The GOP started trotting out the First Lady and her kids this week to support the President's election campaign, so I thought I share a few juicy tidbits about Mrs. Bush:
* She's thinks there's nothing wrong with the Swift Boat Smear, which was shown to be based on lies and half-truths, because "There have been millions of terrible ads against my husband." So much for the high road.
* She's the only librarian I've heard of recently that has no problems with censoring people and ideas she disagrees with.
* She refused to appear at an event (the openning of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center) that also included Sean P. Diddy Combs. The First Lady's handlers "made it very clear to Freedom Center that they would not have Laura Bush appearing in the same photo-op as P. Diddy." This resulted in P. Diddy's withdrawal from the event entirely.
* She ran a stop sign at the age of 17, causing a car accident that killed a friend. This is important in light of attacks on Ted Kennedy and other Democrats that were involved in traffic fatalities.
The point of all this is that Mrs. Bush is not perfect, and certainly does not possess the qualities expected of a First Lady. When she goes out to defenc her husband's policies, or to attack his opponents, it's important to remember that she isn't lily white.
Not that any thinking person really believed that the President just happened to jump ahead of twenty other people on the waiting list to get into the Texas Air National Guard because the recruiters liked him, but the man who got George W. Bush and a lot of other well-connected young men into the guard publicly admitted it, and said he was wrong to do so.
Former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes apologized for his actions after touring the Vietnam War Memorial and reading the names of the fallen, some of whom likely served in Iraq because he protected the children of the wealthy from service in the war.
I guess Mr. Bush has been caught in yet another lie about his past.
An item posted by Dennis Neiwert over on Orcinus raises a valid point: why aren't government and media organizations talking about domestic terrorism by Americans? Especially terrorist acts committed by white Americans? Could it be that Republicans like Peter Goss, the new nominee for Director of Central Intelligence, doesn't see anti-abortion groups that blow up clinics as "real" terrorists? Goss's view is all the stranger because he was the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. If he doesn't think that radical conservatives that blow up abortion clinics, who are domestic terrorists?
Does this pipe-bomb at Amaranth Bio, which does stem cell research count? Or is it limited to people the Republicans disagree with, like environmental and peace groups? Would the current Administration see Timothy McVeigh as a terrorist is he had picked a target other than the Murrah Building?
This should be pretty simple for the feds and media the get right: terrorists are defined as private individuals and non-governmental organizations who use violence and threats of violence to influence the political process or prevent others from performing specific tasks. Both the abortion clinic attacks and the bombing of Amaranth Bio definitely qualify.
At the very least, you'd think the Department of Justice would be talking these events up in an effort to save their precious USA Patriot Act. Of course, it would also expose the patheitc excuse for anti-terror policy pushed by the Bush Administration.
Why isn't John Kerry's role in the initial Iran-Contra hearings and his subsequent hard-nosed pursuit of BCCI in the face of opposition from both Democrats and Republicans not a bigger issue?
BCCI was the bank that financed Saddam Hussein, the Contras, Noriega, various drug cartels, some terrorist groups, and a proto-al-Qaeda operation. It was the preferred money-launderer for "evil-doers" everywhere, and enjoyed the support of both George Bushes, Jackie Onassis, and others.
You'd think this would clear evidence of Kerry's delilgent pursuit of terrorists.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0409.sirota.html
The newest figures show another 1.3 million Americans have fallen below the poverty level this year to 12.5% of the population. That's about 35 million people. In 2000 that number was 11.3% -- the difference in real numbers is 4.3 million.
At the same time average household income has stayed the same at $43,000 per year for a family of four, which means that families are treading water at best. For comparison the poveryt level is set at about $18,000 per year.
What this means is that 40 years after LBJ's War on Poverty, the wealthiest nation in the world continues to struggle with poverty. Some of us at least. The government under George W. Bush prefers to give tax cuts to those who don't need them and cut social programs rather than provide assistance to those who need it.
Ronald Reagan tried a similar approach twenty years ago, with "trickle-down" or supply-side economics. At the time, George Herbert Walker Bush called it Voodoo Economics, and the intervening years show that it just didn't work. Most of our economic progress came from a drop in oil prices and vast increases in government spending.
Maybe it's time to try something new, and attempt to actually help people who are in a difficult spot. Things like job training, housing assistance, subsidized health care, child care, school programs, etc... We might also want to do something to keep jobs in this country. It might be a bit late to save manufacturing jobs, but it certainly isn't too late to save call centers, engineering, architectural, or IT positions.
It certainly can't be worse than what we're doing now.
We're not working better than other countries, just more. Imagine how Europeans would be doing economically without the 6 weeks of vacation...
This really puts the economic claims of the Bush Administration in perspective. Why do we pay CEOs so much again?
So does it still really surprise anyone that Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Elliot Abrams (yes, the one from the Iran-Contra hearings) got together back in 1993 and formed a plan to invade Iraq, establish military bases in the Middle East, secure lucrative contracts for American oil companies, and otherwise promote American global hegemony?
Go read the gory details about how these guys set out a policy designed to promote corporate interests in the Middle East under the guise of National Security (link above).
The Writing on the Latrine Walls
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 09 August 2004
I sat with a photographer from Reuters who had just returned from a six-month tour of Iraq. He had been tagging along with the Kellogg Brown & Root operation, subsidiary of Halliburton, and saw everything there was to see. He went from new military base to new military base, from the oil work in the north and back to the south, observing how busy were the contactors for Halliburton.
