It’s Constantinople, Not Istanbul

Ken AshfordWar on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

GWOT (the global war on terror) became GSAVE (the global struggle against violent extremism) only a week ago.  Now it’s back to GWOT:

GRAPEVINE, Tex., Aug. 3 – President Bush publicly overruled some of his top advisers on Wednesday in a debate about what to call the conflict with Islamic extremists, saying, "Make no mistake about it, we are at war."

In a speech here, Mr. Bush used the phrase "war on terror" no less than five times. Not once did he refer to the "global struggle against violent extremism," the wording consciously adopted by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other officials in recent weeks after internal deliberations about the best way to communicate how the United States views the challenge it is facing.

In recent public appearances, Mr. Rumsfeld and senior military officers have avoided formulations using the word "war," and some of Mr. Bush’s top advisers have suggested that the administration wanted to jettison what had been its semiofficial wording of choice, "the global war on terror."

In an interview last week about the new wording, Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, said that the conflict was "more than just a military war on terror" and that the United States needed to counter "the gloomy vision" of the extremists and "offer a positive alternative."

But administration officials became concerned when some news reports linked the change in language to signals of a shift in policy. At the same time, Mr. Bush, by some accounts, told aides that he was not happy with the new phrasing, a change of tone from the wording he had consistently used since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

If it’s truth in advertising that we’re after, let’s just call it "the global clusterfuck" and be done with it.

Sleeping Bag Interrogation

Ken AshfordIraqLeave a Comment

Here’s another example of why torture doesn’t work:

Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush was being stubborn with his American captors, and a series of intense beatings and creative interrogation tactics were not enough to break his will. On the morning of Nov. 26, 2003, a U.S. Army interrogator and a military guard grabbed a green sleeping bag, stuffed Mowhoush inside, wrapped him in an electrical cord, laid him on the floor and began to go to work. Again.

It was inside the sleeping bag that the 56-year-old detainee took his last breath through broken ribs, lying on the floor beneath a U.S. soldier in Interrogation Room 6 in the western Iraqi desert.

Guess we didn’t get much information out of him, seeing as how he was, you know, dead.

Dobson-Frist Smackdown

Ken AshfordGodstuffLeave a Comment

Focus On The Family’s Dr. James Dobson is apparently unhappy about Bill Frist’s flip-flop on stem cell research:

Dobson says he can’t bear being "stabbed in the back by somebody that I thought was a friend … [And] that is what I think has happened here. This is not personal … Sen. Frist has not put the knife in my back. But it’s essentially placed in the backs of all pro-life and pro-family people around the country."

Bill, you should know better.  Don’t fuck with the evangelicals!

My, Oh My, Ohio

Ken AshfordCongress, Election 2006Leave a Comment

The special election for Ohio’s Second District House seat was a real nail-biter.  A highly conservative area, it should have been a shoe-in for Republican nominee Jean Schmidt.  But her Democratic opponent was a Bush-bashing Iraqi War veteran named Paul Hackett.  He lost . . . barely, and there are lessons to learned.  From The Left Coaster:

Major Paul Hackett (D-Fighting Democrat) reduced the winning margin of his Republican opponent (Jean Schmidt, R-Corruption) to 4%, in an extraordinarily strong, gerrymandered Republican district where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats 3-1, and where the last Democrat who ran for Congress against a Republican (in 2004), lost by a whopping 44% margin.

As Jerome Armstrong (MyDD) pointed out, even if you consider Bush’s 2000 and 2004 purported electoral margins in this district (averaging 26% – 63 to 37), Hackett’s showing was incredible (despite his very sharp, direct, repeated attacks on Bush) – enough to almost beat a candidate who presented herself largely as a Bush clone in her "safe" district. To think that a virtual nobody could pull this off in one of the reddest states in the country shows what can be achieved if you have good candidates with conviction and passion, who don’t hesitate to fight back and attack the culture of corruption, immorality and fraud that has become the hallmark of the BushDelay neocons.

