"What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then … we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal.""
- John F. Kennedy, September 14, 1960
[b]George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and our Founding Fathers considered themselves[i] Liberal [/i]men with[i] Liberal [/i]ideas that came out of the[i] Age of the European Enlightenment[/i], the [i]Age of Reason[/i]. Washington said "[i]As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality[/i]." ...[/b] Tragically the traitorous right-wingers have co-opted the honorable name of [i]"Liberal" [/i]and have twisted and transformed it into something convoluted that is diametrically opposed to its' true meaning ... America is at heart a[i] Liberal [/i]nation, and[i] not [/i]a nation of neo-con, neo-fascist ideologues fearful of diversity, science, rational thought and civilized dialogue ... That is why "We the People" must return to our roots and be unafraid to take back the proud appellation of [i]"Liberal"[/i] and to take our nation back from the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] who stand opposed to our[i] Liberal [/i]ideals of freedom, justice, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all men and women ...
[b]Consider also [i]Think Again: The Word 'Liberal' [/i]...[/b]
If all you knew about the word "liberal" is what came up when you plugged the word into Amazon's search engine on any given day in January 2004, you'd think it was among the worst insults one human being could hurl at another. There's Ann Coulter, "Slander: Liberal Lies about the American Right" and "Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism;" Michael Savage: "The Savage Nation: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Borders, Languages and Culture;" Mona Charen, "Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First;" David Limbaugh, "Persecution: How Liberals are Waging War Against Christianity;" and Sean Hannity, "Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism." Of course these titles represent a kind of consensus on the right and in much of America. When Rush Limbaugh returned to the airwaves on November 17, 2003, he admitted to his 15-20 million listeners that while he may be "powerless" to overcome his drug addiction without professional help, he would not, he promised, turn into "a linguini-spined liberal." The national media, alleged by all to be infested by closet liberals, reported these insults verbatim, as if to be so obvious that they were undeserving of refutation or even reply.
At first blush is this odd. After all, 52 percent of Americans told Gallup pollsters that they "didn't respect Limbaugh now and never did," putting them, no doubt, in the "linguini-spined" category. In recent times, much of the mainstream media have incorporated many of these same attitudes, if not their occasionally obscene terminology. Liberalism, according to much of the coverage of the recent convention in Boston, is something from which savvy politicians must run—or perhaps hide under the bed at least until the guests have gone home.
Ever since George McGovern was defeated in 1972 with the help of the criminal conspiracy that was Richard Nixon's re-election campaign, the media have made a sport of bashing liberals come election time. As Michael Kinsley pointed out recently, "It's true enough that this is a moment when the Democrats are called upon to reject extreme liberalism (whatever that might be) and to embrace moderation. But that is only because every moment is such a moment. The opinion that the Democrats need to foreswear McGovernism and prove their commitment to moderation is one of the very safest in all of punditry." Yet Republicans, Kinsley notes, receive the equivalent of a free ideological pass regardless of the fact that they are led by two men whose political extremism has no analogy in power circles in the other party.
Extremism versus moderation is a beloved media leitmotif at the Republican convention as well. But there's a difference, at least in tone. It is generally considered enough if the Republicans prevent their nuttier element from actually taking over the convention. The GOP is rarely threatened with oblivion if it fails to stage a public festival of contrition. And the Republicans are under no pressure to avoid the word "conservative."
The demonization of the word "liberal" has been an ongoing project of the well-funded right and draws its fire from intellectuals who should really know better. Shelby Steele, for instance, has provided useful and interesting challenges to conventional wisdom on race and affirmative action but look what he wrote on the [i]Wall Street Journal [/i]editorial page about John Walker Lindh and liberals. Speaking of the allegedly liberal values of Marin County, California, where Lindh was raised, and taking a page from the playbook of former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Steele charged, sans evidence that "This liberalism thrives as a subversive, winking, countercultural hipness...Cultural liberalism serves up American self-hate to the young as idealism. It's too much to say that treason is a rite of passage in this context. But that is exactly how it turned out for Walker. In radical Islam he found both the victim's authority and the hatred of America that had been held out to him as marks of authenticity...And when he turned on his country to be secure in his new faith, he followed a logic that was a part of his country's culture." This begs the question, why does Shelby Steele hate America? An interesting line of reasoning, this, considering that conservatives normally reject victimization in favor of personal responsibility. Apparently, liberalism trumps free will in Steele's sociological methodology.
Ann Coulter, whom fellow right-winger Jonah Goldberg once called "barely coherent," adding that in one [i]National Review [/i]column (which the magazine refused to publish and ultimately led to her departure) she was guilty of "emoting rather than thinking, and badly needing editing and some self-censorship, or what is commonly referred to as 'judgment.'" Her book, "Treason" took liberalism to task for just about everything, from "undermining victory in the Cold War," by "Betraying the manifest national defense objectives of the country...[liberals] aim to destroy America from the inside with their relentless attacks on morality and the truth." The problem with her "reasoning, "of course, stems from the fact that without the Democratically-controlled Congress of the Cold War years, none of those large defense appropriation bills would have been passed. But no matter. She continues that "Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America." And yet despite all of the above—as well as her joking about how lovely it would be if terrorists blew up the [i]New York Times[/i]—she was rewarded with a convention column by [i]USA Today [/i]until she turned in her unreadable personal attacks on the physical appearances of the delegates and [i]USA Today [/i]suddenly decided that hiring her was not such a brilliant idea after all.
Even so, it works. As Princeton professor Paul Starr notes, "The use of the vocabulary of treason is a measure of how thoroughly conservatives have transferred the passions of anticommunism into an internal war against those whom they think of as the enemies of American culture and values. And these were, as I recall from the 1960s, the same people who decried the loss of civility."
Given the rhetorical dominance of conservatives over the past several decades, one might be surprised to learn from a June[i] Wall Street Journal [/i]analysis that "[The] proportion of Americans calling themselves "liberal" edged up to 21 percent in [ pollster Stan] Greenberg's May poll from 16 percent a month earlier. Self-identified "conservatives" dropped to 37 percent from 41 percent. And why not? One of the most honored guests here in Boston this week turns out to be none other than George McGovern. As he told a reporter from National Journal when queried about his apparently alien ideological affiliation "Every program that ever helped working people -- from rural electrification to Medicare -- was enacted by liberals over the opposition of conservatives. When people tell me they don't like liberals, I ask, 'Do you like Social Security? If so, then shut up!' "
[b]"We the People" are being placed in dangerous jeopardy by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]...[/b]
Special interests have launched a sweeping assault on protections for public health, safety, the environment, and corporate responsibility – and unfortunately the Bush administration has given way. Crucial safeguards have been swept aside or watered down; emerging problems are being ignored; and enforcement efforts have been curtailed, threatening to render existing standards meaningless.
This agenda puts special interests above the public interest, sacrificing a safer, healthier, more just America at the behest of industry lobbyists, corporate campaign contributors, and professional ideologues – many of whom the president has appointed to "regulate" the very interests they used to represent.
Over the last 30 years, we have made significant progress through strong public safeguards. Our air and water are cleaner, our food, workplaces, and roads are safer, and corporations and government are more open and accountable to the public. These protections have saved thousands upon thousands of lives and improved the quality of life for all Americans – without hobbling industry or the economy.
Nonetheless, significant problems remain. Every year, more than 40,000 people die on our nation's highways. Foodborne illnesses kill an estimated 7,000 and sicken 76 million. Nearly 6,000 workers die as a result of injury on the job, with an additional 50,000 to 60,000 killed by occupational disease. And asthma – linked to air pollution – is rising dramatically, afflicting 17 million, including six million children.
We should address these problems by building on past successes. Instead, the Bush administration has reversed course. [u]For complete details, please continue[/u]: http://www.americanprogress.o... .
Under the Radar ... It's Starting to Sound Alot Like Fascism ...
[b]Under the radar ... This alarming report didn't make the[i] national news[/i] and probably never will ... but, it's starting to sound alot like[i] fascism [/i]...
RIGHT-WING – YOU MUST SWEAR ALLEGIANCE TO BUSH-CHENEY:[/b] The Albuquerque Journal reports that New Mexico locals hoping to attend a rally for Vice President Dick Cheney in Rio Rancho were "asked to sign an endorsement form if they couldn't be verified as Bush-Cheney supporters." http://www.abqjournal.com/ele... The requirement to pledge allegiance to the Bush-Cheney ticket in order to attend the event was confirmed by a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. The endorsement read: ""I, (full name) ... do herby (sic) endorse George W. Bush for reelection of the United States." It later adds that, "In signing the above endorsement you are consenting to use and release of your name by Bush-Cheney as an endorser of President Bush."
Signing allegiance-endorsements?? ? ... [i]What next??? [/i]... Allegiance-oaths to Herr Fuhrer Bush & Reich Marshall Cheney??? ... [i]This is madness!!! [/i]... What is the corrupt Bush regime [i] gonna' do[/i] if the attendee [i]so foolish [/i]as to sign this neo-fascist allegiance-endorsement changes their mind and decides to vote for Kerry/Edwards??? -- Categorize [i]'em[/i] as "enemy combattants" and[i] ship 'em off [/i]to Guantanamo Bay??? ... [i]Jeez[/i] ...
"We the People" should be concerned about the ugly, nasty tactics being exploited by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta[/i] to intimidate and suppress voters ... and, to terrorize and scare people into submission ... Some Republicans http://world.std.com/~3Diff/rab.html are coming [i]out of the closet [/i]to express outrage that they have been unable to challenge any of the traitorous Bush regime's foreign or domestic policy nightmares and are excluded from debate and/or discussion on national issues ... It would be worthwhile [i]not[/i] to believe anything that the [i]"win-at-all-costs"[/i] Bushies propagate until it is [i]double, triple and quadruple checked [/i]...
[b]Now is the time for "We the People" to come to the aide of our country ...[/b]
Americans face a critical decision about the direction of our country, not just in 2004 but for the long term. One is the conservative path for America: tax breaks for the wealthy that do little for the middle class while saddling us with massive debt; government by and for corporations that is indifferent to the struggles of everyday families; and a radical and destabilizing foreign policy that has overburdened our military and left our nation less secure. The other is a progressive path for America:
[b]. Middle class tax breaks, affordable health care, and increasing economic opportunities to help the middle class. [/b]The progressive path for America is one that believes every American should have the opportunity to make the most of their lives given their talents and ambitions. Government has an important role in helping people reach their potential by promoting good paying jobs at home, supporting affordable health care for all, and providing quality education as the foundation of an increasing quality of life.
[b]. Honest and fair government that puts the needs of citizens above all else.[/b] The progressive path honors our democratic values by focusing on what is right and necessary for all Americans, not just those with high paid lobbyists and political or financial clout.
[b]. And a strong and measured foreign policy that fights our enemies everywhere and earns respect for American values and intentions.[/b] As former President Clinton stated earlier this week, "Strength and wisdom are not opposing values." America must relentlessly hunt down and eliminate fundamentalist extremists who aim to destroy our way of life. But in doing so, we must uphold our basic values, honor our international allies and prove to the world that the American way is a just and righteous way toward global security.
"[b]We the People" are facing a terrible period of inflation as mortgage rates climb http://www.forbes.com/home/fe... -- the cost of gas at the pump is at the highest levels in years http://seattletimes.nwsource.... -- the prices of milk, food and other necessities of life including health care (not affordable for millions of our fellow citizens) are rising http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb... -- and all of these burdens represent a back-breaking hardship for working families across America ... [/b]Moreover, the wages of working people are[i] not [/i]keeping up with inflation http://www.americanprogress.o... unless you are amongst the richest of the rich and then you are living the [i]Belle Epoque[/i] because CEO pay continues to[i] skyrocket [/i] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin... and tax cuts for the wealthiest are a real[i] boon [/i]for them ... The rest of us must make sacrifices in lives and treasure as Bush has recklessly squandered our budget surplus to create the most heinous record-level deficit spending on wars, corporations and wealthy plutocrats, in our nation's history ...
The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] is unfit for office because there is[i] no area [/i]of foreign or domestic policy that the neo-cons have touched that has benefitted working American people and we are now facing the extravagantly costly bills for their illegal and immoral war games; gifts to the rich and corporations; and, the wasteful wreckage in the aftermath of their corporate-take-all rape of America ...[i] It's time for a change [/i]... "We the People" have the power to make that change by voting for Kerry-Edwards ...
Oil prices hit 21-year highs on Wednesday as fears grew about interruptions to world oil supply.
The sharp increase came as Yukos, one of Russia's biggest oil companies, threatened to halt production and concerns grew over whether the world's limited spare oil capacity would be able to satisfy growing demand in a tight market.
Crude oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange on WEednesday surged $1.21 to $43.05 a barrel, breaking the 21-year-old exchange's $42.45 record set in June. In London, September Brent oil on the International Petroleum Exchange was 99 cents higher at $39.53 a barrel, a 14-year high.
World oil producers, almost all of which are pumping at full capacity, have only a 1.5m-2m barrels a day cushion of spare oil left to make up any shortage. Yukos is enmeshed in a tax dispute with the Russian authorities that has led to Mikhail Khordokovsky, its former chief executive, being jailed. If its production is halted, the shortfall would be 1.7m b/d.
"Although Yukos management has warned that intensifying pressure may have a negative impact on production due to its inability to finance exports, this appears to be a plea for sympathy rather than a real concern," said Yulia Woodruff, Russia analyst for Energy Security Analysis, the Boston-based consultants.
The latest increase in already high oil prices is especially costly for the US. Figures on Wednesday showed the world's largest oil consuming country is more dependent on foreign oil than ever. Weekly government data showed the US imported 11.3m barrels of crude oil and 1.3m barrels of petrol last week. With oil prices at record highs, analysts calculated the overall daily bill for oil imports at more than $500m. "We are obviously monitoring that situation," said Spencer Abraham, the US energy secretary.
In real terms oil prices are still only about half as high as they were in the early 1980s following the Iranian revolution in 1979. But Goran Trapp, managing director of commodities at Morgan Stanley, said: "The way the market is moving, the oil price could easily go to $44 to $45 soon, and I believe we will see a $50 oil price by the end of the year."
Oil prices, which have increased by more than 30 per cent so far this year, have become a factor in the US presidential elections. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, is expected to make US dependence on foreign oil a central theme in his speech to the Democratic national convention tonight. .
The world's biggest energy companies, including ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco of the US and Anglo-Dutch Royal Dutch/Shell announce their earnings this week.
"What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then … we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal.""
- John F. Kennedy, September 14, 1960
[b]George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and our Founding Fathers considered themselves[i] Liberal [/i]men with[i] Liberal [/i]ideas that came out of the[i] Age of the European Enlightenment[/i], the [i]Age of Reason[/i]. Washington said "[i]As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality[/i]." ...[/b] Tragically the traitorous right-wingers have co-opted the honorable name of [i]"Liberal" [/i]and have twisted and transformed it into something convoluted that is diametrically opposed to its' true meaning ... America is at heart a[i] Liberal [/i]nation, and[i] not [/i]a nation of neo-con, neo-fascist ideologues fearful of diversity, science, rational thought and civilized dialogue ... That is why "We the People" must return to our roots and be unafraid to take back the proud appellation of [i]"Liberal"[/i] and to take our nation back from the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] who stand opposed to our[i] Liberal [/i]ideals of freedom, justice, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all men and women ...
[b]Consider also ...[/b]
If all you knew about the word "liberal" is what came up when you plugged the word into Amazon's search engine on any given day in January 2004, you'd think it was among the worst insults one human being could hurl at another. There's Ann Coulter, "Slander: Liberal Lies about the American Right" and "Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism;" Michael Savage: "The Savage Nation: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Borders, Languages and Culture;" Mona Charen, "Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First;" David Limbaugh, "Persecution: How Liberals are Waging War Against Christianity;" and Sean Hannity, "Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism." Of course these titles represent a kind of consensus on the right and in much of America. When Rush Limbaugh returned to the airwaves on November 17, 2003, he admitted to his 15-20 million listeners that while he may be "powerless" to overcome his drug addiction without professional help, he would not, he promised, turn into "a linguini-spined liberal." The national media, alleged by all to be infested by closet liberals, reported these insults verbatim, as if to be so obvious that they were undeserving of refutation or even reply.
At first blush is this odd. After all, 52 percent of Americans told Gallup pollsters that they "didn't respect Limbaugh now and never did," putting them, no doubt, in the "linguini-spined" category. In recent times, much of the mainstream media have incorporated many of these same attitudes, if not their occasionally obscene terminology. Liberalism, according to much of the coverage of the recent convention in Boston, is something from which savvy politicians must run—or perhaps hide under the bed at least until the guests have gone home.
Ever since George McGovern was defeated in 1972 with the help of the criminal conspiracy that was Richard Nixon's re-election campaign, the media have made a sport of bashing liberals come election time. As Michael Kinsley pointed out recently, "It's true enough that this is a moment when the Democrats are called upon to reject extreme liberalism (whatever that might be) and to embrace moderation. But that is only because every moment is such a moment. The opinion that the Democrats need to foreswear McGovernism and prove their commitment to moderation is one of the very safest in all of punditry." Yet Republicans, Kinsley notes, receive the equivalent of a free ideological pass regardless of the fact that they are led by two men whose political extremism has no analogy in power circles in the other party.
Extremism versus moderation is a beloved media leitmotif at the Republican convention as well. But there's a difference, at least in tone. It is generally considered enough if the Republicans prevent their nuttier element from actually taking over the convention. The GOP is rarely threatened with oblivion if it fails to stage a public festival of contrition. And the Republicans are under no pressure to avoid the word "conservative."
The demonization of the word "liberal" has been an ongoing project of the well-funded right and draws its fire from intellectuals who should really know better. Shelby Steele, for instance, has provided useful and interesting challenges to conventional wisdom on race and affirmative action but look what he wrote on the [i]Wall Street Journal [/i]editorial page about John Walker Lindh and liberals. Speaking of the allegedly liberal values of Marin County, California, where Lindh was raised, and taking a page from the playbook of former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Steele charged, sans evidence that "This liberalism thrives as a subversive, winking, countercultural hipness...Cultural liberalism serves up American self-hate to the young as idealism. It's too much to say that treason is a rite of passage in this context. But that is exactly how it turned out for Walker. In radical Islam he found both the victim's authority and the hatred of America that had been held out to him as marks of authenticity...And when he turned on his country to be secure in his new faith, he followed a logic that was a part of his country's culture." This begs the question, why does Shelby Steele hate America? An interesting line of reasoning, this, considering that conservatives normally reject victimization in favor of personal responsibility. Apparently, liberalism trumps free will in Steele's sociological methodology.
Ann Coulter, whom fellow right-winger Jonah Goldberg once called "barely coherent," adding that in one [i]National Review [/i]column (which the magazine refused to publish and ultimately led to her departure) she was guilty of "emoting rather than thinking, and badly needing editing and some self-censorship, or what is commonly referred to as 'judgment.'" Her book, "Treason" took liberalism to task for just about everything, from "undermining victory in the Cold War," by "Betraying the manifest national defense objectives of the country...[liberals] aim to destroy America from the inside with their relentless attacks on morality and the truth." The problem with her "reasoning, "of course, stems from the fact that without the Democratically-controlled Congress of the Cold War years, none of those large defense appropriation bills would have been passed. But no matter. She continues that "Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America." And yet despite all of the above—as well as her joking about how lovely it would be if terrorists blew up the [i]New York Times[/i]—she was rewarded with a convention column by [i]USA Today [/i]until she turned in her unreadable personal attacks on the physical appearances of the delegates and [i]USA Today [/i]suddenly decided that hiring her was not such a brilliant idea after all.
Even so, it works. As Princeton professor Paul Starr notes, "The use of the vocabulary of treason is a measure of how thoroughly conservatives have transferred the passions of anticommunism into an internal war against those whom they think of as the enemies of American culture and values. And these were, as I recall from the 1960s, the same people who decried the loss of civility."
Given the rhetorical dominance of conservatives over the past several decades, one might be surprised to learn from a June[i] Wall Street Journal [/i]analysis that "[The] proportion of Americans calling themselves "liberal" edged up to 21 percent in [ pollster Stan] Greenberg's May poll from 16 percent a month earlier. Self-identified "conservatives" dropped to 37 percent from 41 percent. And why not? One of the most honored guests here in Boston this week turns out to be none other than George McGovern. As he told a reporter from National Journal when queried about his apparently alien ideological affiliation "Every program that ever helped working people -- from rural electrification to Medicare -- was enacted by liberals over the opposition of conservatives. When people tell me they don't like liberals, I ask, 'Do you like Social Security? If so, then shut up!' "
[b]"We the People" have an [i]ethical responsibility [/i]and a [i]moral obligation [/i]to be[i] informed [/i]and [i]well-educated [/i]citizens, and therefore to[i] listen [/i]to what our leaders are saying about the past, the present and the future of our nation ...[/b]
... "[i][b]For in the final analysis, our most basic common link, is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's futures, and we are all mortal[/b].[/i]..." - John F. Kennedy, [i]Speech at The American University, Washington, D.C., June 10, 1963[/i]
[b]Bush is a[i] divider [/i]and[i] not [/i]a uniter ... [/b]We need to vote for John F. Kerry because we need a leader who will restore our nation's dignity [i]here at home and abroad[/i], and who will deliver upon the promise of working well and honestly with other nations while defending our homeland in a sane and rational manner ... As Thomas Jefferson said "[i]Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations - entangling alliances with none[/i]" has been a stalwart underlying our international policies[i] until now [/i]... Traditionally as John Quincy Adams stated ""[i]We do not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy[/i]," and our Founding Fathers warned against imperial designs which they virulently condemned ... Tragically the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] has treated our allies with contemptuous disregard-- squandered international good-will-- and, has ruthlessly and recklessly waged an illegal and immoral war upon a sovereign nation that did not threaten us, based upon heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods ... "We the People" cannot trust the "word" of the traitorous Bush regime, [i]nor[/i] does the rest of the world ...
[b]An Interview with John Shattuck, Former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor[/b]
Ambassador John Shattuck is a foremost expert on human rights and humanitarian intervention. In 2003 he authored, "Freedom on Fire: Human Rights Wars and America's Response," in which he reflected upon his experience as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor from 1993 to 1998. Shattuck also served as U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic from 1998 to 2000 and is currently the chief executive officer of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation in Boston. He spoke with the [i]Center for American Progress [/i]last month.
[b]American Progress:[/b] The people of the Darfur region of Sudan are suffering a humanitarian crisis, as government-sponsored militias battle an armed insurgency. If you could snap your fingers and do three things to address the situation in Darfur, what would they be?
[b]Shattuck:[/b] Well, the first thing I would do is take a leadership role in pursing a resolution for intervention through the U.N. Security Council. The United Nations is waiting to be led on the Darfur issue. And I don't sense any division on the issue whatsoever.
I would also work with countries in the region and the European Union to establish a crisis resolution strategy that would provide authority for an international peacekeeping operation. A peacekeeping operation could be assembled through the African Union and involve participants from other places as well.
At the same time I would work with [U.N. Secretary-General] Kofi Annan and the leaders of the African Union to find a more aggressive diplomatic approach to dealing with what is clearly ethnic cleansing going on in Darfur. And there has been a peace process that while not particularly effective today, was much more effective a year ago. I'd try to get that jump-started again.
I'd have the peacekeeping operation and a Security Council resolution in the pocket, so basically you have diplomacy backed by force, which is really what the effective 1990s interventions were all about.
[b]American Progress:[/b] Can you comment on the disinclination of the United Nations to provide an aggressive Chapter VII mandate http://www.free-definition.co... that would enable a U.N. force to forcibly challenge the militia in Sudan if necessary?
[b]Shattuck:[/b] The good news in the field of peacekeeping is that we actually have quite a bit of experience. But the experience that we have with Chapter VI, which is the old-fashioned "white hat" peacekeeping force that basically goes in and observes, is that that kind of a peacekeeping force is hopelessly ineffective in any situation where there are any kinds of hostilities continuing.
It's an insult to the troops who are there. They're in a place where there are continued incidents of ethnic cleansing or other forms of violence. And yet the peacekeeping force lacks the authority to take appropriate measures when they observe an act of hostility, or, more importantly, when they are attacked themselves.
The one thing that really sent Rwanda into the ultimate conflagration that it became was three or four days after genocide began, ten Belgian peacekeepers were killed in a very brutal act conducted by the genocide planners. And there's a memo that was sent by the commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force, Gen. Romeo Dallaire, back to the United Nations a month before, about how an informant had said that one of the things that will be done when the genocide breaks out is that peacekeepers will be killed as a way of forcing the withdrawal of the whole peacekeeping force. It played out like a book. What happened in the bureaucracy of the United Nations to that warning? It never really reached anyone, it got stuck.
I'm totally in favor of giving Chapter VII authority when it may not even be needed. It can be a deterrent. It can actually be an element of the diplomacy. That's why I'd do it in Sudan.
[b]American Progress:[/b] Can you comment on the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva and its perceived ineffectiveness? What reforms would you like to see?
[b]Shattuck:[/b] The Commission's government members are elected by blocks within the commission. There's a European block; there's an African block; there's a Middle East block; there's an Asian block and a Latin American block.
One of the things that happens in United Nations voting is that you don't necessarily get a good match between the countries that are on the commission and the human rights function they're trying to perform. For example, last year's Commission chair was Libya. The U.N. Human Rights Commission and Libya is the chair? That doesn't sound quite right. At the very least, the Commission often gets into gridlock.
During the Clinton period, the United States actually pursued fairly aggressive diplomacy within the Human Rights Commission. We used it as a way of focusing attention on particular human rights crises like China and Cuba. But it doesn't have any enforcement authority.
What would make it better? I have to say I'm fairly conservative on this point. I'm more in favor of the community of democracies idea. I believe in working to develop, as we did in the Clinton administration—Madeline Albright was very active in this—a coalition of democratic states who would take the lead in, among other things, humanitarian interventions and dealing with international norms on human rights.
[b]American Progress:[/b] Can you comment on the administration's presumption that you can't fight the war on terrorism through the old rules? Do you believe that the old rules, the pre-9/11 rules, are still valid?
[b]Shattuck:[/b] Let's look at the Geneva Conventions and the interrogation of prisoners and the use of torture, or at least trying not to be subject to the various international prescriptions against torture. I think there are two levels on which the administration's claim that rules can be swept aside can be rebutted.
On one level there is very little evidence—according to all the experts, including the people who conduct the interrogations—that torture and coercive methods, systematically applied, actually produce truth and develop useful evidence.
I think the greater rebuttal, however, is the enormous danger that is presented, at the very least, to U.S. troops when it becomes clear that we are not following the Geneva conventions. Obviously no terrorist is going to follow international rules. But by and large the treatment of American troops around the world could change significantly.
There is also the larger foreign policy danger of effectively undermining our capacity to build alliances. To the extent it becomes clear that we are asserting that we and anyone who works with us are essentially above the law, it is going to be very hard for us to create alliances with other countries.
Having said that, I think the Geneva Conventions need to be updated. That's why I urge the U.S. take the lead in updating international law in this area, including developing an international treaty on terrorism.
[b]American Progress:[/b] The Bush administration is arguing that al Qaeda terrorists and other terrorists are not criminals because they're soldiers in a war against America, so U.S. criminal law does not apply to them. But neither are they protected by the laws of war. Thus, they are in a black hole. Should we undertake an effort to create a system of laws that would guide us in this conflict?
[b]Shattuck:[/b] It's not easy to define terrorism. But I don't think we're even trying at the moment. There are people all over the world who say as a result of cultural or religious or political differences in philosophy, what we claim is terrorism may well not be within their definition. We are avoiding that debate at our peril.
Terrorism is not a U.S. problem alone. 9/11 was a terrible event to be sure, and it wakened Americans for the first time to the crisis of terrorism globally. But terrorism is affecting the whole world. Anyone who travels knows what it's like and what people live under. The Europeans have lived with it for a long time. I define the kinds of actions that were committed in Bosnia and Rwanda and Haiti as terrorism. They were crimes against humanity, even if they weren't conducted by al Qaeda terrorists.
There is enough good will and genuine interest out there in dealing with terrorism that if the United States were to take the lead with other countries in defining it, connecting it to international law, and updating the Geneva conventions, we could provide further legitimacy for the war on terrorism and further isolate the terrorists. This is a national security issue, not just a human rights issue.
[b]American Progress:[/b] It seems that there is a deeply entrenched sentiment of American exceptionalism, both among the general public and in high levels of government, with regard to binding the military to international norms. How can this sentiment be overcome?
[b]Shattuck:[/b] The issue of exceptionalism, as you've described it, has been with us for a long time. It's a long tradition in American foreign policy. It's also related to isolationism, and unilateralism for that matter. Those are the three great "ism's" that are really at the heart of historical American foreign policy. They have to do with where we are geographically, and now where we are in terms of the amount of power that we have.
The International Criminal Court is a complicated topic. I would be the first to say that. But [U.S. Ambassador at large for War Crimes in the Clinton administration] David Sheffer's point, and he's right, is that we ought to be at the table. We've got some strong interests to defend, including an interest in protecting our own troops against the possibility that some other country may end up trying to take them before the International Criminal Court and undermine our capacity to do the kinds of military operations that we need to do in the world.
But there are ways in which you can build protections into the International Criminal Court. And the Court now has a basic protection that it can't even take a case until the justice system in the country in question has fallen apart. So if the United States does anything to investigate or otherwise look into an allegation, that's enough to keep it off the Court's agenda.
These things, exceptionalism and all the others, have been with us for a long time and we're going to keep battling them. But it ought to be the role of progressive leadership in a world that is now so interconnected and international to try to find arguments to push back these longstanding tendencies in American foreign policy.
[b]American Progress:[/b] Thank you for speaking with us, Ambassador Shattuck.
[b]"We the People" owe a debt of gratitude to Michael Moore for exposing the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] and energizing the American public to sit-up and take notice of the vile political shenanigans that are being employed by the extremist fanatics on the neo-con right[i] who are out [/i]to destroy our nation ... [/b]
To strains of "You're Still The One," Senator Edward Kennedy exited stage left, surrounded by family—heading to a tribute at Boston Symphony Hall. "The only thing we have to fear," he told the cheering crowd, "is four more years of George Bush....We will retire Cheney to an undisclosed location."
Across the river, earlier in this afternoon, Michael Moore nearly caused a riot when some 3,000 people descended on the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge for a confab with America's hottest film-maker. Earlier that day, some Bush spokesman had called Moore "the leader of the hate and vitriol celebrity." Two thousand people were turned away by the organizers—the Campaign for America's Future—but they soon gathered on a side street outside the hotel, awaiting Moore's arrival later that afternoon.
Inside the hall, Moore enthralled the crowd with tales of Dale Earnhardt Jr, tirades against the corporate media, jabs at Disney and its honcho Michael Eisner, advice for John Kerry and a warning to Ralph Nader.
[b]NOW Members Urge U.N. Oversight of 2004 Presidential Election [/b] http://www.tblog.com/template... is the [i]lede [/i]to a serious expression of [i]rising concern [/i]that the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] will rig the upcoming 2004 presidential election in November and hijack the country [i]again[/i] like they did in their[i] heinous banana republican coup d'etat [/i]in 2000 ... "We the People" should contact Congress http://www.congress.org and demand UN oversight for [i]all[/i] swing states where the polls show that the election is close between Bush and Kerry ...
[u][b]GOP Calls for Voter Suppression[/b][/u]
A string of recent declarations from top government officials and Republican party leaders are raising questions about whether the Bush administration is quietly attempting to manipulate voting in the 2004 presidential election. Last week, a GOP lawmaker and co-chair of the Bush-Cheney '04 Michigan Veterans Leadership Team called recently for his party to [i]"suppress the Detroit vote," [/i]making a mockery of President Bush's belated attempt to reach out to African-Americans in that city last week. Speaking at the National Urban League, Bush said, "I believe you've got to earn the vote and seek it," but State Rep. John Pappageorge (R) revealed a backup plan in the swing state of Michigan: "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election," he said. It is little secret what Pappageorge meant by the "Detroit vote" – while Michigan state is majority white (78 percent), Detroit boasts an overwhelmingly minority population (88 percent). State Sen. Buzz Thomas (D) told reporters, "I'm extremely disappointed in my colleague…That's quite clearly 'code' that they don't want black people to vote in this election."
[b]SAME OLD STORY:[/b] The idea the GOP might try to "suppress" votes is nothing new to minority voters. A BET/CBS poll shows "more than four in five blacks believe Bush did not legitimately win the [2000] election, and two-thirds think deliberate attempts were made to prevent black voters' ballots from being counted."
[b]BACK TO MESSING WITH FLORIDA:[/b] Earlier this month in Florida, where President Bush's brother Jeb is governor, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights announced it would ask the Department of Justice to investigate whether the state's aborted effort to "use of a flawed database to remove felons from the voter rolls was a deliberate attempt to block some voters from casting ballots." The Miami Herald reported that this year's list "included people – many of them black Democrats – who have had their right to vote restored."
[b]E-MACHINES MEAN NO RECORD: [/b]Efforts to suppress votes could only be aided by the proliferation of touch screen voting machines. The machines, despite coming under fire for technical glitches and a lack of transparency, "are poised for use in the November elections in more than 675 counties, comprising more than 30 percent of the nation's registered voters." Because many of the machines provide no paper record of votes, they could make a manual recount of a contested vote impossible.
[b]RIGGING THE SYSTEM:[/b] The CEO of the company which will provide many of the new voting machines is Diebold's Walden O'Dell, a top Bush fundraiser (Pioneer) who wrote in a fundraising letter last August that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Federal Election Commission data shows "at least eight million people will cast their ballots using Diebold machines next November," meaning 8 percent of the number of voters in 2000 will have their 2004 votes calculated on a machine created by a self-described Bush partisan.
[b]STILL STICKING WITH PUNCH CARDS?: [/b]Meanwhile, the ACLU is taking aim at problems with antiquated punch card ballots, which were the source of controversy during the 2000 election in Florida. AP reports an ACLU lawyer in Ohio is "arguing that even isolated malfunctions in Ohio could change the November election results in this swing state." Arguing for the machines to be judged unconstitutional, the ACLU maintains "that punch cards are more likely to go uncounted than votes cast with other systems, and that use of the ballots violates the rights of black voters, who mostly live in punch-card counties."
[b]CONTEMPLATING POSTPONEMENT:[/b] The Bush administration has reviewed "a proposal that could allow for the postponement of the November presidential election" in the event of a terrorist attack. The Justice Department was going to move forward with an inquiry to "determine what the legal mechanism for calling a halt to a national election would be," despite the fact that "Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge…and other counterterrorism officials concede they have no intel about any specific plots." But because of public outcry, the White House has backed off.
[b]"We the People" should be [i]very, very alarmed [/i]at the perniciously neo-fascist actions taken by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] who are trampling upon our U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights ... Now they are ordering the destruction of copies of pamphlets on [i]"asset forfeiture[/i]" held in public libraries???[i] Why[/i]??? ... [/b]
The American Library Association is challenging http://www.boston.com/news/na... a new U.S. Department of Justice order that they destroy copies of certain pamphlets on [i]"asset forfeiture"[/i] kept on file.
No reason was given for requiring the destruction of the pamphlets, which the government routinely shihps to desginated libraries that hold virtually all federal government documents. Much, if not all, of the materials are[i] "the law of the land"[/i] readily available online and in law books.
"[i]Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it." [/i]--Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, 1786. - http://etext.virginia.edu/jef...
[b]"We the People" have been[i] betrayed [/i]by the neo-con press and right-wing media that have been [i]bought-up-lock-stock-a nd-smoking-barrel [/i]by corporate interests and they [i]no longer seek the truth [/i]to keep our citizenry informed ... [/b]How can we take our nation back??? ... [i]We must be creative and we must recognize that the "big-names" no longer inform us of real news ... We must seek information from foreign news services and cross-check "news" via a mutiplicity of sources ...[/i] We must recognize that neo-fascist propagandists like Fox News, WND, Weekly Standard, Rush Limbaugh and other [i]mad-dogs [/i]are the most vile partisan traitors who propagate[i] out-and-out lies, deceptions and falsehoods [/i]on orders from the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]... The rest of the major [i]"news players" [/i]simply regurgitate their [i]watered-down[/i] form of "news (?)" that the corporate interests decide is [i]sufficient [/i]for our consumption and to[i] lull us into a false sense [/i]that our "leaders (?)" represent us, when they[i] don't [/i]really represent[i] us [/i]...
How can Tom Brokaw, Tim Russert, Katie Couric, Dan Rather and the rest of the cast that makes up America's big name newspeople ([i]we use that term with a wince, a wink, and a snicker[/i]) keep dishing up pro-Bushie propaganda week after week? How do they sleep nights? How can they look at themselves in the mirror or - worse - look their kids in the eye? ... [i]Easy....M.O.N.E.Y.[/i] ... Keeping Bush in office benefits THEM directly. They are in that elite top 1% of Americans who benefits the most by Bush's tax cuts - which, if he is reelected, he plans to make permanent. Buzzflash presents a sampling of salaries: Brokaw: $7 million; Couric, $12 million, Rather, $7 milllion......Kinda makes it painfully clear, eh?
