Watch as our President smacks his lips, talks with his mouth full and tells Tony Blair “What [the United Nations] need to do is to get Syria to stop Hezbollah from doing this shit.” Syria, which the U.S. pushed out of Lebanon, has little or no sway on the ground there now. Is our leader really this ignorant? It would seem so.

Israel’s attacks are destroying civilian infrastructure and human life at a sickening pace. Hezbollah is responding with its own barbaric escalation, led by the evidently criminally insane Hasan Nasrallah. Israel seems bent on pushing Lebanon back into civil war and Gaza back into the stone age. Your tax dollars at work, America! Hezbollah has nothing to lose, and in fact has gained popular support in Lebanon.

Please read Juan Cole’s blog. He has daily reports from the Arab press rarely reported in the west, as well as expert, well-reasoned analysis. Also, the Nation has a good summation of the folly of “the Israeli doctrine of absolute security and massive retaliation–the notion that any attack or threat of attack on Israel will be met with a disproportionate response”.

Lest we forget what the victims of war look like, read this story in the Guardian about children murdered by bomb while trying to flee the violence. The vast majority of the 150+ killed in Lebanon since Wednesday have been civilians. Lebanon is one of the few democracies in the Arab world (and a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic one at that). What happened to Bush’s policy encouraging democracy in the region?

This is a critical time in the middle east. What is happening now will ripple outward across the entire region, indeed the entire globe. And the one man who could actually do something about it sits around stuffing his face, flaunting his geo-political ignorance and duplicitiousness. Shame.

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Religious fundamentalists are consolidating power in this world, and it’s time to draw the line. Who benefits from the 9/11 attacks and the ensuing “long war”? These guys.

Who suffers? Normal people. Moms, dads, brothers, sisters, grandmas and grandpas. Tiny little babies and toddlers are dying for these bastards’ holy war. Three thousand normal working people died in the US on 9/11. Upwards of 43,000 Iraqi civilians have died in the killing fields we’ve created in the ashes of Iraq. Lebanon and the re-occupied Gaza strip are under attack and in flames. What little control exists in Somalia has fallen into the hands of Taliban-like fundamentalists. The actual Taliban in Afghanistan are staging a strong comeback. Our own fundamentalist leader was twice barely elected only with overwhelming support of Christian fundamentalists.

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Yours truly is not the only one who is nuts for hockey and world peace. Durham, N.C. civil rights attorney and author Alex Charns has been making the news (at least in Edmonton) and raising some redneck hockey fan eyebrows with his game night protests in Raleigh.

Both the Edmonton Journal and Sun have run articles about him and his righteous antics during the Stanley Cup Final between the Edmonton Oilers and the Carolina Hurricanes.

Charns is the author of “How Hockey Saved the World* (and defeated George W. Bush, but not necessarily in that order)”.

Sing it loud, and sing it proud: More Hockey! Less War! More Hockey! Less War!

Thanks, Alex.

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The brutal death of brutal killer Abu Musab al-Zarqawi should bring a tear no no one’s eye.

But what irony to hear US officials broadly brushing off any rumors that Zarqawi was killed while in custody. No, he died from the result of us dropping two 500 lb. bombs on his head, not by gunshot or beating. Somehow, half a ton of military-grade explosives is acceptable but fists are not. It’s war after all, and we all accept war as legal and legitimate for a modern civilization, don’t we? Dropping bombs on people (and their family and neighbors) is the civilized, acceptable way to kill them.

Well, I don’t accept that. Especially since Zarqawi is largely a product of this ill-begotten war in the first place. He was nothing but a low-life thug until Geo. W. came along to elevate him to the thrown of uber-terrorista. I’ve read only spotty reports of the several other people killed in this attack. Who were these three women? His wife and daughters? Neighbors? Terrorists? We may never know.

War is the problem. Peace is the solution.

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From Juan Cole’s Informed Comment, Al Hayat reports that an Iranian official “joked that there was not need for the US to invade Iran. He said that the US had invaded Afghanistan and established an Islamic republic there. Then it had done the same thing in Iraq. Since Iran has had an Islamic republic for 27 years, he said, there really isn’t a point in a US invasion.” Ouch.

Meanwhile, back at Guantanamo, US State Department official Colleen Graffy called the suicides of three men held for years without charges or access to legal representation “a good PR move.” Camp commander Rear Admiral Harry Harris called it “asymmetrical warfare.” You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. This is a sickening disgrace to all Americans with any sense of human decency.

