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| ... THE CONSERVATIVE CASE AGAINST GEORGE W. BUSH ... |
| 08.31.04 (7:59 pm) [edit] |
Theodore Roosevelt, that most virile of presidents, insisted that, "To announce that there should be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American people." With that in mind, I say: George W. Bush is no conservative, and his unprincipled abandonment of conservatism under the pressure of events is no statesmanship. The Republic would be well-served by his defeat this November.
William F. Buckley's recent retirement from the National Review, nearly half a century after he founded it, led me to reflect on American conservatism's first principles, which Buckley helped define for our time. Beneath Buckley's scintillating phrases and rapier wit lay, as Churchill wrote of Lord Birkenhead, "settled and somewhat somber conclusions upon… questions about which many people are content to remain in placid suspense": that political and economic liberty were indivisible; that government's purpose was protecting those liberties; that the Constitution empowered government to fulfill its proper role while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power; and that its genius lay in the Tenth Amendment, which makes explicit that the powers not delegated to government are reserved to the states or to the people.
More generally, American conservatives seek what Lord Acton called the highest political good: to secure liberty, which is the freedom to obey one's own will and conscience rather than the will and conscience of others. Any government, of any political shade, that erodes personal liberty in the name of social and economic progress must face a conservative's reasoned dissent, for allowing one to choose between right and wrong, between wisdom and foolishness, is the essential condition of human progress. Although sometimes the State has a duty to impose restrictions, such curbs on the liberty of the individual are analogous to a brace, crutch or bandage: However necessary in the moment, as they tend to weaken and to cramp, they are best removed as soon as possible. Thus American conservative politics championed private property, an institution sacred in itself and vital to the well-being of society. It favored limited government, balanced budgets, fiscal prudence and avoidance of foreign entanglements.
More subtly, American conservatism viewed human society as something of an organism in itself. This sense of society's organic character urged the necessity of continuity with the past, with change implemented gradually and with as little disruption as possible. Thus, conservatism emphasized the "civil society"—the private voluntary institutions developed over time by passing the reality test—i.e., because they work—such as families, private property, religious congregations and neighborhoods—rather than the State. In nearly every sense, these institutions were much closer to the individuals who composed them than the State could ever be and had the incidental and beneficial effect of protecting one's personal liberty against undue intrusion from governments controlled by fanatics and busybodies, that which Edmund Burke presciently called the "armed ideologies," and thus upheld our way of life as flying buttresses supported a Gothic cathedral.
But the policies of this administration self-labeled "conservative" have little to do with the essence of tradition. Rather, they tend to centralize power in the hands of the government under the guise of patriotism. If nothing else, the Bush administration has thrown into question what being a conservative in America actually means.
Forty years ago, when Lyndon Johnson believed the United States could afford both Great Society and the Vietnam War, conservatives attacked his fiscal policies as extravagant and reckless. Ten years ago, the Republican Party regained control of Congress with the Contract with America, which included a balanced-budget amendment to restore fiscal responsibility. But today, thanks to tax cuts and massively increased military spending, the Bush administration has transformed, according to the Congressional Budget Office, a ten-year projected surplus of $5.6 trillion to a deficit of $4.4 trillion: a turnaround of $10 trillion in roughly 32 months.
The Bush Administration can't even pretend to keep an arm's length from Halliburton, the master of the no-bid government contract. Sugar, grain, cotton, oil, gas and coal: These industries enjoy increased subsidies and targeted tax breaks not enjoyed by less-connected industries. The conservative Heritage Foundation blasts the administration's agricultural subsidies as the nation's most wasteful corporate welfare program. The libertarian Cato Institute called the administration's energy plan "three parts corporate welfare and one part cynical politics...a smorgasbord of handouts and subsidies for virtually every energy lobby in Washington" that "does little but transfer wealth from taxpayers to well-connected energy lobbies." And the Republican Party's Medicare drug benefit, the largest single expansion of the welfare state since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, was designed to appeal to senior citizens who, as any competent politician knows, show up at the polls.
None of this is conservative, although it is in keeping with the Bush family's history. Kevin Phillips, whose 1969 classic The Emerging Republican Majority outlined the policies that would lead to the election of President Reagan, describes in his American Dynasty the Bush family's rise to wealth and power through crony capitalism: the use of contacts obtained in public service for private profit. Phillips argues the Bushes don't disfavor big government as such: merely that part of it that regulates business, maintains the environment or aids the needy. Subsidizing oil-well drilling through tax breaks, which made George H. W. Bush's fortune, or bailing out financial institutions, such as Neil Bush's bankrupt Silverado Savings and Loan, however, is a good thing.
This deficit spending also helps Bush avoid the debate on national priorities we would have if these expenditures were being financed through higher taxes on a pay-as-you-go basis. After all, we're not paying the bill now; instead, it will come due far in the future, long after today's policy-makers are out of office. And this debt is being incurred just as the baby boomers are about to retire. In January 2004, Charles Kolb, who served in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush White Houses, testified before Congress that, at a time when demographics project more retirees and fewer workers, projected government debt will rise from 37 percent of the economy today to 69 percent in 2020 and 250 percent in 2040. This is the sort of level one associates with a Third World kleptocracy.
Even worse than this extravagance are the administration's unprecedented intrusions into our constitutional privacy rights through the Patriot Act. If it does not violate the letter of the Fourth Amendment, it violates its spirit. To cite two examples, the FBI has unchecked authority through the use of National Security Letters to require businesses to reveal "a broad array of sensitive information, including information about the First Amendment activities of ordinary Americans who are not suspected of any wrongdoing." Despite the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure, the government need not show probable cause: It does not need to obtain a warrant from a judge. And who can trust any law enforced by John Ashcroft, who single-handedly transformed a two-bit hubcap thief like Jose Padilla first into a threat to national security and then, through his insistence that Padilla, an American citizen, could be held without charges, into a Constitutional crisis?
All this stems from Bush's foreign policy of preemptive war, which encourages war for such vague humanitarian ends as "human rights," or because the United States believes another country may pose a threat to it. Its champions seem to almost joyously anticipate a succession of wars without visible end, with the invasion of Iraq merely its first fruit: former Bush appointee Richard Perle, from his writings on foreign policy, would have us war against nearly every nation that he defines as a rogue. The ironic consequence of this policy to stabilize the world is greater instability. It reminds me of the old FDR jingle from the Daily Worker:
I hate war, and so does Eleanor,
But we won't feel safe until everybody's dead.
To be sure, there's more than enough blame to go around with the Congress' cowardly surrender to the Executive of its power to declare war. The Founding Fathers, who knew war from personal experience, explicitly placed the war power in the hands of the Congress. As James Madison wrote over 200 years ago:
"The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war… The separation of the power of declaring war from that of conducting it is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted."
But since the Korean War (which the Congress defined as a "police action" to avoid using its war powers), war has been waged without its formal declaration. Thus Congressional power atrophies in the face of flag-waving presidents. Perhaps Congress is too preoccupied with swilling from the gravy trough that our politics has become to recall its Constitutional role as a co-equal branch of government, guarding its powers and privileges against executive usurpation. The Congress has forgotten that the men who exacted Magna Carta from King John at sword point instituted Parliament to restrain the executive from its natural tendency to tax, spend and war.
Moreover, there is nothing conservative about war. As Madison wrote:
"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. [There is an] inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and…degeneracy of manners and of morals…No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
By contrast, business, commerce and trade, founded on private property, created by individual initiative, families and communities, has done far more to move the world forward than war. Yet faith in military force and an arrogant belief that American values are universal values still mold our foreign policy nearly a century after Woodrow Wilson, reelected with a promise of keeping America out of World War I, broke faith with the people by engineering a declaration of war within weeks of his second inauguration.
George W. Bush's 2000 campaign supposedly rejected Wilsonian foreign policy by articulating both the historic Republican critique of foreign aid and explicitly criticizing Bill Clinton's nation-building. Today, the administration insists we can be safe only by compelling other nations to implement its vision of democracy. This used to be called imperialism. Empires don't come cheap; worse, "global democracy" requires just the kind of big government conservatives abhor. When the Wall Street Journal praises the use of American tax dollars to provide electricity and water services in Iraq, something we used to call socialism, either conservatism has undergone a tectonic shift or the paper's editors are disingenuous.
This neo-conservative policy rejects the traditional conservative notion that American society is rooted in American culture and history—in the gradual development of American institutions over nearly 230 years—and cannot be separated from them. Instead, neo-conservatives profess that American values, which they define as democracy, liberty, free markets and self-determination, are "universal" rather than particular to us, and insist they can and should be exported to ensure our security.
This is nonsense. The qualities that make American life desirable evolved from our civil society, created by millions of men and women using the freedom created under limited constitutional government. Only a fool would believe they could be spread overnight with bombs and bucks, and only a fool would insist that the values defined by George W. Bush as American are necessarily those for which we should fight any war at all.
Wolfowitz, Perle and their allies in the Administration claimed the Iraqis would greet our troops with flowers. Somehow, more than a year after the president's "Mission Accomplished" photo-op, a disciplined body of well-supplied military professionals is still waging war against our troops, their supply lines and our Iraqi collaborators. Indeed, the regime we have just installed bids fair to become a long-term dependent of the American taxpayer under U.S. military occupation.
The Administration seems incapable of any admission that its pre-war assertions that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction were incorrect. Instead, in a sleazy sleight of hand worthy of Lyndon Johnson, the Administration has retrospectively justified its war with Saddam Hussein's manifold crimes.
First, that is a two-edged sword: If the crimes of a foreign government against its people justify our invasion, there will be no end of fighting. Second, the pre-war assertions were dishonest: Having decided that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, the policymakers suppressed all evidence that it did not. This immorality is thrown in high relief by the war's effect on Iraqi civilians. We have no serious evidence of any connection between Iraq and 9/11. Dropping 5000-pound bombs on thousands of people who had nothing to do with attacking us is as immoral as launching airplanes at an American office building.
To sum up: Anything beyond the limited powers expressly delegated by the people under the Constitution to their government for certain limited purposes creates the danger of tyranny. We stand there now. For an American conservative, better one lost election than the continued empowerment of cynical men who abuse conservatism through an exercise of power unrestrained by principle through the compromise of conservative beliefs. George W. Bush claims to be conservative. But based upon the unwholesome intrusion into domestic life and personal liberty of his administration and the local governments who imitate it, George W. Bush is no conservative, no friend of limited, constitutional government—and no friend of freedom. The Republic would be better served by his defeat in November. - http://www.nypress.com/17/31/...
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| Lying Swift Boat Vet [Slut] Got $40 Million Contract [Bribes] From Bush!!! |
| 08.31.04 (2:58 pm) [edit] |
"Rear Admiral William L. Schachte Jr., the man who claims Kerry was not under fire when he received his first Purple Heart, is a top lobbyist for a defense contractor that recently won a $40 million grant from the Bush administration. According to a March 18 legal filing by Schachte's firm, Blank Rome, Schachte was one of the lobbyists working for FastShip's effort to secure federal contracts. On Feb. 2, FastShip announced the Bush administration had awarded it $40 million. Schachte has other connections to the Bush administration. The Washington Post notes David Norcross, Schachte's colleague in the Washington office of Blank Rome, is chairman of this week's Republican convention in New York. Schachte gave $1,000 to Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns. Additionally, Schachte helped organize veterans' efforts against Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and for Bush in the 2000 South Carolina primary."
[b]More[/b] ... http://www.misleader.org/dail...
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| ... Public Avoids the GOP Convention Site as if it Carried the Plague ... |
| 08.31.04 (8:14 am) [edit] |
[b]Boston.com:[/b] "Sixth Avenue is usually packed with speeding yellow taxicabs, but yesterday there were so few cars that at one point in the early afternoon a bicyclist owned the one-way street on the edge of Times Square, where one lane was closed for security reasons. ''It's absolutely deserted," said Diane Dreyfus, a lone protester in Lower Manhattan who was dressed in a white moth suit. ''It's so dead you can see three blocks down." Long before the convention began, many residents said they did not want to be in the city during the four-day gathering. Having Republicans encroach on Manhattan, which is solidly Democratic, is one thing, but dealing with heavy security, gridlock, and protests or anything else that might disrupt the city's rhythms seemed too much."
[b]Check-it-out [/b] http://www.boston.com/news/po...
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| ... Public Avoids the GOP Convention Site as if it Carried the Plague ... |
| 08.31.04 (8:11 am) [edit] |
[b]Boston.com:[/b] "Sixth Avenue is usually packed with speeding yellow taxicabs, but yesterday there were so few cars that at one point in the early afternoon a bicyclist owned the one-way street on the edge of Times Square, where one lane was closed for security reasons. ''It's absolutely deserted," said Diane Dreyfus, a lone protester in Lower Manhattan who was dressed in a white moth suit. ''It's so dead you can see three blocks down." Long before the convention began, many residents said they did not want to be in the city during the four-day gathering. Having Republicans encroach on Manhattan, which is solidly Democratic, is one thing, but dealing with heavy security, gridlock, and protests or anything else that might disrupt the city's rhythms seemed too much."
[b]Check-it-out [/b] http://www.boston.com/news/po...
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| Michael Moore a REAL Independent Maverick Booed by Pubescent Repugs, McCain Brown-noses Bush |
| 08.31.04 (8:05 am) [edit] |
[b]Michael Moore - a REAL Independent Maverick - Booed by Pubescent Repugs, While McCain Brown-noses Bush[/b]
While our respect for Michael Moore grows daily, our respect for John McCain has dropped to zilch . [b]AFP:[/b] "The US Republican national convention has thunderously booed film maker Michael Moore and his anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 when it was mentioned in a speech. As Moore looked on from the press gallery, Senator John McCain took the film to task while defending the decision to invade Iraq..."Don't let anyone tell you otherwise," Senator McCain said. "Not our political opponents and certainly not a disingenuous film maker who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace, when in fact it was a place of indescribable cruelty, torture chambers, mass graves and prisons that destroyed the lives of the small children held inside their walls." Of course McCain fails to mention the 30,000 dead men, women and children left by US bombings in Afghanistan and Iraq. Unlike Kerry, McCain learned NOTHING from the Vietnam war.
[b]Check-it-out [/b] http://www.denverpost.com/fra...,1413,36~130~2369718,00.html
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| Michael Moore a REAL Independent Maverick Booed by Pubescent Repugs, McCain Brown-noses Bush |
| 08.31.04 (8:03 am) [edit] |
[b]Michael Moore - a REAL Independent Maverick - Booed by Pubescent Repugs, While McCain Brown-noses Bush[/b]
While our respect for Michael Moore grows daily, our respect for John McCain has dropped to zilch . [b]AFP:[/b] "The US Republican national convention has thunderously booed film maker Michael Moore and his anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 when it was mentioned in a speech. As Moore looked on from the press gallery, Senator John McCain took the film to task while defending the decision to invade Iraq..."Don't let anyone tell you otherwise," Senator McCain said. "Not our political opponents and certainly not a disingenuous film maker who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace, when in fact it was a place of indescribable cruelty, torture chambers, mass graves and prisons that destroyed the lives of the small children held inside their walls." Of course McCain fails to mention the 30,000 dead men, women and children left by US bombings in Afghanistan and Iraq. Unlike Kerry, McCain learned NOTHING from the Vietnam war.
[b]Check-it-out [/b] http://www.denverpost.com/fra...,1413,36~130~2369718,00.html
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| ... Fahrenheit 9/11 and Michael Moore Get Free Major Publicity Boost from Repug Boos ... |
| 08.31.04 (8:00 am) [edit] |
[b]Matthew Wells:[/b] "The Michael Moore media machine received a boost yesterday when the leftwing documentary maker was booed at the Republican convention. The jeers were prompted by one of the keynote speakers, John McCain, who denounced the director of Fahrenheit 9/11 as a "disingenuous film-maker" from the podium of Madison Square Garden. Presumably overjoyed about the inevitable extra publicity for his movie, Moore laughed and waved from the upper levels of the hall at the booing GOP delegates . As the crowd chanted in unison for "four more years" of the president, George Bush, he tipped his stars-and-stripes baseball cap, raised his fingers and replied: "Two more months". "
[b]More[/b] ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/web...,13960,1057810,00.html
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| ... Fahrenheit 9/11 and Michael Moore Get Free Major Publicity Boost from Repug Boos ... |
| 08.31.04 (7:57 am) [edit] |
[b]Matthew Wells:[/b] "The Michael Moore media machine received a boost yesterday when the leftwing documentary maker was booed at the Republican convention. The jeers were prompted by one of the keynote speakers, John McCain, who denounced the director of Fahrenheit 9/11 as a "disingenuous film-maker" from the podium of Madison Square Garden. Presumably overjoyed about the inevitable extra publicity for his movie, Moore laughed and waved from the upper levels of the hall at the booing GOP delegates . As the crowd chanted in unison for "four more years" of the president, George Bush, he tipped his stars-and-stripes baseball cap, raised his fingers and replied: "Two more months". "
[b]More[/b] ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/web...,13960,1057810,00.html
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| Scott 'Babyface' McClellan 'Sells Out His Own Mother to Smear a Good Man and Protect Bush |
| 08.30.04 (11:28 am) [edit] |
In the White House, all's fair - no matter how sordid, selfish, or sell-out. The lower the better! And Scott McClellan proves this once again by selling out his own mom - euphemistically speaking. Joshua Micah Marshall writes: "Today Scott McClellan went on the offensive against Ben Barnes for describing the "shame" he feels over helping President [sic] Bush duck service in Vietnam. "It is not surprising coming from a longtime partisan Democrat," he said. "The allegation was discredited by the commanding officer. This was fully covered and addressed five years ago. It is nothing new." [BUT] It turns out that Barnes is such a down-the-line partisan that he supported Texas's Republican State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn for reelection in 2002." And guess who Ms. Strayhorn is? Scott's mommy. Apparently neither mommy's political career nor her supporters means a rat's a*s to Babyface and thus need not be honored - the GOP's general attitude toward women.
[b]Read article [/b] http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
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| ... 40,000 Devout Christians Reject Religious Right's Attempt to Hijack Election 2004 ... |
| 08.30.04 (11:13 am) [edit] |
More than 40 Christian leaders and 40,000 faithful citizens signed a petition declaring that "God is not a Republican...or a Democrat" and that the Religious Right does not speak for them. The petition refutes claims by Jerry Falwell that "Evangelical Christians...need to get serious about re-electing President [sic] Bush" and by Pat Robertson that "George Bush is going to win in walk...the Lord's just blessing him." The petition calls for all Christians to take back their faith and appears as a full-page ad in Monday's The New York Times, paid for by nearly 3,500 supporters of Sojourners, the national Christian magazine and organization that initiated the petition. The petition further declares that Christians acting on personal conviction can choose to vote for any candidate, and that they should consider a range of moral issues in this election, rejecting single-issue voting."
[b]Read article [/b] http://releases.usnewswire.co...
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| ... 40,000 Devout Christians Reject Religious Right's Attempt to Hijack Election 2004 ... |
| 08.30.04 (11:12 am) [edit] |
More than 40 Christian leaders and 40,000 faithful citizens signed a petition declaring that "God is not a Republican...or a Democrat" and that the Religious Right does not speak for them. The petition refutes claims by Jerry Falwell that "Evangelical Christians...need to get serious about re-electing President [sic] Bush" and by Pat Robertson that "George Bush is going to win in walk...the Lord's just blessing him." The petition calls for all Christians to take back their faith and appears as a full-page ad in Monday's The New York Times, paid for by nearly 3,500 supporters of Sojourners, the national Christian magazine and organization that initiated the petition. The petition further declares that Christians acting on personal conviction can choose to vote for any candidate, and that they should consider a range of moral issues in this election, rejecting single-issue voting."
[b]Read article [/b] http://releases.usnewswire.co...
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| Bush Girls Booed, Kerry Girls Cheered by MTV Audiences (Watch how CNN, et al. Spin this one!) ... |
| 08.30.04 (10:48 am) [edit] |
Word from those who observed the MTV video awards event is that the Bush girls were booed loudly when they were introduced. CNN and other Bushie media tried to hide this by pointing out that the booing started when BOTH sets of girls, Kerrys and Bushes were introduced in one sentence. HOWEVER, the cameramen showed a standing ovation for the Kerry girls, who were present (the Bush girls were on video), while 2/3 of the way through this CNN propaganda piece, it is admitted that when the Bush girls video speech segment ended, the booing stopped. Cheers began as the Kerry girls started to speak again. Yet CNN's headline reads: "Kerry, Bush Daughters Booed on MTV."
[b]Read article [/b] http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPO...
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| ... Bloody Guerrilla Quagmire in Iraq is Bush's 1st Term Fiasco; Dubya Plans 2nd Term War in Iran! |
| 08.30.04 (7:21 am) [edit] |
[b]The neo-cons give Iran the Iraq treatment[/b]
[b]Sexed-up reports, pressure on the United Nations... here we go again, writes Jonathan Steele[/b].
History is beginning to repeat itself, this time over Iran. Just two years after the British Government's notorious "Downing Street dossier" on Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction and the first efforts to get United Nations approval for war, Washington is trying to create similar pressures for action against Iran.
The ingredients are well-known: sexed-up intelligence material that puts the target country in the worst possible light; moves to get the UN to declare it in "non-compliance", thereby claiming justification for going in unilaterally even if the UN gives no support for invasion; and at the back of the whole brouhaha, a clique of US neo-conservatives whose real agenda is regime change.
The immediate focus for action against Iran is the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has produced five reports on Iran in the past 14 months. Part of the UN, the IAEA in its reports has raised questions about Iran's professedly civilian nuclear program and its desire to create its own fuel cycle that could eventually be used to produce bombs.
To satisfy its critics, Iran agreed last year to allow so-called intrusive inspections. As a confidence-building measure, it also stopped enriching uranium. In a few days' time the IAEA will issue a new report, and it is its wording that is causing the latest flurry.
John Bolton, the Bush Administration's point-man, has been rushing round Europe claiming the evidence of sinister Iranian behaviour is clear, even though the IAEA has consistently made no such judgement. It has called for more transparency, but prefers to keep probing and, like Hans Blix in Iraq in 2003, insisting that it needs more time.
Iran, meanwhile, says the IAEA should accept that nothing wrong has been found and let Iran receive the civilian nuclear technology - with the safeguards that go with it - that countries such as Germany and France have promised.
Bolton is not, at this stage, claiming to have intelligence that the IAEA's inspectors don't. After the fiasco of the US's pre-war material on Iraq, he has not started to trumpet US sources. But he is choosing to interpret the available knowledge as harshly as possible. He is also close to the Washington hardliners in the Project for the New American Century, who created the doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against unfriendly states and who favour regime change to deal with Islamist fundamentalism.
Norman Podhoretz, the arch-conservative editor of Commentary magazine, one of their house journals, said last week: "I am not advocating the invasion of Iran at this moment, although I wouldn't be heartbroken if it happened."
There are differences from the anti-Iraq campaign two years ago. This time the US is taking the lead in going to the UN. Bolton wants the IAEA board to say that Iran has violated its commitments under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and take the matter to the Security Council for a decision on sanctions or other stern action. France and Germany are resisting a move to the UN.
Second, even the US (Podhoretz excepted) is not talking about a full-scale US invasion with ground troops. It has too many soldiers tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan to spare many for a third campaign. The talk is of using US Special Forces or air strikes to destroy Iran's nuclear plants, or giving a green light to Israel to do it.
The biggest difference, though, is in Britain's stance. Unlike the Bush campaign against Saddam, Britain is siding with France and Germany this time. It is part of a "troika" that promotes constructive engagement rather than confrontation with Iran.
They have powerful arguments. The disaster of the Iraq war and the failure to bring peace, stability or order make them want to avoid a repetition with Iraq's more populous and larger neighbour. Even "limited" air strikes on Iran's nuclear plants would unify the country and harden hostility to the West throughout the Middle East, especially if Washington subcontracted the attacks to the Israeli air force.
Most Iraqi resistance to the Americans is based on nationalist resentment, and Iranians are no different. People of all political persuasions in Tehran support their country's right to have nuclear power, and probably even bombs. Threatening them with force is not the most intelligent way to persuade them otherwise.
The defeat of Iran's reformist MPs in this northern spring's unfair elections, as well as the certainty that President Mohammad Khatami will be replaced by a less liberal figure next year, have not ended the chance of dialogue with Tehran. European diplomats detect the emergence of a group of "pragmatic conservatives" in the Iranian leadership who could be easier to deal with than the beleaguered liberals of the past seven years. They want better relations with the West.
London's difference with Washington on Iran is remarkable. But does Britain's alignment with France and Germany on Iran mean that Tony Blair has really parted with George Bush on a key geo-political and military issue?
We will know the answer after the US election. Even if John Kerry wins, European diplomats expect no major change in Washington's policy towards Iran [Kerry would not rush to war with Iran, as Bush will!]. So how will Blair cuddle up to the new president? What easier way than to break with France and Germany and show Kerry that, whether there's a Democrat or a Republican in the White House, Britain's prime minister is still best friends when it comes to being tough with Islamist bullies and taking the brave and moral route to war?
[b]Jonathan Steele writes on international affairs for The Guardian, London[/b] - http://www.theage.com.au/arti...
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| ... Bloody Guerrilla Quagmire in Iraq is Bush's 1st Term Fiasco; Dubya Plans 2nd Term War in Iran! |
| 08.30.04 (7:12 am) [edit] |
[b]The neo-cons give Iran the Iraq treatment[/b]
[b]Sexed-up reports, pressure on the United Nations... here we go again, writes Jonathan Steele[/b].
History is beginning to repeat itself, this time over Iran. Just two years after the British Government's notorious "Downing Street dossier" on Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction and the first efforts to get United Nations approval for war, Washington is trying to create similar pressures for action against Iran.
The ingredients are well-known: sexed-up intelligence material that puts the target country in the worst possible light; moves to get the UN to declare it in "non-compliance", thereby claiming justification for going in unilaterally even if the UN gives no support for invasion; and at the back of the whole brouhaha, a clique of US neo-conservatives whose real agenda is regime change.
The immediate focus for action against Iran is the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has produced five reports on Iran in the past 14 months. Part of the UN, the IAEA in its reports has raised questions about Iran's professedly civilian nuclear program and its desire to create its own fuel cycle that could eventually be used to produce bombs.
To satisfy its critics, Iran agreed last year to allow so-called intrusive inspections. As a confidence-building measure, it also stopped enriching uranium. In a few days' time the IAEA will issue a new report, and it is its wording that is causing the latest flurry.
John Bolton, the Bush Administration's point-man, has been rushing round Europe claiming the evidence of sinister Iranian behaviour is clear, even though the IAEA has consistently made no such judgement. It has called for more transparency, but prefers to keep probing and, like Hans Blix in Iraq in 2003, insisting that it needs more time.
Iran, meanwhile, says the IAEA should accept that nothing wrong has been found and let Iran receive the civilian nuclear technology - with the safeguards that go with it - that countries such as Germany and France have promised.
Bolton is not, at this stage, claiming to have intelligence that the IAEA's inspectors don't. After the fiasco of the US's pre-war material on Iraq, he has not started to trumpet US sources. But he is choosing to interpret the available knowledge as harshly as possible. He is also close to the Washington hardliners in the Project for the New American Century, who created the doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against unfriendly states and who favour regime change to deal with Islamist fundamentalism.
Norman Podhoretz, the arch-conservative editor of Commentary magazine, one of their house journals, said last week: "I am not advocating the invasion of Iran at this moment, although I wouldn't be heartbroken if it happened."
There are differences from the anti-Iraq campaign two years ago. This time the US is taking the lead in going to the UN. Bolton wants the IAEA board to say that Iran has violated its commitments under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and take the matter to the Security Council for a decision on sanctions or other stern action. France and Germany are resisting a move to the UN.
Second, even the US (Podhoretz excepted) is not talking about a full-scale US invasion with ground troops. It has too many soldiers tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan to spare many for a third campaign. The talk is of using US Special Forces or air strikes to destroy Iran's nuclear plants, or giving a green light to Israel to do it.
The biggest difference, though, is in Britain's stance. Unlike the Bush campaign against Saddam, Britain is siding with France and Germany this time. It is part of a "troika" that promotes constructive engagement rather than confrontation with Iran.
They have powerful arguments. The disaster of the Iraq war and the failure to bring peace, stability or order make them want to avoid a repetition with Iraq's more populous and larger neighbour. Even "limited" air strikes on Iran's nuclear plants would unify the country and harden hostility to the West throughout the Middle East, especially if Washington subcontracted the attacks to the Israeli air force.
Most Iraqi resistance to the Americans is based on nationalist resentment, and Iranians are no different. People of all political persuasions in Tehran support their country's right to have nuclear power, and probably even bombs. Threatening them with force is not the most intelligent way to persuade them otherwise.
The defeat of Iran's reformist MPs in this northern spring's unfair elections, as well as the certainty that President Mohammad Khatami will be replaced by a less liberal figure next year, have not ended the chance of dialogue with Tehran. European diplomats detect the emergence of a group of "pragmatic conservatives" in the Iranian leadership who could be easier to deal with than the beleaguered liberals of the past seven years. They want better relations with the West.
London's difference with Washington on Iran is remarkable. But does Britain's alignment with France and Germany on Iran mean that Tony Blair has really parted with George Bush on a key geo-political and military issue?
We will know the answer after the US election. Even if John Kerry wins, European diplomats expect no major change in Washington's policy towards Iran [Kerry would not rush to war with Iran, as Bush will!]. So how will Blair cuddle up to the new president? What easier way than to break with France and Germany and show Kerry that, whether there's a Democrat or a Republican in the White House, Britain's prime minister is still best friends when it comes to being tough with Islamist bullies and taking the brave and moral route to war?
[b]Jonathan Steele writes on international affairs for The Guardian, London[/b] - http://www.theage.com.au/arti...
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| ... Fiscal Irresponsibility of Bush 1st Term Would Hobble Policies in 2nd Term ... |
| 08.30.04 (7:02 am) [edit] |
[b]The Republican Convention[/b]
FOR GEORGE W. BUSH, as for any president seeking a second term, the party's convention presents a different, and in many ways more difficult, task than that facing his opponent. At the Democratic convention, Sen. John F. Kerry had the job of introducing himself to voters and convincing them that he has the capacity to lead the nation. But Mr. Kerry, like any challenger, enjoyed the benefit of writing his convention script on a relatively clean slate; his promises and his vision can't be judged against the cold reality of whether he was able to implement them or how he has governed.
Mr. Bush, by contrast, is a known commodity with a known record. For him, the convention that begins in New York today is not a nationally televised job interview but rather a four-day performance review. From inside Madison Square Garden, a positive assessment is preordained. Yet Mr. Bush confronts a divided and skeptical electorate, with polls showing a slim majority of voters believing that the country is on the wrong track and in need of a change. This week's gathering represents the opportunity for Mr. Bush to change their minds.
In looking back to four years ago, we are struck by the ways in which the Bush presidency has been different from the way it was originally sold to the country. Mr. Bush promoted himself to voters in the 2000 campaign as a bipartisan uniter, not a divider, but in office he has too often embraced a my-way-or-the-highway style of governing that has served to polarize voters. Mr. Bush the candidate promised a "humble" foreign policy; Mr. Bush the president has too often adopted a highhanded approach to the world that alienated allies. As the convention opens, Mr. Bush seems interested in presenting his, and his party's, kinder, gentler side -- GOP moderates dominate the list of prime-time speakers -- but this image promises to be a tougher sell than it was four years ago.
In some areas, Mr. Bush has demonstrated commendable flexibility in adapting to changing circumstances. The candidate who exuded a crabbed view of America's leadership role and demeaned the notion of "nation-building" was transformed by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, into a president with an activist, if controversial, vision of American power. In other matters, though, particularly his insistence on tax cuts, Mr. Bush has stubbornly and recklessly hewed to the same policy despite a dramatically different economic situation -- a surplus that turned out to be a mirage -- and new demands placed on the treasury by the war on terrorism.
In making the case that his first-term performance has earned him another four years, Mr. Bush's central focus will be his conduct of the war on terrorism. On this subject, he faces the challenge of justifying not only the wisdom of his decision to invade Iraq but his conduct of the war. During the Democratic convention in Boston, we faulted Mr. Kerry for failing to credit some of the administration's achievements in Afghanistan and Iraq and failing to reaffirm his commitment to completing the task of helping build democracy in Iraq.
What we would hope for from Mr. Bush is not simply chest-thumping about the bene- fits of dislodging the Taliban and overthrow- ing Saddam Hussein but a more candid reflection on the ways those campaigns have fal- len short: the unanticipated insurgencies, the inadequacy of postwar preparations and the shocking abuses of Iraqi detainees. A con- vention speech isn't a confessional, but Mr. Bush would have more credibility in arguing that he should be given more time to finish the jobif his self-assessment reflected some of his administration's shortcomings as well as its achievements.
The convention is also a time for Mr. Bush to fill in what has been the missing ingredient of his re-election campaign: what he would do with the next four years. There are whispers of bold new proposals in development -- broad tax reform, perhaps, or a fleshing out of Mr. Bush's vision of an "ownership society" -- but in truth the fiscal irresponsibility of the president's first term has hobbled his ability to enact his policies in a second. Mr. Bush's father spoke of having more will than wallet; the current president, during his first term, demonstrated little will to take on reforming Social Security and Medicare, and now he has no wallet either. How the president deals with that problem is also an important subject for discussion in New York this week. - http://www.washingtonpost.com...
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| ... Fiscal Irresponsibility of Bush 1st Term Would Hobble Policies in 2nd Term ... |
| 08.30.04 (7:00 am) [edit] |
[b]The Republican Convention[/b]
FOR GEORGE W. BUSH, as for any president seeking a second term, the party's convention presents a different, and in many ways more difficult, task than that facing his opponent. At the Democratic convention, Sen. John F. Kerry had the job of introducing himself to voters and convincing them that he has the capacity to lead the nation. But Mr. Kerry, like any challenger, enjoyed the benefit of writing his convention script on a relatively clean slate; his promises and his vision can't be judged against the cold reality of whether he was able to implement them or how he has governed.
Mr. Bush, by contrast, is a known commodity with a known record. For him, the convention that begins in New York today is not a nationally televised job interview but rather a four-day performance review. From inside Madison Square Garden, a positive assessment is preordained. Yet Mr. Bush confronts a divided and skeptical electorate, with polls showing a slim majority of voters believing that the country is on the wrong track and in need of a change. This week's gathering represents the opportunity for Mr. Bush to change their minds.
In looking back to four years ago, we are struck by the ways in which the Bush presidency has been different from the way it was originally sold to the country. Mr. Bush promoted himself to voters in the 2000 campaign as a bipartisan uniter, not a divider, but in office he has too often embraced a my-way-or-the-highway style of governing that has served to polarize voters. Mr. Bush the candidate promised a "humble" foreign policy; Mr. Bush the president has too often adopted a highhanded approach to the world that alienated allies. As the convention opens, Mr. Bush seems interested in presenting his, and his party's, kinder, gentler side -- GOP moderates dominate the list of prime-time speakers -- but this image promises to be a tougher sell than it was four years ago.
In some areas, Mr. Bush has demonstrated commendable flexibility in adapting to changing circumstances. The candidate who exuded a crabbed view of America's leadership role and demeaned the notion of "nation-building" was transformed by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, into a president with an activist, if controversial, vision of American power. In other matters, though, particularly his insistence on tax cuts, Mr. Bush has stubbornly and recklessly hewed to the same policy despite a dramatically different economic situation -- a surplus that turned out to be a mirage -- and new demands placed on the treasury by the war on terrorism.
In making the case that his first-term performance has earned him another four years, Mr. Bush's central focus will be his conduct of the war on terrorism. On this subject, he faces the challenge of justifying not only the wisdom of his decision to invade Iraq but his conduct of the war. During the Democratic convention in Boston, we faulted Mr. Kerry for failing to credit some of the administration's achievements in Afghanistan and Iraq and failing to reaffirm his commitment to completing the task of helping build democracy in Iraq.
What we would hope for from Mr. Bush is not simply chest-thumping about the bene- fits of dislodging the Taliban and overthrow- ing Saddam Hussein but a more candid reflection on the ways those campaigns have fal- len short: the unanticipated insurgencies, the inadequacy of postwar preparations and the shocking abuses of Iraqi detainees. A con- vention speech isn't a confessional, but Mr. Bush would have more credibility in arguing that he should be given more time to finish the jobif his self-assessment reflected some of his administration's shortcomings as well as its achievements.
The convention is also a time for Mr. Bush to fill in what has been the missing ingredient of his re-election campaign: what he would do with the next four years. There are whispers of bold new proposals in development -- broad tax reform, perhaps, or a fleshing out of Mr. Bush's vision of an "ownership society" -- but in truth the fiscal irresponsibility of the president's first term has hobbled his ability to enact his policies in a second. Mr. Bush's father spoke of having more will than wallet; the current president, during his first term, demonstrated little will to take on reforming Social Security and Medicare, and now he has no wallet either. How the president deals with that problem is also an important subject for discussion in New York this week. - http://www.washingtonpost.com...
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| ... BBC News:-- In pictures: Anti-Bush NYC protest ... (More pics ...) |
| 08.30.04 (6:51 am) [edit] |
[b]Tens of thousands gathered in New York on Sunday to protest at the policies of US President George W Bush.[/b]
[b]Scroll through "In pictures" [/b] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in...
[b]Also read "Thousands decry Bush in NYC:[/b] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wo...
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| ... BBC News:-- In pictures: Anti-Bush NYC protest ... (More pics ...) |
| 08.30.04 (6:48 am) [edit] |
[b]Tens of thousands gathered in New York on Sunday to protest at the policies of US President George W Bush.[/b]
[b]Scroll through "In pictures" [/b] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in...
[b]Also read "Thousands decry Bush in NYC:[/b] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wo...
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| ... Vast NYC Anti-Bush Rally Was Double The Number Predicted!!! ... |
| 08.30.04 (6:43 am) [edit] |
[b]Vast Anti-Bush Rally Greets Republicans in New York[/b]
A roaring two-mile river of demonstrators surged through the canyons of Manhattan yesterday in the city's largest political protest in decades, a raucous but peaceful spectacle that pilloried George W. Bush and demanded regime change in Washington.
On a sweltering August Sunday, the huge throng of protesters marched past Madison Square Garden, the site of the Republican National Convention opening today, and denounced President Bush as a misfit who had plunged America into war and runaway debt, undermined civil and constitutional rights, lied to the people, despoiled the environment and used the presidency to benefit corporations and millionaires.
The protest organizer, United for Peace and Justice, estimated the crowd at 500,000, rivaling a 1982 antinuclear rally in Central Park, and double the number it had predicted. It was, at best, a rough estimate. The Police Department, as is customary, offered no official estimate, but one officer in touch with the police command center at Madison Square Garden agreed that the crowd appeared to be close to a half-million.
The march, which took nearly six hours to complete, was a tense, shrill, largely choreographed trek from Chelsea to Midtown and back to Union Square, where it ended, as planned, without a rally. And while there were a couple of hundred arrests, the event went off without major violence, despite fears of explosive clashes with the biggest security force ever assembled in New York.
Read article http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...
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| ... Vast NYC Anti-Bush Rally Was Double The Number Predicted!!! ... |
| 08.30.04 (6:41 am) [edit] |
[b]Vast Anti-Bush Rally Greets Republicans in New York[/b]
A roaring two-mile river of demonstrators surged through the canyons of Manhattan yesterday in the city's largest political protest in decades, a raucous but peaceful spectacle that pilloried George W. Bush and demanded regime change in Washington.
On a sweltering August Sunday, the huge throng of protesters marched past Madison Square Garden, the site of the Republican National Convention opening today, and denounced President Bush as a misfit who had plunged America into war and runaway debt, undermined civil and constitutional rights, lied to the people, despoiled the environment and used the presidency to benefit corporations and millionaires.
The protest organizer, United for Peace and Justice, estimated the crowd at 500,000, rivaling a 1982 antinuclear rally in Central Park, and double the number it had predicted. It was, at best, a rough estimate. The Police Department, as is customary, offered no official estimate, but one officer in touch with the police command center at Madison Square Garden agreed that the crowd appeared to be close to a half-million.
The march, which took nearly six hours to complete, was a tense, shrill, largely choreographed trek from Chelsea to Midtown and back to Union Square, where it ended, as planned, without a rally. And while there were a couple of hundred arrests, the event went off without major violence, despite fears of explosive clashes with the biggest security force ever assembled in New York.
Read article http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...
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| ... PHOTOS FROM NYC PROTEST ... |
| 08.30.04 (6:37 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" ...
"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" - Thomas Jefferson[/b]
[b]'No more years!' chant Bush foes
Thousands of protesters march in N.Y. on eve of GOP gathering[/b]
NEW YORK - Bearing flag-draped boxes resembling coffins and fly-swatters with President Bush’s image, more than 100,000 protesters peacefully swarmed Manhattan’s streets on the eve of the Republican National Convention to demand that the president be turned out of office.
Flanked by police in riot gear, the protesters moved through the fortified city, loudly and exuberantly chanting slogans such as “No more years.” They accused the White House of waging an unjust war in Iraq, making the country poorer and undermining abortion rights.
There were no reports of major violence and about 200 scattered arrests.
Police gave no official crowd estimate, though one law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, put the crowd at 120,000; organizers claimed it was roughly 400,000.
Read article on http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5... ...
[b]More Photos ...[/b]
"I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won; there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall." - Mahatma Gandhi
[b]Hundreds of thousands march through NYC chanting "No More Years!' http://newsday.com/ [/b]
[i]The marchers were close to the site of the 11 September attacks[/i]
[i]Many in the march felt they had been misled in the 'war on terror'[/i]
[i]Protesters wanted the Republicans to know they were not welcome[/i]
[i]People of all ages and different backgrounds took part[/i]
[i]The marchers were unified by their opposition to President Bush[/i] - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/am...
[b]Huge Anti-Bush March Hits NY on Eve of Convention[/b]
NEW YORK - Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators toting colorful banners and shouting "no more Bush" took to Manhattan's streets on Sunday, the day before the Republican convention opens, to decry the Iraq war and President Bush's policies.
Organizers estimated 400,000 people turned out for the march, which led to more than 100 arrests and yielded at least one skirmish between self-styled anarchists and police. More than 400 people have been arrested in protests since Thursday.
[i]A crowd fills a Manhattan avenue during a protest march leading up to the Republican National Convention site sponsored by United for Peace and Justice, in New York[/i]
Chanting "Hey Ho, Bush Has Got to Go," the largely peaceful crowd marched past the Madison Square Garden convention site as Republicans and visitors arrived in the city for a four-day event where Bush will be nominated for another four-year term.
Read article on http://www.commondreams.org/h...
[b]Courtesy of WinstonSmith http://winstonsmith.tblog.com... [/b]
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| ... PHOTOS FROM NYC PROTEST ... BUSH GETS BUSTED BY AMERICA!!! ... |
| 08.30.04 (6:36 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" ...