"[i]The Americans occupied Iraq as part of a Zionist project. They will not leave Iraq because they intend to steal Iraq's oil. The new US-appointed Iraqi government are "collaborators[/i]"." - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
[b]"We the People" have been duped in the most outrageous scam in our nation's history. [/b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]waged their illegal and immoral neo-con war in Iraq based upon myriad lies, deceptions and falsehoods and we have [i]nothing to show for it but[/i]:-- hundreds ([i]if not thousands[/i]) of our U.S. Soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians ruthlessly slaughtered-- our nation's reputation in tatters and shreds because the world not only distrusts[i] our "word"[/i] now, but also distrusts[i] our "actions"[/i] in the aftermath of the heinous atrocities of murder, torture, rape, abuse and child sodomy committed by the US at Abu Ghraib ([i]and elsewhere[/i])-- hundreds of billions of US taxpayer dollars squandered, misappropriated and embezzled by the Bushies in order to enrich Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.-- all this [i]chaos, misery and mayhem [/i]while the callous, dim-witted and criminal Bush/Cheney awards massive tax cuts to the richest-of-the-rich, and lays the burden of their record-level debts and deficits upon the rest of us and our children ... Meanwhile, the dire situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate daily http://www.antiwar.com/lind/?... with the tragic death toll mounting and [i]no end in sight [/i]...
[b]It is time for "We the People" to take a serious look inwards and reflect upon our national myopia ...[/b]
One thing is certain: American taxpayers didn't get value for their money. Innumerable billions of dollars have been devoured by the biggest espionage machine ever imagined. Those dollars have only served, however, to prepare what will remain one of the most resounding intelligence services fiascos: their inability to detect the preparations for September 11 and their ability to invent weapons of mass destruction for Saddam Hussein who had none. The Americans may perhaps console themselves when they see that the British draw up a balance sheet quite as severe against the behavior of their own intelligence services, even though intelligence was a well-respected national specialty.
It's the slightly paradoxical grandeur of democracies to invent public commissions of inquiry to investigate secret activities that were designed to remain secret. Thus, we may learnedly ask ourselves about men who failed to see the bear stealing the honey pot out from under their noses and who confused the neighbor's seedy cat with a famished lion. The reconstitution of the failures of the intelligence instruments does not, all the same, constitute a revolutionary conceptual breakthrough. The American commission of inquiry was able to rediscover pieces of the puzzle and put them together, but did not entertain the notion of asking itself about the ideological causes for the intelligence services' myopia with regard to al-Qaeda (their long philo-Islamist "pal-ing around") or about the political causes of their Iraqi chimera (to supply evidence against the "axis of evil").
One of the American system's main defects relates to its overestimation of technical intelligence capacities at the expense of understanding and analysis of concrete situations. The commission itself is caught, however, in the inevitable "technical" or administrative limits of its mission, which should comprise a political supplement. About this, nothing remains but to hope that the voters will take care of it next November.
[b]The "stakes" are[i] enormous [/i]in the upcoming 2004 presidential election in November ... Above all, unlike the unjust[i] banana-republican coup d'etat of 2000 [/i]whereby the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc[i]. junta [/i]engineered an illegal take-over of our nation, we have an obligation to make sure that [i]this next presidential election[/i] is conducted in a fair and proper manner ... [/b]
"We the People" should [i]demand[/i] that United Nations (U.N.) oversight be administered in [i]all swing-states [/i]including Florida where Bush and Kerry are tied in the polls http://www.google.com/url?sa=...://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/ state/9241228.htm (and where Jeb Bush has been up to his usual election-rigging, hijinks and dirty tricks http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/gene..., and a Florida state election official recently resigned in protest http://www.miami.com/mld/miam... ) ... Please contact your Senators and Representatives in Congress http://www.congress.org in order to[i] demand [/i]that an independent U.N. commission be assigned to ensure that all eligible voters are permitted to vote; that their votes are properly counted; and, that the results genuinely reflect the will of "We the People" as per the [i]correct tally of the votes [/i]as registered by our citizens ...
[b]There is a growing concern about the proper administration of the 2004 presidential election given the fact that the polls reflect it will be a very close race between Bush and Kerry ...[/b]
Calling attention to escalating concerns about the fairness of election practices in the United States, delegates in Las Vegas at the annual [u]National NOW Conference[/u] http://www.now.org/organizati... last week passed a resolution urging United Nations oversight of the November elections.
The resolution, which passed unanimously on July 18, supports the members of Congress who sent a letter http://www.house.gov/apps/lis... to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on July 1 asking for U.N. oversight of the presidential elections. It cites a number of troubling reports relating to the 2000 presidential election, including one by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR), a bipartisan federal agency that investigated widespread allegations of voter disenfranchisement and questionable practices in Florida relating to the purging of names from voter registration lists, methods of balloting, and the independence of counting and certification procedures.
NOW members vividly recall Dec. 2000, when the Supreme Court issued a decision in Bush v. Gore—one of the most controversial pieces of jurisprudence in history—preventing a complete re-counting of the votes in disputed Florida precincts and counties. Our fears were confirmed in June 2001, when the USCCR found that the electoral process in Florida resulted in the denial of the right to vote for countless persons and further that the "disenfranchisement of Florida's voters fell most harshly on the shoulders of black voters" and in poor counties.
Despite promises and federal funds to improve voting accuracy and honesty, the USCCR in April 2004 reported that voting equipment, voter list maintenance and procedures for poll worker training, election certification and reinstatement of ex-felon voting rights have not been adequately reformed, as promised, and that the potential is "real and present for significant problems on voting day that once again will compromise the right to vote."
Another potential threat is the newer touch-screen machines that use a proprietary source code and lack a paper trail, meaning that voters and voting officials have no way to verify that the votes were counted. While NOW applauds this new technology for easing the voting process for many disabled citizens, NOW is also concerned about reports from computer security experts who say these machines are vulnerable to hacking and may create more opportunities for election tampering.
Following the National NOW Conference's overwhelming support for unbiased election monitors, women's rights leaders said they continue to be troubled by statements by key Bush administration officials suggesting that the November election could be postponed in the event of perceived terrorist threats.
"I find it very disturbing—and highly suspect—that higher-ups in the Bush administration are reportedly talking about formulating plans for postponing the November presidential election on the basis of a self-generated warning of a terrorist attack," said NOW Action Vice President Olga Vives. "Quite frankly, I am worried that some politicians have the power to manipulate the fairness of our elections—and are willing to use it."
Given these concerns, NOW members resolved that "the engagement of international election monitors has the potential to expedite the necessary reform as well as reduce the likelihood of questionable practices and voter disenfranchisement on Election Day" and further resolved to support the efforts of the members of Congress who requested U.N. oversight of the November presidential election.
In passing the resolution, NOW activists also committed to encouraging their members of Congress to join the effort to guarantee that justice and equality are upheld for all in the upcoming elections.
"The presence of U.N. elections monitors would serve as a recognition of the serious flaws that exist in our voting system," said NOW President Kim Gandy. "Activists have fought long and hard to extend the right to vote—the foundation of democracy—and it is vital to preserve those gains. We know that every vote counts, and we must ensure that every vote is counted."
[i][b]For additional information about the appeal to the U.N. and to join 20,000 other progressives who have signed a petition http://democrats.com/elandsli... demanding that President Bush approve election monitors, contact Democrats.com.[/b][/i]
NOW salutes the 13 members of Congress that initiated the call to the UN to help ensure a fair and democratic election this November and encourages progressive activists to thank them with calls, letters or e-mails:
"[i]The security situation [in Iraq] is calamitous. ... This, however, is the tip of the iceberg. ... The story of Abu Ghraib http://www.tblog.com/template... and Guantánamo Bay is a disgrace[/i]. ..." - [b]Iraq is not Improving, it's a Disaster [/b]- http://www.commondreams.org/v...
[b]"We the People" are engulfed in a disastrous and failed nightmare in Iraq [i]"thanks [sic]" [/i]to the blood-thirsty Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta[/i]. Iraq is teetering on the edge of a catastrophic civil war http://www.antiwar.com/lind/?... and the corrupt Bush regime is already laying their illegal and immoral neo-fascist "ground-work" for an insane neo-con regime change in [b][i]Iran[/i][/b] http://www.sundayherald.com/4... [Iran is nearly 4 times the size of Iraq (Iran is 636,293 square miles / Iraq is 168,753 square miles) with a population nearly 3 times that of Iraq (Iran has a population of approx. 68 million people / Iraq has a population of approx. 25 million people)]!!!
We must[i] stop this insanity [/i]and [i]rid ourselves [/i]of the ruthless and reckless Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i] who are miserable failures ...[/b]
The fact that four Americans were killed in Iraq on Tuesday found itself mentioned in the 19th paragraph on an inside page of the [i]New York Times [/i]today, meaning that not only did those two marines and two soldiers die for nothing, but their deaths won’t even contribute much to the rising American disgust over Bush’s Iraq misadventure. More U.S. soldiers died yesterday, and the pace is continuing. An [i]AP[/i] story puts it thusly http://www.boston.com/dailyne...:.shtml :
... "[i]American soldiers in Iraq have been dying at a rate of two a day since Iraqis regained political control on June 28 a drop from the deadliest months of violence before the handover but still about the same rate overall as in the 16 months since the U.S. invasion.
The U.S. military death toll now has reached 900, and the number of American soldiers injured is approaching 6,000[/i]." ...
There are also signs that the insurgency in Iraq is on the verge of turning the quagmire into something much worse. One on hand, U.S. forces and their partners in the ersatz Iraqi quisling army are finding themselves personnel non grata in city after city in Iraq, not just in Falljuah. To demonstrate American might, it now appears as if U.S. forces are about to launch an all-out assault on Samarra, north of Baghdad, in a raid that could make the Alamo look like a picnic. First, the [i]Knight Ridder[/i] story this week http://www.realcities.com/mld... :
... "[i]After more than a year of fighting, U.S. troops have stopped patrolling large swaths of Iraq's restive Anbar province, according to the top American military intelligence officer in the area.
Most U.S. Army officers interviewed this week said the patrols in and around the province's capital, Ramadi—home to many Iraqi military and intelligence officers under Saddam Hussein—have stopped largely because the soldiers and commanders there were tired of being shot at by insurgents who've refused to back down under heavy American military pressure.
While American officials in Ramadi wouldn't provide exact figures for the change in numbers of patrols, there's obviously been a significant drop.
After losing dozens of men to a "voiceless, faceless mass of people" with no clear leadership or political aim other than killing American soldiers, the U.S. military has had to re-evaluate the situation, said Army Maj. Thomas Neemeyer, the head American intelligence officer for the 1st Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, the main military force in the Ramadi area and from there to Fallujah.
"They cannot militarily overwhelm us, but we cannot deliver a knockout blow, either," he said. "It creates a form of stalemate."
In the wreckage of the security situation, Neemeyer said, U.S. officials have all but given up on plans to install a democratic government in the city, and are hoping instead that Islamic extremists and other insurgent groups don't overrun the province in the same way that they've seized the region's most infamous town, Fallujah.
"Since Ramadi is the seat of the governate, we worry that if they could unsettle the government center here they could destabilize the al Anbar province," said Capt. Joe Jasper, a spokesman for the 1st Brigade.
The apparent failure of a long line of Army and Marine units to bring peace to the province, which makes up about 40 percent of Iraq's landmass, will be a major challenge for Iraq's new government and could prove to be a tipping point for the nation as a whole. Increasingly, Iraq is a place in which cities or part of cities have been taken over by insurgents and radicals.
To show how operations in Anbar have changed, Jasper sketched a map on a piece of paper.
Pointing to a neighborhood outside the town of Habbaniyah, between Fallujah and Ramadi, he said, "We've lost a lot of Marines there and we don't ever go in anymore. If they want it that bad, they can have it."
Looking up at a map on the wall, Neemeyer flicked his laser pointer across a large piece of land between Ramadi and Fallujah. "We don't go into that area anymore," he said. "Why go there when all that happens is we get hit?"
Many of those interviewed in Ramadi recently said they'd welcome a Fallujah-like rule by insurgents[/i]." ...
If they want it that bad, they can have it? They want the whole country that bad. Can they have that, too? According to the[i] Washington Post[/i], http://www.washingtonpost.com... they can’t have Samarra, at least—but we’ll see:
... "[i]Tens of thousands of people have fled Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, in recent weeks, expecting a showdown between U.S. troops and heavily armed groups within the city, according to U.S. and Iraqi sources.
Samarra is now controlled by a volatile mix of tribes and gangs, some split along religious lines, and supporters of ousted president Saddam Hussein, according to interviews with numerous Samarra residents who have fled to Baghdad. On July 8, some of those groups launched an attack in which a car bombing was followed by a fierce volley of mortar fire. Five U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi National Guardsman were killed and 40 people were injured.
U.S. military planners complained in private that Fallujah was a bad deal, allowing the city to become a rallying point and stronghold for guerrilla forces.
"It's the lily pad theory. Fallujah exports itself to Samarra, which exports itself to the next place," said Lt. Col. James Stackmo, an intelligence officer for the division, headquartered in Tikrit. "In Samarra, there's probably 100 to 300 fighters who are holding the town hostage. We're not going to allow a militia in Samarra. We're not going to do it."
The U.S. military will try to mount a joint operation with Iraqi security forces, officials said. Under the plan, U.S. forces would likely seize Samarra in a powerful assault, then have Iraqi National Guard or police officers patrol the city[/i]." ...
In fact, cities all over Iraq are totally outside the control of either the U.S. forces or the government of Iraqistan. Not only Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra, but other population centers in central Iraq are virtually self-contained city-states. The Kurds run their little enclave all by themselves. Parts of Baghdad are no-go zones for Americans. And in the south, fascist Shiite militia and armed gangs controlled by Iranian-backed mullahs and the likes of Ayatollah Sistani run things without any help from Baghdad.
"[i]We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America[/i]."
Our Founding Fathers believed[i] above all [/i]in a constitutional framework based upon [i]the rule of law [/i] under which all citizens are to be subject ... No man/woman including our servants: the President and his Cabinet, Congress, and/or the Supreme Court justices are [i]supposed to be [/i]above the[i] rule of law[/i] in our Republic ... Have "We the People" lost sight of how fundamentally important[i] the rule of law[/i] is to the vitality, well-being and survival of our nation??? ... The Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's [/i]insane neo-con warfare based upon heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods represents a betrayal of our nation's founding principles and our Founding Fathers who were [i]courageous men who faced perilous danger and did not cower [/i]when under the dire threat of tyranny that [i]they fought with their "lives", their "fortunes" and their "sacred honor"[/i], would have hung their heads in shame ...
[b]The following is an excerpt from James Caroll's new book: [u]Crusade: Chronicles of an Unjust War[/u] http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob... [/b]
How we love our country! For days now, we Americans, while mourning and shuddering, have felt the accumulating weight of our patriotic devotion. We are joined in the shocking recognition of what a rare and precious treasure is the United States of America. Our nation's sudden vulnerability makes us shrug off, just as suddenly, the habit of taking for granted its nobility. We see it in the throat-choking empty place of the New York skyline, and in the gaping wound of the building beside Arlington Cemetery. We see it in the grimy faces of the resolute rescue workers, and in the implication that doomed airline passengers fought back against hijackers. We see it in the splendid diversity of our features, our accents, our beliefs, our responses even. Never has the national motto seemed more true: out of many, one.
But so far our main expression of this intense patriotism has been oddly in tension with its inner meaning, for the thing we treasure above all about America at this moment is the way it measures its hope by principles of democracy, tolerance, law, respect for the other, and even social compassion. Our supreme patriotic gesture in this crisis has been a nearly universal call for war, and indeed the growing sentiment for war, fueled by the rhetoric of our highest leaders, may soon be embodied in a formal congressional declaration of war. Before we go much farther, we should think carefully about why we are heading down this path, and where it is likely to lead. Do the rhetoric of war, and the actions it already sets in motion, really serve the urgent purpose of stopping terrorism? And is the launching of war really the only way to demonstrate our love for America?
Before going any farther, let me state the obvious. The nearly worldwide consensus that the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington must be met with force is entirely correct. The network of suicidal mass murderers, however large and wherever hidden, must be eliminated. But force can be exercised decisively and overwhelmingly in another context than that of "war." One of the great advances in civilization occurred when human beings found a way to channel necessary violence away from "war" and toward a new, counterbalancing context embodied in the idea of "law." The distinction may seem too fine to be relevant in the aftermath of this catastrophe, but it is after catastrophe that the distinction matters most. The difference between "war" and "law" is not the use of force. The United States of America, with its world allies, should be embarked not on a war but on an unprecedented, swift, sure, and massive campaign of law enforcement. As the term law enforcement implies, the proper use of force would be of the essence of this campaign.
[b][u]Why does this distinction matter? Four reasons[/u]: [/b]
1. [u]War, by definition, is an activity undertaken against a political or social entity[/u], while the terrorist network responsible for this catastrophe, from all reports, is a coalition of individuals, perhaps a large one. Law enforcement, by definition, is an activity undertaken against just such individuals or networks. By clothing our response to the terrorist acts in the rhetoric of war, we make it far more likely that members of groups associated by extrinsic factors with the perpetrators (Arabs, Muslims, Afghans, Pakistanis, etc.) will suffer terrible consequences, from being bombed in Kabul to being discriminated against in Boston. Furthermore, the rhetoric of war, as it falls on the ears of such people (a billion Muslims), makes it all the more likely that they will only see America as their enemy.
2. [u]War, by definition, is relatively imprecise[/u]. Steps can be taken to limit "collateral damage," but the method of war, in fact, is to bring pressure to bear against a hostile power structure by inflicting suffering on the society of which it is part. History shows that once wars begin, violence becomes general. As President Bush threatened, no distinctions are made. In law enforcement, by contrast, distinctions remain of the essence. Law enforcement submits to disciplines that are jettisoned in war. Do we really have the right to jettison such disciplines now?
3. [u]War, similarly, is less concerned with procedure than with result[/u]; or, more plainly, in war the ends justify the means. In law enforcement, the end remains embodied in the means, which is why procedures are so scrupulously observed in criminal justice activity. To respond to a terrorist's grievous violation of the social order with further violations of that order means the terrorist has won.
4. [u]War inevitably generates its own momentum[/u], which has a way of inhumanely overwhelming the humane purposes for which the war is begun in the first place. In the death-ground of combat violence, self-criticism can seem like fatal self-doubt, and so the savage momentum of war is rarely recognized as such until too late. The rule of unintended consequences universally applies in war. Law enforcement, on the other hand, with its system of checks and balances between police and courts, is inevitably self-critical. The moral link between act and consequence is far more likely to be protected.
What does "winning" a war against terrorism mean? How has hatred of America become a source of meaning for vast numbers whose poverty already amounts to a state of war? Must a massive campaign of unleashed violence become America's new source of meaning, too? The World Trade Center was a symbol of the social, economic, and political hope Americans treasure, a hope embodied above all in law. To win the struggle against terrorism means inspiring that same hope in the hearts of all[i] who do not have it. How we respond to this catastrophe will define our patriotism, shape the century, and memorialize our beloved dead[/i].
[b]James Carroll is the bestselling author of the National Book Award-winning memoir [u]An American Requiem http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob... ; Constantine's Sword http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob... ,[/u] a history of Christian anti-Semitism; and ten novels. He lectures widely on war and peace and on Jewish-Christian-Muslim reconciliation. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts. [/b]
Kerry Slightly Ahead of Bush, Latest Time Magazine Poll Finds ...
"[i]A week is a long time in politics[/i]" - Harold Wilson, c.1964
[b]The margin of error is [i]oh so tiny [/i]in this[i] oh so tight[/i] race ... Polls can vary from [i]week to week [/i]and are only indicative of [i]major trends in attitudes [/i]... "We the People" must be [i]ever vigilant [/i]for come November, [i]each and every vote [/i]will count ([i]if it is counted ... Hmmm ...[/i]) ...[/b]
[b]Consider this ...[/b]
[b]U.S. Senator John Kerry, who next week will be formally nominated as the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, is 3 points ahead of President George W. Bush in a nationwide poll by [i]Time[/i] magazine.[/b]
The Massachusetts senator leads Bush 46 percent to 43 percent, with independent candidate Ralph Nader polling 5 percent, according to the telephone survey of 1,000 registered voters conducted July 20-22. Kerry's lead is within the poll's 4 percentage-point margin of error and similar to a 47 percent to 45 percent lead he had at the beginning of the month.
Kerry will spend this week in Boston at the Democratic National Convention, where on Thursday he will formally accept the party's nomination.
[b]The president's overall approval rating was 50 percent, while 53 percent of respondents said it was ``[i]time for someone else to be president[/i],'' the poll found. Only 29 percent of voters said they knew a ``great deal'' about Kerry.[/b]
The [i]Time[/i] survey also found that 17 percent of voters are ``very worried'' about a terrorist attack in the next few months, though 86 percent said the election shouldn't be postponed if the nation is attacked.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge this month warned that terrorists (?) may be planning attacks to ``[i]disrupt our democratic process[/i].''
A separate survey found that 47 percent of Americans expect Bush to win the November election, including 24 percent of Democrats. The Quinnipiac University survey polled 1,551 registered voters July 18-22 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 1/12 percentage points. - http://quote.bloomberg.com/ap...
[b]"We the People" should be outraged that the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's [/i]GOP-controlled U.S. Congress has abdicated its Constitutional responsibilities while using its power to carry out a partisan witch hunt.[/b]
Despite major revelations that the Bush administration has inappropriately doctored agency documents, threatened government employees, allowed corporate shaping of federal policy, subverted sound science, and selectively declassified material for its own political gain, the congressional majority has refused to investigate any of the matters. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers are promising a partisan witch hunt over lost National Archives documents by former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, even though the Justice Department has told news agencies it does not expect criminal charges, and even though Republicans on the 9/11 Commission acknowledge they saw all of the material in question.
[u][b]Congress Ignores Abuse of Classified Info, Starts a Partisan Witch Hunt[/b][/u]
In the controversy over National Archives documents misplaced by former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, the media has widely reported that law enforcement is not expected to file any charges, and a top GOP 9/11 Commissioner has stated that the panel saw everything that was missing. Nonetheless, Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), chairman of the Government Reform Committee, is now promising his committee will launch an investigation into Berger http://msnbc.msn.com/ID/54635... Davis's aggressive stance represents a sharp departure from his refusal to investigate other serious issues. For instance, when he was asked by Democrats to investigate the Bush administration's leak of an undercover CIA officer's name, he said "I know Ashcroft very well, and I'm sure he'll go by the book," while his spokesman said such a probe (unlike Berger's, apparently) "should be conducted by career FBI agents." The contradiction highlights how Davis and the congressional majority have repeatedly refused to investigate serious national security matters in favor of partisan witch hunts.
[b]NO INVESTIGATION OF LEAK OF CIA AGENT'S NAME:[/b] In a July 14 column, syndicated newspaper columnist Robert Novak named former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative on weapons of mass destruction, citing Bush administration sources. Novak claimed he learned of Plame's identity from "two senior Bush administration officials." Sources told CNN that "Novak was among as many as six journalists who were told Plame's name." When ranking Democrat Henry Waxman (D-CA) asked for hearings to investigate the leak, Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) declined, saying on 10/3/03, "I know Ashcroft very well, and I'm sure he'll go by the book." Apparently unlike the Berger controversy, Davis's spokesman said then that any probe "should be conducted by career FBI agents." [[u]Sources[/u]: [i]CNN[/i], 2/11/04, http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPO... ; [i]CBS[/i], 12/31/03, http://www.cbsnews.com/storie... ]
[b]NO INVESTIGATION OF POTENTIAL LEAKS OF CLASSIFIED INFO TO BOB WOODWARD:[/b] While the White House refused to share its Presidential Daily Briefs (PDBs) with the 9/11 commission, citing their classified nature, according to journalist Bob Woodward, it had no problem sharing the briefs with him. Woodward acknowledges he was given access to "notes taken during more than 50 National Security Council and other meetings" (many of which are classified), and cites specific PDBs in his book. The Providence Journal reported that Woodward said the President himself "often spoke candidly about classified information." Republicans in Congress have launched no investigation into the President Bush's potential discussions of highly classified national security information. [[u]Sources[/u]: [i]Newsweek[/i], 2/18/04, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4... ; [i]WP[/i], 11/19/02, http://www.washingtonpost.com... ; [i]Providence Journal[/i], 4/10/02]
[b]NO INVESTIGATION OF ASHCROFT'S SELECTIVE LEAK OF CLASSIFIED INFO:[/b] In a transparent attempt to deflect attention from his own lackluster efforts to combat terrorism before 9/11, Attorney General John Ashcroft unilaterally declassified and distributed a 1995 memo written by commission member Jamie Gorelick on the day he was scheduled to testify. The move, intended to smear Gorelick and discredit the commission, was seized on by right-wing pundits and motivated calls for Gorelick's resignation. Ashcroft's action was so outrageous it earned him a rare rebuke from President Bush. Republicans in Congress, however, have launched no investigation into the matter of whether the Attorney General selectively leaked a classified document to discredit a member of the 9/11 commission. [[u]Sources[/u]: [i]WP[/i], 3/19/04, 4/14/04; [i]Fox News[/i], 3/15/04, http://www.foxnews.com/story/...,2933,117173,00.html ; [i]WH briefing[/i], 3/29/04, http://www.whitehouse.gov/new... ]
[b]NO INVESTIGATION INTO HIDING GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS:[/b] U.S. News and World Report earlier last year reported "the Bush administration has quietly but efficiently dropped a shroud of secrecy across many critical operations of the federal government--cloaking its own affairs from scrutiny and removing from the public domain important information on health, safety, and environmental matters. The result has been a reversal of a decades-long trend of openness in government while making increasing amounts of information unavailable to the taxpayers who pay for its collection and analysis." OMB Watch notes the administration specifically "ordered that thousands of documents and tremendous amounts of data be summarily removed from federal agency web sites. All of this was done without policy direction or maintaining a record of what information is now restricted." The Washington Post reported that Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a fiat to federal agencies directing them "to be cautious in releasing records to journalists and others" and implicitly urging them to slow down or reject more Freedom of Information Act requests. To date, Republicans in Congress have held no investigation or hearing into how the administration's unprecedented secrecy policies. [[u]Sources[/u]: [i]U.S. News & World Report[/i], 12/22/03, http://www.usnews.com/usnews/... ; [i]OMB Watch[/i], 10/25/02, http://www.ombwatch.org/artic... ; [i]AP[/i], 10/17/01, http://www.washingtonpost.com... ]
[u][b]Congress Ignores Abuse of Public Policy In Favor of a Partisan Witch Hunt[/b][/u]
Despite major revelations that the Bush administration has inappropriately doctored agency documents, threatened government employees, allowed corporate shaping of federal policy, and subverted sound science, the congressional majority has refused to investigate any of the matters.
[b]NO INVESTIGATION OF WHITE HOUSE DOCTORING GROUND ZERO AIR QUALITY INFO:[/b] After 9/11, the White House intervened to force the EPA to downplay toxic dangers at Ground Zero, explicitly ignoring a top federal scientist who warned in a memo against the re-occupation of buildings in lower Manhattan because of dangers from asbestos and other toxins. Just seven days after the attack, the White House had the EPA delete words of caution and add reassuring language in a release that told New Yorkers the air around Ground Zero was safe. Republicans in Congress have launched no investigation into the White House's doctoring of information and endangerment public health. [[u]Sources[/u]:[i] New York Daily News[/i], 10/28/03, http://www.nydailynews.com/fr... ; [i]Knight Ridder[/i], 9/12/03, http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/... ; [i]NYT[/i], 10/28/03, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/... ]
[b]NO OUTSIDE INVESTIGATION OF HOW MEDICARE ACTUARY WAS THREATENED: [/b]An internal investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed that top Medicare official Thomas Scully threatened to fire chief actuary Richard Foster if he told Congress that drug benefits would probably cost much more than the White House acknowledged. The investigation, which resulted in no criminal charges, was unsatisfactory to many democrats, who lobbied Davis for formal hearings. It did not address claims by Foster that "the White House participated in the decision to withhold" information from lawmakers. Republicans in Congress have launched no investigation into whether a top Medicare official, possibly in concert with White House officials, threatened to fire an employee for telling Congress the truth about the cost of the new Medicare legislation. [[u]Sources[/u]: [i]NYT[/i], 7/7/04, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... ; [i]WP[/i], 3/19/04, http://www.washingtonpost.com... ;[i] Kaiser[/i], 3/18/04, http://www.kaisernetwork.org/... ]
[b]NO INVESTIGATION OF ENRON/ INDUSTRY INFLUENCE ON BUSH ENERGY POLICY: [/b]Vice President Cheney acknowledges meeting with Enron executives and other energy industry officials in creating the White House's energy proposal. Similarly, the Bush administration's budget director, Commerce Secretary, Treasury Secretary and Energy Secretary at the time all admit to taking phone calls from now-indicted Enron CEO Ken Lay. Even the nonpartisan General Accountability Office has cited serious corporate influence over the administration's energy policy and energy task force. Yet despite calls for an investigation, Republicans in Congress have refused. [[u]Sources[/u]: [i]ABC[/i], 1/9/02, http://abcnews.go.com/section... ;[i] Washington Post[/i], 1/10/02, 1/11/02; [i]Wall Street Journal[/i], 1/15/02; [i]Washington Post[/i], 8/26/03, http://www.washingtonpost.com... ]
[b]NO INVESTIGATION INTO SUBVERTING SCIENCE: [/b]The Government Reform Committee Democrats have outlined various ways the White House has tried to remove or obstruct sound science from public policy. Most recently, the White House actually prevented U.S. government scientists from communicating with officials from the World Health Organization. The Union of Concerned Scientist, a nonpartisan group of over 4,000 prominent scientists, including 48 Nobel laureates, have signed a letter stating the Bush administration ignores and manipulates scientific knowledge in order to advance a political agenda. Nonetheless, Republicans in Congress have refused to investigate the issue. [[u]Source[/u]: [i]House Government Reform Committee website[/i], http://www.house.gov/reform/m... ; [i]Union of Concerned Scientists[/i], 7/04, http://www.ucsusa.org/documen... ]
The Republican Congress has refused to investigate revelations that Vice President Cheney's "coordinated" of federal contracts for his former employer, Halliburton. Here are just a few controversies that Davis has refused to investigate, even as he begins his new partisan witch hunt.
[b]NO INVESTIGATION OF CHENEY OFFICE INVOLVEMENT IN HALLIBURTON CONTRACTS:[/b] Shortly before the Pentagon awarded Halliburton a sole-source contract to help restore Iraqi oil fields last year, an Army Corps of Engineers official wrote an e-mail saying the award had been "coordinated" with the office of Vice President Cheney, Halliburton's former chief executive. "We anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated w VP's office," the e-mail said. Three days later, the Halliburton subsidiary KBR was granted the contract, which was worth as much as $7 billion. Democrats have called for an investigation into the matter, but have been stonewalled. Republicans in Congress have launched no investigation into whether the vice president illegally "coordinated" a no-bid contract for Halliburton, the company Cheney used to be CEO of, still holds stock options in, and receives deferred compensation from. [[u]Sources[/u]: [i]Time[/i], 5/30/04, http://www.truthout.org/docs_... ; [i]WP[/i], 6/2/04, http://www.washingtonpost.com... ; [i]CNN[/i], 6/1/04, http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPO... ]
[b]NO INVESTIGATION OF HALLIBURTON DOING BUSINESS IN IRAN/IRAQ UNDER CHENEY:[/b] Vice President Cheney's former company, Halliburton, is under investigation for possible violations of sanctions on state sponsors of terrorism while Cheney was in charge. The Treasury Department has been investigating the matter, which involves contracts pursued by a Halliburton subsidiary with Iran, since 2001, and recently referred the case to the US attorney in Houston, something it does only after finding evidence of "serious and willful violations" of the sanctions law. CBS News reported Cheney was CEO of Halliburton at the very time the company "set up shop in Iran." Similarly, evidence has been revealed proving Halliburton did at least $73 million in business with Iraq while Cheney was CEO, even though during the 2000 campaign Cheney claimed he had a "firm policy" against Iraq business. Republicans in Congress have not launched an investigation into whether Cheney conducted business with Iran, in violation of US sanctions meant to cut off funding to terrorists. [[u]Sources[/u]: [i]WP[/i], 7/21/04, http://www.washingtonpost.com... ; [i]CBS[/i], 1/26/04, http://www.cbsnews.com/storie... ; [i]LAT[/i], 7/21/04; [i]New Yorker[/i], 2/9/04, http://www.newyorker.com/fact... ; [i]Washington Post[/i], 6/23/01, http://www.truthout.org/docs_... ]
[b]NO INVESTIGATION OF CHENEY ROLE IN HALLIBURTON BRIBE SCANDAL:[/b] The Justice Department is inquiring into whether Vice President Cheney's former company, Halliburton, "was involved in the payment of $180 million in possible kickbacks to obtain contracts to build a natural gas plant in Nigeria during a period in the late 1990's" when Cheney was CEO. In a 2002 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Halliburton admitted that "one of our foreign subsidiaries operating in Nigeria made improper payments of approximately $2.4 million." And investigators in France are "reported to have uncovered evidence showing that about $5 million of payments related to the Nigeria project were deposited into a Swiss bank account controlled by Albert Stanley, the former chairman of a Halliburton subsidiary while Cheney was CEO. Republicans in Congress have not launched an investigation into whether the vice president was complicit in illegal bribes and kickback schemes to help his company secure foreign contracts in Nigeria. [[u]Sources[/u]: [i]IHT[/i], 6/14/04, http://www.iht.com/articles/5... ; [i]Dallas Morning News[/i], 1/9/04, http://www.dallasnews.com/sha... ; [i]Newsweek[/i], 2/4/04, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4... ]
[b]NO INVESTIGATION INTO HALLIBURTON ABUSE OF TROOPS:[/b] According to NBC News, in late 2003, "the Pentagon repeatedly warned contractor Halliburton-KBR that the food it served to US troops in Iraq was 'dirty,' as were the kitchens it was served in." Halliburton-Kellogg Brown and Root's promises to improve "have not been followed through," according to a Pentagon report that warned "serious repercussions may result" if the contractor did not clean up. The Pentagon reported finding "blood all over the floor," "dirty pans," "dirty grills," "dirty salad bars" and "rotting meats ... and vegetables" in four of the military messes the company operates in Iraq. The company feeds 110,000 US and coalition troops daily at a cost of $28 per troop per day. Nonetheless, Republicans in Congress have refused to investigate the issue. [[u]Source[/u]: [i]Agence France Press[/i], 12/14/03, http://www.truthout.org/docs_... ]
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]is doing everything in it's vast power to divert our attention from the scandal of criminal activity underlying their illegal and immoral war in Iraq and their plans for more warmongerings in the Middle East with [i]Iran[/i] http://www.tblog.com/template... as the next stop on their insane neo-con road to Armageddon ...[/b]
"We the People" can however commence to "[i]Connect-the-Dots' [/i]by analyzing Dick Cheney's sordid and squalid past track-record of betraying our nation on behalf of his neo-fascist [i]corporate-take-all [/i]pimps ...
[b]BERNAMA THE MALAYSIAN NATIONAL NEWS AGENCY KUALA LUMPUR, April 20, 1998 [/b]
... "Former United States Defence Secretary Dick Cheney today hit out at his government for imposing unilateral economic sanctions like the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, saying they have been "ineffective, did not provide the desired results and a bad policy".
"I have made it clear that our (the US unilateral) sanctions policy is wrong," he said when asked to comment on the Iran-Libya Act which contains provisions for sanctions to be imposed by the US against foreign companies making investment beyond US$20 million a year in the oil and gas sector of the targeted countries.
Malaysia, which is against the extra-territorial law, has said that Petronas and other Malaysian companies will continue to invest abroad despite the US threat of sanctions under the Act.
Petronas is currently involved in a US$2 billion gas field project in Iran undertaken jointly with SA Total of France and Gazprom of Russia.
Speaking to reporters after calling on Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad at the Prime Minister's office here, Cheney, who is now the chairman and CEO of Halliburton, said: "The US needs to be much more restraint then we have been in terms of pursuing unilateral economic sanctions."
Cheney, who served under the Bush administration between 1989 and 1993, however said the multilateral economic sanctions imposed by the international community on Iraq were "appropriate".
"I disagree with the current law (Iran-Libya Sanctions Act) but my company will comply with the rule (Act)," he said.
He said he also disagreed with the unilateral economic sanctions imposed on Myanmar and Arzerbaijan."...
