Is Colin Powell part of the Reality-Based Community?

This comes from Salon:

Colin Powell believes U.S. is losing Iraq war

Secretary of State Colin Powell has privately confided to friends in recent weeks that the Iraqi insurgents are winning the war, according to Newsweek. The insurgents have succeeded in infiltrating Iraqi forces "from top to bottom," a senior Iraqi official tells Newsweek in tomorrow’s issue of the magazine, "from decision making to the lower levels."

This is a particularly troubling development for the U.S. military, as it prepares to launch an all-out assault on the insurgent strongholds of Fallujah and Ramadi, since U.S. Marines were counting on the newly trained Iraqi forces to assist in the assault. Newsweek reports that "American military trainers have been frantically trying to assemble sufficient Iraqi troops" to fight alongside them and that they are "praying that the soldiers perform better than last April, when two battalions of poorly trained Iraqi Army soldiers refused to fight."

If the Fallujah offensive fails, Newsweek grimly predicts, "then the American president will find himself in a deepening quagmire on Inauguration Day."

-- David Talbot

[08:55 PST, Oct. 31, 2004]

Here is the Newsweek story: Hell to Pay
Whoever wins, the road ahead in Iraq is rough. Both Bush and Kerry have plans that depend on newly trained Iraqis. But insurgents are killing recruits, and infiltrating the forces. A report from the front
By Rod Nordland, Babak Dehghanpisheh and Michael Hirsh

Tora Bora

From KnightRidder, Did U.S. mistakes let bin Laden escape from Afghanistan 3 years ago?

And don't forget this helpful calender from Topdog

blog the vote

This comes to me from a reader and I thought it worthy of passing along:

My name is Keith Kritselis, and I have a couple websites that I am trying to publicize.
http://www.mypollingsite.com

The website's goal is to help voters find their polling place. Our database of online poll locators has been slowly growing. We now can get 63% of the US population the exact location of their polling site in 4 clicks or less. For the other 37% we provide a local phone number where they can call to get the information they need. This service is free to the public, it has no political affiliation or agenda, and I truly believe that civic participation is the key to a responsive government. This is a small 1 man operation with no marketing dollars. Anything you can do to help get the word out would be greatly appreciated.

As a sister site, I have created with my friend Ben Davis, http://www.blogthevote.org/

In running the polling site, I've been getting a lot of people upset with their local county polling site, and looking to complain to someone. I cannot do much to help specifically, but we decided to create a blog where we list news stories of election problems. We have cataloged over 150 articles in 34 states, and it's growing by the hour. The content is organized by state so a user can click on their state and read about any problems in their region...

Thanks,
Keith

Zarqawi and Bin Laden

Strangely, the Republicans seem to think that a video tape from Bin Laden -- the man responsible for killing 3,000 of our citizens, and the man the Administration failed to really try to catch -- will help them. Even more strange is the glee they are feeling over the tape. From NY Daily News:

"We want people to think 'terrorism' for the last four days," said a Bush-Cheney campaign official. "And anything that raises the issue in people's minds is good for us."

A senior GOP strategist added, "anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush."

He called it "a little gift," saying it helps the President but doesn't guarantee his reelection.

So much for putting national security over politics, eh?

A couple of op-eds from yesterday's Times worth reading: Bob Herbert, Letting Down the Troops, and Paul Krugman, It's Not Just Al Qaqaa. Together they pretty much sum up the evidence against the Bush Administration's ability to protect our country.

Finally, I am going to include this whole piece from Daniel Benjamin, a man who knows as much as anyone in this country about international terrorism. The article goes to the heart of the mendacity, incompetance, and -- maybe most importantly -- ideological blindness of the Bush plan to protect us.

Holy Zarqawi: Why Bush let Iraq's top terrorist walk.
By Daniel Benjamin
Posted Friday, Oct. 29, 2004, at 2:08 PM PT

Why didn't the Bush administration kill Abu Musab al-Zarqawi when it had the chance?

That it had opportunities to take out the Jordanian-born jihadist has been clear since Secretary of State Colin Powell devoted a long section of his February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council. In those remarks, which were given to underscore the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, Powell dwelt at length on the terrorist camp in Khurmal, in the pre-invasion Kurdish enclave. It was at that camp that Zarqawi, other jihadists who had fled Afghanistan, and Kurdish radicals were training and producing the poison ricin and cyanide.

Neither the Khurmal camp nor the surrounding area were under Saddam's control, but Powell provided much detail purporting to show Zarqawi's ties to the Baghdad regime. His arguments have since been largely discredited by the intelligence community. Many of us who have worked in counterterrorism wondered at the time about Powell's claims. If we knew where the camp of a leading jihadist was and knew that his followers were working on unconventional weapons, why weren't we bombing it or sending in special operations forces—especially since this was a relatively "permissive" environment?

In recent months, the mystery of the administration's inaction has only grown. News reports—including, most recently, one in the Wall Street Journal this week—make it clear that military leaders and the CIA felt Zarqawi was a threat that could and should be removed. On at least three occasions between mid-2002 and the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon presented plans to the White House to destroy the Khurmal camp. Each time the White House declined to act or did not respond at all.

It is impossible to see that refusal as anything other than an enormous blunder. This week Zarqawi claimed responsibility for executing 49 Iraqi army recruits. Since shortly after Saddam was toppled, Zarqawi's Tawhid wal Jihad group has been astonishingly effective at undermining the U.S. occupation. These operatives have killed wholesale, with a long string of car and truck bombs to their credit, and they have killed retail, with the videotaped executions of hostages, which have become must-see TV in the Muslim world and are driving contractors and NGOs out of the country. There is no reliable tally of Zarqawi's victims, but it would not be surprising if it was over 1,000. The issue of why no attempt to get him was made has become even more pungent since President Bush began pointing to Zarqawi in response to Sen. John Kerry's contention that Iraq was a diversion from the war on terror.

Despite numerous press inquiries and questions from Capitol Hill, the administration has never given a straight answer about why it held back. Some officials have offered the excuse that there was no certainty that Zarqawi would be present at the camp when an attack took place. This is unpersuasive. Even if there was no guarantee—and recently retired military officials say the terrorist was, in fact, living at the site—there should have been some urgency about destroying a camp where jihadists were producing ricin. This isn't a parlor gamer: In early 2003, British police dismantled a jihadist cell that was linked to Zarqawi and was planning attacks involving ricin.

What seems evident is that the administration viewed Zarqawi as a lower-tier concern, despite his well-known history of running an Afghan terrorist training camp and conducting terrorist operations in Europe. The White House was unwilling to divert any effort from the buildup for war in Iraq to this kind of threat.

The idea that states are the real issue and terrorists and their organizations are of secondary concern has been present throughout the Bush presidency. Although the 9/11 commission wrote its report in a spare, non-judgmental tone to preserve bipartisan unity, its description of the long, aimless road the administration took to the first meeting of its national security Cabinet on the issue of al-Qaida on Sept. 4, 2001, speaks volumes. By contrast, the first "principals" meeting on the issue of regime change in Iraq took place in January 2001, shortly after Bush's inauguration.

After 9/11, senior officials such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, simply refused to believe the assessment of the intelligence community that Iraq had no hand in the attack and that al-Qaida operated independently of state support. In the Pentagon's conduct of operations in Afghanistan, the overwhelming focus was on unseating the Taliban, the effective state power, while less attention was paid to pursuing al-Qaida, which had just killed nearly 3,000 people on American soil. Thus we had the debacle at Tora Bora, where our subcontractors, the militias of Afghan warlords, allowed Osama Bin Laden to escape.

Similarly, the relentless focus on Saddam Hussein has led to the removal from Afghanistan of key intelligence and special operations assets, including much of the elite commando unit Task Force 5. This, like the case of the pulled punch against Zarqawi, suggests that the Bush team continued to believe that states were the key threats in the post-9/11 world; terrorist groups could easily be swept up after the rogue nations had been dispatched. The much vaunted doctrine of pre-emption was employed against Iraq—a state that was effectively deterred from attacking the United States—while undeterrable terrorists were left to their own devices.

It seems never to have occurred to President Bush and his advisers that in a globalized world, where borders are porous and technologies of massive destructiveness are available, hidden networks can be far more dangerous than a state, which can be threatened and contained. Yet that surely has been the lesson of the last three years. It is an added irony that the administration's inability to fully assimilate the threat from "non-state actors" is leading, thanks in part to Zarqawi, to the failure of its effort to reinvent Iraq as a stable democracy in the Middle East.

Daniel Benjamin, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council staff. He is the co-author of The Age of Sacred Terror.

Even at this late date, they don't even understand the nature of international terrorism and are thus incapable of putting forward a plan to destroy it.

ABT's Thoughts on Voting

Regular reader ABT weighs in:

In 2000, I was asked by one of my friends who I selected to be the next president of the United States. When I told him, I immediately got his response that I had wasted my vote because he had no chance of winning. I told him I thought he was incorrect because no politician owns my vote. I also said that instead of looking only at people who had a shot, I review everyone on the ballot. I consider this to be voting my conscience.

