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Mens sana in copore sano

Plato said that without a healthy mind a man could never have a healthy body. We now know the opposite is probably true as well. Increasing evidence is showing the positive effects of exercize on mood and intellectual capacity. See the CBC docuentary "Brain Gains" http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/special_feature/brain_gains/brain_gains_2.html

"It is to be prayed that the mind be sound in a sound body.
Ask for a brave soul that lacks the fear of death,
which places the length of life last among nature’s blessings,
which is able to bear whatever kind of sufferings,
does not know anger, lusts for nothing and believes
the hardships and savage labors of Hercules better than
the satisfactions, feasts, and feather bed of an Eastern king.
I will reveal what you are able to give yourself;
For certain, the one footpath of a tranquil life lies through virtue."

"orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano.
fortem posce animum mortis terrore carentem,
qui spatium uitae extremum inter munera ponat
naturae, qui ferre queat quoscumque labores,
nesciat irasci, cupiat nihil et potiores
Herculis aerumnas credat saeuosque labores
et uenere et cenis et pluma Sardanapalli.
monstro quod ipse tibi possis dare; semita certe
tranquillae per uirtutem patet unica uitae."

From Satire X of the Roman poet Juvenal (10.356-64)

I am back......

El Moe has retured, after an extended hiatus which carried him from Mexco City to Vancouver and now to London. I currently am keeping the wolves away (barely) by freelance writing for a company out of Nottingham. My eldest daughter (Cara "homediggle girlslice" - pictured below) is here with me and we are struggling to get her Euro residency "right of abode" status. Meanwhile I contine with my now epic battle to complete the oh-so-overdue doc thesis (dissertation, or whatever.) Anyway, I am back.

The American Enterprise Institute proudly presents

The American Enterprise Institute proudly presents

THE ADVENTURES OF DARTH CHENEY

Episode One: Darth Goes to Walter Reed on Independence Day


We join the Vice President as his motorcade pulls up in front of the shiny façade of Walter Reed Hospital. Darth steps grandly out of the limousine carrying a cardboard cutout of the commander in chief, and is immediately whisked into the hospital by an army of secret service personnel and his Republican Guards. In the dimly lit interior a ward full of bedridden patients languish in a sea of catheters, colostomy bags, mold and vermin. Darth floats in on his customized hoverboard, still clutching the life sized George Bush cutout while slicing rats in half with his light saber and blowing them to small pieces with miniaturized smart bombs

“I’m here boys, but don’t bother to get up. We’re just gonna take some pictures…”

A doctor approaches. “You can’t set those off in here! Don’t you realize that seventy percent of these patients are suffering from PTSD?”

“It’s not my fault they didn’t wear a rubber…now get outta my way. I’m here to inspect the place.”

“No….PTSD….Shell Shock…you can’t bring explosive devices in here.”

“Darth Cheney does what he wants, when he wants. Now get outta my way, son, before I bite your head off.”

Darth sets the cutout down and floats over to the nearest bed, glowering down at it’s occupant, a quadruple amputee.

“What happened to you, son?”

“You’re kidding, right? I’m a fucking torso with a head on it…..”

“We all have our cross to bear, son. Why, I’ve had 73 heart attacks and 12 quadruple bypasses, and I don’t even have a heart.”

Darth laughs maniacally and slaps the patient on one of his stumps: “Have one of my personal medallions, son. Weighs 30 pounds.”

Darth floats across to the next bed while flinging another smart grenade at a particularly large rat. “What’s with all these little dogs in here?”

The occupant of the next bed recoils, visibly shaken by the explosion. Darth looms over him, casting a menacing shadow. “What’s wrong with you? You look fine to me. Not a mark on you…”

“I’ve got PTSD…”

“I got no sympathy for perverts. How dare you share the same space with fine boys like stumpy there. Get outta here now before I throw you out myself.”

Darth advances threateningly, but the VA doctor steps between him and the patient. There is a brief scuffle, during which Darth’s helmet is dislodged and crashes to the floor, revealing not the avuncular brow and visage of Cheney, but a giant and terrifying Mantis head. The huge mandibles gnash together sickeningly, emanating the odor of half decayed human flesh. Everyone in the room recoils, including the Republican Guards. Darth Mantis moves forward to devour the doctor’s head but is frozen by a sudden and commanding voice.

“RICHARD BRUCE CHENEY!!!! JUST WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”

Lynn Cheney stands in the doorway in curlers, dressing gown, slippers and night mask, silhouetted by the running lights of a nearby Screaming Eagle helicopter. The sight of her is even more terrifying than that of Darth Mantis and both the crowd and Darth shrink back in mute panic. The Second Lady trains both barrels of a sawed-off shotgun on Darth.

“Get in the helicopter, Dick.”

Darth Mantis glides through the door and is gone, followed by his scowling wife. The helicopter roars away. After several long seconds that seem like an eternity, the doctor finally speaks.

“Christ, that was a mind fucker! Grain alcohol, anybody?”


Next: Young Stevie Harper goes to Ottawa.

Posted by Citizen Ken on July 10th, 2008

Raging Fred

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings

Dumb-assed redneck

Go Granny Go!

Acha!

Whispers of the Wolf

They know not what they do?

And then, one lovely day, the middle class is brought up short by a staggering blow: The Gestapos are busy again, the prisons are filling up, the torturers are once more inventing, perfecting, consulting over their workbenches.

People are astounded, they are angry. They say: "How strange that is. But then it is only Nazism, it won't last." And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves: It is savagery, the supreme savagery, it crowns, it epitomzes the day to day savageries; yes, it is Nazism, but before they became its victims, they were its accomplices; that Nazism they tolerated before they succumbed to it, they exonerated it, they closed their eyes to it, they legitimated it because until then it had been employed only against non-European peoples; that Nazism they encouraged, they were responsible for it, and it drips, it seeps, it wells from every crack in western Christian civilization until it engulfs that civilization in a bloody sea.

Aimé Césaire, "Discours sur le colionalisme" (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1956) p.14-15.

