October 2004, Week 5
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October 2004, Week 5
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Monday October 25 , 2004 There is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is managed by order, method, and discipline. Montaigne ... well that is a comforting thought for the day, the course of my life has never been encumbered by order, method or discipline... minute to minute day by day month by month year by year I have tripped and stumbled my way through life, and given my temperament, I am the happier for it. Neat article on PEAD Pre-Election Anxiety Disorder... My wheel guy is in Mexico till Wednesday... rats... I am ready to go for a ride and the wheels are leaning up against the house ready to be straightened... Took the kids to school, did some shopping around for a satellite internet connection... It looks like I have to go directly to the seller, Star-net or Directway.... Got my semi annual haircut... I really don't care for haircuts, I don't care about my hair... well, I don't care how it looks... I get a hair cut when it gets to be a struggle to get my brush through it... Christy says it makes me look younger... I think it makes me look like my Father, neither way is a bad thing I guess.... Dad was a handsome devil... I took Autumn & Monica to Chuck E. Cheese's to pick up Calie, she was there for a Volleyball Team party. I took the girls an hour early so that they could play... Autumn loves that place,,, Mokie had fun with her pals too
Tuesday October 26 , 2004 The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. John Adams, 2nd US president (1735-1826) ...One of my dad's favorite jokes was about the optimist who fell off the roof of a 20 story building and as he passed each floor he said... "So far so good. So far so good."... he would have loved this joke...
Eric Margolis's Column cuts to the bone... it exactly echo's my concerns. Bush has alienated 50% of the country and 88% of the world. the next 7-8 days are going to be tough. I am trying not to get upset with friends who have opposing views but the urge to confront them with the 'facts' as I perceive them is just barely controllable. I should probably fill out an absentee ballot and go find a forest to hide out in somewhere, take a long trio up into the Sierra's... I wish it was an option. From Andrew Sullivan
Rained like hell today, all day, and night. Made a big mest out East of here and snarled up traffic in LA... Wednesday October 27 , 2004 It's the Cardinals and the Red Sox. They met in the World Series back in 1967. To tell you how times have changed, back then we had a bad economy, an unpopular war and a president from Texas. -Jay Leno ... I had a bit of a tough time finding David's Wheel Service. Dave said that both wheels not only had bent rims but they were tweaked "wobbled" He fixed them... I said you ought to advertise, he said; "Hell no, I have a hard time keeping up as it is, I don't need any extra business. He has built a 33' long mini-bike to break the Guinness World Record and there is an old fashioned bike where you ride on top of the huge front wheel with a tiny wheel in back... they are called Boneshakers I believe. Only his was at least 10' tall, maybe 15'.... The drive over there was harrowing, the rain yesterday left a lot of the road under water... 70 miles dodging puddles and oncoming traffic on a two lane highway can be a little nerve wracking... I dropped off the wheels and called Lowell Nienstedt in Victorville and we decided to meet for lunch at a Chinese Restaurant on Bear Valley Road. I met Lowell in Charleston at the USS Cogswell reunion. He was aboard when it was commissioned in April of 1943 ... 2 months before I was born... he was aboard throughout the war in the Pacific and when it steamed into Tokyo Bay in 1945.... he has lots of stories. nice fella, smokes too much and drinks a bit, turned 85 on Monday, sharp as a tack and looks about 65... I will go out there again when I can spend more time. Christy had an appointment with the lawyer handling Julie's Will, and then had to go to a Teachers Conference in Newbury Park. So, I had to be back in town to pick up Cindy and meet the boys and Autumn I picked up my wheels... it rained pretty hard on the way back but it didn't rain long.
Thursday October 28 , 2004 "The most overlooked advantage of owning a computer is that if they foul up there's no law against whacking them around a bit." Eric Porterfield. I tried to change out Christy's mouse but it was defective, I will get another tomorrow. I tried to download new drivers for Christy's HP Printer but the site is screwed up, I did get the wheels back on my bike... Friday October 29 , 2004 They had a carnival at Autumn's school... it was pretty poor, one of the least inspired events I have been to in the last 20 years here in Acton. Autumn couldn't do any of the games, not their fault but it was hard for me to watch all the other far younger kids out performing her, I anticipate that eventually she will become aware of her disability... for now she is blissfully oblivious. I rode the bike for about 15 minutes today... got it up to 100 a couple times to be sure that everything was OK... the ABS still kicks off at 95... the BMW Shop says that that's because the battery is weak... The bike is strong though, it accelerates crisply for a twin. The 4 cylinder sport bikes are quite a bit quicker.
Kids have parties and other stuff for me to do for them... one of these days they will have to do something for me. ...
