:: Has the whole world gone mad or is it just me. ::

:: Saturday, March 08, 2003 ::

Bill Clinton only lied about sex. This W asshole lies about everyfuckingthing including reasons to go to war and kill people.

Los Angeles Times: Top Inspectors Criticize CIA Data on Iraqi Sites http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-intel8mar08,1,1716906.story?coll=la%2Dhome%2Dheadlines

Top Inspectors Criticize CIA Data on Iraqi Sites

Blix and Elbaradei reject key intelligence claims. Some U.S. officials admit quality is poor.
By Bob Drogin and Greg Miller
Times Staff Writers

March 8, 2003
UNITED NATIONS -- On the eve of a possible war in Iraq, a question looms increasingly large: If U.S. intelligence is so good, why are United Nations experts still unable to confirm whether Saddam Hussein is actively concealing and producing illegal weapons?

That troubling issue erupted Friday when top U.N. weapons inspectors expressed frustration with the quality of intelligence they have been given.

"I would rather have twice the amount of high-quality information about sites to inspect than twice the number of expert inspectors to send," Hans Blix, who heads the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, told the Security Council.

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, went further, charging that documents provided by unidentified states may have been faked to suggest that the African country of Niger sold uranium to Iraq between 1999 and 2001.


:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 6:54 AM [+] ::
...

Bully Bush - The president is botching the Iraq crisis with his clumsy, naive unilateralism. By Fred Kaplan Bully Bush
The president is botching the Iraq crisis with his clumsy, naive unilateralism.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Wednesday, March 5, 2003, at 12:31 PM PT

Opportunity: blown?It is becoming increasingly and distressingly clear that, however justified the coming war with Iraq may be, the Bush administration is in no shape?diplomatically, politically, or intellectually?to wage it or at least to settle its aftermath. It is hard to remember when, if ever, the United States has so badly handled a foreign-policy crisis or been so distrusted by so many friends and foes as a result. I am among those who thought, and still do think, that Colin Powell's U.N. briefing last month made a good case that Iraq remains in "material breach" of its obligations under international law; that it constitutes a menace to its neighbors; that it is hiding, and probably continuing to develop, weapons of mass destruction; and that U.N. inspectors aren't going to find much on their own. I also think the French and Russian objections to those points were shallow and dishonest. But the nub of the matter is that France and Russia have veto power in the Security Council.

In some crises, this might not constitute a serious obstacle to the United States taking action on its own. When Russia threatened to veto a resolution proposing to defend Kosovo from Serbian aggression in 1999, President Clinton took the matter to NATO instead. Had one of the Security Council's "big five" vetoed a resolution calling for action to push Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991, George Bush I would have been well within his rights to assemble a "coalition of the willing"?not just morally, but also under the U.N. Charter, which demands strict punishment for nations that cross another's borders. But the war that Bush II is pushing is a different sort of war, a war in which we launch an invasion, not in response to aggression and not even "pre-emptively" (to strike the first blow before the other country does) but "preventively" (to keep the other country from doing something that might let it pose an imminent threat someday). There may be a case for preventive war, but if the aim of the war is protecting the international order, then that case should be acceptable to the agency that represents the international order. Specifically, if the war is supposed to enforce a U.N. resolution, then the case for war should be acceptable to the United Nations. (Bush implicitly accepted this premise last fall when he took his argument to the United Nations in the first place.)

So far, the administration has failed to make that case. This failure is not simply a matter of French or Russian obstinacy; the United States has not yet convinced even the three-fifths majority in the Security Council (nine out of 15 members) that would be necessary if there were no veto. Nor can Bush fall back on NATO for legitimacy. France and Germany oppose war, and in any case the battlefield lies outside NATO's European jurisdiction. The involvement of Turkey, a NATO member, could be mustered as a rationale, but the Turkish parliament voted against giving the United States basing rights in the war, even though doing so meant forgoing a lavish grant and loan. (A revote next week might reverse this outcome.)
:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 9:12 AM [+] ::
...

NewsDirect Alerts - Article Many Fault Handling of Iraq

Californians' rate of disapproval of Bush is much higher than the nation's as a whole.