¡Oye Como Va!

In Association With Union Carbuncle and “Uncle Dickie”, Citizen Ken Presents

BUBBA BUSH TAKES THE SEOUL TRAIN

“The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later – in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting.”

Charles Bukowski



When last seen, having been unceremoniously “ejected” from the Horn of Africa, Bubba Bush, leader of the “free world”, embarks upon an unscheduled tour of Iranian prisons. Mere days pass before Bubba is, in turn, asked to leave Iran after his presence sparks numerous riots among inmates protesting declining standards. Bush, disheveled, ranting and generally irritating, is placed in the care of the South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, since South Korean officials must be seen to be bending over backwards to placate U.S. officials even when trading with the enemies of the American Dream. Specifically, however, Bubba was inflicted upon the SKMFAT because no one else leaving Tehran at that moment could be persuaded to travel with him. Upon his arrival in Seoul, Bush’s frequent impromptu appearances in public places and barely coherent abusive harangues, coupled with ongoing protests over the U.S./ Korea “free trade” deal, lead to intensified public uprisings led by union leaders and participated in by workers and students. Bubba seems to believe he has been abducted to North Korea and refers to everyone he encounters as a “commie dictator”. Sales of Bush masks (manufactured by Union Carbuncle Special Polyethylene Division) skyrocket among the student protesters. As we join the festivities, thousands of protesters have congregated outside the U.S. Embassy in downtown Seoul, hurling stones and epithets. A few have set themselves ablaze. Bubba Bush appears on a balcony above the crowd with the U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, who is trying to pull Bubba inside.

BUBBA: Hey Al, looky there! Them commies’re havin’ a bar-b-q! I didn’t know them commies knew how to bar-b-q! I could really go for a big messa them Texas longhorn ribs right now, yep!

Bush produces a bullhorn and begins shouting through it towards a burning protester.

BUBBA: Hey! Hey! Heeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyy, you commie bastards, watcha got cookin’ down there?

AMBASSADOR: Mr. President, please come inside!

BUBBA: Relax, Al. Hmmm…what’s yer last name again Al? Vershnovsky, right? Ain’t that Russian? You sure you’re not a commie, Al?

AMBASSADOR: Vershbow, Mr. President. Please come inside before there’s a riot!

The crowd begins to throw rocks, dirt, Bush masks and whatever else they can find at Bubba, who becomes apoplectic.

BUBBA: Get me a gun, Al, get me a gun!

The Ambassador manages to pull Bush inside just as “Uncle Dick” Cheney and Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez (the corn flake king) enter the room, leading South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun by a leash.

CHENEY: See, Carlos? What do you think? He’s well trained, obedient and quite intelligent. Should make a first class ally.

GUTIERREZ: Right, and he knows who’s buttering his bread.

BUBBA: Dick, how are ya, Dick?

CHENEY: Except for the occasional heart attack, I never felt better. Like my new monkey….I mean flunkey?

BUBBA: Dick, you gotta help me with these commies. Get me a gun…a rocket launcher!

GUTIERREZ: No, Mr.President…times have changed….all you need is cheap commodities….watch…..

Gutierrez hauls a large bag labeled “cheap commodities” onto the balcony and begins flinging handfuls of cheap Asian made electronics into the crowd. The student protesters begin fighting among themselves over the “loot”. The protest leaders try to dissuade them, to no avail. Roh slips his leash and rushes onto the balcony, unfurling a banner which reads “Long Live Our Demockery”.

CHENEY: Dammit all, Roh….democracy….I SAID DEMOCRACY!!!!! Now we’ll be the butt of even more jokes!

Many of the workers have not been placated by the cheap commodities and rush the Embassy gates, breaking through by sheer force of numbers.

CHENEY: Lordy! George, Carlos, Al – let’s get out of here while the getting’s good. Out the back door – I have a ‘copter waiting.

They exit quickly, leaving Roh and the Embassy staff to fend off the crowd.

FADE TO BLACK


Next: Doppelgate – Bubba returns to D.C. only to find an impostor filling his boots.

Guerrilla News

This is Worth a Repeat

Glowman

Ay me babbies! Afin ye gihit, bae share an lave a wee cooment!!!!

An English MP on a goodwill trip to Scotland visited a hospital in
Glasgow. He was shown into a men's ward that was full of older geezers.
He approached the first patient, and said "Hello, how are you?"
Whereupon the old feller in the bed said: "Wee sleekit cowrin' tim'rous
beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie; thou need na start awa sae
hasty. Wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, Wi
murd'ring pattle!"

Somewhat nonplussed, the MP smiled nervously and moved to the next bed,
but before he could speak, the occupant of the bed began:
"Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon, How can ye blume sae fair? How can ye
chant, ye little birds, And I sae fu' o' care!"
Moving quickly on, the MP came to the third bed, whose occupant began to
rant: "Aye wud te gad the grace te gi'us te se ourselves as ithers see us".

By now completely confused, the MP turned to the doctor who was showing
him around and said: "Is this the, uh, psychiatric ward?"
To which the doctor replied:
"No, it's the Serious Burns unit."

Six former CIA Station Chiefs write public letter to former CIA Director George Tenet

28 April 2007
Mr. George Tenet
c/o Harper Collins Publishers
10 East 53rd Street
8th Floor
New York City, New York 10022
ATTN: Ms. Tina Andredis

Dear Mr. Tenet:

We write to you on the occasion of the release of your book, At the Center of the Storm. You are on the record complaining about the "damage to your reputation". In our view the damage to your reputation is inconsequential compared to the harm your actions have caused for the U.S. soldiers engaged in combat in Iraq and the national security of the United States. We believe you have a moral obligation to return the Medal of Freedom you received from President George Bush. We also call for you to dedicate a significant percentage of the royalties from your book to the U.S. soldiers and their families who have been killed and wounded in Iraq.