Think about it, shouldn't people deserve more out of themselves than simply considering to vote for mainstream candidates? I think so. Unfortunately, most others don't. I want to let you know that for president this year, there's a world of choices to choose from (ten (candidates) was the last updated number I heard). Each has a different platform which should at least be looked at regardless of whether they are probably going to win or lose. Don't let the any candidate catch you off guard with generic promises you hear every election. Go to their websites, see what their detailed outlines are for executing their promises, and see who has the most desirable and obtainable plans. If these platforms aren't reviewed, how is one suppose to know whether they are voting for the best person? The truth is one doesn't! This sad fact is holding back our democracy. Without reviewing third party candidates, it becomes impossible to make an informed choice. I believe making an informed choice is something that we are obligated to do. If we don't, then we are voting in ignorance. Democracy can not thrive in ignorance.

I hope everyone who reads this will go out this Tuesday and with an understanding of who they think is the best person for the positions being voted upon. I truly don't mind who you vote for as long as your decision is conscionable.

I will just add that I heard that 87% of college students were following this election "very closely"; I missed the percentage that claimed they would be voting, but the amount of interest is extremely encouraging for our democracy.

comparing the polls with 2000

I don't spend much time following the polls and tallying up the potential electoral college votes, but I found this post "A Stroll Down Memory Lane" from DonkeyRising to be quite interesting. Ruy Teixeira writes:

The polls have generally been moving in the right direction lately for John Kerry, both nationally and on the state level, but Democrats are still inclined to be sent into a tizzy by any negative poll result they run across.

They shouldn't. It's time to revisit the thrilling polls of yesteryear to get a sense of just how much the polls in 2000 tended to overestimate Bush's strength and underestimate Gore's. I believe, for reasons I have discussed at length, the polls are likely overestimating Bush's strength this year as well. But this year, Kerry is doing better in the polls than Gore did at the equivalent point in the 2000 race. Therefore, if current polls are overestimating Bush's strength by the same amount as in 2000, Kerry should wind up doing better than Gore on election day--and Gore won the popular vote by half a point. And that's not even factoring in the likelihood that, with Bush as the incumbent, Kerry will receive the bulk of undecided voters' support on election day.

So let's take that stroll down memory lane.

Start with this nugget from Alan Abramowitz:

During the final week of the 2000 campaign, 43 national polls were released, including multiple releases by several polling organizations such as Gallup. George Bush led in 39 polls, Al Gore in 2. Bush's average lead in the polls was 3.6 percent.

Something to keep in mind when people complain that so far (two days) in this final week Kerry has "only" had small leads in the DCorps poll, the Harris Poll and the WP/ABC tracking poll twice (LVs and RVs)!

remember the other war?

I wish I knew how to post pictures, but I will just have to give the link here to this priceless calender of the events of November/December 2001.

Oh, and I had forgotten to post this letter to the editor written by Bob Graham a few days ago:

To the Editor:

Re "War of Words," by Tommy Franks (Op-Ed, Oct. 19):

John Kerry is correct that resources were diverted from Afghanistan to Iraq before we accomplished our mission there. How can I be so sure? General Franks told me.

In my new book, "Intelligence Matters," I describe the moment that made me doubt the president's commitment to winning the war on terror.

On Feb. 19, 2002, I visited Central Command headquarters for a briefing on our mission in Afghanistan. After an upbeat assessment with maps, photographs and video, however, General Franks asked for an additional private word in his office. "Senator,'' he said, "we are not engaged in a war in Afghanistan. ...Military and intelligence personnel are being redeployed to prepare for an action in Iraq. ... The Predators are being relocated. What we are doing is a manhunt."

General Franks was telling me this 13 months before the beginning of combat operations in Iraq, and only four months after the beginning of combat in Afghanistan.

President Bush, when asked in his first debate with Senator Kerry whether he had made removing Saddam Hussein a higher priority than capturing Osama bin Laden, said, "We've got the capability of doing both."

If we had truly been able to do both, military and intelligence resources would not have been diverted from Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden wouldn't be continuing to exhort his followers to greater acts of terror; he, like Saddam Hussein, would be in American hands.

Bob Graham
Washington, Oct. 22, 2004
The writer, a Florida Democrat, is a former chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

jeez

I have seen figures of the death total of Iraqis in the war between 12,000 and 16,000. I have heard talk of totals up to 30,000 or even 50,000. But now the prestigious British medical journal is coming out with a new study. See the news story, Household Survey Sees 100,000 Iraqi Deaths.

Weren't we supposed to be liberating these people?

Rudy vs. Wes

Mano a mano, I'll take my man Wes anyday.

Via Atrios (with link to video), here's what Rudy Giuilini had to say about the missing explosives:

The president was cautious the president was prudent the president did what a commander in chief should do. 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? Didn't they search carefully enough?

Wes Clark responds:

For President Bush to send Rudolph Giuliani out on television to say that the 'actual responsibility' for the failure to secure explosives lies with the troops is insulting and cowardly. The President approved the mission and the priorities. Civilian leaders tell military leaders what to do. The military follows those orders and gets the job done. This was a failure of civilian leadership, first in not telling the troops to secure explosives and other dangerous materials, and second for not providing sufficient troops and sufficient equipment for troops to do the job. President Bush sent our troops to war without sufficient body armor, without a sound plan and without sufficient forces to accomplish the mission. Our troops are performing a difficult mission with skill, bravery and determination. They deserve a commander in chief who supports them and understands that the buck stops in the Oval Office, not one who gets weak knees and shifts blame for his mistakes.

Want to know more about Kerry?

If you are still not sold on the man, perhaps these two articles will give you some insight into how he has conducted himself as a senator over the past two decades. Incidentally, the articles demonstrate his very early -- and keen -- understanding of the nature of international terrorism.

I linked before to Follow the Money: How John Kerry busted the terrorists' favorite bank.

This is a powerful recent article in Salon: How John Kerry exposed the Contra-cocaine scandal
Derided by the mainstream press and taking on Reagan at the height of his popularity, the freshman senator battled to reveal one of America's ugliest foreign policy secrets.

"I hope I am not responsible for Armageddon."

This story Eyewitness to a failure in Iraq by Peter Galbraith, who advised Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz on the situation in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam, is a must-read. He begins:

In 2003 I went to tell Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz what I had seen in Baghdad in the days following Saddam Hussein's overthrow. For nearly an hour, I described the catastrophic aftermath of the invasion -- the unchecked looting of every public institution in Baghdad, the devastation of Iraq's cultural heritage, the anger of ordinary Iraqis who couldn't understand why the world's only superpower was letting this happen.

I also described two particularly disturbing incidents -- one I had witnessed and the other I had heard about. On April 16, 2003, a mob attacked and looted the Iraqi equivalent of the Centers for Disease Control, taking live HIV and black fever virus among other potentially lethal materials. US troops were stationed across the street but did not intervene because they didn't know the building was important.

When he found out, the young American lieutenant was devastated. He shook his head and said, "I hope I am not responsible for Armageddon."

This is his conclusion regarding the looting of multiple weapons sites:

This was a preventable disaster. Iraq's nuclear weapons-related materials were stored in only a few locations, and these were known before the war began. As even L. Paul Bremer III, the US administrator in Iraq, now admits, the United States had far too few troops to secure the country following the fall of Saddam Hussein. But even with the troops we had, the United States could have protected the known nuclear sites. It appears that troops did not receive relevant intelligence about Iraq's WMD facilities, nor was there any plan to secure them. Even after my briefing, the Pentagon leaders did nothing to safeguard Iraq's nuclear sites.

I supported President Bush's decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein. At Wolfowitz's request, I helped advance the case for war, drawing on my work in previous years in documenting Saddam's atrocities, including the use of chemical weapons on the Kurds. In spite of the chaos that followed the war, I am sure that Iraq is better off without Saddam Hussein.

It is my own country that is worse off -- 1,100 dead soldiers, billions added to the deficit, and the enmity of much of the world. Someone out there has nuclear bomb-making equipment, and they may not be well disposed toward the United States. Much of this could have been avoided with a competent postwar strategy. But without having planned or provided enough troops, we would be a lot safer if we hadn't gone to war.

Mosh

I finally got to see Eminem's new video "Mosh". What do you folks think about it? Has the song been getting radio play?

missing explosives, the military, and christianity

I am going to try to pull together a few threads here and leave you folks with some questions that I can't answer -- I hope some responses from my legions of faithful readers will help me to clarify some things. This is a long post, so have patience please.

First, Stephen has a very good response in the comments section to my last post regarding the missing explosives. His key point seems to be that the timing of the removal is the most important issue, and that is still an open question -- therefore, we can't blame the Bush Administration if the weapons were removed before the invasion. (Correct me, Stephen, if I summarize your point inaccurately). And I call his response "very good" because it seems to rely on an assessment of what is known, and not just on cherry-picking evidence for partisan purposes.

