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The Problem Is At the Top

05.31.04 (8:04 am) [edit]

There’s a simple ceremony in this ocean town on Memorial Day. People gather in the morning in the town square, taps are played, there’s a gun salute and then there’s a short walk to the beach, a block away. To honor the naval dead, flowers are placed in a row boat, they’re taken out to sea, right past where the waves are breaking, and tossed into the water.

Not all that far from here, young men and women are coming home from Iraq to the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. What sticks in my mind is an article that ran last Monday in The Philadelphia Inquirer about the mortuary chaplain at the base, Lt. Col. John W. Groth.

“After 14 straight months on the job, Groth still can hardly bear the sight of young men and women torn to pieces,” reported Inquirer writer Tom Infield. “But what upsets him most is the body that doesn’t have a mark on it, as if the soldier or Marine had just fallen asleep.”

Groth, an Air Force reservist and Presbyterian minister, explained: “You should be able to walk over, snap your fingers, and say: ‘Wake up.’ But, obviously, you can’t. For me, personally, that’s harder – because you think: ‘Why did this happen?’”

Why did it happen? Because of bad intelligence, because of exaggerations about the threat from Iraq, because we missed the clues before 9-11, and because, once we invaded, we went in too light with not enough troops, not enough equipment, too few allies and no real planning about how to handle things in the “post-war” period – and because of yet another domino theory, this time saying that a new and improved Iraq would send the winds of change blowing throughout the entire Middle East.

As of last week, 84 bodies had arrived at the Dover base from Afghanistan and over 700 from Iraq, in addition to the remains of the 188 people who were killed at the Pentagon in the 9-11 attack. The bodies arrive in what the military now calls “transfer cases.” No cameras are allowed. “After being unloaded from cargo planes, remains are scanned by an X-ray machine to make sure they carry no unexploded shells,” reports Infield. Following the X-rays, autopsies are done to give the military information of what kind of damage is done by various types of bombs and bullets, and to provide information on how body armor might be improved.

Once this processing is completed, the soldiers are dressed in “a crisp new uniform with medals gleaming” – unless the bodies have been too blown apart. “Mangled bodies,” explains Infield, “may have to be wrapped in plastic, with uniforms laid on top.”

Groth’s job is to keep everyone sane, including himself. Especially hard, he says, is the handling of a soldier’s personal effects – a wallet with photos of his girlfriend or wife, his mother’s picture, a ring, a watch. “They will break into crying at a moment’s notice,” says Groth about the new workers at the mortuary, “and they’re not sure why.”

Other troops, more lucky, are coming home to be jailed. They’re supposed to be part of the solution to what went wrong at Abu Ghraib prison. The second part of the solution is an order from Defense Secretary Rumsfeld that bans digital cameras, camcorders and mobile phones fitted with cameras from all U.S. military compounds in Iraq. The third part, as proposed last week by President Bush, calls for knocking the prison down, an answer that seems to suggest that President Nixon might well have come out a winner if only he’d have dispatched a few bulldozers to the Watergate.

What’s wrong with blaming a few Army reservists for Abu Ghraib is that it pretends that Major General Geoffrey Miller, the head of interrogation at Guantanamo, wasn’t summonded to Baghdad last year to teach U.S. commanders in Iraq a few new tricks of the trade. It pretends that the Bush administration didn’t decide, long before Army Pfc. Lynndie England put anyone on a leash, that captured members of alleged terrorist networks and other alleged evildoers and “dead-enders” weren’t eligible for the protection of the Geneva Conventions.

In all of this, at both Abu Ghraib and Dover, the problem is at the top and those at the bottom are paying the price. - http://www.antiwar.com/orig/r...

The Problem Is At the Top

05.31.04 (8:03 am) [edit]

Bush's Fiasco in Iraq Spins Out-of-Control: Sovereignty, Schmovereignty...

05.31.04 (7:58 am) [edit]

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The top U.S. civilian administrator for Iraq ordered the Iraqi Governing Council yesterday to delay nominating a president for a caretaker government that will take power in July.

Paul Bremer, who heads the Coalition Provisional Authority, personally intervened when the council was on the verge of holding a vote to ratify its choice, Ghazi Ajil Yawer, a young tribal leader critical of the U.S. occupation.

Bremer and U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi support former Iraqi Foreign Minister Adnan Pachachi for the largely ceremonial post and apparently did not want the council to hand them a potential fait accompli.

"Bremer came in and read them the riot act," a Governing Council aide said.

Ala Hashimi, a member of the Dawa Party, who was present at yesterday's meeting, said: "Bremer interfered and postponed the vote until (today)."

Bremer and Brahimi are trying to exert control over an unwieldy process in which individuals and parties represented on the U.S.-backed Governing Council are jostling for posts. The process has sparked a constant shuffling of candidates for posts as leaders of various groups attempt to secure the best deal for themselves and their constituents.

U.S. officials were taken aback Friday when council members nominated one of their own, Iyad Allawi, to the post of prime minister. Allawi is a Shiite and a former Baath Party member with close ties to the CIA. He also headed a group of exiled Iraqis who opposed Saddam Hussein.

Occupation authorities denied yesterday that they were applying pressure to the Governing Council. "We have not been leaning on anybody to support one president over another," said Dan Senor, a spokesman for the coalition. "Under international law, we have the ultimate authority for what happens in Iraq. We are the occupational power."

Despite the disagreements between Bremer and the Governing Council, it appeared possible that a government could be named as early as today.

The Governing Council will be dissolved after members of the caretaker government are announced. Although the new government will not hold power until July 1, they will be expected to help decide key issues such as the status of U.S. troops in Iraq and plans for renegotiating the nation's debt.

Bremer and Brahimi ordered the council to delay choosing a president because they insisted on Pachachi, according to Governing Council members.

Pachachi's staff has been emphasizing his background as a foreign minister and his ability to negotiate complex issues such as the rescheduling of debt.

Council members said they would meet again today to decide the matter, but said they were frustrated by Bremer's stance .

"The CPA and Mr. Bremer are pressuring us not to use our hearts," said Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish member. "If they insist on this, it will be very bad for the credibility of the U.S. They have no right to impose these things on Iraqis." - http://www.concordmonitor.com...

Bush's Fiasco in Iraq Spins Out-of-Control: Sovereignty, Schmovereignty...

05.31.04 (7:55 am) [edit]

I Have Met the Enemy...

05.30.04 (11:51 am) [edit]

For the first time ever in my life, I had someone threaten to kill me tonight. He was nearly apoplectic with rage, screaming curses, his finger right in my face, his eyes slits of venom. Ex-Navy lifer, I gathered. Probably in his late 50’s. Beer belly. A person so devoid of humanity I was stunned.

Good lord, you might ask. What on earth did you, a 52 year old professional woman, do to provoke that?

All I did was exercise my duty as a very concerned citizen in what I thought was America. I stood silently out on the sidewalk in my California town with a sign in each hand. One sign showed a tally of the number of Iraqi civilian dead from the Iraq Body Count website … the other the number of coalition soldiers dead to date. This is my regular Thursday night gig, something I’ve done every week for 14 months now.

In fact, it was early in the vigil … so early that my retired friend Tom and I were the only ones there. That’s when the car whipped over to the curb directly in front of us and Mr. Ex-Navy got out and came around to confront us.

“I want to tell you both something,” he began belligerently …

To which Tom replied smoothly, “Oh, good … please do.”

“I served in the Navy for 27 years. Served in Viet Nam. And it’s f**cking jerks like you who got a lot of good men KILLED over there!”

And that was just the warm up. He had plenty more where that came from.

Mind you, I’d heard of people like this … fellow Americans who firmly believe things that reasonable, charitable and empathetic people simply could not with any sense of decency believe. But in my sheltered existence, I had never actually met one face to face, much less been on the receiving end of one’s wrath.

Well, I thought … I have my talking points ready. I know my arguments. We’ll just address one issue at a time here.

That’s when I heard him thunder that old bromide, “Three thousand people died in the World Trade Center!!”

Aha … I knew what to say to that. I showed him the sign with the dead Iraqi civilians on it … those 11,000 some odd souls who have died because we invaded their country. “But these people had nothing whatsoever to do with the World … “

He made a dismissive gesture and said, “So what.”

“Huh? We’re talking 11,000 human beings here …”

“You don’t get it, do you? You people really don’t get it. These – people - are - MUSLIMS!”

“So?”

“They are MUSLIMS! They want to kill us all. If they were over here now they’d slit your throat and RAPE you!”

“Bullshit,” I said through tightening lips.

“MUSLIMS are the ENEMY,” he spit.

“Bullshit,” I said again.

It went on. More of the same … a spewing forth of such ignorance and delusion as I have ever heard. People like Tom and I were ruining this country with our protest … ruining it. We were worse than filth. We ought to be locked up.

The man took enough of a breath for Tom to get a word in edgewise. “What about the Constitution?”

“FUCK the constitution! I WILL NOT LET YOU PEOPLE DESTROY MY COUNTRY! I WILL NOT LET YOU!”

“No,” I replied. “It is us who will not let YOU destroy our country. We – will – not – let - you.” Well, OK, I called him an asshole, too. Tom is my witness. I thought of those 11,000 innocent dead Iraqis and I called him an asshole.

As he finally stormed back around to the driver’s side of his car, a shouting match ensued (not on Tom’s part … I’m afraid he was the only adult in the group). And then came the parting shot:

“Bush will win in a LANDSLIDE. And if he doesn’t, WE know where to find you. WE can take care of you. WE can make sure you don’t EVER fuck with this country again.”

Yes, people say that to one another these days in … where was it that I thought I lived? America? The land of Thomas Jefferson? Of mom and apple pie? Of noble, lofty principles? Of goodness, sweetness and light?

That’s when I thought of Abu Ghraib. In fact, the pictures seemed to flash like a slide show through my brain, one after another. Grinning, leering Americans torturing human beings stripped of every shred of their humanity in the eyes of their torturers.

And I understood. Mr. Ex-Navy would have fit right in.

I met the dark underbelly of America tonight. I really did meet the enemy. And he really is ______.

[i][b]Patricia Kneisler (pknize@pacbell.net) of Benicia, CA is one half of the partnership that operates the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count website ... and a committed anti-war activist ... and a civil (well, usually civil) engineer [/b][/i]... http://www.commondreams.org/v...

I Have Met the Enemy...

05.30.04 (11:50 am) [edit]

I Have Met the Enemy...

05.30.04 (11:49 am) [edit]

Bush Doctrine Breeds Terror and Tyranny

05.29.04 (6:10 am) [edit]

Bush administration policies in the war on terrorism mutated the global threat, mobilizing anti-U.S. sentiment. The crisis in Iraq, coupled with radical shifts in U.S. policy in the Middle East and elsewhere, gave extremists a new focus, allowing radical groups to widen their appeal among Muslims and others. A terrorism alarm sounds everyday somewhere in the world, canceling flights, closing embassies, killing people.

[b]Terrorism on the Rise [/b]

First, the Bush administration has steadfastly refused to define terrorism. In the Bush lexicon, terrorism is a catchall term for interpreting diverse conflicts, from separatist movements to paramilitary activity to arms and narcotics trafficking. The failure to define terrorism enabled the White House to label almost anybody opposed to its policies as a terrorist organization. Groups as diverse in structure and objectives as Peru’s Shining Path, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Basque Fatherland and Liberty, the Communist Party of the Philippines, and Hamas are on the State Department’s list of designated foreign terrorist organizations.

Early on, this approach served the White House well in its search for recruits in the war on terrorism. Opposition groups in countries whose support the U.S. deemed essential to winning the war were often labeled "terrorist" in an effort to curry support from host governments.

But over time, the failure to define terrorism has become a real liability. The U.S. now has some 5 million names on its master terror watch list, people who are identified as terrorist or believed to represent a potential threat. By listing any terrorist from any terrorist organization, we create a problem, not a solution. We lose focus, and we jeopardize democratic values, trying to monitor that vast number of people. The size of this inclusive terror list also belies official statements that the real concern, al-Qaeda and its affiliates, are relatively small in number, a few hundred or thousand at most.

Related to the first factor is the Bush administration’s eager application of the al-Qaeda label to virtually any Islamic group threatening terrorist acts. Regional terrorist groups are invariably portrayed as having been co-opted by al-Qaeda and subject to its command and control. As a result, geographical and country specialists have been forced on the defensive. With the media focused on the global war on terrorism, the White House is not interested in the historical, political, economic, and cultural factors that shaped regional dissident groups. Take Southeast Asia as an example. All of the U.S.-designated terrorist groups in the region were founded long before al-Qaeda made its appearance. Some originated in the 1940s. Al-Qaeda wannabes are out there, often motivated by Bush administration policies, but al-Qaeda isn’t everywhere.

Third, the Bush administration has come to see Arab-Muslim terrorism as a phenomenon quite separate from its causes. The Israeli-Palestinian dispute remains the central issue in the Middle East, and until Washington returns to the role of honest broker, there is no hope for a peaceful resolution. The Bush administration has largely accepted the Israeli version of the Intifada, viewing the violence of the Palestinians as "terror" and the inevitable Israeli response as "legitimate self-defense." As a result, both sides are trapped in a downward spiral of violence and retaliation. White House support for Israel’s policy of extrajudicial killings, which undermines U.S. initiatives to promote human rights, democracy, and civil society in the region, only compounds the problem.

[b]Military Solutions to Political Problems [/b]

U.S. policy in Iraq exemplifies a growing tendency on the part of the Bush administration to apply military solutions to political problems, often ignoring larger issues. Latin American governments, following the rebirth of democracy in the 1980s, largely ruled out giving police duties to their armed forces. U.S. officials are now pressuring them to expand the military’s role, arguing that it is the only force with the skills and resources necessary to meet new threats. Southeast Asian states also expressed deep concern recently when the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, without prior consultation, announced U.S. plans to curb transnational crime in and around the Strait of Malacca.

In Africa, the Bush administration has opened a new front in the war on terrorism, equipping and training armies in states seen as potential sanctuaries for terrorists or long-term sources of oil. Some 100 special operations groups are training armies in Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger, largely Muslim states, in a program known as the Pan-Sahel Initiative. Its goal is to help states guard porous borders against terrorists, arms, and other trafficking. The Pentagon is also expanding its presence through training exercises or military base agreements in other states from Algeria to Liberia to Senegal to Uganda.

The American adoption in Iraq of Israeli tactics employed in Palestine adds to the problem. The early use of plastic handcuffs and hoods was followed by the demolition of Iraqi homes and businesses, together with the prolonged detention of prisoners without rights or charges. Most recently, we have the growing prisoner abuse scandal. The power of images is enormous in the Arab-Muslim world. And the pictures television viewers see of American troops in action in Iraq often mirror images of Israeli troops in action in Gaza and the West Bank. The Israeli use of dehumanizing force against the Palestinians has proved counterproductive, simply increasing Palestinian opposition to Israeli occupation. The same is true for the U.S. use of similar tactics in Iraq.

Another downside to the growing U.S. dependence on force is that it encourages semi-democratic and authoritarian states to brutalize their own populations. From Russia’s treatment of Chechen separatists to China’s handling of the Uighur Muslim population in Xinjiang province, governments around the world are adopting harsh measures to deal with dissident groups, separatists, and Islamists, applying military solutions to long-standing political issues in the name of fighting terrorism.

[b]Global Terrorism [/b]

Southeast Asian states, long considered the Islamic periphery due to their pluralism, secularism, and moderate Islamic stance, now confront a small but increasingly potent terrorist threat. The rise of extremist terrorism also obscures a fundamental shift in Islam toward an increasingly conservative mainstream. American policies encourage this conservative shift but are not the source of it.

In Indonesia, White House attempts in April to ensure that the leader of Jemaah Islamiya, a militant Islamic organization linked to the 2002 Bali nightclub bombing, remained in jail set off a diplomatic and political tempest. Nationalists and Islamists denounced the move as undue involvement in Indonesia’s internal affairs.

In the Philippines, U.S. officials recently warned President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo that her government was not doing enough to combat terrorism. U.S. concerns centered on the activities of the Abu Sayyaf Group and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. While the need for effective action was real, Washington erred in thinking international terrorists created the situation in the southern Philippines and controlled the combatants. Despite the Islamist foundations of both groups, and the potential for an allegiance with Jemaah Islamiya, the conflict in the southern Philippines is rooted in local issues that predate the war on terror and are unlikely to be resolved through money or arms alone.

In Thailand, the Buddhist-dominated government used overwhelming force in late April to thwart coordinated attacks on police stations and security checkpoints in the predominantly Muslim south. Some 107 militants, most in their teens or early 20s, were killed, including an entire village soccer team. Local residents voiced bewilderment and anger at the killings, especially the slaughter of 30 assailants in the historic Krue Se mosque. Authorities initially offered contradictory explanations for the violence, ranging from drugs and arms trafficking to mafia turf battles to Islamic separatists. Both officials and local villagers later agreed that the foiled attacks were spurred by widely broadcast images of al-Qaeda and the U.S occupation of Iraq. As the father of one of the victims said: "What happens in Iraq and Palestine and Afghanistan really makes me angry. It makes me want to fight back." Events in Thailand sparked fears and arrests in Cambodia because members of its small Muslim minority often study in southern Thailand.

The Madrid train bombings in March confirmed European fears that they are vulnerable to terrorist attack. Terrorists wanted for the Madrid bombings later blew themselves up, killing one police officer and injuring others. Elsewhere, British authorities arrested 10 in anti-terror raids, and Swedish police arrested 4 men, including one U.S. citizen, linked to terrorism. In response, Muslim leaders in Sweden expressed mounting concern at being stereotyped as terrorists.

In Africa, Morocco has become both a target and an operating base for terrorist attacks. Most of the suspects in the Madrid bombings were Moroccan with the suspected mastermind a Tunisian. European officials have complained that the Moroccans tend to blame al-Qaeda for all terrorist plots, rather than recognizing a wider ideological inspiration, because it frees them from responsibility. The Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, successor to an organization formed to overthrow the monarchy, was listed as a terrorist organization last year. Another home-grown concern is the Algerian-based Salafist Group for Call and Combat, which kidnapped 32 tourists last year. Chad’s army allegedly killed 43 Salafists in mid-March in 2 days of heavy fighting near the border with Niger.

In the Middle East, Jordanian police killed 4 suspects believed to have ties to an al-Qaeda cell only 3 weeks after security forces uncovered a major plot to attack U.S. and Jordanian targets in Amman. Saudi Arabia came under al-Qaeda-linked attacks on the following day when a suicide bomber killed 2 and wounded 60 in Riyadh. Extremism arrived in Syria later in April when terrorists exploded a car bomb and engaged in a fierce gun battle in Damascus. Israel remained a frequent target of Palestinian attacks.

In Latin America, U.S. officials continue to paint the Triborder Area, where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet, as a hotbed of dangerous criminal and terrorist activity. A wide range of radical groups, from Colombian guerrillas to white supremacists to Hezbollah, allegedly meet there to swap tradecraft. On the other hand, the conflict in Colombia offers proof that some of the bloodiest terrorism in the world has no link to Islamic fundamentalism.

[b]Dangerous World [/b]

The world today is clearly a more dangerous place than it was on September 10, 2001, or last year before the invasion of Iraq. This is true for Americans. But it is equally true for Spaniards, Indonesians, and most especially, Iraqis.

Unfortunately, the annual "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report, recently issued by the State Department, belies the dangerous world in which we live. It concludes that the number of international terrorist attacks in 2003 was the lowest since 1969. Describing Iraq as "a central front in the global war against terrorism," the report excludes most attacks during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom on the grounds that they "do not meet the longstanding US definition of international terrorism because they were directed at combatants." The report also excludes hundreds of Iraqi civilians killed by one side or the other. While it includes Israelis killed by Palestinian suicide bombers, it also excludes Palestinians killed in retaliatory strikes of "legitimate self-defense."

The Bush administration has yet to recognize that the outcome of the war on terrorism will depend on the quality of the peace. By ruling out the peaceful settlement of disputes in Iraq, Palestine, and elsewhere, the White House has not eliminated terrorism. It has provoked it. And it has also legitimized terrorism in many parts of the world. A cursory survey of global terrorist activity reveals an incredibly wide array of distinct and interconnected motives. With a growing number of groups declaring the U.S. their number one enemy, the war on terror could last for generations, if we don’t take a different tactic. Until we do, the world in the coming weeks, months, and years will likely remain a very dangerous place. - http://www.antiwar.com/orig/s...

Bush Doctrine Breeds Terror and Tyranny

05.29.04 (6:09 am) [edit]

For Shame: What becomes of a country that loses its capacity for repulsion?

05.29.04 (6:05 am) [edit]

We already know the administration’s strategy for damage control on the latest erupting scandal in occupied Iraq, the abuse of Iraqi prisoners of war. The tactics have served more or less successfully, at least in America, to cover up and survive every earlier scandal and fiasco of this administration at home and abroad. President Bush has already raised his hands in holy disgust, pronouncing the actions contrary to his and the country’s principles and the Army’s policy, the work of a handful of miscreants whom Donald Rumsfeld solemnly promises to pursue and punish. We are already hearing the predictable excuses employed by defenders of corporate corruption, high-paid criminal athletes, and this administration—“This does not represent us or America and its values,” “mistakes have been made,” “no one claimed we or democracy are perfect.” A few obvious culprits will be punished, a few mid-level superiors reprimanded or demoted, dangerous questions held at bay at hearings, a commission possibly named to study the problem, administrative changes promised, and then the administration, denying involvement and responsibility, will move on to other things to distract the public.

They must not get away with this.

Not only is this episode more sickening and shameful than others that have already stained the occupation of Iraq. Not only will it have an even more shattering effect on America’s image and ability to lead abroad. Not only does it end any surviving hopes that Americans can be seen by Iraqis and other Arabs and Muslims as liberators, models, leaders, and friends. It reveals as nothing has before the true character of this venture and of the whole policy by which this administration has chosen (allegedly) to fight terrorism and evil in the world. It ought finally to force every American, even the most loyal and patriotic, to face what this country under this leadership has done and is doing in this war. Where is it leading us?

This was not an isolated incident caused by a few bad apples, a shocking but minor and exceptional digression in an otherwise heroic and humane enterprise. This fish that now stinks to heaven began to rot long ago from the head down.

Consider when this happened—in October to December 2003, five to seven months ago. Think about how long many in the Army and outside have known about it; how long the official report investigating it has been in preparation and circulation; how long and often rumors and reports about this and other incidents of abuse of prisoners or civilians have appeared in the foreign press, especially the Arab press our authorities seek to control or repress. Yet in all this time, and to this day, all the higher officials in the Army, the Pentagon, and the White House responsible for policy insist they knew nothing about it. It is not a question of whether there will be a cover-up. There already has been—we are now beginning to learn the extent.

Consider why it happened—not in the superficial sense of why it was allowed to happen rather than prevented, but in the deeper and more important sense of what concrete purpose this abuse served, where it fit into what overall policy. These incidents were not simply a case of a few reservists getting their sadistic kicks or a result of indiscipline, bad chain of command, or other incidental administrative snafus. That would be bad enough and would constitute one more indictment of the incredible levity and mismanagement demonstrated by this administration in the war and occupation. Anyone who knows anything about the history of war and military occupations knows that this is precisely the sort of thing likely to happen, and that if one’s goal really is liberation and winning the hearts and minds of those occupied, this kind of conduct has to be prevented at all costs.

A historical aside: in the summer of 2003, when the Iraqi insurgency was just beginning and the administration still hotly denying its existence, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice insisted that the problem was merely last-ditch resistance by fanatical dead-enders like Nazi resisters in Germany in 1945. The assertion was false, of course—no civilian resistance worth mentioning developed in postwar Germany—but easily buried and forgotten under other more important administration untruths and deceptions. A different resemblance between the two occupations, however, is now dismayingly germane. By far the worst problem the Army faced in 1945 in the relations between troops and German civilians was American soldiers raping German women. The fact has gone relatively unnoticed except by historians, both because Americans at home closed their eyes to it and because it was overshadowed by far worse and vaster Soviet crimes in the Eastern Zone. Yet the Army and the Pentagon should have learned from that experience and from military history everywhere how grave the danger of this kind of conduct was.

The larger point is not, however, that they failed to prevent the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere. It is that they allowed and indirectly encouraged it, in pursuit of a wider and supposedly more important mission. This operation was an integral part of intelligence gathering by both military intelligence and private firms hired by the government for this purpose. The abuse was thus deliberate and purposive, intended to make prisoners psychologically ready for interrogation.

Consider further the context of that interrogation and intelligence gathering. The aim then was not simply or mainly to root out pockets of resistance and ongoing subversion or new terrorism and thereby pacify Iraq and protect American lives. This was the time when the administration was frantically bent on finding proof of the stocks of weapons of mass destruction and the alleged pre-war links to al-Qaeda that were advanced (as we now know, falsely) to justify the war. It was also part of a more massive program of detention of supposed evildoers in Iraq, numbering 10-12,000 by different accounts, an unknown number of them still held without charge or notification to their families—a little-known story with its own cargo of abuses. It fits into the broader pattern of the so-called War on Terror in which the United States covertly and overtly supports a Gulag Archipelago of detention camps and interrogation centers over the Middle East and Central Asia, either on its own bases or on the territory of other regimes, mostly repressive ones, with whom America works.

