Phew. So it's peace in our time yet again. Until the next war.
Robert Fisk: The lies, the threats, the hypocrisy...
Does one sigh with weariness or rage at such dishonesty?
Published: 02 September 2006
After the war comes the hypocrisy, the mendacity, the threats, the sheer brazen lies. Let's start with the man with the burning eyes, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Hizbollah guerrilla movement which gave the Israelis a thrashing in Lebanon at the cost of - well, the destruction of much of Lebanon.
It was Nasrallah's men who crossed the Israeli border on 12 July, captured two Israeli soldiers, killed three others and thus unleashed the entirely predictable savagery of the Israeli air force and army against the largely civilian population of Lebanon.
Now get this from Sayed Nasrallah. "If I knew that the capture of the soldiers would have led to a war on such a scale, had Hizbollah had known even 1 per cent, we definitely would have not carried it out." This, folks, is what I call a whopper. If the Hizbollah had no idea what Israel was going to do to Lebanon - and they are intelligent, disciplined people who knew full well Ehud Olmert's political situation at the time (it is certainly worse now due to his army's failure in Lebanon), then why did Hizbollah build all those concrete bunkers in caves and rocks and hillsides for years before the war?
Why did they bring thousands of missiles into the south of Lebanon? Why did they prepare to fire at an Israeli warship - which they did, and almost sunk it after hitting the vessel amidships - and prepare so successfully for the tiny ground offensive that Israel subsequently mounted?
Are we supposed to believe that they held out under intense Israeli air attack - which killed more than 1,000 civilians as they must have known it would - without any planning? Or that the Hizbollah men who hit the Israeli warship got up in the morning, ate their cheese manouche sandwiches, and said: "Hey, let's shoot at an Israeli warship today!" No, that attack - a perfectly justifiable military target in view of Israel's aggression - was also very carefully planned. According to Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker, Israel's attack had also been carefully planned - and given the "green light" by the Bush administration as part of its campaign to humble Iran.
I think Hersh is right. But I think both sides planned this, and a hint came in another part of Nasrallah's breathtakingly hypocritical address. "In any case," he said, "Israel was going to launch a war at the start of this autumn and the degree of destruction then would have been even greater." Well, thanks for telling me, Hassan.
So you can see how Hizbollah are planning their post-war narrative. They never intended the Lebanese to suffer, but they were anyway going to suffer later and, besides, Hizbollah won. And now, the Hizbollah leadership formally announces that it intends to abide by UN Security Council Resolution 1701 - which calls for disarmament - but that they are not actually going to disarm. Phew. So it's peace in our time yet again. Until the next war.
But equally pernicious is the utterly false narrative which the Israelis and their supporters are now preparing for the world, one which includes all the old lies about the anti-Semitism of reporters and the involvement of the Red Cross in terrorism. Take, for example, an outrageous article in the French newspaper Libération on Thursday by Shmuel Trigano, entitled "War, Lies and Videotape". This posits some usual but deliberately misleading themes, the most obnoxious of which states that, by showing the children slaughtered by the Israeli air force in Qana, the press was trying to "reactivate a very ancient anti-Semitic idea: that Jews kill children. In antiquity, they (the Jews) were accused of cannibalism, in the Middle Ages - and still today in the Arab world - of ritual crimes."
And of course, I get the message. We should not have shown those pictures of the innocents of Qana blasted to death by Israeli bombs (even worse it would be, no doubt, if we said "American-made" Israeli bombs) and we should never have pointed out that a decade ago, Israeli artillery men killed another 106 innocents in Qana, more than half of them children, and in fact we should show no dead Arab children at all - unless we want to be libelled as medieval anti-Semites.
Shmuel then comes up with an Israeli narrative almost as objectionable which I am now hearing from Israel's spokesmen: that because one part-time Lebanese photographer pasted two extra plumes of smoke on to a bomb-site photo and sold the falsified picture to Reuters - an act of mendacity that rightly earned him the sack - all photographs from Beirut were probably doctored and fake. This, of course, is nonsense, although the moment I heard about the false photo I predicted to a friend that Israel's friends would now cast doubt on all images from Lebanon. The lies against the press by Israel's friends are as predictable as they are vile.
Next comes the accusation that we reporters all worked in southern Lebanon under the "control" of the Hizbollah - and that our colleagues in Gaza all work under the "control" of Hamas. "All journalists," according to Shmuel, know that they work "under the authorisation of the powers that be which exert their authority over the pictures and give accreditations to journalist" to work there. Forgive me, Shmuel, but this is the kind of material that comes from the rear end of a bull. We carry no "authorisation from Hizbollah"; in fact those of us who tried to interview Hizbollah during the war couldn't find them - any more than the Israeli air force could find them. But no, we journalists, according to this tract, believe it is "just" that Israeli civilians should suffer. We focus only on the "victims" of Israelis - and this is "anti-Semitism 'by default'."
