At The Office of the Independent Blogger I take terrorism quite seriously.

Woke up this morning to the news that London was rocked by a series of blasts that most, including Prime Minister Tony Blair, believe were planned and executed by al-Qaeda (which is reasonable to assume as al-Qaeda has taken responsibility for the attack). The BBC is running first-hand accounts of the explosion on its website. You can read Blair's statement and Bush's here.

There are many lessons to take from a terrorist attack such as this one, and these are my thoughts on what is occurring. First, a newspiece. A few days ago, Russia and China called for America to leave Afghanistan. These are security council nations telling us to leave a country that is not yet secure and which, if left to its own devices, would become a terrorist sanctuary and an even larger outpost of opium production. The other Security Council nations are France, Britain and America.

Britain and America are constantly under the threat of attack from al-Qaeda whereas the other three, with the possible exception of Russia though the problems it has aren't a matter of terrorism but of civil war, essentially. Why is that? Some on the fringes of the Left will allege that it's because those other three are peaceful, wonderful nations whereas we are warmongers who provoke it; the Hard Right will claim it's because we are a Christian Nation and they loathe that. (Both claims are ridiculous.) al-Qaeda doesn't lash out at France but it's not because they're such a wonderful country (their banning of religious clothing outside the home didn't go over well with the fundamentalists in the Middle East) it's for the sake of division.

In America, we remember the September eleventh attacks and will do whatever it takes to prevent them; Britain, with this attack and with their fondness for America, will do the same. France has never been rocked like this, and neither have the Russians or the Chinese. They just don't understand the threat of global terrorism (indeed, the people of these countries, surveys suggest, believe that America is the great threat to civilization) and that is because terrorists don't want them to feel as though they're under siege; they don't want them to understand.

So long as these nations are on the Security Council and don't understand terrorism and choose to work against us every chance they get the terrorists will not target them because targeting them would force them to realize that, hey, the Americans aren't crazy after all. al-Qaeda is real. Until then, terrorists will continue with their current strategy: Attack Israel, Britain and America but do not harm any other nations, except for others occasionally when you see an oppurtunity to make a statement (the Madrid Bombing, for instance, on 3/11) and thus divide the world which will believe that the West (Britain and America) are insane when they retaliate to strikes on their nations; then the terrorists will focus on destroying our nations from the inside by weakening our resolves.

When violence like this occurs, my thoughts and prayers go out to the victims. But I also wonder when the rest of the world is going to realize that we all need to join together to fight terrorism. France and China and Russia aren't safe. They are merely pawns in the terrorists' strategy, but I am sad to say that they sometimes play that role a little too eagerly.

- ThePoliticalPenguin 12:13 PM - [PermaLink] -

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London Mayor Calls Blasts 'Mass Murder'

``I want to say one thing: This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty or the powerful, it is not aimed at presidents or prime ministers, it was aimed at ordinary working-class Londoners,'' Livingstone told reporters.
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``Black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindus and Jews, young and old,'' he said. It was an ``indiscriminate attempt to slaughter irrespective of any considerations for age, class, religion - whatever.''
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``That isn't an ideology, it isn't even a perverted faith, it's mass murder,'' Livingstone said. [emphasis mine]

Well Said.

- rob 10:10 AM - [PermaLink] -

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"I always distrust people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows..."
- Susan B. Anthony

- rob 5:31 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Send George a Birthday Card

- rob 5:24 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush and International Diplomacy

Bush Falls Off Bike While in Scotland

(07-06) 12:52 PDT GLENEAGLES, Scotland (AP) --

President Bush collided with a local police officer and fell during a bike ride on the grounds of the Gleneagles golf resort while attending a meeting of world leaders Wednesday.

Bush suffered scrapes on his hands and arms that required bandages by the White House physician, said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

The police officer was taken to a local hospital as a precaution, McClellan said. The extent of the officer's injuries was not known, but he might have an ankle injury, the spokesman said.

- rob 5:21 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Daily Kos: This Plame-Duck Presidency could hang with Kay...

David Kay. Has it been a while since you last thought of David Kay, the head of the Iraqi Survey Group? He was sent to Iraq to find the crucial proof of WMD that Bush and Blair were dependent upon, in order to go free of any charges of having committed a criminal act when they preemptively attacked Iraq.

David Kay had strongly opposed the positions of Blix and Baradei during the run-up to war, and had bought the intelligence that pointed to Iraq possessing significant WMD assets. Blix and Baradei were shunted out of Iraq (and both were given stern warnings by Cheney that he would go mediaeval on them, if he ever found they were hiding something from him).

And that's where we understand that Cheney had so deluded himself (what else is new) that he was willing to threaten UN officials, while under the belief that they had to be keeping something from him, since it was a "certainty" that Saddam had WMD.

