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| Republican Veterans & Citizens Blast Bush and Defect to Kerry Camp ... |
| 07.31.04 (5:39 pm) [edit] |
[b]Some Republicans defect to Kerry's camp[/b]
(Reuters) - Ohio resident Bob Stewart says of President Bush: "He's been a world-class polarizer. I don't know if I can stomach four more years with him as president. He misled us into the war in Iraq and has mismanaged everything since."
A raging Democrat? No, Stewart is a Republican, one of an unknown number of such voters who plan to back John Kerry, out of despair over the war in Iraq and disappointment over budget deficits and social policies.
It remains to be seen whether they can tip the scales in hotly contested middle American states like Ohio as the Democratic nominee courts them and battles Bush in the final three-month dash to November's election. In past elections defections from both parties have sometimes canceled each other out.
Kerry and running mate John Edwards kicked off that fight on Friday, leaving Boston and the concluded party convention for a two-week campaign swing across 21 states.
Stewart, 44, an insurance agent from Anderson Township near Cincinnati, voted for Bush in 2000 and is a registered Republican.
"I just have a gut feeling that Kerry can be trusted to make the right courageous decisions and will make a good president. He showed that with his heroism in Vietnam," he says.
Bush is "supposed to be a conservative and yet he's run up the biggest federal deficit in history. One thing that really turned me (away from Bush) as a lifelong Catholic ... was to see Bush go to the Vatican and try to get the pope to come down hard on Kerry for his stand on abortion. That is absolutely appalling."
In Michigan, Dan Martin has run for local office as a Republican. He says his biggest disappointment is that Bush's reputation as a "compassionate, conservative" governor of Texas hasn't proven true in the White House.
"The foreign policy is a mess. The offensive in Iraq is reckless and built on bad decision making. On the domestic front I understand that terrorism has struck and he's occupied but any real progress on a domestic agenda has ground to a halt," added Martin, 32, a customer service manager at a health maintenance organization who lives in Rochester Hills.
In Tennessee, Brian Boland, a young music company manager shopping at a market near Nashville, said: "I've always voted Republican and my folks will just kill me if they find out I'm switching to Kerry this year ... but I am just frustrated with the way Bush has mishandled everything. All the untruths."
His wife said she too was switching. The Republicans carried Tennessee in 2000, even though it was the home state of Democratic nominee Al Gore.
At the same market Ron King, a black Vietnam Veteran, said: "I always voted Republican before but I'm against Bush ever since I found out that he doesn't love this country. His so-called military record is a sham. And the worst part is that he lies so much. He lied about weapons of mass destruction."
Lloyd Huff, 64, retired director of the Dayton Research Institute in Ohio, says he has "voted for a Republican in every presidential election I can remember" but it will be Kerry this time because "the Bush administration has been the most deceitful, duplicitous, secretive administration this country has ever had."
"Going to war in Iraq was a horrible, horrible mistake," he said. He accused Bush of "an arrogant, swaggering cowboy mentality ... he has done more than anyone to inflame the Muslim world by his words and actions,"
Kenneth Warren of St. Louis University, who has studied and taught about voter behavior for three decades, said turning a trickle into a trend will be a tough job for Kerry because historically Republicans tend to be faithful. Democrats are more diverse and divided, a "party of factions," and more easily hived off, as former President Ronald Reagan did with the "Reagan Democrats," he said.
Clay Richards, assistant director of the Polling Institute at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, says Kerry is getting about 11 or 12 percent of the Republican vote in Pennsylvania and New Jersey while Bush is drawing 9 or 10 percent of his support from Democrats, not a statistically significant crossover.
Before any Kerry draw could be rated similar to the "Reagan Democrats" effect, he said "the gap would have to be a lot bigger." - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| Three Reasons Why John F. Kerry Will Be A Better Commander-in-Chief Than George Bush ... |
| 07.31.04 (7:40 am) [edit] |
[b]John F. Kerry will make a better Commander-in-Chief than Bush because he is smarter[i] by far[/i]; is [i]able to work with others[/i]; and, has actually[i] fought for our nation [/i]and [i]understands[/i] what that means ...[/b]
John F. Kerry is actually [i]stronger[/i] on the defense of the United States of America and our National Security than Bush... [i]Why[/i]? [i]Because[/i]...
1. John F. Kerry served honorably in war-time while Bush did not. Bush doesn't even comprehend what war means. Bush jokes and smirks and prances around on Aircraft Carriers howling obscene buffooneries like "Mission Accomplished!" or "Bring 'em on" while our U.S. Soldiers are massacred in unnecessary wars. Bush squanders American lives and treasures recklessly and wantonly, not to safeguard us, but based upon lies and deceptions.
2. John F. Kerry has served on the Senate Foreign Relation and Intelligence Committees http://www.johnkerry.com/inde... and is respected for his ability to work with others in Congress and throughout the international community. The same cannot be said for Bush who is simply told what to do by neo-con thugs like Cheney, Rumsfeld and others who don't have our nation's interests at heart and who can't work with others here at home or abroad.
3. John F. Kerry has committed that he will only go to war if he must to defend our nation. Unlike Bush, Kerry will [i]not [/i]invade other nations pre-emptively and murder our US Soldiers and innocent civilians in order to enrich Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, the House of Saud, Unocal and other corporate pimps of the whorish Bush Crime Family. Bush/Cheney's War Crimes including set-up of a US Concentration Camp at Guantanamo Bay and the heinous murders, tortures, rapes and abuses of prisoners as well as the sodomy of little children at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in the Middle East will [i]not[/i] occur on Kerry's watch.
It is worthwhile reading the following speeches:
PRESIDENT CLINTON: "Making the right choices" ... Let's "Send John Kerry" to the White House!!! http://www.tblog.com/template...
PRESIDENT CARTER: "You can't be a war president one day- claim to be a peace president the next" http://www.tblog.com/template...
AL GORE: "Democracy Itself is in Grave Danger" ... http://www.tblog.com/template...
JOHN F. KERRY: "I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty."! http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| Kerry's Great Speech Lauded By Many-- Soooooo the Right-Wing Haters Go Crazy!!!! |
| 07.31.04 (7:38 am) [edit] |
I sometimes fantasize about being reincarnated as a swing voter in Ohio. After all, the entire convention was designed to seduce about 11 voters in that great state. In Boston, pundits, DNC types and others all seemed to gauge the effectiveness of the day's events through the prism of what someone in a battleground state might have thought. At one of the endless chat 'n'chews on Wednesday, a key member of the DNC Finance Committee told me that after Barack Obama's "a star is born" speech, she had called all her relatives who live in battleground states to get their take on how it had played. She was relieved (and ecstatic) to report that they had loved it.
She didn't need to call relatives after Kerry's speech. Thursday night, MSNBC turned to a small group of Ohio swing voters for their reactions. GOP pollster Frank Luntz--who dons a bipartisan hat as a MSNBC consultant--had equipped these swingers with meters to gauge their views on the speeches' key riffs. Seems that Michael Moore and the swing voters of Ohio may be linked at the hip when it comes to their view of the Saudi royal family. Luntz sheepishly reported that Kerry's attack on Bush's energy policy ("I want an America that relies on its own ingenuity and innovation--not the Saudi royal family.") was the group's fave passage of the night. It was "just off the charts" on the vote-o-meter.
******
[b]Buchanan Voting for Kerry?[/b]
Pat Buchanan is by no means your on-the-reservoir Republican, but it was striking to hear him say Thursday night on MSNBC's After Hours: "If I did not know this man or his past record, and heard only this speech tonight, I could easily vote for him." Buchanan went on to alert viewers that veterans were being organized to challenge Kerry's version of his war record. "Look forward to the Guns of August."
*******
[b]The Thrust of Kerry's Speech [/b]
I liked much of Kerry's speech http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5... --what he said about energy independence and healthcare as a right and using money now going to prisons to fund Head Start and Early Start. But I was turned off by his opening line: "My name is John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty." As he saluted, I thought of how our politics and policies are already too militarized. I can hear people telling me--come on, lighten up; after all. it's just a convention speech. But in the quest to take back defense and national security, could Dems lose their way? Is militarism the centerpiece of the Democrats' vision for the future? As[i] Tikkun [/i]editor Michael Lerner wrote in an astute Op-Ed in today's [i]Wall Street Journal:[/i] "If militarism and toughness are all that either party can offer the country as a vision for the future....many voters may simply not be inspired to vote at all." - http://www.thenation.com/edcu...
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| RONALD REAGAN JR.: "The Case Against George W. Bush" ... |
| 07.31.04 (7:25 am) [edit] |
It may have been the guy in the hood teetering on the stool, electrodes clamped to his genitals. Or smirking Lynndie England and her leash. Maybe it was the smarmy memos tapped out by soft-fingered lawyers itching to justify such barbarism. The grudging, lunatic retreat of the neocons from their long-standing assertion that Saddam was in cahoots with Osama didn't hurt. Even the Enron audiotapes and their celebration of craven sociopathy likely played a part. As a result of all these displays and countless smaller ones, you could feel, a couple of months back, as summer spread across the country, the ground shifting beneath your feet. Not unlike that scene in The Day After Tomorrow, then in theaters, in which the giant ice shelf splits asunder, this was more a paradigm shift than anything strictly tectonic. No cataclysmic ice age, admittedly, yet something was in the air, and people were inhaling deeply. I began to get calls from friends whose parents had always voted Republican, "but not this time." There was the staid Zbigniew Brzezinski on the staid NewsHour with Jim Lehrer sneering at the "Orwellian language" flowing out of the Pentagon. Word spread through the usual channels that old hands from the days of Bush the Elder were quietly (but not too quietly) appalled by his son's misadventure in Iraq. Suddenly, everywhere you went, a surprising number of folks seemed to have had just about enough of what the Bush administration was dishing out. A fresh age appeared on the horizon, accompanied by the sound of scales falling from people's eyes. It felt something like a demonstration of that highest of American prerogatives and the most deeply cherished American freedom: dissent.
Oddly, even my father's funeral contributed. Throughout that long, stately, overtelevised week in early June, items would appear in the newspaper discussing the Republicans' eagerness to capitalize (subtly, tastefully) on the outpouring of affection for my father and turn it to Bush's advantage for the fall election. The familiar "Heir to Reagan" puffballs were reinflated and loosed over the proceedings like (subtle, tasteful) Mylar balloons. Predictably, this backfired. People were treated to a side-by-side comparison - Ronald W. Reagan versus George W. Bush - and it's no surprise who suffered for it. Misty-eyed with nostalgia, people set aside old political gripes for a few days and remembered what friend and foe always conceded to Ronald Reagan: He was damned impressive in the role of leader of the free world. A sign in the crowd, spotted during the slow roll to the Capitol rotunda, seemed to sum up the mood - a portrait of my father and the words NOW THERE WAS A PRESIDENT.
The comparison underscored something important. And the guy on the stool, Lynndie, and her grinning cohorts, they brought the word: The Bush administration can't be trusted. The parade of Bush officials before various commissions and committees - Paul Wolfowitz, who couldn't quite remember how many young Americans had been sacrificed on the altar of his ideology; John Ashcroft, lip quivering as, for a delicious, fleeting moment, it looked as if Senator Joe Biden might just come over the table at him - these were a continuing reminder. The Enron creeps, too - a reminder of how certain environments and particular habits of mind can erode common decency. People noticed. A tipping point had been reached. The issue of credibility was back on the table. The L-word was in circulation. Not the tired old bromide liberal. That's so 1988. No, this time something much more potent: liar.
Politicians will stretch the truth. They'll exaggerate their accomplishments, paper over their gaffes. Spin has long been the lingua franca of the political realm. But George W. Bush and his administration have taken "normal" mendacity to a startling new level far beyond lies of convenience. On top of the usual massaging of public perception, they traffic in big lies, indulge in any number of symptomatic small lies, and, ultimately, have come to embody dishonesty itself. They are a lie. And people, finally, have started catching on.
None of this, needless to say, guarantees Bush a one-term presidency. The far-right wing of the country - nearly one third of us by some estimates - continues to regard all who refuse to drink the Kool-Aid (liberals, rationalists, Europeans, et cetera) as agents of Satan. Bush could show up on video canoodling with Paris Hilton and still bank their vote. Right-wing talking heads continue painting anyone who fails to genuflect deeply enough as a "hater," and therefore a nut job, probably a crypto-Islamist car bomber. But these protestations have taken on a hysterical, almost comically desperate tone. It's one thing to get trashed by Michael Moore. But when Nobel laureates, a vast majority of the scientific community, and a host of current and former diplomats, intelligence operatives, and military officials line up against you, it becomes increasingly difficult to characterize the opposition as fringe wackos.
Does anyone really favor an administration that so shamelessly lies? One that so tenaciously clings to secrecy, not to protect the American people, but to protect itself? That so willfully misrepresents its true aims and so knowingly misleads the people from whom it derives its power? I simply cannot think so. And to come to the same conclusion does not make you guilty of swallowing some liberal critique of the Bush presidency, because that's not what this is. This is the critique of a person who thinks that lying at the top levels of his government is abhorrent. Call it the honest guy's critique of George W. Bush.
The most egregious examples OF distortion and misdirection - which the administration even now cannot bring itself to repudiate - involve our putative "War on Terror" and our subsequent foray into Iraq.
During his campaign for the presidency, Mr. Bush pledged a more "humble" foreign policy. "I would take the use of force very seriously," he said. "I would be guarded in my approach." Other countries would resent us "if we're an arrogant nation." He sniffed at the notion of "nation building." "Our military is meant to fight and win wars. . . . And when it gets overextended, morale drops." International cooperation and consensus building would be the cornerstone of a Bush administration's approach to the larger world. Given candidate Bush's remarks, it was hard to imagine him, as president, flipping a stiff middle finger at the world and charging off adventuring in the Middle East.
But didn't 9/11 reshuffle the deck, changing everything? Didn't Mr. Bush, on September 12, 2001, awaken to the fresh realization that bad guys in charge of Islamic nations constitute an entirely new and grave threat to us and have to be ruthlessly confronted lest they threaten the American homeland again? Wasn't Saddam Hussein rushed to the front of the line because he was complicit with the hijackers and in some measure responsible for the atrocities in Washington, D. C., and at the tip of Manhattan?
Well, no.
As Bush's former Treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, and his onetime "terror czar," Richard A. Clarke, have made clear, the president, with the enthusiastic encouragement of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, was contemplating action against Iraq from day one. "From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out," O'Neill said. All they needed was an excuse. Clarke got the same impression from within the White House. Afghanistan had to be dealt with first; that's where the actual perpetrators were, after all. But the Taliban was a mere appetizer; Saddam was the entrée. (Or who knows? The soup course?) It was simply a matter of convincing the American public (and our representatives) that war was justified.
The real - but elusive - prime mover behind the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, was quickly relegated to a back burner (a staff member at Fox News - the cable-TV outlet of the Bush White House - told me a year ago that mere mention of bin Laden's name was forbidden within the company, lest we be reminded that the actual bad guy remained at large) while Saddam's Iraq became International Enemy Number One. Just like that, a country whose economy had been reduced to shambles by international sanctions, whose military was less than half the size it had been when the U. S. Army rolled over it during the first Gulf war, that had extensive no-flight zones imposed on it in the north and south as well as constant aerial and satellite surveillance, and whose lethal weapons and capacity to produce such weapons had been destroyed or seriously degraded by UN inspection teams became, in Mr. Bush's words, "a threat of unique urgency" to the most powerful nation on earth.
Fanciful but terrifying scenarios were introduced: Unmanned aircraft, drones, had been built for missions targeting the U. S., Bush told the nation. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice deadpanned to CNN. And, Bush maintained, "Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists." We "know" Iraq possesses such weapons, Rumsfeld and Vice-President Cheney assured us. We even "know" where they are hidden. After several months of this mumbo jumbo, 70 percent of Americans had embraced the fantasy that Saddam destroyed the World Trade Center.
All these assertions have proved to be baseless and, we've since discovered, were regarded with skepticism by experts at the time they were made. But contrary opinions were derided, ignored, or covered up in the rush to war. Even as of this writing, Dick Cheney clings to his mad assertion that Saddam was somehow at the nexus of a worldwide terror network.
And then there was Abu Ghraib. Our "war president" may have been justified in his assumption that Americans are a warrior people. He pushed the envelope in thinking we'd be content as an occupying power, but he was sadly mistaken if he thought that ordinary Americans would tolerate an image of themselves as torturers. To be fair, the torture was meant to be secret. So were the memos justifying such treatment that had floated around the White House, Pentagon, and Justice Department for more than a year before the first photos came to light. The neocons no doubt appreciate that few of us have the stones to practice the New Warfare. Could you slip a pair of women's panties over the head of a naked, cowering stranger while forcing him to masturbate? What would you say while sodomizing him with a toilet plunger? Is keeping someone awake till he hallucinates inhumane treatment or merely "sleep management"?
Most of us know the answers to these questions, so it was incumbent upon the administration to pretend that Abu Ghraib was an aberration, not policy. Investigations, we were assured, were already under way; relevant bureaucracies would offer unstinting cooperation; the handful of miscreants would be sternly disciplined. After all, they didn't "represent the best of what America's all about." As anyone who'd watched the proceedings of the 9/11 Commission could have predicted, what followed was the usual administration strategy of stonewalling, obstruction, and obfuscation. The appointment of investigators was stalled; documents were withheld, including the full report by Major General Antonio Taguba, who headed the Army's primary investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib. A favorite moment for many featured John McCain growing apoplectic as Donald Rumsfeld and an entire table full of army brass proved unable to answer the simple question Who was in charge at Abu Ghraib?
The Bush administration no doubt had its real reasons for invading and occupying Iraq. They've simply chosen not to share them with the American public. They sought justification for ignoring the Geneva Convention and other statutes prohibiting torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners but were loath to acknowledge as much. They may have ideas worth discussing, but they don't welcome the rest of us in the conversation. They don't trust us because they don't dare expose their true agendas to the light of day. There is a surreal quality to all this: Occupation is liberation; Iraq is sovereign, but we're in control; Saddam is in Iraqi custody, but we've got him; we'll get out as soon as an elected Iraqi government asks us, but we'll be there for years to come. Which is what we counted on in the first place, only with rose petals and easy coochie.
This Möbius reality finds its domestic analogue in the perversely cynical "Clear Skies" and "Healthy Forests" sloganeering at Bush's EPA and in the administration's irresponsible tax cutting and other fiscal shenanigans. But the Bush administration has always worn strangely tinted shades, and you wonder to what extent Mr. Bush himself lives in a world of his own imagining.
And chances are your America and George W. Bush's America are not the same place. If you are dead center on the earning scale in real-world twenty-first-century America, you make a bit less than $32,000 a year, and $32,000 is not a sum that Mr. Bush has ever associated with getting by in his world. Bush, who has always managed to fail upwards in his various careers, has never had a job the way you have a job - where not showing up one morning gets you fired, costing you your health benefits. He may find it difficult to relate personally to any of the nearly two million citizens who've lost their jobs under his administration, the first administration since Herbert Hoover's to post a net loss of jobs. Mr. Bush has never had to worry that he couldn't afford the best available health care for his children. For him, forty-three million people without health insurance may be no more than a politically inconvenient abstraction. When Mr. Bush talks about the economy, he is not talking about your economy. His economy is filled with pals called Kenny-boy who fly around in their own airplanes. In Bush's economy, his world, friends relocate offshore to avoid paying taxes. Taxes are for chumps like you. You are not a friend. You're the help. When the party Mr. Bush is hosting in his world ends, you'll be left picking shrimp toast out of the carpet.
All administrations will dissemble, distort, or outright lie when their backs are against the wall, when honesty begins to look like political suicide. But this administration seems to lie reflexively, as if it were simply the easiest option for busy folks with a lot on their minds. While the big lies are more damning and of immeasurably greater import to the nation, it is the small, unnecessary prevarications that may be diagnostic. Who lies when they don't have to? When the simple truth, though perhaps embarrassing in the short run, is nevertheless in one's long-term self-interest? Why would a president whose calling card is his alleged rock-solid integrity waste his chief asset for penny-ante stakes? Habit, perhaps. Or an inability to admit even small mistakes.
Mr. Bush's tendency to meander beyond the bounds of truth was evident during the 2000 campaign but was largely ignored by the mainstream media. His untruths simply didn't fit the agreed-upon narrative. While generally acknowledged to be lacking in experience, depth, and other qualifications typically considered useful in a leader of the free world, Bush was portrayed as a decent fellow nonetheless, one whose straightforwardness was a given. None of that "what the meaning of is is" business for him. And, God knows, no furtive, taxpayer-funded fellatio sessions with the interns. Al Gore, on the other hand, was depicted as a dubious self-reinventor, stained like a certain blue dress by Bill Clinton's prurient transgressions. He would spend valuable weeks explaining away statements - "I invented the Internet" - that he never made in the first place. All this left the coast pretty clear for Bush.
Scenario typical of the 2000 campaign: While debating Al Gore, Bush tells two obvious - if not exactly earth-shattering - lies and is not challenged. First, he claims to have supported a patient's bill of rights while governor of Texas. This is untrue. He, in fact, vigorously resisted such a measure, only reluctantly bowing to political reality and allowing it to become law without his signature. Second, he announces that Gore has outspent him during the campaign. The opposite is true: Bush has outspent Gore. These misstatements are briefly acknowledged in major press outlets, which then quickly return to the more germane issues of Gore's pancake makeup and whether a certain feminist author has counseled him to be more of an "alpha male."
Having gotten away with such witless falsities, perhaps Mr. Bush and his team felt somehow above day-to-day truth. In any case, once ensconced in the White House, they picked up where they left off.
In the immediate aftermath and confusion of 9/11, Bush, who on that day was in Sarasota, Florida, conducting an emergency reading of "The Pet Goat," was whisked off to Nebraska aboard Air Force One. While this may have been entirely sensible under the chaotic circumstances - for all anyone knew at the time, Washington might still have been under attack - the appearance was, shall we say, less than gallant. So a story was concocted: There had been a threat to Air Force One that necessitated the evasive maneuver. Bush's chief political advisor, Karl Rove, cited "specific" and "credible" evidence to that effect. The story quickly unraveled. In truth, there was no such threat.
Then there was Bush's now infamous photo-op landing aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and his subsequent speech in front of a large banner emblazoned MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. The banner, which loomed in the background as Bush addressed the crew, became problematic as it grew clear that the mission in Iraq - whatever that may have been - was far from accomplished. "Major combat operations," as Bush put it, may have technically ended, but young Americans were still dying almost daily. So the White House dealt with the questionable banner in a manner befitting a president pledged to "responsibility and accountability": It blamed the sailors. No surprise, a bit of digging by journalists revealed the banner and its premature triumphalism to be the work of the White House communications office.
More serious by an order of magnitude was the administration's dishonesty concerning pre-9/11 terror warnings. As questions first arose about the country's lack of preparedness in the face of terrorist assault, Condoleezza Rice was dispatched to the pundit arenas to assure the nation that "no one could have imagined terrorists using aircraft as weapons." In fact, terrorism experts had warned repeatedly of just such a calamity. In June 2001, CIA director George Tenet sent Rice an intelligence report warning that "it is highly likely that a significant Al Qaeda attack is in the near future, within several weeks." Two intelligence briefings given to Bush in the summer of 2001 specifically connected Al Qaeda to the imminent danger of hijacked planes being used as weapons. According to The New York Times, after the second of these briefings, titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside United States," was delivered to the president at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in August, Bush "broke off from work early and spent most of the day fishing." This was the briefing Dr. Rice dismissed as "historical" in her testimony before the 9/11 Commission.
What's odd is that none of these lies were worth the breath expended in the telling. If only for self-serving political reasons, honesty was the way to go. The flight of Air Force One could easily have been explained in terms of security precautions taken in the confusion of momentous events. As for the carrier landing, someone should have fallen on his or her sword at the first hint of trouble: We told the president he needed to do it; he likes that stuff and was gung-ho; we figured, What the hell?; it was a mistake. The banner? We thought the sailors would appreciate it. In retrospect, also a mistake. Yup, we sure feel dumb now. Owning up to the 9/11 warnings would have entailed more than simple embarrassment. But done forthrightly and immediately, an honest reckoning would have earned the Bush team some respect once the dust settled. Instead, by needlessly tap-dancing, Bush's White House squandered vital credibility, turning even relatively minor gaffes into telling examples of its tendency to distort and evade the truth.
But image is everything in this White House, and the image of George Bush as a noble and infallible warrior in the service of his nation must be fanatically maintained, because behind the image lies . . . nothing? As Jonathan Alter of Newsweek has pointed out, Bush has "never fully inhabited" the presidency. Bush apologists can smilingly excuse his malopropisms and vagueness as the plainspokenness of a man of action, but watching Bush flounder when attempting to communicate extemporaneously, one is left with the impression that he is ineloquent not because he can't speak but because he doesn't bother to think.
George W. Bush promised to "change the tone in Washington" and ran for office as a moderate, a "compassionate conservative," in the focus-group-tested sloganeering of his campaign. Yet he has governed from the right wing of his already conservative party, assiduously tending a "base" that includes, along with the expected Fortune 500 fat cats, fiscal evangelicals who talk openly of doing away with Social Security and Medicare, of shrinking government to the size where they can, in tax radical Grover Norquist's phrase, "drown it in the bathtub." That base also encompasses a healthy share of anti-choice zealots, homophobic bigots, and assorted purveyors of junk science. Bush has tossed bones to all of them - "partial birth" abortion legislation, the promise of a constitutional amendment banning marriage between homosexuals, federal roadblocks to embryonic-stem-cell research, even comments suggesting presidential doubts about Darwinian evolution. It's not that Mr. Bush necessarily shares their worldview; indeed, it's unclear whether he embraces any coherent philosophy. But this president, who vowed to eschew politics in favor of sound policy, panders nonetheless in the interest of political gain. As John DiIulio, Bush's former head of the Office of Community and Faith-Based Initiatives, once told this magazine, "What you've got is everything - and I mean everything - being run by the political arm."
This was not what the American electorate opted for when, in 2000, by a slim but decisive margin of more than half a million votes, they chose . . . the other guy. Bush has never had a mandate. Surveys indicate broad public dissatisfaction with his domestic priorities. How many people would have voted for Mr. Bush in the first place had they understood his eagerness to pass on crushing debt to our children or seen his true colors regarding global warming and the environment? Even after 9/11, were people really looking to be dragged into an optional war under false pretenses?
If ever there was a time for uniting and not dividing, this is it. Instead, Mr. Bush governs as if by divine right, seeming to actually believe that a wise God wants him in the White House and that by constantly evoking the horrible memory of September 11, 2001, he can keep public anxiety stirred up enough to carry him to another term.
Understandably, some supporters of Mr. Bush's will believe I harbor a personal vendetta against the man, some seething resentment. One conservative commentator, based on earlier remarks I've made, has already discerned "jealousy" on my part; after all, Bush, the son of a former president, now occupies that office himself, while I, most assuredly, will not. Truth be told, I have no personal feelings for Bush at all. I hardly know him, having met him only twice, briefly and uneventfully - once during my father's presidency and once during my father's funeral. I'll acknowledge occasional annoyance at the pretense that he's somehow a clone of my father, but far from threatening, I see this more as silly and pathetic. My father, acting roles excepted, never pretended to be anyone but himself. His Republican party, furthermore, seems a far cry from the current model, with its cringing obeisance to the religious Right and its kill-anything-that-moves attack instincts. Believe it or not, I don't look in the mirror every morning and see my father looming over my shoulder. I write and speak as nothing more or less than an American citizen, one who is plenty angry about the direction our country is being dragged by the current administration. We have reached a critical juncture in our nation's history, one ripe with both danger and possibility. We need leadership with the wisdom to prudently confront those dangers and the imagination to boldly grasp the possibilities. Beyond issues of fiscal irresponsibility and ill-advised militarism, there is a question of trust. George W. Bush and his allies don't trust you and me. Why on earth, then, should we trust them?
Fortunately, we still live in a democratic republic. The Bush team cannot expect a cabal of right-wing justices to once again deliver the White House. Come November 2, we will have a choice: We can embrace a lie, or we can restore a measure of integrity to our government. We can choose, as a bumper sticker I spotted in Seattle put it, SOMEONE ELSE FOR PRESIDENT. - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| RONALD REAGAN JR.: "The Case Against George W. Bush" ... |
| 07.31.04 (7:22 am) [edit] |
It may have been the guy in the hood teetering on the stool, electrodes clamped to his genitals. Or smirking Lynndie England and her leash. Maybe it was the smarmy memos tapped out by soft-fingered lawyers itching to justify such barbarism. The grudging, lunatic retreat of the neocons from their long-standing assertion that Saddam was in cahoots with Osama didn't hurt. Even the Enron audiotapes and their celebration of craven sociopathy likely played a part. As a result of all these displays and countless smaller ones, you could feel, a couple of months back, as summer spread across the country, the ground shifting beneath your feet. Not unlike that scene in The Day After Tomorrow, then in theaters, in which the giant ice shelf splits asunder, this was more a paradigm shift than anything strictly tectonic. No cataclysmic ice age, admittedly, yet something was in the air, and people were inhaling deeply. I began to get calls from friends whose parents had always voted Republican, "but not this time." There was the staid Zbigniew Brzezinski on the staid NewsHour with Jim Lehrer sneering at the "Orwellian language" flowing out of the Pentagon. Word spread through the usual channels that old hands from the days of Bush the Elder were quietly (but not too quietly) appalled by his son's misadventure in Iraq. Suddenly, everywhere you went, a surprising number of folks seemed to have had just about enough of what the Bush administration was dishing out. A fresh age appeared on the horizon, accompanied by the sound of scales falling from people's eyes. It felt something like a demonstration of that highest of American prerogatives and the most deeply cherished American freedom: dissent.
Oddly, even my father's funeral contributed. Throughout that long, stately, overtelevised week in early June, items would appear in the newspaper discussing the Republicans' eagerness to capitalize (subtly, tastefully) on the outpouring of affection for my father and turn it to Bush's advantage for the fall election. The familiar "Heir to Reagan" puffballs were reinflated and loosed over the proceedings like (subtle, tasteful) Mylar balloons. Predictably, this backfired. People were treated to a side-by-side comparison - Ronald W. Reagan versus George W. Bush - and it's no surprise who suffered for it. Misty-eyed with nostalgia, people set aside old political gripes for a few days and remembered what friend and foe always conceded to Ronald Reagan: He was damned impressive in the role of leader of the free world. A sign in the crowd, spotted during the slow roll to the Capitol rotunda, seemed to sum up the mood - a portrait of my father and the words NOW THERE WAS A PRESIDENT.
The comparison underscored something important. And the guy on the stool, Lynndie, and her grinning cohorts, they brought the word: The Bush administration can't be trusted. The parade of Bush officials before various commissions and committees - Paul Wolfowitz, who couldn't quite remember how many young Americans had been sacrificed on the altar of his ideology; John Ashcroft, lip quivering as, for a delicious, fleeting moment, it looked as if Senator Joe Biden might just come over the table at him - these were a continuing reminder. The Enron creeps, too - a reminder of how certain environments and particular habits of mind can erode common decency. People noticed. A tipping point had been reached. The issue of credibility was back on the table. The L-word was in circulation. Not the tired old bromide liberal. That's so 1988. No, this time something much more potent: liar.
Politicians will stretch the truth. They'll exaggerate their accomplishments, paper over their gaffes. Spin has long been the lingua franca of the political realm. But George W. Bush and his administration have taken "normal" mendacity to a startling new level far beyond lies of convenience. On top of the usual massaging of public perception, they traffic in big lies, indulge in any number of symptomatic small lies, and, ultimately, have come to embody dishonesty itself. They are a lie. And people, finally, have started catching on.
None of this, needless to say, guarantees Bush a one-term presidency. The far-right wing of the country - nearly one third of us by some estimates - continues to regard all who refuse to drink the Kool-Aid (liberals, rationalists, Europeans, et cetera) as agents of Satan. Bush could show up on video canoodling with Paris Hilton and still bank their vote. Right-wing talking heads continue painting anyone who fails to genuflect deeply enough as a "hater," and therefore a nut job, probably a crypto-Islamist car bomber. But these protestations have taken on a hysterical, almost comically desperate tone. It's one thing to get trashed by Michael Moore. But when Nobel laureates, a vast majority of the scientific community, and a host of current and former diplomats, intelligence operatives, and military officials line up against you, it becomes increasingly difficult to characterize the opposition as fringe wackos.
Does anyone really favor an administration that so shamelessly lies? One that so tenaciously clings to secrecy, not to protect the American people, but to protect itself? That so willfully misrepresents its true aims and so knowingly misleads the people from whom it derives its power? I simply cannot think so. And to come to the same conclusion does not make you guilty of swallowing some liberal critique of the Bush presidency, because that's not what this is. This is the critique of a person who thinks that lying at the top levels of his government is abhorrent. Call it the honest guy's critique of George W. Bush.
The most egregious examples OF distortion and misdirection - which the administration even now cannot bring itself to repudiate - involve our putative "War on Terror" and our subsequent foray into Iraq.
During his campaign for the presidency, Mr. Bush pledged a more "humble" foreign policy. "I would take the use of force very seriously," he said. "I would be guarded in my approach." Other countries would resent us "if we're an arrogant nation." He sniffed at the notion of "nation building." "Our military is meant to fight and win wars. . . . And when it gets overextended, morale drops." International cooperation and consensus building would be the cornerstone of a Bush administration's approach to the larger world. Given candidate Bush's remarks, it was hard to imagine him, as president, flipping a stiff middle finger at the world and charging off adventuring in the Middle East.
But didn't 9/11 reshuffle the deck, changing everything? Didn't Mr. Bush, on September 12, 2001, awaken to the fresh realization that bad guys in charge of Islamic nations constitute an entirely new and grave threat to us and have to be ruthlessly confronted lest they threaten the American homeland again? Wasn't Saddam Hussein rushed to the front of the line because he was complicit with the hijackers and in some measure responsible for the atrocities in Washington, D. C., and at the tip of Manhattan?
Well, no.
As Bush's former Treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, and his onetime "terror czar," Richard A. Clarke, have made clear, the president, with the enthusiastic encouragement of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, was contemplating action against Iraq from day one. "From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out," O'Neill said. All they needed was an excuse. Clarke got the same impression from within the White House. Afghanistan had to be dealt with first; that's where the actual perpetrators were, after all. But the Taliban was a mere appetizer; Saddam was the entrée. (Or who knows? The soup course?) It was simply a matter of convincing the American public (and our representatives) that war was justified.
The real - but elusive - prime mover behind the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, was quickly relegated to a back burner (a staff member at Fox News - the cable-TV outlet of the Bush White House - told me a year ago that mere mention of bin Laden's name was forbidden within the company, lest we be reminded that the actual bad guy remained at large) while Saddam's Iraq became International Enemy Number One. Just like that, a country whose economy had been reduced to shambles by international sanctions, whose military was less than half the size it had been when the U. S. Army rolled over it during the first Gulf war, that had extensive no-flight zones imposed on it in the north and south as well as constant aerial and satellite surveillance, and whose lethal weapons and capacity to produce such weapons had been destroyed or seriously degraded by UN inspection teams became, in Mr. Bush's words, "a threat of unique urgency" to the most powerful nation on earth.
Fanciful but terrifying scenarios were introduced: Unmanned aircraft, drones, had been built for missions targeting the U. S., Bush told the nation. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice deadpanned to CNN. And, Bush maintained, "Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists." We "know" Iraq possesses such weapons, Rumsfeld and Vice-President Cheney assured us. We even "know" where they are hidden. After several months of this mumbo jumbo, 70 percent of Americans had embraced the fantasy that Saddam destroyed the World Trade Center.
All these assertions have proved to be baseless and, we've since discovered, were regarded with skepticism by experts at the time they were made. But contrary opinions were derided, ignored, or covered up in the rush to war. Even as of this writing, Dick Cheney clings to his mad assertion that Saddam was somehow at the nexus of a worldwide terror network.
And then there was Abu Ghraib. Our "war president" may have been justified in his assumption that Americans are a warrior people. He pushed the envelope in thinking we'd be content as an occupying power, but he was sadly mistaken if he thought that ordinary Americans would tolerate an image of themselves as torturers. To be fair, the torture was meant to be secret. So were the memos justifying such treatment that had floated around the White House, Pentagon, and Justice Department for more than a year before the first photos came to light. The neocons no doubt appreciate that few of us have the stones to practice the New Warfare. Could you slip a pair of women's panties over the head of a naked, cowering stranger while forcing him to masturbate? What would you say while sodomizing him with a toilet plunger? Is keeping someone awake till he hallucinates inhumane treatment or merely "sleep management"?
Most of us know the answers to these questions, so it was incumbent upon the administration to pretend that Abu Ghraib was an aberration, not policy. Investigations, we were assured, were already under way; relevant bureaucracies would offer unstinting cooperation; the handful of miscreants would be sternly disciplined. After all, they didn't "represent the best of what America's all about." As anyone who'd watched the proceedings of the 9/11 Commission could have predicted, what followed was the usual administration strategy of stonewalling, obstruction, and obfuscation. The appointment of investigators was stalled; documents were withheld, including the full report by Major General Antonio Taguba, who headed the Army's primary investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib. A favorite moment for many featured John McCain growing apoplectic as Donald Rumsfeld and an entire table full of army brass proved unable to answer the simple question Who was in charge at Abu Ghraib?
The Bush administration no doubt had its real reasons for invading and occupying Iraq. They've simply chosen not to share them with the American public. They sought justification for ignoring the Geneva Convention and other statutes prohibiting torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners but were loath to acknowledge as much. They may have ideas worth discussing, but they don't welcome the rest of us in the conversation. They don't trust us because they don't dare expose their true agendas to the light of day. There is a surreal quality to all this: Occupation is liberation; Iraq is sovereign, but we're in control; Saddam is in Iraqi custody, but we've got him; we'll get out as soon as an elected Iraqi government asks us, but we'll be there for years to come. Which is what we counted on in the first place, only with rose petals and easy coochie.
This Möbius reality finds its domestic analogue in the perversely cynical "Clear Skies" and "Healthy Forests" sloganeering at Bush's EPA and in the administration's irresponsible tax cutting and other fiscal shenanigans. But the Bush administration has always worn strangely tinted shades, and you wonder to what extent Mr. Bush himself lives in a world of his own imagining.
And chances are your America and George W. Bush's America are not the same place. If you are dead center on the earning scale in real-world twenty-first-century America, you make a bit less than $32,000 a year, and $32,000 is not a sum that Mr. Bush has ever associated with getting by in his world. Bush, who has always managed to fail upwards in his various careers, has never had a job the way you have a job - where not showing up one morning gets you fired, costing you your health benefits. He may find it difficult to relate personally to any of the nearly two million citizens who've lost their jobs under his administration, the first administration since Herbert Hoover's to post a net loss of jobs. Mr. Bush has never had to worry that he couldn't afford the best available health care for his children. For him, forty-three million people without health insurance may be no more than a politically inconvenient abstraction. When Mr. Bush talks about the economy, he is not talking about your economy. His economy is filled with pals called Kenny-boy who fly around in their own airplanes. In Bush's economy, his world, friends relocate offshore to avoid paying taxes. Taxes are for chumps like you. You are not a friend. You're the help. When the party Mr. Bush is hosting in his world ends, you'll be left picking shrimp toast out of the carpet.
All administrations will dissemble, distort, or outright lie when their backs are against the wall, when honesty begins to look like political suicide. But this administration seems to lie reflexively, as if it were simply the easiest option for busy folks with a lot on their minds. While the big lies are more damning and of immeasurably greater import to the nation, it is the small, unnecessary prevarications that may be diagnostic. Who lies when they don't have to? When the simple truth, though perhaps embarrassing in the short run, is nevertheless in one's long-term self-interest? Why would a president whose calling card is his alleged rock-solid integrity waste his chief asset for penny-ante stakes? Habit, perhaps. Or an inability to admit even small mistakes.
Mr. Bush's tendency to meander beyond the bounds of truth was evident during the 2000 campaign but was largely ignored by the mainstream media. His untruths simply didn't fit the agreed-upon narrative. While generally acknowledged to be lacking in experience, depth, and other qualifications typically considered useful in a leader of the free world, Bush was portrayed as a decent fellow nonetheless, one whose straightforwardness was a given. None of that "what the meaning of is is" business for him. And, God knows, no furtive, taxpayer-funded fellatio sessions with the interns. Al Gore, on the other hand, was depicted as a dubious self-reinventor, stained like a certain blue dress by Bill Clinton's prurient transgressions. He would spend valuable weeks explaining away statements - "I invented the Internet" - that he never made in the first place. All this left the coast pretty clear for Bush.
Scenario typical of the 2000 campaign: While debating Al Gore, Bush tells two obvious - if not exactly earth-shattering - lies and is not challenged. First, he claims to have supported a patient's bill of rights while governor of Texas. This is untrue. He, in fact, vigorously resisted such a measure, only reluctantly bowing to political reality and allowing it to become law without his signature. Second, he announces that Gore has outspent him during the campaign. The opposite is true: Bush has outspent Gore. These misstatements are briefly acknowledged in major press outlets, which then quickly return to the more germane issues of Gore's pancake makeup and whether a certain feminist author has counseled him to be more of an "alpha male."
Having gotten away with such witless falsities, perhaps Mr. Bush and his team felt somehow above day-to-day truth. In any case, once ensconced in the White House, they picked up where they left off.
In the immediate aftermath and confusion of 9/11, Bush, who on that day was in Sarasota, Florida, conducting an emergency reading of "The Pet Goat," was whisked off to Nebraska aboard Air Force One. While this may have been entirely sensible under the chaotic circumstances - for all anyone knew at the time, Washington might still have been under attack - the appearance was, shall we say, less than gallant. So a story was concocted: There had been a threat to Air Force One that necessitated the evasive maneuver. Bush's chief political advisor, Karl Rove, cited "specific" and "credible" evidence to that effect. The story quickly unraveled. In truth, there was no such threat.
Then there was Bush's now infamous photo-op landing aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and his subsequent speech in front of a large banner emblazoned MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. The banner, which loomed in the background as Bush addressed the crew, became problematic as it grew clear that the mission in Iraq - whatever that may have been - was far from accomplished. "Major combat operations," as Bush put it, may have technically ended, but young Americans were still dying almost daily. So the White House dealt with the questionable banner in a manner befitting a president pledged to "responsibility and accountability": It blamed the sailors. No surprise, a bit of digging by journalists revealed the banner and its premature triumphalism to be the work of the White House communications office.
More serious by an order of magnitude was the administration's dishonesty concerning pre-9/11 terror warnings. As questions first arose about the country's lack of preparedness in the face of terrorist assault, Condoleezza Rice was dispatched to the pundit arenas to assure the nation that "no one could have imagined terrorists using aircraft as weapons." In fact, terrorism experts had warned repeatedly of just such a calamity. In June 2001, CIA director George Tenet sent Rice an intelligence report warning that "it is highly likely that a significant Al Qaeda attack is in the near future, within several weeks." Two intelligence briefings given to Bush in the summer of 2001 specifically connected Al Qaeda to the imminent danger of hijacked planes being used as weapons. According to The New York Times, after the second of these briefings, titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside United States," was delivered to the president at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in August, Bush "broke off from work early and spent most of the day fishing." This was the briefing Dr. Rice dismissed as "historical" in her testimony before the 9/11 Commission.