Close Guantanamo now.

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Tom Harkin has posted this statement on his Web site in support of Feingold’s censure:

We have a President who likes to break things. He has broken the federal budget, running up $3 trillion in new debt. He has broken the Geneva Conventions, giving the green light to torture. He has repeatedly broken promises—and broken faith—with the American people. And now, worst of all, he has broken the law.

In brazen violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), he ordered the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless wiretaps of American citizens. And, despite getting caught red-handed, he refuses to stop.

Let’s be clear: No American—and that must include the President—is above the law. And if we fail to hold Bush to account, then he will be confirmed in his conviction that he can pick and choose among the laws he wants to obey. This is profoundly dangerous to our democracy.

So it is time for Congress to stand up and say enough! That’s why, this week, Senator Russ Feingold proposed a resolution to censure George W. Bush for breaking the FISA law. And that’s why I fully support this resolution of censure.

Nothing is more important to me than the security of our country. Of course, we need to be listening to the terrorists’ conversations. And sometimes there is not time to get a warrant. That’s why the FISA law allows the President, when necessary, to wiretap first, and obtain a warrant afterward. But that’s not acceptable to this above-the-law President. He rejects the idea that he should have to obtain a warrant before or after wiretapping.

We have an out-of-control President whose arrogant and, now, illegal behavior is running our country into the ditch. It’s time to rein him in. And a fine place to start is by passing this resolution of censure. I hope that Senator Feingold’s measure will be brought to the floor. And when it is, I will proudly vote yes.

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While the Democratic right slinks in the shadows and sends minions out to issue statements critical of Russ Feingold, Feingold shoots back. Feingold to Fox News’ Trish Turner:

I’m amazed at Democrats, cowering with this president’s numbers so low. The administration just has to raise the specter of the war and the Democrats run and hide. … Too many Democrats are going to do the same thing they did in 2000 and 2004. In the face of this, they’ll say we’d better just focus on domestic issues. … [Democrats shouldn’t] cower to the argument, that whatever you do, if you question the administration, you’re helping the terrorists.

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I’d list the chicken shit dems in the Senate who voted to extend Bush’s Patriot Act, but the list is too long. Instead here are the few that voted against it:

Wisconsin’s Russ Feingold (of course)
Hawaii’s Daniel Akaka
New Mexico’s Jeff Bingaman
West Virginia’s Robert Byrd
Iowa’s Tom Harkin
Vermont’s Patrick Leahy
Michigan’s Carl Levin
Washington’s Patty Murray
Oregon’s Ron Wyden.

Vermont’s independent Senator Jim Jeffords voted against, too; Hawaii’s Daniel Inouye was absent. All republicans voted for reauthorization.

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Only four senators have stood up to defend the constitution today. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Tom Harkin of Iowa, all Democrats, and James Jeffords, an independent from Vermont. Everybody else in that august body (with the exception of Inouye, who did not vote) voted yes on an extremely weak compromise ammendment to the Patriot act “meant to clarify the rights of people under surveillance and to further limit the government’s ability to scrutinize library records,” according to the Times.

The San Jose Mercury News quoted Feingold:

“If Democrats can’t stand up on something like this when the president’s poll numbers are 34 percent, I just wonder how much right we have to govern this country,” Feingold said in an interview Tuesday. “You’ve got to show people you believe in something, not just that you’re gaming the issues.”

Feingold protested the “cosmetic” nature of the reform by reading the constitution (with emphasis on the Fourth Amendment) to his colleagues.

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First Fukuyma. Now Buckley. In a February 24 column in the National Review titled “It Didn’t Work”, Buckley writes:

“I can tell you the main reason behind all our woes—it is America.” The New York Times reporter is quoting the complaint of a clothing merchant in a Sunni stronghold in Iraq. “Everything that is going on between Sunni and Shiites, the troublemaker in the middle is America.”

One can’t doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed. The same edition of the paper quotes a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Reuel Marc Gerecht backed the American intervention. He now speaks of the bombing of the especially sacred Shiite mosque in Samara and what that has precipitated in the way of revenge. He concludes that “The bombing has completely demolished” what was being attempted—to bring Sunnis into the defense and interior ministries.

Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans.

Of course the paleo-con Buckley was never a big supporter of the neoconservatives (like Fukuyama), so this is not earth shattering. But it is coincident with the whole Dubai ports deal and the Republican congressional revolt. Always good to see the Republicans eating their young.

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