"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" - Thomas Jefferson[/b]
[b]'No more years!' chant Bush foes
Thousands of protesters march in N.Y. on eve of GOP gathering[/b]
NEW YORK - Bearing flag-draped boxes resembling coffins and fly-swatters with President Bush’s image, more than 100,000 protesters peacefully swarmed Manhattan’s streets on the eve of the Republican National Convention to demand that the president be turned out of office.
Flanked by police in riot gear, the protesters moved through the fortified city, loudly and exuberantly chanting slogans such as “No more years.” They accused the White House of waging an unjust war in Iraq, making the country poorer and undermining abortion rights.
There were no reports of major violence and about 200 scattered arrests.
Police gave no official crowd estimate, though one law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, put the crowd at 120,000; organizers claimed it was roughly 400,000.
Read article on http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5... ...
[b]More Photos ...[/b]
"I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won; there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall." - Mahatma Gandhi
[b]Hundreds of thousands march through NYC chanting "No More Years!' http://newsday.com/ [/b]
[i]The marchers were close to the site of the 11 September attacks[/i]
[i]Many in the march felt they had been misled in the 'war on terror'[/i]
[i]Protesters wanted the Republicans to know they were not welcome[/i]
[i]People of all ages and different backgrounds took part[/i]
[i]The marchers were unified by their opposition to President Bush[/i] - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/am...
[b]Huge Anti-Bush March Hits NY on Eve of Convention[/b]
NEW YORK - Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators toting colorful banners and shouting "no more Bush" took to Manhattan's streets on Sunday, the day before the Republican convention opens, to decry the Iraq war and President Bush's policies.
Organizers estimated 400,000 people turned out for the march, which led to more than 100 arrests and yielded at least one skirmish between self-styled anarchists and police. More than 400 people have been arrested in protests since Thursday.
[i]A crowd fills a Manhattan avenue during a protest march leading up to the Republican National Convention site sponsored by United for Peace and Justice, in New York[/i]
Chanting "Hey Ho, Bush Has Got to Go," the largely peaceful crowd marched past the Madison Square Garden convention site as Republicans and visitors arrived in the city for a four-day event where Bush will be nominated for another four-year term.
Read article on http://www.commondreams.org/h...
[b]Courtesy of WinstonSmith http://winstonsmith.tblog.com... [/b]
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| ... PHOTOS FROM NYC PROTEST ... BUSH GETS BUSTED BY AMERICA!!! ... |
| 08.30.04 (6:34 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" ...
"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" - Thomas Jefferson[/b]
[b]'No more years!' chant Bush foes
Thousands of protesters march in N.Y. on eve of GOP gathering[/b]
NEW YORK - Bearing flag-draped boxes resembling coffins and fly-swatters with President Bush’s image, more than 100,000 protesters peacefully swarmed Manhattan’s streets on the eve of the Republican National Convention to demand that the president be turned out of office.
Flanked by police in riot gear, the protesters moved through the fortified city, loudly and exuberantly chanting slogans such as “No more years.” They accused the White House of waging an unjust war in Iraq, making the country poorer and undermining abortion rights.
There were no reports of major violence and about 200 scattered arrests.
Police gave no official crowd estimate, though one law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, put the crowd at 120,000; organizers claimed it was roughly 400,000.
Read article on http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5... ...
[b]More Photos ...[/b]
"I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won; there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall." - Mahatma Gandhi
[b]Hundreds of thousands march through NYC chanting "No More Years!' http://newsday.com/ [/b]
[i]The marchers were close to the site of the 11 September attacks[/i]
[i]Many in the march felt they had been misled in the 'war on terror'[/i]
[i]Protesters wanted the Republicans to know they were not welcome[/i]
[i]People of all ages and different backgrounds took part[/i]
[i]The marchers were unified by their opposition to President Bush[/i] - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/am...
[b]Huge Anti-Bush March Hits NY on Eve of Convention[/b]
NEW YORK - Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators toting colorful banners and shouting "no more Bush" took to Manhattan's streets on Sunday, the day before the Republican convention opens, to decry the Iraq war and President Bush's policies.
Organizers estimated 400,000 people turned out for the march, which led to more than 100 arrests and yielded at least one skirmish between self-styled anarchists and police. More than 400 people have been arrested in protests since Thursday.
[i]A crowd fills a Manhattan avenue during a protest march leading up to the Republican National Convention site sponsored by United for Peace and Justice, in New York[/i]
Chanting "Hey Ho, Bush Has Got to Go," the largely peaceful crowd marched past the Madison Square Garden convention site as Republicans and visitors arrived in the city for a four-day event where Bush will be nominated for another four-year term.
Read article on http://www.commondreams.org/h...
[b]Courtesy of WinstonSmith http://winstonsmith.tblog.com... [/b]
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| ... Bush Focuses on His War Against Kerry, not the War Against Al Qaeda |
| 08.29.04 (7:06 pm) [edit] |
[b]NY Times reports[/b], "Bush will accept his party's nomination in New York this week on the crest of a campaign that aides say reflects an unusual level of involvement from the president himself, particularly in driving attacks on Senator John Kerry that have characterized his re-election effort since the spring. Several aides said Mr. Bush viewed this as the campaign of his life and had intervened on matters as large as the themes it should strike and as small as particular shots of him in his television advertisements. While making sure Mr. Kerry is challenged at every opening, they said, the single most consuming concern for Mr. Bush is that there is an elaborate get-out-the-vote operation in November in anticipation of a contest as tight as the one in 2000... In particular, aides said, Mr. Bush has, along with Mr. Rove, been a driving force behind the attacks that have become a hallmark of his campaign since Mr. Kerry emerged from the spring primaries as the Democratic candidate."
[b]Read article [/b] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...
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| ... Saudi Arabia Royal Family Has Traitor Bush in Their Pockets!!! |
| 08.29.04 (7:01 pm) [edit] |
[b]Read "Bush, Family and Top Aides Received $127,600 Gifts Last Year from Saudi Crown Prince"[/b] http://www.commondreams.org/h...
[b]This Picture Is Worth More Than 1000 Words: It's Worth $$$$$$$$$ For[i] The House of Bush[/i], Showing Dubya Has Sold-Out The USA To The Saudi Royal Family, [i]The House of Saud[/i], To Enrich The Bush Crime Family!!!!!! Read [i]The House of Bush, House of Saud [/i] http://www.houseofbush.com/ [/b]
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| ... American People Reject Dubya: "YEE-HA" Is Not A Foreign Policy!!! |
| 08.29.04 (6:45 pm) [edit] |
[b]'Anybody but Bush,' cry NY marchers[/b]
[b]They marched against US policy in the Middle East, against the war in Iraq, against the Bush administration's environmental policy and the Republican Party's opposition to abortion and gay marriage.[/b]
They marched against what they saw as a transparent ploy by President George W Bush and the Republican Party to exploit the tragedy of 11 September for political gain.
[i]The marchers were close to the site of the 11 September attacks[/i]
But one thing united the tens of thousands of protestors who marched for block after block through midtown Manhattan: Their desire to vote George W Bush out of office.
March organisers had predicted that 250,000 would take part in the protest.
They said that the turn out exceeded their wildest expectations.
[b]Diverse group [/b]
The march moved very little in the hours after organisers started on the route towards Union Square as tens of thousands of marchers flooded in from side streets.
[i]Many in the march felt they had been misled in the 'war on terror'[/i]
The marchers included children, young couples, students, the middle aged and the elderly. One woman sat in her wheelchair in Union Square holding a sign saying, "I'm 98 and I'm outraged!"
Barbara, who describes herself as a middle-aged schoolteacher, had never been to a protest march until Sunday.
She held a sign saying that she was a former Republican against George Bush.
She defected from the party in after the first term in office of the current president's father, George HW Bush, when religious and social conservatives Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson spoke at the party's 1992 convention.
"They sounded like dangerous guys, but this George Bush has them in the closet. And they run the party," she said.
"[President George W Bush] has given us record deficits. When Osama Bin Laden is in Afghanistan, he went to war in Iraq. It's a mess," she said.
"We have to get rid of George Bush. We can't tolerate another four years of his international or domestic policies," she said.
[b]Four more years or four more months [/b]
Just blocks from the Madison Square Garden, a group of protestors decided to stay at home in their apartment overlooking the route.
[i]Protesters wanted the Republicans to know they were not welcome[/i]
They hung "George Bush is the anti-Christ" signs in their window, and a cheer went up from the marchers below as they played The Beatles' song, Give Peace a Chance, from speakers propped up in their windows.
The protest was peaceful. There was a strong police presence, but most were not in riot gear. There were few confrontations.
On the eve of Sunday's massive march, New York City Police said more than 300 protestors had been arrested and more than 50 more were arrested during the first hour of the march.
Across the street from Madison Square Garden, Bush supporters held signs mocking the protestors with slogans such as "Communists for Kerry" and chanted, "Four more years!"
The protestors shouted back, "Four more months!"
A sign at Madison Square Garden welcomed the Republicans, but many protestors wanted the party to know they were not welcome in New York.
Ray Lyman worked in a building across the street from the south tower of the World Trade Centre. The building was heavily damaged and is still covered in a black shroud.
He said the Republican Party's decision to hold its convention in New York is insulting and emotionally offensive. "It feels like a complete violation," he said.
"I don't believe in the way that Bush and the Republican Party are using the tragedy of 9/11 as their campaign platform," he said, adding, "They are using 9/11 as an excuse to further their own right-wing agenda."
[b]Qualified support for Kerry [/b]
Four years ago, the protests at the Democratic and Republican conventions were made up largely of Americans who felt alienated from traditional party politics and saw little difference between the two mainstream parties.
[i]People of all ages and different backgrounds took part[/i]
But at this march, the political theme could be summed by "Anybody but Bush", even if that means electing John Kerry who voted for the war in Iraq, which they overwhelmingly oppose.
Stephanie Jennings came all the way from San Diego, California, to march in New York.
She carried a sign calling for voters in swing states to vote for the "lesser of two warmongers".
Four years ago, she voted for Ralph Nader. She still believes both parties represent corporate interests over the interests of ordinary people.
"We're here because of Bush policies and the war," she said, but she is also not a strong supporter of the Democratic Party and its presidential candidate, John Kerry.
[i]The marchers were unified by their opposition to President Bush[/i]
If Mr Kerry has a large lead in California, she plans to vote for the Green Party candidate.
"I need the Democrats to know they can't take my vote for granted," she said.
But she wants John Kerry to win. Under Bush policies, "we are on the precipice. It's a really dangerous time," she said. "Four more years of this, and I fear for the world." - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/am...
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| ... Media Fails US Again on the Swift Slut Lies ... |
| 08.29.04 (2:11 pm) [edit] |
[b]Media failed Swift boat mission[/b]
After weeks of covering the controversy, "the media" finally got around to covering the facts.
It took news organizations that long to advance from he-said, she-said reporting to Wednesday's unqualified dismissal by [i]The New York Times [/i]of allegations against Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, by a group of President Bush's supporters calling themselves the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
Presidential adviser Karl Rove must have been giddy by then. Tina Brown, in a column for[i] The Washington Post[/i], said it as well as any commentator:
Mr. Rove, President Bush's chief political strategist, "has brilliantly judged how much and how long the media can be relied on to run with a story until it plays itself out. It doesn't matter if the revisionist Swifties are discredited as long as a touch of virus enters the voter bloodstream to flow through the veins and arteries of blogs and cable and talk radio and Op-Ed columns and contradicting ads. The war record becomes 'the disputed war record.' "
As newspapers struggled over how to cover this story, even [i]Palm Beach Post [/i]editors, it seems, were confused. A case in point, said Bernard Loomis of [i]Palm Beach Gardens[/i], was last Sunday's headline over a [i]Washington Post [/i]article, "Swift Boat stories flawed," and the secondary heading, "John Kerry and his detractors offer incomplete accounts."
Mr. Loomis summed up what too many news organizations took too long to conclude, and despite the reporting in the[i] Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe [/i]and elsewhere, still won't say: "John Kerry's war record is the truth; the attack on it is a lie." The suggestion "that there are two sides to this story is Goebbels-like in its dishonesty," Mr. Loomis said, referring to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Party's propagandist.
"The refutation of this immoral attack on John Kerry's war record is deep within the story itself," said Mr. Loomis, "and was the main theme of the[i] New York Times[/i] story you ran: 'The Bronze Star citations for Kerry and Thurlow also speak of prolonged enemy fire.' Thirty-five years later, without commenting on his own Bronze Star, Larry Thurlow is now one of the principal participants in the big lie." (Mr. Thurlow swore in an affidavit last month that Sen. Kerry "was not under fire.")
"The so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, none of whom served on John Kerry's boat, have every right to disagree with John Kerry's lifesaving leadership role in opposing the Vietnam War after he completed his time in the service," Mr. Loomis said. "If they still believe that Vietnam was a war we belonged in, they should vote for George Bush. But by demeaning John Kerry's record in combat, they demean their own."
Mr. Loomis said that he "served 30 months in the South Pacific in World War II and (has) five battle stars for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like most veterans, I served honorably and well, but I never faced the personal challenges that John Kerry did, and handled so well."
The lesson here is that "there are not always two sides to every story," Mr. Loomis said, "and reporting the attack on John Kerry's war record as if there were is leaning over so far backwards that you are flat on your back."
[i]Supine[/i] is an apt description for the nation's repeatedly steam-rollered news organizations. That most were bamboozled once again is a big story here, but the pack already is off to "527" ads and other distractions from the question of the next four years.
Ms. Brown quoted another author, James Wolcott, as saying that "Democrats always make the mistake of believing the media will be a referee and truth will prevail." Newspaper readers of all stripes also make the same mistake. But it's not all their fault that most grew up trusting the self-described purveyors of "fair and balanced" news that were on the scene long before Fox News made a mockery of the phrase.
Newspapers in particular should have been more helpful much sooner in separating Swift Boat fact from fiction. It's one thing when cable TV and talk radio force editors to cover the flames fanned by partisan agendas. What credible news organizations shouldn't be doing, however, is bending over backward to be "evenhanded" so as not to slight any of their readership.
The best recipe hasn't changed: Work hard to get the facts. Put them in the paper. If you get it wrong, tell readers that, too. Also tell readers in the newspaper's institutional voice what it all means, why it's important to them. Reach far beyond the usual suspects to offer analysis and commentary, and label it as such. Just as important: Provide readers a forum for discussing it all.
To do all that as well as humanly possible requires dropping the "We know what you need to know, and you don't" attitude. It also requires a recognition that today's readers come with an ever more discerning eye in this cable-news, talk-radio and Internet age, in which anyone's fiction can trump fact unless "the media" really show up when this world needs them. - http://www.palmbeachpost.com/...
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| ... Media Fails US Again on the Swift Slut Lies ... |
| 08.29.04 (2:08 pm) [edit] |
[b]Media failed Swift boat mission[/b]
After weeks of covering the controversy, "the media" finally got around to covering the facts.
It took news organizations that long to advance from he-said, she-said reporting to Wednesday's unqualified dismissal by [i]The New York Times [/i]of allegations against Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, by a group of President Bush's supporters calling themselves the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
Presidential adviser Karl Rove must have been giddy by then. Tina Brown, in a column for[i] The Washington Post[/i], said it as well as any commentator:
Mr. Rove, President Bush's chief political strategist, "has brilliantly judged how much and how long the media can be relied on to run with a story until it plays itself out. It doesn't matter if the revisionist Swifties are discredited as long as a touch of virus enters the voter bloodstream to flow through the veins and arteries of blogs and cable and talk radio and Op-Ed columns and contradicting ads. The war record becomes 'the disputed war record.' "
As newspapers struggled over how to cover this story, even [i]Palm Beach Post [/i]editors, it seems, were confused. A case in point, said Bernard Loomis of [i]Palm Beach Gardens[/i], was last Sunday's headline over a [i]Washington Post [/i]article, "Swift Boat stories flawed," and the secondary heading, "John Kerry and his detractors offer incomplete accounts."
Mr. Loomis summed up what too many news organizations took too long to conclude, and despite the reporting in the[i] Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe [/i]and elsewhere, still won't say: "John Kerry's war record is the truth; the attack on it is a lie." The suggestion "that there are two sides to this story is Goebbels-like in its dishonesty," Mr. Loomis said, referring to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Party's propagandist.
"The refutation of this immoral attack on John Kerry's war record is deep within the story itself," said Mr. Loomis, "and was the main theme of the[i] New York Times[/i] story you ran: 'The Bronze Star citations for Kerry and Thurlow also speak of prolonged enemy fire.' Thirty-five years later, without commenting on his own Bronze Star, Larry Thurlow is now one of the principal participants in the big lie." (Mr. Thurlow swore in an affidavit last month that Sen. Kerry "was not under fire.")
"The so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, none of whom served on John Kerry's boat, have every right to disagree with John Kerry's lifesaving leadership role in opposing the Vietnam War after he completed his time in the service," Mr. Loomis said. "If they still believe that Vietnam was a war we belonged in, they should vote for George Bush. But by demeaning John Kerry's record in combat, they demean their own."
Mr. Loomis said that he "served 30 months in the South Pacific in World War II and (has) five battle stars for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like most veterans, I served honorably and well, but I never faced the personal challenges that John Kerry did, and handled so well."
The lesson here is that "there are not always two sides to every story," Mr. Loomis said, "and reporting the attack on John Kerry's war record as if there were is leaning over so far backwards that you are flat on your back."
[i]Supine[/i] is an apt description for the nation's repeatedly steam-rollered news organizations. That most were bamboozled once again is a big story here, but the pack already is off to "527" ads and other distractions from the question of the next four years.
Ms. Brown quoted another author, James Wolcott, as saying that "Democrats always make the mistake of believing the media will be a referee and truth will prevail." Newspaper readers of all stripes also make the same mistake. But it's not all their fault that most grew up trusting the self-described purveyors of "fair and balanced" news that were on the scene long before Fox News made a mockery of the phrase.
Newspapers in particular should have been more helpful much sooner in separating Swift Boat fact from fiction. It's one thing when cable TV and talk radio force editors to cover the flames fanned by partisan agendas. What credible news organizations shouldn't be doing, however, is bending over backward to be "evenhanded" so as not to slight any of their readership.
The best recipe hasn't changed: Work hard to get the facts. Put them in the paper. If you get it wrong, tell readers that, too. Also tell readers in the newspaper's institutional voice what it all means, why it's important to them. Reach far beyond the usual suspects to offer analysis and commentary, and label it as such. Just as important: Provide readers a forum for discussing it all.
To do all that as well as humanly possible requires dropping the "We know what you need to know, and you don't" attitude. It also requires a recognition that today's readers come with an ever more discerning eye in this cable-news, talk-radio and Internet age, in which anyone's fiction can trump fact unless "the media" really show up when this world needs them. - http://www.palmbeachpost.com/...
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| ... NEW POLL: Growing Number of Americans Think Bush Campaign Is Behind Ads Attacking Kerry ... |
| 08.29.04 (2:02 pm) [edit] |
[b]Poll: More Believe Bush Behind Attack Ads
Growing Number of Americans Think Bush Campaign Is Behind Ads Attacking Kerry's War Record[/b]
NEW YORK - Americans increasingly believe President Bush's re-election campaign is behind the ads attacking Democrat John Kerry's Vietnam experience, a poll found.
Almost half in a poll taken this week say they think the president's campaign is behind the ads that try to undercut Kerry's medals for heroism while just over a third think the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is an independent group, the National Annenberg Election Survey found.
The Swift boat ads, which ran in three swing states earlier this month, challenged Kerry's wartime service in Vietnam for which he received five medals.
The public's belief that Kerry did not earn his medals grew to 30 percent when the attack ads got widespread publicity on cable news networks. But that number has dropped to 24 percent now.
Kerry's campaign has accused President Bush of involvement in the ad campaign, a charge that was stepped up after Bush campaign counsel Benjamin Ginsberg acknowledged he was advising the group and resigned Wednesday from the Bush campaign.
In polling from Monday through Thursday, 46 percent said they believed the Bush campaign was behind the ads and 37 percent said they thought the ads were done independently.
The president and his campaign staff have said repeatedly they have no connection to the ads, which have come under increasing criticism as Navy records and additional witnesses backed Kerry's version of events.
On Monday and Tuesday when the Kerry campaign was making the accusation Bush was involved, 42 percent said the Bush campaign was behind them and 41 percent said they were truly independent.
After Ginsberg resigned from the campaign on Wednesday, 50 percent said in polling the next two nights that the Bush campaign was connected to the ads and 34 percent said it was not.
Ginsberg and lawyers on the Democratic side have represented both the campaigns or party and outside groups running ads in the presidential race.
The poll of 1,244 adults was taken Aug. 23-28 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. - http://www.commondreams.org/h...
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| ... NEW POLL: Growing Number of Americans Think Bush Campaign Is Behind Ads Attacking Kerry ... |
| 08.29.04 (1:59 pm) [edit] |
[b]Poll: More Believe Bush Behind Attack Ads
Growing Number of Americans Think Bush Campaign Is Behind Ads Attacking Kerry's War Record[/b]
NEW YORK - Americans increasingly believe President Bush's re-election campaign is behind the ads attacking Democrat John Kerry's Vietnam experience, a poll found.
Almost half in a poll taken this week say they think the president's campaign is behind the ads that try to undercut Kerry's medals for heroism while just over a third think the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is an independent group, the National Annenberg Election Survey found.
The Swift boat ads, which ran in three swing states earlier this month, challenged Kerry's wartime service in Vietnam for which he received five medals.
The public's belief that Kerry did not earn his medals grew to 30 percent when the attack ads got widespread publicity on cable news networks. But that number has dropped to 24 percent now.
Kerry's campaign has accused President Bush of involvement in the ad campaign, a charge that was stepped up after Bush campaign counsel Benjamin Ginsberg acknowledged he was advising the group and resigned Wednesday from the Bush campaign.
In polling from Monday through Thursday, 46 percent said they believed the Bush campaign was behind the ads and 37 percent said they thought the ads were done independently.
The president and his campaign staff have said repeatedly they have no connection to the ads, which have come under increasing criticism as Navy records and additional witnesses backed Kerry's version of events.
On Monday and Tuesday when the Kerry campaign was making the accusation Bush was involved, 42 percent said the Bush campaign was behind them and 41 percent said they were truly independent.
After Ginsberg resigned from the campaign on Wednesday, 50 percent said in polling the next two nights that the Bush campaign was connected to the ads and 34 percent said it was not.
Ginsberg and lawyers on the Democratic side have represented both the campaigns or party and outside groups running ads in the presidential race.
The poll of 1,244 adults was taken Aug. 23-28 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. - http://www.commondreams.org/h...
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| ... Olympic Gold Hero Accuses Bush of Cynical Exploitation to Prop Himself Up!!! ... |
| 08.29.04 (1:56 pm) [edit] |
[b]Olympic Gold Hero Accuses Bush [/b]
America's biggest Olympic hero yesterday accused George Bush of exploiting the Athens Games for his own political advantage in the run-up to the presidential election.
Carl Lewis, who won nine Olympic gold medals in athletics in a record-breaking career, condemned Bush for using the presence of Iraqi and Afghan teams in Athens in a television advertisement to boost his chances of re-election.
Criticizing Bush for linking his foreign policy with the two countries being allowed to compete here, Lewis said: 'I felt that was disingenuous. It is funny that we boycotted the 1980 Games [in Moscow] in support of Afghanistan, and now we're bombing Afghanistan,' he told the Athens News yesterday.
'Of course, we've invaded Iraq and are in there and are using it for political gain. It bewilders me, and I understand why the Iraqi players are offended.
'To support the players or the community is fine, but for political gain I disagree.'
Iraq's footballers, who unexpectedly reached the semi-finals here, made clear last week they disliked the advertisement and regarded American soldiers in Iraq as occupiers rather than liberators. Bush was planning to visit the Greek capital and attend yesterday's football final if Iraq had been involved, but they lost in the semi-finals last week. He was also criticised for misusing without permission Olympic symbols, which are protected emblems.
The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, yesterday cancelled plans to stay in Athens for tonight's Olympic closing ceremony amid fears that protesters might wreck his visit.
Just hours before he was due to board a flight for Greece, Powell changed his plans, explaining that 'urgent responsibilities' had intervened.
Informing his Greek counterpart Petros Molyviatis, the US envoy said while Athens deserved a gold medal 'for hosting amazing and secure Games' pressing work obligations would prevent him seeing the Games out.
Meanwhile, Britain's Olympic boxing hero Amir Khan has turned down the chance to become an instant millionaire by deciding to remain as an amateur fighter for at least the next two years, The Observer has learnt.
The 17-year-old,whose performances in Athens have prompted comparisons to his hero Muhammad Ali, has rejected several multi-million pound deals from boxing promoters keen to capitalize on his series of stunning displays.
The Bolton teenager, who fights for the gold medal at lunchtime today, has told friends that he wishes to remain an amateur at least until the Commonwealth Games and Boxing World Championships in 2006. He has also indicated a desire to compete in Beijing in four years' time. However, he is set to sign an agreement with the leading British promoter Frank Warren who will stage and market Khan's fights once he turns professional. Warren had wanted Khan to turn professional right away but has now agreed to wait until he is ready.
Khan, virtually unknown at the start of the Olympics, has been the stand-out performer at the Peristeri Hall in Athens, bewildering his opponents with fast feet and fast hands. But Khan also proved that he has determination when he defeated Kazakhstan's Serik Yeleuov in the semi-finals after being behind at the halfway stage.
A win today will make him the youngest Olympic boxing champion since the American legend Floyd Patterson won gold in 1952. But standing in the way of the gold medal is the toughest fight of Khan's career. His opponent, the Cuban Mario Kindelan, is the reigning Olympic champion and reckoned to be one of the best pound for pound fighters in the world. The two boxers have met before, in a pre-Olympic test event earlier this year, and Kindelan was a clear winner on the scoreboard. When asked his thoughts about his opponent in the final Khan said: 'I don't really care, I know I can do the same to this opponent as the last one.' - http://www.commondreams.org/h...
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| ... Olympic Gold Hero Accuses Bush of Cynical Exploitation to Prop Himself Up!!! ... |
| 08.29.04 (1:53 pm) [edit] |
[b]Olympic Gold Hero Accuses Bush [/b]
America's biggest Olympic hero yesterday accused George Bush of exploiting the Athens Games for his own political advantage in the run-up to the presidential election.
Carl Lewis, who won nine Olympic gold medals in athletics in a record-breaking career, condemned Bush for using the presence of Iraqi and Afghan teams in Athens in a television advertisement to boost his chances of re-election.
Criticizing Bush for linking his foreign policy with the two countries being allowed to compete here, Lewis said: 'I felt that was disingenuous. It is funny that we boycotted the 1980 Games [in Moscow] in support of Afghanistan, and now we're bombing Afghanistan,' he told the Athens News yesterday.
'Of course, we've invaded Iraq and are in there and are using it for political gain. It bewilders me, and I understand why the Iraqi players are offended.
'To support the players or the community is fine, but for political gain I disagree.'
Iraq's footballers, who unexpectedly reached the semi-finals here, made clear last week they disliked the advertisement and regarded American soldiers in Iraq as occupiers rather than liberators. Bush was planning to visit the Greek capital and attend yesterday's football final if Iraq had been involved, but they lost in the semi-finals last week. He was also criticised for misusing without permission Olympic symbols, which are protected emblems.
The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, yesterday cancelled plans to stay in Athens for tonight's Olympic closing ceremony amid fears that protesters might wreck his visit.
Just hours before he was due to board a flight for Greece, Powell changed his plans, explaining that 'urgent responsibilities' had intervened.
Informing his Greek counterpart Petros Molyviatis, the US envoy said while Athens deserved a gold medal 'for hosting amazing and secure Games' pressing work obligations would prevent him seeing the Games out.
Meanwhile, Britain's Olympic boxing hero Amir Khan has turned down the chance to become an instant millionaire by deciding to remain as an amateur fighter for at least the next two years, The Observer has learnt.
The 17-year-old,whose performances in Athens have prompted comparisons to his hero Muhammad Ali, has rejected several multi-million pound deals from boxing promoters keen to capitalize on his series of stunning displays.
The Bolton teenager, who fights for the gold medal at lunchtime today, has told friends that he wishes to remain an amateur at least until the Commonwealth Games and Boxing World Championships in 2006. He has also indicated a desire to compete in Beijing in four years' time. However, he is set to sign an agreement with the leading British promoter Frank Warren who will stage and market Khan's fights once he turns professional. Warren had wanted Khan to turn professional right away but has now agreed to wait until he is ready.
Khan, virtually unknown at the start of the Olympics, has been the stand-out performer at the Peristeri Hall in Athens, bewildering his opponents with fast feet and fast hands. But Khan also proved that he has determination when he defeated Kazakhstan's Serik Yeleuov in the semi-finals after being behind at the halfway stage.
A win today will make him the youngest Olympic boxing champion since the American legend Floyd Patterson won gold in 1952. But standing in the way of the gold medal is the toughest fight of Khan's career. His opponent, the Cuban Mario Kindelan, is the reigning Olympic champion and reckoned to be one of the best pound for pound fighters in the world. The two boxers have met before, in a pre-Olympic test event earlier this year, and Kindelan was a clear winner on the scoreboard. When asked his thoughts about his opponent in the final Khan said: 'I don't really care, I know I can do the same to this opponent as the last one.' - http://www.commondreams.org/h...
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| ... Are Pentagon Neo-Cons Traitors, Spying for Israel??? Bush/Cheney Don't Seem to Have A Clue!!! |
| 08.28.04 (6:10 am) [edit] |
[b]FBI Probes Pentagon Spy Case [/b]
(CBS) CBS News has learned that the FBI has a full-fledged espionage investigation under way and is about to -- in FBI terminology -- "roll up" someone agents believe has been spying not for an enemy, but for Israel from within the office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon.
60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl reports the FBI believes it has "solid" evidence that the suspected mole supplied Israel with classified materials that include secret White House policy deliberations on Iran.
At the heart of the investigation are two people who work at The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington.
The FBI investigation, headed up by Dave Szady, has involved wiretaps, undercover surveillance and photography that CBS News was told document the passing of classified information from the mole, to the men at AIPAC, and on to the Israelis.
CBS sources say that last year the suspected spy, described as a trusted analyst at the Pentagon, turned over a presidential directive on U.S. policy toward Iran while it was, "in the draft phase when U.S. policy-makers were still debating the policy."
This put the Israelis, according to one source, "inside the decision-making loop" so they could "try to influence the outcome."
The case raises another concern among investigators: Did Israel also use the analyst to try to influence U.S. policy on the war in Iraq?
With ties to top Pentagon officials Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, the analyst was assigned to a unit within the Defense Department tasked with helping develop the Pentagon's Iraq policy.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been made aware of the case. The government notified AIPAC today that it wants information about the two employees and their contacts with a person at the Pentagon.
AIPAC told CBS News it is cooperating with the government and has hired outside counsel. It denies any wrongdoing by the organization or any of its employees.
An Israeli spokesman said, "We categorically deny these allegations. They are completely false and outrageous." The suspected spy has not returned repeated phone calls from CBS News. - http://www.commondreams.org/h...
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| ... The Real Issue: Bush is Incompetent ... |
| 08.28.04 (6:08 am) [edit] |
NEW YORK -- President Bush is coming to town. You better watch out, you better not shout -- unless you're a certified delegate inside Madison Square Garden. With protesters somewhere out of sight, the Republican National Convention will be a celebration of the ideology, values and interests served by this second Bush presidency.
Whether you agree or disagree with the words pouring from the podium over Americans who see reflections of themselves in George W. Bush, the real issue of this election will not be mentioned. The core issue is this: Our president is incompetent. He is not a good president.
Let me count the ways:
(1) He has divided the country; we are all part of a vicious little hissing match. We were united and humbled on Sept. 12, 2001. We are divided and humiliated now, telling lies about each other.
(2) He has divided the world. "We are all Americans now," headlined Le Monde on that Sept. 12. Now there are days when it seems as if they are all anti-Americans.
[b]Read entire article:[/b] http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| ... Bush/Cheney's Fiasco in Iraq: US is the Loser in Najaf ... |
| 08.28.04 (5:35 am) [edit] |
[b]End of the siege: the smoke clears in Najaf
What the peace agreement means for Sadr, Sistani, Iraq – and the US.[/b]
[b]NAJAF, IRAQ [/b]— It's morning in Najaf again, and all around the Old City center, there are the signs of destruction that a three-week-long rebellion has brought.
The ground is littered with shattered glass, chips of concrete, splinters, and spent 50-caliber shell casings. An old woman walks through these streets, weeping as if she is alone. "It was like heaven here before, now see what has happened," she wails, striking her chest with her hands.
But this woman is not alone. She is just one of tens of thousands of pilgrims who flocked to the Old City Friday morning, called by their Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to become a human wave of protest to end the 22-day battle and siege of the Shrine of Imam Ali.
There were some supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr in this crowd, but they were not the majority. When Mr. Sadr's supporters tried to strike up a chant in favor of the militant Shiite cleric and his Mahdi Army militia, most of the crowd remained silent, almost reproachful.
The Battle of Najaf may finally be over – with a peaceful withdrawal of both US forces and the Mahdi Army, brokered by Ayatollah Sistani on Thursday night. But peace came at a terrible cost, with hundreds of civilians and fighters dead in the street fighting and bombardments; on Thursday, more than 101 were killed and 500 wounded in the adjoining cities of Najaf and Kufa alone.
So while there is relief in Najaf today that the fighting is finally over, there is still the sober realization that it will take a long time for these battle scars to heal. And in the coming days, as Najaf citizens return to their broken, bullet-ridden homes, and as shopkeepers sweep up the detritus of their livelihoods, there will be plenty of blame to go around, both for the Americans and for Sadr.
"We oppose very much what they did, both sides," says Sayid Salam al-Kharsan, a Shiite cleric, and one of thousands of Shiites who accompanied Sistani in a car caravan from the city of Basra. "This is a holy place, and it is a good thing that they called religious people to find a solution."
[b]Winners and losers[/b]
Seeing past the destruction, there seem to be some clear winners from this siege, and this peace settlement. Ayatollah Sistani emerges once again as the most popular and powerful Shiite cleric, capable of bringing both the militant cleric Sadr and the Iraqi government to an agreement that appeared nearly impossible. Sadr also emerges ahead, since he has only bowed to a higher religious authority and not to the Iraqi government.
The Iraqi government emerges about even, lacking a clear knockout victory that diminishes Sadr's ability to fight again, but also avoiding a bloody final assault of the shrine that could have alienated the country's Shiite majority.
Militarily, the Americans emerge victorious, having pushed Sadr back to within a few hundred meters of the outside wall of the shrine. Politically, however, the siege has been disastrous. Shiite opinion toward the Americans, even among moderates of the Sistani camp, is almost universally negative, reminding Iraqis that their country remains a morass of failing infrastructure and poor security.
Inside the shrine, the faithful line up to remove their shoes, wash their hands and enter the inner sanctum of Shiite Islam's third-holiest site, after Mecca and Medina. Others survey the slight damage to the shrine's structure, and look in begrudging awe at the young fighters who held off the American military for so long.
"The Mahdi Army protected our holy place from the Americans, this was their duty," says a young demonstrator from Nasiriyah, who gives his name as Murad. "Unless Americans leave Iraq, there will never be peace."
Hassan Ali Karim, a Mahdi Army fighter, accuses the Americans of using "forbidden weapons" such as poison gas, adding, "fortunately, God saved us." But even so, he says he is willing to leave the shrine if Sadr orders him to do so. And at 9 a.m., a loudspeaker at the shrine announces that Sadr had called on Mahdi Army fighters to put down their weapons, and leave the Old City. By 10 a.m., Mr. Karim and hundreds of other Mahdi Army fighters began taking off their weapons, loading them into wooden wheelbarrows and push carts and trekking out of the Old City, at least for now.
Along the narrow streets of the Old City, one could see families streaming back to their homes, carrying food and valuables in burlap bags, returning to homes that had been bunkers just a few hours before. Some return to find their homes destroyed. One family returns to find their roof collapsed by a bomb, and the only sign of their relatives was the unmistakable stench of death coming from inside.
Elsewhere, life returns to a kind of normalcy. On a street corner, just 10 feet from a stack of tank-shells wired together as a booby trap, a man squats and sells cigarettes to the passing pilgrims, who eventually number into the tens of thousands. Within a few minutes, he leaves with a smile. He has sold out. - http://www.csmonitor.com/earl...
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| How Many Human Beings & Unborn Babies Has Bush Killed??? (Due to "Miscalculations" ... Ooopppsss) |
| 08.27.04 (3:53 pm) [edit] |
[b]Ooopppsss ... Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis and nearly 1000 US soldiers killed by Bush/Cheney based upon "miscalculations" ... Ooopppsss ...
Bush Admits Iraq 'Miscalculations' - NY Times[/b]
NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Bush acknowledged for the first time on Thursday that he had miscalculated post-war conditions in Iraq, the New York Times reported.
The paper quoted Bush as saying during a 30-minute interview that he made "a miscalculation of what the conditions would be" in post-war Iraq.
But he insisted that the 17-month-long insurgency was the unintended by-product of a "swift victory" against Saddam Hussein's military, the Times reported.
Bush said his strategy had been "flexible enough" to respond. "We're adjusting to our conditions" in places like Najaf, the paper quoted him as saying.
The Times said Bush deflected further inquiries as to what had gone wrong with the occupation.
According to the Pentagon, 969 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the invasion, 828 of them since April 30, 2003. An additional 6,690 service members have been wounded, most of them during the occupation.
The president also discussed the issue of North Korea and Iran's nuclear ambitions, saying that he would not be rushed to set deadlines.
The newspaper said "Bush displayed none of the alarm about North Korea's growing arsenal that he once voiced regularly about Iraq."
It quoted him as saying about the leaders of North Korea and Iran: "I don't think you give timelines to dictators."
Bush told the newspaper he would continue diplomatic pressure. It said he gave no hint that his patience was limited or that at some point he might consider pre-emptive military action.
"I'm confident that over time this will work -- I certainly hope it does," the newspaper quoted Bush as saying of the diplomatic approach. - http://www.reuters.com/newsAr...
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| AWOL Bush Considered "My Pet Goat" Higher Priority Than Your Lives on 9/11!!! |
| 08.27.04 (3:42 pm) [edit] |
[b]Watch 5-Minute Video of Dry-Drunk-Dubya on 9/11 Sitting There with his "Thumb-Up-His-Butt"!!![/b ]
[b]Dubya[i] didn't have a clue [/i]what to do on 9/11. Instead of acting like a real leader ([i]or even like a sane person[/i]), the Dry-Drunk Imbecile http://www.tblog.com/template... sat dumbfounded in a classroom with his proverbial "[i]thumb-up-his-butt[/i] "! Dubya [i]didn't even seem to consider [/i]that he should [i]get up off his poxxy-ass [/i]and see what had to be done to [i]protect[/i] our nation-- (At the time none of us knew, [i]unless the corrupt Bushies really knew in advance & let 9/11 attacks happen[/i], the potential extent of the attacks!) [/i][/b]
Somebody [i]with brains [/i]would have canceled the classroom photo-op and calmly told the Teacher and Kids that he had some important business to attend to. [i]Jesus Christ![/i] I've seen people far less powerful and important than the Prez of the USA do [i]that much[/i]! The [i]stupid propaganda tale [/i]perpetuated by Karl[i] 'Joseph Goebbles' [/i]Rove & their neo-con toadies is that Dubya didn't want to[i] "panic" [/i]people and it is a load of horse-shit. People with [i]even half-a-brain [/i]can calmly excuse themselves without causing panic, and if Dubya can't do [i]that much[/i] then he's so mentally unstable that he should be diagnosed as clinically incompetent and removed from office [i]ASAP[/i]-- What a [i]bunch of fools [/i]the neo-cons and their mad-dog toadies are to[i] think [/i]that they can bamboozle[i] all[/i] of us!
What an incompetent and stupid asshole Dubya truly is:-- The Dry-Drunk-Dubya goes into the classroom knowing the 1st WTC tower has been hit-- When told by Andy Card that the 2nd WTC tower has been hit and that the USA is under attack, the buffoon-boy sits there with a mindless look on his imbecilic smirking-face and[i] waits until they tell him [/i]that [i]it's time to go[/i]! But then Cheney and Rove [i]weren't there to give [/i]Dubya his script, [i]so he didn't act, but just sat there [/i]with a foolishly blank expression on his dumb-bell face during the worst attack upon America in modern times. This idiot[i] ain't fit [/i]to be called president of[i] anything[/i]!
[b]I guess Dubya thought reading "My Pet Goat" http://s89194761.onlinehome.u... was the most important thing in the world although millions of us might have been wiped-out!!![/b]
Go to [i]5-Minute Video of George W. Bush on the Morning of 9/11[/i] http://www.thememoryhole.org/...
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| ...... Conservatives, repent!!! ...... |
| 08.27.04 (10:46 am) [edit] |
[i][b]Swift Boat Liars make Bush's Vietnam years newly relevant, plus, some in GOP begin admitting Iraq was a mistake[/b][/i]
AUSTIN, Texas -- We were bound to get at least one good laugh out of Swift Boat Veterans for Humongous Lies, and what a pip it is. Upon being identified as the lawyer both for the Bush-Cheney campaign and the Swift Boat Liars, Benjamin Ginsberg bravely offered his resignation to the campaign, which has said repeatedly it has NO connection to the Liars.
He made the following poignant argument in a letter to the president, which I know will touch you as deeply as it did me (emphasis added): "I cannot begin to express my sadness that my legal representations have become a distraction for the critical issues at hand in this election. I feel I cannot let that continue, so I have decided to resign as national counsel to your campaign to ensure that the giving of legal advice to decorated military veterans, which was entirely within the boundaries of the law, doesn't distract from the real issues upon which you and the country should be focused."
Do you love it?
The Swift Boat Liars are of interest only as a perfect case for those in media studies to see exactly how this stuff spreads, although it does dig up yet again the issue of how George W. Bush spent the Vietnam War. Here's a review of the state of play on that story. USA Today recently rehashed the remaining questions:
Why did Bush, described by some of his fellow officers as a talented and enthusiastic pilot, stop flying fighter jets in the spring of 1972 and fail to take the annual physical exam required by all pilots?
What explains the gap in the president's Guard service in 1972-73, a period when commanders in Texas and Alabama say they never saw him report for duty and records show no pay to Bush when he was supposed to be on duty in Alabama?
A third question from USAT -- did Bush receive preferential treatment in getting into the Guard and getting a coveted pilot slot -- is a non-question. Of course he did. It was the peak of the Vietnam War, and there was waiting list of over 100,000 men to get into the Air National Guard. A friend of Daddy Bush named Sid Adger called the then-lieutenant governor of Texas, Ben Barnes, and asked him to get Rep. Bush's son George into the section of the Texas Guard known as the "champagne unit."
