Criminals?

I thought we were fighting a War against Terrorists.
Now I will grant you that a terrorist is a criminal.
But a criminal is not necessarily a terrorist.
A terrorist commits his or her crime for political reasons.
A criminal commits his or her crime mostly for personal reasons.

Yesterday President Bush kept calling the people the Iraqi government is trying to get rid of in Basra criminals.
...any government that presumes to represent the majority of people must confront criminal elements or people who think they can live outside the law. And that's what's taking place in Basra and in other parts of Iraq. I would say this is a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq.
...And one of the early questions I had to the Prime Minister was would he be willing to confront criminal elements, whether they be Shia or Sunni?
...And of course, routing out these folks who've burrowed in society, who take advantage of the ability to be criminals, or the ability to intimidate citizens, is going to take a while.

So why does Bush use the word criminal?
It is one thing to help the Iraqi government root out criminals.
It is quite another to be engaged in getting rid of terrorism.
So which is it, Mr. Bush?
Could you, for once, be clear on something, and give us some confidence you know what you are talking about and can explain it?

Questions

President Bush made a speech today, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war.
I have a few questions regarding some things he said (quoted verbatim):

"The men and women who crossed into Iraq five years ago removed a tyrant, liberated a country, and rescued millions from unspeakable horrors."
Is the country liberated? The oppression of Saddam is gone, but is the country now liberated?

“The battle in Iraq has been longer and harder and more costly than we anticipated”
Why didn’t you anticipate that?

“The terrorists who murder the innocent in the streets of Baghdad want to murder the innocent in the streets of America.”
How do you know this? And why would they, when they didn't want to do that before April 2003?

“The gains we have made (because of the surge) are fragile and reversible.”
What are you doing to make sure they are not reversed? Because in the same paragraph you say: “The surge is working. And as a return on our success in Iraq, we've begun bringing some of our troops home.”
A quote from somebody else: "There are those who say the Iraqi Army can control Iraq without the Americans. But they are liars. Without the Americans it would be impossible for us to control Iraq."
COL. ALI OMAR ALI, an Iraqi battalion commander in Mosul.

“For the terrorists, Iraq was supposed to be the place where al Qaeda rallied Arab masses to drive America out.”
Can you show this is so, in the light of the fact that Iraq housed no al Qaeda before April 2003?

“By spreading the hope of liberty in the Middle East, we will help free societies take root -- and when they do, freedom will yield the peace that we all desire.”
Can you give any examples of this so far, or show any demonstrable progress since September 11? (Besides the Iraqi elections, on which the verdict is still out, and which needed massive American support.)

“The battle in Iraq is noble, it is necessary, and it is just.”
Was it necessary to eliminate the threat of WMDs? Aside from the bravery and skill of our troups (which they would show in any battle anywhere), what has been noble about this war? There are very few world organizations or leaders, even (or especially) religious ones, who call it just. Why is that?

Rockin in the free world

I have long wanted to place this clip on my weblog, but I haven't found it until now.
It's from Fahrenheit 9/11 (I didn't care for the film that much, mostly because I thought it was not so well done.)
This is at the end of the film, with scenes from the film shown around the music. I had heard that Micheal Moore wanted to use the song by The Who, Won't get fooled Again, but didn't get permission from the rock band.
Neil Young was willing to let this song, written at the time of G. Bush Sr., to be used. (By the way, I think Sr. was a much better president than Jr.)
Anyway, here it is.

Money! Bombs! Jesus!

Great article today on PoliGazette about the Republican Party.
Click here for the whole article.
A few lines to give you an idea:

The Republican Party consists of three wings.

First, there’s the Money! wing, whose guiding principal is: “Money. More.” Then the Bombs! wing, whose guiding principal is, “Grrrr! Rrrowf! Rrrowf!.” And finally the Jesus! wing which believes God made gays on the seventh day at a wild post-creation party. (During which God did several things even He can’t remember. And woe unto he who remindeth Him.)

We are down to three Republican candidates, and each is not only a representative of one wing of the party, but the mathematically precise representative of that wing. Each of the three is the perfect embodiment, the distilled essence, of his wing of the GOP. Quite frankly, it’s eerie.

Money! Mitt Romney.
Bombs! John McCain.
Jesus! Mike Huckabee.

Most election years you get a candidate who represents Money! and one for Bombs! and one for Jesus! And in the end, the GOP weights their selection, with Money! naturally carrying the most weight, while Jesus! gets lip service and one chance to embarrass the country before all of western civilization. But this year there is no compromise. No synthesis. No candidate who represents anything other than his own wing.

The only uniting factor this year is that Bombs! and Jesus! really, really despise Money!
Bombs! and Jesus! united in a burning hatred of Money! Wow. I don’t know who wrote this script, but I have to say, as a Democrat, I’m liking it.

