The Vacationer in Chief is on holiday in Texas while Iraq is spiralling out of control and Rice slithers her way out of any awkward corners at the 9/11 hearings. Rummy adds to his library of insouciant remarks, Afghanistan worsens and bull riding is making a step into the major leagues, but they better test for BSE because downer bulls dont' make for much of a ride.

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Breaking News: Texas Vacation

With hell breaking loose in Iraq and Washington, George Bush is, apparently, bushed. This week, as US forces suffered the heaviest casualties of the war and Iraq threatens to plunge into chaos, Bush is vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. That maybe hard for most of us to believe since any working stiff who had to do deal with some crises or another on the job couldn't possibly consider bugging out for a holiday. But not Double-Yew. As Rice testifies before the 9/11 commission and demonstrates her dreadful disconnect with an urgent and impending reality, so too goes George. And wouldn't a National Security Advisor sort of be advising the President that a vacation right now might not be the best option. Of course, as feckless and detached as Bush is, it proabably doesn't matter whether he is around or not. BHC readers will recall that Bush was in Texas, on vacation, for the entire month of August, 2001, a mere six months after taking office and while FBI warnings spilled in, CIA memos flew about and Richard Clarke's hair was on fire. There appears to be nothing that will deter the Commander-in-Chief from his duly appointed vacations. And, gentle readers, haven't there been a whole bunch of those? Conveniently, the Washington Post has compiled a description of all that vacation time George has taken in three years:

This is Bush's 33rd visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of 233 days on his Texas ranch since taking office. Adding his 78 visits to Camp David and his five visits to Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush has spent all or part of 500 days in office at one of his three retreats, or more than 40 percent of his presidency.

Bush declared in his Meet the Press interview that he is a "war president" who had "war on his mind." Yeah, war on his mind but a holiday in his heart.


Read about the slacker....

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Sucker Punch

Al Jazeera reported, as did the western press, of the ceasefire announced by IGC administrator, Paul Bremer, in and around Fallujah on Friday which would ostensibly allow women and children out of the area. What the western press did not report was that minutes after the announcement, US forces bombarded the town with air strikes. The BHC can well imagine this was rather confusing to Iraqis who were trying to get the hell of the place. But it would appear that Bremer and military officials are also confused, which would seem not to be that much of a concern to them. Of course, they are not ones being blown up:

"As of noon today coalition forces have initiated a unilateral suspension of offensive operations in Falluja," Paul Bremer told reporters on Friday.

Minutes after Bremer's announcement, US forces carried out a fresh offensive on Falluja bombing the town from the air. Scores of residents were injured in the attack....

"There is no brokered agreement for a ceasefire in Falluja," Kimmitt told AFP. "There is no agreement between the rebels and the coalition forces."

Winning the hearts and minds...one offensive at a time.


Read it....

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Die the Friendly Skies

What do you call it when the US army mistakenly shoots down an allied aircraft with a Patriot missile and then blames the pilots of the aircraft which was summarily blown out of the sky? American Missile defense!

An RAF Tornado aircraft went down in March, 2003, during the initial invasion of Iraq. The two British airmen died and it now appears that a vaunted American Patriot missile system, i.e. friendly fire, was what took them out. It would seem that the missile system identified the jet fighter as an enemy missile because, you know, what else could it be? Naturally, US army officials blamed the British flight crew because, you know, who else's fault could it be? This little nugget has been reported by a US journalist, Robert Riggs, who was embedded with the unit which shot down the aircraft and also said that misidentifications of aircraft and missiles were happening "dozens of times a day" in just the one unit he was with. This speaks greatly of the advanced abilities of world's most successful missile system. Despite Riggs being a US correspondent, you won't read this story in the US press. The BBC had to bring it to the public's attention.

"But, wait," BHC readers will no doubt be saying, "what about the great job those Patriot missiles did during the first gulf war?" Ahh, indeed, that was an happy story. And a story it was, too. Unfortunate, and little reported, was the fact that while the Patriot missile was being advertised as the thing that was saving Israel when Hussein started launching scuds at that country, the reality proved much less dramatic. It came to light that the army could not demonstrate that Patriot missiles had actually shot down anything and it would seem that, fortunately, the scud missiles were even more notoriously unreliable than the Patriots which were supposedly taking them out. To date, there is not one documented case of a Patriot missile knocking a scud out of the sky.

Readers will recall from the BHC, Vol 17, that the White House plans to install yet another dysfunctional missile defense system in Alaska this summer. Airline pilots and passengers on circumpolar flight paths will, no doubt, be overjoyed at this development.


Read it....

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Going, Going, Gone

While the situation in Iraq continued to devolve into something closely approximating civil war, Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, offered America his exacting and cogent insight into the way things are there:

"We're trying to explain how things are going, and they are going as they are going"

The BHC imagines this might mean something to The Donald and other White House principles equally adept at issuing words completely devoid of content but to rest of us, it harks back to his previous and equally worthless spewlings about known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns and, of course, those perilous unknown unknowns.


Read this and weep...