Consider the ethos behind this massive effort, and how it characterizes and shapes the administration’s entire view of the world and foreign policy. It flows seamlessly from the prevailing Ollie North or (to borrow a phrase from Professor George Lopez of Notre Dame University) Dirty Harry Callahan theory of international politics. It’s a dangerous world out there; hordes of fanatical evildoers are bent on committing unspeakable crimes against us. If we play by the rules they despise, we will lose. We must play dirty to win, and ultimately only winning counts. The end and the unquestioned fact that we represent the forces of light and they the forces of darkness justify the means.

Consider the incentive structure this collective mentality held at the highest level of government creates for people down the line called on to wage this kind of campaign on the ground. Consider what it means to reservists, thrown into a situation for which they are wholly untrained, to be instructed to induce in prisoners a suitable physical and psychological readiness to yield information they were doubtless would save their country or their fellow soldiers’ lives. Consider what it means for military intelligence officers to know that their promotion and careers depend on coming up with the right stuff; for so-called civilian intelligence agents to know their paychecks and their company’s contracts depend on the results, and that nobody higher up worries too much about the methods used to obtain them. Consider what it means for a general commanding a large system of prisons to be told not to obstruct this critically important job of intelligence gathering, knowing that her career is on the line.

Consider also what it says about the administration as a whole when, on top of the many previous outright lies, false promises, failed predictions, abrupt changes of course, and multiple evidences of bad or no planning, corruption, confusion, and failure that have already plagued the occupation of Iraq, this supremely ugly scandal breaks, and no one at the highest level—not Richard Meyers or Wolfowitz or Rumsfeld or Rice or Cheney or Bush—takes responsibility, resigns, is fired, demoted, or even publicly reprimanded. In a government like that of Japan or some other countries, a sense of shame alone would suffice to bring about resignations; in an earlier era it might have meant suicide. But to this crew apply the words that brought Sen. Joe McCarthy down in 1954: “Has it come to this, at long last? Have you no shame—no shame at all?”

Consider finally what it must say about the American public, or at least a major portion of it, if this does not at last produce an overdue and overriding sense of revulsion against leaders and a policy that have led their country to this shameful pass. The Republican slogan in 1996 was “Where’s the outrage?” That outrage, understandable given the disgusting though essentially private misdeeds of President Clinton and important in the 2000 election, today seems strangely absent on the Right. Liberals can now ask conservatives, “Where’s the revulsion?” What must it mean if good, loyal, religious, family-values conservatives—the segment that George W. Bush overwhelmingly commands and that this journal appeals to—find even this degrading spectacle something they can swallow? What if at least a sizeable contingent does not deliver to Bush in November the message that Oliver Cromwell addressed to the English Long Parliament in 1649: “You have been here too long for any good that you have done. In the name of God, go!”

The 19th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote in an essay that a sign of malfunctioning of the digestive system was the inability to become nauseated or to vomit upon eating spoiled food, and that the remedy was to take an emetic. The disorder that offended him then was spiritual, the failure of Danish Lutherans to share his revulsion at a complacent established church that he believed was betraying real Christianity. His analysis and advice apply in a different way to Americans today. Anyone who does not feel revulsion against this administration for what it is doing and has done in Iraq and elsewhere has something seriously wrong with his political digestive system.
_________________________ _________________________ _

[b]Paul W. Schroeder is professor emeritus of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of The Transformation of European Politics, 1765-1848[/b]. - http://amconmag.com/2004_06_0...

For Shame: What becomes of a country that loses its capacity for repulsion?

05.29.04 (6:02 am) [edit]

Al Gore: A Speech That's No Joke Which Is Why Neo-Cons Are Angry & Defensive!!!

05.28.04 (10:31 am) [edit]

[b]A Speech That's No Joke [/b]

It has always been easy to make fun of Al Gore. But if there's any truth to the thunderous criticism he's turned loose on the Bush administration this week, it's time to dispense with the jokes and listen seriously to what the man is saying.

If Mr. Gore is right, the nation is faced with a crisis of leadership that is perilously close to an emergency.

If he's wrong, then all the folks who have made the easy jokes at his expense can consider themselves vindicated.

The war in Iraq, said Mr. Gore, in an interview on Wednesday, "is the worst strategic fiasco in the history of the United States. It is an unfolding catastrophe without any comparison."

In an echo of the growing chorus of criticism here and around the world, he said the war has not only damaged "our strategic interests" and isolated the U.S. from its allies, it has also made the country more — not less — vulnerable to terror.

In a widely covered speech http://www.commondreams.org/v... earlier in the day, Mr. Gore said that Iraq had not become, as President Bush has asserted, " `the central front in the war on terror.' " But he said it has become, unfortunately, "the central recruiting office for terrorists."

The speech was extraordinary — blunt, colorful and delivered with the kind of passion you seldom see in politics anymore. The former vice president described Mr. Bush as incompetent and untrustworthy, and said his policies had endangered the nation.

The president, said Mr. Gore, had "planted the seeds of war, and harvested a whirlwind."

In the view of Mr. Gore (and many others), the essential problem has been the triumph in the Bush crowd of ideology over reality. The true believers knew everything better than everybody else, and the arrogance born of that certainty led, step by tragic step, to the war with no exit doors that we are locked in today.

That arrogance gave rise to the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war, the contempt for international agreements like the Geneva Conventions, the dismissal of concerns by some of the highest-ranking military professionals about the way a war in Iraq should be fought and the willingness of top administration figures to blow smoke in the eyes of ordinary Americans who were traumatized by Sept. 11 and worried about the possibility of further terrorist attacks.

"The same preference for ideology over reality has turned trillion-dollar surpluses into multitrillion-dollar deficits," said Mr. Gore. "And that same approach has led to the locking up of American citizens without recourse to lawyers or access to courts or even a right of their families to know they're being held in secret."

These and other matters are transforming the United States into a country that is more warlike, more brutal, less free, less just, less admirable and much less appealing than the nation that existed when Mr. Bush stepped into the presidency in January 2001.

Those who disagree with Mr. Gore should challenge him on his facts. Those who agree must look for ways to defend the honor and perhaps the very identity of the United States as we've known it.

The least serious part of Mr. Gore's speech was the part that got the most attention, his call for top officials of the Bush administration to resign. As an attention-getter, it worked.

But this was a speech in which the former vice president said: "What makes the United States special in the history of nations is our commitment to the rule of law and our carefully constructed system of checks and balances. Our natural distrust of concentrated power and our devotion to openness and democracy are what have led us as a people to consistently choose good over evil in our collective aspirations, more than the people of any other nation."

This is a time to remember the principles that made this a great nation, and to reaffirm them. I don't know what will happen in the election in November. What I know is that the nation is facing a crisis now. The Bush administration needs to step back from the abyss its ideology has dragged us to.

It may be that the president never understood what made the U.S. great. In that case, he'd be among those who could benefit most from a reading of Mr. Gore's speech. If he followed that up with a look at the Bill of Rights (it would only take a few minutes), he'd have a better understanding of what this country, at its best, is about. - http://www.commondreams.org/v...

Bush Cuts Children's Health While Rewarding HMOs

05.28.04 (8:02 am) [edit]

During today's trip to Tennessee 1, President Bush will hold a photo-op at a children's hospital and then attend a $2,000-per-person fundraiser at the home of a top health insurance executive 2. The two events provide a perfect display of how the President has misled America on health care policy: at the same time that he has tried to slash funding for children's hospitals, his budget lavishes billions of dollars on health insurance companies who fund his campaign.

During today's first event, the President is expected to praise children's hospitals. However, his budget this year proposes to freeze funding for grants to these hospitals, preventing their federal grants from keeping pace with inflation 3. He also proposes a $94 million cut to the Community Access Program 4 - effectively eliminating another program that provides grants to children's hospitals in need. And he is trying to slash $158 million (68%) from training grants for specialties that include pediatrics 5. These efforts are consistent with his past policies: last year, the President proposed cutting $86 million (30%) from grants to children's hospitals 6. And in 2002, he proposed to cut $35 million (14%) from grants for children's hospitals to train pediatricians 7.

After his photo-op at the children's hospital, the President will attend a fundraiser at the home of Clay Jackson 8, an executive 9 at a health insurance company called BB&T 10. Unlike the children's hospitals whose budgets have been cut, insurance executives like Jackson have a lot to thank the President for. For instance, the President crafted a Medicare bill that gives health insurance companies a new $130 billion subsidy 11, while forcing many seniors off traditional Medicare and into HMOs 12. The President has also done nothing to address the skyrocketing costs of health care, sitting by last year as HMOs raised premiums by 13% 13 and raked in an extra $6.7 billion from Americans 14.

[b]Sources[/b]: - http://www.misleader.org/dail...

1. "Bush to pump health care, campaign coffers with Nashville visit", WATE.com, 05/27/2004.
2. "Bush expected in Nashville for Republican fund-raiser", Nashville City Paper, 05/11/2004.
3. AAMC.org, 02/06/2004.
4. House Budget Committee.
5. House Budget Committee.
6. Democratic Policy Committee, 05/20/2004.
7. Children's Defense Fund Action Council.
8. OpenSecrets.Org.
9. "BB&T to Acquire Nashville-Based Agency", Insurance Journal, 08/04/2003.
10. BB&T.
11. F.A.I.R. Medicare.
12. Public Citizen, 02/13/2003.
13. "Health costs skyrocket", CNN Money, 09/22/2003.
14. "HMO profits jumped 52%", CBS Marketwatch, 05/04/2004.

Bush Cuts Children's Health While Rewarding HMOs

05.28.04 (8:01 am) [edit]

New Report Finds Unprecedented Special Interest Access Under Bush

05.28.04 (7:59 am) [edit]

Special interests are enjoying unprecedented access to government under the Bush Administration, as documented in a report released today by Citizens for Sensible Safeguards, a government watchdog group. President Bush opened the door when he stacked his transition teams with industry representatives in 2001.

A nonprofit organization formed in 1995 in response to Newt Gingrichs Contract with [i]America, Citizens for Sensible Safeguards[/i] http://www.sensiblesafeguards... has compiled a 148-page examination of President Bushs close relationship with special interest groups dating back to their $200 million investment in his election. The report shows that executives from a wide spectrum of industries and trade associations now hold powerful, policy-setting positions throughout the Bush administration positions they have quickly turned to the benefit of the industries and corporations they previously represented.

The result? Rollbacks on protections for public health and the environment; relaxed corporate oversight; relaxed enforcement of regulations; greatly increased government secrecy, including a clamp-down on granting public and Congressional requests for information; a growing lack of federal accountability, including awarding no-bid, secret government contracts; and the suppression and distortion of scientific information whenever it appears at odds with the administrations political goals.

"Special interests have taken over our government from top to bottom, turning back years of progress on health, safety and the environment," concludes [u]Special Interest Takeover: The Bush Administration and the Dismantling of Public Safeguards[/u]. http://www.sensiblesafeguards... "That this puts the public and our natural resources at significant risk seems to be of little concern to the Bush administration. Rather, the administration appears to view government as an instrument to enrich its political allies."

For example, the report cites Bush's stacking of the Department of Energy's transition team with large-scale donors to his campaign, the so-called "Pioneers" who gave more than $100,000 in individual contributions to help get him elected. Pioneers Ken Lay, former CEO of Enron, Thomas Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, and Anthony Alexander, president of FirstEnergy, each held seats on the agenda-setting team.

The transition teams, in turn, helped to secure key agency positions for Jeffrey Holmstead, a lawyer for electric utilities (who became EPA's air administrator); Steven Griles, a lobbyist for the fossil fuel industry (deputy secretary of the Interior); Mark Rey, a timber industry lobbyist (head of the Forest Service); and David Lauriski, a mine industry executive (head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration).

"Once in place, these special-interest allies literally opened the doors of government for business," the report concludes. Rey scrapped forest protections to make way for clear-cutting; Lauriski weakened black lung and respiratory protections for miners; Griles gave former clients a boon by pushing to open more public land to drilling. And Holmstead outdid them all when the EPA directly adopted language written by lawyers at his former employer, Latham & Watkins, for use in rolling back clean air standards.

The long-term consequences of such unprecedented blurring of the lines between industry and government may be even greater due to the removal of corporate oversight. With nobody holding corporate or industrial America accountable, the report concludes, "the Bush administration is inviting irresponsible behavior that could lead to catastrophic consequences."

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[b]TAKE ACTION[/b]

To take action and learn more visit www.sensiblesafeguards.org.

###

[b]SOURCES[/b]: - http://www.bushgreenwatch.org...

[1] "Special Interest Takeover: The Bush Administration and the Dismantling of Public Safeguards," Center for American Progress and OMB Watch, May 25, 2004.

Bush Continues Misleading On Prison Abuse Scandal

05.27.04 (7:20 am) [edit]

In his speech before the U.S. Army War College this week, President Bush again tried to absolve himself and his Administration from any responsibility for the atrocities at Abu Ghraib prison. He said the abuse was "disgraceful conduct by a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values" 1. But new reports show that the Administration - and President Bush himself - approved key documents that originally opened the door to the abuse.

Since the scandal broke, the Administration has said that, in Iraq, it always insisted on following the Geneva Conventions on humane treatment for prisoners. However, in a letter to the Red Cross dated December 24, 2003, the Bush Administration asserted that detainees in Iraq "were not entitled to the full protections of the Geneva Convention" 2. This disregard for internationally-recognize d human rights regulations was consistent with a January 2002 directive by the White House labeling the Geneva Conventions "quaint" and "obsolete" 3. It is also consistent with a Newsweek report showing that "President Bush, along with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft signed off on a secret system of detention and interrogation that opened the door to such methods" of abuse and torture as documented at Abu Ghraib 4. Those secret orders were designed "to sidestep the historical safeguards of the Geneva Conventions."

Instead of acknowledging these documents and upholding his pledge to "usher in an era of personal responsibility,"5 the Bush Administration is now assaulting those who brought the story to light. Sgt. Samuel Provance told the Associated Press he has "been disciplined by the military and stripped of his security clearance" after he publicly refuted the President's claims that the abuse was only the work of a few soldiers6. Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld banned "digital cameras, camcorders and cellphones with cameras" from all military installations in Iraq7. And, as MSNBC reports, the whole Administration is "lashing out at American journalists, adding their official voices to the chorus of talk radio, conservative Web site and newspaper columnists" who claim the media's coverage of the scandal and Iraq in general "is undermining support for the war"8.

[b]Sources:[/b]

1. President Outlines Steps to Help Iraq Achieve Democracy and Freedom, 05/24/2004.
2. "Commander in Iraq to Be Replaced", Los Angeles Times, 05/25/2004.
3. "White House memo criticized", USA Today, 05/26/2004.
4. "The Roots of Torture", Newsweek, May 24, 2004.
5. President Bush Discusses Progress in Education in St. Louis, 01/05/2004.
6. "Soldier Who Spoke Out About Prisoner Abuse Disciplined", WXII12.com, 05/26/2004.
7. "Rumsfeld Bans Camera Phones in Iraq: Report", Agence France Passe, 05/23/2004.
8. "Media takes heat from administration over Iraq", MSNBC, 05/25/2004.

Bush's legacy of lies: Poking holes in the official story of 9/11

05.27.04 (5:54 am) [edit]

Citizens can choose to buy the official line on the events of Sept. 11, 2001 � or they can ask questions about holes in that story as big as the crater at Ground Zero.

This week, at the unlikeliest of locations, the Ukrainian Cultural Centre in west-end Toronto, the International Citizens' Inquiry into 9/11 picks up where it left off in San Francisco in March.

Here, international authors, filmmakers, academics, military and intelligence experts as well as, yes, probably the occasional conspiracy theorist, are mixing it up with ordinary people who can't accept that all the systems simply failed on one terrible and tragic morning.

They're gathering to focus attention on why, still, nearly three years after two planes tore through the World Trade Center, one crashed into the Pentagon and a fourth into a Pennsylvania field, the White House still hasn't produced a plausible explanation for why so much went so wrong all at once.

"To ask questions and to ask them fearlessly," says Citizens' Inquiry director Barrie Zwicker. "This is the heart of this."

Indeed, a majority of Canadians doubt the line out of Washington. A poll conducted for the non-profit inquiry (http://www.911inquiry.org) this month shows that 63 per cent of us believe the U.S. government had "prior knowledge of the plans for the events of September 11th, and failed to take appropriate action to stop them."

Perhaps that's a testament to our media, which were not at Ground Zero, not personally affected by events and not waving the flag.

Whatever the explanation, Zwicker, a media critic for more than 30 years, says the U.S. press abdicated its responsibility to probe what happened and has been "complicit" in advancing the official explanation.

"If the corporate media had looked at this from the beginning, we would be living in a different world now," he insists. "(U.S. President) George W. Bush would have been impeached by now."

Inquiry's unasked questions include: Why were fighter jets not scrambled in time to stop the planes from smashing into the buildings? Why did the U.S. chain of command � including the commander-in-chief Bush � not act when the hijackings were in progress? Why were so many warnings missed? And why did it take the Kean Commission � Washington's official 9/11 inquiry � so long to get going, and only after the bereaved families noisily lobbied for more than a year?

Among the questioners coming to Toronto are University of Ottawa economics professor Michel Chossudovsky (War and Globalization, The Truth Behind September 11), French political activist and best-selling author Thierry Meyssan (9/11: The Big Lie), former fighter pilot turned security expert Dr. Robert Bowman of Florida, the Center for Cooperative Research's Paul Thompson, who compiled a comprehensive 9/11 timeline (http://www.cooperativeresearc...), and Ellen Mariani, a 9/11 widow who is suing the government instead of taking a multi-million-dollar payout.

True, some of the participants have some unusual theories. For example, Meyssan, despite eyewitness accounts, has suggested that it was in fact a missile that hit the Pentagon. But at yesterday's opening session at least, not a tin-foil hat was in site among the mostly middle-aged crowd of 100. In fact, they looked like the kind of people you might see slinging hash for the homeless at a soup kitchen.

That despite sneers yesterday from warbloggers and their acolytes. They claim that those who challenge the idea that some suicidal Arabs armed with box cutters managed to outsmart the greatest technomilitary power history has ever known are "conspirazoids," "left-wing loonies" or "fanatical Muslims."

All of which works great for Bush and company. That's because, by lumping 9/11 skeptics with whackos who pick up alien voices with their tooth fillings, the mainstream media can marginalize any and all questioners as "conspiracy theorists."

"The official story is a conspiracy theory: Osama bin Laden and his co-conspirators did it," Zwicker emphasizes. "It's a brilliant narrative, but upon examination of the evidence, it crumbles into dust, just like the dust of the World Trade Towers." - http://www.thestar.com/NASApp...

Bush's legacy of lies: Poking holes in the official story of 9/11

05.27.04 (5:52 am) [edit]

Religion & Government ... Government & Religion ....

05.26.04 (7:11 am) [edit]

[b]WHAT WOULD OUR FOUNDING FATHERS SAY ABOUT BUSH'S SO-CALLED "CHRISTIANITY"???

Our Republican Stands for the U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights-- Not the Bible!!![/b]

"Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society." - Thomas Jefferson, http://etext.lib.virginia.edu...

Our Founding Fathers were adament in creating a "wall of separation between church and state" and would have been appalled at the pressure brought to bear to impose hateful intolerence & divisive ideologies by so-called "religious" zealots and tyrannical fanatics like the traitorous & hypocritical Bush (unfit to be president) who is corrupting our system of democracy ... Bush's so-called form of "Christianity (sic)" pathetically has resulted in:

1. Bloody warfare based upon heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods (e.g. phony WMDs posing a so-called "imminent threat" to our national security, phony links between Al Qaeda & Saddam Hussein, cynically manipulating the fear & anger of Americans in the aftermath of 9/11, when Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, unlike the Saudis: Bush's buddies, etc.) for which he should be impeached;

2. Lack of compassion, lack of action to help over 45 million Americans without health care coverage (while Bush brags & smirks about Iraqis getting health care-- that is, when they are not being murdered, tortured, raped, ridden like donkeys, and abused in atrocities committed on orders from Bush, Cheney, Rice & Rumsfeld ...)-- so Americans live in miserable pain, diseased or go bankrupt with over 18,000 Americans dying each year because they can't afford health care;

3. Lack of concern, lack of action about skyrocketing poverty in the U.S.A. with over 25 million families desperately trying to to make ends meet, living below an out-dated poverty-line established over 40 years ago-- over 4 million Americans who are homeless-- between 9-15 million Americans without jobs;

4. Highest gap between the Hyper-Rich Haves & the Impoverished Have-Nots in over 75 years, with America's backbone, the Middle-Class shrinking;

5. Inflation (e.g. higher gas prices, higher costs in goods & services, more people losing their homes because they can't pay their mortgages) hitting the Middle-Class and Working people very hard, while corporations, wealthy oligarchs & hyper-rich plutocrats are awarded immoral tax cuts, tax loopholes and tax boondoggles and living like Emperor Caligulas-- supported by the rest of us who are saddled with Bush's record-level deficits and historically high debts-- that are hurting the value of the dollar and our standard of living.

Our nation's infrastructure is crumbling all around us (e.g. Bush's "Leave No Child Behind" Failure has Left Lots of Children Worse Off because no funds were allocated to enable teachers to teach [Why do you think that the rich send their kids to private schools with 15 kids/class instead of the 30-40/class sizes that public school teachers have to contend with?]!-- No money for fire-fighters-- No money for roads, hospitals, schools, etc.), while the so-called "Christian (sic)" Bush is spending over $5 Billion/Month on Iraq (over $114 Billion thus far in Iraq, with no end in sight!)-- Bush's gang of neo-con thugs bribed the embezzler, crook & liar Ahmed Chalabi with over $33 Million (including $340,000/Month) for false information, and Chalabi betrayed our nation by selling national security secrets to Iran (Which Neo-Con Traitors in the Pentagon gave their "pet" Chalabi Top-Secret US information? Shouldn't these Neo-Con Traitors including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Feith, Bolton-- who have gotten us into this mess be fired and tried for treason?) Condi Rice was appointed head of the Iraqi Stabilization Group (ISG) back in October 2003 by Bush and the situtation has continued to spiral out-of-control ever since! Why is Rice still in office, as she is over-rated, incompetent and a liar?

Where are all of these so-called "Christian (sic)" "values"??? Americans are being damaged, harmed and impoverished by a reckless, ruthless gang of neo-con warmongers for war-profiteering... There is nothing "Christian" in their heinous War Crimes and Rape of America.

It is sad to watch the cynical manipulation of uneducated, well-meaning, but foolish so-called "Christians (sic)" who stand behind a dangerously stupid buffoon Bush who acts like a Nazi and not an American. These misguided people are suckered by the Bushies who are using them/us as cannon-fodder, slave labour & sheep to further their own sordid & squalid aims. Those who profess to "love life" should be concerned (or outraged) over Bush's abortions of nearly 800 U.S. Soldiers and between 11,000-15,000 innocent Iraqi Civilians (pregnant women with unborn kids are amongst his casualties) with the death toll rising day-in-and-day-out and no end in sight... Moreover, do these so-called "Christians (sic)" approve of murder, rape, torture, putting a harness on the elderly and riding them like a donkey, and abuse of prisoners??? If so, it is no wonder that the Arab world wants none of it... The rest of the world wants none of it ... Conscientious and thoughtful Americans want none of it either...

Let "We the People" reject the hypocrisy of the corrupt Un-Christian, Un-American Bush regime and their over-zealot followers who would make Jesus Christ weep with shame for their heinous & callous treatment of American people and other peoples around the world (especially the Iraqis and the Afghanistianis who have been mercilessly massacred, tortured, etc.) ... And, who would make Our Founding Fathers weep, for we are NOT a so-called "Christian (sic)" nation and this ugly, arrogant and self-righteous religiosity is tinny, false, abhorrent and destructive to our Republic For Which It Stands (Our Republic Stands for our U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights, and NOT the Bible) ...

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

In a highly informative interview by Bill Moyers (NOW with Bill Moyers http://www.pbs.org/now/societ... ) with Susan Jacoby, author of "Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism" (excerpt on http://www.beliefnet.com/stor... ), they explore the dangers of our society being turned into a fanatical religious totalitarian system if we do not go back to the roots of our government, our U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights ... Indeed, Ms. Jacoby cites John Adams, 2nd President of the U.S., who in the Treaty with Tripoli (1796-97), reassures the Barbary States of Northern Africa that the United States of America is "not to be founded on Christianity" http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/j... ...

"We the People" must extricate ourselves from the dangerously stupid and corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. junta, comprised of vile traitors who are undermining our nation's heritage, system of laws and historical role in the world community ...

[b]Winston Smith's Daily Journal[/b], http://winstonsmith.tblog.com...

Bush's Hypocritical So-Called "Christianity": He Is Destroying America ...

05.26.04 (7:09 am) [edit]

Bush's Hypocritical "Christianity": An Anathema to Democracy

05.26.04 (7:07 am) [edit]

Amnesty Slams "Bankrupt" Vision of US in Damning Rights Report

05.26.04 (7:01 am) [edit]

The United States has proved "bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle" in its fight against terrorism and invasion of Iraq, human rights group Amnesty International charged in a scathing report.

The London-based organisation's 2004 report, while also damning of rights violations in dozens of other nations, particularly targeted the Washington-led "war on terror" for sanctioning abuses in the name of freedom.

