"What the Iranian president has shown us today is that he is clearly outside the international consensus, he is clearly outside international norms and international legitimacy, and in so doing he has shown the Iranian government for what it is -- a rogue regime opposed to peace and stability and a threat to all its neighboring countries,"
Mark Regev, spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry
Source
Hamas wins 73% of vote in Nablus local elections Source
"If the Hamas was ever to become a dominant force in Palestinian politics, that would be the end of the peace process,"
Mark Regev, spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry
Source
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
"How undiplomatic."
"And I just want to return to the point that I made earlier. In 1989, in 1990 and 1991 when I was lucky enough to be the Soviet specialist at the end of the Cold War. Doesn't really kind of get better than that. (Laughter.) I really looked back and I thought, what we were really doing was harvesting those good decisions that had been taken back in the '40s. And we were, in effect, harvesting good decisions that frankly Ronald Reagan had made in 1982 and '83 and '84 when he held fast and essentially said that the Soviet Union was an artifact of history that was going to go away. And I remember people saying, "How undiplomatic. My goodness. How could you say that about a great power like the Soviet Union. But you know, it was speaking the truth."....
...."But there are so many events in history that one day seemed impossible and now we look back on them as inevitable. And they weren't inevitable. They came about because the United States of America married power and principle together, because the United States understood that its values and its interests were inextricably linked and because the United States was willing to speak the truth, that men and women wherever they are, whoever they are, are endowed by their creator to have these rights"....
Secretary Condoleezza Rice
The Heritage Foundation
Washington, DC
December 13, 2005
Source
Monday, December 12, 2005
Polls and Elections in Iraq.
What do Iraqis think?
An interesting item in the poll is the "Q17 - Which structure should Iraq have in future?". The Constitution that was passed calls for the Federal Iraq, yet the poll says that 70% would like "One unified Iraq with central government in Baghdad" as oppose to 17.6% that call for "A group of regional states with their own regional governments and a federal government in Baghdad".
National Survey of Iraq, Nov 2005
Thursday, December 01, 2005
History is repeating itself?
Hamas started by Israelis to fight Yaser Arafat, Afghanistan mujahendines and Al Queida were trained by the US to fight the Soviets. When they turn their guns against the former masters though they become know as Islamic Radicals. I wonder where this folly ends up!
Saturday, November 26, 2005
"Special Report"
There are exceptions; but all too often journalism in the west is not much more than propaganda pieces where the goverment thesis is advanced not by facts, rather one sided characterisation and framing of "the other side" as unreasonable, and dishonarable. Case and point is the Gaurdian's Special report on Iran:
As negotiators, Iranians have a reputation for being both skilful and infuriating. They have certainly lived up to that in the three years since their nuclear ambitions became the focus of intense diplomatic attention, drawing in, beside the International Atomic Energy Authority, the EU troika of Britain, France and Germany, with the US warning and fulminating and trying to set terms from a distance.
One tactic that has reduced the best of Europe's diplomats almost to tears is the habit of suddenly discounting concessions which Iran had sought long and hard by announcing, once they have been reluctantly granted, that these concern minor issues of no particular importance to them either way. It is as if you can never build up any bank balance of obligation on the Iranian side. Another has been to violate the conditions under which talks are taking place, and then, when the other side not surprisingly breaks off discussions, to proclaim readiness, even eagerness, to start them again, but without mentioning the original agreed conditions. Yet another has been to obscure the difference between Iran's obligations under the IAEA regime and the agreements underwhich it is conducting talks with the EU. And yet another has been to produce apparent evidence that nuclear "sovereignty" is an issue of such popular importance in Iran as to limit the Iranian government's room for manoeuvre in international negotiations.
It seems this last card was the Iranian choice yesterday, when the parliament in Tehran voted by an overwhelming majority for a bill which would ban intrusive inspections by the IAEA if Iran is referred to the UN security council for its alleged nuclear misbehaviour. The vote was presumably not unrelated to the fact that the board of the IAEA is meeting in Vienna later this week to consider just such a referral, although many already expected it to postpone the decision, perhaps in the context of commendingnew Russian proposals as a basis for discussion. The Majlis tends to do what it is told or expected to do in foreign affairs, especially since the recent consolidation of the right within Iranian political institutions. In truth the vote does not mean much anyway, since Iran has never passed a law agreeing to such inspections, preferring to proceed on a more ambiguous basis, and no doubt there are ways, if it wishes, to preserve that ambiguity whatever the Majlis has supposedly decided.
The coverage of the issue has been so one sided that the Iranian government had to buy a full page advertisement in the New York Times (see full text here) to explain its version of the story. Take for example:
One tactic that has reduced the best of Europe's diplomats almost to tears is the habit of suddenly discounting concessions which Iran had sought long and hard by announcing, once they have been reluctantly granted, that these concern minor issues of no particular importance to them either way.
On what basis does the author make these allegations? What has the Best of Europe's diplomats reluctantly granted the Iranian side? The nature of these propaganda pieces are all too evident when contrasted with the detailed position of the Iranian goverment in An Unnecessary Crisis - Setting the Record Straight About Iran's Nuclear Program piece in the New York time.
The article's characterization of the Iranian Majlis (Parliament):
The Majlis tends to do what it is told or expected to do in foreign affairs, especially since the recent consolidation of the right within Iranian political institutions.
Reading the Guardian article, it appears to me the "do what it is told or expected to do in foreign affairs" is an better characterizations of the Guardian article as oppose to a Iranian parliment. It is truly sad when journalism becomes indistinguishable from government propaganda and and a citizen of western democracy has to get its facts from advertisement piece by a foreign government.