Adger was a prominent Houston businessman who belonged to the same clubs as Poppy, sent his kids to the same schools and had sons in the champagne unit. The son of former Texas Gov. John Connally had joined, the son of Sen. Lloyd Bentsen joined, as did some players for the Dallas Cowboys.
Barnes called Brig. Gen. James Rose of the Guard and recommended Bush for a pilot position. Bush got a direct commission and was assigned one of the last two pilot slots in the state after scoring the absolute numerical minimum (25) on the qualifying test. For years, Bush claimed a friend whose name he didn't remember had told him of an opening in the Guard, that he applied through regular channels and was accepted.
The 72-73 gap in Bush's Guard record might have been explained by old Pentagon records but -- gosh darn it, those very records turn out to have been destroyed by mistake. Don't you know Bush was upset that the records that could have proven his story turned out to be gone? Several newspapers have put in freedom-of-information requests for still other records, but nothing has been forthcoming so far.
Meanwhile, in a war of somewhat more immediate relevance in a place called Iraq, things are going so badly we find deserters from the ranks. Not the military ranks -- the political ranks. The latest defector -- a.k.a., person recognizing reality and showing some common sense -- is Republican Rep. Doug Bereuter of Nebraska, who said "it was a mistake" to go into Iraq.
William F. Buckley, the conservative godfather, has also concluded that had he known in February 2003 what we know now, "I would not have counseled war against Iraq."
Among those who are seeing the light, Max Boot, a noted neocon, thinks Donald Rumsfeld should resign over Abu Ghraib. The editors of The National Review blame the administration for being unprepared for the occupation. Tucker Carlson of "Crossfire" repents, as does Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek. Thomas Friedman and David Brooks of The New York Times are both big enough to say they were wrong.
According to those who understand politics on the right better than I, either the neo-cons are now in disgrace with the conservatives OR the "paleo-conservatives" are about to be chucked out of the party by the neo-cons. - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| ...... Conservatives, repent!!! ...... |
| 08.27.04 (10:43 am) [edit] |
[i][b]Swift Boat Liars make Bush's Vietnam years newly relevant, plus, some in GOP begin admitting Iraq was a mistake[/b][/i]
AUSTIN, Texas -- We were bound to get at least one good laugh out of Swift Boat Veterans for Humongous Lies, and what a pip it is. Upon being identified as the lawyer both for the Bush-Cheney campaign and the Swift Boat Liars, Benjamin Ginsberg bravely offered his resignation to the campaign, which has said repeatedly it has NO connection to the Liars.
He made the following poignant argument in a letter to the president, which I know will touch you as deeply as it did me (emphasis added): "I cannot begin to express my sadness that my legal representations have become a distraction for the critical issues at hand in this election. I feel I cannot let that continue, so I have decided to resign as national counsel to your campaign to ensure that the giving of legal advice to decorated military veterans, which was entirely within the boundaries of the law, doesn't distract from the real issues upon which you and the country should be focused."
Do you love it?
The Swift Boat Liars are of interest only as a perfect case for those in media studies to see exactly how this stuff spreads, although it does dig up yet again the issue of how George W. Bush spent the Vietnam War. Here's a review of the state of play on that story. USA Today recently rehashed the remaining questions:
Why did Bush, described by some of his fellow officers as a talented and enthusiastic pilot, stop flying fighter jets in the spring of 1972 and fail to take the annual physical exam required by all pilots?
What explains the gap in the president's Guard service in 1972-73, a period when commanders in Texas and Alabama say they never saw him report for duty and records show no pay to Bush when he was supposed to be on duty in Alabama?
A third question from USAT -- did Bush receive preferential treatment in getting into the Guard and getting a coveted pilot slot -- is a non-question. Of course he did. It was the peak of the Vietnam War, and there was waiting list of over 100,000 men to get into the Air National Guard. A friend of Daddy Bush named Sid Adger called the then-lieutenant governor of Texas, Ben Barnes, and asked him to get Rep. Bush's son George into the section of the Texas Guard known as the "champagne unit."
Adger was a prominent Houston businessman who belonged to the same clubs as Poppy, sent his kids to the same schools and had sons in the champagne unit. The son of former Texas Gov. John Connally had joined, the son of Sen. Lloyd Bentsen joined, as did some players for the Dallas Cowboys.
Barnes called Brig. Gen. James Rose of the Guard and recommended Bush for a pilot position. Bush got a direct commission and was assigned one of the last two pilot slots in the state after scoring the absolute numerical minimum (25) on the qualifying test. For years, Bush claimed a friend whose name he didn't remember had told him of an opening in the Guard, that he applied through regular channels and was accepted.
The 72-73 gap in Bush's Guard record might have been explained by old Pentagon records but -- gosh darn it, those very records turn out to have been destroyed by mistake. Don't you know Bush was upset that the records that could have proven his story turned out to be gone? Several newspapers have put in freedom-of-information requests for still other records, but nothing has been forthcoming so far.
Meanwhile, in a war of somewhat more immediate relevance in a place called Iraq, things are going so badly we find deserters from the ranks. Not the military ranks -- the political ranks. The latest defector -- a.k.a., person recognizing reality and showing some common sense -- is Republican Rep. Doug Bereuter of Nebraska, who said "it was a mistake" to go into Iraq.
William F. Buckley, the conservative godfather, has also concluded that had he known in February 2003 what we know now, "I would not have counseled war against Iraq."
Among those who are seeing the light, Max Boot, a noted neocon, thinks Donald Rumsfeld should resign over Abu Ghraib. The editors of The National Review blame the administration for being unprepared for the occupation. Tucker Carlson of "Crossfire" repents, as does Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek. Thomas Friedman and David Brooks of The New York Times are both big enough to say they were wrong.
According to those who understand politics on the right better than I, either the neo-cons are now in disgrace with the conservatives OR the "paleo-conservatives" are about to be chucked out of the party by the neo-cons. - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| ...... Is the Swift Boat Hoax Backfire Beginning??? ...... |
| 08.27.04 (10:40 am) [edit] |
As more evidence pours in that the Swift boats attack ad is a hoax, the damage has yet to be determined. Now that Kerry's fighting back, the stunt could blow up in the Republicans' faces. In the latest development, William Rood, the other surviving commander of the Feb. 28, 1969 operation, has come out on Kerry's side with resounding force.
Meanwhile Ken Cordier, one of the anti-Kerry Swift boat veterans turns out to have been a Bush campaign operative, a member of their Vietnam Veterans Steering Committee until August 19, when his name disappeared from the Bush campaign site. He's now either resigned or been fired, depend on whose press release you read.
By dumping Cordier, the Republicans have implicitly acknowledged that the Swift boat 527 is hardly some grassroots, independent uprising.
[b]Read the entire article:[/b] http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| ...... Is the Swift Boat Hoax Backfire Beginning??? ...... |
| 08.27.04 (10:38 am) [edit] |
As more evidence pours in that the Swift boats attack ad is a hoax, the damage has yet to be determined. Now that Kerry's fighting back, the stunt could blow up in the Republicans' faces. In the latest development, William Rood, the other surviving commander of the Feb. 28, 1969 operation, has come out on Kerry's side with resounding force.
Meanwhile Ken Cordier, one of the anti-Kerry Swift boat veterans turns out to have been a Bush campaign operative, a member of their Vietnam Veterans Steering Committee until August 19, when his name disappeared from the Bush campaign site. He's now either resigned or been fired, depend on whose press release you read.
By dumping Cordier, the Republicans have implicitly acknowledged that the Swift boat 527 is hardly some grassroots, independent uprising.
[b]Read the entire article:[/b] http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| ...... George W. Bush is Damaged Goods ...... |
| 08.27.04 (10:35 am) [edit] |
George W. Bush is damaged goods, but he has found his campaign voice--the forked tongue of the high road/low road politician. The lofty Commander in Chief will solemnly remind Americans of their fears, while his wicked twin tears viciously into John Kerry's flesh. When the Warrior President tries to sound like Churchill, he affects a peculiar Texas staccato. "We-must-be-strong. We-must-be-resolute-again st-these-cold-blooded-kil lers." But the down-and-dirty Prez turns sly and sarcastic, inviting regular guys to share a belly laugh over Kerry's "nuances," while Bush's surrogates smear Kerry's Bronze Star in Vietnam as phony. What's this wobbly peacenik talking about anyway? We're at war, remember. No time for lying, liberal sissies.
The Bush campaign strategy is already in play before the GOP convention. The President runs on fear and character assassination--big fear and big lies. While Bush's claims and insinuations are utterly distant from the truth, the strategy can't be dismissed, because Republicans are so experienced at this kind of politics. GOP marketing proceeds on a cynical assumption that voters can be moved by the brazen repetition of evocative falsehoods and broad-brush caricature. Their model is 1988, when Bush's daddy used the racist "Willie Horton" ads and "card-carrying member of the ACLU" to defenestrate Michael Dukakis, a decent and capable governor they turned into a national joke.
[b]Read entire article:[/b] http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| ...... George W. Bush is Damaged Goods ...... |
| 08.27.04 (10:34 am) [edit] |
George W. Bush is damaged goods, but he has found his campaign voice--the forked tongue of the high road/low road politician. The lofty Commander in Chief will solemnly remind Americans of their fears, while his wicked twin tears viciously into John Kerry's flesh. When the Warrior President tries to sound like Churchill, he affects a peculiar Texas staccato. "We-must-be-strong. We-must-be-resolute-again st-these-cold-blooded-kil lers." But the down-and-dirty Prez turns sly and sarcastic, inviting regular guys to share a belly laugh over Kerry's "nuances," while Bush's surrogates smear Kerry's Bronze Star in Vietnam as phony. What's this wobbly peacenik talking about anyway? We're at war, remember. No time for lying, liberal sissies.
The Bush campaign strategy is already in play before the GOP convention. The President runs on fear and character assassination--big fear and big lies. While Bush's claims and insinuations are utterly distant from the truth, the strategy can't be dismissed, because Republicans are so experienced at this kind of politics. GOP marketing proceeds on a cynical assumption that voters can be moved by the brazen repetition of evocative falsehoods and broad-brush caricature. Their model is 1988, when Bush's daddy used the racist "Willie Horton" ads and "card-carrying member of the ACLU" to defenestrate Michael Dukakis, a decent and capable governor they turned into a national joke.
[b]Read entire article:[/b] http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| ... Another Swift Boat Veteran Backs Kerry & Demolishes Swift Slut Liars ... |
| 08.26.04 (3:48 pm) [edit] |
Ronald "Lambert, now 64, was a crew member on swift boat PCF-51 that day. The boat was commanded by Navy Lt. Larry Thurlow, a now-retired officer who questions why Kerry was awarded a Bronze star for bravery and a third Purple Heart for the March 13 incident. 'He and another officer now say we weren't under fire at that time,' Lambert said Wednesday afternoon. 'Well, I sure was under the impression we were.' Lambert's Bronze Star medal citation for the incident praises his courage under fire in the aftermath of a mine explosion that rocked another swift boat on that day 35 years ago. 'Anytime you are blown out of the water like that, they always follow that up with small arms fire,' he said." Watch the Nation's Ian Williams debate Larry Thurlow on MSNBC's Deborah Norville Show at 9pm EST.
[b]Read article:[/b] http://www.mailtribune.com/ar...
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| ... Bush's 'Swift Boat Fiasco' Driving Disgusted Veterans Across the Nation into the Kerry Camp ... |
| 08.26.04 (8:21 am) [edit] |
[b]Pittsburg Gazette:[/b] "Ed Belfoure, who flew helicopters as a Marine in Vietnam, is a registered Republican. But he promises to cross party lines in November to vote for John Kerry. Belfoure said he cannot abide the "despicable television ads" that donors to Bush's campaign have aimed at Kerry. A group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has attacked Kerry's service record in Vietnam. Belfoure, appearing yesterday with other veterans at a news conference at Kerry's Downtown Pittsburgh headquarters [said] "In their perverted attempt to discredit John Kerry, they have done a greater harm to all Vietnam veterans who for years have sought validation for their service to country," he said. About a dozen other military veterans sounded a similar theme." And that's just in Pittsburg! The same thing is happening all across the nation.
[b]Read article:[/b] http://www.post-gazette.com/p...
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| ... Clock in New York's Times Square Counts Bush's Outlandish War Costs ... |
| 08.26.04 (8:17 am) [edit] |
[b]Clock in New York's Times Square Counts War Cost[/b]
A giant clock ticking the cost of the war in Iraq lit up in Times Square on Wednesday, making its debut by flashing $134.5 billion.
The amount on the clock will grow at a rate of $177 million a day, $7.4 million an hour and $122,820 per minute, said the advocacy group Project Billboard http://www.projectbillboard.o... which put it up.
Project Billboard is supported by the Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o... a liberal think tank headed by John Podesta who served as chief of staff under former President Bill Clinton.
The clock was unveiled just days before Republicans gather in New York for their national convention.
As intended, it caught the eye of many passersby in the busy intersection.
"Just think of the things you could do with that money," said tour guide Farah Perez. "No way am I voting for Bush."
The message may not reach everyone, however, as the clock sits above a much larger billboard of a woman wearing nothing but a pair of sneakers.
"First I saw the other billboard, but then I saw the cost of the Iraq war and the number took my breath away," said passerby Greg Boris. "Then I went back to looking at the other billboard.
"That money should be spent here in the United States," he added.
The new clock sits just a couple of blocks away from a spot where an earlier clock used to flash the growing size of the U.S. national debt.
This clock is part of a legal settlement reached between Project Billboard and Clear Channel Communications after the advocacy group sued the media giant for breaking a contract over the posting of an antiwar billboard in Times Square during this month's convention.
Clear Channel settled the case by agreeing to give Project Billboard two Times Square locations instead of one. In return, the group dropped its plan for a bomb graphic that Clear Channel said it found distasteful.
The advocacy group's other billboard displays a large peace dove and the words "Democracy Is Best Taught By Example, Not By War."
Both billboards are scheduled to run for four months, said a spokesman for Project Billboard. - http://www.commondreams.org/h...
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| ... Bush Too Stupid, Arrogant and Disabled by Father Issues to Learn from Bush, Sr. ... |
| 08.26.04 (8:13 am) [edit] |
George Bush Sr. predicted that "Incalculable human and political costs" would have resulted if his administration had pushed all the way to Baghdad and sought to overthrow Saddam Hussein after the U.S.-led coalition ousted the Iraqi army from Kuwait during the Persian Gulf war in 1991. "We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect rule Iraq," Bush wrote. "The coalition would have instantly collapsed. ... Going in and thus unilaterally exceeding the UN mandate would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. "Had we gone the invasion route, the US could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different - and perhaps barren - outcome."
[b]Read article [/b] http://www.sacbee.com/24hour/...
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| ... AWOL Traitor Dubya: The "WIFE" of the King of Saudi Arabia!!! ... |
| 08.26.04 (6:27 am) [edit] |
[b]Read "Bush, Family and Top Aides Received $127,600 Gifts Last Year from Saudi Crown Prince"[/b] http://www.commondreams.org/h...
[b]This Picture Is Worth More Than 1000 Words: It's Worth $$$$$$$$$ For[i] The House of Bush[/i], Showing Dubya Has Sold-Out The USA To The Saudi Royal Family, [i]The House of Saud[/i], To Enrich The Bush Crime Family!!!!!! Read [i]The House of Bush, House of Saud [/i] http://www.houseofbush.com/ [/b]
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| ... Dubya Ain't No Genius-- But Wouldn't It Be Nice If Bush Wasn't An Imbecilic Fool?!? ... |
| 08.26.04 (6:24 am) [edit] |
[b]The Misunderestimated Man
How Bush chose stupidity.[/b]
The question I am most frequently asked about [i]Bushisms [/i]is, "Do you really think the president of the United States is dumb?"
The short answer is yes.
The long answer is yes and no.
Quotations http://slate.msn.com/id/76886... collected over the years in[i] Slate [/i]may leave the impression that George W. Bush is a dimwit. Let's face it: A man who cannot talk about education without making a humiliating grammatical mistake ("The illiteracy level of our children are appalling"); who cannot keep straight the three branches of government ("It's the executive branch's job to interpret law"); who coins ridiculous words ("Hispanos," "arbolist," "subliminable," "resignate," "transformationed"); who habitually says the opposite of what he intends ("the death tax is good for people from all walks of life!") sounds like a grade-A imbecile.
And if you don't care to pursue the matter any further, that view will suffice. George W. Bush has governed, for the most part, the way any airhead might, undermining the fiscal condition of the nation, squandering the goodwill of the world after Sept. 11, and allowing huge problems (global warming, entitlement spending, AIDS) to metastasize toward catastrophe through a combination of ideology, incomprehension, and indifference. If Bush isn't exactly the moron he sounds, his synaptic misfirings offer a plausible proxy for the idiocy of his presidency.
In reality, however, there's more to it. Bush's assorted malapropisms, solecisms, gaffes, spoonerisms, and truisms tend to imply that his lack of fluency in English is tantamount to an absence of intelligence. But as we all know, the inarticulate can be shrewd, the fluent fatuous. In Bush's case, the symptoms point to a specific malady—some kind of linguistic deficit akin to dyslexia—that does not indicate a lack of mental capacity per se.
Bush also compensates with his non-verbal acumen. As he notes, "Smart comes in all kinds of different ways." The president's way is an aptitude for connecting to people through banter and physicality. He has a powerful memory for names, details, and figures that truly matter to him, such as batting averages from the 1950s. Bush also has a keen political sense, sharpened under the tutelage of Karl Rove.
What's more, calling the president a cretin absolves him of responsibility. Like Reagan, Bush avoids blame for all manner of contradictions, implausible assertions, and outright lies by appearing an amiable dunce. If he knows not what he does, blame goes to the three puppeteers, Cheney, Rove, and Rumsfeld. It also breeds sympathy. We wouldn't laugh at FDR because he couldn't walk. Is it less cruel to laugh at GWB because he can't talk? The soft bigotry of low expectations means Bush is seen to outperform by merely getting by. Finally, elitist condescension, however merited, helps cement Bush's bond to the masses.
But if "numskull" is an imprecise description of the president, it is not altogether inaccurate. Bush may not have been born stupid, but he has achieved stupidity, and now he wears it as a badge of honor. What makes mocking this president fair as well as funny is that Bush is, or at least once was, capable of learning, reading, and thinking. We know he has discipline and can work hard (at least when the goal is reducing his time for a three-mile run). Instead he chose to coast, for most of his life, on name, charm, good looks, and the easy access to capital afforded by family connections.
The most obvious expression of Bush's choice of ignorance is that, at the age of 57, he knows nothing about policy or history. After years of working as his dad's spear-chucker in Washington, he didn't understand the difference between Medicare and Medicaid, the second- and third-largest federal programs. Well into his plans for invading Iraq, Bush still couldn't get down the distinction between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, the key religious divide in a country he was about to occupy. Though he sometimes carries books for show, he either does not read them or doesn't absorb anything from them. Bush's ignorance is so transparent that many of his intimates do not bother to dispute it even in public. Consider the testimony of several who know him well.
[b]Richard Perle[/b], foreign policy adviser: "The first time I met Bush 43 … two things became clear. One, he didn't know very much. The other was that he had the confidence to ask questions that revealed he didn't know very much."
[b]David Frum[/b], former speechwriter: "Bush had a poor memory for facts and figures. … Fire a question at him about the specifics of his administration's policies, and he often appeared uncertain. Nobody would ever enroll him in a quiz show."
[b]Laura Bush[/b], spouse: "George is not an overly introspective person. He has good instincts, and he goes with them. He doesn't need to evaluate and reevaluate a decision. He doesn't try to overthink. He likes action."
[b]Paul O'Neill[/b], former treasury secretary: "The only way I can describe it is that, well, the President is like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people. There is no discernible connection."
A second, more damning aspect of Bush's mind-set is that he doesn't want to know anything in detail, however important. Since college, he has spilled with contempt for knowledge, equating learning with snobbery and making a joke of his own anti-intellectualism. ("[William F. Buckley] wrote a book at Yale; I read one," he quipped at a black-tie event.) By O'Neill's account, Bush could sit through an hourlong presentation about the state of the economy without asking a single question. ("I was bored as hell," the president shot back, ostensibly in jest.)
Closely related to this aggressive ignorance is a third feature of Bush's mentality: laziness. Again, this is a lifelong trait. Bush's college grades were mostly Cs (including a 73 in Introduction to the American Political System). At the start of one term, the star of the Yale football team spotted him in the back row during the shopping period for courses. "Hey! George Bush is in this class!" Calvin Hill shouted to his teammates. "This is the one for us!" As governor of Texas, Bush would take a long break in the middle of his short workday for a run followed by a stretch of video golf or computer solitaire.
A fourth and final quality of Bush's mind is that it does not think. The president can't tolerate debate about issues. Offered an option, he makes up his mind quickly and never reconsiders. At an elementary school, a child once asked him whether it was hard to make decisions as president. "Most of the decisions come pretty easily for me, to be frank with you." By leaping to conclusions based on what he "believes," Bush avoids contemplating even the most obvious basic contradictions: between his policy of tax cuts and reducing the deficit; between his call for a humble foreign policy based on alliances and his unilateral assertion of American power; between his support for in-vitro fertilization (which destroys embryos) and his opposition to fetal stem-cell research (because it destroys embryos).
Why would someone capable of being smart choose to be stupid? To understand, you have to look at W.'s relationship with father. This filial bond involves more tension than meets the eye. Dad was away for much of his oldest son's childhood. Little George grew up closer to his acid-tongued mother and acted out against the absent parent—through adolescent misbehavior, academic failure, dissipation, and basically not accomplishing anything at all until well into his 40s.
Dubya's youthful screw-ups and smart-aleck attitude reflect some combination of protest, plea for attention, and flailing attempt to compete. Until a decade ago, his résumé read like a send-up of his dad's. Bush senior was a star student at Andover and Phi Beta Kappa at Yale, where he was also captain of the baseball team; Junior struggled through with gentleman's C's and, though he loved baseball, couldn't make the college lineup. Père was a bomber pilot in the Pacific; fils sat out 'Nam in the Texas Air National Guard, where he lost flying privileges by not showing up. Dad drove to Texas in 1947 to get rich in the oil business and actually did; Son tried the same in 1975 and drilled dry holes for a decade. Bush the elder got elected to Congress in 1966; Shrub ran in 1978, didn't know what he was talking about, and got clobbered.
Through all this incompetent emulation runs an undercurrent of hostility. In an oft-told anecdote circa 1973, GWB—after getting wasted at a party and driving over a neighbor's trash can in Houston—challenged his dad. "I hear you're lookin' for me," W. told the chairman of the Republican National Committee. "You want to go mano a mano right here?" Some years later at a state dinner, he told the Queen of England he was being seated far away because he was the black sheep of the family.
After half a lifetime of this kind of frustration, Bush decided to straighten up. Nursing a hangover at a 40th-birthday weekend, he gave up Wild Turkey, cold turkey. With the help of Billy Graham, he put himself in the hands of a higher power and began going to church. He became obsessed with punctuality and developed a rigid routine. Thus did Prince Hal molt into an evangelical King Henry. And it worked! Putting together a deal to buy the Texas Rangers, the ne'er-do-well finally tasted success. With success, he grew closer to his father, taking on the role of family avenger. This culminated in his 1994 challenge to Texas Gov. Ann Richards, who had twitted dad at the 1988 Democratic convention*.
Curiously, this late arrival at adulthood did not involve Bush becoming in any way thoughtful. Having chosen stupidity as rebellion, he stuck with it out of conformity. The promise-keeper, reformed-alkie path he chose not only drastically curtailed personal choices he no longer wanted, it also supplied an all-encompassing order, offered guidance on policy, and prevented the need for much actual information. Bush's old answer to hard questions was, "I don't know and, who cares." His new answer was, "Wait a second while I check with Jesus."
A remaining bit of poignancy was his unresolved struggle with his father. "All I ask," he implored a reporter while running for governor in 1994, "is that for once you guys stop seeing me as the son of George Bush." In his campaigns, W. has kept his dad offstage. (In an exceptional appearance on the eve of the 2000 New Hampshire primary, 41 came onstage and called his son "this boy.") While some describe the second Bush presidency as a restoration, it is in at least equal measure a repudiation. The son's harder-edged conservatism explicitly rejects the old man's approach to such issues as abortion, taxes, and relations with Israel.
This Oedipally induced ignorance expresses itself most dangerously in Bush's handling of the war in Iraq. Dubya polished off his old man's greatest enemy, Saddam, but only by lampooning 41's accomplishment of coalition-building in the first Gulf War. Bush led the country to war on false pretenses and neglected to plan the occupation that would inevitably follow. A more knowledgeable and engaged president might have questioned the quality of the evidence about Iraq's supposed weapons programs. One who preferred to be intelligent might have asked about the possibility of an unfriendly reception. Instead, Bush rolled the dice. His budget-busting tax cuts exemplify a similar phenomenon, driven by an alternate set of ideologues.
As the president says, we misunderestimate him. He was not born stupid. He chose stupidity. Bush may look like a well-meaning dolt. On consideration, he's something far more dangerous: a dedicated fool. - http://slate.msn.com/id/21000...
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| ... 'Deserters for Truth' Say AWOL Bush 'Dishonored his Fellow Deserters' ... |
| 08.26.04 (6:21 am) [edit] |
"Announcer: If you have any questions about George Bush's National Guard service record, just ask the men who didn't serve with him. John Maguire: I did not serve with George Bush. Ted Brody: I did not serve with George Bush. Michael Jansen: I did not serve with George Bush. Maguire: I know George Bush is lying about his service, because I was skiing with him in Aspen the whole time. Brody: His accounts of where he was and where he wasn't are as different as being at a frat party and being in the military. Literally. Jansen: George Bush cannot be trusted to be there for America, especially if there is anywhere near an airforce base. Brody: We got so drunk. Maguire: We got so drunk. Jansen: We got so drunk. Maguire: George Bush is a deserter. But he does like to party." Watch this hilarious satire!
[b]Check-out-website [/b] http://desertersfortruth.com/...
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| Secret Service Prevents War Hero Max Cleland from Delivering Letter to AWOL Bush |
| 08.25.04 (5:35 pm) [edit] |
"Max Cleland tried to deliver a letter protesting ads challenging John Kerry's Vietnam service to President Bush at his Texas ranch Wednesday, but the Secret Service stopped Cleland short of his goal. The former Georgia senator, a triple amputee who fought in Vietnam, was carrying a letter from nine Senate Democrats who wrote Bush that 'you owe a special duty' to condemn attacks on Kerry's military service. 'The question is where is George Bush's honor, the question is where is his shame to attack a fellow veteran who has distinguished himself in combat?' Cleland asked. 'Regardless of the political combat involved, it's disgraceful.' Encountering a permanent roadblock to Bush's ranch, Cleland left without turning over the letter to anyone." You go, Max!
[b]Read article [/b] http://www.washingtonpost.com...
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| 'Deserters for Truth' Say AWOL Bush 'Dishonored his Fellow Deserters' |
| 08.25.04 (5:00 pm) [edit] |
"Announcer: If you have any questions about George Bush's National Guard service record, just ask the men who didn't serve with him. John Maguire: I did not serve with George Bush. Ted Brody: I did not serve with George Bush. Michael Jansen: I did not serve with George Bush. Maguire: I know George Bush is lying about his service, because I was skiing with him in Aspen the whole time. Brody: His accounts of where he was and where he wasn't are as different as being at a frat party and being in the military. Literally. Jansen: George Bush cannot be trusted to be there for America, especially if there is anywhere near an airforce base. Brody: We got so drunk. Maguire: We got so drunk. Jansen: We got so drunk. Maguire: George Bush is a deserter. But he does like to party." Watch this hilarious satire!
[b]Check-out-website [/b] http://desertersfortruth.com/...
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| Dubya Ain't No Genius-- But Wouldn't It Be Nice If Bush Wasn't An Imbecilic Fool?!? |
| 08.25.04 (1:50 pm) [edit] |
[b]The Misunderestimated Man
How Bush chose stupidity.[/b]
The question I am most frequently asked about [i]Bushisms [/i]is, "Do you really think the president of the United States is dumb?"
The short answer is yes.
The long answer is yes and no.
Quotations http://slate.msn.com/id/76886... collected over the years in[i] Slate [/i]may leave the impression that George W. Bush is a dimwit. Let's face it: A man who cannot talk about education without making a humiliating grammatical mistake ("The illiteracy level of our children are appalling"); who cannot keep straight the three branches of government ("It's the executive branch's job to interpret law"); who coins ridiculous words ("Hispanos," "arbolist," "subliminable," "resignate," "transformationed"); who habitually says the opposite of what he intends ("the death tax is good for people from all walks of life!") sounds like a grade-A imbecile.
And if you don't care to pursue the matter any further, that view will suffice. George W. Bush has governed, for the most part, the way any airhead might, undermining the fiscal condition of the nation, squandering the goodwill of the world after Sept. 11, and allowing huge problems (global warming, entitlement spending, AIDS) to metastasize toward catastrophe through a combination of ideology, incomprehension, and indifference. If Bush isn't exactly the moron he sounds, his synaptic misfirings offer a plausible proxy for the idiocy of his presidency.
In reality, however, there's more to it. Bush's assorted malapropisms, solecisms, gaffes, spoonerisms, and truisms tend to imply that his lack of fluency in English is tantamount to an absence of intelligence. But as we all know, the inarticulate can be shrewd, the fluent fatuous. In Bush's case, the symptoms point to a specific malady—some kind of linguistic deficit akin to dyslexia—that does not indicate a lack of mental capacity per se.
Bush also compensates with his non-verbal acumen. As he notes, "Smart comes in all kinds of different ways." The president's way is an aptitude for connecting to people through banter and physicality. He has a powerful memory for names, details, and figures that truly matter to him, such as batting averages from the 1950s. Bush also has a keen political sense, sharpened under the tutelage of Karl Rove.
What's more, calling the president a cretin absolves him of responsibility. Like Reagan, Bush avoids blame for all manner of contradictions, implausible assertions, and outright lies by appearing an amiable dunce. If he knows not what he does, blame goes to the three puppeteers, Cheney, Rove, and Rumsfeld. It also breeds sympathy. We wouldn't laugh at FDR because he couldn't walk. Is it less cruel to laugh at GWB because he can't talk? The soft bigotry of low expectations means Bush is seen to outperform by merely getting by. Finally, elitist condescension, however merited, helps cement Bush's bond to the masses.
But if "numskull" is an imprecise description of the president, it is not altogether inaccurate. Bush may not have been born stupid, but he has achieved stupidity, and now he wears it as a badge of honor. What makes mocking this president fair as well as funny is that Bush is, or at least once was, capable of learning, reading, and thinking. We know he has discipline and can work hard (at least when the goal is reducing his time for a three-mile run). Instead he chose to coast, for most of his life, on name, charm, good looks, and the easy access to capital afforded by family connections.
The most obvious expression of Bush's choice of ignorance is that, at the age of 57, he knows nothing about policy or history. After years of working as his dad's spear-chucker in Washington, he didn't understand the difference between Medicare and Medicaid, the second- and third-largest federal programs. Well into his plans for invading Iraq, Bush still couldn't get down the distinction between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, the key religious divide in a country he was about to occupy. Though he sometimes carries books for show, he either does not read them or doesn't absorb anything from them. Bush's ignorance is so transparent that many of his intimates do not bother to dispute it even in public. Consider the testimony of several who know him well.
[b]Richard Perle[/b], foreign policy adviser: "The first time I met Bush 43 … two things became clear. One, he didn't know very much. The other was that he had the confidence to ask questions that revealed he didn't know very much."
[b]David Frum[/b], former speechwriter: "Bush had a poor memory for facts and figures. … Fire a question at him about the specifics of his administration's policies, and he often appeared uncertain. Nobody would ever enroll him in a quiz show."
[b]Laura Bush[/b], spouse: "George is not an overly introspective person. He has good instincts, and he goes with them. He doesn't need to evaluate and reevaluate a decision. He doesn't try to overthink. He likes action."
[b]Paul O'Neill[/b], former treasury secretary: "The only way I can describe it is that, well, the President is like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people. There is no discernible connection."
A second, more damning aspect of Bush's mind-set is that he doesn't want to know anything in detail, however important. Since college, he has spilled with contempt for knowledge, equating learning with snobbery and making a joke of his own anti-intellectualism. ("[William F. Buckley] wrote a book at Yale; I read one," he quipped at a black-tie event.) By O'Neill's account, Bush could sit through an hourlong presentation about the state of the economy without asking a single question. ("I was bored as hell," the president shot back, ostensibly in jest.)
Closely related to this aggressive ignorance is a third feature of Bush's mentality: laziness. Again, this is a lifelong trait. Bush's college grades were mostly Cs (including a 73 in Introduction to the American Political System). At the start of one term, the star of the Yale football team spotted him in the back row during the shopping period for courses. "Hey! George Bush is in this class!" Calvin Hill shouted to his teammates. "This is the one for us!" As governor of Texas, Bush would take a long break in the middle of his short workday for a run followed by a stretch of video golf or computer solitaire.
A fourth and final quality of Bush's mind is that it does not think. The president can't tolerate debate about issues. Offered an option, he makes up his mind quickly and never reconsiders. At an elementary school, a child once asked him whether it was hard to make decisions as president. "Most of the decisions come pretty easily for me, to be frank with you." By leaping to conclusions based on what he "believes," Bush avoids contemplating even the most obvious basic contradictions: between his policy of tax cuts and reducing the deficit; between his call for a humble foreign policy based on alliances and his unilateral assertion of American power; between his support for in-vitro fertilization (which destroys embryos) and his opposition to fetal stem-cell research (because it destroys embryos).
Why would someone capable of being smart choose to be stupid? To understand, you have to look at W.'s relationship with father. This filial bond involves more tension than meets the eye. Dad was away for much of his oldest son's childhood. Little George grew up closer to his acid-tongued mother and acted out against the absent parent—through adolescent misbehavior, academic failure, dissipation, and basically not accomplishing anything at all until well into his 40s.
Dubya's youthful screw-ups and smart-aleck attitude reflect some combination of protest, plea for attention, and flailing attempt to compete. Until a decade ago, his résumé read like a send-up of his dad's. Bush senior was a star student at Andover and Phi Beta Kappa at Yale, where he was also captain of the baseball team; Junior struggled through with gentleman's C's and, though he loved baseball, couldn't make the college lineup. Père was a bomber pilot in the Pacific; fils sat out 'Nam in the Texas Air National Guard, where he lost flying privileges by not showing up. Dad drove to Texas in 1947 to get rich in the oil business and actually did; Son tried the same in 1975 and drilled dry holes for a decade. Bush the elder got elected to Congress in 1966; Shrub ran in 1978, didn't know what he was talking about, and got clobbered.
Through all this incompetent emulation runs an undercurrent of hostility. In an oft-told anecdote circa 1973, GWB—after getting wasted at a party and driving over a neighbor's trash can in Houston—challenged his dad. "I hear you're lookin' for me," W. told the chairman of the Republican National Committee. "You want to go mano a mano right here?" Some years later at a state dinner, he told the Queen of England he was being seated far away because he was the black sheep of the family.
After half a lifetime of this kind of frustration, Bush decided to straighten up. Nursing a hangover at a 40th-birthday weekend, he gave up Wild Turkey, cold turkey. With the help of Billy Graham, he put himself in the hands of a higher power and began going to church. He became obsessed with punctuality and developed a rigid routine. Thus did Prince Hal molt into an evangelical King Henry. And it worked! Putting together a deal to buy the Texas Rangers, the ne'er-do-well finally tasted success. With success, he grew closer to his father, taking on the role of family avenger. This culminated in his 1994 challenge to Texas Gov. Ann Richards, who had twitted dad at the 1988 Democratic convention*.
Curiously, this late arrival at adulthood did not involve Bush becoming in any way thoughtful. Having chosen stupidity as rebellion, he stuck with it out of conformity. The promise-keeper, reformed-alkie path he chose not only drastically curtailed personal choices he no longer wanted, it also supplied an all-encompassing order, offered guidance on policy, and prevented the need for much actual information. Bush's old answer to hard questions was, "I don't know and, who cares." His new answer was, "Wait a second while I check with Jesus."
A remaining bit of poignancy was his unresolved struggle with his father. "All I ask," he implored a reporter while running for governor in 1994, "is that for once you guys stop seeing me as the son of George Bush." In his campaigns, W. has kept his dad offstage. (In an exceptional appearance on the eve of the 2000 New Hampshire primary, 41 came onstage and called his son "this boy.") While some describe the second Bush presidency as a restoration, it is in at least equal measure a repudiation. The son's harder-edged conservatism explicitly rejects the old man's approach to such issues as abortion, taxes, and relations with Israel.
This Oedipally induced ignorance expresses itself most dangerously in Bush's handling of the war in Iraq. Dubya polished off his old man's greatest enemy, Saddam, but only by lampooning 41's accomplishment of coalition-building in the first Gulf War. Bush led the country to war on false pretenses and neglected to plan the occupation that would inevitably follow. A more knowledgeable and engaged president might have questioned the quality of the evidence about Iraq's supposed weapons programs. One who preferred to be intelligent might have asked about the possibility of an unfriendly reception. Instead, Bush rolled the dice. His budget-busting tax cuts exemplify a similar phenomenon, driven by an alternate set of ideologues.
As the president says, we misunderestimate him. He was not born stupid. He chose stupidity. Bush may look like a well-meaning dolt. On consideration, he's something far more dangerous: a dedicated fool. - http://slate.msn.com/id/21000...
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| Fahrenheit 9/11 About Bush (Who Is Unfit for Command) Breaks Box Office Records for Documentary! |
| 08.25.04 (1:42 pm) [edit] |
[b]THE BEGINNING OF HISTORY
Fahrenheit 9/11 has touched millions of viewers across the world. But could it actually change the course of civilisation?[/b]
[b]by John Berger / The Guardian[/b]
Tuesday August 24, 2004
Fahrenheit 9/11 is astounding. Not so much as a film - although it is cunning and moving - but as an event. Most commentators try to dismiss the event and disparage the film. We will see why later.
The artists on the Cannes film festival jury apparently voted unanimously to award Michael Moore's film the Palme d'Or. Since then it has touched many millions across the world. In the US, its box-office takings for the first six weeks amounted to more than $100m, which is, astoundingly, about half of what Harry Potter made during a comparable period. Only the so-called opinion-makers in the media appear to have been put out by it.
The film, considered as a political act, may be a historical landmark. Yet to have a sense of this, a certain perspective for the future is required. Living only close-up to the latest news, as most opinion-makers do, reduces one's perspectives. The film is trying to make a small contribution towards the changing of world history. It is a work inspired by hope.
What makes it an event is the fact that it is an effective and independent intervention into immediate world politics. Today it is rare for an artist to succeed in making such an intervention, and in interrupting the prepared, prevaricating statements of politicians. Its immediate aim is to make it less likely that President Bush will be re-elected next November.
To denigrate this as propaganda is either naive or perverse, forgetting (deliberately?) what the last century taught us. Propaganda requires a permanent network of communication so that it can systematically stifle reflection with emotive or utopian slogans. Its pace is usually fast. Propaganda invariably serves the long-term interests of some elite.
This single maverick movie is often reflectively slow and is not afraid of silence. It appeals to people to think for themselves and make connections. And it identifies with, and pleads for, those who are normally unlistened to. Making a strong case is not the same thing as saturating with propaganda. Fox TV does the latter; Michael Moore the former.
Ever since the Greek tragedies, artists have, from time to time, asked themselves how they might influence ongoing political events. It's a tricky question because two very different types of power are involved. Many theories of aesthetics and ethics revolve round this question. For those living under political tyrannies, art has frequently been a form of hidden resistance, and tyrants habitually look for ways to control art. All this, however, is in general terms and over a large terrain. Fahrenheit 9/11 is something different. It has succeeded in intervening in a political programme on the programme's own ground.
For this to happen a convergence of factors were needed. The Cannes award and the misjudged attempt to prevent the film being distributed played a significant part in creating the event.
To point this out in no way implies that the film as such doesn't deserve the attention it is receiving. It's simply to remind ourselves that within the realm of the mass media, a breakthrough (a smashing down of the daily wall of lies and half-truths) is bound to be rare. And it is this rarity which has made the film exemplary. It is setting an example to millions - as if they'd been waiting for it.
The film proposes that the White House and Pentagon were taken over in the first year of the millennium by a gang of thugs so that US power should henceforth serve the global interests of the corporations: a stark scenario which is closer to the truth than most nuanced editorials. Yet more important than the scenario is the way the movie speaks out. It demonstrates that - despite all the manipulative power of communications experts, lying presidential speeches and vapid press conferences - a single independent voice, pointing out certain home truths which countless Americans are already discovering for themselves, can break through the conspiracy of silence, the atmosphere of fear and the solitude of feeling politically impotent.
It's a movie that speaks of obstinate faraway desires in a period of disillusion. A movie that tells jokes while the band plays the apocalypse. A movie in which millions of Americans recognise themselves and the precise ways in which they are being cheated. A movie about surprises, mostly bad but some good, being discussed together. Fahrenheit 9/11 reminds the spectator that when courage is shared one can fight against the odds.
In more than a thousand cinemas across the country, Michael Moore becomes with this film a people's tribune. And what do we see? Bush is visibly a political cretin, as ignorant of the world as he is indifferent to it; while the tribune, informed by popular experience, acquires political credibility, not as a politician himself, but as the voice of the anger of a multitude and its will to resist.
There is something else which is astounding. The aim of Fahrenheit 9/11 is to stop Bush fixing the next election as he fixed the last. Its focus is on the totally unjustified war in Iraq. Yet its conclusion is larger than either of these issues. It declares that a political economy which creates colossally increasing wealth surrounded by disastrously increasing poverty, needs - in order to survive - a continual war with some invented foreign enemy to maintain its own internal order and security. It requires ceaseless war.
Thus, 15 years after the fall of communism, a decade after the declared end of history, one of the main theses of Marx's interpretation of history again becomes a debating point and a possible explanation of the catastrophes being lived.
It is always the poor who make the most sacrifices, Fahrenheit 9/11 announces quietly during its last minutes. For how much longer?
