December Week 4, 2004
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December Week 4, 2004
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Monday December 20 , 2004 Most men's conscience, habits, and opinions are borrowed from convention and gather continually comforting assurances from the same social consensus that originally suggested them. George Santayana
Well I got most of it done, just one small hallway to do and then the kids rooms to finish... I should be able to start taping on Wednesday... If I get a little help. "Now, the temptation is going to be, by well-meaning people such as yourself and others here, as we run up to the issue, to get me to negotiate with myself in public," Bush told the questioner on Monday. "To say, you know, "What's this mean, Mr. President? What's that mean?. I will try to explain how without negotiating with myself. It's a very tricky way to get me to play my cards. I understand that." G(uess) W(ho) Why is he still president... Tuesday December 21 , 2004 The Army regulations provide that every man must be treated "so as to preserve his self-respect." This is the essence of conduct in civilized society. HL Mencken Ibid., p.233 One of the main ranting points for Neo-Con's is deregulation... They rave on endlessly about how 'Big Government' is stifling the incentives of Big Business, regulation is keeping products off the market, inhibiting commerce and on and on. Meanwhile we get ENRON and all the others, we get Medicines like Celebrex and Vioxx on the market that, when used improperly, kill people... when will people wake up. I made very little headway on the drywall today. Too many distractions, Christy went shopping...
Wednesday December 22 , 2004 Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910) Drywall and cleaning... Got a couple coffee mugs from Orvil & Cheryl... too late to reciprocate for Christmas but I may be able to send them a New Years gift or something. No Christmas cards sent again this year... I am so bad. If good intentions counted for anything everyone would be happy but they don't, I will try again for next year... sure I will. I saw a bunch of my Genealogy papers on the floor all messed up, Autumn probably dumped them by accident by .. not a big deal but it occurred to me that the only unique and significant thing I have done with my life is to spend the past 16 years gathering this information, I beg, borrow, plagiarize, and appropriate every bit of anything I can find on my ancestors.... I have copied books and downloaded thousands of pages of stuff... yup thousands, I will never live long enough to consolidate all of it and there is still more coming in. Interesting that Rumsfeld, poor baby, is saddened by criticism. His perception of the bad press he's been getting lately is that the world sees him as uncaring, arrogant and aloof. Awwww.. Well yeah, there's that, but what he is apparently incapable of perceiving that what the World is really upset about is the job he's been doing... Yes, his personality is abrasive and he exudes arrogance and elitism but it's the incompetence that upsets me. He has screwed up horrendously and he thinks he can escape repercussions by wearing a 'hair shirt', baring his chest and baring his soul, finding Jesus... the sad thing is that it will probably work. Republicans eat that sort of phony humility up like Apple Pie...Over a thousand dead and five times that wounded, all the lies he told to get us over there, insufficient troops, insufficient armament, and he wants all those meanies in the press to stop picking on him, he's just a sensitive guy and misunderstood.... if there's a Hell he will be there. Thursday December 23 , 2004 To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter... to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life. -John Burroughs, naturalist and writer (1837-1921) I ran errands and cleaned all day, Christy wrapped and cleaned and cooked still didn't get to the drywall I think that there won't be enough time for that... Oh well. The kids that Bush sent over to Iraq are not Police, if they were then maybe we wouldn't have so many problems. Most of the soldiers we sent over there are not much older than my Mike, a few months training, '(hopefully) body armor and weapons... no wonder we can't control the situation. Those kids are not prepared to fight ghosts. They are [justifiably] scared to death... any sane person would be but when you couple that with little or no training on insurgency and 18 to 22 year old machismo. you have a bunch of folks shooting at shadows, 'Dystopia'.... Maureen Dowd used this word in her latest article... I am envious of her facility with words. I had to look it up...
Is that pretty writing or what... Friday December 24 , 2004
I'm sitting here with a glass of Southern Comfort on the rocks. It's the first hard liquor I have had since last Christmas... My dad would probably turn up his nose at this stuff... too sweet, but I like it. My folks enjoyed their 'nightcap's I think about them often and I am deeming this drink to be in their memory. I wonder what they would think of my little world. I have not made much of my life in any measurable way but I am reasonably happy and healthy. I don't want for much and neither do the kids so I can say I'm not a failure... reflecting on the day... year... Amazing year... With this journal I have the luxury of going back over the year day by day and it's a little boggling to realize all that's happened. Christmas Eve, the tree is decorated, the presents are wrapped and under the tree, the stockings are filled, cookies are eaten and the milk is poured down the drain (I dislike milk) the house is reasonably clean and I am going to bed... Arafat gave an investment company funds to invest so they invested in a Mutual fund and that mutual fund invested in a bowling alley, some reporter wrote an article 'exposing' the investment saying that Arafat was a part owner in it. Now the poor Bowling alley that had no way of knowing that Arafat was a 2% owner of the conglomeration that owned the bowling alley has been put in the position where it has to defend itself just because some smart assed reporter wanted a by-line... damn....
