Progressive Pulpit

Frank Rich Nails It

2006-06-11T16:45:00.000-07:00

June 11, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
How Hispanics Became the New Gays
By FRANK RICH

HE never promised them the Rose Garden. But that's where America's self-appointed defenders of family values had expected President Bush to take his latest stand against same-sex marriage last week. In the end, without explanation, the event was shunted off to a nondescript auditorium in the Executive Office Building, where the president spoke for a scant 10 minutes at the non-prime-time hour of 1:45 p.m. The subtext was clear: he was embarrassed to be there, a constitutional amendment "protecting" marriage was a loser, and he feared being branded a bigot. "As this debate goes forward, every American deserves to be treated with tolerance and respect and dignity," Mr. Bush said.

That debate died on the floor of the Senate less than 48 hours later, when the amendment went down to an even worse defeat than expected. Washington instantly codified the moral: a desperate president at rock bottom in the polls went through the motions of a cynical and transparent charade to rally his base in an election year. Nothing was gained — even the president of the Family Policy Network branded Mr. Bush's pandering a ruse — and no harm was done.

Except to gay people. That's why the president went out of his way to talk about "tolerance" at this rally, bizarrely held on the widely marked 25th anniversary of the first mention of an AIDS diagnosis in a federal report. Mr. Bush knew very well that his participation in this tired political stunt, while certain to have no effect on the Constitution, could harm innocent Americans.
When young people hear repeatedly that gay couples aspiring to marital commitment are "undermining the moral fabric of the country, that stuff doesn't wash off," says Matt Foreman of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Most concretely, the Washington ruckus trickles down into sweeping assaults on gay partners' employee benefits and parental rights at the state level, as exemplified by a broadly worded referendum on the Virginia ballot this fall outlawing any kind of civil union. Had Mr. Bush really believed that his words had no consequences, he would have spoken in broad daylight at the White House and without any defensive touchy-feely bromides about "tolerance."

Mr. Bush prides himself on being tolerant — and has hundreds of photos of himself posing with black schoolkids to prove it. But his latest marriage maneuver is yet another example of how his presidency has been an enabler of bigots, and not just those of the "pro-family" breed.
The stars are in alignment for a new national orgy of rancor because Americans are angry. The government has failed to alleviate gas prices, the economic anxieties of globalization or turmoil in Iraq. Two-thirds of Americans believe their country is on the wrong track. The historical response to that plight is a witch hunt for scapegoats on whom we can project our rage and impotence. Gay people, though traditionally handy for that role, aren't the surefire scapegoats they once were; support for a constitutional marriage amendment, ABC News found, fell to 42 percent just before the Senate vote. Hence the rise of a juicier target: Hispanics. They are the new gays, the foremost political piñata in the election year of 2006.

As has not been the case with gay civil rights, Mr. Bush has taken a humane view of immigration reform throughout his political career. Some of this is self-interest; he wants to cater to his business backers' hunger for cheap labor and Karl Rove's hunger for Hispanic voters. But Mr. Bush has always celebrated and promoted immigrants and never demonized them — at least in Texas. In the White House, he sidelined immigration after 9/11, then backed away from a "guest worker" proposal when his party balked in 2004. After bragging about his political capital upon re-election, he squandered it on Iraq and a quixotic campaign to privatize Social Security. Now Congress has acted without him, turning immigration reform into a deadlocked culture war not unlike the marriage amendment. A draconian federal law is unlikely, but the damage has been done: the ugly debate has in itself generated a backlash against a vulnerable minority.

Most Americans who are in favor of stricter border enforcement are not bigots. Far from it. But some politicians and other public figures see an opportunity to foment hate and hysteria for their own profit. They are embracing a nativism and xenophobia that recall the 1920's, when a State Department warning about an influx of "filthy" and "unassimilable" Jews from Eastern Europe led to the first immigration quotas, or the 1950's heyday of Operation Wetback, when illegal Mexican workers were hunted down and deported.

"What a repellent spectacle," the Fox News anchor Brit Hume said when surveying masses of immigrant demonstrators, some of them waving Mexican flags, in April. Hearing of a Spanish version of "The Star-Spangled Banner," Lamar Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee, introduced a Senate resolution calling for the national anthem to be sung only in English. There was no more point to that gratuitous bit of grandstanding than there was to the D.O.A. marriage amendment. Or more accurately, both had the same point: stirring up animosity against a group that can be branded an enemy of civilization as we know it.

The most pernicious demagogues on immigration often invoke national security as their rationale, but no terrorist has been known to enter the United States from Mexico. Even the arguments about immigrants' economic impact are sometimes a smokescreen for a baser animus. As John B. Judis of The New Republic documented in his account of Arizona's combustible immigration politics, the dominant fear in that border state has less to do with immigrants stealing jobs (which are going begging in construction and agriculture) than with their contaminating the culture through "Mexicanization." It's the same complaint that's been leveled against every immigrant group when the country's in this foul a mood.

That mood was ratcheted up last week by the success of Brian Bilbray's strategy in winning the suburban San Diego House seat vacated by the jailed Duke Cunningham. Mr. Bilbray, a card-carrying lobbyist, was thought to be potentially vulnerable even in a normally safe Republican district. But by his own account, his campaign took off once he started hitting the single issue of immigration, taking a hard line far to the right of the president who endorsed him. Mr. Bilbray goes so far as to call for the refusal of automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants — a repudiation of the 14th Amendment, enacted after the Civil War to ensure citizenship to everyone born in the United States.

His victorious campaign set a tone likely to be embraced by other Republicans fearful of a rout in 2006. The election year is still young, and we haven't seen the half of this vitriol yet. Some politicians, like Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, are equal-opportunity bigots: when he isn't calling for the Senate to declare English the national language and demanding that immigrants be quizzed on the Federalist Papers (could he pass?), he is defending marriage by proclaiming that in his family's "recorded history" there has never been "any kind of homosexual relationship." (Any bets on how long before someone unearths the Inhofes' unrecorded history?) Vernon Robinson, a Republican Congressional candidate challenging the Democratic incumbent Brad Miller in North Carolina, has run an ad warning that "if Miller had his way, America would be nothing but one big fiesta for illegal aliens and homosexuals."

The practitioners of such scare politics know what they're up to. That's why they so often share the strange psychological tic of framing their arguments in civil-rights speak. The Minuteman Project, the vigilante brigade stoking fears of an immigration Armageddon, quotes Gandhi on its Web site; its founder, Jim Gilchrist, has referred to his group as "predominantly white Martin Luther Kings." On a Focus on the Family radio show, James Dobson and the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, positioned the campaign to deny gay civil rights as the moral equivalent of L.B.J.'s campaign to extend civil rights. James Sensenbrenner, the leading House Republican voice on immigration policy, likened those who employ illegal immigrants to "the 19th-century slave masters" that "we had to fight a civil war to get rid of." For that historical analogy to add up, you'd have to believe that Africans voluntarily sought to immigrate to America to be slaves. Whether Mr. Sensenbrenner is out to insult African-Americans or is merely a fool is a distinction without a difference in this volatile political climate.

Mr. Bush is a lame duck, but he still has a bully pulpit. Here is a cause he has professed to believe in since he first ran for office in Texas, and it's threatening to boil over in an election year. Imagine if he exercised leadership and called out those who trash immigrants rather than merely mouthing homilies about tolerance and dignity.

Tolerance and dignity are already on life-support in this debate. If the president doesn't lead, he will have helped relegate Hispanics to the same second-class status he has encouraged for gay Americans. Compassionate conservatism, R.I.P.

Mike Berg for Congress

2006-06-10T12:20:00.000-07:00

Nothing but admiration for this man.

Al-Zarqawi's Death is No Cause for Rejoicing
by Michael Berg

CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien spoke Thursday with Michael Berg, whose son, Nicholas Berg, was beheaded two years ago in Iraq, likely at the hands of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. This is adapted from their conversation.

Q Mr. Berg, thank you for talking with us again. It's nice to have an opportunity to talk to you. Of course, I'm curious to know your reaction, as it is now confirmed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man who is widely credited and blamed for killing your son, Nicholas, is dead.

A Well, my reaction is I'm sorry whenever any human being dies. Zarqawi is a human being. He has a family who are reacting just as my family reacted when Nick was killed, and I feel bad for that. I feel doubly bad, though, because Zarqawi is also a political figure, and his death will reignite yet another wave of revenge, and revenge is something that I do not follow, that I do not ask for, that I do not wish for against anybody. And it can't end the cycle. As long as people use violence to combat violence, we will always have violence.

Q I have to say, sir, I'm surprised. I know how devastated you and your family were, frankly, when Nick was killed in such a horrible, and brutal and public way.

A Well, you shouldn't be surprised, because I have never indicated anything but forgiveness and peace in any interview on the air.

Q No, no. And we have spoken before, and I'm well aware of that. But at some point, one would think, is there a moment when you say, 'I'm glad he's dead, the man who killed my son'?

A No. How can a human being be glad that another human being is dead?

Q You know, you talked about the fact that he's become a political figure. Are you concerned that he becomes a martyr and a hero and, in fact, invigorates the insurgency in Iraq?

A Of course. When Nick was killed, I felt that I had nothing left to lose. I'm a pacifist, so I wasn't going out murdering people. But I am -- was not a risk-taking person, and yet now I've done things that have endangered me tremendously. ...
Now, take someone who in 1991, who maybe had their family killed by an American bomb, their support system whisked away from them, someone who, instead of being 59, as I was when Nick died, was 5 years old or 10 years old. And then if I were that person, might I not learn how to fly a plane into a building or strap a bag of bombs to my back?
That's what is happening every time we kill an Iraqi, every time we kill anyone, we are creating a large number of people who are going to want vengeance. And, you know, when are we ever going to learn that that doesn't work?

Anonymous Says

2006-05-30T06:12:00.000-07:00

So Feingold is for gay marriage, however he voted someone onto the supreme court who is against it?

Uh, yes. What's your point? I'm for gay marriage and I've cast my vote for people who don't favor it; John Kerry and Bill Clinton immediately come to mind.

More Discussion

2006-05-21T11:36:00.000-07:00

Wesley just because 65% of Americans do not think Bush is doing a good job doesn't mean that the do because of the same reasons as you.There are many people on the right who disagree with Bush, but that doesn't mean they agree with your views.

I'm not suggesting that they do. In fact there was a really interesting opinion piece in the paper by staunch conservative Richard Viguerie. His policy views and mine are polar opposite, but the objective fact upon which we agree completely is that Bush has not been an effective President. Incidentally, another point upon which we agree--as members of the "far" wings of our persuasion (Right and Left) is that loyalty to party and winning elections isn't always a good thing.

Bush's Base Betrayal
By Richard A. ViguerieSunday, May 21, 2006; B01

As a candidate in 2000, George W. Bush was a Rorschach test. Country Club Republicans saw him as another George H.W. Bush; some conservatives, thinking wishfully, saw him as another Ronald Reagan. He called himself a "compassionate conservative," which meant whatever one wanted it to mean. Experts from across the party's spectrum were flown to Austin to brief Bush and reported back: "He's one of us."

Republicans were desperate to retake the White House, conservatives were desperate to get the Clinton liberals out and there was no direct heir to Reagan running for president. So most conservatives supported Bush as the strongest candidate -- some enthusiastically and some, like me, reluctantly. After the disastrous presidency of his father, our support for the son was a triumph of hope over experience.

Once he took office, conservatives were willing to grant this Bush a honeymoon. We were happy when he proposed tax cuts (small, but tax cuts nonetheless) and when he pushed for a missile defense system. Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and conservatives came to see support for the president as an act of patriotism.

Conservatives tolerated the No Child Left Behind Act, an extensive intrusion into state and local education, and the budget-busting Medicare prescription drug benefit. They tolerated the greatest increase in spending since Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. They tolerated Bush's failure to veto a single bill, and his refusal to enforce immigration laws. They even tolerated his signing of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul, even though Bush's opposition to that measure was a key reason they backed him over Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in the 2000 primaries.

In 2004, Republican leaders pleaded with conservatives -- particularly religious conservatives -- to register people to vote and help them turn out on Election Day. Those efforts strengthened Republicans in Congress and probably saved the Bush presidency. We were told: Just wait till the second term. Then, the president, freed of concern over reelection and backed by a Republican Congress, would take off the gloves and fight for the conservative agenda. Just wait.
We're still waiting.

Sixty-five months into Bush's presidency, conservatives feel betrayed. After the "Bridge to Nowhere" transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the tipping point for us. Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found last week that Republican disapproval of Bush's presidency had increased from 16 percent to 30 percent in one month. It is largely the defection of conservatives that is driving the president's poll numbers to new lows.

Emboldened and interconnected as never before by alternative media, such as talk radio and Internet blogs, many conservatives have concluded that the benefits of unwavering support for the GOP simply do not, and will not, outweigh the costs.

The main cause of conservatives' anger with Bush is this: He talked like a conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative.

For all of conservatives' patience, we've been rewarded with the botched Hurricane Katrina response, headed by an unqualified director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which proved that the government isn't ready for the next disaster. We've been rewarded with an amnesty plan for illegal immigrants. We've been rewarded with a war in Iraq that drags on because of the failure to provide adequate resources at the beginning, and with exactly the sort of "nation-building" that Candidate Bush said he opposed.

Republicans in Congress and at the White House seem oblivious to the rising threat of communist China and of Vladimir Putin's Russia. Despite the temporary appointment of conservative John R. Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the current GOP leadership keeps shoveling money to the world body despite its refusal to change.
As for the Supreme Court, Bush's failed nomination of Miers, his personal lawyer, represented the breaking of what we took as an explicit promise to appoint more Antonin Scalias and Clarence Thomases, and it was an inexcusable act of cronyism.

Conservatives hope that John G. Roberts and Samuel A. Alito will turn out to be conservatives, as we were promised, but we are aware that six of nine previous Republican appointees to the Supreme Court turned out to be liberals or swing voters. And none of Bush's Supreme Court nominees had a significant paper trail as a conservative legal scholar. That sends a message to conservative lawyers and judges: If you want to be on the Supreme Court someday, hide your conservatism.

But conservatives don't blame the current mess just on Bush. They recognize the problem today is also at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

For years, congressional Republicans have sold themselves to conservatives as the continuation of the Reagan revolution. We were told that they would take on the Washington special interests -- that they would, in essence, tear down K Street and sow the earth with salt to make sure nothing ever grew there again.

But over time, most of them turned into the sort of unprincipled power brokers they had ousted in 1994. They lost interest in furthering conservative ideas, and they turned their attention to getting their share of the pork. Conservatives did not spend decades going door to door, staffing phone banks and compiling lists of like-minded voters so Republican congressmen could have highways named after them and so there could be an affirmative-action program for Republican lobbyists.

White House and congressional Republicans seem to have adopted a one-word strategy: bribery. Buy off seniors with a prescription drug benefit. Buy off the steel industry with tariffs. Buy off agribusiness with subsidies. The cost of illegal bribery (see the case of former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham) pales next to that of legal bribery such as congressional earmarks.

In today's Washington, where are the serious efforts by Republicans to protect unborn children from abortion? Where is the campaign for a constitutional amendment to prevent liberal judges from allowing same-sex marriage?

Instead of conservative action on social issues, the Republican-controlled House has approved more taxpayers' money for an embryo-killing type of stem cell research. And it passed a "hate crimes" measure that could lead to the classification as "hate" of criticism of homosexual activity. And in the Senate, Republicans have let key judicial nominees languish, even when Bush has nominated conservatives for lower courts. Would a strong Senate leader such as LBJ have let his party's nominees fail for lack of a floor vote?

As long as Democrats controlled Congress or the White House, Republicans could tell conservatives they deserved support because of what they would do, someday. Now we know what they do when they have control. Their agenda comes from Big Business, not from grass-roots conservatives.

But unhappy conservatives should be taken seriously. When conservatives are unhappy, bad things happen to the Republican Party.

In 1948, conservatives were unhappy with Thomas E. Dewey's liberal Republican "me too" campaign, and enough of them stayed home to give the election to Harry S. Truman. In 1960, conservatives were unhappy with Richard M. Nixon's negotiations with Nelson A. Rockefeller to divide the spoils of victory before victory was even achieved, and John F. Kennedy won.
In 1974, conservatives were unhappy with the corruption and Big Government policies of Nixon's White House and with President Gerald R. Ford's selection of Rockefeller as his vice president, and this led to major Republican losses in the congressional races that year. By 1976, conservatives were fed up with Ford's adoption of Rockefeller's agenda, and Jimmy Carter was elected with the backing of Christian conservatives.

In 1992, conservatives were so unhappy with President George H.W. Bush's open disdain for them that they staged an open rebellion, first with the candidacy of Patrick J. Buchanan and then with Ross Perot. The result was an incumbent president receiving a paltry 37 percent of the vote. In 1998, conservatives were demoralized by congressional Republicans' wild spending and their backing away from conservative ideas. The result was an unexpected loss of seats in the House and the resignation of Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).

The current record of Washington Republicans is so bad that, without a drastic change in direction, millions of conservatives will again stay home this November.
And maybe they should. Conservatives are beginning to realize that nothing will change until there's a change in the GOP leadership. If congressional Republicans win this fall, they will see themselves as vindicated, and nothing will get better.

If conservatives accept the idea that we must support Republicans no matter what they do, we give up our bargaining position and any chance at getting things done. We're like a union that agrees never to strike, no matter how badly its members are treated. Sometimes it is better to stand on principle and suffer a temporary defeat. If Ford had won in 1976, it's unlikely Reagan ever would have been president. If the elder Bush had won in 1992, it's unlikely the Republicans would have taken control of Congress in 1994.

At the very least, conservatives must stop funding the Republican National Committee and other party groups. (Let Big Business take care of that!) Instead, conservatives should dedicate their money and volunteer efforts toward conservative groups and conservative candidates. They should redirect their anger into building a third force -- not a third party, but a movement independent of any party. They should lay the groundwork for a rebirth of the conservative movement and for the 2008 campaign, when, perhaps, a new generation of conservative leaders will step forward.

I've never seen conservatives so downright fed up as they are today. The current relationship between Washington Republicans and the nation's conservatives makes me think of a cheating husband whose wife catches him, and forgives him, time and time again. Then one day he comes home to discover that she has packed her bags and called a cab -- and a divorce lawyer.

As the philanderer learns: Hell hath no fury. . . .

Marriage

2006-05-21T11:33:00.000-07:00

"What about a man who wants to marry his DOG! What about his civil rights!", asks Anonymous.

Consenting adults is what we're talking about here.

2006-05-21T11:31:00.000-07:00

You guys are a joke. Are you capable of saying anything substantive?

Oh my God! Bush is responsible for all that! He was also able to get the majority of Americans to vote for him in the last election despite the evidence of his machiavellian schemes!What a brilliant man! No wait, he's just an unintelligent Texas boob. I got it ,he's the ANTI-CHRIST!

Winning elections absolutely = good president, silly me.

More Anonymous

2006-05-21T11:26:00.000-07:00

Anonymous replies: "moreover, the answer to mass killings surely can't be an invasion that results in more mass killings"Then whats your solution! You didn't answer the question!

The answer to Saddam's mass killings would not have been to have sided with him and armed him in a way that allowed him to do it. As horrific as those acts were in the 80's, I don't think they screamed for redress in 2003. Do you?

The Right is great at calling things crises and then chastising opponents for not offering solutions, e.g., Social Security and Immigration.

So you are saying that we invaded Iraq in 2003 to address the killings that occurred on the Reagan-Bush and the Bush I watches? That's bullshit and you know it.

Immigration Red Herring

2006-05-21T07:21:00.000-07:00

This is a long piece for the blog, but it's well worth reading. If read with an open mind, it can help an understanding about just what the immigration debate is really about.

Where did this issue come from? Why is it resonating? What are its real parameters both as a problem and in terms of solutions.

The Framing of Immigration
by George Lakoff and Sam Ferguson

On May 15th, in an address from the Oval Office, President Bush presented his proposal for “comprehensive immigration reform."

The term “immigration reform” evokes an issue-defining conceptual frame — The Immigration Problem Frame — a frame that imposes a structure on the current situation, defines a set of “problems” with that situation, and circumscribes the possibility for “solutions.”

“Reform,” when used in politics, indicates there is a pressing issue that needs to be addressed — take “medicare reform,” “lobbying reform,” “social security reform.” The noun that's attached to reform — “immigration” — points to where the problem lies. Whatever noun is attached to “reform” becomes the locus of the problem and constrains what counts as a solution.

To illustrate, take “lobbying reform.” In the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal, “lobbying reform” was all the talk in the media and on Capitol Hill. The problem defined by this frame has to do with lobbyists. As a “lobbyist” problem, the solutions focused on Congressional rules regarding lobbyists. The debate centered around compensated meals, compensated trips, access by former Congressmen (who inevitably become lobbyists) to the floor of the Senate and House of representatives, lobbying disclosure, lobbyists' access to Congressional staff and the period of time between leaving the Congress and becoming a registered lobbyists. Indeed, if the reform needed is “lobbying reform,” these are reasonable solutions. But, the term “Congressional ethics reform” would have framed a problem of a much different nature, a problem with Congressmen. And it would allow very different reforms to count as solutions. After all, lobbyists are powerless if there's nobody to accept a free meal, fly on a private plane, play a round of golf in the Bahamas and, most importantly, accept the political contributions lobbyists raise on their behalf from special-interests with billions of dollars in business before the federal Government. A solution could, for example, have been Full Public Financing of Elections and free airtime for political candidates as part of the licensing of the public's airwaves to private corporations. The “lobbying reform” framing of the issue precluded such considerations from discussion, because they don't count as solutions to the “lobbying” problem. Issue-defining frames are powerful.

“Immigration reform” also evokes an issue-defining frame. Bush, in his speech, pointed out the problems that this frame defines. First, the Government has “not been in complete control of its borders.” Second, millions are able to “sneak across our border” seeking to make money. Finally, once here, illegal immigrants sometimes forge documents to get work, skirting labor laws, and deceiving employers who attempt to follow the law. They may take jobs away from legal immigrants and ordinary Americans, bear children who will be American citizens even in they are not, and use local services like schools and hospitals, which may cost a local government a great deal. This is his definition of the problem in the Immigration Reform frame.

This definition of the problem focuses entirely on the immigrants and the administrative agencies charged with overseeing immigration law. The reason is that these are the only roles present in the Immigration Problem Frame.

Bush's “comprehensive solution” entirely concerns the immigrants, citizenship laws, and the border patrol. And, from the narrow problem identified by framing it as an “immigration problem,” Bush's solution is comprehensive. He has at least addressed everything that counts as a problem in the immigration frame.

But the real problem with the current situation runs broader and deeper. Consider the issue of Foreign Policy Reform, which focuses on two sub-issues:
How has US foreign policy placed, or kept, in power oppressive governments which people are forced to flee?'

What role have international trade agreements had in creating or exacerbating people's urge to flee their homelands? If capital is going to freely cross borders, should people and labor be able to do so as well, going where globalization takes the jobs?

Such a framing of the problem would lead to a solution involving the Secretary of State, conversations with Mexico and other Central American countries, and a close examination of the promises of NAFTA, CAFTA, the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank to raise standards of living around the globe. It would inject into the globalization debate a concern for the migration and displacement of people, not simply globalization's promise for profits. This is not addressed when the issue is defined as the “immigration problem.” Bush's “comprehensive solution” does not address any of these concerns. The immigration problem, in this light, is actually a globalization problem.

Perhaps the problem might be better understood as a humanitarian crisis. Can the mass migration and displacement of people from their homelands at a rate of 800,000 people a year be understood as anything else? Unknown numbers of people have died trekking through the extreme conditions of the Arizona and New Mexico desert. Towns are being depopulated and ways of life lost in rural Mexico. Fathers feel forced to leave their families in their best attempt to provide for their kids. Everyday, boatloads of people arrive on our shores after miserable journeys at sea in deplorable conditions.

As a humanitarian crisis, the solution could involve The UN or the Organization of American States. But these bodies do not have roles in the immigration frame, so they have no place in an “immigration debate.” Framing this as just an “immigration problem” prevents us from penetrating deeper into the issue.

The current situation can also be seen as a civil rights problem. The millions of people living here who crossed illegally are for most intents and purposes Americans. They work here. They pay taxes here. Their kids are in school here. They plan to raise their families here. For the most part, they are assimilated into the American system, but are forced to live underground and in the shadows because of their legal status. They are denied ordinary civil rights. The “immigration problem” framing overlooks their basic human dignity.
Perhaps most pointedly, the “immigration problem” frame blocks an understanding of this issue as a cheap labor issue. The undocumented immigrants allow employers to pay low wages, which in turn provide the cheap consumer goods we find at WalMart and McDonalds. They are part of a move towards the cheap lifestyle, where employers and consumers find any way they can to save a dollar, regardless of the human cost. Most of us partake in this cheap lifestyle, and as a consequence, we are all complicit in the current problematic situation. Business, Consumers and Government have turned a blind eye to the problem for so long because our entire economy is structured around subsistence wages. Americans won't do the work immigrants do not because they don't want to, but because they won't do it for such low pay. Since Bush was elected, corporate profits have doubled but there has been no increase in wages. This is really a wage problem. The workers who are being more productive are not getting paid for their increased productivity.

A solution to the “immigration problem” will not address these concerns because they are absent from the “immigration frame.” Framing matters. The notion of this as “an immigration problem” needing “immigration reform” is not neutral.

Surface Framing
We now turn from conceptual framing of the current situation to the words used and surface frames those words evoke.

The Illegal Frame The Illegal Frame is perhaps the most commonly used frame within the immigration debate. Journalists frequently refer to “illegal immigrants” as if it were a neutral term. But the illegal frame is highly structured. It frames the problem as one about the illegal act of crossing the border without papers. As a consequence, it fundamentally frames the problem as a legal one.

Think for a moment of a criminal. Chances are you thought about a robber, a murderer or a
rapist. These are prototypical criminals, people who do harm to a person or their property.

And prototypical criminals are assumed to be bad people.

“Illegal,” used as an adjective in “illegal immigrants” and “illegal aliens,” or simply as a noun in “illegals” defines the immigrants as criminals, as if they were inherently bad people. In conservative doctrine, those who break laws must be punished — or all law and order will break down. Failure to punish is immoral.

“Illegal alien” not only stresses criminality, but stresses otherness. As we are a nation of immigrants, we can at least empathize with immigrants, illegal or not. “Aliens,” in popular culture suggests nonhuman beings invading from outer space — completely foreign, not one of us, intent on taking over our land and our way of life by gradually insinuating themselves among us. Along these lines, the word “invasion” is used by the Minutemen and right-wing bloggers to discuss the wave of people crossing the border. Right-wing language experts intent on keep them out suggest using the world “aliens” whenever possible.
These are NOT neutral terms. Imagine calling businessmen who once cheated on their taxes “illegal businessmen.” Imagine calling people who have driven over the speed limit “illegal drivers.” Is Tom Delay an “illegal Republican?”

By defining them as criminal, it overlooks the immense contributions these immigrants
subsequently make by working hard for low wages. This is work that should more than make up for crossing the border. Indeed, we should be expressing our gratitude.

Immigrants who cross outside of legal channels, though, are committing offenses of a much different nature than the prototypical criminal. Their intent is not to cause harm or to steal. More accurately, they are committing victimless technical offenses, which we normally consider “violations.” By invoking the illegal frame, the severity of their offense is inflated.
The illegal frame — particularly “illegal alien” — dehumanizes. It blocks the questions of: why are people coming to the US, often times at great personal risk? What service do they provide when they are here? Why do they feel it necessary to avoid legal channels? It boils the entire debate down to questions of legality.

And it also ignores the illegal acts of employers. The problem is not being called the Illegal Employer Problem, and employers are not called “illegals.The Security Frame
The logical response to the “wave” of “illegal immigration” becomes “border security.” The Government has a responsibility to provide security for its citizens from criminals and invaders. President Bush has asked to place the National Guard on the border to provide security. Indeed, he referred to “security” six times in his immigration speech.
Additionally, Congress recently appropriated money from the so-called “war on terror” for border security with Mexico. This should outrage the American public. How could Congress conflate the war on terror with illegal immigration? Terrorists come to destroy the American dream, immigrants — both documented and undocumented — come to live the American dream. But the conceptual move from illegal immigrant (criminal, evil), to border security to a front of the war on terror, an ever expanding war against evil in all places and all times wherever it is, is not far.

It is this understanding of the issue that also prompted the House to pass the punitive HR 4437, which includes a provision to make assisting illegal immigrants while they are here a felony. It is seen as aiding and abetting a criminal.

But how could this be a “security” issue? Security implies that there is a threat, and a threatened, and that the threatened needs protection. These immigrants are not a physical threat, they are a vital part of our economy and help America function. They don't want to shoot us or kill us or blow us up. They only want to weed our gardens, clean our houses, and cook our meals in search of the American Dream. They must be recognized as Americans making a vital impact and contribution. And when they are, we will cease to tolerate the substandard conditions in which they are forced to work and live. No American — indeed, no person — should be treated so brashly.Amnesty

“Amnesty” also fits the Illegal Frame. Amnesty is a pardoning of an illegal action — a show of either benevolence or mercy by a supreme power. It implies that the fault lies with the immigrants, and it is a righteous act for the US Government to pardon them. This again blocks the reality that Government looks the other way, and Business has gone much further — it has been a full partner in creating the current situation. If amnesty is to be granted, it seems that amnesty should be given to the businesses who knowingly or unknowingly hired the immigrants and to the Government for turning a blind eye. But amnesty to these parties is not considered, because it's an “immigration problem.” Business has no role in this frame, and Government can't be given amnesty for not enforcing its own laws.The Undocumented

Worker Frame
By comparison, the term “undocumented worker” activates a conceptual frame that seems less accusatory and more compassionate than the “illegal” frame. But a closer look reveals fundamental problems with this framing.

First, the negative “undocumented” suggests that they should be documented - that there is something wrong with them if they are not. Second, “worker” suggests that their function in America is only to work, not to be educated, have families, form communities, have lives — and vote! This term was suggested by supporters of the immigrants as less noxious than illegal aliens, and it is, but it has serious limitations. It accepts the framing of immigrants as being here only to work. Temporary Workers

“Undocumented workers” opened the door to Bush's new proposal for “temporary workers,” who come to America for a short time, work for low wages, do not vote, have few rights and services, and then go home so that a new wave of workers without rights, or the possibility of citizenship and voting, can come in. This is thoroughly undemocratic and serves the financial and electoral interests of conservatives.

This term replaced “guest worker,” which was ridiculed. Imagine inviting some to dinner as a guest and then asking him to pick the vegetables, cook the dinner, and wash the dishes!

Frames Not Taken
Most of the framing initiative has been taken by conservatives. Progressives have so far abstained. Progressives could well frame the situation as the Cheap Labor Issue or the Cheap Lifestyle Issue. Most corporations use the common economic metaphor of labor as a resource. There are two kinds of employees — the Assets (creative people and managers) and Resources (who are relatively unskilled, fungible, interchangeable). The American economy is structured to drive down the cost of resources - that is, the wages of low-skilled, replaceable workers.

Immigration increases the supply of such workers and helps to drive down wages. Cheap labor increases “productivity” and profits for employers, and it permits a cheap lifestyle for consumers who get low prices because of cheap labor. But these are not seen as “problems.” They are benefits. And people take these benefits for granted. They are not grateful to the immigrants who make them possible. Gratitude. The word is hardly ever spoken in the discourse over immigration.

Now consider the frame defined by the term “economic refugee.” A refugee is a person who has fled their homeland, due to political or social strife, and seeks asylum in another country. An economic refugee would extend this category (metaphorically, not legally, though it might be shifted legally in the future) to include people fleeing their homeland as a result of economic insecurity.

Refugees are worthy of compassion. We should accept them into our nation. All people are entitled to a stable political community where they have reasonable life prospects to lead a fulfilling life — this is the essence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

To frame the debate this way is to advance a progressive understanding. While immigrants are here, they should be integrated into society either temporarily, if conditions improve in their home country, or permanently, if they can integrate and become productive members of our nation. It will focus solutions on US foreign policy to be about people, not profits. The only way the migration of people from the South to the North will stop is when conditions are improved there. As long as there is a pull to the North and a push from the South, people will find their way over, no matter how big, how long or how guarded a border fence is. (As an aside, who will build that fence if all the undocumented immigrants leave?) Increased security will force people to find ever more dangerous crossings, as has already happened, without slowing the flow of immigrants. More people will die unnecessarily.

Even if we could “protect” ourselves by sealing the border and preventing businesses from hiring undocumented immigrants by imposing hefty fines or prison sentences for violations, progressives should not be satisfied. This still leaves those yearning to flee their own countries in search of a better life in deplorable situations. The problem is not dealt with by making the
United States a gated community.

