July 31, 2003
Reckless disregard
Lawmakers demand probe into outing of undercover CIA agent
"...Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) told reporters last week that ?whoever released the information regarding Mr. Wilson?s wife may have committed a felony, may have actually violated federal law. I think that it ought to be investigated...?
Saudi pay masters
Joe Conason: Sleeping with the enemy
"...Apparently, there were so few clues to Iraqi links with the Sept. 11 hijackers that the Congressional report doesn?t even mention the subject. Yet we?re supposed to believe that the deposed regime of Saddam Hussein was deeply involved with Al Qaeda -- and that the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is our friend and ally.
On July 29, Mr. Bush refused the Saudi foreign minister?s request to declassify the 28 pages of the Congressional report that pertain to the kingdom. The President said he doesn?t want to "compromise" the ongoing investigation of the terror attacks. Full disclosure might also compromise other important interests -- including his own political future."
The Big Lie
TomPaine.com: A Pattern Of Deception
"...Bush's statement on Iraq shows his telltale MO. Moreover, duping the nation into war is only one case of the pattern of calculated deception that has gone on since the outset of his administration.
We need to go back to Feb. 27, 2001, when Bush introduced his first tax cut proposal in a televised speech to Congress and the nation, to see the early duplicity. As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman observed on March 28: "I can't think of any precedent in the history of American economic policy [when an administration was] quite this shameless about misrepresenting the actual content of its own economic plan."
I noted in a March 16 Seattle Times column that what stands out in the Bush speech is the use of the "Big Lie." Such a statement is a technically accurate claim that distorts rather than reveals the truth. Looking into Bush's MO in his tax legislation illuminates the pattern of deception as used in Iraq..."
Don't look now, but...
The Theft of Your Vote Is Just a Chip Away
"...A defective computer chip in the county's optical scanner misread ballots Tuesday night and incorrectly tallied a landslide victory for Republicans," announced the Associated Press in a story on Nov. 7, just a few days after the 2002 election. The story added, "Democrats actually won by wide margins."
Republicans would have carried the day had not poll workers become suspicious when the computerized vote-reading machines said the Republican candidate was trouncing his incumbent Democratic opponent in the race for County Commissioner. The poll workers were close enough to the electorate ? they were part of the electorate ? to know their county overwhelmingly favored the Democratic incumbent.
A quick hand recount of the optical-scan ballots showed that the Democrat had indeed won, even though the computerized ballot-scanning machine kept giving the race to the Republican. The poll workers brought the discrepancy to the attention of the County Clerk, who notified the voting machine company..."
Into the shooting gallery
"...While the Bush crowd was happy to let the public believe that Saddam Hussein was somehow connected to the Sept. 11 attacks, it won't come clean about the real links between the Saudis and Al Qaeda. And you won't hear from the administration that the phantom weapons of mass destruction were never the real reason for the war, but merely the pretext. The real goals were to establish a military foothold in the region, remake the Middle East and capture control of Iraq's fabulous oil reserves.
Right now there is no viable plan for securing the peace in Iraq, and no exit strategy. There is no real plan for demolishing Al Qaeda and the genuine threat it poses to the security of all Americans. (Similarly, at home, there is no plan to get the economy moving and the millions of unemployed Americans back to work.)
Iraq is not Vietnam, where more than 58,000 Americans were killed. But it is like Vietnam in that deceptive leaders have maneuvered the country into a tragic situation that I do not believe Americans will support over time.
For the Bushes and the Rumsfelds, this is a grand imperial adventure, with press-conference posturing and wonderful photo-ops, like the president's "Top Gun" moment on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln..."
Who Me?
"...It seems that by the DLC?s calculation, the ?far left? doesn?t consist of Green party members or anti-globalization protestors or radical groups like Earth First and Peta. According to them, middle aged, middle class Democrats like me who enthusiastically backed charter DLC favorite sons Clinton and Gore in 3 successive presidential elections, supported the wars in Kosovo and in Afghanistan, aren?t fond of bureaucrats whether they work for government or the corporations, respect the need to curb long term deficit spending and come down on the side of the CATO institute as much as the ACLU when it comes to civil liberties?are now ?far left...?
July 30, 2003
Evidence Mounts on Bush Vulnerability
Evidence Mounts on Bush Vulnerability
"...Last week, Bush and the Republicans? ratings continued to slide across the board. Most notably, Democrats are now favored by 17 points over Republicans on the economy. That?s up from a 1-point Democratic disadvantage in January. The Democrats also have increased their margin on the federal budget deficit from 4 to 13 points over that same time period. Their margins on unemployment (+19), education (+12) and, significantly, prescription drugs for older Americans (+22) remain impressive, despite Republican attempts to co-opt the latter issue..."
Getting to Know the General
Gene Lyons: Getting to Know the General
"...Hence the popularity of a manifest fraud like President Junior--who used his father's political connections to secure a cushy spot in the Texas Air National Guard, got himself grounded after finishing flight school, and appears never to have showed up in Alabama to complete his commitment--swaggering across an aircraft carrier deck in a flightsuit with "Commander in Chief" emblazoned on the front. An earlier generation would have laughed, but millions who resented Bill Clinton's artfully sidestepping Vietnam are thrilled by George W. Bush's "Top Gun" theatrics..."
Getting to Know the General
by Gene Lyons
In a recent column urging Gen. Wesley Clark to run for president, I mentioned a friend who questioned his political skills. Because Clark failed to recognize her after a couple of meetings as David Pryor or Bill Clinton would have, she suspected he lacked the personal charm to which Arkansas voters respond. After it appeared, I got a call from a book publicist who'd helped Clark with his book Waging Modern War.
At every appearance, she said, many in the audience were veterans who'd served under Clark during his three decades as an Army officer. The general, she said, recognized every single one, greeting them by name. She'd never seen him hesitate.
Given that Clark's willpower and ambition have been recognized since he graduated first in his West Point class in 1966, this struck me as a telling anecdote. Not every military hero earns the affection and respect of his men. I had two uncles who served as infantry grunts under Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the Phillipines and in Korea. They thought him a vainglorious megalomaniac who'd sacrificed soldier's lives to win medals for himself--not necessarily history's judgement, but theirs.
Interestingly, it's a theme Clark himself discussed with the authors of two recent magazine profiles, by Tom Junod in the current Esquire (esquire.com/features/articles/2003/030801 mfe clark 1.html) and Duncan Murrell in the May/June Oxford American. Both are worth looking up for anybody intrigued with the idea of a Clark candidacy.
Clark told Murrell that Americans' current tendency to lionize the military is partly due to post-9/11 fear, partly to lack of experience with the real thing. "We've been the beneficiaries of that lack of familiarity," he said, sentimentalizing soldiers as patriotic icons without feeling the necessity of serving. One result, as Murrell writes, is politicians who feel free "to use the military as a symbol, sending soldiers off to wars that don't affect most American families directly by putting their children in harm's way."
Hence the popularity of a manifest fraud like President Junior--who used his father's political connections to secure a cushy spot in the Texas Air National Guard, got himself grounded after finishing flight school, and appears never to have showed up in Alabama to complete his commitment--swaggering across an aircraft carrier deck in a flightsuit with "Commander in Chief" emblazoned on the front. An earlier generation would have laughed, but millions who resented Bill Clinton's artfully sidestepping Vietnam are thrilled by George W. Bush's "Top Gun" theatrics.
Now hear Clark, who despite being one of the first West Point cadets to ask "Why are we in Vietnam?" his instructors say, earned a Purple Heart and the Silver Star in combat there: "I think a time like this is an interesting point in American history. Many of the things that we've taken for granted, that have shaped our international strategy, our domestic environment--they're up for grabs right now. We got walloped on 9/11, and now Americans are asking themselves what's out there. They're saying 'Hey! Man, these people are supposed to like us! And what happened with Russia and the Soviet Union? Where is China?' Ordinary Americans are now much more interested in the world beyond. And in combination with the war on terror, you've got a sort of rollback to a sort of imperial presidency., a presidency that's much more private, and an investigatory service with greater authority to come after ordinary Americans. We thought we put that to rest after the excesses of the Nixon administration and Vietnam. I believed that when I fought in Vietnam I represented the right of all Americansto express their views. So I'm concerned."
As a CNN military analyst, Clark opposed the rush to substitute Saddam Hussein for Osama bin Laden as Public Enemy #1. Like many Army generals, he thought U.S. forces much too light on the ground--fearing precisely the chaos that's enveloped Iraq since Baghdad fell.The Bush administration, he warned in April, had "gloated much too soon."
The great theme of the post-Vietnam military reforms that transformed the U.S. Army, he explained to Esquire, was personal accountability. "In the Navy, when a ship runs aground," he said "the commanding officer is relieved of duty, no matter what the reason. Now, I'm not saying we ought to hold politicians to that standard, but still..."
He didn't finish the thought, but he did say "the ultimate consideration for anyone running for president against George Bush [is] 'how much pain you can bear.'" My hope is that watching this administration of country club toughs stonewall a proper 9/11 investigation, deceive the American people about a non-existent Iraqi nuclear threat, then alibi that it's not Junior's fault because the president and his national security advisor failed to read the "National Intelligence Estimate," will convince Clark that his country needs him again.
Cynical and vindictive
Chicago Sun-Times: California going coup-coup
"..."If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed," de Tocqueville wrote, "that event may be attributed to the unlimited authority of the majority, which may at some future time urge the minorities to desperation."