"I feel like I compromised every one of my principles by even being over there," he told me after the story had been spun out a bit. His eyes, which had seen too many things through the lens of his camera, were haunted.
It was two years ago that talk about invading Iraq began to circulate. Reasons for the invasion were bandied about - they had weapons of mass destruction, they had a hand in September 11, they will welcome us as liberators - but it wasn't until the Project for the New American Century got dragged into the discussion that an understanding of the true motives behind all this became apparent.
The Project for the New American Century, or PNAC for short, is just another right-wing think tank, really. One cannot swing one's dead cat by the tail in Washington D.C. without smacking some prehensile gnome, pained by the sunlight, scuttling back to its right-wing think tank cubicle. These organizations are all over the place. What makes PNAC different from all the others?
The membership roll call, for one thing:
* Dick Cheney, Vice President of the United States, former CEO of Halliburton;
* Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense;
* Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense;
* Elliot Abrams, National Security Council;
* John Bolton, Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security;
* I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's top National Security assistant;
Quite a roster.
These people didn't enjoy those fancy titles in 2000, when the PNAC manifesto 'Rebuilding America's Defenses' (Adobe document) was first published. Before 2000, they were just a bunch of power players who had been shoved out of the government in 1993. In the time that passed between Clinton and those hanging chads, these people got together in PNAC and laid out a blueprint. 'Rebuilding America's Defenses' was the ultimate result, and it is a doozy of a document. 2000 became 2001, and the PNAC boys - Cheney and Rumsfeld specifically - suddenly had the fancy titles and a chance to swing some weight.
'Rebuilding America's Defenses' became the roadmap for foreign policy decisions made in the White House and the Pentagon; PNAC had the Vice President's office in one building, and the Defense Secretary's office in the other. Attacking Iraq was central to that roadmap from the beginning. When former Counterterrorism Czar Richard Clarke accused the Bush administration of focusing on Iraq to the detriment of addressing legitimate threats, he was essentially denouncing them for using the attacks of September 11 as an excuse to execute the PNAC blueprint.
Iraq, you see, has been on the PNAC menu for almost ten years.
The goals codified in 'Rebuilding America's Defenses,' the manifesto, can be boiled down to a few sentences: The invasion and occupation of Iraq, for reasons that had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein. The building of several permanent military bases in Iraq, the purpose of which are to telegraph force throughout the region. The takeover by Western petroleum corporations of Iraq's nationalized oil industry. The ultimate destabilization and overthrow of a variety of regimes in the Middle East, friend and foe alike, by military or economic means, or both.
"Indeed," it is written on page 14 of 'Rebuilding America's Defenses,' "the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."
Two years after the talk began, the invasion is completed. There are no weapons of mass destruction, there is no connection to September 11, and the Iraqi people have in no way welcomed us as liberators. The cosmetic rationales for the attack have fallen by the wayside, and all that remains are the PNAC goals, some of which have been achieved in spectacularly profitable fashion.
The stock in trade of Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root is the construction of permanent military bases. The Reuters reporter I spoke to had been to several KBR-built permanent American military bases in his six month tour of Iraq. "That's where the oil industry money is going," he told me. "Billions of dollars. Not to infrastructure, not to rebuilding the country, and not to helping the Iraqi people. It's going to KBR, to build those bases for the military."
According to the Center for Public Integrity, Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root has made $11,475,541,371 in Iraq as of July 1. So that's one PNAC goal checked off the list.
As for the corporate takeover of the Iraqi oil industry, that has become the prime mission of the American soldiers engaged there. Kellogg Brown & Root also does a tidy business in the oil-infrastructure repair market. "The troops aren't hunting terrorists or building a country," said the Reuters photographer. "All they do is guard the convoys running north and south. The convoys north are carrying supplies and empty tankers for the oil fields around Mosul and Tikrit. The convoys south bring back what they pull out of the ground up there. That's where all these kids are getting killed. They get hit with IEDs while guarding these convoys, and all hell breaks loose."
That last goal, about overthrowing other regimes in the region, hasn't been as easy to follow through on as the PNAC boys might have hoped. The Iraqi people are fighting back, and the small-by-comparison force Rumsfeld said would be enough to do the job can't seem to pacify the country. Perhaps that is because too many troops are dedicated to guarding the oil supply lines. More likely, however, it is because of the sincere belief among the Iraqi people that they have been conquered - not 'liberated' but conquered - and their conquerors don't give a tinker's damn whether they live or die.
"The Americans over there have all these terms for people who aren't Americans," the Reuters photographer said. "The Iraqi people are called LPs, or 'Local Personnel.' They get killed all the time, but it's like, 'Some LPs got killed,' so it isn't like real people died. Iraqi kids run along the convoys, hoping a soldier will throw them some food or water, and sometimes they get crushed by the trucks. Nothing stops, those are the orders, so some LPs get killed and the convoy keeps rolling. The labels make it easier for them to die. The people are depersonalized. No one cares."
"Everyone is an 'insurgent' over there," the photographer told me. "That's another label with no meaning. Everyone is against the Americans. There is a $250,000 bounty on the head of every Westerner over there, mine too, while I was there. The Americans working the oil industry over there are the dumbest, most racist jackasses I've ever seen in my life. That's the American face on this thing, and the Iraqi people see it."
930 American soldiers have died to achieve goals the PNAC boys gamed out before they ever came in with this Bush administration. Well over 10,000 Iraqi civilians have likewise died. Over $200 billion has been spent to do this. Fighting today rages across several sections of Iraq, and the puppet 'leaders' installed by U.S. forces are about to drive a final stake into the heart of the liberation rhetoric by declaring nationwide martial law.
