I have no comment as the content of this editorial says it all:
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December 31, 2007
Editorial
Looking at America
There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior. It was impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men and their bosses showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency.
It was not the first time in recent years we’ve felt this horror, this sorrowful sense of estrangement, not nearly. This sort of lawless behavior has become standard practice since Sept. 11, 2001.
The country and much of the world was rightly and profoundly frightened by the single-minded hatred and ingenuity displayed by this new enemy. But there is no excuse for how President Bush and his advisers panicked — how they forgot that it is their responsibility to protect American lives and American ideals, that there really is no safety for Americans or their country when those ideals are sacrificed.
Out of panic and ideology, President Bush squandered America’s position of moral and political leadership, swept aside international institutions and treaties, sullied America’s global image, and trampled on the constitutional pillars that have supported our democracy through the most terrifying and challenging times. These policies have fed the world’s anger and alienation and have not made any of us safer.
In the years since 9/11, we have seen American soldiers abuse, sexually humiliate, torment and murder prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq. A few have been punished, but their leaders have never been called to account. We have seen mercenaries gun down Iraqi civilians with no fear of prosecution. We have seen the president, sworn to defend the Constitution, turn his powers on his own citizens, authorizing the intelligence agencies to spy on Americans, wiretapping phones and intercepting international e-mail messages without a warrant.
We have read accounts of how the government’s top lawyers huddled in secret after the attacks in New York and Washington and plotted ways to circumvent the Geneva Conventions — and both American and international law — to hold anyone the president chose indefinitely without charges or judicial review.
Those same lawyers then twisted other laws beyond recognition to allow Mr. Bush to turn intelligence agents into torturers, to force doctors to abdicate their professional oaths and responsibilities to prepare prisoners for abuse, and then to monitor the torment to make sure it didn’t go just a bit too far and actually kill them.
The White House used the fear of terrorism and the sense of national unity to ram laws through Congress that gave law-enforcement agencies far more power than they truly needed to respond to the threat — and at the same time fulfilled the imperial fantasies of Vice President Dick Cheney and others determined to use the tragedy of 9/11 to arrogate as much power as they could.
Hundreds of men, swept up on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, were thrown into a prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, so that the White House could claim they were beyond the reach of American laws. Prisoners are held there with no hope of real justice, only the chance to face a kangaroo court where evidence and the names of their accusers are kept secret, and where they are not permitted to talk about the abuse they have suffered at the hands of American jailers.
In other foreign lands, the C.I.A. set up secret jails where “high-value detainees” were subjected to ever more barbaric acts, including simulated drowning. These crimes were videotaped, so that “experts” could watch them, and then the videotapes were destroyed, after consultation with the White House, in the hope that Americans would never know.
The C.I.A. contracted out its inhumanity to nations with no respect for life or law, sending prisoners — some of them innocents kidnapped on street corners and in airports — to be tortured into making false confessions, or until it was clear they had nothing to say and so were let go without any apology or hope of redress.
These are not the only shocking abuses of President Bush’s two terms in office, made in the name of fighting terrorism. There is much more — so much that the next president will have a full agenda simply discovering all the wrongs that have been done and then righting them.
We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America.
Monday, December 31, 2007
globeandmail.com - Military's influence stifling democracy
An historical summary of Pakistan and its leadership problems from its inception. Many think tank analysts and experts on Pakistani politics weigh in and offer sound advice. This is the Cliff Notes version of History of Pakistan.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Giuliani has brass B***s if nothing else.....See if this makes you nauseous:
From NY Times story this morning..
His campaign began re-branding Mr. Giuliani as the candidate of religious conservatives, or values voters, handing out glossy pamphlets featuring the endorsement from the Rev. Pat Robertson and a quotation from Mr. Giuliani in large letters: “My belief in God and reliance on His guidance is at the core of who I am.”
Gee, if God's guidance is at the core of Rudy's behavior, then God must be a two bit thug from Queens.
His campaign began re-branding Mr. Giuliani as the candidate of religious conservatives, or values voters, handing out glossy pamphlets featuring the endorsement from the Rev. Pat Robertson and a quotation from Mr. Giuliani in large letters: “My belief in God and reliance on His guidance is at the core of who I am.”
Gee, if God's guidance is at the core of Rudy's behavior, then God must be a two bit thug from Queens.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
John Edwards on Face the Nation 12/30/07
Edwards discusses Pakistan, corporate lobbyists and differences between himself and Clinton/Obama.
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read more | digg story
La. Village Drops 666 From Its Number
666 is an "evil" number? In 2007, almost 2008, there are people who still believe in superstitions like this. No wonder red state Republicans when polled, state that they are satisfied with their financial situation under Republican rule, EVEN when they admit to not having enough money to pay their bills! It's a logic disconnect! Is it in the water down South or what??
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Hey Media!! Pencils UP For John Edwards!!
A note to mainstream media: How about dropping the curtain on the Clinton-Obama drama, and setting the stage for John Edwards? THE PEOPLE are done with your theatre of the absurd. If your punditz must do theatre, then make them do it legit!
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Friday, December 28, 2007
With Bhutto gone, does Bush have a Plan B?
Juan Cole in Salon:
Bush's failed policies in Pakistan, a nuclear power that al-Qaida still uses to plot against the West, threatens U.S. security more than Iraq ever did.
My comments: I read Juan Cole's "Informed Comment" blog on a pretty regular basis. Juan Cole has his finger on the pulse of the Middle East and never fails to offer lucid, factual information on the on-going situation from day to day. Today I find his article in Salon Mag a must-read for anyone who cares to dig further and past the United States' MSM's descriptions of the catastrophe occurring in Pakistan.
While I'm at it, I'd like to state that once again, JOE BIDEN IS RIGHT! When commenting on the situation in Pakistan and the remarks made by presidential candidates, Joe stated that what has been said does not make a lot of sense. Richardson, for example said that Musharraf should step down and let a coalition government take over. Biden said. "But what coalition? There isn't any. What's he talking about?" Exactly!
I don't have much faith in any Plan B that Bush might come up with, but I sure would like to hear more about Joe Biden's Plan B. With the current MSM choosing FOR us, who the leading candidates are (by virtue of the airtime they give their favorite picks) don't look to hear alot from Joe. I've liked the guy ever since I listened to the gavel to gavel coverage of the Senate Judiciary Confirmation Hearings in 1988. He has always asked tough, fair questions and stays away from hyperbole. But this post is about Juan Cole....and his reasoned, articulate assessment of the current Pakistani (and therefore US) crisis. If you care to partake of the wisdom:
read more | digg story
Bush's failed policies in Pakistan, a nuclear power that al-Qaida still uses to plot against the West, threatens U.S. security more than Iraq ever did.
My comments: I read Juan Cole's "Informed Comment" blog on a pretty regular basis. Juan Cole has his finger on the pulse of the Middle East and never fails to offer lucid, factual information on the on-going situation from day to day. Today I find his article in Salon Mag a must-read for anyone who cares to dig further and past the United States' MSM's descriptions of the catastrophe occurring in Pakistan.
While I'm at it, I'd like to state that once again, JOE BIDEN IS RIGHT! When commenting on the situation in Pakistan and the remarks made by presidential candidates, Joe stated that what has been said does not make a lot of sense. Richardson, for example said that Musharraf should step down and let a coalition government take over. Biden said. "But what coalition? There isn't any. What's he talking about?" Exactly!
I don't have much faith in any Plan B that Bush might come up with, but I sure would like to hear more about Joe Biden's Plan B. With the current MSM choosing FOR us, who the leading candidates are (by virtue of the airtime they give their favorite picks) don't look to hear alot from Joe. I've liked the guy ever since I listened to the gavel to gavel coverage of the Senate Judiciary Confirmation Hearings in 1988. He has always asked tough, fair questions and stays away from hyperbole. But this post is about Juan Cole....and his reasoned, articulate assessment of the current Pakistani (and therefore US) crisis. If you care to partake of the wisdom:
read more | digg story
You're Damn Right I'm Angry. Why Isn't Everybody?
Professor Green produces a stultifying laundry list of the woes the Bush Administration has unleashed on this country. Undeniable facts are used and convincingly so to ask the challenging question "Why Isn't Everybody?" (Angry!)
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Answer to Joe Bageant
I like Joe Bageant. I like to read his blog now and again. Recently Joe posed a question about what it would take to have a revolution. What needs to occur in consciousness for people to turn things around in this country. I emailed Joe the following and if anyone is interested in reading Joe's blog, the link is in favorites.
Here's my say to Joe;
Joe,
What needs to happen in my view is for people, everywhere to understand that it is not a Left-Right dichotomy. It is not the Republicans or Democrats ruining America it is the Corporatists of any stripe.
The first thing good old boy, hard-working middle Americans need to get, really get as in their bones.....IS that Corporations are NOT patriotic. There are no such things as "American" corporations. The corporations have found the global economy is to be exploited as follows: Go to the crummiest, lowliest wasteland in the world and set up a factory there. Pay dirt wages but a slight cut above what is generally the income there and soon these folks will indeed have a higher standard of living than the general population NOT working for the corporation. Pretty soon your employees are getting to put some money back into their economy and YOU get to parade around the world talking about how your corporation raises the standards of living for the employees and benefit their communities. You might even throw a little money at a school here or there. Great photo-ops in that.
Once the standard of living rises in this country to an extent that can be exploited to the max by you and your PR team; you shut down those factories and move to the next lowly s**thole and repeat formula.
Meanwhile back at the American ranch, our standard of living is stagnating or declining and the reason we don't feel the pinch is because of the credit card economy which keeps us afloat and awash in all of those products which our fearless leaders want us to keep on consuming. We are no longer a producing, manufacturing nation, we are a consumer nation. How long can this last?
Middle Americans who STILL think the political parties of any stripe serve their interests (and the parties TELL them what their interests are) are patsies. It is the Corporatists who run the government by dictating what tax deals they want, what legislation they want from the government and the government takes care of bizness......like the good corporate lackeys they are. The message told to the masses is that this is the government who will keep gay marriage away from you, keep those illegals from taking your job etc. just don't look too closely at the real economics or the real legislation....you know, the fine print.
The public gets the Advertising big print to read and the corporatists write all the fine print which nobody reads but which spells their doom.
till Middle America wakes up to this Joe, there won't be any revolution.
Here's my say to Joe;
Joe,
What needs to happen in my view is for people, everywhere to understand that it is not a Left-Right dichotomy. It is not the Republicans or Democrats ruining America it is the Corporatists of any stripe.
The first thing good old boy, hard-working middle Americans need to get, really get as in their bones.....IS that Corporations are NOT patriotic. There are no such things as "American" corporations. The corporations have found the global economy is to be exploited as follows: Go to the crummiest, lowliest wasteland in the world and set up a factory there. Pay dirt wages but a slight cut above what is generally the income there and soon these folks will indeed have a higher standard of living than the general population NOT working for the corporation. Pretty soon your employees are getting to put some money back into their economy and YOU get to parade around the world talking about how your corporation raises the standards of living for the employees and benefit their communities. You might even throw a little money at a school here or there. Great photo-ops in that.
Once the standard of living rises in this country to an extent that can be exploited to the max by you and your PR team; you shut down those factories and move to the next lowly s**thole and repeat formula.
Meanwhile back at the American ranch, our standard of living is stagnating or declining and the reason we don't feel the pinch is because of the credit card economy which keeps us afloat and awash in all of those products which our fearless leaders want us to keep on consuming. We are no longer a producing, manufacturing nation, we are a consumer nation. How long can this last?
Middle Americans who STILL think the political parties of any stripe serve their interests (and the parties TELL them what their interests are) are patsies. It is the Corporatists who run the government by dictating what tax deals they want, what legislation they want from the government and the government takes care of bizness......like the good corporate lackeys they are. The message told to the masses is that this is the government who will keep gay marriage away from you, keep those illegals from taking your job etc. just don't look too closely at the real economics or the real legislation....you know, the fine print.
The public gets the Advertising big print to read and the corporatists write all the fine print which nobody reads but which spells their doom.
till Middle America wakes up to this Joe, there won't be any revolution.
We got a Herd 'o Winnebagos - We're Givin' 'em away!
Come ONNNNNN down to Smokey Joe's car lot! We've got one for little Shiva, little Kamlesh, little Sat Singh, bring the whole family!
When visiting China you can count on a great deal from Cho's! Come visit the brand new showroom, bring Grandfather and Grandmother!
Better hurry up and buy those LED lightbulbs quick as a bunny Americans.....and you'd better get cracking on all of those other "green" projects ahead of you.....cause it's soon going to be getting real HOT around here.
From the NY Times:
EXPORTING THE CAR CULTURE In the West, “going green” may be all the rage, but in China and India, the automobile is being discovered all over again. The two countries each have populations of more than a billion, booming economies and rapidly expanding middle classes, and an unsated appetite for Western goodies — including cars. In India, Tata Motors is introducing the People’s Car, with a sticker price of $2,500. Over the next 12 years, some economists predict, more than 150 million Indians will buy cars. China, meanwhile, may have 140 million cars on its roads by 2020.
If this all comes to pass, climate experts say, it will be impossible to make meaningful, worldwide reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. China and India already account for 70 percent of the worldwide increase in energy demand over the last two years. “This is a very worrying message,” said Fatih Birol, chief economist for the International Energy Agency, which provides policy advice to industrialized nations. “China and India are transforming our energy markets. We have a window of opportunity of 5 to 10 years before it becomes unsustainable and irreversible.” In other words, get used to praying for rain.
When visiting China you can count on a great deal from Cho's! Come visit the brand new showroom, bring Grandfather and Grandmother!
Better hurry up and buy those LED lightbulbs quick as a bunny Americans.....and you'd better get cracking on all of those other "green" projects ahead of you.....cause it's soon going to be getting real HOT around here.
From the NY Times:
EXPORTING THE CAR CULTURE In the West, “going green” may be all the rage, but in China and India, the automobile is being discovered all over again. The two countries each have populations of more than a billion, booming economies and rapidly expanding middle classes, and an unsated appetite for Western goodies — including cars. In India, Tata Motors is introducing the People’s Car, with a sticker price of $2,500. Over the next 12 years, some economists predict, more than 150 million Indians will buy cars. China, meanwhile, may have 140 million cars on its roads by 2020.
If this all comes to pass, climate experts say, it will be impossible to make meaningful, worldwide reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. China and India already account for 70 percent of the worldwide increase in energy demand over the last two years. “This is a very worrying message,” said Fatih Birol, chief economist for the International Energy Agency, which provides policy advice to industrialized nations. “China and India are transforming our energy markets. We have a window of opportunity of 5 to 10 years before it becomes unsustainable and irreversible.” In other words, get used to praying for rain.
Benazir Bhutto Assassinated
Truly, I am sick at heart to learn of this. Two days after Christmas. Coming off of the personal high of spending time with my dear, loving family....and then getting slapped with this. I feel nauseated-sick and my heart feels like an ache.
I am SICK over this. It never ends! This is why I am at the point of saying F**k Religions!! They may have helped a few but they are food/justification/rationale for creating "others". In group, out group. Is it any different than Shakespeare's Montagues and Capulets?? Or any different than the rules/ regs/ codes of behavior that is set up by the Mafioso? Huh? Is it?
Sharif, another opposition party leader in Pakistan had this to say:
Sharif arrived at the hospital and sat silently next to Bhutto's body.
"Benazir Bhutto was also my sister, and I will be with you to take the revenge for her death," he said. "Don't feel alone. I am with you. We will take the revenge on the rulers."
REVENGE! That's what it's all about. Most of the hominids walking around on this planet today are sub-human.....I'm sorry. They are sub-human automatons who MISUSE religion. Do Biologists blow up Physicists? Do Earth Scientists blow up Astronomers??
NO it is these godforsaken religionists....
I'm sorry, I'm sick over Bhutto right now.
I am SICK over this. It never ends! This is why I am at the point of saying F**k Religions!! They may have helped a few but they are food/justification/rationale for creating "others". In group, out group. Is it any different than Shakespeare's Montagues and Capulets?? Or any different than the rules/ regs/ codes of behavior that is set up by the Mafioso? Huh? Is it?
Sharif, another opposition party leader in Pakistan had this to say:
Sharif arrived at the hospital and sat silently next to Bhutto's body.
"Benazir Bhutto was also my sister, and I will be with you to take the revenge for her death," he said. "Don't feel alone. I am with you. We will take the revenge on the rulers."
