As we begin part two, Zach has now entered the Courtroom to begin his cross-examination of George W. Bush. 

[Click here for part one]

The Last Chance Democracy Café:
Episode 49.2: The Anchorage Trials — 2036
by Steven C. Day
 

Zach had been lucky in one sense: For the most part, the job of Chief Legal Council for the Global Warming Tribunal had kept him so busy, obsessed even, there had been little time to doubt the meaning of what had become of his life.  Even the nights were mostly safe — a fringe benefit to getting by on only three or four hours of sleep: When you’re that tired you tend to nod off quickly, leaving the ghosts stalking your spirit little chance to intrude.

Still, ghosts have a way of reaching out and grabbing a person.

As a young man, Zach had wanted to save the world; now, well into middle-age, he was forced to reconcile himself to a life spent, instead, trying to bring accountability to those who had stopped him and others from saving it.

All around him the world was dying, and the only answer he had left was to try to parcel out the blame.

As he looked at George W. Bush, sitting irritably in the witness box waiting for the cross-examination to start, he couldn’t help but feel it all had come down to this moment.  If his life’s work was to have had any meaning at all, this was the hour. 

“Damn,” he whispered so softly that even he couldn’t hear, “it’s been a long road getting here.”

(more…)

This is exactly the sort of thing we need to see more of.

(Reuters) Religious left gears up to face right counterpart

The religious right, which helped re-elect President Bush in 2004 by rallying opposition to abortion and gay marriage, is now facing a pushback from the religious left.

With a faith-based agenda of their own, liberal and progressive clergy from various denominations are lobbying lawmakers, holding rallies and publicizing their positions. They want to end the Iraq war, ease global warming, combat poverty, raise the minimum wage, revamp immigration laws, and prevent “immoral” cuts in federal social programs.

Some, like the Rev. Robin Meyers of the United Church of Christ in Oklahoma, marry gay couples and seek to reduce abortions while rejecting calls by the right to outlaw them.

“I join the ranks of those who are angry because I have watched as the faith I love has been taken over by fundamentalists who claim to speak for Jesus but whose actions are anything but Christian,” declared Meyers, who has written a new book, “Why the Christian Right is Wrong.

According to scholars, the religious left has become its most active since the 1960s when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other clergy — black and white — were key figures in the civil-rights and anti-Vietnam war movements.

The key here is perspective: The Religious Left will never be as politically powerful as the Religious Right, no chance. But given how close the last two presidential elections have been they don’t have to be. As Horace said in Episode 37, “Religious progressives don’t have to bury the Christian Right to swing the political equilibrium significantly to the left. They just have to put a dent into it. And that’s something they’re definitely capable of doing.”

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This is just stupid.

(Reuters) Some Democrats say will shun Maliki speech

U.S. congressional Democrats voiced alarm on Tuesday over Iraq’s denunciation of Israel in the Middle East conflict, and some said Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s upcoming address to Congress should be canceled unless he apologizes.

A group of House of Representatives Democrats was circulating a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert urging the Illinois Republican to secure an apology from Maliki or cancel the address on Wednesday to a joint meeting of Congress.

A number of Senate and House Democrats said they planned to protest Maliki’s speech by not attending, or were waiting first to hear if he apologized.

With all the problems facing us in Iraq, these folks decide to make an issue out of the fact the Iraqi PM has lambasted Israel’s actions in the Middle East.  Jesus, this guy is the leader of an already failing government in a predominately Shiite nation (at a time when, rightly or wrongly, Israel is pounding other Middle Eastern Shiites) — a government the stability of which is critical to American interests:  What do they expect him to do, sing the Israeli national anthem, HaTikvah?

Democrats have a fair chance of winning control of one or both houses of Congress this year.  How about acting like we have the responsibility and maturity to handle the job?

Update: Let me make it clear, I’m not endorsing this guy.  The degree to which the Iraqi government has become the captive of Shiite fundamentalists is one measure of the utter failure of Bush and the neocons.  But to make an issue out of his criticizing Israel is just silly.

This is, I think, an important question — one I’m posing in the hope of spurring serious (non-flaming) discussion.

Our Feckless Leader is being very Machiavellian about the Middle East these days: Giving Israel the rope it needs to “degrade” Hezbollah, but trusting the situation won’t get too far out of control.  Then, at just the right moment, the US will ride in on its giant white steed and broker a ceasefire, or so the dream goes.

Thus, at the end of the day, Hezbollah will be greatly diminished, Israel’s border will be secure and a valuable message will have been sent out to evildoers everywhere.

I don’t buy it, of course: But the question I’m posing is broader than just about Lebanon, namely: In the modern context, is the use of massive military force ever productive for anyone, over the long term, in the Middle East?

True enough, Israel kicked the butts of all comers in the Six-Day War in 1967, occupying massive amounts of enemy territory.  But does anyone really believe that the Occupied Territories have proven to be a good thing for Israel over the long haul?

