Op-Ed

The U.S. government is waging an air war in Iraq. “In recent months, the tempo of American bombing seems to have increased,” Seymour Hersh reported in the Dec. 5 edition of The New Yorker. “Most of the targets appear to be in the hostile, predominantly Sunni provinces that surround Baghdad and along the Syrian border.”

Hersh added: “As yet, neither Congress nor the public has engaged in a significant discussion or debate about the air war.”

Here’s a big reason why: Major U.S. news outlets are dodging the extent of the Pentagon’s bombardment from the air, an avoidance all the more egregious because any drawdown of U.S. troop levels in Iraq is very likely to be accompanied by a step-up of the air war.

So, according to the LexisNexis media database, how often has the phrase “air war” appeared in The New York Times this year with reference to the current U.S. military effort in Iraq?

As of early December, the answer is: Zero.

And how often has the phrase “air war” appeared in The Washington Post in 2005?

The answer: Zero.

AUSTIN, Texas -- As one on the liberal side of the chorus of moaners about the decline of civility in politics, I feel a certain responsibility when earnest, spaniel-eyed conservatives like David Brooks peer at us hopefully and say, "Well, yes, there was certainly a lot of misinformation about WMD before the war in Iraq, but ... you don't think they, he, actually lied, do you?"

Draw I deep the breath of patience. I factor in the long and awful history of politics and truth, add the immutable nature of pols -- fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly -- and compare Tonkin Gulf, Watergate and Iran-Contra with the piddly Curveball and Niger uranium. I prepare to respond like a reasonable person -- "Of course not actually lie, per se, in the strict sense" -- and then I listen to another speech about Iraq by either the president or the vice president and find myself screaming, "Dammit, when will they quit lying?"

I realize this is not helping the cause of civility. On the other hand, sanity has its claims, as well.

No buzzards were gliding overhead, but several helicopters circled, under black sky tinged blue. On the shore of a stunning bay at a placid moment, the state prepared to kill.

Outside the gates of San Quentin, people gathered to protest the impending execution of Stanley Tookie Williams. Hundreds became thousands as the midnight hour approached. Rage and calming prayers were in the air.

The operative God of the night was a governor. “Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption,” Arnold Schwarzenegger had declared. Hours later, a new killing would be sanitized by law and euphemism. (Before dawn, a newscast on NPR’s “Morning Edition” would air the voice of a media witness who had observed the execution by lethal injection. Within seconds, his on-air report twice referred to the killing of Williams as a “medical procedure.”)

But at the prison gates, there were signs.

“The weak can never forgive.”

“No Death in My Name”

“Executions teach vengeance and violence.”

Disregard the momentary uptick in his approval rating, and ask yourself, was there ever a president in worse shape a year after reelection than George Bush? Nixon, maybe. Was there ever a president more fortunate in the quality of the party opposing him? Bush wins that one in a walk. These days, the only Democrat who sounds like Sam Ervin is John Murtha, and if his fellow Democrats had cold-shouldered Ervin the way they have Murtha, Nixon would have served out his second term.

The list of Bush's adversities scarcely needs repeating. On every front he's in trouble: the unpopularity of the war; the onslaught by fellow Republicans on the rendition flights and secret torture centers; the humiliation of Condoleezza Rice in Europe; the abandonment of New Orleans amid the surfacing of more incriminating e-mail traffic from the White House in the early days of the emergency. Even Haley Barbour, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said in early December that the Bush administration was failing to live up to its obligations.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Pre-procrastination Christmas booklist! Look at this, fellow procrastinators -- almost two weeks before the actual day, and here I am to solve all your shopping problems with the annual one-stop, hit-the-bookstore with less than 24-hours-to-go, all-purpose Procrastinator's List.

Now, the only challenge is to hang onto the list long enough to get to a bookstore, lest we ONCE AGAIN wind up as the last customer at the Jiffy Mart at 11:45 p.m. Christmas Eve, trying to decide whether our nearest and dearest would prefer a nice jug of STP 40W or the new hemorrhoid cure.