While these refugees are here, they must be treated with dignity and respect. Indeed, if they cannot return home, we have a responsibility to welcome them into ours. And we must treat them as Americans, not as second-class citizens, as they are currently. If they are here, they work hard and contribute to society, they are worthy of a path to citizenship and the basic rights we are entitled to (a minimum wage, education, healthcare, a social safety net).
Currently, the undocumented immigrants living amongst us are un-enfranchised workers. They perform all the work, pay all the duties, and receive many fewer of the benefits — especially voting rights. They must be given an opportunity to come out of the shadows and lead normal lives as Americans.

The answer to this problem isn't an “open-border.” The United States cannot take on the world's problems on its own. Other affluent countries need to extend a humanitarian arm to peoples fleeing oppressive economic circumstances as well. How many immigrants the United States should be willing to accept will ultimately be up to Congress.

In presenting these alternative frames, we want to inject humanitarian concerns based in compassion and empathy into the debate. The problem is dealing adequately with a humanitarian crisis that extends well beyond the southern border. The focus must shift from the immigrants themselves and domestic policy to a broader view of why so many people flee, and how we can help alleviate conditions in Mexico and Central America to prevent the flow in the first place. Only by reframing of the debate can we incorporate more global considerations. Immigration crises only arise from global disparity.Why It's Not a Single Issue
The wealth of frames in this debate has made it confusing. The frames within the debate have been divisive. But the absence of frames to counter the idea of the “immigration problem” has also been divisive. Since each frame presents a different component of the problem, it's worth noting who stresses which frames, and which problems that frame define. Conservatives
The conservative views:
Law and Order: The “illegal immigrants” are criminals, felons, and must be punished - rounded up and sent home. There should be no amnesty. Otherwise all law will break down.
The Nativists: The immigrants are diluting our culture, our language, and our values.
The Profiteers: We need cheap labor to keep our profits up and our cheap lifestyle in place.
The Bean Counters: We can't afford to have illegal immigrants using our tax dollars on health, education, and other services.
The Security Hounds: We need more border guards and a hi-tech wall to guarantee our security.
Progressives
Progressivism Begins at Home: The immigrants are taking the jobs of American works and we have to protect our workers.
African-American Protectionists: Hispanic immigrants are threatening African-American jobs.
Provide a path to citizenship: The immigrants have earned citizenship with their hard work, their devotion to American values, and their contribution to our society.
Foreign Policy Reformers: We need to pay attention to the causes that drive others from their homelands.
Wage supports: Institute a serious earned income tax credit for Americans doing otherwise low-paying jobs, so that more Americans will want to do them and fewer immigrants will be drawn here.
Illegal Employers: The way to protect American workers and slow immigration of unskilled workers is to prosecute employers of unskilled workers.
We can see why this is such a complex problem and why there are so splits within both the conservative and progressive ranks.
Summing Up The “immigration issue” is anything but. It is a complex melange of social, economic, cultural and security concerns — with conservatives and progressives split in different ways with different positions.
Framing the recent problem as an “immigration problem” pre-empts many of these considerations from entering the debate. As a consequence, any reform that “solves” the immigration problem is bound to be a patchwork solution addressing bits and pieces of much larger concerns. Bush's comprehensive reform is comprehensive, but only for the narrow set of problems defined in the “immigration debate.” It does not address many of the questions with which progressives should be primarily concerned, issues of basic experiential well-being and political rights. Ultimately, the way the current immigration debate is going — focusing narrowly on domestic policy, executive agencies and the immigrants — we will be faced with the same problems 10 years from now. The same long lines of immigrants waiting for legal status will persist. Temporary workers will not return home after their visas have expired, and millions of undocumented people will live amongst us. Only by broadening the understanding of the situation will the problem, or, rather, the multiple problems, be addressed and adequately solved. The immigration problem does not sit in isolation from other problems, but is symptomatic of broader social and economic concerns. The framing of the “immigration problem” must not pre-empt us from debating and beginning to address these broader concerns.

Blah, blah blah

2006-05-21T07:15:00.000-07:00

I agree with the previous post! Relativism is destroying the left!Read the book "Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam " it speaks truth to power!

Very happy to hear that you read. I'd even be wiling to pick up a copy of the book you recommend. Before doing so, however, why don't you discuss what it is you mean, rather than just sign onto some really convenient platitude.

Marriage

2006-05-21T07:13:00.000-07:00

Anonymous writes: “the state of being united to a person, either of the same or the opposite sex, in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law.”Doesn't your definition exclude polygamists.What about their civil rights!

Good point. That definition would exclude polygamists. A case could be made for their civil rights as well. You asked me for a definition that wasn't specific to man and woman. Polygamy doesn't scare me. Does it scare you?

Iraq

2006-05-21T07:06:00.000-07:00

Ok, Wesley IRAQ. If you believe that the US should not have invaded IRAQ what is your solution to Saddam's regime that was killing thousands of there own people.I have never heard a pacifist give an honest answer to this question.

Do you realize that when Saddam was murdering his own people he was doing so with our government's tacit approval, and often with arms that we sold him? Are you aware that those mass murders took place years ago under a different, Republican, administration?

Don't conflate the issues here. The American people were not asked to support an invasion of Iraq to stop or to atone for mass murders. We were told that Saddam possessed stockpiles of WMD and was developing nuclear weapons. We were also assured that there were links between Saddam and al-Qaeda and that post 9/11 we had to act preemptively to address those "threats."

Moreover, the answer to mass killings surely can't be an invasion that results in more mass killings. Does that make any sense to you?

Were you aware of or concerned about mass kilings in Iraq before the summer of 2002 when the hype began about Iraq's WMD/links to terror?

What do you think we should do in Darfur?

Feingold's Vote for Roberts

2006-05-21T07:04:00.000-07:00

Anonymous continues: Russ Feingold voted for Roberts "Draw your own conclusions."!!

Obviously, I've drawn my conclusion. I don't agree with every single vote Feingold has made. He also voted for Ashcroft's nomination for AG. What's your point? Lockstep isn't required here.

Please Make Sense

2006-05-21T07:03:00.000-07:00

Anonymous, what on earth are you talking about? We've heard nothing but "other views" for the past 6 years and sadly have seen the consequences of those views put into policy. Your comment makes no sense whatsoever.

“Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”

2006-05-21T06:57:00.000-07:00

Doesn't the left realize that the reason why none of thier pet issues,impeachment etc. are not going forward is because people are tired of thier "guilty until proven innocent" attitudes. Maybe if they were a little more objective they would be taken seriously.

Actually silly, what we realize is that the Republicans control both houses of Congress and aren't allowing any investigations that would actually determine guilt or innocence. Do you think the administration told the truth in the run up to the War in Iraq? Do you think the President was truthful in his public statements about the Plamegate inquiry? Do you think the President alone has the authority to order surveillance programs of questionable legality? Do you think the American people ought to know more about how a national energy policy was developed behind closed doors (with Veep meeting with oil execs)?

You must think everything is going along swimmingly and that everything Bush & Co. tells you is true. That's really the only way one could possibly NOT feel the need to have serious Congressional oversight on the past 6 years of this administration.

What the hell are you talking about?

Bush Derangement Syndrome

2006-05-21T06:53:00.000-07:00

Tom Engelhardt,another writer with Bush derangement syndrome,Wesley you live in a very narrow unenlightened non progressive world!

Anonymous, let me clue you in on something. The less than 30% of Americans who aren't dissatisfied with Bush are among the only people on the PLANET who don't suffer from the malady you diagnosed for Tom Engelhardt.

I don't get you guys. What are your view? What is your persepctive? Are you simply angry at people who aren't satisfied, and express their dissatisfaction, with W? Or do you think he really has done a good job?

More Anonymous Blather

2006-05-21T06:48:00.000-07:00

He/she writes with disgust:

"putting ourselves in the shoes of those people all around the world who are impacted by our action. "Only someone from the left can put themselves in the shoes of a Islamofacist jew hating Holocaust denyer. I wonder why that is? The left has gone so far off the rails that they no longer know the difference between right and wrong.Relativism has destroyed the left wing liberal legacy of the 60's .What a shame!

I think we agree on one thing. Sadly, it seems, only those of us on the Left appear to be capable of putting ourselves in the shoes of others. The inability to do so by you (presumably) and others, is one of the reasons why we are where we are today. No shame here baby!

Too bad people can't evaluate right and wrong and be able to understand another's perspective. The world ain't black and white, right or wrong, us or them. That works for you guys because it's easy to remember and it appeals to our basest instincts. The far Right proudly shuns intellectual subtelty and detail. But as we've seen over these past six years, it's a recipe for disaster at home and abroad.

Prejudiced Against W?

2006-05-21T06:35:00.000-07:00

Anonymous writes:

Another prejudiced writer who is obsessed with GW Bush. Progressive means favouring new ideas, all I see is the same old stale left rhetoric and tactics that they accuse the right of using!

Let's get something straight here. G.W Bush has been President since the January 2001. His party also controls both houses of Congress and the President has been quite effective at stacking the federal courts with like-minded judges. If one cares about what happens in the world, beginning with what's going on in and on behalf of our country, how is it possible not to be focused "obsessed" with the person who's been in charge and is responsible for the current state of affairs.

Do you know what "prejudiced" means? Surely, after six years of direct observation, my views are not based on ay prejudgment. With just this cursory list of blunders (to put it mildly) to his credit, what more does a reasonably intelligent person with a different set of basic values need to form an opinion?

The wars in Iraq & Afghanistan

Astronomical deficits (built from record surpluses)

Tax cuts for the very richest among us

Katrina

Plamegate

Aversion to science

Disdain for the Constitution and subversion of federal law

Warrantless domestic spying/data mining

Global warming cop-out

Pre-9/11 intelligence failures

Torture, rendention and illegal detentions

Possibly vote fraud

You guys have got to do better than this with these comments. What the hell are you talking about? The overwhelming majority of Americans are realizing just how bad things are. Are you among the 29% that still thinks W is doing a good job?

Come on Now

2006-05-03T02:59:00.000-07:00

To the 36% of Americans who still support this President, and the even lower number of Americans who back the Veep, exactly what is it that still keeps you in their thrall? Is being anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage the end all be all for you? Such that a botched war based on cooked intelligence, domestic spying and sky high gas prices (to name just a few problems) is all ok if you're "right" on these two critical social issues? How is it that two corrupt, deceptive and incompetent multimillionaire oil guys can pass themselves off as regular guys?

So the Iraq war had nothing to do with oil? Hmmmm......would you think differently about it if it did?

Investigate Big Dick
By Stephen Pizzo
If the US Senate really wants to earn our respect, I have a suggestion for them: Hold bipartisan hearings into Dick Cheney's 2001 Energy Task Force.

If not now, when?

Low-wage working Americans can't afford to drive to their jobs? Already some folks have been forced to pawn personal items just to fill their tank for another week. How bad does it have to get before you guys up there start asking the questions you should have asked years ago -- and this time, demanding real answers.

So, Bill Frist, Harry Reid, pull together a bipartisan panel made up of your toughest, most skeptical prosecutional-minded members, hire a couple of junkyard dog lawyers to act as GOP and Dem counsels, and let the long overdue hearings begin.

Subpoena everyone who had anything to do with those meetings, including secretaries who transcribed the original minutes. Oh, and when you call oil industry execs back, put them under oath this time. Because they lied last time when they said they had no idea...
(Washington Post, May 2005) A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress ...The document, obtained this week by The Washington Post, shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated.

I mean really guys -- if not now, when?

Almost everyone else except Congress has tried to get this information out of the administration. The non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) filed suit in April 2002 seeking access to the records of Cheney's energy task force. But one of those "liberal activist federal judges" dismissed the suit. The Sierra Club carried its fight for those records all the way to the US Supreme Court, which in 2004 voted 7-2 to uphold "a paramount necessity of protecting the executive branch from vexatious litigation."

But just to make sure no one got lucky in court, the administration built a wide moat around all things it feels are none of our damn business; including whatever deals Cheney made in 2001 with energy company CEOs.

"WASHINGTON - As the Bush administration has dramatically accelerated the classification of information as 'top secret' or 'confidential,' one office is refusing to report on its annual activity in classifying documents: the office of Vice President Dick Cheney ... A standing executive order, strengthened by President Bush in 2003, requires all agencies and 'any other entity within the executive branch' to provide an annual accounting of their classification of documents. More than 80 agencies have collectively reported to the National Archives that they made 15.6 million decisions in 2004 to classify information, nearly double the number in 2001, but Cheney continues to insist he is exempt. (Full Story)

It's not as though we don't have good reason to suspect skullduggery was afoot at those meeting -- skullduggery that has now been allowed to manifest itself in the form of war, economic hardship for average Americans and record profits for the Big Energy folk who attended the meetings. Over the past four years we have learned little about what happened at those meetings, but what little we have learned startles even those of us who thought we had seen it all:

"Documents turned over in the summer of 2003 by the Commerce Department as a result of the Sierra Club's and Judicial Watch's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force, contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as two charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and 'Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.' The documents, dated March 2001, also feature maps of Saudi Arabian and United Arab Emirates oilfields, pipelines, refineries and tanker terminals. There are supporting charts with details of the major oil and gas development projects in each country that provide information on the project's costs, capacity, oil company and status or completion date." (Full Text)

So, did Cheney and oil company executives lick their chops over Iraqi oil less than two years before we attacked over non-existent WMD? When the administration brushed off questions about Cheney's meetings by telling us they concerned "securing America's energy future," was this the plan they cooked up? To overthrow Saddam, set up a puppet government and pump, pump, pump? If so, that plan has gone terribly wrong.

So, shouldn't Congress find out? If not now, when?

Well, let me correct myself. Not everything went wrong for everyone; just 2,800 American kids who died and tens of thousands of Iraqis who died. Now American motorists are getting the shaft. But look who came out smelling like a rose. By disrupting oil supplies from Iraq, the world's third largest producer, and destabilizing the entire oil producing region, and now by threatening Iran, oil companies with oil assets in the Gulf, Alaska and other regions, have seen the price of their oil skyrocket. Clearly a seat at those energy task force meetings was a seat worth having -- worth billions.

"Last week, Exxon Mobil (the majority owner of Imperial Oil (AKA 'Esso') announced its first-quarter profits had risen 14 per cent to $8.4 billion over the same period last year. That followed similar announcements by Conoco/Phillips and Chevron, the next two largest U.S. integrated oil companies. Chevron's profits jumped 50 per cent to $4 billion while Conoco/Phillips saw its profits climb 13 per cent to $3.3 billion."

A citizen would think that such obscene profits, at the very time real wages of working Americans are falling, the cost of heating and cooling their homes rises every month and transportation costs soar, would provide Congress with some backbone.
Senators, this is where the proverbial rubber hits the road. Investigate. Not just Big Oil, but Big Dick as well. Inquiring minds want to know. We are waiting and we are watching. If not now, when?

Is Impeachment Necessary?

2006-05-02T12:44:00.000-07:00

I'm out of the country this week and feeling the need to post more. I loved this piece. I know a lot of folks on the Right see any discussion of impeachment as frivilous or vengeful and a lot of Democrats see it as a distraction from the '06 elections. I see it as neither. I agree with the author that the wrongs that have been committed in our names as Americans won't be addressed by a change in Congress or patiently waiting out the remaining 1000 or so days of this administration. If you believe, as I do, that the President has violated the law and betrayed the public trust, we must take action.

Why Impeachment is Essential
by Bill C. Davis

Say it and you’re told it won’t happen.

There’s a conscious rage and an unconscious self-defeating deference to the absoluteness of the power that caused the rage. Whether we know it or not we are devastated by that realization.

Impeachment: Impossible – stop thinking about it. Translated: We don’t matter. They know it and we know it. The “leaders” that perhaps, and in not a few minds, most likely, rigged two national elections, quite possibly allowed 9/11, definitely invaded Iraq and lied to do so, depleted the US treasury – or more specifically, redistributed the treasury to internal, private and corporate allies, sanctioned torture and domestic spying – those people can never be impeached or even investigated.

If we felt we owned the house, we’d say get out. But we don’t feel we own the house. We are reduced to squatters, who will grumble and pay fees for the plot of land allowed us, but we know now the land isn’t ours. We know the government and its treasury isn’t ours. So when someone says impeach – ie. evict – the response, even from the people who say it, is - not gonna happen.

But impeachment is essential. It is the remedy for, if one believes in it, the national soul. I think there is such a thing and it has material and physical manifestations. When it’s sick it demonstrates symptoms – when it’s healthy it yields harvests.

A legal and constitutional purge will return the sense of citizen ownership and spiritual health that was robbed along with election 2000. With that first theft all other thefts flowed. No - the clock can’t be turned back – dead soldiers can’t be brought back to life – flesh and blood limbs won’t grow back – the money to war profiteers most likely won’t be returned to the treasury – but the national soul, spirit, libido – whatever name we give the invisible American essence – that can be resuscitated and revived. And for that to begin to happen – impeachment is essential.

We are being surrounded by a world that doesn’t trust us anymore. They aren’t all hostile to us – they’ve lost faith in the power of the American people – and right to the point, as evidenced by comments such as “he should be impeached but it’s not going to happen” - we have lost faith in our own power.

It’s not personal. It’s not about how much we are embarrassed by or don’t like Bush. It has nothing to do with individual animosity and everything to do with collective power. When exit polls don’t match the official tally it doesn’t automatically mean that the time honored system of exit polls is suddenly unreliable, or that, as we were told, spouses were afraid to admit in front of each other who they voted for. It means something darker and more challenging. The American people did not take the challenge – we did what the coup expected we would do and we have been doing it ever since – until now.

We are at the “until now” moment. Democratic party leaders are uncomfortable talking about it. They think strategy. Impeachment is not a strategy. It’s a citizen action – a national correction – a collective redemption – an honest recall. It may happen city by city – state by state – but the body politic has the right, need, obligation to impeach.

"It’ll be over soon," is not good enough. "We’re at war," is no excuse. The war, as is now apparent, does not need, does not have, the president’s attention or wisdom. His job on that front is done – he sent the troops in. That was his role as defined by the Constitution and commandeered by criminality. The war is no longer his to orchestrate or end so if he goes, the war won’t notice, except in one way.

Extremist forces may not change their agenda toward us but the angry disappointed moderate elements may reconsider. Proving to that section of the world population that America is of, by and for the people will encourage them to act as blockades against violent reactionary elements. Impeachment could well be the secret weapon in our national defense. Impeachment could be the ultimate bunker buster that will purge the leadership that the world wants to get at, through us. Impeachment could move us from being collateral targets to active citizens.

The well-protected architects of this government’s suicidal policies are indifferent to what makes us safe. Anyone who talks so much about keeping us safe reveals something quite opposite. What are they trying to convince us of? And why do we believe them?

At the protest at inauguration 2001 there were mink coats, Stetson hats and lots of parties with lots of beef – and in the streets a feeling of free fall. It was just gonna happen – all of it – whatever lurked behind the front called GW Bush was going to happen even after we knew the majority didn’t ask for it. The free fall is still going on but instead of waiting for the hard landing – we can take the land and instead of falling on our backs, we can stand. But to do that – impeachment is essential.

Bill C. Davis is a playwright - www.billcdavis.com
###

A Very Good Question

2006-05-01T10:39:00.000-07:00

This piece by James Moore poses what I consider a very legitimate question. That is, why shouldn't Iran have nukes? Now I am fully aware that my friendly opposition readers will fast forward to the conclusion that I think Iran should have nukes, or would I have thought it ok for Hitler to have nukes, and so forth. But the point here, I believe, is that we who are citizens of the world's only remaining superpower really must begin to look at ourselves and our governments' actions with a more studied and critical eye. Sometimes, most times, that means stepping outside of our own worldview--as limited and self-serving as government, media and our own fear/arrogance has allowed it to become--and putting ourselves in the shoes of those people all around the world who are impacted by our action.

Do we want a world free of the potential for nuclear disaster, or do we want to limit the ability to create that disaster only to those nations we, or the world community, believe can handle that capacity responsibly? If the one is a proponent of the former vision, then American foreign policy, and especially nuclear proliferation policy isn't for you.

If you prefer, or are comfortable with the latter. You're in the right place and probably are quite comfortable with George Bush as your man.

Guess which category I'm in.

Why Shouldn't Iran Have Nuclear Weapons? Israel Has American Warheads Ready to FireIranians see only hypocrisy from the world's nuclear powers
by James C. Moore

As international political powers seek Iran's capitulation on nuclear weapons development, little notice is given to what the Americans and the British have done to create this crisis nor what steps the Israelis might eventually take to make it profoundly more complicated.
Iran's antipathy toward the West did not spontaneously generate out of the crazed rhetoric of radical mullahs. It has been spurred by what Iranians see as hypocrisy on the part of members of the world's nuclear community, and the bumbled meddling of the US and UK in Iranian affairs for more than a half century.

Iran is dangerous, but the British and the Americans have helped to make it that way. And the situation is even more precarious than it appears.

Shortly after the Gulf War in 1991, Germany gave Israel two of its diesel-powered Dolphin-class submarines. The Israelis agreed to purchase a third at a greatly reduced price. In November 2005, Germany announced that it was selling two more subs to Israel for $1.2bn (£660m).

Defense analysts have suggested the Dolphin-class boats are a means for Israel to have a second-strike capability from the sea if any of its land-based defence systems are hit by enemy nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war is geopolitically afoot: Israel and the American president might not be willing to wait until after the first shot is fired.
Initially, Israel was expected to arm its submarine fleet with its own short-range Popeye missiles carrying conventional warheads. At least three mainstream publications in the US and Germany, however, have confirmed the vessels have been fitted with US-made Harpoon missiles with nuclear tips. Each Dolphin-class boat can carry 24 missiles.

Although Israel has not yet taken delivery of the two new submarines, the three presently in its fleet have the potential to launch 72 Harpoons. Stratfor, a Texas intelligence business, claims the Harpoons are designed to seek out ship-sized targets on the sea but could be retrofitted with a different guidance system.

According to independent military journalist Gordon Thomas, that has already happened. He has reported the Harpoons were equipped with "over the horizon" software from a US manufacturer to make them suitable for attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities. Because the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf make the Israeli subs easily detectable, two of them are reported to be patrolling the deeper reaches of the Gulf of Oman, well within range of Iranian targets.

If Israel has US nuclear weaponry pointed at Iran, the position of the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, becomes more politically supportable by his people. Despite the fact that Israel has been developing nuclear material since 1958, the country has never formally acknowledged it has a nuclear arsenal. Analysts have estimated, however, that Israel is the fifth-largest nuclear power on the planet with much of its delivery systems technology funded by US taxpayers. To complicate current diplomatic efforts, Israel, like Pakistan and India, has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty even as it insists in the international discourse that Iran be stopped from acquiring what Israel already has.
Before Ariel Sharon's health failed, Der Speigel reported that the then Israeli prime minister had ordered his country's Mossad intelligence service to go into Iran and identify nuclear facilities to be destroyed. Journalist Seymour Hersh has also written that the US military already has teams inside Iran picking targets and working to facilitate political unrest. It is precisely this same type of tactic by the US and the UK, used more than a half century ago, which has led us to the contemporary nuclear precipice.

In 1953, Kermit Roosevelt led the CIA overthrow of Mohamed Mossadeq, Iran's democratic- ally elected prime minister. Responding to a populace that had grown restive under imperialist British influence, Mossadeq had plans to nationalise the vast oil fields of his country.
At the prompting of British intelligence, the CIA executed strategic bombings and political harassments of religious leaders, which became the foundation of Mossadeq's overthrow. Shah Reza Pahlevi, whose strings were pulled from Downing Street and Washington, became a brutal dictator who gave the multinational oil companies access to Iranian reserves. Over a quarter of a century later, the Iranian masses revolted, tossed out the Shah, and empowered the radical Ayatollah Khomeini.

Iran has the strength needed to create its current stalemate with the West. Including reserves, the Iranian army has 850,000 troops - enough to deal with strained American forces in Iraq, even if US reserves were to be deployed. The Iranians also have North Korean surface-to-air missiles with a 1,550-mile range and able to carry a nuclear warhead.

America cannot invade and occupy. Iran's response would likely be an invasion of southern Iraq, populated, as is Iran, with Shias who could be enlisted to further destabilise Iraq. There are also reported to be thousands of underground nuclear facilities and uranium gas centrifuges in Iran, and it is impossible for all of them to be eliminated. But the Israelis might be willing to try. An Israeli attack on Iran would give Bush some political cover at home. The president could continue to argue that Israel has a right to protect itself.

But what if Israeli actions endanger America? Israel cannot attack without the US being complicit. Israeli jets would have to fly through Iraqi air space, which would require US permission. And America's Harpoon missiles would be delivering the warheads. These would blow up Iranian nuclear facilities and also launch an army of Iranian terrorists into the Western world.

But George Bush is still without a respectable presidential legacy. He might be willing to risk everything to mark his place in history as the man who stopped Iran from getting nukes. The greater fear, though, is that he becomes the first person to pull the nuclear trigger since Hiroshima and Nagasaki - and then his place in the history books will be assured.

James Moore is the author of three books about the Bush administration. His latest, 'The Architect', will be published in September by Random House of New York.
© 2006 The Independent
###

Voices of Protest

2006-05-01T04:19:00.000-07:00

Protesters Give Bush the Finger
By Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.comPosted on May 1, 2006, Printed on May 1, 2006http://www.alternet.org/story/35663/

Tom Englelhardt, a wonderful writer and commenter I follow with great interest, interviewed a number of protesters at Saturday's anti war demonstration. Here is what they had to say:

The Soldier and the Machine
Demond Mullins is a 24-year-old student at Lehman College in New York. A handsome young man in wrap-around shades, he wears a desert camo jacket with Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) on it. He tells me he was an infantryman in the Baghdad area from September 2004 to September 2005, part of a National Guard unit attached to the First Cavalry. He will be among a relatively modest IVAW group of perhaps 20 to 30 young men who will lead this demonstration.

"What got me here? I had just returned home and was having a lot of trouble transitioning back into civilian life. Then one day, a professor of mine gave me an email for an IVAW event. I met the vets against the war and it was my first time talking about my experience there. I felt easy with them.

"I lost friends over there. Here's a bracelet." He briefly brings his wrist up so that, for a moment, I can see the black band, one of several bands. "Your unit makes these and the whole unit wears them. In my battalion, we lost twenty-five guys, but I wear this one because he was my closest friend there and he died six days before my birthday."

I ask him to let me have a closer look. On it, the band has rank, name ("I don't want you to use his name..."), and "December 1, 2004, KIA, Baghdad, Iraq" as well as the phrase, "Something to believe in."

"I ran all those missions and I don't know why. I don't know what their lives and the lives of Iraqi nationals were spent for. I thought they showed a blatant disregard for human life. I was just tired of being part of a machine destroying the Earth -- and I'm speaking of the military-industrial complex. I wanted to be part of a force saving the Earth."

"My Nephew Died for This?"
Like so many people on this brilliant day, she's wearing sunglasses. She stands behind the IVAW contingent, part of the startlingly large group of military families against the war that are leading off this demonstration. She's Missy Comley Beattie -- she spells it out carefully for me -- a member of Gold Star Families for Peace. "My nephew was killed on August 6, 2005 in al-Amariyah. He was a Marine."

She comes from red-state Kentucky, but now lives in New York. She's wearing a tiny gold peace sign around her neck and a Code Pink T-shirt. "I write like three articles a day. It's an obsession. I was told recently that I'm an embarrassment to my [Kentucky] community for my stance on the war. I won't tell you who said that. But I have my brother's support. It was his son who died. My mother's a former chair of the local Republican Party. Now, she's a screaming progressive. Actually, my mother tells me that things are beginning to change in Kentucky. She sees a lot more anti-Bush letters-to-the-editor in the papers than she used to.

"I think that people in the red states are increasingly opposed to Bush. But to be honest, I suspect it's the rising costs at the pump, not the human costs that are doing it. It's also that so many people just don't pay attention and the death rates are always submerged beneath the Ken- and Barbie-like TV anchors as they talk about the crime of the week. And keep in mind that Bush doesn't allow people to see the bodies come home.

"When my nephew was little we were close, but now I live here. I talked to him before he joined the Marines and urged him not to do so. Then I urged him to join something like the Coast Guard, but he was attracted to the bravado of the Marine Corps. He'd say to my father, 'Why settle for second best when you can be best?' I even tried to convince him to go AWOL.
"Cindy [Sheehan] and I were arrested on March 6, seven months to the day after my nephew died, and the reason I sat down with the others was this: My nephew actually went to Iraq because he thought he was fighting for our freedom. I never believed that, but I sat down because the police wouldn't even let us walk on the sidewalk to give our petition to the U.S. Mission to the UN. I thought: My nephew died for this? So I sat down, spent twenty-two hours in jail, and now here I am."

Released (and Still Raging) Granny
She's 78, has four grandchildren, and was once a preschool teacher. She's wearing a straw hat covered with flowers and dripping with buttons ("Granny Peace Brigade," "He lied, they died," "Weapons of Mass Deception," "Keep America Safe and Free"). She has on a "Make Levees, Not War" T-shirt and she's one of the 18 members of the Granny Peace Brigade, who protested at a military recruitment center in New York's Times Square, were arrested, brought to trial for "disorderly conduct," and just this week found not guilty by a judge. A hand-made sign she's carrying says, "Now we're all safe. The grannies were acquitted!"

The eighteen are awaiting their moment as part of the lead contingent in this antiwar march. She's standing as I approach her and agrees to talk, but says, "Let me sit down first," and lowers herself gently into the wheelchair I hadn't noticed right behind her. "I'm a member of the raging grannies," she begins and then has the urge to explain the wheelchair. "I had a hip replacement.
That's why I'm in a chair. I can walk a little ways, but not two miles!"

Her name, she tells me, is Corinne Willinger, and she wants the Iraq War over yesterday. "How do we do it? We get out. I don't see that we're doing any good there. We haven't prevented a civil war, we've fomented it!

"I think that the Bush administration is one big mistake and I hope the people will correct the error as soon as possible. Whatever this administration touches, they turn it into s-h-i-t. The Yiddish expression is drech. That includes the aftermath of Katrina, the push to go into Iran, the treatment of the Palestinians, the fact that the rich in this country are getting richer and the poor poorer."

She pauses a moment. "There's lots more, but I can't think of any of it right now." And she laughs in a warm, friendly way.

As for her recent trial, she says, "For me, it was nerve-wracking. Others took it better. I felt we were doing the right thing and I thought it important to get as much publicity as possible, but -- I'll be honest -- I got very nervous. We had heard the judge was fair, but a stickler for the law and you never know what a verdict is going to be."

I ask about her hopes for the future and she responds, simply enough, "I hope that we will not have to see any other wars like the ones we've conducted even before Vietnam -- and all in countries very different from us. Why do we have to travel to foreign countries to get involved in business that's not ours in the first place? There has to be a way for the American people to live without war. We're now so involved in this war in Iraq and the possibility of going into Iran that we can't solve our own problems."

Books Not Bombs
The Grannies are just behind us, singing "God Help America," their version of God Bless America, as we set off with nineteen year-old Aaron Cole, in a green shirt over blue jeans, carrying a sign that reads "Books Not Bombs" and another, "Join the Campus Antiwar Network," that he tells me is his friend's. ("I'm just holding it for her.") He's here, he says, "on behalf of the hip-hop caucus RYSE," and when I look bemused, he adds, "Basically, it's my friends over here," and he indicates two young men with him. "They started the organization at the University of Maryland. I go to City College, but I'm helping out on their caucus.

"Young people in many ways have the most power to change the country because, literally, we are its future. It's young people who are being killed in Iraq and locked up in large numbers in jails here. The fact that there's such a lack of awareness and radical activity is a sign that, as young people, we're not taking responsibility for the country we're inheriting, or shaping the destiny of our people."

Behind us, the Grannies have just launched another song with the lines, "We're the Raging Grannies, we're as mad as mad can be..."

"Activism on campus is too low," he continues.

I ask why he thinks this might be.
"Apathy," he says.
"Television," mutters one of his friends.
"To a large extent, it's pop culture, the images the media offers, bombarding people with values destructive to their well being."

Are his friends here?

"Some are, but a lot of young people won't come to something like this. There has to be more of an incentive to come down than just an antiwar protest. That's the truth of it. It can't just be a cause. For whatever reason, they're not going to come out and show their numbers unless there's a concert or some kind of entertainment. If it's just going to be standing around or walking in the street, they're not as likely to do it. Unfortunately, they'd rather stay home, get high, and watch TV."

Sleepless Nights
She's holding the end of a large banner: "Military Families Speak Out, Chicago, Illinois." The person at the other end of the banner has directed me to her. When I approach Ginger Williams and ask if she'd consider a brief interview, she replies with spirit, "Bring it on!" And then goes: "Whoops! Maybe that's the wrong thing to say..."

