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---> Bush-Cheney Flip-Flops Cost America in Blood

09.30.04 (5:58 pm) [edit]

[b]Joel Connelly writes[/b], http://seattlepi.nwsource.com... "The words of our future vice president -- defending the decision to end Gulf War I without occupying Iraq -- eerily foretell today's morass. Here is what Cheney said in '92: 'I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home... And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is not that damned many.' How -- given what he said then -- does Cheney get off challenging the judgment and strength of those who argue that we are bogged down and shedding blood today? Is Saddam worth the lives of 1,046 (at last count) dead Americans, and 7,000 injured Americans?"

---> You call this a democracy?

09.30.04 (10:52 am) [edit]

Our political system is starting to resemble the kind of banana republic authoritarianism we claim to despise.

There is nothing quite as hypocritical as a politician preaching the virtues of democracy while doing everything he can to destroy it. But as Election Day approaches, that is exactly what is happening.

President Bush is traveling the country bragging about supposedly bringing democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan while waging a stealth campaign far different from his rhetoric here at home. Unwilling to wage a fight within legal bounds and undeterred by the odious stench of the 2000 debacle, the president has deployed his operatives to rig the outcome on November 2.

Before you call this conspiracy theory, read on: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...

---> New Study Shows that Bush Supporters are Idiots Stuffed with Misinformation

09.30.04 (10:50 am) [edit]

A new study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes reveals that Bush supporters "have many incorrect assumptions about his foreign policy positions. Kerry supporters, though, are largely accurate in their assessments. The uncommitted also tend to misperceive Bush's positions, though less than Bush supporters, and to perceive Kerry's positions correctly. Majorities of Bush supporters incorrectly assumed that Bush favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements (84%), and the US being part of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (69%), the International Criminal Court (66%), the treaty banning land mines (72%), and the Kyoto treaty (51%). They were divided between those who knew that Bush favors building a new missile defense system now (44 percent) and those who incorrectly believe he wishes to do more research until its capabilities are proven (41%)." In short, these folks ain't too bright!

[b]Check-it-out http://www.pipa.org/

Courtesy of CheckItOut http://checkitout.tblog.com [/b]

---> New Study Shows that Bush Supporters are Idiots Stuffed with Misinformation

09.30.04 (10:49 am) [edit]

---> Bush Still Pushing Lies In Refusing to Lower Drug Prices

09.30.04 (10:47 am) [edit]

President Bush continues to oppose allowing American seniors to purchase lower-priced, FDA-approved medicines from Canada.1 His administration has claimed those prescription drugs would be unsafe, and is working to block a vote on bipartisan Senate legislation to make reimportation legal.2 But as a new drug industry whistleblower notes, the scare tactics are dishonest and untrue.

Dr. Peter Rost, vice-president of marketing for the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, recently came out and debunked the White House's argument, saying reimportation "has been proven to be safe in Europe" and that "The safety issue is a made-up story."3 Rost's comments are consistent with the Bush administration's own FDA officials who have been unable to provide any evidence that medicines from Canada are unsafe.4

President Bush's opposition to reimportation is backed by the drug industry - the same special interest that has donated lavishly to the GOP. According to the non-profit watchdog Public Campaign, the drug industry has given Republican candidates more than $36 million since 1999. President Bush has raked in more than $418,000 from the pharmaceutical industry, and lists many drug industry executives and lobbyists as his top fundraisers.5

[b]Sources:[/b]

1. "Big Pharma fears a Kerry win will lead to curbs on drug prices," The Independent Portfolio, 9/22/04.
2. "Frist won't bring drug import legislation up for vote," The Tennessean, 9/16/04.
3. "Surprise Support For Drug Importing," Washington Post, 9/14/04.
4. "FDA lacks examples of Canadian drugs harming Americans," Knight Ridder, 11/26/03.
5. "Paybacks: Prescription Drugs," Public Campaign, 8/2004.

---> Bush Still Pushing Lies In Refusing to Lower Drug Prices

09.30.04 (10:44 am) [edit]

---> The BrainWashed Making Excuses For The BrainDead ...

09.29.04 (8:57 pm) [edit]

[b]Ever wonder why the BrainWashed neo-con buffoons continually make their lame-duck excuses for their BrainDead 'leaders' like Dubya???[/b]

[u][b]New Study Shows that Bush Supporters are Idiots Stuffed with Misinformation[/b][/u]

A new study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes reveals that Bush supporters "have many incorrect assumptions about his foreign policy positions. Kerry supporters, though, are largely accurate in their assessments. The uncommitted also tend to misperceive Bush's positions, though less than Bush supporters, and to perceive Kerry's positions correctly. Majorities of Bush supporters incorrectly assumed that Bush favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements (84%), and the US being part of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (69%), the International Criminal Court (66%), the treaty banning land mines (72%), and the Kyoto treaty (51%). They were divided between those who knew that Bush favors building a new missile defense system now (44 percent) and those who incorrectly believe he wishes to do more research until its capabilities are proven (41%)." In short, these folks ain't too bright!

[b]Check-it-out [/b] http://www.pipa.org/

[b]Courtesy of CheckItOut http://checkitout.tblog.com [/b]

---> Dubya's on Fascist Time: Bush Dealings on Iran so Hypocritical they are Comical

09.29.04 (4:20 pm) [edit]

A little over a week ago, it was announced that Bush planned to sell Israel $320 million in what experts called a war arsenal. Israeli officials made no bones about it - the weapons would most likely be trained on Iran or Syria. Now Bush has turned around and slapped sanctions on 14 foreign companies for selling arms to Iran! Worse than that - he is punishing some of these companies simply for trading with Iran as they cannot be considered arms dealers. Yet Halliburton, under a grand jury investigation for trading flagrantly with Iran in defiance of sanctions, remains unpunished! And, of course, the ongoing story of Halliburton's wheelings and dealings with US enemies continues to be ignored by the US media. You will have to go to the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/bu...

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.turkishpress.com/t...

---> The Crawford, Texas Newspaper Endorses John Kerry

09.29.04 (4:17 pm) [edit]

We can't WAIT to see how Tom Brokaw, et al. spin this one! They will probably just black it out! Reuters reports that "The newspaper in Bush's adopted hometown of Crawford threw its support on Tuesday behind Bush's Democratic rival, Sen. John Kerry. The weekly Lone Star Iconoclast criticized Bush's handling of the war in Iraq and for turning budget surpluses into record deficits. The editorial also criticized Bush's proposals on Social Security and Medicare. "The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda," the newspaper said in its editorial. "Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry." It urged "Texans not to rate the candidate by his hometown or even his political party, but instead by where he intends to take the country."

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.reuters.com/newsAr...

---> 'Persuadable Voters' (Those Just Waking up and smelling the Coffee) May Opt for Kerry

09.29.04 (4:14 pm) [edit]

Believe it or not, one in five voters (at least according to an AP poll - ahem!) describe themselves as "persuadable" - as in people who, even after a national disaster, recession, and two wars, have STILL failed to absorb enough information to have an opinion. This is the same clueless group that the media is aggressively trying to manipulate through bogus polls - if they don't like Bush, but aren't sold on Kerry, then convince them Kerry will lose anyway and they will stay home. But, where there's a pulse there's life, as they say. Perhaps through the undaunted efforts of a small handful of honest journalists, enough FACTUAL info will seep through to these people before Nov. 2. for them to realize that their country is being run by a lunatic.

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.sacbee.com/24hour/...

---> Bush Lied 4 Times to Bill O'Reilly about the National Guard!!!

09.29.04 (2:33 pm) [edit]

Bush LIED to O'Reilly about Preferences, Flying Hours, Activity Duty, and Fulfilling his Duties. When will O'Reilly invite experts to discuss Bush's AWOL? http://bobfertik.com/

---> Why Bush's War Is Illegal

09.29.04 (2:25 pm) [edit]

Not all 58,195 American bodies had come back from Vietnam yet when in 1970 Congress repealed the so-called Gulf of Tonkin resolution. Nearly six years earlier, with only two nays (in the Senate), Congress had approved it: a vague resolution supporting President Lyndon Johnson's determination to "maintain peace." Johnson thereupon claimed it gave him authority to wage war.

Three days after the terrorist suicide attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, with only one nay (in the House), Congress enacted another vague resolution that President George W. Bush has taken as license to attack Afghanistan and any other countries of his choice with bombs and troops. Congress will repeal it, as it did in '70 – but will it take so much time and so many bodies?

On four main grounds, we charge that the resolution violates the Constitution, and that the war it supposedly authorizes contradicts U.S. treaty obligations.

[b]1. Congress's war resolution was an unconstitutional delegation of power[/b].

On Sept. 14 Congress hastily turned over to the president its constitutional power to declare war. He may fight any "nations, organizations, or persons," if he "determines" that they "aided" the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks – or even "harbored" anyone who did.

The resolution names no country and states no objective. After attacking the Afghans, President Bush sent troops to fight Philippine rebels and escalated Clinton's undeclared drug war in Colombia to a war on rebels there. He has planned an attack on Iraq to overthrow its president and has considered actions in Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, and Indonesia. He does not seem to care any longer about Sept. 11. He treats the congressional resolution as a blank check giving him absolute, dictatorial power to wage lasting war, world war, or nuclear war.

The Pentagon has studied some 60 countries as potential targets. Vice-President Dick Cheney warns that the war may not be over "in our lifetime" (10-21-01). It may be nuclear. President Bush has ordered the military to prepare plans to drop atomic bombs on at least seven countries and use smaller nuclear weapons in battlefields (Los Angeles Times, 3-9-02).

Professors Francis D. Wormuth and Edwin Firmage wrote in To Chain the Dog of War: The War Power of Congress in History and Law (1986): "Does the grant of the power to Congress ‘to declare war' include the power ‘to declare future wars,’ whether by authorizing presidential action or by other means? No, it does not.... One cannot enter into a future state of war in the present, any more than one can enter into a future state of marriage.... Congressional declarations of war, whether general or limited ... have always been addressed to a known adversary; one cannot declare war against, or be in a state of war with, an unknown adversary...."

Congress did not declare war on Afghanistan or any other country. Instead it gave the president the go-ahead to attack enemies that he would choose in the future. Attorney General John Ashcroft said (9-25-01) that "President Bush declared war on terrorism." A president may not constitutionally declare war – even a supposed war on an ism.

[b]2. Bombing communities and hospitals violates international and U.S. law[/b].

Since the bombing of Afghanistan began on Oct. 8, disastrous results have been reported almost daily. Examples:

• The village of Karam was razed and survivors spoke of 200 dead (BBC, 10-10-01).

• Planes bombed a hospital in the city of Herat; the Afghans said over 100 died (AP, 10-22-01). A mosque there and a nearby village were also hit, with cluster bombs and armor-penetrating explosives, the U.N. said (AFP, 10-25-01). (Such explosives, using depleted uranium, were dropped on the Yugoslavs in the Clinton-NATO war of 1999.)

• Red Cross warehouses, marked on top, were bombed on three occasions in Kabul, and one bomb meant for them "inadvertently" hit residences (Reuters, 10-27-01).

• In the city of Kandahar, bombs destroyed a bus, killing seven or eight riders

(The Times, London, 10-28-01), and badly damaged a hospital operated by the Red Crescent (Muslim equivalent of the Red Cross); a doctor said 15 were killed (AP, 10-31-01).

• Waves of jets leveled the village of Chokar Karaiz, killing at least 60, survivors said (AFP, 11-2-01).

• More than 25 bombs destroyed the village of Kama Ado, killing between 100 and 200 civilians, witnesses and survivors said; and bombings killed at least 50 villagers at Khan-e-Muirajuddin, according to a security chief (AP, 12-1-01).

• Warplanes attacked a convoy of tribal elders going from Paktia province to Kabul, killing 15 and then 50 nearby villagers; later, planes attacked the village of Naka, killing up to 40 and wounding up to 60 (The Guardian, UK, 12-28-01, citing Reuters).

• In place of ten homes and up to 107 residents, many of them children and women, piles of brick, pieces of human flesh and hair, and pools of blood remained after a pre-dawn air raid demolished the village of Qalaye Niazi as its inhabitants slept after a wedding celebration (Reuters, 12-31-01, and Los Angeles Times, 1-8-02).

The air raids violate The Hague Conventions (1899, 1907), banning the bombardment of towns, villages, dwellings or undefended buildings; poisoned arms; arms to cause unnecessary suffering; treacherous killing; and refusing to allow an enemy to surrender. Geneva Conventions outlawed attacks on any hospitals (1949). All were approved by the U.S. A 1977 protocol to the Geneva pacts condemned attacks on civilians or indiscriminate attacks. (The U.S. signed it; the Senate has not voted on it.)

Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense, says the military "does not target civilians." Yet he admits knowingly taking action that kills them: "There is no question that when one is engaged militarily ... [there will be] unintended loss of life." (Briefing 10-11-01) In a murder trial, the accused cannot argue, "It was an accident. I meant to kill somebody else."

The Pentagon has released lists of its "inadvertent" bombings of civilians. It admitted intentionally bombing the Red Cross warehouses, containing food, in a "targeting error." The UN estimated that 7.5 million Afghans were near starvation.

Ted Rall wrote, after a trip to the war zone, "We've already killed more civilians than died in the 9-11 attacks – and as we know firsthand, seeing innocent people killed creates rage among their survivors. To the Afghans, we're the terrorists" (Yahoo, 2-20-02).

Note that under Article VI of the Constitution, "all treaties made ... under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land...."

[b]3. Bush refused to seek a peaceful solution, contrary to the U.N. Charter[/b].

The Charter of the United Nations is another U.S. treaty (1945, San Francisco).

Article 2: "All members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means" and "refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state."

Article 33: nations in any dispute that endangers peace "shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means...."

Bush took none of those steps. When the Afghan leaders, then the Taliban, offered to negotiate a peaceful solution before Bush began his bombing, he refused. His aim, then supposedly to catch Osama bin Laden, became to "get rid of this particular regime" (he told business leaders in Sacramento, 10-17-01) – an aim for which the Charter prohibits force.

The Sept. 14 resolution mentions "self-defense" as one of its purposes. The U.N. Charter (Article 51) allows it only until the Security Council has acted to restore peace and security. In a murder trial, no defendant could get away with a "self-defense" plea if he had spent a month planning, traveled far to break into his victim's home, and put a bomb there.

[b]4. A U.S. treaty renounces war as an instrument of national policy[/b].

The Pact of Paris, or the Treaty for the Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy, made aggressive war illegal and its initiation an individual crime. The Nuremberg tribunal sentenced Nazi leaders to death under it. (The treaty, of 1928, is better known as the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact, after its promoters, Frank B. Kellogg, secretary of state under President Calvin Coolidge; and Aristide Briand, French foreign minister.)

The U.S. resolution lists among its rationales "the threat to the national security and foreign policy...." It wrongly states that the president has "authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism," implying that attacking countries will do so. But haven't our attacks and global presence caused violent anti-Americanism?

Standing headlines say "America strikes back." The French news agency AFP has expressed the popular view that the bombings were "retaliation" (10-23-01). Few consider the logic of killing Afghans to punish terrorism committed mostly by Saudi-Arabians. But anyway, retribution is an unlawful war aim. One columnist advocated bombing Moslem peoples, converting them to Christianity and killing their leaders (Ann Coulter, 9-13-01).

In July 2001, two months before the terrorists struck the United States, U.S. officials told of plans to attack Afghanistan in October and replace its regime, a former Pakistani foreign secretary informed British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC Internet report 9-18-01). Likewise Bush aims at replacing Iraq's regime. His objective in each case has been the "nation building" that he told voters he opposed – far from "self-defense." - http://warandlaw.homestead.co...

---> Bush Ignored Warnings on Iraq Insurgency Threat Before Invasion

09.29.04 (12:01 pm) [edit]

[b]Intelligence suggested country faced years of tumult[/b]

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration disregarded intelligence reports two months before the invasion of Iraq which warned that a war could unleash a violent insurgency and rising anti-US sentiment in the Middle East, it emerged yesterday.

The warning, delivered in two classified reports to the White House in January 2003, was prepared by the National Intelligence Council, the same advisory board that warned the Bush administration last month that the violence in Iraq could descend into a civil war.

That forecast radically departs from George Bush's upbeat assertions that the situation is improving in Iraq, and he initially dismissed the assessment as a "guess".

The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, suggested the assessment was the work of "handwringers".

The revelation yesterday that the White House was similarly cavalier about prewar warnings could hurt Mr Bush in the run-up to tomorrow's presidential debate, which is focused on foreign policy.

The Democratic challenger, John Kerry, has led a dogged effort to shift the election agenda from the "war on terror" to the chaos in Iraq, and yesterday's report at last provides him with a new opening.

One of the prewar assessments said it would take years of tumult before democracy was established in Iraq, and the country could revert to its tradition of authoritarian rule. According to the New York Times, it also warned that the new authorities in Iraq could face a guerrilla war waged by remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime, and other militant groups.

Meanwhile, Washington could see a rise in anti-American sentiment across the Middle East, as well as support for some terrorist acts.

The existence of the prewar National Intelligence Council estimate was reported by the conservative columnist, Robert Novak, on Monday, as well as in yesterday's New York Times.

The manner in which the assessment came to light has attracted as much attention as its contents.

According to Mr Novak, details of the estimate were disclosed by Paul Pillar, the CIA's national intelligence officer for the near east and south Asia and one of the officials involved in preparing the report, at a private dinner on the west coast. Mr Pillar told his dinner companions that the White House had disregarded the warnings.

Mr Pillar also suggested that the Bush administration was so focused on going to war that it never considered the prospect of an anti-American backlash. "When Pillar was asked why this was not made clear to the president and other higher authorities, his answer was that nobody asked," Mr Novak writes.

Mr Pillar's frustration was widely shared yesterday by intelligence professionals who said they were undermined by an administration in which ideologues often had the final say over policy-making, as well as by the agency's management, which they believed was overly compliant with Pentagon and White House hardliners.

"The CIA had come out before the war, and had been telling the administration all kinds of things it didn't want to hear," said Melissa Mahle, a former CIA operative in the Middle East. "The CIA feels very embattled right now. They feel vulnerable to accusations of politicisation in the run-up to the war, and to a degree they are vulnerable because of the war [former CIA chief] George Tenet played."

Yesterday, a government official confirmed that the two prewar reports had sounded clear warnings of a widening struggle for Iraq. The official also noted that the conclusions in the assessment were shared by the entire intelligence community, not just the CIA.

"It talked about possible insurgency, possible waging of guerrilla warfare, the possibility of domestic groups engaging in violent conflict," the official said.

The official confirmed that Mr Pillar had been granted CIA authorisation to speak to the gathering, but on the understanding that the session remain confidential. - http://www.commondreams.org/h...

---> Truths Worth Telling

09.29.04 (11:56 am) [edit]

[b]by Daniel Ellsberg [/b]

KENSINGTON, Calif. — On a tape recording made in the Oval Office on June 14, 1971, H. R. Haldeman, Richard Nixon's chief of staff, can be heard citing Donald Rumsfeld, then a White House aide, on the effect of the Pentagon Papers, news of which had been published on the front page of that morning's newspaper:

"Rumsfeld was making this point this morning,'' Haldeman says. "To the ordinary guy, all this is a bunch of gobbledygook. But out of the gobbledygook comes a very clear thing: you can't trust the government; you can't believe what they say, and you can't rely on their judgment. And the implicit infallibility of presidents, which has been an accepted thing in America, is badly hurt by this, because it shows that people do things the president wants to do even though it's wrong, and the president can be wrong."

He got it exactly right. But it's a lesson that each generation of voters and each new set of leaders have to learn for themselves. Perhaps Mr. Rumsfeld - now secretary of defense, of course - has reflected on this truth recently as he has contemplated the deteriorating conditions in Iraq. According to the government's own reporting, the situation there is far bleaker than Mr. Rumsfeld has recognized or President Bush has acknowledged on the campaign trail.

Understandably, the American people are reluctant to believe that their president has made errors of judgment that have cost American lives. To convince them otherwise, there is no substitute for hard evidence: documents, photographs, transcripts. Often the only way for the public to get such evidence is if a dedicated public servant decides to release it without permission.

Such a leak occurred recently with the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which was prepared in July. Reports of the estimate's existence and overall pessimism - but not its actual conclusions - have prompted a long-overdue debate on the realities and prospects of the war. But its judgments of the relative likelihood and the strength of evidence pointing to the worst possibilities remain undisclosed. Since the White House has refused to release the full report, someone else should do so.

Leakers are often accused of being partisan, and undoubtedly many of them are. But the measure of their patriotism should be the accuracy and the importance of the information they reveal. It would be a great public service to reveal a true picture of the administration's plans for Iraq - especially before this week's debate on foreign policy between Mr. Bush and Senator John Kerry.

The military's real estimates of the projected costs - in manpower, money and casualties - of various long-term plans for Iraq should be made public, in addition to the more immediate costs in American and Iraqi lives of the planned offensive against resistant cities in Iraq that appears scheduled for November. If military or intelligence experts within the government predict disastrous political consequences in Iraq from such urban attacks, these judgments should not remain secret.

Leaks on the timing of this offensive - and on possible call-up of reserves just after the election - take me back to Election Day 1964, which I spent in an interagency working group in the State Department. The purpose of our meeting was to examine plans to expand the war - precisely the policy that voters soundly rejected at the polls that day.

We couldn't wait until the next day to hold our meeting because the plan for the bombing of North Vietnam had to be ready as soon as possible. But we couldn't have held our meeting the day before because news of it might have been leaked - not by me, I'm sorry to say. And President Lyndon Johnson might not have won in a landslide had voters known he was lying when he said that his administration sought "no wider war."

Seven years and almost 50,000 American deaths later, after I had leaked the Pentagon Papers, I had a conversation with Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, one of the two senators who had voted against the Tonkin Gulf resolution in August 1964. If I had leaked the documents then, he said, the resolution never would have passed.

That was hard to hear. But in 1964 it hadn't occurred to me to break my vow of secrecy. Though I knew that the war was a mistake, my loyalties then were to the secretary of defense and the president. It took five years of war before I recognized the higher loyalty all officials owe to the Constitution, the rule of law, the soldiers in harm's way or their fellow citizens.

Like Robert McNamara, under whom I served, Mr. Rumsfeld appears to inspire great loyalty among his aides. As the scandal at Abu Ghraib shows, however, there are more important principles. Mr. Rumsfeld might not have seen the damning photographs and the report of Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba as soon as he did - just as he would never have seen the Pentagon Papers 33 years ago - if some anonymous people in his own department had not bypassed the chain of command and disclosed them, without authorization, to the news media. And without public awareness of the scandal, reforms would be less likely.

A federal judge has ordered the administration to issue a list of all documents relating to the scandal by Oct. 15. Will Mr. Rumsfeld release the remaining photos, which depict treatment that he has described as even worse? It's highly unlikely, especially before Nov. 2. Meanwhile, the full Taguba report remains classified, and the findings of several other inquiries into military interrogation and detention practices have yet to be released.

All administrations classify far more information than is justifiable in a democracy - and the Bush administration has been especially secretive. Information should never be classified as secret merely because it is embarrassing or incriminating. But in practice, in this as in any administration, no information is guarded more closely.

Surely there are officials in the present administration who recognize that the United States has been misled into a war in Iraq, but who have so far kept their silence - as I long did about the war in Vietnam. To them I have a personal message: don't repeat my mistakes. Don't wait until more troops are sent, and thousands more have died, before telling truths that could end a war and save lives. Do what I wish I had done in 1964: go to the press, to Congress, and document your claims.

Technology may make it easier to tell your story, but the decision to do so will be no less difficult. The personal risks of making disclosures embarrassing to your superiors are real. If you are identified as the source, your career will be over; friendships will be lost; you may even be prosecuted. But some 140,000 Americans are risking their lives every day in Iraq. Our nation is in urgent need of comparable moral courage from its public officials.

[b]Daniel Ellsberg is the author of "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers." [/b] - http://www.commondreams.org/v...

---> Bush Restricting Democracy As Election Nears

09.29.04 (11:53 am) [edit]

President Bush has opined about the need for democracy to be preserved, and for U.S. elections to be fair. In 2002, he said "Every registered voter deserves to have confidence that the system is fair and elections are honest."1 In 2003, he gave a speech to the National Endowment for Democracy claiming he had a "commitment to democracy."2 But, as a new report shows, Bush and the Republican Party are doing everything they can to reduce democracy at home as the election approaches.

As an article in [i]In These Times [/i]notes, in August 2003 the CEO of one of the biggest manufacturers of new voting machines wrote a fundraising letter saying he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."3 In June 2004, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) tried to remove 48,000 traditionally Democratic voters from the Florida voter rolls,4 prompting the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to demand an investigation.5 In July, a top GOP official in Michigan indicated his party's effort to reduce minority voter turnout, saying that the GOP will have "a tough time [in this election]" if "we do not suppress the Detroit vote."6 In August, Jeb Bush's political appointee tried to hire two top Bush fundraisers to represent the election office in Broward County in the case of a recount.7

See the full article at www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/111 5.

[b]Sources:[/b]

1. "President Signs Historic Election Reform Legislation into Law," The White House, 10/29/02.
2. "President Bush Discusses Freedom in Iraq and Middle East," The White House, 11/06/03.
3. "Voting Machine Controversy," Common Dreams News Center, 8/23/03.
4. "Rights leader scolds Bush on use of felon purge lists," Miami Herald, 6/22/04.
5. "Voting worries just won't go away," Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 7/18/04.
6. "Groups Say GOP Moves to Stifle Vote," Washington Post, 8/26/04.
7. "Elections Supervisor Rapped for Hiring Lawyers With Bush Ties," Law.com, 8/30/04.

---> Bush Restricting Democracy As Election Nears

09.29.04 (11:51 am) [edit]

---> Chilling Image of Bush

09.28.04 (11:51 am) [edit]

Now tell us this photo doesn't evoke images of Nazi Germany in the 1930s! Here's Bush apparently giving an unabashed "Seig Heil!", while in the background a US flag hangs vertically suspended, as the Nazi flag was displayed...

[b]More[/b] ... http://news.yahoo.com/news?tm...

---> Death Threats by Neo-Cons to Libs on tBLOG ...

09.28.04 (8:50 am) [edit]

In response to a tBLOGGer http://www.tblog.com/template... complaining that some of us liberals block certain neo-con tBLOGGers: [b]This is because we were getting DEATH THREATS.[/b]

I will open my tBLOG to any tBLOGGer who asks me, providing that they promise not to post DEATH THREATS.

The tBLOGGer who posted DEATH THREATS didn't even have the courage to use his/her own tBLOG ID, but would type in 'newbie' to over-ride his/her real tBLOG ID.

I don't even mind insults or name-calling-- but DEATH THREATS are beyond the pale...

Thank you.

---> The Commission on Presidential Debates (Sham Body Panders to Bush Thugs)

09.28.04 (6:46 am) [edit]

The Commission on Presidential Debates said Monday that it would enforce many of the stipulations agreed to by the campaigns of President Bush and Senator John Kerry, but that it would not sign the agreement itself - which aides to Mr. Bush had indicated was a prerequisite for his participation in the debates.

The 32-page agreement, released last Monday, included a provision that gave the candidates the right to walk away from its terms if the commission did not sign it. Mr. Kerry's campaign aides indicated last week that they would not make an issue of whether the commission signed the agreement, something it has never been asked to do before. Mr. Bush's campaign indicated that it might.

But after the commission said Monday that its decision not to sign the agreement was final, Mr. Bush's campaign said it was satisfied with a statement the commission posted on its Web site that said "the debate format rules will be enforced as stated in the Sept. 20 memorandum."

Mark Wallace, Mr. Bush's deputy campaign manager, said, "We're pleased that the commission has agreed to uphold the terms of the agreement."

Still, officials of the debate commission said they were agreeing primarily to those things Mr. Bush's aides had emphasized as especially important to them: a strict time limit on candidate responses, an electronic warning when candidates exceed their speaking time that can be seen and heard by viewers at home, and a prohibition against the candidates' directly posing questions to each other.

One official said the commission would probably not abide by the agreement's stipulation that the audience at the Oct. 8 town-hall-style debate in Missouri be composed of people who are "soft supporters" of Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush, meaning they had not solidly made up their minds but were leaning one way or another. The commission had proposed that the audience be filled with strictly undecided voters.

But a senior Bush campaign official noted that the commission said in its statement, "There will be no departure from the terms of the memorandum without prior consultation with and approval by the appropriate campaign representatives."

"I'm unaware of any such prior approval or consultation,'' said the official, who said he expected the point to be worked out between the parties.

Debate commission officials also said they could not and would not enforce the agreement's stipulation that network cameras refrain from showing Mr. Bush when Mr. Kerry was speaking, and vice versa.

"There are certain things that are clearly beyond our control," said Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., a co-chairman of the commission. "We don't control the feed so we don't know what the networks are going to show; that's not within our purview."

Paul Schur, a spokesman for the Fox News Channel, which is telecasting the first debate on Thursday for the major news networks planning to carry it, said, "Because of journalistic standards, we're not going to follow outside restrictions."

Mr. Fahrenkopf also said that the debate moderators had no plans to sign the agreement either, despite a provision in the memorandum allowing the campaigns to replace those who refuse to sign. Aides to both candidates indicated that they would not push the issue. - http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...

---> Destroying Democracy, One Debate At A Time!!!

09.28.04 (6:32 am) [edit]

[b]INSIDE BUSH WATCH: Reading the Morning Papers (September 28)[/b]

Christine: Who do you think will win the debates?

Jerry: Debates? What debates. Those who have read the rules say there's less spontaneity than ever before. The candidate can't ask follow-up questions about what his opponent says, and neither can the moderator, so there aren't going to be any debates. What we'll hear are canned comments going by like freight trains in response to intial questions by the moderator. That's what Bush-Rove got as a "compromise" in order for Kerry to have three debates rather than two. Bush-Rove didn't want to have a town meeting debate format, because that would involve questions from citizens.

Of course, somewhere in the 32 pages of rules for the debates, there are rules for carefully screening the citizens who ask the questions, just like party plants who ask questions at Bush campaign stops: the Gallup poll, which has used more Republicans than Democrats in its polls, will select an equal number of "soft" Bush supporters and "soft" Kerry supporters, and "ABC's Charles Gibson, who's moderating [the forum], is supposed to pre-select written questions and then "cut off" anyone who changes the wording submitted," notes one observer.

Christine: That figures. As one reporter said on Lou Dobbs the other evening, the only possibility for any shift in the poll numbers based upon the content of the debates is if one of the candidates makes a mistake in a canned respones.

Jerry: What a joke! Yet, the media would have us believe that our democratic debate process is still intact. With each passing election, the democratic traditons of a free society are slowly but surely being strangled, while the politicians and pundits pretend that everything's fine. That's why the thrust of the commentary on the debates has been about how style will decide the winner, because it's obvious that content will be propaganda, just like at the conventions and in the ads. Dobbs had a question for his viewers to call/e-mail a response to: What will most help you select your candidate, ads, the conventions, or the debates? How about "none of the above"?

