No civil war in Iraq, insists Bush - but Pentagon differs

While 68 Iraqis have died in two days, the President talks up military success with an eye on the mid-term elections. Meanwhile, defense chiefs are ever more fearful of another Vietnam

Paul Harris in New York
Sunday September 3, 2006
The Observer

President Bush yesterday denied that Iraq was plunging into civil war, just a day after the Pentagon painted a bloody picture of a nation caught in a spiral of increasing violence.

His statement appears to widen the gap between the political message coming from a White House concerned about upcoming mid-term elections and a military establishment fearful of getting caught in another Vietnam.

In his weekly radio address to the nation, Bush lashed out at critics of the war and portrayed the conflict in Iraq as an integral part of the war on terror. He said the country was not sliding into civil war.

'Our commanders and diplomats on the ground believe that Iraq has not descended into a civil war. They report that only a small number of Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence,' he said.

That may be true, but the tone of Bush's speech was deeply at odds with a Pentagon report released late on Friday, which showed Iraqi casualties had soared by more than 50 per cent in recent months. The Pentagon often releases bad news late in the week in order to minimise press coverage and the study certainly made for grim reading.

'Death squads and terrorists are locked in mutually reinforcing cycles of sectarian strife,' it noted. The report added that civil war was a possibility in Iraq, which seemed to jar with the message from the White House and top Republican politicians. Bush insisted that the war in Iraq would be won by American and Iraqi armed forces. 'The security of the civilised world depends on victory in the war on terror, and that depends on victory in Iraq, so America will not leave until victory is achieved,' he said. He did warn, however, that the struggle would be hard and unlikely to end soon. 'The path to victory will be uphill and uneven, and it will require more patience and sacrifice from our nation,' he said.

Bush has faced increasing criticism in America for his 'stay the course' policy on Iraq. Many polls show a majority of Americans now believe the war was a mistake: even some Republican politicians are breaking ranks and calling for a change in strategy. But in response to the growing unease, Bush and other senior figures, such as Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, have launched a PR offensive aimed at convincing Americans the Iraq war is vital for their own safety.

Yesterday Bush also hit back at those who argue for a pullout, or at least a timetable for withdrawal. 'Many of these people are sincere and patriotic, but they could not be more wrong,' he said.

That last remark angered Democrats who accused the President of using the war in Iraq as a way of labelling his opponents as weak in the November elections. 'Our President continues to resort to name-calling and fear-mongering in an attempt to distract from his failure to keep America safe. But sadly Americans have seen this page of the Republican playbook before,' said Democrat Congressman Bennie Thompson.

Bush's radio address was a re-hash of a speech he delivered in Salt Lake City last week. It is likely to be repeated at three other events that Bush has scheduled to make over the next few days as America prepares for the fifth anniversary of 9/11. It also follows on an attempt to evoke the Second World War struggle against fascism as a parallel for the struggle against Islamic terrorism.

Republican strategists, including Bush's political guru Karl Rove, believe that focusing on national security will allow them to claw back support in November, because voters tend to favour the Republicans on defence. However, recent polls have shown that support cracking and Democrats have become noticeably more strident in their criticism of the war, in the belief that public opinion is now firmly against it.

Meanwhile, events in Iraq continued to slide into chaos. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was yesterday holding talks with Iraq's most influential cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, on the worsening security situation. Sistani had recently warned that 'other powers' could take over the country if the government could not impose law and order.

The meeting came after two days of bloodshed in Baghdad in which 64 people were killed and 286 wounded. Most of the victims appeared to be Shias, with blame for the violence focused on Sunni death squads.

Yesterday the bodies of 15 pilgrims from Pakistan and India were found. In other incidents, a car bomb killed three in Baghdad, another killed three civilians and wounded 14 in the town of Mahaweel, and the bodies of three decapitated women were found in Baquba. An attack on Iraqi police in Baquba killed three policemen.

At the same time, a long-awaited ceremony officially to hand over operational control of the Iraqi army to the Iraqi defence ministry was postponed. The delay was due to 'miscommunication' between the Iraqis and the US-led foreign forces in the country. However, the Iraqi government did take over control of Abu Ghraib prison, site of a prisoner abuse scandal by the US troops who had once been based there.

*********

I'm one who always believed the global "war on terror" was a necessary evil to keep America's secure, but also that Bush's draft of the NG & Reserves to die in Iraq against Muslim fanatics had little to do w/ "war on terror". Its time to overcome Conservative confusion into American truth on Nov. 7.

My son is over there, in reg army and doing his duty, which I fear is misguided.

