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Updates Below
House Judiciary Trio Calls for Impeach Cheney Hearings
The Nation - THE ONLINE BEAT - John Nichols
Posted 12/14/2007
Three senior members of the House Judiciary Committee have called for the
immediate opening of impeachment hearings for Vice President Richard Cheney.
Democrats Robert Wexler of Florida, Luis Gutierrez of Illinois and Tammy Baldwin
of Wisconsin on Friday distributed a statement, "A Case for Hearings," that
declares, "The issues at hand are too serious to ignore, including credible
allegations of abuse of power that if proven may well constitute high crimes and
misdemeanors under our constitution. The charges against Vice President Cheney
relate to his deceptive actions leading up to the Iraq war, the revelation of
the identity of a covert agent for political retaliation, and the illegal
wiretapping of American citizens."
Read the rest of this article. Click here.
War critics astonished as US hawk admits invasion was illegal
Oliver Burkeman and Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday November 20, 2003
The Guardian
International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment
yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the
invasion of Iraq had been illegal.
In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines,
Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law
stood in the way of doing the right thing."
President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either
because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British
government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by
international law.
But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US
defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have
required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally
unacceptable.
Read the rest. Click here.
From the Progress Report
Writers Strike For Fairness
Last week, the Writers Guild of America (WGA), a union of 12,000 television and
screen writers, went on strike for the first time in 20 years after talks
stalled between the WGA and the Alliance for Motion Picture and Television
Producers. In the 1980s, writers took an 80 percent cut in residual pay, but
since then, studios have not restored these cuts despite burgeoning profits. As
a result, the WGA wants to "renegotiate its contract with the Hollywood studios
over the amount of money they receive from DVD sales" and "films and shows that
can be downloaded" onto electronic devices. "Industry analysts predict a lengthy
shutdown lasting several months, with one estimate of potential losses set at
more than one billion dollars." Today, the writers are working not just "against
a cadre of studio heads," as they did in the 1980s, but against giants like News
Corp. and Walt Disney, "with massive pockets and businesses big enough to
withstand a walkout." "I've been working with these people for 20 years," said
comedian Jay Leno. "Without them I'm not funny." Support the writers HERE.
THE WRITERS' PREDICAMENT: In 2004, The New York Times reported that "not since
the advent of the videocassette in the mid-1980s has the movie industry enjoyed
such a windfall from a new product," in reference to DVDs. In contrast, as the
WGA notes, "48 percent of writers guild members are unemployed at any time.
Residuals are more than just extra cash. They are a life saver, allowing writers
in financial strains to keep from losing their house or losing health
insurance." Most WGA members seldom earn beyond five figures each year. "Some of
these writers are living check to check," said James Brooks, the writer,
director, and producer of The Simpsons. Actors, directors, and crew members also
rely on residuals to "pay the bills and fund their health and pension programs."
The writers are "one of the best examples out there of the idea that working
people can advance their interests through unions even outside of traditional
'hard hat' or public sector industries," observed The Atlantic's Matthew
Yglesias.
CORPORATE PROFITS AND THREATS: Today, "the Writers Guild is negotiating against
an entity that represents studios, networks and multinational conglomerates."
Since the strike began, corporations have threatened those involved in the
strike. CBS has reportedly threatened that showrunners will be sued "if they
don't report back into work for producing duties." Fox has "merely stopped
compensating them for the simple reason that they have stopped working," in
reference to showrunners. In order to "cut costs," NBC informed the non-writing
staff of the Tonight Show that "it will be laid off at the end of next week in
the wake of the show shutting down for the writers' strike." Studios have taken
out misleading ads in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter attempting to "set the
record straight," claiming they made major concessions before the strike. But in
reality, their proposal "wouldn't cover any material originally written for
Internet delivery, a category that in a few years may encompass all new shows,"
notes Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson. The writers' "struggle is a
deadly serious test of whether any American workers retain the clout to strike a
deal with the unchecked greed that is the modern American corporation," Meyerson
adds.
NEW MEDIA AT CENTER STAGE: With services like iTunes, studios can deliver
products "more efficiently than ever." Despite the cost savings, studios want to
pay writers older DVD residuals (four cents per dollar) for online content.
Furthermore, traditional media now air shows online, to be watched for free by
viewers on the Internet, cell phones, and other new media outlets. While
corporations profit from the ad revenue, writers "do not get paid when TV shows
are streamed for free" online. Corporations allege the "union's efforts as
prohibiting them 'from experimenting with programming and business models in New
Media.'" The WGA strike has generated a solidarity between the blogosphere and
writers. HuffingtonPost has a full page devoted to the strike. WGA leaders have
formed their own blog to debunk traditional media spin and inform the public.
Several other writers have been writing online, using Facebook, and posting
YouTube videos. Yesterday, "[m]ore than 20 bloggers who write about the industry
went 'dark' in support of the Writers Guild and its demands to be compensated
for streaming TV broadcasts and other digital media."
Read the most recent Progress Report. Click here.
When you read the Progress Report you'll find that all stories are embedded with source links
that back up every word you'll read.
Iran: The Road to Armageddon?
by Felicity Arbuthnot
Global Research, October 27, 2007
Global Research and the UN Observer
Reminder to the crusading Armageddonists ..... “Thou shalt not kill.” Exodus 20: 13
They are at it again. Remember when Milosovic was labelled "the butcher of Belgrade",
the new Hitler? Then Saddam Hussein was "the butcher of Bagdad" and,
of course the most dangerous man since Hitler - with weapons of mass destruction
which could be unleashed on the world "in forty five minutes".
Colin Powell lied to the U.N., about the danger Iraq posed to the planet; George
Bush lied to anyone who would listen; Tony Blair lied to Parliament and aides
concocted dossiers so dodgy they were laughable, yet in spite of the millions
who marched, protested and knew the lies for what they were, there were millions
who bought fiction as fact.
And here we go again. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (wait for "the tyrant
of Tehran") threatens the planet, is supplying weapons to Iraq's resistance, is
destabilising the region and the paradise that is occupied Iraq. Whilst there
are indeed plenty of Iranians or Iranian sympathisers in Iraq, they came in with
the occupiers. Many in high places in Iraq's corrupt, militia driven, American
puppet government, speak Farsi, not Arabic.
The increasingly hysterical claims regarding Iran, the latest threat to life as
we know it, is being brought to you by the very same warmongers who wrought the
duplicity that resulted in Iraq's murderous decimation, the hawks' nest which is
the American Enterprise Institute and their friends.
Read the rest of this article. Click here.
American Tears
By Naomi Wolf
Posted October 11, 2007 | 06:47 PM (EST)
I wish people would stop breaking into tears when they talk to me these days.
I am traveling across the country at the moment -- Colorado to California --
speaking to groups of Americans from all walks of life about the assault on
liberty and the 10 steps now underway in America to a violently closed society.
The good news is that Americans are already awake: I thought there would be
resistance to or disbelief at this message of gathering darkness -- but I am
finding crowds of people who don't need me to tell them to worry; they are
already scared, already alert to the danger and entirely prepared to hear what
the big picture might look like. To my great relief, Americans are smart and
brave and they are unflinching in their readiness to hear the worst and take
action. And they love their country.
But I can't stand the stories I am hearing. I can't stand to open my email these
days. And wherever I go, it seems, at least once a day, someone very strong
starts to cry while they are speaking.
Read the rest of the provocative article. Click here.
Reese tells it like it is....
The Empire Is Over
By Charley Reese
10-1-7
The American government has come to resemble the characters in The Wizard of Oz.
We have the Cowardly Congress, a president without a brain, and a foreign-policy
establishment without a heart.
Read the truth. Click here.
'A Coup Has Occurred'
by Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department analyst who leaked the secret
Pentagon Papers history of the Vietnam War, offered insights into the looming
war with Iran and the loss of liberty in the United States at an American
University symposium on Sept. 20.
Read "...an edited transcript of Ellsberg's remarkable speech" by clicking here.
We're Not Alone
GALLUP: Trust in Federal Government, On Nearly All Issues, Hits New Low -- Even
Less Than in Watergate Era
Read the Editor and Publisher article. Click here.
Generals opposing Iraq war break with military tradition
By Mark Sauer
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
September 23, 2007
The generals acted independently, coming in their own ways to the agonizing
decision to defy military tradition and publicly criticize the Bush
administration over its conduct of the war in Iraq.
What might be called The Revolt of the Generals has rarely happened in the
nation's history.
In op-ed pieces, interviews and TV ads, more than 20 retired U.S. generals have
broken ranks with the culture of salute and keep it in the family. Instead,
they are criticizing the commander in chief and other top civilian leaders who
led the nation into what the generals believe is a misbegotten and tragic war.
The active-duty generals followed procedure, sending reports up the chain of
command. The retired generals beseeched old friends in powerful positions to
use their influence to bring about a change.
When their warnings were ignored, some came to believe it was their patriotic
duty to speak out, even if it meant terminating their careers.
It was a decision none of the men approached cavalierly. Most were political
conservatives who had voted for George W. Bush and initially favored his
appointment of Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary.
But they felt betrayed by Bush and his advisers.
"The ethos is: Give your advice to those in a position to make changes, not
the media," said Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, now retired. "But this administration is
immune to good advice."
Read the rest of this article. Click here.
