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“The Obama administration announced in the statement it would disregard provisions of the legislation…”
What’s this about?
DADT?
DOMA?
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There is a very small cadre of mainstream journalists who have more than earned the highest level of respect and deserve the undivided attention of every American who cares about truth over spin, and substance over style. They’ll never lie to you, or tell you what they think you want to hear. (I said it was a very small cadre.) Paul Krugman is one. Molly Ivins was another.
Two of this exclusive group, writing about two separate issues, ask the same essential question about Barack Obama: Why such unwillingness — or cowardice — to do the job the people hired him to do: reverse the offenses of his predecessor, and work for the best interests of the American people?
When Helen Thomas and Bob Herbert speak, I listen. If only Obama would too:
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In stark legal turnaround,
Obama now resembles BushPresident Barack Obama is morphing into George W. Bush, as administration attorneys repeatedly adopt the executive-authority and national-security rationales that their Republican predecessors preferred.
In courtroom battles and freedom-of-information fights from Washington, D.C., to California, Obama’s legal arguments repeatedly mirror Bush’s: White House turf is to be protected, secrets must be retained and dire warnings are wielded as weapons.
“It’s putting up a veritable wall around the White House, and it’s so at odds with Obama’s campaign commitment to more open government,” said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a legal watchdog group.
Certainly, some differences exist. …
But not enough for our comfort. War, warantless wiretapping, equality… Read on at the link.
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“Growing” controversy? “Growing”? What, has no one been paying attention since we invaded Iraq? This has been a major “controversy” to me for, oh, I dunno, like six freaking years:
Now, this is one good Christian… Not!, April 6, 2003
Franklin Graham, Christian Crusader, April 21, 2003
One more excellent read on Franklin Graham…, April 21, 2003
Well, better late than never, I suppose, that the U.S. MSM is finally shedding some light on this (six years ago, I had to rely on independent bloggers and the British papers for most of my information) — no matter how annoyed I get that it takes so bloody long for the MSM to catch up with us crazy lefties who’ve been saying “I told you so” all along:
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Not that the brainless drones of the Martha Peace Stepford Cult and the tyrants of the Dennis Prager School of Wifely Subjugation would object to returning to the days of legal marital rape in the U.S. — they’d welcome it. But the point stands, regardless:
Hamid Karzai signs law
‘legalising rape in marriage’President Hamid Karzai has signed a law the UN says legalises rape in marriage and prevents women from leaving the house without permission.
The law, which has not been publicly released, is believed to state women can only seek work, education or doctor’s appointments with their husband’s permission.
Only fathers and grandfathers are granted custody of children under the law, according to the United Nations Development Fund for Women.
Opponents of the legislation governing the personal lives of Afghanistan’s Shia minority have said it is “worse than during the Taliban”.
Mr Karzai has been accused of electioneering at the expense of women’s rights by signing the law to appeal to crucial Shia swing voters in this year’s presidential poll. …
Gee, kinda like a U.S. presidential candidate — or a sitting U.S. President — sucking up to our own homegrown Talibornagains for votes and other favors at the expense of women and gays, innit?
The bill passed both houses of the Afghan parliament, but was so contentious that the United Nations and women’s rights campaigners have so far been unable to see a copy of the approved bill. … “[T]hey didn’t want to discuss it because Karzai wants to please the Shia before the election.” …A spokesman for President Hamid Karzai would not comment.
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Remember the child detainees of Gitmo? No? Well, it has been a while — long enough for these boys to grow into adults while awaiting trial (any trial, even the kangarro court otherwise known as a “secret military tribunal”). Here’s our coverage of the child detainees when we first leaned about them… nearly six years ago:
If This Doesn’t Outrage You, You’re Not Human
April 24, 2003Children held at Camp Xray, US admits …
And think about this: If there is even one child under the age of 16 now, it means he was captured, transported to Cuba, and has been rotting in a cage at Gitmo for nearly a year and a half — or since he was between 13 and 14 years old. …
AI Weighs in on Gitmo Children
April 24, 2003Most of the 600-plus detainees in Guantanamo are confined to tiny cells for virtually 24 hours a day and reportedly allowed to exercise in shackles for only 15 minutes twice a week…
Gitmo Update: Rummy, Myers Dis Concerns
for Child Welfare
April 27, 2003A senior United Nations envoy has called on the United States to take prompt action over the fate of three teenage boys being held with other terror suspects in its prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. …
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has defended the detention of the boys — aged between 13 and 15 — at Camp Delta, saying they are “enemy combatants”, captured while fighting for the Taleban or al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. …
One of the youths has been identified by Canadian media reports as a Canadian citizen wanted by the US over a grenade attack in Afghanistan which killed a US soldier. …
Which brings us to a long-awaited update about that very Canadian, Omar Khadr:
Leading Rights Groups Urge Obama to Stop Guantánamo Proceedings Against Child Soldiers WASHINGTON, D.C. — January 12, 2009 — Five leading human rights and civil liberties groups sent a letter to President-elect Barack Obama today, urging him to suspend the Guantánamo Bay military commissions and to ensure that the upcoming trial of Omar Khadr, a 22-year-old Canadian, does not proceed. The trial is scheduled to begin on January 26, six days after the presidential inauguration.
Khadr is slated to be tried before the widely discredited military commissions for war crimes he is alleged to have committed when he was 15. There is broad global recognition that the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict is a serious abuse in itself. This is reflected in the fact that no existing international tribunal has ever prosecuted a child for war crimes.
The groups — the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, Human Rights First and Human Rights Watch — urged Obama to drop the military commission charges against Khadr and either repatriate him to Canada or, if there is evidence to support it, to prosecute him in U.S. federal courts in accordance with international juvenile justice and fair trial standards.
The groups also called on Obama to immediately suspend pending proceedings against Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who is also charged before the military commissions for crimes allegedly committed when he was 16 or 17. A military judge twice ruled that statements Jawad made following his arrest were not admissible at trial because they were obtained through torture. However, the government has challenged the ruling and the Court of Military Commission Review in Washington, D.C., is scheduled to hear arguments on Tuesday, January 13.
The letter from the groups to President-elect Barack Obama is below and can also be found online at: www.aclu.org/safefree/detention/…
More information on the ACLU’s work to close Guantánamo can be found online at: www.aclu.org
January 12, 2009
President-elect Barack Obama
Obama-Biden Transition Project
Washington, DC 20720Dear President-elect Obama:
We write to you regarding Omar Khadr, the 22-year-old Canadian national slated to be tried by military commission at Guantánamo for crimes allegedly committed when he was aged 15. If the trial, now scheduled for January 26, 2009, is allowed to go forward, Omar Khadr will become the first person in recent years to be tried by any western nation for war crimes allegedly committed as a child.
We urge that upon taking office, you act quickly to suspend the military commissions, drop the military commission charges against Khadr, and either repatriate him for rehabilitation in Canada or transfer him to federal court and prosecute him in accordance with international juvenile justice and fair trial standards.
Background
United States forces captured Khadr on July 27, 2002, after a firefight in Afghanistan that resulted in the death of US Army Sergeant First Class Christopher Speer, as well as injuries to other soldiers. Khadr, who was seriously wounded, was initially detained at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. There, according to his lawyers, he was forced into painful stress positions, threatened with rape, and hooded and confronted with barking dogs.
In October 2002, US officers transported Khadr to Guantánamo, where the abusive interrogations continued, and where he has been ever since. Khadr told his lawyers that his interrogators shackled him in painful positions, threatened to send him to Egypt, Syria, or Jordan for torture, and used him as a “human mop” after he urinated on the floor during one interrogation session. He was not allowed to meet with a lawyer until November 2004, more than two years after he was first captured.
During his third year of detention, Khadr was charged with murder and other related crimes under the first set of military commissions authorized by President Bush. Those charges were dismissed when the Supreme Court ruled the commissions unlawful in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. In 2007, under newly authorized commissions, the United States government charged him with murder, attempted murder in violation of the laws of war, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism, and spying. He faces a possible life prison sentence.
Violations of Human Rights and Juvenile Justice Standards
Khadr’s prolonged detention in Guantánamo Bay contravenes the United States’ binding legal obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and international juvenile justice standards. Although these international standards allow for detention of juveniles only as a last resort and require prompt determination of juvenile cases, Khadr was detained for more than two years before being provided access to an attorney, and for more than three years before being charged before the first military commission. After more than six years the lawfulness of this detention still has not been judicially reviewed on the merits.
Further, despite international standards requiring treatment of children in accordance with their age, as well as segregation of children and adults, Khadr has been housed with adult detainees, even when other child detainees were being housed together in Guantánamo’s Camp Iguana. The abusive interrogations and prolonged detention in solitary confinement violated both international juvenile justice standards and general humane treatment standards, including Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, and other binding prohibitions against torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
Failure to Comply with Obligations under the Optional Protocol
International law requires the United States to recognize the special situation of children who have been recruited or used in armed conflict. The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (”Optional Protocol”), which the United States ratified in 2002, explicitly prohibits the recruitment or use of children under the age of 18 in armed conflict by non-state armed groups and requires state parties to criminalize such conduct. It also requires the rehabilitation of former child soldiers within a signatory’s jurisdiction, including “all appropriate assistance for their physical and psychological recovery and their social reintegration.”
Yet in its dealings with Khadr, the US government has ignored its legal obligations under the Optional Protocol. For years, Khadr was denied access to education, vocational training, counseling, or any family contact. Instead, he was held in isolation and abused.
Last May, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which oversees compliance with the Optional Protocol, criticized the United States’ treatment and military prosecutions of children held at Guantánamo, and called on the US government to treat children in its custody in accordance with international juvenile justice standards.
Military Trial Moving Ahead
Despite widespread criticism of the military commission system and its treatment of Omar Khadr, the outgoing Bush administration has continued to move his case toward trial. Motions hearings are now set for January 19, with a trial date scheduled for January 26. Unless you act quickly to suspend the commissions, Khadr will become the first person in recent history to be prosecuted for war crimes allegedly committed as a child, before a system that you have consistently criticized as “flawed.”
As you are aware, you voted against the legislation passed by Congress in October 2006 to authorize the commissions, calling it a “betrayal of American values.” When charges against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the 9/11 co-conspirators were announced in February 2008, you criticized that decision on the grounds that “[t]hese trials are too important to be held in a flawed military commission system” and that the men should be tried in federal court or by courts-martial, in order to “demonstrate our commitment to the rule of law.” Just five months ago, after the conviction of Salim Hamdan, you reiterated your criticism of the commission process, stating it is “time to better protect the American people and our values by bringing swift and sure justice to terrorists through our courts and our Uniform Code of Military Justice.”
You have also co-sponsored legislation (the Child Soldier Prevention Act, S. 1175, which was subsequently incorporated into the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, and the Child Soldier Accountability Act, S. 2135) designed to help end the use of child soldiers. These measures, both signed into law in 2008, commit the US government to expand services to rehabilitate child soldiers and reintegrate them back into their communities, and allow the United States to prosecute the individuals responsible for the recruitment of children as soldiers.
Now is the chance to ensure America’s commitment to the rule of law by putting an immediate halt to Omar Khadr’s trial. If there is evidence that Khadr committed a federal crime, he should be transferred to a federal court and prosecuted in accordance with international juvenile justice and fair trial standards; if not, he should be repatriated for rehabilitation and integration.
This is also the course you should take with the other known juvenile detainee, Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan, who has been in Guantánamo for six years, reportedly subjected to torture, sleep deprivation, and other abuse, and charged with attempted murder by the military commission for acts allegedly committed when he was either 16 or 17 years old. No trial date is currently set in his case.
We hope that you will act quickly on this matter in the interest of justice, protection of human rights, and the rule of law.
Sincerely,
American Civil Liberties Union
Amnesty International
Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers
Human Rights First
Human Rights Watchcc:
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
Eric Holder
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Makes perfect sense coming from this ass-backward country of ours, where “pro-life” means opposition to choice yet full-fledged support for the death penalty; where the “new evangelicals” boast of their efforts to save the planet yet continue to applaud irresponsible litter-breeders like the Duggars for overpopulating same; where war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.