If you control the language, you control the debate. As the Bush Administration's Middle Eastern policy sinks ever deeper into bloody incoherence, the "war on terror" has been getting a quiet linguistic makeover. It's becoming the "war on Islamic fascism." The term has been around for a while -- Nexis takes it back to 1990, when the writer and historian Malise Ruthven used "Islamo-fascism" in the London Independent to describe the authoritarian governments of the Muslim world; after 9/11 it was picked up by neocons and prowar pundits, including Stephen Schwartz in the Spectator and Christopher Hitchens in this magazine, to describe a broad swath of Muslim bad guys from Osama to the mullahs of Iran.

What's wrong with "Islamo-fascism"? For starters, it's a terrible historical analogy. Italian Fascism, German Nazism and other European fascist movements of the 1920s and '30s were nationalist and secular, closely allied with international capital and aimed at creating powerful, up-to-date, all-encompassing states.

Second, and more important, "Islamo-fascism" conflates a wide variety of disparate states, movements and organizations as if, like the fascists, they all want similar things and are working together to achieve them.

"Islamo-fascism" looks like an analytic term, but really it's an emotional one, intended to get us to think less and fear more. It presents the bewildering politics of the Muslim world as a simple matter of Us versus Them, with war to the end the only answer, as with Hitler. If you doubt that every other British Muslim under the age of 30 is ready to blow himself up for Allah, or that shredding the Constitution is the way to protect ourselves from suicide bombers, if you think that Hamas might be less popular if Palestinians were less miserable, you get cast as Neville Chamberlain, while Bush plays FDR. "Islamo-fascism" rescues the neocons from harsh verdicts on the invasion of Iraq ("cakewalk... roses... sweetmeats... Chalabi") by reframing that ongoing debacle as a minor chapter in a much larger story of evil madmen who want to fly the green flag of Islam over the capitals of the West. Suddenly it's just a detail that Saddam wasn't connected with 9/11, had no WMDs, was not poised to attack the United States or Israel -- he hated freedom, and that was enough. It doesn't matter, either, that Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites seem less interested in uniting the umma than in murdering one another. With luck we'll be so scared we won't ask why anyone should listen to another word from people who were spectacularly wrong about the biggest politico-military initiative of the past thirty years, and their balding heads will continue to glow on our TV screens for many nights to come. On to Tehran!

It remains to be seen if "Islamo-fascism" will win back the socially liberal "security moms" who voted for Bush in 2004 but have recently been moving toward the Democrats. But the word is already getting a big reaction in the Muslim world. As I write the New York Times is carrying a full page "open letter" to Bush from the Al Kharafi Group, the mammoth Kuwaiti construction company, featuring photos of dead and wounded Lebanese civilians. "We think there is a misunderstanding in determining: "'Who deserves to be accused of being a fascist'!!!!"

"Islamo-fascism" enrages to no purpose the dwindling number of Muslims who don't already hate us. At the same time, it clouds with ideology a range of situations -- Lebanon, Palestine, airplane and subway bombings, Afghanistan, Iraq -- we need to see clearly and distinctly and deal with in a focused way. No wonder the people who brought us the disaster in Iraq are so fond of it.

Katha Pollitt is a columnist for The Nation.

************

Like Sen. George "macaca" Allen in a crowd of white Virginia Republicans and Rep. Katherine "God chooses our rulers" Harris with a reporter for a Baptist newspaper, defense executives tend to let their hair down in conversations with investment analysts.

In their glossy annual reports, military contractors are typically modest about how much loot they've gotten from a bloody and increasingly unpopular "War on Terror." But read the transcript of virtually any Q&A session with Wall Street and the truth comes out. While millions are suffering from the human and economic costs of the Iraq war, the violence has been very good for the bottom lines of military contractors and their top executives.

"Obviously, military was a big bang for us in the post-September 11 period," crowed George David, CEO of United Technologies, in a meeting with analysts last December. UTC makes Black Hawk helicopters and fighter jet engines, along with civilian aircraft and elevators. David went on to boast that UTC had beaten all its competitors because the military side of its business had more than made up for a 25 percent drop in commercial aerospace revenues.

Not surprisingly, David's personal rewards haven't been too shabby either. Since 9/11, he has been by far the highest paid defense executive, hauling in a total of more than $200 million. David and other top defense executives are highlighted in a new report, "Executive Excess," by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy

"Obviously, we got a pop during the Iraq and Afghani thing," CEO Gerald Potthoff of Engineered Support Systems International candidly if indelicately told an investment publication last year. A big pop indeed. A series of war-related contracts for logistical services, some awarded on a no-bid basis, drove company earnings to record levels and set up executives for a lucrative sale of the company to another defense contractor, DRS Technologies, earlier this year.

