May 9, 2004
Daily Op/Ed Wrap-up
William Rivers Pitt: Tin Soldiers and We are Coming
"The claims about Iraq seeking uranium from Niger have been exposed as lies so deep and profound that America stands humiliated before the world. Those lies have also led to a federal investigation into this White House for, basically, treason: Because Ambassador Joseph Wilson - who investigated and discounted the uranium claims in the first place - Because Ambassador Joseph Wilson dared reveal these lies to the public, his wife, Valerie Plame, was exposed as a CIA agent in an act of revenge perpetrated by officials within the Bush administration..."
James K. Galbraith: When wartime economic reality sets in
"Soon enough, profiteers see their chances. Bottlenecks happen. Prices go up. Long before unemployment disappears, wars generate inflation. Indeed, inflation - and the depreciation of private wealth and public debt that it brings - is the ages-old way governments pay for war..."
Molly Ivins: Neo-con man-How did we get here? Ask Ahmed Chalabi.
"In our continuing quest to understand how we got where we are, let us turn our attention to Ahmed Chalabi. He's a most plausible con man and comes with excellent credentials. Born to a prominent Iraqi family in 1944, exiled in 1958 with buckets of family money, went to MIT at age 16, got his Ph.D. in math from the University of Chicago, where he first encountered one of the founders of the neo-conservative movement, Albert Wohlstetter. According to a profile in Salon.com, he there met future neo-con leaders Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz..."
" The first failure utterly undercut the original justification for waging war on Iraq -- the need to preempt another horrendous attack on the United States or its allies. The second failure seriously compromises the backup rationale -- the claim that we would provide a lesson in lawful democracy for a country that had known only abuse of power and police brutality.
Despite these twin failures by those on whom he has relied for military and intelligence advice, President Bush has expressed continued support for them and given no sign that he is about to replace either one..."
Daniel Schorr: Abu Ghraib - an indelible stain on US
"The Army has gone into a familiar defensive crouch. "An aberration," Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers called it Sunday, adding that he'd not yet seen the 53-page internal report completed in late February. That report detailed the "sadistic, blatant, and wanton" abuse of prisoners. Nor had Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld seen the report until this week. Nor was Brig. Gen. Janice Karpinski aware of what was going on in a prison for which she bore command responsibility..."
Mickey Edwards: Right's Wrong Turn
"That emphasis on individual rights no longer seems to be the principal focus of conservatives. When voters in Oregon, for example, opted to permit physicians to help terminally ill patients speed their own deaths, conservatives in Congress rushed to pass a federal law that would supersede the state decision ? a shocking embrace of increased federal power ? and thus to insist, by federal order, that dying citizens must simply endure the agony of their final days. This was, indeed, a different sense of what American conservatism was all about...."
"You really wonder whether the Bush plan to Americanize the Middle East isn't being turned on its head. We now have an unaccountable government not elected in accordance with the will of the majority of Americans, which victimizes critics like Joe Wilson and engages in torture. Bush and Co. are emulating the worst aspects of the military governments of Egypt and Yemen. They have no credibility to push the latter toward democracy..."
"Even if the secretary survives, the Rummy Doctrine -- using underwhelming force to achieve overwhelming goals -- is discredited. Jack Murtha, a Democratic hawk and Vietnam vet, says "the direction's got to be changed or it's unwinnable," and Lt. Gen. William Odom, retired, told Ted Koppel that Iraq was headed toward becoming an Al Qaeda haven and Iranian ally..."
Robert Barry: Internationalize the Iraq prisons now
"IT SHOULD BE apparent to the Bush administration that the US-led coalition will have to hand over the Iraqi prisons to someone else before the Coalition Provisional Authority goes out of existence on June 30. For once, the United States should anticipate the inevitable and propose a solution before being told by allies, NATO, and the United Nations Security Council that this is a requirement if we are to gain more international support for the effort in Iraq. To accomplish this, the United States should jump start a proposal which has been gathering support on both sides of the Atlantic -- the creation of a multinational stability corps or conflict prevention force. Such a corps would consist of constabulary forces, civilian police, judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and correction officers. These forces could be deployed in future post-conflict situations to establish order as combat operations wind down..."
Bill Moyers: The Media, Politics and Censorship
"It wasn't supposed to be that way. The founders of our government didn't think it a good idea for the press and state to gang up on public opinion. So they added to the Constitution a Bill of Rights whose First Amendment was to be a kind of firewall between the politicians who hold power and the press that should hold power accountable. The very first American newspaper was a little three-page affair whose editor said he wanted to "cure the spirit of lying..." The government promptly shut him down on grounds he didn't have the required state license..."
Posted by fightingdem at May 9, 2004 1:19 PM | TrackBack
