Bush Gives New Reason for Iraq War
CORONADO, California - President Bush answered growing antiwar protests yesterday with a fresh reason for US troops to continue fighting in Iraq: protection of the country's vast oil fields, which he said would otherwise fall under the control of terrorist extremists.
Bush is the Real Threat
Now that the US president has announced that he has not ruled out an attack on Iran, if it does not abandon its nuclear programme, the Middle East faces a crisis that could dwarf even the dangers arising from the war in Iraq.
Even a conventional weapon fired at a nuclear research centre - whether or not a bomb was being made there - would almost certainly release radioactivity into the atmosphere, with consequences seen worldwide as a mini-Hiroshima.
We would be told that it had been done to uphold the principles of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) - an argument that does not stand up to a moment's examination.
The moral and legal basis of the NPT convention, which the International Atomic Energy Agency is there to uphold, was based on the agreement of non-nuclear nations not to acquire nuclear weapons if nuclear powers undertook not to extend nuclear arsenals and negotiate to secure their abolition.
Since then, the Americans have launched a programme that would allow them to use nuclear weapons in space, nuclear bunker-busting bombs are being developed, and depleted uranium has been used in Iraq - all of which are clear breaches of the NPT. Israel, which has a massive nuclear weapons programme, is accepted as a close ally of the US, which still arms and funds it.
George W. Bush's Noble Cause - 'Political Capital'
... the way Bush lied us into invading Iraq, particularly the timing of it all (ginning it up just before the 2002 midterm elections), was done largely so Republicans could win take back the Senate in 2002 after losing it because of Jim Jeffords' defection, and so Bush could win the White House in the election of 2004.
It's apparently just that simple, just that banal, and ultimately just that traitorous to the traditional ideals of America.
This is why the greatest political threat that Cindy Sheehan represents to George W. Bush and his Republican Party is in her ability to point this out.
..."I believe our leaders invaded Iraq in March 2003 -- I believe before our leaders Iraq in March 2003, and I am even more convinced now, that this aggression on Iraq was based on a lie of historic proportions and was blatantly unnecessary.
"The so-called Downing Street Memo dated 23 July 2002, only confirms what I already suspected, the leadership of his country rushed us into an illegal invasion of another sovereign country on prefabricated and cherry-picked intelligence. Iraq was no threat to the United States of America, and the devastating sanctions and bombing against the Iraq were working.
"As a matter of fact, in interviews in 1999 with respected journalist and long-time Bush family friend, Mickey Herskowitz, then Governor George Bush stated, 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as commander in chief. My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency.'
"It looks like George Bush was ready to lead this country into an avoidable war even before he became President.
"From the expose of the Downing Street Memo and the conversations with George Bush from 1999, it seems like the invasion of Iraq and the deaths of so many innocent people were preordained.
"It appears that my boy Casey was given a death sentence even before he joined the Army in May 2000."
Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?
... The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.
Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."
In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.
On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."
Republicans Accused of Witch-Hunt Against Climate Change Scientists
... A far-reaching inquiry into the careers of three of the US's most senior climate specialists has been launched by Joe Barton, the chairman of the House of Representatives committee on energy and commerce. He has demanded details of all their sources of funding, methods and everything they have ever published.
Mr Barton, a Texan closely associated with the fossil-fuel lobby, has spent his 11 years as chairman opposing every piece of legislation designed to combat climate change.
He is using the wide powers of his committee to force the scientists to produce great quantities of material after alleging flaws and lack of transparency in their research... The scientific work they are investigating was important in establishing that man-made carbon emissions were at least partly responsible for global warming, and formed part of the 2001 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which convinced most world leaders - George Bush was a notable exception - that urgent action was needed to curb greenhouse gases.
The demands in letters sent to the scientists have been compared by some US media commentators to the anti-communist "witch-hunts" pursued by Joe McCarthy in the 1950s.
The three US climate scientists - Michael Mann, the director of the Earth System Science Centre at Pennsylvania State University; Raymond Bradley, the director of the Climate System Research Centre at the University of Massachusetts; and Malcolm Hughes, the former director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona - have been told to send large volumes of material.
A letter demanding information on the three and their work has also gone to Arden Bement, the director of the US National Science Foundation.
Mr Barton's inquiry was launched after an article in the Wall Street Journal quoted an economist and a statistician, neither of them from a climate science background, saying there were methodological flaws and data errors in the three scientists' calculations. It accused the trio of refusing to make their original material available to be cross-checked.
... The inquiry has sent shockwaves through the US scientific establishment, already under pressure from the Bush administration, which links funding to policy objectives.
Eighteen of the country's most influential scientists from Princeton and Harvard have written to Mr Barton and Mr Whitfield expressing "deep concern". Their letter says much of the information requested is unrelated to climate science.
