Blog For Free!
Archives
Home
2005 January
2004 December
2004 November
2004 October
2004 September
2004 August
2004 July
2004 June
2004 May
2004 April
2004 March
2004 February
2004 January
2003 December
2003 November
2003 October
2003 September
2003 August
2003 July
My Links
Contact Congress
Casualties in Iraq
National Debt Clock
tBlog
My Profile
Send tMail
My tFriends
My Images
Sponsored
Blog
|
| ... Getting Religion ... |
| 01.27.05 (7:26 am) [edit] |
[b]America has been referred to by some of the notable polemicists of our time including Gore Vidal & Christopher Hitchens as "An Irony-Free Zone" ... "We the People" could,[i] as a nation[/i], really do with developing a sense of irony... It might improve the political debate in today's dangerous times... [/b]
Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine and author of the new book [i]God's Politics [/i]talked with Jon Stewart on [b]The Daily Show [/b]about religion, progressive change and the ancient Hebrews' sense of humor...
Watch the clip on http://www.comedycentral.com/... ...
|
|
|
| |
| ... 36 ... 37 ... |
| 01.26.05 (1:21 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" are seriously in trouble ... Seriously ... How much longer will this shit go on??? ...http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD... [/b]
... "Thirty-one Marines were killed in a helicopter crash near Iraq's border with Jordan, bringing the number of U.S. troops killed Wednesday to 36 (... and [i]now [/i]it's 37 ...) -- the deadliest day for U.S. forces since the start of the war in Iraq.
Four U.S. Marines were killed during combat in Iraq's Al-Anbar province, and a U.S. soldier died when insurgents attacked a combat patrol north of Baghdad, according to the U.S. military." ...
The situation is untenable. 1,578 dead http://icasualties.org/oif/ . $300 billion in treasure http://news.yahoo.com/news?tm... . Another two hellish years [at least,[i] with no end in sight[/i], according to the Bushies] for our troops http://www.nytimes.com/2005/0... .
All for what? More Iraqis are dying now than died during Saddam's regime. [The rate of Iraq civilians killed per day is 9 human beings under Bush and was 2 human beings under Saddam...] The torture rooms are still open for business. Iraq is now a prime terrorist recruitment and training ground. "Democracy" is nowhere to be found. Civil war is imminent. Our armed forces are being degraded into paper tiger status. The war has cost us international support and respect. We no longer have the ability to respond to genuine threats.
It's not just a monumental fuck up, but one that keeps on sucking us dry, and apparently will for at least two more years.
[b]And, now we're saddled with Condi Rice as Secretary of State, who was put in charge of the Iraqi Stabilization Group in October 2003-- and things deteriorated badly thereafter... Stabilization? What "stabilization"? ... Condi knows about as much about war-fare as she does about telling the truth to the American people: i.e.[i] Zip, Zero, Nada[/i]... With the Mad King George and Queen Condi at their rudderless and blood-sucking neo-con helm,[i] get ready for a bumpy ride, folks [/i]... [/b]
[b]Sources:[/b]
DailyKos, http://www.dailykos.com
Deadliest day for U.S. in Iraq war: 37 U.S. Soldiers Killed, http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD...
|
|
|
| |
| ... The Neo-Cons' Thug in Baghdad??? Oh My!!! ... |
| 01.25.05 (8:51 am) [edit] |
[b]First, a little background:--[/b]
"... Jordan welcomed a possible extradition of Chalabi if heis arrested, Jordanian government spokeswoman Asma Khader told the press.
Chalabi was convicted and remains a wanted man in Jordan in connection with the 1989 collapse of Jordan's Petra Bank, Khader said.
"If he is extradited, then the necessary legal measures will be taken against him," said the spokeswoman.
In 1992, an total of 342 million US dollars were missing from Petra Bank, when Chalabi was president.
Chalabi was also convicted by the Jordan's State Security Court of embezzlement, theft, forgery and currency speculation among other charges, according to Khader.
He was sentenced to 22 years of hard labor and ordered to repay more than 494 million dollars in embezzled funds. But Chalabi fled the country before his trial got underway
..." http://news.xinhuanet.com/eng...
[b]And yet, this is the criminal goon that the Bushies [i]still back [/i]even though his heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods, readily spread by the neo-con traitors in Big Brother Rumsfeld's Pentagon led us into one the worst foreign policy disasters in our nation's history: the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq resulting in a bloodbath ... "We the People" should be calling for the impeachment of Bush/Cheney Inc. ...[/b]
Today’s[i] Wall Street Journal[/i], faithfully reflecting the neoconservative view on Iraq, takes a whack at both the CIA and Iraq’s Prime Minister Allawi—and says that it prefers none other than Ahmed Chalabi.
The[i] Journal [/i]says: “It is now looking more and more as if in Sunday’s election Iraqi voters will deliver a repudiation to Langley’s branch office in Baghdad.” By branch office, the Journal means Allawi, suggesting it would like to call Allawi a “CIA stooge.” And it adds:
... "[i]Unlike his rival and distant relative, the independent-minded and often-infuriating Ahmed Chalabi, [Allawi] shared the CIA’s view of how things ought to be done in a post-Saddam Iraq[/i]." ...
Let’s leave aside the spectacle of the [i]Journal[/i] opposing someone for doing what the CIA wanted. The point is, the[i] Journal[/i]—and the neocons—have long insisted that the Shiites in Iraq (including Chalabi, now, it seems) ought to rule. In its editorial, the [i]Journal [/i]blasts “the Allawi-CIA” regime for corruption, and again praises Chalabi. It seems that the Iraqi defense minister last week threatened to arrest Chalabi and deport him to Jordan, where he is wanted on bank fraud and embezzlement charges. None of that is important to the [i]Journal[/i] : They praise Chalabi and attack Allawi for corruption.
Now, the Allawi government is undoubtedly corrupt. But Chalabi virtually symbolizes corruption and ill-gotten gains. Yet, as I reported yesterday, he is on track for a high post in the next Iraqi government—perhaps even prime minister.
[b]Sources:[/b]
Robert Dreyfuss, [i]The Dreyfuss Report[/i], TomPaine, http://www.tompaine.com
Jordan says arrest of Chalabi is Iraqi internal affair, http://news.xinhuanet.com/eng...
|
|
|
| |
| ... Take Heart ... |
| 01.24.05 (7:44 am) [edit] |
[b]... on the fourth day of George W. Bush's second term ...[/b]
"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt...If the game runs sometime against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."
—Thomas Jefferson, 1798
[b]"We the People" will overcome the tyranny imposed upon us by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]... We will overcome ...[/b]
|
|
|
| |
| ... A Woman's Right To Choose ... |
| 01.23.05 (8:23 am) [edit] |
[b]American women of generations past fought, suffered and died from the medieval practice of prohibiting them the right to proper, safe and competent medical interventions in the event that they chose to terminate an unwanted pregnancy ... "We the People" should not permit the return to the nightmarish days when rich women could easily go to Europe to obtain an abortion, but working women, poor women, women without any means or support-- had to face the risk of death, disease and misery from corrupt back-street abortionists without medical training: using dirty instruments including coat-hangers carrying out their exploitations in filthy conditions ..[/b].
Saturday was the 32nd anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision—the decision that made abortion legal and drastically reduced the number of women who suffered and died from unsafe, illegal abortions. But Roe has never been in jeopardy more than it is today. The Supreme Court maintains a precarious 5-4 balance in favor of legal abortion, and it would only take one justice resignation—and an ultra-conservative Bush appointee—to upset the balance. The most realistic hope for saving Roe under the current administration is for senators to filibuster any anti-choice nominee and force the president to withdraw the name. Join Feminist Majority http://www.feminist.org/welco... and ask the pro-choice senators to promise to filibuster any and all anti-choice Supreme Court nominees. ACT NOW http://www.million4roe.com/si...
[b]Following the Leader: Why Progressives Must Not Abandon Their Commitment to Reproductive Rights[/b]
The 32nd anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision of Roe v. Wade comes at a time of intense debate about abortion, religion, sexuality, and family in American life and politics. For the last several months, the media has been pervaded by often inaccurate stories of the role that abortion and other controversial topics played in the 2004 elections and the degree to which these issues have become an insurmountable liability for moderate and progressive politicians. Leaders and activists are questioning publicly and privately the extent to which the right to abortion should be a central plank of their agenda and whether that right can or should be moderated or curtailed to rebuild their political base.
We at the Center for American Progress believe that those who cherish freedom and privacy must not walk away from their commitment to a woman's right to choose whether and when to have a child. Although progressives can and should find new ways to communicate the values underlying support for reproductive rights, their interests will not be served by parroting conservative rhetoric on abortion. Rather, they will only accomplish a betrayal of a core set of principles that runs throughout the progressive agenda – principles that include equality for women, support for healthy families, and the right to make personal decisions free from governmental interference.
Instead of retreating from the perceived albatross of abortion (and further demoralizing steadfast supporters), the way for progressives and moderates to broaden their appeal and strengthen their ranks is to show leadership in this controversial area. Leadership requires grappling with difficult issues – not ignoring them. The divide this country faces regarding difficult issues like abortion presents an opportunity for those on the left to demonstrate leadership, not to show how well they can follow. Progressives must ask – and strive to answer – the hard questions, such as what is the proper balance to be struck between respect for fetal life and respect for women as moral decision makers? How can the government best support women in their decisions to have or not have children? How can we reduce the frequency of abortion in ways that preserve rather than compromise women's autonomy?
Leadership also involves articulating a vision. Progressives need to acknowledge that the conflict over abortion cannot be solved with simple solutions. Instead, a comprehensive plan to improve women's health and lives and give them real choices is necessary. Such an agenda would include not only legal abortion but also access to contraception, medically accurate sex education, pre- and post-natal care, child care, health care, paid family leave, job training, job protection, and a living wage. For until we as a society create a climate in which women have the social and economic means to prevent unwanted pregnancies and to raise the children they want to bear, we are all responsible for every abortion that occurs.
Finally, leadership means defending that vision. This does not mean adhering rigidly to a position and refusing to consider alternative viewpoints. But it does mean standing up for the values in which one believes. Doing so is not only inspirational but informative. The public needs to be reminded that support for legal abortion and other reproductive rights comes from a specific and tragic history. Roe did not mark the beginning of abortion in this country. Illegal and unsafe abortions resulted in death, serious illness, and infertility for thousands of women, which provided much of the impetus for making abortion legal. When challenged by those who would criminalize abortion, progressives must remember this history and explain what they are about: protecting women's health and lives, ensuring that children are born into families that can care for them, and keeping women and their doctors out of jail. They must seek to fill, not create, a void in the current political landscape.
