More from the liberal media...

a clip from "60 Minutes", which aired on May 12, 2002. Correspondent Steve Kroft interviews President Chavez of Venezuela.

KROFT: Do you like the United States? There are many things that you don't like about the United States, I think.

CHAVEZ: No. Me gustan los Estado Unidos. Disfruto las poemas de Walt Whitman. New York, New York, la cancion....Frank Sinatra. Me gusta beisbol, Yankee Stadium, Shea Stadium, el hot dog, la libertad.

VOICE OF TRANSLATOR: No. I do like the United States... I enjoy the poems of Walt Whitman, "New York, New York" the song, Frank Sinatra. I love baseball, Yankee Stadium, Shea Stadium, hot dogs.

[edited out: la libertad / "the freedom"]

::CounterPunch Bulletin: President Chavez's Censored F-Word

Thoughtful analysis by Curtis White, building on Paul Virilio's Pure War. Long, but worth a read. Some excerpts:

The idea that CNN is right and 90% of the populace believes this palaver is perhaps more frightening than the threat of receiving a suspicious piece of mail postmarked New Jersey. The odds of receiving anthrax in the mail are statistically minute, but the yahoos with Old Glory rippling from the roofs of their suburban assault vehicles are everywhere and with who knows what malice for those lacking proper patriotic fervor.

...Perhaps the most frightening aspect of this situation is the near dead certainty that not only are our middleclass flag wavers living in utter misrecognition, but it is likely that the leaders of our country (from George II to Teddy K) are every bit as deluded and, moreover, impotent. Randy Hayes of the Rainforest Action Network once told me of a talk he had with the uber-CEO of the Mitsubishi Company. Hayes said he was able to convince this CEO that Mitsubishi's program of global devastation for short-term profit was not in the long-term interest of either the planet or the company. Hayes achieved this moment of clarity only to have it followed by a far larger and more monstrous clarity for both himself and the Mitsubishi head: Mr. Mitsubishi had no idea how to change the practices of the company because the logic that drove the company was both systemic and autonomous. This system at which even CEOs must look with apocalyptic horror is part of the ecology of Pure War and is not available for political discussion, let alone democratic debate. In short, it is not responsive to the will or the interests of the human beings living within it.

...What bin Laden seems to understand is that Pure War, understood as the technological totalization of the human world, can be pushed where it has been headed all along but where perhaps it would rather not go on someone else's command: techno-military apocalypse. In this sense, his destination is not all that different from the anticipation of our own fundamentalist Baptists: the End of Days. Revelation. The Second Coming. This is the conclusion of the confrontation between the Holy Warrior and the Global State Technician. Unlike the gruesome Cold War relationship between the nuclear couple, the United States and the Soviet Union, in which deterrence provided the Peace of Pure War (the peace of the "balance of terror," or "mutually assured mass destruction") our new antagonist has no illusions about that grim dance. Muslims of bin Laden's stripe will have the life they want (however cruel and medieval) or they will have death, about which they have no fear or illusions because the religious thinking at the heart of their activities makes death irrelevant.

::Curtis White, Context: Our Pure War with Islam

Flying the fucked-up skies...

the week before Canadian soldiers were shelled by American bombs in Afghanistan, at least one F-16 pilot complained that requirements for crew rest were not being observed and that many of the pilots were overtired. The pilot was told, however, that further questions about crew rest would not be looked on favourably by the wing command.

Instead, pilots were advised to speak to a flight surgeon about so-called "go/no pills" -- amphetamines used to help stay awake on long missions, and sedatives to help sleep.

Then, on April 17, a fighter from the 183rd flying a patrol mission accidentally bombed Canadian troops conducting a live-fire exercise south of Kandahar. Four soldiers from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry were killed and eight injured.

Hmmm, what are the effects of speed again?

In addition to the physical effects of amphetamines, users report feeling restless, anxious and moody. Increased doses intensify the effects, and users may become exited or talkative and experience a false sense of self-confidence or superiority. They may behave in a bizarre manner; some become aggressive and hostile.

But let's not indulge irresponsible speculation. We don't know that the pilot in question was a paranoiac speed freak. In any event -- buy the ticket, take the ride, man...