There is no future for any civilisation anywhere in the world today which ignores this question. And this is why the film was made and became what it became. It's a film that deeply wants America to survive. - http://www.michaelmoore.com/
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| Bush Politics 101: How To Smear Others & Skip Ethics 101 (It's Boring)!!! |
| 08.25.04 (8:52 am) [edit] |
[b] Bush Politics 101: How To Make Someone Else's Smear Work For You[/b]
In response to the intensifying controversy over the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attack on John Kerry, spokespeople for the Bush campaign and the White House have denied any connection between the Bush campaign and the Swift Vets, and they have maintained that Bush has not participated in the effort to denigrate Kerry's service in Vietnam. But Bush has refused to denounce the ads produced by the Swift Vets and instead has only generally criticized the existence of such (supposedly) independent political hit-jobs. Today Bush repeated his call for ending all independent ads but declined to say anything about the Swift Vets' strikes against Kerry. He added, "I think Senator Kerry served admirably, and he ought to be--ought to be proud of his record." (Some boob at AOL headlined its report on Bush's comments, "Bush Rejects Swift Boat Spot.") Yesterday The New York Times quoted Bush campaign flack Steve Schmidt insisting, "The president has made clear that he regards John Kerry's service as noble service."
Perhaps. But when Bush had the chance to make clear that he considered Kerry's service "noble," Bush took a pass. In fact, he even--nod, nod, wink, wink--encouraged criticism of Kerry's record by maintaining silence when his fervent supporters repeated the Swift Vets' criticisms.
At one of his "Ask President Bush" events--those faux townhall meetings attended only by Bush fans screened by the Republicans--Bush took questions from the crowd in Oregon. As usual, many of the remarks were fawning comments praising Bush, rather than serious questions about his actions and policies. And two Bush backers in the crowd referred to the Swift Vets' campaign against Kerry. Here are those exchanges, taken from the transcript on the official White House website:
Q: Mr. President, Mr. Kerry seems to have a lot of trouble remembering dates--when and if he was in Cambodia; who was President--Nixon or Johnson--when he was assigned to Vietnam; what bills in Congress he worked for and when; cannot remember if he campaigned in Oregon or California for George McGovern. Your last opponent you exposed with fuzzy math. It's time to expose John Kerry with fuzzy memory. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: You got a question?
Q: I, too, want to say God bless you, Mr. Bush. My husband and my twins and I pray for you daily, as do many home schoolers. (Applause.) Thank you for recognizing home schoolers.
THE PRESIDENT: You bet. Thanks. (Applause.) I appreciate you saying that.
And later....
Q: On behalf of Vietnam veterans--and I served six tours over there--we do support the President. I only have one concern, and that's on the Purple Heart, and that is, is that there are over 200,000 Vietnam vets that died from Agent Orange and were never--no Purple Heart has ever been awarded to a Vietnam veteran because of Agent Orange because it's never been changed in the regulations. Yet, we've got a candidate for President out here with two self-inflicted scratches, and I take that as an insult. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you for your service. Six tours? Whew. That's a lot of tours. Let's see, who've we got here? You got a question?
Bush was playing footsie with the charges against Kerry: that Kerry wounded himself to earn his Purple Hearts, that he has lied about being ordered to Cambodia while in Vietnam. Bush listened to these echoes of the Swift Vets' attacks and said nothing, implying, of course, that he concurred. At the least, he showed he was willing to accept the political gains of these blasts against Kerry's "noble service." Is it really honoring Kerry's service essentially to nod as others denigrate it?
But this is part of the Bush playbook. In 2000, Bush and his campaign engaged in precisely the same dirty politics. After Senator John McCain walloped Bush in the New Hampshire primary and the GOP nomination battle seemed to hinge on the primary in South Carolina, home to many retired military veterans, Bush appeared at a campaign rally with J. Thomas Burch Jr., the chairman of a marginal outfit called the National Vietnam and Gulf War Veterans Coalition. Burch bitterly decried McCain for "always" opposing veterans legislation, including measures concerning Agent Orange, health care and the Gulf War. When Burch finished slamming McCain, Bush shook his hand and said, "Thank you, buddy."
There was one problem. What Burch had said was a lie. McCain had cosponsored the Agent Orange act that became law. He also had testified in favor of legislation to provide compensation to Gulf War vets struck by unexplained illnesses. Perhaps Bush had not been aware of McCain's record on veterans' issues. But after news accounts noted that Burch had lied and after five senators who had fought in Vietnam (including two Republicans) termed Burch's allegations "absolutely false," Bush refused to repudiate Burch. Instead, the Bush campaign crowed about the effectiveness of Burch's phony attack. Bush campaign spokesman Tucker Eskew said, "The McCain campaign is squawking because we hit them where they hurt. McCain and the media created a myth of the [pro-McCain] military monolith in [South Carolina], and we exploded that. We challenged him on his greatest point of pride, and they stomped their feet, pointed fingers and whined."
That quote says much about the Bush gang's ethics (or lack thereof). This time around, the Bush campaign is savvy enough not to brag in such a fashion. But the methodology is mostly the same. First, let others mount the dirtiest assaults--even if untrue. Then, say nothing to disrupt these attacks, Finally, reap the rewards. The Bush crowd's response to the Swift Vets' campaign is hardly surprising. And it is hardly honorable. - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| Iraqi Soccer Players Kick the Stuffing Out of Bush's Insane Fantasy ... |
| 08.25.04 (6:39 am) [edit] |
With just 70 days until election day, the race for the presidency has gone from bitter to outright poisonous: John Kerry is faulted in television ads by President Bush's moneyed allies for winning combat medals in a war that Bush avoided, then slammed by the same hypocrites for having the courage to criticize that war after his return as a wounded vet.
Meanwhile, Bush pretends to be above the fray, all the while parading as a war commander and boasting, bizarrely, about his mythical achievements in the invasion of Iraq. That war, like Vietnam, has been a costly disaster since its inception. In an eerie echo of previous presidents who knowingly lied us into the Vietnam horror, always affirming that victory was "just around the corner," Bush's latest campaign ads prematurely declare Afghanistan and Iraq as the world's newest democracies. According to the implicit logic of one ad, the proof can be found in the fact that they both sent teams to the Olympics.
[b]Read the full story [/b] http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| Iraqi Soccer Players Kick the Stuffing Out of Bush's Insane Fantasy ... |
| 08.25.04 (6:37 am) [edit] |
With just 70 days until election day, the race for the presidency has gone from bitter to outright poisonous: John Kerry is faulted in television ads by President Bush's moneyed allies for winning combat medals in a war that Bush avoided, then slammed by the same hypocrites for having the courage to criticize that war after his return as a wounded vet.
Meanwhile, Bush pretends to be above the fray, all the while parading as a war commander and boasting, bizarrely, about his mythical achievements in the invasion of Iraq. That war, like Vietnam, has been a costly disaster since its inception. In an eerie echo of previous presidents who knowingly lied us into the Vietnam horror, always affirming that victory was "just around the corner," Bush's latest campaign ads prematurely declare Afghanistan and Iraq as the world's newest democracies. According to the implicit logic of one ad, the proof can be found in the fact that they both sent teams to the Olympics.
[b]Read the full story [/b] http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| Bush/Cheney Don't Give A Rat's Ass About YOU!!! |
| 08.25.04 (6:33 am) [edit] |
[b]Bush/Cheney [i]don't give a rat's ass [/i]about [i]your pain[/i]... If your kid (or spouse, father/mother, brother/sister, etc.) has been killed or maimed for live in Iraq,[i] tough shit[/i]-- that's the price[i] these neo-cons figure[/i] for making the Bush Crime Family filthy rich! If you don't have a job or health care or have lost your right to overtime pay, [i]tough shit[/i]-- that's the price [i]these neo-fascists [/i]figure for creating a slave labor society so that Bush/Cheney can [i]cash-in [/i]big time!
Your Children are Burning[/b]
[b]Ladybug! Ladybug!
Fly away home.
Your house is on fire,
And your children all gone[/b].
- Children's nursery rhyme, author unknown
The presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and John Kerry are at each other's throats like dogs in a fighting pit over a war that ended 29 years ago. The mainstream news media, along with the alternative news media, have enjoyed watching the show, dutifully reporting every detail and nuance of the fiery exchanges between the camps.
Somewhere in these last 24 days of August, however, while arguing over a three-decades-old war, we managed to forget that another war is happening. Here are some details that have been missed:
Army Spc. Armando Hernandez, age 22; Army Spc. Anthony J. Dixon, age 20;Marine Cpl. Dean P. Pratt, age 22; Army Spc. Justin B. Onwordi, age 28; Marine Sgt. Juan Calderon Jr., age 26; Army Pfc. Harry N. Shondee, Jr., age 19; Marine Capt. Gregory A Ratzlaff, age 36; Army Sgt. Tommy L. Gray, age 34; Marine Lance Cpl. Joseph L. Nice, age 19; Marine Gunnery Sgt. Elia P. Fontecchio, age 30; Army Spc. Donald R. McCune, age 20; Marine Sgt. Moses D. Rocha, age 33; Army Pfc. Raymond J. Faulstich Jr., age 24; Marine Sgt. Yadir G. Reynoso, age 27; Marine Lance Cpl. Larry L. Wells, age 22; Army Spc. Joshua I. Bunch, age 23; Marine Cpl. Roberto Abad, age 22; Army Pfc. David L. Potter, age 22; Marine Lance Cpl. Jonathan W. Collins, age 19; Army Capt. Andrew R. Houghton, age 25; Marine Lance Cpl. Tavon L. Hubbard, age 24; Marine Staff Sgt. John R. Howard, age 26; Army Capt. Michael Yury Tarlavsky, age 30; Marine Lance Cpl. Kane M. Funke, age 20; Marine Lance Cpl. Nicholas B. Morrison, age 23; Army 1st Lt. Neil Anthony Santoriello, age 24; Marine Corps Pfc. Geoffrey Perez, age 24; Marine Corps Pfc. Fernando B. Hannon, age 19; Army Spc. Mark Anthony Zapata, age 27; Army 2nd Lt. James Michael Goins, age 23; Army Sgt. Daniel Michael Shepherd, age 23; Army Pfc. Brandon R. Sapp, age 21; Army Sgt. David M. Heath, age 30; Army Spc. Brandon T. Titus, age 20; Marine Lance Cpl. Caleb J. Powers, age 21; Army Spc. Jacob D. Martir, age 21; Marine Sgt. Harvey E. Parkerson III, age 27; Marine Lance Cpl. Dustin R. Fitzgerald, age 22; Army Pfc. Henry C. Risner, age 26; Pfc. Kevin A. Cuming, age 22; 1st Lt. Charles L. Wilkins III, age 38; Pfc. Ryan A. Martin, age 22.
That is the list of dead American soldiers in Iraq from the last 24 days. That is August, so far. Two other American soldiers - Army Sgt. Bobby E. Beasley, age 36, and Army Staff Sgt. Craig W. Cherry, age 39 - were killed in Afghanistan by an improvised explosive device on August 7th. We don't talk about that war anymore, either. 964 dead American soldiers, 52 since August 1st.
522 days ago, the administration of George W. Bush began the 'Shock and Awe' bombing campaign in Iraq, an opening salvo that has broadened into a conflict which has left well over ten thousand innocent Iraqi civilians dead. According to the rhetoric that loosed those bombs 74 weeks ago, we went into Iraq because:
- Iraq was in possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX gas, 30,000 munitions to deliver these agents, unmanned aerial drones to deliver these agents, mobile biological weapons labs, and uranium 'yellowcake' from Niger for use in the development of nuclear bombs.
- The Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein enjoyed operational relationships with Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorists, and were involved in the attacks of September 11. Because of this relationship, Hussein would happily hand over the aforementioned weapons of mass destruction for bin Laden to use against the United States.
- The Iraqi people desperately want a democratic government, and will welcome the United States as liberators.
- Saddam Hussein was a bad man.
Let's take these one at a time.
1. No weapons of mass destruction have been found. The few 'unmanned aerial drones' were pathetic model-airplane specimens apparently made from tongue depressors and Q-tips, none of which had a prayer off getting off the ground. The 'mobile biological weapons labs' were in fact helium weather balloon launching platforms sold to Iraq by the British in the 1980s. The 'yellowcake' story was based upon fabricated evidence, and has led to a political scandal involving the exposure of a deep-cover CIA agent whose husband had the gall to call Bush a liar in the public prints.
2. No relationship whatsoever has been established between Hussein and bin Laden. In fact, bin Laden despised Hussein because Hussein was a self-styled Socialist, Godless to the core, who killed every Islamic fundamentalist he could get his hands on. The U.S. has, in fact, done bin Laden a great service by disposing of his Iraqi enemy. Now, the stage is set for an Islamic fundamentalist takeover of Iraq, something bin Laden would very much like to see. As for Hussein giving bin Laden weapons of mass destruction, well...you can't give what you don't have.
3. It is entirely possible the Iraqi people would have embraced democracy, if that is what Bush's plan actually had in mind. Unfortunately for them, the whole push for democracy was a farce to begin with; Bush wanted to establish a government-by-remote-cont rol in Iraq, so as to maintain control of the oil fields and the development of military bases. In a nation where the Shia enjoy a 60% majority, a democratic vote would have elected a Shia government, which would have then had the temerity to act as it pleased, regardless of American desires. It was never going to happen, and it never will happen, so long as Bush's people man the stick.
4. Saddam Hussein was indeed a bad man, whose fortunes were created and augmented by the U.S. government over a period of 20 years. We knew he was developing and using chemical weapons. We helped him do it. We didn't care, so long as he was gassing Iranians. Beyond that, the math is pretty straightforward. If the U.S. is going to adopt an Invade Every Country Run By A Bad Man foreign policy doctrine, everyone reading these words who approves of the notion better haul ass down to their local military recruiting office. We're going to need every warm body we can get. How about you, and right now. Go.
These guys went:
Army Spc. Armando Hernandez, age 22; Army Spc. Anthony J. Dixon, age 20;Marine Cpl. Dean P. Pratt, age 22; Army Spc. Justin B. Onwordi, age 28; Marine Sgt. Juan Calderon Jr., age 26; Army Pfc. Harry N. Shondee, Jr., age 19; Marine Capt. Gregory A Ratzlaff, age 36; Army Sgt. Tommy L. Gray, age 34; Marine Lance Cpl. Joseph L. Nice, age 19; Marine Gunnery Sgt. Elia P. Fontecchio, age 30; Army Spc. Donald R. McCune, age 20; Marine Sgt. Moses D. Rocha, age 33; Army Pfc. Raymond J. Faulstich Jr., age 24; Marine Sgt. Yadir G. Reynoso, age 27; Marine Lance Cpl. Larry L. Wells, age 22; Army Spc. Joshua I. Bunch, age 23; Marine Cpl. Roberto Abad, age 22; Army Pfc. David L. Potter, age 22; Marine Lance Cpl. Jonathan W. Collins, age 19; Army Capt. Andrew R. Houghton, age 25; Marine Lance Cpl. Tavon L. Hubbard, age 24; Marine Staff Sgt. John R. Howard, age 26; Army Capt. Michael Yury Tarlavsky, age 30; Marine Lance Cpl. Kane M. Funke, age 20; Marine Lance Cpl. Nicholas B. Morrison, age 23; Army 1st Lt. Neil Anthony Santoriello, age 24; Marine Corps Pfc. Geoffrey Perez, age 24; Marine Corps Pfc. Fernando B. Hannon, age 19; Army Spc. Mark Anthony Zapata, age 27; Army 2nd Lt. James Michael Goins, age 23; Army Sgt. Daniel Michael Shepherd, age 23; Army Pfc. Brandon R. Sapp, age 21; Army Sgt. David M. Heath, age 30; Army Spc. Brandon T. Titus, age 20; Marine Lance Cpl. Caleb J. Powers, age 21; Army Spc. Jacob D. Martir, age 21; Marine Sgt. Harvey E. Parkerson III, age 27; Marine Lance Cpl. Dustin R. Fitzgerald, age 22; Army Pfc. Henry C. Risner, age 26; Pfc. Kevin A. Cuming, age 22; 1st Lt. Charles L. Wilkins III, age 38; Pfc. Ryan A. Martin, age 22.
Now they are dead. They never found weapons of mass destruction, they never found a connection between Saddam and 9/11, they never got the chance to create a democracy, and they were never fully informed that part of their mission was the removal from power of a former employee of the United States government.
In Iraq today, 780,000 cubic yards of human and industrial waste is dumped into the Diyala River every day by one sewage plant. The Diyala joins the Tigris seven miles downstream. There isn't anything the plant can do about it; it is shattered from the war. Power, water, road, health care and educational infrastructures are completely wrecked. The World Bank estimates that it will cost $55 billion to repair all of this damage, and it will take over four years to do it.
$24 billion in U.S. tax money has been allocated to 'rebuild' Iraq. According to Christian Parenti, who has reported from Iraq on the reconstruction process for The Nation magazine, "Only $5.3 billion had been allocated to specific reconstruction contracts as of late June 2004. According to a report from the White House Office of Management and Budget, of the $18.4 billion reconstruction honey-pot approved last fall only $366 million had been spent by late June - that is, invested in Iraq. Instead of creating 250,000 jobs for Iraqis, as was the original goal, at most 24,000 local workers have been hired."
"Most amazing of all," writes Parenti, "the OMB report showed that not a single cent of US tax money had been spent on Iraqi healthcare, water treatment or sanitation projects - though $9 million was dithered away on administrative costs of the now defunct Coalition Provisional Authority. Most of the little that has been invested in healthcare, water treatment and sanitation has come from Iraqi oil revenues, managed for most of last year by the Development Fund for Iraq, a US controlled successor to the UN-run Oil for Food program. In all, the CPA spent roughly $19 billion of Iraqi oil money - on what exactly is not quite clear."
And we wonder why there is an 'insurgency.' We wonder why a nobody named Moqtada al-Sadr has emerged as an Iraqi version of Thomas Jefferson, fighting the good fight against imperial usurpers. We wonder why so many Iraqis flock to his banner, pick up a weapon, and shoot Americans.
Sit in the dark for a year, be unemployed because all the jobs have gone to non-Iraqis, have no place to see your children schooled, have no place to bring your children if they get sick, drink water that tastes like something you squeezed into your toilet, and stand a good chance whenever you step outside of being shot by a sniper, blown up by a laser-guided bomb, or run down by a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and you might think about picking up a weapon, too.
This is how terrorists and suicide bombers are created. Desperation is the seed, time is the fertilizer, and rage is the crop reaped by American soldiers sent far from home to die because they were lied to, as were we all.
This is, perhaps, the most galling aspect of the whole Swift Boat Veterans nonsense. It has distracted us from realizing that our children still burn in Iraq, while simultaneously insulting every veteran who was given a medal for service in action. It implies that medals awarded for service in Vietnam somehow do not count, which when taken to the end of the argument, implies that medals awarded for service anywhere do not count.
In a recent and eloquent truthout essay, Vietnam veteran John Cory wrote the following words: "There are veterans of all conflicts, who fall in love with the terrible sweet beauty of war. Men who polish their armor long after the parades have faded. Their glory is not in duty, honor, and country; but in the carnival mirrors of their own warped reflections. These are veterans who march with swagger and blaring brass, like small boys struggling to be seen and heard. There are veterans who have paid passage through the heart of darkness; who dedicate their lives to eliminating the horrors that hide behind their eyes at night, when they dream. These veterans testify to the unreal and repulsive acts of war that forever wound the soul. And there are veterans who let it go and never look back again. Not that they forget, they simply choose not to dwell in those memories. They seek peace of mind and hope."
The men who have foisted this rending open of old wounds upon us are the ones who polish their armor, who revel in their own warped reflections. They insult fellow veterans everywhere. My father earned a Bronze Star in Vietnam. Should he give it back? The men and women serving and dying in Iraq have earned thousands of medals, many of them Purple Hearts to replace missing legs or faces. Should they give theirs back?
How many medals did George W. Bush earn to allow him to make this frontal assault upon those who served in his stead a generation ago, and those who serve now in the free-fire zone he placed them in with his deceptions?
When a person puts on the uniform of the United States military and swears an oath, that person is promising to sacrifice their life for their country. The only promise they expect in return is that their life not be spent for no good reason. That promise was broken.
Do not forget your dying children. They wear the uniform of your country, they live and die for all of us. Some lie still, wrapped in your flag. Some walk the land trying to remember, or trying to forget, how they got their scars so long ago. Some yet fight, in a war of choice that was not their doing. Do not forget them. Do not insult them. They are your children.
[b]William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and international bestselling author of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You To Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence.'[/b] - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| DON'T MISS THIS: Neo-Con Fascists Desperate / Can't Talk Issues / So They SMEAR!!! |
| 08.25.04 (6:30 am) [edit] |
[b]Smear politics [/b]
Lacklustre John Kerry must be doing something right in his fight for the White House because his Republican opponents are reaching deep into their bag of dirty tricks. When the stakes are high in electoral contests there are usually people in all parties prepared to play rough to win - witness some of the tactics in last month's Westminster byelections. But low-level villainy on the back streets of Birmingham Hodge Hill is not the same as the cynically crafted big lie which now seems to be directed at Senator Kerry as he aims for the top.
An Amazon.com bestseller called Unfit for Command, written by fellow-veterans of the US navy swift boats on which the much-decorated Democratic candidate served in Vietnam, challenges Mr Kerry's combat record and his supposedly unpatriotic conduct in campaigning against that squalid war as soon as he got safely home. As TV ads ram home the smear, the Iraq parallel is obvious and relevant for both sides. The allegations are rejected by those on Mr Kerry's own boat. But his poll ratings have slumped among US veterans, a significant group. A question mark has been scrawled on his CV.
The candidate may have been unwise to emphasise so frequently his own war record (he was in combat for just five months), though it highlights President Bush's armchair variety. It does not amount to a foreign policy. Yet Americans have enjoyed putting soldiers into the White House since General Washington. Theodore Roosevelt and Jack Kennedy revelled in their somewhat-embellished military glory and George Bush Snr was lucky enough to have been sent a grainy (but authentic) film of his own second world war exploits for the 1988 campaign.
That campaign was marred by a sordid smear that the Democratic runner, Michael Dukakis, also a "Massachusetts liberal", was soft on black rapists. It worked, not least because Mr Dukakis was too lofty to take it seriously; not a mistake Bill and Hillary Clinton ever made. Mr Kerry has already been falsely accused of an affair with an intern and had a doctored photo circulated of him committing politics with "Hanoi Jane" Fonda. Such "mud sticks" tactics are consistent with key moments in the well-documented career of Karl Rove, Mr Bush's shadowy political hitman. So is the lightly laundered Texas Republican money which funded the latest exercise. After first hesitating, Mr Kerry is taking his detractors to the election court. Excellent. Negative campaigning is even more corrosive there than it is here. - http://www.guardian.co.uk/lea...,3604,1289576,00.html
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| DON'T MISS THIS: Neo-Con Fascists Desperate / Can't Talk Issues / So They SMEAR!!! |
| 08.25.04 (6:26 am) [edit] |
[b]Smear politics [/b]
Lacklustre John Kerry must be doing something right in his fight for the White House because his Republican opponents are reaching deep into their bag of dirty tricks. When the stakes are high in electoral contests there are usually people in all parties prepared to play rough to win - witness some of the tactics in last month's Westminster byelections. But low-level villainy on the back streets of Birmingham Hodge Hill is not the same as the cynically crafted big lie which now seems to be directed at Senator Kerry as he aims for the top.
An Amazon.com bestseller called Unfit for Command, written by fellow-veterans of the US navy swift boats on which the much-decorated Democratic candidate served in Vietnam, challenges Mr Kerry's combat record and his supposedly unpatriotic conduct in campaigning against that squalid war as soon as he got safely home. As TV ads ram home the smear, the Iraq parallel is obvious and relevant for both sides. The allegations are rejected by those on Mr Kerry's own boat. But his poll ratings have slumped among US veterans, a significant group. A question mark has been scrawled on his CV.
The candidate may have been unwise to emphasise so frequently his own war record (he was in combat for just five months), though it highlights President Bush's armchair variety. It does not amount to a foreign policy. Yet Americans have enjoyed putting soldiers into the White House since General Washington. Theodore Roosevelt and Jack Kennedy revelled in their somewhat-embellished military glory and George Bush Snr was lucky enough to have been sent a grainy (but authentic) film of his own second world war exploits for the 1988 campaign.
That campaign was marred by a sordid smear that the Democratic runner, Michael Dukakis, also a "Massachusetts liberal", was soft on black rapists. It worked, not least because Mr Dukakis was too lofty to take it seriously; not a mistake Bill and Hillary Clinton ever made. Mr Kerry has already been falsely accused of an affair with an intern and had a doctored photo circulated of him committing politics with "Hanoi Jane" Fonda. Such "mud sticks" tactics are consistent with key moments in the well-documented career of Karl Rove, Mr Bush's shadowy political hitman. So is the lightly laundered Texas Republican money which funded the latest exercise. After first hesitating, Mr Kerry is taking his detractors to the election court. Excellent. Negative campaigning is even more corrosive there than it is here. - http://www.guardian.co.uk/lea...,3604,1289576,00.html
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| THE REAL TRIUMPH OF THE BANALITY OF EVIL |
| 08.24.04 (3:18 pm) [edit] |
[b]Your Children are Burning[/b]
[b]Ladybug! Ladybug!
Fly away home.
Your house is on fire,
And your children all gone[/b].
- Children's nursery rhyme, author unknown
The presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and John Kerry are at each other's throats like dogs in a fighting pit over a war that ended 29 years ago. The mainstream news media, along with the alternative news media, have enjoyed watching the show, dutifully reporting every detail and nuance of the fiery exchanges between the camps.
Somewhere in these last 24 days of August, however, while arguing over a three-decades-old war, we managed to forget that another war is happening. Here are some details that have been missed:
Army Spc. Armando Hernandez, age 22; Army Spc. Anthony J. Dixon, age 20;Marine Cpl. Dean P. Pratt, age 22; Army Spc. Justin B. Onwordi, age 28; Marine Sgt. Juan Calderon Jr., age 26; Army Pfc. Harry N. Shondee, Jr., age 19; Marine Capt. Gregory A Ratzlaff, age 36; Army Sgt. Tommy L. Gray, age 34; Marine Lance Cpl. Joseph L. Nice, age 19; Marine Gunnery Sgt. Elia P. Fontecchio, age 30; Army Spc. Donald R. McCune, age 20; Marine Sgt. Moses D. Rocha, age 33; Army Pfc. Raymond J. Faulstich Jr., age 24; Marine Sgt. Yadir G. Reynoso, age 27; Marine Lance Cpl. Larry L. Wells, age 22; Army Spc. Joshua I. Bunch, age 23; Marine Cpl. Roberto Abad, age 22; Army Pfc. David L. Potter, age 22; Marine Lance Cpl. Jonathan W. Collins, age 19; Army Capt. Andrew R. Houghton, age 25; Marine Lance Cpl. Tavon L. Hubbard, age 24; Marine Staff Sgt. John R. Howard, age 26; Army Capt. Michael Yury Tarlavsky, age 30; Marine Lance Cpl. Kane M. Funke, age 20; Marine Lance Cpl. Nicholas B. Morrison, age 23; Army 1st Lt. Neil Anthony Santoriello, age 24; Marine Corps Pfc. Geoffrey Perez, age 24; Marine Corps Pfc. Fernando B. Hannon, age 19; Army Spc. Mark Anthony Zapata, age 27; Army 2nd Lt. James Michael Goins, age 23; Army Sgt. Daniel Michael Shepherd, age 23; Army Pfc. Brandon R. Sapp, age 21; Army Sgt. David M. Heath, age 30; Army Spc. Brandon T. Titus, age 20; Marine Lance Cpl. Caleb J. Powers, age 21; Army Spc. Jacob D. Martir, age 21; Marine Sgt. Harvey E. Parkerson III, age 27; Marine Lance Cpl. Dustin R. Fitzgerald, age 22; Army Pfc. Henry C. Risner, age 26; Pfc. Kevin A. Cuming, age 22; 1st Lt. Charles L. Wilkins III, age 38; Pfc. Ryan A. Martin, age 22.
That is the list of dead American soldiers in Iraq from the last 24 days. That is August, so far. Two other American soldiers - Army Sgt. Bobby E. Beasley, age 36, and Army Staff Sgt. Craig W. Cherry, age 39 - were killed in Afghanistan by an improvised explosive device on August 7th. We don't talk about that war anymore, either. 964 dead American soldiers, 52 since August 1st.
522 days ago, the administration of George W. Bush began the 'Shock and Awe' bombing campaign in Iraq, an opening salvo that has broadened into a conflict which has left well over ten thousand innocent Iraqi civilians dead. According to the rhetoric that loosed those bombs 74 weeks ago, we went into Iraq because:
- Iraq was in possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX gas, 30,000 munitions to deliver these agents, unmanned aerial drones to deliver these agents, mobile biological weapons labs, and uranium 'yellowcake' from Niger for use in the development of nuclear bombs.
- The Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein enjoyed operational relationships with Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorists, and were involved in the attacks of September 11. Because of this relationship, Hussein would happily hand over the aforementioned weapons of mass destruction for bin Laden to use against the United States.
- The Iraqi people desperately want a democratic government, and will welcome the United States as liberators.
- Saddam Hussein was a bad man.
Let's take these one at a time.
1. No weapons of mass destruction have been found. The few 'unmanned aerial drones' were pathetic model-airplane specimens apparently made from tongue depressors and Q-tips, none of which had a prayer off getting off the ground. The 'mobile biological weapons labs' were in fact helium weather balloon launching platforms sold to Iraq by the British in the 1980s. The 'yellowcake' story was based upon fabricated evidence, and has led to a political scandal involving the exposure of a deep-cover CIA agent whose husband had the gall to call Bush a liar in the public prints.
2. No relationship whatsoever has been established between Hussein and bin Laden. In fact, bin Laden despised Hussein because Hussein was a self-styled Socialist, Godless to the core, who killed every Islamic fundamentalist he could get his hands on. The U.S. has, in fact, done bin Laden a great service by disposing of his Iraqi enemy. Now, the stage is set for an Islamic fundamentalist takeover of Iraq, something bin Laden would very much like to see. As for Hussein giving bin Laden weapons of mass destruction, well...you can't give what you don't have.
3. It is entirely possible the Iraqi people would have embraced democracy, if that is what Bush's plan actually had in mind. Unfortunately for them, the whole push for democracy was a farce to begin with; Bush wanted to establish a government-by-remote-cont rol in Iraq, so as to maintain control of the oil fields and the development of military bases. In a nation where the Shia enjoy a 60% majority, a democratic vote would have elected a Shia government, which would have then had the temerity to act as it pleased, regardless of American desires. It was never going to happen, and it never will happen, so long as Bush's people man the stick.
4. Saddam Hussein was indeed a bad man, whose fortunes were created and augmented by the U.S. government over a period of 20 years. We knew he was developing and using chemical weapons. We helped him do it. We didn't care, so long as he was gassing Iranians. Beyond that, the math is pretty straightforward. If the U.S. is going to adopt an Invade Every Country Run By A Bad Man foreign policy doctrine, everyone reading these words who approves of the notion better haul ass down to their local military recruiting office. We're going to need every warm body we can get. How about you, and right now. Go.
These guys went:
Army Spc. Armando Hernandez, age 22; Army Spc. Anthony J. Dixon, age 20;Marine Cpl. Dean P. Pratt, age 22; Army Spc. Justin B. Onwordi, age 28; Marine Sgt. Juan Calderon Jr., age 26; Army Pfc. Harry N. Shondee, Jr., age 19; Marine Capt. Gregory A Ratzlaff, age 36; Army Sgt. Tommy L. Gray, age 34; Marine Lance Cpl. Joseph L. Nice, age 19; Marine Gunnery Sgt. Elia P. Fontecchio, age 30; Army Spc. Donald R. McCune, age 20; Marine Sgt. Moses D. Rocha, age 33; Army Pfc. Raymond J. Faulstich Jr., age 24; Marine Sgt. Yadir G. Reynoso, age 27; Marine Lance Cpl. Larry L. Wells, age 22; Army Spc. Joshua I. Bunch, age 23; Marine Cpl. Roberto Abad, age 22; Army Pfc. David L. Potter, age 22; Marine Lance Cpl. Jonathan W. Collins, age 19; Army Capt. Andrew R. Houghton, age 25; Marine Lance Cpl. Tavon L. Hubbard, age 24; Marine Staff Sgt. John R. Howard, age 26; Army Capt. Michael Yury Tarlavsky, age 30; Marine Lance Cpl. Kane M. Funke, age 20; Marine Lance Cpl. Nicholas B. Morrison, age 23; Army 1st Lt. Neil Anthony Santoriello, age 24; Marine Corps Pfc. Geoffrey Perez, age 24; Marine Corps Pfc. Fernando B. Hannon, age 19; Army Spc. Mark Anthony Zapata, age 27; Army 2nd Lt. James Michael Goins, age 23; Army Sgt. Daniel Michael Shepherd, age 23; Army Pfc. Brandon R. Sapp, age 21; Army Sgt. David M. Heath, age 30; Army Spc. Brandon T. Titus, age 20; Marine Lance Cpl. Caleb J. Powers, age 21; Army Spc. Jacob D. Martir, age 21; Marine Sgt. Harvey E. Parkerson III, age 27; Marine Lance Cpl. Dustin R. Fitzgerald, age 22; Army Pfc. Henry C. Risner, age 26; Pfc. Kevin A. Cuming, age 22; 1st Lt. Charles L. Wilkins III, age 38; Pfc. Ryan A. Martin, age 22.
Now they are dead. They never found weapons of mass destruction, they never found a connection between Saddam and 9/11, they never got the chance to create a democracy, and they were never fully informed that part of their mission was the removal from power of a former employee of the United States government.
In Iraq today, 780,000 cubic yards of human and industrial waste is dumped into the Diyala River every day by one sewage plant. The Diyala joins the Tigris seven miles downstream. There isn't anything the plant can do about it; it is shattered from the war. Power, water, road, health care and educational infrastructures are completely wrecked. The World Bank estimates that it will cost $55 billion to repair all of this damage, and it will take over four years to do it.
$24 billion in U.S. tax money has been allocated to 'rebuild' Iraq. According to Christian Parenti, who has reported from Iraq on the reconstruction process for The Nation magazine, "Only $5.3 billion had been allocated to specific reconstruction contracts as of late June 2004. According to a report from the White House Office of Management and Budget, of the $18.4 billion reconstruction honey-pot approved last fall only $366 million had been spent by late June - that is, invested in Iraq. Instead of creating 250,000 jobs for Iraqis, as was the original goal, at most 24,000 local workers have been hired."
"Most amazing of all," writes Parenti, "the OMB report showed that not a single cent of US tax money had been spent on Iraqi healthcare, water treatment or sanitation projects - though $9 million was dithered away on administrative costs of the now defunct Coalition Provisional Authority. Most of the little that has been invested in healthcare, water treatment and sanitation has come from Iraqi oil revenues, managed for most of last year by the Development Fund for Iraq, a US controlled successor to the UN-run Oil for Food program. In all, the CPA spent roughly $19 billion of Iraqi oil money - on what exactly is not quite clear."
And we wonder why there is an 'insurgency.' We wonder why a nobody named Moqtada al-Sadr has emerged as an Iraqi version of Thomas Jefferson, fighting the good fight against imperial usurpers. We wonder why so many Iraqis flock to his banner, pick up a weapon, and shoot Americans.
Sit in the dark for a year, be unemployed because all the jobs have gone to non-Iraqis, have no place to see your children schooled, have no place to bring your children if they get sick, drink water that tastes like something you squeezed into your toilet, and stand a good chance whenever you step outside of being shot by a sniper, blown up by a laser-guided bomb, or run down by a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and you might think about picking up a weapon, too.
This is how terrorists and suicide bombers are created. Desperation is the seed, time is the fertilizer, and rage is the crop reaped by American soldiers sent far from home to die because they were lied to, as were we all.
This is, perhaps, the most galling aspect of the whole Swift Boat Veterans nonsense. It has distracted us from realizing that our children still burn in Iraq, while simultaneously insulting every veteran who was given a medal for service in action. It implies that medals awarded for service in Vietnam somehow do not count, which when taken to the end of the argument, implies that medals awarded for service anywhere do not count.
In a recent and eloquent truthout essay, Vietnam veteran John Cory wrote the following words: "There are veterans of all conflicts, who fall in love with the terrible sweet beauty of war. Men who polish their armor long after the parades have faded. Their glory is not in duty, honor, and country; but in the carnival mirrors of their own warped reflections. These are veterans who march with swagger and blaring brass, like small boys struggling to be seen and heard. There are veterans who have paid passage through the heart of darkness; who dedicate their lives to eliminating the horrors that hide behind their eyes at night, when they dream. These veterans testify to the unreal and repulsive acts of war that forever wound the soul. And there are veterans who let it go and never look back again. Not that they forget, they simply choose not to dwell in those memories. They seek peace of mind and hope."
The men who have foisted this rending open of old wounds upon us are the ones who polish their armor, who revel in their own warped reflections. They insult fellow veterans everywhere. My father earned a Bronze Star in Vietnam. Should he give it back? The men and women serving and dying in Iraq have earned thousands of medals, many of them Purple Hearts to replace missing legs or faces. Should they give theirs back?
How many medals did George W. Bush earn to allow him to make this frontal assault upon those who served in his stead a generation ago, and those who serve now in the free-fire zone he placed them in with his deceptions?
When a person puts on the uniform of the United States military and swears an oath, that person is promising to sacrifice their life for their country. The only promise they expect in return is that their life not be spent for no good reason. That promise was broken.
Do not forget your dying children. They wear the uniform of your country, they live and die for all of us. Some lie still, wrapped in your flag. Some walk the land trying to remember, or trying to forget, how they got their scars so long ago. Some yet fight, in a war of choice that was not their doing. Do not forget them. Do not insult them. They are your children.
[b]William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and international bestselling author of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You To Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence.'[/b] - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| BUSH TO ATTACK N KOREA AT END OF OCTOBER FOR ELECTION RIGGING? IMPEACH THE BASTARD! |
| 08.24.04 (2:22 pm) [edit] |
[b]US To Attack N Korea At The End Of October? [/b]
Buried in an article in today's International Herald Tribune, without any particular emphasis, was a significant item of information: -- The United States has scheduled naval exercises off the coast of North Korea at the end of October.
I can imagine only one explanation for a decision to schedule such naval exercises (by definition, optional) at precisely that time. Bush-Cheney-Rove wants to have the option, if Bush's election does not appear assured in the week prior to election day, to either (1) seek to provoke a genuine North Korean attack on an American ship -- and retaliate or (2) in good Gulf of Tonkin style, claim a non-existent North Korean attack -- and retaliate or (3) launch a frankly "preventive" or "pre-emptive" attack against North Korea.
Where such courses of action would lead the region and the world cannot be determined in advance but, presumably, would be of limited concern to Bush-Cheney-Rove. Any of such alternative approaches to war would almost certainly assure the election of the Commander-in Chief on November 2. - http://www.rense.com/general5...
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| Bush/Cheney War Crimes:-- YOUR CHILDREN ARE BURNING |
| 08.24.04 (12:34 pm) [edit] |
[b]Your Children are Burning[/b]
[b]Ladybug! Ladybug!
Fly away home.
Your house is on fire,
And your children all gone[/b].
- Children's nursery rhyme, author unknown
The presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and John Kerry are at each other's throats like dogs in a fighting pit over a war that ended 29 years ago. The mainstream news media, along with the alternative news media, have enjoyed watching the show, dutifully reporting every detail and nuance of the fiery exchanges between the camps.
Somewhere in these last 24 days of August, however, while arguing over a three-decades-old war, we managed to forget that another war is happening. Here are some details that have been missed:
Army Spc. Armando Hernandez, age 22; Army Spc. Anthony J. Dixon, age 20;Marine Cpl. Dean P. Pratt, age 22; Army Spc. Justin B. Onwordi, age 28; Marine Sgt. Juan Calderon Jr., age 26; Army Pfc. Harry N. Shondee, Jr., age 19; Marine Capt. Gregory A Ratzlaff, age 36; Army Sgt. Tommy L. Gray, age 34; Marine Lance Cpl. Joseph L. Nice, age 19; Marine Gunnery Sgt. Elia P. Fontecchio, age 30; Army Spc. Donald R. McCune, age 20; Marine Sgt. Moses D. Rocha, age 33; Army Pfc. Raymond J. Faulstich Jr., age 24; Marine Sgt. Yadir G. Reynoso, age 27; Marine Lance Cpl. Larry L. Wells, age 22; Army Spc. Joshua I. Bunch, age 23; Marine Cpl. Roberto Abad, age 22; Army Pfc. David L. Potter, age 22; Marine Lance Cpl. Jonathan W. Collins, age 19; Army Capt. Andrew R. Houghton, age 25; Marine Lance Cpl. Tavon L. Hubbard, age 24; Marine Staff Sgt. John R. Howard, age 26; Army Capt. Michael Yury Tarlavsky, age 30; Marine Lance Cpl. Kane M. Funke, age 20; Marine Lance Cpl. Nicholas B. Morrison, age 23; Army 1st Lt. Neil Anthony Santoriello, age 24; Marine Corps Pfc. Geoffrey Perez, age 24; Marine Corps Pfc. Fernando B. Hannon, age 19; Army Spc. Mark Anthony Zapata, age 27; Army 2nd Lt. James Michael Goins, age 23; Army Sgt. Daniel Michael Shepherd, age 23; Army Pfc. Brandon R. Sapp, age 21; Army Sgt. David M. Heath, age 30; Army Spc. Brandon T. Titus, age 20; Marine Lance Cpl. Caleb J. Powers, age 21; Army Spc. Jacob D. Martir, age 21; Marine Sgt. Harvey E. Parkerson III, age 27; Marine Lance Cpl. Dustin R. Fitzgerald, age 22; Army Pfc. Henry C. Risner, age 26; Pfc. Kevin A. Cuming, age 22; 1st Lt. Charles L. Wilkins III, age 38; Pfc. Ryan A. Martin, age 22.
That is the list of dead American soldiers in Iraq from the last 24 days. That is August, so far. Two other American soldiers - Army Sgt. Bobby E. Beasley, age 36, and Army Staff Sgt. Craig W. Cherry, age 39 - were killed in Afghanistan by an improvised explosive device on August 7th. We don't talk about that war anymore, either. 964 dead American soldiers, 52 since August 1st.
522 days ago, the administration of George W. Bush began the 'Shock and Awe' bombing campaign in Iraq, an opening salvo that has broadened into a conflict which has left well over ten thousand innocent Iraqi civilians dead. According to the rhetoric that loosed those bombs 74 weeks ago, we went into Iraq because:
- Iraq was in possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX gas, 30,000 munitions to deliver these agents, unmanned aerial drones to deliver these agents, mobile biological weapons labs, and uranium 'yellowcake' from Niger for use in the development of nuclear bombs.
- The Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein enjoyed operational relationships with Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorists, and were involved in the attacks of September 11. Because of this relationship, Hussein would happily hand over the aforementioned weapons of mass destruction for bin Laden to use against the United States.
- The Iraqi people desperately want a democratic government, and will welcome the United States as liberators.
- Saddam Hussein was a bad man.
Let's take these one at a time.