The unilateral nature of the conflict to unseat Saddam Hussein in Iraq had additionally "virtually paralyzed" the United Nations' role in guaranteeing human rights on a global level, Amnesty said Wednesday.

The 339-page document, which detailed the human rights situation in 157 nations and territories, reserved the most column inches for the United States, with damning criticism also meted out to global giants Russia and China.

Other perennial violators were also highlighted such as North Korea, Cuba and the central Asian state of Turkmenistan, where Amnesty summarised the human rights situation simply as "appalling".

However the overriding theme of the report, outlined by Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan in an opening statement, singled out the United States for condemnation.

"The global security agenda promulgated by the US administration is bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle," she charged.

"Sacrificing human rights in the name of security at home, turning a blind eye to abuses abroad and using pre-emptive military force where and when it chooses have neither increased security nor ensured liberty."

The notion of fighting a campaign against terrorism so as to support human rights while simultaneously trampling on them to achieve this was no more than "double speak", she added.

The year 2003 had also "dealt a mortal blow" to the UN's vision of universal human rights, with the global body "virtually paralysed in its efforts to hold states to account" over the issue.

While the report only briefly dealt with damning allegations that US and British troops tortured Iraqi prisoners -- these came to light relatively recently -- it had harsh words about the nations' overall record in Iraq.

"Coalition forces failed to live up fully to their responsibilities as occupying powers, including their duty to restore and maintain public order and safety, and to provide food, medical care and relief assistance," the report's section on Iraq said.

Elsewhere, Amnesty detailed a long list of abuses in Russia, noting that the country's security forces "continue to enjoy almost total impunity for serious violations of human rights and international law" in the breakaway republic of Chechnya.

China, despite the accession of a new political regime under President Hu Jintao during 2003, had made "no significant attempt" to end the use of torture and other abuses, which "remained widespread", the report said.

In the Middle East, both Israel and the Palestinian Authority were taken to task for alleged rights violations, with Amnesty saying that some actions by the Israeli army, such as the destruction of property, "constituted war crimes".

One of the most damning assessments was handed to Cuba, which saw a "severe deterioration in the human rights situation" during 2003, most notably through the jailing of dozens of dissidents after "hasty and unfair" trials. - http://www.commondreams.org/h...

Amnesty Slams "Bankrupt" Vision of US in Damning Rights Report

05.26.04 (7:00 am) [edit]

When War is Swell: Bush's Crusades and the Carlyle Group

05.26.04 (6:58 am) [edit]

[b]When War is Swell

Bush's Crusades and the Carlyle Group[/b]

Across all fronts, Bush's war deteriorates with stunning rapidity. The death count of American soldiers killed in Iraq will soon top 800, with no end in sight. The members of the handpicked Iraqi Governor Council are being knocked off one after another. Once loyal Shia clerics, like Ayatollah Sistani, are now telling the administration to pull out or face a nationalist insurgency. The trail of culpability for the abuse, torture and murder of Iraqi detainees seems to lead inexorably into the office of Donald Rumsfeld. The war for Iraqi oil has ended up driving the price of crude oil through the roof. Even Kurdish leaders, brutalized by the Ba'athists for decades, are now saying Iraq was a safer place under their nemesis Saddam Hussein. Like Medea whacking her own kids, the US turned on its own creation, Ahmed Chalabi, raiding his Baghdad compound and fingering him as an agent of the ayatollahs of Iran. And on and on it goes.

Still not all of the president's men are in a despairing mood. Amid the wreckage, there remain opportunities for profit and plunder. Halliburton and Bechtel's triumphs in Iraq have been chewed over for months. Less well chronicled is the profiteering of the Carlyle Group, a company with ties that extend directly into the Oval Office itself.

Even Pappy Bush stands in line to profit handsomely from his son's war making. The former president is on retainer with the Carlyle Group, the largest privately held defense contractor in the nation. Carlyle is run by Frank Carlucci, who served as the National Security advisor and Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan. Carlucci has his own embeds in the current Bush administration. At Princeton, his college roommate was Donald Rumsfeld. They've remained close friends and business associates ever since. When you have friends like this, you don't need to hire lobbyists..

Bush Sr. serves as a kind of global emissary for Carlyle. The ex-president doesn't negotiate arms deals; he simply opens the door for them, a kind of high level meet-and-greet. His special area of influence is the Middle East, primarily Saudi Arabia, where the Bush family has extensive business and political ties. According to an account in the Washington Post, Bush Sr. earns around $500,000 for each speech he makes on Carlyle's behalf.

One of the Saudi investors lured to Carlyle by Bush was the BinLaden Group, the construction conglomerate owned by the family of Osama bin Laden. According to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal, Bush convinced Shafiq Bin Laden, Osama's half brother, to sink $2 million of BinLaden Group money into Carlyle's accounts. In a pr move, the Carlyle group cut its ties to the BinLaden Group in October 2001.

One of Bush Sr.'s top sidekicks, James Baker, is also a key player at Carlyle. Baker joined the weapons firm in 1993, fresh from his stint as Bush's secretary of state and chief of staff. Packing a briefcase of global contacts, Baker parlayed his connections with heads of state, generals and international tycoons into a bonanza for Carlyle. After Baker joined the company, Carlyle's revenues more than tripled.

Like Bush Sr., Baker's main function was to manage Carlyle's lucrative relationship with Saudi potentates, who had invested tens of millions of dollars in the company. Baker helped secure one of Carlyle's most lucrative deals: the contract to run the Saudi offset program, a multi-billion dollar scheme wherein international companies winning Saudi contracts are required under terms of the contracts to invest a percentage of the profits in Saudi companies.

Baker not only greases the way for investment deals and arms sales, but he also plays the role of seasoned troubleshooter, protecting the interests of key clients and regimes. A case in point: when the Justice Department launched an investigation into the financial dealings of Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, the Saudi prince sought out Baker's help. Baker is currently defending the prince in a trillion dollar lawsuit brought by the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks. The suit alleges that the prince used Islamic charities as pass-throughs for shipping millions of dollars to groups linked to al-Qaeda.

Baker and Carlyle enjoy another ace in the hole when it comes to looking out for their Saudi friends. Baker prevailed on Bush Jr. to appoint his former law partner, Bob Jordan, as the administration's ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Carlyle and its network of investors are well positioned to cash in on Bush Jr.'s expansion of the defense and Homeland Security department budgets. Two Carlyle companies, Federal Data Systems and US Investigations Services, hold multi-billion dollar contracts to provide background checks for commercial airlines, the Pentagon, the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security. USIS was once a federal agency called the Office Federal Investigations, but it was privatized in 1996 at the urging of Baker and others and was soon gobbled up by Carlyle. The company is now housed in "high-security, state-of-the-art, underground complex" in Annandale, Pennsylvania. USIS now does 2.4 million background checks a year, largely for the federal government.

Another Carlyle subsidiary, Vought Aircraft, holds more than a billion dollars in federal contracts to provide components for the C-117 transport plane, the B-2 bomber and the Apache attack helicopter. Prior to 2001, Vought had fallen on hard times. Just before the 9/11 attacks, Vought announced that it was laying off more than 1,200 employees, more than 20 percent of its workforce. But business picked up briskly following the airstrikes on Afghanistan and the war on Iraq.

In 2002, Carlyle sold off its biggest holding, United Defense. The sale may have been prompted by insider information leaked to Carlucci by his pal Rumsfeld. In early 2001, Carlyle was furiously lobbying the Pentagon to approve contracts for the production of United Defense's Crusader artillery system, an unwieldy and outrageously expensive super-cannon. Rumsfeld disliked the Crusader and had it high on his hit list of weapon systems to be killed off in order to save money for other big ticket schemes, particularly the Strategic Defense Initiative.

But, as detailed in William Hartung's excellent new book, How Much Are You Making in the War, Daddy?, Rumsfeld didn't terminate the Crusader immediately. Instead, he held off on a public announcement of his decision for more than a year. By that time, Carlucci and Baker devised a plan to take United Defense public. The sale to unsuspecting investors netted Carlyle more than $237 million. Six months later, Rumsfeld closed the book on the Crusader. By then the gang at Carlyle had slipped out the back door, their pockets stuffed with cash. United Defense was able to petition the Pentagon to compensate them to the tune of several million for cancellation of the contract. Even when you lose, you win.

So the men behind the Carlyle Group drift through Washington like familiar ghosts, profiteering off the carnage of Bush's disastrous crusades, untroubled by any thought of congressional investigation or criminal prosecution, firm in the knowledge that the worse things get for the people of the world, the less secure and more gripped by fear the citizens their own country become, the more millions they will reap for themselves. Perpetual war means perpetual profits.

Let's leave the last word to Dan Broidy, author of The Iron Triangle, an illuminating history of the Carlyle Group: "It's not an exaggeration to say that September 11 is going to make the Carlyle investors very, very rich men." - http://www.counterpunch.com/s...

General Zinni: "Wrong War, Wrong Place, Wrong Time"

05.26.04 (6:55 am) [edit]

"[b]Wrong War, Wrong Place, Wrong Time"

Gen. Zinni: Heads Should Roll[/b]

In a slashing criticism of the Bush White House and Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon leadership, General Zinni, former Commander of Central Command of U.S. Military, and Special Envoy to the Middle East in the Bush Administration until he resigned in disgust, said "Heads should roll at the Pentagon--Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith and those who foisted the Iraq war on the U.S. despite my objectioins and those of most U.S. Generals including, Schwartkopf, Skowcroft, Clark, Shinseki and others."

Speaking on 60 MINUTES,May 23, Zinni said, "The plan was wrong, it was the wrong war, the wrong place and the wrong time--with little or no planning." He stated that there were serious "derelections of duty," "criminal negligence," and poor planning that put U.S. forces in harm's way and left Iraq in chaos after the invasion. Further, he added that the Pentagon's man on the ground, Paul Bremer, had made "mistake after mistake after mistake."

General Zinni, a man respected for his candor, his intelligence and his ethics, now holds a professorship of International Relations at the College of William and Mary. His new book, BATTLE READY, written with Tom Clancy, puts forth more details of his criticism of the Pentagon and the military strategies or lack of professional strategies as developed by Rumsfeld, General Franks, Wolfowitz, Feith and Perle. He also questioned why the Pentagon set up its own "intelligence unit", bypassing other intelligence agencies. This internally controlled agency finally gave the Pentagon, the State Department and even the White House, false and misleading information about Iraq, WMD's and the threat level from Saddam Hussein.

Because of his criticism, some in the Pentagon have labeled him, "anti-semitic." As he pointed out on 60 MINUTES, "I don't know their ethnic background; I am talking about military and foreign policy,not anyone's ethnicity." "This shows how low these people will stoop to cover up their incompetence and guilt, to call me anti-semitic," said Zinni.

Zinni's forthright, position was also attacked by some politicos in the White House and elsewhere who said he should be "loyal" and not criticise the government during war time. Zinni retorted, "Suppose you went to war with a rifle that malfunctioned and got your soldiers killed, would you just keep your mouth shut and let your men be killed or would you speak up?" He went on to say, "We have a policy in this war that is worse than a malfunctioning rifle, and it is our American duty to speak up", just as General Shinseki has spoken up and as have others who worked in the CIA, Military Intelligence, Inspection of Iraq group and others.

As Zinni pointed out, all the generals who knew the situation in the Middle East had testified to the Congress and to the White House that "Saddam was contained with the no-fly, no-drive zones and by the embargoes; he was under control and was not a threat to anyone." He went on to say that we had a major problem after 9/11 with Al Qaeda and Afghanistan, then suddenly our focus was taken from that and diverted to Iraq. By attacking Iraq we lost our focus on terrorism. In addition, instead of our standing and assistance growing in the Middle East, it went kaput and is getting worse every day.

Though he did not mention it, at this time, over 80% of Iraqis want the U.S. out of their country and have lost trust in us and our rhetoric of "freedom and democracy." As many put it, "You are another Saddam."

Zinni made clear that unless heads roll, then these absurd and dangerous policies will continue, and America will suffer the consequences on a global scale; things will get worse, until such time that we will have to beat a hasty retreat from Iraq.

General Zinni's comments come at a time when there are scandals in the military for torture, poor training, incompetent command and constant lying to evade responsibility. Even the lies by General Kimmit in the last 48 hours denying that an Iraqi wedding party was attacked by US planes and helicopters have been shredded by evidence found by the Associated Press and others who have documentation with film and other evidence that a wedding was indeed taking place.

Add to this, and the destruction of mosques in Najaf which has infuriated Shi'a all over the world, and the shortages of supplies for American troops--all of these things, these failures, fly in the face of President Bush's comments that the war in Iraq is under control. Sadly, it now appears that major officers within the military and the Pentagon were complitous in the torture of prisoners at various prison camps in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the disaster is compounded. Then to top this off, the military is now trying to punish or demote those who came forth with the information detailing these torture and killing crimes in prisons under our control. Thus, it appears as if the outrage in the military and the Pentagon is not that American soldiers perpetrated the torture and other crimes, but that the material came out for the whole world to see.

The outrage at our behavior in Iraq has been condemned throughout the world. It even became so bad that senior commentator and conscience of America, Andy Rooney, speaking on the same 60 MINUTES program last night, said, "These men in the photos and whoever was in charge of them, and who allowed this to happen should be kicked out of America. A one year jail term is not enough for this type of crime--we all know that." Mr. Rooney's thoughts echo those of many of us who are aghast at the minor penalty given; we are also upset that the military is trying to punish a few minor players, when we all are aware by this time that Rumsfeld, John Yoo, Albert Gonzales, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Franks, Sanchez and Abizaid are the ones who really perpetrated these vile policies that have led us to this terrible impasse.

Zinni's comments and those of Andy Rooney at this time are most welcome; let us hope that other military and civilian leaders come forth with this same courage. We also hope that Senators Hatch, Congressman Duncan Hunter and others who want to cover up these disasters will refrain from their unpatriotic behavior, lest they, the White House, and the Pentagon find a way to sweep this under the carpet and allow America to lose more soldiers, kill more Iraqis and lose more prestige and what is left of America's moral standing in the world. - http://www.counterpunch.com/h...

General Zinni: "Wrong War, Wrong Place, Wrong Time"

05.26.04 (6:53 am) [edit]

Bush's Ugly Legacy: Inmates at Abu Ghraib Murdered; Raped; Ridden Like Animals & Forced to Eat Pork.

05.24.04 (10:51 am) [edit]

[b]Abu Ghraib: Inmates raped, ridden like animals, and forced to eat pork[/b]

The abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison continued yesterday with the publication of fresh pictures and sworn statements that detailed a teenage boy being raped, prisoners being ridden like animals and other Iraqis being forced to eat pork and drink alcohol in contravention of their religion. For the first time video footage of some of the abuse was also broadcast, a development likely to increase the political impact of the scandal.

The new details caused fresh outrage around the Arab world and further rocked the Bush administration -- already floundering after a week in which US forces killed dozens of guests at a wedding party in Iraq after mistaking them for insurgents. The latest pictures and allegations -- chronicling more calculated attempts to humiliate Muslim prisoners -- have only added to the suspicion that they were part of a policy formulated at a high level of authority.

Even though the existence of the images was known -- indeed, lawmakers on Capitol Hill have seen many of the images already -- their publication put further pressure on Washington as it prepares to hand over sovereignty to an Iraqi administration at the end of June.

Partly in preparation for that handover, a bus full of Iraqi prisoners left Abu Ghraib outside Baghdad yesterday as the US sought to reduce the numbers being held in the jail. But the new pictures and statements overshadowed the release.

In one statement, a prisoner tells how he witnessed a US army translator raping an Iraqi boy, aged somewhere between 15 and 18.

Kasim Mehaddi Hilas, prisoner number 151108, says a female soldier took photographs of the rape. Sheets had been hung to block the prisoners' view, but Mr Hilas says he heard the boy's screams and climbed a door to see what was going on. "The kid was hurting very bad," his statement reads.

The statements were published in The Washington Post, accompanied by images that will haunt America. One shows an Iraqi completely naked, his arms outstretched, his back to the camera. His body is smeared with a thick brown substance that looks like excrement. It is caked around the back of his head.

Yet it is not simply these images and details that are so shocking, but the overwhelming evidence suggesting that, far from being an isolated episode involving a "few bad apples" from Appalachia, as the administration claims, this abuse was part of a systematic, gloves-off approach to dealing with suspected "terrorists" in the post-9/11 world.

Compelling evidence is emerging that responsibility for the abuse goes right to the Pentagon, where an ultra-secret "black operation" was set up to run the interrogation process. This unit, under the direction of Stephen Cambone, under-secretary of defence for intelligence, reportedly used theories developed by an academic to guide the torture of the detainees.

The book, The Arab Mind by the late cultural anthropologist Raphael Patai, includes a 25-page chapter on Arabs and sex, stating that the biggest weakness of Arabs is shame and humiliation. Patai's book was described by The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh as providing an intellectual and practical underpinning of the culture of torture at Abu Ghraib. Another alleged victim of the orchestrated abuse tells how American soldiers held him down and sodomised him with a truncheon. This prisoner is not being named because he was the alleged victim of a sexual assault. Other prisoners tell how they were fed pork or forced to drink alcohol, which are forbidden to Muslims.

Ameen Saeed al-Sheikh says that he was tortured and ordered to denounce Islam. Mr Sheikh says that his leg was broken when one of the soldiers started hitting it and ordering him to curse Islam. "They ordered me to thank Jesus that I'm alive," he says.

Other photographs show a terrified Iraqi being menaced by a huge black dog while an American soldier stares aggressively on, and a man in women's underwear being forced to stand precariously on two boxes, one leg chained to a doorway and his hands handcuffed between his legs.

These are just some of the photographs the Pentagon tried to suppress. The US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, claimed they could not be released because they might jeopardise the courts martial of seven soldiers charged with involvement in the abuses. The sworn witness statements had been kept secret until they were published yesterday.

Mr Rumsfeld is fighting for his political life. The New Yorker report suggests he approved the covert operation, to which he appointed Dr Cambone as leader in order to obtain fast, "actionable" intelligence in pursuit of Mr Bush's "war on terror". The pressure to obtain this information -- and the increasingly important role of the army's military intelligence soldiers and civilian interrogators -- grew as the Iraqi insurgency against US forces developed. At Abu Ghraib, it appears this effort was combined with ideas that had been developed by Patai's book. The New Yorker claimed the book was the "bible of the neo-cons on Arab behaviour" and left them with two ideas -- that Arabs only understood force and that humiliation and shame were their greatest weaknesses.

Specialist Charles Graner, one of seven soldiers from the 372nd Military Police Unit based in Cumberland, Maryland, charged and clearly identified in some of the prisoners' statements, has already said through his lawyer that he intends to plead at his court martial that he was following orders.

He and the others charged will say that they were told by American interrogators to soften the prisoners up for questioning.

It is likely that the hearings will further highlight the role of Major-General Geoffrey Miller, formerly the warden at Guantanamo Bay, who took control of Abu Ghraib last year with a plan to turn it into a hub of interrogation. He placed the military police under the tactical control of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade. Specialist Jeremy Sivits, who pleaded guilty as part of a plea bargain at a court martial this week, told the court in his evidence that one of the other accused had told him they had been told to keep abusing the prisoners by interrogators, and that they were doing good work.

That version of events is backed up one of the former detainees at Abu Ghraib, Saddam Saleh, who has come forward to say that he is one of the prisoners in the photographs: the one in which Private Lynndie England is pointing at the genitals of a row of naked, hooded Iraqi men, and grinning.

Mr Saleh, who has since been released, says he only knows that he is the third from the right -- he was hooded when the picture was taken and could not see Pte England -- because American soldiers brought the photograph to his cell and pointed him out, apparently in an effort to humiliate him further. That would back claims that the photographs were taken so they could be used to humiliate and demoralise the prisoners.

Mr Saleh has also said that he was tortured for 18 days in Abu Ghraib, but that the torture abruptly stopped. While other prisoners continued to be tortured, he was left alone. At exactly the same time as the torture stopped, interrogators began questioning him in regular sessions. He had not been questioned at all before. If the torture was designed to extract useful information from the prisoners, in Mr Saleh's case it did not work. He says that after what he had been through, he was ready to tell the interrogators anything just to escape further mistreatment.

"Whatever they asked me I just said, 'Yes'. I was desperate," he says in his statement.

Interrogators asked him if he was a member Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish Islamist group that has alleged links with al-Qa'ida. "I said yes," Mr Saleh says, although he says he knew nothing about the group, and he has since been released, which indicates that American interrogators decided he had nothing to do with it. They asked if he was a member of Jeish Mohammed, a Sunni Iraqi resistance group. "I said my cousin was the leader of Jeish Mohammed," Mr Saleh says.

They asked him if he knew Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a militant leader in Iraq with links to al-Qa'ida. "I said, 'Yes', but I'd never heard of him before."

Last night the Pentagon said that 37 deaths involving detainees held by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan were being investigated. There were 33 cases involved, eight more than previously revealed, according to officials. - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...

"What the hell is going on in America?"

05.24.04 (7:05 am) [edit]

[b]"What the hell is going on in America?"[/b]

A. US Military Coup?

B. Pantycon Squabble?

C. US Government Meltdown?

D. All of the above?

[b]FOR AN EXPLANATION, CLICK ON [/b] http://www.fountainofbaloney....

The Day the Tanks Arrived at Rafah Zoo

05.24.04 (6:45 am) [edit]

[b]The day the tanks arrived at Rafah zoo

Among ruined houses, a haven for Gaza's children lies in rubble [/b]

Ask to be directed to the latest wave of Israeli destruction in Rafah's al-Brazil neighbourhood and many fingers point towards the zoo.

Amid the rubble of dozens of homes that the Israeli army continued yesterday to deny demolishing, the wrecking of the tiny, but only, zoo in the Gaza Strip took on potent symbolism for many of the newly homeless.

The butchered ostrich, the petrified kangaroo cowering in a basement corner, the tortoises crushed under the tank treads - all were held up as evidence of the pitiless nature of the Israeli occupation.

"People are more important than animals," said the zoo's co-owner Mohammed Ahmed Juma, whose house was also demolished. "But the zoo is the only place in Rafah that children could escape the tense atmosphere. There were slides and games for children. We had a small swimming pool. I know it's hard to believe, looking at it now, but it was beautiful. Why would they destroy that? Because they want to destroy everything about us."

The systematic demolition of homes was revealed yesterday as Israeli forces partially pulled out of al-Brazil on the fifth day of an operation officially to hunt down Palestinian fighters and weapons-smuggling tunnels running under the border from Egypt.

More than 40 people have been killed in the assault, about a third of them civilians, besides targets of the operation such as the Hamas military commander in al-Brazil who was hit by a missile.

About 45 buildings were razed by the army in the area it pulled back from yesterday, some of them two or three storeys high and housing several families.

The military says the houses were wrecked by Palestinian bombs planted to attack Israeli forces, or accidentally by tanks turning in the street. But Palestinians consistently gave similar accounts of armoured bulldozers arriving at the door and giving the residents just minutes to get out, at best.

"The bulldozer started hitting the house," said Juma Abu Hammad sitting on the remains of his eight-bed-roomed home that housed two families with 15 children. "I grabbed the children. We did not take a single thing with us, even very important documents like birth certificates. I was just worried about the lives of the children."

Aziza Monsour, 54, pointed to the remains of a yellow taxi tossed by a bulldozer on the top of what remained of a neighbouring house. "That taxi was our only living," she said. "My husband drove it. It provided for everyone who lived in this house."

But there is no house any more.

"The blade of the bulldozer hit the room we were sitting in," said Mrs Monsour. "I waved my white headscarf at the soldiers as we pleaded with them to let us go. We were running between the tanks and the shooting and counting the children as we went to make sure they were all still with us. This is revenge, absolute revenge, for the seven Israeli soldiers killed in Rafah."

None of the homes left destroyed yesterday is close to the "Philadelphi road" security strip under Israeli control along the Egyptian border, and is therefore un-likely to have been used to dig weapons-smuggling tunnels.

It is unclear whether other homes, next to the border, have also been demolished as Israeli forces retain control of that part of al-Brazil.

The army said that after five days of searching, "the beginnings of a tunnel" had been found, although not in the area of the mass demolitions. The military also denied it had deliberately destroyed homes.

"We did not destroy any houses in al-Brazil," said a spokeswoman who identified herself as Eli. "There was damage to buildings from fighting. The terrorists activate explosive devices under the road or next to the buildings. These bombs that destroy tanks can easily destroy a house."

But, aside from the accounts of Palestinians who fled their homes, the destruction is not consistent with individual explosions. Off al-Imam road, nearly 20 houses in a row were wrecked. There was no sign of a massive explosion, such as a crater in the road or damage to houses standing next to the wrecked buildings.

Opposite, bulldozers had torn up an olive grove belonging to a well-known family in the area, the Qishtas.

The demolitions in al-Brazil are the third time the Israeli army has misrepresented its actions in Rafah this week.

On Tuesday the military dismissed accusations that an Israeli sniper shot two children in the head, claiming they were blown up by a Palestinian bomb. But the bodies of both children were later shown to each have only a single bullet wound to the head.

