This says it all

The indictment:

Bush dropped the ball. And bin Laden’s still free to threaten us.

Has Bush made America safer? Go ask the widows.

Bush: Failing when he does, failing when he doesn’t

From the Failing When He Does Department - From Daily Kos, tomorrow’s Newsweek headline today: The insurgents in Iraq are winning.

Even Secretary of State Colin Powell, a former general who stays in touch with the Joint Chiefs, has acknowledged this privately to friends in recent weeks, NEWSWEEK has learned. The insurgents have effectively created a reign of terror throughout the country, killing thousands, driving Iraqi elites and technocrats into exile and scaring foreigners out. “Things are getting really bad,” a senior Iraqi official in interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s government told NEWSWEEK last week. “The initiative is in [the insurgents'] hands right now. This approach of being lenient and accommodating has really backfired. They see this as weakness.”

A year ago the insurgents were relegated to sabotaging power and gas lines hundreds of miles outside Baghdad. Today they are moving into once safe neighborhoods in the heart of the capital, choking off what remains of “normal” Iraqi society like a creeping jungle. And they are increasingly brazen. At one point in Ramadi last week, while U.S. soldiers were negotiating with the mayor (who declared himself governor after the appointed governor fled), two insurgents rode by shooting AK-47s—from bicycles. Now even Baghdad’s Green Zone, the four-square-mile U.S. compound cordoned off by blast walls and barbed wire, is under nearly daily assault by gunmen, mortars and even suicide bombers.

From the Failing When He Doesn’t Department - No links needed for this one. Just common sense.

If George Bush had put the resources and effort into capturing Osama bin Laden (when the U.S. had the Taliban cornered at Tora Bora) as he put into invading and occupying Iraq, Osama wouldn’t be free to make videos and issue fresh threats today. And Saddam Hussein? He’d have just as many weapons of mass destruction at his disposal now as we’ve found in Iraq.

Zero.

George Bush. He fails when he does. And when he doesn’t.

Light posting today, most likely…

…as there are domestic activities that require my attention if I want to stay married, and I do. May check in once or twice, but who knows? Apart from a Kerry victory on Tuesday, nothing is certain.

The comparison is apt

From Laura Rozen at War and Piece:

The Bush campaign gloating that anything that “makes people nervous … helps Bush” is utterly disgusting. They sound like the Sopranos.

As Laura notes, more from Matt Yglesias and Atrios.

Matt Blunt: Unfit for office

It’s always gratifying when a newspaper displays the courage of its convictions. Such a moment occurred with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s editorial denunciation of Matt Blunt, alleged Missouri secretary of state and candidate for governor. This blog has previously documented Blunt’s questionable tactics and poor stewardship of the election process in this state. Now the P-D slams Blunt for what should be, must be the final straw for fair-minded Missouri voters (link defunct; article now tucked behind the paper’s subscription wall):

In his public statements and official actions, Secretary of State Matt Blunt has undermined people’s confidence in the fairness of next week’s election in Missouri.

His latest comment, made this week, was that there is nothing illegal or even wrong about private voter registration groups failing to send in registration cards they had promised to mail to election officials. He was reacting to reports that a group funded by the Republican National Committee had destroyed Democratic voter registration forms in Nevada, Oregon and Minnesota.

Mr. Blunt seems not to have talked to his own general counsel, Terry Jarrett. Mr. Jarrett said this week that “in certain circumstances, egregious circumstances, there might be some general fraud laws that would apply to these folks if (they are) doing something fraudulently” in failing to turn in registration cards.

Chuck Hatfield, a Democratic election lawyer, went step a further. He said that destroying voter registrations “may constitute an election offense in that it is impeding or preventing…a person’s vote.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Blunt’s office has been giving St. Louis election officials questionable advice that could hold down the vote in the Democratic stronghold of St. Louis city.

