General: September 2004 Archives

Just when you thought the news from Iraq couldn't get any worse.

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Operations by U.S. and multinational forces and Iraqi police are killing twice as many Iraqis — most of them civilians — as attacks by insurgents, according to statistics compiled by the Iraqi Health Ministry.

Iraqi officials said the statistics proved that U.S. airstrikes intended for insurgents also were killing large numbers of civilians. Some say these casualties are undermining popular acceptance of the American-backed interim government.

Iraq ministry says coalition kills more civilians than insurgents do (Nancy A. Youssef, The Seattle Times, 25 September 2004)

Since the 10th of September, multinational forces have been responsible for the deaths of 1295 Iraqis; insurgents have been responsible for the deaths of 516.

Don't get me wrong. Now that we're there, we don't have any choice but to stay until Iraq is secure and peaceful. But I hope someone in the Pentagon can find a way for us to do that job effectively and quickly. It's clear that the White House can't do it, and it's not likely to be the Secretary of Defense either.

That's the headline in today's Washington Post, and this is the lead paragraph:

The expansive agenda President Bush laid out at the Republican National Convention was missing a price tag, but administration figures show the total is likely to be well in excess of $3 trillion over a decade.

Registration (free) is required to read the whole article, but here are the key points.

"Bush's pledge to make permanent his tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of 2010 or before, would reduce government revenue by about $1 trillion over 10 years, according to administration estimates."

"His proposed changes in Social Security to allow younger workers to invest part of their payroll taxes in stocks and bonds could cost the government $2 trillion over the coming decade, according to the calculations of independent domestic policy experts."

"And Bush's agenda has many costs the administration has not publicly estimated. For instance, Bush said in his speech that he would continue to try to stabilize Iraq and wage war on terrorism. The war in Iraq alone costs $4 billion a month, but the president's annual budget does not reflect that cost."

A bunch of liberal propaganda, right? Wrong. The estimate of $2 trillion for Social Security comes from a 2001 report of the Bush-appointed Social Security commission that studied the cost of adding private accounts to Social Security. The administration itself estimates that making the tax cuts permanent will cost nearly a trillion dollars over 10 years.

We can't afford four more years.

I think that each person ought to be judged by their heart and by their soul and by their contribution to society. Group-thought will "Balkanize" our society, and I have rejected the politics of pitting one group of personas against another.

Governor George W. Bush in a 1999 interview, responded to a question about tolerance toward discriminated-against groups, including homosexuals. (source)

America is in real trouble.

I suppose I should try to at least make an effort to start this entry out in a more positive tone, but I honestly think that this is the darkest period this country has ever had in my lifetime.

We now have a President who really has only three things in his arsenal to use for holding on to the presidency for four more years.

1) He has declared a "war on terror", and because of that, we are safer.

2) He is the only one who will defend marriage from those nasty homosexual couples who want to destroy the "sanctity" of marriage.

3) Kerry's war record.

In the "war on terror", we are told by the Bush Administration that we are safer now than we were on September 11, 2001. Yet, Osama bin Laden, the target we designated at the time as being the one responsible for the attack on America, is still at large. We went into Iraq in our quest to capture Osama bin Laden. Whatever happened to that?

At some point we changed our focus from going after bin Laden after we discovered that he was no longer in Iran. That is when we changed our focus towards the President of Iraq. It didn't seem to matter to our current administration that the very man they said was responsible had escaped. We were going to stay in Iraq and find the "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD) that we were absolutely sure they had. We had hard proof, according to our intelligence that Iraq had WMD's. We were told that America was safer because we were going after those responsible for terror.

When WMD's could not be found in Iraq, the administration eventually concluded that there were no WMD's, and that the intelligence was bad. Still, Osama bin Laden has not been apprehended. In fact, we have no idea where he is. Do you still feel safer?

The administration made a half hearted attempt to get the consent of the United Nations. When that failed, we went ahead anyway. And then, later when WMD's were not found in Iraq, we had the nerve to go back to the U.N. and ask for money and help to clean up the damn mess we made. What do we have to show for it? We have the mess that is still lingering in the air from Abu Gharib, and we have created so much hatred for America all over the world by alienating former allies.

Today, the President would have you think that we are safer because of our actions in Iraq. He has no problems what so ever with wrecking the environment, with being the President who is responsible for the fastest increase in the national debt in our nation's history, or in dividing us from each other for the sake of his own political advancement.