Breaking News: The Debate Commission is refusing to sign the Bush-Kerry agreement and Bush has threatened to pull out if they don't, according to a story in today's NYT: "Officials of the debate commission said they were agreeing primarily to those things Mr. Bush's aides had emphasized as especially important to them: a strict time limit on candidate responses, an electronic warning when candidates exceed their speaking time that can be seen and heard by viewers at home, and a prohibition against the candidates' directly posing questions to each other.

One official said the commission would probably not abide by the agreement's stipulation that the audience at the Oct. 8 town-hall-style debate in Missouri be composed of people who are "soft supporters" of Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush, meaning they had not solidly made up their minds but were leaning one way or another. The commission had proposed that the audience be filled with strictly undecided voters....

Debate commission officials also said they could not and would not enforce the agreement's stipulation that network cameras refrain from showing Mr. Bush when Mr. Kerry was speaking, and vice versa. "There are certain things that are clearly beyond our control," said Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., a co-chairman of the commission. "We don't control the feed so we don't know what the networks are going to show; that's not within our purview." Paul Schur, a spokesman for the Fox News Channel, which is telecasting the first debate on Thursday for the major news networks planning to carry it, said, "Because of journalistic standards, we're not going to follow outside restrictions."

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.bushwatch.net/#ins...

---> The Effect of the War in Iraq on America's Security

09.28.04 (6:24 am) [edit]

[b]The Effect of the War in Iraq on America's Security

by Senator Ted Kennedy

Remarks delivered at The George Washington University [/b]

Thank you Steve, for that generous introduction. Your many years of impressive leadership at GW have benefited the students, the faculty, and the whole city. I commend you as well for your support for the DC public schools, and your commitment to help them in their time of need, and increase opportunities for their students. Thank you for all you do so well.

I'm honored to be at GW today, and to have this opportunity to speak to all of you at this defining moment for our nation. Five weeks from tomorrow, the American people will decide the next President of the United States. The consequences of the election will be enormous for our country here at home and our role in the world. Every American has a responsibility to vote, and I know you'll approach that responsibility with the seriousness it deserves.

Most of you will probably be voting for the first time, as will many other college students throughout America. One of the few positive results of the Vietnam War is the irresistible momentum it gave Congress thirty-four years ago to pass legislation lowering the voting age to 18. Long-standing opposition crumbled in the face of one simple truth-"Old enough to fight, old enough to vote." Hopefully, because of the war in Iraq, young voters in communities across America will finally be moved to help our democracy work, by going to the polls in the large numbers long expected.

My topic today, as you can guess, is the war in Iraq. In another presidential election campaign 24 years ago, a Republican governor named Ronald Reagan posed the defining question to the American people in that election, when he asked, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" That simple question has even greater relevance now than when Ronald Reagan asked it.

The defining issue today is our national security. Especially in this post-9/11 world, people have the right to ask Ronald Reagan's question in a very specific and all-important way-are we safer today because of the policies of President George W. Bush?

Any honest assessment can lead to only one answer, and that answer is an emphatic no. President Bush is dead wrong and John Kerry is absolutely right. We are not safer today. And the reason we are not safer is because of President Bush's misguided war in Iraq.

The President's handling of the war has been a toxic mix of ignorance, arrogance, and stubborn ideology. No amount of Presidential rhetoric or preposterous campaign spin can conceal the truth about the steady downward spiral in our national security since President Bush made the decision to go to war in Iraq. If this election is decided on the question of whether America is safer because of President George Bush, John Kerry will win in a landslide.

Enough time has now passed to make us sure of that verdict, beyond any reasonable doubt.

Shakespeare stated the enduring age-old principle eloquently and wisely when he wrote: "Time's glory is to calm contending kings, to unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light."

No issue is more important today. The battle against terrorism is a battle we must win. Even those who opposed the war in Iraq understand that we cannot cut and run, that this is an American issue. But to remain silent in the face of mounting failures by this President and this White House is to weaken our security even further, and we cannot let that happen.

I thank God that President Bush was not our President at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Even after 9/11, it is wrong for this President or any president to shoot first and ask questions later, to rush to war and ignore or even muzzle serious doubts by experienced military officers and experienced officials in the State Department and the CIA about the rationale and justification for the war, and the strategy for waging it.

We all know that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator. We've known it for more than 20 years. We're proud, very proud, of our troops for their extraordinary and swift success in removing Saddam from power. But as we also now know beyond doubt, he did not pose the kind of immediate threat to our national security that could possibly justify a unilateral, preventive war without the broad support of the international community. There was no reason whatsoever to go to war when we did, in the way we did, and for the false reasons we were given.

The Administration's insistence that Saddam could provide nuclear material, or even nuclear weapons to Al Qaeda has been exposed as an empty threat. It should have never been used by George W. Bush to justify an ideological war that America never should have fought.

Saddam had no nuclear weapons. In fact, not only were there no nuclear weapons, there were no chemical or biological weapons either, no weapons of mass destruction of any kind.

Nor was there any persuasive link between Al Qaeda and Saddam and the 9/11 attacks. A 9/11 Commission Staff Statement put it plainly: "Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between Al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and Al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." The 9/11 Commission Report stated clearly that there was no "operational" connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda.

Secretary of State Colin Powell now agrees that there was no correlation between 9/11 and Saddam's regime. So does Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Nonetheless, President Bush continues to cling to the fiction that there was a relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda. As the President said in his familiar Bush-speak, "The reason that I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and Al Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda."

That's the same logic President Bush keeps using today in his repeated stubborn insistence that the situation is improving in Iraq, and that we and the world are safer because Saddam is gone.

The President and his administration continue to paint a rosy picture of progress in Iraq. Just last Wednesday, he referred to the growing insurgency as "a handful of people." Some handful!

Vice President Cheney says we're "moving in the right direction," despite the worsening violence. Our troops are increasingly the targets of deadly attacks. American citizens are being kidnapped and brutally beheaded. But Secretary Rumsfeld says he's "encouraged" by developments in Iraq.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina doesn't buy that, and he has said so clearly: "We do not need to paint a rosy scenario for the American people."

Neither does Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a Vietnam veteran and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He stated unequivocally last week, "I don't think we're....winning. The fact is, we're in trouble. We're in deep trouble in Iraq."

The National Intelligence Estimate in July, although not yet made public, made this point as well-and made it with such breathtaking clarity that for the good of our country, unnamed officials discussed it with the press. The New York Times said the estimate "spells out a dark assessment of prospects for Iraq." According to the same New York Times report and other reports, the National Intelligence Estimate outlines three possibilities for Iraq through the end of next year. The worst case scenario is that Iraq plunges into outright civil war. The best case scenario it says-the best case-is an Iraq with violence still at current levels, with tenuous political and economic stability. Yet President Bush categorically rejected that description, saying the CIA was "just guessing." Last week, he retreated somewhat. He said he should have used "estimate," instead of "guess."

In other words, the best-case scenario, between now and the end of 2005-2005--is that our soldiers will be bogged down in a continuing quagmire with no end in sight. President Bush refuses to give the time of day to advice like that by the best intelligence analysts in his Administration, but the American people need to hear it.

The outlook is bleak, and it's easy to understand why. It's because the number of insurgents has gone up. The number of their attacks on our troops has gone up. The sophistication of the attacks has gone up. The number of our soldiers killed or wounded has gone up. The number of hostages seized and even savagely executed has gone up.

Our troops are under increasing fire. More than a thousand of America's finest young men and women have been killed. More than seven-thousand have been wounded.

In August alone, we had 863 American casualties. Our forces were attacked an average of 70 times a day-higher than for any other month since President Bush dressed up in a flight suit, flew out to the aircraft carrier, and recklessly declared "Mission Accomplished" a year and a half ago.

The President, the Vice President, the National Security Council, Secretary Rumsfeld, and other civilian leaders in the Pentagon failed to see the insurgency that took root last year and that began to metastasize like a deadly cancer. How could they not have noticed that?

Perhaps because they were still celebrating their mission accomplished.

For two years, terrorist cells have been spreading like cancer cells. Any doctor who let that happen would be guilty of malpractice. Is it only coincidence that one of the principal domestic priorities of the Bush Administration is to protect doctors from malpractice lawsuits?

In many places in Iraq today, it is too dangerous to go out, even with guards. The State Department does not attempt to conceal the truth, at least in its travel warnings. Its September 17th advisory states that Iraq remains "very dangerous."

As much as 15 to 20% of the country has inadequate security. Whole cities are considered "no-go" zones for our troops-presumably to avoid even greater casualties until after the election.

We continue to use so-called "precision" bombing in Iraq, even though our bombs can't tell whether it's terrorists or innocent families inside the buildings they hit.

What is helping to unite so many Iraqi people in hatred of America is their emerging sense that America is unwilling - not just unable - to rebuild their shattered country and provide for their basic needs. Far from sharing President Bush's unrealistically rosy view, they see up-close that their hopes for peace and stability are receding every day. Inevitably, more and more Iraqis feel that attacks on American forces are acceptable, even if they would not resort to violence themselves.

For every mistake we make, for every innocent Iraqi child we accidentally kill in another bombing raid, the ranks of the insurgents climb, and so does their fanatical determination to stop at nothing to drive us out. An Army Reservist described the deteriorating situation this way: "For every guerilla we kill with a 'smart bomb,' we kill many more innocent civilians and create rage and anger in the Iraqi community. This rage and anger translates into more recruits for the terrorists and less support for us."

The Iraqi people's anger is also fueled by the persistent blackouts, the power shortages, the lack of electricity, the destroyed infrastructure, the relentless violence, the massive lack of jobs and basic necessities and services.

By any reasonable standard, our policy in Iraq is failing. We are steadily losing ground in the war. The American people are seeing through the White House smokescreen more clearly every day - seeing the catastrophic failures resulting from the Bush Administration's gross incompetence in managing so many aspects of our occupation of Iraq. We can't go on like this.

Before the war, President Bush and his advisers manipulated, mishandled, and misled the American people about the intelligence, because they were so focused - so blindly focused - on removing Saddam Hussein from power.

They bungled the pre-war diplomacy on Iraq, insulted our friends, and left us more isolated in the world than ever before in our history, unable to obtain real allied support.

They failed to plan for the possibility that the liberation of Iraq would not be the cakewalk they predicted. They arrogantly rejected the counsel, the cautions, and the expertise of the professionals in the State Department most familiar with planning for post-war and post-conflict conditions.

Our soldiers were not adequately trained for the missions thrust upon them. Month after month, our courageous troops could not get even enough armored vests of their own or enough armor for their humvees to protect themselves on patrol. What kind of leadership is it, when month after month, our troops on patrol are so urgently in need of protective armor that they call home in desperation and ask their loved ones to buy armor at the local store and fed-ex it to them in Iraq?

The Administration shrugged when the massive looting began after the fall of Saddam. Secretary Rumsfeld said, "Stuff happens." They foolishly disbanded the Iraqi army, but let them keep their weapon and left ammunitions depots unguarded, creating a bonanza for the insurgents. The Bush Administration has yet to effectively train a new Iraqi army, or even provide the existing units with adequate equipment.

President Bush's repeated insistence that the United States will stay in Iraq "as long as necessary and not one day longer" now has a hollow and tragic ring to our men and women in uniform and their increasingly worried families. They deserve to hear more from our President than happy talk like that.

President Bush speaks about his commitment to genuine sovereignty for Iraq, so that the Iraqi people can govern themselves. But many signs on the ground strongly suggest that we are preparing a long-term military presence. We are also building and staffing the largest American embassy in the world, a huge additional permanent American presence.

Yet another serious failure is the way the Bush Administration has so badly botched every aspect of the reconstruction of Iraq. These failures have also inflamed tensions and created serious dangers as well. Seeds of the insurgency were sown in the earliest days of reconstruction, when we failed to guarantee the openness and the fairness of the reconstruction process. Our failure to have Iraqis perform as much of the reconstruction work as possible may have created huge profits for American contractors, but it also created huge numbers of disgruntled Iraqis, who are easy prey for insurgents to recruit and even pay to kill our soldiers.

The contracts themselves have led to incredible absurdities. Cement is being imported at a far higher cost that what Iraqis could manufacture for themselves. What kind of reconstruction policy is that?

As more evidence of gross mismanagement, the Bush Administration can't account for 8 billion dollars in Iraqi oil funds, apparently because so many of those dollars went to phantom Iraqi soldiers and phantom policemen. Thousands of them magically appeared on payrolls of the new Iraqi government, but they never existed. Eight billion dollars is just lost? Who is being held accountable?

The Administration has also mismanaged the 18 billion dollars approved by Congress a year ago for the reconstruction. Despite the vast need, only a tiny fraction of that amount has actually been spent. Republican Senator Richard Lugar, the highly respected chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says the slow rate of spending "means that we are failing to fully take advantage of one of our most potent tools to influence Iraq." Of the bungled reconstruction work, he says, "This is the incompetence in the Administration."

Why has the reconstruction effort been so disastrous? Only partly because the security situation is so dangerous. A more fundamental reason is emerging. The Bush Administration tried to carry out the reconstruction with its ideology, instead of an honest strategy. Instead of trying seriously to create jobs for Iraqis, they tried to carry out a plan to privatize virtually every part of the Iraqi economy. It's Republican ideology run amuck. It's bad enough that they're trying to do that to the American economy. It's preposterous to try and do it in Iraq.

The Administration didn't anticipate the obvious result of precipitously opening up Iraq's economy to foreign competition after decades of stagnation. They thought they could use Iraq as an experiment in laissez-faire economics. But the result has been far fewer jobs for Iraqis and far greater support for insurgents. Meanwhile, Vice President Cheney's friends at Halliburton were among the first in line for the gravy train.

Across Iraq, these blunders unleashed forces so powerful and so violent that the Administration didn't even know what hit them. Their disastrous economic strategy was clearly a major factor in the rise of the armed resistance, and it never should have happened.

Twelve years ago, the first President Bush lost his campaign for re-election, because he couldn't understand how deeply the American people felt about the troubled economy. The fundamental concern of that time was summed up in four blunt words, "It's the economy, stupid." The fundamental concern of today takes one less word to sum up -"It's Iraq, stupid."

In the dirtiest tactic so far in the Presidential election campaign, Vice President Cheney claims that Al Qaeda wants John Kerry to win this election. It's despicable to say something like that. It is not unpatriotic to tell the truth to the American people about the war in Iraq. In this grave moment for our country, to use the words of Thomas Jefferson, "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."

Most likely, Mr. Cheney's ugly charge is a desperate and cynical attempt by the Bush campaign to immunize President Bush, in case another terrorist attack takes place in our country on his watch, in the remaining days before the election.

Another brazen tactic is being used as well. How dare President Bush accuse John Kerry of flip flops on the war in Iraq. My response is "Physician, heal thyself." President Bush is the all-time world-record-holder for flip flops. Nothing John Kerry has said remotely compares with the President's gigantic flip flops on the reasons he went to war in Iraq.

The President keeps saying America and the world are safer today and better off today because Saddam Hussein is gone. In any meaningful sense, he's wrong. A brutal dictator is gone because of the war in Iraq, and that's good. But no matter how many rhetorical double-twisting back flips President Bush performs, his disingenuous claim that the war has made America safer is wrong-- and may well be catastrophically wrong.

Let's count the ways that George Bush's war has not made America safer.

Number One: Iraq has been a constant perilous distraction from the real war on terrorism. There was no persuasive link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. We should have finished the job in Afghanistan, finished the job on Al Qaeda, and finished the job on Osama bin Laden.

Number Two: The mismanagement of the war in Iraq has created a fertile and very dangerous new breeding ground for terrorists in Iraq and a powerful magnet for Al Qaeda that did not exist before the war. We can't go a day now without hearing of attacks in Iraq by insurgents and Al Qaeda terrorists, and our troops are in far greater danger because of it.

Number Three: Saddam Hussein may be behind bars, and that's a significant plus for America and the world, as President Bush says. But the war in Iraq has clearly distracted us from putting Osama bin Laden behind bars-- and that's a huge minus. The President likes to talk about school reform, so let's try a little third grade math. If you add a significant plus and a huge minus, you don't wind up with a plus.

Number Four: Because of the war, the danger of terrorist attacks against America itself has become far greater. Our preoccupation with Iraq has given Al Qaeda more than two full years to regroup and plan murderous new assaults on us. We know that Al Qaeda will try to attack America again and again here at home, if it possibly can. Yet instead of staying focused on the real war on terror, President Bush rushed headlong into an unnecessary war in Iraq

Number Five, and most ominously: The Bush Administration's focus on Iraq has left us needlessly more vulnerable to an Al Qaeda attack with a nuclear weapon. The greatest threat of all to our homeland is a nuclear attack. A mushroom cloud over any American city is the ultimate nightmare, and the risk is all too real. Osama bin Laden calls the acquisition of a nuclear device a "religious duty." Documents captured from a key Al Qaeda aide three years ago revealed plans even then to smuggle high-grade radioactive materials into the United States in shipping containers.

If Al Qaeda can obtain or assemble a nuclear weapon, they will certainly use it - on New York, or Washington, or any other major American city. The greatest danger we face in the days and weeks and months ahead is a nuclear 9/11, and we hope and pray that it is not already too late to prevent. The war in Iraq has made the mushroom cloud more likely, not less likely, and it never should have happened.

Number Six: The war in Iraq has provided a powerful new worldwide recruiting tool for Al Qaeda. We know Al Qaeda is getting stronger, because its attacks in other parts of the world are increasing. In the eight years before 9/11, Al Qaeda conducted three attacks. But in the three years since 9/11, it has carried out a dozen more attacks, killing hundreds in Spain, Pakistan, Indonesia, and elsewhere in the world.

Number Seven: Because of the war, Afghanistan itself is still unstable. Taliban and Al Qaeda elements roam the country. A dangerous border with Pakistan, where terrorists can easily cross continues to be wide open. President Hamid Karzai is frequently forced to negotiate with warlords who control private armies in the tens of thousands. Opium production is at a record level, and is being used to finance terrorism. Our troops there are in greater danger. Free and fair elections there are in greater danger. The war in Iraq has stretched our troops thin to the point where we can't provide enough additional forces to stop the rising drug trade and enable President Karzai to gain full control of the country and root out Al Qaeda. How can we afford not to do that?

Number Eight: We've alienated long-time friends and leaders in other nations, whom we heavily depend on for intelligence, for border enforcement, for shutting off funds to Al Qaeda, and for many other types of support in the ongoing war against international terrorism. Mistrust of America has soared throughout the world. We're especially hated in the Muslin world. The past two years have seen the steepest and deepest fall from grace our country has ever suffered in the eyes of the world community in all our history. We remember the enormous goodwill that flowed to America in the aftermath of September 11th, and we should never have squandered it.

Does President Bush ever learn? His chip-on-the-shoulder address to the United Nations last week was yet another missed opportunity to turn the page and start regaining the genuine support of the world community for a sensible policy on Iraq.

In fact, the President's arrogance toward the world community has left our soldiers increasingly isolated and alone. We have nearly ninety percent of the troops on the ground in Iraq. More than ninety-five percent of the killed and wounded are Americans. Instead of other nations joining us, initially supportive nations are pulling out. The so-called coalition of the willing has become the coalition of the dwindling.

Number Nine: Our overall military forces are stretched to the breaking point because of the war in Iraq. As the Defense Science Board recently told Secretary Rumsfeld, "Current and projected force structure will not sustain our current and projected global stabilization commitments." Our troops in Iraq are under an order that prevents them from leaving active-duty when their term of service is over. Lt. Gen. John Riggs said it clearly: "I have been in the Army 39 years, and I've never seen the Army as stretched in that 39 years as I have today."

That fact makes it harder for us to respond to threats elsewhere in the world. As John McCain warned last week, if we have a problem in some other flash-point in the world, "it's clear, at least to most observers, that we don't have sufficient personnel."

The war has also undermined the Guard and Reserve. The average tour for reservists recalled to active duty is now 320 days. In the first Gulf War, it was 156 days. In Bosnia and Kosovo, 200 days. A survey by the Defense Department last May found that reservists, their spouses, their families, and their employers are less supportive now of remaining in the military than they were a year ago. Since Guard members are also first-responders for any terrorist attack in the United States, our homeland security as well is being weakened because of their loss. Surely, no one in America wants the legacy of George W. Bush to be that America reinstated the draft.

In the words of the person for whom this city and this distinguished university are named, "There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well-prepared to meet the enemy." George Washington would be appalled at how unprepared the war in Iraq has made us to produce peace-and we should be appalled as well.

Number Ten: The war in Iraq has undermined the basic rule of international law that protects captured American soldiers. The Geneva Conventions are supposed to protect our forces, but the brutal interrogation techniques used at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq have lowered the bar for treatment of POWs and endangered our soldiers throughout the world.

Number Eleven: While President Bush has been pre-occupied with Iraq, not just one, but two, serious nuclear threats have been rising-from North Korea, and Iran. Four years ago, North Korea's plutonium program was inactive. Its nuclear rods were under seal. Two years ago, as the Iraq debate became intense, North Korea expelled the international inspectors and began turning its fuel rods into nuclear weapons. At the beginning of the Bush Administration, North Korea was already thought to have two such weapons. Now they may have eight or more-- and the danger is far greater.

Iran too is now on a faster track that could produce nuclear weapons. The international inspectors found traces of highly enriched uranium at two nuclear sites, and Iran admitted last March that it had centrifuges to enrich uranium. The international community might be more willing to act, if President Bush had not abused the U.N. resolution passed on Iraq two years ago, when he took the words "serious consequences" as a license for launching his unilateral war in Iraq. Now, after that breach of faith with the world community, other nations now refuse to trust us enough to enact a similar U.N. resolution on Iran--because they fear President Bush will use it to justify another reckless preventive war.

Number Twelve: While we focused on the non-existent nuclear threat from Saddam, we have not done enough to safeguard the vast amounts of unsecured nuclear material in the world. According to a joint report by the Nuclear Threat Initiative and Harvard's Managing-the-Atom-Project , "scores of nuclear terrorist opportunities lie in wait in countries all around the world" - especially at sites in the former Soviet Union that contain enough nuclear material for a nuclear weapon and are poorly defended against terrorists and criminals. As former Senator Sam Nunn said, "The most effective, least expensive way to prevent nuclear terrorism is to secure nuclear weapons and materials at the source." How loudly does the alarm bell have to ring before President Bush wakes up?

Number Thirteen: The neglect of the Bush Administration on all aspects of homeland security because of the war is frightening. We're pouring nearly five billion dollars a month into Iraq - yet we're grossly short-changing the urgent need both to strengthen our ability to prevent terrorist attacks here at home, and to strengthen our preparedness to respond to them if they occur. As former Republican Senator Warren Rudman, Chairman of the Independent Task Force on Emergency Responders, said recently, "Homeland security is terribly under-funded, and we cannot allow that to continue." Chemical plants across the country have been called "ticking time bombs," highly vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Police, firefighters, and other first responders have seven billion dollars less in basic equipment they urgently need. Our hospitals are unprepared for a bioterrorist attack. Our land borders, our seaports, our shipping containers, our railroads, our transit systems, our waterways, our nuclear power plants-none of these have sufficient funds for protection against terrorist attacks, even though the Bush Administration has put the nation on high alert for such attacks five times in the past three years.

You can't pack all these reasons why America is not safer into a 30-second television response ad or a news story or an editorial. But as anyone who cares about the issue can quickly learn, our President has utterly no credibility when he keeps telling us that America and the world are safer because he went to war in Iraq and rid us of Saddam.

President Bush's record on Iraq is clearly costing American lives and endangering America in the world. Our President won't change, or even admit how wrong he's been and still is. Despite the long line of mistakes and blunders and outright deception, there has been no accountability. As election day draws closer, the buck is circling more and more closely over 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Only a new President can right the extraordinary wrongs of the Bush Administration on our foreign policy and our national security.

On November 2nd, the American people will decide whether or not they still have confidence in this President's leadership. When we ask ourselves the fundamental question whether President Bush has made us safer, there can be only one answer: no, he has not. That's why America needs new leadership.

We could have been, and we should have been, much safer than we are today. We cannot afford to stay this very dangerous course. This election cannot come too soon. As I've said before, the only thing America has to fear is four more years of George Bush. - http://www.commondreams.org/v...

---> Bush Misleads on Scope of Violence in Iraq ...

09.28.04 (6:19 am) [edit]

President Bush and his allies have insisted that violence in Iraq is limited to a few isolated pockets of resistance. President Bush said last Wednesday that there are a "handful of people who are willing to kill in order to stop the process."1 The next day, Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi told reporters at a press conference in the Rose Garden "there is nothing, no problem, except on a small pocket in Fallujah."2 Information in a secret report compiled for the administration suggests that Bush and Allawi are misleading the public about the scope of violence in Iraq.

According to data collected by Kroll Security International for the administration, there are about 70 attacks a day on U.S. and coalition forces, compared to 40-50 attacks a day before the transfer of authority to the interim Iraqi government.3 Moreover, the data indicate attacks in "nearly every major city in central, western and northern Iraq."4 Allawi, in a speech to Congress last Tuesday, described Baghdad as "very good and safe."5 But the Kroll data reveal that, in recent weeks, there have been an average of 22 attacks per day on troops in Baghdad.6

[b]Sources:[/b]

1. "President's Remarks in "Focus on Education with President Bush" Event ," The White House, 9/22/04.
2. "President Bush and Prime Minister Allawi Press Conference," The White House, 9/23/04.
3. "Violence in Iraq Belies Claims of Calm, Data Show," Washington Post, 9/24/04.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.

---> Bush Misleads on Scope of Violence in Iraq ...

09.28.04 (6:16 am) [edit]

---> What Can Be Learned From U.S. Veterans ...

09.27.04 (10:16 am) [edit]

Veterans Against Iraq War is a coalition of American veterans who support our troops but oppose war with Iraq or any other nation that does not pose a clear and present danger to our people and nation.

Until and unless the current U.S. Administration provides evidence which clearly demonstrates that Iraq or any other nation poses a clear, direct and immediate danger to our country, we oppose all of this Administration's pre-emptive and unilateral military activities in Iraq. Furthermore, we cannot support any war that is initiated without a formal Declaration of War by Congress, as our Constitution requires.

Although we detested the dictatorial policies of Saddam Hussein and sympathized with the tragic plight of the Iraqi people, we opposed unilateral and pre-emptive U.S. military intervention on the grounds that it established a dangerous precedent in the conduct of international affairs, that it could easily lead to an increase of violent regional instability and the spread of much wider conflicts, that it places needless and unacceptable financial burdens on the American people, that it diverts us from addressing critical domestic priorities, and that it distracts us from our goals of tracking down and destroying international terrorists and their lairs.

Furthermore, we do not believe that the American military can or should be used as the police force of the world by any administration, Republican or Democrat. Consequently, we believe that the lives and well being of our nation's soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines should not be squandered or sacrificed for causes other than in the direct defense of our people and nation.

Finally, we believe that a doctrine of pre-emptive and unilateral U.S. military attack on Iraq or any other nation is illegal, unnecessary, counter-productive and presents a truly dire and distressing threat to our vital international interests and basic national security. As military veterans, we have a unique understanding of war and know the many hidden truths that lie behind war's easy theories and promises, as well as behind the tragic consequences that even, "victory" brings. We therefore call on all like-minded veterans and family members to endorse this statement and support us in our efforts to help avert, mitigate or stop a national tragedy and an international calamity.

We ask that you support our troops, by demanding that they be brought home from Iraq immediately. We ask that you support our nation's vital interests, by demanding that our troops should never be placed in harm's way except to meet and defeat any direct and immediate threat to our people.

[b]Listen to Veterans Voices [/b]on http://www.vaiw.org/vet/index...

---> On the US Election: He Makes A Good Point!

09.27.04 (9:42 am) [edit]

[b]Do I think that [i]anyone[/i] other than US citizens should cast a vote in the US elections? No, but he makes a good point![/b]

[b]US policy now affects every citizen on the planet. So we should all have a say in who gets to the White House [/b]

There were few pleasures to be had following Bob Dole's doomed presidential campaign in 1996, but one was the unique brand of anti-charm adopted by the candidate. I was once on the receiving end of it myself, during a stop in New Hampshire. Dole had just inspected a factory and a huddle of reporters gathered to ask some questions. I was only three words into mine when the would-be president cut me off. He'd heard my accent and decided there was no point giving me the time of day. "No votes in Liverpool," he snapped, before calling on the man from the Kansas City Star.

I later heard a reporter from Finnish TV dismissed with a crisp "No votes in Leipzig". Dole's familiarity with both British accents and European geography may have been slightly off, but the point was clear enough. He was running in an American election: he needed to speak to Americans and Americans alone. No one else mattered.

At the time, that logic seemed fair enough. Americans were choosing their own leader to run their own government. Americans would pay the taxes and live with the consequences of their decision. It was up to them.

But now I'm not so sure. For who could honestly describe the 2004 contest of George Bush and John Kerry as a domestic affair? There's a reason why every newspaper in the world will have the same story on its front page on November 3. This election will be decisive not just for the United States but for the future of the world.

Anyone who doubts it need only look at the last four years. The war against Iraq, the introduction of the new doctrine of pre-emption, the direct challenge to multilateral institutions - chances are, not one of these world-changing developments would have happened under a President Al Gore. It is no exaggeration to say that the actions of a few hundred voters in Florida changed the world.

So perhaps it's time to make a modest proposal. If everyone in the world will be affected by this election, shouldn't everyone in the world have a vote? Despite Bob Dole, shouldn't the men who want to be president win the support of Liverpool and Leipzig as well as Louisville and Lexington?

It may sound wacky, but the idea could not be more American. After all, the country was founded on the notion that human beings must have a say in the decisions that govern their lives. The rebels' slogan of "No taxation without representation" endures two centuries later because it speaks about something larger than the narrow business of raising taxes. It says that those who pay for a government's actions must have a right to choose the government that takes them.

Today, people far from America's shores do indeed pay for the consequences of US actions. The citizens of Iraq are the obvious example, living in a land where a vile dictatorship was removed only for a military occupation and unspeakable violence to be unleashed in its place. The would-be voters of downtown Baghdad might like a say in whether their country would be better off with US forces gone. Perhaps John Kerry's Monday promise to start bringing the troops home, beginning next summer, would appeal to them. But they have no voice.

It's not just those who live under US military rule who might wish to choose the commander-in-chief. Everyone from Madrid to Bali is now drawn into the "war on terror" declared by President Bush. We might believe that war is being badly mishandled - that US actions are aggravating the threat rather than reducing it - and that we or our neighbours will eventually pay the price for those errors. We might fear that the Bush policy is inflaming al-Qaida, making it more not less likely to strike in our towns and cities, but right now we cannot do anything to change that policy. Instead we have to watch the US campaign on TV, with our fingers crossed - impotent spectators of a contest that could shake up our lives. (Those who feel the same way about Tony Blair should remember: at least we will get a vote.)

So we ought to hold America to its word. When George Bush spoke to the UN yesterday, he invoked democracy in almost every paragraph, citing America's declaration of independence which insists on the equal worth of every human being. Well, surely equal worth means an equal say in the decisions that affect the entire human race.