Here are a couple of updates posted since Stephen wrote his comments last night: The Times has an article on the looting of the site which provides some insight, but doesn't seem to clarify the timeline.

In his blog Informed Consent Juan Cole has several insightful postings. And Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo keeps updating the story.

And then there is this story from Eyewitness News in Minneapolis:

A 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew in Iraq shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein was in the area where tons of explosives disappeared.

The missing explosives are now an issue in the presidential debate. Democratic candidate John Kerry is accusing President Bush of not securing the site they allegedly disappeared from. President Bush says no one knows if the ammunition was taken before or after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003 when coalition troops moved in to the area.

Using GPS technology and talking with members of the 101st Airborne 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS determined our crew embedded with them may have been on the southern edge of the Al Qaqaa installation, where that ammunition disappeared. Our crew was based just south of Al Qaqaa. On April 18, 2003 they drove two or three miles north into what is believed to be that area.

During that trip, members of the 101st Airborne Division showed the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew bunker after bunker of material labelled explosives. Usually it took just the snap of a bolt cutter to get in and see the material identified by the 101st as detonation cords.

"We can stick it in those and make some good bombs." a soldier told our crew.

There were what appeared to be fuses for bombs. They also found bags of material men from the 101st couldn't identify, but box after box was clearly marked "explosive."

In one bunker, there were boxes marked with the name "Al Qaqaa", the munitions plant where tons of explosives allegedly went missing.

Once the doors to the bunkers were opened, they weren't secured. They were left open when the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew and the military went back to their base.

"We weren't quite sure what were looking at, but we saw so much of it and it didn't appear that this was being secured in any way," said photojournalist Joe Caffrey. "It was several miles away from where military people were staying in their tents".

Officers with the 101st Airborne told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that the bunkers were within the U.S. military perimeter and protected. But Caffrey and former 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Reporter Dean Staley, who spent three months in Iraq, said Iraqis were coming and going freely.

"At one point there was a group of Iraqis driving around in a pick up truck,"Staley said. "Three or four guys we kept an eye on, worried they might come near us."

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS e-mailed pictures of the material we found to experts in Washington Wednesday to see if it is the same kind of high explosives that went missing in Al Qaqaa. They could not make that determination.

The footage is now in the hands of security experts to see if it is indeed the explosives in question.

Click on the link and you can see their pictures and video. The important point here is the date -- April 18th -- well after the fall of Baghdad.

But, the larger issue has nothing to do, I think, with the timing of the removal of the weapons. The weapons were under seal by the IAEA before the war. They left before the bombs started dropping and the U.S. was fully aware of the facility, where it was, and what it contained. And the Bush Administration did nothing to make sure these weapons did not fall into enemy hands. And this wasn't the only site left unguarded. We all know about the Culture Ministry and the museums containing irreplacable artifacts of the birth of civilization, but how many of you know that seven nuclear sites were also looted? This leads to the larger question of the general incompetance of the war plan. And I am not convinced that this incompetance is merely incompetance. To plan something inadequately is to make decisions about what is important. And bringing freedom to the Iraqis and ensuring a stable country do not seem to have been central or even peripheral to the war plan. So what were they trying to accomplish?

Several Times' readers address some of the larger issues cogently in the letters section today.

My questions to readers, especially those who concern themselves foremost with our military, have to do with your thoughts on how this Administration's war plan undermined our military, leaving it exposed and in danger. Does it make you mad that when generals asked for several hundred thousand troops for the war, Rumsfeld offered 40,000? Does it anger you that the soldiers were sent into battle without the proper equipment? Do you care about the Administration's attempts to cut veterans' benefits and combat pay? Does the backdoor draft and "stop-loss" policy bother you? Are you worried that our military is overstretched at a point in history when they may be called upon to defend us against real threats out there -- and there are many? Do you worry that the military which once seemed invincible now may not put the fear into our enemies worldwide? Do you resent seeing Tommy Franks reduced to misleading the public in order to help Bush win reelection?

I want to ask similar questions to Christian readers. There is a very interesting op-ed in today's Times that explains to me more convincingly than any other single article I have read how Bush's faith guides his decision-making. In Faith, Hope and Clarity, Robert Wright writes:

[...] Every morning President Bush reads a devotional from "My Utmost for His Highest," a collection of homilies by a Protestant minister named Oswald Chambers, who lived a century ago. As Mr. Bush explained in an interview broadcast on Tuesday on Fox News, reading Chambers is a way for him "on a daily basis to be in the Word." [...]

[...] There's a kind of optimism in Chambers, but it's not exactly sunny. To understand it you have to understand the theme that dominates "My Utmost": committing your life to Jesus Christ - "absolute and irrevocable surrender of the will" - and staying committed. "If we turn away from obedience for even one second, darkness and death are immediately at work again." In all things and at all times, you must do God's will.

But what exactly does God want? Chambers gives little substantive advice. There is no great stress on Jesus' ethical teaching - not much about loving your neighbor or loving your enemy. (And Chambers doesn't seem to share Isaiah's hope of beating swords into plowshares. "Life without war is impossible in the natural or the supernatural realm.") But the basic idea is that, once you surrender to God, divine guidance is palpable. "If you obey God in the first thing he shows you, then he instantly opens up the next truth to you," Chambers writes.

And you shouldn't let your powers of reflection get in the way. Chambers lauds Abraham for preparing to slay his son at God's command without, as the Bible put it, conferring "with flesh and blood." Chambers warns: "Beware when you want to 'confer with flesh and blood' or even your own thoughts, insights, or understandings - anything that is not based on your personal relationship with God. These are all things that compete with and hinder obedience to God."

Once you're on the right path, setbacks that might give others pause needn't phase you. As Chambers noted in last Sunday's reading, "Paul said, in essence, 'I am in the procession of a conqueror, and it doesn't matter what the difficulties are, for I am always led in triumph.' " Indeed, setbacks may have a purpose, Chambers will tell Mr. Bush this Sunday: "God frequently has to knock the bottom out of your experience as his saint to get you in direct contact with himself." Faith "by its very nature must be tested and tried."

Some have marveled at Mr. Bush's refusal to admit any mistakes in Iraq other than "catastrophic success." But what looks like negative feedback to some of us - more than 1,100 dead Americans, more than 10,000 dead Iraqi civilians and the biggest incubator of anti-American terrorists in history - is, through Chambers's eyes, not cause for doubt. Indeed, seemingly negative feedback may be positive feedback, proof that God is there, testing your faith, strengthening your resolve.

This, I think, is Mr. Bush's optimism: In the longest run, divinely guided decisions will be vindicated, and any gathering mountains of evidence to the contrary may themselves be signs of God's continuing involvement. It's all good. [...]

People unfamiliar with a certain strain in evangelical tradition may have trouble seeing the point of Chambers's emphasis on utter surrender. But in the Baptist churches of my youth, it went without saying (though it was often said) that surrender was in no small part about self-control. Because human nature is subtly corrupt, with every temptation concealing a slippery slope, complete commitment was the only path to virtue. Chambers stresses this binary nature of devotion more than some contemporary evangelicals, and that may explain his appeal for Mr. Bush, who became a born-again Christian when he quit drinking and has stayed off the bottle ever since.

Some people who find moderation easy can't understand why for others abstinence is necessary - and still less why it would demand a spiritual framework. I don't find moderation easy, and, even leaving that issue aside, I find being human so deeply challenging that I can't imagine it without an anchoring spirituality in some sense of the word. So I respect Mr. Bush's religious impulse, and I even find Chambers's Scottish austerity true and appealing in a generic way.

Still, it's another question whether Chambers's worldview, as mediated by Mr. Bush, should help shape the world's future. People who take drastic action based on divine-feeling feelings, and view ensuing death and destruction with equanimity, have in recent years tended to be the problem, not the solution.

Chambers himself eventually showed some philosophical flexibility. By and large, the teachings in "My Utmost for His Highest" were written before World War I (and compiled by his wife posthumously). But the war seems to have made him less sanguine about the antagonism that, he had long stressed, is inherent in life.

Shortly before his death in 1917, Chambers declared that "war is the most damnably bad thing," according to Christianity Today magazine. He added: "If the war has made me reconcile myself with the fact that there is sin in human beings, I shall no longer go with my head in the clouds, or buried in the sand like an ostrich, but I shall be wishing to face facts as they are." Amen.

My questions to Christians: Do you think George Bush has hijacked Christianity in this country, espousing only one version which seems to give short shrift to certain of Christ's teachings? Does being a Christian mean you have to vote for Bush? Are there other aspects of the Christian tradition that you personally emphasize that lead you to oppose Bush? What do those of you who hold another faith think?

