Saturday, January 24, 2009

The Double Edged Sword

It's bad sports season

Once again, missiles fly and civilians die in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The "truthers" and conservatives are already howling about this.
Let the 'I told you so's ' rain.
Endless bulletins racing around the social networks and the blogosphere exclaiming 'see, we told you so!'...attached with images of Obama in place of Jim Carey from the poster from the film 'Liar, Liar!'
As if that took any prodding.

Well, let's face it. Most of us had candidates that we'd have rather seen in the final race.... Kucinich, McKinney, Edwards, Paul, Huckabee, Clinton. Only some had supporters who just didn't take losing very well.
I was taking the view that while I didn't trust Obama, he was better than McCain/Palin.
Now Obama is here and for the most I've been glad to see him reversing a number of longstanding Bush policies. Considering I wasn't expecting alot, only that he wouldn't die in office and leave us with Sarah Palin as pres, then I'd say so far I've been pleasantly surprized.
Surprized even in spite of his staff decisions.

Including that of leaving Bush appointees Gen. Petraeus and Robert Gates in charge of the war theatre. Yet in doing so he's left us with results that are no surprize.

Bombing by US drones kills 21 , including women and children
This will remain a source of anguish for those that supported him... especially those that hope that he'll get us out of Iraq. And a couple of days ago just after Obama asked the Pentagon to draw up an exit strategy for Iraq Robert Gates responds at a press conference that we're likely to remain in Iraq and Afghanistan for years to come.

All the 'NObama's were jumping the gun... though they predicted the downfall of the republic before he even got to say the oath of office for the second time. Nothing he could ever do will ever please them. Unless he dismantles the Federal Reserve and ends all taxation... so that the rest of us can live without gov't services like education, health or aid... so that some people can hang onto alittle extra on their paychecks.

I suspect there are many just not coping with the idea of having a black president... while others just don't like democrats...
But I didn't much like the GOP's insistance on a ban of american funds going to third world aid agencies that offered information on abortions or birth control or safe sex. Which instead they helped to fund christian agencies that emphasized abstinence over safe sex.
Yeah, look how well that worked for Sarah Palin's daughter.
I keep rewriting this entry.
Earlier I went on a long tirade about rightwing truthers, Alex Jones fans and Ron Paul supporters and their kneejerk 'NObama' attitudes.
I just clipped it away thinking whygo on about such people...and yet,
Nothing Obama is going to do will ever please them.
They are conditioned to seeing an illuminati in every closet and under every bed.
I see what floats around the Prison Planet forums where they blame him for ending torture by exuecutive decree by insisting quite the opposite occured that by lifting the ban on funding for organisations that give abortion information he is in fact exporting torture.
Isn't getting AIDS from not using condoms because the local christian aid agencies refuse safe sex alternatives... or slow death from starvation because you have too many kids a form of torture?
See, we can twist this argument any way that we want.

Let's face it, the conservatives have a vested interest in seeing Obama fail .
Look,... Obama is not off the hook about the war even though he never promised us he'd end the war promptly. It's up to us to stay on his ass about it.... he doesn't get a free ride.
But give him a bit of time and wait and see what he does.

Once again the BBC's management come under fire over policy decisions


The BBC's isolation for it's refusal to air appeal for aid.

" ..The BBC's unrepentant stance has stirred up rebellion in the ranks of it own reporters and editors. One senior BBC news presenter told the Observer: "I've been talking to colleagues and everyone here is absolutely seething about this. The notion that the decision to ban the appeal will seem impartial to the public at large is quite absurd.." - Guardian.co.uk

Morally they're wrong about their stance in not airing an appeal for aid.
The need is too urgent and dire to play out the politics of it.
They're not wrong about needing to maintain an objective image as an outlet for the news.
In fact they're a bit oversensitive to oversite and criticism these last few months, still from the Radio 2 incident back in October where radio/tv show host Jonathan Ross along with his guest Russell Brand had left obscene phone messages for 86 year old actor Andrew Sachs... describing Brand's sexual tryst with Sach's granddaughter.

" ...Astonishingly, senior BBC executives cleared the offensive messages for broadcast, even though making abusive phone calls is a criminal offence. "

It's weird to see them standing up to criticism for supporting Ross' bad judgement in making the prank phonecalls and now to see them standing defiant against politicians and colleagues in the media over their decision about the Gaza appeal.
And yet where was this defiance during the 2003 furor over the death of Dr David Kelly (which may or may not have been a suicide) and resulted in a pro government biased inquiry conducted by Lord Hutton which stated that the BBC management was culpable in airing the unverified and unsubstantiated claims by reporter Andrew Gilligan for Radio 4's Today programme that Prime Minister's Director of Communications and Strategy, Alistair Campbell had altered a government report in a manner that emphasized a claim that Saddam Hussein has WMD's with such sufficient capabilities that Iraq was able to deploy biological weapons within 45 minutes of an order to do so'. A claim that even the Defence Intelligence Staff seriously doubted.
As a result of the Hutton inquiry, BBC's chairman, Gavyn Davies had to accept responsibility and resign as did its director general, Greg Dyke; both whom were so widely respected by BBC staff that there were spontaneous walkouts and protests.
Interestingly, you'd never see anyone in the US take responsibility like that. When Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accepted responsibility for the events at Abu Ghraib prison... he just stayed and just non com officers and guards were court martialed even though they were just following directives issued from the very top... directives that according to former VP Dick Cheney were executive decisions that 'he doesn't regret making'... hopefully we'll get back to him on that.

But back to the BBC and the Hutton Inquiry, ... (if you hadn't heard this one before) back in April 2005 a government memo was leaked dating further back to July of 2002 which was the minutes of a meeting of the British Prime Minister's senior ministers (of which Alistair Campbell was in attendance) which described the United States executive branch's intention to invade Iraq acknowledging Iraq's feeble defensive capabilities,stating that" his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran", and went on to theorize possible political routes to finding justification for an invasion... and for Britain's involvement.

This part seems especially key;
" C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justifi ed by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fi xed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action. "

Moreover, it proves that even President Bush advisors knew the claims to be ludicrous and played the claims out as just intentional political theatre.

And Lord Hutton is just a pompous gov't shill.

I do agree with the truthers on the fact that there should be another 9/11 Commission inquiry without an obstructionist administration preventing important figures from being subpoena'd.
We should start with investigating the truth about the whole last 8 years... from the very beginning.

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