Two enemies of the United States - the nation of Iran and Osama bin Laden - are thrilled with the outcome to date. Saddam Hussein was an enemy to both Iran and bin Laden, and he has been removed. The destabilization and innocent bloodshed bolsters Iran's standing against the U.S., and sends freshly motivated martyrs into the arms of Osama.
Yes, the Halliburton contracting in Iraq for military bases and petroleum production is a cash cow for that company. The bases are being built. The oil industry has been privatized. The resulting chaos of the PNAC blueprint, however, has left the entire theater of the war in complete chaos. The Bush administration has insisted all along that this invasion was central to their 'War on Terror.' It has, in truth, become a failed experiment in global corporate hegemony writ large, foisted upon us by some men named Cheney and Rumsfeld who thought it would all work out as they had planned it in 2000.
It hasn't, except for the profiteering. For all their white papers, for all their carefully-laid plans, for all the power and fancy titles these erstwhile think-tankers managed to gather unto themselves, their works are now blood-crusted dust. They are clearly not as smart as they thought they were. The overall 'War on Terror' itself has plenty of examples of these boys not being too swift on the uptake. Iraq is only the largest, and costliest, example.
The case of Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan is another perfect example. Khan was a mole, deep undercover within the ranks of al Qaeda, who was sending vital data on the terror organization from Pakistan to British and American intelligence. But officials with the Bush administration, desperate to show the American people they were making headway in the terror war, barfed up Khan's name to the press while bragging about recent arrests. Khan's position as a mole within al Qaeda was summarily annihilated. The guy we had inside was blown.
Pretty smart, yes? "The whole thing smacks of either incompetence or worse," said Tim Ripley, a security expert who writes for Jane's Defense publications, in a Reuters article on the blown agent. "You have to ask: what are they doing compromising a deep mole within al Qaeda, when it's so difficult to get these guys in there in the first place? It goes against all the rules of counter-espionage, counter-terrorism, running agents and so forth. It's not exactly cloak and dagger undercover work if it's on the front pages every time there's a development, is it?"
This would be the second agent we know of who has been blown by the arrogant stupidity of the Bush administration. The other, of course, was Valerie Plame. Plame was a 'Non-Official Cover' agent, or NOC, for the CIA. NOC designates the deepest cover an agent can have. Plame's deep-cover assignment was to run a network dedicated to tracking any person, nation or group that might give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. Because her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had the temerity to accuse the Bush administration of lying in the public prints, the administration blew Plame's cover as a warning to Wilson and any other whistleblowers who might have thought of coming forward.
The Bush administration blew Khan's cover because they wanted to get a soundbite out for the election campaign. They blew Plame out of sheer spite, and out of desperation. The mole we had inside al Qaeda, and an agent we had tracking the movement of weapons of mass destruction, are both finished now because the PNAC boys are watching all their plans go awry, and they don't quite know what to do about it. That makes them stupid and exceedingly dangerous.
The soldiers over there are hip to the jive at this point. Michael Hoffman, a Marine corporal in artillery, was part of the original March invasion. Before Hoffman's unit shipped out, his battery first sergeant addressed all the enlisted men. "Don't think you're going to be heroes," said Hoffman's sergeant. "You're not going over there because of weapons of mass destruction. You're not going there to get rid of Saddam Hussein, or to make Iraq safe for democracy. You're going there for one reason and one reason alone: Oil."
The Reuters photographer I spoke to couldn't get any soldiers to talk about how they felt when surrounded by their fellow soldiers. "They don't talk in the ranks, or just about anywhere on base," he said. "You have to go out to the latrine area, to the Port-O-Potties. For some reason, they talk there. You can read how they really feel - all the anti-Bush stuff, all the wanting to go home - in the writing on the shithouse walls."
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and international bestseller of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You To Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence.'
My sister sent me this BBC article written by an American describing what's at stake in the Presidential election this fall: our national honor and standing in the world.
Loks like Chris Matthews got caught in the act of deliberately altering John Kerry's statements to score political points. I'm glad we have such ethical, moral, and professional journalists providing us the information we need.
Based on this Asia Times article, the Pakistanis are deliberately keeping al-Qaeda operatives secretly detained in order to provide continued value for President Bush. I wonder who they'll dredge up for the next needed boost in the Polls?
I should definitely stop being surprised by electoral antics in Florida, but now it looks like Katherine Harris (former Florida Secretary of State and now Congressional Representative) and her successor deliberately lied to the Florida legislature to ensure that they controlled the lists of voters to be purged for the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections. Oh, and they gave a sweetheart contract to Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting) in order to bring it off.
So the President's "destroyed" pay records showed up and while the Administration is still claiming that they show that he fulfilled his duty and was discharged, they also tell another story - a story of 5 months of duty that were never fulfilled and never excused.
The Washington Monthly has a pretty good analysis of what the arcane fine print at the bottom of Lt. Bush's pay stub says, but the the gist is this: he didn't perform National Guard duty for five consecutive months in 1972-1973 and then didn't make up the missing five months. It's also evident that he did not follow normal procedures and get permission in advance to miss his training rotations, and then when he was transferred to Air Reserve Personnel Center for non-compliance, he was not put on active duty -- which was required by DOD regulations.
The one answer we don't have is why....
The GOPs best thugs are out to disrupt Democratic rallies. Maybe this is why the VP was concerned Dems would do it....
