Rolling Updates on Israeli Invasion of Gaza (5 January)

Later Updates on the Israeli Invasion of Gaza (7 January)

2:55 a.m. Downtime until the morning. Thanks for all your support and comments today.

2:30 a.m. The lull continues but, as former Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman denies on Al Jazeera that a "National Information Directorate" exists (which is a bold move, given that the NID was "outed" in The Observer of London on Sunday), signs that Israel's information campaign may not be able to hold open the window for military operations very long.

CNN International is not only leading with footage of the hospitals crisis in Gaza but pointedly noted they obtained this footage despite an Israeli-imposed ban on journalists inside the territory.

Israel tried to counter this by playing up their permission for 80 truckloads of aid (just over 1/10 the pre-conflict amount) into southern Gaza on Monday. On this evidence, this won't be enough to hold back mounting criticism.

1:25 a.m. Developments on the diplomatic front: Arab Foreign Ministers have met in New York but it is already clear that a Libyan-sponsored resolution, blocked by the US last weekend, is "dead". Instead, talk is of a French-drafted resolution, which Paris is hoping will be supported by Arab representatives. United Nations sources say this will include calls for an immediate ceasefire, a "humanitarian corridor" for aid, and a "monitoring mechanism". With the manoeuvring needed for any hope of passage, the resolution will not be brought up for a vote on Tuesday.

The Gazan death toll is now at least 548. UN officials in Gaza continue to emphasise that this is "a humanitarian crisis".


11:30 p.m. A bit of a lull in developments on military and diplomatic fronts. Al Jazeera reports that the fighting around Gaza City seems for an elevated area just outside the city which provides a vantage point across northern Gaza.

9:30 p.m. Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin on the current Israeli bombardment: "Almost every building in Israel's definition is a Hamas building."



9:05 p.m. Al Jazeera reports that Israeli forces trying to take strategic overlook looking down on Jabaliya refugee camp, the largest in Gaza.

8:55 p.m. Israeli bloggers claim that the English website of Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, has been hacked by Israel. Both English and Arabic sites of Al Qassam are currently offline.

8:50 p.m. CNN is way behind the story. As fighting intensifies around and possibly in Gaza City, this is their website lead: "Hamas militants fired dozens of rockets into southern Israel on Monday despite a 10-day Israeli military campaign that reportedly has left more than 500 Palestinians dead."

8:45 p.m. Arab foreign ministers, who have mostly sat on their hands during this crisis, finally decide they have to make some pretence at action. Palestine Authority, Libyan, Moroccan, and Jordanian ministers are en route to New York.

8:20 p.m. The explosions we noted an hour ago seem to be the "softening-up" artillery shelling for an Israeli advance on Gaza City. The armed wing of Islamic Jihad has told Al Jazeera that Israeli tanks are trying to move into the city, and Israeli sources have confirmed that a "major battle" is taking place on the northern outskirts.

7:20 p.m. Affidavit of "Maher Najjar, Deputy Director, Coastal Municipalities Water Utility" now on-line:

As of last night, there is no electricity at all in Gaza City....Two of the lines feeding electricity to Rafah, one from Israel and one from Egypt, have been damaged.... I have no additional diesel reserves, and I cannot obtain additional diesel right now. The water wells and sewage pumping stations that still have diesel will run out within a few days, others have none.

7:15 p.m. As Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin gives live report from Gaza City, massive explosion on-screen behind him. Moyheldin: "There's nowhere for the residents of that area to go....You're seeing a very modern army unleashing weapons on a defenceless population."

7:10 p.m. Most inept disinformation campaign: "Al Jazera" on Twitter --- Sample update: "The leaders of Hamas say 'we will hide as long as needed, our women and children will suffer for us'"

7:05 p.m. Al Jazeera correspondents reporting fireballs and "white explosions" in northern Gaza.

6:30 p.m. Following story in The Times of London that Israel used white phosphorous bombs to cover its ground invasion, Moussa el-Haddad, Gaza resident and father of blogger Laila el-Haddad ("Gazamom"), reports "series of bombs in a row, followed by a large white halo, white smoke; people in vicinity cannot breathe...irritation, and exposed areas [of body] become red, blistered, and itchy".

6 p.m. Hamas spokesman Moussa Abu Marzouk in Damascus to Reuters: Hamas is open to truce in Gaza but only if Israel lifts its blockade:

Any initiative not based on ending the aggression, opening the border crossings and an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip has no chance of succeeding.

5:55 p.m. Al-Jazeera reports that the first week of the Gaza offensive has resulted in estimated losses of $1.5 billion.

5 p.m. The statement of Hamas military spokesman Abu Ubeida is now summarised on-line: claims of one Israeli helicopter downed, one tank and one personnel carrier destroyed, one POW taken

4:55 p.m. Al Jazeera reports Al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza hit by two artillery shells

4:35 p.m. The Guardian of London is reporting "gun battles in the streets of Gaza City for the first time this morning"  with Israeli troops going house-to-house looking for Hamas fighters

4:20 p.m. Fares Akram, the Gaza correspondent for The Independent of London, writes about his father, killed by an Israeli bomb in northern Gaza on Saturday:

My father, Akrem al-Ghoul, was no militant. Born in Gaza and educated in Egypt, he was a lawyer and a judge who worked for the Palestinian Authority. After Hamas took over, he quit and turned to agriculture....

As a grieving son, I am finding it hard to distinguish between what the Israelis call terrorists and the Israeli pilots and tank crews who are invading Gaza. What is the difference between the pilot who blew my father to pieces and the militant who fires a small rocket? I have no answers but, just as I am to become a father, I have lost my father.

4:15 p.m. Al Jazeera: 70 percent of Gazans without clean drinking water, food distribution suspended in northern Gaza

Hassan Khalaf, director of Al Shifa hospital: "What is happening is genocide."

3:55 p.m. Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida says on Al Aqsa Television said on Monday that the group has "thousands" of fighters and will welcome Israel into Gaza "with fire and iron"

3:03 p.m. Al Jazeera reports eyewitness accounts of Israeli troops demolishing some houses and taking up positions on rooftops of others.

2:42 p.m. Now Livni sets out the rest of her strategy, pointing to restoration of Fatah/Palestinian Authority in Gaza --- Agreement on border crossings (and thus passage of aid) was in 2005 with EU and "legitimate" Palestinian Authority --- Hamas is "illegitimate"

Head of EU delegation: EU "insists on cease-fire at earliest possible moment", not after Israeli military operations --- We have difference in view from Israel on this: "This has to be clearly set."

2:34 p.m. If Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni sets out same line in private that she has just set out in public, there is no hope of any Israeli movement toward cease-fire --- Al Jazeera's Ayman Moyheldin: "Everybody here knows that European Union is peripheral....Israel is satellite of United States"

Livni lays out the political strategy of "moderates" with Israel against "extremists": "Everybody in this region needs to choose where he belongs" --- Hamas is connected with Iran, Damascus, and Hezbollah

2:25 p.m. Press conference of EU delegation and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has just started --- Livni: "Situation is that we face terror....Now we need to against terror, against Hamas."

2:22 p.m. Intriguing diplomatic manoeuvre: Speaker of Iranian Parliament Ali Larijani travelling to Damascus to meet Syrian President Bashir al-Assad and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.

2:20 p.m. YNet News reports 24 rockets fired at southern Israel with several people lightly wounded.

2:15 p.m. Al Jazeera is focusing on humanitarian crisis and now the increasing number of child fatalities:

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_gEBO-6VRjs[/youtube]



12:35 p.m United Nations Relief and Works Agency representative tells CNN that 250,000 Gazans have no access to clean water. It is a "rapidly deteriorating situation".

Fuel terminal is due to reopen today. Israel says it is sending in 80 trucks today (compared to 750/day during the truce period).

12:30 p.m. Oxfam tell BBC that they cannot bring food into Gaza because of the security risk.

11:40 a.m. In case you missed it, this report from Israel's Ha'aretz:

The ground invasion was preceded by large-scale artillery shelling from around 4 P.M....Hundreds of shells were fired, including cluster bombs aimed at open areas.

11:05 a.m. The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator has issued an updated report, through 5 p.m yesterday, on the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza:

It is essential that patients and ambulances are able to reach hospitals, that agencies are able to access warehouses in order to conduct distributions. Currently movement within the Strip is severely challenged.

10:50 a.m. Yesterday we noted one of few examples of "Palestinian viewpoint" on CNN, the interview with Gazan resident Moussa el-Haddad and his daughter Laila in North Carolina. Interview has just been repeated on CNN International.

Laila el-Haddad is posting on events in Gaza via Twitter.

10:40 a.m. Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz calls for move from military operations to diplomacy:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's visit to Jerusalem today provides Israel with an exit ramp from the fighting against Hamas in Gaza. Sarkozy proposes declaring a lull in combat, which would test whether Hamas would agree to halt firing rockets. Israel would do well to respond affirmatively to the proposal, which protects its right to respond with force in the event the Palestinians continue firing from the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, Wall Street Journal puts out Israeli public-relations line:

In the clearest break from a strategy it used to pursue Hezbollah militants in Lebanon in 2006, Israeli leaders have set out clearly defined -- and relatively modest -- expectations for the current Gaza offensive.

10:20 a.m. A day of activity on the diplomatic front, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and a Hamas delegation in Cairo and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in New York. A European Union delegation is arriving in Egypt before continuing to Israel and possibly Palestinian territories.

On Sunday, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday, and Russian envoy Alexander Saltonov met Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Neither discussion produced any breakthroughs --- Livni pointedly rejected Saltanov's offer of communication with Hamas via Russia:

We are serious in our intention to harm Hamas and we have no intention to give them legitimize them and pass messages on to them. We have nothing to discuss with Hamas.

10:15 a.m. Israel/Palestine time: Israel has continued its aerial and artillery bombardment in support of its ground offensive, hitting 30 Hamas targets as well as a mosque which the Israeli Defense Forces claimed was storing weapons.

The Gazan death toll is now 521. At least 12 more civilians, including seven members of a family, have been killed in strikes on refugee camps and homes.

The IDF says 30 rockets were fired into southern Israel on Sunday. The number, while less than the number launched at the start of the 10-day conflict, is an increase from the the 20 fired on Saturday.

Most Gazans are confined to homes without electricity and with shortages of food and water.

A Farewell To George Bush: The Ten Low-Lights of the Presidency

Brad Reed's piece, reprinted from AlterNet, is an unashamedly partisan, angry, and at times darkly comic review of the last eight years. It's also an ideal conversation-starter for readers to chip in, either with low-lights that Reed underrated or that occurred after he wrote this in July (say Bush's "the economy is strong" statement in October).

All in all, then, an excellent good-bye gift for our 43rd President

The 10 Most Awesomely Bad Moments of the Bush Presidency

In a lot of ways, choosing the Bush administration's 10 greatest moments -- disastrous failures, all -- is about as pointless as picking out your 10 least favorite hemorrhoids: There are entirely too many of them, and taken together they all add up to a throbbing mass of pain. But unfortunately, history demands that we at least make the effort so that future generations will understand why we perform voodoo rituals cursing Bush's memory before we go to bed every night.



Narrowing down the Bush administration's various debacles to a mere 10 was no easy feat. In fact, I expect that many people will express dismay that their least favorite moment was left off the list. "How could commuting Scooter Libby's sentence not even make the top 10??!!" I can hear some of you shrieking already. Well, I'll tell you. Essentially, I tried to rate each Bush disaster by two main criteria: its body count and its damage to the country's reputation. So while Bush's awkward groping of German Chancellor Angela Merkel may be personally humiliating to everyone, it doesn't have the same heft as, say, the Iraq War.

But for those of you who insist on seeing your least favorite moment get its due, here is list of every honorable mention I could come up with: warrantless wiretapping; Valerie Plame; Scooter Libby's sentence commuted; Bush believes Rafael Palmeiro is innocent; soldiers face neglect at Walter Reed; signing statements; the Kyoto treaty ripped up; loyalty oaths; the fake turkey; a staged teleconference with troops, staged FEMA press conference, extraordinary rendition, support for junk science; endorsement of neo-creationist "intelligent design"; inaction against global warming; record oil prices; record budget deficits; record trade deficits; record number of Americans without health insurance; two recessions; no-bid contracts; bin Laden still at large; the Federal Marriage Amendment; stem cell research vetoed; waterboarding ban vetoed; "Last throes"; "Old Europe"; "It's hard work"; "Bring it on"; "Yo, Blair!"; "I'm the decider"; "I'm the commander guy"; "I'm a war president"; "This is the guy who tried to kill my dad"; "So?"; "Let the Eagle Soar"; John Bolton; Kenny Boy; Harriet Miers; John Roberts; Sam Alito; Blair talks Bush out of bombing al-Jazeera; Cheney shoots some guy in the face; the Military Commissions Act; Jose Padilla arrested and held without charge or access to counsel; endless tax cuts for the rich; let's waste a shitload of money by sending people to Mars and let's hire some Heritage Foundation staffers to rebuild Iraq.

And with that, let's go onto our 10 worst moments.

10: Bush Gets Re-elected

In a way, Bush's re-election was even more depressing than the shady shenanigans the GOP used to get him elected in 2000. See, back then Bush ran as a "compassionate conservative" who promised to be a "uniter, not a divider" who would run a center-right administration like his father did. By 2004, the myth of Bush the Uniter had been demolished by his exploiting the 9/11 terror attacks for political gain, by dropping poison pills into bills to make Democrats vote against their own proposals, and by supporting needless and divisive initiatives such as a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. On top of this, the Bush re-election crew ran one of the nastiest and most negative campaigns in recent memory. The low point in the whole affair came when administration allies and surrogates took to the airwaves to falsely accuse Democratic candidate John Kerry of lying about his service in Vietnam, even claiming in one instance that he intentionally shot himself to get out of the war.

The reason for this historically negative campaign was obvious: As Paul Krugman deftly observed at the time, Bush had "no positive achievements to run on." But this didn't stop more than 59 million Americans from voting to give Bush yet another four years to build on his already-impressive resume of negative achievements.

9: Alberto Gonzales' Congressional Testimony

One of the Bush administration's favorite pastimes over the past eight years has been gleefully urinating in the faces of the other two branches of government. This tendency is best exemplified by Ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions under oath about whether a group of eight federal prosecutors had been fired for partisan reasons. Essentially, all of the attorneys in question had exemplary performance records but were targeted because they did not prosecute several so-called "voter fraud" cases to then-presidential adviser Karl Rove's satisfaction. When the Senate Judiciary Committee called then-Deputy AG Paul McNulty to testify about the firings, he claimed that all of them had been dismissed due to "performance-related issues." About a month later, Gonzales penned an editorial for USA Today reiterating McNulty's claim that the attorneys were fired for performance reasons and called the entire controversy an "overblown personnel matter."

After it emerged that six of the fired attorneys had actually been given positive job evaluations, Gonzales rushed up to Capitol Hill to perform damage control. He said he "regretted" saying that the fired attorneys had lost his confidence, and then went on to say that he had no idea why the attorneys had been targeted for dismissal. Additionally, Gonzales said there was nothing at all improper about the firings, despite the fact that he admitted that he had "limited involvement" in the ordeal. Gonzales also responded to questions by answering "I don't recall" a total of 64 times.

Although several GOP senators called on Gonzales to resign in the wake of his testimony, Bush said Gonzales' performance had "increased my confidence in his ability to do the job" and that he would stay on as attorney general.

And the fun didn't stop there. When the Senate Judiciary Committee hauled Gonzales back to testify about his frantic hospital visit to get a fresh-from-surgery John Ashcroft to approve Bush's warrantless wiretapping program, it resulted in the sort of clown show that would have put Barnum and Bailey to shame. The lowlight came during a classic debate between Gonzo and Arlen Specter over whether Ashcroft could have effectively performed his duties as attorney general while he was under heavy sedation. After Gonzales finally stepped down in August 2007, Bush stamped his feet and cried that Gonzo had had "his good name dragged through the mud."

8: North Korea Conducts a Nuclear Test

In his 2002 State of the Union Address, Bush stated forthrightly that "the United States will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons." And to show how serious he was, Bush decided to invade Iraq, a country whose vast stockpile contained precisely zero weapons of mass destruction.

But while Bush was busy freedomizing the Iraqis, North Korea -- a country best known for being home of the world's worst government -- steadily built up its nuclear capabilities and eventually conducted a nuclear test in October 2006.

Oopsie-doodles!

While there is a great deal of dispute over whether the North Korean test was actually a successful test, it seemed clear that Bush's strategic doctrine of ignoring our enemies until they meet every one of his demands has failed somewhat spectacularly. Naturally, Condi Rice declared that the test was actually a significant win for Bush administration policy, thus proving once again that down isn't just up for the Bush administration, but sometimes sideways as well.

7: Colin Powell's Bogus WMD Presentation at the U.N.

For those of you who are too young to remember, there was a time when Colin Powell was an internationally respected diplomat and military leader who was seen as the sort of rare Republican straight-shooter who also had a fine sense for global sensibilities. Indeed, at the time of Powell's appointment to the State Department, the BBC described him as Bush's "trump card" and as "a national hero whose charismatic image bridges America's racial divide." But little did anyone know that Powell's public image as a renowned warrior-scholar would come crashing down to Earth less than four years after his appointment.

In February 2003, Powell gave a presentation before the U.N. Security Council that was instrumental in convincing both the American public and large swaths of the international community that Saddam Hussein had large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction that posed an immediate threat to global security. During his speech, Powell told scary tales of mobile biological weapons labs, chemical weapons stockpiles and aluminum tubes that could be used in a nuclear weapons program. All of these claims turned out not only to be wrong, but based on sourcing that even Powell acknowledged was "deliberately misleading" in some cases.

And what's more, Powell knew how shaky a lot of the intelligence was before he made his infamous presentation to the United Nations. As Bob Woodward reported in his book Plan of Attack, Powell had deep doubts about an intercept between two senior members of the Iraqi Republican Guard that vaguely sortakindamaybe might have mentioned something along the lines of using vehicles for bioweapons labs. Yet despite reservations about the intel, Woodward reports that Powell "decided to use it" for his U.N. presentation anyway. Ditto for an "inferential" report on Iraqi Scud missiles that Powell acknowledged had not been seen by anyone.

Years after feeding bogus intel to the Security Council, Powell said his performance was a "painful" "blot" on his record. Well la-tee-da. I'm sure that's a fine comfort to the hundreds of thousands of people who died needlessly as a result of Powell's Security Council boo-boo.

6: The Terri Schiavo Affair

In what will no doubt go down in history as one of the craziest things our federal government has ever done, the U.S. House and Senate both passed an emergency law to save the life of a woman who had been near-brain dead for more than a decade. The case of Terri Schiavo, who collapsed in her home and who later lost oxygen to her brain after her doctors misdiagnosed the cause of her collapse, was undoubtedly tragic for everyone involved; it was also undoubtedly none of the federal government's business.

After numerous state courts had sided with then-husband and guardian Michael Schiavo and ruled that Terri's condition was irreversible and that her feeding tube could be removed to end her life, the Christian Right launched into an epic freak-out the likes of which America has not seen since 17th Century Salem. After much Tasmanian devil-style screeching and hollering from the GOP base, the Republican Congress passed a bill transferring jurisdiction of the Schiavo case to federal court. Bush, who seemingly never misses an opportunity to take a naked ride on the crazy train, interrupted one of his frequent Texas vacations to sign the damn thing into law.

Ah, if only he'd been this swift and alert when Hurricane Katrina hit (see Moment #4).

While there were several moments of sheer, unbridled lunacy throughout (Pat Buchanan calls Michael Schiavo and his supporters Nazis! Tom DeLay issues threats against judges who don't rule how he wants them to! Peggy Noonan calls Michael Schiavo supporters part of "culture of death!"), the craziest by far was then-Senator Bill Frist's declaration that Terri had been misdiagnosed after he spent an hour watching a video of her in his office.

5: Bush and Condi's Excellent Gaza Adventure

The Bush administration can be described as a slapstick comedy with an unusually high body count: Picture the Three Stooges and the Keystone Cops duking it out with cruise missiles.

There is no better example of this than Bush and the State Department's wild adventures in the Gaza Strip in 2006. As Vanity Fair's David Rose reported earlier this year, the trouble began when Bush started stamping his feet and throwing a hissy fit about having elections in the Palestinian territories. Essentially, Bush's desire to be seen as a "freedom president" meant forcing various swarthy third-worlders to vote in elections that would presumably result in U.S.-friendly regimes around the world. After Hamas predictably defeated Fatah in the elections, Bush decided he didn't like democracy in the Middle East so much after all, and he had Condi Rice tell Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas that "America expected him to dissolve the Haniyeh government as soon as possible and hold fresh elections." Apparently, Condi believed that having an American-backed leader dissolve a democratically elected government would warm the Palestinians' hearts to American aims. Long story short: The U.S. government decides to bolster Fatah by sending them a bunch of arms. Word of these shipments leaks to a Jordanian newspaper. All hell breaks loose; Hamas defeats Fatah and proceeds to use the American-supplied arms it confiscated from Fatah against Israel. The entire ordeal was an amazing illustration of the administration's complete inability to anticipate entirely predictable outcomes. Or as Khalid Jaberi, a commander with Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, put it: "Since the takeover, we've been trying to enter the brains of Bush and Rice, to figure out their mentality. We can only conclude that having Hamas in control serves their overall strategy, because their policy was so crazy otherwise."

Epic, epic fail.

4: "Brownie, You're Doing a Heckuva Job"

Yes, we're getting into Bush's real crowning achievements here. The Think Progress blog has done an admirable job of chronicling the entire affair, so I'm just going to summarize the lowlights from its timeline:

Aug. 29: Katrina makes landfall, then-FEMA chief Michael "Brownie" Brown warns Bush that the levees could overflow, Bush gives John McCain a cake. Brown, a Bush hack who had previously worked as "the chief rules enforcer of the Arabian Horse Association," also preemptively asks Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of public affairs, if he "can quit now." He also declares himself "a fashion god."

Aug. 30: Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff learns that the New Orleans levees had failed, looters run rampant in New Orleans, Bush plays guitar, then-White House spokesman Scott McClellan says that Bush will return to his Texas ranch for one more night of vacation before returning to Washington.

Aug. 31: Federal relief workers try to evacuate New Orleans residents in what Chertoff describes as "conditions of urban warfare."

Sept. 1: Bush says, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." Brownie says he's received "no reports of unrest."

Sept. 2: Karl Rove begins to enact his strategy of blaming local officials for the Katrina disaster, Bush tells Brownie that he's doing "a heckuva job" and also says he's "satisfied with the response" of the federal government but "not satisfied with all the results," and pledges to rebuild Trent Lott's house.

Sept. 4: Chertoff says that "government planners did not predict such a disaster ever could occur."

And so on. While watching Katrina unfold live on my television, I suddenly had the urge to sell all my belongings, purchase several firearms, move out to a remote cabin in Montana and wait for society to fall apart. Because hey: If the entire world was going to completely collapse around me, I might as well have a wise-cracking psychic dog to keep me company.

3: Abu Ghraib

In its May 10, 2004, issue, the New Yorker magazine published an explosive report by renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh detailing the systematic torture of prisoners by U.S. military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Administration apologists used two distinctly different strategies to push back against the inevitable bad press that ensued: One was to condemn the guilty parties but refer to them merely as "a few bad apples" who weren't reflective of American policy; the other was to dismiss the entire scandal as "an out-of-control fraternity prank."

But it turned out, of course, that the crimes committed at Abu Ghraib weren't merely the work of a few rogue soldiers. Indeed, it turns out that the tactics employed in the infamous Iraqi dungeon were first taken out for a test spin at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And what tactics did those include, you ask? Why, sleep deprivation, stress positions, sexual humiliation and a technique called waterboarding that is meant to simulate the experience of drowning. And where did they get the idea to use these techniques? Why, from senior Bush administration officials, of course! With the full approval of Bush himself! As ABC News reported earlier this year, "the high-level discussions about these 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed."

Amazingly, the Bush administration tried to justify its decisions by claiming that waterboarding was perfectly legal and did not constitute torture. Despite the fact that, you know, it was deemed illegal 40 years ago by U.S. generals in Vietnam.

This particular scandal was so bad that even the John Birch Society (!!!) concluded that the administration and its flunkies were war criminals.

2: 9/11

The terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, was one of the most terrifying and traumatic moments in American history. Thousands of people perished that day, all due to an evil act carried out by a group of religious fanatics who crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Penn. But while the loss of life on that day was indeed a major tragedy for all Americans, what happened afterward was in many ways more disturbing: In essence, the politicization of 9/11 caused us to lose our collective minds for a long period of time.

The first shot was fired by Karl Rove in a January 2002 address to the Republican National Committee in which he implored the GOP to "go to the country on (the War on Terror) because they trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America's military might and thereby protecting America." And sure enough, by the time the midterm elections rolled around, Bush and his GOP minions were milking 9/11 to get as many votes as they could. When Senate Democrats tried to extend union rights for workers in the newly created Department of Homeland Security, for instance, Bush issued a pissy veto threat, and then-spokesman Ari Fleischer described the Dems' proposal as "a step backward, not forward, in protecting the country."