::Glen McGregor, Vancouver Sun: Crews urged to use amphetamines days before Canadian troops killed

As I understand it, either the CIA didn't cooperate with the FBI or the FBI is lying. Probably both. In any event you gotta admit that we did right by giving them each more money and greatly expanded powers with less oversight.

::Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman, Newsweek: The Hijackers We Let Escape
::Walter Pincus and Dan Eggen, Washington Post: CIA Gave FBI Warning On Hijacker
::American Civil Liberties Union: Safe and free in times of crisis

Forgive the nationalistic emphasis...

...the nuclear weapons programmes in both India and Pakistan were initiated with the help of the west. As the Nuclear Control Institute has documented, both programmes emerged from the civilian industry, which was kickstarted with the help of the US "Atoms for Peace" scheme. India's first nuclear device used plutonium produced by a Canadian research reactor and extracted in a reprocessing plant built with the help of the US. Germany supplied tritium, beryllium, heavy water plants and reprocessing components; France delivered uranium and fast-breeder technology; Norway sold heavy water; the US provided enriched uranium and several commercial reactors; and the UK distributed fuel, furnaces and the country's first research reactor.

Pakistan's heavy water plants came from Canada and Belgium; its uranium enrichment technology, beryllium, tritium, furnaces and milling machines from Germany; its research reactor from the US; and its reprocessing technology from France and the UK. All of these components have potential uses in nuclear weapons programmes; most appear to have been deployed for this purpose by India and Pakistan.

It's time we Canucks got over our national reticence, and started shouting out loud and proud that we are high-tech pioneers and ready to compete as a world-class power!

:: George Monbiot, The Guardian: Wage peace, not war

Dack posts:

On yesterday's Meet the Press, Robert Mueller boasted it took the Bureau just six weeks to determine those responsible for 9-11 "were Al-Qaeda, leading back to Osama bin Laden." That's two weeks after the start of the bombing campaign in Afghanistan.

::Shoot First, Find Out Who Did It Later

From Denial Unto Acceptance, or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Effects of Global Warming..."

In a stark shift for the Bush administration, the United States has sent a climate report to the United Nations detailing specific and far-reaching effects that it says global warming will inflict on the American environment.

. . . But while the report says the United States will be substantially changed in the next few decades — "very likely" seeing the disruption of snow-fed water supplies, more stifling heat waves and the permanent disappearance of Rocky Mountain meadows and coastal marshes, for example — it does not propose any major shift in the administration's policy on greenhouse gases.

It recommends adapting to inevitable changes . . . that no matter what is done to cut emissions in the future, nothing can be done about the environmental consequences of several decades' worth of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases already in the atmosphere.

Another "inevitable change" we all "adapt to" is Death.

::Friends of the Earth climate change campaign
::Andrew C. Revkin, Climate Changing, U.S. Says in Report

Tonight, in the forests of Kashmir, figures will be moving in the darkness. They are fighters using terrorism to overthrow Indian rule in the disputed state.

New Delhi says these militants take their orders directly from Islamabad. The Pakistanis say they are independent. Neither claim, according to inquiries by The Observer, is accurate. And it is through the gap between these stories that 1.25 billion people could fall into a nuclear nightmare.

::Jason Burke and Peter Beaumont, The Guardian: Nuclear neighbours teeter on brink of Armageddon

U.S. troops killed three of their Afghan allies Friday in a firefight that broke out when both sides moved in separately on a compound mistakenly thought to be a hide-out of Taliban and al-Qaida leaders, a U.S. army spokesman said.

Not a setback. No Americans were hurt.

::AP via Toronto Star: U.S. troops kill Afghan allies

That nasty death rattle you just heard was my faith in humanity. It hasn't been feeling well for a while, and I'm probably better off without it.

::uppity negro via wood s lot

NOAM CHOMSKY: I choose to live in what I think is the greatest country in the world, which is committing horrendous terrorist acts and should stop.

BILL BENNETT: I think you should say greatest -- I think you should say greatest a little more often.

CHOMSKY: If you want to be a hypocrite...

::CNN Crossfire transcript via Counterpunch: CNN Debate on "Terrorism": Chomsky v. Bennett