This is the tactic of reactionary factions that are afraid of losing political power (or trying to consolidate it)-- just like the KKK back during Reconstruction, or the Nazi Brownshirts during the 1930s. (No, I am not saying the GOP is like these groups...they just used these tactics).
I think this election could get ugly.
Tom Ridge's warning was based on three-year old data. With no current threat assessment, this means this whole episode was a farce. How can we tell? Apart from Ridge's defensive explanations that the information was incredibly detailed (despite being so old) that he tought it was a good idea, there is Laura Bush's visit to the Citicorp building. Does anyone really believe that she would have been anywhere near the place if there was a legitimate threat? How about the re-opening of the Statue of Liberty? Think that would have opened yesterday if there was a real threat. I don't think so.
This was a cheap political ploy that the Bush Administration trots out every time the President takes dip in the polls. This abuse of the alert system is irresponsible, dangerous, and criminal.
It looks like the Commisions is a bit peeved with President Bush for saying that he embraces their recommendations while gutting them in his own proposals. The most obvious example is that the President's version of the National Intelligence Director would merely coordinate the efforts of intelligence agencies, but have no budgetary authority, no auhority over operations, and no authority over personnel issues, etc...
See the commision's response below"
August 4, 2004
9/11
The Commission Strikes Back
ABU GHRAIB
The Blame Game
UNDER THE RADAR
9/11
The Commission Strikes Back
This week, President Bush claimed he was embracing the bold institutional changes proposed by the 9/11 Commission by creating this national intelligence director. In reality, he is resisting key elements of the proposal, such as putting the new position in the Cabinet (and thus ensuring the new director would stay in the loop), giving the director the power to hire and fire, or granting the director control of his budget. The result? A weak figurehead without power to effectively oversee the 15 agencies in the U.S. intelligence community. Key 9/11 Commissioners joined members of Congress yesterday to argue that the proposed national intelligence director must have the power to hire, fire, and control a budget. Period.
NO PICKING AND CHOOSING: Commissioners John Lehman, a Republican, and Bob Kerrey, a Democrat, expressed their disapproval to the House Government Reform Committee yesterday. "The person that has the responsibility needs the authority," Kerrey told the Committee. "Absent that, they're not going to be able to get the job done." Lehman was blunt: "Our recommendations are not a Chinese menu. I would strongly recommend that these be viewed as a whole, that the powers needed to carry out these recommendations be enacted as a whole package." Former Republican Sen. Slade Gorton of Washington, a member of the Commission, agreed: ''No one is going to listen to this individual'' absent his or her ability to hire and fire and control budgets.
BUDGET FUNDING: President Bush does not want the new intelligence director to control his own budget. Without the power of the purse, the job lacks the necessary clout to be effective. Lehman flatly stated, "Those powers must be given." And senators yesterday agreed. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, (D-WV), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, questioned Bush's decision, saying that "if the new director cannot control the budgets of intelligence agencies, this new position will be no more than window dressing." Republican lawmakers backed him up. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) said: "We ought to take the bull by the horns, create this new national director . . . and really provide some authority, including budget authority." Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), a former chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, agreed, charging the new director must be "someone with total control and accountability. That's the budget too."
HIRED AND FIRED: President Bush's approach would not allow the new director to have the power to hire and fire. Lehman said yesterday, "He has to have hiring and firing power, and not just budget coordination authority but budget appropriations and programming authority." True, said Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA). "If you don't have the authority to pick the people, isn't a national director just a shell game and a shell operation?" Sen. Henry Waxman (D-CA) heartily agreed: "in this city, if you have a fancy title but you are not in the chain of command and you don't control the budget, you are a figurehead, and another figurehead is not what the 9/11 Commission recommended and what our nation needs."
RUMSFELD THE ROADBLOCK: Much of the opposition to an effective director of intelligence can be chalked up to a turf war. Bush's decision to limit the proposed intelligence chief's authority came after lobbying by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who has been adamantly against the creation of a centralized intelligence czar. In his testimony before the Commission in March, Mr. Rumsfeld said then that an intelligence czar would do the nation "a great disservice" by creating reliance on a single, centralized source of information. It would also reallocate funds; currently, 80% of the estimated $40 billion spent on intelligence in the U.S. is under the control of Rumsfeld's Department of Defense. Democratic Commissioner Bob Kerrey didn't mince words, saying since the Defense Department opposed the proposal, "next time there's a dust-up and there's a failure, don't call the director of Central Intelligence up here. Kick the crap out of DOD because they're the ones with the statutory authority over budget."
FIRST DO NO HARM: Creating a director of intelligence while hamstringing his power would be counterproductive to overall intelligence efforts. The 9/11 Commission Staff Director Philip D. Zelikow – who served on Bush's 2001 transition team for the National Security Council – says there's no room for compromise when it comes to national intelligence: "Creating a national intelligence director that just superimposes a chief above the other chiefs without taking on the fundamental management issues we identify, is a step that could be worse than useless." The Director of the Intelligence Policy Center at the RAND Corporation agreed: "If it's set up correctly it has the potential to be a good idea. Otherwise it will be more harmful if we had not done it at all…Because it will create another layer of bureaucracy which will add to the already complex structure that already oversees intelligence."
EDITORIAL PAGE: The New York Times this week sided with lawmakers and 9/11 Commissioners in chastising President Bush's foot dragging. "At a time when Americans need strong leadership and bold action, President Bush offered tired nostrums and bureaucratic half-measures…He wanted to appear to be embracing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, but he actually rejected the panel's most significant ideas, and thus missed a chance to confront the twin burdens he faces at this late point in his term: the need to get intelligence reform moving whether he's re-elected or not, and the equally urgent need to repair the government's credibility on national security."
