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In the Age of George Bush, We Have Lost Our Way

08.31.04 (8:08 pm) [edit]

"I'm the commander - see, I don't need to explain - I don't need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation" - George W Bush, August 2002

Making his final decision to launch an invasion of Iraq, President George W Bush did not seek the advice of his father, a veteran of the second world war and a former president who had gone to battle with the same foe a decade earlier. Nor did he seek the overall final recommendation of his secretary of defence, or of his secretary of state, the only man in his cabinet who had been decorated for military service in wartime with the medals befitting a national hero. Instead, as Bob Woodward wrote in his book, Plan of Attack, Bush consulted his God, a God who the president presumes takes sides in disputes between peoples.

I am an American by choice rather than by birth. I'm a white, 55-year-old Episcopalian. Born in Canada, I've lived in America for half my life. I've raised four children here, have done reasonably well professionally, and am by most measures a happy man. I've followed politics all my life, but politics has never been my life, if you know what I mean. To be honest, I really never had much truck with politicians of any stripe.

But I love this country, its land, its soul, and, above all, its people.

So what does it say about us that we let a man of such blind conviction and wilful ignorance lead us?

Bush's reckless, unnecessary decision to wage a war of choice with a country that was neither an enemy nor a real threat is at the very root of all we've lost during his presidency. We've lost our good reputation and our standing as a great and just superpower. We've lost the sympathy of the world following September 11 and turned it into an alloy of fear and hatred. We've lost lives and allies. We've lost liberties and freedoms. We've lost billions of dollars that could have gone toward a true assault on terrorism. It could fairly be said that in the age of George W Bush, we have lost our way.

The deceptions that took the United States into Iraq were the work of an administration without care for logic or truth. The aftermath, a war seemingly without end and one that is costing the country tens of billions of dollars and the lives of about 13 young American soldiers every week, is the work of an administration without judgment or foresight.

The sideshow in the Middle East proved in the end to be a convenient diversion for the Bush White House: it distracted Americans' attention from the administration's domestic agenda, its ideological war at home. Iraq also served as a shield for the administration, in the sense that the White House defined any opposition to or criticism of what it was up to in those early days as the work of the unpatriotic or the traitorous. With the country looking the other way, Bush and Cheney began dismantling decades' worth of advances in civil liberties, healthcare, education, the economy, the judiciary and the environment.

The Bush White House inherited a robust economy brimming with jobs and budget surpluses. It may well end its four years with a net loss of jobs during Bush's first term, a feat unsurpassed since the Hoover administration. In its desire to create tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, it created a horizon of budget deficits, crippling debt and trade imbalances.

The Bush White House inherited an education system that, while not perfect, was in many ways the envy of the world. Its unreasonable and underfunded No Child Left Behind programme hobbled state systems by placing rigid demands on school districts but pledging little money to meet those demands.

The Bush White House inherited an environment that had been all but saved by the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts of the 1970s. The administration, many of whose members were plucked from the oil and gas industries, turned its back on more than 30 years of advances in environmental legislation and global treaties to reward its campaign backers from the petrochemical industry. The Bush administration made it clear that it refused to live with any kind of restrictions on its energy use. When the White House officially pulled the United States out of the Kyoto Protocol in March 2001, it was the first in a series of defiant snubs to allies, trading partners and neighbours that began the dramatic decline of America's reputation around the world.

The Bush White House inherited a healthcare system that favoured the rich, then made it worse, turning it into a complex apparatus that will produce unprecedented profits for another set of major campaign backers - the health and pharmaceutical industries - all at the expense of regular patients, the elderly and the poor.

The Bush White House inherited a government of model transparency and purposefully bent it to the will of the most secretive administration in recent American history. It inherited a judicial system that was America's centrist, if not conservative, legal safeguard and turned it into an ideological, rightwing juggernaut.

At the heart of all of this loss were two unforgivable deceptions embedded in George W Bush's 2000 presidential campaign: that he was a "uniter and not a divider", and that he was a "compassionate conservative". This "uniter" became a president who has divided Americans more than at any time since the civil war. "Compassionate conservative" was a meaningless bit of public relations designed to appease the middle ground of the Republican party and the conservative flank of the Democratic party. Once in office, the Bush administration pursued not a compassionate course but rather a harsh, far-rightwing effort to roll back decades of liberal legislation.

Electing George W Bush was seen in many quarters of the world as a mistake, a voters' aberration. Now the goodwill that poured in from around the world after September 11 has dissolved in the president's hands. America has gone from being loved to being hated. His re-election would send those same quarters a message of intent and hostility on the part of the US that may take decades fully to recover from.

A second term would see more tax cuts for the wealthy. A second term would see further encroachment on civil liberties as the administration pushes for passage of Patriot Act II. A second term would see rightwing ideologues further transform the nation's health, education and environmental departments. A second term would see one, and possibly two, new rightwing justices on the supreme court, skewing the political balance in the US's most important judicial arena for decades to come.

America itself has been rent asunder, more divided along party lines than at any time in recent memory. It is safe to say that history will not be kind to the Bush administration. Long after it is out of office, after the investigations have run their course, after we examine the wreckage to our land and to our fragile but enduring democracy, only then will we fully comprehend all that the Bush presidency has done. And only then will we fully realise what we've lost.

[b]This is an edited extract from What We've Lost, by Graydon Carter, published by Little, Brown[/b] - http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa...,12271,1294012,00.html

Bush/Cheney's Iraqi Prison Horrors Still Pervasive ...

08.31.04 (4:04 pm) [edit]

[b]Iraqi Prison Horrors Pervasive, Says Attorney [/b]

While the latest reports investigating the widely condemned events at Abu Ghraib prison attempt to close the book on the Pentagon's culpability with a somber critique, new evidence gathered for a class action lawsuit filed against two U.S.-based private contractors could prove that the scandal at Abu Ghraib was far from an isolated series of incidents perpetrated by a few rowdy "bad apples" working the night shift during Ramadan.

An attorney representing former detainees says his recent fact-finding mission to Baghdad uncovered dozens of cases of physical and psychological abuse, sexual humiliation, religious desecration and rape in ten U.S.-run prisons throughout occupied Iraq.

The NewStandard spoke with Michigan-based attorney Shereef Akeel, who interviewed some 50 former detainees about their time and treatment in U.S. custody. Part of the legal team behind a class action lawsuit against the firms for their employees' involvement in prison abuse at U.S.-run facilities in Iraq, the former immigration lawyer found himself traveling to meet face-to-face with the people he is representing in the American court system.

His team has documented abuse dating from July 2003 to as recently as last month, when an Iraqi boy just 15 years old says his captors at an American facility raped him. "He was told to go on all fours naked and was sodomized from behind," Akeel conveyed the 15-year-old's testimony. "He said they made him dance and he was crying."

A number of the incidents Akeel and his colleagues have recorded took place between January and July of this year. Emerging evidence that torture in U.S. facilities continues months after the Abu Ghraib and other torture cases were revealed – most of those having taken place in late 2003 and dismissed as the results of oversights corrected since – could spell major problems for the U.S. government and military.

Akeel and his colleagues are working in concert with the Center for Constitutional Rights to sue the U.S. companies CACI International Inc. and Titan Corp., which were respectively contracted to provide interrogators and translators to support the American military's efforts to obtain information from "security detainees" – those thought to be involved in resisting the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The Center for Constitutional Rights is a privately funded legal center that litigates on behalf of social movements and causes.

For its part, CACI International said in a press statement issued about the case: "CACI rejects and denies the allegations of the suit as being a malicious recitation of false statements and intentional distortions." The company added in its defense, "CACI has never entered into a conspiracy with the government, or anyone else, to perpetrate abuses of any kind." CACI also called the allegations of abuse "ill-informed" and "slanderous."

Titan Corp. spokesperson Wil Williams told The NewStandard his company's employees at U.S.-run facilities in Iraq adhere strictly to their role as translators and are prohibited by company policy from engaging with prisoners in any other capacity. He said the class action lawsuit naming Titan is "baseless" and that Titan will "vigorously defend [against] it." He said it is "against company policy for any [employee] to engage in or observe" abusive behavior, and expressed confidence that had any Titan personnel so much as witnessed unlawful behavior, they would have reported it.

