Hannah's Blog

President Wordsmith?

When did it become a presidential prerogative to redefine the meaning of words? Terrorists are people who injure or kill inconsequential people, whom they don't know and with whom they have no quarrel. Their purpose is to impress or affect the actions of those who have done them wrong.

So, by definition, the people who assassinate political, military or even religious leaders whom they perceive to have sold out their country to an occupying force don't qualify as terrorists. Giving them that name merely creates more confusion about what's really going on.

Indeed, one could more correctly argue that the Iraqi citizens killed in the fall of 2002 by American bombing runs, whose intent was to "provoke" Iraq into a retaliatory strike against some other hapless population, were really the victims of terror attacks, albeit orchestrated by the United States.

Obviously, there is nothing to preclude a nation from resorting to terroristic behavior. The definition depends on the innocence of the victims and the perpetrator's intent--to affect the behavior of someone other than the target--rather than the potency of the arsenal.

While this is not the first time the American president has mischaracterized the behavior of his opponents, what I want to know is why the press keeps letting him get away with it.

catapult the propaganda

Who makes up this shit?

http://www.toostupidtobepresident.com/shockwave/catapultpropaganda.htm

Freedom and Democracy redefined

Never mind the dollars wasted on Halliburton and other cronies. Never mind all the dead soldiers. Never mind the destruction of forests and pastures and the poisons flowing into our rivers.

What's really devastating about the Bush regime is their redefinition of the very principles on which this nation was founded. With a relentlessness that's truly amazing, they have managed to bring both democracy and freedom into ill-repute.

Now when freedom is mentioned all around the globe and the question is asked, "freedom to do what," it isn't the freedom to speak, to write, to travel and to pray without interference that comes to mind. No, as the invasion and occupation of Iraq has made it all too clear, the only freedom that counts is the freedom to use force whenever and wherever America wants.

Democracy, on the other hand, having been reduced to the equivalent of a multiple choice exam marked up with a rubber stamp, has managed to achieve a level of citizen participation that would gladden the heart of any would-be tyrant.

Little wonder, then, that nations looking to escape their own dictatorships are inspired no longer to follow the American model. What a shame and how disheartening that all this damage could be accomplished in just a few years.

N.O. M.A.S.

National Guard soldier serving and patrolling the mean streets of Iraq every day
Civilian occupation : Kindergarten teacher (inner city school) Public Schools
Candidate : for United States Senate in Arizona against John Kyl

I have been talking to my fellow soldiers about this whole situation and I have told them about how the leadership in Washington is trying to get the American people to silence their criticisms of the continued lunacy we call the occupation of Iraq. I tell them that they are saying to the Congress: Well, ya know our poor soldiers wanna stay and finish the fight in Iraq but you people in Washington D.C. are under cutting their morale by bringing up this ?time table stuff? and ?what the hell are we doing in Iraq do we have a plan ? stuff.

When I tell this to my fellow soldiers they immediately begin to laugh and then they get pissed off that such bull shit is being spouted back home because we are the ones who are calling home and telling our families what a bunch of lies and crap they are telling the American people.
There are to be sure some soldiers (fewer and fewer day by day) who are naively still blinding believing the lies in fact if they could have been around in 1968 they would have fit in real well you know what I mean :

What do you mean should we stay in Vietnam ? We?re gonna win this thing. Were killing 50 to a 100 of those Viet Cong and their only killing 3 of us. And then the next question to them would be : Well, what about all the American soldiers who are going to die for this so called Police Action in Vietnam ? Their response: Well, it?s for democracy and if it takes more American sodiers to die well then so be it.
I told some fellow soldiers who still blindly the crap being spoon fed to them about the Vietnam scenerio and their response was: Vietnam and Iraq are not alike its like comparing apples and oranges because Vietnam?s communist were well funded and supplied by the Chinese and I then asked them about the report from the from the CIA that was in the press that stated the terrorist are well funded and they just ignored what I said.

You know what fellow activist? 5 to 10 years from now we are going to be debating these same people after 5,000 to 10,000 American soldiers are killed only to see another undemocratic theocratic church state probably led by another dictator of our choosing ruling Iraq was it worth it? And they?ll probably say: gee, ya know what? Maybe it wasn?t worth it, we should have kicked Sadam Hussein out and then left Iraq and let the Iraqi government we set up run their own country but instead we just stayed on and on and on and the American soldiers continued to die on and on and on and the funerals and the mother and fatheless children continued on and on.

We will have another wall for Iraq like we do for Vietnam? You see Federal 3 piece suited politicians are not really different from City politicians they?ll wait until enough people die before they put in a stop light at the local intersection in their city to them one life is not worth the $100,000 for a stoplight but ah, yes maybe 8 to 10 lives when the voters start to notice. It doesn?t matter to them if the right thing would be to put in a stop light, and it doesn?t matter if people beg them for the safety of their children to put in the stop light because decency and compassion will not get them elected only money and votes. We all know that these hypocrites value money more than they do human life.

Well I?m not gonna wait for another damn wall for Iraq to be filled with the names of my fellow soldiers and I hope your not either. The cause we fight for is noble and just it is : to save the lives of American soldiers who tragically dying over here needlessly. If we can save just one more American soldier?s life who knows we might just end up saving humanity itself. There are those who say that one life is not worth much but I say every human life is the gift of GOD and to destroy one of those lives for the greed and corruption of hypocrites who do not have to fight wars nor whose children do not have to fight wars is a great sin. To lie and say we are dying over here to ensure democracy in the Middle East when what we really are doing is fighting for Exxon and Halitburton is impeachable.

Remember this: not one more American soldier should die over here for it is a needless death that didn?t have to happen but only for the occupation of Iraq.
One last note: Today, after my 3 vehicle patrol passed through a certain stretch of highway an hour to 2 hours later another patrol was hit by a bomb on that same stretch and ANOTHER AMERICAN soldier was killed and at least 3 of his comrades were wounded hopefully they will all live.

NOT ONE MORE AMERICAN SOLDIER! N.O. M.A.S. !

Please pray for us soldiers and we will pray for you
and
the Peace of GOD will see us through.

Leonard Clark (Damned Liberal serving in Iraq)

World Tribunal on Iraq

The sessions of the Tribunal are accessible via San Francisco Bay Are Independent media
http://stream1.transbay.net:8600/listen.pls

      World Tribunal for Iraq, Culminating Session Testimony

Istanbul, Turkey
25 June 2005

Thank you very much for inviting me to the Culminating Session of the
World Tribunal on Iraq. I first went to Iraq in November of 2003 as an
American citizen both frustrated and horrified by what my unelected
government was doing. I went to report on the situation because I was
deeply troubled by the ?journalism? being provided by the corporate
media. At the time, as a frustrated mountain climber from Alaska working
as a journalist in Iraq, I never would have believed I would be
providing testimony to the World Tribunal on Iraq. I want to thank the
organizers for this opportunity. I am honored to be here in solidarity
with the Iraqi people.

In May of 2004 I interviewed a man who had just been released from Abu
Ghraib. Like so many I interviewed from various US military detention
facilities who?d been tortured horrifically, he still managed to
maintain his sense of humor.

He began laughing when telling me how CIA agents made him beat other
prisoners. He laughed, he said, because he had been beaten himself prior
to this, and was so tired that all he could do to beat other detained
Iraqis was lift his arm and let it drop on the other men.

Later, he laughed again as he told me what else had been done to him,
when he said, ?The Americans brought electricity to my ass before they
brought it to my house.?

But this testimony is not about the indomitable spirit of the Iraqi
people. About the dignity and strength of Iraqis, we need no testimony.
This testimony is about ongoing violations of international law being
committed by the occupiers of Iraq on a daily basis in regards to
rampant torture, the neglect and obstruction of the health care sector
and the ongoing failure to allow Iraqis to reconstruct their infrastructure.

To discuss torture, there are many stories I could use here, but I?ll
use two examples indicative of scores of others I documented while in Iraq.

Ali Abbas lives in the Al-Amiriyah district of Baghdad and worked in
civil administration. So many of his neighbors were detained that
friends urged him to go to the nearby US base to try and get answers for
why so many innocent people were being detained. He went three times.

On the fourth he was detained himself. Within two days he was
transferred from the military base to Abu Ghraib, where he was held over
three months without charges before being released.

?The minute I got there, the suffering began,? said Abbas about his
interrogator, ?I asked him for water, and he said after the
investigation I would get some. He accused me of so many things and
asked me so many questions. Among them he said I hated Christians.?

He was forced to strip naked shortly after arriving, and remained that
way for most of his stay in the prison. ?They made us lay on top of each
other naked as if it was sex, and beat us with a broom,? he said. In
addition to being beaten on their genitals, detainees were also denied
water and food for extended periods of time, then were forced to watch
as their food was thrown in the trash.

Treatment also included having a loaded gun held to his head to prevent
him from crying out in pain as his hand-ties were tightened.

?My hands were enlarged because there was no blood because they cuffed
them so tight,? he told me, ?My head was covered with the sack, and they
fastened my right hand to a pole with handcuffs. They made me stand on
my toes to clip me to it.?

Abbas said soldiers doused him in cold water while holding him under a
fan, and oftentimes, ?They put on a loudspeaker, put the speakers on my
ears and said, ?Shut Up, Fuck Fuck Fuck!? In this manner Abbas?s
interrogators routinely deprived him of sleep.

Abbas said that at one point, ?Two men came, one a foreigner and one a
translator. He asked me who I was. I said I?m a human being. They told
me, ?We are going to cut your head off and send you to hell. We will
take you to Guantanamo.??

A female soldier told him, ?Our aim is to put you in hell so you will
tell the truth. These are the orders we have from our superiors, to turn
your lives into hell.?

Abbas added, ?They shit on us, used dogs against us, used electricity
and starved us.?

He told me, ?Saddam Hussein used to have people like those who tortured
us. Why do they put Saddam into trial, but they do not put the Americans
to trial??

But unlike Saddam Hussein, the US interrogators also desecrated Islam as
part of their humiliation.

Abbas was made to fast during the first day of Eid, the breaking of the
fast of Ramadan, which is haram (forbidden).

Sometimes at night when he would read his Koran, Abbas had to hold it in
the hallway for light. ?Soldiers would walk by and kick the Holy Koran,
and sometimes they would try to piss on it or wipe shit on it,? he said.

Abbas did not feel this was the work of a few individual soldiers. ?This
was organized, it wasn?t just individuals, and every one of the troops
in Abu Ghraib was responsible for it.?

Accounts by human rights groups support this. According to an April 2005
Human Rights Watch report, ?Abu Ghraib was only the tip of the iceberg,
it?s now clear that abuse of detainees has happened all over?from
Afghanistan to Guantánamo Bay to a lot of third-country dungeons where
the United States has sent prisoners. And probably quite a few other
places we don?t even know about.?

The report adds, ?Harsh and coercive interrogation techniques such as
subjecting detainees to painful stress positions and extended sleep
deprivation have been routinely used in detention centers throughout
Iraq. An ICRC report concluded that in military intelligence sections of
Abu Ghraib, ?methods of physical and psychological coercion used by the
interrogators appeared to be part of the standard operating procedures
by military intelligence personnel to obtain confessions and extract
information.??

Amnesty International has also released similar findings.

Other human rights groups report that US military doctors, nurses, and
medics have been complicit in torture and other illegal procedures such
as those administered to Sadiq Zoman.

55 year-old Zoman, detained from his home in Kirkuk in a raid by US
soldiers that produced no weapons, was taken to a police office in
Kirkuk, to the Kirkuk Airport Detention Center, the Tikrit Airport
Detention Center and finally to the 28th Combat Support Hospital, where
he was treated by Dr. Michael Hodges, a Lt. Col.

Lt. Col. Hodges? medical report listed Zoman?s primary condition as
hypoxic brain injury (brain damage caused by lack of oxygen) ?with
persistent vegetative state,? myocardial infarction (heart attack), and
heat stroke.?

After one month in custody, Zoman was dropped off in a coma at the
General Hospital in Tikrit by US soldiers. Zoman?s last name was listed
as his first name on the report, despite the fact that all of his
identification papers were taken during the raid on his home. Because of
this, it took his desperate family weeks to locate him in the hospital.

Hodges?s medical report did not mention the fact that the back of
Zomans? head was bashed in, nor that he had electrical burn marks on the
bottoms of his feet and genitals, or why he had lash marks across his
back and chest.

Today he lies in bed still in a coma, and there has been no compensation
provided to his now impoverished family for what was done to Sadiq Zoman.

Another aspect I shall discuss is the catastrophic situation of the
health system in Iraq. I?ve recently released a report on the condition
of Iraq?s hospitals under occupation.

Although the Iraq Ministry of Health has supposedly gained its
sovereignty and received promises of over $1 Billion of US funding,
hospitals in Iraq continue to face ongoing medicine, equipment, and
staffing shortages under the US-led occupation.

During the 1990?s, medical supplies and equipment were constantly in
short supply because of the sanctions against Iraq. The war and
occupation brought promises of relief from effects of the sanctions, yet
hospitals have had little chance to recover and re-supply: instead, the
occupation has closely resembled a low-grade war since its inception. In
addition, allocation of resources by occupation authorities has been
dismal. Thus, throughout Baghdad there are ongoing shortages of
functional equipment and medicines of even the most basic items such as
analgesics, antibiotics, anesthetics and insulin. Surgical items and
even basic supplies like rubber gloves, gauze and medical tape are
running out.

In April 2004, an ICRC report stated that hospitals in Iraq are
overwhelmed with new patients, short of medicine and supplies and lack
both adequate electricity and water, with ongoing bloodshed stretching
the hospitals? already meager resources to the limit.

Ample testimony from medical practitioners confirms this crisis. A
general practitioner at the prosthetics workshop at Al-Kena Hospital in
Baghdad, Dr. Thamiz Aziz Abul Rahman, said, ?Eleven months ago we
submitted an emergency order for prosthetic materials to the Ministry of
Health, and still we have nothing.? After a pause he added, ?This is
worse than even during the sanctions.?

Dr. Qasim al-Nuwesri, the chief manager at Chuwader General Hospital,
one of the two hospitals in the sprawling slum area of Sadr City,
Baghdad and home to 3 million people, added that they, too, faced a
shortage of most supplies and, most critically, of ambulances. But for
his hospital, the lack of potable water was the major problem. ?Of
course we have typhoid, cholera, kidney stones?but we now even have the
very rare Hepatitis Type-E?and it has become common in our area,? said
al-Nuwesri, adding that they never faced these problems prior to the
invasion of 2003.

Chuwader hospital needs at least 2000 liters of water per day to
function with basic sterilization practices. According to Dr.
al-Nuwesri, they received 15% of this amount. ?The rest of the water is
contaminated and causing problems, as are the electricity cuts,? added
al-Nuwesri, ?Without electricity our instruments in the operating room
cannot work and we have no pumps to bring us water.?

At Fallujah General Hospital, Dr. Ahmed, who asked that only his first
name be used because he feared US military reprisals said of the April
2004 siege that ?the Americans shot out the lights in the front of our
hospital. They prevented doctors from reaching the emergency unit at the
hospital, and we quickly began to run out of supplies and much needed
medications.? He also said that Marines kept the physicians in the
residence building several times, intentionally prohibiting them from
entering the hospital in order to treat patients.

In November, shortly after leveling Nazzal Emergency Hospital, US forces
entered Fallujah General Hospital, the city?s only healthcare facility
for trauma victims, detaining employees and patients alike. According to
medics on the scene, water and electricity were ?cut off,? ambulances
targeted or confiscated by the US military, and surgeons, without
exception, kept out of the besieged city.

Hospital raids by US military and US-backed Iraqi forces now appear to
be standard operating procedure. On the 18th of this month, doctors at
the main hospital in Baquba went on strike, saying they are fed up with
constant abuse at the hands of aggressive Iraqi police and soldiers.

Dr. Mohammed Hazim in Baquba, pleaded for his governor to protect he and
his colleagues from ?organized terrorism of the police and army.?

When wounded Iraqi security forces showed up demanding treatment, Dr.
Hussein told one of them he would require an x-ray. The doctor was told
to go to hell by the policeman he was treating and was then beaten. The
same policeman then ordered another police officer to put a bag over the
doctor?s head and take him away.

?Our security guards tried to stop them, telling them I was a doctor,
but they didn't listen and beat the security guards too,? he said, ?Then
one of them put a gun to my head and threatened me.?

Similar behavior has been reported during the recent US-Iraqi military
operations in Haditha and Al-Qa?im. Doctors also recently went on strike
at the large Yarmouk Hospital in Baghdad in a very similar incident.

Many doctors in Iraq believe that the lack of assistance, if not
outright hostility, by the US military, coupled with the lack of
rebuilding and reconstruction by foreign contractors has compounded the
problems they are facing.

The former ambassador of Iraq Paul Bremer admitted that US led coalition
spending on the Iraqi Health system was inadequate when he said, ?It?s
not nearly enough to cover the needs in the healthcare field.?

When asked if his hospital had received assistance from the US military
or reconstruction contractors, Dr. Sarmad Raheem, the administrator of
chief doctors at Al-Kerkh Hospital in Baghdad said, ?Never ever. Some
soldiers came here five months ago and asked what we needed. We told
them and they never brought us one single needle?We heard that some
people from the CPA came here, but they never did anything for us.?

At Fallujah General Hospital, Dr. Mohammed said there has been virtually
no assistance from foreign contractors, and of the US military he
commented, ?They send only bombs, not medicine.?

International aid has been stymied by the horrendous security situation
in Iraq. After the UN headquarters was bombed in Baghdad in August 2003,
killing 20 people, aid agencies and NGOs either reduced their staffing
or pulled out entirely.

With senior Iraqi doctors fleeing Iraq en masse for fear of being
kidnapped, interns and younger doctors are left to deal with the
catastrophic situation. The World Health Organization last year warned
of a health emergency in Baghdad, as well as throughout Iraq if current
conditions persist. But despite claims from the Ministry of Health of
more drugs, better equipment, and generalized improvement, doctors on
the ground still see ?no such improvement.?

In conclusion, a quick summary of the overall situation on the ground in
Iraq is in order. Over two years into the illegal occupation, while Iraq
sits upon a sea of oil, ongoing gasoline shortages plague Iraqis who
sometimes wait 2 days to fill their cars. In a country where a long gas
line once meant a one-car wait, Iraqis who are lucky enough to afford it
now purchase black market petrol and hope that it is not watered down.