It says: "Requests to provide all working materials related to hundreds of publications stretching back decades can be seen as intimidation - intentional or not - and thereby risks compromising the independence of scientific opinion that is vital to the pre-eminence of American science as well as to the flow of objective science to the government."
Alan Leshner protested on behalf of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, expressing "deep concern" about the inquiry, which appeared to be "a search for a basis to discredit the particular scientists rather than a search for understanding".
Political reaction has been stronger. Henry Waxman, a senior Californian Democrat, wrote complaining that this was a "dubious" inquiry which many viewed as a "transparent effort to bully and harass climate-change experts who have reached conclusions with which you disagree".
But the strongest language came from another Republican, Sherwood Boehlert, the chairman of the house science committee. He wrote to "express my strenuous objections to what I see as the misguided and illegitimate investigation".
He said it was pernicious to substitute political review for scientific peer review and the precedent was "truly chilling". He said the inquiry "seeks to erase the line between science and politics" and should be reconsidered.
A spokeswoman for Mr Barton said yesterday that all the required written evidence had been collected.
Destroying the National Parks
Recently, a secret draft revision of the national park system's basic management policy document has been circulating within the Interior Department. It was prepared, without consultation within the National Park Service, by Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant secretary at Interior who once ran the Chamber of Commerce in Cody, Wyo., was a Congressional aide to Dick Cheney and has no park service experience.
Within national park circles, this rewrite of park rules has been met with profound dismay, for it essentially undermines the protected status of the national parks. The document makes it perfectly clear that this rewrite was not prompted by a compelling change in the park system's circumstances. It was prompted by a change in political circumstances - the opportunity to craft a vision of the national parks that suits the Bush administration.
Some of Mr. Hoffman's changes are trivial, although even apparently subtle changes in wording - from "protect" to "conserve," for instance - soften the standard used to judge the environmental effects of park policy.
But there is nothing subtle about the main thrust of this rewrite. It is a frontal attack on the idea of "impairment." According to the act that established the national parks, preventing impairment of park resources - including the landscape, wildlife and such intangibles as the soundscape of Yellowstone, for instance - is the "fundamental purpose." In Mr. Hoffman's world, it is now merely one of the purposes.
... He does everything possible to strip away a scientific basis for park management. His rules would essentially require park superintendents to subordinate the management of their parks to local and state agendas. He also envisions a much wider range of commercial activity within the parks.
In short, this is not a policy for protecting the parks. It is a policy for destroying them.
The Interior Department has already begun to distance itself from this rewrite, which it kept hidden from park service employees. But what Mr. Hoffman has given us is a road map of what could happen to the parks if Mr. Bush's political appointees are allowed to have their way.
All I Did Was Say They Can't Run a Fair Election
It's become fashionable to say that 11 September 2001 was the day that changed everything in American politics. But I'm not sure the bigger watershed didn't come nine months earlier when the Supreme Court pulled the plug on the Florida battle and installed George W Bush in the White House.
Given the trauma and upheaval of everything that has happened since - the Iraq war, of course, but also spiralling deficits, huge tax cuts for the rich, a stark widening of the income gap between rich and poor, and on and on - it is perhaps natural for Bush supporters to dig in their heels and claim full democratic legitimacy for what the administration has wrought.
Likewise, it is natural for Bush opponents to wonder how much of it might have been avoided - how many military deaths, how much anti-American anger and resentment around the world, how many detentions, deportations and torture scandals - if the 2000 election had concluded differently.
No wonder the passions continue to rage. It is, or should be, beyond dispute that the Florida election was fought dirtily and that there is at least a case to be made that the wrong man ended up in the Oval Office.
Civil War Looms in Iraq as Constitution Talks End in Disarray
Bush's job approval rating is now at its lowest point since he began the presidency. A Harris poll put Mr Bush's rating at 40 per cent and suggested 58 per cent of the US public had a negative opinion of the President's performance. His approval rating in June was 45 per cent.
A poll for the American Research Group put his approval rating at just 36 per cent. Fifty-nine per cent of the people polled said the country was "seriously off on the wrong track"."
... I'd say 40 per cent of the opposition to Mr Bush is based on rising [petrol] prices. Americans are very unhappy about this. But the other 60 per cent is Iraq. People are very disillusioned," said Larry Sabato, professor of politics at the University of Virginia.
John Pike, director of the military research group GlobalSecurity.Org, said the monthly average for US troops being killed stood at around 75, a figure that had not moved.
Leak shows Blair told of Iraq war terror link
... the Iraq war was fuelling Muslim extremism in Britain a year before the 7 July bombings, The Observer can reveal.
Despite repeated denials by Number 10 that the war made Britain a target for terrorists, a letter from Michael Jay, the Foreign Office permanent under-secretary, to the cabinet secretary, Sir Andrew Turnbull - obtained by this newspaper - makes the connection clear.