Saturday December 25 , 2004
Sunday December 26 , 2004 In war, there are no unwounded soldiers. Jose Narosky, writer I watched some football. nothing special today, the playoffs are almost set so the tension of trying to 'make it' is gone except for about 4 teams.. Seahawks are still in the hunt and the Rams need some help. These are pretty well done... reinforcing my theory that most creative people are Progressive Liberals... Found at: http://www.richard-nathan-scripts.com/carols.htm REPUBLICAN CHRISTMAS CAROLS By Richard Nathan
A Mandate Clear
(sung to the tune of "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear")
C.E.O.'s (sung to
the tune of "We Three Kings")
The Damnation Song
(Sung to the tune of "God Bless Ye Merry Gentlemen")
Debt Us All (sung
to the tune of "Deck the Halls")
Republicans Are
Running The Town! (sung to the tune of "Santa Claus Is
President George Bush (sung to the tune of "Good King Wenceslas")
White Christians
(sung to the tune of "White Christmas")
Put Saddams Backers on Trial By Eric S.
Margolis
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There has been so much violence in Iraq that it's become hard to distinguish one senseless act from another. But there was a picture that ran on the front page of this newspaper on Monday that really got to me. It showed several Iraqi gunmen, in broad daylight and without masks, murdering two Iraqi election workers. The murder scene was a busy street in the heart of Baghdad. The two election workers had been dragged from their car into the middle of the street. They looked young, the sort of young people you'd see doing election canvassing in America or Ukraine or El Salvador.
One was kneeling with his arms behind his back, waiting to be shot in the head. Another was lying on his side. The gunman had either just pumped a bullet into him or was about to. I first saw the picture on the Internet, and I did something I've never done before - I blew it up so it covered my whole screen. I wanted to look at it more closely. You don't often get to see the face of pure evil.
There is much to dislike about this war in Iraq, but there is no denying the stakes. And that picture really framed them: this is a war between some people in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world who - for the first time ever in their region - are trying to organize an election to choose their own leaders and write their own constitution versus all the forces arrayed against them.
Do not be fooled into thinking that the Iraqi gunmen in this picture are really defending their country and have no alternative. The Sunni-Baathist minority that ruled Iraq for so many years has been invited, indeed begged, to join in this election and to share in the design and wealth of post-Saddam Iraq.
As the Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum so rightly pointed out to me, "These so-called insurgents in Iraq are the real fascists, the real colonialists, the real imperialists of our age." They are a tiny minority who want to rule Iraq by force and rip off its oil wealth for themselves. It's time we called them by their real names.
However this war started, however badly it has been managed, however much you wish we were not there, do not kid yourself that this is not what it is about: people who want to hold a free and fair election to determine their own future, opposed by a virulent nihilistic minority that wants to prevent that. That is all that the insurgents stand for.
Indeed, they haven't even bothered to tell us otherwise. They have counted on the fact that the Bush administration is so hated around the world that any opponents will be seen as having justice on their side. Well, they do not. They are murdering Iraqis every day for the sole purpose of preventing them from exercising that thing so many on the political left and so many Europeans have demanded for the Palestinians: "the right of self-determination."
What is terrifying is that the noble sacrifice of our soldiers, while never in vain, may not be enough. We may actually lose in Iraq. The vitally important may turn out to be the effectively impossible.
We may lose because of the defiantly wrong way that Donald Rumsfeld has managed this war and the cynical manner in which Dick Cheney, George Bush and - with some honorable exceptions - the whole Republican right have tolerated it. Many conservatives would rather fail in Iraq than give liberals the satisfaction of seeing Mr. Rumsfeld sacked. We may lose because our Arab allies won't lift a finger to support an election in Iraq - either because they fear they'll be next to face such pressures, or because the thought of democratically elected Shiites holding power in a country once led by Sunnis is anathema to them.