REVENGE! That's what it's all about. Most of the hominids walking around on this planet today are sub-human.....I'm sorry. They are sub-human automatons who MISUSE religion. Do Biologists blow up Physicists? Do Earth Scientists blow up Astronomers??
NO it is these godforsaken religionists....
I'm sorry, I'm sick over Bhutto right now.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Merry Christmas Baby
gotta love the Boss.
Xmas was just about perfect, cept for when my oldest daughter said "I don't see the big deal about Bruce Springsteen......I like Billy Joel better."
ACK! How can those two names be uttered in the same sentence?
I'm re-thinking my will....
Seriously though, Bruce is a consumate talent in my view.
Don't believe it. click on the video....and this isn't even the best version. Just the best version available on YouTube.
Martha Stewart Shows Off Nativity Scene She Built In Prison
My favorite comment to this story is "What a talented convict!" Ha!This gal has turned being imprisoned into a saavy career move. Can't keep a good capitalist down!This strikes me as so funny. How 'bout you?
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Family Planning Clinics fires in New Mexico....Terrorism?
It is interesting to note, as the Rude Pundit does, that when Islamists firebomb a target they consider, well........target-worthy, they are called Islamic terrorists. Yet when Christian extremists fire-bomb a target, their act is put down to "arson". Is there is a distinction? Rude Pundit's blog is linked in "Favorites" to your left.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Saturday, December 22, 2007
The cutest otters ever.
Two little otters floating around, holding hands. MAN! Are they relaxed! Everything has the need for relationship......it's not just a human thang!
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Nightmare Before Christmas
I got one of those emails; the ones that make the rounds to moan and groan about taxes and how we're taxed to death etc. The commentary was the kind that seems to blame all of the "entitlement" programs in our society.
Nowhere in these emails does the real analysis come into play. I wrote back to my cousin who sent it to me and said that even Warren Buffet is talking about the unfairness of taxes these days, only HE is truly illuminating and giving voice to the actual facts. I said to my cousin that the past thirty or forty years as seen "trickle up" economics with CEOs, corporate and Wall Street fat cats receiving outrageous pay packages, bonuses and profits while the middle class has essentially stagnated in real wage increases.
Today Bob Herbert in the NY Times wrote an Op Ed piece about just that, entitled "Nightmare Before Christmas" and he essentially described my family's economic situation. Depressing I know, but going into the 2008 elections, it might be a good idea to be armed with this information as you listen to the candidates. The only one who seems to be on this page is John Edwards (of course Dennis Kucinich as well but he'll be President when pigs fly).
Here's Herbert's article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/22/opinion/22herbert.html?ex=1356066000&en=76e47e9a38924d5a&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Nowhere in these emails does the real analysis come into play. I wrote back to my cousin who sent it to me and said that even Warren Buffet is talking about the unfairness of taxes these days, only HE is truly illuminating and giving voice to the actual facts. I said to my cousin that the past thirty or forty years as seen "trickle up" economics with CEOs, corporate and Wall Street fat cats receiving outrageous pay packages, bonuses and profits while the middle class has essentially stagnated in real wage increases.
Today Bob Herbert in the NY Times wrote an Op Ed piece about just that, entitled "Nightmare Before Christmas" and he essentially described my family's economic situation. Depressing I know, but going into the 2008 elections, it might be a good idea to be armed with this information as you listen to the candidates. The only one who seems to be on this page is John Edwards (of course Dennis Kucinich as well but he'll be President when pigs fly).
Here's Herbert's article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/22/opinion/22herbert.html?ex=1356066000&en=76e47e9a38924d5a&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Friday, December 14, 2007
Bombed If You Do, Bombed If You Don't by Ron Paul
The latest National Intelligence Estimate has been greeted by a mixture of relief and alarm. As I have been saying all along, Iran indeed poses no quantifiable imminent nuclear threat to us or her neighbors. It is with much alarm, however, that we see the administration continue to ratchet up the war rhetoric as if nothing has changed.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Monday, December 3, 2007
Briton Pardoned in Sudan Islam Insult
Sanity prevails in the case of the British teacher convicted of insulting a long dead prophet, by allowing her students to choose a name for teddy bear; the name they chose was Mohammed. For that some extremists were calling for her execution. However her sentence was merely 15 days in jail and exile from Sudan. She has been pardoned. No more teddy bears for her! What next, she might name one Moses??
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Spiritual Hangover
I'm in this listserv, with some really great people. Most of them have invested huge amounts of time, as I have, in spiritual pursuits of one variety or another. Some have been with the same spiritual teachers as I've been, some have lived in Zen Monasteries, some are really Awake to "What Is So". Lately the threads have been positively transcendent and I'm taken aback by how unrelated to all of that, is my current mood. I've reproduced the bulk of what I wrote today to my friends, as a way to lay groundwork for more spiritual musings, possibly to come...
Hi Everybody.......
Reading these new threads has me feeling like I'm at a party and I'm either under-dressed or over-dressed or something. I'll settle on over-dressed.
Guys, I just have to tell you that, no matter than in my history I've had glimpses and satoris and all of that stuff that makes for great spiritual "oomphs", lately I am just not "there". It's like the wind has gone out of may sails, it's like I just can't ratchet myself up to wanna care about being enlightened, being awake or any of that. I feel as if I have been propelled backwards in time to a point BEFORE I was even introduced to allllllllllllll of that spiritual stuff.
It would be too easy to say "I blame (name withheld) ", it is just that ever since I became dis-illusioned with him as a guru and then gurus and spiritual groups altogether, I've back-slid into not giving a shit, really, about what I used to be passionate about. There I've said it. Is this some phase?
But I also have to say, at the same time, every once in awhile I'll get a pang, a stab in the heart when I re-member how innocent and devoted I used to be, when I recall all of a sudden, how I used to feel about Adi Da. MAN I loved him! MAN it was great to feel that what he said was Real and True and never ever doubt. I was so happy in that. As Bob once suggested to me, maybe I was looking for a Daddy. A perfect Parent.
Anybody know the story of the Velveteen Rabbit? Where the toy rabbit was so beloved to the boy, and the rabbit so served and loved the little boy that one day, the rabbit became Real? I think that was the sub-plot of my spiritual practice efforts. I thought and believed with all my heart that if I loved and served a Perfect Being I would become Real; like enter into the Magic Kingdom. Like live in a realm where all beings were kind to one another and everyone would have a Compassionate Buddha Heart and where the sun would shine brightly forever and no more night, no more death, no more hurts or pains or sicknesses, no more this world's troubles and that it would go on forever and ever because it was REAL. The ticket in was to become Real oneself.
I remember walking in my old neighborhood feeling so open and vulnerable and sensitive....and hearing out of a window an angry man yelling abuse at a little boy and the little boy trying to answer back and being shouted down and I just cried and felt intense pain. My heart was breaking and I wanted to BE in a place where that no longer happened to ANYBODY EVER again. I prayed "Please let there be some realm where there is only Peace, Kindness, tenderness, joy, please let it be true."
Was that my motive for the spiritual chase? Escape from pain? I'm thinking so. That is my best guess.
So spiritually speaking, I'm at square one again guys. I'm a spiritual boo-ba........still just toddling.....and I say one more thing, I'm in love with my own thoughts. I still am fascinated by all of the things my mind comes up with, I still am also fascinated by other people's ideas, thought-forms, expressions, it still holds interest for me. What does that mean?
Plus, I hold judgments aplenty, ie: think George Bush et al. reside in the depths of Mordor......and Dick cheney is the head Orc. I passionately WISH for a Progressive in the White House......I CARE about Global Warming and think Al Gore rocks.......I am very Earth oriented guys. I'm way less "other-worldly" than I used to be.
Yet, I know. In some part of me there is an on-going knowledge that I don't fear death, that it's all just what it IS and it is all a marvel and I'm grateful for all of the Everything. That nothing truly touches or tarnishes; that nothing ever happens to what Is Real.
But I just don't visit or hang out in that Knowing very often, whereas it used to be my passion. I think I still having a (name withheld) hangover. That's my account of it at any rate.
I just wanted to tell you all the true feelings I'm having and let you all in on it, so we can at least be real at the life level.
Hi Everybody.......
Reading these new threads has me feeling like I'm at a party and I'm either under-dressed or over-dressed or something. I'll settle on over-dressed.
Guys, I just have to tell you that, no matter than in my history I've had glimpses and satoris and all of that stuff that makes for great spiritual "oomphs", lately I am just not "there". It's like the wind has gone out of may sails, it's like I just can't ratchet myself up to wanna care about being enlightened, being awake or any of that. I feel as if I have been propelled backwards in time to a point BEFORE I was even introduced to allllllllllllll of that spiritual stuff.
It would be too easy to say "I blame (name withheld) ", it is just that ever since I became dis-illusioned with him as a guru and then gurus and spiritual groups altogether, I've back-slid into not giving a shit, really, about what I used to be passionate about. There I've said it. Is this some phase?
But I also have to say, at the same time, every once in awhile I'll get a pang, a stab in the heart when I re-member how innocent and devoted I used to be, when I recall all of a sudden, how I used to feel about Adi Da. MAN I loved him! MAN it was great to feel that what he said was Real and True and never ever doubt. I was so happy in that. As Bob once suggested to me, maybe I was looking for a Daddy. A perfect Parent.
Anybody know the story of the Velveteen Rabbit? Where the toy rabbit was so beloved to the boy, and the rabbit so served and loved the little boy that one day, the rabbit became Real? I think that was the sub-plot of my spiritual practice efforts. I thought and believed with all my heart that if I loved and served a Perfect Being I would become Real; like enter into the Magic Kingdom. Like live in a realm where all beings were kind to one another and everyone would have a Compassionate Buddha Heart and where the sun would shine brightly forever and no more night, no more death, no more hurts or pains or sicknesses, no more this world's troubles and that it would go on forever and ever because it was REAL. The ticket in was to become Real oneself.
I remember walking in my old neighborhood feeling so open and vulnerable and sensitive....and hearing out of a window an angry man yelling abuse at a little boy and the little boy trying to answer back and being shouted down and I just cried and felt intense pain. My heart was breaking and I wanted to BE in a place where that no longer happened to ANYBODY EVER again. I prayed "Please let there be some realm where there is only Peace, Kindness, tenderness, joy, please let it be true."
Was that my motive for the spiritual chase? Escape from pain? I'm thinking so. That is my best guess.
So spiritually speaking, I'm at square one again guys. I'm a spiritual boo-ba........still just toddling.....and I say one more thing, I'm in love with my own thoughts. I still am fascinated by all of the things my mind comes up with, I still am also fascinated by other people's ideas, thought-forms, expressions, it still holds interest for me. What does that mean?
Plus, I hold judgments aplenty, ie: think George Bush et al. reside in the depths of Mordor......and Dick cheney is the head Orc. I passionately WISH for a Progressive in the White House......I CARE about Global Warming and think Al Gore rocks.......I am very Earth oriented guys. I'm way less "other-worldly" than I used to be.
Yet, I know. In some part of me there is an on-going knowledge that I don't fear death, that it's all just what it IS and it is all a marvel and I'm grateful for all of the Everything. That nothing truly touches or tarnishes; that nothing ever happens to what Is Real.
But I just don't visit or hang out in that Knowing very often, whereas it used to be my passion. I think I still having a (name withheld) hangover. That's my account of it at any rate.
I just wanted to tell you all the true feelings I'm having and let you all in on it, so we can at least be real at the life level.
Kucinich / Paul 2008?
Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich would be an unlikely pairing in a third party presidential run next year. But, Kucinich’s wife apparently doesn’t rule out the possibility…
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Sex Scandal Hits Atlanta-Area Mega church
Sexy Religionists are at it again! Pastors coerce church members into sex in Atlanta mega church. Is this even news? The newsworthy story about fundamentalist Christians these days would be about a southern Bible believing church which DIDN'T have any sex scandals.
But let's not just point fingers at the Christian fundies.....cults abound where sooner (rather than later) the leader/pastor/guru turns the conversation to sex and hopes to manipulate members into either sex with each other (oooh voyeurism...what a rush) or sex with them, the worshipped and idolized leader. It's so predictable that anyone over 21 these days without a heads-up on this must be living off-planet.
The latest scandal coming out of Atlanta is about a pastor who actually fathered a kid with his own brother's wife. How Biblical is that!? The fundamentalists DO take the cake on this stuff it seems; the cognitive dissonance is so EXTREME. At least with Hindus and new age religions, sex has never been such a bugaboo. Let's face it, Hindu temples even have carved images of deities having all manner of sex, so they're not body-negative, sex-averse. But the Christians are always pounding their fists about "temptation" "sin" "the devil" "impure thoughts"....so it's perversely amusing to watch them implode with hypocrisy.
read more | digg story
But let's not just point fingers at the Christian fundies.....cults abound where sooner (rather than later) the leader/pastor/guru turns the conversation to sex and hopes to manipulate members into either sex with each other (oooh voyeurism...what a rush) or sex with them, the worshipped and idolized leader. It's so predictable that anyone over 21 these days without a heads-up on this must be living off-planet.
The latest scandal coming out of Atlanta is about a pastor who actually fathered a kid with his own brother's wife. How Biblical is that!? The fundamentalists DO take the cake on this stuff it seems; the cognitive dissonance is so EXTREME. At least with Hindus and new age religions, sex has never been such a bugaboo. Let's face it, Hindu temples even have carved images of deities having all manner of sex, so they're not body-negative, sex-averse. But the Christians are always pounding their fists about "temptation" "sin" "the devil" "impure thoughts"....so it's perversely amusing to watch them implode with hypocrisy.
read more | digg story
Friday, November 16, 2007
Keith Olbermann on Torture and Conspiracy
Because OLBERMANN is so damned GREAT and "don't you wish more people were speaking out like this" PERFECT, here is a re-dux of an earlier post from this week:
In another of his stirring commentaries, the “Countdown” host suggests that the story of Daniel Levin, who was fired from the Justice Department after he experienced waterboarding and called it torture, reveals that “the presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush.”
read more | digg story
In another of his stirring commentaries, the “Countdown” host suggests that the story of Daniel Levin, who was fired from the Justice Department after he experienced waterboarding and called it torture, reveals that “the presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush.”
read more | digg story
Outrage Fatigue? Get OVER it!
Got this from a friend in an email. Comes from Mark Morford over at SF Gate, an online San Francisco blog/news magazine. His points are so well taken that I will let him speak for himself rather than attempt to paraphrase. Here goes:
Outrage fatigue? Get over it
Are you sick of being sick? Suffering way too much Bush-induced nausea? Well, tough
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
I know how it is. You've had it up to here. There are only so many stories about blood and death and pain you can take, only so many times you can hear about random shootings and corporate malfeasance and how BushCo's squad of scabrous flying monkeys have, say, supported torture or endorsed wiretapping or gouged the nation for another $200 billion to pay for a failed war. Your nerves are raw and your heart is tired and the media will just not shut the hell up already about the sadness and the war and the mayhem and the Cheney and the doom doom doom.
It is outrage fatigue, and it is epidemic. It's that feeling that we are being hammered unlike any time in recent history with so many appalling and disgusting and violently un-American incidents and scandals and manipulations that our b.s.-detectors are smoking like an old V-8 engine on a hot summer's day and it's all we can do to get up every day without screaming.
What's more, it's not the mere quantity of moral insults, either. It's the bizarre absurdity of the subject matter, the things we are being forced to consider, or reconsider, that seem to make it all so horrific.
Torture? Are you kidding? Allegedly the most civilized, the most morally aware nation on the planet and we are still debating, in the highest courts and government offices in the land, about whether the United States should strap human beings to gnarled metal benches in rancid foreign bunkers and inflict such inexplicable terror and fear upon them that they confess to things they didn't even do just to get us to stop? Is this the Middle Ages? Are we regressing back to the goddamn cave?
Oh my, yes, plethoric are the reasons you should be outraged indeed, and torture just might be one of the most incendiary reasons in the past few years. If nothing else, its disgusting return to U.S. political dialogue certainly means it's no time to be laying down arms in exhaustion, no matter how tempting it might be.
Take this fine example: Keith Olbermann, as is his wont, executed another pitch-perfect bout of outrage recently on his excellent MSNBC show, taking BushCo to task on the issue of waterboarding like you never hear in major on-air media anymore.
Olbermann only barely held on to his trademark fierce hyper-articulation against the sheer disgust he/we have to endure at the idea that a sitting American president obviously thinks medieval torture is a gul-dang swell idea, no matter what psychologists, military experts, ethicists, the United Nations, the Geneva Convention and Jesus himself all say.