These are really open questions on my part, even if I write them in a leading way. I hope readers will respond to the spirit of open inquiry in which I mean to express my questions. I hope people will avoid the temptation to one-up the opposition and give me some thoughtful reponses to difficult questions. I look forward to hearing from you.

more about those missing explosives

Stephen writes in:

About the missing explosives. First this is old news repackaged for the election; once again we see CBS and IAEA with an agenda trying to pass this off. Second imbedded reporters with the 101st Airborne Division claimed the explosives were missing when they captured the base during OIF. This site has a nice clip of Kerry putting his foot in his mouth.
http://www.dailyrecycler.com/blog/2004/10/nytrogate.html
It’s nice to see what the standard of evidence is and I can’t wait to use it in my career.

Despite the smug and supercilious tone -- which, since this is my blog, I thought I had a corner on -- I would like to respond with some further evidence as the story takes shape.

First, Stephen, is this old news or not news? You can't have it both ways.

Second, the government relying on NBC news for proof -- aren't they part of the liberal media conspiracy? -- doesn't comfort me. Shouldn't the government have its own source of information on this, since the IAEA had specifically warned them about this site? Since they knew about it before the war, shouldn't this have been a major priority from day one? Did they ignore the IAEA or did they have -- like Dick Cheney did during the Vietnam War -- "other priorities"? Like securing the oil ministry, perhaps?

Third, NBC news has disavowed the spin the Bush administration is putting on their report:

An NBC News crew that accompanied the U.S. soldiers who seized the base three weeks into the war said troops saw no sign of the missing HMX and RDX.

Reporter Lai Ling Jew, who was embedded with the Army’s 101st Airborne, 2nd Brigade, said Tuesday on MSNBC TV that the news team stayed at the base for about 24 hours.

“There wasn’t a search,” she said. “The mission that the brigade had was to get to Baghdad. That was more of a pit stop there for us. And, you know, the searching, I mean, certainly some of the soldiers headed off on their own, looked through the bunkers just to look at the vast amount of ordnance lying around.

“But as far as we could tell, there was no move to secure the weapons, nothing to keep looters away.”

Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, the unit’s spokesman, appeared to confirm NBC’s report in an e-mail message Tuesday to The Associated Press, saying the brigade did not have orders to search for the explosives that Iraqi officials say were stolen.

The soldiers “secured the area they were in and looked in a limited amount of bunkers to ensure chemical weapons were not present in their area,” Wellman wrote. “Bombs were found but not chemical weapons in that immediate area.

“Orders were not given from higher to search or to secure the facility or to search for HE type munitions [high-explosive weapons], as they were everywhere in Iraq,” he wrote.

This is how the Times reports the story today:

Republican officials have sought to discredit the initial reports and seized on an NBC News account, broadcast Monday night, that said when troops from the 101st Airborne arrived at the vast site on April 10, 2003, they found conventional weapons but none of the extremely powerful high explosives, HMX and RDX, which can be used to set off a nuclear weapon. In an e-mail message sent to reporters on Monday evening, Scott Stanzel, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, said, "The weapons were not there when the military arrived, making John Kerry's latest ripped-from-the-headlines attack baseless and false."

But Tuesday evening, NBC again reported on the issue. This time it reported that it had not said that the explosives were gone before American troops arrived at Al Qaqaa. Instead, it reported that troops from the Third Infantry Division and the 101st Airborne searched bunkers at the site and had not found the powerful explosives. NBC reported that it was not clear whether American troops searched all of the bunkers.

"Last night on this broadcast we reported that the 101st Airborne never found the nearly 380 tons of HMX and RDX explosives,'' Tom Brokaw, the NBC anchor, said. "We did not conclude the explosives were missing or had vanished, nor did we say they missed the explosives. We simply reported that the 101st did not find them.''

"For its part, the Bush campaign immediately pointed to our report as conclusive proof that the weapons had been removed before the Americans arrived,'' Mr. Brokaw added. "That is possible, but that is not what we reported.''

For the second day Mr. Bush did not speak about the issue, twice ignoring questions from reporters.

Digby has some thoughts on the issue, and quotes this exchange from NBC News:

Amy Robach: And it's still unclear exactly when those explosives disappeared. Here to help shed some light on that question is Lai Ling. She was part of an NBC news crew that traveled to that facility with the 101st Airborne Division back in April of 2003. Lai Ling, can you set the stage for us? What was the situation like when you went into the area?

Lai Ling Jew: When we went into the area, we were actually leaving Karbala and we were initially heading to Baghdad with the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. The situation in Baghdad, the Third Infantry Division had taken over Baghdad and so they were trying to carve up the area that the 101st Airborne Division would be in charge of. As a result, they had trouble figuring out who was going to take up what piece of Baghdad. They sent us over to this area in Iskanderia. We didn't know it as the Qaqaa facility at that point but when they did bring us over there we stayed there for quite a while. We stayed overnight, almost 24 hours. And we walked around, we saw the bunkers that had been bombed, and that exposed all of the ordinances that just lied dormant on the desert.

AR: Was there a search at all underway or did a search ensue for explosives once you got there during that 24-hour period?

LLJ: No. There wasn't a search. The mission that the brigade had was to get to Baghdad. That was more of a pit stop there for us. And, you know, the searching, I mean certainly some of the soldiers head off on their own, looked through the bunkers just to look at the vast amount of ordnance lying around. But as far as we could tell, there was no move to secure the weapons, nothing to keep looters away. But there was -- at that point the roads were shut off. So it would have been very difficult, I believe, for the looters to get there.

AR: And there was no talk of securing the area after you left. There was no discussion of that?

LLJ: Not for the 101st Airborne, Second Brigade. They were -- once they were in Baghdad, it was all about Baghdad, you know, and then they ended up moving north to Mosul. Once we left the area, that was the last that the brigade had anything to do with the area.

AR: Well, Lai Ling Jew, thank you so much for shedding some light into that situation. We appreciate it.

LLJ: Thank you.

Josh Marshall, citing a Jerusalem Post article, includes this quote contradicting the current administration spin:

At the Pentagon, an official who monitors developments in Iraq said US-led coalition troops had searched Al-Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed that the explosives, which had been under IAEA seal since 1991, were intact. Thereafter the site was not secured by U.S. forces, the official said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

Further, the Times has another article today No Check of Bunker, Unit Commander Says:

The commander, Col. Joseph Anderson, of the Second Brigade of the Army's 101st Airborne Division, said he did not learn until this week that the site, Al Qaqaa, was considered sensitive, or that international inspectors had visited it before the war began in 2003 to inspect explosives that they had tagged during a decade of monitoring.

Colonel Anderson, who is now the chief of staff for the division and who spoke by telephone from Fort Campbell, Ky., said his troops had been driving north toward Baghdad and had paused at Al Qaqaa to make plans for their next push.

"We happened to stumble on it,'' he said. "I didn't know what the place was supposed to be. We did not get involved in any of the bunkers. It was not our mission. It was not our focus. We were just stopping there on our way to Baghdad. The plan was to leave that very same day. The plan was not to go in there and start searching. It looked like all the other ammunition supply points we had seen already."

Finally, as the Times reports in an article on their website posted today:

President Bush addressed for the first time today the mysterious disappearance of 380 tons of explosives in Iraq, accusing his campaign rival, Senator John Kerry, of exploiting the issue without knowing, or caring about, the truth.

"Our military is now investigating a number of possible scenarios, including that the explosives may have been moved before our troops even arrived at the site," Mr. Bush told a Republican crowd in Lancaster, Pa. "This investigation is important and it's ongoing, and a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief."

I will leave my response to my man Wesley Clark (as posted by Atrios):

Today George W. Bush made a very compelling and thoughtful argument for why he should not be reelected. In his own words, he told the American people that “…a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your Commander in Chief.

President Bush couldn’t be more right. He jumped to conclusions about any connection between Saddam Hussein and 911. He jumped to conclusions about weapons of mass destruction. He jumped to conclusions about the mission being accomplished. He jumped to conclusions about how we had enough troops on the ground to win the peace. And because he jumped to conclusions, terrorists and insurgents in Iraq may very well have their hands on powerful explosives to attack our troops, we are stuck in Iraq without a plan to win the peace, and Americans are less safe both at home and abroad.

By doing all these things, he broke faith with our men and women in uniform. He has let them down. George W. Bush is unfit to be our Commander in Chief.

Zarqawi redux

Finally someone else has picked up on the story of the Bush Administration's deliberate NON-ATTEMPT to take out Zarqawi before the Iraq War. See the Wall Street Journal's Questions Mount Over Failure to Hit Zarqawi's Camp

Post-election forecast

From John Dean: The Coming Post-Election Chaos: A Storm Warning of Things to Come If the Vote Is as Close as Expected

ali baba

I remember reading an account of the insurgency in Iraq (can't remember which article; think it was in Harpers) that told of how Iraqi insurgents were raiding weapons dumps, walking right by the American soldiers who cheerfully called the Iraqis "Ali Baba" and the insurgents cheerfully pretended to be the ignorant sub-humans that the occupiers took them for. Then they went home to make weapons.

