Orange Alert!...Yawn

I would take the orange alert alot more seriously if a few things had, or hadn't, occurred.

Firstly, it would have been nice if Congress had passed a bill requireing the US petro-chem industry to tighten security around the many plants in, or near, major US population centers. A few whispers in well placed ears and a few bucks in well placed pockets killed that bill. Opponents argued that passing the bill and putting it into force would have been to costly. What price human life?

It would have been nice if the Air Traffic Safety Administration hadn't laid off some 6,000 baggage screeners because the couldn't afford to pay them. Odd, the Bush administration found $89 billion lying around to provide a tax=cut for his campaign contributors. At an average of $10.00 an hour, it would cost roughly $120 million a year for 6,000 baggage screeners.

So, the next time Tom Ridge starts braying about the threat level, keep those figures in mind.

“Arrest shows U.S. critics wrongheaded”…

…At least that’s the header for a Dec 15th column by Cal Thomas. He says, “The critics – political and journalistic – who said the administration’s efforts were failing have been proved wrong.” I have to ask, “How so..?”

There have, as of this writing, been no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq. Nor has any credible evidence of the existence of said weapons been found. The threat of weapons of mass destruction was, after all, the primary justification set forth by the Bush administration for the invasion of Iraq. But, just as the sands of Saudi Arabia shift with each little gust of wind, so to do the reasons set forth by the Bush administration for its dirty little war.

The possibility of a trial for Saddam must be giving those who supported his regime, both at home and abroad, chills at the thought of all their dirty linen being aired. But Mr. Thomas contends that “…Embarrassment should not be a reason for any cover-up…” I can’t help but wonder if Mr. Thomas feels the same when those who stand to be embarrassed are named Bush (Poppy), Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz…I could go on, but I’m sure you get the point. Any mention of those names, and others who supported his rise to power, by Saddam will be scrubbed from any publicly released transcripts of his trial.

The entire Middle-East in general, and many Iraqis in particular, seem skeptical of U.S. motivations for invading Iraq. To say that it was just about oil is too simplistic. But it’s a safe bet that if Iraq’s only export had been arts and crafts, we wouldn’t be there now. Other motivating factors are were the need for the U.S. to draw down it’s military presence in Saudi Arabia…all of those troops are now in Iraq. And an attempt to take some of the pressure off of Ariel Sharone’s government by having the new Iraqi government make peace with Israel.

And let’s not forget all of the U.S. companies, who also not coincidentally, were contributors to Bush’s election campaign. Iraqi contractors can’t afford the kind of grease used on those skids. Iraq is being looted at the expense of the average Iraqi and the U.S. taxpayer. So, Mr. Thomas, how are the critics wrong?

The soldiers Bush didn't visit on Thanksgiving

By Joan Vennochi, 12/11/2003

THANKSGIVING in Baghdad was a political success for President Bush, and more. Even if the turkey he hoisted was chosen strictly for its photogenic qualities, the event showed the president connecting in a human way with men and women, far from home, in a place where life is blown apart in a cruel instant. Watching those young faces reminded all Americans, Bush backers or not, that war puts the country's flesh and blood on the line, not just its national pride or presidential politics.

For all that it conveyed, however, the Bush Thanksgiving extravaganza showed only one tiny slice of the daily, ugly reality of war and its aftermath for thousands of US service personnel and those who care for them...

"My `Bush Thanksgiving' was a little different . . . I spent it at the hospital taking care of a young West Point lieutenant wounded in Iraq. He had stabilization of his injuries in Iraq and then two long surgeries here for multiple injuries; he's just now stable enough to send back to the USA. After a few bites of dinner I let him sleep, and then cried with him as he woke up from a nightmare. When he pressed his fists into his eyes and rocked his head back and forth he looked like a little boy. They all do, all 19 on the ward that day, some missing limbs, eyes, or worse...

"It's too bad Mr. Bush didn't add us to his holiday agenda. The men said the same, but you'll never read that in the paper. Mr. President would rather lift fake turkeys for photo ops, it seems. Maybe because my patients wouldn't make very pleasant photos . . . most don't look all that great, and the ones with facial wounds and external fixation devices look downright scary. And a heck of a lot of them can't talk, anyway, and some never will talk again. . . Well, this is probably more than you want to know, but there's no spin on this one. It's pure carnage . . .

Howdy's support for the troops is limited to the high profile photo ops he gets at their expense. And no major US media outlet questioned the flummery and feel-good images from Howdy's visit to Iraq.

Bush laughs off critics of 'spoils of war' bidding

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington

12 December 2003

George Bush poured fuel on the flames of the Iraq contracts dispute yesterday with a sneering dismissal of a suggestion by the German Chancellor that the decision to bar Germany, France Russia and Canada from bidding might violate international law.

"International law? I'd better call my lawyer," the American President joked in response to a reporter's question at the White House.

Gerhard Schröder had spoken earlier after a meeting in Berlin with Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general. Mr Annan called the decision by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defence Secretary, "unfortunate" and likely to damage attempts to rebuild transatlantic ties bruised by disagreement over the war. The EU is examining the legality of the US moves to stop countries that had not participated in the war from bidding for the $18.6bn (£10.7bn) of contracts, on vague "national security" grounds.

Democrats seized on the episode as further evidence of Bush diplomatic blundering. "How do we get a coalition together when we're putting it out on a government website that a country like Canada is a national security risk to the United States?" Marty Meehan, a Democratic member of the House Armed Services Committee, said.

Howdy and Co seem hell-bent on alienating every ally we have ever had, or are likely to have. And he wants his consigliori, James Baker, to sweet talk Europe and Russia into restructuring Iraqs debt? They're just going to tell Baker to "Fuck off.", leaving American tax-payers saddled with both the federal deficit the Adminstration is running up AND Iraqs national debt. In the meantime, Howdy's corporate sponsors are laughing all the way to the bank.

Presidents Remade by War

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Anyone who has listened to President Bush's recent speeches about the need to promote democracy in the Arab-Muslim world can't but walk away both impressed and dubious — impressed because promoting democracy in the Arab world is something no president before has advocated with Mr. Bush's vigor, and dubious because this sort of nation-building is precisely what Mr. Bush spurned throughout his campaign. Where did Mr. Bush's passion for making the Arab world safe for democracy come from?

Though the president mentioned this theme before the war, it was not something he stressed with the public, Congress or the U.N. in justifying an Iraq invasion. Rather, he relied primarily on the urgent need to pre-emptively strip Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.

A cynic might say that Mr. Bush was always interested only in stripping Iraq of its W.M.D. But with no W.M.D. having been unearthed thus far in Iraq, and with the costs of the war in lives and dollars soaring, the president felt he needed a new rationale. And so he focused on the democratization argument.

But there is another explanation, one that is not incompatible with the first but is less overtly cynical. It is a story about war and events and how they can transform a president.