It was wonderful, powerful stuff, a razor-sharp, highly informed media pundit who dares to presume an unusually high level of intelligence among his viewers, speaking truth to power in a way most liberal media-haters complain never really happens anymore. And of course, his subject was one of the most deserving of our moral outrage in recent history.
But then I read some of the reaction to Olbermann's diatribe on various political blogs and on some news-aggregate sites, with many saying, gosh Keith, lighten up already, who cares, enough with all the outrage and the spittle, wow I'm so sick of all this ranting and raving and gosh I'm tired of these smarty media people telling me how to think and hey maybe torture is good let's kill us some more, haw haw haw snort.
On the one hand, it is, you can argue, generally the way of the meaner-than-thou blogosphere, with all but the most professional and intelligent and positive-minded of outposts seeming to suffer an undue percentage of reactionary chyme in their comment areas, hordes of Net-drunk twentysomethings and extremists and shut-ins who have way too much free time and merely chime in to see their sneers "published" and to prove how much more jaded and apathetic they are than the next person, while adding zero to the conversation.
But maybe it's worse than that. Because this is where it can happen, where you can get sucked into the vortex of whining and bitterness and where you might feel part of yourself wanting to wallow too, desiring to avoid doing the actual moral and spiritual work of dissecting and researching and analysing something as politically messy and morally ugly as torture for yourself, opting instead for the easy path, for closing your eyes and sticking your fingers in your ears and going, nyah nyah nyah shut up shut up SHUT UP! Hey, it sure beats thinking.
Or maybe we can flip it around. Maybe, with the right intent, the exact reverse can happen, and you see this ocean of nasty ennui, this pile of oft-misspelled, poorly punctuated reactionary effluvia as, in and of itself, something to be a bit livid about.
Maybe, in other words, you can enjoy, as one blogger put it, a big dose of "fatigue outrage," the feeling of disgust you get when faced with all those people who think mental lethargy and laziness is, like, way funny, dude.
In other words, enough with the childish, frat-boy-grade complaints about media overload and too many rants and outrage fatigue. You have to earn that sort of thing. If you never give a crap about engaging the world, if you never want to think deeply about complex issues and care about ramifications and see what truly resonates with your own informed spirit and then stand up for what you believe, this pretty much eliminates your right to sneer at others who do.
It is, for me, all about modulation. It is about remembering that outrage does not necessarily equal misery. Outrage does not mean you must wallow in fear and fatalism and yank out your hair and wake up every morning hating the world and hating yourself and hating humanity for being so stupid/numb/blind and wondering how the hell you can escape it all.
Outrage is rich with humanistic understanding. It is not some evangelical Christian parent "outraged" that her kid saw a woman's nipple on TV. It is not some right-wing Family Council "outraged" that someone put S&M outfits on Barbie, or that some art gallery is displaying Jesus as a woman, or that scientists dared to say that stem cell research does not equal abortion, or that the mayor isn't taking care of all the potholes and stray kitties. That's not outrage, that's reactionary whining.
True outrage, like Olbermann's, like (occasionally, hopefully) this column's, like what you should ideally be experiencing on a daily basis while Bush is in office, is honed and sharp and poignant. It contains a powerful sense of deeply informed decency, and therefore has a true feel for when that sense has been violated. Outrage has meat and substance and intellectual nourishment. It is actually healthy.
Smart, informed outrage engages you and fires your heart, your mind. It is fuel. It is the reason you claim you enjoy being an American, to question malevolent government actions and take a stand and demand accountability where there has, for the past seven years, been none. Bottom line: We simply cannot let them convince us, by way of an all-out assault on science, sex, love, et al, that the good fight just ain't worth fighting.
After all, the flying monkeys are far from done raiding the closet and stealing your babies and making a mockery of everything wise and calm and open-hearted people hold dear. And baby, if you ain't outraged about that, something is very wrong indeed.
Outrage fatigue? Get over it
Are you sick of being sick? Suffering way too much Bush-induced nausea? Well, tough
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
I know how it is. You've had it up to here. There are only so many stories about blood and death and pain you can take, only so many times you can hear about random shootings and corporate malfeasance and how BushCo's squad of scabrous flying monkeys have, say, supported torture or endorsed wiretapping or gouged the nation for another $200 billion to pay for a failed war. Your nerves are raw and your heart is tired and the media will just not shut the hell up already about the sadness and the war and the mayhem and the Cheney and the doom doom doom.
It is outrage fatigue, and it is epidemic. It's that feeling that we are being hammered unlike any time in recent history with so many appalling and disgusting and violently un-American incidents and scandals and manipulations that our b.s.-detectors are smoking like an old V-8 engine on a hot summer's day and it's all we can do to get up every day without screaming.
What's more, it's not the mere quantity of moral insults, either. It's the bizarre absurdity of the subject matter, the things we are being forced to consider, or reconsider, that seem to make it all so horrific.
Torture? Are you kidding? Allegedly the most civilized, the most morally aware nation on the planet and we are still debating, in the highest courts and government offices in the land, about whether the United States should strap human beings to gnarled metal benches in rancid foreign bunkers and inflict such inexplicable terror and fear upon them that they confess to things they didn't even do just to get us to stop? Is this the Middle Ages? Are we regressing back to the goddamn cave?
Oh my, yes, plethoric are the reasons you should be outraged indeed, and torture just might be one of the most incendiary reasons in the past few years. If nothing else, its disgusting return to U.S. political dialogue certainly means it's no time to be laying down arms in exhaustion, no matter how tempting it might be.
Take this fine example: Keith Olbermann, as is his wont, executed another pitch-perfect bout of outrage recently on his excellent MSNBC show, taking BushCo to task on the issue of waterboarding like you never hear in major on-air media anymore.
Olbermann only barely held on to his trademark fierce hyper-articulation against the sheer disgust he/we have to endure at the idea that a sitting American president obviously thinks medieval torture is a gul-dang swell idea, no matter what psychologists, military experts, ethicists, the United Nations, the Geneva Convention and Jesus himself all say.
It was wonderful, powerful stuff, a razor-sharp, highly informed media pundit who dares to presume an unusually high level of intelligence among his viewers, speaking truth to power in a way most liberal media-haters complain never really happens anymore. And of course, his subject was one of the most deserving of our moral outrage in recent history.
But then I read some of the reaction to Olbermann's diatribe on various political blogs and on some news-aggregate sites, with many saying, gosh Keith, lighten up already, who cares, enough with all the outrage and the spittle, wow I'm so sick of all this ranting and raving and gosh I'm tired of these smarty media people telling me how to think and hey maybe torture is good let's kill us some more, haw haw haw snort.
On the one hand, it is, you can argue, generally the way of the meaner-than-thou blogosphere, with all but the most professional and intelligent and positive-minded of outposts seeming to suffer an undue percentage of reactionary chyme in their comment areas, hordes of Net-drunk twentysomethings and extremists and shut-ins who have way too much free time and merely chime in to see their sneers "published" and to prove how much more jaded and apathetic they are than the next person, while adding zero to the conversation.
But maybe it's worse than that. Because this is where it can happen, where you can get sucked into the vortex of whining and bitterness and where you might feel part of yourself wanting to wallow too, desiring to avoid doing the actual moral and spiritual work of dissecting and researching and analysing something as politically messy and morally ugly as torture for yourself, opting instead for the easy path, for closing your eyes and sticking your fingers in your ears and going, nyah nyah nyah shut up shut up SHUT UP! Hey, it sure beats thinking.
Or maybe we can flip it around. Maybe, with the right intent, the exact reverse can happen, and you see this ocean of nasty ennui, this pile of oft-misspelled, poorly punctuated reactionary effluvia as, in and of itself, something to be a bit livid about.
Maybe, in other words, you can enjoy, as one blogger put it, a big dose of "fatigue outrage," the feeling of disgust you get when faced with all those people who think mental lethargy and laziness is, like, way funny, dude.
In other words, enough with the childish, frat-boy-grade complaints about media overload and too many rants and outrage fatigue. You have to earn that sort of thing. If you never give a crap about engaging the world, if you never want to think deeply about complex issues and care about ramifications and see what truly resonates with your own informed spirit and then stand up for what you believe, this pretty much eliminates your right to sneer at others who do.
It is, for me, all about modulation. It is about remembering that outrage does not necessarily equal misery. Outrage does not mean you must wallow in fear and fatalism and yank out your hair and wake up every morning hating the world and hating yourself and hating humanity for being so stupid/numb/blind and wondering how the hell you can escape it all.
Outrage is rich with humanistic understanding. It is not some evangelical Christian parent "outraged" that her kid saw a woman's nipple on TV. It is not some right-wing Family Council "outraged" that someone put S&M outfits on Barbie, or that some art gallery is displaying Jesus as a woman, or that scientists dared to say that stem cell research does not equal abortion, or that the mayor isn't taking care of all the potholes and stray kitties. That's not outrage, that's reactionary whining.
True outrage, like Olbermann's, like (occasionally, hopefully) this column's, like what you should ideally be experiencing on a daily basis while Bush is in office, is honed and sharp and poignant. It contains a powerful sense of deeply informed decency, and therefore has a true feel for when that sense has been violated. Outrage has meat and substance and intellectual nourishment. It is actually healthy.
Smart, informed outrage engages you and fires your heart, your mind. It is fuel. It is the reason you claim you enjoy being an American, to question malevolent government actions and take a stand and demand accountability where there has, for the past seven years, been none. Bottom line: We simply cannot let them convince us, by way of an all-out assault on science, sex, love, et al, that the good fight just ain't worth fighting.
After all, the flying monkeys are far from done raiding the closet and stealing your babies and making a mockery of everything wise and calm and open-hearted people hold dear. And baby, if you ain't outraged about that, something is very wrong indeed.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Dems Report: True Cost of Iraq War
I wondered when Congressional Democrats would get around to making it real to the American public just what the Iraq war is costing us. Yesterday the House Dems released a report that discusses the hidden costs, the future costs, the related costs etc.
I heard on Free Radio Santa Cruz yesterday however, an even better breakdown that brings it home to the average news consumer. The cost SO FAR of the Iraq war could have paid for:
The Education of every poor child in the WORLD for 7.5 years
The housing costs of every American for 1.5 years
Sending every child in America to Yale College for 4 years
Supplying every American home with alternative solar power (how's that for Homeland Security......we don't need your stinking oil anymore ME)
I wish I could recall all of the facts and figures of the alternate budget for those war funds but this is what I am remembering so far this morning after 1/2 cup of coffee. If I can get the actual statistics I will post them here.
But it gives you pause yes? What 3.5 TRILLION dollars can do. Oh, and by the way, we haven't paid for this war.....it's all been on credit primarily with the Chinese. We are borrowing the money to pay for our war. Better pray to Buddha or the ghost of Chairman Mao that they don't decide to call in those loans anytime soon, or US towns and cities will resemble the Shire under rule of Mordor.
At any rate, here is the News story about the Democrats "Hidden Cost" report of yesterday:
Democrats forecast $3.5 trillion in war costs
Tue Nov 13, 2007 4:47pm EST
By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Iraq and Afghanistan wars could cost the United States $3.5 trillion through 2017 if "hidden costs" like higher oil prices, care for wounded soldiers and interest on borrowed money are counted, congressional Democrats said on Tuesday.
The estimate, in a report by Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee, is about $1 trillion higher than an October 24 analysis of war costs by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which mostly weighed direct war expenditures and borrowing costs of more than $700 billion.
The new report assumed the United States would withdraw about half of its present combat troops from Iraq by 2013 and maintain 75,000 soldiers there from 2013-2017.
The estimate was released as the House of Representatives again prepared to debate legislation setting timetables for ending U.S. military involvement in Iraq, now in its fifth year.
Anti-war Democrats with a presidential election coming up next November want to link new war funds to a call for combat troops to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2008.
"We cannot afford this war," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, told reporters, noting that 3,860 U.S. troops have been killed and 38,164 wounded in Iraq.
The senior Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Rep. Jim Saxton of New Jersey, questioned the accuracy of the cost estimate. They added, "The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq certainly involve costs, but prematurely pulling out of these wars would also include huge costs that are ignored in the Democrats' report."
Sen. Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat who chairs the Joint Economic Committee, acknowledged his staff's analysis did not incorporate positive economic impacts.
"No. That money would've been spent on other things," Schumer replied.
Since the September 11 attacks on the United States, Congress has appropriated about $604 billion to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan and President George W. Bush has asked for nearly $200 billion more.
But the Democratic report estimated the total economic cost so far was about double that amount, at $1.6 trillion.
It said the war in Iraq had further hurt the U.S. economy by helping drive up world oil prices at a time of growing demand and declining excess production capacity.
"Both the direct effect of the war in reducing Iraqi oil production and the indirect effect of creating greater instability in the Middle East can act to increase oil prices," the report said.
(Additional reporting by JoAnne Allen, editing by David Alexander and David Wiessler)
© Reuters 2006.
I heard on Free Radio Santa Cruz yesterday however, an even better breakdown that brings it home to the average news consumer. The cost SO FAR of the Iraq war could have paid for:
The Education of every poor child in the WORLD for 7.5 years
The housing costs of every American for 1.5 years
Sending every child in America to Yale College for 4 years
Supplying every American home with alternative solar power (how's that for Homeland Security......we don't need your stinking oil anymore ME)
I wish I could recall all of the facts and figures of the alternate budget for those war funds but this is what I am remembering so far this morning after 1/2 cup of coffee. If I can get the actual statistics I will post them here.
But it gives you pause yes? What 3.5 TRILLION dollars can do. Oh, and by the way, we haven't paid for this war.....it's all been on credit primarily with the Chinese. We are borrowing the money to pay for our war. Better pray to Buddha or the ghost of Chairman Mao that they don't decide to call in those loans anytime soon, or US towns and cities will resemble the Shire under rule of Mordor.
At any rate, here is the News story about the Democrats "Hidden Cost" report of yesterday:
Democrats forecast $3.5 trillion in war costs
Tue Nov 13, 2007 4:47pm EST
By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Iraq and Afghanistan wars could cost the United States $3.5 trillion through 2017 if "hidden costs" like higher oil prices, care for wounded soldiers and interest on borrowed money are counted, congressional Democrats said on Tuesday.
The estimate, in a report by Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee, is about $1 trillion higher than an October 24 analysis of war costs by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which mostly weighed direct war expenditures and borrowing costs of more than $700 billion.
The new report assumed the United States would withdraw about half of its present combat troops from Iraq by 2013 and maintain 75,000 soldiers there from 2013-2017.
The estimate was released as the House of Representatives again prepared to debate legislation setting timetables for ending U.S. military involvement in Iraq, now in its fifth year.
Anti-war Democrats with a presidential election coming up next November want to link new war funds to a call for combat troops to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2008.
"We cannot afford this war," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, told reporters, noting that 3,860 U.S. troops have been killed and 38,164 wounded in Iraq.
The senior Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Rep. Jim Saxton of New Jersey, questioned the accuracy of the cost estimate. They added, "The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq certainly involve costs, but prematurely pulling out of these wars would also include huge costs that are ignored in the Democrats' report."
Sen. Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat who chairs the Joint Economic Committee, acknowledged his staff's analysis did not incorporate positive economic impacts.
"No. That money would've been spent on other things," Schumer replied.
Since the September 11 attacks on the United States, Congress has appropriated about $604 billion to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan and President George W. Bush has asked for nearly $200 billion more.
But the Democratic report estimated the total economic cost so far was about double that amount, at $1.6 trillion.
It said the war in Iraq had further hurt the U.S. economy by helping drive up world oil prices at a time of growing demand and declining excess production capacity.
"Both the direct effect of the war in reducing Iraqi oil production and the indirect effect of creating greater instability in the Middle East can act to increase oil prices," the report said.
(Additional reporting by JoAnne Allen, editing by David Alexander and David Wiessler)
© Reuters 2006.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
"If I Get 10,000 Handwritten Letters, I'll Put Impeachment Back on the Table" - Nancy Pelosi
Don't send your handwritten letters to Pelosi's office, send them to Cindy Sheehan's office; she'll keep a GENUINE tally. Here's a note from Sheehan:
Tell Nancy to Impeach Dick Cheney
November 12, 2007
House Resolution 333 for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney is off the House floor, and has instead been sent to the Judiciary Committee for "further study." This maneuver, organized by Pelosi and the Democratic leadership, is consistent with their mantra that impeachment is "off the table." But, we are told Nancy Pelosi is reported to have replied to the question of impeachment that if she received 10,000 hand written letters she would proceed with it. What are we waiting for?
