NO EXTRA TERMS FOR BLOOMBERG, URIBE, PUTIN OR CHAVEZ

I am against Michael Bloomberg's quest for a third term as Mayor of New York City just as I was against Rudy Giuliani's attempt to portray himself as indispensable to the safety of New Yorkers after September 11, 2001.

For the same reason I am totally against Vladimir Putin trying to re-install himself as president of Russia. And I am against Alvaro Uribe's similar tactics to change the Colombian constitution so that he can run for a third six-year term.

I heard today on BBC Radio News that Hugo Chavez is pursuing a similar change to Venezuela's constitution. I am disappointed. Citizens of their respective countries should not allow any of these guys to make an end run around term limitations prescribed by the various national or state constitutions.

BUSH OPENS UTAH SCENIC LANDS TO OIL DRILLERS

The Washington Post has a story today by Juliet Eilperin reporting that the Bush government is rushing ahead with conducting oil and gas leases on some of the most scenic land in Utah.

Writes Eilperin:

"Places such as Utah offer huge potential for energy producers, but development there has triggered controversy because of its proximity to some of the nation's most scenic parks and natural monuments. After Park Service officials on Monday identified 93 proposed auction parcels where leasing could jeopardize "air quality, water resources and natural sound," BLM officials announced late the next day that they would defer action on two dozen of those parcels as well as portions of four more, while pressing ahead with more than 210 parcels encompassing 313,000 acres.

"Environmental activists said oil and gas drilling on the 210 remaining parcels could jeopardize air quality and other natural features of some of the country's most treasured national parks, such as Arches, Canyonlands and Capitol Reef, along with the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Dinosaur national monuments."

Republicans must be cheering, including Sarah Palin, whose dumb ridiculous slogan was, "Drill, baby,drill." Is this what Republicans want? Oil wells and oil exploration next to Arches National Park? Or drillers trampling over Kodachrome Basin?

Bush's latest move must be stopped. As I have said before, this guy is dangerous right up to the very last day he and Cheney occupy national office. Bush still can do a lot of damage, not only in messing up foreign policy but also, as we see here, in ruining America's environmental treasures.

Reports Eilperin:

""The Bush administration started its energy policy in back rooms with oil lobbyists, and it's fitting that's how they want to end it," said Bobby McEnaney, a public lands expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group. "They're destroying the whole process that is designed to protect these lands. Once you get rid of wilderness, you can't get it back."

"David Garbett, a staff attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said that in the last month, the administration also finalized six "resource management plans" that will allow the bureau to auction off other parts of these areas in the future.

""These plans will govern management of these lands for likely the next 20 years, and these plans have made areas like this available for leasing," Garbett said. "It's a final attempt by the administration to set in stone guidance for these lands for the long term, in a way that will not protect resources.""

IS MUMBAI ATTACK A RESULT OF BUSH/CHENEY POLICY OF FIRING MISSILES AT VILLAGES IN WAZIRISTAN?

The tragedy is still not over in Mumbai. It appears that some of the shooters are young Muslim Pakistanis. Why they committed these atrocities is not clear, but a few observations are in order.

If the group is all from Pakistan, the suspicion arises that they are taking revenge for the injustices they perceive committed against certain Muslims in Pakistan. I suspect that the Bush/Cheney policy of shooting missiles into Muslim villages in Waziristan and other Pakistani tribal areas is implicated.

Bush/Cheney & Co. think it is permissible to drop bombs and fire missiles if they can kill a few "terrorists." But to the uneducated villagers, the Americans are slaughtering innocent women, children and farmers. Imagine what your feelings would be towards the Americans if your children were incinerated in one of the many missile attacks over the last few months.

The Bush/Cheney policy of dropping bombs and missiles does more harm than good. It may kill a few on the wanted list, but it also kills innocent bystanders and ordinary Pakistani peasants. Survivors surely will hate anything to do with America and western civilization that treats their lives of no value. They will look to revenge the killings.

Could this dreadful attack in Mumbai be the first of many acts of revenge?

MEDVEDEV ON VISIT TO LATIN AMERICA, MEETS LULA, HUGO CHAVEZ & RAUL CASTRO

Lost in the sad news of the attacks in Mumbai is the visit of Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president, to Latin America. He has met with Lula da Silva of Brazil, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and today with Raul Castro of Cuba.

The BBC reports on Medvedev's Latin excursion:

"Mr Medvedev's visit was part of a Latin American tour aimed at boosting both Russia's presence and trade ties in a region traditionally of strategic importance to the US.

"Boosting bilateral trade between Russia and Latin America, which could reach $15bn (£9.9bn) this year, is another priority for the Russian president during his talks.