What's odd is that none of these lies were worth the breath expended in the telling. If only for self-serving political reasons, honesty was the way to go. The flight of Air Force One could easily have been explained in terms of security precautions taken in the confusion of momentous events. As for the carrier landing, someone should have fallen on his or her sword at the first hint of trouble: We told the president he needed to do it; he likes that stuff and was gung-ho; we figured, What the hell?; it was a mistake. The banner? We thought the sailors would appreciate it. In retrospect, also a mistake. Yup, we sure feel dumb now. Owning up to the 9/11 warnings would have entailed more than simple embarrassment. But done forthrightly and immediately, an honest reckoning would have earned the Bush team some respect once the dust settled. Instead, by needlessly tap-dancing, Bush's White House squandered vital credibility, turning even relatively minor gaffes into telling examples of its tendency to distort and evade the truth.
But image is everything in this White House, and the image of George Bush as a noble and infallible warrior in the service of his nation must be fanatically maintained, because behind the image lies . . . nothing? As Jonathan Alter of Newsweek has pointed out, Bush has "never fully inhabited" the presidency. Bush apologists can smilingly excuse his malopropisms and vagueness as the plainspokenness of a man of action, but watching Bush flounder when attempting to communicate extemporaneously, one is left with the impression that he is ineloquent not because he can't speak but because he doesn't bother to think.
George W. Bush promised to "change the tone in Washington" and ran for office as a moderate, a "compassionate conservative," in the focus-group-tested sloganeering of his campaign. Yet he has governed from the right wing of his already conservative party, assiduously tending a "base" that includes, along with the expected Fortune 500 fat cats, fiscal evangelicals who talk openly of doing away with Social Security and Medicare, of shrinking government to the size where they can, in tax radical Grover Norquist's phrase, "drown it in the bathtub." That base also encompasses a healthy share of anti-choice zealots, homophobic bigots, and assorted purveyors of junk science. Bush has tossed bones to all of them - "partial birth" abortion legislation, the promise of a constitutional amendment banning marriage between homosexuals, federal roadblocks to embryonic-stem-cell research, even comments suggesting presidential doubts about Darwinian evolution. It's not that Mr. Bush necessarily shares their worldview; indeed, it's unclear whether he embraces any coherent philosophy. But this president, who vowed to eschew politics in favor of sound policy, panders nonetheless in the interest of political gain. As John DiIulio, Bush's former head of the Office of Community and Faith-Based Initiatives, once told this magazine, "What you've got is everything - and I mean everything - being run by the political arm."
This was not what the American electorate opted for when, in 2000, by a slim but decisive margin of more than half a million votes, they chose . . . the other guy. Bush has never had a mandate. Surveys indicate broad public dissatisfaction with his domestic priorities. How many people would have voted for Mr. Bush in the first place had they understood his eagerness to pass on crushing debt to our children or seen his true colors regarding global warming and the environment? Even after 9/11, were people really looking to be dragged into an optional war under false pretenses?
If ever there was a time for uniting and not dividing, this is it. Instead, Mr. Bush governs as if by divine right, seeming to actually believe that a wise God wants him in the White House and that by constantly evoking the horrible memory of September 11, 2001, he can keep public anxiety stirred up enough to carry him to another term.
Understandably, some supporters of Mr. Bush's will believe I harbor a personal vendetta against the man, some seething resentment. One conservative commentator, based on earlier remarks I've made, has already discerned "jealousy" on my part; after all, Bush, the son of a former president, now occupies that office himself, while I, most assuredly, will not. Truth be told, I have no personal feelings for Bush at all. I hardly know him, having met him only twice, briefly and uneventfully - once during my father's presidency and once during my father's funeral. I'll acknowledge occasional annoyance at the pretense that he's somehow a clone of my father, but far from threatening, I see this more as silly and pathetic. My father, acting roles excepted, never pretended to be anyone but himself. His Republican party, furthermore, seems a far cry from the current model, with its cringing obeisance to the religious Right and its kill-anything-that-moves attack instincts. Believe it or not, I don't look in the mirror every morning and see my father looming over my shoulder. I write and speak as nothing more or less than an American citizen, one who is plenty angry about the direction our country is being dragged by the current administration. We have reached a critical juncture in our nation's history, one ripe with both danger and possibility. We need leadership with the wisdom to prudently confront those dangers and the imagination to boldly grasp the possibilities. Beyond issues of fiscal irresponsibility and ill-advised militarism, there is a question of trust. George W. Bush and his allies don't trust you and me. Why on earth, then, should we trust them?
Fortunately, we still live in a democratic republic. The Bush team cannot expect a cabal of right-wing justices to once again deliver the White House. Come November 2, we will have a choice: We can embrace a lie, or we can restore a measure of integrity to our government. We can choose, as a bumper sticker I spotted in Seattle put it, SOMEONE ELSE FOR PRESIDENT. - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| RONALD REAGAN JR.: "The Case Against George W. Bush" ... |
| 07.31.04 (7:21 am) [edit] |
It may have been the guy in the hood teetering on the stool, electrodes clamped to his genitals. Or smirking Lynndie England and her leash. Maybe it was the smarmy memos tapped out by soft-fingered lawyers itching to justify such barbarism. The grudging, lunatic retreat of the neocons from their long-standing assertion that Saddam was in cahoots with Osama didn't hurt. Even the Enron audiotapes and their celebration of craven sociopathy likely played a part. As a result of all these displays and countless smaller ones, you could feel, a couple of months back, as summer spread across the country, the ground shifting beneath your feet. Not unlike that scene in The Day After Tomorrow, then in theaters, in which the giant ice shelf splits asunder, this was more a paradigm shift than anything strictly tectonic. No cataclysmic ice age, admittedly, yet something was in the air, and people were inhaling deeply. I began to get calls from friends whose parents had always voted Republican, "but not this time." There was the staid Zbigniew Brzezinski on the staid NewsHour with Jim Lehrer sneering at the "Orwellian language" flowing out of the Pentagon. Word spread through the usual channels that old hands from the days of Bush the Elder were quietly (but not too quietly) appalled by his son's misadventure in Iraq. Suddenly, everywhere you went, a surprising number of folks seemed to have had just about enough of what the Bush administration was dishing out. A fresh age appeared on the horizon, accompanied by the sound of scales falling from people's eyes. It felt something like a demonstration of that highest of American prerogatives and the most deeply cherished American freedom: dissent.
Oddly, even my father's funeral contributed. Throughout that long, stately, overtelevised week in early June, items would appear in the newspaper discussing the Republicans' eagerness to capitalize (subtly, tastefully) on the outpouring of affection for my father and turn it to Bush's advantage for the fall election. The familiar "Heir to Reagan" puffballs were reinflated and loosed over the proceedings like (subtle, tasteful) Mylar balloons. Predictably, this backfired. People were treated to a side-by-side comparison - Ronald W. Reagan versus George W. Bush - and it's no surprise who suffered for it. Misty-eyed with nostalgia, people set aside old political gripes for a few days and remembered what friend and foe always conceded to Ronald Reagan: He was damned impressive in the role of leader of the free world. A sign in the crowd, spotted during the slow roll to the Capitol rotunda, seemed to sum up the mood - a portrait of my father and the words NOW THERE WAS A PRESIDENT.
The comparison underscored something important. And the guy on the stool, Lynndie, and her grinning cohorts, they brought the word: The Bush administration can't be trusted. The parade of Bush officials before various commissions and committees - Paul Wolfowitz, who couldn't quite remember how many young Americans had been sacrificed on the altar of his ideology; John Ashcroft, lip quivering as, for a delicious, fleeting moment, it looked as if Senator Joe Biden might just come over the table at him - these were a continuing reminder. The Enron creeps, too - a reminder of how certain environments and particular habits of mind can erode common decency. People noticed. A tipping point had been reached. The issue of credibility was back on the table. The L-word was in circulation. Not the tired old bromide liberal. That's so 1988. No, this time something much more potent: liar.
Politicians will stretch the truth. They'll exaggerate their accomplishments, paper over their gaffes. Spin has long been the lingua franca of the political realm. But George W. Bush and his administration have taken "normal" mendacity to a startling new level far beyond lies of convenience. On top of the usual massaging of public perception, they traffic in big lies, indulge in any number of symptomatic small lies, and, ultimately, have come to embody dishonesty itself. They are a lie. And people, finally, have started catching on.
None of this, needless to say, guarantees Bush a one-term presidency. The far-right wing of the country - nearly one third of us by some estimates - continues to regard all who refuse to drink the Kool-Aid (liberals, rationalists, Europeans, et cetera) as agents of Satan. Bush could show up on video canoodling with Paris Hilton and still bank their vote. Right-wing talking heads continue painting anyone who fails to genuflect deeply enough as a "hater," and therefore a nut job, probably a crypto-Islamist car bomber. But these protestations have taken on a hysterical, almost comically desperate tone. It's one thing to get trashed by Michael Moore. But when Nobel laureates, a vast majority of the scientific community, and a host of current and former diplomats, intelligence operatives, and military officials line up against you, it becomes increasingly difficult to characterize the opposition as fringe wackos.
Does anyone really favor an administration that so shamelessly lies? One that so tenaciously clings to secrecy, not to protect the American people, but to protect itself? That so willfully misrepresents its true aims and so knowingly misleads the people from whom it derives its power? I simply cannot think so. And to come to the same conclusion does not make you guilty of swallowing some liberal critique of the Bush presidency, because that's not what this is. This is the critique of a person who thinks that lying at the top levels of his government is abhorrent. Call it the honest guy's critique of George W. Bush.
The most egregious examples OF distortion and misdirection - which the administration even now cannot bring itself to repudiate - involve our putative "War on Terror" and our subsequent foray into Iraq.
During his campaign for the presidency, Mr. Bush pledged a more "humble" foreign policy. "I would take the use of force very seriously," he said. "I would be guarded in my approach." Other countries would resent us "if we're an arrogant nation." He sniffed at the notion of "nation building." "Our military is meant to fight and win wars. . . . And when it gets overextended, morale drops." International cooperation and consensus building would be the cornerstone of a Bush administration's approach to the larger world. Given candidate Bush's remarks, it was hard to imagine him, as president, flipping a stiff middle finger at the world and charging off adventuring in the Middle East.
But didn't 9/11 reshuffle the deck, changing everything? Didn't Mr. Bush, on September 12, 2001, awaken to the fresh realization that bad guys in charge of Islamic nations constitute an entirely new and grave threat to us and have to be ruthlessly confronted lest they threaten the American homeland again? Wasn't Saddam Hussein rushed to the front of the line because he was complicit with the hijackers and in some measure responsible for the atrocities in Washington, D. C., and at the tip of Manhattan?
Well, no.
As Bush's former Treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, and his onetime "terror czar," Richard A. Clarke, have made clear, the president, with the enthusiastic encouragement of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, was contemplating action against Iraq from day one. "From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out," O'Neill said. All they needed was an excuse. Clarke got the same impression from within the White House. Afghanistan had to be dealt with first; that's where the actual perpetrators were, after all. But the Taliban was a mere appetizer; Saddam was the entrée. (Or who knows? The soup course?) It was simply a matter of convincing the American public (and our representatives) that war was justified.
The real - but elusive - prime mover behind the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, was quickly relegated to a back burner (a staff member at Fox News - the cable-TV outlet of the Bush White House - told me a year ago that mere mention of bin Laden's name was forbidden within the company, lest we be reminded that the actual bad guy remained at large) while Saddam's Iraq became International Enemy Number One. Just like that, a country whose economy had been reduced to shambles by international sanctions, whose military was less than half the size it had been when the U. S. Army rolled over it during the first Gulf war, that had extensive no-flight zones imposed on it in the north and south as well as constant aerial and satellite surveillance, and whose lethal weapons and capacity to produce such weapons had been destroyed or seriously degraded by UN inspection teams became, in Mr. Bush's words, "a threat of unique urgency" to the most powerful nation on earth.
Fanciful but terrifying scenarios were introduced: Unmanned aircraft, drones, had been built for missions targeting the U. S., Bush told the nation. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice deadpanned to CNN. And, Bush maintained, "Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists." We "know" Iraq possesses such weapons, Rumsfeld and Vice-President Cheney assured us. We even "know" where they are hidden. After several months of this mumbo jumbo, 70 percent of Americans had embraced the fantasy that Saddam destroyed the World Trade Center.
All these assertions have proved to be baseless and, we've since discovered, were regarded with skepticism by experts at the time they were made. But contrary opinions were derided, ignored, or covered up in the rush to war. Even as of this writing, Dick Cheney clings to his mad assertion that Saddam was somehow at the nexus of a worldwide terror network.
And then there was Abu Ghraib. Our "war president" may have been justified in his assumption that Americans are a warrior people. He pushed the envelope in thinking we'd be content as an occupying power, but he was sadly mistaken if he thought that ordinary Americans would tolerate an image of themselves as torturers. To be fair, the torture was meant to be secret. So were the memos justifying such treatment that had floated around the White House, Pentagon, and Justice Department for more than a year before the first photos came to light. The neocons no doubt appreciate that few of us have the stones to practice the New Warfare. Could you slip a pair of women's panties over the head of a naked, cowering stranger while forcing him to masturbate? What would you say while sodomizing him with a toilet plunger? Is keeping someone awake till he hallucinates inhumane treatment or merely "sleep management"?
Most of us know the answers to these questions, so it was incumbent upon the administration to pretend that Abu Ghraib was an aberration, not policy. Investigations, we were assured, were already under way; relevant bureaucracies would offer unstinting cooperation; the handful of miscreants would be sternly disciplined. After all, they didn't "represent the best of what America's all about." As anyone who'd watched the proceedings of the 9/11 Commission could have predicted, what followed was the usual administration strategy of stonewalling, obstruction, and obfuscation. The appointment of investigators was stalled; documents were withheld, including the full report by Major General Antonio Taguba, who headed the Army's primary investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib. A favorite moment for many featured John McCain growing apoplectic as Donald Rumsfeld and an entire table full of army brass proved unable to answer the simple question Who was in charge at Abu Ghraib?
The Bush administration no doubt had its real reasons for invading and occupying Iraq. They've simply chosen not to share them with the American public. They sought justification for ignoring the Geneva Convention and other statutes prohibiting torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners but were loath to acknowledge as much. They may have ideas worth discussing, but they don't welcome the rest of us in the conversation. They don't trust us because they don't dare expose their true agendas to the light of day. There is a surreal quality to all this: Occupation is liberation; Iraq is sovereign, but we're in control; Saddam is in Iraqi custody, but we've got him; we'll get out as soon as an elected Iraqi government asks us, but we'll be there for years to come. Which is what we counted on in the first place, only with rose petals and easy coochie.
This Möbius reality finds its domestic analogue in the perversely cynical "Clear Skies" and "Healthy Forests" sloganeering at Bush's EPA and in the administration's irresponsible tax cutting and other fiscal shenanigans. But the Bush administration has always worn strangely tinted shades, and you wonder to what extent Mr. Bush himself lives in a world of his own imagining.
And chances are your America and George W. Bush's America are not the same place. If you are dead center on the earning scale in real-world twenty-first-century America, you make a bit less than $32,000 a year, and $32,000 is not a sum that Mr. Bush has ever associated with getting by in his world. Bush, who has always managed to fail upwards in his various careers, has never had a job the way you have a job - where not showing up one morning gets you fired, costing you your health benefits. He may find it difficult to relate personally to any of the nearly two million citizens who've lost their jobs under his administration, the first administration since Herbert Hoover's to post a net loss of jobs. Mr. Bush has never had to worry that he couldn't afford the best available health care for his children. For him, forty-three million people without health insurance may be no more than a politically inconvenient abstraction. When Mr. Bush talks about the economy, he is not talking about your economy. His economy is filled with pals called Kenny-boy who fly around in their own airplanes. In Bush's economy, his world, friends relocate offshore to avoid paying taxes. Taxes are for chumps like you. You are not a friend. You're the help. When the party Mr. Bush is hosting in his world ends, you'll be left picking shrimp toast out of the carpet.
All administrations will dissemble, distort, or outright lie when their backs are against the wall, when honesty begins to look like political suicide. But this administration seems to lie reflexively, as if it were simply the easiest option for busy folks with a lot on their minds. While the big lies are more damning and of immeasurably greater import to the nation, it is the small, unnecessary prevarications that may be diagnostic. Who lies when they don't have to? When the simple truth, though perhaps embarrassing in the short run, is nevertheless in one's long-term self-interest? Why would a president whose calling card is his alleged rock-solid integrity waste his chief asset for penny-ante stakes? Habit, perhaps. Or an inability to admit even small mistakes.
Mr. Bush's tendency to meander beyond the bounds of truth was evident during the 2000 campaign but was largely ignored by the mainstream media. His untruths simply didn't fit the agreed-upon narrative. While generally acknowledged to be lacking in experience, depth, and other qualifications typically considered useful in a leader of the free world, Bush was portrayed as a decent fellow nonetheless, one whose straightforwardness was a given. None of that "what the meaning of is is" business for him. And, God knows, no furtive, taxpayer-funded fellatio sessions with the interns. Al Gore, on the other hand, was depicted as a dubious self-reinventor, stained like a certain blue dress by Bill Clinton's prurient transgressions. He would spend valuable weeks explaining away statements - "I invented the Internet" - that he never made in the first place. All this left the coast pretty clear for Bush.
Scenario typical of the 2000 campaign: While debating Al Gore, Bush tells two obvious - if not exactly earth-shattering - lies and is not challenged. First, he claims to have supported a patient's bill of rights while governor of Texas. This is untrue. He, in fact, vigorously resisted such a measure, only reluctantly bowing to political reality and allowing it to become law without his signature. Second, he announces that Gore has outspent him during the campaign. The opposite is true: Bush has outspent Gore. These misstatements are briefly acknowledged in major press outlets, which then quickly return to the more germane issues of Gore's pancake makeup and whether a certain feminist author has counseled him to be more of an "alpha male."
Having gotten away with such witless falsities, perhaps Mr. Bush and his team felt somehow above day-to-day truth. In any case, once ensconced in the White House, they picked up where they left off.
In the immediate aftermath and confusion of 9/11, Bush, who on that day was in Sarasota, Florida, conducting an emergency reading of "The Pet Goat," was whisked off to Nebraska aboard Air Force One. While this may have been entirely sensible under the chaotic circumstances - for all anyone knew at the time, Washington might still have been under attack - the appearance was, shall we say, less than gallant. So a story was concocted: There had been a threat to Air Force One that necessitated the evasive maneuver. Bush's chief political advisor, Karl Rove, cited "specific" and "credible" evidence to that effect. The story quickly unraveled. In truth, there was no such threat.
Then there was Bush's now infamous photo-op landing aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and his subsequent speech in front of a large banner emblazoned MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. The banner, which loomed in the background as Bush addressed the crew, became problematic as it grew clear that the mission in Iraq - whatever that may have been - was far from accomplished. "Major combat operations," as Bush put it, may have technically ended, but young Americans were still dying almost daily. So the White House dealt with the questionable banner in a manner befitting a president pledged to "responsibility and accountability": It blamed the sailors. No surprise, a bit of digging by journalists revealed the banner and its premature triumphalism to be the work of the White House communications office.
More serious by an order of magnitude was the administration's dishonesty concerning pre-9/11 terror warnings. As questions first arose about the country's lack of preparedness in the face of terrorist assault, Condoleezza Rice was dispatched to the pundit arenas to assure the nation that "no one could have imagined terrorists using aircraft as weapons." In fact, terrorism experts had warned repeatedly of just such a calamity. In June 2001, CIA director George Tenet sent Rice an intelligence report warning that "it is highly likely that a significant Al Qaeda attack is in the near future, within several weeks." Two intelligence briefings given to Bush in the summer of 2001 specifically connected Al Qaeda to the imminent danger of hijacked planes being used as weapons. According to The New York Times, after the second of these briefings, titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside United States," was delivered to the president at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in August, Bush "broke off from work early and spent most of the day fishing." This was the briefing Dr. Rice dismissed as "historical" in her testimony before the 9/11 Commission.
What's odd is that none of these lies were worth the breath expended in the telling. If only for self-serving political reasons, honesty was the way to go. The flight of Air Force One could easily have been explained in terms of security precautions taken in the confusion of momentous events. As for the carrier landing, someone should have fallen on his or her sword at the first hint of trouble: We told the president he needed to do it; he likes that stuff and was gung-ho; we figured, What the hell?; it was a mistake. The banner? We thought the sailors would appreciate it. In retrospect, also a mistake. Yup, we sure feel dumb now. Owning up to the 9/11 warnings would have entailed more than simple embarrassment. But done forthrightly and immediately, an honest reckoning would have earned the Bush team some respect once the dust settled. Instead, by needlessly tap-dancing, Bush's White House squandered vital credibility, turning even relatively minor gaffes into telling examples of its tendency to distort and evade the truth.
But image is everything in this White House, and the image of George Bush as a noble and infallible warrior in the service of his nation must be fanatically maintained, because behind the image lies . . . nothing? As Jonathan Alter of Newsweek has pointed out, Bush has "never fully inhabited" the presidency. Bush apologists can smilingly excuse his malopropisms and vagueness as the plainspokenness of a man of action, but watching Bush flounder when attempting to communicate extemporaneously, one is left with the impression that he is ineloquent not because he can't speak but because he doesn't bother to think.
George W. Bush promised to "change the tone in Washington" and ran for office as a moderate, a "compassionate conservative," in the focus-group-tested sloganeering of his campaign. Yet he has governed from the right wing of his already conservative party, assiduously tending a "base" that includes, along with the expected Fortune 500 fat cats, fiscal evangelicals who talk openly of doing away with Social Security and Medicare, of shrinking government to the size where they can, in tax radical Grover Norquist's phrase, "drown it in the bathtub." That base also encompasses a healthy share of anti-choice zealots, homophobic bigots, and assorted purveyors of junk science. Bush has tossed bones to all of them - "partial birth" abortion legislation, the promise of a constitutional amendment banning marriage between homosexuals, federal roadblocks to embryonic-stem-cell research, even comments suggesting presidential doubts about Darwinian evolution. It's not that Mr. Bush necessarily shares their worldview; indeed, it's unclear whether he embraces any coherent philosophy. But this president, who vowed to eschew politics in favor of sound policy, panders nonetheless in the interest of political gain. As John DiIulio, Bush's former head of the Office of Community and Faith-Based Initiatives, once told this magazine, "What you've got is everything - and I mean everything - being run by the political arm."
This was not what the American electorate opted for when, in 2000, by a slim but decisive margin of more than half a million votes, they chose . . . the other guy. Bush has never had a mandate. Surveys indicate broad public dissatisfaction with his domestic priorities. How many people would have voted for Mr. Bush in the first place had they understood his eagerness to pass on crushing debt to our children or seen his true colors regarding global warming and the environment? Even after 9/11, were people really looking to be dragged into an optional war under false pretenses?
If ever there was a time for uniting and not dividing, this is it. Instead, Mr. Bush governs as if by divine right, seeming to actually believe that a wise God wants him in the White House and that by constantly evoking the horrible memory of September 11, 2001, he can keep public anxiety stirred up enough to carry him to another term.
Understandably, some supporters of Mr. Bush's will believe I harbor a personal vendetta against the man, some seething resentment. One conservative commentator, based on earlier remarks I've made, has already discerned "jealousy" on my part; after all, Bush, the son of a former president, now occupies that office himself, while I, most assuredly, will not. Truth be told, I have no personal feelings for Bush at all. I hardly know him, having met him only twice, briefly and uneventfully - once during my father's presidency and once during my father's funeral. I'll acknowledge occasional annoyance at the pretense that he's somehow a clone of my father, but far from threatening, I see this more as silly and pathetic. My father, acting roles excepted, never pretended to be anyone but himself. His Republican party, furthermore, seems a far cry from the current model, with its cringing obeisance to the religious Right and its kill-anything-that-moves attack instincts. Believe it or not, I don't look in the mirror every morning and see my father looming over my shoulder. I write and speak as nothing more or less than an American citizen, one who is plenty angry about the direction our country is being dragged by the current administration. We have reached a critical juncture in our nation's history, one ripe with both danger and possibility. We need leadership with the wisdom to prudently confront those dangers and the imagination to boldly grasp the possibilities. Beyond issues of fiscal irresponsibility and ill-advised militarism, there is a question of trust. George W. Bush and his allies don't trust you and me. Why on earth, then, should we trust them?
Fortunately, we still live in a democratic republic. The Bush team cannot expect a cabal of right-wing justices to once again deliver the White House. Come November 2, we will have a choice: We can embrace a lie, or we can restore a measure of integrity to our government. We can choose, as a bumper sticker I spotted in Seattle put it, SOMEONE ELSE FOR PRESIDENT. - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| John F. Kerry has Veteran's Support: 12 Generals and Admirals Endorse John Kerry |
| 07.31.04 (7:19 am) [edit] |
[b]12 Generals and Admirals Endorse John Kerry
[i]Military Leaders to Speak and Take Part in Video Tribute in Boston Wednesday as Convention Focus Turns to Kerry-Edwards Plan to Make a Stronger, More Secure America[/i][/b]
In an unprecedented display of support from the military establishment, twelve retired generals and admirals endorsed John Kerry for president of the United States on Wednesday. These distinguished flag officers join the ranks of tens of thousands of veterans – including over 500 veteran delegates in Boston - who want a stronger, more secure America and their fellow veteran John Kerry to be the next Commander-in-Chief.
The endorsement comes on the day the convention is focused on the Kerry-Edwards plan to make a stronger, more secure America. General John Shalikashvili (Ret.) will speak at the Convention on Wednesday evening and be introduced by Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy (Ret.). There will be a special video tribute to John Kerry featuring distinguished flag officers talking about what is at stake in this election and why they support John Kerry to build a strong America, respected in the world.
"My son is a Navy sailor, my son-in-law is a Navy sailor, and my nephew is a Navy sailor. I want them, and all of America’s sons and daughters in uniform to have a new, wiser, better, and courageous commander-in-chief in John Kerry," said Vice Admiral Lee F. Gunn (USN, Ret.)
"Success in the global war on terror requires enlightened U.S. leadership – leadership that knows the importance of listening to and working with other countries. Senator Kerry is such a leader, and as Commander-in-Chief, he will adapt our military to the unprecedented security demands faced by our country and its armed forces," said Lieutenant General Daniel Christman (USA, Ret.)
Kerry arrives in Boston for the convention Wednesday morning where he will be met by 13 crewmates and fellow veterans from Vietnam. Many of these individuals will also participate in the convention program on Thursday night before Kerry accepts the Democratic nomination
At the 2004 convention, veterans are playing a historic, unprecedented role with over 500 delegates who are veterans in attendance. On Monday, the first ever Veterans Caucus was held. Led by notable veterans like Wesley Clark, former Senator Max Cleland and former Senator Bob Kerrey, over 2,000 veterans and members of military families attended. Veterans have also held grassroots ‘Basic Training’ sessions to learn how they can help organize veterans in their own communities and help elect John Kerry.
The Kerry-Edwards campaign has set a goal of organizing one million veterans by Election Day. Recruited through the 50 state-level Veterans for Kerry organizations, these one million veterans will be used in grassroots, veteran-to-veteran operations, including phone-banks, canvassing and GOTV efforts.
John Kerry and John Edwards offer the right plan for our troops and the right plan for our country. They have proposed expanding America's active duty forces by 40,000 to relieve the strain on today's military, doubling America's special forces capability and increasing other specialized personnel to improve America's ability to conduct counterterrorism operations, perform reconnaissance missions and gather intelligence. John Kerry and John Edwards will ensure that our troops have everything they need to accomplish their mission.
[u][b]The flag officers endorsing John Kerry are[/b][/u]:
Lieutenant General Edward D. Baca (United States Army, Retired)
Baca served as Chief of the National Guard Bureau in Washington, D.C. where he was responsible for formulating, developing, and coordinating all policies, programs and plans affecting Army and Air National Guard personnel. During his tenure as head of the National Guard, Baca was one of the highest-ranking Latinos in the U.S. military. A native of New Mexico, Baca enlisted in the New Mexico Army National Guard in 1956, volunteered for service in Vietnam, and retired as a three-star general officer. Baca also served as the Adjutant General of the New Mexico National Guard where he exercised joint command over both the Army and Air National Guard of New Mexico.
“I am proud to have served our country in the military for over 41 years. I am even prouder that 4 of my children have worn the uniform of our armed forces. Three are still serving. As a combat veteran and proven leader, I know that John Kerry will never send them in harm’s way, without exhausting all means of diplomacy. Even then, it will be a last resort. God forbid if he ever has to, he will make sure that they are part of an armed force as best equipped, best training, and most respected in the world.”
Lieutenant General Daniel W. Christman (United States Army, Retired)
Christman served as the Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He also served for two years as Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during which time he represented the U.S. as a member of NATO's Military Committee in Brussels, Belgium. He is a combat veteran of Southeast Asia where he commanded a company in the 101st Airborne Division. Christman was born on May 5, 1943 and is a native of Hudson, Ohio.
“Success in the global war on terror requires enlightened U.S. leadership – leadership that knows the importance of listening to and working with other countries. Senator Kerry is such a leader, and as Commander-in-Chief, he will adapt our military to the unprecedented security demands faced by our country and its armed forces.”
General Wesley K. Clark (United States Army, Retired)
Wesley Clark was born December 23rd 1944 in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas. He graduated first in his class from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1966 and received his Masters degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar. In the Army, Clark rose steadily through the ranks, culminating in his service as the Commander-in-Chief of US Southern Command from 1996 to 1997 and NATO Supreme Allied Commander from 1997 to 2000. He retired from the Army in 2000. Clark and his wife Gert live in Little Rock, Arkansas and have one son.
"I ask you to join me in standing up for an American who has given truly outstanding service to his country in peace and in war. John Kerry has the right message and right character to bring the nation forward. Both John and I served in Vietnam -- and know what it is to be tested on the battlefield, fighting for your country. John Kerry never quit fighting for his country."
Admiral William J. Crowe (United States Navy, Retired)
Crowe served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest ranking officer in the U.S. military. Prior to serving as Chairman, he served as Commander in Chief in several areas, including the U.S. Pacific Command, Allied Forces in Southern Europe, U.S. Naval Forces in Europe and the Middle East Forces. He was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1985 until his retirement from the Navy in 1989.
"The current administration has an overly simplistic view of how and when to use our military. By not bringing in our friends and allies, they have created a mess in Iraq and are crippling our forces around the world. John Kerry has a realistic understanding of the requirements of our military and the threats that we face."
Vice Admiral Lee F. Gunn (United States Navy, Retired)
Gunn served as the Inspector General of the Department of the Navy until his retirement in August 2000. Gunn commanded the USS BARBEY and the Destroyer Squadron “Thirty-one,” a component of the U.S. Navy's Anti-Submarine Warfare Destroyer Squadrons. Gunn is from Bakersfield, California and is a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles. He received his commission from the Naval ROTC program at UCLA in June 1965.
"My son is a Navy sailor, my son-in-law is a Navy sailor, and my nephew is a Navy sailor. I want them, and all of America’s sons and daughters in uniform to have a new, wiser, better, and courageous commander-in-chief in John Kerry."
General Joseph Hoar (United States Marine Corps, Retired)
Hoar served as Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Central Command. After the first Gulf War, Hoar led the effort to enforce the naval embargo in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, enforce the no-fly zone in the south of Iraq. He oversaw the humanitarian and peacekeeping operations in Kenya and Somalia and also led the U.S. Marine Corps support for operations in Rwanda, and the evacuation of U.S. civilians from Yemen during the 1994 civil war. Hoar was the Deputy for Operations for the Marine Crops during the Gulf War and served as General Norman Schwartzkopf's Chief of Staff at Central Command. General Hoar was born in Boston, Massachusetts and graduated from Tufts University where he received his commission through the ROTC program.
"Sen. Kerry has demonstrated his courage in combat and his broad knowledge of international relations while in the Senate. He’s a leader who is not afraid to lead."
Lieutenant General Claudia J. Kennedy (United States Army, Retired)
Kennedy is the first and only woman to achieve the rank of three-star general in the United States Army. Kennedy also served as Deputy Chief of Staff for Army Intelligence, Commander of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, and as Commander of the 703d military intelligence brigade in Kunia, Hawaii. She was born in Frankfurt, Germany, and earned her commission as a second lieutenant in June 1969 through the Women's Army Corps.
"John Kerry understands the future as it is framed by the international community and by the people at home. He will make the right decisions about education, defense, intelligence, economic development both foreign and domestic, and sustaining international relationships. He is a leader I trust."
Lieutenant General Donald Kerrick (United States Army, Retired)
Kerrick served as Deputy National Security Advisor to the President of the United States where he was responsible for developing, implementing, and managing United States foreign and national security policies. He was a principal negotiator on the international Bosnia Peace Delegation that ended the Bosnian War, and served on the Steering Committee for the Protection of United States Critical Infrastructure. Kerrick holds a Masters degree from the University of Southern California and a Bachelors degree from Florida Southern College. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Diplomacy from Florida Southern College. Kerrick was born on April 1949 in Bethesda, Maryland and was raised in Islamorada, Florida.
"The miscalculations of the last three years have severely stressed our armed forces both around the world and here at home. John Kerry understands the military and war. He is the right leader at the right time to restore America’s credibility around the world."
General Merrill “Tony” A. McPeak (United States Air Force, Retired)
McPeak served as the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force. Previously, McPeak served as Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces. He is a command pilot, having flown more than 6,000 hours, principally in fighter aircraft. General McPeak was born January 9, 1936 in Santa Rosa, California and entered the Air Force in 1957 as a distinguished graduate of the San Diego State College ROTC program.
"I’m a registered independent, but I like and admire John Kerry. He simply has a great record of brave and skillful service to the country. He is sure to be a fine Commander-in-Chief, one we can all be proud of, and proud to follow."
General John M. Shalikashvili (United States Army, Retired)
Shalikashvili served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest ranking officer in the U.S. military. Prior to serving as Chairman, he served as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe and also as the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. European Command. He served as Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Army in Europe and during the first Gulf War in 1991, assumed command of Operation Provide Comfort, the relief operation that returned hundreds of thousands of Kurdish refugees to Northern Iraq. Shalikashvili is a naturalized U.S. citizen and was born in Warsaw, Poland on June 27, 1936.
"I believe in John Kerry. As a young man, he heeded his country’s call to service when it needed him. He commanded in combat and did so with bravery and distinction. He knows from experience a commander’s responsibility to his troops. He stands with our troops and with their families."
Admiral Stansfield Turner (United States Navy, Retired)
Turner served as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1977-1981.
Previously, he served in the U.S. Navy as Commander of the U.S. Second Fleet and NATO Striking Fleet Atlantic. Turner also served as the Commander-in-Chief of NATO's Southern Flank, and as President of the Naval War College. Before promotion to Admiral in 1970, he served on destroyers off the shores of Korea and Vietnam, and as executive assistant and naval aide to two Secretaries of the Navy. A native of Highland Park, Illinois, Turner received his commission from the United States Naval Academy and was a Rhodes Scholar.
"George Bush as the Commander-in-Chief has got us into a morass in both Iraq and Afghanistan. John Kerry is a true veteran, and would be a much better commander-in-chief."
General Johnnie E. Wilson (United States Army, Retired)
Wilson served as the Commanding General of the U.S. Army Material Command, and was responsible for the Army's wholesale logistics, acquisition and technology generation operations. He was born on February 4, 1944 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and raised in Lorain, Ohio. He entered the Army in August 1961 as an enlisted soldier and retired n 1999 as a four-star general. Wilson is one of just four African-Americans to earn four stars in the U.S. Army's more than 200-year history. Wilson held a wide variety of important command and staff positions including Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, and Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army Materiel Command.
"Senator Kerry is a principled, patriotic leader with the requisite skills to lead America in the 21st century." - http://www.johnkerry.com/pres...
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| Three Reasons Why John F. Kerry Will Be A Better Commander-in-Chief Than George Bush ... |
| 07.30.04 (6:40 am) [edit] |
[b]John F. Kerry will make a better Commander-in-Chief than Bush because he is smarter[i] by far[/i]; is [i]able to work with others[/i]; and, has actually[i] fought for our nation [/i]and [i]understands[/i] what that means ...[/b]
John F. Kerry is actually [i]stronger[/i] on the defense of the United States of America and our National Security than Bush... [i]Why[/i]? [i]Because[/i]...
1. John F. Kerry served honorably in war-time while Bush did not. Bush doesn't even comprehend what war means. Bush jokes and smirks and prances around on Aircraft Carriers howling obscene buffooneries like "Mission Accomplished!" or "Bring 'em on" while our U.S. Soldiers are massacred in unnecessary wars. Bush squanders American lives and treasures recklessly and wantonly, not to safeguard us, but based upon lies and deceptions.
2. John F. Kerry has served on the Senate Foreign Relation and Intelligence Committees http://www.johnkerry.com/inde... and is respected for his ability to work with others in Congress and throughout the international community. The same cannot be said for Bush who is simply told what to do by neo-con thugs like Cheney, Rumsfeld and others who don't have our nation's interests at heart and who can't work with others here at home or abroad.
3. John F. Kerry has committed that he will only go to war if he must to defend our nation. Unlike Bush, Kerry will [i]not [/i]invade other nations pre-emptively and murder our US Soldiers and innocent civilians in order to enrich Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, the House of Saud, Unocal and other corporate pimps of the whorish Bush Crime Family. Bush/Cheney's War Crimes including set-up of a US Concentration Camp at Guantanamo Bay and the heinous murders, tortures, rapes and abuses of prisoners as well as the sodomy of little children at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in the Middle East will [i]not[/i] occur on Kerry's watch.
It is worthwhile reading the following speeches:
PRESIDENT CLINTON: "Making the right choices" ... Let's "Send John Kerry" to the White House!!! http://www.tblog.com/template...
PRESIDENT CARTER: "You can't be a war president one day- claim to be a peace president the next" http://www.tblog.com/template...
AL GORE: "Democracy Itself is in Grave Danger" ... http://www.tblog.com/template...
JOHN F. KERRY: "I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty."! http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| JOHN F. KERRY: "I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty."! |
| 07.30.04 (6:36 am) [edit] |
[b]The complete text of Kerry's acceptance speech [/b]
The following is a transcript of the remarks of Sen. John Kerry at the 2004 Democratic National Convention:
[u][b]I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty[/b][/u].
We are here tonight because we love our country.
We are proud of what America is and what it can become.
My fellow Americans: we are here tonight united in one simple purpose: to make America stronger at home and respected in the world.
A great American novelist wrote that you can't go home again. He could not have imagined this evening. Tonight, I am home. Home where my public life began and those who made it possible live. Home where our nation's history was written in blood, idealism, and hope. Home where my parents showed me the values of family, faith, and country.
Thank you, all of you, for a welcome home I will never forget.
I wish my parents could share this moment. They went to their rest in the last few years, but their example, their inspiration, their gift of open eyes, open mind, and endless world are bigger and more lasting than any words.
I was born -- as some of you saw in the film -- in Colorado, in Fitzsimmons Army Hospital, when my dad was a pilot in World War II. Now, I'm not one to read into things, but guess which wing of the hospital the maternity ward was in? I'm not making this up. I was born in the West Wing!
My mother was the rock of our family as so many mothers are. She stayed up late to help me do my homework. She sat by my bed when I was sick, and she answered the questions of a child who, like all children, found the world full of wonders and mysteries.
She was my den mother when I was a Cub Scout and she was so proud of her fifty year pin as a Girl Scout leader. She gave me her passion for the environment. She taught me to see trees as the cathedrals of nature. And by the power of her example, she showed me that we can and must finish the march toward full equality for all women in our country.
My dad did the things that a boy remembers. He gave me my first model airplane, my first baseball mitt and my first bicycle. He also taught me that we are here for something bigger than ourselves; he lived out the responsibilities and sacrifices of the greatest generation to whom we owe so much.
When I was a young man, he was in the State Department, stationed in Berlin when it and the world were divided between democracy and communism. I have unforgettable memories of being a kid mesmerized by the British, French, and American troops, each of them guarding their own part of the city, and Russians standing guard on the stark line separating East from West. On one occasion, I rode my bike into Soviet East Berlin. And when I proudly told my dad, he promptly grounded me.
But what I learned has stayed with me for a lifetime. I saw how different life was on different sides of the same city. I saw the fear in the eyes of people who were not free. I saw the gratitude of people toward the United States for all that we had done. I felt goose bumps as I got off a military train and heard the Army band strike up "Stars and Stripes Forever." I learned what it meant to be America at our best. I learned the pride of our freedom. And I am determined now to restore that pride to all who look to America.
Mine were greatest generation parents. And as I thank them, we all join together to thank that whole generation for making America strong, for winning World War II, winning the Cold War, and for the great gift of service which brought America fifty years of peace and prosperity.
My parents inspired me to serve, and when I was a junior in high school, John Kennedy called my generation to service. It was the beginning of a great journey -- a time to march for civil rights, for voting rights, for the environment, for women, and for peace. We believed we could change the world. And you know what? We did.
But we're not finished. The journey isn't complete. The march isn't over. The promise isn't perfected. Tonight, we're setting out again. And together, we're going to write the next great chapter of America's story.
We have it in our power to change the world again. But only if we're true to our ideals -- and that starts by telling the truth to the American people. That is my first pledge to you tonight. As president, I will restore trust and credibility to the White House.
I ask you to judge me by my record: As a young prosecutor, I fought for victim's rights and made prosecuting violence against women a priority. When I came to the Senate, I broke with many in my own party to vote for a balanced budget, because I thought it was the right thing to do. I fought to put a 100,000 police officers on the street.
And then I reached across the aisle to work with John McCain, to find the truth about our POW's and missing in action, and to finally make peace with Vietnam.
I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war. I will have a vice president who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws. I will have a secretary of defense who will listen to the best advice of our military leaders. And I will appoint an attorney general who actually upholds the Constitution of the United States.
My fellow Americans, this is the most important election of our lifetime. The stakes are high. We are a nation at war -- a global war on terror against an enemy unlike any we have ever known before. And here at home, wages are falling, health care costs are rising, and our great middle class is shrinking. People are working weekends; they're working two jobs, three jobs, and they're still not getting ahead.
We're told that outsourcing jobs is good for America. We're told that new jobs that pay $9,000 less than the jobs that have been lost is the best we can do. They say this is the best economy we've ever had. And they say that anyone who thinks otherwise is a pessimist. Well, here is our answer: There is nothing more pessimistic than saying America can't do better.
We can do better. We can do better and we will. We're the optimists. For us, this is a country of the future. We're the can do people. And let's not forget what we did in the 1990s. We balanced the budget. We paid down the debt. We created 23 million new jobs. We lifted millions out of poverty and we lifted the standard of living for the middle class. We just need to believe in ourselves -- and we can do it again.
So tonight, in the city where America's freedom began, only a few blocks from where the sons and daughters of liberty gave birth to our nation -- here tonight, on behalf of a new birth of freedom -- on behalf of the middle class who deserve a champion, and those struggling to join it who deserve a fair shot -- for the brave men and women in uniform who risk their lives every day and the families who pray for their return -- for all those who believe our best days are ahead of us -- for all of you -- with great faith in the American people, I accept your nomination for president of the United States.
I am proud that at my side will be a running mate whose life is the story of the American dream and who's worked every day to make that dream real for all Americans -- Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. And his wonderful wife Elizabeth and their family. This son of a mill worker is ready to lead -- and next January, Americans will be proud to have a fighter for the middle class to succeed Dick Cheney as vice president of the United States.
And what can I say about Teresa? She has the strongest moral compass of anyone I know. She's down to earth, nurturing, courageous, wise and smart. She speaks her mind and she speaks the truth, and I love her for that, too. And that's why America will embrace her as the next first lady of the United States.
For Teresa and me, no matter what the future holds or the past has given us, nothing will ever mean as much as our children. We love them not just for who they are and what they've become, but for being themselves, making us laugh, holding our feet to the fire, and never letting me get away with anything. Thank you, Andre, Alex, Chris, Vanessa, and John.