Cindy Sheehan wrote this:
Dear Friends
Instead of sending your impeachment letters for Dick Cheney to Nancy Pelosi's office, send them to my office so we can get an official count.
Please send them to:
Cindy for Congress
RE: Impeach Dick Cheney
1260 Mission Blvd
San Francisco, Ca 94103
Please pass this around and have them sent by Friday, November 16th and we will have them delivered to her office in San Francisco before Thanksgiving.
Love
Cindy
Tell Nancy to Impeach Dick Cheney
November 12, 2007
House Resolution 333 for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney is off the House floor, and has instead been sent to the Judiciary Committee for "further study." This maneuver, organized by Pelosi and the Democratic leadership, is consistent with their mantra that impeachment is "off the table." But, we are told Nancy Pelosi is reported to have replied to the question of impeachment that if she received 10,000 hand written letters she would proceed with it. What are we waiting for?
Cindy Sheehan wrote this:
Dear Friends
Instead of sending your impeachment letters for Dick Cheney to Nancy Pelosi's office, send them to my office so we can get an official count.
Please send them to:
Cindy for Congress
RE: Impeach Dick Cheney
1260 Mission Blvd
San Francisco, Ca 94103
Please pass this around and have them sent by Friday, November 16th and we will have them delivered to her office in San Francisco before Thanksgiving.
Love
Cindy
Monday, November 12, 2007
The Coup at Home
Frank Rich of the New York Times has written a great Op-Ed piece that shouldn't be missed. My comment on "The Coup at Home" (I'm glad SOMEBODY is finally noticing and calling it by it's right name) is this:
The only way things can turn around in any significant and lasting way, is if we impeach. First Cheney, then Bush. Cheney first because if Bush is impeached, Cheney becomes President and then we have to go through another Presidential impeachment. Besides Cheney is the puppetmaster anyway. Bush is the true believer, but Cheney is his Svengali. (Rove a close second).
For those who say that impeachment in time of war is too outrageous, consider that the founding fathers believed that there was no better time to impeach THAN in time of war. To those who think that Cheney and Bush will be out of power in a little over a year anyway, that is beside the point. The point is to serve a warning to future would-be-dictators that this behavior doesn't fly in the good old US of A. That subverting the Constitution is an impeachable offense. Consider that Bill Clinton was impeached for having lied about some DNA on a blue dress! What is more important to this nation? WHO a president has sex with or our very freedoms and civil liberties?
If you can't imagine why impeachment is necessary, see Nov 9th blog entry the (top) ten reasons to impeach Cheney as written at Democrats.com.
Even if President Bush had the guts to condemn Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, there is no longer any moral high ground left for him to stand on.
read more | digg story
The only way things can turn around in any significant and lasting way, is if we impeach. First Cheney, then Bush. Cheney first because if Bush is impeached, Cheney becomes President and then we have to go through another Presidential impeachment. Besides Cheney is the puppetmaster anyway. Bush is the true believer, but Cheney is his Svengali. (Rove a close second).
For those who say that impeachment in time of war is too outrageous, consider that the founding fathers believed that there was no better time to impeach THAN in time of war. To those who think that Cheney and Bush will be out of power in a little over a year anyway, that is beside the point. The point is to serve a warning to future would-be-dictators that this behavior doesn't fly in the good old US of A. That subverting the Constitution is an impeachable offense. Consider that Bill Clinton was impeached for having lied about some DNA on a blue dress! What is more important to this nation? WHO a president has sex with or our very freedoms and civil liberties?
If you can't imagine why impeachment is necessary, see Nov 9th blog entry the (top) ten reasons to impeach Cheney as written at Democrats.com.
Even if President Bush had the guts to condemn Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, there is no longer any moral high ground left for him to stand on.
read more | digg story
Friday, November 9, 2007
Eric Alterman: Torturous Debate Over Waterboarding
I can't let go of this topic. Not enough people are seriously talking about it. It is fundamental in my view and should not be put to rest while we have an Attorney General now, who refuses to say this practice is TORTURE. This behavior as well as extraordinary rendition, has tarnished our American image around the world.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Bush: If I Were Iraqi, I'd Be Saying, 'God, I Love Freedom'
In a press conference today, Bush tried to insist that “freedom’s happening” and Iraq isn’t in a “quagmire”: "If you lived in Iraq and had lived under a tyranny, you’d be saying: God, I love freedom, because that’s what’s happened."
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Huffington Post: The Impeachment Of Dick Cheney
It was yesterday, on the one year anniversary of the collapse of Karl Rove's thousand-year Reich, when the Democrats subjected themselves to both public embarrassment and public disgrace, and each within a few hours of the other.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
KEITH OLBERMANN SPECIAL COMMENT ON WATERBOARDING NOV 5, 2007
I need make no comment on THIS brilliant and courageous journalism/editorial.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Pakistan's State of Emergency - a Blueprint for Bush/Cheney?
The latest news out of Islamabad is scary to say the least. The "State of Emergency" declared by Musharef is being described as a means to control the growing terrorist activity. Condi Rice supports the "anti-terrorist" ally Musharef, still. But people who are closely watching the drama unfold, say that this act by Musharef is just a thinly disguised attempt to make sure that the Supreme Court's upcoming decision on the legality of his election never takes place. Cracking down on terrorists? Not according to reports out of the Northwest provinces where they actually LET TERRORISTS GO. They are cracking down in the cities, and cracking down on human rights leaders.
For the real scoop, Juan Coles "Informed Comment" is a must read. The most chilling comment being:
If Bush and Cheney are ever tempted into extreme measures in the United States, Musharraf has provided a template for how it would unfold. Maintain you are moving against terrorists and extremists, but actually move against the rule of law. Rubin has accepted the suggested term of "lawfare" to describe this kind of warfare by executive order.
Labels: Pakistan
posted by Juan Cole @ 11/05/2007 06:30:00 AM 0 comments
Urdu Press Blames US for Crisis
For the real scoop, Juan Coles "Informed Comment" is a must read. The most chilling comment being:
If Bush and Cheney are ever tempted into extreme measures in the United States, Musharraf has provided a template for how it would unfold. Maintain you are moving against terrorists and extremists, but actually move against the rule of law. Rubin has accepted the suggested term of "lawfare" to describe this kind of warfare by executive order.
Labels: Pakistan
posted by Juan Cole @ 11/05/2007 06:30:00 AM 0 comments
Urdu Press Blames US for Crisis
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Ten Reasons to Impeach Bush and Cheney
From Democrats.com :
Ten Reasons to Impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney
I ask Congress to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney for the following reasons:
1. Violating the United Nations Charter by launching an illegal "War of Aggression" against Iraq without cause, using fraud to sell the war to Congress and the public, misusing government funds to begin bombing without Congressional authorization, and subjecting our military personnel to unnecessary harm, debilitating injuries, and deaths.
2. Violating U.S. and international law by authorizing the torture of thousands of captives, resulting in dozens of deaths, and keeping prisoners hidden from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
3. Violating the Constitution by arbitrarily detaining Americans, legal residents, and non-Americans, without due process, without charge, and without access to counsel.
4. Violating the Geneva Conventions by targeting civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, and using illegal weapons, including white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and a new type of napalm.
5. Violating U.S. law and the Constitution through widespread wiretapping of the phone calls and emails of Americans without a warrant.
6. Violating the Constitution by using "signing statements" to defy hundreds of laws passed by Congress.
7. Violating U.S. and state law by obstructing honest elections in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006.
8. Violating U.S. law by using paid propaganda and disinformation, selectively and misleadingly leaking classified information, and exposing the identity of a covert CIA operative working on sensitive WMD proliferation for political retribution.
9. Subverting the Constitution and abusing Presidential power by asserting a "Unitary Executive Theory" giving unlimited powers to the President, by obstructing efforts by Congress and the Courts to review and restrict Presidential actions, and by promoting and signing legislation negating the Bill of Rights and the Writ of Habeas Corpus.
10. Gross negligence in failing to assist New Orleans residents after Hurricane Katrina, in ignoring urgent warnings of an Al Qaeda attack prior to Sept. 11, 2001, and in increasing air pollution causing global warming.
Ten Reasons to Impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney
I ask Congress to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney for the following reasons:
1. Violating the United Nations Charter by launching an illegal "War of Aggression" against Iraq without cause, using fraud to sell the war to Congress and the public, misusing government funds to begin bombing without Congressional authorization, and subjecting our military personnel to unnecessary harm, debilitating injuries, and deaths.
2. Violating U.S. and international law by authorizing the torture of thousands of captives, resulting in dozens of deaths, and keeping prisoners hidden from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
3. Violating the Constitution by arbitrarily detaining Americans, legal residents, and non-Americans, without due process, without charge, and without access to counsel.
4. Violating the Geneva Conventions by targeting civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, and using illegal weapons, including white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and a new type of napalm.
5. Violating U.S. law and the Constitution through widespread wiretapping of the phone calls and emails of Americans without a warrant.
6. Violating the Constitution by using "signing statements" to defy hundreds of laws passed by Congress.
7. Violating U.S. and state law by obstructing honest elections in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006.
8. Violating U.S. law by using paid propaganda and disinformation, selectively and misleadingly leaking classified information, and exposing the identity of a covert CIA operative working on sensitive WMD proliferation for political retribution.
9. Subverting the Constitution and abusing Presidential power by asserting a "Unitary Executive Theory" giving unlimited powers to the President, by obstructing efforts by Congress and the Courts to review and restrict Presidential actions, and by promoting and signing legislation negating the Bill of Rights and the Writ of Habeas Corpus.
10. Gross negligence in failing to assist New Orleans residents after Hurricane Katrina, in ignoring urgent warnings of an Al Qaeda attack prior to Sept. 11, 2001, and in increasing air pollution causing global warming.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Obama Introduces New Legislation on Iran..
I'm starting to like Obama, more and more. Saw him interviewed last night by ABC Nightly News correspondent, Charles Gibson and he struck me as so CALM, so grounded, centered, thoughtful; all of the things Bush is not. Bush has always seemed like such an idealogue, one trick pony (although in his case, one trick horse's ass would be more appropos).
Read in Talking Points Memo today (link in favorites) that Obama is now introducing legislation on Iran, to counter-balance Kyl-Lieberman. GOOD! Here's the story from TPM:
Obama introduces Iran measure
Democrat Obama to Introduce Resolution Saying Bush Has No Authority for War With Iran
NEDRA PICKLER
AP News
Nov 01, 2007 20:36 EDT
Democrat Barack Obama introduced a Senate resolution late Thursday that says President Bush does not have authority to use military force against Iran, the latest move in a debate with presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton about how to respond to that country's nuclear ambitions.
Clinton's campaign accused Obama of playing politics instead of taking a leadership role from the outset.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton said the Illinois senator drafted the measure in an effort to "nullify the vote the Senate took to give the president the benefit of the doubt on Iran."
Burton was referring to an amendment sponsored by Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, that passed 76-22 on Sept. 26 and designates Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.
Clinton was the only Senate Democrat running for president to support the measure, and her rivals have argued that Bush could use it to justify war with Iran. Clinton insists her vote would not support military strikes and instead was a vote for stepped-up diplomacy.
Last week, the Bush administration declared the Revolutionary Guard a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and announced new sanctions meant to isolate Iran. The Iranian government contends its nuclear program is aimed only toward providing nuclear power.
Clinton and 29 other senators wrote to Bush Thursday to tell him he has no congressional authority for war with Iran.
The four Democratic senators running for the White House split over whether to sign the letter. Chris Dodd of Connecticut added his support, while Obama and Joe Biden of Delaware declined.
The letter accuses Bush of "provocative statements and actions stemming from your administration with respect to possible U.S. military action in Iran."
"We wish to emphasize that no congressional authority exists for unilateral military action against Iran," it says. That includes the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, the letter says.
Obama missed the vote on the amendment because he was campaigning. Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said if Obama was so concerned about the amendment, he should have been there to vote against it. Singer said Obama also should have signed Webb's letter and co-sponsored two other pieces of legislation that reaffirm the president cannot use force against Iran without congressional approval.
"It's unfortunate that (Senator) Obama is abandoning the politics of hope in favor of the kind of political games he is so critical of in his book," Singer said. He pointed to a passage in "The Audacity of Hope" where Obama is critical of the tendency to "exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case."
Said Obama spokesman Bill Burton: "With her vote for the war in Iraq and her vote for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, Hillary Clinton has now given George Bush the benefit of the doubt not once, but twice. While she's trying her best to change her position on yet another critical issue facing our country, Senator Obama knows that it takes legislation, not letters, to undo the vote that she cast."
His resolution says any offensive military action against Iran must be explicitly authorized by Congress, and seeks to clarify that nothing approved so far provides that authority.
Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander said Biden believes the amendment could be used to justify military action.
"He has also made clear many times his view that the president lacks the authority to use force against Iran absent authorization from Congress," she said. "He didn't need to clarify that position. He's been clear from the start."
Even though Dodd shares that view, he signed the letter because "we felt that it was necessary to make it clear that this administration cannot take military action against Iran without the express authorization of Congress," said Dodd spokesman Hari Sevugan.
Source: AP News
Read in Talking Points Memo today (link in favorites) that Obama is now introducing legislation on Iran, to counter-balance Kyl-Lieberman. GOOD! Here's the story from TPM:
Obama introduces Iran measure
Democrat Obama to Introduce Resolution Saying Bush Has No Authority for War With Iran
NEDRA PICKLER
AP News
Nov 01, 2007 20:36 EDT
Democrat Barack Obama introduced a Senate resolution late Thursday that says President Bush does not have authority to use military force against Iran, the latest move in a debate with presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton about how to respond to that country's nuclear ambitions.
Clinton's campaign accused Obama of playing politics instead of taking a leadership role from the outset.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton said the Illinois senator drafted the measure in an effort to "nullify the vote the Senate took to give the president the benefit of the doubt on Iran."
Burton was referring to an amendment sponsored by Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, that passed 76-22 on Sept. 26 and designates Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.
Clinton was the only Senate Democrat running for president to support the measure, and her rivals have argued that Bush could use it to justify war with Iran. Clinton insists her vote would not support military strikes and instead was a vote for stepped-up diplomacy.
Last week, the Bush administration declared the Revolutionary Guard a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and announced new sanctions meant to isolate Iran. The Iranian government contends its nuclear program is aimed only toward providing nuclear power.
Clinton and 29 other senators wrote to Bush Thursday to tell him he has no congressional authority for war with Iran.
The four Democratic senators running for the White House split over whether to sign the letter. Chris Dodd of Connecticut added his support, while Obama and Joe Biden of Delaware declined.
The letter accuses Bush of "provocative statements and actions stemming from your administration with respect to possible U.S. military action in Iran."
"We wish to emphasize that no congressional authority exists for unilateral military action against Iran," it says. That includes the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, the letter says.
Obama missed the vote on the amendment because he was campaigning. Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said if Obama was so concerned about the amendment, he should have been there to vote against it. Singer said Obama also should have signed Webb's letter and co-sponsored two other pieces of legislation that reaffirm the president cannot use force against Iran without congressional approval.
"It's unfortunate that (Senator) Obama is abandoning the politics of hope in favor of the kind of political games he is so critical of in his book," Singer said. He pointed to a passage in "The Audacity of Hope" where Obama is critical of the tendency to "exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case."
Said Obama spokesman Bill Burton: "With her vote for the war in Iraq and her vote for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, Hillary Clinton has now given George Bush the benefit of the doubt not once, but twice. While she's trying her best to change her position on yet another critical issue facing our country, Senator Obama knows that it takes legislation, not letters, to undo the vote that she cast."
His resolution says any offensive military action against Iran must be explicitly authorized by Congress, and seeks to clarify that nothing approved so far provides that authority.
Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander said Biden believes the amendment could be used to justify military action.
"He has also made clear many times his view that the president lacks the authority to use force against Iran absent authorization from Congress," she said. "He didn't need to clarify that position. He's been clear from the start."
Even though Dodd shares that view, he signed the letter because "we felt that it was necessary to make it clear that this administration cannot take military action against Iran without the express authorization of Congress," said Dodd spokesman Hari Sevugan.
Source: AP News
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Is Waterboarding torture? Have it done to you, THEN decide...
I listened to Democracy Now the other day with interest when a Human Rights organization representative talked about filing a lawsuit against Donald Rumsfeld with French authorities, while Rumsfeld was visiting France. Their hope was that the French authorities would arrest Rumsfeld as a war criminal for authorizing torture while he was Secretary of Defense.
