Whether the Bush administration, after years of vicious attacks on anyone who would dare to mention timetables for the U.S. disengagement in Iraq, is caving in to Maliki’s demands and is now itself discussing timetables, is debatable. But what is not debatable is the pains the administration is taking to avoid giving the impression that it is in fact discussing timetables.
Just examine the words and the language: a “general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals,” “goal dates for transition of responsibilities,” They even resurrected “aspirational goals.” (It must have taken a lot of inspirational neocons to come up with this latest cliché)
This language gets about as convoluted and, pardon the expression, as tortuous as the language Bush and his minions have used and continue to use to both justify and deny that the United States of America uses torture: “Enhanced interrogation techniques,” “alternative interrogation methods,” “coercive interrogation methods,” “fairly robust interrogation program,” and this best-selling one:
An act that “is equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.”
But, don’t worry, “We don’t torture.”
While we are on the subject of torture, it is “aspirational” to revisit President Bush’s statement of June 26, 2003, on the occasion of the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture (Remember, this was before the world saw the images of Abu Ghraib, and before we knew about “rendition,” waterboarding, etc.):
Statement by the President
United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture
Today, on the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, the United States declares its strong solidarity with torture victims across the world. Torture anywhere is an affront to human dignity everywhere. We are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law.
Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. 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. Beating, burning, rape, and electric shock are some of the grisly tools such regimes use to terrorize their own citizens. These despicable crimes cannot be tolerated by a world committed to justice.
Notorious human rights abusers, including, among others, Burma, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and Zimbabwe, have long sought to shield their abuses from the eyes of the world by staging elaborate deceptions and denying access to international human rights monitors. Until recently, Saddam Hussein used similar means to hide the crimes of his regime. With Iraq’s liberation, the world is only now learning the enormity of the dictator’s three decades of victimization of the Iraqi people. Across the country, evidence of Baathist atrocities is mounting, including scores of mass graves containing the remains of thousands of men, women, and children and torture chambers hidden inside palaces and ministries. The most compelling evidence of all lies in the stories told by torture survivors, who are recounting a vast array of sadistic acts perpetrated against the innocent. Their testimony reminds us of their great courage in outlasting one of history’s most brutal regimes, and it reminds us that similar cruelties are taking place behind the closed doors of other prison states.
The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment. I call on all nations to speak out against torture in all its forms and to make ending torture an essential part of their diplomacy. I further urge governments to join America and others in supporting torture victims’ treatment centers, contributing to the UN Fund for the Victims of Torture, and supporting the efforts of non-governmental organizations to end torture and assist its victims.
No people, no matter where they reside, should have to live in fear of their own government. Nowhere should the midnight knock foreshadow a nightmare of state-commissioned crime. The suffering of torture victims must end, and the United States calls on all governments to assume this great mission.
It’s good news, isn’t it, he pointedly notes, that our troops’ sacrifices have got the Iraqis to a point when their government might actually be about ready to take off the training wheels and ride off without us holding the handlebars? (NYT)
And whether they are ready are not — see this BBC article clarifying the quote on which Obama relied — isn’t it about as clear as it could possibly be that we can’t go on babysitting them indefinitely, or even very much longer, without severe strain to major muscle groups?
But while McCain temporizes about when, and maybe even whether, we should leave Iraq, Obama is being called out for ‘flip-flopping’ because he has said that his 16 month withdrawal date was only ever aspirational. At least he is committed to leaving.
Syndicated columnist Bob Novak, writing about the surprising number of conservatives who are backing Democrat Barack Obama rather than Republican John McCain for the presidency, captured their widespread sentiment when he quoted one "Obamacon" with impeccable GOP credentials: "The Republican Party is a dead rotting carcass with a few decrepit old leaders stumbling around like zombies in a horror version of ‘Weekend at Bernie,’ handcuffed to a corpse." These Obama supporters hold no illusions about Obama’s liberalism, but they are so angry at the GOP, Novak writes, that they seek a "therapeutic electoral bloodbath."… [I]n a two-party system, when one party screws up royally, the voters reward the other party.’