U.S.-IRAQ: Fallon Derided Petraeus, Opposed the Surge
By Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON, Sep 12 (IPS) - In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David
Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week,
Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command
(CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad
last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.
Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little
chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark
reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon
interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.
That extraordinarily contentious start of Fallon's mission to Baghdad led to
more meetings marked by acute tension between the two commanders. Fallon went on
develop his own alternative to Petraeus's recommendation for continued high
levels of U.S. troops in Iraq during the summer.
The enmity between the two commanders became public knowledge when the
Washington Post reported Sep. 9 on intense conflict within the administration
over Iraq. The story quoted a senior official as saying that referring to "bad
relations" between them is "the understatement of the century".
Fallon's derision toward Petraeus reflected both the CENTCOM commander's
personal distaste for Petraeus's style of operating and their fundamental policy
differences over Iraq, according to the sources.
The policy context of Fallon's extraordinarily abrasive treatment of his
subordinate was Petraeus's agreement in February to serve as front man for the
George W. Bush administration's effort to sell its policy of increasing U.S.
troop strength in Iraq to Congress.
Read the rest of this article by clicking here.
*Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in June 2005.
It's time to check the balance of power
Congress must rein in Bush's abusive actions
Bruce Fein
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Since 9/11, President Bush's repeated assaults on the Constitution and
celebration of international lawlessness in confronting al Qaeda have needlessly
made Americans less safe. The president, for example, has flouted the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act in intercepting the conversations and e-mails of
American citizens on American soil on his say-so alone. He has claimed authority
to break into and enter our homes, open our mail and commit torture in order to
collect foreign intelligence.
He has insisted that the entire United States is a battlefield -- even pizza
parlors -- where lethal military force may be employed to kill al Qaeda suspects
with bombs or missiles. He has detained citizens and noncitizens alike as enemy
combatants based on secret evidence. And he has insisted that he is
constitutionally empowered to keep U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely.
Congress should restore the Constitution's checks and balances and protections
against government abuses. Citizens would be safer. And international terrorism
would be more effectively arrested by restoring cooperation with allies; by
cultivating friendly democratic regimes abroad through democratic example; and
by preventing injustices that serve as recruiting fodder for al Qaeda (for
instance, Mahar Arar, the Syrian Canadian who was mistaken for a terrorist and
tortured in Syria with U.S. and Canadian complicity).
Note: The author, Bruce Fein, served as Associate Attorney General under
President Reagan.
Read the rest of this article. Click here
Is this the real president of the United States?
He rarely speaks in public and closely guards his privacy. But there's a growing
consensus in America that it's Dick Cheney who calls the shots at the White
House, on everything from the war in Iraq to climate change policy. Ed
Pilkington reports
Monday July 23, 2007
The Guardian
Click here to read the article.
The Goods on Goodling and the Keys to the Kingdom
And The No Longer 'Missing' Rove Emails Revealing the Cagey Scheme to Steal 2008...
Special to The BRAD BLOG by Greg Palast
This Monica revealed something hotter --- much hotter --- than a stained blue
dress. In her opening testimony yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee,
Monica Goodling, the blonde-ling underling to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
and Department of Justice Liaison to the White House, dropped The Big One....And
the Committee members didn't even know it.
Goodling testified that Gonzales' Deputy AG, Paul McNulty, perjured himself,
lying to the committee in earlier testimony. The lie: McNulty denied Monica had
told him about Tim Griffin's "involvement in 'caging' voters" in 2004.
Huh?? Tim Griffin? "Caging"???
The perplexed committee members hadn't a clue --- and asked no substantive
questions about it thereafter. Karl Rove is still smiling. If the members had
gotten the clue, and asked the right questions, they would have found "the keys
to the kingdom," they thought they were looking for. They dangled right in front
of their perplexed faces.
The keys: the missing emails --- and missing link --- that could send Griffin
and his boss, Rove, to the slammer for a long, long time.
Kingdom enough for ya?
But what's 'caging' and why is it such a dreadful secret that lawyer McNulty put
his license to practice and his freedom on the line to cover Tim Griffin's
involvement in it? Because it's a felony. And a big one.
Read the rest of this amazing story at The BRAD BLOG. Click here.
Book Excerpt:
The Assault on Reason
By Al Gore
Wednesday, May. 16, 2007
Not long before our nation launched the invasion of Iraq, our longest-serving
Senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor and said: "This
chamber is, for the most part, silent-ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no
debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of
this particular war. There is nothing. We stand passively mute in the United
States Senate."
Why was the Senate silent?
In describing the empty chamber the way he did, Byrd invited a specific version
of the same general question millions of us have been asking: "Why do reason,
logic and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way America now
makes important decisions?" The persistent and sustained reliance on falsehoods
as the basis of policy, even in the face of massive and well-understood evidence
to the contrary, seems to many Americans to have reached levels that were
previously unimaginable.
A large and growing number of Americans are asking out loud: "What has happened
to our country?" People are trying to figure out what has gone wrong in our
democracy, and how we can fix it.
To take another example, for the first time in American history, the Executive
Branch of our government has not only condoned but actively promoted the treatment
of captives in wartime that clearly involves torture, thus overturning a
prohibition established by General George Washington during the Revolutionary
War.
It is too easy-and too partisan-to simply place the blame on the policies of
President George W. Bush. We are all responsible for the decisions our country
makes. We have a Congress. We have an independent judiciary. We have checks and
balances. We are a nation of laws. We have free speech. We have a free press.
Have they all failed us? Why has America's public discourse become less focused
and clear, less reasoned? Faith in the power of reason-the belief that free
citizens can govern themselves wisely and fairly by resorting to logical debate
on the basis of the best evidence available, instead of raw power-remains the
central premise of American democracy. This premise is now under assault.
Read the rest of this highly important book excerpt at Time Magazine.
Click here.
U.S. media have lost the will to dig deep
A changed news culture has let several important investigative stories slip
through the cracks.
By Greg Palast, GREG PALAST is the author of "Armed Madhouse: From New Orleans
to Baghdad -- Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild."
April 27, 2007
IN AN E-MAIL uncovered and released by the House Judiciary Committee last month,
Tim Griffin, once Karl Rove's right-hand man, gloated that "no [U.S.] national
press picked up" a BBC Television story reporting that the Rove team had
developed an elaborate scheme to challenge the votes of thousands of African
Americans in the 2004 election.
Griffin wasn't exactly right. The Los Angeles Times did run a follow-up article
a few days later in which it reported the findings. But he was essentially
right. Most of the major U.S. newspapers and the vast majority of television
news programs ignored the story even though it came at a critical moment just
weeks before the election.
According to Griffin (who has since been dispatched to Arkansas to replace one
of the U.S. attorneys fired by the Justice Department), the mainstream media
rejected the story because it was wrong.
"That guy is a British reporter who accepted some false allegations and made a
story up," he said.
Let's get one fact straight, Mr. Griffin. "That guy" is not a British reporter.
I am an American living abroad, putting investigative reports on the air from
London for the British Broadcasting Corp.
I'm not going to argue with Rove's minions about the validity of our reporting,
which led the news in Britain. But I can tell you this: To the extent that it
was ignored in the United States, it wasn't because the report was false. It was
because it was complicated and murky and because it required a lot of time and
reporting to get to the bottom of it. In fact, not one U.S. newsperson even
bothered to ask me or the BBC for the data and research we had painstakingly
done in our effort to demonstrate the existence of the scheme.
The truth is, I knew that a story like this one would never be reported in my
own country. Because investigative reporting — the kind Jack Anderson used to do
regularly and which was carried in hundreds of papers across the country, the
kind of muckraking, data-intensive work that takes time and money and ruffles
feathers — is dying.
Read the rest of this article. Click here.
Calling Out Idiot America
By Scott Ritter
3-25-7
The ongoing hand-wringing in Congress by the newly empowered Democrats
over what to do about the war in Iraq speaks volumes about the level of
concern (or lack thereof) these 'representatives of the people' have
toward the men and women who honor us all by serving in the armed forces
of the United States of America. The inability to reach consensus
concerning the level of funding required or how to exercise effective
oversight of the war, both constitutionally mandated responsibilities,
is more a reflection of congressional cowardice and impotence than a
byproduct of any heartfelt introspection over troop welfare and national
security.
The issues that prompt the congressional collective to behave in such an
egregious manner have more to do with a reflexive tendency to avoid any
controversy that might disrupt the status quo ante regarding
representative-constituent relations (i.e., re-election) than with any
intellectual debate about doing the right thing. This sickening trend is
bipartisan in nature, but of particular shame to the Democrats, who
obtained their majority from an electorate that expressed
dissatisfaction with the progress of the war in Iraq through their
votes, demanding that something be done.
Sadly, Congress' smoke-and-mirrors approach to the Iraq war creates the
impression of much activity while generating no result. Even more sadly,
the majority of Americans are falling for the act, either by continuing
their past trend of political disengagement or by thinking that the
gesticulation and pontification taking place in Washington, D.C.,
actually translate into useful work. The fact is, most Americans are
ill-placed intellectually, either through genuine ignorance, a lack of
curiosity or a combination of both, to judge for themselves the efficacy
of congressional behavior when it comes to Iraq. Congress claims to be
searching for a solution to Iraq, and many Americans simply accept that
this is this case.