We may lose because most Europeans, having been made stupid by their own weakness, would rather see America fail in Iraq than lift a finger for free and fair elections there.
As is so often the case, the statesman who framed the stakes best is the British prime minister, Tony Blair. Count me a "Blair Democrat." Mr. Blair, who was in Iraq this week, said: "Whatever people's feelings or beliefs about the removal of Saddam Hussein and the wisdom of that, there surely is only one side to be on in what is now very clearly a battle between democracy and terror. On the one side you have people who desperately want to make the democratic process work, and want to have the same type of democratic freedoms other parts of the world enjoy, and on the other side people who are killing and intimidating and trying to destroy a better future for Iraq."
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Iraq, as Yogi Berra would say, the future ain't what it used to be.
Now that the election's over, our leaders think it's safe to experiment with a little candor.
President Bush has finally acknowledged that the Iraqis can't hack it as far as securing their own country, which means, of course, that America has no exit strategy for its troops, who will soon number 150,000.
News organizations led with the story, even though the president was only saying something that everybody has known to be true for a year. The White House's policy on Iraq has gone from a total charade to a limited modified hangout. Mr. Bush is conceding the obvious, that the Iraqi security forces aren't perfect, so he doesn't have to concede the truth: that Iraq is now so dire no one knows how or when we can get out.
If this fiasco ever made sense to anybody, it doesn't any more.
John McCain, who lent his considerable credibility to Mr. Bush during the campaign and vouched for the president and his war, now concedes that he has no confidence in Donald Rumsfeld.
And Rummy admitted yesterday that his feelings got hurt when people accused him of being insensitive to the fact that he arrogantly sent his troops into a sinkhole of carnage - a vicious, persistent insurgency - without the proper armor, equipment, backup or preparation.
The subdued defense chief further admitted that despite all the American kids who gave their lives in Mosul on the cusp of Christmas, battling an enemy they can't see in a war fought over weapons that didn't exist, we're not heading toward the democratic halcyon Mr. Bush promised.
"I think looking for a peaceful Iraq after the elections would be a mistake," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
His disgraceful admission that his condolence letters to the families of soldiers killed in Iraq were signed by machine - "I have directed that in the future I sign each letter," he said in a Strangelovian statement - is redolent of the myopia that has led to the dystopia.
The Bushies are betting a lot on the January election, even though a Shiite-dominated government will further alienate the Sunnis - and even though Iraq may be run by an Iranian-influenced ayatollah. That would mean that Iraq would have a leadership legitimized by us to hate us.
International election observers say it's too dangerous to actually come in and monitor the vote in person; they're going to "assess" the vote from the safety of Amman, Jordan. Isn't that like refereeing a football game while sitting in a downtown bar?
The administration hopes that once the Iraqis understand they have their own government, that will be a turning point and they will realize their country is worth fighting for. But this is the latest in a long list of turning points that turn out to be cul-de-sacs.
From the capture of Saddam to the departure of Paul Bremer and the assault on Falluja, there have been many false horizons for peace.
The U.S. military can't even protect our troops when they're eating lunch in a supposedly secure space - even after the Mosul base commanders had been warned of a "Beirut-style" attack three weeks before - because the Iraqi security forces and support staff have been infiltrated by insurgency spies.
Each milestone, each thing that is supposed to enable us to get some traction and change the basic dynamic in Iraq, comes and goes without the security getting any better. The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that a major U.S. contractor, Contrack International Inc., had dropped out of the multibillion-dollar effort to rebuild Iraq, "raising new worries about the country's growing violence and its effect on reconstruction."
The Bush crowd thought it could get in, get out, scare the Iranians and Syrians, and remove the bulk of our forces within several months.
But now we're in, and it's the allies, contractors and election watchdogs who want out.
Aside from his scintilla of candor, Mr. Bush is still not leveling with us. As he said at his press conference on Monday, "the enemies of freedom" know that "a democratic Iraq will be a decisive blow to their ambitions because free people will never choose to live in tyranny."
They may choose to live in a theocracy, though. Americans did.
E-mail: liberties@nytimes.com
Thursday, December 23, 2004; Page A22
THANKS TO a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and other human rights groups, thousands of pages of government documents released this month have confirmed some of the painful truths about the abuse of foreign detainees by the U.S. military and the CIA -- truths the Bush administration implacably has refused to acknowledge. Since the publication of photographs of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in the spring the administration's whitewashers -- led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- have contended that the crimes were carried out by a few low-ranking reservists, that they were limited to the night shift during a few chaotic months at Abu Ghraib in 2003, that they were unrelated to the interrogation of prisoners and that no torture occurred at the Guantanamo Bay prison where hundreds of terrorism suspects are held. The new documents establish beyond any doubt that every part of this cover story is false.