Little Blue Pills Among the Ways CIA Wins Friends in Afghanistan The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift.
Four blue pills. Viagra.
“Take one of these. You’ll love it,” the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.
The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes — followed by a request for more pills. …
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Dear Catholics: Before you get all huffy and submit that nasty comment:
1. I’m an ex-Catholic (by choice, not excommunication — yet), so I get to say whatever I want about the Catholic church. (I’d have the right anyway, but lest you think I don’t know what I’m talking about, I was you, so challenging my Catholic cred is a waste of your time.)
2. There’s no other way to read the Vatican statement than the way it’s summed up in the following headline — I couldn’t say it better myself:
Vatican would rather gay people
were executed than married(and it doesn’t want disabled people to be protected, either, in case it promotes abortion)
The full extent of the regressive nature of the Vatican under Ratzinger was made clear this week when it was revealed that the Vatican had opposed two United Nations resolutions aimed at protecting gay and disabled people from discrimination and death.
When France proposed a resolution seeking all nations to decriminalise homosexuality, the Vatican immediately said it would oppose the resolution. This is despite the fact that up to 70 nations still have legal punishments for gay people including, in some instances, the death penalty. In a number of Islamic countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen, homosexual acts are still a capital offence.
The UN resolution is due to be proposed by France later this month on behalf of the 27-nation European Union. But Archbishop Celestino Migliore said the Vatican opposed the resolution because it would “add new categories of those protected from discrimination” and could lead to reverse discrimination against traditional heterosexual marriage. …
A strongly worded editorial in Italy’s mainstream La Stampa newspaper said the Vatican’s reasoning was “grotesque”.
Franco Grillini, founder and honorary president of Arcigay, Italy’s leading gay rights group, said the Vatican’s reasoning smacked of “total idiocy and madness”. Mr Grillini said the resolution had nothing to do with gay marriage, but was aimed at stopping the execution of gay people in Islamic countries.
An editorial in Rome’s left-leaning La Repubblica newspaper said the Vatican’s position “leaves one dumbstruck”. Margherita Boniver, a leading member of Italy’s leftist Democratic Party, called it “alarmingly anachronistic”.
The gay rights activist, Grillini, said he feared what he called another “Holy Alliance” between the Vatican and Islamic states at the United Nations to oppose the proposed resolution. …
Meh, I’m not at all “dumbstruck” — it’s nothing more or less than I’d expect from the Holy Roman Inquisitors.
But — oh, yeah — it is indeed “grotesque” “idiocy and madness.”
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WASHINGTON — July 10 — Yesterday in the House, we had a moment of silence for the troops. Today it is time to speak out on behalf of those troops who will be in Iraq for at least another year, courageously representing our nation while their Commander in Chief sent them on a mission that was based on falsehoods about the threat of WMDs from Iraq.
Throughout the summer and fall of 2002, the Congress, the media and the American people heard the terrifying drumbeat of fear from the Bush White House in the form of loud, well-advertised and orchestrated chanting by the President and his Administration about “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” “Nuclear Threats,” “Biological Weapons,” “Chemical Weapons,” “Threats of Imminent Attack,” all calculated to gain media attention, public support and Congressional support for a war against Iraq.
This afternoon I will introduce a single Article of Impeachment of the President.
The Article is entitled: “Deceiving Congress with Fabricated Threats of Iraq WMDs to Fraudulently Obtain Support for an Authorization of the Use of Military Force Against Iraq.” The Impeachment resolution focuses narrowly on what the President presented to Congress in the Authorization of the Use of Military Force. It does not address the voluminous evidence of orchestrated deceptions which have been well documented by various governmental, non-governmental and media sources.
I understand that many members of Congress voted in good faith to authorize the use of force against Iraq. And I understand that many in the media supported that action. When the President of the United States makes representations on matters of life and death, we all want to believe him and give him the benefit of the doubt. Trust is the glue which holds the fabric of our nation together.
Those in Congress and in the media who acted on the President’s representations of the threat of Iraq WMDs did so trusting that those representations were honest. Unfortunately, they were not. We all know the consequences of the war, the loss of lives and injury to our troops, the deaths of innocent Iraqis, the cost to the American taxpayers. There has been another consequence: Great damage to our Constitution through an unnecessary, illegal war and the destruction of the superior role of Congress in the life of this nation.
Congress must, in the name of the American people, use the one remedy which the Founders provided for an Executive who gravely abused his power: Impeachment. Congress must reassert itself as a co-equal branch of government; bring this President to an accounting, and in doing so reestablish the people’s trust in Congress and in our United States system of government. We must not let this President’s conduct go unchallenged and thereby create a precedent which undermines the Constitution.
In the final analysis this is about our Constitution and whether a President can be held accountable for his actions and his deceptions, especially when the effects of those actions have been so calamitous for America, Iraq and the world. Unless Congress reasserts itself as the power branch of government which the Founders intended, our experiment with a republican form of Government may be nearing an end. But when Congress acts to hold this President accountable it will be redeeming the faith that the Founders had in the power of a system of checks and balances which preserves our republic.
AN ARTICLE OF IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
INTRODUCED BY CONGRESSMAN DENNIS J. KUCINICH
JULY 10, 2008
Resolved, that President George W. Bush be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following Article of Impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:
An Article of Impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against President George W. Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors.
DECEIVING CONGRESS WITH FABRICATED THREATS OF IRAQ WMDs TO FRAUDULENTLY OBTAIN SUPPORT FOR AN AUTHORIZATION OF THE USE OF MILITARY FORCE AGAINST IRAQ.
In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” deceived Congress with fabricated threats of Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) to fraudulently obtain support for an authorization for the use of force against Iraq and used that fraudulently obtained authorization, then acting in his capacity under Article II, Section II of the Constitution as Commander in Chief, to commit US troops to combat in Iraq.
To gain Congressional support for passage of the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq, the President made the following material representations to the Congress in SJ Res 45:
1. That Iraq was “continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability. …”
2. That Iraq was “actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability. …”
3. That Iraq was “continuing to threaten the national security interests of the United States and international peace and security.”
4. That Iraq has demonstrated a “willingness to attack, the United States….”
5. That “members of Al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq. …”
6. The “attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat that Iraq will transfer weapons of mass destruction to international terrorist organizations…”
7. That Iraq “will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, …”
8. That an “extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack,. .. .”
9. That the aforementioned threats “justify action by the United States to defend itself; …”
10. The enactment clause of Section 2 of SJ Res 45, the Authorization of the Use of the United States Armed Forces authorizes the President to “defend the national security interests of the United States against the threat posed by Iraq…”
Each consequential representation made by the President to the Congress in SJ Res 45, in subsequent iterations and the final version was unsupported by evidence which was in the control of the White House.
1. Iraq was not “continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability…”
“A substantial amount of Iraq’s chemical warfare agents, precursors, munitions and production equipment were destroyed between 1991 and 1998 as a result of Operation Desert Storm and United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) actions. … There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or whether Iraq has–or will–establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities.” Defense Intelligence Agency. Iraq–Key WMD Facilities–An Operational Support Study. September 2002. Available: http://www.fas.org/…
“Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.” Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Report on Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq By U.S. Government Officials Were Substantiated By Intelligence Information. June 5, 2008. Available: http://intelligence.senate.gov/…
“In April and early May 2003, military forces found mobile trailers in Iraq. Although intelligence experts disputed the purpose of the trailers, Administration officials repeatedly asserted that they were mobile biological weapons laboratories. In total, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, and National Security Advisor Rice made 34 misleading statements about the trailers in 27 separate public appearances. Shortly after the (mobile trailers were found, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) issued an unclassified white paper evaluating the trailers. The white paper was released without coordination with other members of the intelligence community, however. It was disclosed later that engineers from DIA who examined the trailers concluded that they were most likely used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons. A former senior intelligence official reported that “only one of 15 intelligence analysts assembled from three agencies to discuss the issue in June endorsed the white paper conclusion.” House Committee on Government Reform- Minority Staff. Iraq on the Record: Bush Administration’s Public Statements about Chemical and Biological Weapons. March 16, 2004. Available: http://oversight.house.gov/…
Former chief of CIA covert operations in Europe, Tyler Drumheller, has said that the CIA had credible sources discounting weapons of mass destruction claims, incuding the primary source of biological weapons claims, an informant who the Germans code-named “Curveball” whom the Germans had informed the Bush Administration was a likely fabricator and including the Niger Yellowcake forgery. Two other former CIA officers confirmed Drumheller’s account to Sidney Blumenthal who reported the story at Salon.com on September 6, 2007.
“In practical terms, with the destruction of the Al Hakam facility, Iraq abandoned its ambition to obtain advanced biological weapons (BW) weapons quickly. The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes. Indeed, from the mid-1990s, despite evidence of continuing interest in nuclear and chemical weapons, there appears to be a complete absence of discussion or even interest in BW at the Presidential level. In spite of exhaustive investigation, ISG found no evidence that Iraq possessed, or was developing BW agent production systems mounted on road vehicles or railway wagons. … ISG harbors severe doubts about the source’s credibility in regards to the breakout program.” Duelfer, Charles. Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence on Iraq’s WMD. Available: http://www.lib.umich.edu/…
“While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad’s desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered.” Duelfer, Charles. Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence on Iraq’s WMD. Available: http://www.lib.umich.edu/…
2. Iraq was not “actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability.”
The key finding of the Iraq Survey Group’s (ISG) Report to the Director of Central Intelligence found that “Iraq’s ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program progressively decayed after that date. Saddam Husayn (sic) ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf war. ISG found no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program.” Duelfer, Charles. Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence on Iraq’s WMD. Available: http://www.lib.umich.edu/…
Claims that Iraq was purchasing uranium from Niger were not supported by the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of October 2002.
The CIA had warned the British not to claim Iraq was purchasing uranium from Niger prior to the British statement that was later cited by President Bush. George Tenet, July 11, 2003
“One, there is no indication of resumed nuclear activities in those buildings that were identified through the use of satellite imagery as being reconstructed or newly erected since 1998, nor any indication of nuclear-related prohibited activities at any inspected sites. Second, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import uranium since 1990. Three, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import aluminum tubes for use n centrifuge enrichment. Moreover, even had Iraq pursued such a plan, it would have been — it would have encountered practical difficulties in manufacturing centrifuges out of the aluminum tubes in question. Fourthly, although we are still reviewing issues related to magnets and magnet production, there is no indication to date that Iraq imported magnets for use in a centrifuge enrichment program. As I stated above, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) will naturally continue further to scrutinize and investigate all of the above issues.” ElBaradei, Mohamed. Director General, International Atomic Energy Agency. Statement to the United Nations Security Council on The Status of Nuclear Inspections in Iraq: An Update. March 7, 2003. Available: http://www.iaea.org/…
3. Iraq was not “continuing to threaten the national security interests of the United States.”
“Let me be clear: analysts differed on several important aspects of [Iraq’s biological, chemical, and nuclear] programs and those debates were spelled out in the Estimate. They never said there was an ‘imminent’ threat.” Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Former CIA Director George J. Tenet at Georgetown University. February 5, 2004. Available: http://www.fas.org/…
“We have been able to keep weapons from going into Iraq … We have been able to keep the sanctions in place to the extent that items that might support weapons of mass destruction have had some controls on them … it’s been quite a success for ten years.” Powell, Colin. Secretary of State. Interview with Face the Nation. February 11, 2001.