On Wednesday the army said armed men made up the majority of 10 people killed when an Israeli tank fired into a peaceful demonstration. In fact half of the victims were children and television footage showed no weapons among the demonstrators.

The army also initially denied that soldiers deliberately wrecked the zoo that provided Rafah's children with virtually their only contact with live animals, even ordinary ones such as squirrels, goats and tortoises.

Among the zoo's more popular exhibits were kangaroos, monkeys and ostriches, which children could sit on.

The destruction was comprehensive. The fountain and its tiles were a jumble of rubble in one corner. There was no sign of the swimming pool.

One of the ostriches lay half buried in the rubble. Guinea fowl and ducks were laid out in a row. Goats and a deer struggled with broken legs.

Some of the animals were still on the loose, if not buried under the debris. One of the two kangaroos was missing; the other was cowering in the basement. A snake and three monkeys were unaccounted for. Mr Juma accused Israeli soldiers of stealing valuable African parrots.

The army's explanation evolved through the day. At first it said it had not destroyed the zoo, then it said a tank may have accidentally reversed into it.

By the end of yesterday, the military said its soldiers had been forced to drive through the zoo because an alternative route was booby-trapped by Palestinian explosives.

Finally a spokesman said the soldiers had released the animals from their cages in a compassionate gesture to prevent them being harmed.

� Israeli forensic experts are examining human remains handed over by a Lebanese group to see whether they are those of the missing airman Ron Arad, who bailed out over Lebanon 18 years ago, Israel Radio said. It did not identify the group which handed over the remains. - http://www.guardian.co.uk/isr...,2763,1222307,00.html

The Day the Tanks Arrived at Rafah Zoo

05.24.04 (6:44 am) [edit]

No More Lying Room: Bombed Iraqi Wedding Video Released

05.24.04 (6:39 am) [edit]

[b]Bombed Iraqi wedding video released[/b]

[b]A videotape depicting an Iraqi wedding just hours before US warplanes attacked it � killing 45 people � has been released[/b].

Obtained by Associated Press Television News on Sunday, cameraman Yasir Shawkat Abd Allah filmed the arrival of the bride at a large goat-hair tent and children dancing to tribal songs.

The attack last Tuesday also killed the cameraman.

The US military says it is investigating the attack, which took place in the village of Makr al-Dib about 8km from the Syrian border, but that all evidence so far indicates the target was a house for foreign fighters.

"There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said on Saturday.

"There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations, too."

[b]Military explanation doubts[/b]

But video APTN shot a day after the attack shows fragments of musical instruments, pots and pans and brightly coloured beddings used for celebrations, scattered around the bombed out tent.

A reporter and photographer who interviewed more than a dozen survivors a day after the bombing, were able to identify many of them on the wedding party video - which runs for several hours.

APTN also travelled to Makr al-Dib, 400km west of Ramadi, the day after the attack to film what the survivors said was the wedding site.

A devastated building and remnants of the tent, pots and pans could be seen, along with bits of what appeared to be the remnants of ordnance, one of which bore the marking ATU-35, similar to those on US bombs.

The singing and dancing seems to go on forever at the tent set up in the garden of the host for the wedding of his son.

The men later move to the porch when darkness falls, apparently taking advantage of the cool night weather.

[b]Musician or militant?[/b]

Prominently displayed on the videotape was a stocky man with close-cropped hair playing an electric organ.

Another tape filmed a day later in al-Ramadi and obtained by APTN showed the musician lying dead in a burial shroud - his face clearly visible and wearing the same tan shirt as he wore when he performed.

Kimmitt said US troops who swept through the area found rifles, machine guns, foreign passports, beddings, syringes and other items that suggested the site was used by foreigners infiltrating from Syria.

The videotape showed no weapons, although they are common among rural Iraqis.

[b]Child toll[/b]

Kimmitt has denied finding evidence any children had died in the raid although a "handful of women" - perhaps four to six - were "caught up in the engagement".

"They may have died from some of the fire that came from the aircraft," he told reporters on Friday.

However, an AP reporter obtained names of at least 10 children who relatives said had died.

Bodies of five of them were filmed by APTN when the survivors took them to al-Ramadi for burial on Wednesday. Iraqi officials said at least 13 children were killed. - http://english.aljazeera.net/...

No More Lying Room: Bombed Iraqi Wedding Video Released

05.24.04 (6:37 am) [edit]

Did Somebody Say War?

05.24.04 (6:31 am) [edit]

President Bush fell off his bike and hurt himself during a 17-mile excursion at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., on Saturday. Nothing serious. A few cuts and bruises. He was wearing a bike helmet and a mouth guard, and he was able to climb back on his bike and finish his ride.

A little later he left the ranch and went to Austin for a graduation party for his daughter Jenna. And then it was on to New Haven, where daughter Barbara will graduate today from Yale. Except for the bicycle mishap, it sounded like a very pleasant weekend.

Meanwhile, there's a war on. Yet another U.S. soldier was killed near Falluja yesterday. You remember Falluja. That's the rebellious city that the Marines gave up on and turned over to the control of officers from the very same Baathist army that we invaded Iraq to defeat.

It's impossible to think about Iraq without stumbling over these kinds of absurdities. How do you get a logical foothold on a war that was nurtured from the beginning on absurd premises? You can't. Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11. The invasion of Iraq was not part of the war on terror. We had no business launching this war. Now we're left with the tragic absurdity of a clueless president riding his bicycle in Texas while Americans in Iraq are going up in flames.

How bad is the current situation? Gen. Anthony Zinni, the retired Marine Corps general who headed the U.S. Central Command (which covers much of the Middle East and Central Asia) from 1997 to 2000, was utterly dismissive about the administration's "stay the course" strategy in Iraq. "The course is headed over Niagara Falls," he said in an interview with "60 Minutes," adding, "It should be evident to everybody that they've screwed up."

When the weapons of mass destruction rationale went by the boards, the administration and its apologists tried to justify the war by asserting that the U.S. could use bullets and bombs to seed Iraq with an American-style democracy that would then spread like the flowers of spring throughout the Middle East.

Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, addressed that point last week in a report titled, "The `Post Conflict' Lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan."

"At this point," the report said, "the U.S. lacks good options in Iraq � although it probably never really had them in the sense the Bush administration sought. The option of quickly turning Iraq into a successful, free-market democracy was never practical, and was as absurd a neoconservative fantasy as the idea that success in this objective would magically make Iraq an example that would transform the Middle East."

The president's reservoir of credibility on Iraq is bone dry. His approval ratings are going down. Conservative voices in opposition to his policies are growing louder. And the troops themselves are becoming increasingly disenchanted with their mission. Yet no one knows quite what to do. Americans are torn between a desire to stop the madness by pulling the plug on this tragic and hopeless adventure and the realization that the U.S., for the time being, may be the only safeguard against a catastrophic civil war.

The president is scheduled to give a speech tonight to lay out his "clear strategy" for the future of Iraq. Don't hold your breath. This is the same president who deliberately exploited his nation's fear of terrorism in the aftermath of Sept. 11 to lead it into the long dark starless night of Iraq.

As for the Iraqis, they've been had. We're not going to foot the bill in any real sense for the reconstruction of Iraq, any more than we've been willing to foot the bill for a reconstruction of the public school system here at home. There's a reason why Ahmad Chalabi and the Bush crowd were so simpatico for so long. They all considered themselves masters of the con. They all thought that they could fool all of the people all of the time.

There's a terrible sense of dread filtering across America at the moment and it's not simply because of the continuing fear of terrorism and the fact that the nation is at war. It's more frightening than that. It grows out of the suspicion that we all may be passengers in a vehicle that has made a radically wrong turn and is barreling along a dark road, with its headlights off and with someone behind the wheel who may not know how to drive. - http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...

Did Somebody Say War?

05.24.04 (6:28 am) [edit]

Did Somebody Say War?

05.24.04 (6:24 am) [edit]

Israeli Leader's WWII Analogy Draws Fire

05.23.04 (12:52 pm) [edit]

[u][b]Israeli Leader's WWII Analogy Draws Fire[/b][/u] - http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...

Causing an uproar, an Israeli Cabinet minister said Sunday he was reminded of the suffering of his family under Nazi rule when he saw TV images of an Israeli offensive in a Palestinian refugee camp.

Justice Minister Yosef Lapid, a Holocaust survivor, insisted he was not likening army actions to Nazi policies. However, he said the picture of an elderly woman searching for medication in the rubble of a home razed by Israel in the Rafah camp reminded him of his grandmother.

Infuriated Cabinet colleagues said that even if unspoken, the analogy was clear, and demanded he retract his comments.

Lapid's remarks added fire to a debate in Israel over its offensive in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) camp, which is near the border with Egypt. Some critics said the campaign makes little sense from a military point of view, while others questioned why Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) approved it even though he is pushing for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

Israel has damaged or demolished dozens of homes in Rafah in its six-day offensive, an attempt to root out militants and uncover arms-smuggling tunnels. The practice has been widely criticized around the world and questioned by Israel's attorney general.

Early Sunday, four military bulldozers and three tanks moved back into Rafah's Brazil neighborhood, scene of fighting last week.

Hundreds of residents fled the area, with some women loading belongings and young children onto donkey carts. Gunfire crackled in the air, and Israeli helicopters flew overhead.

Separately, three members of the Hamas militant group were killed Sunday while handling explosives in the West Bank town of Nablus, Palestinian security sources said on condition of anonymity.

The men had pulled their car up alongside an abandoned vehicle used to store their explosives, and the storage vehicle blew up while one of the militants was handling materials inside, the sources said, adding it was unclear whether the explosion had been accidental or carried out by Israel.

Lapid, of the centrist Shinui Party, called for a halt in the demolitions during a Cabinet discussion Sunday, evoking images of his family's suffering during World War II.

"I am talking about an old woman on all fours looking for her medicine in the rubble of her home and I thought about my grandmother," he later told Israel Army Radio.

Lapid, a native of what is now Yugoslavia, spent part of the war in the Budapest ghetto and lost many relatives, including one grandmother and his father, in the Holocaust. He immigrated to Israel in 1948 when he was 17.

Many Israelis have relatives who perished in the Nazi genocide, and using the issue in political debate, however heated, is considered taboo. Any comparisons between the Holocaust and other acts are seen as cheapening the memory of the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis.

"Can he make such an analogy just because he is a Holocaust survivor?" Health Minister Danny Naveh told Army Radio. "The comparison, maybe hinted or even unintentional, between the systematic murder of the Jews by the Germans and the army's operations in Gaza ... is not a legitimate analogy."

In the radio interview, Lapid also revealed that the army is considering demolishing some 2,000 homes in Rafah to expand a patrol road between the camp and the border with Egypt. Military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed for the first time that they are exploring plans involving the demolition of 700 to 2,000 homes.

"We look like monsters in the eyes of the world," Lapid told Israel Radio. "This makes me sick."

Israeli military officials want to widen the patrol road to make it more difficult for weapons smugglers to dig tunnels. The plan has been criticized by the United Nations (news - web sites), the European Union (news - web sites) and the United States.

Israeli officials said Attorney General Meni Mazuz believed the road-widening plan would not hold up in local and international courts, and that he told the army to come up with alternatives that would cause less destruction. In a meeting with Mazuz, military chief Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz proposed offering compensation to Palestinians who lose their homes, officials said. No decision was made on the he proposal.

Forty-one Palestinians have been killed since "Operation Rainbow" began last Tuesday. Israel says its offensive has resulted in the arrest of dozens of militants and the killing of a local leader of the armed group Hamas. The army also said it had discovered one arms-smuggling tunnel.

The ongoing violence has put new pressure on Sharon, who wants to withdraw from Gaza.

Sharon is exploring the possibility of bringing the moderate Labor Party into his government as he tries to push forward with the withdrawal plan, which faces considerable opposition in his Cabinet, officials said Sunday. - http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...

Bush's economic fiasco: (The GOP's new math . . .) ... and a tax-break train wreck

05.23.04 (7:13 am) [edit]

If more evidence is needed as to why Congress needs to impose self-discipline on tax and spending policy, keep reading.

The World Trade Organization ruled in 2002 that a U.S. tax break for exporters constituted an illegal export subsidy. Change it by the end of 2003, decreed the WTO, or the European Union, the complaining party in the case, would be entitled to slap $4 billion worth of punitive sanctions on U.S. goods.

Avoiding a $4 billion penalty sounds like a pretty good incentive to make that change ASAP. Virtually no one defends the export tax break now. It grants U.S. multinationals a partial tax exemption for income their foreign subsidiaries earn from handling U.S. export sales. That's illegal and has to go. But the illegal export break is still in force. The EU penalties began mounting in March on selected U.S. food products, machinery, textiles and toys.

Congress is debating how to get rid of the export tax break. So far, though, the answer amounts to this: Congress shall giveth much, much more than it taketh away. The Senate last week voted 92 to 5 to approve legislation to remove the export tax break--and create a slew of new special interest tax breaks.

The bill eliminates the export break, which would raise taxes that manufacturers pay by an estimated $5 billion a year, about $50 billion over the next decade. But the Senate version includes more than 150 business tax breaks totaling over the decade $170 billion--more than three times the cost of the export break. The House version, which will be debated after Memorial Day, would create a mere $140 billion in tax breaks.

Instead of just fixing the problem, points out Keith Ashdown, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, "lawmakers have lined this bill with parochial tax pork that does nothing but bust the budget.

"If you work on K Street," Ashdown said, referring to Washington's infamous lobbying domain, "and aren't getting anything out of this legislation, you should be fired."

There are tax breaks for, among others, the cruise ship industry, NASCAR, U.S. bow and arrow makers, dog and horse racing, makers of small aircraft, livestock and horse owners, shortline railroads, farmers and ranchers, trial lawyers and Hollywood film studios.

Tax breaks are included for oil, gas, nuclear energy, utilities and ethanol ($18 billion worth transplanted onto this bill from the stalled energy bill). There's also a break for developers who want to convert an historic hotel in downtown Sioux City, Iowa into low-income housing for seniors. Last, but certainly not least, there's a tax break to help Oldsmobile dealers cope with the painful reality that General Motors has stopped making Oldsmobiles.

None of these has anything to do with the illegal export subsidy, but everything to do with the reality that this is likely to be the only business tax-cut vehicle on the congressional calendar. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) acknowledged as much when he reminded his brethren that this bill "could be the last train out of town this year."

The Senate insists that it is rounding up the usual suspects--closing tax loopholes and cracking down on tax shelters--to pay for this. But that claim is a long way from reality. The action now shifts to the House where the pressure to employ the "everything but the kitchen sink" approach to secure passage likely will be repeated.

And you wonder why the federal deficit is going to hit $521 billion this year. - http://www.chicagotribune.com...,1,1671718.story?coll=chi-printedito rial-hed

Bush's economic fiasco: (The GOP's new math . . .) ... and a tax-break train wreck

05.23.04 (7:06 am) [edit]

A Political Obituary: Colin Powell, DOA

05.23.04 (6:59 am) [edit]

"[i]You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people. You will own all their hopes, aspirations and problems. You'll own it all[/i]."

-- Powell statement to US President George Bush as quoted by Woodward [1].

Sometimes it is worth writing someone's obituary ahead of schedule. In the case of politicians, the purpose of an obituary is to serve as a warning against the political zombies those politicians who are politically spent or have lost their souls. There are many of them around today, e.g., Jose Maria Aznar, Tony Blair, Jack Straw, Kofi Annan, Javier Solana... and Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State.

One could almost feel sorry for General Powell. In 2000, Powell had the useful face and the useful stars, attractive attributes required for electoral purposes. Recruited into office amidst much fanfare, he has duly proven a useful political fig leaf over a foreign policy determined by others. Today he is a discredited spokesman of a bankrupt foreign policy, a token captain remote from the rudder of a foundering ship.

[b]Murky beginning[/b]

Early on in his career, Powell specialized in whitewash and ass-cover-up operations. Remember My Lai? Well, in 1968 Major Powell was instrumental in whitewashing that sordid episode. During his stint at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Powell was responsible for pressing ahead with the 1991 Gulf War, a war that was entirely avoidable and against the judgment of the general staff. We know the disastrous consequences of that operation and much has been revealed of his murky past. This article will focus on his record as Secretary of State. (For critical background, see Parry and Solomon's excellent "Behind Colin Powell's Legend" [2].)

[b]The Big Lie unravels[/b]

Powell's recent admission that the evidence he presented in front of the UN Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003 had not been "solid" was the nadir of an increasingly pathetic career. For Powell to admit that there were flaws in his presentation at this late stage of the game, after thousands lay dead and Iraq had been ravaged, is like someone caught in a lie a mighty big lie and then only sheepishly admitting that it may have been false. Powell has proven that he doesn't just have thick skin, but skin calloused by experience into a carapace.

The admission by David Kay, the US chief weapons inspector, that Iraq did not possess any WMD pulled the rug right out from under Powell's feet. Before this, Powell had insisted that his accusations leveled against Iraq in front of the UN Security Council had been based on sound intelligence [3]. As late as the end of Feb. 2004, Powell was still defending his position and reacted angrily when he was challenged in front of a Congressional hearing concerning his claims of Iraqi WMDs. What made this event memorable was his angry outburst, punctuated by a disaffected pimp scowl, against a Congressional staffer who had been shaking his head. At that time, Powell was still bluffing it out.

But Kay's revelation made Powell's position untenable, and admissions of error had to be made. On April 2nd, in what turned out to be an exercise in minimalism, Powell finally admitted to having relied on evidence that "was not solid" [4]. This admission is curious; it refers only to a small fraction of the litany of accusations he had leveled in front of the Security Council. The "mobile factories" claim officially hit the dust, but the remaining claims (many of which were by now also discredited) were not mentioned. In fact, the veracity scorecard of all the accusations has proven to be abysmally low: many were just transparent lies, and even the smallest details were either false or deliberately distorted. Even at the time, only the most gullible would have thought that Powell's presentation contained a smoking gun, let alone a justification for war [5]. It is unimaginable that Powell made this presentation without realizing that most of his statements were lies or fabrications. Never mind, it is part of the job, and it has been part of General Powell's job description for the past few decades; selling and pushing wars has been his specialty.

Powell's less-than-candid admission of having relied on shaky intelligence was calculated to signal to the media to lay off this issue. Any further questions about Powell's testimony will be met with hostility and the questioner will be referred to the previous admission about the dubious evidence. The public at large was put on notice: they too would be expected to move on and ignore the gaping omissions in this sordid chapter.

[b]The rats are masters of the ship[/b]

Powell should have held ultimate authority over foreign policy, yet he was not allowed the final say in the appointment of reputable diplomats nor to develop a coherent foreign policy. The Secretary of State should also have played an important role in moderating Bush's rash impulses the man demonstrates a weaponized obtuseness and requires constant monitoring. Instead, Powell has been relegated to a secondary role and merely mouths policy concocted by others. Paul O'Neill, the former Secretary of Treasury, recently described the cabinet meetings chaired by president Bush as ones chaired by a mute and attended by the deaf. A compliant Powell fits in perfectly.

It is clear that Powell didn't have much voice in the appointment of the neocons to policy positions. Appointing the arch-Zionist Elliot Abrams to oversee Middle East policy was as appropriate as appointing a pyromaniac to the fire brigade [6]. The same can be said about John Bolton, Roger Noriega, John Negroponte and other Cheney cronies who can only be described as a wrecking crew, as Powell must have been aware. In addition, Powell faced the ultimate indignity when, for crucial negotiations and foreign policy advice, James Baker, the former Secretary of State, was given an office in the White House.

Powell has often uttered statements about US policy only to be contradicted by one of the rats aboard his ship. Immediately after the coup in Haiti, Powell uttered some statements about respecting a democratically elected government, only to be contradicted the same day by Roger Noriega. Despite Powell's statement, a death squad leader was appointed to head the new Haitian government.

Only indirectly, via rumors, or through the Woodward expos�, does one hear that Powell had no input in these appointments, and disagreed with the selection of these people, but yet he continues in his token post [7]. A principled response would have required blocking such appointments or resigning; yet, his clinging on to the job is revealing.

[b]Searing memories[/b]

Powell's term as Secretary of State has produced some searing memories. His role in putting the US on course for a war against Iraq, pushing (or not opposing) the neocon agenda, the undermining of international law, and the signaling of "green lights" to whatever Ariel Sharon sought to do, are infamous for the craven and callous role the "head diplomat" chose to play.

[b]1. Green light #1: Ariel Sharon crushes Jenin[/b]

In April 2002, Ariel Sharon sought once again to smash any possibility for the emergence of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. This was accomplished by a massive military onslaught against Palestinian cities in the West Bank and Gaza. Throughout the Occupied Territories, the Palestinian Authority was uprooted, destroyed, and its security apparatus dismantled. The operation culminated in the bloody siege of Jenin where an unknown number of Palestinians were killed, and significant portions of the Jenin refugee camp were flattened. Prof. Ilan Pappe called this onslaught "an unprecedented episode of cruelty in the unsavory history of the occupation" [8].

The international outcry about the Israeli offensive against the civilian population forced the United States to react, but only in a way that made it abundantly clear that it had granted a de facto "green light". Instead of proceeding to Jerusalem immediately and firmly, Powell proceeded at a snail's pace, taking a circuitous route via Morocco, Egypt... and only arrived in Jerusalem after Israeli troops had flattened Jenin and killed many throughout the occupied territories. The King of Morocco even asked Powell why he was visiting him instead of going straight to Jerusalem! Once in Jerusalem, Powell didn't demand a cessation of hostilities, and his cordial public relations with Sharon signaled no opprobrium. In a grotesque gesture, Powell even suspended his mission for some days following a suicide bombing. Powell's role was not one aiming to constrain America's client or one that would have given credibility to Bush's call for restraint. Powell was playing the role that has served him so well over the years, that is, whitewashing and covering up the Israeli depredations.

To make matters worse, the US effectively sabotaged the UN commission charged with investigating the mass killings at Jenin. First, the US attempted to stack the commission in such a way that it would be favorable to Israel, e.g., appointing military experts and some dubious diplomats. Finally, it vetoed the commission altogether. Powell thus signaled that no one would have legal recourse or even obtain an investigation into Israeli mass human rights abuses. Thus, once again, Israel obtained a "green light" and a free "get out of jail card".

[b]2. More ass-cover-up operations.[/b]

The US has sanctioned the building of the massive land-grab wall inside the West Bank, even funding most of its construction. When international outcry protested the wall as a violation of basic international law, Israel did its best, with American assistance, to stop the International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearings about it. Powell's role in sabotaging the ICJ hearings and the eventual muzzling of these proceedings are another dark blot on the American reputation. First, the US sought to pressure many countries to submit advance objections to the ICJ hearing on the specious grounds that this would "politicize" the issues surrounding the construction of the wall. Second, Israel requested a delay in the issuance of the State Dept.'s human rights report until after the ICJ hearings. Israelis feared that the report could contain criticism of the wall, and sought to prevent this information's inclusion in the proceedings. True to form, Powell was complicit in delaying the publication of the report; it was finally released a weekafter the ICJ hearings, more than a month after it was originally scheduled for publication. Finally, the US is currently attempting to delay the ICJ's rulings on the matter until it will be useless, i.e., months after the wall has been completed.

[b]3. Blessing Sharon's unilateral plan, and the second "green light".[/b]

On April 14, 2004, Sharon's unilateral "disengagement" plan received Bush's official blessing. Bush accepted Israel's unilateral annexation of West Bank land, the removal of the Palestinian refugees' right to return, and veto power over future negotiations with Palestinian representatives. Furthermore, although Israelis will claim to "withdraw" from Gaza, the proposals are nothing of the sort. Gaza will remain the world's largest concentration camp, with no access to neighboring countries, no ports, no airports, and even an Israeli veto on the Palestinian leadership.

The Washington meeting of Bush and Sharon must be viewed in the context of the assassination of Sheik Yassin, Hamas' quadriplegic spiritual leader, on March 22, 2004. Sharon personally directed the assassination! No problem, the US vetoed a very mild UN rebuke against the assassination, and Sharon was still welcome in Washington a few days later. With Washington's official blessing for his unilaterally imposed plan, Sharon returned to Israel on April 16, 2004; the next day the newly appointed leader of Hamas, Dr. Rantisi, was assassinated. Nothing could make clearer the tacit collusion between the US and Israel in elimination of the Palestinian leadership. Powell signaled a green light and warded off any UN and/or international condemnation.

Once again, Powell's role in these events has been appalling. Intermittently before and after Bush's blessing of Sharon's unilateral plan, Powell berated Palestinians for not clamping down on "terrorism". Arafat and his cronies barely control one outhouse in Ramallah, so any demand to clamp down on "terrorism" is exceptionally cynical. Powell also stated that the Palestinian Authority should not share power with Hamas. Given that Hamas is a legitimate political group that may now represent the views of the majority of the Palestinians, it is callous for Powell to threaten a veto of the composition of Palestinian representation.

