A Juneteenth Parade is going on right outside my window. How appropriate then that I just picked this up from Teixeira's Website

Palast: RNC 'Scrubbed' Black Troops from Voting Rolls

Greg Palast has a bombshell article, "Massacre of the Buffalo Soldiers" on his web page (and also reported on Democracy Now) charging that the Republican National Committee organized a campaign to 'scrub' African American soldiers serving overseas from the voter registration rolls. Here's how he tells it:

A confidential campaign directed by GOP party chiefs in October 2004 sought to challenge the ballots of tens of thousands of voters in the last presidential election, virtually all of them cast by residents of Black-majority precincts. Files from the secret vote-blocking campaign were obtained by BBC Television Newsnight, London. They were attached to emails accidentally sent by Republican operatives to a non-party website.
...Here’s how the scheme worked: The RNC mailed these voters letters in envelopes marked, “Do not forward”, to be returned to the sender. These letters were mailed to servicemen and women, some stationed overseas, to their US home addresses. The letters then returned to the Bush-Cheney campaign as “undeliverable.”
The lists of soldiers of “undeliverable” letters were transmitted from state headquarters, in this case Florida, to the RNC in Washington. The party could then challenge the voters’ registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballots being counted.
One target list was comprised exclusively of voters registered at the Jacksonville, Florida, Naval Air Station. Jacksonville is third largest naval installation in the US, best known as home of the Blue Angels fighting squandron.

How effective was the RNC campaign? Palast says,

Over one million provisional ballots cast in the 2004 race were never counted; over half a million absentee ballots were also rejected. The extraordinary rise in the number of rejected ballots was the result of the widespread multi-state voter challenge campaign by the Republican Party. The operation, of which the purge of Black soldiers was a small part, was the first mass challenge to voting America had seen in two decades.

There's more at Palast's website, and in his new book Armed Madhouse. The R's have a long, sordid history of sleazy shenanigans to surpress African American votes, and it would be surprising if similar campaigns were not underway for the November election. The hypocrisy of the RNC trumpeting their support of our troops in Iraq, while scheming to suppress the ability of Black soldiers to vote is beyond disgusting. Shame on the mainstream media if they don't get on this story in a big way.
Posted by EDM staff at 06:02 AM | link 






 

Nary a mention of the "I" Word.

Democratic leader lays out party agenda AP

 

 I-R-A-Q

 Looks like we have to spell it out for the Democrats whose leadership is once again frozen with Rovian fear.

Key Issue Battleground: Iraq and the Economy {Carville Greenberg}

The two dominant issues for voters who want change are Iraq and the economy. Wehave the opportunity to get both right and multiply the power of the change message.Iraq. The Iraq war remains the biggest doubt about Bush and the Republicans and thelargest contributor to the public’s mood for change. We know from another national surveyconducted for MoveOn.org that the more the war is debated, the weaker the standing is of theRepublican incumbent.3 The Democratic margin grows stronger after an extended debate onIraq.

3 Survey for MoveOn.org of 1,000 likely voters in 68 Congressional districts defined as swing, was conducted April11-19, 2006.

With 60 percent believing that it was not worth the cost and a strong majority feeling that it has actually made us less secure, the war is driving the desire for change and the frustration with Bush and the Republicans in Congress.4 Voters are actually divided on what are the next steps and whether troops should be withdrawn, but they are clearly angry at Bush for the choices he made and for America having such limited choices now.

The MoveOn.org survey shows that a challenger who is clear in his or her position runs better than one who is vague; the clear candidate gains on leadership qualities and seems like less of a politician. This challenger in the survey favored a re-deployment of U.S. forces within one year. We also found broad, though less intense support for a candidate who favored a redeployment by the end of 2007. (In the section below, we will note how to undercut the Republican attacks, including not supporting any precipitous withdrawal.)

It is important to note that voters supporting a Democratic candidate for Congress are mainly motivated by the Iraq war. It is an important issue impacting turnout in the 2006 elections.

Whatever policy position candidates choose to take, it is important that the candidates critique the choices Bush and the Republicans have made – including no-bid contracts for Halliburton instead of body armor for the troops – the strongest critique tested in this survey.

