Kofi weighs in, too.
Just another voice in the crowd of knowledgable and worldly people who know that the world is no safer since the US invaded Iraq.

"I cannot say the world is safer when you consider the violence around us, when you look around you and see the terrorist attacks around the world and you see what is going on in Iraq," Annan told the ITV network.

The phrase you're looking for, Mr. Secretary General, is "Pandora's Box".

Oh, and Brent Scocroft, former National Security Advisor to George Bush I, has spoken out on the utter failures in Iraq and Afghanistan again.

What's good for the leader isn't good for the cannon fodder.
So, a group of soldiers refused "a suicide mission" (to drive defective vehicles to deliver tainted fuel into a combat zone without their promised combat support vehicles), and now they're facing disciplinary action.

Compare that to the Doofus in Chief, who refused to take a physical so he could fly state-of-the-art airplanes on safe training missions...well, he's facing a second term as President.

Sounds fair, doesn't it?

More Strikes Against Patriot Act and Iraq War
This time, a traditionally conservative court weighed in..

"We cannot simply suspend or restrict civil liberties until the War of Terror is over, because the War on Terror is unlikely ever to be truly over," Judge Gerald Tjoflat wrote for the three-member court. "September 11, 2001, already a day of immeasurable tragedy, cannot be the day liberty perished in this country."


And, yet another former intelligence official is sounding off one how bogus Bush's case for war in Iraq was.

It's really nothing new, but more of the same from yet another informed source, Ray McGovern. He worked for seven different presidents.

McGovern cited a February 2001 speech by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who said then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. Five months later, Condoleezza Rice, national security advisor, also said Iraq's military capability had not been rebuilt.

So in 2002, when Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction came up as a major threat, "we were shocked," said McGovern, who is a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a not-for-profit group of former intelligence workers. "We smelled something very fishy."

Until the administration needed to convince Congress to vote for the war, McGovern said, there was no national intelligence estimate on whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The conclusions had already been reached when then-CIA Director George Tenet assigned his staff to do the analysis, he said.

"In my days," if the director told staff members at the CIA to prepare a study with certain conclusions, "we would have laughed and said, `You're kidding,' " McGovern said. "This is an unforgivable sin in intelligence."

Self-fulfilling Prophesy
Well, there was no connection between Iraq and Al-Quida BEFORE Bush and Blair invaded, but NOW there sure as hell is.

Likewise, there were no WMD and no dangerous weapons being given to terrorist groups BEFORE the invasion, but SINCE the US took over the country, dangerous components have "disappeared".

Ari over at the Daily Outrage points out that this is a HUGE story that's gotten almost no media coverage.


Oh, and on a related story. NOW, that is, SINCE the US invaded, Iraq has become a dangerous place for Christians.

Homemade bombs exploded in quick succession before dawn at the five churches in four separate Baghdad neighborhoods, causing no casualties but further alarming the Christian minority community already on edge over the perceived rise of Islamic militancy following last year's ouster of Saddam Hussein.

Draft? Who said "draft"?
Apparently, the Republicans are so worried about Americans seeing that Bush's disasterous foreign policy is making a renewed military draft more and more likely every day that they are threatening to sue people who even mention it.

Chenneys' outrage. Who are they really mad at?
As Dave Cullen over at Salon.com points out:

John Kerry's lesbian moment
Dick and Lynne Cheney screamed foul when the Democratic candidate mentioned their gay daughter. But for gays and lesbians, what is most outrageous is the Cheneys' outrage.


It was okay for Dick to say this back in August:

"Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it's an issue that our family is very familiar with."

But it's not okay for John Kerry to point out the same fact and say that EVERYONE, even the Chenneys' daughter, should be protected by the bill of rights.

Atrios over at Eschaton has it all nicely laid out with quotes from the Chenneys and what Kerry actually said...as well as some Republicans who've attacked Mary Chenney's "sexual preference" and received no criticism from her parents whatsoever.

