Work Your Brain — 10/03/06

On Terror-steria

mass hysteria
n. A socially contagious frenzy of irrational behavior in a group of people as a reaction to an event.

• The Suntan Menace — The Cunning Realist writes about another incident in our friendly skies where an innocent man is assumed by other passengers to be a terrorist because of “suspicious activities” like going to the toilet when he got on the plane and having an iPod. The most damning piece of evidence was the color of his skin, which was tanned due to the vacation the Jewish father of three was returning from. Mr. Stein was physically attacked by another passenger “claiming” to be a NY police officer and put in a head lock an hour into the flight while he was minding his own business reading a book and sipping his ginger ale. He sounds terribly dangerous. He’s suing the airline for failing to protect him since the cabin crew was aware of the passenger’s obsession with him. He should sue the passenger too.
  

  As someone who travels a lot, owns gadgets, is dark-complected, and even uses the restroom, I keep waiting — with anticipation, I must admit — for some overeager vigilante/Charles Bronson-wannabe to try this crap on me.

• Please step to the white courtesy phone [for a brain] — Mac @ peskyapostrophe reports that a man missed his flight after being detained in an airport in Seattle because he was speaking a foreign language into his cell phone. Hmmmmm… That does sound suspicious. Apparently he was discussing sports, which is really suspicious. The language was Tamil, which is a language largely used in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore and the person who called it in was an off-duty airline personnell. The passenger indicated that in the future, he wouldn’t be speaking Tamil into his cell phone in the airport. That’s just a shame.
• The TSA sucks - hey, better detain me — Mac @ peskyapostrophe also has a post about a Wisconsin man who wrote “Kip Hawley is an Idiot” on a plastic bag containing toiletries said he was detained at an airport security checkpoint for about 25 minutes before authorities concluded the statement was not a threat. You know, because Kip Hawley is the head of the Transportation Security Administration. “A TSA spokeswoman acknowledged a man was stopped, but likened the incident to cases in which people inappropriately joke about bombs.” *snort* Talk about going overboard.

On Torture

• Is The U.S. A Rogue State? — Matthew Yglesias (op-ed writer for The American Prospect) @ CBS News wrote a brilliant opinion piece about how in 2003 President George Bush gave a speech indicating that the U.S. was committed to “world-wide elimination of torture” and leading the fight by example. He said it was an inalienable human right to be free of torture. He also said, “The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, ratified by the United States and more than 130 other countries since 1984, forbids governments from deliberately inflicting severe physical or mental pain or suffering on those within their custody or control….Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit.” Based on that statement from Bush’s own claims, Yglesias wants to know if the United States is now a rogue state since we now legally torture. Have we now become what we set out to eliminate?
  

  Other countries, of course, practice torture in violation of international law. As has now been clear for a while, we have been in their company for some years. The latest twist, however, is that we now won’t show any shame about it. Rather than simply violating the laws to which we have agreed to adhere, we’re repudiating them, simply denying that the standard by which civilized nations operate apply to us.

  The problems here will be widespread. One of the strengths of democracies on the international scene is precisely that it’s much harder for liberal states to violate agreements. Dictatorships can say one thing and do another with ease. Democracies feature free presses, free speech, the rule of law, independent judiciaries, legislative oversight, and other measures to ensure that laws and treaties are followed. This is, to the conservative mind, a weakness. In their view, cheating is a good thing, and America’s historical difficulty in cheating constitutes a problem. They’re dead wrong. Cooperation is a good thing — the best ticket to prosperity, security, and international peace. Democracies can cooperate with other countries — and especially with other democracies — more credibly and effectively, and that’s one of the reasons the world’s democratic block is so much stronger and more prosperous than the rest of the world.

  But the rule of law is now off the table as far as Bush is concerned. What’s more, insofar as national-security policy is at issue, the United States increasingly doesn’t look like much of a democracy. As the congressional Republicans march in lockstep behind the White House’s torture agenda, they don’t even know what that agenda’s composed of. The Boston Globe reported Saturday that 90 percent of members of Congress don’t know “which interrogation techniques have been used in the past, and none of them know which ones would be permissible under proposed changes to the War Crimes Act.” Which is just to say that, in practice, absolutely everything would be permitted, since the only people capable of overseeing the interrogation program haven’t done it, won’t do it, and have no intention of doing it in the future.