The fact is one cannot begin to search for a solution to a problem that
has yet to be accurately defined. We speak of 'surges,' 'stability' and
'funding' as if these terms come close to addressing the real problems
faced in Iraq. There is widespread recognition among members of Congress
and the American people that there is civil unrest in Iraq today, with
Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence tearing that country apart, but the depth of
analysis rarely goes beyond that obvious statement of fact. Americans
might be able to nod their heads knowingly if one utters the words
Sunni, Shiite and Kurd, but very few could take the conversation much
further down the path of genuine comprehension regarding the
interrelationships among these three groups. And yet we, the people, are
expected to be able to hold to account those whom we elected to
represent us in higher office, those making the decisions regarding the
war in Iraq. How can the ignorant accomplish this task' And ignorance is
not something uniquely attached to the American public. Rep. Silvestre
Reyes, the newly appointed chairman of the House Intelligence Committee,
infamously failed a pop quiz in which journalist Jeff Stein asked him to
differentiate between Sunni and Shiite. Reyes has become the poster boy
for congressional stupidity, but in truth he is not alone. Very few of
his colleagues could pass the test, truth be told.
The task of holding Congress to account is a daunting one, and can be
accomplished only if the citizenry that forms the respective
constituencies of our ignorant congressional representatives are
themselves able to operate at an intellectual capacity above that of
those they are holding to account. So rather than issue 'pop quizzes' to
our elected representatives, I've designed one for us, the people. If
the reader can fully answer the question raised, then he or she
qualifies as one capable of pointing an accusatory finger at Congress as
its members dither over what to do in Iraq. If the reader fails the
quiz, then there should be an honest appraisal of the reality that we
are in way over our heads regarding this war, and that it is
irresponsible for anyone to make sweeping judgments about the
ramifications of policy courses of action yet to be agreed upon.
Claiming to be able to divine a solution to a problem improperly defined
is not only ignorant but dangerously delusional.
So here is the quiz: Explain the relationship between the Iraqi cities
of Karbala and Baghdad as they impact the coexistence of Iraq's Shiite
and Sunni populations.
Most respondents who have a basic understanding of Iraq will answer that
Karbala is a city of significance to Iraq's Shiite population. Baghdad
is Iraq's capital, with a mixed Sunni and Shiite population. If that is
your answer, you fail.
Read the rest of this uniquely insightful article with regard to the complex social, political,
and especially ancient religious milieu in Iraq and the Middle East in general.
Click here.
A brief excerpt from an interview with Watergate sleuth Carl Bernstein
BERNSTEIN: First, Nixon's relationship to the press was consistent with his
relationship to many institutions and people. He saw himself as a victim. We now
understand the psyche of Richard Nixon, that his was a self-destructive act and
presidency.
I think what we're talking about with the Bush administration is a far different
matter in which disinformation, misinformation and unwillingness to tell the
truth -- a willingness to lie both in the Oval Office, in the Office of the
Secretary of Defense, in the office of the vice president, the vice president
himself -- is something that I have never witnessed before on this scale.
The lying in the Nixon White House had most often to do with covering up
Watergate, with the Nixon administration's illegal activities. Here, in this
presidency, there is an unwillingness to be truthful, both contextually and in
terms of basic facts that ought to be of great concern to people of all
ideologies. ...
Read the rest of this 'Frontline' Interview with Carl Bernstein on Nixon vs. Bush.
Click here.
Bush Iran War Agenda: Trigger an "Accidental Conflict," as a pretext to justify "Limited Strikes"
by Deniz Yeter
Global Research, February 13, 2007
Hillary Mann, the former National Security Council Director for Iranian and
Persian Gulf Affairs under the Bush Administration from 2001 to 2004, has issued
a sober warning to the public today concerning the Bush Administration's
intentions with Iran.
In an interview this morning on CNN(1), she accused the Bush Administration of
"trying to push a provocative, accidental conflict," as a pretext to justify
"limited strikes" on crucial nuclear and military infrastructures, as opposed to
a large ground war as is the case with Iraq.
When asked why the Bush Administration was seeking to do this, she responded
that it is a part of Bush's broader agenda for the Middle East to bring about a
"democratization... peace and stability", to the region.
Of course, one only has to look back to history to see the Bush Administration's
real agenda behind confronting Iran. Iran is only one piece of the puzzle in a
broader, century long struggle by the US, Britain, and it's Western allies to
secure the Middle East’s oil reserves.
Read the rest of this important article, which outlines and discusses the history refered to above. Click here.
DoD Report Appears to Confirm Downing Street Memo
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report
Friday 09 February 2007
A long-awaited report on the veracity of pre-war Iraq intelligence has found
that a secretive policy shop exaggerated the Iraqi threat, providing the White
House with cherry-picked information about links between Iraq and al Qaeda. The
shop, operating out of the Pentagon, was set up by then-Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld. Its goal was to lay the groundwork for a pre-emptive military
strike against Iraq.
The report would appear to confirm British intelligence assertions that surfaced
in a document widely referred to as the Downing Street Memo that the facts
against the threat posed by Iraq were being fixed around the Bush
administration's policy leading up to the invasion of Iraq.
Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said the report is a "a devastating condemnation of
the activities of the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. Those
activities supported the Bush administration's misleading case for war against
Iraq."
The Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General produced the report,
which focuses largely on the work of former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy
Douglas Feith. Feith's Office of Special Plans sent the Bush administration
bogus intelligence on Iraq's weapons program and ties to terrorist organizations
that supported the administration's policy.
An executive summary of the report was released late Thursday by Senator Levin,
chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Levin has spent the past two
years battling the former Senate Republican leadership to conclude its so-called
Phase II investigation into pre-war Iraq intelligence.
Read the rest of this article. Click here.
'There is no war on terror'
Outspoken DPP takes on Blair and Reid over fear-driven legal response to threat
Clare Dyer, legal editor
Wednesday January 24, 2007
The Guardian
The director of public prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, put himself at odds with
the home secretary and Downing Street last night by denying that Britain is
caught up in a "war on terror" and calling for a "culture of legislative
restraint" in passing laws to deal with terrorism.
Sir Ken warned of the pernicious risk that a "fear-driven and inappropriate"
response to the threat could lead Britain to abandon respect for fair trials and
the due process of law.
He acknowledged that the country faced a different and more dangerous threat
than in the days of IRA terrorism and that it had "all the disturbing elements
of a death cult psychology".
But he said: "It is critical that we understand that this new form of terrorism
carries another more subtle, perhaps equally pernicious, risk. Because it might
encourage a fear-driven and inappropriate response. By that I mean it can tempt
us to abandon our values. I think it important to understand that this is one of
its primary purposes."
Sir Ken pointed to the rhetoric around the "war on terror" - which has been
adopted by Tony Blair and ministers after being coined by George Bush - to
illustrate the risks.
He said: "London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July
7 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in
their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, 'soldiers'. They were
deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists.
We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such
thing as a 'war on terror', just as there can be no such thing as a 'war on
drugs'.
"The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the
prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for
those damaged by their infringement."
Read the rest. Click here.
As I have said from the beginning. ~r
Bush's War on the Republic
By Robert Parry
January 24, 2007
From the beginning of the "war on terror," George W. Bush has lied to the
American people about the goals, motivation and even the identity of the enemy –
a propaganda exercise that continued through his 2007 State of the Union Address
and that is sounding the death knell for the Republic.
Since 2001, rather than focusing on the al-Qaeda Sunni fundamentalist terrorists
behind the 9/11 attacks, Bush has expanded the conflict exponentially – tossing
in unrelated enemies such as Iraq’s secular dictator Saddam Hussein, Shiite-led
Iran, Syria and Islamic militants opposed to Israel, like Hezbollah in Lebanon
and Hamas in Gaza.
In effect, Bush has transformed what began as a definable military objective –
the defeat of "terrorist groups with global reach" – into an endless war against
what he regards as evil, a conflict so vague that it is claiming as collateral
damage America’s "unalienable rights" and the Founders’ checks and balances on
the powers of the Executive.
In Bush’s State of the Union speech on Jan. 23, there could be heard a requiem
for the Republic.
"The evil that inspired and rejoiced in 9/11 is still at work in the world. And
so long as that’s the case, America is still a nation at war," Bush told
Congress.
But that "evil" will always be "at work in the world," so America will always be
"a nation at war" and thus, under Bush’s theories of unlimited Commander-in-
Chief powers, the American Republic will be banished permanently.
Read the rest. Click here.
Carl Bernstein: Bush Administraton Has Done
'Far Greater Damage' Than Nixon
By E&P Staff
Published: January 24, 2007 4:00 PM ET updated Thursday
NEW YORK In an online chat at washingtonpost.com on Wednesday afternoon, Carl
Bernstein, the famed Watergate reporter at that paper and now writing articles
for Vanity Fair, took several hard shots at the current Bush administration --
almost every time he was asked about the Nixon era. It came just as news of the
death of former Watergate ringleader E. Howard Hunt was circulating widely.
After a long explanation of how the American system "worked," eventually, with
Watergate, Bernstein said:
"In the case George W. Bush, the American system has obviously failed --
tragically -- about which we can talk more in a minute. But imagine the
difference in our worldview today, had the institutions -- particularly of
government -- done their job to ensure that a mendacious and dangerous president
(as has since been proven many times over, beyond mere assertion) be restrained
in a war that has killed thousands of American soldiers, brought turmoil to the
lives of millions, and constrained the goodwill towards the United States in
much of the world."
