Marc Brands Liberty -- Cartoon -- Who Knew?

USNews.com: Bush even more AWOL than we thought

The service question
A review of President Bush's Guard years raises issues about the time he served

Last February, White House spokesman Scott McClellan held aloft sections of President Bush's military record, declaring to the waiting press that the files 'clearly document the president fulfilling his duties in the National Guard.' Case closed, he said.

But last week the controversy reared up once again, as several news outlets, including U.S. News, disclosed new information casting doubt on White House claims.

A review of the regulations governing Bush's Guard service during the Vietnam War shows that the White House used an inappropriate--and less stringent--Air Force standard in determining that he had fulfilled his duty. Because Bush signed a six-year 'military service obligation,' he was required to attend at least 44 inactive-duty training drills each fiscal year beginning July 1. But Bush's own records show that he fell short of that requirement, attending only 36 drills in the 1972-73 period, and only 12 in the 1973-74 period. The White House has said that Bush's service should be calculated using 12-month periods beginning on his induction date in May 1968. Using this time frame, however, Bush still fails the Air Force obligation standard."

Condi: N.Korea Blast Probably "some kind of forest fire"

Rice played down sightings of mushroom cloud. 'There are all kinds of reports and there are all kinds of assessments that are going on. Maybe it was a fire, some kind of forest fire,' she said."

Surge of Baghdad Violence Leaves 25 Dead

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents hammered central Baghdad on Sunday with one of their most intense mortar and rocket barrages ever in the heart of the capital, heralding a day of violence that left at least 25 people dead in the city as security appeared to spiral out of control.

Many of the dead were killed when a U.S. helicopter fired on a disabled U.S. Bradley fighting vehicle as Iraqis swarmed around it, cheering, throwing stones and waving the black and yellow sunburst banner of Iraq (news - web sites)'s most-feared terror organization.

Maimed and lifeless bodies of young men and boys lay in the street as the stricken U.S. vehicle was engulfed in flames and thick black smoke. Across the city, at least 104 people were wounded in explosions and barrages, the Health Ministry said.mastermind Abu Musab, said it carried out Sunday's coordinated campaign of violence in Baghdad.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) acknowledged that the U.S.-led coalition faces a "difficult time" in Iraq but said the United States has a plan to quash the insurgency and bring those areas under control in time for national elections in January.

Thousands Protest Gaza Evacuation Plan

JERUSALEM - Tens of thousands of Jewish settlers and their backers demonstrated in Jerusalem on Sunday against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites)'s plan to evacuate all settlements from Gaza and four West Bank enclaves in a rally held against a backdrop of assassination threats and warnings of civil war.

Sharon Says Israel Is at Risk of Civil War

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) warned on Sunday of growing incitement in Israel, saying the heightened rhetoric against his Gaza withdrawal plan could lead to civil war.

Sharon issued the warning at the beginning of the weekly meeting of his Cabinet.

Sharon faces significant hardline opposition to his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) and four West Bank settlements next year, including from opponents within his own government.

Yahoo! News - Powell Says N. Korea Blast Not Nuclear

Yahoo! News - Powell Says N. Korea Blast Not Nuclear

There was no indication that was a nuclear event of any kind. Exactly what it was, we're not sure," Powell said on ABC's "This Week.

"The explosion happened at 11 a.m. Thursday in Yanggang province near the border with China, Yonhap said.

'We understand that a mushroom-shaped cloud about 3.5 to 4 kilometers (2.1 to 2.5 miles) in diameter was monitored during the explosion,' the news agency quoted an unidentified diplomatic source in Seoul, the South Korean capital, as saying.

Yonhap quoted an unidentified South Korean official as saying seismic activity related to two blasts in North Korea occurred at 11 p.m. Wednesday and 1 a.m. Thursday.

The damage and crater left by the explosion in Kim Hyong Jik county was big enough to be noticed by a satellite, Yonhap quoted an unidentified source in Beijing as saying."

Daily Kos :: Grim Fairy Tales

Once upon a time there was a bus driving down the street. It was the biggest and shiniest bus of them all, and it was driven by a cheerful, likable fellow who knew all the places the bus needed to go and the most efficient ways of getting there. He certainly wasn't perfect -- maybe there were a few times he should have been watching the road when he was talking to one of the passengers -- but all in all he was one of the best drivers the bus had ever had.

One day that bus driver retired, and the new bus driver told all the passengers, 'That was one of the worst bus drivers you ever had. We're going to do everything differently now.'