As negotiators, Iranians have a reputation for being both skilful and infuriating. They have certainly lived up to that in the three years since their nuclear ambitions became the focus of intense diplomatic attention, drawing in, beside the International Atomic Energy Authority, the EU troika of Britain, France and Germany, with the US warning and fulminating and trying to set terms from a distance.
One tactic that has reduced the best of Europe's diplomats almost to tears is the habit of suddenly discounting concessions which Iran had sought long and hard by announcing, once they have been reluctantly granted, that these concern minor issues of no particular importance to them either way. It is as if you can never build up any bank balance of obligation on the Iranian side. Another has been to violate the conditions under which talks are taking place, and then, when the other side not surprisingly breaks off discussions, to proclaim readiness, even eagerness, to start them again, but without mentioning the original agreed conditions. Yet another has been to obscure the difference between Iran's obligations under the IAEA regime and the agreements underwhich it is conducting talks with the EU. And yet another has been to produce apparent evidence that nuclear "sovereignty" is an issue of such popular importance in Iran as to limit the Iranian government's room for manoeuvre in international negotiations.
It seems this last card was the Iranian choice yesterday, when the parliament in Tehran voted by an overwhelming majority for a bill which would ban intrusive inspections by the IAEA if Iran is referred to the UN security council for its alleged nuclear misbehaviour. The vote was presumably not unrelated to the fact that the board of the IAEA is meeting in Vienna later this week to consider just such a referral, although many already expected it to postpone the decision, perhaps in the context of commendingnew Russian proposals as a basis for discussion. The Majlis tends to do what it is told or expected to do in foreign affairs, especially since the recent consolidation of the right within Iranian political institutions. In truth the vote does not mean much anyway, since Iran has never passed a law agreeing to such inspections, preferring to proceed on a more ambiguous basis, and no doubt there are ways, if it wishes, to preserve that ambiguity whatever the Majlis has supposedly decided.
The coverage of the issue has been so one sided that the Iranian government had to buy a full page advertisement in the New York Times (see full text here) to explain its version of the story. Take for example:
One tactic that has reduced the best of Europe's diplomats almost to tears is the habit of suddenly discounting concessions which Iran had sought long and hard by announcing, once they have been reluctantly granted, that these concern minor issues of no particular importance to them either way.
On what basis does the author make these allegations? What has the Best of Europe's diplomats reluctantly granted the Iranian side? The nature of these propaganda pieces are all too evident when contrasted with the detailed position of the Iranian goverment in An Unnecessary Crisis - Setting the Record Straight About Iran's Nuclear Program piece in the New York time.
The article's characterization of the Iranian Majlis (Parliament):
The Majlis tends to do what it is told or expected to do in foreign affairs, especially since the recent consolidation of the right within Iranian political institutions.
Reading the Guardian article, it appears to me the "do what it is told or expected to do in foreign affairs" is an better characterizations of the Guardian article as oppose to a Iranian parliment. It is truly sad when journalism becomes indistinguishable from government propaganda and and a citizen of western democracy has to get its facts from advertisement piece by a foreign government.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Virtual reality of the occupation.
The New Iraq Strategy or the Old Saddam?
Why US presence in Iraq is doomed.....It simply isn't based on reality, does he think people would forget the use of chemical weapons against their city?
"Once you take a city, you've got to go through it slowly and clear
it," says Capt. William Grube, commander of Fox Company, of the 2nd
Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, whose unit lives in and helps patrol
the city. He says previous operations in Anbar Province, where US and
Iraqi forces attacked and then withdrew, were simply "playing
whack-a-mole."
"At some point, you need to take it, and sit there, and hold it for
real," says Captain Grube, from Emmaus, Pa. In Fallujah, "the longer
we have the place stable, the more chance there is to undermine
support for insurgents."
"When you look at the near term, of course it is going to be
negative," says Grube, about Fallujan views of how badly damaged their
city was by the offensive. So he takes the long view - one that many
Iraqis remain uncertain about.
"I don't think they will wake up one day and say, 'I'm all for
transparency and the rights of man,'" says Grube. "We have to show by
example that you can be powerful, but not a brutal conqueror."
Source
Why US presence in Iraq is doomed.....It simply isn't based on reality, does he think people would forget the use of chemical weapons against their city?
"Once you take a city, you've got to go through it slowly and clear
it," says Capt. William Grube, commander of Fox Company, of the 2nd
Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, whose unit lives in and helps patrol
the city. He says previous operations in Anbar Province, where US and
Iraqi forces attacked and then withdrew, were simply "playing
whack-a-mole."
"At some point, you need to take it, and sit there, and hold it for
real," says Captain Grube, from Emmaus, Pa. In Fallujah, "the longer
we have the place stable, the more chance there is to undermine
support for insurgents."
"When you look at the near term, of course it is going to be
negative," says Grube, about Fallujan views of how badly damaged their
city was by the offensive. So he takes the long view - one that many
Iraqis remain uncertain about.
"I don't think they will wake up one day and say, 'I'm all for
transparency and the rights of man,'" says Grube. "We have to show by
example that you can be powerful, but not a brutal conqueror."
Source
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
US vs Bush Frame!
The headline reads: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4440664.stmUS used white phosphorus in Iraq
. Notice the frame in the title.
When Iraqi Army used Chemical weapons against Kurdish villages it was
attributed to Saddam. We saw headlines such as ....Saddam is using
WMD against its own people. Why isn't the use of Chemical weapons in
Iraq attributed to Bush and Blair as oppose to "US" or "Britain"
troops?
. Notice the frame in the title.