So - David Kay goes into Iraq, Has the free run of the place, and arrives convinced he'll turn up something.
Then, after a brief period into his mission, well before it's scheduled to end, he quits, all of a sudden.

http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20040127-04.html

That press release from the CIA is worth reading. (And it's worth remembering that Tenet quit, a little later in the year).

Why did David Kay suddenly quit?

Why did he go straight from Iraq to Congress, and demand an investigation into the politicization of WMD intelligence?

- rob 5:14 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Committee Asks Justice Dept. To Broaden Inquiry of Lobbyist

Criminal investigators at the Justice Department have been asked by a House committee to consider broadening their corruption investigation of a Washington lobbyist whose ties to Tom DeLay, the House Republican leader, and other prominent lawmakers are the subject of inquiries throughout the government, congressional officials disclosed Tuesday.

Is almost the entire House GOP (and more then a few Dems) broad enough?

- rob 5:09 PM - [PermaLink] -

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US Airways tries to secure future business with the President

Airline Cutting Pretzels to Trim Costs

Beginning in September, US Airways will pull the pretzels from domestic flights in a move expected to save more than $1 million a year.

- rob 5:05 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Save the First Amendment--from Karl Rove

(July 05, 2005) -- In 99.9 percent of cases I know, journalists must not break the bonds of appropriate confidentiality, to protect their ability to report, and to defend the First Amendment. I’ve testified in court to that end, and would do so again.

But the Valerie Plame-CIA case that threatens jail time for reporters from Time and The New York Times this week is the exception that shatters the rule. In this case, journalists as a community have been played for patsies by the president’s chief strategist, Karl Rove, and are enabling him to abuse the First Amendment, by their invoking it.
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For in this case, Rove, improving on Macchiavelli, has bet that reporters won’t rat their relationship with the administration’s most important political source. How better for him to operate without constraint, or to camouflage breaking the law, than under the cover of journalists and journalism, protected by the First Amendment?

Karl Rove is in my experience with him the brightest and most affable of companions; perhaps I have been coopted, for I genuinely treasure his friendship. But neither charm nor political power should be permitted to subvert the First Amendment, which is intended to insure that reporters and citizens burrow fully and publicly into government, not insulate its players from felony, or reality.

- rob 5:03 PM - [PermaLink] -

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"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
- George Bush

- rob 5:02 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Who am I? Why am I here?

Though many remember him (I certainly do) as the most unintentionally humorous Vice-presidential debater, he was also a true American hero.

Retired Vice Adm. James Stockdale Dies

- rob 4:58 PM - [PermaLink] -

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With climate change, African poverty and debt relief on the agenda for this year's G8 summit, the world has high hopes for a comprehensive plan aimed at pulling the world's poorest nations to their feet and for a reconciliation between the United States and the rest of the world regarding climate change or, as it used to be referred to before Republicans saw polls which indicated that Americans take the issue seriously and thus decided to change its name, global warming. The G8 have already come to an agreement regarding debt relief and now the focus has come on "making poverty history", the focus on Africa largely due to Tony Blair pushing for it. Blair is also pushing for Bush to work with the world on Global Warming.

How does the President respond to Blair, a man that has stood by the President through two wars? By insisting that, in regard to "climate change" at least, he will refuse anything that "looks like Kyoto."

Here's a situation where we ought to take a common sense approach toward our diplomacy. Regarding African poverty and global warming, give more money for the former and take more allied steps with Europe on the latter. In exchange for a few extra billion in aid to Africa, and for our joining Europe in setting goals for the limiting, and cutting back on, of carbon dioxide emissions, insist that they help us in Iraq -- with money and peacekeepers, with soldiers, with advisors, with public displays of solidarity.

I'm not holding my breath for George W. Bush to work hand-in-hand with our allies, Blair in particular, and I expect this summit to end poorly on all fronts. These guys are children, these guys in the Bush White House, who will throw temper tantrums because everything won't go exactly as they want it and instead of using Europe's Play-doh to sculpt Africa and the fight against global warming Bush is going to insist that they use his doh, and only his doh. When they don't, he's going to scowl and embarass Uncle Blair. Such is the President we have.

- ThePoliticalPenguin 10:44 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Ahh the decision to short change our children's education just keeps reaping dividends

Toyota to build 100,000 vehicles per year in Woodstock, Ont., starting 2008

WOODSTOCK, Ont. (CP) - Ontario workers are well-trained.

That simple explanation was cited as a main reason why Toyota turned its back on hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies offered from several American states in favour of building a second Ontario plant.

Industry experts say Ontarians are easier and cheaper to train - helping make it more cost-efficient to train workers when the new Woodstock plant opens in 2008, 40 kilometres away from its skilled workforce in Cambridge.