(OC Register; emphasis added)
It’s actually quite affirming that some conservatives have decided to rebel against what the Bush administration and its abettors and enablers and are prepared, in the best traditions of democracy, to throw the rascals out.’
Because ‘conservative’ sure doesn’t mean what it used to. It doesn’t actually even mean ‘conservative’ anymore.
In the United States there has been quite a bit of criticism of John McCain’s visit to Latin America for being ill-timed - although his partisans argue that the trip will shore up his foreign-policy credentials.
“Uribe is depositing a symbolic vote for the Republican candidate in the ballot box - a very risky card to play. … Despite the ambiguous efforts of Uribe’s government to imply that the visit doesn’t rule out a future visit by Barack Obama - that’s the message which has been sent. … the fact that we received a presidential candidate who doubles as a clone of the present occupant of the White House with such excessive honors, makes clear our position of inferiority - a position accepted with servility by Colombia’s Chief of State.”
Many Democrats have had reason to comment lately on the conventional wisdom that Democrats must always tack to the center to win an election in this country.
Count me among those who want to see more challenges to that conventional wisdom (which to me just means ‘last year’s assumptions’). While I understand the reasons why candidates do it, the fact is that eight years of neoconservatism has moved all the goal posts way to the right.
To repair the damage done by Bush and his gang of neocons, what’s needed isn’t a balancing bipartisan approach but immediate corrective action. It’s outmoded ‘conventional wisdom’ to believe that Democratic candidates always have to tack centerwards (meaning shift right) to prevail in a general election or to attract swing voters and independents. I don’t buy it.
What most Democrats I know want now is an entirely different approach. With the Republicans still mechanically spouting policies consistent with Bush-era neoconservatism, what’s needed to achieve balance again isn’t compromise action, but corrective action. What most Democrats I know want is a different choice: in our government’s approach to the economy, national security, civil liberties, health care, energy policy and the environment and on and on.
And back-room deals and trade-offs between our elected representatives just aren’t going to cut it. We want to see changes that will restore to us as a nation and as individuals what we lost during Bush’s failed regime.
Republican presumptive Presidential nominee Sen. John McCain is worried about Republican “Obamacons” who could openly or all-but-openly support rival Democratic Senator Barack Obama come November, columnist Robert Novak writes.
What’s a Republican with a reputation for being independent who wants to distance himself just enough from the Bush administration so he doesn’t lose his party base to do?
Novak writes:
What is an “Obamacon?” The phrase surfaced in January to describe British conservatives entranced by Barack Obama. On March 13 the American Spectator broadened the term to cover all “conservative supporters” of the Democratic presidential candidate. Their ranks, though growing, feature few famous people. But looming on the horizon are two big potential Obamacons: Colin Powell and Chuck Hagel.
Neither Powell, first-term secretary of state for George W. Bush, nor Hagel, retiring after two terms as a U.S. senator from Nebraska, has endorsed Obama. Hagel probably never will. Powell probably will enter Obama’s camp at a time of his own choosing. The best bet is that neither of the two, both of whom supported President Bush in 2000 and 2004, will back John McCain in 2008.
Powell, Hagel and lesser-known Obamacons harbor no animosity toward McCain. Nor do they show much affection for the rigidly liberal Obama. The Obamacon syndrome is based on hostility to Bush and his administration and on revulsion over today’s Republican Party. The danger for McCain is that desire for a therapeutic electoral bloodbath could get out of control.
This is what I have called for months now the Big Broom. There are many voters who may agree with McCain on some key issues and not be totally-comfortable with Obama. But come November — as they try to get a loan from a bank to fill up their cars with $8/gallon gas and find out they can’t get a loan since credit is tight and their home equity has evaporated — many of these voters may wish to take a Big Broom and totally sweep out the crew that has administered the financial mess.
