Year: 2006

The Associated Press has gotten their hands on video footage of a teleconference between members of FEMA and the President of the United States just a day before Hurricane Katrina made landfall. In the video various officials give their take on how bad a disaster Katrina would be and voice concerns over various ‘what-if’ scenarios.

Don’t bother to watch the video or read the story. I’ll give you the whole thing right here.

If you were to watch this video without the narration of the AP reporter, you would see real people voicing human concerns. You’d see worry. You’d see seriousness. You’d see a commitment of help from various agencies including the White House. You’d see people trying to predict the unpredictable.

But that’s not what the Associated Press wants you to see, or hear. The AP, who obtained this video exclusively, uses the content in an attempt to prove that everyone from FEMA to state and local officials were begging; no, pleading with President Bush to understand the scale of the storm and react accordingly.

In other words, the premise of the AP story is as follows:

Everyone in the country knew Katrina was a big, bad, killer BEFORE the storm hit. The day before the storm, everyone in the country KNEW THE LEVEES WOULD BE BREACHED.

President Bush…

A. Knew how bad Katrina would be

B. Was warned a thousand times by EVERYONE

C. Had some supernatural power to stop the storm in its track

D. Didn’t use the supernatural power because he didn’t care a wit.

The president has already admitted that the federal government reacted slowly to Katrina and could have done better. State and local officials confessed their lack of coordination, and pointed to the failure of their communication apparatus on the ground as a major factor in the slowness of relief response.

EVERYONE has said they learned a serious lesson from Katrina. EVERYONE has pledged to do a better job next time.

But, that’s not enough.

The Associated Press and the rest of the MSM believe differently. The other people – the agencies, the state and local officials, the Governor of Louisiana, the Mayor of New Orleans and every Tom, Dick or Harry inhabiting the Gulf Coast region would have been spared and saved from Katrina if George W. Bush would have used his supernatural powers to stop the approaching storm. But he knowingly did nothing, and for that, Bush deserves to be impeached.

That’s what this AP story is all about.

President Bush made an unannounced stop in Afghanistan today while en route to India.

The US president’s un-scheduled stop in Kabul came as he made his way to New Delhi, where he was to be greeted by some of the most pro-American metropolitan elites in the world. Mr Bush’s approval ratings may have dropped to a low of 34 per cent at home, but in India, they are double that.

There was a lot of talk yesterday about that dubious approval rating percentage, yet the accuracy of the poll doesn’t seem to matter to MSNBC.

The Kabul visit was part of a four-day south Asian tour that has offered him the prospect of a rare foreign policy success. Accompanied by Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, and Stephen Hadley, national security adviser, Mr Bush behaved warmly towards Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, who hailed him as a friend and liberator of the Afghan people.

Behaved warmly? As opposed to what – misbehaving coldly? Weird.

Yet, at a press conference interrupted by the roar of military aircraft, Mr Bush struggled to explain why the Taliban were still a force in Afghanistan and why Osama Bin Laden, famously “wanted dead or alive”, was still on the loose.

Mr Bush said he was confident of the capture of the mastermind of the September 11 attacks and of Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar. “It’s not a matter of if they’re captured, it’s a matter of when they’re brought to justice,” Mr Bush said.

Forget about the fact that Afghanistan is a mountainous region where it’s very easy to hide. That makes it difficult enough to find bin Laden. The other real problem is one of sympathy. There are many Afghanis who like bin Laden and are willing to help him. Likewise, the Pakistanis. As long as someone is willing to lie to keep bin Laden hidden, this cat and mouse game will continue.

That the White House felt it necessary to keep the visit secret speaks volumes about the unfinished job facing coalition forces in Afghanistan, where the US lost more lives last year than in any since the invasion and removal of the Taliban.

When reporters on Air Force One asked about a rumoured stopover in Afghanistan at a refuelling stop at Shannon airport in Ireland, Mr Hadlee responded curtly: “We’re briefing India and Pakistan. That’s the trip that we’re talking to you about.”

