Update on the Satanic Peace Wreath

(Well, that title wins for most bizarre blog post headline here so far...)

Victory for the peace wreath!

The New York Times reports:

DENVER, Nov. 28 — Peace is fighting back in Pagosa Springs.

Last week, a couple were threatened with fines of $25 a day by their homeowners’ association unless they removed a four-foot wreath shaped like a peace symbol from the front of their house.

The fines have been dropped, and the three-member board of the association has resigned, according to an e-mail message sent to residents on Monday.

Two board members have disconnected their telephones, apparently to escape the waves of callers asking what the board could have been thinking, residents said. The third board member, with a working phone, did not return a call for comment.

In its original letter to the couple, Lisa Jensen and Bill Trimarco, the association said some neighbors had found the peace symbol politically “divisive.”

A board member later told a newspaper that he thought the familiar circle with angled lines was also, perhaps, a sign of the devil.
[...]
In any case, there are now more peace symbols in Pagosa Springs, a town of 1,700 people 200 miles southwest of Denver, than probably ever in its history.

On Tuesday morning, 20 people marched through the center carrying peace signs and then stomped a giant peace sign in the snow perhaps 300 feet across on a soccer field, where it could be easily seen.

Town Manager Mark Garcia said Pagosa Springs was building its own peace wreath, too. Mr. Garcia said it would be finished by late Tuesday and installed on a bell tower in the center of town.

It's a revolution!

Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.
- Buddha

Peace is the only battle worth waging.
- Albert Camus

Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.
- The XIVth Dalai Lama

The Bigotry Just Never Ends...

Right-wing talking head Dennis Prager over at Townhall is outraged that America's first Muslim congressperson refuses to be sworn into office with a bible:

Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, has announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran.

He should not be allowed to do so -- not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization.

Can Prager get more hysterical than that?

Yes.

First, it is an act of hubris that perfectly exemplifies multiculturalist activism -- my culture trumps America's culture. What Ellison and his Muslim and leftist supporters are saying is that it is of no consequence what America holds as its holiest book; all that matters is what any individual holds to be his holiest book.

Forgive me, but America should not give a hoot what Keith Ellison's favorite book is. Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress. In your personal life, we will fight for your right to prefer any other book. We will even fight for your right to publish cartoons mocking our Bible. But, Mr. Ellison, America, not you, decides on what book its public servants take their oath.

Wrong. The American constitution is the decider, Mr Prager:

The Constitution specifies in Article VI, clause 3:

"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

Prager doesn't stop at that point, of course:

...these naive people do not appreciate that America will not change the attitude of a single American-hating Muslim by allowing Ellison to substitute the Koran for the Bible. In fact, the opposite is more likely: Ellison's doing so will embolden Islamic extremists and make new ones, as Islamists, rightly or wrongly, see the first sign of the realization of their greatest goal -- the Islamicization of America.

I'm sorry, but what planet do bigots like Prager live on? One guy wants be sworn in using the Koran, which he is legally entitled to do because of that pesky 'religious freedom' thing (and it would be blasphemous for him to substitute the Bible), but blowhards like that see that as an Islamic takeover of America? People like Prager, and there are far too many of them, (just check out the American right-wing bloggers who agree with him) are so absolutely flipping paranoid that one symbolic gesture such as this makes them scream at the top of their lungs that America is doomed! Doomed, I tell ya!. Do they have so little faith in their own nation that they think such a small thing could actually cause a revolution? Are they so small-minded that they actually believe that Christians are the only true patriots? Are they so offended by their own constitution, which they love when it comes to defending other issues like gun rights, that they think only parts of it are applicable to all Americans? Are they so weak that they fear the decision of one man (and there have been 4 presidents in US history who were not sworn in with a Bible either) that they actually think this is the beginning of the end of America? Just how insecure do you have to be to feel that this is a threat?

Prager owes Muslims, and in particular this elected congressperson, an apology.

See also: Taylor Marsh's commentary at The Huffington Post.

Write Your Own Caption

Bush and Germany's Merkel at the NATO summit...

Merkel: 'Grope me again you bastard and I'll have you arrested.'

US Policy Towards Kim Jong Il: Let's just annoy him

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration wants North Korea's attention, so like a scolding parent it's trying to make it tougher for that country's eccentric leader to buy iPods, plasma televisions and Segway electric scooters. The U.S. government's first-ever effort to use trade sanctions to personally aggravate a foreign president expressly targets items believed to be favored by Kim Jong Il or presented by him as gifts to the roughly 600 loyalist families who run the communist government.