LAWMAKER, HEAL THYSELF: While Congress is rightly pressing the administration to implement the Commission's recommendations, Republican lawmakers are also reluctant to make any internal changes. The New York Times reports, "The Senate leadership has yet to identify members of a select working group who are supposed to map a plan for streamlining Congressional oversight. The Republican chairmen of the House and Senate armed services committees - two panels that might have to relinquish significant power - have not offered their views." Several lawmakers admonished their colleagues not to let political considerations play a part in internal restructuring: "We have to make sure we are driven more by 9-11 than by 11-2," said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL). At least one congressional Republican promises he'll fight for the overhaul, however. Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) said, "I will not vote for any rules of the House next year that don't create this strong oversight."
ABU GHRAIB
The Blame Game
The mainstream media – after splashing their front pages with salacious photos – has largely lost interest in the prison abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib. The administration and high-ranking military officials, however, have continued their efforts to pin all the blame on "a few bad apples." The strategy continues with the military hearing of Pfc. Lynndie England, famously depicted in many of the photos, which began yesterday. Special Agents Paul Author and Warren Worth's testimony mirror the administration's talking points: "the abuse was the work of a small group of prison guards." But as top officials play the blame game, official investigations into who was responsible are still ongoing. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said "there are some serious unanswered questions."
SCHLESINGER REPORT MAY BLAME RUMSFELD: A commission headed by former Defense Secretary and CIA director James Schlesinger investigating the Abu Ghraib scandal is expected to issue its final report in mid-August. Newsweek reports, "the Schlesinger panel is leaning toward the view that failure of command and control at the Pentagon helped create the climate in which the abuses occurred." Among the Commission "there is strong sentiment to assign some responsibility up the line to senior civilian officials at the Pentagon, including Rumsfeld." Rumsfeld is expected to be criticized "for failing to provide adequate numbers of properly trained troops for detaining and interrogating captives...not setting clear interrogation rules and for neglecting to see that guidelines were followed." Prior to being tasked with detaining prisoners in Abu Ghraib, the 372nd Military Policy Company served as traffic cops.
CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS SHOW RESPONSIBILITY GOES TO THE TOP: Classified documents detailing the abuses obtained by Rolling Stone Magazine make clear that responsibility for the abuses "extends to several high-ranking officers still serving in command positions." According to a secret report, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller – now in charge of all military prisons in Iraq – recommended that military police be "actively engaged in setting in conditions for successful exploitation of the internees." After his plan was adopted, "guards began depriving prisoners of sleep and food, subjecting them to painful 'stress positions' and terrorizing them with dogs." A former Army intelligence officer said the intent of Miller's order was clear: "It means treat the detainees like sh*t until they will sell their mother for a blanket, some food without bugs in it and some sleep." Miller told Col. Thomas Pappas that military dogs "were effective in setting the atmosphere for which, you know, you could get information." Read the full article for the all the gory details.
THE ARMY'S 300-PAGE WHITEWASH: The most disgraceful attempt to date to deflect blame was a 300-page "investigation" released in July by the Army's inspector general. Astoundingly, the report found no "systemic" problems with the treatment of detainees by the military. The inspector general reached that conclusion "even though there were 94 documented cases of prisoner abuse...even though only four prisons of the 16 they visited had copies of the Geneva Conventions...even though the military police were improperly involved in interrogations; even though young people plucked from civilian life were sent to guard prisoners...with no training." The so-called investigation "did not dig into the abuse cases, but merely listed them." The report also "made no attempt to find out who had authorized threatening prisoners with dogs and sexually humiliating hooded men." The inspector general was satisfied with merely reviewing the official Army field manual and noting those techniques in the manual.
WITHHOLDING RED CROSS REPORTS FROM SENATE INVESTIGATORS: For months, the Pentagon refused to share Red Cross reports documenting the conditions in American military prisons. In July, they finally agreed to show the reports "briefly to senators and a few members of the Armed Services Committee staff after the senators' personal aides were ushered out." The reports were then brought back to the Pentagon.
I'm sorry, but this stuff makes Whitewater, Monica Lewinksy, and the White House Travel Office look like child's play. It also leaves out the continuing issue of his National Guard service, which his pay stubs indicated he never finished (and possibly defrauded the military on pay and retirement points). Remember, George W. Bush pledged to bring honor and dignity back to the White House. I'm still waiting...
__________
Scandal #1: Misleading the Nation Into War
In his public speeches leading up the war with Iraq, President Bush insisted that Iraq was developing an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction that included biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. No evidence of such programs has been found. According to chief weapons inspector David Kay, "we were almost all wrong," about the Iraqi weapons threat.1
Scandal #2: Lying to the Nation During the State of the Union
During his 2003 State of the Union address, Bush claimed, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." In March 2002, both the CIA and State Department learned that evidence linking Iraq to the African nation of Niger was unfounded. In October 2002, CIA Director Tenet personally intervened with Condoleezza Rice's deputy National Security Advisor to have the charge removed from Bush's speech to the nation. Rice herself was sent a memo debunking the claim. In January 2003, just days before Bush uttered the false charge in his State of the Union, CIA officials again tried to remove the language, but the White House insisted it remain -- with officials arguing that they had received the information from British sources.2
Scandal #3: Exposing a Covert CIA Agent for Revenge
Ambassador Joseph Wilson publicly disclosed in July 2003 that he had investigated and debunked intelligence linking Iraqi nuclear ambitions to the African nation of Niger. Wilson's investigation concluded in March 2002, nearly a year before Bush made the assertion in his State of the Union address that Iraq sought uranium in Africa. Days after Wilson went public, columnist Robert Novak revealed that his wife was a CIA operative.
