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| Mutiny in Iraq |
| 04.30.04 (3:40 pm) [edit] |
"[i]For fools rush in where angels fear to tread[/i]." - Alexander Pope
[b]Even Americans will eventually tire of the massacres, carnage, torture and abuse, and horrors of the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] insane neo-con war-turned-bloody-guerril la-quagmire in Iraq ... [/b]No conscientious human being can consider the horrendous U.S. Occupation so badly mismanaged by Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the neo-cons in the Defense Department, and [i]not [/i]recoil in disgust ...
"We the People" should never have allowed ourselves to be scammed, bamboozled and neo-con conned into blindly following the traitorous Bush regime, their neo-con "crazies" ([i]Pentagon's terms for the 'neo-con' ideologues[/i]), and their neo-fascist corporate interests who have hijacked our foreign and domestic policies and are leading us on a disastrous course to chaos, bloodshed and misery ... It is time to contact Congress http://www.congress.org and insist that our troops be [i]brought home [/i]and that [i]impeachment hearings[/i] be called to rid ourselves of the traitorous Bush regime ... We must not become willing collaborators in the neo-hitlerian [i]Project for the New American Century[/i]: the neo-con's ghoulish plan to impose their Global Corporate Empire unwillingly upon the rest of the world resulting in perpetual wars for perpetual profits ...
Consider "[b]Mutiny in Iraq[/b]" by[i] Naomi Klein[/i], The Nation on http://www.thenation.com/doc.... : - [i]Excerpt[/i] -
[i]... Who will follow the Bush clan off this precipice, and who will refuse to jump? ...[/i]
More and more are, thankfully, choosing the second option. The last month of inflammatory US aggression in Iraq has inspired what can only be described as a mutiny: Waves of soldiers, workers and politicians under the command of the US occupation authority are suddenly refusing to follow orders and abandoning their posts. First Spain announced it would withdraw its troops, then Honduras, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Kazakhstan. South Korean and Bulgarian troops were pulled back to their bases, while New Zealand is withdrawing its engineers. El Salvador, Norway, the Netherlands and Thailand will likely be next.
And then there are the mutinous members of the US-controlled Iraqi army. Since the latest wave of fighting began, they've been donating their weapons to resistance fighters in the South and refusing to fight in Falluja, saying that they didn't join the army to kill other Iraqis. By late April, Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division, was reporting that "about 40 percent [of Iraqi security officers] walked off the job because of intimidation. And about 10 percent actually worked against us."
And it's not just Iraq's soldiers who have been deserting the occupation. Four ministers of the Iraqi Governing Council have resigned their posts in protest. Half the Iraqis with jobs in the secured "green zone"--as translators, drivers, cleaners--are not showing up for work. And that's better than a couple of weeks ago, when 75 percent of Iraqis employed by the US occupation authority stayed home (that staggering figure comes from Adm. David Nash, who oversees the awarding of reconstruction contracts).
Minor mutinous signs are emerging even within the ranks of the US military: Privates Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey have applied for refugee status in Canada as conscientious objectors and Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia is facing court martial after he refused to return to Iraq on the grounds that he no longer knew what the war was about [see Christian Parenti, "A Deserter Speaks," at www.thenation.com].
Rebelling against the US authority in Iraq is not treachery, nor is it giving "false comfort to terrorists," as George W. Bush recently cautioned Spain's new prime minister. It is an entirely rational and principled response to policies that have put everyone living and working under US command in grave and unacceptable danger. This is a view shared by fifty-two former British diplomats, who recently sent a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair stating that although they endorsed his attempts to influence US Middle East policy, "there is no case for supporting policies which are doomed to failure."
And one year in, the US occupation of Iraq does appear doomed on all fronts: political, economic and military. On the political front, the idea that the United States could bring genuine democracy to Iraq is now irredeemably discredited: Too many relatives of Iraqi Governing Council members have landed plum jobs and rigged contracts, too many groups demanding direct elections have been suppressed, too many newspapers have been closed down and too many Arab journalists have been murdered while trying to do their job. The most recent casualties were two employees of Al Iraqiya television, shot dead by US soldiers while filming a checkpoint in Samarra. Ironically, Al Iraqiya is the US-controlled propaganda network that was supposed to weaken the power of Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, both of which have also lost reporters to US guns and rockets over the past year.
[b]For the entire article click on [/b] http://www.thenation.com/doc....
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| Criticism of Israel Is Not "Anti-Semitic" ... |
| 04.30.04 (3:40 pm) [edit] |
[b]The fever pitch of debate in our nation concerning the Middle East is rising to frightening and shrill levels that drown out any rational discourse.[/b] The American people desperately need to conduct a reasoned discussion upon the nature of our relationships, allegiances and policies associated with Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinians and the entire region, because it has become well-documented that the neo-conservative movement that has hijacked our Executive Branch of government (and is using Bush as their Useful Idiot) has unusually close and biased ties http://www.counterpunch.org/n... with Ariel Sharon and the Likud government, that diverges from our long-standing position in the Middle East intended to broker peace between the Israeli government and the Palestinian people. Moreover, during Sharon's recent visit to the White House, Bush flip-flopped http://www.wnd.com/news/artic... on his own regime's position and our long-standing policy established by the American governments going back over 30 years; and Bush sanctioned Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian territories in violation of U.N. resolutions http://www.jatonyc.org/UNreso... enflaming even more anger, indignation and turmoil throughout the Middle East ... Bush's flip-flop on a vital foreign policy issue was hoisted upon the American people without any national discussion or debate or understanding of the consequences ... Consequences of actions taken and decisions made do not appear to be important to the neo-fascist Bush regime although they affect the lives and treasure of our people and others around the world ...
To what extent is the United States of America obliged to carry-out warfare in the Middle East on behalf of Israel? http://www.wnd.com/news/artic... To what extent is the United States of America obliged to accept the Israeli government's positions? To what extent is the United States of America obliged to subsidize the Israeli government irrespective of its' actions? Should the United States of America be an honest broker or side with Israel? These are valid questions, and yet it is difficult to conduct any kind of discussions and/or debates without a horrific neo-fascist blowback of irrational accusations claiming "anti-semitism". Understandably, proponents of the extremist Likud party's positions are fearful of any debate and figure that employing intimidation tactics will terrify and scare people into silence. To be silenced on the basis of being mis-labelled is an anathema to our national heritage of open debate and discussion in the United States of America and we should heartily reject any such neo-fascist intimidation and scare tactics.
"We the People" must commence to understand the dynamics in the Middle East between the various groups [i]in greater depth[/i], otherwise, we may find ourselves extravagantly drained of our U.S. Soldier's lives and our U.S. Treasury, not only to enrich Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, and the neo-fascist Bush Crime Family-- but also because we are drawn into taking sides in conflicts without fully comprehending whether or not alternative peaceful solutions that demanded compromises (but that one side or another refused to accept) were in fact possible, with leaders of vision instead of the neo-con extremists including Bush and Sharon who have done their respective nations no favors. [Refer to "Are Foes of Israeli Policy Enemies of Jews??? ..." on http://www.tblog.com/template... ]
Consider "[b]CRITICISM OF ISRAEL IS NOT "ANTI-SEMITISM"[/b] on http://whatreallyhappened .com... :
While the media is proclaiming the recently concluded European Conference a reaffirmation of the fight against anti-Semitism, the reality is that Israel has been dealt a stunning political setback.
Long used to equating criticism of Israel as an expression of hate against the Jewish people, Israeli supporters attending the conference (when they were not vandalizing artwork) tried repeatedly to define criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism, and were rebuffed at every turn. Even Colin Powell, Secretary of State to the one nation always willing to protect Israel at the United Nations, delinked criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism. In the end, even the ADL's Abe Foxman had to grin and try to put the best face on it. But Israel has lost one of its oldest and most effective means to deflect criticism of its actions.
Simply put, it is NOT anti-Semitism to criticize Israelis for what they DO.
It is NOT anti-Semitism to report on Israeli spies in this country taping into police phone systemsd and warning Israeli drug dealers of investigations that threaten them.
It is NOT anti-Semitism to point out that Israel has defied more UN Resolutions that Iraq.
It is NOT anti-Semitism to mention that Israel is the only nation in the Middle East that actually HAS weapons of mass destruction.
It is NOT anti-Semitism to remind people that Ariel Sharon has been charged with war crimes.
It is NOT anti-Semitism to oppose the continuing sending of US tax dollars to Israel (totally four times the cost of the entire Apollo Moon Program) during times of great economy hardship in this country.
It is NOT anti-Semitism to express concern over the vast sums of money that pro-Israel lobbyists are pouring into Congressional coffers.
It is NOT anti-Semitism to be concerned about reports that the Mossad has suceeded in tapping even the White House phone system.
It is NOT anti-Semitism to point out that many of these supposed "hate crimes" Israel loves to hide behind are hoaxes.
It is NOT anti-Semitism to want the US Government to be more concerned with the American people than with Israelis.
It is NOT anti-Semitism to reject politicians who openly display their loyalty to a foreign power.
It is NOT anti-Semitism to be angered by Philip Zelikow's admission that the war in Iraq was not fought to protect the US, but to protect Israel.
It is NOT anti-Semitism to tell Israel's supporters that hiding their crimes behind the entire Jewish people by screaming "anti-Semite" at every criticism is a really good way to set those same people up as targets!
Make no mistake, Israel has been dealt a serious blow by the conference in Europe. While there is no question that Israe's supporters will go on harassing and spearing those who dare criticise the policies of Ariel Sharon, the tar won't stick. It's official. Criticism of Israel is NOT anti-Semitism.
My lawyer will be instituting legal proceedings against all search engines, ISPs, and content filtering companies which have labeled this site as "anti-Semitic". -
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| Americans and Iraqis Agree: End the U.S. Occupation of Iraq ... |
| 04.29.04 (10:56 pm) [edit] |
[b]The majority of Americans and Iraqis agree:-- the U.S. Occupation of Iraq should[i] end[/i], and should [i]end now[/i] ... [/b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta:-- do not respect [/i]the U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights -- [i]do not respect [/i]the rule of law --[i] do not respect [/i]"We the People" or the Iraqi people ... Therefore, does our collective opinion[i] matter [/i]to our (s)elected leaders??? ... It certainly [i]should[/i]!!! ... And if the neo-con, neo-fascist Bush regime does not respond, then we must [i]take action [/i]by contacting Congress http://www.congress.org and also[i] by voting [/i]in November to hold them [i]accountable [/i]...
There is one thing that most Iraqis and many Americans agree on: it's time to end the occupation. A [i]New York Times/CBS [/i]poll http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... shows plummeting support for the war in Iraq at home:
"Asked whether the United States had done the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, 47 percent of respondents said it had, down from 58 percent a month earlier and 63 percent in December, just after American forces captured Saddam Hussein." Almost as many (46 percent) want the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq as those who agree that we should stay the course.
That sentiment is echoed even more resoundingly in Iraq, where a new [i]USA Today/CNN/Gallup [/i]poll reveals that only a third believe that the U.S. occupation is doing more good than harm, and a solid majority support an immediate military pullout irrespective of the chaos that may ensue. [i]USA Today [/i]reports http://www.usatoday.com/news/... , "Asked whether they view the U.S.-led coalition as 'liberators' or 'occupiers,' 71 percent of all respondents say 'occupiers.'" Those numbers get worse if Kurds are excluded from the results.
Not surprisingly much of the rising anger at the occupation is being directed at the U.S. troops: "Bearing the brunt of Iraqis' ill feeling: U.S. troops. The most visible symbol of the occupation, they are viewed by many Iraqis as uncaring, dangerous and lacking in respect for the country's people, religion and traditions." - http://www.alternet.org/waron...
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| While Our Soldiers Die, Bush/Cheney Inc. Junta's Halliburton Makes A Killing!!! |
| 04.29.04 (6:44 pm) [edit] |
"[i]Private profit is made out of the dead bodies of men. The more we see of the munitions business, of the use of chemicals, of the traffic in armaments, the more we realize that human cupidity is as universal as human heroism.... If we are to do away with the war idea, one of the first steps will be to do away with all possibility of private profit [from warfare]." [/i]- Eleanor Roosevelt, http://www.thirdworldtraveler...
[b]Winston Churchill considered war-profiteering a crime and put in place laws in Great Britain to prohibit such heinous blood-thirsty exploitation of human life as cannon-fodder to be abused by the powerful corporations, wealthy oligarchs & hyper-rich plutocrats.[/b] Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman also took measures to confiscate immoral (and at that time illegal) profiteering from warfare ... Even Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke out against the evils of the military industrial complex, which he warned: "[i]Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed[/i].". Eisenhower recognized that those who profit from warfare have a vested interest in perpetual war for perpetual profits ...
"We the People" are witness [i]today[/i] to the most horrific scourge disastrously [i]brought down upon our heads [/i]by the corrupt neo-con Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta[/i], whose lust for infinite power and vast riches [i]knows no bounds [/i](certainly the rule of law does not apply to the Mad King George and his neo-fascist entourage ...) ... Moreover, the criminal Bush regime has demonstrated that it will ruthlessly lie, cheat and steal and defraud our nation (and the entire world community) in order to wage illegal and immoral neo-con, neo-fascist warfare ... Surely we must bring this insanity to a[i] halt [/i]... [i]Who[/i] is profitting from the war in Iraq? ... [i]Not[/i] the American working people; [i]Not[/i] the Iraqi people-- Just ask Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc. and the Bush Crime Family:-- the vile and traitorous war-profiteers ...
[b]Read on ...[/b]
[b]Controversial US oil and services group Halliburton has said that its contracts in Iraq had helped boost its turnover by about 80% in the first three months of the year. [/b]
Support work to US military operations and US-funded reconstruction projects made up $2.1 billion out of the company's $5.5 billion of revenue in the first quarter, the Houston-based group said in a statement on Wednesday.
The contracts also contributed $32 million of operating profit to Halliburton, which was run from 1995 to 2000 by Vice President Dick Cheney.
The Defence Department is investigating some of the work of Halliburton and its Kellogg, Brown and Root subsidiary following allegations of overcharging. The group has seen 34 workers killed in Iraq since the US invasion last year.
But Halliburton said it was determined to stay in Iraq.
[b]'Committed'[/b]
Chief executive Dave Lesar said "we are committed to honour our contracts and I am extremely proud of the tenacity, the courage and sacrifice of our employees in Iraq. In the face of a hostile environment, KBR performs well."
"I am disappointed that the allegations, by politicians and in the media, have increased security risks for our employees," he said.
"We are uniquely qualified to provide military logistical support. We have been doing that for 60 years," Lesar told a conference call.
"We continue to see improvement in the energy services business. While oilfield activity and pricing was essentially flat until late in the first quarter, we are beginning to see signs that customer spending and pricing for our services are improving," Lesar added.
[b]Billion dollar contracts[/b]
Halliburton, mainly through KBR, has about six billion dollars worth of contracts in Iraq, mainly for logistics - food supplies for troops, base construction and fuel deliveries. It is also helping to rebuild the Iraq oil industry.
It employs about 20,000 people in Iraq, directly or through sub-contractors.
On top of the 34 dead, truck driver Thomas Hammill is held hostage in Iraq and two others are missing.
Lesar said the value of the contracts hit a peak in the first quarter and would fall from now on, especially after the 30 June handover of power by the US-led occupation in Iraq.
Halliburton said its overall revenues were about 80% higher than the first quarter of 2003 thanks to KBR's engineering and construction work in the Middle East. It said energy services revenues were up 13%.
Consolidated operating profit was $175 million in the first quarter against $142 million in the same period last year.
Halliburton recorded a $65 million loss because of funds put in to pay for compensation for asbestos workers. ([i]AFP[/i])
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| America is Asking ... About the Patriot Acts ... |
| 04.29.04 (4:48 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" should be very, very concerned about the so-called "Patriot [[i]sic[/i]] Acts" ... These heinous un-patriotic acts represent an infringement upon the U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights ... [/b]Please visit the ACLU web-site that provides useful information regarding the abuses that occur by our government on http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFr... when excessive power is handed-over without lawful restrictions, oversights, prohibitions and legal recourse to challenge by the citizenry ... We should not give up our freedoms and rights for the sake of being intimidated on issues of national security by the corrupt Bush regime ...
Controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act were the topic of hot debate last week, with President Bush calling for their renewal in his weekly radio address and in stump speeches in Pennsylvania and New York. Amidst growing concerns over the sweeping surveillance and detention provisions in the act, El Paso yesterday became the 299th city in the country to adopt a resolution opposing it. Newspaper editorial boards across America are voicing their concern about the act and worrying about the consequences of stripping away American's basic civil liberties.
[b]Jackson, Miss. [u]The Clarion-Ledger[/u]
April 21, 2004[/b]
"Ashcroft and Bush are basically saying 'trust us' when it comes to spying on Americans, collecting information and deciding who will be targeted. But, since when was it the intention of the Founders, or even wise, to trust government?
The 'Patriot' Act is downright un-American."
[b]Detroit, Mich. - [u]The Detroit News[/u]
April 21, 2004[/b]
"There are some good things in the controversial Patriot Act, things that do make the country less vulnerable to terrorist attacks. But other elements of the act trample on civil liberties and lack adequate oversight, and should be reconsidered at a much more deliberate pace. Fixes should be made to better balance the needs of the government to root out terrorists against the desire to protect the constitutional rights of individuals."
[b]Honolulu, Hawaii - [u]Honolulu Star-Bulletin[/u]
April 15, 2004[/b]
"[S]hortcomings in the FBI's effort to protect the country from terrorist attacks had nothing to do with the lack of government authority that the Patriot Act was intended to correct. The Patriot Act was enacted in haste brought about by the Sept. 11 attacks. It should be scrutinized thoroughly before any of its provisions are extended beyond next year."
[b]Saint Louis, Mo. - [u]Saint-Louis Post Dispatch[/u]
April 21, 2004[/b]
"The authors of the Constitution and our other founding fathers agonized over the Bill of Rights ... They were designed simply to ensure Congress could not easily pass laws to take them away. Our precious liberties are the envy of the world. Should they be so freely given away, so cheerfully surrendered?
The terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon hated America and all it stands for. It was a horrible and horrifying event. Wouldn't it be tragic if the freedom they so hated was destroyed because of their evil actions?"
[b]Missoula, Mont. - [u]The Missoulian[/u]
April 21, 2004[/b]
"On the campaign trail this week, President Bush reiterated his insistence that the Patriot Act is essential to America's security. The only evidence of this assertion is the so-called Lackawanna Six, the half-dozen Yemeni-Americans from upstate New York who pleaded guilty to charges stemming from their attending an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan. We don't have much sympathy for those men, who contend they meant no harm to America. But not even the government suggests they were involved in any kind of plot to attack America."
[b]Albany, N.Y. - [u]The Times-Union[/u]
April 21, 2004[/b]
"[T]here is the matter of growing skepticism about Mr. Ashcroft's credibility. His eagerness to twist the truth was on ugly display last week as he attempted to discredit a member of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. One has to wonder if his claims that the Patriot Act must be extended and strengthened might be exaggerated."
[b]Reno, Nev. - [u]Reno Gazette-Journal[/u]
April 21, 2004 - Letter to the Editor[/b]
"By submitting to the Patriot Act, we are being asked to allow greater scrutiny of our privacy to fight an enemy that the administration itself says cannot win. I feel that even if this increased scrutiny makes us safer (I have my doubts it does), it is not worth it or in line with the principles that founded this country."
[b]Albuquerque, N.M. [u]Albuquerque Tribune[/u]
April 13, 2004[/b]
"Shortly after 9-11, I listened to [New Mexico U.S. attorney, David] Iglesias debate about the Patriot Act. When asked about the enforcement of some of its provisions, his reply was to 'just trust us.' With all sorts of mandatory minimum sentences being used to bludgeon accused people to relinquish the very thing I thought our brave soldiers around the world are fighting and dying for, I can't.
To 'just trust' federal prosecutors - with a blind eye to the Constitution - frightens me."
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| Are Foes of Israeli Policy Enemies of Jews??? ... |
| 04.29.04 (12:53 pm) [edit] |
[b]There are significant debates occurring today in our nation and around the world regarding Israeli policy, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and anti-semitism ... [/b]
It is understandable that all conscientious citizens should be concerned about heinous bigotry and hatred by any group towards those who hold different beliefs, heritages and/or cultures ... The Holocaust that resulted in the massacre of millions of Jews, Dissidents, anti-Nazi Protestors, Intellectual Elites and others, whom Hitler's Nazi Party considered dangerous or unfit to live in their New World Order was a horrendous tragedy in the history of mankind. We must all be prepared to fight against any such horror being perpetrated again, by any nation hijacked by tyrannical arrogant zealots, upon other human beings who are tragically demonized for pernicious motives buried inside of insane ideologies with gluttonous lusts for infinite power and vast riches ... (The neo-con, neo-fascist Bush cabal unfortunately fits into this ugly profile of neo-imperial imposition of their bizarre Global Corporate Empire unwillingly upon the rest of the world ...)
To dissent, disagree and/or question a government's decisions and actions, however, is the highest form of patriotism. If the horrors of Nazi Germany teach us anything, it is that to follow a misguided, idealistic and corrupt zealot leads to chaos & misery, murderous atrocities and disastrous consequences. For conscientious citizens who dare to dissent, disagree and/or question their leaders, to be intimidated, slandered, libelled and/or destroyed, ends up creating the very type of fascist political environment enabling blood-thirsty leaders to wantonly abuse power against its' most vulnerable citizens as well as commit unconscionable atrocities against innocent people.
There is no absolute right or wrong side in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The Palestinian suicide-bombers are committing atrocities against the Israelis by killing innocent people. The Israeli government is committing atrocities against the Palestinian people by illegally occupying land that is in contravention/violation of UN Resolutions 242, 446, etc. http://www.jatonyc.org/UNreso... . The Israeli government has no right to roll massive tanks into villages like Jenin and wipe-out local populations of innocent men, women and children. The Palestinian people have no tanks and massive armaments, so they fight back using suicide bombers. It is a cycle of death that has increased dramatically under the Bush/Sharon administrations.
[b]Is it anti-semitic to question or criticize or disagree with Bush and Sharon??? [/b][b][i]No, of course it isn't[/i]!!![/b] And when such emotive rhetoric is used in order to intimidate, scare and terrify people into being silent, then we undermine the very freedom to discuss and resolve conflicts through diplomacy that is necessary in order to live humanely in accordance with a system of laws, in a civilized world.
"We the People" must not be afraid to demand that our leaders' insane exploitation of the tools of death and destruction [i]be put away[/i], and that the un-sexy, painful and slow process of reason, diplomacy and compromise[i] be brought to bear [/i]in order to solve problems. Arm-chair chicken-hawks find it easy and emotionally satisfying to see immediate action of violence perpetrated against a so-called enemy. The "let's-wipe-'em-out" philosophy mistakenly is adopted by the adolescent mind who sees brute force as the solution, because frankly it requires no brain-matter, no intellect and no give-and-take. Reason, diplomacy and compromise require greater intellectual faculties, patience and the mature adult recognition that to live in the world, one might not have everything that one wants-- one must be willing to share and participate with others who are different.
Eventually Israeli and Palestinian citizens will tire of the blood-shed and violence (as did the Irish Catholics and Protestants) and will agree to a compromise solution-- There will be no perfect solution and there will be both progress and setbacks. However, the current direction set by Bush and Sharon is bankrupt, barbaric and bloody, and it is a disgrace to humanity and civilization.
"We the People" should reject the corrupt Bush regime, who have done no favors for the United States of America, for Israel, for the Palestinians, for the Iraqis, or for any peoples around the world.
An article worth pondering is "[b]Are foes of Israeli policy enemies of Jews?[/b]" by[i] Matthew Schofield[/i], Knight-Ridder News Service on http://www.kentucky.com/mld/h... :
Delegates to one of the largest European anti-Semitism conferences in recent memory struggled yesterday with a question that kept coming up: Should opposition to Israeli policy be considered anti-Jewish?
Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, who is Jewish, addressed it. German President Johannes Rau talked about it. So did Secretary of State Colin Powell.
"Logically, I should associate with the Palestinian people," Wiesel said at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe conference. "But I cannot."
He added that while it's difficult to dismiss the argument of a people wanting a homeland, suicide bombings by Palestinians are a crime against humanity, and the Palestinian position seeks the elimination of Israel.
The question has relevance. Several European countries recently criticized Israel for the killing of Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin and, just weeks later, his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, calling the deaths "extra-legal assassination."
It isn't anti-Semitic to criticize Israel's policies, Powell said, then added: "But the line is crossed when Israel or its leaders are demonized or vilified, for example, by the use of Nazi symbols and racist caricatures."
Two reports issued this week found that anti-Semitic attacks are increasing worldwide, with France, the United Kingdom, Russia and Germany joining Canada as the countries with the largest number of cases.
The conference, organized to discuss the rise in anti-Semitism, brought delegates from 55 countries to a symbolic site: a large conference room in what 60 years ago was Nazi Germany's Central Bank. Not far from this Berlin government office, now the Foreign Ministry, Adolf Hitler planned the Holocaust.
The Nazis killed an estimated 6 million Jews under Hitler.
"Once upon a time, when both the world and I were young, gigantic meetings were being held in Berlin for anti-Semitism," Wiesel said, adding that the German capital was an appropriate site for this conference. "Let us hope now the cycle has been closed."
No one at the conference thought it had been, however. Simone Veil, a French survivor of the Bergen Belsen concentration camp, said that even as old excuses for anti-Semitism fail, new ones are created.
"Anti-Semitism in France has lost its roots, it lost its traditional arguments," she said. "And yet it persists. And yet it rises again."
She added that the new wave of hatred for Jews comes from young supporters of Palestine.
A report by Human Rights First criticized the "official indifference" of "European government's response to rising anti-Semitism in the region."
"Governments cannot address crimes they do not record or report," said Michael Posner, the group's executive director.
Still, a report from Tel Aviv University, while noting the increase in serious incidents, said: "In one very important respect there is a great difference between the present and the 1930s: awareness to and analysis of anti-Semitism have been fostered by a large number of surveys, polls, conferences and international (or at least European) seminars, many of which are conceived and conducted by non-Jews."
Rau, Germany's president, said his country and Europe are very different from what they were in the 1930s. As Nazism rose, anti-Semitism became official state policy. Now, he added, while Nazism exists in Germany, the government is strongly opposed to it.
"There are many who, like me, experienced the Nazi era themselves, wished and hoped that anti-Semitism and xenophobia would have no place in the world," he said.
Still, Europe needs more "civil courage," he said, individuals willing to stand against acts of xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism.
He added that while the increase in anti-Semitic activity is a cause for concern, criticism of Israel need not be.
"Strong criticism is allowed, and needed," he said.
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| SECRECY: Bush/Cheney/Scalia Do Not Respect Our Nation's Heritage ... |
| 04.28.04 (9:16 pm) [edit] |
[image]WinstonSmith_59810 1162.gif[/image]
[b]SECRECY: [i]Scalia Shows His Cards [/i][/b]- http://www.americanprogress.o...
In a last ditch effort to keep the American people in the dark, Solicitor General Theodore Olson argued before the Supreme Court that the activities of Vice President Cheney's 2001 energy task force should remain completely secret. The argument has already been rejected by two federal courts. To avoid making even the most preliminary disclosures, the vice president has had to defy an explicit court order. At issue is a relatively obscure 1972 law, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires government advisory committees that have members from outside the government to meet in public. Although no formal members of Cheney's energy task force were from outside government, a 1993 federal appeals court ruling stemming from efforts by conservatives to learn the details of then first lady Hillary Clinton's health care task force found that outsiders who play an active role should be considered members. It is already well-known that former Enron CEO Ken Lay and other energy industry executives were involved in shaping the nation's energy policy through the task force. But Dick Cheney doesn't believe the American people have the right to know the extent of their involvement. See the amicus brief American Progress filed with the Supreme Court about this case.
[b]SCALIA SHOWS UNFLINCHING SUPPORT FOR ADMINISTRATION ARGUMENTS:[/b] Particularly receptive to Cheney's arguments: long-time friend and duck hunting partner Justice Antonin Scalia. After flying on Cheney's government jet to a private Louisiana retreat in January, Scalia insisted that "his friendship with Cheney did not affect his ability to impartially decide the legal issue before the court." Specifically, Scalia claims his friendship with Cheney is irrelevant because "nothing the court says on those subjects will have any bearing upon the reputation and the integrity of Richard Cheney." Yet, during yesterday's argument Scalia "left little doubt that he agreed with the Bush administration's argument." At one point during the argument Scalia said "I'm asking whether they were members of the committee, and the answer has to be no." Scalia elaborated that the notion a private individual should be considered a member of the panel regardless of that person's formal designation was "not plausible."
[b]ADMINISTRATION TELLS AMERICA TO STAY OUT OF ITS BUSINESS:[/b] Many have suggested the administration has devoted significant taxpayer resources to withhold information from the American people, hoping to avoid "a major embarrassment for the president" by revealing how he allowed energy executives to write the nation's energy policy. But Paul Krugman suggests an even more frightening motivation: "the administration is really taking a stand on principle." The case is indicative of the "administration's deep belief that it has the right to act as it pleases, and that the public has no right to know what it's doing." The arguments presented in yesterday's case were "'strikingly similar' to those [the administration] makes for its right to detain, without trial, anyone it deems an enemy combatant."
[b]TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS HAVE KEN LAY'S FINGERPRINTS:[/b] However the Supreme Court rules, it is clear that the national energy policy produced by the vice president has the fingerprints of industry executives all over it. First, the task force recommends opening up the nation's treasured Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling and examining "the potential for the regulated increase in oil and natural gas development on other federal lands." Another revolutionary idea: more coal power plants. The task force notes "the U.S. has enough coal to last for another 250 years. Yet very few coal-powered electric plants are now under construction." Meanwhile, the task force cautions "the day [renewable energy sources] fullfills the bulk of our needs is still years away."
[b]Shouldn't "We the People" fight against this pernicious and destructive secrecy??? Bush, Cheney & Scalia do not respect our nation's heritage and they are tearing asunder the vital principles of accountability and transparency of government to the American people ... Write to Congress http://www.congress.org to express your concern that the Executive Branch of our government has no right to abuse their powers in order to allow corporations, wealthy oligarchs and hyper-rich plutocrats to hijack our foreign and/or domestic policies ... "We the People" have the right to know who is formulating our policies and what they are being promised in return by our elected officials and servants in office ... [/b]
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| The Chaperone: The President's Date With the 9/11 Commission ... |
| 04.28.04 (6:55 pm) [edit] |
[b]The Chaperone??? Nope,[i] not [/i]Condi Rice ... [/b]In fact, at a dinner recently Rice committed a freudian slip and called Dubya her "husband" http://www.tblog.com/template... ... Cheney will be accompanying his ventriloquest's dummy Dubya on their date with the 9/11 Whitewash Commission (in order to keep their stories [i.e. [i]lies[/i]] straight ...) ...
"We the People" should be enraged that the 9/11 Whitewash Commission has agreed to outrageous, outlandish terms that will enable the corrupt Bush regime to avoid their right and proper accountability to the American people ...
[b]The Chaperone: [u]The President's Date With the 9/11 Commission[/u][/b] - http://www.americanprogress.o...
After opposing the creation of the 9/11 Commission, blocking access to documents, and refusing to testify in front of it for months, President Bush sits down tomorrow to answer their questions. The catch? In an unprecedented move, under a deal struck by the White House Counsel, the Vice President Cheney will be by his side. While the commission has agreed to meeting under these unusual circumstances, the American people and especially the media should not let this decision go unquestioned. When the president was asked about the joint-appearance, he said, "Because it's a good chance for both of us to answer questions that the 9/11 Commission is looking forward to asking us, and I'm looking forward to answering them." The real answers are clear.
[b]. Only an hour long.[/b] Between the president and the vice president, they will be able to eat up the clock. Splitting the time between the two them, the commissioners will be limited to asking only a few questions. Following up on important leads and digging into the critical details won't be possible. And of course, the president can always burn the hour talking at endless length about his performance post-9/11.
[b]. No transcript.[/b] Unlike other witnesses who have testified before the commission in public and under oath, there will be no public record of the president or vice president's answers. Thus, whatever happens behind closed doors, will be reduced to post-testimony recollections from the president, the vice president and the commission. Conceivably, the most important details and points of interest to the American public will remain largely unknown.
[b]. Eliminates the chance of differing stories.[/b] In the past the president and the vice president have given differing answers on questions of national security. Allowing them to testify together allows them to avoid making contradictory statements or stating mismatched facts (i.e. Aug 6, 2001 PDB), which could allow critical issues for exploration to slip through the cracks.
[b]. Allows passing the buck.[/b] If the president simply feels like passing a question, he can do so by calling on the vice president to rescue him. Similarly, if he is unable to answer a question or is put in an uncomfortable position, the vice president will be there to clean up the mess. If both men's memories fail, neither the commission nor the American people will get the answers they deserve.
[b]. No outside fact check.[/b] Outside of the scrutiny of the media's eye, unless caught by the commissioners themselves, the president and the vice president will be able to get away with making misleading or inaccurate statements. The range of issues expected to be addressed such as charges in Dick Clarke's book, the Justice Department's budget, and the number of principals meetings, would all benefit from outside attention.
[b]. No national discussion.[/b] Unlike the drama of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's testimony, which captured the nation's interest, it is unlikely that there will be the necessary focus on new information coming out of this meeting. The commission's work should be sparking a national dialogue on issues of homeland security, emergency preparedness, and accountability. Instead, in line with its approach to the commission to date, the administration appears to want to sweep things under the rug.
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| ... Make No Mistake: 1930's Nazi Germany Here We Are ... |
| 04.28.04 (5:27 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" should take a very careful look at what is happening in our nation today ... [/b] [i]It is terrifying[/i] ... The traitorous Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] has created an atmosphere of corruption, intimidation and fear http://www.tblog.com/template... that is restraining Congress from taking the right and proper actions against the Executive Branch's tyrannical grab for dictatorial powers irrespective of the destruction done to our citizens (and other people around the world) and the demolition of our U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights ...
An example is as follows http://www.smirkingchimp.com/... ...
[i]Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Ct., noted differences that he had with Negroponte when the diplomat was ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s. "Those differences stem largely from a lack of candor about what the U.S. was and wasn't doing in Central America in the conflict at that time," Dodd said. "And although I intend to support and strongly support this nomination when it comes to a vote in this committee, and later on the Senate floor, I want to make one point especially clear: That same issue -- candor -- in my view, is going to be critical with respect to continued support for U.S. policies in Iraq." Dodd told Negroponte that if the administration's policies are not working, "it'll be your duty to the American people to say so, and to say so very clearly and without any hesitation so that we can make course corrections before it's too late." [/i](from FOX News http://www.foxnews.com/story/...,2933,118272,00.html )
This is a real moment of danger for America.
The Bush/Limbaugh Republicans are the 1930's Nazis, period. And these eunuchs that make up the Democratic Party - these battered wives who will come up with any excuse to allow these Nazis to continue doing what they are doing - means that America will go the way of Nazi Germany.
I mean, look at who this Negroponte is and what his record is: READ HERE http://www.moderateindependen... And then look at Dodd's words.
Dodd knew about all of this when it was occurring - the horrible human rights abuses that occurred on Negroponte's watch - and which Negroponte covered up for. Dodd knows that's who Negroponte is and what he has done, and he made an issue of it when Negroponte was nominated for Ambassador to the UN just three years ago.
And as he says plainly, he knows it is exactly the, "...same issue -- candor
(which) is going to be critical," for the post Negroponte is being assigned to as the Ambassador to Iraq. In other words, Dodd knows Negroponte lied (ie the issue of "candor") last time the nation gave him its trust, oversaw illegal operations, covered up horrible, butcherous human rights abuses, and he knows President Bush is now nominating him as our Ambassador to Iraq, putting him in exactly the position to cover up horrible abuses once again (in fact, it seems the only reason President Bush would have taken Negroponte away from his UN post to put him there) - but Dodd won't hold him accountable. All he can say to this man who has shown his horrible nature, "I'll let you get away with all of that. Oh, and by the way, don't do that this time, please."
As always, when the Democrats initially stood up to the nomination of Negroponte as UN Ambassador, the Bush/Limbaughians, rather than cave in, fired back twice as hard - and the response is always the wuss Democrats caving in.
Here Dodd knows what he is faced with, with a situation similar to the one in the 1980's in Honduras. Dodd knows Negroponte's record. But not only won't he oppose the nomination - as anyone who cares about America or human rights would - but he will "strongly" support it. Again, in his words, "I intend to support and strongly support this nomination..." It wasn't enough for him to even support this horrible man who he stood up against before, but as a true gutless coward, he now wants to make sure he says he will "strongly" support him.
Make no mistake, America is in a lot of trouble. A lot. The Bush/Limbaughians - even if defeated this election - won't go away, and will continue to fester and fester into a parallel version of imperial terrorists, ala the Nazis, Napoleon, or the countless other examples of this occurring throughout history. That is, this will happen unless you stand up become the leadership of the future, because certainly the morality-free Republicans nor the ball-free Democrats will. It is up to us Moderate Independents to boldly, strongly stand up now in defense of our nation - not by stupid, useless protesting, nor by stupid violence, but by getting involved - yes you - in the political process as candidates.
Is there anyone with both balls and a conscience living in America - who is willing to put down their remote control and stand up in defense of their nation?
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| ... They Hate Us Because of Our Freedom ... |
| 04.28.04 (2:39 pm) [edit] |
"[i]They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other[/i]." - George W. Bush, Address to Congress, http://www.whitehouse.gov/new...
[b]In fact, it is the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] who hates "We the People" because of our freedoms that they are[i] eroding, dismantling and destroying [/i]as fast as their neo-fascist hands can [i]tear asunder [/i]our U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights ... [/b]
"We the People" should analyze the[i] facts[/i]:
- The corrupt Bush regime has[i] abused religious zealotry and medieval superstitious rhetoric [/i]in order to foster hatred and increase the support by the American people for their insane neo-con's illegal and immoral war-turned-bloody-guerril la quagmire in Iraq; http://www.johnworldpeace.com... http://www.post-gazette.com/n... http://www.pbs.org/wnet/relig... http://writ.news.findlaw.com/...
- The corrupt Bush regime has[i] used neo-nazi intimidation, slander, libel, fear and scare tactics to silence & punish[/i] any and all political opposition, whistleblowers or questioning of their neo-fascist foreign and domestic policies; http://www.wage-slave.org/sco... http://www.thewbalchannel.com... http://www.commondreams.org/h... http://www.signonsandiego.com... http://www.comicscommunity.co...;read=86829
- The corrupt Bush regime [i]engaged in illegal and fraudulent election rigging[/i] in the presidential (s)election of 2000 and are conducting another potential hijacking of our nation (using illegal electronic election rigging; slander-and-libel propaganda to mislead the public; and out-and-out lies in their mendacious neo-fascist campaign). Moreover, Bush refuses to debate with Kerry (not exactly open government); http://advaloreminternati onal... http://www.oilempire.us/elect... http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/... http://www.commondreams.org/h...
- The corrupt Bush regime is[i] using the monstrous Patriot Acts to conduct illegal surveillance, arrests and detentions [/i]of those who they label as "enemy combattants" and also those who conduct peaceful protests in our nation. http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFr... http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/0... http://www.refuseandresist.or... http://www.wired.com/news/pol...,1283,61341,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1
Do these traitorous, undemocratic activities sound like they are conducted by "freedom-loving" leaders???[i] Of course not[/i]!!! The tyrannical Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]hate us because of our freedoms, far more so than any so-called terrorists do ... http://writ.news.findlaw.com/...
[b]Read on ...[/b]
[b][u]'They Hate Us Because of Our Freedom'[/u][/b] - http://www.strike-the-root.co...
Whenever I hear they hate us because of our freedom or "because they hate our way of life" or some other such drivel, I dont know whether to laugh or cry. If real people didnt suffer the consequences of it, such ignorance would be amusing. But another annoying thing about statements like these is that they perpetuate the myth that we live in a land of freedom. The sad fact is, we are not free, and haven't been for a long, long time.
In [i]They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45[/i], http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob...%3D1082338420/sr%3D1-1/10 2-3834985-1485733 Milton Mayer wrote about how the German people kept believing they were still free while the Nazis were tightening their control and extending their power over every facet of life. At first people refused to see the obvious, because the infringements on their freedom were coming in small steps. Each of those small steps, on its own, seemed to be no big deal, nothing to rebel against. But by the time you could no longer ignore the big picture, it was too late. Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven't done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing) . . . You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair. Remember, all the people had to do for all that to happen was--nothing. The same phenomenon is happening right here, right now, in the U.S. of A. It had been proceeding at a slower rate than 70 years ago in Germany , but now the pace quickens.
I know there are some who will say, Wait a minute, fella. Youre going too far. The U.S. of A. is still a free country. O.K., then. If youre free, you should have no trouble doing something that people have done for time immemorial. Buy a cow, shelter and feed and care for it, milk it, and sell the milk. Go ahead, try it and see what happens. Come back and let us know how free you are to do such a simple thing, which has been done since the dawn of civilization.
Freedom is a state of being where an individual does not have to get permission in order to do something that harms no one elses person or property. How many things can you do without getting some form of government permission? Can you build your house on your own property without obtaining government approval? Can you put a new room on your house? Or a new porch? Put in a new toilet? Or even put a shed in your backyard? If you are not free to make your home on your own property, you are not free.
Once you have that home, can you refuse to sell it to the government if they want to use your land for some other purpose? Can you make them go away simply by telling them, I will not sell you my property, at any price! If you are not free to choose if, when, how, to whom, and for how much you will sell your property, you are not free.
Can you drive a motor vehicle across this free country without someone in government approving of you as a driver? Or without getting government permission to use that vehicle on the roads? If you are not free to travel without permission, you are not free.
Can you buy a pistol without government permission? Can you drive across the country with it on your person, even if you have permission to drive a properly permitted vehicle? Theres a man, a good man from what Ive heard, who got in trouble in Ohio for doing just that. And Ill bet there are many more good people that I havent heard of who wound up in similar trouble. Lets remind them how free they are. Could anyone even ride a horse cross-country, with an old Winchester rifle in a scabbard, without being hassled? If you are not free to have a firearm at hand for self-defense, no matter where you go, you are not free.
Are you free to say to the government, I dont like your retirement plan; therefore, I will no longer pay for it? Can you, without penalty, tell the government that you will no longer pay for subsidies, for regulations, for wars, for empire, or for any activities that you disapprove? If you are not free to refuse to pay for things that you do not want, you are not free.
If the government decides it needs more troops to build and maintain its empire, can you refuse to go if it calls for you? Will they leave you alone if you tell them you wont kill and die for them? Can you simply ignore the draft, without consequence? Can you refuse to be a conscripted slave? If you are not free to tell the government Hell no, I wont go! you are not free.
Can you open a business, like a simple barbershop, without government permission? Or how about a bakery? A diner? A hot dog stand? A gun shop? Its been said that before we invaded Iraq , there were more gun shops in Baghdad than in Washington D.C. Can you wire or plumb or fix TVs or cars without a government license? If youre not free to make a living without getting permission, you are not free.
And once you have government approval to open a restaurant or bar, are you free to decide what people may do within your business? Can you choose whether or not they may smoke on the premises? Are you free to invite them to light up and enjoy a cigarette, a cigar, or a pipe with their drink, or after their meal? If you are not free to decide what people may or may not do on your property or within your business, you are not free.
Are you free to smoke a joint? Are you free to hire someone to help you satisfy a physical urge? You can do both in the same afternoon in Amsterdam . I havent heard of anybody attacking the Dutch because of their freedom. If you are not free to entertain your mind and body in any way that does not harm another, with anyone who is willing, you are not free.
Can you undergo any medical treatment you think is in your best interest? Can you use whatever drug you deem appropriate for your condition? Can you even get some marijuana to help you avoid nausea so you can keep your meds from coming back up? Can you get it just to feel a little better for a little while? If you are not free to pursue any treatment or use any substance you think might help you obtain, regain, or retain your health, you are not free.
Are you able to criticize political candidates by name? A week before the next election or primary, place a newspaper or TV or magazine or radio ad criticizing a candidate. Let us know how you fare. The Supreme Court says its okay to make that a crime. If you are not free to talk about politicians at any time, at any place, by any means, in any form, you are not free.
Can you take your children out of a government or conventional private school setting, without explaining to some bureaucrat how you plan to educate them? Can you homeschool them without getting government approval of your lesson plans? Can you tell everyone to buzz off, that its none of their business how or if you educate your kids? If you are not free to teach your children what you want, where you want, when you want, and how you want, you are not free.
So, lets reiterate. You need government permission to make your home, travel, earn a living, defend yourself, obtain medical treatment, and educate your children. You will never get government approval for many of those things in many places. You will never get government permission to entertain your mind and body in unapproved ways. At certain times, you cannot criticize those who decide who and what gets approved. You must sell your property to the government if they want it, and you must kill and die for them if they tell you to. And you have no choice but to pay for it all anyway, whether you like it or not.
And still, we think we are free.
