Month: September 2008

There’s a reason why the WOT is so important to this country


Capital really does drive the decision making process in America.  How much and how fast one can make money is the difference between life and death.  The war on terror was started to enrich neocons who had a stake in companies that profited off of government contracts as well as a federal government that could sell the arms it was making to fight imagined terrorists.  This news headline should come as no surprise:

U.S. says its arms exports boomed this year

U.S. government-brokered overseas arms sales are expected to total about $34 billion in the current fiscal year, up more than 45 percent from the year before, the Pentagon agency in charge said…

Overseas arms sales are a key instrument of U.S. foreign policy as well as a boon to defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co, Northrop Grumman Corp, General Dynamics Corp and Raytheon Co.

In fiscal 2007, such sales totaled $23.3 billion, up from $21 billion in fiscal 2006, according to the security agency‘s figures.

When you look at the countries who are major buyers of US weapons the list includes Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Egypt and Iraq among others. Three of the countries noted have had large American military installations, or sizeable ones on their territory for some time.  Occupation has its privileges.  Iraq, a  country that until recently wasn’t even allowed to have an air force has now began exploring the possibility of  purchasing  F-16 fighter jets from the United States and all this means is mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money for defense contractors.  However, there looms on the horizon a very ugly specter of war with such arms buildup, especially when you consider the players in the presidential election.

Palin has gone on record saying war with Russia over Georgia is a possibility, especially if Georgia becomes a member of NATO, something she proposes. How a two year governor of Alaska who could become the president of the United States can make such a proclamation is beyond me but it no doubt “resonates” with other members of her party and their advisors, the second generation neocons, who make a living from death and destruction.

Time for the pasture


After just posting a blog about how one’s mouth can get them in trouble, I read where an old Israeli spy master is advocating the kidnapping of Iranian president Ahmedinejad to be taken to the Hague to stand trial for genocide.  Rafi Eitan has been all over the Israeli landscape but he’s most notable for being involved with Jonathan Pollard the American accused of spying for Israel.  ABCNews ran the story so someone is listening to this 80 plus old guy who really shouldn’t throw stones at other nations’ leaders; Ariel Sharon is still alive, albeit comatose, who Eitan should put on the first plane! Otherwise, Israel should put a gag on this guy and put him out to pasture, or make glue out of him.

Christian indignation at ill placed jokes


It’s nice to see some people other than Muslims get mad when their religious figures are poked fun at.  When Muslims get hot and bothered about ridiculing the Last Messenger, many see it as an attack on free speech and the end of days prophecy, but when the attacks are made against members of other faiths, it’s perfectly alright to fire the offender or have them arrested.  Fine, no problem, so let’s fire the guy with the stupid cartoons which depicted Muhammad, and while we’re at it, throw him in jail too!

Jeremiah Wright ain’t got nothing over these people


Obama got into a lot of trouble because of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright but when you look at this compilation video of Sarah Palin’s church you come away feeling like deja vu all over again.  Jim and Tammy Baker, Jimmy Swaggart and any number of evangelical Christians, yes even Jeremy Wright,  come to mind but they don’t hold a candle to this church and it’s less than conventional theocracy.  I remember hearing the corner churches rock the neighborhood when I was a young kid, and though they were entertaining, Americans somehow had the sense not to consider anyone from within the four walls of those churches as a candidate for vice president……until now.  Check it out.

Do we really want someone this close to the presidency from a church like this? What was John McCain thinking?!?!?!

Drudge, the Republican Party and race baiting


I get really frustrated with Matt Drudge and the stuff he posts on his website. Once I fired off a profanity laced letter to his blog during the initial stages of the Gulf War and then realized it was pointless.  Nevertheless I visit his blog every day to see what headlines he’s placed there…..don’t worry folks it’s one of over 20 news/blog pages I visit each day, most of them through RSS subscription although Drudge is not one of those, and I’ve even second sourced some of his headlines to write about here.

But this latest headline he has about Oprah Winfrey really takes the cake.  It’s clear the Republican Party, for whom Drudge is a mouthpiece and that’s ok by me, is the party of divisiveness at the moment. (Democrats have been there done that too, but that’s for another day) Why would Oprah Winfrey be an issue whether Sarah Palin can be on her show when McCain’s campaign has said Sarah won’t be on ANY show for the moment!! The campaign has said on several occasions that Palin won’t be available for interviews with anyone, printed media , electronic media, ANYONE! You can read about that here, and here and here, and….. Of course, bloggers are all over this story, while corporate dumb down main stream media is focusing on Winfrey and the phony Drudge story. With the characters who they are it’s sure to come down to “race” at some point and it does.  Just read some of the comments found here at ABC News’ race baiting headlined blog. Lowest common denominator media at its best; it can’t get any better.  Of course no one will say that Drudge and ABC News are working hand in hand, but the effect is the same.  You can bet too that ABC News even if given the chance to interview Palin would throw her the same softball type questions Republican “regulars” get from FoxNews or worse, questions that deal with celebrity hood and entertainment and nothing at all about politics and issues of the preservation of the rights and responsibilities of this great Republic!    If you want to fall into the trap set by corporate media and the drudgonians be my guest, but I for one call it demagoguery and no one does it better than main stream media’s Matt Drudge.

