U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis —front page, NY Times

Israel’s request for expedited delivery of the satellite and laser-guided bombs was described as ... an indication that Israel still had a long list of targets in Lebanon to strike.

Tags: * Israel Lebanon ceasefire war White House Bush administration George Bush

Last week I wrote about the FBI's assistance to the Polish government in shutting down a website. But what President Lech Kaczynski would really like to shut down is a small leftist German newspaper.

On June 26 the Tageszeitung published a satirical piece titled "Poland's New Potato." President Kaczynski was so upset that he canceled a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Jacques Chirac. The Polish government then demanded that the German Chancellery condemn the article, which of course it didn't since "potato" is protected speech.

Monday the Warsaw Business Journal reported that—

Przemysław Gosiewski, a Law and Justice deputy ..., has asked the prosecutor's office to carry out a probe into the publication of the German left-wing paper Tageszeitung. According to Gosiewski, the paper insulted the Polish head of state, and he has also suggested that Poland could issue a European arrest warrant for Peter Koehler, the author of the article.

I thought it would be fun to post an English translation of the article, partly in hope that President Kaczynski might sever relations with the U.S. But my German isn't good for much more than ordering beer, so I thought I'd see what Google's translator could do with it. It produced a work of art!

Germany rubbed surprises the blue eyes and ears, when Lech Kaczynski came in March on proud hooves to Berlin and let in May the citizen of Berlin Federal President on the Warsaw book fair into emptiness smile simple.

Now that's poetry!

In the meanwhile, if any of you can translate the article, please send it and I'll post it. Inquiring minds want to know!

Related posts
U.S. government "blocks" a website (7/10/06)
Update on "U.S. blocks a website" (7/13/06)

Tags: * Poland Kaczynski Lech Kaczynski Tageszeitung censorship Germany freedom of the press translation German

Imagine if Lebanon destroyed every bridge in Israel, blew up the international airport, blockaded the ports, severed every arterial road, ordered people to leave their homes and then bombed them to pieces when they did... Do you think any Western leader would utter the words “Lebanon has a right to defend itself”? —British Member of Parliament George Galloway writing in"Blair is Israel’s ally"

Tags: * Israel Lebanon war Galloway George Galloway

Every innocent Israeli as well as Lebanese and Palestinian civilian that’s killed right now I think we can say is at least in part due to American inaction, due to America sitting on its hands rather than getting involved to stop this bloodshed. —Daniel Levy, advisor in the Prime Minister's Office, member of the official Israel negotiating team at the Oslo B and Taba talks, and lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative, speaking through a Town Hall conference call

[Thanks to Louise Kienast for the transcription.]

Tags: * Israel Lebanon ceasefire war White House Bush administration George Bush

You may take it as a given that the selection of stories that appear on the front pages of our major newspapers is a political decision if the story concerns foreign policy, no matter how loudly the editors protest otherwise. And when the story is titled "Conservative Anger Grows Over Bush's Foreign Policy," as appeared on Page 1 of yesterday's Washington Post, you more or less expect the story to cover a conservative point of view.

Since the position of true conservatives on Bush's foreign policy hasn't been in the news lately, I read Michael Abramowitz's article with interest.

At a moment when his conservative coalition is already under strain over domestic policy, President Bush is facing a new and swiftly building backlash on the right over his handling of foreign affairs.

Oh, great. We're going to learn what the "right" is thinking.

Conservative intellectuals and commentators who once lauded Bush for what they saw as a willingness to aggressively confront threats and advance U.S. interests said in interviews that they perceive timidity and confusion about long-standing problems including Iran and North Korea, as well as urgent new ones such as the latest crisis between Israel and Hezbollah.

"Timidity and confusion?" I'll let anybody claim the Bush administration is confused. But timid?!!! I was beside myself in anticipation of who those "conservative intellectuals and commentators" might be.

"It is Topic A of every single conversation," said Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank that has had strong influence in staffing the administration and shaping its ideas. "I don't have a friend in the administration, on Capitol Hill or any part of the conservative foreign policy establishment who is not beside themselves with fury at the administration."