"It often happens," argues Michael Sandel, the Harvard political theorist, "that presidents, under the pressure of events, especially during war, find themselves needing to articulate new and more persuasive rationales for their policies — especially when great sacrifices are involved.

The only sacrifices currently being made in Iraq and, lest we forget, Afghanistan, are the lives of US troops and innocent civilians. Here in the States, we get testy if we have to pay more than $1.75 for a gallon of gas. And the Adminstration urges us to go shopping in support of the war on terrorism...so much for biting the bullet in support of the war effort.

In securing the Homeland, some 6,000 airport baggages screeners were cut from the federal payroll to save money, yet $87 billion could be found to pay for the tax-cuts to Howdy's campaign contributors. Chemical factories, ready made WMD's near and in major US metropolitan areas continue to go unprotected, and legislation to force them to bring their security measures up to the threat has been killed in Congress...at the behest of the petro-chem industry.

Sorry, I got off track there...Bush's shift to justifying the war on Iraq as part of spreading democracy rings hollow in the face of all that has gone before it. It has the sound of the death row conversion of a convicted mass murderer...or a whore preaching about the virtues of chastity in Sunday school.

Bush's man-of-action persona plays well in political arena

James McWilliams
TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY

Monday, November 24, 2003

Call the man dim, call him corrupt, but call him president until 2008. George W. Bush certainly has vulnerabilities, but he's been smart enough to model himself on a man who pioneered the fine art of political image-making: Andrew Jackson. Democrats, as a result, are doomed...
...Bush embroiled the country in a war based on a series of false assumptions. His genius has been to recognize that, politically, it doesn't matter. Saddam Hussein has been ousted and if anyone is still nagging us about those pesky weapons of mass destruction, it's just sour grapes...
...The nation has no patience for long-winded justifications. In fact, it is suspicious of them. Until someone figures out that the house of cards the administration has built must be crumbled by a yeoman with a sledgehammer and not a smarty-pants with a book, King George's manifest destiny will be to reign as the favored son of King Andrew.

As to why people fall for the cheap populist swill Howdy et al offers up, THEY'RE STUUUUPID! Years of inadequate funding, concerted attacks by social conservatives and half-assed educational theories have stripped our public education system of the ability to teach people to reason to a valid conclusion. Anymore, folks don't want to think, they simply want to react...they can't see beyond the immediate moment to the long term consequences of their actions. And a reactionary government, like Howdy's, thrives on that attitude. "Don't worry, go shopping...!" was the Administration's advice to Americans after the fall of the World Trade Center. And people didn't question it. No sacrifices have been asked of the American people(unless you count those screwed by various Administration domestic policies) in the war on terrorism...Good heavens no, we can't have the voters at all uncomfortable especially with elections coming up. We have to have cheap gas available for all those Hummers out there on the road.

Same Gender Marriage...What's the big deal?

Why do y'all get such a lather up about gays and lesbians having their relations recognized? My wife and I are happily married, and we know a number of gay and lesbian couples who are in happy, loving relationships...have been for years, and nothing would make us happier than to see them be able to tie the knot.

I mean folks are all up in arms about "...Defending family values..." and that's what marriage for same-gender couples would be. It would allow them to establish their families and have them legally recognized and entitled to all the rights any other married couple is entitled to. And as for this tired crap about "...Securing future generations...", well hell, women can use artificial insemination, and men can adopt. There are plenty of kids out there that go unadopted by you good christian folk. But I guess you're just afraid their parents(biological or adoptive) will turn 'em queer. Sorry to burst your bubble folks, but there's not one jot of evidence to suggest that happens.

So, my suggestion to all you good and righteous (as in smugly self-righteous) folks just need to get off yer high horse and deal with the simple fact that everybody in this nation is entitled to "...Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...". And if their pursuit of happiness leads them to fall in love with someone of the same gender, then SO...BE..IT. It's none of your damn business anyways.

Governing council put in frame as US makes no bones about how situation is unravelling

Rory McCarthy
Thursday November 13, 2003
The Guardian

The unscheduled summit in Washington over the future of Iraq reflected intense White House unease about the way the situation is unravelling in the country.

Paul Bremer, who was flying back to Baghdad last night, has been leading a Coalition Provisional Authority that has become frustrated with the work of the Iraqi Governing Council.

In private, American and British officials in the CPA can barely disguise their disappointment at a body which has been criticised for tardiness and inefficiency.

The council, now 24 people, was intended to be an advisory group, but under pressure from Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN special representative killed in a bombing in August, it was handed more responsibility. US officials hoped its members would quickly chose a leader, then appoint ministers. But it took several weeks even to decide who should be president and in the end settled on a compromise: nine of them would lead the council in a rotating presidency.

Weeks later, ministers were named, but the council has yet to make a decision on its most important task: the creation of a committee to draft Iraq's new constitution - the Americans had hoped the drafting would begin as early as last August. Last month a committee reported to the council on forming a group to write the constitution. Yet no decision has been taken on its proposals.

Officials complain that several council members are routinely absent from the three days of meetings each week, often leaving only four or five of the original members at the table.

For their part, the Iraqis on the council are aware that as American appointees they lack the legitimacy of an elected body. They say they lack authority and that key decisions are taken without reference to the council.

The disarray of the Iraqi Governing Council merely reflects the disarray of the Bush Administration and the Coalition Provisional Authority regarding policy in Iraq. Howdy et al went into Iraq with absolutely no frim plan for a port war Iraq. They went in on the assumption that America would be welcomed as a savior, an assumption fostered by Paul Wolfowitz, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and our beloved President himself. This assumption was based on information from Iraqi National Congress and thoroughly spun through the "Office of Special Projects" (Rummy's ideologically bent intel office).

The Administration has no one to blame for the quagmire in Iraq but themselves. But following the pattern they have throughout their political careers, they seek to blame others for their failings.

US wants ban on protests during Bush visit

By Kim Sengupta, 12 November 2003

Anti-war protesters claim that US authorities have demanded a rolling "exclusion zone" around President George Bush during his visit, as well as a ban on marches in parts of central London.

The Stop The War Coalition said yesterday that it had been told by the police that it would not be allowed to demonstrate in Parliament Square and Whitehall next Thursday - a ban it said it was determined to resist. The coalition says that it has also been told by British officials that American officials want a distance kept between Mr Bush and protesters, for security reasons and to prevent their appearance in the same television shots.

The Metropolitan Police banned the Parliament Square and Whitehall route by the use of Sessional Orders - which can be enforced for such a purpose when Parliament is in session.

MPs supporting the protests say demonstrations have been allowed while Parliament was sitting, and, in any case, it was unlikely it will be doing so on the day of the proposed march.

The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said yesterday that Mr Bush should not be shielded from public anger about the Iraq war, and Londoners should not have to pick up the £4m policing bill. He said: "To create a situation in which perhaps 60,000 people remain unseen would require a shutdown of central London which is just not acceptable."

