BUSH STUNG BY MC CLELLAN, CALLS HIM "DISLOYAL"

The only criticism of Scott Mc Clellan that I hear coming from the White House or from Bush's attack dogs is that Scott has no "loyalty." It is not about how Mc Clellan messed up or failed to do his job. It's all, "the president gave you your job, then you turn around and stab him in the back."

Gail Collins writes about this loyalty today in her op-ed piece in The New York Times:

"“DISLOYAL, SICKENING AND DESPICABLE DISLOYAL, SICKENING AND DESPICABLE,” wrote Bernard Kerik in an e-mail that he was circulating around this week. Kerik, you may remember, was the former New York City police commissioner who George W. Bush once tried to make chief of Homeland Security. This was during Kerik’s happier, preindictment era.
Kerik’s outrage was directed at Scott McClellan, the former Bush press secretary whose much-discussed memoir, “What Happened,” reveals that the Bush White House put politics ahead of truth and openness with the American people."

And, from Jonathan Martin at Politico, how about this put-down by former senator Bob Dole in an e-mail addressed to Mc Clellan:

""There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues," Dole wrote in a message sent yesterday morning. "No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits and, spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique." "

This is the same ad hominem and worthless argument made by countless other people in authority who dislike the actions of subordinates which criticize the authorities. "You owe it to us out of loyalty to remain silent and not rock the boat." When no other grounds can be found to dismiss the tale teller, authorities love to fall back on the loyalty argument.

The only thing an argument based on loyalty shows is how weak the case for the authorities. Not willing to respond to the substantive criticisms, they try to diminish and demonize the subordinate by calling him/her "disloyal."

ISRAEL PREVENTS FULBRIGHT SCHOLARS FROM LEAVING GAZA - A GOOD EXAMPLE OF COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT

Ethan Bronner of The New York Times reports in today's paper that Israel will not allow Fulbright scholars from Gaza to leave and come to the U.S. to study.

Talk about collective punishment! These gifted students have not fired missiles at Israel, they have not shot at Israeli troops, they have not instigated violence. Nonetheless, Israel will not allow them to leave Gaza to study abroad. This is the very essence of collective punishment - punishing the population because of acts of a small minority.

U.S. REFUSES TO BAN CLUSTER BOMBS, MAJOR KILLERS OF CHILDREN

The BBC reports more than 100 countries have reached an agreement to ban cluster bombs. But guess who refuses to go along? - the United States and George Bush.

Reports the BBC:

"More than 100 nations have reached an agreement on a treaty which would ban current designs of cluster bombs.

"Diplomats meeting in Dublin agreed to back an international ban on the use of the controversial weapons following 10 days of talks.

"But some of the world's main producers and stockpilers - including the US, Russia and China - oppose the move."

The only reason to use cluster bombs is their lethality. And not only against soldiers. Cluster bombs prove to be even more lethal against civilians, especially children, because to the untrained eye, cluster bombs appear to be attractive metal toys. Imagine a six-year old playing in his backyard and seeing a cluster bomber canister laying among the weeds. This is how cluster bombs kill children, they appear to be toys. But when a child picks one up, it explodes with deadly force.

That the United States is one of the few countries to support the continued use of cluster bombs is outrageous and cruel. All children of the world should oppose the U.S. in its stubborn and cruel irrationality against children.

JIMMY CARTER CRITICIZES EUROPEAN LEADERS FOR NOT DENOUNCING ISRAEL'S UNJUST TREATMENT OF PALESTINIANS

The Guardian has an article by Jonathan Steele and Jonathan Freedland about former president Jimmy Carter criticizing a "supine" Europe for failing to protest the Israeli blockade of Palestinians in Gaza.

Write Steele and Freedland:

"Britain and other European governments should break from the US over the international embargo on Gaza, former US president Jimmy Carter told the Guardian yesterday. Carter, visiting the Welsh border town of Hay for the Guardian literary festival, described the EU's position on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as "supine" and its failure to criticise the Israeli blockade of Gaza as "embarrassing"."