Now I must admit I didn't know who Danielle Pletka is. Shame on me. But that mention of "timidity" in the second paragraph roused my suspicions. When I checked I found that Pletka was an early signer of the Neocon documents.1 And it was becoming clear that the "conservatives" under discussion were in fact the almost exclusively Jewish Neocon cabal.

Too much diplomacy, not enough fire power

Conservatives complain that the United States is hunkered down in Iraq without enough troops or a strategy to crush the insurgency. They see autocrats in Egypt and Russia cracking down on dissenters with scant comment from Washington, North Korea firing missiles without consequence, and Iran playing for time to develop nuclear weapons while the Bush administration engages in fruitless diplomacy with European allies. They believe that a perception that the administration is weak and without options is emboldening Syria and Iran and the Hezbollah radicals they help sponsor in Lebanon.

Weak, weak, weak! Don't you just detest weakness?! But Abramowitz continues to impute these ideas to "conservatives."

How foreign policy is influenced

Most of the most scathing critiques of the administration from erstwhile supporters are being expressed within think tanks and in journals and op-ed pages followed by a foreign policy elite in Washington and New York.

But the Bush White House has always paid special attention to the conversation in these conservative circles. Many of the administration's signature ideas -- regime change in Iraq, and special emphasis on military "preemption" and democracy building around the globe -- first percolated within this intellectual community. In addition, these voices can be a leading indicator of how other conservatives from talk radio to Congress will react to policies.

Yes, the administration's "signature ideas" did come from the Neocons, still unnamed by Abramowitz. But only in that last paragraph does Abramowitz drop a hint that there are, well, "other conservatives."

As the White House listens to what one official called the "chattering classes," it hears a level of disdain from its own side of the ideological spectrum that would have been unthinkable a year ago. It is an odd irony for a president who has inflamed liberals and many allies around the world for what they see as an overly confrontational, go-it-alone approach. The discontent on the right could also color the 2008 presidential debate.

Irony aside, that sounds remarkably like a threat.

What smart Presidential contenders are saying

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who is considering a bid for president, called the administration's latest moves abroad a form of appeasement. "We have accepted the lawyer-diplomatic fantasy that talking while North Korea builds bombs and missiles and talking while the Iranians build bombs and missiles is progress," he said in an interview. "Is the next stage for Condi to go dancing with Kim Jong Il?" he asked, referring to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the North Korean leader.

"I am utterly puzzled," Gingrich added.

And I am utterly puzzled what Gingrich would do instead. The implication, though, is that he is in agreement with the Neocons in that we should at a minimum be doing something aggressive, like maybe bombing the bastards.

"Kerryism"

Now we get to hear from another Neocon: Ken Adelman—

Kenneth Adelman, a Reagan administration arms-control official ... close to Vice President Cheney, said he believes foreign policy innovation for White House ended with Bush's second inaugural address, a call to spread democracy throughout the world.

"What they are doing on North Korea or Iran is what [Sen. John F.] Kerry would do, what a normal middle-of-the-road president would do," he said. "This administration prided itself on molding history, not just reacting to events. Its a normal foreign policy right now. It's the triumph of Kerryism."

I never thought I'd say it, but a "normal middle-of-the-road president" would look pretty good right now.

The "other" conservatives

Finally, in the 12th paragraph, Abramowitz reveals who his "conservatives" really are. This is his first use of the word "neoconservative"—

Not all conservatives subscribe to such views. Some prominent conservatives, including William F. Buckley Jr. and George Will, have been skeptical of the mission in Iraq and, in Will's case, much of the ability of America to build democracy abroad. In his syndicated column yesterday, Will referred to the neoconservative complaints in observing that the administration is "suddenly receiving some criticism so untethered from reality as to defy caricature."

George Will is referring to the very complaints that Abramowitz is so happily detailing for us—"neoconservative complaints," which are "so untethered from reality as to defy caricature." That is as felicitous a phrase as George Will has ever turned.

Abramowitz then quotes a few kind words from supporters of the Bush regime before getting back to his true, if camouflaged, topic: the Neocons' wrath.