“[British Secret Intelligence Service Chief Sir Richard Billing Dearlove] reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action. … The Foreign Secretary (of England) said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.” Rycroft, Matthew; Private Secretary to Prime Minister Tony Blair. Memo to British Ambassador to the United States David Manning. July 23, 2002. Available: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/…
4. Iraq did not have the “willingness to attack, the United States.”
“The fact of the matter is that both baskets, the UN basket and what we and other allies have been doing in the region, have succeeded in containing Saddam Hussein and his ambitions. His forces are about one-third their original size. They really don’t possess the capability to attack their neighbors the way they did ten years ago.” Powell, Colin. Secretary of State. Transcript of Remarks made to German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. February 2001. Available: http://www.usembassy-israel.org.il/…
The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concluded that “Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or [chemical or biological weapons] against the United States, fearing that exposure of Iraqi involvement would provide Washington a stronger case for making war.” Available: http://www.globalsecurity.org/…
5. Iraq had no connection with the attacks of 9/11, or with al-Qaida’s role in 9/11.
“The report [of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence] documents significant instances in which the Admnistration went beyond what the Intelligence Community knew or believed in making public claims, most notably on the false assertion that Iraq and al-Qaida had an operational partnership and joint involvement in carrying out the attacks of September 11th. The President and his advisors undertook a relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the attacks to use the war against al-Qaida as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Representing to the American people that the two had an operational partnership and posed a single, indistinguishable threat was fundamentally misleading and led the Nation to war on false premises.” Senator John D. Rockefeller IV. Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Additional Views of Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV. Page 90. Available: http://intelligence.senate.gov/…
Richard Clarke’s memo of September 18, 2001, titled Survey of Intelligence Information on Any Iraq Involvement in the September 11 Attacks found no “compelling case” that Iraq had either planned or perpetrated the attacks, and that there was no confirmed reporting on Saddam cooperating with Bin Laden on unconventional weapons http://www.9-11commission.gov/… (page 334).
On September 17, 2003, President Bush said: “No, we’ve no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th. What the vice president said was is that he (Saddam) has been involved with al-Qaida.” Available: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/…
On June 16, 2004, a Staff Report from the 9/11 Commission stated: “There has been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan [in 1996], but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. … Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.” Available: http://www.washingtonpost.com/…
“Intelligence provided by former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith to buttress the White House case for invading Iraq included “reporting of dubious quality or reliability” that supported the political views of senior administration officials rather than the conclusions of the intelligence community, according to a report by the Pentagon’s inspector general.
“Feith’s office ‘was predisposed to finding a significant relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda,’ according to portions of the report, released yesterday by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.). The inspector general described Feith’s activities as ‘an alternative intelligence assessment process.’” Pincus, Walter and Smith, R. Jeffrey. “Official’s Key Report On Iraq Is Faulted, ‘Dubious’ Intelligence Fueled Push for War.” Washington Post. February 9, 2007. A1.
6. Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction to transfer to anyone.
Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction to transfer. Furthermore, available intelligence information found that the Iraq regime would only transfer weapons of mass destruction to terrorist organizations if under severe threat of attack by the United States:
According to information in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq that was available to the Administration at the time they were seeking Congressional support for the authorization of the use of force against Iraq, the Iraq regime would transfer weapons to a terrorist organization only if “sufficiently desperate” because it feared that “an attack that threatened the survival of the regime were imminent or unavoidable… ”
“Iraq probably would attempt clandestine attacks against the US Homeland if Baghdad feared an attack that threatened the survival of the regime were imminent or unavoidable, or possibly for revenge. Such attacks — more likely with biological than chemical agents — probably would be carried out by special forces or intelligence operatives.
“The Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) probably has been directed to conduct clandestine attacks against US and Allied interests in the Middle East in the event the United States takes action against Iraq. The IIS probably would be the primary means by which Iraq would attempt to conduct any CBW attacks on the US Homeland, although we have no specific intelligence information that Saddam’s regime has directed attacks against US territory.
“Saddam, if sufficiently desperate, might decide that only an organization such as al-Qa’ida — with worldwide reach and extensive terrorist infrastructure, and already engaged in a life-or-death struggle against the United States — would perpetrate the type of terrorist attack that he would hope to conduct.
“In such circumstances, he might decide that the extreme step of assisting the Islamist terrorists in conducting a CBW attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him.” Available: http://www.globalsecurity.org/…
7. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and therefore had no capability of launching a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so…”
Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction to transfer. Furthermore, available intelligence information found that the Iraq regime would only transfer weapons of mass destruction to terrorist organizations if under severe threat of attack by the United States:
According to information in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq that was available to the Administration at the time they were seeking Congressional support for the authorization of the use of force against Iraq, the Iraq regime would transfer weapons to a terrorist organization only if “sufficiently desperate” because it feared that “an attack that threatened the survival of the regime were imminent or unavoidable…” October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. Available: http://www.globalsecurity.org/…
“Iraq probably would attempt clandestine attacks against the US Homeland if Baghdad feared an attack that threatened the survival of the regime were imminent or unavoidable, or possibly for revenge. Such attacks - more likely with biological than chemical agents - probably would be carried out by special forces or intelligence operatives.”
“The Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) probably has been directed to conduct clandestine attacks against US and Allied interests in the Middle East in the event the United States takes action against Iraq. The IIS probably would be the primary means by which Iraq would attempt to conduct any CBW attacks on the US Homeland, although we have no specific intelligence information that Saddam’s regime has directed attacks against US territory.”
“Saddam, if sufficiently desperate, might decide that only an organization such as al-Qa’ida - with worldwide reach and extensive terrorist infrastructure, and already engaged in a life-or-death struggle against the United States - would perpetrate the type of terrorist attack that he would hope to conduct.”
“In such circumstances, he might decide that the extreme step of assisting the Islamist terrorists in conducting a CBW attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him.”
As reported in the Washington Post on March 1, 2003, in 1995, Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law, Hussein Kamel had informed US and British intelligence officers that “all weapons–biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed.” Lynch, Colum. “Iraqi Defector Claimed Arms Were Destroyed by 1995.” Washington Post. A15. March 1, 2003.
“A substantial amount of Iraq’s chemical warfare agents, precursors, munitions and production equipment were destroyed between 1991 and 1998 as a result of Operation Desert Storm and United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) actions. … There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or whether Iraq has–or will–establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities.” Defense Intelligence Agency. Iraq–Key WMD Facilities–An Operational Support Study. September 2002. Available: http://www.fas.org/…
8. There was not a real risk of an “extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack” because Iraq had no capability of attacking the United States.
“Containment has been a successful policy, and I think we should make sure that we continue it until such time as Saddam Hussein comes into compliance with the agreements he made at the end of the (Gulf) War. … [Iraq is] not threatening America.” Powell, Colin. Secretary of State.
9. The aforementioned evidence did not “justify the use of force by the United States to defend itself” because Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, or have the intention or capability of using the non-existent WMD’s against the United States.
10. Since there was no threat posed by Iraq to the United States, the enactment clause was predicated on lying to Congress.
Congress relied on the information provided to it by the President of the United States. Congress provided the President with the authorization to use military force that he requested. As a consequence of the fraudulent representations made to the Congress, the United States Armed Forces, under the direction of George Bush as Commander in Chief, pursuant to Section 3 of the Authorization for the Use of Force which President Bush requested, invaded Iraq and occupies it to this day, at the cost of 4,116 lives of US service men and women, injuries to over 30,000 of our troops, the deaths of over 1,000,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, the destruction of Iraq, and a long term cost over $3 trillion.
President Bush’s misrepresentations to Congress to induce passage of a use of force resolution is subversive of the Constitutional system of checks and balances, destructive of Congress’ sole prerogative to declare war under Article I Section 8 of the Constitution, and is therefore a High Crime. An even greater offense by the President of the United States occurs in his capacity as Commander in Chief, because he knowingly placed the men and women of the United States Armed Forces in harm’s way, jeopardizing their lives and their families’ future, for reasons that to this date have not been established in fact.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States and of those members of the Armed Forces who put their lives on the line pursuant to the falsehoods of the President. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.
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WASHINGTON — June 23 — Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) today released new data showing that while women make up approximately fifteen percent of the armed forces, they account for nearly half of all “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) discharges from the Army and Air Force. Women have always been disproportionately affected by the law forbidding openly gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans from military service but the 2007 data shows a significant increase in the ban’s impact.
“Women make up fifteen percent of the armed forces, so to find they represent nearly fifty percent of Army and Air Force discharges under ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is shocking,” said SLDN executive director Aubrey Sarvis. “‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is often used as a weapon of vengeance against service members. Women in particular have been caught in the crosshairs of this counterproductive law.”
In FY 2007 women accounted for 14% of the Army’s active duty force while making up 46% of DADT discharges compared to FY 2006 when women represented 17% of the Army and made up 35% of DADT discharges. Similarly, FY 2007 data from the Air Force shows women are 20% of the force but made up 49% of DADT discharges. That number is up from FY 2006 when females made-up 20% of the Air Force and 49% of DADT discharges.
“Our nation is safer and more secure because of the contributions made by all women, including lesbian and bisexual women, in the armed forces,” said Commander Zoe Dunning, USNR (Ret.) and SLDN Board Co-chair. “The time has come for the Pentagon and military leaders to recommend Congress repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ The ban disrupts troop morale and weakens unit cohesion by forcing commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan, and around the world, to separate qualified and well trained personnel for no other reason than they are suspected of being gay,” added Dunning.
According to statistics obtained from the Pentagon for Fiscal Year 2007, the armed forces continue discharging nearly two service members per day. The separation data shows the number of discharges under ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ have fallen by 50% since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the beginning of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. In FY 2007, at least 627 military personnel were dismissed under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ban on openly gay service members, up from 612 in FY 2006.
In 2007 the Army discharged 302 soldiers, up from 280 the year before. The Air Force dismissed 91 airmen, down slightly from 102 in 2006; the Navy discharged 166 sailors, the same as the previous year; and 68 Marines were discharged, up from 64 the year before. The Coast Guard, which discharged 11 service members in 2006, has not responded to SLDN’s requests for data filed with under the Freedom of Information Act.
The military’s need for qualified and experienced personnel continues to grow. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee recently released data showing the Army has doubled the number of waivers it grants to recruits convicted of violent felonies including manslaughter, rape and kidnapping. In an attempt to meet personnel goals Pentagon leaders have recently relaxed enlistment standards regarding age, physical fitness, education and criminal records. The discharge of lesbian and gay Americans, however, continues.
A bipartisan coalition in Congress supports legislation to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law. The Military Readiness Enhancement Act (H.R. 1246), is currently co-sponsored by 143 lawmakers. The bill would repeal the current law and allow lesbian, gay and bisexual personnel to serve openly in the armed forces.
Compiled statistics on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” are available from SLDN Communication Director Adam Ebbin at aebbin@sldn.org. Additional information is online at www.sldn.org.
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network is a national, non-profit legal services, watchdog and policy organization dedicated to ending discrimination against and harassment of military personnel affected by “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and related forms of intolerance. For more information, visit www.sldn.org.
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Next time some dolt says it’s “unpatriotic” to criticize the President, repeat what George W. Bush said on Friday, March 10, 2006, at the National Newspaper Association’s Government Affairs Conference:
Q. … My question is about your sense of the free speech right in the classroom or in public to criticize you without being considered unpatriotic.THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I think people should be allowed to criticize me all they want, and they do. (Laughter.) Now what are you all laughing at over there? (Laughter.) Don’t cheer him on. (Laughter.)
Look, there are some certain basic freedoms that we’ve got to protect. The freedom of people to express themselves must be protected. …
The right for people to express themselves in the public square is a freedom. Obviously, there’s limitations. If, for example, someone is inciting violence, or the destruction of property, or public — causing somebody harm. But the idea of being able to express yourself is a sacred part of our society. And that’s what distinguishes us from the Taliban. And that’s important for Americans to understand.
We’re in an ideological struggle. And one way for people to connect the ideological struggle with reality is to think about what life was like for people under the rule of the Taliban. If you didn’t agree with their view of religion, you were punished. … These people have a backward view.
So thank you for bringing that up; I appreciate it. People say to me, my buddies in Texas, how do you handle all this stuff? After a while, you get used to it. (Laughter.)
President Bush’s comments on Jay Bennish
Denver Post
March 10, 2006
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A must-read, and must-bookmark:
The Case for Impeachment:
Why we can no longer afford George W. Bush…House Resolution 635 [introduced by Congressman John Conyers Jr. (D., Mich.), is not] a high-minded tilting at windmills but the production of a report, 182 pages, 1,022 footnotes, assembled by Conyers’s staff during the six months prior to its presentation to Congress, that describes the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq as the perpetration of a crime against the American people. It is a fair description. Drawing on evidence furnished over the last four years by a sizable crowd of credible witnesses … the authors of the report find a conspiracy to commit fraud, the administration talking out of all sides of its lying mouth, secretly planning a frivolous and unnecessary war while at the same time pretending in its public statements that nothing was further from the truth. …
Entitled “The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War,” the Conyers report examines the administration’s chronic abuse of power from more angles than can be explored within the compass of a single essay. The nature of the administration’s criminal DNA and modus operandi, however, shows up in a usefully robust specimen of its characteristic dishonesty.
