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| ... Fundamentalisms ... |
| 08.31.04 (4:48 pm) [edit] |
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State." - Thomas Jefferson
[b]"We the People" must reverse the dangerously tyrannical neo-fascist transformation of our nation into a fanatical religious-fundamentalist state by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]...[/b]
Christian Extremists Campaign for Bush
"[i]I suggest we begin the day with a little prayer for my reelection[/i]."
Amalgamating any of the different religious fundamentalisms would be absurd, of course. There are many differences between Moqtada Al-Sadr's Islamist militiamen, defending Ali's Shrine in Nadjaf down to their last drop of blood, and American Southern Baptists, who believe in the divine creation of the world in seven days, hate homosexuals, support the death penalty, and defend Israel in the name of a "Christian Zionism" that favors the return of all the Jews to their land the better to convert them there.
However, at the outset of this century that is proving so faithful to Malraux's predictions about the world's religious revival, God has become the pretext for most nationalist, ethnic, political and identity claims. In the United States, the Republican Party, campaigning for a second term for George Bush, has always been a heterogeneous coalition and the party for moral reform. Yet the weight of fundamentalist evangelicals among its militants, its Congressional delegation, and reaching even into the White House, is worrying.
Certainly America's "civil religion", based on respect for God, freedom of religion, and the nation's messianic mission, extends beyond party lines. Before George Bush Jr., Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan already knew evangelical rhetoric by heart. Since September 11, however, the Republican Party, which had blessed the rise of Protestant fundamentalism, seems to have become its instrument. We know the weight George Bush gives in his foreign policy to this Biblical vision of the world in which the forces of Good and Evil clash, and Americans, God's new chosen people, seem to be equipped with a universal mission of conversion and reform.
Fed by active proselytism, moral and social conservatism, the fights against all modernity foreign to God and transcendence, Evangelical Protestantism has the wind in its sails in the United States and elsewhere. It does not dream of theocracy, but expects to weigh heavily in the City's and the world's business, to make good the principle that the "Good" must always make the law. With the resources of an emotional religion, simple solutions, pragmatic and powerful financing networks, this evangelical model travels to the poor megapolises of the Third World.
Hindu and Islamist nationalism sometimes feed on the aggressiveness of Christian groups linked to North American Evangelical or Baptist churches. These religious fundamentalisms all share a common perverse interpretation of their own sacred literature and cross fertilize one another through overstatement and violence. This return of God marks a break with Western modernity as well as with the ever more disputed ideologies of secularism.
This vision of religion must be condemned. It endorses the dangerous "Clash of Civilizations" theory, which is the fundamental credo that all these fundamentalisms share above and beyond any of their differences. - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| ... Bush's War on Democracy ... |
| 08.31.04 (2:00 pm) [edit] |
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] has betrayed us and are defrauding the American people ... The despotic Bush regime isn't [i]really[/i] waging any kind of "war on terrorism" ... Instead they are waging a war on[i] us[/i], a war on our[i] Republic[/i], a war on [i]Democracy[/i] ...[/b]
When George W. Bush's weapons-of-mass-destructi on rationale for invading Iraq evaporated, his excuse morphed into bringing democracy to the Iraqi people. But the way Bush has eviscerated our democracy in the United States is proof positive that his democratic credentials are phony.
We have seen our government assault First Amendment rights in the past - during the McCarthy era, and when the FBI instituted COINTELPRO to spy on and discredit civil rights activists.
But Bush has taken the attack on civil liberties to a new level. The most striking warning of his strategy to stifle dissent in an unprecedented way was former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer's admonition shortly after the September 11 attacks that Americans should "watch what they say, watch what they do."
That statement is now the mantra of Team Bush.
The Bush administration depicts as public enemies, and even potential terrorists, those who speak out against U.S. government policies.
In an annual survey by the First Amendment Center in 2003, 93 percent of respondents agreed that individuals should be allowed to express unpopular opinions in this country. Two-thirds supported the right of any group to hold a rally for a cause even if offensive to others.
[u]Three new developments on Bush's watch have a chilling effect on protected First Amendment activity[/u]:
1) the shift from reactive to preemptive law enforcement;
2) the enactment of domestic anti-terrorism laws; and
3) the recent relaxation of FBI guidelines on surveillance of Americans.
[b] From Reactive to Preemptive Law Enforcement[/b]
Like Bush's new "preemptive" or "preventative" war strategy which led us into Iraq in violation of the United Nations Charter, law enforcement in the United States has moved from reaction to "preemption," in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Collective preemptive punishment against those who wish to exercise their First Amendment rights has taken several forms: content-based permits, where permission to protest is screened for political correctness; pretextual arrests in anticipation of actions that haven't yet occurred; the setting of huge bails of up to $1 million for misdemeanors; the use of chemical weapons; and the employment of less lethal rounds fired without provocation into crowds.
Protestors are painted by the government and the mainstream media as violent lawbreakers.
In this week's demonstrations against the Republican Convention in New York, police are prepared to use sound, ostensibly to convey orders to the crowd. This Long Range Acoustical Device (LRAD) has been utilized by the U.S. military in Iraq, and during the Miami free trade protests last year.
When employed in the weapon mode, LRAD blasts a tightly controlled stream of caustic sound that can be turned up to high enough levels to trigger nausea or fainting. Even if LRAD is not used by the police, the warning that it might be was designed to frighten potential protestors from taking to the streets of New York.
[b]New Domestic Anti-Terrorism Laws[/b]
The USA PATRIOT Act, rushed through a timid Congress a month after September 11, 2001, creates a new crime of "domestic terrorism," defined so broadly that anyone who may have, at some time, participated in civil disobedience, or even a labor picket, could be targeted.
This provision has been used to label environmental and animal rights groups "terrorist." Congressman Scott McInnis (R-Co) called Earth Liberation Front, which was responsible for major property damage in Colorado, a major domestic terrorist organization. Rep. George Nethercutt (R-Wash) suggested treating Earth Liberation Front like the Taliban: "I propose," he said, "that we use the model that has worked so well in Afghanistan. Give them no rest and no quarter." These politicians draw no distinction between human rights and property interests.
[b]Relaxed FBI Surveillance Guidelines[/b]
During the McCarthy period of the 1950s, in an effort to eradicate the perceived threat of communism, the government engaged in widespread illegal surveillance to threaten and silence anyone who had an unorthodox political viewpoint. Many people were jailed, blacklisted and lost their jobs. Thousands of lives were shattered as the FBI engaged in "red-baiting."
COINTELPRO (counter-intelligence program) was designed, by its own terms, to "disrupt, misdirect and otherwise neutralize" political and activist groups. In the 1960s, the FBI targeted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in a program called "Racial Matters."
King's campaign to register African-American voters in the South raised the hackles of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who disingenuously claimed King's organization was being infiltrated by communists.
In fact, the FBI was really concerned that King's civil rights and anti-Vietnam War campaigns "represented a clear threat to the established order of the U.S." It went after King with a vengeance, wiretapping his telephones and securing very personal information, which it used to try to discredit him and drive him to divorce and suicide.
A congressional committee chaired by Frank Church documented the abuses of COINTELPRO. As a result, in 1976, Congress established guidelines to regulate FBI activity in foreign and domestic intelligence-gathering.
John Ashcroft, again using the excuse of September 11, has relaxed the 1976 guidelines on FBI surveillance, spying and infiltration of political groups and meetings. The probable cause requirement for initiating surveillance of individuals and organizations has been removed. FBI surveillance of all public meetings and demonstrations is now authorized.
An internal FBI newsletter encouraged agents to conduct more interviews with activists protesting the war "for plenty of reasons, the chief of which it will enhance the paranoia endemic in such circles and will further serve to get the point across that there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox."
The national drive by the FBI to collect intelligence related to protests through local law enforcement has resulted in the harassment of people in places such as Denver, Fresno, CA, New York, and Drake University in Iowa.
In an October 2003 memo, the FBI urged law enforcement to monitor the Internet, because "protestors often use the Internet to ... coordinate their activities prior to demonstrations," reported The New York Times.
The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) - the same group that wrote the memos advising Bush how to get away with torturing prisoners - blessed the 2003 FBI memo. The OLC said that interrogating and gathering evidence on potential political protestors raised no First Amendment concerns. But, it went on to say, any "chilling" effect would be "quite minimal" and far outweighed by the overriding public interest in maintaining "order."
[b]The Bad News and the Good News[/b]
As we approach the November election - and for the next four years if Bush secures another term - we can expect that opponents of the Bush administration's repressive policies will increasingly be targeted.
But over 300 cities and four states have called for the repeal of the PATRIOT Act, and organizations like the National Lawyers Guild have filed lawsuits challenging the unconstitutional actions of the government.
And in the largest demonstration ever at a political convention, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators registered their protest Sunday against the assault on democracy by the forces of George W. Bush.
------------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------- -----
[b]Marjorie Cohn, a contributing editor to [i]t r u t h o u t[/i], is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists.[/b] - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| ... A New Age of Unreason ... |
| 08.31.04 (10:25 am) [edit] |
[b]"This administration has succeeded in mainstreaming a pre- and anti-Enlightenment attitude." [/b] - http://www.alternet.org/elect...
"We the People" cannot afford another 4 years of the reckless, wanton and corrupt mismanagement of our nation's domestic and foreign affairs by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]...
Appalled and frightened. That's how Mark Crispin Miller believes Founding Fathers would describe their emotions if they were around to witness the actions of the current occupants of the White House and the disintegration of our republic.
A professor of media studies at New York University, Mark Crispin Miller is the author of the wildly humourous and best-selling "Bush Dyslexicon." Miller's new book, "Cruel and Unusual: Bush and Cheney's New World Order" http://www.wwnorton.com/catal... (Norton, 2004), is of a more serious nature. In it, Miller argues that the ascendant Bush Republicans are in the midst of subverting the United States' republic with a theocracy, and that Bush & Co. have embarked us in a new age of unreason that rejects many of the Enlightenment concepts upon which this country was founded.
Miller sat down with Alternet for an interview during a recent visit to San Francisco to talk about the state of conservatism in this country and how the folks in the White House believe their "higher father" wants them to govern the United States.