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| Canadians Don't Want the Bush/Cheney Inc. Junta's FOX (News) Propaganda Channel |
| 04.28.04 (2:22 pm) [edit] |
[b]Intelligent, well-educated and conscientious people around the world can tell the difference between real news and fascist state propaganda ... [/b]Interestingly, the Canadian people don't want the Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] neo-con, neo-fascist FOX (News [[i]sic[/i]]) Propaganda Channel ...
If "We the People" were smart, we wouldn't want it [i]either[/i] ...
Consider "[b]Canadians Take Fright At Fox News Channel[/b]" by [i]Big News Network [/i]on http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.c... :
A cross-border dispute has developed over the ban on Fox News imposed by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission.
Fox earlier this year applied to televise their popular Fox News Channel throughout Canada. The commission turned them down earlier this month.
Fox is one of the most popular news services in the U.S. and is seen in many parts of the world. It beat CNN and MSNBC combined in viewership and demographics in prime time and 24-Hour time periods for April 2004, according to Nielsen Media Research. In addition, Fox captured ten out of the top eleven shows in cable news. CNN's only show in the top eleven, Larry King Live, remained at number four with 1,335,000 viewers. King trailed FNC's The O'Reilly Factor (2,240,000 viewers), Hannity & Colmes (1,638,000 viewers) and The FOX Report with Shepard Smith (1,465,000 viewers).
The channel is a devout Bush administration fan and employs commentators that fall into the Republican line. It is said to be so biased it has to tell viewers that it is 'fair and balanced', that it is the channel, 'America can trust', and says repeatedly, 'we report, you decide.' Others say it is as close to a state-run news service as you can get. Canada, in any event, says it won't have a bar of it. But Fox News is to apply again.
Meantime one of Fox's commentators Bill O'Reilly has taken exception to comments made by journalist John Doyle from Canada's major newspaper, The Globe and Mail.
It seems Doyle started the blue by saying he had read, 'some honchos in the cable-TV racket are applying for permission to offer the Fox News Channel in Canada. Beauty. Bring it on, I say. We're all in need of a good laugh. The barking-mad Fox News Channel is something that most Canadians have only heard about. It's time we saw it for ourselves, and made up our own minds about the phenomenon. We'll find out if this Bill O'Reilly fella is as stupendously pompous and preening as he appears to be in the rare clips we see of Fox News.'
O'Reilly quickly learned of the comments, immediately labelled the respected Canadian newspaper as the 'far left' Globe and Mail, and responded, 'so they see rare clips, but think we're laughable. The Globe and Mail sounds like a real responsible enterprise, doesn't it? Hey you pinheads up there, I may be pompous, but at least I'm honest.'
That perhaps should have been the end of it, however Fox News viewers thought differently. They were angered and let Doyle know. During the course of the days that followed the brief exchange between the two veteran journalists, Doyle received hundreds of emails from Fox News viewers:
To: Doyle, John
Subject: you are a [expletive]
Please don't sleep on your side, because your tiny little brain will roll out your ear, you communist [expletive].
.........................
To: Doyle, John
Subject: Fox and your newspaper
. . . I imagine you are one of those middle-aged creeps sitting on your fat [expletive] drooling with envy at the success of others. From your photo it appears you have a receding hairline.
Charles
..........................
To: Doyle, John
Subject: Fox News
Your [expletive] attitude exists because you are Canadian. Canadians are worthless. Canadian equals coward. You don't need just Fox News Channel. First you need to stop being Canadian.
Steve
In Texas. Stay Away.
..........................
To: Doyle, John
Subject: Your article
This article was written by an idiot. Canadians are far too dumb to appreciate Fox News anyway. Don't confuse their little heads with the facts. . . . My husband has been forced to work in Canada for awhile this spring. He said most Canadians are [expletives].
Have a good day.
..........................
Ruth, from the wonderful state of Colorado.
(Don't come for a visit.)
..........................
To: Doyle, John
Subject: what a joke - Fox
. . . Clearly you believe Americans must be stupid. But clearly not as dense as Canadians, who are spoon-fed their news by heavily tilted 'non partial' partisans such as yourself.
Your problem, you creep, is that you are Canadian.
Regards,
Ron
..........................
To: Doyle, John
Subject: nice try [EXPLETIVE!]
{hellip}True freedom of speech and diversity of opinion TERRIFIES you left-wing [expletives]. That is why your '1st Amendment' equivalent has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. You Canadians are really quite sad to us Americans. We generally feel sorry for you and your weak, dependent country.
John
Springfield, Va. ****USA****
.........................
To: Doyle, John
Subject: Your article
Why don't you just shut your damn mouth. Your lucky we don't attack Canada next. We hate communists here.
........................
Now we know who watches Fox News, and it is probably little wonder why the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission doesn't want to turn Canadians into Fox News viewers.
John Doyle put it this way, 'I lost count of the number of times I was called 'an a**hole.' It was at least 43 times, anyway. I was called 'a pussy,' 'a wussy,' 'a pr**k,' 'a jerk,' 'a hack' and 'a creep.' A man in Cleveland not only called me 'an a**hole' but also wished me a 'f***ed-up day.' A lady -- and I use the term advisedly -- in Colorado wrote to say that all Canadians are 'a**holes' and then ordered me not to visit her state. I was also called a Canadian numerous times, as if that were an automatic and withering insult.'
'In a nice touch, a man from somewhere-in-the-USA opened by cheerfully calling me 'sonny bub' and, after some confusing name-calling that involved the word 'intellectual,' he rose to a great rhetorical flourish -- he asked if I had served in Vietnam! Nothing of the sort has ever come from viewers of Newsworld, CTV Newsnet, CNN, MSNBC or, indeed ROB-TV. My point was that we have a great deal to learn from the Fox News Channel. And I am proved right. Talking to Americans is always a tonic. Bring on Fox News and bring it fast. Let's see this thing that has so many ardent and incredibly aggressive viewers.'
Well that was pretty cool, but we can't leave it there. As with 'The O'Reilly Factor,' we leave it to Bill O'Reilly for the final word:
'Earlier this week we told you that many Canadians want the Fox News Channel, that so far the government up there has blocked. . . .
Now I receive scores of letters like this one from Donna in Toronto:
'We need fair and balanced news from Fox because The Globe and Mail and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation are so far left. The CBC is called by many the Communist Broadcasting Corporation. Please don't use my last name because I don't want the government to know that I'm illegally watching Fox on the satellite. You see, we're allowed to hear only what they want us to hear.'
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| Conservative Economic Rhetoric vs. Reality |
| 04.28.04 (11:43 am) [edit] |
[b]Dubya's ponzy scheme has enriched his own criminal family and that of his gluttonous corporate cronies, campaign contributors and political toadies ... [/b]However, the corrupt Bush regime's insane, reckless and rapacious economic policies are [i]tragically destructive[/i] for the majority of Americans and Working people ... http://www.tblog.com/template...
"We the People" must learn quickly to separate the traitorous Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] neo-orwellian rhetoric from the cold, hard and unpleasant reality of impoverishment of our nation's citizenry under the vile Bush Crime Family ...
[b]Read on ...[/b]
[b][u]Conservative Economic Rhetoric vs. Reality[/u][/b] - http://www.americanprogress.o...
[i][b]On Employment[/b][/i]
[u]Rhetoric[/u]: "There are more Americans working today than ever before." Heritage Foundation, Issues 2004
[u]Reality[/u]: The American economy has lost nearly 2 million jobs since President Bush was elected the worst record of job losses during a recovery since Herbert Hoover.
[u]Reality[/u]: The unemployment rate has gone from 4.2 percent to 5.7 percent under Bush, and increased again just last month.
[i][b]On Job Creation[/b][/i]
[u]Rhetoric[/u]: "America's economy is strong and getting stronger. . . and new jobs were created in March." President Bush, April 2, 2004
[u]Reality[/u]: The past few years have seen the worst monthly average job creation during a recovery in over 60 years.
[u]Reality[/u]: No other post-war administration has had as few good months of good labor market performance as the Bush administration. This includes the Kennedy and Ford administrations, which were in office for shorter periods of time than Bush's has been.
[b][i]On Unemployment[/i][/b]
[u]Rhetoric[/u]: "The unemployment rate edged up slightly to 5.7 percent [in March], which is low by historical standards
. It is already within the healthy range that most economists consider close to full employment." Heritage Foundation, Web Memo #468
[u]Reality[/u]: The unemployment rate is low because many workers have simply given up looking for work. If this "missing labor force" were properly counted, the unemployment rate would average well above 7 percent.
[u]Reality[/u]: The unemployment rate has risen from a low point of 3.9 percent in December 2000 and remained consistently at or above 5.6 percent for several months. In fact, the unemployment rate was 5.6 percent when the recovery started in November 2001.
[b][i]On Real Wages[/i][/b]
[u]Rhetoric[/u]: "Average real wages have risen by 3 percent over the last three years." Heritage Foundation, Issues 2004
[u]Reality[/u]: According to the Economic Policy Institute, 2003 was the worst year since 1998 for growth in real (inflation adjusted) hourly wages. While GDP has been growing strongly - 4.1 percent in the fourth quarter following 8.2 percent in the third quarter of 2003 total wage and salary income saw meager increases of 0.8 percent and 1.3 percent at the same time.
[u]Reality[/u]: Wages have increased by less than 1 percent since the start of the recession through January 2004. That increase is at about half the rate of prior recoveries.
[b][i]On Tax Cuts and Recession[/i][/b]
[u]Rhetoric[/u]: "The conservative remedy of lower taxes and free trade halted the recession in its tracks." Heritage Foundation, Issues 2004
[u]Reality[/u]: President Bush's tax cuts have made it harder for Americans to find jobs because they were targeted towards the rich, created enormous deficits and put economic growth in jeopardy.
[u]Reality[/u]: Most American households received less than the average tax cut (in 2003 the average cut was $1800, but the majority of Americans got less than $850 in tax cuts). Gains from these cuts were more than offset by cost increases in medical care (up 4.5 percent since last year), tuition (up 28 percent over the last three years) and housing. Government expenditures for programs that help working families to meet these rising costs have now been reduced to pay for the tax cuts.
[b][i]On Financial Aid[/i][/b]
[u]Rhetoric[/u]: "More students are receiving federal Pell grants than when President Bush took office." - Rod Paige, Secretary of Education, March 4, 2004
[u]Reality[/u]: Financial aid is primarily based on family income. Median household income, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, has fallen for the last two years for which data is available (2001 and 2002).
[u]Reality[/u]: College tuition has gone up 28 percent over the last three years. Financial aid much of which comes in the form of loans has not been able to offset these costs. That is despite an alarming rise in debt among recent college graduates, families are still struggling to pay the bills.
[b][i]On Health Care[/i][/b]
[u]Rhetoric[/u]: "Even if you don't have health insurance you are still taken care of in America. That certainly could be defined as universal coverage." - Secretary Of Health And Human Services Tommy Thompson, Seattle Times, March 3, 2004.
[u]Reality[/u]: The number of people with health insurance rose by 1.5 million and the number without increased by 2.4 million from 2001 to 2002. Currently, 43.6 million Americans lack health insurance. As health insurance coverage is declining, out-of-pocket medical expenditures rise. From 2000 to 2003, inflation adjusted out-of-pocket expenditures rose by more than 7 percent taking a bite out of consumption for other items.
[u]Reality[/u]: The overwhelming majority of Americans without health insurance say they don't have it because it is too expensive. Only 5 to 7 percent report that they don't need or don't want healthcare coverage.
[b]For another article outlining the break by moderate Republicans also opposed to the corrupt Bush regime's extremist favoritism towards corporations, wealthy oligarchs and hyper-rich plutocrats, read "A Task of Moderation" on [/b] http://nytimes.com/2004/04/28... .
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| George W. Bush in Wonderland |
| 04.28.04 (11:43 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" may [i]wake-up soon [/i]and find ourselves[i] shocked! shocked! shocked![/i] at the economic fiasco in this nation and look around in [i]wonder! wonder! wonder! [/i]asking "What Happened Here?" ... Let us [i]not[/i] be taken by surprise ... [/b]The U.S. economic indicators are [i]terrifying[/i] and it is time to[i] get rid of [/i]the corrupt Bush regime who has wantonly created an[i] economic train-wreck [/i]that will hit our citizens hard:-- with back-breaking debts to pay-off Bush's historical record-level deficits; the highest job losses & unemployment since the Great Depression; skyrocketing poverty & homelessness; the barbaric lack of health care for tens of millions; a crumbling national infrastructure; illegal and immoral neo-con warmongerings for war-profiteering by treasonous corporations & neo-fascist Bush cronies; etc. etc. etc. ... We need an administration who cares about the General Welfare of All ([i]as per the U.S. Constitution[/i]) in [i]Our Republic For Which It Stands [/i]and not this corrupt cabal of neo-con, neo-fascists in the traitorous Bush regime who are [i]Taking-the-Money-and-S taying-in-Power-to-Take-E ven-More-of-Our-Money [/i]...
[b]Read on ...[/b]
[u][b]George W. Bush in Wonderland[/b][/u] - http://www.americanprogress.o...
[i]If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?[/i]
[b] Alice, "Alice in Wonderland"[/b]
Listening to recent conservative interpretations of economic reports probably makes you think we are living in Alice's world. In this alternate universe, black is white, up is down and bad economic news is good economic news. Millions of people are still waiting for the jobs they were promised when President Bush pushed through massive tax cuts. Despite a surge in economic growth and profits, those who have jobs have seen minimal increases in their wages, while costs especially for education, housing, and health care have gone up. Yet the president and his conservative allies, by consistently lowering the bar on what constitutes economic progress, keep trying to convince the public that everything is hunky-dory in the U.S. economy.
For example, the Heritage Foundation claims that "there are more Americans working today than ever before." This specious argument is based on a survey of households, a much less reliable indicator than the more commonly used survey of firms (which shows that the economy had 1.9 million fewer jobs than when the recession started). Aside from this factual inconsistency, the claim in itself is largely irrelevant. Obviously, an economy with an expanding population (like the United States') should have more jobs. Saying that this is good is like arguing that the past year has been extremely successful for our personal maturity because we grew a year older. The real labor market issue is whether new entrants can find a job. Undoubtedly this is more difficult, as the share of the employed population is lower and the unemployment rate is higher than when the recession began.
Another recent example of turning bad economic news into good occurred this February when the president said things were looking better because, among other things, the inflation rate is low. Bush seemed to be saying it is too bad that people have lost their jobs, but at least the goods they cannot afford are not getting more expensive. The two issues are not unrelated. Inflation is low because increases in demand for goods and services have been slow. And because demand is not growing as fast as it typically does in a recovery, fewer people can find jobs, which keeps demand growth low. Car prices, for instance, are low because fewer people can afford to buy cars. How is this good news? In 2003, the inflation rate was actually slowing enough for the Federal Reserve to warn about the threats of disinflation as a precursor to deflation, something that would have a devastating effect on growth and employment.
Taking advantage of bad economic news has also led the administration to claim success in the education arena. Rod Paige, secretary of education, tried to portray the administration as strong on college financial aid when he said this month that more students are receiving Pell Grants than when Bush took office. However, financial aid is primarily based on family income, which, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, has fallen in recent years. In other words, because people have struggled in the labor market they have become eligible for financial aid. At the same time, college tuition has gone up 28 percent over the last three years, putting working families even more in a squeeze between lower income and higher tuition.
Even the weak labor market offers a ray of hope for those who want to make the world out to be rosier than it is. Conservatives often tout the fact that this March was the strongest month of employment creation in almost four years. Of course, compared to the abysmal job creation of the past few years, almost anything looks good. The truth of the matter is that employment growth in March was fairly typical for a recovery (neither above nor below average). But more importantly, claiming that one month of decent employment growth constitutes good labor market performance ignores the fact that this is still the weakest job market recovery since the Great Depression. Moreover, all post-war administrations (even those in office for less time than the Bush administration) have had substantially more months with this type of job creation than the current president has. Because the prior three years were so bad in terms of employment growth, however, Bush has easily been able to declare victory on a monthly basis.
A realistic assessment of the economy should be an honest accounting of where the economy really is. Growth in recent quarters has improved, but the labor market is still struggling. Millions of households continue to look for jobs and wage gains are hard to find. At the same time, costs (especially for important items like education and health care) are skyrocketing. For millions of working families, the economic picture is far from rosy. Yet while working families are struggling, conservatives are declaring victory because they have lowered the benchmark for economic progress. The next thing you know, conservatives will proclaim President Bush the "family president." After all, in his Alice-in-Wonderland-fanta sy world it is a good thing that working families get to spend more time with their children now that there are fewer of those pesky jobs to keep them busy.
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| Public Pressure Forces Judge to Open 9/11 Whistleblower Hearing |
| 04.27.04 (3:57 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People"[i] can [/i]make a difference ... [/b]It is imperative that we learn the[i] truth [/i]about what the corrupt Bush regime[i] actually knew and when they knew it [/i]leading-up to the 9/11 attacks upon America ... We already [i]know[/i] that the traitorous Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] misled us into their insane neo-con war-turned-bloody-guerril la-quagmire in Iraq for global hegemony and vast riches, based upon myriad lies, deceptions and falsehoods for which they should be [i]impeached [/i]from office ... Thus far, there are still [i]also[/i] unanswered questions about their intelligence prior to 9/11 ... http://www.americanprogress.o... ... Let us demand and insist upon [i]accountability[/i] from our government servants ... The neo-fascist Mad King George and his criminal neo-con entourage are not imperial rulers, but are working for [i]us[/i] ...
[b]Read on ...[/b]
[b]A Victory for Accountability and Transparency [/b]
Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds could soon become the thorniest of thorns in the side of the most secretive administration in American history. Whether she does or not depends on whether or not the American public will stand up and challenge the Department of Justices attempt to quash the truth, avoid accountability and bury the facts behind lies, double speak and the National Security trump card.
Edmonds, showing such courage in the face of such stacked decks, deserves to be supported in her growing campaign to see that her first amendment rights as an American citizen are honored and that someone is held accountable at the FBI and elsewhere for the gross negligence or worse she uncovered as an FBI translator in the months immediately following the 9/11 attacks. [For background, please see other stories on Edmonds posted on this site: http://www.911citizenswatch.o... ]
The first victory in this effort occurred yesterday when the U.S. District Court proceedings previously sealad (closed to the public and press) were forced open after members of the public and press confronted the court and then U.S. Marshals directly challenging the unjustified and undocumented order for official secrecy regarding the Edmonds case that morning. The hearing in the courtroom of Bush appointed Judge Reggie Walton was scheduled to be closed but in an apparent bow to vocal objections brought by a former CIA agent, a foreign print journalist, the author of this account and Edmonds lawyer, the Judge elected to open the doors and allow public and press scrutiny of the proceedings.
Upon hearing the news, former Bush I official, Catherine Austin Fitts, who helped orchestrate a grass-roots lobbying campaign, with the 9/11 Visibility Project, in support of Sibel Edmonds, said that this was a case in which citizen and press demands for transparency won out over the strong arm of the Department of Justice and the Courts effort to keep all hidden behind closed doors. "Its a great victory. Dont underestimate your power," said Fitts. Edmonds is the latest in a string of FBI whistleblowers, including Colleen Rowley and Robert Wright, who have come forward before and since 9/11 with damning evidence and allegations which taken together show a disturbing pattern of spiked and compromised investigations and investigative or intelligence assignments of the most junior or incompetent of agents to the most important of charges.
A suspicious public, as they pay increasing attention to the mountain of questions surrounding the official 9/11 investigation, and witness its official obstruction, have begun to understandably entertain the unsettling notion that rogue elements within the FBI or elsewhere within the government, sufficiently high in office, may have been complicit in the 9/11 plot; that it would either have been exposed and prevented had it not been for certain actions which many suggest add up to a damning pattern indeed. Others simply insist that the lack of transparency, the resulting lack of accountability and the rewarding of failure and gross incompetence is inimical to a healthy functioning democracy as it perpetuates a cancerous, life-endangering business as usual.
Either way a hard nosed investigation and much greater public attention to these issues is what is required to effectively challenge a dissembling official story and ferret out the truth. Currently, despite the spin, this is not what we are getting. In the absence of an uncompromising hardball official investigation it is incumbent upon those actively concerned to support and effect a Citizens Truth Commission and pertinent to the story at hand, support the few brave souls willing to put their necks on the lines to tell the truth as they know itthe 9/11 whistleblowers like Sibel Edmonds.
While no one source or single Whistleblower will reveal the whole story, Sibel Edmonds case is quite instructive because it addresses the fundamental suggestions supported by a growing body of publicly acknowledged evidence that the government had quite specific forewarnings and detailed intelligence threats including the notion of planes being used as weapons and did so months in advance of 9/11; and yet did little or nothing.
In addition, Edmonds has exhibited unusual courage in calling a spade a spade when she directly accused Condoleezza Rice of lying regarding the extent of warnings. If she is fully supported we may see an important precedent and example set which could inspire others in the know to speak out. As they do, independent researchers and citizens investigators will be able to connect the dots themselves and in time the whole story will emerge, truth will see the light of day and accountability and transparency will win out over obfuscation, secrecy and denials.
Given the extraordinary secrecy, and in the Edmonds case, the extremely rare application of State Secrets Immunity we may never know be able to confirm her allegation that the FBI had specific threat intelligence as to rough timing, targets and method. But foreign press accounts [see http://www.cooperativeresearc... ] and indeed the public record as reflected in the Congressional Joint Inquiry report already demonstrate that the government knew far more than they initially acknowledged in their early deceptive comments regarding the extant of pre-attack intelligence and threat assessments.
Playing the National Security trump card may just be the governments attempt to protect the now unaccountable and avoid embarrassment. However, we do know enough to continue to press for full disclosure, continue to connect the dots on our own. Something the government is doing everything in its power in the Edmonds case to prevent.
In the end, despite pleading and arguments made by counsel Allan Gerson on behalf the 9/11 Families and their lawsuit, the U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton quashed the current deposition subpoena that would have had Edmonds testifying today [Tuesday, April 27th] before the lawyers for several thousand family members who has suing those they believe are behind terrorism. However, given the need for further review of the case, and perhaps the new public and press scrutiny, Judge Walton did set a date (June 14th) for another hearing and decision on whether to allow her deposition in some form. With this much advance time there is more than enough opportunity to rally a large public audience who would be willing to show Sibel Edmonds a very strong show of support and in the process help this disturbing information reach more Americans who deserve to know.
[b]Andrew Buncombe of the Independent was there:[/b]
Lawyers try to gag FBI worker over 9/11, http://news.independent.co.uk...
[b]Kyle F. Hence [/b]- http://www.unobserver.com/ind...
[b]Please also see:[/b]
U.S.: Today, in the 9/11 Cover-Up Investigation, http://www.unobserver.com/ind...
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| Iraqis Demand Full Sovereignty!!! ... It Is Their Country!!! ... What Will Bush Do??? ... |
| 04.27.04 (3:36 pm) [edit] |
[b]Iraqis are demanding full sovereignty! ... Now the corrupt Bush regime is saying that Iraq will be given "some" sovereignty! ... How can one be awarded [i]"partial"[/i] sovereignty? (Is there such as thing as [i]"partial"[/i] self-rule by a people of their nation? Methinks [i]not really[/i].) ... Iraq does [i]belong[/i] to the Iraqi people and [i]not[/i] to the neo-con, neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta [/i]... What will Bush [i]do[/i]??? Probably continue to behave as a tyrannical neo-hitlerian dictator ...[/b]
What will "We the People" [i]do[/i]??? ... Let us call upon Congress http://www.congress.org for [i]impeachment hearings [/i]in order to [i]get rid of [/i]the insane Bush liars, thieves, traitors and war criminals who perpetrate heinous lies, vile deceptions and treasonous falsehoods upon America and the entire world community in order to wage their illegal and immoral neo-con, neo-fascist warfare-turned-bloody-gue rrilla-quagmire in Iraq for global hegemony and to install their Global Corporate Empire that unconscionably gorges and swills on gluttonous war-profits while our U.S. Soldiers & Innocent Iraqi Civilians continue to die on a daily basis with [i]no end in sight [/i]... ([u]Bush's War-Profiteers[/u]: Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.) ...
Consider "[b]Iraqis demand full sovereignty[/b]" by [i]BBC News[/i] on http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/mi... :
Members of Iraq's interim Governing Council have called for "nothing less than full sovereignty" after the planned transfer of power on 30 June.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said Iraq would have to "give back" some power to the US in the early days.
That caused concern among Iraqi leaders and on the United Nations Security Council which is expected to be asked to support the new government in Iraq.
UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi later told the Council the role of Iraqis was vital.
He said the people of Iraq should be as involved as possible in forming the interim government which will administer the country until full elections, due in January next year.
Mr Brahimi favours the winding up of the 25-member Governing Council appointed by the US from veteran politicians to be replaced by technocrats.
He also suggested a national conference of more than 1,000 Iraqis from all walks of life be held in July.
That could offer support and advice to the government as it prepared for elections and act as a forum for reconciliation in the post-Saddam Hussein era, he said.
[b]Sensitive time [/b]
The BBC's Middle East analyst Roger Hardy says it is clear that the US will remain the dominant power in Iraq in both military and financial terms for some time to come.
But he adds that the US has have to convince ordinary Iraqis that what is being billed as the handover of power will not be a purely symbolic moment.
Mr Powell's comments - which came a week after US administrator for Iraq Paul Bremer said local Iraqi forces could not maintain security by themselves - were criticised swiftly by Iraqi politicians.
A spokesman for the Iraqi Governing Council, Hameed al-Kafaei, said he believed Mr Powell was talking about co-operation over security.
"But sovereignty will have to be full on 30 June. Iraqis will not accept any less than full sovereignty," he said.
Public Works Minister Nesreen Berwari told the Associated Press news agency that Iraqis would welcome support for security and building democratic institutions from the UN and the US.
But she said Iraqis must take control of local and national government and make decisions on "day-to-day life," including budgets and "how to move the country politically".
As the members of the Security Council prepared to hear Mr Brahimi's latest report in New York, the only Arab member of the Council also called for Iraq to have full control after 30 June.
Algerian UN Ambassador Abdallah Baali said: "We definitely would like to see the Iraqi sovereignty restored in full and as soon as possible."
[b]UN 'leading role' [/b]
Separately, the former US Ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, was being questioned by senators deciding whether to approve him as the White House's new envoy in Iraq.
Mr Negroponte told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he expected the UN to take the lead in post-transition Iraq, in particular as it moves towards rule by an elected government.
If his appointment is confirmed, Mr Negroponte will replace Mr Bremer as the top US civilian in Iraq after 30 June when Mr Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority ceases to exist.
But US officials have said their military forces will still have control of some aspects of security and Mr Powell went further on Monday, saying that while Iraqis would have what he called sovereignty, "some of its sovereignty will have to be given back... or limited by them".
He told Reuters news agency that the coalition did not mean to "seize anything away" from the planned caretaker government but added: "It is with the understanding that they need our help and for us to provide that help we have to be able to operate freely, which in some ways infringes on what some would call full sovereignty."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said on Tuesday that it was important to separate "sovereignty" from "authority".
He said Iraqis themselves wanted limits on the authority of the interim government which he said had just two roles before it is replaced by an elected body: to assume day-to-day responsibility for administration and to prepare the country for a national poll.
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| Dick Cheney Behaves Like An Opportunistic Fascist Thug, An Embarrassment |
| 04.26.04 (6:14 pm) [edit] |
[b]Don't "We the People" deserve [i]or[/i] desire better than this??? ...[/b]
Veep-n-Creep Dick Cheney behaves like an opportunist fascist thug, an embarrassment who would [i]do[/i] Hitler's Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbles [i]proud [/i]... Dick Cheney goes to Westminster College, http://www.westminster-mo.edu... the site of Winston Churchill's 'iron curtain' speech http://www.hpol.org/churchill... , and embarrasses himself by sandbaging the University President who accepted Cheney's request to speak at the college.
Here's the first graf of an email President Fletcher M. Lamkin http://www.westminster-mo.edu... sent to faculty, students and staff this afternoon ...
[i]I would like to thank each and every one of you who were so courteous and respectful to Mr. Cheney during his visit and speech. Frankly, I must admit that I was surprised and disappointed that Mr. Cheney chose to step off the high ground and resort to Kerry-bashing for a large portion of his speech. The content and tone of his speech was not provided to us prior to the event -- we had only been told the speech would be about foreign policy, including issues in Iraq. Nevertheless, I was extremely proud of the students, staff, and faculty who represented the College so well during the organization of the visit and during the speech itself -- inside and outside of the gym[/i].
More background http://www.thestate.com/mld/t... in this [i]AP[/i] article.
[b]Source:[/b]
Joshua Micah Marshall, TalkingPointsMemo, http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
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| White GOP Elephant: Bush's Military Industrial Complex Boondoggle |
| 04.26.04 (5:42 pm) [edit] |
[b]Having been warned of the threat of terrorist attacks upon America prior to 9/11, the corrupt, sluttish Bush regime was pre-occupied with satisfying the never-ending lustful desires of their corporate pimps http://www.washingtonpost.com... ... The neo-con Bushies have been[i] very, very, very busy [/i]doling out hundreds of millions/billions of US Taxpayer dollars ([i]swindled from Middle Class & Working people, since gluttonous corporations, wealthy oligarchs & hyper-rich plutocrats were awarded massive immoral and treasonous tax cuts, tax loopholes & tax boondoggles[/i]) to their corporate cronies in the insane over-bloated Military Industrial Complex ... [/b]
"We the People" are being ruthlessly defrauded in one of the most heinous and extravagent Military Industrial Complex's White Elephants and Corporate Boondoggles enriching rapacious Corporate Executives & Bush Cronies http://www.pbs.org/now/politi... :-- [i]Missile Defense [/i]... The unbelievable multi-billion dollar Missile Defense black-hole and wastefully criminal con-game [i]doesn't even work [/i]... Unless the Missile Defense system is given the exact trajectory (road map with precise co-ordinates) of the incoming enemy missile,[i] it can't hit it[/i] ... Moreover, if the enemy sends dummy missiles along with the real missile, the Missile Defense [i]can't tell which one to go after [/i]... In fact, it can [i]easily veer off course[/i] and go after a commercial airplane in flight in the general area ... http://slate.msn.com/id/20970... ... Contact Congress http://www.congress.org and demand that the criminal waste of US Taxpayer dollars on this nightmarish White GOP Elephant be brought to a halt ... It [i]won't [/i]protect us ... It[i] will only [/i]protect the[i] pocket-books [/i]of the traitorous Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]neo-fascist corporations awarded massive contracts in [i]never-ending boondoggles and wasteful neo-con con-games [/i]...
[b]Read on ... [/b]
The General Accounting Office http://www.gao.gov/ , a non-partisan investigative arm of Congress, has come out with its latest look at the Reagan-era brain-wave now known as National Missile Defense.
The Bush Administration insists that it will deploy some form of missile defense system by, believe it or not, September. This is one of those odd deadlines -- like the hand-over of "sovereignty" to Iraq by July -- driven by politics regardless of reality.
So consider some key findings from the GAO report, teased out by the Council for a Livable World http://64.177.207.201/pages/9... . (You can see the report itself, in all of its 145-page glory, as a PDF file here http://www.gao.gov/new.items/... ):
* [i]"system effectiveness will be largely unproven when the initial capability goes on alert at the end of September 2004[/i]."
That's auditor-speak for: It still doesn't work.
* [i]"Decision makers in [the Pentagon] and Congress do not have a full understanding of the overall cost of developing and fielding the Ballistic Missile Defense System and what the system's true capabilities will be[/i]."
Auditor-speak for: We don't even know what it's supposed to do, much less what it costs.
* [i]"[Key systems have] not been tested under unscripted, operationally realistic conditions ... In flight tests conducted during fiscal year 2003, MDA http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/b... [the Missile Defense Agency] achieved a 50 percent success rate in intercepting target missiles[/i]."
[b]Translation:[/b] Assume that we field this ridiculous Maginot Line http://www.wagingpeace.org/ar... in space -- and then assume further that an incredibly obliging future enemy actually meets the George W. Bush when-where-how standard http://www.kansas.com/mld/eag... for breaking off his vacation and paying attention http://www.thenation.com/outr... -- and lets slip the time, place and date of a nuclear missile attack. What luck! Provided we are armed with all of that information, so far we have a coin toss of a chance at stopping it.
Of course, if this enemy fires two missiles instead of one, the coin toss concerns whether we lose Washington or New York. (No voting -- I said a coin toss.)
* "[i]MDA estimates it will need $53 billion between fiscal years 2004 and 2009 to continue the development, fielding, and evolution of ballistic missile defenses[/i]."
[b]Translation:[/b] The Bush Administration is quite cheerful about coughing up about $10 billion each year for five years, for a contractor-fattening monstrosity that won't work. (While the ultimate price tag will by some counts run past $1 trillion dollars http://www.armscontrolcenter.... -- making missile defense a half-dozen times more costly than our war in Iraq to date.)
Meanwhile, this same spendthrift White House is balking http://www.washingtonpost.com...://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2890 3-2004Apr20.html at shelling out a fraction of that sum for, believe it or not, military equipment for troops under fire in Iraq.
* * *
[b]Bonus idiocy:[/b] Check out the MDA's press release about its 2005 budget request. Most press releases are a page or two long of clear language. But when MDA starts talking about how much pocket change it needs and expects, and for what, the resulting "press release" is an opaque 23-page term paper http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/b... -- complete with a two-page glossary of acronyms used. Don't miss the diagram on page 9 of the "evolutionary spiral development" of this particular species of elephantine http://phrases.shu.ac.uk/mean... waste.
[b]Sources:[/b]
"White GOP Elephant" by[i] Matt Bivens[/i], The Daily Outrage, The Nation on http://www.thenation.com/outr...
"Inside the Pentagon" by NOW with [i]Bill Moyers [/i]on http://www.pbs.org/now/politi...
"Bush's Latest Missile-Defense Folly: Why spend billions on a system that might never work?" by [i]Fred Kaplan [/i], Slate on http://slate.msn.com/id/20970...
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| Oil-Slick Moves Into The White House To Push Bush's Oil Grab |
| 04.26.04 (4:13 pm) [edit] |
[b]Why aren't Poppy Bush 41, Cheney and Rumsfeld in jail with Saddam Hussein and facing trial with[i] their [/i]buddy-butcher since without their aiding and abetting of the Iraqi Dictator, Hussein could not have committed the [i]Crimes Against Humanity [/i] encouraged by Reagan-Bush 41, and moreover Iraq could never have posed a threat to anyone (which it [i]didn't anyway [/i]following the early 1990s Inspection/Weapons Destruction processes ...)?!? ... [/b]The corrupt Bush regime is now refusing to hand-over sovereignty to Iraq[i] as promised [/i] http://www.antiwar.com/robert... ([i]... Dubya's promises are as good as "used toilet paper"[/i] ...) and instead want to expand their insane neo-fascist Global Corporate Empire; plan to proliferate their illegal and immoral neo-con massacres in other Arab nations http://www.wnd.com/news/artic... ([i]Syria, Iran, etc[/i].); and to grab the Iraqi people's oil resources http://www.guardian.co.uk/com...,3604,1202253,00.html ([i]Embezzler, Liar & Thug Chalabi's nephew is running a ponzy-scheme with Bush's corporate cronies[/i] http://www.corpwatch.org/news... ) ...
"We the People" are witnessing our nation being hijacked by Oil Corporations, Thieves, Swindlers, Embezzlers, Frauds, Felons and War Criminals ... Let us fight back and demand that Congress http://www.congress.org put a stop to this despicable treason and betrayal of Our [i]Republic For Which It Stands [/i]...
Refer to "[b]Oil-Slick Jim Moves In[/b]" by [i]Greg Palast[/i], AlterNet, on http://www.alternet.org/story... :
I usually avoid the[i] New York Times[/i], but lately it's become a compulsion, though only for the new daily column titled, "Names of the Dead." Today's listing: "DERVISHI, Ervin, 21, Pfc, Army. Fort Worth."
I'm not one of those cynics who thought Bush sent us into to Iraq for the oil [But [i]I did and do[/i].]. To me, Saddam Hussein was always a Kurd-killing cockroach with a Hitlerian mustache. I never liked the guy not even when he worked for George Bush Sr.
It's worth going over the work the Butcher of Baghdad did for his Texas patrons when he was [i]their [/i]butcher:
1979: Seizes power with U.S. approval; moves allegiance from Soviets to U.S. in Cold War.
1980: Invades Iran, then the "Unicycle of Evil," with U.S. encouragement and arms. (In fairness, credit here goes to Nobel Peace Laureate, James Carter.)
1982: Bush-Reagan regime removes Saddam's regime from official U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
1983: Saddam hosts Donald Rumsfeld in Baghdad. Agrees to "go steady" with U.S. corporate suppliers.
1984: U.S. Commerce Department issues license for export of aflatoxin to Iraq useable in biological weapons.
1988: Gasses Kurds in Halabja, Iraq.
1987-88: U.S. warships destroy Iranian oil platforms in Gulf and break Iranian blockade of Iraq shipping lanes, tipping war advantage back to Saddam.
1990: Invades Kuwait with U.S. permission.
U.S. [i]permission[/i]? On July 25, 1990, the dashing dictator met in Baghdad with U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie. When Saddam asked Glaspie if the U.S. would object to an attack on Kuwait over the small emirate's theft of Iraqi oil, the ambassador told him, "We have no opinion.... Secretary [of State James] Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction ... that Kuwait is not associated with America." Saddam taped her.
Glaspie, in her 1991 Congressional testimony, did not deny the authenticity of the recording, which diplomats worldwide took as a Bush Sr's okay to an Iraqi invasion.
So where is Secretary Baker today? On the lam, hiding in deserved shame? Doing penance by nursing the victims of Gulf War Syndrome? No, Mr. Baker is a successful lawyer, founder of Baker Botts of Houston, Riyadh, Kazakhstan. Among his glittering client roster is Exxon-Mobil oil and the defense minister of Saudi Arabia. Baker's firm is protecting the Saudi royal from a lawsuit by the families of the victims of September 11 over evidence suggesting that Saudi money ended up in the pockets of the terrorists.
And Baker has just opened a new office ... at [i]1600 Pennsylvania Avenue[/i]. This is a White House first: the first time a lobbyist for the oil industry will have a desk right next to the President's. Baker's job, to "restructure" Iraq's debt. How lucky for his clients in Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom claims $30.7 billion due from Iraq.
If you remember, Henry Kissinger ran away from appointment to the September 11 Commission with his consulting firm tucked between his legs after the U.S. Senate demanded he reveal his client list. In the case of Jim Baker, our elected Congress had no chance to ask him who is paying his firm nor even require him to get off conflicting payrolls.
To get around the wee issue of conflicts galore, the White House crafted a neat little subterfuge. The official press release says the President has not appointed Mr. Baker. Rather Mr. Bush is "responding to a request from the Iraqi Governing Council." That is, Bush is acting on the authority of the puppet government he imposed on Iraqis at gunpoint.
Why is our President so concerned with the wishes of Mr. Baker's clientele? What does Bush owe Baker?
It was Baker, as consigliore to the Bush family, who came up with the strategy of maneuvering the 2000 Florida vote count into a Supreme Court packed with politicos.
Over the years, Jim Baker has taken responsibility for putting bread on the Bush family table. As Senior Counsel to Carlyle, the arms-dealing investment group, Baker arranged for the firm to hire both President Bush 41 after he was booted from the White House and President Bush 43 while his daddy was still in office.
We know why Jim Baker is in the White House. But what was Private Dervishi doing in harm's way in Iraq? Saddam was already in the slammer and Iraq "liberated" nearly a year.
The answer came to me in a confidential document that oozed out of Foggy Bottom, 100 pages from the State Department's secret "Iraq Strategy." It's all about the "post-conflict" economy of Iraq written well before Americans were told we would have a conflict there.
There's nothing in the Iraq Strategy about democracy or voting. But there's plenty of detail about creating a free-market Disneyland in Mesopotamia, with "[u]all[/u]" state assets and that's just about everything in that nation to be sold off to corporate powers. The Bush team secret program ordered: "... asset sales, concessions, leases and management contracts, [i]especially those in the oil and supporting industries[/i]."
The Strategy lays out a detailed 270-day schedule for the asset grab. And that's why PFC Dervishi was kept there: to prevent or forestall elections. Because no democratically elected government of Iraq could ever sell off its oil. Democracy would have to wait, at the point of a gun, for the "assets sales, concessions, leases" to Bush's corporate buck-buddies.
There you have it. The secret Strategy tells us that, if Bush didn't go into Iraq for the oil,[i] he sure as hell ain't leaving without it[/i].
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| Bush Spends Millions to Lie to America |
| 04.26.04 (11:42 am) [edit] |
[b]George W. Bush is a liar and is unfit to serve "We the People" ...[/b] Dubya's traitorous track-record is a miserable failure:-- Tragically the corrupt Bush regime has recklessly and ruthlessly (and illegally) handed-over U.S. Foreign and Domestic Policy-making to Neo-Con Crazies, Gluttonous Corporations and Robber-barons ... Our Founding Fathers would have called this "[i]treason[/i]" and would have [i]hung[/i] Bush, Cheney and the rest of their traitorous cabal of liars, thieves, frauds, crooks and war criminals, for their [i]heinous and wanton betrayal [/i]of the United States of America ... [i]Impeachment[/i] is the least that "We the People" should demand of Congress http://www.congress.org on behalf of Our [i]Republic for Which It Stands [/i]...
Refer to "[b]Bush Spends Millions to Lie to America[/b]" by [i]Todd Smyth[/i], Independent Media TV on http://www.independent-media....%20Reported :
Because his own record is such a disaster, George Bush has spent over $50 million dollars to spread lies about John Kerry. One commercial distorts John Kerrys vote on the second appropriations bill for the war in Iraq, accusing Kerry of voting against the troops. When the bill included an amendment to pay for the cost, Senator Kerry voted for it. When the Republicans blocked the first vote, removed the amendment and charged the $87 billion dollar cost to our children, John Kerry voted against the bill. The ad also implies the bill had a line item vote, which it did not. Next time you see the commercial notice how they leave out the sweetheart no-bid contracts for Halliburton.
Another political ad accuses Kerry of voting for a 50 cent gas tax increase, even though no such vote took place in the Senate. Over 10 years ago, when gas prices were much lower, John Kerry was asked by a reporter if he would consider supporting a tax that would reduce our dependence on foreign oil by using the money to invest in alternative energy. John Kerry said he would consider it. Ten years later, with high rising gas prices, John Kerry does not support an increase in the gas tax. This commercial is such an incredible distortion it defies common decency but reveals the bottomless pit of lies George Bush will use to get re- elected.
George Bush has never supported a reduction in the current gas tax and his own foreign policies and methods for going to war in Iraq have caused the increasing price of oil. And yet, Bush is spending millions of dollars to distract the American people from his own failing record.
Bush has made every effort to benefit his richest campaign contributors and then lie and distort to pacify the rest of us. Bush has paid for a phony economic recovery by strapping us with the highest all-time crushing national debt (over $7 trillion dollars). The result of his tax cuts and economic policy is the wholesale give away of our middle-class job market. His Trickle-down or supply-side economic policy is no longer a viable option in a modern global economy because most of the money and jobs trickle overseas.
Throughout his life, George Bush has used his privilege and family connections to take advantage of other people and get away with it. From his seven month disappearance during his military service, to a flagrant insider trading deal when he was with Harken Energy, George Bush has avoided accountability for his actions. In Bob Woodwards book [i]Plan of Attack[/i] Woodward asks Bush how history will judge him. Bush responded "[i]History, we dont know. Well all be dead[/i]." [Jeez ... what a lousy response!]
Bob Woodwards recent book is only one of an unprecedented number, written by well known and trusted journalists and former Bush employees who are trying to warn us about what a disaster the Bush administration is. It's hard to understand how thinking, caring people are still supporting what he is doing to our country and the world.
George Bush used the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to go to war in Iraq. He lied about the connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. They are actually mortal enemies. At best, he mislead and exaggerated the threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction, using statements like mushroom cloud to scare us into an unnecessary war. Iraq was already falling apart from 12 years of sanctions. They had no WMD and were no immediate threat to America. George Bush illegally diverted funds from the war against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan to start the war in Iraq. At the same time he lied to congress when he promised to exhaust all diplomatic solutions to prevent a war and in the event of war, create a true international coalition before attacking Iraq. Over 80% of the soldiers in Iraq are US military.
Coalition Troops in Iraq: http://www.theglobalist.com/D...
After receiving the now famous August, 6 2001 PDB, [i]Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US[/i]. George Bush remained on vacation for 22 more days leading up to the 9/11 attacks. Now were bogged down in Iraq where only George Bush the uniter could have brought together ancient mortal enemies like the Sunnis and Shiites to create a national uprising against US occupation. Osama bin Laden is still free while hatred for America grows around the world. George Bush is cutting the pay and benefits of US soldiers while over extending their commitment in battle, while he continues to spend more than 4 out of 10 days on vacation.