Kim, who engineered a secret nuclear weapons program, has other options for obtaining the high-end consumer electronics and other items he wants.

But the list of proposed luxury sanctions, obtained by The Associated Press, aims to make Kim's swanky life harder: No more cognac, Rolex watches, cigarettes, artwork, expensive cars, Harley Davidson motorcycles or even personal watercraft, such as Jet Skis.

The new ban would extend even to musical instruments and sports equipment. The 5-foot-3 Kim is an enthusiastic basketball fan; then-Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright presented him with a ball signed by Michael Jordan during a rare diplomatic trip in 2000. Kim's former secretary, widely believed to be his new wife, studied piano at the Pyongyang University of Music and Dance.

link

Shorter White House: if Albright hadn't given Kim Jong-Il that basketball, he wouldn't have nukes now.

Who says Bush doesn't have a foreign policy?

Sadr's Bloc Boycotts Iraqi Government; Iraq/Iran Reach an Agreement

As he warned last week, Moqtada al-Sadr and his bloc of politicians have staged a boycott of the Iraqi government in a protest against al-Maliki's meeting in Jordan with Bush.

"We announce the suspension of our participation in government and parliament," said Nasar al-Rubaie, the leader of Sadr's parliamentary bloc. "We gave a promise last Friday that we will suspend our participation if the Prime Minister met with Bush and today [Wednesday] we are doing it as a Sadrist bloc."

In an earlier statement, the 30 lawmakers and five cabinet ministers loyal to Sadr said their action was necessary because the Amman summit constituted a "provocation to the feelings of the Iraqi people and a violation of their constitutional rights."

But Rubaie cautioned that their action did not mean the officials were pulling out of the government, which would all but guarantee the collapse of Iraq's unity government.

"The suspension does not mean our withdrawal from the political process," said Rubaie. He added the Sadr bloc would meet in coming days to discuss how long members would remain out of the government.

Meanwhile, Stephen Hadley is trying to backpeddle after his secret memo in which he expressed doubts about al-Maliki was published by the New York Times:

Contrary to the doubts expressed in his memo, however, Hadley emphasized to reporters that he was not criticizing Maliki, adding that he disagreed with the view in Iraq that Maliki is ineffectual.

"We think that this unity government is doing pretty well in a very difficult situation," he said. "Maliki has been impatient and has said that his government has not produced the results they seek. And he's got some ideas about how to enhance their capabilities to do so."

Who's been the impatient one, Hadley? How about pointing the finger right back at the White House. As for Hadley's revisionist history where he now claims he wasn't criticizing the PM, here's what he wrote about him on Nov 8th:

"His intentions seem good when he talks with Americans, and sensitive reporting suggests he is trying to stand up to the Shia hierarchy and force positive change,” the memo said of the Iraqi leader. “But the reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action.”
[...]
“Reports of nondelivery of services to Sunni areas, intervention by the prime minister’s office to stop military action against Shia targets and to encourage them against Sunni ones, removal of Iraq’s most effective commanders on a sectarian basis and efforts to ensure Shia majorities in all ministries — when combined with the escalation of Jaish al-Mahdi (JAM) killings — all suggest a campaign to consolidate Shia power in Baghdad.”

That sure looks like criticism to me. Why is it impossible to get the truth out of these Bush administration hacks? Even when their own words are placed right in front of their faces, they deny reality without even blinking.

Meanwhile, it looks like Dick Cheney had what I'm sure he'll consider to be fruitful talks with the Saudi royalty, convincing them to 'intervene' in Iraq if US troops withdraw. Considering the hate-on bin Laden has for his homeland, you have to wonder which neocon genius came up with that idea. Saudi Arabia's involvement would also threaten world oil prices:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Using money, weapons or its oil power, Saudi Arabia will intervene to prevent Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias from massacring Iraqi Sunni Muslims once the United States begins pulling out of Iraq, a security adviser to the Saudi government said on Wednesday.

Diplomats and analysts say Iraq's Sunni Arab neighbors, led by heavyweight Saudi Arabia, fear that the sectarian violence could spill into large-scale civil war between Shi'ites and Sunnis and set off a political earthquake far beyond Iraq.

Nawaf Obaid, writing in The Washington Post, said the Saudi leadership was preparing to revise its Iraq policy to deal with the aftermath of a possible U.S. pullout, and is considering options including flooding the oil market to crash prices and thus limit Iran's ability to finance Shi'ite militias in Iraq.