She's 54, wearing a black U.S. Army baseball cap, a Support-Our-Troops T-shirt and button, and a black backpack. When asked what she does, she replies, "I'm a nurse, homemaker, mother, protester, whatever you got."

Her son returned from his first tour of Iraq only three days earlier. "Sean was at Notre Dame and volunteered for Army ROTC after September 11th. He's been in two years, a first lieutenant with the 101st Airborne. He just served eleven months in Iraq where he commanded convoys that guarded trucks that are mainly owned by Halliburton. He wasn't wounded, thank God. We had a lot of sleepless nights.

"I was against the war from the start. My husband was an infantryman, a Vietnam Vet. He was strongly against it. But my son believes in the mission. He believes he's there to bring peace and stability to the region. We disagree but we get along. We raised him to think for himself -- and he did. He says he's going to volunteer to go back.

"I hope that my son's right, but I think the only chance that things will end in Iraq is if we get out. We're just inflaming matters by being there.

"I've been to Fayetteville, to Washington, to Camp Casey. Everywhere I go, I keep thinking this is going to be the turning point. That march on Washington in September, then when John Murtha came out against the war -- Marine, congressman, purple-heart winner. I thought that would be it. Now, I'm kind of pessimistic really. It doesn't seem to matter what we do. And you know what I'm really upset with -- all the Democratic leaders who won't take a stand!
"I confronted [Illinois Senator] Barack Obama at a town-hall meeting and asked him what he wants us to do. He buys into the idea that there'll be a slaughter if we get out. I think there's a slaughter now. So I'm disappointed in him."

I wonder whether anything gives her hope. "Let me think. That's a tough one." There's a long silence. "Yes, the fall elections. If the Democrats can win and make Nancy Pelosi speaker, maybe she'll put the war and withdrawal on the agenda."

Carrying the Flag
Andy Hadel, 47, is in a grey t-shirt, brown slacks, and sandals. He's carrying an American flag over his shoulder on a silver pole. He identifies himself as a designer and design teacher.
"There are two reasons I carry the flag. First, one of the principles our nation was founded on is to dissent when things aren't working. To speak out is a patriotic function, a high-level of citizenship. Second, re-appropriating this symbol for those who are antiwar is important. When you look at Fox News, when you see President Bush, you always see them wearing American flag lapel pendants. It's become a traditional image by now to think the flag means pro-war patriotism, so what I'm trying to do is take the symbol back. I pay taxes. I'm a citizen. In the act of dissention I believe I'm fulfilling my highest level of citizen's responsibility.

"I don't know where I got this flag. I've had it for years. I think I bought it at a flag store. Believe it or not, you don't need a card from the Republican Party to do that!"

Raising the Dead
The photos -- striking faces, each with a rank, a name, and a place -- are mounted on a cord that stretches for blocks. Almost 2,400 photos means many, many blocks, and so that cord is held up by scores of people strung out along its length, living faces to go with the dead ones. Hermon Darden, pastor of King's Highway United Methodist Church in Brooklyn, is among them. He's in clerical black and wearing his white collar. He introduces me to three other men. "He's from Maryland and they're from southern New England, also from the United Methodists."
Are the holders of this exhibit of the dead all Methodists, I ask, and the next holder down promptly clears his throat and shows the pin he's wearing: "Another Quaker for peace."
Darden speaks in the inspiring rhythms of a minister. He's got short, black hair, and a tiny black mustache flecked with grey. He was lost and now is found.

"I came looking for the clergy contingent but couldn't find it and these people welcomed me. They took me in and this is good enough for me, holding up these names. Probably there is no greater statement that can be made than to lift up the pictures of these children killed by an unjust war. Did you know that most of those who died were under twenty-five. They were the young. A generation is being decimated for a war that has no foundation or ethical justification. We're simply fighting to secure oil when we could secure alternative means of energy.

"What we need to do is ensure that our votes actually count. And our votes cannot count if we can't be sure the machinery used is validated. We deserve a paper trail and, it seems, neither the Democrats, nor the Republicans have taken a serious stance about voting machines.

"And then we have to have some honest folk running for office who will put an end to corporate hustling and exploitation. Halliburton and Bechtel have been doing this for generations. This is not new. And you know what else we need? We need more people to take to the streets.

"I also think the media, which is owned by just a few companies, has kept a lid on protest information. They have not adequately reported what people such as ourselves feel about the war.

"At my church in Brooklyn, we announced this demonstration for several Sundays and it was at our [United Methodist] conference website as well."

"You know," he concludes, "I participated in the Vietnam protests and unfortunately this is just déjà vu."

The Lieutenant from Okinawa
Ed Bloch ("And don't reverse the first and last names!") at 82 is undoubtedly not the oldest veteran to be in this demonstration, but he may be the oldest one walking its length. He wears his soft, khaki campaign cap and his old Marine officer's jacket, cinched at his waist with a belt. It has his battle stars and his first lieutenant's bars from World War II. ("I was a rifle platoon leader in the battle for Okinawa.")

When I ask whether this could possibly be his wartime jacket, he replies, "They made the damn uniform of such great material in those days. It's 61 years old."

It fits him amazingly, though he assures me that a friend "moved the buttons for me."
The executive director of the Interfaith Alliance of Albany (New York), he is accompanied by younger friends, but he walks as if alone in this vast crowd. His step, strangely enough, is both halting and steady. He progresses at an even pace. He stands ramrod straight, a bearing that could only be called military and, as it turns out, he carries a burden.

"After the war against Japan ended," he tells me, "the First Marine Division was sent into China, right into the middle of their civil war, to work with the Japanese and the Chinese puppets and hold down the territory for the arrival of Chiang [Kai-shek]'s troops. While I was there, I committed atrocities. I committed atrocities with the Japanese on a small Chinese town."
He walks on, his pace never breaking, while I consider this.

Then he says, in a segue that makes great sense if you think about it: "The reason that [Senator] Ted Kennedy is more honest than most of them down there is Chappaquiddick. It moved him in the direction of remorse. It made him understand."

On Iraq, he's clear as day. "Everything I believe screams out that there is no substitute for peace in a nuclear age. For certain, this continued war is bringing up the fundamentalists all around the world to do the suicide attacks and everything else. Our attacks just confirm what their leaders have told them."

I ask him what he might tell George Bush and his top officials if he had the chance.
"My immediate instinct is to say, "Drop dead," but I don't think that sounds very good. The fact is we just have to get out right now. We have to remove those young people like the ones with whom I served from harm's way in an imperialist war for oil."

And he walks on alone in the crowd.

Bring My Dad Home
He is eleven years old -- with a friend and the friend's mother. He stops shyly for just a moment at my request. He is carrying a sign he's made that says, "Bring My Dad Home. Stop the War."
He admits that this is his first demonstration. ("It feels pretty cool.") His father, he tells me, in as few words as possible, is somewhere outside of Baghdad and in the Army Reserves. When asked about the war his father is fighting, he says: "I think we need to stop the war because there's no need for it. Oil's not worth blood."

I wonder how his dad feels about this. "I never really asked him," he replies and heads off with his friend.

Hoosiers for Peace
The three university students have bused in from Indiana for this demonstration, their first big one. He's in a white T-shirt and a jean jacket. He carries a "Hoosiers for Peace" sign and a small American flag. The last thing he expects is to be interviewed and he's hesitant -- both with his name, "Dave," and with his words. His decision to come was "a moral stance against the war." No more need be said.

What does he think will happen in this country? "I think George Bush is going to ride out his term without any kind of consequences," he replies and stops. Then, after a moment's thought, he adds, "But it's good to be here to support democracy, to support the right to dissent."
An awkward silence descends as he and his friends fidget, unsure what to do next. Finally, he adds another thought: "My father's a Vietnam vet and I'm against war altogether. My father went to the original Gulf War protests [in 1990] and I'm here now because of the things he's taught me and for the guys my age who are out there."

Another silence with the hum of the crowd and distant drums behind us. Finally I ask whether he knows anyone who's actually gone to Iraq. "I know three guys who were in Iraq."
And what, I wonder, did they tell him about their experiences.

"I never asked them about it, but if it was anything like Vietnam, I'm sure they don't want to talk about it."

"We Remember Vietnam"
Behind the huge Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) banner, the large contingent of vets, with the signature somewhat disheveled look of their generation, are chanting, "Hey, hey, Uncle Sam, We remember Vietnam, We don't want your Iraq War, Bring our troops back to our shore." Bill Perry of Levittown, PA, who anchors one end of the enormous banner, is wearing a t-shirt and black vest with military unit patches all over it. He digs into a wallet and hands me his card, which indicates that he's the National Coordinator of the VVAW.

"I was a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division in 1967-68 during the Tet Offensive just as the mood of the country was beginning to swing big time. It became quite clear then that the Vietminh -- the Vietcong the Americans called them -- had the support of the people in the countryside. Leaving aside the strategic arguments, the economic arguments, the moral arguments, if the people don't want you and the people don't need you, there's no need to be there and we're approaching that moment in Iraq now."

He promptly offers me a micro-history and analysis of the various Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish groups in fragmenting Iraq. "The whole purpose of going over there was to break up the country into three countries -- leaving the middle part, where most of the people are, without oil and making sure the Iraqis more generally lose control over their oil."

What exactly would he do about Iraq, I ask.
"I would immediately withdraw and let the Arab League and the U.N. sort it out because there's much less animosity against them. Eighty percent of Iraqis dislike us. Eighty percent of Iraqis are Arabs. That's why the Arab League makes sense. The Kurds are the twenty percent that embrace globalism and capitalism. Condi and Rumsfeld want them to succeed.

"I think eventually things will play out, but the problem is the U.S. wants to retain those fourteen permanent bases of ours in Iraq to control everything from the Caspian oil that can be pumped to China and India to the Middle Eastern sources that supply Europe."
The Other Engelhard(t)

I approach the two mothers, each with children in strollers and ask the nearest if I can interview her. She agrees, but then the other leans closer, reads the press pass hanging around my neck ("Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.com"), and says, "I'm an Engelhard too, just without the final T." So I interview the other Engelhard -- Margaret known as Meg -- at this rally. She's 42, from South Orange, New Jersey. She's with son Cory ("almost three" and on his father's shoulders) and Jasper, who rises from his stroller to tell me proudly, "I'm four and a half, almost five!"
I wonder whether this is Jasper's first demonstration. No, Meg tells me, she went out with him when we began bombing Afghanistan back in 2001 and that, she adds, was "his first demonstration -- externally."

She tells me she knew someone who died in Iraq. I ask whether she has hopes for the political future. "That's a tough question," she says. "I'm very worried about increased aggression toward Iran. I'm happy Bush's approval ratings have fallen so low. I feel like less of a minority than I did three years ago.

"What I hope for is that we would get Democrats elected in the mid-term elections and so, some sort of resolution from Congress to withdraw. I can't imagine more than that."

Pink Slipping Bush
She's at the front of the vigorous, dancing, chanting Code Pink contingent, all of whom wear something pink, including in some cases day-glo pink wigs. She's holding high a frilly, full-length pink slip on a pole topped by the sign, "Give Bush a Pink Slip." She herself wears a pink feathered hat and pink camo-style pants. ("We've done a lot of counter-recruiting actions.") She's Courtney Lee Adams, a 43 year-old musician and copyeditor, who first got involved with the group at the time of the Republican National Convention in New York.

"I was worried that this demonstration wasn't going to be well attended, so I'm relieved. I was at an event last night and a lot of people didn't even know this was happening, so I expected the worst.

"Maybe I'm crazy, but I feel encouraged. There's much more mainstream opposition out there than there was. I'm still immensely disappointed in the Democrats. I don't understand why they're not riding this momentum when it's so obviously out there. But to hell with them! Seriously, we're not waiting for them to act.

"In New York, Code Pink is very focused on pressuring Hillary Clinton. Bird-dogging her is what we call it. After all, she's our senator. We want to see the troops come home now, no permanent bases, true reconstruction, no invasion of Iran. And I'd like to see Bush impeached. There's another case where there isn't much support among Democrats in Congress, but there's lots of support for it out there. Isn't it strange, actually, that it seems like there's more opposition from old-fashioned conservative Republicans than liberal Democrats?

"The big thing is: No permanent bases in Iraq. This is going to be a tough one. I'm sure they're going to try to pull some troops out, do the old bait-and-switch, getting our position in Iraq off the PR screen and hanging on to those bases. I fear that's going to prove to be a long, hard fight."

Earphones
He's right at the end of the march, among the last demonstrators. He's wearing a grey, winter knit cap over his long hair, perhaps fitting for someone from the chilly state of Vermont. He's 15 years old with a sweet, open face. His name is Jacob. He's bused down with his older brother, part of the Central Vermont Peace and Justice contingent and, though everywhere around him noise wells up and instruments are being played, he has two large earphones clamped over his ears. When I stop him for an interview, he's initially unsure, but his friends encourage him.
It's his first large demonstration. "I came to protest against the war. I've participated in a bunch of small demonstrations [in Vermont] and I wanted to go to a major one. It's been fun, exhilarating.

"My second cousin has just gone into the Marines, but I want to get our troops out as quickly as possible after stabilizing the country first, because otherwise the lives there would have been lost fully in vain."

As for his thoughts on the Bush administration, "They need complete reform."
As he's ready to leave, I ask what he's been listening to. He shows me the CD and says, "It's Oriental Sunshine. I think it's a band from the seventies, kind of underground music. It has," he says with awe, "a sitar player."

Tom Engelhardt, editor of Tomdispatch.com, is co-founder of the American Empire Project and author of "The End of Victory Culture."
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/35663/

More Give and Take

2006-04-23T08:47:00.000-07:00

Anonymous Comment:
(I said) "A more balanced approach to conflict reduction in the region, I think, would be to demand a total elimination of nuclear weapons by all nations and an even-handed approach to resolving the Israel-Palestine issue. (To which Anonymous replied:) "PLATITUDES!! PLATITUDES!!

Response:
Main Entry: plat·i·tude Pronunciation: 'pla-t&-"tüd, -"tyüdFunction: nounEtymology: French, from plat flat, dull1 : the quality or state of being dull or insipid2 : a banal, trite, or stale remark

Please explain how what I said, can be dismissed at a platitude?

Anonymous Comment
(I said:) " I don't get the point" (To which Anonymous replied:) EXACTLY!!

Response
OK, Anonymous I’m clearly less intelligent than you are. Give it a go and explain it to me and any other intellectually challenged person reading this blog who may not understand the point you are trying to make. My challenge to you is to explain it without resort to the conclusory language/terms that are so often used by commenters here.

Anoymous Comment
This commenter engaged me with a series of questions on gay marriage. I appreciate the willingness to engage by asking challenging and thoughtful questions, around which a respectful, serious discussion can be had.

Q. By not allow gays to marry is a right being violated and what right is being violated?

A. I would argue that the basic right flows from Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution; specifically, the Equal Protection Clause.

Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Q. Would you accept gay marriage if it is called something else other than marriage?

A. Personally, I would accept it. Would you?

Intellectually it seems ridiculous that calling it “marriage,” rather than something else, somehow disrupts or affects the sanctity of the very concept of marriage or the actual conduct of anyone else’s marriage. Please explain how one marriage between consenting adults affects either the "instituion" or the actual marriages of other people?

Q. To me the gay marriage debate involves a redefinition of marriage, what should the new definition of marriage be?

I don’t think it requires a redefinition. I think it simply requires a letting go of the security that people seem to find in understanding THE definition to be limited to a heterosexual relationship.

Webster’s offers the following: 1 a (1) : the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2) : the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage b : the mutual relation of married persons : WEDLOCK c : the institution whereby individuals are joined in a marriage

If you need a revised definition, I would offer :

“the state of being united to a person, either of the same or the opposite sex, in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law.”

Q. If a society wants to change the definition of marriage should it be done democratically?

A. That would be one way to do it, but I don't believe that it is THE WAY it SHOULD be done.

Would you have argued that ending segregation should have waited until society was ready to reach that result democratically? Or that segregation should have been permitted to have been outlawed or maintained on a state by state basis, based upon democratically derived consensus? Ditto for voting rights and interracial marriage, for example.

Q. Should the people of a society be allowed to vote on this change in a referendum?

Honestly, I don’t think civil rights are derived or protected through the democratic process. If that were so, like the examples I mentioned above, I’m not certain our country would be where it is today. I don’t think it works to rely on a majority to protect the rights of a minority.

Q. If society changes the definition of marriage should religious institutions be forced to allow gay marriages?

No

Assorted Comments

2006-04-21T12:35:00.000-07:00

An assortment of comments:

Russ Feingold will never win because his "values" do not represent the values of United States of America.

What exactly are those U.S values? Mine have to do with a sane and humane foreign policy, full employment, an increased livable wage, universal health care, equal access to education and protected and respected civil rights for all Americans, to name just a few. In Senator Feingold, I find a potential Presidential candidate who takes all of these very American values quite seriously and doesn't just utter platitudes about them, but puts his name and his money where his mouth is. Whether he wins or not isn't the issue, though I believe he will be a very strong canidate. He does represent the values of this American and many more across the country.

IRAN'S leaders have said that the Holocaust never happened, that they want to wipe "Israel off the Map", that Israel is "the most hideous occurrence in History" which the Muslim World "will vomit out from its midst" in one blast, because" a single atomic bomb has the power to completely destroy Israel, while an Israeli counter-strike can only cause partial damage to the Islamic world" Welsey, do you fell safer if IRAN has nuclear weapons and would Israel only be collateral damage? Remember the Islamic world hates people like you, not devout Christians.

I agree, the comments about wiping Israel off the map are outlandish and wrong. No one is saying that Iran's President is a charming humanitarian. But the auto default to military force doesn't help make us more secure.

On the other hand, Israel is the only nation in the Middle East that possesses as stockpile of nuclear weapons that have never been seen or accounted for through the Interantional inspections process. A more balanced approach to conflict reduction in the region, I think, would be to demand a total elimination of nuclear weapons by all nations and an even-handed approach to resolving the Israel-Palestine issue.

What do you personally have against Bush, your Bush bashing is pathological!It is typical of political correct Limousine liberals that they resort to personal attacks and namecalling instead of discussing issues.

What makes you think I have anything personal against the President? Am I not entitled to think manipulating intelligence to lead a nation into war is problematic leadership? That said war has turned out to be a disaster and seemingly getting worse? It's not personal, my belief that the NSA wiretapping program is illegal, or that the President and his team acted at least unethically, possibly illegally, in going full out to discredit a critic of their war policy. What about that is personal? I think objectively speaking, on the facts, on the record, this President has been a complete failure or worse. I happen also to think he's probably a decent human being.

What is politically correct? I've never even been in a limousine, nor in case you were wondering, do I live in Hollywood. If you think this blog is about namecalling and not issues, then you haven't been reading my friend.

I find it very ironic that these quotes were gathered by a political correct, moral relativist, naval gazing Liberal.

What's so ironic about that? And how many labels can you use in once sentence? "political [sic] correct" "moral relativist" and "navel gazing." You've not heard me once say anything dismissive or simplistic, like that, about folks on the far right.

"You can always hear the people who are willing to sacrifice somebody else's life."The American Military in Iraq are all volunteers.They are willing to give their lives for something they believe in, something that is lacking in the secular West.Similar rants were heard during WW II, it is the left that are willing to sacrifice lives of innocents that are being killed by Dictators & genocide while they discuss "What collective story do we tell ourselves that makes this sort of thing make sense to us, and even seem right? "

I don't get the point.

Is This Really What We Want?

2006-04-06T06:56:00.000-07:00

As we move toward some kind of action against Iran for daring to think about developing a single nuclear weapon, we are turning out hundreds of new and more powerful weapons capabale of any more mass destruction.

How is it, exactly, that we can say who can have them and who can't? Israel and India, for example, are not signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and therefore are not open to inspections of their nuclear facilities. We know, however, that both countries have vast stockpiles of weapons.

What collective story do we tell ourselves that makes this sort of thing make sense to us, and even seem right? Nationalism coupled with immense power can and usually does breed a sense of superiority, and I believe that is exactly the case with the U.S.

U.S. Rolls Out Nuclear Plan
By Ralph Vartabedian
L.A. Times

Bush administration Wednesday unveiled a blueprint for rebuilding the nation's decrepit nuclear weapons complex, including restoration of a large-scale bomb manufacturing capacity.

The plan calls for the most sweeping realignment and modernization of the nation's massive system of laboratories and factories for nuclear bombs since the end of the Cold War.

Until now, the nation has depended on carefully maintaining aging bombs produced during the Cold War arms race, some several decades old. The administration, however, wants the capability to turn out 125 new nuclear bombs per year by 2022, as the Pentagon retires older bombs that it says will no longer be reliable or safe.

Under the plan, all of the nation's plutonium would be consolidated into a single facility that could be more effectively and cheaply defended against possible terrorist attacks. The plan would remove the plutonium kept at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory by 2014, though transfers of the material could start sooner. In recent years, concern has grown that Livermore, surrounded by residential neighborhoods in the Bay Area, could not repel a terrorist attack.

But the administration blueprint is facing sharp criticism, both from those who say it does not move fast enough to consolidate plutonium stores and from those who say restarting bomb production would encourage aspiring nuclear powers across the globe to develop weapons.

The plan was outlined to Congress on Wednesday by Thomas D'Agostino, head of nuclear weapons programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration, a part of the Energy Department. Though the weapons proposal would restore the capacity to make new bombs,

D'Agostino said it was part of a larger effort to accelerate the dismantling of aging bombs left from the Cold War.D'Agostino acknowledged in an interview that the administration was walking a fine line by modernizing the U.S. nuclear weapons program while assuring other nations that it was not seeking a new arms race. The credibility of the contention rests on the U.S. intent to sharply reduce its inventory of weapons.

The administration is also quickly moving ahead with a new nuclear bomb program known as the "reliable replacement warhead," which began last year. Originally described as an effort to update existing weapons and make them more reliable, it has been broadened and now includes the potential for new bomb designs. Weapons labs currently are engaged in a design competition.

The U.S. built its last nuclear weapon in 1989 and last tested a weapon underground in 1992. Since the Cold War, the nation has had massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons to deter potential attacks. By contrast, it would increasingly rely on the capability to build future bombs for deterrence, D'Agostino said.

The blueprint calls for a modern complex to design a new nuclear bomb and have it ready in less than four years, allowing the nation to respond to changing military requirements. Similar proposals in the past, such as for a nuclear bomb to attack underground bunkers, provoked concern that they undermined U.S. policy to stop nuclear proliferation.

The impetus for the plan is a growing belief that efforts to maintain older nuclear bombs and keep up a large nuclear weapons industrial complex are technically and financially unsustainable. Last year, a task force led by San Diego physicist David Overskei recommended that the Energy Department consolidate the system of eight existing weapons complexes into one site.

Overskei said Wednesday that the cost of security alone for the current infrastructure of plants over the next two decades was roughly $25 billion. Security costs have grown, because the Sept. 11 attacks have led the Energy Department to believe terrorists could mount a larger and better armed strike force.

Peter Stockton, a former Energy Department security consultant who is now an investigator for the Project on Government Oversight, criticized the plutonium consolidation plan in House testimony, saying it would delay the difficult work too far into the future. Stockton added in an interview that the plutonium transfer at Livermore could be accomplished in a few months.

Until now, Livermore lab officials have sharply disagreed with the idea of removing plutonium from their site, saying it was essential to their work. On Wednesday, a lab spokesman said the issue was "far less controversial" and the "decision rests in Washington."

The Bush plan, described at a hearing of the strategic subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, would consolidate much of the weapons capacity, but not as completely or quickly as outside critics would like.

The overall plan would not be fully implemented until 2030.

A crucial part of restarting U.S. nuclear bomb production involves so-called plutonium pits, hollow spheres surrounded by high explosives. The pits start nuclear fission and trigger the nuclear fusion in a bomb.

The plutonium pits were built at the Energy Department's former Rocky Flats site near Denver until the weapons plant was shut down in 1989 after it was found to have violated environmental regulations.

In recent years, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has tried to start limited production of plutonium pits and hopes to build a certified pit that will enter the so-called war reserve next year. Los Alamos would be producing about 30 to 50 pits per year by 2012, but the Energy Department said that was not enough to sustain the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

In his testimony, D'Agostino estimated plutonium pits would last 45 to 60 years, after which they would be unreliable and might result in an explosion smaller than intended. Critics outside the government sharply dispute that conclusion, saying there is no evidence that pits degrade over time and that the nation can keep an adequate nuclear deterrent by maintaining its existing weapons.

Draft Russ!!!!

2006-04-05T10:46:00.000-07:00

I was already a huge fan of Russ Feingold and definitely planning to support him in 2008, if he decides to run. But my enthusiasm was kicked up a notch when I learned today that he has gone on record in support of gay marriage. Whether he wins or loses, this is one politician who I think can hold his head high and look people in the eye, knowing that his positions and his actions are in sync with his values.

One of the marvels of the last 5 years for me is how much I've learned; conversely how little I really knew before. Similarly, on one hand it can be so freaking frustrating to watch your country turn away from values you hold. While on the other hand, I've really gained a greater understanding and appreciation for what democracy means; from the ground up. Meaning, there's more to do than just gripe and look the other way.

Consequently, it's not enough for me to hope and wait for Feingold to announce his candidacy and to simply cast my vote in a primary, or hopefully, on election day. I want to support him now and be part of a groundswell to draft him to run; essentially making him an offer he can't refuse.

I really think that he or John Edwards could knock Hillary Clinton right out of the race by doing really well in the early primaries. I think the Democratic operatives misread the real pulse of the party when they advise potential candidates to toe the line and allow the Bush team to implode.

People like me need and want leadership, not just default victories. We saw how inneffective and uninspiring the Gore and Kerry campaigns were when they were guided by caution, restraint and hedging.

Feingold is clear. His voting record supports his values and policies and he's not afraid to take a "controversial" stand. Therefore, I'm beginning to work NOW to back him and create a Howard Dean like movement going into the next two years.

I started by calling his office and letting Molly know that I support his potential bid for President. I also made a contribution to his organization, Progressive Patriots. Finally, I came upon a state organization working to draft Russ and joined them as well.

Dear Wesley,

Thank you for your recent contribution of $50.00 to the Progressive Patriots Fund. Your support will enable me to be a part of a larger national effort to build the Democratic Party throughout America. I know that together, we can protect our rights and freedoms while still fighting terrorism.

The challenges far too many Americans face every day did not go awaywith the past election. I will continue to give voice to those whobelieve we must work to provide health care for all Americans, protectand create jobs, ensure fiscal responsibility, and fight terrorismwhile also protecting our freedoms.

In both so-called red and blue states, people have a voice that needsto be heard. People in every state want a dialogue that moves beyondthe electoral partisan politics and ideology that divide us.That is why I intend to help begin a dialogue about how we moveforward as a country united by the values we share and the challengeswe face together.

Once again, I sincerely appreciate your support, and look forward toworking with you and others as we rise to meet the challenges that lieahead. I know that with your help we will succeed.

Sincerely,

Russ Feingold
United States Senator

What More?

2006-04-04T18:08:00.000-07:00

It's hard for me to understand how anyone can find this war valid, given all that we know about how we got into it. To be comfortable with retroactive, ever changing rationale for war, in my judgment, is unconscionable. Moreover, does anyone still think Bush did not knowingly mislead during the run up to the war? And how can that be ok; particularly in matters of war and peace.

The biggest shame, is that the Democrats run as fast as they can from any talk of accountability for the President.

The President's War Madness
By Derrick Z. Jackson The Washington Post
Monday 03 April 2006
President Bush said he invaded Iraq to rid the world of a madman. It is ever-more clear Bush went mad to start it.

This week, The New York Times reported on a confidential memo about a meeting between Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Jan. 31, 2003. It was just before Secretary of State Colin Powell would go before the United Nations to convince the world of the planetary threat of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and ask for a second UN resolution to condemn him.

In his Feb. 5 presentation, Powell used excerpts of conversations and satellite photographs to paint a picture of an Iraq where Hussein was concealing weapons of mass destruction. Powell, whose credibility lay in his image as one of the few members of the Bush team to have actually fought in war, said, "We have firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails." He said Iraq's "sophisticated facilities" could produce enough biological agents in a single month "to kill thousands upon thousands of people."

Powell's punch line was, "Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions."

But Bush already had realized the sources were not panning out. According to a Times review of the entire Jan. 31 memo, written by Blair's foreign policy adviser, David Manning, it showed that "the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq."

With no weapons, Bush talked about provoking Hussein. "The U.S. was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colors," the Times quotes the memo as saying. "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach."

Bush had come up with an official start date of March 10 that, according to the memo, "was when the bombing would begin." The war actually began March 19. The memo summarized the president as assuming, "The air campaign would probably last four days, during which some 1,500 targets would be hit. Great care would be taken to avoid hitting innocent civilians."

Bush thought the air onslaught would ensure the early collapse of Hussein's regime. Bush thought the air strikes "would destroy Hussein's command and control quickly," Iraq's army would "fold very quickly," and Hussein's Republican Guard would be "decimated by the bombing." Bush also assumed in the rebuilding of Iraq that it was "unlikely there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups."

Even though his growing fears about finding no weapons of mass destruction had reached the incredible point of considering fakery to make it look like Hussein started the war, Bush had the gall to go before the press on Jan. 31 after his meeting with Blair and show no doubt. A reporter asked Bush, "Mr. President, is Secretary Powell going to provide the undeniable proof of Iraq's guilt that so many critics are calling for?"

Bush responded, "Well, all due in modesty, I thought I did a pretty good job myself of making it clear that he's not disarming and why he should disarm. Secretary Powell will make a strong case about the danger of an armed Saddam Hussein. He will make it clear that Saddam Hussein is fooling the world, or trying to fool the world. He will make it clear that Saddam is a menace to peace in his own neighborhood. He will also talk about Al Qaeda links, links that really do portend a danger for America and for Great Britain, anybody else who loves freedom."

Powell would deliver on Bush's boast five days later, saying: "There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. ... With this track record, Iraqi denials of supporting terrorism take their place alongside the other Iraqi denials of weapons of mass destruction. It is all a web of lies."

The web spun by Bush has now cost the lives of 2,300 U.S. soldiers, another 200 British and coalition soldiers, and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Iraq is closer to civil war than stability. Three years later, it is the United States that is not disarming, with Bush admitting last week that our troops will be needed there past his presidency. We took out a madman with madness.

At a minimum, there should be hearings, with Bush under oath. With any more details like this, the next step is impeachment.

Food for Thought

2006-04-02T09:58:00.000-07:00

"The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of the nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell a big one."
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

"A well-functioning democracy has a culture of free speech, not simply legal protection of free speech. It encourages independence of mind. It imparts a willingness to challenge prevailing opinion through both words and deeds. Equally important, it encourages a certain set of attitudes in listeners, one that gives a respectful hearing to those who do not embrace the conventional wisdom. In a culture of free speech, the attitude of listeners is no less important than that of speakers."
Cass Sunstein - Why Societies Need Dissent

You can always hear the people who are willing to sacrifice somebody else's life. They're plenty loud and they talk all the time. You can find them in churches and schools and newspapers and legislatures and congress. That's their business. They sound wonderful. Death before dishonor. This ground sanctified by blood. These men who died so gloriously. They shall not have died in vain. Our noble dead."
Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun

No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine."
William Blum

"Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism.... Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all others."
Emma Goldman

"Average" as an Asset?

2006-04-02T09:48:00.000-07:00

I find this pretty funny. First of all I don't think the President has to try too hard to project an anti-intellectual image. On the one hand, he seems to me to actually be very average; which to my way of thinking isn't a positive attribute for the leader of the free world. On the other hand, we know he was born into wealth and privilege and so in that sense this "average Joe" schtick is a little insulting.

The President as Average Joe
Trying to Boost Support,
Bush Brings Banter to the People
By Peter BakerWashington Post Staff WriterSunday, April 2, 2006;

President Bush was taking questions from an audience the other day when he was asked about the immigration debate raging in Washington.
"It's obviously topic du jour ," he said.
The audience laughed at the famously Francophobic Texan's faux accent.
"Pretty fancy, huh?" Bush asked, mocking himself. "Topic du jour ?"
The audience laughed again.
"I don't want to ruin the image," he added conspiratorially.

As he takes to the road to salvage his presidency, Bush is letting down his guard and playing up his anti-intellectual, regular-guy image. Where he spent last year in rehearsed forums with select supporters, these days he is more frequently throwing aside the script and opening himself to questions from audiences that are not prescreened. These sessions have put a sometimes playful, sometimes awkward side back on display after years of trying to keep it under control to appear more presidential.

Call it the let-Bush-be-Bush strategy. The result is a looser president, less serious at times, even at times when humor might seem out of place. Aides used to dread such settings, worried about gaffes or the way Bush might come across in spontaneous exchanges. But with his poll numbers somewhere south of the border, they concluded that Bush handles back-and-forth better than he once did -- and that they have little left to lose.