One that got away


Islam is a moderate voice on the American stage, despite the screeching of some who use it to scare and intimidate Americans into self-serving goals that have more to do with politics than the preservation of the American fabric. Mohammad Qatanani was a target used by such people who wanted him to be a poster boy for their hate, claiming he was a member of Hamas who hid his affiliation with that organization in order to infiltrate America and spread his Islamic deception far and wide throughout this country. But by their works you shall know them or something like comes from the good book as Qatanani who cooperated with US authorities encouraged everyone else to do the same despite all the hate filled rhetoric directed towards him. In so doing he gained the admiration and respect of FBI agents, Jewish Rabbis, and local, state and federal members of the legislative branches of government, even though there were others in government, notably the Department of Homeland Security who wanted Qatanani deported. Well, the news is he won’t be, or at least not for now, although DHS still has 30 days to appeal a judge’s decision that their case was weak and without merit and Qatanani can stay put in the US.

A prominent Muslim cleric, celebrated for his moderation by supporters but accused of ties to a terrorist group by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, today won his bid to call the United States his permanent home.

In his 69-page decision, Immigration Judge Alberto Riefkohl said Homeland Security officials had presented a case weak on evidence and credibility in their effort to cast Imam Mohammad Qatanani as someone who had had ties to Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist organization, and who had lied about it to obtain a so-called green card here.

Riefkohl, often using blunt language in his written decision, said that records obtained by Homeland Security officials from Israeli authorities were “too unreliable to prove that Mr. Qatanani has engaged in terrorist activities.”

He added: “The court also finds DHS’s other evidence is insufficient.”

Outside court on the 11th floor the Peter F. Rodino Federal Building in Newark, the imam’s supporters praised the decision, and said it would bolster their community’s faith in the U.S. justice system. Many Muslims and Arabs saw the government’s deportation effort as evidence that Muslims and Arabs, regardless of their views, are stereotyped as terrorist, or terrorist sympathizers.

Aref Assaf, head of the American Arab Forum in Paterson, said earlier that the case had been watched closely by Muslims and Arabs across the United States as well as overseas.

“We have been working well with the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s office, and immigration, mostly because of the imam and his encouragement to us to cooperate and work with the government,” Assaf explained.

This of course is not the image the government wants you to have, a cooperating, civic minded Islam that identifies itself with the environment in which it voluntarily places itself. Instead Islam has to be defiant, menacing, uncooperative, in order to propel the propaganda that it’s a threat to the survival of the nation. In that sense, Qatanani is one that escaped the snare of the government’s trap and most likely will live to tell about it. Congratulations to him, his family, friends and supporters. Ramadan will have just a little more meaning for them and America will be a better place because of that.

Freedom of the press no more!


A free press is necessary for transparency in government, but with the Bush administration, transparency and free press is a thing of the past.  Very early on in this administration, and perhaps stretching back even to the Clinton administration, the media was given the signal that if they didn’t go with the program of the people in political power access would be restricted and or denied and any attempt at circumventing political authority would be met with dire consequences.

The message given to members of the press from all over the world was their role was reduced to echoing what they were told by politicians on both sides of the aisle.  Since we no longer really have a credible opposition party, that meant the message would be the same no matter who uttered it, with the exception of a few, like the Ron Pauls, Ralph Naders, and others considered nominal and thus easy to ignore.  The message was driven home even more with the advent of the “war on terror” where reporters had to be embedded for their own safety, in order to report on the war and ‘propel the propaganda’.  Failure to do so meant in a war theater death at the hands of US as well as enemy forces.  Al-Jazeerah,  reporters Reuters cameramen were mowed down by the US war machine, either killed and captured.

So it should come as no surprise to anyone that some members of the media, those not “embedded” with the powers that be would be harassed, intimidated and arrested during the Republican Convention in St. Paul.  Amy Goodman’s arrest is the most chilling.  Goodman was arrested in St. Paul, and her arrest was caught on tape.  She was later released  but the producers who work with her were charged with felony counts while covering the convention as producers for Goodman’s show which airs on DemocracyNow!  Their program is a pretty stable alternative media source, which I consider vital for the free press here in the US. It is neither seditious nor a mouthpiece for one party or the other…just people presenting a view which is rarely seen in corporate media.  Her arrest and the subsequent description of it are in the video below.