When Iraqi Army used Chemical weapons against Kurdish villages it was
attributed to Saddam. We saw headlines such as ....Saddam is using
WMD against its own people. Why isn't the use of Chemical weapons in
Iraq attributed to Bush and Blair as oppose to "US" or "Britain"
troops?
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
When all else fails blame Iranians!
Britain accuses Iran of running training camps for bombers
The article says:
The account of the alleged Iranian involvement made by defence and diplomatic sources in Iraq yesterday was extraordinarily detailed.....
This story is rather interesting
There are parallel of this "detailed" allegation to the "45 minutes" claim of the British "defence and diplomatic sources" How is this any different? Where is the proof? If there are such evidence, wouldn't the British government presents the evidence to UN?
There are more... In the British view you see the colonialism mind set at work. It is as if the Iraqis (that have been at war in one form or another since 1980) can't figure out how to make a bomb and need Iranians to tell them about infra-red triggers. The "colonizer are superior to those of the colonized", the irony is that the British army was training Iraqis during the 80s, why is it that they don't expect them to have learned a thing or two from the years of British training?
In the "Radio Free Europe" Article Iran: Experts Say Infrared Bombs Used By Iraqi Insurgents Can't Be Homemade It says:
Jones [ security policy adviser to NATO in London] stressed that another significant feature -- also far beyond the insurgents' production capability -- is the infrared "trip-wire."
"It's very much the same concept that you have of alarms," Jones said. "An infrared beam goes between two points in a museum, and if that is interrupted, then an alarm goes off."
The alleged infra-red triggers are suppose to be the same as the ones that are used in the museums. Could they be the ones that were taken from the Iraq national museum as Donnald Rusmfeld was saying: "Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things," Rumsfeld said . . . Looting, he added, was not uncommon for countries that experience significant social upheaval. "Stuff happens,"
What is a deception without national security claim?
Godfrey [the U.K. Armed Forces Program at the Royal United Services institute] added that the intelligence services have also gathered a lot of evidence from the attacks on British troops. He said he doubts, however, whether -- because of its nature -- the intelligence services would reveal this kind of evidence to the public.
What are they hiding the evidence from? The insurgents that planted the bomb?
The article says:
The account of the alleged Iranian involvement made by defence and diplomatic sources in Iraq yesterday was extraordinarily detailed.....
This story is rather interesting
There are parallel of this "detailed" allegation to the "45 minutes" claim of the British "defence and diplomatic sources" How is this any different? Where is the proof? If there are such evidence, wouldn't the British government presents the evidence to UN?
There are more... In the British view you see the colonialism mind set at work. It is as if the Iraqis (that have been at war in one form or another since 1980) can't figure out how to make a bomb and need Iranians to tell them about infra-red triggers. The "colonizer are superior to those of the colonized", the irony is that the British army was training Iraqis during the 80s, why is it that they don't expect them to have learned a thing or two from the years of British training?
In the "Radio Free Europe" Article Iran: Experts Say Infrared Bombs Used By Iraqi Insurgents Can't Be Homemade It says:
Jones [ security policy adviser to NATO in London] stressed that another significant feature -- also far beyond the insurgents' production capability -- is the infrared "trip-wire."
"It's very much the same concept that you have of alarms," Jones said. "An infrared beam goes between two points in a museum, and if that is interrupted, then an alarm goes off."
The alleged infra-red triggers are suppose to be the same as the ones that are used in the museums. Could they be the ones that were taken from the Iraq national museum as Donnald Rusmfeld was saying: "Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things," Rumsfeld said . . . Looting, he added, was not uncommon for countries that experience significant social upheaval. "Stuff happens,"
What is a deception without national security claim?
Godfrey [the U.K. Armed Forces Program at the Royal United Services institute] added that the intelligence services have also gathered a lot of evidence from the attacks on British troops. He said he doubts, however, whether -- because of its nature -- the intelligence services would reveal this kind of evidence to the public.
What are they hiding the evidence from? The insurgents that planted the bomb?
Friday, September 30, 2005
....I mean, they can't win a battle...
THe Defense Department Frame
Source
The Iraqi Frame
Technically, it’s the summers end… But realistically, we have at least another month of stifling heat ahead of us. It’s almost mid-September and the weather is still hot and dry in Baghdad. There are a few precious hours in the very early morning when the sun seems almost kind. If you wake early enough, you can catch a solid hour of light breezes and a certain summer coolness.
The electrical situation deteriorated this summer in Baghdad. We’ve gone from a solid 8 – 10 hours daily to around six. During the winter, we have generators in the area providing electricity when it goes off. In the summer, however, with the heat and the heavy electrical load from air-conditioners AND the fuel shortage, many generators have to be turned off for most of the day.
We’re also having water difficulties, though people have grown accustomed to that. You can tell first thing in the morning that the water is cut off. I woke up this morning and knew it even before I had gotten out of bed. The house just sounds… dry. You strain your ears for the familiar house sounds and they aren’t there- there’s no drip-drip-drip from the faucet in the bathroom down the hall. There’s no sound of dishes being washed in the kitchen downstairs. There’s no sound of a toilet being flushed, and certainly no sound of a shower. The house is dry.
Girl Blogger from Baghdad
Two years after the war and there is not enough water and electricity and US Defense Secretery says " they can't win a battle, they can't win a war out in the field". Does he think he is winning?
Q: A question for General Casey. You opened up and said the enemy is attacking the will of the Iraqi people and attacking the will of the American people. They are failing in Iraq. Are you suggesting that the enemy, with these spectacular attacks, is somehow successfully chipping away at the will of the American people?
GEN. CASEY: What do you think?
