Following the Yellow Brick Road

Check out the White House "fact sheet" about Bush's speech yesterday.
Titled Making America Safer by Defeating Extremists in the Middle East, with the subtitle "President Bush Explains Why Winning The Fight In Iraq Is Key To Countering The Ambitions Of Al Qaeda And Iran", it reads like it was written for a fifth grader. And its about as "factual" as the Wizard of Oz.
Hey, let's imagine it -- we'll have Bush as Dorothy and Condi as Toto. Petraus would be the Scarecrow, McConnell as the Tin Man, and Gates as the Lion. Cheney is, of course, the wizard. and the Iraqis are the Munchkins. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the Wicked Witch of the West.
But there are no good witches in this scenario.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid aren't going to be waving any magic wands to get the Americans home from Iraq, no matter how hard the troops click their heels together.
So let's follow their yellow brick road. Here are some excerpts from the fact sheet -- the bold and underlined lines in the following are from the original:

. . . America is engaged in a great ideological struggle against violent Islamic extremists around the world, and the fight for the future of the Middle East is a key aspect of this struggle.
The Most Important And Immediate Way To Counter The Ambitions Of Al Qaeda, Iran, And Other Forces Of Instability And Terror In The Middle East Is To Win The Fight In Iraq.The challenge in Iraq comes down to this: either the forces of violent extremism succeed and our enemies advance their interests in Iraq, or the forces of freedom succeed and we advance our interests.
If Violent Extremists Were Allowed To Prevail In The Middle East, The Region Would Be Dramatically Transformed In A Way That Could Imperil The World
The Fight In Iraq Has A Direct Impact On The Safety Of Americans Here At Home. We have seen what violent extremists will do when American forces are actively engaged in Iraq, and we can envision what they would do if they were emboldened by American forces in retreat. For all those who ask whether the fight in Iraq is worth it, imagine an Iraq where militia groups backed by Iran control large parts of the country, and al Qaeda has established sanctuaries to safely plot future attacks on targets all over the world, including the U.S. Homeland – and they could use billions of dollars in oil revenues to buy weapons and pursue their deadly ambitions.
The Momentum Is On Now Our Side In Iraq – Our New Strategy Is Seizing The Initiative From Our Enemy, And Giving It To The Iraqi People. . .

On and on and on it goes, winding its way to that Emerald City way off in the distance, with the faint sound of trumpets in the air:

Encouraging Developments At The Local Level . . . Making Gains In Other Important Areas . . . Signs Of Bottom Up Progress . . . Our Strategy Is Also Showing Results At The International Level . . . we will continue to rally the world to this noble and necessary cause...

Sounds great, doesn't it? Wouldn't it be great to live in the world that these people think they're living in?
By contrast, here's what it's actually like in Iraq -- just a few of the headlines from Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on Iraq Today:

The Missing in Iraq
Northern Iraq hit by major cholera outbreak
Aid agencies unable to gain access to violence-afflicted Karbala
More Iraqis Flee As Figure Tops Four Million: UNHCR
Active-Duty US Troops Become Outspoken Critics Of Iraq War
Lower school attendance expected in coming year
Iraqi Insurgents Using Bigger Rockets
US surge sees 600,000 more Iraqis abandon home
Violence hits Salahuddin Province
Depleted uranium threatens thousands of lives in Basra

But neither Bush nor Cheney care about any of this, not really.
Bush and Cheney aren't promoting the Iraq improvement fantasy because they care about Iraq. It's because they want to go on to Tehran. They really do believe that "Anyone can go to Baghdad but real men go to Tehran", but they don't think America will follow unless it believes that either they are "winning" in Iraq, or they WOULD win if only Iran were taken care of.
So if the Iraq part of Bush's speech was ridiculous, the Iran part was frighteningly delusional -- demanding regime change, implying a war against Iran has already begun, playing the nuclear card, fantasizing about the Islamic caliphate following the American army home:

