usdemocrats.com political news weblog
MARCH 2006
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usdemocrats.com political news weblog
MARCH 2006
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culture of corruption sketching
apart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now isn't the time to sit and take a breather - it's the time to take action. If you haven't visited in a while, Democrats.org is dedicated to helping Democrats up and down the ticket win in November, and it has the tools that help empower you to do the hard work that will make those victories possible. Create a Personal Fundraising Page Now you can take our party's future into your own hands. When you create a personal fundraising page, you can leverage your friends, family and contacts into a powerful network of support for Democratic values. You can quickly and easily set up a page with your own thermometer to track your progress and an easy-to-use invitation system. Ask your friends to donate once or to make a larger commitment by making a recurring contribution through our Democracy Bonds program: http://www.democrats.org/personalfundraising
We cannot rely on anyone else to get our message out for us. Our simple tool will put you in contact with editors of national, regional and local newspapers so you can make your voice heard. Get the talking points on various Democratic agenda items and write a letter to the editor today: http://www.democrats.org/lte Everyday, exciting conversations are happening about the future of the Democratic Party in the blog's vibrant community. The blog provides a transparent look into the day-to-day workings of the DNC and the rest of the Democratic Party, complete with photos, videos, and stories from people working for change across the country. Be the first to read about breaking news and discuss it with Democrats from all fifty states by posting a comment and making your voice heard in a national forum: http://www.democrats.org/blog For as long as the Democratic Party has been around, Democrats have been coming together. The events tool is our first step in a bridge between online and offline activism. Using the tool, you can create and publicize an event you're hosting - no matter how big or small, no matter whether it's to organize or socialize. If you want to get plugged in with other Democrats in your area, the events tool is a perfect way to get involved: http://www.democrats.org/events It's vitally important that our Democratic community expands beyond those who are already tuned in. Take a moment to reach out to your friends and neighbors and ask them to sign up so they can get the same action opportunities you do - just like this one: http://www.democrats.org/invite Voting is more important than anything you can do online. If you haven't registered to vote, you should do it now. Our online tool walks you through the steps so you're ready to go on Election Day: http://www.democrats.org/registertovote
If you haven't done it yet, it's time to take this important step. We need a steady stream of committed donors in order to build a party that fights in every state, city and precinct. Sign up to get your Democracy Bond and join a community of committed Americans today by visiting: http://www.democrats.org/bonds Thank you, Tom McMahon |
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Tapes: Bush warned before
Katrina hit -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, March 2, 2006 Posted: 0905 GMT (1705 HKT) Video shows Bush, center, at his vacation ranch in Texas taking part in Aug. 28 video briefing. read source: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/03/02/fema.tapes.ap/index.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President George W. Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage. Bush didn't ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on August 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared." The footage -- along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by The Associated Press -- show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster. Linked by secure video, Bush expressed a confidence on August 28 that starkly contrasted with the dire warnings his disaster chief and numerous federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm. A top hurricane expert voiced "grave concerns" about the levees and then-Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren't enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome. "I'm concerned about ... their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe," Brown told his bosses the afternoon before Katrina made landfall. The White House and Homeland Security Department urged the public Wednesday not to read too much into the video footage. "I hope people don't draw conclusions from the president getting a single briefing," presidential spokesman Trent Duffy said, citing a variety of orders and disaster declarations Bush signed before the storm made landfall. "He received multiple briefings from multiple officials, and he was completely engaged at all times." Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said his department would not release the full set of videotaped briefings, saying most transcripts -- though not the videotapes -- from the sessions were provided to congressional investigators months ago. "There's nothing new or insightful on these tapes," Knocke said. "We actively participated in the lessons-learned review and we continue to participate in the Senate's review and are working with them on their recommendation." New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, a critic of the administration's Katrina response, had a different take after watching the footage Wednesday afternoon from an AP reporter's camera. "I have kind a sinking feeling in my gut right now," Nagin said. "I was listening to what people were saying -- they didn't know, so therefore it was an issue of a learning curve. You know, from this tape it looks like everybody was fully aware." Some of the footage and transcripts from briefings August 25-31 conflicts with the defenses that federal, state and local officials have made in trying to deflect blame and minimize the political fallout from the failed Katrina response:
Homeland Security officials have said the "fog of war" blinded them early on to the magnitude of the disaster. But the video and transcripts show federal and local officials discussed threats clearly, reviewed long-made plans and understood Katrina would wreak devastation of historic proportions. "I'm sure it will be the top 10 or 15 when all is said and done," National Hurricane Center's Max Mayfield warned the day Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast. "I don't buy the 'fog of war' defense," Brown told the AP in an interview Wednesday. "It was a fog of bureaucracy."
member is offline
Joined: Nov 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- White House deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Brown discussed fears of a levee breach the day the storm hit. "I talked to the president twice today, once in Crawford and then again on Air Force One," Brown said. "He's obviously watching the television a lot, and he had some questions about the Dome, he's asking questions about reports of breaches."
Louisiana officials angrily blamed the federal government for not being prepared but the transcripts show they were still praising FEMA as the storm roared toward the Gulf Coast and even two days afterward. "I think a lot of the planning FEMA has done with us the past year has really paid off," Col. Jeff Smith, Louisiana's emergency preparedness deputy director, said during the August 28 briefing. It wasn't long before Smith and other state officials sounded overwhelmed. "We appreciate everything that you all are doing for us, and all I would ask is that you realize that what's going on and the sense of urgency needs to be ratcheted up," Smith said August 30. Mississippi begged for more attention in that same briefing. "We know that there are tens or hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana that need to be rescued, but we would just ask you, we desperately need to get our share of assets because we'll have people dying -- not because of water coming up, but because we can't get them medical treatment in our affected counties," said a Mississippi state official whose name was not mentioned on the tape. Video footage of the August 28 briefing, the final one before Katrina struck, showed an intense Brown voicing concerns from the government's disaster operation center and imploring colleagues to do whatever was necessary to help victims. "We're going to need everything that we can possibly muster, not only in this state and in the region, but the nation, to respond to this event," Brown warned. He called the storm "a bad one, a big one" and implored federal agencies to cut through red tape to help people, bending rules if necessary. "Go ahead and do it," Brown said. "I'll figure out some way to justify it. ... Just let them yell at me." Bush appeared from a narrow, windowless room at his vacation ranch in Texas, with his elbows on a table. Hagin was sitting alongside him. Neither asked questions in the August 28 briefing. "I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm," the president said. A relaxed Chertoff, sporting a polo shirt, weighed in from Washington at Homeland Security's operations center. He would later fly to Atlanta, outside of Katrina's reach, for a bird flu event. One snippet captures a missed opportunity on August 28 for the government to have dispatched active-duty military troops to the region to augment the National Guard. Chertoff: "Are there any DOD assets that might be available? Have we reached out to them?" Brown: "We have DOD assets over here at EOC (emergency operations center). They are fully engaged. And we are having those discussions with them now." Chertoff: "Good job." In fact, active duty troops weren't dispatched until days after the storm. And many states' National Guards had yet to be deployed to the region despite offers of assistance, and it took days before the Pentagon deployed active-duty personnel to help overwhelmed Guardsmen. The National Hurricane Center's Mayfield told the final briefing before Katrina struck that storm models predicted minimal flooding inside New Orleans during the hurricane but he expressed concerns that counterclockwise winds and storm surges afterward could cause the levees at Lake Pontchartrain to be overrun. "I don't think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not but that is obviously a very, very grave concern," Mayfield told the briefing. Other officials expressed concerns about the large number of New Orleans residents who had not evacuated. "They're not taking patients out of hospitals, taking prisoners out of prisons and they're leaving hotels open in downtown New Orleans. So I'm very concerned about that," Brown said. Despite the concerns, it ultimately took days for search and rescue teams to reach some hospitals and nursing homes. Brown also told colleagues one of his top concerns was whether evacuees who went to the New Orleans Superdome -- which became a symbol of the failed Katrina response -- would be safe and have adequate medical care. "The Superdome is about 12 feet below sea level. ... I don't know whether the roof is designed to stand, withstand a Category Five hurricane," he said. Brown also wanted to know whether there were enough federal medical teams in place to treat evacuees and the dead in the Superdome. "Not to be (missing) kind of gross
here," Brown interjected, "but I'm concerned"
about the medical and mortuary resources "and their ability
to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe." |
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Tape: Bush, Chertoff Warned
Before Katrina -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Even though the Republicans have consistently stonewalled Democrat's efforts for a thorough investigation of Hurricane Katrina, to find out what they knew and when they knew it, the facts are getting out. It is vital that everyone read the AP story and see the tapes for themselves. This story is too important to be spun by talking heads and right wing pundits - now you can see it firsthand. Visit the page, watch the video and forward it to your friends and family. This is a story NO American can afford to miss. Read the article and watch the video now by visiting: http://www.democrats.org/katrinavideo Thank you, Tom McMahon P.S. Here is the AP Article: Tape: Bush, Chertoff Warned Before Katrina AP Exclusive: Video Shows Bush, Chertoff Clearly Warned Before Katrina Struck By MARGARET EBRAHIM WASHINGTON - In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, risk lives in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage of the briefings. Bush didn't ask a single question during the final government-wide briefing the day before Katrina struck on Aug. 29 but assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared." Continue reading the story by visiting: http://www.democrats.org/katrinavideo |
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Ex-FEMA chief fights back -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- read source: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/02/katrina.brown/index.html Friday, March 3, 2006 Posted: 0522 GMT (1322 HKT)
Former FEMA chief Michael Brown testifies last month before a Senate panel.WATCH Browse/Search Video, transcripts suggest Katrina underestimated
(1:51) • Rebuilding: Vital signs Hurricane Katrina Brown resigned from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in September amid intense criticism of his own performance after Katrina, the August 29 storm that left more than 1,300 dead in Louisiana and Mississippi. Brown has blamed the poor federal response on the dysfunctional structure of the Department of Homeland Security, which became FEMA's parent agency when DHS was established in 2003. "It appears to me that, you know, when Chertoff does things like tells me that I've got to go to Baton Rouge and plop my butt down on a seat in Baton Rouge and run a disaster from there, I think that shows naivete about how disasters are run," Brown told CNN. "And you've either have to get with it, or move on." Asked whether Chertoff should be dismissed, Brown said, "Well, I think so." He said FEMA had been "marginalized" by Chertoff and his predecessor, Tom Ridge, and that he had expected the agency's performance to suffer. "I had been screaming internally that the budget cuts, the personnel cuts and what they were doing within Homeland Security was in effect marginalizing FEMA, and I predicted that at some point -- in a very specific memo to both Tom Ridge and to Chertoff -- that at some point, FEMA would fail," Brown said. "I just didn't expect to be in the middle of the failure." The White House has stood behind Chertoff, who became Homeland Security secretary in February 2005. President Bush said Tuesday Chertoff was doing "a fine job." But a House committee that investigated the response to Katrina criticized Chertoff for waiting two days after the storm hit to activate a national response plan -- and for naming Brown to lead the federal response, even though he was not trained to take on that role. In testimony before a Senate committee in February, Brown said communicating with the White House through Chertoff was a waste of time and graded Chertoff's performance a C-minus. (Full story) Chertoff days later flatly rejected the accusation that either DHS or the White House were disengaged as the storm deluged New Orleans and leveled much of coastal Mississippi. (Full story) A videotape and transcripts of an emergency response meeting released Wednesday seemed to reinforce arguments that governments at all levels identified the potential dangers from the storm but were under-prepared for the devastation. (Full story) On Thursday, Brown said he spoke with Bush directly "on at least a couple of occasions" on August 29 and told him about the failure of New Orleans' levees -- "Because that, again, that was almost foremost in my mind and my concern." In a briefing the day before Katrina made landfall, Bush was told by National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield that Katrina might send water rushing over the tops of the levees and leave New Orleans flooded. In an interview September 1, three days after landfall, Bush said, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." Brown defended his former boss' statement Thursday, saying Bush had been told the storm's intensity had decreased after landfall. "I was still worried about it, because I knew what the potential was," Brown said. "But I think the president was speaking honestly at that point that he didn't really anticipate that they would be breached because of all this conflicting information." White House spokesman Trent Duffy said he could not discuss Bush's "private conversations" and would not confirm anything "either way" about whether Brown had discussed the levee breaches with the president. But he said the government had helicopters in the air quickly to help rescue people trapped in the flooded city. DHS official resigns A DHS spokesman said the official, Matthew Broderick, wants to spend more time with his family. Last month, Broderick admitted during testimony before a Senate panel that he went home hours after Katrina had made landfall without first alerting Chertoff to reports that levees had breached in New Orleans. Those reports included an account from a FEMA official who witnessed a breach. Broderick said the reports from the field were conflicting and he didn't want to pass along "rumors" to his boss, who praised him Thursday. "Over the past three years, Matt made tremendous contributions to our homeland security, having planned and coordinated countless national security events and intra-agency activities," Chertoff said in a written statement. CNN's Jeanne Meserve and Dana Bash contributed
to this report. |
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How a 9/11 conspirator gave