Electricity remains in short supply. Most of Iraq, including the
northern region, receives on average 3 hours of electricity per day
amidst the nearly non-existent reconstruction efforts. Even the better
areas of Baghdad receive only 6-8 hours per day, forcing those who can
afford them to use small generators to run fans and refrigerators in
their homes. Of course, this is only for those who?ve been able to
obtain the now rarefied gasoline.

The security situation is, needless to say, horrendous. With over
100,000 Iraqis killed thus far and the number of US soldiers killed
approaching 2,000, the violence only continues to escalate.

Since the new Iraqi so-called government was sworn in two months ago,
well over 1,000 Iraqis and over 165 US soldiers have died in the
violence. These numbers will only continue to escalate as the failed
occupation grinds on. As the heavy handed tactics of the US military
persist, the Iraqi resistance continues to grow in its number and lethality.

As I mentioned before, potable water remains in short supply. Cholera,
typhoid and other water-borne diseases are rampant even in parts of the
capital city as lack of reconstruction continues to plague Iraq?s
infrastructure. Raw sewage is common across not just Baghdad, but other
cities throughout Iraq.

With 70% unemployment, a growing resistance and an infrastructure in
shambles, the future for Iraq remains bleak as long as the failed
occupation persists. While the Bush Administration continues to
disregard calls for a timetable for withdrawal, Iraqis continue to
suffer and die with little hope for their future. With each passing day,
the catastrophe in Iraq resembles the US debacle in Vietnam more and more.

Dr. Wamid Omar Nadhmi, a senior political scientist at Baghdad
University who was invited to this tribunal, told me last winter, ?It
will take Iraqis something like a quarter of a century to rebuild their
country, to heal their wounds, to reform their society, to bring about
some sort of national reconciliation, democracy and tolerance of each
other. But that process will not begin until the US occupation of Iraq
ends.?

And it is now exceedingly clear that the only way the Bush
Administration will withdraw the US military from Iraq in order for
Iraqis to have true sovereignty is if they are forced to do so.

Slight of Hand?

The Department of the Treasury and it's Bureau of the Public Debt seem to have a somewhat different perspective of numbers.

According to the Department of the Treasury, the national debt grew so:

Year Debt % increase
2005 $6,118,364 1.41
2004 $6,033,583 1.46
2003 $5,946,792 1.57
2002 $5,854,990 1.49
2001 $5,768,957 1.45
2000 $5,686,338 1.43

http://www.treas.gov/education/fact-sheets/taxes/fed-debt.shtml

But, it seems a little word got left out--these are all "estimates" from 2000 on

2005 (Estimate) $6,118,364 million
2004 (Estimate) $6,033,583 million
2003 (Estimate) $5,946,792 million
2002 (Estimate) $5,854,990 million
2001 (Estimate) $5,768,957 million
2000 (Estimate) $5,686,338 million
1999 $5,606,087 million
1998 $5,478,711 million
1997 $5,369,694 million
1996 $5,181,921 million
1995 $4,921,005 million

So, what's the real story? According to the Bureau:

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm

date debt % increase
6/23/2005 $7,773,570,880,558.82 5.35
9/30/2004 $7,379,052,696,330.32 8.78
9/30/2003 $6,783,231,062,743.62 8.91
9/30/2002 $6,228,235,965,597.16 7.25
9/28/2001 $5,807,463,412,200.06 2.35
9/29/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.86 0.32
9/30/1999 $5,656,270,901,615.43 2.35
9/30/1998 $5,526,193,008,897.62 2.09
9/30/1997 $5,413,146,011,397.34 3.60
9/30/1996 $5,224,810,939,135.73 5.04
9/29/1995 $4,973,982,900,709.39 5.99

As you can see, while the rate of increase went from almost 6% to less than one half of one percent in the year 2000, after six months of 2005 it's increased more than 5% over last year. If it were to increase at the same rate for the rest of the year, it could reach 10%.

Iraqi Dispatch--for the record

The last session of the Tribunal on Iraq is under way and Dahr Jamail will testify, but today's message is about more recent events.

   June 23, 2005

      Censorship

At long last, the culminating session of the World Tribunal on Iraq is
upon us. As a witness providing testimony, like the other witnesses I?m
being interviewed by many outlets. Today, one of them was by reporters
for one of the larger newspapers in Turkey, the Yeni Safak Newspaper.

I?ll leave the reporters nameless, for reasons you?ll soon see.

The newspaper has been translating various articles of mine into Turkish
and running them, particularly those concerning the most recent Fallujah
massacre. The report who was interviewing me today told me that the
former American consulate here, Eric Edelman, asked the Prime Minister
of Turkey to pressure his paper to not run so many of my stories.

?Why did he do this,? I asked him.

?Edelman said it was the wrong news,? he told me with a smile.

Turns out Edelman also asked that articles by Robert Fisk and Naomi
Klein not be run so often in Yeni Safak either.

He smiled at me while he watched the wheels turning in my head before I
smiled back and said, ?That makes me very happy, it means I?m doing my
job as a journalist.?

We laughed heartily together at this, as did everyone else at the table.

Reminds me of the obtuse hate mails I sometimes receive-confirmation
that I am doing my job-they always make me smile.

So the American government is pressuring foreign countries to censor
their news. Aside from the fact that this act is the height of arrogance
by the United States, it makes it exceedingly clear why so many
Americans who rely on the corporate media for their news continue to be
so misinformed/un-informed about the goings on in Iraq. If the American
government is attempting to censor the news in foreign countries, you
can imagine what they are doing at home.

Because people like Edelman don?t want citizens of the United States to
know that events like the massacre of Fallujah or the atrocities in Abu
Ghraib are not isolated incidents.

People like Edelman don?t want people to know what one of my sources in
Baquba just told me today.

His email reads:

?Near the city of Buhrez, 5 kilometers south of Baquba, two Humvess of
American soldiers were destroyed recently. American and Iraqi soldiers
came to the city afterwards and cut all the phones, cut the water, cut
medicine from arriving in the city and told them that until the people
of the city bring the ?terrorists? to them, the embargo will continue.?

The embargo has been in place now for one week now, and he continued:

?The Americans still won?t anyone or any medicines and supplies into
Buhrez, nor will they allow any people in or out. Even the Al-Sadr
followers who organized some help for the people in the city (water,
food, medicine) are not being allowed into the city. Even journalists
cannot enter to publish the news, and the situation there is so bad. The
Americans keep asking for the people in the city to bring them the
persons who were in charge of destroying the two Humvees on the other
side of the city, but of course the people in the city don?t know who
carried out the attack.?

People like Edelman don?t want people to know about the recent US
attacks in Al-Qa?im and Haditha either. Attacks that Iraqis are
describing as just as bad as the massacre of Fallujah.

On Haditha and Al-Qa?im, an Iraqi doctor sent me this email yesterday:

?Listen?we witnessed crimes in the west area of the country of what the
bastards did in Haditha and Al-Qa?im. It was a crime, a really big crime
we have witnessed and filmed in those places and recently also in
Fallujah. We need big help in the western area of the country. Our
doctors need urgent help there. Please, this is an URGENT humanitarian
request from the hospitals in the west of the country. We have big proof
on how the American troops destroyed one of our hospitals, how they
burned the whole store of medication of the west area of Iraq and how
they killed a patient in the ward?how they prevented us from helping the
people in al-Qa?im. This is an URGENT Humanitarian request. The
hospitals in the west of Iraq ask for urgent help?we are in a big
humanitarian medical disaster??

People like Edelman don?t want the public to know that the same tactics
used in Fallujah by the US military-posting snipers around the city to
shoot anyone who moves, targeting ambulances, impeding medical care, or
the detaining of innocent civilians en masse.

After all, Fallujah is the model. Fallujah is our Guernica. And now,
Haditha, Al-Qa?im can be added to the list, with Baquba and Buhrez under
deconstruction.

Shill or Dupe?

Jeff Jacoby--Shill or Dupe
by hannah

Thu Jun 23rd, 2005 at 05:54:56 PDT

There have been rumors for some time that the Administration is planning another propaganda offensive, despite that fact that they were embarassed by the revelations that the likes of Armstrong Williams and Joseph Perkins were paid shills for unpopular programs.

Comes now Jeff Jacoby with this pean to Bush as the champion of freedom and democracy.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/06/23/the_power_of_presidentia l_solidarity/

The power of presidential solidarity

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | June 23, 2005

''A READER living in Moscow," writes National Review's Jay Nordlinger, ''sent me a photo from a rally in Azerbaijan, which showed a youth holding up a poster of President Bush with the words, 'We Want Freedom.' The reader commented, 'It's good to remember whom people turn to when they're desperate -- and it ain't Kofi Annan.' "

A poster of Bush in Azerbaijan with WE WANT FREEDOM!!!! Give me a large break. He doesn't even ask how that got there or who set up the camera to take the picture.
Then it's time for a little UN bashing.

"It is fashionable in some circles to invoke the United Nations as the touchstone of moral authority, but realists know better. They look to the United States, not the UN, as the great moral engine in world affairs. Like the Lebanese who waved a US flag during the demonstrations in Beirut earlier this year..."

Yes, and where did the Lebanese get that one flag which also just happened to be photographed?

But this is just a prelude. Jacoby ranges over the case against Venezuela, Cuba and, of course, for Israel--calling forth that favorite of the PNAC crowd, Natan Sharansky, who's being resurrected as a "Soviet refusnik."

Perhaps the screed would be more credible if Jacoby didn't try to contradict what everybody knows about Bush--that he doesn't read. In addition to suggesting that Bush had read the book by Sharansky, "The Case for Democracy," he wants us to believe the following:

"Last week Bush met privately with Kang Chol Hwan, who survived 10 years in one of North Korea's horrific slave labor camps. Bush had read ''The Aquariums of Pyongyang," Kang's searing memoir of his experience, and wanted to convey to the author -- and to Kim Jong Il's regime -- how seriously he regards North Korea's abuse of human rights. 'He kept on repeating how deeply sorry he was about the situation,' Kang told The New York Times. 'To hear a president say these deep things made me feel that he cared.'"

And Jacoby concludes what?

"Compared to the policies of his predecessors, Bush's promotion of democracy as a matter of national security, his blunt talk about dictatorships, and the honor he shows dissidents are revolutionary. Think of Gerald Ford in 1975, refusing to meet with the Soviet writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn for fear of irritating Moscow. Or Jimmy Carter in 1979, kissing Leonid Brezhnev on both cheeks and praising the shah of Iran as ''deeply concerned about human rights." Or the first President Bush in 1991, urging Ukrainians not to free themselves from the Soviet Union and allowing Saddam Hussein to savagely crush the Kurdish and Shi'ite uprisings that followed the Gulf War."

Perhaps because Papa Bush is being dissed, we are not to think that this whole thing is a plant? But, we already know there's no loyalty to family or country in this bunch. Not to mention that the crew which has reduced democracy here at home to little more than a rubber-stamp electorate, can't honestly be considered as committed to democracy and human rights.

So, what's this all about? Is it just an attempt to bolster the credibility of our Secretary of State who

"spoke of the recent imprisonment of three Saudi dissidents, whose only offense was to peacefully petition for a constitutional monarchy. ''That should not be a crime in any country," she said."

at the same time that the American Library Association reveals that law officers have requested data about the reading habits of our citizens at least 268 times since 2001?

It's my guess that Jacoby has been recruited to do a little pre-emptive spin control; to blunt the effect of the release of the videos and pictures from Guantanamo, that are expected any day.
That's what the flap over Durbin's comments was very likely about, as well. In reading the FBI comments into the Congressional record, Durbin was preparing the ground and Jacoby has been dispatched to cover the tracks with propaganda.

Of course, that's just my hypothesis. But how else to explain this blatant fabrication?

"Every president speaks of freedom and democracy. Bush is the first to make their promotion the cornerstone of his foreign policy. His critics are legion. But from the slave camps of North Korea to that young man in Azerbaijan, so are those fervently hoping he succeeds."

Wonder how many people it took to work that up.

More to the point. Was Jacoby a willing shill when he was fed this stuff or was he duped into participating in this disinformation campaign?

Mr. Accountability

Why is it so hard to make Republican office holders accountable to the citizens they claim to serve? Perhaps it's because they don't see themselves as public servants. Perhaps its because they see the democratic process is merely an alternate procedure for selecting "rulers." Perhaps its because they consider votes by the electorate to be the sum total of citizen involvement and the ballot merely a variant on what is elsewhere accomplished by heredity succession, military conquest or designation by a secular or religious council of elders.

Of course, if that's the case--if popular elections are merely another way of putting in place a tyrant--then that would explain why democracy strikes some people as more trouble than it's worth.

Indeed, if a majority vote by the citizens merely serves to rubber stamp their own subjugation and enslavement, then the democratic process is worse than nothing. Which is pretty much where we are at the moment.

No wonder there's little enthusiasm for our version of democracy in other nations.

Health Care under Occupation

The world tribunal on Iraq will hold its culminating session in Istanbul from June 23-27, 2005.

Since health care for an occupied population is the responsibility of the occupying power, a comprehensive report on health care in Iraq subsequent to the invasion is in order.

See the whole report at
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/reports/HealthcareUnderOccupationDahrJamail.pdf

The pdf runs to 38 pages. Some salient quotes:

...this report concludes with the following calls to action:

1. The fact that the US government has released so little of the $1 billion in reconstruction funds allegedly allocated to the Ministry of Health should be subject to an immediate congressional investigation to scrutinize the US government's expenditures and actions, as well as the expenditures and actions of western companies that have been awarded contracts in Iraq regarding the health care system. Investigators should be given the power to seek punitive measures for contract violations and over-expenditures and to provide oversight regulation and accountability of the work of these companies in regard to their individual contracts.

2. This abuse of resources and widespread corruption seems a natural consequence of the lack of oversight of multinational corporations, owing perhaps primarily to their immunity under Iraqi law as established by Executive Order #17. An institutional regime consisting of international oversight, which would include a legitimate body of experts on essential services and representatives of the country's medical society, should be created and put to work immediately.

3. An independent investigation should be launched to probe the actions of the US military reagrding its alleged interference with Iraqi healthcare personnel and facilities, specifically with regard to the city of Fallujah. This investigation should include a more general appraisal of US military actions that have interfered with efforts to provide both healthcare and emergency services to a population under occupation. This investigation should also examine the issue of accountability to clearly identify who is accountable for this state of affairs. In order to facilitate independent inquiries into these and other human rights issues, the post of the UN Human Rights Rapporteur, vacant since 2003, should be filled immediately.

4. Every Iraqi who has suffered the loss of a loved one, injury or property damage as a result of the invasion and insuing occupation should immediately be compensated in full by western standards, not the $2500 payout the US military has set as the standard fee for a dead Iraqi.

DSM--evidence of deception

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/06/21/deceptions_damning_documents

The author of the op-ed does a good job of reviewing things some of us already know.
This observation is new. There must be lots of other people who can testify to similar experiences.

"I follow Iraq pretty closely, but was taken aback when Charlie Clements, now head of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, described driving in Iraq months before the war ''and a building would just explode, hit by a missile from 30,000 feet." ''What is that building?" Clements would ask. ''Oh, that's a telephone exchange." Later, at a conference at Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base, Clements heard a US general boast ''that he began taking out assets that could help in resisting an invasion at least six months before war was declared."

Men of Principle

What do Mississippi, Wyoming and New Hampshire have in common? Their senators are men of principle and none of them are inclined to support a resolution apologizing for the Senate's failure to make lynching a federal crime.
Their position may be valid, since the resolution recently approved by a voice vote, in the dead of night, doesn't make it a crime now, either.

But, their principled position might carry more weight, if they'd actually introduced legislation to make lynching a federal crime, along with a whole slew of ad hoc abuses of human rights that seem to be rampant in our state and federal prisons.

If the vile treatment of captives in Guantanamo and Iraq isn't universally recognized as torture, it may well be because similar behavior is par for the course here at home.

On the other hand, Judd Gregg's explanation that his failure to object to the resolution shows that he's for it is not encouraging. Applying this line of reasoning to the subject of the resolution would suggest that the failure to speak out against lynching means he supports it.

We Are the Stop Sign

All I gotta say this morning is "way to go Georgie!"

Every once in a while he gets it exactly right!

I had heard that he accused Democrats of being obstructionists. I didn't know, until the Globe highlighted it as a quote of the week, that his brain made him tell the truth, once again.

Why else would he say that the Democratic leadership has "the philosophy of the stop sign, the agenda of the roadblock"? Who's he trying to appeal to? Teenagers speeding through the neighborhood, bashing mail-boxes and upsetting the dogs? Or maybe he identifies with the bank-robber, who's about to be stopped by a hastily assembled road-block, lucky if he doesn't get shot by trigger-happy cops.

Yes, indeed Georgie. We're about to enforce the law. You may be able to run stop-signs in your motorcade, but the Constitution you'll not evade.
Listen to your brain. Sometimes it actually tells the truth--even makes accurate predictions.

click to see the authoritative report--registration required

The World's Hospital

The world's hospital

A few days in an NHS ward show you what we in Europe are struggling to defend
Timothy Garton Ash
Thursday June 16, 2005

Guardian
'It is good to have many brothers," Tamir, from Iraqi Kurdistan, gravely advises me. "Then if someone does a bad thing to you, your brother does a bad thing to him." You mean, for example, kill him? "Yes!" Tamir laughs.

Tamir (I have changed his name, and most others in this article) is a cleaner in the hospital ward where I have involuntarily spent the past few days. He is just one from the legion of different nationalities who have marched past my sickbed - Ugandan, Czech, Zimbabwean, Trinidadian, Kurdish, Filipino, German, occasionally even English - in the various liveries of Britain's largest army, the National Health Service. Making my bed are Xhara from Uganda and Joseph, who, she now discovers, is from Zimbabwe. The following dialogue ensues across the bedclothes:

Xhara: "Did you go to the demonstration against Mugabe driving people out of their houses?"

Joseph (looking uncomfortable): "No. And you know they were sort of huts not houses. And from a certain point of view you could say those people were a kind of social disease."

Xhara: "OK, but they should have built them new houses first."

Joseph: "Ah, it's all a game of politics."