The arrogance, ignorance, and racism of the Americans runs all the way up to the top of the chain of command (and no I am not indicting each American soldier, simply pointing out that the whole war has been conducted as if the enemy was uncivilized and stupid). Now comes this report from the New York Times: Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 24 - The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.

The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished sometime after the American-led invasion last year.

[...]

The International Atomic Energy Agency publicly warned about the danger of these explosives before the war, and after the invasion it specifically told United States officials about the need to keep the explosives secured, European diplomats said in interviews last week. Administration officials say they cannot explain why the explosives were not safeguarded, beyond the fact that the occupation force was overwhelmed by the amount of munitions they found throughout the country.

[...]

After the invasion, when widespread looting began in Iraq, the international weapons experts grew concerned that the Qaqaa stockpile could fall into unfriendly hands. In May, an internal I.A.E.A. memorandum warned that terrorists might be helping "themselves to the greatest explosives bonanza in history."

Earlier this month, in a letter to the I.A.E.A. in Vienna, a senior official from Iraq's Ministry of Science and Technology wrote that the stockpile disappeared after early April 2003 because of "the theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security."

[...]

But the Bush administration would not allow the agency back into the country to verify the status of the stockpile. In May 2004, Iraqi officials say in interviews, they warned L. Paul Bremer III, the American head of the occupation authority, that Al Qaqaa had probably been looted. It is unclear if that warning was passed anywhere. Efforts to reach Mr. Bremer by telephone were unsuccessful.

[...]

A special property of HMX and RDX lends them to smuggling and terrorism, experts said. While violently energetic when detonated, they are insensitive to shock and physical abuse during handling and transport because of their chemical stability. A hammer blow does nothing. It takes a detonator, like a blasting cap, to release the stored energy.

Experts said the insensitivity made them safer to transport than the millions of unexploded shells, mines and pieces of live ammunition that litter Iraq. And its benign appearance makes it easy to disguise as harmless goods, easily slipped across borders.

"The immediate danger" of the lost stockpile, said an expert who recently led a team that searched Iraq for deadly arms, "is its potential use with insurgents in very small and powerful explosive devices. The other danger is that it can easily move into the terrorist web across the Middle East."

More worrisome to the I.A.E.A. - and to some in Washington - is that HMX and RDX are used in standard nuclear weapons design. In a nuclear implosion weapon, the explosives crush a hollow sphere of uranium or plutonium into a critical mass, initiating the nuclear explosion.

A crude implosion device - like the one that the United States tested in 1945 in the New Mexican desert and then dropped on Nagasaki, Japan - needs about a ton of high explosive to crush the core and start the chain reaction.

Getting safer every day! Freedom is on the march!

Sad news for garage and punk fans

Another great one leaves us prematurely:

* Bomp Founder Greg Shaw Dies At Age 55*
Friday October 22, 2004 @ 05:00 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff

According to an online message posted by his wife Phoebe, Bomp Records founder *Greg Shaw* passed away earlier this week. After a mysterious rise in his blood sugar, Shaw was admitted to hospital last week. On Tuesday night Shaw went into cardiac arrest and, after a fight, passed away. He was 55 years old.

While Shaw may not be particularly well-known to outsiders, within the garage rock community, he's regarded as a true pioneer. An obsessive record collector, Shaw got his start in the music biz as a prolific zine publisher. In the '70s, Shaw worked as a freelance writer for just about every major American music magazine and was named the editor of Phonograph Record Magazine (PRM). He also began to publish the Who Put The Bomp (or, simply, Bomp) fanzine.

In 1974, Shaw issued a *Flamin' Groovies* single through Bomp Magazine. Thus began the birth of Bomp Records. Shaw also took a gig as the Groovies' manager and got them signed to Sire Records.

After touring the world with the Flamin' Groovies, Shaw returned to the United States and began spreading the garage rock (a term that many credit him with coining) gospel. He put together the Pebbles series of compilations, which dug up the very best in obscure '60s garage rock.

Over the years, Bomp has released records by *Spaceman 3, Modern Lovers, The Sonics, Iggy Pop, Beachwood Sparks* and countless others. Shaw took a particular interest in *The Brian Jonestown Massacre* and appears in the new BJM/*Dandy Warhols* documentary, Dig!

I never met him or managed to interview him, but he was one of the leading lights in keeping the spirit of garage rock alive from the sixties until today. I have a whole section in my upcoming book on the fight among punks over whether Shaw's promotion of "power pop" was a good thing or bad, but I never heard anyone say a negative thing about him personally. Only recently have people begun to understand and appreciate his importance to rock history.

Michelle Chen's latest

Michelle Chen sends her love: "Hi, everyone. Just another public service reminder to fight the power. Read on..."

Who's running the show behind corporate media?

Input from Richard Kearney

Librarian extraordinaire Richard Kearney sends these thoughts:

1) Pop/Politics - In the course of a recent interview, Le Tigre frontwoman Kathleen Hanna (perhaps better known as the former lead singer of arguably the arguably the best American punk bank of the '90s, Bikini Kill) was asked (once again!) about the view of morons who claim artists have no business making political statements, and delivered one of the most *punk* answers I've yet seen:

"Q: How would you respond to Americans who say artists/entertainers have no place in the political dialog?

Hanna: Well, we're citizens. Isn't it always ... y'know, the Pied Piper. He was a musician! [laughs] He led the rats out of the city. I'm just trying to pied pipe, man. I'm just trying to lead the rats out of my city. That's always been what art has been about. The artists are always the seers, they're always the people who figure stuff out before anybody else figures it out, and then it trickles down into culture. It's like, they want me to not do my job? That's what we're here for. We're here to say what we think. ... The whole "liberal media" thing makes me totally want to puke. I mean it's just despicable. A lot of times it's really anti-Semitic, it's like "The Jewish Liberal Media." I mean, what?!"

Full interview published here: http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/20128/

I love this: "I'm just trying to pied pipe, man." Cracks me up every time.


2) I was following up on your recommendation to read Seymour Hersh's "Chain of Command" by seeing whether a copy is available anywhere in my public library system, and came across this Subject Heading:

Iraq War, 2003 -- Juvenile literature

Of course! People are already writing books for children attempting to explain the war. There are seven titles in my county system alone, and probably more that can be found in WorldCat. It occurs to me that an analysis of these books would make an excellent paper topic for an education major taking your foreign policy course. Why not? Heck, I'M interested in seeing what is being written for kids about the war. And I guarantee you these titles will be on the shelves of public libraries for years to come.....

Where should I begin?

With less than two weeks to go until the election I don't know if I can make it -- I expect a heart attack or brain explosion any minute. I am going to ramble through several issues in this post. Stay with me, brave reader.

I start the day with a quick look at the Times' headline Big G.O.P. Bid to Challenge Voters at Polls in Key State and I no longer need caffeine to get me going. The Republicans are sending 3,600 people to polling places in Ohio in order to challenge, intimidate, stall, and generally mess with voters.

The attempt by Republicans all over the country to suppress the vote is already big, big story. Whether the mainstream media will be able to really get a handle on it is another matter. Bob Herbert has had several columns in the Times about the attempts to intimidate and disenfranchise black voters in Florida. Yesterday Paul Krugman's Voting and Counting summarizes some of the problems in Florida. But the attacks on democracy are much larger. I will be linking in the coming days to stories as I come across them.

Vanity Fair magazine has a long and scary article in the October 2004 issue (available to students through the library homepage) about the stolen 2000 election. The article details the disenfranchisement of black voters and the other shenanigans that are pretty familiar to those who have followed the story. But it adds some material on the Supreme Court aspect that I had not heard -- basically that the fix was in from the beginning. As anyone who can read the Constitution will tell you the Supreme Court had no basis for stopping the vote -- especially the "conservative" judges who believe in original intent and states' rights -- but the article details how the majority of five came up with their plan to stop the counting of votes in Florida because counting all the votes would lead to a Gore victory. Truly frightening at how partisan they are.

The article also details what has happened in Florida since 2000 regarding voting technology and voting rights. Short answer: things might even be worse this time. And Florida is only one of the trouble spots.

On to lost war #1. Some of you may have noticed that John Kerry has accused the Bush Administration of "outsourcing" the job of getting Bin Laden. You may have noticed the Bushies (including Tommy Franks) calling Kerry a liar. Only problem is, the administration admitted all this back in April 2002. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has the best summary and links back to the original Washington Post article. Check the record and you will see that Cheney and Franks are lying.

Another thing Franks has been denying is that the Bush Administration ordered our deadliest troops out of Afghanistan to prepare for the war in Iraq -- and a full year before the Iraq War began. From yesterday's report in the Washington Post, Afghanistan, Iraq: Two Wars Collide:

In the second half of March 2002, as the Bush administration mapped its next steps against al Qaeda, Deputy CIA Director John E. McLaughlin brought an unexpected message to the White House Situation Room. According to two people with firsthand knowledge, he told senior members of the president's national security team that the CIA was scaling back operations in Afghanistan.