I imagine even Charlie Cook, who produced a laughably pro-GOP pre-analysis of this race – which Tim Tagaris appropriately responded to at Swing State Project (SSP) – will have to acknowledge the implications of Hackett’s performance. As Cook claimed, trying hard to set the bar as low as possible for Schmidt (emphasis mine):

A Schmidt win of less than five points should be a very serious warning sign for Ohio Republicans that something is very, very wrong…

As the Cincinnati Enquirer said (emphasis mine):

The win by Republican Jean Schmidt in Tuesday’s 2nd Congressional District election was in no way shocking, but the fact that Democrat Paul Hackett made it a very close election is nothing short of astounding.

Seven weeks ago, when Schmidt won an 11-candidate primary, few on either side believed that – in a district where President Bush won 64 percent of the vote and no Democrat had come close to winning in decades – this would be much of a contest.

This happened despite Jean Schmidt trying hard to paint Hackett as "a liberal Democrat who is out of step with the district." Sound familiar?

The essence of this race, as Bob Brigham (who did an amazing job at Swing State Project and for the Hackett campaign), has pointed out on multiple occasions, is to take the fight to the corrupt opposition in every state, every district and every locality – something DNC Chairman Howard Dean has long advocated. In a nutshell:

  • Start with a good candidate
  • Campaign passionately and with unstinting conviction in order to build credibility
  • Aggressively take on the opposition particularly on their perceived (i.e., fake) strength(s) and define the terms of the fight in your terms, not theirs
  • Build grassroots power to get the votes out for the candidate and
  • Motivate large numbers of people (especially locals) to donate small amounts to make a good candidate almost invincible

2006 elections are fast approaching.  We can win.

The Never-Ending “Last” Throes

Ken AshfordIraqLeave a Comment

Seven Marines on Monday.  Fourteen marines on Tuesday.  This is insane.

Among the carnage is the sad story of Steven Vincent, a freelance journalist.  We wrote an op-ed piece which appeared in the New York Times last Sunday, entitled “Switched Off in Basra”.  It told of how the police in Basra, who are supposedly on our side, are mostly comprised of officers who remain loyal to their religious affiliations rather than the rule of law:

"Are the police being used for political purposes?” asked Jamal Khazal Makki, the head of the Basra branch of the Sunni-dominated Islamic Party. “They arrest people and hold them in custody, even though the courts order them released. Meanwhile, the police rarely detain anyone who belongs to a Shiite religious party.”

An Iraqi police lieutenant, who for obvious reasons asked to remain anonymous, confirmed to me the widespread rumors that a few police officers are perpetrating many of the hundreds of assassinations – mostly of former Baath Party members – that take place in Basra each month. He told me that there is even a sort of “death car”: a white Toyota Mark II that glides through the city streets, carrying off-duty police officers in the pay of extremist religious groups to their next assignment.

Steven Vincent, with his translator, was on his way to an ATM machine in Basra last night.  A car, clearly marked “Police”, pulled up to him.  Vincent and his translator were instructed to get into the car.  Vincent’s body was found on the side of a highway today, several bullets in his head.  His translator was seriously wounded.

Coalition Of The Stupid

Ken AshfordBush & Co., Education, Godstuff1 Comment

Right-centrist blogger John Cole says it all.  The following is from him, but it echoes the sentiments of every educated person regardless of political persuasion:

By now you have probably already heard (the hazards of not blogging for a few hours) that President Bush has endorsed the inclusion of intelligent design in public school curricula:

President Bush said Monday he believes schools should discuss “intelligent design” alongside evolution when teaching students about the creation of life.

During a round-table interview with reporters from five Texas newspapers, Bush declined to go into detail on his personal views of the origin of life. But he said students should learn about both theories, Knight Ridder Newspapers reported.

“I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought,” Bush said. “You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes.”

The theory of intelligent design says life on earth is too complex to have developed through evolution, implying that a higher power must have had a hand in creation.