Saturday October 30 , 2004 If they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them. Adlai Stevenson, on the Republican party ...Halloween parties today, Calie and Monica to Quartz Hill and "B" Cindy and Christian to a place on the other side of Acton. I am suspicious of the "B" party, who ever heard of a party that lasts from 2030 to 2200. The girls had fun at their party, Cindy and Christian had fun but "B" didn't... "B" has a hard time with relationships. He wants a friend so badly but teenagers are horrid little pre-humans, mean, self centered insensitive... "B" is not easy to love but he's a sensitive guy and is really hurt easily. Sunday October 31 , 2004 If you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Groucho Marx The Packers beat the Redskins 28 to 14, at least the fates are doing their part... I hope Bush falls on his face, I wish one of his staffers would spill the beans on what is really going on in the Whitehouse. Kids went trick or treating down town, they made a pretty good haul for about 45 minutes work... Halloween is a strange holiday. I know a few grownups who really get into it but it's mostly for kids... All Hallows Eve -All Souls Day - All Saints Day. It is interesting how intertwined Christianity is with this ancient Pagan ritual... Christianity appropriated several Pagan Holidays and put their own spin on them, Christmas and Easter Holidays were I'm a little boy with glasses, the one they call a geek
I'm that kid on every playground who is always chosen last
Don't laugh at me, don't call me names I'm a cripple on the corner I lost my wife and little boy somewhere down that yellow line
Don't laugh at me, Don't call me names I'm Fat, I'm thin..I'm Short, I'm tall..I'm deaf.. I'm blind
written by
Not to Worry -- The End Is Very Near By Joel Achenbach Americans are in the grip of a monster case of Pre-Election Anxiety Disorder. No one is talking about voter apathy anymore, because the opposite is more likely the case. People care too much. They're losing sleep. They're having bad dreams about unfavorable tracking polls. PEAD worsens as Election Day approaches and it's a 50-50 country and there's a war going on and people are dying and the talking heads are howling and the polls come firing at your head like fastballs. It's too close to call, too close, too close, we know the whole thing could pivot with the slightest breeze, that nothing is too trivial now, that even the slightest verbal gaffe by a candidate or his wife or one of the daughters could have a butterfly effect on world history. Lawsuits are flying as we speak, and the election may come down to a single precinct in Winter Haven or Deland or Immokalee, followed by the soon-to-be-traditional Recount, the dueling press conferences, James A. Baker flying to Tallahassee, and a final and definitive verdict by Nino Scalia. Laura Auerbach, a Democrat and the director of a Washington research foundation, finds herself struggling with her emotions as E-Day gets closer. She hates the president. He's a "horrible" man, she says. She sent an e-mail to a friend: "I never feel like such a bad person as I do when I'm talking about Bush. He is so hateful he makes me hate." The worst part is that her 2-year-old, Ben, is picking up on her rage, and she feels as though she's a bad role model. She and her husband routinely fume about George W. Bush, and the little boy sometimes asks why they're upset. "I'll explain to him, 'Ben, there are people out there who don't always make what Mommy thinks are the right choices.' " Parents making speeches to toddlers: A classic sign of pre-election stress. Democrat Sally Aman, who has a public relations firm, says her daughter's kindergarten teacher recently decided that her students should participate in a presidential straw poll. Everyone, apparently, has to take a position on the election these days, even those who are primarily interested in the latest policy about lollipops. Stand up to your full height of 3 feet 6 inches and be counted. "Everybody I know is just obsessed," Aman says. It's a bipartisan disorder, but Democrats are struggling the most, haunted by what happened last time. Republicans, though guardedly optimistic, are still supremely frustrated by the way this thing is dragging out and staying close. "The hardest thing to understand is why haven't we put this guy away a long time ago," a prominent Republican confides in a low murmur. The main Republican fear is fraud. "The Republicans think that the Democratic purported 'turnout effort' is an effort to have people vote early and often," says Mike Carvin, a Republican lawyer who has worked on voting issues, including the 2000 recount. GOP partisans worry about Democratic shenanigans if John Kerry loses a close election. There are tales of 10,000 Democratic lawyers, organized into SWAT teams, descending on disputed states. Part of election anxiety these days is the absolute certainty that the other side will steal any election that's not nailed down. Florida might have been merely a warm-up for a truly apocalyptic 2004 recount, Carvin suggests. "If there is a recount this time, it will be in five states and it will last at least two months, and it will be a nightmare, and it will make Florida look like a well-oiled machine," Carvin says. A Democratic lobbyist, who asked not to be identified because he doesn't want his colleagues to think he is "unhinged," says, "My wife is constantly telling me, 'You've got to calm down. You've got to let go.' " But how can he? Aren't the stakes too high? "I'm really worried about the country," he says. Normally one could diagnose this as a normal Washington neurosis, but it seems to be a national pandemic. Candice Russell, a freelance writer and art curator in South Florida, says she had a visceral reaction to a poll showing Bush creeping ahead of Kerry: "I'm so depressed, I'm sick over it." She was supposed to work at a phone bank but just couldn't bring herself to it. Needed a day to pull herself together. She spoke on her cell phone while scanning the street, which was lined with Bush signs. "How stupid could Americans be?" she asks. In Birmingham, Ala., chiropractor and nutritionist Rodger Murphree says he has patients who are suffering from election stress. Many