Xhara: "Yes, we know politics is a game, but I think you are a Mugabe man! [loud laugh]"

Joseph mutters an embarrassed half-denial. However, when he comes back to take my blood pressure, he insists that Mugabe has done much for education (Joseph was a teacher back home), healthcare and the country's independence. "And if he is a dictator, then he is still better than Idi Amin!" This would seem to qualify for a world record in faint praise. But yes, the economy is so rotten, he and his wife have both come to work in the NHS.

Joseph particularly approves of the seizure of white farmers' land in Zimbabwe. Next thing, a nurse with an attractive honey complexion calls at my bedside. I can't quite place her accent. Where's she from? "Zimbabwe ... you know, Rhodesia." Yes, her parents were landowners, and yes, they were expropriated. So she, too, came to work in the NHS. This British hospital begins to feel like the Statue of Liberty: bring me your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breath free.

My least favourite nurse is Milada, a big, bossy woman from the Czech Republic. Even murmuring a few words in her native Czech barely softens her. Only once do I hear her really laugh. This is when I ask her opinion of the new Czech president, the Thatcherite economist Vaclav Klaus. "Klaus," she says, "is an idiot. A real idiot!" You must imagine this said very loudly, in a Czech accent, with a short "o" and the sound of two "ts" at the end. Then a great Slavonic guffaw wakes the old man in the next bed. Twenty years ago, she would have had great difficulty coming to work here and, like Joseph, might have hesitated to criticise her president, even abroad. But now: "Klaus is an idiot!"

While the carers are mainly young and foreign, the patients on this ward are mostly elderly, white and British. They have old-fashioned English names like Reg, Jack and Fred. Since the hospital beds are divided only by all-round curtains, you can hear everyone else's conversations, while they assume they are talking privately - the perfect set-up for a writer.

What I heard, and saw a little when the curtains were drawn back, was a moving culture of caring. Old-fashioned terms of endearment rained down upon us: "Here are your pills, my love", "Come on, sweetheart". Also: love, luvvie, darling, honey, my tuppence. Spoken in all the accents of the world to Fred, a white-haired old man who could neither feed nor lift himself. On Fred, well into Shakespeare's seventh age - sans teeth, sans everything - the greatest care was lavished. Even bossy Milada found a gentle word for Fred. "Ok, luvvie," said an English nurse, "this evening it will be Mark, Chapter Two." As night fell, St Mark's Gospel sounded through the curtains, read from what Marilyn Monroe once called "that book by Mr Gideon" - and very loudly, because Fred was also deaf. It was wonderful to see how they all worked, in their different ways, to give this poor old man the greatest gift: dignity.

So far as I could judge, the medical treatment was first class. The food was remarkably good, including the Leading Chef dishes, designed with the help of seven top UK chefs. Nurses told me that pay is slowly getting better. Only the cleaning seemed to me still very patchy, lagging somewhat behind the sanitary conditions I recently found in a modest hotel in Bucharest. But the great thing was this culture of caring.

At one point, in my slightly fevered state, I found myself thinking that it made me proud to be British - a phrase of such Daily Mail-type blimpdom that I would never use it while in usual health. But yes, what I saw in this NHS ward made me proud to be British, in a way that no military victory, no sporting triumph, no government, monarch or pageant ever did. Proud to be a citizen of a nation that thinks it worth spending so much of the money we earn to give even the poorest, oldest man or woman a basic dignity. Proud of those showers of endearments, which low-paid staff from Trinidad, the Philippines, Zimbabwe and Kurdistan somehow find it easy to adopt, as a British version of something universal.

Suddenly, I found myself thinking: "Oh heck, people will want me to comment on the EU summit." Well, you know what, the last thing in the world I want to write about is that bunch of weary, short-sighted, retread opportunists, laughably called "European leaders", who are tearing apart a magnificent project before our very eyes. Sod them (I thought, still in my slightly fevered state). I want to write about this hospital ward - a far more uplifting spectacle. And then I realised that in writing about this NHS ward, I would be writing about Europe after all.

With its ageing native-born population, Europe's future is Fred: an old white man propped-up by immigrant workers and spoon-fed by foreign carers. One big test for Europe is whether we can display the basic norms of our society in a way that makes it possible for migrants - whether they are secular, Christian, Muslim or Chinese - to accept and adopt, because they connect also to their own. That is something which, on my admittedly brief observation, the British National Health Service succeeds in doing, with its culture of caring.

More broadly, the NHS represents a historic choice, born of the confrontation between modern industrial capitalism, on the one hand, and labour, socialist and communist movements on the other. It's the British version of a choice for a more humane, democratic version of capitalism that most European countries have made, in their different ways. Emerging from hospital, I feel now more than ever that this is the right choice. So the real question our so-called leaders should be addressing in Brussels today is this: in a world being completely remade by the fall of barriers to trade and the economic rise of Asia, how the hell can we still afford to pay for it? We need a better answer than Tamir's.

Quotes from the Blog--BFA

I think we are at a turning point. Yesterday was Howard Dean Day. Today is John Conyers Day.

Ginny in Portland wrote on June 16, 2005 12:46 AM:

Consider this exchange re the recent Dean Backbiting:

Curt: I SENT $25 AS SOON AS THE CONTROVERSARY STARTED. IT'S THE FIRST MONEY I HAVE GIVEN THE PARTY SINCE DEAN TOOK OVER. I INTEND TO CONTINUE TO CONTRIBUTE.

Me: Way to go Curt --- and it means extra considering the circumstances you're in. I want to thank you so much for engaging in do-it-yourself campaign finance reform!

Curt: I ALSO EMAILED SEN BIDEN AND EXPRESSED MY FEELINGS THAT THE OLD GUARD DEMOS ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM AND CERTAINLY NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION!

Me: Excellent. I want to tell you a funny thing I did. You know the website "Truthout"? Well they have been doing a fundraiser and they deserve the funds so much I decided to become a monthly contributor. I clicked through the contribution screens and there was a question "Is your contribution in honor of someone special?" I clicked "yes" and said "Howard Dean". When I finished giving my Visa info it took me to a screen where I was told that a "special tribute letter" in honor of the person I named will be sent to the person I want to notify. So naturally I entered Sen. Joseph Biden at the Russell Senate Office Building. On the spare Address2 line I wrote DEAN SPEAKS FOR ME just for a little extra emphasis. I will love it that Senator Biden will be informed, by letter to his office, that a monthly subscription to Truthout has been purchased by me in honor of Howard Dean ... and the good people at Truthout just wanted him to know. :-)

Curt: ARRIANNA HUFFINGTON HAD IT RIGHT -- ANYONE
ADVOCATING A MOVE 'TO THE MIDDLE' SHOULD BE SWALLOWED UP BY A CRACK IN THE EARTH.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

JudyforDean wrote on June 16, 2005 01:14 AM:

Good post! In 1978, when I was in grad school on scholarship and where I was very lucky to be receiving funds from a teaching sabbatical (1/2 my regular salary which equalled about $11,000 for a family of three), I remember reading an article written by President Carter's daughter-in-law who had spent a month (or two? really can't remember) trying to make ends meet on food stamps, which are somewhat akin to minimum wage.

Her conclusion: it could be done, but only if one watched one's pennies very carefully and was able to get to the larger outlets (underlining the need for good public transportation) and/or was able to grow vegetables in a small garden, rather than be at the mercy of local business pricing. She also came to the conclusion that the whole experience was soul-destroying in so many ways.

The article resonated with me that year especially and one thing that she mentioned was how little "frills" like condiments were unaffordable. She sais that she grew to understand how sometimes people just wanted to blow everything on something totally inappropriate, if for nothing else than to break the relentless daily cycle.

Soul-destroying indeed!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HEPhysics wrote on June 16, 2005 02:59 AM:

It has been a while since I visited, but some things never seem to change.

Once upon a time there was a presidential candidate that had an agenda that presented solutions to the most pressing problems our country faces that were economical, feasable and believe it or not workable IF, and only IF people could think beyond their own self interests.

He garnered a completely overlooked section of the Democratic Party, and began a revolution in how politics can actually be done on a semi-individual plane between the candidate and the supporters.

He had one problem.

He wasn't in it for the money. He just wanted to do something to make our country more what we think it is.

His name was Howard Dean. I still wear my Howard Dean t-shirts. I have a brand new Dean For America bumper sticker on my car. (I saved a bunch of them for replacement after the old ones wore out.)

No candidate, at least on the Presidential scale, will win an election unless and until the money is taken out of the equation. The American people are to a large extent complacent cows. They only vote if they see a reward for doing so. We have elections at the 50 percent turnout level, and discussion of 'moderate' or 'centrist' candidates seems to be a hot topic.

No wonder our great country is held in such low regard from the remaining 90 percent of people living on this planet.

You want to keep this record up? Elect a p.o.s. candidate like Kerry or Bush.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sophie Amrain wrote on June 16, 2005 05:02 AM:

The story below is told by Sgt. Zachary Scott-Singley, 24, who grew up in Washington state and is an Arabic language translator serving in Iraq with the 3rd Infantry Division.
The sergeant has been in the Army for five years. He fought in the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
.....
The targets were three houses where RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) attacks had come from a few days before.
..........
After the briefing we convoyed to the raid site. I was to go in directly after the military police who would clear the buildings. The raid began without a hitch. I was inside the courtyard of a house questioning a woman when I heard gunfire.
................
I ran up and overheard the captain asking what had happened and why this soldier had opened fire. The soldier answered that he had seen a man holding an AK-47 in the back of the black truck.
...................
There were four Iraqis walking towards us from the black truck. They were carrying a body, a small boy no more than 3 years old. His head was cocked at the wrong angle and there was blood. So much blood. The Iraqi men were crying and asking me WHY?

"Someone behind me started screaming for a medic. It was the young soldier who had fired. He screamed for a medic until he was hoarse. A medic came just to tell us what we already knew: The boy was dead.
............
"I can still see it all to this day. There were no weapons found and we accomplished nothing besides killing a child. I stayed as long as I could, talking to the man holding the child. I couldn't leave because I needed to know who they were. I wanted to remember. The man was the child's uncle, minding him for his father who had gone to the market. They were carpenters and what the soldier who had fired on the truck had seen was one of the Iraqi men standing in the truck bed, holding a piece of wood.

"Before I left I saw the young soldier who had killed the boy. His eyes were unfocused and he was just standing there, staring off into the distance.
.......................
To this day I still think about that raid, that family, that boy. I wonder if they are attacking us now. I would be. If someone took the life of my son or my daughter nothing other than my own death would stop me from killing them. I still cry when the memory hits me.

***********************************
An eyewitness account from Iraq. IMO remarkable for its honesty and ability to appreciate the value of an Iraqi human life.

Such things do happen in a war. And they are on the conscience of those that started the war. It does not matter that Bush did not contemplate killing particularly this Iraqi child. It does not matter that he presumably does not enjoy killing kids. The individual cases are unforseen and unintended, but the general pattern is foreseeable and foreseen AND THEREFORE the consequences are accepted (in German we call it 'billigend in Kauf nehmen', not sure about the translation of the term). So the Bushis do not escape their moral responsability for the death of this boy and many others (they may be able to wiggle out of it in a legal sense, because our law puts [IMHO too] much emphasis on intentional misdeeds).

Conyers Health Plan

Executive Summary of The United States National Health Insurance Act (HR676) (PDF),
("Expanded & Improved Medicare For All Bill")
*introduced by Cong. John Conyers, 108th Congress
Brief Summary of Legislation

The United States National Health Insurance Act (HR676) establishes a new American national health insurance program by creating a single payer health care system. The bill would create a publicly financed, privately delivered health care program that uses the already existing Medicare program by expanding and improving it to all U.S. residents, and all residents living in U.S. territories. The goal of the legislation is to ensure that all Americans, guaranteed by law, will have access to the highest quality and cost effective health care services regardless of one's employment, income, or health care status.

With over 42 million uninsured Americans, and another 40 million who are under insured, the time has come to change our inefficient and costly fragmented health care system. The USNHI program would reduce overall annual health care spending by over $50 billion in the first year. In addition, because it implements effective methods of cost-control, health spending is contained over time, ensuring affordable health care to future generations.

In its first year, single-payer will save over $150 billion on paperwork and $50 billion by using rational bulk purchasing of medications. These savings are more than enough to cover all the uninsured, improve coverage for everyone else, including medication coverage and long-term care.

Employers who currently provide coverage for their employees pay an average of 8.5% of payroll towards health coverage, while many employers can't afford to provide coverage at all. Under this Act, all employers will pay a modest 3.3% payroll tax per employee, while eliminating their payments towards private health plans. The average cost to an employer for an employee earning $35,000 per year will be reduced to $1,155, less than $100 per month.

95% of families will pay less for health care under national health insurance than they do today. Seniors and younger people will all have the comprehensive medication coverage they need.
Who is Eligible

Every person living in the United States and the U.S. Territories would receive a United States National Health Insurance Card and i.d number once they enroll at the appropriate location. Social Security numbers may not be used when assigning i.d cards. No co-pays or deductibles are permissible under this act.
Benefits/Portability

This program will cover all medically necessary services, including primary care, inpatient care, outpatient care, emergency care, prescription drugs, durable medical equipment, long term care, mental health services, dentistry, eye care, chiropractic, and substance abuse treatment. Patients have their choice of physicians, providers, hospitals, clinics, and practices.
Conversion to a Non-Profit Health Care System

Private health insurers shall be prohibited under this act from selling coverage that duplicates the benefits of the USNHI program. They shall not be prohibited from selling coverage for any additional benefits not covered by this Act; examples include cosmetic surgery, and other medically unnecessary treatments.
Cost Containment Provisions/ Reimbursement

The National USNHI program will annually set reimbursement rates for physicians, health care providers, and negotiate prescription drug prices. The national office will provide an annual lump sum allotment to each existing Medicare region, which will then administer the program. Payment to health care providers include fee for service, and global budgets.

The conversion to a not-for- profit health care system will take place over a 15 year period, through the sale of U.S. treasury bonds; payment will not be made for loss of business profits, but only for real estate, buildings, and equipment.
Funding & Administration

The United States Congress will establish annual funding outlays for the USNHI Program through an annual entitlement. The USNHI program will operate under the auspices of the Dept of Health & Human Services, and be administered in the former Medicare offices. All current expenditures for public health insurance programs such as S-CHIP, Medicaid, and Medicare will be placed into the USNHI program.

A National USNHI Advisory Board will be established, comprised primarily of health care professionals and representatives of health advocacy groups.
Proposed Funding For USNHI Program: $1.86 Trillion Per Year

A payroll tax on all employers of 3.3%. Maintain employee and employer Medicare payroll tax of 1.45%. Implement a variety of mechanisms so that low and middle income families pay a smaller share of their incomes for health care than wealthiest 5% of Americans; i.e, a health income tax on the wealthiest 5% of Americans, a small tax on stock and bond transfers, and closing corporate tax shelters. A repeal of the Bush tax cut of 2001. For more details, see PNHP's "Financing National Health Insurance."

*For more information, contact Joel Segal, legislative assistant, Rep. John Conyers, at 202 225-5126, or e- mail at Joel. Segal@mail.house.gov

Did You Get the Memo?

Oh JOY!!!

listener wrote on June 14, 2005 07:33 PM:

............V....I.....C.....T.....O.....R.....Y........
................DANCE! DANCE! DANCE!...........
......................................... o ............ o
....................*O* ...............\\ .. O .. //
................"==||==" .............\\ .||. //
..................... || ........................||
....................//..\\ ................ == \\
..................//....// .................\\ ... \\
..................=.....= ...............= .......=
EVERY BODY DO THE 'DEAN CAME TO VISIT' DANCE!

Iraqi Timeline

http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/muriel/path_of_war_timeline_613.htm

January 26, 1998
The Project for a New American Century urges President Clinton to oust Saddam Hussein. Among the eighteen signers are Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and John Bolton. (New American Century)
May-July 1999

In 1999, Mickey Herskowitz is hired to ghostwrite a campaign autobiography for George W. Bush, an assignment that was later withdrawn. Herskowitz later spoke about Bush for an article by journalist Russ Baker: ?He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999... It was on his mind. He said to me: ?One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.? ?

"According to Herskowitz, Bush?s beliefs on Iraq were based in part on a notion dating back to the Reagan White House ? ascribed in part to now-vice president Dick Cheney, Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee under Reagan. ?Start a small war. Pick a country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and invade.?

"Bush?s circle of pre-election advisers had a fixation on the political capital that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher collected from the Falklands War. Said Herskowitz: ?They were just absolutely blown away, just enthralled by the scenes of the troops coming back, of the boats, people throwing flowers at [Thatcher] and her getting these standing ovations in Parliament and making these magnificent speeches.? (Guerrilla News Network)
December 1999
In December 1999, "Bush surprises veteran political chroniclers with his blunt pronouncements about Saddam at a six-way New Hampshire primary event: ?It was a gaffe-free evening for the rookie front-runner, till he was asked about Saddam?s weapons stash,? a Boston Globe reporter penned. ?I?d take ?em out,? [Bush] grinned cavalierly, ?take out the weapons of mass destruction?I?m surprised he?s still there,? said Bush of the despot who remains in power after losing the Gulf War to Bush Jr.?s father? It remains to be seen if that offhand declaration of war was just Texas talk, a sort of locker room braggadocio, or whether it was Bush?s first big clinker.? (Boston Globe; Also Russ Baker)
September 2000

The Project for a New American Century's "Rebuilding America's Defenses" states: Though the immediate mission of those forces is to enforce the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq, they represent the long-term commitment of the United States and its major allies to a region of vital importance. Indeed, the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein. (New American Century)
January 2001

From the moment he took office, Bush made noises about "finishing the job his father started." (Time Magazine)

George Bush?s former treasury secretary Paul O?Neill asserts that Bush took office in January 2001 fully intending to invade Iraq and desperate to find an excuse for pre-emptive war against Saddam Hussein. ?From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,? O?Neill said. ?For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the US has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap.? (Sunday Herald)

Testifying at his Senate confirmation hearing former General Colin Powell, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War, said Bush wanted to ?re-energize the sanctions regime? and increase support to Iraqi groups trying to overthrow Hussein. Powell also said Hussein, ?is not going to be around in a few years time.? (Air Force Magazine Online)

Vice President Dick Cheney, who was defense secretary during the war against Iraq, has also suggested a Bush administration might ?have to take military action to forcibly remove Saddam from power,? as has current Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. (Cato Institute)
February 16, 2001
Twenty-four US and UK warplanes bomb sites near Baghdad. Bombings within the no-fly zones have previously been common, but these are more widely noted and criticized. (CNN)
April 2001

Cheney's energy task force takes interest in Iraq's oil. Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century describes America's "biggest energy crisis in its history." It targets Saddam as a threat to American interests because of his control of Iraqi oilfields and recommends the use of 'military intervention.'