[b]See this article http://www.mercurynews.com/ml... for more on the grand jury investigation into whether Halliburton broke the Iranian sanctions law.[/b]
For what it's worth, I think the promiscuous use of unilateral economic sanctions probably is a bad idea -- an example of the capricious and shortsighted use of American power that limits our ability to deal forcefully with real problems by antagonizing allies and frittering away diplomatic capital with silliness like the continuing sanctions against Cuba, among other examples. - http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
[b]"[i]I don't have any idea of what we're trying to do out here. I don't know what the (goal) is, and I don't think our commanders do either[/i]," he said. "[i]I feel deceived personally. I don't trust anything (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld says, and I think (Deputy Defense Secretary Paul) Wolfowitz is even dirtier[/i]." [/b]
That's a quote http://www.mercurynews.com/ml... from Staff Sgt. A.J. Dean, who sums up the morale on the ground in Iraq. Soldiers are tired of risking their lives for reasons they no longer understand and are increasingly angry at their government for forcing them to do so.
Their rising disillusionment bodes ill for the Pentagon. The Iraq war has turned into a great recruiting poster for the Al Qaeda but also the worst kind of advertising for the U.S. military. Both the military reserves and the regular Army are witnessing a sharp drop http://www.washingtonpost.com... in their pool of recruits. http://www.alternet.org
[b]So how is Dubya [i]gonna' manage [/i]that next big-fat-juicy regime change in [i]Iran[/i] http://www.sundayherald.com/4... that he and Cheney are [i]lusting [/i]after??? ...[/b]
Over 900 U.S. Soldiers and over 16,000 innocent Iraqi civilians have been [i]massacred[/i] in Iraq to-date, with [i]no end-in-sight[/i], as on average 2 U.S. Soldiers and even more Iraqis have been killed[i] each day [/i]since so-called "sovereignty (?)" has been "handed-over (?)" ... All for [i]nothing[/i]-- based upon heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods that represent impeachable offenses under the U.S. Constitution ...
"We the People" should be [i]very, very concerned [/i]about the disastrous direction that the Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] is headed (and [i]dragging us along[/i], while these Bush/Cheney-crooks, Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc[i]. all take-the-money-and-run [/i]...) ...[/b]
9/11 Commission Report Takes on Bush/Cheney's Un-American Patriot Act ...
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] Un-American Patriot Act http://www.tblog.com/template... is a heinous violation of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights ...[/b] The traitorous Bush regime is systematically dismantling our Republic and their unprecedented secrecy is alarmingly dangerous and extremely destructive to our way of life ...
[u]Bush Administration Documents on Secrecy Policy ... c/o The Federation of American Scientists[/u]: http://www.tblog.com/template...
[b]WASHINGTON - The official 9/11 Commission report, released today, takes aim at the USA Patriot Act and the excessive amount of official secrecy in the Bush administration.[/b]
"Regarding civil liberties, the 9/11 Commission report essentially says that the Justice Department and White House have not made a compelling case for either[b] the administration’s[i] obsession [/i]with secrecy or its Patriot Act[/b]," said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director. "This bipartisan report should serve as a wake-up call for Congress that it must maintain the sunsets in the Patriot Act."
[b]As the report states on page 394, "The burden of proof for retaining a particular governmental power should be on the executive, to explain (a) that the power actually materially enhances security and (b) that there is adequate supervision of the executive’s use of the powers to ensure protection of civil liberties. If the power is granted, there must be adequate guidelines and oversight to properly confine its use."[/b]
The long-awaited report, which contains the official findings of the independent commission investigating the 9/11 terrorism attacks, contains significant recommendations germane to the debate over civil liberties that has raged for more than two-and-a-half years now.
The report echoes criticisms by the ACLU and others that the Justice Department has so far failed to demonstrate why the expanded surveillance and investigative powers in the Patriot Act are needed to fight terrorism. The commission’s findings, the ACLU said, strongly confirm the need to maintain the Patriot Act sunsets.
The sunset provisions - which apply to some of the Patriot Act’s most controversial provisions - would require Congress to reconsider about a tenth of the law in December 2005. Provisions that sunset include the infamous "library records" provision, which reduces judicial review when counter-intelligence agents seek secret court orders for the production of a wide array of personal information, including library, business, genetic, medical and even gun purchase records.
[b]Notably, the commission does not recommend that any sunseted provisions should be made permanent.[/b]
In addition, the commission’s report contains a list of 10 separate missed "operational" opportunities to foil the attacks. While the report stops short of calling the attacks preventable, it clearly shows that the intelligence and law enforcement communities were not using their existing counter-terrorism powers to their fullest potential.
"The administration has yet to explain why it didn’t use its already expansive power to the fullest before 9/11," said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "The commission’s report suggests that the White House claim that the worst parts of the Patriot Act are needed to stop terrorism is dubious, to say the least."
[b]The report also cites both excessive government secrecy and overclassification as threats to open government and, more notably, as threats to national security.[/b] The ACLU pointed to the finding as evidence that the government should stop stonewalling the series of Freedom of Information Act requests submitted by the ACLU and other civil liberties groups on the Patriot Act, the Abu Ghraib scandal and other matters of public interest.
Characterizing the current Congressional intelligence watchdog system as "dysfunctional," the commission’s strongest recommendation is the need for more aggressive Congressional oversight of the intelligence community, including making the intelligence budget public. The ACLU applauded the move but emphasized that the structure of the committee would be less important than whether its operation was in turn open to public scrutiny.
[b]As the report stated: "Secrecy stifles oversight, accountability and information sharing. Unfortunately, all the current organizational incentives encourage over-classification. This balance should change; and as a start, open information should be provided about the overall size of agency intelligence budgets."[/b]
Contrary to earlier reports, the commission explicitly rejects - in part, for civil liberties reasons - the creation of a domestic intelligence agency modeled after Britain’s MI-5. The ACLU, a critic of any domestic intelligence activity that is not linked to law enforcement, applauded the move.
Unfortunately, there are some recommendations that raise civil liberties concerns; two of the most salient are calls for the backdoor creation of national ID cards in the form of a standardized drivers licenses and a cabinet-level intelligence czar.
"A Senate-confirmed intelligence director sitting in the White House would be in the hip pocket of the president," Romero added.
The ACLU questioned whether pitting the FBI’s culture of case-oriented law enforcement against the CIA’s culture of covert, subversive operations, under one chief, would result in a further weakening of civil liberties protections in the FBI’s intelligence work. Similarly, if the new director were to have operational control over both domestic and foreign intelligence work - that is, real authority over both the FBI and the CIA - he or she could blur the lines between the agencies’ two very different missions.
[b]Finally, the ACLU expressed concern that if the director of national intelligence ends up controlling the purse strings of the entire intelligence community, there are very few contingencies that could keep the director from exercising specific, operational control over both domestic and foreign intelligence[/b].
"[i]The security situation [in Iraq] is calamitous. ... This, however, is the tip of the iceberg. ... The story of Abu Ghraib http://www.tblog.com/template... and Guantánamo Bay is a disgrace[/i]. ..." - [b]Iraq is not Improving, it's a Disaster [/b]- http://www.commondreams.org/v...
[b]"We the People" are engulfed in a disastrous and failed nightmare in Iraq [i]"thanks [sic]" [/i]to the blood-thirsty Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta[/i]. Iraq is teetering on the edge of a catastrophic civil war http://www.antiwar.com/lind/?... and the corrupt Bush regime is already laying their illegal and immoral neo-fascist "ground-work" for an insane neo-con regime change in [b][i]Iran[/i][/b] http://www.sundayherald.com/4... [Iran is nearly 4 times the size of Iraq (Iran is 636,293 square miles / Iraq is 168,753 square miles) with a population nearly 3 times that of Iraq (Iran has a population of approx. 68 million people / Iraq has a population of approx. 25 million people)]!!!
We must[i] stop this insanity [/i]and [i]rid ourselves [/i]of the ruthless and reckless Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i] who are miserable failures ...[/b]
The fact that four Americans were killed in Iraq on Tuesday found itself mentioned in the 19th paragraph on an inside page of the [i]New York Times [/i]today, meaning that not only did those two marines and two soldiers die for nothing, but their deaths won’t even contribute much to the rising American disgust over Bush’s Iraq misadventure. More U.S. soldiers died yesterday, and the pace is continuing. An [i]AP[/i] story puts it thusly http://www.boston.com/dailyne...:.shtml :
... "[i]American soldiers in Iraq have been dying at a rate of two a day since Iraqis regained political control on June 28 a drop from the deadliest months of violence before the handover but still about the same rate overall as in the 16 months since the U.S. invasion.
The U.S. military death toll now has reached 900, and the number of American soldiers injured is approaching 6,000[/i]." ...
There are also signs that the insurgency in Iraq is on the verge of turning the quagmire into something much worse. One on hand, U.S. forces and their partners in the ersatz Iraqi quisling army are finding themselves personnel non grata in city after city in Iraq, not just in Falljuah. To demonstrate American might, it now appears as if U.S. forces are about to launch an all-out assault on Samarra, north of Baghdad, in a raid that could make the Alamo look like a picnic. First, the [i]Knight Ridder[/i] story this week http://www.realcities.com/mld... :
... "[i]After more than a year of fighting, U.S. troops have stopped patrolling large swaths of Iraq's restive Anbar province, according to the top American military intelligence officer in the area.
Most U.S. Army officers interviewed this week said the patrols in and around the province's capital, Ramadi—home to many Iraqi military and intelligence officers under Saddam Hussein—have stopped largely because the soldiers and commanders there were tired of being shot at by insurgents who've refused to back down under heavy American military pressure.
While American officials in Ramadi wouldn't provide exact figures for the change in numbers of patrols, there's obviously been a significant drop.
After losing dozens of men to a "voiceless, faceless mass of people" with no clear leadership or political aim other than killing American soldiers, the U.S. military has had to re-evaluate the situation, said Army Maj. Thomas Neemeyer, the head American intelligence officer for the 1st Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, the main military force in the Ramadi area and from there to Fallujah.
"They cannot militarily overwhelm us, but we cannot deliver a knockout blow, either," he said. "It creates a form of stalemate."
In the wreckage of the security situation, Neemeyer said, U.S. officials have all but given up on plans to install a democratic government in the city, and are hoping instead that Islamic extremists and other insurgent groups don't overrun the province in the same way that they've seized the region's most infamous town, Fallujah.
"Since Ramadi is the seat of the governate, we worry that if they could unsettle the government center here they could destabilize the al Anbar province," said Capt. Joe Jasper, a spokesman for the 1st Brigade.
The apparent failure of a long line of Army and Marine units to bring peace to the province, which makes up about 40 percent of Iraq's landmass, will be a major challenge for Iraq's new government and could prove to be a tipping point for the nation as a whole. Increasingly, Iraq is a place in which cities or part of cities have been taken over by insurgents and radicals.
To show how operations in Anbar have changed, Jasper sketched a map on a piece of paper.
Pointing to a neighborhood outside the town of Habbaniyah, between Fallujah and Ramadi, he said, "We've lost a lot of Marines there and we don't ever go in anymore. If they want it that bad, they can have it."
Looking up at a map on the wall, Neemeyer flicked his laser pointer across a large piece of land between Ramadi and Fallujah. "We don't go into that area anymore," he said. "Why go there when all that happens is we get hit?"
Many of those interviewed in Ramadi recently said they'd welcome a Fallujah-like rule by insurgents[/i]." ...
If they want it that bad, they can have it? They want the whole country that bad. Can they have that, too? According to the[i] Washington Post[/i], http://www.washingtonpost.com... they can’t have Samarra, at least—but we’ll see:
... "[i]Tens of thousands of people have fled Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, in recent weeks, expecting a showdown between U.S. troops and heavily armed groups within the city, according to U.S. and Iraqi sources.
Samarra is now controlled by a volatile mix of tribes and gangs, some split along religious lines, and supporters of ousted president Saddam Hussein, according to interviews with numerous Samarra residents who have fled to Baghdad. On July 8, some of those groups launched an attack in which a car bombing was followed by a fierce volley of mortar fire. Five U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi National Guardsman were killed and 40 people were injured.
U.S. military planners complained in private that Fallujah was a bad deal, allowing the city to become a rallying point and stronghold for guerrilla forces.
"It's the lily pad theory. Fallujah exports itself to Samarra, which exports itself to the next place," said Lt. Col. James Stackmo, an intelligence officer for the division, headquartered in Tikrit. "In Samarra, there's probably 100 to 300 fighters who are holding the town hostage. We're not going to allow a militia in Samarra. We're not going to do it."
The U.S. military will try to mount a joint operation with Iraqi security forces, officials said. Under the plan, U.S. forces would likely seize Samarra in a powerful assault, then have Iraqi National Guard or police officers patrol the city[/i]." ...
In fact, cities all over Iraq are totally outside the control of either the U.S. forces or the government of Iraqistan. Not only Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra, but other population centers in central Iraq are virtually self-contained city-states. The Kurds run their little enclave all by themselves. Parts of Baghdad are no-go zones for Americans. And in the south, fascist Shiite militia and armed gangs controlled by Iranian-backed mullahs and the likes of Ayatollah Sistani run things without any help from Baghdad.
[b]What does the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]intend to keep secret from "We the People" regarding their neo-hitlerian murders, tortures, rapes and abuses at [i]Abu Ghraib[/i]??? ... [/b]For a heart-breaking[i] "look-see"[/i] refer to "[u]Torturing Children[/u]" on http://www.truthout.org/docs_... ... In testimony before the Senate & House Armed Services Committees, Rumsfeld http://www.truthout.org/docs_... admitted that he had seen video-tapes, photos and tape-recordings of horrors and atrocities carried out at [i]Abu Ghraib[/i] http://www.newyorker.com/fact... that were [i]much, much "worse" [/i] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin... than the pictures already released[i] at that time [/i] http://www.antiwar.com/news/?... to the American public (... the pictures were only available for us to see because they were released by US Soldiers to the foreign press[i] first[/i]; otherwise the neo-fascist Bushies would have censored them ...) ...
Although the traitorous neo-con Bush regime [i]may[/i] succeed in [i]diverting the attention [/i]of the right-wing corporate-owned neo-fascist media in the United States of America, they cannot hide the fact that [i]they are responsible[/i] for unconscionable War Crimes ... History will condemn these horrendous Crimes Against Humanity committed by the Un-American Bush regime ... For some thoughtful insight please consider also "[u]'An old vet's opinion: Bush and the torturing of Iraq's children'[/u]" on http://www.smirkingchimp.com/... .
The [i]Abu Ghraib [/i]investigation whitewash I reported on last week is intensifying as the Defense Department moves to squelch document production in response to Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") requests by public interest groups and members of the media.
Freedom of Information Act requests that were sent to the Pentagon for additional documentation and imagery concerning the abuse of Iraqi prisoners held in U.S. custody in Iraq (SN, 05/12/04) were forwarded by the Pentagon to U.S. Central Command for processing.
But now U.S. Central Command is sending them back to the Pentagon.
"We have been instructed to refer all requests for information referring to detainee abuse to the Department of Defense [Pentagon FOIA office]," a CENTCOM FOIA officer wrote. http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2...
"In order to provide you with as much information as possible, all detainee requests are now being consolidated and will be answered by [the Pentagon]."
[b]Meanwhile, Congressional efforts to gain access to documents on the [i]Abu Ghraib [/i]case and related issues have been frustrated.[/b] http://www.washingtondispatch...
"Time and again attempts by this House to acquire documents related to the [i]Abu Ghraib [/i]prison abuse scandal have been defeated, largely on party line votes," said Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) on July 19, citing several initiatives that had been blocked by the Republican majority.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. New Yorker columnist Seymour M. Hersh, who has already broken several important stories on the invasion of Iraq and the "War on Terror," reportedly has new information that is even more disturbing than his May 2004 article, [u]The Gray Zone[/u]. http://www.newyorker.com/fact...
[i]The Independent [/i]reported on July 16, 2004, that videotapes exist of US soldiers sodomizing Iraqi boys. http://news.independent.co.uk... [i]The Independent [/i]quotes Mr. Hersh, at a speaking engagement before a San Francisco ACLU meeting, as saying: "The boys were sodomised with the cameras rolling, and the worst part is the soundtrack, of the boys shrieking. And this is your government at war."
The horrifying story of[i] Abu Ghraib [/i]is going to get worse. If our professional US Army officer corps continues to "play ostrich," or allows itself to be further politicized as a means of escaping or minimizing the consequences of this grave leadership failure, the damage to the US Army will be lasting and to the core. The "Nuremberg defense" and careerist political moves just won't cut it. Brave officers who honor their oath of office, their commission and the Constitution they swore to defend must inititiate the desperately needed correction from within the US Army, now. Slow-walking, stonewalling or waiting for civilian politicians to "provide guidance" is not an acceptable or honorable course of action. - http://www.washingtondispatch...
[b]The traitorous[i] enemies within [/i]who support the corrupt Bush regime achieved their pernicious lusts [i]by terrorizing the American people [/i]into submission in order to wage their illegal and immoral neo-con war in Iraq based upon heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods ... Now they ruthlessly and cynically figure that they must [i]terrorize and terrify [/i]"We the People"[i] even further [/i]in order to keep-up their blood-thirsty agenda of perpetual neo-imperial conquests for perpetual neo-fascist profits-[i]and[/i]-power in the Middle East ...
They're [i]baaaack[/i]![/b]
Just when we thought it was safe to go into politics, the [b]Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) [/b]raises its ugly head.
[u]The Great Neocon Cabal is[i] baaaack[/i].[/u]
You can visit them at [i]fightingterror.org [/i] http://www.fightingterror.org... . Those who thought the neocons were finished (me not being one of those Pollyannas) ought to take a look. What’s interesting about this new venture—actually a reconstituted version of the Great Original Neocon Cabal of the 1970s—is that finally the cabal has an address. Astonishingly, living at that address, besides the usual suspects (yes, Podhoretz, Kemp, Kirkpatrick, Meese, Woolsey) is one Sen. Joseph Lieberman, honorary co-chairman of the thing. It’s an interesting mix of creaky old Cold Warriors like Max Kampelman and Midge Decter, along with young upstarts like Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute and outright loonies like Laurie (“Saddam blew up Oklahoma City”) Mylroie.
In its mission statement, the CPD says:
... "[i]In the authoritarian and tyrannical world view of Islamic terrorist ideology, America and the free world are too weak, too comfortable and too much in love with living to overcome the jihadist's maniacal commitment to a hard life and violent death in the name of Allah. It is likely that Bin Laden and his fellow terrorists were surprised by the post-9/11 American response to their operations, but that they still expect the nation's resolve to wane and dissipate, and its allies to withdraw in the fashion of Spain, in the process of open public debate that characterizes free democratic nations[/i]." ...
Of course, it isn’t Osama bin Laden that thinks America is “too weak, too comfortable and too much in love with living.” Those are precisely the CPD’s views, and they want to change it—to have a big tough America that bombs people and bosses countries around.
In their [i]Washington Post [/i]op-ed yesterday http://www.washingtonpost.com... , Lieberman and fellow traveler Sen. John Kyl—not the sharpest knife in the Senate’s drawer—provide some useful Cold War history:
... "[i]The Committee on the Present Danger was first formed at the dawn of the Cold War in 1950 to educate Americans about the growing threat of Soviet communism. Democratic senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson of Washington state revitalized the group in the mid-'70s; this time it was focused on working for a stronger stance toward the Soviets and the increased defense spending necessary to carry out that policy[/i]." ...
But Lieberman-Kyl make it clear that the purpose of the CPD is to make sure that America continues to be afraid, very afraid throughout this election year:
... "[i]The liberation of Iraq has important implications for the region and for the broader war on terrorism. The leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties have so far stood firm in their commitment to finish the job in Iraq and to fight to victory the war on terrorism. But that bipartisan consensus is coming under growing public pressure and could fray in the months ahead. Although the tide is turning in the war on terrorism, a political undertow in this country could wash out our recent gains. We must not let this happen[/i].
[i]To make sure it doesn't, we are relaunching today the Committee on the Present Danger, a group of citizens of diverse political persuasions who will work to sustain and strengthen bipartisan support for the war on terrorism in Iraq and beyond[/i]." ...
I wonder in which candidate’s interest that is? Sen. Lieberman, have you no shame?
[b]The following analysis demonstrates some interesting trends as the confidence that "We the People" mistakenly placed in the corrupt Bush/Cheney's Inc. [i]junta[/i] who ruthlessly and recklessly have betrayed the public trust, is clearly[i] waning [/i]...[/b]
In this edition of[i] Public Opinion Watch[/i]:
• Et Tu, [i]CBS News/New York Times[/i]? • Voters Want a Change in Direction • Who Needs Swing Voters? • Iraq War a Mistake, Public Says
The latest [i]CBS News/New York Times [/i]poll has a number of findings that are bad news for President Bush and reinforce the results of other recent public polls (see below). Here are the key findings:
1. Bush's favorable/unfavorable rating is net negative for their fifth survey in a row (going back to the beginning of April).
2. Kerry/Edwards beats Bush/Cheney by 5 points (49 percent to 44 percent), including an 8-point lead among independent voters. Note that the 5-point lead is the identical result that CBS News obtained in their overnight poll after Kerry selected Edwards as his running mate, suggesting that the Edwards bounce has some staying power.
3. Bush's overall approval rating is net negative (45 percent approval/48 percent disapproval) for their fourth survey in a row, going back to late April. His 45 percent rating, while a slight improvement over his late May and late June ratings, keeps him well into the danger zone for incumbents.
4. Right direction/wrong track is at 36 percent/56 percent, essentially unchanged since their last survey about three weeks ago.
5. His approval rating on foreign policy is his worst ever at 39 percent/55 percent, as is his rating on handling the campaign against terrorism (51 percent/43 percent). (Note: this latter trend contradicts a recent [i]Washington Post [/i]poll finding suggesting an improvement in Bush's rating in this area—see below.) His approval rating on the economy is still going nowhere fast and, at 42 percent/51 percent, still has failed to reach the exalted heights of mid-February, when his economic rating reached 44 percent/50 percent. And his approval rating on Iraq is 37 percent/58 percent, practically a carbon copy of his dismal ratings in their late June and late May polls.
6. The Democrats have a 9-point advantage in the generic congressional contest, consistent with the newly released Democracy Corps poll (see below).
7. John Edwards has a net +22 in his favorability rating, while Dick Cheney is now at -9, his worst rating ever.
8. For the first time, a majority (51 percent) says that we should have stayed out Iraq, rather than we did the right thing by taking military action (45 percent). And the highest number ever (62 percent) says that the result of the war with Iraq wasn't worth the loss of life and other costs of attacking Iraq.
9. With all the brouhaha in the Senate about the gay marriage constitutional amendment, the number who think that gays should be allowed to either marry or form civil unions continues to climb—from 55 percent in March, to 57 percent in May, to 59 percent in this latest survey.
10. The highest number ever (60 percent) think that the United States should not attack another country unless the United States is attacked first.
11. Democrats have an 8-point advantage in party identification without leaners and a 14-point advantage with leaners. Shades of the much-maligned [i]Los Angeles Times poll[/i]. http://www.emergingdemocratic... This party identification advantage, if it holds, gives the Democrats a built-in advantage on Election Day, which the Republicans then have to try to desperately counter by maximizing turnout of their base. For the likelihood that this strategy will work, see below.
[b]Voters Want a Change in Direction[/b]
Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll of 1,010 likely voters for [i]Democracy Corps[/i], released July 16 (conducted July 10–13) - http://www.democracycorps.com...
Stan Greenberg and James Carville, [i]"Report on the Stable Framework Favoring John Kerry's Election[/i]," [i]Democracy Corps,[/i] July 16 - http://www.democracycorps.com...
Democracy Corps has released their latest survey, along with an accompanying analysis memo, "Report on the Stable Framework Favoring John Kerry's Election." One of the features of the new survey is that they provide not one, not two, not three, but four different horse race results for your edification (all among likely voters):
Kerry/Edwards vs. Bush/Cheney (split sample): 52 percent to 45 percent Kerry vs. Bush (split sample): 50 percent to 47 percent Kerry vs. Bush (combining split samples): 51 percent to 46 percent Kerry vs. Bush vs. Nader: 48 percent, 45 percent, and 4 percent
So pick whichever one suits your methodological fancy (though Kerry will be ahead no matter which one you pick).
The Democracy Corps survey also shows the Democrats up by 7 points (49 percent to 42 percent), in the generic congressional contest, another good sign for the Democrats.
The poll, in fact, is full of good signs "favoring John Kerry's election," as they put it in the title of their analysis memo.
For example, the poll has right direction/wrong track at 41 percent/54 percent and has Democracy Corps' related question, "Do you think the country should continue in the direction Bush is headed or go in a significantly different direction?" at 43 percent choosing Bush's direction and 54 percent selecting a significantly different direction.
Moreover, when this question is applied to nine different specific issue areas, voters only want to continue in Bush's direction on one area, the war on terrorism (54 percent/43 percent), but even here, Bush's net of +11 is sharply down from a net of +33 in January. In all other areas, Bush is net negative on which direction the country should go in: prescription drug coverage for seniors (–27); jobs in America (–12); middle class living standards (–11); education (–11); foreign policy (–10); Iraq (–10); the economy (–8 ); and taxes (–6).
The poll also asked about whether voters preferred Kerry or Bush on handling a wide variety of issues. Bush has a lead on the war on terrorism (11 points) and on Iraq (4 points) and is tied on foreign policy. On all other issues, however, ranging from the economy, education and taxes to jobs, middle class living standards an energy policy, Kerry is ahead by from three to eleven points.
Consistent with other recent polls, the survey finds negative sentiment about Iraq continuing to worsen. By 15 points (56 percent/41 percent), voters now say the war in Iraq was not worth the cost of U.S. lives and dollars. And, by a 52 percent/45 percent margin, voters now believe that the Iraq war has made us less, not more, secure.
On the economy, it's worth quoting the Democracy Corps analysis memo at length:
"[i]In the great majority of areas, people are worried more, not less—particularly about health care costs, which jumped 8 points this month alone (to 54 percent very worried). While worry about gas prices has fallen off a little, the dominant pattern is growing worries about health care costs and employers cutting back benefits, particularly for health care[/i].
"[i]Not surprisingly, Democrats continue to win the essential economic debate between a middle class squeezed and the evidence of economic progress. By 59 to 38 percent, voters believe that the middle class faces stagnant incomes, scarce jobs, cuts in benefits as health care costs are rising; not as the economists say, that the economy is showing signs of success, with increased employment, high home ownership, stock values and the like. That outcome of that debate remains largely unchanged, with the slightest of narrowing. Giving stability to this structure are the 51 percent who 'strongly' reject the economic progress argument, down only 2 points from June and 5 points from May. Still, a majority of the electorate, on the eve of the Democratic convention, strongly reject Bush's core case for progress[/i]."
I realize Democracy Corps' analysis can seem a bit over-optimistic at times about the Democrats' chances. But, on the other hand, as these and other data accumulate, the Democrats may be justified in adopting a measure of real optimism.
[b]Who Needs Swing Voters?[/b]
Dana Milbank and Mike Allen, "[i]Bush Fortifies Conservative Base: Campaign Seeks Solid Support Before Wooing Swing Voters[/i]," [i]Washington Post[/i], July 15 - http://www.washingtonpost.com...
The Washington Post had a front-page article this past Thursday, "Bush Fortifies Conservative Base: Campaign Seeks Solid Support Before Wooing Swing Voters." According to the story—which is certainly consistent with the Bush campaign's recent choice of rhetoric and audience—the campaign is concentrating single-mindedly on shoring up its conservative base and getting it revved up for the election. As for the swing voters and independents, well, they're just hoping that the same hardline approach they're taking to tax cuts and terrorism to reach GOP partisans will, as kind of an ancillary benefit, somehow also yield a reasonable number of swing voters.
It's the Zen approach to reaching swing voters! You can't hit the target if you're aiming at it!
Or, as James Carville is quoted as saying in the article: "It's a new way to run for president . . . usually you quietly shore up your base and aggressively court the swing voter, Bush is aggressively shoring up his base and quietly courting the swing voter."
The former approach, of course, is what Kerry is pursuing—he's taking advantage of the exceptionally united Democratic base to go out there and assiduously cultivate swing voters and independents. And the polling data suggest these voters are very open to the Kerry message and are leaning heavily in his direction (see, for example, editions of [b]Public Opinion Watch [/b] http://www.americanprogress.o... from June 30 http://www.americanprogress.o... and June 9 http://www.americanprogress.o... and this recent memo by Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio http://www.fabmac.com/FMA-200... on undecided voters in battleground states).
These well-known facts have led some GOP partisans to run up the white flag on swing voters, arguing that they are few in number anyway, and put their faith in high turnout of "their people." The reliably hardline, but influential, Grover Norquist has this to say:
"[i]How much time and energy do you give to picking up the 10 percent, who are disengaged from politics, and how do you communicate with them even if you want to? You can go to the 45 percent [who already support Bush] and ask them to bring a brother or a sister or a friend to the polls[/i]."
Does any of this make any sense or is it properly viewed as an adjustment to political weakness (disunity in the conservative ranks and unfriendly swing voters) that is perhaps congealing into a foolish strategy (the heck with those swing voters, let's call Aunt Mary and get her to the polls!). I believe it's the latter.
Consider this analysis. The article asserts that Republicans have been supporting Bush at about the 90 percent level in this campaign. Averaging the last four Gallup polls, that's about true. But it's also true, averaging the last four Gallup polls, that Democratic support for Kerry has been running near that level and that the margins of support each candidate enjoys among their partisans are pretty close. Therefore, it appears unlikely that Bush will have as much of an advantage as he did in 2000 from a wider margin among Republicans than his opponent had among Democrats.
If that's true, then Bush can't win unless he erases the Democrats' traditional turnout advantage in presidential election years (Democrats generally run 3 to 4 points higher as a proportion of voters), since that advantage won't be offset much by the Republicans' superior margin among their partisans. (That could be part of the reasoning behind their base mobilization strategy.)
But then there are those pesky independent voters! You can erase the Democrats' turnout advantage—which I am, incidentally, quite skeptical they can do, based on recent party identification trends and apparent mobilization levels among Democrats and Democratic organizations—and still wind up losing handily because the independent voters break the tie against you.
And in the last four Gallup polls, independents are averaging a 14-point margin against Bush. To make up that deficit, Republicans would have to not only equalize their turnout with Democrats—against historical patterns—but actually beat the Democrats by about 4 points as a proportion of voters.
I don't think this is remotely plausible. Such a scenario is only possible with high mobilization of Republicans that is not counterbalanced at all by mobilization of Democrats. That just isn't going to happen this year (memo to Rove, Dowd, and, especially, Norquist: we're not in 2002 any more); to think it might is a complete fantasy.
But I imagine the Kerry campaign hopes they keep believing it. That way, the Kerry/Edwards campaign can have the swing voters and independents all to themselves, which would presumably suit them fine.
Last Wednesday, Bush reiterated that the war with Iraq was the right call and said he'd happily do the same thing again.
The American public, on the other hand, has its doubts. In the latest Gallup poll, the public, by 54 percent to 45 percent, says that sending troops to Iraq was a mistake. And, by 50 percent to 47 percent, the public believes that it wasn't worth going to war with Iraq.
The new Washington Post poll tells the same story: 53 percent now think that the war with Iraq wasn't worth fighting, compared to 45 percent who that believe it was. That's the Post poll's most negative finding on this question.
These findings are big, big trouble for the Bush/Cheney campaign. They indicate that the transfer of power to the new Iraqi government isn't fooling anyone. Voters believe—rightly—that the situation in Iraq isn't getting much better, that we're still militarily and financially responsible for keeping the situation under control, and that our initial involvement in Iraq was based on allegations and intelligence that have turned out to be mostly wrong.
No wonder Bush's approval rating on Iraq isn't going anywhere. In the Post poll, it has declined slightly over the past three weeks to 43 percent approval/55 percent disapproval (40 percent/57 percent among independents). And, over the same period, Kerry has moved into a tie with Bush (47 percent to 47 percent) over who could do a better job handling the Iraq situation, up from a 5-point deficit three weeks ago. (Note, though, in a bit of good news for Bush, his approval rating on handling the campaign against terrorism improved five points to 55 percent/43 percent and he reopened a 9-point advantage over Kerry on who would do the best job handling the anti-terrorism campaign.)
On the economy, the poll shows no gain for Bush—in fact, a small slide—in his economic approval rating. He's down a couple of points in the past three weeks to 43 percent/51 percent and the poll—in contrast to some recent Gallup data—shows only 35 percent saying the nation's economy is getting better, about the same number as were optimistic in their mid-April poll. And only a about a quarter of respondents (26 percent) say that their family financial situation is better than it was a year ago. In addition, Kerry has widened his lead over Bush on handling the economy to eight points from a five-point advantage three weeks ago.
The poll also shows some significant gains for Kerry on key personal characteristics. Since late April, Bush has remained rock steady at 42 percent yes/57 percent no on understanding "the problems of people like you." Kerry in contrast has gone from 52 percent yes/43 percent no to 55 percent/38 percent.
On being "a strong leader," Bush has declined several points, to 59 percent yes/40 percent no, while Kerry has move up from 52 percent/38 percent to 55 percent/35 percent. That actually gives Kerry a higher net rating (+20) than Bush (+19). Similarly, on "can be trusted in a crisis," Bush has declined a bit to 57 percent/41 percent, while Kerry has climbed significantly to 53 percent/34 percent from 46 percent/42 percent. Again, this gives Kerry a higher net rating (+19) than Bush (+16).
And just to add insult to injury for the Bush campaign, Kerry is now deemed "likeable" by more of the public (72 percent) than Bush (68 percent)!
[i][b]Ruy Teixeira is a joint fellow at the Center for American Progress and The Century Foundation[/b][/i]. - http://www.americanprogress.o...
[b]George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are [i]not[/i] smart men, and are most certainly[i] not [/i]wise ones: they are[i] instead [/i]dangerously stupid and corrupt men ... [/b]The United States of America achieved our many life-saving and life-enhancing advancements in the 20st Century largely as a consequence of our predominance in scientific thought and scientific break-throughs that contributed to the technologically advanced society that we enjoy today ...
The Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] is waging a neo-fascist [i]War on Science[/i] because they place[i] over-zealous ideology and political manipulation of ignorant people [/i]before the good of our nation ... This will undermine our country's health and well-being [i]and[/i] take us back to the Dark Ages ... Bush and Cheney are unfit to serve the United States of America ...
[b]Bush http://www.thenation.com/dire... put ideology and religion above all in making this decision, and three years later his terrible policy choice is haunting him[/b]. Just last week, Ron Reagan Jr. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/54255... announced that he would criticize Bush's restrictions on stem cell research at the Democratic convention; more than four thousand scientists (a good number of whom have served both Democratic and Republican administrations) have now signed a statement--first released in February--attacking the [b]Administration's unprecedented politicization of science[/b], and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) recently updated its groundbreaking report http://www.ucsusa.org/global_... on "Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policy Making," which examines the methods that the Bush Administration http://www.thenation.com/dire... uses to [b]manipulate and distort [/b]"the work done by scientists at federal agencies and on scientific advisory panels."
"The Administration has often [b]manipulated the process through which science enters into its decisions[/b]," the scientist's letter http://www.ucsusa.org/global_... warned, "placing people who are professionally unqualified in official posts; disbanding existing advisory committees; censoring and suppressing reports by the government's own scientists; and by simply not seeking independent scientific advice."
The UCS's report http://www.ucsusa.org/global_... rigorously documents the equivalent of [b]Bush's little shop of anti-enlightenment policy horrors, demonstrating how Bush has twisted facts and suppressed research[/b] to enact retrograde policies on such issues as climate change, mercury emissions and emergency contraception. An example: When the EPA discovered that Bush's Clear Skies Act would be "less effective" than a "bipartisan Senate clean air proposal" in guarding the air we breathe, the Administration simply suppressed the EPA study.
The UCS http://www.ucsusa.org/ also charges that [b]scientists are now getting blackballed for their political views[/b]. The report cites instances in which nominees to scientific advisory panels have been questioned about whether they had voted for Bush. HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson's office rejected nineteen of the twenty-six appointments that Dr. Gerald Keusch, who served as director of the NIH's Fogarty International Center until he resigned in frustration, had recommended. Bush's policy has demoralized the scientific community, and prevented our nation's smartest, most experienced scientists from serving on panels devoted to safeguarding public health.
One of the nineteen rejected, the Nobel laureate Torsten Wiesel http://www.nobel.se/medicine/... , happens to be my stepfather. When Keusch questioned HHS's decision on Wiesel, he was told that he "had signed too many full-page letters in the [i]New York Times[/i] critical of President Bush." (When did petition-signing qualify as a measure of scientific expertise?) [b]Ironically, this Administration http://www.thenation.com/dire... can't get its facts straight[/b]--whether it's in the arena of war, budget deficits or science. In a recent email, Torsten told me, "I have not signed a statement against Bush but nonetheless for some reason I am on the Administration's blacklist. Perhaps [it is because of] my human rights activities and being contrary in general."
Torsten, who served as president of the prestigious Rockefeller University for nearly a decade, added, the [b]Administration's "science policy has been bad in general. Instead of choosing the best scientific advice the preference is given to individuals with the right religious or philosophical pedigrees[/b]."
Preference is also given to those with big business pedigrees. As Robert Kennedy Jr. pointed out in a [i]Nation[/i] cover story http://www.thenation.com/doc.... last March, Bush's agenda is[b] "to systematically turn government science over to private industry by contracting out thousands of science jobs to compliant consultants already in the habit of massaging data to support corporate profits." This Administration's war on science "is arguably unmatched in the Western world since the Inquisition,"[/b] he argued.