himself away -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, March 3, 2006 Posted: 0419 GMT (1219 HKT) Tim Nelson says he told the FBI a hijacked plane was capable of killing "a boatload of people." read source: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/03/02/moussaoui.school/index.html MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) -- He spoke fluent Arabic but rusty English. He had plenty of cash, but didn't seem like the playboy type. He said he wanted to learn to fly a jumbo jet simply to impress his pals. But when al Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui asked a flight instructor how to turn off the oxygen and transponder on a jet, two managers at the flight school had a hunch something was up. That hunch may be the reason that Moussaoui -- the only person indicted in the U.S. in connection with the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- is awaiting a death penalty trial next week. The managers -- Hugh Sims, 65, and Tim Nelson, 45 -- said they saw red flags before Moussaoui even showed up at the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Eagan, Minnesota, 29 days before the attacks that toppled the World Trade Center and left a smoldering hole in the Pentagon. (Watch the men who suspected Moussaoui -- 6:53) Those instincts earned the men, both Air Force veterans, a Senate proclamation last year commending them for their bravery that "possibly prevented another attack against our nation." It was an e-mail from Moussaoui to the flight school's Miami, Florida, headquarters that first piqued their suspicion. In it, Moussaoui -- using the handle "zuluman tango tango" -- said he wanted to learn how to fly 747 passenger jets. "I need to know if you can help me achieve my 'goal,' my dream," Moussaoui wrote, listing five types of Boeing and Airbus jets. "To be able to pilot one of these Big Birds, even if I am not a real professional pilot." Moussaoui further claimed to be a British businessman, and in the e-mail -- laced with grammatical errors -- he said he wanted to learn how to take off and land, communicate with air traffic controllers and navigate between London, England, and New York City. But Moussaoui had no pilot's license and only 55 hours of flying time on small aircraft at a flight school in Oklahoma. He had never flown solo. "I know it could be better, but I am sure you can do something. After all, we are in AMERICA, and everything is possible," Moussaoui wrote. Nonetheless, Moussaoui was allowed to sign up for classes and flight-simulator training for the Boeing 747. He paid $1,500 of the $8,300 for the class with a credit card, the rest with cash when he showed up at the school. Nelson said he was suspicious because cash is so difficult to track, but he set aside his concerns, figuring the man was a wealthy thrill seeker. However, when Moussaoui, who claimed to be an international consultant, arrived wearing a T-shirt, jeans and a baseball cap, Sims was confused. "I was expecting this guy to show up very well-dressed," Sims said. "He just didn't fit the profile of what I would think he would be, for want of a better word, a rich playboy type." Sims said Moussaoui's English skills were fair, but didn't seem up to snuff for an international businessman. "His demeanor was not that sophisticated," Sims said. He also had a weird reason for wanting to learn to fly a jumbo jet, said Nelson -- he told them that he merely wanted to be able to boast to his friends that he could fly a 747. "He was telling us that it's an ego thing," Nelson said. "That's a lot of money to spend to play." But Moussaoui's overall demeanor -- often characterized as brash and abrasive because of his condescending remarks to the judge and attorneys involved in his case over the past four years -- was friendly, even shy, Sims and Nelson recall. (Read how Moussaoui was barred from the courtroom for his antics) The next day -- August 14, 2001 -- Moussaoui continued to earn the suspicion of the flight school staff, first when Nelson saw some Syrian airline students speaking to Moussaoui in Arabic. The students later told Nelson that Moussaoui, who was born to Moroccan parents, was a native speaker. "That bothered me," Nelson said. "It's just one more red flag." At a manager's meeting at the school, instructor Clancy Prevost said that Moussaoui had asked him how to turn off the oxygen in the passenger cabin and how to disconnect the transponder used to track the plane. "There was an unease that was beginning to spread out among all the people who had come into contact with him," Sims said. Nelson had recently seen a training video about a 1999 hijacking in Japan in which a deranged hijacker stabbed a pilot to death and took over the controls of a 747 with 500 people aboard to prove that he could fly. "I'm thinking, do I have that or do I have something worse on my hands?" Nelson recalled, but he and Sims were both reluctant to call authorities when they had yet to pinpoint anything illegal Moussaoui had done. But the next day, August 15, they both called the FBI without knowing the other had the same inclination. "I don't know what this guy is up to, but he is paying a lot of money for nothing he can use legitimately," Nelson recalls telling the FBI. "You need to understand this aircraft weighs 900,000 pounds. It carries between 50 and 57,000 gallons of jet fuel. "If you fly it at 350 knots into a heavily populated area, you're going to kill a boatload of people." Sims called later and spoke to the same agent, telling him Moussaoui wanted training "that could become dangerous." The following day, FBI and immigration agents went to Moussaoui's hotel and arrested him. He had no visa, and his French passport allowed him to stay in the country only 90 days. He had exceeded it. Moussaoui was indicted in December 2001 in connection with the 9/11 attacks, and upon pleading guilty to terrorism conspiracies last year, Moussaoui revealed he had been less than forthcoming when he told flight instructors his dream was to "pilot one of these Big Birds." In fact, Moussaoui told the court, his dream was to pilot a big bird right into the White House in what he hoped was a second wave of attacks to follow the ones in New York and Washington. "Maybe we did stop something from
happening," Nelson said. "I was hoping I was wrong,
because being right -- we saw what being right was -- 9/11." |
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Army to open criminal probe
of Tillman death --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, March 4, 2006 Posted: 2206 GMT (0606 HKT) read source: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/03/04/tillman/index.html WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon has directed the Army to open a criminal investigation into the death of former NFL star Pat Tillman, CNN learned on Saturday. An inspector general ordered the Army Criminal Investigative Division to determine if Tillman's death resulted from negligent homicide, sources said. Initial reports after his death said Tillman, 27, was shot and killed by Taliban forces during an ambush on April 22, 2004. An investigation later revealed that fellow soldiers shot Tillman, thinking he was part of an enemy force firing at them. Tillman's family demanded to know why his uniform and body armor were burned a day after he was killed and why they were not immediately told he might have been killed by fellow soldiers. A 2005 report from Brig. Gen. Gary Jones contained sworn statements from soldiers involved in the incident who said they burned the items because they had taken pictures of the scene, walked around and knew how Tillman had been killed. Initially, Tillman's blood-covered uniform and armor were said to have been destroyed because they were considered a biohazard. Jones' report said the soldiers reasoned "they knew in their heart of hearts what had happened, and we were not going to lie about it. So we weren't thinking about proof or anything." Two years before his death, Tillman walked away from a $3.6 million contract with the NFL's Arizona Cardinals to serve in the military. He was posthumously awarded a Silver Star. Tillman was a member of A Company, 2nd
Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment based at Fort Lewis, Washington.
His brother, Kevin, trained with him and served in the same unit.
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One issue they wont be talking
about -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't envy the potential 2008 Republican presidential candidates who will be in Memphis this weekend to attend the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. In their speeches in Tennessee, they will be forced to proclaim their support for George Bush's incompetent leadership while his approval rating is at 34%. I guarantee that one issue they won't be talking about is port security. That is unacceptable. Every one of these candidates for president in 2008 needs to stand up and answer one simple question: Why are Republicans handing over port security to a foreign government? You can make them answer that very question -- by putting it on a roving billboard truck around Memphis while all of the 2008 Republican presidential candidates are in town. We need to raise $3,500 to make it happen. Take a moment and help fund the billboard truck now: http://www.democrats.org/portbillboard The fact is that each one of these future Republican presidential candidates will have to answer for their complicity with the out of touch policies of the Bush administration. Americans have had it with George Bush, who has paid lip service to the priorities of the American people, but refused to put the money where his mouth is. Americans are angry that the Bush Administration has failed to devote enough resources to catching or killing Osama bin Laden. Americans are outraged that a formerly powerful Republican Congressman was just sentenced to nearly a decade in jail for taking bribes from defense contractors in exchange for wasting our defense dollars. Americans are tired of George Bush pushing for more tax giveaways to millionaires while the Republican Congress has failed to secure our ports -- which is why Democrats are fighting for funds for port security to keep American communities safe. Now the Republican culture of corruption has President Bush auctioning off security at our nations ports to the highest bidder -- even if that means handing it over to a foreign government-owned corporation. Republican presidential candidates need to start answering these questions right now. Help put this billboard on the road at their big event this weekend and they won't be able to ignore these issues. http://www.democrats.org/portbillboard Thank you, Tom McMahon |
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Ex-White House aide arrested
in alleged refund sca -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, March 11, 2006 Posted: 1407 GMT (2207 HKT)
President Bush speaks with his former domestic policy adviser Claude Allen in March 2005.YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
read source: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/03/11/claude.allen.arrest/index.html WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A former adviser to President Bush was arrested this week in Maryland and charged with swindling two department stores out of more than $5,000 in a refund scam. Montgomery County police said Claude Allen, 45, was arrested Thursday and charged with carrying out a felony theft scheme at Target and Hecht's stores. He was released on his own recognizance. Conviction on the charges can result in a 15-year prison sentence. Authorities accuse Allen of going to stores on more than 25 occasions and buying items, taking them to his car and then returning to the store with his receipt where he would carry out the alleged scam. "He would select the same items he had just purchased, and then return them for a refund. Allen is known to have conducted approximately 25 of these types of refunds, having the money credited to his credit cards," a statement from Montgomery County police said. The items ranged from a Bose theater system to a photo printer to clothing to small items valued at $2.50, police said. Allen resigned without explanation in early February as Bush's top domestic political adviser. Allen had long been a darling among the conservative right -- and Bush had even nominated him to be a federal appeals court judge in 2003, but Democrats blocked the move. In announcing Allen's resignation, Bush called him a "trusted adviser" who helped "develop policies that will strengthen our nation's families, schools and communities." "Claude is a good and compassionate man, and he has my deep respect and my gratitude. I thank him for his many years of principled and dedicated service to our country," Bush said in a statement issued on February 9. According to police, on January 2, a Target manager at a store in Gaithersburg observed Allen in the store with an empty Target bag in a shopping cart. "The man was then seen selecting merchandise throughout the store and placing items in the Target bag. He put additional items in his cart. The man then went to guest services where he produced a receipt and received a refund for the items he had just selected from the store shelves. After receiving the refund, he left the store without paying for the additional merchandise in the shopping cart," the police statement said. He was apprehended by the store employee, and police were contacted. "Through the police investigation it was learned that Allen had been receiving refunds in an amount exceeding $5,000 during last year," the statement said. Allen made $161,000 in his role as Bush's
top domestic policy adviser, according to government records.
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BUSH WAR ON WOMEN MARCHES
ON -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Bush Administration and Washington Republicans have lost all credibility and failed to fulfill their promises. The lip service given each year in the State of the Union address and photo-ops at the White House does not square with the real day to day needs of America's women. As the President's approval numbers continue to drop with women of all political stripes, Democrats must speak out that our Party stands ready to rebuild the trust, the credibility and the results so that women can be full partners in our country's success. Want some examples of the cuts that will impact your community? See how this President's Budget is more of the same misplaced priorities and puts special interests ahead of America's Families. The President's budget: Cuts overall funding for Violence Against
Women Act (VAWA) programs. When all Violence Against Women programs
are taken into account, the budget cuts funding by $19.5 million
- cutting programs aimed at preventing domestic violence and
providing essential services to victims of domestic violence.
South Dakota is not the only state to debate prohibition of abortion and ignore the danger to the mother's health or in the case of rape or incest. And if our Supreme Court reverses or modifies the Roe vs. Wade ruling, states could have even more purview to regulate the private decisions of Americans. Democrats know this debate stirs a variety of feelings for our members - as we are the Party that stands not only for a woman's right to privacy and choice in reproductive health care but also as the Party who fights for programs and policies that prevent unwanted pregnancies and in turn works to reduce abortions. It is interesting to note that, according to the South Dakota affiliate of Planned Parenthood, while this Legislature worked so hard on studying the abortion prohibition issue and passing restrictive legislation, they let legislation that could have helped men and women PREVENT unwanted pregnancies dwindle and die in committee. These bills included a requirement that hospitals make women aware that emergency contraception is available, a requirement that insurance companies cover contraceptive drugs if they cover other prescription drugs and a requirement that school districts to offer sex education. So women - and men - who are without affordable access to contraception, are without medically-accurate sexual education information and are not informed that emergency contraception is available in the instance of sex with no consent - are left to ponder... Just where is the compassionate conservatism? DEMOCRATS TAKING THE LEAD Reeve's courage and strength in the face of her husband's struggles and her own illness are not unlike the daily challenges that caregivers in each of our communities face every day. Caregivers - who are most often women - must struggle with the increasingly complicated maze of health insurance choices, prescription drug costs and Medicare changes brought to us by a Washington Republican establishment who gives insider access to drug and health industry special interests. The Bush Administration's recent budget proposals for 2007 will only bring more confusion and headache to caregivers: Slashes Medicare by $36 billion over five
years and $105 billion over 10 years. The GOP budget-cutting
bill (S. 1932) that the President just signed into law includes
cuts in Medicare payments to health care providers of $22 billion
over 10 years. Now, the Bush budget is calling for extensive
new cuts in Medicare payments to providers - slashing Medicare
by $36 billion over five years and $105 billion over 10 years.
This drastic cut in Medicare would have a particularly damaging
impact on women, as women account for over 56 percent of adult
Medicare beneficiaries. DEMOCRATS MARK INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY The global community has seen the election of women as leaders in several continents - including Liberia's new president and Africa's first woman head of state, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Angela Merkel in Germany, Tarja Halonen in Finland, Vaira Vike-Freiberga of Latvia, and Helen Clark, the prime minister of New Zealand. During a speech to the US Congress this week, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (CA), acknowledged that "Women are still severely underrepresented in the halls of power." Goals set at the 1995 Beijing World Conference of Women compel us to work towards parliaments with 30 percent women representation but here at home only 15 percent of the members of Congress are women, half of the goal! Why does it matter that women are at the policy table? Because women policy makers raise women's voices - about basic rights such as health care and security, about fairness and equal treatment in the workplace, about our government being open, honest and less susceptible to fraud and waste. Pelosi and the Democratic women in the House and Senate know that with a focus on women's health, especially in the areas of prevention and education, with improved economic security through support for microenterprise that allows women to lift themselves out of poverty and the creation of higher wage work, and by the elimination of all forms of violence against women, America's women can make strides for women everywhere.