  Consequently, the United States now presents itself as what amounts to the globe’s largest and most powerful rogue state — a nuclear-armed superpower capable of projecting military force to the furthest corners of the earth, acting utterly without legal or moral constraint whenever the president proclaims it necessary. The idea that striking such a posture on the world stage will serve our long-term interests is daft. American power has, for decades, rested crucially on the sense that the United States can be trusted and relied upon, on the belief that we use our power primarily to defend the community of liberal states and the liberal rules by which they conduct themselves rather than to undermine them.

  An America prepared to casually toss out the most fundamental principles of international humanitarian diplomacy, along with basic human decency and the rule of law as side helpings, is not a country others are going to want to cooperate with.

  Hat tip: Sean Aqui.

• How long till they come and take your favorite blogger away? — Punkass Mac @ PunkAssBlog.com expresses concern that the inclusion of the term “leftist terrorist” in the NIE report may eventually lead to serious problems for leftist bloggers once the new torture/detainee legislation passes. Pain-in-the-ass lefty bloggers can be labeled as having “leftist terrorist agendas” and disappear into some CIA black prison or Gitmo.

On Iraq

• Batiste — Gregory @ The Belgravia Dispatch wrote an excellent piece, quoting former Major General John Batiste’s testimony before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee which presented a rather scathing review of Rumsfeld’s competence as a wartime leader. Gregory’s analysis is dead on, suggesting that the Bush-Chenney Administration is all talk but no real muscle to back it up, meaning they haven’t or can’t put the resources in to match their own rhetoric.
  

  That is to say, the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld troika are only pretending to have the sang-froid and will and staying power and Churchillian courage to prevail in Iraq. But they are being dishonest with us. They are empty suits, presiding over a failing strategy, none of them with the energy or intellectual courage to own up and demand either that the nation sacrifice and devote adequate resources to the effort, or failing that pursue a convincing alternative strategy. Of course, it’s not all their fault, as they are bowing to some realities, one suspects. If Bush gave a speech calling for re-institution of the draft, or implemention of a war tax, or even less dramatic moves but nevertheless ones that demanded more sacrifice (sending another 50,000 troops in, with casualty rates inevitably increasing, especially if we adopted less conservative force postures in keeping with best counter-insurgency practice) one presumes the nation would turn on the war all the faster (though if such moves changed the tenor of the war for the better perhaps support would not drop as much as one might suspect, although one would need real leaders at the helm explicating the need persuasively, which we don’t). Worth noting too, Rove would allow none of it, with midterms looming in November.

  Regardless, what we have now is not quite ’stay the course’, or the comically desperate sounding ‘adapting to win’, or some such soundbite. What we are doing, really, is half-assing along as best we can without truly summoning all the national reservoirs of power (military, economic, diplomatic, humanitarian) to really have a real go at prevailing, assuming one believes there is still a shot at eking out a victory, an issue where intelligent people (as the previous thread indicated) can disagree. At some point, we either step up, talk to the Iranians and Syrians so as to get more intelligent about pursuing a regional strategy, make clear and signal to Iraqis we’re there to truly prevail by sending in more forces, and otherwise get more serious (more robust force posture to truly “clear”, not via endless rounds of whack-a-mole, but with a convincing footprint and level of sustained effort through entire areas of concern simultaneously, more funds for reconstruction and infrastructure to effectively “build”, increasing American embeds operating with both Iraqi Army and even Police units so as to help develop more of an indigenuous “hold” function, and so on)–or we need to think much more about pursuing an intelligent withdrawal strategy–if perhaps we don’t think the additional effort is worth it (perhaps presiding over a confederation, but holding out the prospects of a unitary state in the future, a la Dayton, is worthy of more thought). Either way, the rough status quo, with a couple soldiers dying a day, dishonors their sacrifice, because it is a sacrifice made in vain. And our leaders are not honest enough to come clean with us about this, or if they think they are being honest with us, it is only because they are living in a deluded fantasy land where fundamentalist-style verities reign, rather than the grim realities presented by the empirical evidence around them.