[b]Your book title is "Cruel and Unusual: Bush and Cheney's New World Order." So it's about Bush and Cheney, two self-described conservatives. Yet the word "conservative" doesn't appear when you write about them. Why is that?[/b]
I don't use the word conservative in my book once to describe Bush & Company. That's a misnomer. Conservatism. Let's talk about it for a minute. What is it? Is it just being a nasty prick? That's what you'd think looking at the "conservative" landscape. What does Ann Coulter stand for, what are her principles? She just says the vilest possible things she can say.
Conservatism as far as I know means strict limits on federal power, a refusal to meddle in the affairs of other nations, an ornery distrust of ideologies and theories – instead a favoritism of the lessons of experience. Real conservatives also believe in economic self-sufficiency – you don't get a handout, and you thrive by dint of your hard work and playing by the rules. Not one of these qualities has been honored by this administration.
On the contrary, this is a radical administration. They have a radical view on the expansion of police powers. They believe in unilateral preemptive war – which is about as radical and unconservative as you can get. Regarding the typical conservative distrust of ideologies, this is a totally ideologized presidency. John Ashcroft prosecutes those things that offend his religious scruples – like Oregon's suicide law. In a time of terrorism that's what they prosecute.
See, they don't live in the real world – they can't learn from experience. Finally, there's nothing conservative about crony capitalism. They are completely fucking the average person, making it harder to declare bankruptcy and so on. People are getting absolutely screwed, and the administration so far has functioned in an economic sense to take every penny of public wealth and put it in private coffers. So, I don't see any conservativism there.
Read the entire article on http://www.alternet.org/elect... ...
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| ... Nest of Spies ... |
| 08.30.04 (2:47 pm) [edit] |
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] has placed our nation in peril and "We the People" are at the mercy of a [i]nest of spies[/i], called neo-cons who are liars, traitors and fanatical terrorists ...[/b]
When Iranian “students” took over the U.S. embassy in 1979, they called it the “nest of spies.” Now it seems, the FBI has discovered a real nest of spies, Israeli ones. Inside the Pentagon. Some of the people allegedly involved are the very same people who were first mentioned in an article (“The Lie Factory”) by Jason Vest and myself in [i]Mother Jones [/i]last year. (You can read it here http://www.motherjones.com/ne... .) That article cited Harold Rhode, a neocon operative in the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessments, under the wizard-like Andy Marshall, and his sidekick, the laughably incompetent Larry Franklin.
Now Franklin, we all know, and perhaps Rhode, are under investigation by the FBI. Franklin is a minor cog in the Israeli nest of spies, who allegedly passed U.S. secrets on Iran to AIPAC, the Zionist lobby, who then passed it to the Israeli embassy. There are lots of details—but, so far, no one that I’ve seen has attempted to really analyze this. The basic paradox is: Ahmad Chalabi, the darling of Franklin’s neocon pals, is under investigation in Iraq and in Washington for spying for Iran. Franklin is under the FBI gun for spying for Israel, against Iran. Does this make any sense? Of course not.
Let’s assume that Chalabi and Franklin, two lower-level operatives for the same machine, are still working together. And that the machine, the great Neoconservative Empire Machine and its Israeli right-wing allies, is what needs to be investigated.
Franklin, for the past couple of years, has toiled away in the bowels of Paul Wolfowitz’s Iraq war team. A former U.S. intelligence official has this to say about him:
[i]Anyone who knew Franklin from DIA and from the past few years in OSD knows that the "incompetent fool way out of his depth" description fits. The Newsweek story of his walking, "out of the blue," into a private FBI-surveilled lunch meeting is pure Franklin: clueless. His DIA colleagues and supervisors knew he could not be depended upon for important tasks; some suspected he was mentally unbalanced. Taking him on missions abroad was asking for trouble: unaccounted absences, flaky "special case" demands, embarrassments with US embassy staffs and foreign personnel. He should have been fired long ago. Franklin was notoriously sloppy with security, never could be relied upon by his colleagues or supervisors to pull his weight on assigned projects or even to be found, repeatedly left messes behind for others to clean up, almost never met a suspense, and shamelessly bowed and scraped to the powerful and influential of the day. Days after a buddy from Net Assessments brought him into the former [Near East and South Asia office] with a promotion, it was "Paul" this and "Paul" that, referring to the [Deputy Secretary of Defense]. He ingratiated himself to OSD seniors by trafficking poison on intelligence seniors they already believed to be ideologically unreliable. Add to that deep draughts of the Kool-Aid and you have a prescription for disaster. Mostly, though, this one looks like his own personal one, and not entirely undeserved[/i].
Of course anyone as “clueless” as Franklin would be sloppy with classified material. The pro-Ariel Sharon clique in the Pentagon (and elsewhere in the U.S. government) is so tightly bound and incestuously linked to Israel that having to draw boundaries between what’s American and what’s Israeli must boggle their small minds. So this time Franklin got caught. (P.S. Don’t expect any big indictments, or any sweeping probe of Israel’s spy apparatus in the United States. Reports the [i]New York Times[/i] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... : "American counterintelligence officials say that Israeli espionage cases are difficult to investigate, because they involve an important ally that enjoys broad political influence in Washington. Several officials said that a number of espionage investigations involving Israel had been dropped or suppressed in the past in the face of political pressure.” ) For the last two years I’ve watched Franklin, Rhode, Michael Rubin and others in the clique at meetings at the American Enterprise Institute, and what stands out above all is the fraternity-like bond that links them to one another, almost like a street gang.
For 25 years, this little clique has maintained sub rosa ties to Iran. They, and Israel, had multiple lines into Iran’s mullahs long before the Shah fell. Israel armed Iran throughout the 1980s, including during the 444 days when thugs held U.S. diplomats hostage. They were behind Iran-contra, trying to push the United States into a closer relationship with Iran when we were, sensibly enough, backing Iraq. And they’ve never let up. Since 2001, when they took power with the Bush administration, they’ve plotted war against Iraq and plotted how to establish ties with Iran’s national security apparatus and its military again, even if it meant undermining U.S. policy. A key figure in all this is Michael Ledeen, an AEI stalwart who’s long had intimate ties to Israeli intelligence. And then there is Ahmad Chalabi, another Mossad-linked creature.
We can discount, or throw out, Israel’s silly statement that it stopped spying against the United States after the Pollard affair. Israel has penetrated the United States so completely that it probably doesn’t even call it spying anymore. It's business as usual.
So the question is: What connects Ledeen, Richard Perle, Chalabi and Franklin? We know that the United States doesn’t really have an “Iran policy,” unless hoping that nothing happens qualifies as a “policy.” But what is the policy of Ledeen and Co.? They believe that Israel, Turkey, Iran, the Kurds, the Lebanese Christians and Pakistan can all be tied together in an alliance against the Arabs. That’s been true since the 1950s. What’s new is that Iraq presented them an opportunity: The Israel-Turkey-Iran et al. axis could take over and occupy part of the Arab bloc, thanks to the United States. Like the python who ate the deer, they are still struggling to digest it—though some, including myself but also including the CIA, believe they will choke on it. In any case, the gobbling up of Iraq hasn’t gone too well, but at least they’ve accomplished their secondary objective: the destruction and dismantling of Iraq as a nation and as a military force that could threaten Israel. And Ledeen, who organized Franklin’s secret missions to Iran since 2001, and Chalabi, who has secret missions of his own to Iran (both long exposed now), still believe that Iran is a useful partner in the anti-Arab axis.
More to come on Franklin, Rhode, Ledeen et al. this week.
[b]Written by veteran investigative reporter Bob Dreyfuss , The Dreyfuss Report offers readers the story behind daily headlines and policies pursued on behalf of national security. http://www.tompaine.com/archi... [/b]
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| ... Us vs. Them ... |
| 08.30.04 (11:55 am) [edit] |
[b]A nice find by Andrew Sullivan on President Bush's Freudian slip about the Swift Boat Ads http://www.talkingpointsmemo.... ...[/b]
... "I loved Bush's comment yesterday about the smear-ad: "I can understand why Senator Kerry is upset with [i]us[/i]. I wasn't so pleased with the ads that were run about me. And my call is get rid of them all, now." "Us"?? I thought Bush had nothing to do with it." ...
[b][i]Nice catch[/i]...
And here's another http://www.talkingpointsmemo.... :[/b]
Isn't the press going to bludgeon John Kerry over this remark this morning?
When asked whether we can "win" the "war on terror" Senator Kerry said: "Can we win? I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are — less acceptable in parts of the world.”
Oh, sorry. That was [i]President Bush[/i] http://www.nydailynews.com/fr... who said that.
[b]So forget what I said about press bludgeoning ...[/b]
[b]Wouldn't it be funny if "We the People" had to judge the words of the candidates[i] before [/i]knowing who was being quoted or mis-quoted by whom? LOL![/b]
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| ... PHOTOS FROM NYC PROTEST ... [- Update -] ... |
| 08.29.04 (3:35 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" ...
"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" - Thomas Jefferson[/b]
[b]'No more years!' chant Bush foes
Thousands of protesters march in N.Y. on eve of GOP gathering[/b]
NEW YORK - Bearing flag-draped boxes resembling coffins and fly-swatters with President Bush’s image, more than 100,000 protesters peacefully swarmed Manhattan’s streets on the eve of the Republican National Convention to demand that the president be turned out of office.
Flanked by police in riot gear, the protesters moved through the fortified city, loudly and exuberantly chanting slogans such as “No more years.” They accused the White House of waging an unjust war in Iraq, making the country poorer and undermining abortion rights.
There were no reports of major violence and about 200 scattered arrests.
Police gave no official crowd estimate, though one law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, put the crowd at 120,000; organizers claimed it was roughly 400,000.
Read article on http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5... ...
[b]More Photos ...[/b]
"I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won; there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall." - Mahatma Gandhi
[b]Hundreds of thousands march through NYC chanting "No More Years!' http://newsday.com/ [/b]
[i]The marchers were close to the site of the 11 September attacks[/i]
[i]Many in the march felt they had been misled in the 'war on terror'[/i]
[i]Protesters wanted the Republicans to know they were not welcome[/i]
[i]People of all ages and different backgrounds took part[/i]
[i]The marchers were unified by their opposition to President Bush[/i] - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/am...