In fact, it has been Bush's willingness to respond to criticism from the foreign policy establishment -- which has long urged him to do more to pursue a more "multilateral" diplomacy in concert with allies -- that has led to distress among many conservatives outside Congress, particularly the band of aggressive "neoconservatives" who four years ago were most enthusiastic about the Iraq war.

Abramowitz has now informed us of two foreign policy groups. In Paragraph 5 he told us about the "foreign policy elite" where the administration got all of its "signature ideas." Now he tells us of a "foreign policy establishment" to whose criticisms the Bush administration responds and that has long urged more multilateral diplomacy.

Finally Abramowitz unequivocally reveals—five paragraphs from the end—just who on the right is so distressed with Bush's foreign policy—the "neoconservatives." And again he rehashes their complaints against the administration—

• inadequate troop levels in Iraq
• incompetently managed war
• not "aggressive" enough to defeat the insurgency
• offering direct talks with Iran and inducements to curb their nuclear program
• no air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities
• wasting time on multilateral talks with the Europeans

A letter to the White House

Michael Abramowitz is the National Editor of the Washington Post. He can get his stories on the front page of the paper pretty much when he chooses. But I have some serious problems with this story.

First, this is a "story" about Neocon displeasure that includes a veiled threat, and by putting it on the front page of the Post it's like hand-delivering a letter to the White House. It is actually one of those critiques of the administration that Abramowitz himself describes as "expressed within think tanks and in journals and op-ed pages followed by a foreign policy elite in Washington and New York." This "story" is an op-ed piece masquerading as news. It is not really intended for you or me but for the White House and the "foreign policy elite" that read the Post.

Second, toward the average reader Abramowitz is either intentionally deceptive or he shouldn't be the National Editor of the Dogpath Gazette. I would have less concern if Abramowitz had written a piece headlined "'Neoconservatives' enraged by White House foreign policy" in which he forthrightly laid out their complaints.

But when he hides his subject with locutions such as "the right" and "conservatives," you know something's up. Abramowitz knows there's a difference; he also knows that the average reader doesn't. And further, he knows that the average reader doesn't make it to the 12th paragraph of an article on foreign policy, which is where the term "neoconservative" first appears.2

Why now?

This is a story that Abramowitz has conjured up. (Check his second paragraph. Also check Footnote 1 below and notice the date. This is old news.) Nothing has happened to warrant front-page positioning of some sore-loser gripes—or at least nothing that Abramowitz wants to tell us in his opening paragraph.

But there are two events mentioned later in the article that may be related to its timing: (1) George Will's column Tuesday criticizing the Neocons and (2) the Israeli aggression against Lebanon. George Will's column has been the talk of the Right, and the Israeli attack has been the talk of everyone.

Of course the Neocons are much more interested in Israel than in George Will. While dismissing Will's editorial by a brief mention, the subtext to Abramowitz's article is that support for Israel must not flag.

Michael Abramowitz

I don't really know anything about Michael Abramowitz. Aside from his actual writings, there is very little about him on the Web. Was it obscure, coded columns such as this that landed him his position as National Editor? I will certainly be very careful in the future of anything he writes, and I hope you will be too.

And the Jewish media cabal

Meanwhile, let's see what the Washington Post's media critic Howard Kurtz, himself Jewish, had to say today about another Jewish reporter in the Post company's stables.

Jacob Weisburg is the editor of Slate, one of the Washington Post properties. He just got back from a trip to Israel courtesy of the great Israeli lobbying group AIPAC. As it happened he visited the Lebanese border just "a few days before war broke out" and "could see Hezbollah fighters standing atop one of their concrete bunkers." He then sets about the task of deciding whom to blame in an article titled "Don't Blame Bush."

Kurtz comments,

Weisberg shows he's not a knee-jerk partisan. But wouldn't it have been better if Slate, and not a pro-Israel lobby, had paid for his trip?

So much for the "objectivity" of the Post's reporters.

Related post
How a dictatorship works (10/4/05)

Tags: * Washington Post Abramowitz Michael Abramowitz propaganda media Neocons neoconservative conservative Israel Weisberg Jacob Weisberg AIPAC Kurtz Howard Kurtz Pletka

[E]lections have transformed Hamas into the government of the Palestinian territories, and elections have turned Hezbollah into a significant faction in Lebanon's parliament, from which it operates as a state within the state....