Being an old hand at Lebanon's dirty wars, I have to say that this is exactly the same lie that was told about us during Israel's bombardment of 1978 and its invasion of 1982 and its bombardment of civilians in 1993 and its bombardment of civilians in 1996 - and here it is again. Do Israel's friends, I often ask myself, attack decent, honourable reporters as anti-Semitic because they want anti-Semitism to be respectable?
Does one sigh with weariness or rage at such dishonesty? Well, I'll tell you one thing. When it comes to dishonesty, Nasrallah is up there with the rest. But he's still got a lot to learn from the Israelis.
Rove’s Word Is No Longer G.O.P. Gospel
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JIM RUTENBERG
The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 — Karl Rove, the president’s chief political adviser, is struggling to steer the Republican Party to victory this fall at a time when he appears to have the least political authority since he came to Washington, party officials said.
Mr. Rove remains a dominant adviser to President Bush, administration officials say. But outside the White House, as Mr. Bush’s popularity has waned, and as questions have arisen among Republicans about the White House’s political acumen, the party’s candidates are going their own way in this difficult election season far more than they have in any other campaign Mr. Rove has overseen.
Some are disregarding Mr. Rove’s advice, despite his reputation as the nation’s premier strategist. They are criticizing Mr. Bush or his policies. They are avoiding public events with the president and Mr. Rove.
Influential conservative commentators have openly broken with the White House, calling into question the continued enthusiasm of evangelicals, economic conservatives and other groups that Mr. Rove has counted on to win elections. Some Republicans are ignoring Mr. Rove’s efforts to hold the party together on issues like immigration and Iraq.
In a reflection of this difficult environment, the White House has decided to concentrate nearly all its resources on the critical fight to keep control of Congress, party officials said, largely stepping away from the governors’ races, at least for now.
The White House should be focused on governing and not campaigning.
In Michigan last week, Dick DeVos, a Republican candidate for governor and a longtime contributor to Mr. Bush, startled national Republican Party leaders with a searing attack on the president for failing to meet with the leaders of the Big Three automakers. “We’re being ignored here in Michigan by the White House, and it has got to stop,” Mr. DeVos said.
Bush will not visit with business leaders and he is scorned? Kill and maim all you want Mr. War President but you must meet with the rich Michiganders, seems the anger is pointed in a misguided direction.
His communications director, John Truscott, said the attack was timed to coincide with Mr. Rove’s visit to Michigan for a fund-raiser, in an effort to goad Mr. Bush into a response. Asked if the DeVos campaign was worried about angering Mr. Rove, Mr. Truscott said, “That never even crossed our mind.”
Representative Thomas M. Davis III of Virginia, who was chairman of the Congressional Republican campaign committee in 2002, said Mr. Rove and the White House seemed measurably less involved this year.
“It’s been more of a bunker mentality, don’t you think?” Mr. Davis said. “They have been good in terms of raising the money. The problem is, you have a president with a 38 percent approval rating, and it just changes the dynamics of what they can do.”
This midterm election presents Mr. Rove with a particularly difficult challenge. Beyond testing his reputation for always finding a way to win, the outcome could determine the extent of Mr. Bush’s influence for the rest of his presidency and shape the way he is perceived by history.
His place in history has been secured. WPE
Mr. Rove has warned associates that a Democratic takeover in Congress would mean an end to Mr. Bush’s legislative hopes and invite two years of potentially crippling investigations into the administration.
The White House said that Mr. Rove would consider an interview for this article if it were conducted off the record, with the provision that quotations could be put on the record with White House approval, a condition it said was set for other interviews with Mr. Rove. The New York Times declined.
Finally the Times pulls its head out of its ass.
The diminishment in Mr. Rove’s influence reflects the fact that his power is to some extent a function of Mr. Bush’s popularity. In some cases, Republican candidates have made a deliberate strategic decision that the way to win is to distance themselves from the White House.
But a central problem, Republicans said, is that Mr. Rove is seen as juggling two potentially conflicting agendas: protecting the president’s legacy and taking steps to help Republican candidates win re-election.
Mr. Rove enters the campaign season after a year of personal tumult. Until mid-June he faced the threat of indictment in the investigation into the leak of a C.I.A. officer’s identity, and in April, he was stripped of some of his duties in the White House. Mr. Rove was moved from a West Wing corner suite to a smaller windowless office across the hall, a shift one friend said he found demoralizing.
Mr. Rove’s associates said that throughout the leak investigation, he was coiled and withdrawn. They said his demeanor brightened the moment he learned he would not be indicted. Associates described him as displaying relentless optimism about an election that is filling Republicans with a sense of doom.
Mr. Rove determines the bulk of the president’s schedule and is a crucial figure in determining what Mr. Bush should say this fall. He is the White House’s main conduit to conservatives whose willingness to turn out at the polls could help determine the party’s success.
Mr. Rove has become a star fund-raiser for the Republican Party, raising $10,357,486 at 75 events in 29 states, according to the Republican National Committee. Mr. Rove runs regular White House meetings, typically at 6:30 a.m. in the White House mess, reviewing high-profile House and Senate races with the White House political director, Sara Taylor, and sometimes with Congressional leaders. He shares his view of the landscape with Mr. Bush in a daily 8:30 a.m. briefing.