That President George W. Bush comes to power with the intention of invading Iraq is a fact not open to dispute. … At the first meeting of the new National Security Council on January 30, 2001, most of the people in the room discuss the possibility of preemptive blitzkrieg against Baghdad. … Six months later, early in the afternoon of September 11, the smoke still rising from the Pentagon’s western facade, Secretary Rumsfeld tells his staff to fetch intelligence briefings (the “best info fast… go massive; sweep it all up; things related and not”) that will justify an attack on Iraq. …
By November 13, 2001, the Taliban have been rousted out of Kabul in Afghanistan, but our intelligence agencies have yet to discover proofs of Saddam Hussein’s acquaintance with Al Qaeda. President Bush isn’t convinced. On November 21, at the end of a National Security Council meeting, he says to Secretary Rumsfeld, “What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq?…I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret.”
The Conyers report doesn’t return to the President’s focus on Iraq until March 2002, when it finds him peering into the office of Condoleezza Rice, the national security advisor, to say, “Fuck Saddam. We’re taking him out.” At a Senate Republican Policy lunch that same month on Capitol Hill, Vice President Dick Cheney informs the assembled company that it is no longer a question of if the United States will attack Iraq, it’s only a question of when. The vice president doesn’t bring up the question of why, the answer to which is a work in progress. By now the administration knows, or at least has reason to know, that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, that Iraq doesn’t possess weapons of mass destruction sufficiently ominous to warrant concern, that the regime destined to be changed poses no imminent threat, certainly not to the United States, probably not to any country defended by more than four batteries of light artillery. …
By early August the Bush Administration has sufficient confidence in its doomsday story to sell it to the American public. …
Before reading the report, I wouldn’t have expected to find myself thinking that such a course of action was either likely or possible; after reading the report, I don’t know why we would run the risk of not impeaching the man. We have before us in the White House a thief who steals the country’s good name and reputation for his private interest and personal use; a liar who seeks to instill in the American people a state of fear; a televangelist who engages the United States in a never-ending crusade against all the world’s evil, a wastrel who squanders a vast sum of the nation’s wealth on what turns out to be a recruiting drive certain to multiply the host of our enemies. In a word, a criminal — known to be armed and shown to be dangerous. Under the three-strike rule available to the courts in California, judges sentence people to life in jail for having stolen from Wal-Mart a set of golf clubs or a child’s tricycle. Who then calls strikes on President Bush, and how many more does he get before being sent down on waivers to one of the Texas Prison Leagues?
Lewis H. Lapham
The Case for Impeachment:
Why we can no longer afford George W. Bush
Harper’s Magazine
February 27, 2006
Click the link and read the entire article.
Also read this: “Impeaching George W. Bush,” by Onnesha Roychoudhuri (AlterNet, March 6, 2006).
Finally, and most importantly, a 273-compilation of the Conyers report is here (PDF).
We’re almost home, folks. We’re almost home.
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Skim the article if you must, but kindly read my comments at the end…
When all three major US newsweeklies — Time, Newsweek and US News & World Report — run major features on the same day on possible government lying, you can bet you have the makings of a major scandal.And when the two most important outlets of neo-conservative opinion — The Weekly Standard and The Wall Street Journal — come out on the same days with lead editorials spluttering outrage about suggestions of government lying, you can bet that things are going to get very hot as summer approaches in Washington.
The controversy over whether the administration of President George W Bush either exaggerated or lied about evidence that it said it had about the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq before the US-led invasion has mushroomed over the past week.
“This is potentially very serious,” said one Congressional aide. “If it’s shown we went to war because of intelligence that was ‘cooked’ by the administration, heads will have to roll, and not just little heads, big ones.”
The administration was already on the defensive last week as the controversy took off in Europe, particularly in Britain where Prime Minister Tony Blair found himself assailed from all directions for either willfully exaggerating the intelligence himself or being “suckered”, as his former foreign minister Robin Cook called it this weekend, by Washington’s neo-conservative hawks, who started agitating for war even before the dust settled in lower Manhattan after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Matters took a turn for the worse when the London Guardian reported the existence of a transcript, obviously leaked from a senior British official, of an exchange at the Waldorf Hotel in New York between US Secretary of State Colin Powell and British Foreign Minister Jack Straw just before Powell’s presentation of the evidence against Iraq before the United Nations Security Council February 5.
It quotes Powell, whose forceful case to the council was decisive in persuading US public opinion that Baghdad represented a serious threat, as being “apprehensive” about the evidence presented to him by the intelligence agencies. He reportedly expressed the hope that the actual facts, when they came out, would not “explode in their faces”. (At a Rome press conference on Monday, Powell insisted that he considered the evidence “overwhelming” when he spoke before the council.)
But it appears that Powell’s musing was accurate, as, after almost two months in uncontested control of Iraq, US troops and investigators have failed to come up with concrete evidence of an Iraqi WMD program, let alone an actual weapon.
The scenario of an uneasy Powell received a major boost in the accounts of the three newsweeklies. US News reported, for example, that during a rehearsal of Powell’s presentation at Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters on February 1, the normally mild-mannered retired general at one point “tossed several pages in the air. ‘I’m not reading this’, he declared. ‘This is bullshit’.“
The same magazine also reported that the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) formally concluded that “there is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons” in September 2002, just as Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld was telling Congress that the Baghdad “regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas”.
The accounts of Newsweek and Time were similarly damning. One “informed military source” told Newsweek that when the US Central Command (CENTCOM) asked the CIA for specific WMD targets that should be destroyed in the first stages of the invasion, the agency only complied reluctantly. But what it provided “was crap”, a CENTCOM planner told the magazine, consisting mainly of buildings that were bombed in the first Gulf War in 1991.
If true, that contradicts a series of bald assertions by administration officials and their supporters over the last nine months. “Simply stated,” Vice President Dick Cheney declared in the first call to arms last August, “there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction”.
“We know where [the WMD] are,” declared Rumsfeld in a television interview March 30, well into the first week of the war. “They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.” He has since retreated from that certainty, suggesting last week that the Iraqis “may have had time to destroy them, and I don’t know the answer”.
There is also growing doubt about the evidence that Bush himself touted this weekend as proof — two truck trailers described by officials as mobile weapons-productions labs. According to a CIA report noted in the Slate Internet magazine, key equipment for growing, sterilizing and drying bacteria was not present in either trailer. Iraqi officials have said that the trailers were used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Matthew Meselson, a Harvard University expert on biological weapons who 20 years ago single-handedly debunked reports by senior Ronald Reagan administration officials — several of whom hold relevant positions in the Bush government — about the use by Soviet allies of mycotoxins against rebels in Laos and Afghanistan, has also expressed doubts about the trailers’ purpose, and called for the CIA to hand over the evidence to independent scientists to make an assessment.
Retired intelligence officials from both the CIA and the DIA are also coming out with ever-stronger statements accusing the intelligence community of twisting and exaggerating the evidence to justify war. They say that both agencies were intimidated by the political pressure exerted, in particular by neo-conservative hawks under Cheney and Rumsfeld, who even established a special unit in the defense secretary’s office to determine what intelligence was “missing”.
Much of the evidence on which the WMD case was based came from defectors supplied by the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an exile group headed by Ahmed Chalabi that has been championed by the neo-conservatives — including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Cheney chief of staff I Lewis Libby and Defense Policy Board members Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman and James Woolsey — for more than a decade.
Retired senior CIA, DIA and State Department intelligence officers, including the CIA’s former counter-terrorism chief Vince Cannistraro and the DIA’s former chief of Middle East intelligence W Patrick Lang, have also spoken bluntly to reporters about what they call the administration’s corruption of the intelligence process to justify war.
Both the CIA and State Department have long distrusted the INC and Chalabi, in particular, although he remains the Pentagon’s favorite for leading an interim government in Baghdad.
All of this has outraged the administration, which insists that the intelligence community was united in its assessment about the existence of WMD, and its neo-conservative defenders. The Wall Street Journal on Monday accused the “French and the European left” of trying to tarnish the US victory and charged that discontent among CIA analysts was spurred by resentment of Rumsfeld.
But even the Journal appeared to be moving away from its previous position that Iraq’s alleged WMD constituted a threat to the US and its allies. “Whether or not WMD is found takes nothing away from the Iraq war victory,” it said, citing the gains made in human rights by Saddam Hussein’s demise.
Nonetheless, what the administration knew about WMD and when it knew it — to paraphrase the famous Watergate questions — are now claiming the limelight, to the administration’s clear discomfort. On Sunday, the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said that he hoped to begin hearings — with the Select Committee on Intelligence — before the July 4 recess, while the ranking member of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee has asked the CIA to produce a report by July 1 reconciling its pre-war assessments with actual findings on the ground.
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but…
Inter Press Service via Asia Times
June 4, 2003Alternate link:
Credibility Gap, Anyone?
[Yahoo! News]
This is exactly what I’ve been saying: The Disinformation Dam is bursting at the seams, folks! All the signs are there that the pretext of “weapons of mass destruction” as an excuse to invade Iraq was a lie — as if you didn’t know that already. What’s really important is that the mainstream American media is finally beginning to swarm all over the story — and better, the right-wing media (including righty bloggers) are absolutely livid about it.
The sheer outrage of the Right over any story is always an excellent indicator of how much credence the Right gives that story. In other words, the more pissed-off RW commentators get, the more you know they believe it’s true, too — and they’re running scared. Equally as predictable — and just as good an indicator — is the sudden infiltration of left-wing message boards by right-wingers with a sudden, renewed desperation to attack the left (and defend Bush). Believe it — I’ve seen it happen repeatedly, with monotonous regularity.
Now, listen: This is no time for you to sit back and breathe a sigh of relief because it appears the truth is finally coming to light. You have a job to do — and that job is to make sure the truth is hammered home to the American people.
Why just the American people? Because Joe Sixpack is still in the throes of denial — the last throes, mind you, but still stubbornly unwilling to see what’s right in front of his Coors-guzzling puss.
And why is Joe Sixpack cowering in this cocoon of denial? Joe isn’t stupid, and — while I often allude to American laziness and media-medicated dullness — the truth is that Joe knows in his gut that something is amiss, but (to lift a Jack Nicholson line), he can’t handle the truth.
There’s a most interesting thread going on at Democratic Underground, which I recommend you read if you’d like to get a bead on why Joe Sixpack refuses to hear what we’re trying to tell him.
Edjohn asks:
Why do most Americans approve of the President’s job performance?
Among the answers I favor:
“its a comfort thing… Is the pilot who is flying your plan competent? If your answer is no you are going to have a very unsettling, white-knuckle flight. Most people think the president (any president) is doing a good job because the alterative is just too terrible to contemplate.”
“Inability to entertain the idea they’ve been played for fools … But on a more personal and individual level (multiplied by millions), I’m afraid that a lot of Americans formed an emotional bond with [Bush] following 9/11. People were shocked, angry, fearful, and they needed reassurance and revenge. … To many people [Bush] came to embody patriotism and American values. … Psychologically and emotionally, it is nearly impossible for most people to admit to themselves that they were so profoundly deceived. By investing their trust and belief in [Bush], his agenda became theirs… Shrubco’s war was America’s war was THEIR war. To admit the war was a crime is tantamount to admitting being a criminal.”
“…the country was put through enormous trauma in the build-up to the war; trauma that has not been healed by the disastrous post-war chaos and failure to find WMDs; trauma that will be exacerbated as the US KIA count continues to climb (it will be over 500 by election day). I believe many of those so angry about the anti-war voices were expressing cognitive dissonance; were/are fighting to drown out the truth in their own minds.”
“Because they’re stupid and too proud to admit they were wrong about him.”