1. No weapons of mass destruction have been found. The few 'unmanned aerial drones' were pathetic model-airplane specimens apparently made from tongue depressors and Q-tips, none of which had a prayer off getting off the ground. The 'mobile biological weapons labs' were in fact helium weather balloon launching platforms sold to Iraq by the British in the 1980s. The 'yellowcake' story was based upon fabricated evidence, and has led to a political scandal involving the exposure of a deep-cover CIA agent whose husband had the gall to call Bush a liar in the public prints.
2. No relationship whatsoever has been established between Hussein and bin Laden. In fact, bin Laden despised Hussein because Hussein was a self-styled Socialist, Godless to the core, who killed every Islamic fundamentalist he could get his hands on. The U.S. has, in fact, done bin Laden a great service by disposing of his Iraqi enemy. Now, the stage is set for an Islamic fundamentalist takeover of Iraq, something bin Laden would very much like to see. As for Hussein giving bin Laden weapons of mass destruction, well...you can't give what you don't have.
3. It is entirely possible the Iraqi people would have embraced democracy, if that is what Bush's plan actually had in mind. Unfortunately for them, the whole push for democracy was a farce to begin with; Bush wanted to establish a government-by-remote-cont rol in Iraq, so as to maintain control of the oil fields and the development of military bases. In a nation where the Shia enjoy a 60% majority, a democratic vote would have elected a Shia government, which would have then had the temerity to act as it pleased, regardless of American desires. It was never going to happen, and it never will happen, so long as Bush's people man the stick.
4. Saddam Hussein was indeed a bad man, whose fortunes were created and augmented by the U.S. government over a period of 20 years. We knew he was developing and using chemical weapons. We helped him do it. We didn't care, so long as he was gassing Iranians. Beyond that, the math is pretty straightforward. If the U.S. is going to adopt an Invade Every Country Run By A Bad Man foreign policy doctrine, everyone reading these words who approves of the notion better haul ass down to their local military recruiting office. We're going to need every warm body we can get. How about you, and right now. Go.
These guys went:
Army Spc. Armando Hernandez, age 22; Army Spc. Anthony J. Dixon, age 20;Marine Cpl. Dean P. Pratt, age 22; Army Spc. Justin B. Onwordi, age 28; Marine Sgt. Juan Calderon Jr., age 26; Army Pfc. Harry N. Shondee, Jr., age 19; Marine Capt. Gregory A Ratzlaff, age 36; Army Sgt. Tommy L. Gray, age 34; Marine Lance Cpl. Joseph L. Nice, age 19; Marine Gunnery Sgt. Elia P. Fontecchio, age 30; Army Spc. Donald R. McCune, age 20; Marine Sgt. Moses D. Rocha, age 33; Army Pfc. Raymond J. Faulstich Jr., age 24; Marine Sgt. Yadir G. Reynoso, age 27; Marine Lance Cpl. Larry L. Wells, age 22; Army Spc. Joshua I. Bunch, age 23; Marine Cpl. Roberto Abad, age 22; Army Pfc. David L. Potter, age 22; Marine Lance Cpl. Jonathan W. Collins, age 19; Army Capt. Andrew R. Houghton, age 25; Marine Lance Cpl. Tavon L. Hubbard, age 24; Marine Staff Sgt. John R. Howard, age 26; Army Capt. Michael Yury Tarlavsky, age 30; Marine Lance Cpl. Kane M. Funke, age 20; Marine Lance Cpl. Nicholas B. Morrison, age 23; Army 1st Lt. Neil Anthony Santoriello, age 24; Marine Corps Pfc. Geoffrey Perez, age 24; Marine Corps Pfc. Fernando B. Hannon, age 19; Army Spc. Mark Anthony Zapata, age 27; Army 2nd Lt. James Michael Goins, age 23; Army Sgt. Daniel Michael Shepherd, age 23; Army Pfc. Brandon R. Sapp, age 21; Army Sgt. David M. Heath, age 30; Army Spc. Brandon T. Titus, age 20; Marine Lance Cpl. Caleb J. Powers, age 21; Army Spc. Jacob D. Martir, age 21; Marine Sgt. Harvey E. Parkerson III, age 27; Marine Lance Cpl. Dustin R. Fitzgerald, age 22; Army Pfc. Henry C. Risner, age 26; Pfc. Kevin A. Cuming, age 22; 1st Lt. Charles L. Wilkins III, age 38; Pfc. Ryan A. Martin, age 22.
Now they are dead. They never found weapons of mass destruction, they never found a connection between Saddam and 9/11, they never got the chance to create a democracy, and they were never fully informed that part of their mission was the removal from power of a former employee of the United States government.
In Iraq today, 780,000 cubic yards of human and industrial waste is dumped into the Diyala River every day by one sewage plant. The Diyala joins the Tigris seven miles downstream. There isn't anything the plant can do about it; it is shattered from the war. Power, water, road, health care and educational infrastructures are completely wrecked. The World Bank estimates that it will cost $55 billion to repair all of this damage, and it will take over four years to do it.
$24 billion in U.S. tax money has been allocated to 'rebuild' Iraq. According to Christian Parenti, who has reported from Iraq on the reconstruction process for The Nation magazine, "Only $5.3 billion had been allocated to specific reconstruction contracts as of late June 2004. According to a report from the White House Office of Management and Budget, of the $18.4 billion reconstruction honey-pot approved last fall only $366 million had been spent by late June - that is, invested in Iraq. Instead of creating 250,000 jobs for Iraqis, as was the original goal, at most 24,000 local workers have been hired."
"Most amazing of all," writes Parenti, "the OMB report showed that not a single cent of US tax money had been spent on Iraqi healthcare, water treatment or sanitation projects - though $9 million was dithered away on administrative costs of the now defunct Coalition Provisional Authority. Most of the little that has been invested in healthcare, water treatment and sanitation has come from Iraqi oil revenues, managed for most of last year by the Development Fund for Iraq, a US controlled successor to the UN-run Oil for Food program. In all, the CPA spent roughly $19 billion of Iraqi oil money - on what exactly is not quite clear."
And we wonder why there is an 'insurgency.' We wonder why a nobody named Moqtada al-Sadr has emerged as an Iraqi version of Thomas Jefferson, fighting the good fight against imperial usurpers. We wonder why so many Iraqis flock to his banner, pick up a weapon, and shoot Americans.
Sit in the dark for a year, be unemployed because all the jobs have gone to non-Iraqis, have no place to see your children schooled, have no place to bring your children if they get sick, drink water that tastes like something you squeezed into your toilet, and stand a good chance whenever you step outside of being shot by a sniper, blown up by a laser-guided bomb, or run down by a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and you might think about picking up a weapon, too.
This is how terrorists and suicide bombers are created. Desperation is the seed, time is the fertilizer, and rage is the crop reaped by American soldiers sent far from home to die because they were lied to, as were we all.
This is, perhaps, the most galling aspect of the whole Swift Boat Veterans nonsense. It has distracted us from realizing that our children still burn in Iraq, while simultaneously insulting every veteran who was given a medal for service in action. It implies that medals awarded for service in Vietnam somehow do not count, which when taken to the end of the argument, implies that medals awarded for service anywhere do not count.
In a recent and eloquent truthout essay, Vietnam veteran John Cory wrote the following words: "There are veterans of all conflicts, who fall in love with the terrible sweet beauty of war. Men who polish their armor long after the parades have faded. Their glory is not in duty, honor, and country; but in the carnival mirrors of their own warped reflections. These are veterans who march with swagger and blaring brass, like small boys struggling to be seen and heard. There are veterans who have paid passage through the heart of darkness; who dedicate their lives to eliminating the horrors that hide behind their eyes at night, when they dream. These veterans testify to the unreal and repulsive acts of war that forever wound the soul. And there are veterans who let it go and never look back again. Not that they forget, they simply choose not to dwell in those memories. They seek peace of mind and hope."
The men who have foisted this rending open of old wounds upon us are the ones who polish their armor, who revel in their own warped reflections. They insult fellow veterans everywhere. My father earned a Bronze Star in Vietnam. Should he give it back? The men and women serving and dying in Iraq have earned thousands of medals, many of them Purple Hearts to replace missing legs or faces. Should they give theirs back?
How many medals did George W. Bush earn to allow him to make this frontal assault upon those who served in his stead a generation ago, and those who serve now in the free-fire zone he placed them in with his deceptions?
When a person puts on the uniform of the United States military and swears an oath, that person is promising to sacrifice their life for their country. The only promise they expect in return is that their life not be spent for no good reason. That promise was broken.
Do not forget your dying children. They wear the uniform of your country, they live and die for all of us. Some lie still, wrapped in your flag. Some walk the land trying to remember, or trying to forget, how they got their scars so long ago. Some yet fight, in a war of choice that was not their doing. Do not forget them. Do not insult them. They are your children.
[b]William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and international bestselling author of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You To Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence.'[/b] - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| Bush/Cheney's Fascist Tactic of Fearmongering: 'Blame the terrorist behind that tree' |
| 08.24.04 (6:59 am) [edit] |
[b]'Blame the terrorist behind that tree'[/b]
"The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice." -- Mahatma Gandhi
George W. Bush once told The Washington Post's Bob Woodward the great thing about being president was that he didn't have to answer to anybody. "I'm the commander," Bush bragged. "See -- I do not need to explain why I say things...Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation..."
So that's it, then. Houston -- we have your problem. And, like they say in Texas -- anybody with half sense and one eye can see it's out of control. With this guy, the buck never seems to stop -- just veers crazily around corners, never turns back, thunders through the halls of the administration -- scares the hell out of those who try to corral it. The few times it has been caught in the glare of truth's headlights, its eyes were so wildly insane that hunters, even scandal-hardened ones like Woodward, quickly backed off...
[b]The full story [/b] http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| What We've Really Lost in Bush's Indefensible, Immoral & Ungodly War |
| 08.24.04 (5:56 am) [edit] |
[b]'What we've really lost in this indefensible war'[/b]
There were four Marines and an Army soldier killed in Iraq in one 24-hour period over the weekend.
George Bush, who does not like people who go to war, probably will say that they are not dead.
As of Aug. 20, we list 952 of our troops killed in fighting.
That is the Defense Department figure. When the figure goes over 1,000, that can be devastating in an election.
But the figure of 1,000, so easily remembered, already has been reached. That was on July 7, when a rocket-propelled grenade killed Pfc. Samuel Bowen of Cleveland. The people keeping track at the Army Times newspaper, which has given the best, and often the only, coverage of the war, made Bowen the 1,000th. The Army Times, with no election to effect, properly includes deaths in Afghanistan.
The names of the dead in Iraq over the weekend have not been released yet, except for Army Pfc. Kevin A. Cuming, 22, of White Plains. And so you sat yesterday with all these Department of Defense death notices for the last weeks covering the desk and you glanced at them, with the ages of the dead reaching up from the paper to grab your throat. Now and then you called one of their homes to get a small idea of what they were like when they lived, and what we have lost in a war that now pleases only the mentally unbalanced.
Printing as many names and as often as possible is a gloomy task. These are the deaths that the president and his people try to sneak past the country. The dead were brave men. The president is craven. He buries the war, and the news reporters, indolent and in fear of authority, follow like cattle going into pens. For so long, the public believed the news it was given. Saddam Hussein was going to blow us up with an atom bomb! The Muslims of Iraq love us!
Herewith are some of the names we went through yesterday. It is taken here as an obligation that we print the rest in following columns.
Spc. Anthony J. Dixon, 20. 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, 1st Infantry Division, Schweinfurt, Germany. Killed on Aug. 1 at Samarra when improvised explosive device detonated near his guard post. Home, Lindenwold, N.J. Killed with him was Spc. Armando Hernandez, 22. Home, Hesparia, Calif.
"He lived every day like it was his last day," Spc. Anthony J. Dixon's sister, Mary, said yesterday. "If something came up, he did it right then. We have a 100-foot cell-phone tower in the back yard. Somebody dared them to climb it. Anthony didn't say a word. He and Jay, the two of them climbed right to the top. They came down and my brother said, 'There. I did that.'
"His best friend, Adam Froehlich, was killed in Iraq. In March. He was 21. He and my brother enlisted together. Anthony already was in Iraq. Someone in his troop told him everything about Adam.
"On Sunday afternoon, somewhere between 1:30 and 2 o'clock, on August 1st, there was somebody at the door and my mother opened it. There were two officers, a sergeant and a chaplain. My mother knew what they were here for. She started crying. The two officers couldn't say anything. My mother threw them out."
Sgt. Juan Calderon Jr., 26, of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif. Killed on Aug. 4 due to enemy action in Al Ambar Province, Iraq. Home, Weslaco, Texas.
Spc. Brandon T. Titus, 20, of 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, Watertown, N.Y. Killed on Aug. 17 in Baghdad when an improvised device exploded near his checkpoint. Home, Boise, Idaho.
Pfc. Fernando B. Hannon, 19, of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif. Died Aug. 15 due to enemy action in Al Anbar Province. Home, Wildomar, Calif.
And Pfc. Geoffrey, Perez, 24, of same unit and died on same day, Aug. 15, of wounds in Anbar Province. Home, Los Angles, Calif.
Spc. Jacob D. Martir, 21, of 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. Killed on Aug. 18 in Sadr City when his patrol came under enemy small arms fire. Home, Norwich, Conn.
First Lt. Neil Anthony Santoriello, 24, of 1st Battalion, 34th Armor, 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan. Died on Aug. 13 in Khalidiyah when improvised explosive device detonated near his mounted reconnaissance patrol vehicle. Home, Verrona, Pa.
"He lived for oatmeal cookies," his sister, Amy, said yesterday. "He was an Eagle Scout. He took children hiking, swimming. He went to Penn Hills High School and Dickinson College. What did he do after college? He went right into the Army. He had no time in between. He's only 24."
Capt. Michael Yury Tarlavsky, 30, of 1st Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group, Fort Campbell, Ky. Died Aug. 12 in Najaf when his unit came under small arms fire and a grenade attack. Home, Passaic, N.J.
Gunnery Sgt. Elia P. Fontecchio, 30, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Air Ground Control Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif. Killed by enemy action in Al Anbar Province. Home, Milford, Mass.
His uncle, Dana Fontecchio, says that when Elia told them he was being sent back to Iraq for a second tour, "None of us moaned about it. He's a Marine. The gunnery sergeant. They need him."
The surgeon at the forward hospital where they operated on Fontecchio said a helicopter was waiting to fly him to Baghdad when he died.
Pfc. Raymond J. Faulstich Jr., 89th Transportation Company, 6th Transportation Battalion, 7th Transportation Group, Fort Eustis, Va. Died Aug. 5 in Najaf when enemy using small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades attacked his convoy. Home, Leonardtown, Md.
"He had a problem with drugs and alcohol and went one place to the other," his mother, Linda, was saying last night. "Then he met a girl he loved. Her family said she couldn't see him unless he straightened out. He did. For her love. He joined the Army, and they married.
"When the two Army men came to the house to tell us, I was inside cleaning. I started to scream. 'Oh, my God! My son is dead!' He had his rosary beads in his pocket when he was killed. His wife, Crystal, had been out, and when she came over and saw the crowd in the yard she thought he was home on his two-week leave that he was supposed to be on. She's 19. She was going to go to college but she just can't do it now.
"My son was a beautiful young man. Everybody speaks about his smile. He had such a beautiful smile. My husband's smile. I say to my husband, 'Could you please smile so I can see my son's face?'" - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| What We've Really Lost in Bush's Indefensible War |
| 08.24.04 (5:54 am) [edit] |
[b]'What we've really lost in this indefensible war'[/b]
There were four Marines and an Army soldier killed in Iraq in one 24-hour period over the weekend.
George Bush, who does not like people who go to war, probably will say that they are not dead.
As of Aug. 20, we list 952 of our troops killed in fighting.
That is the Defense Department figure. When the figure goes over 1,000, that can be devastating in an election.
But the figure of 1,000, so easily remembered, already has been reached. That was on July 7, when a rocket-propelled grenade killed Pfc. Samuel Bowen of Cleveland. The people keeping track at the Army Times newspaper, which has given the best, and often the only, coverage of the war, made Bowen the 1,000th. The Army Times, with no election to effect, properly includes deaths in Afghanistan.
The names of the dead in Iraq over the weekend have not been released yet, except for Army Pfc. Kevin A. Cuming, 22, of White Plains. And so you sat yesterday with all these Department of Defense death notices for the last weeks covering the desk and you glanced at them, with the ages of the dead reaching up from the paper to grab your throat. Now and then you called one of their homes to get a small idea of what they were like when they lived, and what we have lost in a war that now pleases only the mentally unbalanced.
Printing as many names and as often as possible is a gloomy task. These are the deaths that the president and his people try to sneak past the country. The dead were brave men. The president is craven. He buries the war, and the news reporters, indolent and in fear of authority, follow like cattle going into pens. For so long, the public believed the news it was given. Saddam Hussein was going to blow us up with an atom bomb! The Muslims of Iraq love us!
Herewith are some of the names we went through yesterday. It is taken here as an obligation that we print the rest in following columns.
Spc. Anthony J. Dixon, 20. 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, 1st Infantry Division, Schweinfurt, Germany. Killed on Aug. 1 at Samarra when improvised explosive device detonated near his guard post. Home, Lindenwold, N.J. Killed with him was Spc. Armando Hernandez, 22. Home, Hesparia, Calif.
"He lived every day like it was his last day," Spc. Anthony J. Dixon's sister, Mary, said yesterday. "If something came up, he did it right then. We have a 100-foot cell-phone tower in the back yard. Somebody dared them to climb it. Anthony didn't say a word. He and Jay, the two of them climbed right to the top. They came down and my brother said, 'There. I did that.'
"His best friend, Adam Froehlich, was killed in Iraq. In March. He was 21. He and my brother enlisted together. Anthony already was in Iraq. Someone in his troop told him everything about Adam.
"On Sunday afternoon, somewhere between 1:30 and 2 o'clock, on August 1st, there was somebody at the door and my mother opened it. There were two officers, a sergeant and a chaplain. My mother knew what they were here for. She started crying. The two officers couldn't say anything. My mother threw them out."
Sgt. Juan Calderon Jr., 26, of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif. Killed on Aug. 4 due to enemy action in Al Ambar Province, Iraq. Home, Weslaco, Texas.
Spc. Brandon T. Titus, 20, of 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, Watertown, N.Y. Killed on Aug. 17 in Baghdad when an improvised device exploded near his checkpoint. Home, Boise, Idaho.
Pfc. Fernando B. Hannon, 19, of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif. Died Aug. 15 due to enemy action in Al Anbar Province. Home, Wildomar, Calif.
And Pfc. Geoffrey, Perez, 24, of same unit and died on same day, Aug. 15, of wounds in Anbar Province. Home, Los Angles, Calif.
Spc. Jacob D. Martir, 21, of 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. Killed on Aug. 18 in Sadr City when his patrol came under enemy small arms fire. Home, Norwich, Conn.
First Lt. Neil Anthony Santoriello, 24, of 1st Battalion, 34th Armor, 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan. Died on Aug. 13 in Khalidiyah when improvised explosive device detonated near his mounted reconnaissance patrol vehicle. Home, Verrona, Pa.
"He lived for oatmeal cookies," his sister, Amy, said yesterday. "He was an Eagle Scout. He took children hiking, swimming. He went to Penn Hills High School and Dickinson College. What did he do after college? He went right into the Army. He had no time in between. He's only 24."
Capt. Michael Yury Tarlavsky, 30, of 1st Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group, Fort Campbell, Ky. Died Aug. 12 in Najaf when his unit came under small arms fire and a grenade attack. Home, Passaic, N.J.
Gunnery Sgt. Elia P. Fontecchio, 30, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Air Ground Control Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif. Killed by enemy action in Al Anbar Province. Home, Milford, Mass.
His uncle, Dana Fontecchio, says that when Elia told them he was being sent back to Iraq for a second tour, "None of us moaned about it. He's a Marine. The gunnery sergeant. They need him."
The surgeon at the forward hospital where they operated on Fontecchio said a helicopter was waiting to fly him to Baghdad when he died.
Pfc. Raymond J. Faulstich Jr., 89th Transportation Company, 6th Transportation Battalion, 7th Transportation Group, Fort Eustis, Va. Died Aug. 5 in Najaf when enemy using small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades attacked his convoy. Home, Leonardtown, Md.
"He had a problem with drugs and alcohol and went one place to the other," his mother, Linda, was saying last night. "Then he met a girl he loved. Her family said she couldn't see him unless he straightened out. He did. For her love. He joined the Army, and they married.
"When the two Army men came to the house to tell us, I was inside cleaning. I started to scream. 'Oh, my God! My son is dead!' He had his rosary beads in his pocket when he was killed. His wife, Crystal, had been out, and when she came over and saw the crowd in the yard she thought he was home on his two-week leave that he was supposed to be on. She's 19. She was going to go to college but she just can't do it now.
"My son was a beautiful young man. Everybody speaks about his smile. He had such a beautiful smile. My husband's smile. I say to my husband, 'Could you please smile so I can see my son's face?'" - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| Neo-fascist Bush Propaganda Machine Busy Tearing Down Another War Hero!!! |
| 08.24.04 (5:50 am) [edit] |
[b]'Bush re-election machine busy tearing down another war hero'[/b]
If John Kerry wins the Democratic nomination, I mused on Jan. 17, President Bush will do back flips to avoid comparisons of their respective military records.
On a stage in Des Moines, Iowa, that night, I watched a retired policeman embrace the Massachusetts senator, creating the most poignant moment of the Democratic campaign for president.
Jim Rassmann had come from Oregon to tell the world that 35 years earlier, then-Navy Lt. Kerry, wounded, turned his swift boat around against enemy fire and fished Rassmann out of the Bay Hap River in Vietnam.
"He could have been shot and killed," said a teary Rassmann, a Republican. "I figure I owe this man my life."
[b]The full story [/b] http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| Neo-fascist Bush Propaganda Machine Busy Tearing Down Another War Hero!!! |
| 08.24.04 (5:49 am) [edit] |
[b]'Bush re-election machine busy tearing down another war hero'[/b]
If John Kerry wins the Democratic nomination, I mused on Jan. 17, President Bush will do back flips to avoid comparisons of their respective military records.
On a stage in Des Moines, Iowa, that night, I watched a retired policeman embrace the Massachusetts senator, creating the most poignant moment of the Democratic campaign for president.
Jim Rassmann had come from Oregon to tell the world that 35 years earlier, then-Navy Lt. Kerry, wounded, turned his swift boat around against enemy fire and fished Rassmann out of the Bay Hap River in Vietnam.
"He could have been shot and killed," said a teary Rassmann, a Republican. "I figure I owe this man my life."
[b]The full story [/b] http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| Smear Politics |
| 08.24.04 (5:44 am) [edit] |
[b]Smear politics [/b]
Lacklustre John Kerry must be doing something right in his fight for the White House because his Republican opponents are reaching deep into their bag of dirty tricks. When the stakes are high in electoral contests there are usually people in all parties prepared to play rough to win - witness some of the tactics in last month's Westminster byelections. But low-level villainy on the back streets of Birmingham Hodge Hill is not the same as the cynically crafted big lie which now seems to be directed at Senator Kerry as he aims for the top.
An Amazon.com bestseller called Unfit for Command, written by fellow-veterans of the US navy swift boats on which the much-decorated Democratic candidate served in Vietnam, challenges Mr Kerry's combat record and his supposedly unpatriotic conduct in campaigning against that squalid war as soon as he got safely home. As TV ads ram home the smear, the Iraq parallel is obvious and relevant for both sides. The allegations are rejected by those on Mr Kerry's own boat. But his poll ratings have slumped among US veterans, a significant group. A question mark has been scrawled on his CV.
The candidate may have been unwise to emphasise so frequently his own war record (he was in combat for just five months), though it highlights President Bush's armchair variety. It does not amount to a foreign policy. Yet Americans have enjoyed putting soldiers into the White House since General Washington. Theodore Roosevelt and Jack Kennedy revelled in their somewhat-embellished military glory and George Bush Snr was lucky enough to have been sent a grainy (but authentic) film of his own second world war exploits for the 1988 campaign.
That campaign was marred by a sordid smear that the Democratic runner, Michael Dukakis, also a "Massachusetts liberal", was soft on black rapists. It worked, not least because Mr Dukakis was too lofty to take it seriously; not a mistake Bill and Hillary Clinton ever made. Mr Kerry has already been falsely accused of an affair with an intern and had a doctored photo circulated of him committing politics with "Hanoi Jane" Fonda. Such "mud sticks" tactics are consistent with key moments in the well-documented career of Karl Rove, Mr Bush's shadowy political hitman. So is the lightly laundered Texas Republican money which funded the latest exercise. After first hesitating, Mr Kerry is taking his detractors to the election court. Excellent. Negative campaigning is even more corrosive there than it is here. - http://www.guardian.co.uk/lea...,3604,1289576,00.html
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| AWOL Dubya's Panicky Desperation:-- Abusing American People With Smear Politics |
| 08.24.04 (5:43 am) [edit] |
[b]Smear politics [/b]
Lacklustre John Kerry must be doing something right in his fight for the White House because his Republican opponents are reaching deep into their bag of dirty tricks. When the stakes are high in electoral contests there are usually people in all parties prepared to play rough to win - witness some of the tactics in last month's Westminster byelections. But low-level villainy on the back streets of Birmingham Hodge Hill is not the same as the cynically crafted big lie which now seems to be directed at Senator Kerry as he aims for the top.
An Amazon.com bestseller called Unfit for Command, written by fellow-veterans of the US navy swift boats on which the much-decorated Democratic candidate served in Vietnam, challenges Mr Kerry's combat record and his supposedly unpatriotic conduct in campaigning against that squalid war as soon as he got safely home. As TV ads ram home the smear, the Iraq parallel is obvious and relevant for both sides. The allegations are rejected by those on Mr Kerry's own boat. But his poll ratings have slumped among US veterans, a significant group. A question mark has been scrawled on his CV.
The candidate may have been unwise to emphasise so frequently his own war record (he was in combat for just five months), though it highlights President Bush's armchair variety. It does not amount to a foreign policy. Yet Americans have enjoyed putting soldiers into the White House since General Washington. Theodore Roosevelt and Jack Kennedy revelled in their somewhat-embellished military glory and George Bush Snr was lucky enough to have been sent a grainy (but authentic) film of his own second world war exploits for the 1988 campaign.
That campaign was marred by a sordid smear that the Democratic runner, Michael Dukakis, also a "Massachusetts liberal", was soft on black rapists. It worked, not least because Mr Dukakis was too lofty to take it seriously; not a mistake Bill and Hillary Clinton ever made. Mr Kerry has already been falsely accused of an affair with an intern and had a doctored photo circulated of him committing politics with "Hanoi Jane" Fonda. Such "mud sticks" tactics are consistent with key moments in the well-documented career of Karl Rove, Mr Bush's shadowy political hitman. So is the lightly laundered Texas Republican money which funded the latest exercise. After first hesitating, Mr Kerry is taking his detractors to the election court. Excellent. Negative campaigning is even more corrosive there than it is here. - http://www.guardian.co.uk/lea...,3604,1289576,00.html
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| ... The real aim of the Swift Smear Liars for AWOL Dubya is to divert attention from Iraq Fuck-up! |
| 08.23.04 (11:02 am) [edit] |
[b]Fighting a Phony War
Is the real aim of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to divert attention from Iraq?[/b]
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth stopped by NEWSWEEK’s Washington bureau this week to explain their version of what happened in Vietnam 35 years ago and why John Kerry doesn’t deserve three Purple Hearts. None were on the Swift Boat Kerry commanded, but they had charts to illustrate their contention that Kerry’s boat did not come under fire and that two of his wounds were self-inflicted, one when he hurled a grenade at a rice bin too close to his position.
A generation of reporters far removed from any war experience listened respectfully to their story. Between the fog of war and the passage of time, telling the truth has more to do with politics than memory. These men fought; they didn’t come home to a hero’s welcome, and they’ll never forgive Kerry for protesting the war and branding them as war criminals.
One member of the group recalled how each of them had been issued a 90-pound sea bag, and Kerry sacrificed 10 pounds of socks and clean underwear to pack a typewriter. At the end of a long day of patrols, Kerry would sit hunched over his typewriter plugging away at who-knows-what, the fellow said, so secretive it seemed subversive. They never understood this aloof figure, and the day that he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—April 22, 1971—is as powerful a date to these veterans as the Kennedy assassination. They can tell you exactly where they were when they heard Kerry say he had witnessed war crimes sanctioned by commanders in Vietnam.
The fact that Kerry attributed the breakdown in military discipline to the policymakers in Washington is lost on these men, who take Kerry’s words personally. This is not about Kerry’s performance in Vietnam; it’s what he said when he came home. Kerry has never made extravagant claims about his heroism in Vietnam. He never said his wounds were serious, and he never said he didn’t want to get out of Vietnam. After three wounds, under military rules, he was entitled to ship out, which he did after a combat tour of four months and 12 days. Nothing these so-called Veterans for Truth have come up with contradicts what Kerry has said, but that’s not the point.
The Swift Boat veterans have become the Campaign 2004 version of the Scott Peterson trial, trading charges and regularly appearing on the cable-news networks. The book that lays out the charges against Kerry, “Unfit for Command,” has been No. 1 on Amazon.com for over a week. Never mind that almost daily there’s a retraction or a new story to discredit what these veterans are saying. On Thursday, The Washington Post revealed that the military records of Larry Thurlow, who commanded a boat alongside Kerry, contain several references to enemy fire directed at all five boats in the flotilla, sharply contradicting what Thurlow is saying as a leading member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group. The Post got the affidavit through the Freedom of Information Act.
The Kerry campaign was curiously passive as the veterans gathered force in the media—as though responding would dignify the scurrilous charges. Kerry finally broke his silence this week, perhaps mindful that a lie unanswered becomes a lie that is believed. Flanked by firefighters in Boston, Kerry stripped the mask of patriotic valor from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth by pointing out the source of their funding: a Texas Republican who wrote two checks for $100,000 to the group. Its sudden emergence is reminiscent of the “Republicans for Clean Air,” which emerged during the 2000 campaign with a television spot attacking John McCain’s environmental record. Long after the ad did its damage to McCain in the New York primary, it was revealed that the Wylie brothers in Texas, who backed Bush, had paid for the advertising. The group itself was a sham, and the Wylie brothers no environmentalists.
If the November election is a plebiscite on who better and more courageously served their country in a time of war, Kerry would win. “Kerry gets a bye on this anyway—he was there and Bush wasn’t,” says John Zogby, an independent pollster who is not aligned with either campaign. He sees the battle over who’s telling whose truth in Vietnam as another symptom of the great divide in the country. “We are two warring nations and neither nation is listening to the other,” he says. “This is essentially a net zero politically. It’s great kindling wood for the Republicans. It’s the kind of stuff they need to hear just as Dems need to hear from Michael Moore.”
Questioning Kerry’s heroism fires up the GOP base, but it leaves “solid undecideds” cold. They’re not paying attention. Zogby says among this very narrow 5 percent of the electorate, 16 percent say Bush deserves to be re-elected; 39 percent say it’s time for somebody new. “You can’t help but look at those numbers and conclude they’ve made up their mind about one side,” says Zogby. But Kerry hasn’t been able to close the deal. Zogby has him stuck at 47 percent, which isn’t good. But Bush is stuck at 43 percent, which is worse. “It’s still the phony war period,” says Zogby. For an incumbent president in as much trouble as Bush, fighting a war that’s been over for nearly 30 years takes voters’ minds off Iraq. - http://msnbc.msn.com/id/57722...
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| ... AWOL Bush's Incompetence Exposed: A 2nd GOP Congressman Admits Iraq is a Disaster!!! |
| 08.23.04 (11:00 am) [edit] |
[b]Even Repugs are distancing themselves from Dubya's bloody fiascon in Iraq!!![/b]
Last week, Republican Rep. Doug Bereuter says he now believes the U.S. military assault on Iraq was unjustified.
[b]Read article:[/b] Bereuter: War in Iraq not justified
BY DON WALTON / Lincoln Journal Star
In a dramatic departure from the Bush administration, Republican Rep. Doug Bereuter says he now believes the U.S. military assault on Iraq was unjustified. - http://www.journalstar.com/ar...
[b]Now a 2nd GOP Congressman is calling for US troops to be brought home because it is clear that Bush/Cheney have badly bungled their insane blood-bath to steal Iraq's OIL and it is a Miserable FAILURE![/b]
[b]Leach says U.S. needs to leave Iraq as soon as possible[/b] - http://www.qctimes.com/intern...%2B%2F%2BIllinois&c=24,10 33460
Instead of focusing on his campaign like other stump speakers at the Iowa State Fair this week, U.S. Rep. Jim Leach emphasized the need for the United States to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.
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Leach, who voted in 2002 against the resolution that gave President Bush the authorization to use force in Iraq, said, “Sometimes force is used to establish order, but sometimes force becomes a magnet for instability, and I’m afraid, with each passing week, the magnet aspect of the use of force in Iraq may be increasing.”
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He called the case for finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq frail and pointed to a worldwide consensus that the American-led hunt was unsuccessful.
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Leach, a Davenport native who has represented parts of eastern Iowa in Congress for 28 years, believes the next step in Iraq should be a push for democratic elections in hopes of pulling out American troops by the end of the year.
“My sense is that the basis for disengagement should be advancing democracy,” he said. “The longer we stay in Iraq, the more troublesome the circumstances will be in that country. … in the United States and in other parts of the world.”
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While Leach supports the call for a strong military in America, he believes that muscle should be balanced with caution and restraint rather than a tendency toward intervention.
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Leach’s opponent in this year’s 2nd Congressional District election, Democrat Dave Franker, said in his speech at the fair that the heart of the race is not focused on international politics, but rather on domestic issues directly affecting southeastern Iowans.
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Franker challenged many of Leach’s recent political decisions, insisting he would have voted differently.
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Franker called the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill, which Leach supported, confusing and comparable to crumbs for Iowa seniors. Leach agreed that the voluntary program is confusing and imperfect, but not trivial.
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“The choice between food and medicine for poor Americans will disappear,” Leach said. “This is the first and only time that something significant has happened after almost two decades of debate on the subject. From a progressive perspective, it is not trivial.”
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In 2006, when the bill is fully implemented, low-income citizens will be able to obtain prescription drugs for a $1 co-payment, a benefit Leach considers “absolutely extraordinary, if not revolutionary.”
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The program, which Leach said is structured to be most beneficial to members of the lowest income bracket, is expected to assist almost half of the underprivileged elderly residents of rural Iowa.
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Franker also disagreed with the incumbent’s vote for the No Child Left Behind Act, which Leach said he supported because it included a 20 percent increase in funding for education.
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“Any opponent of mine can point out any area of federal spending and say that they would have supported more,” Leach said. “One of the dilemmas is, when you go to war, all the increases in spending are related to national security, externally and internally, which puts a great constraint on the capacity to do other things.” - http://www.qctimes.com/intern...%2B%2F%2BIllinois&c=24,10 33460
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| ... Bush/Cheney's Reckless Economy Harms Working People: INFLATION HERE WE COME!!! |
| 08.23.04 (7:16 am) [edit] |
[b]Raise the Economy Threat to "HIGH"![/b]
[b][i]The U.S. economy added 32,000 workers in July – a far cry from the Bush administration's prediction of over 200,000[/i].[/b] - http://www.alternet.org/elect...
[b]"We the People" are facing a dire economic situation here at home as a consequence of the disastrous [i]corporate-take-all and tax boondoggles for the richest-of-the-rich [/i]neo-fascist swindle waged by the corrupt neo-con Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i], who have spent us into their reckless record-level deficits contributing to the largest debt in our nation's history.[/b]
[b]I urge you to study the following reports:--[/b]
"Bush's Inflation For "We the People"": http://www.tblog.com/template...
"Reality Check: Economy Stalled": http://www.tblog.com/template...
"Two Paths for America": http://www.tblog.com/template...
[b]Consider also ...[/b]
I scribbled a note on my calendar: "Bush lost re-election today."
Baring a major gaff by the opposing team, today's bombshell job report has exposed once and for all the fraudulent claim that the U.S. economy is in recovery. Wall Streeters headed for the bomb shelters this morning after learning that U.S. employers were only able to add a paltry 32,000 workers to payrolls in July — just a bit short of the 215,000 to 240,000 the administration had projected would be created last month.
As you try to grapple with the significance of these numbers keep in mind that the economy has to create 150,000 new jobs each month just to keep up with natural population growth. And, if you want to keep the economy from slumping into recession employers have to create 200,000 new jobs each and every month.
The bad July news now makes three months running that the administration has failed to produce the robust job growth promised its $1.6 trillion in tax cuts. Trickle-down has, as it did under Reagan, only produced chuck-full reservoirs at the top and drought at bottom. If anything should trickle down it's only because someone's reservoir sprung a leak.
I have warned for months that we should not to confuse the spurt of economic activity created last year by the Bush tax cuts with a sustainable recovery. Mailing refund checks to a hundred million consumers will always spark a round of spending. But, unless we are ready to keep mailing those checks that spending will disappear quickly. We didn't, and it did.
So, the trickle-down chickens have once again come home to roost.
This morning news included the following other indicators:
* The New York Stock Exchange index, American Stock Exchange index and the Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks all tumbled. Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones by 8 to 3 on the NYSE.
* The price of the Treasury's 10-year note rose sharply marking a flight to safety by savvy investors. And the already nervous precious metals investors rushed out to buy more gold which now stands near $400 an ounce.
* And rising energy prices will further dampen economic growth. Oil for September delivery settled at $44.41, up $1.58 a barrel.
Earlier this week I published a complete explanation why I thought the administration was wrong when they claimed we were enjoying a robust recovery. Several readers wrote complaining that I took it down before they could read it, so what better time than today – the day Bush lost re-election – to reprint it.
("Repurposed" From August 3)
I think it may be time to adopt a second color-coded warning system, so I will. I am hereby unveiling the Economic Threat Level System. So as not to reinvent the wheel we will use the same colors as the Terrorism Threat Level System already in place. That indicator was recently bumped from "Elevated" (Yellow,) to "High" (Orange.) Here at the new Economic Threat Agency we scanned this morning's financial news and have decided to kick things off with a burnt orange – a threat level somewhere between Elevated and High. The intelligence reports that contributed to this decision were fresh from this morning's business headlines:
"[i]U.S. stocks opened lower on Wednesday after crude oil hit a new high on worries of scarce supplies[/i]."
[u]Analysis:[/u] Both US oil companies and the world's largest oil source, Saudi Arabia, have been cooking their books, though for different reasons. Shell Oil recently got caught inflating its oil reserves by a staggering 5 billion barrels in order to bolster the company's stock price. The Saudis have been lying about how much oil they still have underground in order to maintain its political leverage over the oil-addicted US. The fact is that we all knew that someday demand for oil would outstrip supply, and that day has arrived. Both China and India are industrializing and are demanding their fair share of the black stuff. In the old days the US could ring up a prince in the Sandpile Kingdom and ask they turn the spigot up a bit to ease prices. But the Saudis are now hoarding what oil they have left. Which explains the next headline.
"[i]Oil prices surged to yet another record high on Wednesday, battering stock markets and helping keep up demand for government bonds as investors pondered pricey crude's impact on world economic growth. U.S. light sweet crude touched $44.28 a barrel – the highest price since oil futures were launched on the New York Mercantile Exchange in 1983[/i]."
[u]Analysis:[/u] Duh!
"[i]New applications for U.S. mortgages eased last week with a dip in refinancing despite steady 30-year mortgage rates, an industry group said on Wednesday[/i]."
[u]Analysis:[/u] Homeowners have been maintaining middle class life styles with cash-out refi's. They paid off their original mortgage by taking out a larger one at lower rates. The extra cash, equity from appreciation, went to improve their homes and other major purchases. This spending contributed to a short up tick in economic activity. But now tapped out, and saddled with an even larger mortgage – many with adjustable rates poised to increase – homeowners are retrenching and are no longer able to fuel further growth. Which explains the next headline.
"[i]American consumer spending in June unexpectedly plunged by the steepest margin since the September 11, 2001 attacks, government figures showed[/i]."
[u]Analysis:[/u] It's not just homeowners who are tapped out. Those who did not have home equity to tap have used credit cards to maintain their pre-2001 lifestyles. One credit expert described credit cards as "Yuppie food stamps," a way to maintain standard of living young workers have come to consider an entitlement. U.S. consumer debt has reached staggering levels after more than doubling over the past 10 years. According to the most recent figures from the Federal Reserve Board, consumer debt has finally passed the $2 trillion level representing credit card and car loan debt, but excluding mortgages, of nearly $20,000 per US household. And, defaults and personal bankruptcies are also at record highs and promise to get worse, as the next story indicates.
"[i]Layoffs in the United States rose 8 percent in July from the previous month, a report said on Monday, as the job market recovery struggled to gain momentum[/i]."
[u]Analysis:[/u] A free market economy operates just like a natural world eco-chain - trouble anywhere along the chain quickly cascades throughout the entire system. Consumers under stress stop spending, orders for goods slow causing wholesalers to cut future orders from manufacturers who lay off workers. Those workers then come under stress and stop spending, which then triggers the next downward cycle, as indicated by the next story.
"[i]U.S. houses were less affordable in the second quarter than in the prior quarter because of rising home prices and interest rates[/i]."
[u]Analysis:[/u] Hey, isn't this where we started, with homes? You betcha. Rock bottom interest rates over the past three years ignited inflation in residential real estate – good news for homeowners who saw their paper wealth increase, but bad news for those who wanted to buy their first home. These would-be homeowners are now about to get hit with a double whammy. First home prices screamed past their price range and now, while prices are cooling a bit, interest rates are on the way up meaning that even a lower prices will not help much because the monthly payments are too high, which explains the next story.
"[i]Outlays for U.S. construction fell unexpectedly in June as spending on housing dropped for the first time in 16 months, a government report showed on Monday[/i]."
[u]Analysis:[/u] Fewer buyers who can qualify for a new home mean fewer new homes will be built. This will result in construction layoffs – one of the few remaining blue-collar jobs in America where a person can earn a decent wage. Advice to construction workers seeking a new job: hard hats not required at Wendy's.
One final piece of intel on the economy. Our operatives on Wall Street have been tracking sentiment among those who bet their own and their client's fortunes daily on the direction things are heading, and the picture they draw is not a pretty one. The Dow Jones 90-Day moving average has been moving — down, down, down for the past six months. This represents the best guess by frontline investors of what's in store for the economy just over the horizon.