The passengers were a little confused, but they figured, hey, if he's the bus driver, he must know what he's talking about. So they all waited to see what the new driver would do, and watched with some curiosity as the new driver went backwards and made a number of wrong-way turns on one-way streets. Often, the bus driver would put the bus on cruise control and take a nap. This didn't worry the passengers too much, since the bus had been traveling so smoothly for so long, it seemed like it barely needed a driver at all.

One morning, while the bus was idling at a stoplight, some people from a different bus threw a rock through one of the windows. Over 3,000 passengers were cut by flying glass. (It was a very large bus.)

The people were shocked and angry. 'We've got to get the people who threw that rock!' they shouted. And the bus driver promptly found the other bus, the one that had the people who threw the rock, and rammed it, and that bus fell over on its side, and most of the people inside that bus climbed out the windows and started to run away.

'Let's get 'em!' shouted the people.

'Wait,' said the bus driver. 'Look, over there, at that OTHER bus.....

BAD NEWS: N. Korea has the bomb

Yahoo! News - Blast, Mushroom Cloud Reported in N. Korea

7 minutes ago

SEOUL, South Korea - A large explosion occurred in the northern part of North Korea (news - web sites), sending a huge mushroom cloud into the air on an important anniversary of the communist regime, a South Korean news agency reported Sunday.

The South Korean government said it was trying to confirm the report.

The Yonhap news agency, citing an unidentified diplomatic source in Seoul, said the explosion happened at 11 a.m. local time Thursday in Yanggang province near the border with China. The blast in Kim Hyong Jik county left a crater big enough to be noticed by a satellite, the source said.

'We understand that a mushroom-shaped cloud about 2.2 miles to 2.5 miles in diameter was monitored during the explosion,' the source said. Yonhap described the source as 'reliable.'

Thursday was the anniversary of the 1948 foundation of the communist regime. Leader Kim Jong Il uses the occasion to stage performances and other events to bolster loyalty among the impoverished North Korean population.

Experts have speculated that North Korea might use a major anniversary to conduct a nuclear-related test, though there was no immediate indication that the reported explosion on Thursday was linked to Pyongyang's efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

'It remains unclear whether it was a deliberately planned nuclear test or it was just an accident,' the source in Seoul told Yonhap. 'But it doesn't seem to be an ordinary explosion.'

The source said the explosion took place 'not far' from a military base that holds North Korea's Taepo-dong ballistic missiles. North Korea, which has a large missile arsenal and more than a million soldiers, is dotted with military installations.

The damage and crater left by the explosion in Kim Hyong Jik county was big enough to be noticed by a satellite, a source in Beijing told Yonhap."

War President

Below is a small version of an image "American Leftist" made. It's a mosaic composed of the photos of the American service men and women who have died in Iraq. No photograph is used more than three times. Here is a medium-sized version, 800 x 925 pixels. Here is the full-sized version, 1890 x 2209 pixels. I call the image 'War President'

Terror and the bomb

Terror and the bomb
A series of editorials on the modern nuclear danger

`Potatoes were guarded better'


September 8, 2004. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the world
got a peek behind the fearsome facade.

Closing the nuclear loophole


September 5, 2004. In late 2002, North Korea shocked the world when it
was revealed that the nation was running a nuclear weapons program.

How to halt nuclear terrorists


September 1, 2004. For decades, the Cold War standoff between the
Soviet Union and America contributed, paradoxically, to a sense of security.

The new nuclear nightmare


August 29, 2004. About half a century ago, President Dwight Eisenhower
and his aides had what seemed to be a brilliant idea to avert a nuclear
arms race.

Yahoo! News - Cheney Backs Off Linking Kerry and Terror Threat

I did not say if Kerry is elected, we will be hit by a terrorist attack,' Cheney told the newspaper during a campaign swing through the battleground states of Ohio and Wisconsin where he is working to bring swing voters to the Republican side.

Some critics suggest such a strong assault on a political opponent might backfire against a candidate, especially among independent voters who could see it as too strident.

The vice president said what he had meant was that if the United States is attacked again, he believed Kerry would fall back on a 'pre-9/11 mind-set' on foreign policy instead of the 'pre-emptive' doctrine pursued by President Bush (news - web sites)."

