"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