It seems that London is about to deliver a big, fat "Fuck You!" to Howdy. But in a move reminiscent of Joesph Stalin, Howdy wants public demonstrations banned during his visit. Wouldn't be good press you know, him being the self-annointed Champion of Democracy that he is. Yep, all them furinners screaming "Yankee go home!", and burning his effigies in public just wouldn't do his image any good...if they actually made on the air in the US that is.

Trials and Error

By Philip Allen Lacovara

Wednesday, November 12, 2003; Page A23

Two years ago this week, President Bush authorized trials by military commission for people accused of membership in al Qaeda or attacks on the United States. Six men have been identified thus far to appear before these commissions.

Shortly before the president issued his executive order, and just weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, I raised my voice in strong support of military commissions. As deputy solicitor general in the Nixon administration, I had been in charge of the government's criminal and internal security cases before the Supreme Court. I understood how the Bush administration could invoke the laws of war sanctioned by the Supreme Court to deal with international terrorists -- as distinct from "mere felons" (including mass murderers) and legitimate combatants entitled to protection under the 1949 Geneva Convention as prisoners of war. I urged the administration to do so.

When I proposed using military commissions to try terrorists, I conceived of trials with fair and reliable procedures designed to ascertain guilt -- or, equally important, innocence. I knew there would be critics of this approach but was confident that both legal and policy factors justified such trials.

Now, two years later, I reluctantly conclude that the administration's approach to military commissions confirms many of the critics' worst fears.

The rules governing military commissions depart substantially from standards of fair procedure. Most problematic, they undermine the basic right to effective counsel by imposing significant legal constraints on civilian defense attorneys. The rules negate normal attorney-client confidentiality and authorize the withholding of key evidence from defendants and their civilian counsel. In addition, the military commission rules permit the Defense Department to restrict defense lawyers' ability to speak publicly about a case -- while Pentagon officials face no such constraint.

It appears that George "Staunch Defender of Democracy" W. Bush has no compunction about abrogating the rights of others, especially when it is convenient for him. Consider the cases of Yasser Hamdi and Jose Padilla. These two men are US citizens, yet they have had all rights to due process negated at the whim of the President. They have been declared enemy combatants and stripped of ALL of their constitutionally guaranteed rights. They are being held incommunicado. They have no access to nor, apparently, any right to counsel. They cannot confront their accusers. They cannot see the evidence against them.

Their cases are the first on a slippery slope which endagers all of us, and renders null and void the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as set forth in the Constitution. Their case if not challenged and overturned will pave the path to unbridled presidential power and firmly set the foundations for an American police state.

The Bush administration poses a greater threat to peace and freedom in this country than any terrorist threat ever could. Bush et al prey upon the fears of America and turn those fears to their own use, namely the consolidation of their power. It is time to remove this administration from office. It matteres not whether it is by impeachment or election, but the sooner the better.

Countering the Radical GOP

By E.J. Dionne Jr.

Tuesday, November 11, 2003; Page A25

Our foreign policy debate right now pits radicals against conservatives. Republicans are the radicals. Democrats are the conservatives.

That jarring but shrewd perspective, offered by Anthony Lake, President Clinton's former national security adviser, explains much that is strange in our national discussion. And while Lake is critical of President Bush's policies, he does not use the word "radical" to make a partisan point. He is also critical of his own party's newly discovered conservatism.

In Bush's speech last Thursday on the need to promote democracy, particularly in the Arab world, the president embraced much of what liberal human rights advocates have been saying for years. Lake himself, when he worked for Clinton, proposed the idea of "democratic enlargement" as the underlying principle of American foreign policy.

Bush explicitly rebuked a narrowly realist worldview. "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe," Bush said, "because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty." The United States, said Bush, must promote democratic change even in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, nations ruled by America's longtime friends.

..."because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty."

A significant point missed by Mr. Dionne is that Howdy isn't practicing what he preaches at home. There are changes being made to the electoral system, across this nation, that would not be tolerated in an internationally monitored election in a third world country. Perhaps we should have international monitors at our polling places in 2004. At the rate things are going, we're gonna need 'em. And let's not forget that horribly mis-named "PATRIOT" Act and the Administrations attempts to strenghten many of its provisions. No, listening to Howdy preach about the vitues of democracy is like listening to a whore preach about the virtue of chastity in Sunday school.

George W. Bush...Our Commander-in-Chief?

As a veteran, it truly burns my ass to hear Howdy talk about the sacrifices our soldiers are making in his dirty little war. It disgusts me to think of him placing a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Listening to him talk about fighting for freedom and democracy around the world makes my gorge rise.

Yes, George W. Bush, aka "shrub", aka "Howdy-Doody", scored just above not-being-able-to-walk-and-chew-gum-at-the-same-time, and leapfrogs over hundreds of other far more qualified applicants to a sinecure in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam war. Just goes to show that money talks and shit walks. That wouldn't have been so bad, but the arrogant little peckerwood didn't even finish his term in the Guard. After being grounded for failing to take a flight physical, he goes AWOL for the last two years of his term in the ANG. The $10,000 reward for anyone who can verify that he showed up at ANY drills during that time frame still goes unclaimed.

Yes, this snivelling little craven is our Commander-in-Chief or, more appropriately, our Commander-in-Thief.

Sorry...I got a little carried away there.

The Incredible Lying BushCo

This just in: More irrefutable proof that Dubya's is the slimiest administration in 100 years
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, October 31, 2003


Like you even needed more proof.

Like you even need to read about the incredible and ever-increasing list of lies and misinfo and deeply, colon-clenchingly humiliating wrongness shot forth from the mouth of the GOP machine, a truly jaw-dropping assortment of falsehoods and fabrications about war, and war, and war. Oh, and the economy. And the environment. And war.

Look. There is no doubt left. Zero. None. Even many high-ranking Republicans are deeply worried over the increasingly embittered national timbre regarding BushCo's lies, as reflected in his ever-slipping ratings and declining reelectability quotient and his smug little smirky emptiness.

Do you need to be reminded? Do you need to see it again?

Very good, then. Let us recap: No WMDs. Biggest joke on the American public in the past 50 years. Saddam doesn't have 'em, and probably never did. Over 1,400 of BushCo's own investigators and specialists and scientists -- affectionately known as the Iraq Survey Group -- canvassing postwar Iraq for six months, not to mention the teams of original U.N. investigators, and finding not a trace of anything resembling huge stockpiles of massive scary weaponry.

Which is to say, no nukes. No biotoxins. No big cannons full of scary Korans and rusty bullets and old gum. Nothing at all resembling what Condi Rice and Cheney and Rummy and Wolfowitz, et al., said were absolutely positively no question going to be found any day now because after all that's why we went to war. Except that it wasn't. And they knew it.

Foul, putrescent, gut-wrenchingly malodorous lies. Howdy's political fortunes are built on lies, from the day he entered Texas politics to the present. And "We, the People..." swallow this hellbroth without batting an eye. Why? Are "We the people..." so self-absorbed and dissolute that we can't be bothered? Or is it simply easier to abdicate resposiblity and let the fuckers have their way? Or are we just so intellectually lazy and morally bankrupt that our indifference to the situation is overwhelming?