“Some people have a hard time admitting they are wrong. So they supported him and now they are stuck supporting him. Especially when they know people like me who won’t hesitate to tell them ‘I told you so.’”
Do read this thread — particularly the posts from “Emillereid,” discussing cognitive dissonance (which are much too long to quote here, but are absolutely fascinating if you have any interest whatsoever in the way the human mind rejects information — and offer some ideas for combatting resistance).
Now, go spread the word! Blog, baby, blog!
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Or, rather, for a few moments — I’m going to be out of town and unable to update for a few days — so if you’re starved for biting liberal commentary on the latest news, make sure to check any or all of the wonderful sites I have listed on the left right side of the page.
In the meantime, here are the tantalizing headlines that caught my attention this morning — and which I would have loved to blog, were I not in such a hurry to subject myself to yet another search at the hands of overzealous security people protecting harmless citizens like myself at one of the nation’s finest airports. (Did I ever mention, I hate going to the airport?)
Enjoy! (Well, maybe that’s not the right word…)
British PM shrugs off storm over weapons on visit to Iraq [Toronto Star: World]
POW ‘torture photos’ investigated. An inquiry starts into allegations Iraqi prisoners of war were mistreated, after British soldiers allegedly took pictures of the abuse. [BBC News | Front Page | UK Edition]
Toronto Sars scare grows. The number of people believed to have Sars in Toronto leaps, while thousands more are quarantined. [BBC News | Front Page | UK Edition]
Bush in Cracow/Poland. A nice carnival protest is being held now in Cracow against the imperial politics by G. W. Bush Jr. About 600 people is marching/dancing/noise maki… — www.indymedia.org:8080 [www.indymedia.org:8080 newswire]
Anti-globalization horde on offence. The two alternative villages met in their first demonstration on Thursday afternoon , to counter the efforts of local propaganda criminalizing the … — www.indymedia.org:8080 [www.indymedia.org:8080 newswire]
A Stray Thought: Are all Mac users left-wing Liberals?. “Don’t lie to me, Gustav! You’re a stinkin’ Mac user!” — indymedia.org:8080 [indymedia.org:8080 newswire]
How Much Is Enough?. The Bush administration is learning a simple if unwelcome lesson: it will take more troops to police and secure Iraq than it did to destroy the Saddam Hussein regime. By Michael R. Gordon. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]
Utah recruits firing squad. Officials in the US state of Utah are recruiting a firing squad after two death row convicts elect to be shot. [BBC News | World | UK Edition]
Former Attorney General Says Bush Should Be Impeached [IraqWar.ru (English)]
Blast shakes Canadian troops in Kabul [The Globe And Mail: International]
Blair: Eurosceptics are deluded [Guardian Unlimited: Politics]
Canadian veteran saves plane from hijacker [The Globe And Mail: International]
Canada ready to send peacekeeping troops to settle Palestinian-Israeli conflict [Pravda.RU: World]
British soldier arrested over abuse allegations [The Globe And Mail: International]
Canadian parliamentary committee backs gay marriage [Gay.com UK]
Bush Wants to Avoid Confrontation on Europe Trip [Reuters]
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President Bush to mark Memorial Day with a wreath-laying at Arlington National Cemetery, paying special tribute to troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. …“Each Memorial Day, we pray for peace throughout the world, remembering what was gained and what was lost during times of war,” the president said in a Memorial Day proclamation.
“From the bravery of the men at Valley Forge, to the daring of Normandy, the courage of Iwo Jima and the steady resolve in Afghanistan and Iraq, our men and women in uniform have won for us every hour that we live in freedom.” …
Bush to Pay Tribute to Troops in Iraq
Optimum Online
May 26, 2003Positively shameful. Or perhaps a better word is “shameless.”
George, what do you know about serving your country in time of war? Where were you in ‘72?
This “desertion” can not be swept under the rug like some traffic ticket. This crime is an offense to every man and women in America and especially those that have served and those that are currently serving our nation in the Armed Forces.
And courage? What do you know of courage? You’re a Vietnam War deserter who sends our young men and women into harm’s way for the purpose of conquering a smaller, weaker country on the premise of… What is it this week, George? Is it still weapons of mass destruction? Or are we back to liberating the Iraqis again? Or shall we return to the deception of avenging the September 11th attacks by invading a country that had nothing to do with 9-11?
And bravery? This, from the Commander-in-Chief who spent September 11, 2001, puddle-jumping across the country in Air Force One while the rest of the nation wondered where you were, what you were doing, and why you didn’t provide us the anchor of sanity and reassurance we needed, when we needed it the most?
I won’t even get into your aircraft-carrier landing stunt. Or the way you plan to exploit the deaths of 3,000 Americans for the benefit of your 2004 election campaign.
My father was a veteran of World War II. He died, a proud patriot, more than a decade ago. Not a day has passed that I don’t miss him, more than words can say.
And yet — for his sake — I’m glad he’s not here this Memorial Day to witness this dishonor to him, and to all servicemen and women who have fulfilled their sworn duty — and worn their uniforms proudly, bravely, and legitimately.
George, this is one day you should have stayed in Crawford and kept a low profile.
To me, it is an affront to the Americans killed or injured in Iraq for the President to exploit the trappings of war for the momentary spectacle of a speech.Senator Robert Byrd
May 7, 2003
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed Under: Afghanistan, George W. Bush, Iraq, Military/DADT, September 11
May 25, 2003
Dear Iraqis…
Greetings from America!
How are things? Oops, sorry — I guess that was a pretty insensitive question. Things suck, don’t they?
I hear Uncle Sam’s been fudging the number of civilians slaughtered by coalition troops — not, of course, that this comes as news to you or me; I’ve been tortured sick since Day One of Georgie Boy’s “war” by the few reports that did manage to trickle out — but I did want to let you know that at least now the truth is finally beginning to come out in American news sources:
Evidence is mounting to suggest that between 5,000 and 10,000 Iraqi civilians may have died during the recent war, according to researchers involved in independent surveys of the country. …Such a range would make the Iraq war the deadliest campaign for noncombatants that US forces have fought since Vietnam. …
By one measure of violence against noncombatants, as compared with resistance faced by soldiers, the war in Iraq was particularly brutal. In Operation Just Cause, the 1989 US invasion of Panama, 13 Panamanian civilians died for every US military fatality. If 5,000 Iraqi civilians died in the latest war, that proportion would be 33 to 1. …
The US Department of Defense has refused to give any sort of estimate on deaths. …
(Hey, now, don’t let the “Christian” in “Christian Science Monitor” turn you off — it’s a
damneddarned good source of information.)I also hear that those of you left alive and in captivity by the U.S. are being treated as badly as — if not worse than — the Gitmo prisoners (if that’s even possible, in light of the news that the U.S. “has floated plans to turn Guantanamo Bay into a death camp, with its own death row and execution chamber”):
The United States is illegally holding thousands of Iraqi prisoners of war and other captives without access to human rights officials at compounds close to Baghdad airport, The Observer has learnt.There have also been reports of a mutiny last week by prisoners at an airport compound, in protest against conditions. The uprising was ‘dealt with’ by the Americans, according to a US military source.
The International Committee of the Red Cross so far has been denied access to what the organisation believes could be as many as 3,000 prisoners held in searing heat. All other requests to inspect conditions under which prisoners are being held have been met with silence or been turned down.
There is circumstantial evidence that prisoners are being gagged and hooded, in the manner of the Afghans and other captives held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba — treatment in itself questionable under international law. …
My God, I’m sorry. I’m especially sorry there’s not a damned thing I can do about it. I’ll just keep bringing such atrocities to light here, in the hopes of awakening a few sleepyheads among the nearly 288 million Americans happily encased in their big, collective coma.
That’s all I can do.
Now, listen, Iraqis, I know the last you need is any more bad news, but frankly, I’m concerned about your health. No, no, I’m not being facetious — I mean, if you’ve read along this far, it means you’re still alive, and have at least one working eye (unless you’ve been blinded in a bomb blast, and somebody has to read this to you). In any case, aside from the possibility that you’re starving to death, missing a limb or two, and in danger of getting your ass shot off in the streets of Baghdad tonight, I’m worried about your longterm health prospects.
You see, there’s a whole lot of depleted uranium (DU) lying around your neighborhood right now. DU is, simply, “a very dense metal fashioned from low-level radioactive waste, allows [conventional munitions] to easily pierce armor and buildings that would deflect other projectiles.”
Yeah, well, the problem is, that “low-level radioactive waste” has pierced more than a few human bodies, too, and some of you folks are walking around (or lying in your hospital beds) with radioactive shrapnel in your bellies.
The really scary thing, though, is that you didn’t have to take a hit from U.S. fire to be affected by DU. The U.S. government plays down the dangers of exposure to DU, but — come on — is there a single Pentagon official who’d be willing to have the stuff lying around his backyard in order to prove there’s no risk?
Go talk to the widows of the tens of thousands of Gulf War I veterans who died after returning home from Kuwait — or talk to those who lived long enough to sire babies with “severe deformities, including missing eyes, blood infections, respiratory problems, and fused fingers.” (Just what do you think “Gulf War Syndrome” is, anyway?) Or go talk to the Afghans who show “‘astonishing’ levels of uranium in their urine.”
You can speculate all you like about what the longterm health hazards of DU exposure might be, or — like the terminally corrupt American media and the idiots who lap it up — you can swallow the official propaganda and blow off the idea that all those tons of DU we left lying around Kuwait and Iraq in ‘91 are dangerous.
So, dear Iraqis, if your local hospital hasn’t been bombed out of existence, ransacked, or filled beyond capacity already, I urge you to go get tested as soon as poss—
Wait, what am I saying? You’re just trying to stay alive at this point, aren’t you?
Damn, sorry. I forgot that for a second. That’s too easy to do in the comfort of my nice, big, American house, with a PBS special on Mexican music providing pleasant white noise in the background, as I kick back with my keyboard on my lap, and wonder idly what I’m going to make for dinner tonight.
See, Iraqis, that’s the problem with us Americans: We’re too fat and sleepy and ignorant to realize you don’t have a lot of choice in anything anymore. Betcha never thought this was what “liberation” and “democracy” were all about, didja?
I apologize. I’ll do better. I can’t promise my fellow countrymen will do better, but I’ll try. Really I will.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed Under: Afghanistan, Chemical Weapons/DU, Civil Rights, George W. Bush, Guantanamo Bay, Health & Wellness, Iraq
May 14, 2003
Special “Hunt ‘em Down & Bring ‘em to Justice” Edition
We’re not just going out there to win — we’re going out there for glory! We’re going to yank ‘em, tear ‘em, and rip ‘em! We’re going to roll ‘em around and rip ‘em up! Then we’re going to slaughter ‘em! After the slaughter is over, we’ll come back here, and ring that victory bell… like we always wanted to!
— Coach, Grease
President George W. Bush vowed on Tuesday to bring to justice the culprits in the fatal apartment bombings in Saudi Arabia, saying the attacks showed that the war on terror continues.
“These despicable acts were committed by killers whose only faith is hate and the United States will find the killers and they will learn the meaning of American justice,” Bush told an audience in Indianapolis. …Oh, that’s rich! Excuse me for a moment — I have to wipe the tears from my eyes. This guy is such a card… cracks me up every time…
We will find these people… We will find those responsible and bring them to justice.George W. Bush
September 11, 2001We will find those who did it. We will smoke them out of their holes, we’ll get them running, and we’ll bring them to justice. … We will find them in their hiding places, and we’ll get them moving, and we’ll bring them to justice.
George W. Bush
September 15, 2001Our military action is also designed to clear the way for sustained, comprehensive and relentless operations to drive them out and bring them to justice.
George W. Bush
October 7, 2001We won’t forget what took place. And we will bring them to justice. We’ll bring them to justice in Afghanistan, and we’ll bring them to justice… And if it’s in our national security interests to bring people to justice, I will use a military tribunal. … My job is to protect the United States people… And that’s exactly what I’m going to do and, at the same time, bring al Qaeda to justice. … Those nations… better be aware… because they will be brought to justice. … But, evidently, there are terrorists who can’t stand the thought of peace, and they must be brought to justice.