The report is linked to a veritable who's who of US hawks, oilmen and corporate bigwigs. Commissioned by James Baker, the former US Secretary of State under Bush Sr., it was submitted to Vice-President Dick Cheney in April 2001 -- a full five months before September 11. It advocated a policy of using military force against an enemy such as Iraq to secure US access and control of Middle Eastern oil fields. (Sunday Herald)
September 11, 2001

In his address to the nation on the evening of Sept. 11, Bush decides to include a tough new passage about punishing those who harbor terrorists. He announces that the U.S. will "make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." To many observers, the president's words set the tone and direction for the Bush administration's policy on Afghanistan and Iraq. (PBS)
September 12, 2001

According to Richard A. Clarke: "I expected to go back to a round of meetings [after September 11] examining what the next attacks could be, what our vulnerabilities were, what we could do about them in the short term. Instead, I walked into a series of discussions about Iraq... I realized with almost a sharp physical pain that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were going to try to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq...By the afternoon on Wednesday [after Sept. 11], Secretary Rumsfeld was talking about broadening the objectives of our response and "getting Iraq."

"On September 12th, I left the video conferencing center and there, wandering alone around the situation room, was the president. He looked like he wanted something to do. He grabbed a few of us and closed the door to the conference room. "Look," he told us, "I know you have a lot to do and all, but I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way."

"I was once again taken aback, incredulous, and it showed. "But, Mr. President, Al Qaeda did this."

"I know, I know, but - see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred--" On the Issues ("Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," by Richard A. Clarke)

September 13, 2001

Two days later, Wolfowitz expands on the president's words at a Pentagon briefing. He seems to signal that the U.S. will enlarge its campaign against terror to include Iraq: "I think one has to say it's not just simply a matter of capturing people and holding them accountable, but removing the sanctuaries, removing the support systems, ending states who sponsor terrorism. And that's why it has to be a broad and sustained campaign."

Colin Powell and others are alarmed by what they view as Wolfowitz's inflammatory words about "ending states." Powell later responds during a press briefing: "We're after ending terrorism. And if there are states and regimes, nations that support terrorism, we hope to persuade them that it is in their interest to stop doing that. But I think ending terrorism is where I would like to leave it, and let Mr. Wolfowitz speak for himself." (PBS)
September 15, 2001

Four days after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush gathers his national security team at Camp David for a war council. Wolfowitz argues that now is the perfect time to move against state sponsors of terrorism, including Iraq. But Powell tells the president that an international coalition would only come together for an attack on Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, not an invasion of Iraq. The war council votes with Powell. Rumsfeld abstains. The president decides that the war's first phase will be Afghanistan. Iraq will be reconsidered later. (PBS)
September 16, 2001
According to a 60 Minutes piece, citing Bob Woodward: "just five days after Sept. 11, President Bush indicated to Condoleezza Rice that while he had to do Afghanistan first, he was also determined to do something about Saddam Hussein. "There's some pressure to go after Saddam Hussein. Don Rumsfeld has said, ?This is an opportunity to take out Saddam Hussein, perhaps. We should consider it.? And the president says to Condi Rice meeting head to head, ?We won't do Iraq now.? But it is a question we're gonna have to return to,?? says Woodward. (CBS News)
October 2001
The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh writes: "They call themselves, self-mockingly, the Cabal?a small cluster of policy advisers and analysts now based in the Pentagon?s Office of Special Plans. In the past year, according to former and present Bush Administration officials, their operation, which was conceived by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, has brought about a crucial change of direction in the American intelligence community. These advisers and analysts, who began their work in the days after September 11, 2001, have produced a skein of intelligence reviews that have helped to shape public opinion and American policy toward Iraq. They relied on data gathered by other intelligence agencies and also on information provided by the Iraqi National Congress, or I.N.C., the exile group headed by Ahmad Chalabi.

According to the Pentagon adviser, Special Plans was created in order to find evidence of what Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, believed to be true?that Saddam Hussein had close ties to Al Qaeda, and that Iraq had an enormous arsenal of chemical, biological, and possibly even nuclear weapons that threatened the region and, potentially, the United States. (New Yorker)

Also according to Seymour Hersh, in the fall of 2001, an unsupported allegation by Italian intelligence that Iraq had been attempting to buy uranium from Niger in 1999 was snatched up by Cheney:

Sometime after he first saw it, Cheney brought it up at his regularly scheduled daily briefing from the C.I.A., Martin said. ?He asked the briefer a question. The briefer came back a day or two later and said, ?We do have a report, but there?s a lack of details.? ? The Vice-President was further told that it was known that Iraq had acquired uranium ore from Niger in the early nineteen-eighties but that that material had been placed in secure storage by the I.A.E.A., which was monitoring it. ?End of story,? Martin added. ?That?s all we know.? According to a former high-level C.I.A. official, however, Cheney was dissatisfied with the initial response, and asked the agency to review the matter once again. It was the beginning of what turned out to be a year-long tug-of-war between the C.I.A. and the Vice-President?s office. (New Yorker)
November 21, 2001

60 Minutes further cites Bob Woodward: ?President Bush, after a National Security Council meeting, takes Don Rumsfeld aside, collars him physically, and takes him into a little cubbyhole room and closes the door and says, ?What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq? What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret.?"

Woodward says immediately after that, Rumsfeld told Gen. Tommy Franks to develop a war plan to invade Iraq and remove Saddam - and that Rumsfeld gave Franks a blank check," Woodward says. (CBS News)
Late 2001
By the end of 2001, diplomats were discussing how to enlist the support of Arab allies, the military was sharpening its troop estimates, and the communications team was plotting how to sell an attack to the American public. The whole purpose of putting Iraq into Bush's State of the Union address, as part of the "axis of evil," was to begin the debate about a possible invasion. (Time Magazine)
January 29, 2002
In his State of the Union Adress, Bush calls Iraq part of an "axis of evil," and vows that the U.S. "will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons." (White House)
February 13, 2002

Ken Adelman, a onetime assistant to Donald Rumsfeld, writes that the conquest of Iraq would be a cakewalk: "I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps...

In 1991 we engaged a grand international coalition because we lacked a domestic coalition. Virtually the entire Democratic leadership stood against that President Bush. The public, too, was divided. This President Bush does not need to amass rinky-dink nations as "coalition partners" to convince the Washington establishment that we're right. Americans of all parties now know we must wage a total war on terrorism. (Washington Post)
January-February 2002

The Niger uranium story becomes a matter of contention within the CIA; By early 2002, the intelligence?still unverified?had begun to play a role in the Administration?s warnings about the Iraqi nuclear threat. On January 30th, the C.I.A. published an unclassified report to Congress that stated, ?Baghdad may be attempting to acquire materials that could aid in reconstituting its nuclear-weapons program.? A week later, Colin Powell told the House International Relations Committee, ?With respect to the nuclear program, there is no doubt that the Iraqis are pursuing it.? (New Yorker)

By early 2002 U.S. Ambassador to Niger Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick was asked about Iraq-Niger uranium trade; she informed Washington that there was no basis to suspect any link. Then Cheney's office decided to investigate the letters' substance. Former U.S. ambassador to Gabon, Joseph C. Wilson (a man of exceptionally distinguished diplomatic career), was (in his words) "invited out to meet with a group of people at the CIA who were interested in this subject" and agreed to investigate the content of the documents, which he had not seen. He left for Niger in February, and made an oral report in March.

Meanwhile, during the same month, a four-star U.S. general, Marine Gen. Carlton W. Fulford Jr., deputy commander of the U-S European Command (the headquarters responsible for military relations with most of sub-Saharan Africa) also visited Niger at the request of the U.S. ambassador. He met with Niger's president February 24 and emphasized the importance of tight controls over its uranium ore deposits. According to MSNBC, he also visited the country two months later. This year, Fulford told the Washington Post that he had come away convinced that Niger's uranium stocks were secure. (CounterPunch)
Fixing the Intelligence
March - August 2002

March 2002

Seymour Hersh writes: "By early March, 2002, a former White House official told me, it was understood by many in the White House that the President had decided, in his own mind, to go to war... The Bush Administration took many intelligence operations that had been aimed at Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups around the world and redirected them to the Persian Gulf... Chalabi?s defector reports were now flowing from the Pentagon directly to the Vice-President?s office, and then on to the President, with little prior evaluation by intelligence professionals. (New Yorker)

" F___ Saddam. we're taking him out." Those were the words of President George W. Bush, who had poked his head into the office of Condoleezza Rice. It was March 2002, and Rice was meeting with three U.S. Senators, discussing how to deal with Iraq through the United Nations, or perhaps in a coalition with America's Middle East allies. Bush wasn't interested. He waved his hand dismissively, recalls a participant, and neatly summed up his Iraq policy in that short phrase. The Senators laughed uncomfortably; Rice flashed a knowing smile. (Time Magazine)

Dick Cheney carried the same message to Capitol Hill in late March. The Vice President dropped by a Senate Republican policy lunch soon after his 10-day tour of the Middle East ? the one meant to drum up support for a U.S. military strike against Iraq... Before he spoke, he said no one should repeat what he said, and Senators and staff members promptly put down their pens and pencils. Then he gave them some surprising news. The question was no longer if the U.S. would attack Iraq, he said. The only question was when. (Time Magazine)

As early as March 2002, Blair's foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, assured Condoleezza Rice of Blair's deadset support for "regime change." Days later, Sir Christopher Meyer, then British ambassador to the US, sent a dispatch to Downing Street detailing how he repeated the commitment to Paul Wolfowitz, the US Deputy Defence Secretary. The ambassador added that Mr Blair would need a "cover" for any military action. "I then went through the need to wrongfoot Saddam on the inspectors and the UN Security Council resolutions." (Raw Story: Manning; Raw Story: Meyer)

Manning returned from talks in Washington warning that Bush "still has to find answers to the big questions," which included "what happens on the morning after?... They may agree that failure isn't an option, but this does not mean they will necessarily avoid it." The Cabinet Office said that the US believed that the legal basis for war already existed and had lost patience with the policy of containment. (Telegraph)
March 12-13, 2002

Manning meets with Condoleeza Rice. On March 14, he reports to Blair: "I said that you would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very different than anything in the States. . . . Condi's enthusiasm for regime change is undimmed. But there were some signs, since we last spoke, of greater awareness of the practical difficulties and political risks." (Raw Story PDF)
March 17, 2002

Sir Christopher Meyer, British ambassador to the US, meets with Paul Wolfowitz. The next day, he reports to Manning: "On Iraq I opened by sticking very closely to the script that you used with Condi rice last week. We backed regime change, but the plan had to be clever and failure was not an option. It would be a tough sell for us domestically, and probably tougher elsewhere in Europe. The US could go it alone if it wanted to. But if it wanted to act with partners, here had to be a strategy for building support for military action against Saddam. I then went through the need to wrongfoot Saddam on the inspectors." (PDF of memo; More at Telegraph)
March 8-25, 2002

Several leaked documents show the British government considering the implications of shifting from an Iraq policy based on containment to one of regime change, along with considerations to be addressed in supporting Bush's objectives. A memo from the British Foreign Secretary states: "The rewards from your visit to Crawford will be few. The risks are high, both for you and for the Government. I just that there is at present no majority inside the PLP for any military action against Iraq ...A legal justification is a necessary but far from sufficient precondition for military action. We have also to answer the big question - what will this action achieve?" (Iraq Options Paper - P F Ricketts Memo - Jack Straw Memo)
May 2002

"Rumsfeld has been so determined to find a rationale for an attack that on 10 separate occasions he asked the CIA to find evidence linking Iraq to the terror attacks of Sept. 11. The intelligence agency repeatedly came back empty-handed. The best hope for Iraqi ties to the attack ? a report that lead hijacker Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence official in the Czech Republic ? was discredited last week.

"The White House's biggest fear is that U.N. weapons inspectors will be allowed to go in," says a top Senate foreign policy aide. (Time Magazine)

Throughout this period, and into 2003, Mr Blair was insisting in public that war was not inevitable. In May 2002 he said Iraq would be "in a far better position" without Saddam, but added: "Does that mean that military action is imminent or about to happen? No. We've never said that." (The Independent)

US/UK bombing of Iraq intensifies: Despite strict No-Fly Zone guildeines, Rumsfeld had ordered a more aggressive approach What was going on? There were very strict rules of engagement in the no-fly zones. Rumsfeld later said this was simply to prevent the Iraqis attacking allied aircraft, but a British Foreign Officers' remark told more: In reality, the "spikes of activity" were designed "to put pressure on the regime." (Sunday Times)
May 2002
Karen Kwiatkowski says: "From May 2002 until February 2003, I observed firsthand the formation of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans and watched the latter stages of the neoconservative capture of the policy-intelligence nexus in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq... I saw a narrow and deeply flawed policy favored by some executive appointees in the Pentagon used to manipulate and pressurize the traditional relationship between policymakers in the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies. I witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the president. (Salon)
June 1, 2002
In a speech at West Point, Bush commits the United States to a doctrine of preemption: "Our security will require all Americans?[to] be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives." (White House)
July 21, 2002

Cabinet Office paper: Conditions for military action: "1. The US Government's military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace. But, as yet, it lacks a political framework. In particular, little thought has been given to creating the political conditions for military action, or the aftermath and how to shape it.

2. When the Prime Minister discussed Iraq with President Bush at Crawford in April he said that the UK would support military action to bring about regime change, provided that certain conditions were met: efforts had been made to construct a coalition/shape public opinion, the Israel-Palestine Crisis was quiescent, and the options for action to eliminate Iraq's WMD through the UN weapons inspectors had been exhausted.

3. We need now to reinforce this message and to encourage the US Government to place its military planning within a political framework, partly to forestall the risk that military action is precipitated in an unplanned way by, for example, an incident in the No Fly Zones. This is particularly important for the UK because it is necessary to create the conditions in which we could legally support military action. Otherwise we face the real danger that the US will commit themselves to a course of action which we would find very difficult to support. (Sunday Times)
July 23, 2002

From The Downing Street Memo, minutes of an official high-level meeting between British and American officials: British intel MI6 director Sir Richard Dearlove "reported on his recent talks in Washington... Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

"The Defense Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.

"It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force. (Raw Story; via Sunday Times)

MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal. The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier. The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair?s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was ?necessary to create the conditions? which would make it legal. . . .

?It is just possible that an ultimatum could be cast in terms which Saddam would reject,? the document says. But if he accepted it and did not attack the allies, they would be ?most unlikely? to obtain the legal justification they needed. Suggestions that the allies use the UN to justify war contradicts claims by Blair and Bush, repeated during their Washington summit in June, 2005, that they turned to the UN in order to avoid having to go to war. (Sunday Times)
Late July 2002
"At the end of July 2002, they need $700 million, a large amount of money for all these tasks. And the president approves it. But Congress doesn't know and it is done. They get the money from a supplemental appropriation for the Afghan War, which Congress has approved. ?Some people are gonna look at a document called the Constitution which says that no money will be drawn from the Treasury unless appropriated by Congress. Congress was totally in the dark on this." (CBS News)
August 2, 2002
Scott Ritter states: ?Are the weapons that were loaded up with VX destroyed? Yes. Is the equipment used to produce VX on a large scale destroyed? Yes.

?The fact Tony Blair cannot put on the table any substantive facts about a re-constituted Iraqi chemical weapons programme is proof positive that no such evidence exists.? (Tribune)
August 7, 2002
Cheney says of Saddam Hussein, ?What we know now, from various sources, is that he... continues to pursue a nuclear weapon.? (New Yorker)
August 2002

U.S., UK conduct secret bombing campaign. "The [air] attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive. (Sunday Times)

Powell reports trouble getting U.S. allies on board for a war with Iraq... As Bush leaves for an August vacation in Crawford, Texas, he agrees to take his case to the U.N. and asks his advisers to start preparing the speech. (PBS)
August 26, 2002
Cheney suggests Saddam had a nuclear capability that could directly threaten ?anyone he chooses, in his own region or beyond.? (New Yorker)
September 5, 2002
When It became clear that Saddam Hussein would not provide justification to launch the air war, the U.S. and UK launched it anyway, beneath the cloak of the no-fly zone. More than a hundred allied aircraft attacked the H-3 airfield, Iraq's main air defence site. At the furthest extreme of the southern no-fly zone, far away from the areas that needed to be patrolled to prevent attacks on the Shias, it was destroyed not because it was a threat to the patrols, but to allow allied special forces operating from Jordan to enter Iraq undetected. (New Statesman)
September 8, 2002
Cheney tells a TV interviewer, ?We do know, with absolute certainty, that [Saddam] is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon.?

Condoleezza Rice says, ?We don?t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud??a formulation that was taken up by hawks in the Administration. (New Yorker)
September 9, 2002
The International Institute for Strategic Studies releases a report that says Iraq was, "only months away if it were able to get hold of weapons grade uranium . . . from a foreign source." The IISS had bad information. Their argument was compounded by a UK Dossier that relied on the IISS report. (US News)
September 14,2002
Bush says, ?Saddam Hussein has the scientists and infrastructure for a nuclear-weapons program, and has illicitly sought to purchase the equipment needed to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon.? There was no confirmed intelligence for the President?s assertion. (New Yorker)
September 16, 2002
Iraq unconditionally accepts the return of UN inspectors. (BBC)
September 17, 2002
Bush's National Security Strategy asserts that the US will never again allow its military supremacy to be challenged and embracesunilateral preemptive military strikes. (White House)
September 19, 2002
Washington Post cites the IISS report to show that the aluminum tubes sought by Iraq were unlikely to have been intended for a nuclear program. (Washington Post)
September 24, 2002
George Tenet and other senior intelligence officials brief the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iraq?s weapons capability as Congress prepares to vote on authorizing war in Iraq. According to Seymou Hersh, this briefing includes claims about both the aluminum tubes and the Niger uranium. Two days later, Colin Powell will also cite the Niger uranium before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. (New Yorker)
September 24, 2002
(the "sexed up" dossier)
Tony Blair is convinced new sources of intelligence from inside Iraq provide "persuasive and overwhelming" evidence that Saddam Hussein is reassembling and expanding his weapons programme... Blair is confident that the 55-page dossier on weapons of mass destruction will convince many doubters. He told colleagues: "Saddam is developing his weapons programme and doing it as fast as he can." (Guardian)
September 26, 2002
Rice says Qaeda operatives have found refuge in Baghdad, and accuses Hussein of helping Osama bin Laden's followers develop chemical weapons. (CBS News)
Runup to War
October 2002 - March 2003
October 2002
Seymour Hersh writes: "A set of documents suddenly appeared that promised to provide solid evidence that Iraq was attempting to reconstitute its nuclear program. The first notice of the documents? existence came when Elisabetta Burba, a reporter for Panorama, a glossy Italian weekly owned by the publishing empire of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, received a telephone call from an Italian businessman and security consultant whom she believed to have once been connected to Italian intelligence. He told her that he had information connecting Saddam Hussein to the purchase of uranium in Africa.