His conclusion sums it up perfectly: ...Lynne Cheney. Some parent. Silent when Republican attacks her daughter, outraged when a Democrat speaks of her respectfully.

Debate 3
Now Playing: zzzzzzz
Well, this was disappointing. Lame questions were the name of this game.

Jessi Klein had a good summation on CNN's blog
I know I'm very quaint in my old fashioned beliefs, but I really am a fan of separation of church and state and I wish we didn't have to hear about how much or how little our president or his opponent prays. Could we ask them something more relevant to our lives, like who they think is hotter, Ashlee Simpson or Jessica Simpson?


A highlight (or lowlight) of the debate was the question about abortion. Bush's answer was really frightening. First, he sounded like he was actually pro-choice, when he said we need to lessen the need for abortions. Then you look at his record and the record of his party, fighting AGAINST sex education and birth control availability at every step of the way, when those two things are the key to preventing unwanted pregnancies.

Then he had to bring up the red herring "partial birth" abortion issue, calling it a "brutal practice". I wonder, why doesn't he rail against amputation? That's a pretty brutal practice. "Doctors chop off a patients limb! Come on! That's horrible. What? You say it's only done in extreme cases to save the patient's life? That's crap...that's just a myth by the pro-amputationist left...there is NEVER a need to amputate...it goes against the wishes of God. You shouldn't get to make a serious medical/ethical decision like that on your own with your doctor...politicians should make it FOR you. And we have: If there's a choice between losing a leg and dying, you should die!"

Update: Received a good email from "K" in Wisconsin, USA which read as follows: (first he quoted Bush from the debate)

BUSH: "I think it's important to promote a culture of life. I think a hospitable society is a society where every being counts and every person matters. I believe the ideal world is one in which every child is protected in law and welcomed to life. I understand there's great differences on this issue of abortion, but I believe reasonable people can come together and put good law in place that will help reduce the number of abortions.
Take, for example, the ban on partial birth abortion. It's a brutal practice. People from both political parties came together in the halls of Congress and voted overwhelmingly to ban that practice. It made a lot of sense. My opponent, in that he's out of the mainstream, voted against that law.
What I'm saying is, is that as we promote life and promote a culture of life, surely there are ways we can work together to reduce the number of abortions: continue to promote adoption laws -- it's a great alternative to abortion -- continue to fund and promote maternity group homes; I will continue to promote abstinence programs."

In response to this I'm going to have to go with Bush's favorite quote of the evening:

"his rhetoric doesn't match his record."

Bush's record is to remove funding from international health organizations that promote anything other than abstinence-only programs. He panders to fundamentalist Christians who at worst promote killing doctors who perform abortions and at best "say nothing" about the killing of doctors who perform abortions. (Don't you think they should at least release a statement condemning the murder. I mean, even Islamic leaders issue statements against violence in Israel sometimes). The problem is that abstinence-only programs DO NOT WORK. (As in they do not reduce unwanted pregnancies) The best way to reduce unwanted pregnancies is frank and specific sex education. It is fine to promote abstinence. No one can argue that when practicing abstinence the chance of getting pregnant or contracting an STD is 0.000000%. However, since one of the most basic instincts we have is our sex drive, it is not realistic to promote abstinence-only programs.

If Bush's "resolve" wasn't so blinded by dividing the world into Black and White, he could see that the best way to reduce abortions is to carefully swing sex education toward abstinence. By destroying family planning and health care for poor women Bush has hurt many more people than the few abortions that would occur during the transition to a society with health practices that make abortions the procedure of last resort. Not to mention sending hormone raging teenagers out in the world without realistic information actually increases the spread of STD and unwanted pregnancy.

By the way, I have a plan that would decrease abortions sharply; free birth control for any girl over 14 yrs. Free sterilization for drug addicts. This plan would not only reduce unwanted pregnancies it would reduce something even more horrible; unwanted babies!

