COLUMN: 01-31-2007

Why do our America media companies insist on referring to the Fatah Party of Mahmoud Abbas (and formerly of Yasser Arafat) in Palestine as "moderates." They are nationalists, but they are by no means moderate. The only "moderate" aspect to them is that they are not religious extremists, but calling them this label ignores the fact that most religious groups and parties are truly moderate, without being completely corrupt like Fatah. The best proof of this corruption was the Hamas victory in the Palestinian election of 2006. People didn't vote 75% in favor of Hamas, they votes 75% against the corruption of Fatah. Ever since then, the media keeps talking about a Palestinian "civil war" when the truth is that the corrupt Fatah Party is revolting against democracy because they lost the election. When Hamas was not in power, they respected the authority of the Fatah Party as the elected representatives of the Palestinian people and they played the role of an opposition party. When Fatah lost power, they immediately sent their militias into the streets to grab power in each city since they could no longer control the government ministries.

Fatah was a dead cause to begin with in 1992 when the Oslo peace process rescued them from a forced retirement in Tunisia. (This was after they were evicted from Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan due to losing military conflicts in the 1960's and 1970's.) The Oslo peacemakers and Israel brought this corrupt group of secular nationalists out of exile to negotiate with them because they could more easily be bought off than the Palestinian people on the ground in the first Intifada, who were justifiably demanding their rights after decades of occupation. All of these peace negotiators have long regretted this decision because the obvious outcome occurred: the corrupt group couldn't be trusted and failed to live up to their promises. Rather than accepting their mistakes and dealing with other groups, the new group of peacemakers in the form of the Quartet (UN, EU, USA, and Russia) have decided to continue to deal with these corrupt officials and not talk to any other groups. They use terrorism as an excuse for this, forgetting that Fatah was the originator of Palestinian terrorism in the 1960's and that the religious extremists only adopted the tactic in the 1990's after deciding that it was better than fighting their own corrupt government in the Palestinian Authority.

It's time to cut off the corrupt secular nationalists and deal with the elected representatives of the Palestinian people and finally negotiate a final peace settlement to resolve this unjust situation once and for all.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 01-26-2007

White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten on the Bush Administration cooperating with investigations of corruption and abuse:

"Of course, we will cooperate with any investigations that the Congress wants to pursue. We believe in vigorous and legitimate oversight by the Congress."

THE TRUTH: This administration has been the most secretive and least cooperative in the past 40 years. No matter what they say in public, they absolutely do not cooperate with any congressional or judicial oversight, nor do they respect American or international laws. Several congressional committees and federal judges have been very close to declaring the administration in contempt for never turning over promised documents. (For example: Senator Jay Rockefeller's comments on NPR). Every time they are in danger of being severely reprimanded or rebuked, they immediately change policy just enough to ward off full exposure of their illegal activities. From the transfer of prisoners from secret CIA bases to Guantanamo Bay to the switchover of the warrantless wiretap program to be under the jurisdiction of the FISA court, the examples of illegal activities being swept under the rug are enough to make us all into conspiracy theorists.

COLUMN: 01-24-2007

In honor of this blog's one-year anniversary, this post is the inauguration of a new feature: a weekly opinion column.
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President Bush once again mentioned in his State of the Union speech last night the dependence America has on foreign oil, just like he did last year: "For too long our Nation has been dependent on foreign oil. And this dependence leaves us more vulnerable to hostile regimes, and to terrorists - who could cause huge disruptions of oil shipments ... raise the price of oil ... and do great harm to our economy." If he truly cares about the price of oil, why has he done nothing to reign in the excessive profiteering of the oil companies over the past 24 months? The price of oil and gasoline have gone through the roof to all time records and the actions of the administration seem to be boosting this trend rather than fighting it. The latest example is the announcement of buying oil to boost the government's emergency stockpile, which caused a spike in demand and a matching increase in prices, just as they are finally starting to drop due to the mild winter. This president talks a good game - unfortunately, very little of what he says publicly matches what he does privately. From the secrecy surrounding the development of the administration's energy policy in 2000 till now, this government has drifted more towards the behavior of the despots of the world, instead of championing true transparent democracy, which they still claim they want to spread around the world (but apparently not at home).

LIE OF THE WEEK: 01-19-2007

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the new Congress' first 100 hours in office:

"In the November election, the American people signaled their wish for change — a wish for our country to go in a new direction," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "Democrats promised that we would, and these past two weeks, we have delivered on our promise."

THE TRUTH: While it's true that the new congress has passed bills in seven areas as promised (new ethics rules, recouping lost royalties from oil and gas companies and roll back industry tax breaks, raising the minimum wage, expanding taxpayer-financed research into embryonic stem cells, forcing more homeland security measures, directing the federal government to negotiate for cheaper Medicare prescription drugs, and lowering interest rates on subsidized student loans), what's more true is that only two of these items (minimum wage and student loan interest rates) will probably ever pass the US Senate in some form and have any possibility of being signed into law by President Bush. It's very premature to claim any kind of victory based only on the majority party passing a few bills in one house of Congress, but that just most proof that there's no real difference between how the two parties operate.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 01-12-2007

President Bush on his new strategy for the Iraq war:

" It is clear that we need to change our strategy in Iraq. So my national security team, military commanders, and diplomats conducted a comprehensive review. We consulted members of Congress from both parties, our allies abroad, and distinguished outside experts. We benefited from the thoughtful recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton"

THE TRUTH: Judging from the reaction of the military commanders, diplomats, members of Congress from both parties, our allies abroad and the members of the Iraq Study Group, it is clear that this new strategy for Iraq was developed by the same arrogant members of this administration who have devised most of their policies behind closed doors without any deference to the views of the American people or their representatives. If the new policy was clearly developed in a vacuum while clearly ignoring the good advice of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, lying about that fact will surely not increase support for the strategy and is in fact guaranteed to do the opposite.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 01-05-2007

White House Spokesman Tony Snow on the controversy surrounding Saddam Hussein's execution:

"It's interesting because there seems to be a lot of concern about the last two minutes of Saddam Hussein's life and less about the first 69 in which he murdered hundreds of thousands of people. That's why he was executed."

THE TRUTH: Trying to deny the human rights abuses that clearly occurred during the execution process by focusing on Saddam's crimes is absolutely the wrong thing to do. Anyone who truly cares about human and civil rights will not deny these rights even to the worst of criminals. These statements play straight into the hands of America's enemies who will use this as evidence that our government's human rights record is severely flawed, especially after all of the previous incidents at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.