Iraq vets join ranks of have-nots under Bush administration

BY JESSE JACKSON
October 28, 2003

Former POW Shoshana Johnson has finally returned home, still suffering from injuries she received in the military. But now her postwar wounds are exceeding her war wounds.

First, she had to fight simply to get an assessment of her injuries so she could get medical care and disability payments. She had been shot in both ankles, beaten and imprisoned for 22 days, and her military career was cut short. For all this, she has received $600 a month disability compensation, far beneath her needs or what she deserves.

But Johnson isn't an exception. America's soldiers and veterans seem to be at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to Iraq.

Dick Cheney's former company Halliburton is earning hundreds of millions charging U.S. taxpayers 85 percent more than Iraqi companies to import oil into Iraq. This tidy profit is on top of what Halliburton will earn for the multimillion dollar, no-bid contract it was awarded to rebuild Iraq's oil fields.

Even as taxpayer money is sluicing to Halliburton, the U.S. military refused to spend the money needed to supply soldiers on the front lines in Iraq with the modern body armor. Assigned to an occupation for which they are neither trained nor equipped, thousands of soldiers were sent out with outdated Vietnam-era vests. Desperate mothers and fathers have been buying their sons and daughters the modern vests -- even as the Pentagon dawdles.

So much for Howdy's "support" for our troops. The Administration seems more focused on lining the pockets of Haliburton, and other war profiteers.

Howdy is Doing to America What He Did to Texas

Just a little comparison as to what Howdy did for Texas and is now doing to the country as a whole.

Texas	America
Pushed tax-cut for the wealthy through Texas legislature. By 2000 the Texas state Budget was a smoking crater in the ground.	Pushed tax-cut for the wealthy through Congress. Unable to discern total damage as the mushroom cloud is still rising.
Gutted Texas environmental regulations making Texas the most heavily polluted state in the country.	Is in the process of gutting the EPA and appointing industry insiders to key posts in the agency. Raccoons guarding the henhouse.
Gutted Texas worker protection laws making it impossible for workers to seek legal redress for injuries sustained on the job.	Is in the process of gutting OSHA, once again placing industry insiders to key posts…More damn raccoons.
Cut funding to social safety-net programs at all levels, thus making Texas one of the most unfriendly states for the poor…Just like Alabama but with decent roads	Is cutting funding to social safety-net programs at all levels…Just like Alabama

As you can see, Howdy is doing to the country just what he did to Texas. So, everybody…Bend over ‘cause here it comes again.

"Hans Blix, the UN chief weapons inspector, lashed out last night at the "bastards" who have tried to undermine him throughout the three years he has held his high-profile post.

In an extraordinary departure from the diplomatic language with which he has come to be associated, Mr Blix assailed his critics in both Washington and Iraq.

Speaking exclusively to the Guardian from his 31st floor office at the UN in New York, Mr Blix said: "I have my detractors in Washington. There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things in the media. Not that I cared very much.

"It was like a mosquito bite in the evening that is there in the morning, an irritant."

In a wide-ranging interview Mr Blix, who retires in three weeks' time, accused:

·The Bush administration of leaning on his inspectors to produce more damning language in their reports;

·"Some elements" of the Pentagon of being behind a smear campaign against him; and

·Washington of regarding the UN as an "alien power" which they hoped would sink into the East river.

...Instead of seeing the UN as a collective body of decision-making states, Washington now viewed it as an "alien power, even if it does hold considerable influence within it.

...That was especially worrying given President Bush's openly proclaimed belief in the doctrine of pre-emptive strikes. "It would be more desirable and more reasonable to ask for security council authority, especially at a time when communism no longer exists and you don't have automatic vetoes from Russia and China," he said.

Similarly it would be much more "credible" if a team of international inspectors were sent into Iraq instead of the 1,300-strong US-appointed group now conducting the search for weapons of mass destruction, he said." - Helena Smith in New York, Wednesday June 11, 2003, The Guardian

Well, Howdy and his merry band have no credibility as it is so what do they care about international inspections? The arrogance of this administration is boundless and its belicosity is the product of political machinations than of any real threat to this nation. It's impeachment time, boys and girls.

The Bush "War on Terrorism"

The Bush administrations' so called "war on terror" is misguided, one dimensional. It's more a case of shutting the barn door after the horses have fled or, more apt I think, a physician treating only the symptoms of a fatal disease without treating the disease itself.

Rather than just hunting down terrorists, and killing them, the very roots of terrorism...ignorance, poverty, oppression...must be ripped up. But Bush and his merry band seem more intent on spreading these ills than on curing them.

Call, write, fax, or e-mail your congressional representatives...Let them know that the administration is wrong, and either needs to change course or be impeached.

May 16, 2003

Paths of Glory

By PAUL KRUGMAN

The central dogma of American politics right now is that George W. Bush, whatever his other failings, has been an effective leader in the fight against terrorism. But the more you know about the state of the world, the less you believe that dogma. The Iraq war, in particular, did nothing to make America safer — in fact, it did the terrorists a favor.

How is the war on terror going? You know about the Riyadh bombings. But something else happened this week: The International Institute for Strategic Studies, a respected British think tank with no discernible anti-Bush animus, declared that Al Qaeda is "more insidious and just as dangerous" as it was before Sept. 11. So much for claims that we had terrorists on the run.

Still, isn't the Bush administration doing its best to fight terrorism? No.

The administration's antiterror campaign makes me think of the way television studios really look. The fancy set usually sits in the middle of a shabby room, full of cardboard and duct tape. Networks take great care with what viewers see on their TV screens; they spend as little as possible on anything off camera.

And so it has been with the campaign against terrorism. Mr. Bush strikes heroic poses on TV, but his administration neglects anything that isn't photogenic. - The New York Times

Bush isn't really interested in fighting any "war on terror", after all, they (the terrorists) give the administration the leverage it needs to keep its opposition cowed with the whips of "patriotism" and "national security". These are, however, nothing more than smokescreens to hide the administration's efforts to undercut the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

"The United States will find the killers, and they will learn the meaning of American justice."

- George W. Bush -

Now where have we heard that before? If I recall correctly, it was after 9/11. And while we smashed the Taliban and Al Quaeda cells in Afghanistan, all the air has since gone out of the sails of the "war on terrorism". We now see the Taliban and Al Quaeda retrenching in southern Afghanistan, and Hamid Karzai has been demoted from President of Afghanistan to Mayor of Kabul.

Operation Iraqi Liberation: O.I.L.

As if the war wasn't bad enough...now the World Bank and the IMF are about to get their shithooks into Iraq. Instituted after WW II, these organizations were originally intended to help rebuild the economies of the nations devastated by that war.

Over the intervening years, however, they have morphed into huge siphons that drain the wealth of those nations they are involved with into the accounts of foreign (read American and European multinational) corporations. In their wake, they leave wages depressed, unions busted and everything that can be privatized is left in the hands of radical free-marketeers whose only interest is in profits.