The letter, dated 18 May 2004, says British foreign policy was a 'recurring theme' in the Muslim community, 'especially in the context of the Middle East peace process and Iraq'.
'Colleagues have flagged up some of the potential underlying causes of extremism that can affect the Muslim community, such as discrimination, disadvantage and exclusion,' the letter says. 'But another recurring theme is the issue of British foreign policy, especially in the context of the Middle East peace process and Iraq.
'Experience of both ministers and officials ... suggests that ... British foreign policy and the perception of its negative effect on Muslims globally plays a significant role in creating a feeling of anger and impotence among especially the younger generation of British Muslims.'
The letter continues: 'This seems to be a key driver behind recruitment by extremist organisations (e.g. recruitment drives by groups such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir and al Muhajiroon). The FCO has a relevant and crucial role to play in the wider context of engagement with British Muslims on policy issues, and more broadly, in convincing young Muslims that they have a legitimate and credible voice, including on foreign policy issues, through an active participation in the democratic process.'
Al Muhajiroon, formed by Omar Bakri Mohammed, the radical preacher who fled Britain after the 7 July bombings, was a recruiting organisation for young Islamic extremists in Britain.
Attached to the letter is a strategy document, also obtained by The Observer, which reveals further concerns. It says Britain is now viewed as a 'crusader state', on a par with America as a potential target. 'Muslim resentment towards the West is worse than ever,' the document, 'Building Bridges with Mainstream Islam', says.
'This was previously focused on the US, but the war in Iraq has meant the UK is now seen in similar terms - both are now seen by many Muslims as "Crusader states".
'Though we are moving on from a conflict to a reconstruction phase in Iraq, there are no signs of any moderation of this resentment. Our work on engaging with Islam has therefore been knocked back. Mr O'Brien [then a Foreign Office minister] has expressed his concern.'
Republican Senator Says U.S. Needs Iraq Exit Strategy Now
... "We should start figuring out how we get out of there," Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said on ABC's "This Week." "I think our involvement there has destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think the further destabilization will occur."
Pat Robertson is not a Christian
... Pat Robertson suggested this past Monday that the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, be assassinated by operatives of the United States government! Though his comments are newsworthy because of his following in the 700 Club and his political stature and role in the political religious right, his comments however are out of synch with everything that has been handed down to us from the teachings of Jesus Christ. What I am suggesting here is that Pat Robertson and individuals of his ilk are not practicing or preaching Christ but have become adherents of a political movement in this nation that attempts to use Christianity towards their own narrow political ends. I believe that there is a role for Christianity in the events of the world, but the teachings of Christ leads us to love one another, strain and stretch to understand each other, and dare to know each other enough that we come to an understanding of one another and from that create a world that is not built on might and winning but on understanding and unity. Clearly the comments of Robertson defy the framework we find in the gospels of Jesus Christ.
Birth of a New Iraq, or Blueprint for Civil War?
... The draft constitution is the principal plank of President George Bush's exit strategy from the Iraq conflict, which has made his popularity collapse among American voters.
American diplomats, led by the ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, had been frantically lobbying for it to be adopted before last night's deadline. But far from sealing Iraq's post-Saddam era, the draft appeared to be quickly fracturing the fragile edifice of government, with Shia and Kurdish parties declaring they were prepared to use their parliamentary majority to push through the document in the teeth of Sunni opposition.
The Sunni reaction was immediate, with politicians queuing to denounce the move and warning of a cataclysmic reaction. Soha Allawi, one of the leading negotiators, declared: "We will not be silent. We will campaign for public awareness to tell both Sunnis and Shias to reject the constitution, which has elements that will lead to the break-up of Iraq and civil war." Another Sunni delegate, Hussein Shukur al-Fallu, said: "If they pass this constitution, then the rebellion will reach its peak."
Intelligent Design?
Evolution is a robust theory, in the scientific sense, that has
been tested and confirmed again and again. Intelligent design is not a
theory at all, as scientists understand the word, but a well-financed
political and religious campaign to muddy science. Its basic
proposition - the intervention of a designer, a k a God - cannot be
tested. It has no evidence to offer, and its assumptions that humans
were divinely created are the same as its conclusions. Its objections
to evolution are based on syllogistic reasoning and a highly selective
treatment of the physical evidence.
Accepting the fact of
evolution does not necessarily mean discarding a personal faith in God.
But accepting intelligent design means discarding science. Much has
been made of a 2004 poll showing that some 45 percent of Americans
believe that the Earth - and humans with it - was created as described
in the book of Genesis, and within the past 10,000 years. This isn't a
triumph of faith. It's a failure of education.Has the "Tipping Point" on Iraq Been Reached?