Read the rest of this article. Click here.
Enough of the Terrorism Canard
by Larry C Johnson
George Bush still does not get it. The war in Iraq is not and never has been
about terrorism. The attacks, the vast majority of attacks carried out against
U.S. troops and Iraqis, are not the work of foreign jihadists operating under
the direction of Osama Bin Laden. The facts on the ground do not support it.
Although U.S. forces have killed the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Zarqawi, violence
has soared unabated. The reason is simple and the solution complex. The U.S.
presence in Iraq has unleashed a sectarian war that pits Sunni against Shia.
The United States now finds itself confronted with equally unpalatable choices:
1) Back the Sunnis and piss of the Shias, or 2) Back the Shias and piss off the
Sunnis.
Bush tonight signals that we are going to pitch our tent with the Shias except
we also are going to fight the one Shia, Moktada al Sadr and his Mahdi Army
militia, who are the most anti-iranian of the Shia. Great! The one group of
Shias not closely aligned with Iran are the ones we will attack. This is
madness.
Read the rest. Click here.
Larry C. Johnson is CEO and co-founder of BERG Associates, LLC, an international
business-consulting firm that helps corporations and governments manage threats
posed by terrorism and money laundering. Mr. Johnson works with US military
commands in scripting terrorism exercises, briefs foreign governments on a
regular basis on terrorist trends, and conducts undercover investigations on
product counterfeiting and smuggling. Mr. Johnson, who worked previously with
the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. State Department’s Office of Counter
Terrorism, is a recognized expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security,
crisis and risk management.
The US-Iran-Iraq-Israeli-Syrian War
By Robert Parry
1-12-7
At a not-for-quotation pre-speech briefing on Jan. 10, George W. Bush and his
top national security aides unnerved network anchors and other senior news
executives with suggestions that a major confrontation with Iran is looming.
Commenting about the briefing on MSNBC after Bush's nationwide address, NBC's
Washington bureau chief Tim Russert said "there's a strong sense in the upper
echelons of the White House that Iran is going to surface relatively quickly as
a major issue in the country and the world in a very acute way."
Russert and NBC anchor Brian Williams depicted this White House emphasis on Iran
as the biggest surprise from the briefing as Bush stepped into the meeting to
speak passionately about why he is determined to prevail in the Middle East.
Read the rest. Click here.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the
Associated Press and Newsweek.
Surge And Mirrors - What Bush Really Said
By Paul Craig Roberts
1-12-7
Bush's "surge" speech is a hoax, but members of Congress and media commentators
are discussing the surge as if it were real.
I invite the reader to examine the speech. The "surge" content consists of
nonsensical propagandistic statements. The real content of the speech is toward
the end where Bush mentions Iran and Syria.
Read the rest. Click here.
Paul Craig Roberts wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was Assistant Secretary of the
Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall
Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is
author or coauthor of eight books, including The Supply-Side Revolutin
(Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic appointments,
including the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic
and International Studies, Georgetown University and Senior Research Fellow,
Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous scholar
journals and testified before Congress on 30 occasions. He has been awarded the
U.S. Treasury's Meritorious Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was
a reviewer for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert Mundell.
Did the President Declare "Secret War" Against Syria and Iran?
by Steve Clemons
Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today
with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret
Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to
launch military operations against Syria and Iran.
The President may have started a new secret, informal war against Syria and Iran
without the consent of Congress or any broad discussion with the country.
Read the rest. Click here.
-- Steve Clemons is Senior Fellow and Director of the American Strategy Program
at the New America Foundation and publishes the popular political blog, The
Washington Note
From The Progress Report
No Blank Check: As early as Wednesday, President Bush is
expected to deliver a national address announcing an escalation of tens of
thousands of U.S. forces in Iraq. A Pentagon official admitted to NBC News last
week that the escalation is "more of a political decision than a military one,"
favored because Bush "has few other dramatic options available to signal U.S.
determination in Iraq." U.S. troops should not be ordered into the deadliest hot
spots of Iraq's civil war so that President Bush can send a "signal." New
congressional leaders Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid (D-NV) agree, telling Bush in a letter on Friday that escalation "is
a strategy that you have already tried and that has already failed. ... Adding
more combat troops will only endanger more Americans and stretch our military to
the breaking point for no strategic gain." Congress must hold Bush accountable
to ensure that U.S. forces are deployed for the right reasons. A recent Center
for American Progress memo suggested that Congress "place an amendment on the
supplemental funding bill that states that if the administration wants to
increase the number of troops in Iraq above 150,000, it must provide a plan for
their purpose and require an up or down vote on exceeding that number."
Yesterday, Pelosi pledged that Congress not issue Bush a blank check. "If the
president wants to add to this mission, he is going to have to justify it,"
Pelosi said.
BUSH NOT LISTENING TO MILITARY ON ESCALATION: Former
Secretary of State Colin Powell, who publicly declared in December that he does
not support escalation, "is caustic in private about the proposed 'surge,'"
Robert Novak reports. "Powell noted that the recent congressional delegation to
Iraq headed by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) heard from combat officers that they
wanted more troops. 'The colonels will always say they need more troops,' the
retired general says. 'That's why we have generals.'" For their part, the
highest-ranking U.S. generals are still opposed to escalation. The Washington
Post reported on Friday that "deep divisions remain" between the White House and
the Joint Chiefs of Staff "about whether a surge of up to 20,000 troops will
turn around the deteriorating situation." U.S. Army officials "fret they don't
have the forces or equipment for the kind of long deployment (perhaps 18 months
or more) that would be required." CBS News reported that commanders have told
the White House they are prepared to execute a troop escalation of just 9,000
soldiers and Marines into Iraq, "with another 10,000 on alert in Kuwait and the
U.S." A prime advocate of escalation, Gen. Jack Keane, reportedly told the
president recently, "Don't you dare let Army and Marine Corps tell you they
can't do it." Soon afterward, Newsweek reports, "Gen. Richard Cody, the vice
chief of staff of the Army, called Keane in and gave him the actual figures on
readiness, telling him: 'Look, here's the status of these brigades today. It's
not doable.'"
ECONOMY -- CONGRESSIONAL STUDY SHOWS BUSH'S TAX CUTS 'OFFER MOST FOR VERY RICH':
The Bush administration has long maintained that the President's tax cuts
benefit all Americans. A White House fact sheet from May 11, 2006, claimed,
"President Bush's tax relief benefits all taxpayers." On April 7, 2006,
President Bush stated that his tax cuts have "created jobs and growth for the
American people." But a new study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office
shows that families "earning more than $1 million a year saw their federal tax
rates drop more sharply than any group in the country as a result of President
Bush's tax cuts." Households in the top 1 percent of earnings, "which had an
average income of $1.25 million, saw their effective individual tax rates drop
to 19.6 percent in 2004 from 24.2 percent in 2000." In contrast, families whose
average incomes were $56,200 in 2004, saw their average effective tax rate edge
down to just 2.9 percent in 2004 from 5 percent in 2000. "That translated to an
average tax cut of $1,180 per household, but the tax rate actually increased
slightly from 2003." The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has also noted
that under Bush's tax cuts, the "typical working-age household, meanwhile, has
seen income losses during the current expansion. Census data show that among
households headed by someone under age 65, median income, adjusted for
inflation, fell again in 2005 and was $2,000 below its level during the 2001
recession."
The failure of the 109th Congress to pass new budgets for the current fiscal
year "has produced a crisis in science financing that threatens to close major
facilities, delay new projects and leave thousands of government scientists out
of work, federal and private officials say." One senior official at the American
Physical Society said the "consequences for American science will be disastrous."
Read the most recent Progress Report. Click here.
When you read the Progress Report you'll find that all stories are embedded with source links
that back up every word you'll read.
BUSH'S REIGN 'GRAVE, DETERIORATING'
By Bill Gallagher
"Someone has to get the message to this man that there have to be significant changes."
-- Senate Majority Leader-elect Harry Reid, D-Nev.
DETROIT -- Good Luck. Even his daddy's buddies and a bipartisan panel can't get him to
listen. It's not the message; it's his closed ears. President George W. Bush will never
admit Iraq is disintegrating and his policies were doomed from the outset.
The body language screamed out as the Baker-Hamilton group leaders made their formal
presentation to Bush. He gave his cavalier assurance that he deemed the report
"interesting" and "worthy of study." So much so that he claims he actually read it.
Methinks he's fibbing. I'm reading it now.
If the White House reporting wimps have any nerve they'll quiz him at his next
availability about recommendation 72, starting on Page 91, that states, "Costs of the war
should be included in the President's annual budget request, starting with FY 2008: the
war is in its fourth year, and the normal budget process should not be circumvented.
Funding requests for the war in Iraq should be presented clearly to Congress and the
American people. Congress must carry out its constitutional responsibility to review
budget for the war in Iraq carefully and to conduct oversight."
Bush will never come clean with the costs of his war, and the idea that he would bring
Congress in to discuss his unbridled spending and welcome a review of the Pentagon's
no-bid contracts with Halliburton is unthinkable. War, in the Bush-Cheney perverted view,
is the exclusive domain of the unitary executive. They consider congressional oversight a
quaint concept best left in civics textbooks.