George Bush lied about the cost of his new Medicare bill (off by more than 100 billion dollars). He lied about his budget projections (off by more than 6 trillion dollars). He lied about funding No Child Left Behind. He has promised to create more than 4 million jobs over the past four years. He has delivered a negative 2.3 million jobs. George Bush is narrow minded, reckless, arrogant, secretive and unwilling to admit mistakes. His stubborn with us or against us attitude has wasted billions of dollars and thousands of lives. We have to put a stop to it.
John Kerry has dedicated his life to serving his country and fighting for what he believes in. He repeatedly risked his own life to save others while fighting in Vietnam. When he returned home, he fought the Nixon establishment, protested and testified before congress to end the failing war policy in Vietnam. As a top prosecutor in New England, Kerry fought organized crime, putting the number two mob boss behind bars. As a 20 year US senator, John Kerry consistently fought to hold the political system accountable while helping Bill Clinton produce the greatest economic growth in US history, creating 22 million new jobs.
Now John Kerry has a plan to stop the damage caused by George Bush, so we can repair our middle-class and rebuild our rapidly declining status in the world. Dont let George Bushs lies go unanswered. Get involved, join the campaign, contribute your time and resources to stop the lies and fix the problems that face us all. For more detail, go here and join today: johnkerry.com
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| Tell Dubya To Start Fighting His Own Fights, Instead Of Hiding Behind His Henchmen! |
| 04.26.04 (10:16 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" should see past the phony, plastic facade into the shallowness, cowardliness and lack of character of George W. Bush ... [/b]Dubya is a dangerously stupid man who has created a disastrous bloody fiasco in the Middle East (neo-con, neo-fascist illegal & immoral warfare to grab oil & global hegemony http://www.wnd.com/news/artic... ) and a train-wreck of an economy here at home (highest deficits in our nation's history created by awarding immoral & treasonous tax cuts, tax loopholes & tax boondoggles for corporations & the richest of the rich http://www.thenation.com/outr... ) ... Please contact the White House http://www.congress.org and Congress http://www.congress.org and demand that Bush grow-up and start to behave like an adult instead of a 13 year-old adolescent with more testosterone than brains, and with major ego problems resulting in a bully-boy complex that the traitorous neo-cons and gluttonous corporate robber-barons exploit for their own sordid & squalid motives ... http://www.tblog.com/template...
Yesterday the president's longtime handler and current campaign advisor Karen Hughes was on CNN attacking http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPO... John Kerry's military service record and subsequent work as a Vietnam war protestor.
But before getting lost in the details of Hughes' attacks, let's draw back and see the big picture http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPO... -- something the press would do well to consider and try.
What's the signature pattern of the president's life?
When he faces a challenge or a tough scrape, [i]he lets his family and friends bail him out, do his fighting for him[/i]. You see it again and again through failed businesses, legal scrapes, the whole matter of ducking service in Vietnam and then getting help cleaning up subsequent unfortunateness while he was serving in the Texas Air National Guard.
It's even come up again and again on the campaign trail. George W. Bush has faced three opponents (McCain, Gore and Kerry) since he came onto the national political stage -- each served in Vietnam, though each under very different circumstances. He's had his lieutenants attack the service of each one.
So here we have the same pattern again -- no different. The president wants to challenge John Kerry's military service. So he gets Karen to do it for him. You can get tripped in the chutzpah of this because this not only throws light on an earlier period when the president couldn't fight his own fights,[i] it repeats the pattern[/i].
But here's some free advice for Kerry. http://www.johnkerry.com/
Don't get mixed up on the details. Take this directly to the president. Tell him to turn over a new leaf in life and stop being a coward. If the president wants to attack or question your war record or what you did after the war, tell him to do it himself. No special deals, no hidden help from family retainers, no hiding behind Karen Hughes. Tell him, for once, to fight his own fights.
[b]Source:[/b]
Joshua Micah Marshall, Talking Points Memo, http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
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| Again, Why George W. Bush Must Be Tried As A War Criminal ... |
| 04.24.04 (8:14 am) [edit] |
[b]The corrupt Bush regime will go down in history as a murderous, tyrannical and criminal government akin to Germany's Nazi government of the late 1930s-early 1940s. [/b]The American people must decide whether or not we will leave[i] this tragic legacy [/i]to future generations similar to[i] that [/i]which the Germans left to their own children:-- Namely, that "We the People" immorally (and via willful ignorance) collaborated with a blood-thirsty, maniacal [i]junta[/i] [i]devoid of conscience [/i]and [i]willing to perpetrate heinous atrocities [/i]upon innocent civilians in pursuit of their insane nightmarish fantasy of a Global Corporate Empire in which the neo-con's neo-fascist [i]grab for infinite power-and-control [/i]and [i]theft of vast obscene wealth-and-riches [/i]is ruthlessly and unconscionably swindled, looted and plundered from working and poor people, as well as from the world's natural resources.
"We the People" will make our decision in the upcoming November 2004 election and we, our children and future generations of Americans, as well as the World Community, [i]will be obliged[/i] to live with the consequences ...
Consider "[b]'Again, why George W. Bush must be tried as a war criminal[/b]" by [i]Bob Fitrakis[/i], Columbus Free Press, on http://www.smirkingchimp.com/... :
The new revelations in Bob Woodward's book,[i] Plan of Attack[/i], provide further evidence to convict President George W. Bush of war crimes.
As one of the 49 original signers of the UN Charter, the United States committed itself to the ideals and practices of the norms of international law. Only two U.S. senators voted against the treaty, which includes Article 2(4) that specifically prohibits "...[i]the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independent of any state[/i]...." In a September 23, 2003 speech to the United Nations, President Bush noted that both the UN Charter and American founding documents "[i]recognize a moral law that stands above men and nations, which must be defended and enforced by men and nations[/i]." Following World War II, just such action was taken at the Nuremberg trials and American, British, French and Soviet jurists established Article VI of the Nuremberg Charter, which legally defines "[i]Crimes Against Peace[/i]."
To commit a crime against peace, one must engage in "[i]planning, preparation, initiation or waging of war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties . . . or participation in a common plan or conspiracy . . . to wage an aggressive war[/i]." Bush is guilty on all these counts. The most damning evidence coming not from the liberal left, but in a series of well-documented books providing revelations by people in his own administration or party. Now, with Woodward's work, the President is condemned with his own words.
Author Ron Susskind's book about former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, [i]The Price of Loyalty[/i], reveals that from the very beginning of the Bush administration, the President was plotting and conspiring to wage aggressive war against Iraq. In [i]Against All Enemies[/i], Bush's counter-terrorism expert, Richard Clarke, not only confirmed O'Neill's account of the Bush administration's obsession with attacking Iraq, yet also shows us an insider's view on the illegal planning, preparation and initiation of the war through the deliberate manipulation of intelligence. President Nixon's strategist, Kevin Phillips, documents four generations of war profiteering and deception by the Bush/Walker clan in [i]American Dynasty[/i].
Finally, in the latest blockbuster, Pulitzer Prize-winning Watergate reporter Bob Woodward outlines Bush's illegal attack plan. Woodward establishes that five days after 9/11, the President was secretly scheming to go after, not bin Laden - the man responsible for the 9/11 attack - but rather bin Laden's arch enemy Saddam Hussein. Specifically, 72 days after 9/11, Bush gave Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld the orders to draw up the secret war plans. Once enacted, these plans made George W. Bush a war criminal, just like the Nazi generals at Nuremberg.
Bush, supported by the mainstream corporate media, has hidden behind the semantics of "pre-emption." Under international law, a pre-emptive strike is allowed when a nation is preparing for an imminent attack. Bush would be hard pressed before any tribunal, short of a Texas kangaroo court, to establish that the Iraqi military was an imminent threat to the U.S. Iraq was a defeated, heavily impoverished nation, under economic sanctions and restricted by U.S.-enforced no-fly zones in both its north and south.
The so-called "Bush doctrine" is in reality an echo of the illegal Nazi doctrine of "preventive" war, which asserted that any country that may pose a future non-specific threat can be attacked and occupied. This is not "higher moral law," rather it is a repugnant Nazi doctrine last heard when Germany attacked Poland prior to World War II.
Add to the mounting evidence against Bush's criminality the fact that his key advisors are the likes of Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, who have been publicly waging a campaign to attack Iraq since the end of the first Gulf War in 1991. A quick visit to the Project for a New American Century website (www.newamericancentury.org) establishes their blatant disregard for both the UN Charter and Nuremberg principles. Their neocon or vulcan ideology draws in part from renegade Trotskyist Max Shachtman's belief that authoritarian regimes are incapable of reform. Thus, they adopt the rhetoric of human rights hawks - painting any conflict as a clash between "freedom and tyranny" - to resurrect discredited Nazi war doctrines. Even the ever-cautious [i]Columbus Dispatch [/i]recently editorialized that Bush is a "militant unilateralist" and attributes the President's rhetoric and worldview to the "Vulcans."
Woodward's book reads, as do Clarke's and Susskind's, as another lengthy prosecutory indictment against the Bush administration. Bush's only defense against such blatant illegality is to find the real or imagined, or more likely recently planted, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. For the last two months the Mehr News Agency from Tehran, Iran has reported allegations that the U.S. and British governments have been unloading weapons of mass destruction into southern Iraq. The news service claims that these weapons are dismantled Soviet-era nuclear material and weapons. Reuters reported these allegations as well. The President's recent comments that he hasn't given up on finding weapons of mass destruction, sound eerily familiar to his refrain in Florida on Election Eve, when he was asked if he was going to concede the election when exit polls showed him losing. He told the media that his brother Jeb's political forces on the ground were indicating different results. What are Bush's forces on the ground in Iraq doing now, particularly his private contractor friends?
For a President who took us into war under an illegal Nazi doctrine and sold it to the American people based on cooked intelligence information, would it not be the next step to simply plant the evidence he needs amidst the chaos of a disintegrating Iraq? With the illusion of Iraqi sovereignty fading and potential disaster looming with a premature turnover, Bush's re-election bid may be based on his hitting another "trifecta": "capturing" Osama bin Laden, "trying" Saddam Hussein, and "finding" weapons of mass destruction. The recent alarmist talk about another terrorist attack prior to the election should be cause for great concern for an administration that conveniently ignored the overwhelming evidence of the Al Qaeda attack.
News services worldwide must stop the madness of George the Lesser, who was as ill-prepared to accept dynastic succession as the infamous Ethelred the Unready. Historians of the British monarchy suggest that the term "Unready" should be read as the archaic British term "redeless" meaning "without counsel." Thus, Ethelred, like George the Lesser, made mistakes by impulsively pursuing action without wise counsel. Thankfully, the wisest of Bush's former counsels are warning the people this election year. The people of the United States need to hear their warnings and constitute an international People's Tribunal to try President Bush for the war crimes he is committing.
[b]Bob Fitrakis is senior editor of the Free Press (http://freepress.org) and co-author of [i]George W. Bush vs. the SuperPower of Peace[/i][/b].
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| Under the Influence ... |
| 04.23.04 (3:06 pm) [edit] |
"[i]President Bush [u]refuses[/u] to exert serious pressure on his friends in the Saudi Royal Family to increase oil production and lower U.S. gas prices.[/i]" - http://www.miami.com/mld/miam...
[b]Our Founding Fathers considered it treasonous for our citizens to collude with foreign powers and built into the U.S. Constitution safeguards to ensure that our representatives first loyalty must be to the United States of America[/b] ... http://www.usconstitution.com... At one time, Americans were not permitted dual citizenship (or to carry two passports) ... At one time, any government employee (elected, appointed or civil servant) could not accept a title from a foreign monarch ... At one time, American politicians could not accept campaign contributions from foreign powers: indeed, this is still illegal (as well as immoral and traitorous) ...
However, the Bush Crime Family has no true allegiance to the United States of America ... The despicable Bushies so-called "loyalty" (like all mafia-style crime organizations) is only to themselves. The Bush Crime Family's goal is to increase its' own sordid power and squalid ill-gotten riches-- even if it betrays the United States of America in the process ... Read "[b]House of Bush, House of Saud[/b]" http://www.buzzflash.com/prem... which describes the despicable relationship between two corrupt, morally bankrupt and unethical crime families who [i]cleverly mask-and-cloak their criminal activities [/i]while exploiting and impoverishing the nations that have foolishly entrusted them with power ...
"We the People" should call upon Congress http://www.congress to conduct an [i]investigation[/i] and [i]hearings of impeachment [/i]into the corrupt Bush betrayal of our nation on behalf of his foreign pimps: the House of Saud ... Perhaps the imbecilic Mad King George wants to be a monarch[i] over here[/i], but we certainly should not permit him to grab neo-imperial powers to conduct his criminal neo-con, neo-fascist transformation of our nation into a Global Corporate Empire with us serving as neo-slaves ...
Consider "[b]Under the Influence[/b]" by[i] The Center for American Progress [/i]on http://www.americanprogress.o... :
As a presidential candidate in 2000, then-Gov. George W. Bush promised that, if elected, he would use the full weight of the White House to pressure oil-producing countries to increase production if there was a gas-price crisis. He charged, "The president of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price" and promised that as president he would "convince them to open up the spigot to increase the supply." Yet, when Saudi Arabia led the fight within OPEC last month to cut production and raise prices, the president "refused to lean on the oil cartel" and refused to even "personally lobby OPEC leaders to change their minds." Now, with esteemed journalist Bob Woodward reporting that the Bush administration and top Saudi officials agreed to manipulate oil prices in conjunction with the 2004 election, President Bush's passivity towards Saudi Arabia is raising disturbing questions. Why won't the administration exert serious pressure on the regime both on oil and terrorism policy? Why does the president continue to refer to Saudi Arabia as "our friend" when the country has potential ties to the 9/11 terrorists? Why, as author Daniel Benjamin reported, did the administration weaken efforts to scrutinize potential Saudi money-laundering schemes before 9/11? A look at the president's "deep personal ties with Saudi officials" and his financial connections to the Saudi royal family and powerful Saudi businessmen may provide clues.
[u][b]BUSH'S PERSONAL FINANCIAL TIES TO SAUDIS RUN DEEP[/b][/u]: According to various sources, Bush has been awash in Saudi money for years. Journalist/author Craig Unger in his new book "House of Bush, House of Saud" traced millions "in investments and contracts that went from the Saudis over the past 20 years to companies in which the Bushes and their allies have had prominent positions - Harken Energy, Halliburton, and the Carlyle Group among them." According to the Boston Herald, that includes a $1 million gift from Prince Bandar to the Bush Presidential Library in Texas.
[u][b]THE BCCI-BUSH-SAUDI-TERRORIST NEXUS[/b][/u]: The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which was investigated by Congress in the 1980s, appears to be at the nexus of the Bush-Saudi connection. It's principal was Khalid bin Mahfouz, a man USA Today reported was among Saudi businessmen who, even after the U.S.S. Cole attack, "continued to transfer tens of millions of dollars to bank accounts linked to indicted terrorist Osama bin Laden." Under Mahfouz (who was later indicted for his actions at BCCI), the Wall Street Journal noted in 1991 that there was a "mosaic of BCCI connections surrounding Harken Energy" and "number of BCCI-connected people who had dealings with Harken all since George W. Bush came on board." And according to U.S. officials who investigated the bank in the 1980s, "BCCI was the mother and father of terrorist financing operations." A secret French intelligence report "identifies dozens of companies and individuals who were involved with BCCI and were found to be dealing with bin Laden after the bank collapsed. Many went on to work in banks and charities identified by the United States and others as supporting al Qaeda."
[u][b]WAS BCCI'S INDICTED PRINCIPAL A BUSH BUSINESS BACKER?[/b][/u]: Author Kevin Phillips, a top Republican strategist under President Nixon, reported in his new book, "Bush made his first connection in the late 1970s with James Bath, a Texas businessmen who served as the North American representative for two rich Saudis (and Osama bin Laden relatives) - billionaire Salem bin Laden and banker and BCCI insider Khalid bin Mahfouz. Bath put $50,000 into Bush's 1979 Arbusto oil partnership, probably using bin Laden-bin Mahfouz funds." Also of interest: Former CIA Director James Woolsey testified to the Senate on 9/3/98 that Mafouz's sister was married to Osama bin Laden. And according to the conservative American Spectator, "Bush has given conflicting statements about Bath's investment in Arbusto, finally admitting to the Wall Street Journal that he was aware that Bath represented Saudi investors."
[u][b]BUSH CAMPAIGN TIES TO THE SAUDIS[/b][/u]: A 12/11/01 Boston Herald report found that "a powerful Washington, D.C., law firm with unusually close ties to the White House has earned hefty fees representing controversial Saudi billionaires as well as a Texas-based Islamic charity fingered last week as a terrorist front." The influential law firm of Akin, Gump, whose partners "include one of President Bush's closest Texas friends, James C. Langdon, and Bush fundraiser George R. Salem," has represented three wealthy Saudi businessmen BCCI's Mahfouz, Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi and Salah Idris "who have been scrutinized by U.S. authorities for possible involvement in financing Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network."
[u][b]WHY THESE TIES ARE IMPORTANT[/b][/u]: Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, told the Boston Herald "that these intricate personal and financial links have led to virtual silence in the administration on Saudi Arabia's failings in dealing with terrorists like bin Laden" and in oil policy. He said, "It's good old fashioned 'I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine.' You have former U.S. officials, former presidents, aides to the current president, a long line of people who are tight with the Saudis, people who are the pillars of American society and officialdom. So for that and other reasons no one wants to alienate the Saudis, and we are willing to basically ignore inconvenient truths that might otherwise cause our blood to boil. We basically look away. Folks don't like to stop the gravy train."
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| Are the Majority of Americans Blithering Idiots??? ... Sadly, Perhaps So!!! ... |
| 04.23.04 (11:06 am) [edit] |
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] ruthlessly lied and perpetrated heinous deceptions and falsehoods upon the American people and the world community in order to wage their illegal and immoral neo-con, neo-fascist war upon Iraq for which they should be[i] impeached [/i]from office ... [/b]
Already the list of the traitorous Bush regime's [i] impeachment offenses [/i]is long and growing longer [i]day-in-and-day-out[/i] :
1. Providing false information to Congress about WMDs in Iraq.
2. Providing false testimony to the effect that Iraq was a threat to the U.S.
3. Withholding information about the cost of the Medicare bill.
4. Blowing the cover of an intelligence operative.
5. Imprisoning suspects for months in Gitmo on flimsy or zero evidence.
6. Outsourcing torture of terror suspects, again with flimsy or zero evidence.
7. Neglecting terrorism in favor of Iraq and missile defense in the first eight months of 2001.
8. Tasking the Secretary of State to go before the UN and lie like a rug.
9. Using resources of the IRS and Treasury Department for political propaganda.
10. Diverting money appropriated by Congress for Afghanistan to planning the Iraq invasion.
11. Withholding information about the cost in terms of money and personnel deployment of the Iraq invasion.
12. Under-provisioning and manning the Iraq invasion out of political considerations.
13. Failing to provide sufficient manpower to establish order in Iraq, post-invasion, leading to widespread misery and casualties all around.
14. Endorsement of the Likud government's land grab on the West Bank, reversing decades of U.S. policy and exposing the American people to the threat of Palestinian terrorism.
15. Sabotage of the U.S. revenue system, generating unsustainable deficits.
16. Destroying rights of public employees in the Department of Defense.
[b]Please sign the petition demanding that Bush & Cheney be [i]impeached[/i] from office on http://www.votenader.org/get_... .[/b]
[b]In the aftermath of the neo-nazi Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] disastrous fiasco in Iraq, wouldn't you think that the American people would ask questions; do some research; and, attempt to learn the truth??? ... Unhappily, the answer is[i] NO!!! [/i]... [/b]"We the People" have disgraced our heritage because as a people, we have not been diligent and vigilent in uncovering the facts behind Bush & Cheney's neo-orwellian propaganda. Nor have "We the People" fought for truth, transparency in government, and justice in order to hold our leaders accountable. And, it appears that the majority of the American people are indeed [i]blithering idiots[/i] who falsely believe the corrupt Bush regime's lies-- that are[i] proven [/i]to be lies, deceptions and falsehoods!!! ... The fact that the American people are cowardly and ignorant will enable the tyrannical, crooked traitors and dictators Bush & Cheney and their [i]sordid ilk[/i] to expand their neo-imperial powers and tragically [i]continue to tear us asunder [/i]...
Consider "[b]POLITICS-U.S.: [u]Majority Still Believe in Iraq's WMD, al-Qaeda Ties[/u][/b]" by [i]Jim Lobe [/i]on the Inter-Press Service News Agency on http://www.ipsnews.net/africa... :
[b]U.S. public perceptions about former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to al-Qaeda and stocks of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) continues to lag far behind the testimony of experts, boosting chances that President George W Bush will be re-elected, according to a survey and analysis released Thursday[/b].
Despite statements by such officials as the Bush administration's former chief weapons inspector, David Kay; its former anti-terrorism chief, Richard Clarke; former chief United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix, as well as admissions by senior administration officials themselves, a majority of the public still believes Iraq was closely tied to the al-Qaeda terrorist group and had WMD stocks or programmes before U.S. troops invaded the country 13 months ago.
''The public is not getting a clear message about what the experts are saying about Iraqi links to al-Qaeda and its WMD programme'', said Steven Kull, director of the Programme on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland, which conducted the survey.
''The analysis suggests that if the public were to more clearly perceive what the experts themselves are saying on these issues, there is a good chance this could have a significant impact on their attitudes about the war and even on how they vote in November'', he added.
The survey and analysis found a high correlation between those perceptions and support for Bush himself in the upcoming presidential race in November.
Among the 57 percent of respondents who said they believed Iraq was either ''directly involved'' in carrying out the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon or had provided ''substantial support'' to al-Qaeda, 57 percent said they intended to vote for Bush and 39 percent said they would choose his Democratic foe, John Kerry.
Among the 40 percent of respondents, who said they believed there was no connection at all between Saddam and al-Qaeda or that ties consisted only of minor contacts or visits, on the other hand, only 28 percent said they intended to vote for Bush, while 68 percent said their ballots would go to Kerry.
The survey, which was based on interviews with a random sample of 1,311 respondents in March, was released amid a series of polls that indicate that Bush and Kerry are in a virtual tie less than seven months before the actual election.
While Kerry appeared to be leading in the wake of last month's congressional testimony by Clarke, who accused the administration of being insufficiently seized with the threat posed by al-Qaeda before the 9/11 attacks, Bush, who in recent weeks has spent an unprecedented amount of money on television advertising so early in the campaign, has closed the gap and, according to one 'Washington Post' poll published earlier this week, pulled slightly ahead.
The latest PIPA study is remarkable because it shows that public perceptions about Iraq, or at least about the threat it posed before the U.S. invasion, are lagging far behind what acknowledged experts have themselves concluded and whose findings have been reported in the mass media.
Virtually all independent experts and even senior administration officials have concluded since the war that ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda before the war were virtually non-existent, and even Bush himself has explicitly dismissed the notion that Baghdad had a hand in the 9/11 attacks.
Yet the March poll found that 20 percent of respondents believe that Iraq was directly involved in the attacks -- the same percentage as on the eve of the war, in February 2003.
Similarly, the percentages of those who believe Iraq provided ''substantial support'' to al-Qaeda (37 percent) and those who believe contacts were minimal (29 percent) are also virtually unchanged from 13 months before. As of March 2004, 11 percent said there was ''no connection at all'', up four percent from February 2003.
Some -- but surprisingly little -- change was found in answers to whether Washington had found concrete evidence since the war that substantiated a Hussein-al-Qaeda link. Thus, in June 2003, 52 percent of respondents said evidence had been found, while only 45 percent said so last month.
As to WMD, about which there has been significantly more media coverage, 60 percent of respondents said Iraq either had actual WMD (38 percent) or had a major programme for developing them (22 percent). In contrast, 39 percent said Baghdad had limited WMD-related activities that fell short of an active programme -- what Kay as the CIA's main weapons inspector concluded in February -- or no activities at all.
Moreover, the message conveyed by Kay and other experts appears not to be getting through to the public, adds the survey, which found a whopping 82 percent of respondents saying either, ''experts mostly agree Iraq was providing substantial support to al-Qaeda'' (47 percent) or, ''experts are evenly divided on the question'' (35 percent).
Only 15 percent said it was their impression that ''experts mostly agree (that) Iraq was not providing substantial support to al-Qaeda".
There was similar confusion with respect to the WMD question: despite all the publicity given Kay's, Blix's, and the findings of other independent experts that Iraq did not have WMD before the war, nearly two-thirds of respondents said they believed that most experts said it did have them (30 percent) or that experts were evenly divided on the issue (35 percent).
The poll found a high correlation between beliefs about pre-war Iraq with support for going to war with Iraq and for the intentions to vote for Bush in November.
Among those who perceived experts as saying Iraq had WMD, 72 percent said they would vote for Bush, and 23 percent said they would vote for Kerry, while among those who perceived the experts as concluding that Iraq did not have WMD, 23 percent said they would vote for Bush and 74 percent for Kerry.
The opinion of experts was found to be very important in predicting support for Bush or Kerry, as well as support for the war itself, according to Kull. While 38 percent of a discrete sample within the survey said they believed that Iraq had WMD before the war, the percentage dropped to 21 percent after they were informed later in the questionnaire that Kay had concluded that Baghdad was engaged only in minor activities for developing WMD.
Confusion over what the experts are saying, according to Kull, could be due to a number of factors, including the repetition by Bush (most recently in his press conference last week) and other senior officials, such as Vice President Dick Cheney, that Iraq had once used WMD, and the fact that in the electronic mass media, in particular, Iraq is still discussed in the context of the ''war on terror''.
In another misperception, 59 percent of the public believed that world public opinion either favoured Washington going to war (21 percent) or believed that global views were ''evenly balanced'' (38 percent). Only 41 percent appeared aware that a majority of world public opinion opposed the U.S.-led war.
Those who were aware or made aware that world opinion opposed the war were more likely to think the decision to attack Iraq was wrong and less likely to support Bush. Those who believed, on the other hand, that world opinion supported the war were substantially more likely to support Bush and think that going to war was correct.
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| GOT OIL? |
| 04.22.04 (6:36 pm) [edit] |
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[b]Dick Cheney Watchers Unite! [/b] http://www.deever.com/got-oil...
[b]Cheney has played a destructive role in our government that "We the People" should be[i] very, very concerned [/i]about because he has undermined our U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights and moreover bulldozed through the neo-con, neo-fascist's war in Iraq ... [/b]Bush is too weak-minded and morally deranged to be president ... Bush's [i]lack[/i] of intellectual rigor, [i]lack[/i] of moral fortitude and complete[i] lack [/i]of wisdom and integrity, have all left a vacuum that the corrupt and immoral Cheney has filled ...
Refer to "[b]What Colin Powell saw but didn't say[/b]" by [i]Sidney Blumenthal [/i]on http://www.guardian.co.uk/com...,3604,1200371,00.html :
[i][b]The rush to war in Iraq echoes Reagan's Iran-contra scandal [/b][/i]
"History? We won't know," George Bush tells Bob Woodward. "We'll all be dead." But in his book, Plan of Attack, Woodward's facts move the past from the shadows, adding significant new documentation to the story of the rush to war in Iraq.
The serious constitutional issues and governmental abuses, the methods and even the continuity of some personnel that Woodward catalogues evoke memories of the Reagan Iran-contra scandal. That involved a network of aides outsourcing US foreign policy to circumvent the separation of powers - selling missiles to Iran to fund the Nicaraguan contras. The Iraq war was conceived by the president and his war cabinet in an apparent effort to evade constitutional checks and balances. In Iran-contra, the national security council, CIA and Pentagon were stealthily exploited from within; in Iraq, they were abused from the top.
When the Iran-contra scandal was revealed, the Reagan administration was placed into receivership by the old Republican establishment. Neoconservatives and adventurers, criminal or not, were purged, from Elliott Abrams to Richard Perle. Now they are at the centre of power.
Woodward reports that in July 2002 Bush ordered the use of $700m to prepare for the invasion of Iraq, funds that had not been specifically appropriated by Congress, which alone holds that constitutional authority. No adequate explanation has been offered for what, strictly speaking, might well be an impeachable offence.
Woodward also reports that the battle plan was unfurled for Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the US. On its top, it was stamped "Top Secret: Noforn" - "No Foreign", not to be seen by anyone but Americans with the highest security clearance. Following Bush's instructions, the vice-president, Cheney, and the secretary of defence, Rumsfeld, briefed Bandar, who responded by promising to lower oil prices just before the election. As we can now see, prices have skyrocketed, giving oil-producers windfall profits upfront, and ultimately exaggerating the political effect of any subsequent drop in prices.
While Bandar was treated as an ex-officio member of the war cabinet, the secretary of state, Colin Powell, was kept in the dark. "Mr President," the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, gently suggests, "if you're getting to a place that you really think this might happen, you need to call Colin in and talk to him." So after Bandar had been told of the battle plan, Bush decided to inform his secretary of state, a frequent squash playing partner of the Saudi prince. After all, he was bound to learn anyway.
Powell had sought to warn Bush on Iraq: if you break it, you own it. "Time to put your war uniform on," says Bush. Powell snaps to attention.
Powell is obviously Woodward's source. Powell believed the government had been seized by a "Gestapo office" of neoconservatives directed by Cheney. "It was a separate little government that was out there," writes Woodward of Powell's view. The only precedent is Iran-contra.
Powell was appalled by the mangling of intelligence as Cheney and the neocons made their case to an eager Bush and manipulated public opinion. But Powell had put on his uniform for his commander-in-chief. In the White House, his capitulation was greeted with a combination of glee and scorn. Powell would make the case before the world at the United Nations. Cheney's chief of staff, I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, gives him a 60-page brief that Powell dismisses as filled with "murky" intelligence. Powell goes to CIA headquarters himself, where he discovers that "he could no longer trace anything because it had been 'masticated over in the White House so that the exhibits didn't match the words'." He hastily constructs his own case, which turned out to be replete with falsehood.
Powell played the good soldier, not taking his qualms and knowledge to the Congress or the American people. The most popular man in the country, he never used his inherent veto power to promote his position. Rather than fighting his battles in earnest when it counted, before his army was put in harm's way, he chose to settle scores by speaking to Woodward.
Bush tells Woodward that he is "frightened" by detailed questions. He admires Cheney for not needing to explain in public. Pointedly, Bush says, unlike Tony Blair, "I haven't suffered doubt." Asked if he seeks advice from his father, the former president, Bush says: "He is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher Father that I appeal to."
Bush gazes upward for guidance, or turns to Cheney. Judgment Day may not come before election day. Here on earth, the Republican establishment that rescued Reagan after Iran-contra has become superannuated and powerless. There is no one to intervene.
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| What Do You Think About This Issue??? ... |
| 04.22.04 (9:10 am) [edit] |
[b]What do you think about this issue??? ...[/b]
The Bush administration has banned photographs of US soldiers killed in battle, funerals of US soldiers, and the US military generally bans photographs of soldiers' coffins, and few have been published in US newspapers during the war in Iraq.
The managing editor of [i]The Seattle Times[/i], David Boardman, told the magazine [i]Editor & Publisher [/i]this week that "we weren't attempting to convey any sort of political message".
He disagreed with the military ban on photographs of coffins, saying: "The Administration cannot tell us what we can and cannot publish."
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[b]On Wednesday Ms Silicio was sacked from her job, for taking the photograph and sharing it with news organisations. - http://www.smh.com.au/article...[/b]
Should "We the People" be allowed to see the photographs and film footage of fallen US Soldiers, US coffins, and the funerals of US soldiers??? ... Are we not obliged to bear witness to the real horrors of war??? ... Does not the sanitized version of war that our corporate-owned media provides mislead us into forgetting about our fellow citizens who fall in battle, and lazily distancing ourselves from the sacrifice [i]made by so many [/i]for so few war-profiteers (Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and their corrupt corporate cronies at Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.)??? ... Do we not become de-sensitized to the ugliness of war if we are not privvy to the horrific effects upon our own citizenry??? ... And, what of the pictures of the fallen Iraqis??? ... Are pictures of the fallen Iraqis okay, while our own fallen US Soldiers are not??? ...
[b]What do you think???[/b]
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| Charade in the Sands: Bush Stashes WMDs in Iraq!!! ... |
| 04.21.04 (4:05 pm) [edit] |
[b]Reports are bubbling-up across various news services that the blood-thirsty Bush regime's U.S. Occupation have been unloading WMDs into Iraq for some time now ... [/b] http://www.tblog.com/template... These WMDs are similar to those sold by the USA to Saddam Hussein in the 1980s ([i]under Reagan, Poppy Bush 41, Cheney and Rumsfeld [/i]...) ... It is frightening to contemplate that the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] are so corrupt, cynical and traitorous, that they would[i] stoop to planting[/i] WMDs in order to [i]cover-up [/i]their heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods that led them to wage their illegal and immoral neo-con "pre-emptive" war in Iraq ... But given their sordid and squalid criminal activities [i]to-date[/i], we should prepare ourselves for these ultimate neo-orwellian crimes and neo-fascist betrayal of "We the People" ...
"[i]I thought it was very interesting that Charlie Duelfer, -- he's the head of the Iraqi Survey Group -- reported some interesting findings from his recent tour there. And one of the things was, he was amazed at how deceptive the Iraqis had been toward UNMOVIC and UNSCOM; deceptive in hiding things. We knew they were hiding things -- a country that hides something is a country that is afraid of getting caught. And that was part of our calculation. Charlie confirmed that. He also confirmed that Saddam had a -- the ability to produce biological and chemical weapons. In other words, he was a danger[/i]."
-- President George Bush, April 13 Press Conference
"[i]Even knowing what I know today about the stockpiles of weapons, I still would have called upon the world to deal with Saddam Hussein. See, I happen to believe that we'll find out the truth on the weapons. That's why we've sent up the independent commission. I look forward to hearing the truth, exactly where they are. They could still be there. They could be hidden[/i]."
-- Bush 4-13-04
"[i]But it will all settle out, John. We'll find out the truth about the weapons at some point in time[/i]."
-- Bush 4-13-04
It is difficult enough trying to unravel the current set of White House fabrications without having to anticipate the next wave of lies bubbling up to the surface.
It's a full time job.
In this case it seems that critical clues in the Bush Press Conference may have been passed over without proper scrutiny because so much attention was devoted to the 9-11 investigation and the continuing turmoil in Iraq.
The President's quotes (above) however, imply that there could possibly be a major development regarding the missing WMD's in the very near future.
A careful reading of the text shows Bush trying, once again, to prove that Saddam was skillful at "hiding things" and a "master of deception."
At the same time, Bush demonstrates surprising confidence that after a year's time, we will "find out the truth about the weapons."
Why the sudden burst of confidence?
Does Bush know something we don't know?
"The President's self assurance is conspicuous in his final remark, "But it will all settle out, John. We'll find out the truth about the weapons at some point in time."
Really?
Again, how is it that after 1,400 weapons inspectors have spent a full year searching for any trace of the phantom weapons, and the President's own man (David Kay) has filed a detailed report that such weapons never existed during the 1990's, Mr. Bush is still brimming with confidence?
Why?
Bush's comments probably would have passed unnoticed if it wasn't for recent reports that suggest that the Administration may be planting weapons in Iraq right now. Certainly, the present chaos would provide the necessary cover for smuggling in the weapons and hiding them in a believable location.
An article by Professor Ira Chernus that appeared in Common Dreams said that, " U.S. forces secretly unloading parts for long range missiles in Southern Iraq."
He continues by saying, "Mehr News Agency has discovered, through a source in the Iraq Governing Council, that the U.S. has been secretly unloading parts for long range missiles in Southern Iraq. It seems as though "ordinary cargo ships were used to download the cargo, which consisted of weapons produced in the 1980's and 1990's." It also appears that the weapons being unloaded are weapons that the "U.S. obtained through confiscations during banned arms sales over the past two decades." According to the Mehr News Agency's source, "the parts are old ones, just like the kind the U.S. gave to Saddam Hussein in the 1980's."
Another article states that the weapons parts are being transported around Iraq in crates marked Maersk in trucks with fake Jordanian license plates. Apparently, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council discovered what was going on and contacted an Iranian news service.
Of course, all of this sounds very "conspiratorial." The only thing that makes it seem at all believable is that the charade is being carried out by the Bush Administration, whose record of misleading the public is already impressive. Hiding WMD would just be one more in a long list of deceptions.
No one would be the least surprised if Bush and his cadres were pushing missals into the dessert sands right now; in fact, we'd be surprised if they weren't.
[b]Source:[/b]
"Bush Stashes WMD in Iraq" by Mike Whitney, CounterPunch, on http://www.counterpunch.org/w...
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| Is The Bush White House Breaking The Law With Impunity??? ... |
| 04.21.04 (9:58 am) [edit] |
[b]Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 of the U.S. Constitution vests the power of the purse with Congress, and statutes bar the executive from unilaterally moving money out of areas explicitly mandated by spending bills. [/b] http://www.tblog.com/template... The Bush White House has a legal obligation [[i]as well as [/i]moral and ethical responsibilities] to report back to Congress of [i]ANY AND ALL[/i] (mis)appropriations of funds illegally abused for purposes outwith [i]that[/i] for which such funds were allocated by our representatives in Congress. Moreover, Congress also has legal, moral and ethical obligations to [i]investigate wrong-doings [/i]by the Bush White House and initiate[i] impeachment hearings [/i]in the event that Bush has broken the law.
"We the People" must [i]act[/i] now. Please contact Congress http://www.congress.org and demand that investigations into the illegal (mis)appropriation of funds by the corrupt Bush regime be fully accounted for and reported back to the American people ...
[b]Bush's Legal Obligation to Tell Congress About $700M for Iraq [/b]- http://www.americanprogress.o...
Since Bob Woodward disclosed that President Bush in July of 2002 diverted $700 million into Iraq invasion planning without informing Congress, the Bush Administration has failed to provide one shred of evidence to rebuff the charge. According to Woodward, Bush kept Congress "totally in the dark on this" leaving lawmakers with "no real knowledge or involvement." Not only does the Constitution vest the power of the purse with Congress, but whichever of the two supplemental bills passed between 9/11 and July 2001 the President drew the money from had explicit language obligating him to inform key congressional leaders.Unfortunately, instead of opening an investigation, White House allies on Capitol Hill actually told [i]USA Today [/i]that the move was acceptable because "the $700 million was small compared" with the overall spending bills. [So the Republican traitors and law-breakers in Congress allow the Bush White House to break the law [i]with impunity [/i]... It isn't the [i]amount of money[/i] that is at issue here; instead, it is the principles defined under the U.S. Constitution that must be safeguarded.]
[b]IF THE WHITE HOUSE CLAIMS TO HAVE USED THE POST-9/11 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL...[/b]
[u]BUSH REQUIRED TO TELL CONGRESS, EVEN IF HE USED THE 9/11 SUPPLEMENTAL[/u]: While the President was given discretion to direct $10 billion of the post-9/11 Emergency Supplemental bill, the legislation specifically obligated the President to "consult with the chairmen and ranking minority members of the Committees on Appropriations prior to the transfer" of any funds. In other words, the President was obligated to tell key congressional leaders of both parties anytime he moved money. [[i]Source[/i]: Text of HR 2888, Post-9/11 Emergency Appropriations, 9/14/01]
[u]BUSH DELIBERATELY USED VAGUE LANGUAGE IN DOCUMENTS TO HIDE SECRET MOVE[/u]: The White House issued two legally mandated updates to Congress about where supplemental funds were being spent. Both covered portions of the time Bush made his $700 million order. But in these documents, instead of telling Congress money was going to Iraq, the White House deliberately used vague and evasive language. For instance, in both of its updates to the Appropriations Committee, the Administration only said it had used monies for "increased situational awareness" and "increased worldwide posture" and did not mention Iraq at all. [[i]Source[/i]: OMB Notification, 8/9/02 & 10/17/02]
[u]SENATE APPROPRIATIONS CHAIRMAN SAYS WHITE HOUSE NEVER NOTIFIED HIS COMMITTEE[/u]: Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), then-Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee which should have received notification, issued a statement on 4/20/04 saying "the Bush White House provided no consultations as required by law about its use of funds for preparation for a war in Iraq in advance of those funds being spent." [[i]Source[/i]: Byrd Statement, 4/20/04]
[u]BUSH SAID 9/11 BILL FOR NEW YORK AND CURRENT MILITARY OPERATIONS NOT IRAQ[/u]: In his speech to Congress after 9/11, President Bush promised to use the Emergency Supplemental Bill specifically for aid to New York and for military operations against the terrorists who struck America. He said he would use the "$40 billion to rebuild our communities and meet the needs of our military." He said nothing about Iraq. [[i]Source[/i]: President Bush, 9/19/01]
[b]IF THE WHITE HOUSE CLAIMS TO HAVE USED THE JULY 2002 SUPPLEMENTAL...[/b]
[u]BILL REQUIRED BUSH TO TELL CONGRESS BEFORE MOVING FUNDS[/u]: According to the text of the August 2002 Supplemental, the Bush Administration was only permitted to transfer "up to $275 million" of previously appropriated funds within the Pentagon, and only "15 days after notification to the congressional defense committees." In other words, the White House was obligated to tell Congress if money was moved. [[i]Source[/i]: Supplemental Bill, 8/2/02]
[u]BILL REQUIRED BUSH TO TELL CONGRESS IF FUNDS GIVEN TO FRONTLINE STATES[/u]: According to the text of the August 2002 Supplemental, the President was allowed to use $390 million for aid to countries assisting with the Global War on Terror. However, that money could only be spent only after "15 days following notification to the appropriate Congressional committees." [[i]Source[/i]: Supplemental Bill, HR 4775, 8/2/02]
[u]UNABLE TO PRODUCE ANY EVIDENCE THEY EVEN MENTIONED IRAQ TO CONGRESS[/u]: The Administration has yet to produce one reprogramming or transfer notice to Congress about the supplemental which mentioned Iraq. White House spokesman Scott McClellan "added that the White House had asked the Pentagon comptroller and OMB to document what had happened" but there has still been no evidence. [[i]Source[/i]: LA Times, 4/20/04]
[u]THE SUMMER SUPPLEMENTAL WAS SIGNED AFTER SECRET ORDER WAS MADE[/u]: According to Woodward, the order for the $700 million was given in July of 2002. The White House would have trouble arguing it took the secret $700 million out of the summer 2002 supplemental, considering the bill wasn't signed into law until August 2. [[i]Source[/i]: Congressional Record, 8/02]
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| Bush Stiffs Workers on Overtime Pay ... |
| 04.20.04 (4:12 pm) [edit] |
[b]While jobs are leaving our country in record numbers http://www.americanprogress.o... , the corrupt Bush regime is[i] shamelessly pandering [/i]to traitorous corporations, wealthy oligarchs and filthy rich plutocrats who are transforming our nation into a 3rd world military[i] junta[/i], in which our citizens are treated like neo-slaves being appalling exploited and impoverished ... [/b]
"We the People" should stand-up, protest and demand that Congress http://www.congress.org reject any legislation (including the vile Bushies' Rape of Overtime Pay) that will further harm working families and those who are abused at low-end wage jobs, struggling to make ends meet, while the Gap Between the Hyper-Rich Neo-Slave-Owners and the Neo-Serfs (Working People) is higher that at any time in over 75 years ...
[b]Bush Stiffs Workers on Overtime Pay [/b]- http://www.misleader.org/dail...
While touting the economy this month, President Bush said, "A more productive worker makes more money"1. But if he has his way on new overtime regulations, that will no longer be the case for tens of thousands of workers.
In a move designed to blur the issue, the Administration today said it was revising its previous effort to terminate overtime protections for 8 million workers2. But even by the Bush Administration's own admission, the "new" regulations will mean that tens of thousands of lower-income workers will be cut off3. Opponents of the Administration's plan say that the revisions would still cause problems for mean millions. The regulations are so bad for workers that some state legislatures have even rushed through legislation to block them4.
The new overtime regulations come just four months after AP reported that the Bush Labor Department began "giving employers tips on how to avoid paying overtime to some of the 1.3 million low-income workers"5. The Administration specifically told employers they could "cut workers' hourly wages and add the overtime to equal the original salary, or raise salaries to the new $22,100 annual threshold, making them ineligible." Labor Secretary Elaine Chao testified before Congress that too many workers were filing "needless litigation" in efforts to force employers to pay them back wages6. Her insult to workers belied the fact that judges have ordered the government to "collect more than $212 million in back pay for workers" - the most in a decade and a strong signal that the efforts to fight worker abuse are far from "needless."
[b]Sources:[/b]
1. President Announces New Education Initiatives for Stronger Workforce, 04/06/2004.
2. "8 million may lose OT pay", CNN Money, 06/27/2003.
3. "Administration to Revise Overtime Plan", New York Times, 04/20/2004.
4. "Senate votes to preserve overtime pay", Associated Press, 04/16/2004.
5. "U.S. offers tips on avoiding overtime pay", MSNBC, 01/05/2004.
6. "More workers filing overtime-pay lawsuits", Seattle Times, 04/11/2004.