I later read that he had to be whisked away into an adjacent US Embassy building by US Embassy officials and spirited away to Germany, where they have dropped a proposal by human rights activists to charge Rumsfeld as a war criminal. You know, Germany understands.......those pesky human rights sometimes get in the way of a nation state's larger purpose.
Today's lead story in the NY Times is how this scenario could be played out in the future with much different consequences for Rummy and even George W. Bush, should the nominee for Attorney General, come out and clearly define waterboarding as torture. That is why he is torturing the definition......of torture......it's so this cabal of neocon goosesteppers won't get into legal hot water when there is a change of Administration.
But to the question "Is waterboarding torture?" Any child could tell you that it is. Any person who has experienced it, would tell you that it is. If some lunatic serial killer like the BTK killer for example, used this ritual as part of his reportoire after kidnapping and binding people, do you think the prosecuting D.A. in a case like that would say "Naw, we don't want to include torture as one of the charges, that was just, you know, applying pressure, but it was no big deal." ? Oh HELL no. You KNOW that D.A. would indict the maniac on torture for that act, and nobody would blink an eye and I'd like to see a defense attorney fight that one. Maybe that is what needs to happen. For criminal attorneys and district attorneys and judges to say that if the government can do these things with impunity then so can criminal maniacs.
Here is the text of today's NY Times story on the matter. Warning: It's sickening to watch the waffling, especially by the moderate Dems. Ugh. But read on:
November 1, 2007
Nominee’s Stand May Avoid Tangle of Torture Cases
By SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 — In adamantly refusing to declare waterboarding illegal, Michael B. Mukasey, the nominee for attorney general, is steering clear of a potential legal quagmire for the Bush administration: criminal prosecution or lawsuits against Central Intelligence Agency officers who used the harsh interrogation practice and those who authorized it, legal experts said Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, scheduled a confirmation vote for Tuesday amid deep uncertainty about the outcome at the committee level. If Mr. Mukasey’s nomination reaches the Senate floor, moderate Democrats appear likely to join Republicans to produce a majority for confirmation. But a party-line vote in the Judiciary Committee, which seemed a possibility, could block the nomination from reaching the floor.
The biggest problem for Mr. Mukasey remains his refusal to take a clear legal position on the interrogation technique. Fear of opening the door to criminal or civil liability for torture or abuse, whether in an American court or in courts overseas, appeared to loom large in Mr. Mukasey’s calculations as he parried questions from the committee this week. Some legal experts suggested that liability could go all the way to President Bush if he explicitly authorized waterboarding.
Waterboarding is a centuries-old interrogation method in which a prisoner’s face is covered with cloth and then doused with water to create a feeling of suffocation. It was used in 2002 and 2003 by C.I.A. officers questioning at least three high-level terrorism suspects, government officials say.
Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the committee’s top Republican, said at a hearing Wednesday that any statement by Mr. Mukasey that waterboarding is torture could fuel criminal charges or lawsuits against those responsible for waterboarding.
“The facts are that an expression of an opinion by Judge Mukasey prior to becoming attorney general would put a lot of people at risk for what has happened,” Mr. Specter said.
Mr. Specter, who said he was briefed on the interrogation issue this week by the C.I.A. director, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, noted that human rights groups had filed a criminal complaint on torture against Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary, while he was visiting France this month. Such cases, based on the legal concept of “universal jurisdiction” for torture and certain other crimes, have proliferated in recent years, though they have often posed more of an aggravation than a serious threat.
Jack L. Goldsmith, who served in the Justice Department in 2003 and 2004, wrote in his recent memoir, “The Terror Presidency,” that the possibility of future prosecution for aggressive actions against terrorism was a constant worry inside the Bush administration.
“I witnessed top officials and bureaucrats in the White House and throughout the administration openly worrying that investigators, acting with the benefit of hindsight in a different political environment, would impose criminal penalties on heat-of-battle judgment calls,” Mr. Goldsmith wrote.
Scott L. Silliman, an expert on national security law at Duke University School of Law, said any statement by Mr. Mukasey that waterboarding was illegal torture “would open up Pandora’s box,” even in the United States. Such a statement from an attorney general would override existing Justice Department legal opinions and create intense pressure from human rights groups to open a criminal investigation of interrogation practices, Mr. Silliman said.
“You would ask not just who carried it out, but who specifically approved it,” said Mr. Silliman, director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke. “Theoretically, it could go all the way up to the president of the United States; that’s why he’ll never say it’s torture,” Mr. Silliman said of Mr. Mukasey.
Robert M. Chesney, of Wake Forest University School of Law, said Mr. Mukasey’s statements could influence the climate in which prosecution decisions are made.
“There is a culture of concern about where Monday-morning quarterbacking could lead to,” Mr. Chesney said. If Mr. Mukasey declared waterboarding illegal, “it would make it politically more possible to go after interrogators in the future,” he said. “Whether it would change the legal equities is far less clear.”
Mr. Chesney and other specialists emphasized that prosecution in the United States, even under a future administration, would face huge hurdles because Congress since 2005 has adopted laws offering legal protections to interrogators for actions taken with government authorization. Justice Department legal opinions are believed to have approved waterboarding, among other harsh methods.
Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, said Mr. Mukasey “is hedging in the interest of protecting current and former administration officials from possible prosecution,” either in other countries or by a future American administration. “What he should be doing is providing a straightforward interpretation of the law,” she said.
Mr. Mukasey, 66, a retired federal judge from New York, referred to the criminal liability issue several times in nearly 180 pages of written answers delivered to the Senate on Tuesday. He said that while he personally found waterboarding and similar interrogation methods “repugnant,” he could not call them illegal. One reason, he said, was to avoid any implication that intelligence officers and their bosses had broken the law.
“I would not want any uninformed statement of mine made during a confirmation process to present our own professional interrogators in the field, who must perform their duty under the most stressful conditions, or those charged with reviewing their conduct,” Mr. Mukasey wrote, “with a perceived threat that any conduct of theirs, past or present, that was based on authorizations supported by the Department of Justice could place them in personal legal jeopardy.”
If the judiciary committee were to split along party lines, the deciding vote could go to Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who first suggested Mr. Mukasey to succeed Alberto R. Gonzales.
That would leave Mr. Schumer, ordinarily an enthusiastic partisan combatant, with a difficult decision: whether to break with his fellow Democrats and save Mr. Mukasey’s nomination or to vote to kill the nomination of a man he has highly praised.
On Wednesday, Mr. Schumer was uncharacteristically reluctant to discuss his views. He avoided television crews waiting outside an unrelated press conference and refused to answer questions about the judge’s letter on waterboarding.
“I’m not going to comment on Judge Mukasey here,” he said. “I’m reading the letter, I’m going over it.”
Dana M. Perino, the White House press secretary, said Democrats were “playing politics” with the waterboarding issue, noting that Mr. Mukasey had not been briefed on classified interrogation methods. “I can’t imagine the Democrats would want to hold back his nomination just because he is a thoughtful, careful thinker who looks at all the facts before he makes a judgment,” Ms. Perino said.
Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, offered a fierce defense of Mr. Mukasey, who he said had spent “40 days in the partisan wilderness,” on the Senate floor. “What kind of crazy, topsy-turvy confirmation process is this?” Mr. Hatch asked.
But Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, declared on the floor that he would vote against confirming Mr. Mukasey, whom he called a good man and a brilliant lawyer, because of the torture question. “I don’t think anyone intended this nomination to turn on this issue,” Mr. Whitehouse said.
Three Republicans who have denounced waterboarding wrote to Mr. Mukasey on Wednesday, suggesting that they would support him but urging him to declare waterboarding illegal after he is confirmed.
The senators, John McCain of Arizona, John W. Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said anyone who engaged in waterboarding “puts himself at risk of prosecution, including under the War Crimes Act, and opens himself to civil liability as well.”
Carl Hulse and Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting.
I later read that he had to be whisked away into an adjacent US Embassy building by US Embassy officials and spirited away to Germany, where they have dropped a proposal by human rights activists to charge Rumsfeld as a war criminal. You know, Germany understands.......those pesky human rights sometimes get in the way of a nation state's larger purpose.
Today's lead story in the NY Times is how this scenario could be played out in the future with much different consequences for Rummy and even George W. Bush, should the nominee for Attorney General, come out and clearly define waterboarding as torture. That is why he is torturing the definition......of torture......it's so this cabal of neocon goosesteppers won't get into legal hot water when there is a change of Administration.
But to the question "Is waterboarding torture?" Any child could tell you that it is. Any person who has experienced it, would tell you that it is. If some lunatic serial killer like the BTK killer for example, used this ritual as part of his reportoire after kidnapping and binding people, do you think the prosecuting D.A. in a case like that would say "Naw, we don't want to include torture as one of the charges, that was just, you know, applying pressure, but it was no big deal." ? Oh HELL no. You KNOW that D.A. would indict the maniac on torture for that act, and nobody would blink an eye and I'd like to see a defense attorney fight that one. Maybe that is what needs to happen. For criminal attorneys and district attorneys and judges to say that if the government can do these things with impunity then so can criminal maniacs.
Here is the text of today's NY Times story on the matter. Warning: It's sickening to watch the waffling, especially by the moderate Dems. Ugh. But read on:
November 1, 2007
Nominee’s Stand May Avoid Tangle of Torture Cases
By SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 — In adamantly refusing to declare waterboarding illegal, Michael B. Mukasey, the nominee for attorney general, is steering clear of a potential legal quagmire for the Bush administration: criminal prosecution or lawsuits against Central Intelligence Agency officers who used the harsh interrogation practice and those who authorized it, legal experts said Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, scheduled a confirmation vote for Tuesday amid deep uncertainty about the outcome at the committee level. If Mr. Mukasey’s nomination reaches the Senate floor, moderate Democrats appear likely to join Republicans to produce a majority for confirmation. But a party-line vote in the Judiciary Committee, which seemed a possibility, could block the nomination from reaching the floor.
The biggest problem for Mr. Mukasey remains his refusal to take a clear legal position on the interrogation technique. Fear of opening the door to criminal or civil liability for torture or abuse, whether in an American court or in courts overseas, appeared to loom large in Mr. Mukasey’s calculations as he parried questions from the committee this week. Some legal experts suggested that liability could go all the way to President Bush if he explicitly authorized waterboarding.
Waterboarding is a centuries-old interrogation method in which a prisoner’s face is covered with cloth and then doused with water to create a feeling of suffocation. It was used in 2002 and 2003 by C.I.A. officers questioning at least three high-level terrorism suspects, government officials say.
Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the committee’s top Republican, said at a hearing Wednesday that any statement by Mr. Mukasey that waterboarding is torture could fuel criminal charges or lawsuits against those responsible for waterboarding.
“The facts are that an expression of an opinion by Judge Mukasey prior to becoming attorney general would put a lot of people at risk for what has happened,” Mr. Specter said.
Mr. Specter, who said he was briefed on the interrogation issue this week by the C.I.A. director, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, noted that human rights groups had filed a criminal complaint on torture against Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary, while he was visiting France this month. Such cases, based on the legal concept of “universal jurisdiction” for torture and certain other crimes, have proliferated in recent years, though they have often posed more of an aggravation than a serious threat.
Jack L. Goldsmith, who served in the Justice Department in 2003 and 2004, wrote in his recent memoir, “The Terror Presidency,” that the possibility of future prosecution for aggressive actions against terrorism was a constant worry inside the Bush administration.
“I witnessed top officials and bureaucrats in the White House and throughout the administration openly worrying that investigators, acting with the benefit of hindsight in a different political environment, would impose criminal penalties on heat-of-battle judgment calls,” Mr. Goldsmith wrote.
Scott L. Silliman, an expert on national security law at Duke University School of Law, said any statement by Mr. Mukasey that waterboarding was illegal torture “would open up Pandora’s box,” even in the United States. Such a statement from an attorney general would override existing Justice Department legal opinions and create intense pressure from human rights groups to open a criminal investigation of interrogation practices, Mr. Silliman said.
“You would ask not just who carried it out, but who specifically approved it,” said Mr. Silliman, director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke. “Theoretically, it could go all the way up to the president of the United States; that’s why he’ll never say it’s torture,” Mr. Silliman said of Mr. Mukasey.
Robert M. Chesney, of Wake Forest University School of Law, said Mr. Mukasey’s statements could influence the climate in which prosecution decisions are made.
“There is a culture of concern about where Monday-morning quarterbacking could lead to,” Mr. Chesney said. If Mr. Mukasey declared waterboarding illegal, “it would make it politically more possible to go after interrogators in the future,” he said. “Whether it would change the legal equities is far less clear.”
Mr. Chesney and other specialists emphasized that prosecution in the United States, even under a future administration, would face huge hurdles because Congress since 2005 has adopted laws offering legal protections to interrogators for actions taken with government authorization. Justice Department legal opinions are believed to have approved waterboarding, among other harsh methods.
Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, said Mr. Mukasey “is hedging in the interest of protecting current and former administration officials from possible prosecution,” either in other countries or by a future American administration. “What he should be doing is providing a straightforward interpretation of the law,” she said.
Mr. Mukasey, 66, a retired federal judge from New York, referred to the criminal liability issue several times in nearly 180 pages of written answers delivered to the Senate on Tuesday. He said that while he personally found waterboarding and similar interrogation methods “repugnant,” he could not call them illegal. One reason, he said, was to avoid any implication that intelligence officers and their bosses had broken the law.
“I would not want any uninformed statement of mine made during a confirmation process to present our own professional interrogators in the field, who must perform their duty under the most stressful conditions, or those charged with reviewing their conduct,” Mr. Mukasey wrote, “with a perceived threat that any conduct of theirs, past or present, that was based on authorizations supported by the Department of Justice could place them in personal legal jeopardy.”
If the judiciary committee were to split along party lines, the deciding vote could go to Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who first suggested Mr. Mukasey to succeed Alberto R. Gonzales.
That would leave Mr. Schumer, ordinarily an enthusiastic partisan combatant, with a difficult decision: whether to break with his fellow Democrats and save Mr. Mukasey’s nomination or to vote to kill the nomination of a man he has highly praised.
On Wednesday, Mr. Schumer was uncharacteristically reluctant to discuss his views. He avoided television crews waiting outside an unrelated press conference and refused to answer questions about the judge’s letter on waterboarding.
“I’m not going to comment on Judge Mukasey here,” he said. “I’m reading the letter, I’m going over it.”
Dana M. Perino, the White House press secretary, said Democrats were “playing politics” with the waterboarding issue, noting that Mr. Mukasey had not been briefed on classified interrogation methods. “I can’t imagine the Democrats would want to hold back his nomination just because he is a thoughtful, careful thinker who looks at all the facts before he makes a judgment,” Ms. Perino said.
Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, offered a fierce defense of Mr. Mukasey, who he said had spent “40 days in the partisan wilderness,” on the Senate floor. “What kind of crazy, topsy-turvy confirmation process is this?” Mr. Hatch asked.
But Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, declared on the floor that he would vote against confirming Mr. Mukasey, whom he called a good man and a brilliant lawyer, because of the torture question. “I don’t think anyone intended this nomination to turn on this issue,” Mr. Whitehouse said.
Three Republicans who have denounced waterboarding wrote to Mr. Mukasey on Wednesday, suggesting that they would support him but urging him to declare waterboarding illegal after he is confirmed.
The senators, John McCain of Arizona, John W. Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said anyone who engaged in waterboarding “puts himself at risk of prosecution, including under the War Crimes Act, and opens himself to civil liability as well.”
Carl Hulse and Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Into the Wild......and how.
Saw "Into the Wild" last night with an 85 year old friend. We loved it. She cried at the end, a definite hankie cry. She said the fellow reminded her of her grandson. Sooooo idealistic.
It was a spellbinding film, about Chris McCandless, the college grad who became a globe trekker upon graduating college, first giving his savings away to Oxfam and then burning his cash in the desert.
I have alot to say about this flick......it brought up alot of emotions (and judgments, let's be honest) in me, so a full review will be forthcoming. But for now, unlike "Alexander Supertramp", the moniker McCandless gives himself, I've got to get to work.
It was a spellbinding film, about Chris McCandless, the college grad who became a globe trekker upon graduating college, first giving his savings away to Oxfam and then burning his cash in the desert.
I have alot to say about this flick......it brought up alot of emotions (and judgments, let's be honest) in me, so a full review will be forthcoming. But for now, unlike "Alexander Supertramp", the moniker McCandless gives himself, I've got to get to work.
Monday, October 29, 2007
The Naomis Rock
Of all of the political/cultural books out there currently, my vote as must-reads goes to the two Naomis: Klein and Wolf.
