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Do I even have to say it? The Democrats failed us again today with their "no" vote on withdrawal from Iraq, and the damn bill wasn't even binding. If it had passed it would have left troops in Iraq, or at least those that were "essential" to finishing the job. It would not have ended the occupation. Basically it's what Senator Kerry has called for. The vote was 93-6.

All of this on the day US military deaths reach 2,500.

--Joshua Frank

A No Win Contest

If you are looking for an alternative to the Bush agenda, you aren't going to find it inside the Beltway. While President Bush made a covert slog around Iraq to tout the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the other deadly performances of our armed forces, the Democrats back home were doing exactly the same.

In a radio address on June 10, the Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, praised Zarqawi's death.

"This week, America received good news from a place we don't often hear about, Iraq. First came reports that our military tracked down and destroyed al-Qaeda terrorist Zarqawi," Reid said. "He was a cold-blooded murderer who got what he deserved. With his death, America continues to serve notice to those who would do us harm: you can run, you can hide, but you'll meet a just fate."

In November 2001, Bush emphasized similar rhetoric about bin Laden and al-Qaeda. "We're smoking them out," Bush remarked. "They're running. And now we're going to bring them to justice … we'll use whatever means necessary to achieve that objective – and that's exactly what we're going to do."

Sen. Hillary Clinton praised the killing of Zarqawi as well. "I hope that this will be a blow to the insurgency in Iraq and affords an opportunity for the new Iraqi government to build on this success and provide greater security and stability for the Iraqi people."

Both the Republicans and Democrats would have us believe that Zarqawi was a brilliant terrorist mastermind, whose death comes as a giant setback to the resistance movement in Iraq. But if Nir Rosen, Robert Fisk, Patrick Cockburn and others are correct, Zarqawi's death will make little, if any, difference in the long run – for all-out ethnic civil war is fast engulfing the battered land. The United States is being defeated and its occupational grip is weakening. Zarqawi's departure from the scene won't change that.

The fact that U.S. presence in the country is becoming less and less significant still doesn't mean our troops will be coming home any time soon. The Republicans won't bring them back, nor will their alleged opposition. Both parties will stay the course and keep the U.S. military there for the foreseeable future.

A few popular Democrats are calling for the exit of troops from Iraq, including past presidential disappointments John Kerry and Al Gore. Sen. Kerry wants to pull troops out of Iraq by year's end, which of course he's qualified by writing that only "troops essential to finishing the job" would remain. Such a bogus position won't end the war. Gore, however, will not even back Kerry's tepid plea.

"I would pursue the twin objectives of trying to withdraw our forces as quickly as we possibly can, while at the same time minimizing the risk that we'll make the mess over there even worse and raise even higher the danger of civil war," Gore recently told ABC News. "It's possible that setting a deadline could set in motion forces that would make it even worse. I think that we should analyze that very carefully. My guess is that a deadline is probably not the right approach."

As if the approach we are currently taking is making the situation any better. Iraq is becoming more bloody and chaotic by the day. The "war on terror" will carry on in its misguided and illegitimate direction as long as Democrats and Republicans continue to call the shots in Washington. The soft murmurs of dissent we are now hearing from a handful of Democrats amount to little more than a coordinated bluff. It's an election year, remember?

That is the reality the antiwar movement better grapple with if it wants to end this crazy war.

--Joshua Frank

Bush asks reporter Peter Wallsten why he's wearing shades. The dude's vision impaired.

--Joshua Frank

They finally admit that Jason Leopold's Rove indictment report was incorrect. I honestly feel sorry for 'em all. It's not every day White House spinsters tell the truth while indy media gets wrangled in a web of lies. This will be a huge blow to Leopold's credibility as well as Truthout's. I imagine the website will battle through, they publish a lot of solid commentary, but don't look for them to break any big stories in the future, nor my buddy Leopold for that matter.

--Joshua Frank

If you haven't ever checked out this great blog, I hope you'll do so. Here's a snippet from Tuesday, June 6:

"There’s an ethnic cleansing in progress and it’s impossible to deny. People are being killed according to their ID card. Extremists on both sides are making life impossible. Some of them work for ‘Zarqawi’, and the others work for the Iraqi Ministry of Interior. We hear about Shia being killed in the ‘Sunni triangle’ and corpses of Sunnis named ‘Omar’ (a Sunni name) arriving by the dozen at the Baghdad morgue. I never thought I’d actually miss the car bombs. At least a car bomb is indiscriminate. It doesn’t seek you out because you’re Sunni or Shia."

--Joshua Frank

The following was written by Tom Mayer, a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. It’s the best defense of Churchill I’ve seen yet. I think this whole affair is just getting started. - JF

I have finally finished a careful reading of the 124 page report about the alleged academic misconduct of Ward Churchill.  Often, but not always, I have been able to compare the statements in the report with the relevant writings of Professor Churchill.  Although the report by the committee on research misconduct clearly entailed prodigious labor, it is a flawed document requiring careful analysis.  The central flaw in the report is grotesque exaggeration about the magnitude and gravity of the improprieties committed by Ward Churchill.  The sanctions recommended by the investigating committee are entirely out of whack with those imposed upon such luminaries as Stephen Ambrose, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Lawrence Tribe all of whom committed plagiarisms far more egregious than anything attributed to Professor Churchill.