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| Bush Has Violated The U.S. Constitution And Should Be Impeached ... |
| 04.20.04 (10:08 am) [edit] |
"Resources were not taken from Afghanistan" when the President secretly moved $700 million out of the Afghanistan spending bill.
- [i]National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 4/18/04[/i], http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs...
[b]VERSUS[/b]
"In 2002, troops from the 5th Special Forces Group were pulled out of the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for their next assignment: Iraq. Former top Pentagon officials said the President's Iraq focus "siphoned spy aircraft and light infantry soldiers" and "diverted enormous military and intelligence assets."
- [i]USA Today, 3/28/04[/i], http://www.usatoday.com/news/...
[b]Does the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]even comprehend the U.S. Constitution & the Bill of Rights?[/b] ... This traitorous cabal of neo-con thugs and neo-fascist goons certainly has[i] no respect [/i]for the U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights; [i]no respect [/i]for democracy and transparency of government; and, [i]no respect [/i]for "We the People" ...
It is unacceptable for any administration, Republican or Democrat or Independent, to break the law ... Bush and Cheney were obsessed with invading Iraq from the very early days of taking office ... Their illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq has absolutely nothing to do with "the war on terrorism", although they maliciously and dishonestly continue to fabricate phony non-existent links between the real terrorists (e.g. Al Qaeda) and Iraq when the two are not associated with each other ... It is similar to the corrupt Bush regime's criminal lies, deceptions and falsehoods regarding phony non-existent stockpiles of WMDs that were supposed to pose a so-called "threat" to our national security ... Saddam Hussein posed no threat to our nation and had no intention of attacking us directly or indirectly: he had[i] no vested interests [/i]in doing so (In fact, it would have been [i]suicidal[/i] for Saddam Hussein to attack us ...) ...
The corrupt Bush regime has perpetrated heinous [i]Crimes Against Humanity [/i]resulting in the massacre of hundreds of U.S. Soldiers and tens of thousands of Innocent Iraqi Civilians, in the name of ([i]phony WMDs, phony terrorism linkages, phony threats ... and now[/i]) so-called "freedom [[i]sic[/i]]" based upon a series of ruthless lies, misleading falsehoods and twisted rationalizations ... The Iraqis are to be give "freedom" from [i]what[/i]? ... The Iraqi people have been thrust unwillingly by Bush and Cheney to live under the brutal control and dictatorship of their Global Corporate Empire comprising Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil and the Military Industrial Complex, etc. ... The Iraqi people are [i]not[/i] free; [i]not [/i]safe and secure; and are[i] certainly not [/i]prospering ... The Iraqis are now neo-slaves servicing the Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] Global Corporate Empire as they continue in their ghoulish neo-con plot to take over the Middle East for its oil, global hegemony and on orders from Israel's Likud government ... Ariel Sharon dictates U.S. Foreign Policy now, [i]not [/i]Americans ...
"We the People" should be outraged at the violation of our laws, our democracy and our nation's great heritage by a corrupt and treasonous band of liars, thieves and traitors in the [i]corporate-take-all [/i]Bush regime ... The greedy, reckless and incompetent Bush regime has made us [i]less[/i] safe,[i] less [/i]secure,[i] less [/i]engaged in co-operating in the world community,[i] less [/i]respected, and[i] less [/i]prosperous as a nation ... It is time to call for the [i]impeachment[/i] of Bush and Cheney: they are unfit to hold office ... Contact Congress on http://www.congress.org .
[b]IRAQ: Secrets Exposed, Lies Revealed [/b]- http://www.americanprogress.o...
Exposing previous White House denials as lies, journalist Bob Woodward this weekend revealed parts of his new book which provide evidence the Bush Administration began plans for an Iraq invasion immediately after 9/11; overhyped intelligence; and appeared to circumvent the Constitution to pursue its goals. In Woodward's account, which includes a three-and-a-half hour interview with President Bush, it is revealed that the President personally ordered plans for the Iraq war to be drawn up in November of 2001. While the White House has called such statements "revisionist history," Woodward's account is consistent with accounts given by Richard Clarke, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, former Bush State Department official Richard Haass, former British Ambassador Christopher Meyer, and an earlier [i]CBS News [/i]report. Woodward's book explores the depth of White House cover-up efforts, showing how the Administration persuaded even top military officials to lie. For instance, at the same time General Tommy Franks was secretly developing the President's Iraq war plan, he was "publicly denying that he was ever been asked to do any plan." Just as troubling, Woodward points out that the decision to go to war with Iraq was shared with Saudi Prince Bandar (who has milked his ties to the Bush Administration despite being under the microscope for money laundering) and RNC consultant Karen Hughes before it was shared with Secretary of State Colin Powell.
[b]UNANSWERED DID THE WHITE HOUSE VIOLATE THE LAW?: [/b]Woodward reveals that in July 2002, Bush secretly approved diverting $700 million meant for operations in Afghanistan into war planning for Iraq. Bush kept Congress "totally in the dark on this," which raises serious legal questions reminiscent of Iran-Contra: Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 of the U.S. Constitution vests the power of the purse with Congress, and statutes bar the executive from unilaterally moving money out of areas explicitly mandated by spending bills. On[i] CBS's Face the Nation[/i], Rice tried to defend the move, claiming "resources were not taken from Afghanistan." Not only did this response contradict the fact that special forces were pulled out of Afghanistan in 2002 and moved to Iraq, but it did not address legal questions. As [i]CBS[/i] anchor Bob Schieffer said, "Dr. Rice, you cannot take money that Congress has appropriated for one purpose and spend it on something else. That's against the law." One other note: In the same supplemental bill, Bush further ignored the will of Congress, blocking a bipartisan, House- and Senate-passed homeland security funding package.
[b]UNANSWERED MANIPULATING OIL PRICES FOR BUSH CAMPAIGN?: [/b]Woodward also reveals that the Saudi Arabian government the same government with potential ties to terror - "promised Bush that his country would lower oil prices before the November 2 presidential election." Woodward said Bandar specifically wanted Bush to know that the Saudis hope to "fine-tune oil prices" for the 2004 election. Recently, the Saudis led the charge to cut OPEC oil production, which has raised gas prices in America. Was that move meant to artificially raise the price, so that it could be lowered closer to the election?
[b]PROOF - BUSH/CHENEY DELIBERATELY OVERHYPED INTELLIGENCE:[/b] According to Woodward's book, the President told aides in December of 2002, "Make sure no one stretches to make our case" about WMD. But a look at the record shows it was Bush and Vice President Cheney who, well before this cautionary statement, were aggressively hyping intelligence. For instance, Bush claimed in October 2002 that Iraq had "a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons" a claim that was rejected at the time by the Air Force intelligence unit most knowledgeable about the issue. He also claimed definitively that Iraq "possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons," despite warnings from U.S. intelligence agencies that there was no solid proof. Similarly, Vice President Cheney was even more assertive, claiming without proof in August 2002 "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has WMD. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." Even after Bush made his cautionary statement, the overhyping continued, with Cheney saying, "Iraq has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons," Bush claiming "We found the WMD ," and Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld saying "We know where the WMDs are." See other examples of how the White House ignored warnings that its WMD case for war was weak.
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| Conservatives Increasingly Divided Over Bush's Failing Iraqi Quagmire ... |
| 04.19.04 (4:39 pm) [edit] |
[b]Bush is clearly [i]out-of-touch [/i]with reality ... That was obvious during his embarrasingly pathetic news conference a week ago (last Tuesday) ... [/b]A growing conservative movement is voicing doubts over the bloody guerrilla quagmire in Iraq ... It is too bad that we can't[i] draft [/i]Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the neo-cons to go to war ... Perhaps they would have 'planned' it a little better ...
"We the People" should call upon Congress http://www.congress.org to[i] impeach [/i]the traitorous neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] for misleading us into their illegal and immoral neo-fascist war, that has resulted in the unnecessary and tragic deaths of hundreds of U.S. Soldiers & tens of thousands of Innocent Iraqi Civilians ...
Refer to "[b]Lack of Resolution in Iraq Finds Conservatives Divided[/b]" by[i] David D. Kirkpatrick[/i], N.Y. Times, on http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... :
A growing faction of conservatives is voicing doubts about a prolonged United States military involvement in Iraq, putting hawkish neoconservatives on the defensive and posing questions for President Bush about the degree of support he can expect from his political base.
The continuing violence and mounting casualties in Iraq have given new strength to the traditional conservative doubts about using American military power to remake other countries and about the potential for Western-style democracy without a Western cultural foundation. In in the eyes of many conservatives, the Iraqi resistance has discredited the more hawkish neoconservatives a group closely identified with Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, and William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard.
Considered descendants of a group of mostly Jewish intellectuals who switched from the political left to the right at the height of the cold war, the neoconservatives are defined largely by their conviction that American military power can be a force for good in the world. They championed the invasion of Iraq as a way to turn that country into a bastion of democracy in the Middle East.
"In late May of last year, we neoconservatives were hailed as great visionaries," said Kenneth R. Weinstein, chief operating officer of the Hudson Institute, a center of neoconservative thinking. "Now we are embattled, both within the conservative movement and in the battle over postwar planning.
"Those of us who favored a more muscular approach to American foreign policy and a more Wilsonian view of our efforts in Iraq find ourselves pitted against more traditional conservatives, who have more isolationist instincts to begin with, and they are more willing to say, `Bring the boys home,' " Mr. Weinstein said.
Richard A. Viguerie, a conservative stalwart and the dean of conservative direct mail, said the Iraq war had created an unusual schism. "I can't think of any other issue that has divided conservatives as much as this issue in my political lifetime," Mr. Viguerie said.
Recent events, he said, "call into question how conservatives see the White House. It doesn't look like the White House is as astute as we thought they were."
Although Mr. Bush appears to be sticking to the neoconservative view, the growing skepticism among some conservatives about the Iraqi occupation is upending some of the familiar dynamics of left and right. To be sure, both sides have urged swift and decisive retaliation against the Iraqi insurgents in the short term, but some on the right are beginning to support a withdrawal as soon as is practical, while some Democrats, including Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the likely presidential nominee, have called for sending more troops to Iraq.
In an editorial in this week's issue of The Weekly Standard, Mr. Kristol applauded Mr. Kerry's stance.
Referring to the conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, an outspoken opponent of the war and occupation, Mr. Kristol said in an interview on Friday: "I will take Bush over Kerry, but Kerry over Buchanan or any of the lesser Buchananites on the right. If you read the last few issues of The Weekly Standard, it has as much or more in common with the liberal hawks than with traditional conservatives."
In contrast, this week's issue of National Review, the magazine founded by William F. Buckley and a standard-bearer for mainstream conservatives, adopted a newly skeptical tone toward the neoconservatives and toward the occupation. In an editorial titled "An End to Illusion," the Bush administration was described as having "a dismaying capacity to believe its own public relations."
The editorial criticized the administration as having "an underestimation of the difficulty of implanting democracy in alien soil, and an overestimation in particular of the sophistication of what is still fundamentally a tribal society and one devastated by decades of tyranny."
The editorial described that error as "Wilsonian," another term for the neoconservatives' faith that United States military power can improve the world and a label associated with the liberal internationalism of President Woodrow Wilson.
"The Wilsonian tendency has grown stronger in conservative foreign policy thought in recent years," the editorial continued, adding, "As we have seen in Iraq, the world isn't as malleable as some Wilsonians would have it."
The editorial was careful to emphasize that the war served legitimate United States interests and that violence against Americans in Iraq deserved harsh retribution. But it concluded: "It is the Iraqis who have to save Iraq. It is their country, not ours."
Some conservatives who focus on limited government and lower taxes said they were also worried about the political costs of an extended occupation of Iraq.
"We don't want to put troops into a situation that is increasingly a public-relations problem for the president," said Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, a group of conservative political donors. "No one wants body bags coming home in September and October."
So far President Bush appears to be sticking to Wilsonian goals. "We're changing the world," he said last week in a White House news conference, defending the occupation and pledging to maintain a military involvement after the planned June 30 handover of sovereignty to an Iraqi governing body. "My job as the president is to lead this nation into making the world a better place."
Some of the main conservative opponents of the invasion, including Mr. Buchanan and the libertarian Cato Institute were quiet after the war began but have now renewed their criticism.
In his syndicated column last week, Mr. Buchanan, who argued against the invasion on the grounds that the United States should use military force only to defend its vital interests, posed a series of questions: "Do we go in deeper, or do we cut our losses and look for the nearest exit? How much blood and treasure are we willing to invest in democracy in Baghdad, and for how long? Is a democratic Iraq vital to our security? What assurances are there that we can win this war?"
David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, said conservatives were becoming more receptive to Mr. Buchanan's arguments against the neoconservatives. "Now that they see Iraq edging into a nation-building kind of thing, conservatives are more skeptical," Mr. Keene said. "It isn't that someone went out and rhetorically beat the neoconservatives in an argument. It's just that they went out and tested their scheme against reality on the ground."
In a recent interview, Representative John J. Duncan Jr. of Tennessee, one of the few Republicans who voted against the invasion, said he believed the administration should seek an exit soon. "I think we should announce to the world that no country has come close to doing as much for Iraq as we have, but there are a significant number of people who don't appreciate what we have done," Mr. Duncan said. "I think we should get on out, we should celebrate victory and we should leave."
Conservatives who question the occupation can point to a long history of opposition from the right to United States military action overseas. Conservatives opposed Wilson's entry into World War I, and many opposed United States involvement in World War II until after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
But the cold war rallied conservatives around the military interventions abroad, and the protests of the Vietnam War era solidified the reputations of conservatives as hawks and liberals as doves. Still, even if some conservatives appeared to be returning to the movement's more isolationist roots, Mr. Kristol said he was undeterred.
"If we have to make common cause with the more hawkish liberals and fight the conservatives, that is fine with me, too," he said.
Recalling a famous saying of his father, the neoconservative pioneer Irving Kristol, that a neoconservative was "a liberal who has been mugged by reality," the younger Mr. Kristol joked that now they might end up as neoliberals defined as "neoconservatives who had been mugged by reality in Iraq."
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| White House Gobbledy-Gook: The Bush/Bandar Oil (Scam) Deal Is Illegal! |
| 04.19.04 (3:43 pm) [edit] |
[b]If the corrupt Bush regime and the Saudi Royal family agreed a secret oil deal to[i] fix [/i]prices in order to [i]fix[/i] the November presidential election, then Bush, Cheney and any other Americans involved in this crime can be charged with [i]treason, impeached and imprisoned [/i]...[/b]
"We the People" should acquaint ourselves with the sordid and squalid history of the illegal and immoral relationship between the Bush Crime Family and the Saudi Royal Family, resulting in the betrayal of our nation ... Refer to 'House of Bush, House of Saud' on http://www.buzzflash.com/prem... .
The following neo-orwellian gobbledy-gook from the White House this morning can be deciphered to expose yet [i]another desperate cover-up [/i]by the Bushies of their never-ending treasonous criminal activities ...
[b]The Bandar Oil Deal Gaggle...[/b]
QUESTION: Can you describe conversations between the White House and Prince Bandar about his essential promise to lower oil prices before the election?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think you heard from Prince Bandar a few weeks ago about --
QUESTION: He didnt talk specifically about the election.
MR. McCLELLAN: -- the most recent conversation that we had with him regarding oil prices. And he expressed his views out at the stakeout to you all that Saudi Arabia is committed to making sure prices remained in a range, I believe its $22 to $28 price per barrel of oil, and that they dont want to do anything that would harm our consumers or harm our economy. So he made those comments at the stakeout and weve made our views very clear that prices should be determined by market forces, and that we are always in close contact with producers around the world on these issues to make sure that actions arent taken that harm our consumers or harm our economy.
QUESTION: There were no conversations specifically about the Presidents reelection?
MR. McCLELLAN: You can ask Prince Bandar to --
QUESTION: But from the point -- I mean, conversations are obviously two ways.
MR. McCLELLAN: -- what his comments were. But the conversations we have are related to our long-held views that we have stated repeatedly publicly, that market forces should determine prices.
QUESTION: To follow up on that then, I would gather that the White House view is one of expectation that the Saudis would increase oil production between now and November.
MR. McCLELLAN: Our views are very well-known to Saudi Arabia. Prince Bandar made a commitment at the stakeout that I will let speak for itself. You all should look back to those remarks.
QUESTION: Were missing the allegation here, which is that Prince Bandar and the Saudis have made a commitment to lower oil prices to help the President politically. Is that your --
MR. McCLELLAN: Im not going to speak for Prince Bandar. You can direct those comments to him. I can tell you that what our views are and what he said at the stakeout is what we know his views are, as well.
QUESTION: Does the White House have any knowledge of such a commitment?
MR. McCLELLAN: Im sorry?
QUESTION: Does the White House have any knowledge of such a commitment?
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, Im not going to speak for Prince Bandar. You can direct those questions --
QUESTION: Is there a deal?
MR. McCLELLAN: -- I wouldnt speculate one way or the other. You can direct those questions to him, but Im telling you --
QUESTION: Im not asking you to speculate either. Do you have knowledge of such a commitment?
MR. McCLELLAN: Im telling you what our views are and what we've stated, and I'm telling you what I do know, which is that our position is very clear when it comes to oil prices and what our views are. And Prince Bandar spoke to you all just a few weeks ago out at the stakeout after meeting with some White House officials and expressed --
QUESTION: So you have no knowledge of such a commitment?
MR. McCLELLAN: -- and expressed their view. I'm not going to try to speak for Prince Bandar. You can direct those questions to him.
QUESTION: The President is confident that the American elections are not being manipulated by the world's largest oil producer?
MR. McCLELLAN: Our view is that the markets should determine --
QUESTION: The market doesn't. It's a cartel.
MR. McCLELLAN: But our view is that that's what -- that the markets should determine prices. And that's the view we make very clear to producers around the world, including our friends in OPEC.
[b]Did you get a straight answer out of that?[/b] [b]No, I didn't![/b]
[b]Source:[/b]
Joshua Micah Marshall, TalkingPointsMemo, http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
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| Are Bush and the Neo-Cons Finished??? ... Let Us Make It So!!! ... |
| 04.19.04 (12:03 pm) [edit] |
[b]Are [i]all[/i] of the whistle-blowers wrong??? ... No [/b]... The corrupt neo-con, neo-fascist Bush regime has attempted in vain, to [i]intimidate, scare [/i]and [i]destroy[/i] anyone who dares to tell the American people the truth regarding the traitorous, sordid and squalid activities[i] behind-the-scenes [/i]in the Bush/Cheney Gestapo government ... But, the neo-imperial Bushies cannot [i]eradicate, wipe-out [/i]and [i]massacre [/i]everyone who disagrees with them (... although they may try, because they continue to want to make permanent and expand their so-called neo-nazi "Patriot" [[i]sic[/i]] Acts ...) ...
"We the People" should call upon Congress http://www.congress.org for the[i] impeachment [/i]of the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc[i]. junta [/i]who has ruthlessly betrayed our nation in the most heinous criminal act that can be perpetrated against our citizenry: Lying to Take Us into an Immoral & Illegal War to Enrich Themselves & Their Corrupt Corporate Paymasters (Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.) ...
Mr. Sabol asks "[i]Are Bush and the Neo-Cons Finished?[/i]" ... [i]Let us make it so!!! [/i]...
Refer to "[b]Are Bush and the Neo-Cons Finished[/b]" by [i]Regis T. Sabol[/i], Intervention Magazine on http://www.interventionmag.co... :
[b]The publication of Bob Woodward's [i]Plan Of Attack [/i]has removed all reasonable doubt that Bush's war has been an unmitigated disaster, it may also be the final nail in the Neo-Cons coffin[/b].
The events and revelations of the past two weeks should have, by now, removed all reasonable doubt that George W. Bushs stewardship of the nation has been an unmitigated disaster born of willful misjudgments, willful ignorance, unlawful deceit, and an arrogance rooted in Bushs belief that he has God on his side.
Even before all hell broke loose in Iraq, even before testimony before the commission investigating the 9/11 attacks revealed that Bush and his national security team could have and should have prevented that nightmarish disaster that cost almost 3,000 lives, even before Bush, in a rare prime-time press conference, revealed himself to be incapable of giving straight answers to straight question, we should have known.
Former Treasury Secretary Paul ONeill, in Ron Suskinds [i]The Price of Loyalty[/i], revealed that Bush intended to go to war against Iraq from the day he entered office. The White House dismissed him as a kook and initially claimed that ONeill stole classified documents, a charge it was later forced to retract.
Richard Clarke, former counter-terrorism director under three presidents--including George Bush--revealed in his book, [i]Against All Enemies[/i], in an interview on 60 Minutes, and in testimony before the 9/11 Commission that Bush & Co. showed far less interest in al Qaeda than in Saddam Hussein. Even after 9/11, when Bush was told that Osama bin Laden, not Saddam Hussein, was the culprit, he still demanded that Clarke find evidence that Iraq was involved. The White House rolled out all its big guns to smear Clarkes reputation and Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist went to so far as to accuse Clarke of perjury.
Now, with the publication of Bob Woodwards [i]Plan of Attack[/i], the Bush Regime has run out of excuses and run out of lies. Why? Because Woodward wrote his book with the full cooperation of the White House and Bush, himself. Bush and his gang of ideological neoconservative bunglers have hanged themselves with their own words.
Did Bush lead the nation into a needless, bloody war using information that was, at best, mistaken, and, more likely, simply untrue? Yes. Saddam had no connection to Al Qaeda. He had no program to develop nuclear weapons. And he had no weapons of mass destruction.
Were Bush, Condi, George Tenet, and the Gang asleep at the wheel before 9/11? Yes. Bush said he had no actionable evidence about an impending attack. We now have learned that the August 6, 2001, briefing he received while on an extended vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, specifically warned of just such an attack. The title of the PDB (My, they do love those acronyms) was [u]Bin Laden Determined to Launch Attacks Inside the United States[/u]. That doesnt sound like background information to me. That sounds like a serious warning that should have sent every agency of government into action immediately. Bush went golfing instead.
Did Bush secretly begin planning for war even as he claimed to be seeking a diplomatic solution to the phony crisis with Iraq? Yes. He ordered Rumsfeld and Gen. Tommy Franks to put together a war plan by November, 2001, and not worry about the cost. Bush told the general he had a blank check.
Did Bush divert $700 million that Congress had appropriated for the war against al Qaeda in Afghanistan to preparations for the invasion of Iraq? Yes. Is that a violation of the Constitution that falls into the category of high crimes and misdemeanors? Yes, indeed. Essentially, he stole money earmarked for the War on Terror and used it for his planned War on Iraq. Is that an impeachable offense? Definitely. But no Republican Congress is going to allow that to happen.
Did Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have any feasible plan about what to do once we had conquered Iraq? Obviously not. Instead of being greeted as liberators by the Iraqi people, U.S. forces have been attacked by them. The toll of American dead will soon top 1,000, with 2,000 troops already wounded. And then there are the 10,000 or so Iraqi civilians weve killed. But they dont really count, do they? Could that be one reason why so many Iraqis are killing us? What do you think?
Have American occupation forces and Paul Bremers Provisional Civilian Authority lost control of Iraq? Just count the number of Marines, Army troops, and American civilians who died in the past two weeks as uprisings have broken out in cities all over Iraq. What do you think?
Have the invasion and occupation of Iraq led to democracy in that country and the spread of democracy throughout the Middle East? No. Iraq in particular and the Middle East in general are as unstable as a truckload of fertilizer.
Is the United States in the worst military and diplomatic mess doomed to failure since the Vietnam War? That goes without saying.
Have George Bush and his policies made America any safer from acts of terrorism? Not at all.
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| The 'Fascism Thing': Bush's Lose-Lose Proposition ... |
| 04.19.04 (11:25 am) [edit] |
[b]Poppy Bush 41 rightly claimed that he lacked "The Vision Thing" while instead pursuing short-sighted policies benefitting and enriching his family and his corporate cronies, as he sacrificed America's Middle-Class and Working people ... [/b]His idiot son Dubya erroneously thinks that [i]he[/i] has "The Vision Thing" ([i]ho ho ho[/i]!) which he has traitorously mistaken for the corrupt Bush regime's "The Fascism Thing" ... Dubya isn't smart enough to have a "Vision" to improve the lives of the American people and to contribute towards a better world ... Instead, he is a Useful Idiot of the neo-con, neo-fascists who are destroying our nation on behalf of their corporate paymasters (Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.) and in their insane pursuit of Middle East Oil and Global Corporate Domination ...
Tragically, the liars, thieves, felons and criminals in the traitorous Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] aren't even sufficiently competent to carry-out their neo-imperial wars [i]successfully[/i]!!! Instead, we are witness to a horrific [i]blood-bath [/i]in Iraq and a[i] lose-lose [/i]proposition due to the fact that Dubya is too stupid to comprehend the consequences of his illegal and immoral actions ... Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are [i]all [/i]too arrogant to listen to those with vastly greater experience and ergo, they have mismanaged, bungled and irresponsibly created a dire fiasco in the Middle East, unnecessarily resulting in the grizzly deaths of hundreds of U.S. Soldiers and tens of thousands of Innocent Iraqi Civilians ... The neo-con, neo-fascists in the right-wing corporate-owned media have ruthlessly betrayed our nation in their attempt to [i]silence[/i] all questions, [i]intimidate[/i] all whistle-blowers and[i] destroy [/i]anyone who dares to challenge the corrupt Bush regime ...
"We the People" are witness to the tragedy of Bush and "The Fascism Thing" and the horror of his Lose-Lose proposition in Iraq and the Middle-East ...
Consider "[b]The Neocon Conundrum[/b]" by [i]James P. Pinkerton[/i], Salon.com on http://truthout.org/docs_04/0... :
With the situation in Iraq darkening, hawks are saying we can't leave without unleashing a catastrophe. The problem is, that'll happen if we stay, too.
As a sense of gloom about Iraq escalated along with the fighting the past two weeks, so did neoconservative calls to "stay the course" -- even if it's a course to nowhere.
Once, the right painted visions of cakewalks, of jubilant Iraqis welcoming their own conquest, of blossoming secular pro-Western democracy. Now that mirage has dissipated. Following President George W. Bush's press conference last Tuesday, neocon Bill Kristol told the[i] Los Angeles Times[/i], "I was depressed." The publisher of the[i] Weekly Standard [/i]freely conceded that for those Americans who were "doubtful or worried," Bush failed to close the sale. "He didn't explain how we are going to win there."
So what do the neocons do now? Their optimistic vision of Iraq as the first domino to fall in their favor may have failed, but they are never at a loss for words. So they have a new line. Instead of offering us carrots, they're threatening us with sticks. OK, they seem to be saying, there's not much upside, but look at the downside.
"The consequences of failure in Iraq would be unthinkable," the president told the nation on Tuesday night. To sum up the hawks' arguments, if we leave Iraq we will have:
1. Instability and maybe civil war.
2. Encouragement to terrorists. Bush says that our "will is being tested" in this series of "Black Hawk Down"-like horrors. And if we flunk this test, the "Somalia syndrome" awaits.
3. Loss of prestige and influence in the Arab world and beyond. As Osama bin Laden said in November 2001, the U.S. is the "weak horse" in this race, so others will be looking to the stronger horse.
4. Loss of the ability to use or threaten force elsewhere. We'll be paper-tigerized.
5. A nourishing of future violence. "We must fight them in the Middle East," say the hawks, "so we don't have to fight them in Middle America."
Columnist Mona Charen is one of many neoconservatives urging fortitude. She quotes James Burnham: "Where there's no alternative, there's no problem." Then she explains further: "The work of transforming the Middle East is going to be messy and difficult. But there is no alternative." [Maybe Mona Charen should go fight and die in Iraq along with the neo-con arm-chair chicken-hawks who lust for war but never sacrifice anything or really serve in the armed-forces themselves! AWOL Dubya's cowardly drunken stupor during Vietnam when he deserted instead of going to war [i]doesn't count [/i]as "serving"!]
Burnham, of course, holds a sainted place in the hearts of the neocons, because back in the '50s he was one of the first Trotskyites to become a "rollback of communism"-type conservative. So citing Burnham is a way of recalling the days when the Gen. Patton right wanted "regime change" in Moscow.
But what the neocons don't want you to notice is this: Those same disasters will befall us if we stay in Iraq.
In other words, if we remain in Iraq we will have:
1. Instability and maybe even civil war.
2. Encouragement to terrorists. Actually, we're recruiting them for the other side. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt has estimated that our post-Saddam "harvest" will be "a hundred bin Ladens."
3. Loss of prestige and influence in the Arab world and beyond. According to last month's Pew Research Center international opinion survey, "Discontent with America and its policies has intensified rather than diminished ... the war in Iraq has undermined America's credibility abroad." Here's the view from key countries: By a 46-37 margin, Moroccans think that Iraq will be worse off post-Operation Iraqi Freedom; the "worse off" margin is 45 points in Jordan and 53 points in Pakistan.
4. Loss of the ability to use or threaten force. As retired four-star Gen. Barry McCaffrey told Time magazine, "There are no more U.S. troops to send to Iraq" -- without a draft, that is. So we don't hear the White House saying much about the rest of the "axis of evil" anymore, because the North Koreans and Iranians know that the U.S. can't attack when it's mired in Mesopotamian quicksand. Meanwhile, North Korea is reported to be showing off at least three of its nuclear weapons.
5. A nourishing of future violence. Those who don't have a TV to see the gates of hell opening in Iraq might contemplate these additional numbers from the Pew Center: By a 46-36 margin, Pakistanis support suicide bombings against Americans and other Westerners in Iraq. In Morocco, suicide-bomber proponents outpolled opponents 66-to-27. And in Jordan, 70-to-24.
So it's damned if we stay, damned if we go. And one more thing: damned if we question. If the 9/11 commissioners ask too many questions, they're accused of playing a partisan blame game. Even White House correspondents, who are paid to ask questions, are liable to get whacked, too -- in some cases, by other journalists. Pressies are piranha-ing the president in their "second-guessing eased by hindsight," snipes Joseph Curl of the [i]Washington Times[/i]. For Curl, reportorial questions seem not only annoying, but tedious: "False premises. Errors in judgment ... Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes." So much for speaking truth to power.
Another group that shouldn't be questioning is the widows of those who were killed on 9/11. "This spectacle of the widows, awash in their sense of victims' entitlement, as they press ahead with ever more strident claims about the way the government failed them," is appalling to Dorothy Rabinowitz of the Wall Street Journal, so she wrote a takedown of them on Thursday.
The Iraq war was the neocons' baby, so it's not surprising that they still love it. But the rest of us should ask: Who got us into this lose-lose situation? James Burnham was wrong: Where there's no alternative, there is indeed a problem -- and it's a big one.
Also refer to "[b]Thinking the unthinkable[/b]" by[i] Patrick J. Buchanan [/i]on http://wnd.com/news/article.a...
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| Bush Is Blasted As A Moral Failure Who Sees A Black-and-White World ... |
| 04.17.04 (9:31 am) [edit] |
[b]Bush is indeed a moral failure ... [/b]A moral leader does not wage illegal and immoral warfare (based upon myraid lies, deceptions and falsehoods ...[i] e.g. phony WMDs, non-existent links between Al Qaeda & Saddam Hussein, etc[/i].), sending men and women to die, without just cause ... There was no just cause to invade Iraq pre-emptively because Iraq posed no threat to our nation ... It was a [i]war of choice [/i]waged for sordid and squalid motives by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]... Bush lacks the intellectual capacity to comprehend history, economics, culture and ethics,[i] vital [/i]for a leader to establish a constructive and positive direction for a nation ... http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...
It is a tragedy for our nation to have been hijacked by a corrupt cabal of neo-con neo-fascists whose[i] insane fantasies[/i] of global hegemony, as well as vast-power-and-riches bestowed upon their neo-imperial corporate cronies (Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.) are then put into[i] blood-thirsty action [/i] resulting in the heinous massacre of hundreds of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqi and Afghanistani peoples (bloodshed unseen since Vietnam http://www.realcities.com/mld... ) and their maliciously irresponsible rapacious [i]corporate-take-all train-wreck [/i]of an economy that is destroying Middle Class America (corruption and malfeasance unseen since the Great Depression http://www.thenation.com/edcu... ) ... Moreover, the tyrannical Bush regime are akin to a stalinist-style fascist government, a dangerously secretive, non-transparent quasi-dictatorship contemptuous of the U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights (tyrannical imperialism unseen since the founding of our nation http://www.tblog.com/template... http://www.buzzflash.com/prem... ) ...
"We the People" should wise-up to the fact that the hypocritical Bush cynically abuses bible-thumping rhetoric, but in fact, is morally and ethically bankrupt ...
Refer to "[b]Bush blasted as a moral failure who sees a black and white world[/b]" by [i]Caroline Overington [/i]Herald Correspondent in New York, on http://smh.com.au/articles/20... :
President George Bush wants to be seen as a good Christian leader but, according to a new book by an Australian, Peter Singer, he has the moral development of a 13-year-old boy.
Singer, a professor at Princeton University, who was recently described in New Yorker magazine as one of the most influential and controversial philosophers alive, says Bush sees the world "very simply, in black and white, as good versus evil, and he thinks that America is the good guy, and therefore whatever America does is right".
"That's incredibly dangerous, when you are the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth."
His book, [i]The President of Good and Evil: the Ethics of George W. Bush[/i], does not conclude that Bush is evil "because that's not a word I throw around too much". Nor does he go so far "as to say that Bush is stupid, which a lot of other people might say".
"But I do think he's a moral failure, in his own terms, and in any terms."
It should be said that it is likely that Mr Bush has the same view of Singer. After all, the prominent ethicist's own morality has been the subject of much debate. Singer believes that parents should be able to kill their disabled children; that animal lives have the same value as human lives; and that adult children should, in some circumstances, be able to decide when to end the lives of their demented parents.
"Bush claims to believe that human life is sacred. So my book asks whether his statements about human life, and his willingness to go to war in Iraq are actually consistent, or is it evidence of muddled thinking?"
Singer says Mr Bush was wrong to go to war in Afghanistan (he suggests that a truly Christian leader would have turned the other cheek after September 11) because it led to the loss of innocent life, and "it is part of my belief that it is wrong to kill innocent humans who wish to go on living".
Bush was also wrong to go to war in Iraq, since Saddam Hussein posed no threat to the US, Singer says. He says Bush "allowed himself to be persuaded [of the existence of weapons of mass destruction] without checking how good the evidence was. And if you are about to go to war, it's not good enough to say, 'Yeah, well, it looks like there is evidence.' You have a responsibility to scrutinise this, and say, 'How well do we know this?' And if he'd done that, he would have seen the evidence was tenuous."
Singer's book, which is hovering at about 25 on [i]The New York Times [/i]bestseller list, has not yet generated the controversy of his earlier writings.
Singer attacks Mr Bush for saying he opposes research on human embryos because he believes human life is sacred, yet is an active supporter of the death penalty. Mr Bush has argued that there is a difference: death row inmates are not "innocent" like embryos, but are violent criminals.
Singer concedes that all presidents have moral failings, but says that in Mr Bush's case the failing is more serious because of his power.
"[Clinton] lied about having sex with Monica Lewinsky, which didn't really harm anyone, and was no-one's business but Hillary's and his own. Bush has misled, if not lied to the nation in a way that led to a war that has cost thousands of lives and cost billions of dollars, and that is very much more serious."
Singer, who was educated at Scotch College in Melbourne and at Oxford, has been a professor of bioethics at Princeton since 1998. When his position was announced, he received death threats, his mail was scanned for bombs, and guards protected him during his lectures.
Despite this, and his anger with US foreign policy, he says he likes living in the US, and plans to stay. "It's a lively place, with a lot of debate on a lot of issues. I feel more at the centre of what's really happening."
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| The Conservative Right-Wing Press Corps Is Letting "We the People" Down!!! |
| 04.16.04 (9:30 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" do not have a parliamentary system akin to Great Britain's structure where the Prime Minister (President) is required to go before their House of Commons (Congress) every week and answer questions from the opposition party for one hour ... [/b]([i]Bush must be quite relieved because he is simply 'not-up-to-the-task' of coming under scrutiny and is clearly unable to 'think-on-his-feet' ... Furthermore, Bush has absolutely no 'wit' and no 'wisdom'[/i]...)
Our Founding Fathers considered the [i]Freedom of the Press [/i]paramount in order to ensure that "We the People" remain well-informed and responsible citizens ... However, if our people become lazy and complacent, and fail to retain an [i]independent media and press[/i] who are not fearful of our servants in the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches of government, [i]then our nation is in dire peril[/i]. A free and responsible media and press is our only mechanism for holding our leaders accountable on the basis that we must be cognizant and knowledgable of their policies, decisions and actions ... Our media and press is becoming a state-run (via fascist corporate entities) propaganda arm of the government ...
Tragically, over the course of the last 30 years from the disastrous Reagan years onwards, the right-wing has been 'buying-up' media and press outlets and creating corporations that pander to neo-fascists like Bush. Any political candidate or representative who is populist and stands by "We the People" is systematically demonized and destroyed. Politicians willing to betray, exploit and plunder our people and pollute, rape and ravage our environment are buoyed and propped-up by the right-wing media ... [One just has to follow the history of the FCC and the destruction of our protections including the Fairness Doctrine, to witness this dangerous trend ... http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/... ]
George W. Bush is unfit for office and lacks the mental capacity, the moral fortitude and the wit-and-wisdom to be president. In any other democratic nation in the world, Bush would have never been put in office. The British, French, German, Swedish, Spanish, Danish, and other media and press reporters throughout the EU would have laughed and ridiculed such a pathetic performance by Bush that we witnessed last Tuesday night in his all too few press conferences ... George W. Bush is only in office because corporations have hijacked our media and press outlets and pander to their Useful Idiot puppet willing to let them run rough-shod over the American Middle Class, Working and Poor people in order to gain vast riches and tyrannical power to enslave us as their neo-serfs while they live gluttonous, obscene and rapacious life-styles like the blood-thirsty Emperor Caligula.
Consider "[b]White House Press Corps Falls Down[/b]" by [i]Matthew Rothschild[/i], The Progressive, on http://www.progressive.org/we... :
The reporters at the President's news conference really let the country down.
No one followed up on Bush's amazing statement that the August 6 briefing was nothing new.
No one asked why he stayed on vacation in Crawford after receiving such alarming news.
No one followed up on his assertion that neither he nor anyone in his Administration could have known that terrorists would have used hijacked planes as weapons, when in fact, such warnings had surfaced in the intelligence agencies. And at the Genoa G-8 summit, which Bush himself brought up, there was anti-aircraft equipment installed to prevent just such an attack!
No one asked about whether Bush still had confidence that Condoleezza Rice can handle her job, or that George Tenet can handle his, or that John Ashcroft can handle his, even after the evidence mounts that all have failed the country.
No one asked about Richard Clarke's central charges: that Bush was obsessed with Iraq just hours after 9/ll, and second, that the war on Iraq is making the United States less safe, not more so, because it acts as a recruitment poster for Al Qaeda.
Oh, there were a few good questions, like the one about Bush needing to take Cheney with him to the 9/11 commission. And that reporter, to his credit, didn't allow Bush to fob off a non-answer.
And the question about whether Bush took the nation into war on "a series of false premises" was a good one.
But no one followed up on Bush's admission that even if he had known Saddam didn't have WMD stockpiles, he still would have pushed the Iraq War!
And no one had the courage to challenge the President on his intimidation tactic in response to the first question, which was about the Vietnam comparison.
Bush said, "That analogy sends the wrong message to our troops, and sends the wrong message to the enemy."
Instead of pointing out how chilling Bush's statement was, the reporters focused on the personal.
Five times, they asked him variations of the question: Was he going to apologize, or take responsibility, for any mistakes he might have made?
Once would have been enough.
This should not have been a personal morality play. It should have been about the fundamental policies of the U.S. government, which right now are jeopardizing the lives of U.S. troops, and, in a profound way, the lives of Americans everywhere.
Bush has given only three prime-time news conferences in his Presidency, and reporters lost one of their few opportunities to hold him accountable.
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| Pattern Recognition: Bush Lies on WMDs, on the Economy, and on Polling!!! ... |
| 04.15.04 (5:50 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" should study [i]pattern recognition [/i]...[/b] ... Bush has a pattern of lies, deceptions and falsehoods on almost every domestic and foreign policy issue ...
[b]On WMDs in Iraq?[/b] ... [i]Hmmm[/i] ... Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Powell said that Saddam Hussein [i]definitely[/i] had massive stockpiles of WMDs posing an imminent threat to our national security ... [i]Where are they??? [/i]... Perhaps we should ask Halliburton, the Carlyle Group, the Military Industrial Complex and those neo-con, neo-fascists who are reported to be planting WMDs in Iraq ... http://www.americanprogress.o... http://www.tblog.com/template...
[b]On the Economy?[/b] ... [i]Hmmm[/i] ... Bush and Cheney say that giving massive tax cuts, tax loopholes and boondoggles to corporations, wealthy oligarchs and filthy rich plutocrats is "good [[i]sic[/i]]" for America ...[i] For Whom???[/i] ... [i]Not[/i] for the Middle Class, Working Americans and the Poor! ... http://www.americanprogress.o... http://www.americanprogress.o...
And last Tuesday evening, Bush's [i]new lie [/i]on [i]polling[/i] ...
[b]CLAIM:[/b] "And as to whether or not I make decisions based upon polls, I don't. I just don't make decisions that way."
- [i]President George W. Bush, 4/13/04 [/i][[u]Source[/u]: http://www.whitehouse.gov/new... ]
[b]FACT:[/b] "One [Bush] adviser said the White House had examined polling and focus group studies in determining that it would be a mistake for Mr. Bush to appear to yield" and apologize for mistakes.
- [i]New York Times, 4/15/04 [/i][[u]Source[/u]: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... ]
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| ... THE OUT-OF-TOWNER ... |
| 04.15.04 (4:47 pm) [edit] |
[b]When the [i]'going gets tough' [/i]the Bushies [i]'get going' [u]on their vacations[/u][/i], leaving the rest of us to pick up the pieces of their malignant malfeasance and despicable irresponsibility ...[/b]
People by nature, tend to [i]repeat their patterns of behavior[/i]: Dubya went on vacation in August 2001 having already received warnings that our nation was in danger of attacks from Al Qaeda terrorists (and,[i] not [/i]from Iraq) ... This April 2004 Dubya has gone on vacation at a time when his neo-con, neo-fascist bloody guerrilla quagmire in Iraq is [i]spinning out-of-control [/i]... Dubya has spent over 40% of his so-called presidency [i]'out-of-the-office' [/i]and more than that[i] 'out-of-touch' with reality[/i] ... [Refer to "As The 455th U.S. Soldier Is Killed In Combat, Dubya Takes His 500th Day Of Vacation!!!" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ]
"We the People" should not continue to [i]bear the heart-breaking loss of our loved ones[/i], and watch silently while the innocent Iraqi people are massacred enmasse in the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc[i] junta's [/i]illegal and immoral warfare for vile war-profiteering on behalf of Bush/Cheney's corporate campaign contributors (Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.) ... Nor should we continue to [i]bear the back-breaking burden of Dubya's swindling, plundering and looting of the Middle Class & Working people[/i], while he gives his Bush Crime Family, corporations and the richest of the rich plutocrats his massive tax cuts for the wealthy ...
It is worth reading [i]Fred Kaplan's [/i]"[b]The Out-of-Towner[/b]" published by Slate on http://slate.msn.com/id/20988... :
[i][b]While Bush vacationed, 9/11 warnings went unheard[/b][/i].
In an otherwise dry day of hearings before the 9/11 commission, one brief bit of dialogue set off a sudden flash of clarity on the basic question of how our government let disaster happen.
The revelation came this morning, when CIA Director George Tenet was on the stand. Timothy Roemer, a former Democratic congressman, asked him when he first found out about the report from the FBI's Minnesota field office that Zacarias Moussaoui, an Islamic jihadist, had been taking lessons on how to fly a 747. Tenet replied that he was briefed about the case on Aug. 23 or 24, 2001.
Roemer then asked Tenet if he mentioned Moussaoui to President Bush at one of their frequent morning briefings. Tenet replied, "I was not in briefings at this time." Bush, he noted, "was on vacation." He added that he didn't see the president at all in August 2001. During the entire month, Bush was at his ranch in Texas. "You never talked with him?" Roemer asked. "No," Tenet replied. By the way, for much of August, Tenet too was, as he put it, "on leave."
And there you have it. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has made a big point of the fact that Tenet briefed the president nearly every day. Yet at the peak moment of threat, the two didn't talk at all. At a time when action was needed, and orders for action had to come from the top, the man at the top was resting undisturbed.
Throughout that summer, we now well know, Tenet, Richard Clarke, and several other officials were running around with their "hair on fire," warning that al-Qaida was about to unleash a monumental attack. On Aug. 6, Bush was given the now-famous President's Daily Brief http://www.cnn.com/2004/image... (by one of Tenet's underlings), warning that this attack might take place "inside the United States." For the previous few yearsas Philip Zelikow, the commission's staff director, revealed this morningthe CIA had issued several warnings that terrorists might fly commercial airplanes into buildings or cities.