Powell's dismal performance continued early in May seated next to the insufferable Kofi Annan and Javier Solana. This "Quartet" meeting was meant to revive the defunct "road map", but from Powell's statements, it is clear that this is another cruel hoax. Powell suggested that Palestinians should view Sharon's plan as an opportunity, and that they should embrace it. NB: Powell was suggesting that Palestinians should see the bright side of unilateral annexation of their land, the construction of the land-grab wall, the forfeiture of the refugees' right to return, and the imposition of a malevolent apartheid solution! Powell revealed a few more details about the Sharon's US-anointed plan. Israel and the US would from now on negotiate with Jordan and Egypt about control over Palestinian interests and affairs. These countries would be drawn in as partners in the imposition of the new plan, and they would supplant Palestinian representation. Finally, with a straight face, Powell concurred with Kofi Annan's statement that UNSCR 242 and 194 would remain the basis for the "road map" negotiations. However, one can only interpret Annan and Powell's statements to be correct in the following perverse sense. While previous attempts at negotiating peace between Israel and Palestinians suggested that UNSCR 242 (1967 occupied areas) would be a minimum basis for a solution, the current suggestion by US/Israel is that the West Bank and Gaza will represent a maximal solution to the "Palestinian question". Powell's statements are steeped in hypocrisy.

It seems that every time president Bush utters the word "vision" he chuckles. It must be a private joke similar to Bush Senior's disdainful reference to the "vision thing". Some months ago Bush stated that he had a "vision of a Palestinian state". Given his endorsement of the unilaterally imposed plan, Bush stated on May 8th that his vision had slipped a bit behind schedule, and of course, this was due to the Palestinians' own fault, i.e., due to "terrorism". Taking Powell's statements into account one can only infer that a Palestinian state, or any meaningful rights for the Palestinians, is permanently off the agenda. Another vision postponed permanently.

[b]4. A Black man promoting apartheid[/b]

Last month some black Brazilian students traveling through Europe were astonished to find out that Powell is an African American, and one of them asked if he had been afflicted by Michael Jackson's skin disease. Perhaps even more astonishing is that a black man has been instrumental in giving the green light for an extreme apartheid solution to be imposed on the Palestinian people. As Ronnie Kasrils, the South African Minister for Water, stated recently, South African apartheid seems benign when compared to the Israeli occupation and the dispossession of the Palestinians throughout the area. What Israel is currently implementing is a malevolent apartheid solution. That is, though the walls are meant to demarcate Palestinian areas, their intent is to create such harsh conditions that they will drive people off the land [9]. When Ranaan Gissin, Sharon's spokesman, was asked about the wall recently, he laughed while suggesting that this was "a temporary measure." It can only be interpreted as temporary, if the wall will be torn down after the Palestinian population has been driven off the land.

[b]5. Oh, he favors democracy![/b]

The neocons have suggested that Middle Eastern countries have to modernize, and to become democracies. Powell also played along with this charade and the State Department issued a report on what countries in the Middle East need to do, and US officials attended a meeting in the area to push the same theme. The State Dept. even coined a grand title for this rather empty initiative, i.e., the Greater Middle East Initiative. Note, that while the US was "encouraging" Middle Eastern countries to democratize the US was involved in the overthrow of the democratically elected government in Haiti. It is clear the US armed and trained a Haitian gang led by notorious death squad leaders of yesteryear. How could Powell square the US's desire for "democracy" in the Middle East when it is at the same time promoting coups against democratically elected governments in Latin America?

[b]6. And now the Europeans must shut up![/b]

The US recently instigated an OSCE meeting, and on April 29, 2004, it issued a call to fight anti-Semitism in Europe. Of course, Powell was on hand to reinforce the message that criticism of Israel may be construed as anti-Semitism. Mr. Powell stated: "It is not anti-Semitic to criticize the state of Israel, but the line is crossed when the leaders of Israel are demonized or vilified by the use of Nazi symbols." It seems that pointing out serious Israeli crimes against Palestinians, and Ariel Sharon's role in directing them may come under the OSCE's scrutiny. But what is worse, for president Bush to call Sharon a "man of peace" or for critics to call Sharon a war criminal?

Most of the OSCE countries have become ethnically diverse, and it is likely that in many of the member countries racism, religious intolerance, and even violence may be manifest. It is also likely that the discrimination and violence against Muslim/Arab people is rife and more acute than anti-Semitism. So, it is odd that the OSCE meeting focused on discrimination and violence that may be less acute and chronic than that directed against Muslim/Arab minorities. In the very least, the OSCE working group should have demanded an inclusion of all groups that are currently threatened in the coverage of its statement. However, due to US pressure, the OSCE has focused exclusively on anti-Semitism, and European critics of Israeli depredations have been put on notice that their condemnation of Israel could one day be labeled anti-Semitism. Powell delivered this veiled threat against those opposed to the Israeli occupation and its violence against Palestinians.

[b]7. The token captain attacks a fat rat![/b]

The occupation of Iraq is a major disaster and the situation is unraveling before our eyes. Of course, the justifications for the war were absurd, and now the cost of the occupation is becoming astronomical. Add to this an unprecedented level of hostility against the US throughout the world, and suddenly the position of the promoters of this war is becoming increasingly tenuous. We already detect infighting among the cheerleaders of the war, and Powell even attacked Wolfowitz, albeit indirectly. Of course, any critical statement must be deniable, and it was up to one of Powell's aides to compare Wolfowitz to "Lenin"! [10] It seems that Powell wants to dissociate himself from the neocon warmongers, but it may be a little too late.

[b]Generals and diplomacy[/b]

Military officers aren't trained in the intricacies and nuances of diplomacy which comprises a very different form of warfare. The military are trained to follow orders and accomplish tasks that are very narrow in scope. It is for this reason that military officers, not withstanding the brilliance of their careers, must not be appointed to the top diplomatic post. In Powell's case, one must remember that his only contribution to military doctrine was to advocate the "overwhelming use of force" notice the genius required to suggest such a strategy! His background certainly didn't indicate that he would be a suitable candidate for the top foreign policy position. His appointment may have much to do with the subsidiary role given to diplomacy during the current Bush regime.

Just like the previous General appointed as a Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, Powell's term in office has been a disaster. Instead of leading and creating a coherent foreign policy, working actively within a multilateral framework, Powell allowed himself to be dragged along into a policy of confrontation, unilateralism, disdain for international law, and predisposed to engage in "preventive wars". The consequence is evident for all to see. At the UN, the only countries siding with the US at the General Assembly are Israel, Nauru and the Marshall Islands (even Dominica abstains these days!). Now, any architect of American diplomacy must be proud of this accomplishment! Fairly soon, Americans will not be able to travel in the Middle East and significant portions of Africa without an element of fear.

[b]Homo tragi pathetico[/b]

On April 27th Powell stated that he was not going to resign, but his aide, Mr. Wilkerson, revealed that Powell is unlikely to seek a second term if Bush is reelected, and "said the Secretary of State had spent much of his time doing damage control around the world for the actions of his colleagues [...] and he was physically and mentally tired" [11]. Powell went from presidential hopeful to a faded star in less than four years. What is in store for him now? Sell armaments for the Carlyle group; write another tome of his memoirs receiving a handsome sum in advance; or will he go on the lecture circuit to receive a deferred bribe?

If Powell had played a part in a tragicomedy, then one would at least have found something to laugh about. Alas, there is nothing comical about Powell's entire career, and the man can best be described as a tragipathetic character. That is, the tragedy has to do with the many corpses in Vietnam, Iraq, Palestine and Haiti; the pathetic part has to do with Powell's willingness to play along in these sordid affairs. One would almost like to say 'R.I.P.', though this would not be well deserved, especially since he was D.O.A, dead on arrival.

[u]Endnotes[/u]

1. It is difficult to know what to make of Woodward's books. He is certainly used by the major players to spin their side of the story, and any attribution that may cause trouble can be denied. As an historical record Woodward's books are of questionable value.
2. Robert Parry and Norman Solomon, Behind Colin Powell's Legend, ConsortiumNews .com
3. Powell even stated that he had spent days at the CIA obtaining a thorough briefing.
4. Powell admits Iraq evidence mistake, BBC Online, April 3, 2004. Note that Powell is only referring to a few elements of his presentation. The "mobile factories" part was "not solid", but by implication that leaves the rest of accusation untouched.
5. If proof is needed, see my comments on Powell's accusations on Feb. 6, 2003. Paul de Rooij, A Riposte to Gen. Powell: Where are the incubators?, Feb. 6, 2003. This essay was written immediately after Powell's UN performance, and published three hours afterwards. Even early on, it was evident that most of his statements were to use diplomatic terminology baloney.
6. A charge often leveled against the neocon Zionists (an admitted pleonasm) is that they have a "dual loyalty" or that they are "Israel Firsters". This would imply that they would uphold US interests to the same or to a similar degree as their defense of Israeli interests. However, it is increasingly evident that a better label for this gang is "Israel exclusivists", implying that they will manipulate US political process to push Israeli interest first. It is difficult to imagine that their pursuit of a US-Iraq war and occupation has fostered American interests in the area. However, it is clear that in their calculus Israel's interests have been promoted.
7. About Bolton, see Uri Avnery, Vanunu: The Terrible Secret, April 24, 2004.
8. Ilan Pappe, As long as the plan contains the magic term 'withdrawal', it is seen as a good thing, London Review of Books, May 6, 2004.
9. Noam Chomsky, The Wall as a Weapon, New York Times, 23 February 2004.
10. John Leyne, Powell aide takes swipe at rivals, BBC Online, May 6, 2004.
11. Ibid.

A Political Obituary: Colin Powell, DOA

05.23.04 (6:54 am) [edit]

London Protesters Want Bush to be Tried for War Crimes ...

05.23.04 (6:45 am) [edit]

London's mayor Ken Livingstone called for US President George W. Bush to be put on trial for war crimes in Iraq, as more than 1,000 anti-war protesters condemned the torture of Iraqi prisoners.

"There is nothing more to say than that the only way to end these horrors is by bringing our troops out of Iraq immediately," the popular socialist mayor told the rally in Trafalgar Square.

He said he hoped that Bush would no longer be immune from prosecution if he loses the US presidential election in November - after which he should be "prosecuted for the war crimes he has overseen and unleashed".

Livingstone, a regular speaker at anti-war rallies, is himself running for a second term as mayor of western Europe's biggest city in June, under the banner of Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour party.

Blair has consistently been Bush's staunchest ally on Iraq.

Police said 1,000 to 1,200 people took part in Saturday's short march from Victoria Embankment to Trafalgar Square, called by the Stop the War Coalition in outrage over the torture of Iraqis by US troops at Abu Ghraib prison.

Several of the demonstrators wore peaked black hoods - similar to those seen in photos of Iraqis abused by US troops at Abu Ghraib - for the short march to Trafalgar Square.

Others dressed up as gun-toting British soldiers, and waved placards reading: "End the Torture. Bring the Troops Home Now!".

Rebel member of parliament George Galloway, drummed out of the Labour party in October last year for his strident anti-war views, told the crowd: "They said that they (coalition forces) were coming as liberators - and they ended as torturers."

"They said that they were bringing democracy, and instead they brought savage dogs and hoods," said Galloway, who personally knew ousted Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein. "They said that they were bringing human rights, and instead they ended up throwing prisoners food in their toilets."

Later in the afternoon, several of the protesters moved on to nearby Downing Street, Blair's official residence.

"The American and British governments are guilty of an act of aggression," veteran socialist firebrand Tony Benn, one of the demonstrators, told Sky News television from Trafalgar Square before the rally got underway.

"They have occupied Iraq illegally," he said. "The torture is an inevitable part of the occupation."

Stop the War is best known for a million-strong demonstration through the streets of London in February 2003 against the US-led invasion of Iraq that came the following month.-AFP - http://www.dawn.com/2004/05/2...

London Protesters Want Bush to be Tried for War Crimes ...

05.23.04 (6:44 am) [edit]

Our Republic Stands for Our U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights, Not the Bible!!!

05.23.04 (6:37 am) [edit]

"Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society." - Thomas Jefferson, http://etext.lib.virginia.edu...

Our Founding Fathers were adament in creating a "wall of separation between church and state" and would have been appalled at the pressure brought to bear to impose hateful intolerence & divisive ideologies by so-called "religious" zealots and tyrannical fanatics like the traitorous & hypocritical Bush (unfit to be president) who is corrupting our system of democracy ... Bush's so-called form of "Christianity (sic)" pathetically has resulted in:

1. Bloody warfare based upon heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods (e.g. phony WMDs posing a so-called "imminent threat" to our national security, phony links between Al Qaeda & Saddam Hussein, cynically manipulating the fear & anger of Americans in the aftermath of 9/11, when Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, unlike the Saudis: Bush's buddies, etc.) for which he should be impeached;

2. Lack of compassion, lack of action to help over 45 million Americans without health care coverage (while Bush brags & smirks about Iraqis getting health care-- that is, when they are not being murdered, tortured, raped, ridden like donkeys, and abused in atrocities committed on orders from Bush, Cheney, Rice & Rumsfeld ...)-- so Americans live in miserable pain, diseased or go bankrupt with over 18,000 Americans dying each year because they can't afford health care;

3. Lack of concern, lack of action about skyrocketing poverty in the U.S.A. with over 25 million families desperately trying to to make ends meet, living below an out-dated poverty-line established over 40 years ago-- over 4 million Americans who are homeless-- between 9-15 million Americans without jobs;

4. Highest gap between the Hyper-Rich Haves & the Impoverished Have-Nots in over 75 years, with America's backbone, the Middle-Class shrinking;

5. Inflation (e.g. higher gas prices, higher costs in goods & services, more people losing their homes because they can't pay their mortgages) hitting the Middle-Class and Working people very hard, while corporations, wealthy oligarchs & hyper-rich plutocrats are awarded immoral tax cuts, tax loopholes and tax boondoggles and living like Emperor Caligulas-- supported by the rest of us who are saddled with Bush's record-level deficits and historically high debts-- that are hurting the value of the dollar and our standard of living.

Our nation's infrastructure is crumbling all around us (e.g. Bush's "Leave No Child Behind" Failure has Left Lots of Children Worse Off because no funds were allocated to enable teachers to teach [Why do you think that the rich send their kids to private schools with 15 kids/class instead of the 30-40/class sizes that public school teachers have to contend with?]!-- No money for fire-fighters-- No money for roads, hospitals, schools, etc.), while the so-called "Christian (sic)" Bush is spending over $5 Billion/Month on Iraq (over $114 Billion thus far in Iraq, with no end in sight!)-- Bush's gang of neo-con thugs bribed the embezzler, crook & liar Ahmed Chalabi with over $33 Million (including $340,000/Month) for false information, and Chalabi betrayed our nation by selling national security secrets to Iran (Which Neo-Con Traitors in the Pentagon gave their "pet" Chalabi Top-Secret US information? Shouldn't these Neo-Con Traitors including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Feith, Bolton-- who have gotten us into this mess be fired and tried for treason?) Condi Rice was appointed head of the Iraqi Stabilization Group (ISG) back in October 2003 by Bush and the situtation has continued to spiral out-of-control ever since! Why is Rice still in office, as she is over-rated, incompetent and a liar?

Where are all of these so-called "Christian (sic)" "values"??? Americans are being damaged, harmed and impoverished by a reckless, ruthless gang of neo-con warmongers for war-profiteering... There is nothing "Christian" in their heinous War Crimes and Rape of America.

It is sad to watch the cynical manipulation of uneducated, well-meaning, but foolish so-called "Christians (sic)" who stand behind a dangerously stupid buffoon Bush who acts like a Nazi and not an American. These misguided people are suckered by the Bushies who are using them/us as cannon-fodder, slave labour & sheep to further their own sordid & squalid aims. Those who profess to "love life" should be concerned (or outraged) over Bush's abortions of nearly 800 U.S. Soldiers and between 11,000-15,000 innocent Iraqi Civilians (pregnant women with unborn kids are amongst his casualties) with the death toll rising day-in-and-day-out and no end in sight... Moreover, do these so-called "Christians (sic)" approve of murder, rape, torture, putting a harness on the elderly and riding them like a donkey, and abuse of prisoners??? If so, it is no wonder that the Arab world wants none of it... The rest of the world wants none of it ... Conscientious and thoughtful Americans want none of it either...

Let "We the People" reject the hypocrisy of the corrupt Un-Christian, Un-American Bush regime and their over-zealot followers who would make Jesus Christ weep with shame for their heinous & callous treatment of American people and other peoples around the world (especially the Iraqis and the Afghanistianis who have been mercilessly massacred, tortured, etc.) ... And, who would make Our Founding Fathers weep, for we are NOT a so-called "Christian (sic)" nation and this ugly, arrogant and self-righteous religiosity is tinny, false, abhorrent and destructive to our Republic For Which It Stands (Our Republic Stands for our U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights, and NOT the Bible) ...

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

In a highly informative interview by Bill Moyers (NOW with Bill Moyers http://www.pbs.org/now/societ... ) with Susan Jacoby, author of "Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism" (excerpt on http://www.beliefnet.com/stor... ), they explore the dangers of our society being turned into a fanatical religious totalitarian system if we do not go back to the roots of our government, our U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights ... Indeed, Ms. Jacoby cites John Adams, 2nd President of the U.S., who in the Treaty with Tripoli (1796-97), reassures the Barbary States of Northern Africa that the United States of America is "not to be founded on Christianity" http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/j... ...

"We the People" must extricate ourselves from the dangerously stupid and corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. junta, comprised of vile traitors who are undermining our nation's heritage, system of laws and historical role in the world community ...

[u][b]SamAdams' CounterPoint[/b][/u], http://samadams.tblog.com

Our Republic Stands for Our U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights, Not the Bible!!!

05.23.04 (6:35 am) [edit]

The Patriot Act & You!!!

05.22.04 (5:58 pm) [edit]

=http://img33.photobucket.com/...

[u][b]Mother Jones[/b][/u], http://www.motherjones.com/ne...

IN THE NAME OF "CHRISTIANITY (sic)": The Religious Warrior of Abu Ghraib

05.22.04 (7:06 am) [edit]

[b]An evangelical US general played a pivotal role in Iraqi prison reform[/b].

Saving General Boykin seemed like a strange sideshow last October. After it was revealed that the deputy undersecretary of defence for intelligence had been regularly appearing at evangelical revivals preaching that the US was in a holy war as a "Christian nation" battling "Satan", the furore was quickly calmed.

Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, explained that Boykin was exercising his rights as a citizen: "We're a free people." President Bush declared that Boykin "doesn't reflect my point of view or the point of view of this administration". Bush's commission on public diplomacy had reported that in nine Muslim countries, just 12% believed that "Americans respect Arab/Islamic values". The Pentagon announced that its inspector general would investigate Boykin, though he has yet to report.

Boykin was not removed or transferred. At that moment, he was at the heart of a secret operation to "Gitmoize" (Guant?mo is known in the US as Gitmo) the Abu Ghraib prison. He had flown to Guant?mo, where he met Major General Geoffrey Miller, in charge of Camp X-Ray. Boykin ordered Miller to fly to Iraq and extend X-Ray methods to the prison system there, on Rumsfeld's orders.

Boykin was recommended to his position by his record in the elite Delta forces: he was a commander in the failed effort to rescue US hostages in Iran, had tracked drug lord Pablo Escobar in Colombia, had advised the gas attack on barricaded cultists at Waco, Texas, and had lost 18 men in Somalia trying to capture a warlord in the notorious Black Hawk Down fiasco of 1993.

Boykin told an evangelical gathering last year how this fostered his spiritual crisis. "There is no God," he said. "If there was a God, he would have been here to protect my soldiers." But he was thunderstruck by the insight that his battle with the warlord was between good and evil, between the true God and the false one. "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."

Boykin was the action hero side of his boss, Stephen Cambone, a conservative defence intellectual appointed to the new post of undersecretary of intelligence. Cambone is universally despised by the officer corps for his arrogant, abrasive and dictatorial style and regarded as the personal symbol of Rumsfeldism. A former senior Pentagon official told me of a conversation with a three-star general, who remarked: "If we were being overrun by the enemy and I had only one bullet left, I'd use it on Cambone."

Cambone set about cutting the CIA and the state department out of the war on terror, but he had no knowledge of special ops. For this the rarefied civilian relied on the gruff soldier - a melding of "ignorance and recklessness", as a military intelligence source told me.

Just before Boykin was put in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden and then inserted into Iraqi prison reform, he was a circuit rider for the religious right. He allied himself with a small group called the Faith Force Multiplier that advocates applying military principles to evangelism. Its manifesto - Warrior Message - summons "warriors in this spiritual war for souls of this nation and the world ... "

Boykin staged a travelling slide show around the country where he displayed pictures of Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. "Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army," he preached. They "will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus". It was the reporting of his remarks at a revival meeting in Oregon that made them a subject of brief controversy.

There can be little doubt that he envisages the global war on terror as a crusade. With the Geneva conventions apparently suspended, international law is supplanted by biblical law. Boykin is in God's chain of command. President Bush, he told an Oregon congregation last June, is "a man who prays in the Oval Office". And the president, too, is on a divine mission. "George Bush was not elected by a majority of the voters in the US. He was appointed by God."

Boykin is not unique in his belief that Bush is God's anointed against evildoers. Before his 2000 campaign, Bush confided to a leader of the religious right: "I feel like God wants me to run for president ... I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen."

Michael Gerson, Bush's chief speechwriter, tells colleagues that on September 20 2001, after Bush delivered his speech to the Congress declaring a war on terror, he called Gerson to thank him for writing it. "God wants you here," Gerson says he told the president. And he says that Bush replied: "God wants us here."

But it's Bush who wants Rumsfeld, Cambone and Boykin here.

IN THE NAME OF "CHRISTIANITY (sic)": The Religious Warrior of Abu Ghraib

05.22.04 (7:03 am) [edit]

Bush's War Crimes: Pentagon admits Rumsfeld personally OKd torture at Guantanamo

05.22.04 (6:59 am) [edit]

[b]Pentagon admits Rumsfeld personally OKd torture at Guantanamo[/b]

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld last year personally approved a series of aggressive interrogation techniques for suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees to extract information about the Sept. 11 attacks and help prevent future ones, Pentagon officials said Thursday.

Rumsfeld approved in April 2003 a request five months earlier by Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who had arrived at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in November 2002 to oversee prisoners. Miller sought permission to use a broad range of extraordinary "nondoctrinal" questioning techniques on an Al Qaeda detainee, a general with the Pentagon's Judge Advocate General's office said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The defense officials did not detail the procedures Miller had sought to use, or identify the detainee, but they said the prisoner was believed to have valuable information about future attacks by Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. Pentagon lawyers and interrogators clashed over the proposed procedures, which some of the lawyers said would violate international law.

The account confirmed portions of media reports on the development of post-Sept. 11 interrogation practices. But it was the first official acknowledgment that Rumsfeld had been personally involved in the development of interrogation policies for war detainees.

Miller was sent to Iraq to oversee prison operations after physical abuse and sexual humiliation of detainees were uncovered at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. Miller also issued a report last year recommending improvements at the prison, including more effective interrogation.

The abuse scandal touched off congressional hearings that have widened from an investigation into the conduct of seven military police officers at a single cellblock to an inquiry into the Pentagon's detention policy and interrogation practices. Human rights groups have accused the United States of violating terms of the Geneva Convention.

The methods Miller sought to use at Guantanamo were harsher than those used in standard military doctrine, and some drew objections from military lawyers in the Judge Advocate General's office, the JAG official said. Intelligence and other Pentagon officials, however, said they felt an immediate need for better information.

"There became some urgency because we had an individual that had some information that people at Guantanamo believed was important not just to 9/11, but to future events," a senior Pentagon lawyer said.

The Pentagon general counsel's office gathered a group of military and civilian lawyers, intelligence officials, officers from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, regional commanders and Pentagon policymakers for a summit on the plan for more permissive interrogations.

The effort to define how far interrogators can go in pressuring detainees for information without violating international law exposed the rift between interrogators and JAG lawyers, who considered some of the techniques Miller proposed to be illegal.

"You had intelligence officials that might have been pulling in a direction that was different from the lawyers," Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said. "It's a competitive process."

Military lawyers successfully argued for the removal of some practices from the list, although some of those had already been used on detainees, officials said. Countering the earlier news reports, the JAG officer said that "substantially less" than 72 techniques had been proposed. He did not say how many were actually on the proposed list or on the list finally approved.

Rumsfeld trimmed the list of requested interrogation techniques by about one-third, and he insisted that he personally approve a "handful" of techniques, the senior Pentagon lawyer and the JAG official said. Rumsfeld approved the revised proposal in April 2003.

"The final report did not raise any legal objections," the JAG official said. "We were comfortable with the direction that was provided."

Officials provided few details of the case that had prompted Rumsfeld's review and have declined to say which interrogation tactics drew criticism from military lawyers and whether the techniques yielded any useful information. The officials stressed that while prisoners at Guantanamo are considered "enemy combatants" rather than prisoners of war, those held in Iraq are considered POWs. The Pentagon insists that the Iraqi detainees are covered by the Geneva Convention while the Guantanamo prisoners are not, although U.S. officials insist that they observe the spirit of international law.

Rumsfeld did not personally approve the interrogation procedures for prisoners in Iraq, Di Rita said.

One of the seven military police officers at Abu Ghraib has pleaded guilty at his court-martial; the rest face similar proceedings. Seven other officers have been recommended for reprimands. Top military officials said more charges could be lodged.

The cases at Abu Ghraib are among 35 Pentagon investigations into alleged abuse at U.S. military prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan and 42 additional inquiries into alleged abuses outside prisons. At least 25 deaths have resulted, including three homicides, according to the Pentagon.The general who preceded Miller as commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison told Associated Press that during his tour there in 2002, he was under constant pressure to bend his "by-the-book" rules for handling the more than 600 detainees there. Brig. Gen. Rick Baccus said military intelligence officials during that time sought rules that allowed "putting the detainees in isolation, or in different locations." - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...