"It shows the range of his personality, the humor," said White House counselor Dan Bartlett. He said the White House has worked to put Bush out in public more, noting that he has had news conferences twice as often in his second term as in his first. "In a couple different ways, we've expanded his exposure," Bartlett said.

In the past couple of weeks, Bush has taken audience questions at two events, in addition to two news conferences. He has answered expansively, sometimes ranging beyond the talking points. He does not brutalize the English language as much (although last week he mangled the name of his ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, pronouncing it Kahl-i-had ). And he banters with audiences in a way he doesn't when delivering a conventional speech.

"My name is Jose Feliciano," a questioner introduced himself in Cleveland last month.
"No!" Bush answered skeptically.
"Yes, it is," the man insisted.
"It's like the time I called a guy and said, 'Hey, this is George Bush calling,' " the president recalled. "He said, 'Come on, quit kidding me, man.' "

To many critics, such forums still feel contrived, and the fratboy towel-snapping humor unbecoming. Nor does the new format mean Bush always answers questions as directly as inquisitors might like. When an Egyptian asked him at a forum in Washington last week whether he would support Gamal Mubarak if he succeeded his father, Hosni Mubarak, as president of Egypt, Bush declined to answer: "That's a question-I-don't-answer question."

At the same session, sponsored by Freedom House, a group promoting liberty around the world, a diplomat from Mali mentioned Bush's Millennium Challenge program to help poor countries develop democracy and complained that "we haven't seen any money yet." Bush responded with a joke. "I like a good lobbyist," he said, then acknowledged the program "was a little slow to get going" without explaining whether Mali could expect to receive funding soon.

The press serves as a convenient foil. While talking about Iraq before Cleveland's City Club, Bush stumbled over how many U.N. Security Council resolutions condemned Saddam Hussein.
"I think 16," Bush said, then turned toward the media area and spotted Bloomberg's Richard Keil. "Is that right, Stretch? Sixteen?"

Keil, hunched over his laptop, looked up in surprise. Bush played it for the crowd. "I'm asking a member of the press corps," he explained. "I like to, like, reverse roles sometimes. Really checking to see if they're paying attention, you know. Halfway through, they kind of start dozing off."

Politicians get the same treatment. At the Freedom House event, Bush launched into a favorite riff about being friends with the Japanese prime minister even though their fathers fought on opposite sides six decades ago.

"I see Stevens nodding," he said, glancing at Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), age 82. "He was there. Weren't you?" The audience laughed. "Well, I wasn't," Bush added, prompting more laughter.

Needling press and politicians goes over well, of course. But there are moments when audiences are left wondering just what he's talking about. At Freedom House, Bush called on a member of the audience, then, before the man could ask a question, segued into his plans to leave for a summit in Cancun, Mexico.

"No Speedo suit here," Bush declared. "Thankfully."

The questioner, unsure if Bush was done, waited patiently. "Ready?" the man finally asked.
"Yes," Bush said. "Sorry to interrupt you. Just testing your concentration."

Still, if the image of the president in spandex proved distracting, the relaxed approach left some reassessing their view of him. The Freedom House audience consisted of many Democrats, yet the buzz afterward was strikingly positive.

"They were surprised that they were impressed," said Thomas O. Melia, Freedom House's deputy executive director, who has his own Democratic pedigree. "Across the board, whether they supported him or not, I think everybody went out of the room more favorably disposed toward him and his policies."

Melia said the interaction with the audience accomplished more than the canned speech: "He came across better in the back-and-forth with the questioners because it shows he's thinking on his feet, not just reading from a text."

While thinking on his feet, Bush often plays the rube. When Melia got up last week, the president cut him off before his question. "You're going to ask me if I read the book," Bush said.
"I gave the president a copy of our annual report, 'Freedom in the World,' before he took the stage," Melia explained to the audience.

The president gave his instant review: "Little print, no pictures."
Melia did not miss a beat and compared it to another book Bush likes to cite. "It's the bible of freedom," Melia said.

When the crowd laughed, Bush protested, " I'm the funny guy."

Exasperating

2006-03-30T18:26:00.000-08:00

I've given a lot of space these past several days to those who are posting comments on my blog. What I find really frustrating though, is the lack of real discourse. There's no direct engagement on any topic; just a rush to the bottom line; a bottom line that often is almost irrelevant to the topic on the table.

The only thing I think I know for certain about one or more of these commenters (unless you are the same person doing a lot of talking) is that you believe abortion is wrong. OK. I don't like abortion either, I don't think very many people do. I assume then, that you think it should be outlawed. Got that.

But what do you really think about the war in Iraq, for example, beyond the hype and propaganda and mistruths coming out of the adminstration, through a timid mainstream media and with very little meaningful opposition from the Democratic party?

What is YOUR view on gay marriage? What about divorce? Universal health care. When I ask these questions, I think they beg for more than a yes or no or for or against. So bring it on. Let's have a real discussion about issues.

The Peacemakers

2006-03-30T17:53:00.000-08:00

Matthew 5:9 Blessed are the peace-makers" The blessing is on the peace -makers , not necessarily on the peace- lovers. It very often happens that if a man loves peace in the wrong way, he succeeds in making trouble and not peace. We may, for instance, allow a threatening and dangerous situation to develop, and our defence is that for peace's sake we do not want to take any action. There is many a person who thinks that he is loving peace, when in fact he is piling up trouble for the future, because he refuses to face the situation and to take the action which the situation demands. The peace which the bible calls blessed does not come from the evasion of issues; it comes from facing them, dealing with them, and conquering them. What this beatitude demands is not the passive acceptance of things because we are afraid of the trouble of doing anything about them, but the active facing of things and the making of peace, even when the way to peace is through struggle"

This was a really nice post (a comment to one of my previous posts), and I get the point. Although the fact of the matter is you have to be the peace that you seek to make. You don't make peace if you don't bring peace.

But let's be clear about something. People who are opposed to war and violence as a means of solving disputes are not necessarily passive or adverse to addressing issues. So the choice isn't really war or do nothing. It's let's live our lives, interact with others and conduct our foreign policy in a way that does not create or foster situations that can escalate to violence. And let's take proactive and honest steps--with a degree of self-awareness--to really live the ideals we talk so much about in our country.

For example, Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction in 2003 when we invaded. There were also no demonstrable link between Hussein and Al Qaeda. In fact, weapons insepctors like Scott Ritter were jumping up and down in 2002 and early 2003 trying to make the point that Iraq had shut down its weapons programs several years earlier. Moreover, the U.N. weapons inspectors were on the ground in Iraq in late 2002 and early 2003 and only left because we asked them to leave before we attacked.

We teach our children to use their brains and their mouths to resolve differences and not to fight with playmates or classmates. Yet, as adults in the global context it sometimes seems--especially with the Bush administration---that force is a first rather than last resort.

Bruce Defends Joe

2006-03-30T17:45:00.000-08:00

I get Joe's point, he supports the right of a person to defend himself against a killer, you support the right of a women to kill an innocent defenseless unborn child. You don't get it because you are irresponsible and intellectually and morally lazy.

You know something? The world is not at all as black and white these one liner, talking points would like us to think. OK, so I support a woman's right to choose and Joe "supports" something totally unrelated. Are you all capable of discussion?

Joe Speaks.....

2006-03-30T16:00:00.000-08:00

but I don't get the relevance of his point....He says in a comment:

I support a person's right to choose to defend themselves agianst terrorists who are going tokill his or her family.

Is he talking about a situation where a terrorist gang breaks into his home and threatens his family? Or is he, along with Dick Cheney, one of the few people who still says out loud that there was some connection between the attacks of t9/11 and Iraq? You, know we're talking about lives, and cities, and schools and hospitals, and water facilities, and power plants and food supplies and mothers and fathers and childrens and siblings and more. Hiding behind a sense of ignorant righteousness is very irresponsible and intellectually and morally lazy.

I Support Michael Berg

2006-03-30T15:48:00.000-08:00

Michael Berg is the father of the late Nick Berg who met his fate in Iraq and millions of people (for reasons I don't understand) sought out the video tape of his greusome beheading. Mr. Berg began speaking out shortly after his son's death, speaking truth to power about the completely bogus war in Iraq that continues to take so many lives (those would be Americans and Iraqis.)

Berg is seeking the Green Party's nomination for a Congressional seat in Delaware. His position on the war in Iraq is unambiguous and is one with which I completely agree:

My position on war is simple: I am against it. I was against war in 1965. I was against it in 1991. I was against it in 2003. And I have been especially against it since May 10, 2004 when I learned that my son Nick, who had been in Iraq to help with the reconstruction effort, had been brutally murdered.

The cost of war is too high.

What can we hope to achieve in Iraq and Afghanistan? Revenge for the Bush family? Dominance for American oil companies over Iraq's huge oil fields? Whatever it may be, it is not worth my son’s life. It is not worth the loss of any human life at all. It is not worth the loss of over 2100 American military lives, over four hundred non-Iraqi civilian lives, untold number of non-American military, and well over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilian lives.

It is not worth the money spent in Iraq that could be spent in our own country maintaining our infrastructure to prevent catastrophes like what happened in New Orleans when hurricane Katrina devastated a neglected system of levees. Human beings are our most valuable natural resource and we are not maintaining our schools well enough to ensure that the next generation will be able to step in for us. We could be spending the money we spend killing Iraqis on an equitable healthcare plan and fair wages for all. Yes, the costs are too high.

The costs go beyond human life and money. We cannot afford to continue to alienate ourselves from the rest of the world community -- but for those few exceptions coerced into supporting our immoral efforts in Iraq -- by continuing to ignore their condemnation of our acts.

We cannot afford to lose more of our basic human rights such as my son Nick lost when he was illegally detained by the US Military and FBI in Iraq until it was too late for him to get home safely. (Nick's murderers said his killing was in retaliation for the torture in the Abu Ghraib prison. The torture became public knowlege while Nick was in custody.) What we have lost to the ineptly named Patriot Act is only a part of what we have lost to the arrogance of the Bush government.

This administration took the Patriot Act as a signal that we, the American People, were too scared to stand up for our rights.

We cannot afford to be distracted by this war any longer while our planet passes the point of no return in global warming. We have urgent business to attend to such as the disgusting practice of American corporate CEOs of stealing profits in their yearly bonuses that exceed what most of us would earn in ten lifetimes.

Yes. The war is too costly and I am against it! I am against any plan that has our troops and civilians occupying territory anywhere in the Middle East region for one more day. Only when we withdraw from Iraq, Afghanistan, and the rest of the Middle East will we cease to be a target of terrorists. I am against the continuation of this war for another day, another hour, another minute, another life, another heartbeat of one of the world’s sons or daughters.

I am against this war!

Thanks Dale

2006-03-29T09:29:00.000-08:00

Since Dale identified him/herself in a recent comment, I'll respond. He/she says something like "since morals and killing are relative, what does it matter."

I assume that comment goes to my views on war and abortion. Morals are relative; don't know how killing fits in that sentence. Again, I support a woman's right to choose. I don't like the idea of abortion and think our efforts should be on ways to support women and families and newborns that reduce the situations in which women find the decision to abort, their only or best option.

I oppose the idea of war, and certainly oppose wars of choice against sovereign nations that have neither attacked, threatened to attack or harbored terrorists who have launched attacks against us.

The "Amnesty" Debate Clarified

2006-03-29T09:27:00.000-08:00

It Isn't Amnesty
Here's one way to kill a cow: take it into the woods in hunting season, paint the word "deer" on it and stand back.

Something like that is happening in the immigration debate in Washington. Attackers of a smart, tough Senate bill have smeared it with the most mealy-mouthed word in the immigration glossary — amnesty — in hopes of rendering it politically toxic. They claim that the bill would bestow an official federal blessing of forgiveness on an estimated 12 million people who are living here illegally, rewarding their brazen crimes and encouraging more of the same.

That isn't true. The bill, approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a 12-to-6 vote on Monday, is one the country should be proud of. Four Republicans, including the committee's chairman, Arlen Specter, joined eight Democrats in endorsing a balanced approach to immigration reform. The bill does not ignore security and border enforcement. It would nearly double the number of Border Patrol agents, add resources for detaining illegal immigrants and deporting them more quickly, and expand state and local enforcement of immigration laws. It would create a system to verify workers' identities and impose tougher punishments on employers who defied it.

But unlike the bill's counterpart in the House, which makes a virtue out of being tough but not smart, the Specter bill would also take on the hard job of trying to sort out the immigrants who want to stay and follow the rules from those who don't. It would force them not into buses or jails but into line, where they could become lawful residents and — if they showed they deserved it — citizens. Instead of living off the books, they'd come into the system.

The path to citizenship laid out by the Specter bill wouldn't be easy. It would take 11 years, a clean record, a steady job, payment of a $2,000 fine and back taxes, and knowledge of English and civics. That's not "amnesty," with its suggestion of getting something for nothing. But the false label has muddied the issue, playing to people's fear and indignation, and stoking the opportunism of Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader. Mr. Frist has his enforcement-heavy bill in the wings, threatening to make a disgraceful end run around the committee's work.

The alternatives to the Specter bill are senseless. The enforcement-only approach — building a 700-mile wall and engaging in a campaign of mass deportation and harassment to rip 12 million people from the national fabric — would be an impossible waste of time and resources. It would destroy families and weaken the economy. An alternative favored by many businesses — creating a temporary-worker underclass that would do our dirtiest jobs and then have to go home, with no new path to citizenship — is a recipe for indentured servitude.

It is a weak country that feels it cannot secure its borders and impose law and order on an unauthorized population at the same time. And it is a foolish, insecure country that does not seek to channel the energy of an industrious, self-motivated population to its own ends, but tries instead to wall out "those people."

It's time for President Bush, who talks a good game on immigration, to use every means to clarify the issue and to lead this country out of the "amnesty" semantic trap. He dislikes amnesty. Mr. Frist dislikes amnesty. We dislike amnesty, too.

The Specter bill isn't amnesty. It's a victory for thoughtfulness and reason.

Enough of the Silliness

2006-03-28T17:16:00.000-08:00

I'm amazed at how closely my Anonymous friends stick to the Right Wing Republican talking points? Where's your originality? What are your own thoughts and why? All this chatter about Howard Zinn being a Marxist and suggesting your familiarity with the views of Noam Chomskly, doesn't mean very much. So, let this be the end of this fruitless back and forth:

In response to the last two Anonymous questions, no I don't believe that an unborn fetus has the same rights as a person living outside the womb.

And I don't seen any problem with consensting adults being able to engage in intimate personal committed relationships with more than one other consensting adult.

Thanks.....I'm moving on.

By the Way.....

2006-03-28T16:01:00.000-08:00

I also support gay marriage and universal health care. What say ye my Anonymous friends?

The Dialog (?) Continues

2006-03-28T15:47:00.000-08:00

This is really interesting. More comments from one or more Anonymous commenters:

"Wesley, anonymous is right! It is obvious that the unamed speaker by using ? is asking people with your beliefs "How is it still possible to speak of the dignity of every human person when the killing of the weakest and most innocent is permitted?" I think deep in you soul you know that abortion is wrong"I’m very torn" and that you fear alienating people on the left(feminists etc)."
Alienating feminists? I'm not a politician courting votes, I don't get that. Save that rhetoric for those running for office. That's a great Right Wing talking point. I'm one American with my own set of views. One of those, I repeat, is that at the end of the day I support a woman's right to make certain choices in her life.

"Anyone who reads Howard Zinn can see that its obvious that he is a Marxist. Someone with your political stance who says"so what" is blind to marxist idealogy!"
That's really silly and makes me think you've not read a word Howard Zinn has written. And it's fine if you haven't. Morevoer, define Marxist and tell me why you hurl it around as some sort of insult. "Capitalist, Communist, Socialist, Marxist, Conservative, Liberal....come on. Enough of that label crap. State your views in a substantive way that can be debated or discussed.

"After all, one of the unnamed speakers above, suggests it isn’t possible to dignify every human person when the weakest are allowed to be killed " Unamed Speaker:"How is it still possible to speak of the dignity of every human person when the killing of the weakest and most innocent is permitted? In the name of what justice is the most unjust of discriminations practised: some individuals are held to be deserving of defence and others are denied that dignity?"Wow, I seemed to have touched a nerve.Wesley you totally missunderstood the quotes ( The unamed speaker is against war, abortion and the death penalty) The unnamed speaker is saying how can you or people like you say that you protect the rights of fully formed adult lives while denying it to unborn humans, don't you see the contradiction in this! " Interestingly, my take from these odd quotes is that Pro lifers, who also seem able to favor war and the dealth penalty perhaps do so BECAUSE of the fact that abortion is legal. "I have never in 30 years heard a pro - lifer say that they favor war and the death penalty because abortion is legal! Wesley if you have heard someone say this then I think we can agree that that person has a warped justification for war and the death penalty. Don't you find it odd that you support the rights of people that have committed terrible acts of murder and rape but deny those rights to innocent unborn children! "Killing is wrong! "
Surely you aren't trying to tell me that you believe the so called "pro-life" movement is also anti dealth penalty and anti war.

Speak Up Anonymous

2006-03-27T17:18:00.000-08:00

Anonymous
Wesley, below are some quotes that might make you reconsider your pro- choice positionPrecisely in an age when the inviolable rights of the person are solemnly proclaimed and the value of life is publicly affirmed, the very right to life is being denied or trampled upon, especially at the more significant moments of existence: the moment of birth and the moment of death.It is a problem which exists at the cultural, social and political level, where it reveals its more sinister and disturbing aspect in the tendency, ever more widely shared, to interpret the above crimes against life as legitimate expressions of individual freedom, to be acknowledged and protected as actual rights. How is it still possible to speak of the dignity of every human person when the killing of the weakest and most innocent is permitted? In the name of what justice is the most unjust of discriminations practised: some individuals are held to be deserving of defence and others are denied that dignity?When freedom, out of a desire to emancipate itself from all forms of tradition and authority, shuts out even the most obvious evidence of an objective and universal truth, which is the foundation of personal and social life, then the person ends up by no longer taking as the sole and indisputable point of reference for his own choices the truth about good and evil, but only his subjective and changeable opinion or, indeed, his selfish interest and whim.

My position is well informed. Interestingly, my take from these odd quotes is that Pro lifers, who also seem able to favor war and the dealth penalty perhaps do so BECAUSE of the fact that abortion is legal. After all, one of the unnamed speakers above, suggests it isn’t possible to dignify every human person when the weakest are allowed to be killed. Is your point, that since abortion is legal, why bother with a concern for fully formed adult lives on the battfield and in the prisons?

Now I see were the confusion is! Howard Zinn is a Marxist and you "haven’t studied Marxism sufficiently to have an opinion on that"Howard Zinn is not against violence per se only violence by the "other side". Violence done in the name of Marxism is acceptable to Howard Zinn because of the political goals involved. Sounds like reasoning that you accuse the Bush Administration of using!!

Anonymous, you are doing something that the modern day Rove-esque Republicans do very well. They don’t really debate the issues, just throw out buzz words and distractions from the key points.

What are you talking about when you suggest Howard Zinn is a Marxist? I don’t think he is or ever said he was, but even if he were, so what? I’ve read Zinn’s book on “War” and found nothing in there to remotely suggest he favors war in any circumstances.

If you have a beef with Howard Zinn, take it up with him. What’s that got to do with my blog and the expression of my beliefs. And by the way what do YOU believe? Howard Zinn's a Marxist, what would I have done in WWI? Why can't you just discuss the issues with out all the diversions and smokescreens?

Q & A

2006-03-27T06:24:00.000-08:00

My friend Anonymous continues to probe and I continue to enjoy and appreciate it. Here are two recent questions, and my responses:

Wesley, I am suprised that you would recommend Howard Zinn's book. I thought you said "War is simply wrong! Killing is wrong! Revenge is wrong!" I am also confused about your politics, are you a Marxist?

Given those statements I made about war, murder and revenge, why would you be surprised that I am a fan of Howard Zinn? Are you familiar with his work?

As for my politics, no I’m not a Marxist. I haven’t studied Marxism sufficiently to have an opinion on that. I would characterize myself as a progressive/liberal on social, economic and foreign policy issues. Politicians like Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy in the Senate, and Dennis Kucinich, Shelia Jackson-Lee, John Conyers, Bernie Sanders and many others in the progressive wing of the House, share my views, or vice versa.

Wesley, are you pro-life or pro-choice?

I am reluctantly pro-choice. This isn’t a no-brainer for me. I’m very torn, but land on the side that says the final decision isn’t mine or the state’s to make, but rests with the woman who knows the most about her body and her life. That said, I am strongly in favor of doing so much more to reduce the need for and the number of abortions, e.g., much better education around reproductive health and family planning, and enlightened ideas about adoption.

History

2006-03-26T04:57:00.000-08:00

Let me thank my friend(s) Anonymous for sharing their thoughts on my blogging. I actually really appreciate hearing from folks and don't mind hearing different perspectives.

In one of our exchanges, Anonymous made reference to how I would have solved the problem of Nazi Germany, non-violently. I replied that I didn't know enough about the lead up to WWII to offer an informed opinion, but that I would get to that research and then comment.

Just to be clear Anonymous, I did learn about WWII in high school and college. But if you think my worldviews are based on what was taught to me in school, think again. And while thinking again, I highly recommend Howard Zinn's "The People's History of the United States."

My Language

2006-03-25T19:25:00.000-08:00

Anonymous writes:

Wesley, is it possible for you to show indignation without using expletives or cursing.It's childish and is something a teenager would do.

Thanks Anonymous. I'm certainly capable of writing expletive-free posts, but since this is America and it's my own blog, I use the language that seems appropriate at the time its written.

Idiot Democrats

2006-03-24T10:42:00.000-08:00

It's easy, and maybe a bit too self-serving to call the President an "idiot" or "incompetent." Especially when time after time he makes the Democrats in Congress look like total fools. You see, the Democrats want to have every fucking thing both fucking ways (shout out to Janeane Garofolo.) They are so cowed into submission that they can't stand up and vote against the Patriot Act until they get it right. Just like they couldn't vote against the war, and the endless dumping of tax payer dollars into that horrific unaccounted for fiasco.

So they vote "yes" so the big bad Right (and passive MSM) won't be able to label them as unpatriotic or less than committed to the war on terror (whatever the fuck that is.) Then of course, they turn around and complain around the fringes of whatever the issue is. The war hasn't been executed effectively and now here, they will complain that the President has created yet another huge loophole through which his violations of the Constitution can walk.

Don't stand with John Murtha, run from Russ Feingold, ignore John Conyers and the Congressional Black Caucus. You are full of shit Democratic party!!!!

Here's what all my fuss is about:

Bush shuns Patriot Act requirement
In addendum to law, he says oversight rules are not binding

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff March 24, 2006
WASHINGTON -- When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers.
The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.

Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.
In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."

Bush wrote: ''The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . "

The statement represented the latest in a string of high-profile instances in which Bush has cited his constitutional authority to bypass a law.

After The New York Times disclosed in December that Bush had authorized the military to conduct electronic surveillance of Americans' international phone calls and e-mails without obtaining warrants, as required by law, Bush said his wartime powers gave him the right to ignore the warrant law.

And when Congress passed a law forbidding the torture of any detainee in US custody, Bush signed the bill but issued a signing statement declaring that he could bypass the law if he believed using harsh interrogation techniques was necessary to protect national security.
Past presidents occasionally used such signing statements to describe their interpretations of laws, but Bush has expanded the practice. He has also been more assertive in claiming the authority to override provisions he thinks intrude on his power, legal scholars said.
Bush's expansive claims of the power to bypass laws have provoked increased grumbling in Congress. Members of both parties have pointed out that the Constitution gives the legislative branch the power to write the laws and the executive branch the duty to ''faithfully execute" them.

Several senators have proposed bills to bring the warrantless surveillance program under the law. One Democrat, Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, has gone so far as to propose censuring Bush, saying he has broken the wiretapping law.

Bush's signing statement on the USA Patriot Act nearly went unnoticed.
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, inserted a statement into the record of the Senate Judiciary Committee objecting to Bush's interpretation of the Patriot Act, but neither the signing statement nor Leahy's objection received coverage from in the mainstream news media, Leahy's office said.

Yesterday, Leahy said Bush's assertion that he could ignore the new provisions of the Patriot Act -- provisions that were the subject of intense negotiations in Congress -- represented ''nothing short of a radical effort to manipulate the constitutional separation of powers and evade accountability and responsibility for following the law."

''The president's signing statements are not the law, and Congress should not allow them to be the last word," Leahy said in a prepared statement. ''The president's constitutional duty is to faithfully execute the laws as written by the Congress, not cherry-pick the laws he decides he wants to follow. It is our duty to ensure, by means of congressional oversight, that he does so."

The White House dismissed Leahy's concerns, saying Bush's signing statement was simply ''very standard language" that is ''used consistently with provisions like these where legislation is requiring reports from the executive branch or where disclosure of information is going to be required."

''The signing statement makes clear that the president will faithfully execute the law in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. ''The president has welcomed at least seven Inspector General reports on the Patriot Act since it was first passed, and there has not been one verified abuse of civil liberties using the Patriot Act."

David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues, said the statement may simply be ''bluster" and does not necessarily mean that the administration will conceal information about its use of the Patriot Act.

But, he said, the statement illustrates the administration's ''mind-bogglingly expansive conception" of executive power, and its low regard for legislative power.

''On the one hand, they deny that Congress even has the authority to pass laws on these subjects like torture and eavesdropping, and in addition to that, they say that Congress is not even entitled to get information about anything to do with the war on terrorism," Golove said.

The Discussion Continues

2006-03-23T05:41:00.000-08:00

My friend Anonymous writes:

Wesley I don't suggest that violence is a preferred means for dispute resolution, however when your dealing with megalomaniac genocidal dictators doing nothing while hundreds of thousands of people are dying is not a morally defensible position.Wesley, what would have been your constructive way to avoid violence against Adolf Hitler?

I don't yet (but I'll do my research and get back to you) know enough about what was going on leading up to WWII to answer that question with any intelligence. But I can tell you, that pacifism or an anti-war stance is not the same as doing nothing. For one, the world would be a lot better off if our policies and interactions around the world were based on humanitarian concerns rather than on domination, empire and exploitative capitalism. We would do well now, as the world would have in the 30's, to pay attention to conditions in countries like pre-Nazi Germany that become ripe for "megalomaniac genocidal dictators" to emerge and flourish.

But attacking Nazi Germany ostensibly to stop the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Germans, is a much tougher situation than invading Iraq, bombing Yugoslavia, going into Vietnam, dropping Atomic bombs in Japan, etc. Interestingly, at the very same time that we are saber rattling with Iran and N. Korea, Venezuela and Cuba--not to mention making an absolute mess of Iraq--there is in a fact a genocide occuring in Sudan; very similar to what occurred under Clinton's watch in Rwanda.

Pacifism

2006-03-22T18:20:00.000-08:00

Thanks "anonymous" for the following response to my post yesterday:

George Orwells statements on pacifism although written 60 years ago are appropriate to today: "The notion that you can somehow defeat violence by submitting to it is simply a flight from fact. As I have said , it is only possible to people who have money and guns between themselves and reality""pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britian and the US. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defense of the western countries""since pacifists have more freedom of action in countries where traces of democracy survive, pacifism can act more efectively against democracy than for it. Objectively the pacifist is pro - Nazi""communism,fascism, and pacifism are in the last analysis forms of power worhip"

Noam Chomsky has said:"I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers or even denial of the Holocaust."

I make no qualms about the strength of my anti-war position and am quite happy to stand it up against a view that suggests that killing and destruction, is a preferred means for dispute resolution and the creation of sustained peace around the world. Moreover, with all due respect to Mr. Orwell, pacifism isn't about submitting to violence, but finding constructive ways to avoid it. But what are your views Anonymous?

Here's a dictionary definition of the word "pacifist":

1. The belief that disputes between nations should and can be settled peacefully.

2. Opposition to war or violence as a means of resolving disputes. Such opposition demonstrated by refusal to participate in military action.

(American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language)

This is the Point

2006-03-21T17:08:00.000-08:00

The lemming like support of the rabid right and the cautious criticism of the timid Democrats of Bush's war policy, simply miss the larger point. It's a point that one can glean brilliantly from the works of Noam Chomksy, Howard Zinn and William Blum, for example. These brilliant minds (in my opinion) posit the idea of a worldview not seen exclusively through American eyes--filtered of course through a corporate owned media. They explode the myth of the "noble cause" for war that Cindy Sheehan has been badgering the President for. The idea of American foreign policy, driven by humanitarian concerns and committed to justice, liberty and freedom is complete bullshit. War is simply wrong! Killing is wrong! Revenge is wrong!

We are an empire; the largest, most powerful and most destructive in the known history of the world. The emphasis is on "we" because though it's made easy for us, we willfully avert our eyes and minds from this truth; preferring instead to attribute nobler motives to even the most dastardly of our deeds.

This empire is maintained through and by both Republican and Democratic leadership; let's not be fooled. The Bush administration is particularly offensive, perhaps because its figurehead is so largely under prepared and otherwise incompetent to lead us through his term as holder of the empire with little apparent interest in masking our imperial aims. On the other hand, the very capable master of conveyed compassion Bill Clinton, presided over eight straight years of intermittent bombing of innocents in Iraq (coupled of course with incredibly harsh sanctions) and 78 straight days of shock and awe type bombing in Yugoslavia; effectively destroying cities, communities, and entire ways of life.

For me, the intellectually honest position is to try to see myself as a citizen of the world, of the Universe, and to understand everyone else on the planet to be the same. It’s very difficult to take in all of the suffering around us, and again we have an infinite number of ways to distract ourselves from those realities. But who are we then?

Thanks Sen. Feingold

2006-03-12T16:43:00.000-08:00

Dear Senator Feingold:

I am repeating herein the essence of an email I sent you today thanking you generally for your brave and principled leadership in the Senate during these very, very challenging times for the world and for our country. For those of us who believe America should be about taking care of those most in need here at home, and executing a humane and sensible foreign policy abroad, the tenure of George W. Bush has been alarming, to say the least.

Even more disappointing has been the lack of an aggressive, sustained, values-based opposition from the Democrats. Too many of your colleagues, in my judgment, appear to have found it in their better political interests to remain quiet—or even complicit—as this administration has mislead the nation into an illegal war; practiced torture at prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and secret sites all over the world; participated in the outing of a CIA operative in order to squelch her husband’s exposure of distortions in the rationale for war and now blatantly breaking the law by spying on Americans without proper court authority.

That is why your introduction of a resolution to censure the President for the NSA program is so encouraging. Please let me know how I can help generate support for your resolution. And while you’re at it, let me know how I can support your candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President in 2008.

More on The Censure Resolution

2006-03-12T07:39:00.000-08:00

Feingold's office has put out this fact sheet:

FACT SHEET FROM U.S. SENATOR RUSS FEINGOLDON HIS RESOLUTION TO CENSURE THE PRESIDENT
Senator Feingold’s resolution of censure condemns the President for breaking the law by authorizing an illegal wiretapping program, and for misleading Congress and the American people about the existence and legality of that program.

The President Broke the Law by Wiretapping Outside of FISA

It Is Illegal to Wiretap Without the Requisite Warrant or Court Order: The law is clear that the criminal wiretap statute and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) “shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance . . . and the interception of domestic wire, oral, and electronic communications may be conducted.”

FISA Has an Emergency Exception: The Administration has indicated that it ignored FISA because the application process takes too long. In fact, in an emergency where the Attorney General believes that surveillance must begin before a court order can be obtained, FISA permits him to immediately authorize the surveillance as long as the government goes to the court within 72 hours. Prior to 2001, the emergency wiretap period was only 24 hours. The Administration requested and received the increase to 72 hours in intelligence authorization legislation that passed in late 2001.

FISA Provides for Wartime Situations:
FISA also permits the Attorney General to authorize warrantless electronic surveillance in the United States during the 15 days following a declaration of war, to allow time to consider any amendments to FISA necessitated by a wartime emergency.

The Administration Has Used FISA Thousands of Times Since 9/11:
Administration officials have criticized FISA, but they have obtained thousands of warrants approved by the FISA court since 9/11, and have almost never had a warrant request rejected by that court.

The President Made Misleading Arguments Defending his Wiretapping Program

Military Force Resolution Did Not Authorize Wiretapping:
The President has argued that Congress gave him authority to wiretap Americans on U.S. soil without a warrant when it passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force after September 11, 2001. There is no language in the resolution and no evidence to suggest that it was intended to give the President authority to order these warrantless wiretaps. Warrantless domestic surveillance is not an “incident of war” akin to detaining an enemy soldier on the battlefield as the Administration has argued.