We need look no further than Chile, Bolivia , Brazil, Argentina, and let's not forget the economies of African nations, too numerous to mention, left as smoldering craters in the ground, for proof of their malificence.

This is what is coming to Iraq...decades of further grinding poverty in the hands of so called free market reforms, the privatization of power and water infrastructures leading to further disease and death, the oil wealth drained into the coffers of European and US oil companies. The aftermath of this will be an increasingly radicalized Islamic movement spreading terror and death across the globe.

So much for "Operation Iraqi Freedom".

Deja Vu

Deja vu, indeed. The wholly fabricated Tonkin Gulf incident was used to justify US intervention in Viet Nam. It was, however, so well done that the truth of it didn't come out until the parties involved were mostly dead or drooling in their pablum.

Bush's "Tonkin II", however, was ham-handed and amateurish. It didn't long survive scrutiny in the light of day. Yet here we are...now...fighting an illegitimate, illegal war of aggression in Iraq. Nobody questioned the administration's evidence, mostly because they never released it. We have gone to war on nothing more than the say-so of a dry-drunk with a massive Oedipal complex; backed by a coterie of power and money hungry monsters who would peddle their own mother's ass on the streets if they thought they could turn a buck and kill her if she if she couldn't turn a profit.

It's impeachment time.

The Myth of "Compassionate Conservatism"

With our attention riveted on the death and destruction in Iraq, and the continued threat to Americans in the war zone, the other very serious problems facing the U.S. get short shrift. We knew last fall that the proportion of Americans living in poverty had risen, and that income for middle-class households had fallen.

We know that unemployment, especially long-term unemployment, is a big problem. And we've known that the states are facing their worst budget crisis since the Great Depression, a development that has led, among other things, to drastic cuts in education aid that are crushing the budgets of local public school districts.

These issues aren't even being properly discussed. The Bush administration sounds the alarm for war and blows the trumpet for tax cuts, and Congress plunges ahead with the cuts in domestic programs that must inevitably follow. The voices of those who object are effectively silenced by the war propaganda and the fear of seeming unpatriotic.

With attention thus deflected, the administration and its allies in Congress have come up with one proposal after another to weaken programs that were designed to help struggling Americans.- Bob Herbert, The New York Times, 03/27/2003

For the full text, goto:

Casualties at Home

As America's public education, its healthcare system, its social safety -nets collapse, Bush wages bloody war abroad. He cries for tax-cuts at home, he seeks to undermine the very foundations of this democracy, all while the nation is distracted by the events unfolding in Iraq.

These policies have nothing to do with compassion, but rather with a naked lust for unbridled power and unlimited wealth, bought with the blood and suffering of countless innocents. Bush claims the Prince of Peace as his role model, yet his actions seem to be guided more by the Prince of Darkness. His actions brand him a hypocrite of the worst sort, one who wears the mantle of piety to hide the rotten core of his soul.

Compassionate Conservatism = Bullshit

This enormous tax cut will provide a break of $256 a year to the average working family. Almost half of all taxpayers will get less than $100. But someone making a million dollars a year will cut a cut of $92,000. This is iniquitous. It is wicked. It is damnably unfair.

This budget does three stupid and mean things simultaneously: It cuts taxes for the richest Americans during a national crisis, cuts domestic spending that people's lives depend on, and completely ignores the cost of both war and reconstruction. Under this budget, almost all discretionary domestic programs, as well as Medicare and Medicaid, are subject to cuts or restraints. - Molly Ivins, 3/25/2003

Bush is, apparently, under the impression that Americans can be bribed to support his wrong-headed, misguided policies for chump-change. Looking at current poll numbers, one can assume that many Americans are stupid enough to fall for it.

Wake up America! The country is being systematically looted for the benefit of a few oligarch wannabes. It's being done on the backs of you, and me, and countless others across the world. Imperial America is being built on the suffering of those who will be left behind by the administration's policies. Our children, grand children and their children's children will be paying for this debacle for generations, and America may never recover.

Whose Side is God On?

Saddam claims God is on his side, Bush claims God is on his...which is it? Both Islam and Christianity claim to follow the God of Abraham. It seems more likely that God isn't on Bush's side, as the Pope, and the leaders of most of the other of the world's great religious orders, have denounced Bush's dirty little war. The glaring exception is the Southern Baptist Convention. Their take on Christian virtue is a rabid xenophobia and complete intolerance of any view not in lockstep with their own. Sounds kinda like Bush.

The upshot here is, that both Bush and Saddam use religion as a tool of political convenience. Neither has any true understanding of the ideals of their espoused religions. Both are hypocites. If there actually is a God, and a just one at that, Bush and Saddam will spend eternity roasting in hell's deepest pit...tied face to face.

Shocking, but True

The truly horrifying thing about the Bush administration lies not in its blatant and unremitting corruption, but rather, in the America’s docile, sheeplike acceptance of it.

For example, when the General Accounting Office was planning to sue Yice President Dick Cheney for release of notes which would reveal those who met with the veep to formulate the Bush Energy Bill, Bush threatened to slash GAO funding, and the suit was dropped. There are plans afoot, supported by the Bush administration, to contract the production of computer voting machines, with easily manipulable code, to 3 companies. This may have been done in Georgia in 2002 resulting in wins for that states Republican governor and US Senator. Such tampering may have also resulted in Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel’s re-election. He owns a voting machine company there. Chairman of the FCC, Michael Powell ( son of Colin) is pushing the Administration’s policy of scrapping regulations keeping nearly all mass media from being monopolized by a few mega-corporations.

These are just a few example of what I am talking about. I haven’t even discussed Dick Cheney’s role as Haliburton CEO in revitalizing Iraqi oil-fields after Gulf War I. Or What about Donald Rumsfeld”s cozey little chats with Saddam Hussein in the !980’s? There’s so much more, but I’ll get to it in the days to come.

"...there are those who believe that continuing the inspection process is a kind of delaying tactic to prevent or avert military intervention. That naturally raises a question of how much time is allowed Iraq. And this brings us to the heart of the matter. What is at stake is our credibility and our sense of responsibility. . . .

France, for its part, would propose another meeting on 14 March at the ministerial level to assess the situation. We would then be able to judge the progress made and what remains to be done.

Given this context, the use of force is not justified at this time. . . .

Ten days ago, the U.S. secretary of state . . . reported alleged links between Al Qaeda and the Baghdad regime. Given the present state of our research and intelligence in liaison with our allies, nothing allows us to establish such links. But we must assess the impact that disputed military action would have on this level. Would such intervention today not be liable to exacerbate divisions between societies, cultures, peoples; divisions that nurture terrorism? . . ." Dominique de Villepin, French Foreign Minister

The Bush administration continues to push for action sooner, rather than later, as he has encamped a massive force around Iraq. Unless some action is taken, soon, seasonal conditions will make it impossible for US forces to operate in the heavy, and marginally effective, NBC gear they will be using. Also, it costs a lot of money to keep those forces forward deployed. Unfortunately, Bush's tax-cuts for his wealthy friends will drain US coffers to the point that he can no longer afford to maintain those troops abroad. And lets not forget his sliding poll numbers. The longer this saga continues, the more Americans will come to realize that the whole issue has nothing to do with any imminent threat to the US.