And not to guild the lily for the upcoming funeral (in a pig's eye!), here's another number from the latest NBC/WSJ poll

 54%

More likely to support candidate who proposes total withdrawal within the next 12 months from

I-R-A-Q

The time has come. The choice is clear. Either you are for this war or you are against it. To try and have it both ways is morally wrong and politically stupid.

Democratic Consultant, Bob Shrum

Wall of Shame

Democrats voting for the War Party's House Resolution:

As the House "debates" the War in Iraq, the question arises, how could the jihadists be jealous or fearful of our failed democratic institutions? We've a government deaf to the will of its people, dumb in answering the disaster, and blind to the enemy that this nation faces. So they strut like bantam roosters deaf, dumb, blind.

'Debating' the Iraq War
It isn't happening – at least, not in Congress
by Justin Raimondo


The Republican offensive in support of the Iraq war should have crashed shortly after launching: unfortunately, they had some essential allies who helped fuel their shaky effort – the Democrats. As one news report about the House debate put it:

"In both the House and Senate, Democrats appear to be divided into three camps. Some want troops to leave Iraq this year. Others object to setting any kind of timetable. A number of them want the United States to start redeploying forces by year's end but don't want to set a date when all troops should be out."

But the Republicans, too, are divided. Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-Md.) complains that the administration has unnecessarily politicized the war and the debate, as it did in November when Republicans put together a one-sentence resolution calling for withdrawal from Iraq – and turned it into a political circus during which Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) smeared Marine veteran Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.) as a "coward." "It was ludicrous," Gilchrest said. "It had nothing to do with saving lives. It had nothing to do with the war. It was one-upmanship against the Democrats." The Washington Postreports:

"That sentiment spurred Gilchrest and four other Republicans to break with their leadership this spring and sign on to a Democratic petition pushing for debate. Boehner pledged to do so weeks ago."

The fulfillment of that pledge came in the form of a Republican resolution that sets a new standard for political and intellectual dishonesty. In language redolent of a Soviet-era proclamation from the Presidium, the non-binding statement starts out by declaring:

"The United States and its allies are engaged in a Global War on Terror, a long and demanding struggle against an adversary that is driven by hatred of American values and that is committed to imposing, by the use of terror, its repressive ideology throughout the world."

Yes, we are engaged in a global war, although it is not a "war on terror" – terror being a technique, rather than a specific adversary – but a war against al-Qaeda. What that war is "driven" by has nothing to do with "American values," whatever those might be, and everything to do with American foreign policy – and most especially, at the moment, resentment throughout the Muslim world of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. This nonsense that they hate us because of the Bill of Rights, or because of our increasingly sleazy cultural mores, is an article of faith with the War Party: it lets them see themselves as Western knights clad in the shining armor of democracy, rationality, and modernity. The only problem is that it just isn't true. As Michael Scheuer points out in his best-selling Imperial Hubris,

"The fundamental flaw in our thinking about Bin Laden is that 'Muslims hate and attack us for what we are and think, rather than what we do.' Muslims are bothered by our modernity, democracy, and sexuality, but they are rarely spurred to action unless American forces encroach on their lands. It's American foreign policy that enrages Osama and al-Qaeda, not American culture and society." ...

In light of this, the House resolution is not only wrong, but dangerously deceptive: if we don't understand the real war aims of the enemy, how can we possibly hope to win? Yet "victory" in the "global war on terror" is precisely what the resolution claims to support: ignorance, however, especially the sort of self-imposed blindness exemplified by this administration, can only lead to defeat. And that is precisely where we are headed in Iraq.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq has reached 2,500, the Pentagon said on Thursday, more than three years into a conflict that finds U.S.-led forces locked in a struggle with a resilient Sunni Arab insurgency.

 CSM: Funds for Iraq run low


Time and money are running out on the US-directed reconstruction effort in Iraq.

The main conduit for American rebuilding aid – the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund (IRRF) – is scheduled to close at the end of this year.

Almost all the cash Congress has allocated for the fund, some $20 billion in all, has been spent, or will be, in coming months.

Yet many important efforts remain unfinished, for reasons ranging from insurgent attacks to incompetence and contractor corruption. More than 75 percent of oil and gas restoration projects are incomplete, as are 50 percent of electrical and 40 percent of water and sanitation projects, according to the April report of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.

The bottom line: Iraqis are facing what US officials call a "reconstruction gap" as they assume responsibility for rebuilding. Meeting already-identified needs might require a further $18 billion to $28 billion, according to one estimate.