[b]Source:[/b]
By Stephen Pizzo, [i]News for Real[/i]: http://newsforreal.com/ , AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org
[b]Courtesy of WinstonSmith http://winstonsmith.tblog.com... [/b]
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| ... Bush/Cheney War Crimes: FAILED IN IRAQ; SO IT'S TIME TO INVADE IRAN!!! |
| 08.23.04 (7:14 am) [edit] |
[b]Neocons Seek Vindication in Escalation [/b]
"The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons." This is the heart of the Bush Doctrine from the president's "axis of evil" address to Congress. And the nations that constituted that axis were Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
Under this doctrine, Iraq was invaded, Saddam overthrown and his army disbanded, though we have yet to find any of the "world's most destructive weapons."
With North Korea, the train has left the station. Pyongyang can now produce nuclear weapons and may possess half a dozen. For nations like North Korea and men like Kim Jong Il do not build costly and complex ballistic missiles simply to throw conventional explosives across an ocean.
Which leaves Iran. With Moscow's assistance, Tehran has been constructing a nuclear power plant at Bushehr. Once operational, Bushehr will, like Yongbyon in North Korea, yield plutonium as a byproduct.
Last year, the International Atomic Energy Agency also stumbled on a secret uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz. Its centrifuges were found to contain traces of weapons-grade uranium. Highly enriched uranium, U-235, is a component of atomic bombs. Little Boy, dropped on Hiroshima, had a uranium core. Fat Man, dropped on Nagasaki, had a plutonium core.
Lately, an effort by Russia, France and Germany to have Iran open up its nuclear plants to inspection has been rebuffed by Tehran. Having seen how America dealt summarily with Iraq, but proceeds gingerly with North Korea, Tehran has likely concluded that when a superpower is threatening preemptive strikes and preventive war, only nuclear weapons can deter it. Those who do not have such deterrents get the Saddam and Taliban treatment.
So it appears that the decisive test of the Bush Doctrine will come in Iran. And that test is probably not far off.
The Israelis have reportedly practiced strikes on Iran by crossing Turkish airspace and have special forces in the Kurdish regions of Iraq. There are rumors Sharon has told the White House that if we do not effect the nuclear castration of Iran, Israel will do the surgery herself, because she cannot live under the cloud of an atomic bomb in the possession of the patrons of Hezbollah.
Enter the "cakewalk" neoconservatives. Though disastrously wrong about Iraq's receptivity to U.S.-imposed democracy, and though they face disgrace and oblivion if Bush loses, they have one last card to play: That is to have America widen her wars with Afghanistan and Iraq with a preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. For the neoconservatives, Iraq was simply Phase II of "World War IV" for imperial domination of the Middle East and serial destruction of the regimes in Iraq, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia, as well as of Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
The neocons have not abandoned this imperial project. Nor has Bush removed a single one from power, though they may yet cost him his presidency. And the neoconservative commentariat is again beating the drums for war – this time on Iran.
This is their hole card. If they can ignite a new war, the country may forget how they bungled the old war. In escalation lies vindication.
And, in truth, Iran is a matter the president and Pentagon must address. Can we live with an Iranian atom bomb, which will restrict U.S. freedom of action in the Gulf and likely lead to proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Arab world? Or is Iran the place where the Bush Doctrine must be applied, even if it ultimately requires U.S. air and missile strikes on Iran's nuclear sites?
Given the overstretch of U.S. forces, the invasion and occupation of a nation three times as large and populous as Iraq is off the table. And what would be the probable result of America launching air strikes and starting yet another fire in the middle of the world's gasoline station?
Tehran would likely retaliate by sending fighters into Iraq, stirring up Shia guerrillas in the south, aiding anti-American warlords in Afghanistan, sponsoring terror attacks on U.S. citizens and inciting Hezbollah to refire the Lebanon front.
We could find ourselves in a third war with no allies save Israel. Another consequence could be the disruption of oil shipments from Iran, Iraq and the Gulf, a run-up in prices to $60 or $70 a barrel, and recessions in Japan, Europe and the United States.
Presently, America and her European allies appear to be moving toward Security Council sanctions if Iran does not render hard assurances it is not going nuclear. But if the mullahs have concluded their only defense against U.S. or Israeli preemptive strikes is a deterrent of their own – a not unreasonable assumption given what happened next door – we are headed for a showdown that will change our world forever.
[b]Patrick J. Buchanan was twice a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination and the Reform Party’s candidate in 2000. He is also a founder and editor of the new magazine, The American Conservative. Now a commentator and columnist, he served three presidents in the White House, was a founding panelist of three national television shows, and is the author of seven books.[/b] - http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?a...
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| ... Bush is Dangerously Stupid: POOR CHOICE FOR A FAKE CASUS BELLI |
| 08.23.04 (7:13 am) [edit] |
[b]Poor Choice for a Fake Casus Belli [/b]
When the Warsaw Pact disintegrated in 1989 – and the Soviet Union two years later – most of us heaved a humongous sigh of relief.
The Cold War was over!
Our "containment" strategy had worked. Now we could begin dismantling thousands of "battlefield" nukes and the scores of overseas bases that had encircled the "Evil Empire." Now we could bring home our soldiers and sailors.
That is, we could have, absent the neo-crazies.
For the neo-crazies – who had been previously been disguised as Cold Warriors – the time was ripe to advance an American Hegemony. To establish a permanent global military presence – by force if necessary – even in countries formerly part of the Evil Empire.
The neo-crazies targeted the Persian Gulf, arguing that the UN Security Council had already authorized us to invade and occupy Iraq..
"Wrong," said Bush the Elder. The Gulf War mandate was merely to eject Saddam Hussein's "annexation" forces from Kuwait and to restore peace to the region.
The neo-crazies had better luck with Bush's successor, Bill Clinton.
And with Congress. The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 declared regime change in Iraq to be a U.S. policy goal and called "upon the United Nations to establish an international criminal tribunal for the purpose of indicting, prosecuting, and imprisoning Saddam Hussein."
However, the neo-crazies realized that you soccer moms wouldn't support a war of aggression to effect regime change in Iraq unless you could be convinced that Saddam posed a direct and immediate threat to you.
So, as part of a campaign to convince you that he was, they launched Operation Desert Fox, Clinton's 1998 bombings of Saddam's palaces. They told you Saddam had hidden a nuke-development program beneath those palaces and that UN Security Council Resolution 687 authorized them to use "all necessary means" to destroy it. UNSCR-687 provided no such authority and the real rationale for Operation Desert Fox was to kill Saddam Hussein.
Finally, the neo-crazies hit the jackpot. Clinton's successor, Bush the Younger, came into office, determined to invade and occupy Iraq.
Congress obliged Bush by passing the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of U.S. Armed Forces Against Iraq. Bush was authorized to invade Iraq if he could convince you soccer moms that Saddam Hussein actually had nukes and intended to give them to al-Qaeda.
Of course, congresspersons – including Senator John Kerry – knew when they voted in 1998 and in 2002 that Saddam's nuke program had been unsuccessful, had been destroyed in 1991 and that no attempts had been made to resuscitate it. Saddam's son-in-law – General Hussein Kamel – in charge of Iraq's nuke and chembio weapons programs, had defected in 1995 and documented that, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Action Team had already verified Kamel's story.
Nevertheless, a few months later, Bush invaded Iraq, telling you it was necessary in order to prevent al-Qaeda from nuking you with Saddam's nukes.
The consequence? Without question, the use of Saddam's nonexistent nuke program as a pretense for invading Iraq has vastly increased your chances of being nuked. If for no other reason, North Korea unfroze its "nuclear freeze" and is busily producing nukes for "deterrence" and/or for sale to the highest bidder. Iran may now have decided to follow the North Korean example.
The consequence of "liberating" Iraq needn't have been nukes getting loose, perhaps getting into the hands of terrorists. As far as the neo-crazies were concerned, any excuse would have done. If – for example – the polls had shown that you soccer moms would support an invasion of Iraq if hard, convincing, evidence could be found that Saddam Hussein was producing kiddie porn and posting it on the Internet, then the neo-crazies in the White House and in the Pentagon would have "found" such "evidence."
If kiddie porn had been the casus belli – rather than nonexistent loose nukes – Bush would still have launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. Congress would still have supported the invasion. Billions of dollars would still have been spent and thousands of U.S. troops would still have been killed or maimed.
Of course, Dick Cheney would now be insisting that it didn't really matter that no kiddie porn had been found in Iraq. Yet.
But the authority and effectiveness of the IAEA to "police" the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty would not have been undermined, North Korean weapons-grade plutonium would not have gotten "loose," and your chances of getting nuked in your jammies by terrorists would have been much, much less than they now are.
[b]Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico[/b]. - http://www.antiwar.com/orig/p...
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| The Demise of the GOP |
| 08.23.04 (6:24 am) [edit] |
[b]How Do They Get Away With It?[/b]
It is not an enjoyable experience watching the Republican Party descend into the depths of propaganda and falsehood. Today's disaffected Republicans once believed the GOP to be the party of principle. Any remaining claim to principle ended with Bush's invasion of Iraq.
No informed person believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or terrorist connections to al-Qaeda and involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks.
It is not possible that the president and vice president of the United States, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the director of the CIA and the national security adviser could have believed such rubbish. Yet, each one of them told the American people, the U.S. Congress, the United Nations, and our allies that they did believe it.
Did U.S. intelligence agencies actually convey totally false information to the highest government officials? If so, these agencies are the greatest threat to innocent people abroad and to the U.S. government's credibility. Such incompetence is more dangerous than terrorism. The agencies should be immediately abolished.
Contrary to Bush administration propaganda, Saddam Hussein was precisely the type of secular Arab ruler who would feature large on Osama bin Laden's hit list. Hussein brutally suppressed Islamic leaders, knocking off cleric after cleric, including Moqtada al-Sadr's father, a grand ayatollah.
If Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction to give terrorists, the terrorists would have used them on Israel. The U.S. is a derivative target because of our alliance with Israel against the Palestinians.
Bush and Rumsfeld claim that they believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Yet, it is certain that the joint chiefs and commanding generals did not believe the falsehood. No general, no matter how incompetent, would have concentrated his invasion army in a small area adjacent to an enemy armed with WMD, when one weapon could wipe out the entire U.S. invasion force.
No one has been held accountable for the unjustified invasion of Iraq that has destroyed America's standing in the world and has cost tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and thousands of American dead and wounded.
Don't expect a demand for accountability from the public. A poll released August 20 by the Program on International Policy Attitudes [pdf] at the University of Maryland found that 54% of Americans continue to believe Iraq had WMD; 35% believe that Iraq was closely linked to al-Qaeda, and 15% believe Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attack.
What does the persistence of such extraordinary falsehoods say about the U.S. media? How can a free people with First Amendment rights be so totally misinformed? The answer is that an independent media no longer exists in the U.S.
Formerly independent media are now submerged into corporate chains where focus on advertising revenues means zero tolerance for controversy. In the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the U.S. media served as a propaganda arm for the Bush administration. The New York Times and Washington Post have since published mild apologies for neglecting their responsibilities, but the U.S. media has been muzzled by the "you-are-with-us-or-again st-us" mantra.
Anyone who tells the truth is in the "against-us" camp.
Having gotten away with one invasion based on deception, the Bush administration is eager to repeat the offense. Last week Undersecretary of State John Bolton used a Hudson Institute forum to repeat before a live C-SPAN TV audience the same lies – only this time it is Iran that has WMD:
"Today I'd like to speak about Iran, which has concealed a large-scale, covert nuclear weapons program for over 18 years, and which, therefore, is one of our most fundamental proliferation challenges. All of Iran's WMD efforts – chemical weapons, biological weapons, nuclear weapons, and ballistic missiles – pose grave threats to international security."
The grave threat to international security is posed by the Bush administration's relentless war propaganda. Does Bolton really believe that a nuclear weapons program, with all its extraordinary requirements, could be concealed for 18 years?
There is a total failure of U.S. diplomacy. Is the failure intentional? Does the Bush administration desire more war in the Middle East?
Every indicator reads yes. The U.S. has struck an aggressive stance toward Iraq, Syria and Iran – the three Middle Eastern countries that are not ruled by American puppets on the American payroll. Now that the Soviet Union is no longer a check on U.S. intrusions in the Middle East, the Bush administration intends to complete the colonization under the cloak of bringing "democracy" to Islam.
This is the neoconservative agenda. The same neocons who control the Bush administration have put forward this plan in written and spoken form for all to read and hear. They have informed us of their war intentions, and we are paying no attention.
If you favor the return of the draft and war without end, vote Republican.
[b]Dr. Roberts is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.[/b] - http://www.antiwar.com/robert...
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| How Do They Get Away With It? |
| 08.23.04 (6:16 am) [edit] |
It is not an enjoyable experience watching the Republican Party descend into the depths of propaganda and falsehood. Today's disaffected Republicans once believed the GOP to be the party of principle. Any remaining claim to principle ended with Bush's invasion of Iraq.
No informed person believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or terrorist connections to al-Qaeda and involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks.
It is not possible that the president and vice president of the United States, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the director of the CIA and the national security adviser could have believed such rubbish. Yet, each one of them told the American people, the U.S. Congress, the United Nations, and our allies that they did believe it.
Did U.S. intelligence agencies actually convey totally false information to the highest government officials? If so, these agencies are the greatest threat to innocent people abroad and to the U.S. government's credibility. Such incompetence is more dangerous than terrorism. The agencies should be immediately abolished.
Contrary to Bush administration propaganda, Saddam Hussein was precisely the type of secular Arab ruler who would feature large on Osama bin Laden's hit list. Hussein brutally suppressed Islamic leaders, knocking off cleric after cleric, including Moqtada al-Sadr's father, a grand ayatollah.
If Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction to give terrorists, the terrorists would have used them on Israel. The U.S. is a derivative target because of our alliance with Israel against the Palestinians.
Bush and Rumsfeld claim that they believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Yet, it is certain that the joint chiefs and commanding generals did not believe the falsehood. No general, no matter how incompetent, would have concentrated his invasion army in a small area adjacent to an enemy armed with WMD, when one weapon could wipe out the entire U.S. invasion force.
No one has been held accountable for the unjustified invasion of Iraq that has destroyed America's standing in the world and has cost tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and thousands of American dead and wounded.
Don't expect a demand for accountability from the public. A poll released August 20 by the Program on International Policy Attitudes [pdf] at the University of Maryland found that 54% of Americans continue to believe Iraq had WMD; 35% believe that Iraq was closely linked to al-Qaeda, and 15% believe Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attack.
What does the persistence of such extraordinary falsehoods say about the U.S. media? How can a free people with First Amendment rights be so totally misinformed? The answer is that an independent media no longer exists in the U.S.
Formerly independent media are now submerged into corporate chains where focus on advertising revenues means zero tolerance for controversy. In the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the U.S. media served as a propaganda arm for the Bush administration. The New York Times and Washington Post have since published mild apologies for neglecting their responsibilities, but the U.S. media has been muzzled by the "you-are-with-us-or-again st-us" mantra.
Anyone who tells the truth is in the "against-us" camp.
Having gotten away with one invasion based on deception, the Bush administration is eager to repeat the offense. Last week Undersecretary of State John Bolton used a Hudson Institute forum to repeat before a live C-SPAN TV audience the same lies – only this time it is Iran that has WMD:
"Today I'd like to speak about Iran, which has concealed a large-scale, covert nuclear weapons program for over 18 years, and which, therefore, is one of our most fundamental proliferation challenges. All of Iran's WMD efforts – chemical weapons, biological weapons, nuclear weapons, and ballistic missiles – pose grave threats to international security."
The grave threat to international security is posed by the Bush administration's relentless war propaganda. Does Bolton really believe that a nuclear weapons program, with all its extraordinary requirements, could be concealed for 18 years?
There is a total failure of U.S. diplomacy. Is the failure intentional? Does the Bush administration desire more war in the Middle East?
Every indicator reads yes. The U.S. has struck an aggressive stance toward Iraq, Syria and Iran – the three Middle Eastern countries that are not ruled by American puppets on the American payroll. Now that the Soviet Union is no longer a check on U.S. intrusions in the Middle East, the Bush administration intends to complete the colonization under the cloak of bringing "democracy" to Islam.
This is the neoconservative agenda. The same neocons who control the Bush administration have put forward this plan in written and spoken form for all to read and hear. They have informed us of their war intentions, and we are paying no attention.
If you favor the return of the draft and war without end, vote Republican.
[b]Dr. Roberts is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.[/b] - http://www.antiwar.com/robert...
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| The Demise of the GOP: How Do They Get Away With It? |
| 08.23.04 (6:14 am) [edit] |
It is not an enjoyable experience watching the Republican Party descend into the depths of propaganda and falsehood. Today's disaffected Republicans once believed the GOP to be the party of principle. Any remaining claim to principle ended with Bush's invasion of Iraq.
No informed person believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or terrorist connections to al-Qaeda and involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks.
It is not possible that the president and vice president of the United States, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the director of the CIA and the national security adviser could have believed such rubbish. Yet, each one of them told the American people, the U.S. Congress, the United Nations, and our allies that they did believe it.
Did U.S. intelligence agencies actually convey totally false information to the highest government officials? If so, these agencies are the greatest threat to innocent people abroad and to the U.S. government's credibility. Such incompetence is more dangerous than terrorism. The agencies should be immediately abolished.
Contrary to Bush administration propaganda, Saddam Hussein was precisely the type of secular Arab ruler who would feature large on Osama bin Laden's hit list. Hussein brutally suppressed Islamic leaders, knocking off cleric after cleric, including Moqtada al-Sadr's father, a grand ayatollah.
If Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction to give terrorists, the terrorists would have used them on Israel. The U.S. is a derivative target because of our alliance with Israel against the Palestinians.
Bush and Rumsfeld claim that they believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Yet, it is certain that the joint chiefs and commanding generals did not believe the falsehood. No general, no matter how incompetent, would have concentrated his invasion army in a small area adjacent to an enemy armed with WMD, when one weapon could wipe out the entire U.S. invasion force.
No one has been held accountable for the unjustified invasion of Iraq that has destroyed America's standing in the world and has cost tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and thousands of American dead and wounded.
Don't expect a demand for accountability from the public. A poll released August 20 by the Program on International Policy Attitudes [pdf] at the University of Maryland found that 54% of Americans continue to believe Iraq had WMD; 35% believe that Iraq was closely linked to al-Qaeda, and 15% believe Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attack.
What does the persistence of such extraordinary falsehoods say about the U.S. media? How can a free people with First Amendment rights be so totally misinformed? The answer is that an independent media no longer exists in the U.S.
Formerly independent media are now submerged into corporate chains where focus on advertising revenues means zero tolerance for controversy. In the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the U.S. media served as a propaganda arm for the Bush administration. The New York Times and Washington Post have since published mild apologies for neglecting their responsibilities, but the U.S. media has been muzzled by the "you-are-with-us-or-again st-us" mantra.
Anyone who tells the truth is in the "against-us" camp.
Having gotten away with one invasion based on deception, the Bush administration is eager to repeat the offense. Last week Undersecretary of State John Bolton used a Hudson Institute forum to repeat before a live C-SPAN TV audience the same lies – only this time it is Iran that has WMD:
"Today I'd like to speak about Iran, which has concealed a large-scale, covert nuclear weapons program for over 18 years, and which, therefore, is one of our most fundamental proliferation challenges. All of Iran's WMD efforts – chemical weapons, biological weapons, nuclear weapons, and ballistic missiles – pose grave threats to international security."
The grave threat to international security is posed by the Bush administration's relentless war propaganda. Does Bolton really believe that a nuclear weapons program, with all its extraordinary requirements, could be concealed for 18 years?
There is a total failure of U.S. diplomacy. Is the failure intentional? Does the Bush administration desire more war in the Middle East?
Every indicator reads yes. The U.S. has struck an aggressive stance toward Iraq, Syria and Iran – the three Middle Eastern countries that are not ruled by American puppets on the American payroll. Now that the Soviet Union is no longer a check on U.S. intrusions in the Middle East, the Bush administration intends to complete the colonization under the cloak of bringing "democracy" to Islam.
This is the neoconservative agenda. The same neocons who control the Bush administration have put forward this plan in written and spoken form for all to read and hear. They have informed us of their war intentions, and we are paying no attention.
If you favor the return of the draft and war without end, vote Republican.
[b]Dr. Roberts is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.[/b] - http://www.antiwar.com/robert...
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| Law-Breaker Bush Gets Busted Passing Out Swift Boat Flyer & Breaking the Law [Again]!!! |
| 08.22.04 (7:50 pm) [edit] |
[b]Bush-Rove say they are NOT illegally coordinating with the Swfit Boat Liars. But this flyer proves they ARE! Bush, you're busted! Start picking out your clothes for the slammer![/b] http://blog.johnkerry.com/rap...
[b]Bush Campaign gets Busted Passing Out Swift Boat Flyer[/b]
"On the same day that the Bush-Cheney campaign repeatedly denied coordinating attacks with the anti-Kerry group 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,' the Bush-Cheney campaign in Florida was caught promoting a rally in Gainesville for the group. A flyer being distributed at the Alachua County Republican party headquarters, which doubles as the Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters for the county, promotes a weekend rally sponsored by 'Swift Boat Vets for Truth, Veterans for Bush, Alachua Bush/Cheney Committee,' and others. 'George Bush has disgraced himself by allowing his campaign to promote the ugly smears being spread by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,' said Scott Maddox, Chairman of the Florida Democratic Party. 'The Bush campaign has repeatedly denied any involvement with this group, but now we know the real truth. While George Bush falsely declares his respect for John Kerry's war record, his henchmen on the ground in Florida are attacking it under the radar.'"
[b]Read entire story:[/b] http://blog.johnkerry.com/rap...
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| Bush's Incompetence Exposed: A 2nd GOP Congressman Admits Iraq is a Disaster!!! |
| 08.22.04 (2:19 pm) [edit] |
[b]Even Repugs are distancing themselves from Dubya's bloody fiascon in Iraq!!![/b]
Last week, Republican Rep. Doug Bereuter says he now believes the U.S. military assault on Iraq was unjustified.
[b]Read article:[/b] Bereuter: War in Iraq not justified
BY DON WALTON / Lincoln Journal Star
In a dramatic departure from the Bush administration, Republican Rep. Doug Bereuter says he now believes the U.S. military assault on Iraq was unjustified. - http://www.journalstar.com/ar...
[b]Now a 2nd GOP Congressman is calling for US troops to be brought home because it is clear that Bush/Cheney have badly bungled their insane blood-bath to steal Iraq's OIL and it is a Miserable FAILURE![/b]
[b]Leach says U.S. needs to leave Iraq as soon as possible[/b] - http://www.qctimes.com/intern...%2B%2F%2BIllinois&c=24,10 33460
Instead of focusing on his campaign like other stump speakers at the Iowa State Fair this week, U.S. Rep. Jim Leach emphasized the need for the United States to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.
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Leach, who voted in 2002 against the resolution that gave President Bush the authorization to use force in Iraq, said, “Sometimes force is used to establish order, but sometimes force becomes a magnet for instability, and I’m afraid, with each passing week, the magnet aspect of the use of force in Iraq may be increasing.”
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He called the case for finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq frail and pointed to a worldwide consensus that the American-led hunt was unsuccessful.
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Leach, a Davenport native who has represented parts of eastern Iowa in Congress for 28 years, believes the next step in Iraq should be a push for democratic elections in hopes of pulling out American troops by the end of the year.
“My sense is that the basis for disengagement should be advancing democracy,” he said. “The longer we stay in Iraq, the more troublesome the circumstances will be in that country. … in the United States and in other parts of the world.”
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While Leach supports the call for a strong military in America, he believes that muscle should be balanced with caution and restraint rather than a tendency toward intervention.
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Leach’s opponent in this year’s 2nd Congressional District election, Democrat Dave Franker, said in his speech at the fair that the heart of the race is not focused on international politics, but rather on domestic issues directly affecting southeastern Iowans.
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Franker challenged many of Leach’s recent political decisions, insisting he would have voted differently.
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Franker called the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill, which Leach supported, confusing and comparable to crumbs for Iowa seniors. Leach agreed that the voluntary program is confusing and imperfect, but not trivial.
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“The choice between food and medicine for poor Americans will disappear,” Leach said. “This is the first and only time that something significant has happened after almost two decades of debate on the subject. From a progressive perspective, it is not trivial.”
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In 2006, when the bill is fully implemented, low-income citizens will be able to obtain prescription drugs for a $1 co-payment, a benefit Leach considers “absolutely extraordinary, if not revolutionary.”
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The program, which Leach said is structured to be most beneficial to members of the lowest income bracket, is expected to assist almost half of the underprivileged elderly residents of rural Iowa.
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Franker also disagreed with the incumbent’s vote for the No Child Left Behind Act, which Leach said he supported because it included a 20 percent increase in funding for education.
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“Any opponent of mine can point out any area of federal spending and say that they would have supported more,” Leach said. “One of the dilemmas is, when you go to war, all the increases in spending are related to national security, externally and internally, which puts a great constraint on the capacity to do other things.” - http://www.qctimes.com/intern...%2B%2F%2BIllinois&c=24,10 33460
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| LAURA BUSH:-- MY IDIOT HUSBAND IS TOO STUPID TO BE PRESIDENT!!! |
| 08.22.04 (2:12 pm) [edit] |
[b]The Misunderestimated Man
How Bush chose stupidity.[/b]
he question I am most frequently asked about[i] Bushisms [/i]is, "Do you really think the president of the United States is dumb?"
The short answer is yes.
The long answer is yes and no.
Quotations http://slate.msn.com/id/76886... collected over the years in[i] Slate [/i]may leave the impression that George W. Bush is a dimwit. Let's face it: A man who cannot talk about education without making a humiliating grammatical mistake ("The illiteracy level of our children are appalling"); who cannot keep straight the three branches of government ("It's the executive branch's job to interpret law"); who coins ridiculous words ("Hispanos," "arbolist," "subliminable," "resignate," "transformationed"); who habitually says the opposite of what he intends ("the death tax is good for people from all walks of life!") sounds like a grade-A imbecile.
And if you don't care to pursue the matter any further, that view will suffice. George W. Bush has governed, for the most part, the way any airhead might, undermining the fiscal condition of the nation, squandering the goodwill of the world after Sept. 11, and allowing huge problems (global warming, entitlement spending, AIDS) to metastasize toward catastrophe through a combination of ideology, incomprehension, and indifference. If Bush isn't exactly the moron he sounds, his synaptic misfirings offer a plausible proxy for the idiocy of his presidency.
In reality, however, there's more to it. Bush's assorted malapropisms, solecisms, gaffes, spoonerisms, and truisms tend to imply that his lack of fluency in English is tantamount to an absence of intelligence. But as we all know, the inarticulate can be shrewd, the fluent fatuous. In Bush's case, the symptoms point to a specific malady—some kind of linguistic deficit akin to dyslexia—that does not indicate a lack of mental capacity per se.
Bush also compensates with his non-verbal acumen. As he notes, "Smart comes in all kinds of different ways." The president's way is an aptitude for connecting to people through banter and physicality. He has a powerful memory for names, details, and figures that truly matter to him, such as batting averages from the 1950s. Bush also has a keen political sense, sharpened under the tutelage of Karl Rove.
What's more, calling the president a cretin absolves him of responsibility. Like Reagan, Bush avoids blame for all manner of contradictions, implausible assertions, and outright lies by appearing an amiable dunce. If he knows not what he does, blame goes to the three puppeteers, Cheney, Rove, and Rumsfeld. It also breeds sympathy. We wouldn't laugh at FDR because he couldn't walk. Is it less cruel to laugh at GWB because he can't talk? The soft bigotry of low expectations means Bush is seen to outperform by merely getting by. Finally, elitist condescension, however merited, helps cement Bush's bond to the masses.
But if "numskull" is an imprecise description of the president, it is not altogether inaccurate. Bush may not have been born stupid, but he has achieved stupidity, and now he wears it as a badge of honor. What makes mocking this president fair as well as funny is that Bush is, or at least once was, capable of learning, reading, and thinking. We know he has discipline and can work hard (at least when the goal is reducing his time for a three-mile run). Instead he chose to coast, for most of his life, on name, charm, good looks, and the easy access to capital afforded by family connections.
The most obvious expression of Bush's choice of ignorance is that, at the age of 57, he knows nothing about policy or history. After years of working as his dad's spear-chucker in Washington, he didn't understand the difference between Medicare and Medicaid, the second- and third-largest federal programs. Well into his plans for invading Iraq, Bush still couldn't get down the distinction between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, the key religious divide in a country he was about to occupy. Though he sometimes carries books for show, he either does not read them or doesn't absorb anything from them. Bush's ignorance is so transparent that many of his intimates do not bother to dispute it even in public. Consider the testimony of several who know him well.
[b]Richard Perle[/b], foreign policy adviser: "The first time I met Bush 43 … two things became clear. One, he didn't know very much. The other was that he had the confidence to ask questions that revealed he didn't know very much."
[b]David Frum[/b], former speechwriter: "Bush had a poor memory for facts and figures. … Fire a question at him about the specifics of his administration's policies, and he often appeared uncertain. Nobody would ever enroll him in a quiz show."
[b]Laura Bush[/b], spouse: "George is not an overly introspective person. He has good instincts, and he goes with them. He doesn't need to evaluate and reevaluate a decision. He doesn't try to overthink. He likes action."
[b]Paul O'Neill[/b], former treasury secretary: "The only way I can describe it is that, well, the President is like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people. There is no discernible connection."
A second, more damning aspect of Bush's mind-set is that he doesn't want to know anything in detail, however important. Since college, he has spilled with contempt for knowledge, equating learning with snobbery and making a joke of his own anti-intellectualism. ("[William F. Buckley] wrote a book at Yale; I read one," he quipped at a black-tie event.) By O'Neill's account, Bush could sit through an hourlong presentation about the state of the economy without asking a single question. ("I was bored as hell," the president shot back, ostensibly in jest.)
Closely related to this aggressive ignorance is a third feature of Bush's mentality: laziness. Again, this is a lifelong trait. Bush's college grades were mostly Cs (including a 73 in Introduction to the American Political System). At the start of one term, the star of the Yale football team spotted him in the back row during the shopping period for courses. "Hey! George Bush is in this class!" Calvin Hill shouted to his teammates. "This is the one for us!" As governor of Texas, Bush would take a long break in the middle of his short workday for a run followed by a stretch of video golf or computer solitaire.
A fourth and final quality of Bush's mind is that it does not think. The president can't tolerate debate about issues. Offered an option, he makes up his mind quickly and never reconsiders. At an elementary school, a child once asked him whether it was hard to make decisions as president. "Most of the decisions come pretty easily for me, to be frank with you." By leaping to conclusions based on what he "believes," Bush avoids contemplating even the most obvious basic contradictions: between his policy of tax cuts and reducing the deficit; between his call for a humble foreign policy based on alliances and his unilateral assertion of American power; between his support for in-vitro fertilization (which destroys embryos) and his opposition to fetal stem-cell research (because it destroys embryos).
Why would someone capable of being smart choose to be stupid? To understand, you have to look at W.'s relationship with father. This filial bond involves more tension than meets the eye. Dad was away for much of his oldest son's childhood. Little George grew up closer to his acid-tongued mother and acted out against the absent parent—through adolescent misbehavior, academic failure, dissipation, and basically not accomplishing anything at all until well into his 40s.
Dubya's youthful screw-ups and smart-aleck attitude reflect some combination of protest, plea for attention, and flailing attempt to compete. Until a decade ago, his résumé read like a send-up of his dad's. Bush senior was a star student at Andover and Phi Beta Kappa at Yale, where he was also captain of the baseball team; Junior struggled through with gentleman's C's and, though he loved baseball, couldn't make the college lineup. Père was a bomber pilot in the Pacific; fils sat out 'Nam in the Texas Air National Guard, where he lost flying privileges by not showing up. Dad drove to Texas in 1947 to get rich in the oil business and actually did; Son tried the same in 1975 and drilled dry holes for a decade. Bush the elder got elected to Congress in 1966; Shrub ran in 1978, didn't know what he was talking about, and got clobbered.
Through all this incompetent emulation runs an undercurrent of hostility. In an oft-told anecdote circa 1973, GWB—after getting wasted at a party and driving over a neighbor's trash can in Houston—challenged his dad. "I hear you're lookin' for me," W. told the chairman of the Republican National Committee. "You want to go mano a mano right here?" Some years later at a state dinner, he told the Queen of England he was being seated far away because he was the black sheep of the family.
After half a lifetime of this kind of frustration, Bush decided to straighten up. Nursing a hangover at a 40th-birthday weekend, he gave up Wild Turkey, cold turkey. With the help of Billy Graham, he put himself in the hands of a higher power and began going to church. He became obsessed with punctuality and developed a rigid routine. Thus did Prince Hal molt into an evangelical King Henry. And it worked! Putting together a deal to buy the Texas Rangers, the ne'er-do-well finally tasted success. With success, he grew closer to his father, taking on the role of family avenger. This culminated in his 1994 challenge to Texas Gov. Ann Richards, who had twitted dad at the 1988 Democratic convention*.
Curiously, this late arrival at adulthood did not involve Bush becoming in any way thoughtful. Having chosen stupidity as rebellion, he stuck with it out of conformity. The promise-keeper, reformed-alkie path he chose not only drastically curtailed personal choices he no longer wanted, it also supplied an all-encompassing order, offered guidance on policy, and prevented the need for much actual information. Bush's old answer to hard questions was, "I don't know and, who cares." His new answer was, "Wait a second while I check with Jesus."
A remaining bit of poignancy was his unresolved struggle with his father. "All I ask," he implored a reporter while running for governor in 1994, "is that for once you guys stop seeing me as the son of George Bush." In his campaigns, W. has kept his dad offstage. (In an exceptional appearance on the eve of the 2000 New Hampshire primary, 41 came onstage and called his son "this boy.") While some describe the second Bush presidency as a restoration, it is in at least equal measure a repudiation. The son's harder-edged conservatism explicitly rejects the old man's approach to such issues as abortion, taxes, and relations with Israel.
This Oedipally induced ignorance expresses itself most dangerously in Bush's handling of the war in Iraq. Dubya polished off his old man's greatest enemy, Saddam, but only by lampooning 41's accomplishment of coalition-building in the first Gulf War. Bush led the country to war on false pretenses and neglected to plan the occupation that would inevitably follow. A more knowledgeable and engaged president might have questioned the quality of the evidence about Iraq's supposed weapons programs. One who preferred to be intelligent might have asked about the possibility of an unfriendly reception. Instead, Bush rolled the dice. His budget-busting tax cuts exemplify a similar phenomenon, driven by an alternate set of ideologues.
As the president says, we misunderestimate him. He was not born stupid. He chose stupidity. Bush may look like a well-meaning dolt. On consideration, he's something far more dangerous: a dedicated fool. - http://slate.msn.com/id/21000...
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| Swift Smear Liars Exposed as Frauds & Bush/Cheney's "Dirty Work" Goons!!! |
| 08.22.04 (2:08 pm) [edit] |
[b]Bush/Cheney may have committed a crime by getting these Swift Smear Liars and Goons to do their "dirty work" that is proven to be fraudulent![/b]
[u]Read the following articles published today[/u]
. Link found between Swift Boat Vets, Bush/Cheney - http://www.suntimes.com/outpu...
. Anti-kerry Vets not there that day - http://www.chicagotribune.com...,1,1611037.story?coll=chi-news-hed
. Swift Boat Skipper: Kerry critics lies - Tribune editors fought in disputed battle, breaks long silence on Kerry record - http://www.chicagotribune.com...,1,6814873.story?coll=chi-news-hed
. Is the real aim of the Swift Boat Vets to divert attention from Iraq (and other Bush crimes)? - http://msnbc.msn.com/id/57722...
. No So Swift Boat Veterans - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| KARL 'Joseph Goebbles' ROVE NAZI TACTIC: SMEAR KERRY SO WE FORGET AWOL BUSH'S IRAQ DISASTER!!! |
| 08.22.04 (2:06 pm) [edit] |
[b]Fighting a Phony War
Is the real aim of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to divert attention from Iraq?[/b]
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth stopped by NEWSWEEK’s Washington bureau this week to explain their version of what happened in Vietnam 35 years ago and why John Kerry doesn’t deserve three Purple Hearts. None were on the Swift Boat Kerry commanded, but they had charts to illustrate their contention that Kerry’s boat did not come under fire and that two of his wounds were self-inflicted, one when he hurled a grenade at a rice bin too close to his position.
A generation of reporters far removed from any war experience listened respectfully to their story. Between the fog of war and the passage of time, telling the truth has more to do with politics than memory. These men fought; they didn’t come home to a hero’s welcome, and they’ll never forgive Kerry for protesting the war and branding them as war criminals.
One member of the group recalled how each of them had been issued a 90-pound sea bag, and Kerry sacrificed 10 pounds of socks and clean underwear to pack a typewriter. At the end of a long day of patrols, Kerry would sit hunched over his typewriter plugging away at who-knows-what, the fellow said, so secretive it seemed subversive. They never understood this aloof figure, and the day that he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—April 22, 1971—is as powerful a date to these veterans as the Kennedy assassination. They can tell you exactly where they were when they heard Kerry say he had witnessed war crimes sanctioned by commanders in Vietnam.
The fact that Kerry attributed the breakdown in military discipline to the policymakers in Washington is lost on these men, who take Kerry’s words personally. This is not about Kerry’s performance in Vietnam; it’s what he said when he came home. Kerry has never made extravagant claims about his heroism in Vietnam. He never said his wounds were serious, and he never said he didn’t want to get out of Vietnam. After three wounds, under military rules, he was entitled to ship out, which he did after a combat tour of four months and 12 days. Nothing these so-called Veterans for Truth have come up with contradicts what Kerry has said, but that’s not the point.
The Swift Boat veterans have become the Campaign 2004 version of the Scott Peterson trial, trading charges and regularly appearing on the cable-news networks. The book that lays out the charges against Kerry, “Unfit for Command,” has been No. 1 on Amazon.com for over a week. Never mind that almost daily there’s a retraction or a new story to discredit what these veterans are saying. On Thursday, The Washington Post revealed that the military records of Larry Thurlow, who commanded a boat alongside Kerry, contain several references to enemy fire directed at all five boats in the flotilla, sharply contradicting what Thurlow is saying as a leading member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group. The Post got the affidavit through the Freedom of Information Act.
The Kerry campaign was curiously passive as the veterans gathered force in the media—as though responding would dignify the scurrilous charges. Kerry finally broke his silence this week, perhaps mindful that a lie unanswered becomes a lie that is believed. Flanked by firefighters in Boston, Kerry stripped the mask of patriotic valor from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth by pointing out the source of their funding: a Texas Republican who wrote two checks for $100,000 to the group. Its sudden emergence is reminiscent of the “Republicans for Clean Air,” which emerged during the 2000 campaign with a television spot attacking John McCain’s environmental record. Long after the ad did its damage to McCain in the New York primary, it was revealed that the Wylie brothers in Texas, who backed Bush, had paid for the advertising. The group itself was a sham, and the Wylie brothers no environmentalists.
If the November election is a plebiscite on who better and more courageously served their country in a time of war, Kerry would win. “Kerry gets a bye on this anyway—he was there and Bush wasn’t,” says John Zogby, an independent pollster who is not aligned with either campaign. He sees the battle over who’s telling whose truth in Vietnam as another symptom of the great divide in the country. “We are two warring nations and neither nation is listening to the other,” he says. “This is essentially a net zero politically. It’s great kindling wood for the Republicans. It’s the kind of stuff they need to hear just as Dems need to hear from Michael Moore.”
Questioning Kerry’s heroism fires up the GOP base, but it leaves “solid undecideds” cold. They’re not paying attention. Zogby says among this very narrow 5 percent of the electorate, 16 percent say Bush deserves to be re-elected; 39 percent say it’s time for somebody new. “You can’t help but look at those numbers and conclude they’ve made up their mind about one side,” says Zogby. But Kerry hasn’t been able to close the deal. Zogby has him stuck at 47 percent, which isn’t good. But Bush is stuck at 43 percent, which is worse. “It’s still the phony war period,” says Zogby. For an incumbent president in as much trouble as Bush, fighting a war that’s been over for nearly 30 years takes voters’ minds off Iraq. - http://msnbc.msn.com/id/57722...
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| Is the real aim of the Swift Smear Liars for Dubya to divert attention from Bush's Iraq Fiasco? |
| 08.22.04 (6:18 am) [edit] |
[b]Fighting a Phony War
Is the real aim of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to divert attention from Iraq?[/b]
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth stopped by NEWSWEEK’s Washington bureau this week to explain their version of what happened in Vietnam 35 years ago and why John Kerry doesn’t deserve three Purple Hearts. None were on the Swift Boat Kerry commanded, but they had charts to illustrate their contention that Kerry’s boat did not come under fire and that two of his wounds were self-inflicted, one when he hurled a grenade at a rice bin too close to his position.
A generation of reporters far removed from any war experience listened respectfully to their story. Between the fog of war and the passage of time, telling the truth has more to do with politics than memory. These men fought; they didn’t come home to a hero’s welcome, and they’ll never forgive Kerry for protesting the war and branding them as war criminals.
One member of the group recalled how each of them had been issued a 90-pound sea bag, and Kerry sacrificed 10 pounds of socks and clean underwear to pack a typewriter. At the end of a long day of patrols, Kerry would sit hunched over his typewriter plugging away at who-knows-what, the fellow said, so secretive it seemed subversive. They never understood this aloof figure, and the day that he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—April 22, 1971—is as powerful a date to these veterans as the Kennedy assassination. They can tell you exactly where they were when they heard Kerry say he had witnessed war crimes sanctioned by commanders in Vietnam.
The fact that Kerry attributed the breakdown in military discipline to the policymakers in Washington is lost on these men, who take Kerry’s words personally. This is not about Kerry’s performance in Vietnam; it’s what he said when he came home. Kerry has never made extravagant claims about his heroism in Vietnam. He never said his wounds were serious, and he never said he didn’t want to get out of Vietnam. After three wounds, under military rules, he was entitled to ship out, which he did after a combat tour of four months and 12 days. Nothing these so-called Veterans for Truth have come up with contradicts what Kerry has said, but that’s not the point.
The Swift Boat veterans have become the Campaign 2004 version of the Scott Peterson trial, trading charges and regularly appearing on the cable-news networks. The book that lays out the charges against Kerry, “Unfit for Command,” has been No. 1 on Amazon.com for over a week. Never mind that almost daily there’s a retraction or a new story to discredit what these veterans are saying. On Thursday, The Washington Post revealed that the military records of Larry Thurlow, who commanded a boat alongside Kerry, contain several references to enemy fire directed at all five boats in the flotilla, sharply contradicting what Thurlow is saying as a leading member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group. The Post got the affidavit through the Freedom of Information Act.