[b]Huge Anti-Bush March Hits NY on Eve of Convention[/b]
NEW YORK - Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators toting colorful banners and shouting "no more Bush" took to Manhattan's streets on Sunday, the day before the Republican convention opens, to decry the Iraq war and President Bush's policies.
Organizers estimated 400,000 people turned out for the march, which led to more than 100 arrests and yielded at least one skirmish between self-styled anarchists and police. More than 400 people have been arrested in protests since Thursday.
[i]A crowd fills a Manhattan avenue during a protest march leading up to the Republican National Convention site sponsored by United for Peace and Justice, in New York[/i]
Chanting "Hey Ho, Bush Has Got to Go," the largely peaceful crowd marched past the Madison Square Garden convention site as Republicans and visitors arrived in the city for a four-day event where Bush will be nominated for another four-year term.
Read article on http://www.commondreams.org/h...
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| America Is Asking... About Donald Rumsfeld's Responsibility for the Abuses at Abu Ghraib... |
| 08.28.04 (7:10 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" surely cannot permit these heinous Crimes Against Humanity perpetrated by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]against prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison ([i]and elsewhere[/i], e.g. Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, etc.) to go unpunished ... Scapegoating those at the [i]bottom of the ladder [/i]simply isn't acceptable ... Those[i] responsible for giving the orders at the highest levels [/i]within the tyrannical, despotic Bush regime must be prosecuted for War Crimes ...[/b]
[b]Refer to:[/b]
"Brutality and Purposeless Sadism", http://www.tblog.com/template...
"Abu Ghraib Cover-up Intensifies", http://www.tblog.com/template...
Two reports released this week on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal described the abuses of detainees there as torture and assigned responsibility to high-ranking military officers and senior Bush administration officials.
A civilian panel selected by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld cited the failure of Pentagon officials to provide adequate numbers of troops and to plan for the insurgency after the fall of Saddam as key factors that led to the abuses. An internal investigation of military intelligence by Gens. Anthony Jones and George Fay discredited the Bush administration's line that the torture at Abu Ghraib was merely the actions of a few bad apples. Both reports sharply criticized decisions made by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez and blamed them for creating a climate where the torture of Iraqi prisoners was permitted.
Below is a sample of commentary from newspapers around the country examining the reports and questioning Rumsfeld's ability to serve as secretary of defense.
[b]Lexington Herald-Leader – Lexington, Ky., http://www.kentucky.com/mld/k...
August 26, 2004[/b]
"The world, the American people and the Army need to see those responsible for the abuse at Abu Ghraib held accountable.
"That responsibility reaches all the way to the top of the Pentagon's civilian and military leadership, concluded a commission appointed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to investigate the mistreatment of prisoners...
"Rumsfeld should resign or be fired. And some of his deputies should go as well...
"The incompetence, botched planning and unrealistic expectations that created the monster at Abu Ghraib are shocking. But Abu Ghraib is also a microcosm of the whole Iraq fiasco."
[b]Seattle Post-Intelligencer – Seattle, Wash., http://seattlepi.nwsource.com...
August 26, 2004[/b]
"The panel concluded that while direct responsibility for the prisoner abuses lies with the soldiers involved and their immediate commanders, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and senior generals share the responsibility.
"The panel rejected suggestions that Rumsfeld or other senior officials should resign over its findings. But if Rumsfeld fails to move quickly and decisively on prosecutions and reforms, it will only add to the list of Rumsfeld shortcomings that have spurred this newspaper to repeatedly call for his removal."
[b]St. Louis Post-Dispatch – St. Louis, Mo., http://www.stltoday.com/stlto...+%2F+Commentary/story/477 B47CB7BC5C8D786256EFC0038 17FF?OpenDocument&Headlin e=ABU+GHRAIB+PRISON+TORTU RE%3A+Onus+at+the+top&hig hlight=2%2CAbu%2CGhraib%2 CPrison%2CTorture%2COnus% 2Cat%2CTop
August 26, 2004[/b]
"The independent panel that investigated the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal traced the episode right to the doors of the president, the secretary of defense and the attorney general. But instead of demanding accountability, the panel offered absolution...
"This week's Fay and Schlesinger reports on Abu Ghraib implicated a broader group of soldiers in the abuse. The new reports also place some of the onus for the prison abuse further up the chain of command than previous reports had. Still, Mr. Bush, Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Ashcroft continue to escape the full responsibility they bear for creating conditions that led to abuse at Abu Ghraib and besmirching America's reputation for justice and decency."
[b]Fort Worth Star-Telegram – Fort Worth, Texas, http://abcnews.go.com/section...
August 27, 2004[/b]
"In the days after the airing of prisoner abuse allegations at Abu Ghraib, administration officials from the White House to the State Department to the Defense Department vowed to follow the process that is the hallmark of the American justice system: Investigate the accusations, determine whether they were valid, hold accountable those responsible and put in place corrective action. . .
"Now that the extent of the abuses is more clearly understood, it would be appropriate for Rumsfeld to once again step before the cameras to show his face as the one who needs to accept responsibility and fix the flaws."
[b]Bangor Daily News – Bangor, Maine
August 26, 2004[/b]
[i]Link unavailable[/i]
"Two reports on the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq come to the same conclusion: The abuses were the result of major leadership failures, not the actions of a small band of rouge soldiers, as Pentagon officials had long asserted. Both reports, released this week, have the same shortcoming, however. They fail to hold the military's top brass accountable for these failures...
"Sen. Susan Collins, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has it right when she says: "I strongly believe that those responsible further up the chain of command should be held accountable. It would be unfair if only the low-level prison guards were punished when the various reports identify individuals ... responsible for creating the conditions that allowed the abuse to occur and for failing to exercise sufficient leadership.
"The reports did part of the job by identifying those responsible for the failures. It is now up to Sen. Collins and her colleagues, as well as the Pentagon, to reform the system so that such failures are not repeated and, as necessary, to discipline those who failed.
[b]Kentucky Courier Journal – Louisville, Ky., http://www.courier-journal.co...
August 26, 2004[/b]
"The report of the independent panel that investigated abuses of American prisoners in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal must not be the final word on the subject, but it offers critically important findings.
"Most significant, the four members of an advisory board to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld rejected forcefully the notion voiced by senior officials, including President Bush, that misconduct at the Iraqi prison was confined to a small number of low-ranking soldiers.
"Instead, the inquiry found a string of failures at all command levels, including soldiers on the ground, the Central Command, the Pentagon and Mr. Rumsfeld's office...
"The voters will decide in November whether the mess in Iraq should cost Mr. Bush his job. But no matter who wins the election, the country needs a new secretary of Defense."
[b]Orlando Sentinel – Orlando, Fla.
August 27, 2004[/b]
[i]Link unavailable[/i]
"After the release of two government reports this week on the abuses of Iraqis at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, it's no longer plausible to argue that blame is limited to a few rogue soldiers.
"Another report from an independent panel handpicked by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld faulted failures in leadership extending up the chain of command to the Pentagon...
"It could take the United States years to repair the damage done to its reputation by what happened at Abu Ghraib. The best way to start is by holding all those involved accountable, and by acting aggressively to prevent such outrages from recurring."
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| ... Why Is The Country So Divided? ... |
| 08.27.04 (4:45 pm) [edit] |
[b]No one across the political spectrum seems to disagree that our nation is becoming increasingly divided ... There are many reasons for this division-- and violent disagreement has always existed in our nation, but we must seek to comprehend [i]not only [/i]the beliefs that divide us, but also [i]who benefits [/i]from a divide-and-conquer strategy ... Conflict between people is inevitable-- but hatred and warfare are [i]not[/i] inevitable-- and compromise [i]is the way [/i]of civilized people ... "We the People" must demand [i]much, much more [/i]from our leaders than the ugly politics that cynically and purposely set us[i] against [/i]each other ...[/b]
Politics, as a practice, always has been the competition of men and women for power. Some may seek power to do good, others because it is personally gratifying, self-esteeming, and rewarding. But many embark upon politics to "redistribute" income, wealth, and privilege from one social group to another. Their thinking is guided by notions of social concern and economic conflict.
Conflict doctrines are much older than the teaching of economic harmony. 17th and 18th century economic thought, commonly called Mercantilism, fostered much national conflict and led to numerous wars in Europe and the Americas. 18th and 19th century Classical economists perceiving basic harmony of interests in freedom sought to pacify the world. Adam Smith wrote of a great "propensity to truck and barter" which, under competition, would lead to division of labor and peaceful cooperation. But later critics of nationalistic and socialistic persuasion were convinced that economic interests do not match, that private capitalists are apt to be exploiters and spoilers. The most influential economist of our age, John Maynard Keynes, recommended large-scale government economic planning that would stimulate the market economy and promote employment. Many Americans have been enamored with such stimulation notions ever since.
Since the 1930s Democratic and Republican administrations have taken government economic planning far beyond the Keynesian proposal. They added countless social and economic laws to benefit the mass of working people who now like to ask: "What have you done for us lately?" And they may want to know: "What will you do for us in the coming years? What is your agenda?" But government can only dole out what it extracts from taxpayers, borrows from investors, or fleeces from inflation victims; it has no treasure-troves other than the income and wealth of its subjects. Yet, most politicians -- always looking over their shoulders to see if their supporters and voters are still there -- never tire of promising according to the voters' hopes. Their promises tend to divide the country into beneficiaries who hope to reap and the victims who are forced to settle.
Social legislation and regulation were born from political strife, are enjoying a full and varied life and tend to corrupt and weaken democratic institutions. Americans don't like to be reminded that social legislation was the invention of a German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. During the 1880s he devised and introduced a complex system of social security consisting of compulsory accident insurance, sickness insurance, and old age pensions in order to entreat and coax working people away from his political opposition. He was eminently successful; the workers came to believe in their rights to benefits by law and decree. German parliamentary procedure soon became an endless brawl about social benefits and their ways of payment. Defeated and impoverished in World War I, Germany faced the threat of civil war, with uprisings in Hamburg, Saxony and Thuringia. The army ruled the land throughout a state of emergency from October 1923 to February 1924. When, a few years later, the Great Depression descended on Germany and countless labor laws and regulations strangled the economy and prevented labor markets from adjusting, the rate of unemployment soared to 30 percent. In deep depression and political disarray Adolf Hitler came to power.