"To be sure, Saudi engagement in Iraq carries great risks -- it could spark a regional war. So be it: The consequences of inaction are far worse," Obaid said.

Wanna bet?

A Western diplomat based in Riyadh said Saudi Arabia was already funding Sunni tribes in Iraq.

"I don't doubt for a second that they do pump money to the tribes, that's the Saudi way of doing things. But if they sent in troops it would be a bloodbath," he said.

The sidebar to this, of course, is the Iranian threat and the refusal of the Bush administration to engage that country's president in negotiations, along with Talibani's recent cozying up to Ahmadinejad who has penned a new letter to Bush. (That news prompted CNN's biased Kyra Phillips to ask UN correspondent Richard Roth this morning, 'Who's going to print that?' in a very condescending tone to which Roth responded (looking rather surprised) that he doesn't know because he's in the broadcasting business.)

Saudi Arabia is worried about a new Iran imposing its political agenda on the region. We don't want Iran and its allies to have a free hand and free control," he said.

"Iran knows that it is vulnerable and that Saudi Arabia has the upper hand and maintains real weight and power."

What a mess.

Today, Iraq's president announced that an agreement has been reached with Iran:

Presidents Jalal Talabani of Iraq and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran held talks Wednesday hours before U.S. President George W. Bush was due to meet with the Iraqi prime minister in Jordan in talks aimed at finding a solution to Iraq's spiraling bloodshed.

Talabani gave no details on the security agreement with Iran, and Ahmadinejad made no mention of any deal at a joint press conference in Tehran.

"We discussed in the fields of security, economy, oil and industry. Our agreement was complete," Talabani told reporters. "This visit was 100 percent successful. Its result will appear soon."

It was not clear if Talabani's comments reflected an agreement by Tehran to try to rein in Shiite militias.
[...]
Talabani and Ahmadinejad attended a ceremony for the signing of two memorandums of understanding for cooperation in education and industry.

Ahmadinejad vowed that Iran "will stand by its Iraqi brothers," saying "no one can divide nations of Iran and Iraq."

That sounds ominous.

Bush is repeating his favourite talking points that he won't pull troops out of Iraq until the mission is finished (whatever 'the mission' is supposed to be now). It's time for him to get out of the way to allow the regional parties involved to come up with their own solutions. The more he, Dick, Rummy, Hadley and Condi try to micromanage this situation, the more divisive their ideas become and the less likely it is that there will be any satisfactory political outcome.

NYT Publishes Secret Hadley/Iraq Memo

The New York Times has obtained the text of a memo written on November 8th by Bush's National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley in which he raises doubts about Iraq's Prime Minister al-Maliki:

Perhaps because he is frustrated over his limited ability to command Iraqi forces against terrorists and insurgents, Maliki has been trying to show strength by standing up to the coalition. Hence the public spats with us over benchmarks and the Sadr City roadblocks.

Despite Maliki’s reassuring words, repeated reports from our commanders on the ground contributed to our concerns about Maliki’s government. Reports of nondelivery of services to Sunni areas, intervention by the prime minister’s office to stop military action against Shia targets and to encourage them against Sunni ones, removal of Iraq’s most effective commanders on a sectarian basis and efforts to ensure Shia majorities in all ministries — when combined with the escalation of Jaish al-Mahdi’s (JAM) [the Arabic name for the Mahdi Army] killings — all suggest a campaign to consolidate Shia power in Baghdad.

While there does seem to be an aggressive push to consolidate Shia power and influence, it is less clear whether Maliki is a witting participant. The information he receives is undoubtedly skewed by his small circle of Dawa advisers, coloring his actions and interpretation of reality. His intentions seem good when he talks with Americans, and sensitive reporting suggests he is trying to stand up to the Shia hierarchy and force positive change. But the reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action.

Well. This should certainly have some impact on Bush's upcoming meeting with al-Maliki in Jordan. Does that section I highlighted remind you of anyone?

Hadley then goes on to identify 'Steps Miliki Could Take' and 'What We Could do to Help Maliki' including:

¶Encourage Zal [Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador] to move into the background and let Maliki take more credit for positive developments. (We want Maliki to exert his authority — and demonstrate to Iraqis that he is a strong leader — by taking action against extremists, not by pushing back on the United States and the Coalition.);

What Hadley doesn't seem to get is that the vast majority of Iraqis no longer want US troops in their country and that al-Maliki's push back against America is actually expressing that will, but he's not being a good sockpuppet so the Bush administration wants to rein him in.