Carter is the only American out there who is not afraid to go up against the powerful Israeli lobby and denounce Israel's unjust and criminal collective punishment of the Palestinians.

Steele and Freedland report more on Carter's speech:

"The blockade on Hamas-ruled Gaza, imposed by the US, EU, UN and Russia - the so-called Quartet - after the organisation's election victory in 2006, was "one of the greatest human rights crimes on Earth," since it meant the "imprisonment of 1.6 million people, 1 million of whom are refugees". "Most families in Gaza are eating only one meal per day. To see Europeans going along with this is embarrassing," Carter said."

Carter brings up a subject upon which European leaders such as Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown have been strangely silent. And how about the silence of former prime minister Tony Blair? He has a job of trying to bring peace to Palestine, yet he has remained incommunicado. Why hasn't he spoken up as Carter? Europe's leaders are a milquetoast bunch. They loudly protest against Iran's development of nuclear power but they are mute when it comes to Israel's enforcement of collective punishment.

HILLARY'S MEAN TALK ABOUT ASSASSINATIONS IN JUNE

I don't feel as sympathetic as Juan Cole in his Informed Comment to Hillary Clinton's talk about why she is staying in the race. After all, she said, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in the the month of June, implying that the same thing could happen to Barack Obama.

Talk about low class and inappropriate! Clinton is staying in the race because she thinks something bad could happen to Obama in June, something like an assassination?

Who is this lady? Obama calls her a formidable opponent, but this lady is more than formidable. What won't she do to get her way?

This is one mean lady.

STOP USE OF WAR PLANES FIRING MISSILES IN DENSELY POPULATED AREAS IN IRAQ

Ernesto Londono and Amit Paley report in today's The Washington Post that the U.S. military in Iraq is using more air strikes to kill insurgents in densely populated areas. This means that innocent civilians including women and children are being caught up in the fighting and are being killed indiscriminately.

Write Londono and Paley:

"In recent weeks, Katzenberger and other pilots have dramatically increased their use of helicopter-fired missiles against enemy fighters, often in densely populated areas. Since late March, the military has fired more than 200 Hellfire missiles in the capital, compared with just six missiles fired in the previous three months.

"The military says the tactic has saved the lives of ground troops and prevented attacks, but the strikes have also killed and wounded civilians, provoking criticism from Iraqis.

"On Wednesday, eight people, including two children, were killed when a U.S. helicopter opened fire on a group of Iraqis traveling to a U.S. detention center to greet a man who was being released from custody, Iraqi officials said."

This is what Bush has caused with his War in Iraq - the deaths of innocent Iraqis who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Furthermore, Bush has caused the pilots of these U.S. war planes and helicopters to be in a position where they think that they are doing a service for their country when they pull the trigger that launches the rockets and missiles that incinerate their Iraqi targets.

Londono and Paley write:

"Those civilians include people like Zahara Fadhil, a 10-year-old girl with a tiny frame and long brown hair. Relatives said she was wounded by a missile on April 20 at approximately 8 p.m. in Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City. The U.S. military said it fired a Hellfire missile in Zahara's neighborhood at that time, targeting men who were seen loading rockets into a sedan.

"Her face drained of color and her legs scarred by shrapnel, Zahara spoke haltingly when asked what she thought of U.S. troops.

"They kill people," she said. Lying in bed, she gasped for air before continuing. "They should leave Iraq now."

BUSH DENIGRATES RAUL CASTRO, CALLS CUBAN REFORMS "SO CALLED"

Now George Bush says he will seek to change the U.S. law on trading with Cuba to allow Cubans in the U.S. to send cell phones to their relatives in Cuba.

Bush says this move is designed to see if "Raul" carries through with his "so called reforms."

Is it necessary for Mr. Bush to call everyone by his or her first name, even other world leaders? It seems contemptuous and condescending for Bush to call President Raul Castro by his first name. I get the impression first-naming other leaders is a technique for Bush to demonstrate his own "superiority."

Furthermore, what is achieved by terming Cuba's relations "so called reforms"? Today, Cubans have many more economic freedoms and liberties than in the past. Does Bush do any good to U.S.-Cuban relations by minimizing and questioning Raul Castro's reforms to date?

