Pastor Prays For Rain

... on the Democrats. A massive effort it was - tens of thousands of believing Christians devoutly praying that God would rain on the ninety thousand devout Democrats who were waiting in a football stadium to hear Barack Obama accept the presidential nomination.

No luck. But now, four days later, a category 3 hurricane, Gustav, is threatening New Orleans and points west. Residents are evacuating, and the Republicans have cancelled most of Monday's hoopla. The Republican nominating convention has been wiped off the screens of America by a deluge.

Rain achieved.

In similar news elsewhere, Sarah Palin, the new Republican vice-presidential appears to have used her powers of office in Alaska to try to get her sister's ex fired from his job as a state trooper. She has denied it - and the veep vetting process apparently ignored it - but her effort is pretty well documented. The McCain campaign may now be vetting its vetting process.

Oh, reality.

In Iraq, the Prime Minister Maliki has, at the last minute, replaced the negotiators who gave Condi Rice an agreement for our exit that allowed our military to stay in Iraq for over a year after the UN mandate expires on December 31st. This was unpopular on their part, and now these negotiators have been replaced by hardliners who aren't giving way. The agreement is frozen.

As the clock ticks.

In Afghanistan, our continued demising of civilians from the air while in pursuit of military targets has proven unpopular among the populace. The leader, Hamid Karzai, has asked us to stop providing this destructive air support. We appear to have been using brute force from the air to do the work of troops who should be on the ground.

More troops are needed in Afghanistan.

The Pain of Failin' With McCain-Palin

Senator McCain has selected Alaska's Governor, Sarah Palin, to be his running mate in his bid for the Presidency.

Mrs. Palin is the former mayor of the town of Wasilla, Alaska, pop. 8500, and now Alaska's governor. She is staunchly conservative. She believes that women should not be allowed to have abortions.

This choice of a woman as running mate is thought by some to be an attempt to capture into the Republican Party those Hillary Clinton supporters who are unhappy with Barack Obama. How many voters will excuse Palin's conservatism because of her womanhood seems uncertain.

So perhaps she fulfills another purpose.

Were McCain to have selected a man, then people would automatically compare them. McCain isn't very tall, and his veep would ideally need to be shorter. If his veep were younger, then McCain's age could become an issue. People would compare hair.

This leaves the feminine gender. Palin has the virtue of not being a man.

Mrs. Palin herself being a relative political ingenue, McCain's criticism of Obama's lack of long-term experience will now fall hollow. Palin could so easily succede this 72-year old man and herself become the first woman president. Whether she has what is needed will be a big question.

Hope Is Ridin' On Obama-Biden

"Reduce Your Pain With Obama-Caine" apparently wasn't popular enough, even though Governor Caine is a good man and speaks openly with both heart and brain in public view. Pain removal is what is needed now, and any suggestion of a less than total cure may have appeared a drawback.

So Senator Obama has selected Senator Joe Biden to be his running mate. Hope is riding.

Senator McCain seems headed into partnership with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a Mormon, whose personal beliefs have not hindered his responsibility to the people who matter in politics. If Romney is chosen, they will present a palette of mutable colors, able to be anything the voters want. At election times, at least.

A flagpole with a radiator ornament.

Hope is ridin'.

Judiciary Re-Convening? To Pull War Powers?

It's a three-part formula, like a one-two punch with a kicker.

First, George Bush threatens the Iraqis (see post below) that we will leave their beleaguered country if they can't come up with a status of forces agreement that lets us stay there past the UN's 12/31/08 deadline. If chaos descends, it will all be their fault.

The UN deadline is an immovable object.


Second punch - the House Judiciary Committee Chairman, John Conyers, appears to be calling his members back from summer vacation early. For Congressmen to lose vacation days during an election year suggests that they see major need.