Voters who show up at the polls without personal identification and who don’t want to go back home to get it, may be given the option of voting a provisional ballot. Gary Stoff, the Republican director of the St. Louis Election Board, initially said these voters would be told that the ballot “may or may not” be counted. In truth, however, election officials will not count the ballots, he said.

Mr. Stoff acknowledged that “the voter would think there is at least the possibility that that ballot is going to be counted,” even though it won’t be. But, he said, the board was just following instructions from Mr. Blunt’s office.

Late Thursday, however, in response to questions from the Post-Dispatch editorial page, Mr. Stoff reversed himself and said these would-be voters will be told the truth: Their ballots won’t count.

These are only the latest examples of Blunt’s attempts to game the system against voters - clear partisan bias that has already earned Missouri unwanted national attention. So endangered are the coming state elections that the P-D has taken the strong step of calling for Blunt to recuse himself from current election issues and hand decision-making authority over to the Republican and Democratic co-directors of elections. Failing that, says the P-D, Blunt should immediately move to reverse the effects of his damaging and misleading instructions to election officials around the state.

The possibility that Blunt will take either step is so remote as to be nonexistent. Fortunately, we voters of Missouri have a special veto power available to us, veto power we should exercise. Matt Blunt has demonstrated repeatedly that he is not fit even for the position he holds now, let alone the highest office in the state. Missouri voters should deny Matt Blunt their votes on November 2.

Fear factory: Threats, real and…expedited

There is a standard story retold many times in the history of horror comics - pulp magazines with titles like Tales from the Mausoleum or House of Shadowy Mysteries or Rent-Controlled Apartment of Terror. The story involves a protagonist determined to frighten a rival or enemy to death…occasionally into simply going away, but usually to death. To this end, the protagonist takes the guise of some monster (ghost, vampire, werewolf, demon) reputed to exist nearby. The ruse always succeeds; the rival dies of fright or, more rarely, runs away. The protagonist chuckles and removes his disguise….and suddenly finds himself confronted by the real monster (ghost, vampire, werewolf, demon). Blood-curdling screams ensue. Horror comics are big on comeuppance and poetic justice.

That properly frames this incredible (literally) week in which a terror message of questionable origin briefly commanded our attention, only to be dramatically upstaged by a threat whose provenance, at least, is undisputed. In the wake of the televised return of Osama bin Laden, the ABC broadcast of a terror video by the man calling himself Azzam the American has been all but forgotten. I remain as skeptical as anyone about the authenticity of the Azzam video, but it’s the route that this message took to American television screens that should not be forgotten. The shadowy nature of the video’s ABC source - “a source known to have Taliban and al Qaeda contacts in the tribal regions of Pakistan” - the role of gossip monger Matt Drudge in leaking the existence of the tape, and possible government involvement in Drudge’s getting this information in the first place: all of this smacks mightily of gaslighting, of political manipulation if not outright fraud, and should be questioned.

As for the official reaction to the bin Laden tape, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo tells us all we need to know about the political spin:

The president’s communications director even told reporters that the only acceptable thing would be for John Kerry to observe a twelve or more hour moratorium on attacks on the president, even though the president should be allowed to continue attacking John Kerry.

That is what they’re playing for. (That’s also the reason the Bush campaign didn’t allow the Kerry campaign to be briefed on the soon-to-be-released tape until late in the day. The president knew about it early in the morning.)

I’m honestly not sure which is worse: the Bush administration’s cynical attempt to link Kerry to bin Laden, or the blatant play to general fear in calling for Kerry to cease campaigning for a half-day of…what, exactly? Mourning? Paralysis? Are we in a national emergency? Is the fact of a new bin Laden message supposed to bring the country to a halt?

Literally incredible. Nevertheless, it’s tailor-made for a president and administration whose main selling point has been fear, fear, and more fear.

There’s one last thing about bin Laden’s message that requires attention that it will probably not get in the days before the election: the statement that al Qaeda has targeted America not “because they hate our freedom” - Bush’s simplistic and remarkably little-challenged explanation for terrorism - but because they oppose our policies abroad. To accept the statement uncritically is to validate bin Laden’s murderous work, but the lesson is there for the wise observer.

