The notice buried on the DoD website began to attract alot of attention, at least among webloggers, last month, including here at FmH. Now the notice has disappeared from the site, in typical Bu**sh** administration fashion. Have no fear, it remains echoed at The Memory Hole.

Fred Kaplan: “We’re not pulling out of Iraq, so it’s logical that we’re pushing in deeper. And so it’s official: ‘Postwar Iraq’ is just another term for ‘Iraq War—Phase II.’

In a heavily guarded news conference in Baghdad today, Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, called the state of conflict there a ‘war.’ John Burns, the New York Times correspondent covering the event, quotes Sanchez’s aides noting that the general’s choice of words was deliberate—his way of injecting realism into the debate back in Washington. ‘We are taking the fight into the safe havens of the enemy in the heartland of the country,’ Sanchez stated. That sounds like war, all right.” —Slate

“Why was he allowed to kill, again and again, when so much evidence had already pointed in his direction two decades ago?

The answer, in great part, lies in Ridgway’s own admission of who he preyed upon.” AlterNet

“Spectacular advances in neuroprosthetics await us, but bureaucracy is stifling the field.” Salon

“Today, armed with a growing understanding of how to manipulate the immune system, researchers are offering the glimmer of a hope that cancer vaccines could soon become part of the cancer-fighting arsenal. More than 50 cancer vaccines are being tested in the United States, Canada, and Europe against several types of cancers, including melanoma and kidney, lung, breast, and prostate cancers. Several are in the final stages of human trials, at least two of which are expected to conclude within a year. In some of the trials, a few patients have seen their cancers go into remission, while in other patients, the vaccine slowed the spread of the disease. If all goes well, the first cancer vaccine could be ready for general use in three to five years.” MIT Technology Review

“As if it weren’t hard enough to be cool already, Apple Computer has introduced a new way for people to ruin their social standing.

Thanks to the ability of Apple’s iTunes to share music collections over local networks, it is now possible to judge someone’s taste in music — or lack of it — in a way that previously required a certain level of intimacy.” Wired

While there is no question that Iran covered up a nuclear program and was in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it is still unclear if it was anywhere near making nuclear weapons. In any case, its candor in cooperating with the recent ultimatum takes the wind out of the sails of an American drive to keelhaul Iran before the UN Security Council, whose members appear to be favorably impressed by its cooperation. After the contempt the Bu**sh** administration demonstrated for the UN process over Iraq, it is not likely member countries will be bullied into enabling Washington’s agenda once more. AP/Salon

Nicholas Kristof: “Considering the savagery with which the Snarling Right excoriated President Clinton as a ‘sociopath,’ blocked judicial appointments, undermined U.S. military operations from Kosovo to Iraq, hounded Vincent Foster and then accused the Clintons of murdering him, it is utterly hypocritical for conservatives to complain about liberal incivility.” New York Times op-ed

“L. Paul Bremer III, the American administrator in Iraq, made a hurried return to Washington on Tuesday as Bush administration officials held an urgent round of meetings to discuss ways of speeding up the transfer of power to Iraqis [i.e. extricate ourselves in hopes of salvaging Bu**sh**’s reelection prospects —FmH].

The meetings reflected dissatisfaction with the pace of progress in Iraq and a growing conviction that Mr. Bremer must abandon his methodical plan to move gradually toward the election of an Iraqi government over a year or two, officials said.” —New York Times

Related: More Iraqis Supporting Resistance, CIA Report Says

“A new, top-secret CIA report from Iraq warns that growing numbers of Iraqis are concluding that the U.S.-led coalition can be defeated and are supporting the resistance.

The report paints a bleak picture of the political and security situation in Iraq and cautions that the U.S.-led drive to rebuild the country as a democracy could collapse unless corrective actions are taken immediately.

L. Paul Bremer, head of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, who arrived unexpectedly in Washington for strategy sessions on Tuesday, essentially endorsed the CIA’s findings, said a senior administration official.

The report’s bleak tone and Bremer’s private endorsement differ sharply with the upbeat public assessments that President Bush, his chief aides and Bremer are giving as part of an aggressive publicity campaign aimed at countering rising anxieties at home over increasing U.S. casualties in Iraq.” Knight-Ridder [via CommonDreams]

“New York Times columnist Paul Krugman tells how he found his voice, why Bush makes him miss Nixon, and why he insults Fox News whenever he can.” AlterNet

This article, originally published in 1997, collects tales from children in Dade’s homeless shelters which amount to the creation of a new mythology, if you believe the reporter. In a prior existence, I studied social anthropology with a particular interest in folklore and mythology. One of the things I learned is that it is not as easy as it might appear for an outside observer to impose coherency on a body of myth that is scattered throughout a population. One is essentially doing cross-cultural fieldwork in looking at this rich, fascinating oral tradition in the making. I wonder if this writer is trained in this way. She certainly has a grasp of concepts like what Claude Lévi-Strauss called bricolage when she writes, “What these determined children do is snatch dark and bright fragments of Halloween fables, TV news, and candy-colored Bible-story leaflets from street-corner preachers, and like birds building a nest from scraps, weave their own myths.” Have a look:

“On Christmas night a year ago, God fled Heaven to escape an audacious demon attack — a celestial Tet Offensive. The demons smashed to dust his palace of beautiful blue-moon marble. TV news kept it secret, but homeless children in shelters across the country report being awakened from troubled sleep and alerted by dead relatives. No one knows why God has never reappeared, leaving his stunned angels to defend his earthly estate against assaults from Hell. “Demons found doors to our world,” adds eight-year-old Miguel, who sits before Andre with the other children at the Salvation Army shelter. The demons’ gateways from Hell include abandoned refrigerators, mirrors, Ghost Town (the nickname shelter children have for a cemetery somewhere in Dade County), and Jeep Cherokees with “black windows.” The demons are nourished by dark human emotions: jealousy, hate, fear.” —Miami New Times [via bOING bOING]

Here is an interesting connection: has anyone read Denis Johnson’s Fiskadoro, which came out in 2000? Set in a post-apocalyptic south Florida, I see some similarities. Could Johnson have been influenced by this article’s original publication?

Reasons Not to Invade Iraq, by George Bush Sr.: “On 21 September 2002, The Memory Hole posted an extract from an essay by George Bush Sr. and Brent Scowcroft, in which they explain why they didn’t have the military push into Iraq and topple Saddam during Gulf War 1. [I posted a damning excerpt here on FmH.] Although there are differences between the Iraq situations in 1991 and 2002-3, Bush’s key points apply to both.

But a funny thing happened. Fairly recently, Time pulled the essay off of their site. It used to be at this link, which now gives a 404 error. If you go to the table of contents for the issue in which the essay appeared (2 March 1998), ‘Why We Didn’t Remove Saddam’ is conspicuously absent.

Because of this erasure, we’re posting the entire essay below the portion we originally excerpted. ” —Memory Hole