Among the beneficiaries of that sale: President George W. Bush's uncle, William H. T. Bush, an ESSI director, who cleared $2.7 million in cash and stock. Known to the president as "Uncle Bucky," he claims he had nothing to do with the company's landing lucrative defense contracts.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is now investigating whether company officials went even further to jack up their war windfalls by manipulating the value of their stock options. In 2004, Potthoff's pay, including options gains, came to nearly $40 million.

Investors shouldn't trouble their little heads over the possibility of a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, Health Net CEO Jay Gellert said in a conference call, since the military's own medical capacity will be stretched "into the foreseeable future" by the huge number of injured troops. That's reassuring for Health Net, which, thanks to Pentagon outsourcing, provides managed care services to as many as three million persons in the military and their families.

Another company spokesperson boasted of how war-time stress has turned its mental health services into a "fast-growing business."

The military's booming health care needs have sent CEO Gellert's personal fortunes soaring. He took home a total of more than $28 million during the past four years, compared to only $2.3 million during the four preceding years. That 1,134 percent increase is the biggest enjoyed by any defense executive.

Upbeat reports such as these have helped make Wall Street bullish on defense. The IPS/UFE study found that the top 34 military contractors had a 48 percent increase in their share prices between the end of 2000 and the end of 2005. By contrast, the S&P 500 dropped 5 percent during that period.

These stock gains have translated into big paydays for defense industry executives. The top 34 enjoyed a doubling of their compensation during the four years after 9/11.

Business grows. Stock price rises. CEO gets big reward. That's the American way, right?

Everyone, not just shareholders, has a real stake in how corporations are run and how executives are paid. Compensation should reward responsible leadership, including strong environmental performance and job creation, and not be so astronomical as to exacerbate the inequalities that undermine our democracy.

During times of war, there are even stronger arguments for pay restraint. For years, experts like management guru Peter Drucker have been advising against morale-killing pay gaps within companies. Imagine how it must feel to be risking your life every day on the front lines in Iraq, knowing that military contractors are getting grotesquely rich in the comfort of their executive suites? No wonder we're seeing the U.S. Marine Corps having to force their reservists back to the battlefield.

It's also no secret that defense executives tend to be well-connected politically. Why should we allow guys who play golf with top government officials to have personal profit motives for continuing the war -- or getting into new ones?

Congress could put an end to this by requiring that all defense contractors restrain executive pay to reasonable levels during wartime. This wouldn't need to be a fixed dollar cap. Procurement rules could instead deny defense contracts to companies that pay their top executives more than 20 times what their lowest-paid worker receives.

Current U.S. laws already deny government contracts to companies that discriminate against women and people of color. Why should we let our tax dollars subsidize war profiteering?

Sarah Anderson is a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and a coauthor of the report "Executive Excess 2006: Defense and Oil Executives Cash in on Conflict," published by IPS and United for a Fair Economy.

*******

The above three articles all seemed to fit together, so here they are read, think and vote Democratic on Nov. 7th.

Ron
www.WeDemocrats.com
www.uslinx.com

608280322/-1/ NEWS0206
Beth: Vast majority of us now officially 'bitter and angry'
By Beth Quinn
August 28, 2006
Times Herald-Record

Who are these 35 percent of Americans who still approve of Bush's job
performance? And why do they accuse us Bush critics of being "bitter and angry," as though our lack of complacency is some sort of character flaw?

Their implication is that being bitter and angry is just so "so" unladylike. Do they imagine we're all at some 19th-century lawn party? That perhaps we're throwing an unseemly fit because a croquet ball went off in the wrong direction?

Of course we're bitter and angry. The majority of Americans are. And if you're not, I can only ask, what planet are you living on?

In fact, if you aren't bitter and angry at this dumb, smug president who's wrecking the country "well, then you're just not paying attention".

Republicans should be bitter and angry because Bush has subverted all that's good in the Republican Party fiscal responsibility and smaller government.

Those who want to crush the terrorists should be bitter and angry because Bush's disastrous war in Iraq has diverted attention, manpower and money from the real fight. Where, exactly, is Osama? (Has anyone checked Crawford, Texas?)

Drivers should be bitter and angry every time they fill up at the gas pump. And if they're not bitter and angry now, just wait another couple of months when it's time to turn the furnace on. (John Shimkus IL-19th Congressional District says $3 Gas is a good thing, see previous posts)

New Yorkers should be bitter and angry because lo and behold! it turns out we have no landmarks in town. No Homeland Security funds for us! That money's going to Indiana and all the other godforsaken states populated by Bush's Family Values Droids.