Bush's War Crimes: Pentagon admits Rumsfeld personally OKd torture at Guantanamo

05.22.04 (6:57 am) [edit]

'10 reasons Bush doesn't want you to see Michael Moore's new film'

05.22.04 (6:54 am) [edit]

A NEW film is sending shockwaves through the United States in general and the White House in particular - and it hasn't even been released yet.

Fahrenheit 9/11, which this week got the longest standing ovation in Cannes Film Festival history, tells what its director Michael Moore sees as the truth behind the war in Iraq and on terror.

It is said to be so powerful it could tip November's US presidential election against George W Bush. As Moore says: "We were able to get film crews embedded with American troops without them knowing it was Michael Moore. They are totally f***ed."

Disney has refused to distribute the film in the States, saying its content could upset the presidential elections. Moore says that's precisely why the public should see it.

These are the 10 killer questions the film poses.

[b]1. AFTER the 9/11 attacks, why was the only plane to fly out of the US carrying 24 members of Osama bin Laden's family?[/b]

IN the wake of the attacks, the US became a no-fly zone. Moore asks: "Why did Bush allow a private Saudi jet to fly around the US in the days after September 11 to pick up members of the bin Laden family and fly them out of the country without a proper FBI investigation? Might it have been possible that at least one of the 24 bin Ladens would have known something?"

[b]2. ARE the media covering up abuse of Iraqi prisoners and the disillusionment of American troops?[/b]

MOORE'S film shows soldiers hooding and mistreating Iraqi detainees, and even shows troops taking it in turns to sexually abuse a drunk elderly man.

He says: "This occurred outside the Abu Ghraib prison walls. The media is there every single day. Why haven't they seen this? I don't think we've heard American soldiers in the field talk as they do in this film about their disillusionment and their despair; about their questioning of what was going on."

[b]3. IS Bush deliberately creating a culture of fear to get poor American youth to fight his war?[/b]

MOORE accuses the Bush administration of deliberately creating a climate of fear, particularly by the instigation of the Department of Homeland Security, to increase numbers signing up for the armed forces. He calls this "the immoral act of sending kids to war on the basis of a lie".

[b]4. HOW deep does the connection between the Bush family and bin Laden family actually run?[/b]

MOORE exposes business links between the bin Ladens and the Bushes over the last 25 years. Bush Snr became a highly paid consultant for the Carlyle Group, one of the nation's largest defence contractors. One of the investors in Carlyle - to the tune of at least $2million (�1.2m) - was the bin Laden family.

The campaigner says: "The bin Laden family have extensive dealings with large companies in the US. They have donated $2m to Bush's alma mater, Harvard. They own property in Texas, Florida and Massachusetts. In short, they have their hands deep in our pants."

[b]5. JUST how sinister was the White House's doctoring of Bush's military record?[/b]

MOORE suggests that, far from being simply an exercise in proving that Bush attended to his Texas Air National Guard duties, the White House version also sought to hide evidence that Bush and his associates had close ties with various Saudi oil companies. He also suggests that a former military pal of Bush's, James R Bath, once sold a plane to the bin Laden family.

[b]6. DID Bush miss an opportunity to nail bin Laden during secret talks with the Taliban?[/b]

MOORE claims that while Bush was governor of Texas he built a relationship with the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan. They met in Texas to discuss a project to build a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and into Pakistan.

Representatives of the Bush administration met the Taliban in the summer of 2001. Moore says they ignored the bin Laden issue and were pre-occupied with oil. He asks: "Was Bush discussing their offer to hand over bin Laden? Was he threatening them with force? Was he discussing a new pipeline?"

[b]7. WHY does the Bush family have a "special relationship" with the Saudi royal family?[/b]

"MORE than 1.5 million barrels of oil needed in the US daily from the Saudis could vanish on a royal whim, so we begin to see how not only Bush, but all of us, are dependent on the House of Saud," says Moore. "This can't be good for national security."

Moore also refers to Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the US, who is nicknamed Bandar Bush because of his close links with the president. Despite increasing evidence linking the September 11 atrocity to Saudi militants, Bush still met Prince Bandar for dinner two days later.

[b]8. WAS Bush spending too much time on holiday to concentrate on terrorism?[/b]

BUSH was on holiday for 42 per cent of the eight months before September 11, letting his guard down, according to Moore. At a 9/11 commission hearing, CIA director George Tenet admitted he had known since August 2001 that Zacarias Moussaoui, the only man charged in connection with 9/11, had been taking lessons on how to fly a 747. Tenet claimed he didn't tell Bush because the president, "was on vacation".

[b]9. DID Bush panic when he was told about the attack on the twin towers?[/b]

ON the morning of September 11, President Bush was posing for cameras at a children's literacy event in Florida.

Moore has previously unseen footage showing the rabbit-in-car-headlights expression on the president's face when he is told about the second plane hitting the twin towers.

A stopwatch appears in the corner of the screen, as the minutes tick by and the president keeps reading My Pet Goat, not knowing what to do without his advisers to tell him.

Moore says: "Was Bush thinking he should have taken reports the CIA had given him the month before more seriously? That he had been told al-Qaeda was planning attacks in the US and planes would possibly be used. Or was he scared witless?"

[b]10. DID Bush manipulate the major US media companies to fix his 2000 election win?[/b]

BUSH'S cousin John Ellis, a Fox News executive, was instrumental in "calling it" for Bush/Cheney on election night and cowed the other networks into joining in. This confusion helped set the scene for the debacle that ended in his election despite Al Gore winning the popular majority.

At the start of Fahrenheit 9/11, the major players are seen smirking and preening themselves. "Here they are," Moore narrates, "the whole corrupt gang who fixed the 2000 election." -

'10 reasons Bush doesn't want you to see Michael Moore's new film'

05.22.04 (6:53 am) [edit]

10 reasons Bush doesn't want you to see Michael Moore's new film

05.22.04 (6:51 am) [edit]

Bush Should Be Prosecuted For Illegal Price-Fixing of OIL Colluding With Saudi Royal Crime Family

05.20.04 (7:36 pm) [edit]

[b]The con artist who suckers people into a shell game counts on his ability to divert the eye of the bettor in order to win[/b].

So it is that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have launched a sham war on terror without targeting the chief financier and backer of terrorism, Saudi Arabia. - http://www.buzzflash.com/prem...

[b]The Great Escape [/b]

[i]House of Bush, House of Saud [/i]begins with a single question: How is it that two days after September 11, 2001, even as American air traffic was tightly restricted, a Saudi billionaire socialized in the White House with President George W. Bush as 140 Saudi citizens, many immediate kin to Osama Bin Laden, were permitted to return to their country? A potential treasure trove of intelligence was allowed to flee the country-- including an alleged al-Qaeda intermediary who was said to have foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Why did the FBI facilitate this evacuation, and why didn't the agency question the people on the planes? Why did Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of most of the hijackers, receive exclusive and preferential treatment from the White House even as the World Trade Center continued to burn?

[b]Two Families, Deeply Entwined [/b]

The answers to these questions, and ones far more troubling, lie in the largely hidden relationship that began in the mid-1970s, when the oil-rich House of Saud struck out for America in the wake of the OPEC oil embargo and soaring oil prices. Saudi Arabia needed American military protection, access to American political power, and a place to invest its staggering cash flow, which within 5 years reached $16 million an hour. Like wildcatting oil drillers, the Saudis began prospecting among promising American politicians, including the Bush family. And with the Bushes, the Saudis hit a gusher- direct access to Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, as well as to Secretary of State James Baker, Vice-President Dick Cheney, and the entire U.S. intelligence apparatus.

[b]A Dangerous Liaison [/b]

What followed was an amazing weave of influence, strategic investment, socializing, and secret policy between the House of Bush and the House of Saud that arcs from the 1980s into the present day. The two parties conferred on war, oil, funding for Osama bin Laden's Afghan Arabs supporting the mujahideen in the Afghanistan War, illegal arms deals, banking, private matters, and much more. By the time George W. Bush was elected, the House of Saud had transferred an astonishing sum of money to the House of Bush in deals involving dozens of companies. The total? At least $1.4 billion in investments and contracts went to companies in which the Bushes and their allies held prominent positions. But the importance of the relationship goes far beyond money. More than any other country in the world, Saudi Arabia is responsible for the rise of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism that threatens America. Horrifying as it may seem, the secret liaison between these two great families helped trigger the Age of Terror and give rise to the tragedy of 9/11. - http://www.houseofbush.com/

Also refer to "[b]Traitors-in-Arms: House of Bush, House of Saud [/b]..." on http://www.tblog.com/template...

Mutiny by 4 Republicans Over Bush's Tax Cutting Forces Delay on the Budget Vote

05.20.04 (7:32 pm) [edit]

[b]Mutiny by 4 Republicans Over Bush's Tax Cutting Forces Delay on the Budget Vote[/b]

Unable to a squelch a six-week mutiny over President Bush's tax-cutting agenda, Senate Republican leaders on Thursday conceded that they could not muster enough votes to pass a $2.4 trillion budget plan and abruptly postponed a vote until at least next month.

"It's premature to bring it to a vote tonight," said Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Senate majority leader, after spending much of the day trying to persuade a handful of centrist Republicans to abandon their insistence that any new tax cuts be paid for with either spending cuts or tax increases.

The decision, coming on the same day that Mr. Bush made a high-profile plea for approval of the budget on a last-minute trip to Capitol Hill, was a major setback for the president, and reflected growing unease about his goal of permanently extending the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. It was also a sign of bitter rifts between House and Senate Republicans and between House leaders and Senate moderates, some of whom openly traded insults earlier this week.

Democrats wasted little time in using the moment to denounce Mr. Bush's economic agenda.

"Welcome to the big leagues," said Representative Rahm Emmanuel, Democrat of Illinois, a former White House aide in the Clinton Administration. "This is not only an example of their being unable to govern, it's an example of the failure of their economic policies."

Congressional analysts have estimated that the cost of making the tax cuts permanent could total nearly $2 trillion over the next 10 years. The budget impasse, which began in March, was over whether to impose a "pay as you go" rule that would require Congress to offset the cost of new tax cuts.

Mr. Bush and House Republicans adamantly opposed any such restrictions, as they would have made it almost impossible to make last year's tax cuts permanent.

But in the Senate, a handful of centrist Republicans teamed up with Democrats in March and succeeded in attaching the pay-as-you-go rule to the budget resolution by a two-vote majority. House and Senate leaders agreed on a compromise that would have essentially postponed the major decisions until next year, but all four of the Republican dissenters rejected the deal as unacceptable.

Although Mr. Frist said he still hoped to pass a budget resolution when Congress returns in early June from its Memorial Day recess, Republicans and Democrats said the impasse will not be easy to resolve.

"I would have been surprised if the budget had passed today," said Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. "I knew if there were holdouts they weren't going to change at the last minute. "

The battle on Thursday was over a central difference between budget resolutions passed earlier this year by the House and Senate.

Four Senate moderates - John McCain of Arizona, Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins, both of Maine, and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island - had insisted on attaching a provision that would have applied pay-as-you-go-rules for the next five years.

The House budget resolution called only for a pay-as-you-go rule that would apply to new spending programs outside of defense and domestic security. The Bush administration staunchly supported the House approach, determined to permanently extend the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 rather than let them expire over the next several years.

Senate Republicans needed two more votes to reverse the earlier budget vote in March, but none of the four moderates were willing to give much ground.

"It sounds like an obscure technical issue, but it is extremely important," said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonprofit research group that campaigns for lower budget deficits. "It is becoming a major rift within the Republican Party."

Mr. McCain let it be known this month that he would go along with imposing pay-as-you-go rules for three years instead of five, but House Republicans said they would only accept the restriction for one year.

In what seemed like a last-ditch effort at agreement, Mr. Frist and other Senate leaders agreed with House leaders on a one-year plan that would allow Congress to extend for one year three major tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of the year.

But as the pressure to reach a deal increased, Mr. McCain scathingly attacked the "fat cats" who were not willing to make sacrifices while fighting a war. That prompted an angry retort earlier this week from the Republican House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, who said Mr. McCain, a decorated war veteran and former prisoner of war, ought to appreciate the sacrifices being made by soldiers in Iraq.

Mr. McCain fired back on Thursday. "I fondly remember a time when real Republicans stood for fiscal responsibility," he said. "Apparently, those days are long gone for some of those in our party."

By Thursday morning, Republican leaders had all but abandoned hope of persuading any of their four rebellious colleagues and tried in vain to find one or two conservative Democrats who might change their views.

Mr. Bush came to Capitol Hill, in part to talk about Iraq but also to appeal for support on the budget.

"I urge the Senate to follow the House's lead and pass this budget so that we can continue making progress on our shared agenda of building a safer, stronger, and better America," Mr. Bush said in a statement after meeting with House and Senate Republicans.

The failure of Senate Republicans to pass a budget resolution does not mean that any of last year's tax cuts will necessarily expire.

Both House and Senate budget plans would have left room to extend those tax cuts without finding ways to pay for them, at least for the next few years. - http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...

The Right-Wing's Bullying of Senator John McCain ...

05.20.04 (7:28 pm) [edit]

[b]Hastert questions McCain's GOP credentials

Senator responds with statement on 'fiscal responsibility'[/b]

In a rare public swipe at a fellow Republican, House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Wednesday questioned the GOP credentials of John McCain, a U.S. senator who has often challenged party orthodoxy.

Talking to reporters, Hastert pretended not to know who McCain was when asked about a recent statement by the GOP senator from Arizona.

As other House GOP members stood behind him laughing, Hastert, R-Illinois, then expressed doubt that McCain was indeed a Republican.

The exchange started when a reporter asked: "Can I combine a two issues, Iraq and taxes? I heard a speech from John McCain the other day..."

Hastert: "Who?"

Reporter: "John McCain."

Hastert: "Where's he from?"

Reporter: "He's a Republican from Arizona."

Hastert: "A Republican?"

Amid nervous laughter, the reporter continued with his question: "Anyway, his observation was never before when we've been at war have we been worrying about cutting taxes and his question was, 'Where's the sacrifice?' "

Hastert: "If you want to see the sacrifice, John McCain ought to visit our young men and women at Walter Reed and Bethesda. There's the sacrifice in this country. We're trying to make sure they have the ability to fight this war, that they have the wherewithal to be able to do it. And, at the same time, we have to react to keep this country strong."

Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Bethesda National Naval Medical Center are two military hospitals in the Washington area.

McCain, a prisoner of war during Vietnam, later released a written statement, taking issue with the spending habits of Republican lawmakers.

"The Speaker is correct in that nothing we are called upon to do comes close to matching the heroism of our troops," McCain said.

"All we are called upon to do is not spend our nation into bankruptcy while our soldiers risk their lives. I fondly remember a time when real Republicans stood for fiscal responsibility. Apparently those days are long gone for some in our party." - http://www.fox11az.com/news/s...

Can Ethnic Cleansing Bring Back Jesus?

05.20.04 (9:42 am) [edit]

[b]Bush is a Mad Fuckwit who should be put in a mental institution![/b]

Rick Perlstein of the Village Voice http://www.villagevoice.com/i... acquired a damning memo ("you're not supposed to have that") demonstrating the hold the loony Christian far Right has on Bush Middle East policy. The gem in the article is the account of how Iran-Contra criminal mastermind and current National Security Adviser Elliot Abrams tried to reassure the Christian Zionists that an Israeli "withdrawal" from Gaza will not interfere with Jesus coming back because it wasn't part of ancient Israel. Actually, this is right. Gaza was in Philistia, not Judah, which was to its east. But for that matter, when the kingdoms split, the West Bank wasn't in "Israel" either, it was in Judah. So the loony tunes Christians who are trying to kill and dispossess the poor Palestinians to drag Jesus back may as well just give it up. He wasn't treated well enough by humankind the first time to want to come back, so we're on our own, and we may as well stop being barbaric to one another in his name.

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It has for some time been obvious to me that the Bush foreign policy in the Middle East is driven by irrational and often puzzling considerations. But I hadn't stopped to consider, until Perlstein's excellent piece, that the White House is trying to bring about an apocalypse that would hasten Christ's return. And a damn fine job they're doing of it, if[i] that's [/i]what they are up to. Why, the place is more apocalyptic every day. The one downside for Bush is that he is beholden not just to the far right Christian loony fringe but also to Wall Street, and the latter can't actually be very happy with the roller coaster ride his policies are producing for their investments. Unlike poor people, moreover, the moneyed both vote and give to political campaigns. - http://www.antiwar.com/cole/?...

Bush's Madness: Can Ethnic Cleansing Bring Back Jesus?

05.20.04 (9:41 am) [edit]

Bush's Madness: Can Ethnic Cleansing Bring Back Jesus?

05.20.04 (9:39 am) [edit]

Historians Versus the Mad King George ...

05.20.04 (6:21 am) [edit]

Although his approval ratings have slipped somewhat in recent weeks, President George W. Bush still enjoys the overall support of nearly half of the American people. He does not, however, fare nearly so well among professional historians.

A recent informal, unscientific survey of historians conducted at my suggestion by George Mason University�s History News Network found that eight in ten historians responding rate the current presidency an overall failure.

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Of 415 historians who expressed a view of President Bush�s administration to this point as a success or failure, 338 classified it as a failure and 77 as a success. (Moreover, it seems likely that at least eight of those who said it is a success were being sarcastic, since seven said Bush�s presidency is only the best since Clinton�s and one named Millard Fillmore.) Twelve percent of all the historians who responded rate the current presidency the worst in all of American history, not too far behind the 19 percent who see it at this point as an overall success.

Among the cautions that must be raised about the survey is just what �success� means. Some of the historians rightly pointed out that it would be hard to argue that the Bush presidency has not so far been a political success�or, for that matter that President Bush has not been remarkably successful in achieving his objectives in Congress. But those meanings of success are by no means incompatible with the assessment that the Bush presidency is a disaster. �His presidency has been remarkably successful,� one historian declared, �in its pursuit of disastrous policies.� �I think the Bush administration has been quite successful in achieving its political objectives,� another commented, �which makes it a disaster for us.�

Additionally, it is, of course, as one respondent rightly noted, �way too early to make a valid comparison (we need another 50 years).� And such an informal survey is plainly not scientifically reliable. Yet the results are so overwhelming and so different from the perceptions of the general public that an attempt to explain and assess their reactions merits our attention. It may be, as one pro-Bush historian said in his or her written response to the poll, �I suspect that this poll will tell us nothing about President Bush�s performance vis-�-vis his peer group, but may confirm what we already know about the current crop of history professors.� The liberal-left proclivities of much of the academic world are well documented, and some observers will dismiss the findings as the mere rantings of a disaffected professoriate. �If historians were the only voters,� another pro-Bush historian noted, �Mr. Gore would have carried 50 states.� It is plain that many liberal academics have the same visceral reaction against the second President Bush that many conservatives did against his immediate predecessor.

Yet it seems clear that a similar survey taken during the presidency of Bush�s father would not have yielded results nearly as condemnatory. And, for all the distaste liberal historians had for Ronald Reagan, relatively few would have rated his administration as worse than that of Richard Nixon. Yet today 57 percent of all the historians who participated in the survey (and 70 percent of those who see the Bush presidency as a failure) either name someone prior to Nixon or say that Bush�s presidency is the worst ever, meaning that they rate it as worse than the two presidencies in the past half century that liberals have most loved to hate, those of Nixon and Reagan. One who made the comparison with Nixon explicit wrote, �Indeed, Bush puts Nixon into a more favorable light. He has trashed the image and reputation of the United States throughout the world; he has offended many of our previously close allies; he has burdened future generations with incredible debt; he has created an unnecessary war to further his domestic political objectives; he has suborned the civil rights of our citizens; he has destroyed previous environmental efforts by government in favor of his coterie of exploiters; he has surrounded himself with a cabal ideological adventurers . . . .�

Why should the views of historians on the current president matter?

I do not share the view of another respondent that �until we have gained access to the archival record of this president, we [historians] are no better at evaluating it than any other voter.� Academic historians, no matter their ideological bias, have some expertise in assessing what makes for a successful or unsuccessful presidency; we have a long-term perspective in which to view the actions of a current chief executive. Accordingly, the depth of the negative assessment that so many historians make of George W. Bush is something of which the public should be aware. Their comments make clear that such historians would readily agree with conclusion that then-Democratic presidential hopeful Richard Gephardt pronounced a few months ago: the presidency of George W. Bush is �a miserable failure.�

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The past presidencies most commonly linked with the current administration include all of those that are usually rated as the worst in the nation�s history: Nixon, Harding, Hoover, Buchanan, Coolidge, Andrew Johnson, Grant, and McKinley. The only president who appeared prominently on both the favorable and unfavorable lists was Ronald Reagan. Forty-seven historians said Bush is the best president since Reagan, while 38 said he is the worst since Reagan. Almost all of the historians who rate the Bush presidency a success are Reagan admirers. Indeed, no other president (leaving aside the presumably mostly tongue-in-cheek mentions of Clinton) was named by more than four of the historians who took a favorable view of the current presidency.

Ronald Reagan clearly has become the sort of polarizing figure that Franklin Roosevelt was for an earlier generation�or, perhaps a better way to understand the phenomenon is that Reagan has become the personification of the pole opposite to Roosevelt. That polarization is evident in historians� evaluations of George W. Bush�s presidency. �If one believes Bush is a �good� president (or great),� one poll respondent noted, he or she �would necessarily also believe Reagan to be a pretty good president.� They also tend to despise Roosevelt. �There is no indication,� one historian said of Bush, �that he has advisors who are closet communist traitors as FDR had. Based on his record to date, history is likely to judge him as one of America�s greatest presidents, in the tradition of Washington and Lincoln.�

The thought that anyone could rate the incumbent president with Washington and Lincoln is enough to induce apoplexy in a substantial majority of historians. Among the many offenses they enumerate in their indictment of Bush is that he is, as one of them put it, �well on his way to destroying the entire (and entirely successful) structures of international cooperation and regulated, humane capitalism and social welfare that have been built up since the early 1930s.� �Bush is now in a position,� Another historian said, �to �roll back the New Deal,� guided by Tom DeLay.�

Several charges against the Bush administration arose repeatedly in the comments of historians who responded to the survey. Among them were: the doctrine of pre-emptive war, crony capitalism/being �completely in bed with certain corporate interests,� bankruptcy/fiscal irresponsibility, military adventurism, trampling of civil liberties, and anti-environmental policies.

***

The reasons stated by some of the historians for their choice of the presidency that they believe Bush�s to be the worst since are worth repeating. The following are representative examples for each of the presidents named most frequently:

REAGAN: �I think the presidency of George W. Bush has been generally a failure and I consider his presidency so far to have been the most disastrous since that of Ronald Reagan--because of the unconscionable military aggression and spending (especially the Iraq War), the damage done to the welfare of the poor while the corporate rich get richer, and the backwards religious fundamentalism permeating this administration. I strongly disliked and distrusted Reagan and think that George W. is even worse.�

NIXON: �Actually, I think [Bush�s] presidency may exceed the disaster that was Nixon. He has systematically lied to the American public about almost every policy that his administration promotes.� Bush uses �doublespeak� to �dress up policies that condone or aid attacks by polluters and exploiters of the environment . . . with names like the �Forest Restoration Act� (which encourages the cutting down of forests).�

HOOVER: �I would say GW is our worst president since Herbert Hoover. He is moving to bankrupt the federal government on the eve of the retirement of the baby boom generation, and he has brought America�s reputation in the world to its lowest point in the entire history of the United States.�

COOLIDGE: �I think his presidency has been an unmitigated disaster for the environment, for international relations, for health care, and for working Americans. He�s on a par with Coolidge!�

HARDING: �Oil, money and politics again combine in ways not flattering to the integrity of the office. Both men also have a tendency to mangle the English language yet get their points across to ordinary Americans. [Yet] the comparison does Harding something of a disservice.�

McKINLEY: �Bush is perhaps the first president [since McKinley] to be entirely in the �hip pocket� of big business, engage in major external conquest for reasons other than national security, AND be the puppet of his political handler. McKinley had Mark Hanna; Bush has Karl Rove. No wonder McKinley is Rove�s favorite historical president (precedent?).�

GRANT: �He ranks with U.S. Grant as the worst. His oil interests and Cheney�s corporate Haliburton contracts smack of the same corruption found under Grant.�

�While Grant did serve in the army (more than once), Bush went AWOL from the National Guard. That means that Grant is automatically more honest than Bush, since Grant did not send people into places that he himself consciously avoided. . . . Grant did not attempt to invade another country without a declaration of war; Bush thinks that his powers in this respect are unlimited.�

ANDREW JOHNSON: �I consider his presidency so far to have been the most disastrous since that of Andrew Johnson. It has been a sellout of fundamental democratic (and Republican) principles. There are many examples, but the most recent would be his successful efforts to insert provisions in spending bills which directly controvert measures voted down by both houses of Congress.�

BUCHANAN: �Buchanan can be said to have made the Civil War inevitable or to have made the war last longer by his pusillanimity or, possibly, treason.� �Buchanan allowed a war to evolve, but that war addressed a real set of national issues. Mr. Bush started a war . . . for what reason?�

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EVER: The second most common response from historians, trailing only Nixon, was that the current presidency is the worst in American history. A few examples will serve to provide the flavor of such condemnations. �Although previous presidents have led the nation into ill-advised wars, no predecessor managed to turn America into an unprovoked aggressor. No predecessor so thoroughly managed to confirm the impressions of those who already hated America. No predecessor so effectively convinced such a wide range of world opinion that America is an imperialist threat to world peace. I don 't think that you can do much worse than that.�

�Bush is horrendous; there is no comparison with previous presidents, most of whom have been bad.�

�He is blatantly a puppet for corporate interests, who care only about their own greed and have no sense of civic responsibility or community service. He lies, constantly and often, seemingly without control, and he lied about his invasion into a sovereign country, again for corporate interests; many people have died and been maimed, and that has been lied about too. He grandstands and mugs in a shameful manner, befitting a snake oil salesman, not a statesman. He does not think, process, or speak well, and is emotionally immature due to, among other things, his lack of recovery from substance abuse. The term is "dry drunk". He is an abject embarrassment/pariah overseas; the rest of the world hates him . . . . . He is, by far, the most irresponsible, unethical, inexcusable occupant of our formerly highest office in the land that there has ever been.�

�George W. Bush's presidency is the pernicious enemy of American freedom, compassion, and community; of world peace; and of life itself as it has evolved for millennia on large sections of the planet. The worst president ever? Let history judge him.�

�This president is unique in his failures.�

And then there was this split ballot, comparing the George W. Bush presidencies failures in distinct areas. The George W. Bush presidency is the worst since:

�In terms of economic damage, Reagan.