That 1776 declaration is worth rereading. Its very first sentence demands "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind": isn't that exactly what the world would like from America today? The document goes on to excoriate the distant emperor George for his recklessness, insisting that authority is only legitimate when it enjoys "the consent of the governed". As the world's sole superpower, the US now has global authority. But where is the consent?

By this logic, it is not a declaration of independence the world would be making. On the contrary, in seeking a say in US elections, the human race would be making a declaration of dependence - acknowledging that Washington's decisions affect us more than those taken in our own capitals. In contrast with those founding Americans, the new declaration would argue that, in order to take charge of our destiny, we do not need to break free from the imperial power - we need to tame it.

Such a request would also represent a recognition of an uncomfortable fact. It would be an admission that the old, postwar multilateral arrangements have broken down. In the past, America's allies could hope to influence the behemoth via treaties, agreements and the UN. The Bush era - not just Iraq, but Washington's disdain for Kyoto, the test ban treaty, the international criminal court and the rest - suggests that the US will no longer listen to those on the outside. As candidate Dole understood, only those with votes get a hearing.

Will this modest proposal fly? Will it hell. Despite Bush's smooth talk in New York yesterday, his position remains that America does not need a "permission slip" from anybody to do anything. If Washington won't listen to the security council, it's hardly likely to submit itself to the voters of Paris and Pretoria.

Besides, every good Republican knows the world is solid Kerry territory. A survey by pollsters HI Europe earlier this month found that, if Europeans had a vote, they would back Kerry over Bush by a 6 to 1 margin. Bush would win just 6% in Germany, 5% in Spain and a measly 4% in France. No Republican is going to cede turf like that to the enemy.

You would think those numbers would hurt Bush, making clear how unpopular he is in the world. But they don't. If anything they hurt Kerry, suggesting he is the candidate of limp-wristed foreigners and therefore somehow less American. We may find that a sorry state of affairs. But there is little we can do about it. In the democratic contest that matters most to the world, the world is disenfranchised. - http://www.guardian.co.uk/Col...,5673,1309889,00.html

---> American Boob: Why Skyrocketing Oil Prices are Largely Bush's Fault

09.27.04 (6:48 am) [edit]

Even the most fanatical Bushie "expert" can't deny that skyrocketing oil prices are driven by dangerously low stockpiles. Why are they so low? Reuters reports: "Political tensions in the Middle East and violence in Iraq have undermined traders' confidence in security of supply from the region, which pumps a third of the world's oil; Iraqi exports have been repeatedly hit by sabotage attacks, keeping its supplies BELOW pre-war volumes; Traders fear Islamic militants could target oil infrastructure in OPEC's biggest producer Saudi Arabia; Oil production in Venezuela, a big supplier to the US," is still suffering reduced oil output due to a strike believed by Hugo Chavez to have been instigated by Bush operatives." ALL these factors can be traced to Bush's inflammatory, destabilizing global policies. In addition, Bush insisted on transferring oil to the SPR at a time when stockpiles were at their lowest in THIRTY YEARS.

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.reuters.co.uk/news...

---> American Boob: A'W'OL Bush Lies About Tax Cuts

09.27.04 (6:45 am) [edit]

[b]Bush Administration Distorts Who Benefits from Tax Cut[/b]

The administration and most of the mainstream press are billing the tax package passed by Congress yesterday as a "middle class tax-cut."1 The reality is that the new law is more of the same: tax cuts that benefit the rich and, in many cases, exclude the neediest families.

An analysis from the Urban Institute-Brookings Tax Policy Center shows that the middle 20 percent of earners "will receive an average tax cut of $162 in 2005 from this legislation."2 The top fifth of earners, however, "will get an average tax cut of $1,317."3 As a result, the top fifth will receive two-thirds of all benefits.4

The bill excluded a provision that would have extended the child tax credit to four million low-income families who currently don't qualify.5 Extending eligibility to these families would have cost $4 billion.6 Meanwhile, conservatives included $12 billion in tax cuts for corporations.7

[b]Sources:[/b]

1. "Congress Extends Middle-Class Tax Breaks," The Kansas City Star, 9/24/04.
2. "New 'Middle-Class' Tax-Cut Bill Represents Cynical Policymaking," Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 9/23/04.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. "Lawmakers Can't Resist Voting to Extend Bush's Tax Cuts," Los Angeles Times, 9/24/04.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.

---> American Boob: 4 More Years of Bush Bad for the World, Disastrous for the USA!!!

09.27.04 (6:41 am) [edit]

In a shameless display of political bottom feeding, Dick Cheney, implied a vote for Kerry-Edwards invites another terrorist attack on America. The absurdity of this fear-mongering strategy would be laughable if this election weren't so "deadly" serious.

Cheney was right. America should be very afraid -- afraid of four more years on the Bush-Cheney terror train. The world awaits America's decision to rejoin the community of nations or continue its antagonist role. According to recent poll numbers, the Bush-Cheney camp's spin of the last four years may be working, as political pundits like MSNBC's Chris Matthews suggest, "Bush is winning the personality contest. People see Bush as the kinda fella' you'd most like to have a beer with."

Unfortunately for America, this clearly is no time for drinking.

The Bush-Cheney bungling of the last four years --and their employment of tactics of lowered expectations to disguise their disastrous impact -- may prove successful. Following the transparently deceptive Republican National Convention, poll numbers of likely voters in states like Ohio and Missouri suggest that many either aren't paying attention or the Bush-Cheney tactics of fear and misleading rhetoric are having the desired effect.

Once again, the Bush-Cheney corporate elitists are benefiting from a frustrating double standard that sees the rich as always right, even when they're clearly wrong. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the "Fox faithful" believe Bush and Cheney have made the world safer, when the opposite is true. Global terrorism has increased, and the Iraqi insurgency becomes more emboldened with each U.S. casualty, now grimly at more than 1,000.

Bush supporters cite the dearth of terrorist attacks on American soil since 9-11 as proof of Bush-Cheney's success against terrorism, conveniently forgetting that under President Clinton American soil was attacked (by foreign terrorists) eight weeks into his first term (World Trade Center bombing) then for the next seven-and-a-half years lay dormant, a testament to terrorism's patience. The point being, America could have a terrorist attack on a school that Russia endured no matter who's elected.

China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and Syria are all foreign policy "miscalculations" that will almost certainly come into play within the next four years. No amount of American nationalism and hyperbole will substitute for experienced, rational diplomacy based on mutual respect.

Americans may see Bush as a down-to-earth fella with whom to share a laugh and a beer or two, but the prospect of "four more years" to the world at large is definitely not amusing. - http://www.thetimesherald.com...

---> Iraqi Civilian Casualties Mounting

09.26.04 (10:32 am) [edit]

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Operations by U.S. and multinational forces and Iraqi police are killing twice as many Iraqis - most of them civilians - as attacks by insurgents, according to statistics compiled by the Iraqi Health Ministry and obtained exclusively by Knight Ridder.

According to the ministry, the interim Iraqi government recorded 3,487 Iraqi deaths in 15 of the country's 18 provinces from April 5 - when the ministry began compiling the data - until Sept. 19. Of those, 328 were women and children. Another 13,720 Iraqis were injured, the ministry said.

While most of the dead are believed to be civilians, the data include an unknown number of police and Iraqi national guardsmen. Many Iraqi deaths, especially of insurgents, are never reported, so the actual number of Iraqis killed in fighting could be significantly higher.

During the same period, 432 American soldiers were killed.

Iraqi officials said the statistics proved that U.S. airstrikes intended for insurgents also were killing large numbers of innocent civilians. Some say these casualties are undermining popular acceptance of the American-backed interim government.

That suggests that more aggressive U.S. military operations, which the Bush administration has said are being planned to clear the way for nationwide elections scheduled for January, could backfire and strengthen the insurgency.

American military officials said "damage will happen" in their effort to wrest control of some areas from insurgents. They blamed the insurgents for embedding themselves in communities, saying that's endangering innocent people.

Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, an American military spokesman, said the insurgents were living in residential areas, sometimes in homes filled with munitions.

"As long as they continue to do that, they are putting the residents at risk," Boylan said. "We will go after them."

Boylan said the military conducted intelligence to determine whether a home housed insurgents before striking it. While damage would happen, the airstrikes were "extremely precise," he said. And he said that any attacks by the multinational forces were "in coordination with the interim government."

The Health Ministry statistics indicate that more children have been killed around Ramadi and Fallujah than in Baghdad, though those cities together have only one-fifth of the Iraqi capital's population.

According to the statistics, 59 children were killed in Anbar province - a hotbed of the Sunni Muslim insurgency that includes the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah - compared with 56 children in Baghdad. The ministry defines children as anyone younger than 12.

"When there are military clashes, we see innocent people die," said Dr. Walid Hamed, a member of the operations section of the Health Ministry, which compiles the statistics.

Juan Cole, a history professor at University of Michigan who specializes in Shiite Islam, said the widespread casualties meant that coalition forces already had lost the political campaign: "I think they lost the hearts and minds a long time ago."

"And they are trying to keep U.S. military casualties to a minimum in the run-up to the U.S. elections" by using airstrikes instead of ground forces, he said.

American military officials say they're targeting only terrorists and are aggressively working to spare innocent people nearby.

Nearly a third of the Iraqi dead - 1,122 - were killed in August, according to the statistics. May was the second deadliest month, with 749 Iraqis killed, and 319 were killed in June, the least violent month. Most of those killed lived in Baghdad; the ministry found that 1,068 had died in the capital.

Many Iraqis said they thought the numbers showed that the multinational forces disregarded their lives.

"The Americans do not care about the Iraqis. They don't care if they get killed, because they don't care about the citizens," said Abu Mohammed, 50, who was a major general in Saddam Hussein's army in Baghdad. "The Americans keep criticizing Saddam for the mass graves. How many graves are the Americans making in Iraq?"

At his fruit stand in southern Baghdad, Raid Ibraham, 24, theorized: "The Americans keep attacking the cities not to keep the security situation stable, but so they can stay in Iraq and control the oil."

Others blame the multinational forces for allowing security to disintegrate, inviting terrorists from everywhere and threatening the lives of everyday Iraqis.

"Anyone who hates America has come here to fight: Saddam's supporters, people who don't have jobs, other Arab fighters. All these people are on our streets," said Hamed, the ministry official. "But everyone is afraid of the Americans, not the fighters. And they should be."

Iraqi officials said about two-thirds of the Iraqi deaths were caused by multinational forces and police; the remaining third died from insurgent attacks. The ministry began separating attacks by multinational and police forces and insurgents June 10.

From that date until Sept. 10, 1,295 Iraqis were killed in clashes with multinational forces and police versus 516 killed in terrorist operations, the ministry said. The ministry defined terrorist operations as explosive devices in residential areas, car bombs or assassinations.

The ministry said it didn't have any statistics for the three provinces in the north: Arbil, Dohuk and Sulaimaniyah, ethnic Kurdish areas that generally have been more peaceful than the rest of the country.

The Health Ministry is the only organization that attempts to track deaths through government agencies. The U.S. military said it kept estimates, but it refused to release them. Ahmed al Rawi, the communications director of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Baghdad, said the organization didn't have the staffing to compile such information.

The Health Ministry reports to interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, whom the United States appointed in June.

Iraqi health and hospital officials agreed that the statistics captured only part of the death toll.

To compile the data, the Health Ministry calls the directors general of the 15 provinces and asks how many deaths related to the war were reported at hospitals. The tracking of such information has become decentralized since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime because both hospitals and morgues issue death certificates now. And families often bury their dead without telling any government agencies or are treated at facilities that don't report to the government.

The ministry is convinced that nearly all of those reported dead are civilians, not insurgents. Most often, a family member wouldn't report it if his or her relative died fighting for rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia or another insurgent force, and the relative would be buried immediately, said Dr. Shihab Ahmed Jassim, another member of the ministry's operations section.

"People who participate in the conflict don't come to the hospital. Their families are afraid they will be punished," said Dr. Yasin Mustaf, the assistant manager of al Kimdi Hospital near Baghdad's poor Sadr City neighborhood. "Usually, the innocent people come to the hospital. That is what the numbers show."

The numbers also exclude those whose bodies were too mutilated to be recovered at car bombings or other attacks, the ministry said.

Ministry officials said they didn't know how big the undercount was. "We have nothing to do with politics," Jassim said.

Other independent organizations have estimated that 7,000 to 12,000 Iraqis have been killed since May 1, 2003, when President Bush declared an end to major combat operations.

Iraqis are aware of the casualties that are due to U.S. forces, and nearly everyone has a story to tell.

At al Kimdi Hospital, Dr. Mumtaz Jaber, a vascular surgeon, said that three months ago, his 3-year-old nephew, his sister and his brother-in-law were driving in Baghdad at about 9 p.m. when they saw an American checkpoint. His nephew was killed.

"They didn't stop fast enough. The Americans shot them immediately," Jaber said. "This is how so many die."

At the Baghdad morgue, Dr. Quasis Hassan Salem said he saw a family of eight brought in: three women, three men and two children. They were sleeping on their roof last month because it was hot inside. A military helicopter shot at them and killed them: "I don't know why."

U.S. officials said any allegations that soldiers had recklessly killed Iraqi citizens were investigated at the Iraqi Assistance Center in downtown Baghdad.

"There is no way to refute" such stories, said Robert Callahan, a spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. "All you can do is tell them the truth and hope it eventually will get through." - http://www.realcities.com/mld...

---> Osama's Candidate ...

09.26.04 (10:14 am) [edit]

Where does Osama bin Laden stand on gay marriage? What are his views on privatization of Social Security and stem cell research? Is he concerned about judges who place their personal opinions ahead of the Constitution? Or does he care more about corporations that outsource good American jobs to foreign countries?

It seems we're going to have a national debate about whom bin Laden and al Qaeda support for president. Fair enough. Bin Laden's opinion, if only we could know it, would probably affect the judgment of voters more than that of any other independent thinker except, of course, John McCain. So far, the bin Laden debate has been pretty one-sided, with a string of Republican public officials claiming that terrorists are rooting for John Kerry and some bloggers and a columnist or two suggesting that he may prefer Bush.

My favorite among the Republican mind readers is House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who said last week, "I don't have data or intelligence to tell me one thing or another," which is an assertion that no one will disagree with. But he continued that al Qaeda "would be more apt to go [for] somebody who would file a lawsuit with the World Court or something rather than respond with troops."

Like many Americans, Hastert seems to be confusing bin Laden with Saddam Hussein. This is a confusion the Bush administration and campaign wish to encourage, and the president himself may even share. To describe Kerry's position on Hussein as "file a lawsuit" is merely witless and unfair. To describe his position on bin Laden that way is mystifying.

In fact the Bush administration's focus on Iraq after Sept. 11 -- a country that had nothing to do with the terrible events of that day -- might be a point in the president's favor for bin Laden, as he sits in his cave studying materials from the League of Women Voters and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

If there is one thing we know about bin Laden before the start of the Iraq war, it is that he wasn't in Iraq. With the invasion of Iraq, bin Laden got all the benefits of being America's public enemy No. 1 but none of the disadvantages. He got an explosion of anti-Americanism around the world, potential recruits lined up out the cave door and around the block for future suicide missions, swell new opportunities for terrorism in the chaos of Iraq itself, and the forced retirement of Saddam Hussein, whom he never cared for. He got a thousand Americans dead and hundreds of billions of capitalist dollars gone -- results that would make any terrorist episode a huge success -- without his having to lift a finger. And meanwhile, every bomb dropped on Iraq was a bomb not dropped on him. What's not to like?

True, bin Laden probably does hold it against Bush that, when not distracted by Iraq, the president has been trying to kill him. That kind of thing can't help but cloud a fellow's judgment. It is all very well for civics textbooks to tell us that, when voting, we should put selfish interests aside and think of the greater good. But it may well be difficult to concentrate on those frightening Congressional Budget Office projections of the structural deficit in 10 years when there is an even more frightening din of bombs exploding and a direct hit on a cave three caves down and one to the right.

But bin Laden cannot help noticing that so far Bush has failed to kill him. And he has no reason to suppose that a President Kerry would enjoy announcing his death or capture to the world any less than Bush would. So for bin Laden -- just as for many voters in this election -- the choice comes down to the lesser of two evils.

The difference between Osama bin Laden's endorsement and John McCain's (well, one of many differences) is that McCain's presumably has a positive effect and bin Laden's has a negative one. If bin Laden wants to help his candidate, he must hide, or even disguise, his preference. This makes any argument or evidence about that preference inherently self-defeating. If he is honorary chairman of the annual "Kabul Salutes W" dinner and gala, does that mean he supports Bush or does it mean he wants people to think he supports Bush, which then must mean that he does not support Bush?

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said recently that terrorists in Iraq "are trying to influence the election against President Bush." In saying so, Armitage is trying to influence the election in favor of President Bush. But he has no evidence other than these actions. And if their very actions send a clear message that they are trying to defeat President Bush, then the effect of those actions will be to help President Bush. So even if Armitage is right, he's wrong.

At least Osama bin Laden is probably concentrating on what really matters in this election. He is not spending a lot of time comparing ancient typewriter fonts, or reviewing the circumstances of Kerry's third Purple Heart. In that sense -- and only in that sense -- he may be a good influence. - http://www.washingtonpost.com...

---> Cult of 'positivism': Bush smiles blindly in the face of disaster ...

09.26.04 (5:42 am) [edit]

I note that Mr. Bush is now labeling Mr. Kerry with the dreaded "N" word, N in this case standing for "negative."

This plays perfectly into the cult of rampant positivism that's had this country in its grip for years. This cult started when useful ideas on positive thought and reinforcement were carried to absurd extremes. It became a given that that the solution to almost any problem was to simply "think positive." as though a cheery attitude alone would make misery, poverty and violence simply melt away. Oh, and we weren't even to use the word "problem" anymore. We had to say "challenge" or "opportunity." A little semantic sleight-of-hand that, all by itself, would make things infinitely better.

Corporate America loved this idea. If anyone complained about working conditions, impossible deadlines, inane corporate policies or the lack of resources to do a job, they could simply be bludgeoned with the "N" word. "Don't be negative!" became a favorite corporate weapon when employees protested being asked to do too much, too quickly and without proper equipment or training. They soon learned that the only acceptable answer to any order given was a cheery "Sure!" even if the order made no sense and was impossible to carry out.

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...

---> Cult of 'positivism': Bush smiles blindly in the face of disaster ...

09.26.04 (5:40 am) [edit]

---> Cult of 'positivism': Bush smiles blindly in the face of disaster ...

09.26.04 (5:38 am) [edit]

---> Bush Neo-Con-Men Lie About Who is Really Benefitting from Tax Cuts for the Rich!!!

09.26.04 (5:36 am) [edit]

The administration and most of the mainstream press are billing the tax package passed by Congress yesterday as a "middle class tax-cut."1 The reality is that the new law is more of the same: tax cuts that benefit the rich and, in many cases, exclude the neediest families.

An analysis from the Urban Institute-Brookings Tax Policy Center shows that the middle 20 percent of earners "will receive an average tax cut of $162 in 2005 from this legislation."2 The top fifth of earners, however, "will get an average tax cut of $1,317."3 As a result, the top fifth will receive two-thirds of all benefits.4

The bill excluded a provision that would have extended the child tax credit to four million low-income families who currently don't qualify.5 Extending eligibility to these families would have cost $4 billion.6 Meanwhile, conservatives included $12 billion in tax cuts for corporations.7

[b]Sources:[/b]

1. "Congress Extends Middle-Class Tax Breaks," The Kansas City Star, 9/24/04.
2. "New 'Middle-Class' Tax-Cut Bill Represents Cynical Policymaking," Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 9/23/04.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. "Lawmakers Can't Resist Voting to Extend Bush's Tax Cuts," Los Angeles Times, 9/24/04.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.

---> Bush Neo-Con-Men Lie About Who is Really Benefitting from Tax Cuts for the Rich!!!

09.26.04 (5:34 am) [edit]

---> Incurious George is a National Joke

09.26.04 (5:31 am) [edit]

OK, how many out there feel that the sitting U.S. president is an embarrassment?

Forget politics, for a minute, and be honest. Ever slink down in your seat when at the national convention your local chairman addressed the masses and got exposed as a doofus in over his head? Worst yet, your child gets his big moment before the packed house at the stage-play and his light goes completely out?

This shame may well be that nagging ache in the lower mesentery that Americans are beginning to feel - but not yet admit - about their 43rd president.

The latest exhibition occurred Tuesday when President George W. Bush addressed the United Nations. Bush's most devoted defenders are joining his parents, who've known all along, that his finger on the nuclear trigger endangers the very future of the republic. That sucking sound you heard last week was these earnest patriots collectively slinking down in their seats.

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...

---> Incurious George is a National Joke

09.26.04 (5:29 am) [edit]

---> 70% of Americans are Idiots

09.25.04 (1:03 pm) [edit]

[b]70% Of America Is Confused By George W. Bush Lies[/b]

Recent polls show that 70% of Americans still believe George W. Bush when he said Saddam Hussein was involved with the attacks on 9/11. We need to make this perfectly clear; George W. Bush lied when he said Saddam Hussein was involved with the attacks against America on 9/11. If George W. Bush wanted America to know the truth he would have came out months ago and said Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. But because the lie is to his benefit in the upcoming presidential election, Bush continues to let 70% of Americans believe that to be true. George W. Bush is allowing this lie to live on because it benefits him.

How many times have you told your children that not telling the truth is the same as telling a lie? Should George W. Bush be held to a lower standard than your children when it comes to telling the Truth? Is it right for the President of the United States to let this lie live on simply because it will cause many voters to cast their ballots for George W. Bush in November based on this lie? Would you not punish your children for not coming out and telling the truth? Shouldn’t the voters punish George W. Bush as they would their own children by not voting for him because he is not telling the truth? These are some of the questions American voters should be asking themselves before casting their vote for President of the United States.

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.s5000.com/what_the...

---> Let's Get Real

09.25.04 (12:44 pm) [edit]

Never mind the inevitable claims that John Kerry is soft on terrorism. What he must address is the question of how his policy in Iraq would differ from President Bush's. And his answer should be that unlike Mr. Bush, whose decisions have been dictated at every stage by grandiose visions and wishful thinking, he will get real - focusing on what is really possible in Iraq, and what needs to be done to protect American security.

Mr. Bush claims that Mr. Kerry's plan to secure and rebuild Iraq is "exactly what we're currently doing." No, it isn't. It's only what Mr. Bush is currently saying. And we have 18 months of his administration's deeds to contrast with his words.

The actual record is one of officials who have refused to admit that their fantasies about how the war would go were wrong, and who have continued to push us ever deeper into the quagmire because of their insistence that everything is going according to plan.

There has been a lot of press coverage of the administration's failure to do anything serious about rebuilding Iraq. Less attention has been given to its parallel failure to take the security problem seriously until much of Iraq had already been lost.

Long after it was obvious to everyone else that we were engaged in an escalating guerrilla war, Bush appointees clung to the belief that they were fighting a handful of dead-enders and foreign terrorists.

As a result, they casually swelled the ranks of our foes - remember, Moktada al-Sadr was never going to be our friend, but he didn't have to be our enemy. They even treated Iraqi security forces with contempt, not bothering to provide them with adequate training or equipment.

In an analysis titled "Inexcusable Failure," Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies details how the U.S. "failed to treat the Iraqis as partners in the counterinsurgency effort." U.S. officials, he declares, are "guilty of a gross military, administrative and moral failure."

That failure continues. All the evidence suggests that Bush officials still think that one more military push - after the U.S. election, of course - will end the insurgency. They're still not taking the task of fighting a sustained guerrilla war seriously.

"Three months into its new mission," The New York Times reported, "the military command in charge of training and equipping Iraqi security forces has fewer than half of its permanent headquarters personnel in place."

At the root of this folly is a continuing refusal to face uncomfortable facts. Confronted with a bleak C.I.A. assessment of the Iraq situation - one that matches the judgment of just about every independent expert - Mr. Bush's response is that "they were just guessing." "In many ways," Mr. Cordesman writes, "the administration's senior spokesmen still seem to live in a fantasyland."

Fantasyland extended to the Rose Garden yesterday, where Mr. Bush said polls asking Iraqis whether their nation was on the right track were more positive than similar polls asking Americans about their outlook - and he seemed to consider that a good sign.

Where is Mr. Bush taking us? As the reality of Iraq gets worse, his explanations of our goals get ever vaguer. "The security of our world," Mr. Bush told the U.N., "is found in the advancing rights of mankind."

He doesn't really believe that. After all, he continues to praise Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, even as Mr. Putin strangles democratic institutions. The subtext of Mr. Bush's bombast is that because he can't bring himself to admit a mistake, he refuses to give up on his effort to turn Iraq into a docile client state - an effort that is doomed unless he can figure out a way to come up with a few hundred thousand more troops.

We don't have to go there. American policy shouldn't be dictated by Mr. Bush's infallibility complex; our first priority must be our own security. And in Iraq, that means setting realistic goals.

On "Meet The Press" back in April, Mr. Kerry wasn't as forthright about Iraq as he has now, at long last, become, but he did return several times to a point that shows that he is on the right track. "What is critical," he said, "is a stable Iraq." Not an Iraq in our image, but a country that isn't a "failed state" that poses a threat to American security.

The Bush administration has made such a mess of Iraq that even achieving that goal will be very hard. But unlike Mr. Bush's fantasies, it's still in the realm of the possible. - http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%2 0and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd% 2fColumnists

---> Humiliated and Impotent, Every Iraqi is a Hostage Now

09.25.04 (6:10 am) [edit]

They sit in their solitary cells all day, uncharged with any crime. No family member, no friend, no lawyer may visit. Their freedom depends on a callous game of Pentagon roulette. Word filters out that they are about to be released. Then word follows that - alas - it will take a bit more time.

These are America's Iraqi hostages, whose captivity in a high-security camp at Baghdad airport has already lasted for over a year. The two women scientists whose fate has been spotlighted this week belong to a larger group of Iraqi prisoners who should not have been held so long.

Their cases cannot be compared to that of the British engineer, Kenneth Bigley, or the other foreigners kidnapped by fundamentalist groups. The circumstances are different. The motivations are different. Their treatment is different.

Public humiliation by video, repeated threats of imminent death, and filmed beheadings are bestial. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the presumed perpetrator of this cruelty, claims to be acting in the name of the Iraqi resistance. In fact, he is a parasite on the occupation, seeking its cover to advance the goal of an extreme theocratic state, which few Iraqis share.

Thanks to Zarqawi and various small groups of local Islamists whom he has managed to inspire, all non-Arabs in Iraq have become potential targets. No distinction is made between those who take jobs with the occupa tion, and journalists, UN employees and aid workers, who are neutral or, in many cases, severe critics of US and British policy.

In Gaza and the West Bank, for all the chaos and confusion of authority caused by 37 years of Israeli occupation, Palestinian leaders and Palestinian society remain far-sighted, civic-minded, and secular enough to keep out these kinds of Islamist soldiers of fortune. Al-Qaida and its followers are unknown in Palestine. Foreign aid workers and western journalists have never been kidnapped. They are more likely to be killed by the Israeli army than by gunmen on the Palestinian side.

In Iraq the picture is darker. It is one more sign of the massive social and economic destabilisation caused by the invasion and its bungled aftermath that al-Qaida has found a foothold there which it has not done in Palestine. Foreign journalists who used to rent houses in Baghdad have had to retreat to better-guarded hotels. Many media organisations have reduced their teams to one reporter, and even they rarely risk leaving Baghdad. Their Iraqi interpreters and drivers are under threat. The country may become a no-go area for news.

In the mayhem of kidnappings, suicide bombs, and US air attacks, the continuing detention of a dozen Iraqi scientists may seem trivial. Thousands of other Iraqis have been arrested on suspicion of being part of the anti-American insurgency. Most are eventually let go, some after beating and torture. Only a few have been taken to court and convicted.

But the holding of Iraqi scientists, whom the Americans call high-value detainees, is significant because they, more than any other group, seem to be hostages. Taken initially into custody because it was thought they could shed light on those elusive weapons of mass destruction, it is clear they had little new to say. There were no WMD, as they always insisted.

Dr Rihab Rashid Taha, called Dr Germ by UN weapons inspectors, was an expert in biological warfare, who consistently told them before the war that all stocks had been destroyed years earlier. Why has she not been let go? She has not been charged with any crime, and even if she were, could she not be freed on bail? Is it that the US authorities don't want her talking to the press about the biological specimens she received from American companies in the 1980s when Saddam Hussein was Washington's friend? Are they worried she might produce the receipts she has said she holds?

What of Dr Amer al-Saadi, the rocket scientist who briefly became the government's link man with the inspectors in 2002? He, too, repeatedly told them Iraq's WMD were dismantled long ago. He was the first senior Iraqi to surrender voluntarily to the US authorities in April last year, expecting to be held for brief interrogation and then let go.

Yesterday his brother, Radwan, told me he was assured last month that Amer's release had been authorised and only a few bureaucratic procedures remained. It seems he was part of the same joint Iraqi-American review process which apparently gave the green light to releasing the women scientists weeks before Kenneth Bigley's kidnappers focused on them.

Why the delay? Did Donald Rumsfeld or George Bush's election advisers get cold feet, fearing the impact of interviews that would once again highlight the fraud behind the invasion? Was the Iraqi government in favour of the release, as its justice minister suggested, but over-ruled by the Americans and denied the sovereignty it is claimed to enjoy?

What of Saddam Hussein himself? Has he, too, become a pawn in Bush's bid to retain power? Few doubt that - unlike the scientists - he is a war criminal, although technically he remains innocent until convicted. When, and if, an Iraqi court with judges chosen independently by Iraqis puts him on trial, not many tears will flow.

The issue is the timing. It was only thanks to the International Committee of the Red Cross that the former dictator appeared in court at all. On the eve of the formal transfer of sovereignty in June, it declared that as a prisoner of war he must be released, if he had not been charged. The Americans hurried to comply.

After his brief but powerful defiance from the dock they said his trial would take months to prepare. His lieutenants would be tried first in the hope they would give evidence against him. Saddam would not go back to court until 2005, if then.

Suddenly we hear his trial may take place next month. This will be the famous "October surprise". Bush will use the spotlight on Saddam as a way of trying to justify the war on Iraq and put John Kerry on the defensive. In this cynical scheme of things, America's best-known prisoner becomes a hostage of Bush's election bid.

Small wonder that Iraqis feel humiliated and impotent. They are trapped between different sets of foreigners. On one side they face the barbarity of outside Islamists, who use Iraq as the latest and most convenient terrain for jihad against America. On the other, they see the stubbornness of Bush and the arrogance of Blair, who refuse to admit that their adventure was wrong, has become a disaster, and needs to be ended. Every Iraqi is a hostage now. - http://www.commondreams.org/v...

---> Humiliated and Impotent, Every Iraqi is a Hostage Now

09.25.04 (6:08 am) [edit]

---> Grand-poppy Bush & Adolf Hitler (A'W'OL Acorn...)

