* * political doodle * *

LUCILLE: Why Americans are (red, white &) Blue

Over and above the obvious - the cost of gas and food, the loss of millions of homes, the first time incomes have not grown for Americans - there are a few other things making us blue:

No bid oil contracts

Yes, once again the FOB (friends of Bush) get a leg up in Iraq. First in 2007 Hunt Oil secured an oil deal with the Kurds with the help of the State Department - which denied it until email messages were uncovered by a Congressional Committee. That pesky Congressional Committees! Just think how much easier it would be for  Cheney's buddies at Halliburton to make a profit without them. And now American companies are getting no-bid contracts that will give them an extreme advantage in future oil drilling awards. Who says we didn't go there for oil? Not the Iraqis.

• Political hiring/firing by the Justice Department

This time it was the Justice Department's own inspector general who uncovered the scandal that the Department had illegally used "political or idealogical" factors in recruiting and hiring, weeding out candidates they considered "leftists" or - heaven forbid - for social justice. Even Attorney General Mukasey said that using politics in hiring career lawyers was "impermissible and unacceptable". For example, in 2002 all 7 honors applicants who were members of a liberal group, the American Constitution Society (sounds like a group we should be really scared of, right?) were rejected white 27 of 29 members of the conservative Federalist Society were hired.

• Ignoring the Bill of Rights

Yes, I realize the Bill of Rights is so unimportant to Americans - the right of free speech and so on. But some of us draw the line at letting the President and his cabal spy on us, unfettered by a court order. George Bush always had the right to spy on us, as long as he got a search warrant from the FISA court - he could even get it after the fact. But that's just not good enough for him. He wants to listen to your phone calls and read your email whenever he damn well pleases. Sort of like the way my father described what Russia did, as in "if you don't like this country (the Viet Nam war, the draft, segregation, etc.), you can move to Russia." Well, now we don't have to!

Pop quiz: what group's charter is to protect the Bill of Rights?

• The un-Progress in Iraq

Yeah, I know that the violence is down, which is great. But it's still a pretty dangerous place to be.  The level of violence is still as bad as it was in 2003.

That said, the non-partisan Government Accountability Office released a report last month claiming that the measures that the Bush Administration is using to demonstrate progress in Iraq are either incorrect or more  mixed than they are admitting.

For example, the President - in his strategy called "The New Way Forward" - set out a plan that would take 12 to 18 months to enact a law to regulate Iraq's oil industry and handing over all of the provinces to Iraqi control.  That was in January 2007. Now, almost 18 months later, only half of the 18 provinces  have been handed over to Iraqi control and the oil law is still not enacted.
"The New Way Forward" only covered the period through July 2008. What is the strategy for next month?

The Pentagon says that 70%  of Iraqi units are in the lead in counterinsurgency operations. But an analysis  based on a study of Iraqi Army battalions done by the GAO finds that only 10% are capable of operating independently.

The Iraqi Parliament enacted a law reforming the Baathist purge; but no members have been named to the commission to carry out this law.

So, though violence is down, it's still higher than it was pre-attack and the political measures are much worse than the Bush Administration will admit

• The White House can deny knowing about greenhouse gases - because it simply refused to open the e-mail from the EPA

Really. Not kidding.  The EPA sent an email in  December 2007  with the conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, and  the White House told agency officials that that document would not be opened, said seniior EPA officials in late June.
Really. Not kidding.

• Talking with the enemy

Won't do it. It's unAmerican. Except Nixon spoke to Brezhnev, met with  Mao,  negotiated in secret with North Vietnam; Reagan met with Gorbachev, as did George HW Bush. Israel is meeting with Syria. Note to George: you don't gain anything by only negotiating with your friends.

• The Manchurian President

This is my favorite. Do you know where we got those "highly effective" interrogation techniques that we use in Guantanamo? You got it - from the Chinese!  They've been using the same interrogation techniques that were used on American P.O.W.s in Korea by Chinese captors. They took a 1957 chart describing death threats, degradation, sleep deprivation and worse and made it a part of their handbook for interrogators at Gitmo.

You can't make this stuff up.