Q: It's not my question to answer – (laughter)
GEN. CASEY: It is your question. But look, you guys read the polls just like I do. And this is a terror campaign, and they are trying to create the impression that we and the Iraqis cannot succeed in Iraq. And what do you think? Is it having an impression back here at home, the levels of violence? I think it is.
SEC. RUMSFELD: There's no question but what the general says is correct, that they have a media committee, multiple media committees, the terrorists do. They know what they're doing. They're focusing on public opinion in the United States. They're trying to do things that are dramatic and affect that. And they're looking for allies and ways that they can get the echo chamber going. They work closely with Middle East networks and arrange to have cooperative arrangements with them.
No, I mean, they can't win a battle, they can't win a war out in the field. The only place they can win is in a test of wills, if people say the cost is too high and the time is too long.
Source
The Iraqi Frame
Technically, it’s the summers end… But realistically, we have at least another month of stifling heat ahead of us. It’s almost mid-September and the weather is still hot and dry in Baghdad. There are a few precious hours in the very early morning when the sun seems almost kind. If you wake early enough, you can catch a solid hour of light breezes and a certain summer coolness.
The electrical situation deteriorated this summer in Baghdad. We’ve gone from a solid 8 – 10 hours daily to around six. During the winter, we have generators in the area providing electricity when it goes off. In the summer, however, with the heat and the heavy electrical load from air-conditioners AND the fuel shortage, many generators have to be turned off for most of the day.
We’re also having water difficulties, though people have grown accustomed to that. You can tell first thing in the morning that the water is cut off. I woke up this morning and knew it even before I had gotten out of bed. The house just sounds… dry. You strain your ears for the familiar house sounds and they aren’t there- there’s no drip-drip-drip from the faucet in the bathroom down the hall. There’s no sound of dishes being washed in the kitchen downstairs. There’s no sound of a toilet being flushed, and certainly no sound of a shower. The house is dry.
Girl Blogger from Baghdad
Two years after the war and there is not enough water and electricity and US Defense Secretery says " they can't win a battle, they can't win a war out in the field". Does he think he is winning?
Monday, September 26, 2005
It is getting wrost...
So the Basra police sees two men acting suspicious, unlike the rest of Iraq, they do their job and arrest them, later finding that they are connected to the British forces. So what does the Basra police get for doing their job?
Britain will scrap and replace police force in Basra
When you look back at events of last two years it seems that incompetence and corruption has been rewarded and people doing their job have been penalized.
Britain will scrap and replace police force in Basra
When you look back at events of last two years it seems that incompetence and corruption has been rewarded and people doing their job have been penalized.
What was the lesson?
Q: Earlier today you said the President was thinking of suggesting trigger power for the military to take over in the most severe catastrophe. My question is, would he bypass our constitutional civilian rule over the military to get that kind of authority?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, there are some laws that are already in place. You have the Insurrection Act, which was originally passed I think back in 1861. The President had authorities before that to quell rebellions or restore law and order if needed. But that was primarily -- the purpose of that act was really aimed at what I just said, quelling rebellions or restoring law and order. What we saw with Hurricane Katrina was a category five hurricane coming up the Gulf Coast. I think it hit as a category four. But this was a major, catastrophic event, and that's what the President is talking about, a situation like Hurricane Katrina. Is there a trigger needed, an automatic trigger for something like a hurricane five --
Q Wouldn't that be dangerous? After all, there is a --
MR. McCLELLAN: -- for something like a --
Q -- precedent, isn't there?
MR. McCLELLAN: Let me -- that's why I'm trying to go through this to talk to you about his views and his thinking on this because it is one of the important lessons learned of Hurricane Katrina. And the President is talking about what do we do in the event of a major, catastrophic event when we need to quickly deploy large amounts of resources and assets to help stabilize the situation. That's what he's talking about.
The military is the one organization that has the capability to quickly deploy large amounts of resources and assets to help stabilize a situation in the event of a major catastrophe.
Q But why bypass civilian control? You have instant communications, you can call the President.
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, we saw some of the problems from Hurricane Katrina. And this is one of the lessons --
Q Why? What --
MR. McCLELLAN: -- this is one of the lessons learned when you have a situation where state and local first responders are doing everything they can to help. But they're also victims. And to a large extent, they are overwhelmed. And so the question becomes, in a situation like that, how do you immediately or quickly establish some stability to help get people the help they need.
Q But can't you assume, then, that the President would know immediately if there was a severe catastrophe in the country?
MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry, what?
Q I said, wouldn't we assume that the President would know immediately that there was something terribly catastrophic?
MR. McCLELLAN: And that's why we need to look at this issue, because right now, the way things are set up, you have the Department of Homeland Security, which is from the federal government standpoint where you have a number of agencies under its umbrella that help assist the first responders. But it's primarily a state and local responsibility -- the initial response efforts, with the full support of the federal government.
And we saw with Hurricane Rita that there was very good coordination going on at all levels of government. And the response -- or the reports that the President was receiving that the response efforts were going well to get people the help that they needed and to save lives.
With Hurricane Katrina, you had a unprecedented natural disaster, one of a size and magnitude like we haven't seen before. It covered a very large area. And the President wants to make sure that we learn the lessons from Hurricane Katrina, and that means at all levels of government. And one of the lessons is, in a situation like this, do you need an organization like the military to come in and quickly stabilize the situation. They're the one organization that can do that, and that's what he wants Congress to consider.
Q They couldn't even reach the President during Katrina.
MR. McCLELLAN: That's false. That is absolutely false.