Christian conservatives — a substantial part of Bush’s voting base — have been pushing for the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. Scientists have rejected the theory as an attempt to force religion into science education.

I am beyond offended by the stupidity of this statement and President Bush’s position, and I am sort of glad I was too busy to write about this earlier, because it gave me a little time to cool down. Fat load of good it did, because I am still hopping mad. My days of defending this President are over.

Creationism_2015 To have the leader of the country, the leader of the party, and the person who proclaims that he wants to be known as the ‘education president’ to state, even casually, that he thinks intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution is lunacy of the first order. First, the facts:

1.) Intelligent design is not a theory. There is no theoretical basis to it. It is not scientific theory, and it is not just bad scientific theory, it is simply not theory. It is ascientific. It is a flight of fancy. It is a call to discard mountains of evidence, throw up ones hands, and state: “This is all too confusing and complex, and science is hard, so some ‘intelligent designer’ must be behind all this.”

2.) Intelligent design is creationism. It may not be quite as audaciously stupid as the nonsense peddled by the ‘young earth’ crowd, but it is creationism. Just who do you think this ‘intelligent designer’ is?  One more time, let’s review who the candidates are for the title of ‘intelligent designer’ is:

Its advertising to the contrary notwithstanding, “intelligent design” is inherently a quest for the supernatural. Only one “candidate for the role of designer” need apply. Dembski himself—even while trying to deny this implication—concedes that “if there is design in biology and cosmology, then that design could not be the work of an evolved intelligence.” It must, he admits, be that of a “transcendent intelligence” to whom he euphemistically refers as “the big G.”

The supposedly nonreligious theory of “intelligent design” is nothing more than a crusade to peddle religion by giving it the veneer of science—to pretend, as one commentator put it, that “faith in God is something that holds up under the microscope.”

The insistence of “intelligent design” advocates that they are “agnostic regarding the source of design” is a bait-and-switch. They dangle out the groundless possibility of a “designer” who is susceptible of scientific study—in order to hide their real agenda of promoting faith in the supernatural. Their scientifically accessible “designer” is nothing more than a gateway god—metaphysical marijuana intended to draw students away from natural, scientific explanations and get them hooked on the supernatural.

No matter how fervently its salesmen wish “intelligent design” to be viewed as cutting-edge science, there is no disguising its true character. It is nothing more than a religiously motivated attack on science, and should be rejected as such.

That “Big G.” he was referring to isn’t Gaia, although injecting nonsensical druidic mysticism into science makes about as much sense as teaching intelligent design ‘alongside evolution.’ No, you can guess who the “Big G.” might actually be.

3.) Teaching ‘intelligent design’ as science, or as a viable theory, or whatever you want to call it other than bullshit, is to assault science. Criticism of evolutionary theory is always welcome, but attempting to replace evolutionary theory with fanciful tales is to assault not only the senses, but to attack the very manner science itself is conducted.

4.) People don’t want ‘intelligent design’ taught because it is a viable scientific theory, they want it taught because it is tailored to fit their pre-existing religious beliefs. The introduction of ‘intelligent design’ into the class room will be seen as a blow to the ‘evil secularists.’ It will be just another step in ‘taking back the culture.’

The culture of stupid.

This assault on science is not a new thing- there have been groups creating their own ‘science’ establishments to do research that produces the ‘right’ results to aid the political/social cause du jour. Their most notable production of these folks is their recent ‘report’ that was used as a basis to forbid same-sex couples from becoming foster parents:

Last week, the Texas House of Representatives passed a child-services bill with an amendment that would make Texas the first state in the nation to prevent same-sex couples from becoming foster parents. The state Senate passed a conflicting bill without that measure, and the two bodies are debating how to proceed.

The proposed ban attracted national media attention, and several “pro-family” groups seeking to drum up support for the bill have been circulating some troubling stats about gay parents. Among the most striking, stated during a CNN program: children in foster homes with same-sex parents are 11 times as likely to be sexually abused as those with heterosexual parents.

