President George W. Bush claims that God did so.

Having given the order, the president walked alone around the circle behind the White House. Months later, he told Woodward: "As I walked around the circle, I prayed that our troops be safe, be protected by the Almighty. Going into this period, I was praying for strength to do the Lord's will. I'm surely not going to justify war based upon God. Understand that. Nevertheless, in my case, I pray that I be as good a messenger of his will as possible. And then, of course, I pray for forgiveness."

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as usual.

Bolton has a tin ear when it comes to listening to other countries.(The Nation)

There is a bio on Right Web. I emphasize what will go down in history as Bolton's most disgusting act:

In July 2002, the Wall Street Journal reported that Bolton's "most memorable moment came after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a halt to the recount, when Mr. Bolton strode into a Tallahassee library, where the count was still going on, and declared: `I'm with the Bush-Cheney team, and I'm here to stop the vote'."

[From the diaries by susanhu with minor edits.]

Why We Can No Longer Afford George W. Bush
by Lewis H. Lapham

I would like to draw your attention to this essay in March 2006 issue of HARPER'S. Lapham bases much of his material on Congressman John Conyers Jr.'s December 18, 2005 Resolution. This Resolution invited the House of Representatives to investigate the Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, its manipulation of pre-war intelligence, its encouraging and countenancing torture, and its retaliating against critics. He also makes recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.

Of course, the request attracted little attention in the press, "scattered applause from left-wing blogs, heavy sarcasm on websites flying the flags of the militant right."

Lapham wonders why Conyers did it. In January, in a telephone conversation, Conyers explains:

Continued below:

There is a connection in that the jihadis who perpetrated 9/11 could not have expected a better outcome. They knew the US reaction would be a swift and brutal vengeance against a Muslim country. Those who attacked the USA on 9/11 were all "Muslims, of whom 15 belonged to Saudi Arabia, two were from the UAE and one from Egypt" one from Pakistan.

Iraq is the perfect strategic background for Islamic revolutionaries to continue (indefinitely it seems) the global jihad against the infidel Muslims and the infidel Westerners. (This is different from Iraqi nationals who are fighting the Military occupation. who really knows? since the information we are getting is suspect.)  How astute would the jihadis have to be to guess that Bush would attack Iraq? The world knew that the Bush administration had Saddam Hussein in their sights. PNAC
Count how many times the name Saddam Hussein is mentioned and check the signatories of this document.

[more...]

Partial synopsis of the movie:

From writer/director Stephen Gaghan, winner of the Best Screenplay Academy Award for Traffic, comes Syriana, a political thriller that unfolds against the intrigues and corruption of the global oil industry. From the players brokering back-room deals in Washington to the men toiling in the oil fields of the Persian Gulf, the film's multiple storylines weave together to illuminate the human consequences of the fierce pursuit of wealth and power.

[Promoted by susanhu -- As rough as we've got it in our own country's political struggle, seemingly crawling up Denali without support equipment or oxygen, there is a country so near us whose people are falling into a horrible abyss. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! never forgets Haiti's horrific conditions, and it was good to finally see the NYT do a major story on the crisis in this country that no one in D.C. -- except a few like Rep. Maxine Waters, who Amy interviews regularly on Haiti -- pays any attention to. Here are the search results for Amy's shows about Haiti, including her interview yesterday for the hour of Harry Belafonte, in which he said the U.S. has undermined "a legitimate democracy." We worry about the fate of many countries, but Haiti is rarely on our radar. Sybil has written an excellent diary on Haiti. Per usual, the Canadians -- ironically, further away geographically and and not as implicated politically -- are much more aware than we:]

The Bush/Cheney administration is causing untold harm in the world "spreading democracy" while keeping its people so busy with a multitude of domestic scandals, heads are spinning. Here's a summary from an excellent CBC documentary (that US audiences are unlikely to see) on how the US changed regimes in Haiti. It's eerily similar to US regime change in Iraq where the leadership of a small country is destroyed with no plan in place for the resulting chaos and human suffering.