  Hat tip: John Cole.

Have an opinion on these topics to share or found a post you want to add? Add your opinion or the post link to the comments section. My inquiring mind wants to know!

Tags: John Batiste, Senate Democratic Policy Committee, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Iraq, War, stay the course, adapting to win, propaganda, American soldiers, Middle East, Seth Stein, American Airlines, mass hysteria, terrorism, rogue state, The American Prospect, CBS News, torture, War Crimes Act, Geneva Convention, Congress, Seattle, Tamil, TSA, Kip Hawley, leftist terrorist agenda, NIE report, Guantanamo Bay

The Middle East Crisis: The Biggest Loser

So, Monday and Tuesday was filled with news of various world leaders patting each other on the back as to who won in the latest Middle East Crisis, this Israel/Hezbollah Conflict.

“We are today before a strategic, historic victory, without exaggeration,” Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said in a televised speech that was met with celebratory gunfire in the Shia suburbs of Beirut.

“We emerged from the battle with our heads high, and our enemy is the one who is defeated.”

In an impassioned address to the Knesset, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said “the IDF warriors always had the upper hand,” and promised to hunt down Hezbollah’s leaders. [“Israel, Hezbollah claim victory” (globalandmail.com)]
“Hezbollah attacked Israel, Hezbollah started the crisis, and Hezbollah suffered a defeat in this crisis,” Bush said. [“U.S. ‘freedom agenda; big winner in Lebanon War, Bush says” (Canada.com)]

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed Hezbollah had emerged the winner in Lebanon and called the battles with Israel “God’s promise”. [“Iran president hails Hezbollah victory” (Ireland Online)

The President of Syria said today that the map of the Middle East had been redrawn by Hezbollah’s “victory” in its five-week war with Israel.

In a rare public speech, Bashir al-Assad said that the once invincible Israeli army had been humiliated and that the Jewish state would do well to seek peace and hand back occupied Arab land - or risk more defeats if it tried to pursue “terrorist policies” in the future.[“Syria declares victory in Lebanon conflict” (TimesOnline.co.uk)]

Probably the silliest thing to come out of Israel’s mini-war with Hezbollah in Lebanon is the posturing over who “won.”

Nobody won.[“No ‘winner’ in the conflict, but Palestinians are losers” (PensacolaNewsJournal.com)

This morning NPR was interviewing a family of Israelis returning to their homes for the first time since last Friday after it had been hit by a Hezbollah rocket. The father/husband/man of the house said what I think none of the news, military and government analysts get — except maybe The Pensacola News Journal — when asked about who he thought won the war, he basically said, “No one wins wars, there are only losers and losers.”

In the end, I wonder if governments and world leaders and terrorists and ideological fanatic folks and such stopped to ask those of us who are just trying to get through our lives every day if we would be interested in going to war and killing and destroying, I wonder how many of us would really be interested in the whole idea.

The king of Zor, he called for war
And the king of Zam, he answered.
They fashioned their weapons one upon one
Ton upon ton, they called for war at the rise of the sun.
Out went the call to one and to all
That echoed and rolled like the thunder.
Trumpets and drums, roar upon roar
More upon more.
Rolling the call of Come now to war.
Throughout the night they fashioned their might
With right on the side of the mighty.
They puzzled their minds plan upon plan
Man upon man
And at dying of dawn the great war began.
They met on the battlefield banner in hand.
They looked out across the vacant land.
And they counted the missing, one upon one,
None upon none.
The war it was over before it begun.
Two little kings playing a game.
They gave a war and nobody came.
And nobody came.
And nobody came.
And nobody came.
And nobody came.
[repeat and fade]
There is no pause:
The king of Zor, he called for war
And the king of Zam, he answered.
They fashioned their weapons one upon one
Ton upon ton, they called for war at the rise of the sun.
Out went the call to one and to all
That echoed and rolled like the thunder.
Trumpets and drums, roar upon roar
More upon more.
Rolling the call of Come now to war.
Throughout the night they fashioned their might
With right on the side of the mighty.
They puzzled their minds plan upon plan
Man upon man
And at dying of dawn the great war began.
They met on the battlefield banner in hand.
They looked out across the vacant land.
And they counted the missing, one upon one,
None upon none.
The war it was over before it begun.
Two little kings playing a game.
They gave a war and nobody came.
And nobody came.
And nobody came.
And nobody came.
And nobody came.
[”Zor and Zam”, The Monkees, 1968, The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees]