The issue of abortion will not go away any time soon. It is a complex issue that evokes strong responses from religious, health, and policy perspectives. But it is precisely because it touches such a strong chord in our society that it cannot be ignored. Our culture and our knowledge about pregnancy have changed significantly since Roe was decided. A new dialogue about abortion is not only appropriate, it is necessary. The issue deserves critical thinking and a thoughtful response anchored in the conviction that we as a society should strive to reduce the incidence of abortion but that that goal is best accomplished by giving women access to health care, respect as responsible moral agents, and real options to shape their lives. If progressives rebuild the foundation for legal abortion and the broader agenda of which it is simply one part, it will become much easier for them to explain persuasively why their view is the moral and compassionate position. In other words, if progressives lead on this issue, Americans will follow.
[b]Sources:[/b]
Shira Saperstein is deputy director of the Moriah Fund and a visiting fellow at the Center for American Progress. Jessica Arons is the Legal Policy Associate for the Women's Health Project and the Faith and Progressive Policy Project at the Center for American Progress., http://www.americanprogress.o...
Save [i]Roe[/i]: Filibuster!, http://www.tompaine.com/actio...
[i]Roe v. Wade[/i]: A Sensible Balance, http://www.tompaine.com/artic...
|
|
|
| |
| ... Freedom From Sanity ... |
| 01.22.05 (7:43 am) [edit] |
"So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture."
– George W. Bush, 1/20/05, http://www.washingtonpost.com...
[i]VERSUS[/i]
"Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have kind of a nation building core from America? Absolutely not."
– George W. Bush, 10/11/00, http://www.debates.org/pages/...
[b]According to an analysis by Media Matters, http://mediamatters.org/items... between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET on inauguration day, conservatives outnumbered progressives 19 to 7 on FOX, 10 to 1 on CNN and 13 to 2 on MSNBC http://mediamatters.org/items... ... Is it any wonder that "We the People" are [i]so easily duped [/i]and[i] led by nose [/i]by the neo-con Bushies whose lap-dog neo-fascist media propagandists are [i]out-in-force [/i]to persuade us to support their [i]insane neo-orwellian (PNAC) plans [/i]to conquer and dominate the entire world??? ... [/b]
President Bush opened his second term with an "assertively abstract" speech in which he promised to promote liberty and democracy "in every nation and culture" on earth. The speech was "harnessed to almost no specifics" – the words "freedom," "free" and "liberty" appeared 49 times, but Bush "did not mention Iraq, Iran, North Korea – or indeed any country, friend or foe." The word "terrorism" did not appear, nor was there mention of al Qaeda. And the war in Iraq, which has claimed the lives of 1,360 American troops and wounded upwards of 10,000, went unacknowledged.
[b]IRAQ? WHAT IRAQ?: [/b]While Bush mentioned the abstract notion of "freedom" 25 times in a 17-minute speech (yes, that works out to 1.5 times a minute), the president remained strangely silent on the most important issue facing the country today, the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq. Three other presidents gave their second inaugural addresses during times of war: James Madison, Abraham Lincoln and Nixon. All three focused heavily on the challenges faced by the country in a time of war. Bush, however, never let the word Iraq pass his lips. And "while the war's costs mount, the president pointedly did not ask the country for sacrifices to win the victory he promises."
[b]UNDERMINING DEMOCRACY: THE FIRST-TERM RECORD: [/b]President Bush's rhetoric on promoting democracy abroad was undermined by several of his first-term actions. The Bush administration continued to cultivate a close relationship with monarchic Saudi Arabia, for instance, despite that country being ranked by the non-partisan Freedom House as "one of the world's least free nations." In Russia, President Bush stood idly by as his "straightforward and trustworthy" friend Vladimir Putin eliminated political competition, canceled checks and balances, and muzzled the press. According to the Washington Post, "even Putin's defenders have reservations about calling Russia a democracy anymore." And the administration has been protective of Pakistan, "even though President Pervez Musharraf, a general who seized power in 1999, reneged last year on his promise to give up his role as chief of the armed forces."
[b]PROMOTING DEMOCRACY: SECOND-TERM CHALLENGES:[/b] Bush's vow to spread freedom also raises several second-term challenges: Will he "go to the mat for instance, to bring democracy to China? To Iran?...How hard will he press for women's rights and free elections in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt?" The challenge may be especially difficult in autocratic China, where U.S. investments are valued at more than $35 billion. The State Department cites "Well-documented abuses of human rights in violation of internationally recognized norms." Human Rights Watch accuses China of stifling free discourse, rigging elections in Hong Kong and repressing freedom in Tibet.
[b]DOMESTIC DITHERING:[/b] The last third of Bush's speech was focused on his domestic priorities for his upcoming term. He brushed off his rhetoric on the so-called "ownership society," saying he wanted to "widen the ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance, preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society." But over the past four years, Bush has systematically shifted retirement and health care costs and risks onto individuals while making sure financial services and health care providers get billions in new fees and services. His plan for privatizing Social Security, for example, leaves the elderly at the mercy of fickle financial markets, while private financial management firms will collect an estimated $940 billion windfall in new fees. He has advocated sharp cuts in the budget for Housing and Urban Development (which helps the poor find housing); today, HUD is poised to lose a quarter of its $31 billion budget.
[b]THE WORLD MAY NOT FOLLOW:[/b] In his speech, Bush set forth the idea that the United States would become a global leader for freedom and democracy. One big problem: The world may no longer trust him. Over the past four years, President Bush and his administration have systematically squandered international support and undercut America's position as global leader. A new public opinion poll conducted by BBC World Service shows that of 22,000 surveyed in Africa, Latin America, North America, Asia, and Europe, "58 percent of those surveyed said they believed US President George Bush will have a 'negative impact on [global] peace and security.'" Doug Miller, president of the polling firm GlobeScan, http://www.globescan.com/ which helped conduct the survey, called the results troubling: "Our research makes very clear that the re-election of President Bush has further isolated America from the world," he said. "It also supports the view of some Americans that unless his administration changes its approach to world affairs in its second term, it will continue to erode America's good name, and hence its ability to effectively influence world affairs."
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
|
|
|
| |
| ... "The Calling of Our Time" ... |
| 01.21.05 (6:47 am) [edit] |
"Imperialism is an institution under which one nation asserts the right to seize the land or at least to control the government or resources of another people." - John T. Flynn
"We may extend our dominion over the whole continent...but be assured it will be at the price of our free institutions." - Rep. William Waters Boyce
"I hate war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatreds it arouses... " - Harry Emerson Fosdick
[b]"We the People" tragically believe ourselves to be at the mercy of insane neo-con inmates now running an asylum of lap-dog media toadies; Congressional cowards; and a lazy, fearful and ignorant citizenry who cowers when the neo-fascist Bush & Co. say BOO! ... But, the Bushies report to US ... We're their BOSS ... It's time to demand an end to this insanity ... Say NO to WAR!!! ... Please write to Congress http://www.congress.org today and demand that they say NO[i] too [/i]...[/b]
President George W. Bush uttered those words yesterday in his Second Inaugural Address. Since then, the Media and the Blogosphere have spent a great deal of time and energy discussing the significance of that phrase. What a waste of time. If ever the phrase "watch what we do, not what we say" was appropriate, it is now. The Bush Administration has proven time and again that its words are meaningless, even on those rare occasions when they are true.
During the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on her confirmation to be Secretary of State, Dr. Condoleeza Rice took umbrage when Senator Barbara Boxer confronted Dr. Rice with her own words, Rice considered this "impugning her integrity." Of course begging the question --[i] what [/i]integrity?
Paying attention to any words coming from the Bush Administration is almost always a waste of time. They shed light on nothing. They are almost always inaccurate or lies. However, I did read some words http://www.dailykos.com/story... from BushCo that I think were important:
... "Cheney, interviewed hours before he was to take the oath of office for his second term, also said that Iran now tops the list of "the world's potential trouble spots." Iran is pursuing "a fairly robust nuclear program" and has a history of sponsoring terrorism, he said. "That combination is of great concern." Cheney said the Bush administration might seek U.N. sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program if necessary. The administration prefers to address the problem with diplomacy and doesn't want more war in the Middle East, he said." ...
Coming from the [i]de facto [/i]President of the United States, I think those words may have some significance.
[b]Source:[/b]
[i]Armando[/i], DailyKos, http://www.dailykos.com
|
|
|
| |
| ... Freedom's Jihad ... |
| 01.20.05 (9:19 pm) [edit] |
"There's never been any period where you could find such high levels of negative feelings towards the U.S." - Bush Bad for Global Peace, US Image, World Believes, http://www.commondreams.org/h...
[b]"We the People" should be alarmed by Bush's inaugural speech today because Bush confuses himself with God ... confuses tyranny with democracy ... and confuses slavery with freedom ... Bush is confused, really confused ... And the rest of us (working people) will be forced to pay the price in blood, sweat and tears as a consequence of his disastrous path to chaos, death and misery ...[/b]
So it’s clear from the speech: The next four years will be four more years of Christian jihad.
What’s most ironic about Bush’s speech is this: It’s as if suddenly all of the hundreds of tyrants and despots and dictators that the United States created, supported and sustained during the Cold War didn’t exist. As if the United States has always stood for freedom and democracy around the world, rather than tyranny. As if the government of South Vietnam, the Greek colonels, the Brazilian generals, the Central American death squads, the South African apartheid regime, Indonesia’s military thugs, General Zia of Pakistan, and the countless others who were warmly embraced as freedom-loving leaders by U.S. presidents from Truman to Clinton didn’t ever exist.
Now we have God on our side. Listen to W:
[i]From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers[/i].
During the Cold War, millions deserved to be slaves, though, as long as their leaders were deemed to be sufficiently anti-communist.
Bush nodded in the direction of how that’s changed: “America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one.” Someone needs to ask him: Were they one before? Or is this new? Were they one when we supported scores of dictators? Is that all in the past?
I don’t think so. Bush outlined a crusade that will lead to many Iraqs:
[i]We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right. America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies[/i].
That’s not just rhetoric. Bush is clearly intent on “persistently” enforcing his Christian-soldier brand of freedom on anyone who opposes it. And let’s be clear: For Bush, freedom doesn’t mean the freedom to oppose the United States, or the freedom to have a socialist government, or the freedom to wage an insurrection against the oppressive rule of an Israeli occupation. What Bush means is economic freedom, the freedom of the marketplace, the freedom of privatization and free enterprise. That’s the only thing that will “persistently” be imposed by this president. And that goes for the United States too: an ownership society in which Social Security, Medicare and even health insurance is free-marketized, atomized and enterprised.
There are a lot of outlaw regimes, I guess, that will be “next” after Iraq.
[i]The rulers of outlaw regimes can know that we still believe as Abraham Lincoln did: "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it[/i]."