?03/06/2003 - 06:16 AM PST (14:16 GMT)

?By Michael Finnegan
?Times Staff Writer

With the United States on the precipice of war, Californians disapprove of President Bush's handling of Iraq, and half do not trust him to make the right decision on whether to take military action, a new Los Angeles Times Poll has found.
Three in five Californians believe the U.S. should not invade Iraq without the United Nations' backing, the poll found. Prospects for U.N. support appeared to diminish Wednesday when the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Russia declared they would join forces to block any Security Council resolution authorizing force against Iraq.
The survey underscored the contrast between public opinion in California and in the nation as a whole: A national Times Poll completed last month showed that most Americans, unlike Californians, approve of the way Bush has confronted Iraq and trust his judgment on whether to invade.
Americans, by a 5-4 margin, also favored attacking Iraq with just a coalition of allies; Californians lean -- 49% to 46% -- against that approach.
The new survey also showed that Bush's popularity has dropped in California, as it has across the country. Asked to evaluate his job performance, 48% of Californians approved and 48% disapproved. The Republican president has long been less popular in California than in the nation as a whole; he lost the state by 1.3 million votes in 2000. Still, even in California his approval rating after the Sept. 11 attacks had reached as high as 76%.
According to the poll, the president's war buildup has affected his standing. On the question of his handling of Iraq and Saddam Hussein, the survey found that 52% of Californians disapprove and 45% approve
:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 9:23 PM [+] ::
...

What a royal fuckup that W is.

Salon.com News | Uncle Sam's dirty tricks? Uncle Sam's dirty tricks?
Alleged U.S. spying at the U.N. -- huge news in the rest of the world, ignored here -- provides fodder to festering anti-Americanism

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Jake Tapper



March 3, 2003 ?|? Just when you thought the United States' worldwide unpopularity couldn't plunge to greater depths, a story in Sunday's London Observer reported that in preparation for another possible United Nations vote on military intervention against Iraq, the U.S. government was engaging in "dirty tricks" by conducting surveillance on members of the U.N. Security Council.

The story was based on a memo allegedly sent by a National Security Agency official seeking surveillance information on the thoughts of U.N. Security Council delegates for countries that remain either opposed to or undecided on the war against Iraq.

"We have no statement to issue," a spokesman for the NSA told Salon. The White House similarly refused comment. "As a matter of long-standing policy, the administration never comments on anything involving any people involved in intelligence," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said in a Monday afternoon briefing. By Monday, no major American newspaper had run with the story.

That wasn't true overseas.
:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 1:08 PM [+] ::
...

War is coming, deal with it War is coming, deal with it

It may be worth the jet lag to cross the Atlantic and see how different are European and American perceptions of the upcoming war in Iraq. Where many Europeans feel the military Leviathan can still be stopped, Americans are well into planning for what comes afterward.
This lag in perceptions is interesting for several reasons, not least of which is that the Europeans opposed to a war are making a big mistake. By ignoring the obvious ? that war is inevitable ? they ensure their irrelevance in a post-war Iraq. This is disturbing given that the Bush administration?s hubris makes metastasizing Iraqi complications almost a certainty.
Many Europeans would quietly welcome an American fiasco in the Gulf. This spite is largely fueled by a view that the Bush administration is a warren of arrogance, and that the president, George W. Bush, is an insufferably pious idiot. If the contempt for Bush sounds personal, that?s because it is: The president?s purported defects are a recurring theme in European anti-war rants.
The administration might have tried to better engage France. Bush?s entourage was so convinced the protests of French President Jacques Chirac emanated solely from political calculation that it did not consider an alternative: France was blending self-interest and high principle, so that its anti-war stance could have been neutralized by both satisfying its appetite for advantages in Iraq and recognizing, through consultations, its status as a world power.
:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 11:34 AM [+] ::
...

France, Russia, Germany Will Oppose Iraq Resolution (washingtonpost.com) France, Russia, Germany Will Oppose Iraq Resolution
Looks like W against the civilized world.
:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 9:41 AM [+] ::
...

The Onion | Bush Offers Taxpayers Another $300 If We Go To War WASHINGTON, DC?Amid growing anti-war protests and polls indicating eroding public support for an invasion of Iraq, President Bush is offering U.S. taxpayers a rebate in the amount of $300 if we go to war.
Above: Bush entices war opponents with a $300 tax rebate.
"My proposed tax rebate will serve to stimulate the economy," said Bush, waving a sample check made out to John Q. Public at a White House press conference Monday. "Americans will get a generous infusion of cash that can be used however they choose?all in return for simply supporting a first strike against Iraq. Now, who wouldn't want an extra $300 in their pocket next month?"
Under the Bush plan, single taxpayers would be eligible for a $300 rebate, married filers $600, and heads of household $500. Attached to the proposal is a rider, penned by Bush himself, stating, "Plus, we also will invade Iraq right away, everyone promises."
Pending passage of the bill, titled Economic Growth And Tax Relief Reconciliation Act Of 2003 And We Bomb Iraq (H.R. 1936), some 91.3 million checks could be mailed as early as March 31.

:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 9:35 AM [+] ::
...