OIL'S PRICE MAY PREDICT ATTACK AGAINST IRAN

With the price of crude oil hitting over $131 per barrel, the question arises as to whether the markets are telling us anything about whether traders believe George Bush and Dick Cheney will attack Iran.

Apart from supply and demand or the role of speculators in pushing up oil's price, I have an uncomfortable nagging feeling that the real reason for oil's meteoric rise is that Bush & Co. is getting closer to shoot missiles and drop bombs against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and against the Iranian people.

This would be the greatest folly of U.S. foreign policy since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

SEN. TED KENNEDY IS IRREPLACEABLE, WE WISH HIM SPEEDY RECOVERY

Our wishes to Senator Ted Kennedy for a speedy and safe recovery.

Juan Cole in Informed Comment remarks on the role Ted Kennedy plays in pushing back against AIPAC and those neo-con supporters of Israel who want to take away funding for Middle Eastern studies at American universities.

Writes Juan Cole:

"Kennedy has been among the more effective legislators of his generation and has helped make the lives of most Americans better. He has been a friend of higher education and stood against attempts by the Israel lobby to defund or censor Middle East studies at US universities. You can't think of anyone who could step into his shoes in the latter regard, and certainly not . . . . Hillary Clinton."

However, the last thing we need is for that phony self-appointed High Priest of the U.S., George W. Bush, to release a statement saying how he and Laura are "praying" for Ted Kennedy and "asking God" to restore his health. Please, Mr. Bush, stop your sanctimonious politicizing and religious posturing.

MC CAIN RECYCLE BUSH/LIEBERMAN RUBBISH ABOUT IRAN AS THE "ENEMY"

So John McCain believes Iran is an "implacable enemy," intent on destroying Israel and fostering terrorism attacks. Sounds like he has been listening too much to pious Joe Lieberman. Joe has been whispering in his ear on those trips to Iraq and the Middle East.

This is the same old Bush gunboat diplomacy, only now the U.S. wages war with guided missiles and cluster bombs instead of gunboats.

No country is the implacable foe of the U.S. Mc Cain is merelyrecycling the old Bush hogwash. Even during the Cold War, the U.S. maintained diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.

BUSH THINKS TALK MEANS APPEASEMENT; RESULT IS WAR IN IRAQ

George Bush thinks it is "appeasement" to talk with countries that don't agree with the United States. Because that has been his policy for these past seven years, he wants voter to reject Barack Obama who believes in talking with everyone, even with those whom George Bush characterizes as "enemies."

If talk is appeasement, then what is negotiation,? Believing that it is always wrong to talk with "enemies," I guess that means that the State Department is an anachronism since State thought that diplomacy, frank discussion and negotiation really did matter.

Bush's policy of talk being equivalent to appeasement is the reason why the foreign policy of the U.S. under Bush has been such a militaristic and bellicose disaster. According to the bible of Bush, don't talk, don't negotiate, don't engage in diplomacy. Rather Bush's solution is to send in the war planes and the tanks.

BUSH'S POLICY OF NOT DEALING WITH "ENEMIES" HAS WASTED BOTH IRAQI AND AMERICAN LIVES

In his speech to Israel's Knesset yesterday, Bush said that those who wanted to talk to Hamas, or to Hezbollah, or to Iran, were no better than those who appeased the Nazis and Hitler.

Yet because Bush refused to engage in diplomacy with Iraq over supposed nuclear weapons, he has personally sunk the U.S. into this ever more costly war in terms of U.S. and Iraqi lives wasted.

If it were up to Bush, there would be no talking with countries perceived to be acting against the interests of the United States. The U.S. according to the gospel of Bush should solve all of its problems with war planes and missiles.

How much longer must we be the victims of Bush's deluded and simplistic foreign policy of us against them?

BUSH IN ISRAEL SAYS EPIC BATTLE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL - WHO IS GOOD AND WHO IS EVIL?

George Bush said it again, he believes the forces of good are in an epic battle with the forces of evil in the Middle East. In his view, Israel and the United States represent the forces of light, but Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran (not to mention Hugo Chavez) act as the forces of darkness.