In the last few weeks alone,[b] Bush's assault on science has intensified.[/b] In an unprecedented move, the White House has announced that scientists [b]now need approval http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb... from senior Bush political appointees to participate [/b]in World Health Organization (WHO) meetings. This has outraged the WHO and others in the scientific community, who believe this decision opens the door for the Administration to blackball scientists who don't follow the line on controversial health issues.
In an April memo http://www.globalhealth.gov/O... , William Steiger, who serves as director of the HHS Office of Global Health Affairs (and has a Ph.D. in Latin American history), also announced a new policy on notices of foreign travel (NFTs). Steiger instructed that any NIH scientist who wants to attend "technical consultations, advisory groups, expert committees and workshops" located in the US and sponsored by "multilateral organizations" must first obtain permission by filing an NFT with his office. (Previously, such requests were routine and perfunctory; scientists filed them simply to alert US embassies to their travel to meetings abroad.)
Under Bush http://www.thenation.com/dire... , the NFTs have become a tool to leverage control over government scientists. The changes, said Keusch in an interview this week, are intended to [b]"escalate the levels of control over who can attend" scientific meetings and "what they can say" [/b]when there.
Dr. Kurt Gottfried, the chairman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in an interview last week that a second Bush term would "further the demoralization of the professional staff now in service...If Bush is reelected, they would lose hope," Gottfried argued, and "the people most likely to leave [in a second Bush Administration] are the most valuable scientists at the NIH and the CDC, [b]an exodus from which it would take decades for America to recover[/b].
[b]If Bush wins in November, the quality of science that informs policy making will be undermined by the suppression, manipulation and distortion of scientific knowledge. If you want to understand what's at stake, click here http://www.ucsusa.org/global_... to read the UCS's report.[/b] - http://www.thenation.com/edcu...
[b]Throughout our history, [i]until recent years anyway[/i], had an American administration been so arrogant and audaciously corrupt as to propose "postponing" elections http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPO... , "We the People" would have risen up in anger and outrage demanding its' impeachment ... Elections represent the moment when "We the People" [i]voice our will [/i]and[i] hold our [/i]elected servants [i]accountable[/i]-- It is unprecedented in our nation's history, and even during our most trying crises including the Civil War:-- a [i]presidential election [/i]has[i] never, never been delayed [/i] http://www.guardian.co.uk/use...,13918,1259873,00.html ... [/b]
John Nichols, author of [i]The Online Beat[/i] for The Nation http://www.nation.com points out that the GOP is already embarking upon a [i]dangerously fascist trend [/i]in squelching the voices of their constituents ...
What with all the controversy that arose after one of President Bush's appointees to the federal Election Assistance Commission sought to establish guidelines for suspending the November presidential election in case of a terrorist incident, citizens can be excused for presuming that this is a radical new notion. But it's not.
Borrowing several pages from the Joe Stalin Manual of Electoral Etiquette, the president's Republican allies canceled party primary elections in states across the country during the current election season -- often claiming that voting was pointless because President Bush was going to win anyway.
Last year, Republican-controlled legislatures in Kansas, Colorado and Utah canceled their state-run 2004 presidential primaries. The pattern continued even after the presidential campaign got going, with the suspension this year of presidential primaries in Florida, New York, Connecticut, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota and Puerto Rico.
So it was that, while Democratic voters went to the polls to express their presidential preferences and select delegates to their party convention, the Republican process in many of the same states was effectively shut down. Instead of selecting delegates in primaries that attract significant numbers of voters, some of whom might dissent from party orthodoxy, Republicans in key states chose to play things out behind closed doors -- in caucuses or other "official" settings.
Why were so many Republican primaries canceled? Officially, the line was that Republican legislators and party leaders wanted to save the money it would cost to hold the primaries that President Bush would surely win.
Aside from the fact that canceling elections because someone is expected to win creates a democratic Catch-22, the cost-cutting talk is as bogus as the claim that a clear Bush victory could be divined from all those uncounted ballots from Florida's contested 2000 voting. The savings that can be achieved by canceling an election are small, while the cost to democracy is large. Indeed, when legislators voted to cancel the party primaries in Arizona, Governor Janet Napolitano vetoed the measure and declared, "Arizona can well afford the price of democracy."
That is true of every state. So why did the cancellations really occur?
Because Republican party bosses did not want President Bush to be embarrassed by evidence of Republican opposition.
As it turns out, the concern was well founded. In several states that held Republican primaries this year, significant numbers of GOP voters rejected Bush.
In New Hampshire, for instance, 22 percent of citizens who selected Republican presidential primary ballots voted for someone other than Bush. (More than 3,000 New Hampshire Republican primary voters wrote in the name of Democrat John Kerry.) In Rhode Island, more than 15 percent of Republican primary voters rejected Bush. In Idaho and Oklahoma, more than 10 percent of Republicans cast Anyone-But-Bush votes, while almost 10 percent did so in Massachusetts. Even in the president's home state of Texas, more than 50,000 Republican primary voters refused to back Bush.
Despite the convention show that Republican leaders will put on in New York next month, Bush has inspired a good deal of grumbling among the faithful. The results from a number of the states that actually held Republican primaries reflect that embarrassing fact. There are no embarrassing results from states that canceled Republican primaries -- which, of course, was the point of the cancellations.
No wonder so many Americans got scared when Bush appointees started talking about plans to cancel the November elections. Perhaps they have come to the conclusion, based on all those canceled primaries, that this administration and its minions believe democracy is a tidier enterprise when the voters are excluded.
[b][i]About the New Reports Regarding Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq [/i]...[/b]
Earlier this week, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee released a bi-partisan report examining the Bush administration's reasons for going to war in Iraq. Two days later, a British panel chaired by former cabinet secretary Robin Butler released a similar report, taking aim at the Blair government's claims. Both reports paint a disturbing picture of flawed intelligence and mistakes made at the highest level of government. The reaction abroad to the reports highlights the continuing erosion of U.S. credibility overseas. Below is a sample of the global commentary:
[b]India[/b]
"The Senate committee has come to the conclusion that a policy of containment was preferable to invasion. President Bush's problems in Iraq are of his own making. Now that he finds it difficult to extricate the U.S. from the rising flames of insurgency and guerrilla war in Iraq, his withdrawal routes are becoming fewer by the day."
- [i]Free Press Journal[/i], July 13, 2004
[b]Ireland[/b]
"Judgment and trust are central features of modern government and politics. This was highlighted in the decisions made by the British and United States governments to wage war against Iraq over the last two years. Yesterday's report by the Butler inquiry into the role of intelligence in Britain's decision-making on the war reinforces the point... Nobody is blamed for the intelligence failures and its terms of reference precluded a close examination of the political responsibility for the decision to go to war on false premises. Political judgment, trust and credibility are the longer term casualties of this affair."
- [i]Irish Times[/i], July 15, 2004
[b]Belgium[/b]
"[T]he U.S. Senate report on intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction has confirmed the massive destruction of the other justification of the American 'hawks' for attacking Iraq, i.e., the direct threat that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction represented. And indeed, these weapons have never been found."
- [i]Le Soir[/i], July 13, 2004
[b]Portugal[/b]
"Much has already been said about Bush’s mistakes relating to Iraq. But it is worth it to look at them as a whole.... If the intelligence services functioned poorly (as had already happened on September 11), the political responsibility rests with the president. It is even worse if they were pressured into saying what best suited the invasion enthusiasts.... There are those who speak of lies and not of mistakes. We had good faith in Bush: we are left with the mistakes. But aren't these too many mistakes for the president of the only superpower to make?"
- [i]Diário de Notícias[/i], July 14, 2004
[b]Saudi Arabia[/b]
"Butler therefore has discharged the British government from any involvement in a plot to mislead Parliament and the voters into backing the war…. This comment resonates nicely with Tony Blair’s assertion last week that despite all the evidence to the contrary, WMD could still exist…. But the Blair government is unlikely to bring itself to say any such thing, because it is absolutely sure that in ousting Saddam Hussein, albeit at the cost of the subsequent months of chaos and terror, it was entirely right."
- [i]Arab News[/i], July 15, 2004
[b]Canada[/b]
"Three days after the publication of the devastating Senate report, [George W. Bush] tried to go back on the offensive, justifying once again, as if it were nothing, going to war with Iraq…. The problem that, sadly, George W. Bush always sweeps under the carpet, is that the conditions and justifications behind the war are not without importance."
- [i]Le Soleil[/i], July 13, 2004
[b]Mauritius[/b]
"The United States Senate has, in its report, made a scathing attack on the Bush administration and the CIA on going to war in Iraq. Simply stated the decision to go to war was based on false premises and on utterly flawed intelligence. It is now evident that the right wing hawks of the Pentagon of the Bush administration were hell bent to attack Iraq, and used intelligence, which they...[used] to mislead the Senate, the Congress and the people of the United States of America. Their lies have been made naked and they should resign."
- [i]Star[/i], July 11, 2004
[b]South Korea[/b]
"This unanimous report is especially noteworthy in that it has made clear that the U.S. administration's two biggest rationales for invading Iraq were totally groundless.... Nevertheless, far from apologizing to the Iraqis and the international community for the U.S. deceit and distortion, President Bush is repeating the same, false claims."
- [i]Hankyoreh Shinmun[/i], July 13, 2004
[b]Some may say that [i]what other peoples throughout the world think [/i]isn't important ... But "We the People" no longer live in an isolated bubble ([i]unless one is Dubya & his corrupt neo-con cabal[/i]), and we must comprehend how other nations perceive our behaviour, for[i] it does [/i]indeed affect our international relations on everything[i] from [/i]trade and investment [i]to[/i] co-operation on global crises ... Refer also to "Bush Hurts Our Standing in the World ..." on http://www.tblog.com/template... [/b]
... Iran, Again: The Crisis Builds ... (Here We Go Again??? Jeez!!!) ...
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] is "[i]saber-rattling[/i]" again and "[i]preparing us[/i]" (i.e. perpetrating ever more lies, deceptions & falsehoods, etc.) for their next illegal and immoral neo-con war: in [i]Iran[/i] ...[/b] The CIA has confirmed that Iran was not involved in the 9/11 attack upon America ([i]neither[/i] was Iraq, by the way) http://fairuse.1accesshost.co... , and there is no evidence of any links between Iran and Al Qaeda ... But the traitorous Bushies' neo-fascist scam worked to [i]dupe [/i]the American public the [i]first time[/i], so why not try it on us a [i]second time[/i]??? ... "We the People" should be smarter than [i]that[/i] ...
It’s now a 50-50 bet, I would say, whether a crisis with Iran will erupt before the November elections. According to one published report, the Bush administration is already threatening to force regime change in Iran, if re-elected.[i] The Sunday Herald [/i](U.K.), http://www.sundayherald.com/4... in an article entitled: “Regime change in Iran now in Bush’s sights,” reports:
... "[i]President George Bush has promised that if re-elected in November he will make regime change in Iran his new target.
Bush named Iran as part of the Axis of Evil along with North Korea and Iraq almost three years ago. A U.S. government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that military action would not be overt in changing Iran, but rather that the US would work to stir revolts in the country and hope to topple the current conservative religious leadership.
The official said: “If George Bush is re-elected there will be much more intervention in the internal affairs of Iran.[/i]”" ...
That’s a calculated leak from an embedded neocon, and it’s guaranteed to make the Iranian government sit up and take notice,. Now imagine yourself to be an Iranian mullah, sitting in your obscurantist domain. Wouldn’t you be thinking: what can I do to stop George Bush from being reelected? You would. And what you would do, most likely, is try to meddle in Iraq, in a way calculated to weaken the American position there. Only, the real result of such meddling would be to create precisely the kind of showdown between the United States and Iran that the neocons want. They’ve been trying to provoke exactly that sort of crisis for months.
Recently, I mentioned reports that Israel is busily planning an air force raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Mid-October sound like good timing to you?
Meanwhile, adding fuel to the fire is the report from the 9/11 commission that Iran somehow allowed some of the 9/11 hijackers to pass through its territory. This is a potentially explosive story. In short, what it means is that No. 2 in the Axis of Evil is now accused of both building weapons of mass destruction and supporting Al Qaeda. No matter that the terrorists who scuttled through Iran didn’t know that they were heading for the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and no matter that Iran didn’t know it either. It’s a sensational story designed to whip up American anger once again, this time directed at another oil-rich nation and enemy of Israel. All of this, of course, rests on the rather shaky assumption that we believe what our ever-omnipotent and omniscient intelligence agencies tell us. The CIA has already debunked this mendacious claim by Bush and Cheney's toadies on the 9/11 commission http://fairuse.1accesshost.co... .
Iran, of course, has denied the whole thing. And, trying to calm things down a bit, the CIA’s acting director confirmed the basic idea but didn’t try to blow it out of proportion:
... "[i]This is not surprising to us. I think the count is about eight of the hijackers were able to pass through Iran at some point," John McLaughlin told Fox News Sunday http://fairuse.1accesshost.co... .
"We have ample evidence of people being able to move back and forth across that terrain," he said.
"However, I would stop there and say we have no evidence that there is some sort of official sanction by the government of Iran for this activity. We have no evidence that there is some sort of official connection between Iran and 9/11," he said[/i]. ...
That only shows that McLaughlin isn’t a neocon warmonger. The initial report in [i]Time[/i] http://www.time.com/time/nati...,8599,664967,00.html also manages to throw another curve ball at Saudi Arabia, too, yet another oil-rich, anti-Israeli government:
... "[i]A senior U.S. official told Time that the Commission has uncovered evidence suggesting that between eight and ten of the 14 "muscle" hijackers—that is, those involved in gaining control of the four 9/11 aircraft and subduing the crew and passengers—passed through Iran in the period from October 2000 to February 2001. Sources also tell Time that Commission investigators found that Iran had a history of allowing al-Qaeda members to enter and exit Iran across the Afghan border. This practice dated back to October 2000, with Iranian officials issuing specific instructions to their border guards—in some cases not to put stamps in the passports of al-Qaeda personnel—and otherwise not harass them and to facilitate their travel across the frontier. The report does not, however, offer evidence that Iran was aware of the plans for the 9/11 attacks.
The senior official also told Time that the report will note that Iranian officials approached the al-Qaeda leadership after the bombing of the USS Cole and proposed a collaborative relationship in future attacks on the U.S., but the offer was turned down by bin Laden because he did not want to alienate his supporters in Saudi Arabia.[/i]" ...
Gosh. No shortage of regimes to change. To make matters worse, there are new reports of Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters (Shiites) joining the (Sunni) resistance in Iraq, according to[i] Iraq News[/i] http://www.iraqinews.com/cgi-...%2edb&command=viewone&id= 1 :
... "[i]The Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah is suspected of having joined forces with Sunni insurgents in the campaign to expel U.S. troops from Iraq.
Iraqi security sources said they have collected unspecified evidence that Ansar Al Islam, the Al Qaeda-aligned insurgency group, has acquired the services of Hezbollah to help attack U.S. forces in parts of the Sunni Triangle. The sources said Hezbollah combatants were believed to have provided training and guidance in coordinated attacks on U.S. and Iraqi security positions. Few of the Hezbollah operatives participated in the attacks.
More than 500 Hezbollah combatants arrived in Iraq from Lebanon during 2003, the sources said. Most of them have resettled in Shi'ite cities in central and southern Iraq[/i]." ...
But over the last two months, the sources said, scores of Hezbollah fighters were believed to have crossed into northern Iraq to join Ansar. They said Ansar has benefited from Iranian weaponry, logistics support and safe haven and Teheran might have approved or encouraged the services of Hezbollah for Ansar.
It’s starting to sound like an orchestrated campaign to me. More on Iran, soon. Today Zbigniew Brzezinksi and Robert Gates are holding an event to call for rapprochement with Iran. That should be interesting—I’ll report on it here. In the meantime, be afraid—be very afraid. - http://www.tompaine.com/artic...
[b]"We the People" are in for the[i] fight of our lives [/i]to take our nation back and restore our Republic ... The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] will stop at nothing to "[i]win at all costs[/i]" (including [i]but not limited to [/i]terrorizing our nation [i]and/or [/i]staging another 2000-style coup d'etat[i] or [/i]"postponing" the election [i]and/or [/i]spreading mendacious slander & smears about Kerry/Edwards) irrespective of the [i]reckless damage[/i] that these [i]ruthless power-hungry neo-con money-grubbers [/i]do to our nation in the process ... The following article by Bill Moyers is [i]well worth reading [/i]in order to comprehend the[i] stakes [/i]and what is [i]at risk [/i]...[/b]
[u][b]This is the Fight of Our Lives[/b][/u]
[b]By Bill Moyers Keynote Speech Inequality Matters Forum New York University [/b]
"[i]The middle class and working poor are told that what's happening to them is the consequence of Adam Smith's 'Invisible Hand.' This is a lie. What's happening to them is the direct consequence of corporate activism, intellectual propaganda, the rise of a religious orthodoxy that in its hunger for government subsidies has made an idol of power, and a string of political decisions favoring the powerful and the privileged who bought the political system right out from under [/i]us."
[u]It is important from time to time to remember that some things are worth getting mad about[/u].
Here's one: On March 10 of this year, on page B8, with a headline that stretched across all six columns, [i]The New York Times [/i]reported that tuition in the city's elite private schools would hit $26,000 for the coming school year - for kindergarten as well as high school. On the same page, under a two-column headline, Michael Wineraub wrote about a school in nearby Mount Vernon, the first stop out of the Bronx, with a student body that is 97 percent black. It is the poorest school in the town: nine out of ten children qualify for free lunches; one out of 10 lives in a homeless shelter. During black history month this past February, a sixth grader wanted to write a report on Langston Hughes. There were no books on Langston Hughes in the library - no books about the great poet, nor any of his poems. There is only one book in the library on Frederick Douglass. None on Rosa Parks, Josephine Baker, Leontyne Price, or other giants like them in the modern era. In fact, except for a few Newberry Award books the librarian bought with her own money, the library is mostly old books - largely from the 1950s and 60s when the school was all white. A 1960 child's primer on work begins with a youngster learning how to be a telegraph delivery boy. All the workers in the book - the dry cleaner, the deliveryman, the cleaning lady - are white. There's a 1967 book about telephones which says: "when you phone you usually dial the number. But on some new phones you can push buttons." The newest encyclopedia dates from l991, with two volumes - "b" and "r" - missing. There is no card catalog in the library - no index cards or computer.
[u]Something to get mad about[/u].
Here's something else: Caroline Payne's face and gums are distorted because her Medicaid-financed dentures don't fit. Because they don't fit, she is continuously turned down for jobs on account of her appearance. Caroline Payne is one of the people in David Shipler's new book, 'The [i]Working Poor: Invisible in America'[/i]. She was born poor, and in spite of having once owned her own home and having earned a two-year college degree, Caroline Payne has bounced from one poverty-wage job to another all her life, equipped with the will to move up, but not the resources to deal with unexpected and overlapping problems like a mentally handicapped daughter, a broken marriage, a sudden layoff crisis that forced her to sell her few assets, pull up roots and move on. "In the house of the poor," Shipler writes "...the walls are thin and fragile and troubles seep into one another."
Here's something else to get mad about. Two weeks ago, the House of Representatives, the body of Congress owned and operated by the corporate, political, and religious right, approved new tax credits for children. Not for poor children, mind you. But for families earning as much as $309,000 a year - families that already enjoy significant benefits from earlier tax cuts. The editorial page of [i]The Washington Post [/i]called this "bad social policy, bad tax policy, and bad fiscal policy. You'd think they'd be embarrassed," said the Post, "but they're not."
And this, too, is something to get mad about. Nothing seems to embarrass the political class in Washington today. Not the fact that more children are growing up in poverty in America than in any other industrial nation; not the fact that millions of workers are actually making less money today in real dollars than they did twenty years ago; not the fact that working people are putting in longer and longer hours and still falling behind; not the fact that while we have the most advanced medical care in the world, nearly 44 million Americans - eight out of ten of them in working families - are uninsured and cannot get the basic care they need.
Astonishing as it seems, no one in official Washington seems embarrassed by the fact that the gap between rich and poor is greater than it's been in 50 years - the worst inequality among all western nations. Or that we are experiencing a shift in poverty. For years it was said those people down there at the bottom were single, jobless mothers. For years they were told work, education, and marriage is how they move up the economic ladder. But poverty is showing up where we didn't expect it - among families that include two parents, a worker, and a head of the household with more than a high school education. These are the newly poor. Our political, financial and business class expects them to climb out of poverty on an escalator moving downward.
Let me tell you about the Stanleys and the Neumanns. During the last decade, I produced a series of documentaries for PBS called "[i]Surviving the Good Times[/i]." The title refers to the boom time of the '90s when the country achieved the longest period of economic growth in its entire history. Some good things happened then, but not everyone shared equally in the benefits. To the contrary. The decade began with a sustained period of downsizing by corporations moving jobs out of America and many of those people never recovered what was taken from them. We decided early on to tell the stories of two families in Milwaukee - one black, one white - whose breadwinners were laid off in the first wave of layoffs in 1991. We reported on how they were coping with the wrenching changes in their lives, and we stayed with them over the next ten years as they tried to find a place in the new global economy. They're the kind of Americans my mother would have called "the salt of the earth." They love their kids, care about their communities, go to church every Sunday, and work hard all week - both mothers have had to take full-time jobs.
During our time with them, the fathers in both families became seriously ill. One had to stay in the hospital two months, putting his family $30,000 in debt because they didn't have adequate health insurance. We were there with our camera when the bank started to foreclose on the modest home of the other family because they couldn't meet the mortgage payments after dad lost his good-paying manufacturing job. Like millions of Americans, the Stanleys and the Neumanns were playing by the rules and still getting stiffed. By the end of the decade they were running harder but slipping behind, and the gap between them and prosperous America was widening.
What turns their personal tragedy into a political travesty is that they are patriotic. They love this country. But they no longer believe they matter to the people who run the country. When our film opens, both families are watching the inauguration of Bill Clinton on television in 1992. By the end of the decade they were no longer paying attention to politics. They don't see it connecting to their lives. They don't think their concerns will ever be addressed by the political, corporate, and media elites who make up our dominant class. They are not cynical, because they are deeply religious people with no capacity for cynicism, but they know the system is rigged against them. They know this, and we know this. For years now a small fraction of American households have been garnering an extreme concentration of wealth and income while large corporations and financial institutions have obtained unprecedented levels of economic and political power over daily life. In 1960, the gap in terms of wealth between the top 20% and the bottom 20% was 30 fold. Four decades later it is more than 75 fold.
Such concentrations of wealth would be far less of an issue if the rest of society were benefiting proportionately. But that's not the case. As the economist Jeff Madrick reminds us, the pressures of inequality on middle and working class Americans are now quite severe. "The strain on working people and on family life, as spouses have gone to work in dramatic numbers, has become significant. VCRs and television sets are cheap, but higher education, health care, public transportation, drugs, housing and cars have risen faster in price than typical family incomes. And life has grown neither calm nor secure for most Americans, by any means." You can find many sources to support this conclusion. I like the language of a small outfit here in New York called the [i]Commonwealth Foundation/Center for the Renewal of American Democracy[/i]. They conclude that working families and the poor "are losing ground under economic pressures that deeply affect household stability, family dynamics, social mobility, political participation, and civic life."
Household economics is not the only area where inequality is growing in America. Equality doesn't mean equal incomes, but a fair and decent society where money is not the sole arbiter of status or comfort. In a fair and just society, the commonwealth will be valued even as individual wealth is encouraged.
Let me make something clear here. I wasn't born yesterday. I'm old enough to know that the tension between haves and have-nots are built into human psychology, it is a constant in human history, and it has been a factor in every society. But I also know America was going to be different. I know that because I read Mr. Jefferson's writings, Mr. Lincoln's speeches and other documents in the growing American creed. I presumptuously disagreed with Thomas Jefferson about human equality being self-evident. Where I lived, neither talent, nor opportunity, nor outcomes were equal. Life is rarely fair and never equal. So what could he possibly have meant by that ringing but ambiguous declaration: "All men are created equal"? Two things, possibly. One, although none of us are good, all of us are sacred (Glenn Tinder), that's the basis for thinking we are by nature kin.
Second, he may have come to see the meaning of those words through the experience of the slave who was his mistress. As is now widely acknowledged, the hands that wrote "all men are created equal" also stroked the breasts and caressed the thighs of a black woman named Sally Hennings. She bore him six children whom he never acknowledged as his own, but who were the only slaves freed by his will when he died - the one request we think Sally Hennings made of her master. Thomas Jefferson could not have been insensitive to the flesh-and-blood woman in his arms. He had to know she was his equal in her desire for life, her longing for liberty, her passion for happiness.
In his book on the Declaration, my late friend Mortimer Adler said Jefferson realized that whatever things are really good for any human being are really good for all other human beings. The happy or good life is essentially the same for all: a satisfaction of the same needs inherent in human nature. A just society is grounded in that recognition. So Jefferson kept as a slave a woman whose nature he knew was equal to his. All Sally Hennings got from her long sufferance - perhaps it was all she sought from what may have grown into a secret and unacknowledged love - was that he let her children go. "Let my children go" - one of the oldest of all petitions. It has long been the promise of America - a broken promise, to be sure. But the idea took hold that we could fix what was broken so that our children would live a bountiful life. We could prevent the polarization between the very rich and the very poor that poisoned other societies. We could provide that each and every citizen would enjoy the basic necessities of life, a voice in the system of self-government, and a better chance for their children. We could preclude the vast divides that produced the turmoil and tyranny of the very countries from which so many of our families had fled.
We were going to do these things because we understood our dark side - none of us is good - but we also understood the other side - all of us are sacred. From Jefferson forward we have grappled with these two notions in our collective head - that we are worthy of the creator but that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Believing the one and knowing the other, we created a country where the winners didn't take all. Through a system of checks and balances we were going to maintain a safe, if shifting, equilibrium between wealth and commonwealth. We believed equitable access to public resources is the lifeblood of any democracy. So early on [in Jeff Madrick's description,] primary schooling was made free to all. States changed laws to protect debtors, often the relatively poor, against their rich creditors. Charters to establish corporations were open to most, if not all, white comers, rather than held for the elite. The government encouraged Americans to own their own piece of land, and even supported squatters' rights. The court challenged monopoly - all in the name of we the people.
In my time we went to public schools. My brother made it to college on the GI bill. When I bought my first car for $450 I drove to a subsidized university on free public highways and stopped to rest in state-maintained public parks. This is what I mean by the commonwealth. Rudely recognized in its formative years, always subject to struggle, constantly vulnerable to reactionary counterattacks, the notion of America as a shared project has been the central engine of our national experience.
Until now. I don't have to tell you that a profound transformation is occurring in America: the balance between wealth and the commonwealth is being upended. By design. Deliberately. We have been subjected to what the Commonwealth Foundation calls "a fanatical drive to dismantle the political institutions, the legal and statutory canons, and the intellectual and cultural frameworks that have shaped public responsibility for social harms arising from the excesses of private power." From land, water and other natural resources, to media and the broadcast and digital spectrums, to scientific discovery and medical breakthroughs, and to politics itself, a broad range of the American commons is undergoing a powerful shift toward private and corporate control. And with little public debate. Indeed, what passes for 'political debate' in this country has become a cynical charade behind which the real business goes on - the not-so-scrupulous business of getting and keeping power in order to divide up the spoils.
We could have seen this coming if we had followed the money. The veteran Washington reporter, Elizabeth Drew, says "the greatest change in Washington over the past 25 years - in its culture, in the way it does business and the ever-burgeoning amount of business transactions that go on here - has been in the preoccupation with money." Jeffrey Birnbaum, who covered Washington for nearly twenty years for the [i]Wall Street Journal[/i], put it more strongly: "[campaign cash] has flooded over the gunwales of the ship of state and threatens to sink the entire vessel. Political donations determine the course and speed of many government actions that deeply affect our daily lives." Politics is suffocating from the stranglehold of money. During his brief campaign in 2000, before he was ambushed by the dirty tricks of the religious right in South Carolina and big money from George W. Bush's wealthy elites, John McCain said elections today are nothing less than an "influence peddling scheme in which both parties compete to stay in office by selling the country to the highest bidder."
Small wonder that with the exception of people like John McCain and Russ Feingold, official Washington no longer finds anything wrong with a democracy dominated by the people with money. Hit the pause button here, and recall Roger Tamraz. He's the wealthy oilman who paid $300,000 to get a private meeting in the White House with President Clinton; he wanted help in securing a big pipeline in central Asia. This got him called before congressional hearings on the financial excesses of the 1996 campaign. If you watched the hearings on C-Span you heard him say he didn't think he had done anything out of the ordinary. When they pressed him he told the senators: "Look, when it comes to money and politics, you make the rules. I'm just playing by your rules." One senator then asked if Tamraz had registered and voted. And he was blunt in his reply: "No, senator, I think money's a bit more (important) than the vote."
So what does this come down to, practically?
[u]Here is one accounting[/u]:
"When powerful interests shower Washington with millions in campaign contributions, they often get what they want. But it's ordinary citizens and firms that pay the price and most of them never see it coming. This is what happens if you don't contribute to their campaigns or spend generously on lobbying. You pick up a disproportionate share of America's tax bill. You pay higher prices for a broad range of products from peanuts to prescriptions. You pay taxes that others in a similar situation have been excused from paying. You're compelled to abide by laws while others are granted immunity from them. You must pay debts that you incur while others do not. You're barred from writing off on your tax returns some of the money spent on necessities while others deduct the cost of their entertainment. You must run your business by one set of rules, while the government creates another set for your competitors. In contrast, the fortunate few who contribute to the right politicians and hire the right lobbyists enjoy all the benefits of their special status. Make a bad business deal; the government bails them out. If they want to hire workers at below market wages, the government provides the means to do so. If they want more time to pay their debts, the government gives them an extension. If they want immunity from certain laws, the government gives it. If they want to ignore rules their competition must comply with, the government gives its approval. If they want to kill legislation that is intended for the public, it gets killed."
I'm not quoting from Karl Marx's [i]Das Kapital or Mao's Little Red Book[/i]. I'm quoting [i]Time[/i] magazine. Time's premier investigative journalists - Donald Bartlett and James Steele - concluded in a series last year that America now has "government for the few at the expense of the many." Economic inequality begets political inequality, and vice versa.
That's why the Stanleys and the Neumanns were turned off by politics. It's why we're losing the balance between wealth and the commonwealth. It's why we can't put things right. And it is the single most destructive force tearing at the soul of democracy. Hear the great justice Learned Hand on this: "If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: 'Thou shalt not ration justice.' " Learned Hand was a prophet of democracy. The rich have the right to buy more homes than anyone else. They have the right to buy more cars than anyone else, more gizmos than anyone else, more clothes and vacations than anyone else. But they do not have the right to buy more democracy than anyone else.
I know, I know: this sounds very much like a call for class war. But the class war was declared a generation ago, in a powerful paperback polemic by William Simon, who was soon to be Secretary of the Treasury. He called on the financial and business class, in effect, to take back the power and privileges they had lost in the depression and new deal. They got the message, and soon they began a stealthy class war against the rest of society and the principles of our democracy. They set out to trash the social contract, to cut their workforces and wages, to scour the globe in search of cheap labor, and to shred the social safety net that was supposed to protect people from hardships beyond their control. [i]Business Week [/i]put it bluntly at the time: "Some people will obviously have to do with less....it will be a bitter pill for many Americans to swallow the idea of doing with less so that big business can have more."
The middle class and working poor are told that what's happening to them is the consequence of Adam Smith's "[i]Invisible Hand[/i]." This is a lie. What's happening to them is the direct consequence of corporate activism, intellectual propaganda, the rise of a religious orthodoxy that in its hunger for government subsidies has made an idol of power, and a string of political decisions favoring the powerful and the privileged who bought the political system right out from under us.
To create the intellectual framework for this takeover of public policy they funded conservative think tanks - The Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institution, and the American Enterprise Institute - that churned out study after study advocating their agenda.
To put political muscle behind these ideas they created a formidable political machine. One of the few journalists to cover the issues of class - Thomas Edsall of [i]The Washington Post [/i]- wrote: "During the 1970s, business refined its ability to act as a class, submerging competitive instincts in favor of joint, cooperate action in the legislative area." Big business political action committees flooded the political arena with a deluge of dollars. And they built alliances with the religious right - Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition - who mounted a cultural war providing a smokescreen for the class war, hiding the economic plunder of the very people who were enlisted as foot soldiers in the cause of privilege.
In a book to be published this summer, Daniel Altman describes what he calls the "neo-economy - a place without taxes, without a social safety net, where rich and poor live in different financial worlds - and [said Altman] it's coming to America." He's a little late. It's here. Says Warren Buffett, the savviest investor of them all: "My class won."
[u]Look at the spoils of victory[/u]:
Over the past three years, they've pushed through $2 trillion dollars in tax cuts - almost all tilted towards the wealthiest people in the country.
Cuts in taxes on the largest incomes.
Cuts in taxes on investment income.
And cuts in taxes on huge inheritances.
More than half of the benefits are going to the wealthiest one percent. You could call it trickle-down economics, except that the only thing that trickled down was a sea of red ink in our state and local governments, forcing them to cut services for and raise taxes on middle class working America.
Now the Congressional Budget Office forecasts deficits totaling $2.75 trillion over the next ten years.
These deficits have been part of their strategy. Some of you will remember that Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan tried to warn us 20 years ago, when he predicted that President Ronald Reagan's real strategy was to force the government to cut domestic social programs by fostering federal deficits of historic dimensions. Reagan's own budget director, David Stockman, admitted as such. Now the leading rightwing political strategist, Grover Norquist, says the goal is to "starve the beast" - with trillions of dollars in deficits resulting from trillions of dollars in tax cuts, until the United States Government is so anemic and anorexic it can be drowned in the bathtub.
There's no question about it: The corporate conservatives and their allies in the political and religious right are achieving a vast transformation of American life that only they understand because they are its advocates, its architects, and its beneficiaries. In creating the greatest economic inequality in the advanced world, they have saddled our nation, our states, and our cities and counties with structural deficits that will last until our children's children are ready for retirement, and they are systematically stripping government of all its functions except rewarding the rich and waging war.
And they are proud of what they have done to our economy and our society. If instead of practicing journalism I was writing for [i]Saturday Night Live[/i], I couldn't have made up the things that this crew have been saying. The president's chief economic adviser says shipping technical and professional jobs overseas is good for the economy. The president's Council of Economic Advisers report that hamburger chefs in fast food restaurants can be considered manufacturing workers. The president's Federal Reserve Chairman says that the tax cuts may force cutbacks in social security - but hey, we should make the tax cuts permanent anyway. The president's Labor Secretary says it doesn't matter if job growth has stalled because "the stock market is the ultimate arbiter."
You just can't make this stuff up. You have to hear it to believe it. This may be the first class war in history where the victims will die laughing.
But what they are doing to middle class and working Americans - and to the workings of American democracy - is no laughing matter. Go online and read the transcripts of Enron traders in the energy crisis four years ago, discussing how they were manipulating the California power market in telephone calls in which they gloat about ripping off "those poor grandmothers." Read how they talk about political contributions to politicians like "Kenny Boy" Lay's best friend George W. Bush. Go on line and read how Citigroup has been fined $70 Million for abuses in loans to low-income, high risk borrowers - the largest penalty ever imposed by the Federal Reserve. A few clicks later, you can find the story of how a subsidiary of the corporate computer giant NEC has been fined over $20 million after pleading guilty to corruption in a federal plan to bring Internet access to poor schools and libraries. And this, the story says, is just one piece of a nationwide scheme to rip off the government and the poor.
Let's face the reality: If ripping off the public trust; if distributing tax breaks to the wealthy at the expense of the poor; if driving the country into deficits deliberately to starve social benefits; if requiring states to balance their budgets on the backs of the poor; if squeezing the wages of workers until the labor force resembles a nation of serfs - if this isn't class war, what is?
[u]It's un-American. It's unpatriotic. And it's wrong[/u].
But I don't need to tell you this. You wouldn't be here if you didn't know it. Your presence at this gathering confirms that while an America with liberty and justice for all is a broken promise, it is not a lost cause. Once upon a time I thought the mass media - my industry - would help mend this broken promise and save this cause. After all, the sight of police dogs attacking peaceful demonstrators forced America to recognize the reality of racial injustice. The sight of carnage in Vietnam forced us to recognize the war was unwinnable. The sight of terrorists striking the World Trade Center woke us from a long slumber of denial and distraction. I thought the mass media might awaken Americans to the reality that this ideology of winner-take-all is working against them and not for them. I was wrong. With honorable exceptions, we can't count on the mass media.