09.25.04 (6:05 am) [edit]

[b][u]How Bush's Grandfather Helped Hitler's Rise to Power[/u]

[b]Life of Prescott Bush[/b]

· 1895 Born, son of Samuel and Flora Bush. Raised in Columbus, Ohio

· 1917 Graduated as a BA from Yale

· 1917-19 Artillery captain in US army. Served in first world war

· 1921 Married Dorothy Walker, daughter of wealthy industrialist, George Herbert Walker. They have five children, including GHW Bush, later to become US president (1988-1992)

· 1924 Joins Harriman Brothers in New York through introduction from father-in-law

· 1930 Partner in Brown Brothers Harriman

· 1942 Assets of companies of which he is director seized under Trading with the Enemy Act

· 1950 Now living in Greenwich, Connecticut, he runs unsuccessfully for Republican party to represent Connecticut in US Senate. Describes himself as "moderate progressive"

· 1952 Runs again in mid-term election and wins. "He looked more like a senator than any senator I've ever met," William Hildenbrand, former secretary to Senate said, according to Kitty Kelley's new Bush family biography, The Family. Takes stand against McCarthyism

· 1956 Re-elected to senate

· 1963 Retires from politics on health grounds

· 1972 Dies

Rumors of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president

by Ben Aris in Berlin and Duncan Campbell in Washington [/b]

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave laborers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

The debate over Prescott Bush's behavior has been bubbling under the surface for some time. There has been a steady internet chatter about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair. But the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.

Remarkably, little of Bush's dealings with Germany has received public scrutiny, partly because of the secret status of the documentation involving him. But now the multibillion dollar legal action for damages by two Holocaust survivors against the Bush family, and the imminent publication of three books on the subject are threatening to make Prescott Bush's business history an uncomfortable issue for his grandson, George W, as he seeks re-election.

While there is no suggestion that Prescott Bush was sympathetic to the Nazi cause, the documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen's US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war.

[b]Tantalizing[/b]

Bush was also on the board of at least one of the companies that formed part of a multinational network of front companies to allow Thyssen to move assets around the world.

Thyssen owned the largest steel and coal company in Germany and grew rich from Hitler's efforts to re-arm between the two world wars. One of the pillars in Thyssen's international corporate web, UBC, worked exclusively for, and was owned by, a Thyssen-controlled bank in the Netherlands. More Tantalizing are Bush's links to the Consolidated Silesian Steel Company (CSSC), based in mineral rich Silesia on the German-Polish border. During the war, the company made use of Nazi slave labor from the concentration camps, including Auschwitz. The ownership of CSSC changed hands several times in the 1930s, but documents from the US National Archive declassified last year link Bush to CSSC, although it is not clear if he and UBC were still involved in the company when Thyssen's American assets were seized in 1942.

Three sets of archives spell out Prescott Bush's involvement. All three are readily available, thanks to the efficient US archive system and a helpful and dedicated staff at both the Library of Congress in Washington and the National Archives at the University of Maryland.

The first set of files, the Harriman papers in the Library of Congress, show that Prescott Bush was a director and shareholder of a number of companies involved with Thyssen.

The second set of papers, which are in the National Archives, are contained in vesting order number 248 which records the seizure of the company assets. What these files show is that on October 20 1942 the alien property custodian seized the assets of the UBC, of which Prescott Bush was a director. Having gone through the books of the bank, further seizures were made against two affiliates, the Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation. By November, the Silesian-American Company, another of Prescott Bush's ventures, had also been seized.

The third set of documents, also at the National Archives, are contained in the files on IG Farben, who was prosecuted for war crimes.

A report issued by the Office of Alien Property Custodian in 1942 stated of the companies that "since 1939, these (steel and mining) properties have been in possession of and have been operated by the German government and have undoubtedly been of considerable assistance to that country's war effort".

Prescott Bush, a 6ft 4in charmer with a rich singing voice, was the founder of the Bush political dynasty and was once considered a potential presidential candidate himself. Like his son, George, and grandson, George W, he went to Yale where he was, again like his descendants, a member of the secretive and influential Skull and Bones student society. He was an artillery captain in the first world war and married Dorothy Walker, the daughter of George Herbert Walker, in 1921.

In 1924, his father-in-law, a well-known St Louis investment banker, helped set him up in business in New York with Averill Harriman, the wealthy son of railroad magnate E H Harriman in New York, who had gone into banking.

One of the first jobs Walker gave Bush was to manage UBC. Bush was a founding member of the bank and the incorporation documents, which list him as one of seven directors, show he owned one share in UBC worth $125.

The bank was set up by Harriman and Bush's father-in-law to provide a US bank for the Thyssens, Germany's most powerful industrial family.

August Thyssen, the founder of the dynasty had been a major contributor to Germany's first world war effort and in the 1920s, he and his sons Fritz and Heinrich established a network of overseas banks and companies so their assets and money could be whisked offshore if threatened again.

By the time Fritz Thyssen inherited the business empire in 1926, Germany's economic recovery was faltering. After hearing Adolf Hitler speak, Thyssen became mesmerized by the young firebrand. He joined the Nazi party in December 1931 and admits backing Hitler in his autobiography, I Paid Hitler, when the National Socialists were still a radical fringe party. He stepped in several times to bail out the struggling party: in 1928 Thyssen had bought the Barlow Palace on Briennerstrasse, in Munich, which Hitler converted into the Brown House, the headquarters of the Nazi party. The money came from another Thyssen overseas institution, the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvarrt in Rotterdam.

By the late 1930s, Brown Brothers Harriman, which claimed to be the world's largest private investment bank, and UBC had bought and shipped millions of dollars of gold, fuel, steel, coal and US treasury bonds to Germany, both feeding and financing Hitler's build-up to war.

Between 1931 and 1933 UBC bought more than $8m worth of gold, of which $3m was shipped abroad. According to documents seen by the Guardian, after UBC was set up it transferred $2m to BBH accounts and between 1924 and 1940 the assets of UBC hovered around $3m, dropping to $1m only on a few occasions.

In 1941, Thyssen fled Germany after falling out with Hitler but he was captured in France and detained for the remainder of the war.

There was nothing illegal in doing business with the Thyssens throughout the 1930s and many of America's best-known business names invested heavily in the German economic recovery. However, everything changed after Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Even then it could be argued that BBH was within its rights continuing business relations with the Thyssens until the end of 1941 as the US was still technically neutral until the attack on Pearl Harbor. The trouble started on July 30 1942 when the New York Herald-Tribune ran an article entitled "Hitler's Angel Has $3m in US Bank". UBC's huge gold purchases had raised suspicions that the bank was in fact a "secret nest egg" hidden in New York for Thyssen and other Nazi bigwigs. The Alien Property Commission (APC) launched an investigation.

There is no dispute over the fact that the US government seized a string of assets controlled by BBH - including UBC and SAC - in the autumn of 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy act. What is in dispute is if Harriman, Walker and Bush did more than own these companies on paper.

Erwin May, a treasury attaché and officer for the department of investigation in the APC, was assigned to look into UBC's business. The first fact to emerge was that Roland Harriman, Prescott Bush and the other directors didn't actually own their shares in UBC but merely held them on behalf of Bank voor Handel. Strangely, no one seemed to know who owned the Rotterdam-based bank, including UBC's president.

May wrote in his report of August 16 1941: "Union Banking Corporation, incorporated August 4 1924, is wholly owned by the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart N.V of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. My investigation has produced no evidence as to the ownership of the Dutch bank. Mr Cornelis [sic] Lievense, president of UBC, claims no knowledge as to the ownership of the Bank voor Handel but believes it possible that Baron Heinrich Thyssen, brother of Fritz Thyssen, may own a substantial interest."

May cleared the bank of holding a golden nest egg for the Nazi leaders but went on to describe a network of companies spreading out from UBC across Europe, America and Canada, and how money from voor Handel traveled to these companies through UBC.

By September May had traced the origins of the non-American board members and found that Dutchman HJ Kouwenhoven - who met with Harriman in 1924 to set up UBC - had several other jobs: in addition to being the managing director of voor Handel he was also the director of the August Thyssen bank in Berlin and a director of Fritz Thyssen's Union Steel Works, the holding company that controlled Thyssen's steel and coal mine empire in Germany.

Within a few weeks, Homer Jones, the chief of the APC investigation and research division sent a memo to the executive committee of APC recommending the US government vest UBC and its assets. Jones named the directors of the bank in the memo, including Prescott Bush's name, and wrote: "Said stock is held by the above named individuals, however, solely as nominees for the Bank voor Handel, Rotterdam, Holland, which is owned by one or more of the Thyssen family, nationals of Germany and Hungary. The 4,000 shares hereinbefore set out are therefore beneficially owned and help for the interests of enemy nationals, and are vestible by the APC," according to the memo from the National Archives seen by the Guardian.

[b]Red-handed [/b]

Jones recommended that the assets be liquidated for the benefit of the government, but instead UBC was maintained intact and eventually returned to the American shareholders after the war. Some claim that Bush sold his share in UBC after the war for $1.5m - a huge amount of money at the time - but there is no documentary evidence to support this claim. No further action was ever taken nor was the investigation continued, despite the fact UBC was caught red-handed operating a American shell company for the Thyssen family eight months after America had entered the war and that this was the bank that had partly financed Hitler's rise to power.

The most Tantalizing part of the story remains shrouded in mystery: the connection, if any, between Prescott Bush, Thyssen, Consolidated Silesian Steel Company (CSSC) and Auschwitz.

Thyssen's partner in United Steel Works, which had coal mines and steel plants across the region, was Friedrich Flick, another steel magnate who also owned part of IG Farben, the powerful German chemical company.

Flick's plants in Poland made heavy use of slave labor from the concentration camps in Poland. According to a New York Times article published in March 18 1934 Flick owned two-thirds of CSSC while "American interests" held the rest.

The US National Archive documents show that BBH's involvement with CSSC was more than simply holding the shares in the mid-1930s. Bush's friend and fellow "bonesman" Knight Woolley, another partner at BBH, wrote to Averill Harriman in January 1933 warning of problems with CSSC after the Poles started their drive to nationalize the plant. "The Consolidated Silesian Steel Company situation has become increasingly complicated, and I have accordingly brought in Sullivan and Cromwell, in order to be sure that our interests are protected," wrote Knight. "After studying the situation Foster Dulles is insisting that their man in Berlin get into the picture and obtain the information which the directors here should have. You will recall that Foster is a director and he is particularly anxious to be certain that there is no liability attaching to the American directors."

But the ownership of the CSSC between 1939 when the Germans invaded Poland and 1942 when the US government vested UBC and SAC is not clear.

"SAC held coal mines and definitely owned CSSC between 1934 and 1935, but when SAC was vested there was no trace of CSSC. All concrete evidence of its ownership disappears after 1935 and there are only a few traces in 1938 and 1939," says Eva Schweitzer, the journalist and author whose book, America and the Holocaust, is published next month.

Silesia was quickly made part of the German Reich after the invasion, but while Polish factories were seized by the Nazis, those belonging to the still neutral Americans (and some other nationals) were treated more carefully as Hitler was still hoping to persuade the US to at least sit out the war as a neutral country. Schweitzer says American interests were dealt with on a case-by-case basis. The Nazis bought some out, but not others.

The two Holocaust survivors suing the US government and the Bush family for a total of $40bn in compensation claim both materially benefited from Auschwitz slave labor during the second world war.

Kurt Julius Goldstein, 87, and Peter Gingold, 85, began a class action in America in 2001, but the case was thrown out by Judge Rosemary Collier on the grounds that the government cannot be held liable under the principle of "state sovereignty".

Jan Lissmann, one of the lawyers for the survivors, said: "President Bush withdrew President Bill Clinton's signature from the treaty [that founded the court] not only to protect Americans, but also to protect himself and his family."

Lissmann argues that genocide-related cases are covered by international law, which does hold governments accountable for their actions. He claims the ruling was invalid as no hearing took place.

In their claims, Mr Goldstein and Mr Gingold, honorary chairman of the League of Anti-fascists, suggest the Americans were aware of what was happening at Auschwitz and should have bombed the camp.

The lawyers also filed a motion in The Hague asking for an opinion on whether state sovereignty is a valid reason for refusing to hear their case. A ruling is expected within a month.

The petition to The Hague states: "From April 1944 on, the American Air Force could have destroyed the camp with air raids, as well as the railway bridges and railway lines from Hungary to Auschwitz. The murder of about 400,000 Hungarian Holocaust victims could have been prevented."

The case is built around a January 22 1944 executive order signed by President Franklin Roosevelt calling on the government to take all measures to rescue the European Jews. The lawyers claim the order was ignored because of pressure brought by a group of big American companies, including BBH, where Prescott Bush was a director.

Lissmann said: "If we have a positive ruling from the court it will cause [president] Bush huge problems and make him personally liable to pay compensation."

The US government and the Bush family deny all the claims against them.

In addition to Eva Schweitzer's book, two other books are about to be published that raise the subject of Prescott Bush's business history. The author of the second book, to be published next year, John Loftus, is a former US attorney who prosecuted Nazi war criminals in the 70s. Now living in St Petersburg, Florida and earning his living as a security commentator for Fox News and ABC radio, Loftus is working on a novel which uses some of the material he has uncovered on Bush. Loftus stressed that what Prescott Bush was involved in was just what many other American and British businessmen were doing at the time.

"You can't blame Bush for what his grandfather did any more than you can blame Jack Kennedy for what his father did - bought Nazi stocks - but what is important is the cover-up, how it could have gone on so successfully for half a century, and does that have implications for us today?" he said.

"This was the mechanism by which Hitler was funded to come to power, this was the mechanism by which the Third Reich's defense industry was re-armed, this was the mechanism by which Nazi profits were repatriated back to the American owners, this was the mechanism by which investigations into the financial laundering of the Third Reich were blunted," said Loftus, who is vice-chairman of the Holocaust Museum in St Petersburg.

"The Union Banking Corporation was a holding company for the Nazis, for Fritz Thyssen," said Loftus. "At various times, the Bush family has tried to spin it, saying they were owned by a Dutch bank and it wasn't until the Nazis took over Holland that they realized that now the Nazis controlled the apparent company and that is why the Bush supporters claim when the war was over they got their money back. Both the American treasury investigations and the intelligence investigations in Europe completely bely that, it's absolute horseshit. They always knew who the ultimate beneficiaries were."

"There is no one left alive who could be prosecuted but they did get away with it," said Loftus. "As a former federal prosecutor, I would make a case for Prescott Bush, his father-in-law (George Walker) and Averill Harriman [to be prosecuted] for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. They remained on the boards of these companies knowing that they were of financial benefit to the nation of Germany."

Loftus said Prescott Bush must have been aware of what was happening in Germany at the time. "My take on him was that he was a not terribly successful in-law who did what Herbert Walker told him to. Walker and Harriman were the two evil geniuses, they didn't care about the Nazis any more than they cared about their investments with the Bolsheviks."

What is also at issue is how much money Bush made from his involvement. His supporters suggest that he had one token share. Loftus disputes this, citing sources in "the banking and intelligence communities" and suggesting that the Bush family, through George Herbert Walker and Prescott, got $1.5m out of the involvement. There is, however, no paper trail to this sum.

The third person going into print on the subject is John Buchanan, 54, a Miami-based magazine journalist who started examining the files while working on a screenplay. Last year, Buchanan published his findings in the venerable but small-circulation New Hampshire Gazette under the headline "Documents in National Archives Prove George Bush's Grandfather Traded With the Nazis - Even After Pearl Harbor". He expands on this in his book to be published next month - Fixing America: Breaking the Stranglehold of Corporate Rule, Big Media and the Religious Right.

In the article, Buchanan, who has worked mainly in the trade and music press with a spell as a muckraking reporter in Miami, claimed that "the essential facts have appeared on the internet and in relatively obscure books but were dismissed by the media and Bush family as undocumented diatribes".

Buchanan suffers from hypermania, a form of manic depression, and when he found himself rebuffed in his initial efforts to interest the media, he responded with a series of threats against the journalists and media outlets that had spurned him. The threats, contained in e-mails, suggested that he would expose the journalists as "traitors to the truth".

Unsurprisingly, he soon had difficulty getting his calls returned. Most seriously, he faced aggravated stalking charges in Miami, in connection with a man with whom he had fallen out over the best way to publicize his findings. The charges were dropped last month.

[b]Biography[/b]

Buchanan said he regretted his behavior had damaged his credibility but his main aim was to secure publicity for the story. Both Loftus and Schweitzer say Buchanan has come up with previously undisclosed documentation.

The Bush family have largely responded with no comment to any reference to Prescott Bush. Brown Brothers Harriman also declined to comment.

The Bush family recently approved a flattering biography of Prescott Bush entitled Duty, Honor, Country by Mickey Herskowitz. The publishers, Rutledge Hill Press, promised the book would "deal honestly with Prescott Bush's alleged business relationships with Nazi industrialists and other accusations".

In fact, the allegations are dealt with in less than two pages. The book refers to the Herald-Tribune story by saying that "a person of less established ethics would have panicked ... Bush and his partners at Brown Brothers Harriman informed the government regulators that the account, opened in the late 1930s, was 'an unpaid courtesy for a client' ... Prescott Bush acted quickly and openly on behalf of the firm, served well by a reputation that had never been compromised. He made available all records and all documents. Viewed six decades later in the era of serial corporate scandals and shattered careers, he received what can be viewed as the ultimate clean bill."

The Prescott Bush story has been condemned by both conservatives and some liberals as having nothing to do with the current president. It has also been suggested that Prescott Bush had little to do with Averill Harriman and that the two men opposed each other politically.

However, documents from the Harriman papers include a flattering wartime profile of Harriman in the New York Journal American and next to it in the files is a letter to the financial editor of that paper from Prescott Bush congratulating the paper for running the profile. He added that Harriman's "performance and his whole attitude has been a source of inspiration and pride to his partners and his friends".

The Anti-Defamation League in the US is supportive of Prescott Bush and the Bush family. In a statement last year they said that "rumors about the alleged Nazi 'ties' of the late Prescott Bush ... have circulated widely through the internet in recent years. These charges are untenable and politically motivated ... Prescott Bush was neither a Nazi nor a Nazi sympathizer."

However, one of the country's oldest Jewish publications, the Jewish Advocate, has aired the controversy in detail.

More than 60 years after Prescott Bush came briefly under scrutiny at the time of a faraway war, his grandson is facing a different kind of scrutiny but one underpinned by the same perception that, for some people, war can be a profitable business. - http://www.commondreams.org/h...

[b]The acorn A'W'OL Bush didn't fall far from the old oak's hero ... [/b]Read [b]"Similarities Between Hitler and President Bush"[/b]: http://www.tblog.com/template...

---> Grand-poppy Bush & Adolf Hitler (A'W'OL Acorn...)

09.25.04 (6:05 am) [edit]

---> Grand-poppy Bush & Adolf Hitler (A'W'OL Acorn...)

09.25.04 (6:02 am) [edit]

---> 'Only Little Working People Pay Taxes' Bushies Distort Who Benefits from Tax Cuts

09.25.04 (5:54 am) [edit]

The Bush administration and most of the mainstream press are billing the tax package passed by Congress yesterday as a "middle class tax-cut."1 The reality is that the new law is more of the same: tax cuts that benefit the rich and, in many cases, exclude the neediest families.

An analysis from the Urban Institute-Brookings Tax Policy Center shows that the middle 20 percent of earners "will receive an average tax cut of $162 in 2005 from this legislation."2 The top fifth of earners, however, "will get an average tax cut of $1,317."3 As a result, the top fifth will receive two-thirds of all benefits.4

The bill excluded a provision that would have extended the child tax credit to four million low-income families who currently don't qualify.5 Extending eligibility to these families would have cost $4 billion.6 Meanwhile, conservatives included $12 billion in tax cuts for corporations.7

[b]Sources:[/b]

1. "Congress Extends Middle-Class Tax Breaks," The Kansas City Star, 9/24/04.
2. "New 'Middle-Class' Tax-Cut Bill Represents Cynical Policymaking," Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 9/23/04.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. "Lawmakers Can't Resist Voting to Extend Bush's Tax Cuts," Los Angeles Times, 9/24/04.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.

---> 'Only Little Working People Pay Taxes' Bushies Distort Who Benefits from Tax Cuts

09.25.04 (5:51 am) [edit]

---> Bush's Policies are Driving Terrorism and Creating a New 'Iron Curtain'

09.23.04 (7:20 am) [edit]

The Turkish Press reports that Pakistan's president Perez Musharraf has "warned in an address to the UN General Assembly that an "iron curtain" was falling between the Islamic world and the West. "Action has to be taken before an iron curtain finally descends between the West and the Islamic world." Senator Hafiz Hussain, a senior leader of Pakistan's pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam party, said "The hatred has increased because of the continued anti-Muslim policies by the US leadership. The US wants to grab natural resources of the Muslim world by use of brute power, and the Muslims have become aware of its design." Hussain cited the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US troops at Abu Ghraib. "The Muslims are only reacting. The West justify all their actions in the name of peace, and calls Muslims' reactions terrorism," Hussain said. "What happened in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, is it not terrorism?"

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.turkishpress.com/t...

---> Bush to Blame for 9/11

09.23.04 (5:05 am) [edit]

[b]Former CIA Agent Says Bush to Blame for 9/11 [/b]

Former CIA agent Ray McGovern went over what he considers the failures of the intelligence community and current administration over the past few years. He has 27 years of experience as a CIA analyst to draw upon and has dealt with every administration from Kennedy to Bush Sr.

"It's difficult for people to learn the truth about things like Iraq," said McGovern, a member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), which is comprised of more than 40 former employees of agencies such as the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Army Intelligence, the FBI and the National Security Agency.

"We have hundreds of years worth of experience in government service and intelligence to draw on so we feel a civic responsibility to do our best to spread as much truth as we can this fall," McGovern said.

He began his lecture by describing the CIA. He explained that the agency is supposed to be the one place in government with no political agenda, and could be very disastrous if it obtains one.

McGovern told a story about CIA officials who gave false information about enemy troop numbers in Vietnam to President Johnson. The lie led to a surprise of U.S. forces by the Tet Offensive in 1968. In this war of attrition, the agency wanted to make it look like the United States was doing better than it really was, McGovern said.

"Picture the Vietnam Memorial in Washington; it's a big 'V' shape. Now picture it with just one side of the 'V'. It might have been that way if some people had told the truth," McGovern said.

He also criticized the 9/11 Commission's final report, saying the committee was comprised of political extremists who couldn't reach a consensus.

"It wasn't a bipartisan commission; it was more like a bipolar commission," McGovern said. "To say that no one could prevent 9/11 was a bold-faced lie. It basically let the president and everyone responsible off the hook."

He went on to talk about the faulty intelligence attorney general John Ashcroft used when he announced that terrorist attacks may occur before or around election time, saying that elections might have to be postponed if the United States is attacked.

"There might be a real or staged terrorist attack in order to postpone the elections," McGovern said. "This might seem outlandish; I hope it is."

He mentioned how the Bush administration wanted to involve the country with the war in Iraq for certain reasons other than fear of weapons of mass destruction, which was just a more media-friendly explanation for the war.

"I have initials for why I think we went to war in Iraq," McGovern said. "O.I.L. O-I-L, O is for oil, I is for Israel and L is for logistics, as in when we have Iraq we have a foothold and a number of bases strategically placed in the Middle East so we can be in control over there and also to protect Israel."

Next he brought up civil liberties in the United States and how they have declined in the past few years.

"I used to say when I was a kid growing up when someone told me not to do something, 'It's a free country,'" McGovern said. "I ask you to think about it now."

In the audience was Nahla al-Arian, wife of imprisoned former professor Sami al-Arian. She explained to McGovern how she and her husband came to America to be free and described their current situation. Then she asked him why the government would target Palestinian activists.

His initial response was just, "I'm sorry," then he paused to collect his thoughts and said that things like that come all the way from the top down.

McGovern had a speaking engagement at the University of Florida later in the afternoon, and will also be lecturing at UCF soon on his and the VIPS's quest to spread the truth.

"No one has a corner on the truth. We don't have a corner on the truth, but it is certain that Fox News does not," McGovern said. "That most people get their 'news' from Fox News is extremely troubling." - http://www.commondreams.org/h...

[b]Read also:[/b]

Government Insider Reveals A'W'OL Bush is a Traitor & Mass-Murderer!!!: http://www.tblog.com/template...

Whistleblower Sues for Release of 9/11 Info Covered-up by Neo-Con Bushies!!!: http://www.tblog.com/template...

---> Bush to Blame for 9/11

09.23.04 (5:03 am) [edit]

---> Bush Attacks Kerry While Cozying Up To Dictators

09.23.04 (4:53 am) [edit]

President Bush earlier this week attacked his opponent, saying "It's hard to imagine a candidate running for President prefers the stability of a dictatorship to the hope and security of democracy."1 Yet, it is President Bush who regularly declares his personal friendship and gratitude to some of the world's most oppressive dictators, often wining and dining them at his ranch in Texas.

In June of 2004, Bush referred to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia as "my friend,"2 even though the Saudi Arabian government has been investigated for its financial ties to the 9/11 terrorists3 and is listed by the U.S. State Department as one of the world's most oppressive regimes on the planet.4

In April, he referred to the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as "my friend" and welcomed him to the Crawford ranch by saying "I always look forward to visiting with him."5 Bush gave this praise to a dictator, even though Human Rights Watch notes that government "torture in Egypt is widespread and systemic"6 and the State Department says Mubarak has passed a Constitution in which the electorate is barred from being "presented with a choice among competing presidential candidates."7

In 2002, it was Bush who said "I want to welcome the President of China to our ranch, and to Texas."8 Bush was inviting into his home a dictator who, according to the U.S. State Department, presides over a government that regularly engages in the "arbitrary or unlawful" murder of its own citizens, kidnappings of political dissidents, and repression of religious minorities.9

[b]Sources: [/b]

1. "President's Remarks at Victory 2004 Rally in New York City," The White House, 9/20/04.
2. "President Bush Holds Press Conference Following the G8 Summit," The White House, 6/10/04.
3. "Saudi Government Provided Aid to 9/11 Hijackers, Sources Say," Truthout.org, 8/02/03.
4. "Saudi Arabia: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2003," U.S. Department of State, 2/25/04.
5. "President Bush, Egyptian President Mubarak Meet with Reporters," The White House, 4/12/04.
6. "Egypt: Human Rights Background," Human Rights Watch, 10/2001.
7. "Egypt: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2003," U.S. Department of State, 2/25/04.
8. "President Bush, Chinese President Jiang Zemin Discuss Iraq, N. Korea," The White House, 10/25/02.
9. "China: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2003," U.S. Department of State, 2/25/04.

---> Bush Attacks Kerry While Cozying Up To Dictators

09.23.04 (4:53 am) [edit]

---> Bush Attacks Kerry While Cozying Up To Dictators

09.23.04 (4:51 am) [edit]

---> Bush Attacks Kerry While Cozying Up To Dictators

09.23.04 (4:49 am) [edit]

---> What is Bush Hiding?

09.23.04 (4:45 am) [edit]

It is to be welcomed that President Bush wants to clear up questions about his National Guard service. He wants more details out there, and good for him. This story should be laid to rest, and the one person who can do it is named George W. Bush.

Up to now, Bush has been interested in a rather narrow aspect of the story. He wanted Dan Rather and CBS News to come clean about whether they used fake documents in reporting on the president's Guard service back in the 1970s.

"There are a lot of questions and they need to be answered," Bush told The Union Leader in Manchester, N.H., last week. "I think what needs to happen is people need to take a look at the documents, how they were created, and let the truth come out."

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...

---> Repugs Slam Bush

09.22.04 (3:21 pm) [edit]

As we noted http://www.alternet.org/waron... this week, the Bush administration has asked Congress for authorization to divert money allocated to Iraqi reconstruction to pay for the occupation. Well, the request received an unpleasant response http://www.usatoday.com/news/... from two top GOP senators on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Chuck Hagel and Dick Lugar, USA TODAY reports:

"Of the $18.4 billion Congress approved last year for Iraqi reconstruction, only $1.1 billion has been spent because of violence and other problems. Hagel called that record 'beyond pitiful and embarrassing; it is now in the zone of dangerous.' Even Lugar, who is not usually given to strong rhetoric, said the failure to inject funds into the Iraqi economy quickly was 'exasperating for anybody looking at this from any vantage point.'"

[b]More ...[/b]

Republicans Turn Their Back On George W Bush, http://www.tblog.com/template...

Funny cartoons, http://www.tblog.com/template... and http://www.tblog.com/template...

---> Kerry Has Edge Over Bush in State-by-State Contests, Polls Show

09.22.04 (12:15 pm) [edit]

Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry leads President George W. Bush in the contest for electoral votes in each state that will decide the election, according to polls by the American Research Group and Zogby International.

Kerry, a four-term Massachusetts senator, leads in 19 states, including California and Illinois, that together have 270 Electoral College votes, according to polls done in all 50 states by the American Research Group. Bush leads in 29 states with a total of 253 electoral votes, including Texas and North Carolina. The race is tied in West Virginia and Wisconsin. In 23 states the gap is within the margin of error.

The Zogby polls found Kerry leading in states with 264 electoral votes, Bush leading in states worth 241 and the two tied in Florida and Arkansas.

The Electoral College has 538 votes apportioned among the states based on congressional representation. Except for Maine and Nebraska, they are awarded on a winner-take-all basis. That tally, rather than the nationwide popular vote, decides the presidency.

``My last poll showed the President with a three-point lead nationally and about 241 Electoral votes -- less than the 270 needed to win,'' pollster John Zogby said in a statement. ``But neither candidate has hefty enough leads overall or in many of the battleground states.''

Both campaigns are focusing advertising and candidate visits on 17 to 20 states that were decided by less than 7 percentage points in the 2000. Those so-called battlegrounds include West Virginia, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Methods

Utica, New York-based Zogby says its Electoral College count assumes that the 30 states not included in the battleground group will go to the candidate of the party they backed in the 2000 election. On that basis, Bush starts with 142 and Kerry with 172.

The Manchester, New Hampshire-based American Research Group surveyed 600 likely voters by telephone in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The Sept. 7-20 polls have a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Zogby didn't give information on the number of voters it surveyed or the margin of error in its poll. It was conducted over the internet and respondents were contacted by e-mail.

Kerry, 60, has a lead outside of the margin of error in 10 states with 132 electoral votes and Bush has a clear lead in 17 states with 133 electoral votes, according to the American Research Group poll. Kerry also leads in Washington, D.C., which has three electoral votes.

Nationwide, based on sum of the state polls, weighted by population, Bush, 58, has 47 percent support compared with 46 percent for Kerry, the American Research Group said. - http://quote.bloomberg.com/ap...

---> Zogby Gives Kerry 297-241 Lead in Electoral College

09.22.04 (10:06 am) [edit]

[b]Zogby Gives Kerry 297-241 Lead in Electoral College[/b]

"The latest Zogby Interactive poll of 16 battleground states shows Mr. Kerry ahead in 11 states, one state fewer than in a poll taken during the Republican convention two weeks earlier... Mr. Kerry's 11 states control 125 votes, while Mr. Bush's five states have 52. Thus, if the results on Election Day match the findings of the Zogby poll, Mr. Kerry would win, 297-241... Excluding Florida and Arkansas, which Mr. Kerry leads by less than one point, the senator's lead is 264-241, with 33 electoral votes up for grabs. Taking away four states where fewer than three points separate the candidates, Mr. Kerry is ahead 254-236, with 48 votes up for grabs. Still, there are signs that Mr. Kerry is gaining back some of the strength that was sapped during the Republican convention. In the latest poll, Mr. Kerry gained ground on the president in nine states, while Mr. Bush improved his standing in six."