Source
The cost of cleaning up after the damage caused by the broken levees (which was probably avoidable) is going to be much more than if the goverment had spend the money to keep the levees repaired and in working condition. The lesson is not to make sure other cities infrastructures are in good shape, rather the lesson is to change the rules on how quickly the millitary can get involve in the catastrophy. It looks as if the goverment trives on the catastrophies and is not interested in avoidng them in the first place.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Unbelievable
I can understand the delay and overall burrecratic incompetence of the federal goverment to deliver aid to the victim of the disaster. But this is just beyond belief....
Suburb Ok'd Decision To Block New Orleans Evacuees
The City Council in Gretna Louisiana has passed a resolution supporting a move by the police chief to seal off a bridge that could have been used by thousands of people in New Orleans to evacuate. Gretna is a largely white town while the vast majority of the evacuees in New Orleans were African-American. The town's mayor Ronnie Harris said "This wasn't just one man's decision. The whole community backs it." Hundreds of men, women and children were turned away as they tried to cross the bridge over the Mississippi River. There were reports that officers fired gunshots over the heads of some people trying to cross the bridge. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin criticized the town's move to close off the bridge. He said "We allowed people to cross ... because they were dying in the convention center. We made a decision to protect people.... They made a decision to protect property."
Source
and From LA Times
Suburb Ok'd Decision To Block New Orleans Evacuees
The City Council in Gretna Louisiana has passed a resolution supporting a move by the police chief to seal off a bridge that could have been used by thousands of people in New Orleans to evacuate. Gretna is a largely white town while the vast majority of the evacuees in New Orleans were African-American. The town's mayor Ronnie Harris said "This wasn't just one man's decision. The whole community backs it." Hundreds of men, women and children were turned away as they tried to cross the bridge over the Mississippi River. There were reports that officers fired gunshots over the heads of some people trying to cross the bridge. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin criticized the town's move to close off the bridge. He said "We allowed people to cross ... because they were dying in the convention center. We made a decision to protect people.... They made a decision to protect property."
Source
and From LA Times
Unbelievable
I can understand the delay and the bureaucratic incompetence in trying to get aid to people. But this is just beyond belief...
Suburb Ok'd Decision To Block New Orleans Evacuees
The City Council in Gretna Louisiana has passed a resolution supporting a move by the police chief to seal off a bridge that could have been used by thousands of people in New Orleans to evacuate. Gretna is a largely white town while the vast majority of the evacuees in New Orleans were African-American. The town's mayor Ronnie Harris said "This wasn't just one man's decision. The whole community backs it." Hundreds of men, women and children were turned away as they tried to cross the bridge over the Mississippi River. There were reports that officers fired gunshots over the heads of some people trying to cross the bridge. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin criticized the town's move to close off the bridge. He said "We allowed people to cross ... because they were dying in the convention center. We made a decision to protect people.... They made a decision to protect property."
Source
or
From LA Times
Suburb Ok'd Decision To Block New Orleans Evacuees
The City Council in Gretna Louisiana has passed a resolution supporting a move by the police chief to seal off a bridge that could have been used by thousands of people in New Orleans to evacuate. Gretna is a largely white town while the vast majority of the evacuees in New Orleans were African-American. The town's mayor Ronnie Harris said "This wasn't just one man's decision. The whole community backs it." Hundreds of men, women and children were turned away as they tried to cross the bridge over the Mississippi River. There were reports that officers fired gunshots over the heads of some people trying to cross the bridge. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin criticized the town's move to close off the bridge. He said "We allowed people to cross ... because they were dying in the convention center. We made a decision to protect people.... They made a decision to protect property."
Source
or
From LA Times
Is it a religious war?
Bishops want to apologise for Iraq war
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
BISHOPS of the Church of England want all Britain’s Christian leaders to get together in public to say sorry for the war in Iraq and its aftermath.
The bishops say that the Government is not likely to show remorse so the churches should. They want to organise a major gathering with senior figures from the Muslim community to make a “public act of repentance”.....
Rest of the article
SAUDI ARABIA: JIHAD IN IRAQ WRONG SAYS GRAND MUFTI
Jeddah, 19 Sept. (AKI) - Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Asheikh, Saudi Arabia's grand mufti, has spoken out against those seeking to sow civil war in neighbouring Iraq. "Adding to the bloodshed and murder of innocents by planes and bombs are attempts by suspicious parties to trigger sectarian tension between the people of Iraq,” said Al-Asheikh who was quoted by the Arab News daily.
These jihadists were trying to stoke intra-religious clashes “to serve the aims of the enemies conspiring against Muslims,” al-Asheikh argued. Al-Qaeda's number one in Iraq, the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, declared an all-out war against Shiites in an audio recording posted to the Internet last week.
Rest of the article
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
BISHOPS of the Church of England want all Britain’s Christian leaders to get together in public to say sorry for the war in Iraq and its aftermath.
The bishops say that the Government is not likely to show remorse so the churches should. They want to organise a major gathering with senior figures from the Muslim community to make a “public act of repentance”.....
Rest of the article
SAUDI ARABIA: JIHAD IN IRAQ WRONG SAYS GRAND MUFTI
Jeddah, 19 Sept. (AKI) - Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Asheikh, Saudi Arabia's grand mufti, has spoken out against those seeking to sow civil war in neighbouring Iraq. "Adding to the bloodshed and murder of innocents by planes and bombs are attempts by suspicious parties to trigger sectarian tension between the people of Iraq,” said Al-Asheikh who was quoted by the Arab News daily.
These jihadists were trying to stoke intra-religious clashes “to serve the aims of the enemies conspiring against Muslims,” al-Asheikh argued. Al-Qaeda's number one in Iraq, the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, declared an all-out war against Shiites in an audio recording posted to the Internet last week.