So, of course Bush is going to push for war within the next month. It is also quite likely that he, fool that he is, pursue his dirty little war unilaterally. That will result in a bitter harvest indeed for all of America and the world.

This is what the Bush administration's "war on terrorism" is about:

" ¶Invalidate state legal consent decrees that seek to curb police spying. The authors argued such orders could hinder terrorism investigations.

¶Eliminate the requirement that the attorney general personally has to authorize using certain intelligence evidence in a criminal case, permitting him to designate an assistant attorney general to make such authorizations.

¶Allow the collection of DNA samples by "such means as are reasonably necessary" from suspected terrorists being held by federal authorities. Failing to cooperate would be a crime.

¶Flatly bar Freedom of Information Act efforts to gain information about detainees, because litigation over such issues costs the Justice Department resources.

¶Allow citizenship to be stripped from people who support groups that the United States considers terrorist organizations." - Adam Clymer, The New York Time, 02/08/2003

It's not about protecting American's from any terrorist threat, it's about establishing an American police state. It's about protecting the power and position of America's oligarchs and dictator wannabes.

For the full text, goto:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/08/politics/08BILL.html?pagewanted=print&position=top

That such measures are even being discussed by Bush's Justice Department show the administration's true colors. Bush, after all, once said "This would be alot easier if this was a dictatorship, and I was the dictator." He's well on his way to making that nightmare a reality.

"The latest battle strategy would, as its title insists, "Shock and Awe" Iraq by dropping as many as 800 "smart" cruise missiles on that country in two days—more than twice the number of missiles launched during the entire 40 days of the 1991 Gulf War. Late last month, the architect of Shock and Awe, military strategist Harlan Ullman, gloated to the press about the effect being "rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima." Such an attack would "take the city down," he said, wiping out the water and power supplies in Baghdad. "In two, three, four, five days, they are physically, emotionally, and psychologically exhausted."

In other words, a lot of human beings—children, women, old people, students, and yes, soldiers—are dead, and the infrastructure that supports those left breathing—sanitation, water, food delivery, and all the rest—lies in a shambles. As for the American troops wreaking the devastation, they go untouched in this antiseptic scenario: The blitz is meant to leave the Iraqis so stunned and dispirited that they abandon support for Saddam Hussein instead of shooting back or following orders to unleash biological or chemical weapons.

In what one defense official has called a "dangerous role reversal," it is the Pentagon that has been urging a civilian administration, none of whose vociferous warmongers have ever gone to battle themselves, to slow down. Though top Pentagon officials have been careful not to openly oppose the war—in this administration, after all, disagreement is tantamount to treason—some of the contingency plans they've come up with suggest grave doubts about the president's storyboard. According to a Denver Post report on January 24, the Pentagon has been considering an option to bulldoze the bodies of U.S. soldiers killed by chemical or biological weapons into mass graves and then burn them to save the lives of surviving troops. In November, the General Accounting Office expressed "continuing concerns" about the Defense Department's ability to defend against such weapons even as Pentagon officials revealed that soldiers' protective suits and gas masks were inadequate and often defective. Even Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded U.S. forces in the 1991 Gulf War, expressed skepticism in a Washington Post interview that an invasion of Iraq would be quick and easy. " - Alisa Solomon, The Village Voice, 02/05/2005

This "Shock and Awe" strategy and its deliberate, cold, calculation of its potential to inflict civilian casualties, is nothing short of criminal. That it is being considered at all, only bolsters the validity of Ramsey Clark's Articles of Impeachment against President Bush and those named members of his administration.

It is time, America...write, call, e-mail, contact your congressional representatives. It is time to impeach President Bush, and prevent his dragging the whole world into war and ruin.

Articles of Impeachment

of

President George W. Bush

Vice President Richard B. Cheney

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld

and

Attorney General John David Ashcroft


The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors. --Article II, Section 4 of The Constitution of the United States of America

Acts which require the impeachment of President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld; and Attorney General John David Ashcroft include:

1) Ordering and directing a proclaimed "pre-emptive", or "first strike" war of aggression against Afghanistan causing thousands of deaths indiscriminately, a major proportion non combatants, leaving millions homeless and hungry and installing a government of their choice in Kabul.

2) Authorizing daily intrusions into the airspace of Iraq by U.S. military aircraft in violation of the sovereignty of Iraq and aerial attacks on facilities and persons, on the soil of Iraq, killing hundreds of people indiscriminately, initially falsely claiming self defense though over a period of eleven years not a single U.S. aircraft has been struck or damaged by gunfire from Iraq, but later admitting the targeting of defense installations in Iraq, as war preparations they ordered progressed.

3) Authorizing, ordering and condoning direct attacks on civilians, civilians facilities and locations where civilian casualties are unavoidable.

4) Threatening Iraq with proclaimed "pre-emptive", or "first strike" attack and a war of aggression by overwhelming force and military superiority including specific threats to use nuclear weapons while engaged in a massive military build-up in nations and waters surrounding Iraq.

5) Threatening the independence and sovereignty of Iraq by belligerently proclaiming an intention to change its government by force while preparing to assault Iraq in a war of aggression.

6) Authorizing, ordering and condoning assassinations, summary executions, kidnappings, secret and other illegal detentions of individuals, torture and physical and psychological coercion of prisoners to obtain false statements concerning acts and intentions of governments and individuals and violating within the United States, and by authorizing U.S. forces and agents elsewhere, the rights of individuals under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

7) Authorizing, directing and condoning bribery and coercion of governments and individuals to cause them to act in violation of their duty and the law, including to maintain and tighten enforcement of economic sanctions against Iraq which continue to increase the death rate of infants, children and elderly persons; to attack and kill designated groups, or persons; to permit use of land, facilities, territorial waters, or air space for U.S. attacks on Iraq; to vote, abstain in a vote, or publicly proclaim support for a U.S. or U.N. attack on Iraq; to defect from Iraq, or to falsely accuse it of weapons concealment to break down opposition to a U.S. war of aggression; and to reject ratification of the Treaty creating an International Criminal Court, or reject its jurisdiction over the United States.

8) Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda about the conduct of foreign governments and individuals and acts by U.S. government personnel; manipulating the media and foreign governments with false information; concealing information vital to public discussion and informed judgment concerning acts, intentions and possession, or efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction in order to falsely create a climate of fear and destroy opposition to U.S. wars of aggression and first strike attacks by the U.S.