[b]Courtesy of SamAdams http://samadams.tblog.com [/b]

---> Cockroach Exterminator DeLay's Top Aides Indicted - When Will DeLay Go to Jail?

09.22.04 (9:28 am) [edit]

[b]LEGAL – DELAY'S TOP AIDES INDICTED:[/b] The New York Times reports, "three aides who helped run a political action committee created by the House majority leader, Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, were indicted by a grand jury in Texas on Tuesday on charges that included raising illegal corporate contributions and funneling them to state candidates during the 2002 elections." The PAC, which was run by DeLay, "spent $1.5 million to help Republicans gain control of the Texas House." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... And the indictments come "at a time when Mr. DeLay himself is under investigation by the House ethics committee over accusations of improper fund-raising." Speaking for the group that filed the complaint, Texans for Public Justice, Executive Director Craig McDonald said, "This first round of indictments reaches directly into DeLay's inner circle. The cloud hovering over DeLay just got several shades darker.''

---> Bush Rejected Plans to Go After Top Terrorist

09.22.04 (5:53 am) [edit]

In his effort to claim he is the strongest candidate on national security, President Bush has lately been speaking a lot about how he is doing everything possible to track down terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi1 - the man thought to be responsible for escalating attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq.2 But according to NBC News, it was Bush who in 2002 and 2003 rejected three plans to strike and neutralize Zarqawi because he believed a successful strike would undermine the public case for targeting Saddam Hussein.

As NBC News reported, "Long before the war, the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself - but never pulled the trigger." In June 2002, the Pentagon drafted plans to attack a camp Zarqawi was at with cruise missiles and airstrikes. The plan was killed by the White House. Four months later, as Zarqawi planned to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe, the Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, yet "the White House again killed it." In January 2003, the Pentagon drew up still another attack plan, and for the third time, the White House killed it.3

According to NBC, "Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi's operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam."4

Zarqawi is thought to be at least indirectly responsible for hundreds of U.S. casualties. Just yesterday, Zarqawi's terrorist group beheaded an American civilian in Baghdad. 5

[b]Sources:[/b]

1. "President's Remarks to the General Conference of the National Guard Association of the United States," The White House, 9/14/04.
2. "Going after Iraq's most wanted man," The Christian Science Monitor, 9/21/04.
3. "Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist mastermind," NBC News, 3/02/04.
4. Ibid.
5. "Zarqawi Group Beheads U.S. Hostage Armstrong," Reuters, 9/20/04.

---> Bush Rejected Plans to Go After Top Terrorist

09.22.04 (5:53 am) [edit]

---> John Kerry: 'My Economic Policy'

09.22.04 (5:51 am) [edit]

"Cut middle-class taxes and health costs. Families are being increasingly squeezed by falling incomes and rising costs for everything from health care to college. But spiraling health-care and energy costs squeeze businesses too, encouraging them to lay off workers and shift to part-time and temporary workers. Under my plan, the tax cuts would be extended and made permanent for 98% of Americans. In addition, I support new tax cuts for college, child care and health care - in total, more than twice as large as the new tax cuts President Bush is proposing. I have proposed a health plan that would increase coverage while cutting costs. It builds on and strengthens the current system, giving patients their choice of doctors, and providing new incentives instead of imposing new mandates. My health plan will offer businesses immediate relief on their premiums... we will save employers and workers about 10% of total health premiums."

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.truthout.org/docs_...

---> John Kerry: 'My Economic Policy'

09.22.04 (5:49 am) [edit]

---> Bush Sacrifices Homeland Security for the Sake of His Chem Industry Supporters

09.22.04 (5:47 am) [edit]

"While Bush continues to make terrorism and domestic security the centerpiece of his campaign, he has made little mention of one of the most urgent threats to our safety: the risk that terrorists could cause thousands, even millions, of deaths by sabotaging one of the 15,000 industrial chemical plants across the United States. The administration knows the dangers. Soon after the 9/11 attacks, Senator Jon Corzine, Democrat of New Jersey, highlighted the issue with legislation requiring chemical plants to enhance security and use safer chemicals and technologies when feasible... Industry groups have lobbied intensely against the Corzine legislation. While reluctant to invest in plant safety, some of these companies and their executives have found the resources to help pay for the Republican campaign. For the Bush administration, it seems, homeland security is critical except when it conflicts with the wishes of supporters who own chemical plants."

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...

---> Bush Sacrifices Homeland Security for the Sake of His Chem Industry Supporters

09.22.04 (5:45 am) [edit]

---> Bush Sacrifices Homeland Security for the Sake of His Chem Industry Supporters

09.22.04 (5:43 am) [edit]

---> Health Care, Jobs, Debts & Children ...

09.21.04 (12:09 pm) [edit]

[b]Our country is a wreck thanks to Bush/Cheney's ruthless corruption and reckless incompetence. Some informative articles worth reading include: [/b]

1. Health Care: "Time For A Checkup", http://www.tblog.com/template...

2. Jobs: "JobWatch: US States Still in Job Hole", http://www.tblog.com/template...

3. Debts: "Bush's Cut-and-Spend Plan Is Math-Challenged", http://www.tblog.com/template...

4. Children: "Poor Children Left Behind", http://www.tblog.com/template...

---> BUSH/CHENEY WAR CRIMES: MORE PRISONER ABUSE – COVER-UP IN AFGHANISTAN!!!

09.21.04 (10:26 am) [edit]

Investigators have launched a probe into allegations that Afghan detainees were abused while in U.S. custody http://www.latimes.com/news/n...,1,5680056.story?coll=la-home-headli nes . The investigation will focus on "murder and torture involving an 18-year-old Afghan army recruit who died while in U.S. custody last year" and "the alleged torture of seven other Afghan soldiers." The reported abuse was as brutal as the more publicized atrocities at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Detainees were subject to "repeated beatings, immersion in cold water, electric shocks, being hung upside down and toenails being torn off." Disturbingly, "Pentagon officials said they could find no reports passed up the chain of command as required when a death occurs in U.S. custody, raising questions about possible efforts by American troops in Afghanistan to cover up the incident." The absence of documentation relating to the abuse in Afghanistan appears to undermine early findings by the Army inspector general that all abuse incidents were properly reported through the chain of command. Read the full report http://www.latimes.com/news/n...,1,5680056.story?coll=la-home-headli nes in the Los Angeles Times.

---> True conservatives would back Kerry!!!

09.21.04 (5:36 am) [edit]

If they were true to their principles, moderate Republicans and consistent conservatives would be supporting John Kerry. Instead, their acquiescence to the reckless whims of George W. Bush marks a descent into that political abyss of opportunism where partisanship is everything and principle nothing.

How else to explain their cynical support for this shallow adventurer, a phony lightweight who has bled the Treasury dry while incompetently squandering the lives of young Americans in a needless imperial campaign? If Al Gore had been knighted president by the Supreme Court and overseen this mess instead of Dubya, the rational remnant of the Republican Party would be rightly calling for his head.

Instead, a century's worth of conservative ideals are tossed out the window for political expediency. Soaring budget deficits suddenly don't matter, and not a tear is shed for the wasted surplus accumulated during Bill Clinton's tenure. Despite two huge tax cuts for the super-rich, Bush turns out to be a big believer in that old GOP boogeyman, Big Government. An equal-opportunity spendthrift, he throws billions into the sinkhole of Iraq as easily as he doles out corporate handouts.

[b]More [/b]... http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...

---> True conservatives would back Kerry!!!

09.21.04 (5:36 am) [edit]

---> True conservatives would back Kerry!!!

09.21.04 (5:33 am) [edit]

---> Volunteer for America: Get the truth out about George Bush

09.21.04 (5:30 am) [edit]

[i][b]...and what "four more years" will really mean[/b][/i]

Lies, fear-mongering, appeals to selfishness and jingoism, and limitless money for attack ads have given George Bush enough of a lead in certain presidential preference polls that many feel he can't be beaten.

Even if John Kerry finally gets his bumbling act together and begins to campaign effectively.

In fact, some say American elections are now so completely manipulated and bought by reactionary interests that popular democracy has been essentially obviated.

They point to those ordinary voters whose jobs have been shipped abroad by Bush-promoted economic "values" and whose kids are being sacrificed on the killing sands of Iraq, but who are nevertheless quite enthusiastic about the Republican ticket.

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...

---> Volunteer for America: Get the truth out about George Bush

09.21.04 (5:28 am) [edit]

---> Volunteer for America: Get the truth out about George Bush

09.21.04 (5:27 am) [edit]

---> Rumsfeld Misleads on Iraqi Security Forces ...

09.21.04 (5:24 am) [edit]

The ability of U.S. forces to exit Iraq is contingent on the training of Iraqi forces that can provide for their own security. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has seriously misled the American people about the number of Iraqis that have been trained.

In February, Rumsfeld touted the large number of Iraqis serving in security forces that had completed training. Rumsfeld said, "there are over 210,000 Iraqis serving in the security forces. That is an amazing accomplishment. There are a number of thousands more that are currently in training."1 Rumsfeld's statement was grossly inaccurate. On Tuesday, Rumsfeld admitted, "we're training up their security forces now…about 105,000 are now properly trained and equipped."2

But never fear. Rumsfeld now promises that "between now and the end of the year into mid-'05…that number then will go up -- back up over 200,000."3

[b]Sources:[/b]

1. "More Cooperation Needed to Secure Iraq Borders, Rumsfeld Says," The Coalition Provisional Authority, 2/23/04.
2. "Secretary Rumsfeld Media Availability at Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo.," U.S. Department of Defense, 9/14/04.
3. "Defense Department Briefing with Secretary Rumsfeld," U.S. Department of Defense, 9/07/04.

---> Rumsfeld Misleads on Iraqi Security Forces ...

09.21.04 (5:22 am) [edit]

---> John Kerry Speaks Out on The Tragedy of Iraq and the Lies that Hide the Ugly Truth

09.20.04 (6:55 pm) [edit]

"In March, insurgents attacked our forces 700 times. In August, they attacked 2,700 times - a 400 percent increase. Falluja...Ramadi... Samarra ... even parts of Baghdad - are now "no go zones"... breeding grounds for terrorists who are free to plot and launch attacks against our soldiers. Basic living conditions are also deteriorating.Residents of Baghdad are suffering electricity blackouts lasting up to 14 hours a day. Raw sewage fills the streets, rising above the hubcaps of our Humvees. Children wade through garbage on their way to school. Unemployment is over 50 percent. Insurgents are able to find plenty of people willing to take $150 for tossing grenades at passing U.S. convoys. This is the truth. The truth that the Commander in Chief owes to our troops and the American people."

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.democrats.com/view...

---> Whistleblowers Call For Disclosure Of Govt's Iraq Deceit

09.20.04 (2:15 pm) [edit]

[b]Daniel Ellsberg, Former CIA, FBI Officials Say Americans Need Full Disclosure of Lies, Cover-ups, and War's Projected Costs in Lives & Dollars

For Immediate Release

Contact: Kawana Lloyd, Jessica Smith or Steve Smith
Fenton Communications (202) 822-5200
9-20-4[/b]

Washington, DC - Daniel Ellsberg, joined today by ten former employees of the FBI, CIA, State and Defense Departments, issued a call to current government officials to disclose classified information that is being wrongly withheld, about plans for and estimated costs of the war in Iraq, and other documents that contradict government lies.

The "call," in the form of an open memo to current government employees, says "It is time for unauthorized truth-telling." Drawing the clear parallel to Vietnam, the group urges that ongoing silence about government deceptions and cover-ups and reluctance to publicize information about the war's costs and projected casualties carries with it a significant price in human life and national security.

The group released a list of existing documents wrongly withheld within the government as examples of the kind that the public has a right to see (see below). These include background on Army Staff estimates before the war that the Iraq effort would require several hundred thousand troops. Similarly, current estimates of potential casualty rates as the insurgency in Iraq continues to grow as well as the likely cost of waging war over the next few years almost surely exist, and should be disclosed now.

To current government officials, Ellsberg says: "If you have documentary evidence that our country has been lied into an unnecessary, wrongful, endless war -- as I had during Vietnam -- I urge you to consider doing right now what I wish I had done years earlier than I did: give the truth to Congress and the press, with copies of those documents. The personal costs you risk are great, but you may save many Americans from being lied to death."

Ray McGovern adds: "Truth. Never in the past 50 years has it been in such short supply in the U.S. defense/intelligence community. Yet it is the truth- -- once known -- that will keep us free. Truth-tellers, arise!"

Ellsberg, best known for releasing the Pentagon Papers to Congress and the press in 1971, was joined at a Washington press conference by Ray McGovern, formerly an analyst for 27 years at the CIA, who provided several presidential staffs with their daily morning security briefings; Sibel Edmonds, former FBI translator who was fired for revealing security lapses at the FBI; and Coleen Rowley, one of Time magazine's Persons of the Year as a Whistleblower, currently a Special Agent in the FBI's Minneapolis field office.

The Call and press conference are part of Ellsberg's ongoing work with the Truth Telling Project:

http://www.truthtellingproject.org/" title="http://www.truthtellingproject.org/" target="_blank"http://www.truthtellingprojec...

The conference is also sponsored by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, which has given its annual Award to Colleen Rowley and Katharine Gun (who will also be present at the conference) and, last night at American University, to Sibel Edmonds.

Gun, a former translator with the British equivalent of the NSA, was fired after leaking sensitive information to the British press about efforts to "surge" intercept capability against members of the UN Security Council. Gun was acquitted of charges of violating England's Official Secrets Act. Another participant is Major Frank Grevil, of the Danish Intelligence Service, who faces trial for releasing his estimates that revealed lack of evidence of WMDs in Iraq, contradicting his country's involvement in efforts to distort intelligence in order to support the war.

Other signers of the Call-including Mary Ann Wright, who resigned as Deputy Chief of Mission in Mongolia over the war-- will also be present, along with Ann Beeson of the ACLU and Beth Daly of the Project on Government Oversight (POGO).

For more information contact: Kawana Lloyd, Jessica Smith, or Steve Smith Fenton Communications (202) 822-5200

http://www.fenton.com/" title="http://www.fenton.com/" target="_blank"http://www.fenton.com/

[b]Call To Patriotic Whistleblowing Of Bush
Administration's Widespread Corruption

The Truth-Telling Project
Washington, DC
9-20-4[/b]

It is time for unauthorized truth-telling. Citizens cannot make informed choices if they do not have the facts -- for example, the facts that have been wrongly concealed about the ongoing war in Iraq: the real reasons behind it, the prospective costs in blood and treasure, and the setback it has dealt to efforts to stem terrorism.

Administration deception and cover-up on these vital matters has so far been all too successful in misleading the public. Many Americans are too young to remember Vietnam. Then, as now, senior government officials did not tell the American people the truth. Now, as then, insiders who know better have kept their silence, as the country was misled into the most serious foreign policy disaster since Vietnam.

Some of you have documentation of wrongly concealed facts and analyses that -- if brought to light -- would impact heavily on public debate regarding crucial matters of national security, both foreign and domestic. We urge you to provide that information now, both to Congress and, through the media, to the public.

Thanks to our First Amendment, there is in America no broad Officials Secrets Act, nor even a statutory basis for the classification system. Only very rarely would it be appropriate to reveal information of the three types whose disclosure has been expressly criminalized by Congress:

communications intelligence, nuclear data, and the identity of U.S. intelligence operatives. However, this administration has stretched existing criminal laws to cover other disclosures in ways never contemplated by Congress.

There is a growing network of support for whistleblowers. In particular, for anyone who wishes to know the legal implications of disclosures they may be contemplating, the ACLU stands ready to provide pro bono legal counsel, with lawyer-client privilege. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) will offer advice on whistleblowing, dissemination and relations with the media.

Needless to say, any unauthorized disclosure that exposes your superiors to embarrassment entails personal risk. Should you be identified as the source, the price could be considerable, including loss of career and possibly even prosecution. Some of us know from experience how difficult it is to countenance such costs. But continued silence brings an even more terrible cost, as our leaders persist in a disastrous course and young Americans come home in coffins or with missing limbs.

This is precisely what happened at this comparable stage in the Vietnam War. Some of us live with profound regret that we did not at that point expose the administration's dishonesty and perhaps prevent the needless slaughter of 50,000 more American troops and some 2 to 3 million Vietnamese over the next ten years. We know how misplaced loyalty to bosses, agencies, and careers can obscure the higher allegiance all government officials owe the Constitution, the sovereign public, and the young men and women put in harm's way. We urge you to act on those higher loyalties.

A hundred forty thousand young Americans are risking their lives every day in Iraq for dubious purpose. Our country has urgent need of comparable moral courage from its public officials. Truth-telling is a patriotic and effective way to serve the nation. The time for speaking out is now.

[u]SIGNATORIES[/u]:

° Edward Costello, Former Special Agent (Counterintelligence), Federal Bureau of Investigation

° Sibel Edmonds, Former Language Specialist, Federal Bureau of Investigation ° Daniel Ellsberg, Former official, U.S. Departments of Defense and State

° John D. Heinberg, Former Economist, Employment and Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor

° Larry C. Johnson, Former Deputy Director for Anti-Terrorism Assistance, Transportation Security, and Special Operations, Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counter Terrorism

° John Brady Kiesling, Former Political Counselor, U.S. Embassy, Athens, Department of State

° David MacMichael, Former Senior Estimates Officer, National Intelligence Council, Central Intelligence Agency

° Ray McGovern, Former Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency

° Philip G. Vargas, Ph.D., J.D., Dir. Privacy & Confidentiality Study, Commission on Federal Paperwork (Author/Director: "The Vargas Report on Government Secrecy"-CENSORED)

° Ann Wright, Retired U.S. Army Reserve Colonel and U.S. Foreign Service Officer

° Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatowski, recently retired from service in the Pentagon's Office of Near East planning

[u]SELECTED SIGNATORY BIOS[/u]:

* Daniel Ellsberg is a lecturer, writer and activist on the dangers of the nuclear era and unlawful interventions. He is best known for releasing publicly the Pentagon Papers, the 7,000-page Top Secret McNamara study of U.S. Decision-making in Vietnam, to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1969 and to the New York Times, Washington Post and 17 other newspapers in 1971.

His trial, on twelve felony counts posing a possible sentence of 115 years, was dismissed in 1973 on grounds of governmental misconduct against him, which led to the convictions of several White House aides and figured in the impeachment proceedings against President Nixon.

Ellsberg joined the Defense Department in 1964 as Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Affairs) John McNaughton, working on Vietnam. He transferred to the State Department in 1965 to serve two years at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. He started his career as a strategic analyst at the RAND Corporation, and consultant to the Department of Defense and the White House, specializing in problems of the command and control of nuclear weapons, nuclear war plans, and crisis decision-making and returned there in 1967.

* Ray McGovern worked for 27years as a career analyst in the CIA spanning administrations from John F. Kennedy to George H. W. Bush. Ray is now co-director of the Servant Leadership School, which provides training and other support for those seeking ways to be in relationship with the marginalized poor.

In January 2003, Ray, along with other intelligence community alumni/ae, created Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. Through VIPS, Ray has written and spoken extensively about intelligence-related issues and appeared in several documentaries-notably, "Uncovered: the Whole Truth About the Iraq War" (Robert Greenwald) and "Break the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror" (John Pilger).

Ray's duties at CIA included chairing National Intelligence Estimates and preparing the President' Daily Brief (PDB). These, the most authoritative genres of intelligence reporting, have been the focus of press reporting on "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq and on what the president was told before 9/11. During the mid-eighties, Ray was one of the senior analysts conducting early morning briefings of the PDB one-on-one with the Vice President, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

* Sibel Edmonds worked as a language specialist for the FBI's Washington Field Office. During her work with the bureau, she discovered and reported serious acts of security breaches, cover-ups, and intentional blocking of intelligence that had national security implications. After she reported these acts to FBI management, she was fired in March 2002.

Since then, court proceedings on her issues have been blocked by the assertion of "State Secret Privilege" by Attorney General Ashcroft; the Congress of the United States has been gagged and prevented from any discussion of her case through retroactive re-classification by the Department of Justice; and the report on her case issued by the Department of Justice Inspector General has been entirely classified.

[b]TWELVE EXAMPLES OF EXISTING DOCUMENTS THAT DESERVE UNAUTHORIZED DISCLOSURE [/b]

Each of these -- wrongly withheld up till now -- could and should be released almost in their entirety, perhaps with minor deletions for genuine security reasons. (In many cases, official promises to release declassified versions have not been honored.)

1. Reports by International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Guantanamo, Abu Ghrab and other prisons (ships, prisons in other countries) that hold prisoners from the "war on terrorism." (These reports have been provided to the US government but have not been made public.)

2. 28 pages redacted from the report of the Joint House-Senate Inquiry on Intelligence Activities before and after 9/11, concerning the ties between the 9/11 terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia.

3. 800 pages of the United Nations Report on Weapons of Mass Destruction that were taken by the United States during unauthorized Xeroxing and never given to the Security Council members. (The original report was 1200 pages in length but has never been published in its entirety)

4. Membership, advisors, consultants to Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force, and any minutes from meetings (January - December, 2001).

5. Documents and photographs concerning/produced by military doctors or medical personnel that document abuses toward prisoners condoned by medical personnel.

6. Documents produced by military lawyers and legal staff that challenge the political policy makers decision to undercut the Geneva Conventions and any other extra-legal procedures.

7. The missing sections of the U.S. Army General Taguba report on prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.

8. Department of Justice-Inspector General (DOJ-IG) Report: RE: Sibel Edmonds vs. FBI, completed, classified

9. DOJ-IG Report: RE: FBI Translation Department (security breaches, intentional mistranslations, espionage charges), completed, classified

10. DOJ-IG Report: RE:FBI & Foreknowledge of 9/11, completed, classified

11. Full staff backup to General Shinseki's 2002 estimate that "several hundred thousand troops" would be required for effective occupation of Iraq.

12. The full 2002 State Department studies on requirements for the postwar occupation and restoration of civil government in Iraq. - http://rense.com/general57/co...

[b]RELATED LINKS [/b]

Project on Government Oversight http://www.pogo.org

Government Accountability Project http://www.whistleblower.org/...

National Whistleblower Center http://www.whistleblowers.org...

OpenTheGovernment.org http://www.openthegovernment....

National Security Archive http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/index.html

Daniel Ellsberg's Website http://www.ellsberg.net

Project on Government Secrecy http://www.fas.org/sgp/index....

---> Karl Rove Ain't So Tough!

09.20.04 (11:21 am) [edit]

[b]Youth Vote Will Sweep Kerry into Office![/b]

The media's latest assaults on Kerry have backfired: it has only pissed America's young people off and driven them to action. Officials at Rock the Vote say that in the past week, an astounding 20,000 young people a day have downloaded voter registration forms. Across the nation, state by state "new voter" programs are reporting the same phenomenon. Kerry is overwhelmingly favored by voters under 30 - although the media is now blacking out this info.or running polls suggesting "vanishing support" - while campus surveys and non-media polls show the opposite - Kerry is favored by under-30s by 2-1. (http://www.democrats.org/news...) In France, when the young people realized that a rightwing candidate had a ghost of a chance, they turned out in such numbers that le Pen was given a humiliating defeat - 18-82%, against all bogus poll predictions!! Let's do it here: Let's hand Bush not just a defeat - but a HUMILIATING pounding!!

[b]More[/b] ... http://news.yahoo.com/news?tm...

---> Break the REAL STORY Here, CBS: Expose the Person who Fed you the Documents!!!

09.20.04 (8:52 am) [edit]

[b]CBS Was Duped on Documents: Break the REAL STORY Here, Dan: Expose the Person who Fed you the Documents!!![/b]

The biggest story here may be the identify of who was behind feeding CBS and Dan Rather dubious documents. What was obviously intended as a diversion from the CONTENT of the Bush AWOL story - which has been confirmed by many different unimpeachable sources, including the lady who typed the original (untampered with) documents - may become much bigger: the forgery of federal documents by persons unknown to aid the Bush campaign. We say INVESTIGATE! And Dan, don't be a chump - EXPOSE YOUR SOURCE. You aren't protecting a real whistleblower - you are protecting a Bush operative and treasonous fraud. During the debates, Kerry should ask Bush point blank for the truth - get the creep on RECORD with a lie!

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.cbsnews.com/storie...

---> Bush & Co.: War crimes and Cover-up ...

09.20.04 (7:04 am) [edit]

As the election approaches, we are bombarded with stories about swift boats, dereliction of duty, and who's the most macho leader. Missing from the discourse is a critical examination of why George W. Bush failed to heed warnings before September 11, why he sat paralyzed for 7 minutes after being informed of the attacks, how he subsequently turned Iraq into a deadly cauldron, and committed - then covered up - war crimes in Afghanistan, Guantánamo and Iraq.

The central theme of the Republican Convention was Bush's bona fides as a tough president who will save us from another terrorist attack. Instead of examining why we went to war with a country that posed no threat to us, the agenda was replete with rhetoric about fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we wouldn't have to fight them here.

Significantly absent from the patriotic speeches was the "t" word. Not even a brief acknowledgement that prisoners in American custody were mistreated. Torture is on the back burner. Every so often, another official report comes out, with more disturbing revelations, but never directly implicates Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld.

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...

---> Bush & Co.: War crimes and Cover-up ...

09.20.04 (7:02 am) [edit]

---> Bush & Co.: War crimes and Cover-up ...

09.20.04 (7:01 am) [edit]

---> Bush & Co.: War crimes and Cover-up ...

09.20.04 (7:00 am) [edit]

---> Inside the Bushies' torture chambers: One woman's story

09.20.04 (6:57 am) [edit]

[b]Huda Alazawi was one of the few women held in solitary in the notorious Iraqi prison. Following her release, she talks for the first time to Luke Harding about her ordeal [/b]

It began with a phone call. In November last year 39-year-old Huda Alazawi, a wealthy Baghdad businesswoman, received a demand from an Iraqi informant. He was working for the Americans in Adhamiya, a Sunni district of Baghdad well known for its hostility towards the US occupation. His demand was simple: Madame Huda, as her friends and family know her, had to give him $10,000. If she failed to pay up, he would write a report claiming that she and her family were working for the Iraqi resistance. He would pass it to the US military and they would arrest her.

"It was clearly blackmail," Alazawi says, speaking in the Baghdad office of her trading company. "We knew that if we gave in, there would be other demands." The informant was as good as his word. In November 2003, he wrote a report that prompted US soldiers to interrogate Alazawi's brother, Ali, and her older sister, Nahla, now 45. Wearing a balaclava, he also led several raids with US soldiers on the families' antique-filled Baghdad properties.

[b]More [/b]... http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...

---> Inside the Bushies' torture chambers: One woman's story

09.20.04 (6:55 am) [edit]

---> Inside the Bushies' torture chambers: One woman's story

09.20.04 (6:55 am) [edit]

---> Inside the Bushies' torture chambers: One woman's story

09.20.04 (6:53 am) [edit]

---> Government Insider: "Bush is guilty of treason and mass murder."

09.20.04 (6:49 am) [edit]

[b]I normally shy away from conspiracies but this guy is credible. Take it for what you will. Stanley Hilton was a senior advisor to Sen Bob Dole (R) and has personally known Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz for decades[/b].

"This (9/11) was all planned. This was a government-ordered operation. Bush personally signed the order. He personally authorized the attacks. He is guilty of treason and mass murder." --Stanley Hilton 9-18

[u][b]Government Insider Says Bush Authorized 911 Attacks[/b][/u]

Keep in mind when reading this, that the man being interviewed is no two-bit internet conspiracy buff.

Stanley Hilton was a senior advisor to Sen Bob Dole (R) and has personally known Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz for decades. This courageous man has risked his professional reputation, and possibly his life, to get this information out to people.

The following is from his latest visit to Alex Jones' radio show.

Forwarded with Compliments of Free Voice of America (FVOA): Accurate News and Interesting Commentary for Amerika's Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free.

Note: All honor to Stanley Hilton for risking his life so that we may know the truth of 9/11.

The Bush Junta Unmasked

"This (9/11) was all planned. This was a government-ordered operation. Bush personally signed the order. He personally authorized the attacks. He is guilty of treason and mass murder." --Stanley Hilton

Alex Jones interview of Stanley Hilton, attorney for 911 taxpayers' lawsuit

Alex Jones Radio Show September 10, 2004 Transcription by 'RatCat'

AJ: He is back with us. He is former Bob Dole's chief of staff, very successful counselor, lawyer. He represents hundreds of the victims families of 9/11. He is suing Bush for involvement in 9/11. Now a major Zogby poll out - half of New Yorkers think the government was involved in 9/11. And joining us for the next 35 minutes, into the next hour, is Stanley Hilton. Stanley, it's great to have you on with us.

SH: Glad to be on.

AJ: We'll have to recap this when we start the next hour, but just in a nutshell, you have a lawsuit going, you've deposed a lot of military officers. You know the truth of 9/11. Just in a nutshell, what is your case alleging?

SH: Our case is alleging that Bush and his puppets Rice and Cheney and Mueller and Rumsfeld and so forth, Tenet, were all involved not only in aiding and abetting and allowing 9/11 to happen but in actually ordering it to happen. Bush personally ordered it to happen. We have some very incriminating documents as well as eye-witnesses, that Bush personally ordered this event to happen in order to gain political advantage, to pursue a bogus political agenda on behalf of the neocons and their deluded thinking in the Middle East. I also wanted to point out that, just quickly, I went to school with some of these neocons. At the University of Chicago, in the late 60s with Wolfowitz and Feith and several of the others and so I know these people personally. And we used to talk about this stuff all of the time. And I did my senior thesis on this very subject - how to turn the U.S. into a presidential dictatorship by manufacturing a bogus Pearl Harbor event. So, technically this has been in the planning at least 35 years.

AJ: That's right. They were all Straussian followers of a Nazi-like professor. And now they are setting it up here in America. Stanley, I know you deposed a lot of people and you've got your $7 million dollar lawsuit with hundreds of the victim's families involved.

SH: 7 billion, 7 billion

AJ: Yeah, 7 billion. Can you go over some of the new and incriminating evidence you've got of them ordering the attack?

SH: Yes, let me just say that this is a taxpayers' class action lawsuit as well as a suit on behalf of the families and the basic three arguments are they violated the Constitution by ordering this event. And secondly that they [garbled] fraudulent Federal Claims Act, Title 31 of the U.S. Code in which Bush presented false and fraudulent evidence to Congress to get the Iraq war authorization. And, of course, he related it to 9/11 and claimed that Saddam was involved with that, and all these lies.