Republican lawmakers, who face mid-term elections in 15 months from now, and the military itself, which, as a result of the Vietnam debacle, has taken as an article of faith that the loss of civilian support must be avoided at all costs, appear increasingly restive and unhappy with the course of events.
"There are more and more voices within the party and military who are beginning to acknowledge that the situation in Iraq is not only not improving, but is actually getting worse," said Jim Cason of the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), a lobby group that opposed the war.
"The administration is under more and more pressure from within -- especially from the Pentagon and influential Republicans on Capitol Hill -- and it clearly hasn't figured out what to do about it."
Media coverage of the war has turned particularly gloomy over the past several weeks, and particularly since the Aug. 3 killing of 14 U.S. servicemen in one deadly bombing incident.
The front-page headlines tell the story. "In Iraq, No Clear Finish Line," which ran in the Washington Post a week ago, was soon succeeded by "U.S. Lowers Sights on What Can be Achieved in Iraq," which was then eclipsed by a more general analysis Thursday entitled "U.S. Policy on 'Axis of Evil' Suffers Spate of Setbacks."
Among other points, that article noted that the administration's blunders in Iraq had clearly strengthened the strategic position of North Korea and especially Iran, whose influence with the new government in Baghdad has been growing steadily, much to Washington's discomfort.
As for the other "court paper" of the U.S. capital, the New York Times, a searing critique of Bush's policy by columnist Frank Rich entitled "Someone Tell the President the War is Over" appeared virtually everywhere on the Internet almost the instant that it was published last Sunday.
And an analysis Thursday, "Bad Iraq War News Has Some in the G.O.P. (Republican Party) Worried over '06 Vote," argued that even among staunch war hawks in Congress, Iraq was fast becoming a political albatross of Vietnam-like dimensions.
Even arch-hawk Newt Gingrich, former Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, admitted that the near-victory of the Democratic candidate and Iraq veteran who denounced Bush as a "chicken hawk" in a solidly Republican district in Ohio earlier this month was a "wake-up call" for the party.
Public opinion polls have been telling a similar story. A Newsweek poll taken two weeks ago found that confidence in Bush's handling of the war had fallen to an all-time low of 34 percent, which, as Rich pointed out, was roughly equivalent to the approval rating of former President Lyndon Johnson's handling of the Vietnam War after the 1968 Tet offensive that is widely believed to have marked the "tipping point" in public opposition to Washington's intervention in Indochina.
An earlier Associated Press-Ipsos survey found somewhat more support for Bush's Iraq policy -- 38 percent. But that was also an all-time low for that survey and was also conducted just before the killing of the 14 Marines.
Another poll by USA Today, CNN, and Gallup published a few days later found majorities believe that going to war in Iraq was a mistake and has made the U.S. more vulnerable to terrorism, and now favour withdrawing U.S. troops. A third of those questioned said they want all troops withdrawn immediately.
Global Warming: Will You Listen Now, America?
On a high-profile and bi-partisan fact-finding tour in Alaska and Canada's Yukon territory, Senators John McCain, a Republican, and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic senator for New York, were confronted by melting permafrost and shrinking glaciers and heard from native Inuit that rising sea levels were altering their lives.
"The question is how much damage will be done before we start taking concrete action," Mr McCain said at a press conference in Anchorage. "Go up to places like we just came from. It's a little scary." Mrs Clinton added: "I don't think there's any doubt left for anybody who actually looks at the science. There are still some holdouts, but they're fighting a losing battle. The science is overwhelming."
Their findings directly challenge President George Bush's reluctance to legislate to reduce America's carbon emissions. Although both senators have talked before of the need to tackle global warming, this week's clarion call was perhaps the clearest and most urgent. It also raises the prospect that climate change and other environmental issues could be a factor in the presidential contest in 2008 if Mrs Clinton and Mr McCain enter it. Mrs Clinton and Mr McCain, who represents Arizona, are among the leading, and the most popular, likely contenders.
... People in Alaska are starting to freak out. The retreat of the sea ice allows the oceans to pound the coast more, and villages there are suffering from the effects of that erosion. There is melting, roads are buckling, there are forests that have been infested with beetles because of a rise in temperatures. I think residents there feel it's visible more and more, more than any other place in the country. Dan Lashof, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council
Fear Keeps Afghan Candidates Off Streets
Fear of attacks by Taliban-led rebels kept many candidates off the streets Wednesday as Afghanistan began its campaign period for landmark Sept. 18 legislative elections, the country's next step toward democracy. ... ''Everyone is too scared to campaign here. The Taliban are threatening to kill anyone connected to the elections,'' said Gul Havid, police chief in Ata Ghar district of southern Zabul province, where militants and U.S. and Afghan forces have clashed frequently.