We agree with you that Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials took the United States to war for flimsy reasons. We agree that the war of choice in Iraq was ill-advised and wrong headed. But your lament that you are a victim in a process you helped direct is self-serving, misleading and, as head of the intelligence community, an admission of failed leadership. You were not a victim. You were a willing participant in a poorly considered policy to start an unnecessary war and you share culpability with Dick Cheney and George Bush for the debacle in Iraq.

You are not alone in failing to speak up and protest the twisting and shading of intelligence. Those who remained silent when they could have made a difference also share the blame for not protesting the abuse and misuse of intelligence that occurred under your watch. But ultimately you were in charge and you signed off on the CIA products and you briefed the President.

This is not a case of Monday morning quarterbacking. You helped send very mixed signals to the American people and their legislators in
the fall of 2002. CIA field operatives produced solid intelligence in September 2002 that stated clearly there was no stockpile of any kind of WMD in Iraq. This intelligence was ignored and later misused. On October 1 you signed and gave to President Bush and senior policy makers a fraudulent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)—which dovetailed with unsupported threats presented by Vice President Dick Cheney in an alarmist speech on August 26, 2002.

You were well aware that the White House tried to present as fact intelligence you knew was unreliable. And yet you tried to have it both ways. On October 7, just hours before the president gave a major speech in Cincinnati, you were successful in preventing him from using the fable about Iraq purchasing uranium in Africa, although that same claim appeared in the NIE you signed only six days before.
Although CIA officers learned in late September 2002 from a high-level member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle that Iraq had no past or present contact with Osama bin Laden and that the Iraqi leader considered bin Laden an enemy of the Baghdad regime, you still went before Congress in February 2003 and testified that Iraq did indeed have links to Al Qaeda.

You showed a lack of leadership and courage in January of 2003 as the Bush Administration pushed and cajoled analysts and managers to let them make the bogus claim that Iraq was on the verge of getting its hands on uranium. You signed off on Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations. And, at his insistence, you sat behind him and visibly squandered CIA's most precious asset—credibility."

You may now feel you were bullied and victimized but you were also one of the bullies. In the end you allowed suspect sources, like Curveball, to be used based on very limited reporting and evidence. Yet you were informed in no uncertain terms that Curveball was not reliable. You broke with CIA standard practice and insisted on voluminous evidence to refute this reporting rather than treat the information as suspect. You helped set the bar very low for reporting that supported favored White House positions, while raising the bar astronomically high when it came to raw intelligence that did not support the case for war being hawked by the president and vice president

It now turns out that you were the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community--a grotesque mixture of incompetence and sycophancy shielded by a genial personality. Decisions were made, you were in
charge, but you have no idea how decisions were made even though you were in charge. Curiously, you focus your anger on the likes of Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and Condi Rice, but you decline to criticize the President.

Mr. Tenet, as head of the intelligence community, you failed to use your position of power and influence to protect the intelligence process and, more importantly, the country. What should you have done? What could you have done?
For starters, during the critical summer and fall of 2002, you could have gone to key Republicans and Democrats in the Congress and warned them of the pressure. But you remained silent. Your candor during your one-on-one with Sir Richard Dearlove, then-head of British Intelligence, of July 20, 2002" provides documentary evidence that you knew exactly what you were doing; namely, "fixing" the intelligence to the policy.

By your silence you helped build the case for war. You betrayed the CIA officers who collected the intelligence that made it clear that Saddam did not pose an imminent threat. You betrayed the analysts who tried to withstand the pressure applied by Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Most importantly and tragically, you failed to meet your obligations to the people of the United States. Instead of resigning in protest, when it could have made a difference in the public debate, you remained silent and allowed the Bush Administration to cite your participation in these deliberations to justify their decision to go to war. Your silence contributed to the willingness of the public to support the disastrous war in Iraq, which has killed more than 3300 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

If you are committed to correcting the record about your past failings then you should start by returning the Medal of Freedom you willingly received from President Bush in December 2004. You claim it was given only because of the war on terror, but you were standing next to General Tommy Franks and L. Paul Bremer, who also contributed to the disaster in Iraq. President Bush said that you: "played pivotal roles in great events, and [your] efforts have made our country more secure and advanced the cause of human liberty. " The reality of Iraq, however, has not made our nation more secure nor has the cause of human liberty been advanced. In fact, your tenure as head of the CIA has helped create a world that is more dangerous. The damage to the credibility of the CIA is serious but can eventually be repaired. Many of the U.S. soldiers maimed in the streets of Fallujah and Baghdad cannot be fixed. Many will live the rest of their lives missing limbs, blinded, mentally disabled, or physically disfigured. And the dead have passed into history.

Mr. Tenet, you cannot undo what has been done. It is doubly sad that you seem still to lack an adequate appreciation of the enormous amount of death and carnage you have facilitated. If reflection on these matters serves to prick your conscience we encourage you to donate at least half of the royalties from your book sales to the veterans and their families, who have paid and are paying the price for your failure to speak up when you could have made a difference. That would be the decent and honorable thing to do.

Sincerely yours,

Phil Giraldi
Ray McGovern
Larry Johnson
Jim Marcinkowski
Vince Cannistraro
David MacMichael

The stone grows old.
Eternity is not for stones.
But I shall go down from this airy space, this swift white peace, this stinging exultation;
And time will come close about me, and my soul stir to the rhythm of the daily round.
Yet, having known, life will not press so close,
And always I shall feel time ravel thin about me.
For once I stood
In the white windy presence of eternity.
-- EUNICE TIETJENS

Ibn Arabi

Remark by Ibn al-Arabi, a 13th-century Muslim mystic and philosopher:

“Do not praise your own faith exclusively so that you disbelieve all the rest. If you do this, you will miss the truth of the matter. God, the omnipresent and omniscient, cannot be confined to any one creed, for he says: Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of Allah. Everybody praises what he knows. His God is his own creature and in praising it, he praises himself, which he would not do if he were just, but his dislike is based on ignorance.”