But here''s the best part: the original author, Albert Biderman, wrote that the Communists techniques mainly served to "extort false confessions", that the techniques were the same that "inquisitors had employed for centuries" and that "inflicting physical pain is not a necessary nor particularly effective method" to persuade P.O.W.s. I guess that's why American P.O.W.s made false statements themselves.

So, we're (red, white &) blue this July 4 weekend. But - hopefully - not for long.

Pop quiz answer: The group whose charter is to protect the Bill of Rights is none other than the American Civil Liberties Union - the ACLU. So, if you support the bill of rights, you too must be a Commie left wing pablum puking liberal. Or not.

LUCILLE: Bush Speaks for Himself; No Need for Comment

ON THE ECONOMY:

"I know you believe, and I firmly believe, that those tax cuts were part of that engine for that economic vitality. And the economy is not doing as well as we'd like to do -- like it to do today, but there's no question that the tax cuts provided economic vitality."

- President Bush at the Executive Office Building, 6/2/08

ON IRAQ:

"The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 -- and still goes on."

-President Bush on the USS Abraham Lincoln, 5/1/03

ON HEALTHCARE:

"We've got the best health care system in the world. And we need to keep it that way. We need to keep it that way by keeping the private market strong, by resisting efforts that are happening in Washington, D.C., to say the federal government should be running health care."

- President Bush at the Executive Office Building, 1/28/04

ON THE ENVIRONMENT:

"I think we have a problem on global warming. I think there is a debate about whether it’s caused by mankind or whether it’s caused naturally, but it’s a worthy debate. It’s a debate, actually, that I’m in the process of solving."

- President Bush to People Magazine, 7/6/06

ON WORKERS:

"If you become a more productive citizen, you'll make more money. Better productivity, better skills means higher pay."

-President Bush in Cleveland, Ohio, 3/10/04

AND, FINALLY, ON EDUCATION:

"I know No Child Left Behind has worked. And I believe this country needs to build upon the successes. The philosophy behind No Child Left Behind was in return for money there ought to be results. It's pretty commonsensical it seems like to me."

-President Bush in Chicago, Illinois, 1/7/08

LUCILLE: We Won!

I think you all know that this war has been long, hard and tough. And it has meant enormous sacrifice on the part of Americans in blood and treasure. But after four years of a badly mismanaged war, our new strategy is succeeding and we are now winning in Iraq.
-John McCain, May 30, 2008

Did you realize we were winning in Iraq? Wow! I guess I missed the speech where John McCain actually described what victory in Iraq would look like. It's a compelling argument, if only he would tell us the difference between winning and losing this war.

Just a little side note: notice how, suddenly, John McCain - like Scott McClellan - is finding fault with just about everything Bush did the last 7 years? I wonder why it's just now that he's started mentioning it?

Is he suggesting that we're winning because there are less soldiers dying? I don't know about John, but I'm going to guess that the frightening increase in G.I. suicides probably serves to invalidate that measurement.

Why don't we look at the word "victory". . . it's defined as "an act of defeating an enemy."

Who was our enemy when we attacked Iraq? Who is our enemy now? Does he even know (e.g. the difference between Sunni and Shia?)

Are we any closer to defeating them - or even identifying them - then we were in 2003?

Why are we paying millions of US dollars to Sunni's - the people who attacked and killed our soldiers earlier in the war - "our enemy"  - and how does paying them not to kill our soldiers anymore help us "win" in Iraq?

Andy why does John McCain think that once our soldiers aren't dying anymore (yes, that's how he said we would know that we were victorious), that we've won? Since when is the goal of a war simply to stop your soldiers from dying?

One final question: John McCain, along with his "identical cousin" George Bush, have both called anyone who has suggested a timetable for withdrawing our troops a "cut and runner". So, what does that make John McCain, who "envisions" no more troops in Iraq by the end of his first term?

Sounds like a timetable to me.

Or maybe he just visited Ronald Reagan's old fortune teller and got his tea leaves read.

LUCILLE: Let's Hear What John McCain has to say. . .

LUCILLE: George W Bush has approved this message of Torture

This is absolutely incredible to me. George Bush's top advisors - Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney,  Condi Rice - not only approved torture but choreographed exactly what could be done to whom, how often. They decided who should be physically hurt, who should be waterboarded, who should be attacked by trained dogs.