"The Russian leader travelled to Venezuela from Brazil, where he and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva held talks on boosting trade and technical co-operation."

Medvedev shows how Obama should treat Latin America. For one thing, Medvedev has no qualms in talking to other cultures and visiting far-off countries. He treats each leader with respect, and that includes Castro, Chavez and Lula. Medvedev takes the initiative, unlike Bush, who wants to be courted and fawned over by leaders he thinks are beneath him. Obama in his campaign said he would sit down and talk with everyone, and here is Medvedev doing just that.

THANKSGIVING DAY 2008

Happy Thanksgiving 2008 to all.

I remember Thanksgiving holidays when I was a child. We used to dress up in old raggedy clothes and go around and beg, "Anything for Thanksgiving."

At that time, the Halloween custom of making the rounds asking for candies and other treats did not exist, at least in Queens and Brooklyn, where we grew up.

There is a letter to the editor in today's The New York Times by George H. La Porte 3rd on this very practice of Thanksgiving begging.

Writes La Porte:

"My brother and I were Thanksgiving "ragamuffins" in what is now called the Midwood section of Brooklyn -- we called it simply Flatbush then -- beginning in the early 1930's and continuing until our personal vanity led us to retire. We were "too big" to appear in public in the guise of urchins.

"We had it on excellent authority -- our parents' -- that Thanksgiving begging dated to well before World War I. They had, in fact, participated themselves in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn.

"Halloween activity was confined to the "tricks" and Thanksgiving to the "treats" before the conflation when, instead of two autumn opportunities to taunt our neighbors, we were left with only one, Halloween, which soon was appropriated by the adult establishment for its own aims.

"Based upon our first-hand information, we believe the custom of Thanksgiving begging started not later than the beginning of the century, at least in Brooklyn, where most good things began anyway."

FORMER GEORGIAN AMBASSADOR SAYS GEORGIA STARTED CONFLICT IN SOUTH OSSETIA

Today's The New York Times carries a story by Olesya Vartanyan and Ellen Barry reporting that a former Saakashvili associate caused a near riot with his testimony yesterday that people in the Georgian government told him last April that Saakashvili planned to start a war in Abkhazia. It turned out that Saakashvili changed his plans and actually attacked pro-Russian-leaning civilians in South Ossetia.

Write Vartanyan and Barry:

"A parliamentary hearing on the origins of the war between Georgia and Russia in August ended in a furor on Tuesday after a former Georgian diplomat testified that Georgian authorities were responsible for starting the conflict.

Erosi Kitsmarishvili, Tbilisi’s former ambassador to Moscow, testified for three hours before he was shouted down by members of Parliament.

A former confidant of President Mikheil Saakashvili, Mr. Kitsmarishvili said Georgian officials told him in April that they planned to start a war in Abkhazia, one of two breakaway regions at issue in the war, and had received a green light from the United States government to do so. He said the Georgian government later decided to start the war in South Ossetia, the other region, and continue into Abkhazia.

He would not name the officials who he said had told him about planned actions in Abkhazia, saying that identifying them would endanger their lives."

The BBC reports on the same story today on its web page.

""Russia was ready for this war, but the Georgian leadership started the military action first," Mr Kitsmarishvili told the commission on Tuesday.

He said he had this information "from high-ranking Georgian officials". However, he said he believed Georgia had been provoked into war by Russia.

Mr Kitsmarishvili has been an outspoken critic of the Georgian president since being replaced as ambassador to Moscow, the BBC's Tom Esslemont in Tbilisi says.

On Tuesday, the former envoy also claimed that Mr Saakashvili told him in March of plans to use force to retake Abkhazia - another Georgia's rebel region.

He said the president had also told him he would move the Georgian capital to Abkhazia's capital, Sukhumi, in August.

Several members of the bi-partisan commission and Georgian government officials described Mr Kitsmarishvili's comments as "shameless" and "irresponsible"."

Remember not too long ago when John McCain saw the Georgian/Russian conflict in stark black and white without any shades of grey in between? And how all the Republicans including Bush rushed to condemn Russia for being the "aggressor" and threatening its former satellites. And do you remember how Cheney and Rice each visited Saakashvili to commit American support and protection?

How much more evidence do those guys need to see that their support for Saakashvili is support for a hot head who would start a war for domestic political reasons, so that he could defuse those Georgian critics who accused him of trampling over civil liberties and human rights in Georgia.

Saakashvili is no more than a thug. It is a shame that the U.S. government is blind to that reality and continues to support him with millions in military aid.

WHAT IS OBAMA THINKING BY KEEPING GATES AND NAMING HILLARY CLINTON?

Politico reports today that Robert Gates will remain as Defense Secretary under Barack Obama.