Deficits

News Item:
President Bush introduced a $3.1 trillion budget on Monday that supports sizable increases in military spending to fight the war on terrorism and protects his signature tax cuts.
Bush projects that the deficits, which had been declining, will soar to near-record levels, hitting $410 billion this year and $407 billion in 2009. The all-time high deficit in dollar terms was $413 billion in 2004.

According to FactCheck.org the Clinton Presidency did balance the budget and erase the federal deficit:

This chart, based on historical figures from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, shows the total deficit or surplus for each fiscal year from 1990 through 2006. Keep in mind that fiscal years begin Oct. 1, so the first year that can be counted as a Clinton year is fiscal 1994. The appropriations bills for fiscal years 1990 through 1993 were signed by Bill Clinton's predecessor, George H.W. Bush. Fiscal 2002 is the first for which President George W. Bush signed the appropriations bills, and the first to show the effect of his tax cuts.

Jim Wallis and Jon Stewart

Ninehundredthirtyfive false statements

The Center for Public Integrity reports on its investigation into the information disseminated by the Bush Administration in the run-up to the Iraq War.
The web page is here.
They count 935 false statements, 232 made by GW himself.
According to this report many of these statements were made in spite of what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis.
From the web page:

Bush and the top officials of his administration have so far largely avoided the harsh, sustained glare of formal scrutiny about their personal responsibility for the litany of repeated, false statements in the run-up to the war in Iraq. There has been no congressional investigation, for example, into what exactly was going on inside the Bush White House in that period. Congressional oversight has focused almost entirely on the quality of the U.S. government's pre-war intelligence — not the judgment, public statements, or public accountability of its highest officials. And, of course, only four of the officials — Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz — have testified before Congress about Iraq.
Short of such review, this project provides a heretofore unavailable framework for examining how the U.S. war in Iraq came to pass. Clearly, it calls into question the repeated assertions of Bush administration officials that they were the unwitting victims of bad intelligence.

It will be very interesting to see what the Republican candidate for President does with GW during the campaign this coming fall. And the role Iraq will play.
It's already clear that all the candidates, including Republicans, are calling for honesty en bipartisanship in Washington, and using hard language to describe the mess there. The same language GW used in 2000.

I still maintain that on a moral scale of nature of wrongdoing and effects on people's lives these false statements are far worse than lying about a blow job in the Oval Office.
Pardon my French.

P.S. If you look on the website of The Center for Public Integrity, and read about mission and staff of the Center (click here to do that), and decide that this is all propaganda of the liberal media, you are welcome to do that.
I would then sure like to see some proof from you that this data is not accurate (other than your screams of: "Liberal, biased media!").

Beggar

Imagine the President of the United States of America, with hat in hand, begging the leader of a third world country for anything.
Today George HW Bush did just that.
Click here for the rest of the story/commentary.

I don't know what you think of Maureen Dowd.
Sometimes you hate her, sometimes you love her.
This, from yesterday. Click here for the whole thing.

It took Mr. Bush almost his entire presidency to embrace diplomacy, but now that he’s in the thick of it, or perhaps the thin of it — given his speed-dating approach to statesmanship — he is kissing and holding hands with kings, princes, emirs, sheiks and presidents all over the Arab world and is trying to persuade them that he is not in a monogamous relationship with the Jews.
His message boiled down to: Iran bad, Israel good, Iraq doing better.
Blessed is the peacemaker who comes bearing a $30 billion package of military aid for Israel and a $20 billion package of Humvees and guided bombs for the Arabs.

help desk

Desmond Tutu

Archbisshop Desmond Tutu was interviewed last night on Dutch television.
If you want to watch the interview, you can. It lasts about 80 minutes, and you'll have to be patient through the first 2 or 3 minutes, as that is in Dutch. The rest is English.
Click here.
Well worth seeing.
Great interview, great person.
I'm sure he's not perfect, but he glows with a supernatural (I'd say it was divine) strength, love, grace, peace and joy.
Amazing, when you consider the difficulties under which he has had to live and work.
We all were able to follow the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commision in the 90s.
The work of this Commission was, during those years, very impressive.
Still is.
I am struck again by the combination of grace (amnesty) and truth.
The goal of the Commission was to be graceful, but they knew that could only be accomplished by having the truth be exposed.
Liberating for victim and perpetrator.
If this isn't gospel-driven, I don't know what is.
Great inspiration for 2008.

Married

Our son Ben married his Ramona last Saturday in a beautifully decorated old church in Hilversum, followed by a celebration in a cafe behind the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
For more pictures, click to my daughter's weblog.
I officiated the ceremony. I usually don't do that sort of thing for my own children, because I want to stand next to my wife and be husband and father on these occasions. But one thing led to another, and there I stood.
It was great.
The blessing is always the climax of any wedding service for me.
In order to bless Ben and Ramona with both hands (otherwise you have to choose which partner gets the blessing!....;-) I had to hand the microphone to the person standing close by.
Turned out to be my youngest son Will, a best friend of Ben.
Just today, when I saw this picture, I realized that he was blessing them too.