A government run by a turd blossom is a government that is destined to stink.
Mr. Rove — with Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman, and Ms. Taylor, both of whom have assumed a higher profile than in past years — has settled on a narrow strategy to try to minimize Congressional losses while tending to Mr. Bush’s political strength. The White House will reprise the two T’s of its successful campaign strategy since 2002: terrorism and turnout.
Manipulation through fear and numbers, the root of democracy.
They have determined that control of Congress is likely to be settled in as few as six states and have decided to focus most of the party’s resources there, said Republican officials who did not want to be identified discussing internal deliberations. Those states will likely include Connecticut, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington, though officials said the battle lines could shift in coming weeks.
The White House needs to be focusing on the real battle lines in Iraq and Afghanistan not imaginary ones.
The White House is largely turning away from the 36 governors’ races, although Mr. Rove and Mr. Bush will continue to help Republican candidates for governor raise money, party officials said. The decision has broad significance because building a foundation of Republican governors had been a main part of Mr. Rove’s goal of creating a long-lasting Republican majority.
The Republican National Committee expects to spend over $60 million, which would be a record, for the midterm elections. Officials say half of that would pay for get-out-the-vote operations in the targeted states.
In states where Mr. Bush’s presence could be problematic, like Pennsylvania and Connecticut, the turnout operations give Mr. Rove a way to provide below-the-radar help.
Mr. Mehlman, whom Mr. Rove assigned to master get-out-the-vote techniques years ago, has handed custom compact discs with lists of voters, along with information on their voting and consumer habits, to every state Republican chairman.
Data mining at its finest, wonder where these men could have come up with this data?
One administration official said that Mr. Rove was also looking beyond Mr. Bush’s term, to the creation of his library. And he is quietly making his influence felt in the 2008 presidential campaign.
He thinks more about his legacy than the real world.
Most significantly, the White House has signaled to Bush supporters that they are free to work for Senator John McCain of Arizona, which could provide Mr. Rove a network of intelligence in 2008. Mr. Rove has made clear to associates that he is not supporting any candidate in that race.
Mr. Rove’s associates said it was inevitable that his clout would diminish somewhat given the president’s declining approval rating and the history of two-term presidents generally weakening by their sixth year in office.
“Anytime you’re in the position of being the prime mover, and you’ve got five people saying we should do it this way and five others saying we should do it that way, you’re going to aggravate five people inevitably when you come down with a decision,” said Ed Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee chairman. “But Karl is willing to do that, and you’re going to get your share of slings and arrows when you are.”
Indeed, Democrats — aware of Mr. Rove’s reputation for pulling out all the stops when necessary and his ability to call on a shadow political machine of interest groups and donors to attack opponents — said they remained worried about what kind of effort Mr. Rove might unleash in the closing weeks of the campaign.
The Democrats are nothing but cowards.
But the limits of Mr. Rove’s influence were made clear this year when he was unable to persuade the speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, Allan G. Bense, to run in the Republican primary for Senate against Representative Katherine Harris, whom the party judged to be a weak candidate. Mr. Rove invited Mr. Bense for a sit-down at his vacation home in Rosemary Beach, Fla., as part of a long but failed effort to get him to challenge Ms. Harris for the nomination, said Towson Fraser, a spokesman for Mr. Bense.
Rove sees himself as a political boss.
And Mr. Rove’s associates say he appreciates the need of candidates to distance themselves from the White House to win. But he was described as angered by candidates who he thought were going too far in criticizing Mr. Bush out of concern that attacks could further damage an already weakened president, they said.
Mr. Rove meets in person only infrequently with the Republican heads of the Senate and House campaign committees, Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, though Mrs. Dole said he was always ready to jump on a plane to a fund-raiser at her request.
Mr. Reynolds said the White House had been untiring in raising money and providing surrogates. But he made clear that when it came to the House races, he was running the show.
“I’m the one who put together what I think is our best effort to win a House majority in 2006,” Mr. Reynolds said.
In the Ohio Senate race, Mr. Rove has found himself in a back-and-forth with Senator Mike DeWine. Mr. DeWine has at times resisted Mr. Rove’s counsel that he employ an unrelenting focus on terrorism, exhibiting what other Republicans described as ambivalence about a television commercial depicting the World Trade Center burning.
Candidates and strategists across the country say that they hear from Mr. Rove infrequently.
Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, chairman of the Republican Governors Association, said he encountered Mr. Rove at a dinner at Vice President Dick Cheney’s home here in late July. “We chatted for a minute,” Mr. Romney said. “He was interested in how the governors’ races were looking. But it was interest as a fellow Republican.”
No Intent to Mislead Panel Found In Aviation Officials' 9/11 Errors
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 2, 2006; A04
Investigators found no evidence that aviation officials intentionally misled the Sept. 11 commission when they made inaccurate statements about their response to the 2001 terrorist attacks but recommended that two officials face "appropriate administrative action" for failing to correct the record, according to a report released yesterday.
The findings by the Transportation Department's acting inspector general, Todd J. Zinser, address a lingering question about the response on Sept. 11 by military and civilian aviation officials, who initially portrayed the reaction as swift and efficient. It was later shown to be neither.