. . . Iran has long been a source of trouble in the region. It is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. . . . Iran is sending arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan, which could be used to attack American and NATO troops. Iran has arrested visiting American scholars who have committed no crimes and pose no threat to their regime. And Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.
Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere.
. . . what would happen if these forces of radicalism and extremism are allowed to drive us out of the Middle East. . . . Iran could conclude that we were weak -- and could not stop them from gaining nuclear weapons. And once Iran had nuclear weapons, it would set off a nuclear arms race in the region.
Extremists would control a key part of the world's energy supply, could blackmail and sabotage the global economy. They could use billions of dollars of oil revenues to buy weapons and pursue their deadly ambitions. Our allies in the region would be under greater siege by the enemies of freedom. Early movements toward democracy in the region would be violently reversed. This scenario would be a disaster for the people of the Middle East, a danger to our friends and allies, and a direct threat to American peace and security. This is what the extremists plan. For the sake of our own security, we'll pursue our enemies, we'll persevere and we will prevail . . .
We seek an Iran whose government is accountable to its people -- instead of to leaders who promote terror and pursue the technology that could be used to develop nuclear weapons . . .
Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces and the Iraqi people. Members of the Qods Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are supplying extremist groups with funding and weapons, including sophisticated IEDs. And with the assistance of Hezbollah, they've provided training for these violent forces inside of Iraq. Recently, coalition forces seized 240-millimeter rockets that had been manufactured in Iran this year and that had been provided to Iraqi extremist groups by Iranian agents. The attacks on our bases and our troops by Iranian-supplied munitions have increased in the last few months -- despite pledges by Iran to help stabilize the security situation in Iraq.
Some say Iran's leaders are not aware of what members of their own regime are doing. Others say Iran's leaders are actively seeking to provoke the West. Either way, they cannot escape responsibility for aiding attacks against coalition forces and the murder of innocent Iraqis. The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops. I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities . . .

I'm not so sure America will go along with this program, not just because Bush says so. But Glenn Greenwald asks what is being done to stop it:

As we march step by step with barely a debate towards a confrontation with Iran -- one that neoconservatives have long been proclaiming is inevitable -- are there any meaningful efforts to avert this? We frequently hear the slogan from war critics about Iraq that "hope is not a policy." The same is true with regard to preventing an attack on Iran.

Clicking our heels and wishing we were somewhere else won't work either.

Great line of the day

From The Court about how the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was instrumental in the acquittal of Steven Truscott:

...although Steven Truscott’s case is simply tragic, it does effectively answer those critics who claim that the Charter hasn’t really made a positive difference in Canadian society. Today Steven Truscott joined the ranks of countless innocent Canadians who have benefited profoundly from a constitutional document that is too often, in the public consciousness at least, associated with the guilty.

Emphasis mine. Thanks to Dr. Dawg for the link.

'Porn' ad?

'Porn' ad outrages Saskatchewan opposition

Saskatchewan Party MLA Nancy Heppner said Tuesday the phrase “The Sask Party stood for privatization of the Crowns” dissolves for a split second and morphs into “The Sask Party stood for porn” before the words fade out completely.
“If it was done on purpose I think it’s reprehensible, and if it’s done accidentally it needs to be fixed,” Heppner said. “Either way it needs to be fixed . . .

Its a weird ad all around -- the wolf in the sheep suit actually looks sorta cute, really, not scary at all, and having the words fade out is an odd and distracting gimmick, and the PORN letters do stay on screen a little longer than the other fade-outs do, so maybe there was a clumsy attempt at subliminal advertising here. See what you think:

Burning love

Yes, the stories about various Republicans being caught with their pants down, literally, are laughable in terms of the right-wing hypocrisy thus revealed. Here's today's scandal. Here's another one. And another one. Not to mention Mark Foley, and Bob Allen, and Haggard. Oh, and almost forgot this one.
But basically, isn't it sad when someone is so conflicted about their sexuality that they have to revile gay people publicly while they secretly look for love in public restrooms?

Great photos of the day

From unrepentant old hippie here's the LOL-Cop photo:



It sorta sums up the whole story, doesn't it.
And here's another one from UOH. Remember this?



Well, the Naked Mayor is in the public spotlight once again. UOH flags this story:

Dick Harris MP for Cariboo-Prince George has named Houston Mayor and Conservative candidate Sharon Smith as the person that residents of Skeena-Bulkley Valley can contact when they have concerns or issues with the federal government.

That's right, the Conservatives have unilaterally replaced NDP MP Nathan Cullen (remember him, Stephen? The man actually ELECTED to represent the people of Skeena-Bulkley Valley?) with The Naked Mayor. Other bloggers are covering the constitutional issues of this (here here here here here and here ) but the naked part is much more interesting.
The people of Skeena-Bulkley Valley must be so proud that the mayor is in the news again!