Surely, no one is suggesting that the United States is following in the footsteps of Nazi Germany. But this writer is convinced that the very ideological forces that destroyed old Germany are gnawing at the foundations of American society. They are visible in the race riots that occasionally erupt in American cities. In 1965, a residential section of south central Los Angeles, called Watts, was the cite of six days of race riots that claimed 34 lives. Riots again erupted in 1992, causing the death of 58 people and approximately $1 billion in property damage. If serious economic difficulties were to descend on the United States with unemployment rising to Great Depression levels, we may see more burning cities and bloody riots. Economic conflict doctrines permeate all levels of information and education.
Mass media are the wholesalers and retailers of public opinion. Echoing and reinforcing public thinking or even accentuating it, they love controversies and confrontations. Tales of exploitation and unemployment excite readers and listeners more than stories of steady improvements in working conditions. Ugly encounter carries further than peaceful cooperation. In an election year, ambitious politicians ever eager to garner votes busily fan the conflict. Speaking to African-Americans, for instance, they may call for new policies that spend more money on early childhood and other educational programs than on sending people to prison. They may even suggest that there are more black Americans in prison than in college, which, whether true or false, surely supports and refines the conflict doctrine and points the way to more riots to come.
Social peace, like war, begins in the minds of men and propagates in classrooms and the media. It is born of individual freedom and the unhampered private property order. It lives in free societies that safeguard the lives and respect the rights of their citizens. It dies when envy supplants morality and spurious doctrines cause men to prey on each other.
[b]Source:[/b]
[i]Safe Haven[/i], Hans F. Sennholz, www.sennholz.com
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| ... Secrecy Report Card ... |
| 08.27.04 (12:30 pm) [edit] |
[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 that have a direct impact and important bearing [/i]upon the nature of their criminal and incompetent governance ...[/b]
You might have suspected it, but now there's hard data: Government secrecy has dramatically increased in the past four years, according to a report by OpenTheGovernment.org http://www.openthegovernment.... . How dramatically, you ask? Well, for every dollar spent to release old secrets, the federal government has spent $120 classifying new information. Recently, that's included documents about Abu Ghraib and parts of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on pre-war intelligence in Iraq. More than[b] 14 million documents [/b]have been classified in the [b]past year [/b]alone, at a cost of [b]$6.5 billion[/b]. That's more than the past entire decade. [b]SEE THE REPORT [/b] http://www.openthegovernment....
[b]Check out also:[/b]
Bush/Cheney Inc.: A History of Refusing to Release Documents ..., http://www.tblog.com/template...
Bush Administration Documents on Secrecy Policy ... c/o The Federation of American Scientists, http://www.tblog.com/template...
'Half of govt secrets shouldn't be secret', http://www.washtimes.com/upi-...
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| ... An American Icon on the State of the Union ... |
| 08.26.04 (4:24 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" are indeed fortunate to have among us an iconoclastic American Master, Gore Vidal, a brilliant polemicist ([i]and [/i]World War 2 Veteran), who we should listen to carefully ...[/b]
[b]State of the Union, 2004
by Gore Vidal[/b]
In the 1960s and '70s of the last unlamented century, there was a New York television producer named David Susskind. He was commercially successful; he was also, surprisingly, a man of strong political views which he knew how to present so tactfully that networks were often unaware of just what he was getting away with on their--our--air. Politically, he liked to get strong-minded guests to sit with him at a round table in a ratty building at the corner of Broadway and 42nd Street. Sooner or later, just about everyone of interest appeared on his program. Needless to say, he also had time for Vivien Leigh to discuss her recent divorce from Laurence Olivier, which summoned forth the mysterious cry from the former Scarlett O'Hara, "I am deeply sorry for any woman who was not married to Larry Olivier." Since this took in several billion ladies (not to mention those gentlemen who might have offered to fill, as it were, the breach), Leigh caused a proper stir, as did the ballerina Alicia Markova, who gently assured us that "a Markova comes only once every hundred years or so."
I suspect it was the dim lighting on the set that invited such naked truths. David watched his pennies. I don't recall how, or when, we began our "States of the Union" programs. But we did them year after year. I would follow whoever happened to be President, and I'd correct his "real" state of the union with one of my own, improvising from questions that David would prepare. I was a political pundit because in a 1960 race for the House of Representatives (upstate New York), I got more votes than the head of the ticket, JFK; in 1962, I turned down the Democratic nomination for US Senate on the sensible ground that it was not winnable; I also had a pretty good memory in those days, now a-jangle with warning bells as I try to recall the national debt or, more poignantly, where I last saw my glasses.
I've just come across my "State of the Union" as of 1972. Apparently, I gave it fifteen times across the country, ending with Susskind's program. Questions and answers from the audience were the most interesting part of these excursions. As I look back over the texts of what we talked about, I'm surprised at how to the point we often were on subjects seldom mentioned in freedom's land today.
In 1972, I begin: "According to the polls, our second principal concern today is the breakdown of law and order." (What, I wonder, was the first? Let's hope it was the pointless, seven-year--at that point--war in Southeast Asia.) I noted that to those die-hard conservatives, "law and order" is usually a code phrase meaning "get the blacks." While, to what anorexic, vacant-eyed blonde women on TV now describe as the "liberal elite," we were pushing the careful--that is, slow--elimination of poverty. Anything more substantive would have been regarded as communism, put forward by dupes. But then, I say very mildly, we have only one political party in the United States, the Property Party, with two right wings, Republican and Democrat. Since I tended to speak to conservative audiences in such civilized places as Medford, Oregon; Parkersburg,West Virginia; and Longview, Washington, there are, predictably, a few gasps at this rejection of so much received opinion. There are also quite a few nods from interested citizens who find it difficult at election time to tell the parties apart. Was it in pristine Medford that I actually saw the nodding Ralph Nader whom I was, to his horror, to run for President that year in [i]Esquire[/i]? Inspired by the nods, I start to geld the lily, as the late Sam Goldwyn used to say. The Republicans are often more doctrinaire than the Democrats, who are willing to make small--very small--adjustments where the poor and black are concerned while giving aid and comfort to the anti-imperialists. Yes, I was already characterizing our crazed adventure in Vietnam as imperial, instead of yet another proof of our irrepressible, invincible altruism, ever eager to bring light to those who dwell in darkness.
I should note that in the thirty-two years since this particular state of the union, our political vocabulary has been turned upside down. Although the secret core to each presidential election is who can express his hatred of African-Americans most subtly (to which today can be added Latinos and "elite liberals," a fantasy category associated with working film actors who have won Academy Awards), and, of course, this season it's the marriage-minded so-called gays. So-called because there is no such human or mammal category (sex is a continuum) except in the great hollow pumpkin head of that gambling dude who has anointed himself the nation's moralist-in-chief, William "Bell Fruit" Bennett.
Back to the time machine. In some ways, looking at past states of the union, it is remarkable how things tend to stay the same. Race-gender wars are always on our overcrowded back burners. There is also--always--a horrendous foreign enemy at hand ready to blow us up in the night out of hatred for our Goodness and rosy plumpness. In 1972, when I started my tour at the Yale Political Union, the audience was packed with hot-eyed neocons-to-be, though the phrase was not yet in use, as the inventors of neoconnery were still Trotskyists to a man or woman or even "Bell Fruit," trying to make it in New York publishing.
I also stay away from the failing economy. "I leave to my friend Ken Galbraith the solving of the current depression." If they appear to know who Galbraith is, I remark how curious that his fame should be based on two books, [i]The Liberal Hour[/i], published a few years before the right-wing Nixon criminals tried to hijack the election of 1972 (Watergate was bursting open when I began my tour), and [i]The Affluent Society[/i], published shortly before we had a cash-flow problem.
In the decades since this state of the union, the United States has had more people, per capita, locked away in prisons than any other country, while the sick economy of '72 is long forgotten as worse problems--and deficits--beset us. For one thing, we no longer live in a nation, but in a Homeland. In 1972, "roughly 80 percent of police work in the United States has to do with the regulation of our private morals. By that I mean controlling what we smoke, eat, put in our veins--not to mention trying to regulate with whom and how we have sex, with whom and how we gamble. As a result our police are among the most corrupt in the Western world."
I don't think this would get the same gasp today that it did back then. I point out police collusion with gamblers, drug dealers, prostitutes and, indeed, anyone whose sexual activities have been proscribed by a series of state legal codes that were--are--the scandal of what we like to call a free society. These codes are often defended because they are very old. For instance, the laws against sodomy go back 1,400 years to the Emperor Justinian, who felt that there should be such laws because, "as everyone knows," he declared, "sodomy is a principal cause of earthquake."
Sodomy gets the audience's attention. "Cynically, one might allow the police their kinky pleasures in busting boys and girls who attract them if they showed the slightest interest in the protection of persons and property, which is what we pay them to do." I then suggested that "we remove from the statute books all penalties that have to do with private morals--what are called 'victimless crimes.' If a man or a woman wants to be a prostitute, that is his or her affair. Certainly, it is no business of the state what we do with our bodies sexually. Obviously, laws will remain on the books for the prevention of rape and the abuse of children, while the virtue of our animal friends will continue to be protected by the SPCA." Relieved laughter at this point. He can't be serious--or is he?
I speak of legalizing gambling. Bingo players nod. Then: "All drugs should be legalized and sold at cost to anyone with a doctor's prescription." Most questions, later, are about this horrific proposal. Brainwashing on the subject begins early, insuring that a large crop of the coming generation will become drug addicts. Prohibition always has that effect, as we should have learned when we prohibited alcohol from 1919 to 1933; but, happily for the busy lunatics who rule over us, we are permanently the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing. The period of Prohibition called the "Noble Experiment" brought on the greatest breakdown of law and order that we have ever endured--until today, of course. Lesson? Do not regulate the private lives of people, because if you do they will become angry and antisocial, and they will get what they want from criminals, who work in perfect freedom because they know how to pay off the police.