Naomi Klein for "The Shock Doctrine" (video embedded in this blog earlier in the month) and Naomi Wolf for "The End of America". (video embedded in this blog yesterday). Not to be missed by the serious student or serious citizen.
We have been going through rapid change in our country ever since 9/11. The Patriot Act is absurdly named; designed to make us feel safer as a democracy but it has of course limited our freedoms as citizens and should be named "the Brown Shirt Act" or "the Civil Liberties Restriction Act". Under the most recent legislation handed to Bush on a silver platter is the ability to name any citizen of the US "enemy combatant" for any reason which the government sees fit, AND without the onus to have to provide said citizen with a reason, a charge; no communicaton is required. Just name someone as an EC and arrest them, hold them in solitary for three years before needing to come up with a charge. Oh and btw, family and friends do not need to be notified. You just sort of "disappear".
I believe we are under that old Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times."
Naomi Klein for "The Shock Doctrine" (video embedded in this blog earlier in the month) and Naomi Wolf for "The End of America". (video embedded in this blog yesterday). Not to be missed by the serious student or serious citizen.
We have been going through rapid change in our country ever since 9/11. The Patriot Act is absurdly named; designed to make us feel safer as a democracy but it has of course limited our freedoms as citizens and should be named "the Brown Shirt Act" or "the Civil Liberties Restriction Act". Under the most recent legislation handed to Bush on a silver platter is the ability to name any citizen of the US "enemy combatant" for any reason which the government sees fit, AND without the onus to have to provide said citizen with a reason, a charge; no communicaton is required. Just name someone as an EC and arrest them, hold them in solitary for three years before needing to come up with a charge. Oh and btw, family and friends do not need to be notified. You just sort of "disappear".
I believe we are under that old Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times."
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Al Gore Wins Peace Prize Re-Dux
FromThe Poughkeepsie Journal:
From losing the presidency to hanging chads in Florida in 2000 to being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Al Gore has shown that tenacity and conviction can pay off.
Sure, some will question whether he should have received such an honor for his work to raise awareness about global warming. The Nobel committee has, indeed, greatly expanded the interpretation of what can constitute the peace prize.
And it's hard not to look at Gore's achievement through a political lens, whether that be through his own comeback, what it may mean to the 2008 presidential race and what it says about the Bush administration.
Those provocative topics shouldn't detract from the main point being made by scientists worldwide: A recent study by scientists from more than 100 countries says, with more than 90 percent certainty, global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. They cite increases in weather fluctuations. They say hotter temperatures and rising sea levels will occur regardless of what people do at this point, but they believe people can mitigate the impact, if better policies are put in place now. This is no small matter for the U.S., which generates about 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Yet the Bush administration has opted to rely on voluntary controls by industry. Meanwhile, an international treaty designed to reduce global warming has gone into effect without U.S. participation.
In Washington, global warming seemingly pits Democrats against Republicans, but state leaders, at least, know better. Former Gov. George Pataki, a Republican, led the effort for a regional agreement among states, and his successor, Democrat Eliot Spitzer, has deemed global warming the most important environmental issue facing this generation. As such, New York has joined with more than a half-dozen states to start the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which will mandate cuts in certain emissions from power plants.
Still, a federal solution is imperative. At a minimum, he can continue to prod the crowded field of Republican and Democratic candidates to spell out their plans to confront global warming.
Left for dead politically in 2000, Gore has made the classic American comeback. He brings with it talk of a profoundly serious issue facing the country and world. That is something to admire, his detractors notwithstanding.
©The Record 2007
From losing the presidency to hanging chads in Florida in 2000 to being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Al Gore has shown that tenacity and conviction can pay off.
Sure, some will question whether he should have received such an honor for his work to raise awareness about global warming. The Nobel committee has, indeed, greatly expanded the interpretation of what can constitute the peace prize.
And it's hard not to look at Gore's achievement through a political lens, whether that be through his own comeback, what it may mean to the 2008 presidential race and what it says about the Bush administration.
Those provocative topics shouldn't detract from the main point being made by scientists worldwide: A recent study by scientists from more than 100 countries says, with more than 90 percent certainty, global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. They cite increases in weather fluctuations. They say hotter temperatures and rising sea levels will occur regardless of what people do at this point, but they believe people can mitigate the impact, if better policies are put in place now. This is no small matter for the U.S., which generates about 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Yet the Bush administration has opted to rely on voluntary controls by industry. Meanwhile, an international treaty designed to reduce global warming has gone into effect without U.S. participation.
In Washington, global warming seemingly pits Democrats against Republicans, but state leaders, at least, know better. Former Gov. George Pataki, a Republican, led the effort for a regional agreement among states, and his successor, Democrat Eliot Spitzer, has deemed global warming the most important environmental issue facing this generation. As such, New York has joined with more than a half-dozen states to start the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which will mandate cuts in certain emissions from power plants.
Still, a federal solution is imperative. At a minimum, he can continue to prod the crowded field of Republican and Democratic candidates to spell out their plans to confront global warming.
Left for dead politically in 2000, Gore has made the classic American comeback. He brings with it talk of a profoundly serious issue facing the country and world. That is something to admire, his detractors notwithstanding.
©The Record 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
Where is Nancy Pelosi??
I've been thinking lately, what a disappointment Nancy Pelosi has been as Speaker of the House. The Democrat majority she manages was basically brought in on the "end the war" sentiment of voters last year, and then she was ushered in as the best Spokesperson to get the job done. It should have been a cake-walk at that point. Over 60% of the public wanting to end the Iraq war, Jack Murtha, both a veteran of Congress AND a military veteran leading the charge in Congress to bring the troops home and the first thing Ms. Pelosi does is to declare that impeachment is "off the table".
Well hot diggity for George Bush! He is going to skate on all the crimes and misdemeanors in which he has been implicated so far AND he gets a pass on future misdeeds. That is the last thing the man-who-would-be-king needs; he was already emboldened plenty by his insular lifestyle, the echo chamber in which he lives and his fundamental stupidity. Any criticially thinking man might be embarrassed by now, a bit chagrined after the idiotic decisions and horrific failures he's concocted, but not George. Nancy Pelosi, leader of the MAJORITY of Congress (MAJORITY people!) has told him he can continue to be unaccountable.
Well, impeachment is off the table, but what about ending the war? One would expect that the next move is to stop all funding for George's epic folly; to supply ONLY enough money to aid the troops in safely exiting Iraq as soon as humanly possible. All the Democratic rhetoric was certainly along the lines of "not one more American soldier should die in this war."
But, the Democrats continued to fund the war. They gave Bush what he asked for. So it appears that George W. Bush, with an approval rating below 40% is a more effective leader than Nancy Pelosi. He certainly beats her in the chutzpah department. She wouldn't even need chutzpah, she had a mandate from the American people to get us out of Iraq. All she would need is to do what she and the other Democrats were hired to do. Where IS she? She is NOWHERE of importance. Oh sure, the S chip.....but the Dems aren't going to get that passed. Pelosi is a huge disappointment IMO. Huge. I say that even though she is a hometown girl. I've watched her for years, being a San Francisco native myself. I used to think she had spunk and grit and the gravitas to get the job done down to the last detail. But oh how easily she has folded; out- led by a nincompoop.
Because of my recent ruminations about Pelosi and the rest of the Congressional hand-wringing jellyfish, I was glad to see that Arianna Huffington over at HuffPo had a column about basically the same issue, although she doesn't mention impeachment. I don't know how much good her editorial is going to do, but I suspect it will touch a far wider audience than MINE would anyday. Here's the text:
Taking a page from America's retailers, President Bush is getting a jump on the coming battle over Iraq war funding. On Monday, he added an additional $45.9 billion in supplemental war funding to the $150.5 billion he'd already requested, and then turned up the heat on Congress to sign off on the $196.4 billion before heading home for the holidays. Only 60 more browbeating days until Christmas!
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And you have to give Bush credit. Despite record-low approval ratings, he's unabashedly playing -- and winning -- the PR game on the war. By incrementally adding to his funding request, he made his ongoing plundering of our treasury to pursue his disastrous Iraq policy seem relatively modest. The headlines all focused on the $46 billion he's just added to the tab -- not the $196 billion he's really after.
And while his language about "supporting the troops," and "providing our troops with the help and support they need to get the job done" is well past its sell-by date, the Democrats have yet to reframe the funding debate. So Bush replays his patriotic greatest hits while the blood of our soldiers continues to flow -- in the process making our country not more, but less, safe.
The president was feeling so cocky he even pulled out the "s" word -- "succeed" -- that had been in cold storage for a while. "Our men and women on the front lines should not be caught in the middle of partisan disagreements in Washington, D.C.," he said. "[Congress] ought to make sure our troops have what it takes to succeed." Whatever that means in Iraq these days.
The Democrats meanwhile remain divided and confounded on how to stand up to the president on Iraq. House invertebrates like Steny Hoyer, who foolishly think ducking for cover is a winning '08 strategy, are urging a cautious approach, suggesting that any hardball stop-the-war efforts will leave red state Dems vulnerable to attacks for undermining the troops.
Senate leaders, including Carl Levin, are also treading lightly. Levin's latest gambit: put Bush on the installment plan, giving him only part of the money and forcing him to come asking for more in June, after the next Congressionally mandated report from Gen. Petraeus (September redux?). Levin's plan would also aim for a complete withdrawal from Iraq within nine months -- but this would only be a goal, not a date certain requirement.
Hey, why accomplish today what you can put off until tomorrow -- or June?
And some Democrats just seem resigned to the notion that their options are limited. As Henry Waxman told Politico: "If you don't have the votes, you don't have the votes." It's what David Sirota calls the "Innocent Bystander Fable" -- the idea that since Democrats don't have the 60 votes needed to end Senate debate or the 66 votes needed to override a Bush veto, the war in Iraq is out of their hands.
But the truth is, Democrats have all the votes they need to stop the war -- if they are willing to use the power given them by the Constitution to block the supplemental funding bill unless it includes a deadline for bringing the troops home. As Norm Ornstein told me: "Whatever the White House sends to the House is constitutionally merely a suggestion." The prerogative to bring a funding bill to the floor rests entirely with the majority -- which, in case Democrats have forgotten, is theirs. As for the Senate, Democrats there would only have to find 41 votes to block the supplemental funding bill.
I'm sorry for this refresher in Congressional Power 101, but Democratic leaders seem to need it. The White House cannot force Congress to spend money. Period. The end. The imperial presidency has not gone that far. At least not yet. So Democrats, who have the public behind them, need to be unequivocal that they are simply not going to continue to fund the war unless and until the president agrees to change course and set a date certain for ending it.
They need to make it clear that they are not pulling the plug on the troops -- indeed, they will be authorizing bridge funding for armored vehicles and veterans' health benefits, among other essential expenses, when they take up the annual defense appropriations bill in December. And they can make it clear that they will give the president and the Pentagon all the money they need to safely and responsibly bring the troops home.
It's a battle of wills. A test of leadership. And a contest to frame the debate in the public's mind.
The president took a preemptive shot across the bow on Monday, playing the funding-equals-troop-support card, and placing the ball squarely in Congress' court. Democrats can't afford to sit back on their heels and wait until next year to take on the president (or worse yet, have a replay of the 2007 supplemental funding fight and cave to the president's phony "before the holidays" demands).
They need to begin reframing the funding fight now -- hammering home the message that it's the president's obstinacy that is jeopardizing the well-being of our troops and the safety of our country.
This is not the time for caution and playing it safe. This is the time to force the president's hand.
Well hot diggity for George Bush! He is going to skate on all the crimes and misdemeanors in which he has been implicated so far AND he gets a pass on future misdeeds. That is the last thing the man-who-would-be-king needs; he was already emboldened plenty by his insular lifestyle, the echo chamber in which he lives and his fundamental stupidity. Any criticially thinking man might be embarrassed by now, a bit chagrined after the idiotic decisions and horrific failures he's concocted, but not George. Nancy Pelosi, leader of the MAJORITY of Congress (MAJORITY people!) has told him he can continue to be unaccountable.
Well, impeachment is off the table, but what about ending the war? One would expect that the next move is to stop all funding for George's epic folly; to supply ONLY enough money to aid the troops in safely exiting Iraq as soon as humanly possible. All the Democratic rhetoric was certainly along the lines of "not one more American soldier should die in this war."
But, the Democrats continued to fund the war. They gave Bush what he asked for. So it appears that George W. Bush, with an approval rating below 40% is a more effective leader than Nancy Pelosi. He certainly beats her in the chutzpah department. She wouldn't even need chutzpah, she had a mandate from the American people to get us out of Iraq. All she would need is to do what she and the other Democrats were hired to do. Where IS she? She is NOWHERE of importance. Oh sure, the S chip.....but the Dems aren't going to get that passed. Pelosi is a huge disappointment IMO. Huge. I say that even though she is a hometown girl. I've watched her for years, being a San Francisco native myself. I used to think she had spunk and grit and the gravitas to get the job done down to the last detail. But oh how easily she has folded; out- led by a nincompoop.
Because of my recent ruminations about Pelosi and the rest of the Congressional hand-wringing jellyfish, I was glad to see that Arianna Huffington over at HuffPo had a column about basically the same issue, although she doesn't mention impeachment. I don't know how much good her editorial is going to do, but I suspect it will touch a far wider audience than MINE would anyday. Here's the text:
Taking a page from America's retailers, President Bush is getting a jump on the coming battle over Iraq war funding. On Monday, he added an additional $45.9 billion in supplemental war funding to the $150.5 billion he'd already requested, and then turned up the heat on Congress to sign off on the $196.4 billion before heading home for the holidays. Only 60 more browbeating days until Christmas!
Comment
And you have to give Bush credit. Despite record-low approval ratings, he's unabashedly playing -- and winning -- the PR game on the war. By incrementally adding to his funding request, he made his ongoing plundering of our treasury to pursue his disastrous Iraq policy seem relatively modest. The headlines all focused on the $46 billion he's just added to the tab -- not the $196 billion he's really after.
And while his language about "supporting the troops," and "providing our troops with the help and support they need to get the job done" is well past its sell-by date, the Democrats have yet to reframe the funding debate. So Bush replays his patriotic greatest hits while the blood of our soldiers continues to flow -- in the process making our country not more, but less, safe.
The president was feeling so cocky he even pulled out the "s" word -- "succeed" -- that had been in cold storage for a while. "Our men and women on the front lines should not be caught in the middle of partisan disagreements in Washington, D.C.," he said. "[Congress] ought to make sure our troops have what it takes to succeed." Whatever that means in Iraq these days.
The Democrats meanwhile remain divided and confounded on how to stand up to the president on Iraq. House invertebrates like Steny Hoyer, who foolishly think ducking for cover is a winning '08 strategy, are urging a cautious approach, suggesting that any hardball stop-the-war efforts will leave red state Dems vulnerable to attacks for undermining the troops.
Senate leaders, including Carl Levin, are also treading lightly. Levin's latest gambit: put Bush on the installment plan, giving him only part of the money and forcing him to come asking for more in June, after the next Congressionally mandated report from Gen. Petraeus (September redux?). Levin's plan would also aim for a complete withdrawal from Iraq within nine months -- but this would only be a goal, not a date certain requirement.
Hey, why accomplish today what you can put off until tomorrow -- or June?
And some Democrats just seem resigned to the notion that their options are limited. As Henry Waxman told Politico: "If you don't have the votes, you don't have the votes." It's what David Sirota calls the "Innocent Bystander Fable" -- the idea that since Democrats don't have the 60 votes needed to end Senate debate or the 66 votes needed to override a Bush veto, the war in Iraq is out of their hands.
But the truth is, Democrats have all the votes they need to stop the war -- if they are willing to use the power given them by the Constitution to block the supplemental funding bill unless it includes a deadline for bringing the troops home. As Norm Ornstein told me: "Whatever the White House sends to the House is constitutionally merely a suggestion." The prerogative to bring a funding bill to the floor rests entirely with the majority -- which, in case Democrats have forgotten, is theirs. As for the Senate, Democrats there would only have to find 41 votes to block the supplemental funding bill.
I'm sorry for this refresher in Congressional Power 101, but Democratic leaders seem to need it. The White House cannot force Congress to spend money. Period. The end. The imperial presidency has not gone that far. At least not yet. So Democrats, who have the public behind them, need to be unequivocal that they are simply not going to continue to fund the war unless and until the president agrees to change course and set a date certain for ending it.