When asked if the witnesses identified the perpetrators as U.S. military, mercenaries, Iraqis, private translators or others, Akeel sighed. "Honestly, the line was so blurred, and they were crossed all the time," he said. According to the testimony Akeel has collected, interrogators often donned U.S. military uniforms, assailants entered cells naked or approached victims from behind, and at least one translator wielded an electrical stun device.

Williams was unaware that interpreters, whether representing Titan or not, were being accused of being in possession of any such devices. "A linguist is not supposed to be handling weapons," he said, adding that it is "beyond our imagination" that Titan employees would engage in abusive activities.

Regardless of the perpetrators' national or ethnic origins, Akeel and his clients hold the U.S. military personnel who were involved in unlawful incidents and the corporations named in the suit responsible for abuse carried out in prisons controlled by the U.S. military.

During the course of his investigation in Iraq, Akeel said, clear patterns emerged. According to Akeel, testimonials gathered individually from former captives held in U.S. prisons all over Iraq indicate many of the common methods came into use across disparate, geographically distant detention centers.

Perhaps the most disturbing evidence Akeel found suggesting an overarching policy of abuse comes in the form of firsthand accounts that captors singled out religiously observant prisoners for particularly harsh abuse.

Akeel said former detainees told him that upon arrival at a U.S.-run facility, they were each given a questionnaire asking them about their religious affiliation as well as their vices. In Akeel's words, the questions included: "Are you Sunni? Are you Shia? Do you drink? Do you not drink? Do you have a girlfriend?" Akeel said he found a consistent pattern among the cases: the stricter the religious observance a detainee reported to his captors, the more severe the treatment he would receive at their hands.

Akeel provided several examples of religious desecration, including stories of men who had purified themselves in an Islamic absolution ritual only to be subsequently doused with beer and alcohol by captors. At one prison, plaintiffs told Akeel, captors hung a picture of a pig on the wall toward which prisoners faced to worship and told them, "Pray to your pig."

In one horrific case recounted to Akeel, a naked woman wearing a strapped on sexual device raped an elderly man while he was fasting. The man said the woman came in silently behind him, "wearing a belt with a penis," Akeel relayed. The man told Akeel he could not determine whether his assailant was an American MP or a private contractor.

Akeel also uncovered a method, previously unknown to his legal team, by which captors were malicious in their matching of interpreters with the prisoners they would help interrogate. He said that in each interrogation case before him, the victim was assigned an interpreter with a "built-in-prejudice."

"All of the translators are of Arabic descent," Akeel said. "So they'd put an Egyptian Coptic [Christian] translator to look over the [Sunni Muslims]. It's like putting a Serb in charge of a Muslim [in the former Yugoslavia]. This is a pattern everywhere; [it was] very specific."

Akeel said he interviewed victims from across the social spectrum, "from lawyers to doctors, to kids, to the elderly, to housewives." He said U.S. jailers and their contractors subjected all the plaintiffs to similar mistreatment.

One woman told Akeel she witnessed an imprisoned man and woman raped on her first night of incarceration.

Other witnesses said a group of naked male detainees was forced to serve food to naked female prisoners who begged the men to cover their eyes.

In another account, a doctor first taken to a presidential palace and made to stand there for hours on end, told Akeel that he was then taken to the Abu Ghraib prison where he watched a naked prisoner forced onto the running engine of a Humvee, leaving the man with irreparable burns.

Witnesses also told Akeel the famous Tikrit area stables of Saddam Hussein's son, Uday, now house Iraqi prisoners who are forced to urinate and defecate in the same stalls where they sleep.

Akeel returned from his mission to Baghdad last week. He said he is still processing everything he learned, and has agreed to provide The NewStandard detailed documentation confirming these accounts once he has organized the material. All of it, he said, will be introduced as part of the case against CACI and Titan.

One witness Akeel had hoped to interview will not be part of the lawsuit. Akeel said he was expecting to speak with a woman who had been raped at one U.S.-run prison, and later discovered she was pregnant. Tragically, she killed herself before they could meet.

[b]Lisa Ashkenaz Croke is a Chicago-based writer and features editor for the fledging Third Coast Press. She’s spent the past year researching and drafting reports on Iraq’s post-war occupation for YellowTimes.org. Her work has appeared on various US and European-based IndyMedia.org websites and including, UNObserver.com, GlobalPolicy.org and OccupationWatch.org.[/b] - http://www.antiwar.com/orig/c...

Pictures From Iraq -- The Way The Bush/Cheney Neo-Con Regime Treats People ...

08.31.04 (3:49 pm) [edit]

[b]Maybe the neo-con neo-fascist pigs responsible for heinous war crimes including murder, torture, rape, abuse and sodomy of little children would like to put a caption on these pictures ... A US Army Report says tortures extend to the TOP http://csmonitor.com/2004/082...

A picture [i]is[/i] worth a thousand words:-- Take a good hard [i]look[/i] at what Bush/Cheney have done to our nation. Bush and Cheney are [i]despicable[/i]!!!

And we [i]haven't[/i] as yet seen the pictures of Bush/Cheney's thugs raping and sodomizing of little children because they are [i]covering-up [/i]their War Crimes!!!

Check-Out[/b]: "Abu Ghraib Cover-up Intensifies" on http://www.tblog.com/template...

[b]Torture and Abuse at Abu Ghraib Prison ... The Red Cross warned the Bush administration who knew over a year ago and did nothing to stop this ...[/b]

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[b]Its the "liberation" of the Iraqi people and it isnt pretty.[/b]

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[b]These are just some of the photos that led to an investigation into conditions at the Abu Ghraib prison, once Saddams torture palace, and now run by the occupation authorities, as revealed in a shocking report broadcast by CBS on[i] 60 Minutes II[/i][/b].

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[b]Brig. Gen. Janice Karpinski, in charge of the occupiers detention facilities throughout Iraq, has been dismissed from her post, and 6 U.S. soldiers face charges[/b].

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[b]"This is international standards," said Karpinski, in an earlier interview with CBS. "It's the best care available in a prison facility."[/b]

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[b]Anybody can see that.[/b]

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[b]Below, Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski, who was responsible for military jails in Iraq, and has now been suspended in the abuse probe, meets with Donald Rumsfeld.[/b]

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[b]And even more disturbing screen shots made available from Global Free Press http://globalfreepress.com/ via [i]TheMemoryHole[/i] http://www.thememoryhole.org/... [/b].

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[b]These images are from the [i]60 Minutes II [/i]broadcast. CBS says that it has twelve of these photographs, though there are dozens more. Among them:

The Army has photographs that show a detainee with wires attached to his genitals. Another shows a dog attacking an Iraqi prisoner[/b].

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Express Outrage at Chicken Hawk Republicans Laughing at Wounded Veterans!!!

08.31.04 (3:36 pm) [edit]

Republican National Committee member Morton Blackwell and his shadowy right wing groups - the Council for National Policy, the Leadership Institute, and the Conservative Leadership PAC - gave out "Purple Heart" band-aids at the RNC convention to mock John Kerry's wounds and medals. Several veterans don't find this amusing. They know this denigrates all who earned the Purple Heart in service to America. No shock, right wing chicken hawk Blackwell never served in the military. Still, he mocks those who did serve and suffered wounds to win a Purple Heart. Republicans ridicule troops risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you agree laughing at wounded Veterans isn't funny, hold Bush, Cheney and other chicken hawk Republicans accountable. Whether or not you're a veteran express your outrage at the laughing, mocking chicken hawk Republicans wearing "Purple Heart" band-aids. Write to Blackwell at blackwell.cnp@usii.net and denounce his front organizations (link below).

[b]Check-it-out [/b] http://www.buildingequality.u...

Kerry's True Positions - and the Fraudulent Technique the RNC [and Media] Use to Distort Them ...

08.31.04 (1:41 pm) [edit]

[b]"We the People" must become tougher and more clever at spotting the mendacious Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] neo-orwellian mis-representations of John F. Kerry's positions on issues ... It is clear that since Kerry has started to gain momentum in the polls, that an ugly, nasty "gloves-off" campaign by Bush's gutter neo-con neo-fascists has been ignited that involves smearing Kerry with gross fabrications, bold-faced lies, dishonorable deceptions and vile falsehoods-- Apparently these dirty neo-hitlerian tactics are the only way that Bush/Cheney Inc. are able to get their way ... Let's make sure that we don't fall for their neo-con-game and ergo, it will eventually backfire!!! ...[/b]

William Saletan writes "Does Kerry now agree with Bush's decision? Would Kerry have gone into Iraq? Would he have voted to give Bush the authorization had Kerry known what he now knows about the absence of WMD and about how Bush would use the authorization?" No, says Saletan. Yet the RNC, using the same fraudulent tactics as Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, et al, has compliled doctored clips of Kerry's statement - yielding the very soundbytes the media then uses. Ex: Kerry: '"I agree completely with this administration's goal of a regime change in Iraq." He calls Saddam a "renegade" who has betrayed the terms of his 1991 cease-fire. However, the RNC omits Kerry's next two sentences: "But the Administration's rhetoric has far exceeded their plans or their groundwork. In fact, their single-mindedness, secrecy, and high-blown rhetoric has alienated our allies and threatened to unravel the stability of the region." Saletan presents other examples as well of this fraud.

