Bush trips over Abu Ghraib pronunciation Reuters.com

Two rehearsals for his prime-time speech were not enough to keep U.S. President George W. Bush from mangling the name of the Abu Ghraib prison that brought shame to the U.S. mission in Iraq.

During the half-hour televised address, Bush mispronounced Abu Ghraib each of the three times he mentioned it while announcing U.S. plans to tear down the infamous jail and replace it with a new facility.

The prison, the scene of torture under Saddam Hussein and the setting for the Iraqi prison abuse scandal under the U.S. military, has a name that English speakers usually pronounce as ”abu-grabe.”

But the Republican president, long known for verbal and grammatical lapses, stumbled on the first try, calling it ”abugah-rayp”. The second version came out ”abu-garon”, the third attempt sounded like ”abu-garah”.

White House aides, who described the speech as an important address on the future of Iraq, said Bush practised twice on Monday before boarding his helicopter for his trip to the speaking venue at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Bush’s Remarks on Iraq at the Army War College (washingtonpost.com)

I’ve come here tonight to report to all Americans, and to the Iraqi people, on the strategy our nation is pursuing in Iraq and the specific steps we’re taking to achieve our goals.

Five Points of Reality That Bush Overlooked (washingtonpost.com)By Jim Hoagland

Dear Mr. President:

I write as someone who has supported regime change in Iraq far longer than you or your aides. I have given your policies the benefit of the doubt….

[Your recent speech shows] a willingness to see the world as you would like it to be rather than as it is, and a readiness to hope that the gap goes unnoticed or unexamined. With all respect, sir, that is not leadership. …

This steadily wavering image is at the core of the decline in your approval ratings. Americans stop supporting wars not because of body counts alone but because they become convinced their leaders do not know what they are doing. They then stop supporting the leaders. …

Most important, move away from the obsession with secrecy that is a cancer at the center of your administration.

washingtonpost.com: Bush Approval Ratings

CBS News | Poll: Iraq Taking Toll On Bush | May 24, 2004 23:51:30

The President’s approval rating has dropped to a new low of 41 percent, and more than six in ten say the country is heading in the wrong direction. …

DIRECTION OF THE COUNTRY
Right direction
30%

Wrong track
65%

The last time the percentage that said the country was on the wrong track was as high as it is now was in November 1994, as Republicans swept into control of both houses of Congress for the first time in decades. …

WAS U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN IRAQ A MISTAKE?
Yes 50%
No 46%

Lots more figures in this poll (see link above; link below it to a separate Washington Post poll). mjh

Washington Post/ABC News poll

Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?

Approve STRONGLY 31%
Approve SOMEWHAT 17%
Disapprove SOMEWHAT 14%
Disapprove STRONGLY 36%
DK/No opinion 3%

Report: al-Qaida Ranks Swelling Worldwide By BARRY RENFREW

[International Institute of Strategic Studies said in its annual survey of world affairs] that the two military centerpieces of the U.S.-led war on terror — the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — may have boosted al-Qaida.

Driving the terror network out of Afghanistan in late 2001 appears to have benefited the group, which dispersed to many countries, making it almost invisible and hard to combat, the story said.

And the Iraq conflict ”has arguably focused the energies and resources of al-Qaida and its followers while diluting those of the global counterterrorism coalition that appeared so formidable” after the Afghan intervention, the survey said.

The U.S. occupation of Iraq brought al-Qaida recruits from across Islamic nations, the study said. Up to 1,000 foreign Islamic fighters have infiltrated Iraqi territory, where they are cooperating with Iraqi insurgents, the survey said. …

The London-based institute is considered the most important security think tank outside the United States. Its findings on al-Qaida’s expanding structure and growing support by allied terrorist networks around the world track with similar assessments from governments and other experts.

Are you safer than you were 4 years ago? Of course not! Given unprecedented power and money, Bush has made things far worse. You want 4 more years of this? mjh

Question: who has more responsibility for the horrors of Abu Ghraib? Duhbya Bush or Gloria Steinem? mjh

Nightmare of Iraq prison abuse is rooted in coed basic training by Cal Thomas

From the ”don’t ask, don’t tell” policy pertaining to homosexuals in the military, to the politically correct assignment of women at the most sensitive levels, politicians, military and civilian commanders pretend that the powerful sex drive can be controlled and made irrelevant in the pursuit of military objectives. …

Congress and the Pentagon need to do something about coed basic training and the assignment of women to certain jobs that put them and what should be the military’s primary goals at risk. If they do, they are likely to find a connection between the disciplinary breakdown at the jail of ill repute in Iraq and the sexual politics of people who think the military is just one more sociological playground which can be changed into something it isn’t.