And now, we learn today, at this peak moment, Tenet hears about Moussaoui. Someone might have added 2 + 2 + 2 and[i] possibly [/i]busted up the conspiracy. But the president was down on the ranch, taking it easy. Tenet wasn't with him. Tenet never talked with him. Riceas she has testifiedwasn't with Bush, either. He was on his own and, willfully, out of touch.
A[i] USA Today [/i]story http://www.usatoday.com/news/... , written right before Bush took off, reported that the vacationscheduled to last from Aug. 3 to Sept. 3would tie one of Richard Nixon's as the longest that any president had ever taken. A week before he left, Bush made a videotaped message for the Boy Scouts of America. On the tape, he said, "I'll be going to my ranch in Crawford, where I'll work and take a little time off. I think it is so important for the president to spend some time away from Washington, in the heartland of America."
Dana Milbank and Mike Allen of the [i]Washington Post [/i]recently wrote http://www.washingtonpost.com... a story recalling those halcyon days in Crawford. On Aug. 7, 2001, the day after the fateful PDB, Bush, they wrote, "was in an expansive mood
when he ran into reporters while playing golf." The president's aides emphasized that he was working, now and then, on a few issueseducation, immigration, Social Security, and his impending decision on stem-cell research. On Aug. 29, less than a week after Tenet found out about Moussaoui, Bush gave a speech before the American Legion. The White House press office headlined the text of the address, "President Discusses Defense Priorities." Those priorities: boosting soldiers' pay and abandoning the Anti-Ballistic-Missile Treaty. Nothing about terrorism, Osama Bin Laden, hijackings. Nothing that reflected the PDB or Moussaoui.
Anyone who has ever spent time in Washington knows that the whole town takes off the month of August. Despite the "threat spike," August 2001, it seems, was no different.
Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer and the State Department's counterterrorism chief from 1989-93, explained on MSNBC this afternoon, during a break in the hearings, why the PDBlet alone the Moussaoui findingshould have compelled everyone to rush back to Washington. In his CIA days, Johnson wrote "about 40" PDBs. They're usually dispassionate in tone, a mere paragraph or two. The PDB of Aug. 6 was a page and a half. "That's the intelligence-community equivalent of writing [i]War and Peace[/i]," Johnson said. And the title"Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US"was clearly designed to set off alarm bells. Johnson told his interviewer that when he read the declassified document, "I said 'Holy smoke!' This is such a dead-on 'Mr. President, you've got to do something!' " (By the way, Johnson claimed he's a Republican who voted for Bush in 2000.)
Bush got back after Labor Day. That first day, Sept. 4, was when the "Principals Committee"consisting of his Cabinet headsmet in the White House to discuss terrorism. As Dick Clarke has since complained, and Condi Rice and others have acknowledged, it was the first time Bush's principals held a meeting on the subject.
This morning, Roemer asked Tenet if he brought up the Moussaoui briefing at that meeting. No, Tenet replied. "It wasn't the appropriate place." Roemer didn't follow up and ask, "Why not? Where was the appropriate place?" Perhaps he was too stunned. He sure looked it.
The official story about the PDB is that the CIA prepared it at the president's request. Bush had heard all Tenet's briefings about a possible al-Qaida attack overseas, the tale goes, and he wanted to know if Bin Laden might strike here. This story is almost certainly untrue. On March 19 of this year, Tenet told the 9/11 commission that the PDB had been prepared, as usual, at a CIA analyst's initiative. He later retracted that testimony, saying the president had asked for the briefing. Tenet embellished his new narrative, saying that the CIA officer who gave the briefing to Bush [i]and Condi Rice [/i]started by reminding the president that he had requested it. But as Rice has since testified, she was not present during the briefing; she wasn't in Texas. Someone should ask: Was that the only part of the tale that Tenet made up? Or did he invent the whole thingand, if so, on whose orders?
The distinction is important. If Bush asked for the briefing, it suggests that he at least cared about the subject; then the puzzle becomes why he didn't follow up on its conclusions. If he didn't ask for the briefing, then he comes off as simply aloof. (It's a toss-up which conclusion is more disturbing.)
Then again, it's easy to forget that before the terrorists struck, Bush was widely regarded as an unusually aloof president. Joe Conason has calculated that up until Sept. 11, 2001, Bush had spent 54 days at the ranch, 38 days at Camp David, and four days at the Bush compound in Kennebunkporta total of 96 days, or about 40 percent of his presidency, outside of Washington.
Yet by that inference, Bush has remained a remarkably out-of-touchor at least out-of-townleader, even in the two and a half years since 9/11. Dana Milbank counts http://www.washingtonpost.com... that through his entire term to date, Bush has spent 500 daysagain, about 40 percent of his time in officeat the ranch, the retreat, or the compound.
The 9/11 commission has unveiled many critical problems in the FBI and the CIA. But the most critical problem may have been that the president was off duty.
[b]Update, April 15, 2004:[/b] On Wednesday evening, after the hearings, a CIA spokesman called reporters to tell them Tenet had misspoken: It turns out he did brief Bush in August 2001, twiceon Aug. 17 and Aug. 31. Assuming the correction is true, it doesn't negate the point. The first briefing, which the spokesman described as uneventful, took place before Tenet learned about Moussaoui. The second occurred after the president returned to Washington.
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| 9/11 Commission Cover-Up to Protect Bush: FBI Whistle-Blowers Go Unheard ... |
| 04.15.04 (10:20 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" should be outraged ... [/b]The 9/11 [i]Whitewash [/i]Commission refuses to follow-up with questioning of FBI Whistle-Blowers who [i]will testify under oath, in public [/i]that George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice have perpetrated [i]even more [/i]heinous lies, traitorous deceptions and treasonous falsehoods in an attempt to [i]cover-up [/i]their advanced warnings pre-9/11 that Al Qaeda would use airplanes to attack the United States ...
Please contact Congress http://www.congress.org and demand that an independent investigative committee be appointed to seek the truth and subpoena all White House records and daily briefing memos in order to ascertain what the corrupt Bush regime[i] knew and when they knew it [/i]...
[b]FBI Whistle-Blowers Go Unheard
[i]9-11 Commission disregards survivor families' interests[/i][/b]
Despite the best efforts of the Jersey Girls, leaders of the 9-11 Family Steering Committee, no member of the 9-11 commission this afternoon asked FBI chief Robert Mueller embarrassing questions about two former FBI translators who claim to have knowledge bearing on the attacks. One of them says she is being suppressed and can't talk because Attorney general John Ashcroft has placed a gag order on her.
Instead, the commissioners lauded Mueller for his running of the agency, which only yesterday they were bitterly attacking as incompetent and ineffective. Today one commissioner after another lavished praise on Mueller.
Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste briefly alluded to accusations by the translators, and said he would pursue it in private.
In particular the Jersey Girls wanted the commission to closely question Mueller about Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator, who is openly challenging the agency's veracity in the 9-11 investigation. Attorney General John Ashcroft has put a gag order on Edmonds by making her internal complaint to the inspector general secret. Soon after she came out publicly, Edmonds was fired.
She subsequently told the commission that the FBI had information that an attack using airplanes was being planned before September 11. "Some of our group has met several times with Edmonds, and from what we can tell, we think her claims are extremely credible," Lori van Auken, one of the leaders of the Jersey Girls, told [i]The Voice[/i]. "So much so that some of our group hand walked her in to testify before the 9-11 commissioners."
They are also eager to find out more about the unconfirmed story of a second FBI linguist, Behrooz Sarshar, who claims he translated for an FBI informant with information on a supposed Al Qaeda plot to attack the U.S. with planes back in April 2001. "Some of the group have also met with Sarshar," said van Auken. "His claims seem to back up what Edmonds is saying."
Edmonds came to attention most recently following Condoleezza Rice's assertion in a [i]Washington Post [/i]op-ed piece that the White House had no specific information on a domestic threat or one involving planes as "an outrageous lie. And documents can prove it's a lie," according to Edmonds.
Edmonds, a Turkish American, has been a citizen for 10 years and speaks Farsi, Turkish, and Arabic. The FBI assigned her to translate documents seized by agents in its post9-11 probe. "President Bush said they had no specific information about September 11, and that's accurate," says Edmonds. "But there was specific information about use of airplanes, that an attack was on the way two or three months beforehand and that several people were already in the country by May of 2001. They should've alerted the people to the threat we were facing."
In 2002, thenSenate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy and Senator Charles Grassley, a senior member, asked John Ashcroft about Edmonds's statements to the committee in a closed briefing that she was told by a superior "not to translate important, intelligence-related information, instead limiting her translation to unimportant and innocuous information." She also claimed her superior had previous contacts with one of the people whose work she had been prevented from translating.
The FBI, the senators noted at the time, "verified that this monitor indeed failed to translate certain material properly, but has attributed the failure to a lack of training as opposed to a malicious act."
The Justice Department inspector general has been looking into the case over the last two years, and still has not produced a report. Ashcroft, on the advice of Mueller in 2002, invoked the "state secret privilege," making the entire matter secret, "to prevent disclosure of certain classified and sensitive national security information." That effectively put a gag order on Edmonds.
Among other things, she now suggests one translator sent to Guantαnamo by the FBI "was not even qualified in basic English." She is questioning whether translators handling terrorism-related information are so poorly trained they can't make competent sense of what they are translating.
A second FBI whistle-blower case involves another former FBI translator, Behrooz Sarshar, who left the agency in 2002. He supposedly translated an interview between an Iranian source, once a member of the Shah's secret police, with two FBI agents in which the informant told the agents he had heard in Afghanistan of an Al Qaeda plot to attack the U.S. in a suicide mission with planes. Details of the story were first reported by the [i]WorldNetDaily [/i]website.
[b]Source:[/b]
"FBI Whistle-Blowers Go Unheard" by James Ridgeway, The Village Voice, on http://www.villagevoice.com/i...
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| A Word In Your Ear: What Tony Blair Should Tell George W. ... |
| 04.15.04 (8:35 am) [edit] |
[b]Tony Blair is poised to meet with George W. in crisis talks regarding their bloody fiasco in Iraq ... [/b]Both Bush and Blair have staked their dwindling political careers (and tarnished credibility) on the outcome in Iraq and it is not looking promising ... Roosevelt and Churchill?: these two tragic [i]jokers-cum-jackals [/i]Bush and Blair are [i]certainly not[/i] ... Bush and Blair are scheming opportunists, liars and traitors who have commited treason against their respective nations and the entire planet ... They both perpetrated heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods ([i]regarding phony WMDs in Iraq and the phony danger posed by Iraq[/i]) upon their countries and the world communites, and history will most probably judge them as a [i]destructive duo [/i]more akin to Hitler and Stalin (... and not at all like Roosevelt and Churchill-- as Bush and Blair lack the former WWII leaders' intellect, wisdom and a bull-dogged concern for the welfare of their nations ...)
What should Tony Blair tell George W.? ... How about coming clean with their respective nations and the world regarding their sordid motives and squalid lack of planning that has led to this disastrous guerrilla quagmire in Iraq! How about both resigning from office and giving themselves up to the International Court at the Hague to be tried for [i]Crimes Against Humanity[/i]! How about behaving as decent men instead of unconscionable war criminals and rapacious thieves! ...
"We the People" should hang our heads in shame at how far we've fallen in having (s)elected such mediocre men [i]so unfit [/i]to serve in office ... The following are various recommendations from prominent Brits to Tony Blair on advising George W. and while not agreeing with all of the points made, it is interesting to reflect upon their viewpoints and perspectives ...
[i]As Tony Blair abandons Bermuda for the chillier climes of Washington, [i]the Guardian [/i]asks a range of leading figures to offer their advice to the prime minister ahead of his summit with George Bush:-- [/i]
[b]Lord Hurd, former Northern Ireland secretary (1984-85), home secretary (1985-89) and foreign secretary (1989-95) [/b]
George, my defence secretary Geoff Hoon was a little puzzled over the weekend to be telephoned by a colonel in the Pentagon, who asked for an assurance that we were not going to pull British troops out of Iraq. Apparently he was ringing round all the coalition and we came between El Salvador and Guatemala ... I'm not complaining about the alphabet, we are sometimes referred to as Great Britain.
Certainly our troops will stay the course. There's still a chance of the UN putting together a group of Iraqis as a government with roots down into their own communities. I'm sure we should give them a clear mandate to do this. The UN have access to people like Sistani which we don't - and to put it crudely, they have less blood on their hands.
You're right to stick to June 30 for the transfer of sovereignty. I'm frankly not sure how much power you actually mean to transfer. If your generals remain in command of the Iraqi security forces, it will be hard to persuade Iraqis, or anyone else, that much decisive has happened.
One last point. You met George Robertson when he was secretary general of Nato. I am sending him to Baghdad with instructions to report direct to me and Jack Straw. He is sensible and knows your military well. The way things are developing I must have a political representative out there where big decisions will be made at short notice. And it may cut the telephone bill of that colonel in the Pentagon.
[b]Iqbal Sacranie, secretary general, Muslim Council of Britain [/b]
Hey, George. You know I have been with you every step of the way in the "war on terror" despite the misgivings of many people in my country. I've told them repeatedly that they've got you all wrong, George.
Many people around the world - including millions of Muslims - have witnessed what your troops did to hundreds of innocent Iraqis, including small children, in Falluja, courtesy of al-Jazeera. Over the past couple of years we have needlessly alienated the majority of over 1.5 billion Muslims around the world.
Listen, George, I think I can see a way out of this mess that you haven't made. After 9/11, at the Labour party conference in Brighton, I outlined a vision of a world in which the richest countries were committed to helping "the starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant, those living in want and squalor from the deserts of northern Africa to the slums of Gaza, to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan". And I got applause when I called for Palestinians to receive "justice, the chance to prosper and in their own land". So, George, we can make a start by ditching unilateralism and sticking to the path of multilateralism and international legality. We need to implement UN resolutions and give the Palestinians their own state. And if the Israelis won't go for it, then let's help create one democratic state for both the Jews and the Palestinians.
Same with Chechnya and Kashmir. Let's get Putin to honour the treaty that Yeltsin signed with the Chechens and ask the Indians to hold the plebiscite on Kashmir that the UN called for over 50 years ago.
Let's try and win more friends, George.
[b]Bianca Jagger, peace activist [/b]
George, you must keep upmost in your mind that the primary responsibility of the occupying powers' coalition forces is to ensure the safety and welfare of the Iraqi population; you must respect and abide by the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.
In recent days at least 600 people have been killed in Falluja and the majority are civilians, children and women. We have made a terrible mistake by invading Iraq, we have failed to deliver stability, security and peace, and we are now in a quagmire.
Mr President, you continue to insist that you will be transferring the sovereignty to the Iraqi people on June 30, but you don't even know to which governing power you can transfer the administration of Iraq.
There is a need for more international participation, which we have been unable to attain under the US-led coalition forces. We need to hand over the role to organisations which have proven successful at nation building and peacemaking operations such as Nato and the United Nations - as in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Even if we were Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt we wouldn't be able to succeed on our own.
[b]John Redwood, secretary of state for Wales (1993-95), Conservative MP for Wokingham [/b]
First off, George, let me congratulate you on your economic strategy. The potent combination of tax cuts and very low interest rates is powering the US economy ahead. My country should be dragged along in the slipstream, benefiting from growth across the Atlantic.
I hope you continue with this same approach - it will enable you to switch your image from war leader to the man who turned the economy round. The gains you have made in the economy will make moving on from the war a bit easier.
It is now clear that we have backed a difficult war, and are still far from reaching a harmonious peace in Iraq. We both face elections and we are both growing concerned about voter backlash. We need to move in the direction of a more rapid and successful transfer of power in Iraq, allied to a strong thrust for early democratic elections there.
We need to involve more and more troops and governments from the rest of the world, and to ease the UN back in. We also need to work together to convince the electorate that we went to war on solid grounds, despite the apparent holes in the intelligence.
If we can show real progress in returning authority to Iraqis and involving the UN more we may be able to get through this. But I fear that holding on to war rhetoric will make it much easier for our opponents to plug into the public unease about the invasion and its aftermath.
[b]Michael Meacher, environment minister, (1997-2003), Labour MP for Oldham West and Royton [/b]
Well, George, on Iraq, we need to bring forward the date for full elections. This is going to be a very difficult period but being able to announce the elections in order to reduce tensions among Shia and Sunni Muslims is becoming absolutely imperative.
If there is a resolution to the terrorism problem, one way to undercut the impact of al-Qaida and to begin to resolve the worldwide crisis is by America taking a strong lead over the Palestine issue. What we need is you [Mr Bush] standing by what you agreed on the establishment of a Palestinian state - otherwise the situation will go from bad to worse.
Now, let's talk about the environment. I've just seen the Pentagon's report that says that climate change is now a bigger threat to US interests than world terrorism and, since the Pentagon is not made up of soft-headed lefties, what are you going to do about it? Your own people are telling you it's time to rejoin the Kyoto protocol, so when are you going to do it?
I have also just seen the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine report that estimates 160,000 people are dying each year now as a result of climate change due to malaria, dysentery and malnutrition. What no responsible country can do is to stand by with its arms folded. America must realise it really is vital to show it is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The climatic consequences of America failing to be part of this world system are now too severe to ignore.
[b]Professor Andrew Roberts, historian [/b]
As my predecessor Margaret Thatcher said to your father during the first Gulf war: "This is no time to wobble, George." The political attractions in a presidential election year of staging a phased withdrawal of American troops from Iraq are huge and obvious, but I firmly believe you should stiffen your already strong resolve not to take the easy way out.
The new Iraqi government after the June 30 handover must be allowed to call upon as much US armed might as it will need to crush all armed resistance to its rule.
We need to discuss and decide on exactly who to devolve power upon on June 30, carefully choosing the correct moderate Shia leaders, calmest Kurds and wisest middle class Sunnis. Furthermore, the timetable must be kept to scrupulously, since any slippage would be immediately interpreted in Iraq as a western desire to continue to exercise sovereignty there.
I must also urge you to agree to assign many more coalition troops to the operations to capture Bin Laden now largely being carried out by the Pakistani army. A timely arrest in September or October would do wonders for your re-election prospects, upon which the English-speaking peoples' chances of winning the war against al-Qaida ultimately rest.
What we must be careful to avoid discussing, George, is the forthcoming trial, conviction and execution of Saddam Hussein. That must be left entirely up to the post-June Baghdad government and the due processes of Iraqi law.
[b]Dr Rosemary Hollis, head of the Middle East programme, Royal Institute of International Affairs [/b]
George, let's think 'out of the box': what's the worst that can happen?
We brook no opposition, pile in more forces, assert control and even though we win in military terms, the death toll is high and the Iraqis are only grudgingly compliant for a year or so. Also, this could play badly in the coming months ahead of your election.
The alternative is to capitalise on current developments. General Abizaid [head of central command in Iraq] is already re-recruiting some of the old Iraqi senior officers. Ahead of the June 30 handover, we select one of these to be in charge of the Iraqi armed forces and our troops withdraw from visibility in the city centres. The Iraqi Governing Council, meanwhile, is showing some mettle, so let's beef them up and hand over political authority to a combination of them and the UN.
Then we can say, Iraq is free, in transition to electoral democracy and we are providing support in the background. We point out that we never wanted to occupy Iraq, only to liberate the people from the oppressive rule of Saddam Hussein. We've done that and now America is pouring in funds for reconstruction.
By the way, can you hold back some of your corporations from taking too large a slice of the pie in terms of contracts? And can we make sure that the UN mechanism for handling aid transparently is more visible? I think this package could work to our advantage in the near and the long term.
[b]Kate Allen, director, Amnesty International UK [/b]
George, if we are going to achieve security in Iraq it must mean absolute respect for human rights. This must mean that an Iraqi death or injury is treated with as much seriousness as an American or British one; we must investigate an apparent "disappearance" of an Iraqi citizen with all the urgency as would a hostage-taking involving Russian, Chinese or Japanese nationals. Furthermore, I believe detention must come with judicial safeguards.
In short, George, even-handedness is the only way out of the quagmire. This is true right across the region.
We talk about supporting human rights and freedom in the Middle East, but we both lead countries pursuing agendas that are often seen to turn a blind eye to friendly governments who undermine these values. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Yemen and various Gulf states imprison people without trial, often citing "security" or combating "terror" as supposed justification. This process has accelerated under the post-9/11 international "security" agenda.
With the deadly threat from al-Qaida and other armed extremists, the temptation for governments is always to move the line on human rights. But, George, this is a disastrous mistake. It leads to catastrophically bad decisions like the American idea to set up Guantαnamo Bay. We must look to rid ourselves of this human rights hypocrisy as a vital step towards transparent international justice.
[b]Major Eric Joyce, Labour MP for Falkirk West [/b]
First, I know you're deeply sceptical about the effectiveness of the UN when it comes to sorting out despots and spreading democracy. But you can make it more than just a worthy concept by helping the UN to find a meaningful role in the reconstruction of Iraq.
Second, if your Middle East road map is to succeed, then your full re-engagement is fundamental. Ariel Sharon will move unilaterally now but you have to make it clear that the new line can only be temporary. Only full respect for the green line will lead to two states, each secure within their border.
Third, from the UK right now it looks like Republicans and Democrats are both tending towards greater protectionism. OK, it's an election year. But fair and free trade is good for us all, and it's the only way ahead, so let's reverse the trend. In return, I'll argue, as ever, for CAP reform in Europe.
[b]Source:[/b]
Guardian UK, Research by Amy Iggulden and Matthew Falloon on http://politics.guardian.co.u...,12956,1192126,00.html
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| New Reports on U.S. Planting WMDs in Iraq ... |
| 04.14.04 (4:15 pm) [edit] |
[b]Last night Bush made a curious statement when he said that we might still[i] find [/i]WMDs in Iraq ... [i]Hmmm[/i] ...[/b]
"We the People" better be very, very suspicious of this neo-con, neo-fascist [i]Win-At-All-Costs [/i]Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i], willing to lie, cheat, steal, commit felonies and wage illegal and immoral warfare, etc. ... The corrupt Bushies [i]will do anything, absolutely anything[/i], even destroy the U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights and our Nation in order to grab infinite neo-imperial power and vast riches ...
"[i]Given the recent scandals to the effect that the U.S. president was privy to the 9/11 plot, they might try to immediately announce the discovery of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order to overshadow the scandals and prevent a further decline of Bushs public opinion rating as the election approaches.[/i]"
Consider "[i][b]New Reports on U.S. Planting WMDs in Iraq[/b][/i]" by the [i]Mehr News Agency [/i](Tehran, Iran) on http://www.commondreams.org/h... :
Fifty days after the first reports http://www.commondreams.org/h... that the U.S. forces were unloading weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in southern Iraq, new reports about the movement of these weapons have been disclosed.
Sources in Iraq speculate that occupation forces are using the recent unrest in Iraq to divert attention from their surreptitious shipments of WMD into the country.
An Iraqi source close to the Basra Governors Office told the MNA that new information shows that a large part of the WMD, which was secretly brought to southern and western Iraq over the past month, are in containers falsely labeled as containers of the Maeresk shipping company and some consignments bearing the labels of organizations such as the Red Cross or the USAID in order to disguise them as relief shipments.
The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added that Iraqi officials including forces loyal to the Iraqi Governing Council stationed in southern Iraq have been forbidden from inspecting or supervising the transportation of these consignments. He went on to say that the occupation forces have ordered Iraqi officials to forward any questions on the issue to the coalition forces. Even the officials of the international relief organizations have informed the Iraqi officials that they would only accept responsibility for relief shipments which have been registered and managed by their organizations.
The Iraqi source also confirmed the report about suspicious trucks with fake Saudi and Jordanian license plates entering Iraq at night last week, stressing that the Saudi and Jordanian border guards did not attempt to inspect the trucks but simply delivered them to the U.S. and British forces stationed on Iraqs borders.
However, the source expressed ignorance whether the governments of Saudi Arabia and Jordan were aware of such movements.
A professor of physics at Baghdad University also told the MNA correspondent that a group of his colleagues who are highly specialized in military, chemical and biological fields have been either bribed or threatened during the last weeks to provide written information on what they know about various programs and research centers and the possible storage of WMD equipment.
The professor also said these people have been openly asked to confirm or deny the existence of research or related WMD equipment. A large number of these scientists, who are believed to be under the surveillance of U.S. intelligence operatives, have claimed that if they refuse to comply with this request, they may be killed or arrested on charges of concealing the truth if these weapons are found by the Bush administration in the future.
He said that the Iraqi scientists believe their lives would be in danger if they decline to cooperate with the occupation forces, especially when they recall that senior U.S. officer Michael Peterson once said, Iraqi scientists are at any case a threat to the U.S. administration, whether they talk or not.
A source close to the Iraqi Governing Council said, In the meantime, many suspect containers disguised as fuel supplies have been moved about by some units of the U.S. special forces. The move has been carried out under heavy security measures. Also, there are unofficial reports that the containers held biological and bacteriological toxins in liquid form. It is possible that the news about the discovery of the WMDs would be announced later.
He also said that such mixtures had been used by the Saddam regime in the 1990s.
The source added that some provocative actions such as the closure of Al-Hawza periodical by U.S. administrator Paul Bremer, the secret meetings between his envoys with some extremist groups who have no relations with the Iraqi Governing Council, the sudden upsurge in violence in central and southern Iraq, a number of activities which have stoked up the wrath of the prominent Shia clerics, and finally, the spate of kidnappings and the baseless charges against the Iranian charge daffaires in Baghdad are providing the necessary smokescreen for the transportation of the WMD to their intended locations.
He said they are quite aware that the White House in cooperation with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has directly tasked the Defense Department to hide these weapons. Given the recent scandals to the effect that the U.S. president was privy to the 9/11 plot, they might try to immediately announce the discovery of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order to overshadow the scandals and prevent a further decline of Bushs public opinion rating as the election approaches.
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| Bush, The Child President, Who Is Boldly Destroying Our Nation!!! |
| 04.14.04 (11:09 am) [edit] |
[b]Bush is [i]The Child President[/i]-- a spoiled little bully-boy kid who is so [i]bold[/i] [[i]sic[/i]] that he'll destroy our nation with his imbecilic fantasies to "bring freedom to the entire world"??? [/b]Why doesn't Dubya propose bringing "prosperity" to the entire world??? Because, then his corporate rapists wouldn't have their playground on which to exploit human beings as their slaves while they plunder our natural resources for their own gluttonous greedy ambitions for infinite power and vast riches ...
Bush behaves like a child who[i] wants whatever he wants[/i], and[i] doesn't comprehend [/i]the costs-- the impacts-- the consequences ... Once someone reaches adulthood, they realize that upon considering a course of action, they must weigh the costs-- understand the impacts in the short-and-longer-terms-- and, evaluate the consequences. Bush lacks the mental capacity to conduct a cost/benefit analysis-- Bush lacks the wisdom to comprehend the impact of his idiotic decisions-- Bush lacks the moral courage to face the consequences: as when the [i]'going-gets-tough'[/i] , he[i] 'swans-off' [/i]to his Crawford Palace and plays at being a [i]'cowboy'[/i] ... [b]while the rest of us are left to pick up the miserable pieces of death, misery and poverty [/b]...
Bush's insane Neo-Con 'Change the World' screed belies his lack of comprehension of the sacrifices that he asks others to make, while Dubya himself, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the neo-cons don't make any financial sacrifices ([i]they've got their immoral tax cuts for the rich and their illegal war-profits in the millions of dollars embezzled from the American and Iraqi peoples[/i]) ... Moreover, in asking the rest of us to make the exhorbitant sacrifices in our own blood and treasure, Bush doesn't even have the intellect, the wit and/or the courage to outline for us what such extravagent costs will entail-- not only to directly pay for his insane, illegal & immoral neo-fascist warfare, but also for the lack of taxpayer money for our children's education, health care, security, jobs, prosperity, and our nation's infrastructure.
Bush is the worst type of childish fantasist, as was Vladmir Illyich Lenin:-- who refuses to recognize that people must demand their own freedoms-- it cannot be imposed from without ... And, moreover, Bush is the worst type of hypocrite, as was Joseph Stalin:-- who refuses to recognize that prosperity for all citizens is the only noble endeavour in order to create a peaceful world... Security and prosperity are necessary prerequisites for freedom to flourish...
"We the People" should condemn Bush who stubbornly refuses to make adjustments for the disastrous courses he has illegally and immoraly set for our nation ... If a captain of a ship[i] boldy and stubbornly [/i]runs the ship he steers into the rocks or into an iceberg, it is[i] foolish [/i]to cheer him on -- "We the People" must stand against this dangerously stupid President.
An aside on Dubya's embarrassingly disgraceful performance last night, made by Joshua Micah Marshall http://www.talkingpointsmemo.... :
[b]Must-call, indeed[/b].
Did you notice how after the president refused to answer Mike Allen's question about why he and vice-president insist on appearing together before the 9/11 Commission he waived off a bunch of other questions saying "I've got some must-calls. I'm sorry." http://www.washingtonpost.com...
He then called on Bill Sammon (of the extreme right-wing neo-con's [i]Washington Times and Fox News[/i]) who rewarded the president by helping him regain his balance with this laughable strawman question: "You have been accused of letting the 9-11 threat mature too far, but not letting the Iraq threat mature far enough. First, could you respond to that general criticism?"
[b]Clearly a must-call[/b].
Also refer to "George W. Bush: The Child President (And A Communist???)" on http://www.congress.org/congr...
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| War President - Mosaic of U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq ... |
| 04.13.04 (4:04 pm) [edit] |
![]() =http://img27.photobucket.com/...
[b]"We the People" cannot afford to remain ignorant regarding the treasonous lies, deceptions and falsehoods that we were told by the corrupt Bush regime in order to mislead us into an illegal and immoral neo-con war in Iraq that has taken the lives of hundreds of U.S. Soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians ... Surely, the Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] neo-fascist creed and insane neo-con ideology do not represent the [i]American Way [/i]...[/b]
[b]Source:[/b]
Mosaic of U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq, The American Leftist, http://amleft.blogspot.com/ar...
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| Bush's Miserable Mis-Management: Send Up the Supplemental, Mr. Prez ... |
| 04.13.04 (1:21 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" have been ruthlessly neo-con conned and criminally scammed by the corrupt Bush regime [i]over and over and over again [/i]...[/b]
The neo-fascist Bushies' neo-orwellian tactic is [i]to say whatever the public wants to hear[/i] (whatever is "saleable") [i]at the moment [/i]... and then [i]do whatever they want to do[/i], irrespective of [i]whether or not[/i] it is in diametric opposition to their oaths, vows and/or promises made to the American people ... The wantonly promiscuous Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta [/i]mendaciously told us at the outset of their illegal and immoral incursion into Iraq that the American people would not bear any significant burdens of blood ([i]men & women's lives[/i]) and treasure ([i]U.S. taxpayer dollars from working people, since corporations & the rich were given treasonous tax cuts and tax loopholes [/i]...)-- because others in their so-called "Coalition-of-the-Willing [[i]sic[/i]]" would make a major contribution; that Iraqi oil would pay for the short and easy war; and, that the Iraqi people would welcome us as "liberators" ... These are simply a few out of [i] many, many, many [/i]of the Bushies' neo-hitlerian [i]lies, deceptions and falsehoods[/i], as the Middle Class & Working People of America are bearing the heart-breaking brunt in lives and the back-breaking burden in costs of the Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] heinous [i]Crimes Against Humanity [/i]... No sacrifices are being made by the Bush Crime Family, the Neo-Cons, Corporations and the Rich, who are instead gluttonously drinking the blood of our people (U.S. Soldiers Abused as Cannon-Fodder for Dubya's Traitorous War-Profits) and greedily eating the flesh of the Iraqi people (U.S. Occupation, Not Liberation) ... Just [i]never-ending costs in lives and treasure [/i]borne by "We the People" ...[i] P.S.[/i] Where are those Iraqi WMDs posing an imminent threat to our national security??? ...
[u][b]Send Up the Supplemental, Mr. President[/b][/u]
Following a week in which the United States suffered the most military fatalities since the fall of Saddam Hussein, pundits and politicians are now calling on President Bush to level with the American people about the grim challenges we currently face in Iraq. As the administration readies itself to launch a massive public relations effort to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis, it is clear that a parallel effort at home is necessary to counter the erosion of public support for the war.
Over the weekend, President Bush reminded us that we cannot afford to allow our efforts in Iraq to fail. He is right. To do so would inflict terrible harm on our national security, as well as damage U.S. credibility abroad for decades. However, with the latest upsurge in violence and rapidly rising human and financial costs, it is unclear how much political pain the White House can withstand and how much longer the American public will tolerate the bad news.
With more than 129,000 U.S. troops currently deployed in Iraq, the cost of military operations next year is expected to exceed $60 billion (on top of $150 billion already spent to date). The operation in Iraq has been funded through emergency supplemental spending bills separate from the Pentagon's regular budget. In an unusual step, the administration has indicated that it will wait until January 2005 to request next year's supplemental. This would hide the true costs of the war and the impact on the American taxpayer until after the November election.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee last month, the military chiefs warned that delaying the supplemental could create a shortfall in funding for military operations at the end of the fiscal year. When questioned, administration officials, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, refused to provide details about the size and timing of the request. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have rightfully expressed concern and frustration about the lack of transparency on the topic. Many have even begun to discuss ways to provide the funding in the absence of the administration's initiative.
If the president really wants to prove his resolve to the American people and Congress, he should immediately send his supplemental request to Capitol Hill. Such a move would send a powerful message to our soldiers abroad, the public, Iraqis, and the international community that America is committed to stability in the Middle East. With the Congressional recess only months away, failure to do so would automatically delay passage of the funds until September at the earliest, forcing our troops to deal with uncertainty through what is likely to be a hot summer marked by continuing attacks.
The supplemental request should place special emphasis on the following:
1. Providing funds necessary to guarantee no interruption in the flow of critical resources for troops in the field.
2. Ensuring troops are deployed with life-saving body armor, armor-kits for their HUMVEES, and other necessary equipment.
3. Fixing pay problems that have plagued the National Guard and Reserve, which are expected to comprise over 40 percent of our force by June 30 this year.
4. Funding to increase the size of the U.S. Army by at least 40,000 troops to relieve overburdened units and safeguard the future of our military force structure.
5. Providing aid packages to convince current allies to stay the course in Iraq and persuade new allies to provide immediate support on the ground.
The announcement should be accompanied by the long-overdue public discussion of the administration's plans for dealing with the turmoil beyond the June 30 transfer of authority. The president should be actively making his case to the American people for long-term engagement in Iraq. The failure to do so at this critical juncture could forfeit the fight in Iraq, dealing a devastating blow to our national interests.
[b]Source:[/b]
Michael Pan is a senior policy analyst at the [i]Center for American Progress[/i]. - http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| Iraq Transition: 80 Days & Counting ... |
| 04.13.04 (10:37 am) [edit] |
[b]The corrupt Bush regime does not have a plan for the transfer of sovereignty over to the Iraqi people ... [/b]When L. Paul Bremer was asked this weekend by NBC http://www.iht.com/articles/5... to whom sovereignty in Iraq would be handed over, he blithefully replied "Well, that's a good question, and it's an important part of the ongoing crisis we have here now." ...[b] That's a lousy answer!!! It is unacceptable!!![/b]
"We the People" should demand that Congress http://www.congress.org take over the responsibility for overseeing the bungled, bloody neo-con fiasco in Iraq, and commence with [i]impeachment hearings [/i]for Bush & Cheney, since they are outrageously corrupt and incompetent, and have brought about[i] disaster, bloodshed and untold misery [/i]for the American and Iraqi peoples. Otherwise, when 30 June comes, we will be criminally defrauded with more of the neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] traitorous lies, deceptions and falsehoods-- and be [i]falsely[/i] told that sovereignty has been handed over-- and yet, our U.S. Soldiers will still be occupying Iraq and the insanely exhorbitant squandering of lives and U.S. taxpayer dollars will continue to be tragically wasted, [i]with no end in sight [/i]...
With only 80 days until the June 30 deadline for transferring authority back to the Iraqi people, the Bush Administration has its work cut out for it. Despite the White House's [i]obsession[/i] with Iraq after 9/11, there is still[i] no credible plan [/i]for reconstruction and stability. The [i]Center for American Progress [/i]will regularly update the following "To Do List" http://www.americanprogress.o...{E9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521- 5D6FF2E06E03}/bremertodo.pdf to help keep tabs on the wide range of transition challenges facing the Coalition Provisional Authority and Administrator Paul Bremer. Download the "To Do List" on http://www.americanprogress.o...{E9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521- 5D6FF2E06E03}/bremertodo.pdf .
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress on http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| Not Satisified With Their Fiasco In Iraq, Now The Neo-Cons Want To Invade Iran!!! |
| 04.12.04 (7:01 pm) [edit] |
[b]It isn't enough that the insane neo-con Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]has created a nightmarish fiasco in Iraq resulting in the massacre of hundreds of U.S. Soldiers and tens of thousands of Innocent Iraqi Civilians ... [/b]Now, these traitorous neo-fascists are [i]beating the war drums [/i]in the lead-up to their [i]expansion of ever more [/i]perpetual warmongerings for perpetual war-profiteering and global hegemony (Neo-Imperial Power & Neo-Infinite Riches) ...
"We the People" surely must not be neo-conned again by the liars, con-artists, traitors and vile crooks in the corrupt Bush regime ... WMDs in Iran??? [i]Methinks Not!!! [/i]... Iran posing an imminent threat to our national security???[i] Methinks not!!! [/i]... Of course, what these despicable neo-con war-mongers don't want to talk about is a[i] few facts[/i]:--
Iraq is a country comprising approximately 168,753 square miles with a population of approximately 24,683,313 people ([i]diminishing, because Dubya is killing the Iraqi people off in his neo-hitlerian massacre[/i]) ...
Iran is a country comprising approximately 636,293 square miles with a population of approximately 68,278,826 people ...
Now, consider that U.S. Military Leaders have publicly acknowledged that our troops are [i]stretched to the limit and beyond, [u]now[/u] [/i]fighting Bush's illegal & immoral war-turned-bloody-guerril la-quagmire in Iraq ... Just [i]how[/i] do you think they could fight [i]another[/i] illegal & immoral war in [i]Iran[/i]??? ... P.S. Oh, and [i]why[/i] should we??? ... "We the People" should stop this insanity [i]now[/i]!!! ...
... Somebody needs to tell Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, and Reuel Marc Gerecht to [i]shut the hell up[/i].
In fact, they need to be arrested and tried as traitors for their part in the illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq. AEI needs to prosecuted as a criminal organization and shuttered for good. So does JINSA and the Hoover Institute and all of the other neocon criminal organizations. If there was any justice in the world, Bush would be impeached and Dick Cheney would be wearing an orange jumpsuit. Instead, these guys influence and run US foreign policy, they are millionaires, they are allowed to publish books and papers filled with criminal conspiracies against international peace. The American people either don't know, don't care, or are too busy watching television to do anything about it.
As Jim Lobe reports, the above mentioned are now "pushing for retribution against Iran for, they say, sponsoring this week's Shiite uprising in Iraq led by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Despite the growing number of reports that depict the fighting as a spontaneous and indigenous revolt against the U.S.-led occupation, the influential neo-cons are calling on Bush to warn Tehran to cease its alleged backing for al-Sadr and other Shia militias or face retaliation, ranging from an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities to covert action designed to overthrow the government."
Note the first option -- attacking Iran's nuclear facilities. It is a line straight out of the Zionist script. On June 7, 1981, the Israelis attacked Iraq's Osiraq nuclear facility with American-made F-16s, in direct violation of international law. Now the Bush neocons want to do the same thing to Iran.
"Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon urged US President George Bush to take all steps possible to block Iran from developing nuclear arms [last July]," al-Jazeerah reported. "Sharon also said Israel believed Iran is shipping weapons to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah through Syria, and voiced Israeli concerns about camps for training Palestinian 'terrorists' in Syria."
Note, nearly all of Sharon's enemies are mentioned: Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah. These enemies are also on the neocon hit list and Bush's evil axis roster.
Of course, most people in the world, when asked, don't believe Iran, Syria, or Hezbollah are primary threats to world peace -- that distinction is reserved for Israel. For instance, a poll conducted by Eurobarometer late last year indicated nearly 60% of Europeans believe Israel "presents a threat to peace, putting it ahead of Iran, North Korea and the US, each of which polled 53%," the [i]BBC[/i] reported.
As for nukes -- they are a pipe dream for Iran, but a reality for Israel. "By the late 1990s the U.S. Intelligence Community estimated that Israel possessed between 75-130 weapons, based on production estimates," writes FAS. "The stockpile would certainly include warheads for mobile Jericho-1 and Jericho-2 missiles, as well as bombs for Israeli aircraft, and may include other tactical nuclear weapons of various types. Some published estimates even claimed that Israel might have as many as 400 nuclear weapons by the late 1990s."
So maybe the US should attack Dimona, Israel's nuclear facility.
Sharon, the rabid Likudites, and the Bush neocons are racists who hate Arabs and Iranians. They can't wait to start World War IV -- World War III, according to the neocons, was the Cold War (these guys love back-to-back wars and mass murder) -- and turn the Middle East into one huge killing field in the name of Greater Israel. Remarkably, the American people have allowed them to get away with lying about Iraq and WMD and killing 10,000 people, excluding the approximately 40,000 Iraqi conscripts they slaughtered last year.
"Some neo-conservatives have seized on Sadr's uprising as a new opportunity both to raise tensions against Iran and to divert attention from Washington's bungling of relations with the Shia community in Iraq," writes Lobe.
This is criminal behavior. It should not be tolerated. Unfortunately, it will not only be tolerated, it will be encouraged by the likes of the [i]War Street Journal [/i]and [i]Fox[/i], especially after Bush takes the election in November, either semi-legitimately or by hook, crook, and Diebold voting machine.
It's war all the time from here on out.
[b]Sources:[/b]
Moqtada al-Sadr: the Latest Neocon Excuse to Kill Iranians, By Kurt Nimmo, http://www.dissidentvoice.org...
Iraq & Iran Statistics, Time Almanac, 2004.
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| Not Satisified With Their Fiasco In Iraq, Now The Neo-Cons Want To Invade Iran!!! |
| 04.12.04 (5:28 pm) [edit] |
[b]It isn't enough that the insane neo-con Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]has created a nightmarish fiasco in Iraq resulting in the massacre of hundreds of U.S. Soldiers and tens of thousands of Innocent Iraqi Civilians ... [/b]Now, these traitorous neo-fascists are [i]beating the war drums [/i]in the lead-up to their [i]expansion of ever more [/i]perpetual warmongerings for perpetual war-profiteering and global hegemony (Neo-Imperial Power & Neo-Infinite Riches) ...
"We the People" surely must not be neo-conned again by the liars, con-artists, traitors and vile crooks in the corrupt Bush regime ... WMDs in Iran??? [i]Methinks Not!!! [/i]... Iran posing an imminent threat to our national security???[i] Methinks not!!! [/i]... Of course, what these despicable neo-con war-mongers don't want to talk about is a[i] few facts[/i]:--
Iraq is a country comprising approximately 168,753 square miles with a population of approximately 24,683,313 people ([i]diminishing, because Dubya is killing the Iraqi people off in his neo-hitlerian massacre[/i]) ...
Iran is a country comprising approximately 636,293 square miles with a population of approximately 68,278,826 people ...
Now, consider that U.S. Military Leaders have publicly acknowledged that our troops are [i]stretched to the limit and beyond, [u]now[/u] [/i]fighting Bush's illegal & immoral war-turned-bloody-guerril la-quagmire in Iraq ... Just [i]how[/i] do you think they could fight [i]another[/i] illegal & immoral war in [i]Iran[/i]??? ... P.S. Oh, and [i]why[/i] should we??? ... "We the People" should stop this insanity [i]now[/i]!!! ...
... Somebody needs to tell Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, and Reuel Marc Gerecht to [i]shut the hell up[/i].
In fact, they need to be arrested and tried as traitors for their part in the illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq. AEI needs to prosecuted as a criminal organization and shuttered for good. So does JINSA and the Hoover Institute and all of the other neocon criminal organizations. If there was any justice in the world, Bush would be impeached and Dick Cheney would be wearing an orange jumpsuit. Instead, these guys influence and run US foreign policy, they are millionaires, they are allowed to publish books and papers filled with criminal conspiracies against international peace. The American people either don't know, don't care, or are too busy watching television to do anything about it.
As Jim Lobe reports, the above mentioned are now "pushing for retribution against Iran for, they say, sponsoring this week's Shiite uprising in Iraq led by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Despite the growing number of reports that depict the fighting as a spontaneous and indigenous revolt against the U.S.-led occupation, the influential neo-cons are calling on Bush to warn Tehran to cease its alleged backing for al-Sadr and other Shia militias or face retaliation, ranging from an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities to covert action designed to overthrow the government."
Note the first option -- attacking Iran's nuclear facilities. It is a line straight out of the Zionist script. On June 7, 1981, the Israelis attacked Iraq's Osiraq nuclear facility with American-made F-16s, in direct violation of international law. Now the Bush neocons want to do the same thing to Iran.
"Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon urged US President George Bush to take all steps possible to block Iran from developing nuclear arms [last July]," al-Jazeerah reported. "Sharon also said Israel believed Iran is shipping weapons to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah through Syria, and voiced Israeli concerns about camps for training Palestinian 'terrorists' in Syria."
Note, nearly all of Sharon's enemies are mentioned: Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah. These enemies are also on the neocon hit list and Bush's evil axis roster.
Of course, most people in the world, when asked, don't believe Iran, Syria, or Hezbollah are primary threats to world peace -- that distinction is reserved for Israel. For instance, a poll conducted by Eurobarometer late last year indicated nearly 60% of Europeans believe Israel "presents a threat to peace, putting it ahead of Iran, North Korea and the US, each of which polled 53%," the [i]BBC[/i] reported.
As for nukes -- they are a pipe dream for Iran, but a reality for Israel. "By the late 1990s the U.S. Intelligence Community estimated that Israel possessed between 75-130 weapons, based on production estimates," writes FAS. "The stockpile would certainly include warheads for mobile Jericho-1 and Jericho-2 missiles, as well as bombs for Israeli aircraft, and may include other tactical nuclear weapons of various types. Some published estimates even claimed that Israel might have as many as 400 nuclear weapons by the late 1990s."
So maybe the US should attack Dimona, Israel's nuclear facility.
Sharon, the rabid Likudites, and the Bush neocons are racists who hate Arabs and Iranians. They can't wait to start World War IV -- World War III, according to the neocons, was the Cold War (these guys love back-to-back wars and mass murder) -- and turn the Middle East into one huge killing field in the name of Greater Israel. Remarkably, the American people have allowed them to get away with lying about Iraq and WMD and killing 10,000 people, excluding the approximately 40,000 Iraqi conscripts they slaughtered last year.
"Some neo-conservatives have seized on Sadr's uprising as a new opportunity both to raise tensions against Iran and to divert attention from Washington's bungling of relations with the Shia community in Iraq," writes Lobe.
This is criminal behavior. It should not be tolerated. Unfortunately, it will not only be tolerated, it will be encouraged by the likes of the [i]War Street Journal [/i]and [i]Fox[/i], especially after Bush takes the election in November, either semi-legitimately or by hook, crook, and Diebold voting machine.
It's war all the time from here on out.
[b]Sources:[/b]
Moqtada al-Sadr: the Latest Neocon Excuse to Kill Iranians, By Kurt Nimmo, http://www.dissidentvoice.org...
Iraq & Iran Statistics, Time Almanac, 2004.
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| Bush's War: A Perfectly Good Train Wreck ... |
| 04.12.04 (3:34 pm) [edit] |
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] have much to answer for: ... [/b][i]Illegal and immoral warfare in Iraq [/i]to enrich their war-profiteering cronies (Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.) and insane Global Hegemony for a Neo-Corporate Empire ... [i]Lying to the American people [/i]on the life threatening issues of terrorism and warfare ... [i]Economic chaos creating a fiscal catastrophe [/i]for Middle Class and Working Americans who must bear the back-breaking debts and heart-breaking record-level deficit spending on gluttonous corporations and the hyper-rich plutocrats, while miserable joblessness, lack of health care, skyrocketing poverty and homelessness, and, a crumbling national infrastructure goes unattended to ...
It is time for all good men to come to the aid of their country and demand that Congress http://www.congress.org [i]impeach[/i] the insane neo-con, neo-fascist Bush regime who is responsible for reckless economic malfeasance (criminal [i]tax cuts [/i]for corporations & the rich, while[i] the rest of us are forced to pay [/i]for the lavish life-styles of the Bushies' corporate crooks & hyper-rich robber-barons); irresponsible and corrupt mismanagement of domestic & foreign policies; heinous bloody guerrilla quagmires and [i]Crimes Against Humanity[/i]; and, Dubya & Cheney's traitorous defrauding of "We the People" ...
"[i]FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York. The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the U.A.E. in May saying that a group of bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives[/i]."
- President's Daily Brief, August 6 2001
Michael Speer, 24, of Iowa. Elias Torrez III, 21, of Texas. Matthew Matula, 20, of Texas. Felix Delgreco, 22, of Connecticut. Levi Angell, 20, of Minnesota. Joshua Palmer, 25, of California. Michael Wafford, 20, of Texas. Nicholas Dieruf, 21, of Kentucky. Christopher Wasser, 21, of Kansas. William Harrell, 30, of California. Christopher Mabry, 19, of Mississippi. Jonathan Kephart, 21, of Pennsylvania. Isaac Michael Nieves, 20, of New York. Lee Todacheene, 29, of New Mexico. Fernando Mendezaceves, 27, of Puerto Rico. William Labadie Jr., 45, of Arkansas. Marvin Miller, 38, of North Carolina. Brent Morel, 27, of Tennessee. John Wroblewski, 25, of New Jersey. Scott Larson Jr., 22, of Texas. George Rentschler, 31, of Kentucky. Shane Goldman, 20, Texas. Tyanna Felder, 22, of Connecticut. Marcus Cherry, 18, of California. Benjamin Carman, 20, of Iowa. Kyle Crowley, 18, of California. Allan Walker, 28, of California. Christopher Cobb, 19, of Florida. Ryan Jerabek, 18, of Wisconsin. Moises Langhorst, 19, of Minnesota. Travis Layfield, 19, of California. Anthony Roberts, 18, of Delaware. Deryk Hallal, 24, of Indiana. Christopher Ramos, 26, of New Mexico. Jesse Thiry, 23, of Wisconsin. Michael Mitchell, 25, of California. Yihjyh Chen, 31, of Marianas Protectorate. Robert Arsiaga, 25, of Texas. Stephen Hiller, 25, of Alabama. Ahmed Cason, 24, of Alabama. Israel Garza, 25, of Texas. Forest Jostes, 22, of Illinois. Casey Sheehan, 24, of California. Gerardo Moreno, 23, of Texas. David McKeever, 25, of New York. Matthew Serio, 21, of Rhode Island. Tyler Fey, 22, of Minnesota. Emad Mikha, 44, of Michigan. Aric Barr, 22, of Pennsylvania. Geoffery Morris, 19, of Illinois. Philip Rogers, 23, of Oregon. John Amos, II, 22, of Indiana. William Strange, 19, of Georgia. Doyle Hufstedler, 25, of Texas. Sean Mitchell, 24, of Pennsylvania. Michael Karr Jr., 23, of Texas. Cleston Raney, 20, of Idaho. Brandon Davis, 20, of Maryland. Dustin Sekula, 18, of Texas.
These are the American soldiers who have been identified as having been killed in Iraq in the first twelve days of April, 2004, one year after our tanks rolled into Baghdad and knocked down the statue of a man who had no weapons of mass destruction, no connections to al Qaeda, no connection to the attacks of September 11, and no ability to threaten the United States.
The man who had that statue of himself erected was a bastard, a wretch, a blight on the skin of this world. Was he worth the loss of these American soldiers, and the others who have died in April but whose names have not yet been released by Central Command? Was he worth the 667 American soldiers who have died in Iraq? Was he worth the 18,000 American soldiers who have been medically evacuated from Iraq, many for wounds so grievous that their lives will never be the same? Was he worth the lives of more than ten thousand Iraqi civilians? Was he worth the hundreds of billions of dollars we spent to remove him?
Was he worth even one grieving mother, father, wife, husband, brother, sister, son, or daughter?
The family of Marvin Miller, slain in Balad, Iraq on Wednesday, doesn't think so. "It stinks," said Miller's aunt, Annie. "The president got us into something he doesn't know how to get out of. It seems like the more killing that goes on over there, the more troops he's sending." Miller's eldest son, Marvin Lee Miller Jr., was planning to join the Army after he finished high school. "I was going into the military, but not no more," he said. "Not after this."
According to a variety of unimpeachable White House insiders, among them former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and former Counter-Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke, the focus of the Bush administration was on invading Iraq from the first day George settled into the Oval Office. Of course, they were also fully occupied with a national missile shield, a few massive tax cuts, and the breaking of the wall separating church and state.
Yet with Clarke and his cadre of terror-fighters sounding alarms from one side of the White House to the other, even with FBI agents in Minnesota and Arizona sounding alarms about suspicious men trying to learn to fly, but not land, commercial aircraft, even with foreign intelligence agencies all across the planet sounding alarms about plots to hijack airplanes and crash them into American buildings, and even with George W. Bush getting told on August 6, 2001 that "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings" were happening while "surveillance of federal buildings in New York" was being done by suspicious individuals, even with Bush being told in the same briefing that "Al Qaeda members - including some who are U.S. citizens - have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks," the White House crew couldn't seem to summon enough interest to consider al Qaeda terrorism a priority until the towers came down.
Now, the Shi'ites and Sunnis have become allies in Iraq against American forces, a coming-together that has left many long-time observers of Iraqi cultural dynamics in awe. Now, American forces are required to sue for cease-fire agreements with Iraqi forces that have taken several cities and appear able to kill America troops at will. Now, the American people themselves are coming to see the 'leadership' of the Bush administration for what it really is, a bleak realization that could send American politics careening into complete chaos.
George W. Bush has given Osama bin Laden everything he could ever have wished for. Bush invaded a Muslim country without just cause and in defiance of practically the entire world, and delivered to bin Laden a terrorist recruitment poster for the ages. The Middle East is coming together in unprecedented ways to fight the United States, a crucial step along the path towards bin Laden's desire to create a pure Islamic Caliphate. The bloodshed spurred by the Shi'ite uprising, aided by the unlikely alliance with the Sunnis, have left Iraq in utterly unsolvable turmoil. American soldiers, and Iraqi civilians, continue to die. There is absolutely, positively no good side to this situation.
Osama bin Laden need only sit back and watch everything go his way. He is almost certainly aware of the old military rule which states, "Never interfere with an enemy who is in the process of destroying himself." It is unclear how that statement translates into Arabic, but the old-school Chicago politics version is equally succinct: "Never get in the way of a perfectly good train wreck." However you phrase it, George W. Bush is proving these old sayings to be axiomatic, and Osama bin Laden is smiling.
[b]Source:[/b]
"A Perfectly Good Train Wreck",[i] By William Rivers Pitt[/i], TruthOut, on http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
[b]William Rivers Pitt is the senior editor and lead writer for [i]t r u t h o u t.[/i] He is a[i] New York Times [/i]and international bestselling author of two books - [i]'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know' [/i]and [i]'The Greatest Sedition is Silence[/i].'[/b]
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| As The 455th U.S. Soldier Is Killed In Combat, Dubya Takes His 500th Day Of Vacation!!! |
| 04.11.04 (5:30 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" are told that we should just[i] sit back and take [u]our[/u] own back-and-heart-breaking sacrifices in stride [/i]... [/b]The neo-con war-criminals-cum-war-pro fiteers and the neo-fascist arm-chair-chicken-hawks in the corrupt Bush regime aren't making [i]any [/i]sacrifices ... [i]So what [/i]if our U.S. Soldiers & Innocent Iraqi Civilians are being killed, maimed and/or severely injured for life in Dubya's insane, illegal & immoral war in Iraq ... [u]The important thing[/u] [i]is[/i] that Dubya[i] is having a fine ole' time[/i] on his[i] Saddam Hussein-style palacial ranch [/i]at Crawford Texas,[i] far, far, far away from any danger [/i]...
[b]Nero Fiddles [/b]...
A "war-time president" wouldn't skip town just as the combat situation soured.
Which must by why George W. Bush has skipped town.
Yes, he's taken another unearned vacation down in Texas, where he's been showing off http://story.news.yahoo.com/n... his expansive [palacial, Saddam Hussein style-estate also obtained via ill-gotten corruption] ranch to representatives of the National Rifle Association and other "sporting aficionados and conservation groups."
Now, why true sportsmen would have any interest in the anti-Teddy Roosevelt http://www.thenation.com/outr... -- the President who's weakened protections on as much land as Roosevelt set aside, and whose shootin'-fish-in-a-barrel sidekick http://www.thenation.com/outr... is Dick Cheney -- is beyond me.
But it's good to know that George W. Bush has found time for a [b]500th [/b]vacation day, even as the ever-rising American death toll in Iraq reaches [b]628[/b]. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/33590... (For all of you shrill semantic hair-splitters out there who divide war zone sacrifices into those that count and those that don't, http://www.thenation.com/outr... the toll of Americans killed in full-on combat action stands, http://www.reuters.com/newsAr...;jsessionid=ZUATH1LTS5RTQ CRBAEOCFEY?type=topNews&s toryID=4794757 at this writing, at[b] 455[/b]. It's no doubt rising even as I type this.)
And yet Bring 'Em On Bush http://www.thenation.com/outr... is taking it manfully in stride. As [i]The Washington Post [/i]reports, http://www.washingtonpost.com... "This is Bush's[b] 33rd [/b]visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of [b]233[/b] days on his Texas ranch since taking office ... Adding his [b]78[/b] visits to Camp David and his five visits to Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush has spent all or part of [b]500[/b] days in office at one of his three retreats, or more than [b]40 percent [/b]of his presidency."
That includes a month-long kick-back in August 2001 that was the longest presidential vacation in[b] 32 years [/b] http://www.cbsnews.com/storie... .
[b]Forty percent of his presidency! That's the equivalent of taking paid leave off from Jan. 1 to May 24. Must be nice. But it sure does cast a harsh new light on this Administration's anti-weekend http://www.thenation.com/outr... drive to scale back overtime pay.[/b]
[b]Source:[/b]
The Daily Outrage, [i]Matt Bivens[/i], The Nation, on http://www.thenation.com/outr...
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| ... End 'Logic of Death' in Iraq, Mideast, Pope Says ... |
| 04.11.04 (12:58 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" should put a stop to Bush's Death March in Iraq ... [/b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]represents [i]a danger to the world [/i]far more terrifying and deadly than any terrorist http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk... ... The insane neo-con, neo-fascist incursion into Iraq has already cost the lives of hundreds of U.S. Soldiers and tens of thousands of Innocent Iraqi Civilians, in order for this despicable cabal of liars, thieves and traitors and their traitorous corporate cronies (Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.) to gorge upon blood-thirsty war-profits ... The illegal and immoral war-turned-bloody-guerril la-quagmire in Iraq has[i] nothing to do with the fight against terrorism [/i](Osama bin Laden & Al Qaeda had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein or Iraq, prior to Dubya's neo-hitlerian war ...) ... Warfare for global hegemony and war-profiteering is a heinous affront against civilization and represents horrendous [i]Crimes Against Humanity[/i], and we should stand against it ...
Demand that Congress http://www.congress.org call for the[i] impeachment [/i]of Bush and Cheney in order to restore dignity and integrity to our nation ... The Pope's Easter message is wise and we should heed it ...
[u][b]End 'Logic of Death' in Iraq, Mideast, Pope Says [/b][/u] - http://wireservice.wired.com/...
Amid some of the tightest security ever seen at the Vatican, Pope John Paul issued an Easter condemnation of terrorism Sunday and urged world leaders to bring peace to Iraq and other flashpoints.
Speaking to tens of thousands of people in St Peter's Square and tens of millions of television viewers and radio listeners, [u]he railed against "a logic of death" pervasive in the world[/u].
"[u]May (humanity) find the strength to face the inhuman, and unfortunately growing, phenomenon of terrorism[/u]," he said in his "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message.
The long shadow of the conflict in Iraq reached as far as St Peter's Square this year with an Easter season that has been marked by unprecedented security for fear of an attack at the heart of Christianity or elsewhere in Italy.
Many more police -- in uniform and plainclothes -- were on hand than in the past to check people as they entered the Vatican area.
The Polish pope, who afterward wished the world a Happy Easter in 62 languages -- including Arabic and Hebrew -- painted one of the bleakest pictures of the world that he ever has in his 26 Easters as Roman Catholic leader.
[u]He said the international community had its work cut out for it in trying to deal with conflicts and asked God to sustain world leaders "in their efforts to resolve satisfactorily the continuing conflicts" in Iraq, the Holy Land and Africa[/u].
St Peter's Square was bedecked with the usual thousands of flowers and hundreds of trees donated by the Netherlands but the mood and the pope were decidedly more glum than in the past.
[b]GRAY SKIES, GRAY MESSAGE[/b]
Rome was appropriately overcast and unseasonably cold as the pope spoke of a world "[u]troubled by many threatening shadows[/u]" and yet still hoping for light and peace.
"[u]Take heed all of you who have at heart mankind's future! Take heed men and women of good will! May the temptation to seek revenge give way to the courage to forgive; may the culture of life and love render vain the logic of death; may trust once more give breath to the lives of peoples[/u]," he said.
He wore resplendent gold and white vestments and, although his voice was raspy at the end of a hectic week of activities, he raised it several times to stress his peace appeal.
"[u]If our future is one, it is the task and duty of all to build it with patient and painstaking far-sightedness[/u]," he said. [Tragically, the treasonous and blood-thirsty Bush regime lack far-sightedness, wisdom and patience and lust for endless neo-con warfare to empower and enrich themselves off of the blood, sweat and miserable tears of other human beings.]
He reminded Christians, Jews and Muslims that they are all children of Abraham and so should "[u]rediscover the brotherhood that they share[/u]" and work for peace together.
This Easter season at the Vatican has been marked by unprecedented security for fear of an attack.
Police have sealed manhole covers near St Peter's and diverted traffic at night to thwart possible suicide bombers.
Last week, Italian media reported that intelligence agencies had warned the Vatican that the pope, who was shot in 1981, might be the target of an attack during the Easter period.
Officials have banned small aircraft over Rome for the Easter holidays, with jet fighters and helicopters ready to take to the air within minutes to intercept intruders.
They said precautions were on a new scale this year following the March 11 train blasts that killed 191 people in Madrid and with the deteriorating situation in Iraq, where Italy has some 3,000 troops.
Throughout Italy, some 19,000 police and 4,000 military are on hand to protect more than 13,000 sites that could be targets.
[b]By Philip Pullella, VATICAN CITY (Reuters)[/b], http://wireservice.wired.com/...
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| British Officers Condemn U.S. Tactics In Iraq - Bush Team Unfit To Fix Iraqi Quagmire |
| 04.11.04 (8:39 am) [edit] |
"[i]The read we get on the people of Iraq is there's no question they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome us as liberators[/i]." Dick Cheney on 'Meet the Press', March 2003, http://www.uexpress.com/richa...
[b]"We the People" must face the[i] unpleasant truth [/i]that the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]are unfit to fix[i] their own horrific fiasco [/i]in Iraq ... [/b]Bush's disastrous neo-con Iraqi adventure has devolved into a bloody guerrilla quagmire with an exhorbitant loss of life and an excessively wasteful cost in U.S. taxpayer treasure [i]far, far, far worse [/i]than we were told at the outset of this insane, neo-con, neo-fascist warmongering by the traitorous Bushies on behalf of their criminal war-profiteers: Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc. ...
Even supporters of the Bushies' illegal and immoral war upon Iraq, including [i]Thomas L. Friedman [/i]in "[b]Nasty, Brutish and Short[/b]" on http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... , express his dismay at the unconscionable bungling and irresponsible mismanagement of the Iraqi war.
It is time to call for the[i] impeachment [/i]of the corrupt Bush regime, who are [i]unfit[/i] to hold office ... Contact Congress http://www.congress.org , and demand that [i]impeachment hearings [/i]be called immediately ...
Consider "[i][b]US tactics condemned by British officers[/b][/i]" by [i]Sean Rayment[/i], Defence Correspondent, UK Telegraph, on http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne... :
Senior British commanders have condemned American military tactics in Iraq as heavy-handed and disproportionate.
One senior Army officer told The Telegraph that America's aggressive methods were causing friction among allied commanders and that there was a growing sense of "unease and frustration" among the British high command.
The officer, who agreed to the interview on the condition of anonymity, said that part of the problem was that American troops viewed Iraqis as untermenschen - the Nazi expression for "sub-humans".
Speaking from his base in southern Iraq, the officer said: "My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans' use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They don't see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are. Their attitude towards the Iraqis is tragic, it's awful.
"The US troops view things in very simplistic terms. It seems hard for them to reconcile subtleties between who supports what and who doesn't in Iraq. It's easier for their soldiers to group all Iraqis as the bad guys. As far as they are concerned Iraq is bandit country and everybody is out to kill them."
The phrase untermenschen - literally "under-people" - was brought to prominence by Adolf Hitler in his book Mein Kampf, published in 1925. He used the term to describe those he regarded as racially inferior: Jews, Slaves and gipsies.
Although no formal complaints have as yet been made to their American counterparts, the officer said the British Government was aware of its commanders' "concerns and fears".
The officer explained that, under British military rules of war, British troops would never be given clearance to carry out attacks similar to those being conducted by the US military, in which helicopter gunships have been used to fire on targets in urban areas.
British rules of engagement only allow troops to open fire when attacked, using the minimum force necessary and only at identified targets.
The American approach was markedly different: "When US troops are attacked with mortars in Baghdad, they use mortar-locating radar to find the firing point and then attack the general area with artillery, even though the area they are attacking may be in the middle of a densely populated residential area.
"They may well kill the terrorists in the barrage but they will also kill and maim innocent civilians. That has been their response on a number of occasions. It is trite, but American troops do shoot first and ask questions later. They are very concerned about taking casualties and have even trained their guns on British troops, which has led to some confrontations between soldiers.
"The British response in Iraq has been much softer. During and after the war the British set about trying to win the confidence of the local population. There have been problems, it hasn't been easy but on the whole it was succeeding."
The officer believed that America had now lost the military initiative in Iraq, and it could only be regained with carefully planned, precision attacks against the "terrorists".
"The US will have to abandon the sledgehammer-to-crack-a-n ut approach - it has failed," he said. "They need to stop viewing every Iraqi, every Arab as the enemy and attempt to win the hearts and minds of the people.
"Our objective is to create a stable, democratic and safe Iraq. That's achievable but not in the short term. It is going to take up to 10 years."
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| Bush & Rice Were Warned: 6th August Memo Shows They Didn't Take Action!!! |
| 04.10.04 (6:17 pm) [edit] |
[b]If [i]any one of us [/i]was warned about the [u]exact[/u] time, the [u]exact[/u] ways-and-means, and the [u]exact[/u] location, of the 9/11 attacks upon America; [i]any one of us [/i]could have averted the heinous tragedy ... [/b]However, we depend upon our leaders[i] to be capable [/i]of "connecting-the-dots" and/or [i]at minimum [/i]of warning "We the People" of pending dangers ... Bush, Cheney and Rice[i] did not [/i]"connect-the-dots" despite the warnings from the CIA, FBI & the NSA ... Nor [i]did they warn [/i]the American people of the potential dangers posed by Al Qaeda prior to 9/11 ... Instead they were obsessed with their illegal and immoral neo-con incursion into Iraq (that had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda ...)
"We the People" should demand the [i]impeachment[/i] of the neo-con, neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta[/i], and in the short-term, Rice should be summarily [i]fired[/i] ... Even [u]if[/u] [i]one is prepared [/i]to excuse the corrupt Bush regime for [i]not being capable of [/i]"connecting-the-dots" ([i]proving they ain't the so-called "geniuses" that the neo-fascist corporate-owned media pretends that they are [/i]...), it is[i] inexcusable [/i]that they[i] failed to warn [/i]"We the People" ... Read the 6th August memo on http://www.cnn.com/2004/image... .
Consider "[b]Bush's 'al-Qaeda memo' released[/b]" by the[i] BBC News[/i], on http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/am... :
[b]The White House has made public an intelligence briefing warning of a threat from al-Qaeda, written a month before the 11 September terror attacks. [/b]
The commission investigating the 9/11 attacks had pressed for the Bush administration to make the memo public.
"Bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US," said the memo, written in August 2001.
The White House had said that the memo contained historical material about al-Qaeda and was not an imminent warning.
The briefing, entitled "[i][u]Bin Laden determined to attack inside the United States[/u][/i]", came to light during last Thursday's testimony to the 9/11 commission from US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
It was given to President Bush as part of his daily intelligence briefing.
Ms Rice said it was historical information based on old reporting and did not warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.
However, the memo said Bin Laden had been saying for some years that he wanted to bring the fight to America.
The BBC's Jon Leyne says it may be no coincidence that the White House has chosen to release this document at a time in the weekend when most Americans are not following the news very closely.
[b]'Retaliation'[/b]
After missile strikes against his base in Afghanistan in 1998 by then US President Bill Clinton, Bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate, the memo says.
It says the millennium plot in 1999 - when a man crossing from Canada was arrested in Washington in possession of powerful explosives - may have been Bin Laden's first serious attempt to carry out an attack on the US.
At the time of the memo, the FBI was conducting 70 Bin Laden-related investigations throughout the country, it added.
The document also indicates that Bin Laden was meticulous in planning his operations, as demonstrated by his surveillance of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which al-Qaeda attacked in 1998.
"FBI information ... indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York," it says.
It adds that al-Qaeda had personnel in the US who could help facilitate its operations.
"Al-Qaeda members - including some who are US citizens - have resided in or travelled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks," it said.
The memo does not, however, mention the potential use of hijacked planes as weapons.
[b]More questions [/b]
In her testimony, Ms Rice said the briefing referred to uncorroborated reports from 1998 that a terrorist might try to hijack a plane but did not raise the possibility that airplanes might be used as missiles. However refer to "Bush Was Told of Al Qaeda Hijack Preparation" on http://www.reuters.com/newsAr...§ion=news . ... May I presume that hijacking airplanes is a crime? Why didn't Bush and Rice warn the American people of potential hijackings by Al Qaeda that they were warned about prior to 9/11?
Democratic members on the 9/11 commission have demanded to know why the document was not seen as a warning of the attacks that took place just over a month later when planes crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The commission is set to ask further probing questions next week when several senior figures, including Attorney General John Ashcroft, CIA director George Tenet and former FBI head Louis Freeh, testify.
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| Did Bushies Pressure U.S. Labor Dept To (Pull An 'Enron') To Fabricate March Job Figures??? |
| 04.10.04 (2:24 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" should be very wary of[i] anything [/i]the corrupt Bush regime tells us ... Why??? [/b]Because the traitorous Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] continues to perpetrate heinous neo-con, neo-fascist lies, deceptions and falsehoods upon the American people,[i] on a daily basis[/i] ... [u]Examples[/u]: Phony WMDs in Iraq posing an 'imminent threat' to our national security ([i]Now we know that Iraq had no WMDs and didn't even threaten us [/i]...)-- No knowledge of Al Qaeda attacks upon the US prior to 9/11 ([i]Now we know that the mendacious Bushies knew of pending attacks prior to 9/11 & that they did nothing to prevent them [/i]...)-- Everything in Iraq is rosy and the Iraqis are tickled-pink ([i]Now we know that the Iraqi people are angry at the rape of their nation & that they want the Bushies' corporate-take-all U.S. Occupation forces out of their country[/i] ...)-- ... [b]The list of the tyrannical Bush regime's lies is [i]endless [/i][/b] ...
Refer to "[b]U.S. Labor Department pulled an Enron to fabricate phony March job figures[/b]" by [i]Jackson Thoreau[/i] on http://www.whatreallyhappened... :
WASHINGTON, D.C. He met me in a bookstore not far from the headquarters of the Labor Department. He was middle-aged, gray at the temples, wearing a look of utter frustration.
"First of all, we never met, you know what Im saying? Ill deny I ever met you, if anyone ever asks," he said, as we grabbed a table in the bookstore cafι.
"I understand," I said. And I did I was used to people telling me a bunch of wild things, then denying they ever talked to me.
He nodded. "Ive worked at Labor for 29 years. Im one year short of getting a pension that will allow me to finally retire from this hell-hole. I dont know why Im jeopardizing that." He sighed. "Nothing much makes sense anymore."
"You have that right."
He looked at me, his eyes piercing mine. "You know what ONeill said, what Clarke said, thats just the tip of the iceberg with this administration. You know what Kerry said, about these guys being a bunch of lying crooks. That doesnt begin to cover it."
"Tell me something I dont know."
"The economy is the key to this election. Bush knows it, Rove knows it, Kerry knows it, everybody knows it. National security means nothing if people dont have at least some hope of getting and keeping a good enough job to feed their families."
"Im with you."
"You know these latest job figures, about the U.S. economy creating 308,000 jobs in March, going far beyond economists projections? The ones Bush is using to say his tax-cuts-for the-wealthy program is working?"
I nodded. "Theyre fake, right?"
"These guys taught Enron and Andersen how to cook the books." He leaned in closer. "You cant believe the pressure Labor has been under in the last few months to come out with some really positive job growth numbers. They even sent Cheney over to have a private session with Chao. Shes not as bad as some in the administration, but she caved in to the pressure. Most people would."
"What did Cheney tell her?"
"He said he would make it very uncomfortable for her unless she found some new numbers to justify a large gain in jobs. Very uncomfortable. He used the kind of language he did to Wellstone right before his plane crashed."
I nodded. "These guys dont mess around."
"So we found some new numbers. Theyre mostly jobs that were shipped to India, to China, to Mexico, and other countries. We counted anyone who moonlighted as a waiter or pizza delivery guy or whatever as another job gained." He looked at me closer. "Hell, theyre all just guesses anyway. Educated guesses, but guesses, nonetheless. Oh, we use a lot of fancy surveys and formulas and projections about how many businesses will go under, and do a lot of other research to make the guesses seem official. But in the end, your guess at the number of jobs out there is as good as mine."
"I understand theyre guesses. But why did Cheney and Chao let the numbers get so low in the first place? I mean, you would have thought they would have dipped some after Sept. 11, but to decline so long to hit 3 million jobs lost
.Thats hard to believe they let it go so low."
His voice got lower, to almost a whisper. "You remember Reaganomics? The trickle-down theory that never trickled down to the middle class, let alone the poor?"
"Sure, I remember. That kind of crap logic helped turn me from a sportswriter into a political activist."
"Well, these Bush 43 guys have taken that theory to another level. Their whole economic plan is based on deceit. Smoke and mirrors, its just damn smoke and mirrors."
"What do you mean exactly?"
He leaned in closer. "Think about it. Who is the Bush 43 administrations main constituency?"
"The wealthy. Just like them."
"Right. And what do wealthy people mostly have their money in? Stocks and bonds. Especially stocks in their own companies. How do you think corporate net worth reached a damn record $10 trillion last December? How do you think we went so fast from a job-seekers market, where more people were getting benefits like health insurance, to a CEOs market, where everyone is just glad to have any old job, even if there arent any benefits, and the ones at the top rake in everything except the crumbs? That just doesnt happen by itself. Its planned."
I looked away, trying to think. "How did they do it? Through finding excuses to keep interest rates so low its not worth saving any money in banks or CDs?"
"That part of it. Every chance he has, Bush 43 reminds Greenspan that hes most to blame for his father losing in 92. Thats crap, of course. But Bush believes those interest rate rises in the months before the 92 election did his father in. So hes been fanatical at trying to keep interest rates so low. An increase in jobs too fast would give Greenspan a reason to increase interest rates to keep inflation from rising too much. Thats why the White House told Chao not to come out with a big jump in jobs in January. We were about to say back then that jobs had increased by about 450,000 that month. But at the last minute, we set it back to only about 100,000, which we later revised to 159,000. Think about that, will you? How can you trust a process in which we have to revise numbers by more than 50 percent only a couple of months later?"
I nodded. "And just when Bush and Cheney need the bump in jobs, after the Democratic primaries are done and the Dems arent getting the media attention, when its time to start campaigning, he gets you guys to do that. So even if Greenspan increases interest rates a little from here until November, it wont be enough to make most people notice. Most people will welcome the seemingly more jobs."
"Yeah, the jobs that are mostly created in India and China and Asia and on our computer files and some blackboards stashed deep within the bunkers under the White House."
"Bunkers? So thats what all that construction around the White House is about? Theyre digging deeper bunkers to protect them from atomic bombs or something?"
At that, he stood up to leave. "Thats another story, my friend. Watch your back."
Before I could tell him to do the same, he was gone, as if he disappeared into the night mist.
I just sat there staring into my reflection in the table. Was he a patriotic whistle-blower with a conscience who wanted to do his part to stop the neo-con empire? Or was he a self-serving bureaucrat sent over by Rove to blow some more smoke towards me to further confuse the issue?
All I knew for sure was that it was just another night inside the beltway, and I had too much on my mind, as usual. Hell, I knew a long time ago the Labor Department fabricated its figures. But if only I could find that secret passageway into the White House bunkers, then Id have a real story to tell
..
[i][b]Jackson Thoreau is an American writer and co-author of [u]We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House[/u]. The 120,000-word electronic book can be downloaded on his Internet site at http://www.geocities.com/jack... He is working on another book, [u]The Strange Death of the Woman Who Filed a Rape Lawsuit Against Bush & Other Things the Bush Administration Doesn't Want You to Know[/u]. Some chapters from that can be read at http://www.geocities.com/jack... He can be contacted at jacksonthor@yahoo.com or jacksonthor@justice.com[/b][/i].
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| Bush & Rice Were Warned About Al Qaeda Attacks Upon US Before 9/11 And Did Nothing ... |
| 04.10.04 (9:19 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" must finally conclude that Bush isn't fit to be President because he lacks the mental capacity and the moral fortitude to lead our nation. Condi Rice is over-rated, complaisant and corrupt, and is unfit to be National Security Adviser ... Perhaps Rice should be switched-over to the role of Presidential Best Buddy ([i]so that Bush has someone to watch football games with [/i]...) because despite the neo-orwellian propaganda spin, she simply isn't that smart and certainly isn't sufficiently competent to "connect-the-dots" or even follow-up on specific warnings or threats. -- We need a President who has the intellect and the morality to ask the right questions & follow-up ([i]instead of lining his own pocket with ill-gotten war-profits[/i]), and we need a National Security Adviser who actually does his/her job instead of[i] sucking up to the boss [/i]in order to gain favors, ego-massaging plaudits and goodies.[/b]
When the moment came to protect our nation, these neo-con bunglers and crooks in the neo-fascist Bush regime miserably failed us http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... ... Instead, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Wolfowitz and the rest of these neo-con liars, traitors and war criminals were obsessed with illegally & immorally invading Iraq for oil and global hegemony ... Just ask Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc. who have gorged on gluttonous war-profits, while our U.S. soldiers, men and women, and innocent Iraqi civilians are being slaughtered daily and our war-debts ([i]embezzled from the US taxpayer & funnelled to the rapacious Bushies and their greedy corporate cronies[/i]) are mounting with no end in sight ...
Tragically, the 9/11 [i]Whitewash[/i] Commission has given the traitorous Bush gang [i]'a pass' [/i]and despite the overwhelming evidence, Bush, Cheney, Rice and their neo-con cabal are let [i]'off-the-hook' [/i]for their negligence, malfeasance and corruption ... Let "We the People" finally hold the vile neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta [/i]accountable and [i]oust [/i]them in November ...
Consider "[b]Briefing on Al Qaeda Included Specifics[/b]" by [i]Walter Pincus and Dan Eggen[/i], Washington Post, on http://www.washingtonpost.com... :
[u][b]White House Says Declassification of Pre-9/11 Document Will Be Delayed[/b][/u]
The classified briefing delivered to President Bush five weeks before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks featured information about ongoing al Qaeda activities within the United States, including signs of a terror support network, indications of hijacking preparations and plans for domestic attacks using explosives, according to sources who have seen the document and a review of official accounts and media reports over the past two years.
The information on current threats in the briefing, titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," stands in contrast to repeated assertions by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and other Bush administration officials as recently as this week that the document is primarily historical and includes no warning or threat information.
The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, which has demanded that the 11/2-page document be declassified, referred to it in a March 24 report as "an article for the president's daily intelligence brief on whether or how terrorists might attack the United States."
White House officials, after indicating Thursday that the briefing document could be declassified within a day, announced yesterday that they were delaying any release until at least next week.
"We are actively working on declassification and are not quite ready to put it out," said Sean McCormack, a spokesman for the National Security Council. He attributed the delay to "unprecedented activity" needed to prepare for public release the article from the Aug. 6, 2001, President's Daily Brief (PDB), the daily report of significant new intelligence and analysis provided the chief executive and his most senior national security advisers.
Also yesterday, the panel met for a three-hour interview with former vice president Al Gore. The session followed a similar meeting Thursday with former president Bill Clinton, who defended his decision not to retaliate after the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen because the FBI and the CIA had not formally linked the attack to al Qaeda at that time.
The commission said in a statement that Gore "was candid and forthcoming." The panel is arranging a joint private meeting with President Bush and Vice President Cheney. None of the meetings are under oath and all are likely to remain secret, officials said.
Because the Aug. 6, 2001, PDB in dispute has not been released publicly, it is impossible to be precise about its contents or the context in which it was delivered. Yet much of the information in the document has become public over the last two years through testimony, official accounts and news reports.
Newspaper articles in May 2002 noted the briefing document's alarming title and reported that the PDB mentioned al Qaeda members living in the United States and others traveling in and out of the country. A July 2003 report from a House-Senate inquiry into intelligence failures said the PDB found that al Qaeda "apparently maintained a support structure" inside the United States.
The same report also said the PDB mentioned "FBI judgments about patterns of activity consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attack," and included intelligence acquired in May 2001 that "indicated a group of bin Laden supporters was planning attacks in the United States with explosives."
Rice added in testimony on Thursday that the document says the FBI had 70 ongoing field investigations related to suspected al Qaeda cells or operatives. During the same hearing, Democratic commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste said the PDB reported "that al Qaeda members have resided or traveled to the United States for years and maintained a support system in the U.S."
Since details about the briefing first surfaced in May 2002, Rice and other administration officials have repeatedly sought to play down its importance and to suggest that it contained little information about current threats or, at first, to even acknowledge that it was focused on domestic attacks.
During a White House briefing with reporters on May 16, 2002, Rice referred to the briefing as "an analytic report" that "did not have warning information in it of the kind that said they are talking about an attack against so forth or so on." She added that it was about Osama bin Laden's "methods of operation" that "talked about what he had done historically, in 1997, in 1998."
Rice and other officials did not disclose at that time that the briefing included information about ongoing FBI field investigations, possible preparations for hijackings or other contemporary material.
Even the briefing's heading is a matter of minor disagreement. Then-White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters on May 17, 2002, that the briefing was titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike the United States," while Rice testified Thursday that it was "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." Numerous sources said in 2002 and this week that the correct title is "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."
Rice emphasized in her testimony Thursday that the PDB included "a long section on what bin Laden had wanted to do -- speculative, much of it -- in '97, '98, that he had in fact liked the results of the 1993 [World Trade Center] bombing."
"The president was told this is historic information," Rice said.
But Democratic commissioner Jamie S. Gorelick, a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, said in an interview yesterday that Rice ignores the importance of more current information that was also included in the August 2001 document.
"She is right in a sense that it does not contain a warning per se," said Gorelick, one of only three commissioners who have seen the CIA-prepared PDB as part of a special deal with the White House. "She is also wrong in that it is not just an analytical piece. . . . It is a summary of what the agency knew that gave them reason to believe bin Laden wanted to attack the United States."
Another commissioner, Republican John F. Lehman, a former Navy secretary, is one of seven commissioners who have seen only a summary of the PDB. He said the current information within it is not particularly specific.
"On the FBI's part of it, it says don't worry about it, we've got 70 field investigations going," Lehman said. "That's the tone of it. . . . I found it to be net favorable to the president, which is why I can't understand why they were so restrictive in the first place to letting us have access to it."
The Sept. 11 commission, which has been at the center of a political storm over the last two weeks, is gearing up for another round of explosive hearings here Tuesday and Wednesday. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and their predecessors, Janet Reno and Louis J. Freeh, are expected to defend their anti-terrorism efforts when they testify.
Former FBI acting director Thomas J. Pickard, who will also testify, has told the commission in private that Ashcroft had little interest in terrorism in the summer of 2001, numerous sources have said. Thomas H. Kean, the panel's Republican chairman, said in an interview yesterday that "the hearing will focus very closely on the failures by the FBI and many others" prior to the attacks.
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| ... ???Condi Rice Blames Ronald Reagan for 9/11??? ... |
| 04.09.04 (7:10 pm) [edit] |
[b]Apparently, nothing that happens on the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] '[u]watch[/u]' is the neo-con Bushies' responsibility ... It is always someone else's fault ... [i]How convenient [/i]...[/b]
"We the People" have been[i] ruthlessly misled, swindled and defrauded [/i]by the neo-fascist Bush regime, [i]out of the lives[/i] of our fellow citizens (as well as innocent Iraqi civilians), and also[i] out of hundreds of billions of US taxpayer dollars[/i], that otherwise could have been used to improve the lives of our people and our nation ...
Consider "[b]Newsview: [i]Rice Seeks to Shift Blame[/i][/b]" by [i]Tom Raum[/i], Associated Press, Guardian UK, on http://www.guardian.co.uk/wor...,1280,-3956223,00.html :
Condoleezza Rice offered little new information about the days leading up to Sept. 11, and instead determinedly shifted blame from the White House to a two-decade failure in the way U.S. intelligence fought terrorism.
From her opening statement to the occasional clashes with members during three hours of testimony Thursday, [i]President Bush's national security adviser stuck closely to her message that blame for America's worst terror attack rested with administrations dating to Ronald Reagan[/i].
The FBI and CIA failed to talk to share intelligence. Administrations had an ``allergy'' to doing the type of domestic intelligence gathering needed to thwart attacks on U.S. soil. Military solutions weren't aggressively considered.
``The terrorists were at war with us, but we were not yet at war with them,'' Rice told the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
That was precisely the message the White House wanted as Bush heads into a tight election campaign in which he is touting his role as commander of the war on terror.
No matter how commission members pressed questions suggesting Bush had enough warning signs to see Sept. 11 coming, Rice did not yield and did not fluster. Her performance earned praise from the panel's Democratic vice chairman, Lee Hamilton.
``I don't think we asked her any questions that threw her at all. She was very articulate,'' Hamilton said. ``I especially appreciated the tone of her statement. She was not in any way vindictive. She was constructive.''
Following a little over a week after her former counterterrorism aide Richard Clarke portrayed the Bush administration as slow to reacting to the terrorist threat, Rice did not personally attack him.
Instead, she often drew different conclusions about the same sets of facts. Most frequently, she pointed to problems inside the FBI and CIA.
``What we do know is that we did have a systemic problem, a structural problem between the FBI and the CIA,'' the president's national security adviser told the commission investigating the 2001 terror attacks.
``This country, for reasons of history and culture and therefore law, had an allergy to the notion of domestic intelligence, and we were organized on that basis,'' she said. ``It just made it very hard to have all of the pieces come together.''
In her three hours on the hot seat, Rice offered little new information on actions taken - and not taken - by the Bush administration in the weeks and days leading up to the attacks in New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people.
But it is unlikely that her appearance will cause additional political damage to the White House.
``She has survived, which was her main goal. She's done more than that,'' said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. ``The average American in looking at this will have a favorable impression of her that's going to override whatever contradictions may remain.''
Rice's initial refusal to testify drew heavy criticism from Democrats and many Republicans.
Rice disputed Clarke's claim that Bush pressed him to find a link to Iraq on the day after the terror attacks.
She said she did not recall such a discussion between Bush and Clarke, but ``I'm quite certain the president never pushed anybody to twist the facts.''
``It is not surprising that the president would say 'What about Iraq?''' she added.
Her testimony did nothing to challenge information developed by the panel that the administration ``was a little lax'' in dealing with terrorism threats before Sept. 11, said Michael O'Hanlon, a scholar with the Brookings Institution.
``Let's face it, it was not their finest hour,'' he said. But he added that there is also no evidence that anything proposed by Clarke or the Clinton administration would have prevented the attacks.
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| American Support Eroding For Bush On Neo-Con Iraqi Fiasco ... |
| 04.09.04 (2:09 pm) [edit] |
[b]Bush's Iraq War is a neo-con fiasco spinning [i]wildly out of control[/i], with increased violence resulting in the horrendous massacre of our US Soldiers & Innocent Iraqi Civilians ... [/b]Even the U.S. Military Leaders are [i]extremely nervous [/i]with U.S. Commander John Abizaid publicly indicating that he refuses to be the "fall guy" http://www.tblog.com/template... for the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] reckless incompetence and wanton corruption that has led to a bloody guerrilla quagmire with a mounting daily death toll, misery, mayhem and chaos ... and [i]no end in sight [/i]to the bloodshed and the wasteful squandering of U.S. taxpayer dollars embezzled and funnelled into the rapacious Bush/Cheney corporate cronies' [i]bulging pockets[/i]: Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc. ...
"We the People" are slowly but surely turning against the corrupt Bush regime's [i]Crimes Against Humanity[/i], and we should refuse to sanction their wanton corruption and gluttonous grab for power and riches,[i] off of the blood, sweat and heart-breaking tears, misery and lives [/i]of innocent civilians and U.S. Soldiers [i]abused as the neo-con, neo-fascist's cannon-fodder [/i]... while these insane and cowardly Bush [i]arm-chair-chicken-hawk s never themselves fight in their own wars[/i], but instead send [i]others to war, others to fight, others to die [/i] in order to empower and enrich themselves ... [i]Oh[/i], and Dubya[i] is having fun playing cowboy[/i], on [i]vacation [/i]at his Crawford Palace!!! http://www.tblog.com/template... ...