And the “just God” will smite them. Strangely enough, most of these regimes are likely not only to be run by outlaws but sit on top of oil: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela. Coincidence? I think not.
[b]Source:[/b]
Robert Dreyfuss, [i]The Dreyfuss Report[/i], TomPaine, http://www.tompaine.com
|
|
|
| |
| ... What Must He Be Feeling??? ... |
| 01.20.05 (6:58 pm) [edit] |
[b]The WMDs Search Is Over...[/b]
If you've never lost a rationale for war, you can't imagine what the Bush administration is feeling.
Watch Steven Colbert's "The Search is Over" on http://www.comedycentral.com/... of [i]The Daily Show [/i]as he explains the stages of denial now facing the Bushies ...
But why should "We the People" be concerned??? ... Look at who is giving the "news of the day" [i]these days[/i]: http://mediamatters.org/items... ... So what [i]must[/i] the Bushies be feeling??? ... From today's disgraceful "coronation" spectacle(s), one could be forgiving for deducing [i]alot of Hubris[/i], and not much else ...
|
|
|
| |
| ... Disaster Squared: Iran Is Next ... |
| 01.19.05 (2:10 pm) [edit] |
"Four More Years of Bush Makes the World Anxious ...", http://www.commondreams.org/h...
[b]"The rest of the world will be watching with anxiety when President Bush is inaugurated Thursday for a second time, fearing the most powerful man on the planet may do more harm than good"... "We the People" should be extremely anxious[i] too [/i]... [/b]
Seymour Hersh’s latest article in [i]The New Yorker [/i]entitled “The Coming Wars” http://www.commondreams.org/h... makes it clear that Iran is in Bush’s crosshairs.
“I was repeatedly told that the next strategic target was Iran,” Hersh writes. And he explains that the preparations are already under way. “The Administration has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since last summer,” he writes. “Much of the focus is on the accumulation of intelligence and targeting information on Iranian nuclear, chemical, and missile sites, both declared and suspected. The goal is to identify and isolate three dozen, and perhaps more, such targets that could be destroyed by precision strikes and short-term commando raids.”
Hersh adds that “the Pentagon’s contingency plans for a broader invasion of Iran are also being updated.”
This is not a total surprise, since Bush placed Iran in the Axis of Evil, and some neoconservatives have been eager to go after Iran for quite a while, as Chris Toensing reports in the February cover story http://www.progressive.org/fe... of [i]The Progressive[/i].
As the invasion of Iraq was being planned, some neoconservatives were boasting that “real men want to go to Tehran,” Toensing says. “Many neoconservatives—especi ally those who remain in orbit around Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney—are itching for a fight.”
But it’s a fight that the United States may wish it never started. The Iranian people are more opposed to a U.S. invasion than the Iraqis were, and the Iranian military is much stronger than Saddam’s.
In the December issue of [i]The Atlantic[/i], James Fallows wrote a story entitled “Will Iran Be Next?” http://www.ocnus.net/cgi-bin/... For that article, he assembled a group of former U.S. security officials to conduct a “war game” about Iran. The result of that war game was ugly: Any military action by the United States or Israel against Iran would create a huge mess. No assault could knock out all of Iran’s weapons, since the regime has dispersed them, and Iran would likely retaliate against U.S. forces in Iraq.
Toensing makes the same point in his article. He quotes a Tehran University political science professor named Hadi Semati, who says the Iranian regime would “make life as miserable as possible for the Americans in Iraq.”
And Gary Sick, who was Jimmy Carter’s Iran expert at the National Security Council, tells Toensing that U.S. troops would face a much fiercer resistance in Iran. “If you like Iraq, you’re going to love Iran,” Sick says, mordantly.
But Bush keeps rattling the sword. Monday on NBC News he said of the Iranian situation: “I hope we can solve it diplomatically, but I will never take any option off the table.”
Now you may ask yourself, why in the world is Bush planning war against Iran when the war against Iraq is going so badly?
The answer is, the Bush folks are so deluded that they think Bush’s reelection was a vote not only for the Iraq War but for the neoconservatives who hatched it, Hersh reports.
And those neoconservatives are in a hurry to accomplish their goals before Bush’s four years are up. “This is the last hurrah,” one former high intelligence official told Hersh.
Delusion plus recklessness plus enormous power is going to equal disaster in Iran, even more so than in Iraq.
Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are dead set on disaster squared.
[b]Sources:[/b]
Disaster Squared: Iran Is Next, by Matthew Rothschild, http://www.commondreams.org/v...
Four More Years of Bush Makes the World Anxious, by Timothy Heritage, http://www.commondreams.org/h...
|
|
|
| |
| ... The 34 Scandals of George W. Bush ... |
| 01.18.05 (5:48 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" had better get ready for a[i] rocky ride [/i]... The following represents the appalling track-record of scandals perpetrated against us by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] -- Not to worry, none of them seem to involve sex ...[i] Hmmm [/i]...[/b]
[b]Print it out, send it to Harry Reid, or just read it and weep. Here are 34 scandals from the first four years of George W. Bush's presidency - every one of them worse than Whitewater.[/b]
Once upon a time - about five years ago - conservative pundits often talked about "scandal fatigue." Remember scandal fatigue? It was an affliction supposedly either turning voters against Democrats or, alternatively, a weariness in the body politic preventing Republicans from pursuing even more grievances against Bill Clinton. By any objective measure, however, after four years of George W. Bush's presidency, the entire nation should be suffering from utter scandal exhaustion.
Consider the raw materials of scandal that this administration has produced: False claims about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction. Torture in Abu Ghraib. The virtually treasonous exposure of a CIA agent by White House officials. And those are just the best-known examples.
After all, how many citizens can name all the ongoing investigations of Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's old firm? Who remembers that the administration illicitly diverted $700 million from Afghanistan to Iraq? Or that, on Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans stole strategy memos from Democrats, while a House Republican said he was offered a bribe during a crucial vote? Even a conscientious citizen cannot be expected to keep score, so Salon has compiled a list.
If the next four years of Bush and the GOP running the federal government are anything like the previous four, however, potential scandals will lead to few political consequences for the Republicans. Bush opponents will likely be disappointed if they are waiting for a renewal of the supposed "second-term scandal jinx" dogging Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Clinton.
After all, Washington Republicans are insulated by a rabidly partisan Congress with no interest in investigating the executive branch (and little taste for disciplining itself). By contrast, presidents Nixon, Reagan and Clinton each faced an adversarial Congress. As the late Senate Watergate Committee counsel Sam Dash noted in 2003 about congressional oversight: "Although it worked then, it doesn't mean it would work now."
Moreover, Congress allowed the independent-counsel statute, the law that brought us Ken Starr, to expire as Bush assumed office. And the right-wing media - cable news, talk radio, several newspapers - are not about to replicate the drumbeat of scandal they pounded out while Clinton held office. Thus scandals are not a defining part of the GOP's current identity.
The Democrats, terminally cautious even in the minority, seem unlikely to change this dynamic - although Harry Reid, the Democrats' new Senate leader, has announced his party will hold monthly oversight hearings, beginning this January, on "unasked and unanswered questions" about the Bush administration. Reid's project, however, is an uphill battle. The Democrats cannot compel anyone to testify, unlike standard congressional committees, and memorable rhetoric is not a party strength. "This is about honesty and accountability and reforming our federal government," Reid said in the prepared statement the Democratic Policy Committee released about its oversight plans.
Just think: Someone prepared that quote. To put it more bluntly than Reid did: This is about the dozens of scandals occurring while the Republican Party has enjoyed almost complete control over the federal government. This is about the GOP's utter disrespect for the laws of the United States. This is about stopping greed, bribery and influence-peddling.
Indeed, here are 34 Republican scandals worthy of further attention, gathered into one place. The list focuses on scandals involving apparently illegal activity or violations of ethics codes. Not everything that is politically, legally or ethically scandalous constitutes a scandal. It is scandalous, for instance, that House Republicans have further weakened their own ethics committee. But that is not, properly speaking, a political scandal. It is just contemptible governance.
This list is also limited to events of the past four years, or those coming to light in that time. It covers both the executive branch and the Congress, since the latter, especially the Senate, is increasingly a mere adjunct to the White House. However, the items are not arranged in terms of moral or historical gravity. Abu Ghraib might create years of anti-American hatred abroad, but it and some other headline-generating events appear near the end of the list, to help familiarize readers first with lesser-known or now-overlooked scandals. Recall how John Ashcroft broke the law? Know why Dick Cheney wants to keep those energy task force documents secret? Read on. You too, Harry Reid.
[b]1. Memogate: The Senate Computer Theft
The scandal:[/b] From 2001 to 2003, Republican staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee illicitly accessed nearly 5,000 computer files containing confidential Democratic strategy memos about President Bush's judicial nominees. The GOP used the memos to shape their own plans and leaked some to the media.
[b]The problem:[/b] The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act states it is illegal to obtain confidential information from a government computer.
[b]The outcome:[/b] Unresolved. The Justice Department has assigned a prosecutor to the case. The staff member at the heart of the matter, Manuel Miranda, has attempted to brazen it out, filing suit in September 2004 against the DOJ to end the investigation. "A grand jury will indict a ham sandwich," Miranda complained. Some jokes just write themselves.
[b]2. Doctor Detroit: The DOJ's Bungled Terrorism Case
The scandal:[/b] The Department of Justice completely botched the nation's first post-9/11 terrorism trial, as seen when the convictions of three Detroit men allegedly linked to al-Qaida were overturned in September 2004. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft had claimed their June 2003 sentencing sent "a clear message" that the government would "detect, disrupt and dismantle the activities of terrorist cells."
[b]The problem:[/b] The DOJ's lead prosecutor in the case, Richard Convertino, withheld key information from the defense and distorted supposed pieces of evidence - like a Las Vegas vacation video purported to be a surveillance tape. But that's not the half of it. Convertino says he was unfairly scapegoated because he testified before the Senate, against DOJ wishes, about terrorist financing. Justice's reconsideration of the case began soon thereafter. Convertino has since sued the DOJ, which has also placed him under investigation.
[b]The outcome:[/b] Let's see: Overturned convictions, lawsuits and feuding about a Kafkaesque case. Nobody looks good here.
[b]3. Dark Matter: The Energy Task Force
The scandal:[/b] A lawsuit has claimed it is illegal for Dick Cheney to keep the composition of his 2001 energy-policy task force secret. What's the big deal? The New Yorker's Jane Mayer has suggested an explosive aspect of the story, citing a National Security Council memo from February 2001, which "directed the N.S.C. staff to cooperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered the 'melding' of ... 'operational policies towards rogue states,' such as Iraq, and 'actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.'" In short, the task force's activities could shed light on the administration's pre-9/11 Iraq aims.