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FY 2006 Supplemental Request
Statement --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the Web: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- original source: http://www.dod.mil/speeches/2006/sp20060309-12630.html FY 2006 Supplemental Request Statement
Before the Senate Appropriations Committee Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to join Secretary Rice in discussing the President’s supplemental budget request for operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Global War on Terror. A joint appearance of the Secretaries of State and Defense is unusual. That we are doing so today indicates how much success in this Global War on Terror is linked to the capabilities and resources of these two departments. The security challenges facing our nation in this new century do not, after all, exist in neat bundles that can be easily divided up between departments or agencies. DoD SUPPLEMENTAL REQUEST: Let me first outline a few of the details of the Department of Defense’s portion of the President’s supplemental request. The President has requested an appropriation of $65.3 billion for this department to fight and win the War on Terror in Afghanistan and Iraq. This supplemental request includes priorities such as: Paying for ongoing deployments and operations
by U.S. forces in the Afghanistan and Iraq theaters ($34.7 billion);
General Pete Pace, Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff; and But it is a question that has been answered dozens of times, including by Secretary Rice in her submitted testimony to this committee. The traditional annual federal budget takes up to 12 months to formulate, then it takes another 8 to 12 more months to pass Congress, and then it takes still another 12 months to execute -- a total of close to three years. In war, circumstances on the ground change quickly. The enemy has a brain -- and is continuously changing and adapting their tactics. Bridge and supplemental appropriations are put together much closer to the time the funds will actually be used. This allows a considerably more accurate estimate of costs, and, importantly, much quicker access to the funds when they are needed, without having to go through reprogramming contortions where we are forced to rob other accounts and distort good business practices. THE TASK: Mr. Chairman, we meet today with our country engaged in what promises to be a long struggle -- a conflict which requires that we transform the way the military, and indeed the U.S. government, operates. The extremists, though under constant pressure and on the defensive, still seek to bring their terror to our shores and to our cities -- and to all who oppose their views. These enemies cannot win a single conventional battle, so they challenge us through non-traditional, asymmetric means, using terror as their weapon of choice. Their current priority is to prevent the successful emergence of democratic governments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to force the United States and our Coalition partners to abandon those nations before they are able to fully defend themselves. They are skillful at manipulating the media. Of course, one of the principal goals of their attacks is to make our cause look hopeless. But consider the larger picture -- the view from the enemy’s perspective: The terrorists tried to stop the Iraqi
national elections a year ago -- and they failed; PARTNER CAPACITY: The Department of Defense has drawn lessons that have helped guide us in making adjustments for the period ahead. These lessons and principles have been incorporated into the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), which was recently submitted to the Congress. Those lessons and the decisions in the QDR will be incorporated fully in the President’s budget to be presented next year for Fiscal Year 2008. The QDR recognized that in this global struggle many of our enemies operate within the borders of countries with whom we are not at war. It is clear that the challenge posed by violent extremists will not be overcome by any one Department, or by any one country. It will require the cooperation of a number of our departments and of a great many nations to successfully disrupt terrorist cells and prevent the proliferation of dangerous weapons. And to succeed, it will be essential to help partner nations and allies develop their capabilities to better govern and defend themselves. This emphasis on building partner capability is at the heart of our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in several smaller-scale training and equipping operations in places like the Republic of Georgia and the Philippines. Our investments and policies should reflect these new requirements. Last year, Congress helpfully provided authority to more quickly train and equip the security forces of partner nations, but we will be requesting that these authorities be strengthened and expanded. When other nations and partners can shoulder greater security burdens within their borders and around the globe, it is far less likely that U.S.troops will be called on -- at what is always considerably greater cost, in both blood and treasure, to our nation. For example, it costs approximately $90,000 per year to sustain a U.S. service member in theater, as opposed to about $11,000 to sustain an Afghan soldier, or $40,000 for an Iraqi soldier. The United Nations peacekeeping operation in Haiti is an example of the benefit of empowering partner nations. A recent Government Accountability Office study found that if the United States had had to conduct the Haiti mission on its own -- without the major help of partner nations -- it would have cost the U.S. taxpayers almost eight times as much in dollars, to say nothing of the added stress on our forces. So it is in the best interest of our country to provide whatever support we can to those departments and agencies working to help other nations take on a still greater share of the costs for our collective defense. It is also important that we not complicate efforts to build useful relationships with nations that can aid in our defense. In the past, there has been a tendency to cut off military-to-military relationships when a particular government did something we did not approve of. This happened some years ago with respect to our relations with both Indonesia and Pakistan -- two of the largest and most important Muslim countries in the world, and today, valuable allies in the War on Terror. A result has been the equivalent of a “lost generation” of friendships, contacts, relationships and understanding between the U.S. military and their militaries -- relationships that we have had to try to start again, almost from scratch, in the wake of September 11th. Since then, we have made progress towards forging stronger ties with these and other new partners around the world -- India in particular -- to confront the threat posed by violent extremism. It is important to keep this in mind the next time we may be tempted to sever military relationships, that could prove crucial to the defense of the American people. INTER-AGENCY COOPERATION: I have mentioned the importance of closer cooperation between our Cabinet departments and agencies. And Secretary Rice has discussed some specific provisions for the Department of State that are included in the supplemental request, and which will enhance our partnerships in Iraq and Afghanistan. The State Department requests are intended to help Iraq and Afghanistan’s transition to self-reliance by increasing the capacity of these still fragile democracies to govern their people and provide needed services for them -- services that undermine support for the terrorists and that reduce the stress on -- and danger to -- our men and women in uniform. I should also mention Secretary Rice’s proposal to support the aspirations of the Iranian people through expanded broadcasting. I believe that this proposal -- and others like it that can help to spread the message of freedom -- deserve the support of the Congress. Though the focus of this hearing is on the supplemental budget request, I would draw attention to important programs funded in the State Department’s regular annual budget that are also of direct benefit to our nation’s security. These programs include: The International Military Education and
Training Program (IMET); Mr. Chairman, the tasks ahead of us will not be easy. They never are in a time of war. I recently visited the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri. President Truman of course, was the Commander-in-Chief at the dawn of the Cold War. The institutions, policies and programs that came into being under his watch included: The Marshall Plan; But of course, things were not that way at all. In fact those were days of heated disagreements. Yet together, our national leaders, of both political parties, got the big things right. They understood that a Cold War had been declared on our country -- on the free world -- whether we liked it or not. That we had to steel ourselves against an expansionist enemy, the Soviet Union, that was determined to destroy our way of life. Though this era is different, and though the enemy today is different, that is our task today. We must fashion new approaches to enable us to work more efficiently across agencies and departments in ways unimagined before, and to partner with other nations, if we are to defeat this peril to our way of life. Mr. Chairman, with the help of the Congress
we will provide the American people with the security they need
in this dangerous and uncertain new century. |
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Iraq drives Bush's rating
to new low -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, March 14, 2006 Posted: 0035 GMT (0835 HKT)
Sixty percent of those polled say they disapprove of President Bush's performance. read source: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/13/bush.poll/index.html WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Growing dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq has driven President Bush's approval rating to a new low of 36 percent, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday. Only 38 percent said they believe the nearly 3-year-old war was going well for the United States, down from 46 percent in January, while 60 percent said they believed the war was going poorly. Nearly half of those polled said they believe Democrats would do a better job of managing the war -- even though only a quarter of them said the opposition party has a clear plan for resolving the situation. (Interactive: poll results) Pollsters quizzed 1,001 adults Friday through Sunday for the poll; most questions had a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Fifty-seven percent said they believe the March 2003 invasion of Iraq was a mistake, near September's record high of 59 percent. That question had a sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 points. Bush's approval rating of 36 percent is the lowest mark of his presidency in a Gallup poll, falling a percentage point below the 37 percent approval he scored in November. The previous CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted February 28-March 1, put his job approval at 38 percent. (View Bush's second term approval ratings) Sixty percent of those surveyed in the latest poll said they disapproved of his performance in office, the same figure as in the last poll. (Read full results document -- PDF) Certain about Iraq Two-thirds of those surveyed told pollsters that history will remember Bush most for the March 2003 invasion that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the battle against a persistent insurgency that followed the Hussein regime's collapse. Bush launched his latest effort to shore up support for the war Monday, accusing Iran of providing explosives used to attack American troops and telling an audience at George Washington University that U.S. forces were "making progress" against insurgents. He also praised Iraqis for averting civil war despite the sectarian violence that came after February's bombing of the al-Askariya mosque in Samarra, a revered Shiite Muslim shrine. "The situation in Iraq is still tense, and we're still seeing acts of sectarian violence and reprisal," Bush said. "Yet out of this crisis, we've also seen signs of a hopeful future." (Full story) With congressional elections approaching, public discontent with the war appeared to be taking a toll on Bush's fellow Republicans. Only 32 percent polled over the weekend said they thought Bush had a clear plan for handling the situation in Iraq, while 67 percent said he did not. Only 25 percent said Democrats had a clear plan -- but 48 percent said Democrats would do a better job managing the issue, while 40 percent favored Republicans. Democrats enjoy lead Democrats drew the support of 55 percent of the registered voters questioned, while 39 percent said they would be voting Republican in the fall. That question had a sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. Republicans held a 4-point advantage over Democrats on dealing with terrorism, 45 to 41 percent. And despite increasing optimism about economic conditions, Democrats held a strong lead over the GOP, 53-38 percent, when asked which party would better manage the economy. To make the case for war, Bush and other top officials said the invasion of Iraq was necessary to strip the country of illicit stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. U.S. inspectors later concluded that Iraq had dismantled its weapons programs under U.N. sanctions in the 1990s, though it had concealed some weapons-related research from the United Nations. The latest poll found 51 percent of Americans
believed the administration deliberately misled the public about
whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, while 46 percent
disagreed. That question had a sampling error of 4.5 percentage
points as well. |
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U.N. forms new human rights
body -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, March 16, 2006 Posted: 0015 GMT (0815 HKT)
U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton voted against the new body. http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/03/15/UN.human.rights/index.html UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- The U.N. General Assembly has overwhelmingly approved a plan to create a new Human Rights Council, despite a "no" vote from the United States. The new human rights body will replace the discredited U.N. body that has included members such as Sudan and Zimbabwe. Remaking the former Human Rights Commission was one of the major reforms the United States has been pushing for the United Nations, but U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said the United States "did not have sufficient confidence to say ... the Human Rights Council will be better than its predecessor." Despite its no vote, Bolton said, the United States would work to support the new body. Unlike its predecessor, the Human Rights Council will have fewer members. They must be elected by direct vote and can be suspended for human rights violations. Members must be elected by a majority, that is 96 countries, of the 191-member General Assembly. The United States had wanted a requirement for two-thirds support and what Bolton described as "exclusionary criteria to keep gross abusers of human rights off the council." Not wanting to side with the United States, Cuba voted in favor of the council, but criticized the new body as a tool of the United States and wealthy nations. Cuba also said it was unhappy with the provision that members could be voted off the council. Cuban Ambassador to the U.N. Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz said it would continue to allow the "powers of the north unjustly to condemn the powers of the third world." He also attacked the United States, saying the Human Rights Council "is a negative reflection of the dangerous unipolar world that the Bush administration is trying to legitimize." Venezuelan Ambassador to the U.N. Fermin Toro Jimenez also said his country had "grave objections" to the Human Rights Commission but did not vote against "because we do not wish to be a part of the United States party on this." Each nation has the right to reply to speeches by other nations and usually does, but Bolton said, "We could respond to what Cuba and Venezuela said, but on the other hand, why bother." The vote was 170 nations in favor and four
opposed. Voting against in addition to the United States were
Israel, Marshall Islands and Palau. There were three abstentions,
including Venezuela. |
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Vote fraud training called
legit -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Web Posted: 03/17/2006 12:00 AM CST read source: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/s....g.1c6b62e1.html The Texas attorney general's office this week defended examples given in materials used to train law officers to watch for voter fraud, saying viewers must look at them in the proper context. Critics took issue this week with two examples in a PowerPoint presentation used by the attorney general's office to train law officers to recognize election fraud. The critics argued the examples give poll monitors huge discretion that could result in voters inappropriately being turned away. One example pictured apparel with logos of the Dallas Cowboys as a possible violation of a section of the state election code that bars in polling places badges, insignias and emblems that relate to any candidate, measure or political party on the ballot. The other example gives law officers tips on what to look for when examining documents for fraud, including "unique stamps" on mail-in ballots. Appearing next to those words is a postage stamp of a black woman kissing a black child. The stamp promotes testing for sickle cell disease. The racial references inferred in that example riled critics. Tom Kelley, spokesman for the attorney general's office, offered an explanation: "Our efforts in education are intended solely for law enforcement, not the general public. The example of the Dallas Cowboys shirt is a specific example of a real-life example involving a referendum for a new Cowboys stadium in Arlington, Texas. The example of the sickle cell stamp is a piece of evidence a grand jury relied on to issue an indictment in Bowie County. "Unfortunately, there have been numerous instances of voter fraud in the state of Texas. These instances have led to nearly a dozen indictments across the state," Kelley said. The state's stance, however, did little to appease critics like Common Cause Texas and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, groups that say the approach will intimidate voters and result in lower turnout. One political analyst said the state's approach profiles minorities and implies that they go to the polls to cheat. "If you start with the assumption that people go to church to steal from the offering plate, you'd make people very uncomfortable," said Andy Hernandez, a political scientist at St. Mary's University. "After a while, they're going to stop going to your church." The training was offered to 44 counties where voter fraud had occurred, or where the population is at least 100,000. The training took place before early voting began in the March primary. The crackdown on voter fraud was backed by cases that resulted in indictments and by an editorial Feb. 6 in the San Antonio Express-News, according to the attorney general's office. The training was offered to law enforcement agencies in Bexar County, but was not used here.