[b]As violence and US casualties mount in Iraq, President Bush is facing a precarious political situation at home - and a potentially critical moment in the presidential campaign[/b].
Current polls suggest that public opinion on the conflict could be approaching a tipping point. While Americans have always been divided over the war, a majority has consistently held that the US made the right decision in deposing Saddam Hussein. But some polls now find a majority disapproving of Mr. Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq, and, according to a recent Pew survey, a sizable margin believes the administration does not have a plan to bring the conflict to a successful conclusion. The number of Americans calling for the troops to come home is rising, with just a bare majority now favoring keeping US troops in the region.
Bush has warned all along that the mission in Iraq would be long and difficult. He has also stressed that Iraq is a central front in the war on terror, and that success there is integral to America's safety - a view that has been key to maintaining public resolve.
But the president's decision to go to war has come under increasing fire in recent weeks, with officials such as former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke charging that the effort in Iraq has actually undermined the war on terror.
As the situation on the ground has deteriorated, some Republicans, such as Sen. Richard Lugar, are questioning the administration's plan for turning over power to Iraqis, while Democrats such as Sen. Ted Kennedy are comparing the situation to Vietnam.
If unrest continues, public support for the mission could quickly crumble - and the political consequences for Bush could be severe.
"Opinion is very fluid right now," says Carroll Doherty, editor of the Pew Research Report. "There's a sense that things are perhaps spinning out of control - and that's a very dangerous perception."
[b]A changing framework [/b]
White House allies say the current spate of violence in Iraq was to be expected as the June 30 deadline for transition of power approached, with angry minorities trying to thwart the launch of a democracy. They also say that the political landscape here will be affected much more by that pivotal event than by the various ups and downs of preceding months.
"Certainly, the news that has been coming out of Iraq has been disconcerting, and it's going to impact how people are thinking," says David Winston, a Republican pollster. "But, ultimately, the way they're going to judge this is by how the transition occurs."
The situation is markedly different from Vietnam, he adds, because Americans see the Iraq effort as part of the overall war against terrorism - and therefore feel they have a greater stake in the outcome. "Because of 9/11, this is not an abstraction. We can be attacked on our own soil, and that has created a very different context in terms of how we view things overseas."
But others argue that the Vietnam threat - the spread of communism - was actually more frightening to Americans than the threat posed by Iraq, particularly given the fact that no link has been established between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have been found.
To a San Francisco fireman passing through Chicago's O'Hare airport, this is another Vietnam. Buying a newspaper from one of the vending boxes that line the terminal, some with inch-high headlines on the newest battles in Fallujah, this Democrat in a blue work shirt says the war "was falling apart before it even got started." People are dying for no reason, he continues, "and I suspect whoever replaces Saddam Hussein will be as bad or worse. We have no right being there."
[b]'Doing what we should be' [/b]
That said, many stalwart supporters of Bush and the war are unfazed. Connie Perreira, having breakfast with her husband on their way to their daughter's graduation from boot camp in Fort Jackson, is confident that "We're doing what we should be doing." Whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction, says the registered Independent, "They're taking care of the human rights issue." The death of American troops "makes me sad. But it has to be expected. That's war."
Still, if violence continues even after the transition, Americans could become increasingly impatient with the US occupation. "If there's a handoff and Americans still continue to die, then I think there will be a big erosion" of support, says John Mueller, an expert on war and public opinion at Ohio State University.
United Airlines worker Craig Pecora says his attitude - both on Bush and on the war - is already changing. Taking tickets for a plane bound for Wichita, Kansas, plane, the Republican says the whole enterprise is moving too slowly. "I thought it would take two or three months. I'm getting more impatient.... I'm glad we went in, but we just need to get it done."
[b]Bush critiques and imperatives [/b]
The two primary critiques of Bush are these: By alienating allies, he has forced the US to bear virtually all the costs of the war in lives and dollars, and, more important, he seems to have no road map for bringing US troops home. The longer American troops stay in Iraq after the transition takes place, the more frustrated the public will get, critics predict. "People are going to say: Finally [Iraqis] took control, but we still can't get out," says Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster.
To some extent, that sentiment may already be starting to take hold, now that the Pentagon is planning to extend tours of duty.
Still, while the public may be growing less happy with Bush's stewardship of the situation, it's not clear that his rival, Sen. John Kerry, will necessarily benefit.
While Kerry has criticized the president's handling of the conflict and said he would work to bring in more support from allies, Republicans charge that the Massachusetts senator has not offered specifics on how he would handle the situation differently.
The imperative for Bush in coming weeks will be to make clear that he does have a plan, say analysts. Americans will often support their president through foreign policy challenges - even crises - as long as they feel confident that he has a decisive solution to the problem.
"When there doesn't seem to be a decisive response from the top, that's when support erodes," says David Perlmutter, a professor at the Reilly Center for Media and Public Affairs at Louisiana State University.
[u][b]The take on Richard Clarke: To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement[/b][/u]:
"[u][b]By invading Iraq, the Bush administration has neglected* the war on terrorism[/b][/u]."
Agree strongly 20 %
Agree somewhat 18
Disagree somewhat 23
Disagree strongly 35
* [i]Clarke said Bush, by invading, had 'greatly undermined' the war on terrorism[/i].
[u][b]Majority now thinks Bush is handling Iraq poorly:
How would you grade President Bush's performance in handling the Iraq situation?[/b][/u]
[u][b]January 2004 - April 2004[/b][/u]
Excellent 29 % - 21 %
Good 24 - 21
Average 16 - 15
Poor 13 - 15
Unacceptable 16 - 28
[b]Sources:[/b]
"Support eroding for Bush on Iraq", By Liz Marlantes, The Christian Science Monitor on http://www.csmonitor.com/2004...
Christian Science Monitor/TIPP polls - http://www.csmonitor.com/2004...
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| U.S. Commander In Iraq Refuses To Be Corrupt Bush/Cheney's "Fall Guy"!!! |
| 04.09.04 (12:23 pm) [edit] |
[b]A looming disaster is facing us in the tragedy engulfing Iraq, due to the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]reckless disregard for intelligence warnings, historical truths, the rule of law, democracy, life-and-liberty and basic human decency ... [/b]The corrupt Bush regime waged their illegal and immoral neo-con, neo-fascist war-turned-bloody-guerril la-quagmire based upon myriad lies, deceptions and falsehoods, in order to enrich their corporate paymasters: Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc. ... and to install their neo-feudal Global Corporate Empire ...
Meanwhile, those unfortunate souls who are taking orders from these [i]cowardly neo-con thugs: neo-fascist arm-chair chicken-hawks who are willing to destroy the lives of others in wars they themselves are too cowardly to fight [/i]... are now [i]coming out of the closet and blowing the whistle [/i]on the liars, war criminals and traitors in the traitorous Bush regime ... http://www.tblog.com/template...
"We the People" should demand that Congress http://www.congress.org call for[i] impeachment hearings [/i]in order to oust Bush & Cheney, and publicly record for posterity that the insane neo-con, neo-fascist Bush regime did[i] not [/i]wage their blood-thirsty campaigns of horror [i]in our names [/i]...
Consider "[b]US commander will not take blame for unrest[/b]" by [i]David Rennie in Washington[/i], UK Telegraph, on http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne... :
America's top commander in Iraq has warned Washington that he will not be "the fall guy" if violence in the country worsens, it emerged yesterday, as word leaked out that US generals are "outraged" by their lack of soldiers.
America's generals consider current troop strengths of 130,000 in Iraq inadequate, reported the columnist Robert Novak, a doyen of the old-school [i]Right in Washington[/i].
Gen John Abizaid, commander of Central Command, told his political masters earlier this week that he would ask for reinforcements if requested by the generals under him. His words overrode months of public assurances from the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and other civilian chiefs that more troops are not necessary.
As violence flared across the Sunni triangle and the Shia-dominated south of Iraq on Wednesday, Mr Rumsfeld indicated that troop numbers would be bolstered at least temporarily, by leaving in place units that had been earmarked to return home as part of troop rotation, while still sending replacements.
But officers who will not speak out in public let it be known that major reinforcements might be impossible to find. US forces are so overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan that "there are simply no large units available and suitable for assignment", Novak wrote in his column in [i]The Washington Post[/i].
The leaks have revived memories of the bitter debate that raged in Washington in the run-up to the Iraq war, as uniformed chiefs clashed with Mr Rumsfeld and his aides, who predicted that US forces would be welcomed as "liberators", allowing troop numbers to be reduced rapidly.
Relations between the uniformed military and the Pentagon's civilian chiefs are currently worse than at any time in living memory, Novak wrote, citing a former high-ranking national security official who served in previous Republican administrations.
Many still in uniform bitterly recall the public dressing-down earned by the then army chief of staff, Gen Eric Shinseki, when he told Congress a month before the invasion, in February 2003, that "several hundred thousand troops" might be needed to occupy Iraq.
That estimate was slapped down as "wildly off the mark" by the deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz. Thomas White, the army secretary and a former general himself, publicly backed Gen Shinseki. Mr White was sacked shortly afterwards by Mr Rumsfeld.
A new account of the war, In the Company of Soldiers, reveals that in May 2003 Pentagon planners "predicted that US troop levels would be down to 30,000 by late summer [of 2003]".
Underlining the mood of crisis, private security contractors in Iraq - many of them US and British military veterans - have abruptly dropped professional rivalries and begun sharing information and even resources, creating what US officials called the largest private army in the world.
Such co-operation was born out of unhappy necessity, a source at one of the leading security companies said, criticising the Pentagon and occupation officials for failing to share intelligence on threats with guards they had hired to protect everything from power stations to the chief US administrator, Paul Bremer.
Information sharing is being made easier by the close ties in the special forces community, where many British, US and other western military commandos have known each other for years.
"The unfortunate thing is it had to happen this way," said the industry source. "This informal communication is necessitated by lack of communications and intelligence sharing between the Pentagon, Coalition Provisional Authority and private security."
A South African working for a British security firm, Hart Group, was killed on Tuesday in the town of Kut, after coalition forces from Ukraine failed to respond to repeated pleas for help from a small group of besieged guards.
Asked if private security firms were working together because they trusted each other more than some coalition militaries, the industry source declined to comment, saying: "Let's not go there."
Refer also to "[b]A coalition showing signs of fracture - Insurgents are targeting forces of smaller countries exposing the weaknesses in the Pentagon's plans[/b]" on http://politics.guardian.co.u...,12956,1188904,00.html
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| George W. Bush: No Sense of Urgency, Vacationing at Crawford ... |
| 04.09.04 (7:48 am) [edit] |
[b]George W. Bush has no sense of urgency ... [/b]The situation in Iraq is [i]deteriorating rapidly[/i] and [i]spinning out of control[/i], as U.S. Soldiers and innocent Iraqi civilians are being slaughtered daily, in Bush's Neo-Fascist War for Oil & Global Hegemony ... Their Bloody Fiasco, a Guerrilla Quagmire in Iraq is the consequence of the insane Neo-Cons' illegal and immoral warfare for war-profiteering, waged based upon[i] heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods[/i], for which the Bush regime should be[i] impeached [/i]from office ...
From a Friday [i]Washington Post [/i]story http://www.washingtonpost.com... on the degenerating situation in Iraq ...
"[i]This is Bush's 33rd visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of 233 days on his Texas ranch since taking office, according to a tally by CBS News. Adding his 78 visits to Camp David and his five visits to Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush has spent all or part of 500 days in office at one of his three retreats, or more than 40 percent of his presidency[/i]."
and this ...
"[i]Bush spent the morning watching national security adviser Condoleezza Rice's televised testimony to the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, then toured his ranch with Wayne LaPierre Jr., chief executive of the National Rifle Association, and other leaders of hunting groups and gave an interview to Ladies' Home Journal. He is not scheduled to appear in public until Sunday, when he will visit nearby Fort Hood, the home base for seven soldiers recently killed in Baghdad[/i]."
Vacation gibes are usually unfair. But with the situation in Iraq so critical, shouldn't the president be at the White House? It's a full-time job, and comes with a decent salary. But, isn't his over-privileged[i] negligence in refusing to do his duty [/i]the pattern of George W. Bush's spoiled life?
"We the People" should be[i] ashamed of ourselves [/i]for not calling upon Congress http://www.congress.org to demand the [i]impeachment [/i]of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rove, Rumsfeld, Powell, Wolfowitz and the rest of their neo-con gang of neo-fascist crooks ...
[b]Sources:[/b]
Joshua Micah Marshall, Talking Points Memo, http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
"Powell Calls U.S. Casualties 'Disquieting'", http://www.washingtonpost.com...
"Losing touch with reality", http://www.guardian.co.uk/lea...,3604,1188811,00.html
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| Condi Rice Didn't Give The Truth, The Whole Truth & Nothing But The Truth!!! |
| 04.08.04 (2:42 pm) [edit] |
[i]"[Rice] offered Bush's simplistic explanation for 9/11: "they attacked us for who we are, for no other reason." That's a rather unsophisticated view for a foreign policy scholar who could be expected to know that bin Laden and al Qaeda have strategic aims (perverse as they are) to establish a fundamentalist theocracy stretching across Arabia and see the United States (which supports governments they oppose, such as in Saudi Arabia and Israel) as an obstacle and an enemy. She also took the occasion to cheerlead for the war in Iraq, claiming that by striking Iraq the administration attacked the threat of terrorism "at its source." How was Iraq the source of the terrorist threat posed by al Qaeda? She did not say." [/i] - http://www.thenation.com/capi...
[b]National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice did not adhere to the spirit of the oath she took today... She[i] lied[/i]... She[i] misled[/i]... She[i] obfuscated[/i]... She [i]filibustered... [/i] http://www.americanprogress.o... Rice Did Not [u]Give the Truth, the Whole Truth & Nothing But the Truth[/u] ...[/b] Refer to "[b]Rice on the Stand[/b]" by [i]David Corn[/i], The Nation, on http://www.thenation.com/capi...
But Condi Rice is indeed skilled at tap-dancing the [i]Washington Two-Step!!! ... or Side-Step??? ...[/i] "We the People" were [i]not served well [/i]by Condi Rice today ...
Not surprising, Dr. Condoleezza Rice's testimony in front of the 9/11 Commission contained no fireworks, no bombshells and no surprise revelations. Those who were thinking Rice would break down on the stand have seen too many episodes of Law & Order. Listening to Rice's non-answers and to a few of the commissioners trying to get tough with her -- most notably Richard Ben-Veniste -- it was clear that Rice is skilled at the old Washington two-step: deny and shift the blame, in this case, to the Clinton administration.
Rice, like the rest of the Bush administration, has been quick to point out that the Bush crew had only been on the job for days. Did Clinton and his cronies go on national television and blame the first Bush administration for intelligence failures in the first World Trade Center attack? He sure didn't -- but he very well could have, since at the time of the bombing, Clinton had been in office for a little over a month.
One thing is clear from Rice's testimony: perhaps we should take seriously this Bob Kerrey for Vice President chatter. Kerrey was the only one to take a swipe at Rice, asking for definitions to the terminology she was throwing around and that the other commission members were swallowing at will. Kerry questioned Rice when she asserted that the Bush administration was "swatting flies" when it came to fighting terrorism; a phrase designed to show that Bush was thinking about al-Qaeda all the time. Kerrey simply asked: when did the Bush administration swat flies?
If you know anything about Bob Kerrey you know that he doesn't back down and that he is tough as nails. Dick Cheney surely wouldn't be able to get away with some of the language he's used to justify the war in Iraq and the classification of energy task force documents if he were debating Kerrey. The former senator, governor, and now university president, is a war hero who lost a limb in Vietnam; and more importantly for Democrats, he hails from fly-over and perennial GOP state Nebraska. ([i]Greg Joseph[/i]) - http://www.alternet.org/elect...
[b]Also refer to [i]The Center for American Progress' [/i]report on Rice's Testimony on[/b] http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| August 6, 2001: Bush Administration Warned 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States' |
| 04.08.04 (10:58 am) [edit] |
[b]August 6, 2001: [u]Bush Administration Warned 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States'[/u][/b]
Two and a half years after 9/11, the American public learned today that President Bush received explicit warnings that Osama bin Laden was planning to attack the United States including activities "consistent with preparations for hijacking." Yet, there was no domestic follow-up by the Bush administration. No high level meetings. No sense of urgency. No warnings to FBI agents across the country.
[b]1. We now know why the Bush administration has been hiding the Aug. 6, 2001, intelligence briefing for the president, called "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." [/b]All of the 9/11 Commission members Republicans and Democrats have asked the Bush administration to declassify this document. There are precedents for releasing presidential daily briefings and the American public deserves to know what President Bush knew and when.
[b]2. We also learned that there appears to have been no response to explicit and repeated warnings about al Qaeda attacks.[/b] National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's claim that the FBI sent warnings to field offices was directly disputed by commissioners who said they had conducted thousands of interviews and reviewed thousands of documents. Their conclusion: no one at the FBI can recall such orders.
[b]3. Today's hearing also confirmed evidence that the administration had done little or nothing to combat the terrorist threat between Jan. 20, 2001, and Sept. 10, 2001. [/b]Rice repeatedly used the claim that the administration was developing a "strategic approach" as an excuse for not acting. There was no response to the bombing of the USS Cole that claimed 17 American lives and the administration tried to cut counterterrorism funding.
"We the People" must [i]wake-up to the fact [/i]the traitorous Bush gang including Rice, are all neo-con liars and neo-fascist war-profiteers-cum-traito rs who act to [i]service[/i] their real bosses: The Bush Crime Family ... It is time to call upon Congress http://www.congress.org to[i] impeach [/i]the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta [/i]...
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| Important Questions That The 9/11 Commission 'Won't Ask/Isn't Asking' Queen Condi Rice!!! |
| 04.08.04 (8:10 am) [edit] |
[b]The 9/11[i] Whitewash [/i]Commission is tragically pandering to Queen Condi Rice ... [/b]Condi Rice an over-rated, fast-talking neo-con[i] liar-cum-traitor [/i]...
"We the People" should demand that Congress http://www.congress.org commence with[i] impeachment [/i]hearings, as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Wolfowitz, Rice and their neo-con, neo-fascists are all liars, war criminals and traitors to our great nation ...
[b][u]Important Questions Condoleezza Rice Won't Be Asked[/u][/b] - http://www.americanprogress.o...
[b]Why was it in our national interests for the Administration to facilitate the evacuation of Bin Laden family members and other prominent Saudis from the United States in the days immediately following 9/11?[/b]
While hundreds of other Arabs living in the United States were rounded up and detained after 9/11, raising concerns from civil liberties advocates, the Bush Administration authorized members of the Bin Laden family and other prominent Saudis to leave the country without first undergoing FBI interviews. In one instance, members of the Bin Laden family were allowed to leave the country on a private jet out of the very airport where two of the hijacked 9/11 planes had departed just days earlier (See Craig Unger's article, "[u]Saving the Saudis[/u]," in the October 2003 issue of [i]Vanity Fair[/i]).
[b]Knowing that Afghanistan was a hotbed of terrorism, why didn't the Administration do more prior to 9/11 to increase security or plan to remove the Taliban?[/b]
Although the Administration knew that the Taliban were hosting al-Qaida recruits in Afghanistan and severely oppressing the Afghan people, the White House didn't adopt formal policies to combat the Taliban or al-Qaida in the country until just before 9/11. The Administration also failed to fly Predator drones unmanned aerial vehicles often used for reconnaissance over Afghanistan during its first eight months in office.
[b]Follow-up: Knowing Afghanistan is a hotbed for terrorism, why hasn't the Administration done more since 9/11 to increase security and promote stability in Afghanistan?[/b]
With the Administration shifting the majority of its focus to Iraq over the past year, Afghanistan is still not secure or free from terrorism today. Taliban attacks are on the rise, security is virtually non-existent outside Kabul, elections have been postponed, and the country produced three quarters of the world's illicit opium in 2003. The United Nations Development Program warned recently that Afghanistan is at risk for reverting to a "terrorist breeding ground" if more is not done.
[b]Despite its obsession with Iraq before 9/11, immediately after 9/11 and since 9/11, why did the Administration fail to plan for the post-conflict transition in Iraq?[/b]
Six days after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush signed a secret directive ordering the Pentagon to begin drawing up Iraq invasion plans. Eighteen months later, the U.S. launched the attack on Iraq. During that entire time period, no adequate plan for securing and rebuilding post-conflict Iraq was put in place by the Administration, and internal planning by the State Department and CIA was ignored.
As [i]American Progress [/i]notes, http://www.americanprogress.o... there is still no plan for the post-handover administration of Iraq, militias have not been disarmed and continue to attack U.S. troops, adequate numbers of Iraqi army and police forces have yet to be trained, and the U.S. continues to bear the brunt of reconstruction costs despite the funds pledged at the October donors conference. Violence and insecurity continue to rock the country and claim U.S. lives.
[b]What took so long for the Administration to agree to allow the 9/11 Commission to review thousands of pages of Clinton Administration records containing information about efforts against al-Qaida?[/b]
The Administration was withholding almost 75% of the pages of the Clinton records from the 9/11 Commission until its recent agreement to allow the Commission to review the documents was spurred by Commission members' protests. Although the White House has finally relented to a review, it hasn't agreed to let the Commission have copies of the documents.
[b]If we have more questions in the course of our investigation, would you be willing to come testify under oath again?[/b]
In exchange for Dr. Rice's testimony, the White House forced the Commission to "accept in writing that it will not request additional public testimony from any White House official, including Dr. Rice." Thus, the American public will not be able to explore any serious questions arising from new developments that might show contradictions or conflicts with statements made by White House officials. Furthermore, the White House insisted on the Commission's private meeting with the President to be held jointly with the Vice President.
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress on http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| Operation Iraqi Bloodbath: US Prepares Reprisals Against Uprising |
| 04.07.04 (4:24 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" are now witness to the tragedy of Operation Iraqi Bloodbath ... [/b]Dubya has created a [i]nightmarish fiasco [/i]in Iraq, whereby a bloody guerrilla quagmire has inevitably started to[i] blow-up [/i]into a heinous conflagration ... Instead of fighting the [i]real [/i]terrorists, Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, [i]in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack upon the US[/i]-- Dubya and his neo-con cabal of liars, thieves and traitors, waged their insane illegal and immoral war upon Iraq ([i]on behalf of their war-profiteers ... and for global hegemony[/i])-- Dubya's [i]disastrous blunder [/i]has resulted in the unnecessary deaths of over 630 US Soldiers and over 10,000-15,000 innocent Iraqi Civilians ...
"We the People" must demand that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Wolfowitz, and their neo-con, neo-fascist gang of war criminals be put on trial for [i]Crimes Against Humanity [/i]...
Refer to "[b]Operation Iraqi Bloodbath: [i]US prepares reprisals against uprising[/i][/b]" by [i]James Conachy[/i] on http://www.wsws.org/articles/... :
The invasion of Iraq last year was christened Operation Iraqi Freedom in an attempt to deflect from the utterly predatory and criminal character of US ambitions in the Middle East. Twelve months later, as American troops prepare to close in on the Shiite youth who have taken up arms against them in Baghdad and other cities, and marines prepare reprisals against the city of Fallujah, a more apt name would be Operation Iraqi Bloodbath.
As the situation stood on Monday night, an arrest warrant has been issued by the US Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) against the religious leader of the Shiite uprising, 31-year-old cleric Moqtada Sadr. Along with many of his most senior associates, he has been accused of responsibility for the killing of a Shiite cleric in April 2003. No evidence has been provided and the allegation has been repeatedly denied.
Sadr is barricaded inside the main mosque in the city of Kufa. He has issued a statement that he will not leave until the US occupation authority guarantees when foreign forces will leave Iraq and the lifting of the ban on his newspaper Al Hawza. Thousands of his young supporters, both armed and unarmed, are occupying the mosques courtyard and surrounding area to prevent any attempt by the American military to seize him.
In a direct threat against the clerics life, US General Mark Kimmitt told the press yesterday: Whether Sadr decides to come peacefully, or whether he decides to come not peacefullythat choice is the choice of Mister Moqtada Sadr. Kimmitt declared: Individuals who create violence, who incite violence... will be hunted down and captured or killed. Its that simple.
A member of Sadrs Mehdi Army militia told [i]Agence France Presse (AFP) [/i]in Kufa: We are ready to sacrifice our lives for our leader Moqtada if the coalition troops touch a single strand of his hair.
The 500,000 citizens of Fallujah, the Sunni Muslim centre where four American mercenaries were killed and paraded through the streets last week, are waiting for the inevitable re-entry of US troops into the city. The American military has sealed off the roads with earth barricades and imposed a dawn to dusk curfew. [i]Al Jazeera [/i]reported that its journalists have been blocked from entering the city. Helicopters and jet fighters are stalking the sky above.
A force of 1,200 marines and hundreds of Iraqi Civil Defence Corp (ICDC) troops are poised to go in, according to a marine spokesman Lieutenant James Vanzant. The US troops reportedly have lists of addresses they allege are the homes of resistance fighters, or of youth who were involved in parading the mercenaries corpses. Leaflets were distributed throughout the city yesterday warning people to stay inside their homes.
Air strikes were called in Sunday night against a residential area the American military claimed was being used as a mortar base. Five houses were damaged, five civilians killed and a number of others injured. One marine was reportedly killed and several wounded on the fringes of the city by mortar attacks.
A marine colonel told the[i] Los Angeles Times [/i]on the weekend: Fallujah is a barrier on the highway to progress. Were going to eliminate the barrier without damaging the highway.
[b]Reprisal mentality[/b]
The reprisal mentality guiding the American military forces calls to mind nothing less than the conduct of Nazi occupation forces in Europe during World War II. By the end of the war, the very term reprisal had become synonymous with the mass killing of civilian populations supporting popular and legitimate guerilla warfare against the Nazis. Hitler, in answer to the operations of Soviet partisans, for example, issued instructions in 1942 that whatever succeeds is correct. The German military command responded by ordering its occupation troops to use any means, even against women and children, provided they are conducive to success.
The prospect is looming in Iraq for an orgy of killing by US troops, in desperate and murderous efforts to carry out the orders of the Bush administration that they bring the situation under control. Bush declared from North Carolina that the US had to stay the course, and we will stay the course [in Iraq].
He was joined by Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry. While calling again for the involvement of the United Nations and other powers in Iraq, he declared his full support for whatevers necessary to protect our troops that are there and to provide for stability and success. Other leading Democrats have followed suit.
The implications of restoring stability are enormous. Entire swathes of the country are now in a state of revolt over the crackdown against Sadr.
Militiamen have control of the streets of Najaf, where they have taken up positions around one of the holiest sites of the Shiite faith, the mausoleum of Ali. Spanish troops in the area came under what the Spanish Defence Ministry described as sporadic attack from mortar launchers. The Spanish statement declared: The situation in Najaf has been one of high tension. The Iraqi police have reportedly abandoned the city to Sadrs supporters.
In Karbala, Kut, Amara and Basra armed militiamen are also on the streets. So far, British and other occupation forces have avoided a direct confrontation, but gunfire exchanges took place at various times during the day.
In Baghdad, senior members of Sadrs organisation are barricaded inside their headquarters in the eastern Sadr City suburb, which was named after the radical clerics father. American tanks and troops are in battle positions just hundreds of metres away. Militiamen are manning road and rooftop positions and at main intersections leading into the area. When US forces attempted to move toward the headquarters earlier in the day, crowds of unarmed Shiite civilians sat down in the middle of road to block their path, chanting Long live Moqtada.
Fighting flared early Monday in the northwest Baghdad suburb of Shuala. A convoy of US and ICDC troops attempting to enter the area was attacked and one truck set ablaze. According to an unconfirmed report, the ICDC troops joined the militia and turned their guns on the Americans. For the first time since last November, Apache attack helicopters were called in to provide covering fire while the US troops pulled out.
It is now clear that the events on Sunday have already inflicted large numbers of civilian casualties in Baghdad. At least 47 people were killed when US troops opened fire on a pro-Sadr demonstration in the city centre. During the fighting that raged Sunday night in Sadr City, a market and a number of buildings were levelled by American tanks. They came in humvees and we kicked their asses, a 20-year-old youth told[i] United Press International[/i], but after we burned the two humvees, their tanks came late last night and shot everyone.
[i]UPI[/i] reporters saw at least 12 civilian bodies in one hospital, including two children. Doctors claimed at least 12 others had already been taken away by their families. According to militiamen, they did not take their dozens of dead and wounded to the hospitals out of fear they would be arrested.
Doctor Tariq Atham told [i]UPI[/i]: I never saw a more despicable and evil action by the Americans. Even Sharon or Saddam are better. They [the American troops] shot children and women in the face and neck every time.
[b]An illegal occupation[/b]
In the midst of such atrocities, and preparations for even greater ones, CPA head Paul Bremer denounced Sadr yesterday as an outlaw, who was attempting to establish his authority in the place of the legitimate authority.
The only authority Bremer is referring to is the repressive power of the American military. Despite the Islamic fundamentalist perspective of Sadrs organisation, the movement that erupted on Sunday in his name is based among Iraqs urban poor and is motivated by justified, anti-colonial resistance to the American conquest of their country.
No institution created by the US invasion, especially the one Bremer heads, has any political or moral legitimacy, let alone popular support. The war was illegal and conducted on the basis of threadbare liesone of the most threadbare of which, apart from Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction, was that the Iraqi people would welcome foreign invaders as liberators.
The majority of Iraqis have been reduced to unspeakable poverty and deprivation by 13 years of US-led wars and economic sanctions. While still enduring mass unemployment and deprivation, they are witnessing the US attempt to install a puppet government that they do not support and which will give the US control over the countrys energy resources and territory for military bases.
There is a clear element of provocation in the US actions against Sadr. Bremer and the military have sought to push the clericwho has been one of the more vocal critics of the US plans for a puppet regimeinto a corner from which he had no choice but to either completely capitulate or sanction an uprising.
Sadrs newspaper was banned on March 28 for inciting violence, bringing thousands of his supporters into the streets throughout last week in protest. Amidst the turbulence, one of his closest associates was arrested on Saturday on murder charges. The resulting mass protests on Sunday were fired on by coalition troops in both Najaf and Baghdad, leading to the uprising and pitched battles of Sunday night. It is doubtful whether Sadr had any particular control over the course of events.
In a column in todays[i] British Guardian[/i], journalist Naomi Klein posed the obvious question: Why would the US provoke armed resistance in the Shiite population when it is already incapable of suppressing the guerilla war in the Sunni regions of the country?
Klein gave one possible answer: Washington has given up on its plans to hand over power to an interim Iraqi government on June 30, and is creating the chaos it needs to declare the handover impossible. A continued occupation will be bad news for George Bush on the campaign trail, but not as bad as if the hand-over happens and the country erupts, an increasingly likely scenario given the widespread rejection of the legitimacy of the interim constitution and the US-appointed Governing Council.
The speculation is entirely valid. The invasion of Iraq has become a political debacle for the Bush administration. The latest Pew Research opinion poll shows that only 32 percent of Americans believe the White House has a clear plan of what to do in Iraq. Only 50 percent support keeping troops in the country, down from 63 percent in January. Bushs personal approval rating of 43 percent is the lowest the survey has ever registered.
The US political and media establishment, which completely backed the war and is totally committed to continuing the occupation, faces an increasingly skeptical and hostile American public that believes anything Bush says about Iraq is a lie. All that are left are hollow appeals that the US cannot risk the global political consequences of being seen to cut and run in the face of the growing quagmire. The Democrats have stepped forward as the main promoters of this position. The US, Kerry declared yesterday, cannot allow this [Iraq] to end in failure.
The American working class, however, has everything to gain from the failure of the criminal enterprise in Iraq. It is being carried out against their interests, at the expense of their democratic rights and at the cost of hundreds of American, and thousand of Iraqi, lives. The only progressive answer is the immediate and unconditional withdrawal from Iraq of all US and foreign forces.
[b]See Also[/b]:
[u]Shiite uprising erupts against US occupation of Iraq[/u], [5 April 2004], http://www.wsws.org/articles/...
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| Republicans Turn On Bush Over Iraq Debacle ... |
| 04.07.04 (2:57 pm) [edit] |
[b]Conscientious Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike all condemn the imbecilic[i] Useful Idiot [/i]Bush's blood-thirsty neo-con, neo-fascist debacle in Iraq ... [/b]Bush and his corrupt neo-con puppet-masters[i] ruthlessly & recklessly engineered [/i]their immoral and illegal incursion into Iraq over [i]a year ago[/i] (... [i]instead of fighting the Al Qaeda terrorists who attacked the US on 9/11, and who have since expanded their terrorist network [/i]...) ... Meanwhile, Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, the Military Industrial Complex, etc. are amassing [i]gigantic fortunes in blood-money and war-profits[/i], while hundreds of our U.S. Soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians are [i]massacred daily and violently slaughtered [/i]in order that the sluttish Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]pimps become filthy [i]richer and richer and richer [/i]...
"We the People" must reject this vile and despicable display of[i] neo-imperialistic fascism [/i]and call upon Congress http://www.congress.org to [i]impeach[/i] the criminal Bush gang from office ...
Refer to "[b]Uprising in Iraq could derail Bush[/b]" by [i]Julian Borger[/i], Guardian UK, on http://politics.guardian.co.u...,12956,1187439,00.html :
[i][b]As US forces suffer another bloody day, Republicans turn on president [/b][/i]
President George Bush was yesterday struggling to prevent the escalating violence in Iraq from engulfing his re-election campaign, after his worst political week this year triggered bipartisan calls for a rethink of US strategy there.
Fighting spread across the country as the US-led coalition fought a two-front war against Sunni rebels concentrated in the western town of Falluja and a radical Shia uprising in south and central Iraq.
Thirty American soldiers and 130 Iraqis have been killed since the weekend in Falluja, where heavy combat continued last night. Unconfirmed reports said US planes fired rockets yesterday, destroying four houses and killing 26 Iraqis.
US forces confirmed last night that up to 12 marines had been killed in Ramadi, 36 miles west of Falluja. Dozens of Iraqis attacked a US marine position near the governor's palace, a senior US defence official said from Washington.
Early today, the White House responded to the deaths by declaring that US resolve was "unshakable". Its spokesman Scott McClellan said: "We will prevail. The president was told that our troops are performing well. The president is proud of our troops."
In the southern Iraqi town of Amara, British troops killed 15 Iraqis in clashes with followers of the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and another 15 Iraqis died in fighting with Italian troops in Nassiriya. Bulgarian and Polish troops also suffered casualties.
Washington insisted yesterday that US commanders would have all the troops and resources they needed, and Mr Bush signalled once more that he was prepared to stake his presidency on defeating the insurgents. "There are thugs and terrorists in Iraq who are trying to shake our will," the chief White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, told journalists. "And the president is firmly committed to showing resolve and strength ... They cannot shake our will."
However, with even Republicans warning of the imminent danger of a civil war in Iraq, and the administration's handling of the terrorist threat under increasing scrutiny, the president's image as a wartime leader is taking a battering.
The news that Tony Blair is flying to the US next week for consultations has only added to the sense of crisis.
The White House yesterday insisted that the visit to New York and Washington had been planned weeks ago, but conceded that much of the agenda would be consumed by Iraq.
Mr Blair will find a president who is increasingly nervous about his re-election.
Opinion polls show Mr Bush's approval ratings eroding, despite spending $40m (£22m) on campaign advertising in the past month. A survey by the [i]Pew Research Centre [/i]found [i]only 43% of Americans thought the president was doing a good job[/i], down four points from last month and 13 points from January. The poll, taken before the disastrous weekend in Iraq, showed a majority of the population disapproved of the way Mr Bush had handled the situation there.
His national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, will defend his record tomorrow before a public congressional inquiry examining the September 11 attacks, but she will face a sceptical commission which has heard repeated charges that the Bush White House's preoccupation with Iraq overshadowed warnings in 2001 of an imminent al-Qaida attack.
The timing of the commission's hearings has proved a windfall for the Democrats, who have seized on the apparent disarray in the administration's policy.
John Kerry, the party's presidential candidate, said: "It is a mistake to set an arbitrary date, and I hope that date has nothing to do with the elections here in the United States. The test of a turnover of sovereignty is the stability of Iraq."
Edward Kennedy, his fellow Democratic senator from Massachusetts, described Iraq as "George Bush's Vietnam". Paul Bremer, the US governor in Iraq, said: "There is nothing in common with Vietnam." But Republican senator John McCain said Mr Bush should avoid the mistakes of the Vietnam war: "We have to tell the American people that we are in this for the long haul. We cannot say, as we did in Vietnam, that the light is at the end of the tunnel."
Other members of the president's party, raised the alarm over the emergence of the Shia militia and general unravelling of security. Senator Chuck Hagel, told the Washington Post the US was "dangerously close" to losing control in Iraq.
Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, responded to calls for reinforcements by saying that the US military presence in Iraq was unusually high at 135,000.
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| New Evidence Bush Pushed Iraq War Right After 9/11 ... |
| 04.07.04 (2:57 pm) [edit] |
[b]The bloody guerrilla quagmire in Iraq is[i] spinning out of control[/i], with the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]illegal and immoral U.S. Occupation now responsible for massacring many, many innocent Iraqi civilians (... [i]Weren't the traitorous Bushies supposed to be "freeing" the Iraqi people, instead of slaughtering them???[/i] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4... ...) ...[/b]
New evidence is surfacing[i] every day [/i]to demonstrate that "We the People" were [i]mercilessly deceived [/i]and that the ruthlessly insane neo-con, neo-fascist Bushies [i]perpetrated heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods [/i]upon us, for which they should be [i]impeached[/i] from office ... Contact Congress http://www.congress.org and demand that[i] impeachment hearings [/i]for Bush and his criminal cabal of neo-con, neo-fascist liars, thieves and war criminals be called immediately ... Instead of fighting terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11, the Bushies initiated their monstrous[i] war for oil and global hegemony [/i]upon Iraq ([i]which posed no threat to the USA[/i]) ... [i]Ergo[/i], Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice and their neo-con thugs & neo-fascist goons should be tried for [i]Crimes Against Humanity [/i]...
Consider "[b]New Evidence Bush Pushed Iraq War Right After 9/11"[/b] by [i]Daily Misleader [/i]on http://www.misleader.org/dail... :
The White House continues to deny that the president immediately began planning an invasion of Iraq in the days after 9/11, calling such charges "revisionist history"1 and claiming Iraq was "to the side"2 immediately after the attacks. But new revelations by a former top British official confirm that, immediately after 9/11, President Bush started planning to use the terrorist attacks as a justification for war in Iraq, despite having no proof that Iraq had any connection to Al Qaeda or 9/11.3
According to a report in the new edition of [i]Vanity Fair[/i], former British Ambassador to the United States Christopher Meyer said that President Bush made clear at a dinner4 with Prime Minister Tony Blair nine days after the Sept. 11 attacks that he wanted to confront Iraq. The assertion is corroborated by the Washington Post, which reported that President Bush personally signed a two-and-a-half page directive on September 17th, 2001 ordering the Pentagon to begin drawing up Iraq invasion plans.5 The assertion is also corroborated by CBS News, which reported on September 4, 2002 that, five hours after the 9/11 attacks, "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq."6 The account by the former British Ambassador confirms similar accounts by former Bush counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.
The result of President Bush's preoccupation with Iraq has been dramatic: the diversion of critical resources to Iraq and away from the hunt for Osama bin Laden/Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. As reported by [i]USA Today[/i], "In 2002, troops from the 5th Special Forces Group who specialize in the Middle East were pulled out of the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for their next assignment: Iraq."7 Similarly, Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) reported that, in February 2002, a senior military commander told him, "We are moving military and intelligence personnel and resources out of Afghanistan to get ready for a future war in Iraq."8 That has left many dangerous terrorists still at large, and the UN now reporting that the country is "in danger of reverting to a terrorist breeding ground."9
[b]Sources:[/b]
1. White House Press Briefing, 3/23/04.
2. "Neither Silent Nor a Public Witness," Washington Post, 3/26/04.
3. "Doubts cast on efforts to link Saddam, al-Qaida," Knight-Ridder, 3/2/04.
4. "Report Details Bush-Blair Meeting on Iraq," Associated Press, 4/4/04.
5. "U.S. Decision On Iraq Has Puzzling Past," Washington Post, 1/12/03.
6. "Plans For Iraq Attack Began On 9/11," CBS News, 9/4/02.
7. "Shifts from bin Laden hunt evoke questions," USA Today, 3/28/04.
8. "Senator Bob Graham Remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations," Council on Foreign Relations, 3/26/04.
9. "UN warns on Aghanistan reverting to terrorism," Financial Times, 3/28/04.
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| Scoundrel Hiding in the White House ... |
| 04.05.04 (7:30 pm) [edit] |
[b]What is happening inside of the Bush White House??? ... It is a sorrowful tragedy ... [/b]The corrupt Bushies use neo-fascist smear tactics, ugly slander and vile libel to attempt to intimidate, silence and destroy [i]anyone[/i] who is a whistle-blower ... The insane neo-con Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]rewards those who loyally [i]hide [/i]their felonious and treasonous crimes, and its' henchmen brutally punish those who loyally [i]expose[/i] the truth to the American people ...
"We the People"[i] must stand-up and show our loyalty [/i]to those who are [i]honorably loyal [/i]to our Republic For Which It Stands: the U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights ... Demand that Congress http://www.congress.org call for the [i]impeachment[/i] of Bush & Cheney and the [i]resignations[/i] of Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Wolfowitz and their neo-con, neo-fascist cabal of felons, liars, thieves and traitors ...
Refer to "[i][b]Hiding in the White House[/b][/i]" by [i]Dr. Leon Wofsy[/i], San Francisco Chronicle, on http://www.commondreams.org/v... :
It's almost nine months since someone at the White House broke the law by telling columnist Robert Novak that Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. This was retaliation for Wilson's revelation that Iraq's supposed purchase of uranium from Niger was already known to be a fraud when President Bush included it in his January 2003 State of the Union.
For a long time after going to war (ostensibly) to find and destroy Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction," we were told the reason WMDs eluded discovery is that Iraq is so big: "WMDs could be hidden anywhere in a country as vast as California." But how big is the White House? Why can't the culprit of the vindictive and criminal leak of a CIA agent's identity be found? Is someone in the White House keeping secrets from the boss? What does the president know? Is the guilty party too high up? Isn't there anyone down the line willing to fall on his sword?
The reasonable answer is that the Wilson episode just happens to be the way this White House deals with critics, something now proven too often to escape notice. The messenger of bad news for the White House is personally attacked and punished. Each charge is treated in isolation from similar, corroborative revelations from independent sources. Then the formula is to allow the particular story to fade from public view.
The latest case in point is Richard Clarke. All the fury against Clarke blows a screen of smoke over truths that would seem almost impossible to hide: that the war in Iraq was an obsession that had nothing to do with a threat from WMDs or combating al Qaeda; that it expanded terrorism and heightened worldwide antagonism and distrust of the United States.
The Bush people want desperately to avoid public focus on the central part of Clarke's charge, that the war and occupation of Iraq have made us and the world far less safe. They hope that they can separate the Clarke story from the whole story -- that by going one-on-one to nullify Clarke, no one will notice the long line of corroborative insider witnesses preceding him: Scott Ritter, Joseph Wilson, Paul O'Neill and David Kay, as well as Hans Blix.
But the line of damning evidence is even longer than the line of witnesses, from the disastrous news and mounting casualties in Iraq and from the dangerous repercussions elsewhere. It might be worth reminding the non- inquisitive media that the scoundrel who broke the law to get Wilson's wife is still in hiding in the White House. He or she or they should be easier to find than Iraq's WMDs.
[i][b]Leon Wofsy is a professor emeritus of molecular and cellular biology at UC Berkeley[/b][/i]. - http://www.commondreams.org/v...
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| ... 9/11: The Corrupt Bush Regime Has Something To Hide ... |
| 04.05.04 (1:32 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" should be [i]very, very, very [/i]concerned, because the 9/11 [i]Whitewash [/i]Commission has made unacceptable compromises with the corrupt Bush regime, that effectively renders the neo-con[i] criminals-in-arms[/i]: Bush, Cheney, Rice and others able to stonewall, lie and avoid the truth [/b]...
[i]Firstly[/i], Condi Rice is treated as an neo-imperial [i]dictatoress [/i]rather than as[i] a servant of the people, accountable to the people[/i], because her testimony is limited to 2.5 hours-- she cannot be asked back again if inconsistencies are found in her testimony-- and, there is no assurance that she cannot [i]hem-and-haw [/i]to avoid giving opinions (rather than facts) ...
[i]Secondly[/i], no further White House staff can be [i]called upon to testify [/i]in order to corroborate [i]or not [/i]statements made by Condi Rice or others ...
[i]Thirdly[/i], Bush & Cheney will be testifying [i]joined-at-the-hip[/i], in a private session, not open to the public-- not video-taped or recorded (only a single commissioner will be allowed to take hand-written notes!)-- and, [i]they refuse to testify under oath [/i]...