The Yom Kippur War, in which Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in October 1973, while somewhat enhancing the military reputations of the invading states ultimately ended in defeat for the Arab nations.

Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 turned into Vietnam like swamp.

(more…)

The current warfare in the Middle East has pushed Iraq out of the news cycle.  And, of course, even before these latest hostilities, Iraq had already pushed Afghanistan out. 

Well, it’s still there and it’s getting to be more and more of a mess.

(AP) U.S. Soldier Killed in Afghan Firefight

KABUL, Afghanistan — A roadside bomb exploded in the Afghan capital Tuesday, killing two Afghans riding in a taxi, as fighting in eastern provinces left a U.S. soldier and seven suspected Taliban dead, officials said.

Also, the Afghan government appealed for $76.4 million to tackle an “imminent food crisis” caused by prolonged drought, particularly in the north and northwest.

Read on; it’s depressing.

Iraq was never in the stars — at least that’s my take.  In other words, even if Bush & Co. hadn’t royally screwed the occupation up, the end result would probably eventually have been the same.

They screwed the pooch on that one the day they started the war.

But there are legitimate reasons to believe that Afghanistan might have been different.  Every indication in the early days was that the people, weary of years of war and extreme poverty, were ready to embrace a new way.   If we’d kept our eye on the ball, instead of running off to the next excellent neocon adventure, and finished off the fighting capacity of the Taliban and their terrorist allies, real progress might have been possible.

It was a golden opportunity: But Bush, who seems to have a shorter attention span of a five-year-old boy, pissed it away. 

And we will be paying the price for that blunder for many years to come. 

Clearly, only a fool with a death wish would wander into this minefield again.  Still . . .

If we are ever going to find better answers for the Middle East (and could we find worse ones?), we have to stop talking past each other.  The current hostilities in Lebanon are the perfect example.  Contrary to what some people insist on saying, none, or at least virtually none, of those Americans who are outraged by Israel’s actions have any affection for Hezbollah.

Hezbollah is a terrorist organization — actually it’s more complicated than that, but at least part of what it is may fairly be called a terrorist organization (and one that is believed to have killed 241 American servicemen in Beirut in 1983). 

So while some of us may be so impolitic as to point out that Israel itself carries much of the blame for Hezbollah’s creation (if my saying that makes you mad you don’t know your history, look it up), few would have shed any tears over Israel bloodying up Hezbollah a little under the circumstances.

You see, it isn’t the war against Hezbollah Israel advertised we’re up in arms about.  It’s the one that Israel is actually fighting against Lebanon.

Kevin Drum does a nice job of highlighting the issue with some important quotations:

WHO IS ISRAEL FIGHTING?….Tony Blair continues to support Israel’s right to respond to Hezbollah’s rocket attacks, but “Downing Street sources” say that Blair also agrees with Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells’ “scathing denunciation of Israel’s military tactics“:

Speaking to a BBC reporter before travelling on for talks in Israel, where he will also visit the missile-hit areas of Haifa and meet his Israeli opposite number, Howells said: ‘The destruction of the infrastructure, the death of so many children and so many people: these have not been surgical strikes. If they are chasing Hizbollah, then go for Hizbollah. You don’t go for the entire Lebanese nation.’

The French Defense Minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, said much the same thing today:

“One cannot ask the Lebanese national army to disarm the militias and at the same time bomb the main Lebanese barracks.” Alliot-Marie also raised doubts about the strategic sense of bombing factories that produce powdered milk for infants.

“And unfortunately, more and more, we are seeing a number of bombardments that are hitting civilians, even convoys of people who were simply seeking to reach Beirut to find shelter have been hit by bombs.”

This certainly isn’t what Israel has advertised.

And it isn’t something people of good conscience should rush to support.

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With absolute disaster unfolding in Iraq . . .

With Afghanistan not far behind . . .

The Middle East in flames and the US doing nothing . . .

Our nation hated throughout the world . . .

The question naturally presents itself: Once the perpetual disaster machine, otherwise known as the Bush Administration, is finally out of office, how long will it take the US to undo at least most of the damage that’s been done to this nation’s standing in the world?

My guess, I’m afraid, is that we are talking in terms of decades at a minimum

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To me, one of the great imponderables of life is how Alan Dershowitz can so often manage to be both so very smart and so very stupid at exactly same moment.

Kevin Drum has the details, by way of Atrios

As I mentioned in the last post, I’m spending the weekend out of town at the hospital with my father.  Also, my usual backup saint is on vacation.  All of which means, it is taking a little longer than usual to get your comments posted.  As I’ve said before, reader comments offer some of the best writing on this page; so please keep it up and bear with us.

Thanks,

Steve,
Proprietor of The Last Chance Democracy Café and unofficial scribe of The Three Wise Men.