In terms of imperialism, T Roosevelt.

In terms of dishonesty in government, Nixon.

In terms of affable incompetence, Harding.

In terms of corruption, Grant.

In terms of general lassitude and cluelessness, Coolidge.

In terms of personal dishonesty, Clinton.

In terms of religious arrogance, Wilson.�

***

My own answer to the question was based on astonishment that so many people still support a president who has:

. Presided over the loss of approximately three million American jobs in his first two-and-a-half years in office, the worst record since Herbert Hoover.

. Overseen an economy in which the stock market suffered its worst decline in the first two years of any administration since Hoover�s.

. Taken, in the wake of the terrorist attacks two years ago, the greatest worldwide outpouring of goodwill the United States has enjoyed at least since World War II and squandered it by insisting on pursuing a foolish go-it-almost-alone invasion of Iraq, thereby transforming almost universal support for the United States into worldwide condemnation. (One historian made this point particularly well: �After inadvertently gaining the sympathies of the world 's citizens when terrorists attacked New York and Washington, Bush has deliberately turned the country into the most hated in the world by a policy of breaking all major international agreements, declaring it our right to invade any country that we wish, proving that he�ll manipulate facts to justify anything he wishes to do, and bull-headedly charging into a quagmire.�)

. Misled (to use the most charitable word and interpretation) the American public about weapons of mass destruction and supposed ties to Al Qaeda in Iraq and so into a war that has plainly (and entirely predictably) made us less secure, caused a boom in the recruitment of terrorists, is killing American military personnel needlessly, and is threatening to suck up all our available military forces and be a bottomless pit for the money of American taxpayers for years to come.

. Failed to follow through in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda are regrouping, once more increasing the threat to our people.

. Insulted and ridiculed other nations and international organizations and now has to go, hat in hand, to those nations and organizations begging for their assistance.

. Completely miscalculated or failed to plan for the personnel and monetary needs in Iraq after the war, so that he sought and obtained an $87 billion appropriation for Iraq, a sizable chunk of which is going, without competitive bidding to Haliburton, the company formerly headed by his vice president.

. Inherited an annual federal budget surplus of $230 billion and transformed it into a $500+ billion deficit in less than three years. This negative turnaround of three-quarters of a trillion dollars is totally without precedent in our history. The ballooning deficit for fiscal 2004 is rapidly approaching twice the dollar size of the previous record deficit, $290 billion, set in 1992, the last year of the administration of President Bush�s father and, at almost 5 percent of GDP, is closing in on the percentage record set by Ronald Reagan in 1986.

. Cut taxes three times, sharply reducing the burden on the rich, reclassified money obtained through stock ownership as more deserving than money earned through work. The idea that dividend income should not be taxed�what might accurately be termed the unearned income tax credit�can be stated succinctly: �If you had to work for your money, we�ll tax it; if you didn�t have to work for it, you can keep it all.�

. Severely curtailed the very American freedoms that our military people are supposed to be fighting to defend. (�The Patriot Act,� one of the historians noted, �is the worst since the Alien and Sedition Acts under John Adams.�)

. Called upon American armed service people, including Reserve forces, to sacrifice for ever-lengthening tours of duty in a hostile and dangerous environment while he rewards the rich at home with lower taxes and legislative giveaways and gives lucrative no-bid contracts to American corporations linked with the administration.

. Given an opportunity to begin to change the consumption-oriented values of the nation after September 11, 2001, when people were prepared to make a sacrifice for the common good, called instead of Americans to �sacrifice� by going out and buying things.

. Proclaimed himself to be a conservative while maintaining that big government should be able to run roughshod over the Bill of Rights, and that the government must have all sorts of secrets from the people, but the people can be allowed no privacy from the government. (As one of the historians said, �this is not a conservative administration; it is a reckless and arrogant one, beholden to a mix of right-wing ideologues, neo-con fanatics, and social Darwinian elitists.�)

. My assessment is that George W. Bush�s record on running up debt to burden our children is the worst since Ronald Reagan; his record on government surveillance of citizens is the worst since Richard Nixon; his record on foreign-military policy has gotten us into the worst foreign mess we�ve been in since Lyndon Johnson sank us into Vietnam; his economic record is the worst since Herbert Hoover; his record of tax favoritism for the rich is the worst since Calvin Coolidge; his record of trampling on civil liberties is the worst since Woodrow Wilson. How far back in our history would we need to go to find a presidency as disastrous for this country as that of George W. Bush has been thus far? My own vote went to the administration of James Buchanan, who warmed the president�s chair while the union disintegrated in 1860-61.

. Who has been the biggest beneficiary of the horrible terrorism that struck our nation in September of 2001? The answer to that question should be obvious to anyone who considers where the popularity ratings and reelection prospects of a president with the record outlined above would be had he not been able to wrap himself in the flag, take advantage of the American people�s patriotism, and make himself synonymous with �the United States of America� for the past two years.

. That abuse of the patriotism and trust of the American people is even worse than everything else this president has done and that fact alone might be sufficient to explain the depth of the hostility with which so many historians view George W. Bush. Contrary to the conservative stereotype of academics as anti-American, the reasons that many historians cited for seeing the Bush presidency as a disaster revolve around their perception that he is undermining traditional American practices and values. As one patriotic historian put it, �I think his presidency has been the worst disaster to hit the United States and is bringing our beloved country to financial, economic, and social disaster.�

Some voters may judge such assessments to be wrong, but they are assessments informed by historical knowledge and the electorate ought to have them available to take into consideration during this election year. - http://hnn.us/articles/5019.h...

Historians Take the Long View ...

05.20.04 (6:19 am) [edit]

[b]Historians Versus the Mad King George[/b]

Although his approval ratings have slipped somewhat in recent weeks, President George W. Bush still enjoys the overall support of nearly half of the American people. He does not, however, fare nearly so well among professional historians.

A recent informal, unscientific survey of historians conducted at my suggestion by George Mason University�s History News Network found that eight in ten historians responding rate the current presidency an overall failure.

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Of 415 historians who expressed a view of President Bush�s administration to this point as a success or failure, 338 classified it as a failure and 77 as a success. (Moreover, it seems likely that at least eight of those who said it is a success were being sarcastic, since seven said Bush�s presidency is only the best since Clinton�s and one named Millard Fillmore.) Twelve percent of all the historians who responded rate the current presidency the worst in all of American history, not too far behind the 19 percent who see it at this point as an overall success.

Among the cautions that must be raised about the survey is just what �success� means. Some of the historians rightly pointed out that it would be hard to argue that the Bush presidency has not so far been a political success�or, for that matter that President Bush has not been remarkably successful in achieving his objectives in Congress. But those meanings of success are by no means incompatible with the assessment that the Bush presidency is a disaster. �His presidency has been remarkably successful,� one historian declared, �in its pursuit of disastrous policies.� �I think the Bush administration has been quite successful in achieving its political objectives,� another commented, �which makes it a disaster for us.�

Additionally, it is, of course, as one respondent rightly noted, �way too early to make a valid comparison (we need another 50 years).� And such an informal survey is plainly not scientifically reliable. Yet the results are so overwhelming and so different from the perceptions of the general public that an attempt to explain and assess their reactions merits our attention. It may be, as one pro-Bush historian said in his or her written response to the poll, �I suspect that this poll will tell us nothing about President Bush�s performance vis-�-vis his peer group, but may confirm what we already know about the current crop of history professors.� The liberal-left proclivities of much of the academic world are well documented, and some observers will dismiss the findings as the mere rantings of a disaffected professoriate. �If historians were the only voters,� another pro-Bush historian noted, �Mr. Gore would have carried 50 states.� It is plain that many liberal academics have the same visceral reaction against the second President Bush that many conservatives did against his immediate predecessor.

Yet it seems clear that a similar survey taken during the presidency of Bush�s father would not have yielded results nearly as condemnatory. And, for all the distaste liberal historians had for Ronald Reagan, relatively few would have rated his administration as worse than that of Richard Nixon. Yet today 57 percent of all the historians who participated in the survey (and 70 percent of those who see the Bush presidency as a failure) either name someone prior to Nixon or say that Bush�s presidency is the worst ever, meaning that they rate it as worse than the two presidencies in the past half century that liberals have most loved to hate, those of Nixon and Reagan. One who made the comparison with Nixon explicit wrote, �Indeed, Bush puts Nixon into a more favorable light. He has trashed the image and reputation of the United States throughout the world; he has offended many of our previously close allies; he has burdened future generations with incredible debt; he has created an unnecessary war to further his domestic political objectives; he has suborned the civil rights of our citizens; he has destroyed previous environmental efforts by government in favor of his coterie of exploiters; he has surrounded himself with a cabal ideological adventurers . . . .�

Why should the views of historians on the current president matter?

I do not share the view of another respondent that �until we have gained access to the archival record of this president, we [historians] are no better at evaluating it than any other voter.� Academic historians, no matter their ideological bias, have some expertise in assessing what makes for a successful or unsuccessful presidency; we have a long-term perspective in which to view the actions of a current chief executive. Accordingly, the depth of the negative assessment that so many historians make of George W. Bush is something of which the public should be aware. Their comments make clear that such historians would readily agree with conclusion that then-Democratic presidential hopeful Richard Gephardt pronounced a few months ago: the presidency of George W. Bush is �a miserable failure.�

=http://img27.photobucket.com/...

The past presidencies most commonly linked with the current administration include all of those that are usually rated as the worst in the nation�s history: Nixon, Harding, Hoover, Buchanan, Coolidge, Andrew Johnson, Grant, and McKinley. The only president who appeared prominently on both the favorable and unfavorable lists was Ronald Reagan. Forty-seven historians said Bush is the best president since Reagan, while 38 said he is the worst since Reagan. Almost all of the historians who rate the Bush presidency a success are Reagan admirers. Indeed, no other president (leaving aside the presumably mostly tongue-in-cheek mentions of Clinton) was named by more than four of the historians who took a favorable view of the current presidency.

Ronald Reagan clearly has become the sort of polarizing figure that Franklin Roosevelt was for an earlier generation�or, perhaps a better way to understand the phenomenon is that Reagan has become the personification of the pole opposite to Roosevelt. That polarization is evident in historians� evaluations of George W. Bush�s presidency. �If one believes Bush is a �good� president (or great),� one poll respondent noted, he or she �would necessarily also believe Reagan to be a pretty good president.� They also tend to despise Roosevelt. �There is no indication,� one historian said of Bush, �that he has advisors who are closet communist traitors as FDR had. Based on his record to date, history is likely to judge him as one of America�s greatest presidents, in the tradition of Washington and Lincoln.�

The thought that anyone could rate the incumbent president with Washington and Lincoln is enough to induce apoplexy in a substantial majority of historians. Among the many offenses they enumerate in their indictment of Bush is that he is, as one of them put it, �well on his way to destroying the entire (and entirely successful) structures of international cooperation and regulated, humane capitalism and social welfare that have been built up since the early 1930s.� �Bush is now in a position,� Another historian said, �to �roll back the New Deal,� guided by Tom DeLay.�

Several charges against the Bush administration arose repeatedly in the comments of historians who responded to the survey. Among them were: the doctrine of pre-emptive war, crony capitalism/being �completely in bed with certain corporate interests,� bankruptcy/fiscal irresponsibility, military adventurism, trampling of civil liberties, and anti-environmental policies.

***

The reasons stated by some of the historians for their choice of the presidency that they believe Bush�s to be the worst since are worth repeating. The following are representative examples for each of the presidents named most frequently:

REAGAN: �I think the presidency of George W. Bush has been generally a failure and I consider his presidency so far to have been the most disastrous since that of Ronald Reagan--because of the unconscionable military aggression and spending (especially the Iraq War), the damage done to the welfare of the poor while the corporate rich get richer, and the backwards religious fundamentalism permeating this administration. I strongly disliked and distrusted Reagan and think that George W. is even worse.�

NIXON: �Actually, I think [Bush�s] presidency may exceed the disaster that was Nixon. He has systematically lied to the American public about almost every policy that his administration promotes.� Bush uses �doublespeak� to �dress up policies that condone or aid attacks by polluters and exploiters of the environment . . . with names like the �Forest Restoration Act� (which encourages the cutting down of forests).�

HOOVER: �I would say GW is our worst president since Herbert Hoover. He is moving to bankrupt the federal government on the eve of the retirement of the baby boom generation, and he has brought America�s reputation in the world to its lowest point in the entire history of the United States.�

COOLIDGE: �I think his presidency has been an unmitigated disaster for the environment, for international relations, for health care, and for working Americans. He�s on a par with Coolidge!�

HARDING: �Oil, money and politics again combine in ways not flattering to the integrity of the office. Both men also have a tendency to mangle the English language yet get their points across to ordinary Americans. [Yet] the comparison does Harding something of a disservice.�

McKINLEY: �Bush is perhaps the first president [since McKinley] to be entirely in the �hip pocket� of big business, engage in major external conquest for reasons other than national security, AND be the puppet of his political handler. McKinley had Mark Hanna; Bush has Karl Rove. No wonder McKinley is Rove�s favorite historical president (precedent?).�

GRANT: �He ranks with U.S. Grant as the worst. His oil interests and Cheney�s corporate Haliburton contracts smack of the same corruption found under Grant.�

�While Grant did serve in the army (more than once), Bush went AWOL from the National Guard. That means that Grant is automatically more honest than Bush, since Grant did not send people into places that he himself consciously avoided. . . . Grant did not attempt to invade another country without a declaration of war; Bush thinks that his powers in this respect are unlimited.�

ANDREW JOHNSON: �I consider his presidency so far to have been the most disastrous since that of Andrew Johnson. It has been a sellout of fundamental democratic (and Republican) principles. There are many examples, but the most recent would be his successful efforts to insert provisions in spending bills which directly controvert measures voted down by both houses of Congress.�

BUCHANAN: �Buchanan can be said to have made the Civil War inevitable or to have made the war last longer by his pusillanimity or, possibly, treason.� �Buchanan allowed a war to evolve, but that war addressed a real set of national issues. Mr. Bush started a war . . . for what reason?�

=http://img27.photobucket.com/...

EVER: The second most common response from historians, trailing only Nixon, was that the current presidency is the worst in American history. A few examples will serve to provide the flavor of such condemnations. �Although previous presidents have led the nation into ill-advised wars, no predecessor managed to turn America into an unprovoked aggressor. No predecessor so thoroughly managed to confirm the impressions of those who already hated America. No predecessor so effectively convinced such a wide range of world opinion that America is an imperialist threat to world peace. I don 't think that you can do much worse than that.�

�Bush is horrendous; there is no comparison with previous presidents, most of whom have been bad.�

�He is blatantly a puppet for corporate interests, who care only about their own greed and have no sense of civic responsibility or community service. He lies, constantly and often, seemingly without control, and he lied about his invasion into a sovereign country, again for corporate interests; many people have died and been maimed, and that has been lied about too. He grandstands and mugs in a shameful manner, befitting a snake oil salesman, not a statesman. He does not think, process, or speak well, and is emotionally immature due to, among other things, his lack of recovery from substance abuse. The term is "dry drunk". He is an abject embarrassment/pariah overseas; the rest of the world hates him . . . . . He is, by far, the most irresponsible, unethical, inexcusable occupant of our formerly highest office in the land that there has ever been.�

�George W. Bush's presidency is the pernicious enemy of American freedom, compassion, and community; of world peace; and of life itself as it has evolved for millennia on large sections of the planet. The worst president ever? Let history judge him.�

�This president is unique in his failures.�

And then there was this split ballot, comparing the George W. Bush presidencies failures in distinct areas. The George W. Bush presidency is the worst since:

�In terms of economic damage, Reagan.

In terms of imperialism, T Roosevelt.

In terms of dishonesty in government, Nixon.

In terms of affable incompetence, Harding.

In terms of corruption, Grant.

In terms of general lassitude and cluelessness, Coolidge.

In terms of personal dishonesty, Clinton.

In terms of religious arrogance, Wilson.�

***

My own answer to the question was based on astonishment that so many people still support a president who has:

. Presided over the loss of approximately three million American jobs in his first two-and-a-half years in office, the worst record since Herbert Hoover.

. Overseen an economy in which the stock market suffered its worst decline in the first two years of any administration since Hoover�s.

. Taken, in the wake of the terrorist attacks two years ago, the greatest worldwide outpouring of goodwill the United States has enjoyed at least since World War II and squandered it by insisting on pursuing a foolish go-it-almost-alone invasion of Iraq, thereby transforming almost universal support for the United States into worldwide condemnation. (One historian made this point particularly well: �After inadvertently gaining the sympathies of the world 's citizens when terrorists attacked New York and Washington, Bush has deliberately turned the country into the most hated in the world by a policy of breaking all major international agreements, declaring it our right to invade any country that we wish, proving that he�ll manipulate facts to justify anything he wishes to do, and bull-headedly charging into a quagmire.�)

. Misled (to use the most charitable word and interpretation) the American public about weapons of mass destruction and supposed ties to Al Qaeda in Iraq and so into a war that has plainly (and entirely predictably) made us less secure, caused a boom in the recruitment of terrorists, is killing American military personnel needlessly, and is threatening to suck up all our available military forces and be a bottomless pit for the money of American taxpayers for years to come.

. Failed to follow through in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda are regrouping, once more increasing the threat to our people.

. Insulted and ridiculed other nations and international organizations and now has to go, hat in hand, to those nations and organizations begging for their assistance.

. Completely miscalculated or failed to plan for the personnel and monetary needs in Iraq after the war, so that he sought and obtained an $87 billion appropriation for Iraq, a sizable chunk of which is going, without competitive bidding to Haliburton, the company formerly headed by his vice president.

. Inherited an annual federal budget surplus of $230 billion and transformed it into a $500+ billion deficit in less than three years. This negative turnaround of three-quarters of a trillion dollars is totally without precedent in our history. The ballooning deficit for fiscal 2004 is rapidly approaching twice the dollar size of the previous record deficit, $290 billion, set in 1992, the last year of the administration of President Bush�s father and, at almost 5 percent of GDP, is closing in on the percentage record set by Ronald Reagan in 1986.

. Cut taxes three times, sharply reducing the burden on the rich, reclassified money obtained through stock ownership as more deserving than money earned through work. The idea that dividend income should not be taxed�what might accurately be termed the unearned income tax credit�can be stated succinctly: �If you had to work for your money, we�ll tax it; if you didn�t have to work for it, you can keep it all.�

. Severely curtailed the very American freedoms that our military people are supposed to be fighting to defend. (�The Patriot Act,� one of the historians noted, �is the worst since the Alien and Sedition Acts under John Adams.�)

. Called upon American armed service people, including Reserve forces, to sacrifice for ever-lengthening tours of duty in a hostile and dangerous environment while he rewards the rich at home with lower taxes and legislative giveaways and gives lucrative no-bid contracts to American corporations linked with the administration.

. Given an opportunity to begin to change the consumption-oriented values of the nation after September 11, 2001, when people were prepared to make a sacrifice for the common good, called instead of Americans to �sacrifice� by going out and buying things.

. Proclaimed himself to be a conservative while maintaining that big government should be able to run roughshod over the Bill of Rights, and that the government must have all sorts of secrets from the people, but the people can be allowed no privacy from the government. (As one of the historians said, �this is not a conservative administration; it is a reckless and arrogant one, beholden to a mix of right-wing ideologues, neo-con fanatics, and social Darwinian elitists.�)

. My assessment is that George W. Bush�s record on running up debt to burden our children is the worst since Ronald Reagan; his record on government surveillance of citizens is the worst since Richard Nixon; his record on foreign-military policy has gotten us into the worst foreign mess we�ve been in since Lyndon Johnson sank us into Vietnam; his economic record is the worst since Herbert Hoover; his record of tax favoritism for the rich is the worst since Calvin Coolidge; his record of trampling on civil liberties is the worst since Woodrow Wilson. How far back in our history would we need to go to find a presidency as disastrous for this country as that of George W. Bush has been thus far? My own vote went to the administration of James Buchanan, who warmed the president�s chair while the union disintegrated in 1860-61.

. Who has been the biggest beneficiary of the horrible terrorism that struck our nation in September of 2001? The answer to that question should be obvious to anyone who considers where the popularity ratings and reelection prospects of a president with the record outlined above would be had he not been able to wrap himself in the flag, take advantage of the American people�s patriotism, and make himself synonymous with �the United States of America� for the past two years.

. That abuse of the patriotism and trust of the American people is even worse than everything else this president has done and that fact alone might be sufficient to explain the depth of the hostility with which so many historians view George W. Bush. Contrary to the conservative stereotype of academics as anti-American, the reasons that many historians cited for seeing the Bush presidency as a disaster revolve around their perception that he is undermining traditional American practices and values. As one patriotic historian put it, �I think his presidency has been the worst disaster to hit the United States and is bringing our beloved country to financial, economic, and social disaster.�

Some voters may judge such assessments to be wrong, but they are assessments informed by historical knowledge and the electorate ought to have them available to take into consideration during this election year. - http://hnn.us/articles/5019.h...

Historians Versus The Mad King George ...

05.20.04 (6:07 am) [edit]

Sluttish-Bushy-boy, Traitor-in-Action: "Pigs At The Trough" Speech!!!

05.20.04 (6:01 am) [edit]

[b]Pigs At The Trough

Pres. Bush Speech at American Israel Public Affairs Committee Conference

As Israeli Occupation Forces Murder Palestinians
Our President Debases Himself And America In Search Of Zionist Votes And $'s[/b]

Watch the Sluttish-Bushy-boy, Traitor-in-Action give his appalling "Pigs At The Trough" Speech http://www.informationclearin...

Sluttish-Bushy-boy, Traitor-in-Action: "Pigs At The Trough" Speech!!!

05.20.04 (5:58 am) [edit]

Fire the Creators of Unwinnable War

05.20.04 (5:51 am) [edit]

Hawkish Democrat Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania was right in saying recently that the United States cannot ''prevail'' with its current policy in Iraq and must choose between sending more troops and getting out. But how many troops would it take to prevail?

''It would take 500,000 men to do it, and even then it could not be done,'' concluded Gen. Jacques Leclerc, the French World War II hero sent to Vietnam in 1946 to estimate how many troops would be required to take back that country. Leclerc's estimate would still be valid two decades later when more than 500,000 U.S. troops were in Vietnam, as historian Barbara Tuchman noted in The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam.

Fast forward to Gen. Eric Shinseki's testimony to Congress on Feb. 25, 2003, just three weeks before the invasion of Iraq. Shinseki said that ''several hundred thousand'' troops would be needed to secure post-war Iraq. Three days later Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, abruptly dismissed Shinseki's estimate as far too high. It is now painfully clear that Shinseki was correct.

Declare victory and get out

Send in more troops? The facile solution. Thus far, none of our policymakers have been willing to pause long enough to weigh this slippery-slope step against U.S. objectives -- stated and unstated. First the stated ones:

� Eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. There were none, but no matter. Achieved.

� Prevent Saddam Hussein from providing weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. U.S. intelligence deemed such a step extremely unlikely, but who could rule it out? Achieved.

� Remove the ''brutal dictator'' who most Americans still believe had a hand in the attacks of 9/11. Achieved.

� Introduce Western-style democracy into Iraq and spread it to its neighbors -- a goal considered nave in the extreme by those who know the Middle East. Not achieved.

Three of four stated objectives achieved. That should be enough to declare victory, given the consummate skill of the administration's PR machine and the dearth of unspun information available to our citizenry. Vice President Dick Cheney could simply encourage his favorite TV channel, FOX News, to spread the good news that we have already ``prevailed.''

However disingenuous, this would make it politically feasible for the administration to do the only sensible thing: make it clear that the United States will surrender power to the United Nations and gradually withdraw our troops, with the expectation that peacekeeping troops from other countries would then fill in behind.