In this Manichean scheme, Bush's foreign policy centers on killing the (Islamic ?) evil-doers and praising virtuous Americans and Israelis.

Suppose you were a Palestinian 10-year old in Gaza. How would you like to be called an evil-doer and a force for darkness? Or have your mother and father so characterized?

The Israeli-Palestinian situation cannot be so easily resolved into good versus evil. Some Palestinians shoot missiles into Israel which kill innocent Israeli civilians. But some Israelis support the Israel Defense Forces which shoot missiles into homes in Gaza or fire tank shells that explode with steel darts that kill innocent Palestinians.

To build American foreign policy on such black/white thinking between good and evil in the way that George Bush has is to risk having a simplistic U.S. foreign policy that alienates people of good will all over the world and makes them enemies of Americans.

GEORGE BUSH TRIES TO BLAME OTHERS FOR WAR IN IRAQ

Now George Bush is trying to go on record, "bemoaning" the faulty intelligence that "led him" to start the War in Iraq. The BBC reports:

"President George W Bush has said he was disappointed in "flawed intelligence" in the run-up to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

"Mr Bush said analysis of the material by many intelligence agencies had led to the "wrong conclusion" on weapons of mass destruction."

Talk about revisionism! Bush was anxious from the start to pin the 9/11 catastrophe on Saddam Hussein and Iraq. He specifically asked his intelligence people to dig up any and all connections tying Saddam with 9/11. Even the British Foreign Secretary commented on how Bush was fitting the intelligence to go around the policy.

Now Bush tries to absolve himself and Cheney and Rice of ordering the Iraqi invasion by claiming he just relied on faulty intelligence.

Bush will say or do anything to pin the blame on everyone else other than himself.

BUSH'S LEGACY OF FOREIGN POLICY CATASTROPHES

For a compendium of the foreign policies catastrophes of George W. Bush and his adoring Secretary of State Condi Rice, take a look at the short but comprehensive posting of Nir Rosen on Steve Clemon's The Washington Note last Friday.

Whether it be Somalia, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan or Gaza, Bush has created hornet nests of anti-American turmoil and resentment.

For example, Bush refuses to deal or even talk with leaders of Hamas, even though Hamas was democratically elected by the Palestinians in Gaza in a free and fair election more than two years ago. Instead, Bush, the great champion of "democracy," makes enemies of Hamas by deeming it "terrorist," and instead befriends those autocratic and, by the way, Sunni, anti-democratic governments, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.

The same with Hezbollah, comprising almost all of the Shiite population of Lebanon. Bush has declared Hezbollah a "terrorist organization" and has armed the non-Shiite Lebanese Army with sophisticated deadly war munitions in hopes of inciting an all-out civil war.

Yet Bush congratulates Israel on its 60th birthday and allies the U.S. with Ehud Olmert even though it was Olmert who ordered the carpet bombing to a depth of 30 miles of southern Lebanon with child-maiming cluster bombs at the end of the last Israel-Lebanon war.

Bush has been a disaster for foreign policy. Together with Cheney and Rice, Bush has succeeded in making the U.S. a pariah among nations. It will take at least 100 years to overcome his legacy of war and aggression.

PBS NEWS HOUR CASTIGATES MYANMAR'S GENERALS FOR NOT ACCEPTING AID, BUT NO REFERENCE TO BUSH REJECTING AID OF VENEZUELA FOR KATRINA

Tonight on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Margaret Warner does a story about the leaders of Myanmar refusing help from the United States.

But how come Margaret Warner makes no reference to George Bush refusing help from Hugo Chavez and Venezuela after the hurricane devastated New Orleans?

And if she had made that reference to Bush, perhaps Margaret Warner would have lumped Bush together with the military dictators of Myanmar.

WHY ARE THE CLINTONS PLAYING RACIAL POLITICS?

Bob Herbert writes about the strategy of the Clinton's in his op-ed piece in today's The New York Times. I can sum up his argument, "What the hell are the Clintons doing," and "Why are they out to destroy Barack Obama by playing racial politics?"

Writes Herbert:

"The Clintons have never understood how to exit the stage gracefully.

