Saturday, June 25, 2005

Meeshell sends her love

Yesterday I spent about two hours composing a blog posting only to have it disappear down the rathole.... Grrr.......

Meanwhile, you could do worse than peruse the latest bangup reporting from the inimitable Michelle Chen:
Hey everyone. It's been a busy past couple of weeks. Here's some news on house, home and health ... and felon disenfranchisement.

The poor foot the bill for medical care:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1895

The feds chase the ambulance chasers:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1896

The White House cut down on "wasteful" emergency aid:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1911

Minimum wage is still not enough:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1928

Radioactive resurrection:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1943

Home unimprovement:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1948

Nasty neighbors:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1965

Convict voters:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1978

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Downing Street memos

So many things going on, and I just don't have the time to pull it all together. So you will just have to rely on the many other great sources out there. But this one, from the L.A. Times, by the reporter who broke the Downing Street minutes story, I couldn't pass up:
COMMENTARY
The Real News in the Downing Street Memos
By Michael Smith
Michael Smith writes on defense issues for the Sunday Times of London.

June 23, 2005

It is now nine months since I obtained the first of the "Downing Street memos," thrust into my hand by someone who asked me to meet him in a quiet watering hole in London for what I imagined would just be a friendly drink.

At the time, I was defense correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph, and a staunch supporter of the decision to oust Saddam Hussein. The source was a friend. He'd given me a few stories before but nothing nearly as interesting as this.

The six leaked documents I took away with me that night were to change completely my opinion of the decision to go to war and the honesty of Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush.

They focused on the period leading up to the Crawford, Texas, summit between Blair and Bush in early April 2002, and were most striking for the way in which British officials warned the prime minister, with remarkable prescience, what a mess post-war Iraq would become. Even by the cynical standards of realpolitik, the decision to overrule this expert advice seemed to be criminal.

The second batch of leaks arrived in the middle of this year's British general election, by which time I was writing for a different newspaper, the Sunday Times. These documents, which came from a different source, related to a crucial meeting of Blair's war Cabinet on July 23, 2002. The timing of the leak was significant, with Blair clearly in electoral difficulties because of an unpopular war.

I did not then regard the now-infamous memo — the one that includes the minutes of the July 23 meeting — as the most important. My main article focused on the separate briefing paper for those taking part, prepared beforehand by Cabinet Office experts.

It said that Blair agreed at Crawford that "the UK would support military action to bring about regime change." Because this was illegal, the officials noted, it was "necessary to create the conditions in which we could legally support military action."

But Downing Street had a "clever" plan that it hoped would trap Hussein into giving the allies the excuse they needed to go to war. It would persuade the U.N. Security Council to give the Iraqi leader an ultimatum to let in the weapons inspectors.

Although Blair and Bush still insist the decision to go to the U.N. was about averting war, one memo states that it was, in fact, about "wrong-footing" Hussein into giving them a legal justification for war.

British officials hoped the ultimatum could be framed in words that would be so unacceptable to Hussein that he would reject it outright. But they were far from certain this would work, so there was also a Plan B.

American media coverage of the Downing Street memo has largely focused on the assertion by Sir Richard Dearlove, head of British foreign intelligence, that war was seen as inevitable in Washington, where "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

But another part of the memo is arguably more important. It quotes British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon as saying that "the U.S. had already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime." This we now realize was Plan B.

Put simply, U.S. aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone were dropping a lot more bombs in the hope of provoking a reaction that would give the allies an excuse to carry out a full-scale bombing campaign, an air war, the first stage of the conflict.

British government figures for the number of bombs dropped on southern Iraq in 2002 show that although virtually none were used in March and April, an average of 10 tons a month were dropped between May and August.

But these initial "spikes of activity" didn't have the desired effect. The Iraqis didn't retaliate. They didn't provide the excuse Bush and Blair needed. So at the end of August, the allies dramatically intensified the bombing into what was effectively the initial air war.

The number of bombs dropped on southern Iraq by allied aircraft shot up to 54.6 tons in September alone, with the increased rates continuing into 2003.

In other words, Bush and Blair began their war not in March 2003, as everyone believed, but at the end of August 2002, six weeks before Congress approved military action against Iraq.

The way in which the intelligence was "fixed" to justify war is old news.

The real news is the shady April 2002 deal to go to war, the cynical use of the U.N. to provide an excuse, and the secret, illegal air war without the backing of Congress.
You might also be interested in this transcript of an online chat Smith did with the WaPo's readers.

Monday, June 13, 2005

war, good god, yeah...

I trust my faithful few readers know all about the Downing Street minutes and the all the other evidence coming out about the lies that led to war. So I won't link to all the great articles I have been reading about that. And if you follow the usual sources, you can get a good picture of the mess that keeps getting messier.

But this is a must, must, must read:
War: Realities and Myths
by Chris Hedges

Saturday, June 11, 2005

upcoming event

This looks interesting. I am going to try to attend:
NJ Peace Action News
Iraqi National Labor Leaders Tour - NJ Date Confirmed
June 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Greetings!

Dear Friends,

I just received confirmation that AAUP is hosting the USLAW Iraqi Labor Leaders at Rutgers next Thursday , June 16 at noon at the Busch campus Dining Hall. RSVP to AAUP. Details can be found below. I hope that you will be able to attend.

Carol Gay, NJ Labor Against the War

The Rutgers AAUP is proud to host the New Jersey stop of US Labor Against the War's US Tour of Iraqi National Labor Leaders. Six Iraqi trade unionists are touring the US to speak with the labor movement to both educate US trade unionists about the conditions faced by Iraqi workers and to build direct worker-to-worker, union-to-union solidarity.

Come support Iraqi trade unionists in their effort to build a progressive secular Iraq.

Thursday June 16, 2005

12 noon - 2 pm with Lunch

Busch Dining Hall - Rooms A/B Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ

RSVP to aaup@rutgersaaup.com or 732-445-2278

(Map with directions: http://maps.rutgers.edu/building.aspx?id=46)

Contact Information
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
email: director@njpeaceaction.org
phone: 973-744-3263
web: http://www.njpeaceaction.org
~~