The Washington Post reported that "a senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife." President Bush later told reporters: "I don't know if we're going to find out the senior administration official...I have no idea whether we'll find out who the leaker is." He claimed he had ordered his staff to "cooperate fully" in the investigation of the leak.3
Scandal #4: Halliburton and Dick Cheney
As the Iraq war began in March 2003, the Pentagon awarded Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), the construction wing of Halliburton, a no-bid contract to help rebuild Iraqi oil fields and conduct "operation of facilities and distribution of products." The initial deal was thought to be worth as much as $7 billion. In postwar Iraq, Halliburton is the largest private contractor, with potential deals totaling over $11 billion.4
While Vice President Cheney served as chairman and chief executive of Halliburton, the company acquired two subsidiaries, Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co., which had signed contracts to sell oil production equipment to Iraq under the oil-for-food program for more than $73 million.5
The military investigated Halliburton and found that it overcharged for gas it imported into Iraq from Kuwait by as much as $61 million. In March 2003, the Pentagon announced it would withhold nearly $300 million in payments to Halliburton due to the company's overcharging on food contracts. "Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said the company disagreed with the decision and hoped to persuade the Pentagon to drop its plans."6
In his retirement package from Halliburton, Cheney was granted deferred compensation that paid out his salary from 1999 over a five-year period and his bonus from that year in 2001. Following his departure from Halliburton, Cheney retained possession of 433,333 options of Halliburton stock. The Cheneys announced they were committing the options to three charities. The Congressional Research Service released a report saying that federal ethics laws consider both Cheney's deferred compensation and his unexercised stock options as a lingering financial interest in the company.7
Scandal #5: Lying About Medicare Costs and Threatening Whistleblowers
The Bush Administration relied upon the Medicare drug plan's alleged $400 billion pricetag to win over skeptical conservatives in Congress. Within weeks of the bills passage, however, the White House admitted it had underestimated the cost by $135 billion (35 percent). Medicare Chief Actuary Richard Foster was threatened with losing his job if he told Congress the true cost. "We can't let that out," Foster recalls Medicare chief Tom Scully telling him. Scully was quoted in June 2003 as saying that he would only release the analysis "if I feel like it."8
Bush said on January 30, 2004, that he first learned of the higher estimates in mid-January. "The president is always very clear with the American people in the decisions that we are making and very upfront with them about the information that we have," White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters.
But the New York Time reported that Bush spokesman Trent Duffy "said no White House official had instructed Mr. Foster or Mr. Scully to withhold information from Congress. But Mr. Duffy acknowledged that the actuary's cost estimates had been sent to White House officials, including Doug Badger, a special assistant to President Bush who negotiated with Congress on the Medicare bill."9
Sources: 1Washington Post, 8/10/03; Kay Testimony, 1/28/04; 2Bush State of the Union, 1/28/03; Time, 7/21/03 Issue; Hadley/Bartlett Gaggle, 7/22/03; New York Times, 7/13/03; Washington Post, 7/20/03; National Public Radio, 6/19/03; 3Washington Post, 9/28/03; Bush Media Availability, 10/7/03; 4Los Angeles Times, 5/7/03; Washington Post, 2/10/04; 5Washington Post, 6/23/01; Petroleum Economist, 6/93; 6Associated Press, 2/9/04; Reuters, 2/23/04; Associated Press, 3/17/04; 7"Income: Type and amount," Schedule A, Standard Form 278, Richard B. Cheney Personal Financial Disclosure, May 15, 2002; May 15, 2003; White House Press Release, 4/13/01; Washington Post, 9/26/03; 8Boston Globe, 1/30/04; Los Angeles Times, 1/31/04; New York Times, 3/14/04; Wall Street Journal, 3/15/04; AP, 6/26/03; 9Los Angeles Times, 1/31/04; New York Times, 3/20/04
Have a happy election. There is a reason that Florida Republicans are telling the party faithful to get and use absentee ballots for the November election. Those votes might actually get counted right. Use an electronic voting machine at your own risk.
Book burning is back, but this time it isn't here to save our souls, just make it difficult for people to understand government rules related to seizure (and recovery) of private property. This one has nothing to do with protecting us from terrorism, it's about maintaining a police state.
Mr. Ashcroft has just delivered us another example of how the concepts of just redress of wrongs, innocence until guilt is proven, and the inviolability of private propety are dead.
It is interesting to note that by contacting depository libraries himself, not by going through the Superintendant of Records, Mr. Ashcroft is encouraging librarians to break the law by removing the documents in question. I guess that means the rule of law is dead now, too...
The whole mess in Iraqi prisons is definitely going to come back to haunt us. The New England Journal of Medicine is reporting that our doctors, mdeics, and nurses either covered up the torture at Abu Ghraib, and also provided interrogators with prisoner medical records to use as tools. Both items are clear violations of the Hippocratic Oath, the UCMJ, and various interational treaties.