AJ: Tell you what, stay there. Stanley, we've got to break. Let's come back and get into the evidence. BREAK

AJ: All right my friends, second hour, September 10th, 2004, the anniversary of the globalist attack coming up tomorrow. It's an amazing individual we have on the line. Bob Dole's former chief of staff, political scientist, a lawyer, he went to school with Rumsfeld and others, he wrote his thesis about how to turn America into a dictatorship using a fake Pearl Harbor attack. He's suing the U.S. government for carrying out 9/11. He has hundreds of the victims' families signing onto it - it's a $7 billion lawsuit. And he is Stanley Hilton. I know that a lot of stations just joined us in Los Angeles and Rhode Island and Missouri and Florida and all over. Please sir, recap what you were just stating and then let's get into the new evidence. And then we'll get into why you are being harassed by the FBI, as other FBI people are being harassed who have been blowing the whistle on this. So, this is really getting serious. Stanley, tell us all about it.

SH: Yeah, we are suing Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Mueller, etc. for complicity in personally not only allowing 9/11 to happen but in ordering it. The hijackers we retained and we had a witness who is married to one of them. The hijackers were U.S. undercover agents. They were double agents, paid by the FBI and the CIA to spy on Arab groups in this country. They were controlled. Their landlord was an FBI informant in San Diego and other places. And this was a direct, covert operation ordered, personally ordered by George W. Bush. Personally ordered. We have incriminating evidence, documents as well as witnesses, to this effect. It's not just incompetence - in spite of the fact that he is incompetent. The fact is he personally ordered this, knew about it. He, at one point, there were rehearsals of this. The reason why he appeared to be uninterested and nonchalant on September 11th - when those videos showed that Andrew Card whispered in his ear the [garbled] words about this he listened to kids reading the pet goat story, is that he thought this was another rehearsal. These people had dress-rehearsed this many times. He had seen simulated videos of this. In fact, he even made a Freudian slip a few months later at a California press conference when he said he had, quote, "seen on television the first plane attack the first tower." And that could not be possible because there was no video. What it was was the simulated video that he had gone over. So this was a personally government-ordered thing. We are suing them under the Constitution for violating Americans' rights, as well as under the federal Fraudulent Claims Act, for presenting a fraudulent claim to Congress to justify the bogus Iraq boondoggle war, for political gains. And also, under the RICO statute, under the Racketeering Corrupt Organization Act, for being a corrupt entity. And I've been harassed personally by the chief judge of the federal court who is instructing me personally to drop this suit, threatened to kick me off the court, after 30 years on the court. I've been harassed by the FBI. My staff has been harassed and threatened. My office has been broken into and this is the kind of government we are dealing with.

AJ: Absolutely and now it has come out - five separate drills of flying hijacked jets into buildings that morning - which you told us about before it even broke in the Associated Press. They were trying to get out ahead of you. You talked about how you interviewed military people who were told it was a drill that morning. Then to get out ahead of that, the news finally reported on it. Now, we've learned that all these operations - I want to get into that, I want to talk about the new incriminating evidence of ordering it and how they had drilled on this, how Cheney was in the bunker controlling this. That has even come out in the mainstream news but they won't release the details of that, Stanley. But what type of FBI harassment are you going through? SH: First of all, my office was burglarized in San Francisco several months ago. Files were gone through and some files were seized - particularly the ones dealing with the lady that was married to one of the hijackers. Fortunately, I had spare copies in a hidden place so nothing disappeared permanently. But more significantly, FBI agents have been harassing one of my staff members and threatening them with vague but frightening threats of indicting them. And it's just total harassment. They have planted a spy, an undercover agent, in my organization, as we just recently discovered. In other words, these are Nazi Germany tactics. This is the kind of government you have in this country. This is what Bush is all about.

AJ: Stay there, Stanley, Bob Dole's former chief of staff. We'll come back after this quick break. Please stay with us. BREAK

AJ: All right, eight minutes, 25 seconds into the second hour. Stanley Hilton, political scientist, lawyer, Bob Dole's former chief of staff, is suing the government for 7 billion dollars for carrying out 9/11 and for racketeering. And he joins us now. During the break, I first really did the big interview with Stanley Hilton after I saw him attacked on Fox News. And that interview got massive attention. And then he kind of went underground for a while because a judge, we're going to talk about that, ordered him to not do any more interviews. And now he's back doing interviews. He's had his office broken into, FBI threats and harassment. Bottom line, he has deposed military individuals, wives of hijackers, you name it, it was a government operation. It has even come out in mainstream news, a piece here, a piece there. They had drills on 9/11, that's why NORAD stood down. Cheney was in control of the whole thing. Stanley Hilton has now gotten documents about how Bush ordered the whole operation. And I'll tell you right now, his life is in danger, folks. And he's got so much courage. He went to school with these neocons at the University of Chicago. He wrote his thesis on how the government could use terrorist attacks to set up martial law. He is the man for the time and folks wondered why he disappeared for a while and just did his lawsuit and wasn't doing interviews, it was because he was ordered to. Stanley, can you get into that for us?

SH: I did an interview with you, Alex, back in March of 2003, about a year and a half ago, and literally two weeks after that, I was contacted by the emissary of the chief judge of the federal court where I have the lawsuit. And I was warned not to publicize it but to keep it quiet and threatened with discipline. And it remained quiet until a couple of months ago and then I got on the air on some programs and some publicity and July 1st, I was threatened directly by the chief judge here, threatened with court discipline. This particular judge has been circulating communiqués to the other federal judges seeking anything negative she can get against me to try and discipline me after I've been on the court here for 30 years with no disciplinary problems at all. This is suddenly happening. And her assistants who are on the committee of the court met with me on July 1st in Palo Alto, California, and threatened me directly. They handed me a copy of the lawsuit and said that the judge wants me to dismiss this. What's this? She doesn't like the content of it. This is politically incorrect. This is outside the norm. I said I represented more than 400 plaintiffs, how am I going to dismiss this case? And they threatened me directly and they said, "the next time you'll be disciplined." And also they've threatened me not to go public, etc. And this is just outrageous.

AJ: It's all color of law. No direct orders, just all in your face.

SH: They sent a letter out, and of course they deny it's because of the political content of the suit but they told me directly on the phone that it is because of this suit and this judge is very, very angry, apparently has been in contact with Ashcroft's Justice Department. I got a call from Ashcroft's Justice Department a few months ago about this, demanding that I drop the suit, threatening sanctions and all kinds of things. I refused to drop it. AJ: Now let's go back over, you had them break into your office, harassment. Let's go over that in detail.

SH: My office was broken into about 6 months ago. The file cabinets - it was obvious they had been rifled through. Files were stolen. Files dealing with this particular case and particularly with the documents I had regarding the fact that the - some of these hijackers, at least some of them were on the payroll of the U.S. government as undercover FBI, CIA, double agents. They are spying on Arab groups in the U.S. And, in effect, all this led up to the effect that al Qaeda is a creation of the George Bush administration, basically. That the entity that he called al Qaeda is directly linked to George Bush. And all this stuff was stolen. Fortunately, I had copies. But this was just part of the harassment. The FBI has also been harassing some of my assistants and has planted a spy in our midst. And it is just outrageous that these Nazi tactics are being used - and the obstruction of justice, these people are criminals. And that's what's happening under the tremendous pressure here to just drop it. Or to shut up now and just go away.

AJ: Now, let's talk about what they want you to drop. Let's talk about, without giving names, the people you deposed, what really happened, the picture you've got. You said earlier that Bush ordered this, they were simulating this which they now admit there were simulations on that morning. Let's go over what they don't want you to talk about, Stanley.

SH: We have evidence both documentary as well as witness sworn statements from undercover former FBI agents, FBI informants, etc., that other officials in the Pentagon and the military and the Air Force that deal with the fact that there were many drills, many rehearsals for 9/11 before it happened. Bush had seen this simulated on TV many times. He blurted this out at a press conference in California a few months after 9/11 where he said he had, quote, seen the first plane hit the first building on the video. And that's not possible because there was no official video of that. There was one of the second plane not the first one. He had seen the first one. We do have some incriminating documents that Bush personally ordered 9/11 events. It was well planned. A FEMA official has admitted on tape that he was there the night before - September 10th, that is

AJ: And now Mayor Giuliani, a few months ago in the 911 Commission, admitted that - Tripod II. They had their whole command post already moved out of Building 7. Now, this is very, very important. This is a key area of this whole event. You said months before it came out on the CIA's own website and the Associated Press, you said I deposed people. They said there were drills that morning and exactly what happened, happening - that was the smoke-screen for the stand-down. And then to get out ahead of it, the CIA comes out and said yeah we were running a drill that morning. Now, we've learned that five, possibly six, were confirmed. Five of these - one drill with the exact same thing happening that actually happened, at the exact same time in the morning. That's why NORAD stood down with 24 different blips on the screen. You've said this. You brought this up first. Now, I know you can't get too much into detail but can you tell us how you learned of this?

SH: I have interviewed individuals in NORAD and the Air Force. I personally toured NORAD many years ago around the time that I worked for Dole. I'm very familiar with the operations at Cheyenne Mountain at Colorado Springs, where NORAD is. Individuals that work in NORAD as well as the Air Force have stated this, off the record, but the point is, yes, this was not just five drills but at least 35 drills over at least two months before September 11th. Everything was planned, the exact location

AJ: But five drills that day.

SH: That day, that day, and Bush thought it was a drill. That's the only explanation for why he appeared nonchalant

AJ: We also had NORAD officers and civilian air traffic controllers going, "Is this part of the exercise? Is this a drill?"

SH: Yes.

AJ: On the tapes and in TV interviews, they thought it was, quote, a drill.

SH: That's right. That's exactly what I said long before it became public. I've known about this since earlier in March of '03, as I stated before. This was all planned. This was a government-ordered operation. Bush personally signed the order. He personally authorized the attacks. He is guilty of treason and mass murder. And now, obstruction of justice by attempting to use a federal judge and FBI agents to inhibit a legitimate civil lawsuit in this country, in federal court. Even a chief judge in this court tried to harass and threaten me personally for representing legitimate plaintiffs. And they got Clinton for allegedly lying under oath about Paula Jones and now - look what's happening now. And Ken Starr used to be across from me in Duke Law School in the early `70s and it´s interesting that he got away with trying to get Clinton impeached, so we have a far worse criminal sitting in the oval office today - somebody guilty of mass murder as well as obstruction of justice.

AJ: Well, I mean look, they say they never heard of a plan to fly planes into buildings - said it all over television - Rice, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft. And then we find out they were running all these drills that morning. Even if they weren't involved, that proves they were liars about ever hearing of such a plan.

SH: Well, I'm trying to take their depositions - I've been trying to take their depositions for months. They've been trying to object to it. They will have to admit they were either lying then or now. It's clearly perjury either way. They are liars and perjurers; that's what they are. These are the people that we have running this government and, of course, they knew about it. How are they going to claim now that they didn't know about these drills? Their idea is that nobody knew anything. It's the old know-nothing mentality. And how anybody considers this believable is beyond me.

AJ: All right, now people ask how could a huge organization, how could the AWACs, how could the military let this happen; whereas before, if your Cessna got off course for five minutes, they would launch F-16s on you. It's real simple. It's what Stanley Hilton said here a year and a half ago. It's what came out in the news after that. The military, good people, were told this was all a drill. And it was not a drill. And ABC News admits that Cheney was in control of [?] out of the White House [?] and that he ordered the military to quote "do something." Our inside sources from Hilton and others say it was a stand down and they admit they will not release that under national security. Stanley?

SH: Well they are going to admit it, they're going to release it in the court case because if you demand it under subpoena powers and they must release it. And part of our lawsuit is brought in the name of the U.S. because under the federal fraudulent [Claims Act], we accuse the Bush Administration of presenting a fraudulent claim to Congress. And under the statutes of Title 31 of the U.S. code, they must release this information. That's why they are trying to threaten me, harass me, invade my office, steal my files, commit blatant obstruction of justice and other crimes to try and prevent a legitimate civil suit from exposing these criminals and their acts of treason and mass murder.

AJ: I think you need to publicly tell folks that you are not planning suicide. Would you like to tell folks that?

SH: (laughs) I'm not planning suicide. I've got family and I'm not planning that but I don't like the threats I'm under - but I can tell you this, it's taking a toll emotionally on me and my staff. And particularly, when you get a threat from the chief judge of your own court.

AJ: Why have you decided to go public again after a year of being under the radar? SH: Because the more and more evidence that I've been adducing over a year and a half has made it so obvious to me that this was now without any doubt a government operation and that it amounts to the biggest act of treason and mass murder in American history. I mean George Bush makes Benedict Arnold look like a patriot. He makes Benedict Arnold look like George Washington. I mean that's what we have - a criminal and a traitor sitting in the White House pretending he's a patriot, wrapping himself in the flag. And it's pretty disgusting because the other side of the so-called opposition, the Kerry camp is just saying nothing because they're afraid to speak.

AJ: Stay right there. We'll be right back.

BREAK

AJ: Stanley Hilton will be with us for another 15 or 16 minutes. Then he's got to go into court. Bob Dole's former chief of staff, political scientist, lawyer, represents 400 plus plaintiffs - most of them victims of 9/11. When I was in New York last week, everybody I was talking to, I mean 90 plus percent of them at ground zero - "I had family, I worked in the buildings, my son's a Navy Seal - he called the night before and said don't go to work." You know, all of this, and then now they never had any idea - and it turns out they had all these drills - and one drill of hijacked jets flying into the World Trade Center and Pentagon at 8:30 in the morning. That morning - come on people! And Stanley Hilton brought all this out on this show before it was in the mainstream news. And I was talking to him during the break. I mean, the harassment, the moles, the threatening of his staff, the judge threatening him. Stanley, let's get specifically into the documents that you have now got that they have now been robbing you for, that you luckily, thank God had copies. Specifically, Bush ordering this. Can you get into that for us - ordering 9/11? SH: National Security Council classified documents which [garbled] and it's was part of a series of documents that were involved with the drill documents. This was all planned - they had it on videotape. These planes were controlled by remote control, as I stated previously a year and a half ago, there's a system called Cyclops. There is a computer chip in the nose of the plane and it enables the ground control, the military ground control, to disable the pilot's control of the plane and to control it and to fly it directly into those towers. That's what happened. It's also a technology used on what's called the Global Hawk, which is an aircraft drone - a remote- controlled aircraft. And they were doing it. We are talking about National Security Council classified documents that clearly indicated that [garbled] had a green light to order this to go and this is no drill. These drills that were running were clearly a dress rehearsal and this was a government operation. You wonder why these people are trying to threaten people and trying to intimidate people who have written this suit, I guess if you murdered 3000 of your own citizens, in conjunction with the corrupt Royal family of Saudi Arabia as Bush did. And if you then waste billions more on a worthless garbage war in Iraq, I guess you've got something to worry about and you want to threaten people to prevent it from coming out.

AJ: I mean let's look at this. Not only are there dress rehearsals, they are smoke screens so the good military stands down and doesn't know what's happening. But it's now coming out, even in mainstream news, that yes these drills were going on. Yes, and some of these drills, quote, passenger-type jets were under remote control - this is decades old technology. In 1958, NORAD was [ ] old jets and using them for target practice. Decades ago they flew jumbo jets from LA to Sidney Australia. So since that's going on, everybody knows that. And it's the same MO. Just like the first World Trade Center [bombing] where they get two retarded men who followed this blind sheik who had a tiny mosque above a pizza parlor. And they set them up as the patsies. Then the FBI cooks the bomb, trains the drivers. This informant goes, "You're not going to bomb the building? They go "Yeah, we're letting it go forward." He tapes them to protect themselves. The two retarded gentlemen, thank God, didn't park it up against the column, as the FBI instructed them to do, so it didn't bring down the tower - because you have to be right up against the column. That doesn't happen. Yet, it's the same thing with 9/11. You've got these CIA agents, these Arabs, who were trained at U.S. military bases, Pensacola Naval Air Station - mainstream media, out creating their legends for this background. They're on board the aircraft. My military sources say nerve gas kills everybody on board the plane - nerve gas packets. Then they fly the planes into buildings. From your inside sources, is that accurate?

SH: It's one of the things that we are looking into - that nerve gas or something else disabled people. It's possible. I can't say for sure to be honest with you

AJ: All you know is they were government agents and they were on board and the planes were remote controlled.

SH: Yeah, it was basically a smokescreen. I mean, the events of the hijackings, how someone snuck in those cutters, it was a plant. It was like a classic decoy. I've got some military background. And it's called decoy. It's a decoy operation. You make the people focus on the decoy to avoid looking at the real criminals. So they are focusing on these so-called nineteen hijackers and saying, "Oh, it must have been these Arabs. When, in fact, the guilty person is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue - sitting in the oval office. That's the guilty person. That's the one who authorized it. There is only one man who could have authorized this operation and that's Bush. And anyone at NORAD will tell you as I have been told personally at NORAD in the war control room, there is only one man who has the power to do this kind of thing and that's Bush. Even though many believe he's a puppet. And I think in many ways he is. The fact of the matter is where was [ ] Cheney, Rumsfeld and these other traitors. The fact is Bush personally ordered and he's guilty and liable and he's going to be re-elected apparently because the media's asleep and [garbled] for Bush. AJ: Well, the media is owned by the same military industrial complex that carried out the attacks.

SH: Yeah, the media is only interested in maintaining the official government fantasy that this was a little lone Arab. These Arabs couldn't even steer that plane down a runway.

AJ: Stay there Stanley, final segment coming up. BREAK

AJ: Mr. Hilton, when you talk to these FBI agents, when you talk to these military men and women, what's their attitude? They've got to be pretty freaked out to have the big picture and know what actually happened on 9/11.

SH: Yes, you know it's like clouds just before a thunderstorm in the sense that they are sort of pregnant with rage. They are just enraged at the criminal politicians who have perverted and misused the government to murder its own citizens and pursue these dubious political ends. And many of them, in increasing numbers, are willing to talk and will talk under subpoena - but only under subpoena because the official party line of the government is shut up and don't talk to the trial lawyer. But more and more, they are very outraged that part of the government has done this to its own people, to its own people. I mean you have to go back to Stalin to see something - not even Hitler did this to his own people. You have to look at Stalin who murdered the Kulaks, the Russians for his own dubious gains. Also we've got - we have a Stalinist mentality in this country. And, if these people pose as patriots and wrap themselves in the flag, it's disgusting. I wanted also to point out that the Japanese television network, Asahi, is going to be airing a special on primetime tomorrow, on September 11th. They interviewed me for eight hours a couple of weeks ago. I'll be on that. I wish - of course, the America media don't care so they are not going to care. But in Japan, people are very serious in interviewing me and others. And we have a website now, called deprogram.info, if more people are interested: www.deprogram.info. But the other thing, I just wanted to say that if anything happens to me - and I don't know why - because I'm being threatened here now. And it seems you can't bring a case in this country anymore against criminals in power without being threatened. And this is how they operate. The stakes are pretty high when you've got a world historical level of treason and fraud by this government against it's own people. I guess this is what you have to expect.

AJ: Stanley, the globalists, the new world order crowd, definitely intend to carry out more terror attacks. I know they would have carried out more attacks if we wouldn't have done what we've been up to, if you wouldn't have been out there boldly speaking out and many others. And then their electronic Berlin wall has a bunch of cracks in it now. Thanks to good people like yourself and many others who are speaking out and telling the truth. But do you think that they may carry out what they've been hyping - a suitcase nuke attack, a biological release to try to smokescreen all of this? I know it's a catch 22, you've got to expose the murderers. We've got to get the word out on this but some government people that I've talk to say, "Yeah, but if you do that, they are going to go even more hard core and must totally try to take over." But I say regardless, they are already doing that. So what do you say to that?

SH: Well, yeah, I think they have an agenda. They have contingency plans. I think they are laying low now because there are an increasing number of people, like myself, who are openly challenging them and accusing them of criminal conduct. I think they would have done it again if we had not spoken up. I think they're planning, what they would like to do is silence any dissenters. That's why we are trying to get the Patriot Act declared unconstitutional in this lawsuit also.

AJ: Let's talk about polls. In the beginning a patriot is a scarce man, hated and feared, but in time when his cause succeeds, the timid join him, because then it costs nothing to be a patriot. You are one of those guys who hit the barbwire for us, or figuratively jumped on the hand grenade for America. But when you've got a Zogby poll, who is highly respected, half of New Yorkers believe that the government was involved. When you have a Canadian poll, 63% on average believe that the U.S. government was involved. And some groups, as high as 76% in polls believe the government was involved. European polls, two- thirds show the same thing. We have German defense ministers and technology ministers and another member of their government now, three of them going public, known conservatives, and progressives. You have an environment minister, Michael Meacher, saying that if they didn't do it, they sure as hell knew what was going on. Look, if anybody who is a thinking person looks at the evidence, their official story is impossible. Then you investigate and they are involved in it. Comments to this massive awakening and what's happening.

SH: Well, I think that's why they want the Patriot Act to suppress political dissent. They have to, they're anticipating, they are not dumb individuals. I know these people personally, Wolfowitz. These are criminal individuals but they are smart and so they anticipated political dissent. And that's why, like the Nazis, their forebears, and their blood brothers, the Nazis and the Stalinists, they're all for political repression. Every corrupt and criminal government has done this - they suppress their own people: Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, Mao Tse-Tung, that's why we have the Patriot Act. So it's hand in hand. They had it planned to go right up to September 11th, this was all part of the plan. You have to do it. It was part of my senior thesis. You must follow through the terrorists attacks with a political suppression mechanism in the law. And that's why they want Patriot I and Patriot II and their plans are to continue launching more terrorist attacks to justify even more repression. The goal is to make this a one party dictatorship in this country, to pursue their dubious ends with their blood brothers like the Saudi Royal family. And also, historical blood brothers, such as the Nazi Germany and the Communist Russian. That's the goal

AJ: You've got to go in just a minute or two. But I wanted to also tell you about New York. Sound cannons that are used in Iraq, they're against us. Men in black ski masks. 41,000 police, accredited media being arrested randomly. Children being arrested, people in wheelchairs, 2000 plus people put in a camp with barbwire fences inside with no bathrooms. You had to have permission to go to the porta-potties. Police screaming at you. It had nothing to do with terrorism. They are openly setting the precedent for martial law.

SH: Well, that's right, the word terrorist is now being overly broad and overly defined [garbled] and also, you know, it's like the word communist was used for anything during the McCarthy witch hunt. And anybody can be called a terrorist by Bush's definition. But the irony is that the number one terrorist in the world is living at the White House at the oval office today. That's the real irony. For sheer hypocrisy, I think he deserves the world prize and ought to be in the Ripley book, Believe It or Not, and the Guinness book of world records for sheer brazen chicanery and fraud.

AJ: Let me ask you a question on this because this is the experience that I had. Watching television, watching the killers, watching those that are guilty, stand up there as our saviors is incredibly painful. It's like watching Ted Bundy being the judge at his own trial. I mean it is just painful to know who these people are. To see them putting America in a shredder. Now we are going to have forced psychological testing of every American, forced drugging, you know Pan-American unions, I mean it's just all happening, it's in our face, Stanley.

SH: Yeah, it's very disturbing and as one who has studied the theory and concept of dictatorships, I personally interviewed Albert Speer, who was Hitler's armaments minister. I interviewed him in 1981 in Munich. And I've studied the psychology and history of totalitarianism and there is no question that it's very frightening. And it has, today, with high technology, albeit for the first time in history, the chance of having a world empire dominated by corrupt, technologically oriented government - an elite government. And they've got now what people like Napoleon and Hitler didn't have, which is the technological means to dominate not only their own country but others - the world.

AJ: The answer is to expose them as the terrorists, to show how PNAC [Project for the New American Century] said we need helpful Pearl Harbor events, to show how Northwoods called for the exact 9/11-style attacks, to show their own plans. And to force people to face this horror. What are they going to do in a year or two when 80% of us, not half of us, know the truth?

SH: Well, that's why they want repression and, then again, the ancient old diversion, launch another terrorist attack to get people to pitch it away. I mean who knows what they'll do next. I mean their capacity for ingenious creation of these events is sort of unraveled. I mean there is no limit. My guess is they are going to try another stunt - maybe a stunt just before the election to justify getting Bush reelected. Although it seems like he is running against a straw man or a ghost right now, anyway. But, my guess is they'll try some other tactic to get people's attention away from 9/11 if it gets to be too much attention. What you really want is for the public to just lose interest because the public - and it's like remember the Alamo, you know, people don't forget things like that. To me it's like the Alamo, remember 9/11, that ought to be the slogan for this outrageous act of treason. That's what it is. It's not

AJ: We are at a crossroads, I don't think they anticipated this much resistance, Stanley.

SH: Yeah, I hope they are truly wrong and as incompetent as they are corrupt and guilty. That means their incompetence is exceeded only by their corruption and their guilt. And eventually, if enough people are going to get outraged enough, these people in the bureaucracy and in the civil service and our military, and eventually we can get people under subpoena these individuals will be exposed.

AJ: Stanley, their whole operation hinges on us being naïve and not recognizing evil. This is what they got with Hitler and others. People couldn't recognize evil so they continued to repeat succumbing to it. We are recognizing it this time. We are putting our lives, our treasure, our future on the line for freedom because we cannot let these blood-thirsty control freak terrorists capture us and use us and turn us into the empire and have a draft and use us as their slaves to invade the planet. And that's their PNAC plan. Stanley Hilton, I know you've got to get to court. God bless you. I want to thank you for being here with us today. Can we get you back on next week?

SH: Sure, just give me a call.

AJ: God bless you my friend. Any closing comments?

SH: My closing comments would be, I think people ought to just think about the consequence of having someone like Bush in the White House and the danger for the future that these sorts of individuals pose. This is not just a historical event of the past. This is part of the plan and the camera is still rolling. They have an agenda. These individuals are extremely dangerous. They are armed and dangerous. They pose a clear and dangerous threat to every freedom-loving person not only American but in the whole world.

AJ: You are absolutely right Stanley Hilton. They have captured the government. They have not captured the peoples' minds and they are counting on us not facing up to it.

SH: And they are counting on the repressive Patriot Act and threats and chief judges and FBI agents threatening people who are exposing them. That's what they are counting on.

AJ: But you're not backing down are you, my friend.

SH: No, I'm not

AJ: Well, we all stand with you, my brother, and God bless you.

SH: All right. Thank you.

To hear Alex's interview with Stanley Hilton - http://www.prisonplanet.tv/au... - http://rense.com/general57/aa...

---> Poll: Possible Second War Worries Voters

09.19.04 (6:46 pm) [edit]

WASHINGTON - Playing on the fear factor, Vice President Dick Cheney suggested in a campaign speech there might be another terrorist attack on the United States if John Kerry were in the White House.

President Bush's opponents' are raising their own worst fears, including the potential for more wars during a second Bush term.

"That's fear-mongering," said Joseph Carafano, a 25-year Army veteran and former West Point professor who now is an analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation.

The rhetoric continued during the weekend. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., speaking at a Saturday night fund-raiser in DeKalb, Ill., said his opinion is that the al-Qaida terror network could operate better with Kerry in the White House instead of Bush. Kerry's running mate, John Edwards, issued a statement Sunday accusing Hastert of using the "politics of fear," which Edwards said is a "clear sign of weakness and failed leadership."

With fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq far from over, a Pew Research Center Poll found that 51 percent of voters surveyed said they do worry that Bush, if re-elected, would lead the country into another war.

"The Bush administration is on a crusade to make the world safe for democracy and part of that ... is eliminating countries of anti-Western aggression," said Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute think tank in Washington.

"They may not like me to say that on the eve of the election, but that's a fact," Thompson said. "It's less likely to happen with a Kerry administration."

Both Bush and Democrat Kerry have said they prefer diplomacy to deal with Iran and North Korea, which joined Iraq in "an axis of evil," as described by the president.

Under Bush, there is "reason for apprehension" because of his administration's "actions and rhetoric" over the past four years, said Ted Galen Carpenter of the libertarian Cato Institute.

Carpenter also cited among Bush's conservative supporters a "deep concern ... and fairly militant attitude" that the United States needs to "do something" about Iran, North Korea, Syria and perhaps other governments.

"In some extreme neoconservative circles," there have also been calls for "coercive measures against Saudi Arabia," Carpenter noted.

Those who think more wars in a second Bush administration are unlikely point out that there are not enough U.S. troops, given that the Pentagon already is struggling to keep up with violence in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Others say the administration has no taste for another war after the unexpected difficulties of Iraq, and the bar has been raised for Congress and the American public as well. They say Americans will not so easily support another war after learning that prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was false.

"I really don't think, absent something like an invasion of South Korea (by communist rival North Korea), that we could sustain another one," Carafano said.

If forced into it by such a provocation, the Pentagon could most certainly do it by mobilizing more National Guard and Reserve troops and calling on allies, Carafano said.

But that would take the armed forces "to the edge," said Carafano, and would mean years to reconstitute the military in terms of troops readiness and resupplying equipment.

Others note that while the Army is stretched extremely thin now, the Air Force and Navy are not.

"So the talk that you hear within the conservative community about perhaps taking strong measures against Iran or North Korea would be feasible if it were confined to air strikes," Carpenter said. "Those who are concerned that a second Bush presidency might go down that path might have some foundation for their concerns."

Some fear the United States could provoke a war — even if it did not fire the first shot — by focusing on tough talk and actions, rather than negotiations.

"It's this process of bluster and threat and escalation that could lead to war," said Michael O'Hanlon of the liberal-leaning Brookings Institute. "I don't want to say that the chance of war is particularly high, but I think it would be higher under Bush than under Kerry."

On North Korea, Kerry favors direct negotiations. Bush has instead collective talks involving six countries.

With Iran, some fear any effort to aid anti-government forces could get the United States "deeply involved in Iran's internal politics with unpredictable consequences," Carpenter said. - http://www.commondreams.org/h...

---> 33% Prez Voting Will Be Electronic: Security Questions, Bush Crony Owns Machines!!!

09.19.04 (9:17 am) [edit]

Just over six weeks before the nation holds the first general election in which touch-screen voting will play a major role, specialists agree that whatever the remaining questions about the technology's readiness, it is now too late to make any significant changes.

Whether or not the machines are ready for the election - or the electorate ready for the machines - there is no turning back. In what may turn out to be one of the most scrutinized general elections in the country's history, nearly one-third of the more than 150 million registered voters in the United States will be asked to cast their ballots on machines whose accuracy and security against fraud have yet to be tested on such a grand scale.

Because of the uncertainties, experts say there is potential for post-election challenges in any precincts where the machines may malfunction, or where the margin of victory is thin. Sorting out such disputes could prove difficult.

"The possibility for erroneous votes or malicious programming is not as great as critics would have you believe," said Doug Chapin, the director of Electionline.org, a nonpartisan group tracking election reform. "But it's more than defenders of the technology want to admit. The truth lies somewhere in between."

Since the 2000 presidential election and its contentious aftermath, voting systems that record votes directly on a computer - as opposed to those that use mechanical levers or optically scanned paper ballots - have quickly moved to the center of a rancorous debate. The disagreement pits those who see them as unacceptably vulnerable to vote manipulation and fraud against those who see them as an antidote to the wretched hanging chad.

Even in the final run-up to November's elections, the issue remains in flux. In California, the machines have been certified, decertified and recertified again. In Ohio, a closely contested state, an electronic upgrade to the state's predominantly punch-card system was halted in July by the secretary of state there, who cited unresolved security concerns.