And, even though Bush has consistently said that the US will not talk to the Iranian government unless it stops enriching uranium, Hadley suggests:

Continue to pressure Iran and Syria to end their interference in Iraq, in part by hitting back at Iranian proxies in Iraq and by Secretary Rice holding an Iraq-plus-neighbors meeting in the region in early December;

That would obviously include Iran.

And this is why Cheney visited Saudi Arabia:

¶Step up our efforts to get Saudi Arabia to take a leadership role in supporting Iraq by using its influence to move Sunni populations in Iraq out of violence into politics, to cut off any public or private funding provided to the insurgents or death squads from the region and to lean on Syria to terminate its support for Baathists and insurgent leaders.

Hadley acknowledges that expecting al-Maliki to exert more power is troublesome and adds:

We must also be mindful of Maliki’s personal history as a figure in the Dawa Party — an underground conspiratorial movement — during Saddam’s rule. Maliki and those around him are naturally inclined to distrust new actors, and it may take strong assurances from the United States ultimately to convince him to expand his circle of advisers or take action against the interests of his own Shia coalition and for the benefit of Iraq as a whole.

They sure don't have much faith in him and the influence they'd hoped to exert obviously hasn't panned out.

Second, we need to provide Maliki with additional forces of some kind.

So much for troops withdrawals any time soon...

The rest of his memo involves some nice pipe dreams when it comes to shifting the political reality in Iraq to one that is 'non-sectarian' and no matter how much the US government tries to spend its way into making that reality change by following Hadley's recommendation that it fund moderate groups, it all seem much too little much, much too late. They knew al-Maliki was in trouble as soon as he was elected and that sectarian factions in the country have been at cross purposes for decades. It seems they're trying to fix the situation the same way they deal with US elections - offering goodies for the base while trying to appease the rest of the fence sitters with lofty promises.

Right-wing bloggers will no doubt claim 'treason' against the NYT for making this memo public on the eve of Bush's meeting with al-Maliki, however:

An administration official made a copy of the document available to a New York Times reporter seeking information on the administration’s policy review. The Times read and transcribed the memo.

A senior administration official discussed the memorandum in general terms after being told The New York Times was preparing an article on the subject. The official described the document as “essentially a trip report” and not a result of the administration’s review of its Iraq policy, which is still under way.

It was reported earlier this month that Bush had set up his own little Iraq policy group that is to report to him despite the fact that the official Iraq Study Group (Daddy Bush's men) is set to make recommendations about the future of Iraq soon. That way he can just cherry-pick what he likes without actually listening to reason. Anyone who expects otherwise is just fooling themselves.

US Soldiers Make an Iraqi Kid Run For Water

Sick, twisted, heartless bastards...

Via the BBC, March, 2006:

Things had been bad in Iraq throughout the period of UN sanctions: water shortages, power-cuts, inadequate hospitals, a collapsing transport system.

But it hasn't happened like that. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which ran the country under Paul Bremer, was almost ludicrously incompetent, wasting or misusing tens of millions of dollars.

Unknown amounts were stolen. In 2004 the CPA could not account for $9bn in Iraqi oil revenue.

Despite the investment that has undoubtedly taken place, virtually all basic services are in a worse state now than they were before the invasion.

There is less clean water, less sewage control, less gas, less petrol, less power. Baghdad now has an average of only 5.8 hours of electricity a day. At present Iraq is producing 1.8 million barrels of oil a day; just before the invasion the figure was 2.5 million barrels a day.

Much of this isn't the fault of the coalition: power, water and oil are particular targets for the insurgents. But the failure of the coalition to protect these supplies makes people angry.

And yet, these soldiers make this child run for a bottle of clean water while they sit back, laugh and videotape the humiliation ...

EU Countries Knew About Torture Flights

According to a BBC report, an investigation by the European parliament shows that 'many' EU countries knew that they were being used by the US to further the transport of so-called suspected terrorists via 'extraordinary rendition' ie. torture flights.

The report follows months of investigation by a special committee of MEPs led by an Italian, Claudio Fava.

"Many governments co-operated passively or actively (with the CIA)," said Mr Fava, quoted by AFP news agency.

He accused top EU officials including foreign policy chief Javier Solana of failing to give full details to MEPs.

The report echoed allegations made in June by the Council of Europe - Europe's leading human rights watchdog - that European states were complicit in illegal CIA operations as part of the US-led "war on terror".
[...]
The report says the US government had first informed EU member states in 2005 that it was using their territory to transfer terror suspects.

Over the course of three meetings with EU officials, "the Americans spoke in an explicit manner about the transfer system as a method in the fight against terrorism", Mr Fava told AFP.