George W. Bush
December 5, 2001We get all kinds of reports — that he is in a cave, that he is not in a cave… But when the dust clears, we will find out where he is and he will be brought to justice. … He is not escaping us. … He’s on the run. …we’re going to get him running and keep him running, and bring him to justice.
George W. Bush
December 28, 2001[We must] hunt down the killers and the terrorists wherever they try to hide and bring them to justice.
George W. Bush
January 24, 2002First, we will shut down terrorist camps, disrupt terrorist plans and bring terrorists to justice.
George W. Bush
January 29, 2002…the surest way to make sure our children grow up in a peaceful and free society, is to be relentless in our pursuit of those who would harm America, those who hate freedom, and bring them to justice.
George W. Bush
February 4, 2002We’ve got to find those al Qaeda killers and bring them to justice.
George W. Bush
April 5, 2002…it reminds me of what was done to us there on September 11th, and how important it is that… we chase down these killers one by one, and bring them to justice.
George W. Bush
May 14, 2002…this country must have the will and the determination to chase these killers down, one by one, and bring them to justice. And that’s exactly what is going to happen, so long as I am the President of the United States of America.
George W. Bush
May 17, 2002The best way for me to do my most important job… is to go on the offense and chase them down one by one, and bring them to justice, which is precisely what America is going to do.
George W. Bush
June 3, 2002You need to know that the United States of America will track the terrorists down, one by one, and bring them to justice. … We’re going to get ‘em on the run, and we’re going to keep them on the run until we bring them to justice.
George W. Bush
July 18, 2002I know that the best way to secure the homeland is to hunt these cold-blooded killers down, one by one, and bring them to justice. And that’s what we’re going to do.
George W. Bush
July 22, 2002I made the pledge to myself and to people that I’m not going to forget what happened on Sept. 11. So long as I’m president, we will pursue the killers and bring them to justice.
George W. Bush
September 11, 2002I have told Vladimir Putin … an objective that’s important for the United States — and that is to get the al Qaeda killers and bring them to justice.
George W. Bush
September 16, 2002We’re going to hunt them down one at a time… As we work with our friends, we will find them and bring them to justice.
George W. Bush
November 22, 2002And overseas we’re chasing the killers down one person at a time. …this nation will stay on course to find them, to bring them to justice…
George W. Bush
November 27, 2002What’s important is we continue to disrupt his network, to bring people to justice and to “haul ‘em in,” as I like to put it. And, you know, [Osama is] holed up somewhere evidently… and when we find him holed up somewhere we’re going in, either we or our buddies are going in to, to bring him to justice. I promised the people right after September the 11th that we would not — we would not tire in our effort to make sure that not only people were brought to justice, but that our children could grow up in a peaceful society, and I will continue to uphold that promise and continue to do everything in our power to bring people to justice. … I want to know whether or not the top al Qaeda generals have been brought to justice.
George W. Bush
December 13, 2002The terrorists who struck the United States are still determined… But we are even more determined to hunt them down one by one, to disrupt their plans, and to bring them to justice.
George W. Bush
February 20, 2003Stay tuned for the Special “We Will Find WMD” Edition — that is, if I can hunt ‘em all down… and bring ‘em to justice!
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed Under: Afghanistan, George W. Bush, Homeland Insecurity, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, September 11
May 2, 2003
All the News You Missed Today
Okay, not all the news — just the stuff I’m ruminating on… er, on which I’m ruminating…
There was white stuff in Southern California last night — in the form of a great big snow job from Resident Dubs aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln. He snowed them up north in Santa Clara, too — “them” being a crowd of hand-picked automatons pre-programmed to applaud wildly every time Junior stopped to take a breath during his sales pitch for his big tax cut. Hear tell major Silicon Valley leaders spoiled by a long and close working relationship with Presidents Clinton and Gore were not invited to the
clusterfu—speech. circle jer—Your intrepid analyst stayed up late last night finishing a long response to Dubbie’s talk to the troops, and decided to shelve the whole thing; it was just too long. Instead, kindly direct your attention to this most excellent open letter to the Commando-in-Chief, from the blessedly fair-minded San Jose Mercury News — which says everything we’d all like to say, but much more politely. This is a must-must-must-read you’ll truly appreciate, even if you’ve never been to the Golden State.
Couldn’t help but notice the Shrubster’s crowing, in both speeches, about how nicely the U.S. put the Taliban out of business in Afghanistan (you know — the country we laid waste to a year and a half ago).
Said Dubs: “In the battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed one of the most barbaric regimes in the history of mankind. A regime so barbaric, they would not allow young girls to go to school.”
Which makes today’s grammatically-awkward AP headline — Afghan Women Urged to Dress Traditional — a curious juxtaposition indeed. Don’t buy the no-big-deal tone of the story; Afghan women (at least outside of Kabul) are no better off than they ever were. Their oppressors are the Afghan warlords now — who are doing a lot worse than merely “urging” women to don the hijab.
So don’t let Bush & Rummy’s happy talk fool you. And, judging from America’s sorry track record, it’s an even-money bet that we’ll pull out and leave the country to its own grim fate, just like we did the first time around. (For news and commentary from those who really know what’s going on over there, you’ll find no better source than RAWA.)
Speaking of countries that hate our guts, what’s up with Iraq? Well, when I read the first headline this a.m., I thought I’d fallen into some parallel universe: The U.S. has decided to divide Iraq into three “military sectors,” divvying up duty among itself, Britain, and Poland. (Gee, guess Australia’s 2,000 elite SAS troops were no match for Poland’s 700 regular grunts — maybe the Aussies didn’t kill enough Iraqis to merit their own sector — and maybe that’s what Little Johnny Howard has come to ‘Murika to discuss with the Boy King).
Six more countries — Spain, Italy, Denmark, Bulgaria, Ukraine and the Netherlands — are going to help out in the British and Polish sectors, while the U.S. is telling the United Nations (remember them?) that although the U.N. can provide humanitarian aid, it won’t be “allowed” to contribute to peacekeeping efforts. Well, boo-hoo — the U.N. isn’t interested in playing Police Squad, anyway; Kofi Annan says he’s more interested in “political facilitation.” Good for you, Kofi — they’re going to need it.
Now, don’t get your hopes up that the arrival of all these new international troops are going to bring our men and women home any sooner; the influx of all those Italians and Bulgarians and the rest are only going to “augment” the troops already there.
Of course, France, Germany, and Russia all got the royal Dub Snub.
Meanwhile, the folks in Fallujah — where U.S. troops shot and killed a bunch of protesters last week — say they’ll start lobbing bombs (instead of mere grenades) at occupying forces if the U.S. refuses to clear out. The locals are Sunnis — and some of them believe the troops’ sunglasses offer X-ray vision. Yes, really.
Three-dot quickies: Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle again demonstrated his need for a spinal implant in another shameless display of sucking up to Sonny Bush… Maybe Ashcroft’s dog ate the fax (or the courier); either way, some evidence about false testimony from a key witness in the Timothy McVeigh trial was never revealed to the Oklahoma City bomber’s defense team… Finally, Col. Matthew F. Bogdanos (in real life, the lead prosecutor in the Sean “Puffy” Combs’ nightclub-shooting trial, and well-known pit bull), in charge of investigating the rape of Iraq’s National Museum, is trying to convince the public that — contrary to reports of more than 170,000 priceless antiquities stolen from Baghdad — no more than 25 are missing (which may just be his way of saying the other 169,975 were smashed to bits).
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed Under: Afghanistan, Al Gore, Australia/NZ, Bill Clinton, Business/Economy, California, Crime, Democrats, Donald Rumsfeld, Europe, George W. Bush, Homeland Insecurity, Iraq, Misc. Bush Lackeys, United Kingdom & N.I.
April 28, 2003
The War Is Over… Again
No, not Iraq — Afghanistan. Seems Washington has seen fit to end combat… twice (note the date on each article):
U.S. officials have concluded after 10 months of war that the combat mission of U.S. conventional military troops in Afghanistan is largely over and that whatever fighting remains is likely to be carried out by small numbers of Special Forces troops and CIA operatives.War Shifts From Combat Sweeps to Small Units Probing Shadows
Washington Post
July 7, 2002Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today he will meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to discuss a formal declaration ending combat operations by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and shifting their role to promoting stability in most parts of the country.
U.S. to Announce End of Afghan Combat
Washington Post
April 27, 2003Speaking of Afghanistan, were you aware that Rummy was planning on a trip there? Well, he’s canceled it — and he’s not saying why.
Let’s try to figure out why, shall we? Could it be the ongoing rocket attacks on U.S. targets, or land mines (that just killed 22 troops (including ten U.S. soldiers)? Could it be the “factional fighting” on the Afghanistan-Turkmenistan border? Could it be the warning of suicide attacks by those to whom the Afghan warlords refer as “many bin Ladens“?
I say all of the above. Not that Rummy would ever be in actual physical danger himself, mind you — but he might have a bit of trouble explaining that the fighting bloody well isn’t over… and never was.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed Under: Afghanistan, Donald Rumsfeld, Iraq
April 27, 2003
Gitmo Update: Rummy, Myers Dis Concerns for Child Welfare
A senior United Nations envoy has called on the United States to take prompt action over the fate of three teenage boys being held with other terror suspects in its prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Olara Otunnu, the special representative for the rights of children in war, told BBC News that the UN expected America to fulfil its obligations under international law.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has defended the detention of the boys — aged between 13 and 15 — at Camp Delta, saying they are “enemy combatants”, captured while fighting for the Taleban or al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
General Richard Myers, chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the boys were being held “for a very good reason — for our safety”.
“They may be juveniles — but they’re not on a Little League team anywhere,” he said at a news conference along with Mr Rumsfeld at the Pentagon on Friday.
“They’re on a major league team, and it’s a terrorist team. Some have killed. Some have stated they’re going to kill again.” …
If the teenagers were found to have been fighting as child soldiers, Mr Otunnu said, they should be demobilised, reintegrated and rehabilitated. …
“We do not sentence children to jail. We do not punish them. We give them healing and get them rehabilitated.”
One of the youths has been identified by Canadian media reports as a Canadian citizen wanted by the US over a grenade attack in Afghanistan which killed a US soldier. …
“That the US sees nothing wrong with holding children at Guantanamo and interrogating them is a shocking indicator of how cavalier the Bush administration has become about respecting human rights,” [Amnesty International] spokesman Alistair Hodgett told the Associated Press news agency.
US challenged over boy prisoners
BBC News
April 26, 2003
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed Under: Afghanistan, Donald Rumsfeld, Guantanamo Bay, Youth
Officials ADMIT No WMD; War = Excuse to Flex U.S. Muscle
Reason for War? White House Officials Say Privately the Sept. 11 Attacks Changed Everything
To build its case for war with Iraq, the Bush administration argued that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but some officials now privately acknowledge the White House had another reason for war — a global show of American power and democracy.
Officials inside government and advisers outside told ABC News the administration emphasized the danger of Saddam’s weapons to gain the legal justification for war from the United Nations and to stress the danger at home to Americans.
“We were not lying,” said one official. “But it was just a matter of emphasis.” …
The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks changed everything, including the Bush administration’s thinking about the Middle East — and not just Saddam Hussein.
Senior officials decided that unless action was taken, the Middle East would continue to be a breeding ground for terrorists. Officials feared that young Arabs, angry about their lives and without hope, would always looking for someone to hate — and that someone would always be Israel and the United States.
Europeans thought the solution was to get a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. But American officials felt a Middle East peace agreement would only be part of the solution.
The Bush administration… decided it must flex muscle to show it would fight terrorism, not just here at home and not just in Afghanistan against the Taliban, but in the Middle East, where it was thriving.
Officials deny that Bush was captured by the aggressive views of neo-conservatives. But Bush did agree with some of their thinking. …
The Bush administration wanted to make a statement about its determination to fight terrorism. And officials acknowledge that Saddam had all the requirements to make him, from their standpoint, the perfect target.