At a time when consumer confidence is setting record lows, it could truly be “it’s the economy, stupid” and not the war and not offshore drilling and most assuredly not whether Karl Rove (who has apparently now emerged as America’s populist) thinks Obama looks like an arrogant country club member smoking a cigarette with a beautiful woman on his arm.
In the Republican Party, Big Broom politics would entail Republicans not voting or defecting to Obama so that the day after the election, as their party regroups after the defeat, Bushies are politely but assertively shown the door out of the room of party power — and new blood would take over in the wake of the therapeutic electoral bloodbath.
So they both said on Fox News yesterday morning. (Of course.)
They and the warmongering neocons of their ilk have said much the same thing before, of course: There will be military action undertaken against Iran. What is new is the immediacy, in terms of the specific timing of an attack on Iran, of their warmongering rhetoric.
I don’t know if either one is right, that is, that either the U.S. or Israel will bomb Iran — the U.S. if Obama wins (and, presumably, if McCain wins, too), Israel after the election (supposedly with the approval of the monolith known as “the Arab states”) — but what is clear is that they are both pushing for war and talking about it as if it were a foregone conclusion.
What is also clear, according to Krazy Kristol’s own admission, is that a McCain presidency would be Bush III (and worse). Here’s Steve Benen’s response: “As Bill Kristol sees it, if John McCain wins in November (or the White House believes McCain will win in November), Still-President Bush is content leaving a confrontation with Iran to the future. If Barack Obama wins, or appears poised to win, Bush may go ahead and force the issue… All of this is, of course, a friendly reminder that when it comes to sticking to the status quo, and offering more of the same on international relations, Bush is counting on John McCain delivering four more years just like the last eight.” Read the rest of this entry »
“The North American Democratic Party is poised to become a political miracle-maker. You’ll be tempted to think that the miracle would be elevating a Black (sorry, African-American is the politically correct term) to the presidency of the most powerful country in the world. Nope. I was referring instead to the miracle of causing another Republican to succeed the most ill-fated and unpopular administration in living memory. The ill-fated part is my own; but the unpopular part is a global opinion which is shared by the Yankee electorate . I don’t remember the exact numbers, but the popularity polls crown our dear George W. with the incredible achievement of being more detested than Richard Nixon himself during his period of even greater disgrace.”
He then points out that there are two main issues in the U.S. election, Iraq and the economy. On both he says McCain will get the better of Obama.
“While the Americans have realized that the war has been a fraud induced by powerful interests which led them to commit an injustice, I think over time they will become more inclined to giving the mandate for making for a dignified withdrawal to a man who has the credentials of a war hero, rather than to someone who simply opposed the invasion. They need someone to put an end the conflict and that, furthermore, will allow them to think that victory was achieved.”
“What most people know but prefer to overlook is that it wasn’t one man alone who widened the gap between the two sides of the Atlantic, and that the bogeyman Bush often either approved or facilitated Europe’s own decisions.” Read the rest of this entry »
For those keeping score — and for Hillary Dems thinking of voting for McCain or enabling a McCain victory by not voting at all —The New York Times has a handy tally of points on which McCain and Bush agree and disagree. Before it’s all over, we’re all going to need one. Dana Milbank says it best: ‘Put Your Right Wing In, Take Your Left Wing Out —If John McCain keeps dancing like this, he’s liable to break a hip’.
Global op-ed and editorial reaction to major events in the United States usually takes a day or two - as is the case of Scott McClellan’s explosive look inside the Bush White House and it’s decision-making process.
“IT SEEMS that the outside world is less surprised than the White House about former Bush aide Scott McClellan’s coming clean, after suffering what appears to have been an uneasy conscience. … The former White House Spokesman’s book has greatly fueled suspicions shared by much of the world. … However strongly Bush & Co react, McClellan is likely to have the last laugh, not least because the increasing controversy will translate into more sales for his book. Since the international press is already out with hammer and tong for another go at the Bush lobby, he will come out the stronger.”
