city in southern Iraq, insurgents loyal to Sadr prepared for clashes with American and British troops. But fighting was sporadic and Baghdad was mostly quiet until 11:15 p.m., when three large explosions, probably from mortars, rocked the city's center.

One American soldier and several insurgents were killed in Najaf, according to an American military statement. At least a dozen more soldiers and dozens of insurgents were wounded in both Baghdad and Najaf, though exact casualty counts were unavailable late Thursday evening.

Sadr's call is the most serious challenge yet to the interim Iraqi government, whose head, Ayad Allawi, has struggled to assert his authority since being named prime minister in June. Unlike moderate Shiite political leaders such as Allawi, Sadr fiercely opposes the continuing American presence here and has tried twice since October to revolt against it.

Allawi is eager to show his independence from the United States and to prove that Iraqi security forces can stop the escalating violence here. But Thursday's clashes showed again that only American troops have the firepower to contain Sadr's guerrilla fighters, called the Mahdi Army, a well-armed militia that has fighters across the southern half of Iraq.

Clashes Shatter Cease-Fire in Iraqi Holy City
The fighting spreads from Najaf to Basra and Baghdad after cleric Sadr issues a call to arms. Two U.S. troops are killed and 16 hurt.

By Edmund Sanders, Times Staff Writer

NAJAF, Iraq — Heavy clashes erupted in this holy city Thursday between Iraqi and U.S. forces and followers of radical cleric Muqtada Sadr, shattering a two-month cease-fire and provoking his militia to rise up in three other cities.

The battles in Najaf killed two U.S. troops, 12 Iraqis — including at least five police officers — and more than a dozen Sadr militants, according to U.S. and hospital officials. Forty Iraqi civilians also were wounded.

Amid the fighting, the Shiite Muslim cleric issued a call to arms, urging his supporters to "confront this infidel enemy."

The clashes marked the fiercest fighting in southern Iraq since May, when U.S. troops began negotiating an end to a standoff with Sadr that had crippled Najaf and Kufa and fueled unrest and anti-American sentiments among the nation's large Shiite Muslim population.

The U.S. casualties included a soldier with the 13th Corps Support Command who was killed when his convoy was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire outside Najaf, and a Marine who died in fighting in the city. Three other Marines were wounded.

The Iraqis killed included an ambulance driver hit by a mortar round that fell on his vehicle.

The crew of a UH-1 Huey helicopter downed by insurgent fire was rescued with only injuries, military officials said.

The violence followed insurgent attacks Wednesday in the northern city of Mosul that left 22 people dead. The renewed street battles — the worst since the interim Iraqi government took power June 28 — present a major security challenge to interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a tough-talking Shiite leader whose political future may depend on his ability to bring peace to his restive country.

British troops face Iraq jihad
By Adrian Blomfield in Baghdad
(Filed: 06/08/2004)

Militants linked to the firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr declared holy war on British forces yesterday, as violence erupted in Shia strongholds across southern Iraq, threatening to unravel a tenuous two-month ceasefire.

Masked militia: gunmen linked to Moqtada al-Sadr

Battles between Sadr's Mahdi army militia and American and British soldiers raged in areas that have been relatively stable recently. British troops killed two gunmen after coming under attack by militants who tried to take control of strategic points in Basra. Fifteen people were killed in fighting between US troops and Sadr militia in the Shia holy city of Najaf.

The flare-up posed a new threat to the Iraqi interim government, already mired in fighting north of Baghdad.

There were indications last night that the interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, was preparing to invoke emergency provisions and declare martial law in the worst troublespots.

In Basra, the threat to British forces followed the arrest of four Sadr supporters on Wednesday. Yesterday's fighting broke out after the expiry of a noon deadline to release them.

Sheikh Saad al-Basri, Sadr's representative in the mainly Shia city, accused the British of seeking to "create in Basra the state of crisis that exists in Najaf", and declared: "We will wage jihad and war against the foreign troops."

British officers said they were taking the threat seriously. "We are clearly aware of this declaration and we are closely monitoring the situation," said Major Ian Cloony.

Hundreds of people died in April and May after Sadr's militia launched an uprising, centred on Najaf. A ceasefire was declared two months ago.

Yesterday, however, American forces struggled to contain an upsurge of violence there. A US helicopter was shot down, injuring the crew, and an American soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on his convoy. Five were wounded.

When you see the words "wounded" or "hurt," bear in mind that they mean this:

Carl Sampson was a corporal with the 890th Engineer Battalion of the Army National Guard based out of Gulfport when he was seriously wounded in September 2003 in Iraq. He was in a mail truck between Fallujah and Baghdad when the vehicle ran over an explosive device. Shrapnel blew upward, taking off half his face and opening a 6-inch hole in his head.

His right leg twitches and he begins to lift it, at first a little, then higher, then a little more.

"It feels ... weird," he says, the words slow, his mouth forming each syllable carefully, as if he is speaking for the first time. Slowly, he raises the leg and straightens it out.

Carl Sampson smiles. He did it.

Through the living room window, sunlight falls across his face. Some patches of skin are discolored, darker shades of peach and beige. A spider web of scars crisscross his left cheek and lower neck, where there used to be nothing, just a gaping hole. And over his left eye, an empty socket is covered by a black patch.

Sampson doesn't remember how it all happened. He can't recall anything about the explosion, the pain or the handful of times he almost died.

Sampson, 36, is one of the seemingly forgotten ones of the war, one of those soldiers who has received little attention but returned home with wounds he will live with for the rest of his life.

Since Operation Iraqi Freedom began, the Department of Defense reports nearly 5,400 soldiers wounded as of the end of June. Forty are from Mississippi.

Some came home without limbs, some with shrapnel embedded in their skin.

Sampson, a Mississippi National Guardsman, came home without part of his face, with limited use of the right side of his body and with a 6-inch hole in his skull.

"It's going to be a difficult ride for him," said Hilliard Carter, a Jackson resident who spent more than 20 years counseling injured soldiers. "It may take years for him to even begin to get better."

Sampson sometimes can't remember the names of his parents. And the only reason he knows any details of the explosion is because his mother, Shirley Sampson, told him what she learned from friends and other soldiers.

"I think maybe it's good to not remember," Carl Sampson said.

UPDATE:This doesn't help:

Top Iraqi Cleric Flies Into London for Treatment
By REUTERS

Published: August 6, 2004

Filed at 10:08 a.m. ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani arrived in London on Friday for treatment for a heart condition.

The influential cleric, who has been a voice of moderation in postwar Iraq, landed at Heathrow airport aboard a scheduled flight from Beirut.

The Middle East Airlines jet taxied to a point away from Heathrow's terminal three and Sistani, dressed in black robes, walked down the steps and into a limousine while armed police stood guard.

Airport sources said he was heading for an unnamed hospital in central London.

With Moqtada on the rampage, Sistani is one of the few respected voices of moderation. His illness and absence is a further force for destabilization.

Failure of Leadership
By BOB HERBERT

Published: August 6, 2004

Anthony Dixon and Adam Froehlich were best friends who grew up in the suburbs of southern New Jersey, not far from Philadelphia. They went to junior high school together. They wrestled on the same team at Overbrook High School in the town of Pine Hill. They enlisted in the Army together in 2002. And both died in Iraq, in roadside bombings just four months apart.

Specialist Dixon was killed on Sunday in Samarra. Specialist Froehlich was killed in March near Baquba. They were 20 years old.

No one has a clue how this madness will end. As G.I.'s continue to fight and die in Iraq, the national leaders who put them needlessly in harm's way are now flashing orange alert signals to convey that Al Qaeda - the enemy that should have been in our sights all along - is poised to strike us again.

It's as if the government were following a script from the theater of the absurd. Instead of rallying our allies to a coordinated and relentless campaign against Al Qaeda after Sept. 11, we insulted the allies, gave them the back of our hand and arrogantly sent the bulk of our forces into the sand trap of Iraq.

Now we're in a fix.

The war in Iraq has intensified the hatred of America around the world and powerfully energized Al Qaeda-type insurgencies. At the same time, it has weakened our defenses by diverting the very resources we need - personnel, matériel and boatloads of cash - to meet the real terror threats.

President Bush's re-election mantra is that he's the leader who can keep America safe. But that message was stepped on by the urgent, if not frantic, disclosures this week by top administration officials that another Al Qaeda attack on the United States might be imminent.

A debate emerged almost immediately about whether the intelligence on which those disclosures were based was old or new, or a combination of both. Nevertheless, because of the growing sense of alarm, there was an expansion of the already ubiquitous armed, concrete-fortified sites in New York City and Washington.

The pressure may be getting to Mr. Bush. He came up with a gem of a Freudian slip yesterday. At a signing ceremony for a $417 billion military spending bill, the president said: "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

The nation seems paralyzed, unsure of what to do about Iraq or terrorism. The failure of leadership that led to the bonehead decision to invade Iraq remains painfully evident today. Nobody seems to know where we go from here.

What Americans need more than anything else right now is some honest information about the critical situations we're facing.

What's the military mission in Iraq? Can it be clearly defined? Is it achievable? At what cost and over what time frame? How many troops will be needed? How many casualties are we willing to accept? And how much suffering are we willing to endure here at home in terms of the domestic needs that are unmet?

Neither Lyndon Johnson nor Richard Nixon was honest with the American people about Vietnam, and the result was a monumental tragedy. George W. Bush has not leveled with the nation about Iraq, and we are again trapped in a long, tragic nightmare.

As for the so-called war on terror, there is no evidence yet that the administration has a viable plan for counteracting Al Qaeda and its America-hating allies, offshoots and imitators. Whether this week's clumsy sequence of press conferences, leaks and alerts was politically motivated or not, the threat to the U.S. is both real and grave. And it can't be thwarted with military power alone.

Does the administration have any real sense of what motivates the nation's enemies? Does it understand the ways in which American policies are empowering its enemies? Does it grasp the crucial importance of international alliances and coordinated intelligence activity in fighting terror? And is it even beginning to think seriously about lessening our debilitating dependence on Middle Eastern oil?

The United States is the greatest military and economic power in the history of the planet. But it lacks a unifying sense of national purpose at the moment, and seems uncertain, even timid, as the national security challenges continue to mount. That is what a failure of leadership can do to a great power.

Herbert, one of the most honest columnests in America, is still making nice. We have no business in Iraq, and now that we are there, we have no clue about how to get out, because we didn't have a good cause in the first place.

How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? In the moral calculus that I understand, that is a good question.

Costs of Empire

What About Iraq?
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: August 6, 2004

In the spring, American forces won an impressive military victory against the Shiite forces of Moktada al-Sadr. But this victory hasn't curbed the movement; Mr. Sadr's forces, according to many reports, are the de facto government of Sadr City, a Baghdad slum with 2.5 million people, and seem to have strengthened their position in Najaf and other cities.

In Sunni areas, Falluja is enemy territory. Elsewhere in western Iraq, according to reports from Knight Ridder and The Los Angeles Times, U.S. forces have hunkered down, manning watch posts but not patrolling. In effect, this cedes control of the population to the insurgents. And everywhere, of course, the mortar attacks, bombings, kidnappings and assassinations go on.

Despite a two-month truce between Mr. Sadr and the United States military, heavy fighting broke out yesterday in Najaf, where a U.S. helicopter was shot down. There was also sporadic violence in Sadr City - where, according to reporters, American planes appeared to drop bombs - and in Basra.

Meanwhile, reconstruction has languished.

This summer, like last summer, there are severe shortages of electricity. Sewage is tainting the water supply, and typhoid and hepatitis are on the rise. Unemployment remains sky-high. Needless to say, all this undermines any chance for the new Iraqi government to gain wide support.

My point in describing all this bad news is not to be defeatist. It is to set some realistic context for the political debate.

One thing is clear: calls to "stay the course" are fatuous. The course we're on leads downhill. American soldiers keep winning battles, but we're losing the war: our military is under severe strain; we're creating more terrorists than we're killing; our reputation, including our moral authority, is damaged each month this goes on.

So am I saying we should cut and run? That's another loaded phrase. Nobody wants to see helicopters lifting the last Americans off the roofs of the Green Zone.

But we need to move quickly to end our position as "an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land," the fate that none other than former President George H. W. Bush correctly warned could be the result of an invasion of Iraq. And that means turning real power over to Iraqis.

Again and again since the early months after the fall of Baghdad - when Paul Bremer III canceled local elections in order to keep the seats warm for our favorite exiles - U.S. officials have passed up the chance to promote credible Iraqi leaders. And each time the remaining choices get worse.

Yet we're still doing it. Ayad Allawi is, probably, something of a thug. Still, it's in our interests that he succeed.

But when Mr. Allawi proposed an amnesty for insurgents - a move that was obviously calculated to show that he wasn't an American puppet - American officials, probably concerned about how it would look at home, stepped in to insist that insurgents who have killed Americans be excluded. Inevitably, this suggestion that American lives matter more than Iraqi lives led to an unraveling of the whole thing, so Mr. Allawi now looks like a puppet.

Should we cut and run? No. But we should get realistic, and look in earnest for an exit.

What none of the mainstream writers seem to "get" yet, is that occupiers are not "liberators." We are in Iraq about as long as we are tolerated, and I think we just pinned the meter for "not tolerated."

Getting to be a Pattern

Bush Protestors Turned Away From Event

Aug 5, 2004 6:23 am US/Central
Mankato, Minn. (AP) Two young supporters of DFL congressional candidate Leigh Pomeroy were turned away from President Bush's quarry rally in Mankato yesterday.

Walz says if appearances by the President of the United States are treated as private political events, then cities are right to bill the campaign for the expenses of local law enforcement.

Things Fall Apart

Rebel Cleric Calls for Uprising as Clashes Erupt in Najaf
By ALEX BERENSON

Published: August 5, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 5 — The radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr called for a national uprising against American and coalition forces today as a two-month truce between Mr. Sadr and the United States military appeared to collapse.

In Baghdad and Basra, the largest city in southern Iraq, insurgents loyal to Mr. Sadr prepared for clashes with American and British troops.

But the heavy fighting appeared to be mainly in and near Najaf, a Shiite holy city and Sadr stronghold 100 miles south of Baghdad. An American Marine helicopter was shot down in Najaf this morning, although the crew was reported rescued.

Later, insurgents attacked an American convoy with a rocket-propelled grenade and small-arms fire near Najaf, killing one soldier and wounding five, all from the 13th Corps Support Command, the United States military said.

Seven insurgents were killed and 22 were wounded, the military added.

Each side blamed the other for the apparent breakdown of the truce, which comes less than two weeks before a national political conference that Mr. Sadr has said he will not attend.

Mr. Sadr, a 31-year-old cleric whose father, Mohammed, was revered by many poor Shiites, has become the leading opponent of the United States military and interim Iraqi government. He is a deeply polarizing figure here, with many Iraqis viewing him as hotheaded, and others believing he is a courageous leader who has risked his life to defy the United States.

What's CNN got? Scott Peterson

This is EXTREMELY bad news. The last month has been extraordinarily deadly for us, and that is with this supposed truce in place. I'm afraid we are going to find out if Sadr can bring it on.

Torture Round-Up

US abuse could be war crime

Red Cross says Tipton Three may have case

Vikram Dodd and Tania Branigan
Thursday August 5, 2004
The Guardian

Repeated abuses allegedly suffered by three British prisoners at the hands of US interrogators and guards in the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba could amount to war crimes, the Red Cross said yesterday.

The organisation, which maintains a rigidly neutral stance in public, took the unusual step of voicing its concerns in uncompromising language after the former detainees, known as the Tipton Three, revealed that they had been beaten, shackled, photographed naked and in one incident questioned at gunpoint while in US custody.

Their vivid account of the harrowing conditions at the camp, as told to their lawyers and published for the first time in yesterday's Guardian, has reignited the debate about the treatment of prisoners and the British government's role in their questioning and detention.

Last night the Red Cross was joined by the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, which argued that if the allegations were true they indicated systematic abuse, amounting to torture.

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrats' deputy leader, called for the Foreign Office to mount a "searching investigation" into what British officials had seen or been told when they visited Guantánamo Bay.

The Tipton Three were captured in Afghanistan and held at the US military base in Cuba for two years, before being released in March without charge.