Rest of the article
Sunday, September 18, 2005
So much for independent media!
"It is possibly one of the largest thefts in history"
Today's jeopardy... What do Iraqis consider as bigger problem than terrorism? Answer
Bishops want to apologise for Iraq war
From Bill Clinton:
"What Americans need to understand is that ... every single day of the year, our government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq,
Afghanistan, Katrina, and our tax cuts," he said.
"We have never done this before. Never in the history of our republic have we ever financed a conflict, military conflict, by borrowing money from somewhere else."
Clinton added: "We depend on Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Korea primarily to basically loan us money every day of the year to cover my tax cut and these conflicts and Katrina. I don't think it makes any sense."
Source
It sounds like the "one of the largest [credit] thefts in history".
"It is possibly one of the largest thefts in history"
Today's jeopardy... What do Iraqis consider as bigger problem than terrorism? Answer
Bishops want to apologise for Iraq war
From Bill Clinton:
"What Americans need to understand is that ... every single day of the year, our government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq,
Afghanistan, Katrina, and our tax cuts," he said.
"We have never done this before. Never in the history of our republic have we ever financed a conflict, military conflict, by borrowing money from somewhere else."
Clinton added: "We depend on Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Korea primarily to basically loan us money every day of the year to cover my tax cut and these conflicts and Katrina. I don't think it makes any sense."
Source
It sounds like the "one of the largest [credit] thefts in history".
Friday, September 16, 2005
separated church and state.... "for a theological reason, not a secular one"
Excerpt from the Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, Ph.D. testimony in Judge Robert's confirmation hearing:
....It is less well known that the framers of the Constitution also drew on a theological vision and that their prohibition of the establishment of any religion and their insistence on the protection of the free exercise of religion was made for religious reasons.
The popular debate uses the “founding fathers” on both sides of any specific controversy on what are called separation of church and state issues. Those who vigorously oppose any perceived breach in the separation of church and state understand the authors of the Constitution as secularists and revolutionaries who established a nation on the concept of liberty, including not only freedom of religion, but also freedom from religion. These strict separationists see religion as a threat to the secular sphere and the individual freedom from religious control that a secular public life entails. On the other hand, those who want to lower the bar in the separation of church and state debates also cite the founders in support of their position. They argue that the founders were not “secularists” who wished to keep religion locked away from public life. As is so often the case, there is truth on both sides of this argument.
The thought of John Locke, on whose work “founding fathers” such as Thomas Jefferson drew, is instructive. Locke, like others in the 17th century, had seen the terrible results of religious wars as Catholics and Protestants struggled for power in England. At first Locke was dubious about the capacity of human reason to provide the bulwark against the terrible abuses that result when “Priest and Prince” are combined. But his own faith led him finally to believe that it is only in the absolute protection of human civil society from any control by religious authorities that people are enabled to come to have faith in God. He paid a high personal cost for challenging the abusive power of the religious state, as he had to flee to Holland to escape execution for treason.
It was, therefore, for a theological reason, not a secular one that Locke and the American founders who drew on his work separated church and state and prohibited establishing one religion over any others. In that way, they protected religious freedom. Locke believed that people could only come to know God under the conditions of absolute freedom from any state control of their consciences. All state control gives you, argued Locke, is the “sin of hypocrisy, and contempt of his divine majesty.”
Locke made this simple point: ‘God doesn’t need the help of the state for there to be faith.’ Also, Locke and the framers of the U.S. Constitution were deeply and profoundly suspicious of the motives of those who wanted to bring religious and state control together. Locke notes “how easily the pretence of religion, and of the care of souls, serves for a cloak to covetousness, rapine, and ambition.”
The Framers’ Construct—The Prohibition of Establishment of Religion and the Free Exercise of Religion—Have Stood the Test of Time
From our vantage point in the twenty-first century we can see that the framers were right. They did not just protect political freedom. They protected religious freedom. It is no accident that the United States through all of its history so far has been free from the terrible effects of religious war. The framers of the Constitution knew what they were doing. Don’t merge religion and the state.
This has recently been said with great acumen by retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. As she wrote in a concurring opinion last term, “At a time when we see around the world the violent consequences of the assumption of religious authority by government, Americans may count themselves fortunate: Our regard for constitutional boundaries has protected us from similar travails, while allowing private religious exercise to flourish. Americans attend their places of worship more often than do citizens of other developed nations, and describe religion as playing an especially important role in their lives. Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?” McCreary County v ACLU, 125 S. CT. 2722, 2746 (2005).
The Prophetic and Progressive Faith Traditions
It is helpful for the health of our political life to realize that some people can vigorously object to any attempt to merge religion and the state from deeply held religious conviction. Those who point out the remarkable danger to American society from tendencies to merge religion and the state are not by definition “faithless secularists” or “liberal ideologues”.
The faith communities who vigorously defend separation of church and state, who oppose any establishment of religion and who vigorously protect the free exercise of religion are a diverse group. Some may best be described as “progressives,” while others could be called “the prophetic.”
The Progressive Faith community is, in large part, the most direct heir to the religious perspectives that informed thinkers such as Locke. Progressive people of faith have roots in the European Enlightenment and in the Protestant movement in Christianity. The root word of “Protestant” is “protest” and the protest was, in part, against the temporal power wielded by the Catholic Church of the 16th century.
These movements were responsible for inventing a concept called the “secular,” a place in social life where organized religion does not hold absolute authority. It is the invention of this sphere of “worldliness” (the root of the word “secular” being the Latin for world) that gave rise to the political philosophy that informs the framers of the American Constitution. Subsequently, other religions have brought their faith traditions into the modern era and similarly defined a “world” where government holds sway. Reformed Judaism and Vatican II Catholicism are examples of this.