That announcement marked a year-long drawdown of specialized military and intelligence resources from the geographic center of combat with Osama bin Laden. As jihadist enemies reorganized, slipping back and forth from Pakistan and Iran, the CIA closed forward bases in the cities of Herat, Mazar-e Sharif and Kandahar. The agency put off an $80 million plan to train and equip a friendly intelligence service for the new U.S.-installed Afghan government. Replacements did not keep pace with departures as case officers finished six-week tours. And Task Force 5 -- a covert commando team that led the hunt for bin Laden and his lieutenants in the border region -- lost more than two-thirds of its fighting strength.

The commandos, their high-tech surveillance equipment and other assets would instead surge toward Iraq through 2002 and early 2003, as President Bush prepared for the March invasion that would extend the field of battle in the nation's response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

And that's just the beginning.

Which takes us to lost war #2. Yesterday's Times has a report called Estimates by U.S. See More Rebels With More Funds. A very good account of the complicated situation our military faces in Iraq. Don't be fooled by all the rhetoric about "terrorists." Sure, they are there, though they are more accurately called "jihadists." But thre are also Baath Party remnants, various factions of angry Shiites, nationalists, and so on. They are all fighting -- more or less together -- to defeat what they see (rightly or wrongly) as a colonial occupying power.

Finally, if you are still with me, I will let you know why I am really depressed today. Check out this report from the Program on International Policy Attitudes based upon their latest surveys: Bush Supporters Still Believe Iraq Had WMD or Major Program, Supported al Qaeda.

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yet another endorsement

An op-ed in the Louisville (KY) Courier Journal:

A FORMER REPUBLICAN SENATOR FOR KERRY
'Frightened to death' of Bush
By Marlow W. Cook
Special to The Courier-Journal

I shall cast my vote for John Kerry come Nov 2.

I have been, and will continue to be, a Republican. But when we as a party send the wrong person to the White House, then it is our responsibility to send him home if our nation suffers as a result of his actions. I fall in the category of good conservative thinkers, like George F. Will, for instance, who wrote: "This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and having thought, to have second thoughts."

I say, well done George Will, or, even better, from the mouth of the numero uno of conservatives, William F. Buckley Jr.: "If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war."

First, let's talk about George Bush's moral standards.

In 2000, to defeat Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. — a man who was shot down in Vietnam and imprisoned for over five years — they used Carl Rove's "East Texas special." They started the rumor that he was gay, saying he had spent too much time in the Hanoi Hilton. They said he was crazy. They said his wife was on drugs. Then, to top it off, they spread pictures of his adopted daughter, who was born in Bangladesh and thus dark skinned, to the sons and daughters of the Confederacy in rural South Carolina.

To show he was not just picking on Republicans, he went after Sen. Max Cleland from Georgia, a Democrat seeking re-election. Bush henchmen said he wasn't patriotic because Cleland did not agree 100 percent on how to handle homeland security. They published his picture along with Cuba's Castro, questioning Cleland's patriotism and commitment to America's security. Never mind that his Republican challenger was a Vietnam deferment case and Cleland, who had served in Vietnam, came home in a wheel chair having lost three limbs fighting for his country. Anyone who wants to win an election and control of the legislative body that badly has no moral character at all.

We know his father got him in the Texas Air National Guard so he would not have to go to Vietnam. The religious right can have him with those moral standards. We also have Vice President Dick Cheney, who deferred his way out of Vietnam because, as he says, he "had more important things to do."

I have just turned 78. During my lifetime, we have sent 31,377,741 Americans to war, not including whatever will be the final figures for the Iraq fiasco. Of those, 502,722 died and 928,980 came home without legs, arms or what have you.

Those wars were to defend freedom throughout the free world from communism, dictators and tyrants. Now Americans are the aggressors — we start the wars, we blow up all the infrastructure in those countries, and then turn around and spend tax dollars denying our nation an excellent education system, medical and drug programs, and the list goes on. ...

I hope you all have noticed the Bush administration's style in the campaign so far. All negative, trashing Sen. John Kerry, Sen. John Edwards and Democrats in general. Not once have they said what they have done right, what they have done wrong or what they have not done at all.

Lyndon Johnson said America could have guns and butter at the same time. This administration says you can have guns, butter and no taxes at the same time. God help us if we are not smart enough to know that is wrong, and we live by it to our peril. We in this nation have a serious problem. Its almost worse than terrorism: We are broke. Our government is borrowing a billion dollars a day. They are now borrowing from the government pension program, for apparently they have gotten as much out of the Social Security Trust as it can take. Our House and Senate announce weekly grants for every kind of favorite local programs to save legislative seats, and it's all borrowed money.

If you listened to the President confirming the value of our war with Iraq, you heard him say, "If no weapons of mass destruction were found, at least we know we have stopped his future distribution of same to terrorists." If that is his justification, then, if he is re-elected our next war will be against Iran and at the same time North Korea, for indeed they have weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons, which they have readily admitted. Those wars will require a draft of men and women. ...

I am not enamored with John Kerry, but I am frightened to death of George Bush. I fear a secret government. I abhor a government that refuses to supply the Congress with requested information. I am against a government that refuses to tell the country with whom the leaders of our country sat down and determined our energy policy, and to prove how much they want to keep that secret, they took it all the way to the Supreme Court.

Those of you who are fiscal conservatives and abhor our staggering debt, tell your conservative friends, "Vote for Kerry," because without Bush to control the Congress, the first thing lawmakers will demand Kerry do is balance the budget.

The wonderful thing about this country is its gift of citizenship, then it's freedom to register as one sees fit. For me, as a Republican, I feel that when my party gives me a dangerous leader who flouts the truth, takes the country into an undeclared war and then adds a war on terrorism to it without debate by the Congress, we have a duty to rid ourselves of those who are taking our country on a perilous ride in the wrong direction.

If we are indeed the party of Lincoln (I paraphrase his words), a president who deems to have the right to declare war at will without the consent of the Congress is a president who far exceeds his power under our Constitution.

I will take John Kerry for four years to put our country on the right path.

The writer, a Republican formerly of Louisville, was Jefferson County judge from 1962-1968 and U.S. senator from Kentucky from 1968-1975.

For Students who need Absentee Ballots and other Voting Information

This comes to me from the American Democracy Project:

Dear William Paterson University Community,

On behalf of the American Democracy Project's Coordinating Committee, and all those dedicated offices, faculty members and students who have taken part in the campus-wide voter-registration drive, we want to express our admiration, deep respect and thanks to all the students who REGISTERED TO VOTE in this year's General Election!

Our job however is only half done. Many questions remain to be answered to insure the highest possible turnout of the newly registered! Indeed, some experts are speculating that this year's Presidential race will be determined by the significant numbers of newly registered voters. The preferences of new registrants, are not evident in, and indeed operationally ellude, current polling. To insure that the newly registered get to the polls, any questions or confusions you have about voting must be addressed.

For example, for those of you who are registered students living here in the dorms, you may not be able to get home to vote and may want to recieve an Absentee Ballot delivered to your campus P.O. Box.

THERE IS STILL TIME! REQUESTS for Absentee Ballots must be filled out and returned to your home County Commissioner SEVEN DAYS BEFORE ELECTION (Tuesday October 26th).

You can download the Absetee Ballot Request form (along with a list of county commissioners and their addresses) by clicking on the following link (must have acrobat reader)

http://www.state.nj.us/lps/elections/ballot_application.pdf

New Registrants may also have many other questions, such as:

-"WHO IS MY COUNTY COMMISSIONER?",
-"HOW COME I HAVE NOT RECEIVED MY VOTER REGISTRATION CARD?",
-"WHERE DO I GO TO VOTE"?
-"WHEN WILL I RECIEVE MY SAMPLE BALLOT"

The answers to all of these questions can found by clicking on the website of the New Jersey League of Women Voters: http://www.lwvnj.org/

The League of Women Voter is a highy respected, non-partisan civic organization that we might all benefit from contacting at election time and throughout the year. Once you locate you County Commissioner on the above list, you may also direct all question to that office.

There are many other events being sponsored on campus leading up to Election Day, Tuesday November 2nd. These events are desgined to encourage the entire campus community, especially students, to get out on Novemeber 2nd and vote. Some are non-partisan Voter awareness events, and some, sponosred by various departments, are designed as community debates on current political topics.
Please look for further ANNOUNCEMENTS!!!

With best wishes, Christine Kelly
Director, American Democracy Project

COORDINATING COMMITTEE

Elizabeth Birge Howard Lune
Haiyang Chen Yuri Marder
Kim Daniel-Robinson John Martone
Francisco Diaz Steve Shalom
Elizabeth Ekmekjian Janis Strasser
Djanna Hill Maria Villar
Richard Kearney Miryam Wahrman
Kathleen Korgen Mary Beth Zeman

Thoughts on Nader

This comes from Rob V. in Historical Methods:

Nader Emerging as the Threat Democrats Feared

After thursdays lively and somewhat long dscussion on the election I found it ironic that this article appeared,afterI mentioned about possibly voting for Nader. The article is basically an overview of how at this close point in the race, the Democrats are afraid that Nader will take away certain voting groups they need to win. They are trying to get him off the ballot in several states.
I think that this goes to show that there really isn't much difference, except on some key issues between the Republicans and the Democrats. And some people are rethinking about the policies of the Democrats and finding fault with them.
Take care all. ~Rob V.