Tags: Israel, Lebanon, NPR, Hezbollah, The Monkees, Ehud Olmert, IDF, Hassan Nasrallah, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran, George W. Bush, Syria, Bashir al-Assad, Middle East, politics

comments See also in Politics & Causes, In the News, Books, Music, Movies, & T.V., Geekery, The World, Featured, The Middle East

Recommended Reading - 08/04/06

• Tin Foil Hats And Tiaras For Everyone! — The (liberal)Girl Next Door talks about the recent poll revealing that 1/3rd of Americans believe that 9/11 was “an inside job” and what that staggering fact could or should mean for our future as a country.
  

  One out of three people think the Bush administration could very well have organized the deaths of 3,000 innocent Americans for the sole purpose of furthering their foreign policy objectives. In other words, a third of this country’s citizens believe that the Bush administration is a terrorist organization. How is it possible that impeachment isn’t even on the table if that many Americans think he’s a killer? Yes, it’s a rhetorical question and we can all say in unison, “it’s possible with the help of a lapdog press.”

• Internet “Conspiracies” — In contrast Red Bull uses the same poll to champion Net Neutrality. More

  Tags: Conspiracy Theories, 9/11, net neutrality, gay hate crimes, Homeland Security, FAS, disaster preparedness, Israel, U.S., Hezbollah, Lebanon, Middle East, Military Families Speak Out

  2 comments See also in Politics & Causes, In the News, Geekery, Blogging & Other Blogs, The World, Featured, 9-11 & Terrorism, Conspiracy Theories, Natural Disasters, The Middle East

Israel & The U.S. Uniting the Middle East

Secretary of State Condi Rice’s prediction of a “New Middle East” may have been dead on, but I don’t think what’s happening over there now is what the White House and Israel had in mind. As a result of the US’s refusal to publically support any call for any sort of cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah and in fact, the US’s apparently brazen and seemingly hypocritical encouragement of Israel to bomb the hell out of a weaker country on the very verge of the kind of democracy the US supposedly promotes, the U.S. and Israel may have finally done what no one has been able to accomplish in the Middle East in ages — Unite the Middle East.

Well, unite most of the Middle East against Israel and the U.S. anyway. It seems like organizations and countries and religious groups who would normally never consider cooperating are rushing to Lebanon’s aid and Hezbollah’s defense.

(emphasis mine)

At the onset of the Lebanese crisis, Arab governments, starting with Saudi Arabia, slammed Hezbollah for recklessly provoking a war, providing what the United States and Israel took as a wink and a nod to continue the fight.

Now, with hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out against the vaunted Israeli military for more than two weeks, the tide of public opinion across the Arab world is surging behind the organization, transforming the Shiite group’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, into a folk hero and forcing a change in official statements.

The Saudi royal family and King Abdullah II of Jordan, who were initially more worried about the rising power of Shiite Iran, Hezbollah’s main sponsor, are scrambling to distance themselves from Washington.

An outpouring of newspaper columns, cartoons, blogs and public poetry readings have showered praise on Hezbollah while attacking the United States and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for trumpeting American plans for a “new Middle East” that they say has led only to violence and repression.

Even Al Qaeda, run by violent Sunni Muslim extremists normally hostile to all Shiites, has gotten into the act, with its deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, releasing a taped message saying that through its fighting in Iraq, his organization was also trying to liberate Palestine.

Mouin Rabbani, a senior Middle East analyst in Amman, Jordan, with the International Crisis Group, said, “The Arab-Israeli conflict remains the most potent issue in this part of the world.”

Distinctive changes in tone are audible throughout the Sunni world. This week, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt emphasized his attempts to arrange a cease-fire to protect all sects in Lebanon, while the Jordanian king announced that his country was dispatching medical teams “for the victims of Israeli aggression.” Both countries have peace treaties with Israel.