Great line of the day

Matt Yglesias writes about escalating disasters in the Land of Bad Things:

I wasn't super-optimistic that the 2006 midterms were going to cause us to adopt a sound Iraq policy, but I did think it would result in a less unsound one. Instead, we got the "surge" -- our policy actually got worse. I never believed that the infamous September reports were going to make policy more rational, but now it seems to me that they're getting worse . . .
I find it hard to find words to describe what a disaster it may be if the US ends up engineering the return to power of a grossly unpopular ex-Baathist ex-Prime Minister. It's as if people are trying their hardest to come up with policies designed to end with Muqtada al-Sadr marching at the head of a crowd shouting "Death to America" into the rapidly abandoned Green Zone sometime in 2010.

Emphasis mine.

Believe your lying eyes?

So what are you going to believe -- Stockwell Day or your lying eyes?
The video is as plain as plain can be -- the undercover police were pretending to be anarchists and were carrying rocks to the front of the protest line. The middle-aged unionists and the mothers and the teenagers and the grandmothers were not carrying rocks. The police-anarchists refused to drop their rocks and move away in spite of Dave Coles yelling repeatedly at them, "This is our line!"
But now a Quebec police inspector says this:

"One of the extremists gave the rock to one of our police officers and he had a choice to make," Savard said.
"He was asked by extremists to throw the rock at the police, but never had any intention of using it."

No, he was refusing to DROP it, not to throw it. And its pretty obvious to just about everybody. Take a look at some of the 170 comments following this CBC news story:

Why the rocks? Why the face masks? Why the fake arrest? Why the initial denial?

The official statements are some of the most clownish spin I've seen anywhere.

To the police. We, the public, for the most part accept that you must use deception in your fight against criminals. But this was deception against the very people you are supposedly sworn to protect, in this case, members of the public exercising their rights of free speech and public protest. I've joined a protest rally only once in my life, but your behaviour here is going to get me, and I guess a whole lot of grey-hairs like me, rethinking my complacency.

I'm afraid it's pretty clear what the officers intentions were. They were not there to keep the peace.

The video makes it EXTREMELY obvious that the union leaders were the ones to try to keep the peace in their ranks, and the three undercover agents were the ones trying to have the protest break out in violence.

This makes me wonder how much of the supposed "violence" attributes to protesters was incited by the police and right wing politicians.

Now our very own fool, Stockwell Day, has rushed in where angels fear to tread:

"The thing that was interesting in this particular incident, three people in question were spotted by protesters because were not engaging in violence," Day said.
"They were being encouraged to throw rocks and they were not throwing rocks, it was the protesters who were throwing the rocks. That's the irony of this," Day said.
Day added the actions were substantiated by the video that he has seen of the protests.
"Because they were not engaging in violence, it was noted that they were probably not protesters. I think that's a bit of an indictment against the violent protesters," Day said.

As Dawg asks, Is he out of his mind? This isn't what happened at all -- what video Day was watching anyway? Maybe he had another Niagara Falls moment and started thinking that the man in the suit was the undercover cop while the guys in the masks were the protesters.
I agree with Big City Lib:

. . . as a partisan Liberal I can only praise Allah that Public Security Minister Stockwell Day was kind enough to repeat this nonsense, thus dragging that Federal Conservatives right into the heart of the cover-up.

Oh, wait -- maybe THIS was the video that Day watched:

The macaca moment

One of the problems with the anti-globalization protest movement, from the WTO protests years ago in Seattle through to the Montebello protests this week, is the uniformly dismissive tone of the media coverage (some examples in my previous post.
The basic attitude taken by the press (by editors and publishers, of course, as well as by political reporters) has been that the protesters were frivolous and paranoid, the protests were violent and costly, and the police had every right to keep these nutcases far away from Our Very Serious Leaders Who Are Only Trying To Do What's Best For Us All.
The QPP agent provocateur story is a chink in the wall to change that attitude.
Protesters have been saying for years that authorities are trying to discredit protests by infiltration and underhanded tactics -- a hard case to make when the complaints are dismissed as paranoid nuts. But just as video exposed George Allan's "macaca" racism, video has now exposed the inept police "provocateurs" -- who quite obviously intended to provoke violence until the crowd stopped them. As Chet notes, the masks, anarchist outfits, and rocks were not just a fashion statement.

Who was that masked man?

August 22:

. . . Quebec's provincial force has flatly denied that its officers were involved in the incident.

August 23:

Quebec provincial police admitted Thursday that three of their officers disguised themselves as demonstrators during the protest at the North American leaders summit in Montebello, Que.

Now, what does this all remind me of? Oh, yes, Teh Shorter!

Shorter Quebec Provincial Police: Hey, were these the guys you were asking about?

Oh, we thought you meant these guys:

Never mind!

Well, golly

Hmmm...