[Update: from Salon comes this interesting item: Nader's Raiders revolt.]

From other sources

From Foreign Affairs, a few articles worth looking at:

How to Counter WMD
Ashton B. Carter
From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2004

Summary: The Bush administration has done little to contain the spread of weapons of mass destruction, even as undeterrable nonstate actors grow more intent on obtaining and using them. U.S. counterproliferation policy needs an overhaul. Its new goals should be to get nuclear material out of circulation, reinforce nonproliferation agreements, and use new technologies and invasive monitoring to get better and more actionable intelligence.

Students can get the full article through the library homepage.

The Neglected Home Front
Stephen E. Flynn
From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2004

Summary: The Bush administration has waged an aggressive war against terrorists abroad, but it has neglected to protect the homeland, even though Americans in the United States are the ones most vulnerable to future attacks. The government must do more to safeguard critical U.S. infrastructure and mobilize the American public to help. For starters, it should create a semi-independent federal agency tapping into private resources that would develop and enforce security standards.

The Sources of American Legitimacy
Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson
From Foreign Affairs, November/December 2004

Summary: Throughout its history, the United States has made gaining international legitimacy a top priority of its foreign policy. The 18 months since the launch of the Iraq war, however, have left the country's hard-earned respect and credibility in tatters. In going to war without a legal basis or the backing of traditional U.S. allies, the Bush administration brazenly undermined Washington's long-held commitment to international law, its acceptance of consensual decision-making, its reputation for moderation, and its identification with the preservation of peace. The road back will be a long and hard one.

Was Iraq a Fool's Errand?
Tony Smith and Larry Diamond
From Foreign Affairs, November/December 2004

Tony Smith of Tufts University says that, rather than blame Bush for poor execution, former CPA official Larry Diamond ("What Went Wrong in Iraq," Foreign Affairs, Sept./Oct. 2004) should have known that the whole idea of imposing democracy on Iraqi society was a bad one in the first place. Diamond fires back a scathing reply.

And from the New York Review of Books comes this staggering collection of assessments of The Election and America's Future
By Alan Ryan, Anthony Lewis, Brian Urquhart, Edmund S. Morgan, Garry Wills, Ian Buruma, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Mark Danner, Michael Ignatieff, Norman Mailer, Ronald Dworkin, Russell Baker, Steven Weinberg, Thomas Powers

For what has been called "the most consequential election in decades," we have asked some of our contributors for their views.—The Editors

I will include just one from the eminent historian Edmund S. Morgan:

In the wake of the many scandals that have disgraced our government in the last four years, who is accountable? Will the secretary of defense be dismissed because of what happened at Abu Ghraib? Will the attorney general be dismissed for what is happening at Guantánamo Bay? Will the secretary of the interior be dismissed for handing national treasures to corporate looters? Will the secretary of state bear responsibility for refusal to participate in efforts of the rest of the world to keep the planet inhabitable? Will the President of the United States disavow what his handpicked agents have done on his watch?

We all know the answers. But in the eyes of the world the ultimate accountability lies not with the President or his men. In the end it lies with the sovereign people of the United States. The government is our government, resting on our choices and supported in all its activities by our taxes. We may claim with some reason that the last election was stolen, but we have had to accept the result. In the last analysis people get the government they deserve, and ours, more directly than most, is the product of our choice. We have been credited, rightly, for what it has done in the past, for standing up, however belatedly, to the Nazis, for assisting the recovery of Europe under the Marshall Plan, for containing the threat of imperial communism. We cannot now escape credit for what our government has so shamefully done. We began as a people with "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind," and we won admiration for it. We have now lost the good opinion of mankind and with it the self-respect of decent Americans.

It may take many years to recover what we have lost. We cannot restore the lives lost in Iraq, the lives of our soldiers, none of whom deserved to die for us, and the many more lives of the people we have professed to liberate in a war fought under false pretenses. But we can dismiss the people responsible for the other horrors committed in our name. Our self-respect, and the respect of the rest of the world for us as a people, hang on the next election. The damage now being done can be stopped. Some of it can be reversed. But the longer it goes on the less reversible it becomes. Seldom has our future as a people been in greater jeopardy. If we continue the heedless destruction of everything the United States has stood for in the past, we will rightly be held accountable, not only by the rest of the world but by our own grandchildren and their grandchildren for generations to come.

Not a lost war after all

From the Onion, a helpful recap of the Iraq War. Maybe Yankee fans can relate.

New Study from the International Institute for Strategic Studies

The IISS, a well-respected, non-partisan think-tank that immodestly -- but maybe accurately -- dubs itself "The World's leading authority on political military conflict," has a new report out. Here is the full article from the Financial Times:

Think-tank warns of increased nuclear threat
By Peter Spiegel in London
Published: October 19 2004 20:21 | Last updated: October 19 2004 20:21

The threat of nuclear proliferation by North Korea and Iran has increased over the past year and will probably get worse because of continued US difficulties in Iraq, a leading defence think-tank reported on Tuesday.

The London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies found in its annual assessment of global security threats that the US's ever-deeper involvement in Iraq had emboldened Iran and North Korea to withstand western pressure to give up their nuclear ambitions.

In its annual Military Balance report, the institute said that while future policy towards both countries was dependent on the outcome of next month's US presidential election, any incoming president would face few options to rein in their ambitions.

“Motivations in Pyongyang and Tehran run deep, and the US and its allies may not have sufficient instruments of enticement or coercion to achieve disarmament,” said John Chipman, IISS director. “In both cases, the threat of effective sanctions is difficult to realise and military options are unappealing.”

The report was similarly pessimistic about American and allied prospects in resolving the problems in Iraq. Christopher Langton, the study's main editor, said the US still had too few troops in Iraq to stabilise the country. He added that the future improvement was reliant on developing effective Iraqi forces, a process he believes has gone more slowly than expected.

The study said the risk of terrorism against the west and western assets in the Middle East appeared to have increased since the Iraq invasion, particularly over the short term, as it had enabled al-Qaeda-linked organisations to increase recruitment.

It estimated that as many as 1,000 foreign extremists were in Iraq, and that al-Qaeda maintained a “rump leadership” that oversaw as many as 18,000 potential terrorists.

“Al-Qaeda middlemen can still provide planning and logistical advice, materiel and financing to smaller affiliated groups,” Mr Chipman said. “The leadership still appears able to roughly influence the wider net-work's strategic direction.”

The war in Iraq will continue to “sap Washington's energy” and “potentially weaken its leverage” over both North Korea and Iran, Mr Chipman said, noting that there was evidence that both governments were taking advantage of the US's difficulties.

The conflict appears to have had the most effect on Iran, the report found, noting that shortly after the US-led invasion, Tehran agreed to suspend its uranium-enrichment programme and accept international inspectors a stance it has since reversed.

“As the situation in Iraq deteriorated, Iran felt confident enough to renege on the agreement and resume some elements of its enrichment programme,” Mr Chipman said.

So next time Dick Cheney warns about a nuclear attack on American cities, ask him what he has been doing about it for the last 3 and a half years.

Another endorsement for Bush

Bush Receives Endorsement From Iran:

TEHRAN, Iran - The head of Iran's security council said Tuesday that the re-election of President Bush was in Tehran's best interests, despite the administration's axis of evil label, accusations that Iran harbors al-Qaida terrorists and threats of sanctions over the country's nuclear ambitions.

Historically, Democrats have harmed Iran more than Republicans, said Hasan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran's top security decision-making body.

"We haven't seen anything good from Democrats," Rowhani told state-run television in remarks that, for the first time in recent decades, saw Iran openly supporting one U.S. presidential candidate over another.

Though Iran generally does not publicly wade into U.S. presidential politics, it has a history of preferring Republicans over Democrats, who tend to press human rights issues.

"We do not desire to see Democrats take over," Rowhani said when asked if Iran was supporting Democratic Sen. John Kerry against Bush.

Meanwhile, via The Left Coaster, here is what some old-time Republicans have to say, GOP Old Guard for Kerry.

For spy novel fans

If Le Carré Could Vote

From the Times

MoDo on Casualties of Faith

And, in case you missed it, the Times' endorsement John Kerry for President. Read the cogent argument they make.

Finally, for those worried about the Draft, check out this article from yesterday's Times, U.S. Has Contingency Plans for a Draft of Medical Workers, which begins:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 - The Selective Service has been updating its contingency plans for a draft of doctors, nurses and other health care workers in case of a national emergency that overwhelms the military's medical corps.