....
US budget plans don't call for big additions to the money already spent. For fiscal 2007, the US requested $770 million in reconstruction funds – and a House committee has trimmed that by $200 million pending final passage. US officials are pressing other nations to pay up pledges of aid they've already made. But a reasonable estimate of the money still needed is $18 billion to $28 billion, according to Mr. Kosiak, and total foreign aid pledges are only $13 billion.

"Even assuming ... that this gap could be covered by drawing equally upon US, international, and Iraqi resources, this suggests that an additional $5 billion to $10 billion in US reconstruction assistance might need to be provided," he wrote in an analysis of reconstruction earlier this year.

Prophets in Their Own Land

How to go from respected academic to anti-Semite—in one simple step
 

By Michael C. Desch is Professor and Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security Decision-making at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University.

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s London Review of Books essay “The Israel Lobby,” and the heavily footnoted working-paper version posted on the John F. Kennedy School of Government website, have generated a tsunami of commentary. This is not surprising given their thesis: a small group of Israel’s supporters inside and outside of government have a disproportionate influence over American foreign policy toward the Middle East, and this works to the detriment of U.S. security. As with many prophets in their own lands, they have received a much fairer hearing abroad—ironically even in Israel—than they have at home.

...

One might wonder why the “The Israel Lobby” was published in a British rather than an American magazine. Things began promisingly enough when The Atlantic Monthly commissioned Mearsheimer and Walt to write the piece in 2002. After submitting the first draft in May 2004, they worked closely with the editors on the substance and organization. There was some discussion about how big a role the story of the Israel lobby should play, and the authors acceded to The Atlantic’s request to pare down that part of the argument and submitted the final draft in January 2005. Despite a long letter from the editors outlining their dissatisfaction, Mearsheimer and Walt still aren’t sure why The Atlantic declined to publish the piece. Whatever the reason, to the magazine’s credit someone associated with it played an indirect role in getting the piece published in the LRB. It appeared online March 16.

The first significant press coverage came in the New York Sun, a neoconservative paper backed by wealthy Israel supporters Conrad Black and Michael Steinhardt. Reporter Eli Lake wrote the article around an interview he did with white-supremacist David Duke, not normally a regular source for the Sun, who not surprisingly claimed “The Israel Lobby” vindicated his long-held anti-Semitic views.

Lake’s colleague Meghan Clyne followed up four days later with an extended interview with Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, who among other smears insinuated that Walt and Mearsheimer cribbed some of their choicest quotes from neo-Nazi websites. (Most of the Sun’s readership likely missed the irony that Dershowitz himself has been accused of this form of plagiarism in his book The Case for Israel.) Between the Sun and the Harvard Crimson arose an almost daily drumbeat of criticism.

These two charges—that “The Israel Lobby” gave aid and comfort to extremists like David Duke and that it parroted material on anti-Semitic websites—quickly made their way into the national media through two articles in the Washington Post, one running under the incendiary title “Of Israel, Harvard, and David Duke.” The Post also ran an opinion piece by Bush administration Defense Policy Board member Eliot Cohen pointedly entitled, “Yes, It’s Anti-Semitic.” This set the tone for much of the early discussion of the piece in the American media.

Writing in U.S. News and World Report, longtime White House insider David Gergen, like Captain Renault in “Casablanca,” professed to be shocked to learn that the Israel lobby is working to “tilt U.S. foreign policy in favor of Israel at the expense of America’s interest.” But Mearsheimer and Walt quote a candid speech that Bush intelligence adviser Philip Zelikow gave on Sept. 10, 2002 in which he said that Iraq was an imminent threat to Israel, not America.  It was, he said, “the threat that dare not speak its name,” because it was not a “popular sell.”

On March 24, The Forward reported that officials of major Jewish organizations were trying to avoid “a frontal debate with the two scholars, while at the same time seeking indirect ways to rebut and discredit the scholar’s arguments.” These included demands by some Jewish donors to Harvard to distance the university from the piece. (There is no evidence these worked, as the decision to remove Harvard’s logo from the working paper was made with Walt’s approval.) Certain neoconservatives also lobbied financial backers of prominent journals to have Mearsheimer and Walt dropped from their editorial boards. Finally, there were thinly veiled appeals to other Jewish colleagues to exclude Mearsheimer and Walt from conferences and other scholarly activities so as to “leave them marginalized and isolated.” This bare-knuckled maneuvering by lobby members shows why most people in the U.S. steer clear of criticizing the U.S.-Israeli relationship publicly.