To get on CNN, that number snaked through a twisting path, from a little-noticed Illinois study published by an antigay scientist/activist in a psychological journal, to several conservative Web sites, to, finally, the attention of a Texas activist who presented her misinterpretation of the study on national television, essentially unchallenged. It’s a textbook example of how flawed numbers can gain national attention if advocates work hard enough—especially when there aren’t widely-known conflicting estimates.

I have no problem with a brief fifteen minute discussion of intelligent design as part of a religious/philosophy class, provided schools offer those courses. But I don’t think that is what Bush meant, and to teach intelligent design alongside evolution (which, by itself is difficult enough to teach high school students, and usually isn’t taught well enough), as a ‘school of thought’ is simple idiocy. And that won’t change no matter how many press releases the jackasses at the Discovery Institute release.

Maybe Bush just said this to play to the base. I don’t care. It was stupid, irresponsible, and he should be widely castigated for even suggesting that this be taught. In short, the next time President Bush asks “Is our children learning,” I know what I will be thinking to myself:

“Maybe, but no thanks to you, jackass.”

The National Council of Bible Curriculum in Public Schools . . . Lies

Ken AshfordGodstuffLeave a Comment

Every sentence in this post (apart from this one) was ripped off from Jesse Taylor at Pandagon; he did the work so I didn’t have to.

How does one teach the Bible in public schools?

Not like this.

Hundreds of miles away, leaders of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools notched another victory. A religious advocacy group based in Greensboro, N.C., the council has been pressing a 12-year campaign to get school boards across the country to accept its Bible curriculum.

The council calls its course a nonsectarian historical and literary survey class within constitutional guidelines requiring the separation of church and state.

But a growing chorus of critics says the course, taught by local teachers trained by the council, conceals a religious agenda. The critics say it ignores evolution in favor of creationism and gives credence to dubious assertions that the Constitution is based on the Scriptures, and that "documented research through NASA" backs the biblical account of the sun standing still.

In the latest salvo, the Texas Freedom Network, an advocacy group for religious freedom, has called a news conference for Monday to release a study that finds the national council’s course to be "an error-riddled Bible curriculum that attempts to persuade students and teachers to adopt views that are held primarily within conservative Protestant circles."

Here is the website for the NCBCPS: BibleInSchools.net. What’s very strange about this group is that their purpose isn’t religious and historical education – it’s explicitly and solely to get the Bible in schools. Where has it been implemented? Showing the rigor of a site that’s been around for at least five years, and a movement that predates the site itself…here’s a list of states. No schools, no towns – just states. Their course can be taught at any school in a given state, including (but not limited to) Clem’s 7-11 Parking Lot Educational Enterprise in Topeka, and that entire state appears to count as having embraced their ideas. Awesome.

The brochure for the program is a wonderfully poorly veiled attempt to make this seem mainstream.

The National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS) is returning the Bible to its rightful place in America’s schools and affirming its unparalleled impact upon our history & literature.

Now, the "return" of the Bible to its "rightful" place in America’s schools would, if they’re talking about a true return, constitute the use of the Bible as a reader and spelling book, not as a history book or text of indoctrination. I’m not sure who to tell this to at the NCBCPSRAOCWSAG (National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, Really An Organization Concerned With Spouting Absolute Gibberish), but America has managed to come up with other books since the early 20th century – many of them even designed to help kids learn how to read.

Following constitutional guidelines, the course emphasizes that the Bible is the foundation [sic] document of our society and is the single most influential book in shaping western culture, our laws, our history and even our speech. It is a lesson in America’s heritage.