What we need is a mass movement of people like you. Get mad, yes - there's plenty to be mad about. Then get organized and get busy. This is the fight of our lives. - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
Bush Administration Documents on Secrecy Policy ... c/o The Federation of American Scientists
[b]The Federation of American Scientists has produced a list of "Bush Administration Documents on Secrecy Policy" on http://www.fas.org/sgp/bush/i... , that is worth reviewing ... The corrupt Bush regime is one of the [i]most secretive [/i]in our nation's history http://www.larouchepub.com/ot... and this is[i] an anathema [/i]to our Republic founded on the principles of (1) transparency in government, (2) a system of checks and balances, and (3) accountability to "We the People" ...[/b]
The traitorous neo-con Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta [/i]is contemptuous of the U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights, our Republic and of "We the People" ... We are living in a [i]tragic [/i]period of history and future historians will look back in [i]astonished disgust [/i]that the American people did [i]not[/i] stand-up and fight back ... Let us commence the Battle for Our Republic [i]today[/i] ...
"[i]Americans are in a dreadful pickle at the moment, being they're the villains of the planet as far as roughly half the population of the world is concerned. Half the world pretty much hates Americans[/i]." - http://www.app.com/app2001/st...,21133,851338,00.html
[b][i]'Yankee Go Home!'[/i] is what alot of American expatriates living abroad seem to be hearing these days, in the aftermath of Bush's disastrous foreign policy fiascos that have squandered almost all of the good will built-up in the aftermath of WW2[i] and [/i]9/11 ... [/b] Having lived and worked overseas for many years, I can confirm that Americans were trusted, respected [i]and [/i]admired as a nation of people who led the world in scientific discovery, honest-and-hard work[i] and [/i]upholding the rule of law -- and we were enthusiastically welcomed to work alongside our allies in the EU, Mideast, Far East and across the globe ... This is no longer the case in the post-Bush-era because the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] has ruthlessly lied and recklessly stomped, trampled and treaded upon the world community-- and this will prove [i]very damaging [/i]to our nation's well-being and prosperity [i] both [/i]from the standpoint of security [i]as well as [/i]trade, in the years to come ... "We the People" surely deserve better than the corrupt and incompetent Bush regime for it is [i]economic and culture exchanges [/i]that have led to outstanding benefits including profitable trade, greater peace-through-understandi ng,[i] and [/i]global co-operation on world crises (and [i]not[/i] the brute force use of military arms) ...
Consider this [i]insightful and eye-opening [/i]assessment by Howard Dean, entitled "[i]Bush hurts standing in world opinion[/i]" who spoke at an Economic Conference in London recently http://www.myrtlebeachonline.... :
I was in London recently giving a speech to a major economic conference of global lenders and borrowers. The news from the audience, comprised of about 40 percent Americans, was not encouraging for President Bush. In a poll on the first day of the conference, a majority of the 1,000 or so attendees said they thought John Kerry would win the November elections. More stunningly, 60 percent of the Americans said they would vote for Kerry, the president was below 30 percent, and the rest were undecided.
The American expatriate community traditionally leans Republican. Many Americans who live in Europe work for big multinational corporations and tend to be conservative on fiscal matters, support American military abroad and free trade - because it is good for their employees.
But the Americans in this audience won't vote to re-elect Bush. Many of them are deeply concerned about the perpetual deficits spawned by the enormous tax cuts for the top 2 percent of Americans. They are feeling the impact of the falling dollar personally because they get paid in dollars, and it is harder for them to make ends meet. But the reason they are so upset with this Republican president is because, as one participant put it, America's status in the world has shrunk to its lowest point in a century.
The British conference participants lauded Prime Minister Tony Blair's political skills, despite acknowledging the political trouble he's in for support of the Iraq war. There were no such kind words for Bush. Every day, these American business people face hostility in the workplace and in their lives, simply because they are American and live abroad. One American businessman told me he felt obliged to begin every conversation with the statement that he was an American, but that he very much disliked the president. That was, he said, a great icebreaker, and after that he could discuss business in a friendly environment. It is not that Europeans are ungrateful for all we have done to help them over the past 70 years; rather, our traditional allies feel that they have been treated with contempt by this president and his Cabinet members.
The damage done in Mexico is even greater. The president began his term with the long overdue American pledge to turn attention to Latin America. He then abandoned Mexico's first truly democratically elected president in many years over thorny immigration issues after Sept. 11, 2001, and then finally put Mexico in the deep freeze over disagreements on the Iraq war.
The president has made America a less important country to the rest of the world.
Europe is becoming much more independent of the United States and was recently able to block a major merger of two American companies - Honeywell and General Electric. Two decades ago, that would have been unthinkable.
The irony here is that instead of making America a stronger nation by exercising American military power unilaterally, the president has made us a less powerful nation in the court of world public opinion, and that matters a lot in the long run.
[i]Contact Dean, former governor of Vermont and 2004 candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, at howarddean@democracy foramerica.com[/i]
[b]Un-American censorship is [i]alive-and-well [/i]in the U.S. House of Representatives, ruthlessly administered by a corrupt GOP-[i]run-amok [/i]under the strong-arm of bully-boy Dick Cheney's neo-fascist orders ... The resemblance of the GOP-led Congress under the thumb of a [i]mediocre and hateful man too stupid [/i]to be president and a [i]criminal and vulgar man too crooked [/i]to be vice-president, to the fascist Nazi Reichstag should alarm and outrage "We the People" ... [/b]
Florida Congresswoman Corrine Brown accused Republicans of stealing the 2000 election http://seattlepi.nwsource.com...%20Florida%20Fight , calling it a "coup d'etat," on the floor of the House (watch video http://www.firstcoastnews.com... ). She was promptly silenced and her comments were stricken from the record -- officially they don't exist.
The accusation came while the House was debating a measure involving the monitoring of the 2004 elections by the UN. Indiana Republican Steve Buyer had proposed a measure barring anyone from proposing a measure to request that elections be monitored. A preemptive strike as it were.
Brown represents a largely black constituency -- by far the largest single group to be disenfranchised in 2000. In fact, the House leadership so appalled by Brown's outrageous words need only have read yesterday's paper to learn that the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has determined that the disenfranchisement of voters in Florida was deliberate http://www.kansascity.com/mld... .
The House's presiding officer, Republican Mac Thornberry of Texas, ruled that accusations of criminal wrongdoing have no place in the House. Funny, you'd think that criminal wrongdoing [i]itself [/i]would have no place in the House either.
I don't suppose the newsmakers will frame this as a Republican attempt to squelch free speech and limit Democracy?
Bush Owes Us An Explanation:-- Proof That They Knew!!! ...
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta [/i]owes us an explanation ... There is[i] new proof [/i]that the traitorous Bush regime knew that there were problems with the so-called "facts" (i.e. "unreliable", "phony", "lousy" intelligence) regarding non-existent WMDs, their mendacious [i]casus belli[/i] for war, [i]prior [/i]to their illegal and immoral incursion into Iraq ... [/b]This is[i] not [/i]the only instance of their outrageous lies, deceptions and falsehoods perpetrated against "We the People", for [i]new evidence [/i]has [i]also[/i] arisen that the tyrannical Bush/Cheney [i]yet again [/i]misled us[i] too [/i]about their own sordid and squalid involvement http://www.misleader.org/dail... in the vile atrocities that were committed at Abu Ghraib ...
[b]Consider this ...[/b]
This morning's [i]Los Angeles Times [/i]uncovers an explosive document http://images.latimes.com/med... buried at the end of the recent Senate Intelligence report. It shows that before Colin Powell's now-discredited U.N. speech justifying war in Iraq, State Department analysts told Powell and top administration officials about "dozens of factual problems" http://www.latimes.com/news/n...,1,7897981.story?coll=la-home-headli nes in the address (which was written by Vice President Cheney's staff http://www.globalpolicy.org/s... ). According to the Jan. 31, 2003 memo, there were problems with 38 of the claims made in the speech draft, which was crafted at the behest of the White House. (It was "intended to be the Bush administration's most compelling case" for war in Iraq.) In response, 28 were either "removed from the draft or altered" – but the others were left in. Powell was reportedly irate when first given the speech: According to the 9/3/03 [i]U.S. News & World Report[/i], Powell threw the speech in the air, yelling, "I'm not reading this. This is bulls--t." http://www.globalpolicy.org/s... This past May, he reiterated his displeasure with the speech, saying, "It turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong, and in some cases deliberately misleading." http://msnbc.msn.com/id/49925...
[b]ADMINISTRATION WAS WARNED:[/b] Analysts advised Powell that many of the claims were "weak" and "warned Powell against making an array of allegations they deemed implausible." They also warned Powell that he "was being put in the position of drawing the most sinister conclusions from satellite images, communications intercepts and human intelligence reports that had alternative, less-incriminating explanations."
[b]DISCREDITED INFORMATION MADE IT IN, PART I: [/b]In the speech to the U.N., Powell "showed aerial images of a supposed decontamination vehicle circling a suspected chemical weapons site." The State Department explicitly warned against using this claim. "We caution that Iraq has given … what may be a plausible account for this activity — that this was an exercise involving the movement of conventional explosives." They concluded that the presence of a water truck "is common in such an event."
[b]DISCREDITED INFORMATION MADE IT IN, PART II:[/b] The State Department disagreed that the aluminum tubes imported by Iraq could be used in a nuclear weapons program, a claim also made by President Bush in his State of the Union speech. The State Department memo said, "it is taken out of context and is highly misleading. Meantime, we will work with our IC colleagues to fix some more egregious errors in the tubes discussion."
[b]Our pathetic president is a corrupt dimwit surrounded by crooks, thugs and insane neo-con ideologues willing to betray our nation for their own primitive, barbaric lusts for power and vast wealth ... [/b]Isn't it time for "We the People" to take a[i] good hard look [/i]at what is happening to our government that is supposed to be accountable to the citizens of America??? ...
Decoding the Senate Report reveals that the Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] is dangerously reckless and ruthless: Bush & his cabal led us into an illegal and immoral war based upon traitorous lies, deceptions and falsehoods ... Refer to "[b]Learn the code: [i]The Senate's report is very revealing about Bush and his apostles - but the clues are buried deep[/i][/b]" by Sidney Blumenthal on http://www.guardian.co.uk/com...,3604,1261608,00.html : "[i]The Senate report, despite missing crucial information, still helps crack the code about Bush and his apostles. Bush is revealed as having a blithe disregard for anything that might interfere with his articles of absolute belief - a man of faith[/i]." ... Bush is [i]not[/i] competent to be president and does [i]not[/i] act in our nation's best interest ... Bush is[i] not [/i]rational ... Bush is[i] not[/i] an American for his allegiances are with the Saudi Royal Family and wealth plutocrats who are[i] not [/i]loyal to our nation ...
[b]Consider this ...[/b]
Now that the dust is settling from the Senate intelligence committee’s devastating report, I have a few thoughts about what it all means.
First, it seems that the White House is intent on appointing a new director of central intelligence. It’s a dumb idea, since the current, acting director is perfectly capable of keeping things going until after the election. Democrats seem eager for Bush to appoint a new spy chief, figuring that it will give them a platform in confirmation hearings to jaw about the CIA’s failings. But given the Democrats' shocking (so far) readiness to go along with the whitewash of the president’s lies-for-war strategy by blaming the CIA, it’s not too likely that the Democrats will be very effective in the context of a round of confirmation hearings. And, unless Bush picks some neocon hardliner as CIA chief—the egomaniacal Paul Wolfowitz? Jim Woolsey redux?—the hearings will be [i]pro forma [/i]anyway.
Second, as usual in these cases, everyone with an ax to grind or a pet peeve about the CIA has seized on the Senate report to claim that they have the solutions. And some of those solutions are awful. Worst is John Edwards’ solution, creating a new agency for domestic intelligence. Edwards has championed that idea for years, to the utter disgust of civil libertarians, who don’t want to create a huge new spy apparatus inside the United States. (Most likely the new agency would end up inside the new Department of Homeland Security, giving that Big Brother agency even more power than it already has.) The FBI can do the job of tracking down bad guys just fine. And they can do it as it ought to be done, by tracking criminals—not by tracking dissidents, infiltrating mosques, spying on demonstrators and creating intelligence dossiers on law-abiding Americans. On this issue, it’s not clear whether Edwards or Cheney is farther to the right.
Third, it’s time for the Democrats to make this whole fiasco into a political football—and kick the president through the goalposts. The issue isn’t that the CIA was too eager by half to confirm the politicians’ claims that Iraq had WMD (and, by the way, let’s hear it for the CIA’s courageous conclusion that Iraq had no truck with Al Qaeda). The issue is that the Bush administration—from the White House to the vice president’s office to the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans—took that intelligence and puffed it up. Yes, they put pressure on the CIA. And yes, the CIA’s slam-dunk chief went along. But the Senate’s gentlemen’s agreement not to investigate White House puffery or the OSP means that the issue has to be raised during the campaign, by politicians and investigative reporters.
Here’s the lede from a story I wrote almost two years ago for the[i] American Prospect [/i], the first story to mention Abe Shulsky as the director of OSP and the first story anywhere to lay out in detail how the White House was manipulating intelligence. It’s amazing how well it stands up:
... "Even as it prepares for war against Iraq, the Pentagon is already engaged on a second front: its war against the Central Intelligence Agency. The Pentagon is bringing relentless pressure to bear on the agency to produce intelligence reports more supportive of war with Iraq, according to former CIA officials. Key officials of the Department of Defense are also producing their own unverified intelligence reports to justify war. Much of the questionable information comes from Iraqi exiles long regarded with suspicion by CIA professionals. A parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation, in the office of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, collects the information from the exiles and scours other raw intelligence for useful tidbits to make the case for preemptive war. These morsels sometimes go directly to the president.
The war over intelligence is a critical part of a broader offensive by the party of war within the Bush administration against virtually the entire expert Middle East establishment in the United States—including State Department, Pentagon and CIA area specialists and leading military officers. Inside the foreign policy, defense and intelligence agencies, nearly the whole rank and file, along with many senior officials, are opposed to invading Iraq. But because the less than two dozen neoconservatives leading the war party have the support of Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, they are able to marginalize that opposition.
Morale inside the U.S. national-security apparatus is said to be low, with career staffers feeling intimidated and pressured to justify the push for war. At the State Department, where Secretary of State Colin Powell's efforts at diplomacy have thus far slowed the relentless pressure for war, a key bureau is chilled by the presence of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Elizabeth L. Cheney, the vice president's daughter, who is in charge of Middle East economic policy, including oil. "When [Near East Affairs] meets, there is no debate," says Parker Borg, who served in the State Department for 30 years as an ambassador and deputy chief of counterterrorism. "How vocal would you be about commenting on Middle East policy with the vice president's daughter there?" Undersecretary of State John Bolton is also part of the small pro-war faction.
And at the Pentagon, where a number of critical offices have been filled by hawkish neoconservatives whose commitment to war with Iraq goes back a decade, Middle East specialists and uniformed military officers alike are seeing their views ignored. "I've heard from people on the Middle East staff in the Pentagon," says Borg, referring to the staff under neocon Peter Rodman, the assistant secretary of defense for International Security Affairs. "The Middle East experts in those offices are as cut off from the policy side as people in the State Department are."
But the sharpest battle is over the CIA. "There is tremendous pressure on [the CIA] to come up with information to support policies that have already been adopted," says Vincent Cannistraro, a former senior CIA official and counterterrorism expert. What's unfolding is a campaign by well-placed hawks to undermine the CIA's ability to provide objective, unbiased intelligence to the White House." ...
[b]What is that old proverb about "[i]birds of a feather (flocking together)[/i]"??? ... It[i] is [/i]rather amusing that the neo-con right-wingers and neo-fascists in the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] so virulently hate the law; have a disdain for lawyers (although 25 out of 42 US presidents were lawyers); and, want to rid us of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights ... And [i]yet[/i], when [i]they're [/i]in trouble,[i] who [/i]are the first people these crooks turn to[i] and [/i]what constitutional amendment do they plea??? ...[i] He he he [/i]... "We the People" are [i]amused [/i]... LOL ...
ALACK OR ALAS ... Karl Rove must be off his game.[/b]
[b]Whoisjohngalt and I do not[i] always [/i]agree. However I respect his intelligence, his diligence and his integrity. Since he is the inspiration behind this post, I must, [i]in good faith, [/i]dedicate it to him ... [/b]Whoisjohngalt posted the following blog today entitled "[u]Newsmax--a neverending source of entertainment[/u]" on http://www.tblog.com/template... , and made a wise and profound observation:-- "[i]I decided to go look at the report itself rather than letting some faux-news service (or better yet, someone's blog) edit out the parts that don't fit what I already believe and cherry-pick the parts that do[/i].!" ... What struck me while reading his blog, is that[i] unlike [/i]most ideologues (particularly the neo-cons) running-around today, whoisjohngalt [i]actually [u]thought[/u] about what he read [/i]...
Bush/Cheney are running around in a [i]'panic-stricken' modus operandi[/i] spouting insanely idiotic screed that really [i]doesn't make any sense [/i]and yet some brain-dead sheep [i]simply regurgitate it [/i]mindlessly like parrots [i]without thinking [/i]about what is said or the consequences ... "We the People" have been ruthlessly duped by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]: the evidence confronts us daily, [i]and yet [/i] so many just repeat whatever they are told by Bush, Cheney, Karl Rove, WND, Rush Limbaugh, GOP-run Fox News Propaganda Network, [i]and/or [/i]other mendacious blow-hards [i]only interested in their own obscene lusts [/i]for power and vast riches ... Defending the Indefensible has led to the [i]March of Folly [/i]by corrupt politicos from Troy to Nazi Germany to Vietnam to Iraq ... Let us stop this nightmare and rid ourselves of the traitorous Bush regime who has clearly [i]betrayed the public trust[/i] ...
[u][b]Oak Ridge Boy and His War[/b][/u]
Bush keeps defending the indefensible: His [i]reckless, illegal [/i]war against Iraq.
In his speech at Oak Ridge, he repeated one of his favorite lines: "I had a choice to make: Either take the word of a madman, or defend America."
But that was not the choice he had to make.
Though Saddam was still playing games with the U.N. weapons inspectors, they were allowed to go anywhere and everywhere in Iraq. This was the most intrusive inspection effort of all time, and Bush refused to let it proceed and refused to believe what the weapons inspectors were telling him.
On top of that, the United States, Germany, and Russia were able to fly spy planes over every square inch of Iraqi territory.
So, no, Bush didn't have to take the word of a madman.
He could have taken the word of the U.N. weapons inspectors, but he chose not to.
He could have taken the evidence from the spy planes, but he chose not to.
Instead, he chose to plunge into war for ulterior motives. Some were petty (to get back at Saddam for allegedly trying to kill his daddy, or to clear up the blemish on daddy's record for not "finishing the job" and going to Baghdad). Some were about oil: controlling it, and letting U.S. companies get their hands on it. Some were about geopolitics: hedging a bet against an unstable Saudi Arabia, and eliminating a foe of Israel.
But Bush never has spoken honestly about these motives, and his speech at Oak Ridge was no exception.
He did, however, repeat the claim that "the American people are safer" because of the Iraq War.
That's a hard argument to win.
Former head of counterterrorism Richard Clarke says the Iraq War has made us much less safe. So, too, has Retired General Anthony Zinni, who used to be the Pentagon's commander for that region of the world.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies, based in London, says that the Iraq War has made the world less safe and has served as a "potent global recruitment pretext" for Al Qaeda, whose ranks have grown to 18,000 as a consequence.
U.S. alliances are tattered, and the U.S. reputation in the world is at historic lows.
[b]The overwhelming majority of Americans want a National (Universal) Health Care System http://www.pnhp.org/news/2003... , but since we have been hijacked by neo-con fascists in the corrupt Bush regime,[i] that fact (like most facts)[/i] doesn't matter to our traitorous[i] corporate-bought-and-paid -for [/i]"leadership [[i]sic[/i]]".[/b]
Thousands of doctors across our nation endorse a National (Universal) Health Care System http://www.commondreams.org/h... because it is barbaric for over 45 million of our citizens to be at risk and unable to get care, due to the fact that they cannot afford or lack the ability to obtain health care coverage, that is over-priced and exorbitantly expensive in our country. Moreover, it is unconscionable for over 18,000 of our citizens to die each year because we lack a National (Universal) Health Care System. Our current[i] corporate-owned system [/i]is wrong-headed and broken for it works well for the rich or for those who can afford good health care plans-- but it leaves out millions of American families including children. A National (Universal) Health Care System is perfectly feasible if we contain the costs by placing a pricing-structure on health care providers and regulating the over-charging by hospitals, HMOs, pharmaceuticals, and insurance[i] scam-artists [/i]who are bilking sick patients in order to become fabulously rich off of the misery of others.
"We the People" should be ashamed of our government, letting the richest nation on the planet squander hundreds of billions (even trillions) of US taxpayer dollars on the Military Industrial Complex in a neo-arms-race started by the insane Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] whose crazy lusts for never-ending warfare are illegal, immoral and disastrously stupid because it undermines our prosperity and the ability to care for our people ...
Courtesy of Kieran Healy, the chart below shows relative spending on healthcare among a bunch of advanced capitalist economies. Basically it shows that the United States has (a) much less public involvement in healthcare than the other countries and (b) much higher healthcare costs.
My contribution to this debate is the big red arrow pointing to the United States, just in case you miss it way up there in the corner. Note that the chart doesn't really demonstrate any special trend, but it does show that conservatives who insist that national healthcare systems are nothing more than vast boondoggles that inevitably produce huge amounts of waste and higher costs just isn't looking at the evidence. As near as I can tell, France has a better healthcare system than the United States http://www.washingtonmonthly.... on practically every measure, and does it at half the cost. - http://www.washingtonmonthly....
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]doesn't care about [i]or[/i] even like our Republic ... [/b]Indeed, this traitorous Bush regime is currently dismantling our U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights by ruthlessly exploiting heinous neo-fascist Patriot Acts http://www.motherjones.com/ne... [i], as well as [/i]letting gluttonous corporations hijack our government and dictate legislation harmful to "We the People" http://writ.news.findlaw.com/... ([i]shoved-through [/i]a corporate-owned GOP Congress of toadies using[i] unprecedented bribes, coercion, threats, dirty tactics, lies, etc[/i].) ... It is [i]time for a change[/i], for surely [i]we can do better than this [/i]mediocre and dim-witted president; his crooked and vulgar vice-president; and, their neo-con cabal of thugs-[i]n[/i]-goons and neo-orwellian propagandists ...
President Bush's continued defense of the Iraq war signals a severe disconnection from reality and a dangerous direction for our country's future. More concerned with his political needs than the security of the country, he refuses to recognize the facts and act accordingly: there were no nuclear, biological or chemical weapons in Iraq; there was no pre-9/11 collaboration between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein; insurgencies in Iraq are growing not abating; and terrorist threats against Americans are increasing not decreasing.
[b]... The president willfully overstated the Iraqi threat in order to convince the public to support a war that was not needed and did little to protect America.[/b] No one doubts that Saddam Hussein posed a long-term threat to the world. But he was contained in Iraq and posed no imminent threat. And as the Senate Intelligence Committee and the 9/11 Commission have independently reported, the entire case for war was built on faulty assumptions and flawed intelligence.
[b]... In doing so, the Bush administration dropped the ball in the global war on terrorism.[/b] While the U.S. was mired in Iraq, global terrorists and rogue nations had a field day. The president failed to finish off al Qaeda in Afghanistan in order to topple Saddam and now the terrorists are regrouping. The administration secured less nuclear material from terrorists in the two years after 9/11 than in the two years prior to the attacks. And it allowed North Korea and Iran to rapidly build threatening nuclear capacities, including a quadrupling of North Korea's nuclear weapons capability in the past year alone.
[b]... The president's doctrine of preemption – strike first, ask questions later – failed in its one and only test and must be discarded.[/b] The debacle in Iraq has ensured that the American public will remain skeptical of future conservative calls for pre-emptive wars. America reserves the right to protect itself, preemptively if necessary, when dangers are clear and imminent. But full out war has always been the final, not the first, course of action throughout our nation's history – a lesson the Bush administration should heed.
[b]The stakes are [i]high[/i] ... [/b]The neo-cons[i] now [/i]want a war with Iran, a country that is nearly 4 times the size of Iraq (Iran is 636,293 square miles / Iraq is 168,753 square miles) with a population nearly 3 times that of Iraq (Iran has 68,278,826 people with a 1.2% growth rate / Iraq has 24,683,313 people with a 2.8% growth rate-- that is before Bush/Cheney wiped out over 16,000 innocent Iraqi civilians and decimated their country) ... It [i]isn't necessary [/i]to invade Iran (which the corrupt Bush regime will do based upon fraudulent claims [i]again[/i] as per their illegal & immoral invasion of Iraq based upon bold-faced lies) and [i]cannot be done [/i]without instituting the draft and bankrupting our nation ... How can "We the People" possibly sanction the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] insane neo-con doctrine of "pre-emption" based upon myriad lies, deceptions and falsehoods, as these neo-fascists continue to lust for never-ending ([i]and unnecessary[/i]) warfare that will take a terrible and tragic toll in lives and treasure??? ... But it [i]won't[/i] take a toll on the lives of the blood-sucking Bushies and their spoiled off-spring who [i]don't make any sacrifices whatsoever[/i]!!! ...
Vote for[i] Kerry/Edwards [/i]and put a stop to the neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]illegal and immoral[i] Perpetual War for Perpetual Profits [/i](Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.) ... Corporate fascists should not be allowed to[i] profit [/i]from the[i] massacring [/i]of other human beings ...
Readers of this blog know that I pay a lot of attention to Iran, and how it fits into things. So, of course, do a lot of others, from Ariel Sharon and Ahmad Chalabi to the crew of so-called “realists” in the American foreign policy establishment. The fact that one of Osama bin Laden’s bearded wonders has turned himself in to the Saudi Arabia embassy in Iran only raises the stakes in Iran a little more. Is it a sign that Iran wants to cooperate with Washington? And can they pull it off before Israel bombs their nuclear reactors?
Next week, the[b] Council on Foreign Relations [/b]is sponsoring Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser and an apparent candidate for a post in the Kerry administration, and Robert Gates, the controversial former CIA director, in a forum to argue that it’s time for Washington to make nice with Teheran. Says CFR about its Brzezinksi-Gates task force:
... [i]"This new task force finds that the government's lack of sustained engagement with Iran harms our national interests in this critical region of the world. The task force also concludes that external efforts to change the current regime are not likely to succeed, and urges the United States to pursue direct dialogue with Tehran on specific areas of mutual concern." [/i]...
That’s a conclusion not likely to warm that hearts of the anti-Iran neocons. With Bush waging an ostentatious jihad against the Axis of Evil (one down, two to go) from Tripoli to Tashkent, any sign of openness toward Iran ’s mullahdom won’t be taken lying down.
Meanwhile, from Iran ’s news agency IRNA comes confirmation that Iran is going back to the negotiating table with the [b]European Big Three [/b], whose talks with Iran are viewed with a mixture of envy and suspicion by the Bush administration:
... [i]"Iranian negotiations with the three European partners on its national nuclear program will resume late July, the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) said on Tuesday.The SNSC said that "Sharq Persian daily" has made a mistake in carrying an interview with the television by Secretary of SNSC Hassan Rowhani saying that no negotiations will be held with the big three European states.
Iran signed Tehran Declaration with foreign ministers of France, Britain and Germany on October 21, 2003, according to which the three European partners undertook to supply Iran with nuclear technology in return for Iranian decision to sign up to additional protocol to Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which granted intrusive inspection of nuclear sites by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)." [/i]...
[b]Iran ’s ace-in-the-hole [/b], of course, is the fact that it can make life in Iraq a nightmare for the Bushies. Well, okay, it’s already a nightmare. But Iran can make it a lot worse. And, as I’ve been saying for a while, that might be exactly what Sharon, and the neocons, want. What better way to catapult the neocons back into the center of things than a handy little crisis with Iran?
Bush/Cheney Inc. Ignored Iraq/Al-Qaeda Intelligence ...
[b]"We the People" have now been formally told by the U.S. Senate that the war in Iraq was based upon "faulty" and "lousy" intelligence.[i] Ooopppsss [/i]... [/b] Of course,[i] that [/i]we were led into an illegal and immoral war based upon fraudulent claims has been obvious to [i]many of us [/i]for [i]many months now[/i]. But the Senate has not yet fulfilled its' obligation http://www.tblog.com/template... to the American people[i] by investigating and informing us[/i] regarding the sordid & squalid role played by the corrupt neo-con Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta[/i].
However, ample evidence exists http://www.lewrockwell.com/kw... that Bush and his cabal of neo-fascist thugs (Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, etc.) lusted for war with Iraq from their earliest days in taking office, and they ruthlessly abused our[i] public trust [/i]by exploiting the death, carnage and misery of 9/11 to frighten us into wrongly believing in some sort of non-existent link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, when none existed (as well as non-existent WMDs posing a so-called "threat" to our national security) ... Our reputation in the world community is seriously damaged because our word is no longer trusted; our integrity has been violated; and, the good-will of the world community has been recklessly squandered http://www.tblog.com/template... ... For the traitorous Bush regime to[i] take us to war [/i]waged upon heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods is a[i] crime [/i]under our U.S. Constitution and sufficient findings now warrant [i]impeachment hearings [/i]to remove Bush and Cheney ... Please contact Congress http://www.congress.org and demand that justice be carried-out in the names of our U.S. Soldiers and our Citizens who have lost loved ones, as well as wasted U.S. taxpayer dollars that could have been used for good purposes here at home ...
[b]Consider this ...[/b]
The Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on Friday that does its best to whitewash the Administration's role in hyping intelligence by pinning the blame on the CIA.1 The report distorts the truth by failing to meaningfully investigate "the ways intelligence was used, misused, misinterpreted or ignored by Administration policymakers…in making the case to the American people that war with Iraq was necessary."2 Those issues, conveniently, will be addressed in a separate report scheduled to be released sometime after the November elections.
Despite its inadequacies, the Intelligence Committee's report illustrates how - in the few cases the intelligence community did get it right - top Administration officials ignored them anyway.
For example, the CIA reported to the Administration that Iraq and al-Qaeda did not have "an established formal relationship."3 In fact, the Iraqi government actively sought "to prevent Iraq youth from joining Al Qaeda." Yet, Vice President Dick Cheney continues to tell the American people that Saddam Hussein had "an established relationship with al Qaeda."4
Also, according to the Intelligence Committee report, George Tenet directly contacted National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and her deputy Stephen Hadley in October 2002 to tell them the President should not say that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa because "the evidence was weak." In a fax sent to the White House, the CIA explained that "this is one of the two issues where we differed with the British." Nevertheless, just two months later, the President publicly declared "[t]he British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."5
1. "Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq," Senate Intelligence Committee, 7/07/04. 2. "Holes in America's Defense," Washington Post, 7/09/04. 3. "C.I.A. Warned White House That Links Between Iraq and Qaeda Were 'Murky'," New York Times, 7/10/04. 4. "Interview With Dick Cheney," Fox News, 6/28/04. 5. 2003 State of the Union, WhiteHouse.gov, 1/28/03.
Unfair Trade: U.S. Treaties Hurt the Poorest Partners ...
[b]It isn't hatred of "freedom" or hatred of "democracy" or hatred of the United States of America that triggers terrorism and fuels warfare ... [/b]But instead terrorism, crime and violence are caused by the anger which arises from the unjust and insane inbalance in the distribution of the world's resources ... When those who are exploited and trampled upon rise up, the wealthy plutocrats then use the brute force & might of the armies of the richest nations (e.g. the USA) in order to put-down revolutionary forces and fabricate such false "excuses" and neo-orwellian propaganda to attempt to persuade us that those who fight back in desperation "hate us" when [i]that[/i] is not the underlying cause ... "We the People" have been duped into paying with our blood and treasure for warfare in the Middle East (based upon lies) generated by those who want control over oil resources and whose pornographic lust for extravagant power and obscene riches is pathologically criminal ...
With the vast majority of the world's wealth illegally and immoraly grabbed (i.e. stolen and embezzled) by a few greedy plutocrats and gluttonous corporate robber-barons, most human beings live in dire poverty ... Such an extreme imbalance between the prosperity of the Hyper-Rich Haves and the unconscionable hopelessness of the Impoverished Have-Nots is untenable in the long-term, and indeed represents a continual threat to peace and stability in the world ... Moreover, for a few powerful oligarchs to amasse exorbitant riches while their fellow-men live in miserable poverty is[i] morally wrong [/i] and [i]ethically bankrupt [/i]...
"We the People" should re-evaluate the barbaric[i] system of distribution of wealth [/i]here at home and abroad in order to find a more fair and honorable system of rewarding labour without ruthlessly exploiting human beings, natural resources and the environment. Only when a more equitable [i]system of distribution of wealth [/i]is established will terrorism, war and destruction be brought under control.
The United States and Morocco last month signed a new bilateral trade treaty. The Bush administration has been bragging that it exemplifies the way its economic policies can build new ties and new friendships around the world.
This is especially important in the Middle East, where, in other respects, America's foreign policy seems to have left something to be desired. The cooperation with moderate Arab governments is meant to demonstrate U.S. broadmindedness, a willingness to offer a carrot to those who behave reasonably.
But regrettably, in negotiating the trade agreements with Morocco, Chile and other countries, the Bush administration has used the same approach that earned the enmity of so much of the rest of the world. The bilateral agreements reveal an economic policy dictated more by special interests than by a concern for the well-being of poorer trading partners.
In Morocco, prospects of the trade agreement were greeted by protests - unusual in a country that is only slowly moving to democracy. The new agreement, many Moroccans fear, will make generic drugs needed in the fight against AIDS even less accessible in their country than they are in the United States.
According to Morocco's Association de Lutte contre le SIDA, an AIDS agency, the agreement could increase the effective duration of patent protection from the normal length of 20 years to 30 years.
Morocco is not the only country that is worrying about access to lifesaving drugs. In all its bilateral agreements, the United States is using its economic muscle to help big drug companies protect their products from generic competitors. For a country like Thailand, which is facing a real AIDS threat, these are issues of more than academic concern.
President George W. Bush's policy in this area seems puzzling and hypocritical. While he talks about a global campaign against AIDS, and has offered substantial sums to back it up, what he is giving with one hand is being taken away with the other.
Most Americans, I believe, would support greater access to life-saving generic drugs. The loss to the drug companies would be small, and must surely be dwarfed by the huge tax breaks they get.
Nor are drugs the only arena in which the United States has used its economic power to advance special American interests. The agreement with Chile limited its ability to restrict the inflow of speculative, hot money that can come in and out of a country on a moment's notice.
Chile had recognized the potential destabilizing effects of these capital movements, and had imposed moderate taxes on these flows. Such restrictions had helped Chile grow a remarkable 7 percent a year in the early 1990s. That is because, unlike many of its neighbors in Latin America, Chile did not have to face the economic havoc caused by capital suddenly flowing in and then just as quickly flowing out.
Today, even the International Monetary Fund recognizes that capital market liberalization often leads to more instability instead of faster growth.
In telecommunications, too, in Morocco and elsewhere, we Americans have put forward demands that we would oppose strenuously if someone were to impose them on us. In the view of the developing world, the bargaining has been extraordinarily one-sided - with all the power on America's side.
The United States and its trade representative, Robert Zoellick, are right that trade policy can be an important instrument for building good will. But when conducted as it has been by the Bush administration, it can be, and is, a way to build ill will, especially among the young, who worry that their elders are selling them short.
If the Bush administration's trade agreements bring the economic benefits promised, if the lack of access to affordable drugs, including generic drugs, proves less troublesome than the naysayers worry, then all may be forgiven.
But there is a good chance that this will not be the case: In Mexico, for example, real wages actually declined in the decade after the North American Free Trade Agreement. And looking ahead, the demands for capital-market liberalization have a good chance of exposing Chile's economy to disruption, while the AIDS epidemic and the need for cheap drugs to fight it are not about to go away.
The good news is that the damage has been limited so far because the United States has been able to pressure only a few small countries to sign bilateral trade agreements. The bad news is that the enmity being earned through these pacts will only grow.
[b]Joseph E. Stiglitz, professor of economics at Columbia and author of "The Roaring '90s," was chief economist of the World Bank from 1997 to 2000. He won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2001 [/b] - http://www.commondreams.org/v...
[b]"We the People" are forced to bear the [i]heart-breaking [/i]deaths and injuries of our U.S. Soldiers because we are carrying the [i]lion's share [/i]of the military effort to secure Iraq in the aftermath of the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] bloody fiasco and atrocious incompetence ... The United States of America is also bearing the[i] lion's share [/i]of the gigantic [i]back-breaking [/i]costs of the traitorous Bush regime's illegal and immoral war in Iraq waged based upon heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods-- and the neo-cons' so-called "re-building effort" (i.e. enriching Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.), with the EU pitching in $378 Million http://news.xinhuanet.com/eng... which represents 0.23% of the total that the American taxpayer is forced to pay-off ($166 Billion to-date and no end in sight) ...[/b]
[b]Another of the "coalition" partners is now[i] backing out [/i][/b]...
The hostage crises continued, with a Filipino hostage in particular danger. The Philippines will not renew its troop commitment http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5... beyond August and now say they will pull out of Iraq "as soon as possible". http://www.juancole.com/2004_...