The conclusions echo the findings of a separate inquiry at the Defense Department, which found no evidence that authorities at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) intended to mislead the Sept. 11 panel.
For more than two years after the attacks, officials at NORAD and the Federal Aviation Administration suggested in public statements and testimony that air defenses and aviation officials had reacted quickly to the hijackings and were prepared to shoot down United Airlines Flight 93 if it threatened Washington. That aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to retake control from the hijackers.
In fact, the Sept. 11 commission found, audiotapes and other evidence showed clearly that the military never had any of the hijacked airliners in its sights and chased a phantom aircraft -- American Airlines Flight 11 -- long after it had crashed into the World Trade Center.
The FAA had said on its Web site and in statements to the commission that it informed the Pentagon at 9:24 a.m. that American Airlines Flight 77 had been hijacked. The commission found that the FAA never notified defense officials of the hijackings but did label the plane missing after it had crashed into the Pentagon.
The FAA also omitted from official timelines the fact that it notified NORAD about the hijacking of Flight 93 at 10:07 a.m., after the airliner had crashed in Pennsylvania. It gave an earlier than actual time for the moment when an Air Force official joined an FAA "phone-bridge" focused on the hijackings.
Zinser's report blames the erroneous statements on a series of innocent mistakes, including an erroneous entry in an early FAA timeline and an assumption by some officials that others would correct the record once the errors became clear.
"We did not find evidence to conclude that FAA officials knowingly made false statements," the report said.
At the same time, it said, two unidentified FAA officials should have notified the commission when it became clear that the information was wrong. The report recommended that the FAA consider unspecified administrative action against them.
Although the inaccurate statements have been publicly known for several years, it has only become clear more recently how much the issue had strained relations between the Sept. 11 panel and the FAA and NORAD. They were the only two agencies to receive subpoenas from the commission.
Some commission members and staffers were so angered by the inaccuracies that they advocated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation. The panel settled on a compromise, referring the complaints to the two inspectors general.
In their new book, "Without Precedent," the commission's chairman and vice chairman, Thomas H. Kean (R) and Lee H. Hamilton (D), said the panel was "exceedingly frustrated" by the FAA and NORAD.
"Fog of war could explain why some people were confused on the day of 9/11, but it could not explain why all the after-action reports, accident investigation, and public testimony by FAA and NORAD officials advanced an account of 9/11 that was untrue," they wrote.
The FAA said in a statement that Zinser's report "clarified the record and found no evidence that FAA officials knowingly made false statements or intentionally failed to correct any inaccurate statements while providing more than 6,000 documents and materials to the commission." The FAA also has "made major improvements to its communications capabilities" since the Sept. 11 attacks, the statement said.
No accountability to this day.
U.S. Antimissile Test Successful, Witness Reports
By REUTERS
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military shot down a target ballistic missile over the Pacific Friday in the widest test of its emerging antimissile shield in 18 months, a witness to the test told Reuters.
"We've got an intercept," said Riki Ellision, president of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, a booster group close to missile-defense contractors and the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.
A Pentagon spokeswoman, Cheryl Irwin, said she would report the results of the $85 million test shortly. Officially, the test was designed to collet data rather than shoot down the target.
Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA) is prime contractor for the ground-based mid-course defense. Major subcontractors include Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE:LMT) , Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE:NOC) and Raytheon Co. (NYSE:RTN)
There are quick to tell us how good it went; they are lying for it takes days to analyze this data, a little too quick on the trumpet.
The Perils of Foreign Policy by Report Card
By John R. Hamilton
Friday, September 1, 2006; A21
Attempts to explain the vehemence of anti-U.S. feeling abroad correctly home in on Iraq and other unpopular policies of the current administration. But over the past three decades the kudzu-like growth of another U.S. practice, used by Congress and by Democratic and Republican administrations alike, has nurtured seething resentment abroad.
This is what might be called "foreign policy by report card," the issuing of public assessments of the performance of other countries, with the threat of economic or political sanctions for those whose performance, in our view, doesn't make the grade. The overuse of these mandated reports makes us seem judgmental, moralistic and bullying.
The degree to which public reports accompanied by the threat of sanctions have been institutionalized in U.S. policy is stunning. A partial list:
Each year we issue detailed human rights reports on every country in the world, including those whose performance appears superior to our own. We judge whether other countries have provided sufficient cooperation in fighting illegal drugs. We place countries whose protection of intellectual property has been insufficient on "watch lists," threatening trade sanctions against those that do not improve. We judge respect for labor rights abroad through a public petition process set up under the System of Generalized (trade) Preferences. We publish annual reports on other countries' respect for religious freedom.
