CommonPrejudice

Get off the Dole!

In an article by Nader.

According to the report, Everyday Low Wages, one 200-person Wal-Mart store could cost federal taxpayers over $420,000 per year. These costs include subsidized lunches, health insurance and housing assistance, federal tax credits and deductions for low-income families, among other examples of Wal-Mart’s freeloading.

Of course issues like this are far too radical for a mainstream candidate or opposition figure to promote.

That's why Kerry is president right now.

Security in the New Iraq

In a tragic irony, it seems that the Americans in Iraq would be happy simply to return Iraq to its pre-war state. It now has enlisted ex-members of Saddam's special forces to form a 'swat' team which could be a critical element in future Iraqi security undertakings.

"The hardest fighters we have are the former special forces from Saddam's days," Colonel Ron Johnson, commander of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, told reporters.

But were these not the brutal forces of Saddam that killed so many? I wasn't aware that Saddam had personally killed the thousands of murdered Iraqis during his reign. And weren't you fighting these very people on the battlefields in the intial stages of the war?

"It doesn't matter to me what they did. They're staunchly anti-insurgent," said (Captain Ron) Douglas, who dismissed suggestions their training under Saddam might have made them too violent.

Like the butchers in Guatemala were staunchly anti-communist. They're sons-of-bitches, but they're our sons-of-bitches.

But they must have had to undergo serious and detailed training on human rights to prevent future abuses?

"We just had to polish them up a bit," (Johnson) said.

(For instance the proper use of attack dogs in the interrogation process, perhaps?)

Really wonderful the irony, isn't it? The US turns to Saddam's ruthless special forces to control the resistance' created when the US invaded and overthrew these very same special forces.

I am reasonably certain that the Bush administration at this point would gladly accept a Saddam sequel in Iraq achieved through a facade of an election, then claim once again 'mission accomplished' and just get the hell out. Maybe afterwards they'll want to see if they'll have any better luck with Iran. (oh and they'll leave a formidable supply of weaponry to ensure the new Saddam, whomever he may be, holds power).

Too bad about those tens of thousands of dead, hundreds of thousands of malnourished children and a state of affairs where Islamic extremism is flourishing and terrorism is a much greater threat.

Well done George.

“Why didn’t they tell him that he didn’t have to go?”

Some are full of praise for Freidman's column yesterday.

They miss the point.

In ripping the slime like House majority leader Tom Delay and spoiled professional athletes like Latrell Sprewell and Hummer owners - real risky targets - Friedman paints a ridiculously romantic version of the U.S. troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the following quote Friedman shows why the U.S. is in Iraq - gee I thought it was to eliminate the weapons of mass destruction ... to take the fight to the terrorists ... to get rid of Saddam ... to simply bring democracy to Iraq.

I want to have the gall to sully American democracy at a time when young American soldiers are fighting in Iraq so we can enjoy a law-based society here and, maybe, extend it to others...

And his imaginative conclusion that completely ignores the socio-economic reality that has such a bearing on the composition of the U.S. military:

I want to take time on this Thanksgiving to thank God I live in a country where, despite so much rampant selfishness, the public schools still manage to produce young men and women ready to voluntarily risk their lives in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to spread the opportunity of freedom and to protect my own. And I want to thank them for doing this, even though on so many days in so many ways we really don't deserve them.

I suppose the poor, those lacking access to university or a good job, or the immigrants are just naturally more willing to volunteer their services (and often their lives) to defend their country....or maybe not (via LatinoPundit):

For weeks, Amalia Avila feared for the safety of her oldest son Victor Gonzalez, a 19-year-old Marine from Watsonville, who was recently sent to Iraq.

Her worst fears came true when she was notified that Victor had been killed Oct. 13 in a roadside mortar explosion just five weeks after his arrival in Iraq.

Now, Ms. Avila thinks her son was misled, as much by military recruiters who promised him a bright future as by police officers who mentored him. She says they never dispelled the notion that a few years with the Marines would make him a cop someday.

“Why didn’t they tell him that he didn’t have to go?” she asked...

Victor told his mother, “When I return from Iraq, I’m going to have credit,” she said. The recruiters “tell them that. It’s a lie.”

Recruiters often look for ways to relate to potential recruits, even when they can’t really help, says Jorge Mariscal, a Vietnam veteran and Chicano Studies professor at the University of California at San Diego.

Yeah, they didn't have to go...

Just Say What you Mean

The Pravda offers up their take on the crisis in Ukraine:

The strongarm tactics used by the western stooge, Yushchenko, are typical of the anti-democratic processes set in motion by a rampant and militant Washington, crushed in the grip on a monetarist, neo-conservative crypto-fascist clique of elitists, whose corporate greed speaks louder than the mores of internacional diplomacy and whose thirst to dominate the world's resources in the lifetimes of Rumsfeld and Cheney throws any moral concept into the trash bin...