And in this journey, I am accompanied by an extraordinary band of brothers led by that American hero, a patriot named Max Cleland. Our band of brothers doesn't march together because of who we are as veterans, but because of what we learned as soldiers. We fought for this nation because we loved it and we came back with the deep belief that every day is extra. We may be a little older now, we may be a little grayer, but we still know how to fight for our country.
And standing with us in that fight are those who shared with me the long season of the primary campaign: Carol Moseley Braun, Gen. Wesley Clark, Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt, Bob Graham, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Lieberman and Al Sharpton.
To all of you, I say thank you for teaching me and testing me -- but mostly, we say thank you for standing up for our country and giving us the unity to move America forward.
My fellow Americans, the world tonight is very different from the world of four years ago. But I believe the American people are more than equal to the challenge.
Remember the hours after September 11th, when we came together as one to answer the attack against our homeland. We drew strength when our firefighters ran up the stairs and risked their lives, so that others might live. When rescuers rushed into smoke and fire at the Pentagon. When the men and women of Flight 93 sacrificed themselves to save our nation's Capitol. When flags were hanging from front porches all across America, and strangers became friends. It was the worst day we have ever seen, but it brought out the best in all of us.
I am proud that after September 11th all our people rallied to President Bush's call for unity to meet the danger. There were no Democrats. There were no Republicans. There were only Americans. How we wish it had stayed that way.
Now I know there are those who criticize me for seeing complexities -- and I do -- because some issues just aren't all that simple. Saying there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq doesn't make it so. Saying we can fight a war on the cheap doesn't make it so. And proclaiming mission accomplished certainly doesn't make it so.
As president, I will ask hard questions and demand hard evidence. I will immediately reform the intelligence system -- so policy is guided by facts, and facts are never distorted by politics. And as president, I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: the United States of America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to.
I know what kids go through when they are carrying an M-16 in a dangerous place and they can't tell friend from foe. I know what they go through when they're out on patrol at night and they don't know what's coming around the next bend. I know what it's like to write letters home telling your family that everything's all right when you're not sure that's true.
As president, I will wage this war with the lessons I learned in war. Before you go to battle, you have to be able to look a parent in the eye and truthfully say: "I tried everything possible to avoid sending your son or daughter into harm's way. But we had no choice. We had to protect the American people, fundamental American values from a threat that was real and imminent." So lesson one, this is the only justification for going to war.
And on my first day in office, I will send a message to every man and woman in our armed forces: You will never be asked to fight a war without a plan to win the peace.
I know what we have to do in Iraq. We need a president who has the credibility to bring our allies to our side and share the burden, reduce the cost to American taxpayers, and reduce the risk to American soldiers. That's the right way to get the job done and bring our troops home.
Here is the reality: That won't happen until we have a president who restores America's respect and leadership -- so we don't have to go it alone in the world.
And we need to rebuild our alliances, so we can get the terrorists before they get us.
I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as president. Let there be no mistake: I will never hesitate to use force when it is required. Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response. I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security. And I will build a stronger American military.
We will add 40,000 active duty troops -- not in Iraq, but to strengthen American forces that are now overstretched, overextended, and under pressure. We will double our special forces to conduct anti-terrorist operations. We will provide our troops with the newest weapons and technology to save their lives -- and win the battle. And we will end the backdoor draft of National Guard and reservists.
To all who serve in our armed forces today, I say, help is on the way.
As president, I will fight a smarter, more effective war on terror. We will deploy every tool in our arsenal: our economic as well as our military might; our principles as well as our firepower.
In these dangerous days there is a right way and a wrong way to be strong. Strength is more than tough words. After decades of experience in national security, I know the reach of our power and I know the power of our ideals.
We need to make America once again a beacon in the world. We need to be looked up to and not just feared.
We need to lead a global effort against nuclear proliferation -- to keep the most dangerous weapons in the world out of the most dangerous hands in the world.
We need a strong military and we need to lead strong alliances. And then, with confidence and determination, we will be able to tell the terrorists: You will lose and we will win. The future doesn't belong to fear; it belongs to freedom.
And the front lines of this battle are not just far away -- they're right here on our shores, at our airports, and potentially in any town or city. Today, our national security begins with homeland security. The 9/11 Commission has given us a path to follow, endorsed by Democrats, Republicans, and the 9/11 families. As president, I will not evade or equivocate; I will immediately implement the recommendations of that commission. We shouldn't be letting 95 percent of container ships come into our ports without ever being physically inspected. We shouldn't be leaving our nuclear and chemical plants without enough protection. And we shouldn't be opening firehouses in Baghdad and closing them down in the United States of America.
And tonight, we have an important message for those who question the patriotism of Americans who offer a better direction for our country. Before wrapping themselves in the flag and shutting their eyes and ears to the truth, they should remember what America is really all about. They should remember the great idea of freedom for which so many have given their lives. Our purpose now is to reclaim democracy itself. We are here to affirm that when Americans stand up and speak their minds and say America can do better, that is not a challenge to patriotism; it is the heart and soul of patriotism.
You see that flag up there. We call her Old Glory. The stars and stripes forever. I fought under that flag, as did so many of you here and all across our country. That flag flew from the gun turret right behind my head. It was shot through and through and tattered, but it never ceased to wave in the wind. It draped the caskets of men I served with and friends I grew up with. For us, that flag is the most powerful symbol of who we are and what we believe in. Our strength. Our diversity. Our love of country. All that makes America both great and good.
That flag doesn't belong to any president. It doesn't belong to any ideology and it doesn't belong to any political party. It belongs to all the American people.
My fellow citizens, elections are about choices. And choices are about values. In the end, it's not just policies and programs that matter; the president who sits at that desk must be guided by principle.
For four years, we've heard a lot of talk about values. But values spoken without actions taken are just slogans. Values are not just words. They're what we live by. They're about the causes we champion and the people we fight for. And it is time for those who talk about family values to start valuing families.
You don't value families by kicking kids out of after school programs and taking cops off our streets, so that Enron can get another tax break.
We believe in the family value of caring for our children and protecting the neighborhoods where they walk and play.
And that is the choice in this election.
You don't value families by denying real prescription drug coverage to seniors, so big drug companies can get another windfall.
We believe in the family value expressed in one of the oldest Commandments: "Honor thy father and thy mother." As president, I will not privatize Social Security. I will not cut benefits. And together, we will make sure that senior citizens never have to cut their pills in half because they can't afford life-saving medicine.
And that is the choice in this election.
You don't value families if you force them to take up a collection to buy body armor for a son or daughter in the service, if you deny veterans health care, or if you tell middle class families to wait for a tax cut, so that the wealthiest among us can get even more.
We believe in the value of doing what's right for everyone in the American family.
And that is the choice in this election.
We believe that what matters most is not narrow appeals masquerading as values, but the shared values that show the true face of America. Not narrow appeals that divide us, but shared values that unite us. Family and faith. Hard work and responsibility. Opportunity for all -- so that every child, every parent, every worker has an equal shot at living up to their God-given potential.
What does it mean in America today when Dave McCune, a steel worker I met in Canton, Ohio, saw his job sent overseas and the equipment in his factory literally unbolted, crated up, and shipped thousands of miles away along with that job? What does it mean when workers I've met had to train their foreign replacements?
America can do better. So tonight we say: Help is on the way.
What does it mean when Mary Ann Knowles, a woman with breast cancer I met in New Hampshire, had to keep working day after day right through her chemotherapy, no matter how sick she felt, because she was terrified of losing her family's health insurance.
America can do better. And help is on the way.
What does it mean when Deborah Kromins from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania works and saves all her life only to find out that her pension has disappeared into thin air -- and the executive who looted it has bailed out on a golden parachute?
America can do better. And help is on the way.
What does it mean when twenty five percent of the children in Harlem have asthma because of air pollution?
America can do better. And help is on the way.
What does it mean when people are huddled in blankets in the cold, sleeping in Lafayette Park on the doorstep of the White House itself -- and the number of families living in poverty has risen by three million in the last four years?
America can do better. And help is on the way.
And so we come here tonight to ask: Where is the conscience of our country?
I'll tell you where it is: it's in rural and small town America; it's in urban neighborhoods and suburban main streets; it's alive in the people I've met in every part of this land. It's bursting in the hearts of Americans who are determined to give our country back its values and its truth.
We value jobs that pay you more not less than you earned before. We value jobs where, when you put in a week's work, you can actually pay your bills, provide for your children, and lift up the quality of your life. We value an America where the middle class is not being squeezed, but doing better.
So here is our economic plan to build a stronger America:
First, new incentives to revitalize manufacturing.
Second, investment in technology and innovation that will create the good-paying jobs of the future.
Third, close the tax loopholes that reward companies for shipping our jobs overseas. Instead, we will reward companies that create and keep good paying jobs where they belong -- in the good old U.S.A.
We value an America that exports products, not jobs -- and we believe American workers should never have to subsidize the loss of their own job.
Next, we will trade and compete in the world. But our plan calls for a fair playing field -- because if you give the American worker a fair playing field, there's nobody in the world the American worker can't compete against.
And we're going to return to fiscal responsibility because it is the foundation of our economic strength. Our plan will cut the deficit in half in four years by ending tax giveaways that are nothing more than corporate welfare -- and will make government live by the rule that every family has to follow: Pay as you go.
And let me tell you what we won't do: We won't raise taxes on the middle class. You've heard a lot of false charges about this in recent months. So let me say straight out what I will do as president: I will cut middle class taxes. I will reduce the tax burden on small business. And I will roll back the tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals who make over $200,000 a year, so we can invest in job creation, health care and education.
Our education plan for a stronger America sets high standards and demands accountability from parents, teachers, and schools. It provides for smaller class sizes and treats teachers like the professionals they are. And it gives a tax credit to families for each and every year of college.
When I was a prosecutor, I met young kids who were in trouble, abandoned by adults. And as president, I am determined that we stop being a nation content to spend $50,000 a year to keep a young person in prison for the rest of their life -- when we could invest $10,000 to give them Head Start, Early Start, Smart Start, the best possible start in life.
And we value health care that's affordable and accessible for all Americans.
Since 2000, four million people have lost their health insurance. Millions more are struggling to afford it.
You know what's happening. Your premiums, your co-payments, your deductibles have all gone through the roof.
Our health care plan for a stronger America cracks down on the waste, greed, and abuse in our health care system and will save families up to $1,000 a year on their premiums. You'll get to pick your own doctor -- and patients and doctors, not insurance company bureaucrats, will make medical decisions. Under our plan, Medicare will negotiate lower drug prices for seniors. And all Americans will be able to buy less expensive prescription drugs from countries like Canada.
The story of people struggling for health care is the story of so many Americans. But you know what, it's not the story of senators and members of Congress. Because we give ourselves great health care and you get the bill. Well, I'm here to say, your family's health care is just as important as any politician's in Washington, D.C.
And when I'm president, America will stop being the only advanced nation in the world which fails to understand that health care is not a privilege for the wealthy, the connected, and the elected -- it is a right for all Americans.
We value an America that controls its own destiny because it's finally and forever independent of Mideast oil. What does it mean for our economy and our national security when we only have 3 percent of the world's oil reserves, yet we rely on foreign countries for 53 percent of what we consume?
I want an America that relies on its own ingenuity and innovation -- not the Saudi royal family.
And our energy plan for a stronger America will invest in new technologies and alternative fuels and the cars of the future -- so that no young American in uniform will ever be held hostage to our dependence on oil from the Middle East.
I've told you about our plans for the economy, for education, for health care, for energy independence. I want you to know more about them. So now I'm going to say something that Franklin Roosevelt could never have said in his acceptance speech: Go to johnkerry.com.
I want to address these next words directly to President George W. Bush: In the weeks ahead, let's be optimists, not just opponents. Let's build unity in the American family, not angry division. Let's honor this nation's diversity; let's respect one another; and let's never misuse for political purposes the most precious document in American history, the Constitution of the United States.
My friends, the high road may be harder, but it leads to a better place. And that's why Republicans and Democrats must make this election a contest of big ideas, not small-minded attacks. This is our time to reject the kind of politics calculated to divide race from race, group from group, region from region. Maybe some just see us divided into red states and blue states, but I see us as one America -- red, white, and blue. And when I am president, the government I lead will enlist people of talent, Republicans as well as Democrats, to find the common ground -- so that no one who has something to contribute will be left on the sidelines.
And let me say it plainly: In that cause, and in this campaign, we welcome people of faith. America is not us and them. I think of what Ron Reagan said of his father a few weeks ago, and I want to say this to you tonight: I don't wear my own faith on my sleeve. But faith has given me values and hope to live by, from Vietnam to this day, from Sunday to Sunday. I don't want to claim that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side. And whatever our faith, one belief should bind us all: The measure of our character is our willingness to give of ourselves for others and for our country.
These aren't Democratic values. These aren't Republican values. They're American values. We believe in them. They're who we are. And if we honor them, if we believe in ourselves, we can build an America that's stronger at home and respected in the world.
So much promise stretches before us. Americans have always reached for the impossible, looked to the next horizon, and asked: What if?
Two young bicycle mechanics from Dayton asked what if this airplane could take off at Kitty Hawk? It did that and changed the world forever. A young president asked what if we could go to the moon in 10 years? And now we're exploring the solar system and the stars themselves. A young generation of entrepreneurs asked, what if we could take all the information in a library and put it on a little chip the size of a fingernail? We did and that too changed the world forever.
And now it's our time to ask: What if?
What if we find a breakthrough to cure Parkinson's, diabetes, Alzheimer's and AIDs? What if we have a president who believes in science, so we can unleash the wonders of discovery like stem cell research to treat illness and save millions of lives?
What if we do what adults should do -- and make sure all our children are safe in the afternoons after school? And what if we have a leadership that's as good as the American dream -- so that bigotry and hatred never again steal the hope and future of any American?
I learned a lot about these values on that gunboat patrolling the Mekong Delta with young Americans who came from places as different as Iowa and Oregon, Arkansas, Florida and California. No one cared where we went to school. No one cared about our race or our backgrounds. We were literally all in the same boat. We looked out, one for the other -- and we still do.
That is the kind of America I will lead as president -- an America where we are all in the same boat.
Never has there been a more urgent moment for Americans to step up and define ourselves. I will work my heart out. But, my fellow citizens, the outcome is in your hands more than mine.
It is time to reach for the next dream. It is time to look to the next horizon. For America, the hope is there. The sun is rising. Our best days are still to come.
Goodnight, God bless you, and God bless America. - http://south.nj.com/news/ledg...
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| John F. Kerry's Brave Assault on Bush/Cheney's Miserable Record of Crimes & Failures ... |
| 07.30.04 (6:25 am) [edit] |
[b]The complete text of Kerry's acceptance speech [/b]
The following is a transcript of the remarks of Sen. John Kerry at the 2004 Democratic National Convention:
[u][b]I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty[/b][/u].
We are here tonight because we love our country.
We are proud of what America is and what it can become.
My fellow Americans: we are here tonight united in one simple purpose: to make America stronger at home and respected in the world.
A great American novelist wrote that you can't go home again. He could not have imagined this evening. Tonight, I am home. Home where my public life began and those who made it possible live. Home where our nation's history was written in blood, idealism, and hope. Home where my parents showed me the values of family, faith, and country.
Thank you, all of you, for a welcome home I will never forget.
I wish my parents could share this moment. They went to their rest in the last few years, but their example, their inspiration, their gift of open eyes, open mind, and endless world are bigger and more lasting than any words.
I was born -- as some of you saw in the film -- in Colorado, in Fitzsimmons Army Hospital, when my dad was a pilot in World War II. Now, I'm not one to read into things, but guess which wing of the hospital the maternity ward was in? I'm not making this up. I was born in the West Wing!
My mother was the rock of our family as so many mothers are. She stayed up late to help me do my homework. She sat by my bed when I was sick, and she answered the questions of a child who, like all children, found the world full of wonders and mysteries.
She was my den mother when I was a Cub Scout and she was so proud of her fifty year pin as a Girl Scout leader. She gave me her passion for the environment. She taught me to see trees as the cathedrals of nature. And by the power of her example, she showed me that we can and must finish the march toward full equality for all women in our country.
My dad did the things that a boy remembers. He gave me my first model airplane, my first baseball mitt and my first bicycle. He also taught me that we are here for something bigger than ourselves; he lived out the responsibilities and sacrifices of the greatest generation to whom we owe so much.
When I was a young man, he was in the State Department, stationed in Berlin when it and the world were divided between democracy and communism. I have unforgettable memories of being a kid mesmerized by the British, French, and American troops, each of them guarding their own part of the city, and Russians standing guard on the stark line separating East from West. On one occasion, I rode my bike into Soviet East Berlin. And when I proudly told my dad, he promptly grounded me.
But what I learned has stayed with me for a lifetime. I saw how different life was on different sides of the same city. I saw the fear in the eyes of people who were not free. I saw the gratitude of people toward the United States for all that we had done. I felt goose bumps as I got off a military train and heard the Army band strike up "Stars and Stripes Forever." I learned what it meant to be America at our best. I learned the pride of our freedom. And I am determined now to restore that pride to all who look to America.
Mine were greatest generation parents. And as I thank them, we all join together to thank that whole generation for making America strong, for winning World War II, winning the Cold War, and for the great gift of service which brought America fifty years of peace and prosperity.
My parents inspired me to serve, and when I was a junior in high school, John Kennedy called my generation to service. It was the beginning of a great journey -- a time to march for civil rights, for voting rights, for the environment, for women, and for peace. We believed we could change the world. And you know what? We did.
But we're not finished. The journey isn't complete. The march isn't over. The promise isn't perfected. Tonight, we're setting out again. And together, we're going to write the next great chapter of America's story.
We have it in our power to change the world again. But only if we're true to our ideals -- and that starts by telling the truth to the American people. That is my first pledge to you tonight. As president, I will restore trust and credibility to the White House.
I ask you to judge me by my record: As a young prosecutor, I fought for victim's rights and made prosecuting violence against women a priority. When I came to the Senate, I broke with many in my own party to vote for a balanced budget, because I thought it was the right thing to do. I fought to put a 100,000 police officers on the street.
And then I reached across the aisle to work with John McCain, to find the truth about our POW's and missing in action, and to finally make peace with Vietnam.
I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war. I will have a vice president who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws. I will have a secretary of defense who will listen to the best advice of our military leaders. And I will appoint an attorney general who actually upholds the Constitution of the United States.
My fellow Americans, this is the most important election of our lifetime. The stakes are high. We are a nation at war -- a global war on terror against an enemy unlike any we have ever known before. And here at home, wages are falling, health care costs are rising, and our great middle class is shrinking. People are working weekends; they're working two jobs, three jobs, and they're still not getting ahead.
We're told that outsourcing jobs is good for America. We're told that new jobs that pay $9,000 less than the jobs that have been lost is the best we can do. They say this is the best economy we've ever had. And they say that anyone who thinks otherwise is a pessimist. Well, here is our answer: There is nothing more pessimistic than saying America can't do better.
We can do better. We can do better and we will. We're the optimists. For us, this is a country of the future. We're the can do people. And let's not forget what we did in the 1990s. We balanced the budget. We paid down the debt. We created 23 million new jobs. We lifted millions out of poverty and we lifted the standard of living for the middle class. We just need to believe in ourselves -- and we can do it again.
So tonight, in the city where America's freedom began, only a few blocks from where the sons and daughters of liberty gave birth to our nation -- here tonight, on behalf of a new birth of freedom -- on behalf of the middle class who deserve a champion, and those struggling to join it who deserve a fair shot -- for the brave men and women in uniform who risk their lives every day and the families who pray for their return -- for all those who believe our best days are ahead of us -- for all of you -- with great faith in the American people, I accept your nomination for president of the United States.
I am proud that at my side will be a running mate whose life is the story of the American dream and who's worked every day to make that dream real for all Americans -- Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. And his wonderful wife Elizabeth and their family. This son of a mill worker is ready to lead -- and next January, Americans will be proud to have a fighter for the middle class to succeed Dick Cheney as vice president of the United States.
And what can I say about Teresa? She has the strongest moral compass of anyone I know. She's down to earth, nurturing, courageous, wise and smart. She speaks her mind and she speaks the truth, and I love her for that, too. And that's why America will embrace her as the next first lady of the United States.
For Teresa and me, no matter what the future holds or the past has given us, nothing will ever mean as much as our children. We love them not just for who they are and what they've become, but for being themselves, making us laugh, holding our feet to the fire, and never letting me get away with anything. Thank you, Andre, Alex, Chris, Vanessa, and John.
And in this journey, I am accompanied by an extraordinary band of brothers led by that American hero, a patriot named Max Cleland. Our band of brothers doesn't march together because of who we are as veterans, but because of what we learned as soldiers. We fought for this nation because we loved it and we came back with the deep belief that every day is extra. We may be a little older now, we may be a little grayer, but we still know how to fight for our country.
And standing with us in that fight are those who shared with me the long season of the primary campaign: Carol Moseley Braun, Gen. Wesley Clark, Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt, Bob Graham, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Lieberman and Al Sharpton.
To all of you, I say thank you for teaching me and testing me -- but mostly, we say thank you for standing up for our country and giving us the unity to move America forward.
My fellow Americans, the world tonight is very different from the world of four years ago. But I believe the American people are more than equal to the challenge.
Remember the hours after September 11th, when we came together as one to answer the attack against our homeland. We drew strength when our firefighters ran up the stairs and risked their lives, so that others might live. When rescuers rushed into smoke and fire at the Pentagon. When the men and women of Flight 93 sacrificed themselves to save our nation's Capitol. When flags were hanging from front porches all across America, and strangers became friends. It was the worst day we have ever seen, but it brought out the best in all of us.
I am proud that after September 11th all our people rallied to President Bush's call for unity to meet the danger. There were no Democrats. There were no Republicans. There were only Americans. How we wish it had stayed that way.
Now I know there are those who criticize me for seeing complexities -- and I do -- because some issues just aren't all that simple. Saying there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq doesn't make it so. Saying we can fight a war on the cheap doesn't make it so. And proclaiming mission accomplished certainly doesn't make it so.
As president, I will ask hard questions and demand hard evidence. I will immediately reform the intelligence system -- so policy is guided by facts, and facts are never distorted by politics. And as president, I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: the United States of America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to.
I know what kids go through when they are carrying an M-16 in a dangerous place and they can't tell friend from foe. I know what they go through when they're out on patrol at night and they don't know what's coming around the next bend. I know what it's like to write letters home telling your family that everything's all right when you're not sure that's true.
As president, I will wage this war with the lessons I learned in war. Before you go to battle, you have to be able to look a parent in the eye and truthfully say: "I tried everything possible to avoid sending your son or daughter into harm's way. But we had no choice. We had to protect the American people, fundamental American values from a threat that was real and imminent." So lesson one, this is the only justification for going to war.
And on my first day in office, I will send a message to every man and woman in our armed forces: You will never be asked to fight a war without a plan to win the peace.
I know what we have to do in Iraq. We need a president who has the credibility to bring our allies to our side and share the burden, reduce the cost to American taxpayers, and reduce the risk to American soldiers. That's the right way to get the job done and bring our troops home.
Here is the reality: That won't happen until we have a president who restores America's respect and leadership -- so we don't have to go it alone in the world.
And we need to rebuild our alliances, so we can get the terrorists before they get us.
I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as president. Let there be no mistake: I will never hesitate to use force when it is required. Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response. I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security. And I will build a stronger American military.
We will add 40,000 active duty troops -- not in Iraq, but to strengthen American forces that are now overstretched, overextended, and under pressure. We will double our special forces to conduct anti-terrorist operations. We will provide our troops with the newest weapons and technology to save their lives -- and win the battle. And we will end the backdoor draft of National Guard and reservists.
To all who serve in our armed forces today, I say, help is on the way.
As president, I will fight a smarter, more effective war on terror. We will deploy every tool in our arsenal: our economic as well as our military might; our principles as well as our firepower.
In these dangerous days there is a right way and a wrong way to be strong. Strength is more than tough words. After decades of experience in national security, I know the reach of our power and I know the power of our ideals.
We need to make America once again a beacon in the world. We need to be looked up to and not just feared.
We need to lead a global effort against nuclear proliferation -- to keep the most dangerous weapons in the world out of the most dangerous hands in the world.
We need a strong military and we need to lead strong alliances. And then, with confidence and determination, we will be able to tell the terrorists: You will lose and we will win. The future doesn't belong to fear; it belongs to freedom.
And the front lines of this battle are not just far away -- they're right here on our shores, at our airports, and potentially in any town or city. Today, our national security begins with homeland security. The 9/11 Commission has given us a path to follow, endorsed by Democrats, Republicans, and the 9/11 families. As president, I will not evade or equivocate; I will immediately implement the recommendations of that commission. We shouldn't be letting 95 percent of container ships come into our ports without ever being physically inspected. We shouldn't be leaving our nuclear and chemical plants without enough protection. And we shouldn't be opening firehouses in Baghdad and closing them down in the United States of America.
And tonight, we have an important message for those who question the patriotism of Americans who offer a better direction for our country. Before wrapping themselves in the flag and shutting their eyes and ears to the truth, they should remember what America is really all about. They should remember the great idea of freedom for which so many have given their lives. Our purpose now is to reclaim democracy itself. We are here to affirm that when Americans stand up and speak their minds and say America can do better, that is not a challenge to patriotism; it is the heart and soul of patriotism.
You see that flag up there. We call her Old Glory. The stars and stripes forever. I fought under that flag, as did so many of you here and all across our country. That flag flew from the gun turret right behind my head. It was shot through and through and tattered, but it never ceased to wave in the wind. It draped the caskets of men I served with and friends I grew up with. For us, that flag is the most powerful symbol of who we are and what we believe in. Our strength. Our diversity. Our love of country. All that makes America both great and good.
That flag doesn't belong to any president. It doesn't belong to any ideology and it doesn't belong to any political party. It belongs to all the American people.
My fellow citizens, elections are about choices. And choices are about values. In the end, it's not just policies and programs that matter; the president who sits at that desk must be guided by principle.
For four years, we've heard a lot of talk about values. But values spoken without actions taken are just slogans. Values are not just words. They're what we live by. They're about the causes we champion and the people we fight for. And it is time for those who talk about family values to start valuing families.
You don't value families by kicking kids out of after school programs and taking cops off our streets, so that Enron can get another tax break.
We believe in the family value of caring for our children and protecting the neighborhoods where they walk and play.
And that is the choice in this election.
You don't value families by denying real prescription drug coverage to seniors, so big drug companies can get another windfall.
We believe in the family value expressed in one of the oldest Commandments: "Honor thy father and thy mother." As president, I will not privatize Social Security. I will not cut benefits. And together, we will make sure that senior citizens never have to cut their pills in half because they can't afford life-saving medicine.
And that is the choice in this election.
You don't value families if you force them to take up a collection to buy body armor for a son or daughter in the service, if you deny veterans health care, or if you tell middle class families to wait for a tax cut, so that the wealthiest among us can get even more.
We believe in the value of doing what's right for everyone in the American family.
And that is the choice in this election.
We believe that what matters most is not narrow appeals masquerading as values, but the shared values that show the true face of America. Not narrow appeals that divide us, but shared values that unite us. Family and faith. Hard work and responsibility. Opportunity for all -- so that every child, every parent, every worker has an equal shot at living up to their God-given potential.
What does it mean in America today when Dave McCune, a steel worker I met in Canton, Ohio, saw his job sent overseas and the equipment in his factory literally unbolted, crated up, and shipped thousands of miles away along with that job? What does it mean when workers I've met had to train their foreign replacements?
America can do better. So tonight we say: Help is on the way.
What does it mean when Mary Ann Knowles, a woman with breast cancer I met in New Hampshire, had to keep working day after day right through her chemotherapy, no matter how sick she felt, because she was terrified of losing her family's health insurance.
America can do better. And help is on the way.
What does it mean when Deborah Kromins from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania works and saves all her life only to find out that her pension has disappeared into thin air -- and the executive who looted it has bailed out on a golden parachute?
America can do better. And help is on the way.
What does it mean when twenty five percent of the children in Harlem have asthma because of air pollution?
America can do better. And help is on the way.
What does it mean when people are huddled in blankets in the cold, sleeping in Lafayette Park on the doorstep of the White House itself -- and the number of families living in poverty has risen by three million in the last four years?
America can do better. And help is on the way.
And so we come here tonight to ask: Where is the conscience of our country?
I'll tell you where it is: it's in rural and small town America; it's in urban neighborhoods and suburban main streets; it's alive in the people I've met in every part of this land. It's bursting in the hearts of Americans who are determined to give our country back its values and its truth.
We value jobs that pay you more not less than you earned before. We value jobs where, when you put in a week's work, you can actually pay your bills, provide for your children, and lift up the quality of your life. We value an America where the middle class is not being squeezed, but doing better.
So here is our economic plan to build a stronger America:
First, new incentives to revitalize manufacturing.
Second, investment in technology and innovation that will create the good-paying jobs of the future.
Third, close the tax loopholes that reward companies for shipping our jobs overseas. Instead, we will reward companies that create and keep good paying jobs where they belong -- in the good old U.S.A.
We value an America that exports products, not jobs -- and we believe American workers should never have to subsidize the loss of their own job.
Next, we will trade and compete in the world. But our plan calls for a fair playing field -- because if you give the American worker a fair playing field, there's nobody in the world the American worker can't compete against.
And we're going to return to fiscal responsibility because it is the foundation of our economic strength. Our plan will cut the deficit in half in four years by ending tax giveaways that are nothing more than corporate welfare -- and will make government live by the rule that every family has to follow: Pay as you go.
And let me tell you what we won't do: We won't raise taxes on the middle class. You've heard a lot of false charges about this in recent months. So let me say straight out what I will do as president: I will cut middle class taxes. I will reduce the tax burden on small business. And I will roll back the tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals who make over $200,000 a year, so we can invest in job creation, health care and education.
Our education plan for a stronger America sets high standards and demands accountability from parents, teachers, and schools. It provides for smaller class sizes and treats teachers like the professionals they are. And it gives a tax credit to families for each and every year of college.
When I was a prosecutor, I met young kids who were in trouble, abandoned by adults. And as president, I am determined that we stop being a nation content to spend $50,000 a year to keep a young person in prison for the rest of their life -- when we could invest $10,000 to give them Head Start, Early Start, Smart Start, the best possible start in life.
And we value health care that's affordable and accessible for all Americans.
Since 2000, four million people have lost their health insurance. Millions more are struggling to afford it.
You know what's happening. Your premiums, your co-payments, your deductibles have all gone through the roof.
Our health care plan for a stronger America cracks down on the waste, greed, and abuse in our health care system and will save families up to $1,000 a year on their premiums. You'll get to pick your own doctor -- and patients and doctors, not insurance company bureaucrats, will make medical decisions. Under our plan, Medicare will negotiate lower drug prices for seniors. And all Americans will be able to buy less expensive prescription drugs from countries like Canada.
The story of people struggling for health care is the story of so many Americans. But you know what, it's not the story of senators and members of Congress. Because we give ourselves great health care and you get the bill. Well, I'm here to say, your family's health care is just as important as any politician's in Washington, D.C.
And when I'm president, America will stop being the only advanced nation in the world which fails to understand that health care is not a privilege for the wealthy, the connected, and the elected -- it is a right for all Americans.
We value an America that controls its own destiny because it's finally and forever independent of Mideast oil. What does it mean for our economy and our national security when we only have 3 percent of the world's oil reserves, yet we rely on foreign countries for 53 percent of what we consume?
I want an America that relies on its own ingenuity and innovation -- not the Saudi royal family.
And our energy plan for a stronger America will invest in new technologies and alternative fuels and the cars of the future -- so that no young American in uniform will ever be held hostage to our dependence on oil from the Middle East.
I've told you about our plans for the economy, for education, for health care, for energy independence. I want you to know more about them. So now I'm going to say something that Franklin Roosevelt could never have said in his acceptance speech: Go to johnkerry.com.
I want to address these next words directly to President George W. Bush: In the weeks ahead, let's be optimists, not just opponents. Let's build unity in the American family, not angry division. Let's honor this nation's diversity; let's respect one another; and let's never misuse for political purposes the most precious document in American history, the Constitution of the United States.
My friends, the high road may be harder, but it leads to a better place. And that's why Republicans and Democrats must make this election a contest of big ideas, not small-minded attacks. This is our time to reject the kind of politics calculated to divide race from race, group from group, region from region. Maybe some just see us divided into red states and blue states, but I see us as one America -- red, white, and blue. And when I am president, the government I lead will enlist people of talent, Republicans as well as Democrats, to find the common ground -- so that no one who has something to contribute will be left on the sidelines.
And let me say it plainly: In that cause, and in this campaign, we welcome people of faith. America is not us and them. I think of what Ron Reagan said of his father a few weeks ago, and I want to say this to you tonight: I don't wear my own faith on my sleeve. But faith has given me values and hope to live by, from Vietnam to this day, from Sunday to Sunday. I don't want to claim that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side. And whatever our faith, one belief should bind us all: The measure of our character is our willingness to give of ourselves for others and for our country.
These aren't Democratic values. These aren't Republican values. They're American values. We believe in them. They're who we are. And if we honor them, if we believe in ourselves, we can build an America that's stronger at home and respected in the world.
So much promise stretches before us. Americans have always reached for the impossible, looked to the next horizon, and asked: What if?
Two young bicycle mechanics from Dayton asked what if this airplane could take off at Kitty Hawk? It did that and changed the world forever. A young president asked what if we could go to the moon in 10 years? And now we're exploring the solar system and the stars themselves. A young generation of entrepreneurs asked, what if we could take all the information in a library and put it on a little chip the size of a fingernail? We did and that too changed the world forever.
And now it's our time to ask: What if?
What if we find a breakthrough to cure Parkinson's, diabetes, Alzheimer's and AIDs? What if we have a president who believes in science, so we can unleash the wonders of discovery like stem cell research to treat illness and save millions of lives?
What if we do what adults should do -- and make sure all our children are safe in the afternoons after school? And what if we have a leadership that's as good as the American dream -- so that bigotry and hatred never again steal the hope and future of any American?
I learned a lot about these values on that gunboat patrolling the Mekong Delta with young Americans who came from places as different as Iowa and Oregon, Arkansas, Florida and California. No one cared where we went to school. No one cared about our race or our backgrounds. We were literally all in the same boat. We looked out, one for the other -- and we still do.
That is the kind of America I will lead as president -- an America where we are all in the same boat.
Never has there been a more urgent moment for Americans to step up and define ourselves. I will work my heart out. But, my fellow citizens, the outcome is in your hands more than mine.
It is time to reach for the next dream. It is time to look to the next horizon. For America, the hope is there. The sun is rising. Our best days are still to come.
Goodnight, God bless you, and God bless America. - http://south.nj.com/news/ledg...
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| Bush/Cheney's Theft of U.S. Taxpayer $$$: Lies, Theft, Incompetence ... |
| 07.30.04 (6:10 am) [edit] |
[b]TRUE COMPASSION: is NOT sending men to die in war based on lies to enrich Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc. Bush isn't compassionate. Bush is a reckless crook and Cheney is ruthless swindler: both of whom should be frog-marched off to jail to await trial for War Crimes.
Check-out [u]A Chart of Bush Lies About Iraq [/u][/b] http://www.buzzflash.com/cont...
[u][b]Bush/Cheney's Theft of U.S. Taxpayer $$$: U.S. Lacks Records for Iraq Spending[/b][/u]
WASHINGTON - U.S. civilian authorities in Baghdad failed to keep good track of nearly $1 billion in Iraqi money spent for reconstruction projects and can't produce records to show whether they got some services and products they paid for, anew audit concludes.
The former Coalition Provisional Authority paid nearly $200,000 for 15 police trucks without confirming they were delivered, and auditors have not located them, the report from the CPA's Inspector General said. Officials also didn't have records to justify the $24.7 million pricetag for replacing Iraqi currency which used to carry Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s portrait, the report said.
The report, released in Iraq (news - web sites) late Wednesday, is the first formal audit of contracting procedures under the CPA, which oversaw billions in reconstruction spending that critics say was doled out without proper controls. The agency's defenders say it did the best it could given the pressure of operating in a war zone and trying to get reconstruction going quickly.
The one-star general overseeing reconstruction contracts in Iraq said in response to the audit that the lack of documentation didn't prove the money was wasted.
"We believe the contracts awarded with Iraqi funds were for the sole benefit of the Iraqi people, without exception," Army Brig. Gen. Stephen M. Seay wrote to the inspector general.
The Coalition Provisional Authority ran Iraq from May of 2003 until the United States handed over power to an interim Iraqi government June 28. The CPA used seized funds from Saddam's government and oil revenues to pay for 1,928 contracts worth about $847 million, the inspector general's report said.
A CPA rule issued last August called for following international law and United Nations (news - web sites) regulations while spending Iraqi money. But the CPA did not issue standard operating procedures or develop effective contract review, monitoring and evaluation, the report said.
Seay said the CPA contracting office was overworked, understaffed and under constant threat of attack. The general said his office had overhauled policies and organization in recent months to do better contract oversight.
The investigators reviewed 43 contracts and found 29 had incomplete or missing documentation. For each of the 29, "we were unable to determine if the goods specified in the contract were ever received, the total amount of payments made to the contractor or if the contractor fully complied with the terms of the contract," investigators wrote.
For example, the official overseeing a contract for 15 double-cab pickup trucks for an Iraqi police department paid $87,500 before the trucks were delivered and another $100,000 without getting written records that the trucks arrived at the police department, the report said. The report did not say whether the trucks were ever delivered.
The report also criticized the contract for exchanging Iraqi currency, which had been cited as a key success by former CPA administrator L. Paul Bremer.
The Defense Contract Audit Agency reviewed the proposed contract in August 2003 and identified $5 million in possible savings. But the CPA awarded the contract at the original amount and has no documentation showing any further review of costs, the inspector general report said.
Seay's response to the audit said the CPA and the new organization overseeing contracts, the Project and Contracting Office, had made changes to fix some problems such as the lack of review and monitoring.
The CPA inspector general released another report earlier this week saying that the company responsible for the largest logistics contract in Iraq had lost track of more than $18 million worth of equipment including vehicles and electric generators.
The report said investigators could not track down 52 of 164 randomly selected items in an inventory of more than 20,000 items overseen by KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton. The missing items included two electric generators worth nearly $1 million, 18 trucks or SUVs and six laptop computers.
Project and Contracting office officials said they easily tracked down most of the missing items, but the inspector general's investigators said they could not find the gear despite working with officials from KBR and military contracting officers.
After the audit, the Defense Contract Management Agency found three of the missing vehicles in the hands of "unauthorized users" but discovered 111 vehicles had not been returned for required check-in after two weeks of use.
KBR is working with DCMA to track down all of its equipment in Iraq, Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said.
"The facts show that KBR has adequately managed the property for this mission by aggressively monitoring its property management functions," Hall said in a statement. - http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...
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| TRUE COMPASSION: NOT Bush/Cheney's Wars-4-Lies & Theft from US Taxpayers!!! |
| 07.30.04 (6:03 am) [edit] |
[b]TRUE COMPASSION: is NOT sending men to die in war based on lies to enrich Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc. Bush isn't compassionate. Bush is a reckless crook and Cheney is ruthless swindler: both of whom should be frog-marched off to jail to await trial for War Crimes.
Check-out [u]A Chart of Bush Lies About Iraq [/u][/b] http://www.buzzflash.com/cont...
[u][b]Bush/Cheney's Theft of U.S. Taxpayer $$$: U.S. Lacks Records for Iraq Spending[/b][/u]
WASHINGTON - U.S. civilian authorities in Baghdad failed to keep good track of nearly $1 billion in Iraqi money spent for reconstruction projects and can't produce records to show whether they got some services and products they paid for, anew audit concludes.
The former Coalition Provisional Authority paid nearly $200,000 for 15 police trucks without confirming they were delivered, and auditors have not located them, the report from the CPA's Inspector General said. Officials also didn't have records to justify the $24.7 million pricetag for replacing Iraqi currency which used to carry Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s portrait, the report said.
The report, released in Iraq (news - web sites) late Wednesday, is the first formal audit of contracting procedures under the CPA, which oversaw billions in reconstruction spending that critics say was doled out without proper controls. The agency's defenders say it did the best it could given the pressure of operating in a war zone and trying to get reconstruction going quickly.
The one-star general overseeing reconstruction contracts in Iraq said in response to the audit that the lack of documentation didn't prove the money was wasted.
"We believe the contracts awarded with Iraqi funds were for the sole benefit of the Iraqi people, without exception," Army Brig. Gen. Stephen M. Seay wrote to the inspector general.
The Coalition Provisional Authority ran Iraq from May of 2003 until the United States handed over power to an interim Iraqi government June 28. The CPA used seized funds from Saddam's government and oil revenues to pay for 1,928 contracts worth about $847 million, the inspector general's report said.
A CPA rule issued last August called for following international law and United Nations (news - web sites) regulations while spending Iraqi money. But the CPA did not issue standard operating procedures or develop effective contract review, monitoring and evaluation, the report said.
Seay said the CPA contracting office was overworked, understaffed and under constant threat of attack. The general said his office had overhauled policies and organization in recent months to do better contract oversight.
The investigators reviewed 43 contracts and found 29 had incomplete or missing documentation. For each of the 29, "we were unable to determine if the goods specified in the contract were ever received, the total amount of payments made to the contractor or if the contractor fully complied with the terms of the contract," investigators wrote.
For example, the official overseeing a contract for 15 double-cab pickup trucks for an Iraqi police department paid $87,500 before the trucks were delivered and another $100,000 without getting written records that the trucks arrived at the police department, the report said. The report did not say whether the trucks were ever delivered.
The report also criticized the contract for exchanging Iraqi currency, which had been cited as a key success by former CPA administrator L. Paul Bremer.
The Defense Contract Audit Agency reviewed the proposed contract in August 2003 and identified $5 million in possible savings. But the CPA awarded the contract at the original amount and has no documentation showing any further review of costs, the inspector general report said.
Seay's response to the audit said the CPA and the new organization overseeing contracts, the Project and Contracting Office, had made changes to fix some problems such as the lack of review and monitoring.
The CPA inspector general released another report earlier this week saying that the company responsible for the largest logistics contract in Iraq had lost track of more than $18 million worth of equipment including vehicles and electric generators.
The report said investigators could not track down 52 of 164 randomly selected items in an inventory of more than 20,000 items overseen by KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton. The missing items included two electric generators worth nearly $1 million, 18 trucks or SUVs and six laptop computers.
Project and Contracting office officials said they easily tracked down most of the missing items, but the inspector general's investigators said they could not find the gear despite working with officials from KBR and military contracting officers.
After the audit, the Defense Contract Management Agency found three of the missing vehicles in the hands of "unauthorized users" but discovered 111 vehicles had not been returned for required check-in after two weeks of use.
KBR is working with DCMA to track down all of its equipment in Iraq, Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said.
"The facts show that KBR has adequately managed the property for this mission by aggressively monitoring its property management functions," Hall said in a statement. - http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...
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| Cheney's Halliburton "Lost" [nod, wink] $18.6 Million/6,975I in Military Gear for Our Soldiers!!! |
| 07.29.04 (7:10 am) [edit] |
[b]Maybe Bush & Cheney's spoiled brats along with the rich kids of their pimps from Halliburton needed extra cash for their summer vacations!!![/b]
Check-out "[u]18 million in U.S. gear is missing[/u]" http://www.iht.com/articles/5...
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| Cheney's Halliburton "Lost" [nod, wink] $18.6 Million/6,975I in Military Gear for Our Soldiers!!! |
| 07.29.04 (7:03 am) [edit] |
[b]Maybe Bush & Cheney's spoiled brats along with the rich kids of their pimps from Halliburton needed extra cash for their summer vacations!!![/b]
Check-out "[u]18 million in U.S. gear is missing[/u]" http://www.iht.com/articles/5...