The gradual peeling away of the "Coalition of the Willing" in Iraq has been little reported because it is happening piecemeal. But after the Spanish left several of the Central American contingents did as well, and the Norwegians are gone, too. It would be interesting to tally up the number of countries that left or are leaving Iraq May-September this summer. The hostage taking probably is not responsible, but the poor security situation explains both the hostage taking and the reluctance of small peace keeping countries to remain involved.
Junichiro Koizumi of Japan appears to have been punished by the Japanese electorate for his strong pro-Bush stance on Iraq. He won't be forced to resign after a poor showing in Sunday's Senate elections, but he has been weakened and humiliated.
Bush's Iraq war may be the biggest setback for the international Right in decades. It is time to restore sanity and competence to our government, so vote for Kerry/Edwards and let us rid ourselves of the traitorous neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i].
[b]"We the People" should be demanding the impeachment [i]and[/i] trial for treason of the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i], who not only conducted their illegal and immoral neo-con war in Iraq for war-profiteering (just ask Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc. how much [i]gold[/i] they've [i]raked in [/i]...)-- based upon heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods ...[/b] But their looting (of lives and treasure) of America and Iraq is a [i]Crime Against Humanity [/i]which demands redress from Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the rest of the neo-cons who have clearly betrayed the public trust ... Please contact Congress http://www.congress.org and demand that impeachment hearings commence immediately to rid our nation of the sordid & squalid Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]... In the meantime, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bolton, Feith and the rest of this ugly cabal of neo-con neo-fascists should be fired ...
[b]Consider this ...[/b]
[b]Looting of Iraq is theft from Iraqi and American taxpayers that, according to several new reports, dwarfs the crimes of Adelphia and Ken Lay[/b]
The CEO and founder of Adelphi Communications has now been convicted of looting his company of hundreds of millions of dollars. Ken Lay has (finally) been indicted for his Enron dealings. What lesson may we learn?
If you really want to steal a lot of money, and get away with it, skip the private sector and go with government work.
While business corruption headlines briefly resurface, virtually no attention has been paid to a trio of reports that, combined, paints a picture of occupied Iraq as a place where staggering amounts of public money have been botched or stolen with little or no oversight.
Let us start with the White House itself, which helpfully buried, on the Friday afternoon before a July 4 weekend, its release of a White House Office of Management and Budget report that reveals that of the nearly $20 billion earmarked by Congress for reconstruction in last fall's emergency Iraq spending bill, only a tidy $366 million has actually been spent. Breaking it down further, we discover that we wealthy Americans, in the 14 months we officially occupied Iraq, spent none of our own money on roads, nothing on hospitals and public health, nothing on clean water. The biggest chunks -- about $100 million each -- were spent on training Iraqi police and trying to restore constantly sabotaged electricity. What little progress has been made has come almost entirely from foreign governments, private donors, and Iraq's oil money.
No wonder the Iraqi public is furious with the Americans for not honoring our word on the street. Americans should be angry, too -- originally, in January, the OMB estimated that $10.3 billion of the money would be spent by now. And when that $87 billion was rammed through Congress last fall, it was with the insistent message that the money was needed immediately, if not sooner.
Never mind.
But Iraqis deserve to be even angrier about the fate of their own money. Iraqi oil exports, remember, were also supposed to be helping with both security and the reconstruction effort.
Problem is, nobody has any idea where the money's gone.
The Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-run agency that put itself out of business with the June 29 handover, didn't even get around to appointing an auditor for its funds until April of this year, after the date of its dissolution was already fixed and with far too little time left to track down its spending. The British NGO Christian Aid took a crack at it, issuing a report when the handover took place that reads, in part, as follows:
... "[i]The billions of dollars of oil money that has already been transferred into the US-controlled Coalition Provisional Authority has effectively disappeared into a financial black hole... the US-controlled coalition in Baghdad is handing over power to an Iraqi government without having properly accounted for what it has done with some $20 billion of Iraq's own money[/i]." ...
Now, that's not the $20 billion of American taxpayer money -- that's a different pool, being held up due to a combination of ineptitude, security concerns, and lawsuits launched by various Friends of Dick and George that didn't get the contracts they wanted. But we spent Iraq's money -- after we took it from Iraq's public treasury -- and nobody knows where it's gone. Here's an educated guess: Halliburton. Here's another: Bechtel.
For others, consult Kenneth Lay's Christmas card list.
To top it all off, after Christian Aid released its report, and a day after the handover, the CPA auditor issued his own series of unfinished reports, saying, essentially, Yep. They're right. We have no idea where all that money went.
Aside from the sheer magnitude of the theft involved here, this matters because the looting of Iraq isn't over -- it's just moved to a new phase. One of the things a sovereign (albeit hand-picked) government of Iraq can do, which under international law an occupying army can't do, is sell off Iraq's public resources. That's what's now under way. The Bush Administration has an ambitious plan, unprecedented among underdeveloped countries, to privatize virtually every agency ever run under the umbrella of the government of Iraq. It's a fire sale to pyromaniacs, and aside from the fact that Iraq's public resources will be sold off to mostly foreign, mostly American bidders at pennies on the dollar, the contracts that they in turn let are likely to set new standards for corruption and cost-plus accounting -- particularly in a country that barely has its own police force, let alone one capable of investigating high-level wheeling and dealing of this order.
The whole thing stinks to high heaven, and the same curious set of companies keeps reappearing as stars in this little amorality play. These vast fortunes may not have been what motivated the invasion of Iraq, but it's hard to remember a time when taxpayers have paid so much -- hundreds of billions of dollars already, plus all those lost lives -- and the benefits have accrued to such a well-defined few.
[b]The Senate intelligence report released on Friday has turned out to be a disappointment, primarily because it has not addressed the key question of[i] responsibility for leadership run amok[/i] in the corrupt Bush regime http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... .[/b] The Republican chairman Senator Pat Roberts and the Democratic vice-chairman Senator John Rockefeller have been making the rounds of talk-shows stating that they will be studying the uses (and abuses) of the "lousy intelligence" by the Bush/Cheney White House, but that no conclusions will be drawn before the November elections. This is outrageous primarily because there is already sufficient evidence http://www.letstalksense.com/... despite their putrid attempts to cover-up for Bush and Cheney:-- that the White House pressured the CIA into providing false intelligence because of their strong desire to invade Iraq (for reasons having nothing to do with their fraudulent [i]casus belli[/i]: WMDs posing an imminent threat to our national security). Of course, the CIA was at fault, for they should have come forward and expressed their dissatisfaction and reservations with the fraudulent ways in which the corrupt neo-cons in the Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]were misleading the American public and the entire world community.
A deeper issue still is outstanding, and is tragically not being discussed and debated [i]at large[/i], and that is the climate of corrupt, atrocious and incompetent leadership by Bush and Cheney in their neo-con ideological zeal, that led to this catastrophic mismanagement, malfeasance and dishonest manipulation of the intelligence analysts, process and information http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... . A wise and intelligent president would have demanded that evidence be verified via multiple sources and substantiated prior to taking the nation to war. Indeed, a man of integrity would have questioned the NSA, CIA and British, upon being informed that the Unted Nations, the French, the Germans, the Russians, the Chinese and many other allies were warning that Bush/Cheney's so-called "intelligence" was flawed ... Bush/Cheney failed to do so, because in fact, they were prepared to go to war in Iraq (for oil) no matter what the consequences-- and they knew that their phony WMDs "excuse" was [i]a sales ploy used to ruthlessly manipulate [/i]the American people.
Bush/Cheney and their neo-fascist cohorts (Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bolton, Feith, Powell, etc.) have committed treason and should be impeached/fired and then put on trial for [i]Crimes Against Humanity [/i]... To continue to cover-up and make excuses for their reckless criminal activities perpetrated against us will only bring ever more destruction of our democracy [i]down upon our heads [/i]... Please contact Congress http://www.congress.org and demand that impeachment hearings commence for Bush/Cheney forthwith and that Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the rest of this corrupt cabal of neo-con thugs be fired immediately ... "We the People" owe it to over 884 US Soldiers and over 16,000 innocent Iraqi Civilians who have been ruthlessly massacred by the Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] based upon heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods,[i] as well as [/i]to future generations who will bear the unconscionable stigma of heinous American War Crimes and the back-breaking Financial Debt ...
[b][u]On the Senate Committee Report on Iraq War Intelligence[/u][/b]
The Senate intelligence report released on July 9, 2004, is a whitewash for the White House. The report is a lame attempt by the Republican-controlled Senate to absolve the Bush administration – and specifically the president and vice president – of responsibility for manipulating and misusing intelligence in making the case for an optional war in Iraq.
The good news is that the American public won’t be fooled. As recent polls demonstrate, an [b]astonishing 80 percent of those polled say that George Bush was either hiding information or lying [/b]about the reasons he took us to war in Iraq.
While the committee is right that we must modernize and strengthen the intelligence community, this report leaves out critical information. It is no coincidence that the most potentially damning conclusions about the administration will be delayed until after the election. When you only look at half the information, you're bound to get half-truths.
Despite the demands of committee members, the Republican leadership limited the scope of the inquiry. There is no mention of the role of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans – Vice President Dick Cheney's personal intelligence service – nor is there anything about the role of top officials in paying Ahmed Chalabi millions of dollars to deliver false intelligence.
Of course, none of this should come as a surprise. Let's not forget that, no matter what the intelligence told them, George Bush and his posse were bound and determined to go to war in Iraq.
There is no doubt that our intelligence was stale, incomplete and in some cases outright false. But the most important question is who used the intelligence and for what purpose.
The American people accept that deposing Saddam will help Iraqis in the long run. But reports like this will not change Americans' minds that the invasion was a mistake, they were misled by the president, and we are less secure today because of it. Beyond intelligence, that’s a failure of policy and leadership.
[i][b]Statement made by Robert O. Boorstin, who is senior vice president for national security at the Center for American Progress[/b][/i]. http://www.americanprogress.o...
Bush/Cheney Inc.: A History of Refusing to Release Documents ...
[b]Isn't it interesting to listen to the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] and their traitorous GOP toadies [i]defend their indefensible secrecy [/i]in order to [i]hide the government's (i.e. Bush/Cheney corporate cronies) business [/i]from "We the People", and then watch them [i]howl like monkeys[/i] for their political opponents to disclose every personal and private detail that they can exploit in their neo-fascist, neo-orwellian propaganda campaigns??? ...[/b]
"We the People" should be extremely concerned, angered and outraged at the un-democratic and destructive fascist secrecy and imperial powers being employed against us by the neo-con Bush regime, for they are [i]refusing to release documents and information [/i]that have a direct impact and important bearing upon the nature of their criminal and incompetent governance ...
[b]Consider this ...[/b]
In 2000, presidential candidate George W. Bush demanded Vice President Al Gore release various documents related to his past. He said on March 15, 2000, "I challenge you to clear the air on some serious charges. I hope you will encourage the White House and the Department of Justice to release all records and photographs relating to the investigation of fundraising." But now, facing far more serious allegations than fundraising irregularities, the President has categorically refused to release critical documents in a host of areas.
[b]BUSH REFUSES TO CALL ON TEXAS TO RELEASE MILITARY RECORDS:[/b] Though the Bush administration now says the Pentagon "inadvertently" destroyed key documents about the President's military service at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, the President has refused to call on the state of Texas to release copies of those military files that are legally-required to exist there. According to AP, "Under Texas law, a copy of military personnel files of those serving in the Texas Air National Guard must be retained on microfilm at the Texas archives." The Texas Air National Guard has told AP that the files in the Texas state archive are under control of the federal government. But according to the NY Times, the chief of the Pentagon's Freedom of Information Office refused to comment about obtaining the documents. [[u]Sources:[/u] NY Times, 7/9/04, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... ; AP, 6/22/04, http://www.sunherald.com/mld/... ]
[b]ADMINISTRATION REFUSES TO RELEASE TORTURE MEMOS:[/b] "Attorney General John Ashcroft said that President George W. Bush never authorized torture of detained terrorism suspects, but he refused to release internal memos that discuss when torture is allowed. In a testy three-hour Capitol Hill hearing, Ashcroft repeatedly rejected Democratic demands for memos recently leaked to the media which say that treaties and laws do not bar Bush from authorizing torture of terrorism suspects." [[u]Source:[/u] Newsday, 6/9/04, http://www.commondreams.org/h... ]
[b]ADMINISTRATION REFUSED TO RELEASE INFORMATION ABOUT MEDICARE BILL:[/b] During the negotiations over the Bush administration's controversial Medicare Bill, the administration threatened to fire a government actuary if he released cost estimates of the bill to Democrats. Even today those estimates "still have yet to be made public or turned over to congressional Democrats who have requested them." In March, HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson "promised to release them and said an inspector general's investigation would clear the air. But since then, "he has refused to release the documents in question. House Democrats have sued for the documents in federal court and The Associated Press, which sought the same materials under the Freedom of Information Act, has appealed the withholding of 149 pages out of 162 pages that the agency acknowledges are responsive to its request." [[u]Source:[/u] AP, 7/7/04, http://www.lasvegassun.com/su... ]
[b]CHENEY REFUSES TO RELEASE ENERGY TASK FORCE RECORDS:[/b] "Vice President Dick Cheney refused to release records of meetings with company executives to discuss energy policy." According to the Washington Post, Cheney met in early 2001 with executives from the oil and gas industries, including Anadarko Petroleum's Robert Allison and then-Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay. Cheney has acknowledged meeting multiple times with Enron representatives during the California energy crisis while the administration was developing its energy proposal. [[u]Sources:[/u] Financial Times, 1/27/02, http://specials.ft.com/enron/... ; MSNBC, 4/26/04, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4... ; ABC News, 1/9/02, http://abcnews.go.com/section... ]
[b]BUSH REFUSES TO RELEASE RECORDS OF HARKEN TENURE:[/b] "The White House refused to release records of Bush's service on Harken's board. Bush had pointed to those records during a news conference on Monday when asked about his role in the sale of a subsidiary. The transaction later was used by Harken to mask losses." [[u]Source:[/u] Washington Post, 7/11/02, http://www.washingtonpost.com... ]
[b]ADMINISTRATION REFUSES TO RELEASE CORRECTED CENSUS DATA:[/b] In 2001, "The Census Bureau refused to release statistically adjusted census data to disburse billions in federal dollars." The decision was an effort to prevent the release of data showing the "raw figures undercount minorities, the poor and children." According to the House Government Reform Committee, "When the Commerce Department used similar techniques as part of the 1990 census, federal courts ordered the data released and rejected claims that information was in any way confidential."[[u]Sources:[/u] National Journal, 10/18/01; AP, 10/17/01; House Government Reform Committee, 5/21/00, http://www.house.gov/reform/m... ]
[b]WHITE HOUSE REFUSES TO RELEASE BUDGET INFORMATION TO CONGRESS:[/b] "The Bush White House, irritated by pesky questions from congressional Democrats about how the administration is using taxpayer money, has developed an efficient solution: It will not entertain any more questions from opposition lawmakers. The decision -- one that Democrats and scholars said is highly unusual -- was announced in an e-mail sent Wednesday to the staff of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. House committee Democrats had just asked for information about how much the White House spent making and installing the "Mission Accomplished" banner for President Bush's May 1 speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln." [[u]Source:[/u] Washington Post, 11/7/03]
[b]ADMINISTRATION REFUSES TO RELEASE FOIA'D DOCUMENTS:[/b] "The Justice Department refused to release records from its Office of Legislative Affairs because reporter Michael Ravnitzky had 'failed to address how [his publication] intends to use the records subject to the request,' according to the Justice Department. For a 2001 story, Ravnitzky asked for a series of Security Summary Synopses concerning airports. In the aftermath of 9/11, he urged the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to expedite the request in order to inform the public which airports were not secure. The FAA has responded twice, arguing that 'there is no identifiable urgency to inform the public.'" [[u]Source:[/u] Insight Magazine, 4/8/02, http://www.insightmag.com/mai... ]
[b]WHITE HOUSE REFUSED TO RELEASE ABORTION REPORT FROM ITS OWN OFFICIALS:[/b] According to Knight Ridder in 2002, an independent team that the administration sent to China in May concluded that allegations that a U.N. family planning program supports forced abortions were untrue. In fact, one of the officials said, the report concluded that the U.N. program improved women's lives by helping them prevent unwanted pregnancies through education and birth control and, therefore, reducing the number of abortions under China's restrictive family planning policy. The team's report recommended that Bush release $34 million to the U.N. Population Fund. But the administration "refused to release the report, even to congressional Republicans working on the issue." [[u]Source:[/u] Knight-Ridder, 7/14/02, http://www.realcities.com/mld... ]
"[i]More than 4,000 scientists, including 48 Nobel Prize winners and 127 members of the National Academy of Sciences, accused the Bush administration Thursday of distorting and suppressing science to suit its political goals[/i]." - http://www.commondreams.org/h...
[b]"We the People" have perhaps become [i]tragically numb and brutally callous [/i]to the insane neo-con Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i]:-- [i]disdain[/i] for the rule of law-- their [i]utter contempt [/i]for the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights-- and, their [i]ruthless and reckless disregard [/i]for human life, mankind and citizens, who are (ab)used as cannon-fodder in illegal & immoral neo-con wars, and slave labour for neo-fascist corporations:-- [i]All [/i]to enrich themselves and their corrupt, amoral and greedy corporate cronies (Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.) ... [/b] Yet, when the barbaric Bush regime defies scientific thought, intellectual discourse and serious reasoning for political gain, we should be [i]very alarmed [/i]and it should[i] trigger our outrage[/i]-- For without scientific endeavours, intellectual integrity, and rational human thought driving our political debates, policy making and decision-making judgements, we will be driven backwards in time towards a neo-Dark Age ... Surely, "We the People" must stand against the Bush regime's dangerously stupid attempt to transform our nation into a 3rd World-style Military[i] Junta [/i]that will ([i]and is currently disastrous[/i]) wreck our Republic ...
[b][u]Political "Science"[/u]:[/b]
When the Bush administration has a political objective, it doesn't let science get in its way. Yesterday, the Union of Concerned Scientists released a report http://www.ucsusa.org/global_... documenting a host of new examples in which Bush officials have inappropriately interfered with scientific judgment to support the president's predetermined agenda.
Among other things, the administration has sought to ensure the political fealty of scientific advisory committees; suppressed information on environmental damage from mountaintop mining; and doctored data to downplay risks to endangered species.
These findings build on the record documented by UCS in an earlier report released in February http://www.ucsusa.org/global_... . In conjunction with that report, UCS unveiled a statement signed by 62 distinguished scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, blasting the administration's politicization of science (a problem also highlighted in a recent report http://www.americanprogress.o...%7bE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A52 1-5D6FF2E06E03%7d/sipolit icsoverscience.pdf by the Center for American Progress and OMB Watch). Since then, [u]4,000 scientists have added their names to the statement[/u], http://www.ucsusa.org/global_... including 28 more Nobel laureates.
There is plenty of reason for this growing concern. Consider the administration's handling of scientific advisory committees. In April, the president's science adviser, John H. Marburger III, [u]issued a rebuttal[/u] http://www.ostp.gov/html/ucs/... to the February UCS report, saying "the accusation of a litmus test that must be met before someone can serve on an advisory panel is preposterous." However, the new UCS report casts significant doubt on this assertion.
For instance, Sharon Smith, chair of the University of Miami's marine biology department, informed UCS that she was summarily rejected for a position on the U.S. Arctic Research Commission "after she gave a less-than-enthusiastic answer in response to a question from the White House personnel office about whether she supported President Bush."
Likewise, two recently appointed members of the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research – Richard Myers of Stanford University and George Weinstock of Baylor College of Medicine – report that White House representatives asked inappropriate questions about their political views. Myers was initially denied a spot on the committee, apparently because he refused to discuss his opinion of President Bush, but was ultimately approved after a senior scientist at the National Institutes of Health (where the committee is housed) intervened on his behalf. Weinstock told UCS that his answers regarding President Bush must have been "innocuous enough to be palatable," adding, "There is no doubt in my mind that these questions represented a political litmus test."
Perhaps most dramatic, Gerald T. Keusch, who oversaw advisory committee appointments at a branch of NIH, recently reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that the Bush administration approved only seven of his 26 advisory-board nominations over three years. In one case, Bush officials explained to Keusch that they had rejected Torsten Wiesel, a Nobel laureate in medicine, "because he had signed too many full-page letters in the New York Times critical of President Bush."
The administration has also shown no reluctance to shape scientific findings in service to its political agenda. In one case, Deputy Interior Secretary J. Stephen Griles, a former lobbyist for the mining industry, directed agency scientists and staff to drop any consideration of alternatives that could minimize environmental damage from mountaintop mining, which the administration was seeking to boost. "We were flabbergasted and outraged," one high-ranking staff scientist at the Fish and Wildlife Service told UCS.
Bush officials also intervened on a host of endangered species issues, according to the UCS report. Just this past May, the administration proposed a new policy – spearheaded by former timber-industry lawyer Mark Rutzick, a special adviser at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – [u]to add hatchery-raised salmon to the count of wild salmon[/u], http://www.americanprogress.o... which could affect whether the Coho salmon is listed as endangered. A distinguished scientific advisory panel counseled against this action, but the administration suppressed its findings. "The members of the panel were told to either strip out our recommendations or see our report end up in a drawer," according to the panel's lead scientist, Robert Paine, a renowned ecologist at the University of Washington.
The administration has similarly inflated the numbers of the endangered Florida panther to avoid triggering corrective action under the Endangered Species Act; suppressed information on the economic benefits of restoring the endangered bull trout in the Pacific Northwest; and misrepresented scientific findings to avoid listing the "tri-state" trumpeter swan as an endangered species.
This willingness to subvert science puts public health and the environment at risk. When science is stifled, policy makers and the public are denied crucial information to address problems in a timely way. The Bush administration has it backwards: science should inform policy judgments, not the other way around.
[b]Source:[/b]
[b]Reece Rushing [/b]is associate director for regulatory policy at the Center for American Progress - http://www.americanprogress.o... .
[b]It is time for "We the People" to commence to prepare ourselves, for we are about to be bombarded with the ugliest, nastiest and most vile neo-orwellian, neo-fascist propaganda campaigns [i]ever[/i] devised by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] in order to terrorize and terrify us into submission ... [i]Beware[/i] ... A good [i]start[/i] to inoculate/arm ourselves[i] against [/i]one of the Bushies' upcoming insane neo-con propaganda scares is as follows http://www.tvnewslies.org/htm... ...
[i]“...the Republicans have absolutely NO OTHER ISSUE on which to run. None.”
“Not one ad can possibly show any achievement by George Bush[/i].”[/b]
[u][b]THE PROBLEM[/b][/u]
This is not the way it was supposed to be, not by a long shot. By now, George W. Bush was supposed to be a shoo-in for a second term in the White House. It really looked as if they had it all: Karl Rove was the master political strategist, the Neo-cons http://www.tvnewslies.org/htm... were the master war planners, and Dick Cheney http://www.tvnewslies.org/htm... was the master puppeteer of all time. Together, they would clear a path to victory for George Bush, the strong war candidate, for George Bush the highly popular candidate, and for George Bush, the absolutely unbeatable candidate. Theirs were the best laid plans, for sure. But they went badly astray.
Actually, it looked really good for a long time after September 11th http://www.tvnewslies.org/htm... . A terrorist attack on the US was a gift from the Gods for Karl Rove and company. Despite waging a [b][i]failed war against the Taliban[/i][/b], George Bush wallowed in the glow of almost unprecedented popularity. Seizing the moment, Plan B was exhumed from the PNAC http://www.tvnewslies.org/htm... war book: George W. Bush would save the people of America from imminent annihilation by Saddam Hussein. The Neocons knew that most of the people would buy in to the lies, and that most of the people would support their president. And so they did. But this time, theirs were not the best laid plans, for sure. And they, too, went badly astray.
Fast forward to 2004, only six months before elections. The Bush administration has to be wondering what the hell has happened. Karl Rove has to be wringing his hands in total disbelief. And if you look closely, much of their hubris has crumbled beneath the weight of incompetence, failure, and breaks in the ranks. But you don’t have to look too closely to see that the world of George Bush has taken some unexpected turns:
. Operation Iraqi Freedom is a dismal failure with no end in sight . The WMD scam http://www.tvnewslies.org/htm... has been exposed as a ruse to gain support for war . American and coalition troop deaths go on and on . The UN, no longer irrelevant, has had to step into the mess . The Taliban and War Lords are in control of most of Afghanistan . Insiders such as O’Neill http://www.tvnewslies.org/htm... and Clarke http://www.tvnewslies.org/htm... have spoken out against the failures . The Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal http://www.tvnewslies.org/htm... will not go away . The Valerie Plame leak leads directly to the White House . The secret Cheney meetings http://www.tvnewslies.org/htm... are before the Supreme Court . The 9/11 hearings http://www.tvnewslies.org/htm... left many questions unanswered . Thousands of American jobs are being outsourced and unemployment is high . The deficit has gone through the roof and getting worse . The Medicare bill was a phony as was its fabricated cost . The cities and states are hurting financially and getting no relief . The religious right has influenced far too much policy . AND GEORGE BUSH’S APPROVAL RATINGS ARE IN FREEFALL!!!!
[u][b]THE SCAM[/b][/u]
What to do? What to do? You know that these people will not go quietly into the night. You know they will come up with a strategy to counter their failures. You just know it. And they did.
The plan is simple and clever, and was inspired by the tragic train bombings in Madrid that brought down a pro war government. It relies heavily on the fear factor that has been the calling card of this administration for three years. It also relies solidly on another given: the cooperation and complicity of the corporate media.
[b]Here we go:[/b]
1. Get some two year old photos of known Al Qaeda operatives to show the public. 2. Bring Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller on TV to announce grave concern over possible terrorist attacks within the US this summer. 3. Do not include the Director of Homeland Security, and do not raise the alert level. 4. Stress repeatedly that the US is really, really vulnerable to attacks during several major upcoming events. 5. REMIND EVERYONE THAT SPAIN WAS ATTACKED RIGHT BEFORE ELECTIONS. 6. REMIND PEOPLE THAT THE ATTACK DETERMINED THE ELECTION OUTCOME IN SPAIN. (Omit any reference to the 90% anti war sentiment among the people of Spain). 7. Suggest that Al Qaeda might want to influence the elections this November right here in the good old USA. 8. Let them know that Al Qaeda would like to see George Bush defeated because he is has been so strong in his war against terror. 9. MAKE SURE THAT REPRESENTATIVES OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION APPEAR ON TALK SHOWS ON A REGULAR BASIS TO BRING UP THIS TOPIC. 10. REPEAT OVER AND OVER THAT WE MUST NOT ALLOW TERRORISTS TO DETERMINE THE OUTCOME OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 11. Let Americans know that a patriotic American will NOT vote to change the present leadership in Washington. That would be a victory for Osama bin Laden.
[b][u]BOTTOM LINE[/u]: A VOTE FOR JOHN KERRY IS A VOTE FOR BIN LADEN!!!! JEEZ!!!![/b]
[b][u]THE RESPONSE[/u]
Fight back.[/b] Don’t let the pundits do Karl Rove’s dirty work http://www.tvnewslies.org/htm... . Call the networks. Email the networks. Write to the networks. Let them know that YOU know what they’re doing: shilling for George Bush by promoting the scam. Don’t let them get away with this.
Remember that all over America there are good people who want to be safe, and want to be good citizens, who will believe what they hear. These people would never do anything that they think would aid and abet Osama bin Laden or any of his henchmen or women. They just don’t understand, and they just don’t get it. Get the message to them.
[b]Download this article http://www.tvnewslies.org/A_V... and hand it out.[/b] Make people aware of the latest ruse of an administration that has told them lie after lie after lie. There is no other way to stop them. Karl Rove is smart. He knows his lifeboat is taking on water and [i][b]he will do ANYTHING to keep George Bush in the White House[/b] [/i]for another four years. This is a well thought out scam. It has a good chance of taking in enough people in enough states to make a difference. [b]This will be a very close election, and the Republicans have absolutely NO OTHER ISSUE on which to run. None.[/b]
[b]Every GOP ad is an attack against John Kerry. Not one ad can possibly show any achievement by George Bush.[/b] This is their last hurrah. They will call on the people to cast a vote that will defy Osama bin Laden. Logical or not, it might just work. We cannot allow that to happen. We have to make certain that this plan also goes astray. We have to do that. We really do.
[b]More unnecessary deaths of Americans and Iraqis occur unabatted[i] day-in-and-day-out [/i]without any end in sight ... [/b]"Sovereignty" was an ugly game played by the Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]calculated to get them [i]"off-the-hook"[/i] with the American people, for their heinous illegal and immoral neo-con war in Iraq that has cost http://www.ips-dc.org/iraq/co... the working and poor people of America and Iraq in the [i]heart-breaking tragic loss of life [/i]and the [i]back-breaking burden of tax-payer dollars[/i]:-- [i]both stolen [/i]so that the neo-fascist Bushies and their corrupt corporate cronies (Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.) could amasse vast power and riches ...
"We the People" should hang our heads in shame ...
Consider "[b]The Iraqi Resistance: [i]Big and Getting Bigger[/i][/b]", The Dreyfuss Report, TomPaine.com on http://www.tompaine.com/artic... :
[b]Five more Americans killed yesterday[/b]—but what’s remarkable, even stunning, is the professionalism and precision of the attack. In Samarra, north of Baghdad, resistance fighters hit a U.S.-Iraqi military headquarters with 38 simultaneous mortar shells, utterly destroying the building. It’s the latest sign that the Iraqi resistance movement is not only large, but getting better organized, more sophisticated and more deadly.
[b]Morons[/b]—from neocon hatchet men to[i] Fox News[/i]-style pundits—continue to promote the idea that the opposition to the U.S. occupation of Iraq is coming from Muslim fundamentalists. It’s not. And it isn’t Al Qaeda either. If and when Zarqawi is captured or killed, it won’t make one damn bit of difference. America is facing a full-scale Iraqi nationalist uprising, and it’s only a matter of time before the resistance wins. (P.S. to Iyad Allawi: Hope you haven’t sold your house in London—you’ll need it.)
[b]Let’s look at some recent news[/b]. First, here’s a dispatch from [i]AP[/i], by Jim Krane, a solid reporter who you won’t see blabbing on[i] Fox News[/i], but who gets it right. Incidentally, he quotes the single best private analyst on Iraq, the prolific Tony Cordesman of CSIS, who is an accurate, if Cassandra-like, prognosticator. Here’s an excerpt from Krane—read it carefully, because it shows one more case of how the Bush administration is lying about Iraq, trying to suppress accurate intelligence about the peril that the United States faces in Baghdad:
... "[i]BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Iraqi insurgency is far larger than the 5,000 guerrillas previously thought to be at its core, U.S. military officials say, and it's being led by well-armed Iraqi Sunnis angry at being pushed from power alongside Saddam Hussein.
Although U.S. military analysts disagree over the exact size, dozens of regional cells, often led by tribal sheiks and inspired by Sunni Muslim imams, can call upon part-time fighters to boost forces to as high as 20,000—an estimate reflected in the insurgency's continued strength after U.S. forces killed as many as 4,000 in April alone.
And some insurgents are highly specialized—one Baghdad cell, for instance, has two leaders, one assassin and two groups of bomb-makers.
The developing intelligence picture of the insurgency contrasts with the commonly stated view in the Bush administration that the fighting is fueled by foreign warriors intent on creating an Islamic state.
"We're not at the forefront of a jihadist war here," said a U.S. military official in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The official and others told The Associated Press the guerrillas have enough popular support among nationalist Iraqis angered by the presence of U.S. troops that they cannot be militarily defeated.
Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the figure of 5,000 insurgents "was never more than a wag and is now clearly ridiculous."
U.S. military documents obtained by AP show a guerrilla band mounting attacks in Baghdad that consists of two leaders, four sub-leaders and 30 members, broken down by activity. There is a pair of financiers, two cells of car bomb-builders, an assassin, separate teams launching mortar and rocket attacks and others handling roadside bombs and ambushes.
Most of the insurgents are fighting for a bigger role in a secular society, not a Taliban-like Islamic state, the military official said. Almost all the guerrillas are Iraqis, even those launching some of the devastating car bombings normally blamed on foreigners—usually al-Zarqawi.
The official said many car bombings bore the "tradecraft" of Saddam's former secret police and were aimed at intimidating Iraq's new security services.
Many in the U.S. intelligence community have been making similar points, but have encountered political opposition from the Bush administration, a State Department official in Washington said, also speaking on condition of anonymity[/i]." ...
[b]Today’s Doonesbury strip skewers Bush [/b]with the poll showing that only 2 percent of Iraqis support the occupation, noting that the margin of error in the poll was more than 2 percent, so that in fact Washington may have achieved unanimity—with ALL of Iraq now against us. The [i]Washington Post [/i]has a startling account of how children are throwing baseball-sized rocks at U.S. forces everywhere. Here’s a flavor of the story:
... "[i]The daily rock fights between U.S. soldiers and ordinary Iraqis, many of them children, highlight the mutual antipathy that has built up since the handover of political power to an Iraqi government. Although often-intense fighting continues in some regions, the U.S. military occupation of Sadr City, as observed in four days on patrol with a U.S. Army unit, has evolved into a grinding daily confrontation between frustrated American soldiers and a desperate population.
In heat that hovers near 115 degrees, troops overseeing projects to bring clean water to neighborhoods awash in raw sewage are greeted by jeering mobs. Swarms of teenagers and children pump their fists in praise of Moqtada Sadr, the Shiite cleric whose militia has killed eight soldiers and wounded scores more from the 1st Cavalry Division battalion responsible for Sadr City's security and civic improvement. In April, during an uprising in Sadr City, the division estimated that it killed hundreds of Sadr's militiamen.
Candy, once gleefully accepted in this part of Baghdad, is now thrown back at the soldiers dispensing it[/i]." ...
[b]When the war is finally over[/b], the image of Iraqi children throwing back candy at U.S. soldiers will remain one of the conflict’s strongest images.
[b]Meanwhile, Fallujah continues to be the center of the resistance[/b]. Today’s[i] Wall Street Journal[/i], neocon mouthpiece extraordinaire, attacks human-rights advocates for the unpardonable sin of criticizing Iraqi Puppet Prime Minister Allawi’s “new emergency powers,” noting that “Iraqis themselves, meanwhile, seem to be welcoming the move.” (Huh?) And the[i] Journal [/i]praises Allawi for taking responsibility for U.S. air strikes at Fallujah targets, which have killed scores to no effect over the past two weeks. “The city continues to be a haven and staging area for the Zarqawi-led foreign terrorists who remain a threat to timely elections in Iraq.” Well, Zarqawi may or may not be holed up there—he could be in Afghanistan, for all our blind intelligence system knows—but it’s clear that Fallujah is liberated territory, as the [i]New York Times [/i]made clear in yesterday’s page-one lede:
... "[i]Iraqi and American officials say they would prefer to re-enter the city with a sizable force of Iraqi soldiers, perhaps backed up by Americans. But they concede that an Iraqi force capable of mounting an effective assault on Fallujah, a city of 250,000 people, is months or even years away[/i]." ...
[b][i]The Times [/i], too, notes that Zarqawi and Islamist crazies are all over Fallujah[/b], but at least it manages to suggest that secular Iraqi nationalists, including Baathists, are active there, too—and adds:
..."[i]Former members of the Baath Party are using the city as a base to regroup, and recently held a meeting to plot a strategy to return to power, the Iraqi officials said.
Now that’s news. But where is the reporting on this? That’s the real story in Iraq, not the mystery of the weird U.S. soldier who turned up in Beirut, not the plans to conduct a kangaroo trial of Saddam and hang him. Let’s give Scott Ritter the last word, from an Alternet piece on the resistance:
The Iraqi resistance is no emerging "marriage of convenience," but rather a product of planning years in the making. Rather than being absorbed by a larger Islamist movement, Saddam's former lieutenants are calling the shots in Iraq, having co-opted the Islamic fundamentalists years ago, with or without their knowledge.
The recent anti-American attacks in Fallujah and Ramadi were carried out by well-disciplined men fighting in cohesive units, most likely drawn from the ranks of Saddam's Republican Guard. The level of sophistication should not have come as a surprise to anyone familiar with former Chief of the Republican Guard Sayf al-Rawi's role in secretly demobilizing select Guard units for this very purpose prior to the U.S. invasion. And as the former Director of Tribal Affairs for the Special Security Organization, Rokan Razuki's knowledge of Iraqi tribal realities is unmatched and his connections unrivaled. His continued access to tribal councils is a tremendous threat to any authority in charge of Iraq.
The strength of this anti-American resistance depends on how long the United States chooses to "stay the course" in Iraq. The calculus is quite simple: the sooner we bring our forces home, the weaker this movement will be. And, of course, the obverse is true: the longer we stay, the stronger and more enduring this by-product of Bush's elective war on Iraq will be.
There is no elegant solution to our Iraqi debacle. It is no longer a question of winning, but rather mitigating defeat.[/i]" ...
[b]Hear that, John Kerry? You once wanted to bring the boys home, now! [i]It’s time again[/i][/b].
Mad King George:-- Trampling On Democracy To "Protect [sic]" It???