This is what is happening in California. The recall campaign against Gov. Gray Davis is an assault on democratic institutions. Led by right-wing Republican activists, this campaign is a cynical and vindictive effort to nullify last year's gubernatorial election in which the unpopular Davis narrowly won a second four-year term..."
Powerful Corporate Interests
Robert Kuttner: Double standard on globalization
"...IF YOU get into a conversation with a billing representative of your credit card provider or phone company, you may notice a faint Indian accent. That's because the services industry is shifting more back room operations to India, where labor costs are a fraction of those in the United States. IBM, likewise, will soon move several thousand computer programming jobs to India, where programmers get far lower salaries. This decision has angered IBM employees and is contributing to a rare unionization drive at the high-tech giant, a company that once prided itself on never laying anyone off.
In these cases, industry defends the moves as cost-effective and economically logical. If productive English-speaking workers in India can perform the jobs, why not move the work there and pass the savings along to shareholders and consumers? Most economists, enthusiasts of free commerce, agree that these shifts help both India and the United States.
But hold on a moment. India figures in another controversy. Indian pharmaceutical labs make prescription drugs at a fraction of the cost that American drug makers charge consumers. In this case, however, it is illegal for American consumers to benefit. The politically powerful pharmaceutical industry contends that imports of cheaper foreign drugs violate patent rights and safety regulations. The industry is also battling legislation that would allow consumers to import cheaper drugs from Canada, which legally manufactures or purchases the drugs under license from the US pharmaceutical companies and conforms to US safety standards or better.
If you notice a double standard here, you're right..."
July 29, 2003
High crimes and misdemeanors
David Corn: White House Ducks Smear Inquiry
"...There is no doubt that the FBI and other institutions in Washington have taken note of the Novak and Time articles. But there are no signs yet any investigations will materialize. Of the leading members of the congressional intelligence committees, only one (as of this writing) has expressed anger that the Bush administration might have ruined the operations and career of an operative involved in a critical area. "If the allegations are true, then I think it is reprehensible," says Senator John Rockefeller IV, the senior Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee. But he has not yet publicly demanded an investigation.
Sometimes in the nation's capital, controversies fizzle and fade, sometimes they intensify and spread. Will these administration officials get away with a smear that may have harmed national security? If Bush has his way, they will."
Molly Ivins
WorkingForChange-The other great state
"...In Alaska, God is called Ted Stevens. The senior senator and chairman of the Appropriations Committee is worth an estimated $3 billion a year to the state. One of the oddest things about Alaska is the complete disconnect between its politics and its reality. Alaska is an implacably conservative state, albeit with a lovely libertarian lilt. Consequently, the right-wing radio talk show hosts bash government unmercifully, and Alaskans wander around under the impression that they are all rugged individualists who can take care of themselves and don't need no goldern govamint. That the state is painfully dependent on government is clear only to those who think..."
Treacherous incompetence
"...Meanwhile the Bush administration responded to the terror problem primarily by reorganizing the U.S. government, pulling together a welter of units -- from public safety to border control -- into the Department of Homeland Security. Agencies whose budgets amounted to $37 billion have been consolidated into one entity, for which Bush proposes to spend $29 billion -- and the White House has opposed any attempt to boost that figure.
Not surprisingly, the intelligence unit at Homeland Security stands in total disarray. Housed at the CIA, the unit has had difficulty hiring analysts (there were barely two dozen as recently as June) and has virtually no capability to provide meaningful intelligence. Its director has resigned, purportedly for health reasons.
All that before we even get to Iraq. Nothing about that involvement suggests the careful purposefulness the neocons gloat about. The dispute over the "16 words" only shows that the P.R. strategy for war against Iraq has unraveled. That country was destroyed after our military victory -- not before -- because Rumsfeld insisted an invasion could be done on the cheap. Casualties are mounting in an occupation that now seems aimless, against a multiplying guerrilla foe. The deaths of Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay do not change the basic situation, since the problems with the occupation are structural. .."
Serious questions
"The recently released Report of the Joint Congressional Inquiry Into The Terrorist Attacks Of September 11, and its dismal findings, have been well reported by the news media. What has not been widely reported, however, is the inescapable conclusions that must be drawn from a close reading of this bipartisan study.
Obviously, Republicans were not going to let Democrats say what needed to be said, or maybe Democrats did not want to politicize the matter. But since the facts could not be ignored or suppressed, they reported them without drawing certain obvious, not to mention devastating, conclusions.
Bluntly stated, either the Bush White House knew about the potential of terrorists flying airplanes into skyscrapers (notwithstanding their claims to the contrary), or the CIA failed to give the White House this essential information, which it possessed and provided to others.
Bush is withholding the document that answers this question. Accordingly, it seems more likely that the former possibility is the truth. That is, it seems very probable that those in the White House knew much more than they have admitted, and they are covering up their failure to take action..."
Wave bye-bye to white-collar jobs
Time: Where the Good Jobs Are Going
"...But more and more of the jobs that are moving abroad today are highly skilled and highly paid ? the type that U.S. workers assumed would always remain at home. Instead Maglione is one of thousands of Americans adjusting to the unsettling new reality of work. "If I can get another three years in this industry, I'll be fortunate," he says. Businesses are embracing offshore outsourcing in their drive to stay competitive, and almost any company, whether in manufacturing or services, can find some part of its work that can be done off site. By taking advantage of lower wages overseas, U.S. managers believe they can cut their overall costs 25% to 40% while building a more secure, more focused work force in the U.S. Labor leaders ? and nonunion workers, who make up most of those being displaced ? aren't buying that rationale. "How can America be competitive in the long run sending over the very best jobs?" asks Marcus Courtney, president of the Seattle-based Washington Alliance of Technology Workers. "I don't see how that helps the middle class..."
Weapons of Mass Deception
John Nichols: Unveiling Bush's mass deceptions
"Weapons of Mass Deception" is thick with case studies and meticulously footnoted examples of how the administration sold a fantasy called "Operation Iraqi Freedom." The book's most important sections detail the administration's preparations for what White House aides referred to as the war's "product launch" last fall, and the propaganda techniques employed by the administration to successfully create the false impression that there was a link between Iraq's secularist Baath Party leadership and the fundamentalist al-Qaida network.
As the president's use of false "evidence" in his State of the Union address leads to calls for an independent investigation of the White House spin cycle in the weeks and months before the war began, "Weapons of Mass Deception" is arguably a more credible intelligence document than anything put together by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. And this book could well turn out to be the essential road map through the burgeoning scandals of the Bush White House.
But the most revealing sections of this book are those that deal with the "postwar" era that we are supposedly in. Stauber and Rampton's deconstruction of the president's "mission accomplished" flight onto a returning aircraft carrier to film "Top Gun"-style 2004 campaign commercials, for instance, serves as a powerful indictment of the administration's ethics and judgment..."
Drip, drip, drip
"...But while Mr. Bush's poll numbers have fallen back to prewar levels, he hasn't suffered a Blair-like collapse. Why?
One answer, surely, is the kid-gloves treatment Mr. Bush has always received from the news media, a treatment that became downright fawning after Sept. 11. There was a reason Mr. Blair's people made such a furious attack on the ever-skeptical BBC.
Another answer may be that in modern America, style trumps substance. Here's what Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, said in a speech last week: "To gauge just how out of touch the Democrat leadership is on the war on terror, just close your eyes and try to imagine Ted Kennedy landing that Navy jet on the deck of that aircraft carrier." To say the obvious, that remark reveals a powerful contempt for the public: Mr. DeLay apparently believes that the nation will trust a man, independent of the facts, because he looks good dressed up as a pilot. But it's possible that he's right.
What must worry the Bush administration, however, is a third possibility: that the American people gave Mr. Bush their trust because in the aftermath of Sept. 11, they desperately wanted to believe the best about their president. If that's all it was, Mr. Bush will eventually face a terrible reckoning."
No Iraqis among 9/11 terrorists
Robert Scheer: Read Between the Lines of Those 28 Missing Pages
"...As we know, but our government tends to ignore, 15 of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia; none came from Iraq. Leaks from the censored portions of the report indicate that at least some of those Saudi terrorists were in close contact with ? and financed by ? members of the Saudi elite, extending into the ranks of the royal family.
The report finds no such connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda terrorists. It is now quite clear that the president ? unwilling to deal with the ties between Saudi Arabia and Osama bin Laden ? pursued Hussein as a politically convenient scapegoat. By drawing attention away from the Muslim fanatic networks centered in Saudi Arabia, Bush diverted the war against terror. That seems to be the implication of the 28 pages, which the White House demanded be kept from the American people when the full report was released..."
Self-perpetuating, ossified majority
Thomas Oliphant: The Republican House of cards
"...The Republicans' current margin is a historically thin 229-206, but there is nothing about recent events that suggests the leadership is crumbling. These almost unanimously rubber-stamp Republicans will cut any tax or increase any tax credit as long as the major beneficiaries of this mind-boggling largesse are not families who depend on paychecks to survive. In addition, the rubber-stampers will tolerate no significant foreign policy dissent, and now that Bill Clinton is comfortably in retirement they have abandoned investigative and oversight vigor..."
July 28, 2003
Howard Dean
"...On a Thursday morning in July -- before heading to meet undecided voters in Keokuk County, Oskaloosa and Ottumwa -- Howard Dean joined his volunteers filling bags of groceries at the Johnson County Food Bank.
Nothing new here, you could say: Politician proves he's caring and compassionate by spending 10 minutes helping out in front of cameras and microphones at orphanage or soup kitchen before leaving for very private, no-press-allowed fund-raiser with distinguished citizens who seek only a minor change in the tax code that would exclude "those corporations founded in Delaware before January 31, 1975," or something similar.