The Saudi royal court has issued a dire warning that its 2002 peace plan — offering Israel full recognition by all Arab states in exchange for returning to the borders that predated the 1967 Arab-Israeli war — could well perish.

“If the peace option is rejected due to the Israeli arrogance,” it said, “then only the war option remains, and no one knows the repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire.”

The Saudis were putting the West on notice that they would not exert pressure on anyone in the Arab world until Washington did something to halt the destruction of Lebanon, Saudi commentators said.

American officials say that while the Arab leaders need to take a harder line publicly for domestic political reasons, what matters more is what they tell the United States in private, which the Americans still see as a wink and a nod.

There are evident concerns among Arab governments that a victory for Hezbollah — and it has already achieved something of a victory by holding out this long — would further nourish the Islamist tide engulfing the region and challenge their authority. Hence their first priority is to cool simmering public opinion.

But perhaps not since President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt made his emotional outpourings about Arab unity in the 1960’s, before the Arab defeat in the 1967 war, has the public been so electrified by a confrontation with Israel, played out repeatedly on satellite television stations with horrific images from Lebanon of wounded children and distraught women fleeing their homes. [“Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezzbolla”(The New York Times)]

Hat Tip: Brilliant at Breakfast

Tags: Israel, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Egypt, Arab governments, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Sunnis, President Hosni Mubarak, Iran, al-Qaeda, al-Zawahiri, Palestine, Condi Rice, Shiiti, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, King Abdullah II of Jordan

The American Taxpayer Pays For 20% Of Israel’s Military

When you’re hearing and reading about the dead Lebanonese civilians, remember than your tax dollars helped to pay for their deaths even though it’s not our soldiers pulling the trigger. Keep that in mind when you hear about the trapped and dead Americans caught in the conflict too.

• “Almost all of the weapons used by Israel are from the United States. There might be a couple French fighter planes that they’re using, but its F-16s made in Fort Worth, Texas; its Apache helicopters; its Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles; it’s all from the United States.”
• There has been no real “discussion of the fact that all of the Israeli arsenal is from the United States, and that that is in contravention to U.S. law. to the Arms Export Control Act, which says that U.S.-origin weapons are only to be used for self-defense and for internal security.”
• “Israel has always been the largest recipient of military aid from the United States, [and] that that’s actually increased since 2001.”
• “Military aid stands at about $3 billion a year. That’s about $500 for every Israeli citizen that the United States provides on an annual basis. And then, weapons sales, most recently, since the Bush administration came into power, we’re looking at $6.3 billion worth of weaponry sold to Israel.”
• “…essentially the United States provides 20% of the Israeli military budget on an annual basis, and then about 70% of that money that is given from the United States, from U.S. taxpayers, to Israel is then spent on weapons from Lockheed Martin and Boeing and Raytheon. Most other countries don’t have that sort of cash relationship, where they go straight to U.S. corporations with U.S. money to buy weapons that are then used in the Occupied Territories and against Lebanon.”
• “In 1981, the last time there was a full-on invasion by the Israeli government into Lebanon, the Reagan administration cut military aid and froze weapons sales to Israel, while it did an investigation of whether or not the weapons were being used for self-defensive and internal security purposes.”

Source: DemocracyNow! Transcript of U.S. Arming of Israel: How US Weapons Manufacturers Profit From Middle East Conflict