The text of the report suggests that the committee’s judgments about the seriousness of Churchill’s misconduct were contaminated by political considerations.  This becomes evident on page 97 where the committee acknowledges that “damage done to the reputation of ... the University of Colorado as an academic institution is a consideration in our assessment of the seriousness of Professor Churchill’s conduct.”  Whatever damage the University may have sustained by employing Ward Churchill derives from his controversial political statements and certainly not from the obscure footnoting practices nor disputed authorship issues investigated by the committee.   Indeed, the two plagiarism charges refer to publications that are now fourteen years old.  Although these charges had been made years earlier, they were not considered worthy of investigation until Ward Churchill became a political cause celebre.  Using institutional reputation to measure misconduct severity amounts to importing politics through the back door.

The report claims that Professor Churchill engaged in fabrication and falsification.  To make these claims it stretches the meaning of these words almost beyond recognition.   Fabrication implies an intent to deceive.  There is not a shred of evidence that the writings of Ward Churchill contain any assertion that he himself did not believe.  The language used in the report repeatedly drifts in an inflammatory direction: disagreement becomes misinterpretation, misinterpretation becomes misrepresentation, misinterpretation becomes falsification.  Ward may be wrong about who was considered an Indian under the General Allotment Act of 1887 or about the origins of the 1837-1840 smallpox epidemic among the Indians of the northern plains, but the report does not establish that only a lunatic or a liar could reach his conclusions on the basis of available evidence.

This video, apparently made by marines in Iraq, is being investigated by the US military after complaints from the Council on American-Islamic Relations that the singer endorses murdering civilians.

How can anybody support these pricks?

--Joshua Frank

Army Reserve, off of Pearl Jam's new self-titled album. Ed Vedder co-wrote this with death row inmate Damien Echols of The West Memphis Three.

Click here to have a listen.

How long must she stand
Before the ground, it gives way
To an endless fall
She can feel this
War on her face
The stars on her pillow
She's folding in darkness
Begging for slumber

I'm not blind
I can see it coming
Looks like lightning
In my child's eye
I'm not frantic
I can feel it coming
Violently shakes
My body

Her son's slanted
Always giving her
The sideways eye
The empty chair where dad sits
How loud can silence get?

And mom, she reassures
To contain him
But it's becoming a lie
She tells herself
And everyone else
Father is risking
His life for our freedoms

I'm not blind
I can see it coming
Looks like lightning
In my child's eye

I'm not frantic
I can feel it coming
Darling you'll save me
If you save yourself

--Joshua Frank

Yes, the anti-war crowd's most hated think-tank may be closing up shop.

--Peter LaVenia

Time for Jason Leopold and Truthout to admit they were wrong.

--Joshua Frank

Check this out. From 1986.

--Joshua Frank

Ehren Watada is a 27-year-old First Lieutenant in the United States Army. He joined the Army in 2003 during the run-up to the Iraq war. He turned in his resignation to protest the war in Iraq in January 2006. He expects to receive orders to deploy in late June and will become the first Lieutenant to refuse orders to deploy to Iraq, setting the stage for what could be the biggest movement of GI resistance since the Vietnam War. He faces a court-martial, up to two years in prison for missing movement by design, a dishonorable discharge, and other possible charges. He says speaking against an illegal and immoral war is worth all of this and more. Journalist SARAH OLSON spoke with Watada in May.

SARAH OLSON: When you joined the Army in 2003, what were your goals?

LT. EHREN WATADA: 2003 was a couple of years after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I had the idea that my country needed me and that I needed to serve my country. I still strongly believe that. I strongly believe in service and duty. That’s one of the reasons I joined: because of patriotism.

I took an oath to the US Constitution, and to the values and the principles it represents. It makes us strongly unique. We don’t allow tyranny; we believe in accountability and checks and balances and a government that’s by and for the people. The military must safeguard those freedoms and those principles and the democracy that makes us unique. A lot of people, like myself, join the military because they love their country, and they love what it stands for.

OLSON: You joined the Army during the run-up to the Iraq war, but you had misgivings about the war. How did that happen?

WATADA: Like everybody in America and around the world, I heard what they were saying on television about the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and the ties to al-Qaeda and 9/11. I also saw the millions of people around the world protesting and listened to the people resigning from the government in protest. I realized that the war probably wasn’t justified until we found proof of these accusations the President and his deputies were making against Iraq.

But I also believed we should give the President the benefit of the doubt. At that time, I never believed—I could never conceive of—our leader betraying the trust we had in him.

OLSON: What was your experience in the military?

