Or “Benito Giuliani”, if you prefer. That’s how he was known to the denizens of the fair city over which he ruled with an iron fist, using and abusing his beloved black-booted police squads to do so. It’s this same Rudy Giuliani—former mayor of New York City and proud owner of an elaborate back tattoo depicting himself holding a bullhorn, an American flag and a New York hot dog while simultaneously digging a fireman out of the rubble of the World Trade Center on which he stands, illuminated... [More]

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is often credited with the blustery threat to “wipe Israel off the map”. Though the mainstream press is pleased as punch to press this citation into service again and again, in myriad forms, it was noted in more responsible circles quite some time ago that the president of Iran had said no such thing. As meticulously documented in ’Wiped off the Map’ – The Rumor of the Century by Arash Norouzi (AntiWar.com), the statement he made, translated directly and faithfully from the Farsi, was:

“The Imam said... [More]”

It is not difficult to find patterns in small data-sets. In fact, one can see patterns in any amount of data—the trick is to find patterns that are useful in predicting the future. For example, the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, conquered it, installed a government, then proceeded to lose any semblance of control over the next four years. 16 months later, the United States invaded Iraq and repeated the pattern. The State department has not yet given up on Iraq in the same way that... [More]

While America continues failing spectacularly in Iraq—despite pumping ungodly amounts of money into the venture—its eye wanders to Iraq’s neighbor, Iran. The lads in charge of the States have been grinding their war machine forward for months, nearly years, pumping themselves up, convincing themselves—which isn’t very hard—that this war will be much easier, that this war will go as planned, that this war will have a plan and that this war will be the beginning of the end of the Arabic... [More]

In the last several days, several polls have shown a remarkable turnaround in collective American opinion. Where previous polls have shown strong statistical divergence on important issues—both foreign and domestic—recent data suggests a much stronger alignment with the rest of world opinion on the following matters:

1. The number of Americans believing in the Rapture—that Jesus himself will return to Earth and lift believers to heaven while condemning unbelievers to a thousand years of... [More]

The executive branch of our government has long since crossed over from brazenly illegal to just batsh*t[1] crazy. In this atmosphere, you’ve got to shout to be heard above the din of casual corruption and corrosion of all that once defined the US as a democratic power. And Mr. Gonzales is no shrinking violet. The consolidation of power under the ever more powerfully defined executive proceeds—nay, accelerates—apace under the highest-ranking cop in the land, the Attorney General. Ever since... [More]

For the last six months or so, Doonesbury has been publishing blog entries from US soldiers on duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is no way to tell just how edited or censored they are; there is no way even to tell if they actually come from soldiers. As with almost everything you see and here, it’s difficult to know what to believe. It’s also difficult not to use that fact to pick and choose what to believe, selecting only that which does not offend your delicate sensibilities—that which... [More]

That, in a nutshell, sums up the last 6 years in America under the Bush Agenda. Faith-based and fancy-free. The title of this article cites Bush’s response to Nancy Pelosi when she asked him why he thought that “this time it’s going to work” (meaning an infusion of troops), as documented in The Pentagon’s not-so-little secret by Sidney Blumenthal (Salon).

Accusations that Bush’s approach[1] to the world is simplistic and detached from reality are mean-spirited. It is anything but simplistic; the sheer artfulness and complexity... [More]

The last US election in November was widely regarded as the dirtiest in US history. The Republicans, in particular, slung nearly ceaselessly from a never-ending supply of mud. With just over 21 months to go until Americans start making up excuses for not voting for President, the first salvo has already been fired at Barack Hussein Obama, United States Senator and proud leader of an exploratory committee to determine whether his winning smile will be able to dredge up enough cash for a run at... [More]

The Daily Show this week had a number of very good clips, mostly centering on Iraq, Rumsfeld and Bush. In particular, they highlight the high-quality correspondents that the show still has, despite the loss of Carrel, Helms, Cordry and Colbert. Oliver, Bee, Riggle and Mandvi are filling in quite nicely, as you’ll see below.