Read the rest. Click here.
Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner.
From The Progress Report
Item One: In a farewell speech on U.S. soil today, retiring U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan
"plans to deliver a tough critique of President Bush's policies," accusing the
administration of "dominating other nations through force, committing what he termed
human rights abuses and taking military action without broad international support."
Item Two: Administration officials say their preliminary review of the Iraq Study Group report
"has concluded that many of its key proposals are impractical or unrealistic, and a small
group inside the National Security Council is now racing to come up with alternatives to
the panel's ideas."
Read the most recent Progress Report. Click here.
When you read the Progress Report you'll find that all stories are embedded with source links
that back up every word you'll read.
Iraq: Worse Than Civil War
For the last few months, top Bush administration officials have refused to admit that
Iraq is currently in a civil war - disagreeing with many of Iraq's leaders, U.S. troops
in Iraq, and seven in ten Americans.
Recent estimates of Iraqis killed over the last three and a half years have ranged from
40,000 to more than half a million.
The simple fact of the matter is the situation in Iraq is worse than civil war - the
world is witnessing at least four major internal conflicts in Iraq:
1) A Shiite-Sunni civil war in Baghdad and the central part of Iraq. For much of the last
year, a vicious campaign of sectarian cleansing has been taking place in the
neighborhoods of Baghdad and the surrounding central regions, with Shiite militias
targeting Sunni Iraqis and Sunni insurgent groups bombing Shiite sites.
The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that the latest killings this week in the
central part of the country may be directly related to the lack of progress on the
national reconciliation front. U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq have argued that the
political solution, and not more boots on the ground, is the key to stopping the
conflict: "you fix the government, you fix the problem."
2) Intra-Shiite conflict in the south. Less noticed in the American media have been some
battles between Iraqi Shiites in the streets of southern cities such as Diwaniya and
Basra. In these clashes, intra-Shiite political disputes have being played out in
violence in the streets - and in some cases U.S. forces have supported one faction versus
another.
3) Sunni Arab insurgency in the West. The Sunni Arab insurgency continues to undermine
security in the Western part of Iraq. The chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in
Iraq filed a report last month saying that the Al Qaeda in Iraq insurgent group has
filled a political vacuum there.
4) Arab-Kurdish violence in the North. Violence and tensions have increased in northern
Iraq between Arabs and Kurds, particularly in the disputed city of Kirkuk.
The Bush administration still does not have the right diplomatic, political or military
strategy to deal with each of these multiple conflicts - all of which add up to a
situation that is worse than civil war.
The United States needs to call for an immediate internal peace conference to put a stop
to Iraq's civil war, as the Center for American Progress proposes in its Strategic
Redeployment plan.
Brian Katulis, as posted at Think Progress, a project of the
American Progress Action Fund.
Brian Katulis a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. At the Center, his
work examines U.S. national security policy in Middle East and democratization, with a
focus on Iraq. Prior to joining the Center, Katulis lived and worked in the Middle East
for the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, including projects in Egypt,
Iraq, and the Palestinian territories. From 2000 to 2003, he worked as a senior associate
at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. His previous experience includes work in the Near
East and South Asian Directorate of the National Security Council and the Policy Planning
Staff at the Department of State during the Clinton administration. He has published
articles in The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The Christian Science
Monitor, among other publications. Katulis received a graduate degree from Princeton
University's Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs.
Go to the article as posted for embedded references. Click here
When Denial Goes Pathological
Is President Bush Sane?
By Paul Craig Roberts
12-4-6
Tens of millions of Americans want President George W. Bush to be impeached for the lies
and deceit he used to launch an illegal war and for violating his oath of office to
uphold the US Constitution.
Millions of other Americans want Bush turned over to the war crimes tribunal at the
Hague. The true fate that awaits Bush is psychiatric incarceration.
The president of the United States is so deep into denial that he is no longer among the
sane.
Delusion still rules Bush three weeks after the American people repudiated him and his
catastrophic war in elections that delivered both House and Senate to the Democrats in
the hope that control over Congress would give the opposition party the strength to
oppose the mad occupant of the White House.
Read the rest of this article. Click here.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration.
He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor
of National Review.
A Call For Leadership, Not For Empire
By Terrell E. Arnold
11-9-6
The writer is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer of the US Department of State
whose immediate pre-retirement positions were as Deputy Director of the State Office of
Counterterrorism, and as Chairman of the Department of International Studies of the
National War College. On State assignment, he did a year of advanced study in
development economics at the University of California, Berkeley.
Read this article. Click here.
A Deep, Deep Breath
This editorial, by William Rivers Pitt, closely matches my thoughts about what happened
last Tuesday. Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books.
Click here.
The Lie Factory
A Mother Jones Special Investigation
The inside story of how the Bush administration pushed disinformation and bogus
intelligence and led the nation to war.
By Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest
January/February 2004 Issue
It's a crisp fall day in western Virginia, a hundred miles from Washington, D.C., and a
breeze is rustling the red and gold leaves of the Shenandoah hills. On the weather-beaten
wood porch of a ramshackle 90-year-old farmhouse, at the end of a winding dirt-and-gravel
road, Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski is perched on a plastic chair, wearing shorts, a
purple sweatshirt, and muddy sneakers. Two scrawny dogs and a lone cat are on the prowl,
and the air is filled with swarms of ladybugs.
So far, she says, no investigators have come knocking. Not from the Central Intelligence
Agency, which conducted an internal inquiry into intelligence on Iraq, not from the
congressional intelligence committees, not from the president's Foreign Intelligence
Advisory Board. All of those bodies are ostensibly looking into the Bush administration's
prewar Iraq intelligence, amid charges that the White House and the Pentagon exaggerated,
distorted, or just plain lied about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda terrorists and its
possession of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. In her hands, Kwiatkowski holds
several pieces of the puzzle. Yet she, along with a score of other career officers
recently retired or shuffled off to other jobs, has not been approached by anyone.
Kwiatkowski, 43, a now-retired Air Force officer who served in the Pentagon's Near East
and South Asia (NESA) unit in the year before the invasion of Iraq, observed how the
Pentagon's Iraq war-planning unit manufactured scare stories about Iraq's weapons and
ties to terrorists. "It wasn't intelligence‚ -- it was propaganda," she says. "They'd
take a little bit of intelligence, cherry-pick it, make it sound much more exciting,
usually by taking it out of context, often by juxtaposition of two pieces of information
that don't belong together." It was by turning such bogus intelligence into talking
points for U.S. officials‚ -- including ominous lines in speeches by President Bush and
Vice President Cheney, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell's testimony at the U.N.
Security Council last February‚ -- that the administration pushed American public opinion
into supporting an unnecessary war.
Until now, the story of how the Bush administration produced its wildly exaggerated
estimates of the threat posed by Iraq has never been revealed in full. But, for the first
time, a detailed investigation by Mother Jones, based on dozens of interviews‚ -- some on
the record, some with officials who insisted on anonymity‚ -- exposes the workings of a
secret Pentagon intelligence unit and of the Defense Department's war-planning task
force, the Office of Special Plans. It's the story of a close-knit team of ideologues who
spent a decade or more hammering out plans for an attack on Iraq and who used the events
of September 11, 2001, to set it into motion.
Read the results of the investigation. Click here.
From The Progress Report
Because Of Iraq...
When Americans go to the polls on November 7, they will not be voting because Sen. John
Kerry (D-MA) botched a joke about President Bush on Monday, notwithstanding the national
media's 48-hour fixation on Kerry's remarks. Nor will they be voting because President
Bush, also on Monday, claimed that if critics of his Iraq policy are victorious, "the
terrorists win and America loses." (That comment was mostly ignored.) According to the
final pre-election New York Times/CBS poll, Americans will be voting because they
desperately want a new direction in Iraq. The Times reports, "Americans cited Iraq as the
most important issue affecting their vote, and majorities of Republicans and Democrats
said they wanted a change in the government’s approach to the war." Just 29 percent of
Americans approve of the way President Bush is managing Iraq strategy, "matching the
lowest mark of his presidency," and nearly 70 percent "said Mr. Bush did not have a plan
to end the war." (Veterans advocacy group VoteVets.org has released a powerful ad
underscoring this point, titled "Because of Iraq..." Watch it.)
Read the most recent Progress Report. Click here.
When you read the Progress Report you'll find that all stories are embedded with source links
that back up every word you'll read.
We're All Prisoners, Now: US Citizens to be Required "Clearance" to Leave USA
October 26, 2006
"Forget no-fly lists. If Uncle Sam gets its way, beginning on Jan. 14,
2007, we'll all be on no-fly lists, unless the government gives us
permission to leave-or re-enter-the United States."
The criteria for permission? "No one knows, because the entire clearance procedure would be
an administrative determination made secretly, with no right of appeal."
Read about this here.
E-Voting - Here We Go Again:
Just Push the Button and Vote as Many Times as You Want On Sequoia Touch-Screen Voting Machines
State Rep Reports ES&S Touch-Screens Dropping Candidate Names, Flipping Straight Ticket Ballots from Democratic to Republican in San Antonio
Smartcards Go Missing in Tennessee; Control Electronic Voting Machines
Who's Building the Gear That's Running The Show?