But that's not the worst.

George Bush told ABC News that he personally approved of the approval of torture by his top advisers. Our President personally approved torture. Have you heard about it in the news? Only if you're watching  The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or Countdown. No front page stories. No replaying the news clip, over and over on Fox News. Not a peep from most of the media.

Well, it makes me sick. And maybe these pictures will make you sick, too. Now that we know - because he admitted it himself - that torture in Iraq wasn't the work of a "few rogue soldiers" but approved and choreographed by the sickos inhabiting the White House - I want you to look at these pictures - a chronology of one night of torture in Iraq approved by George W Bush - and tell me that this is your America.  

Abu Ghraib prison, Baghdad Iraq
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WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PICTURES ARE GRAPHIC AND DISTURBING



 

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LUCILLE: Let's Not Talk About Iraq

We need to stop talking about Iraq. It's not really an issue in this presidential campaign. We need to talk about everything but Iraq. Why? Because  Republicans know that they have to take that issue off the table if they have  prayer in hell of winning this fall.

But I'd like to talk about someone who took unilateral military action with virtually no strategic planning, using way too few troops resulting in an embarrassing failure. Not  George Bush (fooled you). I'm talking about Iraqi Prime Minister, Maliki who planned (if I can loosely use that word) a failed assault on the Shi'ite militia in Basra late last month which left Sadr more secure in his position of power than before.

Maliki is like Bush's twin; arrogant, divisive and none too smart. His little romp down in  southern Iraq  has absolutely weakened him and, by association, weakened the US. Of course, George Bush praised him. After all, it's what he would have done.

The most amazing thing is that while Bush is calling it a "defining moment in the history of a free Iraq" GOP presidential nominee John McCain seems to be unaware of what is happening.

So, was it really a debacle? Consider this: There were huge casualties. American and British forces and air power had to come to the rescue. About 1000 Iraqi soldiers either defected or just went home in the midst of the fight. And Mr Maliki's boys sought a cease fire. 

By Bush standards, that was a victory.

Everyone is discussing whether or not Obama has the wherewithal to operate on the big stage, whether Hillary is "more experienced." My friend Monty wants to put the Iraq War on the back burner and talk about the economy and free trade and probably gay marriage.

But what I (and millions of Americans) want to know, with George Bush on the way out,  is how does McCain - Mr Experience himself - see the war?

I'll tell you how he sees it - through rose colored glasses.

LUCILLE: Quote of the Week - John McCain

"People are living their normal lives" (in Iraq)

            - John McCain, March 20, 2008

LUCILLE: Osama Bin WHO?

Notwithstanding the "success" of the surge (almost as successful as my attempt to regain my virginity), I found myself arguing with a co-worker about the original decision to go into Iraq. He gave the usual reasons - Saddam was a terrible person, we thought they had WMD (don't even go there); and, then he brought up 9/11. My former brother-in-law (my niece's father and a friend of mine), Rod Coppola was in the WTC on that day and was one of the victims. It was a terrible, tragic event and a  very sad time for all of us. It hit me and my family personally.

But what did Iraq have to do with 9/11?

And, why can't my co-worker - and so many of you - remember who attacked us on that day?

It was the Saudi, Osama Bin Laden, with the help of mostly Egyptian co-conspirators, calling themselves Al Qaeda and working in tandem with the Taliban. . . centered in Afghanistan. Remember Afghanistan? Where the real "war on terror" is being fought? And where the violence is growing at an exponential rate. . .  like the amount of money spent in Iraq? And where Osama is quite close to, in the border region of Pakistan (according to military intelligence experts)?

LUCILLE: George Bush's "Romantic Adventure" and other True Stories

Here's one for the books. George Bush actually called the war in Afghanistan a "romantic adventure" when speaking to troops there last Thursday. He even claimed he was "a little envious" of them.  I have an idea; why doesn't he have his own adventure and finish his military service (cut short to help Daddy get elected) and join the troops over there? It's interesting how the loudest supporters of war - Iraq as well as Viet Nam - feel it unecessary to actually fight them. By contrast, even Prince Harry made it to Afghanistan to fight - by choice. George Bush's choices have all been a little more self centered.