Speaking of last resort procedures. Partial birth abortions are a procedure of last resort. It is almost always done to save the life of the mother. Anti-choice propaganda would like you to believe that lazy loose women are going to doctors when they are 9 months pregnant and having the baby killed on it's way out of the womb. That couldn't be farther from reality! It is however, typical of the President's campaign strategy; FEAR, FEAR and more FEAR!

By the way Bush, we have had some very extreme terrorists in this country since long before 9/11 and they continue to be active with little or no public attention. You can find them outside abortion clinics and online through links from fundamentalist Christian websites.

Whew...I didn't mean to go off, but I got a little worked up there. (My emphasis added)

Bush and Chenney in fantasy world.
CNN has a nice little article: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Democrats".

"The president of the United States and the vice president of the United States may well be the last two people on the planet who won't face the truth about Iraq," Sen. John Kerry said on Thursday

Letter to Micheal Moore
Now Playing: Film the Vote
Here's my little idea to try to prevent another Florida Fiasco, and I sent Micheal Moore an email about it.

Hello Mr. Moore,

I'll keep this short and to the point, since I know you get tons of mail: I've got an idea to help combat a repeat of the Florida fiasco in 2000, and I think you're the best man for the job. There doesn't seem to be any way we can stop the Republicans from barring legitimate (black) voters from casting their vote, but I think we can at least CATCH them red-handed at it. Maybe then it won't be so easy to just brush under the carpet and forget about, as it was after 2000.

So, my idea is this: get a bunch of hidden cameras (maybe you could partner with MTV...they seem to have a ton of those hidden-in-a-pair-of-nerdy-glasses cameras that they use for "Punked" and "Boiling Point") to the voters in areas with histories of racist and unfair election practices. Tell the voters to go and try to vote. When they're turned away, we'll have it ON TAPE. You could try giving people some regular cameras, too, but I'm sure they'll be turned away more often than not.

It doesn't have to be in only Florida, either. We've had Rock the Vote...now we need Film the Vote!

Thank you, and I loved Farenheit 9/11. The final twenty minutes or so was increadibly moving, and I sat in the theater here in my home of the Czech Republic (yes, I "sought asylum" in Europe after the debacle of 2000) and wept along with the other audience members. I think everyone who supported the war in Iraq should have to watch that. Too bad many never will.

Keep up the good work!

Tell Us Something We Don't Know
Now Playing: Bush lied, thousands died...and are still dying.
Hey...just in case you didn't already know: There are and have been no WMD in Iraq since 1991.


Of course, Bush is still maintaining that the war (which still rages, by the way) was worth it just because it got rid of Saddam. That's a personal opinion that some people share and some don't, but it isn't the point here. The American people and Congress didn't support the war to get rid of Saddam...they supported it because they were mislead into believing that Iraq was an imminent threat to the US.

Defenders of Bush, including Tony Blair, continue to point to the fact that Saddam used WMD in the past as justification for the war. They neglect to point out that the US (under the Reagan administration, of which Dick Chenney and Don Rumsfeld were key players) knew about and CONDONED Saddam's war crimes at that time and did nothing to stop him.

I think Bush should make good on one of Chenney's remarks from the debate about tracking down people who aid terrorists: start by arresting Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Chenney.


An interesting bit from that last source, for those of you who didn't follow the link:

But prominent members of the president's own party balked. Texas Rep. Dick Armey, a member of the House Republican leadership, said the United States should just let Saddam bluster.

"As long as he behaves himself within his own borders, we should not be addressing any attack of resources against him," Armey said.

Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser during the first Bush administration and mentor of current National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, warned against a "go-it-alone" strategy in the Wall Street Journal.

"An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken," Scowcroft wrote in the September 15, 2002, edition on the Journal's editorial page.

Lawrence Eagleburger, who also served in the first Bush administration, also spoke out, saying the nation need answers before any war against Iraq.

"How long do we stay? How much does it cost? What does it do to our conditions within that part of the world? What kind of a regime do we put in his place? How long does it last if it seems that we are the ones that put him in his place?" Eagleburger said during a September 25 interview on CNN's "Late Edition." "I think there are any number of complex questions that simply haven't been examined."