Though they represent only part of the record that lies in government files, the documents show that the abuse of prisoners was already occurring at Guantanamo in 2002 and continued in Iraq even after the outcry over the Abu Ghraib photographs. FBI agents reported in internal e-mails and memos about systematic abuses by military interrogators at the base in Cuba, including beatings, chokings, prolonged sleep deprivation and humiliations such as being wrapped in an Israeli flag. "On a couple of occasions I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water," an unidentified FBI agent wrote on Aug. 2, 2004. "Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18 to 24 hours or more." Two defense intelligence officials reported seeing prisoners severely beaten in Baghdad by members of a special operations unit, Task Force 6-26, in June. When they protested they were threatened and pictures they took were confiscated.
Other documents detail abuses by Marines in Iraq, including mock executions and the torture of detainees by burning and electric shock. Several dozen detainees have died in U.S. custody. In many cases, Army investigations of these crimes were shockingly shoddy: Officials lost records, failed to conduct autopsies after suspicious deaths and allowed evidence to be contaminated. Soldiers found to have committed war crimes were excused with noncriminal punishments. The summary of one suspicious death of a detainee at the Abu Ghraib prison reads: "No crime scene exam was conducted, no autopsy conducted, no copy of medical file obtained for investigation because copy machine broken in medical office."
Some of the abuses can be attributed to lack of discipline in some military units -- though the broad extent of the problem suggests, at best, that senior commanders made little effort to prevent or control wrongdoing. But the documents also confirm that interrogators at Guantanamo believed they were following orders from Mr. Rumsfeld. One FBI agent reported on May 10 about a conversation he had with Guantanamo's commander, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who defended the use of interrogation techniques the FBI regarded as illegal on the grounds that the military "has their marching orders from the Sec Def." Gen. Miller has testified under oath that dogs were never used to intimidate prisoners at Guantanamo, as authorized by Mr. Rumsfeld in December 2002; the FBI papers show otherwise.
The Bush administration refused to release these records to the human rights groups under the Freedom of Information Act until it was ordered to do so by a judge. Now it has responded to their publication with bland promises by spokesmen that any wrongdoing will be investigated. The record of the past few months suggests that the administration will neither hold any senior official accountable nor change the policies that have produced this shameful record. Congress, too, has abdicated its responsibility under its Republican leadership: It has been nearly four months since the last hearing on prisoner abuse. Perhaps intervention by the courts will eventually stem the violations of human rights that appear to be ongoing in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan. For now the appalling truth is that there has been no remedy for the documented torture and killing of foreign prisoners by this American government.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
Governors Appeal to Bush on Medicaid
Associated Press
Thursday, December 23, 2004; Page A11
The nation's governors urged President Bush yesterday not to shift Medicaid costs to the states to reduce the federal deficit.
The bipartisan plea came six days after another letter to Bush from the health care industry, asking him not to propose carving savings from Medicaid or Medicare. Medicaid provides health coverage for the poor and the disabled, while Medicare helps cover the medical costs of the elderly and the disabled.
A White House spokesman would not comment on whether Bush will propose savings from either program.
Both letters underscore the political hurdles the White House faces in paying for its priorities in the 2006 budget it is to unveil in February. Bush wants to cut record federal deficits in half, reduce taxes, reshape Social Security, and finance the war in Iraq, anti-terrorism efforts at home and other priorities.
Medicaid, expected to cost the federal government about $190 billion next year, is paid for jointly by Washington and the states. State officials have complained in recent years that their financial burden for the program has mushroomed, thanks to growing caseloads and Medicaid spending for patients in nursing homes.
"We agree that maintaining the status quo in Medicaid is not acceptable," said the letter from the National Governors Association. "However, it is equally unacceptable in any deficit reduction strategy to simply shift federal costs to states."
The letter said Medicaid expenditures average 22 percent of state budgets, causing "a strain on funding for other crucial state responsibilities."
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
Molly Ivins: Wishing a joyous season to all
By MOLLY IVINS,
December 24, 2004
AUSTIN, Texas — And a Merry Christmas to all, including people who have white Christmas trees decorated entirely with purple balls. Merry Christmas to the Red states and the Blue states, to the R's and D's, and to all the troops stationed in Afghanistan, including the French troops there — Mais oui, Chwistmas, y'all.