She wanted to arrange a visit to Niger to verify what seemed to be an astonishing story. At that point, however, Panorama?s editor-in-chief, Carlo Rossella, who is known for his ties to the Berlusconi government, told Burba to turn the documents over to the American Embassy for authentication. Burba dutifully took a copy of the papers to the Embassy on October 9th.

George Tenet clearly was ambivalent about the information: in early October, he intervened to prevent the President from referring to Niger in a speech in Cincinnati. But Tenet then seemed to give up the fight, and Saddam?s desire for uranium from Niger soon became part of the Administration?s public case for going to war. (New Yorker)
October 10, 2002
Congress passes the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq. (White House)
October 22, 2002

In October 2002, in a notable front-page article titled "For Bush, Facts Are Malleable" (10/22/02), Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank noted two dubious Bush claims about Iraq: his citing of a United Nations International Atomic Energy report alleging that Iraq was "six months away" from developing a nuclear weapon; and that Iraq maintained a growing fleet of unmanned aircraft that could be used, inBush's words, "for missions targeting the United States." While these assertions "were powerful arguments for the actions Bush sought," Milbank concluded they "were dubious, if not wrong. Further information revealed that the aircraft lack the range to reach the United States" and "there was no such report by the IAEA." (FAIR)
November 8, 2002
The UN Security Council unanimously approves resolution 1441 imposing tough new arms inspections on Iraq and requiring Iraq to declare all weapons of mass destruction and account for known chemical weapons material stockpiles on pain of "serious consequences." Iraq accepts the terms of the resolution and UN inspectors return. (Iraqwatch)
November 15, 2002
The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq is formed "to promote regional peace, political freedom and international security through replacement of the Saddam Hussein regime with a democratic government." An offshoot of the Project for a New American Century, it has close ties to Ahmed Chalabi and is dedicated to promoting the Bush administration's Iraq policies. (CounterPunch)
December 2, 2002

The British government is accused of double standards yesterday after launching a dossier on Iraqi human rights abuses designed to soften up public opinion ahead of a possible war. British foreign secretary Straw defends the moves, and cites WMDs.

"He's got these weapons of mass destruction, chemical, biological and, probably, nuclear weapons which he has used in the past against his own people as well as his neighbours and could almost certainly use again in the future," he said.

But the Foreign Office later retreats. It has repeatedly accepted that Iraq does not have nuclear arms and a spokesman, clarifying the position, said Mr Straw had been "referring to Saddam Hussein's intention to acquire such weapons" (Guardian)
December 7-22, 2002
December 7: Iraq submits a 12,000-page declaration on its chemical, biological and nuclear activities, claiming it has no banned weapons.

December 17: Colin Powell indicates there are problems with the declaration.

December 18: Jack Straw indicates the UK believes Iraq is in material breach of the UN resolution. The Ministry of Defense reveals ships are being chartered to bring troops and equipment to the Gulf.

December 19: Hans Blix says the declaration contains nothing new out its WMD capacities and does not inspire confidence. The US immediately accuses Iraq of being in material breach.

December 22: Iraq invites the CIA to come in an look for WMD's. (Guardian)
January 27, 2003
The UN arms inspectors' report indicate that no banned weapons have been found but criticizes Iraq for not giving the inspectors full access to facilities and scientists and not providing clear accounts of certain materials. (Iraqwatch)
January 28, 2003

President Bush delivers the State of the Union address, stating: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.... Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide." Bush adds that the US is prepared to attack Iraq even without a UN mandate. (White House)

Since October, the CIA had warned the administration not to use the Niger claim in public. CIA Director Tenet personally persuaded deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley to omit it from President Bush's Oct. 7 speech in Cincinnati. But on the eve of Bush's State of the Union address, Robert Joseph, an assistant to the president in charge of nonproliferation at the National Security Council (NSC), initially asked the CIA if the allegation that Iraq sought to purchase 500 pounds of uranium from Niger could be included in the presidential speech. A CIA official said he told Joseph that the agency objected to the British including that in their published September dossier because of the weakness of the U.S. information. (Washington Post)
January 31, 2003

The United States is conducting a secret 'dirty tricks' campaign against UN Security Council delegations in New York as part of its battle to win votes in favour of war against Iraq.

Details of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of UN delegates in New York, are revealed in a document leaked to The Observer. (Observer) Katherine Gun, a British intelligence officer is arrested in March on charges of passing secrets. She admits she leaked a secret memo to a British newspaper about US-UK government surveillance of the United Nations before the war in Iraq, and is later freed. (Guardian)
February 5, 2003
Colin Powell makes a presentation to the UN, attempting to prove that Iraq is evading the inspectors, continues to produce WMD's, and is linked to al-Qaeda. (White House)

Powell cites the British dossier of February 3 as a "fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed... which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities." (Guardian) "Powell embellishes an intercepted conversation about weapons inspections between Iraqi officials to make it sound more incriminating, changing an order to "inspect the scrap areas and the abandoned areas" to a command to "clean out" those areas. He also added the phrase "make sure there is nothing there," a phrase that appears nowhere in the State Department's official translation. (FAIR; CommonDreams)
February 7, 2003

Downing Street is plunged into acute international embarrassment after it emerged that large parts of the British government's latest dossier on Iraq - allegedly based on "intelligence material" - were taken from published academic articles, some of them several years old. (Guardian)
January 27, 2003
The UN arms inspectors' report indicate that no banned weapons have been found but criticizes Iraq for not giving the inspectors full access to facilities and scientists and not providing clear accounts of certain materials. (Iraqwatch)
January 28, 2003

President Bush delivers the State of the Union address, stating: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.... Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide." Bush adds that the US is prepared to attack Iraq even without a UN mandate. (White House)

Since October, the CIA had warned the administration not to use the Niger claim in public. CIA Director Tenet personally persuaded deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley to omit it from President Bush's Oct. 7 speech in Cincinnati. But on the eve of Bush's State of the Union address, Robert Joseph, an assistant to the president in charge of nonproliferation at the National Security Council (NSC), initially asked the CIA if the allegation that Iraq sought to purchase 500 pounds of uranium from Niger could be included in the presidential speech. A CIA official said he told Joseph that the agency objected to the British including that in their published September dossier because of the weakness of the U.S. information. (Washington Post)
January 31, 2003

The United States is conducting a secret 'dirty tricks' campaign against UN Security Council delegations in New York as part of its battle to win votes in favour of war against Iraq.

Details of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of UN delegates in New York, are revealed in a document leaked to The Observer. (Observer) Katherine Gun, a British intelligence officer is arrested in March on charges of passing secrets. She admits she leaked a secret memo to a British newspaper about US-UK government surveillance of the United Nations before the war in Iraq, and is later freed. (Guardian)
February 5, 2003
Colin Powell makes a presentation to the UN, attempting to prove that Iraq is evading the inspectors, continues to produce WMD's, and is linked to al-Qaeda. (White House)

Powell cites the British dossier of February 3 as a "fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed... which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities." (Guardian) "Powell embellishes an intercepted conversation about weapons inspections between Iraqi officials to make it sound more incriminating, changing an order to "inspect the scrap areas and the abandoned areas" to a command to "clean out" those areas. He also added the phrase "make sure there is nothing there," a phrase that appears nowhere in the State Department's official translation. (FAIR; CommonDreams)
February 7, 2003

Downing Street is plunged into acute international embarrassment after it emerged that large parts of the British government's latest dossier on Iraq - allegedly based on "intelligence material" - were taken from published academic articles, some of them several years old. (Guardian)
February 9, 2003
US rejects a French-German initiative to triple the number of inspectors in Iraq. (Department of State)
February 13, 2003
The Washington Post reveals that, according to anonymous sources, two Special Forces units have been operating in Iraq for over a month. (Washington Post)
March 3, 2003

Britain and the United States have all but fire the first shots of the Iraq war by extending the range of targets in the "no-fly zones" over Iraq to "soften up" the country for an allied ground invasion. Pilots have attacked surface-to-surface missile systems and are understood to have hit multiple-launch rockets. (Guardian)
March 7, 2003

On March 7th, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna, told the U.N. Security Council that the documents involving the Niger-Iraq uranium sale were fakes. (New Yorker)
March 16, 2003
Dick Cheney states on Meet the Press: "We know he?s out trying once again to produce nuclear weapons and we know that he has a long-standing relationship with various terrorist groups, including the al-Qaeda organization. . . . We know that based on intelligence that he has been very, very good at hiding these kinds of efforts. He?s had years to get good at it and we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong." (Mount Holyoke transcript)
March 19, 2003
War begins. (White House)

May-July 2003

The British Ministry of Defense's most senior biological weapons expert and adviser to intelligence agencies on Iraq, Dr Kelly was the anonymous source for BBC reports in May 2003 that a dossier used by the Blair Government to justify invading Iraq had been "sexed up." After being revealed as the BBC's source and grilled before a parliamentary inquiry, Dr Kelly was found dead in July 2003. (The Age)

Iraqi Dispatch

Dahr Jamail writes from Amman, Jordan

June 10, 2005

      State Sponsored Civil War

Yesterday at a conference in Baghdad, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a prominent
Shia leader who is also the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq announced, ?In gratitude to the efforts, sacrifices
and heroic positions of our brothers and brave sons from the Badr
Organization.?

?We must give them the priority in bearing administrative and government
responsibilities especially in the security field,? he added, while the
?President? of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, listened on.

The Badr Organization (formerly known as the Badr Brigade) was formed by
al-Hakim?s brother in the ?80?s to fight Saddam Hussein. It has long
since received funding and other ?support? from Iran.

While civilians in Fallujah, Mosul, Ramadi, Baquba, Baghdad, Haditha and
other cities in Iraq continue to complain of being beaten, looted and
humiliated by the members of the Iraqi Army who are members of both the
Badr Organization and Kurdish Peshmerga, these militias now have the
overt backing of the interim Iraqi ?government.?

It is also being reported that members of the Badr Organization, who are
essentially running much of the ?security? in southern Iraq at this
point, have been instituting Sharia law. Thus, women are reporting being
threatened with death or rape if they attend university, and more
conservative clothing rules are being enforced.

Recently a Sunni cleric was assassinated in the south.

Harith al-Dhari, the head of the influential Sunni group the Association
of Muslim Scholars (AMS), recently accused the Badr of killing members
of the AMS, when he bluntly announced, ?It is the Badr Brigades which is
responsible for these killings.?

One of my Iraqi friends here in Amman recently told me that Sunni who
live in the south are being pressured by members of the Badr
Organization to relocate elsewhere. It should also be noted that the
Badr came back to Iraq on the heels of the invaders.

?You and your (Kurdish) brothers are the heroes of liberating Iraq,?
added Talabani at the aforementioned conference.

So we have the US-backed Iraqi ?government? overtly (they have been
doing this covertly for quite some time) pitting Shia and Kurdish
militias against the primarily Sunni resistance. State
sponsored/propagated civil war-although most Iraqis continue to fear and
loath the idea, and so many Iraqi political and religious organizations
continue to work tirelessly to avert the worsening of this now low-grade
civil war.

Meanwhile, violence continues across Iraq. Car bombs are a daily
occurrence, yet now we have seen motorcycle bombs, push-cart bombs,
donkey bombs, donkey-cart bombs, dog bombs, human bombs, bicycle bombs
and recently two Iraqi policemen dying from eating poisoned watermelon.

Roadside bombs continue to take their toll on US soldiers and are now
the number one killer of occupation forces. At least 1,679 have died in
Iraq since the invasion, along with roughly 100 times as many Iraqis.

I?ve been getting some interesting emails, indicative of sagging morale,
from American?s serving or about to serve in Iraq, including vets...

One man who is a security contractor writes, ?Many nationalitiess from
the planet, many cowboys. I feel like Tonto. Some of these boys are
psycho. Been there done that on the international radar.?

I received an email a ways back from a veteran who said, ?I am a former
soldier that does not agree with what is going on in Iraq. I do NOT
agree with the current administration on most issues, but especially the
way they are going about this illegal and immoral war.
I am deeply ashamed of what my country has done, and I am determined to
do whatever I can to help those few brave reporters like yourself that
are trying to uncover the truth to do so.?

Like many people, he assumed I am Iraqi because of my name, even though
I?m 3rd generation Lebanese. He?d included some helpful information for
me to use, then added,

?For what it is worth, I apologize for the actions of my country. I
don't consider myself a traitor or unpatriotic, but what I am seeing is
so very wrong on so many levels that it is really eating at me, so much
so that I felt compelled to write you about what I know. I?m so very
sorry...?

Another soldier who will be deployed to Iraq this summer said, ?I
personally believe it was the wrong war?we should have concentrated more
on Afghanistan.?

I wrote him back and told him I honored his desire to serve his country,
but wished he had better leadership than the current US administration
who led the country into Iraq with lies. He responded,

?I feel honored to meet a great American like you. You know man,
sometimes we guys feel betrayed by our own government. I personally
signed up to serve my country not to serve any particular leader.?

Another US soldier in Iraq right now writes, ?Do I think it (the war)
was started for moral reasons? Of course not.?

_______________________________________________
More writing, photos and commentary at http://dahrjamailiraq.com

Truth Telling Coalition

Downing Street II
Ray McGovern
June 13, 2005

Ray McGovern is a co-founder of the Truth Telling Coalition and of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He had a 27-year career as a CIA analyst, and now works for Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050613/downing_street_ii.php

Yesterday, London's Sunday Times published the text of another SECRET UK EYES ONLY briefing document prepared for senior British officials. This one was dated July 21, 2002, two days before British intelligence chief Richard Dearlove gave Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top national security advisers a briefing based on discussions with American counterparts in Washington. The minutes recording the discussion at the July 23, 2002, meeting, published by the Rupert Murdoch's Sunday Times on May 1, 2005, included Dearlove's matter-of-fact report that President George W. Bush had decided to bring about "regime change" in Iraq by military action; that the attack would be "justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD" (weapons of mass destruction); and that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

[....]
The British, you see, knew that the summer months in Iraq are uncomfortably hot. Thus, January was the time they thought an invasion would have to begin, or the attack would have to be put off until autumn. As for a possible attack by Iraq, British government documents released to Parliament show that American and British aircraft dropped no bombs on Iraq in March 2002, 10 tons of bombs in July, and 54.6 tons in September. Nevertheless, this failed to provoke Saddam Hussein into the kind of reaction that could be used as an ostensible casus belli. And intrusive inspections? Iraq wound up tolerating the strictest inspection regime in modern history. And when U.N. inspectors found Al Samoud missiles with a range greater than that permitted, Saddam allowed them to be destroyed.

[...]
When asked about the July 23, 2002, minutes at their press conference last week in Washington, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair did a good job of obfuscating?enough to mislead our corporate press into the all-too-familiar he-said, she-said reporting. What went unnoticed was the fact that in the process, the two leaders unintentionally acknowledged the authenticity of the minutes, which read like a meeting of Mafioso. They may think no one will read the actual minutes. In that, they are dead wrong. And these new British revelations have already strengthened the case against the Bush administration.

[...]
On behalf of the Truth Telling Coalition, let me invite any patriotic truth tellers out of the woodwork, so that truly courageous leaders like Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., will not have to depend solely on patriots in Britain (and Rupert Murdoch!). Conyers has a tip line on his website, and our coalition appeal includes a number of pointers about patriotic leaking, and what kinds of support are available.

More Secrets

The facts in the memo and the briefing can't be twisted, and they can't be fixed. Together, we're going to get them to as many people as we can?because America deserves the truth about the White House's failed and misguided policy.
Posted by Tom Hughes at 05:00 PM

Well, I'll agree that the policy is mis-guided, but I don't think it's failed. I've maintained ever since I ran across the PNAC agenda that the idea is (and has been since the 1980s) to get a permanent U.S. presence on the Arabian Peninsula. Since Saddam Hussein was not amenable to bribes, threats, and sanctions, he had to be removed and an agreeable government was supposed to take his place.
Somehow, the possibility that the Iraqi people, who had, after all, put with a dictator, would not be agreeable to a permanent American occupation probably didn't occur to them. In any event, as the Germans are fond of saying, "kommst Du nicht willig, dann brauch ich Gewalt" (if you don't come along of your own accord, I'll have to use force), that's where we're at in Iraq. The mayhem is scheduled to continue until the Iraqis say "uncle."

I mean this whole rationale about the Iraqis being able to "protect" themselves against outside aggression makes no sense. The only invaders are the Americans and the British and there is no way Iraq is ever going to be strong enough to protect its people against them.
On the other hand, the resistance (not insuregents coming in from outside) is doing a fair job of harassing the occupiers despite their fancy weapons and gear. Of course, in a few more years the whole population may be so ill from depleted uranium exposure, that they won't have enough energy to resist.

I've read the latest secret documents. I don't doubt that the Brits had grave concerns and that they didn't know the full plan going in.

The question I have is when did the Senate Foreign Relations Committee learn of the long-range plan to station American military assets in the Middle East? Did they think it was going to be Israel after Saudi Arabia fizzled? Did they consider this when they approved the Quadrennial Revue and the Base Realignment and Closure Commission? Did they know how much money was dedicated to this transfer of assets?

Remember all the agitation over China during Clinton's term? What was the motivation? While it was made to appear to be concern about some Chinese army officials making illegal contributions, there was never any hard evidence of that.
How come all the agitation about China died down after George the Lesser ascended the throne and was replaced by agitation about it's close neighbors, including North Korea? Why is it that the agitation about China resurfaced just recently in Rumsfeld's speeches? Is it because the surrogate attack on Iraq isn't having the desired affect on China--because China is not impressed by our military might?