[b]Would Kerry Vote Today for the Iraq War?

[i]No.[/i]

By William Saletan[/b]

Last Friday, President Bush challenged http://www.whitehouse.gov/new... Sen. John Kerry: "My opponent hasn't answered the question of whether, knowing what we know now, he would have supported going into Iraq." On Monday, pressed by a reporter to answer Bush, Kerry said, http://www.washingtonpost.com... "Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it was the right authority for a president to have."

Bush argues that this is yet another Kerry flip-flop and that Kerry now endorses Bush's war. At a campaign rally on Tuesday, Bush asserted http://www.whitehouse.gov/new... ,

... "[i]My opponent has found a new nuance. He now agrees it was the right decision to go into Iraq. After months of questioning my motives and even my credibility, Senator Kerry now agrees with me that even though we have not found the stockpile of weapons we believed were there, knowing everything we know today, he would have voted to go into Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power[/i]." ...

Does Kerry now agree with Bush's decision? Would Kerry have gone into Iraq? Would he have voted to give Bush the authorization had Kerry known what he now knows about the absence of WMD and about how Bush would use the authorization?

The answer, if you look closely at Kerry's statements over the past three years, is no. But Kerry refuses to make this clear, http://www.johnkerry.com/pres... so let's go to the videotape—specifically, a 12-minute videotape of Kerry's statements, compiled by the Republican National Committee and posted on the Web http://www.kerryoniraq.com/ . These statements, in the RNC's judgment, make the strongest case that Kerry has flip-flopped on Iraq.

The first significant clip shows Kerry on[i] The O'Reilly Factor [/i]on Dec. 11, 2001. "We ought to put the heat on Saddam Hussein," he says. Kerry adds that when U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler provided evidence that inspections should continue, "I criticized the Clinton administration for backing off of the inspections."

Summary: Kerry wants pressure and inspections.

The next significant clip shows Kerry on [i]Hardball[/i] on Feb. 5, 2002. The host, Chris Matthews, asks Kerry whether Iraq "can be reduced to a diplomatic problem—can we get this guy to accept inspections of those weapons of mass destruction potentially and get past a possible war with him?" Kerry answers: "Outside chance, Chris. Could it be done? The answer is yes. He would view himself only as buying time and playing a game, in my judgment. Do we have to go through that process? The answer is yes."

Summary: Kerry doubts Iraq would comply with inspections, but he thinks we have to go through the process of trying.

The next significant quote comes from Kerry's speech to the Democratic Leadership Council on July 29, 2002. "I agree completely with this administration's goal of a regime change in Iraq," Kerry says. He calls Saddam a "renegade" who has betrayed the terms of his 1991 cease-fire. However, the RNC omits Kerry's next two sentences: http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.c... "But the Administration's rhetoric has far exceeded their plans or their groundwork. In fact, their single-mindedness, secrecy, and high-blown rhetoric has alienated our allies and threatened to unravel the stability of the region."

Summary: Kerry agrees that regime change is a "goal." He doesn't clarify how he would pursue it. The part edited out by the RNC suggests that Kerry doesn't like the way Bush is pursuing the goal, particularly because it "alienated our allies."

The video then shows Kerry speaking at a Democratic presidential primary debate in South Carolina on May 3, 2003. Kerry tells moderator George Stephanopoulos, "I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity. But I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm [Saddam]."

Stephanopoulos' question, http://www.washingtonpost.com...¬Found=true edited out of the video, was, "On March 19, President Bush ordered Gen. Tommy Franks to execute the invasion of Iraq. Was that the right decision at the right time?" Kerry takes the question in two parts: No to the timing ("I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity"), yes to the "decision to disarm." But in his final sentence, Kerry conveys that his agreement with Bush on the decision is more important than their disagreement on the timing: "When the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm [Saddam]."

This appears to be the first time Kerry endorses the war as Bush conducted it.

It also appears to be the last. The next clip in the RNC video shows Kerry on [i]Meet the Press [/i]on Aug. 31, 2003. "In the resolution that we passed, we did not empower the president to do regime change," says http://msnbc.msn.com/id/30802... Kerry. That's consistent with Kerry's previous statements calling for "heat," "inspections," "process," and cooperation with "allies."

The video shows Kerry announcing his presidential candidacy http://www.boston.com/news/po... on Sept. 2, 2003. "I voted to threaten the use of force to make Saddam Hussein comply with the resolutions of the United Nations," he says. The video omits Kerry's next sentence: "I believe that was right, but it was wrong to rush to war without building a true international coalition and with no plan to win the peace."

No conflict here. Kerry thinks he was voting to turn up the heat and get compliance with inspections. He thinks Bush betrayed two of Kerry's principles: process and allies.

The video shows Kerry on ABC's [i]This Week [/i]on Oct. 12, 2003. The administration "rushed to war," Kerry complains. "They did not give legitimacy to the inspections. We could have still been doing inspections even today."

This is a telling remark. Take Kerry's stated principles: inspections, process, allies. Apply these to the trends of the winter of 2002-03: restored inspections and grudging Iraqi concessions. Combine the principles and the trend with the evidence we have today that Iraq's WMD programs had disintegrated. The most plausible conclusion is that if Kerry were president, we would still be doing inspections, as he suggests.

The video shows Kerry again on [i]Hardball[/i] on Jan. 6, 2004. Chris Matthews asks him, "Are you one of the antiwar candidates?" "I am, yeah—" says Kerry. The video cuts off the rest of the sentence, which continues: "in the sense that I don't believe the president took us to war as he should have, yes, absolutely."

This is classic Kerry: emphasizing the right half of his position when it's convenient, then the left half when that's more convenient. But it isn't a change of position.

At this point, the video takes us back to Kerry's appearance on [i]This Week [/i]on Feb. 22, 1998, when Saddam was harassing U.N. weapons inspectors. "We have to be prepared to go the full distance" to disrupt Saddam's regime, Kerry says. Cokie Roberts asks him, "Does that mean ground troops in Iraq?" Kerry replies, "I'm personally prepared, if that's what it meant." The RNC deletes the next seven sentences, so that Kerry's next words appear to be, "He can rebuild both chemical and biological, and every indication is because of his deception and duplicity in the past, he will seek to do that. So we will not eliminate the problem for ourselves or for the rest of the world with a bombing attack."

Sounds like a call for war. But let's read the whole quote, including the part the RNC left out:

... "[i]I am personally prepared, if that's what it meant. I don't think you have to start there. I think there are a number of other options. But what I hear from the administration, thus far, is if he doesn't comply, then we will hit him. The obvious question is, after you've hit him, have you opened up your inspections? Well, I think the answer is probably not, certainly not in the near term. After you've hit him, is he still in power, capable of building weapons again? Every bit of intelligence John [McCain] and I have says within various periods of time, he can rebuild both chemical and biological, and every indication is because of his deception and duplicity in the past, he will seek to do that. So we will not eliminate the problem for ourselves or for the rest of the world with a bombing attack[/i]." ...

This is the same position Kerry has stated all along: compliance, inspections, skepticism, process. He says we shouldn't start with an invasion. He rejects bombing not because it will fail to change the regime, but because it will fail to restore inspections. And look at the sentence the RNC cut in half, about Saddam having the ability to rebuild the chemical and biological weapons programs he had lost in the early 1990s. Notice what the RNC removed: Kerry's attribution of that assessment to the "intelligence" he had been shown.

If the basis of Kerry's concern about Iraqi WMD was the intelligence, and the intelligence turns out to be mistaken, does this change Kerry's view of the war?