What should be done about drug addiction? As of 1970, England was the model for us to emulate. With a population of 55 million people, they had only 1,800 heroin addicts. With our 200 million people we had nearly a half-million addicts. What were they doing right? For one thing, they turned the problem over to the doctors. Instead of treating the addict as a criminal, they required him to register with a physician, who then gives him, at controlled intervals, a prescription so that he can obtain his drug. Needless to say, our society, based as it is on a passion to punish others, could not bear so sensible a solution. We promptly leaned, as they say, on the British to criminalize the sale and consumption of drugs, and now the beautiful city of Edinburgh is one of the most drug-infested places in Europe. Another triumph for the American way.
I start to expand. "From the Drug Enforcement Administration to the FBI, we are afflicted with all sorts of secret police, busily spying on us. The FBI, since its founding, has generally steered clear of major crime like the Mafia. In fact, much of its time and energies have been devoted to spying on those Americans whose political beliefs did not please the late J. Edgar Hoover, a man who hated commies, blacks and women in, more or less, that order. But then the FBI has always been a collaborating tool of reactionary politicians. The bureau also has had a nasty talent for amusing Presidents with lurid dossiers on their political enemies." Now in the year 2004, when we have ceased to be a nation under law but instead a homeland where the withered Bill of Rights, like a dead trumpet vine, clings to our pseudo-Roman columns, Homeland Security appears to be uniting our secret police into a single sort of Gestapo with dossiers on everyone to prevent us, somehow or other, from being terrorized by various implacable Second and Third World enemies. Where there is no known Al Qaeda sort of threat, we create one, as in Iraq, whose leader, Saddam Hussein, had no connection with 9/11 or any other proven terrorism against the United States, making it necessary for a President to invent the lawless as well as evil (to use his Bible-based language) doctrine of pre-emptive war based on a sort of hunch that maybe one day some country might attack us, so, meanwhile, as he and his business associates covet their oil, we go to war, leveling their cities to be rebuilt by other business associates. Thus was our perpetual cold war turned hot.
My father, uncle and two stepbrothers graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point, where I was born in the cadet hospital. Although I was brought up by a political grandfather in Washington, DC, I was well immersed in the West Point ethos--Duty, Honor, Country--as was David Eisenhower, the President's grandson, whom I met years later. We exchanged notes on how difficult it was to free oneself from that world. "They never let go," I said. "It's like a family."
"No," he said, "it's a religion." Although neither of us attended the Point, each was born in the cadet hospital; each went to Exeter; each grew up listening to West Pointers gossip about one another as well as vent their political views, usually to the far right. At the time of the Second World War, many of them thought we were fighting the wrong side. We should be helping Hitler destroy Communism. Later, we could take care of him.
In general, they disliked politicians, Franklin Roosevelt most of all. There was also a degree of low-key anti-Semitism, while pre-World War II blacks were Ellisonian invisibles. Even so, in that great war, Duty and Honor served the country surprisingly well. Unfortunately, some served themselves well when Truman militarized the economy, providing all sorts of lucrative civilian employment for high-ranking officers. Yet it was Eisenhower himself who warned us in 1961 of the dangers of the "military-industrial complex." Unfortunately, no one seemed eager to control military spending, particularly after the Korean War, which we notoriously failed to win even though the cry "The Russians are coming!" was heard daily throughout the land. Propaganda necessary for Truman's military buildup was never questioned...particularly when demagogues like Senator McCarthy were destroying careers with reckless accusations that anyone able to read the[i] New York Times [/i]without moving his lips was a Communist. I touched, glancingly, on all this in Nixonian 1972, when the media, Corporate America and the highly peculiar President were creating as much terror in the populace as they could in order to build up a war machine that they thought would prevent a recurrence of the Great Depression, which had only ended in 1940 when FDR put billions into rearmament and we had full employment and prosperity for the first time in that generation.
I strike a few mildly optimistic notes. "We should have a national health service, something every civilized country in the world has. Also, improved public transport (trains!). Also, schools which do more than teach conformity. Also, a cleaning of the air, of the water, of the earth before we all die of the poisons set loose by a society based on greed." Enron, of course, is decades in the future, as are the American wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq.
In the end, we may offer Richard Nixon a debt of gratitude. I'm in a generous mood. "Through Nixon's awesome ineptitude we have seen revealed the political corruption of our society." (We had, of course, seen nothing yet!) What to do? I proposed that no candidate for any office be allowed to buy space on television or in any newspaper or other medium: "This will stop cold the present system, where Presidents and Congressmen are bought by corporations and even by foreign countries. To become President, you will not need thirty, forty, fifty million dollars to smear your opponents and present yourself falsely on TV commercials." Were the sums ever so tiny?
Instead, television (and the rest of the media) would be required by law to provide prime time (and space) for the various candidates.
"I would also propose a four-week election period as opposed to the current four-year marathon. Four weeks is more than enough time to present the issues. To show us the candidates in interviews, debates, uncontrolled encounters, in which we can see who the candidate really is, answering tough questions, his record up there for all to examine. This ought to get a better class into politics." As I reread this, I think of Arnold Schwarzenegger. I now add: Should the candidate happen to be a professional actor, a scene or two from Shakespeare might be required during the audition...I mean, the primary. Also, as a tribute to Ole Bell Fruit, who favors public executions of drug dealers, these should take place during prime time as the empire gallops into its Ben-Hur phase.
I must say, I am troubled by the way I responded to the audience's general hatred of government. I say we are the government. But I was being sophistical when I responded to their claims that our government is our enemy with that other cliché, you are the government. Unconsciously, I seem to have been avoiding the message that I got from one end of the country to the other: We hate this system that we are trapped in, but we don't know who has trapped us or how. We don't even know what our cage looks like because we have never seen it from the outside. Now, thirty-two years later, audiences still want to know who will let them out of the Enron-Pentagon prison with its socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor. So...welcome to Imperial America.
[b][i]Nation[/i] contributing editor Gore Vidal is a prolific novelist, playwright and essayist, and one of the great stylists of contemporary American prose. Author of more than two dozen books, his 1993 collected essays United States won a National Book Award. His latest book is Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta (Thunder's Mouth).[/b] - http://www.thenation.com/doc....
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| ... "Brutality and Purposeless Sadism" ... |
| 08.26.04 (10:54 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" must call for the dismissal of Rumsfeld and the impeachment of the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta [/i]for their heinous war crimes at Abu Ghraib ...[/b]
An independent investigative panel led by former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger and including another former defense secretary, Harold Brown, found that current Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is at least partially responsible for the torture that occurred in the Abu Ghraib prison between October and December 2003. Calling the 300 alleged instance of abuse[b] "brutality and purposeless sadism," [/b]the panel blamed the entire chain of top-level generals and military officials, including Rumsfeld, Gen. Tommy Franks and Gen. John P. Abizaid. "The aberrant behavior on the night shift in Cell Block 1 at Abu Ghraib would have been avoided with proper training, leadership and oversight," the report reads. SEE THE DOCUMENT: http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat...
The [i]Washington Post [/i]reports http://www.washingtonpost.com... : "Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's leadership of the Pentagon has been weighed by a jury of his peers and found somewhat wanting.
A report by a blue-ribbon panel he appointed to review the military establishment's role in creating and handling detainee abuse problems at Abu Ghraib prison said that the Iraq war plan he played a key role in shaping helped create the conditions that led to the scandal."
[b]Refer also to:[/b]
Abu Ghraib Cover-up Intensifies, http://www.tblog.com/template...
Rumsfeld--and Others--Must Go, http://www.tblog.com/template...
U.S. Army Report Links Rumsfeld-Bush-Cheney To HORRORS At Abu Ghraib: TIME TO GO!!!, http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| ... Without A Doubt ... |
| 08.25.04 (3:48 pm) [edit] |
"To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man." - [i]Oliver Wendell Holmes[/i]
"The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to the question, and by seeking we may come upon the truth." - [i]Pierre Abelard[/i]
"To deny, to believe, and to doubt absolutely -- this is for man what running is for a horse." - [i]Blaise Pascal[/i]
[b]Doubt is a healthy quality ... To have no doubt-- to fail to ask the right questions-- to refuse to acknowledge mistakes-- to have complete certainty without a recognition of the complexities of life-- these are all highly dangerous qualities and they are absolutely lethal in a leader whose lack of ability to think deeply will lead his/her nation on a path to chaos ... "We the People" have been saddled with an incompetent, corrupt and foolish man who lives without a doubt in his mediocre http://www.tblog.com/template... head ... http://www.thecrimson.com/art... http://www.newstarget.com/001... ... [/b]
[b][u]The Man Without Doubt: George W. Bush[/u]
Almost a thousand American troops have died, and No WMD have been found in Iraq; but President Bush still has “no doubt” that his war was a good idea. Sometimes doubt is a good thing[/b].
Consider these statements made by the Bush Administration:
• “Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”-- [i]President George W. Bush, 3/6/03[/i]
• “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.”-- [i]Dick Cheney, Speech to VFW National Convention, 8/26/02[/i]
• “We know where they [the WMDs] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat.”-- [i]Donald Rumsfeld, ABC interview, 3/30/03[/i]
• “…every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. ... Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent.”-- [i]Secretary of State Colin Powell, at the UN, 2/5/03[/i]
• “The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it.”-- [i]White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer, 12/5/02[/i]
• “I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming.”-- [i]Colin Powell, remarks to reporters, May 4, 2003[/i]
• “Saddam Hussein is not disarming. This is a fact. It cannot be denied.”-- [i]President Bush, News conference, 3/6/03[/i]
• “We know for a fact that there are weapons there.”-- [i]White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, press briefing, 1/9/03[/i]
• “We based our decisions on good, sound intelligence, and the — our people are going to find out the truth. And the truth will say that this intelligence was good intelligence. There's no doubt in my mind.”-- [i]President George W. Bush, 7/17/03[/i]
These statements have two things in common. First, they were presented to the American people as absolute fact. They didn’t say, “we think”, “we believe”, or “it is possible”—they presented these statements as absolute facts. The second thing they have in common is that they now appear to be absolutely false. No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, even though soldiers’ lives and millions of taxpayer dollars have been squandered searching for them.