What potentially makes this scene quite different is that the campaign volunteers, dubbed the Dean Corps, encouraged and inspired by Ross Wilburn, have made a commitment to return each and every week to the food bank.
Dean legitimately boasted that his local volunteers had brought 320 pounds of groceries, this week alone, to the food bank. The governor gives credit for the Dean Corps idea to "the young people." He sees it as a way to show that "campaigns are not just about votes, but, more importantly, are about people."
The Dean Corps has already been involved in environmental cleanups, which given the popular image of the Vermonter's following, is not surprising. But if a presidential campaign actually does perform valuable human and social service and helps to restore a fraying sense of community, that could potentially change the entire dynamic of the caucus turnout next January 19.
Imagine the profound contrast between the Dean campaign volunteers feeding the hungry and comforting the lonely with the Bush pioneer/rangers corralling their $200 million swag for a primary in which the president is unopposed..."
Looks like somebody needs to be recalled
Rep.Renzi (GOP) panel in battle with FEC
"...Even as the Flagstaff Republican continues to collect money to pay off 2002 campaign debts and to use in an expected re-election bid, major flaws in reports filed by his campaign with the Federal Election Commission remain unresolved.
Corrections to reports covering fund-raising and spending since mid-2002 are months overdue. Such delays often trigger an audit by the FEC, which levies thousands of dollars in civil fines if committees are found in violation of federal campaign-finance laws..."
Emmy material or shoddy claptrap? You decide!
From Dateline Hollywood
The real reason Saddam's sons were killed
So Bush wouldn't have to fuss with the courts.
The Trial of Zacarias Moussaoui
"...Allowing the government to deny access to Mr. bin al-Shibh with impunity would set the dangerous precedent that important constitutional rights can be taken away in terrorism cases. It is not at all clear that allowing Mr. Moussaoui to question Mr. bin al-Shibh in carefully monitored circumstances would threaten national security. If the Justice Department is convinced it would, it can adjust the charges against Mr. Moussaoui so Mr. bin al-Shibh's testimony is no longer necessary.
The government has put Judge Brinkema in a bind by suggesting that if it does not like her rulings it will simply transfer Mr. Moussaoui's case to a military tribunal. Tribunals must not become an end run around two centuries of constitutional law. And in any case, it is far from certain that the Supreme Court would allow tribunals to convict people without according them the rights guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. The war on terrorism has not repealed the Constitution, and Judge Brinkema must ensure that it applies fully in Mr. Moussaoui's case."
War crime: The Big Lie
Administration lies hurt democracy, cost soldiers' lives
"...If you can control what people believe, you can control what they do. The Bush administration managed to manufacture a consensus for war by distorting the context of public opinion, so that the American people did not precisely understand what they were being asked to kill and die for...
...Lying about matters of state to manipulate the citizenry makes democracy impossible. You don't know what you're voting for, or against. If the matter is war, lying is murder.
By comparison, oral sex in the Oval Office appears downright wholesome."
Meanwhile, stacking the court continues
"...In trying to cloak Pryor's views in protective religious garb, the Republicans have covered themselves in hypocrisy. First of all, Pryor holds one view at odds with Catholic teaching: He ardently supports the death penalty, which Pope John Paul declared in 1995 was permissible only in cases of ''absolute necessity'' to maintain civil order, occasions the pope said were so rare as to be ''practically nonexistent.'' Pryor supports capital punishment so fiercely he even fought state legislation to replace Alabama's electric chair with lethal injection..."
July 27, 2003
True 'Conservative' values
TomPaine.com: Reactionary Distinctions
"...So what is different about the current crop of reactionaries, who have succeeded spectacularly where their predecessors have failed?
The answer, alas, is that reactionaries have learned the art of subversion. They have learned that where they cannot defeat their rivals through a direct assault, they succeed by corrupting from within.
The art of subversion begins and ends with manipulations in the meanings of words. Socrates observed this, and so did George Orwell. John Dewey took note of it, and so too Wendell Berry.
Typically, subversive manipulation of language requires that a word be used to mean its opposite: justice comes to mean repression; peace signifies war; hate is love; greed is good.
But conflating the meaning of two words that appear to share an antonym can be just as effective. Thus, reaction and conservatism have become conjoined in opposition to liberalism. But they are not now, nor have they ever been, the same ideological bent. They aren?t even similar..."
Fortunate son
Removal of not Uday and Qusay, but George W., from Iraq will end guerrilla warfare
"For every piece of evidence that Bush Administration officials willfully lied to the American public in order to hype their case for an invasion of Iraq, there's equally compelling evidence that such lies were well and fully believed. Too many people in Washington, up to and including the President of the United States, seem to have believed their own propaganda -- of Al-Qaeda links and weapons of mass destruction and Americans who would be welcomed as liberators, unleashing a bold new era of Western-style democracy throughout a grateful Arab world.
Dream on..."
No blind sycophancy here
"Good Riddence? There seems to be a lot of gloating now that Saddam's wicked sons are no longer among the living. Now, it doesn't have to be said that these two were evil and deserved their fate, but I do wonder if this should have been their fate. I don't know about you, but I'm doubtful that the Bushies are really interested in capturing Saddam. They want him as dead as his two sons. And that bothers me. Is Saddam a criminal? Yes. Is he guilty of crimes against humanity? Most definitely. Does he deserve death? Yes. But with that all said, should democracies solve their problems by rubbing people out? Will that really help Iraq establish democracy? I have to say no. Democracies are based on the rule of law, not a version of vigilante justice. At the end of the Second World War, the Allies did not hunt down the leaders of Japan and Germany, but placed them on trial. The people of those nations learned that the victors would operate under the law and not vengance.
The killing of Saddam may reassure Iraqis that his dreaded regime will not come back, but it will do little to help plant a democracy. In many ways, I think we have succumbed to the law of that part of the world: An eye for an eye. We have also started a dangerous precedent. Iraqis will start seeking former Baath Party officials, and executing their own street justice. It's already happening now, but this will give it the imprimatur of the US government. This is not the way to start a democracy. It would have been wise for the US had we set a combimation Nuremberg/ South African-style Truth Commission that would give Iraqis a chance to tell people what happened under the regime and try and punish those who were gulity. This would have been a great founding for a democracy. But we did not do that.
The killing of Saddam's sons maybe give Iraqis some relief, but it will not help them build a democracy. Street justice never does."
What are we accomplishing?
Bring them home. Bring them ALL home, now!
Iraqi grenade kills three U.S. soldiers
"Three U.S. soldiers were killed Saturday while guarding a children's hospital in the town of Baquba, north of Baghdad, after a hand grenade was thrown at them from a nearby building.
The latest incident brings to 161 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in combat in Iraq since the war began in March..."
July 26, 2003
Leave no millionaire behind
"The President and his party have cooked up the ultimate recipe for keeping political power. A nation in a constant state of anxiety ? over the threat of terrorism, or a potential war ? is a nation off balance. And that insecurity is the perfect cover to divert public attention from the country's serious domestic problems and the administration's political agenda.
The "Bush doctrine" opens the door to a series of pre-emptive wars against "evil" regimes, ostensibly to protect the United States and bring security, stability, safety and democracy to the citizens of Damascus, Tehran, and Pyongyang ? as the president claims to be doing in Baghdad and Kabul. Meanwhile, the administration shows little or no concern for the security, stability and safety of the citizens of Los Angeles, New York, Cleveland, or thousands of other cities and small towns across America, who are facing enormous economic and social difficulties..."
We need an independent investigation
"The heart of President Bush's January 28 State of the Union address was his case for going to war against Saddam Hussein. In making his case, the president laid out fact after fact about Saddam's alleged unconventional weapons. Indeed, the claim that these weapons of mass destruction (WMD) posed an imminent threat was his primary argument in favor of war.
Now, as more and more time passes with WMD still not found, it seems that some of those facts may not have been true. In particular, recent controversy has focused on the president's citations of British intelligence purportedly showing that Saddam was seeking "significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
In this column, I will examine the publicly available evidence relating to this and other statements in the State of the Union concerning Saddam's WMD. Obviously I do not have access to the classified information the president doubtlessly relied upon. But much of the relevant information he drew from appears to have been declassified and made available for inquiring minds..."
Unconstitutional
"...The plaintiffs' Complaint alleges a number of problems with the way signatures had been gathered. But no allegation is more central than the contention that the gatherers were not all registered California voters, as California statutes require. In particular, Elections Code ?11045 says that "[o]nly registered voters of the electoral jurisdiction of the officer sought to be recalled are qualified to circulate or sign a recall petition for that officer..."
Try not to cheer
Ratings slipping, economy tanking, lies spiraling, credibility shot. Try not to cheer.
"...This is what happens when you build your entire presidency on an intricate network of aww-shucks glibness and bad hair and cronyism and corporate fellatio and warmongering and sham enemies and economy-gutting policies and endless blank-eyed smirks that tell the world, every single day, whelp, sure 'nuff, the U.S. is full of it.
Shrub's ratings have dropped below 50 percent for the first (and probably not the last) time since they surged hugely right after 9/11 and he was hoisted in front of a wary America and puffed out his chest and pretended like he could find Afghanistan on a map and promised he would bomb every damn country on the planet that didn't have a McDonald's or an Exxon or a secret U.S. chemical-weapons deal..."