And their diplomatic view of Yushchenko:

...Why didn't he place a piece of parsley over each ear and stick an apple in his mouth, and claim he was a pig, as well?

Playing this type of childish game gives Yushchenko as much authority as a drunken down-and-out, lying on the floor of a public latrine in a pool of urine, with a bottle by his side, saying he is the president, that he is a doctor, that he is also a cosmonaut on Thursday afternoons and if it hadn't been for Eltsin, he would also be God.

Next time, why doesn't Viktor Yushchenko wear a baseball cap and a skirt, with a plastic red nose and his face painted like the clown he is?

Certainly questioning the motivation of the West in the region is legitimate. However, clearly Yanukovich represents the corrupt Ukraine oligarchy. According to the Financial Times, support from Viktor Pinchuk, (outgoing president Kuchma's son-in-law) and Rinat Akhmetov, a steel and coal baron, will be critical. While some call Pinchuk a possible bridge between the west and the Yanukovich party and Akhemetov  talks of "modernising his businesses by developing ties with western-educated managers, consultants and banks," both have a lot to lose. For instance:

Mr Yushchenko has pledged to review the controversial privatisation of Kryvorizhstal, Ukraine's biggest steel mill, which was sold to Mr Pinchuk and Mr Akhmetov earlier this year for $800m (€604m, £424m), far less than foreign bidders were prepared to offer...

In the end, though, it may be the corruption itself that proves more difficult to remove than Yanukovich:

As a last resort, they may ditch Mr Yanukovich but would fight to retain the system he represents. Alexander Rahr, director of the German Council for Foreign Relations, says bluntly: "The oligarchs will see how things develop. But they have put too much into backing Yanukovich to pull back now."      

The War on Peace (formerly known as the War on Terror)

Breaking news from the department of the obvious (see tbogg):

The U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have created a shared anti-American cause among otherwise-divided Muslim extremists and raised the stature of the radicals in the eyes of ordinary Muslims, a Pentagon advisory panel says....

Gee I just can't believe this. No one could have possibly seen this coming.

At the root of the problem, the report says, is a fundamental misunderstanding of why many Muslims are hostile toward the United States. They “hate our policies,” not our freedom, it said.

Hate the policies, heh. It's not the freedom then. wow. Who would have thought? Give me an order of those policy fries please.

If it weren't for the tragedies involved, would conclusions such as the following not seem more like parody than news at this point?

“The dramatic narrative since 9/11 has essentially borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars” against the United States, the report said. “American actions and the flow of events have elevated the authority of the Jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims...

In the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering,” it said. “U.S. actions appear, in contrast, to be motivated by ulterior motives and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim self-determination.”

Certainly Rumsfeld's gang will be right on top of this startling report:

Bryan Whitman, a spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said Wednesday the report will “stimulate debate and add to the existing body of ideas” about how the Defense Department communicates.

I do think more debate and ideas are needed. I mean, who could have predicted this? We're not all Kreskin.

Fool Me Twice

What can you say..

...The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which has given accurate information on Tehran's nuclear sites in the past, said the government began to remove sensitive material from the Lavizan plant after the NCRI publicised details of activity there last Wednesday.

The NCRI said Revolutionary Guards surrounded the plant within hours, closed it to traffic and stopped all staff from leaving.

''(Iranian officials) began to sanitise the site and remove sensitive documents, equipment and materials,'' a spokesman for the NCRI told a news conference in London.

''During the night, truck movements in and out of the site were reported.'' The NCRI, which cited well-placed but disillusioned people within government as its source, accused Tehran last week of using advanced lasers and centrifuges to enrich uranium secretly at Lavizan, in Tehran, and at Parchin, 30 km from the capital.

So that would bump Iraq to page two... 'oh that war is so yesterday'

Of course Afghanistan would be completely forgotten. Except for those interested in the "white lady."

Afghanistan's opium production has soared in the last year to an all-time high. The raw form of heroin is now the staple crop in every province, while in just one year the area under poppy cultivation has increased 64%. The country produces 87% of the world's opium, and one out of 10 Afghans is employed by the illicit industry, according to the alarming U.N. report...

And the little countries that make the headlines for a week or so and then are erased from our memory:

In February, the United States (along with Canada and France) organized a regime change in Haiti and then withdrew its forces, leaving a meager Brazil-led force to pick up where it left off. Despite the international aid money that has been pledged to Haiti, the absence of a viable security force and the lack of other much needed infrastructure - like roads, schools and medical care - inhibits real recovery and perpetuates an environment that not only makes life in Haiti dangerous but unlivable for its poorest and most vulnerable residents.

For the majority of those who do actually watch the news in North America, Haiti is a like a sit com you saw a few times a couple of years ago, thought it was ok, but you could never remember what it was called.