Despite that, the Bush Administration refused to admit they were wrong. All they did was modify their mis-statements of fact. “Weapons of Mass Destruction” became “Weapons programs”, then, “Weapon Program Related Activities”, and finally, “Saddam had bad intentions”.
Even though they have been wrong about almost everything in Iraq, the Bush Administration still operates under the delusion that they are always right.
• “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”--[i] Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), British Philosopher and Essayist[/i]
• “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.”-- [i]Voltaire, letter to Frederick II, 1767[/i]
• “Analysts and policy makers alike tend to interpret information to support their own viewpoints.”-- [i]Dean Rusk, “As I Saw It”, 1990[/i]
• “Reality cannot be ignored except at a price; and the longer the ignorance is persisted in, the higher and the more terrible becomes the price that must be paid.”-- [i]Aldous Huxley, “Vendanta for the Western World”, 1945[/i]
John Kerry has been called indecisive because he refuses to answer complex questions with “sound bite” sized statements; while Bush is considered bold and decisive because he has a simple-minded answer for everything. It is easy to be decisive when your decisions are preordained by the NeoCon agenda, because no thought or deliberation is unnecessary.
• “From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go. Going after Saddam was topic "A" ten days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.”-- [i]Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, CBS’ 60 Minutes, 1/11/04[/i]
• “All too often…intelligence estimates tell us more about interests and foreign policy preferences of powerful groups in government than it does about what the other side’s intentions and capabilities are.”-- [i]Robert Jervis, “Intelligence and Foreign Policy”, International Security, Winter 86-87[/i]
There were plenty of people expressing doubts about Iraq’s military capabilities, but the Bush Administration refused to listen. That is why America is in such a deadly mess in Iraq today.
• “This (Bush) administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts.”-- [i]Conservative columnist George Will, Washington Post, 5/4/04[/i]
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| ... Do You Hear What I Hear??? ... |
| 08.25.04 (12:21 pm) [edit] |
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]neo-con operatives are [i]out-in-force [/i]spreading mendacious mis-quotations that do not accurately reflect what John F. Kerry is[i] actually [/i]saying ... "We the People" should be wary of such vile, "dishonest & dishonorable" neo-fascist tactics used to [i]mis-represent [/i]John F. Kerry's positions ... Take the time to read Dana Milbank's excellent article in the [i]Washington Post [/i]on http://www.washingtonpost.com... ...[/b]
"Bush operatives constantly whine about the media, but Bush is benefiting from the mock sophistication of journalists who, striking a world-weary stance, say of his campaign dishonesty, 'It was ever thus in American politics.' Even if that were true, it would be no excuse, and it isn't true. This is extraordinary ... serious people flinch from being associated with the intellectual slum that is the Bush campaign, with its riffraff of liars and aspiring ayatollahs."
Those are the words, http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk... it may surprise you to learn, of George Will, writing on August 26th, 1992, writing of course about the campaign of the president's father.
The whole column merits reading in full -- and not simply because of the irony that Will was saying of that Bush campaign what many Democrats are now saying about his son's campaign. It's more than that. You have the same tactics, the same people, even the same criticisms in many cases -- ones which the campaign makes no effort to defend as being accurate but nonetheless insists it will keep repeating.
Read this passage from Will's piece and then stop by the Bush Jr. website http://www.georgewbush.com/Ke... and see that that's the message of the day in late August this year too ...
[i]Soon Bill Clinton will have to say to Bush what Dole publicly said to Bush in 1988: "Stop lying about my record." Bush says Clinton has raised taxes 128 times. Bush says this even though columnist Michael Kinsley has demonstrated that the list of "tax increases" is a tissue of falsehoods. (Some taxes are counted several times; components of a tax are counted as separate taxes; minor fees, such as the $ 1 court cost imposed on convicted criminals, are counted as taxes.) By the tendentious criteria used by the Bush campaign, Bush has raised taxes more often in four years than Clinton has in 12.
So, what does Teeter say of the 128 number? "We're not going to quit saying it about Mr. Clinton[/i]."
Here's the new version, for Senator Kerry.
[i]John Kerry promises not to raise taxes, but the reality is that he has cast 98 votes for tax increases, including voting ten times to raise gas taxes on the middle class. Kerry points to the largest tax increase in American history as the blueprint for his economic plan, which advisor Bob Rubin says Kerry won't reveal until elected. Kerry's credibility problem is only expanding as more and more Americans see the gap between what Kerry says and what Kerry does[/i].
Same stuff. Same indifference to saying things that are even remotely true. And at least till now, the same playing most of the press for chumps.
Of course, twelve years ago it took till August 26th for George Will to lower the boom. But perhaps the tide is starting to turn. Here, from Dana Milbank in yesterday's [i]Washington Post[/i], is a list of half a dozen quotes http://www.washingtonpost.com... from Kerry and how either President Bush or Vice President Cheney have distorted them out of all recognition on the campaign trail recently.
[b]Here's a sample ...[/b]
"Every performer tonight in their own way, either verbally or through their music, through their lyrics, have conveyed to you the heart and soul of our country." -- Kerry, July 8
"The other day, my opponent said he thought you could find the heart and soul of America in Hollywood." -- Bush, Aug. 18
[b]And of course, there are several more examples http://www.washingtonpost.com... for your reading pleasure ...[/b]
[b]Sources:[/b]
Joshua Micah Marshall, TalkingPointsMemo, http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
Do You Hear What I Hear?, Dana Milbank, http://www.washingtonpost.com...
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| ... Why Credibility Matters ... |
| 08.25.04 (11:21 am) [edit] |
[b]The insane neo-con, neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] mantra of "you're either with us or against us" is dangerously stupid and just plain dangerous ... Co-operation and good-will is absolutely necessary in a complex world ... "We the People" have been placed in greater danger than ever before by the despotic and corrupt Bush regime who has treated the world community with contemptuous disregard and whose word is no longer trusted ...[/b]
Our credibility at home and abroad has never been lower. With no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, horrific abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, and no foreseeable end game for the U.S. in Iraq, most are hesitant to trust the Bush administration. A June 2004 poll by[i] CBS News [/i]and[i] The New York Times [/i]reported that 79 percent of the national adult population believed that Bush was either hiding something or completely lying in his statements about the war. The story abroad is hardly better. In a March 2004 [i]Pew survey[/i] http://people-press.org/repor... of European and Middle Eastern countries, a majority in seven of the eight nations surveyed believed U.S. and British leaders lied about the Iraq war.
Why is credibility so important? The conventional wisdom focuses on credibility for credibility's sake, but misses the real point: the war on terrorism cannot be won if the rest of the world mistrusts the United States.
At the start of the war on terrorism, the Bush administration sent a clear message to the world's nations: "You're either with us, or against us." After three years, it appears that far too few are with us. While America must always stand up for itself, we can neither protect nor defend ourselves if we continue to go it alone. Without meaningful and sustained international cooperation, we can neither fight terrorism effectively nor win. Here's why:
[b]... Securing the world's ports. [/b] The Container Security Initiative (CSI) is designed to place customs inspectors in ports worldwide in order to pre-screen 70 percent of U.S.-bound cargo. Only a few of the 20 planned ports worldwide have entered the program. The current list of CSI participants is heavy on ports in Europe and Asia, but lacks any ports in the Middle East and includes only one in Africa. The United States needs to work with the entire international community to quickly expand this program to reduce the huge vulnerability of the world's ports.
[b]... Controlling proliferation.[/b] The Aspen Strategy Group recently concluded that the threat of a nuclear attack is much greater than the public realizes http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... . Only eleven nations have committed to a version of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), http://usinfo.state.gov/produ... aimed at stopping shipments of weapons of mass destruction worldwide. The 9/11 Commission called for participation in PSI to be extended to non-NATO countries, specifically Russia and China. To interdict a ship, the United States must secure permission from the flag state of the vessel in question or the state whose coastal waters are being used for navigation. Otherwise, a United Nations Security Council resolution is needed. U.S. credibility is key to convincing more nations, particularly those in Africa and the Middle East, to participate in the PSI or to gain support within the Security Council.
[b]... Rooting out terrorists.[/b] The war on terrorism involves not only preventing terrorist attacks before they occur, but also rooting out terrorist sanctuaries around the world. The 9/11 Commission Report http://www.9-11commission.gov... writes that the United States must "reach out, listen to, and work with other countries that can help." While the administration has formed a relationship with Pakistan, it must also work with other weak states that are havens for terrorists, such as Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia .
[b]... Disrupting terrorist financial networks.[/b] Small amounts of money can fund devastating attacks. Since 9/11, $200 million http://www.cfr.org/campaign20...://www.cfr.org/campaign2004/pub6954/ george_bush/speech_on_the _patriot_act.php?issue=11 in terrorist assets has been seized, mostly from abroad, but the seizure rate has dramatically slowed. A new multilateral initiative led by the United States is needed. According to the 9/11 Commission, "multilateral freezing mechanisms now require waiting periods before being put into effect, eliminating the element of surprise and thus virtually ensuring that little money is actually frozen." As a result, "worldwide asset freezes have not been adequately enforced and have been easily circumvented."
[b]... Breaking up terrorist communications. [/b] Terrorists continue to use both low- and high-tech communications. http://www.news-leader.com/to... Recent raids by Pakistan unearthed the information that terrorists had been monitoring U.S. financial institutions. The United States needs intelligence from other nations. Monitoring Osama bin Laden's low-tech means of communicating from hiding – such as putting a message on the back of a donkey – requires knowledge from other nations.
[b]... Sharing the burden.[/b] The United States currently has 19,000 troops in Afghanistan, but NATO's International Security Force Assistance is providing only 6,536, including contributions from the United States. In Iraq, the U.S. has received little international help in footing the $144.4 billion bill. The less credibility the United States has, the less the international community will want to work with us, and the more we will have to pay.