That's the focus of the video's final clip. It shows Kerry's on 60 Minutes a month ago. Lesley Stahl tells him: "You voted for this war. Was that vote, given what you know now, a mistake?" Kerry answers: "What I voted for—Lesley, you see, you're playing here. What I voted for was an authority for the president to go to war as a last resort if Saddam Hussein did not disarm and we needed to go to war." Stahl persists, "But I'm trying to find out if you today, now that you know about [the absence of WMD], think the war was a mistake?" Kerry stonewalls, "I think I answered your question. I think the way he went to war was a mistake."

Kerry sticks to his position. He doesn't answer Stahl's question. But this time, somebody who can speak English is sitting next to Kerry: John Edwards. Seconds after the RNC cuts away from the interview, Edwards steps in to rescue his running mate.

[b]Edwards:[/b] I'm going to finish this. The difference is, if John Kerry were president of the United States, we would never be in this place. He would never have done what George Bush did. He would have done the hard work to build the alliances and the support system. …

[b]Stahl:[/b] Why build an alliance if they didn't have weapons of mass destruction?

[b]Edwards:[/b] We would have found out.

[b]Kerry:[/b] That is it.

[b]Edwards and Kerry (in unison): [/b]That's the point.

[b]Kerry:[/b] That is exactly the point.

There you have it. Edwards says if Kerry had been president, we would have found out Iraq had no WMD, and "we would never be in this place." Kerry emphatically agrees with this translation. It makes pretty clear that given Kerry's principles, and given what we now know about the absence of WMD, Kerry wouldn't have gone to war.

Last Thursday, Kerry gave the RNC more comic material. He told http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com... a conference of minority journalists,

... "[i]I voted to hold Saddam Hussein accountable, because had I been president, I would have wanted that authority, because that was the way to enforce the U.N. resolutions and be tough with the prospect of his development of weapons of mass destruction. … Now, might we have wound up going to war with Saddam Hussein? You bet we might have—after we exhausted those remedies and found that he wasn't complying, and so on and so forth. But not in a way that provides, you know, 90 percent of the casualties are American, and almost all of the cost[/i]." ...

This is the kind of endless, backside-covering nuance that earned Kerry two months of "Kerryisms" in[i] Slate[/i]. But it doesn't change his position: United Nations, WMD, compliance, process. And it includes a very important phrase: "Because had I been president, I would have wanted that authority."

Only when you remember that phrase does the meaning of Kerry's statement on Monday become clear. When Kerry says he would have voted for war authority because "it was the right authority for a president to have," the president he's thinking of—"a president," as he puts it—isn't Bush. It's himself.

So the question that now needs to be put to Kerry is this one: "Knowing what you know now—not only about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, but also about the way President Bush would use the authority given to him by that resolution—would you still have voted to give him that authority?" Good luck getting him to answer it.

[b]William Saletan is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of[i] Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War[/i][/b]. - http://slate.msn.com/id/21050...

[b]Courtesy of WinstonSmith http://winstonsmith.tblog.com... [/b]

Who is the Biggest Flip-Flopper??? It's NOT Kerry, It's LIAR Bush!!!

08.31.04 (1:39 pm) [edit]

[b]The next time someone criticizes John Kerry for being a flip-flopper remind them:[/b]

Bush was against campaign finance reform; now he's for it.

Bush was against a Homeland Security Department; now he's for it.

Bush was against a 9/11 commission; now he's for it.

Bush was against an Iraq WMD investigation; now he's for it.

Bush was against nation building; now he's for it.

Bush was against deficits; now he's for them.

Bush was for free trade; then he was for tariffs on steel, and now he's against them again.

Bush was against the U.S. taking a role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; now he pushes for a "road map" and a Palestinian State.

Bush was for states' rights to decide on gay marriage; now he is for changing the Constitution to outlaw gay marriage.

Bush said he would provide money for first responders (fire, police, emergency); then he doesn't.

Bush said that "help is on the way" to the military; then he cuts their benefits and health care.

Bush claimed to be in favor of environmental protection; then he secretly approved oil drilling on Padre Island in Texas and other places and took many more anti-environmental actions.

Bush said he is the "education president;" then he refused to fully fund key education programs and rarely does his homework, such as read position papers so he will be more knowledgeable on issues.

Bush said that him being governor of Texas for six years was enough political experience to be president of the U.S.; then he criticized Sen. John Edwards for not having enough experience after Edwards had served six years in the U.S. Senate.

During the 2000 campaign, Bush said there were too many lawsuits being filed; then during the Florida recount, he was the first to file a lawsuit to stop the legal counting of votes after Gore took advantage of Florida law to ask for a recount.

On Nov. 7, 2000, the Bush campaign supported Florida county officials drawing up new copies of some 10,000 spoiled absentee votes in 26 Republican-leaning counties that the machines did not read and marking them for the candidates when they showed "clear intent;" they opposed doing the same thing after Nov. 7 when Gore asked for such recounts. Bush dominated absentee balloting in Florida by a two-to-one margin.

Bush said during the 2000 campaign that he did not have a "litmus test" for judges he appointed to be against abortion; then he mostly appointed judges who were against abortion.

In the early 1990s, Bush led a campaign to raise taxes in Arlington, Texas, to build a new baseball stadium for the team he partly owned; he later criticized politicians for supporting tax increases ñ after he got rich by selling the team with the new stadium to a wealthy campaign contributor.

Bush opposed the U.S. negotiating with North Korea; now he supports it.

Bush went to the racist and segregationist Bob Jones University in South Carolina; then he said he shouldn't have.

Bush said he would demand a U.N. Security Council vote on whether to sanction military action against Iraq; later Bush announced he would not call for a vote.

Bush first said the "mission accomplished" Iraqi banner was put up by the sailors; he later admitted it was done by his advance team.

Bush was for fingerprinting and photographing Mexicans who enter the U.S.; after meeting with Mexican President Fox, he decided against it.

Bush was opposed to Rice testifying in front of the 9/11 commission citing "separation of powers;" then he was for it.

Bush was against Ba'ath party members holding office or government jobs in Iraq; now he's for it.

Bush said we must not appease terrorists; then he lifted trade sanctions on admitted terrorist Mohammar Quaddafi and Pakistan, which pardoned its official who sold nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya, and North Korea.

Bush said he would wait until after the Nov. election to ask for more money for the war effort; then he decided he needed it before the election, after all.

Bush said, "Leaving Iraq prematurely would only embolden the terrorists and increase the danger to America." His administration now says that U.S. troops will pull out of Iraq when the new provisional authority asks. Then he said they'll stay "as long as needed" again. Now he's

saying that the Iraqis can ask the troops to leave, and they will. Or is he?

The Bush administration officials said that the Geneva Conventions don't apply to "enemy combatants." Now they claims they do.

Bush officials said before the Iraq invasion that Iraq posed an "imminent threat" to U.S. security and that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and even nuclear weapons; after the invasion, they denied saying the word "imminent" and saying that Iraq had WMDs and nuclear weapons, even though they were caught on tape making such statements.

"The most important thing is for us to find Osama Bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him." - George W. Bush, Sept. 13, 2001

"I don't know where he is. I have no idea, and I really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." - George W. Bush, March 13, 2002

Are you getting tired of this? Well, some in the American military are getting tired of this, too: "The (Bush) 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." -Retired Admiral William Crowe, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs under Ronald Reagan. - http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...

Neo-Con Nazi Wolfowitz Calls for "Tightening" Government Control Over the Internet!!!

08.31.04 (12:33 pm) [edit]

[b]Wolfowitz calls for "tightening control" over the internet

Translation: No more talk about Israeli spying, dammit! [/b]

The Pentagon has urged Congress to authorize 500 million dollars for building a network of friendly militias around the world to purge terrorists from "ungoverned areas" -- and warned Muslim clerics against providing "ideological sanctuary" to radicals.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a key architect of the Iraq war, told the House Armed Services Committee Tuesday the money would be used "for training and equipping local security forces -- not just armies -- to counter terrorism and insurgencies."

If approved as part of a larger defense bill, the package will "provide greater internal security in areas that are or could become sanctuaries for terrorists," he said.

No specific beneficiaries of the program were named, but US officials have repeatedly expressed concern about vast tracts of land along the Afghan- Pakistani border, in Iraq, the Caucasus, Horn of Africa and various islands in the Philippines where radical Islamic fighters could set up shop.

The strategy has already been tried in Afghanistan, where US special forces managed to forge alliances with some tribal warlords, who became instrumental in bringing down the Taliban government in 2001 and keeping its remnants at bay, said US military experts.