[b]An Outrage:[/b] "As the House leadership abused its power by extending a vote http://www.boston.com/news/na... on Bernie Sanders's (I-VT) amendment to the Patriot Act, Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) had the nerve to argue that those supporting the bipartisan legislation were disregarding those killed on September 11 http://frwebgate.access.gpo.g... . Shays's comments came just moments after an impassioned speech in support of the bill by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who represents the Manhattan district encompassing Ground Zero." - Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
[b]"We the People" are witnessing the unconscionable destruction of our democracy [i]and [/i]the tragic end of our Republic. Nazi-style tactics are employed by the traitorous Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] and the corrupt GOP-controlled Congress in order to trample upon our rights and tread upon our freedoms ... Our U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights are being relegated to being [i]"historical"[/i] and no longer [i]"living"[/i] documents ... Why are we permitting this outrage??? ...[/b]
In a dramatic scene on the floor of the U.S. House yesterday, the White House and Republican leadership rigged a key vote on a bill that would have reformed the Patriot Act by requiring "law enforcement to go to a regular court instead of a secret court to get permission to demand library and Internet access records of people it is investigating." The reform, sponsored by Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and broadly supported by 332 local governments, at one point was winning 219-201, and when the official voting time ran out "appeared to have been approved by a 213-206 vote." But even as House members screamed "Shame!," Republican leaders abused their power by indefinitely extending voting time, using the extra time to force nine of their colleagues to switch their votes and defeat the bill on a tie vote 210-210. Rep. Butch Otter (R-ID), a top sponsor of the bill who voted for it, said "You win some, and some get stolen." See the video of Rep. Sanders' admonishing House leaders after they rigged the process and subverted democracy. And see how lawmakers who supported yesterday's legislation are today attempting to shut down the House in protest.
[b]IGNORING THE PROTEST OF DICK CHENEY:[/b] In rigging the vote, House leaders ignored the timeless protest of Vice President Dick Cheney. In 1987, then-Rep. Dick Cheney (R-WY) criticized the practice of holding open votes to overturn bills, calling the maneuver "the most heavy-handed, arrogant abuse of power in the 10 years I've been here.''
[b]VOTING DOWN A BILL THEY CO-SPONSORED:[/b] Rep. Zach Wamp (R-TN) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), both co-sponsors of Sanders's underlying legislation, refused in the waning moments to support the bill. Lofgren, who voted "present," argued the Sanders bill was too broad. What she refused to acknowledge, however, is that House rules precluded him from offering more limited legislation, and that his measure would have likely been modified in House-Senate negotiations to ultimately become the very bill she co-sponsored in the first place. But because she and Wamp cast the deciding votes against the measure, there will be no Patriot Act reform at all.
[b]SPREADING A MYTH TO DEFEAT A BILL:[/b] The Bush administration, which threatened to veto the measure if passed, resorted to outright misinformation to confuse wavering Members of Congress. Just before the vote, the Justice Department sent a letter http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... to House members saying that at least twice in recent months "a member of a terrorist group closely affiliated with al Qaeda used Internet services provided by a public library." What they failed to say was that the Sanders legislation would not have precluded law enforcement from obtaining those library records – it would have merely forced them to obtain a warrant from a judge (which, if the threat was as critical as they said, should not have been difficult). Rep. Wamp, the co-sponsor who voted against his own legislation, cited the Justice Department letter as the reason he switched his vote.
[b]CLAIMING PATRIOT ACT OPPONENTS DON'T CARE ABOUT 9/11 DEATHS:[/b] During the floor debate on the bill, Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) had the nerve to argue that those supporting the bipartisan legislation were disregarding those killed on September 11. Referring to those in his district who died, Shays said, "I have 70 constituents who lost their rights on September 11; and to hear this debate, I am not sure [you] seem to care about that." Incredibly, Shays made his comments just moments after an impassioned speech in support of the bill by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who represents the Manhattan district encompassing Ground Zero. Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY), who also represents New York City and supported the bill, immediately stood up after Shays and said "to have a New Yorker hear that we somehow do not care for the victims of September 11 is really the cheapest kind of blow... I knew people that died there. I was friends with people who died there...[But] in the process of caring for the victims of September 11, no one said we were supposed to throw away the Constitution."
[b]A PATTERN OF INTIMIDATION:[/b] Republicans have abused their power and extended votes before in order to get their way. As the NYT reports, when the controversial Medicare bill appeared headed for defeat last year, Republican leaders "held the vote open for three hours to get colleagues to switch their votes." Currently, the House ethics committee is looking into accusations that one lawmaker, Mr. Smith (who also switched his vote on the Patriot Act measure yesterday), was offered a bribe on the House floor for his vote. Rep. Sanders' noted just how obscene yesterday's behavior was saying, "I find it ironic that, on an amendment designed to protect American democracy and our constitutional rights, the Republican leadership in the House had to rig the vote and subvert the democratic process in order to prevail." Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) said the tactics "have turned [Congress] into a laughingstock," while other lawmakers "suggested wryly that the United Nations needs to send in election observers to monitor the House."
"[i]Secretary Ridge spoke today of progress within the new Department of Homeland Security, but we have not advanced sufficiently from where we were three years ago when the administration knew of a threat, but could not connect the dots. There remains a dangerous disconnect between the Bush administration rhetoric and the resources it has committed to homeland security, particularly port and rail security[/i]." - Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
[b]"We the People" are being terrorized by a corrupt and traitorous Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] who would love nothing more than to [i]intimidate and frighten us [/i]into acquiescing (bowing-down in blind obeisance) before their insane neo-fascist, neo-con regime ... [/b]If we stand-up and fight to take our nation back [i]and[/i] restore dignity and integrity to the White House, what do these Bush/Cheney War Criminals have in store for us??? ... "We the People" must be defiant in the face of their dirty, ugly and potentially criminal attack upon America ... Let us show them that Americans are made of sterner stuff ...
[b]Consider this ...[/b]
In the months after the tragic attacks of 9/11, President Bush told the American people that he had "no ambition whatsoever to use [the War on Terror] as a political issue."1 But according to a new report, the Bush Administration is now demanding that international allies coordinate the arrest of al Qaeda terrorists to coincide with key U.S. political events, so as to maximize political benefits for the President.
According to the [i]New Republic[/i], http://www.tblog.com/template... top Pakistani intelligence officials have confirmed that the Bush Administration is demanding the Pakistani government find as many "high value" terrorist targets specifically before Americans go to the polls in November. By contrast, no similar urgent push or "timetable" was discussed in 2002 or 2003. Even more troubling, Pakistani sources admit White House aides told the Pakistani Director of Intelligence that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any high value terrorist target] were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July" - the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.2
The report calls into question whether key military decisions were affected by similar political motivations during the last three years. For instance, during 2002 and 2003 when al Qaeda was regrouping along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the Bush administration refused calls to seriously increase operations there. Only in March of 2004 - once the Presidential election campaign had begun -- did the President finally announce "stepped up efforts" in Afghanistan to find bin Laden.3
1. "Republicans, Democrats seek political returns on 9/11, terror war," TwinCities.com, 4/01/04. 2. "Pakistan for Bush. July Surprise?," New Republic, 7/07/2004. 3. "U.S. military announces new operation in Afghanistan," USA Today, 3/13/04.
White House Tells Pakistan To Capture Osama bin Laden Before Elections ...
"I have no ambition whatsoever to use [the war on terror] as a political issue." – President Bush, 1/24/02, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wo...
[i]VERSUS[/i]
"A White House aide told [Pakistani Lieutenant General Ehsan ul-Haq] last spring that 'it would be best if the arrest of killing of [any] HVT [High Value Target] were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July' – the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston." – The New Republic, 7/7/04, http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?...
[b]"We the People" are being played for dupes by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] ... [/b]Bush couldn't be bothered with going after Osama bin Laden in the aftermath of 9/11 http://www.iht.com/articles/5... instead lusting for his illegal & immoral neo-con war with Iraq (Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 [i]and[/i] Iraq posed no threat to the USA) ... Indeed, at first Bush bragged in his [i]buffoon-boy-bravado [/i]that he was "[i]gonna' get 'im [/i](bin Laden) [i]dead-or-alive[/i]" and when asked months later why bin Laden is still [i]at large[/i], Bush said he [i]didn't care [/i]and that bin Laden[i] wasn't a priority anymore[/i] stating "[u]I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him… I truly am not that concerned about him[/u].” http://www.americanprogress.o... ... Talk about a [i]'Flip/Flop' [/i]of enormous proportions!!! ... Now that Bush/Cheney's poll numbers are [i]falling[/i], they are [i]desperate[/i] for an "October Surprise" (or[i] sooner[/i]) to boost their [i]sagging[/i] campaign-- Let us hope that Americans aren't stupid enough to be herded like[i] deaf, dumb and blind sheep [/i]to the slaughter by these neo-fascist war criminals[i] yet again [/i]...
[b]Capture, Good; Politicization, Bad ...[/b]
Americans agree Osama bin Laden and his followers must be captured as quickly as possible. But according to an explosive new report in [i]The New Republic[/i], http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?... the White House is now demanding that the Pakistanis find high-value al Qaeda targets like Osama bin Laden before the November elections, preferably coinciding with the key events of the White House's political opponents. As one Pakistani intelligence source said, the country has been specifically told by the Bush administration that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any high value terrorist target] were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July" - the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston. The article points out pressure to find terrorists "would be appropriate, even laudable, had it not been accompanied by an unseemly private insistence that the Pakistanis deliver these high-value targets before Americans go to the polls in November." The article notes that "no timetable[s] were discussed in 2002 or 2003" — but according to a Pakistani Interior Ministry official, the Bush administration wants Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf "to bail them out when they face hard times in the coming election." See more on the White House's long history of using the war on terror for its own political gain in this previous Progress Report http://www.americanprogress.o... .
[b]IT'S ABOUT THE PHOTO OP, STUPID:[/b] The problem: The White House appears to be more interested in the news buzz and photo opportunity capturing an al Qaeda "name" would bring than in effectively fighting terrorism. This spring, the[i] National Journal [/i]wrote that although the Bush Administration has billed three foreign policy goals as vital to national and global security -- "rounding up and killing terrorists, getting a grip on the spread of nuclear weapons, [and] promoting democracy" -- when it comes to Pakistan, "the Bush administration has come down squarely on the side of rounding up terrorists, at the apparent expense of the other two." This push actually undermines the fight against terrorists.
[b]POLITICS NEGATING NATIONAL SECURITY PRIORITIES?: [/b][i]The New Republic [/i]piece begs the question – are political concerns allowing the Bush administration to ignore other major concerns with Pakistan's record? According to the 9/11 Commission, Pakistan cut deals with the Taliban and al Qaeda that allowed the terrorist network to flourish in the days before the 9/11 attacks – a concern rarely raised by the Bush administration. Similarly, while the White House says it believes nuclear non-proliferation is a major priority in the war on terror, earlier this year the White House essentially turned a blind eye after Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf pardoned A.Q. Khan, Pakistan's top nuclear scientist who ran a covert nuclear network that helped supply materials and technology to Libya, North Korea and Iran.
[b]POLITICS NEGATING DEMOCRACY/HUMAN RIGHTS PRIORITIES?: [/b]While the president gives speeches pitching democracy as a cure to terrorism, he has lavished praise on Pakistani Musharraf – a leader who has restricted democracy after seizing power in a coup. Even as the State Department cites Pakistan for serious human rights violations, the administration doles out hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid to the country, with no demands of human rights improvements.
[b]"We the People" should be outraged at the unconscionable dereliction of duty by the GOP-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee who are colluding with the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] to mislead the American public ([i]over and over again[/i]) in the Bush White House's criminal abuse of intelligence that resulted in their illegal and immoral neo-con war in Iraq.[/b]
In a political deal, the Senate Intelligence Committee agreed with the White House demand to put off assessing the White House's use of the Intelligence Community's pronouncements until effectively [i]after[/i] the elections. That will allow the White House to blame the CIA for misleading it. The [i]Boston Globe [/i]says http://www.boston.com/news/gl... that puts the cart before the elephant.
[b]The corruption and treason inflicted upon the United States of America and Iraq by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]is a tragic national disgrace ... [/b]Please contact Congress http://www.congress.org and demand that an independent investigation be launched into the criminal activities by Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, their neo-con cohorts, and their neo-fascist corporate pimps (Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.) who have ruthlessly and criminally exploited the American taxpayers, U.S. Soldiers and the Iraqi people [i]too[/i] ... "We the People" must demand restitution and justice for those who have lost their loved-ones and for our nation's honour ...
There may have been a transfer of sovereignty in Iraq last week, but on the ground things look much the same: most Iraqis without reliable utility service and no-bid contractors scooping up billions of Iraq's oil money without producing any measurable improvements. Here, Center for Corporate Policy Director Charlie Cray traces the connections between the Bush administration and corporate interests and explains how no-bid contracts are undermining democracy in Iraq—and at home.
[i]Charlie Cray is the director of the Center for Corporate Policy http://www.corporatepolicy.or... and a collaborator on Halliburton Watch http://www.halliburtonwatch.o... . His book, "[u]The People’s Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy[/u]", (co-authored with Lee Drutman) will be published by Berrett-Koehler in November[/i].
The U.S. occupation of Iraq may be entering a new phase with the nominal transference of sovereignty, but reports issued from and about Iraq in recent days suggest that the promised reconstruction is far from done. And while many well-connected cronies rush home to reinforce their friends’ re-election efforts, it’s not clear that those left behind will ever finish the job—a circumstance that is bound to aggravate existing tensions in the country.
According to the Government Accounting Office (GAO) and The New York Times , more than a year after the first infamous no-bid contracts were given out Halliburton and Bechtel, only a fraction of the projected construction projects have been carried out. Supplies of electricity and water are no better for most Iraqis, and in some cases utilities are much worse than they were before the invasion in the spring of 2003.
A report put out by Christian Aid last week suggests that the mess left behind by the CPA may be much worse than the well-known abuses associated with the reconstruction money allocated by Congress. The UK-based group—which has closely monitored the CPA’s handling of Iraq’s oil-related revenues—reports that CPA officials left the country after spending nearly $20 billion out of the Development Fund of Iraq (derived from oil revenues) with virtually no accountability or transparency.
“For the entire year that the CPA has been in power in Iraq, it has been impossible to tell with any accuracy what the CPA has been doing with Iraq’s money,” said Helen Collinson, a policy analyst with Christian Aid.
The CPA’s hasty exit strategy will remind some observers of the stampede of greedy executives who cashed out their options a few years ago before leaving others to deal with the mess they left behind. In the run up to the handover, Christian Aid reports, CPA officials spent nearly $2 billion of the “Iraqi people’s” money. The transitional government will be in place just two weeks before an initial KPMG audit of the CPA’s handling of the development fund is due.
Meanwhile, although U.S.-funded reconstruction work will continue, festering resentments over unfulfilled promises of a Marshall Plan-scale reconstruction and refurbishment of the country’s infrastructure will likely continue to fuel support for the resistance. The resistance itself all but guarantees that a significant portion of the money earmarked for reconstruction will have to be spent on private security protection for reconstruction personnel (GAO estimates the current fraction is 18 percent), while the projects themselves will be prime targets for sabotage.
It’s also unclear if the private military firms providing the security could be held accountable in the event of human-rights violations or whether the contractors themselves can be held to account for shoddy work. A new contract to coordinate contractor security was awarded in May to the British firm Aegis, whose founder Tom Spicer’s resumé includes a history of arms smuggling in countries like Sierra Leone. As the result of a parting gift to the contractors, CPA chief Paul Bremer signed a final order on June 28 which guarantees that U.S. contractors will be exempted from prosecution by the country's new interim government for anything that happens while they are performing official duties.
Despite the transference of sovereignty, the CPA’s other various orders (including those that open up certain state-owned businesses to foreign investors, which critics say violate international norms restricting an occupying power’s right to restructure the occupied country’s economy) will also remain in effect during the coming transition.
Meanwhile, more than 100,000 U.S. troops will be forced to stay and occupy the country through the hot summer and for the foreseeable future, while many of the Bush administration’s war-profiteering cronies will be coming home—as reinforcements for the Bush/Cheney re-election campaign. In fact, a few are Bush/Cheney “Pioneers” and “Rangers.” (They could just as well have called them “rocketeers” for taking fundraising to new levels, but someone must have noticed how close to “racketeer” that sounded).
[u]To name a few of the war profiteers wired into the Bush/Cheney patronage system[/u]:
. In 2003, a few of Bush’s closest political allies created New Bridge Strategies to help corporations “evaluate and take advantage of business opportunities in the Middle East following the conclusion of the U.S.-led war.” New Bridge shares its Washington, DC offices with Barbour, Griffith & Rogers—the high-powered Republican lobbying firm founded by Haley Barbour, former head of the Republican National Committee and current governor of Mississippi. The firm’s CEO is Joe Allbaugh, the Bush/Cheney 2000 national campaign manager (and subsequent head of FEMA), and others involved include Ed Rogers (a top aide to Bush Sr.) and Lanny Griffith (who held several top advisory positions under Bush Sr., and is a 2004 Pioneer). Allbaugh recently registered as a lobbyist with Lockheed Martin. Looks like he finally figured out where the big money is.
. Top GOP strategist Charlie Black’s clients have included Fluor, which received a big public works contract in Iraq to reconstruct the country’s water and electricity. Black is chairman of BKSH, an affiliate of global public relations giant Burson-Marsteller, and a big backer of Ahmed Chalabi before the war. In June, the London-based Telegraph reported that an arrest warrant was issued by the Iraqi police for Francis Brooke, a BKSH consultant who attempted to block a recent raid on Chalabi’s Iraqi headquarters, after Chalabi was accused of passing American secrets to Iran.
. In the administration’s drive to create a beacon for democracy for the entire Middle East, another outstanding example of “do as we say and not as we do” has been the way the contract to develop a “competitive private sector” in Iraq has been handled. In this instance, the U.S. Agency for International Development allowed BearingPoint to help write the specifications for the $240 million contract, which in effect knocked its competitors out of the running, according to AID’s own inspector general. BearingPoint (formerly KPMG Consulting) and its employees have given more than $117,000 to the 2000 and 2004 Bush election campaigns. In 2003, an $80 million BearingPoint contract in Florida was withdrawn after critics complained about the company’s close ties to Gov. Jeb Bush.
. Former Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La., runs a lobbying firm that has represented well-placed Iraqi families seeking to form business alliances with U.S. and foreign companies wishing to do business in Iraq. Livingston has also gained some notoriety in Washington for lobbying against provisions that would ban tax-dodging companies that have incorporated offshore from being eligible for federal contracts. Recently he was part of an effort that succeeded in convincing Congress to drop an attempt to block the Department of Homeland Security’s from giving Bermuda-based Accenture a $10 billion contract for, of all things, “border control.” (U.S. taxpayers who don’t have any offshore accounts might not be happy to learn that Accenture also has a contract to help the IRS upgrade its website.)
. In 2003 Coalition Provisional Authority chief Paul Bremer issued a decree that Iraq’s 200 state-owned companies would be privatized and that foreign owners would be allowed to expatriate 100 percent of the profits. This looting of Iraq’s state-owned businesses—disguised as “private-sector development” was stalled by worker protests and skepticism among wary investors concerned about the strength of the insurgency. Thomas Foley—a former Citigroup banker assigned by the CPA to oversee the privatization process, returned to Greenwich, Conn. in early 2004, where he is the state co-chair for the Bush/Cheney re-election campaign.
. Three weeks after construction and engineering firm Washington Group was awarded a contract to rebuild water projects in Iraq, 31 company employees gave $27,750 to Bush. By the end of April 2004, CEO Stephen Hanks had become a Bush campaign “Pioneer” (by raising more than $100,000). Washington Group spokesman Jack Hermann was unconcerned about any appearance of impropriety. "You either participate in the system or you don't," Hermann told a Bloomberg reporter. "People can draw ulterior motives. We understand the baggage that comes with that."
The kingpin of corporate cronies, of course, is Vice President Cheney’s old firm, Halliburton. Recent revelations that a political appointee working under Douglas Feith made the decision to override objections from career Pentagon contract experts to award Halliburton a key oil-related contract which provided the company an inside track for no-bid billion-dollar contracts has given partisan critics plenty of ammunition to criticize the administration’s bending of contract rules to benefit their friends. The fact that Cheney’s chief of staff was notified of the decision contradicts the vice president’s claim that he has had no involvement in the decision and, along with his televised assertion that he has no “ongoing financial interest” in the company (while continuing to receive more than $150,000 in deferred compensation payments) has made his connection to the king of corporate cronies a significant potential liability for the administration’s credibility and the upcoming election.
“The entire Halliburton affair represents the worst in government contracts with private companies: influence peddling, kickbacks, overcharging and no-bid deals," charged Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. in a March 2004 Associated Press article. But the vice president’s old firm is by no means the only war profiteer that has close ties to top administration officials. In fact, just as the U.S. media failed to objectively cover the war after being em-bedded with the troops, they have mostly failed to map out how thoroughly inbedded this network of contractors is with the Bush family, friends and campaign cronies.
For example, last year, the [i]Financial Times [/i]reported that Neil Bush has been involved in the Iraq contract gravy train through his association with John Howland and Jamal Daniel of New Bridge Strategies. The president's brother wrote letters to push businesses established by Howland and Daniel, including Crest Investment Corporation, which in turn employs Bush as co-chairman. The[i] Financial Times [/i]reported that Bush receives the equivalent of $60,000 a year from Crest for working an average of three or four hours a week. The failure of the U.S. media to report this story is amazing. Imagine if the story involved Roger Clinton.
The blame also falls on Congress for not passing many proposed amendments to the Iraq appropriations that would have brought a higher standard of oversight and accountability to the contracts. As Sen. Dorgan and other members have suggested, the outsourcing of the oversight process itself is another way that the Bush administration has insulated the contractors from any real level of accountability.
In January 2004, Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, introduced a resolution calling for the creation of a bipartisan committee to “investigate the awarding and carrying out of contracts” in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Leach’s proposal is modeled after Harry Truman’s World War II committee—which saved taxpayers billions by rooting out corruption. It’s worth noting that Truman’s commission was created by a Congress controlled by the same party as the president.
Just as it was then, oversight should not be considered partisan,” Leach asserted. “It should be viewed solely in the context of protecting and preserving public resources and bolstering people’s confidence in their government.”
Of course, Leach’s bill was quietly quashed by Republican leaders who clearly understood that any investigation of Halliburton would be political suicide during an election year.
[b]Kerry/Edwards is a class-act!!! [/b]The Kerry/Edwards team will pose a real challenge to the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] who has already commenced its' mendacious neo-con mad-dog attacks of slanders, libels and neo-orwellian smears against both Kerry and Edwards (Bush and Cheney have refused to hold early debates requested by Kerry ...[i] Hmmm [/i]... ) ... However, Americans appear to be [i]waking-up [/i]and many[i] will not fall [/i]for the traitorous Bushies' neo-con scam and neo-fascist con-game [i]over-and-over again [/i]... Both Kerry and Edwards are better candidates for the President and Vice-President than the dim-witted buffoon-[i]cum[/i]-crook Bush occupying the Oval Office as the Useful Idiot for his criminal side-kick-[i]cum[/i]-liar "Fuck-yourself' Cheney who has[i] in reality [/i]been the disastrous Tyrant-in-Chief, responsible for [i]4 years of hell-on-earth [/i]waging their illegal and immoral neo-con warfare in Iraq, and an unconscionable neo-fascist economic fiasco here at home:--[i] both [/i]engineered so that Greedy-Rich-Shits-Get-Fil thy-Richer-Off-Our-Backs ...
"We the People" have a great chance to redeem our nation [i]and [/i]restore dignity and integrity to the White House ...
[b]Read on ...[/b]
[b]Five reasons why John Edwards is the perfect choice – and will leave Dick Cheney dropping the F-bomb[/b].
The choice of John Edwards as No. 2 on the Democratic ticket is the first great decision of the Kerry presidency – a mature, self-confident choice that bodes well for the Kerry campaign as it kicks into high gear.
It wasn't based on looking at a map and trying to figure out who could deliver the most Electoral College votes. It wasn't based on whom Kerry felt most comfortable hanging out with.
It was based on who was the best choice for the country.
Instead of picking a running mate who had the strongest resume on paper, Kerry picked the one who had the strongest vision for the country – a vision that can help Kerry bring heart and soul back to American politics.
Judging by the hysterical reaction of the GOP, there are many things about John Edwards sending a cold shiver down Karl Rove's reptilian spine. [i]Here are five[/i]:
[u][b]One.[/b][/u] He can help Kerry make this campaign about what kind of America we want to live in – a campaign not just about policies and programs but about our fundamental values as a country.
Throughout his primary campaign, Edwards showed an uncanny ability to frame his positions in the language of morality and traditional American values.
"I believe we can build a better life for our families," he said during a Democratic primary debate. "But it has to be based on the values of hard work and responsibility, not accounting tricks and corporate greed. I want to bring your values, the values of Main Street America, to Wall Street and then to Pennsylvania Avenue. I want to give this White House back to the American people."
This is a linguistic battlefield that has been dominated by the right since the 1960s. Edwards' ability to speak to core American ideals like hard work, fairness, faith and family – the values that built America – will help Kerry reclaim key words and concepts like "morality" and "responsibility" from the recklessly irresponsible and grossly immoral GOP.
It's not by accident that this is the first quality Kerry cited when announcing Edwards as his running mate: "John understands and defends the values of America. He has shown courage and conviction as a champion for middle-class Americans and those struggling to reach the middle class."
George Bush wants to define this campaign in terms of right and left. John Edwards will help make sure that it comes down to a discussion of right and wrong.
[u][b]Two.[/b][/u] Edwards' core theme of the two Americas – "one for the powerful insiders, and another for everyone else" – helps sharpen the differences between the two tickets, and underlines that, far from being a uniter, George Bush has been the ultimate divider. As Edwards evocatively paints it, Bush has created two school systems, two health care systems, two economic systems, two tax systems and even two systems of government, all designed to benefit "those who never have to worry about a thing" – and at the expense of ordinary Americans.
This is not a debate Bush and Cheney want to go anywhere near. Because they know what will happen if the truth of Edwards' message is digested by the American public. Edwards has shown a commitment to putting poverty-fighting front and center in his campaign, sending a message that dates back to the beginnings of this country: We are all in the same boat together.
"I want to take a moment to talk about something you're not hearing presidential candidates talk about enough," he said in his signature stump speech. "The tens of millions of Americans who live in poverty. We pass them on the streets in our cities. They are the families that crowd our shelters and turn to our small-town churches for food. In the America you and I build together, they will be forgotten no more."
This powerful and patriotic populist vision stands in direct contrast to the dark "every man for himself" rallying cry of the conservative movement, which is epitomized by Grover Norquist and the Leave-Us-Alone Coalition, founded on a toxic mix of tax cuts and gutted social programs.
As Edwards put it during his presidential run (and will no doubt repeat many times now that he has a much bigger megaphone), "2004 is a make-or-break election because we need to create one America again. And that is the one thing George Bush will never do. Dividing us into two Americas – one privileged, the other burdened – has been his agenda all along." If it wasn't obvious in 2000, it certainly is now.
[u][b]Three.[/b][/u] Without wearing it on his sleeve, Edwards' comfort with matters of faith, morality, and religion will allow Kerry and the Democrats to make an unabashed appeal to the millions of Americans whose spiritual beliefs are central to their lives.
The Bush Republicans have made it clear they believe that God is on their side, blessing everything from the war in Iraq to the president's multitrillion-dollar tax cuts to the destruction of the environment. Edwards' central message of fairness and economic justice puts the question in play: Which is the true political morality? Opposing gay rights and abortion or heeding the Biblical admonition, "We shall be judged by what we do for the least among us"?
During the Democratic debates, Edwards was asked if, like Bush, he felt God is on America's side. He responded by quoting Lincoln, who, when asked in the middle of the Civil War to join in prayer that God is on "our side," replied: "I won't join you in that prayer, but I'll join you in a prayer that we're on God's side."
Edwards' championing of those left behind will help America reclaim the moral high ground that Bush abandoned.
[b][u]Four.[/u][/b] Edwards can help Kerry ride the wave of idealism that was unleashed after Sept. 11. Rare among populist politicians, Edwards radiates optimism and inspires hope. "This election is not about what we are against," he said before the Iowa primary, "it is about what we are for. ... We offer a new beginning for America based on hopes, dreams, and endless optimism – not fear, greed and attack politics."
This spirit is the perfect antidote to the pessimism the GOP is desperately trying to tag Kerry with. And it doesn't hurt that Edwards has charm and charisma to burn, is the most natural politician the party has to offer, has a great story of humble beginnings and triumphing over adversity and personal tragedy, and can move an audience to tears with his heartfelt oratory.
[u][b]Five.[/b][/u] Edwards has made a very successful career out of eating folks like Dick Cheney for lunch in courtrooms all across America. He'll know exactly how to wield Halliburton like a stiletto. I give Cheney 30 minutes before he drops his first F-bomb. I can't wait.
The Republican attacks on Edwards as "unaccomplished and inexperienced," "out there in left field" and, above all, "Kerry's second choice," sound like wishful whistling past the graveyard. Edwards' selection has not only energized the Democratic base – which was pretty energized anyway – it has, more importantly, the potential to arouse the dormant passion of the 50 percent of eligible voters who have given up on voting.
[b]Warren Buffet is the second richest man in America next to Bill Gates. Mr. Buffet is chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., a diversified holding company, and a director of The Washington Post Co., which has an investment in Berkshire Hathaway[/b]. Moreover, Mr. Buffet wrote an excellent article http://www.tblog.com/template... expressing his disdain for Bush/Cheney's insane tax cuts for the wealthiest among us entitled "Dividend Voodoo" that describes the unfair, unjust and unconscionable burden that the Bushies place upon Middle Class, Working People and the Poorest Americans ... Now Mr. Buffet calls for the right and proper governance over corporate pay instead of the fuzzy math, fiddling the books and stock option swindles that currently enable crooks (e.g. Bush/Cheney's buddy, Kenny-boy (Enron) Lay,[i] among others[/i]) to defraud consumers, employees and investors ...
"We the People" should[i] take-up-arms [/i]and demand that Congress http://www.congress.org enact legislation to reform the fraudulent accounting methods that permit the Bushies' cronies to rape corporations, consumers, employees, investors and the environment ...
[u][b]Fuzzy Math And Stock Options[/b][/u]
Until now the record for mathematical lunacy by a legislative body has been held by the Indiana House of Representatives, which in 1897 decreed by a vote of 67 to 0 that pi -- the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter -- would no longer be 3.14159 but instead be 3.2. Indiana schoolchildren momentarily rejoiced over this simplification of their lives. But the Indiana Senate, composed of cooler heads, referred the bill to the Committee for Temperance, and it eventually died.
What brings this episode to mind is that the U.S. House of Representatives is about to consider a bill that, if passed, could cause the mathematical lunacy record to move east from Indiana. First, the bill decrees that a coveted form of corporate pay -- stock options -- be counted as an expense when these go to the chief executive and the other four highest-paid officers in a company, but be disregarded as an expense when they are issued to other employees in the company. Second, the bill says that when a company is calculating the expense of the options issued to the mighty five, it shall assume that stock prices never fluctuate.
Give the bill's proponents an A for imagination -- and for courting contributors -- and a flat-out F for logic.
All seven members of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, all four of the big accounting firms and legions of investment professionals say the two proposals are nonsense. Nevertheless, many House members wish to ignore these informed voices and make Congress the Supreme Accounting Authority. Indeed, the House bill directs the Securities and Exchange Commission to "not recognize as 'generally accepted' any accounting principle established by a standard setting body" that disagrees with the House about the treatment of options.
The House's anointment of itself as the ultimate scorekeeper for investors, it should be noted, comes from an institution that in its own affairs favors Enronesque accounting. Witness the fanciful "sunset" provisions that are used to meet legislative "scoring" requirements. Or regard the unified budget protocol, which applies a portion of annual Social Security receipts to reducing the stated budget deficit while ignoring the concomitant annual costs for benefit accruals.
I have no objection to the granting of options. Companies should use whatever form of compensation best motivates employees -- whether this be cash bonuses, trips to Hawaii, restricted stock grants or stock options. But aside from options, every other item of value given to employees is recorded as an expense. Can you imagine the derision that would be directed at a bill mandating that only five bonuses out of all those given to employees be expensed? Yet that is a true analogy to what the option bill is proposing.
Equally nonsensical is a section in the bill requiring companies to assume, when they are valuing the options granted to the mighty five, that their stocks have zero volatility. I've been investing for 62 years and have yet to meet a stock that doesn't fluctuate. The only reason for making such an Alice-in-Wonderland assumption is to significantly understate the value of the few options that the House wants counted. This undervaluation, in turn, enables chief executives to lie about what they are truly being paid and to overstate the earnings of the companies they run.
Some people contend that options cannot be precisely valued. So what? Estimates pervade accounting. Who knows with precision what the useful life of software, a corporate jet or a machine tool will be? Pension costs, moreover, are even fuzzier, because they require estimates of future mortality rates, pay increases and investment earnings. These guesses are almost invariably wrong, often substantially so. But the inherent uncertainties involved do not excuse companies from making their best estimate of these, or any other, expenses. Legislators should remember that it is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong.
If the House should ignore this logic and legislate that what is an expense for five is not an expense for thousands, there is reason to believe that the Senate -- like the Indiana Senate 107 years ago -- will prevent this folly from becoming law. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, has firmly declared that accounting rules should be set by accountants, not by legislators.
Even so, House members who wish to escape the scorn of historians should render the Senate's task moot by killing the bill themselves. Or if they are absolutely determined to meddle with reality, they could attack the obesity problem by declaring that henceforth it will take 24 ounces to make a pound. If even that friendly standard seems unbearable to their constituents, they can exempt all but the fattest five in each congressional district from any measurement of weight.
In the late 1990s, too many managers found it easier to increase "profits" by accounting maneuvers than by operational excellence. But just as the schoolchildren of Indiana learned to work with honest math, so can option-issuing chief executives learn to live with honest accounting. It's high time they step up to that job. - http://www.washingtonpost.com...
Bush's Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Failing to Create Good Jobs for Middle Class
[b]"We the People" should be alarmed at the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]irresponsible and treasonous transformation of our strong Middle Class America into a 3rd-World Military Regime (ab)using our people who are ruthlessly turned into either [i]cannon-fodder[/i] for their insane neo-con warfare to enrich the Bush Crime Family (and their corporate pimps: Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.) [i]OR[/i] [i]slave-labour [/i]here at home to enrich their neo-fascist corporate robber-barons, hyper-rich plutocrats and greedy, gluttonous campaign contributors ...[/b]
The economy added only 112,000 new jobs in the month of June, less than what is needed to keep up with population changes and well below job growth over the past few months. Unemployment remains at 5.6 percent and the underemployment rate – part time and other low-wage, low benefit work – was higher in June than when the recession began. The Bush administration is still on track to have the greatest sustained job loss since the 1930s.
[b]. President Bush's tax cuts have not produced adequate job growth.[/b] Job growth since last August has been paltry compared to other economic recoveries. During eight other post-WWII recoveries, the average monthly job growth rate was 0.32 percent. At 240,000 jobs per month – the average rate in 2004 before the June drop-off – President Bush's 0.19 percent average job growth rate represents a 60 percent decline from normal recoveries.
[b]. Many of the jobs in President Bush's "recovery" are low-wage, low-benefit service and retail jobs.[/b] The overall growth in jobs masks a harsher reality for families trying to maintain or build a middle class standard of living. Jobs may be up, but the quality of these jobs is low in terms of pay, benefits and the opportunity to get ahead. Seventy-five percent of the 1.4 million jobs created over the past year have been in industries that pay below average wages.
[b]. While corporate profits are reaching record highs, real wages are falling.[/b] During the period from November 2003 to March 2004 – when job growth was increasing – average hourly real wages actually fell by 1 percent. At the same time, the corporate profit rate reached record highs after taxes. In the first quarter of 2003, the latest period, for which data are available, the after-tax profit rate was an estimated record high of 17.5 percent. - http://www.americanprogress.o...
Bush, the Congenital Ne'er-Do-Well, Money-Grub's Puppet & Our Prez from Hell, Body-and-Soul, He's Happy to Sell, Private War Profits From US: Pray Do Tell.
Bush Plays Affirmative Action Game, Hence 'Skull-and-Bones' Scented Dog's Fame, Drunken Stupors Then Came & Test Scores, The Same, Frat Cheaters' Secrets: Hide All Future Blame.
Daddy's Connections in Vietnam War, Bush AWOL Direction: Head for That Bar, As Buddies-in-War Lose Their Lives Or Don Scar, Party-boys Chug Champagne, Ah the Battle is Far.
Bush Failures Abound Over & Over in Business, Texas Taxpayers Fund Bail Out Scams with Finesse, Sports Stadiums Rise Fast as Poor Left Bereft in Duress, Sell-off of Sports Teams Enrich, and Citizens Left With A Mess.
But, Kenny-boy Lay (Enron) Finances Election, And Mediocrity Bush Suddenly Gubernatorial Selection, Families and Children are Left With Hopeful Fiction, As Executions & Swindlers Skyrocket in Fascist Direction.