Conyers' committee has recently been looking into Ron Suskind's new book, "The Way Of The World". This book tells how the White House had the CIA produce a forged letter that "proved" both that Saddam was linked to the 9/11 tragedy and that Saddam had acquired yellowcake uranium from Nigeria. All in one letter, by golly.

Both statements were, of course, untrue. They got a British hack journalist to publish it.

Bush then certified to Congress that his proof of links between Saddam Hussein and the terrorists who attacked us was real and that Iraq was a threat to our country. And Congress gave him war powers.

Fraud.

An impeachment would fail in the Senate - not enough anti-fraud votes. But Congress can still debate whether to withdraw war powers. In the middle of a Presidential election, oh yes.

It would be a logical and proper thing to do.


The third punch in the old one-two-three is the resignation of Pakistan dictator Musharraf. He has allowed our troops to tiptoe over his country's border-line and attack fundamentalist militias who have been using his border regions as a haven. A new democratically elected president who must be responsible to the Pakistani voices in the street may hesitate to allow this.

Already in Afghanistan, the Taliban are resurgent. More and more, we need more troops there. To maintain what has been achieved. Senator Obama observed this long ago. Bush may soon agree.

More troops needed in Afghanistan. To fight the Taliban. Must defeat America's enemies. Then cut grass in Texas.

It will be a strategic decision, the withdrawal from Iraq. It will make America stronger.

Home By Christmas?

...if only in our dreams?

Gareth Porter reports in Informed Comment on Colin Kahl's trip to Iraq:

"3. Bush is so done out with al-Maliki's obstreperous stance on restrictions on US troops and his demand for a withdrawal timetable that he sharply warned al-Maliki that without a SOFA he would have to pull out US troops by Jan. 1, 2009. (US troops operating in Iraq with no agreed legal framework would be constantly open to murder and other serious legal charges)."

To Mr. Bush, our departure is a threat to the Iraqis.

And to the Iraqis?

Involve The Separatists

A Union of Disputed Territories Of The World. That's what we need.

A week ago Russia crossed its border-line and invaded the country of Georgia, a small neighbor to the south that was once a member of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

They did so, they said, to prevent further violence by the Georgian government against Russian separatist minorities in Georgia's province of South Ossetia, which sits on the Georgia-Russia border. Video from South Ossetia confirming this has not yet appeared. However, the Georgian President has been a frequent visitor to American television news this week, as has an occasional Russian representative, explaining it all. The world awaits video from South Ossetia.

Tibet suffered loss of independence in a similar boundary dispute in the Nixon years.

The Georgian government appears to have gone overboard in the suppression of minority dissent. It appears to have hired a consultant who is also chief foreign policy advisor in the McCain campaign. Thinking it had gained traction, it then misinterpreted assertive barking from the Bush Administration as a promise to go to war with Russia if they crossed the line. Russia crossed the line. The US didn't go to war.

Another border region of Georgia, Abkhazia, also contains dissidents wanting independence from Georgia. Whether life under Putin's Russia is truly preferable for them may depend on how oppressive the government in faraway Tblisi becomes.

How far Russia wants to go in re-constructing the Soviet behemoth may concern the owners of the networks of pipelines that now traverse southern Georgia, bringing more than 500,000 barrels of oil a day from new Caspian oilfields to the Black Sea ports and Europe. There are many stakeholders in this system, and they may want to secure their perimeters.

Georgia's is scarcely the least stable boundary region in the world. Basque separatists in the Pyrenees, Uighur Separatists on the Chinese border, Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, the Kashmir independence movement, and on and on. Political footballs. Border regions are in play.

Separatists are everywhere. Unrepresented in their own countries. Funded by the neighbors.

Why not bring them into the fold? Why do they want to be separatists? Why is it economic for them to be separatists? What could be changed that could make them want to be a part of their nation?

Where there is majority rule without the protection of minorities, even Democracy produces separatists. The strategy of majority rule must fit within an over-riding principle of equal protection.

Then everyone owns their government.