Fareed Zakaria (Part I and Part II)

Though he’s always interesting, this interview with Zakaria is the best one yet; his analysis of Iraq and the Middle East is spot-on.... [More]

Instead of focusing on money spent on military budgets, World Wide Military Deployments takes a look at the number of soldiers deployed around the world by various countries. This is a relatively good measure of the degree to which a country exerts its forceful influence on other countries. The top 5 are:

United States ~ 400,000

140,000 in Iraq, 74,000 in Germany, 40,000 each in Japan, Korea and Kuwait and over 1000 troops in a dozen other countries, mostly in the Middle East

Turkey ~ 36,000... [More]

There have been a flood of political cartoons covering the conference on the Holocaust taking place in Iran in the last couple of days. They almost all depict president Ahmadinejad of Iran as Hitler or a Nazi of some kind. To be fair to the normally right-leaning caricaturists of America, there have also been a hell of a lot of them depicting Bush as divorced from reality and incredibly political in all of his decisions. This reaction is somewhat expected, as Bush’s rating dips down toward the... [More]

Did you ever read the Batman comics? One of his enemies was that lawyer who liked to flip a coin, Twoface.[1] He had two completely different personalities and used a coin to decide which one he was going to be … until the next time he decided to flip the coin. It’s unclear exactly what his superpower was, but that’s Batman for you. There is now ample evidence that airport security policy around the world is being created by this guy, except his two personalities are Terry Gilliam and George... [More]

This post, Articles of Impeachment against Bush and Cheney (Daily Kos), lists the most egregious offenses of the Bush junta over the last six years. Naturally, since it’s on the Daily Kos (which isn’t necessarily so much lefty as staunchly Democrat), they note that the impeachment must affect “both Bush and Cheney … It will not do any good for us to impeach Bush and have Cheney take the Oval Office”. A relatively obvious conclusion to which any analyst (who can think at least one move ahead) would have... [More]

In an interview just a few days ago, Ehud Olmert had an interesting slip of the tongue; here’s the quote:

“Iran openly, explicitly, and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they [the Iranians] are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?”

As discussed recently in Robert Gates Confirmed as US Secretary of Defense (earthli News) (first footnote), the “wipe Israel off the map…” comment has become accepted truth. Ahmadinejad,... [More]

This transcript of his confirmation hearing (New York Times) indicates that the transition from Rumsfeld to Gates is akin to the transition from a Republican Congress to a Democratic one: better, if not good yet. Despite the murky crimes lurking in Mr. Gates’ past vis-a-vis the Iran/Contra affair and his having been head of the CIA for some time, it’s hard not be heartened at hearing more honest—and reality-based—answers coming from a Secretary of Defense. Even though Rumsfeld made it easy for his successor... [More]

King and KingmakerChile’s Gen Pinochet dies at 91 (BBC) brings the sad, sad news that a true monster no longer walks among us. Naturally, since he’s dead, it’s time to start remembering that “[d]espite his human rights record, many Chileans loved him and said he saved the country from Marxism.” (emphasis added). Despite? That’s all he’s known for! Probably everybody loved him except for the friends and family of the “3,000 people [who] were killed or “disappeared” during his rule which ended in 1990.” Instead make sure to... [More]

Howard ZinnA recent speech, The Uses of History and the War on Terrorism by Howard Zinn (Democracy Now), shows that Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present (Amazon), still has a fire in his belly. It’s most excellent and well worth reading from start to finish. To make sure everyone’s awake and that they know they’re at the right lecture, he starts with a clear, succint, impossible-to-misinterpret topic sentence for his essay:

“They’ve taken over the country. They’ve taken over the policy. They’ve driven us into... [More]”

For a hard-hitting look at the neoconservative vision—in light of the disasters it has thus far engendered—there’s Neo-Con Futurology by Stephen Holmes (London Review of Books). Ostensibly a review of Francis Fukuyama’s latest book[1], it comprises a bold condemnation of that vision and of the blinkered philistines that wrought it for us. In particular, he focuses on the democratic agenda to which they have clung for the last several years. They have, with the help of a media willing to put in the time selling the idea, managed to make... [More]

Keith Ellison, Terrorist?The United States has its first Muslim Congressman in Keith Ellison (D-MN). It’s good timing and he seems a good sport as the racist shitheads come crawling out of the woodwork—shitheads like Glenn Beck, who interviewed him on TV recently. CNN’s Beck to first-ever Muslim congressman (Media Matters) has the lowdown on this new low in American television. He was unutterably rude to the Congressman, hiding behind a “I’m just askin’ what everybody’s thinkin’” facade.