"The level of the workforce in general is so high that the training program you need for people, even for people who have not worked in a Toyota plant before, is minimal compared to what you have to go through in the southeastern United States," said Gerry Fedchun, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, whose members will see increased business with the new plant. [Emphasis Mine]

First they'd have to sit down all their new employees and explain that Japan isn't Communist - that's China. Godzilla - yep - that's Japanese.

- rob 4:50 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Congressman Mum After FBI Searches Home

SAN DIEGO -- A California congressman whose dealings with a defense contractor are under investigation was taking a "personal day" Saturday and not commenting on federal authorities' searches a day earlier of his home and a yacht where he stayed while in Washington, a spokesman said.

What's with the "personal day" on a Saturday - couldn't the spokesman say "yo, its Saturday - I'm not going to bother him."

Have Washington D.C. minions so removed themselves from reality that they have developed an impenetrable shield of privacy and avoiding the press called "personal day?"

"Excuse me ma'am? But do you realize you just ran a red light?"

"I'm sorry officer, but I'd like to take a 'personal day'"

"Well all righty ma'am, we can talk about it some other time. Good day."

- rob 4:45 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Fourth of July in a very Blue State city:

The parade had:

• Lots of cool old cars (cheers)
• Old World War II jeeps and trucks (cheers)
• Black World War II D-day vets (loud cheers)
• Other vets (loud cheers)
• local politicians (polite clapping)
• Yogi Berra (very loud cheers)
• Support our troops (loud cheers)

Basically a parade like any other in America. Well, okay, no other parade had Yogi, and probably many also lacked the pro-choice float, the "send our troops home now" float, the "Christ loves everyone [even gays] float", and sadly some probably lack Irish Bagpipers and Jamaican Steel Drums. All receiving cheers as well - blue state don'tcha know.

And come that evening before the fireworks the entire crowd stood and sang for the national anthem.

That's blue state America

Meanwhile it a red state.... KKK marches in Shelby County parade

MOUNT EDEN — Under heavy police protection, members of the Ku Klux Klan marched in Shelby County's annual Fourth of July parade, threatening violence to any who took pictures.

Okay, that was an insanely unfair insult, I apologize... but it was an easy one - sorry.

- rob 4:37 PM - [PermaLink] -

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More on Rove
(remember when a Senator demanding answers actually got an answer or two - me neither)

Senator demands Rove answer questions about leak

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - It's time for President Bush's political mastermind to step up and say whether he leaked the name of a CIA agent whose cover was blown in the press, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Sunday.

Schumer's demand came Sunday after reports surfaced Saturday that White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove spoke to a Time magazine reporter about agent Valerie Plame.

- rob 4:14 PM - [PermaLink] -

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found via a Daily Kos diary:

Team Bush Paid Millions to Nathan Sproul--and Tried to Hide It

In the months before the 2004 presidential election, a firm called Sproul & Associates launched voter registration drives in at least eight states, most of them swing states. The group--run by Nathan Sproul, former head of the Arizona Christian Coalition and the Arizona Republican Party--had been hired by the Republican National Committee.

Sproul got into a bit of trouble last fall when, in certain states, it came out that the firm was playing dirty tricks in order to suppress the Democratic vote: concealing their partisan agenda, tricking Democrats into registering as Republicans, surreptitiously re-registering Democrats and Independents as Republicans, and shredding Democratic registration forms.

The scandal got a moderate amount of local coverage in some states--and then the election was over. Now anyone who brought up Nathan Sproul, or any of the other massive crimes and improprieties committed on or prior to Election Day, was shrugged off as a dealer in "conspiracy theory."

It seems that Sproul did quite a lot of work for the Republicans. Exactly how much did he do? More specifically, how much did the RNC pay Sproul & Associates?

If you went online last week to look up how much money Sproul received from the Republicans in 2004, you would have found that, according to the party (whose figures had been posted by the Center for Responsive Politics), the firm was paid $488,957.

In fact, the RNC paid Sproul a great deal more than that. From an independent study of the original data filed by the Republicans with the Federal Election Commission, it is clear that Sproul was paid a staggering $8.3 million for its work against the Democrats.

- rob 4:11 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Is this man in trouble?



The Rove Factor?
Time magazine talked to Bush's guru for Plame story.

The e-mails surrendered by Time Inc., which are largely between Cooper and his editors, show that one of Cooper's sources was White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, according to two lawyers who asked not to be identified because they are representing witnesses sympathetic to the White House.

- rob 4:08 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Canada - American wannabe

NCC sorry for nixing Corn Cob Bob from Canada Day

CBC NEWS – The National Capital Commission has apologized for banning an alternative-fuel mascot from its Canada Day celebrations at the request of a major oil company.

Corn Cob Bob is the front man for the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, a not-for-profit group that promotes clean energy.
...
But last Wednesday, the commission called to cancel the arrangement after pressure from Shell Canada, a key sponsor for the Canada Day celebrations in the capital.