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| War in Iraq 'Preventing Efforts to Stop Sudan Genocide' ... |
| 07.29.04 (6:56 am) [edit] |
[b]War in Iraq 'Preventing Efforts to Stop Sudan Genocide' [/b]
Britain and America's preoccupation with Iraq has blocked international efforts to end genocide in the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan, according to a highly critical report published by a think-tank close to Tony Blair.
The study, to be published today, said that the war in Iraq had prevented effective planning for military intervention which could have bolstered diplomatic efforts to prevent the bloodshed, which has driven more than a million people from their homes.
It warned that discussion on Iraq had prevented the United Nations Security Council discussing the Darfur crisis in May and diverted attention from clear warning signs that started emerging more than a year ago.
The study, which was published by the Foreign Policy Center, a left-of-center think-tank which counts Mr Blair as its patron, said that there was a fatal lack of political resolve to take strong action against the Khartoum government, a key American ally in the war on international terrorism.
Yesterday the report's author, Dr Greg Austin, a specialist who has led Government funded research into conflict prevention, said the lessons of the Rwandan genocide had not been learnt. He said British and American military action in Iraq had prevented the two countries considering putting "boots on the ground" in Sudan, and criticized the United Nations for omitting Darfur from the agenda of the Security Council in May "since the focus of discussion was on Iraq".
A string of options ranging from sanctions to developing contingency plans for military action had been available as clear signs of genocide emerged over the past year, the report maintained.
"During the Darfur genocide, these options were available to the international community as early as September 2003. By June 2004 no action had been taken in any way that might credibly have led the perpetrators to cease the genocide," it said.
The report fiercely criticized Britain and the United States for backing "quiet diplomacy", arguing that such an approach was "utterly inappropriate" for the situation in Darfur.
It added: "Major powers and the UN have been fearful of angering Khartoum before it concludes a peace agreement in its civil war in the south.
"Furthermore, the political leaders of some major powers may lack the political resolve to intervene in Darfur because of their commitments elsewhere in the world. Major powers do not want to jeopardize good relations with the Sudanese government in the 'war on terrorism'," the report said.
Dr Austin, who said he wrote his report in a personal capacity, insisted that the whole of the international community had failed to act in Darfur.
But he warned: "The commitment of the US and the UK in Iraq and the use of military force in Iraq pushed them away from considering any sort of military option...
"What the Iraq war should not have prevented them from doing was working on the possibility of international partners to find somebody willing to take on some role. There was nothing stopping them getting together a coalition of the willing to start to plan things."
Ministers have insisted Britain is at the forefront of aid efforts in Darfur but Dr Austin said politicians risked overlooking the perpetrators of genocide by characterizing the conflict as a humanitarian crisis.
John Bercow, the shadow Secretary of State for International Development, called on ministers to back an international force to secure aid efforts in Darfur and to police a ceasefire. He said: "We are at 59 minutes after the 11th hour. Every day lives are being lost, women are being raped and lives are being destroyed. It is an unstable, dangerously failing state."
The US told UN Security Council members yesterday to be ready to vote this week on a resolution warning Sudan to protect Darfur civilians. - http://www.commondreams.org/h...
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| Bush's Insane Neo-Con WarFlop in Iraq 'Preventing Efforts to Stop Sudan Genocide' |
| 07.29.04 (6:53 am) [edit] |
[b]War in Iraq 'Preventing Efforts to Stop Sudan Genocide' [/b]
Britain and America's preoccupation with Iraq has blocked international efforts to end genocide in the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan, according to a highly critical report published by a think-tank close to Tony Blair.
The study, to be published today, said that the war in Iraq had prevented effective planning for military intervention which could have bolstered diplomatic efforts to prevent the bloodshed, which has driven more than a million people from their homes.
It warned that discussion on Iraq had prevented the United Nations Security Council discussing the Darfur crisis in May and diverted attention from clear warning signs that started emerging more than a year ago.
The study, which was published by the Foreign Policy Center, a left-of-center think-tank which counts Mr Blair as its patron, said that there was a fatal lack of political resolve to take strong action against the Khartoum government, a key American ally in the war on international terrorism.
Yesterday the report's author, Dr Greg Austin, a specialist who has led Government funded research into conflict prevention, said the lessons of the Rwandan genocide had not been learnt. He said British and American military action in Iraq had prevented the two countries considering putting "boots on the ground" in Sudan, and criticized the United Nations for omitting Darfur from the agenda of the Security Council in May "since the focus of discussion was on Iraq".
A string of options ranging from sanctions to developing contingency plans for military action had been available as clear signs of genocide emerged over the past year, the report maintained.
"During the Darfur genocide, these options were available to the international community as early as September 2003. By June 2004 no action had been taken in any way that might credibly have led the perpetrators to cease the genocide," it said.
The report fiercely criticized Britain and the United States for backing "quiet diplomacy", arguing that such an approach was "utterly inappropriate" for the situation in Darfur.
It added: "Major powers and the UN have been fearful of angering Khartoum before it concludes a peace agreement in its civil war in the south.
"Furthermore, the political leaders of some major powers may lack the political resolve to intervene in Darfur because of their commitments elsewhere in the world. Major powers do not want to jeopardize good relations with the Sudanese government in the 'war on terrorism'," the report said.
Dr Austin, who said he wrote his report in a personal capacity, insisted that the whole of the international community had failed to act in Darfur.
But he warned: "The commitment of the US and the UK in Iraq and the use of military force in Iraq pushed them away from considering any sort of military option...
"What the Iraq war should not have prevented them from doing was working on the possibility of international partners to find somebody willing to take on some role. There was nothing stopping them getting together a coalition of the willing to start to plan things."
Ministers have insisted Britain is at the forefront of aid efforts in Darfur but Dr Austin said politicians risked overlooking the perpetrators of genocide by characterizing the conflict as a humanitarian crisis.
John Bercow, the shadow Secretary of State for International Development, called on ministers to back an international force to secure aid efforts in Darfur and to police a ceasefire. He said: "We are at 59 minutes after the 11th hour. Every day lives are being lost, women are being raped and lives are being destroyed. It is an unstable, dangerously failing state."
The US told UN Security Council members yesterday to be ready to vote this week on a resolution warning Sudan to protect Darfur civilians. - http://www.commondreams.org/h...
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| Bush's Miserable Failures: Rumsfeld's Failed Tenure ... |
| 07.29.04 (6:48 am) [edit] |
Love him or the opposite, everyone who serves in or works with the Defense Department knows that Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is an exceptionally smart man. [But unfortunately Rumsfeld is not a wise man, not a moral man and not an honest man... Being clever is not substitute for placing the nation's interest before his own-- and Rumsfeld's ego comes first!]
That’s why a comment he made to Fox News interviewer Cal Thomas last week is so thoroughly baffling. Even as a throwaway line in an encounter with a rare “friendly” journalist, Rumsfeld’s description of the state of the U.S. military today was so insufficient and incomplete that it suggests the Secretary has become totally disconnected from the troubled institution over which he presides.
Here’s the exchange from the interview (the full transcript can be accessed at DefenseLink, the DoD web portal):
Q: And welcome back to “After Hours.” We’re here tonight with my exclusive interview with Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense. Mr. Secretary, I know you don’t get into politics, but Senator Kerry has been saying if he is elected, he will work hard to strengthen our military. That implies that our military is weak and I wonder if you’d like to comment on what you regard as how strong our military is?
SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, the United States military is the finest military on the face of the earth. It is more capable than at any time in our country’s history in terms of the ability to do its job and to put precision weapons on precise targets in an effective way and in a way that is agile and able to penetrate long distances on relatively short notice. … The victory in Iraq is another demonstration of the capabilities of the United States military. They were able to do a terrific job in a relatively short period of time with a minimum loss of civilian lives.
In strictly semantic terms, Rumsfeld’s four sentences accurately depict several very narrow slices of reality. Compared with, say, the Russian Army, the North Korean Air Force or the Belgian Navy , the U.S. military today is “the finest military on the face of the earth.” His line about putting “precision weapons on precise targets” is factually supported. The last two sentences about the combat takedown of the Iraqi army last year summarize what happened in the Euphrates Valley.
It’s what Rumsfeld did not say – or acknowledge – that I find troubling. Consider a sampling of news articles on the state of the U.S. military during the past two months:
[b]* The over-stretched Army[/b]: On June 2, The New York Times reported: “The Army announced Wednesday that it would require all soldiers bound for Iraq and Afghanistan to extend their active duty at least until their units have returned home from duty there, a move that could keep thousands of troops in the service for months longer than they expected over the next several years.” This affected both active-duty and reserve component troops “who had planned to retire, move to other Army jobs or leave the military when their enlistments expired,” the newspaper added.
[b]* Declining Air Force fighter performance[/b]: The industry newsletter Inside The Air Force on June 4 revealed a potentially troubling development following a force-on-force training exercise involving F-15s from the Alaska-based 3rd Fighter Wing and Russian-built fighters operated by the Indian Air Force. The publication reported: “The surprising sophistication of Indian fighter aircraft and skill of Indian pilots demonstrated at the Cope India air combat exercise Feb. 15 through 27 at Gwalior Air Force Station, India, should provide a reality check for those who had assumed unquestioned U.S. air superiority, service officials who participated in the exercise said this week.” In most of the aerial encounters, the Indian Air Force pilots defeated their American counterparts.
[b]* Strains on the National Guard[/b]: On June 6 The Washington Post revealed that a growing number of National Guard adjutants-general were warning the Pentagon their units were nearing a breaking point as a result of multiple activations for duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and in homeland security missions. “Some Guard commanders are beginning to say they simply can’t deploy any more troops,” the article noted.
“ ‘As far as New Hampshire goes, we’re tapped,” said Maj. Gen. John E. Blair, that state's adjutant general, or Guard commander. Of his 1,700 Army National Guard troops, more than 1,000 are in Iraq, Afghanistan or Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or on alert for deployment. And to get units fully manned to head overseas, he said, ‘We’ve had to break other units.”
[b]* From Korea to Iraq[/b]: The manpower crunch in the Iraqi occupation prompted the Pentagon to shift a brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division from its longstanding deterrence mission near the Korean demilitarized zone to duty in Iraq. Nearly one-third of the 37,000 troops in South Korea may ultimately be redeployed, officials told The New York Times on June 8.
[b]* Shortage of Trained MPs[/b]: On June 15, the newspaper USA Today disclosed that one of the root causes of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq was a shortage of trained Army prison guards: “In a scramble for personnel, commanders wound up staffing Abu Ghraib with reserve military police who had never taken the Army's four-week course for prison guards,” the newspaper reported. “And because the military intelligence unit sent to Abu Ghraib was short of interrogators, commanders patched together substitutes from other military units and from private contractors.”
[b] * Navy leadership problems[/b]: Navy officials announced on June 19 that the service will launch a formal study to determine why so many of its commanding officers have been fired in the last 18 months. Officials told The Virginian-Pilot 17 commanding officers were relieved of command in 2003 and 10 more in the first six months of 2004. “Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael G. Mullen has asked the Navy’s inspector general to see whether there are any similarities among the firings, Navy officials in Washington confirmed Friday,” the newspaper added.
[b]* Ammunition shortage[/b]: The Associated Press reported on July 6 that the pace of military operations overseas has seriously depleted Army stockpiles of ammunition and other key spare parts. The report noted, “U.S. troops are firing so much ammunition that the military's largest supplier of bullets can't keep up. Tanks that log 800 miles a year in peacetime are grinding through that many miles in a month, wearing out their treads faster.”
[b]* Installation budgets squeezed[/b]: To pay for ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military services are being forced to squeeze the budgets of their bases and facilities. Navy Times on July 7 reported on how this was impacting the Navy’s Mid-Atlantic Region: “Of the $300 million [in reallocated funds], about $199 million was pulled from operations and maintenance, about $78 million was produced by suspending certain repair and demolition projects, and $23 million came from delaying planned facilities maintenance projects such as painting and equipment repair, CNI spokeswoman Rachelle Logan said.”
[b] * Hemorrhage of SOF troops[/b]: The U.S. Special Operations Command is experiencing a high level of early retirements among its seasoned commandos, the Associated Press reported on July 21: “Just when the U.S. military needs them most, senior Green Berets, Navy SEALs and other elite forces are leaving for higher-paying jobs,” the wire service reported. “After getting years of training and experience in the military, they leave for other government jobs or for what defense officials said Tuesday has been an explosion in outside contractor work.”
By all quantifiable standards, the U.S. military today outmatches any competitor. But the armed services are also in serious trouble.
Consider what one former military leader recently said of the state of the military:
“We have a topflight force that is running on empty, performing admirably with a growing number of weapons systems – including tactical fighter aircraft, Navy warships, and military transport helicopters – that are twenty to twenty-five years old and are becoming obsolete. Our men and women are suffering burnout as they are deployed in one crisis after another because our political leaders cannot understand the stress their policies have created. This situation cannot go on much longer without dire results.”
That was how retired Adm. Bill Owens, former JCS Vice Chairman, described the state of the force in April 2000 – 17 months before the 9/11 attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that followed.
Secretary Rumsfeld does the U.S. military and its overworked personnel no favor by engaging in self-deceptive and evasive rhetoric about how well everything is going. He would better serve our people in uniform by being candid about the military’s resource crisis that has gone from bad to worse during his tenure.
[i][b]Ed Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at dweditor@yahoo.com. Please send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com. © 2004 Ed Offley[/b][/i]. - http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/c...
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| Bush's Miserable Failures: Rumsfeld's Failed Tenure ... |
| 07.29.04 (6:44 am) [edit] |
Love him or the opposite, everyone who serves in or works with the Defense Department knows that Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is an exceptionally smart man. [But unfortunately Rumsfeld is not a wise man, not a moral man and not an honest man... Being clever is not substitute for placing the nation's interest before his own-- and Rumsfeld's ego comes first!]
That’s why a comment he made to Fox News interviewer Cal Thomas last week is so thoroughly baffling. Even as a throwaway line in an encounter with a rare “friendly” journalist, Rumsfeld’s description of the state of the U.S. military today was so insufficient and incomplete that it suggests the Secretary has become totally disconnected from the troubled institution over which he presides.
Here’s the exchange from the interview (the full transcript can be accessed at DefenseLink, the DoD web portal):
Q: And welcome back to “After Hours.” We’re here tonight with my exclusive interview with Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense. Mr. Secretary, I know you don’t get into politics, but Senator Kerry has been saying if he is elected, he will work hard to strengthen our military. That implies that our military is weak and I wonder if you’d like to comment on what you regard as how strong our military is?
SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, the United States military is the finest military on the face of the earth. It is more capable than at any time in our country’s history in terms of the ability to do its job and to put precision weapons on precise targets in an effective way and in a way that is agile and able to penetrate long distances on relatively short notice. … The victory in Iraq is another demonstration of the capabilities of the United States military. They were able to do a terrific job in a relatively short period of time with a minimum loss of civilian lives.
In strictly semantic terms, Rumsfeld’s four sentences accurately depict several very narrow slices of reality. Compared with, say, the Russian Army, the North Korean Air Force or the Belgian Navy , the U.S. military today is “the finest military on the face of the earth.” His line about putting “precision weapons on precise targets” is factually supported. The last two sentences about the combat takedown of the Iraqi army last year summarize what happened in the Euphrates Valley.
It’s what Rumsfeld did not say – or acknowledge – that I find troubling. Consider a sampling of news articles on the state of the U.S. military during the past two months:
[b]* The over-stretched Army[/b]: On June 2, The New York Times reported: “The Army announced Wednesday that it would require all soldiers bound for Iraq and Afghanistan to extend their active duty at least until their units have returned home from duty there, a move that could keep thousands of troops in the service for months longer than they expected over the next several years.” This affected both active-duty and reserve component troops “who had planned to retire, move to other Army jobs or leave the military when their enlistments expired,” the newspaper added.
[b]* Declining Air Force fighter performance[/b]: The industry newsletter Inside The Air Force on June 4 revealed a potentially troubling development following a force-on-force training exercise involving F-15s from the Alaska-based 3rd Fighter Wing and Russian-built fighters operated by the Indian Air Force. The publication reported: “The surprising sophistication of Indian fighter aircraft and skill of Indian pilots demonstrated at the Cope India air combat exercise Feb. 15 through 27 at Gwalior Air Force Station, India, should provide a reality check for those who had assumed unquestioned U.S. air superiority, service officials who participated in the exercise said this week.” In most of the aerial encounters, the Indian Air Force pilots defeated their American counterparts.
[b]* Strains on the National Guard[/b]: On June 6 The Washington Post revealed that a growing number of National Guard adjutants-general were warning the Pentagon their units were nearing a breaking point as a result of multiple activations for duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and in homeland security missions. “Some Guard commanders are beginning to say they simply can’t deploy any more troops,” the article noted.
“ ‘As far as New Hampshire goes, we’re tapped,” said Maj. Gen. John E. Blair, that state's adjutant general, or Guard commander. Of his 1,700 Army National Guard troops, more than 1,000 are in Iraq, Afghanistan or Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or on alert for deployment. And to get units fully manned to head overseas, he said, ‘We’ve had to break other units.”
[b]* From Korea to Iraq[/b]: The manpower crunch in the Iraqi occupation prompted the Pentagon to shift a brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division from its longstanding deterrence mission near the Korean demilitarized zone to duty in Iraq. Nearly one-third of the 37,000 troops in South Korea may ultimately be redeployed, officials told The New York Times on June 8.
[b]* Shortage of Trained MPs[/b]: On June 15, the newspaper USA Today disclosed that one of the root causes of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq was a shortage of trained Army prison guards: “In a scramble for personnel, commanders wound up staffing Abu Ghraib with reserve military police who had never taken the Army's four-week course for prison guards,” the newspaper reported. “And because the military intelligence unit sent to Abu Ghraib was short of interrogators, commanders patched together substitutes from other military units and from private contractors.”
[b] * Navy leadership problems[/b]: Navy officials announced on June 19 that the service will launch a formal study to determine why so many of its commanding officers have been fired in the last 18 months. Officials told The Virginian-Pilot 17 commanding officers were relieved of command in 2003 and 10 more in the first six months of 2004. “Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael G. Mullen has asked the Navy’s inspector general to see whether there are any similarities among the firings, Navy officials in Washington confirmed Friday,” the newspaper added.
[b]* Ammunition shortage[/b]: The Associated Press reported on July 6 that the pace of military operations overseas has seriously depleted Army stockpiles of ammunition and other key spare parts. The report noted, “U.S. troops are firing so much ammunition that the military's largest supplier of bullets can't keep up. Tanks that log 800 miles a year in peacetime are grinding through that many miles in a month, wearing out their treads faster.”
[b]* Installation budgets squeezed[/b]: To pay for ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military services are being forced to squeeze the budgets of their bases and facilities. Navy Times on July 7 reported on how this was impacting the Navy’s Mid-Atlantic Region: “Of the $300 million [in reallocated funds], about $199 million was pulled from operations and maintenance, about $78 million was produced by suspending certain repair and demolition projects, and $23 million came from delaying planned facilities maintenance projects such as painting and equipment repair, CNI spokeswoman Rachelle Logan said.”
[b] * Hemorrhage of SOF troops[/b]: The U.S. Special Operations Command is experiencing a high level of early retirements among its seasoned commandos, the Associated Press reported on July 21: “Just when the U.S. military needs them most, senior Green Berets, Navy SEALs and other elite forces are leaving for higher-paying jobs,” the wire service reported. “After getting years of training and experience in the military, they leave for other government jobs or for what defense officials said Tuesday has been an explosion in outside contractor work.”
By all quantifiable standards, the U.S. military today outmatches any competitor. But the armed services are also in serious trouble.
Consider what one former military leader recently said of the state of the military:
“We have a topflight force that is running on empty, performing admirably with a growing number of weapons systems – including tactical fighter aircraft, Navy warships, and military transport helicopters – that are twenty to twenty-five years old and are becoming obsolete. Our men and women are suffering burnout as they are deployed in one crisis after another because our political leaders cannot understand the stress their policies have created. This situation cannot go on much longer without dire results.”
That was how retired Adm. Bill Owens, former JCS Vice Chairman, described the state of the force in April 2000 – 17 months before the 9/11 attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that followed.
Secretary Rumsfeld does the U.S. military and its overworked personnel no favor by engaging in self-deceptive and evasive rhetoric about how well everything is going. He would better serve our people in uniform by being candid about the military’s resource crisis that has gone from bad to worse during his tenure.
[i][b]Ed Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at dweditor@yahoo.com. Please send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com. © 2004 Ed Offley[/b][/i]. - http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/c...
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| Three Reasons Why John F. Kerry Will Be A Better Commander-in-Chief Than Dubya ... |
| 07.29.04 (6:37 am) [edit] |
[b]John F. Kerry will make a better Commander-in-Chief than Bush because he is smarter[i] by far[/i]; is [i]able to work with others[/i]; and, has actually[i] fought for our nation [/i]and [i]understands[/i] what that means ...[/b]
John F. Kerry is actually [i]stronger[/i] on the defense of the United States of America and our National Security than Bush... [i]Why[/i]? [i]Because[/i]...
1. John F. Kerry served honorably in war-time while Bush did not. Bush doesn't even comprehend what war means. Bush jokes and smirks and prances around on Aircraft Carriers howling obscene buffooneries like "Mission Accomplished!" or "Bring 'em on" while our U.S. Soldiers are massacred in unnecessary wars. Bush squanders American lives and treasures recklessly and wantonly, not to safeguard us, but based upon lies and deceptions.
2. John F. Kerry has served on the Senate Foreign Relation and Intelligence Committees http://www.johnkerry.com/inde... and is respected for his ability to work with others in Congress and throughout the international community. The same cannot be said for Bush who is simply told what to do by neo-con thugs like Cheney, Rumsfeld and others who don't have our nation's interests at heart and who can't work with others here at home or abroad.
3. John F. Kerry has committed that he will only go to war if he must to defend our nation. Unlike Bush, Kerry will [i]not [/i]invade other nations pre-emptively and murder our US Soldiers and innocent civilians in order to enrich Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, the House of Saud, Unocal and other corporate pimps of the whorish Bush Crime Family. Bush/Cheney's War Crimes including set-up of a US Concentration Camp at Guantanamo Bay and the heinous murders, tortures, rapes and abuses of prisoners as well as the sodomy of little children at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in the Middle East will [i]not[/i] occur on Kerry's watch.
It is worthwhile reading the following speeches:
PRESIDENT CLINTON: "Making the right choices" ... Let's "Send John Kerry" to the White House!!! http://www.tblog.com/template...
PRESIDENT CARTER: "You can't be a war president one day- claim to be a peace president the next" http://www.tblog.com/template...
AL GORE: "Democracy Itself is in Grave Danger" ... http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| Bush's Bloody Iraq Fiasco: U.S. Soldier "I Was Ordered To Push Iraqis Off Bridge"!!! |
| 07.29.04 (6:35 am) [edit] |
[b]Fort Carson Soldier: I Was Ordered To Push Iraqis Off Bridge
[i]Investigation Under Way Into Fatal Incident Over Tigris River[/i][/b]
One of four soldiers charged with shoving two Iraqi civilians into the Tigris River where one of them drowned says his superior officers ordered up the incident and told him what to say to officials looking into the death, an Army investigator testified Wednesday.
Spc. Terry Bowman said he "was told by his chain of command what version to give CID," Sgt. Irene Cintron of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command (CID) said during a teleconference from Iraq as the military convened a hearing to determine whether the soldiers will be court-martialed.
Bowman said he had been ordered to push the men into the river, Cintron said. No names were disclosed, though three of the soldiers' commanders have received nonjudicial punishments for their roles in the incident. None of the punishments include jail time.
Sgt. 1st Class Tracy E. Perkins, 33, 1st Lt. Jack M. Saville, 24 and Sgt. Reggie Martinez, 24, are charged with involuntary manslaughter in the Jan. 3 drowning death of a man identified by family members in Iraq as Zaidoun Fadel Hassoun, 19.
Bowman, 21, is charged with assault for allegedly pushing the second man into the river at the same time. That man, a cousin of Hassoun named Marwan Fadel Hassoun, 23, survived the incident and described what happened to The Associated Press several weeks ago.
Marwan Hassoun said he tried to help his cousin swim to safety, only to lose his grip as the soldiers watched and laughed from above. "They were behaving like they were watching a comedy on stage," he told the AP.
Perkins, Martinez and Bowman appeared at Wednesday's Article 32 hearing. Saville's hearing is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 9. The four soldiers face between 5 1/2 years and 26 1/2 years in prison if they are tried and convicted on all charges.
The soldiers are assigned to Fort Carson's 3rd Brigade Combat Team. The brigade is part of the 4th Infantry Division, based at Fort Hood, Texas.
According to Cintron, investigators learned of the death in an e-mail from the victim's family. She said she met with Marwan Hassoun on Jan. 16, and he told her how they were stopped after getting supplies in Baghdad and then driven to the bridge several miles north of Samarra.
Marwan Hassoun said he watched the soldiers push his cousin into the water and then he was pushed in, Cintron testified. He said he could hear his cousin screaming.
"He said it was eight meters (24 feet) deep and at no point did he feel the bottom of the river," she said. She described the drop from the bridge as 10-12 feet.
After he got out on the bank, Hassoun said he could hear the soldiers above laughing as they drove away. He said he then went back to a checkpoint "soaking wet from the river" and reported what happened, Cintron said.
A search was begun for a body and it was found two or three miles downriver.
Martinez initially told investigators neither he nor anyone in his platoon pushed anyone in the river, Cintron said. He said they dropped the two men off on the side of the road. A week later, on Jan. 23, Martinez said he had gone to the river's edge with the men, "kicked one in the butt" but the man jumped in on his own.
Sgt. Alexis Rincon, a member of the patrol that night, testified the soldiers forced the men to jump and that Martinez leveled a rifle at one of the Iraqis to make his point. Rincon said the man hesitated but jumped after the second Iraqi said something to him in Arabic.
None of soldiers thought the men were in danger because one quickly made it to shore, Rincon said. He said he would not have left the scene in that event, but asked if he would have gone to the man's aid, Rincon drew laughs in the courtroom when he replied: "I don't know about jumping in and saving him."
Rincon, who was granted immunity for his testimony, said Saville later jumped into the water and found it was waist deep only a few feet from shore.
The soldiers' commanders, Lt. Col. Nathan Sassaman, Maj. Robert Gwinner and Capt. Matthew Cunningham, were punished last spring under Article 15, which allows punishments without a court proceeding or public record. Rep. Joel Hefley, R-Colo., has asked for congressional hearings into why their cases were handled differently than those of the soldiers.
Defense attorneys told the presiding officer, Capt. Robert Ayers, their case is crippled because three commanders are demanding immunity before they testify. Ayers ordered prosecutors to explain whether they offered immunity to defense witnesses and why.
The defense also criticized Cintron for relying on relatives to confirm the identity of the drowned Iraqi. Capt. Joshua Norris, a defense attorney for Perkins, also said unfriendly Iraqis have been known to fake the death of Iraqis "to bring the soldiers down."
Norris said that because the survivor and his family were not investigated, "you didn't know if they were the enemy or not."
"I had a victim," the investigator replied. "I didn't have a suspect of any sort."
Cintron also said it wasn't safe to exhume the body and there were no medical or dental records to help with identification. She said she believed the cousin because "we got admissions from the soldiers."
Norris suggested Zaidoun Hassoun's family just wanted money for a damaged truck.
Cintron said the family got $10,000 for the truck and $2,500 was paid to the dead man's father. She said the man didn't want to take the money because he didn't want the case ignored, and insisted that his lawyer take it. - http://www.thedenverchannel.c...
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| Bush's Bloody Iraq Fiasco: U.S. Soldier "I Was Ordered To Push Iraqis Off Bridge"!!! |
| 07.29.04 (6:33 am) [edit] |
[b]Fort Carson Soldier: I Was Ordered To Push Iraqis Off Bridge
[i]Investigation Under Way Into Fatal Incident Over Tigris River[/i][/b]
One of four soldiers charged with shoving two Iraqi civilians into the Tigris River where one of them drowned says his superior officers ordered up the incident and told him what to say to officials looking into the death, an Army investigator testified Wednesday.
Spc. Terry Bowman said he "was told by his chain of command what version to give CID," Sgt. Irene Cintron of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command (CID) said during a teleconference from Iraq as the military convened a hearing to determine whether the soldiers will be court-martialed.
Bowman said he had been ordered to push the men into the river, Cintron said. No names were disclosed, though three of the soldiers' commanders have received nonjudicial punishments for their roles in the incident. None of the punishments include jail time.
Sgt. 1st Class Tracy E. Perkins, 33, 1st Lt. Jack M. Saville, 24 and Sgt. Reggie Martinez, 24, are charged with involuntary manslaughter in the Jan. 3 drowning death of a man identified by family members in Iraq as Zaidoun Fadel Hassoun, 19.
Bowman, 21, is charged with assault for allegedly pushing the second man into the river at the same time. That man, a cousin of Hassoun named Marwan Fadel Hassoun, 23, survived the incident and described what happened to The Associated Press several weeks ago.
Marwan Hassoun said he tried to help his cousin swim to safety, only to lose his grip as the soldiers watched and laughed from above. "They were behaving like they were watching a comedy on stage," he told the AP.
Perkins, Martinez and Bowman appeared at Wednesday's Article 32 hearing. Saville's hearing is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 9. The four soldiers face between 5 1/2 years and 26 1/2 years in prison if they are tried and convicted on all charges.
The soldiers are assigned to Fort Carson's 3rd Brigade Combat Team. The brigade is part of the 4th Infantry Division, based at Fort Hood, Texas.
According to Cintron, investigators learned of the death in an e-mail from the victim's family. She said she met with Marwan Hassoun on Jan. 16, and he told her how they were stopped after getting supplies in Baghdad and then driven to the bridge several miles north of Samarra.
Marwan Hassoun said he watched the soldiers push his cousin into the water and then he was pushed in, Cintron testified. He said he could hear his cousin screaming.
"He said it was eight meters (24 feet) deep and at no point did he feel the bottom of the river," she said. She described the drop from the bridge as 10-12 feet.
After he got out on the bank, Hassoun said he could hear the soldiers above laughing as they drove away. He said he then went back to a checkpoint "soaking wet from the river" and reported what happened, Cintron said.
A search was begun for a body and it was found two or three miles downriver.
Martinez initially told investigators neither he nor anyone in his platoon pushed anyone in the river, Cintron said. He said they dropped the two men off on the side of the road. A week later, on Jan. 23, Martinez said he had gone to the river's edge with the men, "kicked one in the butt" but the man jumped in on his own.
Sgt. Alexis Rincon, a member of the patrol that night, testified the soldiers forced the men to jump and that Martinez leveled a rifle at one of the Iraqis to make his point. Rincon said the man hesitated but jumped after the second Iraqi said something to him in Arabic.
None of soldiers thought the men were in danger because one quickly made it to shore, Rincon said. He said he would not have left the scene in that event, but asked if he would have gone to the man's aid, Rincon drew laughs in the courtroom when he replied: "I don't know about jumping in and saving him."
Rincon, who was granted immunity for his testimony, said Saville later jumped into the water and found it was waist deep only a few feet from shore.
The soldiers' commanders, Lt. Col. Nathan Sassaman, Maj. Robert Gwinner and Capt. Matthew Cunningham, were punished last spring under Article 15, which allows punishments without a court proceeding or public record. Rep. Joel Hefley, R-Colo., has asked for congressional hearings into why their cases were handled differently than those of the soldiers.
Defense attorneys told the presiding officer, Capt. Robert Ayers, their case is crippled because three commanders are demanding immunity before they testify. Ayers ordered prosecutors to explain whether they offered immunity to defense witnesses and why.
The defense also criticized Cintron for relying on relatives to confirm the identity of the drowned Iraqi. Capt. Joshua Norris, a defense attorney for Perkins, also said unfriendly Iraqis have been known to fake the death of Iraqis "to bring the soldiers down."
Norris said that because the survivor and his family were not investigated, "you didn't know if they were the enemy or not."
"I had a victim," the investigator replied. "I didn't have a suspect of any sort."
Cintron also said it wasn't safe to exhume the body and there were no medical or dental records to help with identification. She said she believed the cousin because "we got admissions from the soldiers."
Norris suggested Zaidoun Hassoun's family just wanted money for a damaged truck.
Cintron said the family got $10,000 for the truck and $2,500 was paid to the dead man's father. She said the man didn't want to take the money because he didn't want the case ignored, and insisted that his lawyer take it. - http://www.thedenverchannel.c...
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| How Strong Do We Look Now? |
| 07.29.04 (6:29 am) [edit] |
[i][b]Reuters[/b][/i] reports http://msnbc.msn.com/id/55289... that Dick Cheney was doing some counter-programming to the Democratic National Convention by speaking on the West Coast at Camp Pendleton.
He said, "Terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength. They are invited by the perception of weakness."
This statement is half right and half wrong. Some terrorist attacks are caused by the use of strength. For instance, the Shi'ites of southern Lebanon had positive feelings toward Israel before 1982. They were not very politically mobilized. Then the Israelis invaded Lebanon in 1982 and occupied the South. They killed some 18,000 persons, 9,000 of them estimated to be innocent civilians. The Shi'ites of the South gradually turned against them and started hitting them to get them back out of their country. They formed Hizbullah and ultimately shelled Israel itself and engaged in terrorism in Europe and Argentina. So, Hizbullah terrorist attacks were certainly caused by Sharon's use of "strength."
On the other hand, a perception of weakness can invite terrorist attacks by ambitious and aggressive enemies. Osama bin Laden recites a litany of instances in which the United States abruptly withdrew when attacked, and takes comfort in the idea of the U.S. as a paper tiger. He instances Reagan's 1983 withdrawal from Beirut after the Marine barracks was bombed and Clinton's departure from Somalia after the Blackhawk Down incident.
The lesson I take away from all this is that the US should not get involved in places that it may get thrown out of, because that projects an image of weakness and vulnerability to the country's enemies. There was no way the United States could possibly have maintained a presence in Lebanon in the early 1980s, and Reagan was foolish to put those Marines in there, and even more foolish to put them in without pylons around them to stop truck bombs. The country was embroiled in a civil war, and it would have taken a massive commitment of troops to make a difference. In the wake of the Vietnam failure, the American public would not have countenanced such a huge troop buildup. Likewise, Bush senior was foolish to send those troops to Somalia in the way he did (which became a poison pill for his successor, Bill Clinton).
The question is whether the quagmire in Iraq makes the U.S. look weak. The answer is yes. Therefore, by Cheney's own reasoning, it is a mistake that opens us to further attacks.
Reuters reports, "Cheney said Americans were safer and he stood by prewar characterizations of Iraq as a threat despite the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and new warnings by Cheney and other administration officials that another major terrorist attack may be coming."
Iraq was not a threat to the United States. Period. Let me repeat the statistics as of the late 1990s:
U.S. population: 295 million
Iraq population: 24 million
U.S. per capita annual income: $37,600
Iraq per capita annual income: $700
U.S. nuclear warheads: 10,455
Iraq nuclear warheads: 0
U.S. tons of lethal chemical weapons (1997): 31,496
Iraq tons of lethal chemical weapons (1997): 0
While a small terrorist organization could hit the U.S. because it has no return address, a major state could not hope to avoid retribution and therefore would be deterred. Cheney knows that Ba'athist Iraq posed no threat to the U.S. He is simply lying. I was always careful not to accuse him of lying before the war because who knows what is in someone else's mind? Maybe he believed his own bullsh*t. But there is no longer any doubt that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, no active nuclear weapons program, no ability to deliver anything lethal to the U.S. homeland, and no operational cooperation with al-Qaeda. These things are not matters of opinion. They are indisputable. Ipso facto, if an intelligent person continues to allege them, he is prevaricating.
"President Bush is determined to remove threats before they arrive instead of simply awaiting for another attack on our country. So America acted to end the regime of Saddam Hussein . . . Sixteen months ago, Iraq was a gathering threat to the United States and the civilized world. Now it is a rising democracy, an ally in the war on terror and the American people are safer for it."
I have never understood the phrase "civilized world." To what exactly does it refer? How do you get into it? Can you drop out of it? Is Germany in it? How about 1933-1945? Is Egypt in it? (Surely it helped invent "civilization"?)
But the more important point is that a) there was no threat to the United States from the regime of Saddam Hussein, and there certainly was no gathering threat. The Iraqi military was more dilapidated by the hour; and b) It is obvious that any situation that kills and maims thousands of U.S. servicemen and women every year is not "making us safer" (the troops are part of "us", Mr. Cheney).
Even sections of the Republican Party are openly questioning Cheney's claims. Sen. Lincoln Chafee said that Iraq is more dangerous now than when he visited last October. He clearly fears that the Bush administration is planning to go after Iran, and suggests seeking cooperation from Tehran instead. (It worries me no end that Washington insiders like Chafee should be apprehensive about White House policy toward Iran, and confirms my suspicions that Tehran is next.) - http://www.antiwar.com/cole/?...
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| How Strong Do We Look Now? |
| 07.29.04 (6:26 am) [edit] |
[i][b]Reuters[/b][/i] reports http://msnbc.msn.com/id/55289... that Dick Cheney was doing some counter-programming to the Democratic National Convention by speaking on the West Coast at Camp Pendleton.
He said, "Terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength. They are invited by the perception of weakness."
This statement is half right and half wrong. Some terrorist attacks are caused by the use of strength. For instance, the Shi'ites of southern Lebanon had positive feelings toward Israel before 1982. They were not very politically mobilized. Then the Israelis invaded Lebanon in 1982 and occupied the South. They killed some 18,000 persons, 9,000 of them estimated to be innocent civilians. The Shi'ites of the South gradually turned against them and started hitting them to get them back out of their country. They formed Hizbullah and ultimately shelled Israel itself and engaged in terrorism in Europe and Argentina. So, Hizbullah terrorist attacks were certainly caused by Sharon's use of "strength."
On the other hand, a perception of weakness can invite terrorist attacks by ambitious and aggressive enemies. Osama bin Laden recites a litany of instances in which the United States abruptly withdrew when attacked, and takes comfort in the idea of the U.S. as a paper tiger. He instances Reagan's 1983 withdrawal from Beirut after the Marine barracks was bombed and Clinton's departure from Somalia after the Blackhawk Down incident.
The lesson I take away from all this is that the US should not get involved in places that it may get thrown out of, because that projects an image of weakness and vulnerability to the country's enemies. There was no way the United States could possibly have maintained a presence in Lebanon in the early 1980s, and Reagan was foolish to put those Marines in there, and even more foolish to put them in without pylons around them to stop truck bombs. The country was embroiled in a civil war, and it would have taken a massive commitment of troops to make a difference. In the wake of the Vietnam failure, the American public would not have countenanced such a huge troop buildup. Likewise, Bush senior was foolish to send those troops to Somalia in the way he did (which became a poison pill for his successor, Bill Clinton).
The question is whether the quagmire in Iraq makes the U.S. look weak. The answer is yes. Therefore, by Cheney's own reasoning, it is a mistake that opens us to further attacks.
Reuters reports, "Cheney said Americans were safer and he stood by prewar characterizations of Iraq as a threat despite the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and new warnings by Cheney and other administration officials that another major terrorist attack may be coming."
Iraq was not a threat to the United States. Period. Let me repeat the statistics as of the late 1990s:
U.S. population: 295 million
Iraq population: 24 million
U.S. per capita annual income: $37,600
Iraq per capita annual income: $700
U.S. nuclear warheads: 10,455
Iraq nuclear warheads: 0
U.S. tons of lethal chemical weapons (1997): 31,496
Iraq tons of lethal chemical weapons (1997): 0
While a small terrorist organization could hit the U.S. because it has no return address, a major state could not hope to avoid retribution and therefore would be deterred. Cheney knows that Ba'athist Iraq posed no threat to the U.S. He is simply lying. I was always careful not to accuse him of lying before the war because who knows what is in someone else's mind? Maybe he believed his own bullsh*t. But there is no longer any doubt that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, no active nuclear weapons program, no ability to deliver anything lethal to the U.S. homeland, and no operational cooperation with al-Qaeda. These things are not matters of opinion. They are indisputable. Ipso facto, if an intelligent person continues to allege them, he is prevaricating.
"President Bush is determined to remove threats before they arrive instead of simply awaiting for another attack on our country. So America acted to end the regime of Saddam Hussein . . . Sixteen months ago, Iraq was a gathering threat to the United States and the civilized world. Now it is a rising democracy, an ally in the war on terror and the American people are safer for it."
I have never understood the phrase "civilized world." To what exactly does it refer? How do you get into it? Can you drop out of it? Is Germany in it? How about 1933-1945? Is Egypt in it? (Surely it helped invent "civilization"?)
But the more important point is that a) there was no threat to the United States from the regime of Saddam Hussein, and there certainly was no gathering threat. The Iraqi military was more dilapidated by the hour; and b) It is obvious that any situation that kills and maims thousands of U.S. servicemen and women every year is not "making us safer" (the troops are part of "us", Mr. Cheney).
Even sections of the Republican Party are openly questioning Cheney's claims. Sen. Lincoln Chafee said that Iraq is more dangerous now than when he visited last October. He clearly fears that the Bush administration is planning to go after Iran, and suggests seeking cooperation from Tehran instead. (It worries me no end that Washington insiders like Chafee should be apprehensive about White House policy toward Iran, and confirms my suspicions that Tehran is next.) - http://www.antiwar.com/cole/?...
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| WOLF! WOLF! WOLF! |
| 07.28.04 (12:24 pm) [edit] |
[b]Now the corrupt Bushies are saying that Iran has WMDs and is re-constituting some sort of nuclear programme. Sound[i] familiar[/i]?[/b]
[b]Diplomats Say Iran Building Centrifuges [/b] http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...
The neo-cons are gearing-up for their next war in Iran folks on orders from Ariel Sharon and Halliburton, the [i]real [/i]Prez & Veep of the USA!!!
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| Three Reasons Why John F. Kerry Will Be A Better Commander-in-Chief Than Bushy-boy ... |
| 07.28.04 (10:31 am) [edit] |
[b]John F. Kerry will make a better Commander-in-Chief than Bush because he is smarter[i] by far[/i]; is [i]able to work with others[/i]; and, has actually[i] fought for our nation [/i]and [i]understands[/i] what that means ...[/b]
John F. Kerry is actually [i]stronger[/i] on the defense of the United States of America and our National Security than Bush... [i]Why[/i]? [i]Because[/i]...
1. John F. Kerry served honorably in war-time while Bush did not. Bush doesn't even comprehend what war means. Bush jokes and smirks and prances around on Aircraft Carriers howling obscene buffooneries like "Mission Accomplished!" or "Bring 'em on" while our U.S. Soldiers are massacred in unnecessary wars. Bush squanders American lives and treasures recklessly and wantonly, not to safeguard us, but based upon lies and deceptions.
2. John F. Kerry has served on the Senate Foreign Relation and Intelligence Committees http://www.johnkerry.com/inde... and is respected for his ability to work with others in Congress and throughout the international community. The same cannot be said for Bush who is simply told what to do by neo-con thugs like Cheney, Rumsfeld and others who don't have our nation's interests at heart and who can't work with others here at home or abroad.
3. John F. Kerry has committed that he will only go to war if he must to defend our nation. Unlike Bush, Kerry will [i]not [/i]invade other nations pre-emptively and murder our US Soldiers and innocent civilians in order to enrich Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, the House of Saud, Unocal and other corporate pimps of the whorish Bush Crime Family. Bush/Cheney's War Crimes including set-up of a US Concentration Camp at Guantanamo Bay and the heinous murders, tortures, rapes and abuses of prisoners as well as the sodomy of little children at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in the Middle East will [i]not[/i] occur on Kerry's watch.
