The War Loses, Voters Win

admin /14 November, 2006

By JOHN V. WALSH
N ow that the Democrats have won the House overwhelmingly, the media is falling all over itself to proclaim Rahm Emanuel, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and dearest friend of Israel, a boy genius. Even that congenital liar and close friend of Ariel Sharon, the ever tendentious NYT neocon William Safire, came out of retirement to hail Rahm as the Karl Rove of the Dems and to spin the election in various ways designed to keep Emanuel’s influence alive.

But is Rahm a boy genius or did the Dem establishments succeed despite him and in fact despite itself? After all, the Dem establishment, partisans of oil, empire and Israel, chose Rahm to lead them. Let’s do the numbers to see how Rahm and his employers really did.

No cakewalk in the park?

admin /14 November, 2006

www.washingtontimes.com

By Arnaud de Borchgrave

"Ripley’s Believe It Or Not" began in 1918 as a comic strip featuring unusual, hard-to-believe facts from around the world. Today it is a Web site for a global community that combs cyberspace for events so strange and unusual it is often hard to believe they are taking place. These days, you don’t have to go further afield than Washington , D.C.

The neo-conservatives (neocons) who gave us the "cakewalk" prediction for Iraq before the war are now plugging "a walk in the park" in Iran — i.e., a U.S. bombing campaign to consign the mullahs’ nuclear ambitions to oblivion, or at least to retard the advent of an Iranian bomb for a few years, hoping that in the interim good democrats would rise up and send the clerics and their Revolutionary Guards packing.

Screw the Palestinians, Full Steam Ahead

admin /14 November, 2006

By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON

A t a panel on the defense and foreign policy impact of the midterm election, sponsored two days after the election by Congressional Quarterly, Steven Simon, late of the Clinton administration and still a member of the Democratic, pro-Zionist mainstream at the Council on Foreign Relations, pronounced on prospects for Palestinian-Israeli peace and essentially declared it not worth anyone’s effort. Using words, a tone, and a body language that clearly betrayed his own disinterest, he said that Hamas is "there" (exaggerated shrug), that the Israeli government is in turmoil after its Lebanon "contretemps" (dismissive wave of the hand), that both sides are incapable of significant movement, and that therefore there is no incentive for anyone, Democrat or Republican, to intervene (casual frown indicating an unfortunate reality about which serious people need not concern themselves). There is simply no prospect for more unilateral Israeli withdrawals and therefore for any progress toward peace, Simon said in conclusion — signaling not only a total lack of concern but an utter ignorance of just what it is that might bring progress, as if Israeli unilateralism were truly the ticket to peace.

The Corporate Looting of the Gulf Coast

admin /14 November, 2006

Robin Hood in Reverse

By BILL QUIGLEY

R obin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. On the Gulf Coast, the reverse is happening. Federal state and local governments are teaming up with corporations and developers to systematically steal hurricane relief funds from the poor to enrich themselves.

Billions of dollars were given to help the communities damaged by Katrina. The people gave this money to help the working, elderly and disabled people of the Gulf Coast rebuild and restart their lives after Katrina.

The need is still great. Over three hundred thousand people remain displaced from the City of New Orleans alone. Hundreds of thousands of others on the rest of the Gulf Coast are also not home. Over 80,000 families in Louisiana are living in FEMA trailers. Texas says they have 250,000 displaced people and Georgia reports another 100,000.

Tragically, money that was supposed to go to those in need is instead being diverted by federal, state and local politicians and corporations who have swooped down on these billions and are taking them for other purposes.

Let’s Now Charge the Accomplices

admin /14 November, 2006

http://www.antiwar.com/pilger/?articleid=9987

by John Pilger
In a show trial whose theatrical climax was clearly timed to promote George W. Bush in the American midterm elections, Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced to hang. Drivel about "end of an era" and "a new start for Iraq" was promoted by the usual false moral accountants, who uttered not a word about bringing the tyrant’s accomplices to justice. Why are these accomplices not being charged with aiding and abetting crimes against humanity?

Why isn’t George Bush Sr. being charged?

In 1992, a congressional inquiry found that Bush as president had ordered a cover-up to conceal his secret support for Saddam and the illegal arms shipments being sent to Iraq via third countries. Missile technology was shipped to South Africa and Chile, then "on sold" to Iraq, while US Commerce Department records were falsified. Congressman Henry Gonzalez, chairman of the House of Representatives Banking Committee, said: "[We found that] Bush and his advisers financed, equipped, and succored the monster…."

Does Father Know Best?

admin /14 November, 2006

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=9989

The making of American foreign policy – a sitcom in two acts
by Justin Raimondo
Leave it to the Americans to consider their foreign policy in terms of a family drama: the current narrative is that Rummy’s exit signals the arrival of Daddy’s Wise Men to bail out Junior from the mess he’s made in the Iraqi sandbox. Like a frat boy who has maxed out his credit card or totaled his flashy new sports car, poor little Georgie-Porgie has finally turned to Daddykins for advice he once spurned. Just like in an episode of Father Knows Best – or, better yet, Leave It To Beaver…

If Richard Perle is Eddie Haskell, and Dubya is Wally, then no wonder the events of the past few days strike a note of déjà vu. After all, didn’t bad boy Eddie always deny his role in fomenting trouble, leaving Wally to take the brunt of his father’s wrath? Perle and his fellow cabalists are now washing their hands of Iraq, claiming that the president didn’t really follow their advice, and of course it was just a coincidence that their disavowals – including from David " Axis of Evil" Frum, former White House speechwriter and author of a Bush hagiography, The Right Man – came on election eve.