are Republicans. "We live in such a stressed-out society, go go go, do do do society, when you add to that the unknown of what could happen -- that's really scary for some people. People don't really know what's going to happen if John Kerry's elected." Politics is normally somewhat compartmentalized, except for those who are serious junkies and those paid to live and breathe it, but this is a moment when the rest of life is pushed into a compartment. Americans will return to mundane matters like art and music and literature when the last returns from Nov. 2 are counted, hopefully at some point prior to mid-December. Michael Gillenwater, who works for a nonprofit environmental organization, had a bad dream recently in which people were deciding not to vote for Kerry because of his reference in the third debate to Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter. Gillenwater woke up at 3:30 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep for two hours. "I totally have pre-election anxiety," he says. Anecdotally you hear about close friendships being ripped apart by differing political allegiances. Forget the old wedge issues, like abortion, affirmative action, taxes: The election itself is a wedge issue. If you're not feeling wedged you're not paying attention. Pre-Election Anxiety Disorder is often driven by serious and rational fears, with global events so alarming. Technology ensures that we are stalked by data, that we're always hearing about who's up, who's down, what's the latest controversy, the latest menace to peace and sanity and good health. We get all twisted up by the spin cycle. Republicans fear a Kerry victory will mean appeasement to the terrorists and the French, and will be a major step toward the ultimate horror, a Hillary presidency. Democrats believe a Bush reelection will mean endless war and a return to the economic system known as feudalism. David Gergen, veteran presidential adviser and pundit, says, "We're at a point now where each side has so demonized the other, and played upon fear as a major driving force behind the candidate, that there is a deep anxiety now that if your side loses, the country is going to go to ruin." David Abshire, who served in the Nixon and Reagan administrations and is now president of the Center for the Study of the Presidency, has written a long treatise on the loss of political civility. Rancor among leaders translates into anxiety at the grass roots, he says. "What civility is, is respect for individuals. It's listening. It is dialogue. And then you may get to higher ground." It sounds quaint: Higher ground. Meanwhile, you hear people announce that if their guy loses the election they will leave the country outright, like the late Pierre Salinger, who moved to France. But that's not what people will really do. They'll absorb the facts, celebrate or mourn, and move on with their lives. And somewhere along the way they'll figure out what to tell the children.
Copyright: Eric S. Margolis, 2004 NEW YORK - What do a Pathan tribesman in Pakistan, a factory hand in Shanghai, a grape picker in Chile, and a Canadian auto worker have in common? Their lives are all shaped by decisions made by the White House, the closet thing we have today to world government. It's unfair the whole world cannot somehow vote in the upcoming US elections since they will affect all mankind. Maybe the rest of the world could vote and count as one US state, Internationalia. However, if this happened, the result would be a landslide for John Kerry. The vision of a re-elected George W. Bush ruling the world does not sit well. Few non-Americans know anything about Kerry, but that hardly matters. He is popular everywhere abroad simply because he looks civilized and is the un-Bush. Sad to say, President George W. Bush is widely loathed around the globe. My eagle-eyed friend, Countess Pamela de Maigret, brought my attention to an interesting internet site, www.BetaVote.com. This site tabulates straw votes for Bush and Kerry sent from all over the world. Though unscientific, and distorted in its US section by Bush unlovers, it provides a good sample of world thinking about the US election. Among 42,721 global respondents; Kerry leads Bush by 88% to 11%. In Brazil, Kerry leads by 91%; by 79% in Italy; 91% in France; 71% in India; 77% in Japan; 11% in Kuwait; 89% Germany; 81% in Britain; 17% in Israel; 61% in Nigeria. Bush and Kerry are tied, oddly, in Libya, North Korea, Christmas Island, and Niue, wherever that is. What deeply alarms many non-Americans is the prospect of a second Bush term
dominated by a coalition made up of Evangelical Protestants, Rapturists,
American partisans of Israel's PM Ariel Sharon, and rural voters from the Deep
South who reject evolution and think French is the native language of Satan. By contrast, Bush, to most foreigners, incarnates the arrogance, ignorance and bullying that form the worst negative stereotypes of Americans. Equally disturbing for non-Americans, they see powerful religious groups assuming increasing political importance in a nation that used to pride itself in separation of church and state. Forty one percent of Americans claim to be born-again Christians; most vote Republican. Many are also Zionists, of a strange sort, who believe when all Jews are concentrated in a re-created Biblical Israel, and forced to convert to Christianity, the Messiah will return, and Armageddon will occur. As explained in the book series `Left Behind,' which have sold nearly 60 million copies, when the `Rapture' hits, true believers will be spirited naked up to heaven, leaving behind their clothing and shoes — as well as all other Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc These miscreants will slowly burn in a worldwide holocaust, gleefully observed from heaven by the anointed. All this would be merely a religious curiosity of America's outback if the Rapturists and other religious militants were not so influential in the Republican Party. A recent survey shows born-agains comprising 22% of voters in Pennsylvania, 36% in Missouri, 30% in Iowa, 27 % in Ohio — all key battleground states that will decide the election. Some 80% of Americans profess to believe in God, and 60% claim to be regular church-goers. To increasingly