Matt Yglesias has opened my eyes to the “flypaper theory”, which is one of the newest (to me anyways) justifications for the Iraq war (quotes via Talking Points Memo) :

Being based in Iraq helps us not only because of actual bases; but because the American presence there diverts terrorist attention away from elsewhere. By confronting them directly in Iraq, we get to engage them in a military setting that plays to our strengths rather than to theirs’. Continued conflict in Iraq, in other words, needn’t always be bad news. It may be a sign that we are drawing the terrorists out of the woodwork and tackling them in the open.

“Bring Them On”
Andrew Sullivan
andrewsullivan.com
July 3rd, 2003

Separately, Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, commander of coalition ground forces, told CNN that “we still have a long way to go” before eliminating resistance.
Iraq had become “a terrorist magnet,” drawing some anti-American extremists from abroad to “a target of opportunity.”

“But this,” General Sanchez added, “is exactly where we want to fight them.”

“U.S. Must Act on ‘Murky’ Data to Prevent Terror, Wolfowitz Says”
International Herald Tribune
July 27th, 2003

There’s a huge difference between signing up to defend your country and being used as a target. As Matt said, “Now, yes, the fact that our soldiers are volunteers does make some difference here, but still they’re soldiers not human shields. “, but it’s not even that simple. If our soldiers were being used as human shields, wouldn’t they be shielding something? If the “flypaper theory” is true, our soldiers are just being used to attract terrorist attacks. If the proponents of this line of reasoning had any intellectual honesty, they’d cut through the bullshit ephemisms and call this what it is : The Cannon Fodder Theory. I’m not entirely sure this theory is valid, but it would certainly explain Bush’s ambivalence towards the daily deaths of our soldiers.

Am I allowed to get offended over this or are conservatives the only ones allowed to love our flag? (link via DailyKos)

Bush really should know better than to write on a flag like that. I guess he doesn’t see the flag as being anything more than another scrap that he can use to write his signature on.

You know, the problem with liberals these days is that they get along too well and never, ever argue among themselves. Luckilly, Michael Tomasky is here to help change all that :

So here’s a thought for an enterprising senate candidate: Attack Nader right now, and with lupine ferocity. Say he’s a madman for thinking of running again. Blast him especially hard on foreign policy, saying that if it were up to the Greens, America would give no aid to Israel and it would cease to exist, and if it were up to the Greens, America would not have even defended itself against a barbarous attack by going into Afghanistan. Have at him, and hard, from the right. Then nail him from the left on certain social issues, on abortion rights and other things that he’s often pooh-poohed and dismissed as irrelevant. Cause an uproar. Be dramatic. Don’t balance it with praise about what he’s done for consumers. To the contrary, talk about how much he’s damaging consumers today by not caring who’s in charge of the Food and Drug Administration or the Federal Communications Commission.

I’m sure that felt good to get off his chest, but let’s get real here. I have plenty of problems with the behavior of the Greens during the 2000 election, but if Democrats want to win next year, they shouldn’t waste their time arguing with other progressives. At least Dennis Kucinich gets it :

We stand together in opposition to the death penalty; in support of living wages; in support of boosting alternative energy rather than wars for oil; in support of medicinal marijuana; in opposition to corporate hog farming; in support of organic farming; in opposition to nukes in space; in opposition to Star Wars; in support of cutting the military budget by 15% and applying those funds to public education.

We stand together for national health insurance, Canadian style. We stand together on public financing of campaigns, on same day voter registration, on instant runoff voting. We stand together on civil rights, and equal rights, and human rights. We stand together on voting reforms for ex-felons. We stand together on ending the trade and travel embargoes on Cuba. We stand together in opposition to the current war on drugs, which is all too often a war on the urban poor.

We stand together in demanding that publicly-owned clean water is a human right. We stand together in demanding that the developing world’s debt be forgiven, as if it were still the Jubilee Year; and that we act seriously to build a world in which arms sales decline, hunger declines, poverty declines, and human rights increase.