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No bones about it: Bush favours
a very secret society -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- read source: http://smh.com.au/news/world/no-bones-ab....2582522189.html
IF JOHN HOWARD wants to stay on the right side of the likely new US ambassador, Robert McCallum, he should avoid asking him if he knows General Russell. That is the code used by members of one of the world's most powerful and elite secret societies, founded by General William Huntington Russell in 1823. President George Bush is alleged to have used its connections to get his first job. Mr Bush and Mr McCallum are members of Skull and Bones, the Yale society said to have the skull of the Indian chief Geronimo, dug up by Mr Bush's grandfather, in a glass case. In 2004 both presidential candidates, Mr Bush and John Kerry, were members. Mr Bush, in his autobiography, A Charge to Keep, wrote: "My senior year I joined Skull and Bones, a secret society. So secret, I can't say anything." The Skull and Bones headquarters is in a windowless stone building on the Yale campus known as the tomb. Each year 15 Bonesmen - and since 1991, Boneswomen - are "tapped", or invited, to join, and put through a bizarre initiation ceremony. Alexandra Robbins, author of Secrets of the Tomb, says it includes a devil, a Don Quixote figure and a pope with one foot in a white monogrammed slipper, resting on a stone skull. New members are required to give their full sexual history to the other 14, which helps to explain and reinforce the extreme code of silence that surrounds the society. "What I find disturbing about Skull and Bones is that it's basically the most powerful elite alumni network in the US," says Robbins. "It's essentially a form of nepotism that keeps the same people in power, over and over and over again." She said there was "no way in hell" that George W. Bush would have been in Skull and Bones if his father, the former president George Bush, and his grandfather had not been members. Robbins said that before she stopped counting
she knew of at least 11 Bonesmen whom Mr Bush had appointed to
government posts. |
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Three Options for America's
Future -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- read source: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/031706.html
Great nations must sometimes move expeditiously – and creatively – to avert catastrophe, especially when leaders have proven themselves unfit to lead. Such a moment now confronts the United States as George W. Bush and his inner circle have demonstrated on multiple fronts that they lack the wisdom and competence to protect America’s future. Yet even as Bush’s failures come into sharper focus – from Iraq to Katrina to U.S. port security to the exploding national debt – the trickier question is whether the American people can act with the unity and foresight to implement a solution. At this critical time, the greatest obstacle may be an unwillingness to consider “unthinkable” options that might actually offer the best hope. So, at this third anniversary of Bush’s ruinous invasion of Iraq – with more than 2,300 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis dead – there is reason to look at three alternative scenarios for the future, from one that might be best for America (though the most fanciful) to what could lie ahead if events continue as they are (the most likely). Option One: The Agnew-Nixon Solution. From Bush’s rookie failure to cut short his month-long vacation after receiving the Aug. 6, 2001, intelligence warning about Osama bin-Laden “determined to attack inside the U.S.” through his inability today to stabilize Iraq, Bush has proven that the U.S. Supreme Court’s interference in Election 2000 was a grave historic error. If the Supreme Court had simply opted for the principled solution – to grant enough time for a full and fair recount of all legal Florida votes – Florida would have landed narrowly in Vice President Al Gore’s column, as later unofficial tabulations found. (read> ) http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/112101a.html Gore, the candidate who also won the national popular vote, would have become President. Instead, five Republican justices – Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist, Kennedy and O’Connor – put partisanship ahead of legal principles to install Bush in the White House. With that decision on Dec. 12, 2000, American history took a dark turn. Since then, if the past five years have shown anything, it is that Gore’s seasoning and priorities were a much better fit for the complex challenges facing the United States than were Bush’s inexperience, rashness and unilateralist tendencies. While Gore may or may not have made an ideal President, he was possibly the best qualified American to face the nation’s pressing threats, including global warming, the need for alternative fuels, worldwide economic competition and resolving terrorism threats in the middle east. He had in depth experience working with other nations to address complex international problems and with balancing the federal budget and furthermore producing a surplus. At the time of Election 2000, the federal government was running surpluses and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was fretting about difficulties that might arise from paying off the federal debt entirely. That was one problem that George W. Bush did solve, as the federal debt now is at unprecedented highs, with the debt limit rising $3 trillion on Bush’s watch to a total of $9 trillion. Bush’s government borrowing has become a ticking time bomb inside the U.S. economy with its attached responsibilities as foreigners from China to the United Arab Emirates grow more and more leery about buying up the huge American debt. Combined with Bush’s appetite for costly foreign military adventures, the fiscal explosion could come earlier rather than later. Fixing a Mistake So, Option One would be a national recognition of the Supreme Court’s historic mistake in 2000 and an adoption of a bipartisan strategy to rectify it – putting the United States back on the course that the American voters chose five years ago. This option also could open the door to genuine bipartisanship, possibly even a unity government. Responsible Republicans would join with Democrats in telling Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney that their patriotic duty now is to admit their many mistakes and do what’s best for the country – a sequential resignation, as occurred in Richard Nixon’s second term when Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned and was replaced by Gerald Ford, who then became President upon Nixon’s resignation. Only this time, the goal of bipartisanship would be best served by having Cheney replaced by Democrat Gore, who could then take over the Presidency upon Bush’s resignation. Gore could reach out to pragmatic Republicans, the likes of Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana or Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, for a Vice President. This new unity government could then make the hard decisions to extricate U.S. troops from the Iraq quagmire, fashion a smarter counter-terrorism strategy and start rebuilding American credibility in the world. Gore also could apply his depth of knowledge about global warming and alternative fuels to chart a course toward energy independence. Option One’s bipartisanship could reach into Congress, too, where budget realism could overcome Bush’s radical anti-tax ideology. To protect the future strength of the dollar and the health of the U.S. economy, Bush’s far-as-the-eye-can-see deficits would be reined in and federal spending would be focused carefully on top national priorities. In short, the shock therapy of an Agnew-Nixon solution would stop the political drift that is now pulling the nation into some very dangerous waters. That said, today’s political reality – especially the deeply angry right-wing political/media infrastructure – makes Option One virtually “unthinkable,” even fanciful. George W. Bush and his dead-enders would never admit they’ve made mistakes, let alone relinquish power to a Democrat. Which brings us to Option Two. Option Two: Throw the Bums Out Option Two would be a full-scale political battle for the nation’s future and for its soul. With Bush and Cheney dug in – and conceivably lashing out with more military operations abroad, such as a military assault on Iran – the American voters would have to intervene via Election 2006 putting in a Democratic House and/or a Democratic Senate that would confront Bush. A House Judiciary Committee under the chairmanship of Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, would demand documents about Bush’s secret policies and investigate Bush’s various abuses of power – policies of torture, warrantless wiretaps, detentions without trials and domestic propaganda. But Bush, who believes he holds “plenary” – or unlimited – powers as Commander in Chief, would surely refuse to cooperate, forcing Congress to subpoena records and eventually consider holding the Executive in contempt. [For more on Bush’s claims to power, see Consortiumnews.com’s “The End of Unalienable Rights.”] The intensity of the political battle would deepen with the nation split into two warring camps: on one side, Americans demanding that Bush be held accountable under the laws and the U.S. Constitution – and on the other, Bush loyalists calling his critics “traitors.” Bush’s megalomania, as a modern-day emperor who rages when aides bring him bad news, would prevent meaningful compromise. If Congress stuck to its guns and pressed for impeachment, a full-scale constitutional crisis would ensue. There’s also the question of what Bush would do if he were faced with impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate. Would he go – as Richard Nixon finally did, waving his V-for-victory salute and flying into political exile – or would Bush resist with whatever forces remained at his disposal? Option Three: Capitulation to the Leader Most likely, however, the implausibility of Option One and the dangers of Option Two would lead Americans to settle on a passive Option Three, in which Bush continues as President for the next three years, even as he consolidates his authoritarian powers and leads the United States deeper into the neoconservative delusions of “preemptive” wars. Without a pushback from Congress, Bush is sure to press his theories of the “unitary executive” domestically and his strategy of “preemptive wars” internationally. For instance, despite the Iraq disaster, Bush reaffirmed his commitment to the doctrine of “preemption” in his new national security strategy paper issued March 16. Rather than showing signs of regret for invading Iraq over bogus weapons of mass destruction, Bush simply issued a new warning – against Iran, identifying it as his next primary target. Indeed, Bush’s escalating rhetoric against Iran has prompted some analysts to conclude that Bush will launch at least air strikes against suspected Iranian nuclear facilities before the U.S. elections in November 2006. Bush’s political advisers still view national security as his strongest suit for blocking Democratic electoral gains. So, another foreign crisis – with Bush talking and acting tough – could be expected to intimidate the Democrats and rally his base. Moreover, many of Bush’s neoconservative foreign policy advisers retain their faith in a policy of “creative destruction” in the Middle East with the goal of shattering the status quo and transforming Muslim nations into non-threatening pro-American states that also accept Israel. Rather than building support for the United States in the Middle East, however, Bush’s Iraq War and revelations of prisoner abuse in U.S. detention centers have touched off tidal waves of anti-Americanism that threaten to inundate Washington’s regional allies. So, while Bush rattles sabers against Iran ostensibly to prevent Muslim extremists from getting their hands on a nuclear bomb, one consequence of Bush’s strategy could be the destabilization of the pro-U.S. Pakistani dictatorship of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who is facing a growing domestic challenge from Islamic militants. Ironically then, a U.S. attack on Iran to prevent its hypothetical development of nuclear weapons in a decade or so could lead to the rapid collapse of the Musharraf government and put Pakistan’s existing nuclear arsenal in the hands of radical Pakistani Muslims, with close ties to Osama bin-Laden’s al-Qaeda. Bush’s air strikes against Iran also could lead to retaliation by Tehran against U.S. troops in neighboring Iraq. With close ties to Iraq’s new Shiite-dominated government, Iran could instigate bloody reprisals against American soldiers, including vulnerable U.S. trainers working inside the new Iraqi security forces. Iran and angry Arab states could play the oil card, too, slashing American supplies or at least driving the prices up to levels that would endanger the U.S. economy. Already, some Arab oil ministries are quietly shifting some of their oil trading from dollars to euros, a transition that could further weaken the dollar and force a nasty restructuring of the American economy. In short, the “safe” political option – to let Bush operate much as he has since Sept. 11, 2001 – has consequences that may be more dangerous than the other two more confrontational options. [For our early assessment of “preemption,” see “Bush’s Grim Vision”; for an early warning about Iraq, see “Bay of Pigs Meets Black Hawk Down.”] There certainly are other potential future scenarios – beyond these three – that merit consideration. But the larger point is that U.S. citizens may have little choice other than to begin pondering difficult options that go beyond what’s envisioned by today’s conventional wisdom.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra
stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His
latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty
from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com.
It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost
History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.' |
|
So Bush Did Steal the White House -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Robert Parry read source: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/112101a.html George W. Bush now appears to have claimed the most powerful office in the world by blocking a court-ordered recount of votes in Florida that likely would have elected Al Gore to be president of the United States. Click for Printable Version A document, revealed by Newsweek, indicates that the Florida recount that was stopped last year by five Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court would have taken into account so-called “overvotes” that heavily favored Gore. If those “overvotes” were counted, as now it appears they would have been, Gore would have carried Florida regardless of what standard of chad – dimpled, hanging, punched-through – was used in counting the so-called “undervotes,” according to an examination of those ballots by a group of leading news organizations. In other words, Bush lost not only the national popular vote by more than a half million ballots, but he would have lost the key state of Florida and thus the presidency, if Florida’s authorities had been allowed to count the votes that met the state’s legal requirement of demonstrating the clear intent of the voter. The Newsweek disclosure – a memo that the presiding judge in the state recount sent to a county canvassing board – shows that the judge was instructing the county boards to collect “overvotes” that had been rejected for indicating two choices for president when, in reality, the voters had made clear their one choice. “If you would segregate ‘overvotes’ as you describe and indicate in your final report how many where you determined the clear intent of the voter,” wrote Judge Terry Lewis, who had been named by the Florida Supreme Court to oversee the statewide recount, “I will rule on the issue for all counties.” Lewis’s memo to the chairman of the Charlotte County canvassing board was written on Dec. 9, 2000, just hours before Bush succeeded in getting five conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the Florida recount. Lewis has said in more recent interviews that he might well have expanded the recount to include those “overvotes.” Indeed, it would be hard to imagine that he wouldn’t count those legitimate votes once they were recovered by the counties and were submitted to Lewis. The “overvotes” in which voters marked the name of their choice and also wrote in his name would be even more clearly legal votes than the so-called “undervotes” which were kicked out for failing to register a choice that could be read by voting machines. Misguided Articles This new information indicating that the wrong presidential candidate moved into the White House also makes a mockery of the Nov. 12 front-page stories of the New York Times, the Washington Post and other leading news outlets, which stated that Bush would have won regardless of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling. Those stories were based on the hypothetical results if the state-ordered recount had looked only at “undervotes.” The news organizations assumed, incorrectly it now appears, that the “overvotes” would have been excluded from such a tally, leaving Bush with a tiny lead. In going with the “Bush Wins” headlines, the news organizations downplayed their more dramatic finding that Gore would have won if a full statewide recount had been conducted in accordance with state law. Using the clear-intent-of-the-voter standard, Gore beat Bush by margins ranging from 60 to 171 votes, depending on what standard was used in judging the “undervotes.” Beyond the big newspapers’ false assumptions about the state recount, the news stories showed a pro-Bush bias in their choice of language and the overall slant of the articles. The New York Times, for instance, used the word “would” and even declarative statements when referring to Bush prevailing in hypothetical partial recounts. By contrast, the word “might” was used when mentioning that Gore topped Bush if all ballots were considered. “A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots,” the Times wrote, “reveal that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward. Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice President Al Gore have charged, the United State Supreme Court did not award an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore.” Two paragraphs later, the Times noted that the examination of all rejected ballots “found that Mr. Gore might have won if the courts had ordered a full statewide recount. … The findings indicate that Mr. Gore might have eked out a victory if he had pursued in court a course like the one he publicly advocated when he called on the state to ‘count all the votes.’” Left out of that formulation, which suggests that Gore was a hypocrite, is the fact that Bush rejected Gore’s early proposal for a full statewide recount. Bush also waged a relentless campaign of obstruction that left no time for the state courts to address the equal-protection-under-the-law concerns raised by the U.S. Supreme Court in its final ruling on Dec. 12, 2000. Note also how the Times denigrates as misguided Gore “partisans” those American citizens who concluded, apparently correctly, that the U.S. Supreme Court awarded the election to Bush. The headlines, too, favored Bush. The Times’ front-page headline on Nov. 12 read, “Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote.” The Washington Post’s headline read, “Florida Recounts Would Have Favored Bush.” Spreading Confusion The pro-Bush themes in the headlines and stories were repeated over and over by television and other newspapers, creating a widespread belief among casual news consumers that Bush had prevailed in the full statewide recount, rather than only in truncated recounts based on dubious hypotheses. Now, Judge Lewis’s memo undercuts both the tone and the content of those news reports. It is certainly not clear anymore that the state-ordered recount would have favored Bush. It also appears likely that the interference by the U.S. Supreme Court was decisive. Based on the new evidence, the major newspapers look to be wrong on both these high-profile points. Beyond Gore’s narrow victory from the recoverable ballots, the news organizations concluded – but played down – that Gore lost thousands of unrecoverable ballots because of flawed ballot designs in several Democratic strongholds. Gore lost other votes because Gov. Jeb Bush’s administration disqualified hundreds of predominantly black voters who were falsely labeled felons. The New York Times also reported that Bush achieved a net gain of about 290 votes by getting illegally cast absentee votes counted in Republican counties while enforcing the rules strictly in Democratic counties. Though the new recount tallies did not include any adjustments for these irregularities, the news organizations estimated that Gore lost tens of thousands of votes from these disparities, compared to Bush’s official victory margin of 537 votes. For months, the leading news organizations have been bending over backwards to protect Bush’s fragile legitimacy, possibly out of concern for the nation’s image in a time of crisis. Yet, whatever the motivation for trying to make Bush look good, the evidence is now overwhelming that Bush strong-armed his way, illegitimately, to the presidency. In the days immediately after the election, Bush obstructed a full-and-fair recount in Florida, even dispatching hooligans from outside the state to intimidate vote counters. When Gore pressed for recounts in the courts, Bush sent in lawyers to prevent the tallies. Then, after losing before the Florida Supreme Court and the federal appeals court, Bush ultimately got a friendly hearing from five political allies on the U.S. Supreme Court. If Bush truly respected the precepts of democracy and what those principles mean to the world, he could have joined Gore in demanding as full and fair a Florida recount as possible. He could have accepted the results, win or lose. Instead Bush opted for the opposite course, deciding that his getting the White House was more important than the voters having their judgment accepted, both nationally and in Florida. By refusing to hold Bush accountable for his key role in thwarting the voters’ will, the major news organizations are not doing the cause of democracy any service. It turns out that the thousands of demonstrators who protested Bush’s Inauguration were closer to the truth when they shouted at his motorcade, “Hail to the Thief!” [For more on studies about the election
results, see Consortiumnews.com stories of May 12, June 2, July
16 and Nov. 12.] |
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The End of 'Unalienable Rights' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- read source: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/012406.html
Every American school child is taught that in the United States, people have “unalienable rights,” heralded by the Declaration of Independence and enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Supposedly, these liberties can’t be taken away, but they are now gone. Today, Americans have rights only at George W. Bush’s forbearance. Under new legal theories – propounded by Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito and other right-wing jurists – Bush effectively holds all power over all Americans. He can spy on anyone he wants without a court order; he can throw anyone into jail without due process; he can order torture or other degrading treatment regardless of a new law enacted a month ago; he can launch wars without congressional approval; he can assassinate people whom he deems to be the enemy even if he knows that innocent people, including children, will die, too. Under the new theories, Bush can act both domestically and internationally. His powers know no bounds and no boundaries. Bush has made this radical change in the American political system by combining what his legal advisers call the “plenary” – or unlimited – powers of the Commander in Chief with the concept of a “unitary executive” in control of all laws and regulations. Yet, maybe because Bush’s assertion of power is so extraordinary, almost no one dares connect the dots. After a 230-year run, the “unalienable rights” – as enunciated by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and the Founding Fathers – are history. Legal Analysis The Justice Department spelled out Bush’s latest rationale for his new powers on Jan. 19 in a 42-page legal analysis defending Bush’s right to wiretap Americans without a warrant. Bush’s lawyers said the congressional authorization to use force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks “places the President at the zenith of his powers” and lets him use that authority domestically as well as overseas. [NYT, Jan. 20, 2006] According to the analysis, the “zenith of his powers” allows Bush to override both the requirements of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against searches and seizures without court orders, and the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which created a special secret court to approve spying warrants inside the United States. In its legal analysis, the Justice Department added, “The president has made clear that he will exercise all authority available to him, consistent with the Constitution, to protect the people of the United States.” While the phrase “consistent with the Constitution” sounds reassuring to many Americans, what it means in this case is that Bush believes he has unlimited powers as Commander in Chief to do whatever he deems necessary in the War on Terror. Since the War on Terror is a vague concept – unlike other wars the United States has fought – there also is no expectation that Bush’s usurpation of traditional American freedoms is just a short-term necessity. Instead it is a framework for future governance. For a time, some Americans also may have thought that Bush’s commander-in-chief powers applied only to foreigners linked to al-Qaeda and to the occasional American who collaborated with the terrorist group. So they didn’t mind much when Jose Padilla was arrested in Chicago and locked up without charge as an “enemy combatant.” That indefinite detention might have violated the constitutional principle of habeas corpus – the requirement that every citizen has a right to due process and a fair trial – but many Americans were swayed when Bush called Padilla a “bad guy” who was getting what he deserved. Now, Americans have learned that Bush considers his powers to extend to a much broader category of citizens. That is the significance of Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program directed against hundreds of American targets at any one time. In bypassing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Bush demonstrated his belief, too, that he has the power to ignore specific laws as well as broader constitutional principles. Lies and Lies Another factor complicating the ability of Americans to understand the emerging constitutional crisis is that Bush has shown a readiness to lie about the cases. For instance, though he secretly approved the wiretap program in 2002, he kept telling the public that wiretaps could only be done with court warrants. In a speech in Buffalo, N.Y., on April 20, 2004, Bush went out of his way to state that he had not abrogated the rights of American citizens under the Fourth Amendment. “By the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires – a wiretap requires a court order,” Bush said. “Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so.” After the warrantless wiretaps became public in December 2005, Bush continued to misrepresent the program, calling it “limited” to “taking known al-Qaeda numbers – numbers from known al-Qaeda people – and just trying to find out why the phone calls are being made.” In his folksy style, he told an audience in Louisville, Kentucky, on Jan. 11 that “it seems like to me that if somebody is talking to al-Qaeda, we want to know why.” But Bush’s reassuring tale wasn’t true. The program that Bush described could easily be accomplished under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act using a provision that lets the government wiretap for 72 hours before going to the special court for a warrant. The reality is that Bush has authorized the National Security Agency to scoop up a vast number of calls and e-mails. The operation is so large that it has generated thousands of tips each month, which are passed on to the FBI. “But virtually all of [the tips], current and former officials say, led to dead ends or innocent Americans,” the New York Times reported. “FBI officials repeatedly complained to the spy agency that the unfiltered information was swamping investigators. … Some FBI officials and prosecutors also thought the checks, which sometimes involved interviews by agents, were pointless intrusions on Americans’ privacy.” [NYT, Jan. 17, 2006] Another example of Bush’s assertion of his supremacy over laws enacted by Congress came in December 2005 when he signed Sen. John McCain’s amendment barring cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. Bush then issued a so-called “signing statement” that reserved his right to ignore the law. “The Executive Branch shall construe [the torture ban] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary Executive Branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power,” the signing statement read. In other words, since Bush considers his commander-in-chief authority boundless, he can waive the torture ban whenever he wants, making it virtually meaningless. The Bush/Laden Symbiosis But just as public skepticism about Bush’s exercise of authority was approaching critical mass, Osama bin-Laden resurfaced on Jan. 19 in a new audiotape sent to al-Jazeera TV, ending more than a year of silence. The voice on the tape – identified as that of bin-Laden both by al-Jazeera and the CIA – predicted America’s defeats in Afghanistan and Iraq while warning of new attacks inside the United States. “Operations are under preparation, and you will see them on your own ground once they are finished,” said bin-Laden, according to a transcript of the tape. So, Bush can now cite this new threat from al-Qaeda as well as the bloody conflict in Iraq as justifications for continuing to consolidate his powers as the “unitary executive.” The latest bin-Laden audiotape also continues a long – and curious – symbiotic relationship between the Bush family and the bin-Ladens, dating back to Bush’s days as a young businessman. In 1979, Bush’s friend James Bath was the sole U.S. business representative for Salem bin-Laden, scion of the wealthy Saudi bin-Laden family and Osama’s half-brother. While fronting for Salem bin-Laden, Bath helped bankroll Bush’s first company, Arbusto Energy, by investing $50,000 for a five percent stake. In the 1980s, Osama bin-Laden established himself as an Islamic fighter by battling side-by-side with Afghan rebels whose guerrilla war against the Soviet Army and its surrogates was staunchly supported by George H.W. Bush, first as vice president and then as president. By the late 1990s, bin-Laden had become recognized as a major terrorist threat against the United States. Still, when the CIA warned George W. Bush on Aug. 6, 2001, that bin-Laden was determined “to strike in U.S.,” Bush went fishing and continued a month-long vacation, failing to rally the government to examine available clues and tighten security. A little more than a month later, on Sept. 11, 2001, when hijacked planes crashed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, the senior George Bush and members of the bin-Laden family were participating in a Carlyle Group investment meeting in Washington. In the days that followed, as George W. Bush’s Justice Department rounded up hundreds of Arab cab drivers and other Muslims on minor visa violations, the bin-Ladens were spirited out of the United States after only cursory questioning. [For details, see Craig Unger’s House of Bush, House of Saud.] Ironically, too, Bush’s accumulation of power since the Sept. 11 attacks has gone hand-in-hand with his failures connected to Osama bin-Laden. For instance, if Bush had finished off al-Qaeda’s leaders in Afghanistan in late 2001 and early 2002, he would have a weaker foundation for his new authority now. By letting bin-Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders escape when they apparently were cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, Bush kept alive a plausible scenario for additional al-Qaeda attacks inside the United States and thus the justification for his unrestrained powers as Commander in Chief. The escape from the Americans in Afghanistan helped bin-Laden, too. He emerged as a folk hero to many Islamists. By invading Iraq in 2003, Bush breathed more life into his presidential powers. But another winner was bin-Laden, who exploited Islamic resentment about the Iraq War to recruit new terrorist cadre and train them in direct conflict with American soldiers. Just as Bush’s boasts about getting bin-Laden “dead or alive” boosted the Saudi’s standing with radical jihadists, bin-Laden’s public hostility to Bush has helped the president’s standing with the American people at key junctures. In fall 2004, when Bush was locked in a tight race with Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, bin-Laden released a videotape that conservative pundits billed as Osama’s endorsement of Kerry, a development that predictably helped Bush gain ground in the campaign’s closing days. Now, as Bush faces increased U.S. public skepticism about the Iraq War and his accretion of powers, bin-Laden shows up again with a statement that calls on the United States to admit defeat in Iraq and threatens new terror attacks on U.S. soil. Not surprisingly, the reaction of many Americans to the bin-Laden tape is to harden their commitment to keep U.S. troops in Iraq – the outcome that both bin-Laden and Bush favor, albeit for different reasons. Bin-Laden’s warning of a new terrorist assault also stokes the fears of Americans who are likely to react by giving Bush greater leeway in the War on Terror. A day after bin-Laden’s audiotape was aired, Bush’s chief political adviser Karl Rove signaled that the Republicans would again try to ride the War on Terror to another round of victories in November 2006. “Republicans have a post-9/11 worldview and many Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview,” Rove told a Republican National Committee meeting on Jan. 20. “That doesn’t make them unpatriotic – not at all. But it does make them wrong – deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong.” [Washington Post, Jan. 21, 2006] Like the symbiotic relationship that exists when birds feed off ticks burrowed into the hides of rhinos, the Bush/Laden symbiosis may be entirely unspoken and even unintentional. But there can be little doubt that Bush has raised bin-Laden’s stature among radical Islamists while bin-Laden has helped Bush consolidate his authoritarian powers inside the United States. Today’s Challenge But the crucial question now is whether the American political system will acquiesce to Bush’s historic power grab – or resist it. So far, the major U.S. news media and leading Democrats have closed their eyes to the totality of Bush’s claims to unprecedented Executive power. Senate Democrats have even shied away from threatening to filibuster Bush’s Supreme Court nomination of Samuel Alito, one of the legal architects of the Imperial Presidency. One of the few political leaders who has sounded the alarm is former Vice President Al Gore, who addressed the issue in a speech on Jan. 16, the holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. “An Executive who arrogates to himself the power to ignore the legitimate legislative directives of the Congress or to act free of the check of the judiciary becomes the central threat that the Founders sought to nullify in the Constitution – an all-powerful Executive too reminiscent of the King from whom they had broken free,” Gore said. “As the Executive acts outside its constitutionally prescribed role and is able to control access to information that would expose its actions, it becomes increasingly difficult for the other branches to police it. Once that ability is lost, democracy itself is threatened and we become a government of men and not laws.” Except for Gore, however, few national leaders or news commentators have dared to draw clear conclusions about Bush’s authoritarian tendencies. No one, it seems, wants to give up on the most memorable passage of the Declaration of Independence, that “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Today, however, these truths are no longer “self-evident,” nor are the rights “unalienable.” They depend on the beneficence and generosity of George W. Bush. Despite his assertion of unlimited power, Bush surely will not interfere in the lives of most Americans; just the small number who somehow get in his way. Most Americans probably won’t even notice their altered status, from citizens to subjects.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra
stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His
latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty
from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com.
It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost
History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.' |
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Poll: GOP Losing Edge on Foreign
Policy Issues --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Poll Results Poll Questionnaire and Results (Requires
Adobe Acrobat) read source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5284936 Morning Edition, March 17, 2006 · A new poll of likely voters finds that President Bush and his party no longer have the advantage on issues of foreign policy and national security, which they used to dominate. The poll, conducted for NPR by a Republican and a Democratic pollster, suggests that the ongoing instability in Iraq, the Dubai ports deal, job outsourcing and other global issues in the news lately appear to be weighing heavily on voters' minds in this midterm election year. Republican pollster Glen Bolger says that, from his perspective, the results are a "bunch of ugly numbers." The poll found the president's approval rating at 39 percent. Of the 58 percent of respondents who said they disapprove, a whopping 45 percent "disapprove strongly." When asked what pollsters call the generic ballot question -- "If the election were held today, would you vote for the Democrat or the Republican candidate?" -- those surveyed favored Democrats by one of the largest margins in decades, 52 percent to 37 percent. (That's a bigger margin than Republicans enjoyed just before they captured the House in 1994). "This is not the only poll that is showing significant problems for Republicans on the generic ballot, significant problems for the president," Bolger says. "We're in a hole, and we're at a point where we've got to start digging our way out, as opposed to digging deeper."