You can hardly blame Beck for his... [More]

Sean Bell Shooting Crime SceneSean Bell was murdered in Queens, NY early one morning in late November. He died in a hail of 50 bullets fired by New York City police officers. See A Fatal Police Shooting in Queens (New York Times), an interactive graphic of the crime scene (Flash). As usual in these situations, the officers involved have been remanded to administrative positions (taken off the street). Regardless of the circumstances, police officers get the full “innocent until proven guilty” treatment, not only being able to stay at large... [More]

Here’s how America’s media and intellectual elite help Americans keep track of what’s important. Two recent articles about former presidents serve as illustrations below.

A Jihad on Jimmy

The first example comes from one of America’s leading lights of scholarship: The World According to Jimmy Carter by Alan Dershowitz (Huffington Post). In this, the eminent israel apologist and all-around war hawk takes Carter to task for his latest book about the Middle East, Palestine: Peace not Apartheid (Amazon).[1] After taking a moment for the... [More]

Take a look at this extremly short article, US carried out madrasah bombing (Times Online). It gives us the following information:

“The bombing of a Pakistani madrasah last month, in which 82 students were killed, was carried out by the United States.”

Initial reaction? Horror, of course. Or the numbed ghost of an emotion that passes for horror, when hearing of the murder of dozens of people you don’t know, from another culture, at extreme remove. An intellectual horror, if you will, if not necessarily a... [More]

In the article, Arabs’ Questions Throw Elder Bush on Defensive by Jim Krane (AlterNet), the elder Bush spoke before a more-or-less openly hostile crowd. One student used the forum to ask him what he had to say to the theory “that U.S. wars are aimed at opening markets for American companies and said globalization was contrived for America’s benefit”. Bush Sr., 82, responded:

“‘I think that’s weird and it’s nuts,‘ Bush said. ‘To suggest that everything we do is because we’re hungry for money, I think that’s crazy. I... [More]”

The United States takes a lot of money from taxpayers and invests it back in the country. In contrast to many other countries in the club of the “First World”, we pump an unbelievable amount into our military. The Mother of All Defense Supplementals by Charles Peña (Anitwar) supplies some numbers for those with a strong stomach. The full military budget comprises several pieces:

• The official budget, which totals $439 billion for this fiscal year
• Budgets for the various secret services, like the CIA and the NSA, which... [More]

The elections of yesterday were a sign that America may not be dead from the neck up. At the very least, there seem to be limits to both our apathy and patience. Despite the warm fuzzies emanating from many pundits today, the Democrats haven’t magically changed into a different party overnight. At best, we will be treated to a three-ring circus as they attempt to impeach Bush; at worst, we have the opportunity to be disgusted, appalled, disappointed and manhandled by a different sack full of... [More]

Stephen Colbert, who plays a rabidly right-wing talk show host of the same name on Comedy Central, walks a tight rope on every show. He satirizes that large segment of America’s media that hews to the White House party line no matter how much it zigs and zags. He does this by pretending to be one of them, but more so. Though an exaggerated version of Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh is hard to contemplate, Stephen has to try to stay one step ahead of their theatrics every week. Needless to say,... [More]

Texas Justice

Jeffrey SkillingThe first is from Texas, where, as reported in Skilling Sentenced to 24 Years in Prison (Washington Post), Enron’s former CEO, Jeff Skilling, has been found guilty of corporate fraud. Specifically, “for the accounting tricks and shady business deals that led to the loss of thousands of jobs, more than $60 billion in Enron stock and more than $2 billion in employee pension plans”. He has been sentenced to 24 years, 4 months in prison. He will be expected to pay the outstanding sums in the class... [More]

The innocuously-named Military Commissions Act of 2006 was recently signed into law by an all-too-eager George Bush. Within it, the Congress had agreed that the executive—specifically, the POTUS—effectively has the final word on the definition of torture, applicability of protections from the Constitution, as well as which information is considered too vital to the nation’s security to be communicated to either its own citizens or other members of the government. The executive has the right... [More]

What’s one good way to tell that waterboarding isn’t nearly as much fun as Dick Cheney claims it is? Not even Steve-O from Jackass has tried it yet. Stick your face into a man-o-war? Check. Scorpions in his underwear? Check. Riding a bike on things that aren’t at all traversible by wheeled vehicles, then dropping hard onto the bike frame with your groin? Check. But so far, they’ve avoided waterboarding. Perhaps because they would be able to handle it so easily—with nary a wince—compared to... [More]