Glitches Cited In Early Voting
Recipe for a Cooked Election
You'd think that a government for the people, by the people would do it's damnedest to
protect the veracity of national elections. Since it's obvious this is not always the
case, it may be worth asking oneself, "Why?" And maybe even, "What can I do about it?" Folks, this
is our country unless we do nothing, then it's "their" country.
Video the Vote - Help stop election fraud in the US
How Neocon Favorites Duped U.S.
by ROBERT PARRY
The Iraq War demonstrates a systemic failure in Washington—one that continues to this day
because few of the culprits have faced any accountability. When American voters go to the
polls on Nov. 7, one of the foremost questions that should be on their minds is how did
the United States get into the Iraq mess, which has claimed the lives of more than 2,800
U.S. soldiers and possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. What went wrong with
Washington and what can citizens do about it?
Part of the answer to what went wrong is that the normal checks and balances—in Congress,
the national news media and the U.S. intelligence community—collapsed in the face of
George W. Bush’s determination to invade Iraq. Pro-war neoconservative opinion leaders
also acted as intellectual shock troops to bully the few voices of dissent.
Amid this enforced "group think," a self-interested band of Iraqi exiles found itself
with extraordinary freedom to inject pro-war disinformation into the U.S. decision-making
process. Despite many reasons to challenge the truthfulness of Iraqi "defectors" handled
by the Iraqi National Congress, few in Washington did.
Now, four years later, the Senate Intelligence Committee has issued a long-awaited
post-mortem on how the INC influenced this life-and-death debate. The report reveals not
only specific cases of coached Iraqi "defectors" lying to intelligence analysts but a
stunning failure of the U.S. political/media system to challenge the lies.
In one case, U.S. intelligence analysts correctly concluded that an INC-supplied defector
was a "fabricator/provocateur," but his claims about Iraq’s supposed mobile weapons labs
were never withdrawn and were cited by Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the
United Nations Security Council in February 2003.
Another INC source, a supposed nuclear engineer who made claims about Iraq’s alleged
nuclear program, couldn’t answer relevant physics questions and kept excusing himself to
run to the bathroom where he apparently reviewed notes given to him so he could deceive
his American debriefers.
Before interviewing that source, U.S. analysts had received a warning from another Iraqi
that an INC representative had instructed the source to "deliver the act of a lifetime."
[For details, see below.]
Yet, with President George W. Bush and the powerful right-wing political/media machine
pressing for war, the intimidated U.S. intelligence process often worked like a reverse
filter, screening out the gems of truth and letting through the dross of disinformation.
Congress and the mainstream Washington press corps proved equally flawed, applying almost
no quality controls and serving more as a conveyor belt to carry the polluted information
down the line to the broader American public.
While certain individuals and institutions surely deserve the lion’s share of the blame,
the truth is that the Iraq War represented a systemic failure in Washington—and one that
continues to this day because few of the culprits have faced any accountability.
In this Special Report—less than a week before the Nov. 7 elections, possibly the last
chance to exact any accountability—Consortiumnews.com looks at how and why the system
failed, a failure that has cost the lives of so many people and has so badly damaged U.S.
national interests:
Read the report. Click here.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek.
From The Progress Report
IRAQ -- PENTAGON PUBLICLY TOUTS PROGRESS IN IRAQ, SECRETLY ACKNOWLEDGES LOOMING 'CHAOS':
Last week, the Pentagon sent out a public e-mail newsletter with headlines touting the
good news in Iraq, such as "Iraqi Government makes progress, security improves" and
"Iraqi Soldiers, Police score victories." But just days earlier, the Pentagon admitted
that Iraq has moved closer to "chaos," according to a slide from a classified briefing
prepared by U.S. Central Command obtained by the New York Times. The slide, which tracks
"Indicators and Warnings of Civil Conflict," shows politicians losing moderating
influence, significant police ineffectiveness, population displacement, strengthened
militias, increasing violence among Iraqi Security Forces, and "critical" amounts of
low-level violence motivated by sectarian differences. The slide also notes that violence
is "at an all time high" and "spreading geographically," with many cities subjected to
"ethnic cleansing campaigns to consolidate control."
The U.S. Air Force has requested a "staggering $50 billion in emergency funding for
fiscal 2007" -- an amount equal to nearly half its annual budget -- in part to help cover
costs for transporting the "growing numbers of U.S. soldiers being killed and wounded in
Iraq and Afghanistan."
SCIENCE -- SNOW CLAIMS BUSH RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL U.S. STEM CELL RESEARCH: Yesterday at the
White House press briefing, Tony Snow claimed, "Any stem cell research that takes place
in the United States today is a result of a decision the president made in 2001." Snow
said, "No president who has stepped up and made possible more research and encouraged
more research than George W. Bush." Snow, echoing Karl Rove, added that "adult and blood
cord stem cells" have "demonstrated far more promise" than embryonic stem cells. Snow's
lesson on stem cell research was chock full of false and misleading information. For one,
Bush's decision did not begin embryonic stem cell research in the U.S. embryonic stem
cell research funded by the Geron Corporation began in the late 1990s at the University
of Wisconson and Johns Hopkins University. Second, President Bill Clinton proposed
broader federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Bush suspended the Clinton rules
and replaced them with his own that restrict federal funding to lines derived prior to
August 2001. Clinton did not propose federal funding for embryonic stem cell research
earlier because it didn't exist. Finally, adult and umbilical cord stem cells do not show
"more promise" than embryonic stem cells. An article in the New England Journal of
Medicine called the White House source for this claim "patently false" and "pure hokum."
Read the most recent Progress Report. Click here.
When you read the Progress Report you'll find that all stories are embedded with source links
that back up every word you'll read.
Bush Moves Toward Martial Law
Written by Frank Morales
Thursday, 26 October 2006
In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare
federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that
limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The
Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act
(18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in
domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo
those prohibitions.
Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122)
(2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval
Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops
anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the
consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder."
Read the rest. Click here.
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"Unless the people, through unified action, arise and
take charge of their government, they will find that their government has taken
charge of them. Independence and liberty will be gone, and the general public
will find itself in a condition of servitude to an aggregation of organized and
selfish interest."
-- President Calvin Coolidge
Recipe for a Cooked Election
by Greg Palast
A nasty little secret of American democracy is that, in every national election, ballots
cast are simply thrown in the garbage
A nasty little secret of American democracy is that, in every national election, ballots
cast are simply thrown in the garbage. Most are called "spoiled," supposedly unreadable,
damaged, invalid. They just don't get counted. This "spoilage" has occurred for decades,
but it reached unprecedented heights in the last two presidential elections. In the 2004
election, for example, more than three million ballots were never counted.
Almost as deep a secret is that people are doing something about it. In New Mexico,
citizen activists, disgusted by systematic vote disappearance, demanded change - and got
it.
In Ohio, during the 2004 Presidential election, 153,237 ballots were simply thrown away -
more than the Bush "victory" margin. In New Mexico the uncounted vote was five times the
Bush alleged victory margin of 5,988. In Iowa, Bush's triumph of 13,498 was overwhelmed
by 36,811 votes rejected. The official number is bad enough - 1,855,827 ballots cast not
counted, according to the federal government's Elections Assistance Commission. But the
feds are missing data from several cities and entire states too embarrassed to report the
votes they failed to count.
Correcting for that under-reporting, the number of ballots cast but never counted goes to
3,600,380. Why doesn't your government tell you this?
Hey, they do. It's right there in black and white in a U.S. Census Bureau announcement
released seven months after the election - in a footnote. The Census tabulation of voters
voting in the 2004 presidential race "differs," it reads, from ballots tallied by the
Clerk of the House of Representatives by 3.4 million votes.
Read the rest. Click here.
After Pat's Birthday
Posted on Oct 19, 2006
By Kevin Tillman
Courtesy the Tillman Family
Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother Pat in 2002, and they served together in
Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. Kevin, who was
discharged in 2005, has written a powerful, must-read document. ~ Truthdig Editor.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns
everything that it is. ~ Kevin Tillman
It is Pat's birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking
about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the
risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the
American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not
of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice … until we get
out.
Much has happened since we handed over our voice:
Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American
people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11
attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or
WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an
insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil war even though
it is. Something like that.
Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up
secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them
indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow
that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few "bad apples" in the military.
Read the rest of this powerful and timely letter. Click here.
'Beginning of the end of America'
Olbermann addresses the Military Commissions Act in a special comment
Click here.
Here we go …
Voter Warning To Hispanics Linked to GOP Campaign
State investigators have linked a Republican campaign to letters sent to thousands of
Orange County Hispanics warning them they could go to jail or be deported if they vote
next month, a spokesman for the attorney general said.
"We have identified where we believe the mailing list was obtained," said Nathan
Barankin, spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
He declined to identify the specific Republican campaign Wednesday, citing the ongoing
investigation. The Los Angeles Times and The Orange County Register both reported
Thursday that the investigation appeared to be focused on the campaign of Tan D. Nguyen,
a Republican challenger to Democratic U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez.
The letter, written in Spanish, tells recipients: "You are advised that if your residence
in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a
crime that could result in jail time."
In fact, immigrants who are naturalized U.S. citizens can vote.
Read the rest. Click here.