It's not uncommon to see polls where Democrats beat Republicans on domestic issues, such as the economy and jobs, health care and Social Security. But in this poll, when asked which party they trust more on issues such as the Iraq war, foreign ownership of U.S. ports and attention to homeland security, majorities chose the Democrats. Only on the question of Iranian nuclear weapons do the president and his party come out ahead.
Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg says the numbers present Democrats with a real opportunity for electoral gains. "All of these issues are related to different kinds of foreign threats to the country," he notes. "On every single issue, voters favor the Democrats. This is a different landscape -- we were looking for 20-point advantages for Republicans on anything related to security. This ought to be the center of where you would trust the Republicans, and that's not happening here. There's clearly a new opening, new doubts about the Republicans and new openings for the Democrats."
Charles King, a retired logger from North Bend, Ore., was one of those polled. He describes himself as a strong Republican and says Iraq is the issue that's changed his opinion of President Bush.
"I think he's a little out of touch with the people," King says of the president. "I'm unhappy with the Iraq situation. It was supposed to be 'get in, get it done, and get out of there,' and so far that's not happening."
In this year's midterm elections, Democrats will argue it's time for a change. That seems to be working with Eric Meiner, a political independent from Charlotte, N.C., who says he now trusts the Democrats more to deal with the war in Iraq.
"At this point in time in the war, I think the Democrats can handle it best, only because the Republicans have been handling it for three years, and it's become a real failure," Meiner says.
The furor over the Dubai ports deal touched raw nerves for many voters. Bette Marheska, from Boiling Springs Lakes, N.C., says she trusted the Democrats more on the ports issue because of her concerns about global competition for American jobs, as well as homeland security.
"The Democrats, I think, are more home-based," Marheska says. "I think they're more likely to say, 'We need to take care of home first before we go take care of them,' so I think they're better equipped for it. "
Markeska gives Democrats the credit for stopping the ports deal, but it was the Republican stampede against the deal that finally scuttled it. Glenn Bolger says the poll shows that Republicans in Congress helped themselves politically by abandoning the president.
"One clear piece of evidence in the data is that Republicans benefited by showing some independence from the president on the ports deal," Bolger says. "Democrats have a 16-point advantage over the president in terms of who [voters] trust, and only an 8-point advantage over the Republicans on the ports deal. So the Republican Congress' stand of independence cut the Democratic advantage on this issue in half."
Democrats hope the president's low approval ratings will continue to drag his party down. "It is because the president's popularity is clearly the center of this," Democratic pollster Greenberg says. "He's defining the course for the Republicans. They're going to try to separate. I think that's difficult for them to achieve."
Republican pollster Bolger acknowledges that GOP lawmakers face a "careful calculus" in deciding on which issues they will seek to distance themselves from President Bush.
But voters should expect to see many more instances in which Congressional Republicans head in a different direction than the president. It's a strategy for survival in the increasingly choppy waters of this election year.
Most observers think Republicans have only a handful of vulnerable seats this year in the Senate. In the House, politically drawn lines between districts make nearly all incumbents safe.
Still, Democrats are working hard to turn their newfound strengths on security issues into an anti-incumbent wave so big it can wash away the advantages of the party in power. |
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Americans Think Bush Bungling -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- view source: http://www.newswire.co.nz/main/viewstory.aspx?storyid=307724&catid=32 More than two thirds of Americans think President George Bush is mishandling events in Iraq and almost a third believe civil war in the country is imminent, according to new poll. The Harris poll shows more US adults are pessimistic about the situation in Iraq since the bombing of the Askariya shrine and the ensuing sectarian violence. Sixty-eight per cent of those interviewed gave a negative rating of the president's current handling of events in Iraq, and only 30 per cent were positive. Asked about the possibility of a civil war in Iraq in the next six months, 30 per cent of those polled said that such a war was very or extremely likely, with another 20 per cent saying it was likely. Sixty-one per cent doubted that US policy in Iraq would be successful. © NewsRoom 2006 |
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Bush at war with public's
doubt -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- read source: http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/bush....2582525414.html Advertisement"AMERICA is at war. This is a wartime national security strategy required by the grave challenges we face. This strategy reflects our most solemn obligation: to protect the security of the American people." On the third anniversary of war in Iraq, George Bush looks and sounds like a president who goes to bed and wakes wondering whether the patience he has asked and indeed pleaded for from Americans will be forthcoming. The Bush swagger — that strange, stiff-shouldered walk, chest out, arms by his side — is rarely to be seen. Mr Bush looks gaunt, his hair greyer than it was a year ago, the easy banter with the media and carefully selected audiences mostly gone. But the war that Mr Bush was referring to in those first stark sentences of the Administration's 2006 National Security Strategy, released this week, was not the war in Iraq. It was the war on terror that began with the attacks on September 11, 2001. That war, according to Mr Bush, is about spreading freedom and democracy around the world, and "because free nations tend towards peace, the advance of liberty will make Americans more secure". The politics is clear: the best, and perhaps the only, hope that Mr Bush has of keeping some support among Americans for the involvement in Iraq is to link it to the wider war on terror. His poll numbers on Iraq are at about the level of Richard Nixon's just before he resigned in disgrace in 1974, but on keeping America safe he still polls just over 50 per cent — and crucially, still does better than the Democrats. That doesn't say much. Isolationism, protectionism, even nativism are on the march. That's what the Dubai ports controversy was all about. That's what the debate about illegal immigrants is about. That's what you often hear when you talk to Americans of all political persuasions. They say that all America gets for its efforts to spread democracy and liberty is hostility. That's why Mr Bush, in virtually all his recent speeches, including his statement on the 2006 National Security Strategy, warns against Americans "choosing the path of fear". The war in Iraq has left most Americans with no great faith that Mr Bush — or, for that matter, Congress — can turn things around any time soon. Administration officials were at pains to say that the 2006 National Security Strategy did not represent a major change from the controversial 2002 strategy, which spelt out post-September 11 US foreign policy, based on America's pre-eminent military and pre-emptive strikes against rogue states. But in fact, policy has shifted significantly. Gone from the 2006 document is the confidence in America's influence in the world and the faith that America's strength can be used to deal with the terrorist threat and the dangers of rogue states. In place of the unilateralism and disdain for diplomacy and international institutions of the neo-conservatives who so influenced the first Bush Administration, there is now a focus on diplomacy, the sort of diplomacy Condoleezza Rice has described as "transformational". The question is whether this change has come too late and whether it can deal with the threat posed by Iran's nuclear program. When asked about the impact of the Iraq war on US foreign policy, Richard Haass, president of the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations, said it had been clearly negative. "The war has absorbed a tremendous amount of US military capacity, the result being that the United States has far less spare or available capacity, not just in the active sense, but to exploit in the diplomatic sense," he said. "It has therefore weakened our position against both Iran and North Korea." The Haass view is widely shared in Washington, where even the most ardent supporters of war and the Administration now agree that the serious blunders made in the way the war was fought and during the occupation have called the Administration's competence into question. David Brooks, columnist for The New York Times and a strong supporter of the war, this week described Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as a "pathetic figure" who ignored his generals and expressed contempt for those with different views to his, and as a result got everything about the war wrong. The debate has moved beyond the question of whether or not the Administration selectively used intelligence about Saddam Hussein's non-existent weapons of mass destruction to justify the war. It is about whether, in light of the mounting evidence of the Administration's incompetence, it can be trusted with looming foreign policy challenges, from Iran in particular. There are signs in Washington that even while the war in Iraq hangs in the balance, even while the suggestion of major troop withdrawals this year seems far-fetched, the efforts to halt Iran's nuclear program will inevitably fail. When that becomes clear, officials suggest, the only option left for the US will be a military one. That may be some time off, these officials say, but there's little doubt that planning is under way at the Pentagon. But the legacy of Iraq is that a clear
majority of Americans, no matter what Mr Bush said, would oppose
military action against Iran. On this third anniversary of the
start of war in Iraq, what a majority of Americans want is out
— as quickly as possible. They are not yet saying get out
now, whatever the consequences, but unless things improve, that
may come soon. |
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This misadventure has alienated
most of the world -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Since going to war, the president has managed to make himself almost as unpopular with US voters as he is with Iraqis Gary Younge read source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1734782,00.html Shortly before the first Gulf war the recently retired chairman of the United States joint chiefs of staff, Admiral William Crowe, went for lunch with his successor, Colin Powell. In words that resonate today, Crowe warned Powell that "a war in the Middle East - killing thousands of Arabs for whatever noble purpose - would set back the US in the region for a long time. And that was to say nothing of the Americans who might die". But despite his own misgivings, Crowe clearly
believed military intervention was likely in the interests of
presidential prestige. Six years into his presidency it is difficult to think of a single, substantial foreign policy initiative that US president George Bush has pursued that did not involve war, or the threat of it. There is good reason for this. It is the one area in which America reigns supreme, accounting alone for 40% of the global military expenditure and spending almost seven times the amount of its nearest rival, China. Yet greatness eludes him. For if the last six years have proved anything, it is the limitations of military might as the central plank of foreign policy. Indeed, shorn of meaningful diplomacy or substantial negotiation, it has failed even on its own narrow, nationalistic terms of making America safer and securing its global hegemony. In short, in displaying his strength in such a brash, brazen, reckless and ruthless manner, Bush has asserted power and lost authority and influence both at home and abroad. With his approval ratings at Nixonian lows and the mid-term elections on the horizon, many of his fellow Republicans regard him as a liability. Stumbling across the political landscape, rallying support for lost causes, he resembles Ernest Harrowden in The Picture of Dorian Gray, a character whom Oscar Wilde described as "one of those middle-aged mediocrities, who have no enemies, but are thoroughly disliked by their friends". Last week's release of the national security strategy did not counter that trend but confirmed it. Insisting that diplomacy remains America's "strong preference", it went on to reaffirm its commitment to pre-emption. "If necessary, under long-standing principles of self-defence, we do not rule out use of force before attacks occur," it states. Iran received special mention, with a warning that talks "must succeed if confrontation is to be avoided". In practice this translates into a per perverse version of carrot-and-stick diplomacy. Offer your adversary a carrot and then threaten to whack them with the stick while they are eating it. That America's standing has plummeted with this approach is without question. Of the 10 countries polled in 2000 and again in 2005 by the Pew research group, the US had fallen in people's estimation in eight of them. In only three - Canada, Britain and Russia - did a majority still look upon the US favourably. It's not difficult to see why. Last week the country that aspires to lead the free world stood alongside only Israel, Palau and the Marshall Islands and against 170 countries in rejecting the creation of a new UN council to protect human rights. Only the US and Somalia (which has no recognised government) have failed to ratify the UN convention on the rights of the child. So long as the US clung to the notion that military strength would always have the last say, none of this mattered. Like a band of demented Millwall supporters, the Bush administration could strut across the global stage chanting: "No one likes us, we don't care". Indeed, in the first few years after 9/11 it wore its unpopularity like a badge of honour. But as events in Iraq have soured, the ability of the Bush administration to deliver on these threats has diminished considerably. With its military overstretched and its diplomatic goodwill spent, it has been forced back to the table from a relative position of weakness, because nobody trusts it or particularly fears it. If anything, both Iran and North Korea have been emboldened by its failures in the Gulf. Meanwhile, elections keep on producing the wrong results. Hamas is in power in Palestine; René Préval, the protege of Jean-Bertrand Aristide whom the US helped remove in a coup two years ago, won the presidency in Haiti; Ahmed Chalabi, the protege of the neocons whom the US wanted to impose on the Iraqi people at the outset of the war, could not win a single seat. Elsewhere, voters in Latin America have opted for leaders who campaigned against the neoliberal economic strictures imposed by Washington. The issue is not whether the developing world is ready for democracy - as the administration keeps arguing - but if the US is ready for the democratic choices made by the developing world. But the principle area where the US has demonstrated its military supremacy and its diplomatic weakness is Iraq. This misadventure has not only alienated most of the world from the administration, but increasingly alienated the two constituencies it really does need to win over - the Iraqis and the Americans. One of the key demands of the United Iraqi Alliance, the broadbased Shia coalition that won the elections in December, was the removal of the American military. Given that the Sunnis are leading the insurgency, this leaves few backers among the Iraqis. And, simultaneously, support for the war in the US is haemorrhaging. A CNN/USA Today poll last week showed 60% of Americans believe it was a mistake to send troops to Iraq and disapprove of the way Bush is handling the war. More than half want to see the troops withdrawn within a year. Even three-quarters of the soldiers fighting in Iraq, according to another poll, believe the US should leave within a year. These problems may in no small part be due to the fact that in invading Iraq, Bush fulfilled only half of Crowe's criteria for a great presidency. Despite efforts to convince the world otherwise, the war for which he will be remembered - Iraq - had nothing to do with why the US was attacked on September 11. On its own, that would be a moral issue of lying to the public. What has transformed it into a political problem is the dire situation on the ground in Iraq. The most important single factor that shapes Americans' attitudes to any war is whether they think America will win, explains Christopher Gelpi, an associate professor of political science at Duke University who specialises in public attitudes to foreign policy. Over the past year, the percentage of Americans who believe the US is "certain to win" has plummeted from 79% to 22%; those who are either certain it will not win or believe this to be unlikely have risen from 1% to 41%. "They are in big trouble," explains Gelpi. "Bush's speeches, even as late as December, managed to shore up public opinion a little bit. But what you can do with speeches at this point is pretty limited. It's not even clear who's listening." Wrong war. Wrong strategy. Wrong president. Just plain wrong. g.younge@guardian.co.uk |
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'War on Terrorism' is Stripping
Us of Our Freedoms -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- El Reportero, Anthony Romero, Mar 08, 2002 read source: http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=131 When, a week before Sept. 11, I accepted the position as executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, I didn't imagine that a personal challenge would so quickly become intertwined with so serious a challenge to our nation's liberty and security. I applauded the words of President Bush when he said, in his first post-Sept. 11 public address, that this nation was targeted for attack because we are the brightest beacon for freedom in the world. My ACLU colleagues and I took those words to heart and launched a campaign that we called "Safe and Free in Times of Crisis." It embodied our support for the federal government as it struggled to protect us from terrorism. We also made clear that we must defend the essential freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. When the war against terrorism is won, we all want to be able to recognize our country as the land of the safe and the free. Right now the government is blurring the line between waging war and doing justice. Over the past several months, at times with the concurrence of Congress, the executive branch has sought an expansive array of new police powers and employed dangerous tactics. These range from establishing military tribunals that diminish due process, to expanding wiretap authority, to monitoring attorney-client conversations, rifling through confidential business and student records rounding up and detaining immigrants in secret, and questioning certain lawful U.S. residents merely based on their national origin. In his recent testimony before Congress, Attorney General John Ashcroft took another dangerous step when he equated legitimate political dissent with actions unpatriotic and un-American. He warned that criticism of the government would "give pause to our allies, ...ammunition to our enemies, ...and diminish our national resolve." ASHCROFT'S STATEMENT IS ASTONISHING That is an astonishing statement from a government official who had taken an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, including the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech. Some say that limitations imposed on civil liberties during wartime are almost always temporary and that we can expect a return to normal conditions once hostilities are ended. But the war on terrorism, unlike conventional wars such as the two World Wars, is not likely to come to a public, decisive end. Restrictions on civil liberties may be