"Indeed, our most important allies in the war on terrorism will be Muslims who seek freedom and oppose extremism," Wolfowitz stated.

The request comes amid a concerted push by top Defense Department and other administration officials to develop new forms of "asymmetrical" warfare that would be more effective against small terrorist cells and would spare the United States the need to deploy large contingents of its own forces around the world.

Addressing the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations last week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke of the need for the Pentagon to adjust to the new reality of not having to confront big foreign armies, navies and air forces it was originally trained to fight.

"There are not a lot of them around at the moment," the secretary pointed out. "And we've got manhunts going on."

To help establish contact with local chieftains and get into their good graces, the Pentagon is considering hiring immigrants to serve as "bicultural advisors" in unfamiliar areas and implementing a number of economic aid projects there, according to defense officials.

In his testimony, Wolfowitz also suggested expanding the scope of the war on terror by including into the list of its possible targets radical Islamic clerics, who, in his words, provide "ideological sanctuary" to terrorism.

In addition, he called for tightening control over international communication networks, including the Internet.

He argued that extremist clerics provide cover to militants "by sanctioning terrorism, by recruiting new adherents, and by intimidating moderate clerics from speaking out against them."

However, there was no mention by name of Moqtada Sadr, a Shiite preacher that is leading an anti-American revolt in the Iraqi city of Najaf.

"There should be no room in this world for governments that support terrorism, no ungoverned areas where terrorist can operate with impunity, no easy opportunities for terrorists to abuse the freedom of democratic societies, no ideological sanctuary, and no free pass to exploit the technologies of communications to serve terrorist ends," Wolfowitz insisted.

He did not say what additional measures could be taken to prevent terrorists from exploiting freedoms in the United States, but pointed out it would involve "difficult decisions."

The USA Patriot Act passed by Congress in the wake of the September 11 attacks grants the FBI and other law enforcement agencies additional surveillance and investigative powers. But it has been under attack from civil libertarians, who call it an assault on the US constitution. - http://www.unknownnews.net/04...

'War Time President' Image Means Nothing to Americans Who Can't Pay their Bills

08.31.04 (7:54 am) [edit]

[b]Al Lewis writes:[/b] "George W. Bush's fate on Election Day hinges on the economy. But voters won't care about the chief measure of its strength, the gross domestic product, which is strong despite recent downward revisions. They won't care about the ballooning national debt. Or even rising inflation. What they'll care about is a job. As long as the national unemployment rate holds at its current 5.5 percent, or lower, Bush stands an excellent chance of re-election, according to John Challenger of Chicago-based outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas." However, Challenger is basing his projections on the pre-outsourcing world and failing to take into account that this is the FIRST TIME IN US HISTORY that American workers in a non-depression period have taken a cut in pay. So it is not just the job now, it's whether that job pays the bills.

[b]Check-it-out [/b] http://www.denverpost.com/fra...,1413,36~130~2369718,00.html

Bush/Cheney's Betrayal of America: RNC Delegates Mock Wounded Soldiers ...

08.31.04 (7:52 am) [edit]

"Upon hearing of multiple news reports that GOP delegates are belittling the injuries soldiers sustained during service by wearing Band-Aids with purple hearts, DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe said: 'It is inexcusable for a Republican delegate to mock anyone who has ever put on a soldier's uniform. It is inexcusable to mock service and sacrifice. Our service men and women put their lives on the line every day. If they are wounded in the line of duty it is because they are fighting on the frontlines for freedom. Anything but complete respect for their service is unacceptable. 'Mindful of the fact that over 3,700 purple hearts have been issued during the Iraq war so far and none of us know how high that number will climb, I call on John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, before they speak, to tell their delegates to disavow these tactics... tell their delegates that service matters, sacrifice matters, and that no Republican delegate should ever mock the service of our soldiers.'"

[b]Check-it-out [/b] http://www.democrats.org/blog...

What AWOL Dubya Really Thinks of Our US Soldiers: Cannon-Fodder To Kill for $$$$$$

08.31.04 (7:47 am) [edit]

[b]Veteran White House Correspondent Helen Thomas on Iraq: "We've really Damaged Our Psyche, Our Soul, Our Image"[/b]

Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas joins us in our firehouse studio to talk about the convention, the media and the war in Iraq. Thomas has served as White House correspondent for some 57 years and has covered every President since Kennedy. [includes rush transcript]

------------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------- -----

We are now joined by veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas. Commonly referred to as "The First Lady of the Press," Helen Thomas is the most senior member of the White House press corps. She has served as White House correspondent for United Press International for some 57 years and has covered every President since Kennedy.

President Gerald Ford once remarked, "If God created the Earth in six days, he couldn't have rested on the seventh - he would have had to explain it Helen Thomas."

AMY GOODMAN: We're now joined by veteran White House correspondent, Helen Thomas, commonly referred to as the First Lady of the Press. Helen Thomas is the most senior member of the White House Press Corps. She served as White House correspondent for United Press International for some 57 years and has covered every president since Kennedy. President Gerald Ford once remarked, “If God created the earth in six days, he couldn't have rested on the seventh. He would have had to explain it to Helen Thomas.” Helen Thomas went from U.P.I. to working for the Hearst newspapers, and we welcome you, Helen Thomas, to Democracy Now!

HELEN THOMAS: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: It's great to have you with us, we've spoken to you on the phone. You're here for the Republican National Convention. We bumped into you at the Time-Warner party. And your thoughts were not really right there in that corporate celebration. You were talking about Fallujah.

HELEN THOMAS: Yes. And in fact, on Saturday itself, 14 people were killed, in one story that I saw, and eight of them were children. I mean, why isn't every American upset? Our conscience.

JUAN GONZALEZ: In terms of the – as you’ve seen these conventions develop over the years, your thoughts on how they have evolved, especially the enormous impact now obviously that television has in either covering or not covering the events at the conventions.

HELEN THOMAS: Well, I think they're so cut-and-dried now since we do have the slate. And they’re basically a celebration, and everybody has been homogenized to a point where their unity, harmony is supposed to be the name of the game. And I must say that I don't think that that's America. We usually have a difference of opinion, and it's allowed to be spoken. I like the conventions that were contested, where you had real opinions cited. Except everybody has been dumbed down.

AMY GOODMAN: What is your assessment of the George W. Bush presidency? You've covered nine presidents moving on to, well, we'll see what happens in November.

HELEN THOMAS: Well, it's the most muscular foreign policy that we've ever had. I think that America doesn't invade countries without provocation, and that's what we've done. And I think that it has tainted us throughout the world. We've really damaged our psyche, our soul, our image. The very fact that Secretary of State Colin Powell couldn't go to Athens, because, I mean, which is the heart of democracy, because of our war policy. I never think of my country as being pro-war. I think it's a last thing that would happen to us. Of course, if you're attacked, it's different. But for us to invade a country? It's shocking to me.

JUAN GONZALEZ: How do you see then, given that reality, why is there still among the public, a considerable support for the war? Clearly it's been turning, but why so many Americans are still supportive of the president's policies?

HELEN THOMAS: He plays the fear card. From 9/11 on, everybody felt they had to be a patriotic American. And then it segwayed into a war where they continued that. And I think reporters contributed a lot by not rocking the boat. And afraid of being also tainted as called un-American. But I really think that we fell down on the job, from that aspect. In terms of the Americans, I think that the very fact that the president keeps saying that he had a right to go in and so forth, they want to believe him. But pure logic shows us that everything he said about going into war, the reasons, have proved to be untrue. And I don't know how that can be acceptable to any human being.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, what about the role that the press has played? We're seeing some mea culpas, or maybe kinda culpas. You have that New York Times A-10 box that says, letter from the editor.

HELEN THOMAS: But actually New York Times was a lot more reluctant to support the war than The Washington Post. Day after day for two years, they drummed up the war.

AMY GOODMAN: Now you're with your colleagues every day. What do they say to you about this? What do The Washington Post, The New York Times reporters say to you?

HELEN THOMAS: Well, after New York Times did the mea culpa with a couple of editorials, I went up to The Post reporter and said, when are you guys going to cave? And he looked at me as though I had dropped from Mars. Anyway, I guess each has to make their own decision. But The Post never came around. In 3,000 words they basically said, maybe we should have put the story on page 1, instead of page A-20, which showed that there was some doubt about what the President was saying, but, I mean, that's not a full-fledged apology. And I think the apologies are forthcoming. They should be. But more than that, you can't restore the lives. Thousands of people are dead.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, you’ve also, you’ve talked about the muscular foreign policy. What about the Bush administration's relations with and discussions with the press? Clearly, you have not been a favorite of the White House.