One man, Rhuhel Ahmed, alleged that an SAS soldier had interrogated him for three hours in Afghanistan while an American colleague held a gun to his head and threatened to shoot him. The trio also said that they had repeatedly complained of abuse to British consular officials.

"Some of the abuses alleged by the detainees would indeed constitute inhuman treatment," said Florian Westphal, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva.

"But we can't comment on this publicly since this type of allegation is raised directly in discussion with the detaining authority.

"Inhuman treatment constitutes a grave breach of the third Geneva convention and these are often also described as war crimes."

The organisation is allowed to visit the detainees to ensure they are treated in accordance with the Geneva conventions as long as it does not disclose information about conditions there. It can breach confidentiality in limited circumstances, most importantly, if going public would be in the best interests of the prisoners.

Sherman Carroll, spokesman for the Medical Foundation, said the report rang true in light of revelations about techniques of interrogation and torture elsewhere.

He added: "If [the detainees] had used the word torture, I would agree with that. This is more than 'torture-lite' [stress and duress techniques] ... Guantánamo Bay should be closed down."

But Major Michael Shavers, the Pentagon spokesman on Guantánamo Bay, said the US operated "a safe, humane and professional detention operation".

He added: "All detainees are treated humanely, appropriately and in accordance with the principles of the third Geneva convention.

"We have investigated all the allegations of abuse at Guantánamo Bay and have dealt with them. They have been resolved."

What the hell does "resolved" mean?

Hearing continues for accused U.S. soldier

Thursday, August 5, 2004 Posted: 1:13 PM EDT (1713 GMT)

FORT BRAGG, North Carolina (CNN) -- An American investigator testified Thursday that abuse by U.S. guards at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq apparently happened "all the time."

Pieron was the first investigator to learn of the photos and abuse allegations. He testified by phone at Fort Bragg in the preliminary hearing for Pfc. Lynndie England, one of seven Army reservists charged in the scandal.

What connects these two stories?

Where's the promised accountability for U.S. abuse of prisoners in Iraq?

BY REED BRODY
Syndicated Columnist

Many important issues remain unanswered. What interrogation techniques were approved for use on detainees? Why were inquiries into the many detainee deaths so lackluster and late? Why were detainees "rendered" to countries such as Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where torture is regularly practiced? How does the Bush administration justify holding detainees incommunicado in "undisclosed locations" in light of the United States' historical condemnation of "disappearances" in other countries?

The severest abuses at Abu Ghraib occurred in the aftermath of a decision by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to step up the hunt for "actionable intelligence" among Iraqi prisoners. Yet the chain of events remains shrouded in mystery. Who in the Pentagon ordered Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander at Guantanamo, to Abu Ghraib to overhaul interrogation practices, and with what instructions? What were his recommendations? What practices were then approved by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, then the top U.S. commander in Iraq? Who in the Pentagon knew of the interrogation practices at Abu Ghraib?

Anybody Seen the Bill of Rights?

Compare and contrast:

'Everything is at stake,' Kerry tells riverfront crowd
Race's intensity visible in exchanges with Bush supporters
By CRAIG GILBERT and ALAN J. BORSUK
[email protected]
Posted: Aug. 2, 2004

The high-stakes intensity of the campaign could also be seen Monday in noisy confrontations between Kerry and Bush supporters and the use of bullhorns and air horns by a small group of Bush supporters to try to disrupt the speeches, prompting Kerry and his wife to respond to what the candidate termed "goons."

While she was introducing her husband, Teresa Heinz Kerry referred to the group's audible call for "Four more years."

Said Heinz Kerry, "They want four more years of hell."

The Kerry crowd followed with chants of "Three more months."

Kerry also responded to the pro-Bush chanters, saying they wanted to "drown people out" with their megaphones.

"We don't want to be drowned out," Kerry said. "I want to thank George Bush for sending the goons here tonight to excite us to do a little more work! Thank you!"
....
About 30 Bush supporters chanted loudly during the speeches by Kerry and his wife, sometimes setting off air horns. The pro-Bush group was on the Kilbourn Ave. sidewalk overlooking Pere Marquette Park, almost a full block from the stage, but it could be heard throughout the park, including on stage.

Tom Lange, 18, of Waukesha said he was setting off an air horn during Kerry's remarks because "we want them to hear us and not hear what he has to say."

Lange said it's "probably not nice, but it's my beliefs."

Michael Gaspar, 18, of Waukesha used a bullhorn frequently before and during the rally to welcome Kerry supporters "to Bush-Cheney country" and to spur on the Bush supporters.

Asked why he was leading the Bush volunteers in loud chants while Kerry was speaking, he said, "I'm doing this to show my support for President George W. Bush."

"I have the right to speak also," he said. "I'm just attempting to get my voice heard."

There were several incidents of scuffling between Kerry and Bush supporters during the rally, including one in which it appeared a Kerry supporter attempted to throw a large Bush-Cheney sign into the Milwaukee River. Police and sheriff's deputies on foot and on horseback moved into the crowd several times and ordered people to move on and to break up their confrontations. No arrests were made, although one man was pinned to the ground by a sheriff's deputy at one point.

About 100 Bush supporters lined the Kilbourn Ave. sidewalk before the rally so that thousands of Kerry supporters had to slowly shuffle past them as they waited to go through security checks to get into the park. Supporters for each candidate exchanged chants of campaign slogans, mixed frequently with insults.

Many of the Bush supporters carried waffles or waved flip-flops in the air, symbols of their view of Kerry. Several held signs criticizing Kerry's views on abortion and challenging his standing as a Catholic.

Bush rally was sad day for democracy

Joan Collins

The phrase "this is what democracy looks like" changed meaning as the protest of President Bush's appearance in Springfield unfolded. Initially, the phrase described the thousands of people lined up with tickets, waiting to enter the field house, being reminded not all people in southwest Missouri thought this president deserved four more years of leadership that had launched wars resulting in thousands dead and tens of thousands wounded, a national debt increasing at $1.69 billion a day, and an atmosphere of secrecy in America.

The Secret Service told protesters where to gather; the location was excellent. Democracy was working: People were exercising their right to assemble while others exercised their right to protest.

But when police told protesters they had to move about 200 feet away, while the people supporting Bush remained in place, the atmosphere grew tense. When protesters complained to local police, they replied, "We're just following orders." Then the protesters called the media: It was time for citizens to know how democracy was working in Springfield, as protesters had been herded into a "free speech zone."

When gatekeepers announced final seating for those with tickets, protesters with tickets tried to get in, but their tickets were grabbed and torn up, and police threatened them with arrest if they argued back. One woman screamed, "You're tearing up my ticket," and hit back at the man when he started shoving her with his chest, trying to shut her up. The police arrested the woman. Two other people were "taken down": a young girl who could not back up fast enough because there were so many people behind her and a man who is charged with trespassing because he was standing on property his own tax dollars partially funded.

One begins to wonder if the first amendment means anything anymore.

Gibberish from the NYT

Terror Warning Is Said to Lead to New Arrests
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and DOUGLAS JEHL

Published: August 5, 2004

WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 - The Bush administration said Wednesday that the United States and its allies had begun a campaign to disrupt terrorist operations around the world, including the arrest of a suspected senior member of Al Qaeda in Britain.

The suspected Qaeda operative was among 12 men being questioned by the British authorities after raids prompted in part by the same intelligence information that led the administration to elevate the terror threat level in the United States over the weekend, including detailed reports about buildings housing major financial institutions in New York, New Jersey and Washington. The Qaeda member, referred to as Abu Moussa al-Hindi or Abu Eisa al-Hindi, was of intense interest to the United States, a senior American official said.

A day after senior White House officials said the decision to raise the terror alert level on Sunday had been driven in part by new intelligence beyond the information about specific buildings in the United States, the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, told reporters that "there are some ongoing operations under way'' to disrupt terrorist activity.

On Wednesday night, the New York City Police Department partly lifted restrictions on trucks and vans entering Manhattan, saying the decision was made because of confidence in the new security measures within the city.

In Washington, the senior official said there were "possibly" direct ties between the arrests in Britain and the threats to the buildings in the United States.

The official described the arrests as "part of this web that emanates from Pakistan." The official said, "What you saw in the U.K. was a result in part of information gained" from the arrest last month of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, the Pakistani computer engineer whose capture led the Central Intelligence Agency to computer files detailing the reconnaissance of financial institutions in the United States.

Front Page Above the fold. The NYT reaches new heights of incoherence with this one. Shamelessly toeing the Bushco talking points, the Times tries to tie the "Orange Alerts" in NYC and DC with arrests made in the UK by the Brits. Huh? It seems to me the Brits are quite capable of doing their own police work without rotating pretty rainbow colors over here.

Behind the Exec Branch Wars

Agency Curbs War Critic Author
By JAMES RISEN

Published: August 5, 2004

WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 - A senior official of the Central Intelligence Agency who has written a best-selling book critical of the Bush administration's handling of the war on terror has been ordered to sharply curtail his interviews with news organizations in connection with the book, his publisher said on Wednesday.

The author of "Imperial Hubris," who wrote the book anonymously, is a longtime counterterrorism official at the C.I.A. who previously ran the agency's unit that concentrated on Osama bin Laden. In his book and in subsequent interviews, the author has said he believes that the war in Iraq has been a major distraction from the effort to fight Al Qaeda and that the war has also inflamed Islamic resentment against the United States while aiding Al Qaeda's recruitment among Muslims.

Since the book was published on July 15, the anonymous author, known publicly only as Mike, has granted numerous interviews to discuss his book and his views.

Christina Davidson, the editor of "Imperial Hubris'' at Brassey's Inc., the publisher, said Mike was told in a meeting with senior C.I.A. officials at the agency's headquarters on Wednesday that effective immediately he was prohibited from taking part in more interviews without prior written approval.

Ms. Davidson said he was told that he must seek approval for each interview at least five business days in advance. He also must provide the agency with a detailed outline of what he plans to say each time.

A C.I.A. official confirmed on Wednesday that senior officials had met with the author to discuss the ground rules for further interviews. The official said the agency was now simply enforcing existing regulations covering the way serving C.I.A. officials were allowed to make public statements on current events.

The C.I.A. official said no one from the White House or any other agency had pressured the C.I.A. to curb the author's public statements.

Fascinating, isn't it? The official said the agency was now simply enforcing existing regulations covering the way serving C.I.A. officials were allowed to make public statements on current events. You'd think they had been making special allowances for him up until now. This is all backstory in the ongoing war between Langley and 1600 Penn. "Anonymous," also known as Mike Sheurer, has already hit every media outlet on the planet, I've heard or seen him on local and national outlets all over the place for the last month. Methinks this horse has already escaped the barn. If this is Rovian damage control, they aren't very good at it.

Making Shft Up

I don't know what happened this morning, it almost seems like the corruption and lies bubbles burst and I'm typing as fast as I can to capture all the stories. This Katherine Harris story is all over the wires and I'll admit to taking a certain amount of personal satisfaction in watching her get caught. Silly beeyatch.

Harris Regrets Bogus Terror Plot Claim

Thursday August 5, 2004 3:31 AM

By WILL LESTER

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican Rep. Katherine Harris said Wednesday she regrets concerns caused by her claim that a plot existed to blow up the power grid in Carmel, Ind. City officials disputed the claims of a plot.

``I was told in an open, group setting that a recent situation threatened a Midwestern community and that it had been diffused,'' Harris said Wednesday. ``I regret that I had no knowledge of the sensitive nature of this situation and any undue concern this may have caused.''

But the Florida lawmaker stands by her statement that the United States has thwarted more than 100 potential terrorist attacks.

Harris, who was at the center of the political storm over the disputed 2000 presidential election, made the comments about terrorism and the plot on Monday at a rally for President Bush in Venice, Fla., and a subsequent interview with the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

She told the audience that while in the Midwest recently, a mayor told her about a plot in Carmel and how a man of Middle Eastern heritage had been arrested and hundreds of pounds of explosives were found in his home.

``He had plans to blow up the area's entire power grid,'' she said, according to the newspaper.

City officials in Carmel said they know of no such plot.

``We're aware of the comments we read in the paper,'' said Tim Green, assistant chief of police in Carmel, a town about 10 miles north of Indianapolis. ``We're not aware of any plans to blow up Carmel's power grid.''

But Harris stood by her comments to the newspaper that the United States has thwarted potential attacks in the last three years.

Harris' words surprise officials

BY DAVID HACKETT

VENICE -- Officials in Indiana and Washington, D.C., said they are dumbfounded by a statement U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris made about a terrorist plot to blow up a power grid in Indiana.

In making the statement during a speech to 600 people Monday night in Venice, Harris either shared a closely held secret or passed along second-hand information as fact.

A staff member of the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which oversees the nation's intelligence operations, said he had heard of no such plot.

And Indiana officials in the county where the power grid is located were at a loss to explain where the information originated.

"As the sheriff of this county, I would certainly be aware of such a threat," Hamilton County Sheriff Doug Carter said. "I have no information to corroborate any of that."

In an interview Tuesday, Harris would not reveal the name of the mayor who told her about the threat or provide further details.

She said in the speech that a man of Middle Eastern heritage had been arrested in the plot and that explosives were found in his home in Carmel, a suburb north of Indianapolis.

Harris, a Republican from Longboat Key who is running for re-election, said the case was an example of the nation's success in fighting terrorism.

Carmel Mayor James Brainard and a spokesman for Indiana Gov. Joe Kernan said they had no knowledge of such a plot. Brainard said he had never spoken to Harris.

President Bush's fight against terrorism was a key part of the speech Harris gave Monday at a Republican rally in support of Bush at the Holiday Inn in Venice.

During the speech, she also said 100 terrorist threats against the United States had been thwarted since Sept. 11, 2001.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Whistleblower explodes 9-11 Commission Report
By Ritt Goldstein

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation's own September 11 whistleblower has done it again, this time taking aim at the 9-11 Commission itself.

Sibel Edmonds, an FBI translator who has in effect been silenced by the bureau and the US Justice Department, said in an open letter to commission chairman Thomas Kean that the FBI had suffered from a litany of errors and cover-ups of those errors, which had been reported to the 9-11 Commission by Edmonds and others, yet the commission report "contains zero information regarding these systemic problems that led us to our failure in preventing the [September 11, 2001] terrorist attacks".

"In your report, there are no references to individuals responsible for hindering past and current investigations, or those who are willing to compromise our security and our lives for their career advancement and security," wrote Edmonds, a 33-year-old Turkish-American whose services as a translator were terminated by the FBI after she claimed vast wrongdoing within the bureau's translation unit.

Edmonds' open letter, while skirting around certain issues that she is prohibited by gag orders from revealing, is chilling in its revelations that, contrary to public claims by the administration of President George W Bush, the FBI was in possession months before September 2001 of intelligence that Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization was planning a major attack on the United States, using airplanes as a weapon.

These revelations are not new, though the open letter is remarkable in its specificity and naming of names. Previously, while being careful not to violate the legal silencing measures imposed on her by the FBI, the courts and the Justice Department, she has leveled damning criticisms in the media of her former employers and what she has termed the Bush administration's "anti-transparency, anti-accountability and their corrupt attitudes".

"But that aside," she told radio interviewer Jim Hogue in April, "we are not made of only one branch of government. We are supposed to have a system of checks and balances. And I am saying, how about the other two branches? And putting the pressure on our representatives in the Senate and the Congress, and the court system? They should be counteracting this corruption, but they are sitting there silent. And they are just an audience, just watching it happen."

Here is her letter to Kean and Hamilton. If only half of what she alleges is true, the level of corruption in our intel system means that the whole program is beyond help and needs to be completely torn down and rebuilt. Of all of the alarming things I've read after 9/11, this probably takes the cake.

Blind Justice

Investigators Concluded Shelby Leaked Message
Justice Dept. Declined To Prosecute Case

By Allan Lengel and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 5, 2004; Page A17

Federal investigators concluded that Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) divulged classified intercepted messages to the media when he was on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, according to sources familiar with the probe.

Specifically, Fox News chief political correspondent Carl Cameron confirmed to FBI investigators that Shelby verbally divulged the information to him during a June 19, 2002, interview, minutes after Shelby's committee had been given the information in a classified briefing, according to the sources, who declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the case.

Cameron did not air the material. Moments after Shelby spoke with Cameron, he met with CNN reporter Dana Bash, and about half an hour after that, CNN broadcast the material, the sources said. CNN cited "two congressional sources" in its report.