But after the injustice was so much and we saw transgressions and the coalition between Americans and the Israelis against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it occurred to my mind that we deal with the towers. And these special events that directly and personally affected me go back to 1982 and what happened when America gave permission for Israel to invade Lebanon. And assistance was given by the American sixth fleet.

[...]

We found no difficulties in dealing with the Bush administration, because of the similarities of that administration and the regimes in our countries, half of which are run by the military and half of which are run by monarchs. And our experience is vast with them.

And those two kinds are full of arrogance and taking money illegally.

The resemblance started when [former President George H.W.] Bush, the father, visited the area, when some of our own were impressed by America and were hoping that the visits would affect and influence our countries.

Then, what happened was that he was impressed by the monarchies and the military regimes, and he was jealous of them staying in power for tens of years, embezzling the public money without any accountability. And he moved the tyranny and suppression of freedom to his own country, and they called it the Patriot Act, under the disguise of fighting terrorism. And Bush, the father, found it good to install his children as governors and leaders.

American support for Israel’s hard-line policies toward the Palestinians, the historical support for oppressive and corrupt governments ranging from Pahlavi’s Iran to the present-day Saudis, and the occupation and political manipulation of Iraq: these types of actions, these policies, provide the kinds of motivation that radicals can easily exploit. Islamist jealousy of Western affluence and contempt for Western values are powerful influences, yes, but vague and formless without the motivation caused by temporal actions whose effects on disaffected millions are simply ignored.

We provide that motivation, in our deeds, every day.

And that, friends, is how real monsters are made.

In a nutshell: bin Laden and Bush

Brilliant at Breakfast pares the issue down to its essentials.

Osama bin Laden, condensed:

I’m still here. You haven’t caught me. And you went after the wrong guy. I just thought I’d remind you.

George Bush, actual size:

So I don’t know where he [Osama Bin Laden] is. You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him…I truly am not that concerned about him.

Draw your own conclusions.

Iä! Iä! Osama fhtagn!

I read a bit of Lovecraft before going to bed last night, and decided that one particular story made for a fitting ode to the return of our society’s spectral foe and the place he holds in our hearts.

Nyarlathotep

Nyarlathotep… the crawling chaos… I am the last… I will tell the audient void…

I do not recall distinctly when it began, but it was months ago. The general tension was horrible. To a season of political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger; a danger widespread and all-embracing, such a danger as may be imagined only in the most terrible phantasms of the night. I recall that the people went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places. There was a demoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons the autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown.

And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt. Who he was, none could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a Pharaoh. The fellahin knelt when they saw him, yet could not say why. He said he had risen up out of the blackness of twenty-seven centuries, and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet. Into the lands of civilisation came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger. He spoke much of the sciences of electricity and psychology and gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered. And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished, for the small hours were rent with the screams of nightmare. Never before had the screams of nightmare been such a public problem; now the wise men almost wished they could forbid sleep in the small hours, that the shrieks of cities might less horribly disturb the pale, pitying moon as it glimmered on green waters gliding under bridges, and old steeples crumbling against a sickly sky.

I remember when Nyarlathotep came to my city the great, the old, the terrible city of unnumbered crimes. My friend had told me of him, and of the impelling fascination and allurement of his revelations, and I burned with eagerness to explore his uttermost mysteries. My friend said they were horrible and impressive beyond my most fevered imaginings; and what was thrown on a screen in the darkened room prophesied things none but Nyarlathotep dared prophesy, and in the sputter of his sparks there was taken from men that which had never been taken before yet which showed only in the eyes. And I heard it hinted abroad that those who knew Nyarlathotep looked on sights which others saw not.

