"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

John Kerry has to find a way to speak out against the war in Iraq. Yes, he did vote in favor of it, but he is a smart guy, an Ivy Leaguer. He had better figure out a way to question the mess that Bush has gotten us into or he will be the last man to lose because he couldn't give people a reason to vote for him.

Why they hate us

"Sometimes a guy will go down, and I'll let him scream a bit to destroy the morale of his buddies. Then I'll use a second shot."

"To take a bad guy out," he explains, "is an incomparable "adrenaline rush."

I guess it never occurred to this genius that the victim's buddies are motivated to fight back when their guy is suffering. Then again, it isn't surprising that he wouldn't consider the possibility that Iraqis think and feel the way he does. Iraqis aren't human beings after all. Read it here. The Pentagon is now acting like a slumlord, helping U.S. troops to fight and kill better in cities. Be all that you can be.

Why do they hate us?

Why do they hate us? It isn't very complicated. U.S. forces have fired on ambulances in Fallujah and we have further humiliated the Iraqis by choosing a new flag when even anti-Hussein Iraqis liked their old flag.

By the way, the U.S. ambassador designate to Iraq, John Negroponte, was death squad friendly when he served as ambassador to Honduras. Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd shamed himself when he kissed Negroponte's butt during confirmation hearings.

"Whatever differences I've had years ago with John Negroponte, I happen to feel he's a very fine Foreign Service officer and has done a tremendous job in many places."

Congressional Democrats are proving themselves to be more and more useless to the American people.

Mordechai Vanunu

Mordechai Vanunu was released from an Israeli prison this week. Vanunu was a technician at the Dimona nuclear facility. In 1985 he confirmed that Israeli was building nuclear weapons. After his story appeared in the Sunday Times he was lured to Rome by a female Mossad agent where he was drugged, kidnapped and taken to Israel for trial. Vanunu wrote this information on the palm of his hand and held it up to a car window so that the international press would know what had happened to him.

Mordechai Vanunu is still not free. He is not allowed to meet with foreigners, or the media, nor is he allowed to leave Israel. Sounds like "banning" in apartheid era South Africa. Democracy Now has great reporting on the story. You can express support for Vanunu here.

Thanks Ariel, America Needed Another Bulls Eye on Its Back

Juan Cole made this statement in a 4/18 post.

Rantisi and Najaf

The Sunday Herald correctly points out that the Israeli murder of Abdul Aziz Rantisi, the head of the political wing of the Hamas party, on Saturday, will cause further trouble in Iraq.

With al-Anbar province tense and US troops surrounding Najaf, one could not imagine a worse time for Bush to give a green light to Sharon for further provocations. One can only conclude that neither Ariel Sharon nor Bush and his Neocon advisers give a fig about the lives of US and Coalition servicemen in Iraq. Otherwise, they'd stop with the theatrics. If the Israelis had wanted to arrest Rantisi, they could have. They pulled off Entebbe. This extra-judicial murder of political opponents is just showing off, and it is of course ethically despicable and a war crime for which one only wishes Sharon could be made to stand trial in the Hague. If Rantisi could have been proved to have committed an act of terrorism, he should have been arrested and tried in Gaza for murder. I condemn violence by Palestinian leaders just as I do that done by Israeli ones, and do not have a problem with terrorists being punished for killing innocent people. I do have a problem with political rivals whacking one another unnecessarily, especially when it is likely to get some of my friends killed.

I feel like something of a fool for bothering to say all this, since it is obvious that Sharon is behaving like a Mafia don--Arik Soprano--not a head of state. But the commentary I saw on US cable television was all about who could fall over themselves more quickly to praise this 'decisive action against terrorism.' The state of public discourse in the US (and Israel) is deplorable when it is not even possible publicly to criticize extra-judicial killing in the mass media.

Bush Changes the Subject

You have to give credit where it is due. Bush and his cronies know that Iraq is looking worse by the minute so they change the subject. We are back to the evil dictator. Today the Iraqi Governing Council announced a war crimes tribunal. How convenient. U.S. troops are fighting house to house in Fallujah, which anti-war critics predicted, U.S. mercenaries and other contractors are being kidnapped and killed, and Spain says adios. What a perfect time to talk about the evil Saddam.

Because Bremer and company make the situation worse with every decision (closing al-Sadr's newspaper) I am sure that there is some unintended consequence of trying Saddam in court. Even Iraqis who hated Saddam now hate us. We are the ones who can't keep the lights on, drop bombs on their houses, shoot cilinians during cease fires, and keep 12,000 Iraqis in detention without charging them with crimes or giving them access to attorneys or their families. Saddam is now a memory. You know what that means. Selective amnesia will set in. People in an honor based culture will be angry that their former leader is being humiliated. Putting Saddam on trial changes the subject in the U.S., but it will only make things worse for us in the Arab world.

I wonder if the tribunal will discuss the Reagan era alliance with Saddam. When Hussein was killing Kurds and Iranians with chemical weapons he was our friend. He and Donald Rumsfeld, then special envoy for Reagan, had a great meeting 20 years ago. Remember this photo when you hear about the evil dictator.

Kerry Does Know How to Win

A controversial 30-second TV spot for Kerry that aired throughout the Midwest Monday blamed the country's ills not on Bush's policies, but on the "sheer stupidity" of America's voters.

"In the past four years, America's national debt has reached an all-time high," the ad's narrator said. "And who's responsible? You are. You're sitting there eating a big bowl of Fritos, watching TV, and getting fatter as the country goes to hell. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

I would love an ad like that. Of course it isn't for real. It comes to us courtesy of the Onion. Who else?

Does Kerry Know How to Win?