All the while, a vocal mixture of computer scientists, local voting-rights groups and freelance civic gadflies have relentlessly cited security flaws in many of the machines, with some going so far as to say that the flaws could be intentional and accusing the major companies of having ties to conservative political causes.

The companies and election officials have fought back bitterly, accusing the activists of being wild-eyed fearmongers. A study released by Electionline.org last month would seem to suggest that partisan politics plays less of a role than critics have claimed.

That report found "no industrywide partisan trend to political contributions among the largest election system companies." The leader in the electronic voting machine market, Diebold, and its executives have given more than $400,000 to Republican interests since 2001, the study found. But other large companies, including Election Systems & Software and Sequoia Voting Systems, "gave a slight edge to Democratic candidates and party organizations."

Concerns over the security and accuracy of the machines have proved harder to dispel, though, and they have not always come from the fringe.

At the end of June, two prestigious groups - the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights - issued a set of recommendations for technical upgrades and procedures that they said could help shore up high-tech voting systems in time for the November elections.

Nancy Zirkin, the deputy director of the Leadership Conference, said she thought that the report had been taken seriously, but conceded that the group did not know how many states or precincts had actually adopted the recommendations.

Other critics say that too little has been done in response to numerous problems - and that it is now too late to do much more before the election, because software and technology have to be tested and "frozen" well ahead of voting to avoid malfunctions and electoral chaos.

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...

---> Georgie-boy in Wonderland ...

09.19.04 (6:00 am) [edit]

The same day [i]The New York Times [/i]revealed that a classified National Intelligence Estimate prepared for President Bush in late July said that the U.S. was totally Cheneyed in terms of Iraq, our beloved President declared at a rally: "Freedom is on the march (in Iraq)."

All those in attendance, including The Mad Hatter, The Mock Turtle and Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee, applauded heartily. Bush didn't mention the NIE report which outlined three possible scenarios in Iraq: the worst being full-tilt Gonzo civil war, the best being ongoing instability (read: what we have now). The one in the middle? One-size-fits-all FUBAR.

Since Dubya has had this pessimistic report since July, you have to wonder about the reasoning behind his consistently rosy take on the war. It comes down to two possibilities : either he's lying through his teeth to get re-elected or the man has so many holes in his head he whistles when he jogs.

"This country's headed toward democracy," Bush said of Iraq. "There's a strong prime minister in place. They have a national council and national elections are scheduled for January." (It may be the first election in history wherein a head count takes place only at the morgue.)

[b]More[/b] ... http://smirkingchimp.com/arti...

---> Georgie-boy in Wonderland ...

09.19.04 (5:58 am) [edit]

---> A'W'OL Bush Flip-Flops on Iraq (When his back is up against a wall)!!!

09.19.04 (5:56 am) [edit]

[b]Bush Administration Misleads on Prospects in Iraq[/b]

In late July, a report prepared for the President by his National Intelligence Counsel spelled out "a dark assessment of prospects for Iraq."1 According to the [i]New York Times[/i], "the estimate outlines three possibilities for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst case being developments that could lead to civil war, the officials said. The most favorable outcome described is an Iraq whose stability would remain tenuous in political, economic and security terms."2 But that didn't stop Bush and other members of the administration from telling the American people that Iraq was headed in the right direction.

On August 5, President Bush said, "[Iraq is] on the path to lasting democracy and liberty."3 On August 24, Vice President Cheney told voters in Iowa that "We're moving in the right direction [in Iraq]."4 And this Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Iraqis were "working at making a success out of that country...And I think they've got a darned good crack at making it." 5 - http://www.misleader.org/dail...

[b][i]VERSUS[/i][/b]

[b]Bush warns of more violence in Iraq, Afghanistan[/b]

President Bush warned Saturday that deadly guerrilla violence in Iraq and Afghanistan could worsen in the coming weeks as the two countries move toward national elections.

But days before he was due to speak to the U.N. General Assembly, Bush used his weekly radio address to challenge international leaders to help the United States "create a safer world" in an effort of common security.

More than 200 Iraqis have been killed in recent days by bombings and other violence that have cast doubt on plans to hold elections in January. - http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPO...

---> A'W'OL Bush Flip-Flops on Iraq (When his back is up against a wall)!!!

09.19.04 (5:53 am) [edit]

---> Polls go on a wild ride!!!

09.18.04 (8:09 am) [edit]

Read the Gallup poll and you'll see President Bush has a whopping 13-point lead over his Democratic rival, John Kerry among likely voters.

Take a gander at the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press survey and you'll discover the race is a flat-footed tie, 46 percent to 46 percent.

Yesterday, the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll showed that Bush has an 8-point lead among registered voters over Kerry.

So what gives? Polls are plentiful these days, less than two months before the Nov. 2 election, and they seem to be all over the map.

Some show Bush with a substantial lead, some display a modest lead and others show it tight as a tick.

To hear the pollsters tell it, the disparity is mostly timing.

"It just points to the reality of a very turbulent time in public opinion," said Scott Keeter, director of survey research at the Pew Research Center. "In addition to the normal sampling error, which accounts for some variation, you just have a different mindset -- an unmoored, unfixed situation with a lot of voters not sure of what they think right now."

The volatile electorate, Keeter said, can produce different results daily. Pew's own surveys establish that. In a poll taken Sept. 8-10, Pew showed Bush with a 12-point lead over Kerry, 52 percent to 40 percent. A poll conducted by the same organization in the days immediately thereafter -- Sept. 11-14 -- showed a tie, with Bush and Kerry each attracting 46 percent of the vote.

So the Pew poll showed Bush losing six points, and Kerry gaining six points, in the space of four days.

David Moore with Gallup also cites timing as a significant factor, maintaining that significant issues have caused voter allegiance to sway back and forth.

"Anytime an issue receives an intense amount of media coverage, like these documents CBS said it received about the president's National Guard service, whether it's the fault of one campaign or another, with these very serious, controversial issues, often the polls will find conflicting results."

There have been a lot of bombshells over the past month, including the attacks on Kerry's military record by a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Those events have had a roller-coaster effect on the outcome of numerous surveys.

"When you get that kind of intense coverage, the timing of polls is really very, very crucial," Moore said.

Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, also embraces the timing rationale, asserting simply that "times change" and "sometimes there is a legitimate change in perception of what's going on in the race" from day to day.

"One factor is there are some days that seem to produce unusual results," Rasmussen said. "The most dramatic example I've seen, we polled on Father's Day this year and on Father's Day we got an unusual skew toward Kerry. Another organization polling that same day came up with the same result. I don't read a lot into it. Something happened in the dynamics on that holiday and that affected the numbers."

Rasmussen acknowledged that other factors influence the results. Some polls don't include independent candidate Ralph Nader in their "horse race" numbers, meaning they can differ by anywhere from 3 to 4 points from those that do.

"I don't include Nader -- he's not on the ballot in more than 30 or 31 states, and I don't believe he'll have the impact he had four years ago," Rasmussen said. "Including him overestimates Bush's lead by a little bit."

There also is an ongoing debate about whether polls should be weighted by party. Immediately after the Republican National Convention in New York this month, for instance, a survey conducted for Newsweek magazine gave Bush a 54 percent to 43 percent edge over Kerry.

But that sample of registered voters, according to pollster John Zogby, was 38 percent Republican, 31 percent Democrat and 31 percent independent, providing the GOP with a significantly larger share than merited.

"While party identification can indeed change within the electorate, there is no evidence anywhere to suggest that Democrats will only represent 31 percent of the total vote this year," Zogby said.

There is a longtime debate over counting registered voters or likely voters. Rasmussen said developing a model for determining likely voters is "an art form -- it's an imperfect process."

Identifying likely voters is an easier process toward the end of an election, Rasmussen said, and Gallup's system is "as good as any I've seen."

But at this stage, Rasmussen said, "I look at registered voters. It's less volatile."

Pollsters agree that the proliferation of cell phones has nothing to do with the disparity.

"It's accounted for," Rasmussen said. "Polling is more difficult that it was 10 years ago. It is creating challenges, but it's not the cause of the discrepancies we're seeing."

Moore said cell phones account for the lone phone in only about 6 percent of the nation's households.

"We get hold of younger people," he said. "If our sample underestimates younger people, we use a weighting scheme to give them a little more influence." - http://seattlepi.nwsource.com...

---> The Bush Regulatory Record for Our Safety: A Pattern of Failure

09.18.04 (5:26 am) [edit]

Bush's record on protecting our health and safety is an abysmal failure. Read the report on OMB Watch: http://www.ombwatch.org/artic...

---> NO HOPE FOR A'W'OL BUSH: Brain-Transplants Not Yet Medically Feasible!

09.18.04 (5:15 am) [edit]

[b]Kerry: Bush Offers Nothing but Excuses and Blame, While Touting Dysfunctional Stubborn Streak as 'Decisiveness'[/b]

Patrick Healey: "Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry yesterday called Bush's term in office "the excuse presidency," arguing that the Republican has "blamed just about everybody other than himself" for a weak US job market, record budget deficits, a loss of respect after the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal, and other problems. Kerry asserted that Bush has a stubborn streak that amounts to a character flaw, causing the president to stand by an economic strategy of tax cuts at the same time the economy has lost 1 million jobs.His is the excuse presidency: never wrong, never responsible, never to blame. Bush's desk isn't where the buck stops -- it's where the blame begins."He's blamed just about everybody but himself and his administration for economic problems, as well as for other problems like Abu Ghraib and other things that have taken place," he continued, referring to the Iraqi prison where US soldiers abused detainees."

Read article ... http://www.boston.com/news/na...

Must-read: "Eminent psychoanalyst describes Mentally Unstable Bush as "Paranoid Meglomaniac"" http://www.tblog.com/template...

---> Bush/Cheney Administration Misleads on Prospects in Iraq

09.18.04 (5:09 am) [edit]

In late July, a report prepared for the President by his National Intelligence Counsel spelled out "a dark assessment of prospects for Iraq."1 According to the [i]New York Times[/i], "the estimate outlines three possibilities for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst case being developments that could lead to civil war, the officials said. The most favorable outcome described is an Iraq whose stability would remain tenuous in political, economic and security terms."2 But that didn't stop Bush and other members of the administration from telling the American people that Iraq was headed in the right direction.

On August 5, President Bush said, "[Iraq is] on the path to lasting democracy and liberty."3 On August 24, Vice President Cheney told voters in Iowa that "We're moving in the right direction [in Iraq]."4 And this Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Iraqis were "working at making a success out of that country...And I think they've got a darned good crack at making it." 5

[b]Sources:[/b]

1. "U.S. Intelligence Shows Pessimism on Iraq's Future," New York Times, 9/16/04.
2. Ibid.
3. "President Signs Defense Bill ," The White House, 8/05/04.
4. "Remarks by the Vice President and Mrs. Cheney Followed by Question and Answer at a Town Hall Meeting ," The White House, 8/24/04.
5. "Secretary Rumsfeld Town Hall Meeting at Ft. Campbell, Ky.," U.S. Department of Defense, 9/14/04.

---> Bush/Cheney Administration Misleads on Prospects in Iraq

09.18.04 (5:08 am) [edit]

---> Bush's Lust for War: Faster, Necons!!! Kill!!! Kill!!!

09.17.04 (4:04 pm) [edit]

Beginning in 1922, the British boys’ comics Wizard and Hotspur carried a story called ‘The Wolf of Kabul’. The Wolf, British intelligence agent Bill Sampson, was a typical end of Empire type, happiest when kicking ten bells out to the locals. He had an Afghan sidekick, Chung, whose weapon of choice was a cricket bat, which he called ‘Clicky-ba’. Chung’s catchphrase after using lethal force was to say to The Wolf, ‘Lord, I am full of humble sorrow – I did not mean to knock down these men – Clicky-ba merely turned in my hand’.

Clicky-ba was turning in the hands of neocon commentator Jed Babbin in a September 13th article called ‘Did We Lose The War?’ in The American Spectator on the Web. I like TAS, think it’s a great site, second only to The Washington Dispatch. In the current difficult climate, it has the courage to publish the widest range of opinion of any conservative site affiliated to print media, with steady authors ranging from the sublime James Bowman to the ridiculous Babbin. They’ve published a lot of my letters, so I write this with some regret, as they’ll probably never do so again.

Babbin, a contributing editor of TAS and a contributor to the National Review

Online, is a former functionary in the Bush I Pentagon and is or was a talking head for MSNBC. In this capacity, he patronised Bob and Wlady’s readers by referring to his broadcasting duties as being ‘a talking warhead’ while describing himself on NRO as a ‘military analyst’. However, his climb up Rich Lowry’s greasy pole has not yet gone so far that he has merited pop-up ads for either of the books he’s written while I’ve been reading him.

The second sentence of the article was

‘We’re doing pretty well in the war against terrorists and the nations that support them’.

Therefore, a neocon betrays their belief that a state of war exists between America and any nation they believe supports terrorism. Do not expect peace any time soon. I’ve written regularly about the immorality of the neoconservatives’ rapprochement with Gaddafi. Has he?

From paragraph four –

“It’s awfully likely that we will see some large attack in the U.S. homeland before the election, because the terrorists want to affect the result”.

Classic neoconservative scaremongering. His idol, George W. Bush, has invested billions of dollars in Homeland Security, which seems to have paid off. There have been no attacks. There were no attacks during the primaries, none during the conventions. Why should Babbin think that the entire force of the Federal government will be unsuccessful in preventing an attack he is utterly confident will happen within the next few weeks? And to prevent that happening, why isn’t he calling for the return of troops from Iraq to bolster security at home? And why does he think such a strong and powerful people as the Americans are so weak that they would let terrorists affect the outcome of their election? Does he think they are children?

In paragraph five is a phrase that could be interpreted as meaning Babbin believes we aren’t killing Afghans quickly enough –

“a still-too-slow decision process is delaying our hunter-killer teams”

[b]Faster, Neocons! Kill! Kill! Feel the turn of Clicky-ba![/b]

On the efficacy of the Iraqi provisional government, from paragraph seven –

“We should be doing much more to destroy the insurgency in Iraq, but we can’t unless Allawi lets us. We are paying a high price for turning sovereignty back to the Iraqis too soon”

One could pick over that statement on several levels; all I will say is that it is the statement of a classical imperialist.

On the stone in their shoes that is the country of Iran, from paragraph nine –

“(His overly diplomatic comment meant that) Iran was running the al-Sadr insurgency and had become one of the principal obstacles to freedom in Iraq”.

Two principal observations – firstly, does the fact that the British government has been accused of using Basra as cover for building links with the mullahs qualify us as one of those ‘nations that support’ terrorists; and secondly, the real obstacle to freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan has been the willingness of neoconservatives to agree to Sharia law as a source for both those countries’ new constitutions. As a result of their failure to demand totally secular states, both of those countries will fail again. It is only a matter of time.

From paragraph 11, while discussing North Korea –

“John Kerry said he wants America to be respected, not feared. Sorry, Johnnie. I prefer ‘feared’”.

How they love the power of fear, a power developed by their spiritual grandfather Trotsky when he wielded the might of the Red Army.

The last sentence of the article is, well, just read this –

“Our October surprise should be a big nasty one for Iran”.

One does not know whether to mock or pity such a sentiment. However, it is entirely reflective of the mindset of his fellow ideologue Michael Ledeen, AEI fellow, NRO columnist and an ardent advocate for war on Iran, always phrased with the words ‘Faster, please’. He must see himself as a new Cato, but these guys are closet leftists. Talk of ‘Faster, please’, an America that’s ‘feared’, nasty surprises for Iran, using scaremongering on terror attacks the way the Soviets used fear of sabotage – these are attacks of the left, not of the right. Babbin and Ledeen have lurched so far to the left that they’re one step away from marching down the Mall in green jackets and Mao hats.

It all used to mean something, boys, but Iraq has proved its futility. It’s time for all American conservatives to see these guys for what they are, hardened ideologues of empire who have no compunction about how much blood, or whose blood, they spill in the process of getting what they want, when they want, where they want it. Jed Babbin is prepared to say he doesn’t think any of it’s worked, as he fears a homeland attack in a matter of weeks. It’s time to go back to the thinktanks, boys. Faster, please. - http://www.washingtondispatch...

---> Nonpartisan Analysis Unmasks the Ugly Truth: the Networks are 'Owned' by the White House

09.17.04 (8:38 am) [edit]

This clear "at a glance" chart reveals the outrageous - in fact, anti-American - derailment of fair news coverage during one of the most critical elections in US history. The chart is not based on opinion - it is based on ACTUAL statements recorded during the course of news programs. It is a sad day from the American free press with its once-proud tradition of independence and quest for the truth that it has come to this. The irresponsibility of the media has so far led us into a bloody, pointless war. It is now is using all its resources to try to railroad Americans into reelecting a man who will most surely lead us into more bloody, pointless wars, while undermining the very principles upon which our great nation is based.

[b]More [/b]... http://www.mediatenor.com/sla...

---> Kerry Takes on the Monster and its Minion: Going after Halliburton and Cheney

09.17.04 (5:36 am) [edit]

As we all know - Dick Cheney should be in the Big House, not the White House, for his cumulative corporate crimes. His "former" company Halliburton should be the subject of SEVERAL investigations and trials. But no, instead, Bush has rewarded Halliburton with billions in US contracts, while Cheney has scooped up $2 MILLION in payments from the co. WHILE IN THE WHITE HOUSE! Now John Kerry is taking Cheney and Halliburton on, in no uncertain terms, doing what no one in the Bush administration had the integrity or guts to do. Here just for an opening salvo is a "WORST OF HALLIBURTON CHEAT SHEET" compiled by Kerry and his staff.

[b]More[/b] ... http://releases.usnewswire.co...

---> Kerry Takes on the Monster and its Minion: Going after Halliburton and Cheney

09.17.04 (5:35 am) [edit]

---> Bush Wants YOU To Pay Taxes, But the RULES Don't Apply To Him & His Rich Cronies!!!

09.17.04 (5:31 am) [edit]

At a Virginia rally on August 9, President Bush virtually said John Kerry was right, that on Bush’s watch the rich get away with loophole murder and don’t pay their fair share of taxes.

The actual quote is even better. Here is President Bush explaining why Kerry’s plan to reduce the deficit and finance programs by raising taxes on the richest Americans won’t work: “The really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway."

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.moderateindependen...

---> Polls: Bush losing ground to Kerry

09.17.04 (5:26 am) [edit]

[b]Latest opinion polls have brought bad news for US President George Bush, placing him again in an electoral dead heat with Democratic challenger John Kerry[/b].

The Pew Research Centre and Harris Interactive found the bounce that the recent Republican convention gave the Bush campaign is fading while support for the Democratic contender is rebounding.

"Some of the negative attacks against Kerry are wearing off and he has stayed in the game because people are discontent with Bush on Iraq and the economy," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Centre for People and the Press.

The new surveys followed two other polls in recent days, by Investor's Business Daily and a Democratic group, Democracy Corps, that found the race essentially even again, just as it was for months before the Republicans and the Democrats held their conventions.

[b]Changing fortunes[/b]

Other polls also showed Bush, who had taken a double-digit lead after the Republican convention, slipping ground.

"Unfortunately for Kerry, he has been unable to tap into that unhappiness, especially on Iraq," Kohut said, noting Bush still beats Kerry 52-40 % on who was favoured to lead the war in Iraq.

"It's a mixed picture for Kerry, but that's better than what he had a few days ago".

A New National Annenberg Election Survey earlier this week found Bush gaining ground as a leader and in the war on terror, but his approval ratings among undecided and persuadable voters dropped below levels prior to the Republican convention.

Kerry has sharpened his message and gone on the offensive against Bush on Iraq and economy, challenging the president's credibility and his leadership on both issues.

The Pew survey sampled voters in two phases. In the first phase taken between 8-10 September, Bush had a 16-point lead over Kerry. But in the second phase between 11-14 September, the lead had been reduced to an insignificant one point.

The Harris poll also showcased an upswing in Kerry's fortunes. In its poll conducted between 9-13 September, he had a one-point lead over Bush.

In the June poll, it was Bush who had a 10-point lead over Kerry. - http://english.aljazeera.net/...

---> Report Shows Cheney Went Abroad to Attack America

09.17.04 (5:22 am) [edit]

Vice President Cheney has regularly attacked the national security credentials of Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), calling him weak on terrorism. But according to a new report, it was Cheney who actually did business with terrorist countries and traveled abroad to attack America's counter-terrorism efforts in the 1990s.

As [i]The American Prospect [/i]documents, Cheney oversaw Halliburton's effort to do business with Iraq and Iran in the 1990s, despite American sanctions against those countries. During his time as CEO, he oversaw Halliburton's $73 million worth of business with Saddam Hussein.1 This, despite his claim that he had imposed a "firm policy"2 of not doing business with Iraq. Similarly, details of Halliburton's Iran business during Cheney's tenure was so egregious, it is being investigated by authorities today.3 Halliburton today admits one of its subsidiaries still "performs between $30 [million] and $40 million annually in oilfield service work in Iran."4

On top of evading U.S. sanctions laws against terrorist countries, Cheney actually attacked the U.S. government in a series of trips abroad, demanding sanctions be lifted on terrorist countries so he could do business with them. In trips to Malaysia and Canada, for instance, he insisted the Clinton administration lift sanctions on Iran, despite that country being listed by the U.S. State Department as a state-sponsor of terrorism.5

You can see the full American Prospect piece at www.prospect.org on http://www.prospect.org/web/p... .

[b]Sources: [/b]

1. "The Greed Factor," The American Prospect, 9/15/04.
2. "Firm's Iraq Deals Greater Than Cheney Has Said," Washington Post, 6/23/01.
3. "Halliburton probed over Iran ties," CNN.com, 7/20/04.
4. "Halliburton's Work in Iran Stirs Democrats," Washington Post, 7/21/04.
5. Overview of State-Sponsored Terrorism, U.S. Department of State, 4/30/01.

---> Report Shows Cheney Went Abroad to Attack America

09.17.04 (5:19 am) [edit]

---> British MPs call for Blair's impeachment over Iraq war (Hmmm... and A'W'OL???)...

09.16.04 (5:49 pm) [edit]

[b]British MPs call for Blair's impeachment over Iraq war [/b]

LONDON: Support is growing among British politicians for a bid to impeach Tony Blair over the Iraq war, which would embarrass the prime minister but not remove him from office, lawmakers said on Wednesday.

Welsh and Scottish nationalists last month launched a campaign to hold a parliamentary debate calling for Blair to be impeached for lying about Iraqi weapons to justify war.

A motion accusing Blair of "high crimes and misdemeanours" has no chance of being voted through due to Blair's majority of over 150 in the 659-seat House of Commons, but the debate would once again draw attention to an issue that has dogged Blair since the war last year.

Some 21 lawmakers, mostly from opposition parties, have declared support for an impeachment debate, but so far only one representative of Blair's Labour party has put his name down.

"People across the UK and in parliament feel let down by the prime minister who misled the House of Commons and took this country to war based on a lie," said Elfyn Llwyd, of Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru.

"That is a serious charge and the contempt this government has shown for parliament must not go unchallenged. Realistically, I think we need about 30 names to get a debate, but if we have a broad swathe of support from across the House, I think it will go ahead," Llwyd told reporters.

"I think we will get well beyond that," he added. The campaigners acknowledge they need more support from disaffected Labour parliamentarians but expressed confidence that a number of them would declare support after being reselected for their seats ahead of the next election.

The ancient parliamentary power of impeachment has not been used in Britain since a failed attempt to prosecute a foreign secretary in the mid-19th century. - http://timesofindia.indiatime...

---> GOP-Watch: Kerry Must Follow the Rules, But Bush Doesn't Have to Follow the Rules!!!

09.16.04 (4:44 am) [edit]

[b]'Don't mess with the Bushes'[/b]

After weeks of bracing by the Bush White House, the category 5 storm has hit: Hurricane Kitty. Bestselling author Kitty Kelley's withering portrait of the Bush dynasty, The Family, is landing in bookstores on Tuesday - more than 720,000 copies of it. And the White House is already on high alert. "This book is fiction and deserves to be treated as such," snarled Republican spokeswoman Christine Iverson, as the RNC fired off an anti-Kelley talking-points memo to friendly media assets.

The media blowback against Kelley, author of controversial biographies of Nancy Reagan and Frank Sinatra, has already begun. On the Monday morning Today Show, host Matt Lauer showed how tough an interviewer he can be when not questioning presidents and other potentates, pressing Kelley on who she's going to vote for in November ("Who're you voting for?" Kelley shot back) and the timing of the book's publication, weeks before the November election ("Why not? It's relevant," countered the author, who's been working on the book for four years).

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...

---> GOP Consultant Broke Election Laws (Bushies Say "Rules" Don't Apply to Themselves!!!)

09.16.04 (4:39 am) [edit]

[b]Arizona Daily Star [/b]writes "A Phoenix political consultant, who makes part of his living helping conservative Republican candidates win seats in the Legislature, has run afoul of state election laws, a judge ruled.... Most disturbing to the Maricopa County GOP officials who sued Querard was his withholding of early ballot requests from thousands of voters. Some, they fear, may not get to vote in the Tuesday primary. Querard solicited early ballot requests from registered voters but didn't turn them over to the county in a timely manner, the judge ruled... Querard turned in about 9,000 ballot requests in one week in August, with some postmarked in late June and early July." Senator Kerry be on the lookout. If the GOP does this to themselves, imagine what they will try to do to you in November.

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/v...

---> GOP Consultant Broke Election Laws (Bushies Say "Rules" Don't Apply to Themselves!!!)

09.16.04 (4:37 am) [edit]

---> New Report Shows Bush Neglecting Hunt for al Qaeda

09.16.04 (4:34 am) [edit]

In the months after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush promised America he would make the hunt for al Qaeda the number one objective of his administration. "[We] do everything we can to chase [al Qaeda] down and bring them to justice," Bush said. "That's a key priority, obviously, for me and my administration."1 But according to a new report, the President has dangerously underfunded and understaffed the intelligence unit charged with tracking down al Qaeda's leader.

The [i]New York Times [/i]reports "Three years after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency has fewer experienced case officers assigned to its headquarters unit dealing with Osama bin Laden than it did at the time of the attacks." The bin Laden unit is "stretched so thin that it relies on inexperienced officers rotated in and out every 60 to 90 days, and they leave before they know enough to be able to perform any meaningful work."2

The revelation comes months after the [i]Associated Press [/i]reported the Bush Treasury Department "has assigned five times as many agents to investigate Cuban embargo violations as it has to track Osama bin Laden's" financial infrastructure.3 It also comes after USA Today reported that the President shifted "resources from the bin Laden hunt to the war in Iraq" in 2002. Specifically, Bush moved special forces tracking al Qaeda out of Afghanistan and into Iraq war preparations. He also left the CIA "stretched badly in its capacity to collect, translate and analyze information coming from Afghanistan."4 That has allowed these terrorists to regroup: according to the senior intelligence officials in July of this year, bin Laden and other top al Qaeda leaders are now directing a plot "to carry out a large-scale terror attack against the United States" and are overseeing the plan "from their remote hideouts somewhere along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border."5

[b]Sources:[/b]

1. "President Calls for Ticket to Independence in Welfare Reform," WhiteHouse.gov, 5/10/02.
2. "C.I.A. Unit on bin Laden Is Understaffed, a Senior Official Tells Lawmakers," New York Times, 9/15/04.
3. "More Agents Track Castro Than Bin Laden," Common Dreams News Center, 4/29/04.
4. "Shifts from bin Laden hunt evoke questions," USA Today, 3/28/04.
5. "Officials: Bin Laden guiding plots against U.S.," CNN.com, 7/08/04.

---> New Report Shows Bush Neglecting Hunt for al Qaeda

09.16.04 (4:29 am) [edit]

---> CORRUPTION

09.15.04 (3:36 pm) [edit]

The Bush administration has increased approvals of oil industry mergers http://www.freep.com/money/bu... and has appointed a ChevronTexaco lawyer http://www.thehill.com/news/0... to head the FTC, even though studies show consolidation has bilked $1,000 http://www.consumersunion.org... more per year from the average American consumer in the last four years.

[b]Since 2000, US Consumers Have Sustained a $500 BILLION Increase in Energy Costs[/b]

[u][b]Consumers Union[/b][/u]: "American consumers have been hit by an average $1,000 increase in their annual household energy bills during the past four years, draining more than $500 billion from the economy, a new report from Consumers Union and Consumer Federation of America shows. Much of these higher prices are due to unchecked consolidation in the oil and gas industry, which has resulted in a lack of competition and increased profits - close to $100 billion - for oil and gas companies since 2000. "The energy problem American consumers have been facing is now a problem for the whole economy," says Mark Cooper, CFA's director of research. "Even though gasoline prices have dropped by a few cents during the past few weeks, they're still higher than we've ever seen and consumers continue to face escalating energy costs."

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.commondreams.org/n...

---> Kerry Blasts Bush's 'pResidency of Excuses'

09.15.04 (11:30 am) [edit]

[b]Yahoo:[/b] "Democratic candidate John Kerry blasted George W. Bush's "excuse presidency" on Wednesday and demanded that he take responsibility for the economy instead of playing victim. "This president has created more excuses than jobs," Kerry told the Detroit Economic Club. Trailing in several polls seven weeks before the Nov. 2 election, and heeding advisers who have urged him to be more forceful [can you BELIEVE this outrageous Yahoo spin!!], [Kerry] rejected the White House "perfect storm" explanation that recession, war and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were to blame for a tepid U.S. economy. "The president wants you to believe that this record is the record of the victim of circumstances, the result of bad luck, not bad decisions," Kerry said. "Well, Mr. President, when it comes to your record, we agree -- you own it."

[b]More[/b] ... http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...

---> Release of Census Report on US Poverty: Timed to be Drowned Out by GOP Convention Coverage

09.15.04 (6:05 am) [edit]

[b]Scoop:[/b] "While the Republican National Convention in New York City was underway, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that the number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.3 million in 2003, while the numbers of citizens without health insurance grew by 1.4 million. Alarmingly, children were among the hardest hit segments of the population with an increase of about 800,000 living in poverty during 2003. In all, almost 13 million of those under the age of 18 now live below the poverty line. Nearly 45 million, or 15.6 percent of Americans do not have health insurance. This was the third consecutive rise in these numbers from the Census Bureau, which indicate growing income inequality. Critics of the Bush administration accused the Census Bureau of releasing the data earlier than usual to diminish the impact on the November election, a charge denied by Census director Louis Kincannon, a Bush appointee."

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/...