Other countries have such weapons, yet the United States did not go to war with them. And though Saddam oppressed and tortured his own people, other tyrants have done the same…
But Saddam was guilty of all these things and he met another requirement as well — a prime location, in the heart of the Middle East, between Syria and Iran, two countries the United States wanted to send a message to. …
But what if Sept. 11 had never happened? Would the United States have gone to war with Iraq? Administration officials and others say no, at least not now. …
Listen closely, officials said, to what Bush was really saying to the American people before the war.
“I hope they understand the lesson of September the 11th,” Bush said on March 6. “The lesson is, is that we’re vulnerable to attack, wherever it may occur, and we must take threats which gather overseas very seriously. We don’t have to deal with them all militarily, but we have to deal with them.” …
One official said that in the end, history and the American people will judge the United States not by whether U.S. officials find canisters of poison gas or vials of some biological agent.
History will judge the United States, the official said, by whether this war marked the beginning of the end for the terrorists who hate America.
ABC News
April 25, 2003The only surprise in this is that anyone in the know would ‘fess up this early in the game, even off the record.
Why has anyone spoken at all? Remember, you will not hear anything from the American media that the White House doesn’t want you to hear… which suggests that this “admission” is just a deliberate ploy to… What? Class? Anyone?
Could this “confession” just be another nail in somebody’s coffin? But whose coffin? Who do they want to bury? Tony Blair? His future rests on the existence of WMD in Iraq. Colin Powell? His entire U.N. presentation depended on the existence of WMD in Iraq.
I say neither — because if the goal were to submarine Blair and/or Powell, this “leak” would have come from within the White House. And the ABC report (rather carefully) cites only unnamed “officials inside government and advisers” — not anyone in the White House. If the source was within the WH, I’m pretty certain ABC would have emphasized that, for the sake of credibility.
Now, ask yourself: Who “resigned” the same day this report came out?
Tommy White, are you our new Deep Throat?
(If you’d like a beautiful dissection of the White House bullshit factor, Media Whores has a great piece up on their front page right this second (go look now, before it gets moved).
And here’s a great companion piece — Revealed: How the road to war was paved with lies — from the ever-reliable Independent.)
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed Under: Afghanistan, George W. Bush, Iraq, September 11
April 22, 2003
Yep, we sure disempowered the Ba’ath Party… Not.
Okay, read this carefully. Make sure you get Rummy’s full meaning:
“[B]uilding a free Iraq is the right — indeed the responsibility — of the Iraqi people,” [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld said. The interim authority is conceived of as a stepping stone in that process. It will be a temporary structure, large and inclusive, welcoming all Iraqis who agree that a new Iraq should not threaten its neighbors, should not have or make weapons of mass destruction, should not support terrorists, and should guarantee the rights of ethnic and religious groups, political freedom, individual liberty and the rule of law,” he said.That process will not involve the Ba’ath Party, Rumsfeld said. That party “does not fit the conditions that I’ve described,” he said.
Coalition Civil Affairs Team Meets Free Iraqis in An Nasiriyah
Defense Department report, April 15: Operations in Iraq
U.S. State Dept. Web site
April 15, 2003Got it? The Ba’athists — Saddam’s party — according to our intrepid SecDef, are NOT going to be involved in rebuilding Iraq, in the interim governorship of Iraq, or in enforcing the laws of Iraq.
Remember that.
Now…
Ba’athists slip quietly back into controlLess than two weeks after the collapse of the regime, thousands of members of the Arab Ba’ath Socialist party, the all too willing instrument of Saddam, are resuming their roles as the men and women who run Iraq.
Two thousand policemen — all cardholding party members — have put on the olive green, or the grey-and-white uniforms of traffic wardens, and returned to the streets of Baghdad at America’s invitation. …
Seasoned bureaucrats at the oil ministry — including the brother of General Amer Saadi, the chemical weapons expert now in American custody — have been offered their jobs back by the US military. Feelers have also gone out to Saddam’s health minister, despite past American charges that Iraqi hospitals stole medicine from the sick.
It has become increasingly apparent that Washington cannot restore governance to Baghdad without resorting to the party which for decades controlled every aspect of life under the regime. …
The Guardian
April 21, 2003Gee, is it just me, or is something really wrong with this picture?
Since “regime change” has remained one of the most popular choices on Dubya’s Top Ten List of Reasons to Invade Iraq, let’s look up the definition of the word “regime”:
re·gime also ré·gimen.
- A form of government: a fascist regime.
- A government in power; administration: suffered under the new regime.
- A prevailing social system or pattern.
- The period during which a particular administration or system prevails.
- A regulated system, as of diet and exercise; a regimen.
Hmmm… That’s funny. I wonder how…
Oh, wait a minute! I think I understand. Let’s go back about a year and a half:
Allies refine definition of the endgameUnited States and British officials backtracked yesterday on threats to oust the the ruling Taliban, after cracks appeared in the international anti-terrorist coalition against terrorism. …
On Tuesday, Mr Blair said Britain would inflict “very considerable damage” on the Taliban if they refused to hand over Bin Laden — something Mullah Mohammad Omar has so far refused to do.
The planned military action in the region “is not designed to replace one regime with another regime”, [Press Secretary Ari] Fleischer said yesterday.
He conceded that it was “a complicated region of the world” in which there was a “historical relationship between the Northern Alliance and Pakistan’s government which the United States is aware of and sensitive to”.
Downing Street also distanced itself from the aim of a change of regime. “We are taking this one step at a time,” one government source said. “The idea that the west wants to impose a government on Afghanistan is wrong.”
However, the consensus of strategists on both sides of the Atlantic is that it will probably be impossible to fulfil the official war aims of rooting out terrorist networks in Afghanistan without a change in Taliban leadership. …
Washington and its allies are caught between the looming ghosts of two previous mistakes. On the one hand, the CIA “victory” in helping drive Russian troops out of Afghanistan left in its wake only violent anarchy as the US failed to provide economic aid and the Afghan warlords fought among themselves. The chaos paved the way for the rise to power in 1996 of the Taliban. On the other hand, US strategists have long blamed the first Bush administration for failing to use the opportunity in the 1991 Gulf War to oust Saddam Hussein, who has since remained a major threat to US interests. …
The Guardian
September 27, 2001So, let’s see… We can threaten to take out a regime. But then it’s okay to backpeddle and say we didn’t really mean it — especially when we can’t even capture the guy who leads that regime. And then, to make it all okay, we get Ari Fleischer to say that it’s basically just too complicated for anybody to understand.
Gee, I’m still a bit confused… but since the Taliban is still in control of every inch of Afghanistan outside Kabul, and Ari says that’s okay, then “regime change” must really mean:
Bomb holy hell out of a country, boast that you’ve got both the manpower and the firepower to install a working “democracy,” and then — after suddenly realizing that you don’t really have the resources to do everything you said you were going to do — declare the effort a resounding success and make a big show of capturing a few stray party big-wigs, but quietly leave the functioning, day-to-day operations of the existing governing structure (i.e., “regime”) intact, and rely on the bad guys to maintain order.
Uh, yeah, that makes sense… about as much sense as anything else.
Sure worked for Afghanistan, didn’t it?
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed Under: Afghanistan, Donald Rumsfeld, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Iraq, United Kingdom & N.I.
April 19, 2003
It’s Not the Animals Who Are “Animals”
Let’s see… Three weeks of bombing and shooting left — what? — around 120 Americans, 30-something Brits, a handful of journalists, and a few thousand Iraqis dead… Five— no, six— no, wait, nine thousand years’ worth of priceless antiquities destroyed, from the land whence both the wheel and the written word came… A library full of irreplaceable works looted and then gutted by fire…
Did I leave anything out?
Oh, yes, I remember now: Animals. Specifically, the animals left to fend for themselves in Baghdad’s two zoos:
Monkeys, bears, horses, birds and camels have disappeared, carted off by thieves or simply left to roam the streets after their cages were prised open.More than 300 animals are missing — only the lions and tigers remain.
The big cats, who were obviously too fearsome for the robbers, have been left neglected and starving in their enclosures. … Mandor, a 20-year-old Siberian tiger and the personal property of Saddam Hussain’s eldest son Uday, was slumped against the green bars of his cage, his beautifully-marked coat hanging off his bones. He looked up briefly as the vet approached, only to hang his head again when he realised his keeper was empty-handed.
Next door, Sudqa, a nine-year-old lioness, got to her feet and let out a low moan. The remnants of her last meal lay in the corner, a white bone chewed over and over.
[Zoo veterinarian Hashim Mohammed Hussain] said in all there were seven lions and two tigers, who each consume some five kilos of meat a day. … He said the animals were last fed properly 10 days ago, just before U.S. forces entered Baghdad. Spent casings of shells and bullets outside the zoo and a burnt-out Iraqi armoured personnel carrier are proof of the invasion.
The Americans quickly swept through the west of the city, said Hussain, leaving the area in the hands of looters, who grabbed chimpanzees, Vervet monkeys, Pekinese dogs, love birds and cockatoos. …
“There is no government, no security, no organisation,” Hussain said. “We are alone here and without help our animals will die.”
“It seems like only the big cats and some of the larger animals, like bears, survived. A lot of animals were stolen and quite possibly eaten during the looting,” he said. “That certainly occurred in Kabul, Afghanistan, where a number of those animals were taken and put in the pot. We’ve had reports of camels wandering around; they’ll be ok, they can just nibble on whatever’s around” [said David Jones, director of the North Carolina Zoo].
Could this shameful act of animal cruelty have been averted? Of course it could. While U.S. soldiers stood idly by and allowed looters to plunder Baghdad with little more than a wave and a nod, the complicity of both coalition and Iraqi troops in the animals’ starvation was more than merely passive. From the National Geographic story above:
“In Kabul, the few staff the zoo did have there were really dedicated and never left the animals. They stayed throughout the fall of the Taliban and the American invasion,” said [Jane Ballentine, a spokesperson for the American Zoological and Aquarium Association]. “In Baghdad, American and British troops, as well as the Iraqi Republican Guard, used the zoo as a staging area, and the zoo people were forced to leave. So the biggest issue will be whether those folks will be able to come back and take over the day-to-day care of the animals, getting food, the right kind of food, and shelter for the animals.”Fortunately, help is on the way; numerous U.S. zoological associations (with an interim assist from a Kuwaiti group sending a two-week supply of food) are chipping in to find a solution.
But as the animals haven’t had a decent meal in some two weeks, it may already be too late to help.
Perhaps the war lovers might be affected by this tragic tale; after all, the vast majority certainly don’t seem moved by the loss of human life.
Incidentally, this is not the first time allied forces have destroyed completely defenseless — and trapped — zoo animals in the cruelest of ways. CounterPunch offers a short re-telling of the stomach-turning results of the Dresden firebombing at that city’s once-world-class zoo; if you’re already upset by the the fate of the Baghdad animals, I warn you not to click the link. (I’ll put it this way: If you’re an animal lover, I guarantee it will make you cry. It did me.) The only reason I imagine you might want to read the piece is to save it for further ammunition when some idiot claims there’s such a thing as a “good” or “bloodless” or “necessary” war — and all your talk of Ali Ismail Abbas, and all the others like him, falls on deaf ears.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed Under: Afghanistan, Iraq
April 13, 2003
Pataki for Minister of Disinfo (and a Crash Course in 9-11 Lies)
“Some of you may have seen yesterday in Baghdad a picture of a statue of that evil dictator being toppled and dragged through the streets by Iraqis. Let’s melt it down. Let’s bring it to New York and let’s put it in one of the girders that’s going to rise over here as a symbol of the rebuilding of New York and the rebuilding of America.”
Since Governor Pataki’s jaw-dropping remarks that whipped a crowd of some 15,000 New Yorkers into a frenzy on Friday, I’ve heard suggestions from several of my private correspondents as to what the Saddam statue should be melted down into, and how it might best be put to use — but I’ll keep those creative ideas to myself. After all, we are civilized people here.
More constructive would be a letter or e-mail to Governor Pataki enlightening him to one basic fact he has apparently overlooked in all his gubernatorial busy-ness:
There is no credible evidence whatsoever of any connection between Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaeda network responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks on America.
Here’s a quick refresher course, in case your own circuits have been fried by information overload:
The “evidence” of a Saddam-9-11 “connection” Colin Powell presented to the United Nations on February 5, 2003, was based entirely on the alleged existence of a training camp “headed by Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda lieutenants,” in northeastern Iraq — Kurdish territory, outside the control of the Saddam Hussein regime.