secular Europe, and non-Muslim Asia, such ardent faith seems both backwards and worrying. In the US, they see Catholic bishops ordering their flock to vote against Kerry because of his stance on abortion. They see ardent neocons supporters of Greater Israel who appear to take their strategic direction from the Old Testament, and believe God gave Palestinian property to Israeli settlers from Russia and Brooklyn. They see fundamentalist Christian sects that are being fired up for a new crusade. The presidential debates, and parts of the electoral campaign fought on TV, have been seen around the globe. I watched the Cheney-Edwards debate from Hong Kong. What the rest of mankind saw this election season has not been a pretty sight. Once upon a time, US elections were held up as the holy grail of democracy in action, a paragon for the rest of the less fortunate world to follow. No more. The last presidential election fiasco and the current slim-fest between Bush and Kerry, the barrages of lies or exaggerations, the disgusting attack ads concocted by Carl Rove, have deeply upset people around the globe. America has been showing its worst qualities for the world to see: money-run politics, bought politicians, warmongering and fear-mongering, character assassination, sickening pandering to special interest groups, threats about rigged votes, and lies, lies, and more lies. All this has been democracy at its worst, not best, and we have not yet come to the Florida vote, which looks likely to produce another horrifying fiasco. India's elections earlier this year were conducted with more skill and honesty than America's last botched vote. To this writer, America's election looks more like a poll in Nigeria or Brazil than in North America. Every sleazy Republican attack ad against Kerry tarnishes the image of the United States; every Kerry claim that the president is out of touch with reality, however true, makes foreigners fearful or uneasy. A `NY Times' survey found big city voters backed Kerry 69% to only 23% for Bush; and, in small cities, 53% to 40%. But in suburbs, Bush leads 50% to 42%. In rural areas and the South, Bush is ahead by a whopping 55% to 35%. This suggests more educated Americans back Kerry. But Bush clearly speaks for America's lower orders, who love him for his lack of learning, mangled English, jingoism and religious pretensions. However, a US president who says he receives direction from God, communicates with Him regularly, and claims to be on a `divine mission' makes the world very uneasy. Who will the Lord order Bush to `liberate' next? Wicked Iran? Sinful France, with its cigarettes, wine, and wild sex. Lefty Canadians with all that water and oil. Or Chinese, who reject Christian values and work too cheap? Add to the Bush vote the 20% of Americans who believe Elvis is still alive, and you end up with an unbeatable majority. Republican Stumps For Kerry In Crawford By Nathan Diebenow “President Bush dividing this country and many other countries in the world with his policies is probably one of the most important issue that is on the table in this election.” he said. “Bush has clearly proved himself to be a divider and not a uniter as he promised back in 2000 and that makes Bush extremely vulnerable, especially with getting international help in Iraq.” Dworkin added, “John Kerry can turn this to his advantage by bringing up this issue constantly at campaign rallies, in media interviews, and in campaign press releases. He can state this obvious problem of heavy partisanship, present a valid plan to specifically deal with the issue of division at home and abroad, and then ask Bush publicly, ‘What is your plan to not only win the peace in Iraq but also to win the peace in this country and with the other civilized nations of the world who are now alienated from us?’” Dworkin’s point hits the nerve of a growing group of Republicans worried about the future of the United States under the national leadership of neo-conservatives like President Bush whom Dworkin said he feels has “hijacked” his party. Dworkin expressed the same advice prior to the Tempe Ariz. presidential debate on domestic issues on Sunday, Oct. 10, when he visited the Crawford Peace House to talk about his participation in a national grassroots organization called Republicans For Kerry, whose motto is “Country Must Come Before Party.” “We’ve got to clean house and get new leadership—George W. Bush being president, Tom Delay being one of the leaders in the House, having the country do divided, having lost our world allies, giving tax cuts to the wealthy, squeezing out the middle class. This just can’t continue,” he said. Started in March 2004 by a wide-range of independent-conservatives across the country, Republicans for Kerry has over 800 members registered through a Yahoo group site. Dworkin joined the group’s cause early last summer, he said, already a firm supporter of Kerry. Dworkin said he originally supported Ret. General Wesley Clark, based on the belief that the presidential campaign would be won on terrorism/military issues; however, he later followed the general over to Kerry’s side after the former commander of NATO dropped out of the race. “John Kerry is a mainstream, responsible person who I’d be very happy to have as my president,” he said. “He knows how to get along and work well with other people. He’s fiscally responsible. And he can admit to making mistakes and learn from his mistakes.” Dworkin said he thought that Kerry was “very substantive” during the
presidential debate in St. Louis, while Bush ducked a question about possible
mistakes he had made during his presidency and then bullied the debate