More 9/11
David Corn: The 9/11 Investigation
"...An example: The FBI had an active informant in San Diego who had numerous contacts on 2000 with two of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar. And he may also have had more limited contact with a third hijacker, Hani Hanjour. In 2000, the CIA had information that al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar--who had already been linked to terrorism--were or might be in the United States. Yet it had not placed them on a watch list for suspected terrorists or shared this information with the FBI. The FBI agent who handled the San Diego informant told the committees that had he had access to the intelligence information on al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi, "it would have made a huge difference." He would have "immediately opened" an investigation and subjected them to a variety of surveillance. It can never be known whether such an effort would have uncovered their 9/11 plans. "What is clear, however," the report says, "is that the informant's contacts with the hijackers, had they been capitalized on, would have given the San Diego FBI field office perhaps the intelligence community's best chance to unravel the September 11 plot. Given the CIA's failure to disseminate, in a timely manner, the intelligence information on...al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi, that chance, unfortunately, never materialized." (The FBI's informant--who is not named in the report--has denied any advance knowledge of 9/11, according to the report, but the committees raise questions about his credibility on this point, and the Bush Administration objected to the joint inquiry's efforts to interview the informant.)..."
July 25, 2003
Bush desecrates U.S. Flag
From the Daily Kos
(Associated Press :: Thu Jul 24, 8:11 PM)
From the US Code, Title 4, Chapter 1, Sec. 8 (g):
'The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.'
The title of that portion of the US Code? "Respect for flag".
The Cover-up continues
Bush protects terrorists Saudi paymasters. No one mentions the big lie. Saddam not behind 9/11 attacks.
White House, CIA Kept Key Portions of Report Classified
"... Two intriguing -- and politically volatile -- questions surrounding the Sept. 11 plot have been how personally engaged Bush and his predecessor were in counterterrorism before the attacks, and what role some Saudi officials may have played in sustaining the 19 terrorists who commandeered four airplanes and flew three of them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
To varying degrees, the answers remain a mystery, despite an unprecedented seven-month effort by a joint House and Senate panel to fully understand how a group of Arab terrorists could have pulled off such a scheme. The CIA refused to permit publication of information potentially implicating Saudi officials on national security grounds, arguing that disclosure could upset relations with a key U.S. ally. Lawmakers complained it was merely to avoid embarrassment..."
9/11 Report
I will start posting on the 9/11 report when at least on freaking news outlet headlines one of the essential findings, THERE WAS NO CONNECTION BETWEEN SADDAM AND AL QAEDA, and hence, one less reason to war on Iraq.
How about 'We're Screwed' for $100
Joe Conason: Bush Chases Saddam, Ignores Real Threats
"For the past year, George W. Bush has faced a choice between a real nuclear crisis and a fake nuclear crisis. Unfortunately for the nation and the world, he chose wrongly?and his mistake has made solving the real crisis more difficult and dangerous.
The phony crisis, as we now learn in greater detail with every passing news cycle, was Saddam Hussein?s alleged effort to develop nuclear weapons in Iraq. The President and the National Security Advisor, among others, told us that we faced the threat of a "mushroom cloud" over an American city if our military didn?t move swiftly to overthrow the Iraqi despot. The Vice President warned us that Saddam had already "reconstituted" his defunct nuclear program..."
I'll take the catagory, 'We're Screwed', for $50, Jim
'Giant sucking sound' of lost jobs gets louder
"...Forester Research, a Massachusetts-based technology consultant, estimates that 3.3 million service jobs will move to countries such as Russia and China in addition to English-speaking countries such as India and the Philippines over the next 15 years. Information technology and financial services will be the two sectors that should see the most overseas outsourcing.
"The debate of at major financial services companies today is no longer whether to relocate some business functions but rather which ones and where," Andrea Brierce, managing director of the consulting firm A.T. Kearney, told Fortune. "Any function that does not require face-to-face contact is now perceived as a candidate for offshore relocation."
This is a frightening prospect for every person who thinks the U.S. economy can grow its way out of recession. Traditionally, white collar workers have gotten laid off when times are bad and get rehired when things pick up. Now, like their blue collar brethren, they're watching their jobs get shipped overseas and those jobs are likely not coming back.
It's equally frightening for people who still believe that a college degree or senior executive experience is protection against long-term unemployment. According to the Economic Policy Institute, 18.1 percent of the long-term unemployed in 2002 had college degrees and 20 percent were from the executive, professional and managerial category. This compares to 14 percent in 2000 for both segments.
The long-term trend of good, stable and well-paying jobs being replaced by not-so-good, unstable and lousy paying jobs is something that few folks are talking about. But it is a trend that all of the tax cuts in the world won't change..."
Though The Heavens Fall
William Rivers Pitt: Though The Heavens Fall
"... We forget, of course, that death is a growth stock for George W. Bush. Death gives him political cover to ramrod through his extremist policies. Death makes Americans fear to question him. Death makes for good television. In Iraq, death fills the coffers of corporations like Vice President Cheney?s Halliburton.
One would think that the death of American soldiers in Iraq would bode ill for Bush and his administration. Not so, counters apologist Rush Limbaugh:
"Folks, we're getting a daily death update out of Iraq, and we're hearing slogans like, ?One a day,? and ?Our troops are being slaughtered,? from the Democrats, as their willing accomplices in the press try to concoct this notion that the casualty rate over there is outrageous and intolerable. The following statistics come from the Centers for Disease Control website: On a daily basis, on average, 10 Americans die by drowning, and nine Americans die by fire in their homes. 14 Americans die by pedestrian accidents. 27 Americans die in falls. On average, 50 Americans a day are murdered. 118 die in auto accidents, and 25 people die from A.I.D.S. every day, on average. Yesterday, two Americans died in battle in Iraq."
In short, Rush would have us believe these dead American boys are no big deal..."
Democracy? We don't need no stinkin' democracy
"...Accept as fact all the accusations against California Gov. Gray Davis - that he is arrogant, fiscally reckless, has raised taxes and reneged on campaign promises. The recall election that now stands before voters in that state still has less to do with his performance than with the $1.7-million that U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa put up to buy the petitions.
Issa, a man with an abundance of wealth and ego, wants Davis' job, and plans to put his own name on the recall ballot Oct. 7. For his down payment, taxpayers will now invest $35-million on an election to see whether he gets the job..."
Alternate universe Fed Chairman-We wish
"...And Mr. Greenspan bears some of the responsibility. Until June, Fed officials had helped push down interest rates precisely by not being too optimistic _ by indicating that they took concerns about deflation seriously, that they were not taking recovery for granted. Then they surprised markets with a small cut in the federal funds rate, a move that seemed to suggest that they were taking recovery for granted, after all. Mr. Greenspan's testimony reinforced that impression. Still, I would be prepared to forgive Mr. Greenspan's recent fumbles if it weren't for the huge fiscal damage he has inflicted on the republic in these past few years.
Let's not forget that back in 2001, Mr. Greenspan lent crucial political aid to the first Bush tax cut, arguing that such a cut was necessary to prevent, yes, excessive budget surpluses and too rapid a payoff of the federal government's debt. He should have known better _ it wasn't hard, even then, to figure out that those huge projected surpluses were largely fantasy. But he tied himself in knots to find a way to give his political friends what they wanted..."
July 24, 2003
The Bigger Lie
This is David Corn writing in Salon. You need a subscription (get one, help them out, Sullivan or not).
"...In arguing for war, Bush for months claimed that Saddam was in cahoots with al-Qaida. This was a powerful charge. Bush did not merely say there were links between the Iraqi government and Osama bin Laden's murderous outfit. He declared there was an alliance. During a Nov. 7 press conference, Bush referred to Saddam and exclaimed: "He's a threat because he is dealing with al-Qaida." While it is unrealistic to expect that Bush, on his own, examined the supposed evidence underlying the uranium-from-Africa allegation, it is not unreasonable to believe that Bush, prior to charging that Saddam and bin Laden were in league, would have made certain he was speaking accurately.
Yet weeks earlier, the CIA had released findings that noted it had gathered evidence of a few contacts over the years between the Iraqi government and al-Qaida but nothing pointing to a current partnership. Recent news reports revealed that the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, most of which remains classified, conveyed an unclear picture of whatever contacts might have existed and warned about the reliability of the intelligence on this subject. So how did Bush reach his no-question-about-it conclusion that Saddam was "dealing" with bin Laden? In this case, he cannot blame an aide for inserting a line into a speech..."
No quick fix breaks Bush
"...Helen Burns, restaurant manager in Palestine, West Virginia: "It's sad. I mean it's just almost sickening to--to think that our--our people is getting killed over there for nothing, as far as I'm concerned."
Thorn Roberts, a businessman: "Where is the light at the end of the tunnel in this situation? Remember, LBJ's remark about the light at the end of the tunnel in Vietnam. I sort of see the same about this."
Eva Clegg, retired state employee: "Now that they're coming out with things that they didn't have those nuclear weapons and all that, you just wonder if it's worth all that our boys are going through."
Emzy Ashby, businessman: "They keep hollering it's over with, but it will never be over with..."
Democrats not meek, cowed, just muzzled
The Democrats Had Better Learn How to Fight
"... So Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee, understandably skeptical and frustrated, decamped to an adjoining room to review a pension bill that would, among other things, allow corporations to set aside less money to cover their pension obligations to retirees. The lessons of Enron, it seems, are sooo yesterday. With the opposition gone, Thomas moved to pass the bill by unanimous consent. A Democrat returned to object, but he was told to "shut up," and we know the rest.