Bush/Cheney did not like this man:

Jean-Bertrand Aristide

Why?

President Aristide promised not only to give voice to the poor in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, but also to raise the minimum wage and force businesses to pay taxes. NYT

Why Haiti is in the news recently.
From the CBC Documentary, Haiti: Democracy Undone:

After four postponements, voters in Haiti are once again scheduled to go to the polls. The February 7 vote follows a coup almost two years ago.

In early 2004, when the government of Haiti faced a serious threat from armed rebels who had crossed the border from the Dominican Republic, the US government made it clear they supported the elected president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. "The policy of this Administration is not regime change," Colin Powell, then US Secretary of State, said in testimony before a Congressional committee. A fews weeks later Aristide was overthrown.

Haiti: Democracy Undone presents new evidence that in fact the US played a role in the coup that overthrew Aristide; that it had one foreign policy on Haiti but secretly carried out a very different policy.

From the New York Times, January 29, 2006.

[From the diaries by susanhu. Fascinating, sybil!]

From Raw Story

Judith Miller wanted to write an OpEd defending herself against charges of "entanglement" with sources among other things but the NY Times refused.

Instead she was allowed to write a letter to the editor, a long letter to the editor. She scooped her own letter to the editor in the New York Times using her own website.

She also had an interview with RAW STORY and with the Washington Post, below...

[From the diaries by susanhu w edits.] The Interdictor (home page) blogger is a former soldier who he says he put himself in military mode to secure the building where he is holed up with his girlfriend, Crystal. The blog begins Sunday, 28 August and continues today.

He keeps his generator going with fuel in the basement. Each morning he does a recon of the building. Included in the blog are a live feed and many photos taken from his apartment window. It's very real. FROM TODAY's ENTRY:

5:52a    
Good morning, world.
Team Alpha is back online. Glad to see Outpost Crystal is still connected to world.
(196 Comments | Comment on this)
6:36a    
Cannot Confirm
One of the first things I do in the morning after my intitial security sweep of the building is check my messenger programs, email, and the comments section of this blog for the latest situation reports.

I cannot confirm the Superdome "chemical plant" explosion you guys are reporting. When Bravo Team becomes functional this morning, we're going to do a Medium Range Recon Patrol around our section of the CBD. We need to access the area for potential human threats, situational threats (burning buildings, etc.), flooding, potential evac routes, military and civilian authority presence, etc.

We bring the camera with us everywhere we go, whether it's to empty fuel into the tank or perform personal hygiene.

Everyone has secondary responsibilities. Crystal, for instance, has the secondary responsibility of organizing physical assets. Sigmund's secondary responsibility is photography. Donny's secondary responsibility is inter-team communication. My secondary responsibility is first aid. And so on.

MORE BELOW:

City of Nature - New Orleans' blessing; New Orleans' curse.

By Ari Kelman
Posted Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2005, at 3:59 PM PT

[I found this article through Talking Points Memo. Ari Kelman, a friend and colleague of Josh Marshall wrote a book about New Orleans. His article is concise and so relevant right now.]

http://www.slate.com/id/2125346/nav/tap2/

[For those tired of reading, there is a link to an audio version in an MP3 download on Slate.com.]

New Orleans' dysfunctional relationship with its environment may make it the nation's most improbable metropolis. It is flood prone. It is cursed with a fertile disease environment. It is located along a well-worn pathway that tropical storms travel from the Atlantic to the nation's interior. From this perspective, New Orleans has earned all the scorn being heaped upon it--the city is a misguided urban project, a fool's errand, a disaster waiting to happen.

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Another media person, Reuters TV soundman Waleed Khaled was killed in Iraq. I heard it described on Air America this morning. The man was wearing a press pass and two of the five sniper's bullets hit him right through his pass, killing him.

"His U.S. military and Reuters press cards, clipped to his shirt, were caked in blood. In one, there were two bullet holes," it said.