Bush in a Bubble
At long last, a senior Bush official admits that administration officials can no longer cling to their own version of reality. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning," the official told The Washington Post.
They had better start absorbing and shedding a lot faster, before many more American kids die to create a pawn of Iran. And they had better tell the Boy in the Bubble, who continues to dwell in delusion, hailing the fights and delays on the Iraqi constitution as "a tribute to democracy."
Iraqi Constitution: Chewing on Meaningless Words
this constitution is being written in a war zone, in a country on the verge of a civil war. This process is designed not to represent the Iraqi people's need for a constitution but to comply with an imposed timetable aimed at legitimising the occupation. The drafting process has increasingly proved a dividing, rather than a unifying, process. Under Saddam Hussein, we had a constitution described as "progressive and secular". It did not stop him violating human rights, women's included. The same is happening now. The militias of the parties heading the interim government are involved in daily violations of Iraqis' human rights, women's in particular, with the US-led occupation's blessing. Will the new constitution put an end to this violence? ...
Despite all the rhetoric of "building a new democracy", Iraqis are buckling under the burdens and abuse of the US-led occupation and its local Iraqi sub-contractors. Daily life for most Iraqis is still a struggle for survival. Human rights under occupation have proved, like weapons of mass destruction, to be a mirage. Torture and ill-treatment - even the torture of children in adult facilities - is widespread. Depleted uranium and other banned weapons have been used against Iraqi cities by occupying troops.
Iraqi women were long the most liberated in the Middle East. Occupation has largely confined them to their homes. A typical Iraqi woman's day begins with the struggle to get the basics: electricity, petrol or a cylinder of gas, water, food and medication. It ends with a sigh of relief at surviving death threats and violent attacks. For most women, simply to venture on to the street is to risk being attacked or kidnapped for profit or revenge. Young girls are sold to neighbouring countries for prostitution.
In a land awash with oil, 16 million Iraqis rely on monthly food rations for survival. None has been received since May. Privatisation threatens free public services. Acute malnutrition among children has doubled. Unemployment, at 70%, has fuelled poverty, prostitution, backstreet abortions and honour killings.
Deceptive Talk About Iraq
Bush based the 2003 invasion and follow-up occupation on the false promise of ease -- a flop of epic proportions for which not a single individual in authority has been held responsible -- the administration has had to scramble for more than two years to keep pace with a growing insurgency as a well as the gargantuan task of reconstruction for which America was not financially prepared.
Tours of duty were extended. The reserves were raided. The National Guard was raided. Military commitments in the rest of the world, including the fight against terrorism and the effort to establish stability in Afghanistan, were compromised. The American people were deceived about the true cost of this war. But all this juggling and deception hasn't been enough. The fact remains: The military cannot rotate troops out of Iraq as their tours end and rotate others in without drastic change and a policy switch that includes telling people the truth.
Hence the cover story, which had a truly weird twist, when Cheney's ridiculous comment predictably failed to fly. From Baghdad, the top US ground forces commander, General George Casey, suddenly suggested that a withdrawal of at least 30,000 troops beginning next spring was possible if Iraq's chaotic politics continued to progress and if more Iraqi units were trained to undertake security operations.
This formulation angered many of Bush's conservative supporters, which produced fresh instructions to poor Casey to switch to a stay-the-course pessimism. The result was a story in The Washington Post last week quoting a senior military official in Baghdad as saying no way Iraq's ''leaders" would be ready to lead some operations against the insurgency until next summer, if not later. This anonymous official was the same General Casey.
Don't blame him. Bush emerged from the seclusion of his protester-plagued ranch last week to pretend that he was resolving all the confusion he himself caused by declaring his opposition to any ''immediate" troop withdrawals. That is a straw man. There are no proposals even in our meek Congress for withdrawals or timetables that would begin before next summer.
And there's the rub. The military's own planning envisages lowering the troop level to around 100,000 next year, even though its own assessment is that the insurgency is likely to remain murderous, the Iraqis are likely to remain unprepared, and the need is for more troops. If anything, the threat to the remaining forces will be greater as time passes.
If Bush had the sense to meet with Gold Star Mother Cindy Sheehan outside his ranch before her protest metastasized into a media circus, he might have discovered that his secret plans are closer to her position than the views of his most fervent, alleged supporters.
Behind all the hype, the truth that remains is that the United States lacks the forces to ''win," but retains enough to avoid losing and thus prolong the madness indefinitely. If that reminds people of another war situation long ago in Southeast Asia, this is one point of comparison that is dead on.
Funding confusion in economics, science
You might have thought that a strategy of creating doubt about inconvenient research results could work only in soft fields like economics. But it turns out that the strategy works equally well when deployed against the hard sciences.