[b]The problem:[/b] The Federal Advisory Committee Act says the government must disclose the work of groups that include non-federal employees; the suit claims energy industry executives were effectively task force members. Oh, and the Bush administration has portrayed the Iraq war as a response to 9/11, not something it was already considering.
[b]The outcome:[/b] Unresolved. In June 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court sent the case back to an appellate court.
[b]4. The Indian Gaming Scandal
The scandal:[/b] Potential influence peddling to the tune of $82 million, for starters. Jack Abramoff, a GOP lobbyist and major Bush fundraiser, and Michael Scanlon, a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), received that amount from several Indian tribes, while offering access to lawmakers. For instance, Texas' Tigua tribe, which wanted its closed El Paso casino reopened, gave millions to the pair and $33,000 to Rep. Robert Ney (R-Ohio) in hopes of favorable legislation (Ney came up empty). And get this: The Tiguas were unaware that Abramoff, Scanlon and conservative activist Ralph Reed had earned millions lobbying to have the same casino shut in 2002.
[b]The problem:[/b] Federal officials want to know if Abramoff and Scanlon provided real services for the $82 million, and if they broke laws while backing candidates in numerous Indian tribe elections.
[b]The outcome:[/b] Everybody into the cesspool! The Senate Indian Affairs Committee and five federal agencies, including the FBI, IRS, and Justice Department, are investigating.
[b]5. Halliburton's No-Bid Bonanza
The scandal:[/b] In February 2003, Halliburton received a five-year, $7 billion no-bid contract for services in Iraq.
[b]The problem:[/b] The Army Corps of Engineers' top contracting officer, Bunnatine Greenhouse, objected to the deal, saying the contract should be the standard one-year length, and that a Halliburton official should not have been present during the discussions.
[b]The outcome:[/b] The FBI is investigating. The $7 billion contract was halved and Halliburton won one of the parts in a public bid. For her troubles, Greenhouse has been forced into whistle-blower protection.
[b]6. Halliburton: Pumping Up Prices
The scandal:[/b] In 2003, Halliburton overcharged the army for fuel in Iraq. Specifically, Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root hired a Kuwaiti company, Altanmia, to supply fuel at about twice the going rate, then added a markup, for an overcharge of at least $61 million, according to a December 2003 Pentagon audit.
[b]The problem:[/b] That's not the government's $61 million, it's our $61 million.
[b]The outcome:[/b] The FBI is investigating.
[b]7. Halliburton's Vanishing Iraq Money
The scandal:[/b] In mid-2004, Pentagon auditors determined that $1.8 billion of Halliburton's charges to the government, about 40 percent of the total, had not been adequately documented.
[b]The problem:[/b] That's not the government's $1.8 billion, it's our $1.8 billion.
[b]The outcome:[/b] The Defense Contract Audit Agency has "strongly" asked the Army to withhold about $60 million a month from its Halliburton payments until the documentation is provided.
[b]8. The Halliburton Bribe-Apalooza
The scandal:[/b] This may not surprise you, but an international consortium of companies, including Halliburton, is alleged to have paid more than $100 million in bribes to Nigerian officials, from 1995 to 2002, to facilitate a natural-gas-plant deal. (Cheney was Halliburton's CEO from 1995 to 2000.)
[b]The problem: [/b]The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prohibits U.S. companies from bribing foreign officials.
[b]The outcome:[/b] A veritable coalition of the willing is investigating the deal, including the Justice Department, the SEC, the Nigerian government and a French magistrate. In June, Halliburton fired two implicated executives.
[b]9. Halliburton: One Fine Company
The scandal:[/b] In 1998 and 1999, Halliburton counted money recovered from project overruns as revenue, before settling the charges with clients.
[b]The problem:[/b] Doing so made the company's income appear larger, but Halliburton did not explain this to investors. The SEC ruled this accounting practice was "materially misleading."
[b]The outcome:[/b] In August 2004, Halliburton agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine to settle SEC charges. One Halliburton executive has paid a fine and another is settling civil charges. Now imagine the right-wing rhetoric if, say, Al Gore had once headed a firm fined for fudging income statements.
[b]10. Halliburton's Iran End Run
The scandal:[/b] Halliburton may have been doing business with Iran while Cheney was CEO.
[b]The problem:[/b] Federal sanctions have banned U.S. companies from dealing directly with Iran. To operate in Iran legally, U.S. companies have been required to set up independent subsidiaries registered abroad. Halliburton thus set up a new entity, Halliburton Products and Services Ltd., to do business in Iran, but while the subsidiary was registered in the Cayman Islands, it may not have had operations totally independent of the parent company.
[b]The outcome:[/b] Unresolved. The Treasury Department has referred the case to the U.S. attorney in Houston, who convened a grand jury in July 2004.
[b]11. Money Order: Afghanistan's Missing $700 Million Turns Up in Iraq
The scandal:[/b] According to Bob Woodward's "Plan of Attack," the Bush administration diverted $700 million in funds from the war in Afghanistan, among other places, to prepare for the Iraq invasion.
[b]The problem:[/b] Article I, Section 8, Clause 12 of the U.S. Constitution specifically gives Congress the power "to raise and support armies." And the emergency spending bill passed after Sept. 11, 2001, requires the administration to notify Congress before changing war spending plans. That did not happen.
[b]The outcome:[/b] Congress declined to investigate. The administration's main justification for its decision has been to claim the funds were still used for, one might say, Middle East anti-tyrant-related program activities.
[b]12. Iraq: More Loose Change
The scandal:[/b] The inspector general of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq released a series of reports in July 2004 finding that a significant portion of CPA assets had gone missing - 34 percent of the materiel controlled by Kellogg, Brown & Root - and that the CPA's method of disbursing $600 million in Iraq reconstruction funds "did not establish effective controls and left accountability open to fraud, waste and abuse."
[b]The problem:[/b] As much as $50 million of that money was disbursed without proper receipts.
[b]The outcome:[/b] The CPA has disbanded, but individual government investigations into the handling of Iraq's reconstruction continue.
[b]13. The Pentagon-Israel Spy Case
The scandal:[/b] A Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, may have passed classified United States documents about Iran to Israel, possibly via the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a Washington lobbying group.
[b]The problem:[/b] To do so could be espionage or could constitute the mishandling of classified documents.
[b]The outcome:[/b] A grand jury is investigating. In December 2004, the FBI searched AIPAC's offices. A Senate committee has also been investigating the apparently unauthorized activities of the Near East and South Asia Affairs group in the Pentagon, where Franklin works.
[b]14. Gone to Taiwan
The scandal:[/b] Missed this one? A high-ranking State Department official, Donald Keyser, was arrested and charged in September with making a secret trip to Taiwan and was observed by the FBI passing documents to Taiwanese intelligence agents in Washington-area meetings.
[b]The problem:[/b] Such unauthorized trips are illegal. And we don't have diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
[b]The outcome:[/b] The case is in the courts.
[b]15. Wiretapping the United Nations
The scandal:[/b] Before the United Nations' vote on the Iraq war, the United States and Great Britain developed an eavesdropping operation targeting diplomats from several countries.
[b]The problem:[/b] U.N. officials say the practice is illegal and undermines honest diplomacy, although some observers claim it is business as usual on East 42nd Street.
[b]The outcome:[/b] Little fuss here, but a major British scandal erupted after U.K. intelligence translator Katherine Gun leaked a U.S. National Security Agency memo requesting British help in the spying scheme, in early 2003. Initially charged under Britain's Official Secrets Act for leaking classified information, Gun was cleared in 2004 - seemingly to avoid hearings questioning the legality of Britain's war participation.
[b]16. The Boeing Boondoggle
The scandal:[/b] In 2003, the Air Force contracted with Boeing to lease a fleet of refueling tanker planes at an inflated price: $23 billion.
[b]The problem:[/b] The deal was put together by a government procurement official, Darleen Druyun, who promptly joined Boeing. Beats using a headhunter.
[b]The outcome:[/b] In November 2003, Boeing fired both Druyun and CFO Michael Sears. In April 2004, Druyun pled guilty to a conspiracy charge in the case. In November 2004, Sears copped to a conflict-of-interest charge, and company CEO Phil Condit resigned. The government is reviewing its need for the tankers.
[b]17. The Medicare Bribe Scandal
The scandal:[/b] According to former Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.), on Nov. 21, 2003, with the vote on the administration's Medicare bill hanging in the balance, someone offered to contribute $100,000 to his son's forthcoming congressional campaign, if Smith would support the bill.
[b]The problem:[/b] Federal law prohibits the bribery of elected officials.
[b]The outcome:[/b] In September 2004, the House Ethics Committee concluded an inquiry by fingering House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), saying he deserved "public admonishment" for offering to endorse Smith's son in return for Smith's vote. DeLay has claimed Smith initiated talks about a quid pro quo. The matter of the $100,000 is unresolved; soon after his original allegations, Smith suddenly claimed he had not been offered any money. Smith's son Brad lost his GOP primary in August 2004.
[b]18. Tom DeLay's PAC Problems
The scandal:[/b] One of DeLay's political action committees, Texans for a Republican Majority, apparently reaped illegal corporate contributions for the campaigns of Republicans running for the Texas Legislature in 2002. Given a Republican majority, the Legislature then re-drew Texas' U.S. congressional districts to help the GOP.
[b]The problem:[/b] Texas law bans the use of corporate money for political purposes.
[b]The outcome:[/b] Unresolved. Three DeLay aides and associates - Jim Ellis, John Colyandro and Warren RoBold - were charged in September 2004 with crimes including money laundering and unlawful acceptance of corporate contributions.
[b]19. Tom DeLay's FAA: Following Americans Anywhere
The scandal:[/b] In May 2003, DeLay's office persuaded the Federal Aviation Administration to find the plane carrying a Texas Democratic legislator, who was leaving the state in an attempt to thwart the GOP's nearly unprecedented congressional redistricting plan.
[b]The problem:[/b] According to the House Ethics Committee, the "invocation of federal executive branch resources in a partisan dispute before a state legislative body" is wrong.
[b]The outcome:[/b] In October 2004, the committee rebuked DeLay for his actions.
[b]20. In the Rough: Tom DeLay's Golf Fundraiser
The scandal:[/b] DeLay appeared at a golf fundraiser that Westar Energy held for one of his political action committees, Americans for a Republican Majority, while energy legislation was pending in the House.
[b]The problem:[/b] It's one of these "appearance of impropriety" situations.
[b]The outcome:[/b] The House Ethics Committee tossed the matter into its Oct. 6 rebuke. "Take a lap, Tom."