So, the purpose of the class is to give a remarkably skewed version of American history solely through the lens of the Bible. Or so one would think – until you view the curriculum. Of the first 227 pages of the 269-page teacher’s manual, there are exactly four pages devoted to anything that’s not direct Biblical instruction – and that’s a section on Shakespeare and the Bible. For a class that’s supposed to be about the historical import and influence of the Bible, it barely touches upon anything that’s not direct Biblical instruction until you’re nearly 85% of the way through the book. Seven total pages are then dedicated to the Bible in American history, four to science and the Bible, and then 31 to Biblical art. For a class that’s about the Bible’s impact on history, a sum total of 15 pages out of the entire teacher’s manual focuses on anything that’s not simply Bible study.

Why would a supposedly "fair" curriculum be set up this way? Well, from years of Catholic school, the easiest way to make people think they’re of a particular faith and/or repress any natural questions they have about their faith is to treat the faith as entirely standard and undeniably a part of common culture. By indoctrinating kids most of the year, and then casually tossing in bare-bones cultural analysis that simply presumes Biblical supremacy, you’re attempting to reinforce Biblical indoctrination rather than actually analyze anything. Getting taught the Bible for eight months, then "finding the Bible" in tiny subsections of the course isn’t secular education.

The Bible is a critically important part of art, history and literature – that much is undeniable. But if you’re trying to teach a history class focused on the Bible, the operative thing to teach is the history. NCBSPS seems to be almost entirely focused on the goal of having the Bible in public schools, and barely concerned with how it relates to a larger view of history itself. This is a class on the Bible, not the Bible in history, and they can’t even come up with a good enough smokescreen to make it arguable.

I’ll leave you with this circular argument presented by NCBSPS on the legality of their program, which, like most everything else on the site, is less a defense of their own program than an attack against liberals who have problems with it. Remember: the Bible’s had an enormous impact on human civilization. One part of that impact is guerilla fundamentalists trying to sneak it in to secular society for purposes of pure indoctrination. Somebody might want to mention that in a school board meeting soon.

Watch This Story

Ken AshfordIraqLeave a Comment

This story caught my eye:

WASHINGTON, July 31 – The Central Intelligence Agency was told by an informant in the spring of 2001 that Iraq had abandoned a major element of its nuclear weapons program, but the agency did not share the information with other agencies or with senior policy makers, a former C.I.A. officer has charged.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court here in December, the former C.I.A. officer, whose name remains secret, said that the informant told him that Iraq’s uranium enrichment program had ended years earlier and that centrifuge components from the scuttled program were available for examination and even purchase.

The officer, an employee at the agency for more than 20 years, including several years in a clandestine unit assigned to gather intelligence related to illicit weapons, was fired in 2004.

In his lawsuit, he says his dismissal was punishment for his reports questioning the agency’s assumptions on a series of weapons-related matters. Among other things, he charged that he had been the target of retaliation for his refusal to go along with the agency’s intelligence conclusions.

Just more proof that the highest levels of the administration and the intelligence agencies were massaging evidence to reach a foregone, pre-determined conclusion.

That Didn’t Take Long

Ken AshfordGodstuffLeave a Comment

Bill Frist bucks Leader George and comes out for embryonic stem cell research.  Good for him.

Very quickly, he is condemned by the Christian Right, who he has catered to so relentlessly:

WASHINGTON, July 29 /U.S. Newswire/ — The Christian Defense Coalition says Sen. Bill Frist can no longer consider himself pro-life and vote to expand funding for embryonic stem cell research.

The Coalition also states, Sen. First should not expect support and endorsement from the pro-life community if he votes for embryonic research funding.

Oh, well.  Easy come, easy go.

Word Choice

Ken AshfordBush & Co., War on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

As we all know by now, George Orwell Bush has deemed that the “war on terror” be renamed the “struggle against violent extremism”, so that history will not depict him as losing a war, but engaging in a struggle.

I’m not sure it gets him where he wants to be.  After all, Mein Kampf translates to “my struggle”.  And the word “jihad” itself also translates to “struggle”. 

That aside, I wish the Bush Administration would be serious about finding actual solutions to actual problems, rather than constantly focusing on the cosmetic battles.  Let’s hope that the administration is better at actually combating terrorism than it is in coming up with new catch phrases. 