The FBI and the U.S. attorney's office pursued the case, and a grand jury was empaneled, but nobody has been charged with any crime. Last month it was revealed that the Justice Department had decided to forgo a criminal prosecution, at least for now, and turned the matter over to the Senate Ethics Committee.

The Justice Department declined to comment on why it was no longer pursuing the matter criminally. The Senate ethics panel also declined to comment on its investigation.

Yesterday, Shelby's press secretary, Virginia Davis, issued this statement: "Senator Shelby served as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee for eight years and as Chairman for five and a half years. He has a full understanding of the importance of protecting our nation's secrets, and he has never knowingly compromised classified information. He is unaware of any evidence to the contrary.

"This matter has been under investigation for two years. The Justice Department has not taken any action other than, only recently, to refer the matter to the Senate Ethics Committee. Other than the letter from the Ethics Committee describing the subject of the reference in general terms, Senator Shelby has not been informed of any specific allegations. He looks forward to the opportunity to respond to the Committee's concerns at the appropriate time."

The disclosure involved two messages that were intercepted by the National Security Agency on the eve of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but were not translated until Sept. 12. The Arabic-language messages said "The match is about to begin" and "Tomorrow is zero hour." The Washington Post, citing senior U.S. intelligence officials, reported the same messages in its June 20, 2002, editions.

National security officials were outraged by the leak, and moments after the CNN broadcast a CIA official chastised committee members who had by then reconvened to continue the closed-door hearing.

Intelligence officials, who consider intercepted communications among the most closely guarded secrets, said the breach proved that Congress could not be trusted with classified information. But experts in electronic surveillance said the information about the NSA's intercepts contained nothing harmful because it did not reveal the source of the information or the methods used to gather it.

Vice President Cheney upbraided the Senate and House committee chairmen in separate phone calls the next day, and White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said President Bush had deep concerns about "anything that could harm our ability to maintain sources and methods, and anything that could interfere with America's ability to fight the war on terrorism."

The panels' chairmen, Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), responded immediately by requesting a Justice Department investigation into the disclosure, an unusual move that brought criticism from other members of Congress.

The FBI asked 17 senators to turn over phone records, appointment calendars and schedules. The FBI probe included an interview with a staff member on the intelligence committee who said that Shelby was trying to leak the information to show the shortcomings of the intelligence community, the sources said. Shelby had called repeatedly for the resignation of then-CIA Director George J. Tenet, whom he said was not up to the job.

Cameron confirmed this week that FBI agents interviewed him on several occasions and asked whether Shelby leaked the information to him. He said they also asked if he saw the senator walk off with CNN's Bash after talking to him.

"Yes, the FBI and the Justice Department came to me to ask me all that information," he said. "I will confirm to you that I was asked all those questions."

But he said he told investigators, "What doesn't go on the air I don't discuss, and we don't disclose our sources."

He said, "When they continued to press me, that's when I got it kicked up to the lawyers."

Cameron, in an interview yesterday, said FBI agents told him they had asked the Justice Department to subpoena him before the grand jury. There was "a lot of talk about getting" a grand jury subpoena, he said, but one was never issued.

And Sandy Berger stuffed secret documents into his socks. If you need any further documentation that the judiciary has become hopelessly politicized, this is it. Shelby ought to be vacationing in a Federal prison. Think you'll hear about this on CNN? Think again.

The Con Job

Copper Washington

Ross MacDonald fans will get the reference.
Note, this is satire. I feel I need to tell you that.

"Mr. Marlowe, I'm not hiring you for your jejune political rants," she said. "I want to know what's happened to Donald Rumsfeld. He's vanished. I'm concerned."

Turned out the dame was named Midge Decter, a neocon who'd written a love letter of a book on Rumsfeld last year. And the dame had a point. Rummy had all but vanished in the past six weeks or so. All those Pentagon news conferences and Sunday morning shows were suddenly Rummy-less. Somebody was clamming him up, or jamming him -- or worse.

Could be Abu Ghraib business. After a couple of days digging around, I discovered in the current issue of Newsweek a story that speculates that Rummy's own special committee to investigate how nice American boys and girls turned into a Junior Gestapo might actually finger Rummy himself.

But that couldn't be the whole story. Rummy's been under wraps for a while now. In fact, he disappeared around the time U.S. forces in Iraq disappeared.

I mean, what have we heard out of our guys since we transferred power, as we say, to the Iraqis at the end of June? The whole occupation is under wraps. In June, when we were running the joint, 42 American soldiers were killed. In July, when we'd reduced ourselves to a historical footnote, 54 American soldiers died, but who knew it? None of our guys is around to talk about the occupation anymore. L. Paul Bremer is gone. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez is gone. Rummy is -- well, that's what I was trying to find out.

We've gone from Mission Accomplished to Mission Invisible. The fact that we still have men and women in harm's way doesn't play very well if the boss is going to get reelected. The fact that we never had a plan for Iraq after Saddam Hussein -- or, worse, that we had plans from the generals and from State and from the CIA, and that Rummy trashed them all and figured we could run the place with nothing more than Ahmed Chalabi and the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo -- is not something the Bush boys want voters thinking about as the election draws near.

But Bush doesn't whack you if you're loyal. That would be admitting a mistake, and Bush is such a strong leader he can't do that. Yet somebody has Rummy walled up somewhere, and so I paid that somebody a call.

"So the neos are looking for him," Karl Rove chuckled. "Let 'em look. Don't they understand that their role at election time is to hide? Lay low? Scram? That we breed these compassionate-conservative cicadas that come out every four years at Republican conventions, that we've got gay marriage for the sticks, that the last thing we need to do is parade around the architects of the Iraq war?"

He rose, walked behind his desk and threw open a closet door. There they all were, Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, the whole gang, poring over maps, planning the invasions of Old Europe, California and the Democratic 527s. "Mum's the word," said Rove.

It was all pretty neat. Screw up a war and our foreign relations, go into hiding, and come right back after Election Day. A neocon job if ever there was one.

Heh.

I've always wanted to write that.

The Saudi Connection

Remember this?

Prince Bandar enjoys easy access to the Oval Office. His family and the Bush family are close. And Woodward told 60 Minutes that Bandar has promised the president that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election - to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day.

Woodward says that Bandar understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election: “They’re [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly.”

This morning some analysts were predicting crude oil futures could hit $50/bl within two weeks and oil went to record prices during overnight trading. Bloomberg.com is now moving this story:

Saudi Arabia Opens Fields Before Plan, Lifts Capacity (Update2)

Aug. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, has started pumping at two new fields three months ahead of schedule and may delay the shutdown of older wells to ease concern of a lack of capacity to supply oil.

The development of the offshore Abu Safah oil fields and the mostly onshore Qatif fields may boost the nation's output capacity by 800,000 barrels a day, or 8 percent, when full commissioning is completed in as long as three months, said spokesmen for state- owned Saudi Aramco in Dhahran.

Crude oil prices slid after reaching a record $44.34 a barrel in New York, as the Saudi statement helped ease concern about OPEC's ability to meet surging demand. Saudi Oil Minister Ali al- Naimi on June 30 said his nation will take steps to prevent rising prices from damaging the world economy.

UPDATE: U.S. Stocks Rise as Oil Declines; Valero Energy, Sunoco Drop

Aug. 4 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks rose as oil prices retreated from a record, easing concern that consumer and corporate spending growth would slow and crimp profits.

``We're relatively optimistic,'' about stocks, said Edward Maran, who helps manage $5 billion in equities at Thornburg Investment Management in Santa Fe, New Mexico. ``Declining oil prices should help the overall market.''
....
Crude for September delivery lost 2.2 percent to $43.17 a barrel. Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, started production at two new fields and may delay the shutdown of older wells to help meet increased oil demand. Separately, OAO Yukos Oil Co., Russia's largest oil exporter, said it was given access to accounts needed for oil production and exports.

Nymex Gasoline Records Biggest One-Day Decline Since September

Aug. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Gasoline futures plunged after U.S. reserves of the fuel unexpectedly increased, reaching a 17-month high and signaling ample supplies for the remainder of summer.

The nation's gasoline inventories rose 2.4 million barrels last week to 210.1 million barrels, the highest since February 2003, the U.S. Energy Department said. Analysts expected a decline of 500,000 barrels, based on the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey.

``Inventories are just fine,'' said Kyle Cooper, an analyst with Citigroup Inc. in Houston. ``It looks increasingly likely that there will be no supply disruptions'' during the summer driving season.

Gasoline for September delivery was down 8.16 cents, or 6.3 percent, to $1.216 a gallon at the 2:30 p.m. end of floor trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The decline was the biggest one-day drop since Sept. 2 and brought prices to the lowest close since June 30.

War Windfall

Somebody is making a metaphorical killing amid all the actual killing.

$1.9 Billion of Iraq's Money Goes to U.S. Contractors

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 4, 2004; Page A01

Halliburton Co. and other U.S. contractors are being paid at least $1.9 billion from Iraqi funds under an arrangement set by the U.S.-led occupation authority, according to a review of documents and interviews with government agencies, companies and auditors.

Most of the money is for two controversial deals that originally had been financed with money approved by the U.S. Congress, but later shifted to Iraqi funds that were governed by fewer restrictions and less rigorous oversight.

For the first 14 months of the occupation, officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority provided little detailed information about the Iraqi money, from oil sales and other sources, that it spent on reconstruction contracts. They have said that it was used for the benefit of the Iraqi people and that most of the contracts paid from Iraqi money went to Iraqi companies. But the CPA never released information about specific contracts and the identities of companies that won them, citing security concerns, so it has been impossible to know whether these promises were kept.

The CPA has said it has awarded about 2,000 contracts with Iraqi money. Its inspector general compiled records for the major contracts, which it defined as those worth $5 million or more each. Analysis of those and other records shows that 19 of 37 major contracts funded by Iraqi money went to U.S. companies and at least 85 percent of the total $2.26 billion was obligated to U.S. companies. The contracts that went to U.S. firms may be worth several hundred million more once the work is completed.

That analysis and several audit reports released in recent weeks shed new light on how the occupation authority handled the Iraqi money it controlled. They show that the CPA at times violated its own rules, authorizing Iraqi money when it didn't have a quorum or proper Iraqi representation at meetings, and kept such sloppy records that the paperwork for several major contracts could not be found. During the first half of the occupation, the CPA depended heavily on no-bid contracts that were questioned by auditors. And the occupation's shifting of projects that were publicly announced to be financed by U.S. money to Iraqi money prompted the Iraqi finance minister to complain that the "ad hoc" process put the CPA in danger of losing the trust of the people.
....
Fareed Yaseen, one of 43 ambassadors recently appointed by Iraq's government, said he was troubled that the Iraqi money was managed almost exclusively by foreigners and that contracts went predominantly to foreign companies.

"There was practically no Iraqi voice in the disbursements of these funds," Yaseen said in a phone interview from Baghdad, where he is awaiting his diplomatic assignment.

Even Iraqi officials who served in the government while the CPA was in charge complained they had little say in the use of their own country's money. Mohammed Aboush, who was a director general in the oil ministry during the occupation, said he and other Iraqi officials were not consulted about expanding the KBR contract. But he said he informed his American "advisers" at the CPA that the Iraqis felt KBR's performance had been inadequate and that he'd prefer that another company take over its work.

One of the Biggest Heists in History

By David H. Hackworth

I’m not suggesting that he's living high on the hog on some Cayman-type island in the Caribbean, but I am saying that he was the guy in charge in Iraq – and when it came to handling the funds in his trust, the IG report clearly states that he “did not exercise adequate fiduciary responsibility over DFI funds provided to Iraqi Ministries.”

Light of the Moon

Moon’s groups lure lawmakers to symposiums and conferences
By Jonathan E. Kaplan and Hans Nichols

The Rev. Sun Myung Moon is undertaking an ambitious and diffuse campaign to influence members of Congress, their top foreign-policy staffs and United Nations ambassadors with an ongoing series of seminars and junkets in New York and Jerusalem and on Capitol Hill.

That symposium occurred one month after Moon — the controversial spiritual leader of the Unification Church and owner of a media empire that owns The Washington Times and UPI — was crowned as the Messiah in a Senate office building.

Further down the piece, Kaplan and Nichols report that Davis has publically dropped all affiliation with Moon-related groups. I should think this wouldn't play well back in the district. In point of fact this is another one of those stories that would benefit from some aggressive reporting, both in the DC media as well as in the home districts and states. I would guess that the constituents might like to know if their rep or senator were feeding at one of Moon's troughs.

Plan B

Spencer Ackerman writes TNR's Iraq'd. In a column earlier this week, he articulated exactly the same critique I have of John Kerry's "exit strategy" for Iraq:

USE YOUR ILLUSION: As Secret-Plans-To-End-The-War go, John Kerry would be well advised to come up with a Secret Plan B. Kerry announced on the chat shows yesterday that he doesn't intend to send more American troops to Iraq and that he would consider his Iraq policy unsuccessful if he didn't bring "significant numbers of troops back within the first term." Vowing to bring an unspecified number of soldiers home by 2008 isn't exactly cutting and running, but it does demonstrate that Kerry has concluded the war can't be won--leaving aside the question of what (stability? democracy?) actually constitutes victory--and the burning question confronting policymakers is how to stop the bleeding.

But as that anonymous diplomat quoted above suggests, the Europeans just might be serious about not wishing to be drawn into what they consider a bloody and misguided enterprise with no end in sight--not because they're lily-livered enemies of freedom (as Bush believes) or because they're frothing Bush-haters just waiting for America to come to its senses (as Kerry believes), but because they simply see the costs of intervention exceeding the potential benefits to their interests. And if the Europeans mean what they seem to be saying, Kerry and his advisers might want to go back into that smoke-filled room and draw up another plan for Iraq--and not a secret one this time.

I can see only one scenario that would change this situation, and I'll admit that it is probably only in the realm of fantasy: if our troops, in combination with the Iraqi "security forces," are somehow able to get the security situation more-or-less under control by January and something more-or-less like credible elections are actually held, and the Europeans (think Schlumberger and Holtzmann) are given fat reconstruction contracts (read: bribes) with little risk of losing troops or civilian contractors, there is a chance we could get a NATO brigade. Just a brigade.

Help Wanted

You can't make this stuff up.

Capitol Hell: Take a Swim in the Motor Pool

By Al Kamen

Wednesday, August 4, 2004; Page A17

As everyone knows, it's vitally important to create jobs in Iraq tout de suite, as some might say, given its unemployment rate is about 50 percent.

And no one is more aware of this than the U.S. Agency for International Development. So USAID is committed to putting Iraqis to work quickly. On its Web site, it says it is "dedicated to assisting the Iraqi people in rebuilding and developing the new, modern Iraq."

The agency says it's "looking for bright and motivated Iraqis to join our team. If you are looking for an opportunity to use your skills in a learning environment that promotes free thinking, presents challenges, and makes a real impact -- USAID is the place for you.

"This Web page will help you to discover possibilities for employment with USAID in Baghdad, and throughout the country. . . ."

So what jobs are available? Pretty good ones, it seems. There's a photo on the page of Iraqi civil engineers with hard hats surveying site preparation for a water-treatment plant. Looks like good jobs at good wages.

So what's actually posted on the site? There's only one type listed under "Vacancies." That would be: "Chauffeur," or, as some might say, driver.

Yes, you can be one of "five qualified individuals" working in the "USAID Motor Pool Baghdad." The job is to drive agency vehicles and "deliver passengers and materials" as well as "documents and invitations." (Invitations?) Also you have to wash the car and maintain daily logs.

Three years' experience required, preferably including one "with the U.S. government," so former CPA drivers get a leg up. Ability to turn on a dime and perform evasive maneuvers is essential. Hurry. Deadline to apply is Aug. 12.

What was that old Beatles song? "Baby, you can drive my car."

The Professor Enters the Room

Sometimes, the wisest thing is just to let the experts do what they do best. This is from yesterday's Informed Comment, the weblog of Professor Juan Cole, who teaches history and Middle East studies at the University of Michigan:

Do People Want to Hurt us Because We're on the Offensive?

All this is not to factor in the vast fall in prestige and esteem for the US among European publics, our most steadfast allies for half a century. That you do not understand that being unnecessarily and arrogantly "on the offensive" is offensive to the rest of the world and actually hurts US security is extremely worrying.