The Kerry campaign was curiously passive as the veterans gathered force in the media—as though responding would dignify the scurrilous charges. Kerry finally broke his silence this week, perhaps mindful that a lie unanswered becomes a lie that is believed. Flanked by firefighters in Boston, Kerry stripped the mask of patriotic valor from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth by pointing out the source of their funding: a Texas Republican who wrote two checks for $100,000 to the group. Its sudden emergence is reminiscent of the “Republicans for Clean Air,” which emerged during the 2000 campaign with a television spot attacking John McCain’s environmental record. Long after the ad did its damage to McCain in the New York primary, it was revealed that the Wylie brothers in Texas, who backed Bush, had paid for the advertising. The group itself was a sham, and the Wylie brothers no environmentalists.
If the November election is a plebiscite on who better and more courageously served their country in a time of war, Kerry would win. “Kerry gets a bye on this anyway—he was there and Bush wasn’t,” says John Zogby, an independent pollster who is not aligned with either campaign. He sees the battle over who’s telling whose truth in Vietnam as another symptom of the great divide in the country. “We are two warring nations and neither nation is listening to the other,” he says. “This is essentially a net zero politically. It’s great kindling wood for the Republicans. It’s the kind of stuff they need to hear just as Dems need to hear from Michael Moore.”
Questioning Kerry’s heroism fires up the GOP base, but it leaves “solid undecideds” cold. They’re not paying attention. Zogby says among this very narrow 5 percent of the electorate, 16 percent say Bush deserves to be re-elected; 39 percent say it’s time for somebody new. “You can’t help but look at those numbers and conclude they’ve made up their mind about one side,” says Zogby. But Kerry hasn’t been able to close the deal. Zogby has him stuck at 47 percent, which isn’t good. But Bush is stuck at 43 percent, which is worse. “It’s still the phony war period,” says Zogby. For an incumbent president in as much trouble as Bush, fighting a war that’s been over for nearly 30 years takes voters’ minds off Iraq. - http://msnbc.msn.com/id/57722...
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| Swift Smear Liars Exposed as Frauds & Bush/Cheney's "Dirty Work" Goons |
| 08.22.04 (6:09 am) [edit] |
[b]Bush/Cheney may have committed a crime by getting these Swift Smear Liars and Goons to do their "dirty work" that is proven to be fraudulent![/b]
[u]Read the following articles published today[/u]
. Link found between Swift Boat Vets, Bush/Cheney - http://www.suntimes.com/outpu...
. Anti-kerry Vets not there that day - http://www.chicagotribune.com...,1,1611037.story?coll=chi-news-hed
. Swift Boat Skipper: Kerry critics lies - Tribune editors fought in disputed battle, breaks long silence on Kerry record - http://www.chicagotribune.com...,1,6814873.story?coll=chi-news-hed
. Is the real aim of the Swift Boat Vets to divert attention from Iraq (and other Bush crimes)? - http://msnbc.msn.com/id/57722...
. No So Swift Boat Veterans - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| ... Bush/Cheney's Crimes Exposed: 'Staggering Amount' of Cash Missing In Iraq!!! |
| 08.21.04 (7:00 am) [edit] |
[b]'Staggering Amount' of Cash Missing In Iraq [/b]
WASHINGTON - Three U.S. senators have called on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to account for 8.8 billion dollars entrusted to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq earlier this year but now gone missing.
In a letter Thursday, Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, Byron L Dorgan of North Dakota and Tom Harkin of Iowa, all opposition Democrats, demanded a "full, written account" of the money that was channeled to Iraqi ministries and authorities by the CPA, which was the governing body in the occupied country until Jun. 30.
The loss was uncovered in an audit by the CPA's inspector general. It has not yet been released publicly and was initially reported on the website of journalist and retired U.S. Army Col David Hackworth.
The CPA was terminated at the end of July to make way for an interim Iraqi government, which is in turn scheduled to be replaced by an elected body early in 2005.
"We are requesting a full, written account of the 8.8 billion dollars transferred earlier this year from the CPA to the Iraqi ministries, including the amount each ministry received and the way in which the ministry spent the money," said the letter.
The senators also requested that the Pentagon designate a date by which it will install adequate oversight and financial and contractual controls over money it spends in Iraq.
They accused the CPA of transferring the "staggering sum of money" with no written rules or guidelines to ensure adequate control over it.
They pointed to "disturbing findings" from the inspector general's report that the payrolls of some Iraqi ministries, then under CPA control, were padded with thousands of ghost employees. They refer to an example in which CPA paid the salaries of 74,000 security guards although the actual number of employees could not be validated.
The report says that in one case some 8,000 guards were listed on a payroll but only 603 real individuals could be counted.
"Such enormous discrepancies raise very serous questions about potential fraud, waste and abuse," added the letter.
This is not the first time that U.S. financial conduct in Iraq has come under fire, specifically over funds slated for reconstruction after the U.S.-led attack in March 2003, which then went unaccounted for.
In June, British charity Christian Aid said at least 20 billion dollars in oil revenues and other Iraqi funds intended to rebuild the country have disappeared from banks administered by the CPA.
Watchdog groups have complained before about the opaque nature of the CPA's handling of Iraqi money and the lack of transparency of U.S. and Iraqi officials.
Halliburton, a giant U.S. company that has been awarded 8.2 billion dollars worth of contracts from the Defense department to provide support services such as meals, shelter, laundry and Internet connections for U.S. soldiers in Iraq, has been targeted for allegedly overcharging for those services.
"Continued failures to account for funds, such as the 8.8 billion dollars of concern here - and the refusal, so far, of the Pentagon to take corrective action are a disservice to the American taxpayer, the Iraqi people and to our men and women in uniform," the senators wrote.
Groups critical of the lack of transparency in the CPA's spending have been particularly angry that the authority used Iraqi money to pay for questionable contracts -- some awarded without a public tendering process -- with U.S. companies.
Washington initially restricted the most lucrative reconstruction contracts in Iraq to gigantic U.S. firms that appeared able to reap huge profits, fueling accusations the Bush administration was seeking to benefit a select few U.S. companies rather than find the best, and possibly the cheapest, options to help rebuild Iraq.
After loud complaints, the contracting process was officially opened to firms from other nations, but many of them still insist they are not competing on a level playing field with U.S. businesses.
A Pentagon spokeswoman told IPS that the CPA administered the money transparently and that Iraqi ministries used the eight billion dollars in ways that directly "benefited the people of Iraq."
"The CPA provided these funds to Iraqi ministries from the Development Fund for Iraq through a transparent and open budget process," said Lt Col Rose-Ann L Lynch of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. "This is Iraqi money -- revenue from such sources as oil sales -- not U.S. funds."
The official added that the money was used to pay the salaries of hundreds of thousands of government employees, teachers, health workers, administrators and government pensioners, as well as to fund the Iraqi Defense ministry and police forces. - http://www.commondreams.org/h...
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| Bush/Cheney's Neo-Con Fascist: Bonkers Bolton Threatens Iran |
| 08.21.04 (6:57 am) [edit] |
[b]Bonkers Bolton Threatens Iran [/b]
What's going on at the State Department? Can't Colin Powell keep Undersecretary John Bolton in his cage?
Apparently, not, because last week Bonkers Bolton made a mind-boggling presentation at the Hudson Institute – which was carried live on CSPAN – entitled "Preventing Iran from Acquiring Nuclear Weapons."
Virtually every paragraph in the inflammatory 2,800-word address contained allegations that were either misleading or flat-out wrong.
Here is how Bolton began, and it was downhill from then on:
"Today I'd like to speak about Iran, which has concealed a large-scale, covert nuclear weapons program for over 18 years, and which, therefore, is one of our most fundamental proliferation challenges.
"All of Iran's WMD [weapons of mass destruction] efforts – chemical weapons, biological weapons, nuclear weapons, and ballistic missiles – pose grave threats to international security. Iran's pursuit of these deadly weapons, despite its signature on treaties that ban them, marks it as a rogue state, and it will remain so until it completely, verifiably and irreversibly dismantles its WMD-related programs."
Iran denies that it has a covert nuke program. Yet, Bolton charged that German, French and British diplomats had told him that the Iranian representatives to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had told them that the Iranians could produce enough weapons-grade enriched uranium for a nuke within a year's time, and threatened to do so if the Brits-French-Germans didn't uphold their end of their deal.
(There were immediate news reports that French and German diplomats denied having told Bolton any such thing.)
You see, Iran had made a deal with the Brits-French-Germans about a year ago. In return for continued access to peaceful nuclear technology, Iran agreed to sign an Additional Protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In the interim, while the terms of the Additional Protocol were being negotiated, Iran granted Mohamed ElBaradei – Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency – the unrestricted access to all its nuclear-related facilities that the Additional Protocol would eventually provide.
For months, now, IAEA inspectors have been going anywhere they wanted to go and inspecting every thing they wanted to inspect. Iran may have a covert nuke program, but IAEA inspectors have yet to find any "indication" that Iran now has – or has ever had – a nuke-development program.
Yet, Bolton claims that the IAEA has found such evidence.
"Iran is pursuing two separate paths to nuclear weapons, one that would use highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and one that would use plutonium.
"As to the uranium route, Iran has tried to develop two different uranium-enrichment methods in order to produce weapons-grade uranium. First, it has established a number of facilities for the manufacture and testing of centrifuges (many of which are owned by military industrial organizations), a pilot enrichment facility designed for 1,000 centrifuges, and a large buried facility intended to house up to 50,000 centrifuges.
"In parallel, Iran has pursued another program to enrich uranium with lasers. Both of these programs were successfully concealed from IAEA inspectors in Iran for years until an Iranian opposition group disclosed their existence."
Under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Iranians have the "inalienable right" to do everything that the Iranians are known to have done thus far.
The laser enrichment program was – as are all such programs in all countries – a research program. Therefore, Iran was not required to inform the IAEA about it – or any other research program – unless significant quantities of enriched uranium were produced thereby. The IAEA has confirmed that the Iranian laser program was unsuccessful – never producing more than milligrams of low-enriched uranium per day – and was abandoned years ago.
And even if the Iranians eventually do manage to get 50,000 centrifuges on-line, the Iranians could never produce weapons-grade uranium – as opposed to reactor-grade uranium – while subject to continuous IAEA monitoring and periodic on-site inspection.
The thing to note about ElBaradei's reports [pdf] is that – contrary to insinuations made by Bolton – virtually everything the IAEA has "discovered" in Iran about Iran's nuclear programs basically confirms what the Iranians have voluntarily told the IAEA.
By making his completely unsubstantiated charges, Bolton is either attempting to provoke Iran – as he did North Korea – into withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or setting the stage for another unilateral application of the Bush Doctrine to a "rogue state."
Bolton ended his remarks with this threat:
"We cannot let Iran, a leading sponsor of international terrorism, acquire nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to Europe, most of central Asia and the Middle East, or beyond. Without serious, concerted, immediate intervention by the international community, Iran will be well on the road to doing so." - http://www.antiwar.com/orig/p...
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| ... Bush's Incompetence Exposed: A 2nd GOP Congressman Admits Iraq is a Disaster!!! |
| 08.21.04 (6:53 am) [edit] |
[b]Even Repugs are distancing themselves from Dubya's bloody fiascon in Iraq!!![/b]
Last week, Republican Rep. Doug Bereuter says he now believes the U.S. military assault on Iraq was unjustified.
[b]Read article:[/b] Bereuter: War in Iraq not justified
BY DON WALTON / Lincoln Journal Star
In a dramatic departure from the Bush administration, Republican Rep. Doug Bereuter says he now believes the U.S. military assault on Iraq was unjustified. - http://www.journalstar.com/ar...
[b]Now a 2nd GOP Congressman is calling for US troops to be brought home because it is clear that Bush/Cheney have badly bungled their insane blood-bath to steal Iraq's OIL and it is a Miserable FAILURE![/b]
[b]Leach says U.S. needs to leave Iraq as soon as possible[/b] - http://www.qctimes.com/intern...%2B%2F%2BIllinois&c=24,10 33460
Instead of focusing on his campaign like other stump speakers at the Iowa State Fair this week, U.S. Rep. Jim Leach emphasized the need for the United States to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.
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Leach, who voted in 2002 against the resolution that gave President Bush the authorization to use force in Iraq, said, “Sometimes force is used to establish order, but sometimes force becomes a magnet for instability, and I’m afraid, with each passing week, the magnet aspect of the use of force in Iraq may be increasing.”
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He called the case for finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq frail and pointed to a worldwide consensus that the American-led hunt was unsuccessful.
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Leach, a Davenport native who has represented parts of eastern Iowa in Congress for 28 years, believes the next step in Iraq should be a push for democratic elections in hopes of pulling out American troops by the end of the year.
“My sense is that the basis for disengagement should be advancing democracy,” he said. “The longer we stay in Iraq, the more troublesome the circumstances will be in that country. … in the United States and in other parts of the world.”
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While Leach supports the call for a strong military in America, he believes that muscle should be balanced with caution and restraint rather than a tendency toward intervention.
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Leach’s opponent in this year’s 2nd Congressional District election, Democrat Dave Franker, said in his speech at the fair that the heart of the race is not focused on international politics, but rather on domestic issues directly affecting southeastern Iowans.
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Franker challenged many of Leach’s recent political decisions, insisting he would have voted differently.
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Franker called the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill, which Leach supported, confusing and comparable to crumbs for Iowa seniors. Leach agreed that the voluntary program is confusing and imperfect, but not trivial.
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“The choice between food and medicine for poor Americans will disappear,” Leach said. “This is the first and only time that something significant has happened after almost two decades of debate on the subject. From a progressive perspective, it is not trivial.”
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In 2006, when the bill is fully implemented, low-income citizens will be able to obtain prescription drugs for a $1 co-payment, a benefit Leach considers “absolutely extraordinary, if not revolutionary.”
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The program, which Leach said is structured to be most beneficial to members of the lowest income bracket, is expected to assist almost half of the underprivileged elderly residents of rural Iowa.
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Franker also disagreed with the incumbent’s vote for the No Child Left Behind Act, which Leach said he supported because it included a 20 percent increase in funding for education.
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“Any opponent of mine can point out any area of federal spending and say that they would have supported more,” Leach said. “One of the dilemmas is, when you go to war, all the increases in spending are related to national security, externally and internally, which puts a great constraint on the capacity to do other things.” - http://www.qctimes.com/intern...%2B%2F%2BIllinois&c=24,10 33460
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| ... Bush's Lies Exposed: Bush's Jobs Record Belies Much-Touted `Recovery' |
| 08.21.04 (6:40 am) [edit] |
[b]Bush's Jobs Record Belies Much-Touted `Recovery'[/b]
A number of economic analysts have seized on July's unexpectedly weak jobs report as the key to unlocking a supposed economic mystery: Why have so many Americans remained so anxious about an economy that is in recovery?
The fact is, we didn't need last Friday's jobs report to explain the continuing economic dissatisfaction of typical working families. Even before the dismal report's release, this case didn't take Sherlock Holmes to crack.
So put me down as agreeing with those Republican pundits who now say we shouldn't overemphasize the last couple of bad jobs reports. In fact, let's do what a lot of Bush administration officials wish they could do: throw out the last two anemic months of job growth (32,000 in July and 78,000 in June). As you'll see, every clue as to why so many working Americans feel this economy isn't working for them was already embedded in the first 40 months of President George W. Bush's term.
Unraveling this non-mystery begins with an understanding of just how historically disappointing the economic recovery has been for jobs and income.
During the 2001 recession, the U.S. economy lost 2 million jobs -- a painful, though historically moderate hit. In most sound recoveries, there's a strong pickup in payrolls. It provides employment for the 100,000 to 150,000 new workers coming into the workforce each month, as well as for those who have lost jobs, have been forced into part-time employment or even dropped out of the workforce altogether.
[b]Deeper Jobs Hole [/b]
Yet what we experienced after the recession officially ended in November 2001 was nothing like most recoveries. In the first two years of this ``recovery,'' our economy continued to lose jobs -- the first time this has happened since the 1930s. Rather than rebounding from the recession, the recovery threw us deeper into a jobs hole.
Simple math suggests that if we kept digging this hole deeper for almost two years into the recovery, when job growth did return it would have to be solid, robust and sustained to take the substantial steps needed to climb our way out.
Herein lies the most important clue as to why Americans are rightly dissatisfied with the job situation. The period since our economy began creating jobs hasn't only failed the robustness test, it has been pathetic by historical standards.
[b]New Workers [/b]
Even if one puts aside the meager growth in June and July and looks only at the period the Bush administration seems most proud of -- the 12 months following the passage of their tax cut in late May 2003 -- it turns out that job growth was weaker than in any comparable period in a recovery since the 1930s.
The 110,000 new jobs created, on average, each month in those 12 months weren't even enough to absorb new workers entering the labor market, and that figure was weaker than even the worst year of job growth during the Clinton presidency.
Indeed, however you cut the job numbers since the passage of Bush's 2003 tax package, our economy hasn't seen such weak employment growth in a recovery in 50 years.
Coming on top of the unprecedented job loss in the first 21 months of the recovery, this anemic return to employment growth - - even before June and July's disappointing numbers -- left our economy 7 million jobs behind where Bush's own Council of Economic Advisers projected we would be (a forecast made in February 2002, after Sept. 11 and the beginning of the recovery).
[b]More Part-time Workers [/b]
It's little mystery that, this deep in the hole, a few good months of job growth earlier in the year didn't spark the excitement some might have expected. Imagine an investor watching a $50,000 portfolio plummet to $10,000, and then getting a call from his broker that his investment had grown by a solid, but not spectacular, 20 percent to $12,000. The investor might recognize improvement, although he wouldn't be jumping for joy.
The historic weakness of the jobs recovery has revealed itself in the numbers behind the headline jobs figures as well. Long-term unemployment over the past several months remains at its highest level since 1984; labor-force participation has fallen to historic lows -- explaining much of the decline in unemployment -- and the number of people working part-time because they can't find full-time jobs is up 35 percent since Bush took office.
Real hourly and weekly wages of average workers are actually lower today than at the beginning of the recovery, offering another important clue why Americans continue to feel anxious. The last jobs report only confirmed that hourly wages this year aren't even close to keeping up with inflation.
[b]Less Pay [/b]
Finally, we didn't need that report to discover that even the jobs being created were paying less than jobs being lost. Prior to the report, Merrill Lynch & Co. had concluded that almost 90 percent of new jobs created since last August are in job categories paying below average wages.
Morgan Stanley Chief Economist Stephen Roach pointed out that part-time jobs accounted for 97 percent of new jobs created from February to June, and CIBC World Markets found that average wages in industries gaining jobs over the past three years were 30 percent lower than in industries losing jobs.
These reports and others look at job quality in different ways; what's striking is that almost every method tells the same troubling story.
Of course, Bush doesn't deserve blame for every bad number we have seen in the economy, neither in his first 40 months in office nor in his most recent two. Yet the historic weakness of jobs and income even in the most-touted 12 economic months of his presidency underscores how over-the-top it is for his administration to argue that its regressive, deficit-exploding tax cuts have been a whopping success for U.S. workers. - http://quote.bloomberg.com/ap...
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| Only the Loyal at Bush "Rallies" ... Remind Anyone of Hitler's Nazi "Rallies"??? |
| 08.21.04 (6:36 am) [edit] |
"[i]My dad was so proud to simply be an American that he wanted my sisters and me to share in the whole experience. He didn't like Nixon, but that wasn't the point. He wanted us to hear what the man had to say and make up our own minds even though we couldn't vote. He was teaching us about democracy, an America where everybody could participate in a public event without fear of rejection. That America isn't here anymore[/i]."
In the autumn of 1960 Vice President Richard Nixon and Sen. John Kennedy campaigned for the presidency. I was 11 years old at the time when both came to my hometown of Saginaw, Mich. My father, a lifelong Democrat, insisted the whole family see both Nixon and Kennedy. Dad kept saying over and over, "You kids are going to see the next president of the United States. We just don't know which one of these guys it's gonna be."
Nixon came to Saginaw first and we all piled into our Buick and drove downtown for an afternoon rally. I stood in the middle of a downtown street, as Nixon spoke not 50 feet away. Frankly, I don't remember anything he said. I was more excited about the idea of standing in the middle of a street. I do remember the two men in expensive suits and sunglasses standing right next to my sister. Neither responded to the comments made by Nixon. They simply stood looking at the people in the crowd. My mom leaned down and whispered to my sisters and me, "Those are Secret Service agents." Wow! I spent the rest of Nixon's speech watching them.
When Nixon was done we all clapped and found our way back to the Buick. Dad and Mom got into some discussion about what a jerk Nixon was and that was that
Three weeks later Kennedy came to town. Once again we piled into the Buick. "You kids are going to see the next president of the United States," Dad bragged. We rolled our eyes and said in unison, "We just don't know which one of these guys it's gonna be." Dad told us not to act so smart, so we were quiet the rest of the drive
We parked the Buick and stood by the side of the street as the motorcade went by. In my excitement I ran out to his car and held out my hand to Kennedy. He and I locked eyes and I was speechless. Kennedy had this look on his face that said, "Rats! I guess I have to lean down and shake this kid's hand." It wasn't until long after he died that I learned about his severe back pain.
Kennedy smiled, leaned forward and took my hand in his. The only thing I could think of was, "Boy, this guy sure has hairy fingers!" We released each other's hands and I stepped back from the car.
That is a great memory, but I guess that kind of experience can't happen this year. Oh, it can with the Democrats. They still don't really care who comes to see John Kerry or John Edwards. It's come one, come all, as far as they're concerned. Love 'em or hate 'em, they're just glad you came.
With President Bush it's different. Loyalty oaths and frisking people is now standard procedure for admission to a Bush rally. Plus, any signs of support for the Democrats and you're out on your fanny. That's too bad.
My dad was so proud to simply be an American that he wanted my sisters and me to share in the whole experience. He didn't like Nixon, but that wasn't the point. He wanted us to hear what the man had to say and make up our own minds even though we couldn't vote. He was teaching us about democracy, an America where everybody could participate in a public event without fear of rejection. That America isn't here anymore.
To go to a Bush rally today, I'd have to tell lies that I support the man, and I'm not going to stoop to that indignity just to see a president. This used to be a free country. I miss it. I hope we can get back to that America after November. - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
Also read "[b]Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich[/b]" by William L. Shirer, for the parallels between Bush's "rallies" and Hitler's Nazi "rallies" are eerily and frighteningly similar.
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| Bizarro Tactic: White House Calls Kerry's Defense of His Vietnam Record 'Losing His Cool!' LOL! |
| 08.21.04 (6:30 am) [edit] |
Hmm...looks like desperation is getting to the 'brain trust' (snicker) at the White House - 'cause their latest tactic smacks of too few hours sleep and/or too many cocktails. Check this out: "The Democratic Party launched a costly round of ads Friday to buttress John Kerry's credentials to be commander in chief as the White House accused the Mass. senator of "losing his cool" over attacks on his war record.' LOL! It gets better: "Asked about the relationship between Bob Perry, a financial supporter of the anti-Kerry group that paid for the ad, and Karl Rove, Bush's top political adviser, McClellan said, "I mean, they know each other. I know that...that still shouldn't be used to draw any connection there, because we have not been involved in this ad whatsoever." At least you made darn sure you covered your tracks, eh Scott? But "truth will out!" You and your boss are quickly running out of suckers willing to commit perjury, fraud, and treason for you.
[b]Continue [/b]... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin...
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| Bush/Cheney's Neo-Conservative Fascism is UnAmerican and Tyrannical ... |
| 08.20.04 (4:22 pm) [edit] |
[b]14 Points of Fascism:-- Bush/Cheney Transformed the GOP into the Neo-Fascist Party ...[/b]
[b][u]Wake-up and Smell the Fascism[/u][/b]
[b]In "Fascism Anyone?," Dr. Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, identifies 14 characteristics common to fascist regimes. His comparisons of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet yielded this list of 14 "identifying characteristics of fascism" should be studied closely by "We the People" ...[/b]
[b]1.) Powerful and Continuing Nationalism[/b]
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
. Let's not forget "Bring 'em on!" http://abcnews.go.com/section...
[b]2.) Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights [/b]
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
. Ashcroft refuses to give Congress torture memo, http://www.channelnewsasia.co...
. July 1, 2003: U.S. Suspends Military Aid to Nearly 50 Countries: The United States on Tuesday suspended military assistance to nearly 50 countries, because they have supported the International Criminal Court and failed to exempt Americans from possible prosecution, http://www.informationclearin...
. Outsourcing Torture: Contractors act as interrogators: Defense Department turned to private sources to question prisoners for intelligence gathering, http://tinyurl.com/2t8ew
. US has at least 9000 prisoners in secret detention, http://mathaba.net/0_index.sh...
. Who is a terrorist under the PATRIOT ACT, http://truthout.com/docs_02/0...
. Guantanamo Eyes Possible Execution Chamber, http://www.prisonplanet.com/0...
[b]3.) Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause[/b]
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
. A scared populace is a compliant populace Terrorists are likely planning U.S. attacks, a U.S. Homeland Security official said Friday, http://portal.tds.net/newsrea...
. Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob...
. How U.S. Attorney-General, a Christian Evangelist With Anti-Islamic Views On Record, Is Waging War On American Muslims, http://www.paknews.com/specia...
. Dr. James J. Zogby: A co-ordinated and bigoted assault The anti-Arab campaign being waged today in the U.S. is an organised multi-pronged effort targeting a variety of Arab leaders, institutions and Islam, http://www.gulfnews.com/Artic...
. Congressman: Muslims 'enemy amongst us', http://wnd.com/news/article.a...
[b]4.) Supremacy of the Military[/b]
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
. If you haven't see the Oreo flash animation see it here: http://www.truemajority.org/o...
[b]5.) Rampant Sexism[/b]
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.
. Justice Dept. Demands Abortion Records, http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US...
. W. David Hager chairman of the FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee does not prescribe contraceptives for single women, does not do abortions, will not prescribe RU-486 and will not insert IUDs. Hager believes that headaches, PMS and eating disorders can be cured by reading Scripture, http://www.dfw.com/mld/starte...
. Bush Administration to Extend Health Coverage to Fetuses but Not to Pregnant Women, http://www.reproductiverights...
[b]6.) Controlled Mass Media[/b]
Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
. Michael Powell: The FCC's Embattled Chairman, http://www.washingtonpost.com...¬Found=true
. Fibbing It Up at Fox, http://www.lewrockwell.com/or...
. If it's allowed to stand, an FCC ruling will feed media merger mania, http://www.nydailynews.com/ne...
. Articles published by American outlets suppressed in their own country, http://www.informationclearin...
. Reporters in chains: Under Homeland Security orders, journalists from England, Sweden, Holland and other friendly countries are being detained at U.S. airports, strip-searched and deported, http://www.informationclearin...
[b]7.) Obsession with National Security[/b]
Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
[b]8.) Religion and Government are Intertwined[/b]
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
. Religious networks broadcasting Bush's White House prayer event, http://famulus.msnbc.com/famu...
. Thou shalt be like Bush: What makes this recently established, right-wing Christian college unique are the increasingly close - critics say alarmingly close - links it has with the Bush administration and the Republican establishment, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sto...
. Presidential Prayer Team, http://www.presidentialprayer...
. US is 'battling Satan' says general, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wo...
. US soldiers in Iraq asked to pray for Bush, http://www.abc.net.au/news/ne...
. Park Service Continues to Push Creationist Theory at Grand Canyon and other nat'l parks, http://www.bushgreenwatch.org...
[b]9.) Corporate Power is Protected[/b]
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
. Halliburton, Bechtel, and the Carlyle group: Why were lied into war, http://www.oldamericancentury...
. Bush's talent for cronyism: foxes guarding the henhouse, http://www.oldamericancentury...
. Bush Administration Exempts Oil Industry From Clean Water Act, http://truthout.org/cgi-bin/a...
. Controversial drilling method may be protected Energy bill compromise would exempt 'hydraulic fracturing', http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin...
[b]10.) Labor Power is Suppressed[/b]
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
. Organized labor locks horns with White House Union leaders are working to displace GOP candidates, http://seattlepi.nwsource.com...
. President Bush Attacks Organized Labor Bush attacked organized labor Saturday, issuing orders effectively reducing how much money unions can spend for political activities and opening up government contracts to non-union bidding, http://www.shastalink.k12.ca....
. March 2001: President Bush signed his name to four executive orders on organized labor last month, including one that cuts the money unions will have for political campaign spending, http://salt.claretianpubs.org...
. Congress and the Department of Labor are trying to change the rules on overtime pay, eliminating the 40 hour work week, taking eligibility for overtime pay away from millions of workers, and replacing time and a half pay with comp days, http://www.ufcw.org/worker_po...
[b]11.) Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts[/b]
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.
. Bush's new economic plan cuts funding for arts, education, http://www.vanderbiltorbis.co...
. NEA vows to undo President Bush's education programs, http://www.usatoday.com/news/...
. Artists from all over the world are being refused entry to the US on security grounds, http://www.guardian.co.uk/art...,11710,1150285,00.html
. In a highly unusual use of the USA Patriot Act, which its creators say was designed to prevent terrorist attacks in the United States, The New York Times reports that three artists have been served subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury June 15, http://www.csmonitor.com/2004...
[b]12.) Obsession with Crime and Punishment[/b]
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
. U.S. Patriot Act Summary of fascist parts, http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/patriot.html
. EFF Analysis of "Patriot II", http://eff.org/Censorship/Ter...
[b]13.) Rampant Cronyism and Corruption[/b]
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
. Bush Cronyism: Foxes Guarding the henhouse, http://www.oldamericancentury...
. Iran-Contra Felons Get Good Jobs from Bush, http://www.blythe.org/nytrans...
. Big Iraq Reconstruction Contracts Went To Big Donors, http://www.cbsnews.com/storie...
. The companies making the most off the new Medicare contracts also donated the most to the GOP, http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...
[b]14. Fraudulent Elections[/b]
Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
. the 2000 election, http://www.ericblumrich.com/g...
. How To Rig An Election In The United States, http://www.informationclearin...
. Scoop: Diebold Memos Disclose Florida 2000 E-Voting Fraud, http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/...
. Election officials all over the country are erecting illegal barriers to keep young voters from casting ballots. From New Hampshire to California, officials have designed complex questionnaires that prevent college students from registering, hired high-powered attorneys to keep them off the rolls, shut down polling places on campuses and even threatened to arrest and imprison young voters, http://www.rollingstone.com/f...
This picture is what stopped the ballot recounts in Florida shortly after it seemed that legitimate President Gore had a lead. The "citizens" started what was later called "the preppy riot". Screaming, yelling, pounding on the walls, these "outraged citizens" intimidated the polling officials to halt the court mandated recount. A closer look reveals who they really were. They were bussed and flown in at Republican lawmakers expense. Some even flew in on Tom Delay's private plane.
[b]More election fraud information on:[/b] http://www.oldamericancentury...
[b]If Mussolini defines fascism as "the merger of corporate and government power" what does that make the Republican party?[/b]
[u][b]Related articles:[/b][/u]
. The Road to Fascism, http://www.lewrockwell.com/lo...
Make that roads, and three great libertarians explained them, says Roderick T. Long.
. Is America Becoming Fascist?, http://www.adbusters.org/maga...
. Eternal Fascism:, http://www.themodernword.com/...
Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt
. The Danger of American Fascism:, http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.
. Germany In 1933: The Easy Slide Into Fascism, http://www.crisispapers.org/E...
[b]Courtesy of WinstonSmith http://winstonsmith.tblog.com... [/b]
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| ... Bush's Lousy Jobs Record Belies Much-Touted `Recovery' ... |
| 08.20.04 (10:49 am) [edit] |
[b]Bush's Jobs Record Belies Much-Touted `Recovery'[/b]
A number of economic analysts have seized on July's unexpectedly weak jobs report as the key to unlocking a supposed economic mystery: Why have so many Americans remained so anxious about an economy that is in recovery?
The fact is, we didn't need last Friday's jobs report to explain the continuing economic dissatisfaction of typical working families. Even before the dismal report's release, this case didn't take Sherlock Holmes to crack.
So put me down as agreeing with those Republican pundits who now say we shouldn't overemphasize the last couple of bad jobs reports. In fact, let's do what a lot of Bush administration officials wish they could do: throw out the last two anemic months of job growth (32,000 in July and 78,000 in June). As you'll see, every clue as to why so many working Americans feel this economy isn't working for them was already embedded in the first 40 months of President George W. Bush's term.
Unraveling this non-mystery begins with an understanding of just how historically disappointing the economic recovery has been for jobs and income.
During the 2001 recession, the U.S. economy lost 2 million jobs -- a painful, though historically moderate hit. In most sound recoveries, there's a strong pickup in payrolls. It provides employment for the 100,000 to 150,000 new workers coming into the workforce each month, as well as for those who have lost jobs, have been forced into part-time employment or even dropped out of the workforce altogether.
[b]Deeper Jobs Hole [/b]
Yet what we experienced after the recession officially ended in November 2001 was nothing like most recoveries. In the first two years of this ``recovery,'' our economy continued to lose jobs -- the first time this has happened since the 1930s. Rather than rebounding from the recession, the recovery threw us deeper into a jobs hole.
Simple math suggests that if we kept digging this hole deeper for almost two years into the recovery, when job growth did return it would have to be solid, robust and sustained to take the substantial steps needed to climb our way out.
Herein lies the most important clue as to why Americans are rightly dissatisfied with the job situation. The period since our economy began creating jobs hasn't only failed the robustness test, it has been pathetic by historical standards.
[b]New Workers [/b]
Even if one puts aside the meager growth in June and July and looks only at the period the Bush administration seems most proud of -- the 12 months following the passage of their tax cut in late May 2003 -- it turns out that job growth was weaker than in any comparable period in a recovery since the 1930s.
The 110,000 new jobs created, on average, each month in those 12 months weren't even enough to absorb new workers entering the labor market, and that figure was weaker than even the worst year of job growth during the Clinton presidency.
Indeed, however you cut the job numbers since the passage of Bush's 2003 tax package, our economy hasn't seen such weak employment growth in a recovery in 50 years.
Coming on top of the unprecedented job loss in the first 21 months of the recovery, this anemic return to employment growth - - even before June and July's disappointing numbers -- left our economy 7 million jobs behind where Bush's own Council of Economic Advisers projected we would be (a forecast made in February 2002, after Sept. 11 and the beginning of the recovery).
[b]More Part-time Workers [/b]
It's little mystery that, this deep in the hole, a few good months of job growth earlier in the year didn't spark the excitement some might have expected. Imagine an investor watching a $50,000 portfolio plummet to $10,000, and then getting a call from his broker that his investment had grown by a solid, but not spectacular, 20 percent to $12,000. The investor might recognize improvement, although he wouldn't be jumping for joy.
The historic weakness of the jobs recovery has revealed itself in the numbers behind the headline jobs figures as well. Long-term unemployment over the past several months remains at its highest level since 1984; labor-force participation has fallen to historic lows -- explaining much of the decline in unemployment -- and the number of people working part-time because they can't find full-time jobs is up 35 percent since Bush took office.
Real hourly and weekly wages of average workers are actually lower today than at the beginning of the recovery, offering another important clue why Americans continue to feel anxious. The last jobs report only confirmed that hourly wages this year aren't even close to keeping up with inflation.
[b]Less Pay [/b]
Finally, we didn't need that report to discover that even the jobs being created were paying less than jobs being lost. Prior to the report, Merrill Lynch & Co. had concluded that almost 90 percent of new jobs created since last August are in job categories paying below average wages.
Morgan Stanley Chief Economist Stephen Roach pointed out that part-time jobs accounted for 97 percent of new jobs created from February to June, and CIBC World Markets found that average wages in industries gaining jobs over the past three years were 30 percent lower than in industries losing jobs.
These reports and others look at job quality in different ways; what's striking is that almost every method tells the same troubling story.
Of course, Bush doesn't deserve blame for every bad number we have seen in the economy, neither in his first 40 months in office nor in his most recent two. Yet the historic weakness of jobs and income even in the most-touted 12 economic months of his presidency underscores how over-the-top it is for his administration to argue that its regressive, deficit-exploding tax cuts have been a whopping success for U.S. workers. - http://quote.bloomberg.com/ap...
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| HOW DICK CHENEY GOT AWAY WITH $35 MILLION!!! |
| 08.20.04 (7:49 am) [edit] |
[b]... Right Before the Government Launched a Probe into Halliburton[/b]
It’s obvious that no mainstream news reporter has the gumption to seriously question Vice President Dick Cheney’s ethics when he was chief executive of Halliburton, the oil-field services company that is currently embroiled in a scandal with the Pentagon due to its questionable accounting practices related to its work in war-torn Iraq.
Pity those journalists because this is the stuff Pulitzer’s are made of. What’s even more remarkable is that there’s reams of documents in the public domain showing how Cheney cooked the books when he was CEO of Halliburton, which makes the vice president look like Ken Lay’s twin brother. The evidence is beginning to collect dust. To tell the story of how Cheney’s Halliburton used accounting sleight of hand to fool investors all you need to do is connect the dots, which is what this story will do.
Let’s start with a bit of old news. A couple of weeks ago Halliburton agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine to settle a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission probe related to a 1998 change in the way Halliburton accounted for construction revenue.
The commission says the undisclosed accounting change caused Halliburton's public statements regarding its income in 1998 and 1999 to be materially misleading, boosting Halliburton’s profits on paper by $120 million.
“In the absence of any disclosure, the investing public was deprived of a full opportunity to assess Halliburton's reported income - more particularly, the precise nature of that income, and its comparability to Halliburton's income in prior periods,” according to the commission.
Cheney was CEO of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000. The SEC said Cheney cooperated with the agency’s investigation and as such he wasn’t penalized for his role in the charade. No big surprise there. All five of the SEC commissioners were appointed by President Bush. Dozens of the administration’s crimes have gone unpunished in the past three years. But dig a little more and you’ll see just how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Cheney has said publicly that he was unaware of Halliburton’s accounting machinations while he was CEO of the company. His Sgt. Schultz defense has been used before by the likes of Gary Winnick of Global Crossing, Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco, John Regas of Adelphia and Ken Lay of Enron, all of whom have been prosecuted by the Justice Department for cooking the books at their respective companies.
A story in the July 22, 2002 issue of Newsweek sets the record straight and proves that Cheney knew full well that Halliburton was engaging in accounting trickery to boost its stock and standing on Wall Street and he should be held accountable just like those other corporate evildoers.
In an interview with two of Newsweek’s reporters, Halliburton CEO David Lesar defended his company’s bookkeeping and said that former CEO Dick Cheney was aware of the firm's accounting methods. Lesar says “Cheney knew that the firm was counting projected cost-overrun payments as revenues, “The vice president was aware of who owed us money, and he helped us collect it,” Lesar told Newsweek.
Wendy Hall, a spokeswoman for Halliburton, said at the time that “the vice president was aware we accrued revenue on unapproved claims in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.”
By the way, those “generally accepted accounting principles” is what Enron used to cook its books and is why the company’s top two leaders have been charged with a whole of range of crimes by the Justice Department.
Just as disturbing is the fact that Cheney had now defunct auditor, Arthur Anderson, which unraveled in 2002 after the company was found guilty of obstruction of justice for destroying documents related to its role in the Enron debacle, approve Halliburton’s accounting methods. Cheney was so grateful to Anderson that he agreed to appear in a promotional video for Anderson and spoke glowingly about the company for going above and beyond routine audits for Halliburton.
“One of the things I like that they do for us is that, in effect, I get good advice, if you will, from their people based upon how we're doing business and how we're operating, over and above the, just sort of the normal by-the-books audit arrangement,” said Cheney in the 1996 tape.
In a separate but equally corrupt act of corporate malfeasance, a French judge is pouring over evidence to determine whether Cheney may have been responsible under French law for at least one of four bribery payments exchanged between a Halliburton subsidiary and Nigerian officials to obtain contracts for liquefied natural projects. Under French law, “the head of a company can be charged with 'misuse of corporate assets' for bribes paid by any employee - even if the executive didn't know about the improper payments.” The U.S. Justice Department is also investigating the issue.
As if that weren’t enough to toss the vice president and his boss out of office, the Justice Department is also investigating whether Halliburton violated sanctions that prohibit U.S. corporations and businesses from engaging in commercial, financial, or trade transactions with Iran while Cheney headed the company. For the record, Cheney personally lobbied Congress in 1996 to lift those sanctions and when Congress denied the request Halliburton opened a Cayman Island subsidiary so it could do business in Iran by skirting U.S. law.
In July 2004, a federal grand jury issued a subpoena to Halliburton seeking information about its work in Iran. Government officials told the Washington Post such cases are referred to Justice only when there is evidence "intentional or willful" violations have occurred.
The Washington Post summed up Cheney’s tenure at Halliburton this way on July 16, 2002 following revelations that the vice president made a $35 million windfall from his sales of Halliburton stock, right before the company’s share price crashed on the announcement that it was being investigated by a grand jury related to the company overbilling the federal government for its work at Fort Ord in California (which also took place under Cheney’s watch), an issue that is identical to current charges that the company has overbilled the government for its work in Iraq.
“The developments at Halliburton since Cheney's departure leave two possibilities: Either the vice president did not know of the magnitude of problems at the oilfield services company he ran for five years, or he sold his shares in August 2000 knowing the company was likely headed for a fall.”
Either way, the more evidence that surfaces related to Cheney’s role at Halliburton the more it becomes clear that the vice president is unfit to serve a second term in the White House.
[b]Jason Leopold is the former Los Angeles bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires where he spent two years covering the energy crisis and the Enron bankruptcy. He just finished writing a book about the crisis, due out in December through Rowman & Littlefield[/b]. - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| ....... Bush's Inflation For "We the People" ....... |
| 08.20.04 (7:30 am) [edit] |
"[b]We the People" are facing a terrible period of inflation as mortgage rates climb http://www.forbes.com/home/fe... -- the cost of gas at the pump is at the highest levels in years http://seattletimes.nwsource.... -- the prices of milk, food and other necessities of life including health care (not affordable for millions of our fellow citizens) are rising http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb... -- and all of these burdens represent a back-breaking hardship for working families across America ... [/b]Moreover, the wages of working people are[i] not [/i]keeping up with inflation http://www.americanprogress.o... unless you are amongst the richest of the rich and then you are living the [i]Belle Epoque[/i] because CEO pay continues to[i] skyrocket [/i] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin... and tax cuts for the wealthiest are a real[i] boon [/i]for them ... The rest of us must make sacrifices in lives and treasure as Bush has recklessly squandered our budget surplus to create the most heinous record-level deficit spending on wars, corporations and wealthy plutocrats, in our nation's history ...
The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] is unfit for office because there is[i] no area [/i]of foreign or domestic policy that the neo-cons have touched that has benefitted working American people and we are now facing the extravagantly costly bills for their illegal and immoral war games; gifts to the rich and corporations; and, the wasteful wreckage in the aftermath of their corporate-take-all rape of America ...[i] It's time for a change [/i]... "We the People" have the power to make that change by voting for Kerry-Edwards ...