Revelation

It seems that people needed a special revelation (in addition to the Holy Writings) in order to understand and/or be filled with wonder at the birth of Jesus.
The shepherds saw angels and Gods glory in the sky.
The Wise Men a star.
Mary and Zacharia received a visit from the angel Gabriel.
Joseph dreamed.
Simeon experienced a direct revelation from the Holy Ghost.
We do not know how Anna received her prophecy.
We do know that she was a widow for eighty four years, serving in the temple, worshipping, fasting and praying night and day.
Elizabeth's baby lept in her womb, and she was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Why do we look down on special revelation of this kind in our time?
It seems that those folks needed it.
Why wouldn't we?

Christmas Mash-up

This video is going around the blogworld now.
Have a great Christmas!

Frozen mist

We had a fascinating weather phenomenon here on Saturday.
The thick mist in the air froze on everything.
It made quite a different picture than ice.
A real Narnia wonderland.
Two pictures.

Mid-Life

‘To hold the same views at forty as we held at twenty is to have been stupefied for a score of years, and take rank, not as a prophet, but as an unteachable brat, well birched and none the wiser.’

— Robert Louis Stephenson

Sometimes you can learn something from another weblog.

Lawsuit

I haven't blogged here for more than a week.
Don't worry, I still think George Bush is, at best, incompetent.
And I still believe neither HIllary, Obama or Guiliani will be the candidates for President.
But I've got something else on my mind.
I'm being sued. Yep, sued. I guess I'm American after all.
It's like this:
I own a duplex of rental appartments in Willow Grove, Pa.
Have for 30 years.
Last March a lady fell on the sidewalk, broke her wrist, and is suing me for damages.
"In excess of $50,000."
Turns out the person managing the property (a professional realtor) did not keep the insurance up to date, so I am not insured for this.
I've been busy looking for a lawyer to defend me, no easy job from this distance.
Fortunately my son and daughter-in-law are studying law at Rutgers in Camden, and they have helped me get some good referrals.

But that doesn't soften the blow of having to write a check for a large sum of money that will gain me exactly what I would gain if I took that cash and threw it in the fireplace (except that I have the joy of knowing I am helping the lawyer pay for his yacht.....;-).

This situation does raise interesting faith questions:
1. How important is money to me really?
2. Do I really believe that God will take care of me and my retirement?
3. And how do I not let these circumstances ruin this holiday season in which we will be together as a family to celebrate the marriage of Ben and Ramona (our second child and his wife)?

OK. Deep breath. Let's go.

If it's broke, fix it

Here's a little parable about the George Bush government and some marriages:

Health Insurance

Today's my day off, and there are some interesting things going on in the world, so there may be a couple of logs today.
This one is about health insurance, which is a hot issue on the candidate trails.
Michael Moore's Sicko is now playing in Holland, but not at a convenient time for me today, otherwise I would go see it.
I read the weblog Real Live Preacher.
Guy is a pastor of a small church in Texas and a crackerjack writer.
He almost joined the ranks of the uninsured.

Jeanene and I work hard. We’ve never been unemployed. In fact, for the last decade, we’ve had three jobs between us. We don’t smoke and we don’t take risks. We’ve never had a single major medical incident. You’d think a company would want to insure us. No. And we came just that close to being uninsured.

Read the whole thing here.
Something needs to be fixed, and I hope you guys elect someone who will fix it.
But I'm not holding my breath.

Predictions 2008

It's a little early for predictions for 2008, but here are some of mine:

1. The situation in Iraq will stay quiet. Bush will claim credit for that.
2. Progress will be made in Middle East peace talks. Bush will claim credit for that.
3. A surgical airstrike will be made against Iran to take out a facility which, as will be claimed, is being used to make an A-bomb. No all out war, just a (successful, of course) surgical strike. Bush will claim credit for that.
3. Neither Hillary, Obama or Rudolph will be the candidates. Both the Republican and Democratic candidates will be white Anglo-Saxon males, middle of the road, with very few real differences between them. They will both look like Bush.
4. The election will be again decided with a 51-49% margin in the popular vote. The Republican will win (see points 1-3 above). Bush will take credit for that, even though the Republican candidate will not want him to campaign for or with him.
5. Essentially, nothing will change. Bush will take credit for that.

Shit.

Think positive

"The reason I don't worry about society is, 19 people knocked down two buildings and killed thousands.
Hundreds of people ran into those buildings to save them.
I'll take those odds every day."

Jon Stewart (I'm sure he didn't think this up. A writer did.)

About being positive.