It is worthwhile reading the following speeches:
PRESIDENT CLINTON: "Making the right choices" ... Let's "Send John Kerry" to the White House!!! http://www.tblog.com/template...
PRESIDENT CARTER: "You can't be a war president one day- claim to be a peace president the next" http://www.tblog.com/template...
AL GORE: "Democracy Itself is in Grave Danger" ... http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| Democratic National Convention: United Behind Kerry To Stop Fascist Bush Who IS Dividing the USA! |
| 07.28.04 (7:56 am) [edit] |
[b]'United behind Kerry'[/b]
A year ago the contestants for the role of Democratic Idol were singing their hearts out on stages from Iowa to New Hampshire.
Some people were booing and wishing that Hillary Rodham Clinton would run. Others felt that the prize -- the Democratic nomination -- seemed a little hollow. They fully expected that the Democrats would be outfoxed and outspent by a Republican wartime president.
So where are the 10 finalists for the Democratic nomination now? Gathering in Boston for their convention, with their winner having plenty of money and standing even or ahead in most polls. Like a group of middle-age rock stars who have weathered ego trips, substance abuse and fights over groupies, the contestants have settled into supporting roles behind John Kerry and John Edwards. Even Dennis Kucinich woke up and joined the band by endorsing Kerry last week. They could be headed for a big hit.
How did this happen? President Bush's stubborn pursuit of a questionable war and inability to create any meaningful number of jobs unless they were at Halliburton managed to turn even the most mild-mannered Democrats into rabid partisans. Credit also goes to the Democratic activists themselves who learned from the Clinton years and had more or less put aside their ideological divisions, voting carefully and strategically. And credit, of course, goes to Kerry himself, who abandoned his cautious front-runner stance and showed the passion and courage that lay hidden beneath his senatorial demeanor.
And so as they gather in Boston, everyone has his or her place. Kerry, of course, is lead singer, with John Edwards in charge of harmony. Sen. Joe Lieberman has been back in Florida courting the elderly Jewish voters who would have delivered the state to the Democrats last time had it not been for the tragedy of something called a butterfly ballot. Ditto for Sen. Bob Graham. Former Gen. Wesley Clark has been taking on the neocons in the Bush administration who got us into Iraq. Rep. Dick Gephardt will help deliver the critical battleground states of Missouri and Ohio. And, of course, preacher Al Sharpton and former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun are joining in, just in case there are any black voters out there who still think Bush is a compassionate conservative.
And what about the guy who almost became the American Idol -- Howard Dean? In the months since his fatal scream, Dean has reinvented himself as the steady, self-effacing bass player of this band. He got out of the race in a timely fashion, endorsed Kerry and set about doing one of the most important things anyone can do in this race -- make sure that no one votes for Ralph Nader.
[b]GOP helps Nader[/b]
A few weeks ago Dean debated Nader at the National Press Club. Never one to mince words, Dean called Nader's reasons for running "disingenuous nonsense" and exposed the fact that Nader's candidacy is being propped up by Republicans. For instance, as of the end of May, one in 10 of Nader's biggest contributors were major contributors to the Bush campaign and to the Republican National Committee. And it recently came out that in Michigan, Nader volunteers were far short of the signatures needed to get him on the ballot, so the state's Republican Party stepped in with 45,000 signatures.
In Boston, the conventional wisdom is that Bush is in trouble but that Democratic Idol Kerry has to really shine before he can win. Meanwhile, the Republicans are spinning away, telling people that Kerry will get 15 whole points out of this convention!
But this Democratic band has been playing in the Top 40 since March, and more Americans are committed to their candidate earlier than in any other election. So Kerry's bounce is likely to be smaller, not because his convention failed -- as the Republicans will try to tell you -- but because he is already farther along on the road to the White House than people think.
[i][b]Elaine Kamarck, a lecturer at Harvard University, served in the Clinton administration and is a delegate at the Democratic convention[/b][/i]. - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| Another lie. Will more die? |
| 07.28.04 (7:49 am) [edit] |
[b]'Another lie. Will more die?'[/b]
Cuba needs dollars. But a Cold War-era trade embargo prohibits American tourists from visiting. Fortunately, ingenious border control officers thought of a solution: When U.S. citizens arrive at Havana, the Cubans don't stamp their passports. When tens of thousands of Americans come back home to the U.S., they tell immigration that they were in Mexico or Canada instead. Which they were--to change planes.
Israel offers a similar courtesy. "Do you plan to visit any Muslim countries?" customs clerks ask travelers at Tel Aviv. If the answer is positive, they affix the visa stamp to a separate piece of paper. Nicholas Berg, the American entrepreneur beheaded in Iraq, didn't know to ask. His Israeli passport stamp got him picked up at a Iraqi checkpoint, and cost him his life.
For reasons ranging from economic dependence upon migrant labor (hello Rio Grande!) to religion and politics, numerous nations fail to document the movement of foreign nationals through their territory. Sometimes, for reasons no one asks and nobody tells, border guards don't bother to stamp a passport upon entry from abroad. It's happened several times to me at JFK in New York.
Failing to stamp passports is commonplace. Yet the Bush Administration, operating on the assumption that most Americans don't know that, is floating the possibility of war against Iran based on that innocuous practice.
According to a Newsweek report about the new 9/11 Commission Report, "Iranian officials instructed their border inspectors not to place Iranian or Afghan stamps in the passports of Saudi terrorists traveling from Osama bin Laden's training camps through Iran." Calling this "the strongest evidence yet of a relationship between Iran and Al Qaeda," the report notes that "eight to ten of the 'muscle' hijackers of the September 11 plot" crossed through Iran from Afghanistan, "undoubtedly help[ing] the 9/11 terrorists pass into the United States without raising alarms among U.S. Customs and visa officials...the report raises new, sharper questions about whether the Bush Administration was focused on the right enemy when it decided to remove Saddam Hussein."
The invasion of Iraq was preceded by similar trial balloons in the press. Should Bush remain in office this November and the "we invaded the wrong Ira-" argument catch fire among a complacent and compliant media, we may be fighting a third unwinnable war against a Muslim state a year from now.
There's even less evidence of a link between Al Qaeda and Iran than between Al Qaeda and Iraq--but that's not stopping E-Z Boy warriors like Cheney and Rumsfeld.
First and foremost, there's no reason to believe that Afghan or Iranian visa stamps would have caused alarm at the U.S. border. My passport is thick with stamps from countries in Central Asia and the Middle East, including those issued by both the Taliban and Northern Alliance governments of Afghanistan. Only two countries, France and Israel, have asked me about them. Even after 9/11, U.S. Customs never examined them.
Furthermore, Iran doesn't stamp Saudi passports for good reason: the Saudi government, dominated by Wahhabi Sunni extremists, despises Shia Iran. Viewing Shiites as pseudo-Islamic heretics more contemptible than infidels, the Saudi regime takes a dim view of those who travel to Iran--a fact that Iranian customs takes into account when welcoming Saudi visitors so they don't get into trouble back home.
Another mystery: Why does the December 2001 National Security Agency memo cited by Newsweek mention Afghan visa stamps? Iran has no more ability to issue Afghan visas than Mexico has to issue American ones.
The big reason to doubt an Iran-Al Qaeda connection is historical. In one of many events unknown to most Americans, Taliban forces under Mullah Mohammad Omar seized the Iranian consulate at Mazar-e-Sharif in 1998. After the Afghans murdered ten Iranian diplomats and one journalist there, Iran massed troops on the border and threatened war against Afghanistan. (The crisis passed when the Taliban apologized and turned over the bodies.)
To say the least, it's extremely unlikely that Iran would have formed a cozy alliance with Mullah Omar's bosom buddies in Al Qaeda just two years later in 2000, as the Bushies now claim. In fact, despite having no diplomatic relations with the United States, Iran provided back-channel assistance to the Bush Administration during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, including turning over Al Qaeda suspects and offering to rescue American pilots shot down near the Iran-Afghanistan border. "It's definitely the case that there was no love lost between Iran and the Taliban," John Pike, director of the defense think tank Global Security, said in 2002.
Odds are that others will see through the current attempt to blame tie Iran to 9/11. That's why they've already got a new argument in reserve: the "yet unknown role" Iran allegedly played in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers apartment complex in Saudi Arabia. It's the same tactic we saw during the run-up to war against Iraq: lie, retreat, repeat. The question is, will we fall for it again? - http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...%2Fucru%2F20040728%2Fcm_u cru%2Fanotherliewillmored ie
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| Another lie. Will more die? |
| 07.28.04 (7:46 am) [edit] |
[b]'Another lie. Will more die?'[/b]
Cuba needs dollars. But a Cold War-era trade embargo prohibits American tourists from visiting. Fortunately, ingenious border control officers thought of a solution: When U.S. citizens arrive at Havana, the Cubans don't stamp their passports. When tens of thousands of Americans come back home to the U.S., they tell immigration that they were in Mexico or Canada instead. Which they were--to change planes.
Israel offers a similar courtesy. "Do you plan to visit any Muslim countries?" customs clerks ask travelers at Tel Aviv. If the answer is positive, they affix the visa stamp to a separate piece of paper. Nicholas Berg, the American entrepreneur beheaded in Iraq, didn't know to ask. His Israeli passport stamp got him picked up at a Iraqi checkpoint, and cost him his life.
For reasons ranging from economic dependence upon migrant labor (hello Rio Grande!) to religion and politics, numerous nations fail to document the movement of foreign nationals through their territory. Sometimes, for reasons no one asks and nobody tells, border guards don't bother to stamp a passport upon entry from abroad. It's happened several times to me at JFK in New York.
Failing to stamp passports is commonplace. Yet the Bush Administration, operating on the assumption that most Americans don't know that, is floating the possibility of war against Iran based on that innocuous practice.
According to a Newsweek report about the new 9/11 Commission Report, "Iranian officials instructed their border inspectors not to place Iranian or Afghan stamps in the passports of Saudi terrorists traveling from Osama bin Laden's training camps through Iran." Calling this "the strongest evidence yet of a relationship between Iran and Al Qaeda," the report notes that "eight to ten of the 'muscle' hijackers of the September 11 plot" crossed through Iran from Afghanistan, "undoubtedly help[ing] the 9/11 terrorists pass into the United States without raising alarms among U.S. Customs and visa officials...the report raises new, sharper questions about whether the Bush Administration was focused on the right enemy when it decided to remove Saddam Hussein."
The invasion of Iraq was preceded by similar trial balloons in the press. Should Bush remain in office this November and the "we invaded the wrong Ira-" argument catch fire among a complacent and compliant media, we may be fighting a third unwinnable war against a Muslim state a year from now.
There's even less evidence of a link between Al Qaeda and Iran than between Al Qaeda and Iraq--but that's not stopping E-Z Boy warriors like Cheney and Rumsfeld.
First and foremost, there's no reason to believe that Afghan or Iranian visa stamps would have caused alarm at the U.S. border. My passport is thick with stamps from countries in Central Asia and the Middle East, including those issued by both the Taliban and Northern Alliance governments of Afghanistan. Only two countries, France and Israel, have asked me about them. Even after 9/11, U.S. Customs never examined them.
Furthermore, Iran doesn't stamp Saudi passports for good reason: the Saudi government, dominated by Wahhabi Sunni extremists, despises Shia Iran. Viewing Shiites as pseudo-Islamic heretics more contemptible than infidels, the Saudi regime takes a dim view of those who travel to Iran--a fact that Iranian customs takes into account when welcoming Saudi visitors so they don't get into trouble back home.
Another mystery: Why does the December 2001 National Security Agency memo cited by Newsweek mention Afghan visa stamps? Iran has no more ability to issue Afghan visas than Mexico has to issue American ones.
The big reason to doubt an Iran-Al Qaeda connection is historical. In one of many events unknown to most Americans, Taliban forces under Mullah Mohammad Omar seized the Iranian consulate at Mazar-e-Sharif in 1998. After the Afghans murdered ten Iranian diplomats and one journalist there, Iran massed troops on the border and threatened war against Afghanistan. (The crisis passed when the Taliban apologized and turned over the bodies.)
To say the least, it's extremely unlikely that Iran would have formed a cozy alliance with Mullah Omar's bosom buddies in Al Qaeda just two years later in 2000, as the Bushies now claim. In fact, despite having no diplomatic relations with the United States, Iran provided back-channel assistance to the Bush Administration during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, including turning over Al Qaeda suspects and offering to rescue American pilots shot down near the Iran-Afghanistan border. "It's definitely the case that there was no love lost between Iran and the Taliban," John Pike, director of the defense think tank Global Security, said in 2002.
Odds are that others will see through the current attempt to blame tie Iran to 9/11. That's why they've already got a new argument in reserve: the "yet unknown role" Iran allegedly played in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers apartment complex in Saudi Arabia. It's the same tactic we saw during the run-up to war against Iraq: lie, retreat, repeat. The question is, will we fall for it again? - http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...%2Fucru%2F20040728%2Fcm_u cru%2Fanotherliewillmored ie
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| Another lie. Will more die? ... Let's Stop Bush's Treason ... |
| 07.28.04 (7:44 am) [edit] |
[b]'Another lie. Will more die?'[/b]
Cuba needs dollars. But a Cold War-era trade embargo prohibits American tourists from visiting. Fortunately, ingenious border control officers thought of a solution: When U.S. citizens arrive at Havana, the Cubans don't stamp their passports. When tens of thousands of Americans come back home to the U.S., they tell immigration that they were in Mexico or Canada instead. Which they were--to change planes.
Israel offers a similar courtesy. "Do you plan to visit any Muslim countries?" customs clerks ask travelers at Tel Aviv. If the answer is positive, they affix the visa stamp to a separate piece of paper. Nicholas Berg, the American entrepreneur beheaded in Iraq, didn't know to ask. His Israeli passport stamp got him picked up at a Iraqi checkpoint, and cost him his life.
For reasons ranging from economic dependence upon migrant labor (hello Rio Grande!) to religion and politics, numerous nations fail to document the movement of foreign nationals through their territory. Sometimes, for reasons no one asks and nobody tells, border guards don't bother to stamp a passport upon entry from abroad. It's happened several times to me at JFK in New York.
Failing to stamp passports is commonplace. Yet the Bush Administration, operating on the assumption that most Americans don't know that, is floating the possibility of war against Iran based on that innocuous practice.
According to a Newsweek report about the new 9/11 Commission Report, "Iranian officials instructed their border inspectors not to place Iranian or Afghan stamps in the passports of Saudi terrorists traveling from Osama bin Laden's training camps through Iran." Calling this "the strongest evidence yet of a relationship between Iran and Al Qaeda," the report notes that "eight to ten of the 'muscle' hijackers of the September 11 plot" crossed through Iran from Afghanistan, "undoubtedly help[ing] the 9/11 terrorists pass into the United States without raising alarms among U.S. Customs and visa officials...the report raises new, sharper questions about whether the Bush Administration was focused on the right enemy when it decided to remove Saddam Hussein."
The invasion of Iraq was preceded by similar trial balloons in the press. Should Bush remain in office this November and the "we invaded the wrong Ira-" argument catch fire among a complacent and compliant media, we may be fighting a third unwinnable war against a Muslim state a year from now.
There's even less evidence of a link between Al Qaeda and Iran than between Al Qaeda and Iraq--but that's not stopping E-Z Boy warriors like Cheney and Rumsfeld.
First and foremost, there's no reason to believe that Afghan or Iranian visa stamps would have caused alarm at the U.S. border. My passport is thick with stamps from countries in Central Asia and the Middle East, including those issued by both the Taliban and Northern Alliance governments of Afghanistan. Only two countries, France and Israel, have asked me about them. Even after 9/11, U.S. Customs never examined them.
Furthermore, Iran doesn't stamp Saudi passports for good reason: the Saudi government, dominated by Wahhabi Sunni extremists, despises Shia Iran. Viewing Shiites as pseudo-Islamic heretics more contemptible than infidels, the Saudi regime takes a dim view of those who travel to Iran--a fact that Iranian customs takes into account when welcoming Saudi visitors so they don't get into trouble back home.
Another mystery: Why does the December 2001 National Security Agency memo cited by Newsweek mention Afghan visa stamps? Iran has no more ability to issue Afghan visas than Mexico has to issue American ones.
The big reason to doubt an Iran-Al Qaeda connection is historical. In one of many events unknown to most Americans, Taliban forces under Mullah Mohammad Omar seized the Iranian consulate at Mazar-e-Sharif in 1998. After the Afghans murdered ten Iranian diplomats and one journalist there, Iran massed troops on the border and threatened war against Afghanistan. (The crisis passed when the Taliban apologized and turned over the bodies.)
To say the least, it's extremely unlikely that Iran would have formed a cozy alliance with Mullah Omar's bosom buddies in Al Qaeda just two years later in 2000, as the Bushies now claim. In fact, despite having no diplomatic relations with the United States, Iran provided back-channel assistance to the Bush Administration during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, including turning over Al Qaeda suspects and offering to rescue American pilots shot down near the Iran-Afghanistan border. "It's definitely the case that there was no love lost between Iran and the Taliban," John Pike, director of the defense think tank Global Security, said in 2002.
Odds are that others will see through the current attempt to blame tie Iran to 9/11. That's why they've already got a new argument in reserve: the "yet unknown role" Iran allegedly played in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers apartment complex in Saudi Arabia. It's the same tactic we saw during the run-up to war against Iraq: lie, retreat, repeat. The question is, will we fall for it again? - http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...%2Fucru%2F20040728%2Fcm_u cru%2Fanotherliewillmored ie
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| 'Oil and dollars: The real reasons Bush went to war' ... |
| 07.28.04 (7:34 am) [edit] |
[b]'Oil and dollars: The real reasons Bush went to war'[/b]
[i][b]WMD was the rationale for invading Iraq. But what was really driving the US were fears over oil and the future of the dollar [/b][/i]
There were only two credible reasons for invading Iraq: control over oil and preservation of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Yet the government has kept silent on these factors, instead treating us to the intriguing distractions of the Hutton and Butler reports.
Butler's overall finding of a "group think" failure was pure charity. Absurdities like the 45-minute claim were adopted by high-level officials and ministers because those concerned recognised the substantial reason for war - oil. WMD provided only the bureaucratic argument: the real reason was that Iraq was swimming in oil.
Some may still believe the eve-of-war contention by Donald Rumsfeld that "We won't take forces and go around the world and try to take other people's oil ... That's not how democracies operate." Maybe others will go along with Blair's post-war contention: "There is no way whatsoever, if oil were the issue, that it would not have been infinitely easier to cut a deal with Saddam."
But senior civil servants are not so naive. On the eve of the Butler report, I attended the 40th anniversary of the Mandarins cricket club. I was taken aside by a knighted civil servant to discuss my contention in a Guardian article earlier this year that Sir Humphrey was no longer independent. I had then attacked the deceits in the WMD report, and this impressive official and I discussed the geopolitical issues of Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and US unwillingness to build nuclear power stations and curb petrol consumption, rather than go to war.
Saddam controlled a country at the centre of the Gulf, a region with a quarter of world oil production in 2003, and containing more than 60% of the world's known reserves. With 115bn barrels of oil reserves, and perhaps as much again in the 90% of the country not yet explored, Iraq has capacity second only to Saudi Arabia. The US, in contrast, is the world's largest net importer of oil. Last year the US Department of Energy forecast that imports will cover 70% of domestic demand by 2025.
By invading Iraq, Bush has taken over the Iraqi oil fields, and persuaded the UN to lift production limits imposed after the Kuwait war. Production may rise to 3m barrels a day by year end, about double 2002 levels. More oil should bring down Opec-led prices, and if Iraqi oil production rose to 6m barrels a day, Bush could even attack the Opec oil-pricing cartel.
Control over Iraqi oil should improve security of supplies to the US, and possibly the UK, with the development and exploration contracts between Saddam and China, France, India, Indonesia and Russia being set aside in favour of US and possibly British companies. And a US military presence in Iraq is an insurance policy against any extremists in Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Overseeing Iraqi oil supplies, and maybe soon supplies from other Gulf countries, would enable the US to use oil as power. In 1990, the then oil man, Dick Cheney, wrote that: "Whoever controls the flow of Persian Gulf oil has a stranglehold not only on our economy but also on the other countries of the world as well."
In the 70s, the US agreed with Saudi Arabia that Opec oil should be traded in dollars. American governments have since been able to print dollars to cover huge trading deficits, with the further benefit of those dollars being placed in the US money markets. In return, the US allowed the Opec countries to operate a production and pricing cartel.
Over the past 15 years, the overall US deficit with the rest of the world has risen to $2,700bn - an abuse of its privileged currency position. Although about 80% of foreign exchange and half of world trade is in dollars, the euro provides a realistic alternative. Euro countries also have a bigger share of world trade, and of trade with Opec countries, than the US.
In 1999, Iran mooted pricing its oil in euros, and in late 2000 Saddam made the switch for Iraqi oil. In early 2002 Bush placed Iran and Iraq in the axis of evil. If the other Opec countries had followed Saddam's move to euros, the consequences for Bush could have been huge. Worldwide switches out of the dollar, on top of the already huge deficit, would have led to a plummeting dollar, a runaway from US markets and dramatic upheavals in the US.
Bush had many reasons to invade Iraq, but why did Blair join him? He might have squared his conscience by looking at UK oil prospects. In 1968, when North Sea oil was in its infancy, as private secretary to the minister of power I wrote a report on oil policy, advocating changes like the setting up of a British national oil company (as was done). My proposals found little favour with the BP/Shell-supporting officials, but Richard Marsh, the then minister, pressed them and the petroleum division was expanded into an operations division and a planning division.
Sadly, when I was promoted out of private office the free-trading petroleum officials conspired to block my posting to the planning division, where I would surely have advocated a prudent exploitation of North Sea resources to reduce our dependence on the likes of Iraq. UK North Sea oil output peaked in 1999, and has since fallen by one-sixth. Exports now barely cover imports, and we shall shortly be a net oil importer. Supporting Bush might have been justified on geo-strategic grounds.
Oil and the dollar were the real reasons for the attack on Iraq, with WMD as the public reason now exposed as woefully inadequate. Should we now look at Bush and Blair as brilliant strategists whose actions will improve the security of our oil supplies, or as international conmen? Should we support them if they sweep into Iran and perhaps Saudi Arabia, or should there be a regime change in the UK and US instead?
If the latter, we should follow that up by adopting the pious aims of UN oversight of world oil exploitation within a world energy plan, and the replacement of the dollar with a new reserve currency based on a basket of national currencies.
[b]John Chapman is a former assistant secretary in the civil service, in which he served from 1963-96 [/b] - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
[[i]Is it any wonder that Noguru, stepdad and Reducto/Refucto are livid and in a panic to vomit all the rubbish they can copy from Rush Limbaugh's Lies Ordered by Karl Rove? LOL[/i]]
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| ... Neo-Con Criminals Livid Because Dubya's Crooked Cover Has Been Blown!!! |
| 07.28.04 (7:32 am) [edit] |
[b]'Oil and dollars: The real reasons Bush went to war'[/b]
[i][b]WMD was the rationale for invading Iraq. But what was really driving the US were fears over oil and the future of the dollar [/b][/i]
There were only two credible reasons for invading Iraq: control over oil and preservation of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Yet the government has kept silent on these factors, instead treating us to the intriguing distractions of the Hutton and Butler reports.
Butler's overall finding of a "group think" failure was pure charity. Absurdities like the 45-minute claim were adopted by high-level officials and ministers because those concerned recognised the substantial reason for war - oil. WMD provided only the bureaucratic argument: the real reason was that Iraq was swimming in oil.
Some may still believe the eve-of-war contention by Donald Rumsfeld that "We won't take forces and go around the world and try to take other people's oil ... That's not how democracies operate." Maybe others will go along with Blair's post-war contention: "There is no way whatsoever, if oil were the issue, that it would not have been infinitely easier to cut a deal with Saddam."
But senior civil servants are not so naive. On the eve of the Butler report, I attended the 40th anniversary of the Mandarins cricket club. I was taken aside by a knighted civil servant to discuss my contention in a Guardian article earlier this year that Sir Humphrey was no longer independent. I had then attacked the deceits in the WMD report, and this impressive official and I discussed the geopolitical issues of Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and US unwillingness to build nuclear power stations and curb petrol consumption, rather than go to war.
Saddam controlled a country at the centre of the Gulf, a region with a quarter of world oil production in 2003, and containing more than 60% of the world's known reserves. With 115bn barrels of oil reserves, and perhaps as much again in the 90% of the country not yet explored, Iraq has capacity second only to Saudi Arabia. The US, in contrast, is the world's largest net importer of oil. Last year the US Department of Energy forecast that imports will cover 70% of domestic demand by 2025.
By invading Iraq, Bush has taken over the Iraqi oil fields, and persuaded the UN to lift production limits imposed after the Kuwait war. Production may rise to 3m barrels a day by year end, about double 2002 levels. More oil should bring down Opec-led prices, and if Iraqi oil production rose to 6m barrels a day, Bush could even attack the Opec oil-pricing cartel.
Control over Iraqi oil should improve security of supplies to the US, and possibly the UK, with the development and exploration contracts between Saddam and China, France, India, Indonesia and Russia being set aside in favour of US and possibly British companies. And a US military presence in Iraq is an insurance policy against any extremists in Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Overseeing Iraqi oil supplies, and maybe soon supplies from other Gulf countries, would enable the US to use oil as power. In 1990, the then oil man, Dick Cheney, wrote that: "Whoever controls the flow of Persian Gulf oil has a stranglehold not only on our economy but also on the other countries of the world as well."
In the 70s, the US agreed with Saudi Arabia that Opec oil should be traded in dollars. American governments have since been able to print dollars to cover huge trading deficits, with the further benefit of those dollars being placed in the US money markets. In return, the US allowed the Opec countries to operate a production and pricing cartel.
Over the past 15 years, the overall US deficit with the rest of the world has risen to $2,700bn - an abuse of its privileged currency position. Although about 80% of foreign exchange and half of world trade is in dollars, the euro provides a realistic alternative. Euro countries also have a bigger share of world trade, and of trade with Opec countries, than the US.
In 1999, Iran mooted pricing its oil in euros, and in late 2000 Saddam made the switch for Iraqi oil. In early 2002 Bush placed Iran and Iraq in the axis of evil. If the other Opec countries had followed Saddam's move to euros, the consequences for Bush could have been huge. Worldwide switches out of the dollar, on top of the already huge deficit, would have led to a plummeting dollar, a runaway from US markets and dramatic upheavals in the US.
Bush had many reasons to invade Iraq, but why did Blair join him? He might have squared his conscience by looking at UK oil prospects. In 1968, when North Sea oil was in its infancy, as private secretary to the minister of power I wrote a report on oil policy, advocating changes like the setting up of a British national oil company (as was done). My proposals found little favour with the BP/Shell-supporting officials, but Richard Marsh, the then minister, pressed them and the petroleum division was expanded into an operations division and a planning division.
Sadly, when I was promoted out of private office the free-trading petroleum officials conspired to block my posting to the planning division, where I would surely have advocated a prudent exploitation of North Sea resources to reduce our dependence on the likes of Iraq. UK North Sea oil output peaked in 1999, and has since fallen by one-sixth. Exports now barely cover imports, and we shall shortly be a net oil importer. Supporting Bush might have been justified on geo-strategic grounds.
Oil and the dollar were the real reasons for the attack on Iraq, with WMD as the public reason now exposed as woefully inadequate. Should we now look at Bush and Blair as brilliant strategists whose actions will improve the security of our oil supplies, or as international conmen? Should we support them if they sweep into Iran and perhaps Saudi Arabia, or should there be a regime change in the UK and US instead?
If the latter, we should follow that up by adopting the pious aims of UN oversight of world oil exploitation within a world energy plan, and the replacement of the dollar with a new reserve currency based on a basket of national currencies.
[b]John Chapman is a former assistant secretary in the civil service, in which he served from 1963-96 [/b] - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
[[i]Is it any wonder that Noguru, stepdad and Reducto/Refucto are livid and in a panic to vomit all the rubbish they can copy from Rush Limbaugh's Lies Ordered by Karl Rove? LOL[/i]]
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| U.S. Veterans Demand End to Bush's Bloody Occupation in Iraq ... |
| 07.28.04 (7:23 am) [edit] |
[b]Veterans Demand End to Occupation [/b]
As military veterans wrangle over whom to support for president, one veterans' organization has fired a shot across the bow of whoever will occupy the White House next year.
Over 400 [i]Veterans for Peace [/i](VFP) http://www.veteransforpeace.o... members gathered last weekend in Boston for the organization's annual convention, hearing from Daniel Ellsberg, historian Howard Zinn, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, members of [i]Military Families Speak Out[/i], http://www.mfso.org/ and the newly-formed [i]Iraq Veterans Against the War[/i]. http://www.ivaw.net/ They also passed a resolution in the form of a memo titled "To White House Occupant After Jan. 20, 2005," demanding
"[T]hat the next U.S. president announce, within 10 days of taking office, that he will withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq within 60 days, and … that if this 10-day period following the inauguration passes without a publicly-announced decision to withdraw all troops from Iraq within 60 days, Veterans for Peace chapters around the nation will begin a campaign including, but not limited to, petitions calling for the impeachment of the president."
The resolution states, "The United States presence in Iraq is causing, not preventing, destabilization and violence. Veterans for Peace is committed to ending this immoral, unjust war of empire regardless of who wins the 2004 U.S. presidential election."
Concurring with that sentiment as he addressed the vets assembled at Emerson College, Ritter said, "Iraq is on fire. We are the fuel for that fire and we need to withdraw it."
Timed to conclude just prior to the Democratic Party’s nominating convention, also in Boston, the last event on the VFP schedule was a peace march past the heavily fortified convention center, bristling with armed guards, where the Democrats will meet.
VFP membership has grown to over 4,000 since the Bush administration ordered the invasion of Iraq last year. The organization has over 80 chapters throughout the U.S. - http://www.antiwar.com/orig/f...
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| U.S. Veterans Demand an End to Bush's Bloody Abortion in Iraq!!! |
| 07.28.04 (7:19 am) [edit] |
[b]Veterans Demand End to Occupation [/b]
As military veterans wrangle over whom to support for president, one veterans' organization has fired a shot across the bow of whoever will occupy the White House next year.
Over 400 [i]Veterans for Peace [/i](VFP) http://www.veteransforpeace.o... members gathered last weekend in Boston for the organization's annual convention, hearing from Daniel Ellsberg, historian Howard Zinn, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, members of [i]Military Families Speak Out[/i], http://www.mfso.org/ and the newly-formed [i]Iraq Veterans Against the War[/i]. http://www.ivaw.net/ They also passed a resolution in the form of a memo titled "To White House Occupant After Jan. 20, 2005," demanding
"[T]hat the next U.S. president announce, within 10 days of taking office, that he will withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq within 60 days, and … that if this 10-day period following the inauguration passes without a publicly-announced decision to withdraw all troops from Iraq within 60 days, Veterans for Peace chapters around the nation will begin a campaign including, but not limited to, petitions calling for the impeachment of the president."
The resolution states, "The United States presence in Iraq is causing, not preventing, destabilization and violence. Veterans for Peace is committed to ending this immoral, unjust war of empire regardless of who wins the 2004 U.S. presidential election."
Concurring with that sentiment as he addressed the vets assembled at Emerson College, Ritter said, "Iraq is on fire. We are the fuel for that fire and we need to withdraw it."
Timed to conclude just prior to the Democratic Party’s nominating convention, also in Boston, the last event on the VFP schedule was a peace march past the heavily fortified convention center, bristling with armed guards, where the Democrats will meet.
VFP membership has grown to over 4,000 since the Bush administration ordered the invasion of Iraq last year. The organization has over 80 chapters throughout the U.S. - http://www.antiwar.com/orig/f...
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| YOUR VOTE IS IMPORTANT ... |
| 07.28.04 (7:13 am) [edit] |
Thank you. I am honored to share the podium with my Senator, though I think I should be introducing her. I'm proud of her and so grateful to the people of New York that the best public servant in our family is still on the job and grateful to all of you, especially my friends from Arkansas, for the chance you gave us to serve our country in the White House.
I am also honored to share this night with President Carter, who has inspired the world with his work for peace, democracy, and human rights. And with Al Gore, my friend and partner for eight years, who played such a large role in building the prosperity and progress that brought America into the 21st century, who showed incredible grace and patriotism under pressure, and who is the living embodiment that every vote counts -- and must be counted in every state in America.
Tonight I speak as a citizen, returning to the role I have played for most of my life as a foot soldier in the fight for our future, as we nominate a true New England patriot for president. The state that gave us John Adams and John Kennedy has now given us John Kerry, a good man, a great senator, a visionary leader. We are constantly told America is deeply divided. But all Americans value freedom, faith, and family. We all honor the service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world.
We all want good jobs, good schools, health care, safe streets, a clean environment. We all want our children to grow up in a secure America leading the world toward a peaceful future. Our differences are in how we can best achieve these things, in a time of unprecedented change. Therefore, we Democrats will bring the American people a positive campaign, arguing not who's good and who's bad, but what is the best way to build the safe, prosperous world our children deserve.
The 21st century is marked by serious security threats, serious economic challenges, and serious problems like global warming and the AIDS epidemic. But it is also full of enormous opportunities-to create millions of high paying jobs in clean energy, and biotechnology; to restore the manufacturing base and reap the benefits of the global economy through our diversity and our commitment to decent labor and environmental standards everywhere; and to create a world where we can celebrate our religious and racial differences, because our common humanity matters more.
To build that kind of world we must make the right choices; and we must have a president who will lead the way. Democrats and Republicans have very different and honestly held ideas on that choices we should make, rooted in fundamentally different views of how we should meet our common challenges at home and how we should play our role in the world. Democrats want to build an America of shared responsibilities and shared opportunities and more global cooperation, acting alone only when we must.
We think the role of government is to give people the tools and conditions to make the most of their lives. Republicans believe in an America run by the right people, their people, in a world in which we act unilaterally when we can, and cooperate when we have to.
They think the role of government is to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of those who embrace their political, economic, and social views, leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves on matters like health care and retirement security. Since most Americans are not that far to the right, they have to portray us Democrats as unacceptable, lacking in strength and values. In other words, they need a divided America. But Americans long to be united. After 9/11, we all wanted to be one nation, strong in the fight against terror. The president had a great opportunity to bring us together under his slogan of compassionate conservatism and to unite the world in common cause against terror.
Instead, he and his congressional allies made a very different choice: to use the moment of unity to push America too far to the right and to walk away from our allies, not only in attacking Iraq before the weapons inspectors finished their jobs, but in withdrawing American support for the Climate Change Treaty, the International Court for war criminals, the ABM treaty, and even the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Now they are working to develop two new nuclear weapons which they say we might use first. At home, the President and the Republican Congress have made equally fateful choices indeed. For the first time ever when America was on a war footing, there were two huge tax cuts, nearly half of which went to the top one percent. I'm in that group now for the first time in my life.
When I was in office, the Republicans were pretty mean to me. When I left and made money, I became part of the most important group in the world to them. At first I thought I should send them a thank you note -- until I realized they were sending you the bill.
They protected my tax cuts while:
-- Withholding promised funding for the Leave No Child Behind Act, leaving
over 2 million children behind
-- Cutting 140,000 unemployed workers out of job training
-- 100,000 working families out of child care assistance
-- 300,000 poor children out of after school programs
-- Raising out of pocket healthcare costs to veterans
-- Weakening or reversing important environmental advances for clean air
and the preservation of our forests.
Everyone had to sacrifice except the wealthiest Americans, who wanted to do their part but were asked only to expend the energy necessary to open the envelopes containing our tax cuts. If you agree with these choices, you should vote to return them to the White House and Congress. If not, take a look at John Kerry, John Edwards and the Democrats.
In this year's budget, the White House wants to cut off federal funding for 88,000 uniformed police, including more than 700 on the New York City police force who put their lives on the line on 9/11. As gang violence is rising and we look for terrorists in our midst, Congress and the President are also about to allow the ten-year-old ban on assault weapons to expire. Our crime policy was to put more police on the streets and take assault weapons off the streets. It brought eight years of declining crime and violence. Their policy is the reverse, they're taking police off the streets and putting assault weapons back on the streets. If you agree with their choices, vote to continue them. If not, join John Kerry, John Edwards and the Democrats in making America safer, smarter, and stronger.
On Homeland Security, Democrats tried to double the number of containers at ports and airports checked for Weapons of Mass Destruction. The one billion dollar cost would have been paid for by reducing the tax cut of 200,000 millionaires by five thousand dollars each. Almost all 200,000 of us would have been glad to pay 5,000 dollars to make the nearly 300 million Americans safer-but the measure failed because the White House and the Republican leadership in the House decided my tax cut was more important -- If you agree with that choice, re-elect them. If not, give John Kerry and John Edwards a chance.
These policies have turned the projected 5.8 trillion dollar surplus we left-enough to pay for the baby boomers retirement-into a projected debt of nearly 5 trillion dollars, with a 400 plus billion dollar deficit this year and for years to come. How do they pay for it? First by taking the monthly surplus in Social Security payments and endorsing the checks of working people over to me to cover my tax cut. But it's not enough. They are borrowing the rest from foreign governments, mostly Japan and China. Sure, they're competing with us for good jobs but how can we enforce our trade laws against our bankers? If you think it's good policy to pay for my tax cut with the Social Security checks of working men and women, and borrowed money from China, vote for them. If not, John Kerry's your man.
We Americans must choose for President one of two strong men who both love our country, but who have very different worldviews: Democrats favor shared responsibility, shared opportunity, and more global cooperation. Republicans favor concentrated wealth and power, leaving people to fend for themselves and more unilateral action. I think we're right for two reasons: First, America works better when all people have a chance to live their dreams. Second, we live in an interdependent world in which we can't kill, jail, or occupy all our potential adversaries, so we have to both fight terror and build a world with more partners and fewer terrorists. We tried it their way for twelve years, our way for eight, and then their way for four more.
By the only test that matters, whether people were better off when we finished than when we started, our way works better-it produced over 22 million good jobs, rising incomes, and 100 times as many people moving out of poverty into the middle class. It produced more health care, the largest increase in college aid in 50 years, record home ownership, a cleaner environment, three surpluses in a row, a modernized defense force, strong efforts against terror, and an America respected as a world leader for peace, security and prosperity.
More importantly, we have great new champions in John Kerry and John Edwards. Two good men with wonderful wives-Teresa a generous and wise woman who understands the world we are trying to shape. And Elizabeth, a lawyer and mother who understands the lives we are all trying to lift. Here is what I know about John Kerry. During the Vietnam War, many young men -- including the current president, the vice president and me-could have gone to Vietnam but didn't. John Kerry came from a privileged background and could have avoided it too. Instead he said, send me.
When they sent those swift-boats up the river in Vietnam, and told them their job was to draw hostile fire-to show the American flag and bait the enemy to come out and fight-John Kerry said, send me. When it was time to heal the wounds of war and normalize relations with Vietnam-and to demand an accounting of the POWs and MIAs we lost there-John Kerry said, send me.
When we needed someone to push the cause of inner-city kids struggling to avoid a life of crime, or to bring the benefits of high technology to ordinary Americans, or to clean the environment in a way that creates jobs, or to give small businesses a better chance to make it, John Kerry said send me.
Tonight my friends, I ask you to join me for the next 100 days in telling John Kerry's story and promoting his plans. Let every person in this hall and all across America say to him what he has always said to America: Send Me. The bravery that the men who fought by his side saw in battle I've seen in the political arena. When I was President, John Kerry showed courage and conviction on crime, on welfare reform, on balancing the budget at a time when those priorities were not exactly a way to win a popularity contest in our party.
He took tough positions on tough problems. John Kerry knows who he is and where he's going. He has the experience, the character, the ideas and the values to be a great President. In a time of change he has two other important qualities: his insatiable curiosity to understand the forces shaping our lives, and a willingness to hear the views even of those who disagree with him. Therefore his choices will be full of both conviction and common sense.
He proved that when he picked a tremendous partner in John Edwards. Everybody talks about John Edwards' energy, intellect, and charisma. The important thing is how he has used his talents to improve the lives of people who -- like John himself -- had to work hard for all they've got. He has always championed the cause of people too often left out or left behind. And that's what he'll do as our Vice President.
Their opponents will tell you to be afraid of John Kerry and John Edwards, because they won't stand up to the terrorists -- don't you believe it. Strength and wisdom are not conflicting values -- they go hand in hand. John Kerry has both. His first priority will be keeping America safe. Remember the scripture: Be Not Afraid.
John Kerry and John Edwards, have good ideas:
-- To make this economy work again for middle-class Americans
-- To restore fiscal responsibility
-- To save Social Security; to make healthcare more affordable and college
more available
-- To free us from dependence on foreign oil and create new jobs in clean
energy
-- To rally the world to win the war on terror and to make more friends
and fewer terrorists.
At every turning point in our history we the people have chosen unity over division, heeding our founders' call to America's eternal mission: to form a more perfect union, to widen the circle of opportunity, deepen the reach of freedom, and strengthen the bonds of community.
It happened because we made the right choices. In the early days of the republic, America was at a crossroads much like it is today, deeply divided over whether or not to build a real nation with a national economy, and a national legal system. We chose a more perfect union.
In the Civil War, America was at a crossroads, divided over whether to save the union and end slavery -- we chose a more perfect union. In the 1960s, America was at a crossroads, divided again over civil rights and women's rights. Again, we chose a more perfect union. As I said in 1992, we're all in this together; we have an obligation both to work hard and to help our fellow citizens, both to fight terror and to build a world with more cooperation and less terror. Now again, it is time to choose.
Since we're all in the same boat, let us chose as the captain of our ship a brave good man who knows how to steer a vessel though troubled waters to the calm seas and clear skies of our more perfect union. We know our mission. Let us join as one and say in a loud, clear voice: Send John Kerry.
[b]The transcript of a speech by William J. Clinton at the Democratic National Convention[/b], http://www.newsday.com/news/p...,0,1751325.story?coll=ny-homepage-bi g-pix
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| The Very Good Reasons You Should Vote For John F. Kerry For President ... |
| 07.28.04 (7:10 am) [edit] |
Thank you. I am honored to share the podium with my Senator, though I think I should be introducing her. I'm proud of her and so grateful to the people of New York that the best public servant in our family is still on the job and grateful to all of you, especially my friends from Arkansas, for the chance you gave us to serve our country in the White House.
I am also honored to share this night with President Carter, who has inspired the world with his work for peace, democracy, and human rights. And with Al Gore, my friend and partner for eight years, who played such a large role in building the prosperity and progress that brought America into the 21st century, who showed incredible grace and patriotism under pressure, and who is the living embodiment that every vote counts -- and must be counted in every state in America.
Tonight I speak as a citizen, returning to the role I have played for most of my life as a foot soldier in the fight for our future, as we nominate a true New England patriot for president. The state that gave us John Adams and John Kennedy has now given us John Kerry, a good man, a great senator, a visionary leader. We are constantly told America is deeply divided. But all Americans value freedom, faith, and family. We all honor the service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world.
We all want good jobs, good schools, health care, safe streets, a clean environment. We all want our children to grow up in a secure America leading the world toward a peaceful future. Our differences are in how we can best achieve these things, in a time of unprecedented change. Therefore, we Democrats will bring the American people a positive campaign, arguing not who's good and who's bad, but what is the best way to build the safe, prosperous world our children deserve.
The 21st century is marked by serious security threats, serious economic challenges, and serious problems like global warming and the AIDS epidemic. But it is also full of enormous opportunities-to create millions of high paying jobs in clean energy, and biotechnology; to restore the manufacturing base and reap the benefits of the global economy through our diversity and our commitment to decent labor and environmental standards everywhere; and to create a world where we can celebrate our religious and racial differences, because our common humanity matters more.