...

Groups like the Anti-Defamation League and CAMERA and individuals like Alan Dershowitz promised detailed rebuttals of Mearsheimer and Walt’s logic and evidence. So far, they have failed to identify any significant errors of fact and interpretation. They are left with impugning the integrity of the authors and the legitimacy of the whole line of inquiry. Dershowitz labels Mearsheimer and Walt “bigots.” Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman characterizes the piece as “conspiratorial anti-Semitic analysis.” Congressman Jerrold Nadler, a staunch supporter of Israel, dismisses it as “a repackaging of old conspiracy theories.” New Republic publisher Martin Peretz declares it “the labor of obsessives with dark and conspiratorial minds.” Even as he conceded much of their argument, columnist Christopher Hitchens found it “smelly” with the odor of anti-Semitism.

Those charges are demonstrably false. In the fall of 1991, Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, Germany’s leading public-opinion specialist, was due to return to the University of Chicago for a faculty appointment when Commentary revealed that as a graduate student in Nazi Germany she made anti-Semitic remarks in her dissertation and in the Nazi newspaper Das Reich. Noelle-Neumann never denied these charges, and she and her defenders at the university argued that her comments ought to be seen in the context of the times. Mearsheimer, then chair of the political science department, along with Walt and a few other colleagues, publicly called on Noelle-Neumann to provide a fuller explanation of her behavior along with an unconditional apology for her anti-Semitic comments. This stand is hardly one bigots or anti-Semites are likely to have taken.

And that position was not an aberration. Friends and colleagues understand that Mearsheimer and Walt are acutely aware of the long and painful history of anti-Semitism and in no way intended to give aid and comfort to Israel’s enemies. It is not surprising, therefore, that they would rally to the authors’ defense. Brandeis University professor Robert Art’s reaction was typical: “I have known John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt for over twenty-five years. I consider both good friends and valued colleagues. Neither John nor Steve is anti-Semitic, and both are strong supporters of Israel. It is a cheap shot to call them anti-Semitic and enemies of Israel. As an American Jew, I would never associate with individuals who hold such views.”

Despite having no truck with anti-Semitism, Mearsheimer and Walt understood that critics would level that accusation. As Tony Judt recently explained in Ha’aretz, the charge of anti-Semitism is “now the only card left” to the Israel lobby to respond to criticism. But this organized tactic of shutting down serious discussion rather than engaging the argument on its merits is illegitimate. As George Orwell reminds us, “If liberty means anything, it means the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.”  
_____________________________________


June 19, 2006 Issue
 The American Conservative

Two items of interest from Cole both dealing with RealWorld v. BushWorld.

Political scientists Stephen Walt, Robert Art and John Mearsheimer were warmly welcomed at the US Naval War College, despite the fact that they pulled no punches on the Iraq fiasco. They told cadets seeking a way forward in Iraq that there are no good options, that things could get even worse, and that we are faced with Camus's The Plague. They nevertheless got a warm round of applause. Unlike Cheney and Rumsfeld, real military men want to be told the straight reality of things. Bravo.

Really Should Get Out More

Bush sees progress but not "zero violence" in Iraq (Reuters)
-
Iraq refugees flee for Jordan, Syria (AP)

Bush Sneaks In and Out of Baghdad Again
24 Dead in Kirkuk Bombings Cole



This Reuters report has to be read carefully to see how parlous the situation in Iraq really is. The president of the United States, who supposedly conquered the country three years ago, had to keep his visit secret even from the prime minister he was going to visit, until five minutes before their meeting. That tells me Bush's people don't trust Nuri al-Maliki very far. In fact, apparently Bush's people don't trust Bush's people very far-- only Cheney, Rumsfeld and Condi are said to have known about the trip in the US. And, Air Force One had to land after a sharp bank, to throw off any potential shoulder-held missile launchers in the airport area. The president couldn't go to the Green Zone in a motorcade, for fear of car bombs, but had to be helicoptered in. This ending says it all: "Bush left after night fell to return to Washington. The plane left at a steep angle with its lights out and the shades drawn." See also this photo.