[b]21. Busy, Busy, Busy in New Hampshire
The scandal:[/b] In 2002, with a tight Senate race in New Hampshire, Republican Party officials paid a Virginia-based firm, GOP Marketplace, to enact an Election Day scheme meant to depress Democratic turnout by "jamming" the Democratic Party phone bank with continuous calls for 90 minutes.
[b]The problem:[/b] Federal law prohibits the use of telephones to "annoy or harass" anyone.
[b]The outcome:[/b] Chuck McGee, the former executive director of the New Hampshire GOP, pleaded guilty in July 2004 to a felony charge, while Allen Raymond, former head of GOP Marketplace, pleaded guilty to a similar charge in June. In December, James Tobin, former New England campaign chairman of Bush-Cheney '04, was indicted for conspiracy in the case.
[b]22. The Medicare Money Scandal
The scandal:[/b] Thomas Scully, Medicare's former administrator, supposedly threatened to fire chief Medicare actuary Richard Foster to prevent him from disclosing the true cost of the 2003 Medicare bill.
[b]The problem: [/b]Congress voted on the bill believing it would cost $400 billion over 10 years. The program is more likely to cost $550 billion.
[b]The outcome:[/b] Scully denies threatening to fire Foster, as Foster has charged, but admits telling Foster to withhold the higher estimate from Congress. In September 2004, the Government Accountability Office recommended Scully return half his salary from 2003. Inevitably, Scully is now a lobbyist for drug companies helped by the bill.
[b]23. The Bogus Medicare "Video News Release"
The scandal:[/b] To promote its Medicare bill, the Bush administration produced imitation news-report videos touting the legislation. About 40 television stations aired the videos. More recently, similar videos promoting the administration's education policy have come to light.
[b]The problem:[/b] The administration broke two laws: One forbidding the use of federal money for propaganda, and another forbidding the unauthorized use of federal funds.
[b]The outcome:[/b] In May 2004, the GAO concluded the administration acted illegally, but the agency lacks enforcement power.
[b]24. Pundits on the Payroll: The Armstrong Williams Case
The scandal:[/b] The Department of Education paid conservative commentator Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote its educational law, No Child Left Behind.
[b]The problem:[/b] Williams did not disclose that his support was government funded until the deal was exposed in January 2005.
[b]The outcome:[/b] The House and FCC are considering inquiries, while Williams' syndicated newspaper column has been terminated.
[b]25. Ground Zero's Unsafe Air
The scandal:[/b] Government officials publicly minimized the health risks stemming from the World Trade Center attack. In September 2001, for example, Environmental Protection Agency head Christine Todd Whitman said New York's "air is safe to breathe and [the] water is safe to drink."
[b]The problem:[/b] Research showed serious dangers or was incomplete. The EPA used outdated techniques that failed to detect tiny asbestos particles. EPA data also showed high levels of lead and benzene, which causes cancer. A Sierra Club report claims the government ignored alarming data. A GAO report says no adequate study of 9/11's health effects has been organized.
[b]The outcome:[/b] The long-term health effects of the disaster will likely not be apparent for years or decades and may never be definitively known. Already, hundreds of 9/11 rescue workers have quit their jobs because of acute illnesses.
[b]26. John Ashcroft's Illegal Campaign Contributions
The scandal:[/b] Ashcroft's exploratory committee for his short-lived 2000 presidential bid transferred $110,000 to his unsuccessful 2000 reelection campaign for the Senate.
[b]The problem:[/b] The maximum for such a transfer is $10,000.
[b]The outcome:[/b] The Federal Election Commission fined Ashcroft's campaign treasurer, Garrett Lott, $37,000 for the transgression.
[b]27. Intel Inside ... The White House
The scandal:[/b] In early 2001, chief White House political strategist Karl Rove held meetings with numerous companies while maintaining six-figure holdings of their stock - including Intel, whose executives were seeking government approval of a merger. "Washington hadn't seen a clearer example of a conflict of interest in years," wrote Paul Glastris in the Washington Monthly.
[b]The problem:[/b] The Code of Federal Regulations says government employees should not participate in matters in which they have a personal financial interest.
[b]The outcome:[/b] Then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, spurning precedent, did not refer the case to the Justice Department.
[b]28. Duck! Antonin Scalia's Legal Conflicts
The scandal:[/b] Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia refused to recuse himself from the Cheney energy task force case, despite taking a duck-hunting trip with the vice president after the court agreed to weigh the matter.
[b]The problem:[/b] Federal law requires a justice to "disqualify himself from any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned."
[b]The outcome:[/b] Scalia stayed on, arguing no conflict existed because Cheney was party to the case in a professional, not personal, capacity. Nothing new for Scalia, who in 2002 was part of a Mississippi redistricting ruling favorable to GOP Rep. Chip Pickering - son of Judge Charles Pickering, a Scalia turkey-hunting pal. In 2001, Scalia went pheasant hunting with Kansas Gov. Bill Graves when that state had cases pending before the Supreme Court.
[b]29. AWOL
The scandal:[/b] George W. Bush, self-described "war president," did not fulfill his National Guard duty, and Bush and his aides have made misleading statements about it. Salon's Eric Boehlert wrote the best recent summary of the issue.
[b]The problem:[/b] Military absenteeism is a punishable offense, although Bush received an honorable discharge.
[b]The outcome:[/b] No longer a campaign issue. But what was Bush doing in 1972?
[b]30. Iraq: The Case for War
The scandal:[/b] Bush and many officials in his administration made false statements about Iraq's military capabilities, in the months before the United States' March 2003 invasion of the country.
[b]The problem:[/b] For one thing, it is a crime to lie to Congress, although Bush backers claim the president did not knowingly make false assertions.
[b]The outcome:[/b] A war spun out of control with unknowable long-term consequences. The Iraq Survey Group has stopped looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
[b]31. Niger Forgeries: Whodunit?
The scandal:[/b] In his January 2003 State of the Union address, Bush said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
[b]The problem:[/b] The statement was untrue. By March 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency showed the claim, that Iraq sought materials from Niger, was based on easily discernible forgeries.
[b]The outcome:[/b] The identity of the forger(s) remains under wraps. Journalist Josh Marshall has implied the FBI is oddly uninterested in interviewing Rocco Martino, the former Italian intelligence agent who apparently first shopped the documents in intelligence and journalistic circles and would presumably be able to shed light on their origin.
[b]32. In Plame Sight
The scandal:[/b] In July 2003, administration officials disclosed the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative working on counterterrorism efforts, to multiple journalists, and columnist Robert Novak made Plame's identity public. Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had just written a New York Times opinion piece stating he had investigated the Niger uranium-production allegations, at the CIA's behest, and reported them to be untrue, before Bush's 2003 State of the Union address.
[b]The problem:[/b] Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act it is illegal to disclose, knowingly, the name of an undercover agent.
[b]The outcome:[/b] Unresolved. The Justice Department appointed special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to the case in December 2003. While this might seem a simple matter, Fitzgerald could be unable to prove the leakers knew Plame was a covert agent.
[b]33. Abu Ghraib
The scandal:[/b] American soldiers physically tortured prisoners in Iraq and kept undocumented "ghost detainees" in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
[b]The problem:[/b] The United States is party to the Geneva Conventions, which state that "No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever."
[b]The outcome:[/b] Unresolved. A Pentagon internal inquiry found a lack of oversight at Abu Ghraib, while independent inquiries have linked the events to the administration's desire to use aggressive interrogation methods globally. Notoriously, Gonzales has advocated an approach which "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions." More recently, Gonzales issued qualified support for the Geneva Conventions in January 2005 Senate testimony after being nominated for attorney general. Army reservist Charles Graner was convicted in January 2005 for abusing prisoners, while a few other soldiers await trial.
[b]34. Guantánamo Bay Torture?
The scandal:[/b] The U.S. military is also alleged to have abused prisoners at the U.S. Navy's base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. FBI agents witnessing interrogations there have reported use of growling dogs to frighten prisoners and the chaining of prisoners in the fetal position while depriving them of food or water for extended periods.
[b]The problem:[/b] More potential violations of the Geneva Conventions.
[b]The outcome:[/b] An internal military investigation was launched in January 2005.
[b]Source:[/b]
The Scandal Sheet, By Peter Dizikes, Salon.com, http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
|
|
|
| |
| ... Question All Assumptions ... |
| 01.18.05 (10:45 am) [edit] |
"The election in Iraq is getting weirder and weirder.
First, does anyone but me think that the media’s emphasis on registering Iraqi voters in the United States and other Western countries is being wildly hyped? This is, after all, an election in Iraq, but the U.S. media is giving enormous ink to the polling places being set up in the United States, neglecting to mention that these voters have no idea who to vote for, since there is no campaigning, no election materials, and no easy way to find out who the candidates are. Second, the press here keeps calling them Iraqi “exiles,” but they are in fact “immigrants,” just like millions of other foreign-born U.S. citizens and residents. They are not going back. Why exactly they should vote in Iraq isn’t clear to me, but it is clear that they represent a large pool of mostly pro-American (and pro-Shiite) voters." - Bizarro Elections, http://www.tompaine.com/archi...
[b]"We the People" should analyze critically what we are being told ... The “Tarzan” foreign policy—that is, “Me good, you bad" is not only terribly simple-minded, is is outright false and dangerous to our ability to deal as moral, ethical and civilized people in the world community ... Question all assumptions-- ask yourself why-- ask for evidence-- ask those who lead our nation to "define their terms" as Socrates wisely advised ...[/b]
Post-World War II U.S. foreign policy, including that of the Bush administration, has been based on certain assumptions about the nature of the world. Unfortunately, most of those assumptions are suspect.
The most notable assumption is that if the U.S. government (USG) does not dominate the globe militarily and ensure security through wanton armed interventions, the world will fall apart. Yet the USG did not even exist for the vast majority of recorded history and the world got along just fine using what scholars call a “balance of power” among great powers. In fact, often times the USG has invaded other countries and removed their governments for no good reason—for example, the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 and the recent invasion of Iraq. Other times, the USG has used the CIA to remove a foreign country’s more democratic government and replace it with a less democratic one that was friendlier to U.S. interests—for example, in Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954 and Chile in 1973. Apparently President Bush—who, according to[i] Time [/i]magazine, reads only books that reinforce his prejudices—loved a recent book that argues that U.S. hegemony has deep roots in American history. That statement would be true if one inserts the words “post-World War II” before the words “American history.” For most of U.S. history, the United States did not seek hegemony over other countries and pursued a policy of deliberate independence from most overseas disputes.
Such examples of recent aggressive U.S. behavior should cast doubt on a couple of other assumptions held by the U.S. policy elite and general public. The first is that democracies are more peaceful than more authoritarian governments. Scholars have shown that no empirical support exists for this proposition. In fact, newly minted democracies go to war at greater frequency than more autocratic states. The second is that democracies don’t go to war with each other—the democratic peace theory. Although the validity of this theory is disputed among scholars, opponents of the theory convincingly argue that even if wars among democracies are rare throughout history, democracies are also rare. But examples of wars between democracies do exist—for example, the Boer war at the turn of the twentieth century, World War I, and the American Civil War.