Tags: Middle East, Israel, American taxpayer, Lebanon

Recommended Reading

• Censorship is “Just a Policy” — All Spin Zone blogged about how FEMA won’t let trailer residents give media intervies without a FEMA chaparone.
• Third time’s not the charm: Sunday-morning talk shows still imbalanced — Media Matter’s study proving that Sunday talk shows are far from so-called liberal media. In fact, it’s been over a decade since they’ve been anywhere near balanced near that direction. The statistics clearly show that if it’s Sunday, it must be a Conservative guest.
• There was another report of Homeland Security’s TALON database being misused to store student anti-war and anti-military recruitment protestors in the news. (Hat tip AmericaBlog)
• Right-Wing Attacks American Evacuees: ‘Ingrates,’ ‘Whining,’ ‘Spoiled-Rotten Little Children’ — ThinkProgress.org reported on Fox News childish, incompassionate, extremely unprofessional journalism. No wonder, the average right-winger thinks this is appropriate behavior. The comment section is worth a read, but be sure you have some time set aside to sit and read it all.
• Israelis and Lebanese talking…on the net — ThinkProgress.org also reports abouts about Israelis and Lebanese who would rather not be bombing each other but would instead prefer something more peaceful reaching out to each other via the Internet. Too bad those aren’t the ones in charge…
• 128 — the number out of 400,000 frozen embryos that have been adopted, according to ThinkProgress.org. I suppose that leaves 399,872 that could be used to help find cures for cancer, AIDS, and who knows what else that’s killing Americans and other people across the globe.
• Italy is considering serving the US with extradition papers for 26 CIA agents for the abduction of an Islamist cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, known as Abu Omar, who was seized from Milan 3 years ago, taken to Egypt, and tortured. [Guardian Unlimited]

Tags: FEMA, liberal media, TALON, Homeland Security, Fox News, Israel, Lebanon, Veto, World Peace, stem cell research, Middle East, Italy, Abu Omar

Someone Just Killed The Neighbors

Lenin’s Tomb has a link to a video clip of a bomb going off in Beirut. With macabre humor, the post is titled “someone just killed the neighbors”. While somewhat jarring, this title is actually very insightful: war generally is not something that happens on some sterilized battlefield away from innocent children and bystanders; rather it’s something that happens on the way to the market and in people’s kitchens. [“Regarding Our Dead Neighbors” (Swerve Left)]

This is what I’ve been talking about for years. We Americans don’t seem to truly grasp that those are actual people dying. I guess because it’s over there. The Middle East is like some twisted evil NeverNeverLand where we send our little boys and they come back in boxes and never grow up, but there aren’t real live people over there. When the news reports bombings and attacks and more dead in the Middle East every day, I just don’t think Americans realize those are real people dying. To us, they’re just numbers, statistics, faceless unknown movie extras.

More

Tags: Israel, Pat Buchanan, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Middle East, Lebanon

The World Is Going Insane & Bringing Me With It

I think I’ve reached a low point today. Reading the news.

More violence in the Middle East. People are dying. Who cares what color their skin is or their nationality or their god? People are dying and it’s just another bullet on the news. Just another day. How easy it is to be detached way over here on this continent in the safety of our living rooms.

More arguing between the Left and Right. Excuses from the Right. Fingerpointing from the Left. No one seems to be doing anything to stop the spiral of this country into a new dark ages.

More

Tags: depression, Middle East, Terrorists, George W. Bush, Democrats, hopeless

Bush Is Losing His Iron Grip

Well, well, well…it appears that Bush is losing his hold over Congress. At the very least it appears that some Republicans in Congress are starting to think for themselves or are maybe listening to the increasingly disenchanted majority.

There’s a growing alarm in both parties over the mistreatment of prisoners in the Middle East and Guantanamo Bay and yesterday, in defiance of the White House, 46 Senate Republicans joined forces with 43 Senate Democrats and 1 Independent Senator in voting to define and limit interrogation techniques that U.S. troops may use against terrorism suspects, suspected insurgents, and the like. (And in case you’re wondering, 9 Senators voted against this anti-torture addition to a military funding bill…that’s 9 Senators voting “for” torture if you use the Republican’s own understanding of how these votes work, if last year’s campaign is any indication.)

Meanwhile, President Bush is threatening to veto the larger bill this language is now attached to — a $440 billion military spending measure. If he does veto it, doesn’t that mean he doesn’t support our military? I mean, doesn’t he want the military to be properly funded and armed?

McCain said military officers have implored Congress for guidelines, adding that he mourns “what we lose when by official policy or by official negligence we allow, confuse or encourage our soldiers to forget . . . that which is our greatest strength: that we are different and better than our enemies.”

…

In his closing speech, McCain said terrorists “hold in contempt” international conventions “such as the Geneva Conventions and the treaty on torture.”