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What You Didn't Know and When You Didn't Know It

The colossal volume of consonants and vowels emanating from Condolezza Rice's mouth during her appearance before the 9/11 commission this past week was surely astounding. Indeed, so great was the verbal flux, a listener was pressed to recall the original question. And for all the verbiage, nothing of any consequence was uttered. There was, however, one overarching feeling one could not help but capture from the mostly obfuscatory testimony: White House principles sat around waiting for somebody to tell them what to do. Presented with a barrage of warnings that something big was going to happen soon, that Al-Qaeda had sleeper cells in the US, that hijackings were in the offing, the National Securtiy Advisor and the President did nothing because no one told them to do anything. Hmm. Interesting perspective on being in charge. Normally, the boss gathers information provided by subordinates, figures out what to do, gets others to do it. But not in this White House, which appears to take the position that the president is Lackey-in-Chief, someone waiting around to be told what to do.

The episode was painful listening. Rice routinely ignored questions only to ramble on about some administration talking point. But the most disconcerting, if not entertaining, exchange came during former Navy Secretary Lehman's questioning. A series of rapid fire questions about what Rice knew or did not know, painfully illustrated a National Security Advisor disconnected, dissociated and completely unfamiliar with her job description (this is a bit long but brutally illustrative and BHC editors have trimmed extraneous words to demonstrate the core of the exchange):

LEHMAN: ...were you told before the summer that there were functioning al Qaeda cells in the United States?

RICE: In the memorandum that Dick Clarke sent me on January 25th, he mentions sleeper cells. There is no mention or recommendation of anything that needs to be done about them. And the FBI was pursuing them.

LEHMAN: Were you told that there were numerous young Arab males in flight training, had taken flight training, were in flight training?

RICE: I was not.

LEHMAN: Were you told that the U.S. Marshal program had been changed to drop any U.S. marshals on domestic flights?

RICE: I was not told that.

LEHMAN: Were you told that the red team in FAA -- the red teams for 10 years had reported their hard data that the U.S. airport security system never got higher than 20 percent effective and was usually down around 10 percent for 10 straight years?

RICE: To the best of my recollection, I was not told that.

LEHMAN: Were you aware that INS had been lobbying for years to get the airlines to drop the transit without visa loophole that enabled terrorists and illegals to simply buy a ticket through the transit-without- visa-waiver and pay the airlines extra money and come in?

RICE: I learned about that after September 11th.

LEHMAN: Were you aware that the INS had quietly, internally, halved its internal security enforcement budget?

RICE: I was not made aware of that. I don't remember being made aware of that, no.

LEHMAN: Were you aware that it was the U.S. government established policy not to question or oppose the sanctuary policies of New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, San Diego for political reasons, which policy in those cities prohibited the local police from cooperating at all with federal immigration authorities?

RICE: I do not believe I was aware of that.

LEHMAN: Were you aware [...] of the program that was well established that allowed Saudi citizens to get visas without interviews?

RICE: I learned of that after 9/11.

LEHMAN: Were you aware of the activities of the Saudi ministry of religious affairs here in the United States during that transition?

RICE: I believe that only after September 11th did the full extent of what was going on with the ministry of religious affairs became evident. [Ed., translation: No.]

LEHMAN: Were you aware of the extensive activities of the Saudi government in supporting over 300 radical teaching schools and mosques around the country [sic], including right here in the United States?

RICE: I believe we've learned a great deal more about this and addressed it with the Saudi government since 9/11. [Ed., translation: No.]

LEHMAN: Were you aware at the time of the fact that Saudi Arabia had ... in their custody the CFO and the closest confidant of al Qaeda -- of Osama bin Laden, and refused direct access to the United States?

RICE: I don't remember anything of that kind.

LEHMAN: Were you aware that they would not cooperate and give us access to the perpetrators of the Khobar Towers attack?

RICE: I was very involved in issues concerning Khobar Towers and our relations with several governments concerning Khobar Towers. [Ed., translation: not decipherable]

LEHMAN: Were you aware that it was the policy of the Justice Department ... to fine airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning because that's discriminatory?

RICE: No....

LEHMAN: Were you aware that the FAA up until 9/11 thought it was perfectly permissible to allow four-inch knife blades aboard?

RICE: I was not aware.


"I was not aware." Yes, Condi, that much is clear.


This exchange from page 4 of the transcript....

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War Pact

The UK Guardian offered a heads up about a Vanity Fair story this month wherein it is revealed by former British Ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, that Bush and Blair agreed to the invasion of Iraq just nine days after 9/11. The initial exchange apparently occurred at a White House dinner to honour Tony Blair's first (and possibly last) visit to the U.S.. At this point, readers of the BHC will likely respond with a big yawn. Not that this is a criticism of the Vanity Fair story. Not at all. In fact, this brings to the fore further evidence that Richard Clarke rightly asserted that Bush was focused on the wrong thing and the White House denials of Clarke's claims are just business as usual. We have heard so many reports of Bush's singular, resolute focus on invading Iraq from the moments he gained office, this shouldn't really surprise anyone who's paying attention. Sadly, that still seems to be less than half the population of this country, who are, no doubt, keen to see the Professional Bull Riding circuit blossom into a major league sport.


Read it....