What is unusual about this incident is that the news media took notice of the Democrats' dissent. The current conventional wisdom is that congressional Democrats are a bunch of feckless, timid wimps who let Republicans steamroll them without so much as a peep. But as The New Republic recently reported, news coverage tends to note only that "Congress passed" thus and such. A reader would have to be alert to catch the reference to Democratic opposition hidden in the final paragraphs of such accounts. Such coverage leaves the impression of a Republican juggernaut, implementing a broad conservative agenda while Democrats sit meekly by..."
Bush, Republicans abandon disabled Vets
Vets served and sacrificed yet Washington plays politics
"...In a July 8 letter to the House Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld maintained that allowing all career disabled military to receive their due in the so-called concurrent-receipt legislation would break the federal budget. He estimates it would cost $57 billion during a decade.
Funny, there doesn't seem to be much concern in the Bush administration about breaking the disabled vets, some of them living at or near poverty, by maintaining the status quo. Or, for that matter, about the federal budget deficit that's spiraling out of control, thanks in large part to Bush's trillion-dollars-plus in tax cuts over the same decade..."
Fighting Democrat: James Carville
James Carville's Rx For Democrats
"...Recent political history shows Democrats win when they stand up and fight, he said.
"In '88 we let the GOP walk all over us. We lost," Carville said. "In '92, we fought back and won. In '94, we went soft and lost. They tried impeachment. We fought back, we won. In 2000, we let them walk all over us in Florida. In 2002, we let them roll over us in Congress. In 2004, we know better..."
"What the party needs to do is win the election on big issues, big contrasts," Carville said, adding "recent polls show people are starting to get tired of what's going on."
"If you look at the policies of this administration, the average guy, there ain't nothing for them," he said. "We've got to focus on how they are changing the very nature of what it is to be an American -- the generational promise."
"You will see a big turnout," Carville predicted. "This is a real test for us. Not so much to come together, but a time when we must insist on a government that includes all of us. Therein lies the real strategy."
James Carville's Rx For Democrats
by Steven Rosenfeld
What does the recent episode of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas calling the Capitol police to round up Democratic committee members have in common with the Texas Legislature's redistricting fight, Florida's last presidential election, and Bill Clinton's impeachment?
"They used the power of the federal courts and law enforcement to settle political scores," said Democratic strategist James Carville, speaking of the most "insidious" possibility he sees in the emerging presidential campaign. "They used it in Texas with redistricting. They just used it in D.C. They used it in Florida.
"If you can't say the simple fact that they lied to get us in and have no idea how to get us out, then there's something wrong with America."
"They will use the court system and federal law enforcement to try to win this election. I went through a $70 million sham investigation. I know what they will do."
Carville's predictions, prescriptions and admonitions for Democrats came in a lunchtime speech at the American Trial Lawyers Association annual convention in San Francisco. Among other things, he listed what the Democrats should and should not do to criticize the war in Iraq, what he felt the big issue in '04 would be, and said how his party and its eventual nominee should campaign if they want to win.
On Iraq, Carville said Democrats "should not exaggerate the facts," but merely state and restate them. "They lied to get us in. They don't know how to get us out," he said. "How did they not know the country wasn't divided? How do you commit 150,000 troops with no plan to get out? All we have to do is remind people of that."
But he said there was "this other thing going on," which he called the "patriot-correct police," referring to assertions by Republicans that criticizing the war was un-American.
"If you can't say the simple fact that they lied to get us in and have no idea how to get us out, then there's something wrong with America."
There must be an independent investigation not just of the White House's justifications for war, Carville said, but also the administration's plans for the occupation.
"In '44, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a 700-page plan for the occupation of Japan. That's what happens when you think ahead. What was the plan this time? Who read the important documents? Let's have an investigation," he said. "If we can spend $70 million to investigate the act of consensual sex, we can spend a few million to find out why we are involved in a war in Iraq."
Speaking of inquiries, Carville said people should not forget the Bush administration was stonewalling the federal commission investigating the World Trade Center terrorist attacks.
"If the case is we didn't have this thing [Iraq] thought out, that is a searing, stinging indictment of this administration -- we should not forget that," he said. "If they didn't cooperate fully with this investigation of 9/11, that is not an indictment. That is a sin."
Democrats need a big issue for the '04 campaign, Carville said, and it's not the economy or foreign policy. "The issues we now face as Americans are so huge, so great, demand so much attention, we have to look at it all," he said.
"Look at the fiscal health of the U.S.," he began. "They inherited a $5.6 trillion surplus and plunged the nation into debt." Average Americans will be paying for the Bush tax cut for decades with higher taxes, he said. "That is taxation without representation. That is the antithesis of everything that is most American."
On foreign policy, he said America used to be respected abroad "for strength, values and the ability to work with others." But the "arrogant, go-it-alone" administration policies have reversed all that, he said. "Never has there been a time when America is less able to lead."
On the looming right-wing takeover of the federal judiciary and current Supreme Court, he said, "You got Pat Robertson praying for people to die right now. That's the level they're going to."
"If you look at every policy, pension reform, guess who gets the shaft? Tort reform, guess who gets the shaft? Environmental reform, you know the level of hypocrisy," he said. "If it comes to who is going to get a break, people who make $1 million today or young kids who will make the country tomorrow, you don't even have to look."
Recent political history shows Democrats win when they stand up and fight, Carville said.
And that lead to what Carville said was the big issue for Democrats in '04, what he called the Bush administration's reversal of "the generational promise of America -- each time we do what we can do to make the next generation better."
"That promise, today like no other time in our lifetime, is under attack," he said. "The idea that we are a society beyond our own self-interest is under attack. We are told America is best when people are interested in ourselves. We know America is better when we're based on a common interest.
"We have a president that is no longer interested in what happens to the next generation. We have a president that is no longer interested in what happens to the promise of America.
"I am telling you that there is so much at stake here. There is so much for us to fight for. There are so many people who don't want to give up the dream of generational promise.
"People always ask, 'What can I do? What can I do?'" Carville told the 1,000-plus crowd. "Sit down, shut up and write a check. And then after you do that, get to a phone bank and do whatever you can in your city or state."
It was critical, Carville said, for Democrats "to get behind our candidates and push them to talk about the kinds of things we really care about." He said Democrats in Congress as well as the presidential candidates were becoming bolder and had to be supported.
"Right now what we need to do, now that they are starting to fight back, we need to give them encouragement," he said. "We have to show them they have support. We have got to learn the value of supporting our people."
There were many clich?s about Democrats that were false, Carville said, but one rang true: that the party too-often behaved like a collection of interest groups defending their turf, rather than a national political party with a larger focus. He said Democrats mustn't allow that to happen in the unfolding campaign.
Carville told the trial lawyers to avoid it and focus instead on what it will take to win against a Republican Party that's likely to use the courts and federal law enforcement to get the electoral outcome they seek.
"The candidates will come to you and say, 'I voted for this bill, or against tort reform,'" Carville said. "The first question from the audience, should be, 'Sir, tell us the kind of campaign that you will run to combat Republican thuggery.'
"If they run a campaign that doesn't fight back when the Republicans use the courts and law enforcement to win elections... I want to know what kind of campaign you will run. Are you going to take this stuff, or are you going to fight back?"
Recent political history shows Democrats win when they stand up and fight, he said.
"In '88 we let the GOP walk all over us. We lost," Carville said. "In '92, we fought back and won. In '94, we went soft and lost. They tried impeachment. We fought back, we won. In 2000, we let them walk all over us in Florida. In 2002, we let them roll over us in Congress. In 2004, we know better..."
"What the party needs to do is win the election on big issues, big contrasts," Carville said, adding "recent polls show people are starting to get tired of what's going on."
"If you look at the policies of this administration, the average guy, there ain't nothing for them," he said. "We've got to focus on how they are changing the very nature of what it is to be an American -- the generational promise."
"You will see a big turnout," Carville predicted. "This is a real test for us. Not so much to come together, but a time when we must insist on a government that includes all of us. Therein lies the real strategy."
Reprinted for discussion purposes from TomPaine.com
July 23, 2003
He's baaaaaack
"...Third, and most of all, I kept noticing in 2000 that most of the people who lectured me on how corrupt Gore was and how Nader was the courageous choice were people for whom the outcome of the election, on a personal level, didn't really matter. Some were young people, whose idealism is to be admired but who were by and large demographically insulated from some of the harsher realities of American life. But most were older, white, left bourgeoisie, tenured and cocooned in the carapace of self-righteous satisfaction, whose own lives wouldn't change much one way or the other no matter which party won. In fact, if anything, Bush's elevation was good for them personally, because they wouldn't suffer directly from federal budget cuts and were probably in a bracket that benefited from his tax cuts (as was I, but at least I had the sense to vote against my own interests). Among people who were directly affected by which candidate won, Nader was seen as the ornament of frippery that he was. I promise you, you could not have gone to the corner of Lenox Avenue and 145th Street in October of 2000 and found four Nader voters. And at that intersection and the many others in America like it, by my lights, the moral case for Nader crumbles to dust..."
My personal GOD!
Hunter S. Thompson: Welcome to the Big Darkness
"...The Rumsfield-Cheney axis has self-destructed right in front of our eyes, along with the once-proud Perle-Wolfowitz bund that is turning to wax. They somehow managed to blow it all, like a gang of kids on a looting spree, between January and July, or even less. It is genuinely incredible. The U.S. Treasury is empty, we are losing that stupid, fraudulent chickencrap War in Iraq, and every country in the world except a handful of Corrupt Brits despises us. We are losers, and that is the one unforgiveable sin in America.
