Senate Blackout

Yahoo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats accusing the ruling Republicans of stalling tactics imposed a rare closed session of the Senate on Tuesday to force the majority to complete a probe on whether the Bush administration misused intelligence before the
Iraq war.

Senate Republican leaders were livid about the tactic, which drew public attention back to Iraq as President George W. Bush faced the fall-out from an indictment of a senior aide related to the handling of pre-war intelligence.

...

Democrats invoked a little used rule to temporarily shut down television cameras in the chamber, clear galleries of reporters, tourists and other onlookers, force removal of staff members and recording devices and stop work on legislation.

SHUTTERED SENATE FLOOR

After 2-1/2 hours of negotiations on the shuttered Senate floor, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts said work could be wrapped up next week on "phase two" of his committee's investigation of intelligence lapses before the Iraq war -- whether the administration twisted intelligence findings to justify the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

His committee has produced a report on the first part of its investigation into lapses on intelligence on Iraq weapons, none of which were found despite many U.S. and foreign reports saying they were a major threat.

The committee has not finished a follow-up on whether the administration exaggerated or misused the reports to justify going to war in March, 2003.

...

Reid said the Republican-led Congress did nothing to keep a check on the Bush administration. "This Republican Senate does no oversight. None. None. It is all part of a plan. They obstruct, they take orders from the White House," Reid said.

On one hand, it's nice to see the Democratic Party finally demand some explanation for what happened in the run-up to the Iraq war.

On the other hand, it seems rather undemocratic that nobody is allowed to know what was actually said (senators are forbidden to speak of it, since it deals with classified national-security issues).

Even so, this ties in to the issue brought about by the lack of WMDs in Iraq. Those on the left geenrally accuse Bush of deliberately lying about this, while Bush's defenders claim he was merely incredibly incompetent or deluded, not dishonest.

I suppose the deciidng factor on that issue is: was the intelligence we had on Iraqi WMDs convincing? But, if it was ambiguous, how did Bush present it? Without being able to see what he's seen, it's impossible to tell.

Still, i want to hear people's opinons: Lying, incompetent, or deluded?

White Sox Miers, and... Those Twins

First the Red Sox, then the White Sox. This shaping up to be the Decade (or maybe the Century) of the Underdog. We'll see.

The nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court has been withdrawn. This isn't too suprising; her views were unknown, her legal credentials flimsy, and her scholarship almost nonexistent. All that - plus cronyism - might not have been enough to upset the Republican majority, but then it turned out she might not be solidly pro-life. Out she went.

And lastly:

Lately alot of attention has been paid to Prussian Blue, a California-based pop duo comprising of adorable twins Lamb and Lynx Gaede. At first sight, they usually elicit the too-cute 'Awwwww!' response akin to what the Olsen twins evoked back when they were less frightening. Until people realize...

...THEY'RE INSANE NAZI BITCHES!!


From ABC:

Known as "Prussian Blue" — a nod to their German heritage and bright blue eyes — the girls from Bakersfield, Calif., have been performing songs about white nationalism before all-white crowds since they were nine.

"We're proud of being white, we want to keep being white," said Lynx. "We want our people to stay white … we don't want to just be, you know, a big muddle. We just want to preserve our race."

Lynx and Lamb have been nurtured on racist beliefs since birth by their mother April. "They need to have the background to understand why certain things are happening," said April, a stay-at-home mom who no longer lives with the twins' father. "I'm going to give them, give them my opinion just like any, any parent would."

April home-schools the girls, teaching them her own unique perspective on everything from current to historical events.

Snip

Songs like "Sacrifice" — a tribute to Nazi Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy Fuhrer — clearly show the effect of the girls' upbringing. The lyrics praise Hess as a "man of peace who wouldn't give up."

About this, I have no 'insight' to add. I think people can figure this one out for themselves.

The World is Awash in Enemies of Humanity

It is always a joy to see vicious criminals brought to justice (assuming the trial is genuine), but ultimately it means nothing. History is not made by one person, and to claim that putting Saddam on trial is somehow an important victory shows how little we've learned.

Saddam isn't the first dictator to come to a bad end; it wasn't a lesson to him and it won't be a lesson to any would-be tyrants in the future. That's the thing about madmen: they're mad, and don't learn from the past. Even Saddam might've gotten away with it if Bush I hadn't given him permisison to invade Kuwait.

The victims of the Saddam regime know he couldn't have devastated the country alone; the hundreds of thousand of people who worked ceaselessly to enhance Saddam's power are mostly still at large, and many of them are either in the employ of the United States or running the US government.

Besides, what are the chances it'll be a real trial? Saddam knows too much about the workings of American foreign policy for him to be simply put in prison - who knows what his memoirs might reveal? My money is on either acquittal or that he'll be found strangled in his cell the day before the verdict is announced.

After WWII, the Nazi war criminals ought to have been tried for their crimes, and they were. But no one would say that is was anything more than the smallest fraction of the work that needed to be done.