I think it is best to leave Corn Cob Bob alone - don't you?

- rob 4:05 PM - [PermaLink] -

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“Just as the President has a right to nominate without assigning reasons, so has the Senate a right to dissent without giving theirs.”
-George Washington


(it is kinda like George is saying "fuck you" to Dubya and Frist from the grave)


Thanks to Fair Game Since 1795

- rob 3:54 PM - [PermaLink] -

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A lot of people say Bush is a failure as a President

I can think of 5,650 folks who strongly disagree

In 2002, More Wealthy People Paid No Tax

- rob 3:44 PM - [PermaLink] -

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New sex education texts being reviewed by Senator Frist. (he's a doctor you know)

- rob 11:40 AM - [PermaLink] -

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"As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality."
- George Washington


(it is kinda like George is saying "fuck you" to Rove from the grave)

- rob 11:14 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Happy Independence Day!

- rob 11:29 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Largely ignored by the mainstream media in recent days is the recent signing of a Joint Declaration by China and Russia blasting "unilateral action" and nations that strive toward "monopoly" and "domination" in international affairs, a clear but thoroughly inaccurate shot at the United States.

Our invasion of Iraq was a lot of things, but an imperialistic attempt at monopolization or a grab at the world's oil is certainly not one of them. France, China and Russia refused to hold Saddam to the agreements that he made at the end of the Gulf War and made constant attempts at shielding him from Britain and America when we enforced the treaty that ended the Persian Gulf War. You know why? They were being bribed. France often wonders why it is not a world power and the answer is clear: It doesn't have a backbone. France was placed on the Security Council because Roosevelt considered it crucial that they be allowed power in the post-war world (even though they shamelessly refused to fight the Germans in the 1930s and rolled over for them in 1940) to help keep Russia in check in the post-war world. They failed miserably, often working with the Soviets or softening the West's resistance to Communist expansion.

Russia. Oh, my, where do we begin? They're decrying "imperialism" and attempts to monopolize the world? I'll disregard that as the rantings of a nation which resents the fact that its Communist system bankrupted it, its attempts to take over Europe were halted, and its current power is eroded. China? They're a country that has the audacity to call itself a Democracy which respects human rights. Let's move on.

I've got many issues with the Iraq War but I have none with us for going in there. Saddam had to be removed in one way or another and, you know what? It is sleazy that the Bush Administration played games with the Intelligence. It is maddening that they've violently mismanaged the occupation by playing it "politically correct". It would've never happened, however, had France, Russia and China joined Tony Blair and President Clinton in enforcing the United Nations resolutions in the 1990s, then they have the bald-faced audacity to call us imperialist unilateral interventionists? We went into Iraq with several dozen countries supporting us. (Don't forget Poland!)

“It is necessary to peacefully resolve differences and arguments, avoid one-sided actions and not resort to the politics of diktats, the threat of force or its use,” the declaration said. Russia, the world’s second-biggest oil exporter, and China, the world’s fastest-growing major economy with a huge appetite for crude, say they want to build on their “strategic partnership.” The Chinese and Russian presidents held a summit Friday aimed at strengthening security in volatile Central Asia and toughening economic ties between these two giants once seen as the West’s main threat in Cold War days. President Vladimir Putin hailed Moscow’s growing bilateral ties with its communist neighbour, saying “We have resolved almost all the essential political questions between our two countries.”

“There are vast possibilities for interregional cooperation. We intend to develop our military ties and cooperation between our defence ministries,” he said at the close of talks. Chinese president Hu Jintao highlighted what he said were the countries’ common security goals. “We are increasing coordination and cooperation on important regional and international questions, such as guaranteeing stability in Central Asia, the Shanghai group, the form of the United Nations and the nuclear problem on the Korean peninsula,” Hu told journalists. Hu’s four-day visit, which began Thursday, will take him to energy-rich Siberia, where he will meet regional leaders in the city of Novosibirsk. From there, he will head to a regional security summit in Kazakhstan and then the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Scotland. The two countries will hold joint large-scale military exercises by the end of this year, Putin said on Friday. On the economic front, a number of agreements were signed aimed at boosting trade ties.

Why doesn't Putin follow the first few lines of the declaration in his dealings with Chechnya? And just why are they going to hold joint large-scale military exercises? I'm sure it's just practice in case the Imperial United States attempts to take their land by force, right? Or maybe the Chinese, believing that this declaration only applies to America and no one else, or at least not them, are plotting an invasion of Taiwan. I don't like the looks of this newfound cooperation, bubba. I don't like it at all.

- ThePoliticalPenguin 4:27 PM - [PermaLink] -

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"When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon."
-- Thomas Paine

- rob 11:32 AM - [PermaLink] -

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