Lancet reports 100,000 Iraqis killed

Alan Simpson, a member of Labour Against the War (UK), said:
"Iraq has not seen this scale of slaughter since its war
with Iran. At some point, the slaughter of civilians in
the name of peace has to become a crime of war. This is
not a matter of indifference but criminality. These
figures are horrific, but it is a scandal that the world
remains silent."

Reported in The Independent (UK), Oct. 29, 2004

The "Biblical" Bush

In (a GOP) documentary, President Bush is presented as a man with "the moral clarity of an old-fashioned biblical prophet" ­ and is shown sharing a beatific split screen with the Son of God himself.
So, in 2004, Jesus is not only the president's favorite philosopher ­ he's his surrogate running mate. I'm surprised we haven't seen any "Bush-Christ 2004" bumper stickers yet. It would make for a heck of an October surprise...
What the president calls faith is actually nothing of the sort. It is fanaticism, pure and simple. The defining trait of the fanatic is an utter refusal to allow anything as piddling as evidence to get in the way of an unshakable belief.
This zealot's mindset is what allows President Bush to take in the death and destruction in Iraq and see them as "freedom on the march." And it's also what allows Abu Zarqawi and his followers to coldly put a bullet in the back of the head of four-dozen unarmed Iraqi Army recruits because they are "apostates."
"Either you're with us or you're against us" plainly cuts both ways.
"This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about al-Qaida and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy," explained Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy advisor to Reagan and Bush 41. "He understands them because he's just like them."
I pray that every American of real faith keeps this in mind when stepping into the voting booth on Election Day.

Arianna Huffington, Oct. 27 (or 28), 2004

A Conservative Observation

Excerpt from Scott McConnell's article in the current issue of AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE:

"In Europe and indeed all over the world, (Bush) has made the United States despised by people who used to be its friends, by businessmen and the middle classes, by moderate and sensible liberals. Never before have democratic foreign governments needed to demonstrate disdain for Washington to their own electorates in order to survive in office. The poll numbers are shocking. In countries like Norway, Germany, France, and Spain, Bush is liked by about seven percent of the populace. In Egypt, recipient of huge piles of American aid in the past two decades, some 98 percent have an unfavorable view of the United States. It’s the same throughout the Middle East."

by an American working in Jordan

To the Editor,

During most of my 25 years of work abroad, I have found America respected for its integrity. No more. It is obvious that re-election of our administration would play into the hands of fanatics, increasing their popularity and helping them recruit even larger numbers of impressionable idealists or war weary poor people. But more serious, it would be seen as betrayal of the millions of moderates in the Middle East who are arguing for tolerance and moderation and are trying desperately to hold their countries together.

Bush's "Coalition"

Here are the countries that make up George W. Bush's "great
coalition":

Albania, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Czech Republic,
Denmark, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Iraq, Latvia, Lithuania,
Macedonia, Mongolia, Poland, Qatar, Romania, and Ukraine.

Nicaragua, Spain, Dominican Republic, Honduras, the
Philippines, Thailand and New Zealand have already
withdrawn their forces.

A Nation of Idiots?

Latest poll results (CNN/Gallup):

42% of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11 terrorist attack. 32% belive that Saddam personally planned the attack. A whopping 62% of Republicans continue to believe in the myth that Saddam was behind 9/11.

Mystery of the neocon coup

Reported from the University of California-Berkeley, where Seymour Hersh spoke this week:

"While Hersh blamed the White House and the Pentagon for the Iraq quagmire and America's besmirched world image, he was stymied by how it all happened. "How could eight or nine neoconservatives come and take charge of this government?" he asked. "They overran the bureaucracy, they overran the Congress, they overran the press, and they overran the military! So you say to yourself, How fragile is this democracy?"

(The Bushites passionately hate Hersh, especially after he broke the Abu Ghraib torture story. Neocon Richard Perle has said Hersh is the closest thing this country has to a terrorist.)

Debate #2

I thought Kerry clearly won both debates. But there are immensely bigger questions than who won. Here is a small part of an Oct. 8 commentary by Wm. Rivers Pitt (www.truthout.org):

"Bush was every inch the angry man on Friday night, which is dangerous enough. But to witness anger combined with belligerent ignorance, with a willful denial of basic facts, to witness a man utterly incapable of admitting to any mistakes while his clear errors in judgment are costing his country in blood, to see that combination roiling within the man who is in charge of the most awesome military arsenal in the history of the planet, is more than dangerous. It is flatly terrifying."

Cheney, Halliburton, Arab polls

I'd say John Edwards had ol' Cheney cornered on Halliburton (and lots more) in the debate.
Here is some pertinent info from the 10/18/04 edition of The Nation:
"Halliburton has been experiencing a growth spurt ever since Cheney passed through the revolving door of Washington politics to set up the Administration he manages for George W. Bush. The Texas-based corporation moved to number one on the Army's list of top contractors in 2003, pocketing 4.2 billion taxpayer dollars last year alone. It got one no-bid contract after discussions in which Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was involved. Despite soaring revenues, however, the Halliburton unit doing work in Iraq is plagued by so many problems, from mismanagement to allegations of corruption, that it may be spun off to try to salvage what's left of the parent company's reputation."

Meanwhile, the Isolationist President has the following favorable ratings: Egypt, 2%, Saudi Arabia, 4%, Morocco, 11%, United Arab Emirates, 14%, Jordan,15%. (Newsweek Online, 9/30/04)

Quotes from the debate

A few quotes from the Sept. 30 debate:

John Kerry said: "It's one thing to be certain, but you can be certain and be wrong"; "Invading Iraq in response to 9/11 would be like Franklin Roosevelt invading Mexico in response to Pearl Harbor."

George W. Bush said: "The Taliban are no longer in power"; "of course we're after Saddam Hussein, I mean bin Laden"; "our coalition is strong"; "we're making progress"; "it's hard work"; "you cannot change positions in this war on terra"; "the enemy attacked us" (referring to Saddam Hussein); "trying to be popular in a global sense makes no sense".

(Sigh....)

The Messianic Bush

In my view, Kerry won the Thursday night debate nicely.

In the meantime, the Christian fundamentalists continue the canonization process for the messianic president. No, wait. More than canonization. Divinization. (Remember Julius Caesar?)

Frank Rich, writing in ARTS in the NY Times (dated Oct. 3, 2004), gives us "The Passion of the Bush." Here is one paragraph from his piece:

"It's not just Mr. Bush's self-deification that separates him from the likes of Lincoln, however; it's his chosen fashion of Christianity. The president didn't revive the word "crusade" idly in the fall of 2001. His view of faith as a Manichaean scheme of blacks and whites to be acted out in a perpetual war against evil is synergistic with the violent poetics of the best-selling "Left Behind" novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins and Mel Gibson's cinematic bloodfest. The majority of Christian Americans may not agree with this apocalyptic worldview, but there's a big market for it. A Newsweek poll shows that 17 percent of Americans expect the world to end in their lifetime. To Karl Rove and company, that 17 percent is otherwise known as 'the base.'"

May God deliver us from all fundamentalisms. Amen.