EDITORIAL
May 30, 2008
United Arab Emirates - Khaleej Times Original Article - English
IT SEEMS that the outside world is less surprised than the White House about former Bush aide Scott McClellan’s coming clean, after suffering what appears to have been an uneasy conscience. Though a good number of neocon-insiders have abandoned Bush’s ship of state over the long years of the war on terror, McClellan is unique. The former White House Spokesman’s book has greatly fueled suspicions shared by much of the world. From one who has been so close to the president since his days as the governor of Texas, charges that the Bush team deliberately formulated a false propaganda campaign to unleash an unjust war responsible for unprecedented misery is nothing short of damning.
Yet the White House has still has much to play with in its own defense. The simplest counter-argument is McClellan’s sudden change of heart - pointing to his often stubborn defense of Bush’s policies when he was drumming the official line. Even those who have given up the ill-fated neoconservative campaign have understandably sided with the White House, questioning McClellan’s past unflinching support and failure to come out into the open earlier.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing foreign pres coverage of the controversy surrounding Scott McClelland and his new book.
When and if Barack Obama takes the oath of office as President of the United States, who most will he owe that high privilege to?
According to Alexandre Adler, one of France’s leading historians, journalists - and according to many - a neocon, that person would be George W. Bush. Read the rest of this entry »
MSNBC Hardball Host Chris Matthews dealt with President George Bush’s charge that Senator Barack Obama would appease terrorists on his show and obliterated Los Angeles conservative radio talk show host Kevin James who was on the show to give the Barack-is-an-appeaser side of it.
James’ problem: he had no idea what actual appeasement is. Note how he tries to get around the issue by talking loud and changing the subject. The problem: even though he takes a lot of heat from some partisans (particularly Democratic progressives), Chris Matthews was an excellent reporter and op-ed column writer (he had an excellent record for political prognostication) before he got on the air.
It’s a classic case of radio talk show host polemics and volume versus a reporter who’s trying to get a substantive answer from an interview subject and insisting that his follow up question be answered. You can see Matthews’ combination of amazement, absolute dismay and seeming contempt for James’ (a) attempts not to answer the question and (b) ignorance about the question he asked him even thought he is “dittoing” President Bush. (Listen closely as Matthews makes his own historical error in a side comment about the Cole…but he’s not the one charging a candidate with something based on inaccuracies).
This is a classic and is Matthews as professional reporter at his best (be sure to cover the eyes and ears of small children):
“Bush is the delinquent foreign-policy maestro of an otherwise great country. He has failed to deal honestly and rationally with the realities of the region, preferring wishful thinking and simplistic black-and-white threats to the hard work and nuanced sensibilities that are needed to grapple with the problems, challenges and opportunities of the Arab-Asian region. His desperate, last minute, pull-the-rabbit-out-of-the-hat attempt to achieve Palestinian-Israeli peace at Annapolis was clearly insincere - because he didn’t invest the required political capital to get it done, and lacks the intellectual clarity and moral gumption to make it happen. He hoped to ride a runaway horse to the finish line and ended up in a horror house of mirrors. His peace partners have proved illusory, his necessary impartiality is nonexistent, and his sense of how Palestine and Israel fit into the wider picture in the Middle East is totally absent. ” Read the rest of this entry »
May 6th, 2008 by MICHAEL STICKINGS, Assistant Editor
Everything published in and by The Weekly Standard about the Democratic presidential race seems to contain an ulterior motive or two — and that goes for Krazy Kristol and his NYT columns, too — but sometimes, those times being rare, it manages to hit on the truth whether it intended to or not.
Case in point: Noemie Emery’s “An Exceedingly Strange New Respect — Hillary Clinton makes friends in some surprising precincts,” published in the May 12 issue and available online (h/t: Chris Orr).