Speaking of choices, who in God's name is choosing his words for him? Or have they just given up and let him speak for himself? He was absolutely giggly over the economy, calling the news on the US's economic meltdown "a interesting moment." (My high school English teacher, Dan Flynn, must be apoplectic over that interesting grammar.)

Any economist will tell you that the price of a currency reflects the country's overall economic health. And our has been diving for so long that pretty soon we'll be lucky if we can afford to even buy stuff made in China. Oil has gone up to over $110 a barrel, the Dow has been hovering under 12,000 and retail sales fell by 6/10ths of a percent last month.

"I'm coming to you as an optimistic fellow" was what Bush had to say to the Economic Club of New York just this past Friday, while acknowledging that we poor folks "are concerned about making their bills." Can he have fallen off the wagon or is he just trying to act like Herbert Hoover after the crash in 1929?

LUCILLE: MY State of the Union

It's time for a REAL State of the Union address, from someone who not only has been paying attention, but will tell you the truth for a change.

The Economy
Let me ask you the same question the GOP demi god Ronald Reagan asked when he was running for President: are you better off than you were 8 years ago? Believe it or not, the GOP candidates (except Huckabee and Paul) actually tried to claim you are. But let's look at the facts:

• George Bush was bragging in his speech about "a 52 month streak of uninterrupted job growth". . . Well, the new jobs report shows a 17,000 decline in jobs in January. Oh, and that was coupled with the  Commerce Department's report of infinitesimal growth of the economy of .006%. The long term unemployed (unemployed at least 6 months) are up 16.2% from a year ago. And, yet, Bush doesn't feel the need to extend unemployment benefits as part of his "stimulus" package. I guess it's more important to make that Paris Hilton tax cut permanent.

LUCILLE: Let's Get to the Meat

 

Everyone is focused on the primaries but one subject that is strangely absent from the Republican debates is the one most Americans agree on: the war in Iraq. The Bush Administration - and many of my right-wing friends - insist that things are so much better now, since the surge began. But what exactly has the surge accomplished and how does it compare to what we were promised a year ago by President Bush when he asked us all to be patient and allow his "New Way Forward" to work? At the time, he said "The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people and it is unacceptable to me." Let's see just how acceptable it is now.

In his speech one year ago, President Bush outlined a new strategy for Iraq, unveiling the "surge" in U.S. troops — and more American economic aid. Bush said the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledged to do more to heal his country's divisions.

In January 2007, when Bush made his "New Way Forward" speech, violence in Iraq was rising, especially in Baghdad and there were car bombs exploding, shootings taking place and ethnic cleansing. This is what he promised the surge would accomplish:

1. The Iraqis would boost their own troop levels
2. Sectarianism would  "not be tolerated"
3. Iraqis would take control of their streets
4. Iraqis would pass an oil law that allowed revenue sharing among the Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis
5. Provincial elections would be held in 2007
6. Reform de-Baathification laws
7. Iraq would spend more of its own money
8. The United States would hold the Iraqis to certain benchmarks
9. Decrease in violence
   

Since then, some of what Bush envisioned has been accomplished - but not much.

LUCILLE: Baiting the Hook

Sometimes you can read two totally unrelated news stories and find a connection between them. That happened to me today. The first was on the epidemic of rapes in Congo, where women as old as 75 and girls as young as three have been sexually brutalized with everything from wood to bayonets, destroying their reproductive and digestive organs. Some of these marauders- described as young men with guns - go much further, burning babies, chopping people to pieces and using women as sex slaves in their quest for whatever riches they can pull out of Congo. John Holmes, the UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs said:

"The sexual violence in Congo is the worst in the world. The sheer numbers, the wholesale brutality, the culture of impunity - it's appalling."

In large areas of Congo civilians are at the mercy of armed groups who have roamed the country since the mid 1990's, when waves of Hutu militiamen escaped from Rwanda into Congo after exterminating over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Joining in this sadistic destruction of women are government troops. But the most vicious attacks are done by the Hutus.