Banana Repubs Dance With Visions of Coup d'Etat, And Then Rig the Election by Fixing the Stat, A Brother in Florida, and Rove Tips His Hat, With Anton Scalia, We've Got Gore Pinned to the Mat.
Trapped Now in Long, Hard, Slog, Muck & Mire: Blame Clinton Lores, But It's Halliburton's Veep Cheney's Consortium of Whores, For Whom Neo-Con PNAC Groupies Plan S'Mores of Them Wars, As They Conjure Up Nightmares, Turned into Our Chores.
Generations of the Future to Payback Bush's Debts, Innocents Dying Each Day, in Misguided Bets, That if They Survive It's A Fight for All Future Gets, But Instead, They'll Come Home To A Nation of Neo-Con Pets.
Wake-up From This Nightmare, Stop Fiascos & Duns, Before Bush Bankrupts Us All, Takes the Money & Runs, We Deserve Better, If We Would Stop Worshipping Guns, And Demand A Vision For All:-- ... Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness ... Will "We the People" Someday See Our Day In The Sun?
Writing in the[i] Independent (and Counterpunch http://www.counterpunch.org/f... )[/i] Robert Fisk exposes censorship in the coverage of the Saddam trial: "A team of US military officers acted as censors over all coverage of the hearings of Saddam Hussein and his henchmen on Thursday, destroying videotape of Saddam in chains and deleting the entire recorded legal submissions of 11 senior members of his former regime. A U.S. network cameraman who demanded the return of his tapes, which contained audios of the hearings, said he was told by a US officer: 'No. They belong to us now. And anyway, we don't trust you guys.'"
"We the People" should be outraged at such censorship by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]akin to a tyrannical fascist regime and[i] not [/i]to a transparent government in a democratic Republic serving and accountable to "We the People" ... Or, is the United States of America[i] still [/i]a Republic or [i]now[/i] a neo-con, neo-fascist Empire??? ...
Kerry/Edwards Superior Leaders to Bush/Cheney War Criminals ...
[b]"We the People" should be very pleased indeed to see the fine team of John F. Kerry and John Edwards who are [i]superior leaders and better men [/i]than the traitorous, fraudulent and mendacious Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]of War Criminals ...[/b] While we must prepare ourselves for the dishonest slander, libel and smearing of Kerry and Edwards, hopefully the American people will [i]see past [/i]the neo-con, neo-fascist Bush/Cheney mad-dog attack machine and neo-orwellian rhetoric, and will instead elect President Kerry and Vice-President Edwards to[i] clean-up [/i]the horrendous illegal and immoral messes; tragic legacy of murders, rapes & tortures; and, bloody fiascos created by the thuggish, vile and corrupt Bush/Cheney regime, here at home and abroad ...
WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry selected former rival John Edwards to be his running mate, picking the smooth-talking Southern populist over more seasoned politicians in hopes of injecting vigor and small-town appeal to the Democratic presidential ticket, The Associated Press learned Tuesday.
Kerry offered Edwards the No. 2 spot on the Democratic ticket in a telephone call Tuesday morning, and the North Carolina senator accepted, said two senior Democrats familiar with the conversation.
Kerry planned to announce his pick by e-mail to supporters, then at a rally in Pittsburgh.
[i]Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., left, and Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., wave as they arrive at Miami International Airport, in Miami, in this April 20, 2004 file photo. Kerry selected Edwards to be his running mate, the Associated Press learned Tuesday, July 6, 2004. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)[/i]
Edwards was the last major candidate standing against Kerry in the Democratic presidential race. He emerged as a favorite second choice of Democratic voters, thanks to his youthful good looks, a self-assured manner and an upbeat, optimistic style. He saved his harshest criticism for President Bush, who he accused of creating "two Americas" - one for the privileged, another for everyone else.
Some Democrats were concerned that Edwards, whose only political credential was a single term in the Senate, lacked the experience in international affairs, particularly in wartime, to be a credible candidate to assume the presidency in the case of death, resignation or removal.
Indeed, Kerry privately complained to associates during the campaign that Edwards hadn't served long enough in the Senate - or politics for that matter - to deserve a shot at the presidency. Aides said he was won over by his private meetings with Edwards, his performance as a campaign surrogate since the primary fight ended and pressure from Democratic leaders who pushed Edwards as a vice presidential pick.
Edwards seldom criticized Kerry or any of the other Democrats while running a generally positive campaign. The two had few major policy disagreements - both supported the decision to go to war in Iraq, for example, and both voted against the $87 billion package for Iraq and Afghanistan.
One division was over the North American Free Trade Agreement: Kerry voted for it, but Edwards campaigned against NAFTA, which the Senate approved before he was elected. Edwards made trade, jobs and the economy the centerpiece of his campaign, questioning Kerry's vote on NAFTA but not pledging to seek its repeal.
They also differed in some ways on how to approach some issues. Both called for rolling back the Bush tax cuts, but Kerry proposed eliminating the tax cuts for those who make more than $200,000 a year while Edwards set the ceiling at $240,000. Kerry voted against the ban on so-called "partial birth" abortion passed by Congress, but Edwards did not vote. A more clear-cut difference was Kerry's opposition to the death penalty and Edwards' support of it.
Kerry finished first and Edwards second in the Iowa caucuses in January, surprising front-runner Howard Dean and driving regional favorite Dick Gephardt out of the race. Dean finished second to Kerry in the New Hampshire primary, and as Dean lost the next dozen delegate contests, the race became a contest between Kerry and Edwards.
Yet Edwards could never muster enough momentum to overtake his Senate colleague. He won only a single state during the competitive phase of the primary, his native South Carolina, and ended his bid following the 10-state Super Tuesday elections on March 2. North Carolina gave Edwards a victory in its first presidential caucus on April 17, but the vote meant more as a boost to his standing at the Democratic National Convention and to his potential as a running mate.
Edwards, 51, was born in Seneca, S.C., and grew up in Robbins, N.C. His father was a mill worker, and he announced his presidential campaign from the factory, then closed, where his father had worked and where he had swept floors to earn money for college. He earned a bachelor's degree from North Carolina State University in 1974 and a law degree from the University of North Carolina in 1977.
A Methodist, Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, have three children: Cate, Emma Claire and Jack. Their son Wade died in a traffic accident at age 16 in 1996.
Edwards worked in private practice in Nashville and Raleigh, N.C., for nearly two decades, earning a fortune from medical malpractice and product liability judgments. Although Edwards portrayed himself as a champion of ordinary people hurt by large corporations, the American Tort Reform Association described him as "a wealthy personal injury lawyer masquerading as a man of the regular people."
Pouring millions of his own dollars into North Carolina's 1998 Senate campaign, he challenged Republican Sen. Lauch Faircloth. The incumbent failed to persuade people that Edwards was no more than a lawsuit-happy lawyer, losing his seat to the upstart politician by 4 percentage points.
In the Senate as well as on the campaign trail, Edwards tended to take a moderate stand on issues. Outside of North Carolina, he gained more public attention from media-coined nicknames like "Golden Boy" and as People magazine's "sexiest politician."
On behalf of Senate Democrats, he was part of the team that deposed former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and others linked to the impeachment case of former President Bill Clinton. Although Edwards had served just two years in the Senate, Al Gore considered him as a running mate in 2000 before choosing Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
Edwards supports abortion rights and opposes private-school vouchers and partial privatization of Social Security. He backs domestic-partner benefits for same-sex couples yet opposes gay marriage - and a constitutional amendment against it. He does not favor drilling for oil in the Arctic refuge.
In education policy, Edwards proposed offering one year of free tuition at public universities and community colleges for students who agree to 10 hours of community service a week and wants to double federal spending on public-school teacher training.
Edwards' health care proposals focused on providing better care and coverage for children. He has proposed tax breaks to make children's health coverage affordable to families that agree to buy it. Under his plan, a family of four earning less than $60,000 would pay less than $370 a year for their kids' insurance; a lower income family of four would pay about $110.
He also advocates subsidies to help two-thirds of uninsured adults buy health coverage. People aged 55 to 65 could buy into Medicare, under his proposal, and unemployed workers who are not wealthy could continue coverage from their last jobs with 70 percent federal subsidies.
[b]Why should Saddam Hussein be charged with War Crimes that our own President Dubya has been [i]guilty [/i]of committing himself??? [/b]Refer to "[i]'War crimes: Bush should follow Saddam into the dock'[/i]" on http://www.smirkingchimp.com/... ... Moreover, shouldn't Poppy Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld be tried along-side of Saddam Hussein, for they [i]gave him the weaponry and gave him the go-ahead [/i]to commit the very crimes for which he is being charged (these very same attacks upon his own people) without which he could not have succeeded in perpetrating?!?
"We the People" should be outraged at the insane neo-orwellian rationalizations that have led the corrupt Bush regime to illegally and immorally invade a sovereign nation (Iraq); depose the elected leader based upon a series of heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods; and, then demand that Saddam Hussein be put on trial for actions encouraged and supported by Poppy Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld [i]at the time [/i]that they were carried out ... And, then these same War Crimes (i.e. Dubya/Cheney have massacred over 16,000 Innocent Iraqi Civilians) [i]have been & are being [/i]committed by the traitorous Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i]!!! ... Meanwhile the neo-fascists Bush and Cheney continue to perpetrate criminal lies, deceptions and falsehoods regarding their bloody neo-con fiasco in Iraq!!! ... Who is telling the truth??? ...[i] Hmmm [/i]...
Apparently Saddam Hussein, during long months in captivity, kept telling the truth—exactly the truth that Bush administration interrogators didn’t want to hear. In reporting that borders on the idiotic, Neil Lewis and David Johnston today in [i]The New York Times[/i] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... quote unnamed U.S. officials who questioned Saddam, who say, “We got very little, I would say almost nothing.” And then this stunner:
... [i]"The official said Mr. Hussein had willingly discussed the roots of the Ba'ath Party in the 1970s but became uncooperative when the questions turned to illegal weapons or links to Al Qaeda. “I never saw anything useful,” the official said[/i]." ...
Let’s leave aside the fact that the “roots” of the Ba'ath go back to the 1940s, and that by the 1970s Saddam was firmly in power and the Baath (different branches from those same “roots”) was running both Iraq and Syria. Earth to Lewis and Johnston: WMD? Al Qaeda? So now we know that Saddam continued to tell the truth after his capture—the same truth he and his government told again and again before the war: that Iraq didn’t have any WMD and that Iraq didn’t have any connections to Al Qaeda. Incredibly, the[i] Times [/i]doesn’t even nod in that direction, leaving the “U.S. official” as the last word on the topic.
The second Saddam truth, from his appearance in the Chalabi-run kangaroo court, was this. Said Saddam: “You know, this is all a theater by Bush, to help him win the election.”[i] Anyone disagree[/i]???
........................ "[i]It's a strong and important friendship[/i]." (White House Photo - http://www.whitehouse.gov/new... ) ......
[i][b]The Complete Saudi Primer[/b][/i]
[b]Michael Moore's new movie, [i]'Fahrenheit 9/11'[/i], delves into the relationship between the Bush dynasty and the House of Saud. Follow along with this guide to everything you always wanted to know about the Bush-Saudi connection but were afraid to ask. "We the People" must not remain ignorant regarding the sordid & squalid relationship that exists between the Bush Crime Family and the House of Saud, for we do so at our own peril[/b].
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.
[b]BUSH'S PERSONAL FINANCIAL TIES TO SAUDIS RUN DEEP:[/b] 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.
[b]THE BCCI-BUSH-SAUDI-TERRORIST NEXUS:[/b] 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."
[b]WAS BCCI'S INDICTED PRINCIPAL A BUSH BUSINESS BACKER?: [/b]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."
[b]BUSH CAMPAIGN TIES TO THE SAUDIS:[/b] 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."
[b]WHY THESE TIES ARE IMPORTANT:[/b] 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."
As President Bush today squeezes in a visit to a 9/11 memorial as part of a fundraising trip, his Administration is coming under increasing pressure to explain its close relationship with a "Saudi government that not only provided significant money and aid to the suicide hijackers but also allowed potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to flow to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups." Just yesterday, Newsday reported the family of the FBI's late counterterrorism chief who was killed in the 9/11 attacks "filed lawsuits Wednesday accusing Saudi Arabia of aiding terrorists worldwide." And today, an explosive excerpt from the new book "House of Bush, House of Saud" examines how top White House officials orchestrated the post-9/11 exodus of Osama bin Laden's relatives before U.S. law enforcement officers could ask them for critical details about the Al Qaeda leader and his terror network. Meanwhile, Time Magazine reports "the Saudis still appear to be protecting charities associated with the royal family" which funnel money to terrorists. And yet, despite all this, President Bush has continued to praise Saudi Arabia, has invited Saudi government leaders to his Crawford mansion, and in general is far "cozier than most [Presidents] to Riyadh." As Vanity Fair noted, "the Bush-Saudi relationship raises serious questions, if only because it is so extraordinary for two presidents to share such a long and rich personal history with any foreign power" - especially one that has been so closely implicated in the 9/11 attacks. And despite the calls to get tough, Time Magazine concludes that the Administration's all-too-close ties to the Saudi royal family makes "it seem unlikely that the Bush Administration will adopt a tougher policy toward Riyadh."
[b]BEFORE 9/11 - WHAT WAS KNOWN ABOUT THE SAUDIS:[/b] According to U.S. News, a 1996 CIA report found that a third of the 50 Saudi-backed charities it studied "were tied to terrorist groups." Similarly, a 1998 report by the National Security Council had identified the Saudi government as "the epicenter" of terrorist financing, becoming "the single greatest force in spreading Islamic fundamentalism" and "funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to jihad groups and al Qaeda cells around the world." Over the past decade, "al Qaeda and its fellow jihadists collected between $300 million and $500 million - most of it from Saudi charities and private donors" and the very "origins of al Qaeda are intimately bound up with the Saudi charities." At the same time, these Al Qaeda-Saudi government ties were strengthening, U.S. "inquiries about bin Laden went unanswered by Riyadh. When Hezbollah terrorists killed 19 U.S. troops with a massive truck bomb at Khobar Towers in Dhahran in 1996, Saudi officials stonewalled, then shut the FBI out of the investigation."
[b]BEFORE 9/11 - STRENGTHENED BUSH-SAUDI TIES:[/b] Despite the clear ties to terror, the Bush Administration maintained and strengthened its ties to the Saudi government upon taking office. As the Boston Herald reported, a "revolving U.S.-Saudi money wheel" exists "within President Bush's own coterie of foreign policy advisers." First and foremost, the current President's father "remains a senior adviser to the Carlyle Group" - an investment bank with deep connections to the Saudi royal family, and received $1 million for his Presidential library from the royal family. George W. Bush "himself is also linked" to the Saudi-backed Carlyle Group: he was a director of a Carlyle subsidiary called called Caterair. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice "is a former longtime member of the board of Chevron which did business in the Saudi desert." And Vice President Cheney's tenure as CEO of oil giant Halliburton was among his dealings with "firms connected to the Saudis that paid big dividends."
[b]BEFORE 9/11 - APPOINTING A CRONY INSTEAD OF A DIPLOMAT:[/b] With the Saudis' ties to terror clear, the Administration refused to appoint a qualified diplomat or counterterrorism expert as the U.S. government's ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Instead, the President appointed his Texas crony Robert Jordan - a man with no diplomatic experience, who spoke no Arabic and who had never set foot in Saudi Arabia. Jordan's chief qualification for the post was that he had been Bush's lawyer during the SEC inquiry into the Harken energy scandal, was part of the legal team representing the president in Florida during the 2000 election. He also worked at the law firm Baker-Botts, which is headed by former Secretary of State James Baker, a man who has considerable ties to the Saudi government, and who continues to tout Saudi Arabia as "an ally and friend of the United States for as long as I can remember." Even after Jordan retired earlier this year, the Administration still refused to appoint a diplomatic/counter-terror ism expert, instead appointing Texas oil lobbyist James Oberwetter.
[b]AFTER 9/11 - WHITE HOUSE FLIES BIN LADENS OUT OF AMERICA:[/b] In the immediate wake of 9/11, all flights in the United States were grounded. But as the new book "House of Bush, House of Saud" notes in its first excerpts on Salon.com, the flight ban had one exception: the Saudi relatives of Osama bin Laden. As Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged, members of bin Laden's family were put on flights that "were coordinated within the U.S. government" and allowed to go back to Saudi Arabia. According to the excerpt and to Gerald Posner's "Why America Slept," the White House-authorized flights out of the United States also included Saudi Prince Ahmed, who a top Al Qaeda terrorist said "knew beforehand that an attack was scheduled for American soil" on 9/11. The White House's decision to allow the Saudis to leave came at the same time Vanity Fair notes "Arabs were being rounded up and interrogated" all over the country and Attorney General John Ashcroft was asserting that the government had "a responsibility to use every legal means at our disposal to prevent further terrorist activity by taking people into custody who have violated the law and who may pose a threat to America." Law enforcement officers were asking why these family members - some of whom had direct ties to Osama bin Laden - were allowed to leave and wondered "how could officials bypass such an elemental and routine part of an investigation during an unprecedented national-security catastrophe? At the very least, wouldn't relatives have been able to provide some information about Osama's finances, associates, or supporters?"
[b]AFTER 9/11 - WHITE HOUSE ASSAILED FOR GIVING PASS TO SAUDIS:[/b] In the year following the 9/11 attacks, Fox News reported lawmakers investigating the Sept. 11 attacks believe the Administration "has not aggressively pursued the possibility that the Saudi government provided money to students who helped two of the hijackers." Congressional committees also "accused the Saudi government of not fully cooperating with American investigators" but faced a strong defense from the White House. Bush Communications Director Dan Bartlett "disputed congressional critics" saying "As anyone who knows this issue will tell you, it's very difficult to track financing of terrorist networks because most of it is done in cash."
[b]AFTER 9/11 - CLASSIFYING INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE:[/b] In 2003, more and more evidence began to appear tying the Saudi royal family to the attacks. For instance, Newsweek reported that thousands of dollars in charitable gifts from Princess Haifa, the wife of Prince Bandar, "ended up in the hands of two of the September 11 hijackers." Yet, as congressional committees prepared to release a bipartisan report on the 9/11 attacks, the Bush Administration swiftly moved to classify a section of the report which dealt with the Saudi ties to the attack. According to CBS News, that section "examined interactions between Saudi businessmen and the royal family that may have intentionally or unwittingly aided al Qaeda or the suicide hijackers." Not surprisingly, months after 9/11 Vice President Cheney went on Fox News to announce the Administration's full opposition to an independent 9/11 commission.
[b]AFTER 9/11 - STILL PRAISING THE SAUDIS WHILE THEY REFUSE TO COOPERATE:[/b] President Bush has simultaneously repeated a mantra that "if you aid a terrorist, if you hide terrorists, you're just as guilty as the terrorists" while also going "out of his way to compliment the Saudis." While the President says the Saudis are an "important friend" to the United States, the royal family "refuses to permit United States investigators to interrogate one of bin Laden's key financial aides-Sidi Tayyib" a man who "probably knows as much as anyone else about bin Laden's intricate financial empire." Meanwhile, officials at the Treasury and Justice departments have privately expressed deep frustration over the failure of the Saudi government to impose stricter controls over their Islamic charities and turn over crucial evidence about the murky flow of money to Al Qaeda.
The decision last week by federal regulators to fine Riggs Bank $25 million for a "willful, systemic" violation of anti-money-laundering laws is raising new questions about whether the Bush administration's ties to powerful moneyed interests is unduly influencing U.S. foreign and national security policy. Riggs Bank is headed by longtime Bush family friend Joe Allbritton, employs President Bush's uncle Jonathan as a top executive, and other executives have been financial donors to the Bush campaign. The bank is at the center of a controversy, according to the Wall Street Journal, for failing to monitor "tens of millions of dollars in cash withdrawals from accounts related to the Saudi Arabian and Equatorial Guinean embassy," including "suspicious incidents involving dozens of sequentially numbered cashier's checks and international drafts written by Saudi officials, including Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan." Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) "said members of the bank's board of directors should be held to account for failing to exercise their watchdog role over Riggs's operations" and said refusal to follow money laundering laws "allows terrorists to funnel their blood money through the system."
[b]CONNECTION – JONATHAN BUSH AND RIGGS:[/b] Jonathan Bush, President Bush's uncle, was appointed CEO of Riggs Bank's investment arm in May of 2000, just months after his nephew secured the nomination for the presidency. At the time of the appointment, Jonathan Bush had already become a major financial backer of his nephew, rising to "Bush Pioneer" status by raising more than $100,000 for his nephew in 2000. The move solidified the relationship between Jonathan Bush and Riggs, which was originally initiated in 1997 when, according to American Banker newsletter, Riggs paid Bush $5.5 million for his smaller investment firm. That transaction, according to the NYT, "deepened [Riggs's] links to the Bushes." While Riggs denies any connection between Bush and the accounts being investigated in the money laundering probe, Riggs President Timothy Lex told the Washington Times in 1997 that "there's a blurring of distinctions between banks, mutual-fund families, broker dealers and everything else across the board."
[b]CONNECTION - ALLBRITTON-BUSH LINK:[/b] Allbritton, who said during the federal probe that he was stepping down from Riggs's board, also was close to the Bush family. As the NYT reported, he (along with Riggs client Saudi Prince Bandar) was a financial backer of the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, with National Journal noting he contributed between $100,000 - $250,000 to the project. And there also appears to be a personal bond with the current President Bush: As the 2/15/01 WP noted, "When President Bush climbed out of his limousine on Inauguration Day at the corner of 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, he spotted Allbritton, waved and said, 'Hey Joe, how are you doing?'" That might have something to do with the fact that, according to the 11/7/2000 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Allbritton-owned TV station KATV in Little Rock broke 39 years of precedent and publicly endorsed Bush in the 2000 presidential election. The station, which is the biggest in the state, proceeded to air its endorsement 10 times throughout Arkansas, and refused to give equal time to Democrats "who asked for the time to present an alternative to the station's endorsement."
[b]ACTION – LOOSENING BANKING REGS THAT COULD AFFECT RIGGS:[/b] According to Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon's "Age of Sacred Terror," upon taking office the Bush administration tried to halt efforts to tighten international banking laws – some of which may have affected Riggs. As he notes, the new Bush Treasury Department "disapproved of the Clinton administration's approach to money laundering issues, which had been an important part of the drive to cut off the money flow to bin Laden." Specifically, the Bush administration opposed Clinton administration-backed efforts by the G-7 and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that targeted countries with "loose banking regulations" being abused by terrorist financiers. Meanwhile, the Bush administration provided "no funding for the new National Terrorist Asset Tracking Center."
[b]ACTION - HIDING INFORMATION THAT COULD BE DAMAGING TO RIGGS:[/b] Newsweek reported that checks to "two Saudi students in the United States who provided assistance to two of the September 11 hijackers" may have come "from an account at Washington's Riggs Bank in the name of Princess Haifa Al-Faisal, the wife of Saudi Ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan." This, and other details, were reportedly part of the bipartisan House-Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into the Saudi money flow after 9/11. Yet, instead of allowing the committee's final report to be published in full, "Bush administration officials, led by Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller, have adamantly refused to declassify the evidence" surrounding the transactions.
[b]ACTION – RESUMING RELATIONS WITH SORDID RIGGS CLIENT:[/b] Riggs's fines were also in relation to its business with Equatorial Guinea – the oil-rich West African country headed by brutal dictator Gen. Teodoro Obiang. As the LA Times notes, though the country's offshore oil fields "generate hundreds of millions of dollars, there are few signs of the petroleum boom" there, and the Guinean ambassador admits "the country's oil funds are held in an account at Riggs Bank" controlled by the dictator. But while the IMF and other international institutions have refused to do business with the regime until it accounts for its country's financial resources, the Bush administration "initiated a political thaw with the Obiang regime" in late 2001, "authorizing the reopening of the U.S. Embassy in Equatorial Guinea, which had been closed six years earlier, in large part due to the country's horrific human rights record." The move came even though "there's been little, if any, improvement" on human rights.
[b]EPILOGUE: [i]UNDER THE SAND[/i][/b]
[b]MORE CONFLICTS OF INTEREST PLAGUE IRAQ POLICY:[/b] Add James Baker and Neil Bush to the list of Administration officials/cronies who have conflict-of-interest controversies swirling around them (Already ensnared in their own flaps are Vice President Cheney, Defense Department adviser Richard Perle and Pentagon official Douglas Feith). On Baker, the NYT reports that "administration officials said Mr. Baker would retain his positions at Baker Botts and the Carlyle Group while serving as the president's personal envoy" despite the fact that Baker represents Saudi Arabia (an Iraqi creditor) in his private business dealings with Carlyle and others. Chris Ullman, a Carlyle spokesman (and former spokesman for the current Bush White House) "said Mr. Baker had not personally raised money from overseas investors" but did admit that Baker "spoke at Carlyle events intended to attract investors." On Neil Bush, the Financial Times reports, "Two businessmen instrumental in setting up New Bridge Strategies, a well-connected Washington firm designed to help clients win contracts in Iraq, have previously used an association with the younger brother of President George W. Bush to seek business in the Middle East." Two top executives at the company "have maintained an important business relationship with Neil Bush stretching back several years. On several occasions, the two have attempted to exploit their association with the president's brother to help win business and investors."
[b]INT'L POLICY:[/b] Congressman calls on White House to condemn its close ally Saudi Arabia after the country's tourism website encourages more foreign visitors, but specifically prohibits "Jewish People" from applying for visas.
[b]SECRECY – WHAT RUMSFELD AND THE SAUDIS DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW:[/b] The White House/Saudi ties just developed another loop. According to the WP, "The Pentagon deleted from a public transcript a statement Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld made to author Bob Woodward suggesting that the administration gave Saudi Arabia a two-month heads-up that President Bush had decided to invade Iraq." On January 11, 2003, during a meeting in which "Rumsfeld and other officials were briefing [Prince Bandar bin Sultan] on a military plan to attack and invade Iraq, and pointing to a top-secret map that showed how the war plan would unfold," Rumsfeld told Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to Washington "that he could 'take that to the bank' that the invasion would happen." However, the official transcript on the DoD website scrubs out that exchange from the testimony.
[b]IRAN-CONTRA ECHOES – SECRET DEALS WITH COUNTRY TIED TO TERROR?: [/b]The Saudi Arabian government, which has ties to terrorism yet maintains close ties to the Bush administration, continued to deny Woodward's charges that its U.S. Ambassador Prince Bandar promised an increase in oil supplies to coincide with the November presidential election to help President Bush's campaign. Mounting a Saudi defense, Saudi foreign policy adviser Adel al-Jubeir deflected the questions by claiming, "Over the past 30 years, the kingdom has sought to ensure adequate supplies of crude at moderate price levels." Of course, al-Jubeir did not explain why the Saudis had led the recent charge within OPEC to reduce oil supplies and artificially inflate the price of gasoline in the U.S. to record levels. Woodward remained steadfast in his reporting, saying the Saudi's definitely made a "pledge." He said, "over the summer or as we get closer to the election they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly." Author Craig Unger points to a possible motive for the alleged Saudi pledge. In his book "House of Bush, House of Saud," he says Bush presidencies "strengthen Bandar's position in Saudi Arabia. During the 12 years of the Reagan-Bush era, Bandar had enjoyed unique powers - partly because of his close relationship to Bush...But during the Clinton era, Bandar had lost clout. [He was] never an insider in the Clinton White House."
[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]WHY DID ASHCROFT ALLOW BIN LADENS TO LEAVE THE U.S. WITHOUT QUESTIONING?: [/b]Two dozen members of the bin Laden family were permitted to violate the ban on private aviation imposed after 9/11 so they could quickly return to Saudi Arabia. None of the bin Ladens were questioned by the FBI or the Justice Department before departing, even though many had direct ties to Osama bin Laden and might have provided valuable information about Osama's finances, associates and supporters.
[b]WAR ON TERROR – WORRIED ABOUT "OUR FRIENDS": [/b]Though the Bush administration has promoted its efforts to shut down terrorist financing networks, it seems those efforts are taking a backseat to other concerns within the White House: namely, making "our friend" Saudi Arabia happy. According to the NYT, "the State Department is pressing federal bank regulators to address the inability of some foreign embassies to find banking services in the United States." The move "was primarily driven by the needs of Saudi Arabia," whose embassy accounts are at the center of a terrorist money laundering investigation at Riggs Bank, where President Bush's uncle is a top executive. Instead of pressing to further clamp down on the Saudis, a senior official said "The State Department is very concerned that the Saudis cannot find a bank." The story follows an earlier report that the Bush administration has "assigned five times as many agents to investigate Cuban embargo violations as it has to track Osama bin Laden's and Saddam Hussein's money."
[b]BUSH PLAYS SOFTBALL WITH THE SAUDIS:[/b] In 2000, Bush promised to "jawbone" OPEC into increasing supplies in the event of a spike in gas prices. Bush said he could "convince [OPEC] to open up the spigot." But as Americans suffer under high gas prices in 2004, the President is taking a much less aggressive approach than promised. White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters that the administration is staying "in close contact with energy producers around the world." McClellan said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham would "meet with key oil producers and talk to them about the market" but he couldn't say when that meeting would occur.
[b]HOMELAND SECURITY – RIGGS FINED FOR SAUDI ACTIVITY:[/b] "Federal banking agencies jointly imposed a near-record $25 million fine on Riggs Bank N.A. for a range of violations of money-laundering laws related to its oversight of accounts held by diplomats for two oil-rich nations." Of particular concern, Riggs failed to monitor "tens of millions of dollars in cash withdrawals from accounts related to the Saudi Arabian embassy," including "suspicious incidents involving dozens of sequentially numbered cashier's checks and international drafts written by Saudi officials, including Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan."
[b]HOMELAND SECURITY – BUSH'S TIES TO SAUDIS UNDERMINE COUNTERTERRORISM:[/b] President Bush has engaged in strong rhetoric about cracking down on states subsidizing terror, saying on 9/10/03, "We're holding regimes accountable for harboring and supporting terror." Today, the U.S. Treasury Department designated an Islamic charity with ties to a Saudi religious organization as a terrorist entity, but, the WSJ reports, "According to current and former U.S. officials, proposals by Treasury to designate other Muslim World League bodies as terrorism supporters have been blocked by officials from other U.S. agencies." Considering the president's "deep personal ties" to the Saudis, it comes as no surprise that the Treasury's designation is only the second time since Sept. 11 that the U.S. "has moved against an entity controlled by the [Muslim World] League, which has tremendous clout within Saudi Arabia's deeply religious society." It's not the first time the administration's personal connections to Saudis have undermined America's ability to effectively pursue terrorism abroad.
[b]IRAQ – WOODWARD SAYS SAUDI PRINCE IS LYING:[/b] Journalist Bob Woodward said on CNN that "Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan's assertions that he did not learn of President Bush's decision to launch war on Iraq before Secretary of State Colin Powell are false." Bandar said on Larry King Live last week "Both Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld told me before the briefing that the president has not made a decision yet, but here is the plan." Woodward set the facts straight: "In this meeting you have the secretary of defense saying -- according to the secretary of defense's own words – 'you can take this to the bank; this is going to happen.'"
[b]FOR. POLICY – FRIENDSHIP IS A THREE-LETTER WORD:[/b] Texan Sen. Charles Schumer is calling for President Bush "to withdraw his nomination of a Texas oil lobbyist to be the next ambassador" to Saudi Arabia. The nominee, James Oberwetter, while longtime Bush friend and fellow Texan, is a Dallas lobbyist for Dallas-based Hunt Oil Co. with no diplomatic experience. "It sort of says our entire relationship with Saudi Arabia is a three letter word: o-i-l," Schumer said. "He has oil lobbying experience he doesn't have diplomatic experience. This should go to a top person in the State Department."
[b]QUESTIONING THE SAUDI APPOINTMENT:[/b] Washington Monthly editor Nicholas Confessore writes in the LA Times that since the President's speech calling for democratic reforms in the Mideast, "conservatives and liberals alike hoped that Bush might now be taking the more enlightened view that U.S. power had purposes beyond merely guaranteeing stability — and that his speech might signal a new, well-warranted toughness toward the Saudis' ruling oligarchy." But Bush's recent nomination of James Oberwetter as ambassador to Saudi Arabia "suggests that those hopes may have been misplaced." Confessore notes, "Oberwetter is a long-serving executive at Dallas-based Hunt Consolidated Inc., an energy conglomerate that owns Hunt Oil Co....he is active in Texas GOP circles, and not only friends with Bush but was a press secretary to his father when he was a member of Congress. Given Bush's closeness with Texas energy interests and his top aides' distrust of the State Department, it's no surprise that he'd rather have an oil executive in Riyadh than a career Foreign Service officer...All these qualities make Oberwetter a conventional choice — unless you took seriously Bush's speech. American ambassador-nominees are scrutinized by the host nation as a proxy for what kind of relationship the U.S. wishes to have with them. Oberwetter's nomination tells the Saudis that it's preservation of the status quo."
[b]The Civil War within the GOP is looming because there is a philosophical battle for the[i] hearts-and-minds [/i]of the[i] Republican base [/i]between the traditional paleo-conservatives and the post-modern neo-conservatives:[/b]
. Paleo-conservatives [i]purport to believe [/i]in fiscal discipline and balanced budgets (although they are [i]also[/i] the party of Big Business) ... Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] is a neo-conservative [i]corporate-take-all regime [/i]who has recklessly spent us into the largest deficits [i]ever[/i], increasing our record-level debts, the most dangerous in our nation's history -- while handing over our nation to rapacious Corporations irrespective of the damage done to the[i] Middle-Class and Working [/i]people;
. Paleo-conservatives [i]do not believe [/i]in empire-building ... Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta [/i]comprises neo-conservative [i]warmongers[/i] who are willing to destroy our nation's people and economy (i. massacring hundreds of American soldiers & tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Afghanistan & Iraq -- [i]as well as [/i] ii. reckless squandering of our US taxpayer dollars on illegal & immoral warfare -- and iii. ruthlessly lying, deceiving and perpetrating fraudulent falsehoods to do so -- [i]All of which [/i]are a threat to our reputation throughout the world & our economic stability) in order to conquer the Middle East and the rest of the world on behalf of their insane Project for the New American Century (PNAC) doctrine in service of their Global Corporate Empire;
. Paleo-conservatives [i]are pragmatists [/i]who believe in international co-operation and diplomacy ... Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta [/i]is replete with neo-conservative [i]fanatical ideologues, over-zealous crazies & bully-boys [/i]who have shredded, trampled upon and destroyed our relationship with our allies, and heinously treat other nations with utter contempt, placing us in [i]greater danger than ever before [/i]...
"We the People" may be witness to the[i] implosion of the GOP,[/i] for while most Republicans will support their party (insanely, whether they are right[i] or [/i]wrong ...) -- [i]there is deep unease within the ranks[/i], as represented by the Founding Father of Modern Conservatism who just [i]came-out-of-the-closet [/i]to condemn Bush's illegal and immoral war in Iraq. (Refer to "[u][i]Bill Buckley, You and I Know the War was a Mistake[/i][/u]" on http://www.commondreams.org/v... ) ... In August, Patrick J. Buchanan will be releasing a new book that condemns the neo-cons' insane empire-building that threatens our very survival ... Mr. Buchanan's most recent article entitled "[i][u]Three Steps to Sanity[/u][/i]" on http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?a... is well-worth reading [i]too[/i] ... For liberals who believe in the best of democracy and the promise of[i] Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness [/i]for [i]all[/i] of our citizens ([i]and not just the hyper-rich-n-powerful, corporate robber-barons & wealthy plutocrats[/i]), the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta [/i]has been a disastrous tragic failure:-- Apparently, many conscientious conservatives [i]think so too[/i] ...
[b]Consider also ...[/b]
[b]From Andrew Sullivan http://www.andrewsullivan.com... :[/b] The current tussle http://www.washingtonpost.com... in the Congress over the budget is just a precursor to what I think will be outright Republican civil war after this election. If Bush wins, it will cripple his ability to get anything done. If he loses, the recriminations will get vicious. The fiscal conservatives will be fighting the "deficits-don't-matter" crowd. The realists will be out to topple the neocons. The Santorum-Ashcroft axis will continue to wage war on any Republicans not interested in legislating either the Old Testament or the dictates of the Vatican. (The FMA battle now looks more and more like an attempt by Santorum to identify Republican social moderates so he can use primary hardliners to challenge them in the future.)
The battle lines are deep and sharp—and the future of American conservatism is at stake. Bush has proven himself unable to unite a party that includes Tom DeLay as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger, John McCain and Bill Frist. Whether the coming civil war is about who lost the election, or who will exploit the victory, it's going to be nasty and enduring. No single party can be both for individual liberty and for theologically-based social policy; both for fiscal balance and drunken-sailor spending; both for interventionism abroad and against moralism in foreign policy. The incoherence is just too deep, the tensions too strained. And with the war on terror itself a point of contention among conservatives, geo-politics will not be able to keep the coalition in one piece. - [i]TomPaine.com[/i]