Yes, W is creating terrorists, alienating us from historic allies, and just tearing up the planet for his own ego gratification. I'll get into W and Catholicism later today. I've got a mad on about this.

Wearing Out the Welcome

Old Data, New Credibility Issues

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 4, 2004; Page A01

The White House's failure to make it clear that the dramatic terrorism alert Sunday was based largely on information that predated the Sept. 11 attacks is a case study in the difficulty of managing such warnings for an administration whose credibility is a central issue in a difficult presidential campaign.

At one level, experts yesterday credited the Department of Homeland Security for narrowly targeting the warning to selected buildings in three cities, rather than raising the threat level across the nation. But they said the effort was seriously undercut by the revelation that much of the surveillance of those buildings took place three to four years ago.

"Their efforts to focus attention on specific areas and targets is good," said William H. Webster, a former FBI and CIA director who is vice chairman of the Homeland Security Department's Advisory Council. "But they obviously have a ways to go," he said, adding that "it opens the door for people to be suspicious and cynical."

Pardon me for being suspicious and cynical, but exactly what the hell is going on here?

Webster said the administration is trying to avoid appearing as if it is "crying wolf," and he felt the news conference by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge was "studied and not designed to raise panic levels." He also noted that terrorist acts often take years of planning, so a "three-year spread doesn't mean the intentions have changed; it just means nothing has happened."

Still, Webster said, it is unclear when -- or whether -- the threat level for these buildings could be lowered, given that the surveillance that prompted the alert was old. In an odd coincidence, another high-profile New York landmark -- the Statue of Liberty -- reopened yesterday for the first time since the 2001 attacks, despite the increased vigilance in the nearby financial center.

Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry -- who received a briefing on the intelligence behind the warning from Ridge -- has not faulted the administration for its handling of the situation, and his campaign declined yesterday to make an official available to comment. Other Democrats have not been shy, however, with former Vermont governor and presidential candidate Howard Dean strongly suggesting political motives behind the announcement. "I am concerned that every time something happens that's not good for President Bush, he plays this trump card, which is terrorism," Dean said Sunday.

Moreover, the administration's credibility on intelligence matters has been undermined by the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- a fact that Kerry has repeatedly noted on the stump. In his nomination acceptance speech last week, Kerry declared: "Saying there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq doesn't make it so. . . . As president, I will ask hard questions and demand hard evidence."

When any of you people start making sense, then I will begin to take you seriously as political leaders. As of right now, you are performing the equivalent of wandering around singing "la-la-la" with your hands over your ears.

Bloody Shirt

In Age of Terror, How Long Should Security Stay Tight?
By MICHAEL WILSON

Published: August 4, 2004

In New Jersey, which has suddenly found itself on a list of potential terrorism targets, police chiefs bemoaned the costs of its heightened security procedures.

In Washington, the municipal police bristled at what they called the walling-in of the nation's Capitol, and the traffic jams it caused.

And in New York City, there were questions as to whether new security measures should be kept in place even for the rest of the month - including during the Republic National Convention.

Just two days after the new terror alerts, questions - and even resentment - arose from inside the cross hairs, and police officials coordinating stepped-up security measures were looking ahead to when it would be possible to step back down.

Sunday's announcement that Al Qaeda operatives had staked out several financial centers in New York, New Jersey and Washington was somewhat tempered on Monday with the disclosure that the operatives' legwork had been conducted three or four years ago. The material is believed to have been updated as recently as last January.

Yesterday, officials were grappling with the delicate question of when a threat - especially one as detailed as the one described Sunday - expires. Law enforcement officials in all three areas said they were negotiating the balance between protecting the public in the face of intelligence, some of it four years old, and allowing life to go on as usual.

Some said that a threat, no matter its age, had to be acted upon, others said they detected an overreaction, and still others said that in this era of terror threats, there really is no concrete playbook for those responsible for protecting against an attack.

"We're still looking at it every day," said Paul J. Browne, a New York City Police spokesman. "There is still material being analyzed from what was captured."

Senior White House officials said yesterday that while some intelligence concerning the New York Stock Exchange and the Citigroup buildings was dated, the city was included in a "second stream" of intelligence concerning a possible attack. The information reached the White House on Friday, the same day it learned of the other, more dated intelligence. The Police Department declined to comment directly on the second stream.

This is what happens when you put general news reporters and editors on a national security story: they ask the wrong questions. Better answers would have been found by asking better questions like: have counter-surrveillance measures been put into place? If not, why not? What is the role of the general public, other than "carry on?"

This alert is bogus unless the government is doing something different, and I see no signs that it is.

Dayton Protests the Whitewash

Sen. Mark Dayton broke with tradition by using his time at the Senate Government Affairs Committee hearing last Friday to read a statement at 9-11 Commission Chair Kean and Hamilton, in order that it be read into the record. He is basically accusing them of a whitewash. It is longish, and I'm only going to reproduce part of it here, where the Commission "misrepresents" the time line of that horrible morning and no one is held accountable for the many, many failures of the government to respond.

Friday, July 29, 2004
Senate Government Affairs Committee Hearing on the 9/11 Commission Report -- Senator Dayton (D-MN) Statement

Yes, it was a surprise attack. It was unprecedented. Yes, it exposed serious flaws and as you noted our imagination, our policies, capabilities and our management designs but what I find much more shocking and alarming were the repeated and catastrophic failures of the leaders of the leaders in charge, and the other people responsible, to do their jobs. To follow established procedures. To follow direct orders from civilian and military commanders. And then they failed to tell us the truth later.

It doesn’t matter whether they were Republicans, Democrats or neither, it matters what they did or did not do. According to your findings, FAA authorities failed to the inform military command, NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, about three of the four hijackings until after the planes had crashed into their targets at the second World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the ground in Pennsylv…in Pennsylvania which was not their target.

The direct FAA notification of the military regarding the first plane twenty-three minutes after it was hijacked and only nine minutes before it struck the first World Trade Tower.

NORAD then scrambled one of only two sets of fighter planes on alert in the entire eastern third of the country, one in Massachusetts and one in Virginia but it didn’t know where to send them; because the hijackers has turned off the plane’s transponder so NORAD couldn’t locate them on their radar and they still looking for it when it exploded into its target at 8:46AM.

The second hijacking began, according to your report, one minute later. NORAD wasn’t notified until the same minute the same plane struck the second World Trade tower. It was five more minutes before NORAD’s mission commander learned about that explosion; which was five minutes after thousands [probably millions] of Americans saw it on live television. By this time the third plane’s transponder was off; communication had been severed, yet it was fifteen minutes before the flight controller decided to notify the regional FAA center which in turn did not inform FAA headquarters for another fifteen minutes.

So at that point 9:25 AM FAA’s National Command Center knew that there were two hijacked planes that had crashed into the two World Trade Centers and a third plane had stopped communicating and disappeared from its primary radar yet no one in FAA headquarters asked for military assistance with that plane either. NORAD was unaware that the plane had even been hijacked until after it crashed into the Pentagon at 9:34.

This is just unbelievable negligence. It doesn't matter if we spend $550 billion annually on our national defense, if we reorganize our intelligence or if we restructure congressional oversight if people don't pick up the phone to call one another. If we’re not told if somebody needs a new radar system and doesn’t stall it when it’s provided. And this was not an occasional human or failure. This is nothing but human error and failure to follow established procedures and to use common sense.

The Tentacles of Abu Ghraib

This is disturbing and I've not heard of it in any other press. Terrific catch by TalkLeft.

Doctors and Torture
Robert Jay Lifton, M.D.

There is increasing evidence that U.S. doctors, nurses, and medics have been complicit in torture and other illegal procedures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. Such medical complicity suggests still another disturbing dimension of this broadening scandal.

We know that medical personnel have failed to report to higher authorities wounds that were clearly caused by torture and that they have neglected to take steps to interrupt this torture. In addition, they have turned over prisoners' medical records to interrogators who could use them to exploit the prisoners' weaknesses or vulnerabilities. We have not yet learned the extent of medical involvement in delaying and possibly falsifying the death certificates of prisoners who have been killed by torturers.

A May 22 article on Abu Ghraib in the New York Times states that "much of the evidence of abuse at the prison came from medical documents" and that records and statements "showed doctors and medics reporting to the area of the prison where the abuse occurred several times to stitch wounds, tend to collapsed prisoners or see patients with bruised or reddened genitals."1 According to the article, two doctors who gave a painkiller to a prisoner for a dislocated shoulder and sent him to an outside hospital recognized that the injury was caused by his arms being handcuffed and held over his head for "a long period," but they did not report any suspicions of abuse. A staff sergeant–medic who had seen the prisoner in that position later told investigators that he had instructed a military policeman to free the man but that he did not do so. A nurse, when called to attend to a prisoner who was having a panic attack, saw naked Iraqis in a human pyramid with sandbags over their heads but did not report it until an investigation was held several months later.

A June 10 article in the Washington Post tells of a long-standing policy at the Guantanamo Bay facility whereby military interrogators were given access to the medical records of individual prisoners.2 The policy was maintained despite complaints by the Red Cross that such records "are being used by interrogators to gain information in developing an interrogation plan." A civilian psychiatrist who was part of a medical review team was "disturbed" about not having been told about the practice and said that it would give interrogators "tremendous power" over prisoners.

Other reports, though sketchier, suggest that the death certificates of prisoners who might have been killed by various forms of mistreatment have not only been delayed but may have camouflaged the fatal abuse by attributing deaths to conditions such as cardiovascular disease.
....
American doctors at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere have undoubtedly been aware of their medical responsibility to document injuries and raise questions about their possible source in abuse. But those doctors and other medical personnel were part of a command structure that permitted, encouraged, and sometimes orchestrated torture to a degree that it became the norm — with which they were expected to comply — in the immediate prison environment.

The doctors thus brought a medical component to what I call an "atrocity-producing situation" — one so structured, psychologically and militarily, that ordinary people can readily engage in atrocities. Even without directly participating in the abuse, doctors may have become socialized to an environment of torture and by virtue of their medical authority helped sustain it. In studying various forms of medical abuse, I have found that the participation of doctors can confer an aura of legitimacy and can even create an illusion of therapy and healing.

I find this shocking, but it is proof that nearly any human being can be warped by their environment. The article has an extended discussion about the kind of climate that can create conditions like this. It is extremely disturbing reading.

Over Lightly

This is silly, but I need a little silly right now.

Now Boarding: The Bush Twins

Amid the mess over the weekend for travelers flying from Boston to Washington (lost luggage, delayed flights, etc.), those aboard Saturday's 7 p.m. US Airways shuttle from Logan International Airport -- which had been held up for 20 minutes because of luggage problems -- were surprised when the pilot announced that the plane would make a quick hop to Albany on its way to Reagan National.

"We land in Albany, and the doors open and in come Jenna and Barbara [ Bush] and several Secret Service agents," our spy, who declined to be named "for fear of going to Gitmo," told us. "I kept thinking, I haven't heard of anybody diverting planes for all these other people being inconvenienced. This doesn't fit in the norm of airline travel."

But before blame goes to the first daughters, it turns out that it's not unusual for US Airways to make such diversions. "Yes, there are times when we will divert an airplane to pick up passengers off of another canceled flight. We do that when we have no other way to accommodate those customers," said airline spokesman David Castelveter. In addition to the Bush twins, 22 other beleaguered passengers also boarded in Albany.

The shuttle landed in Washington around 10:30 p.m. -- two hours past its scheduled arrival but, as witnesses tell us, time enough for Jenna to be spotted that night carousing at the Georgetown prepster hangout Smith Point.

Forgotten

The Stakes in Afghanistan

By Fareed Zakaria
Tuesday, August 3, 2004; Page A17

After the United States won its spectacular victory against the Taliban in December 2001, it assured the world that it was committed to intensive efforts to rebuild Afghanistan. But policy on the ground was largely controlled by the Defense Department, whose civilian leaders rejected nation-building. They saw the mission in Afghanistan as narrowly military -- fighting the Taliban -- and perhaps wanted to move troops out of Afghanistan to prepare for an invasion of Iraq. During 2002 the United States did not extend the reach of the international security force outside Kabul, was wary of asking NATO to get involved, provided little funding for reconstruction and, most crucially, refused to help in the demobilization of the Afghan militias.

These decisions had two effects: the first was to embolden Afghanistan's warlords and tighten their grip on power. In the aftermath of the war, their powers could have been defined so as to allow a central government to develop basic elements of national life, such as the rule of law, a national economy and a set of political institutions. Instead, the United States had a laissez-faire policy. The warlords were the only ones other than the United States with military power on the ground. They noticed the development of a political vacuum, expanded their powers and broadened their reach.

The second, related effect of America's tunnel vision was that the drug trade began booming. Afghanistan now supplies 75 percent of the world's opium. The warlords saw a ready source of revenue, outside the reach of Kabul, and encouraged the trade. Drugs are now the dominant feature of Afghanistan's economy, half as big as the legal economy. Worse, the trade is now moving from opium to heroin, which means that it's connected with international cartels, crime and big money. The amounts of cash involved dwarf government revenue, and corruption has infected every aspect of Afghan political life.

The Defense Department's aversion to any political role in Afghanistan was criticized -- by President Hamid Karzai and his allies (quietly), the State Department, U.S. senators such as Joseph Biden and John Edwards, U.N. officials and nongovernmental organizations. Then the military on the ground began making the case that it could not achieve its goals without political stability and economic development. Even then, when Karzai presented Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with a plan to take on certain key warlords in May 2003, Rumsfeld declined to offer U.S. support. (Yes, all this eerily echoes what later happened in Iraq.)

About a year ago, policy began shifting, partly pushed by the new U.S. ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, a former Pentagon official who is trusted by Rumsfeld. The United States asked NATO to get involved, began gingerly accepting the idea of expanding the reach of the international force, promised increased resources and, crucially, began supporting demobilization.

Disbanding the warlords' forces is the key challenge facing Afghanistan. The political scientist Max Weber once defined a state as that entity that has a monopoly of the legitimate use of force in the country. In Afghanistan, the state has no such monopoly. Winding down militias is the only path to that goal. The Pentagon had made it so clear that the United States would have nothing to do with this that Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations' special envoy, used to jokingly call it "the American fatwa" on demobilization. By the end of 2003 the fatwa was revoked. Now, finally the United States is assisting in the process, urging warlords to disband their militias and incorporate into the new Afghan army.

There are other positive trends in the country. Afghans have approached the national elections with huge enthusiasm, exceeding all predictions of voter registration. Polls show that they are highly supportive of Karzai, the United States and the international efforts at reconstruction. The problem in Afghanistan has not been with the Afghans but with the U.S. government.

U.S. policy toward Afghanistan is now on the right track. America and its allies are extending security outside Kabul, helping to build up the Afghan army and police, weakening the warlords, strengthening the central government, funding reconstruction projects, offering farmers alternatives to opium. But it may be too late. Instability is rampant, the drug trade is flourishing and the warlords are entrenched. As in Iraq, the administration seems to have learned from its mistakes, but the education of George Bush has been mighty costly.

Kerry needs to address this, too, but I don't have the foggiest notion what Bush's plan for Afghanistan. I guess it is probably like Iraq: there is no plan.

From today's Post:

• KABUL, Afghanistan -- U.S. and allied troops backed by warplanes and helicopters fought dozens of militants in the biggest border clash along the mountainous Pakistani border in months. At least two militants and two Afghan soldiers were killed.

Separately, an Afghan soldier was reported killed when gunmen ambushed his vehicle in southern Afghanistan on Sunday as he returned from guarding officials who were registering voters.

We've lost more American and NATO troops in Afghanistan so far this year than in all of 2003.

Across the Ponds

Andy Buncombe writing in today's Independent gives the international perspective (laced with some warranted skepticism):

Reports yesterday said that al-Qa'ida operatives had carried out surveillance of those institutions and The New York Times reported investigators in New Jersey said suspects had been found with blueprints of the Newark building and a "test-run" to launch a car-bomb or similar attack had been carried out in recent days.

In New York and New Jersey, police placed the target buildings under heavy security, closing some streets and banning trucks from bridges and tunnels leading to Wall Street. Michael Bloomberg, the New York mayor, and the Governor, George Pataki, rang the opening bell at the stock exchange in an effort to show confidence in the city's precautions. Despite such bravado, oil prices rose to near-record highs in trading as jittery markets reacted to the alert.