moderator. Dworkin said that he believed that if President Bush is re-elected, the country will still not be united based on the president’s record of partisan appointments to leadership positions and firing dissidents in his own party, like former treasury secretary Paul O’Neill, former EPA secretary Christy Todd Whitman, and former U.S. Senate majority leader Trent Lott. “If he has done this with Republicans, do you think he would appoint any Democrats?” he asked. “I don’t see it happening because of what has happened to Republicans he doesn’t like.” In terms of the nation’s economy, conservative pundits like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Neil Cavuto, have openly disagreed with President Bush’s spending, that it’s even worse than President Clifton’s in the 1990s, he said. However, despite the political unrest in the Republican Party on President Bush’s policies on trade, immigration, big government, and the invasion of Iraq, Dworkin agreed with Pat Buchanan’s assessment of the way the party members will vote in the coming Nov. 2 election. “Pat Buchanan says 80 to 90 percent of the Republicans are willing to settle with what they consider to be the lesser of two evils, and I personally would hate to see that. I believe they would stand by President Bush,” he said, adding reluctantly that the possibility exists that the republican party might split into two parties if President Bush is reelected. “These are just facts: the rich are getting richer, job quality is going down. Job pay is going down. Household income is going down. College tuition is going up. Healthcare costs are going up, and if you reelect him, you’re just asking for more of the same,” said Dworkin. Dworkin said that he is doing his part to reclaim his party by working with the opposition as the full-time campaign manager for Gary R. Page, a Democrat running against Republican Kenny Marchant in the newly redrawn 24th U.S. Congressional District. “Marchant is close to Tom Delay, and Tom Delay let him carve up his own district literally to drive out Martin Frost,” Dworkin said. Marchant is openly running on “a proven leader for George W. Bush,” according to
his website. INFO
www.republicansforkerry04.org 4 Iraqis Tell of Looting at Munitions Site in '03
The Iraqis described an orgy of theft so extensive that enterprising residents rented their trucks to looters. But some looting was clearly indiscriminate, with people grabbing anything they could find and later heaving unwanted items off the trucks. Two witnesses were employees of Al Qaqaa - one a chemical engineer and the other a mechanic - and the third was a former employee, a chemist, who had come back to retrieve his records, determined to keep them out of American hands. The mechanic, Ahmed Saleh Mezher, said employees asked the Americans to protect the site but were told this was not the soldiers' responsibility. The accounts do not directly address the question of when 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives vanished from the site sometime after early March, the last time international inspectors checked the seals on the bunkers where the material was stored. It is possible that Iraqi forces removed some explosives before the invasion. But the accounts make clear that what set off much if not all of the looting was the arrival and swift departure of American troops, who did not secure the site after inducing the Iraqi forces to abandon it. "The looting started after the collapse of the regime," said Wathiq al-Dulaimi, a regional security chief, who was based nearby in Latifiya. But once it had begun, he said, the booty streamed toward Baghdad. Earlier this month, on Oct. 10, the directorate of national monitoring at the Ministry of Science and Technology notified the International Atomic Energy Agency that the explosives, which are used in demolition and missiles and are the raw material for plastic explosives, were missing. The agency has monitored the explosives because they can also be used as the initiator of an atomic bomb. Agency officials examined the explosives in January 2003 and noted in early March that their seals were still in place. On April 3, the Third Infantry Division arrived with the first American troops. Chris Anderson, a photographer for U.S. News and World Report who was with the division's Second Brigade, recalled that the area was jammed with American armor on April 3 and 4, which he believed made the removal of the explosives unlikely. "It would be quite improbable for this amount of weapons to be looted at that time because of the traffic jam of armor," he said. The brigade blew up numerous caches of arms throughout the area, he said. Mr. Anderson said he did not enter the munitions compound. The Second Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division arrived outside the site on April 10, under the command of Col. Joseph Anderson. The brigade had been ordered to move quickly to Baghdad because of civil disorder there after Mr. Hussein's government fell on April 9. They gathered at Al Qaqaa, about 30 miles south, simply as a matter of convenience, Colonel Anderson said in an interview this week. He said that when he arrived at the site - unaware of its significance - he saw no signs of looting, but was not paying close attention. Because he thought the brigade would be moving on to Baghdad within hours, Al Qaqaa was of no importance to his mission, he said, and he was unaware of the explosives that international inspectors said were hidden inside. Pentagon officials said Wednesday that analysts were examining surveillance photographs of the munitions site. But they expressed doubts that the photographs, which showed vehicles at the location on several occasions early in the conflict, before American troops moved through the area, would be able to indicate conclusively when the explosives were removed. Col. David Perkins, who commanded the Second Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, called it "very highly improbable" that 380 tons of explosives could have been trucked out of Al Qaqaa in the weeks after American troops arrived. Moving that much material, said Colonel Perkins, who spoke Wednesday to news agencies and cable television, "would have required dozens of heavy trucks and equipment moving along the same roadways as U.S. combat divisions occupied continually for weeks." He conceded that some looting of the site had taken place. But a chemical engineer who worked at Al Qaqaa and identified himself only as Khalid said that once troops left the base itself, people streamed in to steal computers and anything else of value from the offices. They also took munitions like artillery shells, he said. Mr. Mezher, the mechanic, said it took the looters about two weeks to disassemble heavy machinery at the site and carry that off after the smaller items were gone.