UPDATE: But let’s consider what this new buzz phrase really means:

It is a complete repudiation of roughly four years of counter-terrorism policy out of the White House.

The core of the Bush Doctrine was that the threat of terrorism is still one tied to states rather than non-state-actors. As Doug Feith said some three years ago, the reliance of terrorists on state sponsors has been the "principal strategic thought underlying our strategy in the war on terrorism."

If we take their words at face value, they’ve now abandoned that cornerstone of their strategy. Shouldn’t that prompt some questions?

A Class Act

Ken AshfordBush & Co.Leave a Comment

FingerBush flips the bird.  Quicktime video here.

And so, when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not only uphold the laws of our land, I will swear to uphold the honor and dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God.

– Bush Acceptance Speech, August 3, 2000.

God, are you watching this?

It’s not the first time he’s done this.  Here’s a frame from the famous mov file that’s been around for ages . . .

Bushfinger

US Military Throws A Lifeline To Terrorists?

Ken AshfordIraqLeave a Comment

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld today rejected calls to set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, saying that would be a “mistake” because it would send a “lifeline to terrorists."

– Washington Post, June 23, 2005

Pentagon officials have provided little detail in discussing the possible withdrawal of forces from Iraq. The most specific estimate has come from Lt. Gen. John Vines, who runs day-to-day military operations in Iraq. He said in June that a reduction of “four or five brigades” — perhaps 20,000 troops out of the current 135,000 — was possible sometime next year.

– AP, July 27, 2005

It Was A Summary Execution

Ken AshfordCrime, War on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

Mark Honigsbaum
Thursday July 28, 2005
The Guardian

Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian shot dead in the head, was not wearing a heavy jacket that might have concealed a bomb, and did not jump the ticket barrier when challenged by armed plainclothes police, his cousin said yesterday.

Speaking at a press conference after a meeting with the Metropolitan police, Vivien Figueiredo, 22, said that the first reports of how her 27-year-old cousin had come to be killed in mistake for a suicide bomber on Friday at Stockwell tube station were wrong.

“He used a travel card,” she said. “He had no bulky jacket, he was wearing a jeans jacket. But even if he was wearing a bulky jacket that wouldn’t be an excuse to kill him."

She’s got that right.

The Slippery Slope of Wingnuttery

Ken AshfordPlamegateLeave a Comment

Let’s see.  Where are we in the Republican defense of Rove?  Meme roll call:

First: “The White House had nothing to do with the leak of classified information.”

Second: “Okay, maybe the White House did have something to do with the leak, but nobody identified Valerie Plame by her actual name.”

Second and a half: “By the way, Plame had it coming because she married a big fat partisan liar.”

Third: “Okay, maybe the White House didn’t need to identify her by her actual name, but in any event, the White House learned about Plame’s CIA status from reporters—not the other way around.”

Third and a half:  “By the way, here’s some recycled evidence showing some links between Saddam and al Qaeda.  Can we revisit that debate?” [Alternative Glenn Reynolds meme: “This Plamegate issue is for too complicated for my tiny little brain"]

Fourth: “Okay, maybe the White House did reveal her CIA status to reporters, but even if someone did, it’s no big deal, because she wasn’t ‘covert’.”

Fourth and a half:  “Look who Bush nominated for the Supreme Court!”

Fifth: “Okay, maybe she was covert and perhaps a law was broken, but the law is stupid.”

Sixth: “It’s Clinton’s fault.”

(Okay, the last one hasn’t happened yet . . . but don’t be surprised)

I know in my heart that if, three years ago, I asked any conservative (or liberal, or moderate for that matter) if it is “okay” in a time of “war” for anybody (say, Michael Moore) to reveal the name of a CIA operative working on WMD issues, the universal consensus would have been “No.  Absolutely Not.  Hang the traitor from the highest yardarm”.  The continued defense of Bush’s advisors reveals one thing about diehard Bush supporters—they have no moral center.