Gulf stands on brink of all-out war

Saudi King Abdulah

From the "First Post" online magazine Dec 12/06



Saudis say they’ll fight for their fellow Sunnis if the coalition forces quit Iraq, says robert fox
While the Bush administration remains locked in argument with the consiglieri of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group about what to do in Iraq, events on the ground are now moving ahead of them.

There is now every chance that civil war could turn into a major regional war as the Saudis and Jordanians threaten to come in on the side of the Sunni community, and the Shia militias in turn look to Tehran and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard for backing.

"The intervention of Saudi Arabia and Jordan is now the most dangerous possibility facing us," a British commander told me, on condition of anonymity.

"We can't go, and we can't stay in the present posture. We've got to find a way of keeping a presence, but without it becoming the main problem."

The main proposals of the Baker-Hamilton report are seen as unrealistic by force commanders on the ground in Iraq. The plan is for American forces to pull back next year and assume primarily an oversight and training role with the Iraqi army, national guard and police.

The bulk of US forces would go home by April 2008. The British would move faster, handing back Maysan province to the Iraqis next January and Basra in April. By July 2007, Britain would have only 2,000 service personnel in Iraq, at most.

But US commanders, led by General John Abizaid of US Central Command, do not believe the Iraqi army will be ready to run anything much in terms of security for years to come.

This is what the Saudis realise too. And they have given warning to the US and Britain that if they make a quick exit by April 2008, they and their allies will have no choice but to enter Iraq to help their co-religionists, the Sunni Arabs.

Until now the Saudis have only hinted at their frustration with the allies.

"Since America came into Iraq uninvited, it should not leave Iraq uninvited," said the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the US, Prince Turki al-Faisal (previous page ).

Now, according to my anonymous British commander, their threat is unambiguous.

The Saudis' King Abdullah has said that, for the time being, his forces will not give arms and training to the Sunni insurgents of Iraq. But reports from Baghdad suggest this is already happening.

This is not the only threat facing the allies as they stare defeat in the face in Iraq. Tensions are rising between the Americans and the British.

American officials, particularly in the CIA, have criticised the British approach to dealing with the Iraqis, particularly the Shia militias in the south of the country.

A confidential British briefing paper says this is now a major bone of contention. "The Americans believe the British should take out the Mahdi Army (otherwise know as the Jaish al-Mahdi or JAM) of Moqtada al Sadr," said a British official last week.

This is because the Americans are backing the rival militia of the Badr Brigades, attached to the Supreme Council for the Revolution in Iraq of Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, for whom they rolled out the red carpet in Washington earlier this month.

As civil war edges towards regional war in Iraq and the Gulf, the Arab powers have just thrown a large fly in the ointment - and it's a nuclear one.

At the meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council at the weekend, Saudi Arabia and its allies discussed openly for the first time the necessity for the Gulf Arab alliance to begin developing its own nuclear industry - for civil, and peaceful purposes, of course.

But why else would Arab kings and emirs, sitting on the largest commercial fossil fuel reserves in the world, want access to nuclear know-how, except to create a deterrent to protect their interests in an ever more unstable region?

For Jerry

The Return of El Moe

Greetings Friends, Romans, Countrymen: El Moe has been escondido in digs without an internet connection since the end of Feb. This explains his absence from the blogworld. He plans a return to his native land in June. His work is ongoing, the writing progressing.

*Collision Course With Iran*

by Dennis J. Kucinich

President Bush has claimed the Iranian government is supplying deadly weapons to fighters in Iraq and that those weapons are being used to kill US troops in Iraq. This sounds horrific and frightening -- and that is the point. The Administration is preparing for a military strike against Iran. The justification chosen by the Administration is the one circumstance in which a President could bypass Congress and still wage a military conflict.

The intelligence backing up these assertions is questionable. The sources were anonymous. Since the briefing, the Administration has backed away from the assertion made by Pentagon briefers that Tehran was behind these weapons transfers and no new evidence has been presented. But the President, the Defense Secretary and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff all repeat the questionable assertions.

The newly claimed grievance with Iran could be used to satisfy section 2(c) of the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which states that the President can introduce armed forces into a conflict or a national emergency created by an attack upon the armed forces. The President appears to have laid the groundwork for an attack on Iran while avoiding Congressional approval.

This Administration has set a collision course with Iran. Time and again, it has refused to enter into direct diplomatic talks with Iran.

• After the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the Iranian government signaled to the Administration a willingness to cooperate with the United States, including cooperation with the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan. But in January 2002, President Bush labeled Iran a member of the "axis of evil" in his State of the Union address.

• In early 2003, Iran offered to enter into dialogue with the United States regarding several outstanding US-Iran issues, including full transparency of all nuclear facilities; the cessation of support of Palestinian opposition groups; transformation of Hezbollah into a political organization; coordination of counterterrorism efforts; cooperation with political stabilization in Iraq; and the acceptance of the Arab League "Beirut Declaration" -- a comprehensive peace, including the establishment of normal relations with Israel. The United States did not respond to this "grand bargain" offered by Iran.

• Also in 2003, the United States refused to join France, Britain and Germany (the EU-3) in a diplomatic effort to curb Iran's nuclear program.

• In November 2005, the US Ambassador to Iraq received permission to begin a diplomatic dialogue with Iran on the issue of Iraqi stability. The Iranians accepted the offer; however, no talks materialized.

• On May 8, 2006, the Administration said it would support a renewed diplomatic overture by the EU-3. At the same time, the Administration ignored a letter from President Ahmadinejad to President Bush.

• On May 31, 2006, the Administration said it would join the EU-3 talks but would not negotiate with Iran until Iran agreed, ahead of the talks, to abide by US demands.

• On November 29, 2006, President Ahmadinejad sent an open letter to the American people. The Bush Administration refused to respond.

• The White House is now selectively leaking intelligence to set the stage for a military attack on Iran.

With Democrats in charge of the House and Senate, the President might have trouble starting another war. In light of the vote by the House of Representatives to disapprove of the President's escalation in Iraq and the mounting opposition to the war in Iraq, the President's new assertions about Iran hold the key to an attempt to bypass Congressional approval for another military conflict.