Given that America is in the middle of a closely fought election campaign, there was, perhaps, little surprise that some would accuse the Bush administration of playing politics. With an eye to possible criticism from Republicans, the Democratic candidate, John Kerry, felt the need to distance himself yesterday from Mr Dean's comments.

At the same time, there have been numerous terror alerts since the 11 September attacks that appear to have been based on little more than chatter. Some - such as the arrest of Jose Padilla, the alleged "dirty-bomber" - have been announced in a way designed to have maximum political impact. Other warnings have been based on information later shown to be incorrect.

In regard to the latest alert, Mr Ridge admitted the intelligence did not give crucial details about when, where or how terrorists might strike. Officials said, however, the information showed al-Qa'ida operatives had been scouting the targets, seeing how to make contact with employees, as well as traffic patterns and locations of hospitals and police posts.

The Sydney Morning Herald adds some detail I haven't seen elsewhere:

Federal counter-terrorism officials have told the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund that plans for a possible attack on the two financial institutions were so detailed that terrorists must have had inside help - from employees, contractors or visitors with access to the buildings.

While some federal officials have expressed doubt about how recent the information is that spurred the Government to elevate the threat alert status on Sunday, others have warned officials at the World Bank and IMF that they are preparing to formally request lists of their mostly foreign employees and contractors.

Special requests are required because the records of these institutions in most cases have diplomatic immunity.

The World Bank and the IMF, both linked with the United Nations, are reluctant to hand over employee lists.

"If the Iranian Government asked for a list of our employees in Tehran we wouldn't comply. How could we turn around and give names to the United States Government?" one World Bank spokesman said.

Still the Economy

Consumer Spending Plunges to 3-Year Low
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: August 3, 2004

Filed at 8:40 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hit with high energy prices, consumers in June slashed their spending by the largest amount in three years.

The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that consumer spending dropped by a sharp 0.7 percent in June from the previous month. The retrenchment came after consumers splurged in May, ratcheting up spending by a strong 1 percent.

Americans' incomes rose by 0.2 percent in June, down from a solid 0.6 percent increase the month before.

The figures are not adjusted for price changes.

The latest snapshot of consumer spending was weaker than economists were expecting. They were forecasting a tiny 0.1 percent dip in spending and a 0.3 percent rise in incomes for June.

The economy is growing stronger. Factories are busier, families are earning more, homeownership continues to rise, and people are finding work.

Labour Success

via pogge:

Union green-lighted at Quebec Wal-Mart

ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAGUENAY, Que. — A Wal-Mart store in this city may become the first such outlet to be unionized after the Quebec Labour Relations Board accredited a union there to represent workers at the retail giant.

The Quebec Federation of Labour announced the accreditation today. The store has about 180 employees in this city 200 kilometres north of Quebec City.

"The union represents the large majority of the store's employees," said Marie-Josee Lemieux, president of the union local with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).

"We hope that Wal-Mart will accept this decision and negotiate a labour contract with the union."

A meeting will be held by the labour board Aug. 20 to rule on the job descriptions of those who can be covered by negotiations.

The request for accreditation was filed July 6. The employer had contested the type of employees involved in negotiations.

The local will include all salaried workers except the store manager, assistant managers, department managers, office workers, auto shop employees, the night manager, customer service manager, human resources manager, security officers and those automatically excluded by law.

Canada's Labor and Employment Laws
By Douglas G. Gilbert & Brian W. Burkett

[Note: Management-side publication]

If a union attempts to organize a company's employees in Canada, there is a greater chance that the union will be successful. Union certification is facilitated in Canada by labour laws that allow organizing to be conducted by card-signing or quick votes. In some provinces, such as Quebec and British Columbia, a union may be certified on the basis of membership cards filed with the labour board--no vote is held. In these provinces, unions often gather sufficient cards to be entitled to automatic certification (usually about 55% support) before the employer is even aware that the union is organizing. In other provinces, such as Ontario, a vote is conducted in every certification application. However, the resemblance to the American system ends there as the vote is conducted very quickly--in Ontario within about five days of the union's application. It is often the case that head office managers only learn of a union's organizing drive in Canada when the union files its application for certification. At this point in time, the union is likely to have already collected sufficient signed membership cards to be entitled to either automatic certification or a quick vote. The company's position is often already compromised.

Further, under Canadian law the employer's right to campaign in response to union organizing is restricted. Despite shared legal rules prohibiting threats, promises, coercion and intimidation, employer campaigns in Canada are much more neutral in tone, style and content compared to the more freewheeling approach permitted in the U.S. For example, campaign statements permitted in the U.S. because they are "legitimate prophecies", that is reasonable predictions of adverse consequences of unionization that are beyond the employer's control, would almost certainly be considered unlawful threats in Canada, even if they are factually accurate. The different position in Canada results from a more narrow labour board interpretation of the employer's right of free speech. Employees in Canada are considered to be economically vulnerable and highly susceptible to employer pressure, and therefore in need of protection from employer interference. There is little recognition of the counterbalancing perspective that exists in the U.S.--that employees are mature individuals able to discount propaganda.

The Boomer Story

Democrats on the Warpath

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, August 3, 2004; Page A17

Last week's Boston convention can thus be seen as a shrewd exercise in preemptive political warfare. If there is one certainty about the coming months, it is that Bush will push the campaign back to the war on terrorism and the immediacy of the terrorist threat. Variations on the classic incumbent's slogan in situations of peril, "Don't change horses in midstream," were evoked by Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. It will be Bush's subliminal message this year.

Kerry's response stands in sharp contrast to the approach taken by Democrats who tried to push the 2002 midterm election campaign away from national security concerns. This year's Boston Democrats -- that's the Boston patriots, not the Boston liberals -- knew better. Not content with arguing that Kerry was tough enough to handle this moment's threats, Democrats made the case that Kerry was actually tougher than Bush. Kerry had seen battle, knew what war was like and understood in a way his opponent could not the struggles and sacrifices of those facing enemy fire.

And beneath the obvious message was a more subtle theme. This was the convention in which Democrats would redefine the meaning of the 1960s. The Vietnam War, which nearly destroyed the party in 1968, became the unifying event of 2004. After 36 years, Democrats finally made their peace with Vietnam and with the decade that tore their party apart.

Until now political conservatives have successfully imposed their own understanding of what "the '60s" were about -- a time of drugs, sexual license, rebellion in the streets and American self-hatred.

In one of the boldest but least-noticed passages in his acceptance speech, Kerry flatly rejected that definition.

"My parents inspired me to serve," Kerry declared, "and when I was a junior in high school, John Kennedy called my generation to service. It was the beginning of a great journey -- a time to march for civil rights, for voting rights, for the environment, for women and for peace. We believed we could change the world. And you know what? We did. But we're not finished."

Note, first, the unapologetic use of the word "we." Kerry does not shrink from being cast as a 1960s figure. He welcomes it. But note also that Kerry's 1960s are defined not by the despair that took hold at the end of the decade, as the Vietnam War was grinding on to its dispiriting end, but by the optimism of early and mid-decade. This was the 1960s of John F. Kennedy -- and, yes, of Lyndon B. Johnson before his presidency was ensnared in Southeast Asia. It was an era in which idealism forged genuine achievements that the nation does not wish to roll back. Kerry is insisting that in so many ways, the 1960s were good for our nation.

It is not surprising that the man who would be the first Vietnam veteran in the White House has taken on the task of binding the wounds inflicted by that war. Kerry, a product of the 1960s, insists on an understanding of that era that would allow the nation to pick up on the best of the decade's legacy while leaving aside the rancor with which it closed.

Is there a political purpose to all this? Of course. In the short run, Kerry's Vietnam service allows him to stand apart not only from the incumbent he is trying to defeat but also from Bill Clinton, whose decision to avoid the draft gave conservatives ample opportunity to keep alive the divisions created during the '60s. And, yes, the military testimonials will make it hard for Republicans to label Kerry a wimp whenever the terror alerts are sounded.

For the longer haul, Kerry is sending a signal that he is tired of seeing his party walk away from the best parts of its inheritance. Conservatives revere their own tradition, and good for them. It's about time that liberals did the same.

Dionne gets the narrow strokes right but misses the broad ones: if he is correct (and I think he mostly is) what is going on here is the left side of the babyboom attempting to define itself and its most formative experience. The right did this 20 years ago. If we on the left allow Kerry to push us on this definition, and maybe to push him back a little to get the details right, I think we are going to be able to create a social and political narrative (all of life is story) that can win.

Show Horse

A Czar Without Power? Support Leaves Questions
By ELISABETH BUMILLER

Published: August 3, 2004

WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 - President Bush on Monday cast his support for a new post of national intelligence director as an historic overhaul of the nation's major spy agencies. But White House officials left vague the authority that the new director would wield over personnel and spending, raising doubts among some experts about the real power of the new position.

Mr. Bush said the new director would "coordinate" the budgets for the nation's 15 major intelligence agencies, while Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, said the director would have a "coordinating role" in hiring. But neither the president nor Mr. Card said that the director should directly hire and fire or have authority over the estimated $40 billion that the government spends each year on intelligence. Right now, the Pentagon controls about 80 percent of the money.

"If the national intelligence director has no real budgetary authority, he or she will have no real power," said Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, strongly praised Mr. Bush in a statement for proposing "wise changes" in the intelligence community. But Mr. Warner left unclear whether he supported giving the new intelligence director budgetary control, and said his committee would hold hearings on the matter in two weeks. The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks recommended that a national intelligence director should submit nominations to the president for people to run the intelligence agencies and also have ultimate control over spending.

Czar? My a**. I listened to the press conference yesterday. It was nearly impossible to figure out what Bush was talking about, the questions he got weren't useful, even if he were inclined to answer them. It is pretty clear that this is another political maneuver, something focus-grouped for show. This is never going to happen, it's a move for the election year. I am so tired of this crap.

Does our intel establishment need a shake-up? Maybe so, but I read Clarke's book and it is pretty clear to me that the counter-terrorism group was well aware that bad things were on the way and they were ignored. It seems to me like our people have at least the bones of a good organization.

Remember when Clinton wanted to go after OBL in Afghanistan in 1998? Local wags and Congress called that "Wag the Dog." Gee, turns out Randy Bill was right.

The Times Ed board uses better language than I to say the same

here are a variety of credible ways to construct the job, whether in the cabinet or not, but what Mr. Bush proposed is not one of them. His intelligence director would be in the worst of all worlds: cut out of the president's inner circle and lacking any real power. Andrew Card Jr., Mr. Bush's chief of staff, said the post would not carry real authority over the intelligence agencies' budgets or intelligence jobs in the Pentagon, the Justice Department and other agencies. The decision bore the unmistakable stamp of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was never going to willingly give up control of appointments or his share of the intelligence budget: $32 billion of the overall $40 billion.

Mr. Bush did embrace the 9/11 commission's suggestion - one that did not challenge his turf - that Congress stop supervising intelligence and homeland security through scores of committees and instead have one committee in each house to oversee intelligence and one for homeland security. And he went beyond the 9/11 panel in one way by proposing a post to coordinate intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. That sounds like a bad idea, especially with the administration's record of fanciful interpretations of that intelligence on Iraq.

Mr. Bush's bureaucratic dodge on the intelligence director's job is the same one he used on the job of director of homeland security. Then he was forced to reverse field, endorse a new cabinet department and claim it as his own idea. We don't care who gets credit. What's important is that Congress reject what Mr. Bush came up with yesterday and do the job right when it returns in September.

Orange Alert

The Post is rather less credulous than the Times.

Pre-9/11 Acts Led To Alerts
Officials Not Sure Al Qaeda Continued To Spy on Buildings

By Dan Eggen and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 3, 2004; Page A01

Most of the al Qaeda surveillance of five financial institutions that led to a new terrorism alert Sunday was conducted before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and authorities are not sure whether the casing of the buildings has continued, numerous intelligence and law enforcement officials said yesterday.

More than half a dozen government officials interviewed yesterday, who declined to be identified because classified information is involved, said that most, if not all, of the information about the buildings seized by authorities in a raid in Pakistan last week was about three years old, and possibly older.

"There is nothing right now that we're hearing that is new," said one senior law enforcement official who was briefed on the alert. "Why did we go to this level? . . . I still don't know that."

How much longer do we have to put up with this administration? Many of my fellow bloggers are hollering about "the boy who cried wolf" problem, that they are desensitizing us to genuine threats. Don't worry, kids, as on 9-11, when a real threat happens they'll be reading "My Pet Goat."

The radio traffic report tells me that we have draconian new "security" measures in the Federal City section of DC. This is martial law by other means.

Old News

Worst, most political administration ever. Share with your friends.

Reports That Led to Terror Alert Were Years Old, Officials Say
By DOUGLAS JEHL and DAVID JOHNSTON

Published: August 3, 2004

WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 -Much of the information that led the authorities to raise the terror alert at several large financial institutions in the New York City and Washington areas was three or four years old, intelligence and law enforcement officials said on Monday. They reported that they had not yet found concrete evidence that a terror plot or preparatory surveillance operations were still under way.

But the officials continued to regard the information as significant and troubling because the reconnaissance already conducted has provided Al Qaeda with the knowledge necessary to carry out attacks against the sites in Manhattan, Washington and Newark. They said Al Qaeda had often struck years after its operatives began surveillance of an intended target.

Taken together with a separate, more general stream of intelligence, which indicates that Al Qaeda intends to strike in the United States this year, possibly in New York or Washington, the officials said even the dated but highly detailed evidence of surveillance was sufficient to prompt the authorities to undertake a global effort to track down the unidentified suspects involved in the surveillance operations.

"You could say that the bulk of this information is old, but we know that Al Qaeda collects, collects, collects until they're comfortable,'' said one senior government official. "Only then do they carry out an operation. And there are signs that some of this may have been updated or may be more recent.''

Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland security adviser, said on Monday in an interview on PBS that surveillance reports, apparently collected by Qaeda operatives had been "gathered in 2000 and 2001.'' But she added that information may have been updated as recently as January.

The comments of government officials on Monday seemed softer in tone than the warning issued the day before. On Sunday, officials were circumspect in discussing when the surveillance of the financial institutions had occurred, and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge cited the quantity of intelligence from "multiple reporting streams'' that he said was "alarming in both the amount and specificity of the information.''

Erm, they lied. This is terrorism from the White House. Time to throw the bums out. How do you feel about letting the NYT get away with this level of crap? You know what to do.

Pessimism

Ronald Brownstein:
Washington Outlook
A Stronger Kerry Forces Bush to Make a Compelling Case

ZANESVILLE, Ohio — Hope is as perishable in presidential campaigns as in baseball. The glow of July often dims by October, a lesson that John F. Kerry, a longtime fan of the beloved but bedeviled Boston Red Sox, should remember better than most.

So it may prove ephemeral, but Kerry and his running mate, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, rolled out of their convention over the weekend exuding optimism. The best measure of their mood was their message and their itinerary. Both sent the same signal: The Democrats are determined to play on Republican turf.

That was the unrelenting theme of last week's convention. One after another, speakers lauded Kerry's values and integrity, and above all, his strength. The convention presented Kerry not just as an acceptable alternative as commander in chief but an improvement — as strong as President Bush, but wiser, as former President Clinton suggested.

Listening to the procession of generals and Vietnam War veterans at the podium, Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio saw a revealing calculation in Kerry's choice of emphasis.

To Fabrizio, the Massachusetts senator was telling the White House that he believed his hold was already so great over voters primarily concerned about the economy and other domestic issues that he could focus most of his fire on Bush's strongest point: his management of the war on terrorism.

"I thought Kerry's speech was a very offensive-minded speech," said Fabrizio, the pollster for Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole in 1996. "They made it clear they were going to play on once-hallowed Republican ground — terrorism, national security and foreign affairs."

Kerry made his case effectively enough, Fabrizio predicted, that voters would feel more confident in him as a leader, particularly on the critical post-9/11 question of his qualifications as commander in chief. Indeed, a Newsweek poll released Saturday showed rising voter faith in Kerry's ability to handle an international crisis.

Another Republican pollster, Frank Luntz, saw similar gains after Kerry's speech with a focus group of 20 undecided Ohio voters he assembled for MSNBC. Some Democrats felt that Luntz had stacked the deck because 14 of the 20 participants had voted for Bush in 2000. But that only made the group's positive response to the speech more striking.