with us for a long time. They may change the very notion of freedom
in this country and the character of our democratic system. We
need to ask: "Does the proposal represent a fundamental
change in the law that has nothing to do with protecting us?" Since Sept. 11, the administration has assumed vast powers. The USA-Patriot Act, for example, seizes from the judiciary some of its ability to review the actions of the executive. The legal standards for granting law enforcement search-and-seizure warrants are, in some cases, effectively reduced. Wiretapping and surveillance powers are greatly expanded and judicial scrutiny minimized. The administration has virtually stripped immigration judges, the impartial arbiters of immigration cases, of their authority. The administration's rule allowing the government to listen in on conversations between some detainees and their attorneys is particularly disturbing. The right to counsel is one of the most important checks and balances in our constitutional scheme. MILITARY TRIBUNALS REPLACE JURIES Further, the president's military order establishing tribunals to try suspected non-citizens on terrorism charges bypasses the civilian criminal justice system altogether. The president's order allows tribunals to take from defendants the right to a jury trial, a civilian judge, and access to the attorney of their choice. Most importantly, the administration refuses to release crucial information about the fate of the approximately 725-plus detainees currently in custody. And by many accounts, only a dozen of the more than 1,200 people who have been arrested or detained in connection with the investigation of the attacks have any ties with Al Qaeda. The rest, the majority of whom are Muslim or Arab men, were held, or continue to be detained, on technical immigration violations or other wholly unrelated charges. Many are charged with minor violations such as overstaying a tourist visa or working on a student visa. SECRET ORDER DEFIES CONSTITUTION The ACLU has filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of two Detroit newspapers and Rep. John Conyers of Michigan saying that a categorical block on public access to immigration hearings is unconstitutional. Our lawsuit challenges an unprecedented order issued by the Justice Department-secretly, as we later learned-requiring immigration judges hearing these cases to close their courtrooms, regardless of whether classified information was being presented. The records of the proceedings were sealed and immigration court officials directed to say nothing about the cases. Freedom is meaningless unless it is supported by civic responsibility. That requires us to examine the actions taken by our government in the name of national security and to guard against any short-term tradeoffs made in the heat of the moment that needlessly erode fundamental freedoms. We do not challenge the need to be safe. Instead, we insist on the need to be both safe and free. Hispanic Link. (Anthony Romero Esq., a New Yorker of Puerto
Rican heritage, became the sixth ACLU executive director in its
81-year history last September. Romero, 35, served five years
as civil rights and racial justice program officer with the Ford
Foundation before being named as its director of human rights
and international cooperation in 1999. This column summarizes
his presentation made to a National Press Club audience in Washington,
D.C. Feb. 6. To view Romero's full speech, visit aclu.org. Romero
may be contacted by E-mail at aromero@aclu.org) |
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Anti-Terrorist Legislation
Must Be Watched Careful -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pacific News Service, Roberto Lovato, Oct 16, 2001 read source: http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/vie....8888ada017d5259 Unless great care is taken to clearly define "terrorist" and "terrorist organization" in current anti-terrorism proposals before Congress, the rights of all law-abiding Americans could be in jeopardy. Over the past 20 years, the U.S. government has labeled thousands of law-abiding American citizens "terrorists." With the continuing threat of biological and other forms of terror in the aftermath of Sept. 11, the government cannot afford to conduct the unfocused, inefficient domestic intelligence operations of the past. But the anti-terrorism proposals now before Congress could make a dangerous situation even more menacing in the short and long term. In its efforts to protect its policies in Central America during the 1980s, the U.S. government engaged in covert operations, wiretapping, surveillance, and other measures against U.S. citizens and organizations that opposed U.S. policies in the region. In the name of combating terrorism, groups such as the Inter-Religious Task Force on Central America and the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) were targeted. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ross Gelbspan estimates that, during the '80s, "FBI terrorism files swelled by more than 100,000 names, a large portion of whom were law abiding (citizens)." The operations -- documented in thousands of pages of legal and government reports -- were roundly condemned in Congress and in the courts as violations of civil liberties and a waste of valuable intelligence resources. Some Americans have successfully sued the government for its misdeeds during this period. Many church workers, nonprofit agencies, immigrants, businesspeople and others still suffer the consequences of being labeled "terrorist" or "terrorist supporter." Some still live in fear and now have a "Big Brother" view of their government, and say that their privacy has been permanently destroyed. If, in the aftermath of Sept. 11, a search for internal enemies ensues -- as it did during the Palmer raids of World War I or the McCarthyite purges of the '50s -- a national culture of distrust and disunity could develop. This would weaken the resolve urgently needed to address real terrorism. Current proposals before Congress give the Attorney General and the State Department broad new powers to brand current and future domestic groups "terrorist organizations." According to many civil liberties groups, the scope and definition of the terms is so wide that protest groups such as Operation Rescue or Greenpeace could be targeted for surveillance. Even those who provide lodging to members of such "terrorist" organizations could have their homes wiretapped and could end up being prosecuted. Under current proposals for "roving wiretaps," for example, all of the phones and computers on a college campus could be wiretapped or subjected to electronic surveillance if one student is labeled a terrorist for, say, opposing U.S. policy in the same way Central America peace activists and others have done. These broad definitions raise more questions than provide answers. Will the government waste time chasing law abiding Americans instead of those who want to hurt us? Will the priests, nuns, soccer moms, students, businesspeople and others already questioning U.S. domestic and foreign policy be subjected to the same harassment and violations as those who questioned Central America or Vietnam policy? Groups as ideologically diverse as the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Rifle Association have united in the In Defense of Freedom Coalition to monitor the new anti-terrorism legislation. Legislators must craft a definition of "terrorist" that neither paralyzes law enforcement and intelligence agencies at this critical juncture, nor devastates civil liberties and wastes time and resources on law-abiding Americans. Such a definition should focus on those individuals and organizations known to be linked to violent, clandestine acts designed to provoke terror. Unlike the current definition under the Senate anti-terrorism proposal, such a definition would exclude protesting soccer moms and Greenpeace. In a war against an enemy that remains unclearly defined, we cannot afford a broad definition of who among us is a terrorist. And we all must clearly understand and participate in current deliberations about these definitions. Our own safety may well depend on it. PNS commentator Roberto Lovato (roberto_lovato@hotmail.com)
coordinates the Central American Studies Program at California
State Univeristy-Northridge. |
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Paranoia Deepens in Immigrant
Communities -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pacific News Service, Pueng Vongs, Oct 17, 2001 read source: http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/vie....df91f4ce0118ad3 The anxiety sweeping much of the country hits immigrants especially hard, writes PNS contributor Pueng Vongs. Many are curtailing public activities in a country increasingly suspicious of foreigners. SAN FRANCISCO -- As fears of anthrax and further terrorist attacks rattle Americans, immigrants are quietly struggling with an added set of anxieties. Many are watching their step, fearful of attracting suspicion in a country increasingly wary of foreigners. Many also face personal dilemmas of identity and loyalty. Norisa Ismail, born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, recently stepped back from a peace rally that brought together Muslim and Central and South Asian groups. She says she feels "vulnerable" as a green card holder from a Muslim dominated nation on the U.S. travel-advisory list. She thinks any controversial activity may harm her hastily filed application for citizenship -- or worse. Is this needless paranoia? Maybe not. The Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996, signed by President Bill Clinton, enables a special Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) court to use classified -- secret -- evidence to deport U.S. residents or visitors suspected of being members of terrorist groups. According to the law, the accused is provided with only a summary of the evidence. This law, passed after the Oklahoma City bombing, and others passed after the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 caused many innocent immigrants to be arrested and jailed for years, according to Robert Rubin, legal director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco. A revision of the law, entitled "Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorist Act of 2001," or P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, now sits in Congress. It seeks to expand intelligence-gathering methods such as wiretapping, and would widen INS authority to detain and remove suspected terrorists. The bill would redefine the definition of terrorist to include anyone believed to be involved in terrorist activity, a threat to national security, or affiliated with accused terrorists. "While political leaders and others may deem these laws tough and necessary in times of heightened anxieties, they must not sacrifice civil rights in the process," Rubin says. Ismail fears being linked with terrorist cells in Malaysia if she continues to visit annually her ailing parents there. "If things really worsen, I am afraid I may have to cut ties with my family, because I want to have my life in the United States," she says. City and federal officials, including the FBI, recommended to Alberto Estrada, of the San Francisco Immigrant Rights Movement, that he cancel the group's annual Immigrant Pride Day recently. "They feared an anti-immigrant backlash during the event," Estrada said officials told him. But he says the backlash has already begun. Before Sept. 11, President George W. Bush spoke of amnesty for millions of undocumented workers, but those discussions have been left by the wayside. Now, says Estrada, "Mexicans and other immigrants are advised to carry their green cards at public checkpoints like airports, and borders are more vigilant." Many in the Latino community say they feel they must prove their loyalty to the United States if they want to continue to live here, Estrada says. This has resulted in an increased interest on the part of Latinos, especially the undocumented, in joining the U.S. armed forces, according to reports in the Spanish-language press. Estrada, a 14-year resident from Baja California, Mexico, is at the end of a three-year citizenship process, but he's not at peace. "Before I take my oath, anything can happen." He adds, "The United States must separate what happened on the East Coast with immigrants here." The Spanish-language, Los Angeles-based daily La Opinion quotes Mariano Cota from El Salvador, who says he gets a familiar sinking feeling as contemplates the possibility of another terrorist attack on the United States. Cota emigrated to escape the war that ravaged his country for a decade. "I do not wish my experience on anyone. And now we are here and anything can happen," he said. Other ethnic press reports confirm the conflicts facing immigrants. The Chinese-language Sing Tao Daily interviewed a student from China at a California university who said he was afraid of being publicly critical of U.S. foreign policy. He feared reprisals not only from Americans, he told the paper, but from Beijing and from within his own community. After Sept. 11, the Chinese government quickly ordered a block on anti-U.S. statements being made in chat rooms of popular Chinese Internet portals by both Mainland Chinese and Chinese Americans, afraid Beijing would be seen as less than staunch in its support for the United States. Foreign students must also contend with new legislation being proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., which would include closer monitoring of foreigners on student visas. Several suspected hijackers were thought to have entered the country with student visas. In mosques in the United States, clerics have told their constituents it is permissible to join the U.S. armed forces and fight fellow Muslims, according to Ameena Jandali of the Islamic Networks Group. "Many in the community have trouble committing to this war, but are afraid to speak out." Jandali thinks there is a real pressure in the Muslim-American community to support U.S. actions, which she says stems in part from fear for their own personal safety. There have been more than 700 possible hate crimes against Muslims and other religious and ethnic groups following the attacks, according to the Council on American Islamic Relations in Washington. Rayan El-Amine, born in Lebanon and a spokesperson for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, says group leaders in Washington have told members to support U.S. actions in Afghanistan and cooperate with the FBI. "But when hundreds of Arabs are reportedly being held on suspicion of being involved in the attacks, without reports about their well-being, I have real trouble doing this." Vongs edits NCMonline.com (New California
Media), PNS' collaboration of ethnic news organizations. |
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Has George W Bush made the
world safer? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- William Lucie-Smith
Monday, March 20th 2006 read source: http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_opinion?id=144399558 George W Bush's presidency of the United States began on January 20, 2001. Almost immediately he was faced with the crisis of the cowardly terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. These attacks shocked the world because of their truly random and vicious murder of innocents for no obvious and immediate objective. Even the IRA or the PLO or Hamas have objectives and demands that are understood if not condoned. This Al Qaeda attack however appeared to be the epitome of mindless violence with no particular purpose or objective other than murder of innocents and was completely unexpected by almost everybody. Not many of us were familiar with the names Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden before September 2001. That attack has subsequently dominated the minds of George W. Bush and the people of the United States to such an extent that it may have blurred their vision. The immediate reaction was to form a "coalition of the willing" to launch a "war on terror". The unstated objective of this "war on terror" was to make the world (or maybe just the United States) a safer place for people to live in peace and harmony by ridding it of terrorists. There are perhaps other objectives that are less clear, like punishing the perpetrators and bringing peace and democracy to the world. Let us however stick with the prime objective of ridding the world of terrorists to make it a safer place. The war on terror is now in its fifth year and perhaps it is time to ask how is it doing at achieving its objectives. While the United States has had no further terrorist attacks of significance the rest of the world has not been so fortunate. Other members coalition of the willing have suffered terrorist attacks-in London and Madrid-and violence has escalated around the Islamic world and in particular in Iraq, Afghanistan and Bali. The "war on terror" quickly escalated into full scale invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and regime change from the Taliban and Baathist Parties believed by the US to be sympathetic to Al Qaeda and other terrorists. The focus is no longer simply on destroying Al Qaeda and capturing Osama Bin Laden, but now seems to be a world wide crusade for democracy. I use the word "crusade" advisedly because unfortunately this appears to be how the Islamic world including many moderate Muslims view the war on terror. This is of course quite wrong and unfair. George Bush and the leadership of the "coalition of the willing" have been at great pains to say that Islam is not under attack and Muslims are not equated with terrorists. However, the rhetoric must be juxtaposed with the actual actions taking place. The invasion of Iraq has caused massive hardship to the people of Iraq and greatly escalated anti-American feeling among Arabs. It has also allowed the Sunni/Shiite divide to escalate so that Iraq is now on the verge of civil war with no peace or democracy in sight. Paradoxically Iraq has now become a haven for terrorists and a recruiting ground for all anti-American fanatics.