Writes Mike Allen for Politco:

"Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has agreed to stay on under President-elect Obama, according to officials in both parties. Obama plans to announce a national-security team early next week that includes Gates at the Pentagon and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as secretary of State, officials said."

Some may think Gates is acceptable but I don't. First. Gates supports increasing U.S. forces in Afghanistan. As I written here on several occasions, Afghanistan is the black hole for foreign forces. Not since Alexander the Great has a foreign army successfully invaded and occupied and conquered the Afghan people. Since then Afghanistan has chewed up and spit out foreign invaders. The same thing lies ahead for the Americans.

Second. Gates as DefSec believes military power is effective in pursuing U.S. interests. I disagree totally with the premise. Shooting and killing foreigners does nothing to advance U.S. interests anywhere in the world.

As for Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, Obama seems to have forgotten what Clinton said about the Iranians, how she would "obliterate" them in the event of a war with Israel. If you were Iranian, I am sure you would judge Clinton to be another crazed militaristic American intent on conquering the world through bombs and missiles and tanks. Someone who even considers obliterating another people or another nation is not suited to be the chief diplomat of the United States.

CONVICTION OF HOLY LAND OFFICERS MEANS END TO FINANCIAL AID FOR PALESTINIANS

I wrote yesterday about the truly unfortunate conviction of the five officers of the Holy Land Foundation, a charity designed to assist Gazans who find themselves in subsistence poverty because of Israel's implacable oppression. Each of the five could be sentenced to hundreds of years in prison.

Gretal Kovack writes in today's The New York Times:

"The five defendants, all leaders of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, based in Richardson, a Dallas suburb, were convicted on all 108 criminal counts against them, including support of terrorism, money laundering and tax fraud. The group was accused of funneling millions of dollars to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, an Islamist organization the government declared to be a terrorist group in 1995."

Think about what this conviction will do to other charitable organizations that want to assist Palestinians. They will immediately be suspect. Their donations will dry up. Their assistance to Palestinians will cease. That means more children will go without food, schools in Gaza will shut down, and families will become even more desperate than they are today.

Bush and Cheney will no doubt portray the verdict as a victory in their "war against terror." However, it really is a defeat for humanitarianism and generosity towards those who no fault of their own are in dire and parlous condition.

ISRAEL LETS IN 40 TRUCKS WITH FOOD TO GAZA BUT BORDER CLOSINGS CONTINUE

Israel continues its illegal and inhumane and unjust blockade of Gaza. Today, the BBC reports that Israel did let in 40 truck-loads of food and some fuel but that just highlights the true nature of the blockade. Forty trucks of food for over a million Gazans reveals the awful nature of the collective punishment that Israel continues to inflict.

Israel says it will not open the borders for the necessities of life until insurgents stop firing missiles and rockets into Israeli towns. But how can Israel justify the punishment of an entire population on account of the very few who are firing the rockets? I thought war-crimes trials after WWII demonstrated the illegal and indefensible nature of collective punishment.

INJUSTICE IN TX FEDERAL COURT CONVICTS FIVE OF AIDING HAMAS

It is a travesty that a federal jury in Texas has convicted the largest Islamic charity of aiding a terrorist organization. Paul Weber writes for the AP on The Washington Post web site that a jury in Texas has convicted five charity leaders of each one of 108 counts. The five convicted men could be sentenced to prison for the rest of their lives.

Federal juries can be notorious for their tendency to convict, especially if the accused have Latino or even worse Islamic/Arabic names.

Reports Weber:

"Ghassan Elashi, Holy Land's former chairman, and Shukri Abu-Baker, the chief executive, were convicted of a combined 69 counts, including supporting a specially designated terrorist, money laundering and tax fraud.

"Mufid Abdulqader and Abdulrahman Odeh were convicted of three counts of conspiracy, and Mohammed El-Mezain was convicted of one count of conspiracy to support a terrorist organization. Holy Land itself was convicted of all 32 counts.

""I feel heartbroken that a group of my fellow Americans fell for the prosecution's fear-mongering theory," Elashi's daughter, Noor, said outside the courthouse late Monday. "This is truly a low point for the United States of America, but this is not over.""

This is the second go-around for these five. Their first trial ended in a hung jury. This time, they were not convicted of engaging in any terrorist plot but in providing funds for Hamas, the civic, social and militant organization that rules Gaza in Palestine. Imagine being convicted in a federal court because you collected and transmitted monies for the aid of Gazans who live day-to-day in abject misery and poverty.

The verdict is akin to finding that Colombianos sending money home are guilty of supporting "illegal" political organizations insofar as some of the money happens to find its way to members of the FARC.

This unfortunate verdict penalizes those who in good will support charities that care for people whom Israel and the U.S. don't like.