Yet according to[i] Time[/i], President Bush is also enamored with the Natan Sharansky’s book [i]The Case for Democracy[/i], http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob... which argues that security of the world depends on using any means necessary to support democracy. Even if democracies ultimately went to war less than more authoritarian nations and if they never went to war with each other—dubious propositions—the costs of all of the wars needed to convert autocratic countries to democracies would be too high. In addition to expending much blood and treasure, all U.S. wars have eroded civil liberties at home. Even if the USG could militarily convert all of the nations of the world to real democracies (most democracies in the developing world are fake)—and the record here is not good—the United States could very well endanger its own democracy.
The last assumption—given to us by the president but eagerly embraced by the interventionist foreign policy elite—is that al Qaeda is attacking the United States because of its freedoms. The Defense Science Board, made up of high-powered consultants to the Department of Defense, recently issued a report debunking this notion and accurately noting that al Qaeda attacks the United States because it hates U.S. interventionism in the Islamic world. However, the U.S. National Intelligence Council—a consensus of the U.S. intelligence agencies—apparently still doesn’t get it. The council recently released a forecast for the next 15 years predicting that the Iraq war and other conflicts will create a professional class of terrorists for whom political violence will become an end in itself. The council also predicted that al Qaeda will be replaced with more diffuse Islamist extremist groups that will oppose globalization in Islamic societies and argued that a new U.S. counterterrorism strategy should promote education and political and economic development in the Islamic world, in addition to using military power.
Unfortunately, the council buys into all the myths about why al Qaeda and other radical Islamic groups attack the United States. Although their killing of innocent civilians is reprehensible, such groups are excessively demonized by implying that they kill people merely for fun. It is possible to vehemently disagree with the methods of these groups without assuming that they have no motives for what they do other than their bloodthirstiness. In a somewhat contradictory vein, the report seems to argue that these groups are attacking the United States because they oppose globalization or because they have arisen from societies that are uneducated, poor and democratically challenged. These are all self-serving conclusions designed to mask the real reason that al Qaeda and like groups attack the United States.
Osama bin Laden has been very clear about why he targets the United States. Time and again, he has listed specific items related to U.S. intervention in the affairs of the Islamic world—especially the USG’s propping up of corrupt regimes in Arab nations. Bin Laden’s heinous deliberate attacks on civilians should not be condoned, but he does have a motive beyond merely getting a thrill out of killing.
All of this leads to the inescapable conclusion that the USG runs a “Tarzan” foreign policy—that is, “Me good, you bad.” The USG’s propaganda machine excessively demonizes the motives of anyone or any country that takes actions the United States does not like and asserts that U.S. motives are only idealistic and pristine. No one in the Islamic world—or in the entire world, for that matter—believes the latter. The USG’s propagandistic “hoo-ha” is really meant for the American public, the only party that has been bamboozled into believing it. Why doesn’t the public ask its government to explain why Saddam Hussein’s unnecessary invasion of Kuwait was bad and President Bush’s unnecessary invasion of Iraq was good? Also, why don’t they ask if killing innocent civilians, even as collateral damage, in an unnecessary and aggressive invasion is any better than deliberately targeting them as bin Laden does?
These are politically incorrect questions, but the American people should start asking them of their government. Instead, by accepting questionable assumptions on the part of its government, the American people are allowing it to unnecessarily turn the greatest nation on earth into an international rogue state.
[b]Sources:[/b]
US Foreign Policy: Question All Assumptions, Ivan Eland is Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute, http://www.antiwar.com/eland/...
Robert Dreyfuss, [i]The Dreyfuss Report[/i], TomPaine, http://www.tompaine.com/archi...
|
|
|
| |
| ... Meet The Real Domestic Terrorists ... |
| 01.17.05 (11:20 am) [edit] |
[b]They say it can't happen [u]here[/u] ... It[i] can [/i]... It[i] is [/i]happening [u]here[/u] ... "We the People" should be outraged ... But are we??? ... So many Americans [i]don't want to see and/or can't see [/i]what is happening [u]here[/u] ...[/b]
Well, what’s fascism anyhow? Everybody’s hollering about it, and pointing accusatory fingers at everybody else, so what is it, exactly? Is fascism the tacit approval -- by some citizens --of local skinheads burning crosses and running hate-filled websites? Or is a fascist your neighbor down the street who uses racial epithets at all cultures other than his own and won’t let his kid play with your kid because you’re an immigrant?
None of the above. Matter of fact, all of the above consist of those liberties of free speech that we, as Americans, have treasured since the inception of our country. Fascism is, “A Right-Wing Dictatorship Ruling Any Country.” Simple. Easy. And happening here.
Let’s look at three different speeches given by legislative leaders to see how Fascism can be framed to be acceptable by the populace:
1. “The national government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life.”
2. “Thank God that we now have a Bible-based legislature. This will be a Christian government.”
3. “God is behind me; God speaks through me.”
Statement number one came from Adolf Hitler’s proclamation of his “New World Order” to the German nation in Berlin, on February 1, 1933.
Statement number two came from Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay during his first press conference after the national elections of November 2, 2004.
Statement number three came from President Bush more than once during the course of his campaign, and, again, after his re-election of November 2, 2004.
Please understand that this is not an anti-Christian diatribe. Far from it. It is simply a recognition that in all three instances, the government in question was/is being backed 100% by the most extreme of the neo-conservative movements in power. In Germany during the thirties, as well as currently here, the Evangelical Pentecostal Movement is calling the shots. These are the folks who back all the neo-conservatives in our legislature and their resultant ability to turn the United States of America into a fascist nation, -- turn this country into a right-wing dictatorship -- is well under way.
In Germany, there were book burnings, enthusiastically attended by a cheering populace. All books opposing the neo-conservative legislature, or those not meeting governmental censorship guidelines, were tossed into the bonfire, and no copies of these works were ever seen again.
In America, Lynne Cheney, wife of our vice-president, simply ordered libraries to stop placing such dissident material on their shelves. As a result, the Department of Education destroyed 300,000 history booklets http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/... because these books did not extol the virtues of the nations “religious heritage.” In this simple move of completely successful censorship, a stupendous amount of free expression was simply terminated. No need for bonfires, after all.
Our legislature -- completely unopposed -- then created the Patriot Act: Exactly as in Nazi Germany, there is now no longer any need to inform persons that their premises are being searched, their phones bugged, and that they can be arrested without warrant or just cause. But, our government is so much smoother and so much more sophisticated than the Nazis were: No crash-banging at 3 am doors with Storm Troopers “storming” in, weapons cocked, ready and willing to shoot the offender. Today, suspected “domestic terrorists” just get hauled off, get labeled “war-time traitors” and disappear into Guantánamo or one of the forty-three secret facilities now in operation right here on the mainland.
Want an example? Think of innocent Attorney Brian Mayhew, whose only sin was belonging to a mosque, and who was unceremoniously hauled off without recourse, because the US of A decided that his fingerprints had been on explosives used in the Madrid train sabotage of 2004. And, yes, Spain had made it pretty darn clear that Mayhew’s prints were not those in question. But, hey, we can’t have a Muslim Attorney wandering around lending succor to any fellow “rag heads,” now, can we?
Author Jonathan Wheeler made the following observations on December 9, 2004 in comments regarding the passing of legislation requiring individual States to surrender their regulatory rights over driver’s licenses and birth certificates to the Department of Homeland Security:
“Beginning in 2005, the Department of Homeland Security will issue new uniformity regulations to all States requiring that all Drivers licenses and Birth Certificates meet minimal Federal Standards with regard to US citizen information, including “biometrics security provisions” such as DNA markers. Therefore, at birth, each new citizen will be issued a social security number to be included on individual birth certificates, along with DNA biometrics markers. All birth certificates will be registered in a Federal database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security, and no child will be allowed school enrollment or be allowed either State or Federal benefits without first presenting a certified Homeland Security registered Birth Certificate.”
So, what’s this got to do with Nazi Germany? Well, the Department of Homeland Security will use the above information to establish a separate ID system for citizens to use prior to boarding airplanes. Exactly like, that dreaded “Internal Passport” of Nazi Germany: If you didn’t have that one available, you got carted off. Permanently.
So am I being a bit melodramatic here? Heck no! At age 5, we were kicked out of our home and my father’s business was taken away. By age 10, I had personally experienced a great deal of all of the above, and we barely got out of Germany alive. Traumatic memories do stay intact, and what is happening in the USA rings familiar bells. All that’s missing are the parades, the jack-boots, the concentration camps....although, those concentration camps aren’t so far off.
This month (January, 2005) saw the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general. This is the guy who called the Geneva Conventions “obsolete”, “quaint”, and, when confronted about his stance on torture, said that the administration was “concerned that the Geneva Conventions could interfere with anti-terrorism efforts.” Not only that, but torture has been officially defined by the current administration as “actions that interfere with the performance of internal organs and might lead to death.” This means that you may cut someone’s hands off, hang him upside down for three days, deprive him of food, water and sanitation, and, maybe, subject various parts of his anatomy to electric shocks.
But, according to the official definition, above, that would not be torture, thus making “guard duty” almost as much fun at Abu Ghraib as it was at Buchenwald.
In Germany, the concentration camp guards lived on the periphery of the camps in little cottages with their families. And, if Pappi had the 3:00-11:00 shift, he would kiss Mutti good-bye, tell Hans to be sure to feed the dog, and admonish Lise not to fight with her brother.
Then, off to work he’d go, perhaps tying the legs of a woman in labor together and then standing around with his buddies, smoking a cigarette and betting on how long it would take her to die.
Or, he’d find some youngster to rape and sodomize, and then just send him/her off to the ovens. Maybe, even, there’d be someone to send off to Dr. Mengele for use as a lab rat. Like, when they froze 12-year-old boys exactly to the point of death, at which moment such a boy was placed on a bed between two naked women. Of course, these women cuddled him to warm him, to save him. And that process was scientifically monitored, with very careful time kept to measure exactly how long it took these boys from point-of-death to orgasm.
Since, you see, no internal organs were affected, how could this have been defined as torture? Yes, indeed, the German guards and their Abu Ghraib counterparts had so much in common, that, could they be united, maybe Ilse Koch would teach Lynndie England how to make lampshades from tattooed skin peeled from “detainees”; an art form Ms. Koch perfected at Buchenwald.
The Geneva Conventions were instituted in 1949 exactly and specifically because of those tortures, horrendous beyond definition, beyond human understanding inflicted by Nazi Germany upon its victims. Is this why Alberto Gonzales and President Bush want to get rid of this potent international law?
