KATRINA VICTIMS SEETHE
WHAT IS AN INSURGENT?
JAZEERA STORY DISSED ON CNN

The New Orleans newspaper, The Times Picayune leads today with: “COSTLIEST MISTAKE IN HISTORY.”

Race was a big dividing line at a meeting of the Urban Land Institute yesterday which proposes demolishing much of an African American neighborhood rather than bebuild it. 60 Minutes ran a positive story about this two weeks ago featuring interviews with Urban planners including one who advocated just abandoning large parts of the city. Here’s the gist of the latest from Nola.com:

”Some of the most biting criticism came from Cynthia Willard Lewis and Cynthia Hedge Morrell, City Council members who represent huge swaths of devastated terrain in eastern New Orleans, the Lower 9th Ward and Gentilly.

“Willard Lewis spoke with particular disdain for ULI’s “color-coded maps” which divide the city into three “investment zones:” areas to be rehabilitated immediately, areas to be developed partially, or areas to be re-evaluated as potential sites for mass buyouts and future green space.
“Those maps, she said, are “causing people to lose hope,” and others to stay away.

“Willard Lewis, who is black, said many of her African-American constituents believe their neighborhoods have been unfairly “stratified to the last category” slated for redevelopment. Those who once fought for equal access to education and public facilities may be forced to fight for equal access to “relief and restoration,” she said.

Noting that she was wearing a pink blouse, Morrell, a Gentilly resident, said sarcastically that she should have worn purple, the map color used by ULI for sections of the city that suffered the worst flood damage.

IN NEW ORLEANS: THE PEOPLE TALK BACK

Here’s how that was translated by CNN in a report which captured the anger but not the underlying emotion. Both stores agreed: people there are pissed:

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) — Frustrated New Orleans residents appeared before Mayor Ray Nagin Tuesday with complaints about the response to Hurricane Katrina, with two speakers asking why a nation fighting to stabilize Iraq can’t resolve a crisis at home.

One woman suggested that New Orleans residents board buses and travel to Washington to complain to Congress, which has approved billions of dollars for relief efforts.

“If they can destroy a country and build it up again, why can’t they fix this state?” the woman asked.

THE OTHER CASUALTY

Katrina may have destroyed the region but it also may be responsible for the downfall of the Bush Administration, argues the Strategic intelligence firm Strafor:

”The real inflection point of this presidency was not Iraq; rather, it was Hurricane Katrina. Rightly or wrongly, Bush was perceived not just as unprepared for a major hurricane strike, but also as oblivious to the seriousness of the humanitarian disaster in New Orleans. This perception solidified the opposition of the U.S. left, denied the president any help from the American center and cracked the heretofore unified American right. The result was a president in danger of losing his core supporters, without whom no president can effectively rule. Similar circumstances condemned past statesmen such as Wilson, Truman, Johnson and Nixon into the unenviable company of failed presidents.

Since Katrina, the Bush administration’s fortunes have only slid further….

Strafor.com

PRAISE THE LAWD AND PASS…

Seymour Hersh has a chilling report in the current New Yorker:

” Seymour Hersh tells the tale of a former senior administration official who visited Iraq after the 2004 presidential election and returned to inform Bush that the war wasn’t going well. “I said to the president, ‘We’re not winning the war,’” the officia l told Hersh. “And he asked, ‘Are we losing?’ I said, ‘Not yet.’” Bush was “displeased” with the answer, the official told Hersh. “I tried to tell him. And he couldn’t hear it.”

“Hersh paints the picture of a president who believes that he was chosen by God to lead the United States after 9/11, a man whose faith blots out any concern over setbacks in Iraq. “The president is more determined than ever to stay the course,” a former defense official tells Hersh. “Bush is a believer in the adage ‘People may suffer and die, but the Church advances.’”

http://www.saloncom/politics/war_room/

WHEN IS AN INSURGENT NOT AN INSURGENT?

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld did some verbal noodling at a Pentagon press briefing yesterday and decided that word “insurgent” needs to be earned and that many of those claiming that title are not legit and don’t deserve it. Duh?

The Iraqis don’t call themselves Insurgents. That’s a label stuck on them after the term “terrorist” began to lose all meaning by inappropriate overuse. By the way, those fighting the Americans call themselves the resistance.

BUSH GOAL REMAINS: “VICTORY!”

Last night BBC was reporting

“The US says it expects conditions in Iraq will allow a reduction in American troops numbers there next year.”