We stand together on rejoining the rest of the world, and signing the Kyoto Treaty, the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Land Mines Ban Treaty, and all the rest of the treaties and agreements and working relationships that the current Administration has so cavalierly tossed aside.

We stand together in opposition to excessive CEO salaries; in opposition to offshore tax havens for corporations; in support of real pension reforms, real SEC enforcement, real crackdowns on corporate scofflaws. And we stand together in opposition to sweetheart deals for corporate friends of this Administration, whether it’s Enron wrecking California for profit, the drug companies ripping off seniors and HIV patients and poor people for profit, or Halliburton ripping off Iraqi oil revenues for profit.

I am a Democrat, but I understand that Greens and Nader voters are not just liberal Democrats. Still, I note that in Europe, even when political parties disagree on issues, they are often able to work together with each other in coalition. I’d like to raise that possibility again today. And I note that Ralph Nader has suggested that my candidacy is worth supporting.

We all know we will do better if we work together. Perhaps we can find common ground on issues and principles. I would like to open up that possibility. And I would like to ask that you give serious consideration to my candidacy for President. Because a better world is still possible.

I have faith that most of the Greens who think there was no difference between Gore and Bush know the error of their ways by now. I can’t imagine a situation in which a significant number of progressive voters favor Bush over the senate candidate (and that includes Lieberman). Seriously, we need to get all this “Nader is an asshole” stuff out of our systems if we want to win next November.

It’s been 25 years since the first “test tube baby” was born :

Louise Brown, the world’s first “test tube” baby, celebrated her 25th birthday and the landmark fertility treatment that has led to an estimated one million babies throughout the world.

Now working in a post office in Bristol, southwest England, Louise made history on July 25, 1978, when she became the first baby to be born as a result of in vitro fertilisation (IVF).
. . .
In each case, the woman is given fertility drugs to help her produce more eggs. The eggs are surgically removed and fertilised in a laboratory. They are then placed in the womb, which has been prepared with hormone injections.
. . .
Despite a significant improvement in IVF success rates in the last decade, only one in six treatments in Britain is successful, according to the latest government figures.

At the time, religious groups accused the scientists behind this breakthrough of “playing God”, but in the years since has there been even one misuse of this technology? Are there mad scientists creating IVF babies as personal slaves or surrogate mothers giving birth to “test tube” babies just so we can harvest organs? Of course not. Like most knee-jerk reactions to scientific progress, all the worst-case scenarios were just a bunch of hogwash.

That said, wouldn’t now be a good time to reevaluate all the criticism that’s now being leveled at human cloning? With all the talk about “playing God” that’s now been adapted to the human cloning debate, does it really make sense to believe that all the horror stories that were supposed to come true with in vitro fertilization are any more valid now that they were 25 years ago?

Here’s one that’s slipped through the cracks :

The former head of the world’s chemical weapons regulatory body was wrongly dismissed last year at the insistence of the U.S. government, according to a ruling at the International Labor Organization in Geneva.

Jose Mauricio Bustani was voted out of office as director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in April 2002, after Washington accused him of mismanagement and rallied other countries in a vote to have him dismissed.

At the time, Bustani’s supporters said Washington wanted him removed not because he performed poorly, but because he supported making Iraq a member of the OPCW, which might have interfered with U.S. plans for war in Iraq.
. . .
In a copy of the July 16 decision obtained by The Associated Press, the court said Bustani was not given a fair opportunity to respond to Washington’s charges, which it qualified as “extremely vague.” It said the lack of due process in his dismissal was “an unacceptable violation of the principle on which international organizations’ activities are founded, by rendering officials vulnerable to pressures and to political change.”

It said that while the United States had followed procedures, Bustani should have had a chance to defend himself in a court free of political pressures.

The OPCW is charged with ridding the world of chemical weapon stockpiles and production facilities. It has 153 member countries, including the world’s two largest possessors of chemical weapons, the United States and Russia. Member countries are subject to inspections of weapons and chemicals banned under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.

If OPCW chemical weapons inspectors had gone to Iraq and, like U.N. weapons inspectors, failed to find banned chemical weapons, it could have hurt the Bush Administration’s case for war.