Beyond that, we have lost the respect of the world and lost two disastrous wars in three years. Afghanistan is lost, Iraq is a permanent war Zone, our national Economy is crashing all around us, the Pentagon's "war strategy" has failed miserably, nobody has any money to spend, and our once-mighty U.S. America is paralyzed by Mutinies in Iraq and even Fort Bragg.
The American nation is in the worst condition I can remember in my lifetime, and our prospects for the immediate future are even worse. I am surprised and embarrassed to be a part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it. Our highway system is crumbling, our police are dishonest, our children are poor, our vaunted Social Security, once the envy of the world, has been looted and neglected and destroyed by the same gang of ignorant greed-crazed bastards who brought us Vietnam, Afghanistan, the disastrous Gaza Strip and ignominious defeat all over the world..."
Welcome to the Big Darkness By Hunter S. Thompson
Hi, folks, my name is still Thompson, and I still drink gin with ER Nurses at night -- but in one particular way, I am a New Man, a different man, a more dangerous man than I was the last time we talked. And that was a few weeks ago, eh?
Indeed, I can walk again, and I like it, because last month I felt an acute spasmodic pain in my spine when I walked. There was nothing cute about it, no socially redeeming factor. It just plain sucked.
But I have just returned from an extremely intense few weeks at the world-renowned Steadman Hawkins Clinic in Vail, Colo. (yes, the same city where Kobe Bryant ...), where I had radical surgery to repair what was beginning to give me some pain. Great pain on some days, and I finally decided to get rid of it.
I am no stranger to organ replacement, and I always find it refreshing, always a happy improvement over Pain.
I hate pain, despite my ability to tolerate it beyond all known parameters, which is not necessarily a good thing. I once gouged about two-thirds of my hip socket into mush for five consecutive years, until I finally felt enough pain to have the bastard replaced.
And Titanium turned out to be far more comfortable and flexible than the human spine anyway, especially mine. It is lighter, stronger and far more adaptable, in every way, than bone or steel or anything else in the human body -- and I am installing it in my own body as rapidly as possible without doing anything stupid.
My alloy spine replacement is about 70 percent finished, and after it's completed, I will take a break. And maybe have a look at this weird and degrading Kobe Bryant story, which interests me. The more I learn about this case, the more I understand that this is not about Rape at all. It is about money, pure money and nothing else. Nobody is going to jail in this case, but some people are going to Pay.
The downward spiral of Dumbness in America is about to hit a new low. You thought O.J. was bad? Wait until we get a taste of the K.B. scandal. It will be like a feeding frenzy and a long parade of cannibals.
When I went into the clinic last April 30, George Bush was about 50 points ahead of his closest Democratic opponent in next year's Presidential Election. When I finally escaped from the horrible place, less than three weeks late, Bush's job-approval ratings had been cut in half -- and even down into single digits, in some states -- and the Republican Party was panicked and on the run. It was a staggering reversal in a very short time, even shorter than it took for his equally crooked father to drop from 93 percent approval, down to as low as 43 percent and even 41 percent in the last doomed days of the first doomed Bush Administration. After that, he was Bill Clinton's punching bag.
Richard Nixon could tell us a lot about peaking too early. He was a master of it, because it beat him every time. He never learned and neither did Bush the Elder.
But wow! This goofy child president we have on our hands now. He is demonstrably a fool and a failure, and this is only the summer of '03. By the summer of 2004, he might not even be living in the White House. Gone, gone, like the snows of yesteryear.
The Rumsfield-Cheney axis has self-destructed right in front of our eyes, along with the once-proud Perle-Wolfowitz bund that is turning to wax. They somehow managed to blow it all, like a gang of kids on a looting spree, between January and July, or even less. It is genuinely incredible. The U.S. Treasury is empty, we are losing that stupid, fraudulent chickencrap War in Iraq, and every country in the world except a handful of Corrupt Brits despises us. We are losers, and that is the one unforgiveable sin in America.
Beyond that, we have lost the respect of the world and lost two disastrous wars in three years. Afghanistan is lost, Iraq is a permanent war Zone, our national Economy is crashing all around us, the Pentagon's "war strategy" has failed miserably, nobody has any money to spend, and our once-mighty U.S. America is paralyzed by Mutinies in Iraq and even Fort Bragg.
The American nation is in the worst condition I can remember in my lifetime, and our prospects for the immediate future are even worse. I am surprised and embarrassed to be a part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it. Our highway system is crumbling, our police are dishonest, our children are poor, our vaunted Social Security, once the envy of the world, has been looted and neglected and destroyed by the same gang of ignorant greed-crazed bastards who brought us Vietnam, Afghanistan, the disastrous Gaza Strip and ignominious defeat all over the world.
The Stock Market will never come back, our Armies will never again be No. 1, and our children will drink filthy water for the rest of our lives.
The Bush family must be very proud of themselves today, but I am not. Big Darkness, soon come. Take my word for it.
DR. THOMPSON IS BACK WITH US NOW, AND READY TO RUMBLE. HE IS FREE OF THE HIDEOUS PAIN THAT HAS PLAGUED HIM AND HIS LOVED ONES SINCE TIME IMMEMORIAL. BUT IT IS GONE NOW. THINGS HAVE CHANGED.
To be continued very soon.
Dubious George
'The President is not a fact-checker' by Gene Lyons
"..."We do not know," "we cannot confirm," "highly dubious." How did Bush ignore these warning signs? He did not entirely read the document, the White House helpfully explained. That, of course, is perfectly in keeping with Junior's history. The NIE report on Iraq's weapons is all of 90 pages, footnotes included. Now you'd think that any president preparing to commit American soldiers to battle against "evildoers" supposedly armed with weapons of mass destruction would want to spend some time learning exactly what they might be facing. But George W. Bush had more important things to do. .."
by Gene Lyons
"The president," a White House spokesman told reporters last week "is not a fact-checker." Now there's the understatement of the year. To paraphrase the late film comic Oliver Hardy, this is another fine mess Junior has gotten himself and the rest of us into. The context of the fact-checker remark was the administration's release of a previously top secret "National Intelligence Estimate" on Iraq. The idea was to prove that parroting a now notorious claim that the Brits had "learned" Iraq was shopping for African uranium to make nuclear weapons wasn't Junior's fault. Instead, U.S. intelligence agencies were responsible for the blunder.
The problem with Bush's alibi, however, was that well-sourced newspaper articles last fall quoted intelligence officers describing White House pressure to cook the books. Also, the NIE document was full of ambiguities. As CIA director George Tenet put it in his carefully-worded statement ostensibly taking blame for not preventing Bush from uttering the now-infamous 16 words: "The estimate also states: 'We do not know the status of this arrangement. ' With regard to reports that Iraq had sought uranium from two other countries, the estimate says: 'We cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources.' Much later in the N.I.E. text, in presenting an alternate view on another matter, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research included a sentence that states: 'Finally, the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in I.N.R.'s assessment, highly dubious.'"
"We do not know," "we cannot confirm," "highly dubious." How did Bush ignore these warning signs? He did not entirely read the document, the White House helpfully explained. That, of course, is perfectly in keeping with Junior's history. The NIE report on Iraq's weapons is all of 90 pages, footnotes included. Now you'd think that any president preparing to commit American soldiers to battle against "evildoers" supposedly armed with weapons of mass destruction would want to spend some time learning exactly what they might be facing. But George W. Bush had more important things to do.
And get this, according to the White House, so did national security advisor Condoleeza Rice. She's supposed to be the brains of the operation, Bush's intellectual nanny. The former provost of Stanford University, we're told, skipped the footnotes where the strongest cautions were found. Assuming purely for the sake of argument that we believe this astonishing excuse, exactly what does the woman do all day? Have we reached the point where we expect American men and women to commit their lives and sacred honor on the basis of what Bob Somerby calls "Cliff's Notes" intelligence?
But the reality, of course, is that Rice's story simply cannot be believed. CIA director Tenet had personally warned her chief deputy Stephen Hadley off the African uranium tale on two documented occasions in October 2002. Nor is this the first time Rice has been caught uttering improbable stories in defense of her boss. Seemingly above criticism, it was Rice, Joe Conason points out, who pushed the later repudiated tale that Bush hightailed it to Nebraska on 9/11 because of "intelligence" indicating terrorists had targeted Air Force One.
It was also Rice who insisted that nobody could possibly have imagined a plot so fiendish as to crash jetliners into buildings, although the president had slept aboard a Navy vessel during his visit to Genoa, Italy during the 2001 G-8 summit for precisely that reason. It was Rice who warned that not to attack Iraq would be to risk a "mushroom cloud" over an American city, who pushed the dubious story about Iraq importing aluminum tubes to manufacture nuclear weapons long after experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency had pronounced them technically unsuitable, and who went on "Meet the Press" to deny knowing anything about Ambassador Joseph Wilson's debunking trip to Niger at the CIA's behest weeks after Nicholas Kristof had written about it in the New York Times.
How did IAEA experts determine the African documents were phony? According to Newsweek, it took them all of two hours. The answer, said one official, was "'Google'...The IAEA ran the name of the Niger foreign minister through the Internet search engine and discovered that he was not in office at the time the document was signed." The chances are between slim and none that this never occurred to anybody in U.S. intelligence.Somebody must have put a lid on it.