Those with soldiers in Iraq should be bitter and angry because Support Our Troops is just a meaningless slogan created by Bush propagandists. As linguist Noam Chomsky points out, no one knows what it means because it doesn't mean anything. (Where are the ladies societies that "Support our Troops" like were available in the WW's?)

Meanwhile, Bush keeps sending soldiers into a war already lost so that those who already died haven't died in vain. What kind of stupid logic is that? (My youngest is serving in Kirkuk, Iraq right now, I know first hand the ignorance of Bush logic)

Here's a bitter and angry slogan for you: A Slogan Can't Hide a Coffin.

Parents and educators should be bitter and angry because Bush's No Child Left Behind is just another slogan that doesn't mean anything as vapid and empty as saying Freedom is on the March.

So here's another bitter and angry slogan for you: No Slogan Left Behind.

Anyone with a loved one who has diabetes, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's should be bitter and angry at Bush for thwarting stem-cell research. (I have diabetes, and I'm mad as hell, Danny Stover Dem candidate for IL-19 supports this research)

Senior citizens should be bitter and angry because they've been sold a bill of goods with his useless Medicare prescription plan. (My out of pocket costs have tripled since part D went into effect)

Low-income college students should be bitter and angry because they can no longer qualify for government grants if they major in evolutionary biology. Goodbye, Age of Enlightenment! (Science isn't important to Bush, only his popularity with his cohorts)

Those who love this beautiful planet should be bitter and angry because the White House is the only place on Earth where global warming doesn't exist. Goodbye, Venice. And oops! Goodbye, Florida, too. Venice, at least, will be missed.

Those who value democracy should be bitter and angry as the government takes our freedoms from us, politically correct piece by politically correct piece in the name of another slogan The Patriot Act. No terrorist can take what some Americans so willingly give away as they accept this president's spying and lying and religious ideology as "the price we pay for democracy." Giving up democracy for the sake of democracy? That's lunacy. (There is nothing lower than a criminal, what this president has done is criminal and he should be prosecuted for it, at least impeached)

So, you bet I'm bitter and angry. And I can only ask, what would it take to make the bitterness and anger unanimous? I can't imagine, really, because what on earth is left for Bush to screw up? (Next I suspect will be the invalidation of the value of stay at home moms and dads into todays workplace, but hey just guessing, who would have thought that Family Values are enforced Poverty, see a previous post)

There are 870 days 'til Jan. 20, 2009. Hang in there, America. (866 as of now and counting down)

Beth's column appears on Monday. Talk to her at 346-3147 or at
bquinn@th-record.com

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060828/NEWS/

(notes like this are added by me to the article)

Ron
www.WeDemocrats.com
www.uslinx.com

Am I too obsessed with war?

Maybe.

I think I'll get off this "war kick," what do you say?

Wow, isn't it easy for me to become so detached? How fortunate we are that we can turn off the war by changing the channel.

Well, maybe it's just survival. I have to admit it's quite distracting from my "real life" just trying to keep up with all the lies coming out of Washington.

I know you guys don't want to listen to me and here more of what you're seeing on the news (or what you're not seeing on the news), so the next articles will be more of what you've grown to expect.

However, can we leave this exercise with a resolve to do something about this? Maybe a few of you will be so fired up by the prospect of non-violent solutions to conflict that you'll be another Gandhi.

Is that you?

Share your thoughts with the rest of us.

Vote Democratic in the fall elections.

Ron
www.USLINX.com
www.WeDemocrats.com

Whoever's mainlining the Shimkus kool-aid on the Intelligencer staff needs to
start withdrawal -- immediately! The only thing Shimkus wants is to open ANWR
to drilling (just like his puppeteers want).
=================================
08/30/2006
Not everyone waits on energy
Intelligencer Staff , feedback@theintelligencer.com

As far as John Shimkus is concerned, seeing a sudden drop in gasoline prices might not be a good thing.

The Republican U.S. Congressman from Collinsville says watching gas prices ping ponging around the $3 a gallon mark might actually force Americans -- and their government -- to come up with a hard and fast energy policy.

Shimkus, a member of the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, said our gasoline woes aren't something new.

Back in the 1970s, when our country experienced its first gas shortage, leaders had an opportunity to forge a national energy policy.

But just about the time President Jimmy Carter was about to get the ball rolling, gas started flowing freely and the prices dropped.

When the public outcry subsided, attention was turned elsewhere and that, according to Shimkus, is why we are in our current fix.

And, according to the Congressman, we will remain in that fix -- on and off -- until Americans -- and their government -- can answer the questions: Are we serious about an energy policy? And what are we going to do to move away from our dependence on foreign oil?