And, are all our current neo-conservative Evangelical Pentecostals any different from those who brought Hitler to power in 1933?
Where individual freedoms are taken away (Patriot Act) where citizens are turned into numbers rather than respected as individuals (Compulsory numerical registration at birth, with DNA attached), where citizens are subject to arbitrary search, seizure and arrest for no particular reason (Patriot Act) and where citizens can easily be subjected to horrendous physical pain under prescribed “torture guidelines,” what’s the difference?
When I was a kid in Nazi Germany, everyone had to stand and listen to propaganda blaring from loudspeakers at all the bus stops. If you were caught walking away, you got “disappeared” and being “a kid” was no excuse.
Here, in the USA, we do not need any of that. We do not need Storm Troopers, we do not need parades, we do not need the smashed glass of minority-owned businesses littering the streets. All we have to do is turn on the TV, shake our heads sadly, say, “Tsk Tsk,” and switch channels to a reality show, leaving reality behind. And away we all go. It’s the same story, only with modern technology instead of loudspeakers at bus stops.
Back in Nazi Germany, all boys, at age eight, became members of the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth), a kind of boy scout organization, designed to teach kids the true value of physically destroying all sub-humans such as Jews, Gypsies, dissenters, homosexuals and retarded persons. Physical violence against such persons was seen as true heroism, and the indoctrination process included actual physical training. Kids grew up believing in the correctness of this training, which made them become excellent Gestapo or SS troopers.
But the USA propaganda machine is so truly sophisticated, that none of the above is even necessary. We have something just as effective, called “Video Games.” We teach brutality via such games as “Grand Theft Auto” where evisceration, stabbing and even beheading are approved as ways to get away with stealing a car. Copious amounts are depicted, along with detailed views -- and sounds -- of bodies writhing in obvious terminal agony. And, these grizzly murders are actually rewarded with sex... the player gets to hear the moans of sexual intercourse and watch the stolen car shake in appropriate rhythm. And “Grand Theft Auto” isn’t unique. There are dozens more just as gruesome. What makes this interesting is that the government refuses to intervene by equating these games with pornography, which is targeted as “obscene” and not allowed to be purchased by children. But, hey, “Grand Theft Auto” is currently seen as quite appropriate for any age whatsoever.
Is this effective? You decide: In an interview with a soldier in Fallujah, the trooper stated, “Driving down the streets, watching the flames, watching the killing, was kinda just like playing a video game, only real.”
Benjamin Franklin once said, “People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.”
Or, in today’s lingo, “You can Rage Against the Machine or Let It Run Over You.”
[b]Source:[/b]
Doris Colmes is author of The Iron Butterfly (PublishAmerica, 2002). She holds a Masters Degree in Social Work and, “has lived a life of complete adventure, either inadvertently or by choice, involved in most of the social phenomena of the 20th century. Started out as a 10 year old Holocaust refugee, Stepford Wife (with a few secrets), neglectful Mom, Viet Nam/Civil Rights Protestor and world's oldest hippie, living communally in the home of a shaman. Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll all the way. Now, a hospice worker, volunteering for Legacy Visiting Nurses Association and also at an AIDS hospice. Am an activist, involved with School of the Americas Watch and also politically active, writing various anti-Bush articles.”, http://www.dissidentvoice.org...
|
|
|
| |
| ... Questions for Condoleezza Rice ... |
| 01.16.05 (7:54 am) [edit] |
[u][b]Condoleezza Rice Has A Credibility Gap[/b][/u]
[b]"A point-by-point analysis of how one of America's top national security officials has a severe problem with the truth" http://www.americanprogress.o... is well worth reading ... Condoleezza Rice has proved to be an incompetent, dishonest & reckless National Security adviser whose 'claim-to-fame' will be that she is Bush's loyal toady ... "We the People" should demand that Congress http://www.congress.org pose tough questions to Condoleezza Rice in the upcoming hearings this next week[i] to assess whether or not she is fit [/i]for the position of Secretary of State ... Unhappily, the Bushies' lap-dog right-wing media reports that she's a "shoe-in"-- there will be no opposition ... So [i]why[/i] bother to hold the hearings at all??? ... Our Founding Fathers expected Congress to take seriously their role in scrutinizing Cabinet Members appointed by the President, and that the "advise and consent" confirmation process be rigorous, forthright and thorough ... We deserve better than a superficial white-wash[i] cum [/i]rubber-stamp in such dangerous times ... [/b]
[u][b]Important Questions That Should Be Posed to Condoleezza Rice:[/b][/u]
[b]QUESTION ONE:[/b] In a January 2002 memo to the president, Colin Powell said excluding detainees from the Geneva Conventions, as White House legal counsel Alberto Gonzales had recommended, would "undermine the protections of the law of war for our troops" and have "immediate adverse consequences for our conduct of foreign policy." The president rejected Powell's advice, and adopted Gonzales's recommendations. Who do you agree with, Colin Powell or Alberto Gonzales?
A memo written by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales on 1/25/02 advised the Bush administration to ignore the advice of senior military and State Department officials regarding the application of the Geneva Conventions. The memo pushed to exempt al Qaeda and Taliban detainees from the Geneva Conventions' provisions on the proper, legal treatment of prisoners. Secretary of State Colin Powell responded sharply to the Gonzales memo the next day (1/26/02), warning the White House that failure to consider all prisoners as under the protection of the Geneva Conventions would have an adverse impact on the United States. Specifically, he cautioned: "It will reverse over a century of U.S. policy and practice in supporting the Geneva Conventions and undermine the protections of the law of war for our troops; it has a high cost in terms of negative international reaction, with immediate adverse consequences for our conduct of foreign policy; It will undermine public support among critical allies, making military cooperation more difficult to sustain; and Europeans and others will likely have legal problems with extradition." Bush decided to exclude al Qaeda from the Geneva Conventions and deny the Taliban prisoner of war status.
SOURCES: Gonzales memo | Powell memo | Bush decision
[b]QUESTION TWO:[/b] Only $2.2 billion of the $18 billion in funds allocated for the reconstruction of Iraq have been distributed. Explain why the funds are not being used, and why Congress should feel compelled to sign off on another $100 billion supplemental?
Due to America's inability to control the insurgency and what Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) has called "the incompetence in the [Bush] administration," only about 5 percent of the money Congress has allocated for Iraqi reconstruction has actually been spent in the country. In September, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) called that record "beyond pitiful and embarrassing; it is now in the zone of dangerous." Part of the problem was the White House's reliance on young, inexperienced volunteers with good family connections (like 28-year-old Simone Ledeen, daughter of neoconservative pundit Michael Ledeen), who "found themselves managing the country's $13 billion budget [and] making decisions affecting millions of Iraqis" in the opening months of the occupation. The failure to allocate the funds has stalled efforts at reconstructing the country. Two years after the invasion, Iraqis are suffering from major food shortages and the country is producing less electricity than it was before the war. In addition, the deterioration of water and sewage systems has led to the spread of hepatitis and outbreaks of typhoid fever.
SOURCES: Underfunding | Senators Slam Bush on Iraq | Electricity below prewar levels | Iraq faces food shortages | Hepatitis and typhoid outbreaks increase
[b]QUESTION THREE:[/b] Three years after the creation of the Millennium Challenge Account, the White House has yet to distribute a single dollar of funds to boost development assistance. What would you do to change this?
In 2002, President Bush announced the creation of the Millennium Challenge Account, a program intended to boost core development assistance by 50 percent over three years; Bush pledged to increase spending by $1.7 billion after one year and $3.3 billion after two. During the MCA's first year, however, President Bush requested only $1.3 billion from Congress, and Congress further reduced the amount to $1 billion. The following year, the administration asked for only $2.5 billion, and Congress agreed to fund just $1.5 billion. Not a single dollar from the account has yet been dispensed.
SOURCES: MCA consistently underfunds
[b]QUESTION FOUR:[/b] How would you evaluate your performance as head of the Iraq stabilization group?
In October 2003, President Bush announced he was "giving his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, the authority to manage postwar Iraq." With great fanfare, Rice was appointed head of the "Iraq Stabilization Group," intended to coordinate committees on counterterrorism, economic development, political affairs and media messages. The purpose of the group, said White House spokesman Scott McClellan, was to "cut through the red tape and make sure that we're getting the assistance there quickly." But seven months later, the Washington Post reported, "the four original leaders of the Stabilization Group have taken on new roles, and only one remains concerned primarily with Iraq." Within the White House, the Post noted, "the destabilized Stabilization Group is a metaphor for an Iraq policy that is adrift." According to the White House website, the Iraq stabilization group hasn't been publicly mentioned for more than a year.
SOURCES: Bush puts Rice in charge | Stabilization group not very stable
[b]QUESTION FIVE:[/b] Recently, the Pentagon has been considering organizing assassination and kidnapping squads of Iraqis to fight the insurgents. Do you oppose this tactic, known as the "Salvador Option"?
To deal with the growing insurgency in Iraq, the Pentagon is considering creating secret death squads. Known as the "Salvador Option," the strategy is named after a clandestine operation implemented by the Reagan White House in the 1980s in El Salvador, where the U. S. government funded "nationalist" forces "that allegedly included so-called death squads" which killed scores of innocent civilians. According to a 1993 U.N.-sponsored truth commission, 85 percent of the atrocities in that conflict were committed by the U.S.-sponsored army and its surrogates. Now, according to Newsweek, the Pentagon has dusted off that model and has a proposal on the table to "advise, support and possibly train" secret squads in Iraq, "most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria."
SOURCES: Growing insurgency | Newsweek on creation of death squads in Iraq | 85 percent of atrocities
[b]QUESTION SIX: [/b]Do you support increasing funds for promoting democracy in Russia, given the ongoing erosion of democratic and economic freedom under Russian President Vladimir Putin?
The Bush administration has cut funds to the FREEDOM Support Act, the program designed to promote and ensure democracy. Overall, funding for FSA was sliced from $958 million to $548 million since 2002; funding for Russia specifically was cut from $162 million to $93 million (President Bush only requested $73 million for the program). At the same time, however, Russian President Vladimir Putin shut down the Russian press, jailed his political opposition and attempted to validate his hand-picked, fraudulently elected lapdog in Ukraine. Noting a "dangerous and disturbing drift toward authoritarianism in Russia," Freedom House, a U.S.-based organization that tracks the progress of political rights and civil liberties around the world, has shifted Russia from "partly free" status to "not free."
SOURCES: Cuts to FSA | Putin crimes against democracy | Freedom House ruling | Not free
[b]QUESTION SEVEN:[/b] The White House has blocked over $88 million from the Global Fund, a group known internationally as "the best weapon in the battle against AIDS." Will you follow through on support to the fund?