To build that kind of world we must make the right choices; and we must have a president who will lead the way. Democrats and Republicans have very different and honestly held ideas on that choices we should make, rooted in fundamentally different views of how we should meet our common challenges at home and how we should play our role in the world. Democrats want to build an America of shared responsibilities and shared opportunities and more global cooperation, acting alone only when we must.
We think the role of government is to give people the tools and conditions to make the most of their lives. Republicans believe in an America run by the right people, their people, in a world in which we act unilaterally when we can, and cooperate when we have to.
They think the role of government is to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of those who embrace their political, economic, and social views, leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves on matters like health care and retirement security. Since most Americans are not that far to the right, they have to portray us Democrats as unacceptable, lacking in strength and values. In other words, they need a divided America. But Americans long to be united. After 9/11, we all wanted to be one nation, strong in the fight against terror. The president had a great opportunity to bring us together under his slogan of compassionate conservatism and to unite the world in common cause against terror.
Instead, he and his congressional allies made a very different choice: to use the moment of unity to push America too far to the right and to walk away from our allies, not only in attacking Iraq before the weapons inspectors finished their jobs, but in withdrawing American support for the Climate Change Treaty, the International Court for war criminals, the ABM treaty, and even the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Now they are working to develop two new nuclear weapons which they say we might use first. At home, the President and the Republican Congress have made equally fateful choices indeed. For the first time ever when America was on a war footing, there were two huge tax cuts, nearly half of which went to the top one percent. I'm in that group now for the first time in my life.
When I was in office, the Republicans were pretty mean to me. When I left and made money, I became part of the most important group in the world to them. At first I thought I should send them a thank you note -- until I realized they were sending you the bill.
They protected my tax cuts while:
-- Withholding promised funding for the Leave No Child Behind Act, leaving
over 2 million children behind
-- Cutting 140,000 unemployed workers out of job training
-- 100,000 working families out of child care assistance
-- 300,000 poor children out of after school programs
-- Raising out of pocket healthcare costs to veterans
-- Weakening or reversing important environmental advances for clean air
and the preservation of our forests.
Everyone had to sacrifice except the wealthiest Americans, who wanted to do their part but were asked only to expend the energy necessary to open the envelopes containing our tax cuts. If you agree with these choices, you should vote to return them to the White House and Congress. If not, take a look at John Kerry, John Edwards and the Democrats.
In this year's budget, the White House wants to cut off federal funding for 88,000 uniformed police, including more than 700 on the New York City police force who put their lives on the line on 9/11. As gang violence is rising and we look for terrorists in our midst, Congress and the President are also about to allow the ten-year-old ban on assault weapons to expire. Our crime policy was to put more police on the streets and take assault weapons off the streets. It brought eight years of declining crime and violence. Their policy is the reverse, they're taking police off the streets and putting assault weapons back on the streets. If you agree with their choices, vote to continue them. If not, join John Kerry, John Edwards and the Democrats in making America safer, smarter, and stronger.
On Homeland Security, Democrats tried to double the number of containers at ports and airports checked for Weapons of Mass Destruction. The one billion dollar cost would have been paid for by reducing the tax cut of 200,000 millionaires by five thousand dollars each. Almost all 200,000 of us would have been glad to pay 5,000 dollars to make the nearly 300 million Americans safer-but the measure failed because the White House and the Republican leadership in the House decided my tax cut was more important -- If you agree with that choice, re-elect them. If not, give John Kerry and John Edwards a chance.
These policies have turned the projected 5.8 trillion dollar surplus we left-enough to pay for the baby boomers retirement-into a projected debt of nearly 5 trillion dollars, with a 400 plus billion dollar deficit this year and for years to come. How do they pay for it? First by taking the monthly surplus in Social Security payments and endorsing the checks of working people over to me to cover my tax cut. But it's not enough. They are borrowing the rest from foreign governments, mostly Japan and China. Sure, they're competing with us for good jobs but how can we enforce our trade laws against our bankers? If you think it's good policy to pay for my tax cut with the Social Security checks of working men and women, and borrowed money from China, vote for them. If not, John Kerry's your man.
We Americans must choose for President one of two strong men who both love our country, but who have very different worldviews: Democrats favor shared responsibility, shared opportunity, and more global cooperation. Republicans favor concentrated wealth and power, leaving people to fend for themselves and more unilateral action. I think we're right for two reasons: First, America works better when all people have a chance to live their dreams. Second, we live in an interdependent world in which we can't kill, jail, or occupy all our potential adversaries, so we have to both fight terror and build a world with more partners and fewer terrorists. We tried it their way for twelve years, our way for eight, and then their way for four more.
By the only test that matters, whether people were better off when we finished than when we started, our way works better-it produced over 22 million good jobs, rising incomes, and 100 times as many people moving out of poverty into the middle class. It produced more health care, the largest increase in college aid in 50 years, record home ownership, a cleaner environment, three surpluses in a row, a modernized defense force, strong efforts against terror, and an America respected as a world leader for peace, security and prosperity.
More importantly, we have great new champions in John Kerry and John Edwards. Two good men with wonderful wives-Teresa a generous and wise woman who understands the world we are trying to shape. And Elizabeth, a lawyer and mother who understands the lives we are all trying to lift. Here is what I know about John Kerry. During the Vietnam War, many young men -- including the current president, the vice president and me-could have gone to Vietnam but didn't. John Kerry came from a privileged background and could have avoided it too. Instead he said, send me.
When they sent those swift-boats up the river in Vietnam, and told them their job was to draw hostile fire-to show the American flag and bait the enemy to come out and fight-John Kerry said, send me. When it was time to heal the wounds of war and normalize relations with Vietnam-and to demand an accounting of the POWs and MIAs we lost there-John Kerry said, send me.
When we needed someone to push the cause of inner-city kids struggling to avoid a life of crime, or to bring the benefits of high technology to ordinary Americans, or to clean the environment in a way that creates jobs, or to give small businesses a better chance to make it, John Kerry said send me.
Tonight my friends, I ask you to join me for the next 100 days in telling John Kerry's story and promoting his plans. Let every person in this hall and all across America say to him what he has always said to America: Send Me. The bravery that the men who fought by his side saw in battle I've seen in the political arena. When I was President, John Kerry showed courage and conviction on crime, on welfare reform, on balancing the budget at a time when those priorities were not exactly a way to win a popularity contest in our party.
He took tough positions on tough problems. John Kerry knows who he is and where he's going. He has the experience, the character, the ideas and the values to be a great President. In a time of change he has two other important qualities: his insatiable curiosity to understand the forces shaping our lives, and a willingness to hear the views even of those who disagree with him. Therefore his choices will be full of both conviction and common sense.
He proved that when he picked a tremendous partner in John Edwards. Everybody talks about John Edwards' energy, intellect, and charisma. The important thing is how he has used his talents to improve the lives of people who -- like John himself -- had to work hard for all they've got. He has always championed the cause of people too often left out or left behind. And that's what he'll do as our Vice President.
Their opponents will tell you to be afraid of John Kerry and John Edwards, because they won't stand up to the terrorists -- don't you believe it. Strength and wisdom are not conflicting values -- they go hand in hand. John Kerry has both. His first priority will be keeping America safe. Remember the scripture: Be Not Afraid.
John Kerry and John Edwards, have good ideas:
-- To make this economy work again for middle-class Americans
-- To restore fiscal responsibility
-- To save Social Security; to make healthcare more affordable and college
more available
-- To free us from dependence on foreign oil and create new jobs in clean
energy
-- To rally the world to win the war on terror and to make more friends
and fewer terrorists.
At every turning point in our history we the people have chosen unity over division, heeding our founders' call to America's eternal mission: to form a more perfect union, to widen the circle of opportunity, deepen the reach of freedom, and strengthen the bonds of community.
It happened because we made the right choices. In the early days of the republic, America was at a crossroads much like it is today, deeply divided over whether or not to build a real nation with a national economy, and a national legal system. We chose a more perfect union.
In the Civil War, America was at a crossroads, divided over whether to save the union and end slavery -- we chose a more perfect union. In the 1960s, America was at a crossroads, divided again over civil rights and women's rights. Again, we chose a more perfect union. As I said in 1992, we're all in this together; we have an obligation both to work hard and to help our fellow citizens, both to fight terror and to build a world with more cooperation and less terror. Now again, it is time to choose.
Since we're all in the same boat, let us chose as the captain of our ship a brave good man who knows how to steer a vessel though troubled waters to the calm seas and clear skies of our more perfect union. We know our mission. Let us join as one and say in a loud, clear voice: Send John Kerry.
[b]The transcript of a speech by William J. Clinton at the Democratic National Convention[/b], http://www.newsday.com/news/p...,0,1751325.story?coll=ny-homepage-bi g-pix
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| ------ The 9/11 Report Proves that Bush is an Incompetent Buffoon ------ |
| 07.28.04 (7:05 am) [edit] |
[b]An Excuse-Spouting Bush Is Busted by 9/11 Report [/b]
Busted! Like a teenager whose beer bash is interrupted by his parents' early return home, President Bush's nearly three years of bragging about his "war on terror" credentials has been exposed by the bipartisan 9/11 commission as nothing more than empty posturing.
Without dissent, five prominent Republicans joined an equal number of their Democratic Party peers in stating unequivocally that the Bush administration got it wrong, both in its lethargic response to an unprecedented level of warnings during what the commission calls the "Summer of Threat," as well as in its inclusion of Iraq in the war on terror.
Although the language of the commission's report was carefully couched to obtain a bipartisan consensus, the indictment of this administration surfaces on almost every page.
Bush was not the first U.S. president to play footsie with Muslim extremists in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, nor was the Clinton administration without fault in its fitful and ineffective response to the Al Qaeda threat. But there was simply no excuse for the near-total indifference of the new president and his top Cabinet officials to strenuous warnings from the outgoing Clinton administration and the government's counter-terrorism experts that something terrible was coming, fast and hard, from Al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden's gang, they said repeatedly, was planning "near-term attacks," which Al Qaeda operatives expected "to have dramatic consequences of catastrophic proportions."
As early as May 2001, the FBI was receiving tips that Bin Laden supporters were planning attacks in the U.S., possibly including the hijacking of planes. On May 29, White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke wrote national security advisor Condoleezza Rice that "when these attacks [on Israeli or U.S. facilities] occur, as they likely will, we will wonder what more we could have done to stop them." At the end of June, the commission wrote, "the intelligence reporting consistently described the upcoming attacks as occurring on a calamitous level." In early July, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft was told "that preparations for multiple attacks [by Al Qaeda] were in late stages or already complete and that little additional warning could be expected." By month's end, "the system was blinking red" and could not "get any worse," then-CIA Director George Tenet told the 9/11 commission.
It was at this point, of course, that George W. Bush began the longest presidential vacation in 32 years. On the very first day of his visit to his Texas ranch, Aug. 6, Bush received the now-infamous two-page intelligence alert titled, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack in the United States." Yet instead of returning to the capital to mobilize an energetic defensive posture, he spent an additional 27 days away as the government languished in summer mode, in deep denial.
"In sum," said the 9/11 commission report, "the domestic agencies never mobilized in response to the threat. They did not have the direction, and did not have a plan to institute. The borders were not hardened. Transportation systems were not fortified. Electronic surveillance was not targeted against a domestic threat. State and local law enforcement were not marshaled to augment the FBI's efforts. The public was not warned."
In her public testimony to the commission, Rice argued that the Aug. 6 briefing concerned vague "historical information based on old reporting," adding that "there was no new threat information." When the commission forced the White House to release the document, however, this was exposed as a lie: The document included explicit FBI warnings of "suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York." Furthermore, this briefing was only one of 40 on the threat of Bin Laden that the president received between Jan. 20 and Sept. 11, 2001.
Bush, the commission report also makes clear, compounded U.S. vulnerability by totally misleading Americans about the need to invade Iraq as a part of the "war on terror."
For those, like Vice President Dick Cheney, who continue to insist that the jury is still out on whether Al Qaeda and Iraq were collaborators, the commission's report should be the final word, finding after an exhaustive review that there is no evidence that any of the alleged contacts between Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein "ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with Al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States."
So, before 9/11, incompetence and sloth. And after? Much worse: a war without end on the wrong battlefield. - http://www.commondreams.org/v...
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| ------ The 9/11 Report Proves that Bush is an Incompetent Buffoon ------ |
| 07.28.04 (6:59 am) [edit] |
[b]An Excuse-Spouting Bush Is Busted by 9/11 Report [/b]
Busted! Like a teenager whose beer bash is interrupted by his parents' early return home, President Bush's nearly three years of bragging about his "war on terror" credentials has been exposed by the bipartisan 9/11 commission as nothing more than empty posturing.
Without dissent, five prominent Republicans joined an equal number of their Democratic Party peers in stating unequivocally that the Bush administration got it wrong, both in its lethargic response to an unprecedented level of warnings during what the commission calls the "Summer of Threat," as well as in its inclusion of Iraq in the war on terror.
Although the language of the commission's report was carefully couched to obtain a bipartisan consensus, the indictment of this administration surfaces on almost every page.
Bush was not the first U.S. president to play footsie with Muslim extremists in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, nor was the Clinton administration without fault in its fitful and ineffective response to the Al Qaeda threat. But there was simply no excuse for the near-total indifference of the new president and his top Cabinet officials to strenuous warnings from the outgoing Clinton administration and the government's counter-terrorism experts that something terrible was coming, fast and hard, from Al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden's gang, they said repeatedly, was planning "near-term attacks," which Al Qaeda operatives expected "to have dramatic consequences of catastrophic proportions."
As early as May 2001, the FBI was receiving tips that Bin Laden supporters were planning attacks in the U.S., possibly including the hijacking of planes. On May 29, White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke wrote national security advisor Condoleezza Rice that "when these attacks [on Israeli or U.S. facilities] occur, as they likely will, we will wonder what more we could have done to stop them." At the end of June, the commission wrote, "the intelligence reporting consistently described the upcoming attacks as occurring on a calamitous level." In early July, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft was told "that preparations for multiple attacks [by Al Qaeda] were in late stages or already complete and that little additional warning could be expected." By month's end, "the system was blinking red" and could not "get any worse," then-CIA Director George Tenet told the 9/11 commission.
It was at this point, of course, that George W. Bush began the longest presidential vacation in 32 years. On the very first day of his visit to his Texas ranch, Aug. 6, Bush received the now-infamous two-page intelligence alert titled, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack in the United States." Yet instead of returning to the capital to mobilize an energetic defensive posture, he spent an additional 27 days away as the government languished in summer mode, in deep denial.
"In sum," said the 9/11 commission report, "the domestic agencies never mobilized in response to the threat. They did not have the direction, and did not have a plan to institute. The borders were not hardened. Transportation systems were not fortified. Electronic surveillance was not targeted against a domestic threat. State and local law enforcement were not marshaled to augment the FBI's efforts. The public was not warned."
In her public testimony to the commission, Rice argued that the Aug. 6 briefing concerned vague "historical information based on old reporting," adding that "there was no new threat information." When the commission forced the White House to release the document, however, this was exposed as a lie: The document included explicit FBI warnings of "suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York." Furthermore, this briefing was only one of 40 on the threat of Bin Laden that the president received between Jan. 20 and Sept. 11, 2001.
Bush, the commission report also makes clear, compounded U.S. vulnerability by totally misleading Americans about the need to invade Iraq as a part of the "war on terror."
For those, like Vice President Dick Cheney, who continue to insist that the jury is still out on whether Al Qaeda and Iraq were collaborators, the commission's report should be the final word, finding after an exhaustive review that there is no evidence that any of the alleged contacts between Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein "ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with Al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States."
So, before 9/11, incompetence and sloth. And after? Much worse: a war without end on the wrong battlefield. - http://www.commondreams.org/v...
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| BUSH/CHENEY VOTE 'HALLIBURTON'!!! |
| 07.28.04 (6:53 am) [edit] |
Mr. Farr's letter on Mr. Cheney's pension begs a response with the facts of Mr. Cheney's associations with Halliburton as it's CEO and as Vice President of this country. This situation demands a serious look at the questions of patriotism vs. profit, about loyalty to a corporation that benefits you more than exceedingly well or loyalty to a country when you are in a position of trust ,and in a position to benefit your corporation.
Some initial facts: As Halliburton's chairman and CEO, Cheney earned a $1.3 million salary, plus bonuses that varied from zero to $2 million During his five-year tenure, Cheney accrued salary and stock options worth an estimated $45 million. [AP, July 26, 2000]
In addition, upon resigning from Halliburton to run with Bush in July, the 59-year-old Cheney received what amounted to a $20 million parting gift. Halliburton's board waived a requirement that Cheney would lose many of his stock options if he left before age 62. [NYT, Aug. 12, 2000]
Under the Halliburton deal, Cheney retained 400,000 unvested stock options that will "vest" in batches over the next three years. That means their value depends on Halliburton's stock price at the time the vested options are exercised. Unlike other holdings, unvested options cannot effectively be put in a blind trust since a trustee cannot do anything with them until after they vest, ethics expert note. In other words, Cheney will be aware that his personal wealth will rise and fall along with Halliburton's stock prices.
During his tenure from 1995-2000, while Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, Halliburton set up an off shore company in the Cayman Islands called Halliburton Products and Services, Ltd.; per a 60 Minutes' investigation this subsidiary has no known actual office or employees and it's mail is forwarded to Halliburton's offices in Houston, Texas. It was created to circumvent American laws that prevent American companies from doing business with countries that sponsor terrorism as the law does not apply to any foreign or offshore subsidiary so long as it is run by non-Americans. So Halliburton Products and Services, Ltd. began doing business with Iran, a country that has long supported terrorist activities, a country that this past year bought about $40 million dollars of oil production related services from Halliburton.
On January 25, 2004, New York City's controller, William Thompson, who oversees New York City workers' 80 million dollar pension funds, accused Halliburton of taking blood money from state sponsors of terrorism, such as Iran and Libya.Mr. Thompson said that city workers, including the police and fire departments that were so grievously injured by the attacks of 9/11 are "outraged that their retirement portfolios include stock in U.S. firms getting fat off contracts with rogue nations like Iran, which funds the terror groups Hezbollah and Hamas and is suspected of giving sanctuary to Al Qaeda leaders."
While Mr. Cheney was still CEO, Halliburton bought Dresser Industries which entered a joint venture agreement with Ingersoll-Rand Co and two French subsidiaries of these companies sold water and sewage treatment pumps, spare parts for oil facilities and pipeline equipment to Iran . While what Halliburton did was completely legal (because it did it through joint ventures and subsidiaries and within the orbit of the "oil for food" program run by the United Nations and per the United Nations) Halliburton and it's corporate friends earned $73 million dollars YET when interviewed on ABC's "This Week" on July 30, 2000, Mr. Cheney said: "I had a firm policy that we wouldn't do anything in Iraq, even arrangements that were supposedly legal. We've not done any business in Iraq since U.N. sanction were imposed . . ."
Again while Mr. Cheney was STILL CEO of Halliburton, questions are now coming to light regarding a massive $180 million bribery scheme in Nigeria involving Jack Stanley, who retired last year from Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root. Those questions are now being investigated in France as well as by the Securities and Exchange Commission in New York. The French authorities have been investigating these charges for the past year and official documents reveal that Cheney might be among those indicted on corruption charges. The French investigation made front-page news in France last Christmas but not in the United States.
Since Mr. Cheney became Vice-President,he still receives $150,000 annually in deferred compensation from Halliburton and holds about $18 million in stock options per a Feb. 24,2004 article presented by Jason Leopold of the Independent Media TV.
Since Mr. Cheney became Vice-President ,Time Magazine is now reporting that a Pentagon e-mail said Vice President Dick Cheney's office "coordinated" a multibillion-dollar Iraq reconstruction contract awarded to his former employer Halliburton. The e-mail, sent by an Army Corps of Engineers official on March 5, 2003, said Douglas Feith, a senior Pentagon official, provided arrangements for the Restore Iraqi Oil, between Halliburton and the U.S. government . The e-mail said Feith, approved arrangements for the contract "contingent on informing WH (White House) tomorrow. We anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated w VP's (vice president's) office."
Since Halliburton received their multi- billion dollars worth of contracts, Halliburton's subsidiary, Kellogg Brown and Root has sent empty flatbed trucks crisscrossing Iraq more than 100 times this year, and billed the American taxpayers while putting their drivers and their military escorts in jeopardy of their very lives by the possibility of insurgent attacks.
And about that multibillion-dollar contract that Halliburton has to feed and house U.S. troops in Iraq: as of March, 2004, Halliburton's food subcontractor, Event Source, which serves 100,000 meals a day in Iraq ,claims it hasn't been paid the $87 million it is owed, which includes President Bush's Thanksgiving dinner with the troops. Prior to this , Halliburton was accused of overcharging the government for feeding troops and the Pentagon says it will withhold about $300 million in payments until they are certain that the government has not been overcharged.
And even Kuwait as well as the Pentagon is investigating Halliburton for allegations on the part of KBR of fraud for the potential overpricing of fuel delivered to Baghdad by a KBR subcontractor.
So, Mr. Farr, are you proud it is an American company that is defrauding America?? And should the American taxpayer pick up a fraudulent tab to make the rich, richer? Is this WHAT YOU CONSIDER PATRIOTISM--profitting by a war that you run, profitting off of each American soldier's death and their suffering? If it is , then God help America.
Syndi Holmes - http://magic-city-news.com/ar...
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| Dubya & 'Fuck-yourself'! Cheney VOTE Halliburton to Take-over America!!! |
| 07.28.04 (6:49 am) [edit] |
Mr. Farr's letter on Mr. Cheney's pension begs a response with the facts of Mr. Cheney's associations with Halliburton as it's CEO and as Vice President of this country. This situation demands a serious look at the questions of patriotism vs. profit, about loyalty to a corporation that benefits you more than exceedingly well or loyalty to a country when you are in a position of trust ,and in a position to benefit your corporation.
Some initial facts: As Halliburton's chairman and CEO, Cheney earned a $1.3 million salary, plus bonuses that varied from zero to $2 million During his five-year tenure, Cheney accrued salary and stock options worth an estimated $45 million. [AP, July 26, 2000]
In addition, upon resigning from Halliburton to run with Bush in July, the 59-year-old Cheney received what amounted to a $20 million parting gift. Halliburton's board waived a requirement that Cheney would lose many of his stock options if he left before age 62. [NYT, Aug. 12, 2000]
Under the Halliburton deal, Cheney retained 400,000 unvested stock options that will "vest" in batches over the next three years. That means their value depends on Halliburton's stock price at the time the vested options are exercised. Unlike other holdings, unvested options cannot effectively be put in a blind trust since a trustee cannot do anything with them until after they vest, ethics expert note. In other words, Cheney will be aware that his personal wealth will rise and fall along with Halliburton's stock prices.
During his tenure from 1995-2000, while Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, Halliburton set up an off shore company in the Cayman Islands called Halliburton Products and Services, Ltd.; per a 60 Minutes' investigation this subsidiary has no known actual office or employees and it's mail is forwarded to Halliburton's offices in Houston, Texas. It was created to circumvent American laws that prevent American companies from doing business with countries that sponsor terrorism as the law does not apply to any foreign or offshore subsidiary so long as it is run by non-Americans. So Halliburton Products and Services, Ltd. began doing business with Iran, a country that has long supported terrorist activities, a country that this past year bought about $40 million dollars of oil production related services from Halliburton.
On January 25, 2004, New York City's controller, William Thompson, who oversees New York City workers' 80 million dollar pension funds, accused Halliburton of taking blood money from state sponsors of terrorism, such as Iran and Libya.Mr. Thompson said that city workers, including the police and fire departments that were so grievously injured by the attacks of 9/11 are "outraged that their retirement portfolios include stock in U.S. firms getting fat off contracts with rogue nations like Iran, which funds the terror groups Hezbollah and Hamas and is suspected of giving sanctuary to Al Qaeda leaders."
While Mr. Cheney was still CEO, Halliburton bought Dresser Industries which entered a joint venture agreement with Ingersoll-Rand Co and two French subsidiaries of these companies sold water and sewage treatment pumps, spare parts for oil facilities and pipeline equipment to Iran . While what Halliburton did was completely legal (because it did it through joint ventures and subsidiaries and within the orbit of the "oil for food" program run by the United Nations and per the United Nations) Halliburton and it's corporate friends earned $73 million dollars YET when interviewed on ABC's "This Week" on July 30, 2000, Mr. Cheney said: "I had a firm policy that we wouldn't do anything in Iraq, even arrangements that were supposedly legal. We've not done any business in Iraq since U.N. sanction were imposed . . ."
Again while Mr. Cheney was STILL CEO of Halliburton, questions are now coming to light regarding a massive $180 million bribery scheme in Nigeria involving Jack Stanley, who retired last year from Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root. Those questions are now being investigated in France as well as by the Securities and Exchange Commission in New York. The French authorities have been investigating these charges for the past year and official documents reveal that Cheney might be among those indicted on corruption charges. The French investigation made front-page news in France last Christmas but not in the United States.
Since Mr. Cheney became Vice-President,he still receives $150,000 annually in deferred compensation from Halliburton and holds about $18 million in stock options per a Feb. 24,2004 article presented by Jason Leopold of the Independent Media TV.
Since Mr. Cheney became Vice-President ,Time Magazine is now reporting that a Pentagon e-mail said Vice President Dick Cheney's office "coordinated" a multibillion-dollar Iraq reconstruction contract awarded to his former employer Halliburton. The e-mail, sent by an Army Corps of Engineers official on March 5, 2003, said Douglas Feith, a senior Pentagon official, provided arrangements for the Restore Iraqi Oil, between Halliburton and the U.S. government . The e-mail said Feith, approved arrangements for the contract "contingent on informing WH (White House) tomorrow. We anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated w VP's (vice president's) office."
Since Halliburton received their multi- billion dollars worth of contracts, Halliburton's subsidiary, Kellogg Brown and Root has sent empty flatbed trucks crisscrossing Iraq more than 100 times this year, and billed the American taxpayers while putting their drivers and their military escorts in jeopardy of their very lives by the possibility of insurgent attacks.
And about that multibillion-dollar contract that Halliburton has to feed and house U.S. troops in Iraq: as of March, 2004, Halliburton's food subcontractor, Event Source, which serves 100,000 meals a day in Iraq ,claims it hasn't been paid the $87 million it is owed, which includes President Bush's Thanksgiving dinner with the troops. Prior to this , Halliburton was accused of overcharging the government for feeding troops and the Pentagon says it will withhold about $300 million in payments until they are certain that the government has not been overcharged.
And even Kuwait as well as the Pentagon is investigating Halliburton for allegations on the part of KBR of fraud for the potential overpricing of fuel delivered to Baghdad by a KBR subcontractor.
So, Mr. Farr, are you proud it is an American company that is defrauding America?? And should the American taxpayer pick up a fraudulent tab to make the rich, richer? Is this WHAT YOU CONSIDER PATRIOTISM--profitting by a war that you run, profitting off of each American soldier's death and their suffering? If it is , then God help America.
Syndi Holmes - http://magic-city-news.com/ar...
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| Bush Squanders US Taxpayer $$$ Paying Iraqi Police To GO AWAY!!! |
| 07.28.04 (6:45 am) [edit] |
[b]US pays 30,000 Iraqi police to go away[/b]
The top news story out of Iraq today reports a massive suicide car bomb in Baqouba. Early reports neglected to mention that the target of the bombing was an Iraqi police station, where lines of Iraqis applying for jobs as policemen had formed in front, but that information is now out. It is well known that guerillas have targeted the Iraqi police force for being collaborators with the occupation, but a report from Newsday http://www.magicvalley.com/ne... reveals another reason for Iraqis to hate the NEW! Iraqi Police:
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The Intelligence Service has its own secret prison. Criminals wear uniforms and collect police salaries. Senior security officials hand out jobs to family members. Investigators charged with being watchdogs over the police say they have little or no power. They report to the interior minister rather than to justice itself. The police arrest the innocent, beat them, and imprison them without charge; and in at least one case, police shot dead an innocent bystander.
This is not Saddam Hussein's corrupt police state. This is the new Iraq run by interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, the man the international community is hoping will shepherd Iraqi democracy into being early next year. [b]There are so many corrupt, violent and useless police officers in the new Iraqi police force that, according to a senior American adviser to the Iraqi police, the U.S. government is about to pay off 30,000 police officers at a cost of $60 million to the American taxpayer.
Did you get that last bit? The US government is paying [i]60 MILLION dollars stolen from American taxpayers for 30,000 Iraqi "police" to go away[/i][/b].
The staggering cost and violent results of the repeated asinine blunders committed by the clueless neocons and Bushie nation-builders in Iraq is no surprise for those who've watched this farce unfold. Could anyone read this http://www.smh.com.au/article... and not feel a frisson of dread as well as anger at the hypocrisy and stupidity of the incompetent War Party hacks and neocon ideologues running the Occupation?
[i]United States occupation authorities are recruiting and training agents with the Iraqi intelligence service to help identify resistance to US forces after months of increasingly sophisticated attacks and bombings.
The employment of agents of Saddam Hussein's brutal security services underscores a growing recognition that US forces cannot alone prevent attacks like the bombing of the United Nations headquarters last week.
Authorities had stepped up recruitment over the past two weeks, a senior US official said.
"The only way you can combat terrorism is through intelligence," the senior official said. "It's the only way you're going to stop these people from doing what they're doing."
Officials are reluctant to disclose how many former agents have been recruited since the effort began. But Iraqi officials say they number anywhere from dozens to a few hundred, and US officials acknowledge that the recruitment is extensive[/i].
OK, so now we have installed the thug Allawi in place of Saddam and recreated Saddam's Mukhbarat. Allawi is shooting people in cold blood and sending goon squads out to round up entire neighborhoods. His secret police are torturing and beating prisoners and the New! IP are shaking down Iraqis at checkpoints and working with kidnappers. What was the justification for invading Iraq again? Anybody? Is anyone still mystified as to why the guerillas would attack the Iraqi "police" so relentlessly? - http://www.antiwar.com/blog/i...
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| Bush Squanders US Taxpayer $$$ Paying Iraqi Police To GO AWAY!!! |
| 07.28.04 (6:40 am) [edit] |
[b]US pays 30,000 Iraqi police to go away[/b]
The top news story out of Iraq today reports a massive suicide car bomb in Baqouba. Early reports neglected to mention that the target of the bombing was an Iraqi police station, where lines of Iraqis applying for jobs as policemen had formed in front, but that information is now out. It is well known that guerillas have targeted the Iraqi police force for being collaborators with the occupation, but a report from Newsday http://www.magicvalley.com/ne... reveals another reason for Iraqis to hate the NEW! Iraqi Police:
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The Intelligence Service has its own secret prison. Criminals wear uniforms and collect police salaries. Senior security officials hand out jobs to family members. Investigators charged with being watchdogs over the police say they have little or no power. They report to the interior minister rather than to justice itself. The police arrest the innocent, beat them, and imprison them without charge; and in at least one case, police shot dead an innocent bystander.
This is not Saddam Hussein's corrupt police state. This is the new Iraq run by interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, the man the international community is hoping will shepherd Iraqi democracy into being early next year. [b]There are so many corrupt, violent and useless police officers in the new Iraqi police force that, according to a senior American adviser to the Iraqi police, the U.S. government is about to pay off 30,000 police officers at a cost of $60 million to the American taxpayer.
Did you get that last bit? The US government is paying [i]60 MILLION dollars stolen from American taxpayers for 30,000 Iraqi "police" to go away[/i][/b].
The staggering cost and violent results of the repeated asinine blunders committed by the clueless neocons and Bushie nation-builders in Iraq is no surprise for those who've watched this farce unfold. Could anyone read this http://www.smh.com.au/article... and not feel a frisson of dread as well as anger at the hypocrisy and stupidity of the incompetent War Party hacks and neocon ideologues running the Occupation?
[i]United States occupation authorities are recruiting and training agents with the Iraqi intelligence service to help identify resistance to US forces after months of increasingly sophisticated attacks and bombings.
The employment of agents of Saddam Hussein's brutal security services underscores a growing recognition that US forces cannot alone prevent attacks like the bombing of the United Nations headquarters last week.
Authorities had stepped up recruitment over the past two weeks, a senior US official said.
"The only way you can combat terrorism is through intelligence," the senior official said. "It's the only way you're going to stop these people from doing what they're doing."
Officials are reluctant to disclose how many former agents have been recruited since the effort began. But Iraqi officials say they number anywhere from dozens to a few hundred, and US officials acknowledge that the recruitment is extensive[/i].
OK, so now we have installed the thug Allawi in place of Saddam and recreated Saddam's Mukhbarat. Allawi is shooting people in cold blood and sending goon squads out to round up entire neighborhoods. His secret police are torturing and beating prisoners and the New! IP are shaking down Iraqis at checkpoints and working with kidnappers. What was the justification for invading Iraq again? Anybody? Is anyone still mystified as to why the guerillas would attack the Iraqi "police" so relentlessly? - http://www.antiwar.com/blog/i...
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| ... GOP Senator Slams Bush for "Host of Mistakes" in Neo-Con Iraq War Fiasco!!! ... |
| 07.28.04 (6:34 am) [edit] |
[b]Chafee criticizes Bush for ''host of mistakes'' in Iraq [/b]
(AP) Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee criticized the Bush administration on Tuesday for a ''host of mistakes'' in its postwar reconstruction of Iraq, saying the country is less secure than before and that basic infrastructure is still not working.
The senator, on a tour of a Middletown company that provides security details to contractors in Iraq, said the U.S. effort will fail if the White House doesn't do a better job of working with other countries in the region and re-engage itself in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
''I don't think we can be successful if we're not working regionally,'' he told The Associated Press. ''If we keep saber-rattling with these countries, it could make this job (stabilizing Iraq) impossible.''
Chafee was the only Republican to vote against the White House war resolution in October 2002 leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. He said he favored recruiting more allies, and feared that demagogues in the Middle East and terrorists would exploit a U.S. invasion. He did vote to authorize reconstruction money.
On Tuesday, Chafee took issue with Bush's ''harsh words'' for Iran in recent weeks, and said the administration needs to work more closely with that country, Jordan and Syria.
The United States believes Tehran is developing nuclear weapons, a view reinforced by Iran's recent decision to resume construction of centrifuges a key step in the development of a uranium-based bomb. Iran insists its nuclear program has nothing to do with weaponry and is meant to meet domestic electricity needs.
''I feel there's been a whole host of mistakes,'' said Chafee, who is a moderate in the GOP. ''One might be the (too few) number of troops. The other is (not working closely enough) with surrounding countries.''
Washington is spending $1 billion a week in Iraq, according to Chafee. Yet the senator said he's heard electricity doesn't work in some places, some schools are not open, and water treatment plants remain out of commission. The senator said the country is more dangerous now than when he visited in October.
''The pressure's on us to perform,'' Chafee said.
''The question is if this investment is going to pay off,'' he continued. ''We're at a key moment here. The task is enormous.'' - http://www.boston.com/dailyne...:.shtml
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| ... GOP Senator Slams Bush for "Host of Mistakes" in Neo-Con Iraq War Fiasco!!! ... |
| 07.28.04 (6:31 am) [edit] |
[b]Chafee criticizes Bush for ''host of mistakes'' in Iraq [/b]
(AP) Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee criticized the Bush administration on Tuesday for a ''host of mistakes'' in its postwar reconstruction of Iraq, saying the country is less secure than before and that basic infrastructure is still not working.
The senator, on a tour of a Middletown company that provides security details to contractors in Iraq, said the U.S. effort will fail if the White House doesn't do a better job of working with other countries in the region and re-engage itself in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
''I don't think we can be successful if we're not working regionally,'' he told The Associated Press. ''If we keep saber-rattling with these countries, it could make this job (stabilizing Iraq) impossible.''
Chafee was the only Republican to vote against the White House war resolution in October 2002 leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. He said he favored recruiting more allies, and feared that demagogues in the Middle East and terrorists would exploit a U.S. invasion. He did vote to authorize reconstruction money.
On Tuesday, Chafee took issue with Bush's ''harsh words'' for Iran in recent weeks, and said the administration needs to work more closely with that country, Jordan and Syria.
The United States believes Tehran is developing nuclear weapons, a view reinforced by Iran's recent decision to resume construction of centrifuges a key step in the development of a uranium-based bomb. Iran insists its nuclear program has nothing to do with weaponry and is meant to meet domestic electricity needs.
''I feel there's been a whole host of mistakes,'' said Chafee, who is a moderate in the GOP. ''One might be the (too few) number of troops. The other is (not working closely enough) with surrounding countries.''
Washington is spending $1 billion a week in Iraq, according to Chafee. Yet the senator said he's heard electricity doesn't work in some places, some schools are not open, and water treatment plants remain out of commission. The senator said the country is more dangerous now than when he visited in October.
''The pressure's on us to perform,'' Chafee said.
''The question is if this investment is going to pay off,'' he continued. ''We're at a key moment here. The task is enormous.'' - http://www.boston.com/dailyne...:.shtml
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| John F. Kerry is STRONGER on US Defense Than Bush - And Kerry KNOWS What WAR Means (Bush Doesn't) |
| 07.27.04 (1:08 pm) [edit] |
John F. Kerry is actually [i]stronger[/i] on the defense of the United States of America and our National Security than Bush... [i]Why[/i]? [i]Because[/i]...
1. John F. Kerry served honorably in war-time while Bush did not. Bush doesn't even comprehend what war means. Bush jokes and smirks and prances around on Aircraft Carriers howling obscene buffooneries like "Mission Accomplished!" or "Bring 'em on" while our U.S. Soldiers are massacred in unnecessary wars. Bush squanders American lives and treasures recklessly and wantonly, not to safeguard us, but based upon lies and deceptions.
2. John F. Kerry has served on the Senate Foreign Relation and Intelligence Committees http://www.johnkerry.com/inde... and is respected for his ability to work with others in Congress and throughout the international community. The same cannot be said for Bush who is simply told what to do by neo-con thugs like Cheney, Rumsfeld and others who don't have our nation's interests at heart and who can't work with others here at home or abroad.
3. John F. Kerry has committed that he will only go to war if he must to defend our nation. Unlike Bush, Kerry will [i]not [/i]invade other nations pre-emptively and murder our US Soldiers and innocent civilians in order to enrich Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, the House of Saud, Unocal and other corporate pimps of the whorish Bush Crime Family. Bush/Cheney's War Crimes including set-up of a US Concentration Camp at Guantanamo Bay and the heinous murders, tortures, rapes and abuses of prisoners as well as the sodomy of little children at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in the Middle East will [i]not[/i] occur on Kerry's watch.
It is worthwhile reading the following speeches:
PRESIDENT CLINTON: "Making the right choices" ... Let's "Send John Kerry" to the White House!!! http://www.tblog.com/template...
PRESIDENT CARTER: "You can't be a war president one day- claim to be a peace president the next" http://www.tblog.com/template...
AL GORE: "Democracy Itself is in Grave Danger" ... http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| Bush/Cheney's Bloody Fiasco: US increasingly isolated in Iraq ... |
| 07.27.04 (12:38 pm) [edit] |
A Jordanian company has vowed to pull out of Iraq http://www.azcentral.com/busi... in response to the demands of kidnappers who hold two of it's employees. A Saudi Arabian company http://www.washtimes.com/upi-... did likewise a few weeks ago. I can't help but wonder if these companies aren't feeling a sense of relief to have a legitimate excuse to get out of Iraq. With operating costs so high due to the need for massive security, it is possible that the companies are making very little or losing money in Iraq, as well as placing all their personnel at extreme risk. Collier Lounsbury writes http://www.livejournal.com/us... that even Halliburton might be losing money in Iraq. [Although I doubt it since they're under investigation by Congress for [i]big-time [/i]price-gouging and no-bid contracts with improper audit and reporting compliance.]
In a demonstration of just how much territory they control, an Iraqi rebel group has announced that they will close the vital Jordan-Baghdad highway in 72 hours http://www.wusatv9.com/news/n... :
"[i]Militants bent on disrupting the supply chain to the U.S. military threatened Tuesday to cut the highway linking Iraq to Jordan in 72 hours and said it would hit at Jordanians as well as Americans.
The threat, from a group calling itself "The Group of Death," was made in a video obtained by Associated Press Television News. The video showed seven men wearing black clothing and masks armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and rifles.
The group's warning comes amid a wave of kidnappings of foreigners, mainly truck drivers, entering Iraq from neighboring countries to deliver supplies and other cargo needed for this war-ravaged nation's reconstruction effort.
A militant who read a statement on the tape criticized Jordan, Iraq's western neighbor, for letting trucking firms enter Iraq to support the U.S.-led coalition.
"We consider all Jordanian interests, companies and businessmen and citizens as much a target as the Americans," the speaker said[/i]."
You might remember that the insurgency successfully cut off US military supply routes http://ancapistan.typepad.com... before, to the point that Bremer and the rest of the Fortress Green Zone occupants were eating MREs. Clearly, the guerillas are slowly isolating the Americans by driving businesses out of Iraq, assassinations and attacks on collaborators, and relentless attacks on US military positions. Consider this bit from Knight Ridder's http://www.realcities.com/mld... Tom Lassiter:
"[i]After more than a year of fighting, U.S. troops have stopped patrolling large swaths of Iraq's restive Anbar province, according to the top American military intelligence officer in the area…. In the wreckage of the security situation, [Army Maj. Thomas] Neemeyer [the head American intelligence officer for the 1st Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, the main military force in the Ramadi area] said, U.S. officials have all but given up on plans to install a democratic government in the city [Ramadi], and are hoping instead that Islamic extremists and other insurgent groups don't overrun the province in the same way that they've seized the region's most infamous town, Fallujah…
"'The only way to stomp out the insurgency of the mind,' [Capt. Joe Jasper, a spokesman for the 1st Brigade] said, 'would be to kill the entire population'… Pointing to a neighborhood outside the town of Habbaniyah, between Fallujah and Ramadi, he said, 'We've lost a lot of Marines there and we don't ever go in anymore. If they want it that bad, they can have it.' And then to a spot on the western edge of Fallujah: 'We find that if we don't go there, they won't shoot us[/i].'"
"[i]If they want it that bad, they can have it[/i]." How long before this line is in a Bush [or Cheney] or even a Kerry speech? - http://www.antiwar.com/blog/i...
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| Raw Deal: Dubya Can't Hide The Fact That He Is An AWOL Drunkard & Deranged Lunatic!!! |
| 07.27.04 (12:24 pm) [edit] |
[b]For the record: http://awolbush.com [/b]
Bush dodged Vietnam by using powerful family friends to get into the Texas Air National Guard "Champagne Unit." Bush was required to train with his unit one weekend each month. But for at least five months in 1972 (May-Sept), Bush did NOT report for duty. The Pentagon just found the pay records that prove Bush received NO pay for those 5 months. Bush was AWOL - and a DESERTER. Why did he decide to stop flying - was it alcohol or drugs? Was there a Flight Inquiry Board? Once again, we demand Bush's MEDICAL and DISCIPLINARY records!
[u]Read entire article on[/u]: http://democrats.com/view.cfm...
[b]Also ...[/b]
A new book by a prominent Washington psychoanalyst says President George W. Bush is a "paranoid meglomaniac" as well as a sadist and "untreated alcoholic." The doctor's analysis appears to confirm earlier reports the President may be emotionally unstable.
Dr. Justin Frank, writing in [i]Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President,[/i] http://www.harpercollins.com/... also says the President has a "lifelong streak of sadism, ranging from childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode frogs) http://www.all-creatures.org/... to insulting journalists, gloating over state executions ... [and] pumping his fist gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad." http://www.unknownnews.net/in...