In fact, Congress passed the Patriot Act just six weeks after September 11 to expand the government’s powers to conduct surveillance of suspected terrorists and spies. Yet the Administration did not ask for, nor did the Patriot Act include, any change to FISA’s requirement of judicial approval for wiretaps of Americans in the United States. Prohibition on Wiretapping Limits Executive Power: The President’s assertion of inherent executive power is also wrong. The President has extensive authority when it comes to national security and foreign affairs, but given the clear prohibition in FISA, that authority does not include the power to wiretap American citizens on American soil without a warrant.

Executive Branch Review of Wiretapping Is Not Enough:
The President has argued that periodic executive branch review provides an adequate check on the program. But Congress when it passed FISA explicitly rejected the idea that the executive branch should be fully entrusted to conduct national security wiretaps on its own – a power that the executive had abused in the past. In addition, the Administration has said that NSA employees decide whose communications to tap. Executive branch employees are no substitute for FISA Court judges.

Congress Did Not Approve This Program:
The extremely limited briefings of the President’s warrantless surveillance programs to a handful of Congressional leaders did not constitute Congressional oversight, much less approval. In fact, the failure of the President to keep the Congressional Intelligence Committees “fully and currently informed of all intelligence activities” was a violation of the National Security Act.

The President Made Misleading Public Statements about Administration Wiretapping

“Finally, we need to renew the critical provisions of the Patriot Act that protect our civil liberties. The Patriot Act was written with clear safeguards to ensure the law is applied fairly. The judicial branch has a strong oversight role. Law enforcement officers need a federal judge's permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone, a federal judge's permission to track his calls, or a federal judge's permission to search his property. Officers must meet strict standards to use any of these tools. And these standards are fully consistent with the Constitution of the U.S.”

--President George Bush, June 9, 2005, in Columbus, Ohio

“A couple of things that are very important for you to understand about the Patriot Act. First of all, any action that takes place by law enforcement requires a court order. In other words, the government can't move on wiretaps or roving wiretaps without getting a court order. Now, we've used things like roving wiretaps on drug dealers before. Roving wiretaps mean you change your cell phone. And yet, we weren't able to use roving wiretaps on terrorists. And so what the Patriot Act said is let's give our law enforcement the tools necessary, without abridging the Constitution of the United States, the tools necessary to defend America.”

--President George Bush, July 14, 2004, in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin

“Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.”--

President George Bush, April 20, 2004, in Buffalo, New York

Feingold Does it Again

2006-03-12T07:28:00.000-08:00

This is my front runner for '08. Hillary Clinton may have the celeb status and the growing warc chest, Mark Warner is on the cover of the NY Times magazine this week, but this guy Feingold is DOING what we expect and desperately need the opposition party to do. Intelligently, elogquently and passionately again and again he stands strong for what he believes and in doing so gives voice to the sentiments of a growing majority of Americans who's voices are not heard in Congress.

Feingold Calls for Bush's Censure
Wisconsin Democrat Asks Senate to Rebuke the President for NSA Wiretaps
By ED O'KEEFE

March 12, 2006— - In an exclusive interview on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold called on the Senate to publicly admonish President Bush for approving domestic wiretaps on American citizens without first seeking a legally required court order.

"This conduct is right in the strike zone of the concept of high crimes and misdemeanors," said Feingold, D-Wis., a three-term senator and potential presidential contender.
He said President Bush had, "openly and almost thumbing his nose at the American people," continued the NSA domestic wiretap program.

President Bush has long asserted that the so-called 'warrantless wiretaps' are an essential tool in the war on terror.

But in a copy of the censure resolution obtained by ABC News, Feingold asserts the president, "repeatedly misled the public prior to the public disclosure of the National Security Agency surveillance program by indicating his administration was relying on court orders to wiretap suspected terrorists inside the United States."

Feingold cites three instances over a year-long period in which Bush outlined the necessity of a court order or a judge's permission prior to a domestic wiretap of a U.S. citizen.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., also appearing exclusively on "This Week," defended Bush.

"Russ is just wrong, he is flat wrong, he is dead wrong," Frist said.
The most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll put the president's approval rating at 41 percent, nearly a career low. But that not necessarily mean Feingold's censure resolution will succeed.

Censure, essentially a public disapproval by the Senate as a whole, has only been applied to one president, Andrew Jackson, in a politically-charged move the Senate historian's office describes as "unprecedented and never-repeated tactic."

Frist called the censure attempt "political" and a "terrible, terrible signal" to enemies of the U.S. abroad. He assured Stephanopoulos that the resolution would never gain traction in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Feingold, best known for his bipartisan fight for campaign finance reform with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., intends to introduce the resolution this week -- insisting the move is not a political stunt.

No Longer a Democrat

2006-03-11T20:27:00.000-08:00

I've had it. I'm cancelling my Democracy Bond with the DNC and may even stop my monthly contribution to the Progressive Democrats of America. For the indefinite future, I can't align myself with a party that from the top down has completely failed me. At this writing I am officially a Green Party leaning Independent.

I've been resisting for a while now the unfortunate truth as I know it, that the Democratic and Republican parties are flip sides (at best) of the same coin. No doubt our country would be in better hands with either President Gore or Kerry. But what makes Bush so different from a Clinton (either one) or Gore or Kerry, especially in foreign policy, is not so much the content of his policy, but the simultaneous arrogance and incompetence with which it is exercised. In other words, the real distinctions aren't in the policies themselves but in their execution.

I've spent almost four years now doing a lot of homework. The sad truth is we don't have very much to be proud of in terms of what is done in our name around the world; under Democratic or Republican leaders. The Iraq war is a blatant, in your face tragedy with deadly consequences for everyone on the ground. But before that, the 1991 Gulf war, the brutal economic sanctions against Iraq, the bombing around the bull shit "no fly zones" and the aerial asault on Yugoslavia that may have been as deceptively based as W's Iraq invasion, all involved the killing of many, many innocent men, women and children.

I don't want any of that happening in my name, so it's incumbent on me to seek out candidates who are true progressives who passionately believe in a different way to be American, and to lead Americans. I won't be constrained by a false choice between Repbulican or Democrat. I will support the the candidate(s) who believe what I do, regardless of their perceived viability as winners.

That doesn't mean I won't vote for Democrats who fit the bill. But I won't support Democrats who don't offer a clear choice for the future or those already elected who have not done the job.

Equal Time

2006-03-04T18:59:00.000-08:00

Here's another opinion of the RawStory.com site and a diagnosis of my problems with the Bush administration. Mr/Ms Anonymous, what do you recommend I take for my condition? Better yet, I'd genuinely be interested in your views on the Bush administrtion.

The RawStory.com is an anti-Bush liberal biased smear website.It suffers from the same illness you do Wesley:BUSH DERANGEMENT SYNDROME!

Raw Story

2006-03-04T08:54:00.000-08:00

If you like to read stories that the mainstream media fails to report or underreports, and if you like to get that news early, please check out and bookmark RawStory.com. I've been an avid follower of the site for at least the last six months (what took me so long?) and have found it to be a consistently reliable source for breaking REAL news.

Here's how they describe themselves:

The Raw Story is an alternative news nexus. We draw upon a panoply of news sources and select those stories we think most intriguing to a audience seeking news underplayed by the mainstream media.

At the core, our goal is to unearth and spotlight stories underplayed by the popular press, in particular those which highlight betterment and open people’s eyes to injustice throughout the world.

Raw Story Media operates both the The Raw Story and its sister content site, The Blue Lemur
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The Raw Story, founded in February, 2004 has grown at a remarkable pace, and is referenced regularly by major bloggers and the press. Raw Story's reporting has been referenced by the New York Times, the Guardian, L.A. Weekly, the New York Post, the Toronto Star, The Hill, Roll Call, The Advocate and Hustler. Stories have often been linked from Daily Kos, Atrios, Buzzflash and Cursor. We now average 50,000 to 80,000 unique visitors daily, and run as high as 150,000 on strong-traffic days.

The site is updated continuously throughout the day and links to stories of national and international import; business and economic news; arts and entertainment reporting; and selected editorials. It also features exclusive stories and commentaries from reporters around the globe.

We also seek to promote budding journalists and provide alternative content of our own.

Nukes, American Style

2006-02-28T18:01:00.000-08:00

The President is making a two-day trip to India this week by all accounts to secure a nuclear agreement with India that may have as its subtext the strengthening of India as a buffer/deterrent to China’s growing power.

Lawrence Wittner, a Professor of History at the State University of New York, Albany, writes that Bush plans to lay a wreath to honor Gandhi. While noting that leaders typically make such seemingly cynical gestures, but finds the hypocrisy heightened given Bush’s stature as a major war maker around the world and Gandhi’s unwavering commitment to nonviolence. Worse, he points out, is that fact the purpose of the deal is purportedly to close a deal that will send nuclear technology to India to aid it’s WMD development.

Wittner points out that Gandhi, not surprisingly, abhorred the atomic bomb calling its development “the most diabolical use of science.” He goes on to say:

“That is certainly an interesting backdrop against which to place President Bush's plan to provide India with nuclear technology. India is one of only four countries that have refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)-a treaty endorsed by 188 nations. Thumbing its nose at the world, India has conducted nuclear tests and has developed what experts believe to be 50 to 100 nuclear weapons. Under the terms of the NPT, the export of nuclear technology is banned to nations that don't accept international inspections of their nuclear programs. In addition, U.S. law prohibits the transfer of nuclear technology to a country that rejects full international safeguards. U.S. law also bans such technology transfer to a non-NPT country that has conducted nuclear test explosions.”

“Thus, if the President were to give any weight to Gandhi's ideas, international treaty obligations, or U.S. law, he would not be working to provide India with the same nuclear-capable technology that he so vigorously condemns in Iran-a country, by the way, that has signed the NPT, has undergone inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and has not conducted any nuclear weapons tests. There are other reasons to oppose this deal, as well. Although India's relations with Pakistan are relatively stable at the moment, they might well be very adversely affected by any perception that the Indian government was racing ahead with a buildup of its nuclear arsenal. Furthermore, Pakistan might demand the same nuclear assistance as India. Indeed, if India can simply ignore the NPT and, then, receive nuclear technology from the United States, why should other countries observe its provisions? The Iranians, certainly, will make this point.”

The New York Times editorial page writes:

“Relations between the United States and India have never been more important, thanks to global terror in the post-Sept. 11 world, the search for sustainable energy resources and the United Nations' pledge to halve world poverty by 2015. More than 500 million of the world's poor are Indian villagers. India is also home to one the largest Muslim populations in the world.”

“So it's a pity that this trip, which should focus American attention on such a rich array of issues, now revolves largely around whether India and America will manage to conclude a nuclear deal that shouldn't have been initiated to begin with.”

Significantly, for an administration (and a go along nation) that carries out a military invasion (Iraq) and threatens another (Iran) for what it deems “unacceptable” pursuit of nuclear weapons, it really is the height of dangerous hypocrisy to turn a blind eye to non-compliance with nuclear treaties ourselves and by those countries we favor. We simply cannot live this way and expect to thrive long term; at least not without the blowback we are experiencing in the form terrorism against us and other Western interests. Inconsistency, double standards, blatant nationalistic self interest and a quick draw only compound the increasing problems the world is facing. The Times goes on:

“President Bush's wrongheaded decision last year to make an end run around the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty by agreeing to share civilian nuclear technology with New Delhi took America's contain-China-by-building-up-India strategy a step too far. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty's basic bargain has been to reward countries that renounced nuclear weapons with the opportunity to import sensitive nuclear technology to help meet their energy needs. For decades, America has imposed nuclear export restrictions on India — and Pakistan, for that matter — in response to those countries' refusal to sign the nonproliferation treaty and their open development of nuclear weapons.”

“This carrot-and-stick approach has dissuaded many other countries capable of building or buying nuclear arms from doing so, from South Korea to Turkey to Saudi Arabia. Now President Bush wants to carve out an exception for India. That's the worst possible message to send to other countries — Iran comes to mind — that America and its nuclear allies in Europe are trying to keep off the nuclear weapons bandwagon. Already, Pakistani officials are requesting the same deal for their country, although it is a request that is unlikely to be granted.”

Real Democrats in November

2006-02-28T13:40:00.000-08:00

In my view, it's not enough just to elect Democrats in November. We need a different kind of representation in Congress, not just a larger number of the same type of Democratic congress members. I'm sure the scenario playing out here in Mpls, is happening across the country. People who are outraged by the Bush administration--especially the war in Iraq--are stepping up to the plate, to the LEFT of more mainstream Democrats, challengers or incumbents.

Nelson-Pallmeyer's Peace Platform is what I support and I urge like-minded progressives wherever you are to find and support progressive incumbents even if--especially if--they challenge entrenched, mainstream, inneffective Democrats.

This Fall, Consider the Peace PlatformIf you think you can't do anything about Iraq, think again. You can. Here's how
by Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer

The most pressing issue facing Minnesotans in the coming elections is the Iraq war.
As war spending grows, deficits skyrocket and human needs are ignored. The United States accounts for nearly half the world's military spending. We spend seven times that of China, 22 times that of Russia, and 50 times that of North Korea and Iran combined. With the funds wasted in Iraq to date we could have ended hunger and poverty in America.

Minnesota taxpayers in 2006 will pay $2 billion for the Iraq war. Meanwhile, federal cuts will cost Minnesota $2.5 million in WIC funds, $13.4 million in Community Development Block Grants, $4.1 million in spending for the clean water state revolving fund, 217 Head Start slots, $6.8 million in funds for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, $18.6 million from vocational education and all federal funds for community policing. This is the ugly tip of a big iceberg.

The good news is that Minnesotans can use the upcoming elections to reverse these trends.
When someone says, "One person can't do anything," I reply, "Our neighborhood is better because of you." The wonder of democracy is this: When one person who "can't do anything" meets another who "can't do anything," you have two people who feel they can't do anything. But when you multiply two by 1,000 and mix in good values, practical policies and hope, pretty soon a war we "can't do anything about" will end.

Politics is where we come together to meet our neighbors, build community and learn about and from each other. Politics is where we share fears and hopes, define the common good and work for practical solutions to pressing problems. Politics is serious, interesting and fun. Politics can help end the war. Here's how:

Over the next several months Minnesotans will gather to determine their parties' platforms and to endorse candidates. Our strategy is simple. We attend -- and get our neighbors to attend -- our precinct caucuses on March 7. There, we volunteer or get elected as delegates to subsequent conventions where candidates will be endorsed. Although we care about other issues, we make clear that the war issue determines which candidates we'll endorse. Because the war affects everyone, we ask every person running for office to take a public stand, and we make clear that our support hinges on their position.

At early stages in the process we can either support a specific peace candidate or be part of a "peace first" block of voters. "Peace first" voters will endorse only candidates who back a specific agenda that includes ending the occupation, reconstructing Iraq and supporting returning veterans.

If we do our work well, peace candidates will emerge from this process and win in November. This will change the political landscape in Minnesota and throughout the country. Imagine the possibilities for change when Minnesotans elect local, state and national leaders committed to ending the war and to promoting peaceful priorities.
Minnesotans want politics to be positive and their political leaders to be bold, passionate and honest. We are tired of lies, war, careless theft from future generations and big money's influence on politicians. Politics can be noble or jaded. We decide. In a democracy it's really up to us.

Iran: Iraq Redux

2006-02-26T13:27:00.000-08:00

Don't be fooled by the hype. Just like Iraq, the threat posed by Iran's flirtation with nuclear energy is greatly hyped. Once again, the mainstream media is reporting the party line without question, and the Democrats--especially those with national ambitions--are falling over themselves trying to get to the right of the recklessly hawkish President. The Dems as a group, still don't have the confidence to make their own case for building homeland security and an intelligent foreign policy that is rationale, even-handed and de-politicized. Instead, they succumb to the pressure to be better Republicans.

There is No Iranian 'Crisis'
by Ron Forthofer

The leaders of the former Soviet Union would have been envious of how the U.S. mainstream media fall into line on international issues. In their coverage of the current concocted "crisis" with Iran, the U.S. corporate media have committed two major sins: 1) failure to put events into a historical and political context, and 2) unquestioning parroting of the U.S. government line. The second is particularly egregious given the media's shameful record in the run-up to the attack on Iraq.

U.S. support for an Iranian nuclear program
If people rely on the U.S. mainstream media, they probably do not realize that the U.S. was a major backer of the Iranian nuclear program in the 1960s and 1970s. The U.S. even supplied Iran with a nuclear reactor in the 1960s. The on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia includes information from "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration," by James Risen on U.S. support for the Iranian nuclear program.
According to the article, by 1975 Henry Kissinger, the U.S. Secretary of State, "had signed National Security Decision Memorandum 292, titled 'U.S.-Iran Nuclear Cooperation,' which laid out the details of the sale of nuclear energy equipment to Iran. At the time, Iran was pumping as much as 6 million barrels of oil a day, compared with about 4 million barrels daily today."

The article added: "President Gerald R. Ford even signed a directive in 1976 offering Tehran the chance to buy and operate a U.S.-built reprocessing facility for extracting plutonium from nuclear-reactor fuel. The deal was for a complete 'nuclear fuel cycle.'" The Ford strategy paper also said the "introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran's economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals."
Iran's need for additional sources of energy is certainly far greater today than it was in 1975, when the U.S. was encouraging it to go nuclear. The U.S. claim that Iran has no need for additional energy sources is hypocritical and clearly political.
The U.S., not Iran, is in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
In a Jan. 11 Financial Times article, a senior U.S. official is quoted as saying: "The time has come to blow the whistle on a country that is in non-compliance with the non-proliferation treaty," Hallelujah! Someone is finally going to blow the whistle on U.S. violations of the treaty.

Oops — the official was talking about Iran. And the official was wrong — Iran is not in violation of the treaty. It is the U.S. and the other nuclear powers on the U.N. Security Council that are in non-compliance with the complete disarmament requirement of the treaty.
U.S. media again falling for and spreading lies
The U.S. is hyping a case against Iran based on many of the same lies it used to build the case for attacking Iraq. And the mainstream U.S. media have essentially ignored the fact that the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons.

The date of his fatwa was Aug. 9, 2005, the 60th anniversary of the U.S. dropping an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. But the U.S. claims Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Does this sound familiar? Given the Bush administration's lack of credibility, we should be very wary of this claim. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Israel and Iran
Besides the U.S. role with Iran's nuclear program, the other unmentionable topic in the U.S. media is Israel's role in this "crisis." Israel would love to see the U.S. take out all its enemies, in particular, Iraq, Iran and Syria. On April 13, 2003, shortly after the fall of Baghdad, Aluf Benn reported in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz on an upcoming visit to the U.S. by officials in the Sharon regime: "Israel will suggest that the United States also take care of Iran and Syria."

No one wants to see any further spread of nuclear weapons, and most want to see the nuclear powers live up to their promise to completely disarm. Iran claims its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, and there is no evidence to the contrary. Even if Iran were trying to produce nuclear weapons, leading experts claim that Iran is probably five years away from producing them.

In a Jan. 23, 2005, op-ed in the Financial Times, Norman Lamont, a former British chancellor of the exchequer, made a strong case for discussions and the dropping of all the Iranian sanctions other than those involving military technology. Unfortunately the U.S. is unlikely to heed this sage advice. Instead, it is likely that either the U.S. or Israel will bomb several Iranian sites, greatly exacerbating an already explosive situation. To prevent this disastrous outcome, we need to tell our government that we won't stand for any more unwarranted and illegal attacks against other nations.

My Letter to the Intelligence Committee

2006-02-20T06:09:00.000-08:00

Dear Democratic Members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

For the past six years I and many other millions of Americans, as well as observers all around the world, have watched with increasing dismay and despair as the Bush administration has carried out it’s reckless, destructive and often illegal policies; often doing so with a shocking level of incompetence and callous disregard for human rights and liberties. At almost every turn our frustration and disappointment has been exacerbated by a far too cautious and muted opposition from the Democratic Party. You let the administration—highly competent in political spin and smear—along with a too complicit mainstream media, frame each and every “debate” on terms that begin with an assumption that the radical Bush perspectives are mainstream and solid.

The list of Bush failures is lengthy, but includes: emergency management (Katrina), Iraq (illegal and immoral invasion of a non-threatening sovereign), the environment, Medicare drug program, North Korean nukes and on and on. On top of the incompetence, sadly, is a layer of vindictiveness and highly questionable ethics (or legality) in the administration’s carrying out and/or protecting of its policies and initiatives, e.g., torture, Plamegate and now the NSA domestic spying program.

It is on this latter issue that I beg you Democratic members of the Intelligence Committee to do whatever you have to do to force an inquiry on this highly suspect program. Please don’t stipulate, as Jane Harman did recently, that this program is necessary. How could we know that? What is the program? Why on earth should any American have confidence that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice or any of the others really know how to keep America safe? Please don’t concede that point.

In fact, this administration is not keeping us safe. The sense of false security Americans may feel in the absence of another attack on our land, is just that; false security. Our Homeland Security agency is a disaster, our ports and nuclear facilities are not secure and our intelligence agencies have been ruined through right wing politicization.

Senator Feingold said it well the other night when he told Bill Maher that the Democrats have to convince Americans that they are better able to protect the homeland and conduct a sensible and humane foreign policy. We don’t do that by trying to be better at an inherently flawed hyper macho, pro war posturing. We do it through a comprehensive, thoughtful and honest assessment of what and where the real threats are, what role we play in creating and/or exacerbating these threats, focusing attention and appropriate resources on the solutions and being very clear with the public about what this alternative approach to homeland security and foreign policy looks like.

The Bush administration played directly to American’s fear and base instinct for vengeance in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. For many Americans it may have felt good to rally around a tough guy, plain (poorly) spoken cowboy President who promised revenge, but as adults we have to know and should have known that his approach was ill-fated from the outset.

I was gravely disappointed by all of the Democrats who voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq, particularly those with national aspirations (and therefore more access to the media) like Senators Clinton, Kerry, Biden, Bayh and Edwards. Frankly, I don’t accept that Congress was mislead by bad intelligence or misrepresentations by the administration. It is undeniably true that the administration cherry-picked information to present to Congress, the public and the world community which supported its case for war, and avoided or minimized intelligence and other voices that countered its case. However, my standard for evaluation is this. If I as a regular citizen without access to intelligence briefings, but with an interest in researching for myself the history of Iraq’s WMD program, could reach the unequivocal conclusion in September 2002 that Iraq was not a threat; I expect that those elected officials I look to for representation would have done the same.

You have another opportunity, right now, to take a hard stand for truth and against corruption and illegality, by doing whatever it takes to force an investigation into the domestic spying program. Shame on you if you allow years of illegal activity, the nature and scope of which we know very little, to be made retroactively legal by amending the law to cover the administration’s misdeeds.

Waiting and hoping for the midterm elections to bring about a change in power in Congress is not an honorable approach to the discharge of your current duties. Moreover, continuing to allow yourselves and the American people to be rolled by this administration does not earn votes. I understand the limitations you face as the minority party in a Congress dominated by a very heavy handed majority party. I see on television and read in all of the papers, every day, how the right has come to dominate and control the national dialogue. For the sake of our country, our children and our planet, that has to change and it has to start now.

Do something “radical.” Walk off the senate floor. Hold a major news conference at which you excoriate the Republicans for failing to hold the Bush administration accountable; hold a rally on the Capital steps, do whatever you have to do, but please stop doing what you are doing now, which seems like very little to those of us out in the trenches everyday almost beside ourselves with frustration and disappointment. You can count on a huge groundswell of support from all parts of the country for some bold, aggressive action on your part on behalf of the real majority in this country.

Do it now, please!!!

Letter to the Editor

2006-02-18T14:37:00.000-08:00

I sent this letter to George Will personally, and to the Post as a letter to the editor. It's my response to his column of 2/16/06.

Rare is the day that I can get through 99% of one of your columns and find myself in total agreement with its contents. Yet, matching my shock at our agreement that the administration’s arguments in support of the NSA domestic surveillance program are nonsensical at best, is my dismay with your conclusion. How can it be that if you believe the administration did not have the authority it asserts for the program and blatantly bypassed the law and special court at which that authority rests and from which approval to undertake the surveillance at issue flows, that the appropriate action for Congress to take at this point is to modify the law to fit the President’s persistent violations of it without “stigmatizing” him?

I have a better solution. For knowingly overreaching his authority with the NSA surveillance program, for cherry-picking intelligence on WMD and suggesting Iraq-Al Qaeda connections to lead our country into an unnecessary and poorly planned war (and taking harsh and probably illegal steps to stifle the harshest critics of his case for war) and for allowing residents of the Gulf Coast to have their lives unimaginably altered due to his administration’s insensitivity and incompetence, I suggest Mr. Bush (and Mr. Cheney) be impeached.

Media Matters

2006-02-15T09:09:00.000-08:00

MediaMatters.org is a fantastic non-profil outfit committed to monitoring and commenting on the mainstream media, particularly "dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."

It just released the findings of a study it did on the distribution of guests on the issue and opinion shaping Sunday news shows. This supports what many of us have unscientifically known was happening; and not just on Sunday. Here's the executive summary. The entire document can be printed from MediaMatters' website.

If It's Sunday, It's Conservative: An analysis of the Sunday talk show guests on ABC, CBS, and NBC, 1997 - 2005
Executive Summary

The Sunday-morning talk shows on ABC, CBS, and NBC are where the prevailing opinions are aired and tested, policymakers state their cases, and the left and right in American politics debate the pressing issues of the day on equal ground. Both sides have their say and face probing questions. Or so you would think.

In fact, as this study reveals, conservative voices significantly outnumber progressive voices on the Sunday talk shows. Media Matters for America conducted a content analysis of ABC's This Week, CBS' Face the Nation, and NBC's Meet the Press, classifying each one of the nearly 7,000 guest appearances during President Bill Clinton's second term, President George W. Bush's first term, and the year 2005 as either Democrat, Republican, conservative, progressive, or neutral. The conclusion is clear: Republicans and conservatives have been offered more opportunities to appear on the Sunday shows - in some cases, dramatically so.
Among the study's key findings:

The balance between Democrats/progressives and Republicans/conservatives was roughly equal during Clinton's second term, with a slight edge toward Republicans/conservatives: 52 percent of the ideologically identifiable guests were from the right, and 48 percent were from the left. But in Bush's first term, Republicans/ conservatives held a dramatic advantage, outnumbering Democrats/progressives by 58 percent to 42 percent. In 2005, the figures were an identical 58 percent to 42 percent.

Counting only elected officials and administration representatives, Democrats had a small advantage during Clinton's second term: 53 percent to 45 percent. In Bush's first term, however, the Republican advantage was 61 percent to 39 percent -- nearly three times as large.

In both the Clinton and Bush administrations, conservative journalists were far more likely to appear on the Sunday shows than were progressive journalists. In Clinton's second term, 61 percent of the ideologically identifiable journalists were conservative; in Bush's first term, that figure rose to 69 percent.

In 1997 and 1998, the shows conducted more solo interviews with Democrats/progressives than with Republicans/conservatives. But in every year since, there have been more solo interviews with Republicans/conservatives.

The most frequent Sunday show guest during this nine-year period is Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who has appeared 124 times. Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) has been the most frequent guest since 2003.

In every year examined by the study -- 1997 - 2005 -- more panels tilted right (a greater number of Republicans/conservatives than Democrats/progressives) than tilted left. In some years, there were two, three, or even four times as many righttitled panels as left-tilted panels.

Congressional opponents of the Iraq war were largely absent from the Sunday shows, particularly during the period just before the war began.

In short, the Sunday talk shows on ABC, CBS, and NBC are dominated by conservative voices, from newsmakers to commentators. The data from the Clinton years indicate that the disparity cannot be explained simply by the fact that Republicans currently control the government.

Moving Against Hillary

2006-02-13T12:18:00.000-08:00

The Right has begun it's attack on Hillary Clinton. RNC Chair Ken Mehlman, one of the most disingenous people I've seen, lead the charge last week when he introduced the idea that Mrs. Clinton is too angry to be President. The mainstream media naturally took the bait and began just the spin the Right had hoped for; over and over across the airwaves the question was "is Hillary too shrill, angry."

Following the Coretta King service tongues were wagging even more as Hillary had to follow the brilliant communicator, former president, her husband Bill Clinton. Nobody does it quite like Bill, love him or hate him, so it's unfortunate for Hillary that she has to endure that comparison.

But the real question is this? After twice "electing" as President a grown man who regularly struggles with the English language, and the droniest of drones as a VP, aren't asking alot of Hillary?

Mind you, I don't support her assumed candidacy at this point. But let's not allow the analysis of her as a potential president be framed by anything other than our own view on policy.

On Podium, Some Say, Mrs. Clinton Is No Mr. Clinton
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 — Like her husband, Hillary Rodham Clinton can work a room, remembering names and personal details, and dazzling acquaintances along the way. And like Bill Clinton, she can master arcane details of public policy, wowing experts in several fields.
But as a public speaker, Hillary Rodham Clinton is no Bill Clinton, and that became all too apparent at Coretta Scott King's funeral last week, when the two made a rare public appearance together.

The crowd burst into boisterous applause and a standing ovation as Mr. Clinton took the stage and delivered his address, off the cuff, with what many said was the mellifluence of a preacher.

But when it was Mrs. Clinton's turn at the microphone, the room became more subdued, as she offered more formal remarks, in her characteristically deliberate and measured style.
To her critics and admirers, the moment was a reminder that for all her skills as a politician, Mrs. Clinton is not known for her ability to move people with the power of her oratory, something that could prove a liability should she run for the presidency in 2008.
"She is going to have to learn to bite her lip," offered former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, referring to the former president's knack for doing just that (à la Elvis) during emotional high points in his speeches.

"She doesn't have the theatrical instinct that he has," said Mr. Cuomo, who is himself considered one of the more gifted speakers of his generation. "She is more a Methodist, and he is more theatrical."

To be sure, Mrs. Clinton is a major draw on the Democratic circuit, packing rooms like no other Democrat, perhaps with the exception of her husband. But people who have watched her closely say that her style as a speaker, and as a politician, is reminiscent of that of a lawyer preparing for trial — thorough and reasoned — relying on hard work, not natural talent alone.

It is telling, for example, that during her 2000 Senate campaign, Mrs. Clinton's advisers were struck by her tendency to speak in perfect paragraphs. In the end, they urged her to use the kind of sound bites that would be easier to digest in the rapid-fire arena of campaigning.
In an interview last week, Theodore C. Sorensen, one of John F. Kennedy's best-known speechwriters, made an analogy between the individual appeal of each Clinton and the distinct styles of two great orators of the classical period, Cicero and Demosthenes.
Mr. Sorensen recalled how it was once said that when Cicero spoke, the crowds declared, "How well he spoke," but when Demosthenes spoke, the crowds exclaimed, "Let us march!"
"I think it applies here," Mr. Sorensen added, "Bill being the one for whom they say, 'Let us march!'

"I think Bill Clinton delivers inspiring addresses. Hillary is more likely to deliver learned lectures."

(It was, in fact, Adlai Stevenson who invoked the two classical orators in this way in 1960, when he self-effacingly compared his speaking style to Cicero's, and John F. Kennedy's to Demosthenes.)

Mr. Sorensen, who knows both Clintons, added a more personal observation: "Here's the difference," he said. "If Bill Clinton were in on this conversation, he would have persuaded me that I was wrong. Hillary would not be able to persuade me of that."

Mr. Clinton wasn't always the celebrated speaker he now is, as anyone who recalls his rambling speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention is likely to attest.
Frank Luntz, a Republican consultant who helped devise the Contract With America, a manifesto that helped Republicans retake the House in 1994, the middle of Mr. Clinton's first term, saw the differences between the Clintons in another light.

He said there was a suspenseful quality to Mr. Clinton that his wife, for better or worse, simply does not have. "He's unpredictable," he said. "When he drapes his hands over the podium and looks at you, there's this aw-shucks demeanor. He's completely unpredictable, and so you listen. I say this to Republicans all the time, and they nod their heads."
With Mrs. Clinton, however, "you know exactly what she is going to say," he said. "That removes any intrigue. She is incredibly smart. But you don't get the singsong in the voice. There's no sense of whimsy."

None of this is to say that Mrs. Clinton does not employ vivid language to rouse her audiences, as she has recently with a series of sustained attacks on Republicans, including her assertion, before a largely black audience, that Congress is run "like a plantation."

But on the whole, her style is often deliberate, cautious and restrained — an approach that her critics say is a calculated strategy to soften her image but that her associates say reflects her sensibilities as a Methodist reared in a conservative Midwestern home.

Richard Norton Smith, the head of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., and a speechwriter for several prominent Republicans, indicated that Mrs. Clinton's approach might merely reflect her background.

And that, he noted, lent a certain irony to a moment during Mrs. King's funeral when Mr. Clinton, a Baptist at home with black audiences, playfully teased former President George Bush about his conservative Episcopal upbringing.

"Clinton, when he joked about the 'chosen frozen,' was referring to George Bush, but unwittingly pointed out the contrast between himself and the woman next to him," Mr. Smith said, referring to Mrs. Clinton, who was at her husband's side during his remarks.

