As Passover approaches, some of you may hear references to "why is this [ fill in the blank ] different from all other.....? " type questions.  It's a (usually humorous) reference to the 4 Questions asked at Passover Seders.  Tradition has it the youngest child(ren) at the table have to answer them.  It's a way of transmitting the oral tradition.  The 4 Questions actually answer the Big Question: "Why is this night different from all other nights?"  

This brings me to Jimmy Carter and his recent trip to Israel.  Why is this trip different from all other trips?  For starters, the only Israeli official who would meet with him was Shimon Peres.  But the real corker was the Shin Bet, Israel's General Security Service, refused to protect him.   That's a big difference from Bush's recent visit which featured 10,000 police officers deployed across Jerusalem in addition to the usual snipers, etc.

A lot of mass actions are happening next weekend leading to the 5th anniversary of the Iraq War.  If you can, please make a custom tshirt or wear 1 visible sign of your protest to the war.  If you cannot afford a button or a tshirt...

What could a nearly 140-year-old, 1,400 page novel have to tell us about our own time and its people? Follow me, literary pilgrim, as Count Leo Tolstoy describes a well-know tyrant of history. My question is, couldn't he have been writing yesterday in Salon?

This started as a comment on today's diary, A golden oldie: Hillary's floor speech to invade Iraq.  It was a response to TomP's assertion that Hillary's (and Edwards) votes on Iraq were not that big of a deal.  

It quickly grew into a longer piece, so I'm posting it here for an extended diary discussion.  

Ok, so let's look at what all this fuss is about, and I'm going to offer my opinion on this whole affair, which is in direct opposition to another much more popular, learned and informed diarest than myself, and his diary which is currently on the Rec'd. List.

And just because my dear departed father was very high in our intelligence community, who wore two hats, holding and retiring at the rank of Lt. General and also very high in our nation's covert intelligence activities, doesn't necessarily mean that I'm privy to any special qualifications, or that I know what I'm talking about to a dead certainty, does it? But I'm going to take a stab at it, anyway.

More of my counter-proposal, explanation to what I think's really going on here or theory, if you will, under the fold...

The New York Times reported today that "American intelligence agencies reversed their view about the status of Iran’s nuclear weapons program after they obtained notes last summer from the deliberations of Iranian military officials involved in the weapons development program."  These notes showed conversations in which "military officials complained bitterly about what they termed a decision by their superiors in late 2003 to shut down a complex engineering effort to design nuclear weapons."

The White House now is retreating quickly from Bush's earlier lies:

In a statement late Wednesday, the White House revised its account of what Mr. Bush was told in August and acknowledged that Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, had informed him new information might show that "Iran does in fact have a covert weapons program, but it may be suspended."

NY Times

More after the fold.

The Arabyia Home/Peace Center is at the cornerstone of the Anata and the Shuafat refugee camp, in the very area where the prophet Jeremiah in the 6th century B.C.E. critiqued the violent conflicts in the Mid East, which were already old news: "I hear violence and destruction in the city, sickness and wounds are all I see." (Jeremiah 6:7)

"I am a Muslim Palestinian American and when my son asked me who my hero was I took three days to think about it. I told him my hero is Jesus, because he took a stand and he died for it. What really needs to be done is for the churches to be like Jesus; to challenge the Israeli occupation and address the apartheid practices as moral issues. Even if every church divested and boycotted Israel it would not harm Israel. After the USA and Russia, Israel is the third largest arms exporter in the world. It is a moral issue that the churches must address."-Mohammad Alatar, film producer of The Iron Wall at the Beit Arabiya Peace Home, November 2006.

Androcles and the Iraq Stalemate 4.25.07

The ratio of noise to signal is so high in our communication channels, I despair of getting a hearing for  a plan to reduce casualties and expense in Iraq. But here goes one more try.

The  surge is too little too late. But powerful interests prevent withdrawal.  Our best course is to follow the Androcles Principle: remove the irritants!  Stabilization can lessen the Iraq war's casualties and expense. The British pull-out will collapse Iraq's southern flank and require U.S. troops to fill in. Otherwise local officials become proxies of Iran. But a tripwire presence in the north is necessary to prevent war among Turkey, nationalist Kurds and Iran.

Our troops could escort willing Iraqis to resettle in separate areas.  Iraq's government could be moved to a US base where its independence from Iran could be protected. Other  countries, including our own, have moved their capitals. Give the Green Zone to Sunni's moving from east to west Baghdad. Build no more ghetto walls. Let remaining Iraqis assume the risk of  fighting or making peace. Hope, pray that they will eventually suppress fratricidal killing.

Two-three days ago I sent two of the leading newpapers in New Hampshire (The Union Leader and the Telegraph) a letter to the editor expressing my concern regarding the lies that John McCain was spreading about the President of Iran. The original letters had different titles. Since I have heard nothing from either papers, I thought that some of you on the Kos site would find these McCain documented lies of interest.

I've plowed through quite a bit of material recently here on Daily Kos and even a couple books, including "War and Peace" that has dominated my consciousness over the past month due to Tolstoy's writing of the absurdity of writing history from the perspective of the "leaders" or the "heroes."

Understanding what happens in a society, and why a nation turns out the way that it does - and ultimately, what brings men to kill their fellow creatures, is an extremely complex issue.

So why did America go to war? Surely... we can't just blame it all on Bush...

I really just don't get it. War. In the modern world. It's stupid. If there is any proof that humans have ceased to evolve, it is in the simple fact that humans have not evolved past war.

Homo sapiens sapiens has proved very adept in creating tools to help build civilization, but is abysmal at civilization. Civilized does not mean domesticated. It means dignified, respectful and understanding a rose by any other name is still human.

Maybe you think, hey, it's not perfect but our civilization has lasted a few thousand years and, yeah, war is so not cool, but we didn't blow ourselves up during the Cold War. Point taken. I can appreciate that.

You know the big debate whether or not to talk with Syria and Iran? You've got to talk with your enemies not just your friends. Well, you know what I think? Screw nation-states. Our problems are not political, but psychological. The person we need to engage in dialog is our planet, Earth.

Mr. Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic Representative to the US House from Indiana and the former vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, wrote an OpEd  that articulates a forward-looking foreign policy vision while surgically deconstructing Neoconservative fundamentalism that is promoted by the Neocons and the Rubber-Stamping Bush-Republicans under the banner of "promoting democracy around the world", using fear-mongering gimmicks such as inflated "war on terror", blabbering sound-bites such as"fighting them over there..", and other assorted constructs and paraphernelia designed to fool people.

Or even beyond that, if we retake the Government with significant majorities, with the backing of the American people and the best wishes of the world, with the momentum to implement real progressive change?  Or better still, if a Kossian worldview, people-powered and truly small-d democratic, were to emerge from this movement and stimulate positive reforms, even for many of those who think they are our enemies?

What would happen?  To the country, to the world, to politics?  And to us?

Rather than touch on the topic of war while promoting peace, in honor of our fallen men and women, Mr. Bush pushed his standard agenda.  Our leader spoke of terrorism, ignoring the acts he has committed.  

King George II proclaimed his pride in the country's newest leaders. With the terrorist rhetoric, post September 11, 2001, Bush was able to breed this force for the future.  This class was the first to complete their studies after the "terrorists attacks."  Baby Bush was pleased; he beamed with delight.