This is nothing new. Politicians have always done this. I had put a lot of faith in the new generation of voters because from my perspective, they seem to be more accepting of disenfranchised people and offer a new fresh outlook on our country. Yet, they seem to be easily led. They believe what they are told at face value without doing their own thinking or their own research. It's frightening really.

As far as gay marriage is concerned, the only reason the President is making a huge issue of this is to rally his conservative base. I would have thought that most Americans could figure that one out. Admittedly, I am extremely bothered by his attitude towards gay people. I have a lot personally at stake. But I'm putting that aside. What I find very unsettling in the America we live in today is the apparent acceptance of singling one group of citizens out and literally treating them as second-class citizens.

What Americans should really be asking themselves is this. If it's that easy to denigrate one group of citizens and write discrimination into state constitutions and the U.S. Constitution, which unpopular group will be next?

And most unsettling is the fact that in states across this nation in November, the voters will be deciding by ballot box, whether or not to take away the right to marriage for gay couples. In so doing, they will be taking away their right to inheritance, hospital visitation, child custody issues, adoption issues, and over one thousand other rights and privileges associated with marriage. And this seems ok to the majority of Americans. This is not protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority, and it certainly is doing nothing to protect marriage. If the protection of marriage were really the issue here, looking into the reasons for the 55% divorce rate among heterosexual couples might be a good place to start. Yet, no one sees any of this.

Americans have become sheep. We will buy into anything our fearless leader tells us, regardless of what other external things are telling us. We will believe that he is doing a great job lowering unemployment when we hear that 144,000 jobs were created last month. Yet, when we look around in our own communities, we know people who are unemployed now and unable to find jobs. Yet, we will believe our president, despite the fact that the average real wage of American workers has actually fallen over the past year, even though the economy has grown by 4.7 percent.

This is why I'm scared. I'm scared not so much for myself or my community. If people don't want to let us get married, that is what will happen. We can't stop them. But, with all the other issues affecting so many more people in this country, gay marriage and John Kerry's military record are the last things we should be talking about! Neither the President or John Kerry are talking about the issues. Why are we, the American people, not demanding that they do so?

I'm concerned because it was all too easy for our government to pull this off. It was all too easy for them to wage a war without any hard evidence, just as it was easy for them to dismiss the fact that Osama bin Laden got away.

And, to pull attention away from his failed efforts to justify a war built upon lies, our President pulls out his emotion ladened trump cards: saving marriage from the gays and John Kerry's military record. Mr. President, you shouldn't throw stones if you live in a glass house. Were you in Vietnam? What about your military record?

And, the deception worked, judging from a recent poll.

If the 2004 election for President were held today, 52% of likely voters surveyed would vote for President George W. Bush, 41% would vote for Democratic nominee John Kerry, and 3% would vote for Ralph Nader, according to a new TIME poll conducted from Aug. 31 to Sept. 2.

Let's keep on believing him and everything he tells us. Who knows, maybe it will keep working. You think?

New York: For the first time since the Presidential race became a two person contest last spring, there is a clear leader, the latest TIME poll shows. If the 2004 election for President were held today, 52% of likely voters surveyed would vote for President George W. Bush, 41% would vote for Democratic nominee John Kerry, and 3% would vote for Ralph Nader, according to a new TIME poll conducted from Aug. 31 to Sept. 2. Poll results are available on TIME.com and will appear in the upcoming issue of TIME magazine, on newsstands Monday, Sept. 6. (source)

Well, as the old saying goes, "It's not over until the fat lady sings", but this is a bit depressing.

President Bush has no real clue where he is leading this country. He has accomplished one thing. He has divided this country more than any other president in my memory. I read an interesting article in the Hartford Courant this morning from Ellen Goodman, a syndicated writer in Boston.

He's [Bush] seen as unwavering because he simply disavows any turns in the road. In a powerful acceptance speech rife with distortions, the same resolute, persevering, backboned president who went into Iraq claiming weapons of mass destruction now defends the war as one of liberation. In Bush's head, al-Qaida and Saddam are still connected. And anyone who worries that Iraq is breeding more terrorists than it had to begin with is suffering from what Zell Miller called "analysis paralysis." (source)