Shimkus said their are many options and one is renewable fuels, such as ethanol.

Shimkus was one of the first elected officials at any level to see the benefits of biofuels. "I don't scream about that anymore. It's being done," he said.

So he's moved on.

He understands the possibilities of solar power, wind power and hydrogen-fueled automobiles.

But his next crusade will be to get the ball rolling on turning another Illinois commodity that is in abundance -- coal -- and turning it into fuel.

Shimkus said the technology to do this has been around since the end of World War II, when the Germans used it.

And now, China is in the process of building a plant to facilitate such a conversion.

Shimkus doesn't want America to get left behind.

There is a lot of coal left under our Illinois topsoil. "Four-hundred and fifty years worth," the 19th District representative said.

So there is a benefit to our state. But it gets even better.

Shimkus said the coal to liquid fuel process works best when the refineries are built directly over the mines. (Read: more jobs for Illinois residents).

The fuel produced during the conversion is best used to make diesel and jet fuel so the motoring public would only benefit so much.

But it's something.

Americans -- and their government -- are slow to move when it comes to energy issues as it has been proven in the past.

Shimkus is parroting the same ole junk that Bush has been throwing around. Anyone who thinks its a good thing to have $3.00 a gal gas is plain nuts, especially in view of all the capped oil wells here in Illinois alone, not to mention Texas and Alaska or other states.

Uncap the wells, put money into new Federal Refineries (to help control gas prices) that can do what the Federal Reserve does for banks. We already have vast stockpiles in our Oil Reserves, use the Fed Refineries to process and compete with oil companies to help control the prices of gasoline to the consumers.

Get this bunch out of Washington...Vote Democratic... Vote Danny Stover for IL-19th Congressional District.

Ron
www.WeDemocrats.com
www.USLINX.com

Sentence of Reid

Remember the guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe and tried to light it?

Did you know his trial is over?
Did you know he was sentenced?
Did you see/hear any of the judge's comments on TV or Radio?
Didn't think so.

Everyone should hear what the judge had to say.

Ruling by Judge William Young, US District Court.

Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant if he
had anything to say. His response: After admitting his guilt to the court for the record, Reid also admitted his "allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the religion of Allah," defiantly stating, "I think I will not apologize for my actions," and told the court "I am at war with your country."

Judge Young then delivered the statement quoted below:
January 30, 2003, United States vs. Reid. Judge Young:
"Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes upon you.

On counts 1, 5 and 6 the Court sentences you to life in prison in the custody of the United States Attorney General. On counts 2, 3, 4 and 7, the Court sentences you to 20 years in prison on each count, the sentence on each count to run consecutively. (That's 80 years.)

On count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years again, to be served consecutively to the 80 years just imposed. The Court imposes upon you for each of the eight counts a fine of $250,000 that's an aggregate fine of $2 million. The Court accepts the government's recommendation with respect to restitution and orders restitution in the amount of $298.17 to Andre Bousquet and $5,784 to American Airlines.

The Court imposes upon you an $800 special assessment.
The Court imposes upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires it. But the life sentences are real life sentences so I need go no further.

This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and just sentence. It is a righteous sentence.

Now, let me explain this to you. We are not afraid of you or any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is too much war talk here and I say that to every-one with the utmost respect. Here in this court, we deal with individuals as individuals and care for individuals as individuals. As human beings, we reach out for justice.

You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier, gives you far too much stature. Whether the officers of government do it or your attorney does it, or if you think you are a soldier. You are not----- you are a terrorist. And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not meet with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.

So war talk is way out of line in this court. You are a big fellow. But you are not that big. You're no warrior. I've known warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal that is guilty of multiple attempted murders. In a very real sense, State Trooper Santiago had it right when you first were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and the TV crews were, and he said: "You're no big deal."

You are no big deal.

What your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was it that led you here to this courtroom today?

I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing? And, I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you, but as I search this entire record, it comes as close to understanding as I know.

It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most
precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose. Here, in this society, the very wind carries freedom. It carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see, that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely. It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf, have filed appeals, will go on in their representation of you before other judges.

We Americans are all about freedom. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties. Make no mistake though. It is yet true that we will bear any burden; pay any price, to preserve our freedoms. Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. The day after tomorrow, it will be forgotten, but this, however, will long endure.

Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done. The very President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.

See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America . That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag stands for freedom. And it always will.
Mr. Custody Officer. Stand him down.

So, how much of this Judge's comments did we hear on our TV sets? We need more judges like Judge Young, but that's another subject. Pass this around. Everyone should and needs to hear what this fine judge had to say. Powerful words that strike home. God bless America