There is only one problem: the unstated objectives.

A face-saving solution of this kind would be impossible to achieve absent willingness on the part of President Bush's current advisors to abandon the basic aims of the war. These had little to do with the stated objectives; they had everything to do with the neoconservatives' determination to gain control of strategic, oil-rich Iraq, implant an enduring military presence there and -- not incidentally -- eliminate any possible threat from Iraq to Israel's security. That threat is effectively removed only as long as a sizable U.S. military presence remains in Iraq.

The war is, in fact, unwinnable even if we send in 500,000 troops in a quixotic, Vietnam-style attempt to defeat what the administration still prefers to call ''insurgents'' -- a misnomer for the resistance to foreign occupation. The abuse of Iraqi prisoners has driven the final nail into the coffin where lie the illusory hopes of ``winning.''

It is time for Bush to take a hard look at what has happened in Iraq, fire those responsible and start listening to the Leclercs in our midst.

[i][b]Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years, serving from the administration of John F. Kennedy to that of George H.W. Bush[/b][/i]. - http://www.commondreams.org/v...

Fire the Creators of Unwinnable War

05.20.04 (5:49 am) [edit]

Bush's Failure: New Iraqi Poll Confirms 9 Out of 10 See U.S. as "Occupiers", Not "Liberators"

05.19.04 (6:58 pm) [edit]

An Iraqi poll to be released next week shows a surge in the popularity of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical young Shia cleric fighting coalition forces, and suggests nearly nine out of 10 Iraqis see US troops as occupiers and not liberators or peacekeepers.

The poll was conducted by the one-year-old Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies, which is considered reliable enough for the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority to have submitted questions to be included in the study.

Although the results of any poll in Iraq's traumatised society should be taken with caution, the survey highlights the difficulties facing the US authorities in Baghdad as they confront Mr Sadr, who launched an insurgency against the US-led occupation last month.

Conducted before the Abu Ghraib prisoners' scandal, it also suggests a severe erosion of American credibility even before Iraqis were confronted with images of torture at the hands of US soldiers.

Saadoun Duleimi, head of the centre, said more than half of a representative sample - comprising 1,600 Shia, Sunni Arabs and Kurds polled in all Iraq's main regions - wanted coalition troops to leave Iraq. This compares with about 20 per cent in an October survey. Some 88 per cent of respondents said they now regarded coalition forces in Iraq as occupiers.

"Iraqis always contrast American actions with American promises and there's now a wide gap in credibility," said Mr Duleimi, who belongs to one of the country's big Sunni tribes. "In this climate, fighting has given Moqtada credibility because he's the only Iraqi man who stood up against the occupation forces."

The US authorities in Baghdad face an uphill battle to persuade Iraqis that the transfer of sovereignty on June 30 will mark the end of the US occupation. The removal of US troops was cited in the poll as a more urgent issue than the country's formal status.

Respondents saw Mr Sadr as Iraq's second most influential figure after Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's most senior Shia cleric. Some 32 per cent of respondents said they strongly supported Mr Sadr and another 36 per cent somewhat supported him.

Ibrahim Jaafari, head of the Shia Islamist Daawa party and a member of the governing council, came next on the list of influential Iraqis. Among council members, Adnan Pachachi, the Sunni former foreign minister, came some distance behind Mr Jaafari. Mr Pachachi is regarded as the apparent favourite for the ceremonial post of president when a caretaker government takes over. - http://financialtimes.printth...%27s+rebel+cleric+gains+s urge+in+popularity&expire =&urlID=10302622&fb=Y&url =http%3A%2F%2Fnews.ft.com%2Fs01%2Fservlet%2FCon tentServer%3Fpagename%3DF T.com%2FStoryFT%2FFullStory %26c%3DStoryFT%26cid%3D10 84907692167%26p%3D1012571 727085&partnerID=1734

Bush's Failure: New Iraqi Poll Confirms 9 Out of 10 See U.S. as "Occupiers", Not "Liberators"

05.19.04 (6:57 pm) [edit]

Traitor Bush Pretends He Never Gave Secret Prison Order, But He Did ...

05.19.04 (6:47 pm) [edit]

Two weeks ago, President Bush appeared on Arab television claiming that he wanted to stop the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and implying that he had nothing to do with the policies that led to them. During his appearance Bush said, "We want to make sure that if there is a systemic problem -- in other words, if there's a problem system-wide -- that we stop the practices"1. However, a new report appears to show that the President and top Administration officials may have authorized procedures that led to the abuses in the first place.

A new investigation by Newsweek "shows that President Bush, along with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft signed off on a secret system of detention and interrogation that opened the door to such methods" of abuse and torture as documented at Abu Ghraib2. The secret orders were designed "to sidestep the historical safeguards of the Geneva Conventions, which protect the rights of detainees and prisoners of war. In doing so, they overrode the objections of Secretary of State Colin Powell and America's top military lawyers."

The President has repeatedly said he wants to "usher in an era of personal responsibility"3. Yet, despite these revelations, the White House has yet to admit any culpability. When asked whether a crucial Presidential legal memo4 attempting to skirt the Geneva Conventions5 helped to create the atmosphere that led to the prison abuses, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "Absolutely not"6.

[b]Sources[/b]: - http://www.misleader.org/dail...

1. President Bush Meets with Al Arabiya Television on Wednesday, 05/05/2004.

2. "The Roots of Torture", Newsweek, 05/24/2004.

3. President Bush Discusses Progress in Education in St. Louis, 01/05/2004.

4. "Memos Reveal War Crimes Warnings", Newsweek, 05/19/2004.

5. "Report: White House Memo Backed Abuse", San Francisco Chronicle, 05/17/2004.

6. Press Gaggle by Scott McClellan, 05/17/2004.

Even Conservatives Are Wondering: Is Bush One of Us?

05.18.04 (2:58 pm) [edit]

Most Americans long ago stopped believing that George W. Bush is what he claimed to be during the 2000 presidential campaign: a compassionate conservative.

But is George W. Bush a[i] conservative [/i]at all?

The answer might seem self-evident to progressives who have spent the past four years recoiling at the reactionary agenda the Bush Administration has advanced on everything from the environment to the courts, global warming to gay marriage. But while few people would confuse George W. Bush for a liberal, whether the policies he's championed qualify as traditionally conservative is by no means clear.

"Historically, conservatism in the United States has meant support for small government, balanced budgets, fiscal prudence and great skepticism about overseas adventures," notes Clyde Prestowitz, a former Reagan Administration official who back in the 1960s was among the young Republicans supporting Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, a conservative standard-bearer. "What I see now is an Administration that's not for any of these things."

While there are plenty of Republicans who would take issue with Prestowitz's definition of the term, a growing number of conservative thinkers and policy-makers have begun to echo this view, as thumbing through the pages of the conservative press makes clear. Hungry for hard-hitting criticism of the Iraq war? You're as likely to find it these days in publications like The National Interest, a conservative foreign affairs quarterly, and the recently launched American Conservative as in publications on the left. Want a rundown on the billions in government subsidies that the Bush Administration has lavished on corporations even as it claims to champion laissez-faire economics? Look no further than the website of the libertarian Cato Institute, which bristles with such information. How about sober analyses of the multibillion-dollar budget deficits the Administration has overseen? There's no better source than the staid, conservative business press.

Of course, disagreement among conservatives in America, a term that encompasses everyone from followers of Pat Robertson to admirers of Milton Friedman, is hardly unprecedented. Yet the fissures that have emerged of late are different, pitting not only social conservatives against economic ones (a familiar rift within the GOP) but realists against neoconservatives, supply-siders against deficit hawks, proponents of limited government against defenders of what looks to some like a curious form of Big Government Republicanism. In some ways, moreover, these fissures cut deeper, for they are rooted not merely in tactical disputes about how to advance a shared agenda but in basic disagreements about what being a conservative in America actually means.

Does it mean fighting messianic wars to spread America's values into the far corners of the world? As the body bags continue to pile up in Iraq, a growing number of establishment conservatives have begun to voice doubts. Does it mean ramming through tax cuts at a time when the nation faces an array of new threats and challenges? Not to those conservatives who take the notion of fiscal responsibility seriously.

Interviews with an array of conservative thinkers and policy-makers reveal a rising disquiet on these matters among people who have spent most of their lives proudly identifying with the Republican Party and the philosophy for which they've long assumed it stood. At the root of their discomfort is a feeling not that the Bush Administration is too conservative but that it has forsaken the guiding principles of conservatism--prudence, caution, restraint--to pursue an agenda that is messianic and radical. To these dissenters, it is an agenda that seems less a fulfillment of classic conservative principles than an exercise in hubris reminiscent of the ideological excesses of another era, the 1960s, only with the shoe on the other party's foot.

Read entire article on: http://www.thenation.com/doc....

Wastrel Bush the Failure: Mad King of Iraq, but Ruinous Traitor to the USA

05.18.04 (1:31 pm) [edit]

He was a stock character in 19th-century fiction: the wastrel son who runs up gambling debts in the belief that his wealthy family, concerned for its prestige, will have no choice but to pay off his creditors. In the novels such characters always come to a bad end. Either they bring ruin to their families, or they eventually find themselves disowned.

George Bush reminds me of those characters � and not just because of his early career, in which friends of the family repeatedly bailed out his failing business ventures. Now that he sits in the White House, he's still counting on other people to settle his debts � not to protect the reputation of his family, but to protect the reputation of the country.

One by one, our erstwhile allies are disowning us; they don't want an unstable, anti-Western Iraq any more than we do, but they have concluded that President Bush is incorrigible. Spain has washed its hands of our problems, Italy is edging toward the door, and Britain will join the rush for the exit soon enough, with or without Tony Blair.

At home, however, Mr. Bush's protectors are not yet ready to make the break.

Last week Mr. Bush asked Congress for yet more money for the "Iraq Freedom Fund" � $25 billion for starters, although Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, says that the bill for the full fiscal year will probably exceed $50 billion, and independent experts think even that is an underestimate. And you know what? He'll get it.

Before the war, officials refused to discuss costs, except to insist that they would be minimal. It was only after the shooting started, and Congress was in no position to balk, that the administration demanded $75 billion for the Iraq Freedom Fund.

Then, after declaring "mission accomplished" and pushing through a big tax cut � and after several months when administration officials played down the need for more funds � Mr. Bush told Congress that he needed an additional $87 billion. Assured that the situation in Iraq was steadily improving, and warned that American soldiers would suffer if the money wasn't forthcoming, Congress gave Mr. Bush another blank check.

Now Mr. Bush is back for more. Given this history, one might have expected him to show some contrition � to promise to change his ways and to offer at least a pretense that Congress would henceforth have some say in how money was spent.

But the tone of the cover letter Mr. Bush sent with last week's budget request can best be described as contemptuous: it's up to Congress to "ensure that our men and women in uniform continue to have the resources they need when they need them." This from an administration that, by rejecting warnings from military professionals, ensured that our men and women in uniform didn't have remotely enough resources to do the job.

The budget request itself was almost a caricature of the administration's "just trust us" approach to governing.

It ran to less than a page, with no supporting information. Of the $25 billion, $5 billion is purely a slush fund, to be used at the secretary of defense's discretion. The rest is allocated to specific branches of the military, but with the proviso that the administration can reallocate the money at will as long as it notifies the appropriate committees.

Senators are balking for the moment, but everyone knows that they'll give in, after demanding, at most, cosmetic changes. Once again, Mr. Bush has put Congress in a bind: it was his decision to put American forces in harm's way, but if members of Congress fail to give him the money he demands, he'll blame them for letting down the troops.

As long as political figures aren't willing to disown Mr. Bush's debt � the impossible situation in which he has placed America's soldiers � there isn't much they can do.

So how will it all end? The cries of "stay the course" are getting fainter, while the calls for a quick exit are growing. In other words, it seems increasingly likely that the nation will end up disowning Mr. Bush and his debts.

That will mean settling for an outcome in Iraq that, however we spin it, will look a lot like defeat � and the nation's prestige will be damaged by that outcome. But lost prestige is better than ruin. - http://www.commondreams.org/v...

Wastrel Bush the Failure: Mad King of Iraq, but Ruinous Traitor to the USA

05.18.04 (1:23 pm) [edit]

Did Rumsfeld Plant the Sarin Found in Iraq??? It Ain't WMDs, Folks!!! HO HO HO!!!

05.17.04 (8:59 am) [edit]

[b]Did Rumsfeld [i]plant[/i] the sarin http://news.bostonherald.com/... http://www.kansascity.com/mld... "used" (by [i]whom[/i]?) in Iraq??? A buddy of mine who is a U.S. Soldier stationed in Baghdad informed me that the troops were disgusted with Rumsfeld's self-righteous, self-obsessed buffoonery and that quite alot of them would like to meet him "alone in a dark alley". Most U.S. Troops want Rumsfeld gone http://www.nypost.com/postopi... !!![/b]

[b]Rumsfeld is desperate enough http://www.csmonitor.com/2004... to need a "win" that he'll do anything and his vile "bullshit them all" spin and "do whatever it takes even break the law" criminality is confirmed by Pentagon insiders http://www.newyorker.com/prin... .[/b]

The Real Flip-Flop Candidate: Bushy-boy, the Weakling-Pretending-to-be-King by a Conservative!!!

05.17.04 (8:51 am) [edit]

[b]This from the neo-con's own Jonathan V. Last, online editor of the Conservative's [i]Weekly Standard[/i]... Even Conservatives are starting to see how weakling Bush is a [i]pretend-to-be-King[/i] :

Bush Says It, Means It -- Reverses It[/b]

The Republican theory of victory in November is that John Kerry will by then have become an unacceptable choice for voters because of his well-documented penchant for flip-flopping on issues. It's a smart theory with only one problem: George W. Bush would not be immune to the same charge.

The president's domestic policy achievements in his first term aren't what one might have predicted in January 2001. He expanded Medicare by adding a prescription drug benefit; split the difference on stem cell research; signed the No Child Left Behind bill, which greatly enlarged the federal role in education; and brought the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance-reform scheme to life. Each of these measures cut against what most people assumed were Bush's natural political inclinations. (Running up the deficit also runs counter to how Bush presented himself in 2000, but here the unexpected costs and impact of Sept. 11 are clearly to blame.)

Bush's opponents don't seem to notice these contradictions; instead they accuse him of being a rigid ideologue. But his supporters, many of them conservatives nervous about his domestic performance, have noticed. They console themselves with the idea that although Bush's politics � the wedding of "compassionate conservatism" to "big government conservatism" � may not be classically conservative, he's an honest and forthright man whose word is oak.

Or, as the president said recently, "When I say something, I mean it."

Strictly speaking, this isn't true. In some cases, Bush has changed his mind for reasons he could not have foreseen. Before taking office, he said, "I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building." And in February 2001, the president was in favor of "smart sanctions" against Iraq, a softening of U.S. policy toward Saddam Hussein. His reversals on both counts were precipitated by intervening events, contradicting the claim that Bush was targeting Hussein from the day he took office.

Yet not all of the president's policy switches can be explained by events beyond his control. After the 2000 election, Bush was asked if his proposed $1.6-trillion tax-cut package was negotiable. "The answer is no," he responded. "I think it's the right number." A few weeks after taking office, the tax cut was negotiated down to $1.35 trillion.

In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, Bush spoke as if the war on terrorism would be waged against all terrorist organizations, saying, "Anybody who houses a terrorist, encourages terrorism, will be held accountable." On another occasion he said, "We are planning a broad and sustained campaign to secure our country and eradicate the evil of terrorism." And later the president proclaimed, "If any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocents, they have become outlaws and murderers themselves."

By November 2001, however, Bush had modified his position: "Where terrorist groups exist of global reach, the United States and our friends and allies will seek it out, and we will destroy it." The important clause "of global reach" was added to justify ignoring regional terrorism in Ireland, Spain, Chechnya, the Philippines and Israel.

In March 2003, the president was asked if he would call for a vote on the proposed U.N. Security Council resolution backing the use of force in Iraq, which faced near-certain defeat. "No matter what the whip count is," Bush said, "we're calling for the vote. We want to see people stand up and say what their opinion is about Saddam Hussein and the utility of the United Nations Security Council. And so, you bet. It's time for people to show their cards, to let the world know where they stand when it comes to Saddam." The vote was never taken.

The list goes on. After saying the U.N. would have only a perfunctory role in rebuilding Iraq, Bush went back to the world body seeking aid in September and more recently looked to U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to help form an interim government in Iraq. After announcing he would file an amicus brief opposing affirmative action at the University of Michigan, Bush instructed his solicitor general to file a last-minute brief that essentially punted on the issue. As Weekly Standard Publisher Terry Eastland said, "By avoiding key issues in the litigation, the briefs would permit the illegal and immoral business at the core of the Michigan policies � using race [and ethnicity] to favor and disfavor applicants."

More recently, the president departed from his program of de-Baathification and allowed former Maj. Gen. Jassim Mohammed Saleh to take command of Iraqi forces in Fallouja in the hope of neutralizing insurgents holed up in the city. When news that Saleh had been a commander in Hussein's Republican Guard leaked out, Saleh was pushed aside, although not out of the new Fallouja Brigade, and replaced by Mohammed Latif, who was merely a military intelligence officer under Hussein.

Asked by the U.S.-sponsored Al Hurra television channel if these appointments were a sign "that the U.S. is lowering its expectations" in Iraq, Bush replied: "Quite the contrary. We're raising expectations."

None of which is to suggest that Bush is, pace Al Franken, a lying liar who tells lies. No, George W. Bush is simply a politician whose principal interest isn't conservatism or unilateralism or anti-taxism or any other ism for which he is, by turns, admired and detested.

It is a realization that must surely disappoint both his friends and critics. - http://www.latimes.com/news/o...,1,4385531.story?coll=la-news-commen t-opinions

Are the Neo-Cons Angry that their "Party" is Over?

05.17.04 (8:43 am) [edit]

[b]Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh says http://mediamatters.org/items... those who abused Iraqi prisoners were just having a "[i]good time[/i]" and needed an outlet to "[i]blow some steam off[/i]."[/b]

And how about Rush Limbaugh's idea http://www.talkingpointsmemo.... of a fun night out and blowing off steam?

You know when you're worked to the bone and you really need to unwind there's just nothing like grabbing a half dozen Arab dudes, stripping them naked, tying their bodies together against their will and pressing one guy's penis up against another guy's butt to make it like they're having anal sex http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4... . Right?

Rush and his neo-conservative supporters must have cheered with glee when they learnt that U.S. Soldiers put a harness on an elderly Iraqi woman over 70 years of age, forcing her to crawl on the ground, while they climbed on her back and rode her like a donkey http://www.tblog.com/template... . I'll bet macho-neo-con-thugs Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and their neo-con cronies regretted that they weren't there to join the party.

Party time for Rush and his neo-conservative sadists, rapists and war criminals, it would seem, is a mix of Studio 54 and Jack the Ripper.

[b]As fun as A Clockwork Orange[/b].

Conservatives Against Bush Speak Out Web-site!!!

05.17.04 (7:23 am) [edit]

[b]Visit Conservatives Against Bush Speak Out Web-site [/b] http://conservativesforke rry....

[u][b]Conservatives speak out against Bush[/b][/u]:

Bill Flanagan, a conservative who voted for George W. Bush in 2004 now says, "The combination of lies and boys coming home in body bags is just too awful... I could vote for Kerry. I could vote for any Democrat unless he's a real dummy."

Brian Youmans, a Republican, writes, "I feel that Republicans should speak out against Bush, not only because of the damage which Bush is doing to our country and its international reputation, but because of the damage he is doing to the Republican party. The Republican party is not the party of warmongering, fascism, and stupidity - it is known for its defence of civil liberties, its good management, and its prudent conduct of foreign affairs. By not standing up to Bush, we risk a generation of election losses when the American people wake up from their obsession with safety after the 9/11 attacks. We should demand changes in Bush administration policy, and a new standard-bearer for 2004."

Jim Rego, a Republican manager at Xerox, says, "I won't be voting for Bush in the fall. I think he's destroyed the economy... I'm interested in anybody who actually will bring the deficit back down. I think George Bush has bungled the economy. I think Iraq was a mistake... I would vote for either one of the Democratic candidates right now."

John Scarnado, a good Texas Republican, says, "I'm upset about Iraq and the vice president and his affiliation with Halliburton. I think the Bush administration is coming out to look like old boy politics, and I don't have a good feel about that."

In Beachwood, Ohio, a conservative Republican judge comments, "I feel like a complete traitor, and if you'd asked me four months ago, the answer would have been different, but we are really disgusted. It's the lies, the war, the economy. We have very good friends who are staunch Republicans, who don't even want to hear the name George Bush anymore."

Republican George Meagher, founder of the American Military Museum, comments, "Given the outcome and how dissatisfied I am with the administration, it's hard to think about now... People like me, we're all choking a bit at not supporting the president. But when I think about 500 people killed and what we've done to Iraq, and what we've done to our country, I mean, we're already $2 trillion in debt again."

Republican Tom Pelikan says,

"It's painful for me... and for many other Republicans to oppose our President. But loyalty has to be earned, not just expected."

Even Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, a good, loyal conservative, has said, "I do think that this administration did a miserable job of planning in a post-Saddam Iraq." He's also referred to the out-of-control budgets from the Bush Administration by saying, "Republicans used to believe in balanced budgets. Republicans used to believe in fiscal responsibility, limited international entanglements and limited government. We have lost our way. We have come loose from our moorings."

Republican politician Pete McCloskey complains: "The administration has stopped designating 'critical habitat' for listed species except under court order. It has stopped adding to the list of threatened and endangered species unless ordered to do so by a judge. It has moved to exempt the Forest Service from abiding by the law on the pretext of fire prevention. It is working to weaken the requirement that endangered species be protected from pesticides. And that list barely scratches the surface. The assault on the law is widespread and relentless. The administration and its comrades in arms argue that the law is ineffective, expensive and in need of drastic overhaul. In truth, they are acting as agents for the timber industry, the mining industry, land developers, big agriculture and other economic interests that sometimes find their profits slightly decreased in the short run by the need to obey this law."

Republican conservative Dave Herrington has commented, "One would think that Republicans would be in favor of letting the market work itself out by creating more competition in the world of energy supply. However, in the Bush Administration's recent budget, funding to support the development of solar energy technology was seriously restricted. This would be OK if we also eliminated all favors to the oil industry. However, Bush also advocates making our public lands in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge available to the oil industry, creating billions of dollars of potential revenue for the oil industry. This is a far cry from encouraging free-market capitalism!"

These conservatives are just a few of the many principled voices who are speaking out about the real problems the Republican Party faces under the leadership of George W. Bush. It's not easy for us to criticize a Republican leader, but if we are to be honest and faithful to our conservative ideals, we have no choice to say NO to Mr. Bush in 2004. - http://conservativesforke rry....

Conservatives Against Bush Speak Out Web-site!!!

05.17.04 (7:21 am) [edit]

Neo-Con Traitors Bush & Cheney have Sold America Out to the House of the Royal Saudi Family

05.17.04 (7:16 am) [edit]

Neo-Con Traitors Bush & Cheney have Sold America Out to the House of the Royal Saudi Family

05.17.04 (7:13 am) [edit]

Bush Refuses to Condemn Proponents of Torture ... Some "Christian"?!? Hypocrisy!!!

05.17.04 (7:07 am) [edit]

President Bush has publicly deplored the treatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, having apologized for the fiasco. Yet, just days after his apology, the White House is refusing to condemn its right-wing allies who are making light of the situation and defending torture.

For instance, conservative radio host and White House supporter Rush Limbaugh this week called the torture "decent punishment," said soldiers were simply "having a good time, and also said "I don't see the big deal here"1. White House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to answer when asked how the President felt about those comments2. Additionally, when McClellan was asked whether Vice President Cheney would continue appearing on Limbaugh's show (as he did in March), McClellan again refused to comment3.

Similarly, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), who President Bush has repeatedly praised as an ally, said that he was "more outraged by the outrage" than by the abuse4. Inhofe also said that all the prisoners are "murderers, terrorists and insurgents"5 despite the fact that the Red Cross notes that between 70% and 90% of the Iraqi detainees were "arrested by mistake"6. The White House again has refused to rebut these comments, in stark contrast to other Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who said such comments are "undercutting us in terms of our international standing"7.

[b]NOTE:[/b] Make sure to see the new television ad by Media Matters about Rush Limbaugh's comments at www.mediamatters.org.

[b]Sources[/b]: - http://www.misleader.org/dail...

1. Media Matters for America.

2. Press Briefing by Scott McClellan, 05/06/2004.

3. Press Gaggle with Scott McClellan, 05/11/2004.

4. President Bush Calls on Congress to Act on Clear Skies [It's Really Dirty Air] Legislation, 09/16/2003.

5. Senator 'Outraged at Outrage' in Iraq Prison Case, Reuters, 05/11/2004.

6. Up to 90% of Iraqi detainees arrested by mistake, Red Cross says, Chicago Sun-Times, 05/11/2004.

7. Iraq prison debate takes partisan turn, Houston Chronicle, 05/11/2004.

Bush Refuses to Condemn Proponents of Torture ... Some "Christian"?!? Hypocrisy!!!

05.17.04 (7:06 am) [edit]