WATADA: My first duty assignment was in Korea. It’s hard learning to be an officer, and it was hard being stationed overseas. It is a different kind of situation that you’re put in. You’re not just being told what to do and execute. As an officer you are constantly leading by example. You have to do the right thing even when you don’t necessarily want to. When you go into the field, it’s not like a civilian job where you go home at the end of the day, take a shower, relax, and eat a nice meal.

The May 9, 2006 Report of the University of Colorado (CU) Investigative Committee is but the latest step in CU’s ongoing attempt to fire me for political speech and, more fundamentally, for scholarship which challenges the orthodox “canon” of historical truth.

The investigative committee abandoned all semblance of due process and equal protection mandated by both the Constitution and the University’s own rules, in the process betraying the most basic principles of academic freedom.

Rather than assessing my work in terms of the methods and procedures of my discipline, the committee – which included no one with expertise in American Indian Studies – chose to determine for itself the “historical truth” about disputed matters.  Unable to condemn my substantive conclusions, it engaged in a detailed post hoc critique of my citations.

The committee’s recommendation of harsh sanctions appears to have been driven primarily by my “attitude,” not by the specific conduct at issue.  I was presented with the “Catch-22” option of apologizing for things I did not do or being condemned for being insufficiently contrite.

In this process, the investigative committee abandoned its mandate to serve as a nonadversarial information-seeking body, instead taking upon itself the role of both prosecutor and judge.  It then did exactly what it accuses me of doing: it tailored its report to fit its conclusions.  As a result, the document contains numerous false statements, misrepresentations of fact, and internal contradictions; it suppresses evidence and employs faulty logic to conclude that I engaged in research misconduct.   

You know why, wars in the Middle East are flaring up.

--Joshua Frank

This is from a Democratic candidate for Governor of Nevada in response to this post, in case you missed it. I will also link her site when she writes a piece about all this. Not exactly sure what this is all about, but I am enjoying it none-the-less. Yeah, I'm a masochist (not toooo into water sports, though). Here's the DIRTY email that started it all:

"I am trying to get into contact with Leola, to see what she has to say about being accused of organizing honosexual affairs for President Bush in 1984.  I write for CounterPunch.org.
Thanks, any contact info would be greatly appreciated.
best,
Josh Frank"

If her story is true, she has sure fucked up any chance of it ever being believed. Now from Leola:

"It's imperative that you pay attention to what'shappening next because you established a history as a guy who needs the attentions of a Domina-the press release I sent around just gave you the cover needed.   Also, your need to one up me and whoever wrote about it first.   In the book I was writing about D/s  (a book for women to understand weak males like you pretending through a variety of mediums to be strong ones) I explain what makes the submissive male like you tick and your craving for the verbal abuse I've given you thus far.  (And you thought it was me who was jumping through hoops while you chuckled on the other end like a 13 year old girl-how would a little boy like you in a grown mans boy actually rile me--I'm made my way through impediments 50 times your make).    

I had another reporter of some standing in the community write me years ago and he did exactly the same thing you did at the introduction.  I played possum and over a time (about a year) he admitted to pedophile desires and other lustful utterances (I've got all of his emails to me, perhaps 200 in all and now I have a few that reveal your loneliness, your need for verbal abuse,etc wherein you fall into a certain category of submissive males).  I'm going to post it and name you in particular as the quintessential submissive male I speak of. Lets see you wordsmith your way out with your audience--make sure your lady-friend reads it,  although I don't think you have one or she;'s dumb as dirt not to see what you were doing.

it'll be on my beautifuldommemuse.tripod.com page in a few days when I get the time.  You seem to have got off message playing with the dominatrix chick.  Perhaps you sought masturbation material from me, thoughts of me peeing in your mouth, etc--verbal abuse seekers like yourself like water sports (a-member to post this joshua also-- joshua that's from the bible isn't it).  A small somewhat disturb group of verbal abuse seekers like yourself enjoy serious CBT (that's cock and ball torture) accompanied by water sports and severe punching from a competent Domina--your readers will observe in the emails you sent me the need for me to investigate your work, your desire for me to respect you--which means you feel yourself to be a very small man and without his writings would go un-noticed by women, probably so--most verbal abuse seekers of your variety are either woody allen-ish or overweight, facial hair-very unkept looking.

You post one thing than say another in your e-mails to me--post what you wrote me after you called me a pimp and a liar.  I plan to--it'll show what your mind was really up to. Some submissives like you talk to loud in public places and try to dominant the conversation with a pre-arranged narrative like republicans on most issues--you'd make a good republican.  I wouldn't ever give you the satisfaction of reading anything you wrote btw, that's why I don't bother to spell check, because I don't think enough of you.  "Respect me, respect me, Leola, let me be a part of this or I'll say you made it up."   "I'll make you respect me if you don't." Typical pathetic submissive male with a only keyboard as his only real way to meet people.  Invisible joshua, probably has been invisable all his life and thinks typing correctly makes him greater than the sum of his pathetic parts (a 4-5 incher erect for sure).  I tell women to never get involved with men who have small male parts.  

Wow.

--Joshua Frank