Why isn’t this bigger news? The Bushies forced this guy out because he threatened their push to go to war and now it’s revealed that not only was he right, but the U.S. has been criticized of violating this guy’s right to refute the charges against him. I’m not saying it should be front page news of anything, but it’s at least worth a mention.

I was just handed an inter-office mail letting me know that I have yet to sign my “Stock Option Grant Agreement Letter” and am now at risk of losing my options. Y’see, way back in April of 2000 when the economy was good and our president was democractically elected, I was granted 291 shares of stock. At the time, my strike price was 66.21, but now it’s a measly 21.29. I guess I better hurry up and sign this letter, or I’ll miss my chance to cash in on my stock options and lose more than $13,000. Isn’t this supposed to be an incentive of some sort?? Oh well, at least I still have a job.

Why does the Pentagon keep releasing pictures and videos of the corpses of Hussein’s sons? Yesterday they released pictures of their bloody faces and today they’re got this weird video where their bodies have been “prettied up” to look like wax dummies. I can understand that the Iraqi people have a hard time believing that the U.S. is telling the truth (they’re not the only ones), but there’s something really tacky about all this. Aren’t these photos being released by the same people who chastised the Iraqis for releasing pictures of dead U.S. POWs? I guess the rules only apply to the “bad guys” .

What the hell is it going to take to convince George W. Bush that global warming is a serious problem that needs to be addressed? In the spring of 2001, despite a report released by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that warned “emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols due to human activities continue to alter the atmosphere in ways that affect the climate system”, George Bush unveiled a global warming plan that shunned the Kyoto Treaty and called for more research. At the time, it was disappointing, but not entirely suprising. After all, this is what Bush had to say about global warming in the 2000 debates :

I think it’s an issue that we need to take very seriously. But I don’t think we know the solution to global warming yet. And I don’t think we’ve got all the facts before we make decisions.
. . .
What the heck. I — of course there’s a lot — look, global warming needs to be taken very seriously, and I take it seriously. But science, there’s a lot — there’s differing opinions. And before we react, I think it’s best to have the full accounting, full understanding of what’s taking place.

In June of 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency delivered his report on global warming, the results once again weren’t to his liking :

“I read the report put out by the bureaucracy,” Mr. Bush said dismissively when asked about the EPA report, adding that he still opposes the Kyoto treaty.

The report was the first by the Bush administration to mostly blame human activity for global warming.

“The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability,” the report says.

The report also says that despite some lingering scientific uncertainties, “There is general agreement that the observed warming is real and has been particularly strong within the past 20 years.”

Fast forward to a year later, in June of 2003, the EPA released a comprehensive report on environmental problems that was two years in the making. In the final version of the report, the section on global warming was heavily trimmed in order to support the Bush Administration’s predetermined conclusions about climate change :

The editing eliminated references to many studies concluding that recent warming is at least partly caused by rising concentrations of smokestack and tailpipe emissions and could threaten health and ecosystems.

Among the deletions were references to the conclusions of a 2001 report by the National Research Council that the White House had commissioned and that Bush had endorsed in speeches that year.

White House officials also deleted a reference to a widely cited 1999 study showing that global temperatures had spiked sharply in the last decade compared with levels over the last 1,000 years; in its place, administration officials added a reference to a new study, partly financed by the American Petroleum Institute, that questioned that conclusion.

So here we are now. It’s been almost three years since Bush pledged to get more information about the causes of global warming (despite the fact that the rest of the world has concluded for decades that human activity is the main cause). What’s the next step for Bush on the environment? More research!

The chief goal in a White House plan to study global warming is learning more about natural causes of climate change, drawing criticism from environmentalists who say reducing industrial carbon emissions is the real problem.

The new 10-year plan and $130 million proposal to speed up research in some high-priority areas was being released Thursday by Commerce Secretary Don Evans and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.
. . .
But environmentalists said the administration was focusing too much on natural causes and reopening scientific issues already well studied.

Philip Clapp, president of National Environmental Trust, predicted that “most climate scientists around the world will see this as fiddling while Rome burns. … This would have been a great research program if it had been announced by the first President Bush 10 years ago.”