Even worse, Dr. Frank concludes, the President's years of heavy drinking "may have affected his brain function -- and his decision to quit drinking without the help of a 12-step program [puts] him at far higher risk of relapse."
Dr. Frank's revelations comes on the heels of last week's [i]Capitol Hill Blue [/i]exclusive that revealed increasing concern by White House aides over Bush's emotional stability http://www.unknownnews.net/in... .
Aides, who spoke only on condition that their names be withheld, told stories of wide mood swings by the President who would go from quoting the Bible one minute to obscenity-filled outbursts the next.
Bush shows an inability to grieve -- dating back to age 7, when his sister died. "The family's reaction -- no funeral and no mourning -- set in motion his life-long pattern of turning away from pain [and hiding] behind antic behavior," says Frank, who says Bush may suffer from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Other findings by Dr. Frank:
. His mother, Barbara Bush -- tabbed by some family friends as "the one who instills fear" -- had trouble connecting emotionally with her son, Frank argues.
. George H.W. Bush's "emotional and physical absence during his son's youth triggered feelings of both adoration and revenge in George W."
. The President suffers from "character pathology," including "grandiosity" and "megalomania" -- viewing himself, America and God as interchangeable.
Dr. Frank has been a psychiatrist for 35 years and is director of psychiatry at George Washington University. A Democrat, he once headed the Washington Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
In an interview with The Washington Post's Richard Leiby, Dr. Frank said he began to be concerned about Bush's behavior in 2002.
"I was really very unsettled by him and I started watching everything he did and reading what he wrote, and watching him on videotape. I felt he was disturbed," Dr. Frank told Leiby. Bush, he said, "fits the profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested but not treated."
Dr. Frank's expert recommendation? "Our sole treatment option -- for his benefit and for ours -- is to remove President Bush from office ... before it is too late."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to comment on the specifics of Dr. Frank's book or the earlier story by [i]Capitol Hill Blue[/i].
"I don't do book reviews," McClellan said, even though he last week recommended the latest book by the [i]Washington Post's [/i]Bob Woodward to reporters at the daily press briefing. - http://www.unknownnews.net/in...
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| Psychoanalyst describes Bush as "paranoid meglomaniac," "untreated alcoholic" - Dubya's a lunatic |
| 07.27.04 (8:17 am) [edit] |
A new book by a prominent Washington psychoanalyst says President George W. Bush is a "paranoid meglomaniac" as well as a sadist and "untreated alcoholic." The doctor's analysis appears to confirm earlier reports the President may be emotionally unstable.
Dr. Justin Frank, writing in [i]Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President,[/i] http://www.harpercollins.com/... also says the President has a "lifelong streak of sadism, ranging from childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode frogs) http://www.all-creatures.org/... to insulting journalists, gloating over state executions ... [and] pumping his fist gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad." http://www.unknownnews.net/in...
Even worse, Dr. Frank concludes, the President's years of heavy drinking "may have affected his brain function -- and his decision to quit drinking without the help of a 12-step program [puts] him at far higher risk of relapse."
Dr. Frank's revelations comes on the heels of last week's [i]Capitol Hill Blue [/i]exclusive that revealed increasing concern by White House aides over Bush's emotional stability http://www.unknownnews.net/in... .
Aides, who spoke only on condition that their names be withheld, told stories of wide mood swings by the President who would go from quoting the Bible one minute to obscenity-filled outbursts the next.
Bush shows an inability to grieve -- dating back to age 7, when his sister died. "The family's reaction -- no funeral and no mourning -- set in motion his life-long pattern of turning away from pain [and hiding] behind antic behavior," says Frank, who says Bush may suffer from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Other findings by Dr. Frank:
. His mother, Barbara Bush -- tabbed by some family friends as "the one who instills fear" -- had trouble connecting emotionally with her son, Frank argues.
. George H.W. Bush's "emotional and physical absence during his son's youth triggered feelings of both adoration and revenge in George W."
. The President suffers from "character pathology," including "grandiosity" and "megalomania" -- viewing himself, America and God as interchangeable.
Dr. Frank has been a psychiatrist for 35 years and is director of psychiatry at George Washington University. A Democrat, he once headed the Washington Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
In an interview with The Washington Post's Richard Leiby, Dr. Frank said he began to be concerned about Bush's behavior in 2002.
"I was really very unsettled by him and I started watching everything he did and reading what he wrote, and watching him on videotape. I felt he was disturbed," Dr. Frank told Leiby. Bush, he said, "fits the profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested but not treated."
Dr. Frank's expert recommendation? "Our sole treatment option -- for his benefit and for ours -- is to remove President Bush from office ... before it is too late."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to comment on the specifics of Dr. Frank's book or the earlier story by [i]Capitol Hill Blue[/i].
"I don't do book reviews," McClellan said, even though he last week recommended the latest book by the [i]Washington Post's [/i]Bob Woodward to reporters at the daily press briefing. - http://www.unknownnews.net/in...
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| Psychoanalyst describes Bush as "paranoid meglomaniac," "untreated alcoholic" - Dubya's a lunatic |
| 07.27.04 (8:15 am) [edit] |
A new book by a prominent Washington psychoanalyst says President George W. Bush is a "paranoid meglomaniac" as well as a sadist and "untreated alcoholic." The doctor's analysis appears to confirm earlier reports the President may be emotionally unstable.
Dr. Justin Frank, writing in [i]Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President,[/i] http://www.harpercollins.com/... also says the President has a "lifelong streak of sadism, ranging from childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode frogs) http://www.all-creatures.org/... to insulting journalists, gloating over state executions ... [and] pumping his fist gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad." http://www.unknownnews.net/in...
Even worse, Dr. Frank concludes, the President's years of heavy drinking "may have affected his brain function -- and his decision to quit drinking without the help of a 12-step program [puts] him at far higher risk of relapse."
Dr. Frank's revelations comes on the heels of last week's [i]Capitol Hill Blue [/i]exclusive that revealed increasing concern by White House aides over Bush's emotional stability http://www.unknownnews.net/in... .
Aides, who spoke only on condition that their names be withheld, told stories of wide mood swings by the President who would go from quoting the Bible one minute to obscenity-filled outbursts the next.
Bush shows an inability to grieve -- dating back to age 7, when his sister died. "The family's reaction -- no funeral and no mourning -- set in motion his life-long pattern of turning away from pain [and hiding] behind antic behavior," says Frank, who says Bush may suffer from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Other findings by Dr. Frank:
. His mother, Barbara Bush -- tabbed by some family friends as "the one who instills fear" -- had trouble connecting emotionally with her son, Frank argues.
. George H.W. Bush's "emotional and physical absence during his son's youth triggered feelings of both adoration and revenge in George W."
. The President suffers from "character pathology," including "grandiosity" and "megalomania" -- viewing himself, America and God as interchangeable.
Dr. Frank has been a psychiatrist for 35 years and is director of psychiatry at George Washington University. A Democrat, he once headed the Washington Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
In an interview with The Washington Post's Richard Leiby, Dr. Frank said he began to be concerned about Bush's behavior in 2002.
"I was really very unsettled by him and I started watching everything he did and reading what he wrote, and watching him on videotape. I felt he was disturbed," Dr. Frank told Leiby. Bush, he said, "fits the profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested but not treated."
Dr. Frank's expert recommendation? "Our sole treatment option -- for his benefit and for ours -- is to remove President Bush from office ... before it is too late."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to comment on the specifics of Dr. Frank's book or the earlier story by [i]Capitol Hill Blue[/i].
"I don't do book reviews," McClellan said, even though he last week recommended the latest book by the [i]Washington Post's [/i]Bob Woodward to reporters at the daily press briefing. - http://www.unknownnews.net/in...
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| Psychoanalyst describes Bush as "paranoid meglomaniac," "untreated alcoholic" - Dubya's a lunatic |
| 07.27.04 (8:07 am) [edit] |
A new book by a prominent Washington psychoanalyst says President George W. Bush is a "paranoid meglomaniac" as well as a sadist and "untreated alcoholic." The doctor's analysis appears to confirm earlier reports the President may be emotionally unstable.
Dr. Justin Frank, writing in [i]Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President,[/i] http://www.harpercollins.com/... also says the President has a "lifelong streak of sadism, ranging from childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode frogs) http://www.all-creatures.org/... to insulting journalists, gloating over state executions ... [and] pumping his fist gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad." http://www.unknownnews.net/in...
Even worse, Dr. Frank concludes, the President's years of heavy drinking "may have affected his brain function -- and his decision to quit drinking without the help of a 12-step program [puts] him at far higher risk of relapse."
Dr. Frank's revelations comes on the heels of last week's [i]Capitol Hill Blue [/i]exclusive that revealed increasing concern by White House aides over Bush's emotional stability http://www.unknownnews.net/in... .
Aides, who spoke only on condition that their names be withheld, told stories of wide mood swings by the President who would go from quoting the Bible one minute to obscenity-filled outbursts the next.
Bush shows an inability to grieve -- dating back to age 7, when his sister died. "The family's reaction -- no funeral and no mourning -- set in motion his life-long pattern of turning away from pain [and hiding] behind antic behavior," says Frank, who says Bush may suffer from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Other findings by Dr. Frank:
. His mother, Barbara Bush -- tabbed by some family friends as "the one who instills fear" -- had trouble connecting emotionally with her son, Frank argues.
. George H.W. Bush's "emotional and physical absence during his son's youth triggered feelings of both adoration and revenge in George W."
. The President suffers from "character pathology," including "grandiosity" and "megalomania" -- viewing himself, America and God as interchangeable.
Dr. Frank has been a psychiatrist for 35 years and is director of psychiatry at George Washington University. A Democrat, he once headed the Washington Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
In an interview with The Washington Post's Richard Leiby, Dr. Frank said he began to be concerned about Bush's behavior in 2002.
"I was really very unsettled by him and I started watching everything he did and reading what he wrote, and watching him on videotape. I felt he was disturbed," Dr. Frank told Leiby. Bush, he said, "fits the profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested but not treated."
Dr. Frank's expert recommendation? "Our sole treatment option -- for his benefit and for ours -- is to remove President Bush from office ... before it is too late."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to comment on the specifics of Dr. Frank's book or the earlier story by [i]Capitol Hill Blue[/i].
"I don't do book reviews," McClellan said, even though he last week recommended the latest book by the [i]Washington Post's [/i]Bob Woodward to reporters at the daily press briefing. - http://www.unknownnews.net/in...
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| Four more years for Big Brother? |
| 07.27.04 (7:53 am) [edit] |
[b]'Four more years for Big Brother?'[/b]
In December 2003 a mystery prankster erected a large sign on Key Bridge across the Potomac river, in Washington DC.
"Read Orwell"
Perhaps the culprit was film director Michael Moore, whose Fahrenheit 9/11 about the bellicose extremism of the Bush administration ends with a quote from George Orwell's classic dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-four.
Is it far-fetched to compare America under the Bush administration to a political order defined by "doublethink" and "newspeak"? Orwell wrote his masterpiece in 1948 and reversed the last two digits. Was it his only mistake not to have called it 2004?
Orwell's dark vision was largely informed by his insight into the inner workings of Stalinism in the Soviet Union. But it was also a prophetic warning of the potentially corrosive impact of the looming cold war on western democracies.
Life in the society of Oceana that Orwell describes had three organising mottoes. Each does seem to have its eerie echoes today.
[b]War is peace [/b]
The first perverse slogan, quoted in Moore's film, was "WAR IS PEACE". Its function was to brainwash people into believing that permanent war was normal.
Since invoking the image of an America pitted against the "axis of evil" in 2002, the United States president has proudly declared himself a "war president". The 9/11 catastrophe has led him to mobilise American society against what he projects as an array of invidious external enemies engaged in an omnipresent conspiracy. To engage in this war is a mark of virility, authority, and patriotism. To refuse it is to be weak, defeatist, and un-American.
The Bush ideologues have transmuted warmongering into a civic virtue. "Bring it on" has become the politically-correct attitude.
To maintain the public in a state of militarised mobilisation, attorney-general John Ashcroft orchestrates a colour-code of threats for citizens: in effect, be scared, very scared, or very, very scared. (Never mind that the administration's economic message boils down to "don't worry, be happy.")
A senior official in the Bush White House told me in 2003 that inside the administration the brothers of war were full of "truculent glee" about launching their pre-emptive invasion of Iraq and equally giddy about the prospects for further armed interventions abroad. Their catchphrase was: "Wimps talk about Iraq; real men are already thinking about Syria." For the Bush "utopians", it does indeed seem that perpetual conflict is not a problem, it's the solution.
If war is peace, war is also profit. One of the most clever innovations of the defense industry has been the privatisation of war through directly outsourcing a large range of activities, including even security, logistics and interrogation services in Iraq, to a clique of heavyweight corporations such as vice-president Dick Cheney's former employer, the hydra-headed Halliburton.
To be clear, the point is not that the United States faces no security threats. It does, and they are serious. The point is that the Bush administration seems to be in a quest for further threats and that it amplifies them, making it hard to tell fact from fiction. Worse, the reckless campaign in Iraq may have only increased these security risks.
Freedom is slavery
The second motto of Oceana was "FREEDOM IS SLAVERY". This too has its uncanny resonance in the present. Perhaps the prime example is the Patriot Act, which was passed by a Congress without being seriously debated or even read.
The essential message of the Patriot Act is that the American people's constitutional freedoms are endangering us. (All of them, it seems, except the right to bear arms.) The Founding Fathers were evidently not patriotic enough and did not anticipate the politics of permanent war. On the Bush-Cheney view, homeland security requires the abridgement of liberties. Not satisfied with the first instalment but plainly encouraged by the docility of Congress, the administration now seeks a more far-reaching, privacy-encroaching Patriot Act II.
To help make sure citizens don't exercise their remaining freedoms too liberally, the government has instituted a confidential phone line. All suspicious activity can be reported. It is important to understand that there is a logic to such initiatives. What if you don't report such activity when your neighbours do? Will this be registered on the system, and if so isn't this a step towards "Big Brother" watching us?
Ignorance is strength
The third motto of Oceana was "IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH". This insight finds reflection in several aspects of the current White House. To begin with, there is the president's own aversion to reading and debate.
As worrisome is the cult of secrecy that shrouds the activities of the administration. So many documents are now routinely classified that US officials are constantly confused as to what they can talk about.
The result of expanding government secrecy is a narrowing space for democratic deliberation. The message from Karl Rove's would-be Ministry of Truth is simple: the less you know, the less you ask, the better for you.
By and large (with a few outstanding exceptions) the establishment print and network media, captured by big corporate interests or fearing retribution, have been enablers of the Bush administration's campaign to tame public debate.
The consequence for journalists who wish to come to their own conclusions is clear. Under Bush-Cheney, you are either embedded or excluded. The White House has implemented a rigorous policy of discipline-and-punish. Write unkindly and you can kiss your access goodbye.
In our potential Oceana the opposition in Congress often behaves like an annex of the Ministry of Truth. Until quite recently, the Democratic leadership was too intimidated and risk-averse to fulfil its principal role as a check on executive power.
But also, far too many of us in civil society and the private sector heeded the then White House spokesman Ari Fleischer's warning to "watch what you say" as he equated patriotism with obedience.
1984 is not the present-day USA. But the risks are not pure fiction. What Orwell perceived was that the three dark mottoes go together. External conflict, internal ignorance, and the self-enslavement of buying manipulative media reinforce and need each other.
It is not that it will happen, but we would be complacent to believe that "it can't happen here".
Can we change in time? There are signs of a turning-point. The Supreme Court, which may now regret the unprecedented role it played in putting the president in office, seemed to send a clear message in the detention cases that due process still matters and that extra-judicial incarceration is un-American. (Hint: so is torture).
Even the much-maligned CIA recently blew the whistle by authorising publication of a current secret agent's book titled Imperial Hubris exposing the Bush administration's ill-conceived war planning, anti-terrorism campaign, and Middle East strategy.
The key challenge for John Kerry and John Edwards is to build on this rising tide of dissent, break the grip of the military-industrial complex, and help shake America free of Bush-Cheney doublethink.
The stakes in this year of decision could not be higher. Give Big Brother four more years and indeed, war might become our peace, ignorance our strength, and slavery our freedom. - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| How the United States of America deliberately became the United States of Amnesia!!! |
| 07.27.04 (7:47 am) [edit] |
[b]'Four more years for Big Brother?'[/b]
In December 2003 a mystery prankster erected a large sign on Key Bridge across the Potomac river, in Washington DC.
"Read Orwell"
Perhaps the culprit was film director Michael Moore, whose Fahrenheit 9/11 about the bellicose extremism of the Bush administration ends with a quote from George Orwell's classic dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-four.
Is it far-fetched to compare America under the Bush administration to a political order defined by "doublethink" and "newspeak"? Orwell wrote his masterpiece in 1948 and reversed the last two digits. Was it his only mistake not to have called it 2004?
Orwell's dark vision was largely informed by his insight into the inner workings of Stalinism in the Soviet Union. But it was also a prophetic warning of the potentially corrosive impact of the looming cold war on western democracies.
Life in the society of Oceana that Orwell describes had three organising mottoes. Each does seem to have its eerie echoes today.
[b]War is peace [/b]
The first perverse slogan, quoted in Moore's film, was "WAR IS PEACE". Its function was to brainwash people into believing that permanent war was normal.
Since invoking the image of an America pitted against the "axis of evil" in 2002, the United States president has proudly declared himself a "war president". The 9/11 catastrophe has led him to mobilise American society against what he projects as an array of invidious external enemies engaged in an omnipresent conspiracy. To engage in this war is a mark of virility, authority, and patriotism. To refuse it is to be weak, defeatist, and un-American.
The Bush ideologues have transmuted warmongering into a civic virtue. "Bring it on" has become the politically-correct attitude.
To maintain the public in a state of militarised mobilisation, attorney-general John Ashcroft orchestrates a colour-code of threats for citizens: in effect, be scared, very scared, or very, very scared. (Never mind that the administration's economic message boils down to "don't worry, be happy.")
A senior official in the Bush White House told me in 2003 that inside the administration the brothers of war were full of "truculent glee" about launching their pre-emptive invasion of Iraq and equally giddy about the prospects for further armed interventions abroad. Their catchphrase was: "Wimps talk about Iraq; real men are already thinking about Syria." For the Bush "utopians", it does indeed seem that perpetual conflict is not a problem, it's the solution.
If war is peace, war is also profit. One of the most clever innovations of the defense industry has been the privatisation of war through directly outsourcing a large range of activities, including even security, logistics and interrogation services in Iraq, to a clique of heavyweight corporations such as vice-president Dick Cheney's former employer, the hydra-headed Halliburton.
To be clear, the point is not that the United States faces no security threats. It does, and they are serious. The point is that the Bush administration seems to be in a quest for further threats and that it amplifies them, making it hard to tell fact from fiction. Worse, the reckless campaign in Iraq may have only increased these security risks.
Freedom is slavery
The second motto of Oceana was "FREEDOM IS SLAVERY". This too has its uncanny resonance in the present. Perhaps the prime example is the Patriot Act, which was passed by a Congress without being seriously debated or even read.
The essential message of the Patriot Act is that the American people's constitutional freedoms are endangering us. (All of them, it seems, except the right to bear arms.) The Founding Fathers were evidently not patriotic enough and did not anticipate the politics of permanent war. On the Bush-Cheney view, homeland security requires the abridgement of liberties. Not satisfied with the first instalment but plainly encouraged by the docility of Congress, the administration now seeks a more far-reaching, privacy-encroaching Patriot Act II.
To help make sure citizens don't exercise their remaining freedoms too liberally, the government has instituted a confidential phone line. All suspicious activity can be reported. It is important to understand that there is a logic to such initiatives. What if you don't report such activity when your neighbours do? Will this be registered on the system, and if so isn't this a step towards "Big Brother" watching us?
Ignorance is strength
The third motto of Oceana was "IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH". This insight finds reflection in several aspects of the current White House. To begin with, there is the president's own aversion to reading and debate.
As worrisome is the cult of secrecy that shrouds the activities of the administration. So many documents are now routinely classified that US officials are constantly confused as to what they can talk about.
The result of expanding government secrecy is a narrowing space for democratic deliberation. The message from Karl Rove's would-be Ministry of Truth is simple: the less you know, the less you ask, the better for you.
By and large (with a few outstanding exceptions) the establishment print and network media, captured by big corporate interests or fearing retribution, have been enablers of the Bush administration's campaign to tame public debate.
The consequence for journalists who wish to come to their own conclusions is clear. Under Bush-Cheney, you are either embedded or excluded. The White House has implemented a rigorous policy of discipline-and-punish. Write unkindly and you can kiss your access goodbye.
In our potential Oceana the opposition in Congress often behaves like an annex of the Ministry of Truth. Until quite recently, the Democratic leadership was too intimidated and risk-averse to fulfil its principal role as a check on executive power.
But also, far too many of us in civil society and the private sector heeded the then White House spokesman Ari Fleischer's warning to "watch what you say" as he equated patriotism with obedience.
1984 is not the present-day USA. But the risks are not pure fiction. What Orwell perceived was that the three dark mottoes go together. External conflict, internal ignorance, and the self-enslavement of buying manipulative media reinforce and need each other.
It is not that it will happen, but we would be complacent to believe that "it can't happen here".
Can we change in time? There are signs of a turning-point. The Supreme Court, which may now regret the unprecedented role it played in putting the president in office, seemed to send a clear message in the detention cases that due process still matters and that extra-judicial incarceration is un-American. (Hint: so is torture).
Even the much-maligned CIA recently blew the whistle by authorising publication of a current secret agent's book titled Imperial Hubris exposing the Bush administration's ill-conceived war planning, anti-terrorism campaign, and Middle East strategy.
The key challenge for John Kerry and John Edwards is to build on this rising tide of dissent, break the grip of the military-industrial complex, and help shake America free of Bush-Cheney doublethink.
The stakes in this year of decision could not be higher. Give Big Brother four more years and indeed, war might become our peace, ignorance our strength, and slavery our freedom. - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| Dicky-boy Cheney: Was it "Fuck-yourself"! OR "I need a good Fuck cause I'm a frustrated bastard"? |
| 07.27.04 (7:28 am) [edit] |
Teresa Heinz Kerry is now being bombarded with hilarious neo-con, neo-orwellian attacks for confronting a reporter who told [i]out-and-out lies [/i]about her, [i]misquoting[/i] her and actually [i]printing stuff she didn't say[/i]. So she told him when he refused to retract his lies to "[i]Shove It[/i]"! Ain't that just awful!!![i] LOL[/i]!!!
Meanwhile Dicky-boy [i]("Fuck-yourself"! to Senators for asking about his bribes and illegal embezzlment of the US taxpayers on behalf of the blood-thirsty war-mongering Halliburton[/i]) Cheney howls "[i]Fuck-yourself"! [/i]for being asked to account for swindling the US American taxpayers for his pimp Halliburton.
Is Reich Marshall Dicky-boy who thinks he owns the U.S.A. [i]off-his-rocker [/i]or does he just need a [i]good fuck [/i]because he's obviously a[i] frustrated old bastard [/i]as well as a[i] crook[/i]!?!
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| It's Your Decision ... |
| 07.27.04 (7:01 am) [edit] |
[b]The following is a transcript of a speech by President William J. Clinton at the Democratic National Convention[/b]:
Thank you. I am honored to share the podium with my Senator, though I think I should be introducing her. I'm proud of her and so grateful to the people of New York that the best public servant in our family is still on the job and grateful to all of you, especially my friends from Arkansas, for the chance you gave us to serve our country in the White House.
I am also honored to share this night with President Carter, who has inspired the world with his work for peace, democracy, and human rights. And with Al Gore, my friend and partner for eight years, who played such a large role in building the prosperity and progress that brought America into the 21st century, who showed incredible grace and patriotism under pressure, and who is the living embodiment that every vote counts -- and must be counted in every state in America.
Tonight I speak as a citizen, returning to the role I have played for most of my life as a foot soldier in the fight for our future, as we nominate a true New England patriot for president. The state that gave us John Adams and John Kennedy has now given us John Kerry, a good man, a great senator, a visionary leader. We are constantly told America is deeply divided. But all Americans value freedom, faith, and family. We all honor the service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world.
We all want good jobs, good schools, health care, safe streets, a clean environment. We all want our children to grow up in a secure America leading the world toward a peaceful future. Our differences are in how we can best achieve these things, in a time of unprecedented change. Therefore, we Democrats will bring the American people a positive campaign, arguing not who's good and who's bad, but what is the best way to build the safe, prosperous world our children deserve.
The 21st century is marked by serious security threats, serious economic challenges, and serious problems like global warming and the AIDS epidemic. But it is also full of enormous opportunities-to create millions of high paying jobs in clean energy, and biotechnology; to restore the manufacturing base and reap the benefits of the global economy through our diversity and our commitment to decent labor and environmental standards everywhere; and to create a world where we can celebrate our religious and racial differences, because our common humanity matters more.
To build that kind of world we must make the right choices; and we must have a president who will lead the way. Democrats and Republicans have very different and honestly held ideas on that choices we should make, rooted in fundamentally different views of how we should meet our common challenges at home and how we should play our role in the world. Democrats want to build an America of shared responsibilities and shared opportunities and more global cooperation, acting alone only when we must.
We think the role of government is to give people the tools and conditions to make the most of their lives. Republicans believe in an America run by the right people, their people, in a world in which we act unilaterally when we can, and cooperate when we have to.
They think the role of government is to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of those who embrace their political, economic, and social views, leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves on matters like health care and retirement security. Since most Americans are not that far to the right, they have to portray us Democrats as unacceptable, lacking in strength and values. In other words, they need a divided America. But Americans long to be united. After 9/11, we all wanted to be one nation, strong in the fight against terror. The president had a great opportunity to bring us together under his slogan of compassionate conservatism and to unite the world in common cause against terror.
Instead, he and his congressional allies made a very different choice: to use the moment of unity to push America too far to the right and to walk away from our allies, not only in attacking Iraq before the weapons inspectors finished their jobs, but in withdrawing American support for the Climate Change Treaty, the International Court for war criminals, the ABM treaty, and even the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Now they are working to develop two new nuclear weapons which they say we might use first. At home, the President and the Republican Congress have made equally fateful choices indeed. For the first time ever when America was on a war footing, there were two huge tax cuts, nearly half of which went to the top one percent. I'm in that group now for the first time in my life.
When I was in office, the Republicans were pretty mean to me. When I left and made money, I became part of the most important group in the world to them. At first I thought I should send them a thank you note -- until I realized they were sending you the bill.
They protected my tax cuts while:
-- Withholding promised funding for the Leave No Child Behind Act, leaving
over 2 million children behind
-- Cutting 140,000 unemployed workers out of job training
-- 100,000 working families out of child care assistance
-- 300,000 poor children out of after school programs
-- Raising out of pocket healthcare costs to veterans
-- Weakening or reversing important environmental advances for clean air
and the preservation of our forests.
Everyone had to sacrifice except the wealthiest Americans, who wanted to do their part but were asked only to expend the energy necessary to open the envelopes containing our tax cuts. If you agree with these choices, you should vote to return them to the White House and Congress. If not, take a look at John Kerry, John Edwards and the Democrats.
In this year's budget, the White House wants to cut off federal funding for 88,000 uniformed police, including more than 700 on the New York City police force who put their lives on the line on 9/11. As gang violence is rising and we look for terrorists in our midst, Congress and the President are also about to allow the ten-year-old ban on assault weapons to expire. Our crime policy was to put more police on the streets and take assault weapons off the streets. It brought eight years of declining crime and violence. Their policy is the reverse, they're taking police off the streets and putting assault weapons back on the streets. If you agree with their choices, vote to continue them. If not, join John Kerry, John Edwards and the Democrats in making America safer, smarter, and stronger.
On Homeland Security, Democrats tried to double the number of containers at ports and airports checked for Weapons of Mass Destruction. The one billion dollar cost would have been paid for by reducing the tax cut of 200,000 millionaires by five thousand dollars each. Almost all 200,000 of us would have been glad to pay 5,000 dollars to make the nearly 300 million Americans safer-but the measure failed because the White House and the Republican leadership in the House decided my tax cut was more important -- If you agree with that choice, re-elect them. If not, give John Kerry and John Edwards a chance.
These policies have turned the projected 5.8 trillion dollar surplus we left-enough to pay for the baby boomers retirement-into a projected debt of nearly 5 trillion dollars, with a 400 plus billion dollar deficit this year and for years to come. How do they pay for it? First by taking the monthly surplus in Social Security payments and endorsing the checks of working people over to me to cover my tax cut. But it's not enough. They are borrowing the rest from foreign governments, mostly Japan and China. Sure, they're competing with us for good jobs but how can we enforce our trade laws against our bankers? If you think it's good policy to pay for my tax cut with the Social Security checks of working men and women, and borrowed money from China, vote for them. If not, John Kerry's your man.
We Americans must choose for President one of two strong men who both love our country, but who have very different worldviews: Democrats favor shared responsibility, shared opportunity, and more global cooperation. Republicans favor concentrated wealth and power, leaving people to fend for themselves and more unilateral action. I think we're right for two reasons: First, America works better when all people have a chance to live their dreams. Second, we live in an interdependent world in which we can't kill, jail, or occupy all our potential adversaries, so we have to both fight terror and build a world with more partners and fewer terrorists. We tried it their way for twelve years, our way for eight, and then their way for four more.
By the only test that matters, whether people were better off when we finished than when we started, our way works better-it produced over 22 million good jobs, rising incomes, and 100 times as many people moving out of poverty into the middle class. It produced more health care, the largest increase in college aid in 50 years, record home ownership, a cleaner environment, three surpluses in a row, a modernized defense force, strong efforts against terror, and an America respected as a world leader for peace, security and prosperity.
More importantly, we have great new champions in John Kerry and John Edwards. Two good men with wonderful wives-Teresa a generous and wise woman who understands the world we are trying to shape. And Elizabeth, a lawyer and mother who understands the lives we are all trying to lift. Here is what I know about John Kerry. During the Vietnam War, many young men -- including the current president, the vice president and me-could have gone to Vietnam but didn't. John Kerry came from a privileged background and could have avoided it too. Instead he said, send me.
When they sent those swift-boats up the river in Vietnam, and told them their job was to draw hostile fire-to show the American flag and bait the enemy to come out and fight-John Kerry said, send me. When it was time to heal the wounds of war and normalize relations with Vietnam-and to demand an accounting of the POWs and MIAs we lost there-John Kerry said, send me.
When we needed someone to push the cause of inner-city kids struggling to avoid a life of crime, or to bring the benefits of high technology to ordinary Americans, or to clean the environment in a way that creates jobs, or to give small businesses a better chance to make it, John Kerry said send me.
Tonight my friends, I ask you to join me for the next 100 days in telling John Kerry's story and promoting his plans. Let every person in this hall and all across America say to him what he has always said to America: Send Me. The bravery that the men who fought by his side saw in battle I've seen in the political arena. When I was President, John Kerry showed courage and conviction on crime, on welfare reform, on balancing the budget at a time when those priorities were not exactly a way to win a popularity contest in our party.
He took tough positions on tough problems. John Kerry knows who he is and where he's going. He has the experience, the character, the ideas and the values to be a great President. In a time of change he has two other important qualities: his insatiable curiosity to understand the forces shaping our lives, and a willingness to hear the views even of those who disagree with him. Therefore his choices will be full of both conviction and common sense.
He proved that when he picked a tremendous partner in John Edwards. Everybody talks about John Edwards' energy, intellect, and charisma. The important thing is how he has used his talents to improve the lives of people who -- like John himself -- had to work hard for all they've got. He has always championed the cause of people too often left out or left behind. And that's what he'll do as our Vice President.
Their opponents will tell you to be afraid of John Kerry and John Edwards, because they won't stand up to the terrorists -- don't you believe it. Strength and wisdom are not conflicting values -- they go hand in hand. John Kerry has both. His first priority will be keeping America safe. Remember the scripture: Be Not Afraid.
John Kerry and John Edwards, have good ideas:
-- To make this economy work again for middle-class Americans
-- To restore fiscal responsibility
-- To save Social Security; to make healthcare more affordable and college
more available
-- To free us from dependence on foreign oil and create new jobs in clean
energy
-- To rally the world to win the war on terror and to make more friends
and fewer terrorists.
At every turning point in our history we the people have chosen unity over division, heeding our founders' call to America's eternal mission: to form a more perfect union, to widen the circle of opportunity, deepen the reach of freedom, and strengthen the bonds of community.
It happened because we made the right choices. In the early days of the republic, America was at a crossroads much like it is today, deeply divided over whether or not to build a real nation with a national economy, and a national legal system. We chose a more perfect union.
In the Civil War, America was at a crossroads, divided over whether to save the union and end slavery -- we chose a more perfect union. In the 1960s, America was at a crossroads, divided again over civil rights and women's rights. Again, we chose a more perfect union. As I said in 1992, we're all in this together; we have an obligation both to work hard and to help our fellow citizens, both to fight terror and to build a world with more cooperation and less terror. Now again, it is time to choose.
Since we're all in the same boat, let us chose as the captain of our ship a brave good man who knows how to steer a vessel though troubled waters to the calm seas and clear skies of our more perfect union. We know our mission. Let us join as one and say in a loud, clear voice: Send John Kerry. - http://www.newsday.com/news/p...,0,1751325.story?coll=ny-homepage-bi g-pix
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| Text of President Clinton's Outstanding Speech at the Democratic National Convention |
| 07.27.04 (6:59 am) [edit] |
[b]The following is a transcript of a speech by President William J. Clinton at the Democratic National Convention[/b]:
Thank you. I am honored to share the podium with my Senator, though I think I should be introducing her. I'm proud of her and so grateful to the people of New York that the best public servant in our family is still on the job and grateful to all of you, especially my friends from Arkansas, for the chance you gave us to serve our country in the White House.
I am also honored to share this night with President Carter, who has inspired the world with his work for peace, democracy, and human rights. And with Al Gore, my friend and partner for eight years, who played such a large role in building the prosperity and progress that brought America into the 21st century, who showed incredible grace and patriotism under pressure, and who is the living embodiment that every vote counts -- and must be counted in every state in America.
Tonight I speak as a citizen, returning to the role I have played for most of my life as a foot soldier in the fight for our future, as we nominate a true New England patriot for president. The state that gave us John Adams and John Kennedy has now given us John Kerry, a good man, a great senator, a visionary leader. We are constantly told America is deeply divided. But all Americans value freedom, faith, and family. We all honor the service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world.
We all want good jobs, good schools, health care, safe streets, a clean environment. We all want our children to grow up in a secure America leading the world toward a peaceful future. Our differences are in how we can best achieve these things, in a time of unprecedented change. Therefore, we Democrats will bring the American people a positive campaign, arguing not who's good and who's bad, but what is the best way to build the safe, prosperous world our children deserve.
The 21st century is marked by serious security threats, serious economic challenges, and serious problems like global warming and the AIDS epidemic. But it is also full of enormous opportunities-to create millions of high paying jobs in clean energy, and biotechnology; to restore the manufacturing base and reap the benefits of the global economy through our diversity and our commitment to decent labor and environmental standards everywhere; and to create a world where we can celebrate our religious and racial differences, because our common humanity matters more.
To build that kind of world we must make the right choices; and we must have a president who will lead the way. Democrats and Republicans have very different and honestly held ideas on that choices we should make, rooted in fundamentally different views of how we should meet our common challenges at home and how we should play our role in the world. Democrats want to build an America of shared responsibilities and shared opportunities and more global cooperation, acting alone only when we must.
We think the role of government is to give people the tools and conditions to make the most of their lives. Republicans believe in an America run by the right people, their people, in a world in which we act unilaterally when we can, and cooperate when we have to.
They think the role of government is to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of those who embrace their political, economic, and social views, leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves on matters like health care and retirement security. Since most Americans are not that far to the right, they have to portray us Democrats as unacceptable, lacking in strength and values. In other words, they need a divided America. But Americans long to be united. After 9/11, we all wanted to be one nation, strong in the fight against terror. The president had a great opportunity to bring us together under his slogan of compassionate conservatism and to unite the world in common cause against terror.
Instead, he and his congressional allies made a very different choice: to use the moment of unity to push America too far to the right and to walk away from our allies, not only in attacking Iraq before the weapons inspectors finished their jobs, but in withdrawing American support for the Climate Change Treaty, the International Court for war criminals, the ABM treaty, and even the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Now they are working to develop two new nuclear weapons which they say we might use first. At home, the President and the Republican Congress have made equally fateful choices indeed. For the first time ever when America was on a war footing, there were two huge tax cuts, nearly half of which went to the top one percent. I'm in that group now for the first time in my life.
When I was in office, the Republicans were pretty mean to me. When I left and made money, I became part of the most important group in the world to them. At first I thought I should send them a thank you note -- until I realized they were sending you the bill.
They protected my tax cuts while:
-- Withholding promised funding for the Leave No Child Behind Act, leaving
over 2 million children behind
-- Cutting 140,000 unemployed workers out of job training
-- 100,000 working families out of child care assistance
-- 300,000 poor children out of after school programs
-- Raising out of pocket healthcare costs to veterans
-- Weakening or reversing important environmental advances for clean air
and the preservation of our forests.
Everyone had to sacrifice except the wealthiest Americans, who wanted to do their part but were asked only to expend the energy necessary to open the envelopes containing our tax cuts. If you agree with these choices, you should vote to return them to the White House and Congress. If not, take a look at John Kerry, John Edwards and the Democrats.
In this year's budget, the White House wants to cut off federal funding for 88,000 uniformed police, including more than 700 on the New York City police force who put their lives on the line on 9/11. As gang violence is rising and we look for terrorists in our midst, Congress and the President are also about to allow the ten-year-old ban on assault weapons to expire. Our crime policy was to put more police on the streets and take assault weapons off the streets. It brought eight years of declining crime and violence. Their policy is the reverse, they're taking police off the streets and putting assault weapons back on the streets. If you agree with their choices, vote to continue them. If not, join John Kerry, John Edwards and the Democrats in making America safer, smarter, and stronger.
On Homeland Security, Democrats tried to double the number of containers at ports and airports checked for Weapons of Mass Destruction. The one billion dollar cost would have been paid for by reducing the tax cut of 200,000 millionaires by five thousand dollars each. Almost all 200,000 of us would have been glad to pay 5,000 dollars to make the nearly 300 million Americans safer-but the measure failed because the White House and the Republican leadership in the House decided my tax cut was more important -- If you agree with that choice, re-elect them. If not, give John Kerry and John Edwards a chance.
These policies have turned the projected 5.8 trillion dollar surplus we left-enough to pay for the baby boomers retirement-into a projected debt of nearly 5 trillion dollars, with a 400 plus billion dollar deficit this year and for years to come. How do they pay for it? First by taking the monthly surplus in Social Security payments and endorsing the checks of working people over to me to cover my tax cut. But it's not enough. They are borrowing the rest from foreign governments, mostly Japan and China. Sure, they're competing with us for good jobs but how can we enforce our trade laws against our bankers? If you think it's good policy to pay for my tax cut with the Social Security checks of working men and women, and borrowed money from China, vote for them. If not, John Kerry's your man.
We Americans must choose for President one of two strong men who both love our country, but who have very different worldviews: Democrats favor shared responsibility, shared opportunity, and more global cooperation. Republicans favor concentrated wealth and power, leaving people to fend for themselves and more unilateral action. I think we're right for two reasons: First, America works better when all people have a chance to live their dreams. Second, we live in an interdependent world in which we can't kill, jail, or occupy all our potential adversaries, so we have to both fight terror and build a world with more partners and fewer terrorists. We tried it their way for twelve years, our way for eight, and then their way for four more.
By the only test that matters, whether people were better off when we finished than when we started, our way works better-it produced over 22 million good jobs, rising incomes, and 100 times as many people moving out of poverty into the middle class. It produced more health care, the largest increase in college aid in 50 years, record home ownership, a cleaner environment, three surpluses in a row, a modernized defense force, strong efforts against terror, and an America respected as a world leader for peace, security and prosperity.
More importantly, we have great new champions in John Kerry and John Edwards. Two good men with wonderful wives-Teresa a generous and wise woman who understands the world we are trying to shape. And Elizabeth, a lawyer and mother who understands the lives we are all trying to lift. Here is what I know about John Kerry. During the Vietnam War, many young men -- including the current president, the vice president and me-could have gone to Vietnam but didn't. John Kerry came from a privileged background and could have avoided it too. Instead he said, send me.
When they sent those swift-boats up the river in Vietnam, and told them their job was to draw hostile fire-to show the American flag and bait the enemy to come out and fight-John Kerry said, send me. When it was time to heal the wounds of war and normalize relations with Vietnam-and to demand an accounting of the POWs and MIAs we lost there-John Kerry said, send me.
When we needed someone to push the cause of inner-city kids struggling to avoid a life of crime, or to bring the benefits of high technology to ordinary Americans, or to clean the environment in a way that creates jobs, or to give small businesses a better chance to make it, John Kerry said send me.
Tonight my friends, I ask you to join me for the next 100 days in telling John Kerry's story and promoting his plans. Let every person in this hall and all across America say to him what he has always said to America: Send Me. The bravery that the men who fought by his side saw in battle I've seen in the political arena. When I was President, John Kerry showed courage and conviction on crime, on welfare reform, on balancing the budget at a time when those priorities were not exactly a way to win a popularity contest in our party.
He took tough positions on tough problems. John Kerry knows who he is and where he's going. He has the experience, the character, the ideas and the values to be a great President. In a time of change he has two other important qualities: his insatiable curiosity to understand the forces shaping our lives, and a willingness to hear the views even of those who disagree with him. Therefore his choices will be full of both conviction and common sense.
He proved that when he picked a tremendous partner in John Edwards. Everybody talks about John Edwards' energy, intellect, and charisma. The important thing is how he has used his talents to improve the lives of people who -- like John himself -- had to work hard for all they've got. He has always championed the cause of people too often left out or left behind. And that's what he'll do as our Vice President.
Their opponents will tell you to be afraid of John Kerry and John Edwards, because they won't stand up to the terrorists -- don't you believe it. Strength and wisdom are not conflicting values -- they go hand in hand. John Kerry has both. His first priority will be keeping America safe. Remember the scripture: Be Not Afraid.
John Kerry and John Edwards, have good ideas:
-- To make this economy work again for middle-class Americans
-- To restore fiscal responsibility
-- To save Social Security; to make healthcare more affordable and college
more available
-- To free us from dependence on foreign oil and create new jobs in clean
energy
-- To rally the world to win the war on terror and to make more friends
and fewer terrorists.
At every turning point in our history we the people have chosen unity over division, heeding our founders' call to America's eternal mission: to form a more perfect union, to widen the circle of opportunity, deepen the reach of freedom, and strengthen the bonds of community.
It happened because we made the right choices. In the early days of the republic, America was at a crossroads much like it is today, deeply divided over whether or not to build a real nation with a national economy, and a national legal system. We chose a more perfect union.
In the Civil War, America was at a crossroads, divided over whether to save the union and end slavery -- we chose a more perfect union. In the 1960s, America was at a crossroads, divided again over civil rights and women's rights. Again, we chose a more perfect union. As I said in 1992, we're all in this together; we have an obligation both to work hard and to help our fellow citizens, both to fight terror and to build a world with more cooperation and less terror. Now again, it is time to choose.