The U.S. had a surplus before Bush was president. The U.S. had good relations with its allies before Bush was president. The U.S. wasn't making enemies in the Arab and Muslim world before Bush was president. Why do polls show him even or closely behind Kerry? Get your answer from Freedom Rider in Black Commentator.

The Thinker



"John, I'm sure historians will look back and say, gosh, he could have done it better this way, or that way. You know, I just -- I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn't yet. " - George W. Bush, press conference on 4/13/04

Fishing with George W. Bush

You already know that Dubya was AWOL while Iraqi civilians were being killed and U.S. GIs were being killed and memos surfaced telling us that Bin Laden was determined to attack in America. The President was at his ranch pretending to be a farmer when he is in fact an east coast, Ivy League, old money, blue blood.

He was not just relaxing at Easter. He was locking up the Nascar Dad vote by taping an appearance on the television show Fishing with Roland Martin. You wouldn't know it unless you read the Daily Howler (scroll down). The NY Times and Washington Post didn't want you to worry your little head about it all. Only the LA Times had the guts to be honest. Why the big secret? The President who spends vacations "clearing brush" should be happy to let us know that he is fishing with a good old boy.

Death in Fallujah and Haiti


An estimated 125 people are buried in this sports field, turned cemetery. Up to 600 people have been killed in the six-day siege of Falluja.

Iraqi civilians are being killed in the so-called Fallujah cease fire. Listen to or watch Democracy Now. Also, Democracy Now has disturbing news from Haiti. Hundreds of Aristide supporters have been murdered. The unclaimed dead that stay in the morgue are lucky. Some dead bodies have been dumped and left for pigs to eat.

Picture of the Day


An American soldier thinks he is funny

Quote of the Day

"I train my son to kill Americans. That is one reason I am grateful to Saddam Hussein. All Iraqis know how to use weapons."

"They searched my house. They kicked my Koran. They speak to me so poorly in front of my children. It's not that I encourage my son to hate Americans. It's not that I make him want to join the resistance. Americans do that for me."

New York Times, April 11, 2004

"He wanted to stop when he saw the naked women and the bikinis."

Taking a cue from Attorney General Ashcroft, the G&L Garden Center is Hartsville, Tennessee has covered up nude statues with velvet sarongs.

Of course, customers who wouldn't have noticed otherwise are now peeking under the sarongs, hoping to see what I don't know. Sales of the statues have increased, proving that sex sells, even in the Bible Belt.

Happy Easter

I wish all my Christian brothers and sisters a very happy Easter, oops, I mean Resurrection Sunday. You can't say Easter anymore. That's right. If you are a good member of the American Taliban it is a sin to think of bonnets and bunnies any more. It is such a terrible sin that the Easter bunny must be whipped. You read correctly. A group of capital C Christians from the Glassport Assembly of God church in Glassport, Pennsylvania broke eggs and flogged an Easter bunny character to impress upon the faithful the folly of the pagan origins of Easter. I guess they saw The Passion one time too many.

Here is an article from the Dallas Morning News (registration is required to read anything, so I have copied it here).

It's Easter, but some prefer to use a more sacred name

The Resurrection, not bunnies and eggs, should take center stage, many churches say

04:23 PM CDT on Friday, April 9, 2004

By BERTA DELGADO / The Dallas Morning News

For most of the world's Christians, tomorrow is Easter Sunday. But a growing number prefer what they consider a more appropriate name: Resurrection Day.

The reasons stem from the past and from the present.

Because of "the commercialization and the background of the word Easter" – including its association with spring and fertility – "many churches choose to emphasize the Resurrection," said Dr. Mark Bailey, president of Dallas Theological Seminary.

The holiday, he said, "is not about eggs, it's not about rabbits."

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"Easter" is derived from the names Germanic tribes used for their goddess of fertility.

"Churches want to make clear that this isn't a holdover of a pagan holiday," Dr. Bailey said. "It's the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus as the Son of God."

The Rev. Ralph Holland is senior pastor of Mundo de Fe, a Spanish-language church started by Covenant Church in Carrollton. Both churches, he said, prefer to call the celebration "Resurrection Sunday."

"The background of the word Easter speaks of fertility, but for us, the Resurrection speaks of life," Dr. Holland said. "Christ gave us new life. We're born again."

Some churches say they don't want society's trappings to get in the way of worship. St. John Missionary Baptist Church in Grand Prairie sometimes declares Easter a "dress down day."

"We want to take the focus off the commercialization," said Paul Jones, a spokesman for the 12,000-member church.

"Our purpose is not to celebrate corporate America at this time, but the Resurrection Day. So we say come in T-shirts, jeans, whatever.

"The focus is not on wearing a fancy Easter bonnet and new patent leather shoes."

Not everyone sees the distinction as a big deal. "Easter" doesn't bother the Rev. Jeff Jones.

"I don't get bent out of shape with people celebrating with Easter bunnies," said the senior pastor of Fellowship Bible Church North in Plano. "It's up to parents, if they know Christ, to make sure that it's more than that."

E-mail bdelgado@dallasnews.com

My fellow Christians, let's give it a rest. I do think that Christians can wear bonnets or dye eggs and still know the importance of the life and death of Jesus.

Happy Easter. Put on your bonnet and don't flog any bunnies.

Re: Israeli Company

I am told that the story from Ha'aretz is old news. The original story was written a few days after 9/11 but the web site always shows the current date. That makes it even more interesting. What were the results of the investigation, assuming it was ever conducted.

Israeli Company Warned about 9/11 Attacks

According to Ha'aretz, an Israeli newspaper, employees of Odigo, an Israeli company located in New York, were warned about the attacks two hours before the first plane struck. Thanks to Progressive Review for the link.

Too Stupid for Words

What is too stupid for words? Killing people at worship is so stupid that I am at a loss for words, other than these. The next time American bodies are strung up from a bridge, don't bother asking why they hate us.