The most spectacular example is the campaign to discredit research on global warming. Despite an overwhelming scientific consensus, many people have the impression that the issue is still unresolved. This impression reflects the assiduous work of conservative think tanks, which produce and promote skeptical reports that look like peer-reviewed research, but aren't. And behind it all lies lavish financing from the energy industry, especially ExxonMobil.
There are several reasons why fake research is so effective. One is that nonscientists sometimes find it hard to tell the difference between research and advocacy - if it's got numbers and charts in it, doesn't that make it science?
Even when reporters do know the difference, the conventions of he-said-she-said journalism get in the way of conveying that knowledge to readers. I once joked that if President Bush said that the Earth was flat, the headlines of news articles would read, "Opinions Differ on Shape of the Earth." The headlines on many articles about the intelligent design controversy come pretty close.
Finally, the self-policing nature of science - scientific truth is determined by peer review, not public opinion - can be exploited by skilled purveyors of cultural resentment. Do virtually all biologists agree that Darwin was right? Well, that just shows that they're elitists who think they're smarter than the rest of us.
Which brings us, finally, to intelligent design. Some of America's most powerful politicians have a deep hatred for Darwinism. Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, blamed the theory of evolution for the Columbine school shootings. But sheer political power hasn't been enough to get creationism into the school curriculum. The theory of evolution has overwhelming scientific support, and the country isn't ready - yet - to teach religious doctrine in public schools.
But what if creationists do to evolutionary theory what corporate interests did to global warming: create a widespread impression that the scientific consensus has shaky foundations?
Creationists failed when they pretended to be engaged in science, not religious indoctrination: "creation science" was too crude to fool anyone. But intelligent design, which spreads doubt about evolution without being too overtly religious, may succeed where creation science failed.
The important thing to remember is that like supply-side economics or global-warming skepticism, intelligent design doesn't have to attract significant support from actual researchers to be effective. All it has to do is create confusion, to make it seem as if there really is a controversy about the validity of evolutionary theory.
Bush "increasingly embattled in defence of his dirty war"
The Pentagon has appealed against a federal judge's ruling to make public 87 photographs and four videos from Abu Ghraib depicting "rape and murder", according to a senator who has seen them. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has quashed the recommendation of military investigators looking into FBI reports of torture at Guantánamo that its commander, Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller, be reprimanded for dereliction of duty.
Last month, three top military attorneys from the judge advocate generals for the army, air force and marines testified before the Senate that they had objected from the start to the new abusive techniques of interrogation of prisoners. One memo revealed by Maj Gen Jack Rives, deputy judge advocate general of the air force, said: "Several of the more extreme interrogation techniques, on their face, amount to violations of domestic criminal law."
In response, three Republican senators have proposed legislation that would in effect abolish Bush's dirty war. Their bill would prohibit "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" of detainees, hiding prisoners from the Red Cross, and from using methods not authorised by the army field manual. One of these senators, John McCain, himself a prisoner of war in Vietnam, released a letter signed by more than a dozen retired senior military generals and admirals as well as prisoners of war. It said: "The abuse of prisoners hurts America's cause in the war on terror, endangers US service members who might be captured by the enemy, and is anathema to the values Americans have held dear for generations."
Cheney interceded to attempt to force the senators to withdraw, claiming they are hurting the "war on terrorism", but they have refused. McCain declared that the debate was not about the terrorists, saying: "It's not about who they are. It's about who we are."
Coalition strengthening the hand of Shiite organizations in Iraq
In May, the city's police chief told a British newspaper that half of his 7,000-man force was affiliated with religious parties. This may have been an optimistic estimate: one young Iraqi officer told me that "75 percent of the policemen I know are with Moktada al-Sadr - he is a great man." And unfortunately, the British seem unable or unwilling to do anything about it.
The fact that the British are in effect strengthening the hand of Shiite organizations is not lost on Basra's residents.
"No one trusts the police," one Iraqi journalist told me. "If our new ayatollahs snap their fingers, thousands of police will jump." Mufeed al-Mushashaee, the leader of a liberal political organization called the Shabanea Rebellion, told me that he felt that "the entire force should be dissolved and replaced with people educated in human rights and democracy."
Unfortunately, this is precisely what the British aren't doing.
What's really going on in Iraq?
... Yesterday, a 22-year-old psych grad from Basra University told me how, as they enter the campus each day, female students have to pass religious militiamen "hired" by the administration for "protection". They examine each woman's hijab - no showing of hair, ladies - and the length of their abiyas, staring into their faces for signs of makeup. Anyone failing the Islamic dignity test is sent home. I asked how this made her feel. She grimaced and curled her fingers into two trembling talons. "It burns inside. We are not free to dress or act as we like. The religious parties have banned music, social interaction, relaxation. I am depressed all the time."