Muslim Brotherhood - Islam's Secretive Society

The Brotherhood -- or al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, as it is known in Arabic -- is a sprawling and secretive society with followers in more than 70 countries. It is dedicated to creating an Islamic civilization that harks back to the caliphates of the 7th and 8th centuries, one that would segregate women from public life and scorn nonbelievers.

In some nations -- Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Sudan -- the Brotherhood has fomented Islamic revolution. In the Palestinian territories, the Brotherhood created the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, which has become known for its suicide bombings of Israelis. Yet it is also a sophisticated and diverse organization that appeals to many Muslims worldwide and sometimes advocates peaceful persuasion, not violent revolt. Some of its supporters went on to help found al Qaeda, while others launched one of the largest college student groups in the United States.

For decades, the Brotherhood enjoyed the support of the government of Saudi Arabia and its oil billions, which helped the group expand in the United States.

Past and present Muslim Brotherhood supporters make up the U.S. Islamic community's most organized force. They run hundreds of mosques and dozens of businesses engaging in ventures such as real estate development and banking. They also helped set up some of the leading American Islamic organizations that defend the rights of Muslims, promote Muslim civic activism and seek to spread Islam.

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by a 22-year-old schoolteacher named Hassan Banna in his house in the Egyptian city of Ismailiyya. Banna railed against the colonial powers' humiliation of Muslims, and preached that governments should be ruled by Islamic law, or sharia.

Members swore obedience to Banna, pledging iron discipline and secrecy. They were organized into tiers of membership, with some forming a covert military wing to confront the Cairo regime.

As the Ikhwan's following grew to half a million, Banna was assassinated by Egyptian officials in 1949. Five years later, after Brotherhood members fired shots at Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, thousands of Ikhwanis were imprisoned, shattering the organization. Hundreds more were jailed in Syria and Iraq. Another Brotherhood leader, Sayyid Qutb, who advocated militant jihad against nonbelievers and revolution against impure Muslim states, was hanged by Egypt in 1966. Qutb's books would later provide the philosophical underpinning for jihadists such as bin Laden as well as many Islamists in this country.

Today, the Egyptian Ikhwan operates semi-openly, with some members serving in parliament. It eschews violence against the government of Hosni Mubarak (news - web sites), arguing that it can attain its goals by peaceful proselytizing, one wayward soul at a time. Still, Mubarak has banned the Brotherhood, labeling it a terrorist front, and jailed hundreds.

Egypt remains the Brotherhood's center of gravity, with Mohammed Akef, its "Supreme Guide" in that country, considered by many to be the group's de facto leader worldwide. Akef embodies the contradictions of the movement, with statements supporting democratic elections as well as violence against Americans in Iraq.

In the 1950s, Brotherhood activists -- reeling from their suppression in Egypt, Iraq and Syria -- found a refuge in Saudi Arabia, newly awash in oil money. Thousands of Ikhwanis became teachers, lawyers and engineers there, staffing government agencies, establishing Saudi universities and banks, and rewriting curricula.

With royal family approval, Brotherhood activists also launched the largest Saudi charities, including the Muslim World League in 1963 and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth in 1973. Funded by petro dollars, they became global missionaries spreading the Saudis' austere and rigid Wahhabi school of Islam, whose adherents at times describe all non-Wahhabis as infidels.

The missionary work morphed into armed struggle in Afghanistan (news - web sites), where in the 1980s Saudi-financed Brotherhood activists helped repel the Soviet invasion, with support from the CIA and Pakistan. As Islamic radicalism spread with the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan in 1989, many Ikhwanis laboring for the Saudis embraced worldwide jihad and were at al Qaeda's inception.

The Brotherhood began to fall out of favor with the Saudis in 1990, when the Ikhwan backed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in his invasion of Kuwait. The Saudis slowly cut off funding.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Saudi leaders began describing the transnational Brotherhood as the germ of al Qaeda while playing down the role of its government-backed clergy.

Some federal agents worry that the Muslim Brotherhood has dangerous links to terrorism. But some U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials believe its influence offers an opportunity for political engagement that could help isolate violent jihadists.

"It is the preeminent movement in the Muslim world," said Graham E. Fuller, a former CIA (news - web sites) official specializing in the Middle East. "It's something we can work with." Demonizing the Brotherhood "would be foolhardy in the extreme," he warned.