There are additional reasons to believe the President is setting us on a path to another war. In his primetime address to the nation last month, the President ordered a second battle group led by the aircraft carrier USS John Stennis to the Gulf. The Administration has armed Iran's Arab neighbors with Patriot missiles, sent minesweepers to the Persian Gulf and ordered an increase in the national strategic oil reserve to guard against potential oil embargoes.

It was not long ago when Iran was portrayed as a nuclear threat. But the news of a diplomatic breakthrough with North Korea changed what the Administration could say about Iran. For North Korea really possesses nuclear weapons, while Iran is five to ten years away from the ability to produce the fissile material to have even one nuclear bomb. Yet the United States was able to use diplomacy with North Korea. Obviously, diplomacy could be applied to the Iran situation as well. Instead, the Administration is escalating tensions with Iran, laying the groundwork for an attack and attempting to make a case to bypass Congressional authorization.


Dennis Kucinch represents Ohio's 10th District in Congress, and he is currently the co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus. He ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004.

Is Bush Really Planning War against Iran?

by Patrick Seale



Few observers of the international scene believe that the United States is preparing to go to war against Iran. The stakes are too high, the backlash too frightening, the consequences too unpredictable. The U.S. Congress, in its present mood, would not allow it, and no foreign government would support it, such is the international hostility to President George W. Bush.

Rather, the consensus is that the United States is attempting to stop Iran from enriching uranium by using every other weapon in its armoury, short of war -- by isolating Iran, subjecting it to diplomatic pressure, punishing it with sanctions, depriving it of finance to stifle its economy, starving its oil industry of investment and high tech equipment, and of course by a military build-up which is intended to /intimidate/, but not to be used.

That, at least, is the theory. The danger, however, lies in an unplanned incident, an accident, perhaps a small-scale exchange of fire somewhere on the periphery of the U.S.-Iranian confrontation, which could escalate into a full-blown conflict. It is this inherently unstable situation which has seriously alarmed the international community.

The reasons for acute tension remain unchanged. Iran insists on upholding its fundamental right to civilian nuclear technology under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Accordingly, it has ignored the deadline to suspend its uranium enrichment activities by 21 February 2007, as demanded by UN Security Council Resolution 1737 of 23 December 2006 -- a document President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has described as a "torn piece of paper."

Iran has, however, repeated time and time again that it has no intention of building atomic weapons. Indeed, it has offered to give guarantees that it will not seek military applications of nuclear technology, and has declared its readiness to enter into negotiations on this basis with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and international partners.

The United States, Israel and a number of other countries do not believe it. They suspect that Iran wants to become, if not an immediate nuclear-armed state, then a /nuclear threshold power/. That is to say, it is believed to want to master enough technology to allow it, in an emergency, to acquire nuclear weapons at short notice -- like, say, Japan.

Israel, in particular, has mounted a world-wide propaganda campaign against Iran, claiming its leader is a new Hitler and that Jews are threatened with another Holocaust. A more accurate reading of the situation might be to say that Israel is determined to protect the monopoly of nuclear weapons, which it has enjoyed in the Middle East for more than forty years. Its overall military superiority -- in conventional and unconventional weapons -- has given it great freedom of action against its neighbours. It does not want this freedom to be circumscribed by a balance of power which Iran’s rise to nuclear status would create.

All these alarms -- fear of an incident which might trigger a clash; concern that Israel and its friends might push the United States into war, as they did against Iraq; widespread anxiety among Arab states of the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran; anger at President Ahmadinejad’s verbal provocations -- have caused the international community to wake up, take notice, and start considering corrective action.

Several weeks ago, President Jacques Chirac of France suggested sending a high-level emissary to Tehran to calm the situation and probe Iranian intentions. The initiative was much criticised and nothing came of it. But something like it is now being revived.

Diplomatic sources report that, with French encouragement, the European Union is considering starting direct talks with Iran in the hope of defusing the situation and breaking the dangerous U.S.-Iran deadlock. Russia, now building Iran’s first nuclear power station at Bushehr, and on reasonably good terms with Tehran, might join the talks in due course.

Iran, in turn, is reaching out in its own way to the international community. First, it is reminding the world that President Ahmadinejad is not all powerful. Command of Iran’s armed forces and the final decision on matters of war and peace lie, not with the President, but with the Supreme Guide of the Islamic Republic, Seyyed Ali Hussayni Khamenei.

The latest reminder of this well-known, but sometimes forgotten fact, came from none other than Ali Akbat Velayati, Khomenei’s diplomatic adviser for the past decade and Iran’s foreign minister for 17 years.

Second, Velayati has stressed that the Iranian official directly in charge of Iran’s nuclear file is not the President but Ali Larajani, head of Iran’s National Security Council.

Third, to allay the world’s fears about Iran’s nuclear intentions, Velayati has suggested that France should take the lead in setting up on Iranian territory an international consortium to enrich uranium, managed by the Europeans under full IAEA guarantees (in an interview in the French daily /Le Monde/ on 22 February 2007).

It is also significant that Saudi Arabia and its partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council are entering the scene. Anxious about a possible overspill of Iraq’s Sunni-Shi‘i conflict into the Gulf, they have also begun a tentative dialogue with Iran.

It remains to be seen whether these measures will allow good sense and calm to prevail. Only when the interests and anxieties of Iran, the Arab states, Israel, America and the rest of the world are addressed can an acceptable settlement be reached. The immediate objective should be to reduce tension and back off from the military confrontation.


Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East, and the author of The Struggle for Syria; also Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East; and Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire.