The Bush administration has rightly refrained from criticizing the region's only democracy, Israel, for its forceful response to a thousand rockets fired at its population.

—Columnist George Will in "Transformation's Toll"

Just what was it about the Palestinian and Lebanese elections that did not qualify them as democratic?

Tags: * democracy Palestinian Authority Hamas Hezbollah Lebanon PA George Will

Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition, has become the first political casualty of the Jack Abramoff lobbying and money scandals with his loss yesterday in Georgia’s lieutenant governor’s race to a previously unknown state Senator. —David Donnelly in Alternet

Of course his opponent is no prize. Casey Cagle is considered one of the most conservative of Georgia's many conservative state senators. But at least he has no ambitions to be President that I know of.

Tags: *Ralph Reed Georgia election primary Casey Cagle

[KFC’s food is] something that can quite literally take years off of your life. KFC knows this, yet it recklessly puts its customers at risk. —Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in Public Interest (CSPI), as quoted by Kenneth Hein

Kentucky Fried Chicken continues to use partially hydrogenated cooking oil and delivers a heaping dose of trans fats with its chicken. CSPI has filed a class action suit against the corporation.

Tags: * trans fat KFC class action CSPI health

The final batch of Japanese soldiers has left Iraq, ending the country's first foray into an active foreign war zone since World War II —BBC

To which I should probably add the Quote of the Day—

We carried out our humanitarian and reconstruction tasks without firing a single shot - in fact, without pointing a gun at anyone. —Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi

Tags: * Iraq Japan Coalition withdrawal Koizumi military reconstruction

Some say that it's the speculators who've been driving up the price of oil in a market that has plenty. The price rise a few months back was fueled by the "Iran crisis"—one of our many manufactured crises. The more gloom and doom that oil speculators see in our future, the more they buy in the hope that a true shortage will develop.

That being the case, it is time for pundits to stop claiming that presidents can't directly affect the price of oil. It is fair to say that George Bush's mouth has been the single greatest source of petroleum price rises. Every time he rattled his little saber at Iran, up went the cost of a fill-up.1

After the Europeans got him to settle down, prices began to fall. That wouldn't do, of course, so Israel's bombardment of Lebanon last week took up where George left off. Today's speculation, however, is that Israel may call a halt to the bombing by the end of the week, so even the destruction of a small sovereign state can't keep the market moving upward forever.

But I speak of the short term. As long as the Bushies and Israel remain principal actors on the world stage, no one should doubt that oil supplies may drop precipitously, least of all Europe's largest oil company BP.2 So BP has set up an Alternative Energy division and now advertises that "BP" stands for "Beyond petroleum."

On Friday the company announced its first foray into wind power—

BP is making its first major investment in wind power with a joint venture that will lead to an exponential expansion of its generating capacity.

The oil giant said yesterday it had entered a five-year supply and development agreement involving five wind energy projects in the US with Clipper Windpower.

.... The projects, with an anticipated total generating capacity of 2,015 megawatts, are situated in New York, Texas and South Dakota.

BP has also secured a mix of firm and contingent orders of up to 2,250 megawatts of additional Clipper turbines in its global wind portfolio, the companies said.
....

The announcement, which came in the same week that the UK Government published its Energy Review, is thought to be the biggest single investment in wind power.

Clipper claims its turbine, the "Liberty," represents a jump in the efficiency of generating electricity from wind. According to the website,

The patented technology of the Liberty turbine developed by Clipper substantially increases the efficiency of wind-generated electricity, providing a formidable increase in the potential geographic areas for turbine deployment. In recognition of the merits of this advanced technology and for Clipper's highly experienced management and engineering team, the company was awarded grants from the U.S. Department of Energy ("DOE") and the California Energy Commission ("CEC") for development of the turbine.3

Those who took a risk on Clipper did very well in the transaction. The stock rose 28%.

Tearing the world apart doesn't strike me as the best way to promote investment in sensible energy alternatives, but for the moment that's all we have to go on.

Tags: * alternative energy wind power BP Clipper turbine oil oil market energy electricity