Outrage over fatal shooting of Reuters TV soundman by US sniper fire
[...]the Reuters TV crew had gone to cover an incident in [which] two Iraqi policemen were killed in the Hay al-Adil district of Baghdad. As they arrived, Khaled was hit by a shot in the face and four other shots in the chest, while Kadhem was slightly hurt.

"I heard shooting, looked up and saw an American sniper on the roof of the shopping centre," Kadhem told other journalists who arrived seconds later. He was subsequently arrested by US soldiers. Reuters said he had still not been released six hours later. Other Iraqi journalists who arrived at the scene were also briefly detained, but were then released. [...]

The military explanation was :
"Task Force Baghdad units responded to a terrorist attack on an Iraqi police convoy [. . .] one civilian was killed and another was wounded by small-arms fire during the attack."

"Small arms fire" is military speak for sniper fire by sharp shooters, apparently.

The US ambassador to Iraq at a news conference on the Iraq Constitution said it was unfortunate but he did not apologize.
more below...

Summary of New York Times article by Joseph Nocera:
Memo to the United States of America regarding Canada

1.Softwood lumber

Unfortunately for our side, the North American Free Trade Agreement arbitrators have consistently ruled in Canada's favor. After the latest - and supposedly final - such ruling a few weeks ago, the United States trade representative, Rob Portman, announced that the United States would ignore it and refuse to refund $5 billion in tariffs [imposed on Canadian softwood lumber by the US] it has collected in the last five years. (The American position is that the ruling is pre-empted by a parallel proceeding at the World Trade Organization.)

THE stance has made our friendly neighbors to the north a lot less friendly - in fact, the country is absolutely up in arms. Canada's trade minister even walked out of softwood lumber negotiations recently, to the universal applause of his countrymen. "What is there to talk about?" asked Senator Pat Carney, a former trade minister who now represents British Columbia. "We won. The Americans won't abide by the rule of law." That pretty much sums up the sentiment of the entire country.

...

In an earlier diary I posted the news that Sean Penn, who is credentialed as a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle, was making a trip to Iran to report on the election there. The five-day series is now available online at SFGate.com

Looks to me like it takes some courage for an American journalist to stroll the streets of Iran. A Canadian woman, an Iranian by birth was tortured and beaten to death in one of Iran's notorious prisons.

Zahra Kazemi, a Montreal-based photojournalist, died in July 2003 after her skull was split after being arrested for taking photographs outside Tehran's Evin prison where many political dissidents are held. Iran in Focus

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That's the title of a Financial Times article that begins:

Wall Street often flocks to Big Pharma as a port in the storm when the markets turn south, but this time round it may be sailing into trouble.

Many investors cite market research indicating that pharmaceutical companies are good "defensive" plays amid rising interest rates and higher oil prices. Since 1972, healthcare stocks have gained 10.02 per cent annually amid rising rates, according to Ned Davis Research, trouncing the other sectors...
Short View: Big Pharma, big trouble By Stephen Schurr - Published: August 22 2005 21:38

The rest of the article requires paid membership or giving your credit card number. But we can get the story from plenty of other sources like The Health Care Blog which liberally quotes the Wall Street Journal article.
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This is a short follow-up to my diary on US war correspondent Steven Vincent's death. Vincent was shot to death August 3 after being kidnapped the night before. Witnesses saw him and his interpreter forced into a white van, similar to the Basra security vans. His interpreter was also shot but she survived. His body was found on the side of the highway. The Scotsman has the story that Vincent was killed over his plans to marry his Muslim interpreter.

Steven Vincent was shot a week before the planned wedding to Nouriya Itais and had already delivered a $2,500 dowry to her family.

The disclosure casts new light on the grip of Islamic religious sects in the British-run south- east of Iraq - raising concern that they will take control once troops start to withdraw. Mr Vincent was abducted from his hotel three days after writing a piece in the New York Times accusing British officials of allowing religious parties to infiltrate the Basra police.

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