For a terrific read and a great political yarn, "An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas" is my nomination for best surprise book of the year.

With public support for the Iraq war at low ebb, the White House is more eager than ever to conflate Iraq’s insurgency with terrorism. But last week, just after President Bush gave yet another speech repeatedly depicting the U.S. war effort in Iraq as a battle against terrorists, Rep. John Murtha debunked the claim. His refutation deserved much more news coverage than it got.

“You heard the president talk today about terrorism,” Murtha told reporters at a Dec. 7 news conference. “Every other word was ‘terrorism.’” Speaking as a lawmaker in close touch with the Pentagon’s top military leaders, he went on to confront the core of the administration’s current argument for keeping American soldiers in Iraq.

“Let’s talk about terrorism versus insurgency in Iraq itself,” Murtha said. “We think that foreign fighters are about 7 percent -- might be a little bit more, a little bit less. Very small proportion of the people that are involved in the insurgency are terrorists or how I would interpret them as terrorists.”

Today, Cindy Sheehan and Scottish mothers who have lost their sons in Iraq held a rally outside the Scottish parliament, spoke at a cross-party meeting of Members of the Scottish Parliament, were welcomed to the City of Glasgow by the Lord Provost, and addressed an anti-war rally in Glasgow.  This, plus the trips up to Scotland from London and back took Cindy and Andrew Burgin and me about 16 hours, so we're a wee bit knackered, but we're learning to speak the lingo – and I'm going to run out for fish and chips after posting this.

Christmas came 11 days early for Donald Rumsfeld two years ago when the news broke that American forces had pulled Saddam Hussein from a spidery hole. During interviews about the capture, on CBS and ABC, the Pentagon’s top man was upbeat. And he didn’t have to deal with a question that Lesley Stahl or Peter Jennings could have logically chosen to ask: “Secretary Rumsfeld, you met with Saddam almost exactly 20 years ago and shook his hand. What kind of guy was he?”

Now, Saddam Hussein has gone on trial, but such questions remain unasked by mainstream U.S. journalists. Rumsfeld met with Hussein in Baghdad on behalf of the Reagan administration, opening up strong diplomatic and military ties that lasted through six more years of Saddam’s murderous brutality.

On Tuesday in New York, Jonathan Tasini will announce the launch of his campaign for United States Senate, challenging Hilary Clinton in the Democratic primary. 

A Democrat, at least one who convincingly opposes Bush, is very likely to win the general election in this race.  This means that the primary is the real election, and the question is what kind of Democrat we want to have in the Senate.

Behind curtain number one is Hilary Clinton, a pro-war, pro-CAFTA, pro-corporate health care Republicrat who's so very much more aggravating than most of them because of the widespread pretense that she's some sort of leftist or democrat with a small d.

Behind curtain number two is Jonathan Tasini, a veteran labor organizer and strategist who opposes the war, opposes corporate trade deals, proposes to expand Medicare to universal coverage, and can be counted on to fight for working people. 

Which kind of senator do the people of New York want?

And which kind of party do Democrats around the country want? 

AUSTIN, Texas -- Fellow procrastinators of the world, unite! Now is the time to begin thinking about Christmas shopping. We still have a few days left, so there's no rush for those who have been known to do it all on Christmas morning at the Jiffy Mart (everyone appreciates a nice can of WD-40).

For those who consider it wussy to begin shopping before the 24th, here's the annual Christmas book list -- the best one-stop shopping in town, items to suit all ages and personalities.

We prefer, of course, to shop at independent bookstores, but if a chain store is all that's available, it will do. Though there are no guarantees on the quality of the Christmas help: I once heard a woman ask for "The Odyssey" by Homer, to which the high-school honey hired for the holidays replied, "Uh, Homer Who?"

A fun book for almost anyone on you list is "Seabiscuit, An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand (Random House, $24.95). Unless you're a horse person, you probably think you don't want to read the biography of a racehorse, but you do want to read this one. It's a love of a book about a love of a horse.