Since we're all in the same boat, let us chose as the captain of our ship a brave good man who knows how to steer a vessel though troubled waters to the calm seas and clear skies of our more perfect union. We know our mission. Let us join as one and say in a loud, clear voice: Send John Kerry. - http://www.newsday.com/news/p...,0,1751325.story?coll=ny-homepage-bi g-pix
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| Text of President Clinton's Outstanding Speech at the Democratic National Convention |
| 07.27.04 (6:57 am) [edit] |
[b]The following is a transcript of a speech by President William J. Clinton at the Democratic National Convention[/b]:
Thank you. I am honored to share the podium with my Senator, though I think I should be introducing her. I'm proud of her and so grateful to the people of New York that the best public servant in our family is still on the job and grateful to all of you, especially my friends from Arkansas, for the chance you gave us to serve our country in the White House.
I am also honored to share this night with President Carter, who has inspired the world with his work for peace, democracy, and human rights. And with Al Gore, my friend and partner for eight years, who played such a large role in building the prosperity and progress that brought America into the 21st century, who showed incredible grace and patriotism under pressure, and who is the living embodiment that every vote counts -- and must be counted in every state in America.
Tonight I speak as a citizen, returning to the role I have played for most of my life as a foot soldier in the fight for our future, as we nominate a true New England patriot for president. The state that gave us John Adams and John Kennedy has now given us John Kerry, a good man, a great senator, a visionary leader. We are constantly told America is deeply divided. But all Americans value freedom, faith, and family. We all honor the service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world.
We all want good jobs, good schools, health care, safe streets, a clean environment. We all want our children to grow up in a secure America leading the world toward a peaceful future. Our differences are in how we can best achieve these things, in a time of unprecedented change. Therefore, we Democrats will bring the American people a positive campaign, arguing not who's good and who's bad, but what is the best way to build the safe, prosperous world our children deserve.
The 21st century is marked by serious security threats, serious economic challenges, and serious problems like global warming and the AIDS epidemic. But it is also full of enormous opportunities-to create millions of high paying jobs in clean energy, and biotechnology; to restore the manufacturing base and reap the benefits of the global economy through our diversity and our commitment to decent labor and environmental standards everywhere; and to create a world where we can celebrate our religious and racial differences, because our common humanity matters more.
To build that kind of world we must make the right choices; and we must have a president who will lead the way. Democrats and Republicans have very different and honestly held ideas on that choices we should make, rooted in fundamentally different views of how we should meet our common challenges at home and how we should play our role in the world. Democrats want to build an America of shared responsibilities and shared opportunities and more global cooperation, acting alone only when we must.
We think the role of government is to give people the tools and conditions to make the most of their lives. Republicans believe in an America run by the right people, their people, in a world in which we act unilaterally when we can, and cooperate when we have to.
They think the role of government is to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of those who embrace their political, economic, and social views, leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves on matters like health care and retirement security. Since most Americans are not that far to the right, they have to portray us Democrats as unacceptable, lacking in strength and values. In other words, they need a divided America. But Americans long to be united. After 9/11, we all wanted to be one nation, strong in the fight against terror. The president had a great opportunity to bring us together under his slogan of compassionate conservatism and to unite the world in common cause against terror.
Instead, he and his congressional allies made a very different choice: to use the moment of unity to push America too far to the right and to walk away from our allies, not only in attacking Iraq before the weapons inspectors finished their jobs, but in withdrawing American support for the Climate Change Treaty, the International Court for war criminals, the ABM treaty, and even the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Now they are working to develop two new nuclear weapons which they say we might use first. At home, the President and the Republican Congress have made equally fateful choices indeed. For the first time ever when America was on a war footing, there were two huge tax cuts, nearly half of which went to the top one percent. I'm in that group now for the first time in my life.
When I was in office, the Republicans were pretty mean to me. When I left and made money, I became part of the most important group in the world to them. At first I thought I should send them a thank you note -- until I realized they were sending you the bill.
They protected my tax cuts while:
-- Withholding promised funding for the Leave No Child Behind Act, leaving
over 2 million children behind
-- Cutting 140,000 unemployed workers out of job training
-- 100,000 working families out of child care assistance
-- 300,000 poor children out of after school programs
-- Raising out of pocket healthcare costs to veterans
-- Weakening or reversing important environmental advances for clean air
and the preservation of our forests.
Everyone had to sacrifice except the wealthiest Americans, who wanted to do their part but were asked only to expend the energy necessary to open the envelopes containing our tax cuts. If you agree with these choices, you should vote to return them to the White House and Congress. If not, take a look at John Kerry, John Edwards and the Democrats.
In this year's budget, the White House wants to cut off federal funding for 88,000 uniformed police, including more than 700 on the New York City police force who put their lives on the line on 9/11. As gang violence is rising and we look for terrorists in our midst, Congress and the President are also about to allow the ten-year-old ban on assault weapons to expire. Our crime policy was to put more police on the streets and take assault weapons off the streets. It brought eight years of declining crime and violence. Their policy is the reverse, they're taking police off the streets and putting assault weapons back on the streets. If you agree with their choices, vote to continue them. If not, join John Kerry, John Edwards and the Democrats in making America safer, smarter, and stronger.
On Homeland Security, Democrats tried to double the number of containers at ports and airports checked for Weapons of Mass Destruction. The one billion dollar cost would have been paid for by reducing the tax cut of 200,000 millionaires by five thousand dollars each. Almost all 200,000 of us would have been glad to pay 5,000 dollars to make the nearly 300 million Americans safer-but the measure failed because the White House and the Republican leadership in the House decided my tax cut was more important -- If you agree with that choice, re-elect them. If not, give John Kerry and John Edwards a chance.
These policies have turned the projected 5.8 trillion dollar surplus we left-enough to pay for the baby boomers retirement-into a projected debt of nearly 5 trillion dollars, with a 400 plus billion dollar deficit this year and for years to come. How do they pay for it? First by taking the monthly surplus in Social Security payments and endorsing the checks of working people over to me to cover my tax cut. But it's not enough. They are borrowing the rest from foreign governments, mostly Japan and China. Sure, they're competing with us for good jobs but how can we enforce our trade laws against our bankers? If you think it's good policy to pay for my tax cut with the Social Security checks of working men and women, and borrowed money from China, vote for them. If not, John Kerry's your man.
We Americans must choose for President one of two strong men who both love our country, but who have very different worldviews: Democrats favor shared responsibility, shared opportunity, and more global cooperation. Republicans favor concentrated wealth and power, leaving people to fend for themselves and more unilateral action. I think we're right for two reasons: First, America works better when all people have a chance to live their dreams. Second, we live in an interdependent world in which we can't kill, jail, or occupy all our potential adversaries, so we have to both fight terror and build a world with more partners and fewer terrorists. We tried it their way for twelve years, our way for eight, and then their way for four more.
By the only test that matters, whether people were better off when we finished than when we started, our way works better-it produced over 22 million good jobs, rising incomes, and 100 times as many people moving out of poverty into the middle class. It produced more health care, the largest increase in college aid in 50 years, record home ownership, a cleaner environment, three surpluses in a row, a modernized defense force, strong efforts against terror, and an America respected as a world leader for peace, security and prosperity.
More importantly, we have great new champions in John Kerry and John Edwards. Two good men with wonderful wives-Teresa a generous and wise woman who understands the world we are trying to shape. And Elizabeth, a lawyer and mother who understands the lives we are all trying to lift. Here is what I know about John Kerry. During the Vietnam War, many young men -- including the current president, the vice president and me-could have gone to Vietnam but didn't. John Kerry came from a privileged background and could have avoided it too. Instead he said, send me.
When they sent those swift-boats up the river in Vietnam, and told them their job was to draw hostile fire-to show the American flag and bait the enemy to come out and fight-John Kerry said, send me. When it was time to heal the wounds of war and normalize relations with Vietnam-and to demand an accounting of the POWs and MIAs we lost there-John Kerry said, send me.
When we needed someone to push the cause of inner-city kids struggling to avoid a life of crime, or to bring the benefits of high technology to ordinary Americans, or to clean the environment in a way that creates jobs, or to give small businesses a better chance to make it, John Kerry said send me.
Tonight my friends, I ask you to join me for the next 100 days in telling John Kerry's story and promoting his plans. Let every person in this hall and all across America say to him what he has always said to America: Send Me. The bravery that the men who fought by his side saw in battle I've seen in the political arena. When I was President, John Kerry showed courage and conviction on crime, on welfare reform, on balancing the budget at a time when those priorities were not exactly a way to win a popularity contest in our party.
He took tough positions on tough problems. John Kerry knows who he is and where he's going. He has the experience, the character, the ideas and the values to be a great President. In a time of change he has two other important qualities: his insatiable curiosity to understand the forces shaping our lives, and a willingness to hear the views even of those who disagree with him. Therefore his choices will be full of both conviction and common sense.
He proved that when he picked a tremendous partner in John Edwards. Everybody talks about John Edwards' energy, intellect, and charisma. The important thing is how he has used his talents to improve the lives of people who -- like John himself -- had to work hard for all they've got. He has always championed the cause of people too often left out or left behind. And that's what he'll do as our Vice President.
Their opponents will tell you to be afraid of John Kerry and John Edwards, because they won't stand up to the terrorists -- don't you believe it. Strength and wisdom are not conflicting values -- they go hand in hand. John Kerry has both. His first priority will be keeping America safe. Remember the scripture: Be Not Afraid.
John Kerry and John Edwards, have good ideas:
-- To make this economy work again for middle-class Americans
-- To restore fiscal responsibility
-- To save Social Security; to make healthcare more affordable and college
more available
-- To free us from dependence on foreign oil and create new jobs in clean
energy
-- To rally the world to win the war on terror and to make more friends
and fewer terrorists.
At every turning point in our history we the people have chosen unity over division, heeding our founders' call to America's eternal mission: to form a more perfect union, to widen the circle of opportunity, deepen the reach of freedom, and strengthen the bonds of community.
It happened because we made the right choices. In the early days of the republic, America was at a crossroads much like it is today, deeply divided over whether or not to build a real nation with a national economy, and a national legal system. We chose a more perfect union.
In the Civil War, America was at a crossroads, divided over whether to save the union and end slavery -- we chose a more perfect union. In the 1960s, America was at a crossroads, divided again over civil rights and women's rights. Again, we chose a more perfect union. As I said in 1992, we're all in this together; we have an obligation both to work hard and to help our fellow citizens, both to fight terror and to build a world with more cooperation and less terror. Now again, it is time to choose.
Since we're all in the same boat, let us chose as the captain of our ship a brave good man who knows how to steer a vessel though troubled waters to the calm seas and clear skies of our more perfect union. We know our mission. Let us join as one and say in a loud, clear voice: Send John Kerry. - http://www.newsday.com/news/p...,0,1751325.story?coll=ny-homepage-bi g-pix
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| ... War ? Peace? War? Peace? War? ... |
| 07.27.04 (6:49 am) [edit] |
[b]A must-read: "A vote for Bush is a vote for ... War? Peace? War? Peace? War? Peace? ... (Regime Change!)" http://www.tblog.com/template...
President Jimmy Carter: 'You can't be a war president one day, a peace president the next'[/b]
[i]Following are the remarks made by President Jimmy Carter at the Democratic National Convention in Boston on Monday night, as recorded by the Federal News Service, Inc[/i].:
Thank you very much. My name is Jimmy Carter, and I am not running for president. But here's what I will be doing -- everything I can to put John Kerry in the White House with John Edwards right there beside him.
Twenty-eight years ago, I was running for president, and I said then I want a government as good and as honest and as decent and as competent and as compassionate as are the American people. I say this again tonight, and that's exactly what we will have next January with John Kerry as president of the United States of America.
As many of you may know, my first chosen career was the United States Navy where I served as a submarine officer. At that time, my shipmates and I were ready for combat and prepared to give our lives to defend our nation and its principles. At the same time, we always prayed that our readiness would preserve the peace. I served under two presidents -- Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower -- men who represented different political parties; both of whom had faced their active military responsibilities with honor.
They knew the horrors of war, and later, as commanders in chief, they exercised restraint and judgment. And they had a clear sense of mission. We have a confidence -- we had a confidence that our leaders, both military and civilian, would not put our soldiers and sailors in harm's way by initiating wars of choice unless America's vital interests were in danger. We also were sure that these presidents would not mislead us when issues involved national security.
Today -- today our Democratic Party is led by another former naval officer, one who volunteered for military service. He showed up when assigned to duty -- (cheers, applause) -- and he served with honor and distinction. He also knows the horrors of war and the responsibilities of leadership. And I am confident that next January he would restore the judgment and maturity to our government that nowadays is sorely lacking. I am proud -- I am proud to call Lieutenant John Kerry my shipmate, and I'm ready to follow him to victory in November.
As you all know, our country faces many challenges at home involving energy, taxation, the environment, education and health.
To meet these challenges, we need new leaders in Washington whose policies are shaped by working American families instead of the super- rich and their armies of lobbyists in Washington.
But the biggest reason to make John Kerry president is even more important. It is to safeguard the security of our nation. Today our dominant international challenge is to restore the greatness of America -- (cheers, applause) -- based on -- based on telling the truth, a commitment to peace, and respect for civil liberties at home and basic human rights around the world.
Truth is the foundation of our global leadership, but our credibility has been shattered, and we are left increasingly isolated and vulnerable in a hostile world. Without truth, without trust, America cannot flourish. Trust is at the very heart of our democracy, the sacred covenant between a president and the people. When that trust is violated, the bonds that hold our republic together begin to weaken.
After 9/11, America stood proud, wounded but determined and united. A cowardly attack on innocent civilians brought us an unprecedented level of cooperation and understanding around the world.
But in just 34 months we have watched with deep concern as all this good will has been squandered by a virtually unbroken series of mistakes and miscalculations.
Unilateral acts and demands have isolated the United States from the very nations we need to join us in combatting terrorism.
Let us not forget that the Soviets lost the Cold War because the American people combined the exercise of power with the adherence to basic principles based on sustained bipartisan support. We understood the positive link between the defense of our own freedom and the promotion of human rights. But recent policies have cost our nation its reputation as the world's most admired champion of freedom and justice.
What a difference these few months of extremism have made. The United States has alienated its allies, dismayed its friends, and inadvertently gratified its enemies by proclaiming a confused and disturbing strategy of preemptive war. With our allies disunited, the world resenting us, and the Middle East ablaze, we need John Kerry to restore life to the global war against terrorism.
In the meantime, the Middle East peace process has come to a screeching halt. From the first time since Israel became a nation, all former presidents, Democratic and Republican, have attempted to secure a comprehensive peace for Israel with hope and justice for the Palestinians. The achievements of Camp David a quarter century ago and the more recent progress made by President Bill Clinton are now in peril.
Instead, violence has gripped the Holy Land, with the region increasingly swept by anti-American passions. This must change.
Elsewhere, North Korea's nuclear menace, a threat far more real and immediate than any posed by Saddam Hussein, has been allowed to advance unheeded, with potentially ominous consequences for peace and stability in Northeast Asia.
These are some of the prices our government has paid with this radical departure from basic American principles and values that are espoused by John Kerry. In repudiating -- in repudiating extremism, we need to recommit ourselves to a few common-sense principles that should transcend partisan differences.
First, we cannot enhance our own security if we place in jeopardy what is most precious to us; namely, the centrality of human rights in our daily lives and in global affairs.
Second, we cannot maintain our historic self-confidence as a people if we generate public panic.
Third, we cannot do our duty as citizens and patriots if we pursue an agenda that polarizes and divides our country.
Next, we cannot be true to ourselves if we mistreat others.
And finally, in the world at large we cannot lead if our leaders mislead.
You can't be a war president one day and claim to be a peace president the next -- (cheers, applause) -- depending on the latest political polls.
When our national security requires military action, John Kerry has already proven, in Vietnam, that he will not hesitate to act. And as a proven defender of our national security, John Kerry will strengthen the global alliance against terrorism while avoiding unnecessary wars.
Ultimately, the basic issue is whether America will provide global leadership that springs from the unity and the integrity of the American people or whether extremist doctrines, the manipulation of the truth will define America's role in the world. At stake is nothing less than our nation's soul.
In a few months, I will, God willing, enter my 81st year of my life. And in many ways, the last few months have been some of the most disturbing of all.
But I am not discouraged. I really am not. I do not despair for our country. I never do. I believe tonight, as I always have, that the essential decency and compassion and common sense of the American people will prevail.
And so I say to you -- and so I say to you and to others around the world, whether you wish us well or ill, do not underestimate us Americans.
We lack neither strength nor wisdom.
There's a road that leads to a bright and hopeful future. What America needs is leadership. Our job -- our job, my fellow Americans, is to ensure that the leaders of this great country will be John Kerry and John Edwards.
Thank you, and God bless America. - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| ... 'You can't be a war president one day, a peace president the next' ... |
| 07.27.04 (6:46 am) [edit] |
[b]A must-read: "A vote for Bush is a vote for ... War? Peace? War? Peace? War? Peace? ... (Regime Change!)" http://www.tblog.com/template...
President Jimmy Carter: 'You can't be a war president one day, a peace president the next'[/b]
[i]Following are the remarks made by President Jimmy Carter at the Democratic National Convention in Boston on Monday night, as recorded by the Federal News Service, Inc[/i].:
Thank you very much. My name is Jimmy Carter, and I am not running for president. But here's what I will be doing -- everything I can to put John Kerry in the White House with John Edwards right there beside him.
Twenty-eight years ago, I was running for president, and I said then I want a government as good and as honest and as decent and as competent and as compassionate as are the American people. I say this again tonight, and that's exactly what we will have next January with John Kerry as president of the United States of America.
As many of you may know, my first chosen career was the United States Navy where I served as a submarine officer. At that time, my shipmates and I were ready for combat and prepared to give our lives to defend our nation and its principles. At the same time, we always prayed that our readiness would preserve the peace. I served under two presidents -- Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower -- men who represented different political parties; both of whom had faced their active military responsibilities with honor.
They knew the horrors of war, and later, as commanders in chief, they exercised restraint and judgment. And they had a clear sense of mission. We have a confidence -- we had a confidence that our leaders, both military and civilian, would not put our soldiers and sailors in harm's way by initiating wars of choice unless America's vital interests were in danger. We also were sure that these presidents would not mislead us when issues involved national security.
Today -- today our Democratic Party is led by another former naval officer, one who volunteered for military service. He showed up when assigned to duty -- (cheers, applause) -- and he served with honor and distinction. He also knows the horrors of war and the responsibilities of leadership. And I am confident that next January he would restore the judgment and maturity to our government that nowadays is sorely lacking. I am proud -- I am proud to call Lieutenant John Kerry my shipmate, and I'm ready to follow him to victory in November.
As you all know, our country faces many challenges at home involving energy, taxation, the environment, education and health.
To meet these challenges, we need new leaders in Washington whose policies are shaped by working American families instead of the super- rich and their armies of lobbyists in Washington.
But the biggest reason to make John Kerry president is even more important. It is to safeguard the security of our nation. Today our dominant international challenge is to restore the greatness of America -- (cheers, applause) -- based on -- based on telling the truth, a commitment to peace, and respect for civil liberties at home and basic human rights around the world.
Truth is the foundation of our global leadership, but our credibility has been shattered, and we are left increasingly isolated and vulnerable in a hostile world. Without truth, without trust, America cannot flourish. Trust is at the very heart of our democracy, the sacred covenant between a president and the people. When that trust is violated, the bonds that hold our republic together begin to weaken.
After 9/11, America stood proud, wounded but determined and united. A cowardly attack on innocent civilians brought us an unprecedented level of cooperation and understanding around the world.
But in just 34 months we have watched with deep concern as all this good will has been squandered by a virtually unbroken series of mistakes and miscalculations.
Unilateral acts and demands have isolated the United States from the very nations we need to join us in combatting terrorism.
Let us not forget that the Soviets lost the Cold War because the American people combined the exercise of power with the adherence to basic principles based on sustained bipartisan support. We understood the positive link between the defense of our own freedom and the promotion of human rights. But recent policies have cost our nation its reputation as the world's most admired champion of freedom and justice.
What a difference these few months of extremism have made. The United States has alienated its allies, dismayed its friends, and inadvertently gratified its enemies by proclaiming a confused and disturbing strategy of preemptive war. With our allies disunited, the world resenting us, and the Middle East ablaze, we need John Kerry to restore life to the global war against terrorism.
In the meantime, the Middle East peace process has come to a screeching halt. From the first time since Israel became a nation, all former presidents, Democratic and Republican, have attempted to secure a comprehensive peace for Israel with hope and justice for the Palestinians. The achievements of Camp David a quarter century ago and the more recent progress made by President Bill Clinton are now in peril.
Instead, violence has gripped the Holy Land, with the region increasingly swept by anti-American passions. This must change.
Elsewhere, North Korea's nuclear menace, a threat far more real and immediate than any posed by Saddam Hussein, has been allowed to advance unheeded, with potentially ominous consequences for peace and stability in Northeast Asia.
These are some of the prices our government has paid with this radical departure from basic American principles and values that are espoused by John Kerry. In repudiating -- in repudiating extremism, we need to recommit ourselves to a few common-sense principles that should transcend partisan differences.
First, we cannot enhance our own security if we place in jeopardy what is most precious to us; namely, the centrality of human rights in our daily lives and in global affairs.
Second, we cannot maintain our historic self-confidence as a people if we generate public panic.
Third, we cannot do our duty as citizens and patriots if we pursue an agenda that polarizes and divides our country.
Next, we cannot be true to ourselves if we mistreat others.
And finally, in the world at large we cannot lead if our leaders mislead.
You can't be a war president one day and claim to be a peace president the next -- (cheers, applause) -- depending on the latest political polls.
When our national security requires military action, John Kerry has already proven, in Vietnam, that he will not hesitate to act. And as a proven defender of our national security, John Kerry will strengthen the global alliance against terrorism while avoiding unnecessary wars.
Ultimately, the basic issue is whether America will provide global leadership that springs from the unity and the integrity of the American people or whether extremist doctrines, the manipulation of the truth will define America's role in the world. At stake is nothing less than our nation's soul.
In a few months, I will, God willing, enter my 81st year of my life. And in many ways, the last few months have been some of the most disturbing of all.
But I am not discouraged. I really am not. I do not despair for our country. I never do. I believe tonight, as I always have, that the essential decency and compassion and common sense of the American people will prevail.
And so I say to you -- and so I say to you and to others around the world, whether you wish us well or ill, do not underestimate us Americans.
We lack neither strength nor wisdom.
There's a road that leads to a bright and hopeful future. What America needs is leadership. Our job -- our job, my fellow Americans, is to ensure that the leaders of this great country will be John Kerry and John Edwards.
Thank you, and God bless America. - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| To Brain-Dead Dubya: 'You can't be a war president one day, a peace president the next' |
| 07.27.04 (6:43 am) [edit] |
[b]A must-read: "A vote for Bush is a vote for ... War? Peace? War? Peace? War? Peace? ... (Regime Change!)" http://www.tblog.com/template...
President Jimmy Carter: 'You can't be a war president one day, a peace president the next'[/b]
[i]Following are the remarks made by President Jimmy Carter at the Democratic National Convention in Boston on Monday night, as recorded by the Federal News Service, Inc[/i].:
Thank you very much. My name is Jimmy Carter, and I am not running for president. But here's what I will be doing -- everything I can to put John Kerry in the White House with John Edwards right there beside him.
Twenty-eight years ago, I was running for president, and I said then I want a government as good and as honest and as decent and as competent and as compassionate as are the American people. I say this again tonight, and that's exactly what we will have next January with John Kerry as president of the United States of America.
As many of you may know, my first chosen career was the United States Navy where I served as a submarine officer. At that time, my shipmates and I were ready for combat and prepared to give our lives to defend our nation and its principles. At the same time, we always prayed that our readiness would preserve the peace. I served under two presidents -- Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower -- men who represented different political parties; both of whom had faced their active military responsibilities with honor.
They knew the horrors of war, and later, as commanders in chief, they exercised restraint and judgment. And they had a clear sense of mission. We have a confidence -- we had a confidence that our leaders, both military and civilian, would not put our soldiers and sailors in harm's way by initiating wars of choice unless America's vital interests were in danger. We also were sure that these presidents would not mislead us when issues involved national security.
Today -- today our Democratic Party is led by another former naval officer, one who volunteered for military service. He showed up when assigned to duty -- (cheers, applause) -- and he served with honor and distinction. He also knows the horrors of war and the responsibilities of leadership. And I am confident that next January he would restore the judgment and maturity to our government that nowadays is sorely lacking. I am proud -- I am proud to call Lieutenant John Kerry my shipmate, and I'm ready to follow him to victory in November.
As you all know, our country faces many challenges at home involving energy, taxation, the environment, education and health.
To meet these challenges, we need new leaders in Washington whose policies are shaped by working American families instead of the super- rich and their armies of lobbyists in Washington.
But the biggest reason to make John Kerry president is even more important. It is to safeguard the security of our nation. Today our dominant international challenge is to restore the greatness of America -- (cheers, applause) -- based on -- based on telling the truth, a commitment to peace, and respect for civil liberties at home and basic human rights around the world.
Truth is the foundation of our global leadership, but our credibility has been shattered, and we are left increasingly isolated and vulnerable in a hostile world. Without truth, without trust, America cannot flourish. Trust is at the very heart of our democracy, the sacred covenant between a president and the people. When that trust is violated, the bonds that hold our republic together begin to weaken.
After 9/11, America stood proud, wounded but determined and united. A cowardly attack on innocent civilians brought us an unprecedented level of cooperation and understanding around the world.
But in just 34 months we have watched with deep concern as all this good will has been squandered by a virtually unbroken series of mistakes and miscalculations.
Unilateral acts and demands have isolated the United States from the very nations we need to join us in combatting terrorism.
Let us not forget that the Soviets lost the Cold War because the American people combined the exercise of power with the adherence to basic principles based on sustained bipartisan support. We understood the positive link between the defense of our own freedom and the promotion of human rights. But recent policies have cost our nation its reputation as the world's most admired champion of freedom and justice.
What a difference these few months of extremism have made. The United States has alienated its allies, dismayed its friends, and inadvertently gratified its enemies by proclaiming a confused and disturbing strategy of preemptive war. With our allies disunited, the world resenting us, and the Middle East ablaze, we need John Kerry to restore life to the global war against terrorism.
In the meantime, the Middle East peace process has come to a screeching halt. From the first time since Israel became a nation, all former presidents, Democratic and Republican, have attempted to secure a comprehensive peace for Israel with hope and justice for the Palestinians. The achievements of Camp David a quarter century ago and the more recent progress made by President Bill Clinton are now in peril.
Instead, violence has gripped the Holy Land, with the region increasingly swept by anti-American passions. This must change.
Elsewhere, North Korea's nuclear menace, a threat far more real and immediate than any posed by Saddam Hussein, has been allowed to advance unheeded, with potentially ominous consequences for peace and stability in Northeast Asia.
These are some of the prices our government has paid with this radical departure from basic American principles and values that are espoused by John Kerry. In repudiating -- in repudiating extremism, we need to recommit ourselves to a few common-sense principles that should transcend partisan differences.
First, we cannot enhance our own security if we place in jeopardy what is most precious to us; namely, the centrality of human rights in our daily lives and in global affairs.
Second, we cannot maintain our historic self-confidence as a people if we generate public panic.
Third, we cannot do our duty as citizens and patriots if we pursue an agenda that polarizes and divides our country.
Next, we cannot be true to ourselves if we mistreat others.
And finally, in the world at large we cannot lead if our leaders mislead.
You can't be a war president one day and claim to be a peace president the next -- (cheers, applause) -- depending on the latest political polls.
When our national security requires military action, John Kerry has already proven, in Vietnam, that he will not hesitate to act. And as a proven defender of our national security, John Kerry will strengthen the global alliance against terrorism while avoiding unnecessary wars.
Ultimately, the basic issue is whether America will provide global leadership that springs from the unity and the integrity of the American people or whether extremist doctrines, the manipulation of the truth will define America's role in the world. At stake is nothing less than our nation's soul.
In a few months, I will, God willing, enter my 81st year of my life. And in many ways, the last few months have been some of the most disturbing of all.
But I am not discouraged. I really am not. I do not despair for our country. I never do. I believe tonight, as I always have, that the essential decency and compassion and common sense of the American people will prevail.
And so I say to you -- and so I say to you and to others around the world, whether you wish us well or ill, do not underestimate us Americans.
We lack neither strength nor wisdom.
There's a road that leads to a bright and hopeful future. What America needs is leadership. Our job -- our job, my fellow Americans, is to ensure that the leaders of this great country will be John Kerry and John Edwards.
Thank you, and God bless America. - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...
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| Neo-Con's Sandy Berger Pseudo-Scandal [Let's Take Our Minds Off Bush/Cheney's Crimes & Treason!] |
| 07.27.04 (6:37 am) [edit] |
[b][u]Missing the point on the Berger thing ...[/u]
Missing the point on the Berger thing... [/b]I'm reading Alterman http://msnbc.msn.com/id/34498... , and Talking Points http://talkingpointsmemo.com/... , and Kevin http://www.washingtonmonthly.... , and[i] Slate[/i], and everyone else, and it's like they're blind. They're all caught up in what Berger did or didn't do and how bad was it and why aren't the Republicans investigating Plame, etc...
Just not getting it at all. Just missing the point. Just seeing the trees and missing the forest.
Here is what is going on. [i][b]The Republican Noise Machine is saying this proves Clinton is to blame for 9/11.[/b][/i] Got that? Just as the 9/11 Comission releases its report, they are saying that the proof of Clinton's guilt was there, and Berger took and shredded that proof. Let that sink in a while. This theme is ALL OVER THE MEDIA - at least the media that matters to the voters they want to reach. Never mind that he only took copies of drafts of the documents, and they still have the originals -- that small fact is slipping WAY under the radar, and no one on "our side" even seems to understand that is the central issue.
Here's a sample headline: Clinton Spook Sandy Berger is Caught Destroying Terror Evidence. http://www.insightmag.com/new...
"[i]Berger stuffed highest-classified documents, including leather-bound after-action reports on Millennium attacks, into his clothing to get them out of the National Archives before they were reviewed by the 9/11 Commission. ... After-action documents showing the Clinton "response" to al-Queda terror plans still are missing. ... Stolen documents were all the originals of after-action drafts, and Berger was caught in a sting, when given another copy, by stealing it too[/i]."
[b]Never mind that this is just a lie. That doesn't matter[/b].
Here's an example of a small-town newspaper editorial, One Sandy Berger and a side of lies: http://reviewappeal.midsouthn...
"[i]The central question now is, what was he trying to hide?
We know that some of the discarded documents had to do with the foiled Millennium bombing plot and what the administration did with the gathered intelligence afterward. Attorney General John Ashcroft testified in April about the documents we now know Berger was trying to hide. "The NSC's Millennium After-Action Review declares that the United States barely missed major terrorist attacks in 1999 - with luck playing a major role,- Ashcroft told the Commission[/i]."
Even Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert said this, http://www.speaker.gov/librar...
"[i]Was Mr. Berger trying to cover-up key facts regarding intelligence failures during his watch? What happened to those missing documents[/i]?"
and this, http://speaker.house.gov/libr...
"[i]What could those documents have said that drove Mr. Berger to remove them without authorization from a secure reading room for classified documents? What information could be so embarrassing that a man with decades of experience in handling classified documents would risk being caught pilfering our nation's most sensitive secrets[/i]?"
[b]Which coincidentally exactly parallels what Limbaugh is saying[/b]. http://seetheforest.blogspot....
I checked Instapundit (for the first time in at least a year) and got so disgusted I just left without gathering any quotes to link to. I never, ever read Andew Sullivan, so you're on your own as to what he is saying. (And this is the first time I have ever used his name on this blog.)
AND they are now working to EXPAND the story. This is the tactic of overwhelming http://www.uexpress.com/tedra... . By the time anyone can refute the lies put out at 8am, the lies put out at 9am and 10am are what is being talked about. Here are a couple of examples: Did Sandy Berger "Fry" Flight 800 Records?, http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/...
[i]So, what does this link between Bill Clinton and Flight 800 have to do with the current John Kerry presidential campaign? Well, perhaps nothing, except that John Kerry also referred to Flight 800 as a terrorist incident in a televised interview. The problem is that, with the upcoming release of the final report of the '9-11' Commission, the general public will have the opportunity to refresh their memory about the link between Flight 800 and terrorism[/i].
and Sandy Berger's Curious Military Records, http://www.newsmax.com/archiv...
"[i]I think it's ironic that Kerry, who takes every opportunity to tout his military record, picks as his [informal] adviser on national security and reportedly short-lists as a potential secretary of state a man with the military service record of Sandy Berger," B.G. Burkett, co-author of "Stolen Valor -- How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History[/i]," tells NewsMax.
[u][b]Once again, just so you get it[/b][/u], [i][b]they are saying that this proves that Clinton is responsible for 9/11, that it is a big cover-up, and that this proves Kerry is somehow implicated in trying to hand the country over to our enemies.[/b][/i]
This has been planned for MONTHS, from the day the 9/11 Commission was formed. It took TIME to research and put together that story about Berger's military records. Limbaugh surely didn't put that complicated 3-part smear http://seetheforest.blogspot.... together himself. And - and this is important - all these talking points and military record research, etc. were obviously prepared before the story leaked this week. - http://seetheforest.blogspot....
------------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------- -------------------------
[b]For the facts instead of Reducto's and Noguru's (and their idiot clone: stepdad) endless lies and dishonest propaganda, please refer to:[/b]
No Oversight, No Shame ... http://www.tblog.com/template...
Clinton/Berger Stopped Terrorist Attacks- Bush/Rice Did Nothing: That's Why They Attacked Berger http://www.tblog.com/template...
Bush Gorges on Berger: Even Though Officials Think It's Much Ado About Nothing!!! http://www.tblog.com/template...
------ Attack and Distract!!! ... Ha ha ha!!! ...... http://www.tblog.com/template...
It's The Timing, Stupid!!! ... http://www.tblog.com/template...
The Malicious Bush Attack (6 Months Old) on Sandy Berger to Distract Our Attention ... http://www.tblog.com/template...
Sandy Berger 'Story' in Perspective http://www.tblog.com/template...
Clinton/Berger Thwarted Over 15 Terrorist Attacks -- Bush/Rice Let 9/11 Happen!!! http://www.tblog.com/template...
Sandy Berger Revelations: No Documents Missing, "Technical Violation" Because He Took A Copy!!! http://www.tblog.com/template...
Politically-Motivated Smear of Sandy Berger to Distract Us From Bush's War Crimes!!! http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| Neo-Con's Sandy Berger Pseudo-Scandal [Let's Take Our Minds Off Bush/Cheney's Crimes & Treason!] |
| 07.27.04 (6:31 am) [edit] |
[b][u]Missing the point on the Berger thing ...[/u]
Missing the point on the Berger thing... [/b]I'm reading Alterman http://msnbc.msn.com/id/34498... , and Talking Points http://talkingpointsmemo.com/... , and Kevin http://www.washingtonmonthly.... , and[i] Slate[/i], and everyone else, and it's like they're blind. They're all caught up in what Berger did or didn't do and how bad was it and why aren't the Republicans investigating Plame, etc...
Just not getting it at all. Just missing the point. Just seeing the trees and missing the forest.
Here is what is going on. [i][b]The Republican Noise Machine is saying this proves Clinton is to blame for 9/11.[/b][/i] Got that? Just as the 9/11 Comission releases its report, they are saying that the proof of Clinton's guilt was there, and Berger took and shredded that proof. Let that sink in a while. This theme is ALL OVER THE MEDIA - at least the media that matters to the voters they want to reach. Never mind that he only took copies of drafts of the documents, and they still have the originals -- that small fact is slipping WAY under the radar, and no one on "our side" even seems to understand that is the central issue.
Here's a sample headline: Clinton Spook Sandy Berger is Caught Destroying Terror Evidence. http://www.insightmag.com/new...
"[i]Berger stuffed highest-classified documents, including leather-bound after-action reports on Millennium attacks, into his clothing to get them out of the National Archives before they were reviewed by the 9/11 Commission. ... After-action documents showing the Clinton "response" to al-Queda terror plans still are missing. ... Stolen documents were all the originals of after-action drafts, and Berger was caught in a sting, when given another copy, by stealing it too[/i]."
[b]Never mind that this is just a lie. That doesn't matter[/b].
Here's an example of a small-town newspaper editorial, One Sandy Berger and a side of lies: http://reviewappeal.midsouthn...
"[i]The central question now is, what was he trying to hide?
We know that some of the discarded documents had to do with the foiled Millennium bombing plot and what the administration did with the gathered intelligence afterward. Attorney General John Ashcroft testified in April about the documents we now know Berger was trying to hide. "The NSC's Millennium After-Action Review declares that the United States barely missed major terrorist attacks in 1999 - with luck playing a major role,- Ashcroft told the Commission[/i]."
Even Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert said this, http://www.speaker.gov/librar...
"[i]Was Mr. Berger trying to cover-up key facts regarding intelligence failures during his watch? What happened to those missing documents[/i]?"
and this, http://speaker.house.gov/libr...
"[i]What could those documents have said that drove Mr. Berger to remove them without authorization from a secure reading room for classified documents? What information could be so embarrassing that a man with decades of experience in handling classified documents would risk being caught pilfering our nation's most sensitive secrets[/i]?"
[b]Which coincidentally exactly parallels what Limbaugh is saying[/b]. http://seetheforest.blogspot....
I checked Instapundit (for the first time in at least a year) and got so disgusted I just left without gathering any quotes to link to. I never, ever read Andew Sullivan, so you're on your own as to what he is saying. (And this is the first time I have ever used his name on this blog.)
AND they are now working to EXPAND the story. This is the tactic of overwhelming http://www.uexpress.com/tedra... . By the time anyone can refute the lies put out at 8am, the lies put out at 9am and 10am are what is being talked about. Here are a couple of examples: Did Sandy Berger "Fry" Flight 800 Records?, http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/...
[i]So, what does this link between Bill Clinton and Flight 800 have to do with the current John Kerry presidential campaign? Well, perhaps nothing, except that John Kerry also referred to Flight 800 as a terrorist incident in a televised interview. The problem is that, with the upcoming release of the final report of the '9-11' Commission, the general public will have the opportunity to refresh their memory about the link between Flight 800 and terrorism[/i].
and Sandy Berger's Curious Military Records, http://www.newsmax.com/archiv...
"[i]I think it's ironic that Kerry, who takes every opportunity to tout his military record, picks as his [informal] adviser on national security and reportedly short-lists as a potential secretary of state a man with the military service record of Sandy Berger," B.G. Burkett, co-author of "Stolen Valor -- How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History[/i]," tells NewsMax.
[u][b]Once again, just so you get it[/b][/u], [i][b]they are saying that this proves that Clinton is responsible for 9/11, that it is a big cover-up, and that this proves Kerry is somehow implicated in trying to hand the country over to our enemies.[/b][/i]
This has been planned for MONTHS, from the day the 9/11 Commission was formed. It took TIME to research and put together that story about Berger's military records. Limbaugh surely didn't put that complicated 3-part smear http://seetheforest.blogspot.... together himself. And - and this is important - all these talking points and military record research, etc. were obviously prepared before the story leaked this week. - http://seetheforest.blogspot....
------------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------- -------------------------
[b]For the facts instead of Reducto's and Noguru's (and their idiot clone: stepdad) endless lies and dishonest propaganda, please refer to:[/b]
No Oversight, No Shame ... http://www.tblog.com/template...
Clinton/Berger Stopped Terrorist Attacks- Bush/Rice Did Nothing: That's Why They Attacked Berger http://www.tblog.com/template...
Bush Gorges on Berger: Even Though Officials Think It's Much Ado About Nothing!!! http://www.tblog.com/template...
------ Attack and Distract!!! ... Ha ha ha!!! ...... http://www.tblog.com/template...
It's The Timing, Stupid!!! ... http://www.tblog.com/template...
The Malicious Bush Attack (6 Months Old) on Sandy Berger to Distract Our Attention ... http://www.tblog.com/template...
Sandy Berger 'Story' in Perspective http://www.tblog.com/template...
Clinton/Berger Thwarted Over 15 Terrorist Attacks -- Bush/Rice Let 9/11 Happen!!! http://www.tblog.com/template...
Sandy Berger Revelations: No Documents Missing, "Technical Violation" Because He Took A Copy!!! http://www.tblog.com/template...
Politically-Motivated Smear of Sandy Berger to Distract Us From Bush's War Crimes!!! http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| ...... Bush blew it --- the inescapable 9/11 conclusion ... |
| 07.27.04 (6:27 am) [edit] |
[i]'I think everyone knows what happened could have been prevented. Of course, they'd never admit that' [/i]- Melodie Homer, Marlton, N.J.
'It was very upsetting that the president on Aug. 6, 2001, at the daily briefing ignored the notice about al-Qaeda. It was a very strong warning and it was ignored. That's one that we know about. How many more warnings that we don't about?' - Judy Reiss, Lower Makefield, Pa.
These women, whose husband and son, respectively, were killed in the 9-11 attacks, have only to finish their thoughts…Bush blew it.
It happened on George W. Bush's watch. He was in charge, he was warned that a disaster was in the offing, he refused to put forth his best efforts to avoid any attacks and nearly 3,000 Americans died.
The 9-11 commission was too timid to say it and even made some stupid comments to cover their cowardice. Headline writers for the major newspapers stated that the commission blamed unnamed people in many posts in the current and previous administrations.
Homer and Reiss, who were quoted in Friday's Philadelphia Inquirer, came as close as anyone to telling the truth: The immediate blame must be laid on Bush.
Certainly, the Bush administration is not alone in setting the stage for the 9/11 attacks, but Bush put out a welcome mat for terrorists. One might even wonder if this amounts to criminal negligence.
Deep in the middle of its lead story on the 9-11 report, on an inside page, Friday's New York Times caught the essence of the situation when it reported that the Clinton administration responded to a scare by mobilizing domestic agencies while the Bush administration did not bother to do same after they received warnings.
The Times story reports: "Different sections give contrasting accounts of responses by national security advisers under Mr. Clinton and Mr. Bush. It describes how Mr. (Sandy) Berger, (then national security adviser) under Mr. Clinton, took the lead in December 1999 in mobilizing the F.B.I. and other domestic agencies to address the so-called millennium plot, in which attacks planned in Jordan and Los Angeles were disrupted. By contrast, the report describes (current National Security Advisser) Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, as not having regarded the coordination of domestic agencies as part of their responsibility after they took office in 2001, even as warnings of a possible attack continued to grow."
Then, according to the Times, the report proclaimed these words of the pre-9-11 Bush administration: "The domestic agencies never mobilized in response to the threat. They did not have direction, and did not have a plan to institute."
Notice the indirect phrasing? Here's another way the commission could have worded it: "The Bush administration never mobilized in response to the threat. It did not give the agencies direction, and it did not provide them with a plan to institute."
The cowardly phrasing is very relevant because the commission was downplaying as much as possible Bush's most serious blunder. Sticking to the context of the commission's findings, we do not know if the attacks would have been prevented if Bush had done more, but the commission lays it out starkly enough: Bush did not do what he could.
Isn't this enough? The commission wrote, "Since the plotters were flexible and resourceful, we cannot know whether any single step or series of steps would have defeated them."
We'll never know, and that's because Bush was not "flexible and resourceful" enough to even attempt "any single step or series of steps."
To put this into perspective, let's say you're on the board of directors of a company and your CEO is called on the carpet: "Mr. Bush, you received warnings of a potential attack on our headquarters building and you refused to mobilize all the company's divisions to prevent it, and 3,000 of our employees died as a result."
Bush: "Well, mobilizing these divisions does not guarantee that this would have prevented anything."
Perhaps Manhattan's District Attorney would have said to Bush: "We're talking about the murder of 3,000 people, which of course is a capital crime. No, you did not do this yourself, but you had warnings that something like this might happen and you did not follow through.
"This means that you knowingly facilitated the murder of 3,000 human beings on my judicial turf. At the le | |