The 9/11 [i]Whitewash[/i] Commission will give their report to the White House to approve and redact prior to publishing it for the American People. The 9/11 [i]Whitewash[/i] Commission is a heinous fraud and "We the People" should express our outrage to Congress on http://www.congress.org regarding the neo-con neo-fascist Bush regime's [i]Crimes Against Humanity [/i]...
[b]9/11: [i]Something to Hide[/i][/b]
With Washington gearing up for the much-anticipated testimony of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice Thursday, new evidence has surfaced that the Bush Administration was [i]asleep at the wheel before 9/11[/i]. The [i]NYT[/i] reports that in the summer of 2001, warnings became "more dire and more specific" and "were communicated repeatedly to the highest levels within the White House." Nevertheless, the Administration's "priorities that summer were developing a national missile defense plan" ([i]evidenced by Rice's plan to make missile defense the national security centerpiece in a speech on 9/11[/i]) while "money for fighting terrorism had to be justified against an array of other priorities," including tax cuts. In one instance, the White House threatened to veto an effort to shift $800 million from missile defense into critical counterterrorism programs. Rice's "own focus until Sept. 11 was usually fixed on matters other than terrorism" despite Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger ([i]and others[/i]) imploring her to focus on terrorism.
[u][b]STRIPPING AN INDEPENDENT COMMISSION OF INDEPENDENCE[/b][/u]: When the President reversed himself on 9/27/02 and signed the law creating the 9/11 Commission, the Administration specifically touted the commission's independence. But according to USA Today, the White House has now demanded to review the commission's report before it is made public, raising the possibility that it will be tainted by White House political operatives, and delayed until after the election. 9/11 Commission Chairman Gov. Tom Kean said he was "surprised" at the demand, while Vice-Chairman Lee Hamilton said "we're not going to let them distort our report." The move is reminiscent of the President's effort to strip the WMD commission of its independence, and also raises fresh concerns about the White House's efforts to prevent the facts about 9/11 from coming out: last year, President Bush hid information about his long-time friends in the Saudi royal family by classifying sections of the bipartisan 9/11 congressional report that detailed the Saudi government's potential complicity in the 9/11 attacks.
[u][b]LACK OF FOCUS ON TERRORIST THREAT[/b][/u]: Over the weekend, the Bush-Cheney campaign issued a statement saying the Administration "changed its policies to address the terrorism problem, even before 9/11" claiming that the Bush team "went from a policy of swatting flies to putting al Qaeda at the top of the list." But a look at the record shows just how dishonest this statement is: In the face of warnings before 9/11, the Administration deemphasized counterterrorism; never once convened its own counterterrorism task force; threatened to veto efforts to divert national missile defense funds into counterterrorism; delayed arming the unmanned Predator drone flying over Afghanistan; terminated "a highly classified program to monitor al Qaeda suspects in the United States"; attacked previous Administrations for focusing too much on Osama bin Laden; rejected security recommendations from the government's bipartisan national security commission; and downgraded the counterterrorism office within the White House. In fact, al Qaeda was so low on this list of priorities, that neither Bush, Vice President Cheney or Rice ever once uttered the terms "al Qaeda" or "Osama bin Laden" between the time the Bush team took office and 9/11. Want to know more? American Progress has compiled an exhaustive, day-by-day overview of the Bush administration's public statements on national security, defense and international issues from January 20, 2001 to September 10, 2001.
[u][b]PARTISAN CHALLENGES BIPARTISAN 9/11 COMMISSIONERS[/b][/u]: Former top Bush political svengali Karen Hughes, a $15,000-a-month RNC consultant who faces potential grand jury questions for her role in leaking the name of a CIA operative, this weekend denied there was "anything that anyone in our government could have done to possibly prevent" 9/11. She directly contradicted the bipartisan leaders of the 9/11 Commission who "agreed Sunday that evidence gathered by their panel showed the attacks could probably have been prevented."
[u][b]MORE EVIDENCE BUSH WAS FOCUSED ON IRAQ[/b][/u]: Britain's former ambassador to the United States is now confirming that nine days after 9/11, President Bush asked for Prime Minister Tony Blair's support in confronting and potentially attacking Iraq. The White House has denied that President Bush was focused on Iraq after 9/11, despite the Washington Post confirming the President signed a directive in the days after the attacks ordering the Pentagon to begin drawing up Iraq invasion plans. The British ambassador's charges have already been corroborated by former Bush counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke and former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. And Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) confirms that the result of the President's focus on Iraq after 9/11 was a loss of focus on the hunt for al Qaeda: Graham said that on a visit to MacDill Air Force Base in February 2002, a senior commander of Central Command told him, "Senator, we have stopped fighting the war on terror in Afghanistan. We are moving military and intelligence personnel and resources out of Afghanistan to get ready for a future war in Iraq."
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress on http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| ... Now That Bush Created A Fiasco In Iraq, He Cries To The U.N. For HELP! ... |
| 04.05.04 (11:37 am) [edit] |
[b]The corrupt Bush regime has created a nightmarish fiasco in Iraq ... [/b]The insane neo-con neo-fascist Bushies were warned by military and intelligence experts prior to their illegal & immoral incursion into Iraq, that the post-war "peace" would be harder to win than the military "war" ([i]especially given that the US spent over 400 times the expenditure than Iraq on military armaments for over 12 years cumulatively, prior to the imbecilic Bush's war-mongering on Iraq for war-profits[/i]) ...
Dubya bombastically cried "[i]Mission Accomplished[/i]!" on 1st May 2003, and we have lost[i] over [/i]1 US Soldier per day [i]on average[/i], ever since ...
The arrogant neo-imperial Bushies insulted the United Nations (UN) and called them "irrelevant" ... But[i] now [/i]that the vile and despicable Bushies have a major failure on their hands ([i]of their own making[/i]), they are [i]crawling back [/i]to the UN for help ... God help us ... [b]"We the People" are in desperate need of regime change right here in the U.S.A.[/b]
Looks like President Bush has finally understood the "relevance" of the United Nations. The administration, which attacked the UN for not supporting the war, is now turning to the same organization to help it get the hell out of Iraq. The [i]Washington Post [/i]reports http://www.washingtonpost.com... that the White House is "scrambling to develop a new Iraq exit strategy," with the help of U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, "ceding authority to propose solutions" to him. Since previous efforts by the administration to broker a deal, they are now pinning all their hopes on Brahimi:
"We're very dependent on him to develop a plan -- and then to help legitimize it among Iraqis," said a senior State Department official involved in Middle East policy. "This is a time-intensive process, and time's not something we have a lot of."
[b]Source:[/b]
AlterNet.org on http://www.alternet.org/waron...
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| British Ex-Ambassador Reveals Bush & Blair Made Illegal Secret Pact for War in Iraq |
| 04.04.04 (2:58 pm) [edit] |
[b]Prior to the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]illegal and immoral neo-con invasion into Iraq [i]over a year ago[/i], Dubya, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Wolfowitz, and the rest of their neo-con, neo-fascist cabal and their mendacious attack-dogs & court-jesters in the media [i]misled[/i] the American people into[i] foolishly believing [/i]in their[i] myriad lies, deceptions and falsehoods[/i], regarding:[/b]
1. [u]Massive stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq that supposedly posed an imminent threat to our national security because Saddam Hussein either intended to attack us directly or pawn them off to terrorist organizations[/u] -- [i]Subsequently we know that the neo-fascist Bush regime [b]lied [/b]and no WMDs existed, and Saddam Hussein had no intention of attacking us or giving WMDs to terrorist organizations[/i];
2. [u]Saddam Hussein was involved with Osama bin Laden and/or Al Qaeda (and even 9/11) and therefore the neo-cons' invasion into Iraq would safeguard us against Al Qaeda spreading its' network[/u] -- [i]Subsequently we know that the neo-fascist Bush regime[b] lied [/b]and no links ever existed between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden (or Al Qaeda and/or 9/11), until after the US occupation, when Al Qaeda is now flooding into Iraq and the Al Qaeda network is spreading throughout the world[/i]; [Because Bush [i][b]didn't fight [/b][/i]against terrorism (i.e. work with other nations to find & arrest terrorists; root out the terrorist organizations; and, determine the causes of terrorism, etc.), but instead insanely pursued his obsession with raping Iraq of its oil & installing their neo-fascist global corporate hegemony in order to enrich himself and his gluttonous corporate cronies.];
3. [u]Iraqis would welcome the US as liberators and that their neo-con "war" would not represent a significant cost to the US taxpayer: i.e. minimal loss of life and that oil would pay the minimal costs[/u] -- [i]Subsequently we know that the neo-fascist Bush regime [b]lied[/b] and that the extravagent cost in human lives (over 600 US Soldiers & over 15,000 innocent Iraqi civilians) and US taxpayer treasure (over $150 billion) is an unconscionable burden upon the American Middle-Class and Working people, while the Bush's corporations, robber-barons & plutocrats are swindling, plundering and looting US taxpayers and the Iraqi people ... Look into Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex ... the corrupt Bush regime's insane war-profiteers [u]drinking the blood and eating the flesh[/u] of our people and the Iraqi people [/i]...
"We the People" should call for the [i]impeachment [/i]of the traitorous Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i], and demand that they be put on trial for their heinous [i]Crimes Against Humanity [/i]... The despicable Bush cabal are unfit to serve in public office and should be sent to prison for their treasonous crimes ... Contact Congress on http://www.congress.org
Consider "[i][b]Bush and Blair made secret pact for Iraq war[/b][/i]" by [i]David Rose[/i], Guardian UK, on http://politics.guardian.co.u...,12956,1185439,00.html :
[i]· Decision came nine days after 9/11
· Ex-ambassador reveals discussion [/i]
President George Bush first asked Tony Blair to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power at a private White House dinner nine days after the terror attacks of 11 September, 2001.
According to Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British Ambassador to Washington, who was at the dinner when Blair became the first foreign leader to visit America after 11 September, Blair told Bush he should not get distracted from the war on terror's initial goal - dealing with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Bush, claims Meyer, replied by saying: 'I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.' Regime change was already US policy.
It was clear, Meyer says, 'that when we did come back to Iraq it wouldn't be to discuss smarter sanctions'. Elsewhere in his interview, Meyer says Blair always believed it was unlikely that Saddam would be removed from power or give up his weapons of mass destruction without a war.
Faced with this prospect of a further war, he adds, Blair 'said nothing to demur'.
Details of this extraordinary conversation will be published this week in a 25,000-word article on the path to war with Iraq in the May issue of the American magazine Vanity Fair. It provides new corroboration of the claims made last month in a book by Bush's former counter-terrorism chief, Richard Clarke, that Bush was 'obsessed' with Iraq as his principal target after 9/11.
But the implications for Blair may be still more explosive. The discussion implies that, even before the bombing of Afghanistan, Blair already knew that the US intended to attack Saddam next, although he continued to insist in public that 'no decisions had been taken' until almost the moment that the invasion began in March 2003. His critics are likely to seize on the report of the two leaders' exchange and demand to know when Blair resolved to provide the backing that Bush sought.
The Vanity Fair article will provide further ammunition in the shape of extracts from the private, contemporaneous diary kept by the former International Development Secretary, Clare Short, throughout the months leading up to the war. This reveals how, during the summer of 2002, when Blair and his closest advisers were mounting an intense diplomatic campaign to persuade Bush to agree to seek United Nations support over Iraq, and promising British support for military action in return, Blair apparently concealed his actions from his Cabinet.
For example, on 26 July Short wrote that she had raised her 'simmering worry about Iraq' in a meeting with Blair, asking him for a debate on Iraq in the next Cabinet meeting - the last before the summer recess. However, the diary went on, Blair replied that this was unnecessary because 'it would get hyped ... He said nothing [was] decided, and wouldn't be over summer.'
In fact, that week Blair's foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, was in Washington, meeting both Bush and his National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, in order to press Blair's terms for military support, and Blair himself had written a personal memorandum to the President in which he set them out. Vanity Fair quotes a senior American official from Vice-President Dick Cheney's office who says he read the transcript of a telephone call between Blair and Bush a few days later.
'The way it read was that, come what may, Saddam was going to go; they said they were going forward, they were going to take out the regime, and they were doing the right thing. Blair did not need any convincing. There was no, "Come on, Tony, we've got to get you on board". I remember reading it and then thinking, "OK, now I know what we're going to be doing for the next year".'
Before the call, this official says, he had the impression that the probability of invasion was high, but still below 100 per cent. Afterwards, he says, 'it was a done deal'.
As late as 9 September, Short's diary records, when Blair went to a summit with Bush and Cheney at Camp David in order to discuss final details, 'T[ony] B[lair] gave me assurances when I asked for Iraq to be discussed at Cabinet that no decision [had been] made and [was] not imminent.' Later that day she learnt from the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, that Blair had asked to make 20,000 British troops available in the Gulf. She still believed her Prime Minister's assurances, but wrote that, if had she not done so, she would 'almost certainly' have resigned from the Government. At that juncture her resignation would have dealt Blair a very damaging blow.
But if Blair was misleading his own Government and party, he appears to have done the same thing to Bush and Cheney. At the Camp David meeting, Cheney was still resisting taking the case against Saddam and his alleged weapons of mass destruction to the UN.
According to both Meyer and the senior Cheney official, Blair helped win his argument by saying that he could be toppled from power at the Labour Party conference later that month if Bush did not take his advice. The party constitution makes clear that this would have been impossible and senior party figures agree that, at that juncture, it was not a politically realistic statement.
Short's diary shows in the final run-up to war Blair persuaded her not to resign and repeatedly stated that Bush had promised it would be the UN, not the American-led occupying coalition, which would supervise the reconstruction of Iraq. This, she writes, was the clinching factor in her decision to stay in the Government - with devastating consequences for her own political reputation.
Vanity Fair also discloses that on 13 January, at a lunch around the mahogany table in Rice's White House office, President Chirac's top adviser, Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, and his Washington ambassador, Jean-David Levitte, made the US an offer it should have accepted. In the hope of avoiding an open breach between the two countries, they said that, if America was determined to go to war, it should not seek a second resolution, that the previous autumn's Resolution 1441 arguably provided sufficient legal cover, and that France would keep quiet if the administration went ahead.
But Bush had already promised Blair he would seek a second resolution and Blair feared he might lose Parliament's support without it. Meanwhile, the Foreign Office legal department was telling him that without a second resolution war would be illegal, a view that Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, seemed to share at that stage. When the White House sought Blair's opinion on the French overture, he balked.
A Downing Street spokesman said last night: 'Iraq had been a foreign policy priority for a long time and was discussed at most meetings between the two leaders. Our position was always clear: that we would try to work through the UN, and a decision on military action was not taken until other options were exhausted in March last year.'
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| USA In "Financial Anguish" ... |
| 04.03.04 (11:51 am) [edit] |
[b]While not sharing all of his views, Sherman H. Skolnick offers some interesting insights that "We the People" should seriously ponder ... [/b]The economic situation in our nation today is in dire peril principally due to the fact that the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]has handed over governmental policy making to gluttonous corporations and their wealthy corporate cronies who have swindled, plundered and looted U.S. Taxpayers (while corporations & the rich have been ruthlessly and immorally awarded obscene tax cuts, tax loopholes and tax boondoggles). The level of deficit spending and record high debt is [i]dangerously out-of-control[/i]. The American Middle-Class, Workers, and the Poor will be hit hardest when the [i]'bottom-drops-out' [/i]of our economy -- in order that the [i]rich can continue to get vastly richer [/i]beyond the wildest dreams of Emperor Caligula ... Meanwhile, the vile and traitorous Bush regime is [i]raking in gold (US taxpayer dollars) [/i]via the rape of our economy using illegal and immoral neo-con warfare and neo-fascist corporate slavery overtaking our nation.
Fascist Bush and his despicable cabal of neo-con, neo-fascist traitors are transforming the USA into a[i] 3rd world military junta and impoverished slave state[/i]: "We the People" must put a stop to their destruction of the United States of America.
Refer to "[b]USA In "Financial Anguish[/b]"" by [i]Conspiracy Nation [/i]on http://www.shout.net/~bigred/Anguish.htm :
[i]Conspiracy Nation [/i]touched base with renowned independent investigator Sherman H. Skolnick today. In a telephone interview, Skolnick shared his insights on the U.S. economic situation.
Forget most mainstream financial commentators, Skolnick advises. They may be nice-enough people, but they are not too smart. "Prosperity is just around the corner," is their drumbeat. But what the average person doesn't realize is that that phrase, "prosperity is just around the corner," originated with President Herbert Hoover and was followed by years of economic depression.
"It can't happen here, not in the USA," is the implicit faith of many. Yet in Skolnick's own solidly working-class neighborhood there is "an epidemic of home foreclosures." "Where do these people go when they lose their homes?" Skolnick asked. "What becomes of them?"
"We are headed for economic collapse," warns Skolnick. The Bank of Japan is pulling away from its previous support of Treasury Bills. These T-Bills are [b]not[/b] savings bonds; they are bills and notes, debt that the U.S. promises to repay. The T-Bill market is "much bigger than the stock exchange." And these T-Bills are not especially attractive investments at this time. In 1981, T-Bills yielded 16.5 percent. Compare that with now, with T-Bills yielding almost nothing. Forget the stock market: the T-Bill market is much bigger and a collapse there would be catastrophic.
Skolnick mentioned reports that the U.S. Treasury has stopped paying interest on its 30-year bonds. [i]Conspiracy Nation [/i]asked whether that story had been a hoax. It is not a hoax, replied Skolnick. The story was carried in reputable financial newspapers such as the [i]Wall Street Journal[/i].
Debt is piling up, not only through government promissory notes to other nations. U.S. citizens have been growing increasingly indebted to credit card companies and to the banks holding the mortgages on their homes. At some point, something has got to give. The precipitator of economic calamity could be the Bank of Japan, with its recent decision to move away from propping up the dollar, suggests Skolnick.
"This country is now in financial anguish," stated Skolnick, "several layers below malaise." This includes even the well-educated, some of whom become consultants after a downsizing. As the consulting jobs dwindle off to India, these workers become discouraged and are not figured into unemployment statistics. The true rate of unemployment in the U.S. is about 14 percent, according to Skolnick.
These highly-educated but marginally-employed consultants brings up another point: why go to college? Parents spend as much as $200,000 and more paying for a child's higher education. What is the return on such an investment? "Why not buy them a house instead?" wonders Skolnick.
[i]Conspiracy Nation [/i]questioned Skolnick about George W. Bush and John Kerry: Will either of them actually face facts and do anything substantial about the economic anguish? Not likely, responded Skolnick. The System at this point is "rigid and fragile. New ideas are not welcome." Neither Bush nor Kerry are offering any real remedy. Sure, Kerry is proposing a tax incentive to stop corporations from moving jobs out of the U.S. But if per worker cost in the U.S. is $40,000 vs. $8,000 in (e.g.) China, what real good would such a tax incentive do?
In fact, regarding a presidential contest between Bush and Kerry, Skolnick foresees that there might not even be an election this year.
At this point, Skolnick perceives the media as hostile to Bush. They are going after Bush, probably because the ultra-rich aristocracy in this country have turned against Bush, in Skolnick's view.[i] Conspiracy Nation [/i]also notes that when Bush defied the United Nations and went to war in Iraq, he must have made some powerful enemies.
The U.S. faced similar economic disaster during the 1930s. As mentioned, Herbert Hoover responded by claiming "prosperity is just around the corner." But Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), contrary to misguided belief, did not succeed in turning around the 1930s Great Depression. Yes, there was a flurry of government activity after FDR was elected in 1932. But high unemployment dragged on throughout the decade. Skolnick sees FDR as in fact a counter-revolutionary, whose big talk and frantic legislation did little except ameliorate the discontented masses and fool them into believing something was being done. [The economic results show that Skolnick is wrong on the facts concerning FDR and the Great Depression. FDR recovered the USA from the Great Depression created by Herbert Hoover and the corporate robber-barons of that era. FDR created jobs programmes that put people back to work. For those who were desperate, homeless and watching their families die of starvation, FDR was a hero. FDR saved our nation from a revolution against capitalism.]
Skolnick is keeping very busy these days. Requests for his expertise have become so demanding that he had to cease his highly popular cable television program of 13 years duration, "[i]Broadsides[/i]." He is pursued by offers from foreign media to visit their countries and be interviewed, but is wary that, should he leave the U.S. for such visits, he might not be allowed back. He is working closely with associates who are soon to launch a mega-watt radio station in Canada.
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| Republicans For Kerry??? ... |
| 04.03.04 (11:03 am) [edit] |
[b]Conscientious Republicans with a long tradition of safeguarding the environment-- not waging neo-imperial pre-emptive foreign warfare-- and promoting economic discipline: are increasingly disenchanted and disgusted with the extremist and neo-fascist Bush regime ... [/b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta [/i]do not represent the finest of the Republican tradition ... Instead, the traitorous neo-con Bushies have hijacked the Republican Party and Our Great Nation, trampling upon the U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights, in order to wage their insane, illegal and immoral warfare for war-profiteering to satisfy the pornographic lusts of their corporate cronies (Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.) ... Moreover, they have callously mismanaged our economy, creating a reckless and irresponsible [i]train-wreck in the making [/i] http://www.shout.net/~bigred/Anguish.htm that is a back-breaking burden on our working people and the most vulnerable of our citizens, with the highest deficit spending on gluttonous corporations, the filthy rich plutocrats and the traitorous wealthy oligarchs who are wantonly raping our U.S. Treasury and "We the People" ... The American Middle-Class, Working People and the Poor will bear the heart-breaking brunt of Dubya's criminal debts so that the Bush Crime Family, Corporate Robber-barons and the Hyper-Rich can rapaciously live obscenely lavish and obese life-styles while others suffer and live in misery and desperation ... The barbaric and undemocratic [i]gap between the haves-and-the-have-nots [/i]is rising to the highest levels unseen in over 75 years ...
"We the People" should reject this treasonous, neo-fascist Bush regime, who are an appalling and despicable cabal of neo-con liars, thieves and war criminals ... The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]has betrayed our nation ... More and more Republicans openly acknowledge this tragic fact ... http://repagainstbush.meetup.... ... Read[i] on [/i]...
[b]... Victor Fasciani, a 40-year-old asset manager, pays membership dues to the Republican National Committee, the only party he's ever belonged to.[/b] He was at the 2000 Republican Convention in Philadelphia, where he was a New York delegate for John McCain. He's no fan of John Kerry, but come November, he says, "I'm probably not voting for Bush, and I'm not voting for Ralph Nader, so that leaves me with a quandary."
It's a quandary afflicting many moderate Republicans, who feel alienated by their party's rightward lurch and economic irresponsibility, and who fear that another four years of Bush will consolidate the power of the party's most hard-line conservative elements. Even as moderate Republicans make gains in liberal states like New York and California, they're feeling squeezed by their own party. Elements of the Republican right have declared jihad on the values party moderates hold dear, and though the White House claims to embrace all Republican factions, for most moderates there's little doubt where its loyalties lie.
Few politicians want to admit the split, but it's getting almost impossible to ignore. Former Bush counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, a Republican who has served four administrations -- three of them Republican -- slammed Bush this week for a weak response to the threat of terrorism before the Sept. 11 attacks. Now he's being savaged by fellow Republicans who have, in essence, accused him of working to aid the Democrats. McCain, the Arizona senator, along with Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, have made headlines by openly defending Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, a fellow Vietnam vet, against Bush campaign charges that Kerry is weak on national defense. The White House is incensed.
McCain and Hagel insist they still support Bush for reelection. The same holds for the [i]Republican Main Street Partnership[/i], a group of GOP moderates that includes Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, Gov. George Pataki of New York, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California; all of them claim to avidly support the president's reelection.
But there's little doubt that behind the scenes, some moderate Republicans are rooting for the other side. If Bush wins, one aide to a moderate Republican says privately, "that would be the worst possible situation."
That's because some Republicans say that a Bush loss may be their last chance to take their party back. "If Bush were defeated by Kerry, it would certainly call into question the Republican leadership, people like Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert," says Fasciani. "That axis of the party may lose its weight and its power. The Powell and Giuliani wing of the party would certainly gain some prominence and may, during the next four years of a Kerry administration, perhaps even gain control of the party and increase the tent." Such hopes have even led some Republicans to found a grass-roots group called [i]Republicans for Kerry[/i].
It's no wonder moderates are feeling desperate. After all, a faction within their own party is fighting to purge them -- and that faction includes some of the nation's most powerful Republicans. In 1999, right-wing operative Steve Moore founded the [i]Club for Growth[/i], an anti-tax lobbying group that targets moderate Republicans, which it calls RINOs, "Republicans In Name Only." Since then, the group, which funds right-wing primary challenges against centrist incumbents as well as general election campaigns, has become one of the most powerful financial engines of the right. Its Web site boasts: "We are now #1 in funds for Republican candidates outside the Republican Party itself!"
So far, the Club has failed to defeat any of the moderates it's set its sights on. But it plans to raise $15 million for conservative candidates this year, and it's going after one of the pillars of GOP centrism, veteran Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, by bankrolling U.S. Rep. Patrick Toomey's primary challenge. Specter's defeat, Moore has said, would be a "major scalp on the wall."
The right smells victory. On March 23, the [i]National Review [/i]ran a story titled "[i]The Specter of Defeat -- Pennsylvania polls look promising for Toomey[/i]." Specter is still ahead, but polls show that his once commanding lead has shrunk -- a recent poll by[i] KDKA- TV Pittsburgh/WNEP-TV Scranton/Survey U[/i]SA had him only nine points ahead of his challenger.
The primary contest is shaping up to be a referendum on the party's future. According to a March 1 [i]Wall Street Journal[/i] article, "Rep. Toomey is testing the strength of what appears to be a growing fault line in the Republican Party this year, between ideologically pure but increasingly disgruntled conservatives and established, but more moderate, figures such as Sen. Specter. The April 27 Senate primary here will see the only major intraparty fight this election year, and is being closely watched as an indication of how deep conservative sentiment is running. 'It's the best battle for the soul of the GOP this year,' says Toomey consultant Keith Appell, referring to the name Grand Old Party."
It's hard to tell whose side the president is on. Karl Rove has reportedly repudiated the club for sowing discord in the party during the primaries, but Bush has undercut Specter on issues like overtime rules, an important one in an industrial state like Pennsylvania. "U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao has denied a public request from Pennsylvania's senior senator to delay loosening the nation's overtime rules," said a Jan. 21 story in the [i]Washington Times[/i]. Several paragraphs later, it continued: "Specter, facing a re-election fight against conservative Rep. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., scheduled the hearing so the topic could get a 'full airing.' Besides asking Chao for the delay, Specter also asked her to remain in the hearing room for subsequent discussions." She refused.
Even as Bush holds himself somewhat aloof, other members of the Republican leadership have actively embraced the Club for Growth. In 2002, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, then House Majority Whip, gave $50,000 to the club through his political action committee, enraging party moderates.
More than anyone else, DeLay is a symbol of what moderates hate about the direction their party is going in, and he revels in displaying his power over his less zealous colleagues. As Nick Thompson wrote in [i]Salon[/i] in September, DeLay has used the allocation of committee chairs to punish those who swerve even a little bit from his party line. "This is why moderate Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., who generally supports DeLay, was blocked from becoming chair of the Government Reform Committee, a move even he says he knew would be a consequence of his support for campaign-finance reform," Thompson wrote. "Rep. Marge Roukema, R-N.J., simply left Congress after DeLay boxed her out of several positions. In several primaries, DeLay has also worked against several moderate Republicans in favor of less electable conservatives, showing that the Texan would sometimes rather lose with a conservative than win with a moderate."
It's not surprising that some moderates are starting to feel similarly uncompromising. After all, old-fashion establishment Republicans have made a tactical alliance with fundamentalist right-wing revolutionaries like DeLay, but few want to see his vision of America realized.
Moderate Republicans are often fiscal conservatives but social liberals -- in many ways, the exact opposite of this administration. They believe in balanced budgets, environmental conservation and a foreign policy that's strong without being needlessly belligerent. They see themselves as the heirs of former President Teddy Roosevelt, the avid conservationist and trustbuster, and former Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, the philanthropist, statesman and governor of New York. The party they joined was staid and dignified. It was the other party that seemed shrill and radical.
When George Bush was elected in 2000, moderate Republicans thought he was on their side. But that illusion was dispelled in his first few months of office. "When the president was elected, everyone was looking for a breath of fresh air -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- for the good of the country we wanted a bipartisan effort," Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., tells [i]Salon[/i]. "We were all so weary of partisan trench warfare, and now it is deeper than ever."
"The president's agenda has been so different from his campaign rhetoric," Chafee says. "He is pushing an extreme agenda, from the abandonment of Kyoto, to banning access to abortions for service members overseas."
For a while, Bush's extremism was overshadowed by Sept. 11, and some moderates continue to support Bush because of the war on terror, despite being appalled by his domestic policies. Roger White, an associate professor of political science at Loyola University and self-described Rockefeller Republican, actually gave up his party membership four or five years ago out of disgust with the dominance of cultural conservatives like DeLay. Yet he supports Bush's foreign policy, and says, "I don't see the main danger as coming from cultural conservatives. I see the main danger coming from international terrorists."
But Bush has squandered much of his post-9/11 popularity by using it as cover to pass a right-wing domestic agenda. "After 9/11, Republicans could have become the majority party for the next 50 years," says professor Alan Wolfe, the founding director of the [i]Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life [/i]at Boston College. "But for whatever reason, Bush kept up the same polarizing approach. Everyone wanted to rally behind Bush. This is the biggest act of political stupidity in my lifetime."
Moderates, says Chafee, "could have made a huge difference to the president," had he not abandoned them and tried to "bludgeon them into compliance." Now, those on the receiving end of that bludgeoning must decide whether they can support an administration that doesn't support them. Leaving the party can be a wrenching act of personal redefinition, but if Bush wins another term, there may be no hope of changing things from within.
"My decision to leave the Republican Party was deeply personal and one of the most difficult decisions I have ever made," former Republican Sen. Jim Jeffords told [i]Salon[/i]. The Vermont independent famously quit the party in 2001, incurring the White House's wrath and briefly handing control of the Senate to the Democrats.
"I left the Republican Party because I feared the Bush administration and the GOP-controlled Congress was moving too far to the right, and not listening to moderate Republicans such as myself," he says. "Much of what we have seen since then has only confirmed those fears. We are in a war that we shouldn't be in; the wealthy get tax cuts while our schools get shortchanged; the deficit grows by the day while millions of jobs are lost here at home. Meanwhile, the White House tries to placate the far right by supporting a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, diverting the nation's attention from where it should be focused. We are headed on the wrong course, and it troubles me deeply."
Despite the fervent hopes of many Democrats, it's unlikely that waves of Republican officials and voters are likely to follow Jeffords. Most Republicans continue to back their president. The moderates are a small group within the party, and it remains to be seen whether their unhappiness with Bush is a harbinger of electoral trouble for the administration in November.
"If I am talking anecdotally to moderate Republicans, it's very hard to find one who is going to vote for Bush, very difficult," says John Zogby, president and CEO of the polling firm Zogby International. "On the other hand, strangely enough it's not showing up in our polling." In fact, Zogby's latest polls show 87 percent of Republicans backing Bush. "I'm just watching and waiting and saying to myself maybe there's something going on here, because I'm hearing it," he says.
So if moderates are disenchanted, why isn't that showing up in the polls? In part, it's because moderate Republicans as a whole are a rapidly diminishing species in most of the country. According to Zogby, 80 percent of Republicans self-identify as conservative. Asked about the role of moderates in the party, Rick Shaftan, a conservative Republican pollster in New Jersey, says: "It's not that many individuals you're talking about in terms of votes."
Moderate Republicans, he says, are traditionally "mainline protestant WASPs like [former New Jersey Gov.] Christie Whitman. There aren't that many WASPs. I don't know where they're a significant share of the vote."
Those places where old-school Republicans are concentrated, on the East Coast and in California, are largely not in play in the 2004 election. Because they carry so little electoral weight, the national party has little incentive to cater to them.
The Republican Party has been moving away from its East Coast roots since the 1960s, when there was a split in the party between its liberal establishment wing -- so-called Rockefeller Republicans -- and the insurgent followers of Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, who lost the 1964 election in a landslide, but whose conservative movement went on to take over the party.
During the 1980s, as Southern conservatives flowed into the Republican Party, coastal sophisticates were again pushed out, and in the last two decades the Southern right has continued to consolidate its power. In a 1998 essay called "The Southern Captivity of the GOP," [i]Weekly Standard [/i]editor Christopher Caldwell wrote of how even non-Southern conservatives were "put off to see that 'traditional' values are now defined by the majority party as the values of the U-Haul-renting denizens of two-year-old churches and three-year-old shopping malls."
Even Goldwater's widow, Susan Goldwater Levine, recently told [i]Salon[/i] that he "hated it that the right-wing zealots took over the party."
Perhaps unsurprisingly, right-wing populist rhetoric, with its attacks on cosmopolitans and urbanites, has alienated those who don't like to think of themselves as Bible-thumping rubes. "I don't like the polarization, the idea that people who don't live on the coasts are morons who watch NASCAR and drink Budweiser all day," says Fasciani. "It's posturing. When it comes down to it, do they really care about Joe six-pack? I don't buy that populist notion that they espouse." Nor does he relate to it.
Fasciani, a native of Westchester, N.Y., is a Republican of the old school who counts Abraham Lincoln and Roosevelt among his heroes. He's proud of the party's tradition of environmental stewardship -- it was Richard Nixon, after all, who established the Environmental Protection Agency -- and the military valor shown by people like Eisenhower and McCain. The party he loves is one where strength and erudition aren't mutually exclusive.
"Teddy Roosevelt, this man read more books than Bush could name," says Fasciani. "He wrote 50 or a hundred books in his lifetime." (Fasciani is being hyperbolic -- Roosevelt authored a mere 36). "Then you've got a guy in the White House now who's probably read one book in the last 15 years and maybe didn't even finish it."
But unapologetic philistinism is considered an electoral virtue in many parts of the country, and it's practically a first principle of the contemporary right. "Every Republican candidate now has to 'make his bones,' to prove his good faith by declaring his unequivocal willingness to alienate the 'elites' of the country," wrote Caldwell in 1998.
Bush, of course, has been superbly willing to alienate such elites -- a term that, when used by the right, seems to encompass most educated people who live in coastal cities. "My values are not Mr. Bush's," says Susan Cosgrove, a 59-year-old lifelong Republican who owns a communications firm in Pittsburgh. "The Republican Party as I think of it -- the party of Rockefeller -- had a profound respect for character, and I don't think Mr. Bush is a man of character. I think his presidency is one of cronyism and pandering to the most radical wing of the party."
"What I see happening is a split among Republicans I know," she says. "A lot of them are becoming as alienated as I am, and a lot of them are moving in the same direction that the president is going. It makes for interesting dinner-table discussions."
Cosgrove isn't ready to leave the party yet. "There's something to be said for trying to change things from inside," she explains. Still, she's getting close.
"Maybe this is a lost cause. You try to change things from the inside and if you can't, it's time to step outside."
Meanwhile, she plans to volunteer for Kerry in the upcoming election. "I am in [i]ABB[/i] mode," she says. "Anybody but Bush."
There's a group for people like her, though Cosgrove hadn't heard of it. Republicans for Kerry was founded on Jan. 16 and now has about 100 members who plan to do outreach to fellow moderate Republicans during the campaign. (At least, it had 100 members until recently, when it moved to a new Web site and started its membership roster from scratch.) Among them is Peter McLaughlin, a former McCain intern in Brookfield, Conn.
A volunteer firefighter who owns a security business with 35 employees, McLaughlin has seen the administration's failures close- up. "First responders are being underfunded at the same time that we're promoting the importance of the war on terror," he says. "I can tell in my town that if something happens here, we're going to be the first ones sent and as of today we don't have any particularly specialized equipment."
McLaughlin's problems with Bush are ideological as well as practical. "A conservative conserves," he says. "Blowing out the deficit by having these ill-advised tax cuts while conducting a war is not conservative. I'm a Teddy Roosevelt conservative, which means conserving the environment. Certainly, if you look back in history that was a Republican issue, and the Bush administration is trampling all over it. I think that's terrible for the world and for our country."
Bush's record has been so terrible, he says, that another term might drive him out of the party altogether.
"It would be very difficult to go through another four years of what we've seen in the last three-and-a-half years," says McLaughlin. "Certainly if there were another four years beyond that, I don't think there's any way that I can stay in the party. But I feel like this is my home too, and I want to fight for it. I don't want it to be taken over by this extreme group, and to feel like I have to leave my home."
[b]Sources:[/b]
"Republicans for Kerry?", Michelle Goldberg, Salon Magazine, on http://www.independent-media....%20Reported
"National Republicans Against Bush Meetup Day" on http://repagainstbush.meetup....
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| Neo-Cons Intend To Appoint Neo-Saddam-Hussein-Like Chalabi To Head Iraq |
| 04.02.04 (2:02 pm) [edit] |
[b]Apparently the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]are [i]getting ready [/i]to appoint their[i] neo-Saddam-Hussein-like puppet[/i], Ahmed Chalabi, Iraq's Angel of Death ([i]who is despised by the majority of Iraqi people[/i]) to the post of neo-Dictator-cum-Tyrant to rule over Iraq ... [/b]The insane neo-cons intended to install the[i] liar-cum-embezzler [/i]Chalabi ([i]one of those vile Iraqi-exiles-cum-war-prof iteers who lied about WMDs for money[/i]) from the outset (against the wishes of the Iraqi people who do not want the criminal Chalabi as their neo-fascist leader) ... [i]So much for democracy in Iraq ... So much for sovereignty for Iraq ... [/i] http://www.tblog.com/template... ... Of course, it was pretty obvious[i] a long time ago [/i]to anyone with [i]an iota of brain matter[/i], that the insane neo-con, neo-fascist Bushies[i] didn't ever intend for real democracy [/i]to be brought to Iraq ... Just another [i]Saddam-Hussein-with-a- Neo-Ugly-Face-and-Neo-Nam e [/i]who will profit ([i]while impoverishing the Iraqi people[/i]) in service the corrupt Bush regime's neo-feudal Global Corporate Empire ...
"We the People" should contact Congress http://www.congress.org and express our outrage at the installation of a neo-war-criminal, liar, embezzler, war-profiteer and puppet of the neo-con, neo-fascist Bush [i]tyrants-n-traitors [/i]who have hijacked our nation ...
Consider "[i][b]Chalabi poised [or posted by neo-con thugs] to lead [or mislead] Iraq[/b][/i]" by [i]Arnaud de Borchgrave[/i], Washington Times, on http://www.independent-media....%20Reported :
With only three months to go before L. Paul Bremer trades in his Iraqi proconsul baton for beachwear and a hard-earned vacation, the country's most controversial politician is already well-positioned to become prime minister.
Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon's heartthrob and the State Department's and CIA's heartbreak, has taken the lead in a yearlong political marathon.
Temporary constitutional arrangements are structured to give the future prime minister more power than the president. The role of the president will be limited because his decisions will have to be ratified by two deputy presidents, or vice presidents. Key ministries, such as Defense and Interior, will be taking orders from the prime minister.
Mr. Chalabi holds the ultimate weapons several dozen tons of documents and individual files seized by his Iraqi National Congress (INC) from Saddam Hussein's secret security apparatus.
Coupled with his position as head of the de-Ba'athification commission, Mr. Chalabi, barely a year after he returned to his homeland from 45 years of exile, has emerged as the power behind a vacant throne [with neo-con collusion and hundreds of millions in bribes in return for the rape of Iraqi oil].
He also appears to have impressive amounts of cash at his disposal and a say in which companies get the nod for some of the $18.4 billion earmarked for reconstruction. One company executive who asked that both his and the company's name be withheld said: "The commission was steep even by Middle Eastern standards."
Mr. Chalabi is still on the Defense Intelligence Agency's budget for a secret stipend of $340,000 a month. [Blood-money paid by the corrupt Bush/Cheney/Rice/Rumsfeld quartet of war criminals in return for Chalabi's lies and promises of vast riches.]
The $40 million the INC has received since 1994 from the U.S. government also covered the expenses of Iraqi military defectors' stories [boldfaced lies] about weapons of mass destruction and the Iraqi regime's links with al Qaeda, which provided President Bush with a[i] casus belli [/i]for the war on Iraq.
When Mr. Chalabi established the Petra Bank in Amman, Jordan, in the 1980s, he favored small loans to military officers, noncommissioned officers, royal guards and intelligence officers. He developed a close rapport with Crown Prince Hassan, who borrowed a total of $20 million. After Petra went belly up with a loss of $300 million at the end of the decade, Mr. Chalabi escaped to Syria in a car supplied by the crown prince minutes ahead of the officers who had come to arrest him for embezzling his own bank. The Petra debacle left him sufficient funds to create the INC a few days later. [Chalabi was convicted of embezzlement.]
Today, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained mathematician [Kenny-boy (Enron) Lay has a PhD in Chemistry. Dr. Josef Mengele, Angel of Death http://www.auschwitz.dk/Menge... was a famous and eminent physician/scientist who conducted human experiments on Jews. So what, that Chalabi went to MIT: he is a crook and liar.] says he has the documents that will prove he was framed by two Husseins Saddam and the late king of Jordan who wanted to put an end to his anti-Iraqi activities. Jordan used to get most of its oil from Iraq free of charge or heavily discounted, which explains why King Hussein declined to join the anti-Iraq coalition in the 1991 Gulf war. [The Jordanian government disputes this accusation, and has asked that Chalabi make his "documents" public, which Chalabi refuses to do. Also, the Iraqi people are opposed to Chalabi.]
Sentenced in absentia in Jordan to 22 years of hard labor for massive bank fraud, Mr. Chalabi hints he also has incriminating evidence of a close "subsidiary" relationship between Jordan's present King Abdullah and Saddam's sadistic elder son, Uday, killed last year in a shootout with U.S. troops. [Chalabi has been asked to make his "evidence" public and refuses to do so.]
Potentially embarrassing for prominent U.S. citizens, Mr. Chalabi's aides hint his treasure trove of Mukhabarat documents includes names of American "agents of influence" on Saddam's payroll, as well as several Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV news reporters who were working for Iraqi intelligence. [Chalabi can also tell tales about Poppy Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld's love affair with Saddam Hussein providing him with massive stockpiles of WMDs that Clinton had to destroy in the 1990s.]
The final selection for prime minister will need the assent of the president and his two deputies representing the country's three principal ethnic and religious groupings.
Standard-bearer for Iraq's 60 percent Shi'ite majority and free Iraq's first president will be Abdulaziz al-Hakim. He is the brother of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim, killed last year with 90 worshippers when a car bomb rocked the country's holiest Shi'ite shrine in Najaf. With an Islamic green light from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, Mr. Hakim almost certainly will opt for Mr. Chalabi, a fellow Shi'ite, as prime minister.
Slated for one of the two vice-presidential slots is Adnan Pachachi, a Sunni octogenarian with a secular liberal outlook. He served as foreign minister and ambassador to the United Nations before the Ba'athists seized power in a military coup in 1968. Mr. Pachachi's nod also may go to Mr. Chalabi. [Although the majority of the Iraqi people can't stand Chalabi who must be surrounded constantly by a throng of armed-guards paid for by American taxpayers.]
For the third leg of the troika, rival Kurdish parties have agreed to unite behind Jalal Talabani, chief of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. His vote, now believed to be favorable, would make it three out of three for Mr. Chalabi. [U.S. is paying-off bribes to toadies to support their puppet Chalabi.]
Referring to Mr. Chalabi, a former U.S. ambassador recently back from an extended trip to Iraq, said: "Anyone who can get the U.S. to invade Iraq must be a very clever politician. As for the people his INC coached in London to disinform the U.S. intelligence community about Saddam's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, you've got to hand it to the guy. Don't blame him. Blame the Pentagon for not seeing through him." [Clever, yes. Honest, no.]
If Mr. Chalabi's fast track to power is not derailed and he becomes prime minister in July, the president won't be able to fire him unless his two deputies agree. The provisional constitution seems tailor-made for Mr. Chalabi to call the shots into 2005. [A neo-Saddam-Hussein who will continue to bilk US Taxpayers & Iraqis and massacre dissidents at the behest of the neo-cons.]
As head of the Governing Council's economic and finance committee, Mr. Chalabi already has maneuvered loyalists into key Cabinet positions in the provisional authority finance, oil and trade. The Central Bank governor, the head of the trade bank and the managing director of the largest commercial bank also owe their positions to his influence. [Bribery using US Taxpayer dollars and racketeers hired by neo-cons to protect their perpetual money-making machine: Chalabi.]
While in exile in London, Mr. Chalabi cultivated close contacts with Israeli officials [and neo-con warmongers].
He also has visited Iran several times to confer with leading ayatollahs in a bid for their support. He was given permission to open an INC office in Tehran.
His strongest backers in Washington are Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and neoconservative theoretician ("[i]An End to Evil[/i]") Richard Perle. [[i]Birds of a Feathered Vultures: [/i]Liars, Thieves, War Criminals Will Massacre Their Cannon-Fodder: U.S. Soldiers & Iraqis Together, Whi | |