"Their repertoire has always been deficient in grace and class. So there was Hillary Clinton cold-bloodedly asserting to USA Today that she was the candidate favored by “hard-working Americans, white Americans,” and that her opponent, Barack Obama, the black candidate, just can’t cut it with that crowd."

As Herbert comments, this argument that Barack can't cut it with blue-collar white Americans and that he only appeals to African American voters is a slur on the black people that Hillary and Bill always claimed that they respected and represented.

Herbert comments:

"The Clintons have been trying to embed that gruesomely destructive message in the brains of white voters and superdelegates for the longest time. It’s a grotesque insult to African-Americans, who have given so much support to both Bill and Hillary over the years."

But it is also a put-down of those blue-collar white voters who Hillary says would never support a black man.

Writes Bob Herbert:

"But it’s an insult to white voters as well, including white working-class voters. It’s true that there are some whites who will not vote for a black candidate under any circumstance. But the United States is in a much better place now than it was when people like Richard Nixon, George Wallace and many others could make political hay by appealing to the very worst in people, using the kind of poisonous rhetoric that Senator Clinton is using now.

"I don’t know if Senator Obama can win the White House. No one knows. But to deliberately convey the idea that most white people — or most working-class white people — are unwilling to give an African-American candidate a fair hearing in a presidential election is a slur against whites."

TRAVELLING TODAY, YOUR CHANCE TO COMMENT ON WHATEVER

I have been travelling, so out of the office, all day today. Therefore little in posting. Please feel free to comment on whatever you would like.

HILLARY CLINTON NEEDS TO APOLOGIZE FOR QUASI-RACIST COMMENTS ABOUT BARACK OBAMA

David Kurzt writes on TalkingPointsMemo (TPM) about a reader's comments on Hillary Clinton saying that Barack Obama cannot appeal to blue-collar white voters.

Kurtz quotes a TPM reader as follows:

"It seems to me that every progressive voice in this country should be outraged - jumping up and down - shouting in print and word - to repudiate Hillary Clinton's remarks that Obama "is having trouble winning over blue collar "white" voters. . . "white Americans" . . .

"It is a disgraceful, shameful tactic to justify her own non-candidacy. This is a remark I would expect from a politician from Mississippi or Louisiana - not from our New York State senator . . . I am outraged, I am deeply embarrassed that my children have heard this reported on the news . . . and I regret that have I ever gave her one hard earned nickel.

"All the while she touts the glass ceiling as a woman but when her chips are down, the racism springs forth fully formed."

I too am put off by Hillary's comments. Where is her basis for making this quasi-racist claim? Don't tell me that the voters who voted for Barack in Indiana were all black. Or that they were all college-degreed.

Hillary Clinton needs to apologize for these remarks. If they stand, Hillary Clinton will be remembered as a candidate that will do or say anything to get elected.

FOOD RIOTS IN MOGADISHU - HOW BUSH HAS CAUSED DESTRUCTION OF SOMALIAN SOCIETY

To see how much chaos George Bush and his foreign policy have caused throughout the world, a good example is Somalia. Just yesterday, Somalis demonstrated on the streets of Mogadishu against the high food prices. Somali government forces, allied with the invading Ethiopians shot dead at least two, maybe more.

George Bush so hates the Islamic Courts, the previous government that for once brought peace and normalcy to Mogadishu that he urged the Ethiopian army to invade Somalia, shell markets in Mogadishu, force hundreds of thousands of Somalians to abandon their homes and head for rural areas away from the Ethiopian tanks and rockets.

So George Bush is responsible for the total disintegration of Somalian society and the abject course of life in the country.

First, the Ethiopians must withdraw.

Second, Bush and Cheney need to call back their war ships sailing off the Somalian coast that have fired rockets into small Somalian villages.

Third, the Somalians are the only ones to determine who will represent them in their government. It is not up to Bush, Rice or the rest of the Bush team.

LAURA BUSH ORDERS MYANMAR TO ACCEPT AMERICAN AID

The Bushes, George and Laura, seem to love telling other people and countries what to do. "You must do this, you must do that!"