9) Violations and subversions of the Constitution of the United States of America in an attempt to commit with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes in "pre emptive" wars, first strike attacks and threats of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and other nations by assuming powers of an imperial executive who is not accountable to law and usurping powers of the Congress, the Judiciary and the people of the United States to prevent interferences with the unlawful executive exercise of military power and economic coercion against the international community.

10) Violations and subversions of the Charter of the United Nations and international law in an attempt to commit with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes in wars and threats of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and others and usurping powers of the United Nations and the peoples of its nations by bribery, coercion and other corrupt acts and by rejecting, violations and frustrating compliance with treaties in order to destroy any means by which international law and institutions can prevent, affect, or adjudicate the exercise of U.S. military and economic power against the international community.

Ramsey Clark
Former Attorney General of the United States of America
January 15, 2003

It is long past time for the Bush administration to answer for its crimes. Goto:

http://www.votetoimpeach.org/

to make your voice heard in Congress.

The greatest threat to America today, lies not in Iraq, but in Washington. It takes the form of a Republican controlled Congress, and a president locked into some perverted messianic vision.

We need look no further than The Project for the New American Century and it's report entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century" to find the template for the Bush administration's foreign policy. Part of that strategy involves securing a reliable flow of oil from the Middle-East, which is exactly the aim of any war against Iraq, despite the administrations claims to the contrary.

President Bush has seriously compromised world stability with his "First-Strike" doctrine, which can only encourage other of the worlds governments to adopt the same policy, and carry it out. This policy flies in the face of over two centuries of US policy, and the Monroe Doctrine.

At home, with the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, the Homeland Defense Bill, and other Acts and Orders, Congress has concentrated more power in the hands of President Bush than the German Parliament gave Adolph Hitker after the burning of the Reichstag in 1931. As a result, we have an unprecedented assult on American civil-liberties. We see resident aliens, and foreign-born US citizens seeking political assylum in Canada. When, in our nations history, has such a thing come to pass?

As for the administrations budget plans, we need look no further than the state of Texas and its looming $5 billion budget shortfall to see the fruits of President Bushs' economic policies. Just as he bankrupted Texas with his ill-considered tax-cuts, so will he bakrupt America.

The State of the Union cannot tolerate much more of the Bush administration without suffering serious and, possibly irreparable harm. The legal grounds already exist to impeach President Bush and remove hin from office. It is time for Congress to do so

"The Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pusuance thereof, and all Treaties made, or shall made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land." - Article VI, the United States Constitution.

This clause of the Constitution has a number of implications for the Bush administration in its current pursuit of war against Iraq.

Firstly, the United States is signatory to the UN Charter. Therefore, this treaty is a part of the "supreme Law of the Land". Any violation of the UN charter then, constitutes a violation of the supreme law of the land. the clauses in question here are:

Chapter 1, Article 2, Para 3: All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice are not endangered.

Chapter 1, Article 2, Para 4: All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territroial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

Chapter VI, Article 33: The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.

Under the Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal, adopted by the International Law Commission of the United Nations in 1950, Principle VI states:

The crimes hereinafter are set out are punishable as crimes under international law.

a. Crimes against peace:
i. Planning, preparation, initiationor waging of a war of
aggression or a war in violatio of international
treaties, agreements or assurances.
ii. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for
the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned in
(i).

The Bush administrations preparations for war against Iraq represent violations of all of these provisions of a treaty to which the US is a signatory, and are thus violations of the "supreme Law of the Land".

Which brings us to Article II, Sec. 4 of the US Constitution: "The President, Vice-President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

Notice, it says "shall be removed", not "might be" or "maybe". It is the duty, then, of the US Senate to begin proceedings leading to the impeachment of George W. Bush.

"When George W. Bush ran for President in 2000, he said the United States must be "humble" in the world. Now he has cast humility aside and replaced it with hubris. Supremely confident in his gut instincts, wrapped up in a fundamentalist belief system, endowed with the most powerful military of all time, and unchecked by Congress, Bush feels he can "rid the world of evil"--at the barrel of a gun.

A picture emerges from the President's public statements--and even from such adulatory accounts as Bob Woodward's Bush at War and David Frum's The Right Man--of a President on a divine mission.

f!Call it messianic militarism." - The Progressive , February 2003

President Bush feels compelled to bring peace to the world...at the point of a gun. I don't know about anyone else, but this little creep is startin' to scare the shit outta me. I mean, here is a man who claims Jesus Christ as his "role model", then he goes and presides over the executions of nearly 150 people in Texas. I don't think Jesus would have approved. I know the Bible says "...Blessed are the peacemakers..." but I don't think what Bush and his merry band are up to is what Jesus had in mind.

Howdy's mindset here is like unto that of the Southern Baptist Convention, "Kill 'em all...Let God sort 'em out!" Fortunately most of the rest of the Christendom seems more of "...the meek shall inherit the earth..." mindset, with the exception of the Christian Identity movement and the KKK.

What a fucking creepshow.

For the full text of the editorial, goto:

http://www.progressive.org/feb03/comm0203.html

"Perhaps you wonder just where in the hell is the spineless major media in all this, as they watch the chicken-hawk Shrubster himself, between golf swings, announce how tens of thousands of American troops are being sent to the Gulf alongside an enormous billion-dollar military buildup and imminent gobs of heaping death raining down upon a paltry oppressed nation and coming up next on CNN, we interview that dumb guy from "Joe Millionaire." Perfect.

Perhaps you wonder where is the national TV coverage of all those huge anti-war protests, hundreds of thousands of people, all over the world, from Spain to Berlin to New York to San Francisco.

Perhaps you wonder where are all the "serious" journalists, the risk-taking news agencies pointing up the absurdity of it all, the imminent horror, the outrage. Could it be these news agencies are owned by major conservative corporations? Could it be they're all terrified of losing ratings, of saying something unpopular, of invoking Cheney's wrath, of losing advertiser dollars and that ever-precious, ever-dwindling dumbed-down audience? One guess. " - Mark Morford, SF Gate, 01/10/03

Where, indeed, are the major media outlets? The very function of the fourth estate is to keep the electorate apprised of the activities of the nation's leaders through timely, accurate and unbiased reports. Yet we see little, or none, of such reporting, except in the small independent media outlets. Most of the American media is toeing the Bush administration's party line on the looming war with Iraq. None of the mainstream media outlets are asking questions regarding the state of the "War on Terrorism", after all Osama bin Laden and most of his lieutenants remain at large. Yet this glaring failure of the Bush administration remains unquestioned. Let's not forget those embarassing questions about president Bushs' and vice-president Cheneys' business dealings as private citizens that were conveniently swept under the rug with the shift of focus to Iraq.

Where is the coverage of the growing anti-war movement in the US? At home, it is spotty and erratic at best. One can find more and better infornation in the foreign press about goings on in the US. And this is a sad commentary on the state of the American press corps. They are so cowed by their corporate masters that they fear to criticize the Bush administration lest they be fired and blacklisted.