He said that this was the reason she would probably fail if she tried to adopt her husband's more flamboyant style. "People respect her for who she is," he said. "I think they would respect her less if she went into a stemwinder with a Baptist cadence."

On a partisan note, Mr. Cuomo argued that Mrs. Clinton's obvious reserve makes recent Republican attacks on her — painting her as mean, angry and shrill — seem hollow.
(The most recent of the attacks was delivered over the weekend, with the first lady Laura Bush complaining that the senator's criticism of her husband's administration was "out of bounds" and that the former first lady ought to have greater "empathy" for the White House's current residents.)

"She is not excessive or bombastic," Mr. Cuomo said of Mrs. Clinton. "They try to make her that. But she is not that.

"What I admire most about her presentations is that they are intelligent," he continued. "She deals with everything with great intelligence and great reserve."

The Grounds for Impeachment

2006-02-12T11:51:00.000-08:00

With every new revelation of Bush administration incompetence, mendacity and corruption, I optimistically think America (Congress, the media and the people) will spring to life and demand that Bush & Co. be held accountable.

My idealism, if not my frustration, is fading but should anyone want a straightforward guide to impeachment, see today's NY Times editorial page. The Times' performance these last five years has been littered with very questionable decisions, e.g., Judith Miller's unchecked propagandizing, but the editorial board--like me-- seems to get more and more frustrated with our incompetent and dishonest President with each "new" revelation.

The Trust Gap

We can't think of a president who has gone to the American people more often than George W. Bush has to ask them to forget about things like democracy, judicial process and the balance of powers — and just trust him. We also can't think of a president who has deserved that trust less.

This has been a central flaw of Mr. Bush's presidency for a long time. But last week produced a flood of evidence that vividly drove home the point.

Domestic Spying
After 9/11, Mr. Bush authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the conversations and e-mail of Americans and others in the United States without obtaining a warrant or allowing Congress or the courts to review the operation. Lawmakers from both parties have raised considerable doubt about the legality of this program, but Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made it clear last Monday at a Senate hearing that Mr. Bush hasn't the slightest intention of changing it.

According to Mr. Gonzales, the administration can be relied upon to police itself and hold the line between national security and civil liberties on its own. Set aside the rather huge problem that our democracy doesn't work that way. It's not clear that this administration knows where the line is, much less that it is capable of defending it. Mr. Gonzales's own dedication to the truth is in considerable doubt. In sworn testimony at his confirmation hearing last year, he dismissed as "hypothetical" a question about whether he believed the president had the authority to conduct warrantless surveillance. In fact, Mr. Gonzales knew Mr. Bush was doing just that, and had signed off on it as White House counsel.

THE PRISON CAMPS
It has been nearly two years since the Abu Ghraib scandal illuminated the violence, illegal detentions and other abuses at United States military prison camps. There have been Congressional hearings, court rulings imposing normal judicial procedures on the camps, and a law requiring prisoners to be treated humanely. Yet nothing has changed. Mr. Bush also made it clear that he intends to follow the new law on the treatment of prisoners when his internal moral compass tells him it is the right thing to do.

On Thursday, Tim Golden of The Times reported that United States military authorities had taken to tying up and force-feeding the prisoners who had gone on hunger strikes by the dozens at Guantánamo Bay to protest being held without any semblance of justice. The article said administration officials were concerned that if a prisoner died, it could renew international criticism of Gitmo. They should be concerned. This is not some minor embarrassment. It is a lingering outrage that has undermined American credibility around the world.

According to numerous news reports, the majority of the Gitmo detainees are neither members of Al Qaeda nor fighters captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan. The National Journal reported last week that many were handed over to the American forces for bounties by Pakistani and Afghan warlords. Others were just swept up. The military has charged only 10 prisoners with terrorism. Hearings for the rest were not held for three years and then were mostly sham proceedings.

And yet the administration continues to claim that it can be trusted to run these prisons fairly, to decide in secret and on the president's whim who is to be jailed without charges, and to insist that Gitmo is filled with dangerous terrorists.

THE WAR IN IRAQ
One of Mr. Bush's biggest "trust me" moments was when he told Americans that the United States had to invade Iraq because it possessed dangerous weapons and posed an immediate threat to America. The White House has blocked a Congressional investigation into whether it exaggerated the intelligence on Iraq, and continues to insist that the decision to invade was based on the consensus of American intelligence agencies.

But the next edition of the journal Foreign Affairs includes an article by the man in charge of intelligence on Iraq until last year, Paul Pillar, who said the administration cherry-picked intelligence to support a decision to invade that had already been made. He said Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made it clear what results they wanted and heeded only the analysts who produced them. Incredibly, Mr. Pillar said, the president never asked for an assessment on the consequences of invading Iraq until a year after the invasion. He said the intelligence community did that analysis on its own and forecast a deeply divided society ripe for civil war.

When the administration did finally ask for an intelligence assessment, Mr. Pillar led the effort, which concluded in August 2004 that Iraq was on the brink of disaster. Officials then leaked his authorship to the columnist Robert Novak and to The Washington Times. The idea was that Mr. Pillar was not to be trusted because he dissented from the party line. Somehow, this sounds like a story we have heard before. •

Like many other administrations before it, this one sometimes dissembles clumsily to avoid embarrassment. (We now know, for example, that the White House did not tell the truth about when it learned the levees in New Orleans had failed.) Spin-as-usual is one thing. Striking at the civil liberties, due process and balance of powers that are the heart of American democracy is another.

The Bottom Line

2006-01-29T05:53:00.000-08:00

Brilliantly laid out by the NY Times editorial page, these are the facts about the NSA domestic spying program. What we see and hear from the Bush administration is pure spin.

Spies, Lies and Wiretaps

A bit over a week ago, President Bush and his men promised to provide the legal, constitutional and moral justifications for the sort of warrantless spying on Americans that has been illegal for nearly 30 years. Instead, we got the familiar mix of political spin, clumsy historical misinformation, contemptuous dismissals of civil liberties concerns, cynical attempts to paint dissents as anti-American and pro-terrorist, and a couple of big, dangerous lies.

The first was that the domestic spying program is carefully aimed only at people who are actively working with Al Qaeda, when actually it has violated the rights of countless innocent Americans. And the second was that the Bush team could have prevented the 9/11 attacks if only they had thought of eavesdropping without a warrant.•

Sept. 11 could have been prevented.
This is breathtakingly cynical. The nation's guardians did not miss the 9/11 plot because it takes a few hours to get a warrant to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mail messages. They missed the plot because they were not looking. The same officials who now say 9/11 could have been prevented said at the time that no one could possibly have foreseen the attacks. We keep hoping that Mr. Bush will finally lay down the bloody banner of 9/11, but Karl Rove, who emerged from hiding recently to talk about domestic spying, made it clear that will not happen — because the White House thinks it can make Democrats look as though they do not want to defend America. "President Bush believes if Al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they're calling and why," he told Republican officials. "Some important Democrats clearly disagree."

Mr. Rove knows perfectly well that no Democrat has ever said any such thing — and that nothing prevented American intelligence from listening to a call from Al Qaeda to the United States, or a call from the United States to Al Qaeda, before Sept. 11, 2001, or since. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act simply required the government to obey the Constitution in doing so. And FISA was amended after 9/11 to make the job much easier.

Only bad guys are spied on.
Bush officials have said the surveillance is tightly focused only on contacts between people in this country and Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Vice President Dick Cheney claimed it saved thousands of lives by preventing attacks. But reporting in this paper has shown that the National Security Agency swept up vast quantities of e-mail messages and telephone calls and used computer searches to generate thousands of leads. F.B.I. officials said virtually all of these led to dead ends or to innocent Americans. The biggest fish the administration has claimed so far has been a crackpot who wanted to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch — a case that F.B.I. officials said was not connected to the spying operation anyway.

The spying is legal.
The secret program violates the law as currently written. It's that simple. In fact, FISA was enacted in 1978 to avoid just this sort of abuse. It said that the government could not spy on Americans by reading their mail (or now their e-mail) or listening to their telephone conversations without obtaining a warrant from a special court created for this purpose. The court has approved tens of thousands of warrants over the years and rejected a handful.
As amended after 9/11, the law says the government needs probable cause, the constitutional gold standard, to believe the subject of the surveillance works for a foreign power or a terrorist group, or is a lone-wolf terrorist. The attorney general can authorize electronic snooping on his own for 72 hours and seek a warrant later. But that was not good enough for Mr. Bush, who lowered the standard for spying on Americans from "probable cause" to "reasonable belief" and then cast aside the bedrock democratic principle of judicial review.

Just trust us.
Mr. Bush made himself the judge of the proper balance between national security and Americans' rights, between the law and presidential power. He wants Americans to accept, on faith, that he is doing it right. But even if the United States had a government based on the good character of elected officials rather than law, Mr. Bush would not have earned that kind of trust. The domestic spying program is part of a well-established pattern: when Mr. Bush doesn't like the rules, he just changes them, as he has done for the detention and treatment of prisoners and has threatened to do in other areas, like the confirmation of his judicial nominees. He has consistently shown a lack of regard for privacy, civil liberties and judicial due process in claiming his sweeping powers. The founders of our country created the system of checks and balances to avert just this sort of imperial arrogance.

The rules needed to be changed.
In 2002, a Republican senator — Mike DeWine of Ohio — introduced a bill that would have done just that, by lowering the standard for issuing a warrant from probable cause to "reasonable suspicion" for a "non-United States person." But the Justice Department opposed it, saying the change raised "both significant legal and practical issues" and may have been unconstitutional. Now, the president and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales are telling Americans that reasonable suspicion is a perfectly fine standard for spying on Americans as well as non-Americans — and they are the sole judges of what is reasonable.

So why oppose the DeWine bill? Perhaps because Mr. Bush had already secretly lowered the standard of proof — and dispensed with judges and warrants — for Americans and non-Americans alike, and did not want anyone to know.

War changes everything.
Mr. Bush says Congress gave him the authority to do anything he wanted when it authorized the invasion of Afghanistan. There is simply nothing in the record to support this ridiculous argument.

The administration also says that the vote was the start of a war against terrorism and that the spying operation is what Mr. Cheney calls a "wartime measure." That just doesn't hold up. The Constitution does suggest expanded presidential powers in a time of war. But the men who wrote it had in mind wars with a beginning and an end. The war Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney keep trying to sell to Americans goes on forever and excuses everything.

Other presidents did it.
Mr. Gonzales, who had the incredible bad taste to begin his defense of the spying operation by talking of those who plunged to their deaths from the flaming twin towers, claimed historic precedent for a president to authorize warrantless surveillance. He mentioned George Washington, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. These precedents have no bearing on the current situation, and Mr. Gonzales's timeline conveniently ended with F.D.R., rather than including Richard Nixon, whose surveillance of antiwar groups and other political opponents inspired FISA in the first place. Like Mr. Nixon, Mr. Bush is waging an unpopular war, and his administration has abused its powers against antiwar groups and even those that are just anti-Republican.•

The Senate Judiciary Committee is about to start hearings on the domestic spying. Congress has failed, tragically, on several occasions in the last five years to rein in Mr. Bush and restore the checks and balances that are the genius of American constitutional democracy. It is critical that it not betray the public once again on this score.

Bye Bye Hardball

2006-01-21T06:12:00.000-08:00

MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews stood as one of the few mainstream news shows that I could tolerate all the way through. But I'm gone. I can't do it anymore. The world is just too fucked up, and I'm too frustrated to sit and watch otherwise very intelligent people trivialize the life and death issues we face; many of which have been created or worsened by our renegade President.

There are some good things about that show. Matthews plays host to the likes of the Nation's Katrina Van Den Huevel and Democracy Now's Amy Goodman on what might be called a fairly regular basis. Unfortunately, his demeanor toward them belies the discomfort that the former speech writer for Jimmy Carter undeniably feels about strongly held and argued liberal/progressive positions.

Surprisingly, the clincher for me came about mid way through yesterday's show when going to commercial, Matthews asked the audience--with a smirk and an intonation dripping with condescension-- whether George Clooney was turning into an actor like Tim Robbins or Barbra Streisand.

It isn't his fault that liberal has become such a bad word. The credit for that, to my mind, rests with the Democratic Party who by all accounts is simply terrified of its own shadow and the richest part of its base and its history.

I stopped watching mainstream television all together for several months when the Iraq war began. I'm going back to that place. Intelligence is bliss.

Here's my goodbye to Hardball sent last night:

During the run up to the war and for the years since, I've not been able to stomach very much mainstream television news. Hardball was among the very few shows that were palatable. In patches, you would offer opportunities to hear different opinions from the likes of Amy Goodman (who I am convinced terrifies you) and Katrina Van Den Huevel. However, it never fails that through your tone, facial expressions and frequent interruptions (along with typically less air time for them) you let on a sense of your discomfort with the truth as they speak it.

I find your show these days to be more like Fox News than I ever would have imagined. You seem to be so consumed by your insider Washington status and treat most issues on the political level; missing very often the fuller picture.

Oddly, it was your lead in to a commercial break today when you asked your viewers whether George Clooney (with your eyes rolling and face scrunched up) was becoming like Tim Robbins and Barbra Streisand; in doing so conveying your own views about passionate liberal activists.

Quite frankly, I think the show sucks these days and I just cannot watch it any longer. The stakes in the world are way too high for the kind of B.S. insider gamesmanship your show has become.

Best Wishes

Feingold Ups the Ante

2006-01-09T07:04:00.000-08:00

Feingold Won't Rule Out Bush Impeachment
The Vermont Guardian
Sunday 08 January 2006

Burlington - If President George Bush broke laws when ordering wiretaps and secret spying on U.S. citizens, a key Senate Democrat said he would not rule out calling for his impeachment.

"I think there is an orderly and dignified way to find out what happened," said Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. "And, if there was a legal violation there needs to be accountability ... you can't put the cart before the horse, but I would not rule out any form of accountability."

That would include impeachment, Feingold told reporters.

Feingold, who is eyeing a run for president in 2008, was in Vermont Saturday to stump for Rep. Bernie Sanders, an independent, who is running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Jim Jeffords.

The pair held a morning press conference before making stops throughout Vermont, including Brattleboro, where enthusiastic supporters packed the high school auditorium for what Sanders said was the first formal event of his official Senate campaign. The mid-day meeting drew supporters from New Hampshire and Massachusetts as well as throughout southern Vermont.

The senator, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said in Brattleboro that committee chairman Arlen Specter has already scheduled hearings on the administration's surveillance activities, which will follow this week's confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.

Asked by a supporter whether there was a way citizens could impeach Bush "here and now," Feingold said he first wants to hear the administration's justification for conducting domestic surveillance before determining what, if any, punishment should occur.

Once that is known he said, there should be accountability. "I'm not going to prejudge what that accountability should be."

The Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, released an analysis Friday that said Bush's rationale for eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without warrants rests on questionable legal ground.

"Terrorism is a serious issue in my view, and in the United States we've got to do everything we can to protect the American people," Sanders told supporters to applause. "We can do that without undermining the constitutional rights which have made us a free country. We're not going to let George Bush mistake the fact that he is president with being king; we got rid of a king 200 years ago."

Feingold, who was slated to head to New Hampshire after his Vermont visits, told supporters in Brattleboro that he was considering a presidential bid.

In Burlington, Feingold, who is about to become a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was skeptical of Bush's defense of the secret spying and wiretapping. Bush has claimed that the president has the power, during a time of war, to enact such secret programs.

The activities came to light last month in press reports, which also revealed that the Pentagon has been monitoring anti-war, and other peaceful, assemblies around the country, including two in Vermont. Bush has admitted that the National Security Administration has been secretly wiretapping domestic phone calls of thousands of U.S. citizens as administration's efforts to thwart terrorist attacks.

"I think [Bush] probably broke the law here, but we need to know why they did it this way and what the legal justifications were, and then we need to determine what kind of accountability will occur if laws were broken," said Feingold.

The judiciary and intelligence committees are likely to play key roles investigating these programs, Feingold said.

Sanders, who sits on the House Government Reform Committee, said his panel has been very inactive during the Bush administration. In contrast, Sanders said, during the Clinton administration there were dozens of hearings.

Sanders said that is because Republicans in Congress have largely ignored their responsibility to oversee the actions of the administration.

"If you think about everything that has happened under the current administration - the NSA spying program, the war in Iraq, and the fact that the actuaries were not allowed by the White House to tell us the real cost of the prescription drug bill; guess how many hearings our committee has had? Zero," Sanders said.

"What the current administration is scared of," said Sanders, is losing GOP control of either the House, the Senate or both. Because, if that happens, he predicted, "there will be hearings to ask some of the fundamental questions about the Bush administration's actions that have not been asked in five years."

In Brattleboro, Sanders, who appeared with several members of Windham County's legislative delegation, was also campaigning with state Sen. Peter Welch, the Democratic candidate for Sanders congressional seat.

Welch's presence was a passing cloud at an otherwise enthusiastic gathering that had all the spirit of a religious tent revival meeting. Brattleboro Democrats and Progressives have charged the Windsor Democrat with selling out their interests by helping forge an agreement that allows Vermont Yankee to store nuclear waste in Vernon.

"I'm glad to have the opportunity to have you here, Bernie Sanders, but Peter Welch, I feel you sold us down the river in regard to Vermont Yankee,"said Brattleboro Progressive Party member Peter Cooper. "You did not take the opportunity you had to see an orderly close to Vermont Yankee at the end of 2012. We did not have to have dry cask storage. We did not have to have a deal that you were part of working out behind closed doors that does not represent well the safety, environmental and health concerns of the people of Vermont."

Welch asked the crowd to defer their questions, and promised to meet separately with them to address to their concerns. Later, in response to another question, he said he would take no campaign contributions from Entergy, the Louisiana corporation that owns the nuclear plant.

Welch told a reporter after the meeting that he will review his existing contributions and return any he may have received from Entergy. He drew the line at refusing contributions from utilities, saying Vermont Yankee was a separate issue.

Both Sanders and Feingold called for increased investment in renewable energy sources and said the country must wean itself from dependence on fossil fuels and foreign oil.

PAY ATTENTION

2005-12-27T16:31:00.000-08:00

So Team Bush is out aggressively "defending" it's domestic spying activities using the much worn post 9/11 we're in a new world shtick! They argue that since terrorist move quickly, they need to act quickly in order to close the gap that they argue existed pre-9/11; that gap being the ability to intercept communications between bad guys in the states communicating with their counterparts abroad.

This is a smokescreen that asks us to accept the judgment of a known liar. Why should we do that? No really logical explanation has been proffered for why the administration had to bypass the FISA courts, particularly since they allow for warrants to be approved after the fact. Me suspects that Bush & Co. have their eyes on a lot more than the email and phone communication of actual or potential terrorism suspects.

Typically, the U.S. media let this huge story go largely unreported here in the states. I remember it and hope it gains some traction as Congress moves forward to investigate this oh so Nixonian abuse of power.

NSA Spied on UN Diplomats in Push for Invasion of Iraq
By Norman Solomon

Despite all the news accounts and punditry since the New York Times published its Dec. 16 bombshell about the National Security Agency's domestic spying, the media coverage has made virtually no mention of the fact that the Bush administration used the NSA to spy on UN diplomats in New York before the invasion of Iraq.

That spying had nothing to do with protecting the United States from a terrorist attack. The entire purpose of the NSA surveillance was to help the White House gain leverage, by whatever means possible, for a resolution in the UN Security Council to green light an invasion. When that surveillance was exposed nearly three years ago, the mainstream US media winked at Bush's illegal use of the NSA for his Iraq invasion agenda.

Back then, after news of the NSA's targeted spying at the United Nations broke in the British press, major US media outlets gave it only perfunctory coverage - or, in the case of the New York Times, no coverage at all. Now, while the NSA is in the news spotlight with plenty of retrospective facts, the NSA's spying at the UN goes unmentioned: buried in an Orwellian memory hole.

A rare exception was a paragraph in a Dec. 20 piece by Patrick Radden Keefe in the online magazine Slate, which pointedly noted that "the eavesdropping took place in Manhattan and violated the General Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, the Headquarters Agreement for the United Nations, and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, all of which the United States has signed."

But after dodging the story of the NSA's spying at the UN when it mattered most - before the invasion of Iraq - the New York Times and other major news organizations are hardly apt to examine it now. That's all the more reason for other media outlets to step into the breach.

In early March 2003, journalists at the London-based Observer reported that the NSA was secretly participating in the US government's high-pressure campaign for the UN Security Council to approve a pro-war resolution. A few days after the Observer revealed the text of an NSA memo about US spying on Security Council delegations, I asked Daniel Ellsberg to assess the importance of the story. "This leak," he replied, "is more timely and potentially more important than the Pentagon Papers." The key word was "timely."

Publication of the top-secret Pentagon Papers in 1971, made possible by Ellsberg's heroic decision to leak those documents, came after the Vietnam War had been underway for many years. But with an invasion of Iraq still in the future, the leak about NSA spying on UN diplomats in New York could erode the Bush administration's already slim chances of getting a war resolution through the Security Council. (Ultimately, no such resolution passed before the invasion.) And media scrutiny in the United States could have shed light on how Washington's war push was based on subterfuge and manipulation.

"As part of its battle to win votes in favor of war against Iraq," the Observer had reported on March 2, 2003, the US government developed an "aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception of the home and office telephones and the e-mails of UN delegates." The smoking gun was "a memorandum written by a top official at the National Security Agency - the US body which intercepts communications around the world - and circulated to both senior agents in his organization and to a friendly foreign intelligence agency." The friendly agency was Britain's Government Communications Headquarters.

The Observer explained: "The leaked memorandum makes clear that the target of the heightened surveillance efforts are the delegations from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan at the UN headquarters in New York - the so-called 'Middle Six' delegations whose votes are being fought over by the pro-war party, led by the US and Britain, and the party arguing for more time for UN inspections, led by France, China and Russia."

The NSA memo, dated Jan. 31, 2003, outlined the wide scope of the surveillance activities, seeking any information useful to push a war resolution through the Security Council - "the whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favorable to US goals or to head off surprises."

Noting that the Bush administration "finds itself isolated" in its zeal for war on Iraq, the Times of London called the leak of the memo an "embarrassing disclosure." And, in early March 2003, the embarrassment was nearly worldwide. From Russia to France to Chile to Japan to Australia, the story was big mainstream news. But not in the United States.

Several days after the "embarrassing disclosure," not a word about it had appeared in the New York Times, the USA's supposed paper of record. "Well, it's not that we haven't been interested," Times deputy foreign editor Alison Smale told me on the evening of March 5, nearly 96 hours after the Observer broke the story. But "we could get no confirmation or comment" on the memo from US officials. Smale added: "We would normally expect to do our own intelligence reporting." Whatever the rationale, the New York Times opted not to cover the story at all.

Except for a high-quality Baltimore Sun article that appeared on March 4, the coverage in major US media outlets downplayed the significance of the Observer's revelations. The Washington Post printed a 514-word article on a back page with the headline "Spying Report No Shock to UN" Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times published a longer piece that didn't only depict US surveillance at the United Nations as old hat; the LA Times story also reported "some experts suspected that it [the NSA memo] could be a forgery" - and "several former top intelligence officials said they were skeptical of the memo's authenticity."

But within days, any doubt about the NSA memo's "authenticity" was gone. The British press reported that the UK government had arrested an unnamed female employee at a British intelligence agency in connection with the leak. By then, however, the spotty coverage of the top-secret NSA memo in the mainstream US press had disappeared.

As it turned out, the Observer's expose - headlined "Revealed: US Dirty Tricks to Win Vote on Iraq War" - came 18 days before the invasion of Iraq began.

From the day that the Observer first reported on NSA spying at the United Nations until the moment 51 weeks later when British prosecutors dropped charges against whistleblower Katharine Gun, major US news outlets provided very little coverage of the story. The media avoidance continued well past the day in mid-November 2003 when Gun's name became public as the British press reported that she had been formally charged with violating the draconian Official Secrets Act.

Facing the possibility of a prison sentence, Katharine Gun said that disclosure of the NSA memo was "necessary to prevent an illegal war in which thousands of Iraqi civilians and British soldiers would be killed or maimed." She said: "I have only ever followed my conscience."

In contrast to the courage of the lone woman who leaked the NSA memo - and in contrast to the journalistic vigor of the Observer team that exposed it - the most powerful US news outlets gave the revelation the media equivalent of a yawn. Top officials of the Bush administration, no doubt relieved at the lack of US media concern about the NSA's illicit spying, must have been very encouraged.

The Devil in the Details

2005-12-24T05:01:00.000-08:00

With both eyes on the mid term elections less than a year away, the Bush team is making its move to draw down the troops in Iraq in a way that they hope will satisfy an increasingly anxious public, and put the President and his peeps in a good light; or at least on sound political footing.

There's something really important to notice here. What's making the draw down possible in many ways, is the replacement of troops with air power. The air war has been waging quietly (in our media, not on civilians in Iraq) for some time now and is expected to increase as troops are drawn down. You may not have heard much attention in the media on this, but what else is new. Thousands of Iraqi civilians are being killed in these strikes as bombs are dropped in neighborhoods where insurgents are thought to be holed up.

This war is one gigantic mess. One of the worst tragedies is the toll it's taken on innocent Iraqis. People that didn't have any opportunity up front to stand up or wimp out, and whose lives and well being are becoming increasingly less important as time goes by. (They have a bit in common with the Katrina survivors in that respect.)

We must keep our eye on this ball, and pressure on the administration not just to get out of Iraq on the ground, but to cease the destruction.

Tookie's Legacy

2005-12-18T10:57:00.000-08:00

Two great pieces following the execution of Tookie Williams. A strong and brilliant editorial in the Madison Capital Times called appropriately, "Murder is Murder." That's followed (in this long post) by a great piece by Tom Hayden.

Murder is Murder
Editorial

The execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams early Tuesday morning was wrong not because Williams was innocent or guilty, not because he was rehabilitated or unrepentant, not because the decision of California officials to kill him exacerbated racial tensions, not even because killing Williams will make it harder to control gang violence in California and elsewhere.

The execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams was wrong for the same reason that every execution that takes place in the United States is wrong. When the government kills an individual who is in its custody and poses no threat to society, it perpetuates a cycle of violence that will never be broken so long as capital punishment is sanctioned.

This particular execution became a big deal because Williams was a founding member of the notorious Crips gang who, after his conviction for murder, became one of the most effective anti-gang activists in the country.

Aware that Williams had spent the past decade writing books to deter young people from following his example and using his "street" credibility to broker peace agreements between warring gangs in the United States and abroad, celebrities and civil rights activists battled to save Williams. They were right to do so, just as anyone who attempts to prevent a state-sponsored slaying is right to do so.

But there is a danger is these high-profile fights to prevent executions. They cause some misguided people to imagine that most executions are justified, that those victims of capital punishment who do not have high-profile allies and teams of lawyers are perhaps more legitimately put to death.

That is not the case.

No execution is justified.

The death penalty does not deter crime.

The death penalty does not make anyone safer.

The death penalty is costlier to impose than life imprisonment.

The death penalty is racist, in that its victims are disproportionately people of color, and it
discriminates even more grotesquely against the poor and the uneducated.

Worst of all, the death penalty is fallible, as the clear evidence of wrongful convictions and of executions in dubious circumstances confirms again and again.

The death penalty is wrong. Wrong for Stanley "Tookie" Williams. And wrong for Kenneth Boyd of North Carolina, Shawn Humphries of South Carolina, Wesley Baker of Maryland all of whom were executed this month and the hundreds of other less prominent victims of this senseless approach to criminal justice.

It was Coretta Scott King, the widow of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who gave voice to the only credible argument with regard to the death penalty.

"As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder and assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses," she said. "An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder."

Stanley "Tookie" Williams may have committed illegal murders as a gang leader. But the state of California committed legal murder when it took his life.

Those who would seek to make a distinction between the two murders are fooling themselves about questions of justice and morality. Murder is murder, no matter who pulls the trigger or who approves the administration of a lethal injection.

The Myth of the Super-Predator
by Tom Hayden

"The Execution of Stanley Tookie Williams cannot be allowed to drown out his message: We need to find alternatives to the "embedded sense of self-hate" that propels so many inner-city youth to lash out in killing sprees."

Yet history shows that Los Angeles may not be prepared to listen. In the wake of the 1992 Crips-Bloods truce, which Williams promoted from death row, gang violence in L.A. declined by half. Five years later, The Times reported that "police and residents of Watts confirm that gang-on-gang slayings over emotional issues of turf boundaries or gang clothing have virtually disappeared."

But there was no peace dividend, and the truce eventually dwindled, though it never completely died. The plan to privatize urban reconstruction after the 1992 riots — the Rebuild LA initiative that promised $6 billion in private investment to create 74,000 new jobs in five years in the riot zone — was a sham that closed down a few years later. The riot zone lost 50,000 jobs in that decade. In the vacuum, youthful rage exploded again in gang warfare.
Around that time, conservatives such as William Bennett and James Q. Wilson began attaching the label of "super-predator" to all the Tookie wannabes. Their notion seemed to be that a fixed percentage of kids were natural-born killers who just couldn't be helped by better schools or jobs — a neo-Darwinian philosophy that fit neatly with the de-industrialization and budget cuts that swept across inner cities like chain saws through old-growth forests.

The super-predator thesis justified the most massive prison expansion in American history, with its epicenter in California, where there were about 150,000 inmates in any given year, two-thirds of them reputed gang members. Prosecutors and politicians pursued the vertical model of the 1920s, going after the alleged godfathers, but in fact the new gangs were replenishing themselves from the outcast underclass. Last year in Los Angeles, there were 93,000 youths between 18 and 24 who were out of school and out of work. Statewide, the number was 638,000.

How is the city of L.A. addressing the gang problem? The city budget reveals that the priority is to suppress and incarcerate, not to turn troubled lives around. Fifty-five million dollars go to LAPD gang suppression efforts, a token $12 million to prevention programs for little kids, and a bare $2 million for intervention programs meant to channel teenagers away from violent paths.

To turn from the treadmill of violence to the path of peace, we must:

• Understand that gang members are traumatized veterans of street wars, not Satan's agents or incorrigible psychopaths. There must be a massive expansion of rehabilitation and empowerment programs along the lines of Alcoholics Anonymous, with participation by ex-gang members who command respect. Those who insist on waiting for a sanitized messenger will wait in vain.

• Reform of punitive police and prison policies that breed lawlessness on the street. Inner-city youth feel that they are targeted, that humiliation is intended against them and that the criminal justice system is based on a double standard. This week, it was reported that the L.A. district attorney who led the charge against Williams has not brought a single criminal charge in 442 cases of police shootings since 2001. This — along with the use of untrustworthy police informants such as those who helped convict Williams — can't help but make young people on the streets of South-Central L.A. cynical about criminal justice.

• Recognize that we have a crisis of exclusion and structural unemployment that renders countless young people hopeless, powerless, helpless, rootless and meaningless, in the analysis of former gang-member-turned-author Luis Rodriguez. Government always has a role to play when the market fails. California taxpayers already contribute $6 billion to the state's prison system — but virtually nothing to jobs in the inner city.Spectacular executions can divert people's attention from their government's failings and crimes. And it's easier to scapegoat the super-predator than the superpower. But, unlike the white ethnic gang culture of yesterday, for which there is widespread nostalgia in film and on TV, the only doors that are opening for the new generations of street gangs are those of the prison system. A country that fails to provide living wages for so many of its young is more committed to its present privileges than its future potential. To avoid the message, it thinks it can kill the messenger.

But I believe Tookie Williams has eluded his tormenters. His legend and message are understood around the world. Sooner or later, attention will be paid

First Things First

2005-12-17T07:06:00.000-08:00

First, God. God is the subject of life. God is foundational for living. If we don't have a sense of the primacy of God, we will never get it right, get life right, get our lives right. Not God at the margins; not God as an option; not God on the weekends. God at center and circumference; God first and last; God, God, God.

The MESSAGE (Remix)
(Intro) Genesis

The tao that can be told
Is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
Is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
Of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realized the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
Arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

Tato Te Ching
Chapter 1

Real Strength=Weakness

2005-12-11T19:44:00.000-08:00

The Right has successfully burnished in the public lexicon the idea that being tough on defense, tough on crime is the same as being strong and effective. Democrats have not accepted that premise but continue to argue it.

The war in Iraq is a case in point. From day one, critics of the march to war were dismissed as "doves," "peaceniks," "soft," etc. The notion that an effective response to 9/11 might not be a military one was completely off the table. To discuss anything like that would be to cast oneself out of the debate.

J0an Vennochi talks about this idea in terms of the "New Machismo." To my way of thinking she's dead on.

Boston Globe
The New Machismo
by Joan Vennochi

It's macho time in America.

When Democrats challenge the Bush administration regarding its policy in Iraq, Republicans challenge their patriotism and toughness.