Progressive people of faith come from many religious traditions today. They share a commitment to the use of reason in human affairs, the duty of religious people to help create a just society and they believe that religious freedom and pluralism are religious and social goods.
The Prophetic faith traditions are also opposed to any infringement on the free exercise of religion and to any breach in the separation of church and state. Prophetic faith traditions often draw significantly on the spirit and want the church and the state to be separate because the latter is not spiritual.
Among the Prophetic faith traditions, African American Christianity, in particular, is very clear about both religious freedom and separation of church and state. African American Christianity was born under horrific state abuses of the individual rights of kidnapped and enslaved African people that were not only legal under American law, but also most often sanctified by the dominant churches. Enslaved African people were prevented, sometimes violently, from practicing their African religious faith and from forming independent Christian churches. This historical experience has given African American Christianity a very healthy skepticism about the dangers of merging religion and political authority and a deep conviction that both need to be constantly held accountable to the demands of true justice.
Jewish Americans contribute to this same perspective out of their experience of the Holocaust and underline that the systematic kidnapping, torture, and extermination of millions and millions of people was legal under the laws of Germany. Nuremberg has established that too narrow a reading of what is “legal” can profoundly betray the duty of the nation state to the claims of transcendent justice. Moreover, the American Jewish experience has been one of the flourishing of Jewish life due to the protections of religious liberty in the United States (though this has not always been perfectly observed by all citizens).
The women’s movement in the United States blends elements of both the Progressive and the Prophetic traditions. Nineteenth and twentieth century American women had to counter strong, even virulent, opposition from churches to have their right to vote recognized. To this day, American women do not have an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution due, in part, to vocal opposition from the religious quarter in the latter part of the twentieth century.
Together the Progressive and the Prophetic faith communities are united in the view that any move to privilege one religion over another and to blur the lines that separate the power of religion and the power of the state is to run a grave risk of damaging both religion and the state. It is an oft-repeated phrase, but one that is particularly apt in relationship to the effect of merging religion and politics, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Adherence to Religious Freedom Principles in the First Amendment is Critical in a Pluralistic Society
It might seem contradictory that while as a nation we are more religiously pluralistic than ever before, we see contemporary efforts by some to establish the doctrines of only one religion, Christianity, and indeed only of part of Christianity, as social policy. The strenuous objections to embryonic stem cell research, for example, are directly based on a particular religious conviction that the human soul is made present by God at the time of conception and that the newly fertilized embryo is ensouled .
When we look more closely, however, this is not as contradictory as it seems. While the Constitution protected religious freedom, our culture has been functionally Protestant since its beginning. In the 19th century, public school children were taught from readers that were patently a tutorial in the Protestant faith. Catholic immigrants in the 19th century formed their own parochial schools because they correctly perceived that this so-called public education was in truth nothing short of indoctrination in Protestantism.
What has become evident in the last half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first is that our society is becoming more genuinely religiously pluralistic. The Harvard “Pluralism Project” has documented this astonishing growth of religious pluralism. As Dr. Diana Eck writes in her widely praised book A New Religious America: How a “Christian Country” Has Become the World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005), “there are now more Muslims than Episcopalians, Jews or Presbyterians” in the United States.
Such increasing religious pluralism calls for even greater vigilance both in protecting religious minorities and clearly avoiding even the appearance of the establishment of any particular religion.
The Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, Ph.D.
United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary
The Nomination of John G. Roberts as Chief Justice of the United States
Source
....It is less well known that the framers of the Constitution also drew on a theological vision and that their prohibition of the establishment of any religion and their insistence on the protection of the free exercise of religion was made for religious reasons.
The popular debate uses the “founding fathers” on both sides of any specific controversy on what are called separation of church and state issues. Those who vigorously oppose any perceived breach in the separation of church and state understand the authors of the Constitution as secularists and revolutionaries who established a nation on the concept of liberty, including not only freedom of religion, but also freedom from religion. These strict separationists see religion as a threat to the secular sphere and the individual freedom from religious control that a secular public life entails. On the other hand, those who want to lower the bar in the separation of church and state debates also cite the founders in support of their position. They argue that the founders were not “secularists” who wished to keep religion locked away from public life. As is so often the case, there is truth on both sides of this argument.
The thought of John Locke, on whose work “founding fathers” such as Thomas Jefferson drew, is instructive. Locke, like others in the 17th century, had seen the terrible results of religious wars as Catholics and Protestants struggled for power in England. At first Locke was dubious about the capacity of human reason to provide the bulwark against the terrible abuses that result when “Priest and Prince” are combined. But his own faith led him finally to believe that it is only in the absolute protection of human civil society from any control by religious authorities that people are enabled to come to have faith in God. He paid a high personal cost for challenging the abusive power of the religious state, as he had to flee to Holland to escape execution for treason.
It was, therefore, for a theological reason, not a secular one that Locke and the American founders who drew on his work separated church and state and prohibited establishing one religion over any others. In that way, they protected religious freedom. Locke believed that people could only come to know God under the conditions of absolute freedom from any state control of their consciences. All state control gives you, argued Locke, is the “sin of hypocrisy, and contempt of his divine majesty.”
Locke made this simple point: ‘God doesn’t need the help of the state for there to be faith.’ Also, Locke and the framers of the U.S. Constitution were deeply and profoundly suspicious of the motives of those who wanted to bring religious and state control together. Locke notes “how easily the pretence of religion, and of the care of souls, serves for a cloak to covetousness, rapine, and ambition.”