This should come as no surprise.  The government has been steadily encroaching on the rights of citizens and institutions for some time in it’s lead up to the “war on terror”.  Everyone in the grand scheme of this war and everything we hold dear is expendable by those fighting the war, and members of the press are no exception.  However, it’s good to see the descent into the abyss of fascism chronicled for future generations in order for them to understand how it happened.

The neocon’s worst nightmare


One of the successes of the neocons has been the demonization of Islam and Muslims here in the U.S. They have encouraged neighbors to look suspiciously on one another and asked for and received from the government the usurpation of rights that Americans once took for granted but which they are willingly forfeiting. They’ve been able to get away with this because of the image they presented to the public of a menacing Islam and its adherents hell-bent on destroying the American fabric. No doubt there are some with this rather misguided notion, but Islam in America has been a relatively peaceful phenomenon that has sought to get along with its neighbors, participate in civic and political matters and work within the very system which has been used by some who seek to destroy it. (Just ask Sami al-Arian.)

Leaving the big cities behind, and looking westward, I found this very nice article about a Muslim community in New Mexico carrying on in the same tradition of Islam in America as has always been. I especially liked this line from the article, which I think shows the spirit of multiculturalism at its best.

So, every weekend is a merry-go-round of the faithful on the blocks around Barcelona and Cordova streets. There, among a veritable religious enclave, sits a Jewish temple, a Methodist church, a building for a Unitarian Universalist congregation, and now the TaHa Mosque, among others.

Too good to be true


Which probably means it isn’t.  Reading comments Senator Joe Biden made me laugh.  As long as he has been in Congress, he should know better than to think Bush can be held accountable for his lawlessness in office, AFTER he leaves office!  C’mon Joe…that was your job as senator while Bush was in office, to impeach him.  What’s going to happen is Bush will surround himself in every presidential prerogative he can before he leaves office which will make it absolutely impossible for the judicial branch of government to lay a hand on him and Biden knows this.  In fact, even the language he uses to indicate this will happen is full of loopholes, which leads me to think that an Obama administration will be politics as usual.  Shame on you Joe for political grandstanding!  There are far more substantive issues to deal with them playing to a crowd with false promises!

George Bush redux


I was absolutely floored to read that Sarah Palin is also a member of the God squad. (Oh, do you think anyone will challenge her religious fervor or patriotism because of the absence of either the cross or the American flag on her lapel?) Another American Ayatollah in the making, following the succession of George Bush, and possibly the next president should McCain be elected, it’s frightening to hear her say the invasion of Iraq was God’s task for America. What we have is another religious crusader on the world’s political stage leading us closer to their desired Armageddon many see also as God’s Will. I think McCain stepped in it big time with this one. Time will tell.

The price you pay for diligence in Israel is terrorism


I am never surprised at the inhumanity of the Israeli killing machine.  What does surprise me is how well it’s covered up and passed over by the entire world community.  Almost no one wants to talk about or expose the atrocities taking place at the hands of the utterly lawless Israeli military community.  This latest news item is as disgusting as all the rest.

We all remember this video of the bound and blindfolded Palestinian man in Israeli custody who was shot at point blank range by an Israeli soldier.  At the time of this occurrence/atrocity my only reaction was he should be thankful he wasn’t shot and killed. (Enter ‘palestinian shot by israeli soldier’ for a youtube.com video search and you’ll get 105 hits, some of them of fatalities) What didn’t even cross my mind was the origins of the video and the person who shot and exposed it.  Now, her story has come to light and it’s as dastardly a story as the events videotaped.  There’s no doubt this story will not get the attention katusha rockets shot onto Israeli territory receive and more than likely one of the members of this family will wind up dead and their death equally ignored but Salam Amira is a mujahidah in every sense of the word as well as a victim of Israeli terrorism.  Would that we could convince George Bush to wage one of his divinely inspired wars on terrorism against them.

What a joke!


The Republican party is scaling back their convention because of hurricane Gustav.  Now when I first heard that I thought the convention was being held in New Orleans or somewhere along the Gulf coast.  When I realized it’s being held in Minnesota, I asked myself what brings on this sudden empathy the Party has for humanity that probably won’t enable it to take away their rights?  Despite the devastation hurricane Katrina caused, the Republican hasn’t shown much in the way of concern for the people who most likely won’t vote for them.  Perhaps someone else knows and can tell me what’s going.