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The Buck Won't Stop Here

Speaking of.... It appears to have struck the Professional Bull Riders Inc. that a void exists in the American entertainment industry, which, in their minds, clearly lacks enough violent amusements to keep Americans distracted from the actual, real violence and horror routinely rifling other parts of the world. The purveyors of rodeo "entertainment" are looking to move the sport of bull riding into the mainstream American conscience which shouldn't prove too difficult. Moving such a commodity into the mainstream American conscience is not, generally, a formidible task, when one can promote the horrendous physical harm bull riders might suffer during a ride on a twisting, writhing, two thousand pound heap of angry beef in what is generally considered the world's most dangerous eight seconds in sports.


Read it....

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War Rules!

As uncertainty, piss poor planning, carnage and mayhem circle Iraq like buzzards around a gut-wagon, US officials have tried to point out how grand things are in Afghanistan. Well, they ought not point for too long because the war lords there are now on the rise. Forces of Uzbek warlord, Abdul Rashid Dostum, have overrun, and now control, the capital of the northern province of Faryab, Maymana.

Amusingly, Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali whinges, "What General Dostum has done is against all military rules and the constitution of Afghanistan."

Uhh...warlord.

The BHC is confounded by what the US has done, yet again, to the besotted people of Afghanistan. After arming the mujahadeen in their struggle against the Soviet occupation, the US promptly evaporated from the country and left it decrepit and destitute from the near decade-long Soviet seige. The mujahadeen then transmogrified into what is now thought of as Al-Qaeda while warlordism ruled the country. Now, after bombing hell out of the place, the US has lurched into Iraq, mostly abandoning Afghanis while conditions there are ripening to became the same as those which spawned Taliban rule and Al Qaeda. How can we do this again?!


Read it....

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It's Off to Islam We Go

Rawanda has been a predominantly Catholic country for more than a century. But it now appears that many Rawandans, appalled by the role that some Roman Catholic priests and nuns had in the obscene genocide of Tutsis by Hutu militias during the '90s, are turning toward Islam. Apparently Muslim leaders were able to protect most Muslims during the rampaging, and, indeed, managed to help many non-Muslims. It would seem that the safest place a Tutsi could be was in a Muslim neighbourhood. And now Islam is the country's fastest growing religion and has doubled its following in the last 10 years.

Naturally, remaining Catholics have determined that the God saved them, while abandoning untold masses to the blades of Hutu machetes. Cants one particularly clueless dolt: "He was testing my faith....I have more of a connection with God." Guess the countless dead were wretched heathens worthy only of being hewn asunder.


Read it....

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Bug Off

How much longer will it be before the rest of the country recognises what the residents of Ingleside, California obviously do and demonstrated with their rejection of a ballot initiative which would have allowed rapacious retailer, Wal-Mart, to build one of their ghastly "super-stores" in the blue-collar suburb of LA; that Wal-Mart contributes nothing positive to its environment? Indeed, the Wal-Mart complex would have been completely exempt from state and local laws. This is generally a requirement of Wal-Mart, and allows them their anti-democratic practice of proscribing unions, which would demand decent wages and benefits, something Wal-Mart does not and will not abide. In fact, Wal-Mart's own supervisor manual reads, "Wal-Mart is opposed to unionization. You, as a manager, are expected to support the company’s position. . . . This may mean walking a tightrope between legitimate campaigning and improper conduct." Sweet. It doesn't stop there. Wal-Mart has been repeatedly convicted and fined for sexual discrimination, disability discrimination and violations of worker's compensation and child labour laws.

The vice president of corporate affairs at Wal-Mart, Bob McAdam, announced his disappointment over the vote and with such an egregious demonstration of civic awareness and concern.

The legacy of Wal-Mart's insatiable predation upon local economic infrastructures is well documented and Americans seem finally to be waking up and realising that there is more to life, living and community than seven dollar hair driers and plastic, Chinese patio furniture.


Read it....

Read about the real cost of Wal-Mart's low cost economic model.

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Mad Cow Mad Men

After the mad cow madness a few months ago, one couldn't be faulted for imagining that the US Department of Agriculture might be inclined toward large scale testing of American cattle that Japan and Europe insist upon. Indeed, cattlemen are in a bad way as Japan still won't import any US beef since their testing requirements have not been met. Chafed by the USDA's indolence, Kansas independent producer, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wanted to move forth and use a newly approved rapid test, which Japan and Europe currently employ, on all their cattle. Presumably, tested animals can then be shipped to Japan. Well, the wisdom of the USDA is such that it has refused to allow the producer to test all of its cattle, claiming that such comprehesive testing is not "scientifically warranted." Apparently, the USDA believes that less testing is better and ensures healthier animals.

Well, gentle readers, as you might expect there is another, more venal aspect to the story than that which the USDA would have Americans believe. Lobby groups (yep, you knew they'd make an appearance) for the beef industry have bent the government regulatory body to their collective will, which is to oppose most testing and regulation. This from an administration insistent upon allowing industries to regulate themselves, unless, of course, a few free wheelers try to blow the whole deal by doing too much testing and self-governance. That is simply beyond the pale.

Read it....

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Whew, we're stuffed!