"These are people who were involved with the [Rwanda] genocide and have been psychologically destroyed by it" -John Holmes

Andre Bourque, a Canadian consultant who works with aid groups in Congo has a name for it: "reversed values." And this is where the second story fits in.

Across the country, in an effort to recruit boys and young men, hundreds of Protestant and evangelical churches - including those who have cautioned against violent entertainment - have been using Microsoft's "Halo," an adult-themed, violent video game to lure them in.

    "We want to make it hard for teenagers to go to hell," a youth minister at the Colorado Community Church in Denver wrote to parents. "It's just fun blowing people up," added Tim Foster, 12.

These churches feel that whatever they can use to get boys and young men in the door is okay. Never mind that Halo is adult-themed entertainment, rated M, which these kids couldn't buy on their own. Never mind that it justifies killing, in the name of fun. And never mind that the underlying plot in Halo is about a religious group that supports the destruction of the Earth as a path to heaven. Maybe next they can try pornography, alcohol and plain old sex.

So, what's the correlation between these two seemingly unrelated stories?

LUCILLE: "Enhancing" America's Image, courtesy of George W. Bush

 Abu Ghraib: Only the Beginning

Remember when we used to talk about Nazis as the worst people ever? They did terrible things like conducting experiments on humans - especially Jews - involving horrible things like seeing how long they could survive being exposed to extreme cold. They thought nothing of using their victims, because they were sure that their cause - protecting the Aryan race - was righteous. But we in the "civilized" world, knew better. What they were doing was inhumane; abusing and misusing other humans to insure your own survival was immoral at best.

And, now it's our turn.

JOHN: War Rules for Bush But Not For The Clintons

Yesterday, the New York Sun reported that Hillary Clinton is backing legislation that would require Congressional approval before President Bush could order military action against Iran.

The article went on to explain that Senator Clinton had recently voted on a nonbinding resolution that designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. This has left her open to political attacks from the left that she might have given the Bush Administration permission to strike at the Tehren regime, since Congress granted Bush wide authorization to pursue terrorist organizations in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

LUCILLE: The Economy of Limitless Government Contracts

Does anything surprise you about the Right? Read this excerpt from "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein:

The news racing around the [New Orleans] shelter that day was that the Republican Congressman Richard Baker had told a group of lobbyists, "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did." Joseph Canizaro, one of New Orleans' wealthiest developers, had just expressed a similar sentiment: "I think we have a clean sheet to start again. And with that clean sheet we have some very big opportunities." All that week Baton Rouge had been crawling with corporate lobbyists helping to lock in those big opportunities: lower taxes, fewer regulations, cheaper workers and a "smaller, safer city" - which in practice meant plans to level the public housing projects. Hearing all the talk of "fresh starts" and "clean sheets", you could almost forget the toxic stew of rubble, chemical outflows and human remains just a few miles do.

Disaster capitalism. It's what all those private companies love - companies like Halliburton and Blackwater USA. And it didn't start in New Orleans. It started, probably, with the late Milton Friedman. And it's going strong in Iraq.

ABE: Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West - a conversation with director Wayne Kopping

". . . And I always thought Churchill looked a little Jewish . . ."
Jerusalem's Grand Mufti and Adolf Hitler in 1941

Classicist and military historian Victor Davis Hanson wrote recently:

“The great lesson of September 11 was not that the jihadists ever believed that they could kill us all. Rather, they trusted that enough of the West and indeed enough of us here in America, might at the end of the day declare that we had it coming.

In this long war, that belief was — and is — far deadlier even than an unhinged murderer at the controls of an airliner.”

“The greatest deeds are thoughts,” said Aristotle. For the substantial number of Westerners whose thoughts veer towards the “we had it coming” end of the spectrum, the newly available documentary Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against The West should go a long way in changing minds.  I often hear things like, “Of course al Qaeda’s crazy, but if we change our policies in the Mideast they’ll keep their craziness to themselves.” Others offer, less delicately, “Let them rot.” Obsession, (available at Barnes and Noble, Best Buy, Blockbuster, and other major outlets as of September 11 of this year) forces the viewer to confront the fact that our policies are beside the point, and that the rotting—well underway—refuses to be contained.