Los Angeles Times: A Tip on Iraq From Those Who Walked That Road http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-scheer25feb25,1,5665113.column

COMMENTARY

A Tip on Iraq From Those Who Walked That Road

The French paid dearly for imperial and military hubris. Listen up, U.S.
Robert Scheer

February 25, 2003
The alliances on "Survivor" have more stability and logic than those currently held by the United States. We need a weekly two-hour special to keep us in the know.
Did we buy off Turkey yet? Hey, what's $15 billion for a mercenary in need? And is Syria, the sworn enemy of our enemy, Saddam Hussein, our new friend?
Oh, and if Pakistan is the dictatorship that backed the Taliban, why are we covering our ears and humming the theme to "Friends" whenever anyone talks about its nukes and scary collaboration with North Korea?
We suddenly like those U.S. flag-burners in Tehran -- possessors of a nuclear weapons program Hussein can only dream of -- so much that we have given their boys in the Northern Alliance the keys to Kabul, and now we might open the back door for them to take over Shiite southern Iraq.
On the other hand, old ally Germany and new ally Russia have both been downgraded to a status below lap dog Bulgaria for daring to suggest that Emperor Bush is without clothes; while uppity China is getting a reprieve because, as our second-largest trading partner, it keeps Wal-Mart stocked with patriotic animatronic toys. If we weren't worried about burning the waffles, we'd probably have lobbed a few cruise missiles into antiwar Belgium by now.

:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 5:28 AM [+] ::
...

From the most liberal.

Bush Pushes the Big Lie Toward the Brink March 4, 2003

Robert Scheer:
Bush Pushes the Big Lie Toward the Brink
Even some in government can no longer be silent in the face of falsehood.

So the truth is out: George W. Bush lied when he claimed to be worried about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. Otherwise, Iraq's stepped-up cooperation with the U.N. on disarmament would be stunningly good news, obviating the need to rush to war.
Instead, the U.N. weapons inspectors' verification of Iraq's destruction of missiles, private meetings with Iraqi weapons scientists, visits to locations where biological and chemical weapons were destroyed in 1991 and a series of unfettered flights by U2 spy plans have been met with a shrug and sneer in Washington. The White House line is that even if the Iraqis destroy all their slingshots, Goliath is still bringing his tanks and instituting "regime change." The arrogance is breathtaking. We have demanded that a country disarm -- and even as it is doing so, we say it doesn't matter: it's too late; we're coming in. Put down your guns and await the slaughter.
:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 5:23 AM [+] ::
...

Stop clapping, this is serious - smh.com.au Stop clapping, this is serious
March 1 2003





Tom Lehrer is still feisty and funny, but the king of sophisticated satire tells Tony Davis there's no place for his style of humour now: the world just wouldn't get it.

'I'm not tempted to write a song about George W.Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirise George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporise them."

:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 6:09 AM [+] ::
...

Dumbshit W does it again.
NewsDirect Alerts - Article The World Casts a Critical Eye on Bush's Style of Diplomacy



?03/03/2003 - 06:16 AM PST (14:16 GMT)

?By Doyle McManus
?Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- "If we're an arrogant nation, they'll view us that way," George W. Bush said during his 2000 presidential campaign. "But if we're a humble nation, they'll respect us."
Little more than two years later, the world's verdict on President Bush's diplomacy is split -- between critics who see it as arrogant and allies who support its goals but sometimes wonder where the "humble" went.
The leaders of France, Germany, Russia and China, all nations Bush hoped to count as allies in the confrontation with Iraq, have joined to resist the president's drive toward war, with complaints over what they see as American highhandedness.
Even staunch allies such as prime ministers Tony Blair of Britain and Jose Maria Aznar of Spain have sent word to Bush that some U.S. bravado -- like Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's dismissal of "Old Europe" -- has done more harm than good.

:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 7:46 AM [+] ::
...

CBS News | Inspectors Call U.S. Tips 'Garbage' | February 21, 2003 11:16:02
Inspectors Call U.S. Tips 'Garbage'
Feb. 20, 2003
U.N. weapons inspectors prepare to investigate a private battery acid plant outside of Baghdad. ?(AP)
So frustrated have the inspectors become that one source has referred to the U.S. intelligence they've been getting as "garbage after garbage after garbage."

(CBS)?While diplomatic maneuvering continues over Turkish bases and a new United Nations resolution, inside Iraq, U.N. arms inspectors are privately complaining about the quality of U.S. intelligence and accusing the United States of sending them on wild-goose chases.

CBS News Correspondent Mark Phillips reports the U.N. has been taking a precise inventory of Iraq's al-Samoud 2 missile arsenal, determining how many there are and where they are.