The bad news for President Junior is that the intelligence agencies are fighting a bureaucratic rearguard action, the press has rediscovered its mission, and Americans are awakening from a fear-induced post-9/11 trance to suspect that they were duped into an unecessary war for dishonest reasons. A recent Harris poll shows 51 percent now "have doubts" Bush is "a leader you can trust." Once lost, that trust is very hard to recover.
The 'New' conventional wisdom
We're getting screwed by the Republicans, AND Bush is a liar.
...However, the speech also contained another falsehood, columnist Paul Krugman says. He?s referring to Bush?s line: ?We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents and other generations.?
Sickeningly, the administration will pass to future generations a $455 billion debt caused by government overspending in the current fiscal year, plus an estimated $475 billion deficit next year.
No government in world history has imposed such a gigantic burden upon successors. It?s especially dismaying because U.S. budget deficits had been erased under President Clinton, and federal surpluses were in sight..."
Let's not forget Ashcroft
Not all Americans in tune with Ashcroft's blood lust
"... But a number of bona-fide states also feel trampled by a federal government intent on forcing a Southern-conservative culture on the entire nation. In New York State, for example, the Justice Department has overruled at least 10 prosecutors for failing to call for capital punishment in federal cases.
Having government break the taboo on the deliberate taking of a person's life is itself highly disturbing. But the possibility that the state might execute someone by mistake is unbearable..."
Missing the point
If you accept the argument about the nature of Fourth Generation War, as I do. You must begin to recognize that the Iraq conflict that we are now engaged in simply cannot be measured by the standards of previous wars, like WWII. Simply killing or capturing the enemies leaders WILL NOT STOP THE CONFLICT. Like a many headed hydra, you lop off one head and another will take it's place. So the current gushing about the killing Saddam's sons is just plain moronic. And the claim that such an act must make the war critics give pause misses the point. In starting the war, Bush has brought us more trouble than we possibly can imagine. And we are less secure than before.
Leadership, what leadership?
There is only one catagory of citizenship in this country, now, and that is a Republican voter. There is only one type of elected official and that, not surprisingly, is also Republican. They recognize no other.
"...Now, consider Bush.
He declared that he wants to expand Medicare to include (very) limited coverage of prescription drugs. His political Rasputin, Karl Rove, views this as a top priority to upstage a leading Democratic issue. The House Republicans want to use drug coverage as a wedge to begin privatizing Medicare. Senate Democrats consider that gimmick a deal breaker. A little presidential leadership is in order if Bush really wants a bill. Have you heard him say boo?
Remember the child tax credit? Under the latest tax cut, refund checks go out July 25. But not to some 6 million kids in families where the breadwinner pays payroll tax but no income tax, including many GIs serving in Iraq. Bush pledged to fix this lapse. The Senate voted, 94- 2, to make the change. But the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, says no way. Where is Bush on this one? Who is setting the agenda, Bush or DeLay?..."
It's good cop/bad cop where the bad cop always wins.
July 22, 2003
Cheney's personal fiefdom
The Progressive: Stiffing the U.N. at the Cost of U.S. Lives
"...Going to the U.N. would relieve tens of thousands of U.S. troops.
But for the Vice President, that's not a good enough reason.
Why?
First, discrediting the United Nations is an ideological goal of his. He believes the U.N. is an impediment to U.S. global rule, so to turn around and beseech the U.N. Security Council for approval would lend legitimacy to the very institution he wants to trash.
Second, he does not want to let any other country get in on the spoils of Iraq--which he had his eyes on as far back as March 2001. (According to Judicial Watch, Cheney's energy task force went over a detailed map of Iraq's oil industry in preparation for the Cheney Report of May 2001 on U.S. energy needs.) Letting the U.N. rebuild Iraq might jeopardize the ability of U.S. companies to get the inside track on future contracts..."
ventriloquist's dummy
A dwindling case for going it alone
"...It was a rare example where President Bush appears to have actually made a decision after participating in a detailed examination of the options. The more common and accurate picture of a disengaged, incurious, passive receptacle for his advisers' machinations is so widely accepted around here that even the administration officials desperately defending themselves over the crude manipulation of prewar intelligence have in the process depicted Bush himself as little more than a ventriloquist's dummy..."
Not a fact-checker
" Is George Bush the Iraq war's "useful idiot"?
The phrase was coined by Vladimir Lenin to refer to gullible communist sympathizers who swallowed whole the party line. They believed what they were told, and what they were told was mostly lies..."
Administration officials out cia agent
When you find yourself in a hole, you don't keep digging. This is going to be huge.
Columnist Names CIA Iraq Operative
"...When it gets to the point of an administration official acting to do career damage, and possibly actually endanger someone, that's mean, that's petty, it's irresponsible, and it ought to be sanctioned," said Frank Anderson, former CIA Near East Division chief..."
Paul Krugman, patriot
Paul Krugman: Who's Unpatriotic Now?
"...Issues of principle aside, the invasion of a country that hadn't attacked us and didn't pose an imminent threat has seriously weakened our military position. Of the Army's 33 combat brigades, 16 are in Iraq; this leaves us ill prepared to cope with genuine threats. Moreover, military experts say that with almost two-thirds of its brigades deployed overseas, mainly in Iraq, the Army's readiness is eroding: normal doctrine calls for only one brigade in three to be deployed abroad, while the other two retrain and refit.
And the war will have devastating effects on future recruiting by the reserves. A widely circulated photo from Iraq shows a sign in the windshield of a military truck that reads, "One weekend a month, my ass..."
July 21, 2003
Ugly retaliation, possible felony
Evidently it's a felony to reveal that someone is a intelligence agent. One more smoking gun for a future criminal prosecution. No, wait. They're Republicans. Make that prosecution and pardon.
"Now in an NBC News exclusive, Wilson says his family is the subject of a smear campaign. Wilson tells NBC News the White House deliberately leaked his wife?s identity as a covert CIA operative, damaging her future career and compromising past missions after he criticized the administration on ?Meet the Press? and in the New York Times.
He told me, ?It?s a shot across the bow to those who might step forward, those unnamed analysts who said they were pressured by the White House for example would think twice about having their own families names being dragged through this particular mud.?
A Democrat with a spine
Democrats for revamp of intelligence work
"...Senator Levin, a senior Democrat, who sits on the armed services and intelligence committees, has also said that there is evidence that the claim on the uranium "was just one of the many questionable statements and exaggerations by the intelligence community and administration officials in the build-up to the war."...
...Mr. Levin is not the first Democrat to openly attack the decisions of the administration but the intensity with which the White House is coming under fire for its role in the run-up to the Iraq war cannot be missed. In fact, there are many within and outside the political establishment that directly blame the White House for twisting intelligence information and estimates to suit its line of thinking or in the process of building up a particular case...."
Well, ya think?!
"The fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power..."
How can Bush say Saddam "wouldn't let [UN inspectors] in" when everyone in the world knows this is not true?
Bush's statement - delivered with utter seriousness with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan at his side - cannot be excused as a misstatement. The United States of America went to war in Iraq - at a cost of 212 (and counting) U.S. soldiers, 6,000 (and counting) Iraqi civilians, thousands of Iraqi soldiers, and $50 billion (and counting) taxpayer dollars - after four full months (11-18-02 through 3-19-03) of inspections by UN experts led by Hans Blix (UNMOVIC) and Mohamed El Baradei (IAEA)...
...If George W. Bush now believes Saddam "wouldn't let [UN inspectors] in," then it is self-evident that he has simply lost touch with reality. In plain English, Bush has gone mad...."
This is madness, madness
William Rivers Pitt: The Crime and the Cover-Up
"...None of it was true. Not one ounce of chemical, biological or nuclear weaponry has been found in Iraq in the 82 days since "hostilities ceased" on May 1, 2003. Not one ounce of chemical, biological or nuclear weaponry has been found in Iraq in the 124 days since the shooting in Iraq officially started on March 19, 2003. Not one ounce of chemical, biological or nuclear weaponry has been found in Iraq in the 230 days since the UNMOVIC weapons inspections began in Iraq in late November of 2002. No proof whatsoever of Iraqi connections to al Qaeda has been established..."
Monday 21 July 2003
by William Rivers Pitt
The scandal axiom in Washington states that it is not the crime that destroys you, but the cover-up. Today in Washington you can hear terms like 'Iraqgate' and 'Weaponsgate' bandied about, but such obtuse labels do not provide an explanation for the profound movements that are taking place.
Clearly, there is a scandal brewing over the Iraq war and the Bush administration claims of Iraqi weapons arsenals that led to the shooting. Clearly, there is a cover-up taking place. Yet this instance, the crimes that have led to the cover-up are worse by orders of magnitude than the cover-up itself.
The simple fact is that America went to war in Iraq because George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and virtually every other public face within this administration vowed that Iraq had vast stockpiles of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. America went to war because these people vowed that Iraq had direct connections to al Qaeda, and by inference to the attacks of September 11.
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised," said Bush on March 17, 2003.
"We know now that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons," said Cheney on August 26, 2002.
"There is no doubt'' that Saddam Hussein ''has chemical weapons stocks,'' said Powell to FOX News on September 8, 2002.
"Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaeda," said Bush in his State of the Union address. On September 26, 2002, Don Rumsfeld laid the groundwork for Bush's statement by claiming that America had "bulletproof" evidence of Iraqi involvement with al Qaeda.
These public statements, augmented by hundreds more in the same vein, stoked fears within an already shellshocked American populace that Iraqi nuclear weapons and anthrax would come raining out of the sky at any moment, unless something was done. This same information was delivered in dire tones to Congress, which voted for war on Iraq based almost exclusively on the testimony of CIA Director George Tenet.