HELEN THOMAS: No, I'm on the black list. But that's ok. Just so the questions are asked. But the president has not held a full-fledged news conference since April. And if he's re-elected, I think there will be even fewer and far between. These people are so strange. They think they have the authority. I mean we are, we should be the power. We have the authority. And he thinks he's president, and therefore, he doesn't have to answer questions from the lowly press. And I think that even Kerry has some sort of strange idea about presidential authority. I mean, it's --presidents have to be questioned early and often. And this is the only accountability that we have for them. It's the only forum in our society where a president can be questioned is a press conference.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean?

HELEN THOMAS: Congress can subpoena a president, but they're not going to do that unless it's very dire.

AMY GOODMAN: You said even Kerry. What do you mean?

HELEN THOMAS: Well, when he's -- was supporting, he would still support the war, despite the fact that none of the facts stack up. And then he said the president should have the authority. Authority, you know, I mean, it was shocking. I think that’s very misplaced; dictators have authority.

JUAN GONZALEZ: But what about the current crop or generation of journalists who take this, who allow it to happen day in and day out and really don't raise much of a furor about it?

HELEN THOMAS: Well, I think that the hold, as I say, the onus of being a patriot and being on television and also the fear of jeopardizing the truth, worrying that you're not supporting the troops if you ask questions that seem to be penetrating or challenging.

AMY GOODMAN: You're unusual in the news corps over the last more than 50 years, close to 60 years. A woman --

HELEN THOMAS: I’m expressing my opinion now, which I didn't do for 57 years.

AMY GOODMAN: You're a woman --

HELEN THOMAS: I said I'm expressing my opinion now.

AMY GOODMAN: You're a woman, and you're Arab American. How --

HELEN THOMAS: I'm American. I don't like hyphens. It's true my parents came from Syria. But what does that go to do with? Everybody's parents came from somewhere else.

AMY GOODMAN: Does it have an influence for you, do you feel, that gives you a unique perspective?

HELEN THOMAS: Of course, I have a cultural background of knowing that, but I don’t think that -- anybody who knows me, throughout the Vietnam War, I was equally adamant against the war of our choice. I felt as equally passionate in the sense that I don't think you should go into anyone's country without any reason that you can justify or explain.

AMY GOODMAN: We're going to touch base with you throughout the week. Helen Thomas has been our guest. We'll also link to our previous interview with Helen Thomas, who has written the book Front Row at the White House: Thanks for the Memories, Mr. President. And we'll link to some of her questioning of the White House press secretary. Thank you very much, Helen Thomas. - http://www.democracynow.org/a...

Bush/Cheney's Treason: Neo-Con Repugs Fail to Get Rid of Pentagon Spy Putting USA in Grave Danger

08.31.04 (7:41 am) [edit]

[b]Spies in the Pentagon?[/b]

When I think of spies in the Defense Department, I think of the pitiful debt-ridden Ron Pelton, who worked for 14 years at the National Security Agency, quit in 1979, and began selling secrets to the Soviets until he was arrested in 1986. I heard it was to complete construction on a home he had been building for years and years. Construction projects can be like that.

I think of Jonathan Pollard, a case study in poor hiring practices within the federal government and the Defense Department’s even poorer supervisory habits. Pollard was also a case study in the delusional and incompetent ideologue who becomes a traitor in the Department of Defense.

More recently, I think of the high clearances granted to publicly and at times, rabidly, pro-Likud past and present political appointees with names like Douglas Feith and Richard Perle, and a host of younger Likudniks who march through the halls of the five-sided asylum to a composition unfamiliar to most Americans.

I don’t think of Larry Franklin, a guy I like and respect. When I was there in 2002 and 2003, Larry was the Iran desk officer with the Defense Under Secretary for Policy, Near East South Asia, moving later to the Office of Special Plans, where ostensibly Iraq policy was made.

Larry is an interesting and kind person with a lot of great stories. He came into our cubicle one morning feeling energetic, and demonstrated a Karate kick of some kind that to this day still impresses me. Here’s a little guy in a suit, over 50 years in age, and he can do the move. I asked him where he learned to do that. He said he had to learn self-defense because he grew up dirt poor, short and small, in a slum in Baltimore, one of the few white kids in his neighborhood. I believed him. He worked for everything he had, all the way to his Ph.D. Along the way, he got married and had a whole passel of kids, safely ensconced hours away from the superficialities and mean streets of Washington, D.C.

The pre-Republican National Convention weekend story is that Larry gave draft Iran policy guidance and other info to AIPAC representatives, in hopes of communicating a level of concern for what was going on in Iraq to his higher ups in the Pentagon, specifically Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz.

Somehow, having to go outside the system to get the Pentagon brass to show concern about what is really going on in Iraq doesn’t surprise me at all.

The story of spies in the Pentagon will percolate, no doubt. I have no answers, but perhaps the questions themselves will help explain what is going on in the current administration, and the administration that is sure to come.

Was the release of Larry’s name at this time politically motivated? And was that to hurt the Bush presidency or to save it, as Laura Rozen muses, with a "controlled burn"?

Why would Larry need to give draft documents on policy anywhere in the Middle East to AIPAC, when all the big decisions are already coordinated between Israel and the U.S. at far higher levels?

Why is Larry the result of FBI investigational success instead of the names of the Pentagon senior operatives who shared classified information with Ahmad Chalabi regarding American success in reading coded Tehran communications, specifically now as neoconservatives rage for war in Iran? Or instead of the names of senior White House operatives who revealed and destroyed the U.S. security mission of Valerie Plame?

Are there any advantages gained in front-page stories on a "spy for Israel" who is not one of the usual suspects? You know, a person with no business dealings dependent upon American (and Israeli) decisions, a person without an openly pro-Israel ideology or someone who was never known as a passionate advocate of U.S. power to promote Israel’s security and economic viability? A career-constrained professional rather than fly-by-night political appointees who have written widely and acted most consistently to advance the interests of Israel in American policy towards the Middle East? Qui bono?

Could it be, as so wisely noted by Chris Manion recently, that it is time for the neoconservatives to come home?

The neoconservative harvest has been plucked from the energies and wealth of an unsuspecting American public – a permanent and costly occupation of Iraq’s oil production infrastructure, a ringing of unnecessary military bases from Bosnia and Kosovo, to Uzbekistan to Afghanistan to Iraq, and the domestic acceptance of a siege mentality of national defense reminiscent of Machiavelli’s lesser princes, or perhaps the current political state of Israel.

The challenge may be simply to properly preserve the harvest – and what better way than to usher in a presidency that will do what Bush can never do – legitimize and normalize American militaristic hegemony, at least for several more years. As Gabriel Kolko writes,

Democrats' greater finesse in justifying these policies is therefore more dangerous because they will be made to seem more credible and keep alive alliances that only reinforce the U.S.' refusal to acknowledge the limits of its power. In the longer run, Kerry's pursuit of these aggressive goals will lead eventually to a renewal of the dissolution of alliances, but in the short-run he will attempt to rebuild them and European leaders will find it considerably more difficult to refuse his demands than if Bush stays in power – and that is to be deplored.

Dangerous, radically un-American, Machiavellian. It must be exciting these days to be a neoconservative, looking forward to the continued progress under a Kerry Presidency. But to preserve the harvest, sacrifice is required.

Predictably, the sacrifice will be as it always is for neoconservative strategists. Whether burned at home or in the desert, the neoconservative sacrifice requires only the lives of those most loyal, dispensable, and disposable.

[b]August 30, 2004

Karen Kwiatkowski is a retired USAF lieutenant colonel, who spent her final four and a half years in uniform working at the Pentagon. She now lives with her freedom-loving family in the Shenandoah Valley, and writes a bi-weekly column on defense issues with a libertarian perspective for militaryweek.com. [/b] - http://www.lewrockwell.com/kw...

Bush/Cheney's Treason: Neo-Con Repugs Fail to Get Rid of Pentagon Spy Putting USA in Grave Danger

08.31.04 (7:38 am) [edit]

All That Glitters Sure As Hell Ain't Gold: DUBYA'S LAST HURRAH!!!