And more: We seek to ensure the adequacy of civil aviation oversight and the security of foreign airports through special inspections and categorizing of government performance. We ban shrimp imports from countries whose fishing fleets do not employ sea turtle extruder devices and yellowfin tuna imports where the protection of dolphins is in our view inadequate. We report on trafficking in persons and categorize the performance of every country where such trafficking is a problem, which is just about everywhere. And we withhold military education, training and materiel assistance from countries that do not enter into agreements with us to protect our nationals from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
The point is not that these goals are illegitimate. The large majority of Americans would probably support most if not all of them and would be reassured to know that the government is working assiduously to promote them. It is also true that foreign governments do sometimes improve their performance to avoid sanctions or the embarrassment of a critical public report.
But in the aggregate, our public reports have reinforced the view abroad that we set ourselves up unilaterally as police officer, judge and jury of other countries' conduct. Often, governments in developing countries in particular are committed to the objectives we are promoting, but they are overwhelmed by poverty, political instability and other existential problems that, in their view, dwarf the issues on which we would have them concentrate. Even so, they struggle to improve, say, performance on human trafficking, only to be found lacking with respect to drugs or labor rights. They may well conclude that, however much they try, their best is never good enough for us. The result is demoralization, anger and sullen resistance where we otherwise might have made common cause.
We could adjust this approach, especially where the objectives enjoy broad support in the international community, to advance them through multilateral organizations. We have effectively promoted more vigorous action against money laundering through the broadly based Financial Action Task Force. Several years ago, and as resentment over our annual narcotics certification process threatened to spin out of control, Congress softened the approach and, with modest success, we sought to make the Western Hemisphere portion of it multilateral through the Organization of American States.
Scaling back in other areas would help. It is critical, though, that we refrain from using this tool as we seek to promote new objectives -- however worthy -- in the future. The tolerance of other societies for being publicly judged by the United States has reached its limits.
The writer, who retired last year after 35 years as a Foreign Service officer, served as ambassador to Peru and Guatemala.
Bush zeroes in on 'Islamic fascism'
by Olivier KnoxFri Sep 1, 10:12 PM ET
US President George W. Bush, trying a different approach to galvanizing support for the unpopular Iraq war, has framed it as the central front in a global war against "Islamic fascists".
"This nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation," the president said on August 10 in response to the alleged British airliner bomb plot.
The controversial expression quickly drew fire from at least one prominent US Muslim group that said it fanned anti-Muslim hate, as well as from Saudi Arabia, where the cabinet declared "terrorism has no religion or nationality."
Bush aides grudgingly acknowledge that the expression stretches the dictionary definition of fascism but say it is useful "shorthand" to get the US public to grasp that it is locked in a world-wide ideological struggle.
And that is a critical part of the White House's strategy for limiting the political damage from the unpopular war in Iraq ahead of November elections that will decide control of the US Congress.
"What it does, I think, is it clarifies the kind of struggle that is the war on terrorism, it is an ideological struggle at its root," a senior Bush aide told AFP on condition that he not be named.
It is a crusade, America should not fight crusades, no one should wage crusades.
"The term succinctly encapsulates that idea rather better than 'the war against radical extremists who have a twisted interpretation of Islam.' It's a shorthand way of saying that," the official said.
Truthiness at its finest. Pick a word the public does not understand but is afraid of and changes its meaning to fit your needs.
Fascism as a political movement has its roots in Italy, where it became a formal political movement in 1919 and the driving force behind Benito Mussolini's rise to power in 1922.
While US dictionaries call it an authoritarian system of government with rigid one-party dictatorship, suppression of opposition, centralized government control over the economy, belligerent nationalism, the term has become synonymous with authoritarianism of any sort since World War II.
"That's true, but the core of it is suppression of thought, suppression of speech freedoms, freedom of worship, etc, through terror and use of violence," said the anonymous US official.
And he noted Bush's other description of Islamist extremists as "successors to Fascists, to Nazis, to Communists, and other totalitarians of the 20th century."
Further showing he fails to understand those terms too.
Although "Islamo-fascist" gained wide currency among US conservatives after the September 11, 2001 terrorist strikes, a search of global news outlets turns up the term in a September 1990 article in London's The Independent newspaper.
And the expression "Islamic fascist" appears in a January 1979 Washington Post article on Washington's response to Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Bush has used -- and quickly dropped -- controversial expressions about the war on terrorism before.
Shortly after the attacks of 2001, Bush referred to the war on terrorism as a "crusade," drawing an unhappy reaction worldwide because it recalled the bloody wars between Christians and Muslims in the Middle Ages.
In August 2004, he briefly mused that "we actually misnamed the 'war on terror.'"
"It ought to be 'the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies and who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world,'" he said.
Asked why Bush and his Republican party had settled on "fascism" just 10 weeks before the elections, Republican National Committee head Ken Mehlman told MSNBC television: "I think it's a very apt description of what we face."
"The fact is, like earlier fascists -- there were fascists in Italy and there were fascists in Nazi Germany -- here are folks who want to subordinate the freedom all over the place," he said.
Was Hitler or Mussolini Muslim? Is Islam merely fascism in the form of religion? If so, then crusade on you cross bearing mothrerfuckers.
Al-Qaida's deputy issues new videotape
By OMAR SINAN, Associated Press
Al-Qaida's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri issued a new videotape Saturday along with a man identified as an American member of the terror network, inviting Americans to convert to Islam.