It was in the hot autumn that I went through the night with the restless crowds to see Nyarlathotep; through the stifling night and up the endless stairs into the choking room. And shadowed on a screen, I saw hooded forms amidst ruins, and yellow evil faces peering from behind fallen monuments. And I saw the world battling against blackness; against the waves of destruction from ultimate space; whirling, churning, struggling around the dimming, cooling sun. Then the sparks played amazingly around the heads of the spectators, and hair stood up on end whilst shadows more grotesque than I can tell came out and squatted on the heads. And when I, who was colder and more scientific than the rest, mumbled a trembling protest about imposture and static electricity, Nyarlathotep drove us all out, down the dizzy stairs into the damp, hot, deserted midnight streets. I screamed aloud that I was not afraid; that I never could be afraid; and others screamed with me for solace. We swore to one another that the city was exactly the same, and still alive; and when the electric lights began to fade we cursed the company over and over again, and laughed at the queer faces we made.

I believe we felt something coming down from the greenish moon, for when we began to depend on its light we drifted into curious involuntary marching formations and seemed to know our destinations though we dared not think of them. Once we looked at the pavement and found the blocks loose and displaced by grass, with scarce a line of rusted metal to show where the tramways had run. And again we saw a tram-car, lone, windowless, dilapidated, and almost on its side. When we gazed around the horizon, we could not find the third tower by the river, and noticed that the silhouette of the second tower was ragged at the top. Then we split up into narrow columns, each of which seemed drawn in a different direction. One disappeared in a narrow alley to the left, leaving only the echo of a shocking moan. Another filed down a weed-choked subway entrance, howling with a laughter that was mad. My own column was sucked toward the open country, and presently I felt a chill which was not of the hot autumn; for as we stalked out on the dark moor, we beheld around us the hellish moon-glitter of evil snows. Trackless, inexplicable snows, swept asunder in one direction only, where lay a gulf all the blacker for its glittering walls. The column seemed very thin indeed as it plodded dreamily into the gulf. I lingered behind, for the black rift in the green-litten snow was frightful, and I thought I had heard the reverberations of a disquieting wail as my companions vanished; but my power to linger was slight. As if beckoned by those who had gone before, I half-floated between the titanic snowdrifts, quivering and afraid, into the sightless vortex of the unimaginable.

Screamingly sentient, dumbly delirious, only the gods that were can tell. A sickened, sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low. Beyond the worlds vague ghosts of monstrous things; half-seen columns of unsanctifled temples that rest on nameless rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the spheres of light and darkness. And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep.

- Howard Phillips Lovecraft, 1920

Tomorrow

Plenty of time tomorrow to weigh in on terrorists, both the real kind and the almost-certainly-fake kind.

And Matt Blunt. Don’t forget him. I certainly haven’t.

BBC account of bin Laden message

First out of the box with the “Western” account of the Osama bin Laden message, the BBC:

Bin Laden threatens new attacks

Arabic TV station al-Jazeera has broadcast a videotape apparently featuring Osama Bin Laden, in which he threatens new attacks on the US.

In his opening remarks, the al-Qaeda leader accused President George W Bush of deceiving Americans in the years since the 11 September 2001 attacks.

He compared the Bush administration to what he termed corrupt Arab regimes.

The development comes as US voters prepare to go to the polls on Tuesday in the presidential election.

Bin Laden said he first thought of attacking the US after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

He said the attacks on the US would have been less severe if President Bush had been more alert.

But he added that the security of the American people depended neither on Mr Bush nor on his challenger, John Kerry, but on US policy.

“The reasons to repeat what happened remain,” he said, quoted by the AFP news agency.

If genuine, this is the first videotape of Bin Laden speaking to have surfaced since the US-led war in Afghanistan following the 11 September attacks, which he is generally thought to have masterminded.

It was not obvious when the video was recorded.

More to come, and more refined, I’m sure.

We’ll want to compare this to yesterday’s broadcast of a supposed al Qaeda message from “Azzam the American,” won’t we?

Interesting that this apparently genuine message from bin Laden came in the usual way, down the “al Jazeera turnpike,” while the Azzam video went straight to ABC via an “unnamed source.”

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