James Glanz reported from Baghdad for this article and Jim Dwyer from New York. Ali Adeeb contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Khalid W. Hussein and Zainab Obeid fromAl Qaqaa. October 28, 2004A Hole in the Heart
American politics is so polarized today that there is no center, only sides. Israeli politics has become divided nearly to the point of civil war. In the Arab-Muslim world, where the moderate center was always a fragile flower, the political moderates are on the defensive everywhere, and moderate Muslim spiritual leaders seem almost nonexistent. Europe, for its part, has gone so crazy over the Bush administration that the
normally thoughtful Guardian newspaper completely lost its mind last week and
published a column that openly hoped for the assassination of How do we begin to repair this jagged hole? There is no cure-all, but three big things would help. One is a different U.S. approach to the world. The Bush-Cheney team bears a big responsibility for this hole because it nakedly exploited 9/11 to push a far-right Republican agenda, domestically and globally, for which it had no mandate. When U.S. policy makes such a profound lurch to the right, when we start exporting fear instead of hope, the whole center of gravity of the world is affected. Countries reposition themselves in relation to us. Had the administration been more competent in pursuing its policies in Iraq - which can still turn out decently - the hole in the heart of the world might not have gotten so large and jagged. I have been struck by how many foreign dignitaries have begged me lately for news that Bush will lose. This Bush team has made itself so radioactive it glows in the dark. When the world liked Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, America had more power in the world. When much of the world detests George Bush, America has less power. People do not want to be seen standing next to us. It doesn't mean we should run our foreign policy as a popularity contest, but it does mean that leading is not just about making decisions - it's also the ability to communicate, follow through and persuade. If the Bush team wins re-election, unless it undergoes a policy lobotomy and changes course and tone, the breach between America and the rest of the world will only get larger. But all Mr. Bush and Dick Cheney have told us during this campaign is that they have made no mistakes and see no reason to change. The second thing that is necessary to heal the hole in the world is a decent Iraqi election. If such an election can be brought off, the Europeans, the Arabs and the American left will have to rethink their positions. I know what I am for in Iraq: a real election and a decent government. The Europeans, the Arabs and the American left know what they are against in Iraq: George Bush and his policies. But if there is an elected Iraqi government, it could be the magnet to begin pulling the moderate center of the world back together, because a duly elected Iraqi government is something everyone should want to help. The real question is, What if we get a new Iraqi government but the same old Bush team incompetence? That would be a problem. Even an elected Iraqi government will see its legitimacy wane if we cannot help it provide basic security and jobs. Last, we need to hope that Ariel Sharon's hugely important effort to withdraw Israel from Gaza will pave the way for a resumption of negotiations with the Palestinians. When there is no peace in the Holy Land, and when America has no diplomacy going on there, the world is always more polarized. I am no Sharon fan, but I am impressed. Mr. Sharon's willingness to look his own ideology and his own political base in the eye, conclude that pandering to both of them is no longer in his country's national interest, and then risk his life and political career to change course is an example of leadership you just don't see much of any more in democracies. I wonder what Karl Rove thinks of it?