(This, of course, simply begs the question: Why, then, is the United States allying itself with the Kurds — who are harboring al-Qaeda terrorists within Kurdish-controlled territory?)
Even Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage grudgingly admitted in August, 2002, that any al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq “may very well be in some of the areas not controlled by the government of Iraq.”
Powell inadvertently drove the point home with his assertion that “Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical organization Ansar al-Islam, that controls this corner of Iraq. In 2000, this agent offered al-Qaeda safe haven in the region. After we swept al-Qaeda from Afghanistan, some of its members accepted this safe haven. They remain there today.”
For one fleeting moment, it appeared that Powell had redeemed his allegations, and cemented the alleged “connection” with the revelation that “Zarqawi’s activities are not confined to this small corner of northeast Iraq. He traveled to Baghdad in May 2002 for medical treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq for two months while he recuperated to fight another day. During this stay, nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there.
“These al-Qaeda affiliates, based in Baghdad, now coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network, and they’ve now been operating freely in the capital for more than eight months.”
However, the very day Powell made his case to the U.N., the BBC blew the lid off a classified British intelligence report leaked to the news agency, which “flatly contradicts one of the main charges laid against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein by the United States and Britain - that he has cultivated contacts with the group blamed for the 11 September attacks.” ***
Additionally, even if Powell’s claims are true (and they are at best highly specious), the Secretary’s own words force an examination of the timing involved in establishing an Saddam-al-Qaeda “connection.”
Precisely:
According to Powell, Zarqawi did not arrive in Baghdad (Saddam-controlled territory) until May, 2002, and did not establish a “base of operations” there until sometime between May and July of 2002.
Yet:
George W. Bush first publicly threatened Iraq during his State of the Union address (or, as it is more commonly known, his “Axis of Evil speech”) on January 29, 2002.
Time magazine notes it was in March, 2002, that Bush poked his head into the office of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and spaketh: “
F— Saddam. We’re taking him out.”This, of course, directly contradicts Bush’s statement of May 23, 2002: “I have no war plans on my desk.”
And these are but just a few of the glaring discrepancies in the Bush v. Iraq saga.
So, who’s lying — Time magazine or Bush? (So far, we haven’t heard Bush demand a retraction of the “
F— Saddam” story.)What’s more, on September 19, 2001 — just eight days after the attacks — an article in the Wall Street Journal was lost amidst the overwhelming volume of Ground-Zero reports — and has since been conveniently forgotten:
U.S. Officials Discount Any Role by Iraq in Terrorist AttacksU.S. officials said there is no evidence Iraq had a role in last Tuesday’s attacks in the U.S. or that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein helped prime suspect Osama bin Laden.
The article is available online only to subscribers of the Wall Street Journal; an archived copy, however, is available from the LBO-Talk Archive.
We’ll stop here for the moment, without delving into “What Bush Knew,” the report delivered to him during his month-long Crawford-ranch vacation in August, 2001, the European warnings delivered to U.S. intelligence as far back back as nine months before the attacks, the audacity (and subsequent humiliation) of British intelligence relying on the plagiarized paper of a university student as “proof” of Iraqi crimes, the PNAC plan to attack Iraq that was in place by the late 1990s, the numerous contradictions between Bush and Ari Fleischer, or even between Bush and himself — or any of that.No sense in contributing to further information overload.
I promise, we will delve into all these things in the near future; for the moment, just concentrate on George Pataki’s further propagation of the Saddam-9-11 “connection” myth, and the overwhelming body of evidence that contradicts this pervasive propaganda.
Every faction of the war-support group has its own justification for attacking Iraq. Lately, it’s been “Iraqi liberation.” But you need to remember, always, in the forefront of your mind, that it all began with the gossamer-thin fantasy of blaming Iraq - with no evidence whatsoever — for the deaths of nearly 3,000 people on September 11, 2001.
Don’t ever forget that. And don’t let them get away with this lie. To give them a free pass is to dishonor the memory of our fallen brothers and sisters — whether they met their end on 9-11, or during the most recent shoot-out in the streets of Baghdad.
It dishonors them because you are allowing these men, women, and children to be used as justification for Bush’s war against a people who had nothing to do with their deaths.
Governor Pataki can be reached by snail mail:
Governor George E. Pataki
State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224…or by e-mail, using the form at this URL: http://161.11.3.75/
Should you be so moved as to inform the governor of his error (and especially if you have never before written to a public official), please refrain from personal attacks, sarcasm, or other displays of emotion. Keep it simple, professional, and to-the-point.
I don’t intend to insult anyone’s intelligence, but I am aware that a good number of my readers are just getting their toes wet in the big, wide ocean of politics, and may be tempted to write something scathingly brutal.
Take my advice: Don’t do it. If you have to get your anger out, rant all you want on a piece of paper, then burn it — and start writing the letter you’re actually going to send.
If you need tips on getting started with your first letter of protest, either send me a private message, or leave a comment. I won’t tell you what to write, but I’ll be glad to help you with form.
*** Interestingly, Powell left out one piece of “evidence” upon which the U.S. might have leaned heavily until it was debunked: an alleged meeting between 9-11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and Iraqi government official Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, on April 8, 2001.That the news was released at all, by the Czech government in late October, 2001, must have come as a welcome surprise to the Bush administration — even though the Bush admin claimed to have known about the meeting already.
Ironically, the U.S. botched its own chance of using the story to bolster its case of an Iraq-al-Qaeda connection, after “FBI and CIA analysts who went over thousands of travel records concluded that ‘there was no evidence Atta left or returned to the U.S.’ at the time he was supposed to be in Prague.”
TRUNCATED. Sorry about that!
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed Under: Afghanistan, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush, Homeland Insecurity, Iraq, Misc. Bush Lackeys, New York, Republicans, September 11
April 11, 2003
Where’s the Beef?
It’s beyond me why conservatives just don’t declare victory. Why are they so aggrieved? Because they were driving their SUV and some hippie called them names? Boo-hoo.
… What will make the right wing happy? A statue of Jefferson Davis in downtown Seattle? Charlton Heston on the $3 bill? Doubtful.
Like an elephant scared of a mouse, the right is a pitiful giant. It is still deeply insecure despite a half-century of successful political conquest. But in that insecurity they find strength and resolve: There are enemies to fight and liberals to demonize…
What is going on with the Right?
They’re madder than ever, and for the life of me, I can’t understand why.
They’ve got all the control — that “power, wonder-working power” they’ve been lusting after since 1992. For the moment, they feel this “war” of theirs has been vindicated. They already own the media.
And yet they seem more hostile than ever toward us libs.
Hey, you don’t have to remind me at how my own anger just leaps right off your screen — I know it. And I do see a few more mainstream print columnists getting bolder and more specific in their criticism of the Bush administration. (Of course I see it — I actively go looking for it, as a balm to the constant assault of right-wing media.)
And I’ve heard that innocent-sounding question from the Right, ad nauseum: “Why are liberals so angry all the time?”
I don’t deny we’re angry. Of course we’re angry — God knows we have more than enough cause. The Right has painted us as a bunch of anti-American radical extremists who just won’t listen to reason. We’ve been silenced, suppressed, threatened, censured, mocked, dismissed, blacklisted, beaten, maced, pepper-sprayed, shot with wooden bullets and bean bags… Of course we’re angry.
So they hate us. No news there. What I don’t understand is why they seem to be ratcheting up their attack. The rhetoric is constant, the threats less veiled, and there appears to be a significant increase in organized “direct action,” right-wing style, in the form of celebrity blacklisting, GOP-backed boycotts, and intimidation tactics that - so far - fall just short of cross-burning.
They continue to chant the mantra, “The only good liberal is a dead liberal” - and when accident or nature fails to take its course, dream of finishing us off themselves.
I don’t get it. They own everything. Is it just a matter of rubbing our faces in it, or is it something else?
Let’s see if we can figure it out…
43 Possible Reasons The Right is Crankier Than Usual
- Mob mentality.
They’re caught up in the contagion of hate. They’re finally feeling their power, and flexing their muscle, because, damn it, it feels good to crush the opposition. They’ve had a taste of blood, and they like it.
- They somehow blame the Left
for failing to stop a system gone out of control. While liberals are just disgusted with the spineless Democratic leadership (what an oxymoron) for capitulating - and failing to put a halt to a plan - and an administration - in freefall, perhaps the neo-cons are simply terrified that we let them go this far.
- In a similar vein,
maybe they’re furious with us for not preventing Bush & Co. from taking some very risky chances - because if Bush fails, they won’t have us to blame. Think about it. If we had been able to prevent this “war,” they could spend 24 hours a day pointing their fingers at us for all sorts of reasons - but if the Iraq situation ultimately sours, then they have only to blame the entire Bush administration.And of course, by putting themselves 100% behind Bush, that means that they also run the risk of being 100% wrong.
(No, I don’t see it that way; neither this “war” nor anything connected with it is 100% right or wrong. Nothing ever is. But you must remember we are talking about an all-or-nothing mentality; we are talking about people who subscribe to the black-and-white thinking of “You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists.”)
- They’ve awakened
to the fact that they’ve been had by the Bush administration - the lies have become so obvious that no amount of denial will suffice. They’re out of work, out of benefits, and no longer qualify for federal unemployment. Their Social Security has been looted. Their last 401(k) statement is more valuable as toilet paper. They can’t afford health insurance, and they’re being blackmailed out of Medicare. And no matter how proud they are of Little Johnny stationed in Iraq right now, they’ve realized that when Johnny comes marching home again, he’s going to learn that his commander-in-chief has gutted his veterans’ benefits.
- They secretly worry
that when everything finally comes out in the wash, we self-righteous liberals are going to be there, pointing, laughing, and singing an endless chorus of “I told you so.”(Well, they’re probably right about that. We may be peace-loving, but hey, we’re only human.)
- They’re under constant pressure
to act as if the “war” is already won, but inside they’re not so sure. They know the Fall of Baghdad is only a symbolic win, but they feel the need to lord it over us as if we ever doubted the U.S. would conquer Iraq (which is wrong; I’ve never met a liberal yet who ever doubted the U.S. would make hash out of Iraq in short order; that was never in question). But inside, they know that a nice, “clean” finish to this “war” is still not a given - and that, even if all the lootin’ ‘n’ shootin’ stopped tomorrow, there’s a vast, unknown, empty space called “occupation” ahead, and nobody can predict how that’s going to turn out.They’re impatient for the end of the fighting, but as apprehensive as we are about what’s to come. So they’re basking in the moment of Baghdad (and trying to psy-op the Left with their gloating) - but they are quite aware that it’s not over. Not by a long shot.
- Or maybe they’re not
so anxious for the “war” to end - because when it does, the nation - during the lull between Iraq and the next TV War of the Week - will have to turn its attention back to both domestic issues and the global fallout from Iraq - which can be summed up by the question, “Where are we? And how did we get in this handbasket?”
- Next up: Syria.
Or maybe Iran.
- Next up: Iran.
Or maybe Syria.
- Then there’s
the recent rekindling of Afghanistan - a painful reminder to the warring types that we never did finish what we started there, let alone find Osama. I expect a few are wondering if we will leave Iraq a shambles, and lose sight of Saddam forever, while our troops are sent to the next country on Bush’s ever-growing list of evil empires.(For those who who remember “The Electric Company,” sing “What About Naomi?” along with me - just replace “Naomi” with “Osama.”)
- They’re having a hard time
ignoring North Korea, too.
- They thought
that once they had Bush in the White House, things would get better.
- They thought
that once they wiped us out in the 2002 congressional and state elections, things would get better.
- They thought
that once Bush declared war on Iraq, things would get better.
- They thought
that once Baghdad fell, things would get better. (How? Beats me. It sure hasn’t gotten beTRUNCATED. Sorry, folks, but this is one of those entries that’s been lost forever to the ether-net. If I ever find the full list of 43, I’ll re-post.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed Under: Afghanistan, George W. Bush, Iraq, Radical Religious Right, Republicans
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