To top it off, the annexes to the official Abu Ghraib report contain memos and testimony detailing rape and sodomy of Iraqi prisoners by American troops. In certain situations torture and "harsh" interrogation methods can be justified to save lives...if you happen to be a morale relativist (which I'm not). Rape and sodomy of prisoners (including children) by professional soldiers cannot and should not be tolerated. Down that path lies the ruin of a good armies, the destruction of our standing in the world, and serious consequences for our own troops and citizens. Oh, and it's morally and ethically wrong, but we won't let that get in our way.
I sincerely hope we are never in a position where this type of behavior is revisited upon us.
Given that the President's excuse for invading Iraq was Saddam Hussein's "attempts" to rebuild WMDs, including nukes, you'd think supporting limits on the spread of nuclear weapons would be a no-brainer. Guess Not.
Because the GOP is claiming yyou can't trust John Kerry, let's take a look at the lies the Bush Administration has been pushing for the past several years. It doesn't make much of a case for the President's honesty:
_____________
Bush on Iraq
1. "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." [Bush Remarks, Cincinnati OH, 10/7/02]
Fact:Saddam Did not Have Chief Requirements for Nuclear Weapons
The Washington Post reported, "What Hussein did not have was the principal requirement for a nuclear weapon, a sufficient quantity of highly enriched uranium or plutonium. And the U.S. government, authoritative intelligence officials said, had only circumstantial evidence that Iraq was trying to obtain those materials." Inspectors in postwar Iraq have "found the former nuclear weapons program, described as a 'grave and gathering danger' by President Bush and a 'mortal threat' by Vice President Cheney, in much the same shattered state left by U.N. inspectors in the 1990s." [Washington Post, 8/10/03, 1/7/04]
2. "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." [Bush, State of the Union, 1/28/03]
Fact: Bush Administration Knew Claim Was False
In March 2002, both the CIA and State Department learned that evidence linking Iraq to Niger was unfounded. In October, CIA Director Tenet personally intervened with Condoleezza Rice's deputy National Security Advisor to have the charge removed from Bush's speech to the nation. Rice herself was sent a memo debunking the claim. In January, just days before Bush uttered the false charge CIA officials tried again to remove the language, but the White House insisted it remain -- with added the caveat that they had received the information from British sources. [Bush State of the Union, 1/28/03; Time, 7/21/03 Issue; Hadley/Bartlett Gaggle, 7/22/03; New York Times, 7/13/03; Washington Post, 7/20/03; NPR, 6/19/03]
3. "In an interview with Polish television on May 30, Mr. Bush cited the trailers [found in postwar Iraq] as evidence that the United States had 'found the weapons of mass destruction' it was looking for." [New York Times, 6/26/03]
Fact: State Department Said Bush Rushed to Judgment
The New York Times reported, "The State Department's intelligence division is disputing the Central Intelligence Agency's conclusion that mysterious trailers found in Iraq were for making biological weapons, United States government officials said today. In a classified June 2 [2003] memorandum, the officials said, the department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research said it was premature to conclude that the trailers were evidence of an Iraqi biological weapons program, as President Bush has done...Administration officials said the State Department agency was given no warning that the C.I.A. report was being produced, or made public." [New York Times, 6/26/03]
4. "The 'Mission Accomplished' sign, of course, was put up by the members of the USS Abraham Lincoln saying that their mission was accomplished." [Bush, News Conference, 10/28/03]
Fact: Sign Was Produced by White House
"White House press secretary Scott McClellan later acknowledged that the sign was produced by the White House," though he claimed that the Lincoln's crew had requested some sort of banner. According to reports, "The man responsible for the banner, Scott Sforza, a former ABC producer now with the White House communications office...is known for the production of the sophisticated backdrops that appear behind Mr. Bush with the White House message of the day, like 'Helping Small Business,' repeated over and over." [Washington Post, 10/29/03; New York Times, 10/29/03]
Bush on the Economy
5. "Our budget will run a deficit that will be small and short-term." [Bush, State of the Union, 2002]
Fact: Deficit Will Be Largest in History and Will Exceed $400 Billion Every Year for Next Ten Years
The deficit will exceed $400 billion every year through 2014. By 2014, the deficit will reach $708 billion. In 2004, the deficit is projected to reach a record high of $477 billion, dwarfing the previous record of $290 billion posted by Bush's father in 1992. [Congressional Budget Office, 1/26/04, 2/27/04; Center on Budget & Policy Priorities, 1/21/04, 2/1/04]
6. "Tax relief is central to my plan to encourage economic growth, and we can proceed with tax relief without fear of budget deficits, even if the economy softens," Bush promised. [Bush Remarks at Western Michigan University, 3/27/01]
Fact: Bush Deficits Due Largely to Tax Cuts
In 2002, due largely to Bush's tax cuts, the federal government posted a deficit of $158 billion and returned to deficit for the first time since 1997. In 2004, Bush's three tax cuts over as many years reduced revenues by $270 billion. Over 35 percent of the $9.9 trillion deterioration from 2002-2011 is due to Bush's tax cuts. By 2014, tax cuts will account for 40 percent of the deterioration. Despite Bush's claims to the contrary, only 6 percent of the $477 billion deficit in 2004 is due to the lackluster economy. [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 10/21/03; Congressional Budget Office, 3/04; CBO, Historical Budget Data, Table 1 http://www.cbo.gov; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 10/27/03]
Bush on His Own Policies
7. "We must uncover every detail and learn every lesson September the 11th." [Bush 11/27/02]
Fact: Bush Initially Opposed Independent 9-11 Commission
Bush opposed an independent inquiry into 9/11, arguing it would duplicate a probe conducted by Congress. In July 2002, his administration issued a "statement of policy" that read "...the Administration would oppose an amendment that would create a new commission to conduct a similar review [to Congress's investigation]." [Statement of Administration Policy, Executive Office of the President, 7/24/02; Los Angeles Times, 11/28/02]