© 2004 The
Washington Post Company October 29, 2004Letting Down the Troops
But when I asked this soldier, Eugene Simpson Jr., a 27-year-old staff sergeant from Dale City, Va., whom he had been fighting in Iraq - who, exactly, the enemy was - he looked up from his wheelchair and stared at me for a long moment. Then, in a voice much softer than he had been using for most of the interview, and with what seemed like a mixture of sorrow, regret and frustration, he said: "I don't know. That would be my answer. I don't know." We have not done right by the troops we've sent to Iraq to fight this crazy, awful war. We haven't given them a clear mission, and we haven't protected them well. I'm reminded of the famous scene in "On the Waterfront" when Terry Malloy, the character played by Marlon Brando, tells his brother: "You shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda taken care of me just a little bit." The thing to always keep in mind about our troops in Iraq is that they were sent to fight the wrong war. America's clearly defined and unmistakable enemy, Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda, was in Afghanistan. So the men and women fighting and dying in Iraq were thrown into a pointless, wholly unnecessary conflict. That tragic move was made worse by the failure of the U.S. to send enough troops to effectively wage the war that we started in Iraq. And we never fully equipped the troops we did send. The people who ordered up this war had no idea what they were doing. They were wildly overconfident, blinded by hubris and a dangerous, overarching ideology. They thought it would be a cakewalk. In May of 2003, One of the worst things about the management of this war is the way we've treated our men and women in uniform. The equipment shortages experienced by troops shoved into combat have been unconscionable. Soldiers and marines, in many cases, have been forced to face enemy fire with flak jackets from the Vietnam era that were all but useless, and sometimes without any body armor at all. Relatives back home have had to send the troops such items as radios and goggles, and even graphite to keep their weapons from jamming. One of the most ominous signs about the war is the growing disenchantment of the troops. They've spent too much time on the most dangerous roads in the world without the proper training, without up-to-date equipment, without the proper armor for their vehicles and without the support they feel they should be getting from their Iraqi allies. The Times's Edward Wong, after a series of interviews with marines in the Sunni-dominated city of Ramadi, wrote: "They said the Iraqi police and National Guard are unhelpful at best and enemy agents at worst, raising doubts about President Bush's assertion that local forces would soon help relieve the policing duties of the 138,000 American troops in Iraq. The marines said they could use better equipment from the Pentagon, and they feared that the American people were ignorant of the hardships they faced in this dessicated land." Several members of an Army Reserve unit refused a direct order to deliver fuel along a dangerous route in Iraq a couple of weeks ago. They said their trucks were not armored and were prone to breaking down. An example of the kind of catastrophe they were seeking to avoid came just a week later, when 49 unarmed and otherwise unprotected Iraqi soldiers were attacked and killed in cold blood in a remote region of eastern Iraq. This has been a war run by amateurs and incompetents. Whatever anyone has felt about the merits of the war, there is no excuse for preparing so poorly and for failing to see, at a minimum, that the troops were properly trained and equipped. The United States has the most powerful military in history, yet it is bogged down in a humiliating quagmire in a country that was barely functional to begin with. We've dealt ourselves the cruelest of hands in Iraq. We can't win this war and, tragically, we don't know how to end it.
E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com October 29, 2004It's Not Just Al Qaqaa
It's remarkable that the right-wingers who dominate cable news and talk radio are still complaining about a liberal stranglehold over the media. But, that absurdity aside, they're missing a crucial point: Al Qaqaa is hardly the only tale of incompetence and mendacity to break to the surface in the last few days. Here's a quick look at some of the others: Letting Osama get away Just before the story about Al Qaqaa
broke, the Bush-Cheney campaign was frantically trying to debunk In response, Gen. Tommy Franks claimed that we don't know that Osama was at Tora Bora, and, anyway, we didn't outsource the work of catching him. Dick Cheney called Mr. Kerry's claims "absolute garbage." But multiple reports from 2001 and early 2002 confirm Mr. Kerry's version. As Peter Bergen, a terrorism expert, writes, Mr. Kerry's charge is "an accurate reflection of the historical record." Letting Zarqawi get away On Monday The Wall Street Journal confirmed an earlier report that in 2002 the military drew up plans for a strike on the base of the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in an area of Iraq not under Saddam's control. But civilian officials vetoed the attack - probably because they thought it might undermine political support for the war against Saddam. So Mr. Zarqawi, like Osama, was given the chance to kill another day. The situation in Iraq Dick Cheney is telling supporters that Iraq is a "remarkable success story." But the news from Iraq just keeps getting worse. After 49 Iraqi National Guard recruits were killed, execution style, even Ayad Allawi, the Iraqi prime minister - who usually acts as a de facto spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign - accused coalition forces of "gross negligence." It's now clear that the insurgency is much larger than U.S. officials initially acknowledged, and that Iraqi security forces have been heavily infiltrated. $70 billion more Earlier this week The Washington Post reported that administration officials were planning to seek an additional $70 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan after the election. Whatever the precise number, it has long been obvious to knowledgeable observers that this was coming, but the news will come as a shock to many people who still don't realize how deep a quagmire Mr. Bush has gotten us into. All of these stories would be getting more play right now if it weren't for the Al Qaqaa mess. Still, one can understand why the right is so upset. After all, Al Qaqaa illustrates in a particularly graphic way the failures of Mr. Bush's national security leadership. U.S. soldiers passed through Al Qaqaa, a crucial munitions dump, but were never told that it was important to secure the site. If administration officials object that they couldn't have spared enough troops to guard the site, they're admitting that they went in without enough troops. And the fact that these explosives fell into unknown hands is a perfect example of how the Iraq war has worsened the terrorist threat. The story of Al Qaqaa has brought out the worst in a campaign dedicated to the proposition that the president is infallible - and that it's always someone else's fault when things go wrong. Here's what Rudy Giuliani said yesterday: "No matter how you try to blame it on the president, the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough?" Support the troops! But worst of all from the right's point of view, Al Qaqaa has disrupted the campaign's media strategy. Karl Rove clearly planned to turn the final days of the campaign into a series of "global test" moments - taking something Mr. Kerry said and distorting its meaning, then generating pseudo-controversies that dominate the airwaves. Instead, the news media have spent the last few days discussing substance. And that's very bad news for Mr. Bush.