The Brotherhood's history and the challenges it poses to U.S. officials illustrate the complexity of the political front in the campaign against terrorism three years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. FBI (news - web sites) agents and financial investigators probe the group for terrorist ties and legal violations, while diplomats simultaneously discuss strategies for co-opting at least its moderate wings. In both sectors of the U.S. government, the Brotherhood often remains a mystery

How Kerry DELIVERED on the Terrorism war years before 9/11

The article Follow the Money tells us:

Two decades ago, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was a highly respected financial titan. In 1987, when its subsidiary helped finance a deal involving Texas oilman George W. Bush, the bank appeared to be a reputable institution, with attractive branch offices, a traveler's check business, and a solid reputation for financing international trade. It had high-powered allies in Washington and boasted relationships with respected figures around the world.

All that changed in early 1988, when John Kerry, then a young senator from Massachusetts, decided to probe the finances of Latin American drug cartels. Over the next three years, Kerry fought against intense opposition from vested interests at home and abroad, from senior members of his own party; and from the Reagan and Bush administrations, none of whom were eager to see him succeed.

By the end, Kerry had helped dismantle a massive criminal enterprise and exposed the infrastructure of BCCI and its affiliated institutions, a web that law enforcement officials today acknowledge would become a model for international terrorist financing. As Kerry's investigation revealed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, BCCI was interested in more than just enriching its clients--it had a fundamentally anti-Western mission. Among the stated goals of its Pakistani founder were to 'fight the evil influence of the West,' and finance Muslim terrorist organizations. In retrospect, Kerry's investigation had uncovered an institution at the fulcrum of America's first great post-Cold War security challenge.

Jesus versus Bush

Posting picture for uni

Is there another 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

Marc Brands Liberty -- Cartoon -- Wrong Choice In November

Daily Kos :: Bombshell article on Dick Cheney

In his first test-drive at the wheels of power - Ford's re-election - Cheney had played a central role in the undoing of a president, and in the steering the GOP to turn sharp right...

What George H.W. Bush knew:

By the end of the first Bush administration, others had come to the conclusion that Cheney and his followers were dangerous. "They were referred to collectively as the crazies," recalls Ray McGovern, a CIA professional who interpreted intelligence for presidents going back to Kennedy. Around the same time, McGovern remembers, Secretary of State James Baker and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft counseled the elder President Bush, "Keep these guys at arm's length."

Douglas Feith:

Over at Defense, competent intelligence professionals were purged in order to ease the way to war. Douglas Feith, brought in under Rumsfeld to serve as undersecretary of defense for policy, applied an ideological test to his staff: He didn't want competence; he wanted fervor. Col. Pat Lang, a Middle East expert who served under five presidents, Republican and Democratic, in key posts in military intelligence, recalls being considered for a job at the Pentagon. During the job interview, Feith scanned Lang's impressive resume. "I see you speak Arabic," Feith said. When Lang nodded, Feith said, "Too bad," and dismissed him.



Diaries :: whometense's diary ::
Key Cheney history:

The period between August 1974 and November 1976, when Ford lost the election to Jimmy Carter, is essential to understanding George W. Bush's disastrous misjudgments -- and Dick Cheney's role in them. In both cases, Cheney and Rumsfeld played the key role in turning opportunity into chaos. Ford, like Bush later, hadn't been elected president. As he entered office, he was overshadowed by a secretary of state (Kissinger then, Powell later) who was considered incontestably his better. Ford was caught as flat-footed by the fall of Saigon in April 1975 as Bush was by the September 2001 attacks. A better president, with more astute advisers, might have arranged a more orderly ending to the long and divisive war. But instead of heeding the country's desire for honesty and reconciliation, Rumsfeld and Cheney convinced Ford that the way to turn himself into a real president was to stir up crises in international relations while lurching to the right in domestic politics.

Having turned Ford into their instrument, Rumsfeld and Cheney staged a palace coup. They pushed Ford to fire Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, tell Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to look for another job and remove Henry Kissinger from his post as national security adviser. Rumsfeld was named secretary of defense, and Cheney became chief of staff to the president. The Yale dropout and draft dodger was, at the age of thirty-four, the second-most-powerful man in the White House.

As the 1976 election approached, Rumsfeld and Cheney used the immense powers they had arrogated to themselves to persuade Ford to scuttle the Salt II treaty on nuclear-arms control. The move helped Ford turn back Reagan's challenge for the party's nomination -- but at the cost of ceding the heart of the GOP to the New Right. Then, in the presidential election, Jimmy Carter defeated Ford by 2 million votes.

In his first test-drive at the wheels of power, Cheney had played a central role in the undoing of a president.