Since George the Lesser lies every time he opens his mouth, what I'd like to know is when did John Kerry know about the long-range plans for the Greater Middle East and at what point did he start voting in favor of funds?

You will recall that during the campaign he rejected the plan to build 14 permanent American military bases in Iraq.

Renee Says THANK YOU

Thank you, Howard Dean
I?ve said it before, and, with the media feeding frenzy this past week, it looks like it's time to say it again.

Thank you, Howard Dean! Thank you for speaking for us when no one else was publicly criticizing the president two years ago. Thank you for continuing to speak uncomfortable truths about race in America, and correctly pointing out what is obvious to so many of us?that there is genuine diversity at all levels of the Democratic party, as opposed to the "window dressing" diversity we see in the Republican party.

Thank you for saying "We are going to embrace pro-life Democrats because pro-life Democrats care about kids after they're born, not just before they're born." I am one of those Democrats, and have often felt like I needed to keep that a secret, because people like me often feel like persona non grata among our fellow progressives. Not only do you often speak for me, but statements like that one are another example of how well you *listen* as you talk to Democrats all around the country.

But perhaps most of all, thank you for making possible an amazing community that I never could have imagined a mere two years ago. My worldwide blog family is the closest thing I?ve ever seen to the Beloved Community described by Martin Luther King. I?ve laughed and cried with Kimmy Cash, becoming genuinely connected with this young woman in California (as well as her family) even though we have never met in person. (But in less than a week we will finally meet at Democracy Fest.)

And a farmer in Iowa named one of his calves after me--how cool is that?

People consistently misunderstand just what it is that made so many of us loyal supporters of yours. It's not just because you opposed Bush's immoral and unjustified war in Iraq--it is because, time and time again, you have "had our backs" and spoken honestly and openly about matters that were important to us. And because you had our backs, we want you to know that we have yours. Grassroots supporters are organizing a "Support Howard Dean Day" on June 15. We are writing letters to the editor, we're donating to the DNC in your honor, and we are collecting signatures on a "Howard Dean Speaks for Me" petition at an amazing pace.

So, once again, Thank you, Howard Dean. We're still swinging bats for you, and we're really glad we've got you on our team. Together we *will* take our country back!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ANOTHER VOICE

Dear Governor Dean,

I'm writing to tell you not to change one whit. I agree with everything you have been saying. I'm sick and tired of listening to the "talking heads" carping about how far to the left your views are. I'm sixty-six years old and I've been a Democrat longer than they have been alive.

You are a real Democrat. Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt would agree. The great Senator Paul Douglas would agree. And, most importantly, my father, Martin J. Walsh would agree!

I grew up in a world where "good Democrats-not far left Democrats" told me that my father was a Commie; that he was destroying the American way of life; he should take us back to Russia. His horrible sin was working for SWOC (Steelworkers Organizing Committee) under the auspices of the United Mineworkers. This was the forerunner of the United Steelworkers of America. People like the Bushes and good, decent Americans were hiring the Pinkertons and other goons to beat my father and other organizers because of their un-American goal, which was to get a living wage for working men. I don't want a Democratic party who wants to appeal to people who think Ronald Reagan, the Bushes and their ilk are great American heroes. I want a Democratic party that speaks out for all the Americans who have made this country. I want a Democratic party that keeps trying to bring universal health care to our great country. I want a Democratic party that stands for justice and fairness for all, not just for the rich and powerful. And, I want a Democratic party that will try everything in its power to avoid war.

I am a Navy veteran. My brother served twenty-six years as a naval officer. My late husband served thirteen years before being lost at sea while serving on board USS Wasp. My current husband of thirty-four years is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and is a retired US Navy Captain, he served thirty years. My eldest daughter was misdiagnosed while a patient in a US Navy hospital at the age of seven. She is now forty years old, blind and multiply-handicapped. There is no one who has paid a higher price to be an American than I. I have earned the right to speak my mind and I want you to be my voice.
Yours sincerely,
Barbara W-E--

Clever Strategy

Sell them a President who's going to be responsible for running the country AND setting its moral tone; then give them an idiot who can't be held accountable for anything.

BTW, I think it is wrong to refer to Tony Blair as Bush's poodle. The leaked briefing papers make it clear that he was the consiglieri.

Should have kept his own hands clean though.

Planning an illegal war

The Sunday Times - World

June 12, 2005

Cabinet Office paper: Conditions for military action

The paper, produced by the Cabinet Office on July 21, 2002, is incomplete because the last page is missing. The following is a transcript rather than the original document in order to protect the source.

PERSONAL SECRET UK EYES ONLY

IRAQ: CONDITIONS FOR MILITARY ACTION (A Note by Officials)

Summary

Ministers are invited to:

(1) Note the latest position on US military planning and timescales for possible action.

(2) Agree that the objective of any military action should be a stable and law-abiding Iraq, within present borders, co-operating with the international community, no longer posing a threat to its neighbours or international security, and abiding by its international obligations on WMD.

(3) Agree to engage the US on the need to set military plans within a realistic political strategy, which includes identifying the succession to Saddam Hussein and creating the conditions necessary to justify government military action, which might include an ultimatum for the return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq. This should include a call from the Prime Minister to President Bush ahead of the briefing of US military plans to the President on 4 August.

(4) Note the potentially long lead times involved in equipping UK Armed Forces to undertake operations in the Iraqi theatre and agree that the MOD should bring forward proposals for the procurement of Urgent Operational Requirements under cover of the lessons learned from Afghanistan and the outcome of SR2002.

(5) Agree to the establishment of an ad hoc group of officials under Cabinet Office Chairmanship to consider the development of an information campaign to be agreed with the US.

Introduction

1. The US Government's military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace. But, as yet, it lacks a political framework. In particular, little thought has been given to creating the political conditions for military action, or the aftermath and how to shape it.

2. When the Prime Minister discussed Iraq with President Bush at Crawford in April he said that the UK would support military action to bring about regime change, provided that certain conditions were met: efforts had been made to construct a coalition/shape public opinion, the Israel-Palestine Crisis was quiescent, and the options for action to eliminate Iraq's WMD through the UN weapons inspectors had been exhausted.

3. We need now to reinforce this message and to encourage the US Government to place its military planning within a political framework, partly to forestall the risk that military action is precipitated in an unplanned way by, for example, an incident in the No Fly Zones. This is particularly important for the UK because it is necessary to create the conditions in which we could legally support military action. Otherwise we face the real danger that the US will commit themselves to a course of action which we would find very difficult to support.

4. In order to fulfil the conditions set out by the Prime Minister for UK support for military action against Iraq, certain preparations need to be made, and other considerations taken into account. This note sets them out in a form which can be adapted for use with the US Government. Depending on US intentions, a decision in principle may be needed soon on whether and in what form the UK takes part in military action.

The Goal

5. Our objective should be a stable and law-abiding Iraq, within present borders, co-operating with the international community, no longer posing a threat to its neighbours or to international security, and abiding by its international obligations on WMD. It seems unlikely that this could be achieved while the current Iraqi regime remains in power. US military planning unambiguously takes as its objective the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime, followed by elimination if Iraqi WMD. It is however, by no means certain, in the view of UK officials, that one would necessarily follow from the other. Even if regime change is a necessary condition for controlling Iraqi WMD, it is certainly not a sufficient one.

US Military Planning

6. Although no political decisions have been taken, US military planners have drafted options for the US Government to undertake an invasion of Iraq. In a 'Running Start', military action could begin as early as November of this year, with no overt military build-up. Air strikes and support for opposition groups in Iraq would lead initially to small-scale land operations, with further land forces deploying sequentially, ultimately overwhelming Iraqi forces and leading to the collapse of the Iraqi regime. A 'Generated Start' would involve a longer build-up before any military action were taken, as early as January 2003. US military plans include no specifics on the strategic context either before or after the campaign. Currently the preference appears to be for the 'Running Start'. CDS will be ready to brief Ministers in more detail.

7. US plans assume, as a minimum, the use of British bases in Cyprus and Diego Garcia. This means that legal base issues would arise virtually whatever option Ministers choose with regard to UK participation.

The Viability of the Plans

8. The Chiefs of Staff have discussed the viability of US military plans. Their initial view is that there are a number of questions which would have to be answered before they could assess whether the plans are sound. Notably these include the realism of the 'Running Start', the extent to which the plans are proof against Iraqi counter-attack using chemical or biological weapons and the robustness of US assumptions about the bases and about Iraqi (un)willingness to fight.

UK Military Contribution

9. The UK's ability to contribute forces depends on the details of the US military planning and the time available to prepare and deploy them. The MOD is examining how the UK might contribute to US-led action. The options range from deployment of a Division (ie Gulf War sized contribution plus naval and air forces) to making available bases. It is already clear that the UK could not generate a Division in time for an operation in January 2003, unless publicly visible decisions were taken very soon. Maritime and air forces could be deployed in time, provided adequate basing arrangements could be made. The lead times involved in preparing for UK military involvement include the procurement of Urgent Operational Requirements, for which there is no financial provision.

The Conditions Necessary for Military Action

10. Aside from the existence of a viable military plan we consider the following conditions necessary for military action and UK participation: justification/legal base; an international coalition; a quiescent Israel/Palestine; a positive risk/benefit assessment; and the preparation of domestic opinion.

Justification

11. US views of international law vary from that of the UK and the international community. Regime change per se is not a proper basis for military action under international law. But regime change could result from action that is otherwise lawful. We would regard the use of force against Iraq, or any other state, as lawful if exercised in the right of individual or collective self-defence, if carried out to avert an overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe, or authorised by the UN Security Council. A detailed consideration of the legal issues, prepared earlier this year, is at Annex A. The legal position would depend on the precise circumstances at the time. Legal bases for an invasion of Iraq are in principle conceivable in both the first two instances but would be difficult to establish because of, for example, the tests of immediacy and proportionality. Further legal advice would be needed on this point.

12. This leaves the route under the UNSC resolutions on weapons inspectors. Kofi Annan has held three rounds of meetings with Iraq in an attempt to persuade them to admit the UN weapons inspectors. These have made no substantive progress; the Iraqis are deliberately obfuscating. Annan has downgraded the dialogue but more pointless talks are possible. We need to persuade the UN and the international community that this situation cannot be allowed to continue ad infinitum. We need to set a deadline, leading to an ultimatum. It would be preferable to obtain backing of a UNSCR for any ultimatum and early work would be necessary to explore with Kofi Annan and the Russians, in particular, the scope for achieving this.

13. In practice, facing pressure of military action, Saddam is likely to admit weapons inspectors as a means of forestalling it. But once admitted, he would not allow them to operate freely. UNMOVIC (the successor to UNSCOM) will take at least six months after entering Iraq to establish the monitoring and verification system under Resolution 1284 necessary to assess whether Iraq is meeting its obligations. Hence, even if UN inspectors gained access today, by January 2003 they would at best only just be completing setting up. It is possible that they will encounter Iraqi obstruction during this period, but this more likely when they are fully operational.

14. It is just possible that an ultimatum could be cast in terms which Saddam would reject (because he is unwilling to accept unfettered access) and which would not be regarded as unreasonable by the international community. However, failing that (or an Iraqi attack) we would be most unlikely to achieve a legal base for military action by January 2003.

An International Coalition

15. An international coalition is necessary to provide a military platform and desirable for political purposes.

16. US military planning assumes that the US would be allowed to use bases in Kuwait (air and ground forces), Jordan, in the Gulf (air and naval forces) and UK territory (Diego Garcia and our bases in Cyprus). The plans assume that Saudi Arabia would withhold co-operation except granting military over-flights. On the assumption that military action would involve operations in the Kurdish area in the North of Iraq, the use of bases in Turkey would also be necessary.

17. In the absence of UN authorisation, there will be problems in securing the support of NATO and EU partners. Australia would be likely to participate on the same basis as the UK. France might be prepared to take part if she saw military action as inevitable. Russia and China, seeking to improve their US relations, might set aside their misgivings if sufficient attention were paid to their legal and economic concerns. Probably the best we could expect from the region would be neutrality. The US is likely to restrain Israel from taking part in military action. In practice, much of the international community would find it difficult to stand in the way of the determined course of the US hegemon. However, the greater the international support, the greater the prospects of success.

A Quiescent Israel-Palestine

18. The Israeli re-occupation of the West Bank has dampened Palestinian violence for the time being but is unsustainable in the long-term and stoking more trouble for the future. The Bush speech was at best a half step forward. We are using the Palestinian reform agenda to make progress, including a resumption of political negotiations. The Americans are talking of a ministerial conference in November or later. Real progress towards a viable Palestinian state is the best way to undercut Palestinian extremists and reduce Arab antipathy to military action against Saddam Hussein. However, another upsurge of Palestinian/Israeli violence is highly likely. The co-incidence of such an upsurge with the preparations for military action against Iraq cannot be ruled out. Indeed Saddam would use continuing violence in the Occupied Territories to bolster popular Arab support for his regime.

Benefits/Risks

19. Even with a legal base and a viable military plan, we would still need to ensure that the benefits of action outweigh the risks. In particular, we need to be sure that the outcome of the military action would match our objective as set out in paragraph 5 above. A post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise. As already made clear, the US military plans are virtually silent on this point. Washington could look to us to share a disproportionate share of the burden. Further work is required to define more precisely the means by which the desired endstate would be created, in particular what form of Government might replace Saddam Hussein's regime and the timescale within which it would be possible to identify a successor. We must also consider in greater detail the impact of military action on other UK interests in the region.

Domestic Opinion

20. Time will be required to prepare public opinion in the UK that it is necessary to take military action against Saddam Hussein. There would also need to be a substantial effort to secure the support of Parliament. An information campaign will be needed which has to be closely related to an overseas information campaign designed to influence Saddam Hussein, the Islamic World and the wider international community. This will need to give full coverage to the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, including his WMD, and the legal justification for action.

Timescales

21. Although the US military could act against Iraq as soon as November, we judge that a military campaign is unlikely to start until January 2003, if only because of the time it will take to reach consensus in Washington. That said, we judge that for climactic reasons, military action would need to start by January 2003, unless action were deferred until the following autumn.

22. As this paper makes clear, even this timescale would present problems. This means that:

(a) We need to influence US consideration of the military plans before President Bush is briefed on 4 August, through contacts betweens the Prime Minister and the President and at other levels;

Subway's Latest Seranade

Undisclosed Location
(Octopus's Garden)

Undisclosed Location
(Octopus's Garden)

I'd like to be,
Far from DC,
At an undisclosed location,
In the Shade.
They'd let us in,
They'd know weve been.
Fleeing in a color coded daze.

I'd have a friend or two or three,
Share an underground,
Bunker with me.
I'd like to be,
Far from DC,
At an undisclosed location,
In the shade.

We would be warned,
If we were stormed,
By Cessnas that fly above the haze.
(High above the smoggy haze)
Hiding our heads,
Under our beds,
In a spider hole three miles inside a cave.

We would be like Ossama, you and me!
Hiding there not knowing what to do.

I'd like to be,
Far from DC,
In an undisclosed location,
With you.

Livin' in D!ck Cheney's bunker
With you...

At an Undisclosed Location
with you.

Pie Fight

From the op-ed page of the Boston Globe:

After reading Krugman

Warning--tendentious discussion ahead.

We most often associate "prejudice" with antagonims towards individuals of a particular and/or different race or class, but, in fact, prejudice is an intellectual act--the formation of a conclusion before any hard evidence is at hand. Most often, prejudice is based on assumptions, many of them actually false or contrary to fact, which are transmitted from individual to individual for the purpose (very often) of creating social cohesion. In other words, prejudice performs a positive function.

This process is evident in many groups, including those people who concern themselves with how and why human societies produce and exchange their material assets--i.e. economists. Economists, even though they profess to have developed a "hard" science, based on the measurement and calculation of material realities, actually proceed from a number of shared assumptions or prejudices, which then color, as all pre-judgements tend to do, how they interpret what they actually observe in the real world.

This is what makes prejudice so pernicious. Once a prejudice becomes embedded in the human brain, any subsequent information that comes in consistent with the prejudice is categorized as affirmative or reinforcing, while any subsequent information which contradicts or disputes the prejudice tends to be categorized as "the exception that proves the rule." That's why prejudice is so hard to dislodge.

In economics, the primary assumption or prejudice is that man "prefers leisure and must be forced to work." Consequently, having accepted that premise, it follows that any relaxation of force or coercion (such as a promise of adequate sustenance in old age) is seen as an invitation to economic collapse. If no-one will work unless their survival is threatened, it is obviously not only prudent but good to make sure that any surplus that happens to be produced is secured by those who know how to use it wisely.

Based on this understanding of the prejudices shared by economists, what I would argue is that the economic mayhem we are witnessing is not a consequence of class antagonism or prejudice. Rather it is the logical result of the application of a theory of how the economic sector SHOULD work, regardless of the fact that its premises are probably false. Much tinkering with the various aspects of the economy is just an effort to make it come out "right"--i.e. consistent with economists' expectations.

One other point I would make is that the failure to provide adequate sustenance (adequate meaning sufficient to support the reproduction and training of the next generation) to the present generation won't just result in the next being less affluent or capable to support themselves. Rather, all humans have the option of sustaining themselves either by engaging in the trade and exchange of goods and services with others of their kind (economic behavior) or of resorting to simply taking whatever they happen to need--i.e. the predatory mode.

Although humans have evolved language and a system of social organization based on the exchange of goods and services, that does not mean they have left the more primitive system of predation behind. If one strategy doesn't work, the other is always available. Indeed, if we consider predatory capitalists, it seems that predatory behavior can flourish even when human survival is not stressed.

If this hypothesis has merit, then what we need to recognize is that the predatory instinct is at work among the most affluent and that we have to implement some strategies to counteract it. When humans resort to predation in order to survive, that behavior can be countered by giving them enough to eat. When humans resort to predation because they have been improperly socialized, it's a little more difficult to get them to stop. Letting them have more of whatever they are after won't do it.

When you come right down to it, what the "free marketers" are really after is the license to roam through the world, taking whatever strikes their fancy and giving nothing in return. It's what we used to call theft.

PROOF

The Party of White Christians--just like Howard Dean said

Rude Pundit

Sensitive ears should ignore.