This is what Basra [the biggest city in the south of Iraq] has become in the aftermath of the elections. These are the unwritten, unlegislated and unchallengeable "social" and "religious" norms that have an iron grip on the city.
Bush's long retreat
... even for a man famed for taking long, luxuriant holidays, this year's presidential vacation is breaking records. When George Bush boarded Air Force One at Andrews air force base just outside Washington on Tuesday to make the journey to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, it signalled the start of nearly five weeks away from the White House, believed to be the longest retreat in at least 36 years.
The extended August break has drawn fire with Democrats accusing Mr Bush of running away from a growing political scandal surrounding his chief political adviser, Karl Rove. In response the White House has spent much of the last week emphasising just how busy the president will be over the summer.
But less than five years into his eight years in office, Mr Bush is closing in fast on the record set by Ronald Reagan who spent 345 days - nearly one eighth of his presidency - at his Santa Barbara ranch ("It just seems a lot easier to sort out a problem when I'm on a horse," is how the Gipper defended his vacations in his autobiography).
This year's getaway is Mr Bush's 49th visit to Prairie Chapel ranch near Waco, and the 319th day that he has spent entirely or partially in Crawford since he was sworn in, according to Mark Knoller, a CBS radio reporter famous for keeping better records of the president's travel than the White House itself.
... Mr Bush told reporters on Monday: "I have a busy couple of weeks down there."
1,800 Dead in Iraq and 1.8 Million Supporting the Troops
I see many many cars with "Support the Troops" ribbons. I sympathize with them and mourn 1,800 US servicemen and women, (as well as 25,000 - 100,000 Iraqi's dead), but let's cut to the chase: this war is not about the troops.
The troops should never have been sent there.
It's clear now that no-one needed to die to rid us of Iraq's WMD. No one needed to be maimed to stop a "mushroom cloud" over NYC. No one needed to endure the terror of IEDs in unarmored Humvees. To stop Saddam's terrifying drones, not one Haliburton employee needed to bill us an average of $2.64 a gallon to drive 10 cent gasoline from Kuwait.
The "mission" has changed many times since the troops were sent, but none of the public missions ever held water. The 1,800 died and continue to die for a series of lies and deceptions. The real reason was simple. Bush wanted to invade and so did Dick. They had their reasons. They didn't think we needed to know them. (Though they were hidden in plain sight in the manifesto of the New American Century.)
Wolfowitz was honest, after the invasion. He told us that all the lies were "bureaucratic". The Downing St. memo's reveal they were "fixed around the policy" to invade Iraq.
Do you think Bush and Dick ever believed any of them? I don't.
Sadly, our troops are now exposed in the worst possible way. They are the representatives of a country that had no right to invade and occupy another country that was no threat, and that country (us) will not be pulling out any time soon. We're building permanent bases all over Iraq. That says, "we're staying, for a long time!" (We'll have to scale back the troops, but we'll continue to have tens of thousands of them all over the country.)
On the other hand, the IEDs say the Iraqi's don't want us to stay. They say the troops your ribbon says you're supporting will continue to die. And our military might will continue to be the wrong weapon to fight terror.
The longer we stay in Iraq the more we play into the terrorists hands, as this administration has done since before 9/11 and especially since invading Iraq. (Doesn't Bush see that invading Iraq was like offering 99 Virgins in Heaven to a suicide bomber. His policies sure are effective, in motivating terrorists.)
So, my dear friend with the ribbon on your car; I feel the war has demonstrated our weakness, not our strength. Our government is out-of-control and our brothers and sisters are dying for no reason. So the next time you put one of those ribbons on your car, please tell me what does it mean to "support the troops"?
Bush Administration Signals Its True Values
… three Republican senators are giving the White House fits with their attempt to get legislation approved that would expressly prohibit cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees in
There was a dramatic encounter during the floor debate last week when Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from
Senator McCain, of
The stakes in this confrontation are high. Senators McCain, Warner and Graham are all influential members of the Armed Services Committee (Senator Warner is the chairman), and they have introduced the legislation in the form of amendments to the nearly half-trillion-dollar Pentagon authorization bill for fiscal 2006.
That such an initiative would come from high-ranking, hawkish Republicans is extraordinary, and the White House is not happy about it. In addition to prohibiting cruel and degrading treatment, the legislation would restrict military interrogation techniques to those authorized in a new Army field manual.
The senators seemed clearly to have been moved by the dismay expressed by current and former members of the military over the lack of uniform standards for the treatment of detainees. Many have argued that the lack of standards and clear guidance from the highest levels of government have led inexorably to abuses.
Senator McCain has been the point person on the legislative amendments, and his office has released a letter from more than a dozen retired officers, including generals, admirals and former prisoners of war, offering support for his effort to establish standards designed to rein in the abusive treatment of prisoners.