Today, Laura Bush holds a news conference in front of the White House seal, and she tells the rulers of Myanmar what to do. "You must allow American relief efforts!" "You must take in American aid!" Is there no end to the the Bush proscriptions?

I grant you, the rulers of Myanmar are militaristic dictators, willing to send out their thugs to kill and beat up protesting Myanmar citizens. And it seems they are incapable of providing adequate relief efforts for those of its citizens who have lost all their homes and possessions to the recent cyclone.

But why must Laura Bush be the policewoman of the world? Instead of ordering other countries to do her bidding, notwithstanding the humanitarian benefits, why can't she and George engage in quiet diplomacy instead of public shaming?

No wonder George Bush, as U.S. president, has lost the good will of the rest of the world. People don't like to be ordered about as if children. A lesson, it seems, that has been lost on George and Laura Bush.

U.S.SHOOTS CRUISE MISSILES INTO SOMALIA, MANY SOMALIANS COME TO HATE U.S.

Can't the United States engage in foreign policy initiatives without relying on its overwhelming military? Specifically, why can't George Bush and the White House let Somalians decide what type of government they want without meddling, interfering, sending in the Ethiopian Army, and just recently firing four or more cruise missiles into some little Somalian village killing a Somalian insurgent and probably his whole family?

The BBC reported on May 1st:

"The US military has confirmed that it carried out a pre-dawn missile strike which killed a senior leader of an Islamist militant group in Somalia.
"A spokesman said the target of the attack in the town of Dusamareb was an al-Qaeda leader, but would not name him or say whether it had been successful.
"The strike hit the home of Aden Hashi Ayro, the military head of al-Shabab, which controls much of Somalia.
"At least 10 other people, including another al-Shabab leader, also died.

"But local elders have said up to 30 bodies have been recovered from the scene, according to unconfirmed reports. "

First of all, there should not be U.S. Naval warships sitting off the coast of Somalia, looking to assassinate Somali leaders. Second, the U.S. needs to come to its senses and realize that it will gain nothing by brute military strength, like firing cruise missiles into some Somalian agrarian village and killing Somalis.

Imagine if you were Somalian. What would you think about a foreign power like the U.S. shooting missiles into one of your towns and killing a fellow countryman and his whole family? Would you like it? Would it make you more inclined to be friendly towards the United States? Of course not. It would turn you into a rabid anti-American, ready to go out and kill any and all Americans.

So why do the Republicans under Bush support such heavy-handed expression of military force?

Let the Somalians take care of their own politics, let them choose their own government, stop trying to influence other countries' politics with military missiles and tanks.

U.S. FINALLY RELEASES JOURNALIST SAMI AL HAJJ, LOCKED UP AT GUANTANAMO FOR OVER SIX YEARS, NO EVIDENCE AGAINST HIM

Finally, after six years, Sami al Hajj has been freed from his unjust detention and imprisonment at Guantanamo.

William Glaberson reports in today's The New York Times:

"A former cameraman for Al Jazeera who was believed to be the only journalist held at Guantánamo Bay was released on Thursday, after more than six years of detention that made him one of the best known Guantánamo detainees in the Arab world, his lawyers said.


"The detainee, Sami al-Hajj, became a cause in recent years for the Jazeera network, which often displayed his photograph and carried reports on his case.


"He was also one of Guantánamo’s long-term hunger strikers, and his lawyers at the British legal group Reprieve drew wide attention to what they said was his declining physical and mental health. "

I have previously posted on Sami al Hajj, noting how unfair it was that U.S. officials should keep him locked up without the slightest shred of evidence for his detention. See my post here on May 6, 2007, and here on July 29, 2007, and here on February 14, 2008.

Reports Glaberson:

"“It is yet another case where the U.S. has held someone for years and years and years on the flimsiest of evidence” without filing charges, one of the lawyers, Zachary Katznelson, said Thursday."

FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF BUSH'S "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" SPEECH

Today, May 1st, is the fifth anniversary of George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech. A must read is Juan Cole in Informed Comment on other things Bush said then in his speech.

Here is the text of Bush's speech.