On Friday, the Republican National Committee released a new Web video. It features a white flag of surrender and this theme: ''Our country is at war. Our soldiers are watching, and our enemies are too. Message to Democrats: Retreat and Defeat is not an option." The video highlights recent critical comments about the Iraq war made by Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, and Senator Barbara Boxer of California.

In essence, to the GOP, ''staying the course" is a measure of strength and masculinity, whether or not the course proves to be successful. And some top Democrats buy into the thesis.

''When people feel uncertain, they would rather have someone who's wrong and strong than somebody who is weak and right," Bill Clinton said in a much-quoted speech to the Democratic Leadership Council in December 2002.

This ''wrong and strong" theory helped George W. Bush win reelection in 2004. This ''wrong and strong" theory continues to help Bush at a time of great doubt about an unpopular war in Iraq.

When it comes to national security policy today, only the most macho of men can afford to show their ''sensitive" side. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, can call for the country to renounce torture because of his personal credentials -- a POW who was tortured by the enemy during the Vietnam War. Others are labeled as weaklings and cowards if they suggest that stooping to the enemies' tactics is poor policy that so far achieved poor results.
Democrats who question administration policy regularly find their manhood under attack. It happened to Kerry during the last presidential contest, even though he was the Vietnam War veteran running against an opponent who served stateside in the National Guard.

Just last month, Vice President Dick Cheney thought nothing of questioning the backbone of Representative John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat whose speech calling for a speedy withdrawal of troops set off a national debate. But Murtha, a Marine intelligence officer in Vietnam, did not take Cheney's attack quietly. He shot back angrily: ''I like guys who've never been there that criticize us who've been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done."

Bush, sensing who had more machismo in this matchup, ended the hostile exchange by calling Murtha a fine man and a supporter of the military. But Democrats remain afraid of looking weak if they sound too antiwar; and the GOP is masterful at exploiting that fear, as the new RNC video demonstrates.

Take Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, whose position on Iraq is no immediate withdrawal, no open-ended commitment to remain there. Her stance infuriates Democrats on the left, a consequence which delights centrist Democrats. Standing up to the peaceniks is not only cool, it's tough. It's another variation of the Clinton-Bush credo: Wrong and strong beats weak and right.

Charles Knight of the Commonwealth Institute, a public policy research center in Cambridge, has spent time analyzing what he calls the ''toughness discourse" in American politics, especially after 9/11. When it comes to national security, he says, ''tough" means ''using violence as a priority tool for international relations."

Backed into a corner by conservatives who equate ''liberal" with unmanly and weak, Democrats are buying into their opponents' definition. Accepting it means agreeing that a punch is the answer to every insult, that violence solves every dispute.

It is believing brawn always beats brains, a conclusion that defies logic, reason, and reality.
Toughness defined in a strictly physical way does not always achieve victory. Might does not make right, nor does it always make everything right. And it is not unmanly to say that.

Might makes right is the credo of the warrior. But there is simple power in right as might.

It is the power of great leaders in religion and politics, from Jesus Christ to Martin Luther King. Throughout history, brave men and women have taken the high moral ground.
Only in America today do we dare call them wimps.

Am I a Democrat?

2005-12-07T17:25:00.000-08:00

I supposed by default, I still consider myself a Democrat. But I am disgusted at the party's excess of caution and calculation. Everybody fucking knows we can't "win" in Iraq. Why the hell should we go along with the Bush plan to redefine "victory" in a manner that helps him save face?

Disgusting.

Democrats Fear Backlash at Polls for Antiwar Remarks

By Jim VandeHei and Shalaigh Murray
Washington Post

Strong antiwar comments in recent days by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean have opened anew a party rift over Iraq, with some lawmakers warning that the leaders' rhetorical blasts could harm efforts to win control of Congress next year.

Several Democrats joined President Bush yesterday in rebuking Dean's declaration to a San Antonio radio station Monday that "the idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong."

The critics said that comment could reinforce popular perceptions that the party is weak on military matters and divert attention from the president's growing political problems on the war and other issues. "Dean's take on Iraq makes even less sense than the scream in Iowa: Both are uninformed and unhelpful," said Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Ga.), recalling Dean's famous election-night roar after stumbling in Iowa during his 2004 presidential bid.

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) and Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (Md.), the second-ranking House Democratic leader, have told colleagues that Pelosi's recent endorsement of a speedy withdrawal, combined with her claim that more than half of House Democrats support her position, could backfire on the party, congressional sources said.
These sources said the two leaders have expressed worry that Pelosi is playing into Bush's hands by suggesting Democrats are the party of a quick pullout -- an unpopular position in many of the most competitive House races.

"What I want Democrats to be discussing is what the president's policies have led to," Emanuel said. He added that once discussion turns to a formal timeline for troop withdrawals, "the how and when gets buried" and many voters take away only an impression that Democrats favor retreat.

Pelosi last week endorsed a plan by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) to withdraw all U.S. troops in Iraq within six months, putting her at odds with most other Democratic leaders and leading foreign policy experts in her party.

Democrats, who have not controlled the White House since 2000 and the House in more than a decade, have tried over the past year to put aside deep philosophical differences and rally behind a two-pronged strategy to return to power: Highlight the growing number of GOP scandals and score Bush's unpopular war management.

While the party is divided over the specifics of Iraq policy, most Democratic legislators are slowly coalescing around a political plan, according to lawmakers and party operatives. This would involve setting a broad time frame for drawing down U.S. troops, starting with National Guard and reserve units, internationalizing the reconstruction effort, and blaming Bush for misleading the country into a war without a victory plan.

The aim is to provide the party enough maneuvering room to allow Democrats to adjust their position as conditions in Iraq change -- and fix public attention mostly on Bush's policies rather the details of a Democratic alternative. A new Time magazine poll found 60 percent of those surveyed disapproved of Bush's handling of Iraq.

Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) embodies this cautious approach. He has resisted adopting a concrete Iraq policy and persuaded most Democratic senators to vote for a recent Senate resolution calling 2006 "a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty" and to compel the administration "to explain to Congress and the American people its strategy for the successful completion of the mission in Iraq." While Republicans introduced the resolution, it was prompted by a Democratic plan.

Democratic Reps. Jane Harman and Ellen Tauscher, both of California, plan to push House Democrats to adopt a similar position during a closed-door meeting today that is to include debate on the Pelosi position.

Despite Pelosi's claims that she echoes the views of most members in her caucus, plenty of Democrats are cringing at her new high profile on an Iraq withdrawal. Not only did she back a position that polls show most Americans do not support, but she also did this when Bush is trying to move off the defensive by accusing Democrats of supporting a de facto surrender.
"We have not blown our chance" of winning back the House but "we have jeopardized it," said a top strategist to House Democrats, who requested anonymity to speak freely about influential party leaders. "It raises questions about whether we are capable of seizing political opportunities or whether we cannot help ourselves and blow it" by playing to the liberal base of the party.
Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said that while Pelosi estimates more than half of House Democrats favor a speedy withdrawal, she will lobby members in today's meeting against adopting this as a caucus position.

Without naming Pelosi, Vice President Cheney told troops yesterday that terrorists will prevail "if we lose our nerve and abandon our mission," saying such precipitous move "would be unwise in the extreme." Cheney, addressing Army units at Fort Drum, N.Y., said that "any decisions about troop levels will be driven by the conditions on the ground and the judgment of our commanders, not by artificial timelines set by politicians in Washington, D.C."

In his comments Monday, Dean likened the president's optimistic assessment to those offered by the government during the Vietnam War. Bush fired back yesterday. "There are pessimists . . . and politicians who try to score points. But our strategy is one that is -- will lead us to victory," Bush said in response to a question about Dean's comments after a meeting with Lee Jong Wook, director general of the World Health Organization. "Our troops need to hear not only are they supported, but that we have got a strategy that will win."

DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney said Dean's comments were taken out of context. Dean, she said, meant the war was unwinnable unless the Bush administration adopts a new strategy. Still, a number of Democrats distanced themselves from Dean. "I think Howard Dean . . . represents himself when he speaks," Tauscher said. "He does not represent me."

Democratic candidates said their biggest concern is that voters will misconstrue comments by party leaders about Bush's handling of the war as criticism of U.S. troops who are fighting in Iraq. "I absolutely disagree" with Dean, said Patrick Murphy, a Democrat who is running for the suburban Philadelphia House seat now occupied by GOP Rep. Michael G. Fitzpatrick.

Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Tex.), who represents a district Bush won easily in 2004, said he disagrees with Pelosi and Dean but does not see that as a problem. "The national press is playing up the fact that Democrats do not speak with one voice on Iraq," he said. "We should wear it as a badge of honor because it shows we are not playing a political line with war and peace."

Bob Graham Speaks: We Should Listen

2005-11-21T13:55:00.000-08:00

This is a very important piece. I wonder whether it will get the attention it deserves.

What I Knew Before the Invasion

By Bob GrahamSunday, November 20, 2005;

In the past week President Bush has twice attacked Democrats for being hypocrites on the Iraq war. "[M]ore than 100 Democrats in the House and Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power," he said.

The president's attacks are outrageous. Yes, more than 100 Democrats voted to authorize him to take the nation to war. Most of them, though, like their Republican colleagues, did so in the legitimate belief that the president and his administration were truthful in their statements that Saddam Hussein was a gathering menace -- that if Hussein was not disarmed, the smoking gun would become a mushroom cloud.

The president has undermined trust. No longer will the members of Congress be entitled to accept his veracity. Caveat emptor has become the word. Every member of Congress is on his or her own to determine the truth.

As chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, and the run-up to the Iraq war, I probably had as much access to the intelligence on which the war was predicated as any other member of Congress.

I, too, presumed the president was being truthful -- until a series of events undercut that confidence.

In February 2002, after a briefing on the status of the war in Afghanistan, the commanding officer, Gen. Tommy Franks, told me the war was being compromised as specialized personnel and equipment were being shifted from Afghanistan to prepare for the war in Iraq -- a war more than a year away. Even at this early date, the White House was signaling that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was of such urgency that it had priority over the crushing of al Qaeda.

In the early fall of 2002, a joint House-Senate intelligence inquiry committee, which I co-chaired, was in the final stages of its investigation of what happened before Sept. 11. As the unclassified final report of the inquiry documented, several failures of intelligence contributed to the tragedy. But as of October 2002, 13 months later, the administration was resisting initiating any substantial action to understand, much less fix, those problems.

At a meeting of the Senate intelligence committee on Sept. 5, 2002, CIA Director George Tenet was asked what the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) provided as the rationale for a preemptive war in Iraq. An NIE is the product of the entire intelligence community, and its most comprehensive assessment. I was stunned when Tenet said that no NIE had been requested by the White House and none had been prepared. Invoking our rarely used senatorial authority, I directed the completion of an NIE.

Tenet objected, saying that his people were too committed to other assignments to analyze Saddam Hussein's capabilities and will to use chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons. We insisted, and three weeks later the community produced a classified NIE.
There were troubling aspects to this 90-page document. While slanted toward the conclusion that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction stored or produced at 550 sites, it contained vigorous dissents on key parts of the information, especially by the departments of State and Energy. Particular skepticism was raised about aluminum tubes that were offered as evidence Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program. As to Hussein's will to use whatever weapons he might have, the estimate indicated he would not do so unless he was first attacked.

Under questioning, Tenet added that the information in the NIE had not been independently verified by an operative responsible to the United States. In fact, no such person was inside Iraq. Most of the alleged intelligence came from Iraqi exiles or third countries, all of which had an interest in the United States' removing Hussein, by force if necessary.

The American people needed to know these reservations, and I requested that an unclassified, public version of the NIE be prepared. On Oct. 4, Tenet presented a 25-page document titled "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs." It represented an unqualified case that Hussein possessed them, avoided a discussion of whether he had the will to use them and omitted the dissenting opinions contained in the classified version. Its conclusions, such as "If Baghdad acquired sufficient weapons-grade fissile material from abroad, it could make a nuclear weapon within a year," underscored the White House's claim that exactly such material was being provided from Africa to Iraq.

From my advantaged position, I had earlier concluded that a war with Iraq would be a distraction from the successful and expeditious completion of our aims in Afghanistan. Now I had come to question whether the White House was telling the truth -- or even had an interest in knowing the truth.

On Oct. 11, I voted no on the resolution to give the president authority to go to war against Iraq. I was able to apply caveat emptor. Most of my colleagues could not.

The Democrats' War

2005-11-20T09:34:00.000-08:00

This is a tough pill to swallow because it's so easy to overlook the failings of the leaders we support. We see it now with the legions of Republicans who surely know the President is phenomenally inadequate, but toe the line because at the moment he's the key to their power.

I believe it's important to be consistent and non-partisan on policy points. I can say without shame, that I hardly paid attention to the details of what Clinton did to Iraq until Bush began the drumbeat to war. Yes, invading and occupying a country is a different kind of misdeed than supporting crushing sanctions and incessant bombings, but if I proclaim myself as someone who is anti-war and pro-life (in the real sense) I should be equally appalled and as loudly critical of Clinton as I am of Bush. If not, I'm really not very different from the politicians I claim to loathe who take positions to suit their own political interests.

Jeremy Schahill is a producer with Democracy Now, the Pacifica radio show that is the standard bearer for objective hard core, truth telling journalism.

Vegetarians Between Meals: This War Cannot Be Stopped By a Loyal Opposition
by Jeremy Scahill

The refrain of the Democrats about being misled into supporting the invasion of Iraq has become really tired. And someone other than the White House smearmongers needs to say it: The Democrats cannot be allowed to use faulty intelligence as a crutch to hold up their unforgivable support for the Iraq invasion. What is DNC Chair Howard Dean's excuse? He wasn't in Congress and didn't have any access to Senate intelligence. Still, on March 9, 2003, just days before the invasion began, Dean told Tim Russert, on NBC's Meet The Press, "I don't want Saddam staying in power with control over those weapons of mass destruction. I want him to be disarmed."

During the New Hampshire primary in January 2004, which I covered for Democracy Now!, I confronted Dean about that statement. I asked him on what intelligence he based that allegation. "Talks with people who were knowledgeable," Dean told me. "Including a series of folks that work in the Clinton administration."

A series of folks that work in the Clinton administration.

How does that jibe with the official Democratic line that they were misled by the Bush administration? Sounds like Howard Dean, head of the Democratic Party, was misled by....the Democrats. Dean's candor offers us a rare glimpse into the painful truth of the matter. As unpopular as this is to say, when President Bush accuses the Democrats of "rewriting history" on Iraq, he is right.

None of the horrors playing out in Iraq today would be possible without the Democratic Party. And no matter how hard some party leaders try to deny it, this is their war too and will remain so until every troop is withdrawn. There is no question that the Bush administration is one of the most corrupt, violent and brutal in the history of this country but that doesn't erase the serious responsibility the Democrats bears for the bloodletting in Iraq. As disingenuous as the Administration's claims that Iraq had WMDs is the flimsy claim by Democratic lawmakers that they were somehow duped into voting for the war. The fact is that Iraq posed no threat to the United States in 2003 any more than it did in 1998 when President Clinton bombed Baghdad. John Kerry and his colleagues knew that. The Democrats didn't need false intelligence to push them into overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime. It was their policy; a policy made the law of the land not under George W. Bush, but under President Bill Clinton when he signed the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, formally initiating the process of regime change in Iraq.

Manipulated intelligence is but a small part of a bigger, bipartisan 15-year assault on Iraq's people. If the Democrats really want to look at how America was led into this war, they need to go back further than the current president's inauguration.

As bloody and deadly as the occupation has been, it was Bill Clinton who refined the art of killing innocent Iraqis following the Gulf War. One of his first acts as president was to bomb Iraq, following the alleged assassination plot against George HW Bush. Clinton's missiles killed the famed Iraqi painter Leila al Attar as they smashed into her home. Clinton presided enthusiastically over the most deadly and repressive regime of economic sanctions in history--his UN ambassador Madeline Albright calling the reported deaths of half a million children "worth the price." Clinton initiated the longest sustained bombing campaign since Vietnam with his illegal no-fly zone bombings, attacking Iraq once every three days for the final years of his presidency. It was under Clinton that Ahmed Chalabi was given tens of millions of dollars and made a key player in shaping Washington's Iraq policy. It was Clinton that mercilessly attacked Iraq in December of 1998, destroying dozens of Baghdad buildings and killing scores of civilians. It was Clinton that codified regime change in Iraq as US policy. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq but he could not have done it without the years of groundwork laid by Clinton and the Democrats. How ironic it was recently to hear Clinton call the war "a big mistake."

It's easy to resist war with a president like Bush in the White House. Where were these Democrats when it was Clinton's bombs raining down on Iraq, when it was Clinton's economic sanctions targeting the most vulnerable? Many of them were right behind him and his deadly policies the same way they were behind Bush when he asked their consent to use force against Iraq. As the veteran Iraq activist and Nobel Prize nominee Kathy Kelly said often during the Clinton years, "It's easy to be a vegetarian between meals." The fact is that one of the great crimes of our times was committed by the Clinton administration with the support of many of the politicians now attacking Bush.

Herein lies the real political crisis in this country: the Democrats are not an opposition party, nor are they an antiwar party-never were. At best, they are a loyal opposition. The Democrats ran a pro-war campaign in 2004 with Kerry struggling to convince people that Dems do occupation and war better. The current head of the DNC, Howard Dean, never met a war he didn't adore until he realized he could exploit the energy and sincere hopes of millions of peace-loving Americans. Dean wasn't ever antiwar. In fact, during the 2004 campaign he attacked Kerry for opposing the Gulf War while laying out his own pro-war record.
"In 1991, I supported Gulf War. I supported the first President Bush," declared Dean. "Senator Kerry who criticizes my foreign policy, he voted against that war. I supported the Afghanistan war, because I felt it was about our national defense-- 3,000 of our people were killed. I supported President Clinton going into Bosnia and Kosovo."

How can Howard Dean look people in the eye today and pretend to speak with any credibility as an antiwar voice?

When the hawkish Democrat Rep. John Murtha bravely stepped forward to call for an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq this week, he was quickly blasted by the White House and simultaneously disowned by powerful Democrats like John Kerry. Occupation lovers together again. The bloody scandal of the Iraq occupation has opened a rare and clear window into the truth about this country: there is one party represented in Washington--one that supports preemptive war and regime change. The reality is that the Democrats could stop this war if the will was there. They could shut down the Senate every day, not just for a few hours one afternoon. They could disrupt business as usual and act as though the truth were true: this war should never have happened and it must end now. The country would be behind them if they did it. But they won't. They will hem and haw and call for more troops and throw out epic lies about the US becoming a stabilizing force in Iraq and blame the Republicans for their own complicity and enthusiasm in the 15 years of bipartisan crimes against Iraq.

All of this begs for a multiparty system in this country and the emergence of a true opposition. The epic scale of the disaster in Iraq calls for epic lessons to be learned at home. Like the Bush White House, the Democrats have lost their credibility. They are undeserving of the blank check of "Anybody But Bush" and should never be allowed to cash it again. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who heads up the House Democrat's election campaign, criticized Murtha's call for immediate withdrawal, saying, "At the right time, we will have a position." It is statements like that that should result in Emanuel and his colleagues losing theirs.

"Reid's Cojones"

2005-11-17T15:48:00.000-08:00

I don't know what's gotten into Harry Reid, but I like it. And we damn sure need this kind of aggressive leadership about now. Here's how he called out Cheney on the Senate floor:

Tonight the Vice President has come out of his bunker and is speaking at a gathering of Washington DC insiders, which is closed to the press.

Unfortunately, he brought his bunker mentality with him. He is repeating the same tired attacks we've heard from administration officials over the last two weeks.

In the last 24 hours, 10 of our brave soldiers have been killed in far off Iraq. On such a night, you would think Cheney would give a speech that honors the fallen and those still fighting by laying out a strategy for success.

Instead we have the Vice President of the United States playing politics like he's in the middle of a presidential campaign.

Yesterday, a bipartisan majority of the United States Senate gave the administration a vote of no confidence for its Iraq policy. We said the era of their "No Plan, No End" approach is over.
Apparently, the White House didn't get the message. The Vice President's speech tonight demonstrates once again that this Administration intends to "stay the course" and continue putting their political fortunes ahead of what this country needs - a plan for success.
Our troops and the American people deserve better.

The White House needs to understand that deceiving the American people is what got them into trouble. Now is the time to come clean, not to continue the pattern of deceit.

So again, I ask Vice President Cheney to make himself available and answer the American people's questions.

If he has time to talk to DC insiders... oil executives... and a discredited felon - Ahmad Chalabi - who is under investigation for giving this nation's most sensitive secrets to Iran, he has time to answer the questions of the American people.

The Vice President needs to stop stonewalling and hold a press conference.

Finally, I would urge the members of the Bush administration to stop trying to resurrect their political standing by lashing out at their critics. Instead, they need to focus on the job at hand - giving our troops a strategy for success in Iraq.

Just this week, we've seen Stephen Hadley... Donald Rumsfeld... President Bush... and Vice President Cheney lash out at their critics....yet they all remain silent when it comes to giving our troops and the American people a plan for success in Iraq.

Tired rhetoric and political attacks do nothing to get the job done in Iraq.

America can do better.

Edwards Confesses

2005-11-13T09:36:00.000-08:00

If he's to have a chance, this confession of error was critical. Sadly it's probably motivated by the same stuff as his vote for the war; but I'll take it.

The Right Way in Iraq
By John EdwardsSunday, November 13, 2005; B07
I was wrong.

Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told -- and what many of us believed and argued -- was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda.

It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002. I take responsibility for that mistake. It has been hard to say these words because those who didn't make a mistake -- the men and women of our armed forces and their families -- have performed heroically and paid a dear price.
The world desperately needs moral leadership from America, and the foundation for moral leadership is telling the truth.

While we can't change the past, we need to accept responsibility, because a key part of restoring America's moral leadership is acknowledging when we've made mistakes or been proven wrong -- and showing that we have the creativity and guts to make it right.

The argument for going to war with Iraq was based on intelligence that we now know was inaccurate. The information the American people were hearing from the president -- and that I was being given by our intelligence community -- wasn't the whole story. Had I known this at the time, I never would have voted for this war.

George Bush won't accept responsibility for his mistakes. Along with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, he has made horrible mistakes at almost every step: failed diplomacy; not going in with enough troops; not giving our forces the equipment they need; not having a plan for peace.
Because of these failures, Iraq is a mess and has become a far greater threat than it ever was. It is now a haven for terrorists, and our presence there is draining the goodwill our country once enjoyed, diminishing our global standing. It has made fighting the global war against terrorist organizations more difficult, not less.

The urgent question isn't how we got here but what we do now. We have to give our troops a way to end their mission honorably. That means leaving behind a success, not a failure.
What is success? I don't think it is Iraq as a Jeffersonian democracy. I think it is an Iraq that is relatively stable, largely self-sufficient, comparatively open and free, and in control of its own destiny.

A plan for success needs to focus on three interlocking objectives: reducing the American presence, building Iraq's capacity and getting other countries to meet their responsibilities to help.

First, we need to remove the image of an imperialist America from the landscape of Iraq. American contractors who have taken unfair advantage of the turmoil in Iraq need to leave Iraq. If that means Halliburton subsidiary KBR, then KBR should go. Such departures, and the return of the work to Iraqi businesses, would be a real statement about our hopes for the new nation.

We also need to show Iraq and the world that we will not stay there forever. We've reached the point where the large number of our troops in Iraq hurts, not helps, our goals. Therefore, early next year, after the Iraqi elections, when a new government has been created, we should begin redeployment of a significant number of troops out of Iraq. This should be the beginning of a gradual process to reduce our presence and change the shape of our military's deployment in Iraq. Most of these troops should come from National Guard or Reserve forces.

That will still leave us with enough military capability, combined with better-trained Iraqis, to fight terrorists and continue to help the Iraqis develop a stable country.
Second, this redeployment should work in concert with a more effective training program for Iraqi forces. We should implement a clear plan for training and hard deadlines for certain benchmarks to be met. To increase incentives, we should implement a schedule showing that, as we certify Iraqi troops as trained and equipped, a proportional number of U.S. troops will be withdrawn.

Third, we must launch a serious diplomatic process that brings the world into this effort. We should bring Iraq's neighbors and our key European allies into a diplomatic process to get Iraq on its feet. The president needs to create a unified international front.

Too many mistakes have already been made for this to be easy. Yet we must take these steps to succeed. The American people, the Iraqi people and -- most important -- our troops who have died or been injured there, and those who are fighting there today, deserve nothing less.
America's leaders -- all of us -- need to accept the responsibility we each carry for how we got to this place. More than 2,000 Americans have lost their lives in this war, and more than 150,000 are fighting there today. They and their families deserve honesty from our country's leaders. And they also deserve a clear plan for a way out.

Stand with the Nation

2005-11-12T17:08:00.000-08:00

The editorial page magazine has taken the following pledge, one with which I totally agree and intend to honor:

The Nation therefore takes the following stand: We will not support any candidate for national office who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq a major issue of his or her campaign. We urge all voters to join us in adopting this position. Many worry that the aftermath of withdrawal will be ugly, but we can now see that the consequences of staying will be uglier still. Fear of facing the consequences of Bush's disaster should not be permitted to excuse the creation of a worse disaster by continuing the occupation.

Arguing that anti-war candidtaes can win in 2008, the Nation rightly weighs-in on some of the leading Democratic contenders.

To their credit, would-be presidential candidate Senator Russell Feingold and former Senator Gary Hart have recently made strong antiwar statements. More recently two other presidential contenders, Senator John Kerry and former Senator John Edwards, have begun to call for a shift in policy, though still in vague and reticent terms. More typical, however, are the other presidential hopefuls, Senators Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden and Evan Bayh, who continue to huddle for cover in "the center." They offer little alternative to Bush's refrain "We must stay the course!" Nor do the party's Congressional leaders and its head, Howard Dean, once a leader of antiwar sentiment. Can such politicians, who cannot even follow a majority - in the Democratic Party, a large majority - really be considered leaders?

Amy Goodman

2005-11-09T14:59:00.000-08:00

Amy Goodman is one of my heroes.

Ode To Amy Goodman
by Joyce Marcel

O Amy Goodman, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
First, you are the anti-Judith Miller, the discredited New York Times reporter who beat the drums for Bush and Cheney's illegal war, who embedded her journalistic integrity for a chance to play with the big boys. Were they really that big, Judy? Really?

You, Amy Goodman, sneer at the very word "embedded." You treasure journalistic independence. For twenty years, first as news director of WBAI in New York, one of Pacifica Radio's flagship stations, and since 1994 the lovely and formidable one-non-blonde eye at the center of the growing whirlwind of horrible truths that is "Democracy Now!," you have reported news free of corporate underwriting.

"The media should be like a huge kitchen table that stretches across this country, where we discuss life and death, war and peace - and anything less is a disservice to this country," you said at Keene (N.H.) State College this past weekend, to an enthusiastic crowd of over 600 people. "My mission is to make dissent commonplace in this country."

Day after day, "Democracy Now!" reports the news to a growing audience on some 400 non-commercial radio stations, public access stations, on the Dish satellite network and DirecTV (on Link). The show also podcasts on the Web (democracynow.org) so "people around the world can have access to the news from the grassroots level."

You are often branded as "far left," but it's hard to know exactly what that means. You are for freedom and democracy, and isn't that exactly what our adrift president, George W. Bush, is trying to spread across the world?

You have proved your bravery as a reporter in the field. In East Timor you had guns pointed at your head and watched innocent people slaughtered. Your friend's skull was shattered as the Indonesians made a last-ditch grasp to keep their power. You barely escaped with your life. You were rewarded with a trip back to see the Timorese, having paid such a high price for freedom, celebrate its return.

And now your dark and deadpan eyes are focused with the strength of lasers on the lies and corruption of the Bush administration. You are on the side of the angels, standing shoulder to shoulder with Cindy Sheehan and the other mothers who have lost their sons and daughters to this despicable war.

"These young people who died would have been our future leaders," you said. "Who will our leaders be now?" And your answer? "The mothers!"

The run-up on television to the Iraq war, as you pointed out, was "a video war game" full of dramatic images of battleships, barricades, missiles pointing at the sky, planes zooming through the air at the speed of sound, fireworks in the night, soldiers dramatically backlit by the setting orange sun.

"If we had a state-run media, how would it be any different?," you said. "I am accused of advocacy journalism. If that is true, then the mainstream media is my model."
Every night you show us the real pictures of war - children burned, women with their arms and legs blown off, houses destroyed, American soldiers maimed for life.

"I really do think that if for one week in the United States we saw the true face of war, we saw people's limbs sheared off, we saw kids blown apart, for one week, war would be eradicated," you said. What is your goal? Nothing less, it seems, than a movement , like the one inspired by one of your heroes, Rosa Parks.

"She is always portrayed has a tired seamstress who just wanted to sit down," you said. "But she was a troublemaker. She had been an activist for years. She was very brave. She had committed her life to opposing segregation. Rosa Parks said she was part of a movement. And to understand movements is to understand how history is made."

The news you report every night is brutal. Torture camps, Abu Ghraib, our use of chemical weapons - napalm-like substances and white phosphorus that burns bodies to the bone, the massacre at Fallujah, Bush saying in Panama "We do not torture" while Cheney openly searches for ways to exempt the CIA from anti-torturing legislation. My only question is how you keep from slitting your wrists in despair.

"I'm inspired by the people I cover, the people I work with," you said when I called you to ask. "People in the most difficult circumstances. In East Timor, in the middle of the slaughter, they always had hope, had the belief that things can be better. In the US in the middle of these difficult times, people continue to organize. Think of Rosa Parks and what she faced and what African-Americans have faced for centuries. She made the right move by not moving. At a moment, something like that can launch a movement. What's the alternative? To give up hope is like breathing, You really have no choice."

Senator Dayton's Response

2005-11-04T13:28:00.000-08:00

I received this letter from Mark Dayton (D-MN.)

Thank you for contacting me regarding the prewar intelligence failuresleading up to the United States' invasion of Iraq and the closed-doorsession of the Senate.

Early last year, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence began itsinvestigation of the intelligence that led the United States into the IraqWar. The investigation was divided into separate phases. Phase 1revealed that American prewar intelligence was deeply flawed. In July,2004, Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) promised thatPhase 2 of the investigation, to determine whether the White House hadintentionally misled the public, would commence following the PresidentialElection. In addition, the Committee unanimously agreed, 17-0, to thePhase 1 and Phase 2 parts of the investigation. To date, the SenateIntelligence Committee has not concluded Phase 2 and plans for completionare unclear.

On November 1, 2005, the Senate Democratic Leader took the rare step ofcalling for a closed Senate session, to show that Democrats view thismatter with the greatest seriousness and to finally get the attention ofthe Republican majority on this matter. For months, Senate Democrats haveurged the Committee to pursue Phase 2 and to make public the results.Finally, we demanded it. The Republican-controlled Congress has refusedto provide any oversight of the Bush government, which is undermining thechecks and balances essential to our system of government.

We know that much of the information that was presented to the Senate asjustification for war against Iraq was wrong, and possibly evenfabricated. I cannot think of anything more serious than the question ofwhether the Administration misled America into war. The American public,and the families of the more than 2,000 soldiers who have courageouslydied since this war began, deserve answers.

As a result of the closed session of the Senate, the Majority Leader andthe Democratic Leader each appointed three Senators from their respectiveparties to report to the Leadership by Monday, November 14, 2005, on theIntelligence Committee's progress of Phase 2 and the expected completiondate of the investigation. Be assured that I regard this matter with thegreatest possible gravity, and I will continue to aggressively monitor thesituation.

Thank you for taking the time to contact me. Please be in touch with me again, if I can be of assistance in any way.

My best regards.

Sincerely,

Mark Dayton
United States Senator

Finally, Some Backbone!

2005-11-01T15:40:00.000-08:00

I sent Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, as well as my own Democratic Senator Mark Dayton this letter this evening.

Dear Senator:
I fully support the action you and your fellow Democrats took today to close the Senate in order to get at the long overdue business of determining whether and in what ways intelligence was manipulated and distorted by the Bush administration to gain support for the Iraq invasion. In fact, such bold and forceful action was long overdue—years even—on behalf of the millions of Americans who didn’t believe the case for war at the beginning; as well as those whose eyes have begun to open as the war effort has disintegrated and the Fitzgerald investigation has given us a peep into the misdeeds of Bush team.

Let me be very clear, this American believes that the Democrats who failed to challenge the case for war out of fear of political consequences must share responsibility for the carnage in Iraq. It simply isn’t believable to suggest that members of Congress were duped. Enough members of Congress voted against the use of force to suggest that there was either adequate information to encourage them to do so, or alternatively inadequate information upon which they could vote in favor. If those representatives could draw that conclusion—as did millions of people in America and around the world--so could the majority of Democrats who handed over the Congressional war power to the President.