They need to make it clear that they are not pulling the plug on the troops -- indeed, they will be authorizing bridge funding for armored vehicles and veterans' health benefits, among other essential expenses, when they take up the annual defense appropriations bill in December. And they can make it clear that they will give the president and the Pentagon all the money they need to safely and responsibly bring the troops home.
It's a battle of wills. A test of leadership. And a contest to frame the debate in the public's mind.
The president took a preemptive shot across the bow on Monday, playing the funding-equals-troop-support card, and placing the ball squarely in Congress' court. Democrats can't afford to sit back on their heels and wait until next year to take on the president (or worse yet, have a replay of the 2007 supplemental funding fight and cave to the president's phony "before the holidays" demands).
They need to begin reframing the funding fight now -- hammering home the message that it's the president's obstinacy that is jeopardizing the well-being of our troops and the safety of our country.
This is not the time for caution and playing it safe. This is the time to force the president's hand.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Rude Pundit sums it up nicely...
Now I admit to reading the Rude Pundit; albeit his over the top crass/vulgar style makes me cringe sometimes. He's generally right on politically and has an eye for what's a hot topic. In today's column he discusses the Republican candidate's debate. I watched excerpts on PBS News Hour last evening and I have to say, his analysis is spot on. I've excerpted the clean parts of Rude Pundit's column for today. His entire column is not for the timid. Here he goes:
the debate was dominated by a simple question asked of simple men: "Which of you hates more people?" Or, as the Fox "news" correspondents asking the questions put it, "Who's more conservative?"
A good chunk of the debate consisted of one candidate after another declaring they hate illegal immigrants more, they loves 'em some fetuses more, they hate gays more than the others. And when it came to the gays, oh, snap, how they went after each other like old drag queens at a Liza Minnelli yard sale. Romney made the stunning admission that he read the Constitution of the state he was governor of and found it lacking in pro-gay marriage statements: "My state's constitution was written by John Adams. It isn't there. I've looked." Adams's penchant for wigs and frills is beside the point.
Giuliani, whose experience consists of being a U.S. Attorney, a mayor, and a master exploiter of the fears and pain of others for enormous profit, took every opportunity to say he had more experience with shit than the others. On gay marriage, he twisted it this way: "I did 210 weddings when I was mayor of New York City. So I have experience doing this. They were all men and women...I hope." And much laughter ensued with the crowd of craven, frothing conservatives. The logical follow-up would have been to ask if Giuliani would have performed any ceremonies for gay couples if gay marriage had been legal in New York when he was mayor. But maybe the answer to that is too obvious.
About halfway through the debate, the fine Fox-ers got around to asking the candidates what they might actually do as President. On health care, the answers boiled down to: "Give insurance companies everything they want." On education: "Give private schools everything they want." On taxes: "Give rich people everything they want." On foreign policy: "Give the neocons everything they want."
the debate was dominated by a simple question asked of simple men: "Which of you hates more people?" Or, as the Fox "news" correspondents asking the questions put it, "Who's more conservative?"
A good chunk of the debate consisted of one candidate after another declaring they hate illegal immigrants more, they loves 'em some fetuses more, they hate gays more than the others. And when it came to the gays, oh, snap, how they went after each other like old drag queens at a Liza Minnelli yard sale. Romney made the stunning admission that he read the Constitution of the state he was governor of and found it lacking in pro-gay marriage statements: "My state's constitution was written by John Adams. It isn't there. I've looked." Adams's penchant for wigs and frills is beside the point.
Giuliani, whose experience consists of being a U.S. Attorney, a mayor, and a master exploiter of the fears and pain of others for enormous profit, took every opportunity to say he had more experience with shit than the others. On gay marriage, he twisted it this way: "I did 210 weddings when I was mayor of New York City. So I have experience doing this. They were all men and women...I hope." And much laughter ensued with the crowd of craven, frothing conservatives. The logical follow-up would have been to ask if Giuliani would have performed any ceremonies for gay couples if gay marriage had been legal in New York when he was mayor. But maybe the answer to that is too obvious.
About halfway through the debate, the fine Fox-ers got around to asking the candidates what they might actually do as President. On health care, the answers boiled down to: "Give insurance companies everything they want." On education: "Give private schools everything they want." On taxes: "Give rich people everything they want." On foreign policy: "Give the neocons everything they want."
A small dose of Sanity....
Christy Hardin Smith over at Firedoglake has taken on one of my favorite political subjects; that being that Iranian President Ahmadinejad is NOT about to take over the world and we do NOT need to attack Iran. The facts do not correspond to the rightwing rhetoric in the least. We are on the brink of another Middle Eastern war and while the neocons charge that Iran wants to give the world a makeover in Islamo garb; the TRUTH is the other way around. Hey Cheney, project MUCH? The truth is that the neocons want to do a world makeover in a capitalist "democratic" style (read Corporate rule). Yet they blame Ahmadinejad for wanting to stave this off, calling him "Hitler" etc. Too kooky. And scary. Here's the latest bit of sanity from Firedoglake this a.m.:
The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is “like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism.” For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.
Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland’s and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?…
The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is “like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism.” For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.
Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland’s and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?…
Monday, October 22, 2007
Red Sox win the Pennant!
I watched the game last night, sitting on the edge of my seat while the score was 3-2; I was really pulling for the Sox. What a night for the rookie! It ended up being 11-2 and that was a massacre, but the Sox really played better ball, despite hitting into double plays numerous times of late. Finally last night it was payback time, with Sizemore hitting into a double play which was CRITICAL for the Sox at that moment. God, baseball is such a sublime game. It bears repeating how very "Zen" it is. I just love it.
Woke up this morning to headlines about the Turks and the Kurds.....can it get any worse in the Middle East? Iraqi leaders have promised to "do something" about the Kurdish terrorists, but they can't even control what is going on in Baghdad, so that "doing something" is a pipe dream and shouldn't be counted on by anyone.
The world is in worse shape than I can ever remember, in my lifetime. How surreal that all of that can be going on half a world away and yet, what many many people were focused on last night was the Indians and Sox battling it out for the Amercian League championship. While the world burns, does it feel strange to celebrate something as relatively trivial as a baseball game? In a way yes, but in a way, to me, the love of baseball is the love of peace, the love of human past times not so bloody, not so threatening. Something still left of benign achievements in human life. I still do want to celebrate that.
Woke up this morning to headlines about the Turks and the Kurds.....can it get any worse in the Middle East? Iraqi leaders have promised to "do something" about the Kurdish terrorists, but they can't even control what is going on in Baghdad, so that "doing something" is a pipe dream and shouldn't be counted on by anyone.
The world is in worse shape than I can ever remember, in my lifetime. How surreal that all of that can be going on half a world away and yet, what many many people were focused on last night was the Indians and Sox battling it out for the Amercian League championship. While the world burns, does it feel strange to celebrate something as relatively trivial as a baseball game? In a way yes, but in a way, to me, the love of baseball is the love of peace, the love of human past times not so bloody, not so threatening. Something still left of benign achievements in human life. I still do want to celebrate that.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Monday, October 15, 2007
The Secret - BUSTED!
I have long since realized that the much touted "Secret" is bogus. The DVD was interesting, but it is so simplistic and the thinking "magical" that it was easy for me to disregard it. Of course, I have had the advantage of exposure to the Buddha and brilliant expositions such as The Heart Sutra. Exposure to "I Am That" by Sri Nisargadatta and exposure to non-dualism period. How many around the world, eagerly buying up copies of "The Secret" have been innoculated against such pie in the sky?
Anywho, a friend of mine, David, sent this email today regarding HIS take on the "Secret" :
e Secret Busted--- Flaws of the Secret.
Hi Folks!
I guess most of you have read or at least heard about "The Secret".
I think it was at that time that I was being drawn to Non duality and
was reading books like "I am That" .
That's why I could feel a slight confusion and there was a sort of
disconnect somewhere.
Here, "The Secret" tells you that you are the creator of everything
around you and it is our thoughts and our vibrations that we send out
to the universe that determine our lives.
"The secret" would have us believe that we are the most important
beings in the universe and everything else is there to fulfill our
wishes.
I guess it was our greed and wishful thinking which led us to believe
whatever "The Secret" tries to teach us.
Now, we come to Non duality where we are told that "you" are an
illusion. The ego doesn't exist. There is only beingness. In his
book " I am That", Nisargadatta Maharaj reveal that we are just the
witness of whatever happens.
Feelings arise, Thoughts arise --- You are just the witness of these.
All you do is watch the show.
In the words of the Buddha " Events happen, deeds are done.But there
is no individual doer of these deeds."
So, it becomes clear enough that we can either believe one of these.
Either there is no doer OR there is a doer who can think thoughts and
send vibrations out to the universe.
So, there is a choice for me -- I can believe Rhonda Byrne(Author of
The Secret) OR I could believe the Buddha.
I dont know about you but I would rather vote for The Buddha.
Even If you dont know about the buddha or Rhonda. What does your
experience say.
How many circumstances have you been able to control?
Well, I dont think that I can do justice to this topic in one blog
post but I will be adding more about this later.
So I end it here now with a quote from Ramesh Balsekar ---
"You have not controlled your birth, you are not going to control
your death. And you are not in control of anything in between"
posted by Faraz Ahmed @ 11:26 PM
Anywho, a friend of mine, David, sent this email today regarding HIS take on the "Secret" :
e Secret Busted--- Flaws of the Secret.
Hi Folks!
I guess most of you have read or at least heard about "The Secret".
I think it was at that time that I was being drawn to Non duality and
was reading books like "I am That" .
That's why I could feel a slight confusion and there was a sort of
disconnect somewhere.
Here, "The Secret" tells you that you are the creator of everything
around you and it is our thoughts and our vibrations that we send out
to the universe that determine our lives.
"The secret" would have us believe that we are the most important
beings in the universe and everything else is there to fulfill our
wishes.
I guess it was our greed and wishful thinking which led us to believe
whatever "The Secret" tries to teach us.
Now, we come to Non duality where we are told that "you" are an
illusion. The ego doesn't exist. There is only beingness. In his
book " I am That", Nisargadatta Maharaj reveal that we are just the
witness of whatever happens.
Feelings arise, Thoughts arise --- You are just the witness of these.
All you do is watch the show.
In the words of the Buddha " Events happen, deeds are done.But there
is no individual doer of these deeds."
So, it becomes clear enough that we can either believe one of these.
Either there is no doer OR there is a doer who can think thoughts and
send vibrations out to the universe.
So, there is a choice for me -- I can believe Rhonda Byrne(Author of
The Secret) OR I could believe the Buddha.
I dont know about you but I would rather vote for The Buddha.
Even If you dont know about the buddha or Rhonda. What does your
experience say.
How many circumstances have you been able to control?
Well, I dont think that I can do justice to this topic in one blog
post but I will be adding more about this later.
So I end it here now with a quote from Ramesh Balsekar ---
"You have not controlled your birth, you are not going to control
your death. And you are not in control of anything in between"
posted by Faraz Ahmed @ 11:26 PM
Friday, October 12, 2007
Al Gore Wins Peace Prize
I had a feeling, as no doubt did many, that Al Gore was going to win the Nobel Peace Prize. He shares it with the UN Governmental Panel. That's okay.......that's great in fact.
I wish this meant he would enter the Democratic Primary and really have an edge due to his international clout and respect. I don't believe, even as much as I hope, that he WILL enter the Primary. I think if he did, he'd kick butt........BUT I think Al feels he's paid his dues and sees the political machinery as hopelessly corrupt. Let's not forget, he WAS elected President and our world would be looking a WHOLE lot different if it weren't for the decision of the (stacked) SCOTUS.
Congrats Al! Whatcha gonna do now?
I wish this meant he would enter the Democratic Primary and really have an edge due to his international clout and respect. I don't believe, even as much as I hope, that he WILL enter the Primary. I think if he did, he'd kick butt........BUT I think Al feels he's paid his dues and sees the political machinery as hopelessly corrupt. Let's not forget, he WAS elected President and our world would be looking a WHOLE lot different if it weren't for the decision of the (stacked) SCOTUS.
Congrats Al! Whatcha gonna do now?
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
This ties in with Shock Doctrine: The terrifying fifties....the Cold War insanity
From AP: I trust that no editorial comment is necessary. I file this under Batshit Insanity:
WASHINGTON - In one of the longest-held secrets of the Cold War, the U.S. Army explored the potential for using radioactive poisons to assassinate "important individuals" such as military or civilian leaders, according to newly declassified documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Approved at the highest levels of the Army in 1948, the effort was a well-hidden part of the military's pursuit of a "new concept of warfare" using radioactive materials from atomic bombmaking to contaminate swaths of enemy land or to target military bases, factories or troop formations.
Military historians who have researched the broader radiological warfare program said in interviews that they had never before seen evidence that it included pursuit of an assassination weapon. Targeting public figures in such attacks is not unheard of; just last year an unknown assailant used a tiny amount of radioactive polonium-210 to kill Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London.
No targeted individuals are mentioned in references to the assassination weapon in the government documents declassified in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the AP in 1995.
The decades-old records were released recently to the AP, heavily censored by the government to remove specifics about radiological warfare agents and other details. The censorship reflects concern that the potential for using radioactive poisons as a weapon is more than a historic footnote; it is believed to be sought by present-day terrorists bent on attacking U.S. targets.
The documents give no indication whether a radiological weapon for targeting high-ranking individuals was ever used or even developed by the United States. They leave unclear how far the Army project went. One memo from December 1948 outlined the project and another memo that month indicated it was under way. The main sections of several subsequent progress reports in 1949 were removed by censors before release to the AP.
The broader effort on offensive uses of radiological warfare apparently died by about 1954, at least in part because of the Defense Department's conviction that nuclear weapons were a better bet.
Whether the work migrated to another agency such as the CIA is unclear. The project was given final approval in November 1948 and began the following month, just one year after the CIA's creation in 1947.
It was a turbulent time on the international scene. In August 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested its first atomic bomb, and two months later Mao Zedong's communists triumphed in China's civil war.
As U.S. scientists developed the atomic bomb during World War II, it was recognized that radioactive agents used or created in the manufacturing process had lethal potential. The government's first public report on the bomb project, published in 1945, noted that radioactive fission products from a uranium-fueled reactor could be extracted and used "like a particularly vicious form of poison gas."
Among the documents released to the AP _ an Army memo dated Dec. 16, 1948, and labeled secret _ described a crash program to develop a variety of military uses for radioactive materials. Work on a "subversive weapon for attack of individuals or small groups" was listed as a secondary priority, to be confined to feasibility studies and experiments.
The top priorities listed were:
_ 1 _ Weapons to contaminate "populated or otherwise critical areas for long periods of time."
_ 2 _ Munitions combining high explosives with radioactive material "to accomplish physical damage and radioactive contamination simultaneously."
_ 3 _ Air and-or surface weapons that would spread contamination across an area to be evacuated, thereby rendering it unusable by enemy forces.
The stated goal was to produce a prototype for the No. 1 and No. 2 priority weapons by Dec. 31, 1950.
The 4th ranked priority was "munitions for attack on individuals" using radioactive agents for which there is "no means of therapy."
"This class of munitions is proposed for use by secret agents or subversive units for lethal attacks against small groups of important individuals, e.g., during meetings of civilian or military leaders," it said.
Assassination of foreign figures by agents of the U.S. government was not explicitly outlawed until President Gerald R. Ford signed an executive order in 1976 in response to revelations that the CIA had plotted in the 1960s to kill Cuban President Fidel Castro, including by poisoning.
The Dec. 16, 1948, memo said a lethal attack against individuals using radiological material should be done in a way that makes it impossible to trace the U.S. government's involvement, a concept known as "plausible deniability" that is central to U.S. covert actions.
"The source of the munition, the fact that an attack has been made, and the kind of attack should not be determinable, if possible," it said. "The munition should be inconspicuous and readily transportable."
Radioactive agents were thought to be ideal for this use, the document said, because of their high toxicity and the fact that the targeted individuals could not smell, taste or otherwise sense the attack.
"It should be possible, for example, to develop a very small munition which could function unnoticeably and which would set up an invisible, yet highly lethal concentration in a room, with the effects noticeable only well after the time of attack," it said.
"The time for lethal effects could, it is believed, be controlled within limits by the amount of radioactive agent dispersed. The toxicities are such that should relatively high concentrations be required for early lethal effects, on a weight basis, even such concentrations may be found practicable."
Tom Bielefeld, a Harvard physicist who has studied radiological weapons issues, said that while he had never heard of this project, its technical aims sounded feasible.