In a confidential report this summer, a contractor hired by the agency described how such a draft might work, how to secure compliance and how to mold public opinion and communicate with health care professionals, whose lives could be disrupted.

[emphasis added]

Event on campus TODAY

The Darfur Crisis in the Sudan

Thursday, October 21, 2004
Raubinger Lecture Hall, Room 101
12:30-1:45

Dr. Amir Idris

Dr. Idris is a native of Darfur and a Professor in the Department of African and African-American Studies, Fordham University. He is the author of Conflict and Identity Politics in the Sudan.

A humanitarian crisis of tremendous magnitude is happening today in the Darfur region of the Sudan where a civil war has resulted in a program of "ethnic cleansing." An estimated 70,000 people are thought to have died since March, tens of thousands have been made homeless, and over 2 million people are in desperate need of aid but many are not receiving it. The world community seems paralyzed to act, even though the U.N. head Kofi Anan has called for humanitarian intervention. Come to learn more about this crisis and what you can do.

Sponsored by: The Department of Political Science, African and African American and Caribbean Studies Dept., Women's Studies Department

Bush on casualties

This comes from Pat Robertson, the arch-conservative, evangelical Christian leader, on the Paula Zahn show:

ROBERTSON: I met with him down in Nashville before the Gulf War started. And he was the most self-assured man I ever met in my life.

You remember, Mark Twain said, he looks like a contended Christian with four aces. He was just sitting there, like, I'm on top of the world, and I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, Mr. President, you better prepare the American people for casualties.

Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties. Well, I said, it's the way it's going to be. And so, it was messy. The lord told me it was going to be, A, a disaster and, B, messy. And before that, I had deep, in my spirit, I had deep misgivings about going into Iraq.

So Bush said, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties." What can I add?

Jon Stewart and Tucker Carlson on Crossfire

Check out this great clip of Jon Stewart chastising the folks on Crossfire.

For some background on Tucker Carlson, you might check out this interview he gave to Salon some time after he had quoted Bush mocking Karla Faye Tucker, a woman who was sentenced to death in Texas:

What about your profile of George W. Bush in Talk in 1999? That had to be the most damaging profile of him yet written -- swearing like a truck driver, making fun of Karla Faye Tucker's death penalty appeals, mimicking her saying, "Don't kill me!" -- because of its high profile, and because of your access to him. Did that bring you flak from conservatives?

Well, it's always disconcerting when something you write is received in a way you don't expect. I have no problem hurting someone's feelings -- obviously, I work on "Crossfire" -- but when you don't expect to, it's disconcerting. As I put in the book, the day before I filed the piece my wife asked, "Aren't people going to think you're sucking up?" And that was my concern, that people would think it's a suck-up piece.

And the response from team Bush?

It was very, very hostile. The reaction was: You betrayed us. Well, I was never there as a partisan to begin with.

Then I heard that [on the campaign bus, Bush communications director] Karen Hughes accused me of lying. And so I called Karen and asked her why she was saying this, and she had this almost Orwellian rap that she laid on me about how things she'd heard -- that I watched her hear -- she in fact had never heard, and she'd never heard Bush use profanity ever. It was insane.

I've obviously been lied to a lot by campaign operatives, but the striking thing about the way she lied was she knew I knew she was lying, and she did it anyway. There is no word in English that captures that. It almost crosses over from bravado into mental illness.

They get carried away, consultants do, in the heat of the campaign, they're really invested in this. A lot of times they really like the candidate. That's all conventional. But on some level, you think, there's a hint of recognition that there is reality -- even if they don't recognize reality exists -- there is an objective truth. With Karen you didn't get that sense at all. A lot of people like her. A lot of people I know like her. I'm not one of them.

I haven't been able to get ahold of the complete article, but here is an excerpt:

From: "Devil May Care" by Tucker Carlson, Talk Magazine, September 1999, p. 106

"Bush's brand of forthright tough-guy populism can be appealing, and it has played well in Texas. Yet occasionally there are flashes of meanness visible beneath it.

While driving back from the speech later that day, Bush mentions Karla Faye Tucker, a double murderer who was executed in Texas last year. In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. 'Did you meet with any of them?' I ask.

Bush whips around and stares at me. 'No, I didn't meet with any of them,' he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. 'I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like 'What would you say to Governor Bush?' 'What was her answer?' I wonder.

'Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'don't kill me.'

I must look shocked -- ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel, even for someone as militantly anticrime as Bush -- because he immediately stops smirking.

'It's tough stuff,' Bush says, suddenly somber, 'but my job is to enforce the law.' As it turns out, the Larry King-Karla Faye Tucker exchange Bush recounted never took place, at least not on television. During her interview with King, however, Tucker did imply that Bush was succumbing to election-year pressure from pro-death penalty voters. Apparently Bush never forgot it. He has a long memory for slights." [Carlson, Talk, 9/99]

[Ed. Note: During the Larry King-Faye Tucker exchange, Tucker never asked to be spared.]

Conservatives for Bush

Its only fair that I give some space to the other side on occasion. If you want to read some cogent articles by and about conservatives regarding Bush, here are a few:

The Bradenton (Fla.) Herald's endorsement for President of the United States.

This article from a senior fellow at the (right-wing/libertarian) Cato Institute, former special Assistant to President Reagan and former visiting fellow at the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation.

And this article on how Reagan-conservatives feel about Bush and faith.

One lost war at a time...

Wondering why?

From yesterday's Washington Post, General Reported Shortages In Iraq:

The top U.S. commander in Iraq complained to the Pentagon last winter that his supply situation was so poor that it threatened Army troops' ability to fight, according to an official document that has surfaced only now.

The lack of key spare parts for gear vital to combat operations, such as tanks and helicopters, was causing problems so severe, Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez wrote in a letter to top Army officials, that "I cannot continue to support sustained combat operations with rates this low."

Senior Army officials said that most of Sanchez's concerns have been addressed in recent months but that they continue to keep a close eye on the problems he identified. The situation is "substantially better" now, said Gary Motsek, deputy director of operations for the Army Materiel Command.

Sanchez, who was the senior commander on the ground in Iraq from the summer of 2003 until the summer of 2004, said in his letter that Army units in Iraq were "struggling just to maintain . . . relatively low readiness rates" on key combat systems, such as M-1 Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, anti-mortar radars and Black Hawk helicopters.

He also said units were waiting an average of 40 days for critical spare parts, which he noted was almost three times the Army's average. In some Army supply depots in Iraq, 40 percent of critical parts were at "zero balance," meaning they were absent from depot shelves, he said.

He also protested in his letter, sent Dec. 4 to the number two officer in the Army, with copies to other senior officials, that his soldiers still needed protective inserts to upgrade 36,000 sets of body armor but that their delivery had been postponed twice in the month before he was writing. There were 131,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at the time.

In what appears to be a plea to top officials to spur the bureaucracy to respond more quickly, Sanchez concluded, "I cannot sustain readiness without Army-level intervention."

Sanchez, who since has moved back to his permanent base in Germany, did not respond to telephone and e-mail messages seeking comment.

His letter of concern has surfaced after repeated statements by President Bush that he is determined to ensure that U.S. troops fighting in Iraq have all that they need to execute their missions. "I have pledged, as has the secretary of defense, to give our troops everything that is necessary to complete their mission with the utmost safety," he said in May. Earlier this month in Manchester, N.H., he said, "When America puts our troops in combat, I believe they deserve the best training, the best equipment, the full support of our government."

And here is this nugget from the Knight-Ridder article I cited earlier:

The U.S. intelligence community had been divided about the state of Saddam's weapons programs, but there was little disagreement among experts throughout the government that winning the peace in Iraq could be much harder than winning a war.

"The possibility of the United States winning the war and losing the peace in Iraq is real and serious," warned an Army War College report that was completed in February 2003, a month before the invasion. Without an "overwhelming" effort to prepare for the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the report warned: "The United States may find itself in a radically different world over the next few years, a world in which the threat of Saddam Hussein seems like a pale shadow of new problems of America's own making."

A half-dozen intelligence reports also warned that American troops could face significant postwar resistance. This foot-high stack of material was distributed at White House meetings of Bush's top foreign policy advisers, but there's no evidence that anyone ever acted on it.

"It was disseminated. And ignored," said a former senior intelligence official.

The Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency was particularly aggressive in its forecasts, officials said. One briefing occurred in January 2003. Another, in April 2003, weeks after the war began, discussed Saddam's plans for attacking U.S. forces after his troops had been defeated on the battlefield.

Similar warnings came from the Pentagon's Joint Staff, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and the CIA's National Intelligence Council. The council produced reports in January 2003 titled "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq" and "Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq."

Much of this, by the way, was reported by James Fallows back in January; see Blind into Baghdad. (Students can get this full article through our library homepage.)

Finally, the Times decides to do a little reporting of its own: The Strategy to Secure Iraq Did Not Foresee a 2nd War. Of course, how could our leaders expect an enemy to fight in a way that wouldn't allow us to win easily?