Citizen Ken, Sultan of Gyeonggi, presents:

The Ballad of King George, Part III: Bonzo Goes To Asmara

It was a beautiful morning on the high plateau. The mortars were silent and the sun had just begun to peek over the horizon. A group of refugees appeared in the distance and then faded out of sight, headed in the direction of Asmara. A passing baboon paused to urinate on a bush. At that moment the bush burst into flames, setting the unfortunate creature’s hindquarters alight. As the baboon scrambled away howling in pain, a man in a shiny sky blue suit with well-manicured facial hair catapulted out of the bush, brushing flames away from his pants. The man called to the retreating animal: “sorry about that,” adding with irritation “NEXT TIME LET’S DO IT WITHOUT THE STUPID BUSH!!” The man pulled a mango from his suit pocket and began munching hungrily on it. As he gobbled down the mango a figure appeared on the horizon, riding upon an ass. The man peered into the distance. “Who’s this, the new Moses……HEY…..OLD MAN…..ARE THERE ANY HOSTILE FORCES AROUND HERE I SHOULD KNOW ABOUT?” As the figure drew nearer it became apparent that this was definitely NOT the new Moses, but none other than Bonzo T. Bush, disheveled and disoriented leader of the free world. The man in the blue suit observed “Ah, my mistake, not a sage of any description – but an ass riding an ass!” As Bush drew closer the man in the blue suit could clearly see that the gibbering and drooling Commander in Chief was dressed in his old National Guard uniform, now tattered and moth-eaten by the passage of time. The ass was heavily laden, both with Bonzo and with numerous saddle bags. Bush stopped a few feet away and peered at the man for several moments, finally blurting out “Creflo???” “No, but I did get this suit off of him…..” “Hey, you know Creflo? Him ‘n Jerry’s muh personal preachers, yup…..Creflo loaned you his suit?” “Loaned…..no. I said I got it off of him….I will deal with all false prophets in the same way.” Bonzo began to foam at the mouth and sputtered “hey, hey, hold on there buddy, nobody talks about Reverend Dollar that way and gets away with it. Now, you better help me out here. I been lookin’ for Jesus out here. Some fella at the Wailin’ Wall said I could find Jesus out here.” “Look no further, Monkey Boy, your quest is over.” The Commander in Chief pulled a battered piece of paper from his rancid uniform, presenting it to the man in the blue suit. It was an artists rendering of Jesus as blond and Caucasian. “Jest hold on there buddy – this here’s Jesus…..everybody knows Jesus is a white guy!” “You are definitely in the wrong neighbourhood, son,” observed the man in the blue suit. At this moment another group of refugees appeared on the horizon, bound for Asmara. As they drew closer, Bonzo called out to them. “Hey, heyyyyyyyyyyy…..you kids…come on over here.” The refugees, mostly women and children, drew to a halt before the ass on the ass and the man in the blue suit. Bonzo began pulling packs of chewing gum and nylon stockings out of his saddle bags. “Here ya go….and maybe if yer good and vote Republican I’ll arrange to put some food on yer families.” Bush pelted the refugees with the chewing gum and nylons, laughing maniacally. The refugees responded by picking up rocks and clumps of dirt, pelting the incredulous and raving “leader of the free world” back. Bonzo T. glowered down at the refugees and pulled a pistol out of his shoulder holster, gibbering “terrorists….DIE TERRORISTS!” The man in the blue suit gestured and Bonzo disappeared, leaving the ass placidly munching on a patch of grass. As the refugees moved on, the man in the blue suit called “have a good trip, George, I hear it’s a bit stormy in Teheran right now….I’ll send you a rain coat!” After a moment he followed the refugees, handing out a seemingly endless stream of mangoes. They disappeared over the horizon.

Next – when Washington authorities finally notice Bonzo’s absence several weeks later, they spring into action, sending British, Canadian and Polish operatives into Iran. How will the Commander in Chief react to his tour of Iranian prisons? Will the truth be revealed in a classified document entitled “Syndromes Rhyming With Stockholm”? Stay tuned to CNN and read the Weekly World News for important details soon.

The Captain says....

Click on the picture and play Picard's song. Make it so.

Must-read Editorial from NY Times

THOSE who forget history may be doomed to repeat it, but who could imagine we’d already be in danger of replaying that rotten year 2003?

Scooter Libby, the mastermind behind the White House’s bogus scenarios for ginning up the war in Iraq, is back at Washington’s center stage, proudly defending the indefensible in a perjury trial. Ahmad Chalabi, the peddler of flawed prewar intelligence hyped by Mr. Libby, is back in clover in Baghdad, where he purports to lead the government’s Shiite-Baathist reconciliation efforts in between visits to his pal Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran.

Last but never least is Mr. Libby’s former boss and Mr. Chalabi’s former patron, Dick Cheney, who is back on Sunday-morning television floating fictions about Iraq and accusing administration critics of aiding Al Qaeda. When the vice president went on a tear like this in 2003, hawking Iraq’s nonexistent W.M.D. and nonexistent connections to Mohamed Atta, he set the stage for a war that now kills Iraqi civilians in rising numbers (34,000-plus last year) that are heading into the genocidal realms of Saddam. Mr. Cheney’s latest sales pitch is for a new plan for “victory” promising an even bigger bloodbath.

Mr. Cheney was honest, at least, when he said that the White House’s Iraq policy would remain “full speed ahead!” no matter what happened on Nov. 7. Now it is our patriotic duty — politicians, the press and the public alike — to apply the brakes. Our failure to check the administration when it rushed into Iraq in 2003 will look even more shameful to history if we roll over again for a reboot in 2007. For all the belated Washington scrutiny of the war since the election, and for all the heralded (if so far symbolic) Congressional efforts to challenge it, too much lip service is still being paid to the deceptive P.R. strategies used by the administration to sell its reckless policies. This time we must do what too few did the first time: call the White House on its lies. Lies should not be confused with euphemisms like “incompetence” and “denial.”

Mr. Cheney’s performance last week on “Fox News Sunday” illustrates the problem; his lying is nowhere near its last throes. Asked by Chris Wallace about the White House’s decision to overrule commanders who recommended against a troop escalation, the vice president said, “I don’t think we’ve overruled the commanders.” He claimed we’ve made “enormous progress” in Iraq. He said the administration is not “embattled.” (Well, maybe that one is denial.)