On the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks I spoke with the film’s director Wayne Kopping.

LUCILLE: Don't Look Up

There's a country -  for real, this time -  with weapons of mass destruction that we should really be worried about. And they don't just HAVE WMD's; they have armed nuclear cruise missiles flying in B-52 bombers across the U.S,  over big cities and small towns.

A plot from "24"? No. Saddam Hussein reincarnated? No, it's worse.

It's the U.S. government.

ABE: 9/11 - It's Surreal Time With Bill Maher

Bill Maher

Bill Maher wants us to know three things about him:

1.    He sees through the evil machinations of George W. Bush.
2.    He likes Black people, and
3.    He smokes pot.

Maher references this triangular worldview ad nauseum on every episode of his HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher. The show isn’t about politics or culture, it’s about its host. Each phase of each broadcast is like a mini-self-realization workshop allowing Maher to reconnect with his convictions and assert them confidently in front of millions of Americans.

Aside from being a glimpse into the psycho-theater of one man, Real Time is an indispensible barometer of left wing thought. Maher, hyper-aware of his own “moderate” placement on the continuum of populist paranoia, serves as a stable point against which his guests’ delusions can be measured. When a guest goes off the deep end the host reels him back in. From these interactions, we glean just how far into the mists of incoherence and fantasy the moderate left is willing to venture.

ABE: "Contradictions In Caveland" - A Review of The Al Qaeda Reader

Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden
"We grin to the faces of some peoples. . ."

I was in my local bar when George W. Bush made his September 20, 2001 speech about the attacks of 9/11. The music was muted, the television turned up, and everyone clustered around the set to find out where we stood in relation to the future of humankind. I recall distinctly the following excerpt from the President's speech:

LUCILLE: The War as THEY Saw it

Who are Jeremy Murphy, Yance Gray, Edward Sandmeier, Omar Mora, Jeremy Roebuck, Wesley Smith and Buddhika Jayamaha? Rather than make you do a Google search, I'll tell you. They are all members of the 82nd Airborne Division, soon to be heading back home from Iraq. For those who aren't familiar with it, the 82nd is an elite infantry division.  These particular men are sergeants, staff sergeants and one is an Army specialist and they've been in Iraq for the last 15 months.

Instead of paraphrasing what they have to say about Iraq, I'm going to quote them verbatim. For their complete essay, click here.

I am very sad to report that Staff Sgt. Yance Gray and Sgt. Omar Mora were both recently killed in a truck accident outside of Baghdad. - Lucille

To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far fetched. As responsible officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day.

 

Found on a USMC forum

LUCILLE: LIKE Sony Guts

Remember that old Saturday Night Live routine about an electronics store in NYC? The vaguely foreign sales person is trying to sell the unsuspecting customer some kind of equipment that he strongly suggests, over and over, is "Sony". But when really pressed,  he finally admits it's "LIKE Sony guts". We all laughed - and cringed - because, many of us have been there - duped by an unscrupulous salesperson into thinking we're getting something when we're really not.  Of course,  it's not really funny when it happens to us - in reality it just makes us mad.

There are lots of other examples of the same duplicity shrouded in language that's close enough, but not the real thing. There are actors who've won an Academy Award. . . and those who are Academy Award nominees. There are virgins and virginal girls - subtle, but pretty important to some people. Then there are the gastronomical mistakes we can make if we're not careful: meat vs. mince meat. rabbit vs. rarebit. cheese vs. head cheese (Ugh. Don't make that mistake).

But those "word games" used for political purposes are designed specifically to mislead -  by omission - like the term "taxes". When they're talking about cutting taxes or the % of wages that go to taxes, they specifically mean income taxes and they're subtly omitting payroll taxes. Even the word alien has become a synonym for illegal alien. Subtle, devious, effective.

As I  look at the current word play in this country, I wonder where William Safire is, especially when the Administration officials (and, by extension, the entire media) use the term Al Qaeda to mean those insurgents in Iraq who are such a thorn in the side of the military.

Abe: "Che Guevara! Intifada! Radical Chic Eats All!"