The Framers’ Construct—The Prohibition of Establishment of Religion and the Free Exercise of Religion—Have Stood the Test of Time
From our vantage point in the twenty-first century we can see that the framers were right. They did not just protect political freedom. They protected religious freedom. It is no accident that the United States through all of its history so far has been free from the terrible effects of religious war. The framers of the Constitution knew what they were doing. Don’t merge religion and the state.
This has recently been said with great acumen by retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. As she wrote in a concurring opinion last term, “At a time when we see around the world the violent consequences of the assumption of religious authority by government, Americans may count themselves fortunate: Our regard for constitutional boundaries has protected us from similar travails, while allowing private religious exercise to flourish. Americans attend their places of worship more often than do citizens of other developed nations, and describe religion as playing an especially important role in their lives. Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?” McCreary County v ACLU, 125 S. CT. 2722, 2746 (2005).
The Prophetic and Progressive Faith Traditions
It is helpful for the health of our political life to realize that some people can vigorously object to any attempt to merge religion and the state from deeply held religious conviction. Those who point out the remarkable danger to American society from tendencies to merge religion and the state are not by definition “faithless secularists” or “liberal ideologues”.
The faith communities who vigorously defend separation of church and state, who oppose any establishment of religion and who vigorously protect the free exercise of religion are a diverse group. Some may best be described as “progressives,” while others could be called “the prophetic.”
The Progressive Faith community is, in large part, the most direct heir to the religious perspectives that informed thinkers such as Locke. Progressive people of faith have roots in the European Enlightenment and in the Protestant movement in Christianity. The root word of “Protestant” is “protest” and the protest was, in part, against the temporal power wielded by the Catholic Church of the 16th century.
These movements were responsible for inventing a concept called the “secular,” a place in social life where organized religion does not hold absolute authority. It is the invention of this sphere of “worldliness” (the root of the word “secular” being the Latin for world) that gave rise to the political philosophy that informs the framers of the American Constitution. Subsequently, other religions have brought their faith traditions into the modern era and similarly defined a “world” where government holds sway. Reformed Judaism and Vatican II Catholicism are examples of this.
Progressive people of faith come from many religious traditions today. They share a commitment to the use of reason in human affairs, the duty of religious people to help create a just society and they believe that religious freedom and pluralism are religious and social goods.
The Prophetic faith traditions are also opposed to any infringement on the free exercise of religion and to any breach in the separation of church and state. Prophetic faith traditions often draw significantly on the spirit and want the church and the state to be separate because the latter is not spiritual.
Among the Prophetic faith traditions, African American Christianity, in particular, is very clear about both religious freedom and separation of church and state. African American Christianity was born under horrific state abuses of the individual rights of kidnapped and enslaved African people that were not only legal under American law, but also most often sanctified by the dominant churches. Enslaved African people were prevented, sometimes violently, from practicing their African religious faith and from forming independent Christian churches. This historical experience has given African American Christianity a very healthy skepticism about the dangers of merging religion and political authority and a deep conviction that both need to be constantly held accountable to the demands of true justice.
Jewish Americans contribute to this same perspective out of their experience of the Holocaust and underline that the systematic kidnapping, torture, and extermination of millions and millions of people was legal under the laws of Germany. Nuremberg has established that too narrow a reading of what is “legal” can profoundly betray the duty of the nation state to the claims of transcendent justice. Moreover, the American Jewish experience has been one of the flourishing of Jewish life due to the protections of religious liberty in the United States (though this has not always been perfectly observed by all citizens).
The women’s movement in the United States blends elements of both the Progressive and the Prophetic traditions. Nineteenth and twentieth century American women had to counter strong, even virulent, opposition from churches to have their right to vote recognized. To this day, American women do not have an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution due, in part, to vocal opposition from the religious quarter in the latter part of the twentieth century.
Together the Progressive and the Prophetic faith communities are united in the view that any move to privilege one religion over another and to blur the lines that separate the power of religion and the power of the state is to run a grave risk of damaging both religion and the state. It is an oft-repeated phrase, but one that is particularly apt in relationship to the effect of merging religion and politics, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Adherence to Religious Freedom Principles in the First Amendment is Critical in a Pluralistic Society
It might seem contradictory that while as a nation we are more religiously pluralistic than ever before, we see contemporary efforts by some to establish the doctrines of only one religion, Christianity, and indeed only of part of Christianity, as social policy. The strenuous objections to embryonic stem cell research, for example, are directly based on a particular religious conviction that the human soul is made present by God at the time of conception and that the newly fertilized embryo is ensouled .
When we look more closely, however, this is not as contradictory as it seems. While the Constitution protected religious freedom, our culture has been functionally Protestant since its beginning. In the 19th century, public school children were taught from readers that were patently a tutorial in the Protestant faith. Catholic immigrants in the 19th century formed their own parochial schools because they correctly perceived that this so-called public education was in truth nothing short of indoctrination in Protestantism.
What has become evident in the last half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first is that our society is becoming more genuinely religiously pluralistic. The Harvard “Pluralism Project” has documented this astonishing growth of religious pluralism. As Dr. Diana Eck writes in her widely praised book A New Religious America: How a “Christian Country” Has Become the World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005), “there are now more Muslims than Episcopalians, Jews or Presbyterians” in the United States.
Such increasing religious pluralism calls for even greater vigilance both in protecting religious minorities and clearly avoiding even the appearance of the establishment of any particular religion.
The Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, Ph.D.
United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary
The Nomination of John G. Roberts as Chief Justice of the United States
Source
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
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