The report speaks of at least 18 suspected CIA "extraordinary renditions" of terror suspects - the term used for transfers to third countries for interrogation.

They included the cases of a German, Khaled el-Masri - allegedly abducted in Macedonia and then detained in Afghanistan - and Egyptian former imam Abu Omar, allegedly kidnapped by CIA agents in Milan.

On Tuesday, a US court began to hear an appeal from Mr Masri after he lost an earlier lawsuit demanding damages and an apology from the US government.

Just like Maher Arar's lawsuit against the US government, Masri's will no doubt be dismissed over so-called 'national security concerns' which really means that the US government may never be held legally responsible, although Arar's lawyers are appealing the decision in his case.

That European countries willfully and knowingly participated in this monumental abuse of human rights shows just how far the callousness of Bush's policies extends. They should all be held to account.

Right-Wing Bloggers vs. the Associated Press

CSI:Bloggerville, the self-ordained forensics unit of the right-wing blogosphere, has been trying furiously to debunk the Associated Press' reporting of the story of 6 men who were horribly burned to death in Baghdad last week. And now that effort has made it to the pages of USA Today with the US military jumping in:

The Associated Press is standing by its report that six Sunni men were burned to death in Baghdad Friday by Shiites, even though U.S. military officials have accused the wire service of relying on a source who "is not who he claimed he was," an Iraqi police captain.

Military officials also say they cannot confirm that the incident took place and have asked AP to retract or correct the story, which was repeated by media around the world and cited as a grim example of Shiites taking revenge for a deadly bombing that killed more than 200 people a day before.

"The attempt to question the existence of the known police officer who spoke to the AP is frankly ludicrous and hints at a certain level of desperation to dispute or suppress the facts of the incident in question," AP International Editor John Daniszewski said in a statement e-mailed to On Deadline this afternoon.

He added that "we have conducted a thorough review of the sourcing and reporting involved and plan to move a more detailed report about the entire incident soon, with greater detail provided by multiple eye witnesses."

"The police captain cited in our story has long been known to the AP reporters," Daniszewski wrote.

"The AP stands by its story."

But a U.S. military spokesman has told the AP in a letter that "neither we nor Baghdad Police had any reports of such an incident ... and could find no one to corroborate the story."

"Unless you have a credible source to corroborate the story of the people being burned alive, we respectfully request that AP issue a retraction, or a correction at a minimum," Navy Lt. Michael Dean, the spokesman, wrote to the AP on Monday.
[...]
Questions raised by the U.S. military spokesmen have sparked considerable discussion in the blogosphere, particularly among conservative commentators. Michelle Malkin is among those who have raised questions about whether AP was led astray by an Iraqi correspondent. Curt at Flopping Aces has been among the most active in chronicling the accusations.

Malkin's little poll asking which news agency 'is the biggest terrorist propaganda tool' was indirectly responded to in the AP's updated story about the burning deaths (in which they quote more witnesses):

The AP reported on Sept. 26 that a Washington-based firm, the Lincoln Group, had won a two-year contract to monitor reporting on the Iraq conflict in English-language and Arabic media outlets.

That contract succeeded one held by another Washington firm, The Rendon Group. Controversy had arisen around the Lincoln Group in 2005 when it was disclosed that it was part of a U.S. military operation to pay Iraqi newspapers to run positive stories about U.S. military activities.

Ouch. So who's really spreading propaganda, Malkin?

The fact that the US military says it cannot confirm (or deny) that the incident happened does not mean that it didn't - unless you're a member of CSI: Bloggerville with a special hate-on for media agencies that report what you don't like.

Update: You'll find more about this insanity at The Huffington Post.

Bush at the NATO Summit: Pot. Kettle. Black.

US President George W Bush has berated Nato members reluctant to send troops to Afghan hotspots, demanding they must accept "difficult assignments".

Speaking just before a Nato meeting in Latvia, Mr Bush said members must provide the forces the alliance needs.

link

He's got some damn nerve. After pulling US troops out of Afghanistan to have them participate in the illegal, manufactured Iraq war (where, of course, he and Rumsfeld vastly misunderestimated the number of troops required resulting in this current clusterf*ck), the US military committment of troops in Afghanistan now totals a measly 11,600 and as of September, 2006, while US military spending in Iraq exceeded $379 billion, it had by contrast spent only $97 billion in Afghanistan during the past 5 years.

If Bush wants to lecture other countries about their military involvement, he should be taken out to the woodshed first so someone can give him a little lesson in reality and responsibility.