6/9/2005
Howard Dean Will Fuck Your Shit Up (Redux):
The Rude Pundit's said it before and he'll say it again: Howard Dean will fuck your shit up. Stand that motherfucker up at the gates of hell. Let that son of a bitch loose in the dainty Democratic china shop and let's break some fuckin' dishes. Howard Dean knows the score, man; he knows that the faithful, those who actually believe that the fight is not the path to surrender, want a spokesperson who's willing to pick up the unpinned grenade that just landed near him and shove it up the ass of the enemy who tossed it. Goddamn, it would have been magnificent to have seen him debate the President. On stage, Bush would have been begging for the privilege to lick the sweat off Dean's balls.

Listen to the crowd at the Take Back America conference last week, who are almost orgasmically gasping in joy at the viciousness with which Dean attacked the Republicans, calling them the party of people "who never made an honest living in their lives," with a "dark, difficult, dishonest vision" of America. Then, in an effort to clarify his remarks this past Monday in a talk with minority journalists, Dean said the Republicans are "not very friendly to different kinds of people. They're a pretty monolithic party. They pretty much--they all behave the same and they all look the same, and they all--you know, it's pretty much a white, Christian party. And the Democrats here adopt everybody you an think of in our party."

Challenged on the Today show yesterday by Matt "Behold My Stubbly Mane That Indicates I Am a Grown-Up" Lauer, Dean picked up Lauer, slammed him on the faux coffee table and whispered, calmly, in Lauer's ear that Democrats are tired of being the bottoms of the political fuck machine. He said, "They have the agenda of the conservative Christians...the Republicans don't include people. Look, they are outside the mainstream." And Dean wasn't afraid to invoke truly inclusive Democratic ideas: "They have used words like quota to try to separate black from white Americans. They did scapegoat gay Americans by putting an anti-gay amendment on it--in 11 states where gay marriage is already against the law. And they are attacking immigrants. Two--two Republican congressmen, Jim Sensenbrenner and Tom Tancredo, have incredible anti-immigrant legislation. This is not the way America needs to be." Calling out motherfuckers for fucking their mothers is as brutally truthful as politics gets.

While the right wing media has tried to portray the Democrats as turning against Dean. Andrea Mitchell, who hasn't seen Alan Greenspan's personal interest rate rise in years ("C'mon, Al, gimme more than a quarter percent"), reported Monday that Dean was "making Democrats nervous." And there's quotes out there where people like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi say Dean doesn't speak for all Democrats. But surely there's some confusion in the ranks, when such a prominent, public face of the party takes off the gloves. More than anything, it's like a bunch of Missouri high schoolers around the lockers in 1963, when the first guy walked in after summer break with long hair. Sure, sure, everyone teased him for being gay or girly. But then everyone saw the Beatles on Sullivan, and barbers went broke. Watch for John Edwards' response on his blog to become a standard reply. Or at least it ought to, because if everyone says the same thing, then the story of "nervous Democrats" becomes boring.

This manufactured uproar over Dean all started in earnest (this time) with his appearance on Meet the Press on May 22, where, in so many words, Dean said, "Republicans are vile cocksuckers who deserve nothing less than to be shit on by legions of diarrhea-ridden cows. They have fucked up the Congress, the Presidency, the judiciary, and the world. Now why should I play nice with those goddamn evil powermad assholes like Tom DeLay?" And then the fun started, with Bill O'Reilly, who really ought to be sodomized with a microphone, vomiting out that Howard Dean was "a bitter and increasingly incoherent man." Last night, O'Reilly attacked Dean again, saying he was "nonsensical." But, of course, O'Reilly also was begging Dean to come on his show. Because, you see, Bill O'Reilly is a five-buck-a-blow whore.

Look, Dean's the party chair. His job is to raise money, rally the troops, and bring people into the party. His success or failure is measured in bank accounts and mailing lists. And he's a failed presidential candidate. The party establishment could have tossed him out to the exile pile with Al Gore, who keeps making amazing, passionate, intelligent speeches with all the impact of a fly fart at a System of a Down concert. But instead, the Democratic power elite decided to use Dean and his grassroots army of e-mail savvy warriors to regain relevance. They knew what they were getting. And if Dean becomes the lightning rod, so much the better for whoever is running in 2008.

Besides, ain't it fun to watch Hannity and Coulter and Gingrich and Hume and all the other hate-filled sociopaths flail about and try to take Dean down? You've seen Dean's arms? Big, thick sons of bitches. He can bear it. And he can throw it back at them. As long as those behind him don't put him in handcuffs.

// posted by Rude One @ 9:39 AM

Watch Your Children Well

With early and late calls ringing in their ears, Marcia tried using call blocking. And that's when she learned her first hard lesson. You can't block calls from the government, her server said.

View image

When Marine recruiters go way beyond the call

By SUSAN PAYNTER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

For mom Marcia Cobb and her teenage son Axel, the white letters USMC on their caller ID soon spelled, "Don't answer the phone!"

Marine recruiters began a relentless barrage of calls to Axel as soon as the mellow, compliant Sedro-Woolley High School grad had cut his 17th birthday cake. And soon it was nearly impossible to get the seekers of a few good men off the line.

With early and late calls ringing in their ears, Marcia tried using call blocking. And that's when she learned her first hard lesson. You can't block calls from the government, her server said. So, after pleas to "Please stop calling" went unanswered, the family's "do not answer" order ensued.

But warnings and liquid crystal lettering can fade. So, two weeks ago when Marcia was cooking dinner Axel goofed and answered the call. And, faster than you can say "semper fi," an odyssey kicked into action that illustrates just how desperate some of the recruiters we've read about really are to fill severely sagging quotas.

Let what we learned serve as a warning to other moms, dads and teens, the Cobbs now say. Even if your kids actually may want to join the military, if they hope to do it on their own terms, after a deep breath and due consideration, repeat these words after them: "No," "Not now" and "Back off!"

"I've been trained to be pretty friendly. I guess you might even say I'm kind of passive," Axel told me last week, just after his mother and older sister had tracked him to a Seattle testing center and sprung him on a ruse.

The next step of Axel's misadventure came when he heard about a cool "chin-ups" contest in Bellingham, where the prize was a free Xbox. The now 18-year-old Skagit Valley Community College student dragged his tail feathers home uncharacteristically late that night. And, in the morning, Marcia learned the Marines had hosted the event and "then had him out all night, drilling him to join."

A single mom with a meager income, Marcia raised her kids on the farm where, until recently, she grew salad greens for restaurants.

Axel's father, a Marine Corps vet who served in Vietnam, died when Axel was 4.

Clearly the recruiters knew all that and more.

"You don't want to be a burden to your mom," they told him. "Be a man." "Make your father proud." Never mind that, because of his own experience in the service, Marcia says enlistment for his son is the last thing Axel's dad would have wanted.

The next weekend, when Marcia went to Seattle for the Folklife Festival and Axel was home alone, two recruiters showed up at the door.

Axel repeated the family mantra, but he was feeling frazzled and worn down by then. The sergeant was friendly but, at the same time, aggressively insistent. This time, when Axel said, "Not interested," the sarge turned surly, snapping, "You're making a big (bleeping) mistake!"

Next thing Axel knew, the same sergeant and another recruiter showed up at the LaConner Brewing Co., the restaurant where Axel works. And before Axel, an older cousin and other co-workers knew or understood what was happening, Axel was whisked away in a car.

"They said we were going somewhere but I didn't know we were going all the way to Seattle," Axel said.

Just a few tests. And so many free opportunities, the recruiters told him.

He could pursue his love of chemistry. He could serve anywhere he chose and leave any time he wanted on an "apathy discharge" if he didn't like it. And he wouldn't have to go to Iraq if he didn't want to.

At about 3:30 in the morning, Alex was awakened in the motel and fed a little something. Twelve hours later, without further sleep or food, he had taken a battery of tests and signed a lot of papers he hadn't gotten a chance to read. "Just formalities," he was told. "Sign here. And here. Nothing to worry about."

By then Marcia had "freaked out."

She went to the Burlington recruiting center where the door was open but no one was home. So she grabbed all the cards and numbers she could find, including the address of the Seattle-area testing center.

Then, with her grown daughter in tow, she high-tailed it south, frantically phoning Axel whose cell phone had been confiscated "so he wouldn't be distracted during tests."

Axel's grandfather was in the hospital dying, she told the people at the desk. He needed to come home right away. She would have said just about anything.

But, even after being told her son would be brought right out, her daughter spied him being taken down a separate hall and into another room. So she dashed down the hall and grabbed him by the arm.

"They were telling me I needed to 'be a man' and stand up to my family," Axel said.

What he needed, it turned out, was a lawyer.

Five minutes and $250 after an attorney called the recruiters, Axel's signed papers and his cell phone were in the mail.

My request to speak with the sergeant who recruited Axel and with the Burlington office about recruitment procedures went unanswered.

And so should your phone, Marcia Cobb advised. Take your own sweet time. Keep your own counsel. And, if you see USMC on caller ID, remember what answering the call could mean.
Susan Paynter's column appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Call her at 206-448-8392 or send e-mail to susanpaynter@seattlepi.com.

Ms. Davis Makes a Point

While $250,000,000 may seem like a lot of money, compare that with the following statistic:

In Atlantic City thirteen casinos have 37,067 slot machines producing win
revenues of $3.139 billion a year, or $232 per machine per day(the casinos take an additional $1.163 billion in table wins away from players).

June 8, 2005

Howard Dean, MD
Chairman
Democratic National Committee
430 S Capitol St SE
Washington, DC

Dear Dr. Dean,

It is with great pleasure that I send you the enclosed check for $25. This is the first installment of a total of $250 I plan to give to the DNC over the next calendar year. Please know that, if you were not the Chairman, I would not be donating these funds to the National Committee. I have nothing but admiration and respect for the work you are doing, the personal sacrifices you are making, and the way you are able to withstand and to rise above the criticism of some within your own party. I am not alone. There is a rising chorus of voices out there, which I am able to tap into on the Internet, that agrees with my opinion of the job you are doing. We are tired of business as usual, we are tired of being sold out by our own leadership, and we want the truth to be told. If one million other citizens such as myself will match my contribution, by the 2006 elections the Party will have $250,000,000 on hand to get our message out, without the questionable help of fat cat donors. What the message should be, I will leave in your capable hands. I am sure it will not be, hey, we are almost as good as the Republicans. You have the power to transform our party, and our country, and you have given me the faith to believe that I, in my small way, have the power to help in that process.

I wish you great success. May God bless and keep you.

Sincerely,

Ruth Davis

P.S.: What I want to know is, will you be making a visit to Virginia this fall to campaign for Tim Kaine for Governor? I sure would be tickled to hear you speak in person!!!!!

Iraq Dispatch

Who cares?

    June 07, 2005

Who Cares?

Suicide bombers unleashed another day of hell across Iraq today, killing
at least 18 and wounding over 67.

Four of them struck Iraqi Security forces, along with US military
convoys around Baghdad. Despite the huge US-backed Iraqi security
operation throughout the capital city, attacks there continue unabated.

The small city of Rawa near Al-Qa?im was bombed again by the US military
Sunday night. The military admitted to the bombing, but claimed that
there were no civilian casualties. Today on Al-Jazeera the satellite
channel flashed footage of flattened civilian homes, as well as people
in the city claiming that seven civilians were killed in the bombings.

In Hawija (near Kirkuk), three suicide car bombers struck Iraqi security
checkpoints today, killing several Iraqis. Meanwhile in Tal-Afar (near
Mosul), fierce clashes erupted between the Iraqi resistance and American
soldiers. These are ongoing as I type this.

It continues to be clear that the plans of the Bush Administration in
Iraq either do not include the protection of Iraqis, they don?t care, or
both.

I received an email from someone today along these lines which I found
interesting:

?I operated out of Camp Anaconda, near Balad. What almost everyone, both
in uniform and those as contractors, agreed on (was) the objective of
the Bush Administration?s long term (plan) is focused primarily on oil.
Hearts and minds are secondary, far behind the issue of petroleum
products, as the US continues to compete for resources around the world.
I hope more media conversation is forthcoming on this issue.?

Also along these lines, an Iraqi friend of mine who is a doctor in
Baghdad told me that when he was in Ramadi yesterday, US soldiers
attacked the Anbar Medical School while students were taking their
exams. As he said, ?They (US soldiers) smashed the front gates of the
school in a barbaric way using Humvees?and terrorized the female
students while arresting two students while they were working on their
exams. They then lay siege to the homes of the dean of the university,
along with homes of lecturers, even though their families were inside.?

My friend also reported that after he recently visited Haditha (remember
?Operation Open Market?) he found that a large number of civilians had
been detained.

?They even detained a friend of mine and his father because they found
papers in their home about an upcoming demonstration,? he told me.

Recently, the US-backed Iraqi ?government? announced it had detained
nearly 900 ?suspected militants.? A ?suspected militant? in Iraq looks
more and more like anyone in the wrong place at the wrong time when
Iraqi or US forces conduct an operation.

Of course the looting of homes during raids continues along with the
detentions of innocent Iraqis. So much so that as a result of the huge
?security? operation in Baghdad, Laith Kuba, a spokesman for Iraqi Prime
Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari found it necessary to make the following
statement:

?Some people complained there are cases where soldiers took advantage
and helped themselves to cash and other items. One doesn?t rule it out.
The complaints I heard from people were the aggressiveness of some of
these forces as they do things. Some people have half-hinted that they
have copied some of the mannerisms of other foreign troops. I think that
is a valid criticism in some cases.?

(c)2004, 2005 Dahr Jamail.
All images and text are protected by United States and international copyright law. If you would like to reprint Dahr's Dispatches on the web, you need to include this copyright notice and a prominent link to the DahrJamailIraq.com website. Any other use of images and text including, but not limited to, reproduction, use on another website, copying and printing requires the permission of Dahr Jamail. Of course, feel free to forward Dahr's dispatches via email.

Friend in Court

Finally, a terrorist is being brought to trial.

Latest developments--05-01-06

Al-Arian sentenced to more prison before he can be deported
MITCH STACY
Associated Press

TAMPA, Fla. - Calling Sami Al-Arian a liar and "master manipulator," a federal judge on Monday ordered the former university professor to spend about another year and a half in prison before he is deported in his terrorism conspiracy case.

Al-Arian, 48, was sentenced to four years and nine months, but he will get credit for the more than three years and two months he has already served while being held before and after his trial. His lawyer, Linda Moreno, asked the judge to release him now for deportation under the terms of a plea agreement.

Instead, U.S. District Judge James S. Moody delivered some harsh words for the former University of South Florida computer engineering professor. Moody said he believed Al-Arian was "an active leader" in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad who raised money for suicide bombings in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and lied about his involvement.

What a Dad Knows, etc

uinen wrote on June 6, 2005 08:10 PM

A funny (haha) thing happened a little earllier.

When I came in, there was a report on the TV about brand new, multi-zillion dollar equiptment that's s'posed to detect uranium being smuggled in to the country in container ships, whatever. The detectors don't work, of course. That is, they don't detect lightly shielded uranium worth a d@mn. They're great at detecting kitty litter, though. Kitty llitter emits gama rays, which the detectors detect just fine....

So, rather than railing about the waste of money etc., etc., for these detectors, my dad picked up on the kitty litter angle. "That's probably what causes kitty cancer." BTW one of ours has had two opperations for the feline equivalent of breast cancer, and so we're a bit more aware than we might othrwise be.

So, I said, "Probably. They could probably make it safer, but then the manufadturers wouldn't make so much money." Didn't know if he'd even hear me.

So, and here's the kicker, he said, "Spoken like a true Deaniac."

You could'a knocked me over with a feather. I didn't even know he knew the word "Deaniac!" Ya never know where ya might be having an effect.

uinen wrote on June 6, 2005 08:10 PM

So, rather than railing about the waste of money etc., etc., for these detectors, my dad picked up on the kitty litter angle. "That's probably what causes kitty cancer." BTW one of ours has had two opperations for the feline equivalent of breast cancer, and so we're a bit more aware than we might othrwise be.

So, I said, "Probably. They could probably make it safer, but then the manufacturers wouldn't make so much money." Didn't know if he'd even hear me.

So, and here's the kicker, he said, "Spoken like a true Deaniac."

You could'a knocked me over with a feather. I didn't even know he knew the word "Deaniac!" Ya never know where ya might be having an effect.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

More from the blog:

PELOSI 07

"Just Three Convictions From The Presidency."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
What Howard Dean really said at the Take Back America Conference:

" And it wasn't enough for the president to try to wreck the public pension system that we had. It wasn't enough for him to try to turn over Social Security to the same people who brought us Enron -- his good friends and political contributors -- that wasn't enough. Now we find out that under this president's watch, private pension plans have been grossly underfunded. What does this president want? Don't Americans deserve, after a long life of work, don't they deserve a retirement with dignity and security? I think that they do. (Cheers, applause.)

This week the Labor Department estimated that in 2004 underfunding of pension plans grew to $450 billion. Sixty percent of companies take advantage of outdated accounting rules to avoid making annual contributions. The president wants to take away our Social Security, and then he's going to take away the private pension plans too? What does he think ordinary Americans live on after they get to be 65 years old? We need a president who understands working people in this country, and we will have one after 2008.

Timeline to War

Which one of these refers to one hundred aircraft streaming in from Kuwait for a concerted attack isn't clear.