This White House gang is so practiced in lying with a straight face that it never thinks twice about recycling its greatest hits. Hours after Mr. Cheney’s Fox interview, President Bush was on “60 Minutes,” claiming that before the war “everybody was wrong on weapons of mass destruction” and that “the minute we found out” the W.M.D. didn’t exist he “was the first to say so.” Everybody, of course, was not wrong on W.M.D., starting with the United Nations weapons inspection team in Iraq. Nor was Mr. Bush the first to come clean once the truth became apparent after the invasion. On May 29, 2003 — two days after a secret Defense Intelligence Agency-sponsored mission found no biological weapons in trailers captured by American forces — Mr. Bush declared: “We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories.”

But that’s all W.M.D under the bridge. The most important lies to watch for now are the new ones being reiterated daily by the administration’s top brass, from Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney on down. You know fiasco awaits America when everyone in the White House is reading in unison from the same fictional script, as they did back in the day when “mushroom clouds” and “uranium from Africa” were the daily drumbeat.

The latest lies are custom-made to prop up the new “way forward” that is anything but. Among
the emerging examples is a rewriting of the history of Iraq’s sectarian violence. The fictional version was initially laid out by Mr. Bush in his Jan. 10 prime-time speech and has since been repeated on television by both Mr. Cheney and the national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, last Sunday and by Mr. Bush again on PBS’s “NewsHour” on Tuesday. It goes like this: sectarian violence didn’t start spiraling out of control until the summer of 2006, after Sunni terrorists bombed the Golden Mosque in Samarra and forced the Shiites to take revenge.

But as Mark Seibel of McClatchy Newspapers noted last week, “the president’s account understates by at least 15 months when Shiite death squads began targeting Sunni politicians and clerics.” They were visible in embryo long before that; The Times, among others, reported as far back as September 2003 that Shiite militias were becoming more radical, dangerous and anti-American. The reasons Mr. Bush pretends that Shiite killing started only last year are obvious enough. He wants to duck culpability for failing to recognize the sectarian violence from the outset — much as he failed to recognize the Sunni insurgency before it — and to underplay the intractability of the civil war to which he will now sacrifice fresh American flesh.

An equally big lie is the administration’s constant claim that it is on the same page as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as we go full speed ahead. Only last month Mr. Maliki told The Wall Street Journal that he wished he “could be done with” his role as Iraq’s leader “before the end of this term.” Now we are asked to believe not merely that he is a strongman capable of vanquishing the death squads of the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr, his political ally, but also that he can be trusted to produce the troops he failed to supply in last year’s failed Baghdad crackdown. Yet as recently as November, there still wasn’t a single Iraqi battalion capable of fighting on its own.

Hardly a day passes without Mr. Maliki mocking the White House’s professed faith in him. In the past week or so alone, he has presided over a second botched hanging (despite delaying it for more than two weeks to put in place new guidelines), charged Condi Rice with giving a “morale boost to the terrorists” because she criticized him, and overruled American objections to appoint an obscure commander from deep in Shiite territory to run the Baghdad “surge.” His government doesn’t even try to hide its greater allegiance to Iran. Mr. Maliki’s foreign minister has asked for the release of the five Iranians detained in an American raid on an Iranian office in northern Iraq this month and, on Monday, called for setting up more Iranian “consulates” in Iraq.

The president’s pretense that Mr. Maliki and his inept, ill-equipped, militia-infiltrated security forces can advance American interests in this war is Neville Chamberlain-like in its naiveté and disingenuousness. An American military official in Baghdad read the writing on the wall to The Times last week: “We are implementing a strategy to embolden a government that is actually part of the problem. We are being played like a pawn.” That’s why the most destructive lie of all may be the White House’s constant refrain that its doomed strategy is the only one anyone has proposed. Administration critics, Mr. Cheney said last Sunday, “have absolutely nothing to offer in its place,” as if the Iraq Study Group, John Murtha and Joseph Biden-Leslie Gelb plans, among others, didn’t predate the White House’s own.

In reality we’re learning piece by piece that it is the White House that has no plan. Ms. Rice has now downsized the surge/escalation into an “augmentation,” inadvertently divulging how the Pentagon is improvising, juggling small deployments in fits and starts. No one can plausibly explain how a parallel chain of command sending American and Iraqi troops into urban street combat side by side will work with Iraqis in the lead (it will report to a “committee” led by Mr. Maliki!). Or how $1 billion in new American reconstruction spending will accomplish what the $30 billion thrown down the drain in previous reconstruction spending did not.

All of this replays 2003, when the White House refused to consider any plan, including existing ones in the Pentagon and State Department bureaucracies, for coping with a broken post-Saddam Iraq. Then, as at every stage of the war since, the only administration plan was for a propaganda campaign to bamboozle American voters into believing “victory” was just around the corner.

The next push on the “way forward” propaganda campaign arrives Tuesday night, with the State of the Union address. The good news is that the Democrats have chosen Jim Webb, the new Virginia senator, to give their official response. Mr. Webb, a Reagan administration Navy secretary and the father of a son serving in Iraq, has already provoked a testy exchange about the war with the president at a White House reception for freshmen in Congress. He’s the kind of guy likely to keep a scorecard of the lies on Tuesday night. But whether he does or not, it’s incumbent on all those talking heads who fell for “shock and awe” and “Mission Accomplished” in 2003 to not let history repeat itself in 2007. Facing the truth is the only way forward in Iraq.

Da New Crib!

Click on these amigos to see it

Here, my pretties, are some snaps of me new digs in El Distrito Genial. New isn't the right word. The house is easily 150 anyway.

Teddy

Ted Kennedy Says No to Bush's 'Surge'
by John Nichols


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, are trying to figure out how to respond to the to the expected presidential proposal for to surge the United States deeper into the quagmire that is Iraq.


But the man who, by virtue of his long service in the Senate and his mastery of that chamber's politics and procedures, is recognized and respected by savvy Democrats and Republicans as the essential member of the new Congress, is not confused.