So, rather than distract us with the annual “We need more research” speech, they’re just going to embark on a 10-year project to study a phenomenon that we already understand. How many times does Bush need to be told the same conclusions before they sink into his head? Ten times? Twenty times?

Ann Coulter has finally lost her mind :

I’ve been staying in a modern building in New York … everything that is unpleasant in life has been brought to us by liberals. One of them is the fact that we can only have two tablespoons of water in our toilet bowls because of some idiotic conservation of water. It’s wacky enough for liberals to think about global warming, but that we would run out of natural resources? It rains. The water doesn’t go away. Because of liberal government bureaucrats, they decided that we can only have two tablespoons of water in the toilet. You throw half a tissue in the toilet and you have to flush it 16 times.

16 times?! What the hell is this woman eating??

Here’s one more quote from the 9/11 report that debunks the Iraqi connection to al Qaeda (emphasis added) :

DCI Tenet testified that ?Atta may also have traveled outside of the U.S. in early April 2001 to meet an Iraqi intelligence officer, although we are still working to [page 144] corroborate this.? Atta may have traveled under an unknown alias: the CIA has been unable to establish that he left the United States or entered Europe in April under his true name or any known alias.
. . .
In February 1999, the Intelligence Community obtained information that Iraq had formed a suicide pilot unit that it planned to use against British and U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf. The CIA commented that this was highly unlikely and probably disinformation.

Keep in mind that this infromation was released at least a month (if not much longer) before Bush said this :

With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East and create deadly havoc in that region. And this Congress and the America people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.

So tell me, why does Bush still have a job?

The inquiry into the 9/11 Attacks is now available here. I’ve already found this interesting tidbit :

There must be a vigorous national debate about the need for a domestic intelligence agency. The American people have a right to know, a right to be heard and a right to be included. The debate must be conducted in the sunshine. Congress should review any proposals through the committee process. Public comment should be encouraged through hearings, town halls meetings and other forums.

The American people must be informed and involved. Reform cannot be achieved in secret or by executive fiat. A decision on a new intelligence agency should be based on a national debate and national consensus, not partisan politics.

This debate must take place, and it must happen soon. I have no doubt that if America goes to war against Iraq, terrorists will go to war against America ? on American soil. America will be part of the battlefield. We must be prepared.

Hmmm…that sure does sound familiar….

Okay, I know this is totally off-topic and complaining about these “Greatest _____ of all time” lists is like saying “The Real World isn’t real?!”, but I’ve gotta get this off my chest : VH1′s 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons of All Time is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen! (You can see the full list here)

To be fair, I missed the very beginning, so they might have explained exactly what qualifies someone to be a “Pop Culture Icon”. Maybe there’s some sort of twisted VH1 logic wherein putting Bob Denver (as Gilligan) two places above Sigmund Freud makes perfect sense. Maybe Betty Ford really does have a greater impact on pop culture than Woody Allen, the Three Stooges, or Bob Marley. Perhaps I was asleep when everyone agreed that JFK Jr. was a better “Icon” than his father, the cast of “Friends” are more influential than the Beatles, and Oprah Winfrey is the most important “Pop Culture Icon” ever (Personally, I’d include Jesus on the list somewhere). If there is some sort of pop culture Rosetta Stone out there somewhere that I can use to decode this list, please point it out, because right now this list makes no sense at all.

So I’m listening to the live coverage of the Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante declaring October 7th as the day for the recall and he just finished his statement with “… is why October 7th as been chosen as the date*. And now for a few words in Spanish…” I guess this is pretty normal for all you native Californians, but for a guy from Oklahoma (yeah, I’ve been here for five years) this kind of openness to other languages and cultures is mind blowing. God I love it here.

* By the way, Bustamante seemed pretty pissed. He made it clear that although the date is chosen at his discretion, the law says that the election must take place between 60-80 days after the election is certified and must take place on a Tuesday that doesn’t follow a Monday holiday. So that gives him, what, 2 or 3 days to chose from?