"I'm shocked that a Democrat would do as well as Kerry did on national security," Luntz said a few minutes after the speech. "This is a brand-new campaign. In certain ways, Bush is now the underdog."

The Gadflyer's executive editor, Tom Schaller, went to a party during the DNC last week and ran into Frank Luntz. I found his report of the conversation at Value Judgement but no longer on The Gadflyer site, as Tom seems to have repented of it. I offer it to combat the mood of terror:

The Gadflyer: Luntz Spilz by Thomas F. Schaller

And in my own defense, all I asked was -- "What do you think?" ... The point is that Luntz knew what I meant, and meant what he said.

The Government We Deserve

None of this will come as a surprise to those who read this site regularly, but the rest of the population is clueless, thanks to our lazy media. Thank God Bob Herbert is willing to tell the truth.

All the Pretty Words
By BOB HERBERT

Published: August 2, 2004

They were able to sustain the eloquence for most of the week, which had to be a surprise. Bill Clinton told us that "strength and wisdom are not opposing values." Barack Obama called America "a magical place." John Kerry said, "The high road may be harder, but it leads to a better place."

There was no shortage of pretty words and promises at the Democratic National Convention in Boston last week. But there's a big difference between the rigidly crafted reality at the heart of a political campaign and the reality of the rest of the world.

"Practical politics," said Henry Adams, "consists in ignoring facts."

The facts facing the United States as George W. Bush and John Kerry joust for the presidency are too grim to be honestly discussed on the stump. No one wants to tell cheering potential voters that the nation has sunk so deep into a hole that it will take decades to extricate it. So the candidates are trying to outdo one another in expressions of sunny optimism.

President Bush and Dick Cheney deride "the same old pessimism" of the Democrats. Mr. Kerry counters by saying to the president, "Let's be optimists, not just opponents."

The voters deserve better in an era of overwhelming problems. Consider Iraq. Neither the president nor Mr. Kerry knows what to do about this terrible misadventure that has cost more than 900 American and thousands of innocent Iraqi lives. The war is draining the U.S. Treasury and has made the Middle East more, not less, unstable. Dreams of democracy taking root in the garden of Baghdad and then spreading like the flowers of spring throughout the Middle East have given way to the awful reality of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings.

You won't hear straight talk about this all-important matter from either camp. And you can forget the chatter about an exit strategy for American troops. There isn't one.

Or consider Afghanistan. Not long ago American officials were claiming a decisive victory and the Bush administration was trumpeting the liberation of Afghan women from the clutches of the Taliban. But the proclamations of success were premature. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar are nowhere to be found. Warlords and insurgents are in control of much of the country and the growth industry is the opium trade. The extraordinarily courageous group Doctors Without Borders is packing its bags and withdrawing from Afghanistan after 24 years because five of its staff members were murdered and the government will not bring the killers to justice. On Friday the U.S. government warned American citizens against traveling to Afghanistan because of the danger of being kidnapped or killed.

Some victory.

Employment here in America is another topic on which the presidential candidates will not tell the voters the cold, hard truth. There are not nearly enough jobs available for the millions upon millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans who want and desperately need gainful employment. The population in need of jobs is expanding daily and no one has a viable plan for accommodating it. Families are being squeezed like Florida oranges as good jobs with good benefits - health insurance, paid vacations and retirement security - are going the way of the afternoon newspaper and baseball double-headers.
....
The voters may deserve better, but there's a real question about whether they want better. It may well be that candidates can't tell voters the truth and still win. If that's so, then democracy American-style may be a lot more dysfunctional than even the last four years has indicated.

Intel Czar

Yes, I listened to the press conference. Bush got it all wrong, conforming to the familiar Bush pattern. The 9-11 Commission recommended that the new Director of National Intelligence be appointed for a term of 10 years, so that he wouldn't be beholden to the political process; it was politicization of the intel product that gave us both the Iraq war and 9-11. Here's the AP's take on Bush's announcement:

President Bush on Monday endorsed creation of a national intelligence czar and counterterrorism center -- his first steps in revamping the nation's intelligence-gathering system to help prevent a repeat of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"We are a nation in danger," Bush said as he announced his position during an appearance with top administration national security figures in the White House Rose Garden.

Bush thus embraced, with some changes, two key recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, which outlined lapses in intelligence that left America vulnerable to the attacks.

But the AP doesn't tell you what those changes are. Bush said this individual will be a political appointee that will "serve at the president's pleasure." Sounds pretty politicized to me.

Writing for Findlaw's Writ, John Dean suggests a solution:

A Suggestion the 9/11 Commission Did Not Offer: A Directorate

Since this is the most important recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, no persons are more qualified to put it, and the other recommendations, into action. Nor has there ever been a better occasion to take corrosive politics out of a process - the fight against terrorism - of vital importance to the nation.

I continue to believe that this is a bad idea--the problems are at the operational level, not at the top of the hierarchy. Further politicizing intelligence (since Bushco politicizes everything, not really having an interest in policy) is going to mess things up further.

A Place in the World

What Would Machiavelli Do?
By ROBERT WRIGHT

Mr. Kerry rightly stressed how thoroughly Mr. Bush has lowered the world's opinion of the United States. In elaborating, he said that America can't fight a war on terrorism without allies. That's true, but it doesn't by itself underscore the penchant for complex thought that Mr. Kerry attributed to himself in his acceptance speech. Even Mr. Bush now seems to realize that antagonizing allies is a bad idea. In fact, since the dawn of recorded history, just about everyone has recognized this.

What is new, and uniquely challenging, about the war on terrorism is that hatred of America well beyond the bounds of its alliance now imperils national security. Fervent anti-Americanism among Muslims is the wellspring of terrorism, regardless of whether they live in countries whose governments cooperate with us. Yet this is a part of world opinion Mr. Kerry didn't talk about.

....
We don't need to be loved in the Muslim world, but we need to be respected. And even real men want respect. After all, strength can command respect. In fact, instilling fear can help instill respect. It's just that fear isn't enough. (This could be the epitaph of Mr. Bush's foreign policy: Apparently fear wasn't enough.)

For a nation to be thoroughly respected, the perception of its strength needs to be matched by a perception of its goodness. It helps to be thought of as just, generous, conscientious, mindful of the opinion of others, even a little humble. In lots of little ways, Mr. Bush has given the world the impression that we're not these things.

Mr. Kerry touched on some of this, noting that global leadership means inspiring more than fear. But he didn't carry the respect theme explicitly into the context of Muslim opinion.

Doing so wouldn't by itself amount to a strategy for the war on terrorism. But it would add a new dimension to the Democrats' emerging critique of the president's foreign policy - and a potent one. The plummeting regard for America in Muslim nations like Indonesia over the last few years is a well-documented fact. If voters can see the link between this and the security of their children - see that for every million Muslims who hate America, one will be willing to fly an airplane into a shopping mall - then President Bush will have a lot of explaining to do. And existing criticisms of his policies will acquire new force. (Given how unpopular the Iraq war was known to be in the Muslim world, wasn't the lack of postwar planning beyond inexcusable?)

The Kerry-Edwards ticket might also profit from the fact that much of this Muslim antipathy seems to be focused on President Bush personally. (His unfavorability ratings in Morocco and Jordan are 90 percent and 96 percent, respectively.) Changing administrations - "rebranding" America - could help give us a fresh start.

Thoroughly addressing the issue of Muslim hatred would pose some risks. Mr. Kerry would have to stress that he's willing to antagonize Muslims - or anyone else - when essential American principles or obligations are involved. And even that assurance wouldn't wholly buffer him from right-wing flak.

But the very difficulty of taking on this issue is part of its virtue. Mr. Kerry's biggest manhood problem has nothing to do with Vietnam or the war on terrorism. Rather, it's the sense that he never attacks an issue unflinchingly - that he waffles on the tough ones, that his only constancy lies in the wordiness of his bromides. Maybe what he needs is to take a sensitive, complicated problem, lay down a core conviction, and stick with it through thick and thin.

By the way, Machiavelli might approve. Though he favored fear over love, he said that being feared and loved is the best situation of all. And failing that, a leader at least "ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred." If George W. Bush is too macho for Machiavelli, then surely John Kerry can make the case that Mr. Bush is too macho for America.

Distancing ourselves from extreme Likudism instead of going in the tank for Arik Sharon might be a good place to begin. I was extemely disappointed that Kerry essentially ratified Bush's position.

Downscaling American Jobs

Via Nathan Newman:

Recent Layoff Rate Was Highest Since Early 1980's
By LOUIS UCHITELLE

Published: August 2, 2004

Layoffs occurred at the second-fastest rate on record during the first three years of the Bush administration, a government report has found.

In the government's latest survey of how frequently workers are permanently dismissed from their jobs, the layoff rate reached 8.7 percent of all adult jobholders, or 11.4 million men and women age 20 or older. That is nearly equal to the 9 percent rate for the 1981-1983 period, which included the steepest contraction in the American economy since the Great Depression.

Recession and weak economic growth characterized most of the period from 2001 to 2003, and millions of jobs disappeared. But while layoffs normally rise in hard times and fall in prosperous years, the new survey published Friday by the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics added to the statistical evidence that layoffs are more frequent now, in both good times and bad, than they were in similar cycles a decade ago.

The anecdotal evidence is abundant on this point, but the statistical evidence is only beginning to tell the same story. "It appears there is more displacement now; this latest number is quite high," said Henry S. Farber, a Princeton University labor economist who has challenged the anecdotal evidence, wondering whether it overstated the case.

The layoff rate over the last three years, for example, was greater than in the 1990-1991 recession, the displacement survey found. The rate was also higher in the late 1990's boom years than in the late 1980's, a parallel period of strong economic growth.

"No one should be surprised by the increasing frequency of layoffs," said James Glassman, senior United States economist for J. P. Morgan Chase. "It is the echo of globalization. Companies are shifting production around more frequently to take advantage of low-cost centers."

A Bush administration spokeswoman, Claire Buchan, asked for comment, responded with a statement that focused on the surge in job creation in recent months and made no mention of the worker displacement report. A Kerry campaign economist, Jason Furman, said the survey showed that jobs in America were increasingly insecure.

While job displacement has gradually increased during the 23 years covered by the surveys, the unemployment rate has trended down. For some labor economists - Mr. Farber and Jared Bernstein at the Economic Policy Institute, for example - that makes the rising layoff rate even more striking.

"If you plot the displacement rate in relation to the unemployment rate, it is a staircase going up," Mr. Bernstein said. "You are more likely to be laid off now than in similar levels of unemployment in the past."

The falling unemployment rate also suggests that most job losers are re-employed relatively soon, and that is borne out by the surveys. In each of the surveys, about two-thirds of those who said they had lost jobs over the previous three years also said they were working again at the time of the survey. The percentage was even higher - 10 points higher - in the tight labor markets of the late 1990's.

Pay is another matter. In the latest survey, 56.9 percent of those who said they were re-employed also said they were earning less in their new jobs than in the jobs they had lost. That compared with 46.6 percent from 1991 through 1993, a similar period of recession followed by weak recovery, and 42.2 percent from 1997 through 1999, which were boom years.

The worker displacement survey has been conducted in January or February of each even-numbered year since 1984. The members of 60,000 households, a cross section of the population, are asked if they lost a job at any time in the previous three years because a factory or company closed, there was insufficient work or the position they occupied was abolished. A "yes" answer meant the job was permanently gone, without prospect of recall.

President Reagan instituted the job displacement survey in response to grumbling from Congress as layoffs surged. The surveys initially focused on workers who were laid off after holding a job for at least three years. These "long-tenured" workers still get a lot of attention in the biennial reports; 5.3 million were displaced in the 2001-2003 period, or 6.3 percent of all workers age 20 or older with at least three years of tenure.

The 6.3 percent was the highest layoff rate on record for long-tenured workers, slightly above the 6.2 percent in the 1981-1983 period.

Shorter Uchitelle: you are more likely to be laid off now than you were 10 years ago, you are more likely to go through an extended period of unemployment and you are more likely to be re-employed at a lower salary than the one you received in the job you lost.

Disaster? Hush!

Can’t Bush and Blair See Iraq Is About to Explode?
Robert Fisk, The Independent

BAGHDAD, 2August 2004 — The war is a fraud. I’m not talking about the weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist. Nor the links between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda which didn’t exist. Nor all the other lies upon which we went to war. I’m talking about the new lies.

For just as, before the war, our governments warned us of threats that did not exist, now they hide from us the threats that do exist. Much of Iraq has fallen outside the control of America’s puppet government in Baghdad but we are not told. Hundreds of attacks are made against US troops every month. But unless an American dies, we are not told. This month’s death toll of Iraqis in Baghdad alone has now reached 700 — the worst month since the invasion ended. But we are not told.

The stage management of this catastrophe in Iraq was all too evident at Saddam Hussein’s “trial”. Not only did the US military censor the tapes of the event. Not only did they effectively delete all sound of the11 other defendants. But the Americans led Saddam Hussein to believe — until he reached the courtroom — that he was on his way to his execution. Indeed, when he entered the room he believed that the judge was there to condemn him to death. This, after all, was the way Saddam ran his own state security courts. No wonder he initially looked “disorientated” — CNN’s helpful description — because, of course, he was meant to look that way. We had made sure of that. Which is why Saddam asked Judge Juhi: “Are you a lawyer? ... Is this a trial?” And swiftly, as he realized that this really was an initial court hearing — not a preliminary to his own hanging — he quickly adopted an attitude of belligerence. But don’t think we’re going to learn much more about Saddam’s future court appearances. Salem Chalabi, the brother of convicted fraudster Ahmad and the man entrusted by the Americans with the tribunal, told the Iraqi press two weeks ago that all media would be excluded from future court hearings. And I can see why. Because if Saddam does a Milosevic, he’ll want to talk about the real intelligence and military connections of his regime — which were primarily with the United States.

Living in Iraq these past few weeks is a weird as well as dangerous experience. I drive down to Najaf. Highway 8 is one of the worst in Iraq. Westerners are murdered there. It is littered with burnt-out police vehicles and American trucks. Every police post for 70 miles has been abandoned. Yet a few hours later, I am sitting in my room in Baghdad watching British Prime Minister Tony Blair, grinning in the House of Commons as if he is the hero of a school debating competition; so much for the Butler report.

Indeed, watching any Western television station in Baghdad these days is like tuning in to Planet Mars. Doesn’t Blair realize that Iraq is about to implode? Doesn’t Bush realize this? The American-appointed “government” controls only parts of Baghdad — and even there its ministers and civil servants are car-bombed and assassinated. Baquba, Samara, Kut, Mahmoudiya, Hilla, Fallujah, Ramadi, all are outside government authority. Iyad Allawi, the “prime minister”, is little more than mayor of Baghdad. “Some journalists,” Blair announces, “almost want there to be a disaster in Iraq.” He doesn’t get it. The disaster exists now.

When suicide bombers ram their cars into hundreds of recruits outside police stations, how on earth can anyone hold an election next January? Even the National Conference to appoint those who will arrange elections has been twice postponed. And looking back through my notebooks over the past five weeks, I find that not a single Iraqi, not a single American soldier I have spoken to, not a single mercenary — be he American, British or South African — believes that there will be elections in January. All said that Iraq is deteriorating by the day. And most asked why we journalists weren’t saying so.

A bit of linguistic messiness, there. "Explode" in the hed, "implode" in the text, but both are simply metaphors for what is happening. But I note that not even the new terror alert (or whatever the hell it is) succeeded in keeping news of the church bombings off the front page of the national papers. Some of the regional papers have begun telling the truth to their readers.

UPDATE: The Inky joins the list of papers telling the truth.

The situation in Iraq right now is not as bad as the news media are portraying it to be. It's worse.
By Ken Dilanian

Inquirer Staff Writer

A kind of violence fatigue has descended over news coverage of Iraq. Car bombings that would have made the front page a year ago get scant mention these days.

Assassinations and kidnappings have become so common that they have lost their power to shock. More U.S. soldiers died in July (38) than in June (26), but that didn't make the nightly newscasts, either.

The U.S.-led effort to restore basic services has become a story of missed goals and frustrations. Hoped-for foreign investment in Iraq's economy hasn't materialized - what company is going to risk seeing its employees beheaded on television?

Simply by staving off stability and prosperity, the insurgents are winning.