Merry Christmas to all the people who had to eat bugs on reality shows this year and to all the professional athletes who have not gotten into duke-outs (lumps of coal to the rest of you jocks). Merry Christmas to the homeless and the people in the shelters, and especially to those who are feeding the people in the shelters. Season's Best to all the cops who collected for Blue Santa this year, and a Tiny Tim Salute to all the prisoners, including Martha Stewart. Her cell-wing lost the prison's Christmas decorating contest this year — when it rains ...
Here's to all the Americans on both sides of this year's unusually peppy fights over the allowability of religious symbols on public property. This annual battle, in which the American Civil Liberties Union strives once more to make itself as popular as the Grinch, is over the part of the First Amendment that says the government cannot sponsor religion. I always liked what former Gov. Ann Richards said when informed there were demands that the large star on top of the state capitol come down. "Oh, I'd hate to see that happen," she drawled. "This could be the only chance we'll ever have to get three wise men in that building."
Feliz Navidad to all our immigrants, legal and otherwise — may La Migra be far away and tamales close at hand. By the way, there are some new legal rights groups that will go after the scum who hire you and then refuse to pay you. Joyeux Noel to all our friends in Canada, and please overlook the pifflebrains who keep insulting you.
Merry Christmas to Tonya Harding and to Nancy Kerrigan, to the Red Sox and to the Cards, and possibly even to George Steinbrenner. Here's to the Texas Legislature, about to convene once more, depriving many a village of its idiot. Here's to John Ashcroft, how we'll miss him — he was so sexy. A Cool Yule to all the jazzmen and their fans. And wishing a warm holiday to all the citizens with rings in their noses who find going out in subzero weather such a trial. And to those with tattoos, whatthehell.
Happy holidays to the sailors and ballroom dancers, the birders and the bingo players, the squaredancers, the folklorists, the scrapbook makers, the railroad buffs and everyone else with a harmless passion — we appreciate you all. Here's to the carolers and the altar guild, the vestrymen (vestrypersons?) and the Santas, and to all who volunteer. Here's to everyone who suffered in the Florida hurricanes, including the claims adjusters — may your days be merry and bright.
Festive greetings to the circus folk and the airline attendants trying to get all the Christmas presents into the overhead bin. Here's to all the proud new grandmas and grandpas, and of course, the aunts. Here's to everyone in the emergency room on Christmas Eve: It could be worse — you could be Martha Stewart.
A joyous time to all the cooks, making everything from roast goose to turnip fluff, and especially to all the kitchen staffs of all the restaurants that are open on Christmas Day. Here's to everyone who got divorced this year and deserves a break — may you even part with a kind thought for your ex.
A special holiday wish for all the Americans in Iraq and all the Iraqis, too — peace on earth. Here's to those who are grieving — isn't "loved one" a horrid expression? — whether it is Joe or Tammy, or even Athena the perfect poodle we mourn.
May Baby Jesus' birthday be mellow for the tense, including the lady who said she shrieked both over having dinner with me and how the toilet flushed on the recent Nation cruise. Me and the toilet — I'm so honored.
Here's to all the racetrack players and cabbies and guys who stop to help fix flat tires. Here's to all the non-Christians, may this day be special for you, as well. To all my brethren and sistren in the newspaper biz, even the editors, and to all the weathermen who report the unidentified flying object on Christmas Eve. Here's to everyone who sent a fruitcake and got one back. Here's to all the salespeople in all the stores who actually made it through without losing it this year, especially in the lingerie departments, where I used to work during the holidays.
And here's to all the rest of us, imperfect though we are. One thing I have learned over the years is that you should go ahead and eat the fudge, because the diet starts next year. And to all, a good night.
I
just read that someone vandalized the Nativity Scene at Madam Tussaud's Wax
Museum, The figures were Samuel L Jackson, Hugh Grant and Graham Norton
dressed as shepherds, David and Victoria Beckham as Joseph and Mary, British
Prime Minister Tony Blair, The Duke of Edinburgh (Prince Charles) and President
Bush as the Three Wise Men and Kylie Minogue (A disco diva) as the Angel. The
religious loonies thought it was blasphemous, the political wags thought it was
outrageous... I think it's hilarious and that it make a profound statement on
many levels...