Here’s how this came out on CNN today with an advance story on what the White House calls Bush a “major address” on Iraq this morning at Anapolis. CNN previews it for us in a way that suggests it is more like a recycling of an old address. That used to be called a broken record.

”The White House is holding out the prospect that U.S. troop levels in Iraq could soon be reduced, but President Bush insists he will not withdraw U.S. forces “without having achieved victory.” Bush is scheduled to make an address that will launch a new series of speeches aimed at bolstering public support for the increasingly unpopular conflict.”

I am sure he knows what kind of response he would get in Harlem which is why these speeches are given to controlled military audiences… This time the Peace Movement wil be responding with press conferences and media feeds. United for Peace and Justice advises:

New York, NY - As opposition to the war on Iraq grows, United for Peace andJustice (UPFJ), the nation’s largest anti-war coalition, will provide a counterpoint to President Bush’s upcoming speech about the war. In wha tthe Administration is billing as a “major” address, Bush is set to speak about Iraq on Wednesday, November 30, in Annapolis, MD.

Lets what kind of coverage they get—and if they get covered at all.

STAND UP OR STAND DOWN?

TomDispatch.com offers another view:

< blockquote>”During his embattled summer vacation in Crawford, Texas, George Bush managed to launch a new promotional ditty for his war in Iraq: “As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.” Since then there has been much commentary from the administration, from military officials, and from the media on the question of how successfully the Iraqi military is actually “standing up.” (Not especially successfully is the usual answer.) There has, however, been scarcely any serious discussion about what that new Iraqi army, heavily infiltrated by Shiite and Kurdish militiamen from the ruling parties in the Iraqi government, is actually going to stand up for.

There’s analysis—and there’s emotion. There are experts and there are people living this nightmare. Which gets closest to the truth? Here’s the violence in Iraq through the eyes of an Iraqi who is one fine writer. Riverbend of the Baghdad’s Burning Blog is back:

“In war, you think the unthinkable. You imagine the unimaginable. When you can’t get to sleep at night, your mind wanders to cover various possibilities. Trying to guess and determine the future of a war-torn nation is nearly impossible, so your mind focuses on the more tangible- friends… Near and distant relations. I think that during these last two and a half years, every single Iraqi inside of Iraq has considered the possibility of losing one or more people in the family. I try to imagine losing the people I love most in the world- whether it’s the possibility of having them buried under the rubble… or the possibility of having them brutally murdered by extremists… or blown to bits by a car bomb… or abducted for ransom… or brutally shot at a checkpoint. All disturbing possibilities.

“I try to imagine what would happen to me, personally, should this occur. How long would it take for the need for revenge to settle in? How long would it take to be recruited by someone who looks for people who have nothing to lose? People who lost it all to one blow. What I think the world doesn’t understand is that people don’t become suicide bombers because- like the world is told- they get seventy or however many virgins in paradise. People become suicide bombers because it is a vengeful end to a life no longer worth living- a life probably violently stripped of its humanity by a local terrorist- or a foreign soldier.

“I hate suicide bombers. I hate the way my heart beats chaotically every time I pass by a suspicious-looking car- and every car looks suspicious these days….”

Here are three more stories from that front of the global disaster we all live in:

l. A war supporter disillusioned in Iraq:

He believed in the fight, his family said, until he entered the war zone.
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/13266919.htm

2. Hospitals Come Under Siege:

Hospital personnel are reporting regular raids and interference by the U.S. military as fighting continues in the volatile Al-Anbar province of Iraq. The U.S. raids come as the hospitals face increasing lack of vital supplies and equipment.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31222

3. US conjures up Iraqi cataclysms to delay retreat:

Talk of a jihadist takeover if American troops withdraw is an absurd ploy
http://tinyurl.com/77ljv

BLOW TO 911 TRUTH SEEKING BY SUPREMES

Supreme Court denies FBI translator’s case

WASHINGTON (AP)– A former FBI translator failed Monday to persuade the Supreme Court to revive her lawsuit alleging she was fired for reporting possible wrongdoing by other linguists involved in counterterrorism investigations.

The high court also rebuffed a request by Sibel Edmonds and media groups to rule on whether an appellate court improperly held arguments in the case in secret without being asked to do so by either side.

“When courts are sealed, the public may suspect the worst and lose faith in their government simply because they are prohibited access,” wrote lawyers for media groups, including The Associated Press.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1154AP_FBI_Translator.htm