Update
CIVIL RIGHTS -- CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATE BEHIND VOTER SUPPRESSION LETTER VOWS TO STAY IN
RACE: Orange Country congressional candidate Tan D. Nguyen (R) was asked to withdraw from
the race Thursday "after he acknowledged that his campaign was involved in sending out a
letter intended to scare off Latino voters." The letter, written in Spanish and mailed to
14,000 Democratic Latino voters, falsely stated that immigrants could be arrested and
face deportation if they tried to vote in the Nov. 7 election. Twenty-two organizations
have written to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and requested a federal
investigation into the Orange County voter suppression. California Secretary of State
Bruce McPherson has already called for an investigation into the mailing, which may have
violated the Voting Rights Act. Nguyen denies being "personally involved in sending the
letter," but believes a staff member might have "used his voter database to send out the
letter without his knowledge." The staff member has since been fired. But after speaking
with the state attorney general and the private company that distributed the letter,
local party chairman Scott Baugh concluded "that not only was Mr. Nguyen's campaign
involved in this, but that Mr. Nguyen was personally involved in expediting the mailer."
Despite a formal request from his party to leave the race, Nguyen "has no intention of
dropping out of the race." ~ The Progress Report
From The Progress Report
Common Good Progressivism
Fifteen years ago, then-Governor and candidate for President, Bill Clinton, articulated a
unifying vision for America and its role in the world. Delivered in three historic
addresses at Georgetown University, Clinton's call for a "New Covenant" outlined a vision
invested in the common good. "I believe with all my heart," Clinton said, "that the only
way we can hold this country together and move boldly into the future is to do it
together with a new covenant...a solemn agreement between the people and their government
to provide opportunity for everybody, inspire responsibility throughout our society and
restore a sense of community to our great nation." Over the course of his eight years as
president, Clinton delivered the nation its longest economic expansion in history,
created over 21 million new jobs, moved from record deficits to record surplus, increased
home ownership, lowered poverty rates, strengthened environmental protections, and
promoted strong international alliances and partnerships that promoted peace, prosperity,
and democracy across the globe. Today, Clinton returns to Georgetown University to
commemorate that successful vision and to deliver an address at the "Securing the Common
Good" conference. Led by the Center for American Progress, the conference aims to unite
and motivate progressives around a simple philosophical argument that should inform our
politics: progressives seek to secure the common good.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?: Common good progressivism does not mean that everybody will be the
same or receive the same material benefits. Rather, it simply means that people should
start from a level playing field and have a reasonable chance to improve their stations
in life. American Progress Senior Fellow John Halpin and Joint Fellow Ruy Teixeira
explained, "Securing the common good means putting the public interest above narrow
self-interest and group demands; working to achieve social and economic conditions that
benefit everyone; promoting a personal, governmental and corporate ethic of
responsibility and service to others; creating a more open and honest governmental
structure that relies upon an engaged and participatory citizenry; and doing more to meet
our common responsibilities to aid the disadvantaged, protect our natural resources, and
provide opportunities rather than burdens for future generations." That philosophy enjoys
a deep, rich tradition in American history. Thomas Jefferson, in his first inaugural
address to the nation, said Americans living within our constitutional framework should
"arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common
good." Political leaders from James Madison (whose guidance to secure the public good
from dangerous factions remains valuable today) to Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt have used
principles of common good progressivism to shape their notions of government and craft
some of our countries most important and lasting policies. And, faith leaders like Martin
Luther King, Jr. have drawn on the principle of common good to guide people towards more
thoughtful consideration of their own actions and values.
A PHILOSOPHY THAT HASN'T WORKED: Six years ago, President George W. Bush entered office
with the mantra of "compassionate conservatism." Bush's proclaimed governing philosophy
soon exposed its true core: a heavy dose of conservatism with hardly a faint whiff of
compassion. Instead of instilling a sense of common good and sacrifice after the attacks
of 9/11, Bush has instead promoted the concept of self-reliance by enacting tax cut after
tax cut. "Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes," declared
former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX). The New York Times wrote that soldiers on the
battlefield "quietly raise a question for political leaders: if America is truly on a war
footing, why is so little sacrifice asked of the nation at large?" "Compassionate
conservatism" has spawned a government of corruption, cronyism, and greed. It has turned
a blind eye to a greater moral responsibility on the part of political leaders, instead
placing crass political gains over core ethical principles. Most recently, former White
House deputy for faith-based initiatives, David Kuo, revealed that the White House never
put much money or muscle behind Bush's "compassionate conservatism."
A BREAK FROM INDIVIDUALISM: The right's morally bankrupt philosophy -- which the
wordsmiths have dubbed the "ownership society" -- focuses heavily on individualism,
negates the role of the helping hand of government, and leaves many Americans owning more
burdens and fewer opportunities. The results have been painful: poverty rates are
climbing, 46 million Americans lack health insurance, college tuition is skyrocketing;
meanwhile, the richest one percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined
and corporate profits -- particularly those of oil companies -- are at a record high.
"After years of conservative dominance defined by rampant individualism, corruption and
greed in American life, the public is ready for a higher national purpose and a greater
sense of service and duty to something beyond self-interest alone." Halpin argued that
common good is "a core value that we think organizes the entire political agenda for
progressives." A progressive vision of the common good stands in stark contrast to the
"you are on your own" mantra of the right. Government must pursue policies that benefit
everyone. It must ensure that opportunities are abundant and that even those who have
been left out and left behind can get the help they need to succeed.
WHAT DOES A COMMON GOOD AGENDA LOOK LIKE?: A recent research study sponsored by the Faith
and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress finds that American
voters are increasingly worried about rising materialism, self-interest, and unethical
behavior in our society. Seventy-one percent of voters strongly agree that Americans are
too materialistic. Sixty-eight percent believe that government "should uphold the basic
decency and dignity of all and take greater steps to help the poor and disadvantaged in
America." Halpin and Teixeira have broadly outlined the contours of a common good agenda.
They identify the following features: robust universal programs that expand opportunity
and provide a true safety net in times of need, a 21st-century public infrastructure, a
targeted populism that recognizes the ways in which corporate and power elites are
unfairly enriching themselves, greater democratic control over globalization, and
expanded opportunities for average families to save and build wealth. The research study
found 72 percent of voters strongly agree that strengthening our economy over the
long-term requires helping low-income families by providing a living wage, affordable
health care, and adequate educational opportunities to help them get back on their feet.
Read the rest of this article and the rest of the most recent Progress Report. Click here.
When you read the Progress Report you'll find that all stories are embedded with source links
that back up every word you'll read.
Bush’s Nuclear Apocalypse
By Chris Hedges
10/09/06 "TruthDig"
-- -- The aircraft carrier Eisenhower, accompanied by the
guided-missile cruiser USS Anzio, guided-missile destroyer USS Ramage, guided-missile
destroyer USS Mason and the fast-attack submarine USS Newport News, is, as I write,
making its way to the Straits of Hormuz off Iran. The ships will be in place to strike
Iran by the end of the month. It may be a bluff. It may be a feint. It may be a simple
show of American power. But I doubt it.
War with Iran—a war that would unleash an apocalyptic scenario in the Middle East—is
probable by the end of the Bush administration. It could begin in as little as three
weeks. This administration, claiming to be anointed by a Christian God to reshape the
world, and especially the Middle East, defined three states at the start of its reign as
"the Axis of Evil." They were Iraq, now occupied; North Korea, which, because it has
nuclear weapons, is untouchable; and Iran. Those who do not take this apocalyptic
rhetoric seriously have ignored the twisted pathology of men like Elliott Abrams, who
helped orchestrate the disastrous and illegal contra war in Nicaragua, and who now
handles the Middle East for the National Security Council. He knew nothing about Central
America. He knows nothing about the Middle East. He sees the world through the childish,
binary lens of good and evil, us and them, the forces of darkness and the forces of
light. And it is this strange, twilight mentality that now grips most of the civilian
planners who are barreling us towards a crisis of epic proportions.
Read the rest of this disturbing article. Click here.
Chris Hedges is former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times and author of the
bestseller "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning".
Bush committed "one of the great diplomatic blunders of our time"
On Friday, James Baker III was a guest on Don Imus's MSNBC show. He said, politely, that
the Bush administration needs to talk more, especially to its "enemies," and that there's
a lack of talk, and diplomacy, in general. It's quite clear that the Bush administration
1) doesn't know how to talk to other countries, and 2) has no appreciation for the
importance of dialogue and carrot/stick diplomacy.
In 2003, the Bush administration had a golden opportunity for positive diplomatic rounds
with the North Koreans -- via New Mexico governor Bill Richardson (bio) -- but rejected
his help wholesale.
Read the rest. Click here.
Garrison Keillor
Congress' shameful retreat from American values
Published October 4, 2006
Click here.
Condi Rice, 9/11 and Another Nest of Lies
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 02 October 2006
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may have committed perjury in her testimony before
the 9/11 Commission in May of 2004. At a minimum, her testimony was a convenient mishmash
of half-truths and omissions which served to paint the White House as innocent bystanders
as the attacks of 9/11 unfolded. Certainly, her testimony omitted the fact that the two
most senior intelligence officials in the nation delivered a stern warning regarding an
impending terror attack two full months before 9/11.