The myriad examples of writer Don DeLillo’s uncanny prescience on the attacks of September 11, 2001 have yet to be fully catalogued and dissected. My own incomplete dossier on the matter includes:

- His 1977 novel, Players. The couple is Pammy and Lyle. While Pammy works at a grief-counseling center—the goal of which is to help people deal with loss, and the offices of which are located in the World Trade Center—Lyle becomes a terrorist.
- His 1985 novel, White Noise. A main character reads a fictional tabloid account of a death cult that flies an airplane into the White House.
- His 1997 novel, Underworld. Here’s a quote from a passage about a waste management executive visiting the Fresh Kills landfill (which would later become the dumping ground for the rubble of the fallen towers.)  “The towers of the World Trade Center were visible in the distance and he sensed a poetic balance between that idea and this one [the idea of the Fresh Kills landfill].”

To give but three examples.The man deserves our attention.

So how should we respond to this DeLillo quote from a recent interview?

Lucille: Shazam! There's Magic in the Air

Did you know that the word "magic" is directly related to the Magi?

Back in the 5th Century BC the Greeks used secret words - curses - to inflict harm on their enemies. In the 7th Century AD Chinese Buddhists believed in the Sovereign Lord of Spells, Amoghapas Dharani. Most recently, Harry Potter gave us magic words and phrases like Avada kedavra and the Imperius and Cruciatus curses, the latter of which comes from the Latin word for torture.

Now we can add a new magic phrase to our vocabulary: executive privilege. Or, as I like to say - Shazam!

Lucille "The Trouble With Petraeus"

Good news from Iraq! Just ask General Petraeus:

General Petraeus' pacification of Mosul is a "textbook case of doing counterinsurgency the right way" (Newsweek, July 2004)

"Training is on track and increasing in capacity", with more than 200,000 Iraqi's performing a wide variety of security missions (September, 2004)

There are 10 Iraqi battalions operating independently (March 10, 2007)

General Petraeus cited soccer games as an example of “the astonishing signs of normalcy” in Baghdad (June 2007)

Sectarian violence is down in Bagdad (July 2007)

Al Qaeda is the principal villain in Iraq (July 2007)

Shortly before the 2004 election, Petraeus was able to congratulate the Iraqi fighting forces on their increased strength and  the rebuilding of their infrastructure. (September 2004)

Isn't that wonderful?  History will show that, brave warrior and military strategist that he is, Petraeus is still simply another shill for the Bush Administration, willing to say anything to help George Bush. Remember what happened to those naive military commanders who dared to tell George Bush what he didn't want to hear (Shinseki,  Abizaid) . Let's revisit those sunny observations, with the benefit of history:

Abe: “Iraq: The Evolution Will Not Be Televised”

One sure sign that the Iraq War is going well for the U.S. is that the media has stopped covering it. Newspapers, TV shows, and websites are now telling us to be depressed about Pakistan instead. Also, I did hear an NPR broadcaster clear his throat by saying that U.S. troop deaths have dipped in the past month. Neither of these things speak to the true extent of recent U.S. success. Not only are Iraqis now working with US troops to kill and capture al Qaeda and Shia extremists in several provinces, but Iraqi Police and Army units are already involved in the post-al Qaeda rebuilding of their country.

I discussed Iraq recently with a person of vigorous intelligence who works counterinsurgency at the Department of Defense. Here’s what I learned.

Abe: "Oppression - Jihad's Phantom Limb"

A few years ago I stopped buying the New York Times during the week. You can lay those lost sales directly at the feet of the editorial staff. I could no longer spend seventy-five cents a day to confirm that Maureen Dowd still hadn’t thrown out her pun dictionary. However, I do have an urgent need to see who my ex-girlfriends marry so I suck it up every Sunday and purchase the ottoman-sized monster.

Yesterday, after confirming that none who got away got hitched over the weekend, I started reading an article, by Isabel Kershner, about a Fatah ceasefire in the West Bank. Ms. Kershner first describes how the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade have been trading in their guns for a chance to give President Mahmoud Abbas legitimacy in negotiating an end to West Bank occupation. Seven paragraphs in, I stumbled upon this doozey: