Even the NYT has realized that blindly supporting Ariel Sharon's lunacy may be not the best possible policy.

To be just, workable and sustainable, any peace plan will have to divide that land into two coherent territories that are defensible and economically viable. The presence of more than 250,000 Israeli settlers scattered across the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights, leaving aside the added complications of East Jerusalem, make that division immeasurably harder.

Incidentally adding the colonisers in East Jerusalem takes their numbers to more like 400,000.

More Abu Graib revelations from the Washington Post.
"There were two MP dog handlers who did use dogs to threaten kids detained at Abu Ghraib"

Compassionate liberation. Four more years.

Bush in his ad tells us of the 'liberation' of Iraq, Afghanistan. We are told "At this Olympics there will be two more free nations -- and two fewer terrorist regimes."

In Sports Illustrated members of the Iraqi football (soccer) team give their views. One player says: "Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign. He can find another way to advertise himself."

Another player:"How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women? He has committed so many crimes."

The coach: "The American army has killed so many people in Iraq. What is freedom when I go to the [national] stadium and there are shootings on the road?"

More on this from the Guardian, the coach: "We do not have freedom in Iraq, we have an occupying force. This is one of our most miserable times. Freedom is just a word for the media."

Meanwhile in Afganistan, the Red Cross is pulling out because it is so unsafe, following Medecins Sans Frontieres who declared they are leaving some time ago (link).

Comments on the 2004 Democratic Party platform :
The word "terror" appears 59 times.
The phrase "war on terror" 7 times.
The word "homeland" 10 times.
The word "security" 57 times.
The word "education" 29 times.
The word "hunger" appears 2 times.
The word "homeless" 1 time.
The word "unemployed" 1 time.

We are told "U.S. and international policies must take into consideration the best interests of the Iraqi people", I suppose an improvement over the Bushies but hardly a powerful statement of support for the rights of Iraqis.

On Israel/Palestine, we are told "we will ensure that under all circumstances, Israel retains the qualitative edge for its national security and its right to self-defense". The Palestinians, (of course) need to be "committed to fighting terror" while accepting that "Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and should remain an undivided city", in other words that occupied East Jerusalem will never be part of a Palestinian state.
The Democrats give away more Palestinian rights: "The creation of a Palestinian state should resolve the issue of Palestinian refugees by allowing them to settle there, rather than in Israel."
My favorite is: "Furthermore, all understand that it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949."
I guess I am not one of all, neither are the vast majority of the Palestinians, nor numerous Israeli activists, US Jewish groups, the United Nations, the International Court, the European Union, the Geneva Conventions, ...