The president states, "We are fighting this evil [terrorism] in Iraq so we do not have to fight it on the streets of our own cities." http://www.heritage.org/Resea... But every day, we do have to fight it in our own cities, as well as in Afghanistan, Syria, the Philippines, Algeria, and Indonesia. We cannot go it alone. Cooperation matters and we need our credibility intact to secure it.
[b]Source:[/b]
Michael Pan is a senior policy analyst for national security and international policy and Amanda Terkel is a researcher at the [i]Center for American Progress[/i]. - http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| ... John F. Kerry Wins Backing from Nobel Economics Laureates ... |
| 08.25.04 (9:25 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" should pay close attention to what Nobel Prize winning economists are saying about our economy, for our nation is at dire risk from the recklessness and ruthlessness of the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] ... Refer to "Bush Plays Humpty Dumpty with Prosperity" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ...[/b]
John Kerry won the endorsement of 10 Nobel Prize-winning economists on Wednesday as he attacked President Bush for policies that he said have led to the creation of only low-paying jobs.
The Democratic presidential nominee released a letter from the economists saying the Bush administration had "embarked on a reckless and extreme course that endangers the long-term economic health of our nation."
They cited "poorly designed" tax cuts that instead of creating jobs have turned budget surpluses into enormous budget deficits, a "fiscal irresponsibility threatens the long-term economic security and prosperity of our nation."
The endorsement, in the form of an open letter American voters, was signed by George Akerlof and Daniel McFadden of the University of California at Berkeley, Kenneth Arrow and William Sharpe of Stanford University, Daniel Kahneman of Princeton University, Lawrence Klein of the University of Pennsylvania, Douglass North of Washington University, Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow of MIT and Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University.
Kerry, in remarks prepared for an appearance in Philadelphia, called for "jobs that don't just let you survive but let you get ahead. Jobs that let you pay your bills, send your kids to college, buy a house, save a little for retirement and go out to dinner or a movie every once in a while."
Now, he said, good jobs are being replaced "with ones that just don't pay the bills," -- 1.8 million private sector jobs lost replaced by ones that pay $9,000 less and are more likely to be temporary less likely to offer health insurance.
Kerry hammered on the jobs issue in his neck-and-neck race for the Nov. 2 election with Bush after days of focus on criticism about his Vietnam war record.
In an appearance in Philadelphia Tuesday night the decorated veteran who became one of the conflict's leading critics firmly defended his opposition to the war.
Voters "can judge my character" by his Vietnam record, the Massachusetts senator said, "Because when the times of moral crisis existed in this country, I wasn't taking care of myself. I was taking care of public policy. I was taking care of things that made a difference to the life of this nation."
He said he served in Vietnam for two tours -- longer than opponents allege -- and the Navy "thought enough of my service that they made me an aide to an admiral."
Aides said his total service was about six months, including four months and 10 days in country and several weeks on a ship off the coast.
He was awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts.
"The Navy 35 years ago made the awards that it made through the normal process. I'm proud of them and I'm of my service and I'm proud that I stood up against the war when I got home because it was the right thing to do," he added.
The controversy over how Kerry won his medals in that war 35 years ago has recently stolen the spotlight in the race for the White House as both candidates try to portray themselves as best able to lead the United States in its global anti-terror war.
Some veterans, some with ties to the Republican Party and Bush allies, have called Kerry's courage into question and disputed the circumstances under which he received his medals.
But other veterans -- with direct knowledge of events -- have backed him up.
Bush's record during the Vietnam war has also drawn criticism from some Democrats who accuse him of going absent without leave from the Texas Air National Guard, citing gaps in his service record. Bush did not serve in Vietnam. - http://www.commondreams.org/h...
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| ... Defending Liberty ... |
| 08.25.04 (7:49 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" now face the most important presidential election of our generation and we must extricate ourselves from the neo-con, neo-fascist grip of the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]for our nation's sake ...
[u]Defending Liberty[/u]
by Robert C. Byrd [/b]
The Constitution of the United States of America is sheer genius captured on parchment. The delicate balance of authority -- the system of checks and balances and separation of powers -- has served as the foundation for our liberties, providing for the flexibility needed to accommodate two centuries of change and growth while also inspiring people around the world to strive for liberty.
The Constitution is designed, as Chief Justice John Marshall observed, "to endure for ages to come." But our national charter is being threatened as never before by reckless disregard for its wisdom.
Especially since Sept. 11, 2001, I have viewed with increasing alarm the erosion of the people's liberties at the hand of an overreaching executive and a less than vigilant Congress. This White House wraps itself in the garb of patriotism while running roughshod over the very ideals for which the first American patriots sacrificed. A concentrated, manipulative and ruthless grasp for power by an arrogant executive which eschews the need to answer questions, seek counsel or build consensus is a dangerous phenomenon, especially in these troubled times.
This Bush administration preys on fear, twists the truth and relies on extreme secrecy in an unprecedented display of contempt for the American people.
Let President Bush speak for himself. "I'm the commander," he told journalist Bob Woodward for the book, Bush at War. "See, I don't need to explain -- I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
In this country, the people are sovereign. The first three words of the preamble to the Constitution are "We the people." The people are always owed an explanation by those who serve them. For any public servant to believe otherwise is arrogant in the extreme and can be costly at home and abroad.
Consider the cornerstone of Mr. Bush's foreign policy -- the doctrine of pre-emption, the first-strike war. This doctrine is unconstitutional. It cuts the people's representatives -- the Congress -- completely out of decisions to send Americans to fight and die.
Look to Iraq, the first testing ground for this radical doctrine. America is not safer because of Mr. Bush's war.
Instead, we have forged a cauldron of contempt for America, a dangerous brew that may have poisoned efforts at peace throughout the Middle East and, indeed, the world, while giving rise to generations of young people who now hate America for its aggression and for shameful debacles like the horrors at Abu Ghraib. We have squandered the goodwill of the world. Such has been the price of the Bush doctrine of pre-emption.
A weak Congress buckled in its vote to authorize force in Iraq. The country was misled by an administration that waved the bloody shirt of 9/11 then subtly shifted the blame to Saddam Hussein, despite the fact that there exists no demonstrable link between the two.
The White House propaganda machine convinced the country and Congress that it was unpatriotic to question the president; that it was damaging to our troops to question the war; and that it now serves no purpose to rehash the events that took us to war. But we must learn from an examination of the sad mistakes that have been made. Nearly 1,000 Americans have died in Iraq. No president must ever again be granted such license with our troops and our treasure.
Each generation of Americans has the responsibility to renew the framer's legacy, and to make this nation shine as a lasting beacon of hope for the world. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." We must reacquaint ourselves with the Constitution and forge new links with our history. Congress must reinvigorate its defense of the people's liberties. Amid the sound and fury of election-year politics, all of us must take a long, hard look at the kind of country we want to leave to our children.
[b]Robert C. Byrd, the senior Democratic senator from West Virginia, is the author of [i]Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency[/i] http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob... (W.W. Norton & Co.) [/b] - http://www.commondreams.org/v...
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| Bush is Unfit to be President: Iraq is Going to Fall into Chaos ... |
| 08.24.04 (3:55 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" must hold Bush accountable for his disastrous failure in Iraq ... [/b]Bush/Cheney's neo-con neo-fascists fabricated traitorous lies, deceptions and falsehoods to lead us into their illegal and immoral incursion into Iraq in order to enrich Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.; grab oil; and control the Middle East ... Moreover, the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] Iraq War for War-Profiteering is a bloody fiasco with Iraq falling into chaos and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis massacred-- many innocent Iraqi men, women and children murdered, tortured, raped, sodomized and brutally abused under Bush's command-- and, nearly 1000 US soldiers have been slaughtered mercilessly while the vile, un-American Bush Crime Family gets filthy rich ... [b]This is unacceptable ...[/b]
[b]''The Iraqi National Conference: Legitimation Failure''[/b]
The Iraqi National Conference, which concluded on August 18, was meant to bestow legitimacy on the transitional regime by providing broader representation in state institutions and a check on the power of the executive. It did not achieve its objectives and has, instead, widened and deepened the crazy quilt of political fractures in Iraqi society, sharpening divisions, increasing the probability of intensified conflict and drawing the country closer to the stark alternatives of Middle Eastern-style dictatorship and separation into mini-states.
The major business of the Conference was the election of an Interim National Council with 100 members, 19 of whom had been pre-selected from members of the governing council that had been set up by the occupation's Coalition Provisional Authority and who had been excluded from the transitional government. In order to enhance the legitimacy of the transitional government, the Conference would have had to elect a Council representative of Iraq's political forces, especially those outside the exile parties that have thus far controlled the transition. Those outside forces are divided into Sunni and Shi'a Arab rejectionists who oppose and will not participate in the transitional institutions, and smaller parties, civil society groups, ethnic and religious minorities, tribal leaders and independents that seek a greater role in the transition.
That the Conference would not be fully or even significantly representative was assured by the refusal of the rejectionists -- most notably, Moqtada al-Sadr's Shi'a movement and the Sunni Muslim Scholar's Association -- to participate. At most, the Conference could make a place for the many groups in Iraqi society that desire to participate in a peaceful transition to general elections. Their inclusion would have signaled that interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's regime was serious about democratization, enhancing the legitimacy of the transitional government in the sectors of Iraqi society that are still opposed to the rejectionists, but are skeptical about the occupation and suspect Allawi of being beholden to American interests.
Rather than moving towards inclusion, the parties that have controlled the transition opted to shape the Council in their image, creating a body that will work in tandem with the Allawi regime rather than holding it accountable. Their choice consolidates their power in the short run, but has alienated the forces that have desired to play a part in the transition and has increased the likelihood that the sectors of Iraqi society that are skeptical of the transitional regime will be driven in the direction of rejectionism.