[b]Consider also "[i]Oil price at 21-year record as fears grow[/i]" on http://news.ft.com/servlet/Co... :[/b]
Oil prices hit 21-year highs on Wednesday as fears grew about interruptions to world oil supply.
The sharp increase came as Yukos, one of Russia's biggest oil companies, threatened to halt production and concerns grew over whether the world's limited spare oil capacity would be able to satisfy growing demand in a tight market.
Crude oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange on WEednesday surged $1.21 to $43.05 a barrel, breaking the 21-year-old exchange's $42.45 record set in June. In London, September Brent oil on the International Petroleum Exchange was 99 cents higher at $39.53 a barrel, a 14-year high.
World oil producers, almost all of which are pumping at full capacity, have only a 1.5m-2m barrels a day cushion of spare oil left to make up any shortage. Yukos is enmeshed in a tax dispute with the Russian authorities that has led to Mikhail Khordokovsky, its former chief executive, being jailed. If its production is halted, the shortfall would be 1.7m b/d.
"Although Yukos management has warned that intensifying pressure may have a negative impact on production due to its inability to finance exports, this appears to be a plea for sympathy rather than a real concern," said Yulia Woodruff, Russia analyst for Energy Security Analysis, the Boston-based consultants.
The latest increase in already high oil prices is especially costly for the US. Figures on Wednesday showed the world's largest oil consuming country is more dependent on foreign oil than ever. Weekly government data showed the US imported 11.3m barrels of crude oil and 1.3m barrels of petrol last week. With oil prices at record highs, analysts calculated the overall daily bill for oil imports at more than $500m. "We are obviously monitoring that situation," said Spencer Abraham, the US energy secretary.
In real terms oil prices are still only about half as high as they were in the early 1980s following the Iranian revolution in 1979. But Goran Trapp, managing director of commodities at Morgan Stanley, said: "The way the market is moving, the oil price could easily go to $44 to $45 soon, and I believe we will see a $50 oil price by the end of the year."
Oil prices, which have increased by more than 30 per cent so far this year, have become a factor in the US presidential elections. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, is expected to make US dependence on foreign oil a central theme in his speech to the Democratic national convention tonight. .
The world's biggest energy companies, including ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco of the US and Anglo-Dutch Royal Dutch/Shell announce their earnings this week.
[b]Courtesy of WinstonSmith http://winstonsmith.tblog.com... [/b]
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| ... Bush Frauds are Lying about 'Swift Boat' Vets Picked to Play Fast and Loose with the Truth |
| 08.20.04 (6:05 am) [edit] |
[b]Kerry is Correct, Bush Team is Lying about 'Swift Boat' Vets Picked to Play Fast and Loose with the Truth[/b]
The New York Times: "After weeks of taking fire over veterans' accusations that he had lied about his Vietnam service record to win medals and build a political career, Senator John Kerry shot back yesterday, calling those statements categorically false and branding the people behind them ... 'a front for the Bush campaign' - a charge the [Bush] campaign denied.' Interviews and a review of documents show a web of connections to the Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures and President Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove. Records show that the group received the bulk of its initial financing from two men with ties to the president and his family - one a longtime political associate of Mr. Rove's.... And the group's television commercial was produced by the same team that made the devastating ad mocking Michael S. Dukakis...." Team Bush is lying about how they assembled this crew to lie about Kerry. More dishonest dirty tricks from 'Bush's Brain' Karl Rove and Team Bush.
[b]Read the entire story [/b] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...
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| The New York Times Exposes Deceptions from Misnamed 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' |
| 08.20.04 (5:51 am) [edit] |
The New York Times: "[O]n close examination, the accounts of 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' prove to be riddled with inconsistencies. In many cases, material offered as proof by these veterans is undercut by official Navy records and the men's own statements. Several of those now declaring Mr. Kerry 'unfit' had lavished praise on him, some as recently as last year. [March 2003 group leader rear admiral Roy F. Hoffmann called Kerry] 'a good man' [and said the actions that won Kerry's Silver Star] took guts, and I admire that.' [In 1996] George Elliott, one of the Vietnam veterans in the group, flew from his home in Delaware to Boston in 1996 to stand up for Mr. Kerry [saying] the action that won Mr. Kerry a Silver Star was 'an act of courage.' Adrian L. Lonsdale, another Vietnam veteran now speaking out [said Kerry] 'was among the finest of those Swift boat drivers.'" Kerry's war record hasn't changed, so why do Bush-backers keep changing their story? Bushies lie - the truth hurts.
[b]The entire story [/b] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...
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| ...... Declassified Truth is Necessary ....... |
| 08.20.04 (5:47 am) [edit] |
Full disclosure requires me to say that Seymour Hersh is a friend of mine, Richard Nixon wasn't, and Henry Kissinger has been sometimes, sometimes not.
This is all to discuss the latest Freedom of Information Act release of part of the 20,000 pages of what William Safire has called the "Dead Key Scrolls," the secretly recorded telephone conversations that Nixon's national security adviser, Dr. Kissinger, fought tooth and nail to avoid releasing. And reading the transcripts, it's easy to understand why.
Mr. Hersh figured in the conversations, as he figures in any discussion of the Iraqi prison scandal today. It was Hersh who broke the story of the American Army massacre of more than 300 Vietnamese civilians in the village of My Lai in November 1969. In a recorded conversation, Kissinger asked Defense Secretary Melvin Laird whether there was any way of sweeping the massacre under the rug. And in words that could be used for the Abu Ghraib scandal today, Laird said the photographs prevented that. "There are so many kids just laying there," he said.
In December 1970, Kissinger talked to an angry Nixon, who demanded a bombing campaign against targets in neutral Cambodia. Nixon said, "Right now, there is a chance to win [this war]." Immediately, Kissinger relayed the order to the Pentagon, saying he wanted a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia, anything that flies on anything that moves.
In the spring of 1972, Kissinger elatedly reported to the president that the Soviets had engineered a negotiating breakthrough with the Vietnamese. He said, "We've got some pretty quick action out of our Soviet friends. [Soviet] Ambassador Dobrynin was in, slobbering over me."
It is not an exhilarating experience to learn from declassified records some of the unpleasant ways our leaders have conducted themselves. But it is necessary to know the truth. - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| Tell Us AWOL Dry-Drunk DimWit Dubya: Why Should We Believe A Thing You Say??? |
| 08.19.04 (6:51 pm) [edit] |
[b][u]The Broken Promises of George W. Bush[/u][/b]
[b]"We the People" have been ruthlessly conned, scammed and duped by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i] on key domestic issues relating to jobs, education, health care, the environment, etc.-- [i]as well as[/i], on vital foreign policy issues relating to trade, national security and the use of force as a "last resort" ... In the aftermath of 9/11, the reckless Bush regime squandered the good will and trust of the American people and our allies throughout the world ... The bombastic, arrogant and rapacious neo-con, neo-fascist Bushies have wantonly undermined our prosperity and our safety ...[/b]
President Bush is slowly unveiling his agenda http://www.foxnews.com/story/...,2933,126432,00.html , should he be re-elected, for a second term. Already Bush has promised to increase high school graduation rates and expand access to health care. Can the American people trust that Bush will follow through? A new document by the American Progress Action Fund reveals that, on a slew of issues – from education to taxes to the environment – Bush has broken the explicit promises he made the American people in the last Presidential campaign. The document is based, in large part, on promises made on an archived version http://web.archive.org/web/20...:/www.georgewbush.com/ of Bush's official campaign website. Check out the complete document here http://www.americanprogressac... .
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
[b]Courtesy of WinstonSmith http://winstonsmith.tblog.com... [/b]
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| ... De facto dictatorship USA ... |
| 08.19.04 (4:32 pm) [edit] |
Powerful interests from within and without have collectively, and over time, by means of bribery, intimidation, blackmail, and assassination, usurped the Constitutionally-mandated government of the United States.
We are now living in a de facto dictatorship.
In the White House we have an unelected idiot with name recognition only, useful only for those who installed him there and very little else.
Both Houses of Congress are little more than a rubber stamp, with voting records proving a willingness to support legislation favorable to the ruling elite, contrary to the good of the people. As for the Supreme Court, its part in the criminal theft of the 2000 presidential election, helping precipitate the events of September 11, 2001, will live forever in infamy.
Among the many special interest groups and powerful lobbies whose wealth and influence have stolen the voice of the people, there exists an entity without conscience or loyalty, whose greed is insatiable, capable of any act which will advance its agenda. I will refer to this entity henceforth as the Oligarchs.
The dictionary defines the word 'oligarch' as a member a small exclusive class in which the supreme power of government has been placed in their hands. Although power is firmly in the hands of the Oligarchs, they remain anonymous, a shadow government.
To create the perception of normalcy for the average citizen, and to keep the more petty and mundane duties of government going, career politicians are used. But matters of real importance are decided in advance and in private by members of the Oligarchy, and only later are a powerless President and Congress allowed to engage in empty debate, and to cast a useless vote or a veto, all for the benefit of the citizenry to further the illusion of legitimacy.
Elections, an important aspect of a democracy and an indispensable exercise of a free people, are allowed to continue, but this of course has become just another illusion to keep the general public ignorant and manageable.
In order to remain in control of the government in Washington, and to perpetuate the power of the Oligarchs, only candidates acceptable to the Oligarchs will be tolerated. These candidates already exist, commonly called "career politicians" or "Washington insiders," etc., and any other candidates, any candidates espousing opinions and policies contrary to that of the Oligarchs, never make it past the Primaries.
Critisized or ignored by the mainstream media and rejected by their respective political parties, not even a candidate with popular grassroots support stands a chance. We have seen this happen many times in the recent past.
The Oligarchs have our candidates chosen for us, and there is nothing we can do about it.
Voting therefore has become irrelevant.
The freedom born in 1776 is no more. - http://www.unknownnews.net/04...
REVOLUTION!
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| Republican Says Hypocritical Dubya Ignores GOP "Values" ... |
| 08.19.04 (4:23 pm) [edit] |
[b]President ignores core GOP values[/b]
Politics is full of irony. This year it is that George W. Bush is campaigning on a carefully and narrowly selected set of cultural values while moving steadily away from a second set of values to which the Republican Party has traditionally adhered.
Consider the three old-line bedrock Republican values: fiscal discipline, limited government and individual accountability. GOP old-timers can remember the days when Republicans stood for and worked for spending restraint and balanced budgets. Ironically, the only balanced federal budgets in the past 30 years were produced under a Democratic president.
Ronald Reagan got caught up in the heady forecasts of his supply-side advisers, a severe revenue-reducing recession and a Congress bent on appropriating too much money. But at least he tried to limit government spending, vetoing 39 bills while in office.
In nearly four years in office, President Bush has not vetoed a single spending bill. This fiscal year, the federal deficit will top $400 billion, and in the last three years the national debt has mushroomed by more than $800 billion
.
Yes, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have contributed to the red ink. But the large majority of the deficit is due to runaway domestic spending. Whatever happened to that fiscal discipline value?
With the exception of Arizona Sen. John McCain's perpetual carping about pork barrel spending, it just seems to have been vaporized out of the Republican lexicon
.
There was also a time -- seems like a long time ago now -- when Republicans cared deeply about limited government and pushing more responsibility to the state and local levels. But, to cite one example, the president's No Child Left Behind program represents a concentration of power and control at the federal level in an area -- education -- that for 200 years has been largely left to the states.
The Patriot Act, elements of which are sound responses to the modern terrorist threat, nevertheless significantly extends the reach of the feds into our private lives. Likewise with marriage, the definition and control of which Mr. Bush wants to federalize.
Limited government? This Republican administration is moving the nation the other way with more federal employees, more federal spending and more intrusion into our privacy.
Finally, Republicans have historically placed a high value on the individual: supporting self-reliance, holding people responsible for their actions and extolling those who "work hard and play by the rules." This philosophy is reflected in the GOP's long-standing support of entrepreneurship, tough prosecution of corporate criminals and efforts to move the poor off welfare and into self-sustaining lifestyles.
Yet the Bush administration's immigration reform policy, which fortunately will not pass Congress anytime soon, embodies a diametrically opposed set of values: To the millions of illegal aliens now in the United States, Mr. Bush is, in effect, saying: "I know you broke our laws by illegally entering our country, avoided paying your fair share of taxes (thereby adding to the burden of our honest citizens) and have taken unfair advantage of our social services networks. But all is forgiven. No punishment. Welcome aboard!"
What was that again about working hard and playing by the rules? I guess sometimes when big voting blocs are at stake, politicians just have to rise above their own values.
And what of personal responsibility and accountability in the White House? Harry Truman said, "The buck stops here." John F. Kennedy took responsibility for the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Mr. Reagan shouldered the burden of the Marines killed in Lebanon and for the Iran-contra episode. But who today is responsible for the prewar intelligence failures and current mess in Iraq? Not Mr. Bush, apparently. In this administration, the proverbial buck is more like a hot potato.
The GOP now embraces millions of movement conservatives, neoconservatives, religious righters. But it also includes a huge, although relatively less active, group of traditional Republicans.
Republicans who, when they vote for president in November, may conclude that their old-fashioned, good government values -- such as fiscal discipline, limited government and individual responsibility -- are more important than the modern cultural values.
If they do, they just might disconnect from power a Republican administration that has itself become disconnected from its own Republican philosophical roots. And that would be the final irony.
[b]Stephen D. Hayes was a political appointee in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations[/b]. - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
[b]Also check-out Dubya's despicable AWOL record:[/b] http://www.awolbush.com
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| ... - 5 Tough Questions for Mr. Bush (That the Right-Wing Media Will Never Ask!) |
| 08.19.04 (4:17 pm) [edit] |
[b]5 Tough Questions for Mr. Bush[/b]
Imagine having the chance to question Mr. Bush at the presidential debates…
Mr. Bush, you have had your way with this country for 4 years, and now I want explanations in rigorous detail. I will not accept rhetorical answers, the American soldiers that died believing in you, and those who will inherit this country deserve better than that. I want to get some real answers, no buzz words, just facts.
[u]Question 1[/u]:
Mr. Bush, time and time again you claim that the war in Iraq has made Americans safer at home. What empirical data do you have to back up this assertion? I will present you with one of your recent quotes and then, several quotes from respected centers of strategic analysis.
“It is a ridiculous notion to assert that since America is on the offense, more people want to hurt us.”
- George W. Bush as seen in www.whitehouse.gov video of 08/02/2004 briefing
“The result has been an unnecessary preventive war of choice against a deterred Iraq that has created a new front in the Middle East for Islamic terrorism and diverted attention and resources away from securing the American homeland against further assault by an undeterrable al-Qaeda. The war against Iraq was not integral to the GWOT (The Global War on Terrorism), but rather a detour from it”
- “[i]Bounding the Global War on Terrorism[/i]”, The United States Army War College pp. v
“It(The Global War on Terrorism) also seems to have conflated them(terrorist threats) into a monolithic threat, and in so doing has subordinated strategic clarity to the moral clarity it strives for in foreign policy and may have set the United States on a course of open-ended and gratuitous conflict with states and nonstate entities that pose no serious threat to the United States.”
- “[i]Bounding the Global War on Terrorism[/i]”, The United States Army War College pp. v
"On the minus side, war in Iraq has probably inflamed radical passions among Muslims and thus increased al-Qaeda's recruiting power and morale and, at least marginally, its operating capability,"- 2003 Annual Report, International Institute for Strategic Studies
As of now, no weapons of mass destruction have been found. In light of this information, I ask you to back up your claim above, and your continuing claims that Americans are now safer from terrorist attack based solely on the war in Iraq .
[u]Question 2(two parts)[/u]:
[i]Scenario [/i]1: ( Iraq possessed WMD)
Given that Iraq possessed WMD and yet none have been found, please explain how Americans are safer with the missing weapons possibly in the hands of rogue states or terrorist groups.
[i]Scenario 2[/i]: ( Iraq did not possess WMD)
WMD would be the only plausible threat posed to the United States by a nation such as Iraq . Please explain how Americans are safer now that we have our military, our coffers, and our international prestige so heavily invested in Iraq , given the fact that Iraq did not possess WMD.
In summary, given the above scenarios, either Iraq possessed WMDs and we now face the danger that those weapons have fallen into the hands of possible terrorists, or they did not have WMD and we are in an unnecessary war. Please explain this paradox.
[u]Question 3[/u]:
Why has your administration failed to act decisively to find who leaked the name of Valerie Plame to the reporter Robert Novak?
“Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is a crime for anyone who has access to classified information to disclose intentionally information identifying a covert agent.”
- David Corn [i]“A White House Smear[/i]”, The Nation Magazine
This leak to Robert Novak outted Ms. Plame, ruined any chances that the years of set up work spent would pay off, endangered the lives of Plame and those working closely with her, and is a crime as laid out above.
Consider the following affidavit which is an edited version of the Moveon.org affidavit campaign:
“1) I, ___________, do hereby attest that on or about the dates of June 1, 2003, through July 14, 2003, I did not contact, whether by telephone, facsimile, e-mail, in person, or by any other means, any reporter, correspondent, journalist, or any other member of the media, with the intent to or purpose of naming former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as an operative for the Central Intelligence Agency.
2) I, ___________, further attest that on or about the dates of June 1, 2003 , through July 30, 2003 , I did not have any conversation, whether by telephone, e-mail, in person, or by any other means, with any reporter, correspondent, journalist, or any other member of the media, during which the employment of Valerie Plame was discussed in any way.
3) I, ___________, further attest that I have no knowledge of anyone who on or about the dates of June 1, 2003, through July 30, 2003, took part in either of the actions described in parts 1 and 2 of this affidavit.”
Will you willingly distribute this affidavit to your administration? In addition, please discuss how this leak by your administration has impacted the War on Terrorism with special regards to the CIA’s information gathering resources.
[u]Question 4[/u]:
Given the intelligence failures of the past 4 years, the policy of pre-emptive war seems to be in need of a set of strict guidelines governing when it should and should not be entered into. If given the opportunity to serve the American people, please briefly describe what guidelines you would set to engaging in another pre-emptive war and how those guidelines would have affected the policy that was laid out during your first term with specific reference to the burden of proof against Iraq and the missing WMD and lack of terrorist connections. Should Americans expect another pre-emptive war with such flimsy and hyped evidence used as justification?
[u]Question 5[/u]:
Before 9-11 you were well known as the vacationing president. Given the intelligence you were receiving, including a Presidential Brief entitled “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in the U.S.” and the following:
"There were more than 40 intelligence articles in the PDBs from January 20 to September 10, 2001 , that related to Bin Ladin."
- 9-11 Commission Report pp. 254
"In the spring of 2001, the level of reporting on terrorist threats and planned attacks increased dramatically to its highest level since the millennium alert. At the end of March, the intelligence community disseminated a terrorist threat advisory, indicating a heightened threat of Sunni extremist terrorist attacks against U.S. facilities, personnel, and other interests."
- 9-11 Commission Report pp. 255
Given the information about, would you have cut short your month long vacation during the month of August of 2001 in Crawford , Texas and returned to Washington to “shake the intelligence trees”? As a follow-up; if elected again, will you agree to take only as much vacation as an average full-time worker as determined by Bureau of Labor statistical data and cut short any vacations that are interrupted by such ominous intelligence as that above?
Everyone needs to be asking hard questions. If our press does not feel the duty to do so, we must take it upon ourselves to ask the questions. We must demand that we are represented, and that our elected officials are subjected to the most difficult questions possible in order to keep them honest, and our policies based on fact and common decency. Should we expect any less?
[b]Alex Hamilton is co-administrator and founder of www.ibtp.org, a website devoted to educating the populace to the ongoing lies of President George W. Bush, seeking his removal from office and creating a progressive organization to push the agenda in the coming years.[/b] - http://www.opednews.com/hamil...
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| Thoughts on the Presidential Election from a Republican |
| 08.19.04 (8:07 am) [edit] |
Over the course of the last four years I have watched the performance of our current presidential administration with uncommon interest. The events of 911 pitted our new president and his cabinet against the most horrific set of events this country has ever faced in its entire 200 year history. I felt vindicated by their swift and definite response to the tragedy and the threat. As a lifelong Republican (at the ripe old age of 12, I had the chance to meet John Kennedy and wouldn’t shake his hand because I thought that would mean fraternizing with the enemy”), I supported the Bush bid for the White House, concluding, that regardless of Mr. Bush’s experience, his “all-star” administration team would allow him to hit the ground running and become an effective and decisive president.
When Mr. Bush took us into Afghanistan I stood with him. Alliances were formed with western and regional governments and UN acquiescence. Results have been shaky to date, but the action was justified.
Then Mr. Bush took us into Iraq. This was a different situation. Although, I was one American who felt the first Gulf War would have been better served had we ended it in Baghdad, I questioned the timing of this “new” war. There did remain many good reasons for ousting Saddam and his henchmen but, I wondered if US national security was actually one of them. It seemed possible that our Administration might be taking advantage of the ground swell of anti terrorism sentiment post 911, to go after Saddam for other reasons.
When Mr. Powell presented the case before the UN it seemed to me that the evidence was weak for WMD in Iraq. Then, as the Administration publicly snubbed the German and French governments for not rolling over in support of this new war, based upon this evidence, I wondered - “What are they doing?”
Here was the White House proposing bringing democracy to Iraq and looking down its nose at two of the world’s great democracies. The nature of democracy is that it follows the will of the people, and whether we agree or disagree, we must respect that fact. It was up to the Administration to make their case, to win the support of allies for this war, and they failed. It wasn’ t the fault of our allies for disagreeing. But, calling all those on the carpet who stood in disagreement with Administration policies seemed to be a consistent thread of this president’s management style. Mr. O’Neal, Mr. Clark, Mr. Powell and others were casualties of this mind set - because their views ran counter to a small circle of advisers closest to the President. The attitude out of the oval office seemed: We’re the “Big Dawg” and, we are going to show all the other dogs just how big that is. Waging this war in Iraq appeared more a matter of swinging the “big stick” because it was in hand to swing then because it needed to be swung.
The United States is the world’s most influential country politically and economically and it has the largest and most powerful military complex. It is all too easy for us to be perceived as a bully. With all our power and influence, we are still a part of a greater family of nations. It is our duty, our obligation as the advantaged nation, to make every effort, to take every diplomatic step, to work with and to show respect for all peoples and their opinions world wide; to seek unity, to work for the positive good in all instances, without bias toward race, religion, or governmental peculiarities. To do less is to do a disservice to ourselves and to the world at large. We are not “ugly americans” and we must not let our government propagate that image.
By taking us into Iraq, without world support, without concrete evidence, and without consideration for the possible consequences nationally and internationally, this administration, I believe, violated the fundamental principles upon which this country functions to preserve and protect freedom and justice for all.
The subsequent prosecution of the the war in Iraq and its aftermath has yielded further evidence that the Bush administration is not functioning with reasonable good judgment on other levels. Where the Pentagon wanted sufficient troops to facilitate security after the war, the administration chose to cut that number nearly in half. Where the reconstruction of Iraq, should have received highest consideration, the administration apparently gave minimal thought to this, in its haste to engage the war.
The result, 18 months later is a real mess; approaching a thousand American dead, four times that many disfigured and disabled. On the Iraqi side civilian casualty figures are probably twenty times higher and, yet, where are they now? People are still dying and there is still, no security for the living. The Iraq economy is in shambles, infrastructure shaky with very limited progress on reconstruction.
So, when will there be peace in Iraq? When will our troops come home? These are questions which have no answers, questions which should have been answered before the Administration started this “optional” war.
In 1998, Mr. Bush’s dad, former President F.W.Bush, in his book “A World Transformed,” discusses his view of the consequences of removing Saddam from power as an extension of the first Gulf War, and of the potential problems in the aftermath; words which eerily presage the actual unfortunate course of events in this Iraq war. (snopes.com keyword: transformed).
In 1991 with Operation Desert Storm, the United States utilized a set of five tenets for the successful prosecution of that war. It was, because of excellent preliminary planning, one of this countries most successful military engagements. These five tenets, referred to as the “Powell Doctrine” after its chief architect Gen. Colin Powell, spelled out the rules of engagement in such a way that left as little as possible to chance: 1. Define the specific political goal to be achieved. 2. Plan a precise military action with a clear definition of success. 3. Plan a realistic exit strategy. 4. Have global international support (which included all Arab nations) - to help share the burden both during and after the war. 5. Support all of the above with overwhelming military force. (pbs.org keyword: Powell Doctrine)
So why, with this set of proven rules and with his dad’s own perspective so clearly defined did Mr. Bush choose to take a different course? Why, with Colin Powell himself on staff did the President follow different advisement? These are questions my which fit my Big Dawg analogy and which, sadly, reveal a presidential inability to lead.
Now, the Administration is back pedaling at full speed, trying to make right the things that it did wrong in Iraq, reverse the irreversible, and without admitting to its stupendous errors. It is trying to make nice with governments snubbed, and dress over its look to the American people for reelection. Anybody can back pedal. Hindsight is always 20-20. But, hindsight is not why we select presidents and not a reason to reelect this one.
Mr. Bush likes to simplify concepts into sound bite sized bits and right versus wrong creeds, yet there is nothing simple about these times, neither the problems or the solutions. He consistently tells us that he was right on Iraq, that the US is a safer place because of his leadership, when, it is so totally, blatantly obvious that the truth is just the opposite. Through his imperious actions and the arrogance of his advisers, the world’s problems have become more complex and more resistant to solution. The ill will which this Administration has fomented among foreign nations, will take years to reverse, particularly so in Muslim countries. Americans are at greater risk abroad today than they were on 911. International respect for US credibility is at an all time low. And, I am willing to bet, if you privately polled each foreign leader, you would be hard pressed to find one, who would wish to see Mr. Bush reelected; and, the healing, the rehabilitation of this country’s reputation, stature and influence cannot not start until this Administration has been replaced with a totally new one.
Yes, I voted for George Bush in 2000. I don’t regret that decision. It was based on the situation at the time and, to me, it was the clear and correct choice. Now, four years later, everything has changed. This Administration has compromised my trust, made some really terrible decisions, and divided the country. I’ll have no problem voting against George Bush this time around. The Iraq incursion is not the only Bush policy that begs serious criticism, but it is, alone and by itself, sufficient indictment of his inept leadership, to send him packing in November.
This fall we will each cast our vote and determine the destiny of this nation. And, Ralph Nader running as the independent, is not an option; he being, in my opinion, a case of one man’s doting self interest over the good of the country. A vote for Mr. Nader must be assumed to help Mr. Bush more than Mr. Kerry, effectively making that exercise pointless. This leaves John Kerry.
I’ve had conservative friends tell me that they don’t like John Kerry. When I ask why this is, the answer usually radios either the GOP version of Kerry, or the view of the anti-Kerry vets group. I haven’t heard any “original” reasons yet. When I checked the facts on Kerry myself, most of the published case against him melted away. His resume is stellar, arguably far more accomplished than that of the President’s. I found no evidence of ethical or moral issues in Mr. Kerry’s past, or that he has ever had a drinking problem.
The people of Massachusetts think that he has done a good job for them. His military record is unimpeachable. And, if one still wants to argue about that, the fact that Mr. Kerry volunteered for combat says enough about his willingness to serve. It being irrelevant, in my view, how long he was in the combat zone or the extent of his injuries; the difference between a flesh wound and a fatality being but a few inches.
The attack on Mr. Kerry’s voting record is nebulous, i.e. smoke and considering the bills cited, almost ludicrous. In any case, this topic has been handled more than adequately on the website (snopes.com keyword: appropriations).
There are Vietnam vets who feel that Mr. Kerry betrayed them. I served during that period, and looking back on myself then, I was at odds the the antiwar movement too. But, I soon realized, as I trust most vets have, how monumental a failure of US leadership the Vietnam War was and how much grief it brought this nation. The antiwar movement was a valid and necessary counter to policies our government, itself, seemed unable to alter. Mr. Kerry brought credibility to the antiwar movement and with it public awareness. We can chose to disagree, but, in my view; If his efforts shortened the war a single day, he gets my support for having done it.
John Kerry’s character is attacked regularly. I’ve heard him accused of waffling, straddling issues, and trying to be everything to everybody. My question: When has a politician not done these things during a campaign? I do think that he has been, on occasion, overly soft in these contexts, but I can empathize with his dilemma. If he takes too strong a stand on certain issues, he risks alienating the voters who oppose them. In this country we talk about wanting a leader who is firm, but then, when he takes a stand, a lot of us won’t vote for him. The country being evenly divided, today, Mr. Kerry has to try to staddle the middle line, whether he likes it or not. Some politicians are better at this than others but it is demonstrative of their political skills or lack thereof and not their leadership skills when they do it.
Mr. Bush, is in a different situation. Due to his religion based following he probably has a good idea how many votes he can count on from a particular position on key issues and may have determined that the voters he alienates are votes he wouldn’t have received anyway.
Now, I don’t know Mr. Kerry and I am not likely to ever meet him, like most of us in this fair land. But, I do know one thing, John McCain likes him. They are said to be good friends. I respect John McCain for telling it like he sees it on public issues. I don’t agree with his position on everything, but I trust his judgment. Mr. McCain, is of course, a Vietnam vet, ex-POW. and a conservative Republican. If he thinks that Mr. Kerry is a good man, calls him a friend, where he doesn’t the President, I think that is a very positive endorsement of Kerry’s character and integrity.
All things considered, the evidence on Kerry suggests a loyal American who has followed a straight path by doing what he thought was right, at each way point in his life. I can’t knock that.
And, remember it isn’t Mr. Kerry’s administration that has divided this nation, sanctioned the breaking of international law, and trampled the First Amendment by using religion in the public forum to recruit voters. That would be the Bush Administration. These are the really important issues, in my opinion, the ones which are leading this country to no place good. If the Democrats were fielding Alfred E. Neuman for President, I’d have to vote for “Al” in November. As it is, they aren’t and that makes my job that much easier.
As President, I would not expect Mr. Kerry to introduce a new solution for Iraq. But, world leaders would give him a fresh chance to administer US policies where they find it hard to give Mr. Bush the time of day, and that could very well lead to personnel and other commitments thus far withheld. And, Mr. Kerry would not, by definition of his time in office, or his track record, as I view it, pursue the aggressively unilateral, and mean spirited policy on world affairs that denotes Mr. Bush’s great failures and which have split this nation in half.
Finally, regarding party loyalty... In my humble opinion, this country has gone too far down the wrong road, away from rational politics and bi-party cooperation that benefits the nation. The problems we face today are too big and the solutions too complex to allow partisanship to weaken us. We have to pull together, to make our party leaderships follow us, and not vice versa. We are, predominantly, a two party system, and it takes both parties, liberals and conservatives, pulling as hard as we can to keep this country on the road, let alone close to the centerline. But, it is the pulling “together” that has made this nation great and not the pulling apart that we currently seem bent on nurturing. We are Americans first, Republicans or Democrats after, let us not forget that. We need to be thinking as Americans now, sending a concerted message both to our leaders and to the rest of the world that we are paying attention, and that we are not happy with the present situation. We must demonstrate that when we talk about equality, respect, and tolerance that we actually mean it, and include the whole world in it, and not just the peoples within our own borders. We must set the example of inclusiveness, reaffirming the common cause for world unity against a common enemy; standing together, indivisible under God perhaps, but unified among all religions. This is essential if we truly want peace and harmony in this world, and it is not beyond our reach if we seek this goal with sincerity and unified commitment.
It means, in the end, going to the polls in November and voting in a common block, to demonstrate decisively that we care about our place in the world, that we are of one voice, with our sense of propriety remaining fully intact. And, if in four years Mr. Kerry’s service underwelms us, we get to vote for change all over again, and we should.
Paul E. comments: wethepeople@isp.com http://www.independent-media....%20Reported
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| Republican Says Hypocritical Dubya Ignores Core GOP "Values" |
| 08.19.04 (5:23 am) [edit] |
[b]President ignores core GOP values[/b]
Politics is full of irony. This year it is that George W. Bush is campaigning on a carefully and narrowly selected set of cultural values while moving steadily away from a second set of values to which the Republican Party has traditionally adhered.
Consider the three old-line bedrock Republican values: fiscal discipline, limited government and individual accountability. GOP old-timers can remember the days when Republicans stood for and worked for spending restraint and balanced budgets. Ironically, the only balanced federal budgets in the past 30 years were produced under a Democratic president.
Ronald Reagan got caught up in the heady forecasts of his supply-side advisers, a severe revenue-reducing recession and a Congress bent on appropriating too much money. But at least he tried to limit government spending, vetoing 39 bills while in office.
In nearly four years in office, President Bush has not vetoed a single spending bill. This fiscal year, the federal deficit will top $400 billion, and in the last three years the national debt has mushroomed by more than $800 billion
.
Yes, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have contributed to the red ink. But the large majority of the deficit is due to runaway domestic spending. Whatever happened to that fiscal discipline value?
With the exception of Arizona Sen. John McCain's perpetual carping about pork barrel spending, it just seems to have been vaporized out of the Republican lexicon
.
There was also a time -- seems like a long time ago now -- when Republicans cared deeply about limited government and pushing more responsibility to the state and local levels. But, to cite one example, the president's No Child Left Behind program represents a concentration of power and control at the federal level in an area -- education -- that for 200 years has been largely left to the states.
The Patriot Act, elements of which are sound responses to the modern terrorist threat, nevertheless significantly extends the reach of the feds into our private lives. Likewise with marriage, the definition and control of which Mr. Bush wants to federalize.
Limited government? This Republican administration is moving the nation the other way with more federal employees, more federal spending and more intrusion into our privacy.
Finally, Republicans have historically placed a high value on the individual: supporting self-reliance, holding people responsible for their actions and extolling those who "work hard and play by the rules." This philosophy is reflected in the GOP's long-standing support of entrepreneurship, tough prosecution of corporate criminals and efforts to move the poor off welfare and into self-sustaining lifestyles.
Yet the Bush administration's immigration reform policy, which fortunately will not pass Congress anytime soon, embodies a diametrically opposed set of values: To the millions of illegal aliens now in the United States, Mr. Bush is, in effect, saying: "I know you broke our laws by illegally entering our country, avoided paying your fair share of taxes (thereby adding to the burden of our honest citizens) and have taken unfair advantage of our social services networks. But all is forgiven. No punishment. Welcome aboard!"
What was that again about working hard and playing by the rules? I guess sometimes when big voting blocs are at stake, politicians just have to rise above their own values.
And what of personal responsibility and accountability in the White House? Harry Truman said, "The buck stops here." John F. Kennedy took responsibility for the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Mr. Reagan shouldered the burden of the Marines killed in Lebanon and for the Iran-contra episode. But who today is responsible for the prewar intelligence failures and current mess in Iraq? Not Mr. Bush, apparently. In this administration, the proverbial buck is more like a hot potato.
The GOP now embraces millions of movement conservatives, neoconservatives, religious righters. But it also includes a huge, although relatively less active, group of traditional Republicans.
Republicans who, when they vote for president in November, may conclude that their old-fashioned, good government values -- such as fiscal discipline, limited government and individual responsibility -- are more important than the modern cultural values.
If they do, they just might disconnect from power a Republican administration that has itself become disconnected from its own Republican philosophical roots. And that would be the final irony.
[b]Stephen D. Hayes was a political appointee in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations[/b]. - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
[b]Also check-out Dubya's despicable AWOL record:[/b] http://www.awolbush.com
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| Cowardly Neo-Con Arm-Chair Chicken-Hawks Aren't "Real Men"-- Bush is an AWOL Mass-Murderer!!! |
| 08.19.04 (5:11 am) [edit] |
[b]Cowardly drunken AWOL deserter Bush is a criminal:[/b] http://www.awolbush.com
[b] Bush showed 'reckless disregard' after 9/11 (This ain't a "real man" but a bumbling, bungling coward, criminal and dry-drunk thug!)[/b]
The Bush administration misled the public about the health hazards of the smoke and dust at Ground Zero, a new report charges.
The Sierra Club report blames the thousands of cases of long-term respiratory illness among New Yorkers on the White House, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for downplaying the health risks and shirking their regulatory oversight roles.
EPA officials, the report says, urged financial district workers to return to their jobs, repeatedly claiming the air was safe, using outdated testing gear and limited test results. The reassuring message didn't substantially change as the months dragged on, the report said.
At the same time, concerns were being raised by independent researchers.
The EPA's own researchers also noted concerns, but their studies never made it into the agency's public statements. The results were published only much later in scientific journals.
The result has been costly to local and federal governments, said Suzanne Mattei, the New York City Executive for the Sierra Club and the author of the report.
"The health care costs are significant, and there are many experienced first responders and others now on light duty, medical leave or retired because of lung problems," she said.
While the early focus was on asbestos, the more dangerous toxins were concrete dust and glass fibers -- the dangers of which were never highlighted to the public, the report concludes.
By Sept. 27, 2001, the government had test results showing the dust was caustic, but it never mentioned that in public statements, the report said. That data was not disclosed until December 2002 in a scientific journal, the report said.
Without performing a single test, the EPA already knew from many prior studies that the combination of open fires and demolition of buildings was by definition a health hazard, the report states.
"It's illegal in any state in the union," Mattei said. "It causes known health hazards. But instead of saying we need to clean to pre-contamination levels, they took a minimalist approach and used weak cleanup standards."
EPA officials yesterday issued a statement, saying, "The American public should see this report for what it is: a blatant attempt to use this tragedy for political gain."
EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman said, "I think their report crosses the line." - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| Bush/Cheney War Criminals: Lied About Iraq, Lying About Iran [It's the OIL, Stupid!] |
| 08.19.04 (5:02 am) [edit] |
[b]The Bush/Cheney War Criminals are beating their War-Profiteering War Drums Against Iran-- part of their Insane Plan to Conquer and Dominate the Middle East for Oil to Enrich the Bush Crime Family and their Oil Cronies! This is Madness and Iran isn't Going to be as "Easy [[i]sic[/i]]" as Iraq, a Bloody Nightmarish Mess! Bush/Cheney should be IMPEACHED TODAY![/b]
[u][b]Iran warns of preemptive strike to prevent attack on nuclear sites[/b][/u]
Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani warned Wednesday that Iran might launch a preemptive strike against US forces in the region to prevent an attack on its nuclear facilities.
"We will not sit (with arms folded) to wait for what others will do to us. Some military commanders in Iran are convinced that preventive operations which the Americans talk about are not their monopoly," Shamkhani told Al-Jazeera TV when asked if Iran would respond to an American attack on its nuclear facilities.
"America is not the only one present in the region. We are also present, from Khost to Kandahar in Afghanistan; we are present in the Gulf and we can be present in Iraq," said Shamkhani, speaking in Farsi to the Arabic-language news channel through an interpreter.
"The US military presence (in Iraq) will not become an element of strength (for Washington) at our expense. The opposite is true, because their forces would turn into a hostage" in Iranian hands in the event of an attack, he said.
Shamkhani, who was asked about the possibility of an American or Israeli strike against Iran's atomic power plant in Bushehr, added: "We will consider any strike against our nuclear installations as an attack on Iran as a whole, and we will retaliate with all our strength.
"Where Israel is concerned, we have no doubt that it is an evil entity, and it will not be able to launch any military operation without an American green light. You cannot separate the two."
A commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards was quoted in the Iranian press earlier Wednesday as saying that Tehran would strike the Israeli reactor at Dimona if Israel attacks the Islamic republic's own burgeoning nuclear facilities.
"If Israel fires one missile at Bushehr atomic power plant, it should permanently forget about Dimona nuclear center, where it produces and keeps its nuclear weapons, and Israel would be responsible for the terrifying consequence of this move," General Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr warned.
Iran's controversial bid to generate nuclear power at its plant being built at Bushehr is seen by arch-enemies Israel and the United States as a cover for nuclear weapons development.
The latest comments mark an escalation in an exchange of threats between Israel and Iran in recent weeks, leading to speculation that there may be a repeat of Israel's strike against Iraqi nuclear facilities at Osirak in 1981.
Iran insists that its nuclear intentions are peaceful, while pointing at its enemy's alleged nuclear arsenal, which Israel neither confirms nor denies possessing.
Shamkhani told Al-Jazeera it was not possible "from a practical standpoint" to destroy Iran's nuclear programs because they are the product of national skills "which cannot be eliminated by military means."
He also warned that Iran would consider itself no longer bound by its commitments to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the event of an attack.
"The execution of such threats (to attack Iran's nuclear installations) would mean that our cooperation with the IAEA led to feeding information about our nuclear facilities to the attacking side, which (in turn) means that we would no longer be bound by any of our obligations" to the nuclear watchdog, he said.
Diplomats said in Vienna Tuesday that the IAEA would not say in a report next month whether Iran's nuclear activities are of a military nature, nor will it recommend bringing the case before the UN Security Council.
The IAEA board is due to deliver the report on Iran's nuclear activities during a meeting at the organization's headquarters in Vienna from September 13 after the last of a group of IAEA inspectors returned from Iran last week.
The UN's nuclear agency is conducting a major probe into Iran's bid to generate electricity through nuclear power.
The Islamic republic has agreed to temporarily suspend uranium enrichment pending the completion of the IAEA probe, but is working on other parts of the fuel cycle and has recently resumed making centrifuges used for enrichment. - http://www.spacewar.com/2004/...
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| Bush/Cheney War Criminals: Lied About Iraq, Lying About Iran [It's the OIL, Stupid!] |
| 08.19.04 (4:52 am) [edit] |
[b]The Bush/Cheney War Criminals are beating their War-Profiteering War Drums Against Iran-- part of their Insane Plan to Conquer and Dominate the Middle East for Oil to Enrich the Bush Crime Family and their Oil Cronies! This is Madness and Iran isn't Going to be as "Easy [[i]sic[/i]]" as Iraq, a Bloody Nightmarish Mess! Bush/Cheney should be IMPEACHED TODAY![/b]
[u][b]Iran warns of preemptive strike to prevent attack on nuclear sites[/b][/u]
Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani warned Wednesday that Iran might launch a preemptive strike against US forces in the region to prevent an attack on its nuclear facilities.
"We will not sit (with arms folded) to wait for what others will do to us. Some military commanders in Iran are convinced that preventive operations which the Americans talk about are not their monopoly," Shamkhani told Al-Jazeera TV when asked if Iran would respond to an American attack on its nuclear facilities.
"America is not the only one present in the region. We are also present, from Khost to Kandahar in Afghanistan; we are present in the Gulf and we can be present in Iraq," said Shamkhani, speaking in Farsi to the Arabic-language news channel through an interpreter.
"The US military presence (in Iraq) will not become an element of strength (for Washington) at our expense. The opposite is true, because their forces would turn into a hostage" in Iranian hands in the event of an attack, he said.
Shamkhani, who was asked about the possibility of an American or Israeli strike against Iran's atomic power plant in Bushehr, added: "We will consider any strike against our nuclear installations as an attack on Iran as a whole, and we will retaliate with all our strength.
"Where Israel is concerned, we have no doubt that it is an evil entity, and it will not be able to | |