For many Americans, the invasion of Iraq has been a terrible dark spot on our history; it has caused the very problems that it purported to prevent and brought us derision and scorn from across the globe. Having an effective national defense is more than the projection of hyper-macho aggression. The United States and the world deserves and must have a foreign policy that is smart, fully considered and genuinely about the principles of freedom and peace. Instead we have become a rogue nation, defying world public opinion, wreaking havoc on foreign soil, while running up budget deficits and draining our domestic resources in ways that the recent spate of hurricanes have exposed to great effect.

Senator, today is the first day since September 2002 that I have felt that my party has begun to stand for what is right and grown a proverbial spine. I urge you and your colleagues to stand strong, steel yourselves against the inevitable right wing attacks and truly begin to lead us out of this debacle that our government has become.

What Cheney Knows

2005-11-01T06:56:00.000-08:00

What Did Cheney Know, and When Did He Know It?

By Nicholas D. Kristof
Tuesday 01 November 2005

Come on, Mr. Vice President, tell us what happened.

A federal indictment charges that criminality swirled around your office, and it demeans this administration and the entire country when you hide in your bunker and refuse to say whether you knew of any such activities.

Five lawyers I've consulted all agree that there is no compelling legal reason why you should not discuss the situation. It's urgent that you clear the air by answering these questions in a televised news conference:

Did you ask Scooter Libby to undertake his inquiries about Ambassador Joseph Wilson? Mr. Libby made such a concerted push to get information, from both the State Department and the C.I.A., that I suspect that you prodded him. Is that right? If so, why?

Why did you independently ask the C.I.A. for information about the Wilsons? The indictment states that on June 12, 2003, you advised Mr. Libby that you had learned, apparently from the C.I.A., that Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie, worked in the agency. So did you ask George Tenet, then the director, about Mr. and Mrs. Wilson? Did you review the related documents that the C.I.A. faxed to your office?

Did you know that Mrs. Wilson was a covert officer? The indictment states that you knew she worked in the C.I.A.'s counterproliferation division. You would think that anyone as steeped in intelligence issues as you are would know that meant she worked in the Directorate of Operations and was perhaps a spook's spook.

Did you advise Mr. Libby to leak information about Mrs. Wilson's work in the C.I.A. to journalists? Mr. Libby flew with you on Air Force Two on July 12, 2003, and according to the indictment, one of the issues Mr. Libby discussed onboard the plane (with you?) was how to deal with the news media. Within hours, the indictment charges, Mr. Libby told two reporters that Mrs. Wilson worked in the agency.

When Mr. Libby made his statements in the inquiry - allegedly committing perjury - were you aware of what he was saying? Mr. Libby rode to work with you almost every morning, but this topic never came up?

Was Mr. Libby fearful of disclosing something about your behavior in the summer of 2003? Mr. Libby is renowned for his caution, yet he is alleged to have suddenly embarked upon a high-risk campaign of leaks and lies. If he did do that, was it a misguided attempt to protect you? The alleged lies shielded you by indicating that the information you gave him about Mrs. Wilson instead came from reporters.

Would the truth have been so potentially damaging to your position that Mr. Libby chose perjury instead?

My guess is that there was no malevolent conspiracy to "out" Mrs. Wilson. Rather, my hunch is that you and Mr. Libby were enraged at what you perceived as false suggestions that you had been personally responsible for sending Mr. Wilson to Niger and had then ignored his findings.

I'm speculating that you may have thought that you were just knocking down unfair exaggerations and rumors - and then Mrs. Wilson's identity was disclosed to suggest that she was more responsible for sending him to Niger than you were.

And once a criminal investigation began, perhaps Mr. Libby didn't want to acknowledge that you were knee-deep in actions that at a minimum looked petty and unseemly.

Whatever happened, Mr. Vice President, the American public deserves some reassurance. If you had nothing to do with any of this, then say so. But don't cower behind your lawyers. As it is, you're pleading "no contest" in the court of public opinion, and that's painful for all of us who want to believe in the integrity of our government.

When Richard Nixon was a candidate for vice president and embroiled in scandal, he addressed the charges in his Checkers speech: "The best and only answer to a smear or to an honest misunderstanding of the facts is to tell the truth." (Mr. Vice President, any time a columnist quotes Nixon to you in an exhortation to be honest, you're in trouble.)

Even when Spiro Agnew was embroiled in a criminal investigation, he tried to explain himself, repeatedly. Do you really want to be less forthcoming than Dick Nixon and Spiro Agnew?

We don't need to try to turn this into Watergate, and we don't need gloating from the Democrats. But we do need straight talk from you. The indictment has left a cloud that impedes governing, and if we're to move on, we need you to clear the air.

So, Mr. Cheney, tell us what happened. If you're afraid to say what you knew, and when you knew it, then you should resign.

A Darker Story

2005-10-25T19:56:00.000-07:00

It will be interesting to see whether the creation/source of the forged documents purporting to show Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium from Niger becomes as big a story as what actions adminstration officials took against critic Joe Wilson's public rebuff of that claim as a reason for war.

It will also be interesting to see (it almost feels like Christmas eve) whether Stephen Hadley is among the indictments expected to be brought by federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

La Repubblica's Scoop, Confirmed
By Laura Rozen
The American Prospect

Tuesday 25 October 2005
Italy's intelligence chief met with Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley just a month before the Niger forgeries first surfaced.

With Patrick Fitzgerald widely expected to announce indictments in the CIA leak investigation, questions are again being raised about the intelligence scandal that led to the appointment of the special counsel: namely, how the Bush White House obtained false Italian intelligence reports claiming that Iraq had tried to buy uranium "yellowcake" from Niger.

The key documents supposedly proving the Iraqi attempt later turned out to be crude forgeries, created on official stationery stolen from the African nation's Rome embassy. Among the most tantalizing aspects of the debate over the Iraq War is the origin of those fake documents - and the role of the Italian intelligence services in disseminating them.

In an explosive series of articles appearing this week in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, investigative reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe d'Avanzo report that Nicolo Pollari, chief of Italy's military intelligence service, known as Sismi, brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House after his insistent overtures had been rejected by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001 and 2002. Sismi had reported to the CIA on October 15, 2001, that Iraq had sought yellowcake in Niger, a report it also plied on British intelligence, creating an echo that the Niger forgeries themselves purported to amplify before they were exposed as a hoax.

Today's exclusive report in La Repubblica reveals that Pollari met secretly in Washington on September 9, 2002, with then - Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Their secret meeting came at a critical moment in the White House campaign to convince Congress and the American public that war in Iraq was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons. National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones confirmed the meeting to the Prospect on Tuesday.

Pollari told the newspaper that since 2001, when he became Sismi's director, the only member of the US administration he has met officially is his former CIA counterpart George Tenet. But the Italian newspaper quotes a high-ranking Italian Sismi source asserting a meeting with Hadley. La Repubblica also quotes a Bush administration official saying, "I can confirm that on September 9, 2002, General Nicolo Pollari met Stephen Hadley."

The paper goes on to note the significance of that date, highlighting the appearance of a little-noticed story in Panorama a weekly magazine owned by Italian Prime Minister and Bush ally Silvio Berlusconi, that was published three days after Pollari's meeting with Hadley. The magazine's September 12, 2002, issue claimed that Iraq's intelligence agency, the Mukhabarat, had acquired 500 tons of uranium from Nigeria through a Jordanian intermediary. (While this September 2002 Panorama report mentioned Nigeria, the forgeries another Panorama reporter would be proffered less than a month later purportedly concerned Niger.)

The Sismi chief's previously undisclosed meeting with Hadley, who was promoted earlier this year to national security adviser, occurred one month before a murky series of events culminated in the US government obtaining copies of the Niger forgeries.

The forged documents were cabled from the US embassy in Rome to Washington after being delivered to embassy officials by Elisabetta Burba, a reporter for Panorama. She had received the papers from an Italian middleman named Rocco Martino. Burba never wrote a story about those documents. Instead her editor, Berlusconi favorite Carlo Rossella, ordered her to bring them immediately to the US embassy.

Although Sismi's involvement in promoting the Niger yellowcake tale to US and British intelligence has been previously reported, the series in La Repubblica includes many new details, including the name of a specific Sismi officer, Antonio Nucera, who helped to set the Niger forgeries hoax in motion.

What may be most significant to American observers, however, is the newspaper's allegation that the Italians sent the bogus intelligence about Niger and Iraq not only through traditional allied channels such as the CIA, but seemingly directly into the White House. That direct White House channel amplifies questions about a now-infamous 16-word reference to the Niger uranium in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address - which remained in the speech despite warnings from the CIA and the State Department that the allegation was not substantiated.

Was the White House convinced that the Niger yellowcake report was nevertheless true because the National Security Council was getting its information directly from the Italian source?

Following the exposure of the discredited Niger allegations in the summer of 2003 by former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, White House officials at first sought to blame the CIA for the inclusion of the controversial "16 words" in the president's speech. Although then - National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and her deputy Hadley eventually accepted some responsibility for the mistake, the White House undertook a covert campaign to discredit Wilson and exposed the CIA affiliation of his wife, Valerie Plame Wilson.

Yet if anyone knew who was actually responsible for the White House's trumpeting of the Niger claims, it would seem from the Repubblica report that Hadley did. He also knew that the CIA, which had initially rejected the Italian claims, was not to blame. Hadley's meeting with Pollari, at precisely the time when the Niger forgeries came into the possession of the US government, may explain the seemingly hysterical White House overreaction to Wilson's article almost a year later.

While the Niger yellowcake claims have provoked much drama in American politics, their provenance is decidedly Italian. The Repubblica investigation offers new insights into what motivated the Berlusconi government and its intelligence chief Pollari to go to so much trouble to bring those claims to the attention of their allies in Washington.

For Berlusconi and Pollari, according to La Repubblica, the overriding motive was a desire to
win more appreciation and prestige from the Americans, who were seen as eager for help in making their sales pitch for war. On Monday, the newspaper described the atmosphere in 2002:

"Berlusconi wants Sismi to be big players on the international security scene, to prove themselves to their ally, the United States, and the world. Washington is looking for proof of Saddam's involvement ... and wants info immediately."

For the Italian middleman Rocco Martino, who acquired the documents from a Sismi mole at the Niger embassy in Rome, the motive described by La Repubblica is primarily mercenary. He wanted to be paid for the forgeries.

According to the Repubblica account, Martino was a former carabinieri officer and later a Sismi operative who by 1999 was making his living based in Luxembourg, selling information to the French intelligence services for a monthly stipend. The story goes on to explain how Martino renewed his contacts with Sismi officer Antonio Nucera, an old friend and former colleague, who was a Sismi vice-captain working in the intelligence agency's eighth directorate, with responsibilities involving weapons of mass destruction and counter-proliferation.

Precisely how Nucera, Martino, and two employees of the Niger embassy in Rome came together sometime between 1999 and 2000 to hatch the Niger forgeries plan is still somewhat mysterious. The newspaper's reports that Nucera introduced Martino to a longtime Sismi asset at the Niger embassy in Rome, a 60 year-old Italian woman described in La Repubblica only as "La Signora." Sismi chief Pollari, who granted the newspaper an interview (as he tends to do when he fears that breaking news could taint his agency), suggests that Nucera simply wanted to help out Martino, his old friend and colleague.

But as the Italian reporters suggest, that sounds like a very convenient excuse for the chief of an agency that was engaged in promoting the bogus Niger claims from their inception, all the way to the White House. The picture that emerges of Sismi's relationship with Martino is that the agency used him as a "postman" - a cut-out to sell the bogus intelligence to allied intelligence services. At the same time, Sismi possessed enough information about Martino to claim that he was simply a rogue agent on the French payroll.

La Repubblica's noirish portrait of Martino as a convenient vehicle for plausible deniability is given further resonance by the recent news that a Roman prosecutor has ended his investigation into Martino's role in the Niger hoax without filing any charges or issuing any report.

Although Berlusconi's government clearly sought deniability while pushing the Niger uranium claims, the Bush White House went still further by trying to blame its citation of exaggerated and discredited Iraq WMD claims on the CIA, the very same agency that consistently discounted the Niger claims. The White House's war on the CIA and on the Wilsons - the extent of which has been revealed in recent news reports emerging from the Fitzgerald investigation - has always had an excessive and almost hysterical quality. Why was the White House so worked up over Wilson and the Niger hoax, when there was so much evidence that the administration had based its drive for war on claims that were so thoroughly discredited from top to bottom? Why did Wilson and his CIA wife become the primary targets, when Wilson was hardly alone in pointing out that the White House should have known better about the Niger claims?

News of the secret meeting between the Italian Sismi chief and the White House deputy national security adviser - during the period when the White House was assembling its flawed case for war - provides an important new piece of that puzzle.

Laura Rozen reports on foreign-policy and national-security issues from Washington, DC, as a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, a contributor to The Nation and other publications, and for her blog, War and Piece.

A Devastating Critique

2005-10-25T10:11:00.000-07:00

And this from a former adminstration official. While Wilkerson suggests that Powell is displeased with his speaking out, I suspect Powell is quite happy to have views he undoubtedly shares being dispensed by a surrogate. Powell himself has quite a bit of work to do to clean his hands of involvement with the crazy team.

The White House Cabal
By Lawrence B. Wilkerson
The Los Angeles Times

Tuesday 25 October 2005

In President Bush's first term, some of the most important decisions about U.S. national security - including vital decisions about postwar Iraq - were made by a secretive, little-known cabal. It was made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

When I first discussed this group in a speech last week at the New American Foundation in Washington, my comments caused a significant stir because I had been chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell between 2002 and 2005.

But it's absolutely true. I believe that the decisions of this cabal were sometimes made with the full and witting support of the president and sometimes with something less. More often than not, then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice was simply steamrolled by this cabal.

Its insular and secret workings were efficient and swift - not unlike the decision-making one would associate more with a dictatorship than a democracy. This furtive process was camouflaged neatly by the dysfunction and inefficiency of the formal decision-making process, where decisions, if they were reached at all, had to wend their way through the bureaucracy, with its dissenters, obstructionists and "guardians of the turf."

But the secret process was ultimately a failure. It produced a series of disastrous decisions and virtually ensured that the agencies charged with implementing them would not or could not execute them well.

I watched these dual decision-making processes operate for four years at the State Department. As chief of staff for 27 months, I had a door adjoining the secretary of State's office. I read virtually every document he read. I read the intelligence briefings and spoke daily with people from all across government.

I knew that what I was observing was not what Congress intended when it passed the 1947 National Security Act. The law created the National Security Council - consisting of the president, vice president and the secretaries of State and Defense - to make sure the nation's vital national security decisions were thoroughly vetted. The NSC has often been expanded, depending on the president in office, to include the CIA director, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Treasury secretary and others, and it has accumulated a staff of sometimes more than 100 people.

But many of the most crucial decisions from 2001 to 2005 were not made within the traditional NSC process.

Scholars and knowledgeable critics of the U.S. decision-making process may rightly say, so what? Haven't all of our presidents in the last half-century failed to conform to the usual process at one time or another? Isn't it the president's prerogative to make decisions with whomever he pleases? Moreover, can he not ignore whomever he pleases? Why should we care that President Bush gave over much of the critical decision-making to his vice president and his secretary of Defense?

Both as a former academic and as a person who has been in the ring with the bull, I believe that there are two reasons we should care. First, such departures from the process have in the past led us into a host of disasters, including the last years of the Vietnam War, the national embarrassment of Watergate (and the first resignation of a president in our history), the Iran-Contra scandal and now the ruinous foreign policy of George W. Bush.

But a second and far more important reason is that the nature of both governance and crisis has changed in the modern age.

From managing the environment to securing sufficient energy resources, from dealing with trafficking in human beings to performing peacekeeping missions abroad, governing is vastly more complicated than ever before in human history.

Further, the crises the U.S. government confronts today are so multifaceted, so complex, so fast-breaking - and almost always with such incredible potential for regional and global ripple effects - that to depart from the systematic decision-making process laid out in the 1947 statute invites disaster.

Discounting the professional experience available within the federal bureaucracy - and ignoring entirely the inevitable but often frustrating dissent that often arises therein - makes for quick and painless decisions. But when government agencies are confronted with decisions in which they did not participate and with which they frequently disagree, their implementation of those decisions is fractured, uncoordinated and inefficient. This is particularly the case if the bureaucracies called upon to execute the decisions are in strong competition with one another over scarce money, talented people, "turf" or power.

It takes firm leadership to preside over the bureaucracy. But it also takes a willingness to listen to dissenting opinions. It requires leaders who can analyze, synthesize, ponder and decide.

The administration's performance during its first four years would have been even worse without Powell's damage control. At least once a week, it seemed, Powell trooped over to the Oval Office and cleaned all the dog poop off the carpet. He held a youthful, inexperienced president's hand. He told him everything would be all right because he, the secretary of State, would fix it. And he did - everything from a serious crisis with China when a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft was struck by a Chinese F-8 fighter jet in April 2001, to the secretary's constant reassurances to European leaders following the bitter breach in relations over the Iraq war. It wasn't enough, of course, but it helped.

Today, we have a president whose approval rating is 38% and a vice president who speaks only to Rush Limbaugh and assembled military forces. We have a secretary of Defense presiding over the death-by-a-thousand-cuts of our overstretched armed forces (no surprise to ignored dissenters such as former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki or former Army Secretary Thomas White).

It's a disaster. Given the choice, I'd choose a frustrating bureaucracy over an efficient cabal every time.

The Problem

2005-10-24T04:39:00.000-07:00

Charles Schumer's response to Meet the Press host's Tim Russert's question about the senator's vote for the war is precisely what is so FUCKED UP about the Democratic leadership.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Schumer, there's been a widespread discussion that this is bigger than just Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame and White House aides; that it really goes to the core of the Iraq War, what cases were made to the American people about weapons of mass destruction and other systems and other analyses and other intelligence data. Based on what you now know today, do you regret having voted for the war?

SEN. SCHUMER: Well, no, Tim, because my vote was seen and I still see it as a need to say we must fight a strong and active war on terror. But I would say this, Tim, and I would take your point in a slightly different direction. I think what we've seen in the last several months is a White House in some real degree of disarray: the war in Iraq where nobody knows what the game plan is; the budget, which is just out of control and nobody seems to have a handle on it and could wreck our economy; the prescription drug bill, the major accomplishment and everyone's confused about how it's going to be administered. The Web sites don't even work. And, of course, Katrina.

Will the Hatchet Fall?

2005-10-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be out of town for business all of this week and possibly not after to smother the news shows if/when indictments are announced. I've been saying for several months that the CIA leak probe has the ability to bring down the Bush adminstration. Very likely that may begin to happen this week! Stay tuned.

Karl and Scooter's Excellent Adventure By Frank Rich The New York Times
Sunday 23 October 2005

There were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no collaboration between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda on 9/11. There was scant Pentagon planning for securing the peace should bad stuff happen after America invaded. Why, exactly, did we go to war in Iraq?

"It still isn't possible to be sure - and this remains the most remarkable thing about the Iraq war," writes the New Yorker journalist George Packer, a disenchanted liberal supporter of the invasion, in his essential new book, "The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq." Even a former Bush administration State Department official who was present at the war's creation, Richard Haass, tells Mr. Packer that he expects to go to his grave "not knowing the answer."

Maybe. But the leak investigation now reaching its climax in Washington continues to offer big clues. We don't yet know whether Lewis (Scooter) Libby or Karl Rove has committed a crime, but the more we learn about their desperate efforts to take down a bit player like Joseph Wilson, the more we learn about the real secret they wanted to protect: the "why" of the war.

To piece that story together, you have to follow each man's history before the invasion of Iraq - before anyone had ever heard of Valerie Plame Wilson, let alone leaked her identity as a C.I.A. officer. It is not an accident that Mr. Libby's and Mr. Rove's very different trajectories - one of a Washington policy intellectual, the other of a Texas political operative - would collide before Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury. They are very different men who play very different White House roles, but they are bound together now by the sordid shared past that the Wilson affair has exposed.

In Mr. Rove's case, let's go back to January 2002. By then the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan had succeeded in its mission to overthrow the Taliban and had done so with minimal American casualties. In a triumphalist speech to the Republican National Committee, Mr. Rove for the first time openly advanced the idea that the war on terror was the path to victory for that November's midterm elections. Candidates "can go to the country on this issue," he said, because voters "trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America's military might and thereby protecting America." It was an early taste of the rhetoric that would be used habitually to smear any war critics as unpatriotic.

But there were unspoken impediments to Mr. Rove's plan that he certainly knew about: Afghanistan was slipping off the radar screen of American voters, and the president's most grandiose objective, to capture Osama bin Laden "dead or alive," had not been achieved. How do you run on a war if the war looks as if it's shifting into neutral and the No. 1 evildoer has escaped?

Hardly had Mr. Rove given his speech than polls started to register the first erosion of the initial near-universal endorsement of the administration's response to 9/11. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup survey in March 2002 found that while 9 out of 10 Americans still backed the war on terror at the six-month anniversary of the attacks, support for an expanded, long-term war had fallen to 52 percent.

Then came a rapid barrage of unhelpful news for a political campaign founded on supposed Republican superiority in protecting America: the first report (in The Washington Post) that the Bush administration had lost Bin Laden's trail in Tora Bora in December 2001 by not committing ground troops to hunt him down; the first indications that intelligence about Bin Laden's desire to hijack airplanes barely clouded President Bush's August 2001 Crawford vacation; the public accusations by an F.B.I. whistle-blower, Coleen Rowley, that higher-ups had repeatedly shackled Minneapolis agents investigating the so-called 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, in the days before 9/11.

These revelations took their toll. By Memorial Day 2002, a USA Today poll found that just 4 out of 10 Americans believed that the United States was winning the war on terror, a steep drop from the roughly two-thirds holding that conviction in January. Mr. Rove could see that an untelevised and largely underground war against terrorists might not nail election victories without a jolt of shock and awe. It was a propitious moment to wag the dog.

Enter Scooter, stage right. As James Mann details in his definitive group biography of the Bush war cabinet, "Rise of the Vulcans," Mr. Libby had been joined at the hip with Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz since their service in the Defense Department of the Bush 41 administration, where they conceived the neoconservative manifesto for the buildup and exercise of unilateral American military power after the cold war. Well before Bush 43 took office, they had become fixated on Iraq, though for reasons having much to do with their ideas about realigning the states in the Middle East and little or nothing to do with the stateless terrorism of Al Qaeda. Mr. Bush had specifically disdained such interventionism when running against Al Gore, but he embraced the cause once in office. While others might have had cavils - American military commanders testified before Congress about their already overtaxed troops and equipment in March 2002 - the path was clear for a war in Iraq to serve as the political Viagra Mr. Rove needed for the election year.

But here, too, was an impediment: there had to be that "why" for the invasion, the very why that today can seem so elusive that Mr. Packer calls Iraq "the 'Rashomon' of wars." Abstract (and highly debatable) neocon notions of marching to Baghdad to make the Middle East safe for democracy (and more secure for Israel and uninterrupted oil production) would never fly with American voters as a trigger for war or convince them that such a war was relevant to the fight against those who attacked us on 9/11. And though Americans knew Saddam was a despot and mass murderer, that in itself was also insufficient to ignite a popular groundswell for regime change. Polls in the summer of 2002 showed steadily declining support among Americans for going to war in Iraq, especially if we were to go it alone.

For Mr. Rove and Mr. Bush to get what they wanted most, slam-dunk midterm election victories, and for Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney to get what they wanted most, a war in Iraq for reasons predating 9/11, their real whys for going to war had to be replaced by fictional, more salable ones. We wouldn't be invading Iraq to further Rovian domestic politics or neocon ideology; we'd be doing so instead because there was a direct connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda and because Saddam was on the verge of attacking America with nuclear weapons. The facts and intelligence had to be fixed to create these whys; any contradictory evidence had to be dismissed or suppressed.

Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney were in the boiler room of the disinformation factory. The vice president's repetitive hyping of Saddam's nuclear ambitions in the summer and fall of 2002 as well as his persistence in advertising bogus Saddam-Qaeda ties were fed by the rogue intelligence operation set up in his own office. As we know from many journalistic accounts, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby built their "case" by often making an end run around the C.I.A., State Department intelligence and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Their ally in cherry-picking intelligence was a similar cadre of neocon zealots led by Douglas Feith at the Pentagon.

This is what Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's wartime chief of staff, was talking about last week when he publicly chastised the "Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal" for sowing potential disaster in Iraq, North Korea and Iran. It's this cabal that in 2002 pushed for much of the bogus W.M.D. evidence that ended up in Mr. Powell's now infamous February 2003 presentation to the U.N. It's this cabal whose propaganda was sold by the war's unannounced marketing arm, the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, in which both Mr. Libby and Mr. Rove served in the second half of 2002. One of WHIG's goals, successfully realized, was to turn up the heat on Congress so it would rush to pass a resolution authorizing war in the politically advantageous month just before the midterm election.

Joseph Wilson wasn't a player in these exalted circles; he was a footnote who began to speak out loudly only after Saddam had been toppled and the mission in Iraq had been "accomplished." He challenged just one element of the W.M.D. "evidence," the uranium that Saddam's government had supposedly been seeking in Africa to fuel its ominous mushroom clouds.

But based on what we know about Mr. Libby's and Mr. Rove's hysterical over-response to Mr. Wilson's accusation, he scared them silly. He did so because they had something to hide. Should Mr. Libby and Mr. Rove have lied to investigators or a grand jury in their panic, Mr. Fitzgerald will bring charges. But that crime would seem a misdemeanor next to the fables that they and their bosses fed the nation and the world as the whys for invading Iraq.

Who Got it Wrong?

2005-10-21T05:14:00.000-07:00

It has always enfuriated me when members of the media, the 9/11 Commission, and certainly the pummeled war supporting Democrats cop that "they got it wrong" about Iraq's WMD threat. My view has always been that if I could have known that the threat was hyped and could have been aware of so many experts out there who were saying just that, the only reason everyone else got it wrong was because they didn't want to get it right.

This from the Huffington Post:

In the Times' Sunday Judy-Culpa, Judy Miller said of her woeful pre-war reporting: "WMD -- I got it totally wrong... The analysts, the experts and the journalists who covered them -- we were all wrong."

To which a growing number of journalists are responding: No, we weren't.
Among them is Joe Lauria, a reporter who has covered the UN since 1990 for a variety of papers, including the London Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph, and the Boston Globe.
He bridles at Miller's claim. "I didn't get it wrong," he told me. "And a lot of others who covered the lead up to the war didn't get it wrong. Mostly because we weren't just cozying up to Washington sources but had widened our reporting to what we were hearing from people like Mohamed ElBaradei and Hans Blix, and from sources in other countries, like Germany, France, and Russia. Miller had access to these voices, too, but ignored them. Our chief job as journalists is to challenge authority. Because an official says something might make it 'official,' but it doesn't necessarily make it true."

This is no time for rewriting history, or for allowing those who helped the Bush White House market the war to fall back on the comfort and safety of a collective "we all screwed up." After all, as Jack Shafer pointed out on Thursday, even in the New York Times there were "at least four non-Miller stories published during the war's run-up that glower with skepticism about the administration's case and methods."

So here are the beginnings of an honor roll. (I would love to keep adding to it, so please send any additions you remember or can find in your spare-time LexisNexis searches.)
Joby Warrick. Check out this excerpt from Warrick's January 23, 2003 Washington Post article, "U.S. Claim on Iraqi Nuclear Program Is Called Into Question":

After weeks of investigation, U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq are increasingly confident that the aluminum tubes were never meant for enriching uranium, according to officials familiar with the inspection process. ...

Moreover, there were clues from the beginning that should have raised doubts about claims that the tubes were part of a secret Iraqi nuclear weapons program, according to U.S. and international experts on uranium enrichment.

Warrick's story ran on page one. But it wasn't the New York Times.
Colum Lynch. Here's what he wrote in his January 29, 2003 Washington Post article, "U.N. Finds No Proof of Nuclear Program":

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said today that two months of inspections in Iraq and interviews with Iraqi officials have yielded no evidence to support Bush administration claims that Iraq is secretly trying to revive its nuclear weapons program.

ElBaradei said in an interview that "systematic" inspections of eight facilities linked by U.S. and British authorities to a possible nuclear weapons program have turned up no proof to support the claims. "I think we have ruled out . . . the buildings," he said. ElBaradei also cast doubts on U.S. claims that Iraq has sought to import uranium and high-strength aluminum tubes destined for a nuclear weapons program.

Bob Simon. Also giving the lie to the "we were all wrong" routine is this exchange from a December 8, 2002 60 Minutes segment, in which Simon interviewed David Albright, a physicist who was a weapons inspector in Iraq during the 1990s:

SIMON: It seems that what you're suggesting is that the administration's leak to the New York Times, regarding aluminum tubes, was misleading?
ALBRIGHT: Oh, I think it was. I think -- I think it was very misleading.
SIMON: So basically what you're saying is that whatever nugget of information comes across, the Bush administration puts it in a box labeled 'nuclear threat,' whereas it could go many other places.
ALBRIGHT: That's how it looked, and that they were selectively picking information to bolster a case that the Iraqi nuclear threat was more imminent than it is, and in essence, scare people.

Ian Williams. On January 31, 2003, Williams wrote a piece in LA Weekly titled "Missing Evidence: Poking holes in the case for war":

Demetrius Perricos, chief inspector of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), commented, "What we're getting and what President Bush may be getting is very different, to put it mildly."

The events of the last weeks make it seem likely that in the best Texan death-row tradition of first deciding verdict and sentence, and only then looking for clues, the White House does not in fact have any substantive evidence.

...One sign of desperation was when both Brits and Americans began to say that instead of looking for the smoking gun or the bubbling vat of botulin, the Security Council should draw conclusions from the "cumulative" buildup of clues that Iraq was in flagrant material breach, and therefore the Security Council should attack.

However, even much of what has been brandished as part of this pattern has not held up under examination. The aluminum tubes for nuclear weapons materials were in fact for artillery rockets. Even people with UNMOVIC think that the empty chemical warheads discovered were in fact mislaid rather than concealed.

Walter Pincus. On March 16, 2003, days before Shock and Awe, the Washington Post's Pincus, who also played a part in Plamegate, reported on the growing skepticism in the intelligence community:

Despite the Bush administration's claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, U.S. intelligence agencies have been unable to give Congress or the Pentagon specific information about the amounts of banned weapons or where they are hidden, according to administration officials and members of Congress.

Senior intelligence analysts say they feel caught between the demands from White House, Pentagon and other government policymakers for intelligence that would make the administration's case "and what they say is a lack of hard facts," one official said. ...
The assertions, coming on the eve of a possible decision by President Bush to go to war against Iraq, have raised concerns among some members of the intelligence community about whether administration officials have exaggerated intelligence in a desire to convince the American public and foreign governments that Iraq is violating United Nations prohibitions against chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons and long-range missile systems.
John MacArthur. In June 2003, while Judy Miller was still getting it totally wrong -- and immaculately conceiving "Valerie Flame" in her notebook -- Harper's publisher MacArthur was getting it completely and frighteningly right... about Iraq, Judy, and her cozy relationship with the Bush administration, in the Globe & Mail:

Take the case of staff reporter Judith Miller, who covers the atomic bomb/chemical-weapons-fear beat, and hasn't heard a scare story about Iraq that she didn't believe, especially if leaked by her White House friends. On Sept. 8, 2002, Ms. Miller and her colleague Michael Gordon helped co-launch the Bush II sales campaign for Saddam-change with a front page story about unsuccessful Iraqi efforts to purchase 81-mm aluminum tubes, allegedly destined for a revived nuclear weapons program.

Pitched to a 9/11-spooked public and a gullible, cowardly U.S. congress, the aluminum tubes plant was a big component of the "weapons of mass destruction" canard, which resulted in hasty House and Senate war authorization on Oct. 11. ...

When officials leak a "fact" to Ms. Miller, they then can cite her subsequent stenography in the Times as corroboration of their own propaganda, as though the Times had conducted its own independent investigation. On Sept. 8, Dick Cheney cited the Times's aluminum tubes nonsense on Meet the Press to buttress his casus belli.

More recently, on May 23, former CIA director and Bush apologist James Woolsey was challenged by CNN International's Daljit Dhaliwal in very un-Timesian fashion about the absence of weapons and the world's resulting skepticism. Mr. Woolsey replied, "Well, I think the key thing on that is the very fine reporting that's been done by Judith Miller of The New York Times. The first article on the front page was three or four weeks ago, about this Iraqi scientist who was captured by the Americans, who was in charge of a major share of the nerve gas program, and was apparently ordered just as the war began to destroy a substantial share of what he had and to hide very deeply the rest."

And this is just the beginning of the honor roll. Remember to send me your additions.
In the meantime, Judy Miller needs to find a new rationalization. The "everyone was wrong, so no one was wrong" line is as thoroughly discredited as the administration's prewar claims... and Judy Miller's obliging reporting of them.