8. "Bush had pushed hard for the Medicare drug benefit, but said he would not sign anything that exceeded $400 billion." [Boston Globe, 1/30/04]
Fact: Bush Administration Intentionally Hid Cost of Plan To Win Votes in Congress
In late January 2004, the Administration announced they had underestimated the total cost of the package by $135 billion. Bush relied on a $400 billion figure for the first decade of the prescription drug benefit in persuading fiscal conservatives to support the plan last November. But less than two months after signing the legislation, and two years before the benefit becomes available to seniors, the Department of Health and Human Services revised the number up to $535 billion. According to the Washington Post, "Among a small group of lawmakers who negotiated the bill's final version, 'it was an open secret' that administration officials believed 'there is no way this is $400 billion.'" [New York Times, 1/30/04; Washington Times, 12/8/03; Washington Post, 1/31/04; Boston Globe, 1/30/04; New York Times, 2/2/04]
9. "We will require all power plants to meet clean air standards in order to reduce emissions of...carbon dioxide." [Bush speech, "A Comprehensive National Energy Policy," 9/29/00, Saginaw, MI]
Fact: Bush Overruled Whitman, Broke Campaign Promise to Regulate Carbon Dioxide Emissions
In March 2001, in a letter to Republican Senators, Bush overruled then-E.P.A. Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and backed off a campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, after encountering strong resistance from the coal and oil industries, as well as Republicans. "I do not believe, however, that the government should impose on power plants mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide, which is not a 'pollutant' under the Clean Air Act," Bush wrote in his letter. Many conservationists view curbing carbon dioxide emissions, like "greenhouse gases," as a key to reducing global warming. [AP, 3/13/01; Washington Post, 3/14/01; Bush letter to Senator Chuck Hagel, 3/13/01]
Bush on Bush
10. "I'm a uniter, not a divider." [Bush, Austin American-Statesman, 7/30/00]
Fact: No, He's a Divider
The Washington Post reported, "As Bush begins the final year of his term with Tuesday night's State of the Union address, partisans on both sides say the tone of political discourse is as bad as ever -- if not worse." One senior administration official said, Bush could have built "trust and goodwill" by pursuing more broadly appealing initiatives. One former Bush aide said the White House "relished the 'us versus them' thing." [Washington Post, 1/18/04]
After former Ambassador Joseph Wilson publicly challenged Bush's claim that Iraq sought uranium in Africa, his wife--a covert CIA operative--was exposed by columnist Robert Novak. Novak said her identity was given to him by senior administration officials. "A senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife... 'Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge,' the senior official said of the alleged leak. Sources familiar with the conversations said the leakers were seeking to undercut Wilson's credibility." [Washington Post, 9/28/03]
Bush called on senior White House advisers and the Republican Party leadership to wage attacks against Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. According to the Washington Times, "The White House is escalating its attacks against Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle... [W]ith polls showing the Republican Party is losing some support in its handling of the economy, President Bush last week ordered senior advisers to take the gloves off and sharpen their rhetoric." [Washington Times, 12/7/01]
Looks like Sandy Berger has been cleared of removing orginal docs from the archives. That's a big step. He still seems to be in trouble for taking copies, but at least they can't say he was trying to hide something.
In the past Bush-Cheney events, even those paid for by the tax-payers, systematically excluded anyone with anti-Bush paraphenalia (signs, t-shirts, etc...). a clear violation of the 1st Amendment, particularly in the case of the Tampa grandmothers arrested at Legend's Field for holding up small anti-Bush placards. The excuse has always been that people how disagree with the President represent "security concerns", alhtough you would think that any real threat would pretend to be a loyal Republican ala Clint Eastwood's In the Line of Fire". Now, the GOP has stooped to an all new low.
This weekend at a Cheney rally in New Mexico, members of the public were required to sign documents saying that they supported the re-election of Geroge W. Bush before they could enter. It was first reported that this was confined to members of ACT, a pro-Kerry activist organization. Attendees were also require to provide their name, address, and driver license number.
Two official reasons were that they were expecting Democratic organizations to "crash" the rally and that the rally was designed as a "reward" for loyal supporters of the Bush-Cheney Administration. This rationale is even more troubling than the bogus "security" excuse used in the past.
This makes it clear that the GOP is only interested in hearing from their folks, and implies that its leadership is increasingly isolated from the concerns of the majority of the American people. The meaning is clear, only those people personally loyal to the President and Vice President are welcome. What does this mean for those of us who don't agree with their policies or their approach? Where do we fit?
The answer is that we don't. Not as full citizens. The rest of us are simply an obstacle to the policies of the Bush Administration, assuming that we are noticed at all. There is more to this that is troubling; the GOP is equating loyalty to the person of the President with loyalty to the nation. This concept flies in the face of everything our method of government is built on, and what I was taught in ROTC: respect the office of the President, even if you don't respect the office holder. If that concept is good enough for potential U.S. Army officers, it should be good enough for anyone.
George Washington turned down the opportunity to be King of the United States of America after the end of the American Revolution, because he saw the dangers of the monarchy and its requirements of total allegiance to the crown. What we are seeing with the GOP and the Bush Administration is a steady accumulation of monarchical prerogatives -- personal loyalty oaths, claims that the President operates outside U.S. laws, and other assertions of executive power are all examples of this.