The 41-minute video, posted on an Islamic militant Web site nine days before the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, had footage of al-Zawahri and a man the video identified as Adam Yehiye Gadahn, an American who the FBI believes attended al-Qaida training camps in Pakistan and served as an al-Qaida translator.
Gadahn and al-Zawahri did not appear together in the footage but were each featured on a split screen. Both wore white turbans and robes.
It was the second time Gadahn has appeared in the same video with al-Zawahri. In a July 7 video marking the one-year anniversary of bombings against the London transit system, Gadahn said no Muslim should "shed tears" for Westerners killed by al-Qaida attacks.
Gadahn spoke with his face uncovered, resembling FBI photos, with his name and nom de guerre — "Azzam the American" — written in titles in Arabic and English next to him.
"We invite all Americans and unbelievers to Islam," Gadahn said, sporting a long, thick black beard with a computer terminal in the background.
Gadahn, a 28-year-old from California who converted to Islam, is wanted by the FBI in connection with possible terrorist threats against the United States, though the agency says it has no information linking him to any specific terrorist activities.
Gadahn spoke for much of the video, saying he wanted to correct the image Americans have of Islam.
He described the West as "the civilization which enslaved Africa, slaughtered native Americans, fired bombs at ... Tokyo and (the Iraqi city of) Fallujah and nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
He said America shows more concern for archaeological sites, like statues of Bhudda destroyed by Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers, "than it shows of the people of Afghanistan and Iraq."
He said "ignorance" of Islam "causes the people of the West to rapturously applaud when Israel perpetrates wholesale slaughter of Muslims in Lebanon and Palestine and leads them to give their consent to the atrocities that governments commit in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in the Muslim world."
The video, issued by al-Qaida's production wing As-Sahab, had been advertised on militant Web sites for several days before it appeared Saturday.
Besides the July 7 video, Gadahn is believed to be a masked figure who appeared in two previous videos not officially from al-Qaida, given to ABC News in Pakistan in 2004 and a few days before Sept. 11, 2005.
In the 2005 tape, the speaker threatened new terror attacks in Los Angeles and Melbourne, Australia. The 2004 tape praised the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide hijackings and said a new wave of attacks could come at any moment.
9.2.06
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. This week, I spoke to the American Legion in Salt Lake City. I thanked the military veterans for their lifetime of service to our country. And I gave them an update on the war that America is now fighting in defense of freedom in our time.
We're approaching the fifth anniversary of the September the 11th attacks -- and since that day, we have taken the fight to the enemy. Yet this war is more than a military conflict; it is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century. On one side are those who believe in freedom and moderation -- the right of all people to speak, worship, and live in liberty. On the other side are those driven by tyranny and extremism -- the right of a self-appointed few to impose their fanatical views on all the rest. We did not ask for this war, but we're answering history's call with confidence -- and we will prevail.
We are using every element of national power to defeat the terrorists. First, we're staying on the offense against the terrorists, fighting them overseas so we do not have to face them here at home. Second, we made it clear to all nations, if you harbor terrorists, you're as guilty as the terrorists, you're an enemy of the United States, and you will be held to account. And third, we have launched a bold new agenda to defeat the ideology of the enemy by supporting the forces of freedom and moderation in the Middle East and beyond.
A vital part of our strategy to defeat the terrorists is to help establish a democratic Iraq, which will be a beacon of liberty in the region and an ally in the global war on terror. The terrorists understand the threat a democratic Iraq poses to their cause, so they've been fighting a bloody campaign of sectarian violence, which they hope will plunge that country into a civil war. Our commanders and diplomats on the ground believe that Iraq has not descended into a civil war.
That is not true
They report that only a small number of Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, while the overwhelming majority want peace and a normal life in a unified country. America will stand with the Iraqi people as they protect their new freedom -- and build a democracy that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself.
Working side-by-side with Iraqi forces, we recently launched a major new campaign to end the security crisis in Baghdad.
A complete failure.
This operation is still in its early stages, yet the initial results are encouraging.
Amazing he is able to look himself in the mirror.
The people of Baghdad are seeing their security forces in the streets, dealing a blow to criminals and terrorists. According to one military report, a Sunni man in a diverse Baghdad neighborhood said this about the Shia soldiers on patrol: "Their image has changed. Now you feel they are there to protect you."
Image don’t mean shit
Over the coming weeks and months, the operation will expand throughout Baghdad -- until Iraq's democratic government is in full control of the capital. This work is difficult and dangerous, but Iraqi forces are determined to succeed -- and America is determined to help them.
Here at home, some politicians say that our best option is to pull out of Iraq, regardless of the situation on the ground. Many of these people are sincere and patriotic -- but they could not be more wrong. If America were to pull out before Iraq can defend itself, the consequences would be disastrous. We would be handing Iraq over to the terrorists, giving them a base of operations and huge oil riches to fund their ambitions. And we know exactly where those ambitions lead. If we give up the fight in the streets of Baghdad, we will face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities. The security of the civilized world depends on victory in the war on terror, and that depends on victory in Iraq, so America will not leave until victory is achieved.