08.31.04 (7:22 am) [edit]

[b]Bush's Last Hurrah[/b]

"They've seen me make decisions, they've seen me under trying times, they've seen me weep, they've seen me laugh, they've seen me hug," President Bush said this week as he headed into his second – and last – convention.

And they've seen him up and they've seen him down. In 2001, following 9/11, he had a job rating in the high eighties; this spring it went as low as 41 percent.

The president has taken a real beating in the press in the past few months. The continuing turmoil in Iraq, the Abu Ghraib prison scandals and job losses in key battleground states have all taken their toll. His job rating on Iraq is bad and his ratings on the economy are abysmal. And yet he goes into his convention even or slightly ahead of John Kerry.

"You know Democrats are pulling out their hair right now," a Democratic media consultant told me this week. "They think its 1988 all over again."

What they are losing hair and a lot of sleep over is that John Kerry's baby bounce from the Democratic convention, which put him anywhere from 2 to 5 points over President Bush, has evaporated. The[b] CBS News/New York Times poll [/b]conducted last week http://www.cbsnews.com/storie... had Kerry's lead shrinking to one point, and three other polls conducted this week have shown the race dead even or the president with a small lead.

Team Bush is breathing a sigh of relief. "No challenger has ever won going into the incumbent's convention behind," Matthew Dowd, senior strategist for the Bush-Cheney campaign told USA Today. He cited winning challengers, Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Bill Clinton in 1992, as evidence. Dowd is crafty enough to have spun a Bush poll deficit, but these new numbers and the perception that Kerry blew his convention by overstating his biography and underplaying his issue agenda makes Dowd's work a lot easier.

The polls also show that President Bush retains his status as a strong leader and the one who is best dealing with terrorism and taxes. But even on compassion, usually a Democratic strength, Bush only trails Kerry 48 percent to 42 percent as the person who cares most about average people.

Another Republican pollster Bill McInturff, however, told MSNBC that Bush is in a "precarious situation" with just a little more than two months to go to the election. "He is really frozen... It's a very difficult haul to get where he is on the ballot and get higher," he said. "We need a little more than a bump up to make this [something other than] a difficult race."

This may be why Matthew Dowd thinks that motivating the Republican base is the key. In an interview with Ron Brownstein from the L.A. Times, Dowd said last week that "motivating Republicans this year is as important or possibly more important than reaching the persuadable voters." His goal is to get the same number of Republicans as Democrats to vote in the general election. In 2000 Democrats outnumbered Republicans 39% to 35%.

To pull this off they have been advertising heavily on cable TV stations featuring fishing, hunting, golf, country music and NASCAR racing. While Kerry has been campaigning almost exclusively in swing areas, President Bush has been going to rock-ribbed Republican areas such as Sioux City, Iowa and the Florida Panhandle, as well as the big media markets in the battleground.

The Kerry campaign is putting on a brave face saying that they are not overly worried about their falloff in the polls or even by a bounce which Bush may get following the GOP convention. Kerry pollster Mark Mellman cites his own historical trend; he says that every incumbent who has been reelected has had a double-digit lead at this point.

Camp Kerry concedes that August did not go well for them and some inside the campaign say that they made a bad mistake not responding sooner and more aggressively to the swift boat ads and letting the Kerry get on the defensive on Iraq.

But Kerry pollster Diane Feldman points out that they were off the air in August, conserving money for the fall campaign and that soft and undecided voters tend to "drift away" when the candidate isn't visible. She believes that the undecideds are "structurally like the Democratic voters" – lower middle-income, anti-Bush and prioritizing health care and the economy. The challenge for Kerry is to break through on those issues. So far, he has not convinced these folks that he can do better on these issues than can Bush.

So President Bush starts his last convention holding his own. He has come back to New York where his advisors believe he had his finest moment as a leader and a healer. They want to portray him as a man "in the arena" who is strong and resolute. A lot of Democrats, especially New Yorkers, are going to do their best to knock down those plans and in 65 days the voters will decide which historical precedent, Dowd's or Mellman's is going to prevail. - http://www.cbsnews.com/storie...

... GOP CONVENTION: From The Heights Of Hypocrisy!!! ...

08.31.04 (7:16 am) [edit]

[b]From the heights of hypocrisy[/b]

Rudolph Giuliani, favoring his old wound from Gallipoli, said yesterday that Bush stands on the very pinnacle, the highest snowy peak, with historic war leaders so familiar to Giuliani that he mentioned them with authority, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt.

That Giuliani and Bush together never heard a shot fired is of no matter. If you can get up and say with confidence, "Churchill," you are universal on the topic of leadership during war.

Giuliani did not mention Osama bin Laden. If you do a thing like this, somebody might ask why he hasn't been caught yet.

And he did not dare go near mentioning the long, grim campaign of Clara Rivera and so many others in the Brooklyn neighborhoods. The enemy is the landlord. His weapon, the eviction notice. And now, the Republican administration's new federal housing laws which send the money from Brooklyn to Texas and Florida.

Yesterday, children, seven of them, came out of the dark rooms in their hot Bushwick apartment and padded into the neat clean kitchen where the mother, Clara Rivera, stood at the stove. The youngest, Manuel Rivera, one year and seven months, hugged her. The husband was still over in New Jersey, where he works as a gardener for $250 a week.

They are an interesting family to study. They could be evicted shortly. Their best move then would be to move into public housing. However, the Republican administration has just changed the funding for housing in New York, sending the money to where the Republicans feel it does the most good for America — Texas and Florida.

Public housing would be hurt so much that there could be no room for the Riveras. The Riveras would be left with no place to go. They are not alone. All over the neighborhoods of Brooklyn once thought of as dangerous and dilapidated, there now is a real estate wildfire.

The landlords in Bushwick have taken these six-family houses, that are rent stablilized, and cut one apartment out, giving them a five-family house that no longer is regulated. They then can slap paint around the halls and double the rent and if the tenants can't pay, then throw them out.

On the Rivera's kitchen wall was a chart for a junior high school study of North Korea. There were headings for religion, food, language. Simultaneously, it was a day when lessons on their own city were conducted from a place they never see, Manhattan. There, on the first night of the great Republican convention, a former mayor, Koch, and the present mayor, Bloomberg, told their city about how George W. Bush swooped into New York right after the World Trade Center attack, or as soon as he could see his way clear, and saved this whole city.

Then Giuliani came on with a worldwide view. He seemed to be painting a vision of Bush crossing the Rhine. He never mentioned housing. Which was sensible. The Republicans seated in the Garden had just found another way to smack the poor around by taking the roofs off them. And it didn't hurt them. They couldn't see the dark rooms of Bushwick, so how could it stab them?

Bushwick could see the Republicans, in their great gaudy meeting hall, but only as faces on a screen. Not one of these faces told them that Republicans have this new rule that is going to throw Bushwick people onto the street.

Among them, and dangerously close right now, is Clara Rivera and her brood.

"How much is the rent?" she was asked.

"Six hundred and forty six."

"A different landlord every year," the mother said in Spanish to John Powis, retired as a Catholic pastor and now spending his days with tenants in peril.

The present landlord has offered them $3,000 if they will move out of the apartment, so he can fix it and charge anything he can get, from $1,200 up.

Where do the Riveras go with their $3,000?

"They'll be in a shelter," John Powis said.

Clara Rivera said she and her husband would be at a meeting on Wednesday night to discuss with others the $3,000 offer. "Don't lose this apartment," Powis told her. "We'll talk about how to do it."

But $3,000 to a woman in a kitchen with seven kids looking at her is a fortune of money and the thought of it robs the ability to see anything past it.

They worry all over the neighborhood. On Harman Street, on Stockholm and on Stanhope, women sat on the stoops in the heat and talked about being chased out of their houses. One house had no lights or heat. They had a thick wire running up the stairs from some source. Rosa Lopez, 27, sat on the stoop and said the owner had abandoned the place seven years ago and now sudddenly somebody wanted to take it over and she said, "Pay nothing to nobody."

Antonio Martinez stood in the doorway and showed the hole in the corner of the entranceway. It went down tol the basement. "It's a little weak," he said of the floor under him.

And last night, with children in Bushwick packed into beds, Giuliani was in Madison Square Garden telling the world about all that his Republicans had done for his city.