Bielefeld noted that polonium, the radioactive agent used to kill Litvinenko in November 2006, has just the kind of features that would be suitable for the lethal mission described in the Dec. 16 memo.
Barton Bernstein, a Stanford history professor who has done extensive research on the U.S. military's radiological warfare efforts, said he did not believe this aspect had previously come to light.
"This is one of those items that surprises us but should not shock us, because in the Cold War all kinds of ways of killing people, in all kinds of manners _ inhumane, barbaric and even worse _ were periodically contemplated at high levels in the American government in what was seen as a just war against a hated and hateful enemy," Bernstein said.
The project was run by the Army Chemical Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Alden H. Waitt, and supervised by a now-defunct agency called the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project. The project's first chief was Maj. Gen. Leslie R. Groves, the Army's head of the Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bombs. The radiological project was approved by Groves' successor, Maj. Gen. Kenneth D. Nichols.
The released documents were in files of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project held by the National Archives.
Among the officials copied in on the Dec. 16 memo were Herbert Scoville, Jr., then the technical director of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project and later the CIA's deputy director for research, and Samuel T. Cohen, a physicist with RAND Corp. who had worked on the Manhattan Project.
The initial go-ahead for the Army to pursue its radiological weapons project was given in May 1948, a point in U.S. history, following the successful use of two atomic bombs against Japan to end World War II, when the military was eager to explore the implications of atomic science for the future of warfare.
In a July 1948 memo outlining the program's intent, before specifics had received final approval, a key focus was on long-lasting contamination of large land areas where residents would be told that unless the areas were abandoned they probably would die from radiation within one to 10 years.
"It is thought that this is a new concept of warfare, with results that cannot be predicted," it said.
WASHINGTON - In one of the longest-held secrets of the Cold War, the U.S. Army explored the potential for using radioactive poisons to assassinate "important individuals" such as military or civilian leaders, according to newly declassified documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Approved at the highest levels of the Army in 1948, the effort was a well-hidden part of the military's pursuit of a "new concept of warfare" using radioactive materials from atomic bombmaking to contaminate swaths of enemy land or to target military bases, factories or troop formations.
Military historians who have researched the broader radiological warfare program said in interviews that they had never before seen evidence that it included pursuit of an assassination weapon. Targeting public figures in such attacks is not unheard of; just last year an unknown assailant used a tiny amount of radioactive polonium-210 to kill Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London.
No targeted individuals are mentioned in references to the assassination weapon in the government documents declassified in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the AP in 1995.
The decades-old records were released recently to the AP, heavily censored by the government to remove specifics about radiological warfare agents and other details. The censorship reflects concern that the potential for using radioactive poisons as a weapon is more than a historic footnote; it is believed to be sought by present-day terrorists bent on attacking U.S. targets.
The documents give no indication whether a radiological weapon for targeting high-ranking individuals was ever used or even developed by the United States. They leave unclear how far the Army project went. One memo from December 1948 outlined the project and another memo that month indicated it was under way. The main sections of several subsequent progress reports in 1949 were removed by censors before release to the AP.
The broader effort on offensive uses of radiological warfare apparently died by about 1954, at least in part because of the Defense Department's conviction that nuclear weapons were a better bet.
Whether the work migrated to another agency such as the CIA is unclear. The project was given final approval in November 1948 and began the following month, just one year after the CIA's creation in 1947.
It was a turbulent time on the international scene. In August 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested its first atomic bomb, and two months later Mao Zedong's communists triumphed in China's civil war.
As U.S. scientists developed the atomic bomb during World War II, it was recognized that radioactive agents used or created in the manufacturing process had lethal potential. The government's first public report on the bomb project, published in 1945, noted that radioactive fission products from a uranium-fueled reactor could be extracted and used "like a particularly vicious form of poison gas."
Among the documents released to the AP _ an Army memo dated Dec. 16, 1948, and labeled secret _ described a crash program to develop a variety of military uses for radioactive materials. Work on a "subversive weapon for attack of individuals or small groups" was listed as a secondary priority, to be confined to feasibility studies and experiments.
The top priorities listed were:
_ 1 _ Weapons to contaminate "populated or otherwise critical areas for long periods of time."
_ 2 _ Munitions combining high explosives with radioactive material "to accomplish physical damage and radioactive contamination simultaneously."
_ 3 _ Air and-or surface weapons that would spread contamination across an area to be evacuated, thereby rendering it unusable by enemy forces.
The stated goal was to produce a prototype for the No. 1 and No. 2 priority weapons by Dec. 31, 1950.
The 4th ranked priority was "munitions for attack on individuals" using radioactive agents for which there is "no means of therapy."
"This class of munitions is proposed for use by secret agents or subversive units for lethal attacks against small groups of important individuals, e.g., during meetings of civilian or military leaders," it said.
Assassination of foreign figures by agents of the U.S. government was not explicitly outlawed until President Gerald R. Ford signed an executive order in 1976 in response to revelations that the CIA had plotted in the 1960s to kill Cuban President Fidel Castro, including by poisoning.
The Dec. 16, 1948, memo said a lethal attack against individuals using radiological material should be done in a way that makes it impossible to trace the U.S. government's involvement, a concept known as "plausible deniability" that is central to U.S. covert actions.
"The source of the munition, the fact that an attack has been made, and the kind of attack should not be determinable, if possible," it said. "The munition should be inconspicuous and readily transportable."
Radioactive agents were thought to be ideal for this use, the document said, because of their high toxicity and the fact that the targeted individuals could not smell, taste or otherwise sense the attack.
"It should be possible, for example, to develop a very small munition which could function unnoticeably and which would set up an invisible, yet highly lethal concentration in a room, with the effects noticeable only well after the time of attack," it said.
"The time for lethal effects could, it is believed, be controlled within limits by the amount of radioactive agent dispersed. The toxicities are such that should relatively high concentrations be required for early lethal effects, on a weight basis, even such concentrations may be found practicable."
Tom Bielefeld, a Harvard physicist who has studied radiological weapons issues, said that while he had never heard of this project, its technical aims sounded feasible.
Bielefeld noted that polonium, the radioactive agent used to kill Litvinenko in November 2006, has just the kind of features that would be suitable for the lethal mission described in the Dec. 16 memo.
Barton Bernstein, a Stanford history professor who has done extensive research on the U.S. military's radiological warfare efforts, said he did not believe this aspect had previously come to light.
"This is one of those items that surprises us but should not shock us, because in the Cold War all kinds of ways of killing people, in all kinds of manners _ inhumane, barbaric and even worse _ were periodically contemplated at high levels in the American government in what was seen as a just war against a hated and hateful enemy," Bernstein said.
The project was run by the Army Chemical Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Alden H. Waitt, and supervised by a now-defunct agency called the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project. The project's first chief was Maj. Gen. Leslie R. Groves, the Army's head of the Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bombs. The radiological project was approved by Groves' successor, Maj. Gen. Kenneth D. Nichols.
The released documents were in files of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project held by the National Archives.
Among the officials copied in on the Dec. 16 memo were Herbert Scoville, Jr., then the technical director of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project and later the CIA's deputy director for research, and Samuel T. Cohen, a physicist with RAND Corp. who had worked on the Manhattan Project.
The initial go-ahead for the Army to pursue its radiological weapons project was given in May 1948, a point in U.S. history, following the successful use of two atomic bombs against Japan to end World War II, when the military was eager to explore the implications of atomic science for the future of warfare.
In a July 1948 memo outlining the program's intent, before specifics had received final approval, a key focus was on long-lasting contamination of large land areas where residents would be told that unless the areas were abandoned they probably would die from radiation within one to 10 years.
"It is thought that this is a new concept of warfare, with results that cannot be predicted," it said.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Forgetting Gandhi on National Non-Violence Day
From my inbox this morning:
Forgetting Gandhi on International Non-Violence Day
By Pablo Ouziel
October 2nd will mark the birth anniversary of human rights activist
Mahatma Gandhi and for the first time, the United Nations is
officially proclaiming this day to be the International Day of
Non-violence. Hopefully, on this day we can all spare a little of our
time to reflect on how little we have all understood Mahatma Gandhi's
message, after all everyday we seem to plunge into a worse state of
affairs and drift away farther from Gandhi's respectable message; "I
object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is
only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."
I wonder what it means to have an International Non-violence day. Does
it mean that American soldiers, UN 'peacekeepers', NATO Forces, the
Israeli military and Blackwater USA will put down their weapons for
the day and reflect on the horrors that they are committing in the
vague name of an international war on 'terror'? Does it mean that they
will all continue killing as a few peaceful marchers around the world
proclaim in total sanity, that the insanity that prevails is making it
hard for peace-loving humans to coexist with this madness? Or does it
mean that the United Nations will clamp down on the killings
perpetrated by the permanent members of its own security council?
Whatever happens on that day we can all rest assured that the day will
pass and things will continue heading into the same almost unavoidable
tragic ending, one which the respectable professor Noam Chomsky
describes in the following way: "The immediate fear is that by
accident or design, Washington's war planners or their Israeli
surrogate might decide to escalate their Cold War II into a hot one –
in this case a real hot war."
Gandhi once said "an error does not become truth by reason of
multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody
sees it." However, since that now famous speech in 2001 when President
Bush declared: "You're either with us or against us in the fight
against terror," our lives have changed so much in so little time,
that one wonders whether Gandhi's statement makes any difference to
the lives of ordinary innocent people.
With so many dead since Bush's statement and so many more suffering,
with our way of live being put upside down by secretive prisons,
humiliating airport security checks, increased racism towards our
Muslim brothers, students being tasered for asking inappropriate
questions, and the president of a country being insulted by a
university president in the name of freedom of speech, one wonders how
long we will have to put up with this reality until the people of the
world regain their rights and react against this vile oppression.
We are living in fearful times void of any reason, if one listens to
the words of world leaders and reflects on their actions, one will see
the incoherence which prevails. The ones promoting global democracy
are embracing imperialism and the ones asking for reason to flourish
are being labelled as enemies. Evo Morales the first indigenous
president of Bolivia, who was linked to Osama Bin Laden by the
American ambassador in that country, last week speaking with Amy
Goodman of Democracy Now! said: "I think that in this new millennium,
we fundamentally should be oriented towards saving lives and not
ending lives."
Yet President Bush continues to raise the flag of peace and stability
as American defense company stocks continue to rise and people
continue to die. According to CNNMoney.com on September 26th, "The
AMEX Defense Index, which tracks 14 major defense company stocks, rose
14.25 to a high of 1,686.72 in afternoon trading. Since last year, the
index has risen roughly 47 percent, outperforming the broader S&P 500
index, which has climbed nearly 15 percent over the same period."
While Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, another 'great enemy' of
the American people during a UN address at the General Assembly in
2006, recommends to the assembly, the presidents of the world and in
particular the American people to read Hegemony of Survival by Noam
Chomsky, we learned this week by the hand of an editorial in The Los
Angeles Times that "the biggest beneficiary (of the business of war)
has been Blackwater USA, a private security firm with powerful
political and personnel ties to an administration that has awarded it
more than $1 billion in contracts since 2002."
So while this real life scenario remains a despicable reality and some
blame Bush, while others blame corporations, I am inclined to blame
the common people who through a combination of indifference, fear and
lack of reason, are allowing their government representatives and a
few corporations to accumulate wealth and power, while destroying the
planet in which we all live. We must understand that the power is in
the hands of the majority as long as we are all willing to accept that
responsibility and turn it into action.
If we use International Non-violence Day to reflect on Gandhi's
teachings and his struggle for freedom, we might learn from his own
words that, "as human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being
able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in
being able to remake ourselves." If this reasoning can somehow ingrain
itself into our thought process, those Wall Street and industry
executives who are trying to assure investors that there will be
little disturbance in military spending over the next several years,
regardless of who succeeds President Bush in the White House, will be
proved wrong. If however the people of the world have forgotten what
Gandhi really stood for, there is nothing that can be done.
Authors Bio: "The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity." Leo
Tolstoy -Pablo Ouziel is an activist and a free lance writer based in
Spain. His work has appeared in many progressive media including Znet,
Palestine Chronicle, Thomas Paine¹s Corner and Atlantic Free Press.
Forgetting Gandhi on International Non-Violence Day
By Pablo Ouziel
October 2nd will mark the birth anniversary of human rights activist
Mahatma Gandhi and for the first time, the United Nations is
officially proclaiming this day to be the International Day of
Non-violence. Hopefully, on this day we can all spare a little of our
time to reflect on how little we have all understood Mahatma Gandhi's
message, after all everyday we seem to plunge into a worse state of
affairs and drift away farther from Gandhi's respectable message; "I
object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is
only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."
I wonder what it means to have an International Non-violence day. Does
it mean that American soldiers, UN 'peacekeepers', NATO Forces, the
Israeli military and Blackwater USA will put down their weapons for
the day and reflect on the horrors that they are committing in the
vague name of an international war on 'terror'? Does it mean that they
will all continue killing as a few peaceful marchers around the world
proclaim in total sanity, that the insanity that prevails is making it
hard for peace-loving humans to coexist with this madness? Or does it
mean that the United Nations will clamp down on the killings
perpetrated by the permanent members of its own security council?
Whatever happens on that day we can all rest assured that the day will
pass and things will continue heading into the same almost unavoidable
tragic ending, one which the respectable professor Noam Chomsky
describes in the following way: "The immediate fear is that by
accident or design, Washington's war planners or their Israeli
surrogate might decide to escalate their Cold War II into a hot one –
in this case a real hot war."
Gandhi once said "an error does not become truth by reason of
multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody
sees it." However, since that now famous speech in 2001 when President
Bush declared: "You're either with us or against us in the fight
against terror," our lives have changed so much in so little time,
that one wonders whether Gandhi's statement makes any difference to
the lives of ordinary innocent people.
With so many dead since Bush's statement and so many more suffering,
with our way of live being put upside down by secretive prisons,
humiliating airport security checks, increased racism towards our
Muslim brothers, students being tasered for asking inappropriate
questions, and the president of a country being insulted by a
university president in the name of freedom of speech, one wonders how
long we will have to put up with this reality until the people of the
world regain their rights and react against this vile oppression.
We are living in fearful times void of any reason, if one listens to
the words of world leaders and reflects on their actions, one will see
the incoherence which prevails. The ones promoting global democracy
are embracing imperialism and the ones asking for reason to flourish
are being labelled as enemies. Evo Morales the first indigenous
president of Bolivia, who was linked to Osama Bin Laden by the
American ambassador in that country, last week speaking with Amy
Goodman of Democracy Now! said: "I think that in this new millennium,
we fundamentally should be oriented towards saving lives and not
ending lives."
Yet President Bush continues to raise the flag of peace and stability
as American defense company stocks continue to rise and people
continue to die. According to CNNMoney.com on September 26th, "The
AMEX Defense Index, which tracks 14 major defense company stocks, rose
14.25 to a high of 1,686.72 in afternoon trading. Since last year, the
index has risen roughly 47 percent, outperforming the broader S&P 500
index, which has climbed nearly 15 percent over the same period."
While Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, another 'great enemy' of
the American people during a UN address at the General Assembly in
2006, recommends to the assembly, the presidents of the world and in
particular the American people to read Hegemony of Survival by Noam
Chomsky, we learned this week by the hand of an editorial in The Los
Angeles Times that "the biggest beneficiary (of the business of war)
has been Blackwater USA, a private security firm with powerful
political and personnel ties to an administration that has awarded it
more than $1 billion in contracts since 2002."
So while this real life scenario remains a despicable reality and some
blame Bush, while others blame corporations, I am inclined to blame
the common people who through a combination of indifference, fear and
lack of reason, are allowing their government representatives and a
few corporations to accumulate wealth and power, while destroying the
planet in which we all live. We must understand that the power is in
the hands of the majority as long as we are all willing to accept that
responsibility and turn it into action.
If we use International Non-violence Day to reflect on Gandhi's
teachings and his struggle for freedom, we might learn from his own
words that, "as human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being
able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in
being able to remake ourselves." If this reasoning can somehow ingrain
itself into our thought process, those Wall Street and industry
executives who are trying to assure investors that there will be
little disturbance in military spending over the next several years,
regardless of who succeeds President Bush in the White House, will be
proved wrong. If however the people of the world have forgotten what
Gandhi really stood for, there is nothing that can be done.
Authors Bio: "The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity." Leo
Tolstoy -Pablo Ouziel is an activist and a free lance writer based in
Spain. His work has appeared in many progressive media including Znet,
Palestine Chronicle, Thomas Paine¹s Corner and Atlantic Free Press.
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