And that's just a mild example. Here are some other choice GOP attacks that accused Democrats of helping al Qaeda win by not kissing Bush's ass with the sufficient level of enthusiasm:

"America sits and wonders why it is that al Qaeda, this ragtag bunch of terrorists scattered all over the globe, can reorganize themselves. I think the difference is that al Qaeda doesn't have a Senate. Al Qaeda doesn't have a Senator Daschle." -- Dick Armey

"As America faces terrorists and extremist dictators, Max Cleland runs television ads claiming he has the courage to lead. He says he supports President Bush at every opportunity, but that's not the truth. Since July, Max Cleland voted against President Bush's vital homeland security efforts 11 times." -- An attack ad targeting then-U.S. Senator Max Cleland. Cleland is a vet who lost both legs and an arm in the Vietnam War.

"Al Qaeda terrorists. Saddam Hussein. Enemies of America. Working to obtain nuclear weapons. Now more than ever our nation must have a missile defense system to shoot down missiles fired at America. Yet Tim Johnson has voted against a missile defense system 29 different times." -- An attack ad targeting Sen. Tim Johnson. This one was particularly rich, since a missile defense shield would have done precisely nothing to stop the 9/11 attacks.

"How dare Senator Daschle criticize President Bush while we are fighting our war on terrorism, especially when we have troops in the field?" -- Trent Lott, who freaked out because then-Senate majority leader Tom Daschle had the gall to suggest that we'd have to capture Osama bin Laden in order to consider the war on terror successful.

"(Daschle's) divisive comments have the effect of giving aid and comfort to our enemies by allowing them to exploit divisions in our country." -- Virginia Representative Tom Davis, also attacking Daschle's remarks. Who knew that demanding the capture of our enemies was tantamount to treason?

And so on. The Republicans' "The Democrats Want to Help al Qaeda Kill You" gambit worked for two consecutive elections before finally running out of gas in 2006. But even so, the ability of one political party to garner votes simply by yelling about treason incessantly is incredibly depressing.

Pass me that bucket of Freedom Fries, will you?

1: "Mission Accomplished"

A lot has been written about Bush's aircraft carrier stunt over the past few years, and with good reason. After all, no other incident better illustrates how Bush's presidency was built entirely on hubristic arrogance, shameless propaganda and a destructive disregard for reality. In what Noam Chomsky correctly called "the opening of the year 2004 election campaign," George W. Bush delivered a so-called "victory speech" for the Iraq War after landing on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln aboard an S-3B Viking jet dressed in full flyboy gear.

Bush's posturing as a war hero was, of course, laughable. During the Vietnam War, Bush used his family connections to obtain a gentleman draft dodger's assignment flying planes in Alabama for the Air National Guard -- a cushy assignment that he didn't even do very well. But no matter! As long as he gave off an aura of steely resolve, and as long as he wore a ridiculous outfit to emphasize his "manly characteristic," our ever-watchful pundit corps endlessly praised him as the gin-you-wine article.

A sample of the atrocities, painstakingly compiled by Media Matters:

"(T)hat's the president looking very much like a jet, you know, a high-flying jet star. A guy who is a jet pilot. Has been in the past when he was younger, obviously. What does that image mean to the American people, a guy who can actually get into a supersonic plane and actually fly in an unpressurized cabin like an actual jet pilot?" -- Chris Matthews

"A little bit of history and a lot of drama today when President Bush became the first commander in chief to make a tail-hook landing on an aircraft carrier. A one-time Fighter Dog himself in the Air National Guard, the president flew in the co-pilot seat with a trip to the USS Abraham Lincoln." -- Wolf Blitzer

"And two immutable truths about the president that the Democrats can't change: He's a youthful guy. He looked terrific and full of energy in a flight suit. He is a former pilot, so it's not a foreign art farm -- art form to him. Not all presidents could have pulled this scene off today." -- Brian Williams

And in the time since Bush performed this grotesque PR stunt, roughly 4,000 troops have been killed in action along with tens of thousands of Iraqis, with nary a WMD in sight to justify the carnage. Heck of a job, all around.