Discovering that the al-Samoud 2 has been flying too far in tests has been one of the inspectors' major successes. But the missile has only been exceeding its 93-mile limit by about 15 miles and that, the Iraqis say, is because it isn't yet loaded down with its guidance system. The al-Samoud 2 is not the 800-mile-plus range missile that Secretary of State Colin Powell insists Iraq is developing.

In fact, the U.S. claim that Iraq is developing missiles that could hit its neighbors ? or U.S. troops in the region, or even Israel ? is just one of the claims coming from Washington that inspectors here are finding increasingly unbelievable. The inspectors have become so frustrated trying to chase down unspecific or ambiguous U.S. leads that they've begun to express that anger privately in no uncertain terms.

U.N. sources have told CBS News that American tips have lead to one dead end after another.
* Example: satellite photographs purporting to show new research buildings at Iraqi nuclear sites. When the U.N. went into the new buildings they found "nothing."
* Example: Saddam's presidential palaces, where the inspectors went with specific coordinates supplied by the U.S. on where to look for incriminating evidence. Again, they found "nothing."
* Example: Interviews with scientists about the aluminum tubes the U.S. says Iraq has imported for enriching uranium, but which the Iraqis say are for making rockets. Given the size and specification of the tubes, the U.N. calls the "Iraqi alibi air tight."


:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 5:15 AM [+] ::
...

American Politics Journal -- Bush Knows the Jig Is Up Bush Knows the Jig Is Up: So Let's Hurry on to Baghdad
By Bernard Weiner, The Crisis Papers

Feb. 20, 2003 -- LOS ANGELES (crisispapers.org) -- One can almost sense a palpable shifting of momentum, from an unrestricted Bush war-juggernaut rolling to its bloody unfolding to an administration caught between Iraq and a hard place, condemned if it unleashes the dogs of war (imperial warmonger), condemned if it pulls back and bides its time (wimp).

In a sense, what's transpiring reminds one of the delicious secret of "The Wizard of Oz": more and more people are beginning to sense, and sometimes even see, that the "all-powerful" governmental leader behind the curtain is just a flawed little man broadcasting to an overly-awed (and/or frightened) polity. Or, to shift fairytales: "The Emperor's New Clothes," where the leader, who has been nude all this while for all to see, suddenly finds that his subjects, heretofore willing to swallow the illusion of the emperor's new garments, realize that he's not wearing any.

In short, Bush is just another leader -- not even an elected one at that -- who, to disguise his incompetency and true motives, has lived on propaganda and falsification, and now the jig is up. His citizens are beginning to see through the charade -- even many who once supported him, including a good many ordinary, moderate Republicans, appalled at the powers assumed by Big Government and its willingness to eviserate the Constitution in its push toward more and more authoritarian control.

Certainly those outside the United States have seen through America's ostensible leader, and they, being more familiar with imperial arrogance, have not liked what they've seen. No, not at all. Even though they know they might pay a high price for telling the emperor to his face that he's full of bullbleep and that they refuse to have blood on their hands just because he says it's time to go to war, they have stood up. (Sad to say, there are some signs of wavering these days.)

What's about to come down over the next several weeks doesn't look hopeful. Bush&Co. are pulling out all the stops -- threatening, bribing, cajoling, arm-twisting, bullying -- in an effort to smooth the path to war, to give fig-leaf cover to their rush to military onslaught devoid of overt evidence to justify the haste.

There IS going to be a war, you know. Bush&Co. will not have it any other way. The Bush&Co. domestic and global agenda requires it. How can you get your extremist domestic agenda passed unless a frightened Congress and populace rallies around the flag being unfurled in a Mideast desert? How can the U.S. exercise its "benevolent hegemony" of the globe (and totally by coincidence, have effective control of the world's natural resources) unless would-be upstarts get bombed to smithereens, to demonstrate to others that they'd better not make the same mistake of getting in our way? So, it's full speed to Baghdad.

Doesn't matter if the allies are opposed, doesn't matter if thousands of Iraqi citizens get slaughtered as the missiles rain down (no wonder "Guernica" was covered up when Powell arrived at the U.N.), doesn't matter if North Korea insanely is threatening nuclear war against the U.S., doesn't matter if the American citizenry doesn't want a pre-emptive war on its conscience, doesn't matter if America is torn apart by dissension and economic disaster, doesn't matter if millions are demonstrating in the streets of America even before bombing has begun -- none of that matters. (Reminiscent of what Bush once told an ordinary citizen when that man deigned to criticize him at some public event: "What do I care what you think?")
:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 4:56 AM [+] ::
...