The letter said, in part, "The abuse of prisoners hurts
Novak Warned Not to Print Valerie Plame’s name
Columnist Robert Novak broke his silence Monday about his disclosure of an undercover CIA operative's identity, defending himself against a former agency official's account that he twice warned Novak not to publish the name.
In his syndicated column, Novak did not dispute that former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow told him he should not print the covert officer's name, Valerie Plame, during conversations they had prior to Novak's July 14, 2003 column.
But Novak reasserted that no CIA official ever told him in advance ''that Valerie Plame Wilson's disclosure would endanger her or anybody else.''
Bush Appoints
President Bush bypassed the Senate today and installed John R. Bolton as his ambassador to the United Nations over strong Democratic objections that he was abusing power and undermining the credibility of the
The appointment brought to a close a five-month standoff between the White House and Senate Democrats, who had held up Mr. Bolton's confirmation over accusations that the former undersecretary of state for arms control had manipulated intelligence to conform to his hawkish ideology and had bullied subordinates.
... In his remarks, Mr. Bush blamed the holdup on "partisan delaying tactics by a handful of senators," but Democrats countered that the handful numbered at least 43, including two Republicans.
Two Prosecutors Faulted Trials for Detainees
As the Pentagon was making its final preparations to begin war crimes trials against four detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, two senior prosecutors complained in confidential messages last year that the trial system had been secretly arranged to improve the chance of conviction and to deprive defendants of material that could prove their innocence.The electronic messages, obtained by The New York Times, reveal a bitter dispute within the military legal community over the fairness of the system at a time when the Bush administration and the Pentagon were eager to have the military commissions, the first for the United States since the aftermath of World War II, be seen as just at home and abroad.
During the same time period, military defense lawyers were publicly criticizing the system, but senior officials dismissed their complaints and said they were contrived as part of the efforts to help their clients.
The defense lawyers' complaints and those of outside groups like the American Bar Association were, it is now clear, simultaneously being echoed in confidential messages by the two high-ranking prosecutors whose cases would, if anything, benefit from any slanting of the process.
... Among the striking statements in the prosecutors' messages was an assertion by one that the chief prosecutor had told his subordinates that the members of the military commission that would try the first four defendants would be "handpicked" to ensure that all would be convicted.
The same officer, Capt. John Carr of the Air Force, also said in his message that he had been told that any exculpatory evidence - information that could help the detainees mount a defense in their cases - would probably exist only in the 10 percent of documents being withheld by the Central Intelligence Agency for security reasons.
Captain Carr's e-mail message also said that some evidence that at least one of the four defendants had been brutalized had been lost and that other evidence on the same issue had been withheld. The March 15, 2004, message was addressed to Col. Frederick L. Borch, the chief prosecutor who was the object of much of Captain Carr's criticism.
The second officer, Maj. Robert Preston, also of the Air Force, said in a March 11, 2004, message to another senior officer in the prosecutor's office that he could not in good conscience write a legal motion saying the proceedings would be "full and fair" when he knew they would not.
Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Hemingway of the Air Force, a senior adviser to the office running the war crimes trials who provided a response from the Defense Department, said that the e-mail messages had prompted a formal investigation by the Pentagon's inspector general that found no evidence to support the two officers' accusations of legal or ethical problems.
...In his March 2004 message, Captain Carr told Colonel Borch that "you have repeatedly said to the office that the military panel will be handpicked and will not acquit these detainees and we only needed to worry about building a record for the review panel" and academicians who would pore over the record in years to come.
Captain Carr said in the message that the problems could not be dismissed as personality differences, as some had tried to depict them, but "may constitute dereliction of duty, false official statements or other criminal conduct."
He added that "the evidence does not indicate that our military and civilian leaders have been accurately informed of the state of our preparation, the true culpability of the accused or the sustainability of our efforts." The office, he said, was poised to "prosecute fairly low-level accused in a process that appears to be rigged."
He said that Colonel Borch also said that he was close to Maj. Gen. John D. Altenburg Jr., the retired officer who is in overall charge of the war crimes commissions, and that this would favor the prosecution.
General Altenburg selected the commission members, including the presiding officer, Col. Peter S. Brownback III, a longtime close friend of his. Defense lawyers objected to the presence of Colonel Brownback and some other officers, saying they had serious conflicts of interest. General Altenburg removed some of the other officers but allowed Colonel Brownback to remain.
In his electronic message, Captain Carr said the prosecution team had falsely stated to superiors that it had no evidence of torture of Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al-Bahlul of Yemen. In addition, Captain Carr said the prosecution team had lost an F.B.I. document detailing an interview in which the detainee claimed he had been tortured and abused.
Major Preston, in his e-mail message of March 11, 2004, said that pressing ahead with the trials would be "a severe threat to the reputation of the military justice system and even a fraud on the American people."