I knew gays and feminists were to blame for 9-11. Now, thanks to the deep thinking of Calcified Cal, we know Abu Ghraib is also their fault.

Suddenly, I’m reminded of the General Turgidson in Dr Strangelove, with his obsession over the purity of his personal bodily fluids. Cal Thomas’s column must actually be written by Al Franken — surely a conservative can’t be such an idiot. mjh

I got these images as an email attachment from a friend and decided to turn them into a rotating display.mjh

Bush Bumper Stickers

Add this code to your own page:
<iframe src="http://www.RooftopRevolt.com/stickers/index.htm" width="405" height="105" scrolling="no"><a href="http://www.RooftopRevolt.com/stickers/index.htm">Bush Bumper Stickers</a></iframe>

(just select the blue text and copy and paste into your own webpage or blog) or link directly to these scrolling bumper stickers.

Bush Bumper Stickers, part of my Rooftop Revolt — Overthrow Bush

Civil Libertarians Created ‘The Wall’ That Aided 9-11 By Heather Mac Donald, LATimes

It’s time to connect the dots: Decades of unjustified and unnecessary restrictions — pushed through by hysterical civil libertarians — paralyzed U.S. counterterrorism capacities before 9/11. And despite the terrible price we paid for it on that day, the nation appears poised to repeat those mistakes….

As the recent 9/11 commission hearings showed, no impediment to national security was more deadly or nonsensical than the ”wall” separating intelligence and criminal terrorism investigators.

The wall grew out of the post-Watergate belief that U.S. citizens face no greater enemy than their own government. …

But getting a terrorism wiretap against a U.S. citizen requires virtually the same level of evidence as a criminal wiretap. …

Before 9/11, the specter of civil-liberties violations reliably defeated sound national-security policy. We are heading in that dangerous direction again.

[Heather Mac Donald is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.]

So, who is to blame for 9-11? Civil libertarians, that’s who! Democracy is too hard to defend; it will be easier under fascism.

The 9/11 hearings have shown no such thing about this already destroyed ‘wall.’ That was merely the contention of John Ashcroft, who went beyond shirking responsibility to putting it all on others — the craven coward was as asleep as the rest of us; once awakened, he has rushed to bar the door and blame others. By parroting AssKraft without mentioning him, Mac Donald uses a classic tactic: a lie told many times becomes the truth.

The post-Watergate fears seem to have been justified. Remember that Republican President who won re-election by campaigning on fear (and an enemies list). Remember also the shame in which he resigned.

Finally, to the lie and nonsense that terrorism wiretaps are in any way difficult to obtain, read the following piece. mjh

Use of secret surveillance warrants soars By Shannon McCaffrey, NIGHT RIDDER

The government’s use of secret surveillance warrants to track spies and terrorists surged to a record high in 2003, surpassing for the first time the number of wiretaps sought by law enforcement in traditional criminal cases. …

Federal agents sought 1,727 warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for electronic eavesdropping and physical searches last year, said a Justice Department filing with Congress. Four applications were rejected [mjh: .2%], although two of them were later revised and approved.

The number of so-called FISA warrants jumped by 500 from 2002 and has almost doubled since 2001 when 934 applications were approved.

By comparison, there were 1,442 wiretap petitions in federal and state courts for crimes related to drugs and racketeering, according to a separate report from the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts. …

Passed by Congress in 1978 [mjh: Jimmy Carter’s Democratic Presidency], the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) created a new court to oversee highly sensitive law enforcement activities related to espionage or terrorism. The Patriot Act, passed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, broadened the government’s ability to seek warrants through the secretive 11-member court by essentially knocking down the once-sacrosanct wall that divided intelligence and law enforcement.

Question: do you think there are more drug crimes or acts of terrorism going on in America at this moment? How can there be so many terrorism warrants? Fewer than a dozen Saudis (not Iraqis) perpetrated the 9-11 crimes. Are there really thousands of terrorists in the country biding their time? Well, maybe, if you call a ”terrorist” anyone who opposes this right-wing power grab. mjh