These are painful observations for me to make, because in early April, I wrote on this page that the media had been underplaying the good things happening in Iraq, and were missing the potential for a turnaround.

I still believe the first part. But when I returned to Iraq in June, I found that the situation had deteriorated so dramatically that a lot of those good things have become irrelevant.

As for the turnaround, I couldn't have been more wrong.

Don't take my word for it: Listen to Sgt. Maj. John Jones, a First Infantry Division soldier who recently told my colleague Tom Lasseter that he grows annoyed every time he hears politicians and journalists on television talking about Iraq.

"When people come over here, where do they stay? In the Green Zone. I call it the Safe Zone," he said, referring to the heavily fortified area in Baghdad where most U.S. officials live and work. "They miss the full picture."

In the spring, I wrote: "I have seen a lot of good that has come of this painful expenditure of blood and treasure - very real progress that has made life better for some Iraqis, and promises to make it exponentially better, over time."

The article generated a flood of e-mail from readers who seemed to be thirsting for upbeat news out of Iraq, convinced that the media were hiding it from them.

"I am very happy to see The Inquirer allow a 'positive' article on the Iraq rebuilding effort to take up space in their pages," one person wrote. "I knew there was more to the situation than just what the sound bites allow in a quick TV flash."

I still believe the U.S.-led effort in Iraq is accomplishing many good things, most of which get no publicity. And I still think it's too early to abandon hope that a stable and democratic Iraq will emerge from this crucible.

But I learned this summer that the insurgency has been far more successful than I would have imagined at sowing instability and halting progress. Most Iraqis aren't seeing the improvements they had hoped for, and they're not blaming the guerillas - they're blaming the Americans. Sovereignty seems to have had zero effect on this equation.

The Whole World is Watching

John Kerry hasn't yet closed the sale with the foreign press (of course they don't vote here...) John Kerry is in the process of closing the sale with swing voters, confidently campaigning in Red counties in swing states before huge crowds.

World editorial pages round up from the BBC:

The hardest part still lies ahead: to put across the message that he is made of the stuff of presidents and has the stature of a commander-in-chief...

Egypt's Al-Ahram

Trying to Make Sense

Campaign Dogged by Terror Fight
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and DAVID M. HALBFINGER

Published: August 2, 2004

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio, Aug. 1 - John Kerry was supposed to spend Sunday traveling through small-town Ohio and Michigan, going to church and talking at rallies. But by afternoon, his campaign was also searching northern Ohio for a secure telephone line so Mr. Kerry could squeeze in a briefing on an issue that was overtaking the day: the terrorist threat announced in Washington.

Three days after he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination, Mr. Kerry, along with President Bush, received a bracing reminder about how the fear of another terrorist attack on American soil had shaped the contest and about how the most pivotal thing that could happen between now and Election Day was beyond the control of either campaign.

Campaign aides said they could not recall a contest fought against such an uncertain and unsettling backdrop since 1968, when Richard M. Nixon and Hubert H. Humphrey battled as an increasingly bloody war was being waged in Vietnam, polarizing Americans at home.

"In a campaign there are things you can control, and things you can't control," said Tad Devine, a senior adviser to Mr. Kerry. "You have to spend as much time as humanly possible worrying about the things you can control. We don't sit around all day talking about what color the terror alert is."

Yet the issue has charged the atmosphere, influencing everything Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry do these days, as was particularly clear at Mr. Kerry's nominating convention last week.

News of the terror threat on Sunday also stirred renewed suggestions from some Democrats that the White House was manipulating terror alerts for Mr. Bush's political gain. They said the alert had been issued just as Mr. Kerry emerged from a convention that was described by Republicans and Democrats as a success.

"I am concerned that every time something happens that's not good for President Bush, he plays this trump card, which is terrorism," Howard Dean, a former rival of Mr. Kerry for the Democratic nomination, told Wolf Blitzer on CNN on Sunday.

"His whole campaign is based on the notion that 'I can keep you safe, therefore at times of difficulty for America stick with me,' and then out comes Tom Ridge," Mr. Dean, the former Vermont governor, added, referring to the homeland security secretary. "It's just impossible to know how much of this is real and how much of this is politics, and I suspect there's some of both in it."

White House officials denied that suggestion, and other Democrats and Mr. Kerry's advisers would not embrace it. "I certainly hope not," Steve Elmendorf, Mr. Kerry's deputy campaign manager, said. "You have to take them at their word."

But aides on both sides say they are thinking about how the elevated alert level affects the election and about the possibility of an actual terrorist attack as they try to discuss the political repercussions of terrorism without being accused of doing anything as crass as discussing the political repercussions of terrorism.

In an administration in which EVERYTHING is politicized, and we know it, nothing can be taken at face value. Given that virtually nothing in DC is going to change because of this warning (or whatever the hell it is) I'm finding Bush "policy" in this area to be incoherent. But, then, incoherence seems to be a specialty of the misadministration.

One by One

Video Shows Iraqi Militants Killing Man
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: August 2, 2004

Filed at 5:41 a.m. ET

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Militants have shot dead a Turkish hostage kidnapped in Iraq, according to a video posted on the Internet.

It was not clear when the hostage was killed and his name did not match those of the two Turkish truck drivers kidnapped in Iraq last week.

The video shows a man identified as a Turk kneeling in front of three armed men. The man reads a statement in Turkish, identifying himself as Murat Yuce from Ankara, the Turkish capital. He says he works for a Turkish company that subcontracted for a Jordanian firm.

``I have a word of advice for any Turk who wants to come to Iraq to work: 'You don't have to holding a gun to be aiding the occupationist United States ... Turkish companies should withdraw from Iraq,'' he says.

At the end of the statement, the leader of the three presumed kidnappers takes out a pistol and shoots the Turk in the side of the head. The Turk slumps to the ground, and the kidnapper shoots him in the head twice more. Blood is seen on the ground next to his head.

Turkish Companies Withdraw

The Kahramanli Company, headquartered in Mersin on the Mediterranean coast, will cease their transportation activities in Iraq for the release of two drivers, Abdurahman Demir and Said Unurlu, who were kidnapped last Saturday (July 31) in Iraq.

Osman Kahramanli, the owner of Kahramanli Company, said yesterday: "We do not think about carrying cargo to Iraq as long as these kinds of events continue. We have now stopped our activities. We will not start carrying cargo into Iraq until the safety of our drivers is guaranteed."

Similarly, the Ozturk Company will withdraw their workforce as well. "We have to convey to the public that we will stop our activities if necessary for the safety of our employees," noted the owner of Ozturk, Omer Ozturk.

Demir and Unurlu, the two drivers currently being held as hostages by the Tawhid and Jihad Movement, groups linked to the Jordanian militant, Abu Muab Al-Zarqawi, began their journey in Ankara, where they were given a shipment of American supplies destined for Bagdat (Baghdad). Upon their capture, the group sent a videocassette of the drivers to Al-Jazeera with a demand: withdrawal the Kahramanli Company from Iraq within forty-eight hours, or risk the death of two employees.

Whether or not there is a centralized control and command structure within the "insurgency" (I'll have some thoughts on that word later), there is clearly cooperation between groups of rebels and shared strategy. Driving foreign reconstruction workers from the country and isolating the US is a goal. It's working.

Beyond the Papers

Today is very odd. With so much going on, it is difficult to find a newspaper story which tells any of it straight. I'm going to have to do some bobbing and weaving to bring you the straight dope today, and it will take a little longer than usual.

As a general rule, I set up the papers on my task bar in the morning and there are five stories which scream at me to be posted. Not today. Today the backstory is calling to me, and that's harder to set up. Patience, readers. This will take more time, but I will bring it to you.

The Other War We're Losing

Taliban violence on rise in rural Afghanistan

By Eric Schmitt and David Rohde
The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Twenty-one U.S. troops have died from ambushes, land mines and other hostile fire in Afghanistan so far this year, compared with 12 combat deaths in all of 2003.

Taliban attacks on Afghan security forces and civilians, including foreign-aid workers, also have increased steadily in the past several months, U.S. commanders and Afghan officials say.

Afghan government officials said they keep no overall tally of the number of Afghans killed across the country, including soldiers and police, but a review of attacks reported by news agencies indicates that in the first six months of 2003, Taliban fighters killed 119 Afghans. In the first six months of 2004, they killed 179 Afghans, an increase of 50 percent.

Most of the killings involved Afghan police officers or soldiers being killed in ambushes, attacks or clashes with Taliban forces in rural areas in the south and east.

Since early 2003, Taliban fighters also have been targeting aid workers, killing at least 16 Afghan aid workers and at least one foreign aid worker since March 2003, according to the review.

Numerous other attacks on foreigners have occurred, but it has been unclear whether the Taliban are responsible. The unidentified assailants could have been Taliban, factional fighters or thieves.

The international aid agency Doctors Without Borders recently said it was leaving Afghanistan after 24 years, in part because of the deteriorating security there.

Taliban attacks appear to have had virtually no effect on Afghanistan's main cities, where foreign troops and reconstruction money, remittances from Afghans living abroad and the opium trade are fueling a construction boom.

But the Taliban appear to be hampering the flow of aid in rural areas, particularly in remote regions in the south, where the Afghan government is still struggling to establish its authority.

About 18,000 U.S. and other allied troops, including Romanian infantry and South Korean engineers, are now operating in Afghanistan alongside a 6,500-member NATO peacekeeping force that stays in and around Kabul.

Shir Mohammad Akhundzada, the governor of Helmand province, said that for the first time since 2001 the Taliban are recruiting young people in northern Helmand. Until now, he said, fresh Taliban recruits had come from Pakistan, where 3 million Afghan refugees still live.

"Nowadays, I'm feeling that lots of local people also join them," he said. "Some of the people are a little bit angry with the Americans, and some are unhappy with the government."

Malim Dadu, the intelligence chief in Helmand province, estimated that the Taliban were 50 percent stronger now than they were a year earlier and were increasingly well funded.

He said local people were now helping the Taliban "a lot," and he admitted that the Afghan government was failing on its own in some areas. He said there was not security on the highways, and government "administrative people are taking bribes."

"God willing, we are stronger than the Taliban now," said Akhundzada, the Helmand governor. "But we don't know about the future."

U.S. commanders nonetheless paint an optimistic picture, saying the increased attacks are a sign of the Taliban's desperation.

"There are still some huge challenges, mainly in the security area," Lt. Gen. David Barno, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, said in a telephone interview from his headquarters in Kabul. "But on a broad scale ... we think this country is very much on the road to success."

Uh, dude, or maybe, dude Sir, we stopped using that "desperation" meme in Iraq a while because it, erm, wasn't working and it isn't going to work any better for you. What's happening, sir, is that you are losing Afghanistan just like the Soviets and the Brits did, and for pretty much the same reasons. You don't understand the country, the people or the culture. The NGOs are leaving (Medecins sans Frontieres pulled out yesterday, and they are the toughest bunch, first in, last out) and 18,000 troops can't "reconstruct" this country. Barno is fooling himself.

Was it Santayana who said, "Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to make the same mistakes."

The Doldrums

Several of you have written in to ask what is going on in the investigation into the "outing" of Valerie Plame. Here's the latest from the new Newsweek. Spikey Mikey Isikoff is one of the authors, so read with salt.

CIA Leak Probe: Powell's Grand-Jury Appearance

Aug. 9 issue - Secretary of State Colin Powell recently testified before a federal grand jury investigating the leak of the identity of CIA covert officer Valerie Plame, NEWSWEEK has learned. Powell's appearance on July 16 is the latest sign the probe being conducted by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is highly active and broader than has been publicly known. Sources close to the case say prosecutors were interested in discussions Powell had while with President George W. Bush on a trip to Africa in July 2003, just before Plame's identity was leaked to columnist Robert Novak. A senior State Department official confirmed that, while on the trip, Powell had a department intelligence report on whether Iraq had sought uranium from Niger—a claim Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, discounted after a trip to Niger on behalf of the CIA. The report stated that Wilson's wife had attended a meeting at the CIA where the decision was made to send Wilson to Niger, but it did not mention her last name or undercover status. At the time, White House officials were seeking to discredit Wilson, who had become a public critic of the Bush administration. There's no indication Powell is a subject of the probe; the department official said the secretary never talked to Novak about the Plame matter. Still, sources say the decision to question Powell shows the thoroughness with which Fitzgerald is conducting the probe—and that knowledge about Plame was circulated at the highest levels of the administration. Though most lawyers thought the investigation was nearly complete, sources say Fitzgerald has recently recalled witnesses before the grand jury—apparently to ask about issues raised by a new Senate intelligence committee report that seemed to contradict some of Wilson's public statements about Plame's role in his trip to Niger.

—Michael Isikoff and Eve Conant
© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.

I'm hearing that Fitzgerald's office expects to report out in the next two weeks, which means that August stands to be a difficult month for Bushco. Read on:

A Battle Over Blame
Rumsfeld may be rebuked by his own commission investigating prison abuse

By Michael Hirsh and John Barry

Aug. 9 issue - James Schlesinger has always been a hawk. But in four decades of public life, the square-jawed former professor has also been known as mulishly independent, whether as Defense and Energy secretary or CIA director. (President Gerald Ford, annoyed by Schlesinger's arrogance, fired him.) All of which could add up to an unpleasant surprise for another old Washington lion who is not renowned for his humility: Donald Rumsfeld. In mid-August, the commission that Schlesinger chairs—handpicked by Rumsfeld from members of his own Defense Policy Board—is expected to issue its final report on abuses by U.S. interrogators stemming from the Abu Ghraib Prison scandal. NEWSWEEK has learned the Schlesinger panel is leaning toward the view that failures of command and control at the Pentagon helped create the climate in which the abuses occurred.

The four-member commission's report is still being drafted and its final conclusions are not yet definite. But there is strong sentiment to assign some responsibility up the line to senior civilian officials at the Pentagon, including Rumsfeld, several sources close to the discussions say. The Defense secretary is expected to be criticized, either explicitly or implicitly, for failing to provide adequate numbers of properly trained troops for detaining and interrogating captives in Afghanistan and Iraq. His office may also be rebuked for not setting clear interrogation rules and for neglecting to see that guidelines were followed. The commissioners "are taking an unvarnished look at the issue as a whole," said a source close to the commission. "A more extensive look than some people had initially thought they might take."

"Some people" includes Rumsfeld himself. The Defense secretary's original charter for the commission asked only for the Schlesinger team's "professional advice" and obliquely urged them to steer clear of "issues of personal accountability," which Rumsfeld said "will be resolved through established military justice and administrative procedures." (After Schlesinger argued about the charter language, Rumsfeld allowed that "any information you may develop will be welcome.") Rumsfeld also indicated that he expected members to spend most of their 45-day inquiry reviewing the findings of the other "procedures." These include five ongoing inquiries into abuses, none of which is designed to probe responsibility beyond the uniformed ranks.

Sen. John Warner is also promising Senate Armed Services Committee investigation in the fall. All the crows could be coming home to roost just in time for the election.

The fact that both of these investigations are set to report in August is a two edged sword. August is a very slow news month as a general rule, but this year will be somewhat different because the Senate will be holding hearings on the 9-11 Commission report. As we've learned from Karl Rove, you don't roll out new product in August, so all of this may fall on deaf ears because America is on vacation. Or the dearth of other news (remember, the August before 9-11 was all Chandra Levy) may mean these stories all get huge play. We'll find out shortly.

My Hometown

Officials: New information points to terror attacks
Businesses in New York, Washington considered top targets

Sunday, August 1, 2004 Posted: 12:05 PM EDT (1605 GMT)

(CNN) -- Threat warnings indicating that terrorists plan attacks on corporate and financial institutions in New York and Washington are based on new information -- not on previous advisories, officials said Sunday.

Federal officials also met with Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge on Friday night and Saturday.

Genuine threat or election propaganda? We report, you decide.

This will mean re-deployment of the surface to air missile batteries around the beltway, more F-16 overflights, and Apache helicopters overhead. Yuk.

IRAQ'D

Islamic Troop Plan Prompts Skepticism
Powell Casts Doubt on Saudi Proposal for Deployment of Muslim Force in Iraq

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 1, 2004; Page A19

KUWAIT CITY, July 31 -- A Saudi initiative to send an Islamic force to help stabilize Iraq and reduce the need for the U.S.-led military force would probably take three months or longer to deploy and might not get off the ground at all, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials. The proposal is already mired in complex military issues and political sensitivities.