None of it was true. Not one ounce of chemical, biological or nuclear weaponry has been found in Iraq in the 82 days since "hostilities ceased" on May 1, 2003. Not one ounce of chemical, biological or nuclear weaponry has been found in Iraq in the 124 days since the shooting in Iraq officially started on March 19, 2003. Not one ounce of chemical, biological or nuclear weaponry has been found in Iraq in the 230 days since the UNMOVIC weapons inspections began in Iraq in late November of 2002. No proof whatsoever of Iraqi connections to al Qaeda has been established.
Recently, the scandal over the missing Iraq weapons and the Bush administration claims has focused on whether or not Iraq was trying to procure uranium "yellow cake" from Niger in order to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program. The last two weeks have shown decisively that the Bush administration used manufactured evidence, which had been denounced from virtually all corners of the American intelligence community, to justify their war. The administration's explanation for this has changed by the hour - They weren't told by the CIA, and then they were told but Bush and Cheney never heard about it, but it was only sixteen words in one speech, so everybody calm down.
No one is calming down. When the President of the United States terrifies the American people in his constitutionally-mandated State of the Union speech with nuclear threats based upon evidence that was universally known to be shoddily forged garbage, no one should calm down. When he uses that terror to make war on a nation that was no threat to America, no one should calm down. When over 200 American soldiers and thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians die because of this, no one should calm down. When that grisly body count rises every single day, no one should calm down.
The Niger nuclear forgery scandal is merely an accent in this criminal symphony. It has become all too clear that a small cadre of ultra-conservative hawks within the administration led us to where we are today with absolutely no oversight from the rest of the government. This group managed the run-up to war by creating demonstrably exaggerated interpretations of intelligence reports, and used 'insider data' from people with many good reasons to help lie America into this war.
The Office of Special Plans, or OSP, was created by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld specifically to second-guess and reinterpret intelligence data to justify war in Iraq. The OSP was staffed by rank amateurs, civilians whose ideological pedigree suited Rumsfeld and his cabal of hawks. Though this group was on no government payroll and endured no Congressional oversight, their information and interpretations managed to prevail over the data being provided by the State Department and CIA. This group was able to accomplish this incredible feat due to devoted patronage from high-ranking ultra-conservatives within the administration, including Vice-President Cheney.
The highest levels of the OSP were staffed by heavy-hitters like Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, and William Luti, a former Navy officer who worked for Cheney before joining the Pentagon. These two men, along with their civilian advisors, worked according to a strategy that they hoped would recreate Iraq into an Israeli ally, destroy a potential threat to Persian Gulf oil trade, and wrap U.S. allies around Iran. The State Department and CIA saw this plan as being badly flawed and based upon profoundly questionable intelligence. The OSP responded to these criticisms by cutting State and CIA completely out of the loop. By the time the war came, nearly all the data used to justify the action to the American people was coming from the OSP. The American intelligence community had been totally usurped.
When the OSP wanted to change or exaggerate evidence of Iraqi weapons capabilities, they sent Vice President Cheney to CIA headquarters on unprecedented visits where he demanded "forward-leaning" interpretations of the evidence. When Cheney was unable to go to the CIA, his chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, went in his place.
On three occasions, former congressman Newt Gingrich visited CIA in his capacity as a "consultant" for ultra-conservative hawk Richard Perle and his Defense Policy Board. According to the accounts of these visits, Gingrich browbeat the analysts to toughen up their assessments of the dangers posed by Hussein. He was allowed access to the CIA and the analysts because he was a known emissary of the OSP.
The main OSP source of data on Iraqi weapons, and on the manner in which the Iraqi people would greet their 'liberators,' was Ahmad Chalabi. Chalabi was the head of the Iraqi National Congress, an exile group seeking since 1997 the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Chalabi had been hand-picked by Don Rumsfeld to be the leader of Iraq after the removal of Saddam Hussein, despite the fact that he had been convicted in 1992 of 32 counts of bank fraud by a Jordanian court and sentenced in absentia to 22 years in prison. It apparently never occurred to Rumsfeld and the OSP that Chalabi had a lot of reasons to lie. It seems they were too enamored of the data he was providing, because that data fully justified the course of action they had been set upon since September 11, 2001.
Chalabi was the main source behind claims that Iraq had connections to al Qaeda. Chalabi was the main source behind claims that Iraq was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. Chalabi was the main source behind claims that the Iraqi people would rise up and embrace their American invaders. Chalabi's claims on this last matter are the main reason post-war Iraq is in complete chaos, because Rumsfeld assumed the logistics for repairing Iraq would be simple - The joyful Iraqis would do it for him.
According to a story entitled "Planners Faulted in Iraq Chaos" by Knight-Ridder reporters Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel, published on July 13, Chalabi proved to be a dangerous wild card. Chalabi's association with and influence over the OSP, however, continued unabated:
"The Chalabi scheme was dealt another major blow in February, a month before the war started, when U.S. intelligence agencies monitored him conferring with hard-line Islamic leaders in Tehran, Iran, a State Department official said. About that time, an Iraqi Shiite militia that was based in Iran and known as the Badr Brigade began moving into northern Iraq, setting off alarm bells in Washington. Cheney, once a strong Chalabi backer, ordered the Pentagon to curb its support for the exiles, the official said. Yet Chalabi continued to receive Pentagon assistance, including backing for a 700-man paramilitary unit. The U.S. military flew Chalabi and his men at the height of the war from the safety of northern Iraq to an air base outside the southern city of Nasiriyah in expectation he would soon take power."
Chalabi never took power. Instead, Paul Bremer was installed as the American proconsul in Iraq, ostensibly with orders to bring stability and liberty to the country. This last aspect is the final lie, the most repugnant crime, perpetrated against the civilians of that ravaged nation.
I spoke last week with a woman named Jodie Evans, long-time peace activist and organizer of a group called the International Occupation Watch Center, or IOWC. The purpose of the IOWC is to stand as watchdogs in Iraq over the corporate contracts being doled out, and to view in person what is happening to the Iraqi people. "I think that if you were against the war, then you need to be there," said Evans, "because there is no one in Iraq who is for the Iraqi people, and the people know it. They know it."
Evans had just returned from Baghdad. Upon her arrival to the city, she saw the demonstrable chaos caused by the war, and by the abject failure to repair the country in the aftermath. "It was 120 degrees, it was dusty, the air had a haze that makes everything gray," said Evans. "The buildings you see on the road are bombed out. In some, you can see the fire coming up. In some, you only see the scaffolding of contorted metal. We got across our bridge and turned right onto the street we know so well, the one we've stayed on, and every building was either boarded up or bombed out, including the United Nations DP. It was all bombed in, the windows were black from the fire."
"Immediately after we arrived," said Evans, "we hear that it is not only worse than before the war. It is worse than during the war. People are upset, people are angry. There were lots of stories about how the Americans are doing this on purpose. A month after the '91 war, which was much worse than this one, everything was back and working. Now, the people live in this chaos they can't even imagine. People can't go outside. Women haven't left their homes. Lots of people haven't come back from Syria or Kuwait or wherever they fled to get away from the bombing, because life in Iraq is unlivable. There is 65% unemployment, and even the doctors and nurses and teachers who are going to work don't get paid, so there's no money."
Evans met a number of Americans in Iraq who are part of the 'rebuilding process.' One such person was in the Compound, a guarded palace that is now home to Bremer's office and staff along with a number of other groups. The overall organization is called the Iraqi Assistance Center, or IAC. The man Evans met was a professor of religion and political theory at a religious college in America. He explained that his job was to collect intelligence for Bremer.
"That professor I spoke to, the one doing intelligence for Bremer, I told him that I had spoken to countless Iraqis and all of them felt this chaos was happening on purpose," said Evans. "He basically said this was true, that chaos was good, and out of chaos comes order. So what the Iraqis were saying - that this madness was all on purpose - this intelligence guy didn't discredit. He said, 'If you keep them hungry, they'll do anything for us.'"
"I met the man who was hired to create a new civil government in Baghdad, to bring Baghdad back to order," said Evans. "His name was Gerald Lawson. I asked him what his background was that allowed him to get this job. He said he was in the Atlanta Police for 30 years. I asked how this gave him the ability to create a stable, civil government. He said he was a manager. I asked him what he knew about Iraqis. He knew nothing, and didn't care to know anything. He didn't know their history, their government, didn't speak a word of Arabic and didn't care to learn. This guy doesn't work for the American government, doesn't work for the State Department, and doesn't work for the CPA. He works for a corporation created by ex-Generals. Their job is to create the new Iraqi government structure."
"We met the man whose job is to make sure the hospitals have what they need," said Evans. "He is a veterinarian. We met a British guy who showed up at the Compound gates one day and said he was a volunteer who wanted to help. The next day he was named the head of rubbish control in Baghdad, which is a huge problem there because there is garbage all over the street. I asked him what he had been doing with his time. He said he'd been hanging out at Odai's palace playing with the lions and the cheetahs. I met the guy in charge of designing the airport, where major jumbo jets are supposed to land. He had never designed an airport before."
"Another man I spoke to associated with this process is named Don Munson," said Evans. "His job is civilian affairs policy. He said to me, 'We are replacing one dictatorship with another.' He's there for two years, and he works in the palace on the first floor."
"Remember," said Evans, "that the first thing America did was to fire 80,000 police officers. These guys weren't associated with the Hussein regime. That's like connecting