And realities on the ground in the Middle East are undermining the fantasy-based policymakers in Washington. So, the Israeli iron fist, backed up by Washington, can do little to sweep away the electoral results from Palestinian votes that reflect actual opinions among Palestinian people. |
But the U.S. Record, as assessed by independent organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, is reprehensible. |
Her reality was, so to speak, a crowbar to open the lid on what had been sealed, which is the human dimension. The media and politics don't engage with death very well. And Bush has been effective until this summer at keeping US victims of this war in a hazy middle distance, close enough to exploit as a photo-op prop but not up close and personal enough to begin to deal with the grief of war. |
Nearly 96 hours after the Observer had reported it, I called Times deputy foreign editor Alison Smale and asked why not. 'We would normally expect to do our own intelligence reporting,' Smale replied. She added that 'we could get no confirmation or comment.' In other words, U.S. intelligence officials refused to confirm or discuss the memo -- so the Times did not see fit to report on it. |
That's a very different approach to what the CAW has done in the past. |
The boast that the United States is now the world's only superpower has a grim undertow in the area of human rights; no one can tell Washington what to do or not do, no matter how egregious its cruelties. |
The Bush rhetoric about democracy has little to do with Washington's actual policy goals in the Middle East. |
The character of the Bush administration is such that the U.S. delegation to the United Nations will -- in practice -- indignantly refuse to recognize a single standard of human rights whenever such a standard would put the U.S. record in a negative light. |
The policies are matters of priorities. And the priorities of the Bush White House are clear. For killing in Iraq, they spare no expense. For protecting and sustaining life, the cupboards go bare The problem is not incompetence. It's inhumanity, cruelty and greed. |
They should be fighting the effects of flood waters at home - helping people in the communities they know best - not battling Iraqi people who want them to go away. |
This is a classic trade-union stance, |
War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. |
What is critical to me is that the process is a two-way street. |