A similar information blackout surrounds his trip to Pakistan, for which no formal schedule has been published, reflecting unease at the swelling wave of anti-western riots triggered by the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

Ah, the MSM. Always looking for a controversy. A scandal. There is none of that here. Not announcing a stop over in Afghanistan is purely an issue of security. Just as Bush didn’t announce his surprise Thanksgiving Day visit to Iraq a couple of years ago, he can’t preannounce a visit to a place where terrorist attacks might occur. If the administration were to hype a visit like this, half a dozen suicide bombers would be raising their hands to voluntarily ‘meet’ the president at the airport.

I think this is just another case of the MSM feeling hurt by not being in the loop. They hate that.

Visiting Kabul is a smart move by the president. It serves a dual purpose – he gets to visit with a new American ally, President Hamid Karzai, and he gets an opportunity to be with US troops – always a morale booster.

As the World (of Saddam) Turns.

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein admitted on Wednesday he had ordered the trial of Muslim Shi’ites who were executed in the 1980s and said he had approved the “razing” of their farms.

Saddam made the extraordinary confessions during his second day in court this week, where prosecutors read out documents, showed satellite images and played audio tapes in an attempt to link Saddam to the execution of 148 Shi’ites after a 1982 assassination attempt on his life in Dujail.

“I referred them to the revolutionary court according to the law. Awad was implementing the law, he had a right to convict and acquit,” Saddam said, referring to his co-accused Awad al- Bandar, the former chief of the Revolutionary Court.

“I razed them … we specified the farmland of those who were convicted and I signed,” Saddam told the court trying him for crimes against humanity.

“It’s the right of the state to re-own or compensate. So where is the crime?”

It’s hard to know if Saddam is resigned to the fact that he’ll be convicted and executed for crimes against humanity. At certain points the ex-dictator speaks as if he believes he’s invincible. We’ve heard him say over and over again how he believes he’s still the president of Iraq. I’m he has people around him who give reports on the insurgent movement within the country. He could believe completely delusional and think that eventually the terrorists will win and that will usher in a triumphant return to power. At other times, he speaks as if he knows the odds are against him. Lunatic rantings? i doubt it. Deep down I would bet most people believe Saddam is a pretty smart guy, and he knows exactly what is happening to him and his country.

The trial has adjourned until March 12.

This sets a new standard.

A couple, aged 83 and 78 respectively, are suing their upstairs neighbor for bathing too early in the morning.

h/t Overlawyered via Coyote Blog

Joe Gandelman looks at the Cheney retirement rumor mill. I really couldn’t care less if the Veep retires before the ‘08 election cycle or not. From the day he was elected with Bush he made it clear that he wasn’t going to run for president. If Karl Rove believes that a sitting vice president makes the best possible presidential candidate, Cheney will step aside and someone else will be brought in. Where’s the controversy?

Forget all the statistics contained in the Zogby poll released today which purports to show that 72% of U.S. troops in Iraq say the war should end this year. It’s all suspect as far as I’m concerned. Yet, this paragraph stood out to me as important:

Different branches had quite different sentiments on the question, the poll shows. While 89% of reserves and 82% of those in the National Guard said the U.S. should leave Iraq within a year, 58% of Marines think so. Seven in ten of those in the regular Army thought the U.S. should leave Iraq in the next year. Moreover, about three-quarters of those in National Guard and Reserve units favor withdrawal within six months, just 15% of Marines felt that way. About half of those in the regular Army favored withdrawal from Iraq in the next six months.

So, what’s the one real take-away fact from this poll?

Reservists and National Guard troops are wimps.*

Marines rock.*

End of story.

Others: John Hawkins on another bogus poll – CBS’ Bush Approval Rating  – “For political purposes, any poll that doesn’t use likely voters and doesn’t have a breakdown of party affiliation that’s at least roughly similar to the numbers from the last election isn’t very important or useful.”