The logistics and diplomacy are so daunting that, even if there is an agreement to form such a force, the first major deployment might not happen until well into the fall, and a full deployment until much later, potentially too late to make much of a difference in securing Iraq before campaigns begin for national elections due in January, the officials said.

But the pivotal issue is more likely to be whether the force, drawn from Arab and Muslim countries, would bolster the 160,000 foreign troops in Iraq or come in as a separate force and begin to replace them. The difference could make or break the Saudi idea, the officials said.

The United States has politely welcomed the proposal since it was outlined in talks Wednesday between Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. The Bush administration was in no position to reject the idea out of hand, U.S. officials said, because it came from a crucial oil-rich ally and because the United States has struggled to find new troops for the multinational force.

But the initial U.S. reaction was quickly tempered by officials who have used cautionary language in public and expressed deep skepticism in private.

"We appreciate the initiative, but it has to be studied in depth," Powell said tersely on Saturday after talks with Kuwaiti leaders. The proposal caught Powell's entourage off guard by unexpectedly dominating the secretary's week-long trip to the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

The Arabic press has been printing various reactions to the Saudi proposal from anonymous sources inside their respective governments. The consensus: no one will send forces in unless the UN is in charge. Bush will never allow that. Ain't gonna happen.

Breaking Iraq news:

Car Bombs Explode Outside Baghdad Churches

Compiled from Wire Reports
Sunday, August 1, 2004; 11:52 AM

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Two car bombs exploded just minutes apart outside two nearby churches in central Baghdad during Sunday evening services, injuring at least 20 people, witnesses said.

A third car bomb later exploded near a Christian church in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Sunday, police said.

The attacks appeared to be the first targeting churches during the 15-month violent insurgency.

U.S. military officials said at least one and possible both of the blasts appeared to have been booby-trapped cars in the city's Karada neighborhood.

U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police patrolled the area as emergency workers raced to evacuate the wounded.

The first blast hit outside an Armenian church just 15 minutes into the evening service, witnesses said. The second blast hit a Catholic church about 200 yards away.

"I saw injured women and children and men, the church's glass shattered everywhere. There's glass all over the floor," said Juliette Agob, who was inside the Armenian church during the first explosion.

News Leak

The oozing wound which is Abu Ghraib continues to leak.

The Secret File of Abu Ghraib
New classified documents implicate U.S. forces in rape and sodomy of Iraqi prisoners

By OSHA GRAY DAVIDSON

It has been months since the now-infamous photographs from Abu Ghraib revealed that American soldiers tortured Iraqi prisoners -- yet the Bush administration has failed to get to the bottom of the abuses."There are some serious unanswered questions," says Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican on the Armed Services Committee. The Pentagon is stalling on several investigations, and congressional inquiries have ground to a halt. The foot-dragging is astonishing, given that Congress has access to classified documents detailing the abuses outlined by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba in his report on Abu Ghraib. Rolling Stone obtained those files in June and offers this report on their contents. -The Editors

The new classified military documents offer a chilling picture of what happened at Abu Ghraib -- including detailed reports that U.S. troops and translators sodomized and raped Iraqi prisoners. The secret files -- 106 "annexes" that the Defense Department withheld from the Taguba report last spring -- include nearly 6,000 pages of internal Army memos and e-mails, reports on prison riots and escapes, and sworn statements by soldiers, officers, private contractors and detainees. The files depict a prison in complete chaos. Prisoners were fed bug-infested food and forced to live in squalid conditions; detainees and U.S. soldiers alike were killed and wounded in nightly mortar attacks; and loyalists of Saddam Hussein served as guards in the facility, apparently smuggling weapons to prisoners inside.

The files make clear that responsibility for what Taguba called "sadistic, blatant and wanton" abuses extends to several high-ranking officers still serving in command positions. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who is now in charge of all military prisons in Iraq, was dispatched to Abu Ghraib by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last August. In a report marked secret, Miller recommended that military police at the prison be "actively engaged in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the internees." After his plan was adopted, guards began depriving prisoners of sleep and food, subjecting them to painful "stress positions" and terrorizing them with dogs. A former Army intelligence officer tells Rolling Stone that the intent of Miller's report was clear to everyone involved: "It means treat the detainees like shit until they will sell their mother for a blanket, some food without bugs in it and some sleep." In the files, prisoner after prisoner at Abu Ghraib describes acts of torture that Taguba found "credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses." The abuses took place at the Hard Site, a two-story cinder-block unit at the sprawling prison that housed Iraqi criminals and insurgents, not members of Al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations. In one sworn statement, Kasim Mehaddi Hilas, detainee number 151108, said he witnessed a translator referred to only as Abu Hamid raping a teenage boy. "I saw Abu Hamid, who was wearing the military uniform, putting his dick in the little kid's ass," Hilas testified. "The kid was hurting very bad." A female soldier took pictures of the rape, Hilas said.

I heard a summary of this article on NPR last night, so the story is beginning to penetrate the mainstream media. However, it is now August, which means that it could break big because of the news vacuum while the Washington press corps is at the beach, or it could be ignored because the Washington press corps is at the beach. We'll have to wait and see.

The Ed Boards

In the last couple of days, I've criticized the editorial boards of the NYT and WaPo for issuing opinions that fly in the face of facts, and mentioned that it will be interesting to see how the endorsements for the national candidates fall. Today comes the first presidential endorsement from a surprising source: The Observer.

Why Kerry will have our support

We would all be safer without Bush

Leader
Sunday August 1, 2004
The Observer

If George Bush's presidency has not convinced us America is a foreign country, last week's Democrat convention at Boston left no room for doubts. Democrats may be first ideological cousins to New Labour, but their presidential candidate, John Kerry, opened his acceptance speech with a military metaphor that could never be used by a European counterpart: 'I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty'.

Republicans insist that Democratic values - pre-eminence of science, affirmative action and instinctive multilateralism - are anti-American and anti-patriotic, but the central taunt is that Democrats are soft on defence and security. Kerry's metaphor - from a stage filled with veterans from Vietnam - was well chosen.

The US has hardened into two virulently opposed ideological and cultural camps that are almost equal in numbers. On the two seaboards, around the Great Lakes, in the north east and some cities of the south, the Democrats have their base: mildly progressive, multilateralist, tolerant and fair-minded. In the south, the Rocky Mountains and the plains lie the Republican base: religious fundamentalists, fervent believers in America's unilateralist destiny and culturally conservative. This is 50:50 America. The election, expected to be close, will be decided in some dozen states, with foreign policy set to be a decisive factor. Kerry will argue that his multilateralism will pay greater dividends for America than Bush's unilateralism.

Kerry insists he will be a different President. Under him the US would achieve its foreign policy ambitions through leadership of the international alliance system, accepting the compromises that that implies. Kerry would restore the treaty system covering the spread and testing of nuclear and chemical weapon systems, that Bush has jettisoned. He would cooperate in relieving Third World debt; he would be sympathetic to the Kyoto accords. He would not prevent sex education and the use of condoms in the campaign to fight Aids. He would back science and stem cell research. He would encourage alternative energy technologies.

Less welcome would be his protectionism on trade issues. Europe should be prepared to challenge him on this, not least in the interests of the poorest countries.

But the risks of another Bush term are far greater. Kerry immeasurably improves our chances of defeating terrorism and making the world safer. In a bitter fight in a divided America, reassurance that Kerry has the support of the rest of the world could be a decisive factor in key swing states. We must offer that signal.

Popcorn, with Salt

It's Nagourney, so pick up your saltshaker.
Bush Planning August Attack Against Kerry
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
and ROBIN TONER

Published: August 1, 2004

WASHINGTON, July 31 — President Bush's campaign plans to use the normally quiet month of August for a vigorous drive to undercut John Kerry by turning attention away from his record in Vietnam to what they described as an undistinguished and left-leaning record in the Senate.

Mr. Bush's advisers plan to cap the month at the Republican convention in New York, which they said would feature Mr. Kerry as an object of humor and calculated derision.

The summer campaign plans described by aides to Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry, who is in the midst of a two-week cross-country bus tour, suggest that August is no longer the slow and sleepy month it once was in presidential campaigns. Campaign aides described the period this year as an opportunity to shift the dynamic for their campaigns, because the race is so tight and because voters appear to be paying attention to what is going on.

Entering a four week run-up to the unusually late Republican convention, Mr. Bush's aides said they had laid out a week-by-week in plan in which Mr. Bush would talk about his accomplishments and his second-term agenda. But they said they would also try to blunt what Democrats and Republicans said was a successful four-day Democratic convention focused on Mr. Kerry's veteran credentials by turning attention from what they described as his brief four-month tour in Vietnam to his 20 years in Washington.

"This gives us a chance to lay out an agenda, to tell people what he wants to do over the next four years," said Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's senior political adviser. "We need, as we go into the convention, to put more of an emphasis on our agenda. But we still need to explain the war on terror and we need to offer a contrast with Senator Kerry."

Mr. Kerry's campaign manager, Mary Beth Cahill, said: "It's going to be an unusually contested month. What we're going to do is try to continue the momentum we have coming out of the convention."

In a sign of the intensity leading up to the convention in New York, aides to Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry said they had no plans to suspend campaigning during the Olympics, a two-week stretch starting Aug. 13 that aides to both men had once assumed would force a respite on the campaign, as the nation's attention turned to Greece. "That's a two-week period in the middle of August; I don't think we can afford to do that," said Matthew Dowd, a senior Bush adviser, in a remark echoed by senior aides to Mr. Kerry.

Mr. Bush is planning to spend upward of $30 million on television advertising over the next four weeks. Democrats are looking to try to match Mr. Bush's effort with spending by independent Democratic committees not directly linked to the Kerry campaign.

I think August would be a lovely time to head to the shore or the mountains. It sure ain't going to be a good time to turn on the telly. Those of us looking for The Truth will await the Senate and House hearings on the 9-11 Commission report and the House and Senate hearings of the Government Reform committees, along with the Fitzgerald investigation into the outing of Valerie Plame, the investigations of the Abu Ghraib torture matter and the 27 investigations of Pentagon corruption in the reconstruction of Iraq. All of these will be done on the cheap compared to Ken Starr, of course.

No, we wouldn't want to be paying attention to any of those things when we could be hanging out at the Vineyard, Cape or Crawford. If we get lucky, we'll be outside of Blackberry range. We hear they have really cool stores on the Vineyard.

Crossing the Bar

Trial lawyers, what are they good for? A lot, it turns out.

Think you know what the media are up to? Read this FAIR ACTION ALERT:
Will ABC Balance Stossel's Election Year Axe-Grinding?

July 30, 2004

ABC commentator and anchor John Stossel holds a rare position in television news: His commentaries air unopposed on a network news show. But after Stossel's July 23 "Give Me A Break" segment on 20/20 about Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards, ABC viewers might be wondering what the network will do to balance Stossel's partisanship.

When ABC's parent company Disney refused to allow its Miramax subsidiary to distribute Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11," company CEO Michael Eisner offered this rationale (5/5/04): "We just didn't want to be in the middle of a politically oriented film during an election year." So why does ABC air one-sided political commentary during an election year?

We get to ask the questions. I notice that, while the media talk about Kerry and Edwards' wealth, no one asks what kind of pay cuts Bush and Cheny had to take to earn their government salaries. It is in the millions of dollars, people.

ABC News
77 W. 66 St., New York, NY 10023
Phone: 212-456-7777
General e-mail: [email protected]

Email forms for all ABC news programs

Nightline: [email protected]
20/20: [email protected]

Being the larger pain in the ass is a good thing.

Kaleeforneea

Think the Governator is a moderate/centrist Repub? Think again. He's a corporate fascist, married to a Shriver, The LAT has the story.

Businesses Had Say in Report on State OverhaulPublic interest groups complain they were largely excluded from talks as the governor's task force studied how to pare government.
By Peter Nicholas, Times Staff Writer

SACRAMENTO — Some of California's most influential business interests — including Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and EDS — were given easy access to a state commission as it met privately to recommend sweeping government changes, according to disclosure reports and interviews.

Public interest groups, in contrast, complained Friday that they were largely excluded from the five-month study, ordered by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
A Microsoft sales official met with a top aide that Schwarzenegger appointed to the California Performance Review, and former Michigan Gov. John Engler, now working for Electronic Data Systems, spent about an hour with the review team because "we wanted information about the … process," said a spokesman for the Texas-based company, which holds a contract to process Medi-Cal claims.

Other corporations, such as Pitney-Bowes, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Citrix Systems, reported having had dealings with the commission.

Bill Allayaud, state lobbying director for the Sierra Club, strongly criticized the access given to the businesses.

"We weren't part of this," Allayaud said. "I don't know how much influence industry had, but we were not invited to the party. We think this is beyond alarming. The public needs access to the decision-making process. Industry can hire high-paid lobbyists and lawyers to go to Sacramento and fight for their side. The public can't do that."

Schwarzenegger has not yet endorsed the plan, which will be formally presented to him on Tuesday. But it is the cornerstone of his promise to "blow up the boxes" of state government — with the goal of streamlining a bulky bureaucracy and saving billions of dollars.

Prepared by a task force of 275 specially assigned state employees, outside consultants and government officials, it would do away with 118 boards and commissions and centralize power in the governor's office. It contains thousands of recommendations, many of which are likely to face resistance and could be either amended or dropped before being submitted to the Legislature for approval.

A spokesman said the review team consulted a broad swath of interests.

"The team would try to find as much information as possible for background, and sometimes that meant academics, sometimes it meant going to industry leaders," said Bob Martinez, spokesman for the review panel. "Some of them apparently were registered lobbyists. But none of that was neither here nor there."

Some environmentalists did meet with members of the review team. In certain cases, their suggestions made it into the report.

Some of the companies are political supporters of the governor. Hewlett-Packard, based in Palo Alto, gave a $250,000 contribution to a Schwarzenegger political committee in February.

The company, a state contractor, said through a spokeswoman that it did not lobby the California Performance Review for anything "specifically," but spoke to the commission about "procurement reform" and other issues.

The 2,500-page report itself provides ample documentation of the role played by business interests. It also talks admiringly of some of the corporations that came through the California Performance Review's office. The tone is consistent with the pro-business philosophy that Schwarzenegger has embraced.

Several times, the report cites Microsoft's practices as a model that government should emulate, quoting Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, on the importance of hiring well.

Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., has 17 contracts with the state at an estimated value of $2.4 million and is negotiating another three worth $1.3 million, according to the report.

The commission endorses a proposal by EDS for a "public-private partnership" in which the company would try to get more Medi-Cal recipients enrolled in the federal Medicare program for the disabled and elderly, thus saving the state money; EDS would receive 10% of any savings.

One of the report's recommendations is designed to save health maintenance organizations the expense of preparing for state audits. It was put together with advice from executives and lobbyists from Wellpoint, Health Net, Molina Healthcare and the California Assn. of Health Plans, footnotes in the report show.

The report concludes that the state's medical surveys and audits of HMOs, intended to ensure quality care, create "duplication of work for and significant costs to some health plans, and [are] an inefficient use of state government resources."

It recommends that the state allow industry accreditation groups to take over the auditing of many routine matters, as 27 other states do. It cannot determine how much, if any, money such actions might save taxpayers, but says there would be "substantial" savings to the health plans, which the report says sometimes have to spend more than $250,000 for each audit.

Daniel Zingale, founding director of the state Department of Managed Health Care under former Gov. Gray Davis, voiced qualms about such moves.

"Taking away the state's ability to see how HMO finances affect patients is to undermine California patients' rights," he said.

That's what Bush wants to do to the other states.

It recommends that the state allow industry accreditation groups to take over the auditing of many routine matters, as 27 other states do. It cannot determine how much, if any, money such actions might save taxpayers, but says there would be "substantial" savings to the health plans, which the report says sometimes have to spend more than $250,000 for each audit. Combine that with "tort reform" and capping judgements against bad HMOs and doctors and gee, howdy, you've got a fine day for the worst practioners in the field.

WRT tort reform: show me where all those frivilous lawsuits are. I'm willing to look. What I know is that most judges do their jobs and throw them out at the lowest level. John Edwards was working the highest level cases. If you want to listen to "trial lawyer" bashing, chances are you haven't been a Bump reader for very long.