In retrospect, the Conference was a bid for power by the Allawi regime and its coalition of factions that took place on two fronts. Outside the meeting, held in the heavily fortified Green Zone, Allawi and his American backers initiated military action in Najaf, where al-Sadr's Mehdi Army had set up positions in the Imam Ali Mosque -- Shi'a Islam's most sacred site. The aim of the operation was to crush the core of the Shi'a insurgency against the transitional government, while the Conference was going on. Inside the meeting, Allawi's coalition moved to override the opposition to its list of candidates for the Council. The transitional government's two-pronged attack to eliminate both military and peaceful opposition has had problematic results that indicate the lack of even the most tenuous consensus in Iraqi society on the country's political future.
[b]Najaf[/b]
From its outset, the Conference was overshadowed in the world news cycles by the confrontation in Najaf between the transitional government, spearheaded by American military forces, and the Mehdi Army. The decision to bring coercive pressure to bear on al-Sadr's movement in order to drive the Mehdi Army out of the Imam Ali Mosque and disarm it came on the first day of the Conference when the government broke off negotiations with al-Sadr that were aimed at ending the rebellion that he initiated on August 4 and bringing his movement into the transitional process.
The government claimed that it had withdrawn from the talks because they were not yielding progress, whereas al-Sadr said that a deal was close to being reached, with only some details to iron out. Whichever side was correct, it is clear that the government did not have to break off the talks abruptly and could have waited until the Conference concluded.
Several factors have been reported that entered into the decision to substitute confrontation for negotiation. The United States was pressing Allawi to adopt a military solution and dispose of Shi'a rejectionism, which, in an insurgent phase, was exposing U.S.-led coalition forces to deadly attack and was threatening the transition itself. The two most powerful members of the United States Senate's Foreign Relations Committee -- Republican Richard Lugar and Democrat Joseph Biden -- had publicly urged Allawi to suppress the Mehdi Army, indicating a bipartisan consensus on a coercive strategy. Allawi was also determined for his own interest to suppress the most serious threat to his regime -- any legitimacy that he might hope to achieve depends upon his providing at least a semblance of order to Iraq. Finally, Allawi and his coalition of exile parties might not have wanted a spotlight shown on a Conference that they were determined to control.
When the Conference was convened, its working program of discussions aimed at achieving a broadly representative consensus list of candidates for the Council was immediately scrapped and the proceedings were diverted to the Najaf crisis. Despite pleas by the Conference's organizers, representing the parties forming the transitional government, to stay with the program, the Shi'ite Political Council, which had helped calm an earlier rebellion by the Mehdi Army, threatened to walk out of the Conference unless negotiations with al-Sadr were restarted and military action against the Mehdi Army was suspended. The organizers acceded, due to the negative effects that a walk out would have had on the Conference's legitimacy and the sentiment among many delegates that the Conference would be a travesty if it was held in the context of civil war.
Whether or not the Conference organizers were sincere in their initial insistence that the Conference proceed with its scheduled work, the diversion of the proceedings to the Najaf crisis stopped any attempt at consensus building on the composition of the Council in its tracks. The second day of the Conference was taken up with debates over how it could play a role in defusing the confrontation. Anti-regime tendencies wanted the Conference to insist that Allawi withdraw military forces and enter negotiations with al-Sadr, pro-regime delegates backed Allawi's hard line, and moderates urged that the Conference intervene directly and send a mission to Najaf to persuade al-Sadr to stand down.
The moderates won, providing a brief possibility that the Conference could pave the way for an autonomous legislative body that would act independently of the transitional executive. The final plan, however, was to present al-Sadr with a non-negotiable proposal for his forces to leave the Mosque and disarm, in return for safe conduct and the opportunity to form a peaceful political movement. Although the proposal fell short of Allawi's maximum aims, he accepted it.
The Conference's third day, which was supposed to be devoted to electing the Council, was instead taken up with the fate of a delegation of eight Conference members who were to present the proposal to al-Sadr in Najaf. Al-Sadr refused to meet with them, citing security concerns stemming from fighting in the neighborhood of the Mosque, but his representatives were encouraging to the Council delegation.
By the time the delegation's mission was concluded, it was too late to elect delegates and the Conference was extended for another day.
On the Conference's fourth day, al-Sadr accepted the proposal to stand down, but it was not clear that the crisis had been resolved, since he quickly announced conditions, including the withdrawal of American forces from Najaf and a guarantee that the Mosque would be placed under the control of Shi'a clerics. The next day al-Sadr adopted a confrontational stance and the situation returned to what it had been before the Conference's attempt at a peaceful solution, with the government threatening to take the Mosque by force and al-Sadr vowing that he would resist and, if necessary, take the path of martyrdom. The Conference had failed to play a constructive role in resolving the Najaf crisis.
[b]Choosing the Council[/b]
With the attention of the Conference focused on Najaf for its first three days, there was no time for the intensive process of consensus building that had been envisioned by its American architects in the Coalition Provisional Authority and that was necessary to achieve its legitimacy and the legitimacy of the Council that it would elect. The way was open for the forces in the transitional government to craft the Council in its image.
Even before the Conference convened, its legitimacy had been severely questioned. Its opening had been delayed for two weeks by the United Nations, which objected to its lack of inclusiveness and sought to broaden representation of groups outside the transitional government. In the days before the Conference met, there were still persistent claims by small parties, civil society groups and tribes that the process for selecting delegates was not transparent and was controlled by the parties in the regime coalition. Nonetheless, of the 1300 delegates finally chosen, between one-third and one-half were not affiliated with the regime.
The major divide in the Conference was between pro-regime forces who desired a Council controlled by them that would cooperate with the transitional government, and non-regime tendencies that pushed for a Council that would function as an independent parliament that would serve as an overseer and a check on the transitional executive.
The conflict played out as a procedural struggle over how the Council would be elected. Originally, there were to have been broad discussions among the delegates that would result in a single list of candidates and would be voted in by a two-thirds majority. As the possibility for consensus building vanished due to the Najaf distraction, the non-regime tendencies argued for open voting by the entire Conference on prospective candidates, in order to avoid a list imposed on them by the pro-regime elements whom they suspected of having pre-selected candidates before the Conference began. A compromise was reached on the third day that a list dominated by the regime partners would be contested by a slate drawn up by the non-regime tendencies, and that the list gaining a simple majority would compose the Council. The compromise was effected only after 450 delegates threatened to walk out unless there would be competing lists.
The non-regime forces succeeded in making up a list, despite time constraints, lack of organizational experience and diverse interests, but then abruptly withdrew it. One of the leading non-regime figures at the Conference -- Aziz al-Yasseri, head of the Iraqi Democratic Movement -- explained that the non-regime list was withdrawn in order to deprive the pro-regime list of legitimacy. The non-regime bloc had concluded that the Conference had been too stacked by parties allied to the regime to allow for broader representation. As a result, 300 delegates are reported to have withdrawn from the Conference, at which point the Conference organizers quickly declared the pro-regime list the winner without taking a vote, prompting widespread expressions of dissent and dissatisfaction, and a walk out by the Shi'a delegation from Basra. The pro-regime elements had engineered a formal victory, at the cost of their legitimacy.
[b]Conclusion[/b]
The course of the Iraqi National Conference symbolizes the present state of Iraqi politics, which is becoming increasingly a polar struggle between the transitional government and the rejectionists. The Conference had provided the possibility for broader representation and with it increased legitimacy for the transitional institutions, but the regime and its allies chose to keep those institutions in their own hands with the apparent backing of the United States. As a result, Allawi will work with a compliant Council and can be expected to continue with his policy of confrontation with the rejectionists who will persist in their intransigence. Allawi will attempt to consolidate his power in state institutions, driving the United States to depend on him as its only recourse and encouraging a drift toward a dictatorship threatened increasingly by separatism.
Rather than enhancing the legitimacy of transitional institutions, the Conference diminished it. Sectors of Iraqi society that support neither the regime nor the Sunni and Shi'a Arab insurgencies have been cut out of their only chance to pursue their interests peacefully and institutionally. Their confidence in the planned open elections has been compromised. Excluded from the transitional process, they will be increasingly alienated from the regime, less willing to support it against its militant foes and more likely to place themselves with separatist tendencies.
[i][b]Report Drafted By:[/b][/i]
Dr. Michael A. Weinstein
[b]The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an analysis-based publication that seeks to, as objectively as possible, provide insight into various conflicts, regions and points of interest around the globe. PINR approaches a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader. This report may not be reproduced, reprinted or broadcast without the written permission of inquiries@pinr.com. All comments should be directed to content@pinr.com.[/b] - http://www.pinr.com/report.ph...
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| ... Bush/Cheney Inc. On The "Real" Issues [sic]??? ... |
| 08.24.04 (1:57 pm) [edit] |
[b]Surely "We the People" deserve better than the mendacious Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]despotic lies, deceptions and falsehoods ... Don't we deserve a serious discussion of their neo-con war policies and neo-fascist economic agenda on behalf of corporations and the wealthiest among us,[i] and [/i]the harm they are doing to America??? ... [/b]
[b]Leave it to [i]Knight Ridder [/i]to actually get [i]this one [/i]right ...[/b]
... "[u]Headline[/u]: Bush criticizes ads by outside groups
Washington - President Bush sought Monday to distance himself from ads attacking Sen. John Kerry's war record and suggested that voters "should be looking forward, not backward."
But he didn't directly condemn the ads, and the controversy over Kerry's service in Vietnam showed no signs of abating." ...
See the rest of the piece here http://www.ledger-enquirer.co... ...
[b]Okay, I think we've got the winner for the most inane Bush-Swift Boat headline.[/b]
From the Bloomington, [i]Indiana Herald Times[/i]: "Bush calls anti-Kerry ad 'false and libelous." http://www.heraldtimesonline....
Great work, guys.
Tomorrow in the [i]Winfield Crier[/i]: "Bush: I Hate the Swift Boat Guys. End Ads Now!"
Thursday in the [i]Podunk Sentinel[/i]: "Bush: I Was on The Boat with Kerry."
Friday in the [i]Lumpville Courier[/i]: "Bush Breaks Silence: Kerry Saved My Life in 'Nam." - http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
[b]Will the neo-con, neo-fascist propaganda never cease??? ... When will the corrupt Bush regime get back to the [i]real[/i] issues??? ... Of course, did they ever discuss the[i] real [/i]issues with us, or were they simply imposed neo-imperial style??? ...[/b]
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