For all the debate, American policy in the Middle East comes down to a straightforward choice: We can allow the Middle East to continue on the course that led to September the 11th -- and a generation from now, our children will face a region dominated by terrorist states and radical dictators armed with nuclear weapons. Or we can stop that from happening, by rallying the world to confront the ideology of hate, by supporting the forces of liberty and moderation in the region, and by helping give the people of the Middle East a future of hope. And that is the choice America has made.
Frame the question and then answer it, this straw man plays jeopardy poorly.
The path to victory will be uphill and uneven, and it will require more patience and sacrifice from our Nation. Yet we can be confident of the outcome, because America will not waver -- and because the direction of history leads toward freedom.
Not true, there is no such ‘direction of history’ other than people on a whole have a tendency to fight, especially over God.
Thank you for listening.
Death penalty recommended in Iraq raid
By ALICIA A. CALDWELL, Associated Press
9.2.06
An Army investigator has recommended that four soldiers accused of murder in a raid in Iraq should face the death penalty if convicted, according to a report obtained Saturday by The Associated Press.
Lt. Col. James P. Daniel Jr. concluded that the slayings were premeditated and warranted the death sentence based on evidence he heard at an August hearing. The case will now be forwarded to Army officials, who will decide whether Daniel's recommendation should be followed.
The soldiers, all from the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 101st Airborne Division's 187th Infantry Regiment, are accused of killing three Iraqi men taken from a house May 9 on a marshy island outside Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad.
Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard, Spc. William B. Hunsaker, Pfc. Corey R. Clagett and Spc. Juston R. Graber have claimed they were ordered to "kill all military age males" during the raid on the island. According to statements from some of the soldiers, they were told the target was an al-Qaida training camp.
Hunsaker told investigators that he and Clagett were attacked by the three men, who were being handcuffed, and shot them in self-defense. Clagett said he was hit in the face, and Hunsaker claimed he was stabbed during the attack.
Prosecutors argue the soldiers conspired to kill the men and then altered the scene to fit their story. They contend Girouard stabbed Hunsaker as part of the killing plot.
Clagett, Girouard and Hunsaker also are accused of threatening to kill another soldier who witnessed the slayings. Girouard, the most senior soldier charged, faces several additional charges, including sexual harassment and carrying a personal weapon on duty.
Paul Bergrin, Clagett's civilian attorney, said he was surprised that Daniel recommended the case be taken to trial at all.
"I'm extremely disappointed and disheartened," Bergrin said Saturday. "They are being used as pawns in the war on terror. They followed the rules of engagement. They were confronted with violence by a known al-Qaida training camp member."
Other lawyers in the case, several of whom are deployed to Iraq, did not immediately respond to e-mail requests for comment.
The soldiers are expected to be tried at Fort Campbell. They have been jailed in Kuwait since their arrests this year.
The U.S. military has not executed a soldier since the 1960 hanging of a soldier convicted rape and attempted murder.
Syria Agrees to Lebanon Arms Embargo
By WARREN HOGE
The New York Times
September 2, 2006
DOHA, Qatar, Sept. 1 — The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, said Friday that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria had pledged to respect an embargo on weapons going into Lebanon and to help secure the border with added guards and a greater liaison with the Beirut authorities.
Mr. Annan said his one-hour talk with Mr. Assad in the presidential palace in Damascus on Friday morning had also produced agreements to open bilateral negotiations on setting up formal diplomatic relations between Syria and Lebanon and on delineating their contested border.
Syria is widely believed, along with Iran, to provide the Lebanese-based militia Hezbollah with money and weapons, and Mr. Annan was asked at an airport news conference in Damascus if he thought the steps he was announcing would succeed in blocking illegal arms shipments.
“I think it can happen,” he replied. “It may not be 100 percent, but it will make quite a lot of difference if the government puts in place the measures the government has discussed with me.”
A United Nations diplomat said the meeting in Damascus had given the world body new leverage in Syria, a country with which it has had difficult relations.
“The secretary general now has a precise understanding with Mr. Assad on what he is expected to do,” said the diplomat, who was not authorized to speak for attribution. “He got what he wanted as concerning commitments. The test is, now, will Assad deliver.”
Mr. Assad had no public comment on the meeting, but Walid al-Moallem, Syria’s foreign minister, dismissed reports of arms shipments by Syria as “something you read only in the Western media.” In an interview, he conceded only that there were incidents of “smuggling.”
Israel officials expressed skepticism on Friday that Syria would stop Hezbollah from rearming.
“Israel does not think that Syria during the last conflict — both in helping Hezbollah by financing and arming them directly and the declarations during the conflict — and in its aftermath, has shown any reason to be a reliable force,” said Miri Eisin, a government spokeswoman, Reuters reported.
Nor has the IDF "shown any reason to be a reliable force”
The pledges that Mr. Annan obtained are aimed at shoring up the independence of Lebanon, a country whose politics were long dominated by Syria and whose authority has been undermined by Hezbollah.