(*My statement on the abilities of a segment of our armed services is as valid as the results of the poll itself. Lighten up.)

Over the weekend, the Bush administration agreed to hold off execution of their contract allowing Dubai Ports World to manage 6 US ports for 45 days so federal investigators could take another look at the deal in light of potential risks to national security. Since then, more damaging information has come to light adding to the pile of existing damaging information which leads one to ask the question – why take 45 days? Everything seems to point to the fact that this deal is not only dead, it’s deader than dead. But that’s where it gets interesting. Even though the matter has been on high boil for more than a week now, President Bush continues to support the transaction.

Bush suggested there was no reason to think the second investigation would produce any different outcome than the first.

“I look forward to a good, consistent review,” he said as he and Berlusconi alternated in taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office.

He urged Congress to “please, look at the facts.”

“What kind of signal does it send throughout the world if its OK for a British company to mange the ports but not a company that has been secured — that has been cleared for security purposes from the Arab world?” he said.

I understand his point about the double standard, even though I think his example is a bit flawed. Wouldn’t we trust Britain quicker than a country with a history of harboring terrorists? But, I digress…

If after 45 days this 2nd investigation shows that the first looksee failed in some way, will Bush backtrack? Will he be forced to? Will this be a case where the political aspirations of a Congress facing mid-term elections get in the way of a President who needs war time cooperation from an Arab country?

I doubt it.

Bush isn’t the type to react to short-term political consequences when compared to long-term national security matters. If you believe that the UAE port deal is a safe one for the US, as the president clearly does, then you’ll stand with him as he bucks all arguments and uses his VETO pen as previously threatened to make sure the deal goes through. No matter the political cost, Bush will put long-term security issues ahead of anyone’s political career, and that includes Republicans.

And you know what? I respect him for that.

Treasures still exist.

Dozens of never before released photos from the civil rights era came to light this weekend after an intern discovered them buried in an equipment closet at the Birmingham News.

The photos had been in a box marked: “Keep. Do Not Sell.” But at the time they were taken, the newspaper didn’t want to draw attention to the racial discord of the 1950s and 1960s, news photographers from the period said.

“The editors thought if you didn’t publish it, much of this would go away,” said Ed Jones, 81, a photographer at The News from 1942 to 1987. “Associated Press kept on wanting pictures, and The News would be slow on letting them have them, so they flooded the town with photographers.”

Dozens of never before released photos from the civil rights era came to light this weekend after an intern discovered them buried in an equipment closet at the Birmingham News.

Several photos vividly show the segregation in the South at the time, including the disparity among school buildings and the different lines for blacks and whites, even at the jail as the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth posts bail after an arrest.

Others show confrontations: a police officer shoving a demonstrator, black children hit with the spray of a firehose, crowds heckling demonstrators on their knees, Freedom Riders being arrested, and whites throwing bricks at cars and blocking blacks from entering “whites-only” areas.

One photo shows a Ku Klux Klan rally with men wearing hoods but their faces uncovered. Others show National Guardsmen with their guns drawn, protecting a bus in one and rounding up rioters protesting a black student’s enrollment at the University of Mississippi.

Some of the unpublished photos are online, here.

All I can say is, has a certain geographical place, way way deep underground, suddenly froze over?

When it comes to reforming the disgraceful United Nations Human Rights Commission, America’s ambassador, John Bolton, is right; Secretary General Kofi Annan is wrong; and leading international human rights groups have unwisely put their preference for multilateral consensus ahead of their duty to fight for the strongest possible human rights protection. A once-promising reform proposal has been so watered down that it has become an ugly sham, offering cover to an unacceptable status quo. It should be renegotiated or rejected.

Yeah, that’s the New York Times. It must have been a hard one for them to swallow, especially when the focus of their praise is someone like John Bolton, the recess appointee anointed by the great satan they call George W. Bush.

Strange days indeed.

This is wrong, very wrong.