Tag: News, Politics, Events

What is wrong with George saying such a thing as this? Nothing:

Mr Shaath said that in a 2003 meeting with Mr Bush, the US president said he was “driven with a mission from God”.”President Bush said to all of us: ‘I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. And I did, and then God would tell me, George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq… And I did. And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East. And by God I’m gonna do it.'” Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who attended the meeting in June 2003 too, also appears on the documentary series to recount how Mr Bush told him: “I have a moral and religious obligation. So I will get you a Palestinian state.”

If that is what is in his brain, why can’t he put it that way. Consider that its pretty much accepted that he uses such language as a tool of communication and that he pretty much is convinced of its truth. So why can’t he say it – given he doesn’t get voted for again and even if he did the atheists were never lining up to back him in the first place? If we can accept Manny being Manny, can’t we now just accept George, too?

I find this CNN quotation from George’s speech interesting and maybe even important:

“We’re facing a radical ideology with an unalterable objective, to enslave whole nations and intimidate the whole world,” he said. Bush indicated that the public is unaware of many anti-terrorism victories. He said the United States and its allies have disrupted 10 al Qaeda terrorism plots since September 11, 2001, including three inside the United States. Critics have charged that war in Iraq has become a breeding ground for terror and opinion polls have found U.S. public support for the war waning since spring. But Bush argued the war in Iraq did not cause hatred of the United States among radical Muslims or global terror attacks, but rather is an “excuse” to further the goal of creating an Islamic state across the Mideast. “The militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia,” Bush said. “The hatred of the radicals existed before Iraq was an issue,” Bush said. “And it will exist after Iraq is no longer an excuse.” “No act of ours invited the rage of the killers, and no conscience, bribe or act of appeasement will change or limit their plans for murder.”

I find the presentation of the purpose of Al Qaeda in this holistic all encompassing way interesting as it is no longer a war against ideas triggering fanatical terrorism. It is a war against a group with a plan of empire and domination.

But there has to be a reality to it. Is it generally accepted that Al Qaeda could actually achieve this empire or anything like it? Could Al Qaeda even, for example, now take over an area of land, say, a hundred miles square and create a radical Islamic empire in that space. The answer is clearly no. They do not have the resources or support to do so. The Taliban could not control all of Afghanistan at its height of strength. Look at Iran. With all its power it could not do that if it wanted to…which it really doesn’t as it would face the culturally impossible task of Persians dominating Arabs regardless of the potential creation of similar religious fervour. Syrian and Libya tried in the 70s, didn’t they? It failed. Administratively and logistically the return of the empire is simply not going to occur…even without the West’s reasonable decision to fight against those few who dream of its return.

So while no one in their right minds cannot agree with pursuing the war on terror – being finding the stateless radicals in their cells where ever they are including in the Middle East and stopping them from killing innocents – do you buy this new characterization of the war on terror as a state-against-state empire building thing? If so (which is fine) please explain how a few hundred in a few cells becomes empire? Or is there another source of radical-islamo-wickedness outside of Iran and Al Qaeda that will trigger this empire?

Hey, I’m just asking – how does this dangerous future come into being?

I find myself, strangely, agreeing with David Frum…but thankfully only in part. He makes the case that the nomination of Ms. Miers to the Supreme Court of the USA is a poor one and a disservice to that good nation to the south. He states in conclusion:

Yesterday’s White House talking point was that Miers “reflects the president’s judicial philosophy.” OK. But can she articulate it? Defend it? And persuade others of it – not just her colleagues, but the generations to come who will read her decisions and accept them … or scorn them. That’s the way this president should have thought about this choice. And that’s the way the Senators called on to consent to the choice should be thinking about it now.

My question is could he articulate his judicial philosophy? He might say stuff about “good people workin’ hard” and “a judge doin’ what a judge outta do”. But is that articulating? Is even saying that “judges making up stuff is bad” articulting? For me “articulating” would include being able to present an idea of why the court finding a privacy concept in the constitutional right to liberty is good or is bad. I think the fact that no one on the left or right has a clue why he nominated her is evidence that that he can’t articulate such ideas. If he could we would know his purpose in this nomination.

It was a sunny beautiful day like today.

Here is what I wrote in 2003. Here is what I wrote last year including comments I wrote at Acts of Volition in September 2001.

This is in The Globe this morning:

The developments in New Orleans came against an increasingly stormy backdrop in Washington, where Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown was relieved of his command of the onsite relief efforts amid increasing criticism over the sluggishness of the agency’s response and questions over his background. Asked if he was being made a scapegoat, Mr. Brown told The Associated Press: “By the press, yes. By the president, No.”

I didn’t think he was getting the boot because of the hurricane but his track record:

• The [Boston] Herald reported last week that Brown was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows, and that he was tapped to join FEMA by an old college chum and Bush campaign manager, Joe Allbaugh.
• “His bio, the White House press release, and a number of sources list him as assistant city manager in Edmund, Okla.,” Miranda says. ” When we called the folks in Edmund, they told us that, no, his position in fact had been assistant to the city manager, which is a purely administrative job, a very different job. He was an administrative assistant. It’s sort of an entry-level, intern-type job for somebody who’s interested in learning about government. When he began that job in 1977, he was still a college student. He didn’t graduate with his B.A. until 1978.”
• Time also reported that Brown’s profile on the legal Web site Findlaw.com, which is usually based on information provided by lawyers or their offices, said he was an “outstanding political science professor” at Central State University, now the University of Central Oklahoma. The school took issue with that assertion. “(Brown) wasn’t a professor here, he was only a student here,” school spokesman Charles Johnson told Time.

I have saved a .jpg of the bio from the FEMA website of Brown’s bio as Under Secretary which has at least two goofs in it. Are there more? You tell me. Here is the website. See if it changes.

I think he’s just getting the boot for being Mr. Fibber MacFibbfibb.

I think it is good to get all cathartic once in a while, shed baggage and, well, point fingers. Colin Powell (former nicest person in what a made-for-TV-movie will one day call George Dubya, The First Years) has started to stretch his wings:

• The Houston Chronicle says: “Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a television interview to be broadcast today that his 2003 speech to the United Nations, in which he gave a detailed description of Iraqi weapons programs that turned out not to exist, was ‘painful’ for him personally and would be a permanent ‘blot’ on his record.”
• WebIndia 123 reports: “Powell told Walters government generally failed to prepare properly for Hurricane Katrina. I think there have been a lot of failures at a lot of levels — local, state and federal, he said. There was more than enough warning over time about the dangers to New Orleans. Not enough was done.”

Seeing as there is a reasonably valid connection to the state of affairs post-hurricane and thoughts on Homeland Security preparedness and response capability generally, these are…err…less than supportive statements post-9/11-wise. I wonder, now that GWB is polling in the low 40% range and dropping, whether the teflon is starting to finally wear off, whether actual acts and specific policies will be weighed for their own merit rather according to which side of the line drawn in the playground dirt you stand on as you scream “liar!” What will this quack do when he has to add a third dimension to his reality?

Tangent: bookends for two eras have struck me lately – one, Berlin Wall Fall to 9/11 and, second, 9/11 to Katrina. Essays in by noon please.