It is worth remembering what George W. Bush's father, George HW Bush, said in explaining why he did not attempt regime change in Iraq after the first Gulf war and withdrew, leaving Saddam in charge. Bush senior explained that to continue the Gulf War would have "incurred incalculable human and political costs we would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq." He explained to veterans "whose life would be in my hands as the commander in chief because I unilaterally went beyond the international law, went beyond the stated mission, and said we're going to show our macho? We're going to be an occupying power-America in an Arab land-with no allies on our side. It would have been disastrous." Rarely has such a comment proven so prophetic and accurate.
The actions of George W Bush seem to have led inexorably to increased tensions in the world. Even though no US newspaper published the stupid Mohammed cartoons, there was massive protest against the US. Now that Dubai Ports World has acquired the UK company P&O that manages six US ports there has been massive US public outrage against the deal. This outrage, notwithstanding that the Emirates is an ally of the US and George W. Bush has endorsed this deal, has led to the Dubai government backing away from the deal to prevent a crisis. The "war on terror" has been a devastating failure and the world is a much less safe place than it was in 2001. Time to go back to the drawing board if we wish to achieve the original objectives. Unfortunately there is no quick fix. |
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Carter: US forced Palestinian
elections on Israel -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- read source: http://www.israpundit.com/2006/?p=561 It’s out in the open. The United States will only permit Israeli governments to act sovereignly in areas that do not directly impact on US interests in the Middle East. When it comes to any really important decisions, including those that affect the security of the State of Israel and its citizens, America insists on the right to order Israel’s actions and will not hesistate to employ blackmail and threats to secure compliance with its demands. It was the Bush administration which forced Israel to permit and to facilitate the Palestinian Authority elections last January. It is therefore directly to blame for Hamas’ ascension to power in the “Palestinian” areas and will be accountable for the fallout that will follow. This is not scuttlebutt or anti-US conspiracy theory. The admission came directly from former US President Jimmy Carter in his answer to a question after he addressed a March 2, 2006 meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York, when he said: “[T]his election … was supported by the United States and forced on Israel by the United States. Israel did not want to have the election, but it was forced on them.” This peremptory action was in line with America’s long-held position that the Jews are not entitled to any more land for their state than that which they held in 1949. Declared Carter: “From Dwight Eisenhower to the road map of George W. Bush, our policy has been that Israel’s borders coincide with those of 1949.” Israel, acutely aware that the United States is the only friend it has on the planet, and unwilling or unable to put its trust in the Almighty, is super-sensitive to pressure from Washington which, for its part, has not been averse to exploiting that dependency, even to the detriment of its “ally’s” interests. During his talk preceding the Q&A session, Carter recalled how the US had strong-armed Israel into the whole land-for-peace process back in 1991. “After a major breakthrough in the peace process occurred under President George H.W. Bush and Secretary James Baker at Madrid, the president reemphasized U.S. opposition to Israeli settlements, and even threatened to withhold American financial aid to Prime Minister Shamir as a deterrent. Jim Baker announced at the time, ‘I don’t think there is any greater obstacle to peace than settlement activity.’” In fact, as recorded in The Jerusalem Post on July 3, 1991, Baker made that scurrilous statement before the Madrid Conference in a shameless effort to force Israel to attend. Nor was this Carter’s only inaccuracy as he made his case for dividing the Land of Israel on a foundation of half-truths and fantasies. He deliberately misquoted United Nations Resolution 242 as follows: “To quote its key commitments, ‘The inadmissability of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every state in the area can live in security, and the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from the territories occupied in the recent conflict.’” As those who have monitored the Arab-Israeli conflict know, Israel insisted that the wording read, “from territories” and not “from the territories” and this wording was accepted, following which Israel withdrew from over 90 percent of the territory it had occupied. Still, consistent with the position he held during his presidency 25 years ago, Carter pursues a clear and unfriendly agenda for Israel. In an op-ed article published in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz earlier this week, he unabashedly decried Israel’s “colonization of Palestine.” Of course, this is the lying language of
Israel’s enemies. There is no Palestine and Israel is not
colonizing anything. |
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Reframing the Election Fraud
Debate -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By David Dill, TomPaine.com. Posted March 9, 2006.
Sure, it'll be hard to make elections more transparent. But it's still more feasible than solving many of our other national problems. read source: http://www.alternet.org/story/33244/
Public trust in our elections is eroding. While the general public still seems to accept election results, there is an undercurrent of bitterness that has grown tremendously over the last few years. There is a rapidly expanding body of literature on the Internet about the "stolen election of 2004," and several books on election fraud have recently been written. More are in the works. Theories of widespread election fraud are highly debatable, to say the least. Some people enjoy that debate. I do not. It encourages a sense of hopelessness and consumes energy that could instead be focused on long-term changes that could give us elections we can trust. The election fraud debate frames the problem incorrectly. The question should not be whether there is widespread election fraud. It should be: "Why should we trust the results of elections?" It's not good enough that election results be accurate. We have to know they are accurate -- and we don't. In a word, elections must be transparent. People must be able to assure themselves that the results are accurate through direct observation during the election and examination of evidence afterwards. U.S. elections are far from transparent. Instead, winning candidates and election officials alike tend to put all their efforts into suppressing recounts. That attitude has led to increasing bitterness with each national election, at least since Florida 2000. But we can conclusively win a debate about election transparency. And while making elections more transparent will be difficult, it is more feasible than solving many of our other national problems. All that is required for success is a long-term strategy and a commitment from many citizens at the grassroots level, since politicians and election officials are not going to solve the problems on their own. Here are some initial thoughts on how we can do it. I propose a four part solution: We need to ensure that voting technology is transparent; election procedures need to be rethought to emphasize openness, security and checks and balances; election laws need to be revised to support these points and to make it easy for candidates to get reliable, manual recounts; finally, citizens need to participate in witnessing elections and making sure they are conducted properly. Questions about voting technology have been in the spotlight in the last few years. The first concerns were about accuracy, inspired by the problems with punch cards in the 2000 election. The supposed solution to that problem lead to plans for the widespread adoption of paperless electronic voting. But paperless e-voting is totally opaque -- no one can observe the handling of the (electronic) ballots. The hardware and software of modern computer systems are designed and built by thousands of specialists: Decades have passed since a single person could comprehend an entire computer system. As a result, there is no way to ensure that such voting systems are accurate or honest. Right now, the only feasible solution to the insecurity of electronic voting is a universal requirement for voter-verified paper records of all ballots (VVPR). We also need to pass laws that enable candidates to obtain manual recounts easily and inexpensively. There is now a national movement to make sure this technology is used, and it's winning, slowly but surely. Since the 2004 election, state after state has passed laws requirement VVPRs, and others have required VVPRs by administrative decree. In most states, this is the result of grassroots activism by citizens groups with support from national groups. A recent example of an outstanding success is New Mexico's law requiring paper ballots, marked by the voters, which was signed March 2. There remains much to do on the technology front, including converting hard-core e-voting states like Texas, Florida, and Georgia to VVPR (or, better, adopting a nationwide law, such as the one proposed by Rep. Rush Holt in the House or the one proposed by Sen. John Ensign). Also, the system for certifying voting technology at the state and national level is completely broken. But these problems can be solved with time and dedicated activism. Election procedures need much greater attention, from the storage of equipment before an election to the storage of ballots after the last recount. Currently, inadequately tested voting machines break down on Election Day. Uncertified and sometimes buggy software is routinely used. Votes are counted behind closed doors. Machines and ballots are in the custody of a single individual, and are sometimes misplaced. Recounts are conducted with rules that are often made up on the spot. Detailed election procedures need to be defined, taking into account the differences between jurisdictions (including differences in technology). These procedures need to be followed rigorously, even in remote locations with underfunded and understaffed election offices. Procedures need to be improved from election to election, and experiences with new procedures need to be shared among different election offices. Many of the reforms in technology and procedures need to be codified in election law, including requiring VVPRs. There should be a law requiring the mandatory auditing of election results by manually counting paper ballots from a random sample of the precincts. Routine manual audits depoliticize recounts because they do not have to be requested by a candidate, and because they must occur regardless of whether an election is close or which candidate won. With routine audits, election problems can be discovered and addressed when the outcome of the election is not in dispute. It is critical that candidates (or, even better, members of the public) be able to obtain manual recounts easily and inexpensively. In recent years, putative winners of close elections have often alluded the "chaos in Florida 2000" for the purpose of suppressing a recount. Recounts conducted under clear rules would not be so chaotic. It is simple common sense to take a close look at the ballots when there is a question about an election. A little cost or effort to satisfy a disgruntled candidate (and his or her supporters) pays huge dividends for democracy. Finally, these improvements will have little effect unless citizens are more involved in elections. Citizens have to generate grassroots pressure for reforms. There need to be observers to take advantage of any increased openness in election procedures. Indeed, many procedural improvements depend on the presence of independent witnesses to be effective. Citizens need to be see what procedures are actually followed in an election, and compare that with the procedures that should be followed. We have seen time and time again that election laws are routinely ignored -- unless someone is watching. Many of our current problems stem from a "quick-fix" attitude -- leading to fresh problems, such as the idea that new touch-screen machines would solve all our election woes. To have the kind of elections we need will take hard work and many years, and there will be setbacks along the way. But if we follow a long-term plan, we'll see that each election is better than the previous. David Dill is a professor of computer science
at Stanford University and founder and board director of the
Verified Voting Foundation. |
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County supervisor draws fire
in quest to ensure valid elections -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BRENT KALLESTAD Associated Press read source: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/14186057.htm TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Elections controversies
just seem to stick to Florida. |
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U.N. Security Council passes
nuclear demands for Iran -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, March 29, 2006 Posted: 2138 GMT (0538 HKT)
read source: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/03/29/UN.iran.ap/index.html UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The U.N. Security Council has unanimously approved a statement Wednesday demanding that Iran suspend uranium enrichment. The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council agreed earlier on a statement demanding that Iran suspend uranium enrichment, setting the stage for the first action by the powerful body over fears that Tehran wants a nuclear weapon. The text gives Iran 30 days to cooperate with the IAEA and suspend its uranium enrichment, according to U.S. Ambassador John Bolton. The council has struggled for three weeks to come up with a written rebuke that would urge Iran to comply with several demands from the board of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, to clear up suspicions about its intentions. Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. "The council is expressing its clear concern and is saying to Iran that it should comply with the wishes of the governing board," Britain's U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones-Parry told reporters. The West believes council action will help isolate Iran and put new pressure on it to clear up suspicions about its intentions. They have proposed an incremental approach, refusing to rule out sanctions. U.S. officials have said the threat of military action must also remain on the table. Russia and China, both allies of Iran, oppose sanctions. They wanted the council statement to make explicit that the IAEA, not the Security Council, must take the lead in confronting Iran. But even though the statement is not legally enforceable, the talks have been extremely sensitive because of the statement's larger significance. Britain, France and the United States wanted the council statement out of the way before their foreign ministers, as well as Germany's meet in Berlin on Thursday to discuss strategy regarding Iran. Wednesday's meeting of the five veto-wielding members of the council -- the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia -- was the fourth in fewer than 24 hours. In Moscow on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov repeated his stance that Moscow would not support the use of force to solve the Iranian nuclear problem. "As many of our European and Chinese colleagues have stated more than once, any ideas involving the use of force or pressure in resolving the issue are counterproductive and cannot be supported," Lavrov said. Iran remains defiant. The government released a statement through its embassy in Moscow on Tuesday warning that Security Council intervention would "escalate tensions, entailing negative consequences that would be of benefit to no party." Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All
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Bush's uncertain step -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GLOBE EDITORIAL read source: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editori....p1=MEWell_Po s4
AMERICA'S LASTING impression of Andrew Card will doubtless be of the solicitous aide whispering horror into the ear of a white-faced President George Bush in a Florida schoolroom on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. It is an appropriate image, because Card has been at Bush's side more than anyone these five years and more. Article Tools History will judge how much Card had to do with Bush's successes and failures. But it is hard to imagine that replacing Card, a pragmatic moderate, with the more conservative Joshua Bolten, who backs cutting social services to extend tax cuts for the rich, will rescue the president, especially if he retains the services of belligerent advisers such as Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove. Many in Massachusetts will remember Card as the four-term state representative from Holbrook who operated effectively as a moderate Republican and knew how to make news. Most notable was his collaboration with a Democratic representative, Philip Johnston, now chairman of the state Democratic Party, to fight corruption in state contracts. Card's tenure in the White House, however, has been marked by a careful avoidance of the spotlight. One slip occurred in 2002: Describing the timing of the campaign to promote the invasion of Iraq, Card said, ''From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." Before that, in May of 2001, Card took some of the blame for the frustration of Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords, whose defection cost Republicans the Senate majority for 18 months. RELATED STORY: Card quits as top Bush aide For the most part, however, Card's service to Bush was characterized by exceptional loyalty and quiet competence in keeping White House squabbles to a minimum. Chiefs of staff try to protect their bosses from surprise. By this standard, Card did not excel. Whether it has been the Sept. 11 attacks, the lack of WMD in Iraq, the strength of the insurgency there, the poor response to Hurricane Katrina, the opposition to Harriet Miers, or the existence of the Dubai ports deal, surprise has been a hallmark of this presidency. But this is not likely to improve unless Bush finds it within himself to make changes far deeper than replacing Andy Card. © Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
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