I have not been alone in pointing out that over the course of the race — but especially since she decided to throw “the kitchen sink” at Obama, which is to say, since the seeming inevitability of her nomination was destroyed) — Hillary has morphed into a Republican. As I put it last month, she has been “presenting herself as the red-blooded Heartland American running against a supposedly out-of-touch coastal elitist. She’s been talking up guns and god, swilling beer and knocking back shots, and pandering to the very people she advised her husband to screw.” A high-profile endorsement from the propagandistic rag of one of the key figures of the vast right-wing conspiracy, Dick Scaife, only proves the point. (Even more so because the Clinton campaign welcomed and made much of the endorsement.) Read the rest of this entry »
While at WORLDMEETS.US, we have seen a good deal of support for John McCain in the Portuguese-speaking countries ofBrazil and Portugal, chiefly due to McCain’s promise to include Brazil in the G8 and his relatively liberal trade policies, this op-ed from Portugal’s Jornal de Negicios is decidedly concerned about what might happen under a McCain presidency.
After examining some of the specifics of McCain’s foreign policy plans, including his plans to create a “League of Democracies,” “expand NATO to include all democratic states,” exclude Russia from the G-8 and include Brazil and India, João Carlos Barradas writes for Jornal de Negocios:
“McCain’s plans are frightening in their incoherence, total lack of realism and underestimation of economic and financial constraints. … Even before Beijing or Moscow put the heat on the eventual Republican president, the apprehension of allies in Berlin, Tokyo and Riyadh would be such that either McCain will have to change course or he will condemn the United States to a proactive interventionism capable of bringing even greater misfortune.
After six years at Guantanamo Bay prison, the only journalist yet to be incarcerated there, Sami Al-Hadj, was released last week. The case of Mr. Al-Hadj, who was a cameraman for Al-Jazeera, has sparked renewed outrage around the world.
It’s not easy reading for an American, but a good sampling of the emotion in the Arab world over the case can be found in this article from Algeria’s French-language Le Quotidien d’Oran.
“The United States is indeed a democracy: Within its own borders, the rule of law is enshrined. But beyond its walls, only the law of the jungle prevails. Read the rest of this entry »
I do think I can speak for most of my fellow right-wingers when I say this: We once looked forward with unambivalent glee to the fall of the house of Clinton. Many of us still do. But we also see the liberal media failing to give Hillary Clinton the respect she deserves. So, since we conservatives believe in giving credit where credit is due, it falls to us to praise Hillary.
The fact is Hillary Clinton has turned out to be an impressive candidate.
*****
She is, of course, still behind in the race, and Obama will most likely be the nominee. His team has run the better campaign. In particular, it realized how important the caucus states could be: Obama’s delegate lead depends on his caucus victories.
But Hillary may well be the better candidate…
Riiiiiiiiiiight.
I’m sure he cares deeply about Hillary. (Because, of course, he had nothing to do with destroying Hillarycare way back when.) I’m sure he lavishes such praise on her sincerely and without any ulterior motives whatsoever. I’m sure his view that she’s “the better candidate” reflects thoughtful political analysis rather than extreme partisanship. I’m sure he really wants McCain, upon whom he has long had a serious crush (the krazy neocon hegemonist supporting the crazy warmonger and neo-Cold Warrior), to go up against “the better candidate” in November. And I’m sure his regurgitation of Hillaryland spin (Hillary could be ahead in the popular vote, if you don’t count Michigan and Florida and you twist the caucus results) is just a coincidence.
(Quite the convenient, partisan flip-flopper he is: Back in 2000, he argued against popular-vote-based democracy — you know, when Gore won the popular vote.) Read the rest of this entry »
“The old adage that “the first casualty of war is truth” is one to which the Pentagon has stuck to with unheard of will, strength, and consistency. Thanks to the Benedictine work a journalist from The New York Times - and there is no better word to describe it- we now know that the U.S. executive has applied itself to building a propaganda machine so powerful, that it highlights the disdain that Bush and company feed on with respect Read the rest of this entry »
“Bush sees the world in terms of good and evil, and he considers that only a united front encompassing all 2.2 billion Judeo-Christians will be able to resist Islam. Recent decades have seen increasing religious tension and the spread of theocracies, which now encompass almost all Arab countries.” Read the rest of this entry »
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