The White House has been reluctant to provide funding to the Global Fund, the international group that has been devoted to fighting AIDS. Last year, Congress cut the U.S. pledge to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to $350 million – almost $200 million less than the previous year's donation. The White House has also blocked the Fund from receiving $88 million that Congress appropriated in fiscal year 2004, claiming that other nations were not doing their fair share. In fact, "Europe contributes over 50 percent of the Fund's total contributions while the U.S. with an equal share of the global economy will end up contributing less than one-third." According to a statement by the Global Aids Alliance (GAA), the Global Fund – which uses the cheapest and most effective drugs to fight the virus – is "The best weapon in the battle against AIDS."
SOURCES: Congress cuts pledge | $200 million less than previous donation | Best weapon in battle against AIDS
[b]QUESTION EIGHT:[/b] In 2004, you spent time campaigning for President Bush even though America had pressing wartime security needs. Will you vow to keep partisan politicking out of your position as secretary of state?
Outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell made a concerted effort not to politicize his position, staying out of last year's election talk by saying "I don't do politics." On the opposite end of the spectrum, Condoleezza Rice has shown an unprecedented willingness to take time away from her job to engage in partisan political affairs. The Washington Post reports that Rice broke the "long-standing precedent that the national security adviser try to avoid overt involvement in the presidential campaign" by giving pro-Bush speeches in key battleground states, including Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania, beginning in May 2004. Rice's actions were sharply criticized by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security adviser under President Jimmy Carter, who "said the national security adviser is the 'custodian' of the nation's most sensitive national security secrets and should be seen as an objective adviser to the president." With the nation at war in Iraq and in the midst of trying to stabilize Afghanistan, Brzezinski said, Rice didn't need the distractions associated with a political campaign.
SOURCES: Powell doesn't do politics | Rice campaigns for President Bush | Brzezinski criticizes Rice's speaking tour
[b]Sources:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
What the World is Saying... About Condoleezza Rice's Nomination, http://www.americanprogress.o...
|
|
|
| |
| ... Hear Dr. King Speak ... |
| 01.15.05 (12:25 pm) [edit] |
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Martin Luther King Jr.
[b]... "I HAVE A DREAM" ...[/b]
[b]Celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision with this audio file of his "I Have A Dream" speech.
... Listen now! http://www.americanrhetoric.c... ...[/b]
|
|
|
| |
| ... Let The Countdown Begin... ... |
| 01.14.05 (9:18 am) [edit] |
"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that the stuff life is made of." - Benjamin Franklin
They say that counting backwards makes the time go faster. Test it for yourself. Click on the image to see the Official Bush "Days Left In Office" Countdown Clock http://www.backwardsbush.com/... .
[i][b]"We the People" only have 1,466 days to go... Let's get busy... [/b][/i]
|
|
|
| |
| ... WMD??? Oh Yeah, That ... |
| 01.13.05 (9:39 am) [edit] |
"Bush told us that Iraq had WMD'S and they were getting ready to use them on us at any minute. Condi Rice told us that we should attack Iraq immediately...and don't let the "smoking gun" be a "mushroom cloud." Rumsfeld and Powell showed us where the weapons were buried...Guess what? THEY DIDN'T HAVE ANY WMD'S AND THEY WEREN'T GOING TO HAVE THEM FOR AT LEAST A DECADE. The United States was in no threat from Iraq...and Osama Bin Laden is free to plot against our troops in Iraq and against the innocent Iraqi people and Al Qaeda grows stronger every day because of our Administration's reckless, ignorant, and arrogant policies in Iraq." - Mother of Son Killed in Iraq, http://www.tompaine.com/artic...
[b]Are "We the People" asleep or [i]what[/i]??? ... Where is the outrage??? ...[/b]
The papers report this morning that finally, after two years and probably a billion dollars in expense, the Bush administration finally gave up looking for Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
It’s something that ought not to pass without comment. Someday, history will hold President Bush accountable for going to war on false pretenses. American voters, and the Democratic establishment, failed to do so. The tragedy unfolding in Iraq day after day, a shattered nation without electricity or running water, entire cities (like Fallujah) in ruins, perhaps 100,000 people dead—for a lie.
The[i] Post [/i]headline says it all: “Search for Banned Arms in Iraq Ended Last Month.” Last month. In other words, they kept up the pretense of searching for the WMD until the election was over, and the commander-in-thief was safely reelected. I know I’ve said this before, but Bush’s phony search for WMD is exactly like O.J. Simpson looking for his wife’s killer. Only O.J. only killed two people. Bush killed tens of thousands. Where are the WMD? Never mind that. Where is the outrage?
[b]Sources:[/b]
Robert Dreyfuss, [i]The Dreyfuss Report[/i], TomPaine, http://www.tompaine.com
Death by Presidential Lies, http://www.tompaine.com/artic...
President of Fabricated Crises, http://www.washingtonpost.com...
|
|
|
| |
| ... "Party On" Is The Wrong Message To Send ... |
| 01.12.05 (9:28 am) [edit] |
"Decency: No law reaches it, but all right-minded people observe it." - Chamfort
[b]Unhappily, Bush & Cheney are not right-minded people ... They are instead selfish, arrogant and tyrannical men who lust for power & wealth at all costs-- and seem oblivious to the fact that [i]partying [/i]at a time of war and misery affecting the lives of millions of people, is inappropriate [i]at best [/i]... callous, craven and corrupt[i] at worse [/i]... "We the People" should demand that Bush http://www.congress.org scale-back his obscenely lavish inaugural "coronation" to something more modest, and donate the[i] tens of thousands of dollars for partying [/i]to helping those in need ... After all, Bush represents[i] US [/i]...[/b]
Somehow it just seems a bad time to be spending $40 million on an inauguration -- not counting extra millions spent on security -- even if most of it is private money.
Is this really the image America needs to be projecting right now?
Perhaps if the world weren't involved in the massive effort of trying to prevent the horrendous tsunami death toll in Asia from tripling or quadrupling, and American soldiers weren't desperately trying to bring stability to Iraq, there might be some excuse for the kind of spectacular celebration planned to usher in George W. Bush's second term -- rock and movie stars and all. But that isn't the case, is it?
It seems proper to ask who is going to feel comfortable about spending up to $10,000 for a few days of coronation festivities that pretty much exclude the average American -- millions of whom have been kicking in hard-earned dollars for tsunami victims, or the tens of thousands more who begin each morning praying that loved ones in the military make it through another day in a far-off land -- even if there is a special veterans ball to show that the commander in chief understands.
Wouldn't it have been appropriate for the president to declare a moratorium on the usual outpouring of merriment surrounding his swearing-in?
Wouldn't it have been far more seemly to ask that money raised for that purpose be added to the huge amount already donated to tsunami relief efforts?
What would have been wrong with just a simple inauguration in the Capitol Rotunda followed by a compassionate speech and a few fireworks?
Those are questions someone in the White House and the Inaugural Committee should have been asking before launching what is expected to be the most expensive such affair on record.
War itself should be enough to dampen inauguration activities. Franklin Roosevelt's last inaugural was celebrated with a simple lunch at the White House. But with the addition of a natural disaster of monumental scope, the appearance of insensitivity only worsens when the nation needs to be reaching out. The "party on" message is hardly the one we should be sending as death tolls mount.
To be fair, Americans always have been able to compartmentalize their emotions, to give generously in an outpouring of grief and support while seeking shelter in football stadiums and Times Square galas from such troubling experiences.
Even in two world wars we tried as best as possible to carry on normally. Life must go on, after all -- at least unofficially.
What makes this different is the official nature of the events; the stamp of government authority that our enemies will cite as the way Americans really are. That isn't true at all, and there is overwhelming evidence that supports our claims that we are the most caring, nurturing society in history.
But this administration should be particularly aware of charges of insensitivity.
This is a chief executive who unfairly was accused of not responding quickly enough after the devastation of 9/11 and, last month, when the ocean rolled over coastal areas.
Those silly allegations surrounding the seven-minute delay in reaction following the terrorist attacks and the several days of his silence after the tsunami should have been warning enough to inaugural planners that perhaps caution should be exercised in the scope of the celebration.
Bush won a hard-fought re-election campaign. He deserves to have his moment in the sun. And the American people and those around the globe, friends and enemies, deserve to hear an inaugural address that hopefully will set the tone for his next four years and re-establish this nation's commitment to a world united in peace.
That could have been accomplished, however, without the display of extravagance that is now too late to cancel.
President Bush is not undignified, despite what detractors contend. In the past he has displayed the kind of decency and caring that Americans expect from their chief executives.
It would be too bad if overexuberance in the party honoring him is used to reinforce the claims of his and our enemies.
[b]Sources:[/b]
'Party on' is wrong message for inauguration to send, http://www.startribune.com/st...
Bush 'the king' blows $50m on coronation, http://observer.guardian.co.u...,6903,1386178,00.html
Inaugural Excess, http://www.washingtonpost.com...
|
|
|
| |
| ... U.S. Foreign Policy by Bush/Cheney: We're Gonna' Be Busy! ... |
| 01.11.05 (7:14 pm) [edit] |
"Not since Richard Nixon’s conduct of the war in Vietnam has a U.S. president’s foreign policy so polarized the country—and the world. Yet as controversial as George W. Bush’s policies have been, they are not as radical a departure from his predecessors as both critics and supporters proclaim. Instead, the real weaknesses of the president’s foreign policy lie in its contradictions: Blinded by moral clarity and hamstrung by its enormous military strength, the United States needs to rebalance means with ends if it wants to forge a truly effective grand strategy." - Foreign Policy, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/...
[b]"We the People" better think hard about Bush's Foreign Policy ... Is this really what we [i]want[/i], what we[i] need[/i], and/or what we [i]can sustain[/i]??? ...[/b]
|
|
|
| |
| ... Bush's Death Squads ... |
| 01.11.05 (5:18 am) [edit] |
"Refusing to admit personal misjudgments on Iraq, George W. Bush instead is pushing the United States toward becoming what might be called a permanent “counter-terrorist” state, which uses torture, cross-border death squads and even collective punishments to defeat perceived enemies in Iraq and around the world." - Bush's 'Death Squads', http://www.consortiumnews.com...
[b]Where is the outrage??? ... "We the People" should be [i]up-in-arms in revolt [/i]against the corrupt Bush regime that is violating every norm of human decency set down in our system of laws ... Write to Congress http://www.congress.org to demand that 'The Salvador Option' be rejected and those responsible for proposing its' adoption be impeached and/or fired immediately ... Bush is losing his illegal & immoral war in Iraq ... Let us not lose our sense of right and wrong ...[/b]
To deal with the skyrocketing insurgency, t | |