If the Uranium/Niger story was just an appetizer, then tomorrow’s release on the congression inquiry into the 9/11 attacks will contain the main course :

The report of the joint congressional inquiry into the suicide hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001, to be published Thursday, reveals U.S. intelligence had no evidence that the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks, or that it had supported al-Qaida, United Press International has learned.

“The report shows there is no link between Iraq and al-Qaida,” said a government official who has seen the report.

Former senate Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, who was a member of the joint congressional committee that produced the report, confirmed the official’s statement.

Asked whether he believed the report will reveal that there was no connection between al-Qaida and Iraq, Cleland replied: “I do … There’s no connection, and that’s been confirmed by some of (al-Qaida leader Osama) bin Laden’s terrorist followers.”

The revelation is likely to embarrass the Bush administration, which made links between Saddam’s support for bin Laden — and the attendant possibility that Iraq might supply al-Qaida with weapons of mass destruction — a major plank of its case for war.

“The administration sold the connection (between Iraq and al-Qaida) to scare the pants off the American people and justify the war,” said Cleland. “What you’ve seen here is the manipulation of intelligence for political ends.”

Let’s watch Bush try to use the Corky Defense on this one. It’s one thing to claim that he didn’t get a memo from the CIA, but there’s no way he missed the report that was the result of a joint congressional inquiry into the worst act of terrorism in our country’s history. He can’t pretend he didn’t know that the Iraq/al Qaeda connections were bullshit when made those claims in the State of the Union a month later.

During the 2000 debates, when asked about judicial appointments, Bush made the following pledge:

LEHRER: Should a voter assume that all judicial appointments you make to the Supreme Court or any other federal court will also be pro- life?

BUSH: Voters should assume that I have no litmus test on that issue or any other issue. The voters will know I’ll put competent judges on the bench, people who will strictly interpret the Constitution and will not use the bench to write social policy.

But his actions since his appointement by the Supreme Court show that a willingness to overturn Roe vs. Wade is a litmus test. Since Catholics are among the most fervent opponents of abortion, Bush has nominated a number of them for judicial appointments. Now the GOP is stepping up their rhetoric by accusing the Democrats of opposing Bush’s nominees because they’re Catholic :

Ads run in Maine and Rhode Island newspapers last weekend show a sign hanging from closed doors under the words “Judicial Chambers.” The sign reads: “Catholics need not apply.”

The ads — probably the toughest so far in the senate’s battle over President Bush’s judicial nominations — accuse “some in the U.S. senate,” apparently meaning Democrats, of opposing the appeals court nomination of Alabama Attorney General William H. Pryor Jr. because he is a devout Catholic.
. . .
“Some in the U.S. senate are attacking Bill Pryor for having ‘deeply held’ Catholic beliefs to prevent him from becoming a federal judge,” the ads said. “Don’t they know the Constitution expressly prohibits religious tests for public office?”

The ads did not specifically mention Pryor’s strong opposition to abortion, although that is one of the issues cited by Democrats in questioning whether Pryor could set aside his personal views in determining issues of law as a federal judge.

What’s being forgotten here is that these appointments are being opposed because Bush is nominating judges who put their own religious beliefs above the rule of law

Mr. Pryor, who has been nominated for a seat on the Federal Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta, has views that fall far outside the political and legal mainstream. He has called Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion-rights ruling, “the worst abomination” of constitutional law in our history. He recently urged the Supreme Court to uphold laws criminalizing gay sex, a position the court soundly rejected last month. He has defended the installation of a massive Ten Commandments monument in Alabama’s main judicial building, which a federal appeals court recently held violated the First Amendment. And he has urged Congress to repeal an important part of the Voting Rights Act.

Whether Bush, Pryor, and the rest of the GOP like it or not, the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld that Americans have a constitutional right to privacy (which was the basis for Roe vs. Wade and the recent sodomy decision). Any judge that doesn’t accept this constitutional right clearly holds his/her religious beliefs in higher regard than the constitution. Anyone who has this clear a disregard for constitutionally upheld principles has no business being a federal judge. Period.