Down, Pat

When a strapping young man named Pat Tillman turned down a mutlimillion dollar contract to play footbal for the St. Louis Cardinals to enlist in the U.S. Army, there was an outpouring of national pride in the sense of duty 9/11 had inspired in Americans. Pat himself was determined to fight the terrorists where he believed they were: Afghanistan.

But that's not what happened. Tillman was first sent much against his will to Iraq, but then in 2004 he was indeed sent to Afghanistan, where he was killed by friendly fire.

That's the story. But it has only recently come forward. You see, when Tillman was killed, the pro-war crowd struggled to outdo themselves in denouncing those who questioned the meaning of Tillman's death and in lauding Tillman's every attribute. His patriotism, his unquestioning self-sacrifice, his willingness to take on any task America might set him to. Frontpagemag.com, Little Green Footballs, and Ann Coulter (and many more) publsihed articles elevating Tillman and blasting the Left which supposedly despised him.

It was soon revealed that Tillman had not died heroically fighting al-Qaeda, but had been shot by his own men who mistakenly thought he was a member of the Taliban. The Army covered this up, even going so far as to release a detailed description of the non-existent battle and to burn Tillman's body armor. The fratricidal elements of the story didn't deter the Right, though; Tillman still believed in the same things they did, no matter how he died.

Now, however, an article has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle which contain some revelations that the Right finds it difficult to take. Among other things:

Interviews also show a side of Pat Tillman not widely known — a fiercely independent thinker who enlisted, fought and died in service to his country yet was critical of President Bush and opposed the war in Iraq, where he served a tour of duty. He was an avid reader whose interests ranged from history books on World War II and Winston Churchill to works of leftist Noam Chomsky, a favorite author.

*snip*

“I can see it like a movie screen,” Baer said. “We were outside of (a city in southern Iraq) watching as bombs were dropping on the town. We were at an old air base, me, Kevin and Pat, we weren’t in the fight right then. We were talking. And Pat said, ‘You know, this war is so f— illegal.’ And we all said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s who he was. He totally was against Bush.”

Another soldier in the platoon, who asked not to be identified, said Pat urged him to vote for Bush’s Democratic opponent in the 2004 election, Sen. John Kerry.

And, most 'shocking' of all:

Mary Tillman said a friend of Pat’s even arranged a private meeting with Chomsky, the antiwar author, to take place after his return from Afghanistan — a meeting prevented by his death. She said that although he supported the Afghan war, believing it justified by the Sept. 11 attacks, “Pat was very critical of the whole Iraq war.”

Then he would disagree with Chomsky about the Afghanistan war, then, but presumably their article would be about Iraq.

Reaction from Tillman's former defenders has ranged from silence to slack-jawed denial from those who simply refuse to believe it. And why not? In modern politics, no one must believe anything they don't wish to.

Just What the Region Needs

It was considered a major gaffe on Bush's part when he reffered to what was then the War on terror (and is now the Global Struggle Against Religious Extremism) as a 'crusade'. Apparently, though, he really meant it (courtesy of the BBC):

President George W Bush told Palestinian ministers that God had told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq - and create a Palestinian State, a new BBC series reveals.

In Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs, a major three-part series on BBC TWO (at 9.00pm on Monday 10, Monday 17 and Monday 24 October), Abu Mazen, Palestinian Prime Minister, and Nabil Shaath, his Foreign Minister, describe their first meeting with President Bush in June 2003.

Nabil Shaath says: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …" And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East." And by God I'm gonna do it.'"

Abu Mazen was at the same meeting and recounts how President Bush told him: "I have a moral and religious obligation. So I will get you a Palestinian state."

Striving for peace and security in the Middle East is a noble goal, but telling people about your divine inspiration to invade another country isn't exactly a prime example of the ideological 'fresh air' that is needed to help the region's moderates take control. Especially, you know, when much of the fundamentalist terrorism arises from their belief that God has given them a heavenly mandate to invade and conquer other countries.

Oh, but it doesn't end there. Karen Hughes is now the Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, and she has recently embarked on a 'listening tour' of the Muslim world, in which she's trying to improve America's image by recounting trite anecdotes about the wonders of American freedom.

Triteness, of course, doesn't equal falseness or even insincerity. But man, I don't know how many people are going to be won over by this tale told to a gathering of Turkish feminists:

"I am a mom, and I love kids. I love all kids. And I understand that is something that I have in common with the Turkish people."

Then there was the infamous incident in Cairo where she informed a group of Egyptian journalists that "'Under God' is in the US Constitution" which is not only wrong but a fairly seirous slander against the character of the US government.

Clearly, Hughes knows absolutely nothing about either Arab/Muslim culture, and she appears equally ignorant of how to make American culture appealing. Fred Kaplan of Slate remarked that "Let's say some Muslim leader wanted to improve Americans' image of Islam. It's doubtful that he would send as his emissary a woman in a black chador who had spent no time in the United States, possessed no knowledge of our history or movies or pop music, and spoke no English beyond a heavily accented, 'Good morning.'"

I have my doubts about this whole scheme. It seems that if the Middle East and the Muslim world is ever going to look on the U.S. with favor, both parties are going to have to change signigicantly. It'll take more than cheesy propoganda to achieve that.