In almost surreal rhetoric, Bush said Iranian interference in Iraqi affairs must be curtailed. He said this after the Iraqi vice president and the head of the biggest bloc in parliament both went off to Tehran and praised Iran's stabilizing role. If Bush thinks that Shiite Iranians are the problem in fanatically Sunni Ramadi and Adhamiyah, we're in even bigger trouble than I thought.

Bush tried to define down victory to a general ability of people to go about their lives. He said it was unreasonable to expect to end "all violence." But Mr. Bush, no one suggested that you end "all violence." The goal here is to win the guerrilla war.

During a guerrilla war, people always go about their daily lives, except when a bomb is going off in their specific neighborhood. So if the goal is that Iraqis should be able to buy bread and go to school and drive to work, most of them have that already most of the time. It is just that little problem of some 12,000 people a year being blown up, assassinated, or beheaded and their heads wrapped in cellophane and stored in banana crates along the side of the road that remains.

In other words, Bush defines the main weapon in the guerrilla war, carbombings, as ineradicable, and declares that he can win that war without actually ending its main weapon. It is a cheap trick of rhetoric, a prestidigitation of the lips. "These are not the 'droids you're looking for."

Meanwhile a new security sweep will be launched in an attempt to make Baghdad more secure. Let's see if this one is more successful than Operation Lightning, a similar set of sweeps launched last year this time to no apparent lasting effect.

US troops are under enormous strain in Iraq. They cannot most often tell friend from foe. When they first arrived, they were encouraged to make friends with local Iraqis, but now often are told to keep to themselves, just because it isn't clear who the guerrillas are. They are apparently constantly taking mortar or sniping fire, most of it ineffectual and so never announced to the press. If they go out on the road, they are in substantial danger of being blown up. Few units haven't lost a dear friend and colleague. They are fighting for a local government that often seems not much to want them and clearly wishes them gone sooner rather than later (Maliki says at most 18 months). Some high ranking members of the government have been scathing about them. The Europeans see US troops in Iraq as a bigger threat to stability in the Middle East than is Iran. Some 60 percent of Americans think their being there was a mistake in the first place, which cannot be good for morale, which is slipping inside the military according to polls. They signed up to fight for their country and their country asked them to fight in Iraq, and in the military you do as you are told, so it is a raw deal for them to end up being so unappreciated when they are doing brave things every day. So I get it that they are frustrated. But, it just is very bad politics for them to sit around singing songs about killing Iraqis, and worse politics to videotape it.

That said, I think the chances are nil that Luskin is making this up since that'd be practically daring Patrick Fitzgerald to indict his client. Whatever else he may be (amateur precious metal dealer?), he's no fool.

-- Josh Marshall

Well I was wrong about Bush . He didn't go to Camp David to talk about his strategy. He was prepping for another stunt

President Bush Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq

The shura council of al Qaeda in Iraq unanimously agreed on Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, to be a successor to Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi [AP]

Gareth Porter summarizes recent diplomatic activity with Iran, summarizing rightly that Bush, in a box having failed to gain international support for a Security Council resolution, has very little military option left, on table, under table, or off table.

Bush Iran Strategy Suffers Diplomatic Defeat: Porter

Ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets.  Ivo's on top

Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and Arabist Anthony Shadid, writing in WaPo, explores the way in which the jihadi struggle in Iraq is radicalizing Sunnis in places like Lebanon, with likely destabilizing results down the line.

Bush plans to stay until "victory" and will try, according to the Daily Telegraph to keep a residual force of 50,000 there indefinitely, which is to say, until "victory", which is to say "permanent bases" - if he can.


And also via Cole

A Message from the Vice President of Iraq

Iraqi vice president Adil Abdul Mahdi met in Tehran with Foreign Minister Manucher Mottaki on Saturday. He said,

“We believe that Iran-Iraq friendly relations are a matter of strategic importance which would benefit the interests of the two countries and the region . . . Some people are trying to damage the Iran-Iraq ties by enticing sectarian strife, but we will thwart their plans by expanding bilateral economic, political, and cultural relations . . . We view the power of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the benefit of the entire region and accordingly we take steps in enhancing cooperation and ties (with Iran)" '

Yes, that was the Vice President of Iraq speaking. And he had been within two votes in his party of being prime minister. And, except for that last bit about IRI power benefitting the region (that regime is an extremely reactionary force there), he is right about good Iran-Iraq relations being absolutely necessary to Gulf stability.