---> Iraq is Descending into Civil War

09.15.04 (6:02 am) [edit]

[b]Guardian:[/b] "In recent months, and especially since the handover of "power" to the unelected interim government, Iraq's resistance has concentrated its efforts on killing those who collaborate with the Americans - the police officers, would-be police officers, translators, governors and government officials. It is beginning to look like, and feel like, civil war. [This week] ambushed a minibus full of policeman north-west of Baghdad, killing 11 of them and a civilian. In Ramadi, clashes between US troops and insurgents left eight dead and 18 wounded. Responsibility for the attacks in Baghdad and Baquba was claimed yesterday by Tawhid and Jihad, Iraq's shadowy and fastest-growing militant group, allegedly linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.[But] the real identities of the insurgents remain opaque. They undoubtedly include a handful of foreign fighters, but the majority are Iraqi nationalists violently opposed to the continuing occupation of their country. "

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/Ira...,2763,1304852,00.html

---> Bush Sinks MORE Money, MORE Troops into Iraq Just to Quell the Chaos He has Created

09.15.04 (6:01 am) [edit]

[b]Indystar:[/b] "Shifting its priorities amid a rising insurrection, the Bush administration announced Tuesday it would divert $3.46 billion in congressionally approved assistance to Iraq to build up security and economic development. Spending for police, border patrols and other security measures will be boosted by $1.8 billion to a total of $5 billion, State Department officials said in making a long-anticipated announcement. There will be 45,000 more police, 16,000 more border patrol guards and 20 additional National Guard battalions, Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman said." Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis remain without clean water, electricity, or sewage - a situation that for many has remained unchanged in many areas since US bombing attacks razed the infrastructure.

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.indystar.com/artic...

---> Iraq is Descending into Civil War

09.15.04 (5:59 am) [edit]

---> Bush Sinks MORE Money, MORE Troops into Iraq Just to Quell the Chaos He has Created

09.15.04 (5:57 am) [edit]

[b]Indystar: [/b]"Shifting its priorities amid a rising insurrection, the Bush administration announced Tuesday it would divert $3.46 billion in congressionally approved assistance to Iraq to build up security and economic development. Spending for police, border patrols and other security measures will be boosted by $1.8 billion to a total of $5 billion, State Department officials said in making a long-anticipated announcement. There will be 45,000 more police, 16,000 more border patrol guards and 20 additional National Guard battalions, Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman said." Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis remain without clean water, electricity, or sewage - a situation that for many has remained unchanged in many areas since US bombing attacks razed the infrastructure.

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.indystar.com/artic...

---> New Report Shows Bush Neglecting Hunt for al Qaeda

09.15.04 (5:36 am) [edit]

In the months after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush promised America he would make the hunt for al Qaeda the number one objective of his administration. "[We] do everything we can to chase [al Qaeda] down and bring them to justice," Bush said. "That's a key priority, obviously, for me and my administration."1 But according to a new report, the President has dangerously underfunded and understaffed the intelligence unit charged with tracking down al Qaeda's leader..

The [i]New York Times [/i]reports "Three years after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency has fewer experienced case officers assigned to its headquarters unit dealing with Osama bin Laden than it did at the time of the attacks." The bin Laden unit is "stretched so thin that it relies on inexperienced officers rotated in and out every 60 to 90 days, and they leave before they know enough to be able to perform any meaningful work." 2

The revelation comes months after the[i] Associated Press [/i]reported the Bush Treasury Department "has assigned five times as many agents to investigate Cuban embargo violations as it has to track Osama bin Laden's" financial infrastructure.3 It also comes after USA Today reported that the President shifted "resources from the bin Laden hunt to the war in Iraq" in 2002. Specifically, Bush moved special forces tracking al Qaeda out of Afghanistan and into Iraq war preparations. He also left the CIA "stretched badly in its capacity to collect, translate and analyze information coming from Afghanistan."4 That has allowed these terrorists to regroup: according to the senior intelligence officials in July of this year, bin Laden and other top al Qaeda leaders are now directing a plot "to carry out a large-scale terror attack against the United States" and are overseeing the plan "from their remote hideouts somewhere along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border."5

[b]Sources:[/b]

1. "President Calls for Ticket to Independence in Welfare Reform," WhiteHouse.gov, 5/10/02.
2. "C.I.A. Unit on bin Laden Is Understaffed, a Senior Official Tells Lawmakers," New York Times, 9/15/04.
3. "More Agents Track Castro Than Bin Laden," Common Dreams News Center, 4/29/04.
4. "Shifts from bin Laden hunt evoke questions," USA Today, 3/28/04.
5. "Officials: Bin Laden guiding plots against U.S.," CNN.com, 7/08/04.

---> New Report Shows Bush Neglecting Hunt for al Qaeda

09.15.04 (5:33 am) [edit]

In the months after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush promised America he would make the hunt for al Qaeda the number one objective of his administration. "[We] do everything we can to chase [al Qaeda] down and bring them to justice," Bush said. "That's a key priority, obviously, for me and my administration."1 But according to a new report, the President has dangerously underfunded and understaffed the intelligence unit charged with tracking down al Qaeda's leader..

The [i]New York Times [/i]reports "Three years after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency has fewer experienced case officers assigned to its headquarters unit dealing with Osama bin Laden than it did at the time of the attacks." The bin Laden unit is "stretched so thin that it relies on inexperienced officers rotated in and out every 60 to 90 days, and they leave before they know enough to be able to perform any meaningful work." 2

The revelation comes months after the[i] Associated Press [/i]reported the Bush Treasury Department "has assigned five times as many agents to investigate Cuban embargo violations as it has to track Osama bin Laden's" financial infrastructure.3 It also comes after USA Today reported that the President shifted "resources from the bin Laden hunt to the war in Iraq" in 2002. Specifically, Bush moved special forces tracking al Qaeda out of Afghanistan and into Iraq war preparations. He also left the CIA "stretched badly in its capacity to collect, translate and analyze information coming from Afghanistan."4 That has allowed these terrorists to regroup: according to the senior intelligence officials in July of this year, bin Laden and other top al Qaeda leaders are now directing a plot "to carry out a large-scale terror attack against the United States" and are overseeing the plan "from their remote hideouts somewhere along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border."5

[b]Sources:[/b]

1. "President Calls for Ticket to Independence in Welfare Reform," WhiteHouse.gov, 5/10/02.
2. "C.I.A. Unit on bin Laden Is Understaffed, a Senior Official Tells Lawmakers," New York Times, 9/15/04.
3. "More Agents Track Castro Than Bin Laden," Common Dreams News Center, 4/29/04.
4. "Shifts from bin Laden hunt evoke questions," USA Today, 3/28/04.
5. "Officials: Bin Laden guiding plots against U.S.," CNN.com, 7/08/04.

---> John Kerry Tells America the TRUTH / A'W'OL Bush Tells America LIES

09.14.04 (12:40 pm) [edit]

[b]John Kerry Tells America the TRUTH: Things in Iraq are BAD and they are Getting Worse

A'W'OL Bush Tells America LIES: Even if We Wish the Lies Were True, We Better Listen to the Truth NO Matter How Unpleasant[/b]

"Today, we heard more of the same distortions from the President about the situation in Iraq. George W. Bush keeps saying that things are getting better even when we all know that's just not true. The fact is, no matter what he says, all of us can see for ourselves what's happening in Iraq - we can see it on the front pages and on the nightly news. But why would we expect George Bush to level with us about Iraq? He never has. So I'll be straight with you: things are getting worse. More than a thousand Americans have been killed. Instability is rising. Violence is spreading. Extremism is growing. There are now havens for terrorists that weren't there before. And the Pentagon has even admitted that entire regions of Iraq are now controlled by insurgents and terrorists. The situation is serious and we need a president who will set a new direction and be straight with the American people."

[b]More[/b] ... http://releases.usnewswire.co...

---> Group offers $50,000 for Any Proof of A'W'OL Bush's Service!!!

09.14.04 (12:37 pm) [edit]

[b](CNN) -- The founder of the group Texans for Truth said Tuesday that he is offering $50,000 to anyone who can prove President Bush fulfilled his service requirements, including required duties and drills, in the Alabama Air National Guard in 1972.[/b]

The group made the announcement as Bush was in Las Vegas, Nevada, to address the National Guard Association's convention.

"Today would be a fine day for him to finally answer all the questions that have dogged him since he entered public life," the group's founder, Glenn Smith, said in a statement.

"Bush's dishonesty about missing from service during Vietnam goes to the heart of his presidency. He was dishonest then just as he is misleading us about why we went to war with Iraq. He dodges responsibility then just as he dodges responsibility for Iraq today."

White House communications director Dan Bartlett has said that the fact Bush received an honorable discharge means he fulfilled his military duties. Bartlett has dismissed questions about Bush's service as partisan attacks.

Smith said the controversy about whether documents obtained by CBS News -- alleging the future president failed to obey an order to undergo a physical exam and failed to complete his service in the Alabama Air National Guard -- was irrelevant.

"Authentic or not, they don't really answer the question about where Mr. Bush was when he was supposed to be doing his duty in the National Guard," he said.

On Monday, first lady Laura Bush said that she believed such documents were probably forgeries.

"You know, they probably are altered, and they probably are forgeries, and I think that's terrible, really," she said in an interview with Radio Iowa.

"That's actually one of the risks you take when you run for public office or when you're in the public eye for any reason, and that's that obviously a lot of things are said about you that aren't true and that's the drawback -- that's the one thing that's not great about serving in public office."

CBS News has said it stands by its story and will continue to report on it.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Tuesday that the president has seen the documents and "he has no recollection" of any of them.

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said the first lady's comments do not mean the White House has done an investigation into the authenticity of the documents but that news organizations' probes have raised questions about whether the documents are real.

CBS reported that the memos were written in 1972 and 1973 by Col. Jerry Killian, Bush's squadron commander. Killian died in 1984.

In the memos put forward by CBS News, the author complained he was being pressured to "sugarcoat" the future president's performance evaluations and that Bush failed to meet performance standards while a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard, including getting a required physical exam.

Killian also purportedly wrote that he believed Bush -- at the time the son of a Texas congressman -- was "talking to someone upstairs" to get permission to transfer to the Alabama National Guard to work on a Senate campaign.

But the authenticity of the documents has come under fire in media reports, with some experts insisting they were not written on a typewriter in the 1970s but generated on a computer at a later date.

Forensic document experts who have examined the memos have told CNN that they cannot conclusively determine whether the documents are authentic -- but some features do raise questions about whether the documents were written in the early 1970s.

Killian's son, Gary, and former wife, Margorie Connell, have said they do not believe he would have written the memos.

The CBS report came days after the Texans for Truth group began airing television ads questioning whether Bush fulfilled his military obligations. Its name is a takeoff on Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which has been airing ads questioning the military record of Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry. That group's allegations are at odds with the official Navy records and Kerry's former crew mates. - http://edition.cnn.com/2004/A...

---> A'W'OL Bush Shows America He Is Unfit To Command!

09.14.04 (12:35 pm) [edit]

[b]Bush Spending Little Time at White House During War-Time!!![/b]

[b]With war raging in Iraq and US Soldiers & innocent civilians slaughtered daily, wouldn't you expect Bush to be trying to figure out how to stop this fiasco?[/b]

WASHINGTON (AP) - If you're looking for President Bush, don't bother searching the White House.

Bush has not spent a full day in Washington since Aug. 2 - roaming the country rather than staying in the Oval Office as he seeks a second term.

On Wednesday, he'll break a 44-day, outside-the-Beltway streak to host a concert and reception at the White House in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month. But not for long: He's back on the road the next day.

On Aug. 2, Bush stayed in town for a Rose Garden appearance in which he announced his support for a national intelligence chief and establishment of a national counterterrorism center.

In between, Bush visited 21 states in 44 days, including three stays at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, and some time at his family's home on the Maine coast.

But most of the travel has been to the dozen or so states where he and Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry are fighting the hardest - six trips to Ohio, five to Pennsylvania, four each to Iowa, Florida, Michigan and West Virginia, and twice to Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada and Wisconsin.

Though the recent flurry has been particularly intense, it is representative of a brutal schedule for most of the year that is nothing new for presidents seeking re-election.

The number of presidential travel days has been in double digits every month since February. And Bush has spent just a handful of full days in Washington all summer long - just 10 since Memorial Day.

Bush aides, always loath to acknowledge political calculation behind the president's decisions or schedule, say the travel is nothing more than a continuation of normal practice.

``The president has always traveled outside of Washington to discuss his agenda with people across the country,'' Bush spokeswoman Claire Buchan said. ``As the election approaches, the president is enjoying talking about the issues facing the nation, his record of accomplishment and his vision for the future.''

But the reason Bush is such a road warrior is clear: Political Campaigns 101 tells candidates from junior high class president wannabes to White House seekers that they've got to get out among their constituency - especially as election day nears - to have any hope of winning.

``I'm here to ask for your vote, that's what I'm doing today,'' Bush said Monday at a campaign rally in Holland, Mich., using a line he repeats in virtually every speech. ``I believe you've got to get out amongst the people and ask for the vote.''

Add to that the often-favorable local media coverage a president gets on such visits and the modern-day necessity for politicians to espouse a dislike for all things Washington, and you have a recipe for plane-hopping.

There's likely more to it as well, said Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar at George Washington University in Washington.

``Beside the obvious reasons, he does seem to enjoy it,'' Hess said. ``This fellow, more than almost anyone I've seen, doesn't want to be fenced in.''

Indeed, Bush seems to bask in the attention from the supporters-only crowds he speaks to on the road. And a venue that the Bush campaign uses frequently - the ``Ask President Bush'' format in which the president, mike in hand, casually and with lots of humor, interacts with his audience - plays to his strengths as a campaigner.

In a switch from earlier in the year or last year, the vast majority of Bush's trips this summer have been openly declared to be campaign-related. Previously, ``official'' White House appearances were arranged in key electoral states or tacked onto days that also included a campaign event. That allowed Bush - like other presidents before him - to travel at taxpayer expense. - http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/n...

---> CBS Killian Memos Are Probably Authentic

09.14.04 (12:27 pm) [edit]

[b]Are the CBS Killian memos forgeries? How could The Weekly Standard analyze documents without every seeing the originals? Or, is this more right wing misinformation going around?[/b]

There are doubts about the CBS Killian memos http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs... (link is only to the May 4th memo, and you'll see why later). These doubts were first expressed on various blogs, and then by the Weekly Standard, which hired experts to gaze at the computer PDF documents. These experts revealed three items that cast doubt on these memos:

1. The font used is proportional spaced font. Typewriters didn't use proportional spaced fonts back in 1972.

2. The Times-Roman font was not created until 1985, yet the font used is Times-Roman.

3. And the real killer: The superscripted "th" in "111th". This is something Microsoft Word automatically does! In fact, Times-Roman is the default Microsoft Word font. These are really bad forgeries done in Microsoft Word and passed off as real!

The idea that someone would want to forge documents and fool CBS would simply type them up in Microsoft Word seems strange. After all, I can pick up an IBM Selectric Typewriter from the University Surplus store for $20. In twenty minutes, I could type up these three memos. Certainly, a person who'd bother to do forge these embarrassing memos would take a bit more time to make sure they looked authentic.

Let's take these points one at a time:

1. The font use is proportional spaced font. Well, here's an ad for the IBM Executive http://www.etypewriters.com/1... made back in 1964. No, wait. My mistake. The ad was written in 1954. Notice the ad is about how this typewriter, made 18 years before the Killian memo, is able to use proportional spaced fonts.

2. The Times-Roman font was created for the New York Times newspaper (hence the name "Times") back in 1931. IBM licensed Times Roman for its typewriters when the Selectric typewriters first came out.

3. I don't know the answer to the superscripting issue. We've seen a few memos produced by the White House with superscripted "th", but these look like the typist moved the platen to produce the effect. The superscripted "th" of the document looks like it was its own special glyph. More about this latter.

I decided the best way to handle this issue was to pull up a copy of Microsoft Word and type the memo in myself to see what it looked like. You will notice that the Microsoft Word version http://oxftcu.tripod.com/May0... looks very much like the Killian memo. However, there are some differences:

1. Not all of the "th" in "111th" in the Killian memo are superscripted. The one in the heading isn't. Why would the forger bother changing one superscripting and not the other superscipting?

2. Much more telling is the other superscripting that wasn't seen in the Killian memo. In the Microsoft Word document, the "st" in "1st Lt. Bush" is also superscripted. It isn't in the Killian memo. More about this later.

3. Although both fonts appear to be Times Roman, there are some significant differences. Font families have slight variations depending upon where they are used and point size. PostScript Type 1 fonts and TrueType fonts actually change the shape of the letter in smaller point sizes to keep line clarity. When Times Roman is used in a typewriter, the serifs are broad and flat. The metal plate that contains the letter is pushed against a ribbon and onto the paper. The impression is not very smooth, and the broad flat serifs guarantee that the serifs will be visible when typed.

When Times Roman is used in an offset print (or by computer), the serifs are delicately angled. The finer print quality would make broad flat serifs look blotchy and take away the readability of the font. The Times Roman font used by the Microsoft Word version are indeed angled where as the serifs in the original Killian memo are broad and flat. Something you'd expect to see in a type written document.

4. To me, the most striking difference is the evenness of the Microsoft lines. They are perfectly flat, and even after several bad copies remain even and flat. In the original Killian memo, the lines are not even across the page. Some letters are higher than others. Look at the word "annual" and you will notice that the "ua" are somewhat higher than the rest of the word. This is common in typewritten documents, but not computer printed documents.

5. The last piece of the puzzle isn't shown on either memo. It was something I noticed when typing up the memo. When you number the first paragraph in Microsoft Word, it automatically assumes that the next paragraph is numbered too. Not only that, but the numbered lines are indented leaving the paragraph number floating just to the left of the paragraph. I had to "correct" Microsoft Word in order to stop it from numbering my paragraphs because I was interested in getting the two documents as alike as possible.

So, there were proportional spacing typewriters in 1972 that used Times Roman font, and it is entirely possible that a large organization like the military that depended heavily on memos and other written documents would purchase such machines. The only question is about the superscripted "th" glyph.

There were hundreds of different typeballs produced for the IBM Selectric including Greek letters, cursive, mono, and proportional spaced fonts. It would not surprise me that one of these typeballs included a superscripted "th" as a special character. It would explain why not all of the "th" are superscripted (since the typist would have to remember to do this) and why the "st" in "1st Lt." is not superscripted since that probably didn't exist on the typeball. When I was a young boy, I remember the Selectric my father used had the fractions ¼ and ½ on it, but not any other fractions. I can easily imagine a special Selectric typeball that contained a superscripted "th" glyph, but not the fraction glyphs.

There is one thing we all can agree upon. Lt. Colonel Killian did not type these memos. Back then, Lt. Colonel Killian would have written up these memos on an official form that was handed to a secretarial pool. A secretary would pick it up, type up the memo, and deliver it back to Lt. Colonel Killian. And, that secretary, like most secretaries in large orgainizations, had either an IBM Executive or Selectric that was capable of producing the Killian memos. - http://web.morons.org/article...

[b]CBS Stands By Challenged Documents on Bush[/b], http://www.southerndigest.com...

---> SUPREME HYPOCRISY! GOP Urges Newspaper to Fire Poll Director when Results aren't Pro-Bush

09.14.04 (7:49 am) [edit]

Can you belive this!? For months, AP, the Post, MSNBC, et al, have engaged in outrageous poll manipulation and disseminating stories with their polls that spin away any bad Bush news. Now when a newspaper in Minnesota is found to possibly favor Democrats in its polls and commentary, the GOP is howling and frothing at the mouth like a rabid dog and wants the Star Tribune poll director all but drawn and quartered! OK, you folks at the DNC and you activist lawyers out there! Maybe it's time to fight fire with fire! If the Tribune poll director goes, so should the directors of the ABC, MSNBC, Time, Newsweek, Washington Post, FOX, and Gallup polls! Let's go for it!

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.startribune.com/vi...

---> Kitty Kelley Ain't No Scaredy-Cat (Unlike A'W'OL Bush who has Goons do his Dirty Work!)

09.14.04 (4:49 am) [edit]

Kitty Kelley is under fierce attack from Karl Rove via NBC's Today Show for claiming Sharon Bush told her W used cocaine at Camp David while Poppy was Pres. But despite Sharon's denial, Kitty isn't giving an inch. "The following are undisputable facts: -- Mrs. Bush confirmed that she was aware of cocaine use by George W. Bush at Camp David when his father was President -- Mrs. Bush confirmed that such usage occurred on more than one occasion -- Mrs. Bush knew that Ms. Kelley planned on using this information in her book and was read the exact quotes that would be utilized -- Mrs. Bush continued to have a good relationship with Kitty Kelley -- long after the meeting in April at which she confirmed the cocaine report -- Mrs. Bush called Ms. Kelley in May, 2004 after which there was a friendly correspondence. "

[b]Read[/b] ... http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi...

---> Bush Aides Possibly Altered National Guard Records To Conceal Grounding and Missed Duty

09.14.04 (4:47 am) [edit]

Democrats.com was one of the first news outlets on the internet to expose Bush's AWOL National Guard record. Even before the un-Supreme Court installed "Our Misleader" in Dec. 2000, Democrats.com was on top of the story. "Aides to Texas Governor George W. Bush visited the Air National Guard archives at Camp Mabry in 1997 and possibly altered Bush's military service records to conceal Bush's grounding from flight in 1972 and subsequent missed duty, according to a former senior official of the Texas National Guard." And we are still on top of the story. To access our archive of more than 180 stories on Bush's AWOL military mis-service, visit www.democrats.com/awol

[b]Read [/b]... http://www.democrats.com/disp...

---> A'W'OL BUSH's BLOODBATH: Iraq is Out-of-Control!!! ...

09.14.04 (4:44 am) [edit]

[b]Car bomb kills 47 in Baghdad[/b]

BAGHDAD (Reuters) Tuesday, September 14th 2004 - A huge explosion has torn through a crowded market close to a Baghdad police headquarters building, killing at least 47 people in the deadliest single attack in the capital in six months.

The U.S. army and Iraqi Interior Ministry said Tuesday's blast was a car bomb attack on the police building in Haifa Street, a Baghdad area known as a haven for guerrillas and criminals.

The Health Ministry said 47 had been killed and 114 wounded.

In a separate attack in the restive town of Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on a police minibus. The town's police chief said 12 people were killed.

The Interior Ministry and witnesses said there may have been at least two simultaneous car bomb blasts in the Baghdad attack. Witnesses said mortars may have been fired at the same time.

"I was standing there talking to my friend when suddenly all I saw was blood, and my friend lying dead," said an Iraqi man who gave his name as Zafer, speaking from his hospital bed with blood and scratches on his face and bandages on his stomach.

Hospital workers hosed pools of blood from the floor.

At the blast site, rescuers pulled bodies from mangled market stalls. The area was littered with shoes, clothes and body parts, as well as fruit and vegetables from the market.

Bloodstained corpses lay on pavements strewn with chairs, glass and rubble from blown-out shopfronts. Dazed bystanders vainly checked bodies for signs of life.

Smoke from blazing vehicles in the middle of the street billowed into the sky, as fire crews tried to douse the flames. A huge crater was punched into the road. Ambulances with sirens wailing ferried the dead and wounded to hospital as U.S. helicopters buzzed overhead.

On Sunday, guerrillas mounted multiple car bomb and mortar attacks in central Baghdad, during a day of violence in which more than 100 people were killed across the country.

Many of Sunday's casualties were also in Haifa Street, where U.S. troops have repeatedly clashed with guerrillas.

Following Tuesday's bombing, U.S. troops again moved into Haifa Street and appeared to be readying for an assault. They told residents by loudspeaker to leave the area.

SURGE IN VIOLENCE

Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib visited the site of Tuesday's blast and condemned the perpetrators.

"They are targeting the Iraqi people and they are trying to destroy Iraq. These powers won't stop the rebuilding of Iraq," he said. "There will be no space for the terrorists and the enemies of Iraq."

Near Mosul, gunmen opened fire on a U.S. patrol on Tuesday, killing one soldier and wounding five, the U.S. military said.

Since the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein last year, at least 762 U.S. troops have been killed in action. The total Pentagon death toll, including non-hostile deaths, is 1,013.

Fighting has surged in Iraq over the last few days after U.S.-led forces launched a drive to pacify areas of the country under guerrilla control ahead of elections due in January.

The American military has mounted several air strikes on Falluja, a city controlled by insurgents. It says the attacks have targeted militants loyal to Jordanian al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has claimed responsibility for a series of car bomb attacks and the killing of foreign hostages.

U.S. forces have also launched an offensive in Tal Afar, a mainly Turkmen town close to the Syrian border in northern Iraq which it says has become a haven for foreign fighters.

The Health Ministry has said at least 60 people were killed in fighting in Tal Afar over the past week.

Air Force Brigadier General Erv Lessel, deputy director of operations for the U.S. military in Iraq, told Reuters the U.S. military was determined to restore stability to rebel-held areas before the planned elections.

"The overriding strategy is to gain local security control in all the cities throughout Iraq by the end of December," he said. --Additional reporting by Ibon Villelabeitia and Ed Cropley in Baghdad and Faris Mehdawi in Baquba. - http://www.reuters.co.uk/news...

READ "OUT OF CONTROL" on http://www.tblog.com/template...

---> A Bush Flip-Flop-A-Day Keeps the Talking Heads Away

09.13.04 (6:38 pm) [edit]

[b]Bush's Foreign Policy Flip-Flops Top 60[/b]

It's "flip-flop month" at compassiongate! Read the 41 (count 'em) flip-flops on Iraq alone, plus 19 other foreign policy somersaults. Bush can't ride a Segway, but he's an Olympic champion flip-flopper!

A must-read on http://flipflops.compassionga...

---> US News & World Report Drops Mega Bomb on A'W'OL Bush

09.13.04 (9:30 am) [edit]

[b]US News & World Report Drops Mega Bomb on Bush that Makes the CBS Documents Irrelevant[/b]

Who needs CBS's memos when US News & World Report has turned up a drawerful of smoking guns? America Blog reports: "Bush's violation of the rules was even worse that we thought. This is a BIG honking story. At this point, I'll give the GOP the CBS memos if they want 'em - who cares if they're real now. USNews, known to be a conservative-leaning magazine, has just come up with independent evidence showing Bush shirked EVEN MORE of his National Guard duty than we thought, that the White House lied about it, and that there is no explanation for how Bush could reasonably get an honorable discharge." Now let's see if NBC, FOX, AP and the resent of the Bush-nosing media bothers to air any part of this story!

[b]More [/b]... http://americablog.blogspot.c...

---> GOP Conservative Says "A Peace Bloodier Than War" [A Must-Read!]

09.13.04 (9:26 am) [edit]

[b]A Peace Bloodier Than War

by Patrick J. Buchanan [/b]

Since the transfer of power to a provisional government in Baghdad at the end of June, more Americans have died in combat than during Gen. Franks' invasion. In August, 1,000 U.S. soldiers were wounded, the highest figure for any month.

"The 'peace' has been bloodier than the war," Capt. Russell Burgos, returning from duty in Iraq, told The Washington Post. Burgos compares America in Iraq to Israel's 18-year occupation of Lebanon. Some of us were using the Lebanon analogy even before we invaded.

U.S. war dead now number over 1,000. Retired Lt. Col. Carlo D'este, war historian, tells the Post, "Sadly, the 1,000th military death is but a bookmark on a longer and more painful road. ... There is no visible light at the end of the tunnel, nor has the Bush administration articulated a viable exit strategy, without which war will continue indefinitely – that is, years."

A dissent. This war will not continue indefinitely. America will not tolerate it. We were persuaded by George Bush to support an invasion to remove what was said to be a grave threat. The Congress may have given the president a blank check, but this nation never signed up for an endless war to make Iraq safe for democracy. Nor will Americans pay an endless price in blood to achieve it.

If George Bush believes we will, he misreads America.

We are coming to a turning point. From the rising casualties and attacks, not just from roadside bombs but combat, it seems this war is a stalemate. We and our Iraqi allies cannot eradicate the enemy, whose numbers have multiplied four-fold in 18 months, while U.S. forces have not increased. We are now tolerating enemy base camps in Fallujah and Ramadi in the Sunni Triangle. Sadr City in Baghdad is less pacified now than in April 2003.

All this points to a long war, except for one hard fact. The resolve of the enemy appears to be growing, while the resolution of Americans to fight on indefinitely is not. Polls show the number who believe Iraq was a mistake is half the nation, and half believes it may be time to withdraw.

If recent history is any guide, the longer a European power fights a guerrilla war in the Islamic world, the less likely it is to prevail. Brits, French, Israelis and Russians can testify to that.

U.S. losses may be only 2 percent of Vietnam's, but we are approaching our Westmoreland moment, a time of national decision similar to late 1967, when Gen. Westmoreland, with 500,000 troops under his command or on the way, returned to Washington to ask for 200,000 more. The general was told: No more troops, that's it.

And as this war drifts on, with no end in sight and no exit strategy visible, Americans must demand answers of President Bush and Sen. Kerry. The question that needs to be put to both in the first debate is: If U.S. commanders in Iraq tell you we need 50,000 more troops to win the war and prevent the loss of Iraq, would you send them?

With the Democratic Party bitter about "Bush's war," a war even Kerry now calls the "wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time," could candidate Kerry credibly answer, "Yes, I would send the 50,000 troops and expend whatever resources needed to win in Iraq"?

Should Kerry be elected, he will find himself in an LBJ-1968 situation, commander in chief of an army fighting a war his own party no longer wishes to fight and wants to end. For Kerry to soldier on, he would have to go to Congress and recruit Speaker Hastert, Tom Delay and Bill Frist to defeat an antiwar coalition led by Charlie Rangel, Nancy Pelosi and Teddy Kennedy, backed by Howard Dean and Jesse Jackson.

As for President Bush, given the solid support he has from inside his party, he would have more time to fight the war and exit with honor. But support for present levels of fighting will not long endure without signs of either imminent victory or early withdrawal.

Before November, the American people need to hear both candidates' answers to these questions.

Is this is a winnable war, if our objective remains a pro-Western democratic Iraq? And how long will that take and what will be the price?

What is the minimum America can settle for, given all the blood and treasure already expended, if the utopian vision of the neoconservatives is not attainable? And if we do not wish to pay the price of victory, what would be the consequences of failure?

We need to ask now the questions our leaders did not ask before they stampeded us into war, while the Congress and the Big Media discarded their duties to become the cheerleaders of democratic imperialism. - http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?a...

[b]The neo-con slimeballs are trashing Mr. Buchanan by calling him a racist, anti-semitic and every other name in the book, simply for telling the truth about Bush/Cheney's fiasco. The Bush/Cheney neo-con slimeballs are shameless traitors.[/b]

---> Hail to the 'Flip-Flopper-in-Chief'

09.13.04 (5:44 am) [edit]

[b]AP reports[/b], "Bush has his own history of changing his position, from reversals on steel tariffs and 'nation-building' to reasons for invading Iraq . Most recently, Bush did an about-face on whether the proposed new director of national intelligence should have full budget-making powers as the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission recommended. Bush at first indicated no, then last week said yes... In 2000, Bush argued against new military entanglements and nation building. He's done both in Iraq... _He opposed a Homeland Security Department, then embraced it. _He opposed creation of an independent Sept. 11 commission, then supported it. He first refused to speak to its members, then agreed only if Vice President Dick Cheney came with him. _Bush argued for free trade, then imposed three-year tariffs on steel imports in 2002, only to withdraw them after 21 months. _Last month, he said he doubted the war on terror could be won, then reversed himself to say it could and would." And on and on...

[b]More[/b] ...