As I listened to a story on NPR today of how the World Food Program was facing cut-backs from donor-nations in Sudan, I couldn't help but wonder at how misguided Bush's foreign policy is.

How many people could have recieved adequate food and housing, medical care, safe drinking water, schooling, vaccinations...for the price of one day of the US military build-up in the Persian Gulf? It boggles the mind to think of how many lives could have been spared hunger, disease, grinding poverty, illiteracy for the cost of the entire build-up to date.

How much better would the cause, not just of this nation, but of all humanity be served by humanitarian action? How much better would the world be served if Bush lived up to the Christian ideals he so loudly lays claim to? But his claims are nothing more than the braying of an ass...loud, noisy, and meaningless. He and his followers do nothing but drape themselves in the mantle of sanctimonious self-righteousness, and claim themselves as Gods Chosen.

Compassionate conservatism...apparently, Bush and his administration reserve compassion only for those who have no need of it.

While Howdy mouths words about loving freedom and democracy and peace and humna rights he has been sucking up to Algeria and its security forces.

"But no American – or British – newspaper has dared to investigate another, almost equally dangerous, relationship that the present US administration is forging behind our backs: with the military-supported regime in Algeria. For 10 years now, one of the world's dirtiest wars has been fought out in this country, supposedly between "Islamists" and "security forces", in which almost 200,000 people – mostly civilians – have been killed. But over the past five years there has been growing evidence that elements of those same security forces were involved in some of the bloodiest massacres, including the throat-cutting of babies.The Independent has published the most detailed reports of Algerian police torture and of the extrajudicial executions of women as well as men. Yet the US, as part of its obscene "war on terror", has cosied up to the Algerian regime. It is helping to re-arm Algeria's army and promised more assistance. William Burns, the US Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East, announced that Washington 'has much to learn from Algeria on ways to fight terrorism'." - Robert Fisk,
i The Independent,
01/04/03


Indeed, American intelligence agencies can learn the most effective placement of electrodes on male and female genitalia to elicit the greatest level of pain to the prisoner. And of course there are the methods of making prisoners feel as if they are smothering, and other more basic techniqes such as finger and toe-nail pulling, red-hot pokers, beatings and the like.

Why is the US media ignoring these facts? Why do they continue to play softball with a president bent on war regardless of whether or not evidence exists for its pursuit? Why do Americans continue to tolerate the egregious excesses of this administration in its pursuit of "Homeland security"? (
i These are rhetorical questions, I am already aware of the answers to them.
)

It's time to wake up, America. Else we find ourselves wearing chains, blinking stupidly at our new masters, wondering what has happened.

For a text of the article, goto: http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=366199

"The Bush administration contends that it is not trying to make government less open. Ari Fleischer, the president's press secretary, said, 'The bottom line remains the president is dedicated to an open government, a responsive government, while he fully exercises the authority of the executive branch.' " - Adam Clymer, The New York Times, 01/03/03

The actions of Howdy's administration, however, show this statement for the outright lie that it is.

In 2001, Herr Ashcroft issued a directive which encouraged federal agencies to reject any and all requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act if there was even the most tenuous legal reasons for doing so, with the promise that the DOJ would back them up in court.

We see the ongoing struggle between the GAO and "Bunker-Boy" Cheney over the transcipts of meetings he had with representatives from the energy industry regarding national energy policy. Such public policy and the process of its formulation must be open to public scrutiny. From the information that has been made available, Cheney basically bent the American public over a brass rail so the energy industry could have its way with us.

Then you have that walking corpse, Donald Rumsfeld, threatening Pentagon officials who discuss military operations with reporters. "I don't think the American people want to know anything that's going to cause the death of any one of these enormously and talented and dedicated and courageous people that are here today." he said before the troops at the Army Special Operations Command in November of 2001. What I want to know is how Rummy, or anyone else in Bush's cabinet, know what Americans really want. They are, after all, so divored from the everyday experience of the average person that there is no connection.

And we have the White House order to the National Archives not to release 68,000 pages of records from the Reagan administration. This, undoubtedly, was based on the fear of the skeletons that would come shambling from that closet.

Let's not forget Howdy's transfer of records from his days as Governor of Texas to his daddy's Presidential Library and, in effect, disappeared.

"Mr. Fleischer contends that there is no secrecy problem. "I make the case that we are more accessible and open than many previous administrations — given how many times [Secretary of State Colin L.] Powell, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft have briefed," he said."

Yeah, and shit don't stink either.

For the full text, go to:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/03/politics/03SECR.html?tntemail0=&pagewanted=print&position=top

During Iraq's war with Iran in the 1980's, the Reagan administration did little or nothing to stop Iraq's chemical and biological warfare research and developement. In fact records are available that indicate the US provided Saddam Hussein with equipement and materials to produce these weapons, especially in the face of fears that Iraq would be overrun by Iran's human-wave attacks.

Rick Francona, a former Army intel officer in Baghdad during 1987, stated "We believed the Iraqis were using mustard gas all through the war, bbbut that was not as sinister as nerve gas.

"They started using tabun [a nerve gas] as early as '83 or '84 but in a very limited way. They were probably figuring out how to use it. And in '88, they developed sarin."

In November of 1983, with intel that Iraq was using chemical weapons on an almost daily basis, Reagan signed a secret order with instructions for the administration to do "whatever was necessary and legal" keep Saddam Hussein in power.

In December of that same year, Donald Rumsfeld was brought in by then President Reagan to act as a "Middle-East troubleshooter". Rumsfeld met with Hussein and reassured him that the US was willing to help his government and restore full diplomatic relations. Rumsfeld later said that he had "cautioned" Hussein about the use of chemical weapons, but statedepartment notes of that meeting mention nothing about such a warning.

Support for Hussein and his regime continued, even after evidence came to light of Saddam Hussein using chemical, nerve and possibly biologic agents against civilian Kurdish populations in northern Iraq.

When, now vice-president, Dick Cheney was CEO of Haliburton, an oilfield service company, Haliburton through its subsidiary Dresser-Rand sold nearly $73 million in equipment to Iraq. In a 7/30/2000 interview on ABC's "This Week", Cheney denied Haliburton ever did business with Iraq. He recanted that statement on the same program 3 weeks later.

Before Haliburton sold its stake in Dresser-Rand in 2000, Cheney signed some $30 million in contracts with Baghdad. Any claims of ignorance of Haliburton's dealings with Iraq on Cheney's part ring hollow, after all, there was due diligence on Haliburton's part in the acquisition of Ingersol-Dresser Pump Co.

So, we are now faced with the spectacle of both of these men out to have Hussein's cojones for breakfast. They beat the drums of war, and speak of evidence of Saddam Hussein having, and developing weapons of mass destruction, yet they fail to present that evidence...to anyone. Purged from the 12,000 page declaration provided by Iraq, was any mention of the US companies which provided Iraq with the equipment and materials necessary for the production on chemical and nerve agents. Why this animosity towards Iraq, if not for control of Iraqi oil-fields?