“I know that,” he said. “But we’re better than them, and we are the stronger for our faith.” [“Senate Supports Interrogation Limits (WashingtonPost.com)”]

I just puffy heart McCain.

Tags: George W. Bush, Congress, Republicans, Middle East, Guantanamo Bay, torture, John McCain

How Many Suicide Bombers Have There Been Since “Mission Completed”?

This is a question I would love to have an answer for. I’ve been googling for days but no one seems to be keeping track. Heck, even the statistics on U.S. dead is kind of iffy — it all depends on if you were killed right there in active combat but not in an ambush or en route to a battle and if you were a legal U.S. citizen and not a foreigner recruited to serve in the U.S. armed forces in exchange for your citizenship; suicides and those who die of their injuries en route to or at the hospital are not counted either apparently. (One of my co-workers who served in the marines insists that the government wouldn’t play with the numbers like that.)

What I started out to look for was the number of terrorist attacks/bombings a year in the Middle East before and after the invasion of Iraq. I had read somewhere that the number had risen since Bush called the war over. Supposedly someone in the Bush administration had claimed that we were making the Middle East a safer place.

But what I’m curious about is if the number is just up in Iraq or if it is everywhere in the Middle East.

There seems to be multiple bombings everyday now and no one seems to be keeping a record. I think most Americans would be shocked about the tallied if anyone could get ahold of that information. Heck, I bet even I’d be shocked.

Tags: Suicide Bombers, Middle East

It’s not O.K. Anywhere

Yesterday, on one of the message boards I frequent, we were talking about the website We’re Not Afraid and someone commented that it’s a shame that there isn’t the same sort of outpouring of concern and dismay and rage over the same sorts of bombings that happen everyday in Iraq, Afghanistan and all over the Middle East.

The truth is that those who live in the Middle East live with almost daily bombings and assassinations and the like and those “incidents” are merely blurbs on the evening news, slipped into the days events with the Sports scores and weather updates. Every day, I hear about another bomb and more dead but no one seems to be making a big deal about those bombings and attacks.

But attack the UK, Spain, or NYC and suddenly it’s a crisis of monumental proportion.

And, yes, I understand that those things aren’t supposed to happen here and that’s why everyone is up in arms, but why is it o.k. that they’re happening there?

Why is it o.k. that it’s happening anywhere?

Tags: Middle East, Suicide Bombers, Terrorists, terrorism

Horrors of the Day

More horrors coming from the Middle East today as video feed from a website shows a non-military American being beheaded in retaliation for the mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq.

Someone on a message board I’m on had the nerve to claim that Americans would never do something so horrible! Of course, she was verbally attacked because most of us are certain that there are Americans who would do something like that — even to other Americans. That sort of nightmarish thing doesn’t just happen in other countries and movies.

But I guess the question is: When is all of this evilness going to end? What will stop the chain of revenge and resentment and retaliation?

I’m not surprised at all that other countries want out of this nightmare.

***So, day four without caffeine. I had meant to exercise yesterday via The Firm Body Sculpt system’s “CardioSculpt” workout, but something snapped in me yesterday afternoon. I felt miserable and headachy and muscle achy and I was craving high-fat foods on top of feeling flushed and warm. So I had a Snicker bar and a Wendy’s chicken sandwhich and Wendy’s medium fries which unfortunately weren’t salted to my satisfaction. I then went home, unpacked a few boxes, went to bed and ate 2 rice krispy treats while I watched Wrinkle in Time, which was somewhat of a disappointment.Anyway, last night I woke up at least twice feeling all hot and sweaty but woke up comfortable this morning. I hate having those nights where I keep waking up as I don’t feel like I slept well at all.This afternoon, I’m feeling warmish again and headachy, particularly in my forehead. However, today I don’t have quite the craving to cure this with caffeine like I did the last few days. I am still craving chocolate for some reason. ***Saw a funny ad: “$167.00 is all it takes to buy Bush a One Way ticket home. Chip in $50 now.” It was paid for by John Kerry’s people. Funny.

Tags: Middle East, innocent, hypocrisy, politics, George W. Bush, discombobulated, humor