Senator Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, is introducing legislation to unequivocally "prohibit the use of funds for an escalation of United States forces in Iraq above the numbers existing as of January 9, 2007."


Kennedy voted against authorizing President Bush to invade Iraq and he has been a consistent critic of the war. But this targeted piece of legislation specifically addresses the "surge" being proposed by the president.


Even more importantly, Kennedy's bill reasserts the role of Congress in a time of war. The Constitution allows the president to serve as commander-in-chief and affords him reasonable war-making powers in that role. But it reserves for Congress the power of the purse, and the founders were clear in their belief that the House and Senate should use that power to constrain a president who is waging war without reason or sound strategies.


The Congress has frequently used the power of the purse to control presidential war-making. Kennedy points to examples from the Vietnam era, but there are also examples from just the past quarter century of the Congress specifically embracing troops caps in Lebanon, in the European NATO countries, and in Colombia. Indeed, as the Center for American Progress notes in a detailed new report, "Congressional Limitations and Requirements for Military Deployments and Funding," the Congress has a rich record of stepping in to prevent presidents from expanding U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts.


Kennedy, who came to the Senate in 1963 recognizes that record, and he embraces its central theme: The Constitutionally-mandated system of checks and balances requires Congress to be in the thick of decision making with regard to wars and their escalation.


Kennedy's specific message is summed up in the title of the speech the senator delivered January 9, at the National Press Club: "Escalation is Not the Answer: Time for Congress to Insist on Real Change in Iraq"


Said Kennedy, "It seems to me that we are at a time of a major escalation into a civil war, that's what the proposal of a surge is really about. This president is going to escalate the American presence and escalate the whole Iraqi war. This is a major mistake and a major blunder. If there's one thing that the election was about last fall was sending a very clear message to Congress and to the president that the American people want accountability. They want a change in direction on Iraq, they want accountability, and they want people to stand up and be counted."


Will other members of the Senate stand up and be counted? And will members of the House do the same?


Pelosi is clearly toying with strategies to challenge the proposed escalation of the war. She has said that Congress must be a part of the discussion about the president's "surge" proposal, while the Senate's Reid remains troublingly vague.


Ultimately, it is Kennedy who has proposed the clearest challenge to the administration. And senators, especially those who recognize the futility of expanding this war, need to join him in saying no to the surge.


"I think it's to try to hold policy makers accountable," Kennedy explained in a discussion with The New York Times regarding his legislation. "The president is the commander in chief. This is George Bush's war. But we have some responsibility in holding him accountable and holding accountable the people that want to continue the war in the way that it is being undertaken at the present time. The American people have expressed a different view and we need accountability."


Here are Kennedy's remarks regarding his bill:


The American people sent a clear message in November that we must change course in Iraq and begin to withdraw our troops, not escalate their presence. The way to start is by acting on the President's new plan. An escalation, whether it is called a surge or any other name, is still an escalation, and I believe it would be an immense new mistake. It would compound the original misguided decision to invade Iraq. We cannot simply speak out against an escalation of troops in Iraq. We must act to prevent it.


Today I am introducing legislation to reclaim the rightful role of Congress and the people's right to a full voice in the President's plan to send more troops to Iraq. My bill will say that no additional troops can be sent and no additional dollars can be spent on such an escalation, unless and until Congress approves the President's plan.


My proposal will not diminish our support for the forces we already have in Iraq. We will continue to do everything we can to make sure they have all the support they truly need. Even more important, we will continue to do all we can to bring them safely home. The best immediate way to support our troops is by refusing to inject more and more of them into the cauldron of a civil war that can be resolved only by the people and government of Iraq.


This bill will give all Americans -- from Maine to Florida to California to Alaska and Hawaii -- an opportunity to hold the President accountable for his actions. The President's speech must be the beginning -- not the end -- of a new national discussion of our policy in Iraq. Congress must have a genuine debate over the wisdom of the President's plan. Let us hear the arguments for it and against it. Then let us vote on it in the light of day. Let the American people hear -- yes or no -- where their elected representatives stand on one of the greatest challenges of our time.


Until now, a rubber stamp Republican Congress has refused to hold the White House accountable on Iraq. But the November election has dramatically changed all that. Over the past two years, Democrats reached for their roots as true members of our Party. We listened to the hopes and dreams of everyday Americans. We rejected the politics of fear and division. We embraced a vision of hope and shared purpose. And the American people voted for change.


Many of us felt the authorization to go to war was a grave mistake at the time. I've said that my vote against the war in Iraq is the best vote I've cast in my 44 years in the United States Senate.


But no matter what any of us thought then, the Iraq War resolution is obviously obsolete today. It authorized a war to destroy weapons of mass destruction. But there were no WMDs to destroy. It authorized a war with Saddam Hussein. But today, Saddam is no more. It authorized a war because Saddam was allied with al Qaeda. But there was no alliance.


The mission of our armed forces today in Iraq bears no resemblance whatever to the mission authorized by Congress. President Bush should not be permitted to escalate the war further, and send an even larger number of our troops into harm's way, without a clear and specific new authorization from Congress.


Our history makes clear that a new escalation in our forces will not advance our national security. It will not move Iraq toward self-government, and it will needlessly endanger our troops by injecting more of them into the middle of a civil war.


... Comparisons from history resonate painfully in today's debate on Iraq. In Vietnam, the White House grew increasingly obsessed with victory, and increasingly divorced from the will of the people and any rational policy. The Department of Defense kept assuring us that each new escalation in Vietnam would be the last. Instead, each one led only to the next.


There was no military solution to that war. But we kept trying to find one anyway. In the end, 58,000 Americans died in the search for it.


Echoes of that disaster are all around us today. Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam.


As with Vietnam, the only rational solution to the crisis is political, not military. Injecting more troops into a civil war is not the answer. Our men and women in uniform cannot force the Iraqi people to reconcile their differences. The President may deny the plain truth. But the truth speaks loudly and tragically. Congress must no longer follow him deeper into the quagmire in Iraq.




John Nichols is the Nation's Washington correspondent.