While many of the strikes may have been justified as responses to efforts to shoot down coalition planes in the no-fly zone, sending a hundred planes over in a swarm surely qualifies as an act of war that hadn't been authorized or declared.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1008/p01s04-wosc.html

Exhibit 1:
1999: BUSH PLANS WAR IN '99, WELL BEFORE ELECTION
http://www.gnn.tv/articles/article.php?id=761

Exhibit 2:
9/2000: Bush plans Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President
http://www.sundayherald.com/27735

Exhibit 3:
1/2001: Bush plans Iraq invasion before 9/11
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/10/oneill.bush/

Exhibit 4:
3/2001: Cheney Task Force Eyes Iraq Oil
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/072003C.shtml

Exhibit 5:
9/12/2001: Rumsfeld considers Iraq bombings one day after terror attacks
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/03/20/national0310EST0431.DTL

Exhibit 6:
12/2001: Bush Begins to Plan Iraq War Three Months After 9/11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17347-2004Apr16.html

Exhibit 7:
2002-2003: Cheney Pressures CIA on Iraq
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A15019-2003Jun4¬Found =true

Exhibit 8:
Spring/2002: A high-ranking military officer reveals how Defense Department extremists suppressed information and twisted the truth to drive the country to war.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/03/10/osp/index_np.html

Exhibit 9:
4/7/2002: The Crawford Deal: Blair signs up for war at Bush's Texas ranch in April 2002
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8165.htm

Exhibit 10:
5/9/2002: U.S. war hawks oust Bustani from UN because he was attempting to get Iraq to allow chemical weapons inspectors in the country, which would have deprived Washington of a quasi-legal justification for military action against Baghdad.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/26/14/feature1.shtml

Exhibt 11:
5/20/2002: COALITION FORCES STRIKE AIRCRAFT DETECTION SITE IN IRAQ
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020520-centcom01.htm

Exhibit 12:
5/22/2002: COALITION FORCES STRIKE TWO IRAQI ANTI-AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020522-centcom01.htm

Exhibit 13:
5/24/2002: COALITION AIRCRAFT STRIKE INTEGRATED AIR DEFENSE SYSTEM
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020524-centcom01.htm

Exhibit 14:
5/30/2002: COALITION AIRCRAFT STRIKE INTEGRATED AIR DEFENSE SYSTEM
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020530-centcom01.htm

Exhibit 15:
6/14/2002: COALITION STRIKES IRAQI OFFENSIVE AIR SITE
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020614-centcom01.htm

Exhibit 16:
6/20/2002: COALITION STRIKES IRAQI OFFENSIVE MILITARY AIR DEFENSE SITE
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020620-centcom01.htm

Exhibit 17:
6/28/2002: COALITION FORCES STRIKE AIR-DEFENSE FACILITIES
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020628-centcom01.htm

Exhibit 18:
7/2002 President Bush diverts $700 million into Iraq invasion planning without informing Congress.
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=46962

Exhibit 19:
7/13/2002: COALITION FORCES STRIKE AIR-DEFENSE FACILITIES
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020713-centcom01.htm

Exhibit 20:
7/15/2002: COALITION FORCES STRIKE MOBILE RADAR UNIT
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020715-centcom01.htm

Exhibit 21:
7/18/2002: COALITION FORCES STRIKE IRAQI COMMUNICATION FACILITIES
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020718-centcom01.htm

Exhibit 22:
7/23/2002: COALITION FORCES STRIKE IRAQI COMMUNICATION FACILITIES
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020723-centcom01.htm

Exhibit 23:
7/23/2002: Downing Street Minutes
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html

Exhibit 24:
7/28/2002: COALITION FORCES STRIKE IRAQI COMMUNICATION BUNKER
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020728-centcom01.htm

Exhibit 25:
8/5/2002: COALITION FORCES STRIKE IRAQI AIR DEFENSE COMMAND AND CONTROL FACILITY
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020805-centcom01.htm

Exhibit 26:
8/14/2002: COALITION FORCES STRIKE IRAQI AIR DEFENSE SYSTEMS
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020814-centcom01.htm

Exhibit 27:
8/15/2002: COALITION FORCES STRIKE SURFACE-TO-AIR MISSILE SITE
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020830-centcom01.htm

Exhibit 28:
8/17/2002: Coalition Air Forces Strike Iraqi Mobile Radar Unit August 17
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020817-usia01.htm

Exhibit 29:
8/20/2002: COALITION FORCES STRIKE IRAQI MILITARY COMMAND AND CONTROL FACILITY
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020820-centcom01.htm

Exhibit 30:
8/25/2002: COALITION FORCES STRIKE AIR DEFENSE RADAR SYSTEMS
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/mil-020825-centcom01.htm

Exhibit 31:
8/27/2002: COALITION FORCES STRIKE IRAQI MILITARY COMMAND AND CONTROL FACILITY
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020827-centcom01.htm

Exhibit 32:
8/29/2002: COALITION FORCES STRIKE MILITARY RADAR SYSTEM
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020829-centcom01.htm

Exhibit 33:
8/29/2002: Boucher Says Regime Change Is Only Way to Solve Iraq Problem
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020829-usia02.htm

Exhibit 34:
9/2002: White House Silences Experts Who Question Iraq Intel Six Months Before War
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/leopold6.html

Exhibit 35:
9/27/2002: Bush calls Saddam 'the guy who tried to kill my dad'
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/27/bush.war.talk/

Exhibit 36:
10/2002: White House kills Pentagon plans to strike Zarqawi's camp in Northern Iraq in order to maintain the White House's claim that Iraq has ties to terrorists
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4431601

Exhibit 37:
10/2002: National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq WMD stripped of dissenting opinions *
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/special_packages/iraq/7917626.htm

Exhibit 38:
*1/2003: Britain, U.S. spy on UN allies over war vote
http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=5526&fcategory_desc=Under+Reported

Exhibit 39:
1/2003: 'We're Going to Have to Go to War,' Bush Says to Rice
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19691-2004Apr17.html

Exhibit 40:
1/6/2003: It is revealed that special forces have been operating on missions inside Iraq since August of 2002
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/05/1041566310159.html?oneclick=true

Exhibit 41:
Spring/2003: Blix suspects U.S. spying on him
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1158353,00.html

Exhibit 42:
3/17/2003: Ex-CIA Accuse Bush of Manipulating Iraq Evidence
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,81148,00.html

Exhibit 43:
9/2004: President Bush has Saddam's Pistol
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3623/is_200409/ai_n9421009?cm_ven=YPI

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Biden and Bolton

Senator Joseph Biden has never spoken for me and not just because I've never lived in Delaware.  While I appreciate that his little state has found it profitable to register corporations that don't do any real business there, the Senator has been over-eager to support the corporate agenda, instead of the citizens he's actually supposed to be working for.
Indeed, along with several others, the Senator's designation of himself as a Democrat seems to reflect little more than participation in a different flavor country club.  No wonder he thinks the National Chairman of the Democratic Party doesn't speak for him.  Howard Dean is not a country-club kind of guy and he's not a particular friend of corporations which register out-of-state to escape local regulations and responsibilities.
Which is why Democrats from all over the country insisted he be appointed.  Biden would have served all of us better had he focused on yet another inappropriate nomination coming before the Senate.  Caving in on John Bolton is not going to gain him any stature among ordinary Americans either.

A Summer of Senate Hearings

If it is true, as is being reported in British papers, that American and British forces launched an attack on Iraq in the summer of 2002 in order to goad Saddam Hussein into taking military action which would "justify" a full-scale assault, then it would seem that the President clearly exceeded his authority under the Constitution.

If what was described as an effort to enforce the United Nations' sanctioned no-fly zones was really the first operation to soften-up Iraq's defenses in preparation for an invasion, then the President's representations to Congress and the nation were made in bad faith. Sending a hundred planes on a mission is not an accident.

RAF bombing raids tried to goad Saddam into war
Michael Smith

THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.

The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.

The details follow the leak to The Sunday Times of minutes of a key meeting in July 2002 at which Blair and his war cabinet discussed how to make ?regime change? in Iraq legal.

Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, told the meeting that ?the US had already begun ?spikes of activity? to put pressure on the regime?.

The new information, obtained by the Liberal Democrats, shows that the allies dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq in the second half of 2002 as they did during the whole of 2001, and that the RAF increased their attacks even more quickly than the Americans did.

During 2000, RAF aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone over Iraq dropped 20.5 tons of bombs from a total of 155 tons dropped by the coalition, a mere 13%. During 2001 that figure rose slightly to 25 tons out of 107, or 23%.

However, between May 2002 and the second week in November, when the UN Security Council passed resolution 1441, which Goldsmith said made the war legal, British aircraft dropped 46 tons of bombs a month out of a total of 126.1 tons, or 36%.

By October, with the UN vote still two weeks away, RAF aircraft were dropping 64% of bombs falling on the southern no-fly zone.

Tommy Franks, the allied commander, has since admitted this operation was designed to ?degrade? Iraqi air defences in the same way as the air attacks that began the 1991 Gulf war.

It was not until November 8 that the UN security council passed resolution 1441, which threatened Iraq with ?serious consequences? for failing to co-operate with the weapons inspectors.

The briefing paper prepared for the July meeting ? the same document that revealed the prime minister?s agreement during a summit with President George W Bush in April 2002 to back military action to bring about regime change ? laid out the American war plans.

They opted on August 5 for a ?hybrid plan? in which a continuous air offensive and special forces operations would begin while the main ground force built up in Kuwait ready for a full-scale invasion.

The Ministry of Defence figures, provided in response to a question from Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, show that despite the lack of an Iraqi reaction, the air war began anyway in September with a 100-plane raid.

The systematic targeting of Iraqi air defences appears to contradict Foreign Office legal guidance appended to the leaked briefing paper which said that the allied aircraft were only ?entitled to use force in self-defence where such a use of force is a necessary and proportionate response to actual or imminent attack from Iraqi ground systems?.

Make the Mountains Tremble

COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS, Delivered May 30, 2005, at Oberlin College by Dr. William F. Schulz '71, Executive Director, Amnesty International USA.

Of all the honors I have received, the awarding of an honorary degree from Oberlin means the most to me and extend my heartfelt thanks to President Dye, the Board and the faculty for the recognition not only of me but of all who defend human rights throughout the world.

A good many years ago I was invited to deliver the commencement address at a small liberal arts college in New England. When I arrived on campus, the President of the College asked to have an urgent private word with me.

"Dr. Schulz, " he said, "It grieves me to say that the College has gone bankrupt. Immediately after the ceremony this afternoon, we will be closing our doors on 132 years of history. I trust you will offer us some words of solace and inspiration."

Well, ladies and gentlemen, Nancy Dye must have thought it strange that I ran madly in the other direction every time she tried to greet me since I arrived on campus last night.

That Oberlin is not in the same straights as that New England college is not only a great relief to all of us who cherish this institution but is testimony as well to the skills of the Oberlin Development Office. About ten years ago a very pleasant young man came to call on me in my office in New York. After about twenty minutes of conversation about the School, I said, "Well, I'd like to make a pledge to the Campaign for Oberlin." My caller looked crestfallen. "Oh, no," he said. "I'm not instructed to take your money. I'm only here to cultivate you." "Well," I said, "I'm cultivated enough and I'm ready to make a pledge." "No, please," he said. "I can't. I just can't." and sprinted out of the office. But two years later he was back. "I'm ready to take your pledge now," he said proudly. "All right," I said, "What would you like me to give?" And without missing a beat, he said, "One million dollars." So let this be a reassurance to those of you who graduate today: Oberlin will never go bankrupt with fundraisers as visionary as that.

That Oberlin is solvent is indeed a very good thing and it is a good thing because many of the values this institution seeks to embody are today under the most singular of threats. I heard a lovely little story not too long ago about a mother cat and her three kittens who were walking down the street when a large and vicious dog came up. Naturally the kittens were frightened but the mother cat just arched her back and hissed at the dog, "Bow wow! Bow wow!" and the dog, frightened, turned and ran away. The kittens were much impressed and they looked up at their mother and she looked down at them and, raising one paw, she said to them, "You see, my darlings, that's the advantage of knowing a second language." But how many Americans, either literally or metaphorically, know a second language, live gladly in the world at large and not just in a narrow corner of it? One of the values of this institution that is under threat today is the conviction that truth takes a myriad of forms, that love takes many guises, that revelation is not sealed and that there is no necessary correlation between wisdom and power. Osama bin Laden doesn't believe that. Donald Rumsfeld doesn't believe that. Fidel Castro doesn't believe that. Pope Benedict doesn't believe that. Bill O'Reilly doesn't believe that. And Howard Stern doesn't believe that. But it is true.

Sometimes, I admit, I wish it weren't. Sometimes I wish the secret of life was a lot simpler than it is The Chinese philosopher Hung Tzu-ch-eng said, "Only those who can appreciate the least palatable of root vegetables can possibly know the meaning of life." I wish it were that easy. "What is man," asked the Danish novelist Isak Dinnessen, "but an elaborate machine for turning red wine into urine?" I wish that was all there was to it.

But though truth takes a myriad of forms, there is one truth that remains beyond dispute--a truth this institution has also sought to elucidate--and that is that all blood flows red, that more profound than all our differences is our common suffering and that what will save us and save our planet is a recognition of the frailty we share. That truth is under threat today from the enemies of democracy and the champions of it; from the purveyors of morality and the disdainers of it. But it is still true.

To see beyond appearances, beyond pretense and stereotype, beyond bombast and bravado, right into the authentic heart of misery, into the common bonds of suffering--the remarkable capacity that we human beings occasionally display to identify with another's pain, despite all of our brutality, to exercise a moral imagination, despite all of our pettiness--it is that upon which human rights are based and the salvation of the world depends.

In the midst of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, a group of machete-wielding militiamen attacked a girl's school in the middle of the night. The teenagers were rousted from their beds about 2:00 AM and forced to line up in the dining hall. They were ordered to separate themselves, Hutu from Tutsi, so that only the Tutsi would die. But the girls refused. A second time the commander ordered them to divide up by ethnic group. But still they refused. And finally one of the girls found her voice and, though very frightened, this is what it was reported later that she said: "We cannot separate ourselves, you see, because we are not Hutu; we are not Tutsi; we are Rwandan" at which point every one of them was slaughtered.

But what a legacy they leave! "We are not Hutu; we are not Tutsi. We are Rwandan." In that simple sentiment that young girl bespoke a graciousness upon which depends the salvation of the world. In a magnificent essay entitled "The Moral Necessity of Metaphor," the novelist Cynthia Ozick quotes this passage from Leviticus, chapter 19: "The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be unto you as the home-born among you and you shall love him as yourself for you too were strangers in the land of Egypt" and then she goes on to say that it is exactly because we too were once strangers in the land of Egypt that we can identify with another, that "doctors can imagine what it is to be patients. Those who have no pain can imagine what it is to suffer. Those at the center can imagine what it is to be outside. The strong can imagine what it is to be weak... And we strangers can imagine the familiar hearts of [other] strangers."

I have never been tortured nor had my arm amputated but I know of plenty of people who have and I am compelled to make a metaphorical leap from my own trivial sufferings into those of the hearts of strangers. And what I find there is astonishing: what I find is familiarity. Familiar hearts. Of every stranger. Foe or friend. Ally or adversary. Just a moment's recognition of that phenomenon and Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo Bay would be merely names on a map and not markers of the eternal shame of all Americans.

And then there is a final article of faith this College has always sought to propagate and that is the conviction that history is not finished; that the future is not fated; and that with our privilege, with our degrees, comes our responsibility to build a more benevolent nation, a more hospitable people, a more welcoming world.

Somewhere in one of the great art museums in Europe hangs a large painting of Faust and the Devil sitting at a chess table. Faust has made his pact with the Devil and now his face is contorted in anguish because he retains on the chessboard but a knight and a King and the King is in check.

One day a great chess master happened into the museum and naturally this painting eye caught his eye and he sat down in front of it and stared. Fifteen minutes passed. Then twenty. And still the master stared. And then suddenly, leaping to his feet: "It's a lie!" he shouted at the top of his lungs for all to hear. "It's a lie, I tell you. The King and the knight--they have another move. They have another move."

And that, my friends, is the final message this school would have its graduates deliver to a bruised and battered world--that, no matter what orthodoxy may claim or ideology may bluster, history is not finished, the future is not fated, what comes next is in our hands, so that in the face of hardship and injustice, of suffering and of death, we say, "The story is not over. The end is not here yet. For it is not just the King but the knight, not just the Queen but the rook, not just the Bishop but pawn, not just the wealthy but the pauper, not just the powerful but every starving, lonely, frightened person in the world, every single person, every single one of us, who has another move. We all have another move.

Pat Buchanan once famously said that America was engaged in a "culture war." For once, he was right. We are engaged today in an enormous struggle for the soul of this country. It is a struggle between those who would close down culture and those who would keep it open. Between those who welcome the preeminence of one nation and those who give their fealty to the common interests of the globe. It is, in short, a struggle between those with a parched vision and those with a generous heart. This institution has always pledged itself to one side of that equation and, to you who graduate today I leave you with one very simple message: "Wear the mantle of these values proudly; then give no quarter; fear no shadows; and make the mountains tremble."

CT Leads

CT Legislature Comes Through for Veterans

What a difference a day makes!

An amazing and important action was taken in Connecticut -

The Connecticut House of Representatives passed HB 6008 yesterday.

The vote was unanimous - 144 yea to 0 nay!

Just as exciting - seven additional members of the Veterans? Affairs Committee signed on to this bill as cosponsors, including two Republican representatives.

This was a truly nonpartisan action.

HB 6008 is a groundbreaking piece of legislation. It says that the Adjutant General of Connecticut will provide returning National Guard service members with adequate testing for exposure to depleted uranium under Army regulations. It calls for the formation of a task force to study the health effects of exposure to hazardous materials including, but not limited to, depleted uranium; to develop a plan for outreach and follow-up of military personnel; and prepare a report concerning potential exposures to depleted uranium and other toxic chemical substances and the precautions recommended under combat and noncombat conditions while in a combat zone; and make any other recommendations the task force considers appropriate.

The Connecticut National Guard is the only service group that the Connecticut Legislature has jurisdiction over.

Details of the law can be found at

www.cga.ct.gov/2005/amd/h/2005HB-06008-R00HA-AMD.htm

Kudos to Representative Roger Michele, who overcame petty politics and political bickering: He constructed a creative solution that allowed the legislators to cross party lines, drop feuds, and respond to the issue in the manner it warranted.

Admiring mention goes to Representative Kalinowski of the 100th District, who crossed party lines to speak out in favor of the bill and who signed on as cosponsor. The combined efforts of Rep. Michele and Rep. Kalinowski led to cross-partisan compromise and extensive support of the bill, allowing it to pass into law without debate.

The following representatives joined the originator of the bill, Representative Pat Dillon, to cosponsor the legislation: Representatives Wilber, Graziani, Boukus, Sayers, Bielawa, and Adinolfi.

And finally, thanks to Speaker Amann for letting the House vote on this bill.

The Louisiana House passed a version of this law on May 19. New Hampshire, New York, Minnesota, Montana, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, and Texas are researching or are submitting similar bills for consideration.

Here in Connecticut, I believe that voters who called or wrote their legislators or Speaker Amann to urge this law through committee and onto the floor for a vote MADE A DIFFERENCE and helped this law be passed.

Yesterday a rare thing happened - Legislators listened to the needs of their constituents and rose to the occasion.