The agreements track with the Aug. 11 Security Council resolution that brought a halt to the war between Israel and Hezbollah. Mr. Annan is in the midst of a Middle Eastern trip seeking support for putting the resolution’s formula into practice.
Since Monday, Mr. Annan has visited Lebanon, Israel, the West Bank and Syria. He arrived in Qatar late Friday and was scheduled to go Saturday to Iran, where he will meet Sunday with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Further stops include Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Mr. Annan said he had asked Syria to help win the release of three Israeli soldiers — two captured by Hezbollah in a July 12 cross-border raid that set off the war, and one captured in June by Hamas-linked militants in Gaza.
The exiled political leadership of Hamas is based in Damascus.
The United Nations believes a plan under which prisoners on both sides would be freed would open the way toward broader agreements between Israel and Lebanon.
Mr. Annan said he had encouraged Mr. Assad to meet with the Lebanese prime minister, Fouad Siniora, who is backed by an anti-Syrian majority. The Syrian president told him he was ready to do that at any time.
The arms embargo section of the United Nations resolution calls on countries to prevent the sale or supply of weapons to entities in Lebanon without the consent of the government or United Nations peacekeepers. It also calls for Lebanon to “secure its borders and other entry points.”
Another passage of the resolution calls for the dismantling of all foreign militias, a reference to Hezbollah.
Is Hezbollah foreign to Lebanon?
Mr. Annan said, without elaboration, that Mr. Assad had endorsed the Lebanese government’s “national dialogue” determination that armed militias be disbanded.
Mr. Annan said Mr. Assad had committed Syria to establishing joint border patrols and control points with the Lebanese authorities.
Mr. Siniora has stationed 8,600 troops along the border, and Germany has arranged to give the Lebanese training and equipment for scrutinizing cross-border shipments.
Mr. Assad’s reference signaled that he would not object to this outside assistance. Earlier, he had protested an Israeli suggestion that foreign troops under United Nations mandate assist the Lebanese in patrolling the Syrian border.
Mr. Annan said that Mr. Assad had said he accepted the need to define the Syrian-Lebanese border in principle but had told him it was an issue to be worked out by the two countries.
Syria has long argued that the neighbors do not need diplomatic ties because of their traditional links, prompting Lebanese suspicions that Damascus refuses to acknowledge as fully sovereign the country it controlled until it ended a 29-year troop presence last year.
Russia Hints It Won’t Back Any Penalties Against Iran
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
The New York Times
MOSCOW, Sept. 1 — Russia on Friday cast new doubt on the prospects for the Bush administration’s efforts to punish Iran for refusing to suspend its nuclear program, even as European leaders expressed wariness at moving quickly to impose sanctions.
In Moscow, officials expressed regret that an Aug. 31 deadline had passed without an agreement by Iran to halt its efforts to enrich uranium that could be used for building nuclear weapons, as American and European officials believe Iran intends to do.
At the same time, Russian officials made it clear that they do not support retaliatory sanctions or other steps to isolate Iran’s leadership. That was a view that seemed to be widely shared across Europe, despite public consternation over Iran’s defiance of a United Nations Security Council resolution.
Despite weeks of diplomacy and compromise among the Security Council’s permanent members — the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia — the resolute deadline set by the Security Council for Iran to halt its nuclear work seemed fairly irresolute once it passed.
Russia’s defense minister, Sergei B. Ivanov, said that the issue of sanctions was “not acute,” and added that diplomats from the five permanent members and Germany would meet to discuss further steps. France’s Foreign Ministry said the meeting was scheduled for next Thursday in Berlin.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said that Russia favored continued negotiations and not punitive measures, calling into question their effectiveness.
Even though Russia previously joined the other permanent members of the Security Council in setting the deadline for Iran to comply — with the implicit threat of sanctions — Mr. Lavrov left in doubt whether Russia would ever agree to any penalties. His view echoed one heard increasingly here: that sanctions could be a first step toward a new American-led military conflict in the Middle East.
“We cannot support ultimatums that lead everyone to a dead end and cause escalation, the logic of which always leads to the use of force,” Mr. Lavrov said, speaking broadly in an address to students at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.
At a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Finland, the Union’s chief foreign affairs official, Javier Solana, was quoted as saying that there would now be “a period of talks” over the conflict with Iran, making any discussion of sanctions unreasonable for now.
Other European leaders also expressed eagerness to avoid the immediate imposition of punitive measures, which they fear would worsen the confrontation with Iran.
At a joint news conference in Rome with Prime Minister Romano Prodi of Italy, the French prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, called Iran’s response to the international demands “totally unsatisfying,” but said it remained possible “to go forward with dialogue.”
Mr. Prodi agreed. “If there is a even a small opening to get to the negotiating table,” he said, “it should be taken.”
United States officials have said no action will be sought against Tehran until after Mr. Solana meets with Ali Larijani, Iran’s nuclear negotiator, next week.
“We’ll find out in the next several weeks whether we’re able to proceed to sanctions,” the American ambassador to the United Nations, John R. Bolton, told CNN on Friday. “We’re consulting with European countries. What we’re going to aim at is the leadership of Iran and the programs involving their nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities.”
I