Sunday's edition of the Washington Post carried a story titled "Two Months Before 9/11,
an Urgent Warning to Rice." The story described a desperate attempt by CIA chief George
Tenet and CIA counterterrorism chief J. Cofer Black to draw Rice's attention to the
looming threat of an al-Qaeda strike against the United States. Tenet and Black insisted
on a meeting with Rice on July 10, 2001. This meeting was first reported by Bob Woodward
in his new book, "State of Denial."
"Tenet had the NSA review all the intercepts," read the Post story, "and the agency
concluded they were of genuine al-Qaeda communications. On June 30, a top-secret senior
executive intelligence brief contained an article headlined 'Bin Laden Threats Are Real.'
Tenet hoped his abrupt request for an immediate meeting would shake Rice. He and Black, a
veteran covert operator, had two main points when they met with her. First, al-Qaeda was
going to attack American interests, possibly in the United States itself ... Second, this
was a major foreign policy problem that needed to be addressed immediately. They needed to
take action that moment - covert, military, whatever - to thwart bin Laden."
The meeting, according to Tenet and Black, went nowhere. "Tenet and Black felt they were
not getting through to Rice. She was polite, but they felt the brush-off. President Bush
had said he didn't want to swat at flies," the Post story reported. "Rice seemed focused
on other administration priorities, especially the ballistic missile defense system that
Bush had campaigned on. She was in a different place."
Read the rest of this article. Click here.
Molly Ivins: Habeas Corpus, R.I.P. (1215 - 2006)
Sep 27, 2006
With a smug stroke of his pen, President Bush is set to wipe out a safeguard against
illegal imprisonment that has endured as a cornerstone of legal justice since the
Magna Carta.
Read the article. Click here. You may have to wait for a bit for it to load.
Read about the history of Habeas Corpus. Click here.
In Case I Disappear
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Friday 29 September 2006
I have been told a thousand times at least, in the years I have spent reporting on the
astonishing and repugnant abuses, lies and failures of the Bush administration, to watch
my back. "Be careful," people always tell me. "These people are capable of anything. Stay
off small planes, make sure you aren't being followed." A running joke between my mother
and me is that she has a "safe room" set up for me in her cabin in the woods, in the
event I have to flee because of something I wrote or said.
I always laughed and shook my head whenever I heard this stuff. Extreme paranoia wrapped
in the tinfoil of conspiracy, I thought. This is still America, and these Bush fools will
soon pass into history, I thought. I am a citizen, and the First Amendment hasn't yet
been red-lined, I thought.
Matters are different now.
Read the article, if you dare. Click here.
Why Bush Will Nuke Iran
By Paul Craig Roberts
9-27-6
"University of California Professor Jorge Hirsch, an authority on nuclear doctrine,
believes that an American nuclear attack on Iran will destroy the Nonproliferation Treaty
and send countries in pell-mell pursuit of nuclear weapons. We will see powerful nuclear
alliances, such as Russia/China, form against us. Japan could be so traumatized by an
American nuclear attack on Iran that it would mean the end of Japan's sycophantic
relationship to the U.S."
Read this article. Click here.
Dr. Roberts is Chairman of the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the
Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, former
contributing editor for National Review, and was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in
the Reagan administration. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
From The Progress Report
INTELLIGENCE -- BIPARTISAN MEMBERS OF SENATE INTEL COMMITTEE CALL FOR DECLASSIFICATION OF
NIE: Yesterday, Sen. John Rockefeller (D-WV), the ranking member of the Intelligence
Committee, called for the declassification of the recently-disclosed National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which concluded "the Iraq war has fueled the growth of
Islamic extremism and terror groups." Declassification is not without precedent. In July
2004, the CIA declassified portions of the October 2002 NIE that laid out the case for
Iraq's purported weapons of destruction program. In a letter addressed to the Director of
National Intelligence John Negroponte, Rockefeller asked for declassification -- "to the
fullest extent possible" -- of the key judgments of the April 2006 NIE. Sen. Pat Roberts
(R-KS), the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, seconded the call. "I think the
administration should declassify this document so the American people can see the
material for themselves and come to their own conclusions," he said in a statement. The
Wall Street Journal's conservative editorial board offers the same advice: "So here's our
suggestion for President Bush: Declassify the entire NIE." The report's conclusions, the
consensus findings of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, reach the same judgment made by
terrorism experts across the political spectrum, according to a Center for American
Progress/Foreign Policy Magazine survey. Asked whether the Iraq war was having a negative
impact on national security, 87 percent of the experts agreed.
"In a new sign of mounting strain from the war in Iraq," the Pentagon said that 3,800
U.S. soldiers will be staying in Iraq about six weeks beyond their one-year combat tours.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld flew to the tiny nation of Montenegro "with hopes of
tapping a new source of troops for Iraq and Afghanistan."
At yesterday's Democratic Policy Committee hearing on Iraq planning, retired Maj. Gen.
John Batiste, the former commander of the Army's 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, said the
administration's "plan allowed the insurgency to take root and metastasize to where it is
today." He and retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton declared that Rumsfeld must go. "He knows
everything, except 'how to win,'" Batiste said.
HEALTH CARE--CITIZEN'S WORKING GROUP CALLS FOR UNIVERSAL COVERAGE: A report released by
the Citizens Healthcare Working Group on Monday finds "overwhelming support for a [health
care] plan that covers all Americans." The report is based on a series of 84 meetings,
organized in conjunction with community organizations across the country, where the
committee heard from over 6,500 people. The committee also received 14,000 responses to
an Internet poll solicited for the study. Citing spiraling costs, decreasing efficiency,
and rising numbers of uninsured, the Working Group asserts that "Americans should have a
health care system in which everyone participates, regardless of their financial
resources or health status, with...access to appropriate high-quality care without
endangering individual or family financial security." The group demands this policy be
"established immediately and implemented by 2012." The group also calls for financial
protection against high health care costs, fostering of integrated community health care
networks, and a "non-partisan public/private group, staffed by experts, to define
America's core benefits and services and update them on an ongoing basis." The Working
Group was established as a part of the 2003 Prescription Drug Bill. Its membership
includes Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt and 14 other representatives
from consumer and disabilities groups, business leaders, organized labor, and health care
providers.
Read the most recent Progress Report. Click here.
When you read the Progress Report you'll find that all stories are embedded with source links
that back up every word you'll read.
Unclaimed Territory
Glenn Greenwald
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2006
For the past 10 years, Greenwald was a litigator in NYC specializing in First Amendment
challenges, civil rights cases, and corporate and securities fraud matters. He is the
author of the New York Times Best-Selling book, How Would A Patriot Act?, a critique of
the Bush administration's use of executive power, released May, 2006.
"Everyone -- including Democrats -- agrees to pretend that Bush "compromised" on torture"
No matter where one stands on the ideological spectrum, there is nothing confusing or
unclear or ambiguous about the so-called "compromise" on torture, nor is there a lack of
clarity about who won. It couldn't be any clearer. On the interrogation issue, there was
only one simple issue from the beginning -- the Bush administration, through the
CIA, has been using an array of "interrogation techniques" (induced hypothermia, long
standing, threats to harm families, waterboarding) which most of the world considers to
be torture. The question was whether the U.S. would be a country that uses these torture
techniques (as the administration wanted) or whether it would ban them. That was the only
issue all along.
Just last week at his press conference -- does the media have any short term memory at
all? -- the President said he cared about only one thing with regard to the torture
legislation: "I have one test for this legislation. I'm going to ask one question, as
this legislation proceeds, and it's this: The intelligence community must be able to tell
me that the bill Congress sends to my desk will allow this vital program to continue.
That's what I'm going to ask." By "this program," he means the CIA's torture program.
This legislation unquestionably allows the administration to continue to do
exactly what it is was doing before. It legalizes those methods. It actually strengthens
what the administration was doing because now it provides those activities with statutory
authority. Why are the media and others pretending that these questions are murky?
They're not.
It's true that the "compromise" takes the indirect, cowardly path towards legalizing
torture by relying upon vague standards to define torture and then vesting in the
President the sole power (unreviewable by courts) to determine what techniques are and
are not allowed by those standards. It is the President who decides whether the
"aggressive interrogation" program (i.e., the torture program) can continue, and he has
already decided, obviously, that it will.
That is why the President and his senior advisors are celebrating the fact that the
"program" can now continue. Because it can. Because the "compromise" allows that. Because
the White House won. Because the principled, dissident Republican Senators capitulated
entirely on the central question of whether the U.S. will continue to torture people.
Read the rest. Click here.
Published on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
Rumsfeld’s Guinea Pigs: US Citizens at Risk for Military-Weapons Testing
by Heather Wokusch
It barely made news last week when Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne called for the
testing of nonlethal weaponry on US citizens in crowd-control situations. According to
Wynne, "If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should
not be willing to use it in a wartime situation."
"War on terror" blowback hits Main Street.
But it’s naïve to think that once developed, US military weapons will only be used
against foreign populations. The Bush administration’s "you’re with us or against us"
mentality leaves little room for domestic dissent, and as the line blurs between military
and national security technologies, folks back home will find themselves increasingly
targeted.
One example of a crowd-control device possibly coming to your hometown is Raytheon’s
Active Denial System heat-beam, which a US Air Force fact sheet describes |