President Bush summoned up the Alden Pyle CIA agent character of Graham Greene's classic Vietnam novel "The Quiet American" which is essentially a contemplation on the road to hell being paved with good intentions. . . . By reminding people of Greene's book, Bush was inviting listeners to recall the mistakes his administration made in entering and prosecuting the Iraq War. Did he really want to do that?

Well, golly! Maybe Bush actually meant to say Gomer Pyle?



Or even Goober Pyle?

Great line of the day

In Vietnam. Watergate. What's Next -- Disco?, Marty Kaplan says:

There's no longer any doubt about the master narrative of the Bush Administration. Their purpose is to re-litigate the 1970s. Nixon's downfall, let alone all that followed, clearly has stuck in Cheney's craw . . .
So what's next? . . . I'm putting my money on an attempt by GOP culure warriors to expunge disco from the national memory. Don't you have a feeling that this crowd is still in a world o' hurt from humiliations they suffered beneath a twirling mirrored ball yea many generations ago?

So when the 70s-era GOP asked "Do you think I'm sexy?", the answer they got was "No".

"in the best interests of police"

Ross at The Gazetteer has a lot of new information today about the police attempt to incite violence at the Montebello protests.
More here also at Canadian Cynic and Rusty Idols and an update from CBC on today's press conference.
There is, of course, no proof yet of anything untoward, and may never be, but a retired police officer contributes this to the discussion:

... a retired Ottawa police officer who was formerly in charge of overseeing demonstrations for the force said he questions who the masked men really are, after viewing the video.
"Were they legitimate protesters? I don’t think so," said Doug Kirkland.
"Well, if they weren't police, I think they might well have been working in the best interests of police."
He added that if the situation was as it appeared, he did not approve of the tactic. "It's pretty close to baiting," he said.

I'm not sure I understood this comment, but I thought it was an interesting perspective that it would be "in the best interests of police" to instigate a violent riot.
Donald Segretti would be so proud!

"This is our line"

Here is the YouTube video of the Montebello protest where Paperworkers union president Dave Coles outed three 'agents provocateurs' who may have been trying to start more riots:

. . . Coles makes it clear the masked men are not welcome among his group of protesters, whom he describes as mainly grandparents. He urges them to leave and find their own protest location.
Coles also demands that they put down their rocks. Other protesters begin to chime in that the three are really police agents. Several try to snatch the bandanas from their faces.
Rather than leave, the three actually start edging closer to the police line, where they appear to engage in discussions. They eventually push their way past an officer, whereupon other police shove them to the ground and handcuff them.
Late Tuesday, photographs taken by another protester surfaced, showing the trio lying prone on the ground. The photos show the soles of their boots adorned by yellow triangles. A police officer kneeling beside the men has an identical yellow triangle on the sole of his boot.
Kevin Skerrett, a protester with the group Nowar-Paix, said the photos and video together present powerful evidence that the men were actually undercover police officers.
"I think the circumstantial evidence is very powerful," he said.
The three do not appear to have been arrested or charged with any offence.

I looked through various websites to find these photos, but I couldn't find them.
The tone adopted by the media toward the protest coverage was, as usual, dismissive, describing protesters as "die-hards" and with headlines like Protests fizzle on Day 2 of summit. There was also supposed to be a "protest-cam" set up so that video of the protests could be broadcast to the hotel lobby (not that Harper or Bush would have looked at them) but this got derailed when the camera team was assaulted by protesters -- or were they actually protesters?

Home sweet home

When I googled "worst", this is one of the things that came up -- The Worst City Names in the World

1. Cockburn, Western Australia
2. Twatt, Scotland
3. Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu, New Zealand
4. Muff, Ireland
5. Looneyville, Texas
6. Titty Hill, Sussex, England
7. Thong, Kent, England
8. Gravesend, Kent, England
9. Wetwang, Yorkshire.
10. Spread Eagle, Wisconsin
11. Bald Knob, Arkansas, United States
12. Cockup, Cumbria, England
13. Whiskey Dick Mountain, Washington State
14. Hookersville, West Virginia
15. Hell, Michigan
16. Toad Suck, Arkansas
17. Middelfart, Denmark
18. Horneytown, North Carolina
19. Shitterton, Dorset, England
20. Disappointment, Kentucky
21. Fuking, Austria

They missed Moose Jaw!
This list apparently originated on a travel website which I couldn't open. So I don't know who put it together, but a number of blogs have it now.

Great photo of the day

from greenpagan: He Got Out While the Getting Was Good