E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com October 30, 2004Taking Bush at His Word
• Oct. 11, 2000: "If we're an arrogant nation, [foreigners] will resent us. If we're a humble nation but strong, they'll welcome us. ... We've got to be humble." It's a good thing Mr. Bush tried to be humble, or the U.S. would have an approval rating even lower than 5 percent in Jordan, and Osama bin Laden's approval rating in Pakistan would be higher than 65 percent. • Feb. 27, 2001: "I hope you will join me to pay down $2 trillion in debt during the next 10 years. ... We should approach our nation's budget as any prudent family would." But Mr. Bush, with the help of a weak economy, has transformed the Clinton budget surpluses into huge deficits. Since Mr. Bush took office, the federal debt has increased by $2.1 trillion, or 40 percent. • Sept. 25, 2000: "It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas." Hmm. And many of our exports go abroad. Meanwhile, despite the lackluster economy, oil imports are 1.3 million barrels per day higher than in Mr. Clinton's last year in office. • June 11, 2001: "My administration is committed to a leadership role on the issue of climate change." Great! Because America's carbon dioxide emissions, associated with global warming, have risen 1.7 percent since then. • June 26, 2003: "Notorious human rights abusers, including, among others, Burma, Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Zimbabwe, have long sought to shield their abuses from the eyes of the world by staging elaborate deceptions and denying access to international human rights monitors." It takes a big man to admit mistakes, like his administration's practice of hiding certain Arab prisoners from Red Cross and other inspectors. • Nov. 5, 2003: "In the debate about the rights of the unborn, we are asked to broaden the circle of our moral concern. ... We're asked by our convictions and tradition and compassion to build a culture of life, and make this a more just and welcoming society." Abortions declined in the U.S. in the Clinton years; the abortion rate dropped by 22 percent in the 1990's. But while data are incomplete, abortions appear to have increased sharply since Mr. Bush took office. Glen H. Stassen, a Christian pro-life theologian, estimates that 52,000 more abortions occurred in 2002 than would have been expected based on the previous trend. Professor Stassen attributes the rise in abortions in part to the troubled economy and concerns among pregnant women that they cannot afford to have babies. • May 25, 2004: "One of the challenges we face is to make sure the health care system responds to the needs of the citizens." But five million more Americans don't have health insurance, compared with when Mr. Bush took office. • Sept. 9, 2003: "We must focus early to make sure every child can read and write and add and subtract." But Mr. Bush's budget guidelines translate into inflation-adjusted reductions in 2006 alone of more than $900 million for Head Start and childhood education. • May 24, 2003: "We will not tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea." On Mr. Bush's watch, North Korea is generally believed to have gone from two nuclear weapons to about eight. • 2001: "Not on my watch." Scrawled note by Mr. Bush on a report to him about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that had occurred under President Clinton. That's reassuring to the 100,000 or more people in Darfur who have died in a spasm of murder and rape that Mr. Bush acknowledges as genocide. • Sept. 30, 2004: "The biggest threat facing this country is weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist network." But the single most important step to reducing the risk that a nuclear weapon will destroy New York is to secure loose nukes abroad, and Mr. Bush has been lackadaisical about that. Only 135 out of 600 metric tons of Russian nuclear materials have been given comprehensive upgrades, and Mr. Bush initially proposed cutting funds for that program. • Sept. 2, 1999: "Effective reform requires accountability. ... It is a sad story. High hopes, low achievement. Grand plans, unmet goals. My administration will do things differently." Oh?
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Still
trying to avoid the media, it's impossible, I have learned from my Republican
friends that I get far less agitated if I concentrate on watching, reading and
listening to the one or two segments of the media that tell me what I want to
hear... Republicans are far luckier, they have tons of places to go to get their
minds washed I only have three...The Daily Show, The Al Frankin Show, and
Doonsbury.
AGHDAD,
Iraq, Oct. 27 - Looters stormed the weapons site at Al Qaqaa in the days after
American troops swept through the area in early April 2003 on their way to
Baghdad, gutting office buildings, carrying off munitions and even dismantling
heavy machinery, three Iraqi witnesses and a regional security chief said
Wednesday.
hen
you read polls showing a significant number of Americans feel our country is on
the wrong track, what do you think is bothering people? I think it's a deep
worry that there is a hole in the heart of the world - the moderate center seems
to be getting torn asunder. That has many people worried. And they are right to
be worried.
ot
long ago I interviewed a soldier who was paralyzed from injuries he had suffered
in a roadside bombing in Iraq. Like so many other wounded soldiers I've talked
to, he expressed no anger and no bitterness about the difficult hand he's been
dealt as a result of the war.
ust
in case, the right is already explaining away
often criticize statements by