They have done quite a lot, they have tens of thousands in fear of losing the roof over their heads. - http://www.newsday.com/news/c...,0,5863791.column?coll=ny-news-colum nists

... GOP CONVENTION: From The Heights Of Hypocrisy!!! ...

08.31.04 (7:13 am) [edit]

Why "Fuck-yourself" Cheney Deserves an "F" in History!!!

08.31.04 (7:10 am) [edit]

[b]Why Dick Cheney Deserves an "F" in History [/b]

[b]By Robert E. May

Mr. May, is a professor of History at Purdue University and a writer for the History News Service[/b].

In a critique of John Kerry's presidential candidacy, Vice President Dick Cheney invoked historical memory to mock Kerry's call for a "more sensitive" war on terrorism. Cheney told a Dayton, Ohio, gathering on Aug. 12 that none of America's victories in war can be attributed to "being sensitive."

To support his point, he summoned some of the heavy guns of America's wartime leadership: Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Generals U.S. Grant, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur.

It turns out that Cheney is dead wrong. It was their very sensitivity in conducting war that made Lincoln, Roosevelt, Grant and Eisenhower great wartime leaders.

Let's start with Lincoln. In the Civil War's early going, the Lincoln administration restrained its armies from all-out war in the hope that conciliatory policies might induce the Confederate states to rejoin the Union, or might at least ensure that the four border slave states still in the Union (Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland and Missouri) would not secede also.

Not only were orders issued for the protection of civilian property in the South, but Lincoln, always "sensitive" to the knowledge that effective war-making means much more than simply engaging the enemy, countermanded emancipation efforts by Union generals, despite his own hatred of slavery. Lincoln overruled Gen. John C. Fremont's declaration freeing the slaves of active enemy supporters in Missouri, a particularly telling move, given Fremont's stature as a former presidential candidate of Lincoln's party. Lincoln shrewdly waited to issue his Emancipation Proclamation until Union armies had substantially secured the four border states.

Cheney could learn much from Lincoln's sensitivity, as he presses today's war on terrorism, especially among Muslim populations who regard the United States with hostility. Not only did Lincoln manage to keep four slave states in the Union, gaining control of invaluable industrial and agricultural resources within their borders, but approximately 300,000 slave-state residents, including many thousands from states in the Confederacy, actually fought for the Union army.

Grant's record also reveals the baseless nature of Cheney's claim. When Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia surrendered to Grant near the end of the war, Grant allowed Lee and his men to return to their homes on parole with their horses and provided the Confederates with rations. Rather than unnecessarily humiliate his Confederate enemies, Grant "sensitively" allowed Lee and his fellow officers to keep their side arms, even though the Civil War was still being waged by Confederate forces in other locales.

In World War II, the United States also fought more sensitively than Cheney suggests, despite the American record of relentless saturation bombing and resort to nuclear weapons, as well as the savage nature of much of the fighting in the Pacific against Japan. President Roosevelt talked about "total victory" in wartime pronouncements and demanded the "unconditional surrender" of Germany, Japan and Italy. Yet to end the fighting with Italy and obtain Italy's collaboration with the Allies, he abandoned his tough policy. Italy surrendered under an elaborate protocol from which the term "unconditional" had been intentionally removed.

Cheney also misrepresents Gen. Eisenhower, one of the most sensitive and successful coalition commanders of all time. Cheney forgets that Ike diverted U.S. and British forces approaching the German capital of Berlin from the west in 1945 to avert the possibility of an accidental collision with allied Soviet forces moving in on Berlin from the east. He also forgets that to accommodate their British allies' strategic interests (as well as for logistical reasons), Eisenhower and other U.S. military leaders deferred from 1942 to 1944 their desired cross-channel invasion against Hitler. Successful coalition warfare requires restraint and compromise -- "sensitivity," in Cheney's terms.

Many other chapters in our military history make the same point that successful commanders wage war by carefully weighing their options. For instance, Gen. Winfield Scott's American army was able to conquer the enemy capital, Mexico City, in 1847, effectually ending the U.S.-Mexican War, because Scott's campaign had been based on tactical finesse and restraint toward enemy civilians. Scott's army frequently bypassed enemy strongholds, thus isolating them, and marched under strict orders to protect civilian property, especially Catholic churches. As a result, Scott's vastly outnumbered forces of fewer than 7,000 effective troops never faced a mass uprising. Unlike U.S.commanders in Iraq today, Scott didn't offend the religious sensibilities of native peoples.

Only Douglas MacArthur merits Cheney's praise as being "insensitive." But did this make him effective? MacArthur almost lost the Korean War by his insensitive decision to cross the 38th parallel into North Korea, despite strong signals from Chinese leaders that they would enter the war on North Korea's side if that happened. Chinese troops nearly drove U.S. forces off the entire Korean Peninsula before the situation stabilized.

It's not surprising that the vice president should sample history for political advantage in a heated campaign. But his remarks suggest that his historical understanding is superficial. If Cheney's views reflect the Bush administration's perspective as a whole, they may go far to explain why the current administration has foundered so noticeably in Iraq, Afghanistan and other venues of its "war on terrorism." - http://hnn.us/articles/6936.h...

Why "Fuck-yourself" Cheney Deserves an "F" in History!!!

08.31.04 (7:09 am) [edit]

Why "Fuck-yourself" Cheney Deserves an "F" in History!!!

08.31.04 (7:06 am) [edit]

Bush Admits He Doesn't Have A Clue How to Win So-Called "War on Terror"!

08.31.04 (6:41 am) [edit]

[b]Bush on Terror War: We Can't Win

George W. Bush was on the Today Show today[/b]. http://www.guardian.co.uk/usl...,1282,-4461314,00.html

During the course of talking about how we mustn't dare end the war on terror... ever, because it'd make us look weak, he was asked "Can we win?".

In a rare moment of candor, Bush admitted no, "I don't think you can win it".

Of course, just because the threat of terror hasn't actually shrunk, and just because the US military is already stretched well past its limits, and just because civil liberties are increasingly a distant memory... and now we're also admitting that we're never actually going to win, that's no good reason to stop.

Waging wars in nations that have nothing to do with terrorism (e.g. Iraq) and pose no threat to us, like Bush/Cheney did is foolhardy, corrupt and dangerously stupid!

Bush Admits He Doesn't Have A Clue How to Win So-Called "War on Terror"!

08.31.04 (6:36 am) [edit]

The Facts Speak for Themselves: American Workers have Taken a Huge Hit Under Bush

08.31.04 (6:32 am) [edit]

[b]Here are the facts, ma'am, from the Bureau of Economic Analysis:[/b] Wages: Under Clinton: (plus 3.3 percent); Under Bush: (minus 0.6 percent): Private Industry Wages: Under Clinton: (plus 3.9 percent); Under Bush: (minus 1.1 percent); Personal Income: Under Clinton: (plus 4.0 percent); Under Bush: (plus 3.5 percent). However, Personal income measures the AVERAGE family, not the typical family.. If just one person gets much richer, the statistic will show that everyone's average income has increased. This is especially problematic under Bush because Census data show that higher quintiles have done better than lower quintiles in recent years. Thus Bush can use the windfalls of the rich to pad the stats for everyone.

[b]Check-it-out [/b] http://releases.usnewswire.co...

The Facts Speak for Themselves: American Workers have Taken a Huge Hit Under Bush

08.31.04 (6:30 am) [edit]

Most Outrageous Fantasy of the Year: Bush is Like Churchill!!! ROFL!!!

08.30.04 (10:43 am) [edit]

Unless the Repugs who made this comparison are referring to Bugsy Churchill, owner of the Shady Deal Used Car Lot, this takes the prize as as the most delusional fantasy of the year! Reports the Scotsman: "George Bush is tackling international terrorists just as Winston Churchill took on Hitler, the Republican National Convention will hear today. The party convention opened in New York City, just a few miles from where the twin towers were destroyed by terrorists on September 11, 2001. Winston Churchill saw the dangers of Hitler when his opponents and much of the press characterised him as a war-mongering gadfly." Yeah, right - the 1930s/40s equivalent of Rupert Murdoch's Post, maybe! This is getting more pathetic by the hour! Because Bush himself is a big fat ZERO, the Repugs either have to tear better men down to make him look better, or make ridiculous comparisons between him and better men. Give it up, GOP! You have picked a turkey and you're stuck with him!

[b]Check-it-out [/b] http://news.scotsman.com/late...

Neo-con Repugs Don't Want Freedom of Speech Except For Themselves!!!